Through Broken Eyes

by wrasse62123

Count the Shadows

Count the Shadows

(Polaris's Journal)
Dear Journal,

I have finally healed from my sickness and things have died down, I have been officially accepted into Ponyville although I have not seen Shadow, I really do need to thank him. However on a more serious note some ponies have been missing in town recently. The Police are baffled and there is a warning to stay inside at night. my current problem is finding new sunglasses.....there is also something else that is odd, every night, my magic senses something, or I should say many things outside the door, It feels like there is a Billion living things swarming around in the dark, maybe it's just my magic acting up again....

(Detective Shadow: Case file 309)

I have been inspecting the most recent disappearances, and crime scenes and yet there is no evidence, i't like the night just sucks up people, may be the Doctor or Twilight has a clue. This did come up quite unexpected, I wanted to see Polaris again and see how she is doing. Either way I think that we should issue a warning to keep out of the Everfree forest, something doesn't feel right.

(Shadow's POV)(one week ago)
It was raining, it was absolutely blurry, I was out in the field where the last pony had disappeared, looking for signs of any struggle before the rain had washed everything away, I looked at my sketch of what I had figured out so far, first all the ponies were unicorns, second, they never vanished inside their homes, third, It was always at night, which was fairly predictable, easiest time to hide, In my opinion It would take a coward to attack a decent pony in the dark

I looked at the names again,the ink started to get smudged due to the paper, the first to get taken was Lyra Heartstrings, and then Colegate. who or what ever had taken them had left no trace and so the Ponyville Police called me as always. After all I was a Private Detective.

However Ponyville was a fairly relaxed place, though it still seemed exciting at the same time there was always some pony that was doing something incredible, and everyone cared about it in a nice way. Thus, most likely why Polaris had moved here in the first place, either because she couldn't afford anywhere else or dumb luck she was with us all now and happy from what I've heard

Now of course I needed to just go home, after this was done, to my famous leftover surprise (it's leftovers....surprise!) but the job came before sleep or food , besides this was a big case and other ponies lives could be hanging in the balance, and I did care quite a bit about these ponies, But I guess that's what you get after living in a small town for so long

Of course my usual duties were not this important, usually I was preoccupied with finding lost toys, or finding some one who had bumbled into the everfree Forrest, or something like that, and thus had loads of time to myself, which I usually spent doing volunteer work, or watching "The Daily Show with Ventus" not the high profile Con Mane, Bat Pony stuff that one expects out of police work.

Suddenly I saw something that looked of promise, I seems that the police had missed something again, it looked like some pony had been dragged through the grass, but not much besides that, then I found a tooth brush, it was Colegate's. I started scribbling down rapidly on my note pad on what I saw, when I noticed something very odd,

"A Shadow"I said out loud it was as clear as day in my flashlight, no one would expect much from a Shadow, only that it had been there at first and there was nothing to cast it I looked up for there to be something to cast it but there wasn't, I looked back down and it was gone, then something else, I looked at my sides and saw that I had two shadows

"Alright Harry stop fooling me" I said out loud this had to be a trick by the police trick, then I realized something, Harry hadn't made a joke in his life.

Harry was the police chief in town his nickname was "Dirty Harry" (yes I'm a Clint Eastwood fan) he was called that because he was gruff, had no manners, and wasn't afraid to pull out everything to get a job done, He was a built brown earth pony with medium length hair, he always wore a gray suit, and had a stern serious look

I turned on my magic to inspect my extra Shadow there seemed as if nothing was wrong with it, carefully I went out to touch it,

Bad move...

The shadow came to life and started wrapping it's self around my body, the shadow itself seemed to be alive, and was sticky, it wrapped itself around my neck mildly suffocating me it seemed to have several arms wrapping around my body

I tried my magic but for some odd reason it wouldn't work, I shot a beam of energy into the creature, nothing in fact it seemed to enjoy it, time for plan B. I grabbed my multi tool but my hoof was stopped by one of the shadow's many arms that were coiling around my body ,I tried my magic again and yielded only a few sparks, then as I sat there in a physical struggle it then occurred to me what was happening, it all made sense

That blast I tried took more energy out of me than it should have, this...thing fed on magic, then I felt something odd I was getting tired, this thing was draining me like a battery, my vision blurred

As I was turning to sleep the living shadow slowly started to pull me away into the ever free, in one last bout of energy I quickly grabbed my notebook off the ground,and while it was dragging me back, I wrote down a warning

I threw my note book into the field where some pony would find it, then the living shadow, dragged me into the dark of the ever free forest

(Present) (Polaris's Pov)

I woke up to rapid knocking, for which I was glad, most recently I had had bad dreams about something lurking within the ever free Forrest, my magic had also been feeling drained lately, most likely due to the lack of sleep. I really should talk to Twilight about that.

The annoying knock continued as I let out a tired "I'm coming!" down the hall, I quickly got up and slogged down the stairs to answer the door, of course I already knew who it was, before I opened the door, the smell matched Twilight, she had some other pony that I did not know behind her, he was male, and older.

I opened the door "good morning Twilight who is with you?"

"Inspector Harry, the police Chief of ponyville" Twilight introduced with a bit of an edge of worry in her voice, which led me to believe that I was in trouble

"Am I in trouble?" I asked nervously, I really didn't trust the police that much they really treated me bad back in Canterlot

"No but you were one of the last ponies to see Shadow before he disappeared" he said this in a sly gruff way, that made me wonder on if he gargled rocks every morning however there were more important questions to be asking right now.

"Shadow is missing?" this did of course explain on why I had not seen him for the past few days

"Shadow works as a private detective for the police, he was working on a case for them when he disappeared, of course maybe if he had someone with him this wouldn't have happened" Twilight explained with what seemed to be a slight agitation towards Harry, something inside me said that the two ponies were not the best of friends, however I quickly put it in the back of my mind, it had nothing to do with the problem at hand.

"Yes he did go missing" said Harry not noticing, or caring for Twilight's annoyance "by the way miss Polaris" He said getting up into my face "You wouldn't have know any thing about this would you?" He asked me in a threatening manner to which I cowered down somewhat, something told me not to cross this pony on a bad day

"Back off Harry, I haven't known her long but I do know as a fact that Polaris would never hurt another pony, so you can drop the investigation" Twilight answered for me, there was danger in her words, I had actually never seen her very angry, with unicorns, there was some physical change when absolutely furious,

First the let off magic, usually in the form of heat, they also went through a brief physical change, this was usually unnoticeable with most ponies, however with Twilight's ability in magic I am sure that, those changes would be very noticeable and VERY intimidating.

"Well Miss Sparkle, you can report to my crime scene at you leisure" Harry said somewhat mockingly before walking off into the general direction of the everfree Forrest, I had really heard nothing good about the place since I had arrived here, as a short history lesson, I heard that the place had been screwed up by some chaos god named Discord, and the chaos of the forest was his magic decomposing.

I had actually studied the magic coming from the Forest, it was like a unnatural, and very unpredictable magic that was combined in to the individual fibers of the forest, It was not like the unicorn magic or the princesses' magic, Unicorn magic, actually comes from energy procured through foods and other natural energy. The Unicorn itself was like a battery, storing this magical energy until they needed it, in fact they could even recharge another unicorn who had run out of magic, however this would take a lot of energy

It was a few seconds after Harry walked off, Twilight, said in a frustrated tone "lets catch up with him"

We were walking about 5 feet behind the chief, who was currently maintaining a blunt silence, Twilight in response was maintaining a similar silence in response to the blunt silence, It was kind of an advanced version of "the quiet game" in which the first to talk loses, I however needing more information in order to fully process the situation. Plus the silence was quickly turning from tense to a bit foalish

"What exactly was Shadow doing out here" I asked

It was Twilight who spoke up first "He had been looking around for a pony named Colegate she was the last pony to have disappeared and he went alone"

"Why did he go alone" I asked, it seemed like the forest was the one place that was around Ponyville that was not safe

It was now Harry's turn to answer "Shadow is not part of the police and is a consultant for us, thus I could not make him go with anypony" Harry said partially to Twilight "Anyway it was about to rain and he wanted to look at the sight before any potential evidence was lost in the rain"

"And how do you know that he was truly ponynapped" I asked with some hope the two seemed to finally be calming down for the most part

"It was obvious, he left his multi tool there, he never leaves that thing, plus his note book was there, of course some ponies like miss Sparkle doubt my important opinion and knowledge of the current missing pony," he said with a bit of poison in his words, and at this Twilight would not stand

"I never said your opinion wasn't important, but I can say that you're as dumb as rocks" She shot back

"Coming from some anti-social book-worm I take that as a compliment" Harry said returning fire

The theory about them getting along had just gone down in flames, as for the rest of the walk it ended sort of like a tennis match with the two swinging insults at each other

By the time we had arrived the sun told me that it was currently 1:00 PM I detecting that something was watching us, it seemed to be in shaded areas and dark places as we walked, but what seemed odd was that it was in small moveable patches prehaps they were just shade loving flies, and of course maybe my magic was acting up again, all in all this seemed to cause a giant presence all around us, I could not define a single living thing out of these patches that showed up in the dark, however these patches seemed very alive.

However it was hard to see through the distraction, of the two ponies arguing with each other, I was honestly pretty sure that when this was over Twilight was going to turn him into a cactus

"Look we're here " I said bluntly in a bid to calm the two's argument down, there were two ponies and they seemed to have a mini base of operations set up, it was easy to assume that they were with Harry, although something about the two ponies seemed off

My thought were confirmed when Harry called out "Sarge! Wolfie! over here!" The pair started running up to Harry, until much to his distress (and I might add somewhat comically) they accidental crashed Harry with a loud bang.

"What great training you do" Twilight said sarcastically

"GET OFF ME" Harry shouted as he untangled himself from the mass of ponies, this of course caused me to flinch slightly, I did not like loud sounds, from the sound if it, it seemed as if this crashing was a common occurrence

"Yessir" Sarge muttered clumsily getting back on his feet, he seemed to be quite an odd pony he was slightly bigger than Harry was however from his voice it seemed as if he couldn't hurt a butterfly, and he most likely never needed to, Ponyville had a famously low crime rate.

"Report what have you found?" Harry started with a hint of annoyance from the previous ordeal

before Sarge could answer Wolfie took over, "we found some partial skid marks where it seems that the Victim was dragged into the forest by something, the attacker has left no tracks" Wolfie was much smaller than Sarge, Harry Twilight or me, but he seemed to have a non-arrogant air about him

"We have also gotten down most of the stuff from Shadow's note book however there is one last thing on the last page that we could not read, the rain had ruined the ink too much" Wolfie explained holding out the book

"give it here" Twilight said "I might be able to enhance it magically in order to read it, she finish taking Shadow's note book and looking at it

She focused a small strip of her magical energy on the object, a few seconds later the paper was presumed to be readable "What does it say" I couldn't help but ask

"Count the shadows" Twilight read "Well what the hoof does that MEAN? Does your detective always talk this...poetic?" She asked

"No Shadow is known for being very direct and plain when it comes to giving instructions" Wolfie responded

"Plus who do you know, miss Sparkle, Who would try to devise a riddle while being forced into the ever free Forest by dragging" I was pretty sure that at this point these two were enjoying to fight with each other

"Well maybe you, could be wrong for once Harry" Twilight Sparkle shot

The two started into another argument as Sarge and Wolfie stepped to my side "Do they always do this?" Sarge asked

"Yes pretty much" I answered casually, putting my hoofs on my ears, from the annoyance of sound

"Are you okay Miss" Wolfie asked kindly

"Yes it's just that I have really good hearing and it hurts my ears" I answered over the bickering

To my fortune Twilight saw of my current annoyance and decided to end the argument right there "Enough Harry, I think we are giving other ponies a headache"

"Oh sorry miss Polaris,' he said this in a tone that was not completely without emotion, but was just hard to tell what exactly the emotion was

"Thank you" I said thinking out a way for our current problem of tracking Shadow's trail "I think I can track Shadow's movements by detecting his KPR energy."

"What the hoof is KPR energy?" asked Harry

"KPR energy encompasses--" Twilight started but was quickly cut off by Harry

"Let the Blind pony explain it into something that we can actually understand miss Sparkle" Harry said calmly

I notably cringed when he called me "The blind pony" however he seemed to notice nothing of my discomfort with the name, and most likely meant no insult or malice by it, however Twilight did notice my cringing, and a small amount of anger flowed out of her body, however she did let me explain

"KPR, stands for Kiptomine Phosophate Radiation (I'm in an AP Biology class bear with me) It is the magical residue that is left after a unicorn uses magic, it works like radioactive decay, and disappears eventually, each pony has a different... frequency of KPR, thus I am able to tell who it is that casted the magic, Shadow was force ably dragged away then e would most likely be defending himself with magic after he dropped his mulitool"

"But how do you track it?" Twilight asked "I'm one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria and even I can only detect large amounts of KPR"

"you might have large amounts of magic, however I am very sensitive in my magic, I have to be able to detect small things due to my..uh...condition" I explained

"Very good Miss Polaris, Thank you, Sarge, Wolfie, stay here and we'll take a walkie talkie, Polaris you're with me, Twilight, you can do what ever you want to do," Harry said with the first excitement that I had ever heard in his voice, i was actually wondering if his only emotions were blunt and angry

I walked towards the scratch marks before facing at them, they were actually pretty well defined, I turned on my magic, and immediately found Shadow's KPR energy, there was another detection of KPR, however it was older and had mostly been washed away from the rain, I ignored it and locked on to Shadow's trail, I had easy recognition of kit from when he got Applejack into my mind, plus his energy was much better defined than the older one

"This way" I said while following the trail, it was into the dark heart of the forest, I could feel the dark cold serpents of the dark slither around my skin, something was off about this place.

A study showed that only two percent of the light reached the bottom of the rain forests, the rainforest in Equestria had many dazzling animals, and marvelous a architecture of plants, and thus were protected in such a way under Equestian law , that they would not choke out the ponies that depended on the great forests to survive, and allowed the forest's many extravagant wonders to thrive. However in the ever free forest it seemed that no way I could penetrate the tree tops.

However the Everfree forest was not like these forests, there was a distinct magic around these forests, a good magic, here it was like the air itself was dark and hateful, There was the stench of decaying magic everywhere, except it wasn't the normal harmless KPR magic that was radiated off naturally by other naturally magic creatures.

Scientifically the structure of the Dark KPR, which is the type of magic currently in the everfree forest, was an isomer compared to the natural KPR, and was a negatively polar magic. In times of trouble unicorns could be able to draw upon the normal KPR, energy as a short term magic power source,like an energy snack however we could not process the DKPR, plus the presence of the DKPR for some unknown reason, forces us to use more magic than usual in order to preform spells, in other words me and Twilight were at a disadvantage in this environment.

Twilight was tense as we walked, Harry and her were not arguing at this current moment for which I was thankful, I could focus on finding the trail, there were no more scratch marks around, just a magical trail, it was probably due to the rain that there was no other evidence, however from the amount of magic he used in an attempt to defend himself, it must have been something strong.

"Harry" I asked while walking over a root "How strong was Shadow?" I knew that he was mentally strong enough to break into my mind and this took quite a bit of energy, especially when going into mental lock

'Oh I guess he was strong enough, or smart enough to scare away anything in this forest" He said casually

"Then what could have attacked him leaving very little trace without anyone to find out that he was gone for a few days?" I pressed on to Harry, with the question. Twilight who had been quiet for the walk so far showed a bit of interest in the conversation however it was barely noticeable.

'Well, I'm actually not quite sure, he has been here before on several cases usually to find a young filly or colt that accidentally wondered in, he knows his way around here better than most ponies in Ponyville" Harry answered my question

The more we went into the forest the more ominous I could sense many creatures around us, they seemed scared usually scared they kept in a ring around us, it seemed perhaps the were not used to the unnatural light that Twilight had provided with her horn, or something,

Then for a moment I felt a jolt on my magical radar, and heard something moving towards us "You hear that" I whispered quietly. When I spoke what ever it was stopped in it's tracks

"What is it?" Harry whispered "I don't see anything"

We waited for a single moment until Twilight said "Polaris I don't think you heard--" She was cut of by a terrifying growl as a wolf like creature jumped out of the bushes, it seemed to be filled with some sort of magical energy It then preceded to tackle me to the ground making me lose focus on my magic, and frankly knocking the wind out of me, it was then tackled back by Harry, both him and Twilight walked in front of me in a defensive position as I recovered.

Harry then preceded to grab something metal out of his gray coat, it was metal, he pointed it at the creature which quickly recovered from the attack,the creature had lost the element of surprise and figured that it was outnumbered and ran off.

"What....was...that thing" I said trying to get fresh oxygen back into my lungs

"That was a Lupus Minor, they are star beasts that can have magical energy, however it seems a bit odd that one of them attacked us, they aren't even supposed to be here" Twilight said as Harry put what I had figured out to be a knife ,back in his coat

"It seemed scared as if running from something, Polaris are you okay?" Harry asked

"Yes I'm fine" I said "However there seems to be a piece of the puzzle that we are missing"

"And what would that be?" Twilight asked

"You know very well what I am talking about Twilight, you have felt it as well, the odd feeling, we are being magically drained by something" I said

"Count the shadows" Harry muttered darkly while stepping backwards

'Yes we all know of the warning" Twilight said "However it does not do anything for us here and it doesn't make any sense' She finished

"Think out of you little logical mind Miss Sparkle, think what if he meant that literally" Harry said, Twilight sounded puzzled

"What the hoof are you talking about" Harry just pointed to something however my magic blurred and thus I could truly not detect it however something odd was there

"There it is a Shadow, one I counted it" She did a quick sweep over it with her magic "And there is nothing special about it"

"yes there is what's casting it?"

As Twilight was looking up, suddenly my magic went out, I tripped and fell on the ground "My magic it's out"

The shadow unfortunately took this moment to strike it wrapped its self around my back legs and started to pull me back onto the dark, it was dragging me in

"Polaris!" Both Twilight and Harry yelled before and grabbing onto my front legs, soon it became a tugging contest between them and the Shadow

Twilight tried her magic, but it did not work she then tried other options "Polaris you have to listen to me, you need to turn your magic back on!"

"I can't" I said tears coming through my useless eyes I was scared, the living shadow was calling to me, "Think you have so much to live for" Twilight yelled pulling my hoof

""You can do it" Harry yelled at this the world seemed to stop, everything seemed to sit still in motion

"Come on Polaris, You can do it" Silver fox said I looked over to feel a ghostly version of Silverfox pulling against the Shadow along with Twilight, it was like he was there but he wasn't, but that was not possible, it even felt like he was pulling me, helping out Shadow, but he was there I could feel him 'Come on Polaris you can do it" he said encouragingly

Then something amazing happened

Suddenly my horn started glowing with tremendous power, I felt my power expanding outwards covering everything in magic, then I heard a loud and injured screech, it was from the living shadow, the magic pulsated around it, killing it like a cancer, the living shadow was burning, burning into nothing. and soon it had been vaporized

The shadow just let go, as it was vaporizing it was a horrible sound, but better it than me, we all sat there for a moment panting out the experience, it had exhausted all of us

Harry picked out the Walkie talkie, still breathless "Sarge..huff, huff, Wolfie, are you there?" No answer "Wolfie?"

(Meanwhile)

We see Sarge and Wolfie playing cards with each other "have any sevens" Sarge asks

"nope go pike" Wolfie answers

"Hey Wolfie" Sarge asks

"yeah big buddy" wolfie answers

"do you think we should go and find some more batteries for the walkie talkie?" Sarge asks

"Nah that's Harry's job, besides they are just fine,now have any eights?"

"Oh darn you"

(back in the Everfree forest)

We were all resting as we deserved to be from the previous ordeal, however Harry was currently trying to call for backup, to no avail, I had pondered what that image of Silverfox was supposed to mean, I had smelled him... felt him, yet he did not exist, if either Twilight or Harry knew anything about the... lets call it a illusion they would have spoke of it by now, still nothing.

Twilight sat down for a moment, her breathing was still taunt, she was a pony of magical strength not physical strength and thus the ordeal was a new form of...movement for her. I felt my horn steadly recharging, it had taken a lot of energy to preform that spell what ever it was. The question about what took Shadow, was now answered.

"Twilight can you teleport?" Harry gruffly asked being the first of us to regain his composure

Twilight looked at the ground sadly before answering "No I can't, due to the specific magical nature of the forest, the amount of magic that I have already spent, and by how deep we have gotten into the forest it would be no use, plus I have no exact coordinates on where I am to go"

She seemed annoyed that she could not teleport, the fact is that most unicorns require a recharge period for their magic, but not Twilight, in fact based on my energy reading she was constantly recharging magic, which was something that most unicorns couldn't do. However I could, and this was attributed to the fact that I depended on magic for so much in my daily life. She had attained this ability through hard work, I had attained it because I had to but the idea was the same. However because of our current environment she could not spend magic with out a care like she normally could, thus being an annoyance in her mind.

I turned to where Shadow's KPR trail went and saw another KPR trail along the same path, it seemed to be very old but still used "Some one else has gone down this trail" I said

Twilight seemed to take this as positive news "That is great maybe we can get some help out here" however Harry seemed a bit unsure

"seems odd all of this however we've come this far, it would be a shame to back down now' he said before walking down Although just for an instance i felt some negative energy follow him, but it was nothing to be worried about.

The forest seemed grow darker and an ominous wind danced around the trees, the whole world seemed to stand still here and it was a constant dark, we had entered the twilight zone of the forest, where the dark magic formed clouds blocking out the sun. thus it was always dark, the familiar presence of the monsters that lived in the upper everfree were gone now and replaced with a dark consecrated silence, I realized now that perhaps even monsters had their nightmares. everything was designed for the dark here, the trees fed not off of photosynthesis, but by the dark magical energy around there,not a scrap of energy wasted, there seemed to be less thick forest here and occasionally a patch of open field

Then suddenly something popped up

"There is a structure" I said walking towards the presence until we were right by it "how does it look"

"I...I can't believe it this is where we fought Nightmare moon, but this wasn't that deep into the forest" she seemed baffled by the memories of the place

"I guess Shadow was dragged the long way" I assumed

"I guess we should go inside" Harry said

We quickly trotted to where shadow's magic trail had taken us and it actually lead to a cave beside the small castle

"His trail leads inside here" I said wordlessly the other ponies followed the cave was cold and sent a shiver through my spine we kept walking towards the Trail until Twilight stopped at a walk

"Look there is something written here, It's called the tale of Apollo"

"What does it say, it might have something to do with those things" I suggested

Twilight "It say here that, all foals have an irrational fear of the dark, except it's not irrational, but the living Shadows. They live on the other being's magic, and tormented ponies every night, they had evolved from Discord's remaining magic and were microscopic beings which lived in swarms, thousands strong. Individually, and for a short time were not a threat, they worked as scavengers of extra magic. They were very small, but they grew in number and smarts. They lived in the dark unseen from ponies.

As they got stronger they gained the ability to walk out into natural light, and casted shadows when they entered the light. On their own, outside of the darkness, a swarm looked like a shadow cast by nothing and could move slower than in the darkness. They mimicked the shadows of their prey to get close, which meant staying in the light was the only way to escape. If someone had an extra shadow, it was already too late. Their only known weakness is natural light."

As Twilight was reading I noticed something odd with Harry's energy signature, for a split second he had something like a Shadow then it was gone, I said nothing

"Princess Luna commissioned the pony of light Apollo to make her night safe for other ponies, now Apollo was an artist,and with help from the Princess's magic he painted the night sky, with stars, to always provide light, Apollo then used the Princesses remaining magic to lock up the last of the living shadows into the sister's home where they could safely be guarded, the end. But how do we defeat them and why did they get out?' Twilight asked

"Twilight how about you step away from Harry" I said trying to confirm my thoughts

"What...why" He asked in a somewhat off voice

"Because I don't think you are Harry"

He seemed surprised before turning over a negative auora, the living shadow had infected him "How did you know?" Shadow Harry asked in a playful tone

"I counted the shadows, or in this case your energy signature" I said angrily "Now let him go!"

Shadow Harry let out a weezy chuckle before speaking to Twilight who was currently baffled at the situation "You you really want to really want to know how we got out Twilight, well I'll tell you, it all started a couple weeks ago at the defeat of Nightmare moon, if you had noticed that when you cleansed Luna of her impurities that they all fell off in cut up light blue strips, those strips were full of Luna's magic along with her impurities, which consisted of pure negativity, that all decomposed and ended up down here, being that Luna's magic was encoded into it we easily used it to pick the lock and set ourselves free, the pure negativity gave us strength, enough to resist the star's glow"

"So you started feeding on ponies again!" Twilight accusingly pointed at them

"yes and so far Shadow was out biggest catch, much more than those other ponies, he was much more magically in tune than the dentist or the musician" Shadow Harry said "But of course you'll be our biggest catch yet, and if we conjure up enough magic then we can soon resist the sun and end it permanently, night will prevail forever" Shadow Harry then broke out into a series of evil laughs

"but how can you control Harry?" I asked

"we've learned a few tricks with the animals here, that lupus minor was actually us controlling it we wanted to get a good look at our dinner before biting down" Shadow Harry laughed before clutching his chest suddenly "No ....what's..... happening...to...me"

Quickly I sent an energy scan over through him Harry was fighting back "there is one problem with the stallion that you just happened to pick, he is the most stubborn pony in all of Equestria" The living Shadow let out an unpony like sheik as it was literally being stripped from Harry's very being, He grabbed the shadow and ripped it from his very body and soul before throwing it far in some corner where it continued to gurgle and sheik

harry shook his head for a moment before yelling "We've got to find the others!"

The caves under the castles quickly grew much more hallway like and there was one door at the end of it, we quickly ran from the now advancing living shadow

I detected tired ponies, they had not seen light for the past few days and flinched over our unatural light they were in chains, there were about six of them, including all the missing ponies from Ponyville along with a mother and foal, they were all unicorns, I detected Shadow who felt to be he most beaten up I quickly started to scan him.

"Dectevive Harry" One of the ponies said happily

"It's Inspector, Colegate, get it right" he siad grumpily before glanceing out the door to see the advancing Shadow "TWILIGHT LOCK THE ROOM" a sudden beam of magic engulfed the room as we heard the banging from the living shadows from the outside. "Is every pony alright"

"everypony except Shadow he has been keeping us charged, plus they come to take his magic more than the rest of us" the voice that I knew as Colegate's answered

I finished my scan on Shadow who had somehow been able to sleep through all of this, I could not actually tell the time at this point, we were too far underground, It could be night for all I know. 'He Needs some rest and has a few injuries" I said refering to Shadow "He has a twisted ankle, and will have trouble getting out of here" I said through funther inspection of him and the other ponies they had not been treated well for the past bit, many had evidence of Shadow's healing magic on their bodies.

"Maybe we should leave him behind" some pony with a higher class accent answered

"Let us get one thing straight mister" Harry said getting in his face, levely angry "we all get out of here alive together or we all get sucked to death by that thing outside together" Harry said, there was a slight twinge of dry humor in that statement but it was barely noticeable

"Yes Decective" The pony said nervously

"It's inspector" Harry siad darkly

"Polaris do you think that you could do that magic blast to defeat the shadows again" Twilight asked straining to hold up the barrier

I looked sadly at the floor "I don't think that I know how to" I said "Plus even if I did then It would probably required more magic then I have"

Twilight went around to unchain the other ponies until she noticed a ring like thing on their horns "What are these" she asked

"Anti magic inhibitiors" Said Shadow finally waking up

"not that we have any magic left" said Colegate

"Harry do you have my multitool?" Shadow asked

"Sure" Harry said reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out the metal object

"Thanks" Shadow said while using it to fiddle with his own magically inhibited horn, soon after a few moments it fell off he then porcceded to walk around (or I should say limp) and the magical inhibitors off of everypony before falling down in a heap, he was caught by Colegate before bing layed gently down "You know I didn't quite expect to die this way" He said in a calm mood

"good thing too because you aren't " Harry said sharply "Twilight, Polaris any plans"

Suddenly a loud banging could be heard, along with a cracking sound, Twilight's was finally cracking

Boom the door swung open the swarm of the living shadows entered, they had formed some kind of monster "back off!" Shadow yelled before attempting to fire out a magic bolt from his horn, he however (somewhat comically) only produced a spark

"Mommy whats going to happen?" said a filly who had been captured she seemed scared, and at this the living shadow mass only laughed

"I'll tell you whats going to happen little filly, you will never see the light of day again" The shadows then broke out into a lound and terrifying screech like laugh

Anger for its first time welled up inside me "BACK OFF" I said dangerously

"what, doth this insignifigant wrech defy me?" The shadow mass said with some interest "You had trouble dealing with one of me, now in the face of many, yet you are still in defiance "

"Long ago that was taught by a friend to never ever put out light, I would be doing so by surrendering, I would be nothing without that friend, or without my friends today, I am indebted to them, and you threaten them, they are worth fighting for, and I care for them, it is also dark to attack the innocent, and it would be just as deadly a crimeto leave anyone behind and thus is important to protect them who need it, my friends have protected me and thus I will do my term to protect other ponies "

"You are a fool" the living shadow started to say but suddenly paused,

"coming for a coward of a living shadow I take that as a compliment" Harry said defiantly

The living shadow slunk back as if afraid, a massive amount of light energy entered the room.The mass formed into an energy shaped like a ghostly version of a pony "Apollo!" the living shadow hissed, the walls of the cave started to shake "What are you doing, how are you here" the shadow mass screeched

"I am amending to what sould have been done a long time ago, I was afraid of you, and I was foolish, these ponies were braver than I ever was against you, I shirked my responsibility and have not guarded you properly as the princesses had instructed me to. You have done nothing up to this point, over a thousand years the princesses brought me here as a guardian to keep ponies safe from your vile face, free them from your sickening terror, and I intend on completeing that task. the ghost Apollo then launched a ball of light into the shadow mass, which in turn swirled in pain

"GO" Apollo yelled at us pointing to the enterance, the living shadow seemed to continue to swirl around in pain as the two great beings continued their duel

We ran through the great shattering cave, dodgeing the rocks, being blind I could easily sense the rocks trbleing and where they were tumbldged our way out of the cave, Harry was carrying Shadow out, we watched the cave as it started to completely fall appart, when a figure rose out from the rubble, and walked to the mouth of the cave, the figure was the cave's age-old guardian, Apollo,he seemed fairly battered from the recent duel that he had had, the artist warrior gazed around at the falling debris, more stones began to fall and we slowly retreated from Apollo's gaze, Harry stood there walking beside Shadow both of their eyes were locked with Apollo's. the old warrior raised his right hoof saluting us across the temple chamber, he stood there for a few moments before walking back into his collapsing cave, putting himself to his fate....

Dear Princess Celestia,

We have learned that there is light inside everyone, and that you should never stop facing others for trying to hurt your friends. Sometimes ponies can be disagreeable, however no matter your arguments or disagreements they are still amazing ponies. And you can still count them as your friends despite your opinions or beliefs.
Your friends and students
Twilight,Harry, and Polaris

THE END

The living shadow's were based off a doctor who monster known as the Vashta Nerada (warning you will most likely be scared of the dark after watching "silence in the Library").

I would like to hear input from everyone on how this chapter went, if that is okay, I am of course a bit nervous about it, I made it a bit less darker than it was supposted to be, now on to a response to guest reviews