PonyFable

by Omega_code

Chapter 11: Echoes of the Past

“I’m…I’m so sorry, there was nothing I could do,” Jack said to Konnan in Yulgar’s forge backyard. Jack just came back from Konnan recently destroyed village. “Akriloth...he has the Fire Orb, he was too powerful.”

“NO,” Konnan deniably said. “Why…why didn’t I go when they needed me,” his hand shaking furiously, “you…you were supposed to save them!” He look at Jack, tears falling down his face, “You’ve taken down necromancers, giant monsters…how could a dragon defeat you?! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE A HERO!”

“I... I tried, Konnan. Akriloth is an Ultra-Magma dragon…he’s...he’s insanely powerful.”

Konnan lowered his head and closed his tearful eyes, “You failed. My family is dead.” He raised his head and look at Jack. “I don’t want to hear your excuses.” And with that Konnan walked off.

“Konnan…” Jack tried to stop him.

“Let him be,” a voice spoke out. The town’s blacksmith Yulgar came out of the back door. “His heart is hurt, he need time to heal.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jack said.

“JJJJJJJJJJJJAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK,” a voice screamed out.

“Is that Ash?” Jack looked over the fence to see the teenager running down the main road. “Over here Ash,” he called out. Ash ran to Jack as if a ghost was chasing him. “What’s wrong has Wistala spotted Akriloth minions near Falconreach?”

Breathing heavily Ash said, “No...I got…a letter…from Rebecca.” He held up a sealed letter, which Jack promptly snatched it and opened it.

Dear little brother,

I just want to let you know that I will be the soon to be inn keeper of The Lazy Sneevil. I know, I make sure there a room for you and Wistala if (or when) you both come over during yours adventures. Also I wanted to inform you about a number of reports of numerous of dragons gathering in the east. You think you could…

Jack dropped the letter and jump over the fence, “Wistala,” he called out as he run to edge of town. A shadow fly by and Wistala in her adult form landed, she lowered her head to the ground.

“What’s wrong, I didn’t find anything on the ground while I was in the sky.”

Jack got on her head and said, “To The Lazy Sneevil, NOW!” Without question Wistala took off and flew east. They flew for a few minutes, the land below them turned from grass to burnt grass and ash. “No,” Jack said repeatedly a few times. They reach the location of the inn…with only three burnt wooded posts still standing. “NO!” Jack bailed out and fell to the ground.

“Don’t be stupid Jack,” Wistala shout out in vain. The ground rushed towards Jack in the last minute a small magical explosion erupted and a pair of wings appeared on his back opening wide as they could. With a hard brake, Jack landed on the ground as ash and dust spewed in the air; his wings vanish in a flash of light shortly after.

“REBECCA,” Jack shouted out as he ran to what remains of the inn. You’ve taken down necromancers, giant monsters…how could a dragon defeat you?! Many fire monsters appeared as a response to Jack shouting. Jack reached for his backpack and reach for a sword. Why didn’t I go when they needed me? He slashed through several of the monsters taking them out. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE A HERO! The fire monster started to throw globs of fire at Jack, his armor was heating up burning his skin. Akriloth...he has the Fire Orb, he was too powerful. Jack was quickly getting fatigue with each monster he slain.

“You need power, don’t you,” some voice spoke to him. Jack swigged his sword slicing through Lavagoblins and Fire Globs. “I can give you that power.” Several Fire Rays tackle him and warp around him making him loss his grip on his sword and immobilizing him. “All you have to do is give into the darkness.” The Fire Rays were squeezing hard and Jack was having hard time breathing, his eyes closed trying to ignore the pain.

He opened them, both full of raged, “I WELL DESTROY YOU ALL!” A dark energy pulse emitted from Jack’s body knocking the Fire Rays off. Jack was breathing heavily, with a smile across his lip. He held his right arm out and slammed it flat on the ground. A bone arm emerged from the ground; Jack grabbed on it and slowly pulled it out. The dust, ash, and anything else near the bone spin around it, and form into a solid blade. A dark cloud swirl around Jack’s body, dancing in the air, and went into the blade. The Shadowscythe symbol formed on the hilt of the blade and dark red energy started emitting from it, warping around the blade. A Fire Ray flew at Jack with its fangs bare out for a bit. Jack gave a causal slash and the Fire Ray spilt in two in a fiery explosion. Jack raised his left hand and hundreds of spikes made of shadow bust from the ground pricing several monsters. A fire golem went for a blow to Jack’s chest and Jack dodged it. Jack gave a powerful sideward slash and the top half of the golem fell a few inches away from Jack.

“Who’s next,” Jack shouted out. “I’ll show your DOOM!” The ground shook as a loud thud and dust flew everywhere. A dragon claw emerged from the dust cloud and quickly pinned Jack to the ground. Only Jack’s head was spared from being under the claw and he could move any part of his body. Soon Wistala face emerged from the dust as she lowered it right in fronts of Jack’s head. She wasn’t too happy of what just happen.

***************************************

The ground rushed up as the stone dragon golem landed on the other side of the mountain. The other ponies looked at Obsidian as he leapt down. He looked up and his horn glowed, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack were brought down. Obsidian walked a few meters away from the golem and set them down. “Once I’m in the air and fair away from here, your bonds will unlock and you’ll be free.”

“What ‘bout Fluttershy,” Applejack asked.

“She is staying with me.”

“But you said…,” Dash said.

“I know what I said, and I will keep it. I will release her once I achieved my quest. She will not be harmed in any way as long as I’m not hinder by anyone else.” He walked back to the golem.

“Like we will let you take over the world,” Dash said.

Obsidian stopped trotting, “This has nothing with trying to conquer Equestria.”

“Then what are you trying to do,” Twilight ask.

“I’m trying to save a life.” He continued his trot and climb aboard the golem. The golem soon took off and vanished in the horizon.

********************************

“Obsidian,” a mare voice spoke, “Waaaaake uuuuuuup.” Obsidian opened his eyes to be met with two green eyes with tuff of red hair. “Morning,” the cheerfully tan earth pony said.

“Morning Talc,” Obsidian mumbled. He got up from the makeshift bed. Two months inside this cave, he thought, hopefully I will make progress today. Obsidian special talent was in geology, or it more related to it. He can manipulate rock and earth, and change sculpted them into different forms. Throughout his life he seen numerous caves across Equestria, studying stones and minerals making him a good geologist, what he found in this cave still eluded him. When working for a mining company, he was sent to this location to look to see if there were any good veins of gems stones. Instead he found something that he believed could change the world. He found, to what he believed, a solid orange quartz formation. Sticking out of that formation was some sort of stone; half of it was imbedded in the crystal formation. However that wasn’t the part that eluded him, it was the crystal and stone resistance to magic. He had never seen something like this before. He did once heard about a tall of a gryphon king having a magic resistance stone shield that he used to defend his kingdom, but that was only a myth. To actual find something like the tale, would make him famous, he hope. So he told the mining company that this location has nothing worthy for a full scale mining and went to study this stone and quartz.

“You’re thinking too hard again,” Talc said.

“Huh?”

“You’re looking aimlessly at the ground; you usually do that when you’re focusing on something for a long time. I bet it’s that stone too.”

Obsidian chuckle, “You’re right little sis. Just thinking about the strange energy it gave off.”

“Well you can do that after breakfast, I’m sure the stone will still be there until then.” She walked over to a cooking pot, “I made some nice yummy oatmeal, your favorite.”

“With your cooking, I hope so.”

“Hay, I’m getting better,” she remark, “Scout thinks so.” Scout was one of Obsidian successful projects of studying the special properties of the crystal formation. For a long time Obsidian dream of making moving stone creatures, golem he believed they were called. The big problem that he keeping running into was the power to make them work. He could make fully functional golem when he used his magic to power them. However his magic quickly depleted and the creatures couldn’t do much. That until he found the stone. At first he thought it was the type of material the stone was made out of was the reason for its resistance to magic, but it won’t explain why quartz resistance magic as while. Until he found that the stone was actually hold incurably powerful energy which also was in the quartz. He couldn’t tell if the energy was magical or not, but it could be replicated. Scout, as Tal called it, was a small bird like golem. It couldn’t do much, but it was running on the replicated energy Obsidian made based on the stone. The energy wasn’t as strong as the stone’s owns, but it was a good start.

“Scout is mindless golem who can’t even taste,” Obsidian remarked.

“It’s a joke, beside, I’m getting better,” and she was right; the oatmeal was delicious. After Obsidian finished his meal he started to head down to the stone. “Brother? Don’t you think that you be studying that stone for too long?”

“Why?”

“Well, when was the last time you been outside for more than a few minute? You been inside this cave for weeks, your coat is a lighter shade of blue than normal. You also have been staying up late in the night, getting very little rest. I worry about your health.”

Obsidian walked over to Talc and put a hoof on her shoulder, “Don’t worry, I’m almost done. Once I can successfully harness the stone’s energy, you don’t have worry about anything else. Beside I’m the one who should be worry about you.” Ever since the cave-in all those years ago, Obsidian had been doing his best to take care of his younger sister. Taking jobs looking for huge deposits of gems stones for different mining companies, since it was rare for a unicorn to have magic special in that kind of field.

“You’ve been saying that for a lot big bother.” Sighing she said, “Just be careful, ok.”

“I will,” and with that said, Obsidian walk off to the stone’s chamber.

The stone gleamed in the torch’s light and Obsidian eye it strictly. This frequency should work, he thought, if not, well I cross that bridge latter. He walked up to it and let his horn touch it. He concentrated his magical energy to the specific frequency and released it into the stone. There was a loud humming noise as his horn brightly glowed blue. Nothing happen, and Obsidian felt his magic pushing against the stone’s barrier. “Almost there,” he grunted out. Then the barrier broke and he felt his magic flow into the stone. “YES,” he cried out, but it was too soon. Something grabbed hold of his energy and forced its own energy painfully into Obsidian. Obsidian cried out in pain as his head felt as if it was being crushed. He tried to pull lose, but couldn’t lift his horn away. The pain intensified and Obsidian mind overloaded with crushing pain. Then it all went away as Talc buck the stone out of the quartz and away from Obsidian. Shards of quartz full in the air as the stone flew several meters and hit the side wall of the cave.

“Are you alright brother,” she asked.

Breathing heavily he replied, “Ya, I think so.”

Turning to face he she said, “I thought I told you to be careful broth…” She stopped as she felt something on her right hind leg. A small shade of the quartz was imbedded in her skin. However the shard starting expanding rapidly covering her leg and heading up to her waist, “Obsidian what’s going on?” She tried shaking her leg to knock it off, but the shard hold on. She then tried to smash it on the ground, but the crystal just attached itself to it. It was now forming up to her upper body and down the other leg, and Talc was panicking. Obsidian rushed up and touched his horn to the quartz, and tried to connect to it again, but the crystal’s barrier was stronger than before.

“I…I can’t stopped it,” he said. He looked into Talc eyes, she was afraid and stated to cry.

“I guess this is it,” she said as the crystal went up her neck and down her front two legs.

Obsidian was crying himself, “No…don’t say that…I will stop it...I…”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said. “You were always bad at that you know.” The crystal now reached her head.

“I will save you.”

“Don’…,” she stopped her eyes widen and the crystal fully engulfed her. Obsidian watch in disbelief as his young sister, whom he was in charged to protect, died in front of him. He wept, he wept as if he lost everything he had, which was basically true.

“She not gone,” a voice spoke out. Obsidian stopped crying, and looked around the cave chamber.

“Whose there, and what do you mean she not gone.”

“I am Advin, and you were foolish to try to control my power, and she had to pay your price.”

“I thought you said…”

“She is in stasis; she alive, barely. She, well to put in a way that you will understand, is in a deep sleep. The crystal that she is in will protect her from the elements, magic, and well anything in this world really.”

“Why,” Obsidian angrily asked, “Why do you have something like this?”

“To preserved life of course; organic life forms are so fragile, so this was made to keep them alive for a long time in need.”

“So she can be free?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it.”

“I can’t.”

“WHY?!”

“To free her without harming her requires lots of energy, and the right body to do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You see that stone you were working on is just one part of my body. Due to a, small misshape, my body was separated and sent across this world, each one of them have a small part of my power in them. If you can recover them all and put me together, I will free your sister from her suffering.”

Obsidian look at Talc’s frozen sad, but yet calm face. “What do I need to do?”

Dragonfable is copyright to Artix Entertainment, LLC.
MLP: Friendship is Magic is copyright to Hasbro.
All charters that belong to their companies are rightfully theirs. This writing is for fun and nothing else.

Next chapter: A Glimmer of Hope

Comments

[Omega_code]

Well I hope this explain somethings, if not wait for the next chapter.