The Rise of A Hero.

by Naren

The First Night.

Night had fallen quickly, far quicker than she had been expecting. Granted, she was used to the beautiful sunsets of Equestria, but it was still a little shocking how dark it got. The stars and moon did little to illuminate the overgrown village, creating an eerie and frankly scary feeling. Even worse were the sounds that she occasionally heard from outside, which were reminiscent of a creature groaning.

Andrew seemed to be on edge as well, rubbing one an arrow he had pulled from his quiver. Every so often, his eyes would flick to the door. She could feel the tension in the air, and she didn’t like it at all.

“Andrew.” Twilight said firmly, despite the honestly hostile atmosphere. “Andrew, what’s going on?” He turned to look at her, eyes focusing on her as if they just noticed her.

“We need to stay indoors. It's very dangerous to wander outside at night.” Andrew said to which Twilight all but scoffed at.

“You said that already. Why is it so ‘dangerous?'” Twilight asked. Andrew was about to answer when something slammed into the door. Andrew leapt to his feet as Twilight fell backwards, surprised by the sudden action. The door shuddered as something hit it again, causing dust to fall from the aged walls.

It kept going for what must have felt like hours, but were probably only a few minutes. Twilight could see parts of the door buckle, and some of the wood cracked and snapped, but the door held. Eventually the sounds stopped, and Twilight let out a breath she had been holding the entire time the door had been getting beaten.

“Andrew, what in Celestia’s name was that?” Twilight swore, but she could see him raise an eyebrow at her words. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts, and spoke.

“That, kid, is why it's dangerous to wander outside at night.” He didn’t answer Twilight’s question, much to her frustration. Twilight tried again but got no further answers from her “guide”. This left her with two options, and unfortunately, Twilight’s natural curiosity got the better of her. She approached the door, and ignoring Andrew’s sudden shout of alarm, yanked the door open.

Twilight instantly regretted her decision. No, “regretted” was too weak a word. Twilight loathed her decision to open the door. She felt a wet fist slam into her stomach, launching her backwards into the room. She rolled a couple feet, coughing up blood as she came to a stop. That wasn’t good.

As Twilight turned to look at the open doorway, the creature stepped into the candlelight. Twilight tried to scream, but instead coughed up more blood. That really wasn’t good. The creature, the monster, was vaguely humanoid. In fact, it may have been human once. Now, though, it was a rotting, walking corpse. A zombie.

Twilight could see the decaying skin droop off the living-dead, as well as the multitude of holes cutting through the zombie. Where it’s left eye was supposed to be, was instead a gaping abyss in which Twilight could see the night behind the creature.

As Twilight gazed in horror at the monster in front of her, an arrow suddenly slammed into the zombie’s head, causing it to stumble back a couple of feet. However, It didn’t do much more than that. The monster quickly recovered, stumbling into the candlelight.

Andrew launched another arrow, which caused a slight smirk to grow on his face as the arrow hit its mark. It was quickly wiped away as he saw the zombie barreling down upon the young girl. He hadn’t even asked her name( which was a mistake on his part, but he had been a little busy at the time). She was frozen in place, and he could see a little blood dribbling down her chin. The zombie had hit her hard.

Left with no choice, Andrew grabbed the topaz staff from off the table, and fired a magic bolt into the side of the abomination. The yellow bolt, which seemed to linger in the air for a little to long for his liking, scorched the side of the zombie. That finally got its attention, drawing it away from the poor girl. He couldn’t let her get hurt, even if she was a bit naive.

Firing another arrow, it hit the rapidly approaching zombie. Unfortunately, the arrow did little to slow the monster. It slammed one its rotting fists into Andrew’s shoulder, which he was unable to dodge. In response, he drew the Iron short sword tethered around his waist. He always kept the sword hidden, as the secrecy lent him extra options in scenarios exactly like this.

He thrust the blade into the rotting corpse stomach, and it cut easily through the decaying tissue. He drew the blade back, and managed to hit the monster again before it could react. It raised an arm, before slamming it downwards and towards him. This time, however, Andrew was ready for it.

He shifted backwards, allowing him to dodge the zombies' blow. More than that, however, he was able to raise his sword and put in an extremely advantageous position. The Zombies arm descended, as it was either unable to move in time, or it didn’t even know to in the first place. The arm slammed into the raised iron blade, which sheared through the muscles and shattered the already blow. Using the monster’s own blow against it, he severed it arm at the elbow.

The hit caused the zombie to stumble backwards, and horrifically, it fell right next to the girl. That seemed to snap her out of her shock, causing her to scream. This time she managed it without coughing up blood. To the Guide’s horror and irritation, the girl bolted. Outside. She ran outside, into the night. Into the very dangerous night. The one he had specifically warned her against.

The Zombie tried to crawl after her, but Andrew fired an arrow at it, pinning it to the ground. He approached it quickly, but carefully, as he didn’t want to make a stupid mistake. Like running outside when it was night. He took his short sword and slammed it into the zombie's cranium. That, finally, was enough to kill the rotting creature. He didn’t have time to revel in any victory. Instead, he sheathed his sword, readied his bow, and ran outside.

---

Twilight was stupid. She was so, so stupid. Why had she run outside? What had possessed her to do something so stupid? She couldn’t answer those questions, and instead ran for her life. That zombie had hit her hard, really hard, to the point where it had put her in a state of shock. That had only been lifted when the same rotting corpse slammed into the ground right next to her. Then, in a fit panic and terror, she had run away from the creature and into the night.

It wasn’t Princess Luna’s night, that was something she could feel deep in her bones. It was hostile and territorial, almost as if it was alive. The moon especially seemed wrong to her, something so deeply off about it that she couldn’t find the words to describe it. Only the stars seemed to welcome her, and even then, they were distant. She was alone.

That was a lie. Twilight felt the swish of air behind her, and dove to the side almost instinctively. A round shape crashed through the place she had been standing moments ago, bouncing off the ground and racing into the sky. In the dim moonlight, she could barely make out what she was seeing.

Her eyes widened and her heart, which was already beating quickly, doubled its pace. She couldn’t scream as the floating eye turned midair and began to streak towards her. This time, sprawled on the ground, Twilight found she couldn’t dodge the blow.

Twilight screamed, a sound of pure pain and agony leaving her lips. The nightmarish creature slammed into her shoulder, and she could feel bones snap like twigs. She had been feeling weak ever since she had woken up in the forest, but this was so much worse.

The blow flung her a good five feet backwards, which got her a small distance away from the demonic eye. It hurt, it hurt so much. She couldn’t focus, as pain ripped through the core of her body. Twilight did her best to crawl backwards, but she slipped on something wet. The warm liquid running down her shoulder, arm, and leg gave her a very good idea as to what it was.

That slip gave her the horrible, terrible, perfect view of the approaching eye. IT streaked down towards her, intent on killing her once and for all. She was going to die. The realization shook her, down to her very core. It was a primal fear, one shared by all living creatures. She was going to die here, killed by a floating eye.

Then it happened. It happened so quickly; she barely knew what happened. The eye was baring down upon her, intent on smashing her into a paste. Then, from the heavens above, a glowing yellow object slammed into the demonic eye. The eye exploded into a shower of blood, all illuminated by a glowing star. It sat only a foot away, pulsing gently.

As Twilight stared at the fallen star, she swore she could feel something call to her. It was familiar, an old feeling that seemed to resonate within her inner core. Just as quickly as she had fallen in the trance, pain momentarily forgotten, she heard a voice calling out.

“Kid!” It was Andrew’s voice, and she could hear the panic within. However, by snapping her out of the trance, the pain of her shattered shoulder and arm returned. “What the fu–” Twilight couldn’t hear the rest as she let out a pained groan, her shoulder hurting too much for her to power through it.

Blinking her eyes only drew her attention back to the glowing star. It pulsed softly, and with her working hand Twilight reached out for it. She managed to grab one of its points as she felt Andrew take hold of her, and slowly started to pull her back to the library. She groaned in pain but refused to let go of the star. It had saved her, somehow.

Eventually, after a couple of excruciating minutes (which felt like hours to her, but pain does weird things to somepony’s brain), Andrew pulled her into the house. She was barely able to hear the sound of the door closing, and the Guide placed something against it to bar it from opening. Twilight could feel herself fading in and out of conscious.

Twilight opened her eyes to see Andrew standing directly above her, holding a weird red bottle in his hands. She could see him speaking and was able to gather the general intent of what he wanted. With a trembling hand, she took the bottle with the arm that wasn’t shattered and bloody. Andrew had already uncorked it, so Twilight raised the bottle and drank.

The first thing she noticed was how cold it was. The liquid, while not freezing, was far colder than it should have been. It wasn’t a hostile and freezing cold, but the chill one feels right after a rainstorm in the wind. It was like drinking from a crystal spring, it felt good. However, there was something else strange happening. The pain in her arm was fading, replaced by a friendly warmth.

Twilight stretched, and in a shock, she realized that her shoulder had been completely healed. All that remained was a small scar, but it was so faded that one would have to really look to see it. The injuries from before were completely gone, all due to some red drink. Andrew must have seen the confusion written on her face, as he spoke.

“That was a healing potion, kid. It does as advertised, it heals you.” Twilight’s eyes opened her eyes wide. “However, you can’t drink a lot of them very quickly. The results, well, are not pretty.” Andrew said, which put a slight damper on her joy. “You should be able to take one every minute or so, if you really need to push it.”

Twilight tried to speak, but all that came was a hoarse whisper. The potion was unable to cure exhaustion, then. “You’ve had a pretty rough night, kid. You really ought to get some sleep.”

“My name…is Twilight.” She croaked out, which caused Andrew to smile.
“Very well, Twilight. Now, you really need to sleep the rest of the night. Tomorrow will have its own fair share of excitement and pain. Go to bed.” With that, Andrew laid the raggedy blanket she found earlier in the day over her. It didn’t take very long for the depths of unconsciousness to claim her. Hopefully her dreams would be pleasant, as this world was anything but.