Darkness
It's all dark
No color, no joy, no life
Except me. Why me? What makes me so special? I'm not special. So why must it be ME?!?
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"WAKE UP!!"
My eyes flash open. A blinding light is shining in my face so I am forced to squint. As my eyes adjust to the light, I remember I'm outside. Under a tree, to be specific. The dark green leaves provide shade from the blazing sun, but (apparently) not for my light green eyes.
"Hello! Equestria to Artsy!"
I focus on the source of the noice that is in front of me. No wonder I didn't notice her, her coat perfectly matches the sky. Rainbow Dash stood directly in front of me. Then again, how did I not notice a full grown mare with her muzzle mere inches from my face? A question for another time.
"Oh, uh, hey Rainbow! What's up?"
"What do you mean 'what's up'? I thought we were going for a cupcake at Sugarcube Corner!"
"We still are! I just was waiting for you to get here and fell asleep. And you can't blame me, you nap all the time!"
"Oh hay! Don't go pointing hooves!"
"Ok, ok. But can you get off me?"
"Oh, yeah. Sorry."
Rainbow backed off me then proceeded to begin to fly. The walk back to town would be slow by Rainbow's standards, seeing that I'm an Earth Pony. While Rainbow Dash complained about how slow I was going, I was enjoying the scenery around us, how the sun bathed my creme coat in warm rays, and how the wind was rustling my color-filled mane.
On the way to Sugarcube Corner, we had passed Flower Fly's Floral Arrangements. And if I had paid attention, I would have noticed all the red flowers had started to fade in color. And so was everything else that had been red.
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Rainbow Dash and I finally arrived at Sugarcube Corner. It wasn't extremely busy that day so the little bell on the door sounded like a canon be fired in a cave. As quick as a bunny, Pinkie was at the front counter.
"Hiya! How are you two on this BBEEAAAUUTTTIIIFFFUUULLL day?" Pinkie Pie greeted.
"Hi Pinkie! We're fine." Rainbow said. "Can we get our usual?"
"Sure thing! Back in a jif!" And just in the matter of seconds, Pinkie was back with their order. Rainbow Dash's order was a chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing (only the best) while mine was a vanilla cupcake with pink icing and sprinkles (I like my colors, I am a painter after all).
Sure enough, once Rainbow got her cupcake she dug in. But something didn't seem right with mine. It was the icing. It wasn't as... bright? "Hmm..."
"I everything ok, Artsy?" Pinkie asked.
"I don't know. It's the icing. It doesn't seem as bright." I stated.
"Whatever, it's icing." Rainbow interjected.
"No, it's off. Pinkie always makes the icing a certain shade, I would know, but it's not. It just seems so... dull."
"Huh! Your right. And I was certain the batch was the normal color when I made it earlier!"
"Yeah..." And that's when I saw it. Pinkie's color was faded as well... and slowly fading more. "Uh... Pinkie?"
"Yes?"
"Do you feel ok?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You don't look as bright."
"Wait a minute." Pinkie then rushed into the other room and came back with a full body mirror. She let out a big gasp "Oh. My. Celestia. Your right! Maybe it's the lighting?"
"And your mane doesn't seem to be as... poofy." I pointed out
When I pointed that out, she proceeded to try to 'inflat' herself, but to no avail.
"Pinkie!" Rainbow yelled.
"What?" Pinkie replied, her tone becoming duller.
"Your cutie mark!"
Pinkie looked in the mirror and what she saw rocked her to her bones. Like her color, Pinkie's cutie mark was fading AWAY, as if she never had it.
"Oh." Pinkie said, her mane had become flatter, almost like it was before she got her now-fading cutie mark. Her voice was also EVEN MORE dull. "Ok."
"WE NEED TO FIND TWILIGHT!!!" Rainbow Dash and I shouted in unison.
"Ok..."
As we exited, I swiftly turned the open sign to closed. As we raced through the streets of Ponyville towards Twilight's castle, I noticed something worrying. "Rainbow! Your red streaks in your mane has faded!"
"Oh, no!" She cried.
Everywhere we went with Pinkie Pie, we left a wake of sadness. I could feel it. At that moment, I knew her cutie mark had disappeared entirely.
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I had run ahead of the two mares. As the front doors of the castle neared closer I sped up to get a running start. I was 1 foot away when I did one of those ninja jump kicks. The doors flew wide open from the kick. I'm pretty sure the force was so strong that it may have left some cracks in the crystalized walls.
"TWILIGHT!!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. To bad I was still running from the momentum of that kick because Twilight teleported in front of me and I couldn't slow down in time. You can guess what happened after that.
After getting back up and Rainbow and Pinkie entered the room, Twilight asked, "What in the HAY is the mat-" then she saw Pinkie. "What happened?!?!" Then we explained it all, the cupcakes, the fading, the cutie mark, and Rainbow's red streaks fading as well.
"Twilight, have you noticed any things fading?" I asked.
"Um, no. I don't think so."
"Wait!" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "Weren't there some red lights hanging in the map room?"
"Yeah! There was! Let's check."
We galloped to the room and, sure enough, the red crystals were gray. But there was something else in here that shocked us all (except Pinkie, she's kinda emotionless). What we noticed was that Pinkie cutie mark on her chair had faded. But what had really surprised us all (even Pinkie) has the map was displaying MY cutie mark.
"W-what?" I gapped. "I-I thought only Elements could be summoned."
"So did I!" Twilight exclaimed.
But there it was, my cutie mark, a paint palette with a paint brush as well. It was hovering somewhere in Ponyville.
"Huh, it's in Ponyville." Rainbow Dash said.
"Oh, wow! Thank you Captain Obvious!" Pinkie said with extreme sarcasm. " I would have NEVER figured that out with out you! I am forever in you debt. You are my he-
"Shut up Anti-Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash yelled.
"Is there a way to zoom this in?" I asked. Just as Twilight was going to comment, the map obliged by zoomed in on... my house? Sure enough, my cutie mark was hovering over my house.
"Wow, fascinating." Twilight exclaimed in awe at my action.
"Well the map is calling you!" Rainbow exclaimed. "Go get em'!"
"Yipee" Pinkie said sarcastically.
In a flash I was off to my house. As I looked around, I noticed something bad. Not only was all the red gone, but all the ORANGE was just starting to fade too! (although it wasn't too noticeable to everypony else yet, but I know my colors and their shades!) I ran inside my house, wheezing for breath.
"Now why would the map call me HERE?" Asked to nopony. I looked around frantically, trying to figure it out. I striped down my living room, kitchen, even my entire bed, but to no avail. The last room to look was my art studio. Honestly, I had no idea why I was needed in my house, what was needed, or why this whole phenomenon was happening in the first place. But I felt as though I needed something from my house. What that something was, I wasn't sure.
'What if this is the end of the world? I thought. And thought of not knowing if this was the end scared me.
I was on the brink of crying from all the weight I was bearing on my shoulders (although there wasn't much weight, I crack like a sidewalk when I'm under pressure). Then I saw it. It was like a holy light was surrounding the object. A paint brush. Though it made sense, given the current situation. Plus the paint brush really WAS bathed in a holy light.
I picked it up and held it in my hood, in awe of its glory. I pondered what to do with the paint brush when my eyes fell upon my paints. Paint! Yes! I can fix the color with my paints! I then, promptly, opened the red paint and dipped my brush into the liquid. But as my paint brush streaked across my canvas, it left a gray color in it's wake, not red.
What?!? Why didn't it work? I thought frantically. But a thought came to my mind. If I painted on things that were, er, was red, then maybe the color would return! I grabbed my saddlebags and threw my supplies inside. I ran outside to the nearest red object I could think of, which was the apples at Applejack's apple stand.
Without saying a word, I pulled out the red paint, my paint strap,—it's a strap I wrap around the back of my neck so it can hold up my paints—and the paint brush and started painting... or not. All it did was coat the apple in a different shade of gray. But that was the least of my worries. Now I had an angry Applejack on my hooves.
"What in tarnation is goin' on here?!?" Applejack said with a flare of the nostrils.
"I'm sorry AJ, but it was important. You see, I'm trying to fix the color problem that's going on around here and-"
"What color problem?" A bead of sweat rolled down Applejack's fading orange coat. FADING ORANGE COAT!!!
"Applejack! Your coat, your mane, your... everything, it's fading!"
"Huh, what? Uh, no it ain't!" Applejack snapped with a lie obviously on her teeth.
"Come on AJ! We don't have time for this! I know your lieing."
"NO! YOUR THE ONE THAT IS LIEIN'!" As Applejack yelled her nonsense at me, my cutie mark glowed, the sign that I was to return to the cutie map. Speaking of cutie mark, I glanced over at Applejack's cutie mark and saw that it was disappearing just like Pinkie's was.
"Come ON AJ!" I shouted. I then, swiftly, grabbed Applejack's ponytail with my teeth and began to drag her towards Twilight's castle. Although it wouldn't be that easy. She was attempting to escape my grasp by bucking and kick her hooves, but my grip on her mane would not let up.
After a slow and tedious trip, I finally got the stubborn mare to Twilight's castle. By that point, Applejack was all gray and her cutie mark was entirely gone. As we trotted into the map room, Twilight ran up to me in anticipation.
"So, why were yo-" But Twilight was unable to finish her sentence before she saw Applejack and the condition she was in. "Applejack! You faded too?"
"Uh, no I didn't!" Applejack said with a nervous look on her face.
"Her cutie mark it gone too!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
"Well, since we have no other choice, we can deal with Applejack later. For now, we need to address Artsy and why she was called on the map." Twilight took a breath before continuing. "So, Artsy, why WERE you called? Do you know?"
"Yes I do!" I said with a joyous tone. I reached into my saddlebags to pull something out. "This!" In my teeth was the paint brush. Suddenly, a pony began to burst with laughter, that pony being none other than Rainbow Dash.
"Bwahahahaha!!" She cackled. "It-" she began laughing again for a brief moment, "It's just a paint brush!"
"Well I'll have you know it's no ordinary paint brush. It's a... MAGIC PAINT BRUSH!" I corrected. Even that statement earned a stifled chuckle from Twilight.
"Do you even HEAR yourself? You sound like some nutjob on some wacked out stuff!" Rainbow Dash retorted.
A smile spread across my face. "Yeah, it did sound a little crazy. But in all seriousness it is a magic paint brush." I said.
"But how do YOU know?!" Anti-Pie asked with a trace of sarcasm in her voice.
"Well..." Then I began to tell them all about my experiences in my house and outside it with Applejack.
"Well then, it sounds like we have a world to save!" Rainbow Dash cheered.
"But the question is: how?" Twilight asked. After that, there was a dead silence. How AM I going to do this? I asked myself. After all, my plan with painting the faded objects didn't work.
So how was I supposed to stop the others from fading too?