I've lost too much. Now, I'm out for revenge. even if it costs me everything. I'm sorry Luna, but you wont stop me. Nothing will stop me. My name is Shadow Flare... and my wrath knows no bounds.
Takes place during Season 3, after Spike at Your Service, but before Keep Calm and Flutter On
Friendships that were gained. A promise that was made. A never ending rage. And a consuming desire for revenge. These are the things that keep me going. I tried to kill a princess and I failed. Now I am suffering the consequences. It doesn't matter. I have lost too much, and before this is over, I may lose even more... I might lose my friends. But I can't stop. Not until she dies. Not until she is made to pay for what she caused. I will not stop until she is dead. Nopony is going to stop me...
Not even you...
Luna...
My name is Shadow Flare.
And my wrath... knows no bounds...
This is my first FimFic Story. Figured I'd try my hand at making a story, so constructive criticism is welcome. The first few chapters may not be to anyone's liking, as they're meant to get a laugh out of you, but as the story progresses, it gets much more serious, so try to stay with it and give it a chance, please?
Warning to everyone, there will be light amounts of gore (at least I'm gonna try not to make it too gory), and profanity in this story (though the profanity gets toned down in later chapters.)
My Life as a Hybrid By ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01
Prologue: F**k my live(s).
Actual Prologue Title: Fuck my live(s). Fuck them up the ass sideways without lube… Wait, no! THOSE ARE MY LIVES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT! DON’T DO IT! NO! NOOOOO!!! AAAAAAAAAGH, FUCK!!!
Ugh…. Where do I even begin with this?
I guess I should probably start with where the hay I am right now.
In the middle of a cold, damp, ugly as all fuck cell in the Canterlot Royal Dungeons. Honestly, I don't see what's so royal about the place. Fact is, the most royal thing about this place is probably the hole in the ground I’m supposed to use to take a dump.
That shit hole (HA!) hasn’t been cleaned in years… if the dead pony skeleton lying nearby is any indication.
And have I mentioned how ungodly that thing smells?! Oh, I’m sorry,I keep using the incorrect terms for my current life. Let me correct myself.
And have I mentioned how horribly deadly that thing smells?! It's absolutely disgusting man. I mean, seriously, I cannot even begin to describe how horribly bad that thing smells over there. It smells that friggin' horrendous.
Seriously, the guards that dropped me in here were wearing some seriously powerful magically enchanted gas masks, and the moment they dumped me in here, they still turned tail and ran as though their lives depended on it! I swear, I saw one of their faces turn green, and after they closed the door to the cellblock, I could've sworn I heard someone puking their guts out. Guess those masks didn’t really do crap (hehe) for the smell that came from that demon hole. It could probably kill the residents of Tartarus.
Guess I know how Bones over there died. So glad I can turn off my sense of smell at will.
Yeah, I can do that. Can turn off my sense of taste too. I kinda don't need them when I can survive on emotions, you know. I mean, I can totally use them if I wanted too, but when all they fed you is essentially mush, you either eat that crud or you survive off the ambient positive emotions lingering in the air. Not that there's much down here, but, I make do. Can't say I'm not hungry though. I'm actually starving, but I wouldn't dare risk eating the horrible food they give me, nor risk killing myself from the horrible stench in the air. So glad to be part changeling.
Also hating the fact that I'm part changeling. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So, basically, I’m sitting in this messed up, run down, stinky as all hell prison cell with a dead pony skeleton lying about 3 feet next to me.
Eeyup. This is totally Shitsville.
So, you’re probably wondering how in the hell I ended up in this situation, aren’t you? Well, I guess I should explain things from the beginning. It all started when a certain man fell in love with a certain woman. They got jiggie with it and about nine months later, I was born.
Yes, I said a man and a woman. Strange, isn't it?
You, know, maybe I should explain this a little better.
See, I used to be a human, which is why sometimes I still get mixed up with the custom sayings and phrases here. Like, instead of saying something like 'Dear, God! There’s an octopus screwing a bear in my tub!' I’d have to say, 'Dear, Luna! There’s an octopus screwing your sister in my tub!' Or, you know, some other such stuff like that. (Yeah, in case you haven’t noticed, I maybe-kinda-sorta absolutely despise old Sun Butt with most every ounce of my being. But there’s a reason for that, and I’ll get to it later. Probably.)
Anyway, like I said. I was as a human. (As for what I am now, I’ll get to that later. Unless you read the description beforehand, in which case, you already know.) I was, at the age of 21, a 6’2’’ black (or African American for you technical douchebags out there) young man with short curly black hair and a rather toned body. Not really toned, just to the point you could see my muscles. I didn’t need to be uber buff, just strong enough to protect what I needed to protect, while also being fast enough to dodge shit when necessary.
By the way, learning to dodge was a bitch. I mean, the number of times I got hit in the face with a wrench was utter bullshit. I swear my brother was enjoying screaming 'DOOOOOOOOOOOODGE!' at me way too much.
Moving on.
So, I was born to a regular, middle class family. Born and raised by my mom with my big brother always there looking out for me, with me, in return, annoying the ever-living shit out of him. Good times……… Aaaaaand I’m sad now. I miss those times. I graduated from high school with mediocre grades, just good enough to get me into college. It’s not that I wasn't smart, quite the contrary in fact. I was actually, incredibly smart. I was just always too lazy to apply myself. The only things I actually excelled at was P.E. (Cause, I mean, come on. Who the fuck fails in gym class?) and wood shop/construction class (cause I liked to cut stuff up and build things with the remains. ...What?). My grades had been just good enough to get me into college, but I didn’t really get too far there, cause I decided to be lazy. As I quickly discovered, they take things a lot more seriously.
So, I flunked out, and got a cruddy job at a cruddy fast food restaurant (Seriously, how the hell does a pizza joint run out of pizzas? Seriously? Someone tell me how. I wanna know). I was also a big sports fan, and I spent a lot of my time exercising by walking long distances or riding on my bike. I had finally managed to save up enough money to go to a baseball game, one I had been meaning to see for such a long time, I was saving for months to be able to go. I was so excited to be able to go see my favorite team play.
And then my happy mood got crushed when, lo and behold, the fucktards at my job screwed up my schedule.
So, after a day of bad moods, stupid customers, and screaming my head off at the incompetent jackasses that were my managers, I managed to rush out of there on my bike heading for the stadium. I could still make it, the game would almost be over, but I could still make it for the last few runs. At least, that's what I had hoped. I had been so focused on getting there, though I didn’t see the train coming full tilt at me till it blew its loud horn. By then, it was basically too late. I had just enough time to jump forward off my bike, but I didn’t make it entirely out of the way. The train crashed into my lower body.
Now, you’d think, I’d go tumbling off of the train, few broken bones, and lots of pain, right? Could totally survive that! Might be crippled for life, but at least I’d still be alive and all that. Could’ve totally been grateful for all those dodging lessons I got from my big bro.
No. No, that’s not what happened. I wish it was, but it wasn’t.
No, instead, Fate, or Destiny, or, maybe even my favorite role model, Death itself (yes, I’m freakishly weird like that) decided to be a jackass and fuck up my life by having the train crash into my bike (may it forever rest in pieces), which twisted the handle bars juuuuuuust enough for them to catch on my foot. So, when the bike got run over and mangled to its metaphorical death, guess who got dragged down with it.
That’s right, it was Bones!
No, but really, unfortunately, it was me. I got dragged down, my lower body got slammed into the train, before it was pulled under it by the bike, and then I got run over. The lower half of my body had been completely severed from the upper half. T’was a bloody mess, it was! The upper half of my body luckily rolled away from the carnage and wreckage, but ended up in a very bloody heap a few feet away from the tracks.
Now, you’d think having your body torn in half would be instant death, right?
Well, in my case, it was FUCKING WRONG! THAT SHIT HURT LIKE A MOTHER!
I mean, seriously, it was as if my whole world erupted in pain, as if my entire body had become molten lava, and it hurt! It just hurt so much! Why wasn’t I dead!? I should’ve been dead from this! WHY IN TARTARUS WAS I STILL ALIVE!?
As I had been groaning on the ground and coughing up blood in my pain induced delirium, I hadn’t noticed the conductor of the train stop it to come check up on me, as well as the many passengers that were on it. They had all gathered around to take pictures, call the ambulance and medics and anyone else of importance who was supposed to be there. I never realized this, I was too busy, you know, dying. I was also too busy lamenting certain things.
You know, mostly stuff like why I was still alive and in so much freakin' pain. Stuff like that.
So, it turns out, I really didn’t work all that far from my house. In fact, it had been a block away from the accident, so my mom and bro heard the major commotion when it happened, and like everyone else, they came to check up on what happened.
It… It hadn’t been a pretty site.
My mom was nearly hysterical when she saw me. Lower half of my body gone, what’s left of my entrails slowly falling out of me, coughing up blood. She was crying loudly, she shoved the paramedics out of the way and crouched above me, holding my head and trying to get me to focus on her. My brother joined her, tears silently falling down his face as he looked down upon my sad form. This went on for several minutes, before she felt my body start going cold in her hands, even as the paramedics were working as best they could to do anything to save me.
As I felt my body finally becoming numb, the pain began to fade. I could focus, if only a little. The amount of blood lost had seriously affected me, but I was of mind enough to say one last thing. Coughing, and nearly chocking on the blood coming out of my mouth, I weakly turned my head towards my mom, looked her in the eyes, and struggled to get out what I knew would be my last words.
The last word had been cut off by the sound of a heavy object striking against something, followed by an entire stadium’s worth of cheering. It seems as though Fate, or Destiny, or maybe even Death (who had probably been trying to figure out how the hell I wasn’t dead yet, just as I was) decided to be an even bigger jackass and put me out of my misery. As my eyes began rolling into the back of my head, I caught a glimpse of something. It was small white, round object that seemed to be getting bigger by the second. Pretty soon, I could make out what it was. So the last thing I thought as a human was…..
‘Yay…. they… got a home… run…’
Home run was fucking right. Whoever the batter was, I’m forever labeling him as the luckiest fucker in the goddamn world. Dude struck that thing out of the park on a direct path towards my face.
THWACK!
I shot up in my crib bringing my holed hooves to my forehead screaming out, “OWWWW, THA’ BOOKIN’ HAART”!!!! I paused immediately after that happened after I heard that high-pitched squeaky voice. My brain was struggling to comprehend what the fuck I just heard.
Then I realized I had hooves. No, not hands. Hooves.
I pulled my hooves away from my face and looked at them, eyes wide.
I had hooves.
I. Had. Hooves.
I.
Had.
HOOVES!
I looked further down. Black body. Not normal, human skin tone black. I mean I was pitch black. Like....like a bugs shell kinda pitch black. i had another set of holy hooves where my feet used to be. In between my legs was a spiky silver grey tail. And I was short. Like really short. Oh, and did I mention I was wearing a diaper?
Why was I wearing a diaper? !
I felt something unusual flutter around on my back. I turned to look at them. Short, stubby wings that looked like a cross between a bat's wings and an insects wings. You know, with the membranes and all that?
For the life of me, I couldn't comprehend this.
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ME?!?!?!?!?!? Quick, Brain! Status Report! The fuck is gong on?!
Shit be whack, yo! I got nothin' on this. You're on you own!
Well, my mind had been fucked. Like heavily fucked. Like uber royally fucked! This was like… like… the Greatest Mind Rape Ever... of all time.
Seeing as how my mind couldn’t understand, or comprehend, why I suddenly had hooves, wings, was really short, was wearing a diaper, and was NO LONGER HUMAN when the last thing I remember was bleeding my guts out near the side of railroad tracks surrounded by hundreds of people, I figured it would probably be a good idea to try to focus on something else.
I looked around. It was then I immediately noticed something. There was pink all around me. on all the walls. Who needs this much friggin pink? I mean, seriously, least there's a little blue in here. Wait.... why are there a bunch of objects hanging from the ceiling that look like they belong in a child’s nursery? And what the hell was I lying in?
…
…
…
Is this a crib?
And that’s when I heard the sound of at least twenty or so other babies screaming out in irritation because I interrupted their naptime. Stupid babies! Couldn’t they see I was in the middle of a mind-fuck crisis here?!
Wait….. those aren’t regular babies.....
Those are foals...... as in.... pony foals...... Ponies.......
…
What? “Wah?”
I looked around frantically. I was surrounded by babies. Crying, screaming, shitting themselves silly babies. I looked directly in front of me.
There was a wall with a glass panel.
On the other side of the glass was what looked like a silver-grey male dragon and a… strange looking female black pegasus that looked like it was part…changeling? There was also an orange unicorn wearing a white coat.
All three of them were looking at me with eyes wide and mouths parted in a classic ‘what-the fuck?’ face.
Suddenly, I burped, and a plume of black, red and green fire shot out of my mouth. It set my crib on fire, but despite the flames coming out 3 different colors, the fire only burned a dark green.
My own face adapted the classic ‘what the fuck?’ look.
And in a sudden moment of clarity, I realized where I was, and more importantly, what I was.
I was some kinda hybrid baby. I could breathe fire. I was lying in a (burning) crib. I was in a room surrounded on all sides by crying foals and pink walls.
My Life as a Hybrid By ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Edited by: Zaleros
Chapter 1: Sleeping Skeletons and New Beginnings
So, about five minutes ago I was huddling in a corner scared out of my frickin’ mind. Now, I’m not one to be scared easily. In my past life, I became a master of scaring people senseless. Their reactions were funny as heck. Here’s an example of me scaring someone. They’d be busy doing something of importance, just minding their own business and completely unsuspecting. I’d just walk up behind them, completely silent, mind you. I’d just stand there, waiting for them to get done so they could turn around. Now, here’s where it gets funny.
I was 6’2”, weighing in at around 210-230 lbs. My footsteps were ridiculously heavy, and I had rather broad shoulders. So when a frickin’ giant silently pops up behind you, it makes for a rather good scare. Now, a lot of people would scream out ‘boo’ or some other such nonsense when trying to scare someone, ‘cause that’s the normal thing or most obvious thing to do.
But that’s too boring, and no one likes boring.
So I take the insanely creepy route. After all, what’s gonna scare someone more: screaming out ‘boo when someone turns around, or you having the creepiest bucking smiley faced grin attached to your face with a twitching eye looking like you’re ready to murder someone?
Ima give you a sec to think about that one.
Here’s a hint: one of the options often times ends with someone wetting themselves.
Of course, that said, often times people see fit to try their hardest to scare me back. And I’m not gonna lie, a food few have managed such a feat. A good few have, indeed. In the end, all that did was train my nerves not to freak out at every little unexpected thing. It had trained me to just go with the flow. Eventually, people were unable to scare me much after that.
Then again, I don’t think talking skeletons count as people.
It also goes without saying that the dreaded Pinkius Piecus also does not count as people.
So yeah, Bones.Totally scared the ever-living shit out of me. And I am not afraid to admit that I totally let out a less than manly scream. Honestly, you’d think that someone screaming – excuse me – shrieking at the top of their lungs would alter the guard to my distress. No such luck, I’m afraid.
Pretty sure it’s ‘cause they didn’t want to get anywhere near the horrible stank in the room coming from The Pit of There-Is-No-Word-Worse-Than-Death.
But yeah, I had just been minding my own business, reminiscing about my life so far here in Equestria when I heard somepony say ‘Who are you?’ It had quickly been followed by a very high pitched ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH, HOLY BUCK! WHAT THE HAY?!’ I had scrambled to the nearest corner to get away from whatever horrid abomination suddenly appeared in my cell. Well, it wasn’t rally a horrid abomination, and it hadn’t just suddenly appeared, it was already there.
Oh, and Bones made it painfully clear that he does not like to be called abomination, if the growing bruise on my head is of any proof.
After recovering from my fright, I cautiously approached Bones and examined him. His skeleton was sitting in an upright position like a regular pony sits, but his eyes sockets had piercing red lights in the middle of each one. Gave him a really creepy appearance honestly, but having the grim reaper as a role model means that skeletons with glowing eyes don’t creep you out that much.
I had asked him what he had been doing, and his response to me was ‘sleeping’. How do undead skeletons sleep? I figured I’d try to figure that one out myself. After several moments of complete silence between the two of us, I sat down several feet in front of him and the two of us just stared at each other. So here we are now, just staring at each other.
And staring.
Annnnnnd Staring.
…………..Still staring.
………………………………….
………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………….Buck it, I’m far too impatient for this.
“So…… Bones,” I began, “What’s, uh…..what’s your story?”
Bones tilted his head to the left, in what I suppose is a gesture of confusion or curiosity. “Bones?”
Both then, along with a little irritation. “Well, when I first got here a few days ago, I figured you’d just be, you know, a pile of bones. And I get bored easily, so I thought, ‘Why not make a friend here with this dead pony skeleton? He’ll need a name. Something unoriginal but catchy…. Oh! I know! Ima call you bones!’ And that’s how that worked out.”
I swear, if bones had brows or eyelids, he would’ve given me a deadpan stare. I swear I could feel it.
“What? I tend to do stupid things when I’m suffering from a combination of loneliness and boredom.”
“You’re just lucky I’ve long since forgotten my real name. Otherwise, I’d probably hit you again.” Bones began looking around, having seemingly lost interest in me. I, however, had not lost interest in him, and proceeded to quell the tempest of my curiosity.
“So, Bones. How’d you end up as a bag of bones?”
He turned back to me, and I swear I could feel that deadpan stare again. I guess being able to feel the kind of stare he’s giving makes up for the lack of brows and eyelids. I’m also fairly certain he wanted to hit me again. Instead of responding to me, he simply pointed towards the aforementioned pit in the ground. Message received: death by stank.
“Okay, so, how’d you end up as….well…..this?” His eyes flashed, which I’m guessing means he blinked, maybe? Meh, I’ll make a note of it and see if he does it again later. Anyway, he looked down at himself and then back at me and shrugged his shoulder bones.
“Honestly, I don’t know. One moment I’m dead, the next I’m awake. Freaked me out when I figured out I was-“
“A pile of Bones?” I interrupted with a cheeky smile.
BOINK
“I totally deserved that.” I rubbed the spot of what I was expecting to be another bruise on my head.
“Indeed.But, yeah. That.” He looked down at himself, and I could feel a sort of melancholy and sadness coming from him. Huh. I can still feel his emotions. I guess even the undead can feel. Good to know, I may have just gained a traveling companion. Provided we ever get out of here, that is. Speaking of which…
“Bones?”
“If you ask or say something stupid I swear I will knock you the buck out.”
“Touchy, touchy! But no, I actually wanted to ask… why are you still here?”
I sensed confusion from him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why are you still here? Why haven’t you called for help? Or why haven’t the guards come to clean out your bon-“ I felt the glare he sent my way. “…..skeleton?”
The glare receded…but only slightly. I could tell it wasn’t directed at me though.“I did. I called for help a bunch of times. The guards never came. I guess they thought I was a ghost or something. Possibly a vengeful spirit of some sort. That, or They were too afraid to get anywhere near this particular cell.”
“I’d believe that.” I then gave him a curious look.“What’d you end up here for, anyhow? You don’t seem all that bad a… skeleton pony to me.” Oh, how I wanted to say bag of Bones right there!
Bones looked down, and I could taste the sadness radiating off of him. “If it’s all the same to you… I’d rather not talk about it.”
I’m not one to pry into personal matters, especially if they cause emotional turmoil. I’ve learned over the course of my life that some things are better left unsaid… and some things are better left not knowing.
“I understand. I won’t ask if it’s too painful. However, on a lighter note, you may have your shot at freedom pretty soon. I’m supposed to be tried.”
The amount of surprise on his face was plainly visible; despite the fact he had no face. “You’re going on trial? For what? What did you do to get locked up?” A thought seemed to cross his mind. “And why aren’t you dead from the fumes?” And then he seemed to finally notice my unique features. “And what kind of a pony are you?”
I chuckled a little. “Well Bones, for one, I’m not all pony. I’m only about one fourth pony. And, in order to really understand what I am and why I’m here, you need to understand everything about me from the day I was born. Care to listen to a very long-winded story?”
He shrugged again. “Not like I have much of anything else to do with my time.”
“Hmm. Good point. Well… My tale goes like this...”
~~~~~~~Time of Flashback~~~~~~~
‘…………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………………………………………….’
That had essentially been my thought process for about ten minutes once I had figured out exactly where I was, and what I was. Not so much in terms of the fact I was a completely different species. Let’s face it, with the amount of HiEfics out there, it’s really not a surprise to discover I’ve been transformed into a different creature. Oh, yeah, I was an avid fan of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic TV show, and I’ve seen my way around quite a few fics. Reading was a favorite past time of mine, so I would often spend hours a day just reading anything I found interesting. Once I discovered MLP:FIM, and subsequently became a fan, I figured I’d go read the fictions If I ever got bored. Since then, I had been reading a lot of fics about the show, including the occasional ‘Human gets stranded in equestrian and is turned into *species*' stuff. So, being transformed into some kinda hybrid… Not really a problem for me.
But being sent to, or rather, born into Equestria as a baby? A foal? That effectively shut me the fuck up, and probably short circuited my brain. Pretty sure the little mice that run on the gears up there may have had a stroke or something.
Once the Doctor and my new parents snapped out of their ‘Oh-my-Celestia-that-foal-can-talk’ induced shock, they quickly snapped to attention, rushing in to put out the fire I started and check on me while several nurse ponies came in to calm down all of the foals I disturbed. Once the fire was put out, and the foals successfully laid down to rest, everypony crowded around my crib where they discovered something else that rather surprised them.
Though the fire burned brightly, and had nearly consumed the entire crib, once they put it out, they saw that the crib itself was completely undamaged. After the doctor scanned the crib itself, he came to the conclusion that my fire had magic infused into it, and the flames themselves react to my will. The unicorn surmised that the reason the crib hadn’t burned to ash was because it had been an accidental burst of flames, and I hadn’t actually wanted to burn anything, so the fire didn’t. Once they figured that out, they tried to get my attention, but they didn’t know how. Everything they had tried had failed, My mind had been completely unable to recover from the complete void it had been thrust into. In the end, one of the nurses - I believe her name was Heartfelt – decided to do something that I will never forget.
She started making silly faces and speaking to me in baby talk.
Ironically, THAT’S what snapped me out of it.
Once my mind figured out what she was doing, I was filled with rage. It was bad enough I had become a foal, I did NOT need someone patronizing me about it. As my face adopted a deadpan, I slowly turned my head towards the nurse, and my father gasped, but at the time I didn’t realize why. When the other’s heard his gasp, they looked at him, then back at me before their mouths opened in shock as well. The only pony who didn’t notice was Nurse Heartfelt, who continued making baby noises at me… up until she saw me looking right at her with all my fury. I’m pretty sure I felt a vein bulge on my forehead.
I knew I was going to hate the sound of my voice, but I opened my mouth anyway. “Wha iz yur naim?” Oh my god, I wanted to strangle whoever did this to me. I’m starting to think death would’ve been better than having to hear my own voice.
She stopped making silly faces when she heard me, and instantly responded, though I could tell she wanted to squeal and how undoubtedly cute I probably looked glaring at her. “N-nurse Heartfelt...” She was shaking with excitement, and I could tell she wanted to squeal. I was not amused. “My, my! You’re a smart little…um…pony, aren’t you little guy?”
My father narrowed his eyes at me, and whispered under his breath, “A little too smart if you ask me…” Both my mother and I heard him at the time, and my ear did nothing but give a slight twitch in his direction. My mother, however, saw fit to nudge him with her hoof in admonishment. He ignored her completely, and just kept staring at me, as did the nurse, who actually let out a tiny squeal at how cute the glare I was giving her looked.
I was definitely not amused, and I made sure she knew that. “I wuld run if I wur you.”
Everypony blinked at what I had just said. Following that, all except my father, my mother and the still oblivious Heartfelt backed away. She, however, blinked again in confusion after she processed what I said, but still kept smiling at me. That aggravated me more.
“And why would I do that, you little cutie?”
I felt another vein bulge out. Strike two. “’Cause if you don, I’m gona set you on fiya.”
She didn’t take me seriously. No, instead she did something that she almost regretted. She giggled.
“No you won’t; I’m sure such a cute, smart foal like you wouldn’t do something so mean.” She was still smiling.
Now, when she called me cute for the second time, that had almost made me blow my lid, but she turned around and complimented me by calling me smart. I could’ve dealt with that. But then she turned back around and called me a foal. A baby. And to make matters worse, she was still smiling.
I felt something within me change. My Father must have noticed it, or maybe something else, because he gasped again, and took a step back, but then started moving towards me. But I didn’t pay much attention to that. Instead, I paid attention to the third, and slightly painful, vein that just bulged out of my forehead.
That was strike three.
Burn.
I opened my mouth and sucked in as much air as my tiny lungs could handle, and right before I was about to let loose a torrent of flame, a silver dragon claw clamped down on my mouth. Everypony backed up when they saw a torrent of black, green and red flames that suddenly flew pout from my dad’s palm and back into my own face. I could feel the heat it was giving off, but it didn’t hurt me in the slightest. As the flames quickly died down, so did my rage and anger. When they were gone, I realized what had happened, and started struggling to get my dad’s hand off my face. His response was to poke me in a certain spot on the back of my neck. Immediately, I felt strange, and before long, my vision began to darken.
He removed his claw from my face, but I lunged forward, stumbling, grabbing on to it for stability. I was losing consciousness fast.
“Wah… Wah’d you do ta me? Wah…I….uuuuugh……”
Blackness consumed my vision.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I felt myself moving in a slight up and down motion. I felt groggy, like I had been asleep for days. I could hear voices, but they were fading in and out, and it was kinda hard to make them out, but eventually, I could understand it.
".....can't believe he......kicked out......"
"Not his faul.......Nurse hadn't done........"
"....ot his fault? We didn't.....don't believe....Starting to think....….ancient lore……red and black…..”
“Just because he……mean he’ll…….”
“Shade you saw….. would’ve burned her alive if I hadn’t stopped him! And his eyes! How do you explain that?”
“Platinum Blaze, I understand he is strange, that was to be expected when we found out I was pregnant, but I don’t want you claiming that my son is a part of some kind of prophecy from some story you dragons pass around a campfire!”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Silent Shade, dragons aren’t exactly on friendly terms with each other. The only time we get anywhere near each other is during the migration, and that’s not for another 20 years. My father told me of that story, and he hasnever lied to me before in my life!
“As for our son, I don’t want him to be a part of any prophecy either, but you cannot deny what you saw with your own eyes! He’s intelligent! Far more intelligent than he should be! And his eyes! They don’t just change color like that, especially when he didn’t even use changeling magic to do so!”
“And how do you know he didn’t use-“
“Don’t give me that! You are far more in tune with magic than I am, and even I could tell he didn’t use any kind of magic when it happened, so I know you felt nothing!”
“………….”
What are they…? Are they talking about me?
I slowly opened my eyes, still feeling a little groggy. I began to take in my surroundings. We were in a forest of some kind, and though it was pitch black outside, I could still see everything perfectly. I was strapped into what I guessed was a saddle for foals. Pretty sure if I was fully conscious at that point I would’ve felt some kind of swell of anger at that thought. I looked up, and saw the hide of a silver dragon walking next to me. Even in the darkness, his scales still shimmered brightly.
He looked just as majestic and ferocious as any dragon would (except Baby Dragon. I hate Baby Dragon). His wings were currently folded at his side, but I could tell they’d reach an impressive wingspan if he unfolded them. His spines were sharp and lethal looking, and just as silver as the rest of him. I felt like I could lose my eyes just by looking at their edges, that’s how sharp they were. He had four horns sticking out of the back of his head, and he had these vibrant ruby red eyes that looked like there was a fire shining within them. What I found rather strange was the fact that he was only about 6 inches taller than my mom when on all fours. Shouldn’t he be taller?
So… That’s what my new dad looks like, huh? Platinum Blaze... A very fitting name for him. Then again, so are most all of the names for the creatures in Equestria. It’s like they know what they’re gonna be like before they grow up. How? Well, I really don’t care, and I’d rather not break this universe trying to find out. Sides, it’s pretty obvious that this universe already has or will have a reality breaker, no need to try my hand at it. Plus, I already know the universe likes to buck with people here so…
Did I just think the word ‘buck’ in place of ‘fuck’? Well hell, looks like I’m already adapting here. Gonna have to try to keep track of that so I know when I’ve fully adapted to this world. Well, now that I’ve seen dad up in detain, let’s see what mommy dearest look like?
I turned my head to the left to face my mom, and she actually surprised me with how she looked. She wasn’t adapting any pony persona, so I was seeing what she looked like in her changeling form. She was black, and had the holes in her hooves, as well as fangs like a normal changeling, but that’s about where the similarities ended. She had a slicked back silver mane and tail with black streaks going through it instead of the fin-like things on the back of their heads and the stubby tails. Her wings were shaped like a pony’s wings, but were still made up of membrane like a changelings were, and overall, it gave her a dark and mysterious look. But what really stuck out to me were two specific things.
The first thing was the green chitin plating over her midsection, and the second were her eyes. The looked almost exactly like the eyes of Queen Chrysalis, with the exception that there was a slight red overtone to them. The first thought that went through my mind when I saw this?
No. No no no. HELL NO! Please, for the love of god. Someone PLEASE tell me I’m not related to Chrysalis!
After I recovered from that rather shocking piece of information (as well as my quick 5 second panic…..okay maybe it was a four minute panic), I noticed something about her. She didn’t have a horn on her head. But I remember seeing her as a Pegasus with visible changeling traits, like her fangs and eyes back at the hospital. But she looked completely different now. Can she use magic without a horn?
Can I?
I vowed to figure that out as soon as I physically could. I could see how my mom got the name Silent Shade. I couldn’t hear any of her hoof steps. She was as silent as the night. While I was stuck in my musings, I had failed to notice that she had stopped moving and was looking directly at me with concern, curiosity, fear, and trepidation on her face. My father, who had walked several feet ahead, somehow noticed my mom had stopped and he turned to look at us. When he saw me, the look on his face… To this day I can’t tell what it was that I saw there. But the look had quickly vanished as he turned around and approached us. He sat next to my mom and the two just stared at me as I stared back.
The silence was deafening. The entire forest around us had gone silent as well, as if the nocturnal creatures were waiting for someone to speak first.
I was far too impatient and curious to let the silence continue.
“Furst aff, dad? Don you eber poke me der again. Dat sucked. Secund, I wanna know wha you were talkin ‘bout. I only heard bits ‘nd peicez, but it soundz lahk I’m a paht ub some pwophesy? And lastly, I HATE MAI BOICE!!!”
Silence. Complete and utter silence was my response, and honestly, I don’t blame them. I couldn’t if I wanted to. We’ve all kinda been thrust into a situation that none of us were prepared for, but seeing as I had no choice in the matter, I was determined to make the best of it. I was gonna start by getting some answers.
I watched as my mom’s eyes lit up with magical power, and felt myself being levitated out of the saddle bag and set down in front of her (okay, so she can use magic without a horn. Sweet! Now I gotta see if I can... just as soon as I figure out if I can even use magic.) Mom and dad looked right at me, neither of them saying anything. I saw one of my mom’s eyes start glowing again, but this time, one of dad’s eyes started flowing too. Didn’t take me more than five seconds to figure out what they were doing... which, I admittedly still found awesome.
“Hey! No tewepathy! Tawk ta me! I deserb ta know! Tew me! Tew me ‘nd I’ll exprain my stowie ta you!”
Their eyes stopped glowing as they turned towards me again. My mom looked genuinely surprised that I knew what she was using, but dad just narrowed his eyes at me. I continued on unabated.
“Wook, I know tings seem stwange, but you godda bewiebe me! You godda gibe me a chance to tew my side… pweeeeeaaaaase…?” And for the first time, I decided to use my new found powers to their fullest potential, and I gave them what I hope was the most adorably…cute… puppy dog eyes I could muster. Which was basically me widening my eyes as I possibly could (pretty sure I nearly felt them pop out of their sockets) and sticking out my bottom lip while holding my hooves together.
Honestly, I have no idea if it worked or not, and knowing my luck it probably didn’t, but it got me results. My mom and dad shared a look, nodded, and once again turned towards me. Dad spoke up.
“Fine. We’ll tell you, but you tell us first. But not…not now. We’ll wait until tomorrow for this. Right now, I think we could all use some sleep.“
Mom was about to say something, probably to agree with dad, but I beat her to the punch.
“You may be tired, but I feew wike a miwwion… uhh… bits! Besides, we can awways tawk on da way home, right? Not onwy dat, but I-“ My words were cut off as a look of horror slowly spread across my face. Dad looked at me curiously, while mom began looking very concerned. She could probably feel the level of panic I was giving off. What was the reason for my sudden panic, you may ask?
Well... Let’s just say that just like most new born babies and foals…
This was Bones immediately after my mouth decided to move before my brain could catch up and I revealed something I hadn't wanted known by anyone ever.
First time I shit myself.
Yeah. Just Great. Now that secret's out.
Le-sigh...
I had gone completely silent the moment I realized I had just said that, but that didn't stop Bones from cracking up at my expense. I just sat there, an unfortunate embarrassed blush covering what was likely the entirety of my face as I glowered at the cackling pile of undead over there. I figured if he didn't stop soon, I was likely going to hurt him. I'm very violent like that. ...
Screw it, I'm gonna hurt him anyway.
After five minutes of continuous laughter, I let out a large sigh, my blush having faded mostly, but was still present. Seriously, even after all these years, I STILL haven’t figured out how the hell I can blush through black fur and black scales. I swear, I'm going to figure that out eventually, but I digress. As bones continued his laughing spree, I finally opened my mouth to try to move things forward.
"Yes, yes, okay, that slipped out of my mouth. We've all (you) had a good laugh. Mind if I continue my story now, please?"
He kept laughing, but I could tell he was trying to rein it in. I have a feeling that if he were flesh and blood, his sides would be hurting and he'd have tears running down his face from the pain. I really wish he was in pain right now. After several more moments, his laughter had been reduced to chuckling giggles (yes, that's a thing, now shut up). Finally, he calmed himself down enough to speak normally.
He opened his mouth, about to say something, but then he took one look at me, and burst out again, falling on his side and rolling in laughter.
That's it!
I got up, walked right up to him and started lashing out.
"Will...you...shut....up....you....bony....bastard?!?" Each word was punctuated with a heavy hit to the skeleton pony. I don't know which of us more shocked at the fact that he was actually feeling pain, and screaming at me to stop. I do know one thing though: After all that laughing...
I enjoyed beating him immensely.
After ten hits from me - and an assurance that he wouldn’t laugh anymore - I went back to my original spot and sat back down, glaring at him. I could feel his glare coming right back at me as he rubbed his right forehoof... well, the bones of his right forehoof.
I smiled at him.”So, can I continue?"
He mumbled under his breath, "Didn't have to hit me..."
I countered, glowering at him now, "Didn't have to laugh at me."
He looked away and grumbled 'jerk' under his breath. I responded by giving my best shit eating grin, somehow made slightly menacing with the two fangs sticking out of my mouth. "Yes, I know, I’m such an ass." I was going to say something else when I saw something in the corner of my eye. I turned, and my eyes bugged out at the sight of a donkey standing at the cell doors staring right at me.
When did he get there?
My mouth opened and closed silently for several second as my brain tried to figure out how he got in here so silently. He was just there. Completely out of nowhere. Friggin how, dude? Just....how?!?!
After several moments of my flapping my gums, I realized he was looking at me expectantly. Given my recent experiences with donkeys, my brain settled for an automatic response that situations like these typically call for.
"Um....no.....offence?"
He gave a small smile at that. "Noooooone taken." and with that, he vanished before my eyes. Not like, he's there one minute, and gone the next, I mean he just slowly faded out of existence. My natural response to that?
Commence jaw drop.
I just continued to stare at the spot he was at for a few moments longer before my brain finally caught up with what it had seen and I could finally formulate a proper response to the sudden appearance and disappearance of an apparently random donkey.
"THE BUCK WAS THAT?!?!"
"Honestly, I don't really know," came Bone's response. "He just kind of appears and disappears at random whenever someone says something like that. I've never once gotten to ask his name. As you can see, he doesn't really stick around."
All I did in response was sigh and face hoof, before I slumped down a little. "I swear I’m getting too old for this crap. You'd think after being around Pinkie enough you'd be immune to this kinda stuff. But that's Equestria for you."
Bones let out a little chuckle at that. I responded somewhat irritated. "Shut up, stop laughing."
Surprisingly, he actually whined a little when he responded. "But it was funny! And I haven't had a good laugh in centuries!"
"Well, too ba-" Wait... the buck did he just say? "Uh... how long have you been down here exactly?"
He looked up in thought. "Um..... About....... 4? Maybe 5 centuries? I don’t know. Somewhere around there."
Please replay jaw drop sequence.
After picking that up off the ground, I just stared at him for about a moment before I started talking again. "You mean to tell me... you've been down here for four-to-five hundred years?"
A simple nod was his response to me. I couldn't believe that. "Why?" was all I could get out.
“Don’t know. I was only supposed to serve thirty years,” I could almost feel the venom in his voice when he said that, but also some sadness as well. Seems to be a very touchy subject. “...but they never came to release me. Not like it would’ve mattered anyway. You know. I kinda died like, an hour after they threw me in here.”
I just sat there and stared at him in disbelief. I know for a fact that Celestia is the one who gets the final say in a pony’s sentences. I suppose she isn’t the one, however, who determines which cell a pony is place into. But that doesn’t matter. She’s responsible for this. She should’ve ensured that they came to check up on him. She should’ve ensured that they released him when his thirty years were up. Hell, they should’ve known he was dead far, far before now and at least given him a proper burial! HE even called out to them numerous times!! But... he’s been here, rotting in this cell for nearly five hundred years?
That, in my books, is completely inexcusable.
I shook my head. I was already determined to kill Celestia, that hasn’t changed. I promised I’d avenge their deaths, and so help me, even if it costs me my life and soul, I will! But now... Now I was also going to make sure he got the freedom he deserved.
Bones apparently saw the look on my face, and thought it would be a good idea to change the subject. “So uh... What happened after you...” He couldn’t help but let out a few snickers and I could feel the mirth in his tone,”...pooped yourself?” and with that, he burst out laughing again. I simply stood up, walked over to him, and...
*WHAM*
“OUCH!”
~~~~~~~TIME OF FLASHBACK~~~~~~~
Mom had a heck of a time trying to get me to tell her what was wrong. She was also quite miffed when dad suddenly dropped on his back and started rolling on the ground in laughter. He must have had a really sensitive nose, ‘cause I saw him take two quick whiffs before he doubled over. Mom tried to find out what was wrong with me, and why dad kept laughing and not helping. His only response was ‘It’s something we both agreed I’d never do when we got married.’ Then he continued his laughing spree.
I still hadn’t responded the look of horror that had spread across my face. When dad started cackling like a madman, I felt my entire face heat up in a massive blush. I think my mom thought I got a fever or something, ‘cause she had pulled out a thermometer from the other pocket of her saddlebags and started walking towards me, but she stopped short. She took a few whiffs of the air like dad did, and put a hoof over her nose.
“Oh.... so that’s what happened.” She said. Then she turned and looked at the thermometer. “Well, I guess I won’t be needing this then. Good thing too. If I tried to use this, I think we both would’ve been in for a surprise.”
Dad’s laughing reached a fever pitch when he saw my head snap towards her and my eyes bug out. Mom even started chuckling at the expression on my face. It had to be really freaking funny to them, because after a few moments, she dropped from trying to hold in her laughter. I was the only one who did not find this situation amusing in the slightest. First, I crap myself, then my mom tells me she was going to stick a thermometer up my butt? Oh, god, that entire night was just horrible. I just wanted to go home, curl up and die from embarrassment.
After we all managed to compose ourselves, mom changed my diaper (which was embarrasing as hay), and then we all made our way home. We walked in silence, though dad kept sniggering every so often. Mom had a smile on her face, but I think that was less because of what happened, per se, but more because of the fact that she just completed her first motherly duty. I wasn’t about to rob her of her happiness. Even I know that mothers feel immense happiness after childbirth, so I’m not gonna say anything about what just happened. I’d rather she stay happy. I was also not about to say anything on account of I still hated my squeaky voice. Tomorrow, I was going to stay in my room and talk for hours until I could speak normally.
I hate baby talk.
~~~~~~~~~~
So, it turned out we lived in a cave. But not just any cave, we lived in a really decked out cave. Nothing overly fancy, though. I think dad said he had carved this place out himself. I’m gonna be honest, he did a really, really good job.
The cave was decently furnished. It had a three seat couch that honestly looked like it was big enough to fit all three of us on it snugly. There was a rather large coffee table sitting in front of it, and two chairs placed at either end. There was a dining area, with a table and two rather large cushions for peop-ponies to sit on. There was a old time stove and one of those magical iceboxes that keeps food cold for storage. There were even several holes in the cave that led into carved out rooms. Mom and dad had one, and I was surprised to find I had one as well.
Apparently they had been preparing for me. My room had a crib (which I vehemently told them to get rid of and to get me a regular bed), a few toys, which I honestly didn’t mind being in there. Was never gonna play with them, but I didn’t mind them being in there. There was also, to my great surprise, a window carved out. It gave me a perfect view of the starry night sky. I’m gonna be honest, I’ve always loved the night sky. The way the stars shine and the bright glow the moon gives off. But here in Equestria, the night sky was breathtaking. The stars shined and twinkled with a brilliant radiance that I’ve never seen before, and the moon was like a beacon of light that guided those that were lost to shelter. Everything just looked so beautiful up there.
As I turned away from the amazing view, I finally took notice of the last item of interest in my room: a mirror. I had asked my mom to take me over to it so I could get a good look at what I now looked like (as Ii still lacked the ability to walk on my own four hooves). I remember seeing glimpses of myself back at the hospital, but I never got too much detail. I was almost entirely black. I had a spiky silver-grey mane and tail. Each of my legs had exactly 3 holes going down them in straight, vertical lines. The holes started from right above my hooves and ended right above the fetlocks on my forehooves, and right under the knees of hindhooves. My wings looked distinctly like a dragons wings, so much so that even if you were standing about 2 feet away from you, you wouldn’t notice it, but they were made out of the same membrane that a changelings wings are made of. They were made entirely out of that membrane. All over my body and covering the entirety of my muzzle was what appeared to be grey stripes. Upon closer inspection, I discovered them to be scales. I had scales covering some of my body. I found that undeniably awesome. I was part dragon. So cool!
What really caught my attention though were two specific things. My teeth were the first thing. They were all razor sharp. Least I didn’t have to worry about them having to grow in. The second thing that caught my attention was my eyes. They looked like a regular changelings eyes, but they were green instead of the normal blue. They also didn’t encompass the entire eye itself, but only the iris of the eye. I currently lacked pupils, but i didn’t mind that. But there was something about my eyes. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but it was as if I saw something in them. Something important. I somehow felt like I should know what it was.
My mom’s quiet chirp- I kid you not; she chirped- broke me out of my musings. I looked over at her as she levitated me towards the bed. “Time for bed, my child!” I couldn’t argue at all. My body felt exhausted, in spite of being knocked unconscious earlier. I let out a large yawn as she pulled back the covers and set me in the crib. She tucked me in and kissed me on my forehead. My father, who had been standing in the doorway the entire time, said, “Goodnight, my son. We’ll talk in the tomorrow.” I nodded at him, and he left the room with a somewhat pensive look on his face, but under that, in his eyes, I still spotted a spark of happiness in him. Despite everything that had happened, he was still happy his son was born. Pretty sure mom was too.
She kissed me on my forehead again after i let out another yawn, and nuzzled me afterwards. Then she whispered in my ear “Goodnight, my little Shadow Flare. Sweet dreams.” Before she left my room as well. ‘Shadow Flare...’ I thought. ‘ So that’s my new name... I like it. Maybe this won’t be as bad as i thought.’
I should have known better from all the stories I've ever read online that you never give the universe an opening like that, because it will take it, and it will fuck your life over. I really should've know better.
As I started drifting off to sleep, I started thinking about the way mom said goodnight to me. It reminded me of how my old mom would say goodnight. And in that instant, i remembered my old life. All the friends I left behind, all my family. The horrified and unbearably sad look on my human mother’s face as I was bleeding out on the side of the railroad tracks, my brother telling me to hang in there and be strong as i felt my life slipping from me. ‘I never got to even say goodbye to them...’ In that moment, and overwhelming sadness consumed me.
I cried myself to sleep that night.
[Hello? Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?]
Huh... what? What’s.... who is...?
[Hello? Help! I can’t move! Please someone help me!]
Who’s there...? Where are you?
[Who are you!?!? Why are you in my body?!?!?!]
WHAT?????
My eyes shot open, and I sat up as quickly as I could. I was sweating heavily, and panting for breath. Tears were streaming out of my eyes, but i didn’t know why. I didn’t care why at the moment either. I looked at the mirror. I saw it.
In my eyes.
A very faint glow.
I heard the voice in my head.
[Who are you? Why are you in my body? What’s going on?! SOMEONE HELP!!]
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Zaleros
Chapter 3: Dark Pasts
“Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. You men to tell me that your soul took control of a newborn foals body…while their soul was still in it?”
“Yeah, and to this day, it’s one of the things I regret the most.”
Bones brought his hoof to his chin and began tapping it, obviously in thought about something. “Weird…”
I blinked, having not expected that response. “Weird? What? My soul taking over a foal’s body? You find that weird?”
“Yes, I do,” He looked up at me and began examining my features. He looked at my spiked back silver-grey mane and, my black fur coat, the scales hidden underneath said coat, my teal green eyes with their slit pupils that resembled both a dragon’s and a changeling’s, the fangs in my mouth, My larger than average wings, and finally, down towards my flank where he noted with surprise my lack of a cutie mark. Yup. Twenty-one years old and I still don’t have one.
But I wasn’t focusing on what he was looking at. I was more focused on the fact that he found what I said was weird to him.
“Really?”
He looked me back in the eyes before he responded. “Yeah…”
“You find that weird?”
“Uh-huh…”
“The living skeleton finds the fact that my soul took over another creature’s body… weird?”
Bones huffed at that and crossed his forelegs, turning his head to the left. “Well, when you put it that way!” I couldn’t help myself and let out a snicker. Bones turned back towards me after a moment though. “But still, based on theories about souls and the limited magical spells we’ve developed, it should stand to reason that multiple souls cannot co-exist in one body, as they would threaten to tear it apart.”
That caught me off guard, and my light laughter cut off abruptly. How the bloody hell-? For the first time since meeting him, I looked Bones over in detail. He had no horn. He hadn’t been a unicorn while he was alive. So I was a little stumped as to how he knew that. I decided to voice my opinion.
“You aren’t a unicorn.”
He was a little confused by my statement. “No… I’m not. I also don’t see how that has anything to do with what we’re talking about.”
“Based on the typical pony stereotypes in this world, the unicorns are the scholars. So how the hell does an earth pony know anything about soul magic?” Truth be told, I, myself, knew quite a bit about it considering how I had been living up until I was thirteen. I had to, in order to make sure nothing bad happened to him. It’s one of my greatest regrets that something bad did happen to him. Something that, despite all the logic in my mind telling me otherwise, I still felt I could have done something for him. Anything. And losing him had hurt more than I care to think about.
Bones Interrupted my inner pain but huffing indignantly. “I AM NOT AN EARTH PONY!”
“Well, I don’t see a horn on your head, and there are no wings at your side so…oh.” I stopped because I watched as a small pile of bones sitting in a corner that I thought were from some random animal suddenly glow a dark red. Then they floated into the air and rearranged themselves before floating over and attaching themselves to the sides of Bones Skeleton, close to his back. They were his Pegasus wings. I was even more surprised when I saw a small horn surrounded by the same red glow dig itself up from out of the ground, fly over, and attach itself to his head seamlessly.
For a few brief moments, I stared at him slack-jawed. I could feel the smugness radiating off of him at the fact he left me speechless. Shaking my head back and forth to reorient myself, I looked at the alicorn skeleton looking back at me and could only thing of one thing to say.
“Huh… You’re an alicorn………… Huh.”
His smugness didn’t deteriorate at all, and if anything, seemed to grow some based on my reaction. “The look on your face is absolutely priceless.”
“Well, I’m gonna be honest. This answers why you knew at least something about Soul magic.” I began rubbing my chin with a hoof. “It also probably explains why you’re still alive despite being… you know… dead. I’m gonna wager your cutie mark had something to do with souls.”
I felt the surprise coming from him. He must not have figured I’d get that on the first try. “Yeah… How did you know?” I shrugged. “Well, it kinda fits, you know? Your soul is obviously still attached to your body. And you know Soul Magic, so I just used common sense and thought about how that would work in a cutie mark driven society. Bam! Soul based cutie mark.” I then squinted at him, furrowing my brows. “But though that answers a few questions, now I have a lot more. You’re an alicorn, or at least, you used to be. So now I seriously want to know something.” He began shuffling nervously, proving to be uncomfortable under my piercing gaze, and I could feel the nervousness coming off of him. Hell, I could taste it. I never did like the taste of nervousness too much. Probably why I turned off my changeling senses whenever I was around Flutttershy. She reeked of nervousness and fear. Can’t blame her though, it’s just how she is. “If you’re an Alicorn, why the hell are you in here?”
The nervousness turned to sadness and rejection in an instant, and I could feel something coming from him I knew all too well.
Regret.
My eyes widened at that one. “Bones...” I began hesitantly, “What did you do?”
He backed himself into a corner, and I began to hear rattling. His bones were shaking so much they were clicking against each other rather audibly. His bony wings tightened up at his sides. I almost didn’t hear the fearful whisper over their clacking. “Please…. Please don’t ask me that…. Please don’t make me relive what I did…”
I jumped up and rushed towards him, nearly tripping because I forgot I was wearing shackles on my hooves, the chains on said shackles preventing my legs from moving more than a foot away from each other. I placed a hoof on his shoulder and tried to ease his worries. He flinched heavily when he felt my hoof. “Whoa, whoa, calm down! It’s alright. I won’t ask if it makes you that uncomfortable. I’m sorry, just calm down. It’ll be okay, man. It’s alright. “
After a few moments, he seemed to calm down enough. Once I made sure he would be alright, I hobbled my way back to my corner of the room, cursing the cuffs as I did so. I thought back to earlier in our conversation. “You’re right by the way.”
The red glowing dots in his eyes faded out and back in quickly. Yep, he must be blinking when he does that. “About what?” I looked out our little barred window at the waning day. The sun was almost under the horizon, meaning Luna’s moon would soon grace the majestic art that was her night sky.
………Okay, yes, I love the night, deal with it. In case you're wondering, i also love thunder, lightning, darkness, chaos, and rain. So there.
Oh yeah, and fighting. Absolutely love fighting.
....Ima get back on track here.
“You were right when you said two souls cannot exist in one body.” He could detect the melancholy and sadness in my voice. I left it at that. I assumed he knew what I meant when I felt the sorrow and pity coming from him.
I let out a rather loud yawn, and my eyes started getting drowsy. I was tired, for more than one reason. My magic had been depleted in the fight against Celestia and her guards, not to mention the damage I caused to the castle as collateral. I was fairly certain I would be interrogated tomorrow at some point after they all made sure old sun-butt was alright. I scowled at that, and tried to get Celestia off my mind by looking towards the window. I could see the moon just beginning its ascent, meaning the Princess of the night was awake and doing her duty. That’s when I got an idea. I seriously hoped it would work.
“Hey, Bones?” He turned and looked at me when I addressed him. “Can you still use magic?”
He rubbed his chin in thought for a moment, before his red eye dots disappeared completely. After a moment, I saw his horn glow blood red, followed by the same aura appearing around me, but flickering in and out. I said nothing, but I smirked, figuring whatever he was about to do was going to fail due to my high magic resistance. Imagine my shock when suddenly the flickering aura stopped flickering and I suddenly shot towards the roof, smashing my head in it with a rather audible thud. Then the aura disappeared, resulting in gravity doing its job. The dirt floor was just as comfortable as it’s always been.
After I picked myself back up, I looked to see Bones with another smug look on his face. “You have a rather impressive level of resistance against magic, friend.”
I groaned, rubbing my head. “Yeah, and it’s helped me out a lot, just about as much as it's hindered me.” I shook my head to once again reorient myself. “I am willing to let that… incident… slide without repercussions, however, if you help me with something though.”
“Oh, and what would that be?”
“I need you to help me send a message. These hoof cuffs are seriously dampening my magic. But I only need a small amount to do what I need. So would you be so kind as to loan me some of yours? All I need is a small telepathy spell.”
“You know telepathy?” He sounded shocked. “Not many ponies know how to do that. Despite it being a generally low level spell, most unicorns don’t have the mental capability or focus to perform it because they can’t find an inner sanctum within themselves.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had plenty of practice looking into my mind. And my mom taught me the spell. Truthfully, I only know like…maybe five or six spells altogether.”
“Really? Why?”
“Mostly because I didn’t really want to learn anymore. I only learned a few that I knew would help me in daily life. I didn’t need that much. My Mom forced me to learn two spells though, telepathy being one of them.” Okay, that was a partial lie. True, I only know six spells: Levitation, Teleportation, Telepathy, Invisibility (god I love sneaking up on people), a Silencing spell, and a Soul Connecting spell. But with that last one, I developed or rediscovered a bunch of other spells in order to make sure that the other soul that inhabited this body at one time would sand a much better chance of surviving until I could find a way to throw my own soul into something else that was suitable.
I failed. And I will carry that with me until the day I die.
“I see. Well, alright. I guess I can help.” Bones walked over to me and placed his horn on my forehead. “I’m going to link our magical auras together, and you can use mine to send your message alright. But be careful, I don’t know how the cuffs will affect you.”
“Thanks.” That was the last thing I said before he activated his magic and connected us. I activated the telepathy spell, my eyes taking on the blood red glow of his magic. I hadn’t expected a searing pain to flow into my mind though, and I nearly collapsed from it. Bones supported me, and kept me upright as I tried to focus through the pain, but it wasn’t easy. After several minutes of trying, My spell managed to get through, and I felt myself connect to another conscious. I had to hurry, though, because the spell only lasts as long as your focus does, and I wouldn’t be able to focus for much longer.
‘Princess Luna! If…If you c-can hear me… Please! Enter my d-dreams tonight! I-I need to show you-!’
That was it. I lost my concentration, the pain becoming too much. I collapsed to the ground unable to even move. I saw Bones above me, and I realized he was saying something, but I couldn’t even hear him. My vision was going black. Bones started shaking me. Despite his efforts, consciousness left me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was floating in a void. Not your typical void, mind you. Most of the time, when people (or ponies in this world) think of a void they imagine a vast expanse of darkness all around them. Personally, I would prefer that.
Instead, I get a void of rainbows.
Now that’s not to say I dislike rainbows. Shit, Rainbow Dash is my favorite pony. But, come on! A rainbow colored void?
Fuck rainbows!
Belatedly, I realized I wasn’t alone in the void this night. I could feel her without even looking. Mostly because of the hatred I felt coming from her. Couldn’t really blame her for that, though, considering what I did. But I was glad my message got through to her.
“Nice to see you again, Princess Luna.”
Despite the anger and the rage I could feel from her, she still responded in a civil manner. “I cannot say the same.”
“And I can’t blame you for that, considering what I did to your sister.” Her anger flared. “Nice to see you’re getting better at speaking modern Equestrian, though.” Her anger waned slightly. Note to self: give compliments if you want to keep living.
“Thank you. I am trying to improve, though We- I… still slip up sometimes.” She caught herself. She is getting better.
“Tell me, Princess… Who was going to interrogate me tomorrow?”
“I was.”
I paused for a moment, before I calmed myself. “Well, not that surprising. But that’s why I called you here.” I turned around and looked right at her. Her Eyes were boring holes in mine, and she was looking right into my soul. I could not look away from that piercing gaze.
And I didn’t want to.
I wanted her to see. I was going to make her see.
Everything.
“Prin…. Luna-“
“You will address me as Princess. You have lost the right to call me by name. “
That actually hurt me when she said that, and I think she could tell based on how the void suddenly shifter to a rainbow of blue and purple hues.
“Princess… I appreciate you not frying me the moment you got here.”
“I decided to give you a chance. You have been an excellent worker at the castle and have always been there for us and others when they needed help or assistance. Despite your recent actions, even I can see the good in your heart.” She then suddenly glared at me. She opened her mouth to continue, but I beat her to the punch.
“Which is why you want to know why I did what I did?” She closed her mouth and nodded, her glare not receding in the slightest. “That’s why I wanted you here. To show you Instead of you wasting your time with an interrogation. It’s so much easier than me wasting my breath for hours talking to you, and here, I can create no lies. In here, I can simply show you my memories, and you will know that it is the truth. And because I’m part Changeling, I can use my empathic abilities to make you feel what I felt during these memories, these moments of my past. I’m going to show you, Lu-... Princess.. I’m going to show you my life, everything I’ve had to endure, the thing I’ve become. I’m going to show you why I tried to kill your sister.
You’re going to experience it all.
And when we’re done…. I’m going to finish what I started…
And your sister will die by my hoof.”
I didn’t even give her time to respond before the entirety of the void shifted, and the two of us were thrown into darkness.
My Life as a Hybrid By ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Edited by: Zaleros
Chapter 4: Foreign Soul
Quick warning to all: This chapter will periodically switch between a general third person perspective, and a first person perspective told from Shadow Flare's point of view. Just a heads up.
Silent Shade sat up so fast it jerked the whole bed, which only served to rouse Platinum. He slowly sat up and started rubbing his to wake up more. He looked at the special glow in the dark alarm clock they had and noticed it was only 1:26 in the morning. He turned to his wife prepared to ask why they were awake at this unholy hour only to see she was wide awake and looked to be terror stricken by something.
“Shade? Shade, what’s-“
“Shadow Flare…”
“Shadow Flare? Wha- SHADE!”
She jumped out of the bed and galloped out of their room, heading right for their son’s. “SHADE! What’s wrong?!” He leaped out of the bed as well and took to following her. By the time he made it to his son’s room, he found Silent Shade sitting on the floor with their son, Shadow Flare sitting right in front of her with his eyes only half open, and a blank look in them.
‘No… Not blank,’ thought Platinum, ‘those eyes look dead… but there’s that glow I saw in them before…’ “Shade, what’s going on?” Platinum walked up to his wife, and sat next to her, looking down at his son with worry. “What happened to him?”
“I-I…” She stopped, and nearly choked on her words. Tears began falling down her face. “I don’t know… I just felt it in my heart… It’s like… It’s like he just gave up the will to live; I don’t…” She stopped, took a deep breath to try to calm herself down. It has some success, but she was still terrified for him. “Shadow? Please say something… anything….”
“What is this?” I heard Princess Luna ask.
“It’s the memory of my second day here in this world.” We were getting a bird’s-eye view of the memory from above. The two of us floating directly above my parents and myself.
“…In this world?” She began. “Pray tell, what dost thou mean?”
“My soul wasn’t… I guess you could say born here. My soul, my mind… I’m from another world, Princess. Probably from another universe entirely.”
As we spoke, the memory continued playing. It was showing Shade still trying to get some kind of response from me, only for her to fail. My Father was sitting next to her with a wing around her back, doing everything he can to comfort her, but I could tell he was also thinking deeply about something.
“What happened to tho- you? How did you end up in this world?”
“I died in my own world. Somehow, my spirit ended up here. In this foal’s body. And it took control.”
Luna must have felt the sudden wave of sadness and regret I was feeling, because she turned towards me with a questioning look.
“Princess, this isn’t my body. It’s his. I took it from him. And I couldn’t handle that. I couldn’t handle everything that happened to me. I’d have been fine had it been my body to begin with; had his soul never been there. But as I slept on my first night, I heard his voice in my head. That’s when I realized that the body wasn’t mine. I had stolen it. And that’s when all the horror and trauma of the last 24 hours finally caught up to me. Dying a gruesome death, losing my family and friends, a new family waiting for me in a new world, only to discover that it’s not my family, and that I’ve stolen a newborn foal’s life from him… I couldn’t take it anymore, and my mind just shut down. I had lost the will to live. I had hoped that somehow, my soul would just extinguish itself, so that he would be able to live his life without interference from me. Sadly, that didn’t happen.” I sat down in the dreamscape and sighed, and looked back to the memory. Shade was hugging our seemingly lifeless body and crying, while Platinum was hugging the both of us. “I had often wondered why I hadn’t been traumatized by everything, but I later realized it was the magic in this world that had helped me to adapt to things easier. I’m not entirely sure if I’m happy about that or not though.”
“You would have sacrificed yourself-“
“OF COURSE I WOULD HAVE! I ALREADY HAD A LIFE OF MY OWN! BY ALL ACCOUNTS I SHOULDN’T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE! I WOULD HAVE GLADLY GIVEN MY LIFE FOR HIS!” Luna looked startled at my outburst. She could see the anger in my eyes, and the sorrow and grief behind them. Slowly, the anger petered out of my gaze, leaving only sadness and loneliness. “He was like a brother to me… I would have gladly given my life for his.”
Luna started acting cautious to avoid another outburst. She hadn’t just seen the emotions in my words, she outright felt them. She could tell my emotions weren’t stable. I think she could tell my emotions have never really been stable.
“What happened to the foal’s soul?”
I closed my eyes and nodded my head towards the memory. “Watch and find out.”
She turned back to the memory just in time to hear Platinum speak.
“Shade… I have an Idea… But you won’t like it.” She sniffed, but looked up at him. She looked into his eyes. He didn’t even have to say it, she saw what he meant as soon as she looked into them. “What? No.” She shook her head vehemently in protest. “No. No! I’m not going to create a hive mind with him! I promised myself I would never do that to him!” She turned away from him and back towards Shadow.
“We need him to wake up, Shade!” Platinum gripped her by her shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eye. “This may be the only way to figure out what’s wrong with him!”
“No! I won’t do that to him. He would lose his free will! I can’t!”
“You told me he would only lose a part of his free will not all of it.”
“That was before he was born! It’s different now!”
“How is it different?”
“Because he and I already have too strong of a connection as it is!” She looked rather angry at that, and Platinum backed off for a moment.
“What do you mean you already have too strong of a connection? I thought-“
“I thought so, too! But when he woke up in the forest, I could…” She stopped.
“What, Shade? What was it?” Platinum was worried now. Very worried.
“I could… I could hear a faint voice. At first, I thought it was just whispers of the forest. You know how we can hear them from time to time. But as we kept walking, the voice got a little louder, and louder still, so I got curious. I turned and looked back at him, and saw he was awake. I saw the curiosity in his eyes. But the more I looked at him, the stronger the voice I heard became. And that’s when I realized we were already connected by the hive mind in a small way as it was. I got scared. I had hoped that wouldn’t happen to him. If I solidify that connection now… he’ll lose his free will entirely.”
Platinum looked shocked at that. “Well… T-there must be something we can do! We can’t leave him like this!” Now Platinum was on the verge of panicking.
Shade looked down at her son. Aside from very small breaths, he was completely unmoving and unresponsive. She thought to herself, ‘There has to be some way to help him… but how? Wait! That’s it!’
She slowly set Shadow back on the ground before getting up and trotting out of the room. Platinum looked at her curiously.
“Shade? Where are you going?” She didn’t respond. He looked back down at his son and couldn’t help but frown. After a few moments, Silent Shade came back into the room with her eyes aglow, and 3 book floating behind her in her unique red and green magical aura. She sat back in front of Shadow and the three books floated in front of her, right above the foal.
She flipped through the books until she landed on specific pages. Platinum looked at her as she studied the books, before his curiosity got the better of him. “Okay, I give. What are you doing?”
She looked apprehensive at what she was about to say, like it was something she wasn’t supposed to be doing in the first place. But when she saw her husband's concerned face, she knew she couldn’t lie, or even keep this a secret from him. “I’ve been... dabbling in soul magic…”
“Even though the Princess has made that illegal. Why?”
Shade was honestly surprised. She expected him to shout at her for doing something that was made illegal due to soul magic’s rather volatile nature. Instead, he had calmly responded to her, and not even bothered judging her for it. She stuttered for a moment before she managed to respond. “Um… well, I had been studying it in case something like this happened. Well… not like this, but… it was in case Shadow needed us and we weren’t there for him. I had been developing a spell that would connect our souls to each other, so we’d always be there for each other, whether we were physically there or not. We’d be able to communicate and express ourselves through-“
“A family bond that would be nigh unbreakable. I knew I fell in love with you for a reason.” She couldn’t help but smile and blush at that. “But…”
She lost the smile and the blush in an instant. “But… the spell is still incomplete. If I use it now to try to figure out what’s wrong, it could have horrible side effects on us later. But I want to save our son. With luck, I’ll be able to complete the spell later, and I’ll be able to fix any damage. There’s also the chance the spell could go wrong or fail, and I could end up doing far more harm than good, I could-“ a silver claw covered her mouth shutting her up.
“Shade, do it.”
“What?” She looked up at him in shock. Despite the risks, he just told her to perform an incomplete spell and hope for the best?
“I trust you, and I have faith in our child.”
“Nice to know they had faith in me.”
Luna looked at me when I said that, but said nothing in response and kept viewing the memory.
Shade nodded at Platinum and turned back to the books. For the next ten minutes, she looked focused on them, and studied them, until finally… “Okay. I think I’m ready.” The books closed and stacked themselves next to her. She grabbed Shadow’s head, closed her eyes, and touched her forehead to his. After a few moments, she opened her eyes, which were glowing with powerful magic. One eye glowed red, while the other glowed green. Shadow’s eyes both began glowing as well, and once her magic hit peak power, there was a flash of light, and everything within the memory went dark.
“What happened?” asked Luna as the both of us looked around.
“Don’t know… To be honest, the memory should be continuing… I don’t know what- AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” I doubled over in pain clutching my stomach. It felt like there was a fire trying to burst out of me.
“Shadow!” Luna rushed over to me, to see what was wrong. Honestly, I’m surprised she still cares about me at all considering I tried to, you know, off her sis and everything, but I guess she still cares on some level. She didn’t get to me fast enough though. My body began glowing a bright white before it exploded into a nebula. Literally, my body exploded into a nebula of stars and galaxies. I don’t think Luna had ever seen anything like that though because she was dumbstruck at it. Honestly, I was too, but for a different reason. I could still feel myself even though my body was… well… exploded.
Yes, I said exploded, deal with it.
“That… hurt….”
“Shadow? Are you alright?”
“I think so-Whoa! Sweet. The stars all light up whenever I talk! This is actually pretty cool.”
“This is… so beautiful! We have never seen anything like it. Hmm…” Luna walked over to a random star and poked it. The effect was immediate.
“EEEEEE! PRINCESS! PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ELSE!”
“What’s wrong? Did that hurt?”
“No, you just touched me in a very, VERY private spot. And I would rather you not somehow manage to touch another one.”
“OH.” I’m pretty sure she got the message based on the blush I saw on her face. “F-forgive us. We did not- I mean, I did not-!”
“It’s okay, just… no touchy-touchy. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Her look turned pensive. “Though, I am curious. Are we not supposed to be viewing your memories? Why did this happen to you?”
“I Think… And I’m not entirely sure about this, but… I think this is my soul… which would mean that the memories are in my soul, and not my mind. That would be my best guess.”
“This is your soul? But why does it look like this? I’ve seen a pony’s soul before, and it looked nothing like this.” Luna looked around in amazement. I think she was astounded, and probably joyous by all the stars and the galaxies she could see.
“Well, it’s probably because down at my core, I never was a pony. Likely because I’m a-“
I was cut off as I watched a small foal run through the stars right at Luna.
The foal was Shadow Flare.
The real Shadow Flare.
Luna and I watched as he ran right past her into the hooves of Silent Shade, bawling his eyes out. We watched as he was blubbering out some nonsense that Shade wasn’t able to understand. She spoke to him, and he calmed down enough to speak full sentences. He pointed in the direction he came from, and Shade nodded. Shadow led Shade back the way they came. They waked maybe 6 hoof steps each before they disappeared.
Luna looked around, trying to spot them again. “Shadow? Where did they go?” I didn’t respond. I almost couldn’t. Luna spoke again. “Shadow?”
“I’m….. Remember… ing……..”
Luna looked visibly concerned at how weak my voice sounded there. “Shadow, art thou well?”
“I…. hnnng….”
Shade and Shadow suddenly reappeared. Shadow was cowering behind Shade while pointing at something. Shade and Luna both turned and gasped at the same time. What they saw was me. The real me. My human self. I was sitting against a wall in my soul, legs bent at the knees and my arms wrapped around them, my head laying in the crook of my left arm. Shade slowly and cautiously approached me. Or, the human me. I looked like a wreck. The black shirt and blue jeans I was wearing were torn so badly. The jeans themselves looked like they were barely holding themselves together, and the shirt was missing the entire left half. I guess it’s supposed to represent how I felt then. Torn away from everything that was important to me, and tearing away something that’s important to them.
Once Shade got close enough, we watched her say something to me. I don’t know if I said something back or not, but we saw shade say something again. This time, I lifted my head enough to see my eye and the tears flowing down that side of my face. My eyes had a dead look to them. So dead, that both Shade and Luna shivered when they saw it. Shade said something again, and this time I saw my jaw moving, so I know I replied with something. Shade gasped and put a hoof to her mouth. Whatever I said must have stirred something in Shadow Flare, because he slowly stepped out from behind Shade and approached me. He asked something. I responded to it. He walked up to me and leaned u on his hind hooves, placing his right forehoof on my knee. He said something else, and my entire body jerked when my head snapped upwards. There was pure shock in my eyes, and I watched as I stuttered something. Shadow moved up on the very tips of his hind hooves and hugged me as best as he could. Then he said something in my ear. I don’t know what it was, but for a few moments I was frozen stock still.
Shade walked up to the both of us smiling, and said something to me as well, before she hugged the both of us. I don’t know what she said, but it must have been what broke the dam, because I broke down and hugged them both, crying harder than I ever had in either life. Shade looked up, and for the first time since this soul memory started, Luna and I heard something.
We heard her whisper, “Please… let this work…” then her eyes began glowing, before she closed them. Then her body began to glow, followed by Shadow’s and my own. There was a blinding flash, ad the images faded. Suddenly, the nebula that was me collapsed in on itself, and in another flash of light, I was reformed in my hybrid body, but in my hybrid form instead of my pony form. Looking almost identical to my foal body, the only differences were the fangs being larger, and the fact that my wings were larger, and though they looked exactly like a dragons wings, they were made entirely out of the same membrane of a changelings, just colored a dark grey.
Neither Luna nor I had a chance to say anything before the regular memories came back.
Platinum was holding both Shadow and Shade in his arms. She jerked awake, apparently the spell having taken her out of her own body. She immediately looked down at her son. He slowly opened his eyes to see that it wasn’t just Shadow in those eyes.
It was both Shadow and the other creature’s soul. There were two colored eyes. One green, and one blue. She spoke softly, “Can you hear me?”
The foal looked up at her. “Yes… We can…” There was a dual tone to the foal’s voice. She knew what it meant, but Platinum couldn’t understand the sudden change He also couldn’t understand how he was now speaking perfectly, instead of it sounding somewhat foolish like a few hours ago. When he spoke again, there was only one tone to the voice. “Thank you, Shade…”
Shade smiled down at him. “Don’t call me Shade, little one. Call me Mom.”
The foal’s eyes widened again. Before he let out a long yawn, and closed his eyes. He spoke again. “Okay…” Then the two tones came back. “Goodnight… Mom….”
She smiled wider as the foal went to sleep. She managed to gather enough strength to move forward and kiss the foal on his forehead before she collapsed in Platinum’s arms unconscious. The Spell had taken a toll on her, and it was even harder to cast on the foal because of his resistance to magic. Platinum looked down at the sleeping creatures in his arm before he lifted them up carefully, and took them to his shared room with his wife. He laid them both down, climbed in after them, so that the foal was in between the two of them. He wrapped his wings around them both and fell asleep next to them. The memory faded to black.
Luna turned back to look at me, but gasped when she saw how utterly exhausted I looked. She quickly moved to my side so help me stay up and steady.
“Princess... I…. I feel… tired…..” Luna had to catche me when I fell over. She slowly laid me down on my back as my eyes were drifting closed.
“Your mind is tired. Rest now, Shadow. We shall speak more tomorrow.”
As my eyes drifted closed, I managed to get out a few more words before my mind shut down completely. “Can I… go back to… calling you Luna?” I didn’t get to hear the response before everything went dark.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had such a splitting headache when I realized I was conscious again. First words out of my mouth?
“Oooooooooooh, fuck, that hurts like hell!”
“Shadow! You’re awake!”
Oh, Luna! Why did you have to yell! My head!
I slowly opened an eye to see Bones standing above me. I could feel the worry coming off of him. “Are you okay?!”
“Oh, Please, stop yelling! Headache!”
“Opps, sorry… but seriously, are you alright?”
“I feel like I got bashed in the head by a freakin’ boulder… two hundred times…. Aaahhh!” Fuck, that is painful. “Do you have a hangover spell? Or a painkiller spell? Something? Oooohhhh…”
I felt pity coming off of him. Pity? “Sorry, Shadow. When we combined our magic, it completely drained me. You’re on your own for now.”
“Well, fuck me!” And f**k my resistance to magic! You’re as helpful as you are hurtful!
We both heard the doors to the dungeon open, followed by the unmistakable sound of metal on cobblestone. “Sorry,” Bones whispered. “Going incognito. Don’t want them thinking I’m a zombie or something.”
I couldn’t help myself, despite the pain. “Aren’t you though?” A light tap on my head served to increase the pain I was already going through. Dick.
Bones quickly retreated to the corner I first found him in, and right after, he literally fell to pieces. The hoof steps were now right at the cell bars. I heard them slam open, creating a rather loud echo and further aggravating my headache. Then, one of the two guards that had to be there decided to say in his normally stoic, but loud as f**k voice, “Princess Luna demands your presence.”
“Oh, creator! Please, not so loud! I have such a headache right now!”
Of course, the guards basically said ‘f**k you’ when they picked me up by my front hooves and began dragging me out since it was obvious I wasn’t walking anywhere. The constant bumps from the uneven ground, once again, served to further increase my ongoing agony. I couldn’t help but mutter under my breath.
“Stubbern…stoic…stupid…jackasses…” I felt a shiver down my spine at the last comment, and looked up. Sure enough, there he was.
The same donkey ghost guy from before. This time, he had a piece of straw in his mouth he was chewing on like one would a toothpick. Remembering the last encounter, I quickly said “No offence.”
And just like last time, he responded, “Nnnnnoooooooooooooooooone taken.”
Both of the guards stopped moving, and turned to look behind them. The donkey had disappeared. The looked back at each other, shrugged, and kept walking. One of the guards broke his stoic nature and said out loud:
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01
Chapter 5: Anger Issues
*Muffled comments, struggling*
*BANG!*
*SLAM*
“OH, SHIT!”
*Thud*
“Uuuuuuhhhhhgh….. Fuck me sideways….. uuugh…”
“Watch your tongue in the presence of the Princess.”
“Fuck you up the ass!”
“Last warning, prisoner. Watch your-“
“And fuck you up the pisser! You’re both jackasses! No offence! And your gas masks look absolutely friggin' ridiculous, but they look better than your faces!”
“*SNORT* That’s it, you little-“
“THAT IS ENOUGH! ALL OF YOU CEASE THIS FOOLISHNESS!”
“OH-HO-HO-HO GOD! MY EARS! WHYYYY?!?!”
That was the scene moments ago when the guards who dragged me through the entire castle all the way from the dungeons slammed open the throne room doors and just tossed me in. Still suffering from the incredible headache, migraine, and general head pains, my landing was rather upsetting to me. My mood was already bad when every time we had to go up a stairway, they’d somehow make sure I’d hit my head on at least five of the steps. Then they threw me in the throne room, further aggravating my brain pain.
Needless to say, I was a little pissed off.
And then, Luna happened. So, now, I can’t even hear anything, and when combining that with me headache and magical exhaustion just made me feel like utter shit.
So now, I was pretty much beyond pissed off, and honestly…
That’s not good for anyone in this room right now, myself included.
I had my eyes scrunched closed and my teeth clenched due to the agony I was experiencing. Both of my hooves were cradling my head as I laid there on my back. I was taking deep breaths to try to keep myself calm. Without my bands, losing my temper now was a very bad thing, so I did everything I could to stay calm. The constant throbbing in my head wasn’t helping though. It was probably making things worse.
I couldn’t hear anything, and with my eyes closed as they were, I didn’t know if anything was going on around me. I doubt I could’ve focused on anything even if I could. The pain wouldn’t stop, and it was aggravating me more, despite my attempts to keep calm. When I felt as though I was about to snap, the pain started to just… disappear. As if it weren’t even there to begin with. As my full mental faculties were coming back to me, I only had one thought in mind.
Hangover cure spells! Best damn spells ever created!
As my emotions were getting back under control and my headache down to a mere throb, I opened an eye only to find the emotionless face of the night princess above me, her horn glowing with a rather high level of magical output. Makes sense considering my resistance to magic. After a few more silent moments, I realized my hearing was back as well. When Luna’s horn stopped glowing, she let out a breath I didn’t know she was holding in, and she turned away to face the guards. I took my time to sit up, and before Luna could even get one word out about their lackluster conduct, I spoke first.
“So, I just want everyone to know, you two suck,” I said, pointing at the two guards that brought me here whom snorted in response, “and there’s no need to treat a prisoner who’s already in pain like you two did.”
Luna turned towards me and asked, “What exactly did they do?”
I was tempted to use profanity in my explanation, but I didn’t like to do that when talking to any of the main six or Luna, so I decided to hold off on my ranting… for a while at least. “Basically, with me in no condition to move, your awesome solar guards here decided to drag me out of my cell- by my hindlegs, mind you- making sure to go over every large bump down in the dungeons to jostle me and aggravate my pain. Then with every flight of stairs we went up or down they managed to hit my head on one at least five times per flight.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but my mood had slowly been growing worse as I continued talking, and a faint sizzling sound could be heard in the air. “After that, I tried to tell them to let me up so I could walk at my own pace. I told them they could even push me to go faster. Anything was better than letting my head get his more. But no. They wouldn’t have that. They just ignored me and kept dragging me. So I got fed up with that.” There was a ‘fwoomph’ sound, and I heard several gasps from behind me, but I ignored it completely. “I tried to get them to let me go, but they were stubborn, and we ended up in a struggle, before they stopped, bucked the doors open, and threw me in here.” I hadn’t even realized I was standing, or was slowly walking towards the guards as I continued, or that they were backing away from me. I didn’t notice how heavy the tension in the room was, or how hot it had suddenly gotten in there. I only stopped when a hoof landed on my shoulder. I turned my gaze over and looked into the eyes of… Rainbow Dash?
Huzzuwhat?
I finally noticed that my mane and tail had caught fire, and the flames were flicking about rather uncontrollably. I looked down at my hooves only to see they were also on fire, and the cuffs that were restricting hat little magic I had left in me had completely melted off. I looked at my back to notice that the ropes they had tied around my wings had become nothing more than ash on the ground as my wings were also ablaze. I’d wager my eyes were probably faintly glowing red at this point too. I took a deep breath, held it in for about fifteen seconds, and then slowly let it out. The flames surrounding my body had died out as my attitude mellowed out.
I nodded at Dash, who removed her hoof and took a step back, but otherwise stayed next to me. I knew why. If I tried to bolt, she’d be the only one who could catch me. It was then I noticed that she had several bandages around each of her legs and her torso, and I almost immediately felt horrible for that. Those were no doubt from the burns I gave her in my uncontrollable fury. I tried to shake off those feelings so I could focus more on the matter at hand.
I then turned towards the two guards who actually looked like they were trembling a little. Regular guards don’t do that, so I figured they were probably new recruits who haven’t actually seen any action. I just sighed at them. Before sitting down on my haunches.
“Go find some heavy duty magic restraining cuffs like before, but strong enough ones that would hold back Twilight Sparkle’s magic. Get a metal binding for my wings too. Normal ones won’t cut it with me.” I could feel a burst of varying levels of surprise from at least ten different creatures in the room, but it felt like more than that. The two guards looked at Luna, who nodded, before they saluted turned about face, and walked off to go find some.
When they were out of sight, I turned back to look at Dash and Luna, only to find what both was and wasn’t surprising. I figured that if dash was here, the others probably would be as well. I was right. Standing on the other side of the throne room stood Pinkie pie, who had one of her more docile smiles on her face. There was Rarity, who was looking at me with a critical eye for some reason. Applejack was next to her, who was glaring at me with anger in those eyes, most likely at the fact that I had lied to her before. I’d have to apologies to her first. Fluttershy was huddled up behind Applejack, but she was peeking her head out at me, the eye not covered by her mane looking at me in pity and sadness.
Ever since we first met, I’ve made it a point to try to avoid her. I didn’t do it because of her being shy, or not liking her, but because she saw right through my mask and identified me for what I was. And since then, I’ve been avoiding her like the plague.
Then there were three ponies who were all glaring at me for various reasons.
There was Shining Armor, who glared at me most likely for beating down half of his royal guard before I could be stopped, himself included. That or for attacking a princess. He was covered in a lot of small bandages here and there from burn marks and his coat still looked a little singed. Both of his forhooves and his body were wrapped up in bandages from the burns he suffered from.
Then there was Cadence. Pretty sure she wants to just burn me to a crisp with the way she’s glaring at me. Then I noticed her look over towards her left. Then she looked back at me and gave me a malicious looking grin. That had confused me, so I looked over to the left… Only to find Rarity looking at me with that sparkle in her eye.
Hell. To. The. NO!
I looked back at Cadence, who had that mischievous twinkle in her eye. I shook my head. She nodded hers. I sighed, realizing I had no way out of that one. I owed her for it. I nodded, and heard Rarity squeal in delight before she let out a dainty little cough and adjusted the curls in her mane.
I’m going to regret that so much…
I looked back up to see Cadence whispering in Shining’s ear, shortly before he blushed, then turned to me with a smirk on his face.
Much, much regret there will be.
Then I turned towards the last glare and… Well shit. I managed to piss off the one pony I didn’t actually want to piss off due to her mental instability.
Twilight Sparkle.
Attacking Canterlot, great way to get on her bad side.
Attacking her brother or her friends, instant way to be marked an enemy.
Attacking her mentor and basically her second mother figure, excellent way to piss her off and make her want to kill you.
And guess who managed to do all three? That’s right: this guy!
Despite the fact that she was glowering at me with most all of the hate she could muster, I could also see immense levels of curiosity behind her gaze. She obviously wanted to know something, but what, I didn’t know. I decided to put that aside for the moment and continue looking at the rooms occupants. Besides all of them, there was no one else in the throne room aside from eight Solar guards, and to my surprise, only four Lunar Guards. Not gonna lie, they look badass. I looked back towards Luna and Dash who was still next to me. “So, what are they doing here? I thought you were going to be the one to interrogate me?”
“At first, that was the decision we had all agreed upon. However, after showing them what you showed to me in the previous night-“
“YOU SHOWED THEM?!”
I had jumped upright and looked at her in shock. I was hoping she’d keep all of that a secret, mostly because I myself hadn’t even remembered it, and not to mention the fact that she now knows I’m technically an alien. I hadn’t wanted them to know about that. And she knew I didn’t, based on the look in her eye.
“Indeed. Normally, I would have kept it a secret from them, due to the circumstance of your arrival here and your attack on my sister that I was forced to. After showing them, they were adamant about being there to learn the whole story.” I once again slumped down onto my haunches, my anger having returned, but I quickly stomped that back down. I let out a heavy sigh. “Fine, then. But if they’re going to hear my story, then we’re doing this my way. Princess, put us to sleep.”
“Very well then.” Her horn began glowing moments later, and the glow started glowing brighter and brighter. She turned towards the guards in the room. “Make sure we are not disturbed by anyone unless there is news of my sister.” They nodded Se then turned back towards all of us and lifted her head high. Her eyes took on a powerful glow to them, and then there was a flash. And then beams of dark blue magic shot out of her horn at each of the element bearers, Cadence, Shining and myself. The moment it hit me, I had time to feel my body hit the ground before I was out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I opened my eyes to see I was lying on my back in the void again. I looked around only to see the Princess staring at me. I sat up, noting that there was no one else present. I looked back at Luna and asked, “Where is everyone else?”
“They shall be here shortly. I am connecting their minds to your dream.”
The first one to appear was, ironically enough, Pinkie Pie. She appeared out of nowhere, just standing at first, but then she opened her blue eyes, and looked around. “Oooooooh! Look at all the squggly wiggly colors! Hey, this reminds me of Dashie’s Mane!”
I couldn’t help the facehoof. “Eh. Don’t remind me.” Then I added under my breath, “Friggin rainbow colored…”
“Well, this certainly is interesting.” And there’s the fashionista. “The colors all blend together so perfectly! Why, I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“I know! Isn’t it super-duper fantastic!”
“Whoa, nelley! Pinkie ain’t jokin’. This does look mighty amazin’!” The apple farmer.
I actually looked around this time. I could understand why they liked this place, I mean, it may be rainbow colored, but the entirety of my void’s landscape looks like the aurora borealis, honestly. I’ll admit, that’s probably about the only part about the void I happen to like. As more and more ponies showed up and commented on the apparent awesome what was my void,
I couldn’t help but let out a sad smile. Despite what I’ve done, I really have come to care for these ponies, and I consider them my friends, even though they likely don’t consider me the same after everything I’ve done. I was surprised when I felt a hoof on my shoulder, and I turned to see Fluttershy of all ponies standing next to me. But she wasn’t looking at me with the normal sadness and pity I know she has for me. She was looking at me with determination and conviction, and I could hear it in the words she spoke.
“That’s not true. And even if the others don’t like you, you’ll always be my friend. You may make some bad choices, but that doesn’t make you a bad pony.”
“She’s right, big guy.” I turned to my left as Dash put a hoof on my other shoulder, looking at me with that same cocky smile she always has. “So what if you attacked the Princess. You’re still a pretty cool pony in my books! Besides, I know you better than you think, and so does Luna. I know there was no way you would’ve done something so uncool without a really good reason. So we’re gonna get to the bottom of it, and we’re gonna be by your side every step of the way!”
“I… But why?” I didn’t even bother to question how they knew what I was thinking. I figured Luna had something to do with it. Or maybe it was the spirits of the elements or something. I dunno, I’m just gonna go with magic. “How can you still like me after what I’ve done?”
“It’s Like Fluttershy said, silly! You made some bad choices, but you’re not a bad pony! After all, you can’t be a bad pony if you like cupcakes!” Pinkie then proceeded to pull a cupcake out of nowhere. Said cupcake vanished less than 2 seconds after she brought out. Everyone looked at me in shock as the wrapper to the cupcake was sticking out of my mouth, impaled on one of my fangs.
Mental image or not, Pinkies cupcakes are to die for.
That thought brought a massive smile to the pink pony’s face. “SEE! I told you”
“I think that’s enough girls. It’s time we got to the bottom of this. So start talking, Shadow Flare, if that’s even your real name.” Twilight’s first words since seeing me. She trotted right up to me, and likely would’ve gotten right up into my face had Rainbow not stepped between us. “What are you doing, Rainbow Dash? Move.”
“You need to calm down, Twilight. You’ve been like this since the attack.”
“I am calm.”
“Twiley.”
Twilight looked to her left to see Shining standing next to her. He put a hoof (which was unbandaged by the way; guess everyone is whole in the dream realm) on her shoulder and began to lead her away from us. “That’s enough little sis. We’re going to find out why he did this. That’s why we’re here.” Even as he led her away, Twilight didn’t stop glaring at me. I couldn’t help but think it strange that Twilight seems to hate me more than Luna does. Twilight snorted at the end of that thought. Luna, on the other hand, approached me.
“I do not hate you, Shadow Flare. I am disappointed in you, and I am angry at you, but I do not hate you. I simply wish to understand why you did what you did.”
“And Twilight?”
Everyone looked away at that. I don’t think anyone actually knew if she really hated me or not.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. Even if you understand, I’ll still end up in the dungeon for an undisclosed amount of time simply because I assaulted a princess. I’m just going to start going back through my memories now. The sooner we get this over with the sooner I can rot.” My response was met with a light hit to the back of my head.
“Stop being so negative.” I turned back to dash who was still smiling. “Come on, I wanna see what happens next.”
“Well, I’m not going to show what happened the next day, only the important memories that led up to the attack. I’ll just explain what happened.” I took a moment to get my thoughts in order, before I sucked in a deep breath. “Ok, here’s what’s up. The Spell my mom, Silent Shade, used was designed to connect souls on their base fundamental level. I was designed to work in a similar function like that of the Hive Mind for various changeling swarms, but without the lesser changeling’s will being subjected to that of a higher ranking one. The spell was incomplete, however, and as a result, if partially fused my soul with that of Shadow Flare’s. The spell was a success however, in that it also connected the both of us to mom. While we were now two souls made one, we were still our own individual beings.”
I started walking around the void as I was talking, everyone kept their eyes on me as I did so. “Anyway, the day, well, actually, the week after she cast the spell, I finally woke back up. After making sure I was alright, we decided to see if the spell had any negative side effects. We kept me tested every year, to make sure the souls were stable. They held out, for a time. But on the day I awoke, we decided to explain things. My Father explained the so called Prophesy that his father spoke to him about. I don’t quite remember all of the details but, it was apparently supposed to be about some kind of creature that would work to unite the species of the world under true harmony. The creature would be born knowing of the world at large as it was, of all the different lands within and would eventually grow to guide others to peace. Frankly, at the time, I was dealing with far too many things to be too concerned about it, but honestly, I highly doubt it was about me. Sure, when I arrived, I knew about Equestria, but that’s all I knew about. I didn’t know how many cities there were, any special locations or any of that stuff. In point of fact, I didn’t even know where Ponyville or Canterlot were in contrast to my own home. So I wouldn’t consider myself all that knowledgeable about it.”
I let out a breath and took in another about to speak again, but Twilight took my momentary pause to start questioning me.
“How did you know about Equestria in the first place if your soul isn’t even from this universe?”
I was a little miffed she interrupted me, but I honestly don’t think I cared all that much. “I’ll tell you later. Anyway-“
“You’ll tell me, now!” Everypony in attendance turned towards Twilight in mild shock. I however turned towards her in annoyance now. Everyone noticed that the void shifted from its raibow colors towards a maroon red.
“Listen here, Sparks,” She looked pissed when I called her that. “How I knew about Equestria serves no importance in this interrogation, and as a result, is useless information to know. And before you get any ideas, Luna may be the Princess of the Night, and the ruler of dreams, but this is my mind and she herself will find she doesn’t have much power here. If you interrupt me again you will lose your speaking privaalges and your horn. And just to prove my point…”
The void shifted suddenly, and Twilight was suddenly on her with her hooves hogtied. With an apple in her mouth. Everyone looked shocked at that. She started struggling to get loose, and was about to use her magic to get free. The moment her horn started glowing, the void shifted again, and she discovered that she suddenly lacked magic here. Her eyes went wide, and she started panicking. Then the void shifted one last time and she was back on her hooves with her magic intact. As she checked herself over to make sure she was alright, I snorted loudly to get their attention.
“This is MY world, Twilight, and while I and doing my best to make you understand, I am only covering the important points, here. The things you need to know. So do not question me unless it has to do with the direct subject at hand, not trivial knowledge. I will explain more to you when we are done here, no sooner, and no later. Am I understood?”
Twilight just glared at me, not saying anything. The void shifted, and she suddenly found herself about an inch tall, and looking up at me, who at this point, seemed like a raging giant.
“AM… I… UNDERSTOOD?”
She squeaked, and I assumed she got the message. The void shifted, and everything was back to normal, with the exception that everyone was now sitting in a circle around me. I took a deep breath to calm down as the void shifted back to its normal raibow coloration. Having calmed myself down, I began speaking again. “Good.” I took a moment to recollect my thoughts and pick up where I left off. "Now then, as I was saying…
“After my pops explained the prophesy to me, I explained to them everything about me. Not my race mind you, but just me. Where I came from, what my life was like… how I died… the family and friends I left behind. I explained to them everything, and they were patient with me. I probably broke down several times explaining it to them. Normally, I don’t think I would’ve. Back in my old life, I was pretty desensitized towards most things. I think it’s the magic of this world that forced my emotions to the surface. But they accepted me for who I was. But the one who always brought a smile to my face was Shadow Flare. I always loved playing with the little ones back in my old life, and Shadow was like the little brother I always wanted but never had. The two of us were inseparable- figuratively and literally. We became really close.
“A side effect of the spell our mom used connected us to her in a way I wouldn’t have imagined. She was able to read our minds- our soul’s minds mind you, and we were all able to communicate that way. She ended up finalizing the spell at some point, and managed to connect dad to us as well, so we were all able to stay in constant contact with each other no matter how far we were. That ended up coming in handy more than once. We could also cut our connection whenever we wanted privacy, too, so we never had to deal with that. Shadow and I despite being one soul now, could also communicate the same way, and we could cut our thoughts off from each other just the same.
"For the first year, things were all going well. We lived close by a town, so we were actually seen quite a lot. To my surprise, the town was actually filled with all kinds of inhabitants, from pony’s to griffons to minotaur’s, naga, a few hippogriffs here or there, even some changelings. So seeing my mom, dad, and their hybrid child around town wasn’t really a problem.”
“Hold up, partner.” I turned to look at Applejack. She had a questioning look on her face. “You said hybrid, but up till now, we ain’t never seen what you really look like.” The other’s nodded at her. I chuckled in response.
“Technically speaking, yes you have. This is what I really look like, Applejack. At least, in my pony form. See, I’m half Dragon, one quarter Changeling, and one quarter pony. Despite my draconian heritage being dominant, I can only transform between the form you see before you, my pegasus form, and my complete hybrid form. So this is technically what I really look like as a pony. But, to sate your curiosity, I will show you what my hybrid form looks like.” I paused and concentrated but for a mere moment, and flames enveloped my body. My Black fur gave way to black chitin, my larger than average feathered wings became dragon shaped wings made entirely of the same membrane that a normal changelings wings are made of, only a dark grey in color. Scales lined my body in stripes across my face, back, and legs. Each leg had exactly 3 holes in them. My eyes became narrower, and my slit pupils shrank a little to where it almost looked like I didn’t even have any. My fangs grew larger, and my regular flat teeth transformed into dragon teeth. My tongue became lizard-like in appearance as well. My mane and tail are the only two things that had no physical change to them, but all in all, I looked much scarier now than I did as a pony. Pretty sure the girls agreed, as everyone except for Luna, Dash and Shining took a few steps back, despite the fact that Shy has seen me like this before. “Yup, saw that coming. Only one’s here who’ve actually seen me like this before were Dash, Shy and Princess Luna.”
Everypony, sans Luna, immediately turned their heads towards Dash and Shy, the latter of whom ducked away under the sudden attention. “What? Hey, we made a Pinkie Promise not to tell you.”
“But why keep this a secret?” asked Shining.
“Look at how they reacted as soon as I changed. Can you honestly tell me regular ponies wouldn’t have acted the same? Not to mention I didn’t meet any of you till after the wedding, and tensions with changelings were rather high. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you had managed to get me arrested and imprisoned had you found out. And aside from Pinkie and Fluttershy, how many of you can honestly say you wouldn’t have tried to get me arrested, or wouldn’t have attacked me when you saw what I was?” Nopony raised their hooves, and they all turned away. “See? Now, I don’t want to make you feel, bad about it, but that’s why I had dash keep it a secret.”
“Well, how’d they find out anywho?” Asked AJ.
I simply sighed and turned away. "For the time being, i'm going to keep that to myself. When I think about it, it makes me feel... so weak inside." I turned back to face them. " I'll more than likely tell you all later, just... not now." They all nodded their acceptance of this before Luna spoke.
“Can we get back on track? I would like to get to the bottom of this sometime soon.” She looked a little impatient. I could understand that though.
“Sure, Princess. Anyway, where was I?”
“OOH! OOH! I know! I know! Pick me!” I couldn’t help but chuckle at the bouncing pink mare. Honetly I’m surprised she’s been quiet this long. “Hey! I don’t talk all the time!” nine pairs of eyes turned and looked at her. “Just most of the time.” I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud. Pinkie always makes me smile.
“Go ahead Pinkie. Refresh my memory.”
“ YAY! Okay, you were at the part where you were telling us about where you headed into town and met all sorts of different creatures, like ponies, changeling, griffons, hippogriffs-“
“Okay, thanks Pinks. I got it from here.”
“Okie Dokie Loki!” She then proceeded to pull out a bag of popcorn and started munching on it, before turning towards Rarity and saying, “This is getting gooooood.” Rarity simply rolled her eyes and looked back at me before nodding. I nodded back.
“So, like I said, seeing a freaky hybrid like me didn’t really shock the inhabitants of the town that much. In fact, they were rather happy to see something new. Everyone happened to take a liking to me. I didn’t particularly like it at the time because they treated me like a baby, despite the fact that I was on the same level of intelligence as them. But I endured it because Shadow Flare was, at the time, a foal. Despite his above average level of intelligence at that age, he was still a child. So, I enjoyed it for his sake.”
“Wait, you say you enjoyed it for his sake.” Rarity spoke this time. “Weren’t you both in control?”
“At times, yes, we’d both be in control. At other times, only one of us would be in full control. Our body sometime's had trouble recognizing which soul the body belonged to. Because of that, our control would randomly switch back, forth, and in between. It took a while to get used to the sudden random shifts. Over time, we managed to get control of that though, and before our first birthday to boot!” She nodded, deciding to wait patiently for me to get to that part of the tale. “But yeah, it was pretty fun. All was good for a time. Until I came to our first birthday.”
Everyone took note of the fact that the void suddenly became dark. “Okay, this is where we’re going to dive into the memory of that day. This might make you a bit dizzy, so brace yourselves.” Everypony hunkered down, and shortly after, it was like we were all pulled through an incredibly tight tunnel. I looked forward, and saw a light at the end of the tunnel. We shot towards it, and there was a flash of light. When I opened my eyes, I immediately looked around. We were in some kind of a bakery, not all that different from Sugarcube Corner. There was a party going on in full swing, foals running around playing with each other. I looked around and spotted myself/Shadow speaking with a few colts and fillies who were older than me by several years, but we were also playing with foals around our age.
I heard several groans, and looked towards my left. The ponies were all getting reoriented, with the exception of Luna, who was also taking in the surroundings of my memory. “A little jarring, isn’t it? Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it the second time around.”
“Ugh, where are we?” Asked Cadence. “Or better yet, when are we?”
“This is my first birthday party.”
“BIRTHDAY PARTY?! WHOOHOO! Pinkie lunged forward at the snack bar. It was hilarious watching her fly right through it. “Hey, what gives?”
I was chuckling with my response. “It’s a memory Pinkie, none of this is real. It’s all in my head.”
“Awww, phooey! Those cupcakes look so good!”
“If it makes you feel any better, they were delicious, though not as good as yours.”
That made her beam. It’s nice to make Pinkie smile.
“But despite the festivities going on, this is actually one of my most depressing memories.”
The others looked at me, and Fluttershy is the one who spoke next. “Why would this be depressing?” I looked on at the memory with sadness in my gaze. “Watch and see.”
As the festivities continued, Shadow Flare ran over the next game they wanted to play: Pin the Tail on the Pony. Right before they got there, A voice called out. “Alright, everyone, time to sing Happy Birthday to the birthday colt!” The foal swung their head around, and smiled upon seeing the rather large cake being set on the main table. They rushed over and all but jumped in the seat, their wings flapping to give them a little boost. As they Silent Shade scooted them in, they looked at their b-day cake with drool sliding down their muzzle. They wiped it off hastily as the other’s all gathered around them. Platinum Blaze took the time to try to get the ponies quiet so they could sing the song.
During the quick lull in activity, Cadence took notice of something. “Your eyes…”
We all turned to look at her. “You have two different colored eyes.”
“Oh, that. That’s how you can tell when we were both in control. The left eye would be blue, that color representing Shadow, while the right one would be green, which represented me. Otherwise, they’d both be either green or blue most all of the time.”
We all turned back just as the singing began.
“Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear Shadow Flare! Happy Birthday to you!”
“Yaaay!”
“Happy Birthday, Shadow!”
“Go on, blow out the candle!”
“Make a wish!”
“You can do it!”
The foal looked around at tall the creatures encouraging them, before they turned back to the cake with a single candle. It was glowing as brightly as their happiness in that moment. They took a moment to close their eyes, sucked in a deep breath and…
*FWOOSH*
…melted the top half of the candle with a sudden burst of red and green fire. The candle, was surprisingly, still lit. A blush encompassed their face. “Hehe, whoops.” He sucked in a much lighter breath, and blew out again. The light of the candle flickered out, and everyone cheered. The ponies viewing the memory suddenly heard voices in the air, one sounding much like Shadow, but the other sounding much older.
<What did you wish for, Shad?>
<I wished that one day, we’d grow up big and strong and we’d be able to take on all the bad guys! That way we’d be able to protect the world!>
<*chuckles* Well, I hope it comes true. I’ll do my best to make sure it happens. No, we’ll do our best!>
<Yeah! What did you wish for on your first Re-Birthday, Rad?>
<Me? Well… I wished that one day, I’d get to see my other family again, just to make sure they’re doing alright without me.>
<Aww, Don’t be sad! I’m sure they’re doing just fine! They might miss you, but they’re probably hoping you’re doing your job!>
<Oh? And what job is that exactly?>
<To keep smiling and being happy, and making sure we’re happy too! Now enjoy the cake!>
<*laughter* Alright, alright, fine, I’ll eat the cake. I always did have a serious sweet tooth!>
<Alright you two, just make sure you don’t eat too many sweets, wouldn’t want you getting sick now, would we?>
<Don’t worry mommy, I’ll make sure Rad doesn’t eat too much!>
<Hey!>
The watched as the foal started eating their first slice of cake. They all suddenly felt their moods shift to happiness, joy, melancholy… and sadness… They all turned to look at me, while I was watching the memory with a sad smile on my face. Fluttershy got up and trotted next to me. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s just…” I sniffed, and wiped at my eyes a little. “I just got something I my eye is all.”
She simply smiles a knowing smile at me, and sat next to me, placing a wing around my back. The gesture was greatly appreciated.
The party continued in full swing. Seeing as how all the children were having the time of their lives, the adults decided to step out the back door to talk. This left all the foals alone in the house, though there were some who were old enough to watch out for others to make sure they wouldn’t be trouble. Unfortunately, that didn’t account for the three new colts that walked in through the front door. One was a red earth pony with blue eyes and a black mane. The second was a red Pegasus with a blonde mane and green eyes, and the last one was a red unicorn with an orange mane and brown eyes. They looked around, and spoke a few words to each other, before grinning evilly and trotting off in different directions.
Everypony suddenly noticed that their moods shifted to anger, and quickly looked at me again. Fluttershy was about to ask what was wrong, but I simply held up a hoof to silence her, as I kept my eyes trained on the three new colts. “Just watch. This is why this memory is important.”
The three newcomers almost instantly started crashing the party. They began calling foals names, and pushing them over, making them cry, knocking snacks and treats out of their grasps, and just making things miserable for everyone. Shadow Flare took note, and almost immediately rushed to try to stop them.
“Hey! Knock it off! Leave them alone!”
“Yeah! Leave them alone you Meanie Mc Meanie Pants!”
The red unicorn noticed him, and intercepted him. “Heh, and what are you gonna do if we don’t, freak? Go cry to your mommy? Yo, bro’s! Looks like we got some kinda freaky hero over here!” The other two colts looked over, and after pushing over a foal knocking another treat out of another’s, the other two colts walked up to the unicorn. Shadow’s Left eye became slightly green when he next spoke.
“I’m warning you, leave us all alone and go away.”
“And if we refuse?”
Shadow didn’t even get time to respond before he felt he felt a pair of hooves wrap around his arms and jerk them above his head in a full nelson. He immediately started kicking out his hind hooves and flapping his wings trying to break free, but the other colt’s grip was too strong. “Heh, I got him big bro!”
“Alright then. Let’s show this freak of nature what happens to heroes. The unicorn and the earth pony started approaching, and the foal started panicking.
<Shadow! Quick! Give me full control!>
<Okay, take it!>
The foal’s eyes suddenly went completely green, and he stopped struggling against the Pegasus that was holding him. The earth pony turned around, and got ready to buck Shadow, but then shadow, suddenly jerked his hind hooves up as high as he could, before yanking them down. The Pegasus didn’t expect this, and was jerked forward enough to the point where Shadow’s hooves touched back on the ground. Keeping his momentum moving, he used all the strength his tiny body could muster and he heaved his body forward, just as the earth pony colt bucked his hooves. Shadow managed to duck down far enough so that instead of the earth pony hitting him, he hit his Pegasus right in the snout. He fell off Shadow’s back clutching his snout, which had a drop of blood roll down it.
“Whao! Go, Shadow!”
Shadow wasted no time, the moment he was free, he jumped towards the earth pony and bit him right on his flank. While normally, that would be regularly painful became excruciatingly so when you add in shadow’s fangs. The earth pony whinnied in pain as he ran away, trying to shake Shadow off of him who had a fierce grip on the colt’s flank. The earth pony managed turned his head to look behind him at Shadow, but because of this, he lost sight of where he was running and crashed head first into a wall. Shadow released the colt’s flank, noticing that there were drops of blood on the colt’s flank and his teeth.
“Yee haw! Ride em’ Cowpony! Serves him right!"
He then got a wicked idea, and turned to face the unicorn and started walking towards him. With a wicked evil smile on his face, he used his serpents tongue and licked the blood off his fangs. This had the effect of unnerving the unicorn. “What? Afraid of a little bite?” Shadow then snapped his jaws at the unicorn, who took a step back at the action. He then looked for a way out, but saw the key to his escape, or at the very least, a distraction. He used his magic to pull over a little changeling filly, and a metal fork. He hooked his hoof round the younger changeling, who starts struggling to get free and was about to yell for help, until his magic held the fork at her eye. She stopped struggling and went quiet, seriously afraid for her life at this point (or at least her eye). Shadow stopped his advance and glared at the older colt.
“How dare he take a little filly hostage! The Brute!”
“Let her go.”
“Ha ha! I don’t think so! Here’s what’s going to happen, you’re going to surrender, and let us go, or I’ll poke out this filly’s eye.”
Shadow just glared at the unicorn colt for several tense moments, before he gave up. He sat down on his flank, hoping the unicorn would let the little changeling go. The unicorn just smirked. “Sucker!”
Shadow only had time to blink in surprise before a pair of hooves connected with the back of his head. He had barely hit the ground before a flurry of hits rained down upon him. “This is for my snout, punk!” Shadow curled up into a ball to try to protect as much of himself as he could. His chitin and scales were protecting him, but the hits still hurt. After a few moments, another set of hooves started raining down blows upon him. “And this is for my flank!”
As the Pegasus and the Earth pony beat down on the poor foal, the Changeling filly started struggling again. “No, stop! Let him go!”
“Be quiet!” He struck the filly on her head.
“OW!”
Shadow’s eyes snapped open, the green eyes getting darker by the second. <No… Don’t hurt her!>
“Let me go!” Her struggling grew more. He struck her again.
“I said shut up!”
Shadow’s eyes lost their green and were now a grey color, and were growing darker by the second. <Leave her alone!>
“What’s going on in here?!”
“Oh, snap! BAIL!”
The unicorn colt threw the changeling filly to the ground and started running, but she landed on her hoof wrong as a result.
There was a crack, and the filly screamed out loud.
“AAAAAAHHHHHHH!”
Shadow let out a gasp as something in him snapped, and his eyes became completely black, before quickly turning red.
“You all remember when I went into a blind rage during my attack?”
The ponies turned and nodded at him, before they all suddenly realized what that meant for this memory and each one let out a gasp of fright.
“Yeah. This is the first time it happened. When my rage and anger took control.”
Before the earth Pony and the Pegasus had time to move away from Shadow, There was a flash of fire that burned the both of them causing them to jump away from the foal in pain and shock. Everyone in the room looked on in silence as the foal named Shadow Flare stood up, completely covered from head to hoof in black flames.
“LEAVE! HER! ALONE!”
Platinum and Shade, who were the first ones in the room, darted towards their foal, trying to get to him before he could do anything else. There was a flash of black fire, as Shadow launched himself at the terrified unicorn colt, wings spread wide as he soared right at him, his eyes aglow with black flames coming out of them.
The girls all gasped again as the memory started flickering in and out. All they could make out…
A feral roar.
The screams of pain and terror.
Multiple flashes of pure black and some silver fire.
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01
Chapter 6: Regrets, Fires, and Surprise Hugs
The void was black, completely black, as if all color and life that had been in it had simply vanished. It only stayed that way for several moments however, before all of the colors returned, and shortly after, all of us reappeared. Everypony was looking around, wondering what happened to the rest of the memory.
“Hey, what gives?” Asked Dash.
“That was the end of the memory.” Everypony turned towards me when they heard how dead my voice sounded. Many of their mouths opened when they actually saw how depressed I appeared at that moment. The void itself took on a darker hue itself, still in a rainbow of colors, but they were all blues and purples. I sighed. “Based on my and Princess Luna’s first venture into the void together, I would wager that my soul likely has the memory stored within it, but… I don’t think I want to see it.”
“I-I don’t think I want to see it either….” whispered Fluttershy. I couldn’t blame her, really. The others, however, were a little more curious than her.
Cadence spoke up next. “You said your soul has the memory… Don’t you remember what happened?”
“No, I don’t. The last thing I remember was that changeling filly’s scream. After that, I blacked out, so I don’t know what happened.”
“What about yer folk’s?” Applejack was walking towards me. “What happened to them? Didja ask them?”
“Well, I woke up a week after it happened-“
“WHAT?!” Simultaneous yells from Rainbow, AJ, Rarity, and Cadence.
“…in a hospital room. I was dead tired, but I managed to ask my mom what happened, ‘cause at the time, I couldn’t even remember the party. She refused to tell me, always deflecting the conversation to something else.” I paused and looked up at the dark colors above me. I thought about what mom told me back then, and as I did so, the colors got gradually darker. I think at this point they started to feel some of the emotions I was feeling, because Fluttershy came up and wrapped a wing around my back again. I nodded gratefully at her. Every little bit helps. “When I did finally remember the party and the events about an hour after I woke up, the first thing I did was ask if the changeling was alright. She said she had been released from the hospital about four days before, and had been visiting me every day. I never saw her though after I woke up, so I don’t know what happened to her.
“But then I started to wonder something. Where was dad?” My head drooped and my ears flattened against my head. “She wouldn’t answer me. I demanded she tell me what happened, and almost raised my voice at her. Even though she could see the near desperation in my eyes, she still refused to tell me.” I paused momentarily, then chuckled darkly, shaking my head. “My stupid, foolish, stubborn self wouldn’t take that for an answer though, so I developed a plan. That night, when mom fell asleep, I snuck out of my hospital room. I had almost collapsed when I climbed out of my bed because every muscle in my body felt like they were going to just give out on me. I eventually managed to make my way out of the room.
“I don’t know what it was at the time… but, something told me that there was something wrong with him. That something terrible had happened to him. Back in my old life, my life as a human, my dad left us shortly after I was born, so it had just been me, my bro, and my mom. As I got older, I could tell that his leaving hurt her, but she did her best not to show it. I could still see it in her eyes every day, though. She was always in pain and that had torn me up just thinking about it.
“That eventually led me to thinking that Platinum Blaze may have left us due to something I had done and it would’ve torn me apart to know I would be the cause of pain for my new mom. But my heart and soul were proving my worries to be unfounded. They were leading me further into the medical facility. I could sense him, so I knew he was near. My worries about him were waning slightly, and I felt perfectly confident that he hadn’t left. But then, I thought to myself. ‘Why wouldn’t mom tell me what happened to him? What was so bad that she wouldn’t tell me for obvious fear of how I would react?’ I started to get a small idea when my connection led me further in the hospital… when it lead me into the emergency care unit.”
The girls, sans Luna, gasped when they heard me say that. Shining had a worried look on his own face, almost as if he somehow knew where this was headed. Luna simply sat there silent, staring at me with patience, kindness and empathy. I think this may have hit a sort of soft spot for her. To the both of us, family is a treasured thing, and knowing that we hurt family is something that tears at us even when we’ve been forgiven.
“I think… I’ll let this next memory speak for itself…” With that, the void shifted, grew dark, and once again, we flew through the memory tube.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shadow Flare walked down the dark hallway, carefully approaching the emergency care section of the hospital. He moved slowly, his legs wobbling underneath him due to their weakness. He was panting slightly from the effort it took to get this far, but the feeling in his gut persisted. His soul led him here, and he was determined to find out what happened.
A door separated him from the E.C. section of the building, but that wouldn’t stop him. He paused at the door and took a few deep breaths before he reared up and pushed on the door. Having expected the door would be rather heavy, he pushed with as much strength as his tired and sore muscles could dish out, but to his surprise, the door swung open with ease, causing him to topple forward and collapse on the ground. He groaned in pain while silently berating himself, before shakily getting to his hooves again. After a few moments of making sure he wouldn’t fall, he began his trek forward.
There were doors on either side of him, and he didn’t know which one his dad was in, but his soul’s connection to his father’s was guiding him exactly where he wanted to be; where he needed to be. He closed his eyes and simply let his hooves move him forward. Finally, he came to a stop. He opened his eyes to see he stood in front of a white door. The door itself had a little rectangle block on it that stated which room this was. Room A-22. But that’s not what caught his eye. What caught his eye were the two words under the room’s designation.
Intensive Care.
Shadow gulped heavily. Steadily growing more and more nervous the longer he stood there. What would he find there, behind the door? Was his father alright, or… was he… No. Shadow shook his head cutting off that trail of thought. He couldn’t think like that. He had to hope for the best. Though he knew, standing in front of this particular door, his soul guiding him to what lay within the room, there had to be something wrong. There was something wrong. Another heavy gulp, before he took a deep breath to steadied his frayed nerves and he placed his hooves on the door. Ever so slowly, he put more pressure and weight upon it, and the portal before him opened.
What lay in the room caused his jaw to drop, his hooves to give out under him and his body drop to the floor with a light thudding sound. Whatever he was expecting to see definitely wasn’t what he had found. Despite knowing and remembering many horrors from countless stories and real life events that happened, or he had heard happen, in his previous life for what was typical of a human, nothing could have prepared him for what he had seen laying in that room. Nothing could have ever prepared him for seeing the condition his father was in.
Everypony viewing the memory gasped at what they saw. I simply stood and walked away from them, the visage of the figure laying in that bed far, far too painful for me to keep looking at, and it brought me such sorrow, misery, and regret to remember it. I left the memory, returning to the void, but allowed them to continue viewing it.
There, laying on the bed in front of him, was Platinum Blaze, beaten and bloody. There was a specially designed mask covering his snout, providing him with the oxygen needed to breathe properly. All over his body were bandage coverings, some of them with dark red spots on them showing how much he had been bleeding. There was a bandage wrapped around his left eye, his entire right arm, his torso, his left wing, his left leg, and even his tail. Shadow could even see spots where it looked like Scales had been ripped right out of his body and other parts showed spider web fractures along other sections of his scaled body, including his chin.
What was most devastating and shocking about his father’s condition, however, were all of the vividly black burn marks surrounding him. All over there were splotches of black that looked like they were still radiating some level of heat. Shadow began breathing heavily, his mind unable to understand, unable to comprehend seeing his father like this. Tears began rolling down his scale and chitin covered face. Soon, he began to start hyperventilating, before he suddenly felt himself scooped up and held tightly in Shade’s fore hooves. She pressed his head against her, but he was limp in her arms.
A hoarse voice whispered in the room. “Did… did I… I didn’t… Tell me I… didn’t…”
Shade simply hugged him tighter “Oh, Shadow.”
Shadow’s body began to convulse and quiet sobs were heard before everything went dark.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had been about 6 minutes since I left before they all reappeared in the void. I had managed to calm down some, but the image was still vividly stuck in my mind. The ponies all turned towards me, the emotions they were experiencing as plain as day to me. Even more so due to the fact that they were essentially the same emotions that I was feeling at the time of that memory.
Before anypony could say anything, I bowed my head and began to emotionlessly recite something I had memorized about that event. Something that I specifically chose to remember for the rest of my life.
“Fractured jaw. Broken tail. Pierced eye. Broken leg. Broken arm. Broken wing. Ten broken ribs. Punctured lung. Internal bleeding. Bruising on internal organs. Two hundred and fifty-eight shattered scales. Fifty-nine missing scales. Four broken teeth. Two missing teeth. Scarring on exposed skin. Nine lacerations located across front and back of body. Sprained ankle. Sprained wrist. Sprained neck. And finally… first, second, third and fourth degree magical burns located on various spots of his body, all of the fourth degree burns having caused many scales to melt and fuse together, burning the skin underneath.”
Every. Single. One of them had their jaws dragging on the non-existent floor of the void we were all in. That’s what I saw when I looked up. The only three, however, who truly understood the full extent of the damage, however were Twilight, Cadence and Luna and their expressions matched it. Despite my current low feeling about myself, I couldn’t help but chuckle at their faces.
“Yeah. I did that. In my blind rage, I very nearly killed my own father. As a foal. A one year old foal. This one memory has placed such fear of myself in my own heart and soul that I am, and probably always will be, completely terrified of myself. For the months my dad remained in a coma there at the hospital, I myself had horrible nightmares about harming everyone I cared about. What I wouldn’t give to have had you here back then Princess Luna.” She nodded in understanding at that. “Can you imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t been trying my damnedest to keep myself in check when I lost it against Celestia? Can any of you possibly fathom the kind of damage I could’ve caused to all of you had this memory not been there to help hold me back? I wasn’t just terrified for myself, I was terrified for everypony in Canterlot. If it had continued on for much longer, I’d have completely lost it. And I shudder to think of what I could’ve done.
“To that end… Thank you, Luna, Dash, Shining, everypony. Thank you for stopping me. Even in my anger, I never wanted to hurt any of you. It would’ve destroyed me if I had.”
I could see Fluttershy was about to approach me to comfort me again, but a flying blur of pink with poof (yes, that’s my nickname for her) tackled me and beat her to the punch. I was then subjected to a literally bone crushing hug, which, to this day, I still couldn’t figure out how she had enough strength to do that. I mean, seriously. I’m covered in scale and chitin under my fur, not to mention my bones are much denser than a normal pony’s.
So how is it that I find my bones creaking with the strain that she’s putting on me?
And don’t even get me started on how much pain that these monster hugs of hers actually causes. Which brings up the question of how I’m even feeling this pain in my mind right now. How do the girls put up with this? Cartoony world or not, this shit hurts!
Also, have I mentioned that I now lack the ability to breathe?
Would be nice if I could get that ability back, pinks.
…..
DAMMIT MARE! LET GO ALREADY!
“I don’t understand something…” I looked over to Twilight as I struggled to get out of the death grip Pinky had me in. (I was failing by the way.) I could see her working that brain of hers. “How could you have possibly caused your father such intense magical burns? It shouldn’t be possible. He’s a dragon, and dragons are heavily magically resistant, not to mention the fact that dragons are all but immune to intense levels of heat, so how did you cause him such damage?”
Having finally been released from the deadly pink clutches of sugar rush, and managing to take in some much needed air, I managed to regain my composure. I turned and gave Pinkie a skeptical look as she smiled sheepishly at me. My eye twitched.
‘I don’t give a flying fuck what the show, nor all of the past fan fictions have warned against. Fuck ‘Pinkie being Pinkie.’ I swear, I’m recruiting Twilight, and we’re finding out how that mare works, so help me!’
I then turned back to twilight to get back on track. “As I was saying, points for you for figuring that out. Under normal circumstances, it’s true, I would never have been able to burn him like that. Then again it wasn’t exactly a normal situation, what with my magic affecting my fire and adjusting it to my will.”
“What do you mean, Shadow Flare,” asked Luna.
“This is how my father, and several doctors after I was examined, explained it to me. My fire, unlike a normal dragons, is directly tied into my magic. Twilight, you know how Spike can use his flames to either burn things normally, or send letters or other objects to Celestia?” She nodded affirmation of this fact. “Had I been born a full dragon, my flames would be the same way. However, it’s because of the fact that I was born part changeling, and can activate my magic at will much like a unicorn, that changes the fundamentals of how my magic-fire works.
“See, like I said, my fire is directly tied into my magic, which means it acts in accordance to my will. It’s not normal fire, its magic fire. But it’s infused with changeling magic, nor normal pony nor regular dragon magic. I don’t fully understand the genetics of it myself, but as a result, my magi can quite literally burn anything. Anything, Twilight, Including magical resistance.”
While her jaw dropped, everypony else’s eyes widened in disbelief. So I set about correcting that disbelief.
“Shining Armor.” Said stallion turned to me and paid apt attention. “Remember when you tried to use your shield spell to trap me in that bubble?”
“Yeah… Wait, you mean-? I thought you just overpowered it!” He looked at me in further disbelief.
“I could’ve, but it would’ve taken far too long to do, so instead, I ‘burned’ your shield into nothing. Didn’t you notice there was no strain on your mind or magic when I did so? Had I simply overpowered it, you would’ve suffered from a massive headache. So I just burned your magic.”
He took a moment to think back, and then widened his eyes in surprise.
“Adding on to that, do you remember when I tackled you and set you aflame? Remember how your body didn’t actually burn, but you felt something inside of you burning instead?” He nodded again. “Remember how after the flames disappeared you couldn’t use magic anymore?” Once agan, his eyes widened in realization. “My magic work in according to my will. Instead of burning you, I willed it to burn you magical reserves instead. I had no desire to hurt you, I just wanted to make sure you couldn’t use your shields to stop me again.”
“That’s incredible! You mean to tell me that your magic can burn through anything?!” and there’s Science Mare, rearing her ugly head again. I’m gonna want to stop this before it gets out of hand. “Do you know what this means? If we studied you, we might be able to figure out how to apply this to-“
I was suddenly in front of Twilight, my hoof hovering right in front of her belly. “Twilight, I swear, if you geek out on me, I will tickle you until you pee yourself in the void and out of it.”
“But- But- But think of the science!”
My response was to poke her. She let out a very short giggle before she promptly covered her stomach and glared ruefully at me. It did, however, manage to get her to promptly shut up, so I warped back to where I was before.
“Yes, Twilight, I can burn literally anything and everything with my magical fire, and…“I stopped and thought for a moment, before turning towards Pinkie. “…Actually, I’m kinda curious if I can burn Pinkie’s physics breaking randomness away.”
Pinkie actually paled- I mean she turned whiter than Rarity- when I said this, and promptly disappeared from the void.
I mean, she was gone.
Gone, dude, just gone.
Everypony stared at where she was for several moments before I turned towards Luna.
“Is she even still asleep?”
Luna looked at me for a few seconds before her horn and her eyes started glowing. When they stopped, she shook her head. “Huh. Didn’t you put all of us under a sleep spell though?” She nodded. “Then, how did she… know what? Forget it.”
I turned back towards the others. I would deal with that later.
“Anyway, there are a few more points about my magic you need to know about. The first is that my magic fire is the same as magic itself. Which means, that I can wear myself out if I use it too much. I can even suffer from magical exhaustion when it’s depleted, and I won’t even be able to shoot fire anymore.
“The second is that my magic is also heavily tied into my emotions like any normal pony’s but to a greater degree. My emotions literally affect the effectiveness and strength of my magic. If I happen to be emotionally unstable, however, I will be completely unable to use my magic or fire in its entirety.
“And my last point. This one coincides with one specific emotion though. Before I explain that, there’s something I need to explain about dragons in general, because I know you don’t have much info on them at all, and I’ve been meaning to warn you about this for some time. Especially you, Twilight.”
“Me? Why?”
“For Spike’s sake.”
Now she was thoroughly confused.
“Do you remember Spike’s greed growth?” Everypony nodded. “Yeeeeaaah, well, guess what? He’s gonna go through something like that six more times over the course of his life, likely while he’s still living with you.”
“What? You mean to tell me that my little Spikey-wikey is going to go through that horrible greed growth phase of his again!?” Rarity looked completely aghast at that.
“No, no. Not the greed growth again. He’s mastered his greed when he changed back. If he didn’t he’d still be a monstrous dragon the size of Godzilla and you, Rarity, would most likely be a part of his hoard.” Rarity visibly shuddered at the thought. “He will, however, have to go through six more phases of growths before he become a fully mature dragon. Each one will cause subtle shifts to his personality, and even his appearance as he matures, but all in all he will remain mostly the same.”
“Um... you keep saying ‘mature’. Is that how, um, dragons mature? By going through these growths?” Fluttershy, ever the timid one.
“Pretty much. For Dragons, in order to mature, they have to- *GASP!* AAARGH!” I collapsed on the invisible ground, clutching my left side in pain. The ponies all rushed towards me to make sure I was okay. I wasn’t. “Luna! Wake us up! WAKE US UP!!!”
“Shadow!What is wro-“
“NOW!! PLEASE!!!”
Without another word, her horn let loose a powerful flash, and the world went momentarily dark.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“SON OF A BITCH! OW!!” My eyes snapped open, and I immediately started kicking at the massive furry creature to my left, the chains and cuffs on my hooves rattling as I did so.
“No! Ow! Let go! Bad, Mantle! Bad! GET OFF ME!!!!” With a final powerful kick, I pushed the manticore away from me, and he let loose a whining growl. “WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK WAS THAT?!?!” He whined at me again. “No I wasn’t dead, you fucking overgrown fur-ball!” a couple of grunts, and a short growl. “Yes, I was too breathing!” A shake of the head, followed by several grunts. “Fuck that! I know you know I was breathing; your freakishly powerful ears can hear a friggin’ cricket moving in the grass, so I know you heard me breathing! You just wanted to take a bite out of me! Ow! What the-?” I finally looked down at my left side to see the damage. There were quite a few scales missing, as well as some small amounts of chitin. There was a little blood flowing down from the wound and pooling slightly under my left flank, but not that much too really be worried about. That was about when I noticed two things. The first was that I somehow reverted to my hybrid form while I was asleep. The second…
“OH YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! YOU DID TAKE A BITE OUT OF ME!” I turned to glare at the manticore, whom at first didn’t even move. A few seconds later, however, his jaw started moving slightly, and I heard a sort of grinding noise, before I heard a gulp, and watched a small bulge move down his throat. My jaw actually dropped at the brazen display. He didn’t even deny it. In fact, after my jaw dropped, he snickered – actually snickered at me – before turning and jumping out of a large hole in the window next to me that I’m reasonably certain wasn’t there before we went to sleep.
Shortly after, I heard screams echoing from the streets of Canterlot from the obvious panic a random manticore showing upon the cobblestone roads would undoubtedly cause. Least I know he wouldn’t actually attack anyone. The big, obnoxiously hungry, softie he is.
I sighed, mumbling obscenities under my breath as I turned back to look at the room. Every guard in the room was knocked unconscious, with only minor cuts on their bodies, or dents in their armor where Mantle likely struck them. They most likely tried to stop him when he crashed in. Welp, judging from the hanging tongues and drool coming out from their mouths, as well as the black eye on one of those unfortunate souls, they seemed to have failed spectacularly. Then I moved my gaze to the others, whose eyes were all locked on either me or the window, all jaws dropped, with the exception of Pinkie Pie, who was nowhere to be seen. Well, needless to say they were all pretty much either shocked, stunned stupid, or appalled at what just happened.
Finally, after a few more moments of silence, Shining armor was the first one to find his voice. “That was a manticore.”
I nodded in agreement. “Eeyup.”
He continued to stare at the window. “And he just ate a piece of you.”
I scoffed. “No, he gave me a surprise hug... the dick....”
He was still continuing with that thousand mile stare. “And then you yelled at it.”
A nother nod. “Sure did.” Well, I can see how the next couple of minutes are going to go if this keeps up.
Still staring. “And then he jumped out the window.”
Last time I was going to nod. “Looks that way.”
He finally turned his head towards me. “Why did-“
I let loose a half grunt, half sigh to interrupt him. “Get me some medical attention, a ton of food, and a little joy from somepony, and I’ll finish my explanation on Draconic Maturation habits… and tell you all about my asshole of a pet manticore.”
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01
Chapter 7: The Many Growths of Dragons.
So, here I am, in the mess hall, surrounded by about twenty-some guards, the girls, and Shining. After receiving an almost deadly amount of joy accompanied by a near-life ending hug from pink with poof (dammit, Pinkie, my ribs still hurt), I was immediately, if not reluctantly, looked at by the castle’s medical staff. To their own surprise, they really didn’t have to do much. They simply cleaned the blood and disinfected the wound- which, I might add, stung like a bitch- after which, they discovered the wound itself was already healing. I explained that that’s what the joy was for. Aside from emotions feeding changelings, they can also have other effects. Joy increases the healing process, which is why I needed it in the first place. However, due to the sped up process, it also increased my metabolism. Which is why I needed a ton of food.
After wrapping me up in gauze, much like Rainbow Dash and Shining were, we were relocated to the guard barracks and into their mess hall. Along the way, I got looks of contempt from almost every guard there, the injured and uninjured ones. I could feel the hate and dislike radiating off of them. As we continued walking, many of the still able guards peeled off from whatever they were doing and joined our little entourage. Shining was about to tell them to return to their posts, but I stopped him by telling him I don’t mind. I found their anger refreshing, and I didn’t want to risk anything happening should I somehow lose myself again. After a few moments, he relented. What I didn’t tell him, however, was that anger had the effect of strengthening changelings, but it had a more pronounced effect on me due to my draconic nature.
Pretty soon, we were all in the mess hall. When they asked me what I would like to eat, I specifically told them one of everything. They looked at me as though I was crazy. Then I gave a twisted little grin and told them to give me two of everything instead. Cue looks of disbelief and insanity. Then, when my grin couldn’t get any bigger, I told them to make sure there was some cooked meat in there, too. Cue grand looks of disgust from everypony not named Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Luna. Cue me collapsing on the floor laughing along with Rainbow. She caught on to the joke quick. When we finally stopped laughing, I got serious and told them to seriously make me two of everything. While still looking at me in disbelief, they acquiesced at the behest of Luna, and soon, I was sitting at a long table surrounded by everypony present, with a good three hundred and twenty-six dishes food laid out in front of me. Nopony expected me to be able to eat even a tenth of that… except for Pinkie, who was smiling the entire time.
About six and a half minutes later, to the great disbelief of everyone aside the aforementioned pink mare, there were only eight dishes left. I wasn’t even close to full.
……What? I love to eat. Sue me.
When I finished my hefty, hefty meal, Applejack was the first one to pick her jaw up off the floor, though she still stumbled over her words. “Whoa, nelly! Shadow, that wus… I ain’t never… how did ya...”
“To this day, I am the only creature on the planet who can beat- not match, not tie- but beat Pinkamena Diane Pie in any eating contest.” Everypony turned towards the pink mare, who nodded her head in conformation. Then back to me in further disbelief. I must say, very satisfying to make ponies jaws drop. “For your own sake, and the integrity of your own stomachs, do not ever challenge me.” They nodded dumbly as Rarity trotted back in, still looking a little green. After about the first fifteen seconds of absolutely gorging myself, she couldn’t take the display and quickly trotted to the little mare’s room.
After several ponies came in and cleared the table- after glaring ruefully at me for the number of dishes they now had to clean- the girls and Shining all gathered around me for the continuation of my explanation. Instead of beginning, however, I turned towards Luna and Shining instead.
“Okay, I need two more things before I continue. The first thing: In the cell you have appointed me for my stay, there was a pile of pony bones in there. I need you to retrieve them and bring them here for me.”
The dubious looks I got from everyone were actually kinda funny. You had to see the faces these ponies made when they were confused. It was hilarious.
“Why in the world would you need bones?” asked Shining.
“Aside from being good company, I intended to use them as a visual aide.”
Applejack immediately jumped in. “Half’a what ya just said was a lie.”
I looked at her with a grin. “Now the question is, which half was the lie, and which half was the truth?”
She scratched her head. “Well, ah recon it’d be tha part where ya said it was good company.”
“Right you are, AJ.” And the she shook her head and looked at me in complete and utter disbelief. Living lie detector detected the lie. “So, I’m going to need those bones. Immediately after that, the second thing is that I want you to assign me to another cell- preferably one where I can see the moon at night- and immediately seal off the old cell, or destroy it.”
“Why would we-“
“BECAUSE THAT CELL IS A PIT OF DEATH!” I cut off Shining. “Seriously, Shining, you probably don’t know about it, but I’m assuming one of your guards did which is why they threw me down there. Inside of that Cell is a hole in the ground. The fumes that came out of that hole are literally – LITERALLY – enough to kill somepony. If I hadn’t turned off my sense of smell, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you right now. There’s a reason there’s a pile of pony bones down there. Haven’t you noticed how your guards always wear gas masks before they go down there? One of your guards tried to have me killed, dude. Can’t blame them, but still. You really need to destroy that cell.”
“.....He’s tellin’ the truth, sugarcube.” THANK. YOU. LIE DETECTOR.
Shining looked to his guards for confirmation. While some of them looked at each other in confusion, several of them were pointedly looking at anything that was not one of the ponies in my little group. Shining looked at each of said ponies, narrowed his eyes, and called each one by name. “All of you go retrieve the bones from the cell, destroy it, and then report back here for punishment detail.”
Um…. What would be a good word to describe the looks on their faces?
Flabbergasted?
A good seven guards trudged off with their heads hung low and grumbling under their breath. While that was going on, I decided I would go ahead and finish my explanation.
“Okay, so like I was saying before my pet manticore gave me a hug, in order for dragons to mature, they go through seven phases of intense emotional overload, each one causes growths. Each emotional growth is analogous to what are known as seven sins back on Earth- that’s my original home world, Twilight. Those sins, and in essence the growth phases, are as follows:
Greed.
Gluttony.
Sloth.
Lust.
Envy.
Pride.
And Wrath.
“As you’ve seen from the greed growth Spike experienced, his greed consumed him, and it caused his mind to deteriorate into a mindless collector of trinkets, as well as increasing his physical size to ensure nothing could stop him from getting what he wanted.
“With gluttony, it causes the dragon in question to gain an immense and unending appetite, and it all but forces them to continue to consume everything they can get their hands on. They gain an immense amount of weight making them look unsightly, but surprisingly, only half of the weight they gain is fat.
“With sloth, the dragon becomes unbearably lazy, and won’t even bother waking up if they don’t have to. They lose the drive to do anything, to the point where they can actually die from starvation, or in extreme situations, asphyxiation. For those of you who don’t understand big words *coughDashcough* (Hey!), that means being deprived of oxygen, or having stopped breathing.
“For envy, they become jealous of the things others have, be they random objects or even friends, or even specific species of friends. They may even lash out at people they come to dislike as a result of this, or even go so far as ponynapping or stealing what the other creature has that they don’t.
“I’m fairly certain pride speaks for itself. They become so arrogant and prideful that they absolutely refuse to accept anything from anyone, believing themselves to be above most everything, and they gain an ego to match it. Dragons will berate those they think below them, begin to make boastful claims that more often than not tends to horribly backfire upon them. Pride is actually the cause of quite a few dragon deaths because they think themselves capable great feats that they prove woefully insufficient at.” I paused at this part, thinking deeply about this one. When I spoke again, the girls noticed I had less of an intellectual tone, and more of a somber one.
“Then there’s wrath. This growth causes the greatest change, right after greed. A dragon’s anger and fury begins to consume them, and it happens slowly over time. It sneaks up on them, and you’ll notice that they’ll start having random bouts of anger at random times. It will continue to happen more frequently, until they’re angry most all of the time. But it only grows from there. They begin to randomly attack things, be they inanimate objects, or living beings. Ally or enemy… Family or friends…
“And that’s not all. With the wrath growth, the dragon’s physical strength and stamina increase tenfold, and it makes them nearly impossible to stop. It’s worse if they can actively control the magic within their flames. The only way for a dragon to be stopped during their wrath growth is to literally beat them into submission.” I let out a long sigh and bowed my head, thinking back to the times my wrath took control of me. Then shook my head to try to clear it, but it barely did anything. I shoved my thought towards the back of my head, figuring I'd go over these traitorous emotions of mine later.
“What about lust? You’ve explained every dragon growth except that one.”
I blinked and looked up. Twilight was staring intently at me, with a quill, inkwell, and piece of parchment floating next to her, poised to continue writing. I blinked again.
The fuck did she get those fro- right. Right. Magic ain’t gotta explain shit because magic.
“Twilight Sparkle.” She blinked at my use of her full name. “I will never, ever, under any circumstance, explain to you, or anyone else, the…”I shivered, “the lust growth. That is something that every dragon must deal with on their own, and it is something that no creature that is not at least part dragon will ever be privy to. Twilight, I will tell you this though. You WILL recognize the signs of a lust growth. If that happens to Spike, you come and get me immediately. Am I understood?”
Everypony balked at the deadly serious tone I had been using when I spoke. I’m guessing they understood how serious that one was. I was being more serious about that one than I was about wrath. What a dragon goes through during their lust growth is something that should never be shared outside of the dragon species.
Ever.
Ev. Er.
Twilight gulped at the end of my last question, seemingly remembering what happened in the void when I asked that, and nodded at me immediately afterwards. I nodded back to her, before continuing.
“Anyway, that’s how a dragon matures. They’ll go through each phase over the course of their long lived lives, usually before they reach two hundred or so, and once they’ve mastered those growths, they’ll be considered full-fledged adult dragons. Not only will the growths never happen again, but a dragon will be able to control their own physical aspects. Speaking of, you guys have that silly rumor that a dragon’s size is equivalent to the size of their hoard?” They all nodded their heads. “Yeah, pardon my language, but that’s a load of bullshit.” As predicted, Rarity gasped at my ‘uncouth’ language and looked cross at me. Granted, I don’t really like to curse around ponies, especially Fluttershy, but I felt the need to there, so I went with it. I continued on before white prissy could even say anything about it, though.
“Yeah, after a dragon fully matures, they don’t actually have to have a hoard. It’s more about tradition than it is necessity. Dragon only have hoards because it's tradition to prove yourself on the battlefield, and by the size of your hoard. That’s how they gain respect. The more battles you win and the bigger your hoard, the more respect you get. They can also willingly control their size, they can be as big as they want up to a small mountain, or about the size of Lu-Princess Luna if they want to scale it down.” I looked over to Twilight again to see her furiously scribbling down on that piece of parchment. Shining and Cadence were also looking at her, smirking and shaking their heads. But I felt the love they had for the mare. That was a type of familial love I myself would never be able to experience again, and that saddened me greatly. I took my mind off of that quickly; I didn’t need to go down that road right now.
I was about to say something snarky to the purple librarian about her rather OCD habits, but a soft spoken question was heard before I could even open my mouth.
“What about you?” We all looked over to Fluttershy, who immediately ‘eep’ed in her usual fashion, but to my own surprise, she didn’t hide behind her mane. She continued to stare right at me, while I continued to pointedly stare in her direction. Not her eyes though. I would likely never be staring into her eyes again for several years. “Um… What I mean is, um… have you matured as a dragon?”
I sat there silent for some time. Everypony looked at me, waiting patiently for an answer as I stared down at the table. I suddenly felt sympathy, and looked up to see who it as coming from. It wasn’t a surprise to see it was coming from Luna. I gather she probably figured out why I went silent. The memories that flooded my mind were really all the answer I would ever need to know if I had matured or not.
“…No. No Fluttershy, I haven’t.” I sighed again. “Well, I mean, it’s different for me. Remember how I told you that a dragon usually fully matures over the course of about two hundred years? Well I went through six of the seven growths over the course of four years.” You know, it gets kind of tiring hearing everypony gasp at every revelation you release. “I had my dad there to help me through all of them… well, except for *shudder* lust. I dealt with that one on my own.” I can see Twilight desperately wanted to question it, her thirst for knowledge was obvious. However, she remembered what I said and kept her mouth shut. “I have mastered and overcome six of the seven growths.”
“Your wrath is the one you have never been able to overcome.” Luna. Hit the nail on the head with that one.
“Considering the only one capable of actually beating me into submission never could, and is currently no longer on this plane of existence, no, I have never been able to overcome it. I have been able to temper it though. But like I said, the growths were all marginally different for me due to my unique heritage. Anger and hatred has the effect of physically strengthening a changeling. Because that effect is already gained by being angry, instead of further increasing my strength, my wrath growth instead increases my magic.” I looked at Twilight and then at Applejack for this one. “If you want a rough estimate, I’d say in a full-blown blind rage, I’d become about two times as physically strong as Big Macintosh, and four times as magically powerful as you on your best day Twilight.”
I do, however, love it when I cause jaws to drop.
“At that point, the only creatures capable of stopping me would be Luna, as she has already shown, Discord, Celestia, or a changeling queen who has spent weeks gorging on love. That, however, all depends on if they can actually gain the upper hand on me. As I’ve shown in our previous altercation, while simple-minded, I’m highly unpredictable.”
Before I could continue any further, the doors to the mess hall opened up, and the guards from before carried in a rather large sack. Each guard looked green in the face, and one of them looked like he was having trouble holding his lunch in- ….and now he’s not.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” The guard looked at me, and nodded his head. The others did as well. One of the guards, the one carrying the sack, walked up to me and placed it before me. He then turned towards Shining. “Captain Armor. For the love of our princesses and all of Equestria, please destroy that cell.”
I burst out laughing, rolling on my back at the look on Shining’s face when the guard pleaded to him. It was just far too funny not to. I felt an ungodly chilling sensation up my spine and I shot up immediately. Luna’s icy cold glare was directly on me, and I felt like I shriveled into a raisin at the sight of it.
She then turned her sights on the guard who spoke. “Is it truly as terrible as you are making it out to be?”
“All due respect, Princess, but what lies in that cell is more than likely far worse than any punishment your or Captain Amor can dish out.”
Okay, that got my eyes to open wide. Guard saying Luna’s punishments ain’t worth shit in comparison to the death pit in that cell?
…
Okay, yeah, he’s right.
"And why, pray tell, didn't you destroy it as you were ordered?"
"Because the cell itself nullifies magic, which is part of the reason he was placed in it in the first place."
"You mean it nullifies pony magic."
The ponies turned and looked at me in confusion. "The cell. It only nullifies pony magic. I doubt it was designed to nullify changeling or dragon magic. if it was, i never would've been able to use my magic to contact Princess Luna via telepathy."
"'Tis indeed most likely. Very wrell, I shall deal with it myself at a later time, Captain Armor, would you kindly find a more suitable cell for our prisoner? It would be most welcome."
"Yup. Be real helpful there, buddy. thanks."
Shining glared at me as I turned my attention to the sack, while the guards began looking over their ill comrade. I upturned it, dumping its contents on the floor. Well looks like they’re all here. I coughed to get everyone’s attention.
“Bones, I’m going to need you to reform. It’s story time. I’m fairly certain you’d like to hear about my pet manticore.”
The skeleton didn’t move.
At all.
“Bones?” I poked at the pile of sticks in front of me. No movement at all. I looked to the guard. “You sure this came from the same cell I was assigned?”
“The guard that retrieved them is in the infirmary. Yes, I am positive.”
Well, shit. Sucks to be that guy. I then turned back to the pile of bones. “Yo, Bones. Stop being a prick and reanimate.” No response. I glared at his apparent lifeless self while the others looked at me and each other as if I had lost my mind. I paid them little mind, however, instead opting to continue glaring at Bones. “You. Have. Five. Seconds.” Nothing. I smiled devilishly.
“OH MY- *hurk*! YOU TASTE SO HORRIBLE! *hng* *BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGH*”
Ok, when I said ‘this means war’ the plan was to bite one of the bones and snap them in half with my razor sharp fangs. Incidentally, my tongue sometimes has a mind of its own, and when something is put into my jaw, it has a tendency to lick things automatically.
The instant my tongue touched that bone, and my brain registered the incredibly foul taste that permeated off of it, my stomach heaved on me. I mean, I actually felt the thing move as it shuddered and contracted, forcing me to upchuck anything that hadn’t already been digested. Luckily for me, it really wasn’t much.
Unluckily for me, it hurt like a bitch.
Imagine having your stomach being squeezed by Superman’s hand.
Ok, now imagined your balls being squeezed by Superman’s hand.
Now imagine both happening at the same time.
THAT’S how painful it was.
So I moved as fast as my crippling stomach pain would allow over to the nearest trash can and let loose the contents of my stomach. It sucked because after the first two, I was dry heaving.
The ponies in the room, though. If I wasn’t puking all over this can, I’d probably be doing the same thing Bones is doing. That would be rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. As it stood, they all looked pretty freaked out to see an alicorn skeleton suddenly reanimate itself and begin laughing at my misfortune.
Well, everypony except Fluttershy, who was busy rubbing my back trying to make me feel better.
It didn’t, but it’s the thought that counts and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Anyway…..
“*GASP* You taste like deeeeaaaaeath!” That was not an exaggeration, by the way. I sat there panting, a little drool and stomach acids falling from the corners of my chin while Bones kept laughing away. I think my stomach was finally done killing me-
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 8: Manticores and Bullsh*t Manticores.
“Bwahahahahahahah! Oh! My! Gosh! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Hahahahahahahahahaha!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I-I know! HAHAHAHAHAHA! I’m- Haha- sorry Shadow, but- Hahaha- It’s just too funny! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, my sides! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
“Hahahahahahahaha! I’m not sorry at all! Hahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”
That, ladies and gentlecolts, is Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Bones rolling on the ground laughing. What are they laughing at you may ask?
*Hurk…HURK! GROOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!*
That is the sound of Mantle puking. Mantle happens to like eating things. He likes to eat living creatures more. Surprisingly, he likes to eat dead things even more than that.
Then again, that’s the difference between a regular manticore and this complete bullshit of a manticore that hails from Tartarus itself.
I digress.
Mantle likes to eat dead things. I’m okay with this. Have been since I first saw him dig out the bones of a buried griffon and start chewing on it. He seems to have an incredibly sensitive nose when it comes to dead things. So, my guess is, that when Bones was retrieved from the bowels of the dungeon cells, I’m guessing Mantle picked up on his smell and came back to the castle looking for a quick meal. I guess eating my hide wasn’t enough for him.
So, when I saw him charge in the room directly towards Bones (and Fluttershy jumping behind me in terror) initially, I was worried for Bones safety.
I mean, really, how often can you claim you’re friends with the living dead? Awesome.
However, to my great surprise and unending delight, as soon as Mantle’s jaw clamped down on Bones left hindleg, I’m guessing the same thing happened to him that happened to me. Namely licking bones leg. I watched in sadistic joy (yes, I’m still pretty sadistic, despite basically being a pony for the last 21 years) as Mantle sharply recoiled, dropping Bones leg, and scurrying away from him and towards me and Fluttershy. Then I watched his stomach clench, and smiled as I realized what was about to happen to him.
Serves you right for taking a chunk out of me, you dick.
Of course, the universe decided this would be a perfect ‘Fuck you, Shadow’ opportunity.
It took the shot and scored a perfect.
Mantle’s stomach clenched once. Twice. Thrice…
And then he turned directly towards me.
My glee and elation immediately died and were quickly replaced with shock and horror at what was about to happen to me. I had barely enough time to quickly turn and shove Fluttershy away from me and turn off my sense of smell before-
-I was absolutely flooded by such disgusting fluids I shuddered the moment they touched me. Large, slimy and wet chunks of meat, dead carcasses, skeleton chips and pieces of other unmentionables were upchucked from Mantle’s gullet and right onto me. This kept going for a good six minutes straight; every few seconds he would stop, his stomach would clench again, and he would puke over me some more.
Of course, despite the fact that there was a giant manticore in the room, Rainbow, Pinks, and Bones found my getting upchucked on to be absolutely hilarious. Luna was even covering her mouth in order to keep herself from laughing too hard.
At one point, I’m pretty sure I saw a few solid black chunks and pieces which I realized were probably a part of me at one point. I couldn’t stop another shudder.
Eventually, Mantle stopped, and just started breathing heavily while his eyes were shut in pain and discomfort. I just sat there, covered in so much shit, much more than could have possibly fit in his entire being. Fluttershy saw Mantle was hurt, and her protective, motherly nature kicked in, and she hurried over to him, asking if he was alright and rubbing his back to try to soothe him.
Shortly after, I somehow had more stomach fluids of my own to add to the mess.
Luna couldn’t contain herself after that.
So, after a good fifteen minutes of Mantle somehow puking up enough to nearly flood the entirety of the floor, he collapsed on his side, falling with a heavy splat, sending this crap all over everything nearby. Luckily, Fluttershy was hovering in the air, so she didn’t get hit. All of the other ponies in the room had moved into a corner, where his fluids hadn’t reached them. Luna had to levitate Dash, Pinkie and Bones over there lest they end up covered in it in their mirth.
Me? I just sat there as Shy fretted over Mantle, the three stooges finally calmed down, and the rest of the ponies looking on in either slight amusement, complete disgust, or absolute horror. (That last one was Rarity.)
Eventually, everything went silent, as everyone stared at me (or however much of me they could see...) as they waited for some kind of response from me.
Oh-ho-ho! Did I have a response.
Shaking my head to get as much muck off my face as possible, and spitting for good measure, I opened my mouth, the incredible amount of anger and irritation not even hidden in my words.
“Three things. One: Rainbow Dash, Pinkamena Diane Pie, and Bones the Undead. I cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” I performed the motions of doing so despite how absolutely disgusting moving at all even felt. “I Pinkie Promise that all three of you will suffer greatly at my hooves for laughing at me during all of this. I swear it!
“Two: Mantle… I know you’re from Tartarus and all, so obviously, you have certain aspects and abilities that are far from the norm for manticores… so it’s pretty obvious that you can consume more and more and never be full, if my experiences with you have told me anything. But for galaxies sakes, man! WHY DID YOU TURN TOWARDS ME?! MY LIFE IS MISERABLE ENOUGH WITHOUT HAVING YOU PUKE UP WHAT AMOUNTS TO ROUGHLY SEVENTY GALLONS OF BULLSHIT ALL OVER ME!”
All over Canterlot, ponies were going about their daily routines. Down in the lower levels of the city, ponies were in the markets shopping for groceries, browsing wares, and purchasing small trinkets for family or friends. In the noble district, ponies haughtily spoke about the hottest trends or most current in season fashions as they flaunted about their bits as if they owned the place. All of them with their snobbish noses as high in the air as they can get it.
Down by the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns, students and faculty alike were taking their breaking periods to eat their lunches, play in the playgrounds, or talk with friends and family having a good time. Despite the terror of a massive manticore suddenly appearing out of nowhere mere minutes ago, things calmed down relatively fast. The ponies went about their day, accepting the fact that something was bound to happen considering the pranks the princesses like to pull sometimes.
A few weeks ago, a giant Hydra appeared in the center of the city, sending all of the ponies running about in a frenzy. They only stopped when they realized the hydra was gone and they heard raucous laughter from on top of one of the nearby roofs. They looked up only to see a bright blue flash before everything went silent. Only a few hours later when they received word from the guard did they realize they had been pranked by their very own princess of the night in an effort to liven things up.
Knowing this, they figured they had simply been pranked again, and went about their day. The ponies were happy, the sun was shining high in the sky, the birds were singing. All in all, it was looking to be a great day.
Every head in Canterlot turned towards the castle upon hearing the massive roar of what sounded like an angry dragon. Those who were close enough could see black, green and red flames suddenly bursting out of every window, and even a few of the doors, from the guard barracks mess hall. Seconds later, even more flames began shooting out of a hatch in the roof; the tower of flames reaching high into the sky.
Realizing that that was no illusion or prank, the ponies began panicking, running, scurrying, flying and teleporting away as fast as they could into their homes and shelters in order to escape the raging beast that would soon be rampaging through Canterlot.
I basically ended up setting everything in the immediate vicinity ablaze, with the exception of living creatures (and undead creatures in Bones’ case). Everything burned into ash. Tables, chairs, overhanging fans, plates, trays, utensils, trash cans. Even the armor the guards were wearing and the royal adornments of Luna and Cadence weren’t spared in my brief spout of anger. Hell, even my recently acquired magical restraints turned to ashes. Everyone was completely covered in ash and soot, to the point where everyone began coughing, which incidentally, spread it all around the room, causing more coughs.
Everypony with wings began flapping them to help clear the air, and with a quick flash of Luna’s and Twilight’s horns, whatever was left was simply moved somewhere else. Hopefully to a trashcan.
Or Mantle’s stomach.
……Eh, who am I kidding, he’s probably be happy to have something in his gut.
Lastly, on the bright side, all of the puke was gone. And I was the only clean pony now. Everyone else would have to go get clean.
Serves them right.
Wait….
I’m out of magic.
Again.
Shit.
For the umpteenth time, darkness began clouding my vision.
So, some things happened yesterday while I was out. First thing was Luna had gone to check on her sister to see how she was doing, and to inform her of everything she’s learned about me so far. Second thing was Bones and I had been relocated to one of the castle’s the infirmary/research wards. Thankfully, one different than the one good ol’ Sunbutt was in. Apparently, the unicorns and doctors here wanted to study the first known living hybrid creature that isn’t a draconnequus. I woke up with doctor’s constantly trying to put needles in me to draw some of my blood. I quickly incinerated all of them.
The needles, not the doctors.
They also tried to experiment on Bones to see how he ticks, but the dude has seriously powerful magic, and placed a shield around himself to keep everypony away from him. Nopony has managed to break through it yet, but they’ve decided, for now, to simply study his magic since it was in use.
Third, I was charged with destruction of royal property. I am now forced to serve one hundred and sixty-eight hours of community service (that’s one week) in order to pay for the damages. I called BS on that.
Which brings me to number four. Seeing as how I’ve gone through two sets of magical restraints now, Luna has decided that I apparently don’t require them anymore, and I am free to wander the castle so long as I have no less than ten guards with me at all times.
I’ve opted to stay in the infirmary.
Fourth, Mantle had been moved to the royal gardens and given a good sized area to himself. He had been instructed by Fluttershy to not eat or harm any of the nearby animals, and that food would be brought to him if he got hungry. I’m also told he met Philomena.
With my and Mantle’s experiences with phoenixes, I can only pray he doesn’t decide to try to eat her.
And finally, with the combined efforts or Rarity, Twilight, Luna, Cadence, Shining, and at least seven other high level unicorns, they made me a very snazzy looking vest.
Obviously, with that many ponies working on the damn thing it has to have some other function than making me look stunningly stylish and equally as fabulous, as Rarity said.
The vest was pure white, with blue lining all around it. On the back of the vest right between the slots for my wings was a small royal blue star with a golden outline on it. I had a single pocket on the left side of it. I actually liked the thing. They told me they would’ve put my cutie mark on it if I had one, but left a space open for it on the right side for whenever I got the thing. If I ever got the thing. Of course, after I was told what it did, I’ve opted to never take the thing off unless I’m showering.
Like the small rings my father made for mebefore, the vest had been enchanted to restrain and hold back most all of my negative emotions, most specifically, rage, anger, and sadness and loss. It was also enchanted so that if my anger and rage somehow grew out of control and rose to a certain level, it would seal my magic completely, preventing me from using my fire, or any of the spells I knew. It also negated my changeling ability to turn anger into physical strength, which meant if I did lose it, they’d still be able to take me down, far easier than last time.
Twilight, having realized that I have a heavy resistance to magic and magical things, knew it would take more than just her, Rarity and Luna enchanting the thing to make it functional for me, so they got several more unicorns to pour as much magic into the thing as they possibly could. The moment I put the vest on I could feel the magic in it, and its power immediately suppressing my negative emotions.
After the little episode from yesterday, Rarity also enchanted it to put a form fitting barrier around me in the event that I’d ever have to traverse across or through something rather disgusting, and it’s also enchanted to never get dirty.
Friggin' boss!
I actually thanked them all and hugged everypony who helped in it. I even hugged Pinkie just for the hell of it.
I now have another bruised rib. Worth it.
So now, everypony was sitting around my bed in a circle, except Bones who was one bed over, waiting for me to start talking.
Before I could however…
“So come on! I wanna hear how you met Mantle already! And so do they!” Pinkie pointed up towards the ceiling. We all looked up at where she was pointing to see nothing there. Then we looked back to Pinkie. “You’ve had them waiting a whole month to hear this! Start talking!”
I looked at the mare like she was crazy, which, I consider her to be. “Who are you talking about, Pinks? It’s been only a few hours since I fell asleep yesterday, not a month.”
She responded with a smile. “The readers, silly! I know you know what I’m talking about!”
Readers? What readers-
…….
…No.
No no no.
Hell no!
My life is not entertainment for anypony! The hell is reading about me?!
Your fans silly!
Pinkie?! Are you in my head?!
Yepperooni!
Get out of my head! And take your imaginary readers with you!
Okie Dokie Loki! But I’m just saying, your heads kinda empty. You could probably use some-
GET OUT OF HERE!
*Giggle*
Everypony was looking at me and Pinkie the entire time this was going on. They saw my eye twitch, and figured somepony should say something before I somehow lost it again. Glad I’m wearing this vest.
Luna was the one to speak up. She coughed into her hoof to grab my attention. “While we are supposed to be getting to the bottom of why you attempted to assassinate my sister, I must admit to being very curious about your… ‘pet’ manticore. Would you care to enlighten us?”
“Sure. Sure. But here’s a quick rundown of what happened before we met. This happened a few months ago. It was right before I first showed up in Ponyville and had my freak-out at Shy’s place. Actually, this is what led up to it.”
“Wait, your freak-out? What are you-” I cut Twilight of by holding up my hoof, then shared a knowing look with Rainbow and Flutters, still not meeting Shy’s eyes when I did. We all nodded.
“Later Twilight. I’ll have to tell you about it, but it’ll have to come later. That’s actually an important event you’ll need to know about. Anyway, I started off after just having made the decision to kill Sun-But-“ I stopped myself at Luna and Twilight's glares, which promised me pain if I finished that. “…To kill Celes-“ I stopped myself again when Luna glared harder. “….Fine. Princess Celestia. I was about to leave my hometown in the middle of the night, when I ran into a unicorn who was practicing for a magic show. Turned out to be Trixie.” That got a couple of gasps. Figured it would. “How she found the place, I’m just gonna be chalking it up to a stroke of luck. The town itself is actually well hidden and doesn’t even show up on most maps, but that’s to ensure a peaceful existence for its many different inhabitants.
“Despite my rather foul mood and my on setting depression, I still stopped and asked if she needed any help. She’s changed a lot since you all last met. Anyway, after a small discussion, she said she needed help with a disappearing act. She needed to end up teleporting a volunteer.
“As luck would have it, I decided to help her, giving her fair warning that it may not work with me because I’m, you know, resistant to magic. Turns out, she had plenty at her disposal. So, when she built up enough, she let her spell fly. And I teleported. Where, you may ask? Well…”
*sigh*… Of course, something goes wrong. Something always goes wrong. Trix, I don’t particularly blame you for this, but that’s the last time I offer a unicorn help.
I, of course, managed to land right in the middle of a pack of manticores. Said manticores who all woke up after the popping sound of my sudden appearance, and were now all looking at me with predatory grins.
I was running wildly through what I would later come to realize was the Everfree Forest, being chased by no less than eight different manticores. I would have flown, but the trees were far to close, and I couldn’t spread my wings wide enough to even try flapping. I still used them to help propel me a little faster, but the manticores didn’t even slow down. Big bastards were bursting right through the twisted looking trees. I swear I heard them laughing mockingly at me.
The trees, not the manticores. They were too busy trying to eat me to bother laughing at me.
I also had a little help from my magic, giving me a further boost. Black and green flames spread around each of my hooves, boosting me forward slightly at the cost of a little of my agility. It was entirely worth it though, as it helped me keep ahead of the beasts. Of course, running wildly through this stupid forest all but ensures you’ll more than likely be running through circles. Bad for me because I was slowly but surely running out of stamina. Combine that with the fact I hadn’t eaten anything at all in days, I was running out of fuel even quicker.
Eventually, I started slowing. I ended up slowing down enough for a manticore to take a swipe at me. It hit me dead on and sent me crashing into a tree. I slumped down, slightly dazed, but quickly shook it off. I’d taken enough hits to my head from crashes to have another one barely affect me anymore. Luckily for me, I had dropped my pony form for my hybrid one. In my pony form, I didn’t have as many scales or as much chitin covering me to protect me from much damage so i had transformed to rectify that little problem. I quickly climbed back to my hooves just in time to dodge a manticores charge by jumping on its head and vaulting over it.
That was when I realized I had been led around I one huge circle back to the clearing we started in. And I was surrounded.
“Well, hay. Not like I wanted to get out of here ANYWAY!”
The manticore to the left of me took that as its cue to pounce. I turned and dashed towards it. It swung its claws at me, but I had ducked and rolled under it. As it was about to come down on top of me, I kicked both my hind legs up, and struck it as hard as I could in its stomach, my hooves still on fire. It had the effect of burning the manticore, and simultaneously using my thrust the launch the thing at the manticore that was coming up behind it. They crashed into each other, one growling in pain, the other in anger.
I had no time to worry about that though. I rolled to the right just as two stingers crashed down right where I was at. I got to my hooves and quickly dashed towards them, ripping one of the stingers out of the ground and impaling the other stinger with it. One of the two manticores howled in agony, as the other one ripped his stinger out, pulling gore and poison out with it, and tried to stab me with it again. I dodged to my left just in time to catch a claw to my face. He knocked me sideways as another stinger came down and struck true. I got really lucky there because it had almost pierced right through my chitin.
It pulled it out, thinking it had done its job, but caught a surprise when I launched myself at it and punched it square in its face as hard as I could.
The thing dropped like a rock, clutching its face.
I took a quick look around to see what I still had to deal with.
One manticore down from kick to the gut. One nursing its horribly bleeding tail and retreating. One on the ground cradling its broken nose and mouth. Three down, three to go. I crouched low, preparing to attack the remaining three that were circling me.
Imagine my surprise when every manticore suddenly raised their head, ignored whatever injuries they had and scrambled to get as far away from this area as possible. As I watched, I couldn’t help but raising my hoof angrily and shouting “Yeah, You better run. Stupid manticores don’t know who your better is! WELL NOW YOU DO, DON’T YOU?!”
And then I felt this deep, deep exhale of breath cover the entire back of my head.
Well, buck me. Knew I should’ve run when I had the chance.
Slowly. Very, very slowly. I turned my head around was greeted by the largest manticore I had ever seen in my life. This thing was twice the size of the manticores I just got done fighting, and looked three times as deadly. Its wings were actually large enough to look like they fit on its body, its claws were razor sharp, it had two massive stingers instead of one, and it had this enormous shit eating grin on its face.
We just stared at each other for several seconds before I said the first thing that came to mind.
“EEEENOPE!”
And then I took off running screaming like a maniac. I got about six feet before I got hit, sent tumbling through the air, crashed through one tree and slammed into another one. I fell down flat on my back, and didn’t move for several moments. That one had knocked me for a loop, and I was incredibly dazed, more than what I could shake off.
Two sudden, sharp points of pain in my gut followed by what felt like acid pouting into me woke me right the fuck up as I started screaming. The manticore pulled out both of its stingers and the pain all but vanished, but I knew the poison was in me, and would start affecting me soon. I had to get out of there, fast. I was not about to become manticore chow, not before I had my revenge!
Ignoring the two good sized holes in my gut, I was about to start climbing to my hooves when I felt a searing pain in my right foreleg. I opened my eyes and screamed again as I saw it digging it razor sharp claws right through my chitin and scales and spearing right through the bone. It hurt so much I couldn’t stop the tears from flying out of my eyes if I tried. I had never felt a pain like that before, and it was all I could do to stop myself from breaking down and sobbing like a newborn foal.
It soon ripped the claws out of my foreleg, wrenching another pained cry from me, as I brought it in and cradled it, trying my hardest to fight off the pain. That’s when I felt it. My heartbeat. As far as adrenaline, fear, desperation and pain were driving it, it was thundering in my chest a million miles a second. But it suddenly started slowing down. Gradually at first, but it was slowing quicker and quicker. I realized why. The heart as trying to pump as much blood through my body as it could to replace what had just been lost, and at the same time, it was causing the poison to spread through my system that much faster. I had to get out of there, now. Ignoring the pain and favoring my left hoof, I managed to slowly climb to my hooves, I looked up to see the manticore looking down at me. He knew his job was done. All he had to do now was wait for my strength to run out, and I’d become his next meal.
What he didn’t know was that this hybrid could shoot magical fire. He found out really quickly though.
I took a deep breath and blasted him point blank with as much fire as I could muster in that breath with the thoughts ‘burn to ash you massive mother bucker!’ flowing through my mind and influencing my magic. Immediately the manticore recoiled as its entire body was caught aflame and he rolled all over the ground howling in complete agony. As it thrashed, I turned and started quickly making my way away from it. I had to get out of the forest before the poison set in, and getting hit with two powerful doses at the same time just reduced the time I had to get help.
Before I managed to get out of the clearing though, I heard the thrashing stop, followed by a few massive footsteps. That made me stop and turn back. What I saw made my jaw drop.
The manticore was on its feet. Not a pile of ash like it should be. And it was looking right at me. Then it exhaled. And then it inhaled all of my flames. As in, it opened its mouth and sucked them all right off of it and into its gut. Once they were gone, he closed his mouth, swallowed, and let out this huge belch with some accompanying smog from the remains of the fire. It patted its belly, licked its lips, and then looked me right in the eye giving off another shit eating grin.
I only had one thing to say to that. Well, several things but they all amounted to the same thing.
“BULLSHIT! THAT’S BULLSHIT! I CALL BULLSHIT! YOU’RE BULLSHIT! FUCKING HELL!”
And then I turned and used whatever magic I could to light myself aflame and launch myself in a random direction. I spread my wings out as wide and as straight as they could go clutching my right foreleg close to my chest. I was done with this forest. I used my wings to cut right through the trees as I boosted through this wretched place, trying to get out as far as I could and to some kind of civilization. I had to get away.
Then I heard crashing that was distinctly not being made by trees falling to the ground, but something bursting through them. I turned back to see the manticore charging through them, but that wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was the fact that it was once again on fire. This time around, though, the flames were a deep wine red in color.
That thing absorbed my magic and is using it as its own! Dammit!
And then I noticed manticore was getting closer by the second. That was when I noticed it was flying right after me.
Stubborn bastard! Leave me alone!
I immediately made a sharp ninety degree turn straight up, and flew as high and as fast as I could finally breaching the forest’s canopy and for the first time seeing the moons beautiful glow. I heard a crash and a roar. Obviously it was still after me. I kept going, not slowing down for anything. I felt my heartbeat getting slower and slower, and my entire leg had blood spilling off of it and below me. I wouldn’t be able to last much longer at this rate. I looked around as fast as I could. I saw a small village to the east of me. Then I looked down, and quickly brought my hind legs up to avoid a swipe from the flaming manticore. If that thing was using my own magic against me, then I wasn’t taking any chances.
I decided to do something risky, and stopped flapping my wings. The manticore shot past me, but not before realizing what I must have had planned, because one of its tail stingers jerked and scraped right up my left wing, causing a deep laceration. I managed to muffle the scream of pain. I had no time. I quickly angled myself towards the village, and shot straight down at it, picking up high amounts of speed as I was going. I’m pretty sure if I was higher, I may have been able to break the sound barrier, but at the time I wasn’t thinking about that. I was trying to survive. My wings and lungs were burning. I should have been out of energy long ago, but adrenaline and fear were the only things keeping me going.
That’s when things went from bad to worse. A fireball struck my right wing, setting it on fire and actually causing me pain. On instinct I drew my wing in from the pain and that sent me spiraling out of control. I tumbled through the sky falling towards the ground. I could only hope that the impact didn’t kill me. If it didn’t I could hobble to safety.
I got lucky.
The crash was beyond painful, made so much worse by the fact that I bounced across the ground several times, each one jostling my already rather severe injuries. I kept bouncing, grunting and yelping in pain, tumbling across the dirt uncontrollably, until I landed and skid to a stop making a trench in the ground. I cringed, and panted heavily. The pain was debilitating. I could barely move. I could hardly breathe. My heart was burning at this point. But I knew if I stopped I was done.
I slowly opened my eyes, and noted my wing was no longer on fire. I managed to lift my head, my vision had gone blurry. I saw some sort of a building with lights coming on inside. I started to crawl towards it. I tried calling out for help, but all that came out was a sickeningly nasty cough, as well as this horrible yellow fluid. I shut up and kept struggling towards the building until I felt a heavy thud behind me.
I turned my head to see this massive figure of orange and red slowly stalking towards me.
“*cough* ….no…..” I turned back and kept trying to crawl towards the building. “*gasp* Somepony….help…*cough cough*”
I saw this small white blur suddenly dart inside of what looked like a hole near the door. I kept trying to get to it, but I began to feel light headed. My heart beating so slowly, and I was bleeding out too much. My wounds were starting to get to me. My adrenaline having run out, I had nothing to help distract me from the pain. Tears began flooding out of my draconian eyes again. The pain became too much. I collapsed.
My senses were beginning to fade, and my body was beginning to go numb. I suddenly felt a powerful presence standing directly above me. The manticore. I coughed again, before weakly whispering “No…. please….. any…. pony….”
I felt his breath on my back. He licked the spot right between my injured wings, causing me to shiver in fear. I thought to myself that this couldn’t be how it ended. Being killed and taken from one family, thrown into the open hooves of another, and then having them taken from me, only to die before I could claim my vengeance. This was no way to die!
But I couldn’t do anything about it. I could only lay there and accept my fate. I closed my eyes and clenched them shut, preparing myself for the inevitable.
That was when I heard a door open, followed by a gasp. I felt one of my wings taken in the beasts jaw, causing me to weakly cry out in pain from it being moved. I cracked an eye open to see a blur of yellow and pink rocketing towards me.
My life is not to be viewed by you for your entertainment.
My life is my own.
I am not to be laughed at. I am not to be mocked.
You buckers think you can laugh and chuckle and giggle at me and not suffer for it?
Well, guess what?
Today, you all burn.
YOU WILL ALL BURN IN HELL!
TODAY, YOU SHALL ALL BE SUBJECTED TO THE WORST PAIN IMAGINABLE!
YOU SHALL SUFFER FOR THE INJUSTICES YOU HAVE CAUSED!
NO ONE LAUGHS AT ME!
NO ONE!!!!
NOW DI-Ahh! Hey! What the-Pinkie sto- Hey don’t touch there-aah! Darn it Pinks! Will you quit- Hey, wait, NO- *MMMPH! MMMMHPHPHPMHMHPHM!!! MMMMEEENKEEEEEPH!*
Oopsie! Sorry about that everypony! I mean, Everyone! He was supposed to learn about the fourth wall, but he wasn’t supposed to destroy it, but he went and burned it anyway, so I had to run and find some duct tape, which is a weird name for tape it almost sounds like duck tape, but maybe it really is called duck tape, but that's silly, why would it be called duck tape if it doesn’t quack, unless it was made from ducks, which would be super, duper bad, cause then Fluttersy would be sad, and nopony makes Fluttershy sad because-
*MMMMMMMMMMMMMPH!!!!!*
Oh, right! Got off track. Sorry! So anyway, I had to run and go get some duct tape to repair the fourth wall, but it took me forever to find where I hid mine, which is what took me so long to get back before he attacked all of you, and when I got back and saw he was about to breathe his magic fire breathe at you I had to act really fast, so first I taped his back hooves together, then both of his wings to his back hooves, then tied his front hooves to his eyes so he couldn’t see, and then I taped his mouth shut so he couldn’t spew flames everywhere!
Oh, there you are Gummy! See, I told you he likes you, Shadow!
*RRRRRRRRRRRGHGGHRRRRMRRRRPH*
Shadow Flare, you silly! You should know better! You can’t burn through duct tape! Duct tape fixes everything! Oh, that reminds me, I need to fix the fourth wall, but before that you have to promise not to burn it again. So what if your fans are laughing? At least there smiling! And everypony and everyone needs a smile!
There we go! Don’t worry everyone, he won’t hurt you! Have fun reading the rest of the story! Now, I just gotta fix this wall! This looks like a job for THE MYSTERIOUS DUCK MARE! Come on, Gummy! We gotta hurry so they can get back to the story. You too mister grumpy wumpy!
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 9: And Then There Was 'Rage Be Gone'
The ponies, and skeleton pony, all stared at me. I suppose they would when they noticed I stopped talking after the part where I blacked out and just continuously glared at Pinkie and her little demon pet. She did nothing but smile back at me, before suddenly giving me this most demonic look which made me recoil heavily. When the others turned to look back at Pinkie, she was all smiles again.
I didn’t miss the hidden meaning in that stare. She just dared me to break another Pinkie Promise.
Not happening.
She may have gotten me in a pinkie promise, but I will loophole the shit out of it. Those humans aren’t safe from me yet.
I let out a sigh, as I turned back to the others. “So yeah, Mantle beat the shi- um... snot out of me, and were it not for our resident animal caretaker over there, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Twilight was the first one to say anything, her scientific mind demanding answers from me. “Wait, the manticore that we have in the royal gardens right now is the same one that almost ate you? How is that possible? He looks nothing like what you just described him to look like. He looks like a regular manticore, with the exception of his slightly larger size.”
“That, Twilight, is my own magic at work in his body.”
The ponies looked confused. “Come again?”
“Remember when I said he inhaled my magic and then used it against me? It is literally a part of him now. He can eat another ponies magic and gain any ability they possess. From me, he has gained the ability to transform himself into an average manticore, he can breathe and cloak himself in fire, he can turn invisible, teleport, cast a sound dampening spell, and he has telepathy which is how I can understand him.”
“Tartarus King Mantalius, Greed Incarnate.”
Everypony turned to Luna. My jaw had dropped. “…….How the bloody he-“
“It took my sister and I years after Discord was first sealed to corral all of his chaos spawn into one general area and seal them behind the gates of Tartarus. My question is how you managed to run into one of the most dangerous ones that literally took us several months just to track down. That is not to say how long it took to actually defeat it and then restrain it. How did it get loose? And how did you befriend it?”
My jaw hadn’t picked itself up yet. The ponies were now looking at me as they tried to figure out how that thing became my pet. Pinkie hopped up to me and poked me in the side, successfully restarting my brain.
“Yeah… Mantalius. That’s him. He got out when Cerberus left his post and Twilight took him back. A couple of other creatures got out too. Mantle had been hunting in the Everfree ever since, up until he found me.”
Cadence asked the next question I’m sure was on all their minds. “And how exactly did he become your pet?”
“Well, honestly,” I began, “It’s more like we’re friends, and he only portrays himself as my pet to make me look a little more bada- flank. Badflank. I mean, how many ponies can go around saying they have a manticore as their pet? Also, the only real reason he puts up with any of that is because he’s terrified of Fluttershy and her stare. Truthfully, I’m terrified of her stare, but for a different reason than he is. As for how we became friends... well, that's a story for another time.”
“Even so, we cannot allow him to remain free.” Luna approached left side of the bed I was sitting on. “Sealing him in Tartarus removed all of the stolen powers he obtained before we captured him the first time, sealing him again should remove the ones he took from you.” She was about to address one of the guards in the room, but quickly turned back to me when she heard the venom in my voice.
“I don’t care who you are, Princess of the Moon,” I seethed in barely restrained fury. “If you even so much attempt to try taking him from me, not only will I not stop him from the rampage he is sure to go on, I may even join him.”
Luna actually backed away from my words and my glare. The shock in her eyes, and the eyes of the others at that comment must have stunned them. “That manticore is my best friend, and damn near family to me. I’ve lost enough friends and family already, whether I was torn away from them, or they from me. It will be a cold, frozen day in hell before I let you, or anyone else, take another one from me!”
And then the fucking vest happened.
That vest they made me, just started glowing an incredibly bright white with what looked like sparkling stars flowing out of it.
Then it hit me like a bullet train moving at top speed made out of adamantium.
That’s what it felt like when the anger just disappeared from my system. I dropped like a two ton rock, panting and gasping for breath, struggling just to get my hooves under me to pick myself back up. My entire body felt like it had flown across the planet several hundred times. My muscles were so sore, I couldn’t help but grit my teeth in the agony I was in.
And then just like that, it was over.
The pain, the exhaustion, it was just all gone, and along with it, the glow from the vest. However, it still left me panting and gasping. I sat back up, and looked at the worried faces of the group around me, then down to the vest, then back at the ponies.
My response was likely predictable.
“What… the fuck… was… that?!”
“Whatever that was,” Twilight, began as she approached me, “it wasn’t supposed to happen.” Her horn started glowing, and I felt her magic tingle over the portion of my body that the vest covered. As she concentrated, her face scrunched up slightly and she stuck the tip of her tongue out the side of her mouth.
Absolutely adorkable.
I heard Pinks snort, and cover her mouth to stifle her giggles. I glared at her while I managed to compose myself, still rather angry at her for what happened in the... *sigh* previous chapter.
Stupid fourth wall preventing me from killing humans. Stupid pinkie promise. I managed a grin. You just wait, Pinks. Loopholes exist for a reason.
She suddenly turned and glared at me, then pointed her hoof at her eyes, and then mine.
Ignoring Pinkie, and managing to compose myself, I turned back to Twilight in time to see her blink while tilting her head in confusion. Seconds after, her magical aura increased and grew dense, while simultaneously, the light tingle I felt around the vest suddenly spread to consumer the entirety of my form. She was using a lot of magic now, and I could feel her analyzing me. For what, I knew not, but I had a feeling there was something wrong with this.
After a few moments, Cadence asked, “Twilight? Twilight, what’s wrong?”
She ignored her old foal-sitter and her magic grew a little denser around her horn, and then I started to feel uncomfortable. A couple of the others called out to her in askance, but none of them got a response. Figured I’d ask what was up too, just so I didn’t feel left out. “H-hey, Twilight? Whatever you’re doing, it feels really… wrong… W-what exactly are you d-doing to me? ”
She ignored me too. Whatever she was concentrating on was apparently enough to gain the entirety of her attention. Her magical aura grew even denser, to the point where we almost couldn’t see her horn, and I noticed sweat falling down her face. My body began twitching and shuddering. “T-Twilight, stop.”
Her magical output increased yet again, and we could no longer see her horn. I felt my twitches transform into sudden jerks, and it felt like my entire body was shaking. “Ah! Twilight, stop! STOP!”
Twilight let out a gasp. “Oh, no.”
Then her magic suddenly stopped, and she jumped back just in time for flames to shoot out of my body and completely torch the bed I was on. It turned to ash in seconds and I felt myself land on the floor where my bed used to be. My vest remained untouched, but the floor around me was covered in scorch marks. MY body shuddered violently before it calmed down, and I just laid there, eyes wide open as I looked to Twilight, who was lightly panting.
“’Oh, no?’ Why ‘oh, no’? ‘Oh, no’ isn’t good. Why’d you say ‘oh, no,’ Twilight? YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SAY ‘OH, NO’! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU, MARE?! WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP WHEN I TOLD YOU TO?!?!” I had jumped up and grabbed her by the shoulders and started shaking her. With a burst of her purple-pinkish magic, she pushed me away.
“Because I had to make sure my theory of why the vest hurt you like it did was right… and in a way, it was.”
Rarity walked up to us. “Well, dear, tell us. What exactly is the problem? What just happened?”
Twilight took a breath to calm herself down, and then began to explain. “While we took into account your resistance to magic and adjusted the numerous spells on the vest to compensate for it, your own body did something we didn’t expect it to do.”
I raised a brow. “And that would be… what, exactly?”
“Your body is resisting the effects of the vest in its entirety.”
…
…
…
...“What?”
“You know how it felt like my magic was invading your very being?” I nodded. “That what the vest we made for you does. In order to counteract your magical resistance, we designed the magic in the vest to bypass your body entirely and effect the magical core of your being. That way, not only would it ignore your body’s defense against magic, but it would also be more effective in sealing your negative emotions.
“The problem is that we didn’t expect the core of your body to resist magic as well.” Luna herself raised a brow at that and looked at me with a critical eye. I watched as her horn began glowing a midnight blue, before I felt her magic invade me much like Twlight’s did, but after several moments, she stopped. I’m guessing she confirmed what Twilight said. “The very core of your being also actively resists magic, which is what I was testing with you. I kept trying to flood your core with some of my own magic, but not only was it resisting me, but it was pushing my magic back out as well. I had to keep pushing more and more into you, but the more I pushed, the stronger you resisted against me. Eventually it got to the point where your body simply lashed out in an effort to stop it, hence the now disintegrated bed.”
"Okay. I can understand all of that.” I felt a twitch in my wing. Was I getting aggravated at this? “What I don’t understand is why the vest feels like it just pulled out half my life when it removed my rage.”
Luna took the opportunity to speak up this time. “The vest is designed to restrain and suppress the negative emotions in your body, most specifically anger, hate, and rage. If it fails to do so, and you end up having a burst of your inner wrath reach the surface, the vest is supposed to drain it out of your body harmlessly until you have calmed down, and will continue to remain active until all traces of your wrath has vanished. As Twilight said, the vest does so by penetrating to your core to bypass your body’s natural resistance to magic. But if your core resists it as well, and even goes so far as to fight back against it, then the vest’s inner magic most likely recognized what would happen, and decided to forgo subtleties.”
“So it, quite literally, ripped my rage right out of me? That’s what you’re saying?” Luna and Twilight shared a look, before they both nodded. I face-hoofed and sighed. “Dag-nabbit. Now I have to explain some things…”
Twilight sat on her haunches while rubbing her chin with a hoof, as serious expression on her face as she did so. “This makes no sense though. Your magical core shouldn’t resist magic at all. A pony’s magical core absorbs the ambient magic in the air to help replenish us, along with food and rest, even more so when we’re tired. You don’t absorb magic at all, which makes me wonder how you have any magic to use in the first place.”
“Princess Luna, could you do me a favor?” She looked at me, waiting for me to elaborate on my request. “Would you kindly knock us all the buck out? What I’m going to explain will make sense after I show you something.”
The night princess nodded, and her horn began glowing brightly. I decided I would make things a little easier, and my own eyes began glowing as my telepathy spell kicked in. Everypony’s eyes began glowing shortly after, right before numerous magical bolts flew out of Luna’s horn and impacted our skulls.
The ponies were surprised to have already found themselves within the confines of my void. And, as always: Rainbows! Rainbows everywhere!
Fucking rainbows.
“So, Twilight, to answer your question of how I still have magic, has anyone ever noticed that every two weeks I’ll disappear for roughly three days?” Rarity, Twilight, Dash and Luna nodded. “The reason is because of my changeling physiology. Because of that, I am only required to sleep once every two weeks in three day periods. It’s during those periods, the spell I placed upon myself kicks in, and my body and magical core, actively stop resisting magic and they start to absorb it instead. Massive amounts of it. I’m sure, Twilight and Rarity, that you two have noticed that when I disappear, your magic somehow seems somewhat weaker, or a little more difficult to maintain, right?” They both nodded, although somewhat hesitantly. “When I sleep, my body absorbs magic in an incredibly wide radius. That’s why I’m usually at Zecora’s when I have to. I absorb so much magical energy that unicorns can usually feel it, and it sometimes interferes in their spell casting.
“I also absorb magic when my magical core begins to be depleted, I succumb to magical exhaustion, or I’m placed under a sleep spell. Though, luckily, I don’t absorb nearly as much, especially if my core isn’t drained any.”
Twilight now looked confused. “Wait… so you knew your magical core resisted magic? You placed a spell on yourself that causes that? Why?”
I looked at her with a deadpan stare. Pretty sure no one expected the next thing that came out of my mouth.
“Because my Aunt Chysalis is a total bitch.”
And then the void shifted for another trip down memory lane.
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 10: Wait… you’re my aunt?! SON OF A B-
“Man, Rad! Sounds like you caught a lucky break!”
“Tell me about it! I even still have our connection cut so she can’t find us. Moon knows what she’ll do to me if she does…”
Two equines walked side by side with each other through the dark forest path. One of the two was an all-black Pegasus pony with a spiked back silver and white mane in the shape of a Mohawk, with an equally spiky silver and white tail. His wings, which were larger than the average Pegasus, were folded against his sides. He even stood a little taller than his companion, being a larger pony overall. One odd feature about this pony were the fangs sticking out of his maw, even when they were closed, showing that he was not all pony. The other odd feature were his eyes. Aside from the fact that they looked like they belonged on a dragon due to the pupils looking like small slits, the color of each eye was also different. The left eye was blue while the right eye was green. Strangely, the black Pegasus lacked a cutie mark.
The black pony’s companion was also a Pegasus, this one somewhat smaller in comparison, but was of average size for his age. His coat was a vibrant royal blue color and he had a bright white colored mane and tail, both were scraggly looking, as though he never once saw a brush to either. This pony was rather odd, however, because though he had a bright smile on his face, his eyes spoke of another story. At one point, they had been a brilliant shade of ruby, but now they were milky, glossed over and faded. This pony was blinded, but he was by no means handicapped, and he could fly with the best of them. Unlike his black companion, this pony did indeed possess a cutie mark. Upon his flank was the image of two white wings stretched as far as they could with a golden halo sitting behind them.
As the two continued walking through the forest, the blue pony responded.
“I still can’t believe Shadow pranked you like that just because you ate his slice of cake!”
“DUDE! I don’t even see the problem! We share the same body! What does it matter if-“
The black pony’s somewhat deep voice suddenly cut itself off, as another, lighter toned voice suddennly sounded out from the same body.
“It’s the principle that matters! You weren’t supposed to be sneaking off while my half of our soul was asleep, and you definitely weren’t supposed to eat my slice of leftover b-day cake just because you needed a little midnight snack! You better be glad I don’t reactivate the link and let mom find us!”
“Oooooooh, BURN!”
“Shut up, Shy Shock!”
“I agree, I think I did just burn you, Rad. That also says a lot considering we’re fire proof.”
“Oh, for the love of-! I swear I am a horrible influence on you, Shadow…”
“Not really.”
“Yes, really. You would’ve never learned how to prank so good if I wasn’t for me. The fact that I didn’t even see it coming is what really makes me feel dumb though.”
“You know, now that I think about it… How didn’t you see that coming? You know I always get revenge on you when you do something like this, and it usually ends up in a week long prank war between us ‘till mom or dad get angry with us. What’s up? It’s not like you to forget stuff like that.”
“……If it’s all the same to you two, I’d really rather not talk about it.”
Despite the sullen look on n the black pony’s face, a smirk somehow worked its way onto his mouth.
“….You weren’t thinking about that changeling again, were you?"
“SHUT UP, SHADOW!"
“HA, YOU WERE! CALLED IT!”
“Ugh!” the black pony face-hoofed while simultaneously letting out chuckles. Soon though, both voices were chuckling, and shortly after, the blue pony joined them.
“Shadow Flare, Radiant Nova, you two are too much sometimes. Hey, either of you two wanna go into town and get some snacks? Maybe that’ll cheer you two up.”
Despite the fact that he couldn’t see them, he could still hear the black pony stop in his tracks. He could almost hear their mouth drop open, and imagined the drool running down their chin. As he kept walking forward, he suddenly heard wings flutter, before the soft clop of hooves landing next to him.
“You did that on purpose.”
Sky Shock smiled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know I hate my sweet tooth, and then you go and tantalize me with thoughts of confectionary goodness!”
“I blame mom. She has a bigger sweet tooth than we do. I’m honestly surprised dad can hide any of his snack’s from her when she gets her cravings.”
“So, I take it that’s a yes to getting snacks then?” Silence greeted him for a few moments, before the black pony spoke again, in a grumble.
“Lead the way, Sky.”
“Hehe. Alright then! FOLLOW ME! Hup! Hup! Hup!” As the blue pony walked forward, the black one stopped with a smirk on his lips. After several moments, the blue pony realized he wasn’t being followed and stopped. He flared his wings out, and each feather twitched individually, before he suddenly turned back and glared at the black pony. “You could’ve told me I was walking in the wrong direction!”
“Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.”
“To be fair, I did want to, but Rad made me agree not to as revenge for making us drool.”
“……fair enough.” The two both turned and made their way towards town, before Sky Shock suddenly stopped, and crouched into an aggressive position, his wings flaring wide, feathers twitching. The black pony’s eyes both turned green, and he too adapted a battle position, while simultaneously shedding his pony form for his hybrid form in a flash of black and green flames. Gone were the feathered wings, replaced by dragon-like wings of membrane. Fur vanished, and in its place chitin armor and scales appeared over his body, creating a nearly impenetrable defense. Holes appeared in each leg, three in a vertical line on each one. His fangs grew longer, and his teeth transformed from their flat shape to gem crushing dragon’s teeth. The slits in his eyes narrowed as they moved back and forth, tracing the forest around them. Both ponies stood back to back as they watched and listened to the sudden silence of the forest.
“Surrounded. How’d we not notice this,” growled out the hybrid.
“The better question is who is dumb enough to try attacking us when I’m a black belt, and you’re essentially a wild beast who’s strength is on par with a dragon? Whoever they are, I almost didn’t even feel their presence.”
“Odd, considering I can feel all of them, but up until a few moments ago, I couldn’t feel any of them… which can only mean one thing… <Shadow, open the link, get mom and dad here, now!>
<On it!>
And so, the hybrid and the pony stood poised to battle, waiting for something to happen. They didn’t have to wait long as the bushes and trees all around them began to suddenly shake and shift, the sounds of clicking, buzzing, and hissing filled the air as black chitinous creatures walked out from the underbrush, flew into the sky, and even walked down the trees. They completely surrounded the two of them, and looked poised to pounce if they even so much as hinted at trying to run away.
There were at least fifty changelings surrounding them, and despite the two of them being expert fighters, they were only twelve years old, while each of the changeling were all adult sized, and would likely put up a very good fight even before they went down.
They had little hope of escaping.
That said, they were still gonna go out swinging.
“Well… Who’s gonna make the first move?”
“Or are you all going to stand there and stare at us all day?”
Low chuckles sounded out at that, before all of the drones opened their mouths and the same voice echoed throughout all of them. “Such bravado for two cornered rats. Rest assured, though, as long as you do as I say, no harm will come to you.”
Despite the voice coming from all around them, the black pony’s ears twitched, before he mumbled, “That voice…why does it sound familiar?”
“You know who that is?”
“Maybe… but…”
<Radiant, they’re on the way!>
<Hope they hurry… something tells me something really bad is about to happen.> “Show yourself, changeling queen!
All of the changelings suddenly started chuckling before they resumed their clicking and hissing. In front of the hybrid, a group of changeling moved, parting away from each other, as a tall changeling queen walked out in all her glory. Almost instantly, the hybrid’s head shot up, his ear pointing up in shock at the changeling walking towards him. He then crouched very low to the ground and narrowed his eyes as he growled out the name of the queen. “Chrysalis.”
“Hm? I’m honestly surprised you know who I am, but then again, I happen to know all about you, Shadow Flare," Stated the queen as she continued her casual approach. The pony she addressed snorted, as black and green flames shot out of his nose. She stopped right in front of him, but neither made a move to attack the other. She did, however, lower hear head right next to his ear, where she whispered into it with a knowing smirk. “Oh, I’m sorry. Radiant is the one in control right now… isn’t that right, child?”
Despite the shock he felt on the inside, he did nothing more than growl in response. She chuckled before raising her head, as she began casually trotting around the both of them. “Oh yes. I know about you. You are the reason I’m here after all. My sister told me much about you, so much so that I became intrigued.” As she continued to saunter around them, her tail flicked out and snapped Sky Shock in the muzzle. He recoiled slightly, before snapping at her tail with his teeth just as she moved it out of the way, chuckling.
“You’re here for me… why?” As she walked past the hybrid again, he looked at her in detail. Her long slender black legs, despite having holes in them, were still rather attractive. Her shiny chitin armor reflected the sunlight, and her wings actually looked appealing to him. Her mane and tail were a sickly shade of green, but despite that, it worked well for her appearance. And her eyes, somehow he was drawn to them, even as she looked back at him with obvious devious intent.
Unfortunately, being at the age of twelve, his puberty started kicking in, and upon seeing what the changeling portion of his brain recognizes as a powerful and appealing female, he couldn’t help the next few words that came out of his mouth.
“Damn, that’s sexy.”
Every creature in the clearing suddenly froze after hearing that. The hybrid clamped a hoof to his mouth in shock at his own words, as Sky Shock turned his head around to look at his friend with a stunned look on his unseeing eyes. Even Chrysalis was stunned at this admission.
“Hm… Not something I expected to hear from my nephew, but I’ll take the compliment.”
And then the hybrid’s eyes widened even further than they already had to the point where they looked like they would pop out of his head. “Wait… You’re my aunt?!” and then two thought ran through his head. The first one was that he realized Chrysalis was his aunt. His eye twitched. “SON OF A B-“ And then he realized what he said. “OH, SOLAR SHIT! EW! EWEWEWEWEWEWEWEW! NO! NO! OH DEAR CREATOR, WHY! WHY DID I SAY THAT?! WHERE’S THE BRAIN BLEACH?”
Sky Shock turned back around and shook his head. “You’re too much, Rad. Too much.”
“SHUT. UP. SKY. SHOCK. We will never speak of this again…”
Chrysalis had been stunned by the little triad, but coughed and quickly regained her composure. “Yes, well… My sister told me much about you. Dear Silent Shade even told me about your problems with your anger.”
The hybrid raised his head from the ground, and quickly spit out the dirt he was eating in an effort to clean his mouth. “PTOO! Yea, that’s nice and all -ptoo- But you know what, I really can’t say I much care anymore. So I’m just gonna go and try to forget any of this ever happened. Have a good day…” he couldn’t help the shudder that wracked his system before the next word left his mouth, “Aunty…. Ugh. I feel disgusted just saying that now. Come on, Sky, let’s go.”
“Radiant! Look out!”
He turned just in time to dodge a changeling that flew at him, but didn’t see another one coming in from behind. It tackled him to the ground, but he quickly, flung it off of him with a well-aimed hoof to the face. He never got the chance to get up before five more pinned him to the ground, with ten more standing around waiting on him to try to get free. He looked up to see Sky Shock in a similar position, pinned to the ground with Changelings surrounding him. However, Littered around Sky Shock were six unconscious lings laying haphazardly on the ground. As Radiant began struggling to get free, he yelled out to his friend.
“Hey! Sky! Quit showing off!”
“Maybe you should-ugh- do better, then!”
The queen chuckled at their antics, deriving amusement from their banter, despite the situation they were in. She walked up to the hybrid child once again and looked down upon him, that smirk never leaving her face. Just as Radiant got the idea to burn the changelings off of him, the queen convinced him to keep his flames to himself.
“Ah-ah-ah! I wouldn’t do that if I were you, child. I know how much you abhor harming your family, Radiant. These changelings are my brood, after all. That makes them your cousins. Well, most of them, anyway. Others are changelings I forced into my hive mind.”
“Forced into… How could you rip away their free will like that?!”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, right now. After all…” She leaned her head down until her face was mere inches from his and stared into his eyes. “I’m here for you.”
The hybrid’s eyes widened as he realized what that meant. He began his struggles anew. “No –ugh- NO! You won’t take me too! Let me go! *SNARL*”
She merely chuckled at the futility of his efforts. “Hmhmhmhmhm. Yes, I have plans for you. The rest of Equestria doesn’t even know our kind exists. I plan to change that. Soon, I will invade their love soaked nation and take control, where we will harvest the ponies of their love and become the strongest creatures in Equestria! And you, little hybrid, are key to that plan. Please, do resist as long as you can, though. I do enjoy watching my victims struggle.”
With that, the queen’s eyes and horn all began glowing a sickly green color, the power behind it exceptional, before her aura extended from her horn and encompassed his head. Almost immediately, both souls felt pressure on their minds as thousands upon thousands of minds began assaulting them. The noise was deafening. They were all chanting the same thing: Join the hive, serve your Queen over and over again. As her spell began to take hold, their own screams and struggles began to fade away, their strength, their will being drained from them.
“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”
A flash of blue, and the queen’s spell was interrupted as she was tackled to the ground, hooves and wings flying around in a flurry of strikes. Sky Shock attacked her with a fury the hybrid had never seen before, though, he wasn’t paying much attention. He was still lying pinned under the other changelings, a sickly green glow encompassing both eyes that left them in a daze. Sky Shock fought to protect them with everything he had, even as other changeling approached to get him off their queen, many of them were still blown aside by his lightning fast precision strikes before the queen herself got fed up with him.
In a flash of green, Sky Shock was repelled and sent flying, slamming into a tree and rendering him unconscious before he hit the ground. The queen quickly rose to her hooves and glared at the pony, wiping her mouth with her hoof. She noticed a blood stain, and scowled, but then looked appraisingly at the young pony. “He must hold a lot of love for is friend if he was able to fend off so many of my changelings and manage to attack me.” Then she smiled that evil smile of hers. “More than enough love to at least feed some of them. Go ahead my children, you may feast upon him.”
They let out a cheer as several of them began approaching the unconscious pony. Chrysalis turned back to the still downed hybrid and began approaching him again, her eyes and horn already alight to finish the spell. “Now then, where were we, little colt?”
“GET AWAY FROM MY SONS!”
The exclamation was followed by a roar and a torrent of silver flames shooting down from the sky. Chrysalis’ wings shot open and buzzed to life, as she quickly flew away from the child, her changelings trying to do the same. Unfortunately, the drones didn’t escape in time, as they and the hybrid colt were engulfed and set aflame. They didn’t even have the chance to scream in pain before they were turned to ash, though shadow and Radiant remained unharmed. A massive Silver dragon landed on the ground, crouching above the fallen child as another hybrid flew off his back and landed in front of the boy. The silver flames died out, and she immediately picked him up into her embrace, staring at his eyes. They were glossed over, but he still turned them enough to notice her presence, and he spoke slowly to her, even that being a struggle to do.
“Hey… 'bout… time…”
“Don’t sass me boy. Mind your manners.” She then turned her fiery gaze towards her sister. “Why sister? Why would you do this? He’s your family! You promised me you would never hurt him!” She then noticed the group of changelings trying to carry a blue pony away silently. Her eyes glowed fiercely as she bellowed “DROP HIM!” those changelings turned towards her, just in time to catch several telekinetic blasts that sent them flying. The blue pony was caught in the same black and green aura and brought over to her. He was set down next to her, where she quickly made sure he was alright before turning back to her sister, who stared back with a blank stare.
The silver dragon above her growled low and deep, “My wife asked you a question. You would do well to answer her.”
The queen scoffed at him. “Oh be quiet, you big oaf.”
“HOW DARE YOU-“
“Hon, please shut up. The mares are talking.”
The massive dragon grumbled out a low response as Shade looked her sister in the eye. Chrysalis sighed. “I didn’t hurt him. I was going to integrate him into my hive mind and use him to conquer Equestria. It’s not often you find a changeling that can produce its own love after all. He could single handedly empower my entire hive and keep us fed for years. I had no intention of hurting him, though, he’s family after all. Besides, after I solidified my new rule, I planned on releasing him back into your care, sister.”
“And you think that would have made up for taking my child from me for your own selfish gain?” Even as she spoke, her eyes continued glowing as the spell Chrysalis had used on the colt -which she realized had traces of soul magic in it- was slowly being undone. “Why are you so bent on taking over Equestria anyway?! You know that isn’t what Mom wanted for us!”
“Mom wanted us to be happy. I simply see this as a means to an end.” She looked down at the colt, before looking back at her sister’s face. Despite the glow in them, Chrysalis could still see the hurt there. The hurt from her betrayal. She sighed again and turned to address her brood. “We’re leaving.” The changelings immediately started disappearing into the surrounding forest. Chrysalis turned around and started walking away, just as Shade managed to wipe away the remainders of the spell. Radiant sat up and looked at the retreating Changeling, and was about to say something, when he caught sight of her swaying hips as she walked away. Once again, the words flew out of his mouth before his brain could stop him.
“Still sexy.”
Three heads turned towards him, even as his hoof slammed into his mouth, this time nearly breaking one of his fangs. “DAMMIT! STUPID HOROMONES!” He sighed and rubbed his head. Then looked his aunt in the eye. “Ignore what I said, I have a new opinion of you, Aunt Chrissy.”
The queen raised a brow “Oh? And what would-“
“You’re a complete and total bitch-“ “Language young man!” “-And if I ever see you again it will be too soon.”
Chrysalis reared her head back and laughed out loud, before turning back to the hybrid. “Trust me, child. You and I will see each other again. Sooner than you think.” With that, the queen left them.
The massive silver dragon suddenly shrunk in size until he was just bigger than his wife. He looked down at his son and asked, “Are you both alright?”
Their child looked up at him and he watched as the left eye turned from green to blue, and both voices rang out “Yeah, we’re alright.”
The boy then turned to his mother, and leveled her with a look. “We need to talk.”
She leveled the mother look at him and replied with, “Yes we do. What happened to my stash of snacks?”
The hybrid's eyes widened as the previously unconscious pegasus chuckled. “Busted.”
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter ???-2: I’m Done!
Chazz sat down at his computer after a long day of work, placing his cup of milk next to him on his desktop. He pressed the power button to start it up and briefly took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. He let out a sigh, before replacing his glasses and looking blankly at the screen while it booted up. He grabbed a nearby rubber band lying on his desk and tied his long blond hair in a ponytail on the back of his head before hearing the classic beeps and chimes of his computer saying it’s ready for use.
“Alright, let’s see if I’ve got any updates.”
He quickly typed in his password and the desktop screen popped up. He opened his favorite browser, the IT-Netz Chrome, and logged into his email.
“Huh. Let’s see….spam….spam… junk… message from Mom, better flag that one so I can come back to it later… Oh! That’ll work.”
He saw that one of the stories he was tracking, My Life as a Hybrid, had just updated. To him, it was an ok story by a first time author, but it showed some promise, so he gave it a chance to see how it would turn out. The only thing he didn’t like about it were the constant cliffhangers, but then again, not many people did like cliffhangers. Still, after checking through the rest of his emails, he found out it was the only thing that updated. He figured he’d go ahead and waste a few minutes reading and/or laughing to help take the stress of the day’s work off before he took a shower. He was about to click on it when a voice rang out behind him.
“Ah wouldn’t do that if ah was you.”
He quickly whirled around in his swivel chair to see who spoke, but there was no one there. Blue eyes scanned all over his room only to see nothing. There was no one there. He scratched his head as he looked around one last time before turning back towards his computer monitor.
“Great, job’s getting to me more than I thought. I’m starting to hear voices now. Can’t wait for that shower.”
As he was about to click the email again, the voice spoke once more. “Seriously, don’t click that. It’s a trap.”
Once again, he whirled around to see who spoke, but again, all he found was nothing. “Okay, seriously, what the hell?” this time, he got up and started looking in areas where someone could possibly hide in his room. There were in actuality, only two: the inside of his closet, which was empty aside from a laundry hamper and clean clothes hung up on hangers, and under his bed, which had nothing under it except his house slippers. He got up and looked back at the vacant room with his eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I know I’m not going crazy…”
He narrowed his eyes deciding on trying an experiment, he walked back over to his computer while keeping an eye on the room behind him. He lined up the mouse’s arrow with the email and looked back at the room.
Then he clicked it. Nothing happened.
He let out a sigh of relief, and placed his hand on his forehead, rubbing his temples as he closed his eyes. “I guess I was just too stressed out.”
“Nawt really.”
His eyes snapped open as he looked back at his bed. His eyes widened at what he saw. There was a donkey sitting on his bead.
A cartoonish looking donkey chewing on a sprig of wheat.
“But that was a trap.”
Chazz quickly whirled around to his laptop to see something he never thought he’s see in his life.
A massive blue eye took up the entirety of his screen.
“Wowie Zowie! This guy’s room looks so dull! We really need to spruce it up! Maybe add a little pink to it! That always makes me smile!”
The sounds of fumbling, and a crash followed the bubbly, hyperactive voice as Chazz fell backwards on his rump, scooting away from his computer until he slammed into his wall and knocked a picture down, where it crashed to the floor in a lout clatter. He stared wide eyed at the computer as the blue eye receded to show a pink mare with an incredibly unruly pink mane and a massive smile on her face. A little bit behind her stood a black Pegasus with a spiked back silver-white mane and teal dragon-slit eyes. Unlike the massive amounts of energy the pink mare seemed to be radiating, the black Pegasus looked absolutely exhausted, though he was glaring at the donkey still sitting on Chazz’s bed.
“Okay…. First off… Pinks… We are never doing this… ever again. *huff-cough-cough* I haven’t been this worn out in forever… geeze…”
As he continued huffing and panting, he turned his gaze towards the human outside the screen. Absentmindedly, Chazz could still see the entirety of his desktop behind the two ponies that currently existed in his screen, but he was more focused on the rather intimidating set of eyes looking right at him.
“Second… dude… sorry about the intrusion, but Pinkie and I have been trying to find and get him,” He pointed at the donkey still sitting on his bed chewing that wheat stalk, “For the better part of a week all over the internet. You aren’t the first person we’ve surprised like this, but I’m hoping you’ll be the last. So far, this has all sucked… a lot…”
And then the pegasus turned his attention back towards said donkey.
“And finally, can you please… PLEASE stop disappearing every time we find you? I’m friggin’ hungry! I wanna go back home already! Will you PLEASE come back to Equestria now? None of us belong here!”
The donkey sat in silence for a while, chewing the wheat stalk. The black pegasus waited patiently for his response. Chazz still sat on his floor watching with wide eyes. Pinkie was busy in the background looking through all of Chazz’s applications and folders on his computer.
“Oh, Wow! You got a lot of folders with ponies in it! He look! There’s one of Lyra and Bon Bon! And there’s Rainbow doing a Sonic Rainboom! And there’s Princess Celestia with a banana! Wait… What’s she doing with it? Bananas aren’t supposed to be eaten that way.”
“PINKIE! WHAT DID I TELL YOU!?”
“Oopsie! Sorry!”
“Okay.”
The black pegasus turned back to the donkey at his response.
“Ah just wanted to see what your world was lahk. It’s Ok, but it’s no Equestria.” The donkey then floated up off the bed and towards the screen, he simply fazed in to it and was in the same area that that the Black Pegasus and Pinkie presided in.
“Thank you. Now I can go home and eat.” He quickly turned back to Chazz, who was now staring at the screen in shock at what he just witnessed. “So, now that he’s coming back with us, I just wanted to let you know that the…” there was a flash of anger across his face for a brief moment, “author of my story is going to update it as soon as we get back to Equestia, so you’ll be getting another email pretty soon. Don’t worry, this one won’t be a trap. Oh and sorry, for… you know… scaring the crap out of you and everything. I-“ his stomach rumbled loudly. “…I’m just gonna go now.”
The Pegasus, the donkey, and Pinkie all turned and walked/bounced towards the email about the story update, and touched it. Immediately, they all disappeared.
After sitting where he was for several moments, Chazz slowly rose to his feet, and walked up to the screen. The email itself had disappeared. He just kept staring for several moments, before a new email popped up. It was an update for My Life as a Hybrid. Slowly, he moved the mouse over it, and clicked it.
Instead of it opening up to give him the link to the new chapter, however, Pinkie suddenly reappeared.
“Sorry! Forgot something! Need a souvenir!”
She quickly ran back over to a folder, reached in, pulled out the picture of Celestia with a banana, and pulled on the image until it was ripped in half. Instead of actually ripping, however, it had been copied. She placed the original back in the folder it came from before rolling up the copy and tossing it in the air. It landed in her mane, where it slowly sank into it until it was gone. Then, humming the tune to the cartoon she originates from, she bounced back to the email, and paused right before she touched it.
"Seriously, you need more pink in your room."
Then she touched it, and disappeared along with it, right as a new email popped up.
The new one was an update for My Life as a Hybrid.
Chazz slowly, very slowly, clicked on the new email, and dragged it to the junk bin, before he deleted it. Then he picked up his cup of milk, and drained it quickly, before grabbing a pile of clothes and making his way to the bathroom.
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 11: Empty...
As we popped back into the void, I took a moment to look at the faces of the ponies in front of me. Each one of them were looking in various directions –most of them down towards the non-existent ground- all of them lost in thought. Luna, Twilight, Cadence and Shining were the only ones looking directly at me, Shining in particular looking rather sympathetic, but that’s because he could sympathize with me.
“She tried to use her mind control spell on you,” He said. “But at least she was stopped before she got to you.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t a mind control spell, but it may as well have been. She was trying to force me into her hive mind. Or rather, she was trying to force her hive mind onto me.” I stood up and began pacing around in the void as I continued. Everypony had their attention on me. “When a queen forces another changeling into their hive mind, they are forever enslaved to her will, unable to break free, unable to have thoughts of their own, their free will completely forfeit. They cannot be released unless the queen herself frees them, or said queen dies.
“Turns out, though, that she doesn’t lie if she says she’d release someone after she’s done with them. I happen to know a changeling that Aunt Chryssy released. Turns out that while you won’t have any control over your actions, or even your mind, you still remember everything that happens to you. He was so traumatized by the things he did that it took him a few years of therapy for him to get over most of it. I would visit him every week to check up on him, sometimes we’d go hiking somewhere nearby, just to enjoy the day. Sky Shock would come with us sometimes too. I think it really helped him recover faster too.
“But, all of that aside, she also doesn’t lie when she says she intends to do something. This wasn’t the first time she’s tried to force me into her hive mind.”
Images started popping up around them, drawing their attention. They were like windows with moving images, and each one was showing the various attempts Chrysalis made to induct me into her hive. One of them was another ambush attempt, this time without Sky Shock there to back me up. My parents ended up intervening again, but that time, she nearly had me. Another window showed a green pegasus mare with a black mane walk right past me and another of my friends in the middle of our town’s market. The moment she walked past me, her eyes began glowing and I stumbled a bit before falling on my side shivering and twitching. As the mare kept walking, my friend rushed towards me, trying to figure out what was wrong. Struggling to even control my own body I managed to point a hoof at the retreating green mare. My friend wasted no time in blasting her with a powerful spell, managing to strike Chrysalis in the back and forcing her to drop her disguise from the shock. Before she could even get up, she was hit a second time. And then my friend started to fire at Chrysalis repeatedly, causing the queen to retreat. Powerful though she was, she knew my parents would be there soon, and she wouldn’t be able to take full control of me before they arrived. Once Chrysalis was gone, my unicorn friend picked me up and started galloping back towards my home in the forest.
There were at least eight other memory windows, each one showing another attempt she had of trying to gain control of me, each one ended in a failure. “As you can see, she was nothing if not determined, but at least she held up to her word. Each time she tried to, she never once physically harmed me in any way, and I never harmed her or the changelings she may have had with her. Some of them were there against their will. Others were actually her children –my cousins- and were simply following their mother’s orders. It wouldn’t have been right one way or the other to hurt them just to stop them.”
“You mean if she hadn’t have been stopped, you would’ve just let her take control of you?!” the outburst came from Shining, and frankly, he looked pretty angry at that.
“Were you in my horseshoes, Shining, and it was Twilight trying to take over your mind, what would you do?” My reply was surprisingly calm and calculating. I had expected an outburst like that at some point from somepony, and already had my responses planned out. “What would you have done differently? Would you have raised your hoof in violence towards her? Would you turn your magic against your own sister? Would you have harmed her, even if she never once harmed you?”
My questions left him stuttering in shock, and Cadence and Twilight were similarly stunned at the questions. I completely ignored them and turned to Applejack and asked her, “Would you?”
She didn’t even hesitate in her answer. “Nope. Wouldn’t be right.”
“And that’s why I envy you and your family, Applejack. You Apples always have each other’s backs. None of you would ever turn on each other. You all love each other too much.” Then I turned back to Shining. “Yes. I would have let her take over. Because even though it was against my will, I knew, deep down, she would never truly hurt me, or Shadow Flare. Despite her vile nature and her cruelty, family is, in fact, something she cherished greatly. Despite the fact that she had every intention of using me for her own selfish goals, she still cared for me, and Shadow, and my mom and dad. We were her family, and I can honestly tell you that she would die for us.”
The ponies actually looked stunned at that, having been told that Queen Chrysalis, the changeling that nearly ruined Cadence and Shining’s wedding, the changeling that nearly trapped Cadence and Twilight within the mines underneath Canterlot, the changeling that very nearly took over Canterlot actually had some redeeming qualities... It was almost too much to handle.
“Granted, she’s still a total bitch, but she’s a caring bitch.”
Applejack couldn’t stop the incoming facehoof if she tried.
“Unfortunately, when she realized exactly what constantly trying to force her will upon us was doing, it was too late.”
Their ears perked up, but Bones is the one who said anything, having a pretty good idea of where this was about to go. “You mean Shadow Flare, the original soul who that body, and subsequently, that name belongs to.”
I nodded in response. Rainbow spoke next. “You know, we’ve heard you talk a lot about the original Shadow Flare, but we’ve never once met him. What happened to him?”
“And what do you mean it was too late when Chrysalis found out,” asked Twilight.
“I told you all about Chrysalis mind control attempts because this is the first step of a very steep slope for me. The first step of my fall into a brief bout of insanity and despair. Because of mom’s incomplete spell, the night we were born she partially fused our souls together. After a few weeks, she perfected the spell, and our souls were perfectly fused. But, a few years down the road, I discovered a problem. Though our souls were perfectly fused, they were too foreign from each other to stay permanently fused. Over time, they would both begin to deteriorate as the wills of the two souls inhabiting the body began fighting for dominance.
“I found out one day when we were seven. Shadow had been teasing me relentlessly over the fact that I was grounded from eating sweets-“
“*GAAAAAAAAASP* THAT’S LIKE THE WORST PUNISHMENT EVER!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Tell me about it Pinkie. It sucked at the time. A lot. I had been a week without sweets, and Shadow was just dangling a cupcake in front of us. He teased me over and over. When we’re not in control, we can’t feel what the other one might be doing with it. So I wouldn’t be able to taste the cupcake he was about to eat. But I wanted it so badly. I hadn’t realized that I suddenly had control of the body until I pulled the cupcake wrapper out of our mouth. I began looking around, making sure mom and dad didn’t see it, and was about to give back control to Shadow, when I realized that I couldn’t feel him.
“I called out to him trying to get a response, but nothing came for several minutes. I was about to call for mom and dad when he ‘woke up’, claiming he was in pain. Immediately, I ran for our parents, and mom activated her Soul Sight spell. She found out that our combined souls were deteriorating. Apparently, even though we got used to controlling the body at the same time, our wills were constantly at battle over who would control what, and the body itself couldn’t take it, so it was trying to rid itself of the problem by rejecting the soul.”
Bones took over the conversation, knowing enough about souls to see exactly where this was going. “If the two souls had been Shadow’s original soul and the soul or a pony, or a dragon or changeling, they would have been able to exist in perfect harmony with each other. This is because all souls in this world, with the exception of discord, possess harmony in them. This inner harmony would have allowed the two souls to exist in tandem with each other perfectly, regardless of their wills constantly clashing.”
Bones then turned and motioned over to me. “Radiant Nova’s soul, however, isn’t of this world, and therefore, lacks the inner harmony all of our souls possess. If anything, I’d say his soul possesses an inner chaos to it, which further pit their souls against each other. Because their souls couldn’t exist in harmony, they couldn’t sustain the body, and the body tried to purge itself of its pain.”
Most of the ponies were looking confused at the explanation, but Twilight and Luna managed to understand all of it. “So, because the souls couldn’t exist in harmony, the conflicting wills were causing the body torment, and as a result, it began trying to push the souls out.”
Bones and I nodded. “Our conflicting wills were hurting the body, but my will was stronger than Shadow’s because it had been alive for a much longer period of time than his, and had more strength built up from its years of experience. Shadow’s side of our soul was deteriorating faster than mine. I tried everything I could to slow it down. But nothing worked. As the years passed by, his will continued to grow weaker and weaker, until I was in control of our body the majority of the time. I refused to let him just vanish like that. This was his body, his life. I had already lived a life of my own, cut short as it was. He still had his whole life ahead of him. So I came to a decision…” With that, I finally stopped my pacing around, collapsed onto my flank, and let my head hang lifelessly as my ears flattened themselves against my head. The colors of the void shifted blue.
Sorrow. Melancholy. The feelings of lingering despair.
I’m fairly certain that everypony felt it. I think Pinkie somehow ended up tasting it, if her sudden coughs and gags were anything to go by. I felt a hoof on my shoulder, and looked up to see it belonged to Luna. “Shadow… What did you do?”
I looked back down, and clenched my eyes shut to prevent the tears from falling. I began shaking holding the emotions in. To her surprise, I knocked her hoof away violently, as I stood back up and walked away from her as anger began filling me. My anger wasn’t directed at her though. It wasn’t directed at anyone. It was anger I couldn’t blame anyone for. It was no one’s fault that it happened. It simply did.
I wanted to blame myself. I could’ve blamed myself. I wanted to hate myself so badly I wanted to just die where I was. No one would have to suffer me anymore. I wouldn’t exist. They couldn’t suffer me. I wanted to just jump off the highest cliff and just keep falling, and falling and falling until I was no more. I wanted to turn my own flames against myself, and hope they incinerated me in the most painful way possible before I was finally snuffed out. I wanted to jump in an ocean and just sink to the bottom, as the light from the sun faded more and more the deeper I went. I wanted to sink to the bottom until I could hold my breath no more, let the water fill my lungs, allow myself to suffocate. Allow my life to fade away into nothingness…
I so very, very dearly wanted to right now. I’ve wanted to for five years now.
For five years now I’ve wanted to simply…cease.
But I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair.
Shadow’s death wasn’t fair.
I live for him now.
If I die… Then his memory dies…
I cannot die now.
I refuse to die now.
I took a few breaths in an attempt to calm myself down.
It didn’t work.
I opened my eyes and looked back at everyone, and let the pain in my soul show itself on my face, in my expression as I looked everypony in the eye.
I even looked Fluttershy in the eye.
I quickly turned away before her eyes could release all the hidden emotions in my soul. I looked up and noticed the void had turned black and let out a sigh.
“Nothing,” I said. “I did absolutely nothing. I never got the chance. The moment I stepped into the forest that night… Shadow’s fate was sealed.
“There is an altar in the forest surrounding my hometown. It was created not long after Princess Luna’s banishment to the moon by some of her faithful followers. According to legend, it was created in an attempt to bring back their night leader by sacrificing the souls of captured ponies, ponies who worshipped the sun.” Luna winced as I told her this, but then her eyes widened as she realized what I tried to do. Twilight and Bones realized it shortly after, and then the rest of them followed suit. Horrified faces all looked at me as they all realized exactly what I had intended to do.
“It was a week after we turned seventeen. After Shadow decided to go into what we call ‘soul sleep’, I cut off my connection to everyone and left our cave. I treaded deep into the forest, thinking… heavily about what I was about to do I tried to see if I was going to regret any of it…and I realized I wasn’t I was perfectly content to fade away into nothingness, and let him live his life the way he was meant to. Sure, they’d mourn me and be sad for a time, but things would be better this way. My soul never belonged in Equestria. All I was doing was removing it.
“Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. Turns out that that altar is close to where Chrysalis’ hive used to be located. One of the drones on patrol notified her and she saw it as the perfect opportunity to ‘induct me’ into the hive again. When I arrived at the altar I just stood there and looked up at it, taking in what I through would be my last breaths, my last thoughts. I was so lost in thought I didn’t even notice her walk right up behind me. I didn’t notice when she leaned her head right down to my ear. I only noticed her when she said ‘Welcome home.’”
The void shifted, and bones and the girls were all sucked into another memory.
I didn’t follow them.
I stayed where I was.
I didn’t want to see it again.
I didn’t want to experience it again.
I wanted to forget it.
This pain from my past.
I wanted it gone.
But it never would be.
It would always be with me.
Etched into my soul….
For eternity.
“Welcome home.”
Radiant’s breath hitched. He didn’t move a muscle. He could feel her standing above him. He could feel her breath on his ear.
He could feel her smile.
“Chrysalis… Don’t do it…”
He heard the tingle of her magic, saw the dark green glow of her horn lighting up.
He felt the pressure on his mind. He started hearing the multitude of voices.
He began gritting his teeth.
“Chrysalis… Please don’t...”
The pressure on his mind grew immensely, forcing a heavy shudder through his body.
His legs began trembling, threatening to give out under him.
He felt something inside of him crack, and a voice scream out in pain.
The voices grew hundreds of decibels louder in his head, drowning out the scream.
Chrysalis whispered in his ear, her voice somehow still louder than all the others.
“Fret not child, I will return you to your family safe and sound… once Canterlot and Equestria belong to us.”
Radiant’s eyes started fading from their teal green to a sickly darker green, and his eyelids began closing halfway.
There was another crack felt, another faint scream.
He pleaded with her again.
“Ch-… Chry… sa… lis… You don’t… understand…. St-… stop! …Please…..”
She chuckled darkly before asking, “And what don’t I understand?”
He gasped lightly, struggling to get the words out, a fog falling over his mind.
“S-soul… ngh…Shadow… Killing… him!”
*Crack-CRACK*
[I… Love you… big brother…]
[Shadow! SHADOW NO!]
*SHATTER*
Chrysalis only had time to gasp before a powerful shockwave was released from Radiant’s body, the body itself floating into the sky surrounded by a flaming black and green aura. A phantom appeared covering the body, before it separated revealing the spirit of a pony who looked exactly like the hybrid it came from, only with a reversed color scheme and blue eyes. It turned and looked at Radiant, who looked back with wide eyes, Chrysalis’ spell having been broken. The phantom smiled and waved before simply fading out of existence. The aura faded as well, and the hybrid dropped to the ground looking up at where the phantom disappeared from.
Chrysalis herself looked at the hybrid child in wonderment trying to figure out what just happened. There was a roar in the distance. She recognized it, but didn’t move. She continued to stare at the hybrid, at her nephew, realizing what she had done. Neither of them noticed when a silver dragon landed between them. Radiant didn’t feel himself being pulled into a desperate hug.
He didn’t hear his adoptive mother’s voice asking what happened.
He didn’t hear his father threatening his aunt.
He didn’t hear.
He felt.
He felt the hole that formed within his very core.
He felt the hole that formed from the loss of what was his other half.
He felt the hole that formed when his body rejected the weaker half of his soul.
He felt the hole that formed when he lost his little brother.
He whispered out one word. It was a name.
“….Shadow?”
There was nothing there to answer him.
He felt nothing.
He felt empty.
He slumped against his mother.
He didn’t feel the tears sliding down his face.
He didn’t hear Chrysalis shove his father out of the way.
He didn’t feel it when she, too, joined in the hug.
He didn’t hear her apologizing to him.
He didn’t feel his father wrap all of them in his large wings.
My Life as a Hybrid By ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 12: A Broken Soul
When the girls, Shining and Bones popped back into the void, I had almost, almost been glomped by a sobbing Pinkie. With the quick reflexes and reaction time I gained through years of flight training and fighting with dad, I managed to shoot myself skyward, the pink mare missing by a hair’s width. With the pink pony out of reach, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had not wanted an emotional Pinkie trying to squeeze the life out of me.
Didn’t stop me from getting glomped by Flutershy though.
She managed to tackle me out of the air and we crashed on the nonexistent ground within my mind. She clutched me hard, and no matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t get the weeping mare off of me. After several attempts at freeing myself, I just sighed and went limp in her embrace, letting her do her thing. Didn’t know Fluttershy had that kind of grip.
And of course, Pinkie decided to glomp both of us, and then I stopped being able to breathe.
I had had enough.
The void shifted, and Pinkie and Flutters were back in line with the others facing me. The only ponies who weren’t shedding tears were Luna and Bones, and…
…
Correction - the only pony who wasn’t shedding tears was Luna.
Twilight wiped her eyes and looked at me, but it did little good as she still had tears falling down her face. “Shadow… I’m so sor-“
“I don’t want you pity, Twilight,” I interrupted, “nor do I want your sadness. I want your understanding. Now you know what happened. This was the catalyst that caused my brief decent into madness. After is death, I felt so empty inside. Mom, dad, and even Chrysalis did everything they could to snap me out of my sorrow and depression. Sky Shock, and all of my other friends visited me, tried everything they could think of to help me. Nothing worked. I was completely despondent, completely unresponsive. I responded to nothing. I did not eat. I did not sleep until my body shut down and forced me to, and even then I always had horrible, unforgiving nightmares. For a full year, I simply laid in my bed, and did absolutely nothing. If it weren’t an involuntary action, I’d have stopped breathing. Nothing else mattered to me anymore. I was just an empty vessel that no longer had a purpose, a reason to live.
“At least, that’s what I thought back then. The wound had been too fresh, and I was thinking with a sullied mind full of loss, sorrow and despair. I had no hope for anything. If mom didn’t come in every day and force feed me emotions to keep me alive and relatively healthy, I’d be dead and gone by now.”
“Even though you lost your brother,” Luna said, “that’s no reason to give up on living. I was banished to the moon for a thousand years, and even though my sister was in pain, she continued to move forward with her life.”
“The circumstances were different, almost entirely so. You were merely banished. Banishments can end. You had hope of returning, and that was a hope Celestia held on to. She held on to the hope that she would one day see you again, returned to your former glory.” My expression turned dark, and my voice grew deep, almost to a low growl. “I had no such hope. My brother’s soul was ripped out of our body and shattered. He has been wiped from existence. There is no hope of him returning to me, ever.”
“But still-“
“Stop. Just stop. There are a few things you all need to understand. First off, there’s the fact that I was torn from my world and thrown into this one, effectively causing me to abandon my own family. The heartache and loss I felt from that I kept bottled up inside of me for years, keeping it from Shadow and mom and dad. They never knew how much that truly hurt me, hurt my heart. I kept that from them. I had planned on telling them sooner, but then the condition with my and Shadow’s souls came up, and I had no intention of forcing them to listen to my now pointless pain. Losing a child is far worse than that.
“Second was the fact that he and I were connected on such a level that we knew things about each other that neither of us realized ourselves. You don’t lose someone who is that close to you and not grieve. Couple that with my bottled up feelings of abandonment I felt, and you have an instant depression, coupled with thoughts of regrets and wishes that life wasn’t so cruel.
“And finally, you are forgetting that I am a changeling. Changelings are empaths. We consume emotions. So when Shadow died, you can imagine that I wasn’t the only one feeling sadness, and despair, and loss. I said my mom had to force feed me emotions, and while that was true, I was also consuming all of the negative emotions of everyone who had been affected by Shadow’s loss. I thought, even in my lonely little dark pit, that I could lessen what they had to feel if only so they could recover from this loss faster.”
I looked down and away, from them, my voice becoming small and weak. “…But slowly, as I kept on consuming them, my thoughts got worse. My depression increased. I felt worthless. I felt like everything was my fault. That if I had never existed, none of this would’ve ever happened. I began to think that I was a burden on everyone, a blight upon the world that should be removed. I felt like my life’s purpose was to cause everyone pain. I know my mom and my brother were hurt by my death, and I could feel the pain coming from my other mom and dad. So after a year of this, that’s what I decided to do. To remove myself. To make their lives easier.
“I was weak. I was hungry. Malnourished. My body was as stiff as a board and my muscles had deteriorated from being unused for so long. But that didn’t stop me from crawling out of my bed, limping out of the cave, and forcing my exhausted body to walk back to the statue of Nightmare.“
And despite the mood, thoughts of what happened next managed to bring a small smile to my face. This did not go unnoticed, as the girls, and the guys looked at me with a curious face, despite some of them still shedding tears.
“That’s when dad surprised me.”
The void shifted, and we were sucked into another memory.
His wings were hanging limply at his sides. He had not the strength needed to even fold them. His feathers, or what was left on his wings, had all turned grey, as had his coat. His body, despite how tall he was for his age, was thin and lanky, a result of his malnourishment and lack of exercise. His ribs were showing through his fur, and his stomach looked almost like an empty pit. Were he in his hybrid form, his chitin would have been brittle and cracked, and his scales would’ve been blank and dulled. His normally spiked back mane and tail lay flat and limp, with splits and frayed ends from lack of care. His breathing was incredibly shallow, to the point he was taking two small breaths every second. His entire form was shivering and shaking with the effort needed to keep standing.
But worst of all were his eyes. It wasn’t the fact that he had heavy bags under them. It wasn’t that they were incredibly bloodshot from lack of moisture.
It was the fact that they were so empty.
His once normally vibrant emerald green eyes were now faded into a jaded dark forest green, and there was no hidden glow behind them. There were no thoughts, no emotions in those eyes.
They were dull.
They were weak.
They were empty.
Just as he was.
He felt nothing. He felt like he was nothing.
That’s what he felt like.
Now, he only needed to make it a reality.
It would be so simple. Just place his hooves on the altar, say a couple of forbidden words while using his magic-or what’s left of it-as a catalyst, and poof. He would be no more. It was so simple.
So why was he hesitating so much?
For the life of him, he didn’t know. He had been standing here, with his body threatening to give out on him every passing moment for the better of two and a half hours. The sun would be rising in less than half an hour, and his window of opportunity was fading. This could only be done during the hours of the night, and he was just standing there, looking at the statue of a fallen and corrupt princess.
‘…..Why?’
His parents would find him soon. If he didn’t act quickly, they would find him, and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be a burden for anyone anymore. He didn’t want to be the cause of so much strife and torment. So much pain. He didn’t want any of it.
He just wanted to sleep.
Over the past year, there were periods where his body would force him to sleep for three days at a time so he could recover his magic, which would simply be pushed out by his own will once he awoken so he could remain empty. He would be forced to have constant recurring and unending nightmares for three straight days and nights. He wanted the nightmares to end. He wanted a dreamless sleep. He wanted empty dreams where he wouldn’t have to see or feel what he felt when he lost Shadow over and over again, when he was ripped from his human mother and brother, where he wouldn’t have to see the pain and misery on all of their faces, and the faces of their friends.
He just wanted empty dreams.
He just wanted empty sleep.
And he didn’t want to wake from that, ever.
‘…That’s… what I want…’
But he couldn’t complete that final step. He couldn’t do it. He had been hesitating for so long, on this one simple step, to finally rid them, and himself, of the pain. He could finally become truly empty.
He could finally become truly nothing.
‘…So…why?’
Why couldn’t he do it? Why couldn’t he just end everything?
“….why can’t I… go to sleep?”
His voice was so weak and raspy that he himself almost couldn’t hear what he said.
So it was a surprise when someone else did.
“Because that’s not what Shadow would want.”
Radiant didn’t even need to turn to know who the voice belonged to. Instead, he let his head fall limp, which nearly toppled him over on its own, showing how weak he truly was, and clenched his eyes shut with as much strength as he could muster. He sucked in as much air as his already strained lungs could, and let out as great a huff he could manage that sent him into a wheezing fit. From there, his body finally gave in, and he collapsed, his body still trembling even as he lied on his side on the dirt.
And for the first time in a year, he felt.
He felt pain.
A pain he couldn’t describe, but was focused in two areas.
His heart and his soul.
The pain was so intense he became even further crippled by it. His body curled in on itself, one of his hooves going towards his heart, the other circling around his stomach as much as it could. He let out more huffs, unable to control himself as the rest of his forgotten emotions began hovering to the surface.
Anger.
Hate.
Sadness.
Despair.
Loss.
Loneliness.
Solitude.
And even through all of that, he still somehow managed to remain empty. As his body was wracked with sobs, the empty hole that was formed over a year ago was still there.
And it would never be filled.
And that caused him even more pain.
A mere seven words had unlocked so much suffering, suffering that had accumulated over the years he spent with his new family, and from their recent loss. This suffering had been born from his feelings of loss and abandonment when he had been torn from the lives of his human family and friends, built up over the course of his time in Equestria, and thrown into a boiling point with the loss of Shadow Flare. The stewing pot of emotions began to accumulate an unforeseen pressure as he took in the negative emotions of those who also suffered from Shadows loss.
His mother.
His father.
Their friends.
The pot couldn’t take it anymore. And with seven small words, it burst in a violent explosion. And now all those negative feelings and emotions were overwhelming Radiant to the point where he was completely unable to move, aside from his constant, uncontrollable tremors. If he had the ability to, he would be crying, or at the very least, shedding tears from the emotional onslaught he was taking.
But he had cried out all of his tears long ago.
He felt two claws gently pick him up and hug him close to something incredibly warm, and then felt himself further wrapped up in two leathery appendages. His father leaned down and whispered in his ear.
“Shadow would want you to keep living. He wants you to experience the true joys this life of yours can offer. He wants you to survive, and become stronger from this.”
“…I… I c-can’t”
“Yes you can.”
“I…won’t! I c-can’t…”
“You have to. You owe it to your brother to keep living. He gave his life for you, Radiant. He wanted you to live, son.” He felt his adoptive father lightly nuzzling the top of his head. Shadow twitched violently.
“H-how can… you s-still call… me… H-he… lost his life… bec-cause of m-me…”
He felt his father shake his head in denial. “No, he gave his life for you. He knew what you were trying to do for him. All the nights you spent researching spells, trying to find ways to rescue his soul while you thought he was unaware. He told us, your mother and me.” Radiant twitched again. “He knew. And he came to us. He told us. And then he asked us to do something if it came down to it.”
Platinum suddenly felt his son struggling in his grasp, trying to pull away from him, shaking his head and twitching all the while, but he lacked the strength or the stamina to do it. “No! You’re l-lying... he didn’t- h-he wouldn’t!”
“He did,” he sighed. “He asked us that if it came down to it… that we let him die so you could experience a full life the life you deserve.”
“NO!”
“And he left a message for you.”
Radiant stopped moving. Aside from the little tremors his body still gave, he had stopped entirely. His eyes were wide as he slowly asked, “……wh-…..what?”
Slowly, Platinum set Radiant down on the ground on his stomach so he could read the piece of parchment that he withdrew from his tail grasp. He pulled off the blue ribbon, and unrolled it, before laying it in front of Radiant. He sat next to his son as Radiant silently read over it.
Together, the two of them stayed in silence for a long while, Radiant reading, and re-reading the message over and over again. Every time he did, Platinum saw life flooding back into his eyes, hope rising up inside of him just as the sun rose over the horizon. Finally, Radiant Nova spoke up.
“Okay… I-I promise, little b-brother… I p-promise to live…”
Expending what little magic remained in his body, Radiant let out a small ember of black and green flames, and watched as the scroll was burned in front of him. He watched as the embers and ashes floated up into the sky until the letter was gone completely. Then he turned to his adoptive father, and said…
“I’m hungry.”
Platinum couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. “Alright. Let’s get you something to eat then.”
He lifted up Radiant in his arms and flapped his massive wings, flying off towards their cave. As he was flying, he heard his son speak again.
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01
~I’ll See You Again Soon – From One Brother to Another~
Heya, big bro.
So, if you got this letter, I’m assuming that… that mom (or was it dad) told you.
I’ve never been good at this sort of thing. I guess that transfers on parchment too.
*A splotch of ink and a scribbled out mess*
Ugh, this would be so much easier if we had those… what did you call them? Pens! Yeah, those. This would be so much easier if we had pens to use.
But uh… anyway.
I’ve never been good at saying (or writing, apparently) this stuff, so I’ll just go ahead and say it.
Live, big bro.
I want you to live. I know how you feel about this. I do. I know what you do at night, when I’m in Soul Sleep. I go through all of your research and your learned spells when you’re in your soul sleep. I know about all the stuff you’ve done when you tried to research a way to save us both.
To save me.
I know you’re hurting right now. I know. But you need to know something. I knew of all the experiments you tried.
I’m the reason they failed.
The spells we cast, the magic we possess… it works or fails in accordance with our wills. What we want them to do depends entirely upon us. We always had to subconsciously agree on how the spell reacted, and what it did, and how much it did it.
We had to willingly agree on every spell we ever cast.
And that’s why yours failed.
Because I didn’t agree with them.
In the beginning, the spells failed because they simply wouldn’t work for us. Whether it was because of the chaos of your soul clashing with the harmony of mine, or something else, I don’t know. But when those didn’t work, I saw you moving onto more desperate spells. Spells that would reverse our condition. Spells that would put your own in a worse state than mine.
Spells that would outright destroy yours.
I couldn’t let that happen.
*an inky smear seems to have covered most of this segment*
Darn it. Now I gotta re-write this.
….what did I write?
Oh yeah!
I know you cared about me. And I know you said that you’ve already had one life. That I was more deserving of this one, and that you wouldn’t take it away from me. I know what you plan on doing at the Altar of Nightmare tomorrow night. And I already set my own plans into motion.
I told mom and dad what you planned to do. I told mom to cast a spell on us that would reverse the effects of the magical sacrificial ritual you were going to do.
Big bro, they freaked out so bad, if it hadn’t been so serious I’d have had to laugh so hard.
But then I told them, and then I told them MY reasoning. Why I wanted to let you live. Why you deserved this more than I did.
I’ve been alive for fifteen years, big bro. And if you can manage to look past our messed up first birthday, our few bouts of uncontrollable rage, and Aunt Chyssi’s attempts at mind control and abduction, I have had nothing but joy and happiness in my life. I’ve had so much fun, I’ve made so many friends…
And I even kissed that changeling you liked. So I still got one up on you! HA!
But you… you didn’t have that back in your old life. Your dad left you, you only had your mom and your brother, and you made one or two friends. You had to struggle to get to school, it was a pain to get food on your table, your mom struggled to keep you and your brother clothed, you had been bullied constantly….
And then you were….
You deserve a chance to be happy, to be truly happy, big bro.
And I’m going to give you that chance.
I told mom and dad how I felt. I told them that even if your spell worked, and you left us… I’d be coming after you shortly anyway. My soul is too damaged and I wouldn’t survive two hours without you. Despite the fact that your soul is the one that’s weakening mine…
It’s also what’s keeping mine intact.
Your soul, while consuming mine, is also managing to keep it separate. Yours is keeping my sense of self, and my identity intact, even as all of this is going on. How much more contradicting can you get, bro?
I guess you really are a soul of chaos, though, huh?
After a lot of talking between the three of us, they agreed, and she cast the spell.
But she couldn’t stop crying.
And it hurt to see that.
But I know it can’t hurt as much as you are right now. I probably can’t even phathu- Fathi- Fartho-…..…..understand how much pain you’re probably in.
You might hate me for this. I’ve accepted that. I said goodbye to all our friends. I said goodbye to mom and dad.
But I’m not saying goodbye to you.
You once told me that you should never say goodbye. Because if you don’t say goodbye, it’s like you’re not really gone.
So, even though I won’t be there, I’ll still be with you… in… spirit?
Wow… I think I just confused myself there.
Spirits and souls aren’t the same thing, right?
Uh… anyway….
Instead of saying goodbye, I have a wish. Something I want you to promise me.
I want you to promise me you’ll live.
Don’t just live because you can now. I want you to go exploring someday. This is a vast, wide world we live in, and we’ve only seen one little forest town and a cave. I want you to explore the world, see the sights, and write me letters describing what you see.
Because then I can see what you saw when we meet again.
Promise me, big bro. I want your dragon’s code promise that you’ll live.
I want to see the world.
So write me some letters, and take some pictures. Maybe go on an adventure or two. I’ll want to read and hear all about it.
See you later, big bro. I’ll be waiting.
~Shadow Flare
PS: Who knows? I may have a surprise waiting for you myself when I see you.
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 13: Time to Sleep, Time to Wake
I had just finished reciting from memory the letter Shadow wrote to me. In response, there was a mixture of crying mares and sad smiles (and in the case of bones, the feeling of a sad smile, seeing as how he has no facial expressions.) Unsurprisingly, I was currently hovering high above the group to keep away from Pinkies grubby hooves.
I was not getting hugged by her again, not right now at least.
“Pinkie, I know you’re sad and all….but sit down, mare.”
“Not… until… I… give… you… a… HUG!” She was jumping up and down in the air trying to get to me, and whenever she came close, I hovered just a little further out of reach.
“Fine then.” I turned towards everyone else to address them, while still keeping an eye on Pinkie to make sure she didn’t surprise me and keep out of her reach. “So, yeah. It’s thanks to that letter, thanks to Shadow, that I regained the will to live. I’ve got a promise to keep now, and I have every intention of fulfilling it. No matter what the future may hold, I’m going to keep on moving forward, until I die of old age, and that’s not gonna happen for at least a few hundred, maybe even a thousand years.”
That actually got a number of surprised looks from them, so much so that Pinkie even momentarily stopped jumping trying to glomp me out of the sky.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that to you. I’m more than likely gonna outlive most all of you. I mean, sure, I’m only half dragon, but I still maintain a dragons long life expectancy. Don’t know exactly how long I’ll live for, but at the very least, I’ll be here for a few hundred years. Because… you know… Dragons are friggin’ boss.”
And now they look mildly confused at my last remark. High moon above, it feels so good to use Earth phrases, even if no one understands them here. My smug smirk isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“WHEEEEEEE!”
“Hurgk!”
I may have spoken too soon.
…
‘Where the hell did Pinkie get a trampoline from?’
So, after several minutes of struggling to escape the clutches of the deadly hug monster, who was now back to smiling obnoxiously, I went back to explaining my life’s story.
“So, Shadow, You said that this was the first step for you, correct?” I looked at twilight, mildly confused at what she said before she clarified it for me. “You said that this was the first step towards your brief bout of insanity… What… what was the second?”
“Right…. that. Yeah.” I sighed, and was quiet for a few moments to organize my thoughts before I began again. “The looming threat of Shadow’s death was the first step. It led me to seek out desperate measures to ensure his safety, even if it led to me committing suicide. His actual death led to a crippling depression and made me lose the will to live, even going so far as to leading me to believe myself a source of pain for others, which led to me attempting suicide a second time.
“What I didn’t know at the time, and something I didn’t realize until I met Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, is that his death, along with my own from before I arrived in Equestria, caused me to develop a phobia. Athagoraphobia.”
“A fear of abandonment.” The ponies turned towards Luna, Twilight mildly surprised she knew what the word meant. I wasn’t. I could see it in her eyes. She had a fear similar to mine. She had autophobia: a fear of solitude. We both nodded to each other in silent understanding.
“She’s right. I have a fear of being abandoned. That fear and the second step led directly into my loss of sanity. When I did lose my mind, something inside of me broke. I’m still broken, and you’d be able to tell if you knew what to look for. For a long time, my mom and dad became my rock. The anchor that kept me sane. I think my mom realized that, and did everything in her power to make sure I was going to be alright, because she was fretting over me almost all the time. Of course, that may have also been due to her worry about me getting healthy and making sure I didn’t try to kill myself again, but at that point, I had no intentions of doing that.
“A couple of months later, and I was back in peak condition, being able to reach the highest levels of magic I had access to, and soaring through the sky at top speeds. It looked like everything was going to go back to normal. Well, as normal things could get, all things considered. But then… a few years after, everything came crashing down for me… and I lost my mind.”
The other’s looked nervous, as though they didn’t really want to ask, but then Dash stepped up to the plate. “What happened, Shadow?”
I looked over at Rainbow. Then slowly, I turned my gaze over the rest of them, taking in each of their expressions. I know what I was about to say and show them would probably devastate them and likely alter some of their opinions of me, but I had to be known.
They had to know the reason why I assaulted Celestia and attempted to murder her.
Just as I opened my mouth to begin my explanation, the void interrupted me, shifting black, before turning back into it rainbow of colors. Strangely, the colors were dulled, and less vibrant than normal. I blinked up at it. “Huh. That’s…. stupid.”
“I think my body is about to shut down.” They all looked alarmed at that. “Someone tell me what today is. I lost track.”
Rarity answered, “It’s Tuesday, darling, why?”
“Oh, ok then. That makes sense.” They still looked confused, so I explained it to them. “It’s been almost two weeks since my body had sleep… well, sleep that hadn’t been induced by a spell or from being knocked unconscious. And while I do replenish some magic when that occurs, it’s not enough to keep me going. So, my body forces me to sleep for three days straight. In those three days, my body’s resistance to magic vanishes, and I begin absorbing and storing ambient magical energy from around me into to restore myself, and to keep me active for about two weeks straight. It’s why I can’t sleep whenever I want to unless somepony knocks me out with a spell... or they just knock me out.”
The void went black, but stayed so for several moments before the rainbow of colors returned again, this time, they were grey scaled. Which meant I had about one minute before I shut down for some time.
“Okay, quick. I need two things when I go under. One, I need to be transported to a remote location, because I absorb a lot of magic, and I can’t get enough out of the air, my body start staking it from other creatures, and that’s not good for anyone. Two. Private Pinkie!”
She didn’t miss a beat and appeared right next to me, complete with army helmet and camouflage lines on her cheeks. “Sir, Private Pinkie reporting for duty!”
“Do you remember how much I ate when we went to the mess hall?”
“You bet I do, sir!”
“Your mission is to recruit Applejack and make me three times that much by the end of the third day! Am I clear?!”
“What, what?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Now, hold on just a moment! Why do Ah-?
And then the void went Black.
‘Perfect timing void. Perfect timing.’
The girls, Shining, and Bones all bolted upright, their eyes wide as they all shivered, having received what felt like a massive electric shock along their spines from their forced ejection from the void. They all looked towards the hospital bed to see Shadow sprawled out on it, snoring away without a care in the world, one of his back legs hanging off the bed and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. The ponies in the room, sans the guards, couldn’t help but giggle at how strange he looked, but it wasn’t long before a heavily condensed blue aura surrounded him and levitated him off the bed.
Trapped in Princess Luna’s magic, he was levitated right out the door, the other ponies and the guards in the room following her and her charge out. Twilight walked up to the princess of the night, with Shining and Cadence right behind her. “Where are you going to take him, Princess?”
Luna thought for a moment, before an idea struck her. “There is an old cave at the top of this mountain. According to Celestia, our old friend, a dragon named Recluse, used to live there, but he vacated long ago so that she could build Canterlot here. He even helped in the construction of the city. I believe that the cave should be far away enough for Shadow.”
“You and Aunt Celestia were friends with a dragon?” asked Cadence. “I didn’t think we had any ties to dragons, given their… unique personalities.”
“Recluse grew up together with my sister and me,” replied the dark alicorn. “We were all very close friends. Although, I have not seen him since my banishment, so I have no idea where he is at the moment.”
Twilight poke up next, the shock evident in her voice. “Wait, you mean he’s still alive? But, then he’d have to be-“
“A few thousand years old, yes, “Luna replied with a nod. She smiled a little. “While most dragons only live for a thousand years at best, Recluse has been alive just as long as my sister and I. and, from what sister has told me, he’s still relatively in his prime.”
Jaws dropped in response to her comment. “Still in his prime?! I’d love to study him! He has to know a lot about things that passed over the ages! Do you think we could meet him, Princess Luna?”
“Yes, I think so. It would be nice to… What is the phrase? ‘Catch up?’” She turned to look at the assembled ponies, whom all nodded in response. “Yes, it would be nice to catch up with him. I will see about a meeting with him when we are in a less important situation.”
With that statement, the ponies all started conversing, some about the dragon, and in the case of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, about Shadow Flare. Luna herself looked at the lightly snoring hybrid held within her magical field, and couldn’t help but think about him and his situation as well.
‘It’s obvious that deep down, Shadow Flare… Radiant Nova is a good pony. And though he’s been through so much, I still do not understand why he attacked my sister.’ Over the months of Shadow working in the Castle, he and Luna had in fact become very good friends. Aside from the ponies behind her, with the exception of the mysterious Bones, Shadow is one of the first true friends Princess Luna had made upon her return from her banishment. His attack on her sister, however, heavily strained her friendship with him. Despite that, she still felt that bond with him, and sincerely hoped that when this was all over, they could remain friends. ‘But first, we need to discover exactly what happened to him. What did happened to him? What was done to him that was so devastating that it would drive him to attack Celestia?’ She shook her head, and looked forward, before turning a corner, and continuing her walk down the pristine walls of the castle. ‘Whatever it was, according to him, it drove him mad for a short time. When this is over, I believe it may be a good idea to get him some professional help. Much like my sister did for me when I was restored by the Elements.’
She then turned her head enough so that she could look behind her. There, in the very back of the group, being tailed by two solar guards, undead pony, Bones. He caught her gaze, and she watch his steps falter for a moment before he averted his gaze from her. She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘And then there is the mystery of the skeleton pony… Hmm…’ She was brought out of her musings as another solar guard approached her from the front. He saluted, before turning and walking next to her. Luna leaned her head down as he began relaying his message.
“Princess Celestia is awake, and she requests your presence, Princess.”
“Thank you.” The guard saluted, before marching off back to his post. Luna turned to the assembled ponies, noting they were all looking at her. She motioned for the Guards to come towards her. “Please escort Shadow Flare to the Cave above Canterlot.” She materialized a map out of thin air, and handed it to one of her unicorn guards. “I want ten guards posted around him at all times.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” The guard saluted, and Luna lowered the sleeping hybrid onto the backs of two guards. The moment her magic faded, they both nearly buckled under the weight of Shadow. After composing themselves, the guards all walked off, down another corridor. Luna then turned towards the rest of the group.
“Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, if you two would not mind, could you lease retrieve Mantle and go with my guards. I would like for you two to watch over and guard Shadow as well. If he happens to wake up and he overpowers the guards, Fluttershy’s Stare and Rainbow’s speed, and Mantle’ strength and magic absorbing capabilities will be the only things that can stop him.” Both ponies nodded, though Fluttershy looked hesitant to do so. Nonetheless, she acquiesced to Luna’s request and both flew off towards the castle gardens. “The rest of you, please move to the throne room. I will return there shortly with news of my sister’s condition soon…”
The ponies nodded, and began to walk away, until… “Except you, Bones.” Said Skeleton pony flinched so hard he looked like he was recoiling from being back hoofed. “Come with me. You and I are going to have a discussion with my sister if she is up to it.”
The ponies looked back at bones, who had an abject look of horror across his face. His jaw was dropped, and the red dots in his eye sockets turned to just that. Small, almost unnoticeable dots. His entire form trembled, before he locked up…. and then fell to pieces. A light blue bubble surrounded all of the bones and lifted them into the air before the hovered over next to the princess. She eyed them momentarily, before turning to the ponies, nodding, and then walking off towards the medical wing of the hospital. The others just looked at each other, before they all moved to reconvene towards the castle.
As they were walking, Twilight though about the things she had learned, and then silently made a decision to write a letter to Spike. She had a feeling it would probably be a good idea for him to come to Canterlot. There were some things he needed to learn about his adoptive older brother. Before she could even begin to think about how to structure the letter, there was a gasp. The ponies turned to Pinkie, as she nearly shouted. “Oh, no! I almost forgot! Come on, Applejack!”
“Wait, whut? WHAT IN TARNATION!? PINKIE! PUT ME DOWN THIS INSTANT! WHOA NELLY! PINKIE! HOLD ON! SLOW DOWN! PINKIE! STOP! WE'RE GONNA- *Crash*
As Luna approached the doors that led to Celestia’s room, the guards at the doors saluted their princess of the night, before the unicorn guard opened the doors for her. She entered the room, placing the pile of bones in a corner of the room, before turning her gaze towards her where her sister would be resting. What she saw was actually rather shocking.
There Celestia was, Covered in bandages around each wing, her torso, and all four of her hooves. There was a patch over her right eye, coincidently the one usually covered by her flowing mane. Said mane was also much shorter, the ends of both her mane and tail having been burned off and reducing their overall length. They would be back to normal within the week. Worst of all, however, was probably her horn. It too, was wrapped in bandages, concealing the numerous cracks spread throughout it from when an enraged shadow Flare managed to get his jaws on it. For unicorns, and subsequently alicorns, their horn is their most sensitive part of their body. It is the focal point of their magic, and if abused, it can cause excruciating pain for its owner, even more for the case of exceptionally powerful unicorns or alicorns.
Luna shivered when she remembered her sister’s scream when Shadow brought his razor sharp, gem crushing fangs down on Celestia’s horn.
Aside from the bandages, there were numerous black spots on certain areas of her body where Shadow had burned her, including the tip of her horn, which was still visible in certain spots of her body. All in all, Celestia looked like she had been beat to Tartarus… which wasn’t far from the truth. But that’s not what shocked Luna. What had shocked her was that Celestia was sitting up in her bead, holding a cup of tea in her hooves and sipping on it like it was just another day. When she noticed her sister enter, she slowly placed the cup down on the table next to her, wincing very slightly, before resting her hooves at her side and addressing Luna.
“Good afternoon, sister. How are you feeling?”
“I should be asking you that, sister.” Luna walked up to Celestia and gave her a light muzzle, the older sister closing her eyes and sighed, muzzling back.
“Well, I’m a little sore, and hungry, and I can’t use my magic, but all in all, I am mostly well. How long have I been asleep for?”
“You have been out of commission for several days. Should you not be resting though? Moving will only aggravate your wounds.”
“I am only suffering from a cracked horn, bruised ribs, and sore muscles,” Celestia calmly replied. “With the exception of my horn, I should be able to get out of my bed in only another day. You know how fast we heal. It is nothing too serious, Luna.”
“Even we have out limits, sister.” Luna walked over to the window and looked out at the sun, shining high in the sky. “This is the first time I’ve ever had to raise the sun in your stead. And I will continue to do so until your horn has healed and your magic has returned.” She then turned back around and approached her elder sister again. “’Tia, neither of us has ever been injured like this before. You almost died, and I fear that had I lost you, I would have fallen into darkness once again. Please, do not strain yourself, sister. I will not risk losing you.”
The two sisters looked each other right in the eyes. Celestia could see the worry written all over her sister’s face. She closed her eyes and let out a small sigh, before opening them and smiling again. “Very well, Luna. I promise I will take it easy and rest until I can move freely…”
“Thank you-“
“After I get something to eat.” Celestia’s smirk still had the effect of aggravating Luna, even after all these years. The night ruler let out a huff before turning away.
“Fine.” Moments later, Luna slowly started to smile, before both sisters began lightly giggling with each other. Moment’s where the two sisters could just be with each other and laugh like this were few and far between, and they cherished every moment, no matter how small.
Celestia had always had an appetite, and was a rather ravenous eater herself, especially when they were younger. ‘She used to eat so much, mother and father always wondered where she used to pack it all. It’s no wonder she grew so large. I never understood why, or how, sister could eat so much. It’s strange. She eats just as much as Shad-‘
Upon remembering him, she suddenly remembered that she needed to talk with her sister about him, regarding her actions. However, she hesitated, not knowing exactly how her sister would react towards the subject so soon after her attack.
Celestia, having apparently sensed her sister’s sudden mood change, pieced together what she must have wanted to talk about. “Luna, I think it’s time you told me what happened while I was out.” Luna flinched ever so slightly, but from years of experience in seeing things like this with her sister, Celestia still caught sight of the slight movement. “Luna, while my few interactions with Shadow Flare have been brief, I always felt he had some kind of a dislike for me. That had raised some suspicions for me, however, when I saw how well you two got along together, I let them slide because I didn’t want them to get in the way of your happiness. You two became such close friends, and I didn’t wish to interfere with that, especially with how few you have. I didn’t think, however, that his dislike for me was in fact hatred. And I never would’ve imagined that that hatred would drive him to try to take my life.”
Celestia looked out the window briefly, thinking about what Shadow said when he burst in the throne room that day in the middle of day court. She thought back to the words he said right before he fired a massive gout of black and green flames out of his mouth. Those words lined out the exact reason why he attacked Celestia, but they didn’t make any sense. What he had said to her was something so impossible she couldn’t believe what she had heard. She still didn’t really believe it, but in order to get to the bottom of things, she required more information. Thus, she turned back towards Luna. “Sister, you now him better than I do. Do you have any idea as to why he attacked me?”
Luna pulled up a cushion next to Celestia’s bed, and plopped down on it, looking her sister in the eye. “I have learned much sister. There is much I must tell you and show you.”
Celestia let out a small smile. “Well, if this is going to be as long a discussion as I think, then what’s say we have something to eat while we talk? How does cake sound?”
Celestia’s cake sit forgotten next to her now empty teacup as she stared down at the white bed sheets of her hospital bed. It had been silent in the room for nearly half an hour now, save for the sound of two ponies lightly breathing. Celestia sat there digesting everything Luna told her. She replayed in her head everything Luna had showed her, the things that Shadow had showed all of them, and while Luna couldn’t transmit the emotions he felt at those times like Shadow could, she felt like she still knew exactly how he felt. Shadow had been hurt and broken multiple times in his life. She couldn’t help but feel for the hybrid, his life being nearly defined by tragedy after tragedy.
Finally, after what seemed like a short eternity to Luna, her sister finally raised her head and looked at her. Sadness etched across her face. “Luna… If this is all true… then it makes sense why he attacked me now.”
“What do you mean, sister?”
“The last tragedy he suffered through. The event that caused him to lose his mind. Right before he attacked, when he entered the throne room, he made a declaration. ‘Regent of the Sun. Bringer of the Day. Co-ruler of this great nation. Princess Celestia of Equestria… Today is the day I will have my revenge…
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 14: Eyes of a Tormented Soul
Nine Days Ago:
The expression of pure hatred on his face made Celestia recoil from where she stood, as though his look alone had physically struck her. When he unleashed the torrent of flames from his mouth, she acted swiftly, teleporting out of the way. When she reappeared roughly fifteen feet to the left of her previous position, the guards snapped to action while the nobles ran and scattered, screaming of a monster having invaded the throne room. The guards had immediately surrounded him and positioned themselves in between him and their princess, shielding her. Celestia turned to look at her throne.
It had been completely obliterated from the sheer force of the flames that rocketed out of his mouth, as well as a portion of the wall behind it. However, she noted that nothing was currently on fire. She turned back towards the black pony, and when she saw his look of hate, she had stepped back.
‘Why,’ she thought to herself. ‘Why does he glare at me so hatefully?’ She noticed one of his eyes beginning to turn red. ‘Why does he believe I… murdered his parents?’
He was beginning to see red. A lot of red. He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head to clear it, even as all the nobles ran around screaming and panicking. He needed to stay calm. As calm as he possibly could in this situation. Calm and clear minded. He couldn’t allow his anger, his rage to consume him. He couldn’t let his wrath control him.
‘Can’t lost control. Don’t get angry. Don’t get mad. Just kill her and this will all be over.’
When he opened his eyes and looked upon Celestia again, he saw red creeping up in the peripherals of his vision, and just beyond that, black.
‘Go away, wrath, I don’t need you right now!’
In the back of his mind, a voice whispered to him, even as more guards flooded the room and surrounded him further. The whispered voice offered a contradiction, telling him that he needed to let his rage loose, to allow his anger to be unbound and released upon the world. To allow these powerful emotions to strengthen him. That he needed to let loose everything upon the monster of a pony that stood before him, to let his emotion wreak havoc and vengeance upon her very being.
He realized the vision in one of his eyes had gone completely red. An image of his father, strung up in a hospital bed from years ago flashed before his eyes. The red faded from his eyes as other emotions began flooding his being. He shook his head again and snorted, heavy steam and smoke pouring out of his snout. He looked at Celestia again, this time he had more control. There was no red in his vision.
Celestia looked down at him, and even as all her guards had surrounded him sand aimed their spears and swords at him, the two never broke each other’s gaze. He snorted again, this time without smoke, just steam. He looked to have calmed down.
Then he snorted out green and black flames.
‘Somewhat.’
Celestia had been alive for several thousand years. In that time she had learned many, many things that helped her when ruling over a nation. One of the most useful things she learned was the ability to see the hidden emotion within another pony merely by looking into their eyes. It was an ability she rarely used unless it was deemed necessary to fend off hidden schemes, or to prevent a pony from taking advantage of her or others. You could learn a lot about a pony’s hidden agenda just based on their emotion alone. However, she hasn’t used that ability for several hundred years now, not having needed to in this time of peace. Now, she felt the need to do so again, to look upon his eyes and hopefully discover the real reasoning for his sudden attack.
She looked upon his eyes. Those eyes that were a constant reminder to her. A reminder of what her sister used to look like when she was possessed by the nightmare forces. When she looked into his eyes, she almost gasped at what she saw. He had almost the same look Luna had, the same emotions that Luna had buried behind her own eyes all those years ago when she had confronted her as Nightmare Moon. The same anger. The same sadness. The same loneliness. But she could see a difference. In the eyes of her sister, she had spied Luna’s, jealousy, the feeling that she was underappreciated, that no one had loved her, or the beautiful nights she brought about. But here, now, in Shadow’s eyes, she could see that he was loved, but that he had lost that love, and that he had something taken from him. Something that drove him to despair. Something that nearly turned all the love left in his heart into rage.
He had lost his parents… and it had nearly broken him.
Now, he was angry. Very angry. And that anger was directed right at her.
When she thought back to the times he had seen Shadow with her sister, the two of them would always have smiles upon their faces, be they genuinely happy just to be near each other, or mischievous, especially when they were planning pranks with each other. Celestia was always so happy whenever she saw her sister smile, whenever she saw her conversing with the public. Whenever she was with her friends, the relative few she has, Luna was usually always all smile, and that made Celestia’s heart soar.
But of the times Shadow was with her, she was always somewhat suspicious of him. It had always been his eyes. The same eyes as that nightmare. She had always been wary of him, always keeping an eye or ear on her sister’s activities with him. Over the course of the few months he worked at the castle, her suspicions lessened more and more, to the point she thought she was merely being paranoid about him. She thought she had merely misjudged him without actually getting to know him.
Until she passed him in the hallway a few weeks ago.
She had been on her way to the kitchens to grab herself a nice snack, perhaps, a slice of cake, when he walked out. When the two laid eyes on each other then, they both froze, staring at each other like deer caught in the headlights. Celestia regained her composure, and was about to greet him, until she saw his look turn to one of anger. Her voice had caught in her throat, and she made no move to stop him and he brushed passed her, now seemingly in a hurry to get away from her. From that point on, her suspicions had been raised, and heightened from what they were before.
They had crossed paths twice more, the second time was much like the first, where they both froze, before he rushed off to get away. But the third time had been slightly different. She reached out to stop him, wishing to speak to him about this, but the moment her hoof touched his wing, he snapped around on her faster than she had seen anypony move except maybe Spitfire or Rainbow Dash, and harshly slapped her hoof away. He growled in a low tone for her not to touch him, before covering one of his eyes as though he were in pain, taking wing, and flying as far away from her as fast as he could.
When she went to talk to her sister about it, Luna had shown immense concern about it, and agreed to speak to Shadow to find out exactly what was wrong, why he treated Celestia with such negativity. Unfortunately, Shadow hadn’t shown up until two days later.
He hadn’t shown back up until today.
But even now, as the two stared each other down, she couldn’t help but think back about the look he gave her when he slapped her look away. The anger and the hidden despair she saw in his eyes back then. She could see that same look even now. But the anger she saw then, the anger she saw now, was nothing in comparison to the look he gave her mere moments ago.
She couldn’t help but think back to when she saw Shadow with Luna
“Luna would be heartbroken to see you like this,” she said with a somewhat sad frown.
“This isn’t about Luna,” came his retort. “This is about you, and me. Tell your guards to get out of the way. I don’t want to hurt them, but I will if I have to. You’re the only one I’m after. You’re going to die here. I am going to kill you. Nothing will stop me.” He took one step forward, and in a low, growling, snarling voice said, “Nothing…”
Present Day:
Shadow Flare lay on the ground, curled up in a tight ball, letting out slight growls and small whimpers. Mantle was sitting curled up behind and around him, allowing Shadow to rest on him as he slept, as well as protecting him from those who may wish him harm. Fluttershy was also sitting next to him, patting him on his wings or on his head as he twitched and flinched. She whispered to him it would be alright, that things would be okay, doing her best to try to sooth his bad dreams and make him as comfortable as he could be, but it wasn’t working.
It had been two days since he had gone under, and mere moments after they reached the cave, everypony and creature accompanying him felt the magic in the air shit. The Solar Pegasus and Midnight Thestral guards, Rainbow and Fluttershy, even Mantle. They all felt the magic in the air as it was being drawn towards his body. What had surprised everyone, though, was the fact that he had stopped absorbing magic merely an hour after it had begun.
And immediately after that came the first whimper from his mouth.
They all watched as his body began twitching and jerking in his sleep, until he curled up in on himself and began shivering uncontrollably. Mantle and Fluttershy immediately jumped to action, trying to calm him, but nothing worked. If anything he just kept getting worse and worse. After the first day of this, Fluttershy suggested it might be a good idea to get Princess Luna. They couldn’t send the Guards because they were under orders to guard him, and Mantle had outright refused to leave his side until he had awoken. Rainbow Dash didn’t want to leave him either, but knew that Luna had the best chance of helping him, so she dashed off back down the mountain towards the castle. She came back an hour later, saying that Luna would be there as soon as she could.
That was yesterday.
Now they all sat around him, waiting for Luna to arrive, when Mantle’s ears twitched, and he lifted his head to look out of the mouth of the cave. Fluttershy and Dash looked at Mantle, then towards where he was looking only to see a rather surprising sight. Two closed in chariots, one gold, the other black and silver landed outside the mouth of the cave, and the eight Pegasus guards carrying the chariots removed their harnesses and opened the sides open for the passengers of each chariot. Out of the golden one came the rest of the Elements of harmony, as well as Cadence.
Out of the black and silver chariot came Shining armor, several more unicorn guards, and Princess Luna. As Rainbow started walking over to greet her friends, she and Fluttershy both started when they saw Princess Celestia gingerly step out of the chariot behind Luna. She was still injured, though covered with fewer bandages than she was two days ago. Her horn and wings, were still bandaged, as was her right forehoof.
Shy and Dash both bowed to the princesses briefly before they watched as Celestia walked past everyone, nodding her head in greetings, and right towards the shivering hybrid. She stopped when Mantle growled at her. Celestia turned towards an approaching Luna with a curious eyebrow raised.
“Luna, you did not tell me that there was a manticore here.”
Luna flinched at that, the escaped king of manticores having slipped her mind. “Forgive me. I seem to have forgotten to mention that Mantalius escaped from Tartarus.”
“WHAT?!” Celestia rounded on the manticore, who no longer looked like a normal one. He was crouching over Shadow Flare in a protective manner, both of his tails raised and ready to strike, both of them leaking his unique brand of venom while black and green flames spewed from his mouth and enveloped his massive wings. Celestia took a step back, before she took a breath to calm herself. She looked at how Mantle was standing protectively over Shadow’s shivering form, and then looked him in the eyes.
He remembered Celestia.
He still wanted to eat her.
Celestia sighed and shook her head, then turned towards Fluttershy when she addressed her.
“Um… excuse me Princess, but shouldn’t you still be resting? I mean, Shadow did hurt you really badly. Don’t you, um, think you should still be in bed? I mean, if that’s okay with you…”
Celestia smiled down calmly at her, and placed a hoof on her back to help reassure her. “Thank you for your concern, Fluttershy, but all I plan on doing is just a little walking. Nothing too strenuous. Luna already tried to talk me out of coming here, but…” She then looked up at Shadow. “I wanted to see him, and hopefully, talk to him.”
Shining walked up to her, a questioning look on his face. “Are you really sure you should be here when he wakes up though? The last time he saw you, he kinda, well, literally exploded.”
Celestia did not remove her gaze from Shadow, and slowly, she took several steps forward. “Things will be different this time. He won’t attack me.”
Luna stepped after her sister, following her as she got closer to Mantle, closer to Shadow. “How do you know, sister?” Mantle growled, but Celestia continued to march forward. She looked the king of manticores in his eyes, and in that moment, in that brief instant where their eyes met, she did her best to convey her feelings towards him. He did the same to her. They both came to a silent understanding. Mantle transformed back into his disguise as a normal manticore, and moved out of her way, off to the side. He remained close by though, just in case something went wrong and he needed to step in.
Celestia walked up to Shadow and moved behind him, then, slowly lowered herself until she was laying on her side behind him. She winced when she put pressure on her wing, but the pain passed quickly. She then did something that shocked everypony in the room, the guards included. She reached out, with her forelegs and grabbed shadow, hugging him to her. She leaned down and nuzzled the top of his head, even as everypony else’s jaws dropped. Celestia then looked up at her sister and said, “Because I have faith that things will work out better this time.”
Luna looked Celestia in the eyes, and saw the resolve in them. She nodded, and stepped forwards towards them both, before laying herself down in front of them. She looked down at Shadow, and then nodded once more at her sister. “I will do what I can to ease his dreams.” With that, she lowered her horn towards his whimpering shaking form, and placed the tip on his forehead just as her magic activated.
The entire cave was silent for a few moments, until she pulled her horn back, its glow disappearing, and looked down at him worryingly. “I cannot enter his dreams. I could not even enter the void within his mind. It is as though something is shielding his mind from me. Either that, or I simply cannot gain entry into his mind when his body shuts itself down.” She let out a sad sigh. “I can do nothing to help him other than be here for him.”
“We’ll all be there for him, princess,” came Rainbow Dash’s declaration as she came up to them and sat next to them. Shortly after, the other girls followed suit, settling down in a circle around him and waiting for him to wake up.
No matter how far I ran, I couldn’t catch them. No matter how fast I flew, I couldn’t catch them. No matter how much I screamed for them, I couldn’t get them to stop… to wait for me.
“MOM! DAD! SHADOW! PLEASE!”
I was surrounded by darkness absolute. There was nothing but darkness above, below, behind, in front. All encompassing, all-consuming darkness. This was the darkness of nothingness.
And it terrified me.
“WAIT! PLEASE WAIT!”
But the darkness, this pit of despair. It didn’t terrify me as much as losing them. My wings were exhausted, and I had been forced to land. I refused to stop running after them I couldn’t lose them. They were my rocks. My anchors. They were the things that were keeping me sealed in reality. They were the things that were keeping me sane. I couldn’t lose them, no matter what. But no matter what I did, no matter how much I screamed or roared at them, they just wouldn’t stop, and I couldn’t catch them.
They just kept walking, getting further and further away.
“PLEASE! PLE- *huff* Wait! Stop! “
The darkness all around me… it suddenly shifted. I tripped and fell from the sudden sense of vertigo I felt. I tried to scramble to my hooves, but found my body wouldn’t move. I looked up, to see them still walking away, getting farther and farther…
“PLEASE! WAIT! DON’T LEAVE ME!!”
Finally, they stopped. It was the only sigh of hope I had. Hope that they might come back, that they might be with me again. The tears came to my face unbidden. I wouldn’t have tried to stop them anyway. I didn’t care. I just wanted my family back.
“Please… please….. don’t go…”
And then it happened.
Shadow flare turned around and looked at me.
Then he smiled.
I smiled back. “Shado-“
And then his form shattered into millions of countless stars, floating away into the lightless black surrounding us all before vanishing. My voice and my breath caught in my throat, as I turned towards mom and dad, only to see them staring back at me as well.
I could only watch on in horror as cuts began to appear all over their bodies and a pool of their blood appear below their hooves and claws. Then they both collapsed, before black and green flames incinerated their bodies into nothing. My head began hurting immensely, and I found I could move again. I wrapped my head in my hooves as the pain began to grow. I heard several loud cracks that sounded like glass. I looked at my hooves, only to widen my eyes when I saw that all four of them had large spider web cracks running through all or them up to the middle of each leg.
When I looked back at my right forehoof, I saw something just beyond it. I moved my hoof out of the way to see what it was.
The tears came stronger than ever when I saw my human mother and brother standing mere meters in front of me.
“Mom… big bro…”
They didn’t even wait for me to finish before they turned around and started walking away from me too.
“NO! WAIT-“
I tried to get up and follow them, but my hind legs wouldn’t move at all. I was getting desperate. I couldn’t lost them too.
My sorrow… it was like… It was like a never ending pool; an ocean sadness and grief. Filled to the brim, fit to burst. But it was slowly leaking from my body, the ocean unable to be contained and escaping the only way it can.
Through my tears.
I was pitiful. But I didn’t have time to reflect on that because I heard another series of cracks, and looked over my back. My wings were looking just like my legs; cracks all over them. But my legs were another story. The cracks on those became more pronounced, bigger, wider, and out of them flowed the same darkness that surrounded me.
The darkness was consuming me from the inside out.
I closed my eyes and lay my head down as the pain in my mind continued to grow and spread throughout my body. I was low. Really low. I didn’t think I could get any lower. I felt like I was in an eternal pit of darkness. I may as well have been. My families have left me. Gone. Vanished. They disappeared into light, light that was too bright to my eyes. I couldn’t follow them. If anything, I’d probably end up falling into even deeper darkness.
I was content to just lay there collapsed on the ground as my tears silently slid down my face and muzzle; to wallow in my misery for the rest of eternity in this oppressive world. I guess the world had other plans. I guess that the world wanted me to suffer even more before it would allow me the fester.
I say this, because when I opened my eyes, who should be there to greet me but all my friends. By the looks on their faces, however, I could already tell how this would turn out. Knowing what would happen, however, still wasn’t enough to help me stop the full body shudder, and the panic that spread out through my very being. It couldn’t stop me from trying to beg…
Even though my voice couldn’t reach them, no sound coming out of my mouth, even as they all began to turn their backs on me, walk away, and vanish into nothing.
I tried to reach out to them; to move; to scream. Nothing worked. As they began to disappear from sight, the cracks along my legs and wings began spreading up to and across my body, a wretched sound accompanying it.
Twilight.
*crack…*
Rarity.
*crack…*
Shining.
*K-crack*
Cadence.
*Crack*
Applejack.
*CRA-crack*
Pinkie.
*CRAAAACK, Krck, krck*
Fluttershy.
*CRACK-KR-CRACK*
Rainbow.
*CRACK-CRACK*
Spike.
*CRACKCK*
Sky Shock.
*plink, plink, plink*
I could hear pieces of myself falling and shattering on the ground. I didn’t need to see it to know that the cracks covered my entire being at this point… but my body. My body was consumed in an inferno of torment, a searing pain that washed over my like the lava of a volcano. The darkness was pouring out of me, and it was even covering my vision.
It was over…I was done. Lost. Alone. Empty. I had nothing left. They had all abandoned me. The only thing I had left was…
'No…
'No, not you too.'
Terror beyond my wildest imagination gripped my very soul when I saw her. Even through my blurred vision, I could still see that the moment I laid eyes on her, she started turning away,
'NO! NO! DON’T LEAVE ME!
'I CANT LOSE YOU TOO!
'DON’T WALK AWAY!
'PLEASE DON’T GO!
'PLEASE!'
“LUNA!”
I woke up with a large, chocking gasp, tears and snot streaming down my face my eyes wide. I briefly saw a wall of white before I clenched them shut again. I tried to wrap my arms and wings around myself, but they were already wrapped around something, so I just squeezed it as hard as I could as shuddering sobs began to wrack my body. Whatever I was holding onto squeezed me back, and I felt something nuzzling my head and neck as I cried my heart out, whispering soothing words as they tried to comfort me.
I just lay there, in that embrace for what felt like hours, letting what felt like years-decades of sadness, grief, sorrow and despair out. I had thought I got this all out of my system when I broke down with my first meeting with Fluttershy. But I guess that was just a precursor to this. I just cried, and cried and cried and kept crying, long after my tears had dried up.
Finally, after what felt like forever, which it may as well have been, I had been reduced to small whimpers and sniffles. The one holding me never once let go, or loosened their grip, and for that, I was thankful. As I took a few deep breaths to further calm myself, I somehow felt a little lighter. It was like all I needed to do was just let go and release all my sorrows to the world around me. I had been holding it all in for so long that it felt like a weight had been lifted, like I let go of a mighty burden.
And it felt good to just let it go. To just let it all go, to not live in the past, or worry about everything that happened back then. To not live for what happened in the past, and just wash it all away.
To just… breathe.
So that’s what I did. I lay there, silent, and just sucked in and blew out air. For a few long minutes, I just lived, existed in this wonderful, comforting moment. I snuggled further into the embrace. I felt so calm, despite what I just went through, and somehow, I felt warm and safe. Like nothing could get to me through this.
“Thank you for being there for me…”
And then it all came down, crashing and burning when I heard that voice.
“You’re very welcome… my little pony.”
My eyes snapped open.
A wall of white fur greeted me.
‘WHITE!’
I looked up, only for my eyes to meet with two twin pools of deep magenta.
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 15: Confusion of the Mind and Body
There was the sound of glass shattering as two forms slammed and crashed through a tall, pristine stained-glass window. One of the forms had a coat as pure as the sky, colored in white, and giving off a subtle glow that shined with all the radiance of the sun. The other form had a coat of dark colored fur, as black as the darkest void; a void where light entered, had all the life and joy sucked out of it, and had its withered remains crushed into absolute nothingness.
And that is exactly what the black furred form intended to do. Suck all of the life out of the white furred forms eyes and then crush- or rather, incinerate- its withered remains into nothing. Into less than nothing.
Into the void known as oblivion.
I… I don’t understand… I can feel it.
I shouldn’t feel it… but I can.
‘Why…’
I just purged all of my emotions from my body as I cried my heart and soul out… I shouldn’t be able to feel anything right now!
But I can. I can feel it welling up inside me right now… and as I stare into her eyes- her eyes filled with worry and concern- I realize…
She can see it too.
‘Why… did she...’
But I don’t understand! Why am I feeling this?!
But this…. If feels… off…
Wrong…
So wrong…
And far too familiar for my own tastes…
“Shadow Flare…?”
She called my name… his name… our name…
Hearing her voice… the feelings are building up faster.
This… this isn’t…
‘Why… did she .. comfort me?’
My body is tensing up… She’s hugging me tighter.
I can feel it… It’s building up further… threatening to break the dam of my restraints… threatening to overflow uncontrollably… This isn’t right…
For the first time, I don’t want them to overflow.
Why is this happening? I don’t want this! This shouldn’t be-!
Something is wrong… something is horribly wrong…
Rage…
That voice!
My eyes widened…
Hers did as well. She saw it… something in my eyes….
My eyes!
I can see the red creeping in around the edges… my mind was beginning to get fuzzy… unfocused…
Anger…
Her eyes widened again….
“No… Shadow! Shadow, stay with me! Don’t let it take control!”
What’s happening to me?
These aren’t my emotions… these aren’t my feeling!
Something’s…
Have to warn her... she doesn't deserve...
My eyes… completely red…
My mind…. Hard to... focus…
The voice…
I… Can’t-
Hatred! Revenge!
WRATH!
“Ce-… Celestia….…Run…!”
Celestia kept her forehooves raised as much as she could to try to block as many of the incoming strikes as she could, for all the good it did her. She had grown too lax in her time as a ruler, and though she still had all the magical, physical, and mental strength she did so long ago, her reflexes and combat skills were severely lacking compared to then. Living in so long a time of peace-and eating so much cake- she thought, had severely decreased her speed and reflexes over the years. Couple that with the exhaustion she already felt from how long this fight had already dragged on, she could barely block the flurry of flaming strikes coming at her from nearly all sides.
Even as she and Shadow Flare fell to the ground below, the glass from a shattered window falling with them, he was still assaulting her. A raging barrage of punches and kicks aimed at any exposed part of her he could reach kept her from opening her wings. She knew, that even if she did, he’d almost immediately target them, and disable one of the only means she had to escape if it became necessary. Though, odds are, even if she did try to fly away, he’d be on her in mere seconds. While she was fast- very fast despite her size-Shadow was decisively faster. Though she had no intentions of escaping. She was going to try her best to reach out to him, to get him to calm down so they could talk this over.
If only she knew how futile that would be.
Her back slammed into the ground, sending cracks all through the cobblestone pathway from how fast and how hard she fell. She didn’t even have the chance to yelp from the shock before all the air was driven from her lungs; a result of the impact of all four of Shadow Flare’s hooves slamming down upon her under-carriage. She never even got the chance to try to regain her lost air before a burning hoof struck her on the side of her left cheek, then her right, then her nose, then her throat then her horn.
That last one would have had her screaming if she had the air to expel.
With her magic now temporarily disabled, and her mind now struggling to focus with a fog of pain covering it, she could only lay there as her beating continued. Suddenly, the blows stopped. Celestia took the time to suck in a deep breath of air, only to let it out in a pained groan. As she regained her focus and pushed out as much pain as she could, she managed to open her eyes. She looked up, only to see him standing on top of her with one of his forehooves on his own head, his eyes clenched shut. There was a constant snarl across his face, and he was shaking his head back and forth. He snorted out more flames, and though they touched her, these ones strangely weren’t hurting her. She prepared to try to lodge him off. He raised his head, opened his eyes, and cast his furious gaze down upon her. His left eye twitched, and as she stared into his eyes, what she saw surprised her.
He was fighting his own anger, trying to regain control…
And he was losing.
She let out a gasp as he suddenly grabbed her arm and flung her over his shoulder with all his might. Reflexively, she spread out her wings in an effort to correct her trajectory. She realized her mistake the very moment she made it.
‘Oh, Faust darn it!’
She hadn’t even moved ten feet from her previous position before she felt a set of gem crushingly sharp teeth and fangs clamp down on her left wing, completely halting her movement. The sudden stop clashed with her momentum, and her entire body jerked right before that wing came out of its socket.
Her scream echoed throughout the entirety of the open courtyard, and was no doubt heard by many of the still conscious guards and citizens of Canterlot…
…and that was before her wing caught fire.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The train pulled into Canterlot station, and ponies began to disembark one after the other. One particular pony- a royal blue Pegasus with a scraggly white mane and a cutie mark of two pure white wings with a golden halo sitting behind it- trotted off the train car with a pair of shades over his eyes. As he stopped, he took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
The stallion quickly made his way out of the train station, and onto the cobblestone roads of the capitol of equestrian. It was his first time there, and while he wanted to enjoy the sounds, and sample some of the delicious food he could smell, he unfortunately much more important priorities to attend to.
“Man… I really hope that what Emerald said wasn’t true. You better not have done something seriously stupid, bro, ‘cause I am not about to bail you out if-“
The stallion stopped in his tracks, as did every citizen in Canterlot. While they all suddenly looked up in fear at what they heard, remembering the events of the past few weeks, his face taking on a pained visage as one of his hooves raised to rub at an ear. He pulled up his shades and finally opened his eyes, his faded red irises looking up into the sky, towards the top of Canterlot Mountain, where the roar originated from. The Pegasus stallion grimaced, before letting his shades drop back down over his eyes and releasing an explosive sigh.
“…. Dude, bro, Shadow…. If that means what I think it means… I’m gonna pummel you so badly when I get my hooves on you. Seriously, I told you not to go and do something dumb, and look at what you do! I’m gonna- UGH! Celestia darn it! YOU HAD ONE JOB!”
The Pegasus spread his wings and flapped them hard, taking off towards the mountain, where he had no doubt his friend was. But when he took off, he either failed to notice or simply didn’t care when a massive gust of wind was released from his wings and blew everypony and everything in the immediate vicinity head over hooves in a sudden tumble, none of them stopping until they collided into something. As they all got up and began yelling at him for his callousness, he was far more preoccupied with his own thoughts.
“Hang on, Shadow Flare. Big brother Sky Shock’s on the way! Just… don’t do anything else stupid, please…”
Celestia stood next to Luna, the Element bearers, Cadence, Shining, and the Solar and Lunar guards standing behind them at the ready as Mantle did his best to hold down the thrashing chimera-hybrid. A sickly black, green, and dark blue aura was radiating off of his form, and he had been forced into his Changeling form. He struggled furiously as he tried to escape the massive beast pinning him to the ground, multi-colored flames spewing from his mouth, his nose, his ears, his mane and tail, any part of his very body.
“Princess?” Twilight quickly approached the two, but stayed behind them in the wake of Shadow’s growing rage. “Is there anything we can do to help him?”
Luna turned to her sister. “What of the Elements? Surely they can purge him of whatever dark forces-“
Luna stopped speaking when she saw Celestia sadly shaking her head. “We cannot risk that. The Elements of Harmony are always at odds with forces of Chaos. Shadow is a being with a soul of chaos, so there is a good chance that, along with purging him of the darkness, the Elements could seriously harm him, turn him to stone… or worse.”
“Even if we can’t use the elements,” Rainbow Dash floated above them as she watched shadow’s thrashing grow worse, “we gotta do something to help him! We can’t just leave him like that!”
“B-But… what can we do?” Fluttershy meekly flew up behind Rainbow Dash, flinching when she heard another snarling roar.
“We can… I don’t know…” Rainbow’s face suddenly lit up when an idea came to her. “Wait! Fluttershy! You can use your stare on him! That should-“
Fluttershy had paled when she heard Rainbow’s idea, so much so that Rainbow stopped talking after seeing the expression on her friends face. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no! I can’t do that to him! Not after the last time!”
Shining and Cadence turned to the mare, both with curious looks on their faces.
“Last time?" asked the unicorn as his wife continued.
"You’ve used your stare on him before?”
Fluttershy meekly nodded, and lowered herself down to the ground. “It happened after I saved him from Mantle. After Zecora helped create an anti-venom, he woke up the next day when Rainbow stopped by.”
Rainbow spoke up next, continuing where Fluttershy left off. “I had heard rumors of something big happening in the Everfree the night before. You guys remember right?” At the Ponyvillians nods, she continued. “I went over to Fluttershy’s house to make sure she was alright. But When I got there, Shadow woke up, and started freaking out. Even with all his injuries, he was still really difficult to hold down. Fluttershy had to use her stare to try to calm him down, but…”
“According to shadow… when I used my stare… all of the emotions he kept bottled up inside of him had suddenly forced themselves to the surface. He lost complete control of himself, and… he… he… the look in his eyes…”
Celestia walked up to Fluttershy, and calmly nuzzled her to calm her down. “Tell me what happened, my little pony.”
Fluttershy took a deep breath and looked up at Celestia, but when she went to speak, she found she couldn’t. She let out a small sob, and curled in on herself. Rainbow landed and draped a wing over her to comfort her, and decided to tell the rest of it herself.
“He… freaked out. Really, really badly. He overpowered me, and took off, Despite how messed up he was, he was still really fast. I had to tackle him into a cloud. But instead of trying to get away, he grabbed me and wouldn’t let go until he had cried himself to sleep from exhaustion.” Rainbow raised her head and looked over at the struggling Changeling, her face dropping when she remembered the things he had been wailing in his despair. Mantle had transformed into his larger form in order to keep him pinned down, but even then, it looked incredibly difficult. “The entire time, he just kept screaming things like ‘Why did you leave me,’ ‘I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt you,’, and ‘please, come back.’ I’ve never seen anypony so broken like that before.”
“I w-wont...” they turned back to Fluttershy at her soft admission, somehow heard over the ferocious growls, roars and snarls of the two struggling beasts. “I won’t use my stare on him ever again. I promised myself I wouldn’t I-I can’t… He…He told me that he couldn’t even look me in the eye because he knew he’d break down again, whether I was using the stare or not… I… I can’t do that to him!”
“I’m afraid there may not be much else we can do for him then, darling.” Rarity walked up to Fluttershy and placed a hoof on her shoulder to calm her, the rest of her friends doing their best to comfort her as well. ”If we cannot use the Elements, and poor Fluttershy refuses to use her stare on him, then I’m afraid I don’t know how we can help him…” She raised a hoof to her chin, looking deep in thought. After a few moments, she muttered “Unless…”
Everypony present turned to the fashionista at her brief comment, Luna being the one who spoke up. “You have an idea?” Rarity turned to face Celestia. “Princess, are you certain he has been possessed? That it is not simply his anger at seeing you that has him so furious?”
Celestia nodded, then turned to look back at the struggling duo. Mantle was sweating harshly as he did all he could to keep his uncontrollable friend pinned down. “When I looked into his eyes, I saw a rage in him that did not belong to him at all. He recognized it himself, and that is why he struggles now. He told me to run from him, because he did not, in that one moment, wish to see me harmed. He is trying to fight it off as best he can. Some dark force has invaded his mind and body, and he’s doing all he can to fight it. I fear that is a battle he will not win, however.” She turned back to Rarity, who looked pensive.
“Then perhaps there is a chance. Do you all remember when I-“
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
Everypony turned to look as dark beams of magical energy shot out of the ground from under Shadow and struck Mantle in his underbelly. He was repelled and thrown so high up that he smashed his head into the ceiling, before falling back to the cave floor, unconscious before he even hit the ground. Fluttershy tried to rush forward to make sure he was alright, but the others held her back, despite her protests.
Slowly, the possessed Changeling stood up, his mane and tail now transformed into pure black flames waving back and forth harshly, as though they were a raging inferno waiting to be released. His fangs were far more pronounced than they should have been, and each of his teeth looked ready to crush diamonds into dust. He slowly turned to look at all of the assembled ponies, the Royal Guards moving into a defensive position to protect them.
The changeling began to chuckle darkly, before rising into an incredibly loud and evil filled laugh that promised nothing hut pain and torment in the near future. Slowly, he raised his head, and looked at the assembled ponies before smiling darkly. To everypony’s complete surprise, his eyes were entirely black, the irises included, and his pupils had turned to a sick teal color. When he spoke, there were two voices there, one of them Shadow Flares, but the other one decidedly more feminine, and incredibly familiar to them all.
“Hello, you sun-loving little pests! Did you miss me?”
Celestia and Luna could both only gasp at what they heard, both having instantly recognized who the second voice belong to. At the same time, they both muttered its name…
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 16: The Possessed Flame: Nightmare Inferno
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!” The now Nightmare possessed Shadow Flare threw its head back and flared it’s scaly, membranous wings as it laughed uproariously, even as his black flaming mane and tail began to emit many sparkles of stardust from it. When his black eyes realigned themselves with the ponies present, they could all see a sick glee radiating from them. “Indeed, my dear celestial princesses, though, I’m afraid I’m not the exact same Nightmare you knew before…”
The Elements of Harmony all stood gaping at what they were seeing. Their friend had just been taken control of before their very eyes, and none of them knew what to do or how to even respond to this. Shining had taken up a defensive position in front of them, his horn glowing in both preparation for an offensive or defensive spell as needed. The rest of the royal guards followed suit, unicorn horns glowing, wings spreading, paws digging into the cave floor. Cadence walked up and stood next to her husband, glaring at the nightmare. Celestia herself was still staring at the nightmare in shock, before her expression schooled into neutrality, with a hint of anger.
Luna, however, as an entirely different story.
She was glaring at the nightmare in stunned disbelief and horror. Horror that something from her past had once again come back to haunt her, that one of her mistakes could have possibly cost her one of her friends, her best friend. Despite everything, she still viewed him as her best friend. That thought suddenly turned her thoughts from horror to anger, and then to pure rage. Luna lowered her head as she crouched into a fighting stance, snorting hot steam out of her snout. ‘How dare this vile beast-?! Once again, my past returns to cause me strife, and rip me from the joys I’ve tried so hard to create for myself. I will not allow it to take you Shadow! I will not allow it to have you! You’ve been through too much already! I swear… I swear upon my very moon we will get you back, Shadow Flare!’
“What do you mean,” Celestia began, “When you say you are not the same Nightmare as before?”
The nightmare simply chuckled at the question. “Well, I would bother explaining, but I have a very, VERY strong feeling that you are going to be quite busy in the next few minutes. After all…” The nightmare crouched low, scuffing a hoof to the ground as it’s holed hooves and wings suddenly burst into flame. “….why should I bother explaining myself to a group of CORPSES!?”
With the last word bellowed out as a roar, the Nightmare controlled hybrid beast blasted forward at incredible speeds from a single flap of its wings and an explosion of flames, stardust trailing behind it as it took off like a rocket. Luna flapped her wings and charged at the same time, determined to stop the nightmare and save her friend. The guards sprang into action, following their princess as the unicorns began firing spells at the creature. Shining and Cadence stayed back, while Celestia moved in front of them, much to their surprise. The girls moved into a fighting stances as well, all except for Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow Dash had jumped up and blasted herself forward to join the inevitable brawl, a terrible scowl on her face as she felt her own anger rising. Not just anger, however, but also guilt and helplessness. She felt horrible at not being able to be there for her friend, for not being able to help stop this freak from taking over. ‘I’m the bucking Element of Loyalty, for Celestia’s sake! I should have been there for him! I should have been able to do something!’ She flew up right beside Luna and subsequently collided right into the Nightmare, who hadn’t even seen Dash coming. ‘But I promise, Shadow! I’ll definitely be there for you now! Rainbow Dash is always there for her friends! I won’t let you, or anyone else down! Ever again! ‘
The combined weight of both her and Princess Luna managing to take the nightmare by surprise as they kept pushing it back until it collided with the wall at the very, very far back of the cave. Not even giving it time to recover the breath it lost when it impacted the wall, the two mares became a flurry of movement, hooves moving as swiftly as possible and pummeling the nightmare so much that the wall behind it began cracking. Even as they struck it over and over, the both of them were silently apologizing to their friend for having to hurt him like this, but they both knew, that deep down, he would forgive them.
“Shadow!” Luna called out, as she deflected a random strike from the changeling in front of her and socked him square in the face. “Fight it! I know you can! It doesn’t have full control yet! You can still take back control!”
“Yeah! Come on, big guy!” Rainbow caught on quickly, and began throwing out her own words of encouragement, even as she hoofed him in the gut. “I know you’re better than this! There’s no way you’re gonna lose to a creep like the nightmare! Come on, Shad! Show that thing whose boss!”
“Uhg- D-Dash…. Luna- ahh! I-I’m… Tr-ugh- Trying!”
Hearing his voice gave them hope that he was still there, still fighting, that he could still be saved. But the nightmare wasn’t having that.
“ENOUGH!”
An explosion of black flames threw them both back, the head singing fur and feathers alike on both of them. The force of the blast was so great, that the both of them flew far enough that Luna crashed into Celestia, making her cry out in pain from her own wounds, and Dash kept flying until she landed near the mouth of the cave, her body tumbling head over hooves. The nightmare landed on its hooves, but its eyes were clenched shut while its whole body was shivering and twitching, signs that Shadow was still in there fighting it. “S-stubborn foal! Just… sur-render to my will…. You can s-sleep all you w-want then!” The nightmare didn’t get much time to focus on stopping him, though, before a group of Pegasus and earth pony guards descended upon him, trying to beat it into submission.
Unfortunately, the nightmare was not only quick enough to block and deflect their blows, but retaliate with its own, knocking some of the guards back and throwing others off of it. It quickly jumped into the air and began darting around the cave, striking at other guards and dodging blasts from the unicorns before preparing to dive bomb one of the unicorns. Right before contact, Dash tackled it out of the sky, the two of them rolling across the cave floor, even as they traded blows. They came to a stop with Rainbow managing to end up on top. Making the best of her advantage, she pinned one of Nightmare’s wings to the ground before striking it in any exposed areas she could, her hooves moving almost as fast as lightning. Without Luna there to back her up, however, the Nightmare was proving most resilient, in not only taking hits, but giving them back as well. Before the Nightmare could even manage to use its superior strength and durability to try gaining an advantage over the Pegasus mare, a group of earth pony and pegasus guards approached and began assisting Rainbow,. They had swarmed it like flies and were beginning to prove too much, as it switched from offence to defense.
It became completely overwhelmed when Luna popped back up, shoving three of the guards out of the way, and then doing more than enough to make up for their sudden absence. Unlike her sister, Luna was still in her physical prime. Having spent the last thousand years on the moon imprisoned in its center as a mere spirit before returning to the world at large exactly the way she was left her just as powerful as she was all those years ago. Having always been the princess on the front lines whenever altercations arose that required a military response, Luna was still a warrior at heart, and was perfectly capable of subduing any foe that so much as tried to poke her. She was proving that to the Nightmare even as she thought about it.
Even as they were beating it, they saw that each time the changelings eyes managed to open, they were always a different color. At one point, they were black, and the next time, they were green. It was obvious the nightmare was beginning to lose its hold on him, being unable to completely focus on either stopping it from being harmed, or stopping Shadow from taking back control. If things kept up like this… ‘That’s it, Shadow!’ She screamed in her mind, too focused to say it out loud. ‘Fight it! Fight it with everything you have! We’re all here for you! Just don’t give in! Don’t stop fighting!’
Fluttershy had hidden behind all her friends, being too afraid to even look out and see the violence that had started. She wanted to help, she really did, but she didn’t know what to do. She knew that she would be completely useless in a straight fight. She wouldn’t even be worth it’s time, and would probably be swatted out of the sky like a small insect. She whimpered as she heard the clashing begin, magical explosions ringing out, the crashing of armor, flames being spewed from mouths and hooves, and the small yelps and grunts from the impact of hooves colliding with other body parts. She covered her head with her hooves and ducked down as low as she could, both wishing she could help, and be as far away from this horrible situation as physically possible.
The nightmare got fed up with its beating and Shadow’s resistance, and finally decided to do something rather than just lay there on its back and take it. It let out a fierce roar before spewing black flames from its mouth, nose, and the holes I the hooves of its body. Almost immediately, all of the guards retreated, having been heavily singed, burned, or in one poor guard’s case, set on fire despite the magic resistant wards on his armor. Strangely, the fire that had surrounded him dissipated within seconds before winking out entirely. The only two ponies that weren’t even remotely harmed by the sudden display of flames were Luna and Rainbow, both of which cracked down even harder on the nightmare.
‘CURSES!’ Thought the nightmare as she took a hoof to the face and a buck to the gut. ‘He still has enough control over his magic to fight me! I need to get away from these two pests so I can concentrate on putting him to sleep! And I think I know just how to do that…’
‘No… no… not her! I… I won’t let you!!’
‘YOU DON’T HAVE A CHOICE!’
Shadow wasn’t about to let this wicked abomination that had possessed him get to her without a serious fight. So, mustering all the willpower he could, he took control of his own mouth and shouted to the other as loud as he possibly could, even as hooves continued to strike him in the face repeatedly.
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! PROTECT FLUTTERSHY! GET HER OUT OF HERE!! NOW!!!!”
“YOU ANNOYING LITTLE PEST!!”
Unfortunately, his outburst made both Luna and Rainbow pause for a mere second in their blows.
That one second was all the time nightmare needed.
In that short span, she managed to roughly beat down Shadow’s will deep into the recesses of their shared body, taking almost complete control. Then he released a massive burst of flame that caused both Luna and Dash to fly back from it, and managing to scorch the ground beneath it. Not wasting any time, it jumped up, and burst forwards at surprising speeds, bowling through guards that stood in its path. It dodged around beams fired from the unicorns, Shining, Cadence, and Twilight, struck down both Applejack and Pinkie, shoved Rarity out of the way…
And then Fluttershy was well within its clutches, whimpering in fear.
Backing away towards the mouth of the cave with one hoof wrapped tightly around the mare’s neck, the possessed Shadow took several deep breaths as it struggled to maintain control against the will of its host, and recover from the beating it took. It shivered roughly, the bruises covering its new body causing it pain…
‘But nothing this body cannot take…’
As it took another breathe and opened its eyes and looked at the regrouping ponies, they all saw something rather shocking. One it its eyes, the right one, was completely black. The left one was only half black, but the darkness was slowly spreading, slowly covering the green of the eye and snuffing out the glow beneath it. It could feel its host weakening, losing strength. Within moment, it would have complete control of this body and its magic, and then nothing would be able to stop it. Not even the princesses. Unfortunately, it also knew that if it lost its hostage- whether by destroying the pitiful mare or simply losing hold of her- it would likely drive them to do everything in their power to stop it… even if it meant ending the life of their friend and its host.
'Which means I am left with only one option. A tactical retreat.'
As the elements, the princesses, and the guards all gathered in front of it, it smirked at the dark scowls on all their faces, and the abject looks of rage on Luna’s face.
“Now… then… In a few moments… I will have complete control of this body… here is what is going to happen…” The Nightmare increased the pressure of its grip on Fluttershy’s throat, causing the mare to let out a pained, strangled whimper. It had the desired effect of casing looks of worry to cross the faces of most all of them, with the exception of Celestia and Luna. “You’re going to stand there like the good little wretches you are, and I’m going to be taking this little mewling worm with me as insurance. You try to do something I don’t like, or you try to follow me, any of you so much as twitch, and some… unfortunate... event may befall the dear… Do we have an understanding?”
The ponies all glared at the nightmare, even as fear and worry and anger spread through them, most of that anger coming from Luna and Rainbow Dash. None of the ponies so much as made a move, however, to try to stop them, despite how much they all obviously wanted to. As the nightmare continued to retreat, with a weakly struggling Fluttershy in its grasp, it let out a low chuckle as the green of the left eye was almost completely gone.
“I swear,” Began Luna, “I swear on the moon above and on my very flank that you will not get away with this Nightmare. I will see you destroyed by my own two hooves, even if it’s the last thing I do!”
“I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding then. Now then, if you’ll excuse me you miserable, insignificant maggots, I will be making my escape no-“
“Hey, ‘scuse me!”
The nightmare blinked at the voice, and watched as looks of shock and surprise suddenly appeared upon everypony’s faces. The voice spoke again, and it noticed that the voice sounded strained.
“Do you know how hard it is to juggle a boulder this size using just your Pegasus magic and the wind?”
“Wh-what?”
The Nightmare turned around, in the opposite direction of the mare in its grip. It had just enough time for its black eyes to widen before a massive boulder slammed into it, accidentally knocking Fluttershy out of its grip and roughly to the ground. The boulder flew with such power and speed that the others barely had time to move out of its way as it flew on a straight course all the way back into the end of the cave they were in. It slammed into the back wall with a massive crash, the boulder itself becoming imbedded into the wall and sticking there as cracks spread from the point of contact and several rocks became dislodged.
The ponies all stared in shock at the boulder before, as one, they turned back to the mouth of the cave just in time to see a royal blue pegasus wearing what looked like pointed sunglasses land next to a shivering Fluttershy before collapsing on its side, sweat covering its entire form. As he panted heavily, he still managed to suck in enough air to form a sentence.
“Because I do… and it’s very… very hard. Kinda like that rock… and the hard place you’re stuck between… WHOO-boy!”
Fluttershy opened her eyes, only to see the blue Pegasus staring right at her with a smirk. “Hey there… Sorry ‘bout the rough treatment… Name’s Sky Shock… And don’t worry… “
There was a large cracking sound, drawing the attention of everyone in the cave as the boulder suddenly fell from the wall and slammed into the ground. It shattered upon impact, but the trembles shook the cave enough to weaken the wall further, creating larger cracks that allowed the black hybrid-changeling that was also embedded into the rock face to fall out of it, completely limp as it too slammed into the rubble it’s body was covered in numerous cracks and dents, both from the scuffle beforehand, and from the boulder, so much so that it’s unique glowing green blood could be seen leaking from many of the cracks in his form.
As the watched the Black, sparkly flames on its mane and tail snuff out, and return to the normal spiky silver-white it normally was, Sky shock couldn’t help but remark:
“…This is not the first time I’ve crushed him with a boulder before… haha!”
The Solar alicorn mare crashed through a tree and slammed into the one behind it, her pained scream being cut off from the force of impact before she fell to the ground in an unceremonious heap. Terrible burns and deep gashes covered her entire being and her wing hung limply at her side, broken, bloody, and charred to a crisp. She barely had time to take in a breath before she felt razor sharp teeth clamp down onto her left hind leg. She screamed as much as she could as she was lifted and thrown bodily though the air. She didn’t even have time to descend from her forced flight before something slammed into her with the force of a speeding carriage, slamming her into the ground and leaving a trench in her wake where she slid across the rocky terrain.
All Celestia could do was groan before she felt herself roughly shoved onto her back, she both felt and heard the snarling breathes on her face, and managed to force her eyes open. There he was, standing above her, with not even a single scratch on him. His face set into what appeared to be a permanent snarling grimace. He stood above her triumphant, but she could see he was still struggling within, struggling to control himself. She could see it clearly as she looked into his eyes, saw them flickering constantly between red and teal green. All around the courtyard were the bodies of numerous guards, each one thankfully still alive, but each one suffering from some kind of an injury or unconscious.
As the battle had continued, this rampage had taken them all around and through the castle, and many, many guards had tried coming to their princess’ aid. None of them, however, could hold a candle to the blazing fury that was Shadow Flare, and the moment they tried to interfere, or escort the princess to safety, the were swiftly taken care of with extreme malice. Thankfully, he didn’t kill any of them, or leave any of them with injuries they had no hope of recovering from, but that was all the mercy he was willing to give.
Celestia was brought back to the present when she heard a growling snarl from above her. Refocusing her eyes on Shadow flare, she noticed that he was once more holding a hoof over his eye, and he wobbled in his stance slightly, before shaking his head and looking down upon her once more. While his eyes still held that fury in them, she could see he was mostly in control now that they were completely teal green. She realized this may be her only chance to try talking her way out of this, so she focused as best she could as she looked deep into his eyes.
“Sh-Shadow… Please…”She gasped out. It was struggle to speak, her voice hoarse from all the screaming she had done earlier. “It… doesn’t have… to be… this way… You can still… turn back… Can still… Make things right… Think about… Luna…”
She spoke, both doing her best to actually convince him, and to buy time for the guards to reorganize themselves or mount some kind of defense for her. Speaking her sisters name seems to have gotten through to him somewhat, because his glare lessened, his mouth closed slightly, and his eyes seemed to come into focus a little more. But just as suddenly as it happened pain suddenly overcame him, and he once more clutched his head, while his eyes slammed closed. He let out short gasping breaths as his teeth ground together, creating a terrible noise in her ears. Then he growled in what she could tell was pain, and his body began jerking in odd ways. When the jerking suddenly stopped, and he opened his eyes, Celestia became terrified.
His eyes were completely red.
Blood red.
And they were staring down at her with such wrathful and malicious intent that she couldn’t help the shiver that crawled up her spine. Slowly, he leaned his head down towards hers, then continued passed it until she could feel his breathe on her ear.
“There will be no turning back from this… I am going to kill you, but I’m going to take my sweet time… I am going to make you suffer suchextreme agony, so that you may feel only a portionof the pain that I felt when you took them from me... Prepare yourself, you solar bitch! I’m going to enjoy your screams.”
Before she could even think to respond, his head jerked upward and his mouth, his teeth, coated in his black, red and green flames, clamped down upon her horn with as much force as he could muster.
Her scream echoed throughout all of Canterlot and to the surrounding territories beyond.
I jerked awake with a sharp gasp, my body arching up slightly before recoiling back in pain. I released a very loud groan as I felt my entire body screaming out in agony at me. I panted heavily, taking ragged gasps as every breath made me feel like there were daggers digging into my lungs, and every twitch made me feel like my bones were shredded and grinding against each other and my skin. Briefly, I recalled having felt like this once before, and I couldn’t help but wonder how the hell I had managed to get myself into this condition. I managed to shallow out my breathing to lessen the pain, but it was still very agonizing.
I was so focused upon my own body screaming expletives at me that I hadn’t noticed the numerous gasps and the sound of hoofsteps closing in on me. I only noticed when I felt a hoof lightly stroke the side of my face. I gasped and jerked away from it, not only feeling my body scream at me even more, but I felt myself unable to move far because it felt like my limbs were being held down by something. I swallowed the groan and opened my eyes slightly, the light beyond my eyelids hurting them and causing me to clench them closed again. I felt the hoof make contact with my cheek again, and while I twitched, I didn’t jerk away from it this time. I swallowed once more, before letting out a groan and opening my eyes once more.
I saw numerous blurred shaped hovering above me as my eyes struggled to regain their focus. I blinked them open and closed multiple times to refocus and eventually my sight cleared. The faces of my friends all stared worriedly back at me, but there were three particular faces that caught me by surprise. So much so, in fact, that I had gasped again, which cause my body more pain and caused me to clench my eyes shut once more. I grit my teeth and groaned before doing my best to relax and opened my eyes, this time only seeing three faces looking down at me.
One of them was Luna, whose hoof was caressing the side of my face. She was staring down at me in both relief and sorrow, but also happiness. The second face surprised me, as I had not been expecting to see him for quite some time. Sky Shock’s faded red eyes stared down at me, a smirk on his mouth, but I could smell the hidden worry behind that mask of a smile.
It was the third face that floored me though.
I opened my dry mouth to speak, only to cough slightly, causing even more pain for a brief moment. After calming again, I opened my mouth once more and spoke in a gravelly voice.
“Sp-Spike?”
I was surprised when he slowly moved forward, leaned down, and hugged me. I was shocked speechless. Last I checked he was furious at me for nearly trying to kill what was, for all intents and purposes, his mother figure. So have him here now, hugging me…. I was lost at what to really feel. Confusion? Joy? Sorrow? Regret? I think they must have all seen what was on my face because when Spike leaned back, he saw it and spoke up.
“Twilight sent me a letter telling me to come to Canterlot. They explained everything that they know so far. I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through, Shadow.”
That was all he said before he leaned down and hugged me again. All I did was blink before closing my eyes and sighing as best I could without groaning in pain. I heard Sky Shock speak up from next to me.
“You bucked up big time you idiot. I gave you one job, Flare. One job, little bro. Told you not to cause any anarchy, and what do you do?”
Despite knowing how much it would hurt, I chuckled at him anyway and smirked myself, fighting the grimace that tried to force itself on my face. ”I keep telling you... I'm the older one here… and... well… Causing chaos is… kinda what I do, Sky… Y’know?”
He chuckled.
“Unfortunately, I know all too well. It’s why I had to treat you to my patented ‘Wall Rock Crush’.”
I blinked, losing my smirk. The Wall Rock Crush? He’s not supposed to use that on me unless I-
“It’s also why you’re currently strapped down to a medical table surrounded by all your friends.” Then he lost his smile. “We were all worried when you’d wake up, bro. You’ve been out for days.”
I frowned at his words, and shook my head lightly.
“What are you talking…? Days? What… what happened?”
How did I get like this? What happened before hand? My memories were so fuzzy, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t remember anything that happened after I went to sleep. Did something happen after I fell asleep? Was I attacked by something? But that wouldn’t make sense. I would explain why I was in such terrible condition, but wouldn’t explain why I was the one strapped down.
Sky shock just frowned at me from my response to him, but I also noticed his eyes had narrowed slightly. He turned and started looking over my entire body, and I saw the telltale glow that appeared behind his glossy eyes. I managed to lift my head slightly to see what he said was true. I was strapped down to a medical table. Two straps going across my body, and two clamping each hoof down to my sides. Explained why I felt restricted, but not why I am trapped here. Luna grabbed my attention when she rubbed my cheek once more, causing me to turn my head towards her slowly. She was staring at me in complete worry now. I saw Sky grimace out of the corner of my eye, but kept my attention on Luna. I stared into her wondrous teal eyes as she stared back into mine, but I felt something was wrong with her stare.
“Shadow Flare,” She began, but then paused. I saw her gulp before she looked at someone who was out of my line of sight. After a brief moment, she turned back and looked at me again, with that same strange look in her eyes. I was now growing increasingly worried myself.
“Shadow… What’s…” She paused again, took a deep breathe, and then started again. “What is the last thing you remember?”
“I remember… the void… us going over my past memories... falling asleep…” I tried to recall anything passed that, knowing I was missing something beyond that but I was unable to bring up anything. I know something was missing, something that placed some kind of a deep fear within me. But I couldn’t for the life of me, remember what it was. As I thought, I continued to stare Luna in the eyes, when I finally realized what it was that I was seeing in her gaze.
I saw fear in eyes.
That… I shouldn’t be seeing that on her face. Why was she afraid? The only time she’s ever been afraid of anything was when we stole some of cake and almost got caught by Celesti-
And as though I was slapped in the face by Mantle’s morning breathe, everything suddenly came back to me as my eyes widened considerably.
The nightmares I had of everyone I cared about abandoning me.
Waking up and purging my emotions by crying everything out of my system.
Hearing Celestia’s voice after I expressed my gratitude.
Feeling the rage that was not my own slowly overwhelm me.
The feel of the dark presence trying to take control of my body and mind.
After that, a desperate struggle, brief flashes of vision, the many sensations of pain, a battle of wills…
A battle I nearly lost… A darkness I nearly succumbed to…
That Nightmarish laughter…
Luna seemed to have noticed my sudden change of expression, because she placed her other hoof on the opposite cheek and forced me to stare her right in the eyes he saw the fear and worry was still there, but he also saw the determination and resolve set into them.
“I promise you, Shadow Flare, we will purge that demon from you. I swear it.”
Despite her promise, despite the look in her eyes, I still felt the cold grip of fear grab me like a vice.
And then I heard another voice, this one echoing from the depth of my mind, like a whisper in my ear, but coming from everywhere at the same time…
And it sent terror through me like nothing I had ever felt before.
My Life as a Hybrid By: ChaosDoomscythe/Doomscythe01 Chapter 17: Visiting Hours Are Over
Celestia screamed. She screamed and hollered and struggled with all her weakened, feeble might, but nothing she did could dislodge him from her horn. He wasn’t just biting it, or trying to bite through it, or even simply burning it- he was jerking his head back and forth the in an attempt to rip her horn right off her head, right out of her skull. He was roaring and growling like some kind of a raving mad animal or beast as he did, moving harsher and fiercer as his rage continued to amplify his strength. Celestia kicked and pushed pulled, but still, the near feral being above her would not stop, and the pain was beginning to overwhelm her. Her screams were beginning to die down into groans, then whimpers, her voice having finally gone hoarse from the strain place on it throughout the fight.
Her only saving grace had been her magic, which had taken on a will of its own and coated her horn in an attempt to preserve itself. Her magic had created a simple yet powerful shield which was doing its best to protect her magical foci, but his own magical incinerating flames was burning through her magic as fast as it could summon itself from her mana pool. As his rage and anger continued to power his own magical reserves, hers continued to weaken, and it was draining her physical strength as well as the pain. Once her magic, vast as it was, ran out, her horn would lose its protection…
And she would be an alicorn only in name, assuming she survived this brutal encounter.
The pain began to overwhelm her. Her struggles grew weaker and weaker, and her vision blurred in and out. Her eyes fluttered open and closed. Her hearing was beginning to fade. She saw blackness creeping up from the corners of her eyes, and knew she was going to lose consciousness. Even then, she could still see the blood red fury that was his eyes, glaring maliciously down at her own bloodshot magentas, something in them seeming to truly relish in her agony and misery. As her body began to still and she felt her mind fad into blackness, she only prayed that her sister and subjects remained safe…
And that Shadow Flare somehow found peace with her death.
Just before her consciousness was lost, a rainbow colored blur slammed into the black mass on top of her, sending all three of them rolling. The action caused new pain to flare, which somehow jerked her consciousness back to the brink. As she lay there on her side, her vision came back enough to see Rainbow Dash and Shadow Flare, rolling across the courtyard until they both crashed into some obstacle. There was a purple flash in the corner of her vision, before the blurry image of her student appeared in front of her vision.
She started speaking, saying something, behaving frantically. She didn’t even really feel it when magic started covering her body in a meager attempt to heal her many, numerous, and excruciatingly painful wounds, not that she could feel many of them at the moment. Celestia tried to pay attention, but her gaze and attention kept migrating back towards the mare and stallion that were fighting tooth and hoof with each other. Before long, an orange and pink blur jumped into the fray, doing their best to help stop and restrain them before they were all blown back by a small explosion of flames. The enraged stallion jumped into the air, then flapped its massive wings and shot back towards Celestia, only to be intercepted and shot down by blue and pink beams of magical energy. He hit the ground hard, but quickly rolled onto his hooves in time to be tackled once more by a white blur. There was a blue flash next to Celestia, and a pink blur, Cadence, stepped into view near Twilight before erecting a shield around the three of them. She watched as the white blur, whom she recognized to be Shining Armor, and the black blur continued to struggle until the Shadow managed to overpower and pin him.
Unfortunately, Shining proved to be a challenge, as the Shadow was immediately blasted in the face with a powerful magical beam. He was sent flying in the sky, only to be intercepted by the Rainbow Dash and slammed back into the ground. After a short struggle, and with an aggravated roar and brief burst of flames, the Dash was sent flying through the air. Unable to correct her flight path in time, she crashed into the ground and tumbled a little before stopping. Just as the Shadow got back up and attempted to give chase, a pink shield appeared over it. He slammed into it again and again in an attempt to break through it, to no avail.
With a sudden roar, the Flare looked like he himself exploded inside the shield, flames covering the entirety of the space inside of it. Only seconds after, the dome itself seemed to evaporate into nothing, and the black blur shot out of the flames on a direct collision course towards Shining. Stunned from what he just witnessed and with no time to react regardless, Shining was slammed into and roughly pinned onto the ground. Before Shining could even attempt to fight back, his entire form was immediately consumed by a flurry of flames and he screamed in shock and surprise.
Celestia’s ears twitched when she heard both Twilight and Cadence scream from in front of her, obviously worried about the captain of the guard and prince of the Crystal Empire. Before long, the flames disappeared entirely only to reveal Shining Armor completely unharmed, at least as far as Celestia’s blurred vision could tell. Just as Shadow raised a foreleg in preparation of a punch, a lasso wrapped around him and he was very forcefully yanked right off of Shining and into the air just high enough to get blasted by a massive ball of something… something sparkly. There had been the faint sound of a boom right before he got hit, but Celestia couldn’t tell exactly what it was.
Soon after, however, her hearing managed to recover just enough for her to hear yells and commands being thrown about, mixed in with furious roars. However, as her exhaustion finally started to catch up with her, Celestia’s vision once more started to darken, her body far past its breaking point and shutting itself down to recover. Still she managed to catch a few more things before she was dead to the world. The rope and sparkly substances still coving Shadow’s now heavily blurred form were suddenly incinerated, but before the stallion could do anything, he was once more tackled by the Rainbow Dash. Before he could retaliate, the speedy mare managed to shove him over to a mostly clear area before, it kicked away from him and retreating as he slammed heavily into the ground. Shadow quickly got back up and roared once more, but it cut off suddenly, and he seemed to freeze at the sight of something.
The last thing Celestia saw before she blacked out was the light of the Sun being blocked out as the sky turned black.
I simply laid there in the bed, strapped down, staring at the ceiling. The blank, white tiled ceiling.
I hate this moon damned room.
It had been two day since I learned I was the new host of the Nightmare. I hadn’t spoken a single word since I found out. After attempting several times to get me to say something, Luna, spike and the others started worrying about me until, Sky Shock told everyone that I just needed some time to think to myself. Aside from medical officials who had to run several tests, Sky managed to usher everyone out of the room with a select few allowed to stay behind.
Aside from the four guards posted at each corner of the room to keep watch on me, the only ones left in the room were Sky Shock, Spike and Fluttershy. Spike stayed right next to my side the entire time, and while he tried speaking to me a few times, I never responded. It wasn’t because I was ignoring him, or that I was being disrespectful, I was scared. Scared that I’d somehow fuck things up and make him leave. Scared that I’d say the wrong thing and he’d go back to hating me. I knew it was irrational, I knew it was, but that nightmare I suffered through managed to terrify me in a way I honestly didn’t think was possible. It managed to shake my resolve on a lot of things and amplified my fear of being alone a great deal.
I am so impossibly thankful that Sky’s been able to pick up on my moods for a long time now, because he managed to reassure Spike that my silence wasn’t his fault.
“Your name’s Spike, right? Hey, don’t you worry about a thing. He’s really shaken up right now, so I don’t think he’ll be talking to anyone until he’s ready. But, if you’re as close to him as I think you are, then you stay right there, next to him. Trust me, your presence alone is going to make his recovery that much faster.”
I don’t know how that blind Pegasus can pick up on so many things, but GOD DAMN if he isn’t good at it. I had acknowledged his words by turning my eyes towards Spike just as he turned to me, and gave a slight nod and small smile. That seemed to reassure him a great deal and managed to calm him considerably. That brought a little happiness to my own broken heart at that moment before the darkness of my situation clouded it over again. Still, I was glad for any amount of happiness I could get, from myself or from others, regardless of how small.
Fluttershy, bless her kind soul, was fretting over my, quite frankly, broken condition like a true mother hen. She was constantly asking if I was okay, if I needed anything, if I was hungry, if I was hot or cold, if I was comfortable (or at least as comfortable as I could be given I was strapped to the bed), and many other questions. Sky, who had never seen anyone worry over someone else so much before in his life, had to request the mare to actually stop worrying over me. Multiple times. When she asked why he wasn’t worried about me like everyone else was, his response was simple and to the point.
“…It’s because I know him, and I know how he feels about others worrying about him. While he can’t stop other beings from actually worrying about his well-being, even when it’s warranted, he kinda hates it.”
That made both Spike and Fluttershy look at each other, blink, then they looked right at me. I had just continued staring at the ceiling. Honestly, when you spend a good chunk of your life with people hovering around you and worrying over damn near every action you take (or dont take), it gets annoying really freaking fast. Granted, considering my condition at those particular times, it was perfectly well warranted, but still. Annoying.
Fluttershy later had a mild panic attack when the doctors finally came in to examine my body and its injuries. They became worried about my condition when they discovered that shortly after I had woken up, my body stopped any and all healing processes. Sky had to pull the mare aside and force her to do some breathing exercises to calm her down, then went about explaining why that was since I was refusing to speak to everyone.
He told them that because I was still in my changeling form, I was stopping myself from healing intentionally. Back in our home town, after numerous injuries the two of us had obtained, doctors in the village discovered something unique to my biology that took my mother and several other changeling medics to figure out. Apparently, because I cannot alter my form like other changelings, and am restricted to two forms and only two forms, while as a changeling, I gained control over my entire molecular structure to a certain degree, but only when it came to healing and regenerating tissue.
I could amplify the speed at which one wound healed itself by taking available resources from other areas of my body and directing the energy somewhere else. The most common resources used are usually my emotions or the emotions of other around me. For the fastest results, joy is preferable, which is why I often request hugs from pinkie when I get injured. She’s like a walking pile of happy feel goods. IF I don’t have any emotions that will particularly help me, then copious amounts of food can help instead. The energy and granted to me from emotions, or the material I absorb from eating allows me to create whatever substance needed to repair damage to my form. I’m even capable of prioritizing which wounds required healing the most, and healing specifically just those wounds while leaving others untouched. The more resources available to me to use, the faster I heal.
This unique level of control over my own body allows me to, alternatively, stop the healing process altogether, which was actually useful when I ended up breaking a hoof, and had to stop it from healing before the bone set itself.
Of course, after learning about this, the ponies became horrified when they realized I was intentionally not allowing my body to heal itself, and when they questioned me as to why, I adamantly refused to answer any of them. When they grew tired of demanding answers from me, they decided to try using healing spells on me to force my body to heal. I tried to coat myself in fire to simply burn away whatever magical spells they deigned to use on me, but even I should have realized that these straps holding me down were blocking my use of magic. They were heavily enchanted too. I counted my blessings anyway, however, when it was revealed their healing spells wouldn’t work on me anyway. My natural heavy resistance to magic, coupled with the fact that healing spells of any kind required large amounts of magic to cast, meant that the unicorn doctors and medics were literally just tiring themselves out with seeing little to absolutely no results.
Left with no choice but to allow me to suffer silently in pain and agony, the doctors did what they could. They changed bandages, made sure my IV was working and the heart monitor was still functioning properly, along with a few other miscellaneous doctor stuff that I could never be bothered to remember, and they were out the door. Unfortunately, this left me with my little brother, my older little brother, and the mother hen to take stock of my injuries and wonder how I could possibly survive and stay so silent despite the severe pain I must be going through.
And truth be told, I had been and still am in so much pain and agony it’s a wonder I haven’t snapped yet. Sky’s Wall Rock Crush (patent pending) is capable of and has done severe amounts of damage to me before, depending on the size of the boulder he uses and the hardness and durability of the wall I’m trapped between. My body was completely covered in dents, bruises, cracked and bleeding chitin, a few shattered scales, I had a black eye from a punch Luna gave me, a chipped fucking tooth, and that’s just what’s visible on the outside. Inside is much worse. Many of my bones had been cracked, at least two fractured, several bruised organs, bruised spine, some internal bleeding and one organ that had actually ruptured. Those last two I was actually required to heal, but I only allowed it enough to ensure I’d survive. I had bandages covering most, if not all of the cracks in my chitin, though some of them still bled slightly, despite the creams and sealants they tried to use on me.
Despite all the torment I’m putting myself through, as far as I’m concerned, it’s worth it for the time being. And, quite frankly, a part of me feels like I deserve it.
I was offered food a few times, but I refused each time with a slight shake of the head, and doing even that small movement hurt plenty. The ambient emotion in the air around Canterlot is enough to keep me adequately fed, even if I find the taste of it to be very, very ‘snobby’. I didn’t see anyone else in the last two days except for one pony. Pinkie Pie dropped in for a brief visit. She set a vase with flowers in it next to my bed on a table, gave me a sad, knowing smile, the softest hug I think she’d ever given anyone, and then left after saying hi to everyone else in the room. It wasn’t much, but it did manage to make me smile, which I believe she was going for. But asides from that, I haven’t seen anyone else for the last two days.
It kinda made me wonder what everyone else was doing, but I’m fairly certain it has something to do with how to get rid of this parasite that’s currently residing in me. I don’t know if they’ll be able to think up something, but considering the Elements of Harmony can’t be used on me for fear of turning me to stone or worse, and the only other method that has been tried probably won’t work on me anyway… I honestly have very little hope of them finding a way to purge it from me before I end up doing something either completely stupid, drastic, or both.
But I will not be succumbing to the Nightmare again if I can help it.
I just hope I have the strength to fight it off next time. But hope is something I seem to be in short supply of right now.
I was broken out of my reverie by the sound of the door opening. I saw out of the corner of my eye that it was nearly night time. Spike was dozing in and out lying next to me, but he seemed to have snapped awake at the sound of the door and sat up to see who was coming in. Fluttershy was been sitting in a chair next to the table that held the flowers, tending to them, but her attention too was caught by the door opening. Sky was curled up in a two person couch on the opposite side of the room next to the window, pretending to be asleep with his sunglasses on. I didn’t see it, but I’m fairly certain his ears twitched at the sound, though I heard no movement from him to signify he was done playing pretend.
I did see one of the solar guards posted in a corner suddenly get up and walk away from his post. Seconds later, a thestral night guard took his place. It was time for a shift change, though something was off to me about this one. The thestrals, while always taking their job seriously, are still somewhat laid back and relaxed. Even despite the things I’ve done, they remained so even around me. The thestral I saw in my peripheral looked tense, like a coiled snake ready to spring. That was the first thing that gave me the odd feeling. The second was the smell that suddenly filled the room. It was familiar to me. Very familiar. The third thing that tipped me off was-
My eyes shot to the blue sparkling mane that suddenly appeared overhead, making me temporarily forget about what I was thinking of before turning to their source. I hadn’t even noticed she was in the room. Soon after spotting it, my eyes slowly turned until I was looking into her stunning cyan eyes, though I couldn’t help but notice they looked sad. That, in turn, made me feel sad. Princess Luna looked me over in my entirety, taking in all of the bandaged and still uncovered wounds spread across my form before her gaze once more met mine.
“How are you feeling, Shadow?”
I don’t care what anyone else ever tells you, I did NOT fucking wince when she asked me that.
Having decided that I’ve had enough time to sit, think, and mope, and not at all wishing to disrespect Luna in any way right now, slowly, I moved my head so it was more directly facing her. After moving my jaw around to make sure I could talk without my mouth hurting too much, I opened it to respond to her.
“Oh… you know…” My voice was a gravelly piece of shit right now, but I didn’t care, so long as I could talk to her. “It just hurts when I do… anything really. Ow, my everything…”
I saw Fluttershy and Spike both turn to me in surprise due to the fact that I actually responded, but those surprised looks turned into tiny smiles when they realized I was basically back with them. Luna had a small smile at my little joke, but it quickly turned to a frown. I was happy I at least got her to smile, but I knew that the time for joking was over.
“The medics have informed me of your situation.” Her eyes narrowed at me a little. “Why are you not allowing your body to heal?”
I didn’t respond immediately. A part of me didn’t want to tell her because I knew it would make her worry even more for me, and I hate when people worry about me. I ended up getting far too much of that over the years after Shadow died, and I really didn’t want any more of that. But I knew that this wasn’t something I could really skip out on, so I took as deep a breath as I could without too much pain flaring up before I gave her my honest answer.
“Because if the Nightmare takes over again, it will be in no condition to do anything.”
Based on the looks on their faces, I’m fairly certain no one had expected that response from me. She looked at me in surprise for several quiet moments before she let out a sigh. She moved a little closer towards the bed and then sat down next to it.
“I’m sor-“
“Don’t you dare apologize to me, Princes,” I had cut her off. I knew where that was going, and I wasn’t about to let her go down that path. “The only one here at fault here is the Nightmare. If anyone needs to apologize, then it’s that parasitic abomination.” I paused for a quick moment, before adding something else. “And… I need to apologize as well.”
“What possible reason could you have to apologize for, Shadow Flare,” she asked. I don’t know if she was really just trying to look past my previous actions in light of the current situation or not, but she should know what I’m apologizing for.
“Honestly, I’ve got quite a few things to say ‘I’m sorry for… But I think the biggest reason for me to apologize is because I hurt you, princess.” She looked surprised at that, but before she could say anything, I continued. “I don’t regret what I did, attacking Celestia as I had. I don’t. Even now, I still feel justified in my actions, but I never wanted to hurt you. I still went along with my plans anyway, though despite knowing what killing your sister would mean for my friendship with you.
“When you showed up on the battlefield, and I saw the look of pain and betrayal in your eyes, I just froze. Even through the anger that had clouded my mind and made everything hazy, I still saw that look on your face.” I turned my eyes away from her, and stared back up at the ceiling. “And when I did, I just stopped. Seeing the hurt in your eyes and knowing that I alone was the cause of that… I just locked up completely. Something inside of me broke, and I knew that our friendship was pretty much over at that one moment.
“So… I’m sorry, Luna.” I closed my eyes, feeling very low at the moment and not wanting to see whatever look she had on her face. “I’m sorry for betraying your trust. I’m sorry for betraying our friendship. And I’m sorry for causing you pain.”
The room went silent when I finished. As everyone digested what I just said, in the silence of the room, I started to think about everything else that had happened since I attacked Celestia. Everything that happened since I came to Canterlot. Everything since I arrived in this world. I’ve had so many good times with my adoptive family, all of my friends. But all of the good that happened in my life, in my mind, is almost always overshadowed by the pain and tragedies I’ve had to suffer through. It makes me wonder why I didn’t just move onto the afterlife when I dies instead of being forced to come here. I honestly thing it would have been better if I had instead of being sent here. Maybe then mom, dad and Shadow would still be alive.
I don’t know that for certain, because no one knows what the future holds, but… I can’t help but think it might have been better if I never came here. I know it would’ve been better for the girls. Before I came here, I remember watching the show up until then end of season 4. I know what’s supposed to happen, but with my sudden involvement throwing everything out of whack, I can’t even tell what the next event to happen is going to be. Guess that’s just going to have to be a surprise.
I was brought out of my thoughts when Luna finally responded to me.
“Shadow Flare…” She paused and took a deep breathe. “I accept you apology…”
I waited, because I knew there was going to be more to it than that. I wasn’t wrong.
“But I do not know if I can forgive you for what you’ve done.”
I let out a breather I didn’t even know I was holding. But still, I nodded my head in acceptance of her response.
“That’s just fine… I didn’t expect you to forgive me.” I wanted a change of subject. “How are the other’s doing?”
“The girls are doing just fine.” She said. I drew my eyes back to her as she continued. “Mantle and Rainbow Dash suffered some bruising from the battle, but have since recovered. Aside from a few guards, nopony else was, thankfully, harmed, and even then, of those that were, they weren’t hurt by much. Twilight and Celestia are working overtime with our top scientists to improve your vest. We may need input and assistance from you in order to make I operate more efficiently.”
I nodded at that. They’d probably need knowledge of the spell I had sealed around my mana core and its spell matrices to figure out a way to bypass it. That way, it could drain my negative emotions without casing me extreme pain and exhaustion in the process. That’s going to be a fun conversation.
“And the others?’
“Everypony else is occupying their time trying to brainstorm ideas on how to remove the nightmare from you.” After that sentence she frowned slightly. “We have had little success, unfortunately.”
“That sounds about right… This is not at all going to be a quick or easy thing to solve.”
“No… No it is not, Shadow Flare.” I felt Luna place her hoof on my own shackled one, and looked over t her. “But please… Have faith. We will find a way. You just have to believe.”
I closed my eyes and let out a small sigh, nodding. Yeah…
Luna left shortly after that, the both of us giving each other quiet goodbyes, and Luna nodding towards Spike and Fluttershy before leaving. She’d likely have said something to Sky if she thought he was awake, but didn’t so didn’t.
Speaking of Sky, the moment the door’s closed and the princess was out of earshot, Sky suddenly sat up and looked right at me. I returned the look from out of the corner of my eye. We both noticed it, him likely faster than I did, but we decided not to draw attention to it at the moment. Instead…
“Wow,” he spoke, causing me to blink. He looked at the door, then back at me. “When you fall for someone you fall hard.”
Thank god for black scales and chitin or that blush I was sporting would be super visible right now. I heard Spike and Fluttershy snickering and giggling respectively at his remark. I scowled at him.
“You shut your snarky horse mouth, Sky.”
He just smirked at me. “What? You don’t want your feelings-“
“Thank you, Sky Shock.”
He paused, and one of his ears tilted at the tone in my voice. He heard the sincerity in it.
“…For what?”
“For showing up when you did. If you hadn’t, I shudder to think of what might have happened. So thank you, for saving them… And myself.” I was immediately confused by the sudden swell of anger I sensed from him, and the frown that covered his face. I was about to ask what was wrong, when he turned towards Fluttershy and Spike.
“Could you two please leave for about twenty minutes? Radiant Nova and I need to have a talk.”
Oh.
Oh Shit!
He just used my name.
Spike and Fluttershy looked confused at the name he used for a moment, before they both realized who he was talking about. Realizing that this was going to be a serious conversation between just the two of us, they both nodded and quietly left the room. Soon enough, they were out of earshot for me, but not Sky. He waited another minute or so before his ears twitched. Then he got up out of his seat and made his way right next to me. I shivered because I knew, whatever was about to happen, it was going to-
Pain.
Pain!
PAIN!
He wasted literally no time in driving the tip of his right hoof into my ribcage. I let out a brief shout before gritting my teeth, my breathe coming out in short bursts as I tried to deal with the sudden onslaught of pure agony. I heard the heart monitor start to pick up, and did my best to keep it steady. The meditation I learned from Zecora those few months ago helped a lot in keeping the body regulated. If my heartbeat got too high, it would draw seriously unwanted attention to us right now. We did not need a bunch of nurses and doctors rushing in to try to find out what the problem was, only see see my supposed best friend kicking my ass.
Suddenly, he drove the hoof in a little deeper, and I groaned and whimpered. My body was trying to move away from him, but each of the straps and shackles pinning me to the bed made the motion almost entirely useless. Almost because all the moving and squirming only served to cause all my other bones, muscles and pain laced injuries to suddenly flare up, causing me even more suffering.
I almost didn’t hear him speaking, the pain beginning to cloud my mind and make me desperate to get away from it.
“What am I to you?”
After several moments of panting harshly with my teeth grinding against each other, I could only groan out a single word to him, pain lacing my voice.
“B-b brother! AGH!”
He never once let up on me.
“I’m your brother?”
“Y-YES!”
“Really? Am I? Because I don’t feel like it.” He pulled his hoof back only to swing it forward in a punch at the same spot, causing me to briefly scream before I could clamp my mouth shut. My eyes slammed closed as tears started rolling down my face, all the while he continued to dig his hoof in my side even further. “You ditching me like you did without a single word of warning doesn’t sound very brotherly to me.”
“I-I-I-I‘m s-s-ssssorrrrryyyyyy….” I only just barely got that one out.
“You’re SORRY?!” His other hoof suddenly reached forward and grabbed my muzzle, wrenching my head towards his and causing my neck to scream at me. I opened blurry eyes just in time to see him take off his glasses and throw them aside.
Neither of us heard them clatter to the ground.
“You think a simple sorry is going to cut it?!” He ground his hoof in harder, and my body jerked in response. My eyes shut once more, the tears flowed harder, and I couldn’t do anything more but let out a pathetic whimper. Suddenly the hoof pulled away, and I gasped loudly, taking deep, panting breathes despite how much it hurt my diaphragm to do. Opening my eyes once more and looking at his milky red ones, I took a very shaky breathe and spoke.
“I-I didn’t… didn’t want you getting… c-caught up in the fal-*cough* fallout of my actions… Didn’t want you getting… hurt or blamed…”
“That’s not your decision to make, Nova. It is mine and mine alone. If I feel like getting imprisoned with you, then buck the sun and moon, I’m getting imprisoned you dump pile of manure!” This was the first time I heard him speaking with such vehemence in his voice, especially at me. “We are a team; a duo; brothers in all but blood. If you’re going to do something foolhardy and dangerous, then I’m going to be right there next to you. You think you were the only one who was hurt when they all died? They were my family too! They’re the only family I’ve ever known. You’re the only family I’ve got left, Radiant. How do you think I’d feel if I lost you?”
I couldn’t stop the slight smile the came over my mouth. “P-pissed for start-“
His hoof holding my muzzle reared back and then rocketed forward, clocking me right in my mouth. MY head slammed backwards, before he grabbed my muzzle and jerked me forwards again. My neck hated me right now, and blood was now flowing out of my nose. I didn’t know he could hit hard enough to crack the scales around my muzzle, but surprise!
Sky was seething at me.
“YOU DON’T GET TO JOKE! NOT AFTER YOU BASICALLY ABANDONED ME!”
That made me freeze with my eyes wide.
“I…I didn’t-“
“Yes you did! You left me there, Nova! What would I have done if you died?! HUH?! What would I have had left?! You were gone for days, and I had to hear from a unicorn mare that she teleported you somewhere and didn’t know where! Then, months later, I heard from some random passerby that one of the Princesses was attacked! Didn’t take me long to put two and two together! I rushed here as fast as I could to come and help you, and what do I find? YOUR DUMB FLANK POSESSED BY A NIGHTMARE SPIRIT!”
I said nothing. I couldn’t say anything. He was right. I had abandoned him. I had abandoned my best friend, my brother, and left him behind.
“We said we’d be there for each other. We said that we’d always have each other’s backs. I would walk through Tartarus with you and back, right by your side if I had to! That’s what we agreed upon! We made a pact, Nova!
“…and you turned your back on me.”
My eyes just stared into his, my pain long forgotten, but my tears didn’t stop. I had hurt him too. I seem to keep doing that. Hurting the beings closest to me.
Gonna have to work on that.
“I-… I’m so… so sorry, Sky,” I croaked out. “I-…..” I didn’t know what else I could say. I feel so fucking shitty right now.
Sky just stared at me for a few moments. Before letting my muzzle go. I could feel his anger at me draining away and petering out. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breathe. “Apology accepted. But…” His eyes opened a sliver, and I could see the glare in his face.
“If you ever abandon me again… I will never forgive you.”
I nodded at him, and managed to swallow a few times, ignoring any discomfort I had and answered him.
“Never again. I’ll never leave you behind again. I promise. From now on, we fly together, brother. Blazing Winds for life. ”
He gave me a small smile at that, and nodded back. “Blazing Winds for life.” He held his hoof out to the side. His glasses floated back to him in a sickly green aura, and he placed them on as though nothing had happened. He walked away and sat back in his seat, relaxing himself. His next words ensured I wasn’t about to be able to quite yet, but then, we both knew this was coming.
“You’re turn, Chrysalis.”
The guard closest to the door chuckled before walking forward towards my bed. In a powerful flash of green the thestral transformed into the Queen of changelings, and my aunt. The other three guards shed their disguises as well, revealing three armored changeling lieutenants. Aunt Chrissy walked right up to me, and used her magic to bring over a few napkins to try my tears. After doing so, and I’d had a moment to try to block out the remains of my pain, she lowered her head so it was lying next to mine. I turned my head to face her head on, though mine was sideways. She smiled cheekily.
“Hello, dear nephew. How are you doing on this fine, bright and sunny day?”
I smiled back at her.
“Oh you know, just got my ass kicked by Sky, so nothing new really. How are you?”
She chuckled once more. She and I have actually become rather close in the wake of Shadow’s death. In fact, a lot of things changed with her afterwards, even more so after the failed invasion of Canterlot. She became kinder to members of her family and her hive. She no longer enslaves changelings to make her forces stronger, and any ling still in the hive is there of their own free will. She released the changeling she had once forced into it, and even somehow managed to repair any of the ones that suffered some kind of mental damage as best she could. She’s grown as a ruler to her kind, making sure their needs are met as best as they could.
It also helps when I single hoofedly feed a majority of the hive with enough emotion to last them about 6 months.
She is still, however, kind of a bitch when it comes to dealing with other races, especially with most other ponies. There are very few exceptions for ponies she’ll tolerate, Sky shock being one of them, and even then, it’s only because of how close the two of us are and how protective he is over me and vice versa. She also still holds a bit of a grudge against the Crystal rulers, but eh. Can’t win them all.
“I’m doing well, nephew. As is the hive. We’ll last another two and a half months before we need another feeding.” I smiled, happy to hear they were still doing well after everything. “But you know as well as I that that’s not why I’m here.”
I sighed at that one, figuring it would come to this. “I know, aunty. I’m in bit of a… Well the only word that comes to mind is ‘shitstorm’. Yes, I’m in a bit of a shitstorm here.”
“You and your foul language.” She chuckled while shaking her head a little.
“Hey, it’s what makes me who I am. But this just makes me wonder how you even knew about my little situation in the first place?”
“Oh, please, child!” She snorted, rising up and placing a hoof on her sternum. “Give me some credit. I Have very knowledgeable sources that-“
“You have changelings spying on me at all times don’t you?”
She pouted at me. “Just take all of the wind out of my wings, why don’t you… Well, not all the time. Just during certain times of the day, certain times of the night, when you’re eating, washing, using the little colt’s room-“
Right, and this part of the conversation is over.
“SO! Why are you here, exactly?
She smirked that little victorious smirk she like to give me when she knows she won something. I wish I had something to counter that, but at the moment, I didn’t.
One of these days…
“I am here, nephew, to offer my services. Should you require assistance, just ask one of my lings. We’ll do anything we can to help.”
That’s a fucking trap if I’ve ever seen one.
“What’s the catch?”
Her smirk widened a little. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
Commence eye roll. “Oh please. You and I both know that, family or not, you don’t offer ANYTHING for free. So, what’s the catch?”
Her smirk turned into a smile.
“Oh, it’s nothing much. Just a little old favor I’ll ask of you at some point in the future. A favor that you’re not allowed to refuse when I ask of it.”
TRAP! IT’S A MOON DAMNED TRAP! PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION!
“It’s always something with you, isn’t it?” I just got a giggle in response. I rolled my eyes again. “I’ve a few questions for you. How’s your knowledge on soul magic?”
Chrysalis lost her smile. Actually she straight up frowned. “Unfortunately, not as in depth as I’d like it to be. Why?”
“I was wondering if you could research some kind of spell that might be able to purge a soul-based parasite. Think you can find something? I’m kinda…” I motioned to my restraints, “tied up at the moment.”
“I’ll get some of my top changeling on it, and have some scouts search the equestrian libraries, and a few more obscure locations. I’ll get back to you on whatever I find.”
I nodded as best I could with a small smile. “Thanks aunty.”
She smiled back at me and leaned forward, placing a small peck on my forehead. “You’re quite welcome, my nephew. Just remember, you now owe me an irrefutable favor.”
Shit.
I just sighed, and nodded. Chrysalis giggled once more, then turned and started walking back to her post, but as she did, I was suddenly struck by a large amount of pheromones that brought a slight haze to my mind. I tried to shake it off, but my gaze was instantly drawn to my queen, who looked at me over her shoulder.
“By the way, nephew, I’ve been meaning to ask.” She shook her backside at me a little, drawing my gaze there. “Do you still find me-“
“Sexy as hell- STOP THAT!”
Immediately after the words left my mouth, the pheromones were just gone, and Chrysalis was nearly doubled over laughing at her prank. Sky just sat there chuckling behind one of his hoofs. For a while now, every so often whenever we met, she’d do that to me. Hit me with a burst of her pheromones them make me comment on her allure or sex appeal.
And she’s been doing it since I was a teenager.
ONE OF THESE DAYS…
Suddenly, everyone in the room turned towards the door when we felt the emotions (or heard them coming in sky’s case) of multiple beings coming towards my rom. We thought it must be Fluttershy and Spike returning. Chrysalis turned to me briefly and spoke.
“Looks like visiting hours are over.”
Then, with a series of wing buzzes and clicks, chirps and chitters, she resumed her post near the door, and every changeling in the room, sans myself, turned back into a thestral guard. Sky laid back down, resuming his previous position before the others left. Moments later, Fluttershy and Spike came back in. Fluttershy took her spot next to the window, and Spike climbed back up on the bed. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. Before anyone could say anything however, I saw Princess Luna step halfway back into the room. She looked over at me and gave me a small smile, but it dropped entirely when she turned and looked right at the guard standing post at the door.
She looked right at my disguised aunt.
Red flag! Red Flag!
“Guard, would you come with me for a moment? I have a task for you.”
Every changeling in the room except Chrysalis tensed up slightly, myself included, but my aunt kept her composure and never broke character. She saluted at Luna, responded with a ‘yes, Princess, and followed Luna out. The door closed lightly, but to me and the other changelings, it was like the slam of a cage and we were locked in. Now normally, this wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, Luna asking a guard to complete a task for her. What made each of us panic was the pure unfiltered suspicion and distrust we all tasted off of her when she addressed the disguised changeling queen, that told us everything we needed to know.
She knew.
I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but she knew exactly who that was. I was officially completely terrified for my aunt’s safety now. She’s still considered a fugitive by Equestria and the Empire. And I couldn’t do anything to help her in my condition.
Dammit! To any benevolent gods or deities out there who might be listening, please, please don’t let anything bad happen to her!
Hm hm hm hm…. Nothing will save her now…
YOU CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF!!!
Chrysalis knew she was in deep manure. She, like the other changelings, tasted the emotions of the princess she was currently following. She knew the lunar alicorn knew who she really was. She could do nothing about it at all, however. She couldn’t perform a shift, she couldn’t risk fighting back, not without exposing herself and placing her nephew, and her hive, in further danger. She had used to the hive mind to calm down the changeling in shadows room and ensure that they kept him safe, despite their wishes to protect her. She was adamant in her decision, however, and made a decree that should anything happen to her, they were to Take Shadow and flee to the hive as swiftly and as quietly as possible.
She was not going to risk bringing harm to him, not after what she did all those years ago.
The changeling queen had promised herself, and her diseased sister, that she would always do her best to look out for her little nephew. While she had offered to allow him into her hive mind to keep an eye on his mental state, he had refused, saying he didn’t want to be a part of that, that he wanted the privacy of his mind to stay private. After he lost his parents and briefly lost his mind, she almost decided to force him into it anyway, but upon meeting and speaking with Sky about it, he convinced her to leave him be, and that he would try to help his brother first. If he ended up unable to help, or Shadow’s mind spiraled further out of control, then she would be free to step in. Shadow was incredibly lucky that Sky was able to help him recover, but to this day, that agreement remains intact.
It was a conversation Chrysalis and Sky had that Shadow never learned about.
Chrysalis was brought out of her thoughts when Luna opened a door to a room and walked in. With no other choice, she followed the Princess in, the door closing behind her. Chrysalis felt magic behind her, and turned just in time to see a blue glow fade from the door.
‘Locked in’, she thought. ‘Well… at least they’re being civil… for the moment.’ She turned back around to take in the rest of the room.
It was a simple sitting room, with two long couches on either side of a table with a glass tea set ready and waiting. There were no windows in the room, nor any other entrances or exits. The room was sparsely furnished besides that, but that’s not what really drew her attention. It was the other Alicorn occupying the room that did.
Princess Celestia sat there, facing Chrysalis as she sipped from a cup being held in her hooves. She was no longer injured as far as the eye could see, with the exception of her horn, which was still covered in bandages. Luna walked over and sat next to her, before her horn lit up and she poured herself a cup of tea. Celestia set hers down and then motioned a hoof to the couch across from them.
“Please, have a seat. There is much we need to discuss…”
A pause.
“Queen Chrysalis of the Changelings.”
The mentioned queen frowned, before shedding her disguise in a powerful flash of green and black flames. Soon, the changeling queen stood tall and proud, and to the surprise of both princesses, she looked healthy. Not malnourished, nor did she sport any holes in her body anywhere. Her horn, while still crooked and bent, also lacked holes in it.
Keeping her eyes narrowed on the princesses, she cautiously approached the offered couch and relaxed on it. Princess Luna poured another cup of tea and offered it to the queen, and Chrysalis accepted it with her own magic. After taking a small sip, she lowered it slightly before speaking.
“So… What is it we’re here to discuss exactly?” She had to stay calm, and play nice with these ponies. One wrong move, one wrong word, and Shadow might be in danger, more so than he already is.
“We’re here to discuss how to deal with a problem of ours.” Princess Celestia spoke in a calm and calculative voice, but Chrysalis had been at this game just as long as the Solar alicorn.
Luckily for them both, the third member in their little group had little patience for these games and decided to get straight to the point.
“Queen Chrysalis,” Princess Luna had a small hint of something in her voice when she spoke, almost like…
‘A plea… is she…?’
Taking a deep breath, she looked the queen in the eye.
“We would like to formally request your assistance in helping cure your nephew, Shadow Flare, of his current ailment.”
There was silence for a very long time in the room as Chrysalis stared at Luna. During that time, she did her best to sense the emotions the smaller alicorn was trying to suppress. But Chrysalis was a master of hunting emotions, and what Luna tried to hide Chrysalis dug up with ease.
But there was one emotion that was buried so deeply in her, it was entirely possible even the Lunar Princess didn’t know it was there.
‘Oh, my, what’s this? Is that what I think it is?’ With a mental chuckle, the Queen silently mused to herself. ‘Well then, I suppose Sky was right. When they fall…’
On the outside, Chrysalis slowly grew a smile on her face, her fangs poking through nicely. There was an opportunity here for her and her kind, and she was not about to waste it.
“Let’s begin negotiations, then, shall we Princesses?”