Shadow of Equestria

by Igris

The only one the sun fears

In this world, fantasy is the only thing that ruled over the laws of physics, meaning everything here is a lawbreaker. But there is one of the few things that follow these laws that still exists here, the law of nature, the very predator/prey symbiotic relationship that rules and birth life itself, a law that only applies in the life inside the Everfree Forest.

And of course, in every places where the laws of nature is the most influential, there is a food chain going from the tiniest bacteries to the apex predator on top or even above the food chain.

Of course there is many apex predators that claim some part of the forest as their territories, battling each other to claim the throne of said territories.

And where there is a king, an emperor might as well be in there.

And the emperor standing above the food chain was now sleeping inside a cave underground. A Gore Magala was hibernating for many many millennia.

---

Of course, these creatures of shadows did not hibernate but this one was different, he was sentient or at least his conscience overwhelmed his instincts completely disregarding his nature.

‘How long has it been since I’ve seen sunlight?’

Ah yes, this one can think like a human being, as to why? Well because he is different from the others of his kind.

‘Why did I decide to stuck myself here?’

That was because he gained sentience and soon found out how meaningless his life was, well that was after he fled the hunters that were chasing him. Yes he fled because he could see that they were prepared to kill him and so instead of dealing with them he fled.

‘How long have I been here? Is the world still standing?’

Of course he hid here but he forgot the reason why he did so. After his intentional lockdown, he expected to die from starvation, but he didn’t.

He slowly started to think like the humans, gaining the ability to have imagination and logical reasoning. And so he thought it useless to go out for him to only run away as he knew that the humans were prepared to kill him.

And as to how he knew they were humans, that’s because he killed one of them that had so many books on him he might have been mistaken for a bookshelf. And so he red those books when he was hiding as he had nothing else to do.

Of course darkness was not bothering him and he could see in the dark like it was daytime, sort of as he did not have eyes. It took him quite a while to learn and understand their writings with only his sense of touch, which would normally be impossible, if he was normal.

He almost grinned, if he could, when he found out that the humans had indeed studied his species with utmost care with their weaknesses being the main subject of their studies.

Of course he himself was very surprised at how the humans interpreted their behaviours, it unnerved him at how detailed the informations were but he couldn’t blame them to know so much as he blamed his own kin for being too careless in unsafe areas.

‘Hm, I really wish I could speak with humans without them interpreting what I try to say as threats.’

He lost his nature as a monster, so much so that he actually thought like humans. Normally it would be bad but as I repeatedly said before, he isn’t normal even in his species standards.

It actually benefited him. Before he could use his “powers” but with a risk to lose control over them, of course they did not harm him but it did harm his surroundings. In short he could control his virus and pretty much everything that was part of him whenever, wherever and how he wants to.

His senses also evolved to be more sensible, being immortal meant that his body could evolve or at least adapt to wherever he was. And because he is right now in a pitch black cave with no sounds or even movement, his senses became more sensible.

For example : Before he couldn’t hear or see anything, the latter being normal as he did not have eyes, but now he could hear even the worms digging inside the dirt and rocks around him and he could also kind of see his surroundings. His sight evolved in a bizarre way because now, instead of using his scales to perceive his surroundings, he could see the outlines of what was in front of him, still with no colour beside the white outline surrounding whatever was in front of him.

‘I don’t think I can do anything now.’

He was half awake and half asleep so he could still feel his surroundings. Right now he was laying on dirt, or infected dirt in this case as he did not move an inch from here after he finished the last book he brought with him so the dirt below him was so exposed to the Frenzy virus around him that it actually might be the most infected matter he’d ever see.

Talking about the Frenzy Virus, well it’s a disease, a very lethal one at that. If you resist it’s deadly effect well you will go mad as it literally controls your brain to go on a rampage. But for humans it didn’t do that effect, for them it was temporary just like any disease. Not only that but if they recover from it they actually get stronger and become immune to the Virus for some times.

And of course, this Virus grew too. He could now control its effects, or at least most of them as the base effect of driving anything mad if they are still alive could not be erased. No, he could make it so the effect could be stronger, driving anything to unimaginable madness or making so that death come earlier that planned, or he could make the effect less painful for the host.

‘Humans…’

He was actually having his interests in humans come back to him. He spent countless years underground, and because of that his interest grew stronger as he started to dislike the place he was in.

But his mind told him to stay safe underground and that he could use his imagination to think about any fantasies he wanted.

Such a conflict between instincts and reason would happen once in a while, that was the price of intelligence rivaling that of humans.

But now it was different than the usual cycle that went through his mind, because he actually started to move his body after a long time underground.

*click**crack*

Movement was hurting him because his body was trying to remember how to function in a way that wouldn’t hurt when he moved.

Yes, his body was literally a statue breaking apart, it's state cause by him it slowly adapting to his motionless lifestyle for a long time.

But he didn’t mind the pain, it actually felt refreshing to him and quite frankly nostalgic. Yes, he was motionless for so long that even ordering one of his muscle tissue to move was nostalgic.

‘Ahhhh, I feel so alive now.’

He had no idea how lifeless his body was and now he felt alive because his body was actually dead, or more like in a coma-like state.

Now he was trying to get used to his new body, quite literally here with how zombie-like he just stood up.

He flexed every muscle around his body starting with his claws and clawed wings, he stretched his back, wings, legs, arms, even his neck.

He then moved his mouth to make it feel like it stretched while at the same time licking his teeths/fangs, humidifying his mouth with his deadly Frenzy Virus infected saliva. For a fact he didn’t even know why he had saliva to begin with but it didn’t matter to him.

As his body slowly took life, so did the Virus and the countless scales covering his body, mostly his wings which were covered by a fur like matter. Then he went into Frenzy Mode for no particular reason, Frenzy Mode being similar to an enraged mode.

His horn like feelers poked out of his head, his underwing started to glow a bright and ominous purple and a large amount of his scales were released in this tiny cave he was currently in, which would normally be like a gas chamber to the power thirty if there was any living beings besides him inside it.

And so, he used all of his claws and his clawed wings to dig up to the surface, which was easier than he expected because the surface was actually not too far from where he was, like two hundred meters above him.

And when the sunlight finally showered on him, his scales scattered like a swarm of bees fleeing for their lives. He could perceive his surroundings now and he was confused as he was in a Forest, but not a Forest he knew from what he could feel from his scales.

He did not realise that he was still in his Frenzy Mode so the hairs on his wings were starting to cover the sky, and soon the sun with it. His scales and hairs were highly volatile and were infected by the Frenzy Virus, also there are so many of them that the sky actually looked like it was covered by a black cloud that would sometime glow purple.

It took him quite a while to stop and return back to normal because he was quite literally scanning the entire Forest he was in and only the Forest as he thought it to be too risky to expand his scales outside of it for he wasn’t yet accustomed to his new home.

Yes he noticed that it wasn’t the same forest where he buried himself into as not only did it have a different food chain but the air around him felt weird to him, he could feel that it was filled with some kind of matter or bacteria or virus. But it felt like the Frenzy Virus to him, not with the same effect but the way it propagated felt the same, and he could feel that this thing went through his body.

For some weird reason, this thing felt like it empowered him throughout his entire body. It also empowered his virus but in what way? He did not yet know, and he didn’t like not knowing.

So he set a goal to understand the strange matter saturating the atmosphere for seemingly a limitless amount of time.

He went back to normal and his hairs floated down making the sun appear. This eclipse was of course seen by all the inhabitants of Equestria, and the one who rules the sun.

---

To say that Celestia was surprised would be an understatement as even her unbreakable poker face broke into terror the moment she saw through her window that the sun was covered by darkness.

Fortunately for her, she was in her private room so her face wasn’t seen but unfortunately this privacy didn’t last long as her doors bursted open to reveal a blue alicorn in a similar state.

“S-sister.” The moon princess finally said before falling on her hind leg to catch her breath.

This would normally be normal for someone to feel tired after running through the whole Castle, but they were not normal in any way as they were Alicorns with enhanced stamina.

“W-what is it Luna?” The solar princess asked trying to regain her composure, which failed miserably.

Celestia herself felt tired even if she didn’t move from her spot the whole time, she also felt as if something told her to go on a rampage.

She then remembered a being that would exactly do that.

‘Daybreaker' She thought with fear and determination.

But then it didn’t make any sense as the entity itself didn’t appear for the last millenia. The only other reason would be that a new threat is coming closer.

Luna on the other hand didn’t understand why she felt tired and in distress, the night was never a bother to her. That’s when she remembered that what covered the sun wasn’t the night, it was darkness and she knew better than anyone that darkness does not belong to the night.

“What should we do?” Luna asked after she regained her composure. Of course she already thought about sending her troops to the Everfree Forest to see what was the cause of this ominous cloud.

“We should go and see for ourselves.” Celestia replied after regaining her composure too.

It was still the middle of the day on Equestria and many many guards came to seek comfort from the Princesses, even though they would fall on their way here as they could not see in the darkness that covered Equestria. Of course this only applied to the guards that followed Celestia as those that were with Luna could perfectly see in the dark.

Celestia has already told the Captain of the Royal Guard, Shining Armor to send troops and see if there were any casualties in the different city around Equestria. Though this idea was quickly stopped when Luna proposed her guard to do the job as they would be more efficient in this darkness.

Then, right after the troops were sent and the sister were left alone, the ominous cloud that hid the sun faded away just as fast as it came. Celestia quickly took action and sent her guards to support the Lunar Guards that were still outside to see and comfort the ponies.

It then didn’t take long for Celestia and Luna to spot the train coming from Ponyville, already expecting who was on the train.

“Let’s go greet them.” Luna said observing the approaching train from Celestia’s tower.

“No, let them come as I’m sure the ponies would come swarming on us if they ever see us outside.” Celestia explained receiving an understanding nod from Luna who still watched the incoming train.

---

‘What an odd environment’

It was odd indeed. It’s not even been an hour and he already came across the current inhabitants of the Forest, the ones that looked to be made of wood.

Odd was certainly not enough to describe what was in front of him. He could see that the group of five quadruped predators before him were made of wood, but this wasn’t what shocked him, it was the fact that these beings that were obviously weaker than him didn’t back down from him as they would growl or bark to him.

‘Then again, if they were to challenge me then why aren’t they engaging.’

It certainly has almost been an hour that they were growling and barking but during this time none of them engaged the fight, even though he stat here harmless with his claws not even visible.

It reminded him of one of these smaller beings that would do the same whenever he passed by, they would always growl or bark like these wooden wolves.

Then one of them finally decided to attack and it shocked him. No, it wasn’t the fact that it decided to attack even though he knew that it knew that it couldn’t win no, it was the fact that the speed, strength and even precision of the incoming attack was too underpowered. It was like he was fighting with a bunch of newborns that were just experiencing their first fight.

‘What is this? I can’t even tell if it’s taking me seriously.’

It was. But his perception of time was different because his senses evolved. To normal beings, the wolf would probably look like it went at unbelievable speed but to him well, he seriously thought that the wolf in front of him was joking with him because the way he saw it approaching him he literally thought he could sleep for hours and the wolf would still not reach him.

So before he did exactly just that, he walked calmly towards it until he gave it a little claw attack. But he didn’t expect the wolf to not only be blown away a few meters while rolling on the ground, but also that it had a huge claw mark that literally crushed to its insides, insides that were actually hollow.

At least he wasn’t the only shocked one as the other wolf that saw that couldn’t even see it, to them he looked like he moved fast enough that he was a blur, then that he suddenly appears in front of their comrade and that they couldn’t even see him do the little claw attack on their comrade side that it was already on the ground.

If they feared him before that, now they were traumatised and even if they weren’t intelligent enough to think, they would still experience post-traumatic stress disorder. So they fled as fast as possible from the monster in front of them.

‘How utterly and unbelievably weak.’

He thought with a sense of pride and arrogance. Of course he would feel prideful even over a weak being as it was the first fight he had after who-knows-how-long underground.

‘Well I don’t blame them, it doesn’t surprise me that they would protect their territory from an intruder. Even if said intruder was an immortal (kind of) elder dragon controlling a virus worse than death. Now that I think about it.’

He grew to shape his mind to be quite like that of humans, so now he was thinking about experimenting a little bit with the little wolf he beated that was somehow still alive, even though it couldn’t move a bit.

‘Let’s see, the virus evolved when I was underground so it’s effect must have changed a bit.’

Of course he didn’t know that he had better control over the virus, to the point of nearly controlling the effect it had on the mind of its host. But he would soon know with the help of the poor little puppy that laid before him, seemingly looking at the demise that would soon fall onto it. Unfortunately, even death would not take it as something worse than death came closer and closer to its unmoving body.

‘Hehe, sorry little doggy but I need you alive.’

If a pony or anything had telepathic powers, they would probably hear the malicious chuckles in the mind of this abnormal Gore Magala.

Author's Note:

Here's the first chapter, hope you like it.

You can ask anything (of course related to the story) and I'll try to answer your questions the best I can.

And for information, I don't have editors or proofreaders backing me up so the story will look a little messed up and no I don't really plan on getting an editor or a proofreader as I don't know if I'm going to continue this story until the 'Complete' is here or not. So until I'm sure you will have to bear the little grammar errors and the weird writtings.

Also it's normal if some parts are odd looking as I'm not a native of english.

Comments

[DesertDragon79]

Intresting, I will be keeping an eye on this.

[fnafdragon]

Love this story man keep making more chapters.