> The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts
>  by Danieru
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1. The Knight - Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Five inhabitants of Equestria that lived completely different lives decided to group up and swore to abandon this world.

Now they plan to create a new one to archive what they longed for so long...
Happiness...

But what could have led to that decision?
Why would they consider to go so far?
Will they succeed?
Some of those questions might be answered in this story... 







Canterlot castle...


A bunch of Royal Guards were sprinting around the castle for a good while now. All of them were heavily exhausted due to the already warm weather and the fact that they had to wear their armors while running around. Two members of the guards walked close to each other trying to talk to each other without their captain finding out, slowing down their speed in the process.

“Can you believe that the captain made us run one hundred laps around the castle?” One Royal Guard member said while breathing heavily in the process.

“I know, right?” The other guard replied. “He could at least have us take our armors of! I'm sweating like crazy!”

“I guess it will be another one of those days where I instantly throw myself into my bed, once my shift is over,”

“Tell me about it...”

The two guards continued to complain while running their laps. But unfortunately, somepony overheard their little discussion. Somepony who was not supposed to hear their little talk. “You know, you could finish your laps much faster if you would concentrate on running instead of talking!”

The two guards widened their eyes and began to rapidly increase their speed, once they began to hear this voice. The pony who heard them sounded very strict but once he saw his guards running again, he was quiet again and continued to observe the guards.

“Honestly. There is always somepony who complains about some little training. Don't they realize that I am putting them through all of this so that they become proper Royal Guards?” The big stallion said rather disappointing before he focused on the guards again.

It was a big Unicorn stallion with a light blue coat and purple eyes, wearing a body armor and a helmet which was hiding his mane. Instead of the yellow armor that every other guard wore, his armor was purple which only could be worn by the captain of the Royal Guards. And that's exactly what he was. The captain of the Royal Guards. His name: Fade Sol.

Under some, he is often described as a mean and strict leader but those who were Guards for a longer time now deeply respected him. Not everypony is capable to become captain after all and Fade took his job pretty seriously, putting it above almost everything else in Equestria. Some would even go so far to say that he was married to his job which was indeed not too far away from the future.

When he was training his guards, he expected no less from them as well. So of course, he was a little annoyed seeing two of his soldiers not taking their training seriously. But that didn't mean that he wasn't showing sympathy for them. Fade was by no means bitter or mean towards another ponies which was another reason why he was liked by the veteran guards. But when it comes to serving Equestria, those things can be a little overshadowed.

While keeping a close look on his guards, Fade was approached by somepony. “I'm done!” The pony said next to Fade which turned out to come from one of his guards who was breathing heavily as he stood in front of his captain.

“So soon again?” Fade replied surprised. “I didn't expect anypony to finish one hundred laps in the next five minutes,” he added a little surprised.

“I may have giving it my very all from the very beginning...” the guard replied which probably should have sounded like an apology but that only made it sound more impressing.

“Yes, I remember how you dashed out of the starting line at the beginning, as usual, Shining Armor,”

“Yes, sir!” Shining Armor replied, accompanied by a salute, raising his head for the first time to face Fade.

Though Fade was impressed by how much energy Shining Armor was putting into his training, he still had to remind him the purpose of it. “I'm glad that you take your training so serious, but running until you can barely breath might not be too smart either. There was no time limit for this. I mean, if I ever get to meet your family, then they will probably think that I am the one who makes you go all out and think that I am the bad guy,”

Shining Armor understood but he wanted Fade to understand how important this training was for him. “I know! It's just that I can't afford to take it slow! Becoming a member of the Royal Guard was always my dream...and now that I am one, I can't just stop until I arrive at my next goal!” He explained while seeming to look into the distance while talking about this.

“And that is?” Fade asked, having to admit that he now got a little curious.

With a sparkle in his eyes, Shining Armor replied happily. “Becoming the captain of the Royal Guards!”

There was a short silence between the two until Fade spoke up again. “Captain?” Fade replied surprised. He took a moment to take those words in and looked at the expression on Shining Armor's face. He could tell that he was one hundred percent serious about that. This caused Fade's serious expression to change into a smile. “So...you are trying to take away my job?”

Shining Armor's eyes widened. “Oh! Uh...I didn't mean to...” His salute began to crumble and he became nervous once he realized that he just said that he wanted to become a captain in front of the captain.

Fade began to laugh after he saw Shining Armor nervous like that. He put a leg on his shoulder and assured him that it was alright to have high dreams like that but he also reminded him that he is not easily giving Shining Armor his job that easily. “I won't lie. Determination and hard work are necessary, that is true but something is even more important than that to end up as the Captain of the Royal Guard,”

“And that is?” Shining Armor asked, wanting to hear what that was really bad.

However, before Fade could give an answer, somepony came running up to him and Shining Armor, saying Fade's name to get his attention. It was another Royal Guard member who was catching his breath once he was standing in front of his captain. Fade waited for the pony to calm down again and listened what he wanted from him.

“Princess Celestia wants to speak with you,” the pony said once he could breathe again while saluting to his captain.

Fade didn't feel like asking away what exactly that was about and attempted to walk away to meet the Princess. Shining Armor saluted again, once Fade walked away to talk with the Princess. He stopped in his track, however, and decided to say some last words to Shining Armor.

“The need to protect...” he said without turning around to look at Shining Armor who was paying close attention to Fade's words. “Being strong, fast or determined. Having all those things are good but...” he stopped for a moment and turned around to face Shining Armor, showing a wide smile on his face. “Being a Royal Guard means that you need to use those traits to protect everyone in Equestria as best as you can,”

With those words, Fade left and was now off to see Princess Celestia. Shining Armor took Fade's words in and smiled before he saluted one more time. “Yes, sir!” He said, as a thank for Fade sharing those words with him.


In front of the throne room of Canterlot Castle...


Being the Captain of the Royal Guards did not only meant that he stood on top of the guards but also since he was working for the princess for such a long time he earned the princesses deepest trust. If there was anything troubling her, Fade was one of few ponies she would talk to. This time was no exception.

Fade entered the wide and open throne room by opening the giant doors in front of him. Princess Celestia was already waiting, sitting on her throne with some worry written on her face. On her right and left side, were two Royal Guard members who guarded the princess as usual. They both nodded slowly as soon as Fade entered the room, clearly showing deep respect towards their captain.

“Fade,” she said, greeting the captain which he returned by bowing to her.

“Your majesty,” he said as he kneed before Princess Celestia, his head lowered to the ground. “You wanted to talk with me?”

Though he was allowed to speak freely a long time ago, when it came to the princess, Fade would always show respect and behave how he was supposed to. Then again, small talk was not really something that he was really good at which is why he asked right away why the princess summoned him.

Princess Celestia stood up from her throne. She walked up to Fade and demanded that he would raise as well. He did what he was ordered to and listened to what the princess had to say. “There was another attack,” she briefly said.

Fade instantly knew what that meant. He narrowed his eyes just by thinking about it. This was not the first time that the princess summoned him for this reason. There were a lot of attacks recently all over different areas in Equestria. And there was one thing that they all had in common. They were all caused by the same enemy.
“Changelings...” Fade mumbled to himself.

“Yes,” Princess Celestia confirmed. “Changelings were always on bad terms with ponies. But lately, there have been way too many incidents of ponies getting attacked by them. They were never this active before. I'm starting to fear the worst...” the princess explained while she looked out of a window to her right.

“You think they will attack Canterlot?” Fade asked. His tone was a little boldly but there was also a truth in it, that could not be denied.

“If this continues then maybe sooner or later...” Princess Celestia replied, feeling a little nervous just by imagining something like that. “I contacted the Storm Wings a few times to deal with them but there are way too many attacks and they can't deal with each of them,” she further informed.

Fade knew where this was going to. The princess would not have mentioned this matter if it wasn't important enough. He soon figured out the reason. “You want me to do something against it?” Fade then interrupted boldly.

“I don't intend to start a war with the Changelings,” Princess Celestia informed. “If things get out of hoof then who knows what their queen is about to do...”

“Then we will give them a warning,” Fade suggested. “To let them know that they can't just do whatever they want to the ponies of Equestria,”

Fade was determined to do something about those attacks. Changelings were a serious threat to Equestria. They seemed to have targeted Equestria recently, to feed off from the love of ponies. Whether Equestria was just unlucky to be their next target or if they were after something entirely else was unknown. The only thing that Fade did know, was that they had to know that they just can't mess with the ponies of Equestria that easily. There had to be something done.

“Alright. I'm counting on you to take care of this,” Princess Celestia said, wishing Fade the best of luck.

“Thanks, your majesty,” he replied, bowing down to his princess again. “I'll be on my way...after I visited her,” he added with a serious tone in his voice.

Princess Celestia knew what Fade was talking about and understood. “Of course,” she only replied before Fade decided to walk away again. The two guards next to her looked at each other, having an idea what Fade was talking about. The room became very silent and Princess Celestia returned to her throne. She believed that Fade would be okay while being on this mission but she also was worried. She couldn't shake off this feeling that something could happen to him and that made her feel really bad.


A little later...


Fade walked through the castle silently. He was carrying a flower in his mouth while he was on his way to a certain room in the castle. Nopony except Fade and Princess Celestia herself were allowed to enter this room. Fade entered the room every day and brought a flower with him every time. He opened the door and what was revealed, was a small room, filled with flowers. At the end of the room was a window and in front of this window was a bed with a sleeping filly inside.

The filly had a light orange coat and a yellow mane. Fade looked over at her before he placed his flower on a table somewhere in a free spot in the room. As soon as that was done, he walked up to the filly. He smiled but his face also showed some sadness. It always did, whenever he was in this room.

“Still sleeping, huh?” He said as he looked over at the filly, putting a hoof on her forehead. “Daddy has to go on a mission. Some bad Changelings are attacking Equestria and Princess Celestia asked me to take care of them,”

There was no answer, like always. There was no way that an answer could come from her. She was sleeping. And there was no known way that she can wake up. Eternal Slumber. That is what ponies call this condition. It's a very rare and almost extinct sickness that prevents you from waking up. Fade's daughter happened to catch this sickness just a little while ago and hasn't woken up since. The worst thing about that sickness was, that there was no known cure for this.

There were times where Fade couldn't even say anything while being in this room but visiting it every day since the sickness started, it felt kinda normal now. Realizing that, didn't exactly make it better. It even scared Fade a little bit.

“My little Solar Smile...Why did you have to leave me too? Were you missing your mommy? Or were you angry because daddy couldn't come and play with you that often?” Fade said as he looked at his daughter. “Of course, not...you wouldn't do something like that. You are a good filly after all. You just happened to have a really busy father who seemed to put more work into his job rather than spend time with his family...” Regret could clearly be heard in Fade's voice.    

Princess Celestia offered to take care of Solar Smile and gave this room to her. Fade was not going home too often because of his work and the castle was a lot safer too so there was no reason to not let her stay there. At least, then he would be close to her most of the time.

Fade did spend some more time with his daughter but decided to leave eventually. He was still on a mission after all. “Well, daddy has to go now. But I'll be back tomorrow! Don't worry!” He assured with a smile on his face before he closed the door and left his daughter alone again. But as soon as the door closed, his smile vanished and was replaced with a serious expression that was determined for the upcoming mission.


Later...


After Fade, collected enough information about his mission, like where some Changelings have been spotted lately, he took some members of the Royal Guards and went to the place where the last attack happened. 

“Over there!” One guard shouted before he pointed towards a group of ponies. There were around twenty or thirty of them. All of them unconscious from what the group could see so far.

“Is this where the attack happened?” Another guard asked.

“We're about to find out...” Fade said before he led the way towards the group of ponies.

It was a really open grass field in the middle of nowhere. No town was remotely close but it was still weird how nopony spotted this group and tried to help them. It was almost suspicious. Fade archived this thought in his mind and walked up to the group.

With Fade, there were ten other guards with him. He ordered some of them to split up to take a look at some of the ponies. This, of course, made it a little hard to check up on every single one since there were three times more ponies than there were guards but everypony did their best to take care of most of them.

Then things got a little strange...

All the ponies got back on their hooves at the same time. Some of them positioned themselves around Fade and the other guards. Soon, the group was surrounded by the ponies. It was like a circle of ponies with the guards inside of it. Fade looked around and noticed that all the ponies had all really sinister smiles on their faces. One of the ponies stepped up and began to explain. “Looks like we gave you ponies more credit than you actually deserve,” he said smugly with a huge grin on his face.

“Us ponies?” One of the guards asked confused.

The rest of the ponies began to laugh slightly. Only moments later, all of them began to surround themselves with light green colored flames. It was exactly how Fade had anticipated it by now. The flames vanished and revealed the black insect-like creatures. Changelings.

It was hard distinguishing Changelings from each other because they looked very similar to each other. Maybe the holes in their bodies or the slight differences in their horns were an indication but for ponies, it was very hard to tell them apart. The one that stepped up before however, was the only one who looked different. He was wearing a black armor on his body and a fitting helmet. He was clearly the one who was in charge of this group, judging from his get up and how he was the only one who would speak up. “We got you right in out trap. We knew that some of you would come running after us once we attacked some of you,“

Fade stepped up as well. “And now you are trying to feed off from us? Why do you keep attacking Equestria? And what are you after?” Fade asked, trying to get out as many information than possible.

“That is not of your concern!” The Changeling leader replied. “No one of us is gonna tell you anything! We are loyal to our queen after all! Besides we don't intend to waste our time talking with ponies. Right now, you should better worry about your current situation,” the Changeling advised smugly.

There was clearly hostility between the two groups. Changelings were not known to be too friendly at all and since the ponies from Equestria were attacked by them, there was no reason to be friendly towards them as well.

But despite the tension between the two groups, Fade remained cal all this time and came to a conclusion how to deal with the situation. “If you won't tell us anything about your plans, then there is no more reason to talk with you,” he said before he raised his hoof up in the air.

The Changelings wondered what this was about and looked up to the sky, trying to figure out what Fade was pointing at. On closer, inspection they noticed something diving down from the sky. They definitely didn't like what they saw. There were multiple Pegasus Ponies coming out of the clouds, maybe ten of them. Those ten ponies positioned themselves around the Changeling circle which again surrounded Fade and his men.

“More of them?” The Changeling leader wondered as he watched how the strength of numbers they had before shrunk a little.

Fade explained. “You think we didn't expect some kind of trap? We knew that you wouldn't set up a trap if there were more of us so I made sure to let some of our Pegasus guards keep a close look at us from the clouds. All I had to do was giving them a signal, which I just did,” Fade explained, happily sharing his plan much to the dislike of the Changeling leader who was just angered and growled at Fade.

The Changeling leader began to smile again after a while. He clearly had another ace up on his sleeve. He engulfed himself in green flames again and then turned into Fade. The other Changeling's quickly caught up on what their leader was trying to do. Soon, there was a huge group of ponies that only consisted of Royal Guard members. It was the Changeling's ability to turn into other ponies, hence the name. By transforming, they tried to confused Fade and his men.

The Changeling leader, which has transformed into Fade, grinned and was actually surprised that Fade saw through their trap. “Try to fight us now! We are also still outnumbering you if you haven't noticed,” he added, referring that there were still like ten more Changeling's then there were Royal Guards.

Fade did not seem to even care about those words and raised his voice so that his men could hear him. “Listen! They may look like us but they are still Changelings!” He said, making sure that his men weren't discouraged.
“I have three orders for you all! You better listen and follow them!” He added much to the Changeling's confusion who felt like as if they were being ignored.

“Number one! Only attack anyone who looks exactly like you. That way you can prevent hurting your comrades on accident!
Number two! If there is nopony who looks like you, then stand back and look if there are more then one of the same ponies going up against somepony. If two of the same ponies pair up, then they are Changelings!”

Fade listed his orders as if there was all the time in the world. While doing so, he always kept his eyes glued to the Changeling leader who still looked like him. The Changeling Fade began to growl angrily and couldn't believe that Fade was casually giving out his orders while being surrounded by him and the rest of the Changelings. “Are you mocking us!?” He exclaimed angrily before he focused some magic in his horn, shooting it directly at Fade.

The beam connected and Fade was hit. At least, that's what he thought. Soon the Changeling leader noticed a shield in front of Fade, protecting him from the magic beam. This only made him angrier. What made it worse was that Fade wasn't even fazed by it and casually continued with his orders.
“Number three! If you see any pony that doesn't resemble any of us, then he is also a Changeling!” Fade continued, finishing his order and finally giving a signal to attack.
“Get them!”

Shortly after, the groups collided and the battle started. Fade's men did as he commanded and only went after those who looked exactly like them. Despite, being outnumbered, the Royal Guards were winning against their opponents. It was obvious that the guards were far more experienced fighters than the Changelings.

The Changeling leader felt responsible to go up against Fade himself for all the mocking that he did towards him. He charged towards Fade and tried to tackle him but Fade simply jumped to the side. What followed were some magic beams that were shot towards Fade which he all avoided by putting up a shield in front of him. The two leaders were complete opposites. Fade was calm and analyzing while the Changeling leader was blinded by rage and bluntly tried to hit Fade in any way possible.

“It's obvious that you have attacked only innocent ponies, judging from your fighting abilities,” Fade said.

This only angered his opponent even more. “What did you say!?” He exclaimed before he shot another shot towards Fade. One he easily dodged by jumping to the site.

“The Royal Guard will not be so easy to deal with as long as I am their captain!” Fade said, this time a little more angered but still not even comparable to the anger that the Changeling showed towards him.

This time, Fade was the one who attacked. He charged up some magic in his horn and his opponent stood ready for whatever was about to come next. He fired a beam towards him which the Changeling easily dodged, even going so far, to laugh at this attempt, looking at the beam passing him which looked a lot smaller then the beams he shot out before. However, once he looked in front of himself, Fade was only a few steps away, charging at him with incredible speed.

Fade tackled the Changeling and threw him away several meters. The impact was really painful because of the size and the armor that Fade was wearing. It was enough to almost knock the Changeling out and forcing him to transform back to his original form.

It didn't take long till the rest of the Changelings were beaten too. The Royal Guard was victorious. The numbers of the Changelings didn't matter a thing compared to the fighting experience that Fade and his men possessed. Still, the Changelings proved to be pretty durable and got up again. Instead of forming a circle around Fade and his guards, they all gathered at one place, forming a big crowd of Changelings.

Surprisingly, the Changeling leader spread his wings, which indicated only one thing. “We will not forget this! You better watch out!” The Changeling leader said threatening before he spread his wings and flew off. The rest of the Changeling's began to follow their leader quickly and soon all of them flew away, leaving Fade and the guards. Some of the guards attempted to follow them but Fade reminded them that their orders were just to give the Changelings a warning.

“Good job, everypony!” Fade congratulated, relieved that everything worked out perfectly. Still, he was wondering if there was something bigger what the Changelings were after. The thought that they could one day invade Canterlot was something that heavily worried him.

“Captain!” One of the guards said, getting Fade's attention again. “There is still one left, sir!” He said, pointing at one pony on the ground, not too far away.

The pony on the ground seemed to be unconscious and wasn't a treat in the moment so Fade took the opportunity to get closer to it. It was none of his men, that's for sure. He asked his guards if they recognized fighting somepony who looked like that. His order was to attack everypony who looked different than his men. It was definitely a Changeling who transformed into this pony but the strange thing was that this pony didn't transform back. He was unconscious. Normally that would mean that a Changeling who is unconscious, can no longer hold up his transformation magic which only asked more questions why this pony didn't transform back.

The thought that one innocent pony was caught up in this battle suddenly, crossed his mind. But if what his guards said was true, then that pony fought alongside the Changelings. Fade came to the conclusion that he wasn't getting an answer by thinking about this matter so he tried to wake this pony up to get his answers.

However, before he was able to touch the pony, the eyes of the pony slowly opened, much to Fade's surprise. The eyes of the pony slowly wandered towards Fade and met his eyes. The pony didn't seem to think anything at this moment and just kept eye contact with Fade.

Something was off. Fade looked directly into the eyes of this pony and could feel a really weird sensation. “What is this feeling? The eyes of this pony...they look almost...soulless,”

The eyes of the pony widened even further and gave Fade a very nervous feeling. Then suddenly, the ponies eyes were shining in a white light for a brief moment, causing Fade to get even more nervous for a second. The pony then jumped on his hooves and attacked Fade with his hooves. Luckily, Fade was able to defend himself in time. He used his magic to levitate the pony away from him. Since it was an Earth Pony that he was facing, there was no way that the pony could get out of this so easily. But that didn't stop the pony to struggle heavily, in order to get out of this spell.

The pony once more looked at Fade with a white light in his eyes, making Fade wonder what exactly that was in the first place. However, there would soon be something even more confusing happening. The struggling pony began to form some kind of black aura around it. Fade had no idea what that was but one thing was for sure. This pony in front of him was no Changeling. There was no reason to keep the transformation up at this moment. Also, Changelings had a light green aura when they used magic but the aura of the pony in front of him was sinister looking pitch black, something that he had never seen before.

Suddenly, the pony began to scream in terror, making Fade walk backward a little in caution while still keeping the pony trapped in his magic. That is when he noticed something off, causing him to widen his eyes in shock. The aura around the pony began to slowly free it from Fade's magic. Shock, uncertainty, and confusion kept Fade from keeping a calm mind in this situation. He could only watch how the pony in front of him freed itself from his magic and engulfed itself further in this black aura. As soon as the pony was free, the aura around it came right towards Fade. The only thing that Fade could do in this moment was to defend himself with a shield spell. And that is what he did. He surrounded himself with a shield and defended himself from whatever magic that black aura was supposed to be.

But unfortunately, the aura didn't even seem to clash against the shield and flew right through it, hitting Fade directly. There was some pain that he felt in this moment but it was nothing too critical. This aura looked far more dangerous then it actually was. However, instead of pain, there was more confusion. Fade found himself in some dark place all of the sudden. He was no longer standing on green grass with a clear blue sky above him but instead in an undefined place that could only be described by one word: Dark.

He looked behind himself and found out that his men were nowhere to be found. While still being heavily confused about what just happened, there was no time to ask questions since there was one more thing that instantly caught his attention. All of the sudden, there were multiple ponies surrounding him, walking closer and closer towards him. All of them had the same black aura around him, like the pony from before. In fact, that pony was among them too.

They came closer and closer and began preparing themselves to attack at any moment. If Fade would stay still like that, then who knows what would happen to him. With that in mind, he focused his magic and prepared to attack as well. As soon as the first pony tried to jump at him, he shot it with his magic, making it fall to the ground. The other ponies now charged at Fade too and he was ready to fire at every single one of them until he would be the last one to stand.

More and more ponies would appear out of nowhere and Fade had to fight every single one of them to defend himself. “What is happening here!?” He wondered as he fought off waves and waves of random ponies attacking him.

It took a few minuted but eventually, Fade was done. He defeated every single pony that tried to attack him and was victorious. Things seemed to turn around in his favor because as soon as everypony around him was defeated, the dark place he was trapped in, began to vanish as well, making him take a deep breath in relief. When he found himself back where he was before that first pony attacked him, he was convinced that this was some kind of illusion or a dream. It had to be. He immediately saw the pony from before laying on the ground before him, indicating that he or one of his soldier must have defeated it while he was trapped in this strange place.

“I don't know what exactly happened but it looks like as if it is over...thank goodness,” he said in relief after this strange experience.

Fade turned around to look at his soldiers, ordering them to return to Canterlot. However, he hesitated to give any command since the moment he turned around, all of his soldiers were looking right at him with nervous expressions on their faces. Needless to say, he was heavily confused about that. “What's wrong?” He asked confused.

None of the soldiers wanted to answer right away and every one of them kept staring at Fade until one of them finally spoke up. “You tell us! Why did you do that captain!?” He shouted towards Fade with some fear in his voice.

“Why did I do what!? Can you all explain why you are looking at me like I was a ghost?” He asked further.

It was only now that Fade noticed that he only saw around half of his soldiers. Wondering where the others could be, he made a terrifying realization. The rest of his soldiers laid on the ground, only a few hoof away, defeated and hurt, attacked by something or somepony. Of course, the first thing he wanted to know was who was responsible for that. “Who did that!? Who attacked my soldiers!?”

While keeping their distance right at Fade out of fear, only one of them spoke up. His voice heavy and full of shock while he answered to Fade, leaving him in shock once he heard the answer.
“It was you...You did this, Captain!”

Hearing this answer, left Fade speechless. Silence filled the place. There was no longer anything to say for Fade. Not only did he know what to say to this but also how to explain what he went through while fighting this pony. Right now, it was his own men against him. And there was only one question that was in his mind, right now.

“What just happened?”


To be continued...
> 2. The Knight - Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the dungeon of Canterlot Castle...


It was dark...and silent...

The things that happened earlier today caused Fade to end up in the dungeons of Canterlot Castle. The reason: he attacked and hurt his own men. Though Fade didn't remember doing anything like that, he was not resisting when his own guards dragged him back to Canterlot.

Everything, that happened after the Changeling attack, heavily confused Fade. First, there was this one pony that used its magic to drag him into some dark place. Then there were more ponies attacking him. And after that, he found himself surrounded by his own men, lying on the ground, attacked by something or somepony. Apparently, he was this somepony.

Fade spent the time in his cell, looking down to the ground and thinking carefully about what happened. He tried to put every piece together. He tried to come up with an explanation what this pony that attacked him could have done with him. He must have been put under some kind of spell. This pony must have done something to him while nopony was aware.

This slowly began to frustrate him. The way his men looked at him was burned into his mind. It was like as if they looked at some kind of monster. It was very unsettling to be looked at like that, to say the least. They didn't even remove his purple Royal Guard armor because they were too afraid.

Fade's thoughts were interrupted by some hoof-step sounds that echoed through the hallway. “He is over here,” could be heard from in front of Fade's cell. This caused Fade to raise his head. He saw a member of the Royal Guard pointing directly at him to show the pony next to him Fade's location. As soon as the guard noticed how he was looked at by Fade, he flinched and moved out of his sight. Fade remembered that this was one of the ponies that he brought on his mission. One of the ponies that looked at him with this scared expression on his face.

This pony seemed to forget that Fade couldn't even hurt him if he wanted to right now since his magic was completely blocked by a device that was on his horn. It was a pretty handy device that was built by a local inventor in Canterlot. Obviously, it was used to prevent prisoners to use magic. Fade never expected to wear one himself though.

Fade ignored the behavior of that pony as best as he could. His main attention was caught by the pony that walked in front of the cell anyway.

As soon as he saw the pony walking up to his cell, he could not even bring himself to look up and turned his head away unworthily. “Your majesty...” Fade replied quietly, his tone, clearly ashamed. He felt unworthy to even look at the very princess that he swore to protect.

“I heard that there was an accident,” Princess Celestia started with a strict tone in her voice. “The Royal Guard members that you took with you already told me their perspective...now I want to know what you have to say...”

There was no point in keeping anything a secret. Fade was not completely sure of what happened himself but the least he could do was tell Princess Celestia what he remembered. He took a deep breath and began to explain. “I don't know what happened...” Fade replied in all honesty, being more confused than any other pony right now. “First, we fought off those Changelings and let them escape. Then we found one pony nearby...he was unconscious so I checked if he was a Changeling too but...” Fade hesitated for a moment, trying to sort his thoughts carefully. “Then he attacked me and brought me to this strange place. I was attacked by even more ponies there. I defeated every single one of them and escaped this dark place. After that, my men started to turn against me and said that I attacked some of them...”

Princess Celestia didn't interrupt Fade. She carefully listened to what he had to say. Once she was sure that he was done explaining, her facial expression was a mix of confusion and disbelief. What she replied was more than surprising to the Captain of the Royal Guard. “Fade...the story that your guards are telling me is a lot more different from what you told me...” Princess Celestia replied in a very serious tone.

Fade raised his head and looked into Princess Celestia's eyes confused. “What?” Was the only thing that he could get out of his mouth.

Princess Celestia continued. “All of your guards told me the exact same story...
First, you and your men dealt with the Changelings and let them escape. Then, you suddenly started to walk off without responding to your men. A few moments later you began to randomly attack them, all while being engulfed in a dark aura, seemingly unconscious about what you were doing. After hurting the majority of your guards, you suddenly stopped and began to wonder what happened...”

Fade couldn't believe this story. It was completely different from what he really experienced after he approached that one pony. “What about that pony? It must have been because of that pony that did something to-”

“There was no pony...” Princess Celestia interrupted, silencing Fade for good.

“What!?” Fade replied once more, this time louder and even more shocked than before.

Princess Celestia continued, completely unfazed by Fade's shocked expression. “After hearing everyponies explanation, I am certain that I know what happened,” she explained, causing Fade too raise his ears in attention. But just like before, he didn't like what he heard. “You were using Dark Magic...” Princess Celestia said. She clearly was not looking forward to saying those words, judging from the frown that she made while saying them.

“Dark magic?” He mumbled quietly to himself. “But how? That's impossible! I don't know much about this magic but isn't it only supposed to affect ponies who are filled sadness, anger or other negative emotions?” Fade replied, recalling what he knew about Dark Magic.

The problem was that only Princess Celestia so far has encountered Dark Magic over a long time that she lived and even then she claimed to only witness it very few times. She was the only pony in Equestria who should recognize Dark Magic. But then again, she was not there when it happened.

Still, she came up with her own theory that Fade's loss of his wife and daughter could be the reason. Princess Celestia however, seemed pretty sure from the description of everypony else and explained further what that would mean for Fade. “Once a pony is corrupted by Dark Magic, there is no coming back. Additionally, ponies who got corrupted all became a serious threat to Equestria. We need to take action now to prevent the Dark Magic inside of you to be a harm to Equestria and pony-kind,”

Fade, of course, was curious about how that would look like. “How are you gonna do that?” He asked.

Princess Celestia replied boldly and painfully direct. “We will seal away all of your magic...”

This was definitely rushed, is what Fade could only think in this situation. Princess Celestia didn't even see what happened to him and she instantly came to the conclusion that Fade was corrupted. Was she really that scared of Dark Magic? Fade didn't remember Princess Celestia being this merciless. She would often wait out things until they escalated. Granted, attacking his own men was not someone would call good but things could be settled else somehow. How was Fade supposed to protect Equestria without his magic? Was he even fit to be Captain at all once his magic is gone?

However, before he could get an answer, Princess Celestia just turned around and slowly walked away without a word. Fade could have stopped her but somewhere in his mind,  he actually thought that this might be the right thing to do. Maybe he was a danger. Maybe what happened back then really was Dark Magic. Maybe he had to be stopped. With acceptance in his mind, Fade stayed quiet.

But that changed as soon as Princess Celestia said one more sentence. “We will also keep you away from your daughter...to prevent that she will be affected by Dark Magic as well...”

Fade's eyes widened in shock and anger. “What? Why!? If my magic is sealed away, then there is no reason for that!” He exclaimed frustrated and angrily.

Princess Celestia didn't turn around but answered Fade's question. “There is no telling if your daughter can be affected by Dark Magic if she comes in contact with you... ”

“No!” Fade then exclaimed angrily grabbing the bars of his cell. “This doesn't even make sense! If my magic is sealed away then there is no reason why I can't see my daughter anymore! You can't take away my daughter from me!”

But Princess Celestia walked away. “I'm sorry, Fade...” She said before she walked out of sight of Fade.

“You can't do this, your majesty!” Fade shouted after her angrily. “I was not using Dark Magic! I will not be a danger to my own daughter! Your majesty!”

Fade continued to scream through the dungeon until he got tired and realized that Princess Celestia must not have heard him for a while now. Soon, it returned to be silent in the dungeon again.


Later...


Fade sat in the corner of his cell. What princess Celestia told him cut deeply into his mind. He didn't like what she said to him, that much is obvious but he couldn't do anything to prevent it either. He was trapped in a cell. Even if he wanted to, the device on his horn still prevented him from using magic.

Fade would have liked to think more about this but he hears some hoof steep coming closer to his cell. Usually, the guards that patrolled around his cell would almost sneak up to his cell, in hope that Fade would not notice them but this time, the steps were fast and loud. Somepony clearly walked casually up to his cell. The first pony he would have guessed was Princess Celestia who would hive him more bad news. However, the pony was a wearing a Royal Guard armor. It was pretty dark in the dungeon but Fade quickly identified the pony in front of him.

“Shining Armor?” Fade said once he saw the white-coated unicorn stallion in front of his cell, looking at him a little worried.

“Captain Fade...” Shining Armor replied accompanied by a very worried tone in his voice. “Is it true that you attacked your own men using Dark Magic?” Shining Armor bluntly asked.

“I have no idea...” Fade replied in all honesty, not knowing what happened himself.

“I see...” Shining Armor replied with a frown on his face.

An awkward silence followed. Shining Armor seemed to wait for the right opportunity to tell Fade something else but right now it felt a little wrong. Seeing Fade, almost broken in his cell, heavily put the mood down for Shining Armor to say anything. He always thought of Fade as more than his captain. Since the day he entered the Royal Guard, Shining Armor was always treated with respect from Fade. This might have been because of how much work Shining Armor put into his duties but still, Fade and he always had respect for each other. Some would even call this friendship.

“Is that all?” He finally replied coldly without even looking at Shining Armor.

Shining Armor wasn't sure what he expected Fade to answer. This cold answer, however, caught him a little off guard. Still, there was actually something else he wanted to ask so he might as well get that out of the way too.

“Are you gonna be okay? I mean you probably heard of what the Princess planned to do with you. There are probably many other things for you to do in Canterlot. Hey, I'll do my best to find you something! That's what friends are for!” Shining Armor explained in a more cheerful tone than before.

But Fade got confused. “What do you mean?” He asked confused as he finally looked up to Shining Armor a little lost. “Other thing that I can do?”

Shining Armor's cheerfulness vanished again and was replaced by confusion. This confusion then turned into sadness after realizing that Fade was not aware of something and that Shining Armor had to be the one, telling him this. “I thought you already knew...” Shining Armor said hesitantly.

“Know what?” Fade replied, demanding an answer from the Unicorn in front of him.

Shining Armor took a deep breath, preparing himself for Fade's response which would be anything but good. “The princess is planning to take away your title as Captain of the Royal Guard...”

Fade held his breath for a moment. He didn't say anything at first due to the shock. “What did you say?” He only managed to get out after realizing the words that Shining Armor said to him.

Shining Armor didn't look like as if he enjoyed telling him this news and tried to defend the Princess in this matter without angering Fade too much. “Most members of the Royal Guard heard about the incident. Some of them are now too afraid of you and don't think that you are any more suitable for leading them...”

As Shining Armor continued to explain, Fade lowered his head again, not even bothering to accept what he just heard.

“Please understand, Fade...” Shining Armor continued. “The princess is only thinking about the well being of everypony in Equestria. You as the Captain of the Royal Guard should understand that,” Shining Armor explained.

Shining Armor waited patiently for a response. Fade, however, was looking at the ground, feeling completely betrayed by the Princess right now. He could not even put in words what was going on in his head.

Eventually, Fade spoke up and replied with yet another cold response. “Please leave me alone, Shining Armor...” he said before he walked back into his corner.

Shining Armor understood how Fade must have felt in this very moment and decided to walk away again. There was probably nothing that he could do to cheer him up again after telling him this message, anyway. 

Before Shining Armor left, he looked over one last time to his cell. He could feel how the air in this cell was filled with sadness and anger which was hidden inside of Fade. He felt really uncomfortable just being there after a while and left Fade in his cell.


Later...


Fade again sat in the corner of his cell. The only thing he could think about was his talk with Princes Celestia obviously. He could not believe that he was supposed to lose everything in such a short time without even feeling as if he did something wrong to deserve it. One moment, one encounter with this one pony made him lose his magic, his daughter and maybe even his job as a Royal Guard.

What was left for him once all that was gone? His daughter was the most important thing in his life. It shocked him that Princess Celestia wasn't even bothered by that. Protecting the ponies of Equestria was also what he was living for. But how can he protect everypony if he was robbed of his job as a Royal Guard?

All those things couldn't be true. It was like as if he was trapped in some kind of nightmare. As if this was all not real and just his imagination. But this cell was real. The bars in front of him, the gray walls, the occasional hoof steps that he could hear from far away from Royal Guards paroling in the dungeon. Everything was real.

“Am I just gonna sit here and let everything taken away from me?” Fade mumbled quietly in his frustration. “Am I really a danger that has to be dealt with?”

Slowly, Fade started to accept Princess Celestia's choice and dealt with it, like he is supposed to. Of course, that didn't mean that he would like it but he had to think about the ponies in Equestria that he swore to protect as a member of the Royal Guard. But does that really mean that he had to give up everything?

“It's not fair...” he began to whisper quietly. “Why do I have to lose everything? Is that supposed to be my destiny? Am I not allowed to live my life in happiness? I already lost my wife and my daughter and now the little things I got left are taken away from me too?”

Anger began to fill his mind, accompanied by hate towards Princess Celestia. “She knows how much I have lost and she still takes away things from me?” He said, clenching his teeth in the process.

Without realizing it himself, a dark aura began to surround him, starting from his hooves and crawling up to his body. Fade had a very blurry vision but didn't care or even noticed it while still being in deep thoughts.

Something strange happened. He could swear that he heard some kind of voice. It was quiet and very distant but after focusing on it for a while, he could even make out what it said.

“Escape...”

“Escape?” Fade wondered. “But where should I go?” He asked, in hope that some answer would come.

Ironically, an answer actually came.

“Escape...” the voice said one more time.

The dark aura began to surround Fade even more. Now all of his body was surrounded by it. Fade was not able to control his body anymore and it began to move on its own. He began walking towards the bars of his cell, looking at them absent-minded. Despite the device on his horn, that was supposed to stop him from using any magic, the aura managed to remove it from Fade's horn, freeing him and allowing him to use magic again.

Dark Magic was surrounding his horn. A black aura completely engulfed him, becoming bigger and bigger by the second. Shortly after, a big blast of magic shot out of his horn, completely destroying the bars in front of him and leaving a big hole in the cell for him to escape.

Fade slowly walked out of his cell. He did as the voice told him and escaped from his cell but the question was what to do now. But he didn't have to know that since he didn't seem to be in full control of his body right now. Still, he began walking towards the exit of the dungeon.

Of course, Fade's escape was not unnoticed. A pony from the Royal Guard heard the noises that came from Fade's escape. However, instead of trying to stop him, the pony did his best to hide around the corner. There was no way that he could deal with the Captain fo the Royal Guards on his own after all.

Once Fade was out of sight, the pony decided to do the only smart thing in this situation. “I have to tell the princess!” The guard said quietly in a panic before he left the place, praying that Fade would not notice him on his way out of the dungeon.


A Little later...


The door to Solar Smile's room opened slowly. If she was awake, then she would probably really scared by the screeching of the door that could be heard in the silence of this room and seeing her father entering it while he was surrounded in a thick dark aura.

Fade walked towards his daughter. His sight was a little blurry because his mind was a little clouded because of the Dark Magic that surrounded him. At this moment, he didn't really know what he was doing in this room.

He slowly reached out his hoof towards his daughter. The Dark Magic around his body traveled to the hoof that he reached out to his daughter. He stared blankly at her without a thought in his mind at this very moment.

However, as soon as he saw the Dark Magic trying to go after his daughter, his eyes widened in shock and he quickly pulled his hoof away again. There was no telling what would have happened to his daughter if he didn't pull his hoof away in time. Just now, he seemed to realize where he was and what he was doing. Realizing that he stepped away from his daughter.

“No...” He said scared as he stared at his daughter. “I can't stay here with this darkness surrounding me. I will only end up hurting you...”

Fade stared at his hoof, afraid of his own magic getting out of control anytime now. It pained him to not be able to get closer to his own daughter out of fear that he could hurt her by accident. Maybe Princess Celestia was right. Maybe his dark magic would only end up hurting everypony. Maybe it was the only right thing to do.

But who would trust him now? He escaped from his prison and was now corrupted by Dark Magic. He attacked his own men and yelled at the princess for not trusting him. Was he even in a position to demand any trust? Was there any turning back now? What would happen if would be found by the Royal Guards?

Fade stood silently in this room as if he hoped that the answer would come to him out of nowhere. But of course, it didn't come to him and the room was just silent. It was silent, dark, and the air inside of it was plainly uncomfortable.


Hoof steps were drawing closer to Solar Smile's room. They were led by Princess Celestia herself. The news quickly spread. Once Princess Celestia was told that Fade escaped, she made sure that all of her Royal Guards were on the move. Fade managed to deal with multiple ponies at once so he was definitely not beatable with only a few guards but the princess had to make sure to find him first, forcing her to split her guards to search the whole castle.

Still, Princess Celestia had a good idea where Fade might be.

He still must have been in Canterlot and chances were high that Solar Smile was in great danger. Princess Celestia quickly used her magic to open the door to the room, signaling her guards that they should cover her. The door was smashed open and Princess Celestia stood in the entrance of the room, ready to use her magic to defend herself.

But there was nopony...

The room was empty. Fortunately, Solar Smile seemed to be still there. There was no way that somepony could hide in this room because of the lack of anything else except one bed and a few tables being the only thing in this room. Princess Celestia ordered her guards to keep a good look on everything and that they should guard the entrance. Maybe Fade hasn't reached this room yet and was still on his way here. However, the princess quickly scrapped that thought once she noticed something. A flower laid on Solar Smile's bed. It was just now that Princess Celestia realized how the window next to the bed was open. Somepony was here and that somepony was Fade.

Princess Celestia ordered her Royal Guard to look all over Canterlot to find Fade and capture him to ensure the safety of everypony. But little did they know, that Fade was long gone. He was not running but rather slowly walking away from Canterlot. He didn't even try to think how he was probably followed right now. There were way too many things going on in his head.

The only thing that was certain for him, is that he had to get away from Canterlot. Away from his daughter.

“Daddy will be back soon...” He mumbled to himself as he continued to walk aimlessly away from Canterlot. “I don't know how long it will take. I don't know what exactly I have to do. But I have to make sure that I am freed from this darkness for good. Until then...I'm afraid you have to wait a while...”

Fade didn't know where he should go. Canterlot was no option, obviously. He could not return without taking care of his Dark Magic. It had to be gone or else nopony would even begin to trust him. He didn't know how he supposed to do that, though. The answer would hopefully reveal itself soon...
> 3. The Shapeshifter - Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a quiet grass field somewhere in Equestria...


It was a nice day. The sun was shining and the sky was free from any clouds. It was the perfect day to spend outside. So that is what a three ponies did. They decided to set up a picnic, eating some sweets and having fun without worrying about anything right now.

They were setting up the picnic blanket and began to place some sweets all over it, munching some of them in the process. They seemed to be close friends, judging how easily they broke out in laughter after almost every sentence. They clearly had a lot of fun.

However, they did not seem to notice how they were watched by a pair of blue eyes. “Three. Yeah, that should be doable,” A voice said, hidden inside a bush next to the three ponies.

The voice then revealed itself on the other side of the bush. It was a Changeling wearing a black armor and a black helmet. Once he walked out of the bush, his eyes were focused on three more Changelings who saluted once he was in plain sight again. He was clearly one or two ranks above those three.

He began to look at them sternly. “Okay. I hope you guys are ready for your first official love retrieving mission!” The three Changelings raised their heads and stood in attention. “Changelings need love to survive. But of course, you already know that. Now will be the time, where you stop getting your share of love from the hive and start to contribute to it by collecting,”

Two of the three Changelings didn't move due to the fear to disappoint their, what looks like their commander. However, one of them seemed a little confused and only looked around confused as if he missed something.

This, of course, was not unnoticed by the commander Changeling. “Is something the matter?” He asked.

“Yes! I mean...just in case some of us have some questions...” he said, poorly trying to hide that he was the only one who had some questions. “Uhh...how exactly do we do this...love retrieving thing?” He then asked wide-eyed. This caused the two Changelings next to him to look at each other due to the surprise of the possible ignorance or stupidity of their third comrade.

The commander did not seem to happy about this question but he surprisingly showed patience and answered calmly. “You three will transform into ponies, approach those three ponies that I spotted and use your magic to absorb their love,” he explained slowly so that even the stupidest Changeling would understand it. “Now transform,” he then ordered, clearly wanting this out of the way already.

The three Changelings looked at each other and nodded. Each of them surrounded themselves by light green colored flames. After the flames were gone, three ponies now stood there.

One of them turned into a Pegasus mare with a white slightly gray-blueish coat color and a long dark blue mane, long tail and orange eyes. On her flank was a Cutie Mark consisting of three red sevens right next to each other.

The second one turned into a Pegasus stallion with a white coat, a blonde mane with a red stripe on the side, a short blonde and red tail and light blue eyes. This pony also had a goatee. His Cutie Mark was a musical note with a brush and a pencil in front of it.

“Very good,” the Changeling Commander complimented after being satisfied to see two very good transformations in front of him. Unfortunately, the same thing couldn't be said about the third one.

The third Changeling, which was the one who asked questions before, transformed into a black coated Pegasus stallion with no mane, no tail, and light blue eyes. His Cutie Mark was just a gray silhouette of a pony. The Changeling seemed to be happy about his own result which can not be said about his commander.

The Changeling Commander got a little frustrated watching this and walked up to the pony. “You! What's your name?” He asked.

The to a pony-transformed-Changeling saluted happily and replied. “Tagma!” He said with a smile on his face, not being aware how the Changeling in front of him was angry at him.

“You forgot the mane, Tagma,” he said straightly pointing at Tagma's head.

Tagma looked up and seemed confused. “Is that important?”

The Changeling commander slapped his face in frustration. “What is it with this transformation? A black coat, blue eyes? You are supposed to blend in as a pony! You look exactly the same, color-wise! If some pony would walk up to you from a distance, then they would mistake you for a Changeling just by how you look now!” He explained angrily, trying to be as quiet as possible to not blow their cover.

Tagma scratched his head a little. “Sorry, this is the best I could come up within such a short time,” he apologized, sticking out his tongue, out of embarrassment.

The Commander figured that it would be difficult to deal with this one if he continued and just gave up. “Whatever, we need to do this quick. You three will go to those ponies, absorb their love and then return to me. Got it?”

“Yes, sir!” All three of the transformed Changeling's replied in unison before they walked up to the pony group in front of them.

The three ponies then walked around the bush and approached the three ponies, having a picnic. They all put on a fake smile, trying to deceive the three, except for Tagma who was genuinely smiling.

“Isn't this exciting? The first time that we are gathering some love!” Tagma said happily before he realized something that he might have thought of before. “But how exactly do we get their love? The commander said we should use our magic but wouldn't those ponies get mad if we just use it on them?” He asked towards his two companions.

The two looked at each other confused one more time. One of them advised that Tagma should just watch and let one of them do the talking. They also agreed to deal with one pony each. But before that, they had to make sure that they could approach the group without causing any suspicion.

One of the Changelings coughed into his hoof and began introducing himself and the group. “Hey, that sure looks tasty! We smelled the scent of those sweets from a mile away and just had to look where it came from,” he said, complimenting the sweets which caused one of the ponies to giggle. It was a mare, she was most likely the one who baked them, judging from her reaction.

“That's so nice of you,” the mare replied. “We made a little too much, if you want, you can have some,” she then offered, obviously being generous because of the compliments she got.

Before they knew it, the three Changelings were invited to join the picnic. The plan went really well, even Tagma was doing good, what the other two really didn't expect. It might be because he was not faking to have fun and actually enjoyed himself.

The three each started conversations with one of the ponies. The two other Changelings made sure that each of them could start absorbing their love any second and began to give each other signals. Even Tagma got this but he decided to wait what exactly the other two were doing so that he could understand what to do.

The two Changelings then suddenly, began their move. As soon as one of the ponies looked away, they began to use their magic to literally suck out their love. It kinda looked like as if magic was coming out of them which the Changelings absorbed into their own body, only that it was love of course. As soon as the two Changelings were done absorbing the love from the two ponies, Tagma began to look over to the pony that he was responsible for.

It was a mare. She was crawling on the ground in fear after witnessing what happened to her two friends. She couldn't move. It was the perfect opportunity for Tagma to absorb her love but all that he did, was staring at her confused. Of course, the other two Changeling prompted him to do his part of the plan but Tagma refused and even backed away from the pony.

The pony saw this as an opportunity to run away and Tagma didn't even attempt to stop her. But soon she was still captured by someone else. The commander of the three Changelings popped up in front of the pony and absorbed her love himself, causing her to fall to the ground unconscious.

Tagma could only look saddened at her but his eyes then met with the very angry and disappointed eyes of his commander who slowly walked up to him. This caused Tagma to prepare himself for a big scolding.

“Mind telling me what that was all about?” The commander asked. He was clearly not amused by Tagma's actions at all. But the Changeling didn't know how to reply and stood there ashamed and intimidated by his commander. “She was scared and didn't even attempt to defend herself! It was the perfect opportunity to absorb her love so why didn't you do it!?” He continued to ask Tagma, putting him more and more in a frightened mood.

Eventually, Tagma found the courage to speak up again, even knowing that it wouldn't exactly make things better. “I don't know...it just didn't felt...right...”

“What?” The commander replied confused. “What did?”

“They looked like as if they were in pain. I didn't want to hurt them,” Tagma explained.

The commander got more and more angry at this behavior. “Changelings need love! And the ponies in Equestria have more than enough of it so we just take it from them. It's as easy as that!” He explained with an angry tone in his voice.

“But I don't want to hurt those ponies!” Tagma then replied, this time showing a little more determination, although it quickly vanished once he looked into the angry eyes of his commander.

The commander was quiet for a moment. Talking with this Changeling was probably not enough so he came up with something more efficient. “Let's see if you keep thinking like this after I put you in...the chamber,”

The other two Changelings shrugged after hearing that and Tagma also knew what his commander was talking about but he didn't show that much fear. But he was also not looking forward to it either.


One week later...


The Changeling Kingdom...

Home of the Changelings, obviously, it was the place where the Changelings who were traveling around in Equestria, would return and call their home. Tagma lived in this place as well for his whole life. Normally, if a Changeling is old enough, then they would be sent outside to gather love for the hive but for the last week, Tagma was forced to stay because he disobeyed orders from his commander.

In the chamber to be exact...

Two Changelings were aware of that and couldn't help but to worry about him.

“Hey, remember that one Changeling that caused some trouble on our first mission?” One of them began to ask.

“Yeah, Tagma, right?” The other one replied.

“I haven't seen him for a week now. Do you think he is alright?”

“Wasn't he supposed to be sent to the chamber?” The Changeling replied shrugging for a moment.

“Yeah. A Changeling who hasn't consumed love for that long is bound to go crazy. I bet he is now regretting messing up the last mission,” The other Changeling said, almost a little amused just thinking about Tagma's misery.

“Well, that's what he gets for disobeying. I don't want to end in the chamber so I definitely won't question my orders anytime soon,”

The two walked away and forgot to worry about Tagma. It's not like that they knew each other that much, to begin with, in order to really worry about him. They had their own work waiting for them now.

But little did the two Changeling's know that the commander, who accompanied them on their first mission, was overhearing that conversation. However, he did not say anything and kept a serious expression on his face before he was on his way again.

Ironically, he was on his way to Tagma's cell to see how he was doing, despite already knowing that from keeping an eye on him all these days. He stood in front of a closed door and opened some kind of small window from which he could look through into the room. He thought about the conversation of those two Changelings from before. About how Tagma probably lost his mind by now. 

Shortly after, Tagma noticed how he was being looked at. “What's up!” He said cheerfully, sitting in the middle of the room and waving towards the Changeling that looked at him with a serious expression on his face.

The commander closed the window in the door again. Meanwhile, another Changeling approached him. He was the one responsible for the prisoners. “Still no change...” he said, in a really confused and depressed voice.

“I don't understand...” the commander replied confused as well. “Normally, we just wanted him to be in this cell for a few days but after seeing how that was not enough to make him weaker, we extended the sentence to a week. But there is still no difference. What is going on here?”

The other Changeling rubbed his chin in order to think. “It sure is strange that he doesn't seem to be affected by the lack of love,”

“Yeah,” the commander agreed. “Changelings need love to survive. A Changeling that hasn't consumed any love for a few days usually starts to lose his mind. We would trap them in this chamber and cut them off from any love that the Queen would usually provide and break them so that they would obey the next time,” he further explained, still trying to understand what was happening with Tagma.

The commander opened up the little window to peek at Tagma again. This time, Tagma's face was right in front of the window where he looked through. “Are you talking about me?” He asked a little excited but he didn't get an answer because the commander closed the window again.

“I'm taking him with me,” the commander said, already opening the locks on the door.

The other Changeling didn't reply and just let the commander do, what he thought was right. He must have had something prepared for a situation like this. Whatever it was, Tagma would be freed so of course, he was one who should be happy now.


A little later...


Tagma and his commander walked through the hallway of their kingdom. One of them, clearly being relieved that he was now free again. “I have to admit, it was getting pretty boring in this cell. Glad that you decided to let me out,” Tagma said, stretching some of his legs while he was following his commander.

“Boring?” The commander replied confused. “Not hungry?” He added.

“Nope,” Tagma replied briefly.

It didn't seem like a tough-Changeling act. There was literally nothing wrong, physically or mentally with Tagma. He acted exactly like one week ago. It was almost scary. Still, the commander couldn't worry about that and continued to lead Tagma to where they wanted to go.

“Where are we going anyway? You didn't tell me,” Tagma the asked, once he was done stretching his muscles.

“There is someone who wants to see you...” The commander simply replied, not even bothering to look at Tagma by doing so.

Tagma asked who it was but the commander didn't answer this time so he just waited until they would meet this Changeling. Tagma had to admit, that he liked a good surprise but he was also a little nervous after noticing how serious his commander was. But then again, he was always serious.

The two arrived at a really big room. A room in which Tagma never was before. He instantly noticed that it was much bigger than any other room in the kingdom. His commander stopped walking after he reached the middle of the room but Tagma walked further, looking up at the high ceiling in awe.

Slowly, he moved his eyes down in front of him and looked forward. Realization struck him after he saw something at the end of the room. Something that he only heard of from before.

A throne...

Tagma's eyes widened in a mix of shock and fear after seeing it. He knew exactly where he was now and who's “room” this was.

“Thanks for bringing him here,” a female voice then said from Tagma's right side.

He instantly turned his head to the right and spotted a big figure that stepped out of the shadows. Only two words managed to come out of his mouth at this very moment.
“Queen Chrysalis!” Tagma said in shock, once he realized that the queen herself walked right towards him with a mischievous smile on her face.

In all his time in the Changeling Kingdom, he never stood that close next to the queen herself. Not only that but he was also never alone with her, not counting the commander, standing behind him a few steps. Usually, he would only see her when she was talking to all of her Changelings and not to him personally. It was quite a shocking situation.

Queen Chrysalis had a black colored body, like every other Changeling and long cerulean colored hair and light green eyes. On her head was a little crown and on her forehead a horn. She also had big wings sprouting from her back. She was also much bigger than any other Changeling. Seeing her made Tagma feel really nervous, especially since she was much bigger now that she stood right in front of him. And of course, he feared what she wanted from him.

The queen quickly cut to the case and said what she wanted to say. “I heard you were a...special case...” she started.

Tagma instantly realized how a punishment was approaching. It has been a week since he was stuck in the Chamber but he thought that after spending all this time there, that he would be forgiven. Apparently, that wasn't the case.

Tagma didn't reply. He wasn't even sure if he was supposed to say anything in this situation. Thankfully, Queen Chrysalis continued. “Answer me...when was the last time when you were hungry for love?” She asked.

She patiently waited for an answer from Tagma. He still hesitated to answer but eventually, he replied after realizing that it probably was pretty important for his queen.
“I...can't remember,” he replied a little nervously since he felt like it wasn't a clear enough answer for his queen.

But that seemed to be enough for Queen Chrysalis to understand. “Do you ever felt...weak or drained after not consuming any love from the hive?” She asked.

“Um...no. Not really...” Tagma replied after putting some thought into it.

The Changeling Commander made a confused expression on his face. He figured that one week was clearly not affecting Tagma but from what it looks like, he could have put him in the Chamber for several more weeks and it wouldn't make a difference. Queen Chrysalis, however, seemed to know what was going on, judging from the smile on her face.

“I see...” Queen Chrysalis said before her horn began to glow in light green light that engulfed Tagma. Soon something was drawn out of Tagma's body something that Queen Chrysalis absorbed into her own body. After a few seconds of absorbing, Tagma dropped to the ground, clearly weakened by this.

Queen Chrysalis, however, was grinning widely and laughed after her realization. “I knew it!” Queen Chrysalis said victoriously. The Changeling Commander was not sure what he just witnessed. What Queen Chrysalis did just now, was absorbing love. But why would a Changeling absorb love from another Changeling? There was no love to be found in one. But eventually, the answer was clear after Chrysalis explained. “That is why you don't need love to survive! Why you don't hunger for it or why you don't feel a lack of strength after not getting any,”

Tagma got up on his legs again and looked up to his Queen. She was smiling sinisterly at him. Queen Chrysalis was never known to be kind or merciful but in this moment, Tagma only felt fear after looking at her even though he was supposed to be one of her children.

Because of the lack of strength in is body, Tagma was about to fell unconscious. The last thing he saw was Queen Chrysalis, looking at him with an evil smile. There were also a few words that he could hear before he passed out. Words that he couldn't even put thoughts into, in this very situation.

“You can create love!”


Several months later...


After that encounter, Tagma's life changed. He was no longer allowed to leave the Changeling Kingdom. He was considered too valuable for the queen to be sent out to the outside world. He constantly had to stay home so that he could create love for the Changelings. He didn't have to work like all the other Changelings and just had to wait until he “stored” more of it inside of his body but it was still really hard, having your love drained over and over again.

Tagma was always a simple Changeling. He would usually spend his time in the kingdom somehow with others. He was never really aware how he was different from other Changelings. That he was more upbeat and cheerful than others. That much, he was aware of but being some kind of special Changeling, that was something that he didn't expect.

After Queen Chrysalis figured out how Tagma could create love, he was instantly put in a room to secure him. He was just supposed to stay there and only allowed to leave it when he had enough love inside of him. Then Queen Chrysalis would always drain his love out of his body and stored it inside of the hive, providing it to every other Changeling. It was free love, that could be accessed quickly and without much work. It was perfect to strengthen the hive easily. It was a really boring and exhausting live, from this point on but Tagma learned to deal with it. Somehow...he learned to deal with it...


One Changeling walked up to the room where Tagma was inside. He tried to not cause any attention and sneaked up to the door, moving the little window to the site to take a look at Tagma who was sitting in the middle of the room, exhausted and a little sad. It took him a little to notice how he was looked at but as soon as he did, he smiled and waved to the Changeling. “What's up?” Tagma greeted happily.

The Changeling who looked through the door moved his head away instantly out of fear or maybe nervousness. It was not often that someone would look at Tagma so he tried to make sure that this visitor would not leave. “Wait! Please! I am so bored in here! Can't you at least talk to me for a minute?” He said across the empty room to get the Changeling's attention again.

There was no response immediately, but after a while, the Changeling peeked his head towards the window again, even if it was just a little. The Changeling seemed really nervous to even look at Tagma but he was noticed by him now so he might as well stay.

“Umm...hey,” he said hesitantly. “You are Tagma, right?”

“Yeah!” Tagma replied proudly. “Wait, how do you know my name?” He then added confused.

“Well, everybody knows who you are. The Changeling who is able to produce love without absorbing it from someone else and can share it with the whole hive,” the Changeling explained.

“Wow! Does that mean, I am popular?” Tagma replied a little shocked but also with a happy tone in his voice.

“Actually,” the Changeling interrupted. “Most of us see you as some kind of freak who is treated by Queen Chrysalis with special care,”

“Oh...” Tagma replied with a frown on his face.

The other Changeling then looked around Tagma's room to inspect it a little further. “Is there nothing in this room what you can spend time with? Are you just sitting here all day?” He then asked out of curiosity.

“I usually have to wait until someone comes to take me to the Queen so that she can absorb my love,” Tagma replied.

“That's sound horrible,” the Changeling replied.

“Nah, it could be worse...” Tagma replied with a smile on his face.

“Really?” The Changeling replied confused.

“Yeah. I mean, every day I spend here, means that there are a few more ponies every day that I don't have to rob off their love. So in a way, that's a good thing,” he explained happily.

This confused the Changeling a little. “You don't want to rob others of their love?”

“No. the first time, when I was supposed to do that, I saw how much others suffer when we do that and now that I got my love sucked out constantly, it just feels good that I don't have to do that to others,” Tagma said widely relieved with a smile on his face.

For some reason, the Changeling on the other side of the door didn't expect an answer like that. “You are a lot more different than I thought. I never thought that there was another Changeling who thought that what were are doing to others was...”

“Wrong?” Tagma finished.

The two looked at each other in mutual understanding. Both of them seemed to agree that robbing others of their magic was not right. Tagma never expected anyone else to see this kind of way of thinking. 

Unfortunately, the conversation could not last any longer since the Changeling noticed how someone was getting closer to the room. “Oh no! I have to get out of here before someone catches me! I'll come back later!” The Changeling then said before he closed the window and vanished again.

It became quiet again. There must have been some kind of patrol out there so that the other Changeling had to get out of there. It made Tagma a little sad that the other Changeling had to leave but at the same time, he could not wait until he would return like he said. That is if he wasn't captured.


Later that night...


The rest of the day was really quiet like usual. The other Changeling didn't come back like he said. Tagma could not say that he was happy about that but at the same time, he realized that it was probably a little dangerous to visit him. He didn't want anyone else to get into trouble because of him after all.

However, as soon as he completely gave up hope, he could hear some steps getting closer to his room. He expected that the little window would open up again but much to his surprise, the whole door opened. This would only mean that his love was about to be absorbed by the queen, leaving Tagma in a really sad mood again.

However, it was not one of Queen Chrysalis's guards that showed up but instead, it was the Changeling from before who looked in the room nervously. “You!? You opened the door?” Tagma said in shock by this sudden revelation.

“Yes. But you have to be quiet if you want to escape,” the Changeling replied as he made sure to look around that no one would hear or see them.

“Escape!?” Tagma replied shocked. “I can't escape from here!” He added before he thought about this a little. “Or...can I?”

The Changeling explained. “Listen. You can easily survive out there without love. On top of that, you don't seem like as if you agree with Queen Chrysalis when it comes to her plans. So you should leave and find another place to live,”

Tagma began to think about this idea and even considered it right now. He had to admit, that living like this was not what he wanted. He didn't have to go out and steal other ponies love but in return, he had to live completely on his own without freedom. Of course, that is not the way he wanted to spend his life. But what could he do outside? He would be alone there as well. Still, if it meant not getting used by Queen Chrysalis as some sort of love-produce-machine, there was probably nothing else as an option.

“Alright! I will! But why are you even helping me to begin with?” Tagma then asked.

“I...don't know. It just feels like...the right thing to do...” The Changeling explained rather hesitant as if he was not sure if he believed in those words himself. “Just get out of here before someone finds you, or we both get in trouble,” he then advised.

“Alright, thank you! I won't forget that!” He said before he hugged the Changeling out of gratitude before he ran away to find the exit.

“Wait!” The Changeling then suddenly said, causing Tagma to turn around again. There seemed to be something important that he wanted to say which is why he hesitated at first. “Do you believe that one day...we Changelings can find a better way to live, then just stealing love?” He asked with a slight frown on his face.

Tagma began to think about this question for a moment. “I have no idea,” he replied as he closed his eyes while being in deep thoughts. “But I have the feeling that with Queen Chrysalis in charge, that is not going to happen anytime soon,” Tagma said with an unusually serious tone in his voice. “You seem like a nice person so maybe you should try to get in charge,” he then said spontaneously.

“What!? No way! I could never...” The Changeling responded nervously before he remembered that time is probably running short until someone notices them. “You should go now!”

This didn't need to be told to Tagma twice. He ran off to escape from the Kingdom and to escape from Queen Chrysalis. “Wait! I completely asked this guys name!” Tagma then realized as he ran away. However, he was way too far away now to turn back. He would have to get caught if he did. All he could do was being thankful for this one Changeling helping him out. Maybe one day, he somehow was able to return this favor.

It took a while but soon Tagma found himself outside, far away from the Changeling Kingdom. No one was following him so far, but they soon would come after him so he could not stop walking away from it. However, he was already far away from it.

He could only look back to where the Changeling Kingdom was but then decided to look forward to what was ahead of him.

“Now what?” Tagma said as he looked over the vast land of Equestria, figuring out where he should go next.

But as a Changeling in a land full of ponies, that was probably easier said then done...


To be continued...
> 4. The Shapeshifter - Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It has been a few days since Tagma successfully escaped from the Changeling Kingdom. So far, he didn't encounter any Changelings who tried to take him back home. But he knew that they were out there, looking for him all over Equestria. He just couldn't stop walking further and further away from it in order to find someplace to hide.

But even that had to wait because Tagma had other things to worry about. “Hungry...” he said in a zombie-like state as he slowly walked through the land.

Changelings normally “eat” love in order to feel fit and strong. Real food is often consumed if Changelings were away from the Kingdom for a long time and didn't happen to come across any love to consume. Tagma, however, could create love himself so he didn't need to worry about the love part but he seemed to have noticed that this caused him to get hungry faster than any other Changeling when it came to real food. They did feed him real food when he was imprisoned in the Kingdom which is why he did not seem to notice that right away. Figuring this out right after he was considered to be some kind of special Changeling by Queen Chrysalis herself was actually kind of upsetting.

He needed food badly. To think that he didn't come across a single apple tree or a bush filled with berries just proved how bad he was prepared to live in Equestria. Certainly not a good start in his new life, whatever it might end up being.

Tagma continued to crawl through the land. Starting to feel weak after all the way he has traveled so far. He couldn't even fly anymore and even if he could, staying on the ground was probably a lot safer in order to not get caught. What would be smart, however, was if he could transform. But he was even too weak for that.

Fortunately, his luck seemed to have changed for the better. He spotted a small cottage on top of a little hill surrounded by a fence. Of course, he approached it to see if there was something edible to find. As soon as he approached the fence, he felt like as if he stumbled upon heaven. There was a field, filled with vegetables. Cabbages, melons, carrots, pumpkins and much more stuff inside of this field, ready for Tagma to get his grip on. The only problem: there was somepony working on the field at the moment.

It was a Pegasus stallion with a leaf green colored coat and a yellow mane, wearing a yellow headband. His Cutie Mark consisted of a yellow lightning bolt inside of a black circle. However, he was turned around and didn't see Tagma, making this the perfect opportunity to get to some of the vegetables. 

Tagma began to sneak up to the field. He climbed over the fence and made his way to the first thing he came across, which happened to be the carrot field. One step after another, he came close to it without alerting the pony. The pony seemed to be too occupied with his work to notice the Changeling at all. Of course, that was only good for Tagma.

He was only centimeters away from one carrot and began reaching out his leg to grab it. “Almost there,” Tagma thought, thinking that he was already victorious.

The pony then suddenly stopped moving and raised his head a little. “If I wouldn't know it any better, then I would say that someone is trying to steal food from my field...”

Tagma stopped his movements as soon as he heard this ponies voice. He turned his head towards him and noticed how the pony was still looking in the completely opposite direction. “How did he see me? He didn't even turn around,” he wondered confused.

The pony then turned around. “I guess you are trying to reach out to...let's see...my carrots?” The pony guessed with a serious tone in his voice.

It was only now that Tagma realized that the ponies headband was not around his forehead but rather around his eyes. This, of course, raised the question how that pony was even seeing Tagma at all, let alone knowing that he was right next to the carrots. Tagma simply didn't move in response.

“I know someone is there. Not moving will not save you. If you don't speak now, then I'll just assume that you are a danger that I have to get rid of,” the pony explained, probably narrowing his eyes under his yellow blindfold.

The last thing that Tagma wanted right now, was to get into a fight. He always tried to avoid trouble and now that he was starving, it was not like as if he even had the strength to fight someone so the only logical thing was to explain the situation.  

“Wait! Don't hurt me! I was just looking for something to-”

But his words got interrupted by a pretty big rumble that came from his belly. This led to a rather awkward silence that both of them didn't know how to break. Tagma was a little embarrassed and the farmer pony stood there a little confused, eventually, breaking the silence.

“Wow,” the pony then said. “That was a pretty loud growl...” he simply said, almost impressed before he loosened up again.
“Should have told me that you were starving. Let's go inside. I hate to see someone starving in my field. Even though I can't really see anything,” he said jokingly before he walked inside, waiting for Tagma to follow him.

Since the pony offered some food, there was no way that Tagma would refuse. Ponies are not in good terms with Changelings, that much did he know. Of course, knowing what Changeling do to them in order to gain love that was actually understandable for him. Any other Changeling would have got suspicious and thought that this could have been a trap. It may have been Tagma's empty stomach that made him not think about that and made him follow the pony inside.

Once inside the cottage, Tagma was offered to take a seat at the table in the middle of one of the rooms of the cottage. There was not much inside of this cottage, a little kitchen at the end of the room, a wooden table with two wooden chairs next to it, some closets, a door that lead to the bathroom. There were also a few windows on the walls, from which you could see the farm outside. It seemed a little provisionally. There was no way that this pony was living in a little cottage like that. His home must have been somewhere else. But then again, Tagma was not really sure how ponies lived.

The Changeling sat on one of the two chairs and patiently waited for the pony to get some food. The pony walked towards his fridge and opened the door. “Thank goodness that I bake this one today,” the pony said relieved, grabbing a pie out of the fridge, closing the door with his hind leg, walking towards the table and placing it on it. “Here you go,” he said before he sat down on the other chair with a smile on his face.

It was worth mentioning that the pony was blindfolded the whole time, leading for Tagma to react more than impressed. “How did you do all this without looking?” He asked confused, forgetting his rumbling stomach for a second.

The pony seemed confused about this question. “Oh, that? I just memorized everything in here. This makes it pretty easy to not walk into things,”

“You know you could just take off that blindfold...” Tagma then advised. However, as soon as he said those words, he realized that this was something really stupid to say. If that pony took off his blindfold, then he would find out that Tagma was a Changeling and Tagma was way too weak to even transform right now.

“I'm afraid that even if I would do that, it wouldn't change much,” the pony replied. “I'm blind,”

Tagma reacted in surprise but also was a little relieved that this was the case. At least now, he wouldn't get in too much trouble. Still, he felt like as if he should apologize. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

The pony, however, replied rather cheerful. “You don't have to. It happened a long time ago and I'm not feeling like as if I lost much. My other senses, like hearing, smelling or my memory are now way more advanced, as you probably noticed. That's how I noticed how you were approaching my field, by the way,” he explained.

Tagma was impressed, to say the least. Considering, how hard Tagma tried to not get caught, and how far away he was from him, that was pretty impressive. The pony remembered Tagma that his stomach was still empty and that he better start to eat soon, or else he would pass out or worse. “Right!” The Changeling said nervously before he started to stuff a piece of the pie in his mouth. It was pumpkin pie, according to the pony. Not that Tagma would care what kind of flavor it was at this moment but he had to admit that it was quite tasty.

“What's your name, by the way?” The pony asked.

“Tagma!” The Changeling replied while he happily munched the pie away. He probably didn't realize that he should have come up with another name to not cause any suspicion.

But the pony didn't seem to wonder and introduced himself as well. “My name is Sole Light. Or just Sole. Nice to meet you,” he said happily as he waited for Tagma to finish his pie.

Not much conversation was going on while Tagma was eating but it didn't feel uncomfortable or strange. It was rather the complete opposite. The time inside of the Changeling Kingdom was not really what someone would call “nice”. Every Changeling was either serious, gloom or even unhappy which was a huge contrast to who Tagma was. There was never someone who would smile or laugh with him, making him feel a little left out. Sole was probably the only one, so far, who was enjoying to spend time with Tagma, not counting those three ponies that he had to deceive on his first mission, back then. 

It felt...nice.

But no matter how happy he was at this moment, as soon as Sole would find out that Tagma was a Changeling, all this would end. So Tagma had to make sure to not cause any suspicion. At the same time, however, Tagma regretted that he had to lie to Sole. No matter how special of a Changeling he was or how much he didn't want to be one right now, deceiving others seemed to be something that he could not escape.

Tagma finally finished the pie and felt how his strength returned to him. “That was delicious! Thank you!” He said happily, finally feeling like as if he was alive again. “Sorry that I tried to steal some of your food. I was just so hungry...” Tagma apologized a little ashamed, rubbing his neck in the process.

“Don't worry about it. Nothing happened. I could also tell that you didn't try anything bad so there is nothing to worry about,” Sole assured, though it was unknown how he came to that conclusion.

Now Tagma was back where he was before. He had no idea where to go to and what to do now. But he knew one thing for sure. He could not just leave without repaying Sole for giving him something to eat.

But Sole didn't seem to fond of this idea. “There really is no need for-” Sole said before he was interrupted by Tagma again.

“Come on! You saved me! There has to be something that I can do to repay that!” Tagma said determined as he jumped up from his chair.

Of course, Tagma came off as a little clingy but at the same time, he tried to stay at this place as long as he could. There was probably no second chance that he would meet another pony that he could talk to normally. Besides, he didn't know where to go in the first place.

“I don't think this is a good idea...” Sole said a little worried.

Soon, Tagma was practically begging on the ground to show his gratitude, putting Sole in a pretty uncomfortable situation. “Oh, boy...” Sole said a little bothered.


Later...


Eventually, Sole gave in and allowed Tagma to let him help on the farm for today. Except, that Sole was not allowed to lift a hoof and was supposed to sit on a bench, letting Tagma do the work. However, that did not change the fact that Sole was a little worried. “Have you ever done something like this?” Sole asked worried which was actually saying a lot considering that it came from a blind pony. “I can still help you, you know...”

But Tagma was determined to do this on his own. “No, no! You rest over there! You do this every day so you deserve some rest. I'll do your work for today!” He insisted.

But that was easier said than done. There was a whole wagon full of tools to work with or bags, filled with seeds. He had no idea what kind of seeds were inside of the bags because there was something wrong. “Hey! Your seed bags are not labeled! How am I supposed to know which is which?” He asked.

“Well...I am blind so I don't really need labels...” Sole replied casually, causing Tagma to react a little embarrassed.

Sole explained that he filled every seed in bags, made out of different material so that he could remember. He explained which seeds where in which bag but then he realized that there was no need for that since he only had to plant some cucumbers.

Tagma picked the right bag out of the wagon and began his work. He looked for an empty spot to plant them in and quickly found one. It was most likely already prepared from Sole one day earlier. He tried to open the bag but he accidentally, ripped it open and let the seeds fall out of the bag.

“Ah!” Tagma screamed in frustration and shock as he watched how the seeds were scattered all over the place.

“Is something wrong?” Sole asked confused, after hearing this shocked scream from Tagma.

“Everything is fine!” Tagma straight out lied as he began to collect the seeds from the ground hastily.

To make up for this, Tagma began to quickly stomp the seeds on the ground. The seeds were supposed to lie on the ground in a straight line but Tagma's line was all over the place and once the cucumbers would grow, everyone could see that.

But Tagma had no time to take care of that and continued his work. The next thing he was supposed to do was watering the seeds and the other vegetables. He grabbed a watering can and proceeded to swing it around the whole place. Sole could feel some water drops hitting him but he didn't say anything and proceeded to stay still on the bench.

The next step was to harvest some vegetables. Tagma was not sure which ones exactly he had to pull out so he just decided to rip everything out of the ground what he could see. Pumpkins, melons, cabbages, everything was flying around on the field and only in a matter of seconds. All the work that Sole put into this field was ruined.

Tagma just wished that by some miracle, Sole was not aware of all this. But as soon as he saw how a pumpkin was literally on Sole's head, making him look like as if his head was replaced by it, he feared the worst.

Sole's body was stiffening before he removed the pumpkin from his head. Soon he began to shake. Tagma noticed that and figured that Sole was probably getting angry at him for messing up all this time and causing him to fix all the mistakes that he made on the field. However, instead of shouting at him, Sole began to laugh uncontrollably.

Soon, he calmed down again but his voice was still filled with laughter and some giggles. “You have no idea what you are doing, huh?” He asked.

“Sorry...” Tagma apologized with a frown on his face, lowering his head in shame.

Sole began to walk up to the Changeling, not showing any anger or disappointment towards him. “It's okay, really. I have enough food stored in my cottage. It's not like you ruined anything,” Sole assured, calming Tagma down again.

The two then cleaned the mess that Tagma created together. Sole had no idea how the field looked right now so Tagma had to do most of the cleaning of course. Sole was taking all this way better then Tagma expected. He was not mad at all and forgave Tagma for all this.

As they continued to clean all this mess, Tagma started poking around if Sole was maybe letting him stay for a while. Of course, he didn't want to bother him anymore but the harsh truth was, that he had nowhere to go and Sole seemed like an okay guy so asking him was worth a shot.

But as soon as this was mentioned, Sole became a little more serious. “I don't think that's a good idea. I prefer to be alone. It's better that way,” he briefly explained.

Sole's mood changed a lot after that was brought up but he tried to change the subject. “What about your home? Your family? Don't you have a place to live to go back to?” Sole began to ask.

Tagma stopped his work for a moment and began to think. He couldn't explain where he was coming from. He would reveal that he was a Changeling. The moment where Sole would find out, he would either be scared or worse, he would try to scare him off.

The only thing Tagma could do, was replying briefly. “I have a home...but...I can't go back...” Tagma said a little hesitantly.

“Why?” Sole obviously questioned.

Of course, Tagma couldn't hide the truth forever. It felt wrong standing in front of Sole in his Changeling form and not telling him that he was one. If he would find out later, it would only get worse after all. It was no or never.

“Because...” Tagma started.

“Wait!” Sole then interrupted, scaring Tagma for a second. He walked up to Tagma and smiled at him. “It's not important. I can hear that things are a little more complicated. I don't want to open up some wounds just for the sake of curiosity. We all have a past. And the good thing about it is that we can choose to forget it if something happened that we are not proud of or something that we didn't want to remember,”

Tagma was thinking about those words but had some trouble to understand them perfectly. Forgetting that he was born a Changeling and that he was used by his own queen is not that easy. But he surely wanted to forget some of the bad times that he had there.

Sole could feel, the sudden mood change in Tagma and let out a little sigh before he said something that surprised the Changeling. “ You know...you created quite a mess...” he said, causing Tagma to feel embarrassed again. “I don't know exactly what you did to the field so I will need some help to fix all this...”

Tagma figured where this was going to and widened his eyes.

“I guess, it would be a nice change if you could live here for a while...” Sole then said as he rubbed his neck.

Tagma then jumped at the Pegasus happily, hugging him in the process but he let go after a second so that Sole would not realize that he was a Changeling. “Sorry...” he apologized because of this sudden hug.

“No problem...” Sole replied happily. “However, if you stay here, then you better do some proper work, instead of creating a mess,” he advised.

“O-of course!” Tagma saluted, taking this advice to his heart.

Times would change a little around the farm. It was not clear though if it was for the better or the worse. But at least, Tagma was not alone. And hopefully, nothing would come in his way to change that.

Unless...if someone would find him. One of the Changelings. Or another pony. He didn't like that he had to lie when it came to being a Changeling to Sole, especially since he showed so much kindness towards him. But at the moment, he just had to keep it hidden from him...


Meanwhile...


Three Changelings flew over Equestria. One of them was wearing a black armor and helmet. He was the commander of the two that followed him. In fact, it was the exact same Changeling that overlooked Tagma's first mission. The two Changelings behind him were the two that were on this mission as well.

All of them were sent to look for a traitor that escaped from the Changeling Kingdom. Tagma.

Equestria was big and filled with a lot of ponies. On top of that, no one really knew where he escaped to. But no matter how long it will take, the order came right from Queen Chrysalis herself. They could not return until they brought Tagma back or else they would get punished.

Still, the two Changelings seemed to have some concerns to deal with Tagma since they know how Tagma would end up again once he returned. Unlike most Changelings, those two actually knew exactly what was going on. Other Changelings were only barely filled in of what Tagma was exactly and why he was so important for the queen. That was most likely the reason why those three were assigned to this mission.

The Changeling Commander noticed the worry of the other two and remembered them that their behavior was wrong at this moment. "You better not think about holding back or anything," he started, making the two widen their eyes in fear for a moment.

“The mission is to bring back Tagma! Wherever he is or where he hides, we will find him and bring him back to the Kingdom. No matter what it costs, we will bring back this traitor!” The Changeling captain said determined, boosting the morale of the other two Changelings with fear.

However, despite saying those words, he also had to admit that he had one or two things that he was worried about. "You just couldn't obey your queen, huh? You were in a position to support all of the Changelings but instead, you ran away and abandoned us. For that, I will personally drag you back in front of the queen!" The commander said to himself to get himself pumped as well.

It didn't look like as if Tagma could enjoy his stay with Sole for much longer if those three would find him. The best thing would be of course if they would never find him at all.

But those chances were very slim...


To be continued...
> 5. The Thief - Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a dirt road in Equestria...


There were many dirt roads scattered around in Equestria. One of them was close to the capital, Canterlot and would lead to the east of Equestria. One Earth-Pony mare, wearing a saddle bag, was walking down the road to the west.  Her coat was blonde and her mane light red, tied to a ponytail, and a similar looking tail. Her eyes were light pink and her Cutie Mark was a brown sack. Coincidentally, she was holding an identical looking sack in one of her hooves, wearing a happy smile on her face.

"I can't believe that it was so easy," the mare said happily as she threw the sack up a few times, catching it immediately after. "Well, it does serve that pony right. I mean why was he trusting me so easily? Not even the other two ponies managed to notice how I stole this. It's only natural that somepony would be cautious if a pony like me would suddenly come around and started a conversation," she said as she shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, one's misfortune is one's luck, right?"

She started to count the bits inside of the sack slowly while grinning widely. She clearly had no regret, considering that she robbed somepony and only laughed happily. Her only focus was now on the bits in her hooves. Though she soon focused her eyes on the road again after she spotted somepony walking in the same direction like her from behind on the road. A blue coated stallion wearing a purple armor. She instantly recognized this pony as a member of Princess Celestia's Royal Guard. Though she never saw a purple armor before. Still, she got very excited at this sight.

"Oooh! Looks like another victim that begs to get his wallet loosen up a bit. Today must be my lucky day!" She said excitedly before she put the sack of bits inside of her saddlebag. "Royal Guard Members are paid really well. I can probably get double the bits that I got from before!" She said happily, grinning widely and already imagining that she will make the big money. In fact, she already planned her approach and closed her eyes in order to think while she continued walking. 

"I have been a fan of the Royal Guards for sooo long! What you guys do is so inspiring! You are the heroes of Equestria!" She practiced what to say to this guard, once he was close enough. "Yep! The innocent admirer tactic. Aaaand once his ego was fed like that and he looks away, his wallet will be mine!" She planned before she looked behind her on the road again.

Of course, the first thing she saw once she turned around, was that stallion, walking in her direction. However, he did seem to be a little closer than she expected. In fact, the pony kept coming closer really fast. Eventually, the mare figured out what was going on after taking a closer look. "Is he...running towards me?" She said confused.

He was running towards her. At full speed. His eyes were narrowed. His expression was serious. The mare saw that expression a lot of times now to understand what was going on.

"Oooooh..." she said after her realization. The next thing she did was turning around, running away as fast as she could in a panic. "This guy! He is trying to capture me!" She screamed in panic as she tried to run away from this guard. From time to time, she did look back to see how further away she was, only to realize that the pony was right on her tail, making her even more nervous. She figured that this pony, she stole from before, may have contacted the Royal Guards to look for her.

"Stop chasing me! I didn't steal anything!" She screamed toward the pony in hope that he would stop following her.

"So you are the thief!" The pony replied with a serious tone in his voice.

"Argh! Busted!" The mare then said in her frustration, figuring that she should have kept quiet.

The mare was an experienced thief. Running away was nothing new to her. Sooner or later, that pony would give up after he realized that he could catch up to her. Even if it would take some time.
Sooner or later...she kept telling herself...

But unfortunately for her, that moment didn't happen...


Later...


As much as she tried to run away from the stallion, the mare was captured in the end due to the loss of stamina that the stallion clearly had more than enough of. She was brought back to the pony that she stole that money from. Only this time, she was tied up so that she wouldn't do anything stupid again.

The stallion, in the meantime, was giving an elderly Earth-Pony his bits back who was standing next to a wooden cart. Two Earth-Pony stallions were waiting in front of it as well. They were most likely the ones who pulled the cart since the elderly farmer pony seemed a little too old to do the job on his own.

“Thank you very much,” the old farmer pony replied while repeatedly bowing in front of Fade out of gratitude. "Fade, was it? You saved me a lot of trouble," he added as he kept bowing to Fade out of thanks.

“It was nothing,” Fade replied modestly with an uncomfortable smile on his face, caused by the many "thanks" that the farmer pony gave him.

The elderly pony farmer was so thankful for the help of Fade that he even offered some bits as thanks. Of course, Fade did not accept it and stated that it was only natural for him to help somepony in need.

“I thought I would have lost the money that I need for my next visit to Filly Delphia. But then again, I expected nothing less from the Royal Guard of Princess Celestia,”

“I'm not really...” Fade started but then he stopped after realizing that it really was not this ponies business to know more about what happened recently.

But thankfully, this uncomfortable situation, from Fade's side, was interrupted by the captured mare. "Yes! We are all happy now and thankfully, nopony got hurt. So how about you let me finally go? I deeply regret stealing from this old pony," she said while she tried to make the most innocent face to fool Fade.

This was clearly an act. One that Fade saw through easily. "I'm not releasing you," he said while directly looking into her eyes with a bold expression on his face.

The mare got a little angry but behaved and just turned around and began sulking. Fade ignored that and kept talking with the farmer pony, who kept thanking him for his help.

"To come across a member of the Royal Guard at a time like this was truly a blessing," the farmer said. The more the word, Royal Guard was mentioned, the more Fade felt like telling him that he no longer is part of them because of the recent events. "Where are you heading to? I can take you along for a while," the pony offered as a thank for Fade's help.

The stallion considered to accept this offer. He needed to plan how things would go from this point on. Ponyville would have been a good start but the problem was, that it was a little too close to Canterlot. If he would try to hide there, then chances were high that he would come across some Royal Guards. Filly Delphia on the other hoof was a little further away, and since he was the Captain of the Royal Guards, he knew that rarely any guards were sent to this place. It would be a good start to head for this town for now.

"I...actually have some business in Filly Delphia so if it isn't too much trouble for you..."

The Farmer pony quickly cut Fade off. "Don't be ridiculous, it would be an honor. Though, I'm afraid that you have to get on the back of the cart with my wares,"

"That's no problem," Fade said before he dragged the mare with him on the back of the cart, much to her dislike who began to struggle a little. But it was nothing that Fade couldn't handle.

The two Earth Ponies in, in front of the cart began to pull the cart a few minutes after Fade and the mare went on it. They had to share some space with some vegetables but there was still enough room for both of them. Fade wasn't bothered by that and from the looks of it, the mare wasn't either. Even if she was, it seemed like she was way too busy glaring at Fade the whole time.

"Is something wrong?" Fade bluntly asked after noticing the stare that he was given to.

The mare kept glaring at him. "You know...nopony would notice if you let go now...All their backs are turned away from us so there is no reason for you to keep up all this knightly attitude up," she said, once again trying to somehow get released.

"I will not let you go," Fade replied, clearly not showing any signs that he was falling for this talk.

"And what do you intend to do with me? You can't just drag me around Equestria!" She complained before she widened her eyes after a rather abrupt realization. "Wait...is this your thing? Is this your way of asking out mares like that?" She then turned around and blushed. "I know I am quite a good catch but this is all too sudden. Even I think that it is necessary to go out to eat something first..."

Fade rolled his eyes. He was not sure if this was supposed to be some kind of act or if she was serious. Either way, Fade was not affected by this and replied accordingly. "I planned to bring you to the next town so that somepony could take care of you...so that I no longer have to," he bluntly explained.

"Meanie!" The mare replied after those words offended.

There was a rather long awkward pause after that. Not that there was much to talk about in the first place. A former Captain of the Royal Guard and a thief shared some space on a cart. There was not much common ground for them. Still, the mare decided to break the silence.

“Royal Guard, huh...no wonder that you wear this fancy armor...” she said as she inspected Fade further. "I don't think I ever saw a purple armor before. Are you special or something?" She asked, showing actual curiosity this time. Fade didn't say anything to that and hoped that her curiosity would die off quickly. But the mare would not let up so fast. "Come to think of it...why are you not bringing me to Canterlot? Isn't that were the Royal Guards are at? Why bringing me all the way to Filly Delphia? It's much further away," she said as she began to think for a moment.

Fade didn't like how quickly the mare was putting the pieces together. She was just some kind of thief so her finding out more about him would probably not be the biggest problem but in order to keep his head down from Princess Celestia and the Royal Guard, it would be safer if nopony would find out.

But it seemed to be too late for that. "I got it!" The mare almost shouted out after her realization. "The different colored armor! The reason why you are bringing me to Filly Delphia instead of Canterlot! It all makes sense now!" She said with a grin on her face as if she totally had figured out what was up with Fade. The stallion waited what exactly she found out and thought about what to do after that. "You are a new member!" She then added, much to Fade's surprise. "Yes! This armor is probably something that they give out for new recruits before they decided to give you the yellow one!" She then laughed a little. "And the reason why we are not returning to Canterlot is because you messed up big. You did some mistake that prevents you from returning so you are hiding until everypony forgets your mistake!"

It was impressive how the mare actually managed to come to this conclusion out on a whim. What was even more impressive was how half of what she said was actually right. Fade couldn't go back to Canterlot because of a mistake of some sort and he did intend to hide until things hopefully settled down.

"Something like that..." Fade replied. Of course, he couldn't just explain the details to her. Her guess was half right so he gave a rather vague answer that would hopefully make her stop thinking about this matter anymore and eventually, making her figure out the whole truth.

"Still!" The mare said annoyed. “Is it hammered down into your knight codex that “thou shall arrest every little criminal that walks upon thy way?” Or something like that?” She mockingly said.

“I'm not doing this because it was ordered but because I think it's the right thing to do,” Fade replied.

The mare didn't seem to be enjoying this conversation but she still kept it up. "What is right or wrong is often debatable. I'm a thief. So what? He is doing his work to earn some money and so do I. It just happens to be taking his money away. It's not like I am directly hurting anypony,” she said without a bother in her voice.

But Fade knew how to respond to that. “Just because you admit your dirty work, doesn't really make it sound better,”

The mare didn't seem to be bothered by those words and rolled her eyes. She clearly made no progress when it came to manipulating Fade to release her.

"There is something that I never understood about thieves..." Fade started, getting the mare to peel her ears after hearing the word "thief". "You seem to be smart and probably...skilled in certain areas. But instead of using those skills for something that could help other ponies, you decide to steal from them and make their lives harder,"

The mare did not seem to be affected by those words and shrugged her shoulders. "Some ponies are just destined to do what they are good at. I mean, just look at my Cutie Mark," she said before she tried to turn around a little to give Fade a look on her flank that showed a brown sack on it. "See that? I got this Cutie Mark after I stole some money from a pony for the first time and I never regretted it," she said almost proudly.

"So in other words, if I release you, you will keep continuing all this. You will continue to steal from other ponies," Fade said.

The mare didn't answer at first. Instead, she tried to turn the conversation around a bit. "As much as I love talking about me, how about we talk a little about you?"

"No," Fade instantly, replied bluntly.

The mare got angry and clenched her teeth. "Hey! Aren't you Royal Knight's supposed to be well mannered!? A lady answered your questions honestly and as soon as I want to ask questions you just say no!?" She exclaimed angrily as she jumped around the cart a little.

"I don't intend to answer your questions," Fade replied.

"But that's not fair!" The mare exclaimed.

"Well, I never said that I would tell you anything after you talked to me. I thought you were a professional thief. Shouldn't you have seen this coming?" Fade said in an almost smugly tone in his voice.

"Meanie!" The mare replied annoyed before she turned around angrily, making Fade face her back now. Talking with you is exhausting...” she said, finally giving up to get into a conversation that somehow ended up with her being free again.

Fade could have replied the exact same thing to her but he didn't.

"I think, now I am actually looking forward for you to drop me off in Filly Delphia," the mare added as she tried to make herself comfortable on the ground.

Fade looked at her with an emotionless expression on his face. He started to think why he bothered to even talk with her. Normally, a thief like her would not even make him wast his breath. But the thing was since he broke out of Canterlot's Dungeon, he hasn't talked with many ponies. Today was actually the first time he came across this farmer pony. He was probably happy that he could finally help somepony who was actually in some kind of trouble. It made him feel like as if he could still do good things, despite being probably hunted by the Royal Guard, right now.

Fade looked up at the sky and noticed that it began to get dark already. The farmer pony advised that he should get some sleep since it would probably take a little more time until they would arrive at Filly Delphia. After looking down again, he already noticed how the mare was trying to get some sleep.

He said that he would bring her to Filly Delphia so that she could be dealt with by the residents. However, when he said that, he was actually making that up on a whim. He tried to think why he did that in the first place. Maybe he needed someone to talk to so that he wouldn't go insane. Or maybe he wanted to keep her around because, in case he would lose control or anything, hurting a little thief was not too bad compared to innocent ponies who did nothing wrong. Whatever the reason was, there was one thing that he wanted to know before something like that happened.

"Hey. Are you already asleep?" Fade whispered.

The mare turned her head around and looked at Fade with her pink annoyed eyes. "Am I not even allowed to sleep now?" She asked annoyed.

Fade looked at her eyes and asked what he wanted to know. "What's your name?"

The mare seemed a little surprised and looked at Fade rather serious. "Really? You just now asking that? What does it matter if you know the name of a dirty thief like me?" She said before she turned her head around again, trying to get back to sleep.

Fade stayed quiet. It was true that he wasn't thinking too highly about her but right now, he realized that there was no reason for that. She was a prisoner for him. If he was still in the Royal Guard, he wouldn't even care. But he wasn't. He was nopony, right now. A pony who hurt his own men and escaped from prison because he was not ready to face the consequences. Because he still needed to find a way to get his daughter back.

But right now, he was no longer different than this thief in front of him. He was on his own now. And all he wanted was probably some company that would keep him from doing anything dangerous. No matter who it was, right now.

"My name is Fade," he said, introducing himself to the mare.

The mare did not reply at first. She attempted to turn her head around again but then decided not to. There was an awkward pause between the two of them for a while but the mare broke it and finally replied. "I'm Rosa," she introduced herself. "Nice to meet you," she added, though Fade didn't know if that was meant to be sarcastic or not.

Finally, Fade also decided to go to sleep. He began to close his eyes and hoped that he would not wake up with other Royal Guard members surrounding him or be in some sort of prison. However, trying to get to sleep was harder than expected on a moving cart so he decided until it got darker, in hope that this would help him to fall asleep.

In his boredom, his attention was then drawn towards the saddlebag that laid next to Rosa. He expected that there were other stolen things inside of it so he didn't look inside but now Rosa seemed to be asleep and Fade had to admit that he was a little curious to look inside. He grabbed the saddlebag and opened it. Thankfully, Rosa didn't seem to notice anything.

There was reasonable stuff inside of it, like food, bits, normal stuff that you need if you want to travel on your own, which was most likely what Rosa was doing. One object, however, stood out the most. It was a little red brooch in the form of a rose. Considering that thieves would usually steal money or sell their stuff to get money, it was a little surprising to see something this valuable in Rosa's bag.

Fade kept his eyes on this brooch but as soon as he saw some movement next to him, he immediately put it back inside. The movements came from Rosa. At first, Fade thought that she noticed how he was spying on her stuff but it turned out that she was still asleep and just turned around. Fade was relieved that he wasn't found out and went back to his corner.

But before he went back, he could hear Rosa whisper something in her sleep. One single word that kept him thinking for a second before he went to sleep himself.

"Mother..."


To be continued...
> 6. The Thief - Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun began to rise again...


Despite, traveling on a wooden cart, that was shaking through the whole trip, Fade actually managed to sleep through the night. Apparently, so did Rosa who was still sound asleep. There was no reason to wake her up. She was still tied up and couldn't move too much, she would probably prefer being asleep instead of spending time with Fade.

The farmer pony informed Fade that Fillydelphia was only about half a day away so Fade thought it would be best to relax for the rest of the day. He began thinking about what to do after he would arrive in Fillydelphia. To his frustration, he didn't know what would come after that. His only goal, for now, was to hide from the Royal Guards before they would capture him for attacking his own men or escaping the dungeon of Canterlot. Everything else didn't matter.

Fade closed his eyes for a moment but he opened them up again as soon as he noticed how something was flying over him, casting shadows on his face for a second. He looked forward to see what it was. It was something that he didn't want to see at all at this very moment.

"Oh, no..." Fade said after he spotted what was casting these shadows.

Royal Guards.

A bunch of Pegasus Royal Guards were flying over their heads and flew along the road. They seemed to be heading in the same direction than the wooden cart. They were heading towards Fillydelphia, probably looking for him, if he was hiding there. That must have been the reason.

Fortunately, those guards seemed to have missed the wooden cart on which he was on. Either that or they were just concerned about looking for him in Fillydelphia. Whatever it was, the farmer pony was heading towards Fillydelphia which was probably filled with Royal Guards looking for him by the time they would arrive. 

He had to get away. Now!

Meanwhile, Rosa was still sound asleep. 
She seemed to mumble some words while sleeping. 
She probably had a really nice dream...


Several Years ago...


A little further away from a little town in Equestria, there was a single house that was almost separated from the town. In front of it was a large garden filled with a flower-field where an Earth Pony mare was busy taking care of it. Her coat was bright purple and her mane was an even brighter purple. Her eyes were yellow and her Cutie Mark consisted of a dark purple bellflower.

The mare watered her flowers which consisted mostly of bellflowers but there were also a lot more others that were in this field. It was really colorful and the warm smile on the mares face made it only look prettier.

But soon, her smile faded away as soon as she saw how her daughter was dragged towards her by somepony who didn't seem to be happy at all. "Bella!" The stallion said in an annoyed tone his voice.

Bella released a long sigh. "Not again..." she said bothered as she placed her watering can on the ground and walked towards the stallion.

The stallion dropped the little filly on the ground who crossed her legs and began sulking. "Bella, you really need to watch over this little devil! She almost broke some of my stuff while she tried to get her woodwork Cutie Mark!" The stallion explained angrily. The Earth Pony stallion had a gray coat and a yellow mane. His eyes were blue and on his flank was a rasp.

"I'm very sorry, Rasp I'll keep an eye on her," Bella apologized.

The stallion sighed. "You always say that. You know I can't be mad at you but I also don't want to keep bringing your daughter back because of things like this," he said a little frustrated.

"I'm sorry for all the trouble that she is causing," Bella apologized once more before she patted her daughter, causing her to smile in reply. "She just wants to find her special talent. That's why she is doing all those things, in hope that one of them would give her a Cutie Mark,"

"Well, when I was younger, that didn't include causing other ponies problems," he complained while he looked at the little filly.

The little filly looked up at the stallion confused. "You were once young?"

The stallion made sure that he wouldn't snap because of that comment and instead clenched his teeth as he looked at the little filly as some kind of warning. He made sure that Bella would understand and left again.

Bella however, was not really good at scolding so Rosa's "punishment" was really short. Instead, she noticed the frown on Rosa's face and tried to think of a way to do something against that. "You know what? If you really want to figure out your special talent by doing something new, then I might have something,"

"Really?" Rosa replied excitedly as she jumped up and down on the spot.

However, instead of giving her something exciting, it was just a bouquet of flowers. "How about you deliver those flowers?"

"Delivering flowers? Boooring," Rosa replied, clearly not excited about this task.

Bella giggled. "It may not be the most exciting task, but who knows? Maybe you enjoy bringing other ponies flowers? I think, it's really nice once you see the smiles on the faces of others," she explained showing a smile on her face as well.

Rosa was still not very excited but she gave it a try. Her mother didn't punish her so it would be rather mean if she wouldn't at least give it a try as some kind of thanks.

Rosa soon found herself carrying the bouquet through the little town. While she walked through the town, she did notice how other ponies tried to avoid her as much as possible and gave her some glares. But Rosa was used to that and kept walking without paying attention to it too much.

Rosa arrived at the door of the pony's house and knocked on it. A few minutes later, a little colt opened the door. "Hello," he greeted Rosa a little surprised after seeing the bouquet of flowers in front of him with a filly behind it.

"I am supposed to deliver these flowers to you," Rosa said with a smile on her face as she presented the flowers in front of the colt.

The colt gabbed them with one of his hooves and sniffed at them for a moment. "They are so nice, thank you," he said with a smile on his face as well.

Rosa had to admit that her mother was right about one thing. Seeing the smile on this little colt truly was something special and made her feel happy. It was kinda weird how one simple act like that could make her feel like that.

Another pony stepped towards the door from inside, this pony was a taller mare, most likely the mother of this little colt. She looked at the flowers before her eyes wandered towards Rosa who still kept up a bright smile. However, her smile was not returned by the mare and instead there was a mean glare that made Rosa feel a little uncomfortable.

"Oh, it's you," the mare said bitterly, much to her son's confusion who had no idea what this was all about. Rosa was about to say something but the mare cut her off with a warning. "Stay away from me and my son!" She said angrily, moving her head towards the little filly. "I don't want a little brat like you around my family!" She added before she slammed the door shut in front of Rosa, leaving her with a sad expression.

Rosa stood there for a moment and tried to not get angry or anything before she turned around to go home again. On her way home, she once again noticed how every eye was focused on her.

"There she is..." some mare whispered to another mare.

"Yes...that girl from..." the other mare replied before she was cut off.

"Shh! Don't talk about that! I want to forget it!"

Rosa, of course, overheard that and got angry. Instead of waling, she was now running home. Tears tried to come out of her eyes but she refused them to come out. Her sadness turned to anger and she just wanted to go home and don't leave the house for the rest of the day.

Rosa's house was a little far away from the rest of the town so it took her a few minutes to arrive there. She was exhausted from all the running and proceeded to walk normally again. Her anger, however, was still present. "Stupid town," she said quietly in a sad voice. "How is it my fault that I am..." she started until she saw some ponies in front of her house talking with her mother.

One pony talked with Bella while two others seemed to stand guard for something. Rosa knew that approaching them head on would probably cause some trouble so she sneaked around from the side until she finally heard what they were talking about.

The stallion in front of Bella seemed angered by something and demanded an explanation but Bella smiled and didn't let herself be intimidated. "I still don't really understand what I have to do with all this," she said a little confused.

The stallion seemed a little annoyed but still kept his calm. "We were sent here by our boss to collect some...funds," he hinted at.

"But I am just a mare that grows and sells flowers," Bella replied keeping a smile up the whole time. "I think you can get more out of...literally everypony else..."

"Don't play me as a foal," the stallion replied, showing more signs of anger this time. "We know about your connection with our boss. That is why we are here," he added in a more threatening.

Bella's smile vanished and she looked more concerned all of the sudden. "If you know who I am, then you should also know that I have no part in the things that you do. In fact, I don't even think that your boss sent you here in the first place," she figured.

However, this kind of behavior made the stallion even angrier. "Listen, Bella!" He said as he moved closer to her in a very threatening way. "You should be glad that we are even allowing you to stay here without taking some more drastic measures!" He said as he stepped closer to her eyes as if he wanted to get violent any time now.

Then suddenly, the stallion began to scream "Ooouch!" and began to lift his front leg to find out that Rosa had her teeth stuck into his leg. "What the? What do you think you are doing?" He exclaimed angrily as he shook his leg so that Rosa would let go.

However, it was not until Bella helped to release her daughter from this stallions leg. The two guard who kept guarding in front of the house walked to the stallion's side to make sure that he was alright while also keeping a close eye on Rosa.

Naturally, the stallion was not all too happy about this incident. "Is that your daughter!? You should keep her on a leash or something!" He said angrily as he looked at the filly who just stick her tongue out.

Bella kept Rosa close to her so that she wouldn't do anything stupid again. Any mother would probably apologize for such a behavior of her daughter but given how the stallion and Bella did not seem to be on any good terms at all, this did not happen.

After consulting his little bite wound, the stallion got surprisingly calm again. "Whatever. It is not too important so we will give you some more time with the money. You better not waste it," the stallion advised before he turned around, walking away with his two fellow ponies and leaving Rosa and Bella alone.

What followed was some scolding from Bella's side. Something that Rosa already expected. She couldn't just watch how her mother was approached by this stallion like that and had to do something. Bella understood her daughter's action but she also didn't want her to get in any kind of trouble.

"Who were those guys? What did they want? And why did they know you?" Rosa asked.

Bella hesitated to answer at first but figured that she should explain things because he daughter might have an idea what this all could be about. "To put it simply...criminals,"

By now, Rosa knew what this meant and lowered her head. "So they were working for..." she started before she stopped in mid-sentence.

"Yes," Bella said, nodding in the process. "Your father," which made Rosa clenched her teeth just by hearing this word.

Apparently, before Rosa was born, this little town where they lived, was home to a famous thief. A thief that soon became the leader of a whole group of thieves that made a name in the underground of Equestria and managed to slip under the nose of even Princess Celestia herself. Rosa did not know too many details about what they did or why they were feared by the townsfolk. This was because Bella did not want her to hear those things. In fact, Bella did not want her to hear anything about all this but since Rosa was not stupid and noticed how the townsfolk's looked at her every day, soon the truth had to come out.

Because this thief was born in this town, ponies around knew about him and grew to fear him. But at the same time, the ponies of this town were safe since this pony loved his hometown.

But soon he found a bigger love.
Bella. 
The mare moved into this town and happened to come across this pony without knowing anything about him. Apparently, it was love at first sight and the two got married shortly after. Rosa was born and the famous thief stayed in town for a while but soon his "Thief business" was catching up to him, leaving both Bella and Rosa on their own.

Being the daughter of a dangerous thief like that always caught the attention of the town folks. They were afraid that Rosa would end up like him as well and because of that, she was always greeted with glares of distrust. Rosa was certainly not happy about this and blamed her father for being a criminal and leaving her and her mother alone as well as for making all the town folks hate her.

Remembering all those things was enough for Rosa to plainly not caring about those three ponies from before. It was not like her mother would have filled her in anyway. She just wanted her daughter to be safe and far away from trouble. She would have to take care of things eventually.

Still, Bella did not like to see her daughter with a frown on her face whenever it came to her husband so she decided to do something against it. She walked up to a drawer and grabbed something out of it. She then walked back to her daughter. "Here, take a look at this," she said as she presented her a little red brooch in the form of a rose.

"A brooch?" Rosa wondered.

Bella formed a bright smile. "Your father gave me this brooch when he asked me to marry him," she shared with a huge smile on her face.

Rosa actually had a hard time to get angry seeing her mother smiling like this and remained silent. Her mother then took the brooch and put it in Rosa's mane, much to her confusion. "What are you doing?" Rosa said confused, unaware of what her mother was doing at this point.

Bella then stepped back a few steps to take a look at Rosa with the brooch in her mane and giggled. "It looks good on you," she said happily. Rosa did feel a little uncomfortable to have something from her father and thought about some way to remove the brooch without hurting her mother's feelings. "Did you know that you were named after this?" Bella then added, causing Rosa to look in surprise. "It's a rose. When you were born, you had this red mane so we decided to call you Rosa. Rose was also a possibility but we thought that would be too obvious," Bella added as she sticks out her tongue a little embarrassed.

While this was certainly a cute story, it only made one question appear in Rosa's head.
"Why did dad left us alone?" She asked with a frown on her face.

Bella frowned as well. But soon, she began to pat her daughter's head and smiled again. "To protect us," she simply said before she walked away from her without any further explanation.

The matter was just left like that. No more explanation or questions. Rosa decided to wear this brooch from now on just because her mother seemed to be happy about this. It felt complicated when it came to Rosa's father. She did want to know a fair amount about him but at the same time, she didn't care too much as well. It was such a bother that Rosa decided to not think about it anymore this day.


Some days later...


It was only a matter of time until those sneaky ponies from before would visit Bella and Rosa again. This time, Rosa was not allowed to do anything rash so she just stood behind her mother. Unfortunately, the conversation didn't seem to go too well just like last time.

It was the same stallion like before who angrily discussed the matter with Bella. "So you are telling me that you still don't have enough money?" He asked bluntly.

Bella was replying rather calmly. "I think, we still haven't really cleared what this was even about. I don't think that I have any business with you. On top of that, I don't think you can make much money out of a flower pony," she said rather smugly.

"Feeling really smart, huh?" The stallion replied with a serious expression on his face.

The stallion's eyes wandered over to Rosa for a moment, making her feel rather uncomfortable in response. His eyes widened as soon as he spotted a little thing in her mane. "This brooch..." he said interested as he closed up to the filly until Bella placed her leg between the two of them. "You know, this brooch looks pretty valuable. I could take that instead of bits," he offered.

Just hearing that made Rosa clench her teeth in anger. She began to glare at the stallion, who could not care less about her expression at all and waited for a response from Bella.

It didn't take long until Bella replied. "Alright," she said with a sad tone in her voice.

"Huh?" Rosa then said confused as she looked at her mother.

"But after that, you will leave us alone, right?" Bella demanded.

"Yeah, I guess," the stallion replied, which actually sounded truthful enough that somepony could believe it.

"Then that's settled," Bella said before she turned towards her daughter reaching out her hoof so that Rosa could give her the brooch. To Bella's surprise, Rosa did not seem to want to give it to her. "What's wrong?" Bella asked surprised.

Rosa covered the brooch and stepped away a little. "I don't want to give the brooch to this guys!" She said protective of her brooch.

Bella only reacted even more surprised. "I thought you didn't like it because it was fro your father,"

Rosa did not reply to this and kept covering her brooch with a sad expression on her face. Bella did notice that Rosa was wearing the brooch every day since she gave it to her and was happy about it but she didn't realize that it was actually important to her.

"Ahem," the stallion then said, still waiting that somepony would give him the brooch anytime soon.

Bella kneeled down to met her daughter eye to eye and whispered some words to her. "Rosa, my dear. Do you want us to be happy? Do you want us to live a good and happy life?" She asked quietly.

Rosa nodded. "Of course, I want us to be happy," she replied a little hesitantly.

Bella grabbed Rosa's shoulders with her hooves. "This brooch is very important to me but you are even more important. If it means to protect you then this thing means nothing to me. You understand that, right?" She said as she smiled the whole time.

Rosa looked over to the three ponies one more time and thought carefully about this situation one more time before she finally nodded and removed her brooch from her mane, giving it to her mother afterward. Bella was about to give it to the stallion but she pulled her hoof away right before he could grab it. "If I'll give you this, you will leave us alone, right? Your boss will know the value of this so there is no more need for you to demand any more money, right?" Bella said in an almost professional way, causing the stallion to actually get worried about it for a second.

The brooch was then given to the stallion, who inspected it a little further. "Yes, I think that should be enough," he said before he signaled one of his other two companions to walk closer to him with a little sack in his mouth. He opened the sack and what Rosa saw inside of it shocked her.

The sack was full of bits, diamonds, and other pretty valuable looking stuff. Stuff that looked way more expensive than the brooch that they just got. The stallion threw the brooch casually inside of this sack as if it was just some kind of coin. This made Rosa's blood boil, causing her to walk towards the stallion angrily.

"You got to be kidding me!?" She exclaimed as she pulled his leg in the process. "You already got all this expensive stuff and you still demand to take more from us!?"

"Rosa! Stop!" Bella said in order to stop her daughter from doing anything stupid.

The stallion was tying up the sack again and shook Rosa off from his leg, not even bothering to even reply to that as he walked away from the two, minding his own business again. Rosa would have liked nothing more than going up to him and say what was on her mind but her mother holds her back to prevent exactly that.

The stallions were out of sight and Rosa looked up to her mother, only seeing how she was shaking her head frustrated. "I know how you might feel in this situation but you also should think about your actions before you do something like this," Bella advised.

Rosa looked away and moved her eyes towards the direction where the three ponies left to, forming an angry expression. "Ponies like them...they took something important away from us without any regret...I'll never forgive ponies like them," she said as she narrowed her eyes in anger. She then raised her hoof a little and looked at it. "That is why I took this..."

Bella looked shocked into Rosa's hoof after she noticed what she was holding in it. It was the brooch that the three stallions took away from her.
How did she get it back?
When did she take it back?
Those were questions that swirled around Bella's head after seeing the brooch.

Rosa's hoof began to shake. "This brooch was so important to you and they took it just like that! I don't care if they come back! I don't care what they do, once they figure it out! I will take this brooch back again as much as it takes!" She said determinedly.

Suddenly, a bright light engulfed Rosa. She looked around to figure out what was happening. It looked familiar to Bella and she had an idea what was happening at the moment but she still kept quiet and waited. Rosa soon began to levitate above the ground, still being surrounded by this light. This was going on for a few more seconds until an even brighter light came from her for a second. After that, the light stopped and Rosa landed safely on the ground again.

"What just happened?" Rosa asked as she held her head with her hoof, feeling as if the world was spinning.

Bella, by now, knew what happened and advised her daughter to turn around to take a look at her flank. It didn't even take a second until Rosa realized what that meant. She grinned and looked at her flank and saw exactly what she was expecting. A Cutie Mark.

"A Cutie Mark! A Cutie Mark! Finally!" She said excitedly as she jumped up and down happily.

Her Cutie Mark was a brown sack. It almost looked like the sack that the stallion from before held in his hoof but at this very moment, Rosa didn't care about that and continued to be happy about getting her Cutie Mark.

Her mother smiled and congratulated her daughter for that. She began hugging her and Rosa returned the hug. Of course, this had to be celebrated so they went inside to plan a little party. Of course, since Rosa was always looked at as the daughter of a famous thief, there were not many ponies attending the party. But Rosa didn't care much about that.

However, while seeing her daughter happy like this, Bella couldn't stop thinking about what this Cutie Mark meant. A brown sack...like the one she stolen from to get the brooch back...Bella just had a bad feeling thinking about this.


A few days later...Early in the morning...


Bella was walking outside of the towns with a saddlebag on her back and a sad expression on her face. Before she was almost outside of the town, the stallion that was used to bring back Rosa to her, whenever she was causing trouble to the town walked up to her. Of course, he asked what exactly she was doing with a filled saddlebag on her back but he also had some kind of clue what exactly was going on. Bella filled him in about the three stallions that demanded money from them and he also knew who they were and who most likely sent them. With all this information, he puzzled together what Bella was up to.

"You really think this is the best?" Rasp asked concerned, actually showing some sympathy for Rosa. "What if they come and take Rosa away?"

"They won't..." Bella replied. "I don't think that they came for the money..."

"You think they are after?" The stallion started to figure out, widening his eyes in the process.

Bella only nodded quietly before she attempted to walk away again. But before she walked completely outside of the town, she turned around one more time to look at the stallion. "Please...take care of her for a while..." Bella said before she turned her head around again before she walked away.

The stallion nodded only silently as he watched Bella leaving the town for good. He was aware of Rosa's Cutie Mark and realized that her destiny came very close to that of her father's. Maybe that was one of the reasons why Bella left. But Rasp was in no position to think about those things. It was not his business. At least, that's what he thought.


A few hours later...


Rosa just woke up and climbed down from her bed. Normally, he mother would wake her up if she was sleeping for this long. Wondering where her mother was, Rosa walked around the house to find her but she had no luck. She looked everywhere but there was no sign from her mother. It was weird how silent it was.

Eventually, she figured that her mother was delivering some flowers to somepony somewhere in the town so she stayed home for a while and tried to kill some time. But her mother was not coming home for a while now. Soon, Rosa began to worry a little about this and stepped outside. She was about to open the door but she spotted something on the ground right in front of it. A letter laid on the ground. Of course, she picked it up and read what it had to say. But what she was about to read was definitely not what she wanted right now.


Dear Rosa...

It's me...your mother...

Before you read any further, let me tell you that you are the most important pony in my life.
I love you more than anything in this whole wide world. The last thing I want is ruining your chance of living a normal and happy life or putting you in danger.

That is why I have to go...I have to go away from you...so that your life can continue.

I'm sorry that I can't give you any more details but please understand that I am doing this for you.
You may hate me after reading this. You might cry and don't know how to react to this. But please...don't go out and look for me. Live your own live Find your happiness. Try to find friends that accept you for who you are. Do what want to do with your life. Be happy.

Maybe one day you will understand why I had to do this and laugh back at it. I know that you won't break out from something like this for long. You are strong. Far stronger then I was at your age. You don't need me.

Live...my dear...

Live...


Tears began to run down Rosa's cheeks. She dropped the letter on the ground. Rosa charged out of the house in denial and hoped to get some answer. She opened the door and tried to charge right to the town but landed on the ground after she ran right into somepony.

"Uncle Rasp," Rosa said with tears running down on her face.

The stallion gave her a frown but he was not waiting in front of her house for nothing and began to get to the point. "You are not following her," he said with a very serious tone in his voice.

Rosa could have asked how he knew about that but at that moment she was way too sad to care about it. There were more questions in her head that she could count. She wanted answers so so badly. And she wanted them now. But right now, all she could do was jump into Rasp in hope for some comfort. Of course, Rasp was kind enough to give her the comfort that she was looking for and hugged her back.

Deep down, Rosa thought about the letter. To an extent, she knew that her mother had something to do with those three ponies that visited them. She left because she wanted to protect her daughter. There must have been a reason. Maybe the stallions were about to do something terrible to Rosa. Whatever it was, there was nothing that Rosa could do now. She was just a little filly that just got her Cutie Mark. So all she could do is what her mother wanted her to do...

Living her own life...


Back in the present...


It was shaking a little. Like on a boat. Up and down.
Rosa began to open her eyes. She saw a grass field that moved up and down. After she was about to be fully awake, she noticed that she was carried by somepony. Fade was carrying her on his back as he walked over this grass field.

"What the!?" She exclaimed confused as soon as she got a full grasp of the situation.

"Oh, you're awake," Fade replied as soon as he noticed how Rosa was awake now.

Rosa then began to struggle. Fade was about to let her down but the mare struggled so much that she accidentally dropped on the ground herself. "Ow! Careful!" She complained, making it sound like as if it was Fade's fault.

Fade kept a bland expression while Rosa kept jumping up and down on the ground. She was still tied up and looked like a fish that was out of the water. It looked weird, to say the least, but Fade kept a normal expression where everypony would probably laugh, right now.

"Wait! Where is my bag!?" Rosa then asked in worry, making her look all over the place.

"It's right here," Fade replied as he threw the bag right in front of her face.

Rosa let out a relieved sigh and calmed down again. It was now time to ask the more important questions. "Why are we in the middle of nowhere? What happened to that farmer and his cart?" She began to ask.

Fade explained. "I saw members of the Royal Guards flying towards Fillydelphia. If we stayed in that cart, then they would have found us eventually so we needed to get away,"

Rosa formed a disbelieving expression on her face. "You mean, you?" She said, causing Fade to look back in surprise. "You did something that forces you to flee from them, not me! So there is no reason for you to drag me around with you!" She pointed out annoyed turning around with an offended expression on her face.

Fade looked away, frowning. He was aware that he had no right to drag her around, even if she was a thief. He didn't even think about it when he grabbed her as he escaped from the cart. The plan was to bring her to Fillydelphia so that somepony could deal with her but now that he couldn't get to this town because of the Royal Guards, this was no option anymore.

"You're right..." Fade then said before he walked up to Rosa. His horn began to glow and the ropes around Rosa were moving while being surrounded by the same light. The ropes began to loosen up and Rosa was free again.

The mare looked at Fade to her surprise of his sudden action. "Finally," she said before she began to stretch her legs a little. "So you realized that dragging me around was pointless, huh?" She guessed smugly. Fade didn't answer and just looked away. Rosa still remembered how she guessed that Fade did something bad that would prevent him from going back to Canterlot so she tried to poke around a little to find out what Fade seemed to be so upset about. "You know, I am just some thief so it's probably not that bad if you tell me about those things that you did. I can probably top them," she said, again smugly.

Fade actually considered telling someone about the things that happened. Maybe then he would no longer feel so alone. Rosa was right. She was just some thief. That's how he saw her. He could care less about what she would think about him. But more importantly, he needed somepony to talk to.

"I can't go back..." Fade said quietly.

Rosa rolled her eyes. "Yes, we already got to that point. Would you mind explaining me why?" She poked around further, trying to get a better answer out of him. Not that she was so drilled to know what happened.

Fade looked directly into Rosa's eyes with a serious expression on his face. "To protect my daughter..."

Rosa seemed to be caught off guard by those words and looked a little flustered. But soon, she got a little angered by this, even if she didn't show it from the outside. "Is she in Canterlot? How are you protecting her if you stay away from her?" She said offended as if this matter was hitting her on a personal level.

Fade didn't understand why Rosa acted like this all of the sudden but he explained further. "It's complicated. The way I am right now is not safe for her. And putting her in danger is the last thing I want," he said as he looked at his own hoof with a frustrated look on his face.

Those words seemed to strike Rosa even further. She did not remember what she was dreaming before she woke up but she did remember the letter that her mother wrote before she left. Up until now, she tried to forget it most of the time, following her own path and living her own life. She didn't like how Fade remembered her of this day but at the same time, she felt like as if she could not leave him.

"Alright then!" Rosa said in a cheerful tone. "Then where are you heading to? Because from the looks of it, you don't make the impression as if you know much about traveling," she said provocatively. Fade was about to object this but Rosa continued shortly after. "That's where I come in! Let's stick together for a while. See it as thanks for letting me go," she added with a happy smile on her face.

Fade smelled a trap. She was acting way too cheerful all of the sudden.  There was no way to tell what was going on in this mare's head after all. But was Fade ready to be on his own again? Maybe he needed somepony around to keep him busy. Is that why he dragged her along with him?

The two looked at each other. Fade's face was colored in concern while Rosa's was filled with optimism and cheerfulness. The silence became a little awkward after a while so Fade spoke up the next best thing in his mind.

"You will probably get into trouble if you accompany me," Fade warned.

"I can handle some trouble," Rosa smugly replied accompanied with a grin on her face.

Fade then walked away and offered the mare to follow her. If she offered to accompany him, then there was no way that he would decline it. He needed somepony to talk to, even if it was a thief. But Fade was in no position to talk down to her. If a thief was considered bad for him, then what would make that him? The one who attacked his own soldiers and was corrupted by dark magic?

Rosa's thoughts were a lot different. She didn't see the danger that she was following, right now. All she thought about was what was going on in his head. And why he would think that his daughter would be happy if her father was not around...


To be continued...
> 7. Escaping Destiny
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun was about to go down in the distance, covering Sole's farm in shadows. Even though Sole was not able to see, his inner clock was telling him that it was getting late so he put away his tools and end work for today. Still, he peeled his ears after he heard noises coming from the farm. The noises came from Tagma who was still watering some vegetables and planting some seeds into the ground. Some of the noises also included some heavy panting noises which only got more of Sole's attention.

"I think we did enough for today," Sole said while he walked towards Tagma with a thankful smile on his face.

Tagma reacted to those words and placed his tools away as well. He still wanted to do some more work but at the same time, he was relieved that he could call it a day now since he was very exhausted and after looking up to the sky, he realized that it would probably a bad idea to work in the dark.

The two walked over to a bench and rested for a moment. Tagma looked up at the sky and watched the stars casting a light down at them. "I'm so done!" Tagma said as he stretched his legs a little.

"Well, you shouldn't have done more work than you can handle," Sole advised a little concerned but hidden under a smile. "I know I said that you have to work here if you want to stay but doesn't mean that you have to work yourself down to the bone,"

Tagma rubbed his neck out in embarrassment and just smiled like a colt that was just mildly scolded by one of his parents.

The two sat on the bench that was in front of Sole's little house and just relaxed. Of course, they did talk about some minor stuff but mostly, they just kept quiet and listened to the noises around them. The wind was blowing through the vegetables. Both of them could hear that and it helped them to relax even more.

Tagma closed his eyes so that he could listen closely to the noises around him. "I bet the sky looks really nice right now," Sole then said, finally breaking the silence between the two and causing Tagma to look at the pony next to him who looked up to the sky, unfortunately, unable to see the sky.

Tagma almost wanted to say that it wasn't anything special so that Sole would not feel too bad about not seeing it but Sole continued before Tagma could reply. "The sound of the wind is so relaxing. Hard to think that the night with all its darkness can be so calm. But darkness has some hidden beauty in it that most probably don't understand.
But for me...It's the true face of this world..."

Tagma didn't know how to reply to those words. They were surprisingly deep words coming from Sole. He only looked over at him with a confused expression on his face and was kinda afraid to reply to add something to this.

"Hey, how about we take it a little slow tomorrow? Normally, it takes me longer to get my work down but with you helping me, I and you, of course, can actually afford to take a break every once in a while. We could have some fun tomorrow," Sole suggested with a smile on his face.

Of course, Tagma would like that so he agreed to that idea. Still, he had the feeling that for this kind of kindness that Sole showed him, he should even do more to repay him. This made him think about something that was bothering him since he was allowed to stay, one week ago.

One week. One week and he still didn't tell him that a Changeling was living with him this whole time. The longer he would stay with Sole, the harder it would get to bring out the truth. But that was exactly what Tagma was afraid of. Ponies and Changelings can't get along just like that. Changelings steal love from ponies and hurt them. This made Changelings enemies of Equestria. Sole most likely was aware that Changelings exist and what they do. At least that's what Tagma thinks. They never came across talking about this so far.

"You're awfully quiet...is something the matter?" Sole asked, concerned, noticing that Tagma was a lot quieter than usual.

Tomorrow, the two agreed to have a day off and spend some time to have fun. But how can he have fun with someone who didn't know the truth about Tagma? Someday it will come out. Maybe even tomorrow. Sole was generous enough to let Tagma stay but all he did was keeping a secret that he was a Changeling. Sole would have never agreed to let him stay if he knew the truth. As far as being a Changeling goes, Tagma was really far away when it comes to that. He doesn't want to deceive ponies to rob them off of their love. But it looks like he couldn't even get that exactly right.

What if somepony else decided to drop by the farm?
What if somepony somehow tells Sole the truth?
No matter how short the time he spent with this pony was, he still saw Sole as a friend.
A friend that he didn't want to hurt.
The truth had to come out.
Now.

"Sole..." Tagma started, causing Sole listen closely since he noticed how shaky Tagma's voice was. "There is something I need to tell you. You have been so good to me...but I was not completely honest with you all this time. I don't think you want to have fun with someone like me... "

"Someone like you?" Sole asked confused, not sure what Tagma was getting at. "Why would I not have fun with you?"

There was a silence. It was still hard to get those words out and Tagma even considered to change the subject but he couldn't get back now. No matter what happens next, no matter what Sole would do after that, Tagma only wanted to be honest with the only pony that offered his friendship to him.

"Because...I'm a Changeling..."

There was a piercing silence after those words. Tagma didn't say anything after that and clenched his eyes shut, waiting how Sole would react to that big of an information. Tagma could only imagine what his friend would think about him now or what he would do to him. Fear, uncertainty and a whole more of other emotions raised up inside of Tagma who was still waiting for a response.

The Changeling looked over to Sole who was looking at him directly with a blank expression under his blindfold. Finally, Sole spoke up in a rather surprising casual way. "Yeah, I know..." he simply said.

"Huh!?" Tagma replied heavily confused, widening his eyes in the process. "You mean, you know that I was a Changeling!?" He asked more confused than he was ever before in his life.

"Uh...yeah....that's what I meant with, I know," Sole replied, again very casually as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Tagma was still not sure how to react to this, even though it should have been the other way around. "Since when? And how?" He then asked.

"Since the first time I met you," Sole replied, making Tagma drop his jaw in confusion. "As for how...well, Tagma is not a very pony-like name so I was already playing with the thought that you would be something else. Sooner or later it just became really obvious," he explained, again very casual as if it was completely normal.

Tagma could only think about his commander who was scolding him for not being very good at deceiving ponies. Not to insult Sole, but it made it even worse that he couldn't even deceive a blind pony. This made Tagma actually a little sad.

"So you...don't mind that I am a Changeling?" Tagma then asked as he tried to process all this.

Sole pointed to his yellow blindfold "I'm blind. I couldn't care less how you look like, to be honest," he said with a smile on his face.

"But Changelings suck out the love of other ponies! Ponies are afraid of us!" Tagma explained.

"You didn't try to steal any love from me so there is no reason for me to be afraid, right?" Sole simply replied.

What Sole said left Tagma completely stunned. He didn't know what else to say and dropped to his knees in defeat. "And all this time I felt bad for not telling you this. I thought that as soon as you find out, you will send me away or worse," suddenly, Tagma realized something. "Wait. At first, you didn't want me to stay! but at this point, you already knew that I was a Changeling. Is that why you didn't want me to stay?" Tagma then asked.

Sole seemed to be caught off guard by this question. "No. That really wasn't the reason for that..." he replied before he turned his head away from Tagma. There was a short silence after that. Of course, Tagma wanted to find out the reason but after Sole so casually accepted the fact that he was a Changeling, he felt like that it was asking a little too much. Still, Sole continued.
"Well, since you were so honest with me, I guess I can tell you something about me as well," he said before he stood up from the bench.

Sole walked over in front of Tagma as if he wanted to present himself to him. "I'm not sure how familiar Changelings are with Cutie Marks. Every pony has a different one and it appears as soon as we find out our special talent or our destiny..."

Tagma immediately looked at Sole's flank. There was a yellow lightning bolt surrounded by a black circle. Tagma had no idea what this could even remotely mean so he waited for Sole to explain it.

And that's exactly what he did. "I haven't seen my Cutie Mark for a long time but it should be a black circle, trapping a lightning bolt, right?"

For some reason, the way how Sole described his Cutie Mark got Tagma thinking.
A lightning bolt surrounded by a black circle.
A lightning bolt trapped by a black circle.
Maybe Tagma put too much thought into that but he had the feeling that Cutie Marks were probably slightly more complicated than he initially thought.

Sole continued. "Ponies are bound to the destiny represented by their Cutie Marks. Normally," Sole paused. He actually found it quite difficult to explain this. "I don't really feel too comfortable with this thing on my flank," he said a little more bitter this time.

Tagma was confused. "Why? What is your destiny supposed to be?" He asked.

Sole took his time to answer. Tagma could feel that it was hard for Sole to share this with him. And after he continued, he knew why.

"I got this Cutie Mark after I betrayed my best friend..."

After hearing that, Tagma's eyes widened in shock. Sole didn't continue and Tagma had the feeling that he didn't want to know much more details but Sole continued anyway.

"I did a lot of things that I am not proud of...the thing that caused me to get this Cutie Mark is one of them. My Cutie Mark even reminds me that it is what I am destined to do. Betraying others," he explained before he turned his head towards Tagma. "Do you get what I am saying? I live here on my own so that I can prevent that. That is why I don't think...think that it is a good idea for you to stay here for too long. Because it will only be a matter of time until I betray you as well..."

Tagma didn't know how to react to this. And here he thought that he was hiding something really big from him. But the way how things are now, some would suspect that Tagma would be the one to run away now. 
But how could he? He was in absolutely no position to judge Sole after keeping secrets as well. Especially, since Sole did accept him the way he is now and not the way he is supposed to be.

Tagma got up from the bench and walked next to Sole. There was only one thing for Tagma to say."As a Changeling, I don't really get this Cutie Mark thing completely. But I do know one thing!" He said almost excited while grabbing Sole's shoulder. "You are my friend and you didn't judge me because I was a Changeling. It would be kinda mean if I judge you for something that you did long ago, right?" He explained with a smile on his face which Sole, unfortunately, didn't saw.

"But my destiny..." Sole started before he was quickly interrupted by Tagma.

"I'm a Changeling. I don't think those Cutie Mark things don't really apply to me," he said, again with a smile on his face.

Sole felt a lot better after those words and smiled as well. He may even be tearing up under his blindfold. "Thanks, Tagma. And...you are my friend too," he replied happily before the two hugged each other.


The next day...


It was still early in the morning. The sun was barely up at this moment. Still, both Tagma and Sole were already up. As planned, the two were not going to work today but decided to spend the day by having some fun. However, neither Tagma or Sole knew what to do.

Tagma was outside and looked over the farm, in case if there was still something to do. Sole was still inside but soon walked outside as well with something that Tagma didn't really want to hear.
"It looks like there is still something to do," he said with a frown on his face.

Tagma looked disappointed. "What?" He quickly asked so that it could quickly be taking care of.

"We are lacking some firewood. There is barely enough for today if it gets colder at night. I need to go to a nearby forest to get some," Sole explained before he walked over to a small wooden, where he planned to place the firewood inside.

"Wait!" Tagma then said hastily as he ran over to Sole. "I'm going!"

"Are you sure?" Sole asked a little worried.

"I have no idea what we should do today so you can take care of that while I take care of the firewood! We should have plenty of time left after that!" Tagma explained determined to take care of this task.

Sole first wanted to talk him out of that but if there was one thing that he learned, then that Tagma could work really hard and quick if he wanted to. There was probably no way to talk him out of that either. "Alright," Sole then agreed.

Tagma pulled the cart behind him and walked down to where Sole told him to. He could actually see the forest already. It was not too far away and with this many trees, it shouldn't take too long until he was finished collecting some firewood.

As Tagma was walking away from Sole, the Pegasus Pony looked up to the sky which was ironic since he couldn't see and his eyes covered by a blindfold. Something seemed to grab his attention. As if there was something bad in the air, not a smell but rather...a feeling.

"Tagma..." Sole said, grabbing the Changeling's attention who was not too far away. Tagma turned around and wondered what Sole wanted from him. But Sole only said one thing.
"Be careful..."

"Uh...yeah...I will..." Tagma didn't know what to say to that and continued walking towards the forest.

Sole walked inside of his house and prepared something to eat for Tagma's return. Still, there was this feeling that something bad was about to happen. Or something bad already did. It caused Sole to get a little more cautious.

Of course, Tagma would not return right away, the forest was not that close after all but Sole walked outside for a moment. That is when the bad feeling grew stronger and took form of three Pegasus Ponies landing right in front of Sole.

One of them was a Pegasus mare with a white slightly gray-blueish coat color, a long dark blue mane, a long tail, orange eyes and a Cutie Mark consisting of three red sevens right next to each other.

The second was a Pegasus stallion with a white coat, a blonde mane with a red stripe on the side, a short blonde, a red tail, light blue eyes and a goatee. His Cutie Mark was a musical note with a brush and a pencil in front of it.

The third was a Pegasus mare and stepped towards Sole. She had an emerald-colored coat, an orange and yellow colored mane, light blue eyes and a rain cloud with a yellow lightning bolt coming out of it as a Cutie Mark. This pony was the only one to approach Sole. "Hello," she simply said with a cheerful attitude.

Sole was aware that she was not the only one around. He guessed that there were at least three ponies around. "What can I do for you?" He asked slightly suspicious.

The green coated mare was a little surprised by Sole's blindfold and raised her eyebrows but she still cut to the case real quick. "You may not see us right now but there are three of us. And we want to know if you saw anything or anyone suspicious around here when you were not wearing this thing around your eyes. For example...a Changeling?" she asked a little smugly.

Sole replied casually. "I never take my blindfold off. And even if I would, I'm blind so it wouldn't make a difference," he explained. "But..." he then said in more serious tone. "If it's a Changeling you are looking for..." he then said before he paused for a moment, grabbing the three ponies attention.


Meanwhile...


"Alright! That should be enough!" Tagma said as he looked over a huge pile of firewood that was inside of the wooden cart that was completely empty a while ago. The only thing that was a little off that all the wood pieces were very clumsily cut, obviously because they were cut very hastily so that Tagma cold spent time with Sole soon. "It's gonna burn anyway so there is no need for it to look pretty," he figured before he was about to return to the farm, dragging the cart behind him.

While being on his way, Tagma was thinking about how to spend the day with Sole. He didn't have much time thinking about it while chopping the wood. But it looks like as if he wouldn't have too much time now either.

"Found you!" A female voice shouted from above his head, which soon revealed herself as the green coated female Pegasus pony that confronted Sole earlier. Soon, the two other ponies, who were with her, landed right behind Tagma.

Since Tagma was not transformed, he felt like as if he was in some trouble now. Still, it was weird that three ponies ambushed a Changeling. Normally it would be the other way around.

After paying some more attention towards the two ponies behind him, he soon understood who he was dealing with. The two ponies behind him were the same ones that the two Changelings on his first mission turned into. "Wait. Are you?" Tagma then guessed as he looked at the mare in front of him.

The mare smiled. Shortly after, she was surrounded by green flames. The two ponies behind Tagma did the same and all three of them revealed themselves to be Changelings. In fact, it was the three Changelings that Tagma spent his first mission with. The mare in front of him turned into the Changeling commander who had him thrown into the chamber back then in the Changeling Kingdom. He was also indirectly responsible for Tagma being imprisoned by Queen Chrysalis.
Maybe anyone else would have a hate towards him for that but Tagma was only thinking about how to escape right now.

"So you were living on this farm the whole time, instead of coming back to the Kingdom? Just come with us to the Kingdom so that you can continue with what you were destined to do!" The Changeling Commander threatened, reminding Tagma that chances are not in his favor right now.
Hearing the Changeling speaking of the farm got Tagma's full attention and he became worried about Sole. "Still, I'm a little surprised that you managed to live there on your own or did you deal with the pony who used to live there? That would actually be some good news," the Changeling Commander complimented.

Tagma got confused by those words. "You were at the farm? Did you do something to Sole?" He asked worriedly.

This time it was the commander who got confused. "What are you talking about? I just asked you if you dealt with the pony that lived there because there was no pony there!"

Tagma was not sure if the commander was messing around with him or not. Maybe Sole was hiding before those three could catch him? Whatever it was, Tagma had his own problem to deal with right now. The two Changelings behind him actually tried to sneak up on him but Tagma noticed and already prepared his escape.

He knocked over the wooden cart and the two Changelings behind him got caught by the firewood that dropped down to them, creating the perfect opportunity for Tagma to run past them and flee.

The two Changelings only got away with some bruises and their getting spun around a little. "What are you doing!? Get him!" The Changeling Commander ordered, getting the two Changelings back on their legs. Soon the three were right on Tagma's tail who was doing his best to run away or at least hide away in this forest. Tagma soon found his opportunity to jump into a bush to confuse his followers. Unfortunately, the three Changelings saw that and jumped after him. After fighting their way through some bushes they found themselves on an open field in the middle of the forest with no sight of Tagma.

Of course, the Changeling Commander was not happy at all. "We lost him!" He exclaimed, mainly focused towards the other two Changelings who felt a little bad for that. "Maybe he returned back to the farm...we might still have a chance to get him back to the queen!" He said determined to still get Tagma back to the kingdom.

However, before he could spread his wings, he heard some noises coming from the bushes next to him. He instantly figured that it would be Tagma and waited for him to come out. But to his surprise, it wasn't Tagma. It was a pony.

The Changeling Commander, however, still looked through this. "You think I will fall for that!?" He said angrily. It was not the form that Tagma usually took when he was turning into a pony but there was no pony in this forest before so the Commander figured that this would be a trick from Tagma to confuse them, even if it strange that he would come back after they lost sight of him.

"I wasn't planning to go nicely on you in the first place but now I am seriously planning to lose my patience so you better..."

But his words were interrupted by some more noises that came from all sides. There were more ponies coming out of the bushes to his left and right. This proved that Tagma was most likely not among them.

"Where did they come from?" One of the Changelings said confused.

"Does that matter? They are in our way so we deal with them too!" The Changeling Commander replied annoyed that they only delayed his chase after Tagma.

The Commander was about to attack those ponies on his own to get this over with fast but he stood still once he figured that there was something strange about those ponies. They seemed emotionless and had some creepy smiles on their faces. Not only that but their coats and manes looked a lot less colorful what the Changelings were used to. But by far, the strangest thing was those white eyes which sometimes would even start to glow.

Those were not ponies that they have encountered before. For some reason, everything about them was telling the commander that they were anything but ponies.
So the biggest question was...what were they?

Just in the moment where the commander started to feel a little unease, the ponies all surrounded themselves in a dark aura while laughing maniacally.

Soon...all that could be heard was a scream of pain coming from inside the forest. After that...there was only silence...


Later at Sole's farm...


He shouldn't have come back to this place. Not after he was attacked by those three Changelings. But Tagma had to know what was going on. He waited at the farm for a while and looked for Sole but he couldn't find him. Not that there were too many places to hide in his house or his farm.

If what the Changelings said was true, then Sole must have already fled from them before they arrived. 

But why would he? 
Did he know that he was about to be attacked by them?
And where would he go?
Those questions circled around Tagma's head as he tried to come up with an answer.
Multiple things came back to him. Sole's Cutie Mark for example.
His special talent or his destiny was to betray others? 
Is that why he ran away?
Why didn't he return here?

While he looked around the farm a little more, he eventually found something on the ground, right in front of the house. It was something that belonged to Sole. It was just another reason that spoke against Sole leaving this place.

His yellow blindfold.

Tagma picked it up and looked at it. It didn't have a scratch on it. But why would Sole leave it on the ground? Tagma was living on this farm for a whole week now and never saw Sole take it off once. It only adds even more confusion.

Sole did say that he preferred to be alone so that he couldn't put anyone in danger because of his special talent. 
Sending Tagma away to get some firewood was probably the perfect chance to get away from Tagma?

"Maybe...I am really better off on my own?" Tagma said confused as he looked up to the sky.

The Changeling walked away from the farm and took one last look at it with a frown on his face. when he turned his head away from it he took the blindfold gave it a frown as well. "Maybe I'll find you out there so that you can give me some answers," he said before he took the blindfold and strapped it around his forehead, wearing it as a bandanna. "You said you were my friend after all,"

After that, Tagma walked away from the farm and was on his own again. Maybe putting trust into others was not the best idea after this experience but Tagma would not allow to give up and find this one place or pony that would accept him.

It may be not too long until he would find those...
> 8. A New Friend?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

One day after Tagma left Sole's farm...


Things began to get a little rough again. The little Changeling wandered through the grass fields of Equestria once again in the search for food or someone who could help him in any other way. Looking back into it, Tagma should have taken some vegetables from Sole's farm before he left it but since everything was happening so fast and out of fear that the three Changelings would chase him, he didn't even think about it. Right now, he realized that as well.

"Hungry!" Tagma shouted in his frustration as he dragged himself around, barely able to walk on his own legs due to the lack of energy.

It was almost funny how he found himself in a similar situation like one week ago. He couldn't help but smile at his misery.
To think that on a big grass field like this, he didn't come across a single pony. He seemed to be on a run when it came to bad luck. There was nothing but grass as wide as the eye could see and not a single pony in sight.

But at least that gave him enough time to think about the things that happened recently. To think that his life would have changed so dramatically in the last months was just unbelievable.

First, he was thrown into the chamber, being completely shut away from anyone without getting any love.
Then, Queen Chrysalis herself choose him to be some kind of love producing tool that would fuel all the Changelings because he was a special Changeling that could create love on his own.
Of course, that wasn't the life that he was looking forward to and if it wouldn't have been for that one Changeling who freed him, then he would still be imprisoned in there.
Suddenly, he found himself in Equestria without anywhere to go or a place to stay at until of course, he stumbled across Sole who was generous enough to give him food and even let him stay on his farm.
But with some Changelings chasing after him, living a quiet and happy life was clearly not easy and eventually, everything pointed to Tagma leaving the farm because of Sole's disappearance.

The moment, Tagma remembered Sole, he instinctively touched his yellow headband which belonged to Sole and served as his blindfold. He looked down to the ground and felt sadness inside of him. He was asking himself if he could somehow prevent him from leaving the farm or if it even was his fault Sole vanished. But Tagma shook his head and continued his walk. There was no point for him to sulk right now. He was all alone again and needed to find some kind of solution of how to deal with his current situation.

The moment he looked up again, he actually spotted something in the distance. There were some trees not too far away. Tagma was deeply praying that one of them was a tree with delicious apples hanging down from them so he ran towards them and took a closer look, suddenly having the energy to run at full speed because of that.

So far, there were no apples on those trees but he still had a few of them left to check so there was still hope. Soon, he found something else instead of apples. Under one of the trees, he found a sleeping pony who laid directly under it. Tagma was not too sure what to make out of this. It was the first pony he came across since he left the farm so he should be happy. However...right next to the pony, he saw a saddlebag which caught Tagma's full attention. This saddlebag could contain some food. This realization was what made the situation complicated for him.

He hid on the other side of the tree and began thinking about what to do next. He was hungry and right now, there was a perfect opportunity to get something to eat...possibly. The first thing that he planned to do was to just take this opportunity to steal the bag but this idea seemed to be coming from his empty stomach since he was not too sure if this was the right thing to do.

Maybe he could just ask for something to eat?
But what if this pony was not as friendly as Sole?
Would he attack him?
Those things circled around his head for a very good reason. He barely knew anything about the ponies of Equestria after all. He was well aware that Ponies are vastly different then Changelings. He even convinced himself that at this moment, Changelings are well deserved to be called a threat for Ponies. Because Changelings were bad and not the ponies.

He eventually thought of how friendly Sole was to him, even though Tagma attempted to steal from his farm. He knew that Tagma was a Changeling from the very beginning and didn't judge him because of that and accepted him as who he was and not what he was supposed to be. This thought put a smile on Tagma and he decided to be friendly as well. If he couldn't return to the Changeling Kingdom then he might as well try to get on good terms with the ponies that he would meet.

With that in mind, Tagma decided to simply ask for something to eat instead of scaring the pony. For that, he transformed into his black coated and maneless pony form. He didn't want to scare the pony after all. "Alright!" Tagma whispered, determined to pull this off. The worst thing that could happen, was that he wouldn't get any food and the best case scenario would be that he got another friend. There was not much to lose.

Tagma moved around the tree to start his approach with a smile on his face and attempted to start speaking. However, there was one problem. There was nopony to talk to anymore. The bag was the only thing that was still under this tree. "What the-" he said before he soon found out that he couldn't move his body.

Suddenly, he could feel the presence of somebody behind him. It was most likely the pony that slept under the tree a minute ago. Soon, he realized what was actually happening. The pony used magic to prevent him from moving. A dark blue aura was surrounding the Tagma and kept him in place. Tagma tried to say something but before he could even get one word out of his mouth, the pony used his magic to throw him a few meters away from the tree.

Tagma's head was spinning as he laid on the ground. He tried to get up but he got a little intimidated after he saw the pony now standing in front of him with a serious expression on his face as he literally looked down at the transformed Changeling.

It was also the first time that Tagma had a real close look on the pony in front of him. The pony turned out to be a Unicorn stallion with a dark purple coat. His dark blue mane was a little shaped like a "W" and had a yellow stripe in it. He also had a short dark blue tail with a yellow stripe in it. He also had dark blue eyes that he kept focused on Tagma. On is flank was a Cutie Mark that looked like a blue cloud of mist.

Even though Tagma was a little intimidated by how the Pony was looking at him, he still attempted to somehow start a conversation. "Uhh...what's up?" He said, greeting the Pony in front of him with an awkward smile.

The Pony didn't smile back and kept his guard up for any suspicious move that Tagma might try to pull off. This Pony certainly didn't look like as if he wanted to do any small talk with Tagma. In fact, he made a rather hostile impression on the Changeling.

Soon, Tagma got so intimidated that he apologized to the Pony so that he wouldn't get hurt. "I'm sorry!" He said nervously as he put his two hooves together in a praying like manner. "I just wanted to ask if you had something to eat! I'm so hungry!" He said, closing his eyes out of fear that something bad would happen.

The Pony's facial expression didn't change much but he seemed to loosen up a little. "Go away," he said before he turned around and grabbed his saddlebag with his magic, putting it on his back again. "I don't intend to share my food with anypony else," he added before he walked past Tagma and went on his way again.

Tagma was certainly not happy to hear this and frowned. His belly was growling and just hearing the Pony not willing to share any food made it even worse. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't even try to steal the food from this pony since his magic was too strong for Tagma.

Still, that didn't change the fact that this pony was the only one he met after leaving the farm. He might as well try to talk with him so that he might make a new friend even if they had a bad start. So Tagma followed the Pony right behind and started a conversation but as soon as he got too close to him, the Pony glared back at him, signaling him that he was not interested to talk with him. However, Tagma was not giving up so fast and approached the Pony further as soon as he looked away from Tagma again, much to the Ponies annoyance.

Eventually, the pony let Tagma walk beside him but he still had no interest to reply to him at all.
"What's your name?" Tagma asked...but there was no answer.
"Where are you going to?" Tagma asked...but there was no answer again.
"You don't like to talk, right?" Tagma asked further.

Soon, the Pony lost his patience and turned towards Tagma. "Can't you bother somepony else!? I told you to go away, didn't I!?" He exclaimed angrily, causing Tagma to step away from a few steps.

Talking with this Pony was clearly a waste of time no matter how much Tagma wanted to get to know him. He turned around and walked in the opposite direction to not bother the Pony anymore but he stopped after he noticed some figures up in the sky flying in his general direction.  He quickly identified what those figures were and began to panic.

Changelings...

"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no! I need to hide!" Tagma said in a panic. It was five of them. He barely got away from three back then and now there were five of them coming right this way.

The Pony, who was still a few meters away from Tagma was wondering why he was acting so strange and looked up to the sky, noticing the Changelings flying towards them as well but unlike Tagma, the Pony didn't panic at all.

They were still pretty far away and probably didn't even notice the two of them so Tagma did the best he could think of and climbed one of the nearby trees to hide in them. Maybe this way he could get away safely.

But luck was not on his side...

The Changelings dived down to the ground and prepared themselves to land. Tagma was watching them carefully and prayed that they didn't see him. None of them seemed to be one of the Changelings that ambushed him back then in the forest. To his surprise, the Changelings landed next to the Pony, who was not even trying to run away from them.

“We can smell him on you. Where is he?” One of the Changelings asked, trying to sound as threatening as he possibly could.

"What do you mean?" The Pony replied boldly and not fazed at all.

"Don't play dumb with us! He must have come across here! One of us!" Another Changeling said as he stepped forward a little.

"And what makes you think that I am, in any way, associated with one of you?" The Pony replied boldly again.

The Changelings began to get a little annoyed by this Pony's attitude. "Because he is a traitor! He escaped from our Kingdom and is now hiding beneath of your ponies!" One of the Changelings said angrily just thinking about this traitor. He then smiled a little. "Luckily, he is not the best when it comes to transforming. We were informed that he can't even transform properly. Supposedly, when he transforms into a Pony, he barely looks apart from us," he said amusingly, causing the other Changelings next to him to laugh.

"Is that so..." The Pony replied before he looked directly into Tagma's eyes who was still hiding in a tree a few meters away. As soon as their eyes met, Tagma's body began to shiver because of the realization that he might be done for now. The Pony then looked back at the Changelings with a smug smile on his face. "I still don't know what that has to do with me. I mean...It's not my fault that your kingdom is so poorly organized, right?" He then added smugly shrugging his shoulders in the process.

Needless to say, the Changelings were not happy to hear those words and quickly got angry. They prepared themselves to attack the Pony all at once and slowly shortened the distance between themselves and the Pony.

Meanwhile, Tagma lowered his head and looked away from the bunch in order to think. He couldn't hear what they were talking about since he was a little too far away but after he saw the Pony looking directly at him, he knew that he was in potential danger. "What is going to happen next? Will he tell them where I am? What should I do now!?" He whispered to himself. Judging from how he was threatened by this Pony before, there was no way that he would defend him in a situation like this. The only thing that he could do was to sneak away from all of them.

Tagma slowly climbed down the tree and hoped that none of them would see him. He got down to the ground safely and was now trying to walk away from them. But then he suddenly noticed how something came flying right towards him at incredible speed. He ducked and avoided getting hit by whatever was flying at him. Once he got up again, he realized that it was one of the Changelings that came flying towards him who was hitting the tree directly and was knocked out right now.

Wondering how it came to that, Tagma looked over to the Changelings and realized that the Pony's horn was still glowing. He must have been the one who sent that Changeling flying. The Changelings looked at how their companion was attacked like that but didn't notice Tagma due to their anger towards the Pony who dared to do that to one of them.

The Changelings began to hiss in anger and charged right at the Pony who stood there ready to take them on. One of the Changelings turned left and another one right while the remaining two continued to charge straight at the Pony. The two Changelings in front were almost close enough to attack the Pony but he used his magic to stop one of them in his track and threw him right at the other one, taking care of both of them at the same time.

Meanwhile, the other two remaining Changelings, from his left and right, jumped at the Pony as well. The Pony used his magic again and levitated himself up into the air, not only avoiding both of those Changelings but also making them crash into each other as a result.

The Pony landed on the ground a few steps away from the four Changelings and could only smile at their poor executed attack. "Now I am no longer surprised why one of you would leave your kingdom..." he said, mocking the four Changelings who hissed back at him because of those words.

Once again, the Changelings charged right at the Pony. This time they didn't split up and kept coming straight at him. The Pony countered this attack by levitating himself and throwing himself right at them, passing them in the process and now standing right behind them. Before the Changelings could even react to that, one of them was already blown away by a magic blast which caused the remaining three Changelings to react in surprise. The Pony kept firing magic beams at them and hit one after another until all of them were knocked out, flying right past Tagma who watched all of this in surprise.

The five Changelings were all knocked out and the Pony smiled proudly after he was done. Tagma walked away from the five Changelings so that he could make sure that they wouldn't see him. 

The Pony noticed him and gave him a serious expression. "You are the Changeling who they were looking for, right?" He asked.

Tagma transformed back and walked up to the Pony. He nodded to answer the Pony's question. He then thanked the Pony for protecting him from those Changelings which caused the Pony to react a little confused. "Protect you? Don't misunderstand this. They were just getting on my nerves so I dealt with them. I could care less what happens to you," the Pony coldly replied before he was about to turn around to be on his way again. But something was still in his mind that kept him confused. "Still...I still don't get it. They didn't seem to have a really high opinion of you and even called you traitor. Why would they want to look for someone like that?"

Tagma was a little sad to hear this. It was obvious that they didn't care much about him and just wanted him back because Queen Chrysalis probably ordered them to. "It's because I am special..." he simply replied with a frown on his face.

The Pony looked at Tagma and noticed the sad expression on his face but he only gave a cold answer. "Alright..." he simply replied before he walked away again, not even bothering to talk with Tagma anymore.

Of course, this reaction surprised Tagma. "Wait...that is all you have to say to this? I thought you wanted to know the reason-"

"Yes. And I got my answer..." The Pony interrupted as he continued to walk away from Tagma. "I am not interested in your life story. I was just wondering. That is all," he coldly replied.

This Pony was really hard to approach. Tagma realized that a while ago. Still, he couldn't just leave. This Pony was strong enough to deal with all those Changelings and made it look like as if its nothing special. Staying near him would probably be a good idea unless he would decide to go after him instead. However, the Pony did not make the slightest impression as if he wanted company at all.

Tagma did remember how distant Sole was when it came to making Tagma his friend but he only did that so that he could protect him from his "Destiny". The Changeling figured that Ponies are probably a little bad when it came to something like that so he didn't give up on that Pony.

Tagma decided to slowly follow the Pony while making sure that he would not be spotted by him. However, that did not work as planned since the Pony was clearly aware that he was being followed. But instead of getting rid of Tagma, the Pony decided to just sigh and pretended to not see him. He was not really sure why he did that and got a little mad at himself for that but he still walked on as if nothing was wrong...
> 9. No turning back
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When non-ponies think about Equestria, then they often associate it with towns filled with ponies. So far, Tagma only knew Equestria as an empty grass field with occasionally a forest or a mountain nearby. He never came across any town or a city in all his time in Equestria. Considering that he could not return to the Changeling Kingdom without getting imprisoned again, Equestrian towns or cities were his only other options to find a place to live. But he had no idea if other ponies would even allow a Changeling to stay in their towns.

However, he did come across Sole and his farm. This encounter proved that there were ponies out there who would not judge him for being a Changeling at all. But at the same time, he knew that there were many ponies out there who would be the complete opposite. The pony that he came across a few hours ago, for some reason made not that impression on him. That Pony might not be the friendliest one Tagma came across, which is not saying much because he only came across two ponies so far. Something inside of Tagma just told him that this Pony was not caring too much about him being a Changeling. This was reason enough to stay close to him since the chance of coming across somepony like that was still rare.

However, the Purple coated Unicorn stallion was not too amused by Tagma following him. Mainly because Tagma kept coming closer to him each minute without realizing it. Once the Pony felt how his personal space was taken away too much, he stopped in his track and turned around, looking at Tagma with a serious expression on his face. "Why...are you...still...following me!?" The Pony asked annoyed.

Tagma should have felt a little intimidated by this but instead, he answered with another question. "What's your name?" He asked, unable to read the mood at all. The Pony just got more annoyed by this question and sighed. "It's just...if I am following you, then I at least should know your name, right?" He added with a smile on his face.

The Pony could have replied that Tagma would not have to worry about that if he would stop following him at all but instead he actually introduced himself, even if it was really forced. "It's Mystic,"

"Cool! I'm Tagma!" The Changeling replied cheerfully.

"I don't care," Mystic said before he turned around again, continuing his way as if this conversation didn't happen at all.

Tagma, however, felt like as if this "conversation" was a great progress. He proceeded to follow Mystic, slowly closing his distance to him even further.

Mystic just gave up making Tagma go away and just ignored him but because he was followed by a very cheerful and carefree Changeling, it was not the easiest thing since Tagma always found something to ask. Only a minute later, the next question showed up.

"Where exactly are you going to?" Tagma asked, trying to get closer to Mystic again.

"That doesn't concern you," Mystic replied, clearly showing no interest to tell anything about himself. "I still don't trust you, you know. Changelings consume love, that much I know. Maybe that is the reason why you are following me? So that you can find out more about me to suck out my love?" Mystic figured as he continued his walk.

Tagma got nervous. What Mystic said was not true of course but just the fact that Mystic came up with something like that made him worry a little. "No don't worry! I didn't plan anything like that at all!" He assured with a slightly nervous expression on his face.

"Good..." Mystic replied before he stopped and turned around to face Tagma, causing him to stop on his way as well. "...Because if you do...you will regret it," Mystic then added with a dead serious expression on his face that not even Tagma could ignore. One mistake, and Mystic would not be as "nice" as he was now. With that in mind, he kept continuing to follow Mystic, this time a little further away than before.

There was no indication for Tagma to where Mystic was going to, mainly because Tagma had no idea about Equestria in the first place. Mystic just proceeded to walk straight in one direction. It didn't look like as if he was keeping his eye out for something special. But even knowing that Mystic was wandering off into some random direction, Tagma followed him. It was either that or being all alone again. The choice of what to do was easy for him.


After another hour of walking with some random talking in between from Tagma's site, Mystic spotted something in the distance, that walked towards him and his follower. He peeled his eyes and soon figured what it was. Two Ponies. He could not care less about Tagma but he put in the effort to warn him that there are ponies approaching. "You better want to keep your pony form if you don't want to get in trouble..." Mystic advised, looking back at Tagma for a moment before he looked back at the two ponies and figured out something about one of them after taking a closer look. "Especially while being around this one stallion," he added as he kept a straight face.

"R-right!" Tagma said nervously before he straightened his shoulders to not cause any suspicion.

Mystic tried his best to avoid eye contact but one of the two ponies kept him from exactly that. It was a Unicorn stallion with a light blue coat and a purple armor who was accompanied by a blonde coated Earth Pony mare with a light red colored mane.

"See this armor?" Mystic then asked as he looked back at Tagma for a moment. "It looks awfully familiar to those that Celestia's Royal Guards wear...Though I don't remember them being purple..."

The name Celestia quickly raised Tagma's attention. "Celestia? You mean like...Princess Celestia? The ruler of Equestria?"

"I'm afraid so..." Mystic replied as he kept his eye mostly on the stallion.

At first, Tagma considered talking with those two so that he might swap out Mystic for those two as companions but knowing that one of them was a member of Princess Celestia's Royal Guard quickly made him scrap this idea for obvious reasons.

The mare seemed to look at Mystic from time to time and the stallion did his best to avoid eye contact as they walked towards the two. They didn't seem to be interested in any kind of talk just like Tagma and Mystic. Soon the two groups were close enough to each other but none of them bothered to say anything. Tagma was still nervous which was actually painfully obvious for anyone to see but nopony seemed to think anything about this. Mystic kept his eyes forward and only turned his eyes once the stallion with the purple armor walked past him without any words.

As soon as the two ponies were behind him, Tagma took a deep breath out of relief and was happy that this was over now. However, Mystic suddenly stopped. "You are a member of the Royal Guard. Am I right?" He said out of the blue, causing Tagma to react in shock, knowing that he was still in danger of being exposed to be a Changeling. 

An even worse thought began to cross Tagma's mind. And that was the thought that Mystic might tell them that he was a Changeling. It was obvious that Mystic didn't like Tagma in the first place and he was also bothered how Tagma followed him all this time. This would be the perfect opportunity to get rid of him.

Both the stallion and the mare stopped. The stallion in the purple armor turned his head around. "What if I am?" He asked.

Mystic turned around looked at the stallion with a serious expression on his face. "Must be nice to blindly follow orders from somepony. Doesn't matter what it is, right?"

"What is your problem!?" The mare then said, feeling offended by the way how Mystic talked.

"I am not talking with you," Mystic directly replied, clearly showing no interest to talk with her.

"Why you-" the mare said as she attempted to walk closer to Mystic, determined to get a little rough now.

"Rosa!" The stallion then interrupted, stopping her from doing something stupid.

Rosa clenched her teeth and still looked at Mystic angrily but she stopped going after him. "Whatever!" She then said annoyed before she turned around as if she wanted to ignore this whole situation.

The stallion then spoke up and answered Mystic pretty calmly, despite how obvious he was mocking him. "I'm sorry to hear that you don't seem to be so fond of our Princess but still, it is not advised to speak like that in front of another member of the Royal Guard. You should think about that before you do that again," he advised before he turned around again, ending the conversation and leaving the two alone. Rosa followed him again, even though she wished that her companion would have gotten a little more aggressive.

Tagma was not sure what just happened or why Mystic felt the need to say something to anger a Royal Guard member but he was, once again, happy that this situation was over. "How about we keep walking as well? You know...in the other direction?" He asked, obviously trying to get Mystic away from the stallion before it came to a fight or worse.

But it was already too late for that. Mystic didn't even seem to listen to Tagma and his horn began to glow. He was preparing a spell and from the looks of it, it would be directed towards the stallion who's back was now turned to them. Tagma had a really bad feeling what was about to happen next and wanted to stop Mystic but knowing how easily he dealt with the Changelings a few hours ago, he decided to step a few steps back to avoid this upcoming fight.

Mystic was about to shot at the stallion but he stopped once he noticed some shadows above him. The other two ponies and Tagma quickly noticed how something was landing nearby. Before they know what was happening, the four were surrounded by maybe around twenty members of the Royal Guards. Soon Tagma got closer to Mystic again and Rosa was also getting closer to her companion with a worried expression on her face.

The Royal Guards slowly stepped closer to the four, causing them to get closer to each other. Soon, Rosa and the stallion and Mystic and Tagma stood back to back to each other, all of them keeping their eyes open for whatever was about to happen.

One of the guards walked out of the mass and directed his words toward the stallion in the purple armor. His facial expression alone indicated that he was not about to say something good.
"Captain..." he began before he stopped to correct himself immediately. "Former Captain Fade...On behalf of her majesty, Princess Celestia herself, we are ordered to capture you and bring you back to Canterlot," he said calm yet strict, getting his message out as soon as possible. "If you don't cooperate with us, we will use force if necessary," he further warned. He was clearly looking for a more peaceful solution and tried to avoid a fight.

But before, everypony could even think about that, Rosa for example, just realized that she was not traveling with some "little member" of the Royal Guard. "Captain? Does he mean, Captain of the Royal Guard?" Rosa asked towards Fade.

"Former Captain..." Fade corrected with a heavy frown on his face.

Mystic also seemed surprised. "That would explain the color of his armor..." he figured as he stood a little more distant away from Fade and Rosa.

Tagma was the only one who didn't say anything and was just shaking after he got surrounded by these many guards who could get him into problems in any second.

There was no pressure from the site of the Royal Guards. It even looked like as if they were wishing for Fade to not resist at all so that they don't have to fight him. It may be because they probably heard of what happened to him on his last mission.

After Fade didn't respond for a while, the same Royal Guard member spoke up again after he took a closer look the other three ponies next to him. "Are those accomplices of you? I think it would be better if we take them with us as well..."

As soon as those words were said, all four of the ponies reacted in surprise or in Tagma's case, pure shock. Fade put it on himself to explain the situation. "No! Wait! They are not. I don't even know those ponies!" He then looked down on the ground and began to think before he gave his response to the guards. "I'll come with you but leave them out of this," he demanded as he 

This sentence actually got Rosa's attention who knew that Fade was saying this so that she won't get in trouble. She put a hoof on Fade's shoulder and looked at him with worried eyes. "Are you sure?"

Fade couldn't help but chuckle a little because of this. "Are you actually showing concern for me?" He asked with a thankful smile on his face.

Rosa looked away and narrowed her eyes. "I am actually concerned about your daughter...I thought you didn't want to put her in danger," she reminded him.

Fade was thankful for Rosa's concern. "I am," he assured with a smile on his face. "But the truth is since I left Canterlot, all this time I was just hiding. I knew that one day it will come to this. I just wished that it would be a little later. The only way to get out of this situation would be if I fight but then I would even hurt more ponies," he explained to Rosa. The was some kind of regret in his manner of speech but he seemed to have decided to do what he believed was the right thing. He looked over at the guards in front of him and gave some last words to Rosa. "Maybe it's better if I just let myself get captured..." he said before he walked over to the guard slowly.

Rosa, of course, didn't know the whole story and wondered what he did to even deserve to be attacked by those guards but she could feel how serious he was about his decision and how hard it was for him. Mystic and Tagma were also close enough to overhear all this. While Tagma felt sorry for Fade, even without knowing what this was all about, Mystic did not seem to care about it at all and remained quiet.

The guards seemed to be pretty relieved about this outcome. If they were all filled in about what Fade did on his last mission, then the last thing what they wanted was to fight him. Fade made sure that he was making the most less threatening impression on the guards so that they would not come to any conclusion. He avoided any eye contact with any of them and just thought about if this was really the best that he could do now. If he returned to Canterlot, then his magic would be taken away and he would not be allowed to see his daughter again because there could be a chance for her being affected by his Dark Magic. Thinking about that made him realize that he had no idea what would happen to him after that. With his trust lost within the Royal Guard and his daughter gone, what was he supposed to do after that? This thought was the only thing that made him regret his decision. 

He could still turn around and try to fight of those guards. He could try to escape. In the eyes of the Royal Guards, he was already a traitor and probably a criminal. It was not like as if it would change anything about his current situation. There was still time to change his mind. All he had to do was attack the guards.

But...

His decision no longer mattered...

In an instant, he noticed a flash of light flying past next to him. It felt like as if time was slowing down in this moment. Fade looked at the guard who spoke to him a minute ago and was shocked and surprised what happened just now. He saw how he was directly hit by a magic beam and fell down to the ground, knocked out by it. The guards next to him slowly turned their heads towards Fade's direction and clenched their teethes angrily. Fade then turned his head around and looked behind himself. He instantly found out what happened. Rosa turned around as well and looked behind her in shock and Tagma only looked next to him to the pony who was responsible for the attack.

Mystic...

Mystic stood there with his horn still glowing and his face filled with a battle-ready expression. Of course, Fade was just thinking what exactly this was about and attempted to shout at him in anger but before he could even get a single word out of his mouth the guards in front of Fade already launched their attack and Fade walked back to Rosa who began to panic after she realized that a battle was about to go off.

From all sites now, the Royal Guards began to charge at the four ponies. While Fade and Mystic were ready to defend themselves, Rosa and Tagma both ironically cling to each other. "You! Protect me!" Rosa ordered as she stood close to Tagma.

"I actually thought that you could protect me..." Tagma replied nervously as he looked around and kept an eye on the Royal Guards.

"Me protecting you!?" Rosa replied offended. "You are a stallion and I am a fragile little mare!"

"Well, about that..." Tagma replied, almost telling her he was a Changeling and not a stallion but the Royal Guards soon approached the two and made them run away so that this conversation was put on a hold.

Meanwhile, Mystic and Fade both did really well fighting off all the Royal Guards that attacked them. For Fade, this situation felt a lot different than before. The last time he attacked his own guards, he was not aware of it which made this situation even worse. But there was no other choice now since the situation already escalated this much. It was unlikely that the other guards would listen to him now after one of them was attacked. they must think that Mystic was filled in with some kind of plan that Fade set up to get them off guard and now every bit of trust that was left for Fade was gone.

Fade had no time to worry about this anymore since now he had to deal with the guards that attacked him. As the Captain of the Royal Guards, his fighting skills were, of course, superior to those of the guards he was fighting against and made it easy to defend himself but because it was so many of them, it quickly became a challenge to take all of them on. What worried Fade, even more, was how aggressively and without mercy, Mystic was dealing with all of them. He made the situation even worse for Fade.

As the battle went on, the guards who charged after the four ponies became less. Still, there was a good amount of ponies left who went after them. Fade and Mystic began to get exhausted as the battle continued but they had enough energy to deal with the rest of them.

"This is getting a little boring..." Mystic then said, causing  Fade to react a little surprised despite them being outnumbered by a good few of guards. "I guess being in the Royal Guard doesn't necessarily mean that you are good at your job, huh?"

The Royal Guards were of course, not too happy with Mystic's mocking and got even more angry at him. Fade could feel that Mystic was clearly not too fond of the Royal Guards for whatever reason. Whatever that reason was, it caused him to get into this mess now.

But instead of Fade being the one to talk to him about that, Rosa spoke up and got annoyed by Mystic's behavior. "Hey! If you got some personal problem with those guys then do us a favor and leave us out of it!"

Fade couldn't have said it in any other way but Mystic didn't seem to be too interested in Rosa's words. "Do I look like I care what happens to you?"

"Clearly not!" Rosa bickered back.

Mystic was either not aware of the situation in which they were in or he didn't seem to care about it at all. Whatever it was, his confidence was unshaken. "Just watch how I'll deal with the rest of them," he then announced before his horn began to glow in a dark blue light. There didn't seem to be happening anything at first but soon everypony noticed how a cloud of mist seemed to appear out of nowhere. It must have been Mystic who was responsible for this.

Fade, Rosa and Tagma were unable to see inside of it and just kept their guard up for any incoming attack. After a while, fighting sounds could be heard. Neither of the three ponies knew what was going on and expected Royal Guards to pop out of nowhere anytime soon. But much to their surprise, there was not a single attack coming at them. In fact, after a while, it became awfully quiet.

The mist began to vanish after a few minutes and Fade, Rosa and Tagma soon saw each other again. Mystic was missing but soon they noticed him a few steps away in front of them. He was standing where most of the last Royal Guard members stood a minute ago, making Fade wonder how he was not being attacked by them. But after the mist began to vanish completely, he realized what happened. The remaining Royal Guard members all laid on the ground, defeated with Mystic standing in front of them with a confident smile.

Tagma and Rosa were able to see again as well and were stunned by how Mystic had dealt with the situation. However, Tagma was actually pretty impressed and rushed towards the Unicorn. "You defeated the all? That was amazing!" He said cheerfully as he jumped up and down excited in front of him.

"Amazing!?" Rosa exclaimed angrily before she walked up to the two. "It was his fault that they attacked us in the first place!"

"Yes. This didn't have to end like this," Fade agreed as he walked up to the two as well, still being a little angry of how Mystic handled the situation.

Tagma seemed to be the only one who got a little confused by this reaction. "But didn't they want to capture you? Shouldn't you be happy?" He asked confused.

"Still..." was the only reply that Fade gave before he looked over to the knocked out Royal Guard members around him.

Mystic walked up closer to Fade. "You know, you can still wait for them to wake up again so that they can carry you all the way to Canterlot," he said in order to provoke Fade even further.

Fade knew that right now, he was in even more trouble. Princess Celestia would find out that he was now resisting to get back to Canterlot and that he would even use force to archive that. Things just kept getting worse on a daily basis. as for now, Fade came only to one conclusion. "I'm done running away aimlessly. I need a place to stay for a while so that I can rethink everything," he said before he walked away. from the group.

Rosa, of course, was right behind him. "And where would that be?" She obviously asked.

"A place where I know that Princess Celestia or the Royal Guards were probably not looking after..." he simply replied with his sight focused in front of him.

"And what about those two?" Rosa asked, hinting at Mystic and Tagma. "Don't you think that it is a little unfair that they caused us problems? Maybe if you explain everything to the next guards that we come across, they'll understand?" She suggested.

But Fade declined. "I'm afraid it won't be that easy...besides...I think I want to stay away from any Royal Guards for a while..." he replied. Rosa did still not know the whole story about Fade so it was a little more complicated than she first thought. A few minutes ago she didn't even know that she was traveling with the Captain of the Royal Guards. Still, Rosa did not want to leave him alone yet and offered her company, something that Fade gladly accepted.

Mystic and Tagma were left behind. It was obvious that the two groups were not getting along all too well so there was no reason to spent any more time with each other. Still, Mystic did not seem to have lost his interest in Fade and looked at him as he was walking away.

"The Captain of the Royal Guard..." Mystic mumbled to himself.

"Is that someone important?" Tagma asked confused.

"Yes, he is," Mystic replied, narrowing his eyes in the process before he walked in the same direction to where Fade and Rosa went to.

Tagma noticed that and only got confused. "You want to follow them? Why?" He asked. Mystic did not make the impression that he even likes to talk with Fade or Rosa so the fact that he was about to follow them was just confusing to him.

"If he was the Captain of the Royal Guards, then he must know something that I want to know..."

Mystic then walked off and followed Fade and Rosa in a wide distance. Tagma, of course, followed as well. They both didn't know if Fade and Rosa noticed them but that would probably not stop them. All of the sudden, it was a group of four who traveled seemingly aimlessly through Equestria.

The question was...what had destiny in plan for those four?


To be continued...
> 10. The Monster - Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With all the things that happened to Fade recently, the Unicorn decided to go to a place to hide from the Royal Guards. The last attack was not too long ago and it would definitely not be the last. Royal Guard members would be scattered all over Equestria to look for him. Every town was probably filled with them, keeping a close eye open to look for their former Captain.

Luckily, Fade knew one place to hide from them. In order to get to that place, he had to travel to a forest in the south of Equestria. It was quite a long march to it but eventually, he arrived at it. With some company...

"Careful!" Rosa said annoyed as she last second dodged one branch that almost hit her in the face because Fade walked in front of her.

"Sorry," Fade apologized while having his sight focused in front of himself.

The two continued their walked through the thick dark forest. Fade was leading the way and ignored most of Rosa's complains. He asked her to leave if she didn't want to be at a place like this but she refused and still stayed with him for unknown reasons. Fade was actually relieved that she was not leaving him so that he still had somepony left to talk to but this would still be the case because either way since there were still two other ponies following him.

Fade often would look behind him to make sure that he was not only followed by Rosa but also by Mystic and Tagma. After Rosa noticed how he turned his head around again, she assured him that they were still far behind them. "I still don't quite understand why you let them follow us...I mean, you saw how crazy that one Unicorn was. He attacked that one guard without any hesitance!" She reminded him.

"That is exactly why I let them follow us..." Fade replied, confusing Rosa at first. "I rather have my eye on him then let him walk around Equestria and be a potential danger to everypony,"

Rosa only shook her shoulders after those words. "In your heart, you are still a Royal Guard, huh?" She then asked a little teasingly, getting Fade caught a little off guard.

"...sorry, I mean for not telling you the whole story so far..." he then apologized sincerely, lowering his head in front of her.

Rosa acted a little surprised by this behavior and took it with humor. "You mean, the fact that you were the Captain of the Royal Guards? Yeah, sure would have been good to know that a little earlier. But then again, what is a thief supposed to do with this information?" She said as she smiled away, causing Fade to not worry about it too much.

The walk through the forest continued. Soon, Fade found what he was looking for and stopped in his track. Rosa followed him and was wondering why he stopped but then she saw what he was looking at and got quite surprised by what she saw now.

"There was something like this hidden in this old forest?" She asked confused with her eyes glued to the thing in front of her.

"Yes. Princess Celestia claimed that this was here even before she was born, making it one of the oldest things in all of Equestria," Fade explained as he walked forward.

In front of the two ponies stood a giant castle, covered with vines. It was also in a really bad shape. It was obvious that this place was not taken care of and visited by ponies for a really long time. Rosa took really careful steps out of fear that the whole building could collapse if she just sneezed, judging by how old this castle looked.

Fade was not sure if Rosa was interested in the history of this place but he continued his explanation, nonetheless. "Nopony knows who build this castle and not a single piece of historical record even hinted at that there was a castle in the middle of this forest. Princess Celestia was the only one who knew about this place she could have been the only one write down information about this place but the problem was, that she had no information of it t begin with. She did not know who build this or who it belonged to so she just ignored it. All those information eventually gave this castle its name..." Fade explained further before he stopped in his track right in front of the castle's entrance and turned around to face Rosa.
"The Forgotten Castle,"


The two ponies found themselves inside of the castle throne room after a few minutes. Obviously, there was a throne at the end of the hall but the question was just who it belonged to if it wasn't Princess Celestia's. Aside from the vines and the dirt all over the castle, it was actually pretty roomy. Even if there were Royal Guards looking for them in this place, hiding in there was probably really easy once you got accustomed to all the rooms. That and the fact, that not many ponies even knew about this place was enough to convince the two that this was a good place to stay. At least for a while.

Both Fade and Rosa took a look at the throne room. It was very dark even with the big window at the end of the hall letting most of the light from outside in. "Well...now that we are in a place where we can't be bothered that fast..." Fade said before he turned around to look at the entrance of the throne room. "...it will probably be the best time to ask why you are following us,"

As soon as those words were spoken, Rosa began looking at the entrance as well since she knew exactly what Fade was talking about. Only seconds later, Mystic and Tagma revealed themselves from inside the shadows. While Mystic walked up to the two ponies without any bother in his facial expression, Tagma seemed to be nervous about following them.

"So you did know that we followed you?" Mystic asked rather smugly.

"It's obvious that you want something from us," Fade replied. "Though, I hope that you are not looking for a fight, like before with the Royal Guards..." he added as some kind of warning for Mystic.

"Yeah. Me neither..." Tagma threw in as he stepped back a little from Mystic. By now he was definitely sure that traveling with Mystic was probably not the best idea he had.

Mystic didn't waste any time and quickly cut to the case. He walked up to Fade and asked what he wanted to ask. "Those guards from before said that you were the former Captain of the Royal Guards. Is that true?"

Fade wondered what a pony like Mystic would do with such an information after he saw what he did before. However, lying to Mystic would probably be a bad idea. It was obvious that Fade kept a close eye on Mystic. He had to admit that his magic was really powerful, powerful enough to deal with multiple members of the Royal Guard at once. Maybe even more powerful than him...

With that in mind, Fade carefully thought about what he said. "Yeah, it's true," he simply replied.

Mystic continued. "If you were the Captain, then that means that you might know something that I want to know," he began to ask.

"About what?" Fade replied, waiting for Mystic's question.

Mystic looked into Fade's eyes with a serious expression on his face. "About..." 

But Mystic's words were interrupted by some noises not too far away. Growling, some steps, and other noises that couldn't be figured out at first.

"What was that!?" Tagma asked in a panic, looking around the whole room to find out the source.

The growls began to get louder. There also seemed to be more of them by the second. Panic began to spread to Rosa as well. Mystic, however, was a little annoyed that his conversation was interrupted like that and decided to stand ready to deal with whatever was approaching now.

Fade had a slight guess what those noises could be. "I think I forgot to mention something..." he said a little apologizing towards Tagma and Rosa. "This forest is known to be the home of some dangerous creatures,"

"What!?" Rosa exclaimed shocked and angrily...mostly angrily. "How could you forget to mention something crucial as this!?"

"Well, with all those things happening, it seemed to slip my mind," he said but in truth, he was thinking about how traveling with Mystic and dealing with some Royal Guards was probably a little more dangerous. "Didn't you said, a while ago that you can deal with some trouble?"

Rosa didn't like how her words were used against her and was now more annoyed than angry. "That doesn't mean that you can just expose more to every danger in Equestria out there!" She complained.

For a moment, the group actually forgot the growls around them while listening to the discussion of Fade and Rosa but once they got louder, it was impossible to not stand ready for an upcoming attack.

"There!" Fade said as he pointed at a pillar a few steps away from them. Behind it was a wolf who slowly stepped in front of it and revealed himself to the group.

The group walked backwards in direction of the entrance but soon they noticed that a bear was just entering the room, walking up to the four. The next idea that they had was to leave through the windows but there were already multiple eagles waiting for them. Before they knew it, all kinds of animals were gathering around them, trapping them in the middle of the room.

"Now what!?" Tagma asked in his frustration.

Mystic took it upon himself to answer Tagma by readying his horn and preparing himself to deal with all those wild animals.

"Wait!" Rosa then said, stopping Mystic in his track. "Look!" She added pointing to the entrance.

Near the entrance, right behind the animals, a little colt revealed himself to the group. It was an Earth Pony with a pear green coat color and a dark green messy mane. On his flank was a Cutie Mark that consisted of a wooden heart with vines around it. Despite being around all those wild animals, the colt did not seem to be afraid at all and stood right in front of the animals who did not growl aggressively at him like to the others. It was almost like as if he was one of them.

The animals stepped a little forward and were now dangerously close to the four ponies, ready to attack any time now. Mystic readied his magic and Fade also stood ready to defend himself and the others. However, before a fight broke out, the little colt spoke up. "No..." he simply said which surprisingly calmed all the animals in the room down in an instant much to everyone's surprise.

As soon as Fade and Mystic noticed how passive the animals were, they began to loosen up as well.
Now it was like as if the animals were friendly and well-trained pets. It made them completely forget that they were in danger a few seconds ago. Still, the colt did not seem to be too fond of the group and spoke up again.

"...This...our forest...our home..." the colt said slowly, thinking about each word before he said them. This colt seemed to have some difficulties when it comes to speaking but he still managed to get across what he wanted to say. "You...leave..." he added, clearly showing that he wanted the group out of the castle.

Mystic, of course, was not too happy to hear somepony trying to tell him what to do. "Why don't you try to make us leave?" He said, needlessly provoking the colt and the animals.

Judging from that sentence, Rosa was not sure anymore if Mystic generally liked to pick fights or if he was just ignorant about what he was capable of. There were a lot of wild animals all around them and he still felt the need to make the situation worse. However, Rosa could not take that anymore and speak up. "Will you stop being such a meanie and try to think about the situation for a moment!? How about you let someone else do the talking!?" She said heavily annoyed by Mystic's behavior while not even bothering to turn around and looking at him.

Mystic only turned his eyes towards her and replied. "You? You want to talk with this colt?" He replied surprised.

Rosa then turned around looked at Mystic. Her face was filled with anger, directly focused on Mystic. If there was one way to describe the look on her face in one word, then it would be: Scary "Yes! You got a problem with that!?" She said, accompanied by her scary expression on her face.

Mystic had to admit that he was actually feeling a little uncomfortable by the way how Rosa looked at him right now, if not even scared. He tried to not let anypony see him like that but it was plainly obvious so he turned his head away from Rosa. "Whatever," he said with a faint shaking in his voice.

Rosa then looked at Fade and Tagma as if she was asking if it was okay to take the lead for a moment. Fade nodded and let her take care of the situation and Tagma smiled uncomfortably so that he would not get on her bad side as well. It was obvious that the Changeling was pretty scared by her at this moment.

Rosa then turned around again and stepped forward. None of the animals seemed to be aggravated by her action and the colt made a general calm impression on them so that was a good sign. Rosa was not out for any trouble so she took the opportunity to talk this situation out. "I'm sorry if we came into this forest like that. It's just...we needed a place to hide for a while so don't you think that we can stay here for a while?" She asked in really nice and charming way which completely mirrored her previous behavior.

But the colt gave a quick answer. "No...you...Ponies...You...leave..." he replied.

"But you are a pony too! And you live in this forest as well! So don't you think that it would be okay if we stay at this castle? We won't get in your way too," Rosa offered.

"No..." the colt replied quickly. "Forest...home...Ponies...have home too...Ponies...go home...stay... away from forest...Ponies..." he added.

"Well..." Rosa replied while she rubbed her neck. "I can't speak for everyone now but...some of us can't really go back home. That's why we're hiding in this forest,"

The colt tilted his head to the side in confusion. "You...no home?"

Rosa then turned around and looked at everypony. She did know Fade's situation by now but as soon as she looked over to Mystic and Tagma, she realized that they both had frowns on their faces while looking on the ground. It did seem to be the case that the two ponies that accompanied her actually happened to be in a similar situation. Of course, she had no idea about that. She didn't even know Tagma's name at this point.

Rosa then turned to the colt again. "No...I guess not," she simply said.

The colt began to think for a moment. He seemed confused. "You...not afraid... you...don't try to hurt...friends...me?" He then asked.

"Hurt you?" Rosa asked back. "Why would we try to hurt you?"

"Yeah. I mean, Mystic hasn't attacked anyone of you yet," Tagma pointed out.

"Hey, why are you referring to me especially!?" Mystic replied a little offended, seeming to be oblivious to his previous actions.

The colt did not seem to understand why the four ponies in front of him were still talking nicely to him...for the most time. "You different...no home...not afraid...and...friends with...not pony?" He asked, once again tilting his head to the side.

"Not pony?" Rosa replied confused.

The colt then looked over to Tagma which caused Fade and Rosa to take a look at the two other ponies. Tagma did not know how to react to this and just smile uncomfortably while waving to the two ponies awkwardly.

"You...smell...different..." The little colt said as he kept his eyes on Tagma.

"Me? Oh no! You must be mistaken! I just didn't shower for a while so..." Tagma replied awkwardly, trying to get to another subject but all it did was disgust Rosa a little.

However, the colt did not change the subject and was brutally direct with his words."You...not pony..." he said which caused Rosa and Fade to turn their attention towards Tagma again.

Tagma just smiled awkwardly again and somehow hoped that someone would help him out of this situation but quite the opposite was the case once Mystic opened his mouth. "Just transform back..." he simply said which struck everyone of the group in shock. "It's not really changing anything about our situation if you ask me. Besides, if mister knight here decides to attack you, then I will stop him,"

Fade had no idea what that was supposed to mean and why he would attack Tagma and just looked confused at him. Tagma was kinda relieved that Mystic offered his help but he actually wanted to avoid any kind of conflict, including attacks from the ponies he traveled with. But right now, there was one way to find out how those two would react to him transforming back so that's what he did. Green flames surrounded him starting from his hooves to his head. Soon, a Changeling with a yellow headband stood in front of everyone who still had a pretty awkward smile on his face.
"What's up?" He said after he transformed back to his original form.

Rosa did not seem to be too excited and got a little scared by this. "You got to be kidding me?" She said with a mix of disgust and confusion.

The situation quickly shifted from the animals and the colt to Tagma, much to the Changeling's dislike. Needless to say, Fade especially was not too happy about this discovery. "You are a Changeling!?" He said surprises but yet a little angrily. "I can't believe a Changeling was hiding right under our noses! And here I thought you were the only one that I have to keep an eye out!" He added as he looked over to Mystic angrily.

But the purple Unicorn didn't mind those words. "So what? Are you gonna capture and deliver him to your precious princess so that she will forgive you for whatever you did?" He replied back.

Fade couldn't help but stagger from this reply. As a Royal Guard he would just go after Tagma at this moment but now he just looked at him and thought about what he did so far, only to find out that he didn't do anything wrong. It made it kind of hard to go up to Tagma with the resolve to fight him like he was used to. 

"We deserve an explanation why a Changeling is traveling among us! Lately, there were more Changeling attacks in Equestria recently so your queen must be up to something! Explain!" Fade demanded rather aggressively.

"I don't know anything about that!" Tagma replied nervously. "I don't know much about the queen myself! The last time I saw her was before I escaped from the Changeling Kingdom!" He added, hoping that this would calm Fade down again.

To his surprise, it actually worked. "Escaped from the Changeling Kingdom?" Fade asked in the name of everyone else in the room.

Tagma did avoid eye contact and looked away from all the eyes that were focused on him right now. Fade never thought that he would feel regret while talking with a Changeling before but just now, that was exactly how he felt. He could tell that there was a bigger story that he had to know to fully understand Tagma but just now, it was actually like he could understand him without words being spoken.

But Fade was not the only one who felt like that. The little colt walked up closer to the group and looked at Tagma with an understanding look on his face. "You...same face..."

"What?" Tagma replied confused.

The colt then looked over to the others. "You...all...same face..." he said getting the four a little confused. "Face...sad...alone...angry? No home...no...friends...so...hide?" He mumbled.
It was a little hard to understand what he tried to say but each of them felt like as if he was getting less hostile to them. In fact, it looks like as if he felt compassion towards the four.

Fade then walked a few steps towards the colt and offered a solution. "Those ponies were after me...but now you are probably followed by them as well. Maybe you can let her stay here at least?"

"Hey!" Rosa said, causing to grab Fade's attention. "I'm a thief...I don't really am considered the first pony that others want around them...I'm always hiding. So don't tell yourself that you are dragging me around or something. Besides, if mister short fuse wouldn't have let the situation escalate like this, then we were probably not in that much trouble!"

Mystic was aware that she meant him but he didn't bother to say anything and waited how the situation would evolve.

"You know..." Tagma said, directing the attention towards him now. "I'm a Changeling...I can't show myself to other ponies as well...so you guys really didn't change any of that or made my situation worse, you know?"

Fade and Rosa were still not sure how to react to Tagma. They never even came across a Changeling who was not trying to suck out their love before. It was weird. Considering what happened recently, it would be just a waste of breath to worry about Tagma. 

The Changeling took the opportunity to ask Mystic if was feeling bad for getting involved by all this but of course, he did not feel like sharing too much about himself. "I don't have a home that I can return to..." he simply said.

The colt watched the four talking to each other like this and even though he didn't completely understand their situation, he did make a rather surprising offer.
"You...stay here..."

"What?" Rosa replied surprised.

"You...no home...you...stay here..." he added.

The group was not sure what exactly driven him to allow them to stay but they seemed thankful for it. Rosa was the one who expressed her gratitude. "Thank you very much...um..." it was just now that she realized something while talking to the colt. "What's your name by the way?" She said a little embarrassed as she sticks her tongue out.

"Me...no name..." the colt replied with a frown on his face.

"What do you mean? Everyone has a name. I mean what do others call you?" Rosa asked.

The little colt looked down at the ground with a frown on his face before he looked back at Rosa, giving his answer to her.
"Ponies...give name to me...when visiting forest...Ponies...call me...
Monster..."


To be continued...
> 11. The Monster - Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The forest in the southeast of Equestria was known to be very dangerous. Most ponies avoided ever setting hoof inside of it because of the ferocious animals that lived inside of it. However, despite how dangerous the animals were, among themselves was no hostility. Snakes befriending squirrels, wolves spending days with deer, owls sharing the forest with mice, and much more. Unfortunately, most ponies were not aware of it because everyone who entered the forest was considered an enemy and got attacked by the animals. This not only made it hard to find out much about the forest and that was much to the liking of the animals.

But one day, things changed...

Crying could be heard inside of the forest. Crying that came from a little pony baby, left alone in the middle of the forest. Naturally, the animals investigated and found the little one. It had a pear green coat color and a little dark green mane. They were confused how this pony got so deep into the forest. Somepony must have left it there but not a single animal noticed how someone entered the forest, let alone leaving this crying baby.

If it would have been any other pony, then the animals would quickly agree to scare it away but right now, that was not an option. In front of them laid a pony but they didn't treat it as one. Right now, it was not a pony but rather...a child. A child that was crying and had no one who would take care of it. No matter how protective the animals were of their forest, they could not have left this child. They agreed that someone had to take care of it.


And that is exactly what they did...


Years later, the little baby pony grew up to a lively little colt. The animals treated him as one of their own. The fact that he was a pony was quickly forgotten. He was no pony but instead, another animal that now lived inside of the forest. He knew how to communicate with them and how to take care of himself on his own already.

But still...

He knew that he was different than all the other animals around him. He was no wolf, bear, or anything else in the forest. He was the one and only pony. Soon, he was wondering why there was no one of his kind in the forest but the animals were taking so good care of him that he didn't mind most of the time. He was too young to realize whenever some ponies entered the forest but now he was old enough and more aware of everything that surrounded him.

Soon, an opportunity presented itself in the form of some visitors that entered the forest. The animals that took care of the pony, as usual, would try to scare any visitors away from their forest but this time, the pony showed curiosity towards the visitors and wanted to see them. The animals knew that eventually, the pony had to meet other ponies and fully supported him when it came to leaving the forest to return to his kind. Even if it meant for him to leave the family that took care of him for all this time.

The colt knew where the ponies who entered the room where and took one last time to say goodbye to the animals that took care of him. He hugged them and they hugged him back, feeling sad to let go of one of their children. He would always be remembered by them and should he return, they would welcome him with open arms, paws or claws. The colt smiled one last time and waved his friends and family goodbye before he was on his way to the visitors of the forest.

Not too far inside of the forest, two ponies were fighting their way through the bushes. Both of them wore saddlebags on their bags. One of them was an Earth Pony who was leading the way and the other one was a Unicorn. The Earth Pony had a knife in his mouth to cut through vines and twigs in his way. While following his partner, the Unicorn made a  heavily annoyed impression and made sure to let his partner know.

"Why exactly are we wandering in this forest again?" He said, kinda blaming his friend for the situation he was in now.

"Because there is supposed to be an old castle somewhere in this forest!" The Earth Pony replied, still with the knife in his mouth.

"In a muddy and ugly place like this?" The annoyed Earth Pony doubted.

The Earth put his knife away and turned to his partner. "Don't you get it!? There is a castle in here! Like the one in Canterlot! You know, where the Princess lives!?" He explained as he poked his partner's forehead. "Can you imagine how many treasures there must be in there!?"

The Unicorn still looked at his partner with doubts. "But this forest is supposed to be dangerous. Wild animals, plants so big that they can swallow a pony in one bite and probably even more dangerous things!"

"Well, you can't just have a treasure in a safe place! Somepony would have stolen it by then!" The Earth Pony replied.

"I guess..." The Unicorn admitted while still having doubts that visiting this forest was a good idea.

The little colt eavesdropped on the two stallions to get some kind of idea how he was supposed to act in front of them. It was the first time seeing other ponies like him so he had to make sure to watch them and maybe even adapt to their behavior. Unfortunately, he could make out too much by looking at them. Their way of speaking and their actions confused him. They acted a lot more different than the animals in the forest and were a lot harder to read.

Still...those were one of his kind so he had to try getting used to it. He followed the two stallions and made sure that he would not get noticed by them. They continued their way through the forest until they actually came across what they were looking for. Both of them got really excited after they only saw a glimpse of the castle in the middle of the forest. The colt, of course, knew about the castle but his animal friends advised him to stay away from it. He didn't know why and the animals were also not sure but for some reason, it gave them a weird feeling whenever they even got close to it themselves. They said that there was some kind of weird presence that surrounded the castle and they didn't want him to get close to it because of that.

Those two ponies, of course, didn't know anything about that and soon were about to enter the castle. The colt thought it would be best to warn them to not enter it so he came out of his hiding place and revealed himself. As soon as the two ponies heard two steps behind them, they quickly turned around, expecting a wild animal that tried to attack them. They were surprised by what they saw instead.

"What the? A little colt? Where did he come from?" The Earth Pony asked.

Soon, both of them slowly walked up to the colt and bombarded him with questions that he couldn't answer because of his lack of knowledge about their language.
"Who are you? What's your name? How did you make it into this forest this far all on your own?" The Unicorn asked with a short pause after each question but the colt didn't understand and just looked silently at him. He had no idea what he wanted from him. "What do we do now?" The Unicorn asked his partner, once he ran out of options.

"Just leave him. It's just a child. If he get's hurt, then it's not our problem," the Earth Pony replied coldly to which every other pony would have reacted in shock but fortunately, the colt didn't understand him so he was spared by that.

The Unicorn stallion advised the colt to go home and followed his partner who was on his way to the entrance of the castle, leaving the colt behind. As soon as the Earth Pony tried to open the door of the castle, however, the colt quickly jumped in front of him and blocked his path while shaking his head, in an attempt to let him know that going inside of the castle was a bad idea. Needless to say, the Earth Pony was not too happy about that and wanted him to get out of the way. But seeing how the colt tried to stop him from entering the castle was practically confirming that there had to be something valuable inside of it. Realizing that, the Earth Pony pushed the colt out of the way and opened the castle with a big grin on his face.

The colt was not strong enough to deal with a full-grown stallion so there was nothing that he could do to stop them. However, he did follow them to make sure that they were safe. This, of course, did not become unnoticed. "He is still following us," the Unicorn whispered to his partner.

"Whatever," the Earth Pony stallion replied. "It's not like as if we couldn't take care of a little colt if we have to. As long as we get some treasures from this stupid castle, I don't care about anything else!" He added coldly as he turned around again.

Hearing that was not much to the Unicorns liking. He looked over to the colt with a worried expression on his face and just hoped that he would not do something to get in their way.

It was a little frustrating for the colt, knowing that you had to stop those two ponies but that you couldn't do anything about it. All he could do was following them.

The two ponies looked all over the place but did not find anything valuable. In fact, everything was dirty and covered in vines and mud, the complete opposite of valuable. The Earth Pony began soon turned his head towards the colt and walked up to him with a serious expression on his face. "Hey, do you know anything about this castle? Or some treasures?" He began asking but of course, the colt didn't understand a thing and tilted his head to the side confused.

By now, the stallion gave up when it came to this colt and walked up to his partner, whispering something in his ear. The Unicorn just nodded uncomfortably and they continued walking through the castle. They came across a corner and the Earth Pony hinted something at his partner before they walked around it. The little colt was behind them and a little further and walked around it as well but as soon as he was around the corner, the two ponies were gone. The colt looked confused and began running through the hall in hope that he would catch up with them until he came across a crossing that leads to the left and right. For a moment, he didn't know what to do but then he remembered to use his nose to track them.

However, once he found out where they were going to, he suddenly stopped on his way after thinking about the situation. Soon, a frown was forming on his face and he looked down to the ground.

Meanwhile, the two stallions were running as fast as they could. Their plan was to lose the colt so that he wouldn't get in their way. The Unicorn, however, felt a little bad doing something like that. "You know, remember when you said that we could deal with a colt like him if needed?" He asked his partner while he was still running at full speed. "I still don't get why it was necessary to run from him if that was the case. Maybe he was just lost and wanted to get out of the forest. Don't you think?" He asked, waiting for an answer for a moment. "Partner?" He then asked as he turned his head around, only to find out that there was nopony behind him anymore. He quickly stopped in his track and looked around where his partner was all of the sudden. But he was nowhere to be found.


In the meantime, the colt was trying to find the two ponies again. He decided to go the left way at the crossing. The smells of the two ponies were in both directions which meant that they were splitting up. He had no choice but to guess where the more friendlier one was at since he couldn't distinguish the two smells. But the opposite was the case. The colt just entered the throne room of the castle and saw the Earth Pony stallion standing in the middle of the room, looking at the throne without moving a muscle.

The colt walked a little closer to him. This caused the stallion to notice him. He slowly turned his head around and looked at the colt. The expression on the stallion's face could only be described as terrifying. As soon as the eyes of the stallion met him, the colt began to shiver in fear. The eyes of the stallion were focused on him and didn't move an inch, like a picture whose eyes follow you. The colt had no idea why he was looked at like that and his fear actually prevented him from looking away from those eyes.

He only snapped out of his paralysis once something unexpected happened. The eyes of the stallion glowed in a white light for a very short moment and a dark aura began surrounding him. Then the stallion started to move towards the colt, causing him to back away. But the stallion didn't stop and put a very serious expression on his face while he walked towards the colt. The dark aura began to move towards the colt as well and he didn't know what to do about it and was still paralyzed.

Fortunately, right in time, a wolf came jumping to the colt's rescue and grabbed him out of the way. Soon, more animals joined the wolf and positioned themselves in front of the colt to protect him from the pony. The stallion noticed the new animals but he was not impressed or afraid, in fact, he didn't seem to show any emotions. He just walked up to the crowd of animals with his dark aura getting bigger and more threatening by the second and started to go after the animals. The colt was backing away further and made sure that he was not in the area that the dark aura covered. Unfortunately, the animals that tried to protect him were not so lucky, however...

For a moment, the animals that got caught in the aura began to growl angrily. The all had really aggressive expressions on their faces much to everyone's surprise. But what happened after was even worse. The in darkness covered animals began to attack the other animals who didn't get affected by it. This led to a rather big battle in the throne room. The colt did his best to stay away from all of this and was hiding in the corner of the room. This gave him the opportunity to focus on the Earth Pony stallion who seemed to just stand in the middle of the room, overlooking everything.
The colt knew that he was somehow responsible for this so he tried to come up with a plan to deal with him on his own.

The colt saw an eagle next to the window in the throne room. He whispered something to him and the eagle nodded. It was time to put the plan in motion. The eagle vanished for a moment and flew outside. In the meantime, the colt kept a close look on the stallion while also feeling bad for his animal friends who fought against each other. The eagle came back after a few seconds and had a big rock in his claws. This was a signal for the colt to step in. He walked towards the stallion who simply turned his eyes to him. A few seconds later, the dark aura around him began to go after the colt as well. Luckily, the colt managed to dodge out of the way. He made sure that the stallion kept his eyes on him at all costs and continued to distract him. The stallion didn't seem to suspect a thing and continued his attacks but then, all of the sudden he got hit by a rock on his head that the eagle from before dropped on him. Judging from how the stallion began to tremble, it certainly hurt a lot. In a matter of seconds, he collapsed to the ground unconscious, making his hat fly right in front of the colt.

The stallion was knocked out and just like the colt suspected, the animals came to their senses as well. They do wonder what exactly was happening a few minutes ago but at the same time, they felt kinda relieved that, whatever they were doing, was over now. The colt walked up to every single animal and made sure that they were okay, which seemed to be the case. After that, his attention turned towards the knocked out stallion in the middle of the room. He inspected him a little further. He couldn't see the dark aura anymore so he might be alright now. That's what the colt was thinking at least.

But things got complicated again. "What happened?" A familiar voice then said, coming from the entrance to the throne room. What he saw there, was the Unicorn that accompanied the Earth Pony stallion. He stood in the entrance with a shocked expression on his face and tried to walk up to his partner but some of the animals blocked his path. They suspected him to attack them, just like the stallion on the ground. The Unicorn backed away in fear and noticed how some of them were making sure to protect the little colt in the process. The Unicorn quickly put one and one together. 
"Did you do this?" He asked nervously with a shocked expression on his face.

The colt did not understand his words but he had a feeling what he was asking right now and turned his head away in shame. Only one more word came out of the stallion's mouth. A word that the colt did not know of course, but for some reason, the way how the stallion said it in his angry and terrified state made him feel sad.
"Monster!"

"Monster" the stallion kept repeating. This word made the colt sad even without knowing what exactly it meant. Soon, the angry look on the stallion's face made it only worse. He was afraid. He didn't want to hear this word anymore. Eventually, he became so scared and sad that he decided to jump out of the window of the castle to escape the stallion. His animal friends followed him, sensing the sadness that was quickly growing inside of the colt. It only left the two stallions in the throne room. The Unicorn walked up to his friend and carried him out of the forest, leaving it for good with the intention to never come back. The animals did not stop him and let him go. Right now, most of them were more worried about their little pony friend.

The colt was sitting under a tree with a frown on his face. Those were supposed to be one of his kind. But now he was alone again. He had all the reasons to deal with the one pony that attacked him and his friends but he also wanted to live with other ponies or at least try to. But one of them attacked him and the other was scared of him.

Is this how all ponies are?
Was he in the wrong?
Could this situation be dealt with differently?
All those questions popped up in his mind and made him regret what he did to this stallion.

Some animals walked up closer to the colt and comforted him. They saw how sad he was at the moment and that made them sad as well. They wanted him to be with his kind as well even if it meant leaving the forest for good. But now, leaving the forest didn't sound too appealing anymore. Not if ponies like this waited for him outside...


Sometime later, after that incident, things began to change even further...


The forest was already known to be dangerous and was even rumored to be haunted. This was probably a rumor that was spread by Princess Celestia or her Royal Guards to prevent ponies from entering either the forest or discovering the castle inside of it. However, soon the forest would also be known to be inhabited by a monster. A pony living with wild animals would try to eat everyone who would try to enter the forest. Of course, that was not true and it might not even spread like this but the further and longer this rumor traveled, the more things got changed. And only not too much time later, all nearby villages were aware of the monster in the forest. Naturally, this caused for curiosity, so many ponies did the exact opposite of avoiding the forest and every time when they even saw a glimpse of the colt living it, the would shout "Monster!" And ran away.

Eventually, this was enough for the colt to stop believing in other ponies. They just came in his forest and shouted at him once they saw him with his animal friends. And the worst thing was, he had no idea why they reacted like that. This caused him to give up trying to live with other ponies and he decided to stay in the forest with his real friends and family. There was no reason for him to seek out other ponies or leaving his home. He was happy and didn't need other ponies. He never wanted to see any other ponies ever again.


...that was until he met those four, who had the same expressions in their faces then him. He said he wanted them out of his forest but something inside of him, told him to give them a chance. Maybe things will be a little more clear once he watches those ponies in front of him.

So that's exactly what he did...


"There...there...you don't want to eat me, do you?" Rosa said nervously as she was petting a huge bear who was happily enjoying it and laid on his belly as Rosa scratched his head.

Tagma went to the bear with a more cheerful yet careless approach. "They are not dangerous. You don't have to worry that they bite you or anything. See?" He said before he petted the same bear a lot more carelessly, causing it to growl angrily at him. Tagma jumped back in fear and placed himself right behind Mystic who watched the whole thing without much care. "Protect me, Mystic!" Tagma said in a panic.

"Don't waste your energy. I bet Changelings don't even taste that good," Mystic jokingly said to the bear.

"You don't know that!" Tagma protested. "I bet I taste delicious!" He assured proudly, raising his chest in the air. Of course, Mystic saw no reason to respond to that nonsense and only rolled his eyes.

In the meantime, the colt took the time to speak to Rosa again. He felt like as if she was the most likely one to talk to whenever he had a question. Rosa noticed the colt walking up to her and just smiled, realizing that the colt needed something from her. To that, the colt only gave back a surprised look.
"You...hide...why?" He asked.

To that, Rosa replied with another question. "Why don't you tell me why you are hiding? I would like to know," she said in a comforting way. She seemed to appreciate how the colt was trusting her enough to talk with her like that. "And why did you say that you don't have a name before? Being called "Monster" is not really good, you know?"

The colt hesitated for a moment before he answered. "Me...not hiding...me...live here..." he answered before he focused on Rosa's second question. "Me...monster...but me...don't know...what is...monster?" He asked back with a thoughtful yet unsure expression on his face.

"You want to know what the word "monster" means?" Rosa asked to which the colt nodded in reply. Rosa rubbed her chin. "Well...it's something that you don't want to be called. It's bad..." she explained.

The colt seemed to understand what Rosa was trying to say. He didn't know what the word "monster" meant but he definitely knew that it was nothing nice just by how other ponies looked at him in shock while saying it to him. "Me...bad?" The colt asked, tilting his head to the site with a frown on his face.

"No..." Fade then said from the back of the room, finally saying something again after a while. "You are definitely not a monster. Believe me, out there are a lot worse ponies," he assured. He was probably referring to himself at this moment. The colt actually figured out this much.

"If by "worse ponies" you mean someone like him, then I agree," Rosa said as she pointed at Mystic with her head.

Mystic replied with a similar response. "Well, if angered, you could be considered a monster as well,"

Rosa looked back at Mystic with an angry look on her face. "What did you just say!?" She said with her anger focused directly focused on the Unicorn.

"Oh!" Tagma then raised his leg. "Changeling's are considered a threat to ponies! So that means, I am a monster as well!" He figured with a bright smile on his face.

"This is not a competition, you know," Mystic added to Tagma's statement.

Despite what this was all about, it did seem to somehow lighten up the mood between the four and the little colt. "You...all...monsters?" He asked confused. "But...you...all...nice..."

The group was surprised to hear that. The colt must have seen much worse ponies if he considered this group as nice. Not being confronted with too much ponies was probably another reason. Whatever it was, only an hour after he met them, the colt already warmed up to them and felt no hostility towards them, unlike the ponies that would visit the forest.

"I think there is still something more important that we have to take care of!" Rosa then pointed out, practically out of nowhere. "And that is your name!" She added as she pointed at the little colt.
The Colt tilted his head to the side in confusion. Rosa put a hoof on her chin in order to think. "Mh..." she said before she walked closer to him inspecting him a little in the process. The colt didn't seem to mind and was just wondering what this was all about. Even if it was a little appropriate Rosa walked up to the colt's flank and inspected his Cutie Mark. The colt didn't mind about this either. The mare then walked away with the Cutie Mark in her mind and stood still thinking about a name.

Tagma looked over to Mystic confused who was only returning a non-caring look on his face.

Then suddenly...
"I got it!" She exclaimed loudly, scaring the other three and the animals in the room for a moment. She then realized how loud she was in her excitement and got a little embarrassed but she pulled herself together and shared her idea. "I got the perfect name for you!" She then paused, creating some drama. "How about...Wildheart?"

"Wild...Heart?" The colt said confused, tilting his head to the side.

"Well, your Cutie Mark is a wooden heart covered in vines!" She pointed out. "Fitting isn't it?"

"Cutie...Mark?" The colt said as he looked over at his Cutie Mark. He probably didn't know too much about Cutie Marks since he didn't live with ponies but he realized that Rosa must have gotten her idea from it.

"That's a great name," Fade agreed as he walked up to the colt with a smile on his face.

"It also sounds really cool, right?" Rosa asked. "I know how boys like cool names so when you grow up to a full grown stallion, you will thank me for this name," Rosa said proudly of herself for coming up with the name. "It's settled then! From now on, your name...is Wildheart," she said as she put a hoof on the colt.

"Wild...Heart...name?" The colt mumbled to himself several times over again.

Rosa smiled brightly. "Do you like it?" She asked, curious about the colt's answer.

The colt took some time to answer. He put a hoof on his heart and began to smile as well. "Wild...Heart...me...Wild...Heart..."
"Me...like...name," Rosa grinned happily after hearing that and Wildheart returned a grin as well.

The animals seemed to be happy about this as well and got closer to everyone as if they were already part of their family.

"You really don't mind us staying in this castle?" Fade asked as he walked up to Wildheart.

Wildheart shook his head. "You...friends...you...stay..." he simply said.

"Thank you," Fade replied happily with a smile on his face. He then turned to the rest of the group.  "We should all get some rest. We have been traveling for a while now,"

"Yeah!" Tagma agreed. "I haven't even realized it but I am actually pretty tired," he said with a huge smile on his face.

"You sure don't look like it..." Rosa added.

After that, the group decided to get a little comfortable somewhere in the castle. Fade looked around the castle to find a room where they could stay. Some kind of chamber or a room with some seats at least. From there on out, they could figure out what to do next...
> 12. Story Time
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the group consisting of four ponies and one Changeling made themselves at home in the Forgotten Castle, Fade prepared something in a small room. He asked the others to meet him in this room at a later time. The other four stepped into it after he was done, and what they saw confused them a little.

"What is all this?" Rosa asked confused as she looked at the middle of the room, where she could see a circle of chairs.

Fade explained. "I want you all to take a seat so that we can each share our stories,"

"Share our stories?" Mystic asked almost offended. "What are we? Colts and Fillies sitting around a campfire? Also...I am not interested in any of your backstories nor do I intend to share mine with you!" He said, making sure that everyone would understand his opinion on this.

Fade slowly walked up to him with a blank expression on his face. "Some of us are more trustworthy than others," he said, obviously hinting at Mystic and Tagma. "You still wanted to ask me something, right? I'm just making sure that I am not answering somepony who I can't trust," he said before he turned to one of the seats and sat down.

Mystic got a little annoyed by hearing those words but eventually, he quietly sat down as well, right on the chair that was on the other end of the circle, away from Fade. The others joined as well. Tagma sat down to Mystic's left and to Fade's right on the only chair that was between them. Rosa sat down to the right of Mystic and Wildheart sat down on her right side between her and Fade.

At first, there was an awkward silence. Wildheart did not bother and Fade wasn't too since he came up with it but the rest seemed a little uncomfortable with it and didn't think that this was a good idea.

Fade looked around him and saw how they all must have felt so he decided to begin. "I'll start..." he said, making it easier for the others to open up as well. "My name is Fade Sol. Just a while ago, I was working under Princess Celestia as the Captain of the Royal Guard. My duty was to serve and protect the ponies of Equestria," he then turned his head towards Tagma with a small glare on his face. "That includes, dealing with threats...like Changelings..."

Tagma made a nervous face to that sentence but then he smiled awkwardly. "Good to know that you are not doing that anymore, right?" He said with an awkward smile on his face.

However, Fade kept his glare up. "Let's just wait until you share your story..." he warned.

Tagma then tried to change the subject. "So what happened? Why are the Royal Guards going after you now?"

Fade continued. "There was an accident...one that I caused, in a way...I think..." he explained, though there was not much to explain, to begin with.

"You think?" Mystic pointed out.

"Let's just say, that I rather want things back the way they used to be..." Fade replied while he looked down at the ground with a frown on his face.

"So that you can return to your precious princess again?" Mystic provocatively said. This caused Rosa to glare at him because of his rude behavior since she had an idea what Fade was talking about.

Rosa wanted to give him a little piece of her mind but Fade replied instead. "No...so that I can see my daughter again..." he said with his eyes still focusing on the ground. Mystic reacted a little surprised to hear that. He turned his head away and was quiet now. "My daughter was unfortunate enough to get caught by a sickness which is just known as "Eternal Slumber"," 

"Eternal Slumber?" Tagma asked away confused.

Fade explained further. "It's a sickness that prevents one to wake up. My daughter was caught by it for a long time now. There is no known cure for it. I did everything to find a cure for her but it was all in vain," it was obvious that he was not feeling too well telling a bunch of strangers this story but he kept continuing. "The worst part is, that her mother passed away, making me the only family she has. Just thinking about that she will wake up some day and finds out that her father is now a wanted criminal is just..." he stopped in mid-sentence but everyone knew where he was going at.

Wildheart was the only one who felt lost a little but he could literally feel how Fade must have felt and stood up from his seat, walking up to the Unicorn in the purple armor. He simply put a hoof on Fade and said: "Wildheart...sorry..."

Those words were enough to put a little smile on Fade. "Thank you..." he replied as he petted the little colt on the head.

Wildheart returned to his seat. Rosa smiled, seeing the little colt doing this to comfort Fade. She felt like as if the room got a little more depressing so she figured that she should continue now and decided to lighten up the mood with her story. "Okay! Listen up! My turn now!" She said loudly, getting the others to focus on her immediately. She stood on top of her seat and began her story. "I am a thief! I steal stuff because I like it! I like money and shiny stuff! All of Equestria knows about me and locks away their treasures as soon as they see me! And the name of this famous thief...is Rosa!"

There would be a silence in the room if it wasn't for Tagma's excited claps after Rosa's "story". This made Rosa actually a little proud of herself if it hadn't been for Mystic's next comment.

"Never heard of you..." he said ice-coldly.

"Meanie!" Rosa replied angrily. There was another silence after this and Rosa decided to get to the more serious part of her story. "I grew up with my mother in a small village. She was a flower sales pony and I was the little filly that always would create trouble in the village when I happened to go there. You see, our house was just at the corner of the village and the villagers just happened to not like me because of I kinda am...the daughter of another famous thief so..." Before she knew it, she was all caught up with her story and continued without a care.

Fade, however, was interested in something. "What was your father's name?"

Rosa shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry...I don't know. I blamed him for leaving my mother alone and making all the villagers hate me because I happened to be his daughter so I never bothered to ask my mothwe about his name," she explained.

"I see..." Fade replied, leaving it be.

Wildheart, who seemed to be interested in the story, was wondering about something as well. "Where...mother...now?" He asked.

Rosa had a slight frown on her face but answered his question. "One day, those ponies appeared and wanted to take her with her. She refused at first, but later, she decided to leave anyway. I think she went to the ponies what came before to take care of some...things..." she explained before she pulled out the last thing that she got from her mother before she left. "This brooch is the only thing that reminds me of her," she said as she grabbed tightly to it. "Since then, I took care of myself. Of course, I was looking for my mother but...Wherever she is now or whatever she is doing right now, I think she is alright. She also told me to live my own life so that's what I am doing!" She explained before she smiled confidently.

The others seemed affected by those last words. Tagma was looking at Rosa impressed and touched his yellow headband, instantly thinking about Sole. Fade and Wildheart lightly smiled. Mystic, however, only looked away while being in deep thoughts.

The Changeling got a little affected by Rosa's story. He gulped heavily and prepared himself to share his story. "I'm next!" He said with an awkward smile on his face. However, the smile instantly vanished once Fade gave looked at him with a piercing expression on his face. Still, he couldn't let him judge him forever so he started his story. "I'm a Changeling!" He started.

This caused Mystic to slap his own forehead. "We already know that..." he said, astonished by Tagma's obliviousness, especially since he was not transformed right now.

But Tagma was not bothered by this and continued. "Yes! But I am a special one! I don't need to steal love from ponies!" He briefly explained.

Fade, of course, was the first one to speak up to this. "What?" He said confused, demanding more of an explanation.

"Well, you see...our queen told me that I possess this special gift of creating love on my own. She thought she could use it to help our Kingdom grow stronger," Tagma further explained.

"How?" Rosa asked, who was now interested in Tagma's backstory as well.

As soon as Tagma realized what he was supposed to tell them, he began to frown. "She kept me in a chamber and wanted me to create love for her. To make her and the other Changelings stronger. At first, it didn't bother me too much. After all, I was helping the Changelings to reach their goal to conquer all of Equestria,"
As soon as those words were said, Fade, once again, glared at the Changeling for his poor choice of words.
"Um...no hard feeling...okay?" Tagma added with an awkward smile on his face before he continued. "After a few months, it was just too much. Sharing my love with all Changelings on a daily basis was really exhausting...and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life trapped in one room. Thankfully, another Changeling helped me to escape. I met another Pony who took me in for a while, despite me being a Changeling but..." he grabbed his headband tightly. "He vanished after I was attacked by a group of Changelings that tried to get me back to the Kingdom..."

"So the Changeling's that attacked us earlier, wanted you back because of that special ability..." Mystic figured which only confused the rest of the group since they didn't know what he was talking about.

Tagma nodded. "I thought, after meeting this one pony and seeing how he accepted me, that I could find a place in Equestria to live," he turned his head towards Fade who returned a surprised look. "But I guess that's not that easy..." he said quietly, frowning in the process.

Fade felt bad after those words were said. He frowned as well. Whatever Tagma might be, Changeling or Pony, in his eyes, the only monster that was in the room, was himself. He had no right to judge Tagma for being a Changeling alone. After all, after carefully thinking about it, Tagma was not even remotely behaving like any Changeling that he ever met before. He was harmless, maybe a little oblivious and simple-minded but still harmless.

"Me...next..." Wildheart then said suddenly, raising his front leg in the air. The others turned towards the little colt and listened carefully because understanding would probably a little more difficult than with the rest. "Me...born in forest...animals...took care...of Wildheart" he started with a blank expression on his face. "Animals...friends...family...but...no pony...in forest...Wildheart...only pony...Wildheart...alone..." he then said as he formed a frown on his face after telling this story.

Rosa smiled. "Not anymore," she said, causing Wildheart to turn his head towards her with a slight smile on his face, appreciating those words.

Wildheart continued with his story. "Two ponies...came to forest...Wildheart...tried to leave...forest...but ponies...came here...in castle...one pony...gone evil...glowing white eyes...no life...dark mist around him..."

As soon as those words were spoken, Fade's eyes widened in surprise. Of course, Fade had to make sure of something and asked Wildheart something.

"White glowing lifeless eyes and a dark mist around him?" Fade mumbled to himself. He remembered how before he attacked his fellow Royal Guards, that he was approaching a pony with glowing white eyes and a dark aura, dragging him into this weird place where he was forced to fight his way out. After that, he only saw how his fellow guards laid on the ground. Wildheart's description fitted what he saw back then.

Fade kept this in mind and continued listening to Wildheart's story, not planning to interrupt him anytime soon. "I...fought...protected...me...protected...friends...other pony...angry...for attacking...white-eyed pony...call me...monster...more ponies came...more ponies called me...monster..." he explained with a frown on his face.

"So what?" Rosa simply added in. "You protected yourself and your friends. That doesn't make you a monster! If anything, it would be the complete opposite!"

Fade agreed. "Rosa is right. Everyone was just scared because they thought you were different than them. Just because they call you a monster, doesn't mean that you are one," he explained, trying his best to cheer the little colt up again since he simply had no reason to be sad considering that he does not make the impression of a bad pony at all.

Mystic, surprisingly agreed with Fade. "Sometimes being different than everybody else is enough to hurt you. Not giving anything about the opinion of others is what gives you the strength to go forward in life," he explained, almost as if he was speaking from personal experience.

The rest of the group agreed that some of those words were true. None of them were here if they decided to give up somewhere along the line. Even after thinking about it, Fade regretted letting himself almost caught from the Royal Guards. All of them were in some kind of way, different. Whether there was something that changed their life or if they were born with something that made their life harder, they tried to break out and attempted to change it for the better. Some of them more successful than the others.

Hearing Mystic talking like that made them all curious about what he went through, much to his dislike. He rolled his eyes. "You really want me to join into this?" He asked annoyed. But no one answered. Instead, they waited patiently until he would continue. He sighed heavily and eventually began. "I was born in a little village in the west of Equestria. There is nothing more to say about that. It's a real quiet and small village. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not even on an Equestrian map," Mystic explained. It did feel like as if he was not telling them everything, though. "Some things happened, some good, some bad. And now I am here," he continued before he paused for a while. However, the pause went on for a little while, making the others wonder what would come next until Mystic finally spoke up. "That's it. End of the story," he simply said.

Rosa was the first one share her opinion on this "story". "That's it? That didn't tell us anything!" She said with a mix of confusion and annoyance.

"Well, I didn't agree to tell you anything about me," Mystic replied boldly.

"Come on, Mystic," Tagma said. "I'm sure it'll be fun! We are all interested in what you went through. Maybe you feel better if you share it with us," he added a little cheerfully,  trying to convince Mystic to tell his story.

Mystic looked straight at the Changeling with an angered look on his face. "Well, I am not interested in your stories!" He coldly replied. "Do you really think that I become friends with you after I listened to your sob-stories?"

"You are unbelievable!" Rosa exclaimed angrily at Mystic's behavior. "Why are you even here if you don't care about any of this?"

Mystic looked over to Fade with a serious expression on his face. "As soon as I got my answer, I'll leave." Mystic left the room after he said those words. He was sure that Fade knew what he meant with that.

The story exchanging ended and the rest of the group left the room as well. Since it was already getting dark outside, the group decided to each find a room to stay for the night. Everyone, besides Mystic, warmed up to each other a little more. After hearing each other's stories, they soon figured that they were all connected in some kind of way. They were all alone. But not anymore. They might be different. They might have no reason to stay with each other but at least, they were not alone anymore. If it meant spending time with ponies or Changelings, Royal Knights or thieves, then it was either that or being alone again.

Mystic, however, was not looking at the situation like this.

"Hey!" Mystic said towards Fade who was walking along the hallway, ready to go to sleep. The Unicorn turned towards Mystic and listened to what he had to say, even though he knew exactly what was coming up next. "Since we are done with everything, I can finally ask my question now so that I can leave?" Mystic said as if he was in some kind of hurry right now.

Fade had a disappointing expression on his face. "Looks like my intention to get you warmed up to the others was in vain..." he said, accompanied with a sigh. "Fine. Go ahead," he added giving up on this matter.

Mystic was waiting for this and finally asked away. "As the former Captain of the Royal Guard, I expect you to know something about this case. You better not lie to me," he advised, even though it sounded more like a threat. "A few years ago...the most important pony in my life was taken away from the Royal Guards. My big sister, Mysteria..."
Fade could feel how talking about this matter made Mystic a little depressed, as well as angry. This anger was focused on Fade who did not say anything yet and let Mystic continue.

"First, they came and talked to her. She didn't tell me what it was about, said that I didn't have to worry about it. So I didn't. But one day, they came back. They said that the Princess herself wanted to see her. She went with them and left me at the village, assuring me that she would soon be back.
And she did.
But..." Mystic stopped in the middle of his explanation frowning in the process.
"When she came back...she was...broken..."

"Broken?" Fade asked confused, narrowing his eyes.

Mystic continued. "She was no longer the sister that I knew. Her happiness was gone. Her joy. Her smile. Eventually, everything was gone...until...she was as well...gone..."

"What happened?" Fade asked.

Mystic pulled himself together and continued further. "She just left me...ran away...without a word...no one in my village knew what happened or where she went. They had no idea. The sister that I loved above all else just left me alone..."

There was a pause in the hallway. Fade understood that Mystic was sad about it and he also had an idea what Mystic wanted to ask him now so he asked away. "You want to know if I know anything about this case?" He asked, making Mystic raise his head towards the former Captain. However, Fade's answer was not to the Unicorns liking. "I'm sorry but...I never heard that name before. I was the Captain of Princess Celestia's Royal Guard for quite a while now but I don't know anything about this matter. If Princess Celestia was the one who demanded to talk with your sister, then the best thing to do is ask her herself," Fade explained.

Fade expected Mystic to burst out in anger after this answer but he was surprised by how he reacted instead.
He chuckled. "I'm afraid, that is not an option..." he simply replied.

"Why not?" Fade asked confused.

This caused Mystic to continue further with his story. "A little while later, after my sister was gone, something surprising happened," Mystic said with an almost emotionless smile on his face. "Princess Celestia came to our little village. She never visited this village before, as far as I can recall so naturally this was a big surprise. And it was also...my chance to get some answers. I didn't care why she was there or if it was wrong to go up to the princess as a little colt but I just had to ask her what happened to my sister.
I asked what happened to Mysteria.
I asked why she wanted to talk with her.
I asked what happened to make her end out like that.
...
Do you know what she answered to me?" He said with a smile on his face that had a mix of shock and madness in it.

"...what did she answer?" Fade asked, being curious of the answer now himself.

Mystic's smile widened even further. "She said...
...
I have no idea what you are talking about..." he said while still keeping up his big smile that began to send shivers done on Fade's spine.
"She never heard the name Mysteria before!
She never talked to a pony like that!
She never sent a bunch of Royal Guards to take someone away from our village!"
After every sentence, Mystic's anger grew even further until it was visible by the magic aura that ran out of control and surrounded him in a dark blue light.
"How dare she say that!? She was the cause of my sister's disappearance! I know it! And she just pretends as if she didn't even know about her! How Dare she!? How dare she take away my sister and then pretending that she didn't even know her!?"

The magic around Mystic began to crack some of the walls next to him because of the sheer pressure of his magic. Fortunately, Mystic calmed down a little and walked past Fade who was keeping his guard up at all costs after this little incident. He was considering to talk Mystic out of this mindset but then he decided to keep quiet to not get into trouble with him. The last thing he wanted, was to get into a fight with him. One of the reasons being that Mystic's magic seemed more powerful than his own.

"I will stay here for today but I'll leave tomorrow...You better don't come in my way after this," Mystic advised before he walked away to find a room to stay for today. Fade let him. He didn't like how he was expressing his hate towards Princess Celestia and feared that he would do something to get himself in danger sooner or later. But as for now, Fade was staying away from Princess Celestia as well. It was actually about time to figure out what he wanted to do from now on.

But as for now...he just wanted to go to sleep and let the next day come to him. Maybe he will know what to do then...
> 13. Battle in the Forgotten Castle - Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone in the Forgotten Castle was up early once the sun began to rise at the horizon. The castle, however, even seemed to look dark while being covered in the sunlight, giving it an even more secluded and ominous presence than before.

Mystic, who already was on his way to leave, looked over to the castle with a thoughtful expression on his face. Soon, second thoughts of leaving this place came into his mind. He did not care about the others or what would happen to them from now on. He just wanted to take care of his own business and his own life. He couldn't waste a thought of caring about others and their problems. With those thoughts in mind, he kept staring at the castle for a while and carefully thought about what to do next.


A little later, inside of the castle...


"So he left, huh..." Tagma said disappointed, lowering his head in the process.

"Looks like it," Fade replied.

The rest of the group gathered in the throne room. Fade took the opportunity to share what Mystic told him about his past, about what happened to his sister and his previous encounter with the Royal Guards. To some degree, the others began to actually understand Mystic and why he was acting so aggressively towards the Royal Guards. Of course, they couldn't force him to stay along with them. If he wanted to be on his own, then they just had to deal with that. Especially since they know how he can be sometimes. Still, Tagma had problems to deal with this situation and was just sad.

"Tagma...miss...Mystic?" Wildheart asked as he petted the Changeling's back out of concern.

"Yes..." Tagma replied.

"You wanted to leave together with him?" Rosa asked.

Tagma took a moment to think about it. Of course, he didn't want to be separated with any of his newfound "friends" but he knew Mystic for a little while to realize that he probably preferred to be alone. There were actually times where he regretted to travel with Mystic just because he was like a ticking time-bomb at times. Still, he had to at least one thing. "I'm going to look for Mystic and say goodbye!" He said determinedly.

"Good idea!" Rosa agreed.

"Yes, maybe you can even convince him to stay with us," Fade further pointed out.

"I'll try my best!" Tagma said excitedly before he dashed off to the main hall of the castle, trying to catch up with Mystic before he left for good.

Fade could only shake his head with a smile on his face. "I'll never expected to see a Changeling chase after a Pony because he was worried. Things really changed so much recently..." he said a little amused by the irony of it.

"Am I seeing some progress?" Rosa asked smugly.

"What?" Fade responded confused.

Rosa explained. "I think you are finally looking at him as a Pony and not as a member of the Royal Guard. I mean...would you still try to hand him over to Princess Celestia just because he is a Changeling?" She asked, hoping that Fade would give the answer that she was expecting.

Fade had to admit that fighting against Changelings was his bread and butter before all those things happened and if there was a chance to somehow get back to his previous life then he would try to grab it, no matter what. 
At least, that's what he thought before...
Meeting all those new ponies and Tagma gave him some more insight about the ponies in Equestria that he would never have discovered while just doing his job in the Royal Guard. Things just happen that cause others to change just like that. Whether it was loneliness or the way they were born, Rosa, Wildheart, Tagma, and Mystic would be considered different or maybe even dangerous by anypony else who didn't know what they went through. But as for now, his opinion on them was set.

"No...probably not..." Fade simply replied which put a smile on Rosa who was happy to hear that.

"Tagma...friend..." Wildheart added.

"Yes..." Fade replied with a slight smile on his face. 


In the meantime, Tagma was rushing down the hallway to reach the entrance of the castle and finding Mystic to say his goodbyes. Whatever the reasons were for him to leave, the least he could have done was saying goodbye even if he didn't want anyone to accompany him. With this in mind, Tagma felt a little sad. Mystic stated multiple times that he didn't care about others and that they were no friends but Tagma wanted to believe otherwise and believed that deep down he and the others were at least important to him because they were all alone, just like him.

Tagma increased his speed to make sure that he wouldn't miss Mystic in the last second. He definitely wanted to make sure to say his goodbye to him. But as he walked further through the hallway of the castle, soon someone walked towards him, making Tagma stop in his track for a moment.

Tagma couldn't figure out who the figure was, mainly because of how dark it was inside of the castle. Tagma knew that it couldn't be Fade, Rosa or Wildheart because there was no way that they could have come from this direction since they were most likely still in the same room from where Tagma came from.

Soon, the figure was in plain sight. A dark purple coat, a dark blue and yellow mane, and dark blue eyes. There was no mistake.

"Mystic!" Tagma said in his excitement as he saw the Unicorn walking towards him. Even though he probably won't like it, Tagma jumped at him and gave him a big hug. Strangely, Mystic didn't seem to mind and just petted Tagma's back in return, waiting until the Changeling would release him. "You came back? I thought you wanted to leave this place for good,"

Mystic waited a moment before he responded. "I changed my mind," he responded while rubbing his neck. "Actually, I am still not sure if I want to stay..."

"Why not?" Tagma asked. "How about we go back to the others and talk about it?" He suggested.

"No, don't..." Mystic instantly responded. He looked around the hall to make sure that no one was around and explained his reasoning for this quick response. "I don't want my friends to worry about that,"

Those words made Tagma's eyes widen. "Friends?" He asked confused.

"Yes. We are friends...are we not?" Mystic asked with a confused look on his face as well.

For a moment, it felt like time was staying still for Tagma. Something was wrong. Mystic clearly stated that he and Tagma or any of the others were not his friends. And now, all of the sudden, he actually called Tagma "friend". Something was definitely wrong and the Changeling had a good clue what it could be...


Meanwhile...


Fade, Rosa and Wildheart were still in the throne room and waited for Tagma's return. They didn't expect Mystic to be with him when he returned. But to some degree, they would not be to upset, especially after Fade shared his story with them. Eventually, Rosa came up with something that they could have done earlier.

"You know...should we have followed Tagma? I mean, saying goodbye to Mystic and all?" She asked, causing Fade to react with surprise.

"You are literally the last pony I expected to say this," he boldly replied.

Rosa turned her head away embarrassed. "It's just...no matter how to mean this guy is or how less he cares about us, I still think that after spending some time together, just letting him leave without a word is kind of wrong," she explained.

Wildheart surprisingly added something unexpected to those words. "Mystic...not mean...Mystic...sad,"

"What?" Rosa replied confused.

Wildheart explained further. "Mystic...eyes...sad...don't know...friends...don't know...family...anymore...We...help...Mystic..."

"Maybe staying with us is actually the best thing we could do now..." Fade added. "Loneliness can make you stronger but it can also hurt you. Friendship is something that can prevent it. We can help carry some of his sadness, even if he doesn't admit it. But he is too proud to let anypony help him so he prefers to stay alone and deal with it himself. On top of that, his hate towards Princess Celestia is something that I am worried about as well. I would like to talk him out of this hate if possible," Fade explained in greater detail.

Soon, Rosa and Wildheart agreed that going after Mystic was not too late yet. Rosa began to smile determined. "Alright! This stubborn Unicorn might not want our company but we will give it to him no matter what!"

Fade nodded. "Then let's go and try to catch up to him," he said before he leads the way through the hallway of the castle.

However, Wildheart did not follow them and looked around in the room, sniffing the air in the process. Rosa noticed this behavior. "Wildheart? What's wrong? Are you not coming?" she asked confused while Fade was also paying attention to the little colt's strange behavior.

Wildheart continued to sniff the air and seemed to figure out what it was. "Air...smells...different..." he said as he looked at the two ponies in front of him now. "new smells...in castle...smells...no friends...smells...dangerous..." he tried to explain.

Fade and Rosa seemed to had a good idea what he might mean by this. Fade walked up to the little colt. "You mean...there is someone else in this castle?"

Wildheart nodded with a serious expression on his face. "Many..." he added afterward.

Fade and Rosa began to worry about what this could mean but soon the answer came right to them. Hissing and wing-flapping sounds could be heard from the distance. While Wildheart and Rosa were slightly confused about those, Fade knew exactly what those sounds were since he didn't hear them for the first time. "Stay close to each other...we might be in some trouble," he advised as he and the other two ponies stood back to back in the throne room, preparing themselves for whatever was coming at them now.


Meanwhile...


"Is something the matter?" Mystic asked towards a very confused Tagma who stood there as if he saw a ghost in front of him while slightly backing up a little in the process, something that was not unnoticed by Mystic. "Hey! Talk to me!" He said in a little more aggressive tone which actually fitted Mystic.

Tagma thought about what to do next. There was a chance that he was just imagining things but he had to make sure.
"Remember how we shared all our stories yesterday? There was something in your story that I didn't really understand. Mind if I ask you anything about that?"

Mystic kept eye contact with Tagma while having a serious expression on his face. "I really don't like repeating my story so if you mind, let's not talk about it, okay?" He replied, which again was something that Mystic would have probably said.

However, one thing was off. One crucial thing that proved that this pony in front of Tagma was not Mystic. One little thing that Tagma said, tricking the imposter to reveal himself.

"You didn't share your story..." Tagma quietly said directly into the fake Mystic's eyes, causing him to react in shock. "You refused to share your story with us because you didn't care about us. You also would have never called me or the others "Friends"," Tagma explained, fully revealing that he knew what was going on here.

Mystic was silent for a moment. He didn't make any rash movements and actually began to smile after a while. "Well, done. You at least were able to trick me. I didn't expect that, judging from the first impression that I had from you, Tagma." It was exactly like Tagma thought. The identity of the imposter was now clear. Green flames began to cover the fake Mystic and soon he revealed himself as what he really was. A Changeling. And not any Changeling. It was the same one that Tagma met when he was on his first mission. The serious and stoic Changeling commander who tracked him down, back then near Sole's farm. "No more tricks then. I get straight to the point, " he said as he approached Tagma further, causing him to step back in response. "The queen wants you to come back to us. And this time, you will not escape us!" He said before he charged right at Tagma with his horn glowing in a light green aura.

Tagma was too late to dodge in time and prepared himself for some pain coming right at him but luckily, a magic beam got between the two and stopped the Changeling Commanders attack who just kept an eye open from where this shot came from. Tagma also was curious about this and was happy once he saw who helped him just now.

"You Changelings sure are stubborn. How about you just let one of your guys...I don't know...do whatever he wants?" The pony said looking at the Changeling Commander with the serious look on his face that he always had.

"Mystic! You came back!" Tagma said in excitement before he went towards him, hugging him in the process just like before with the fake Mystic until he realized that this might as well could be someone who was transforming into Mystic as well. "Did you come back because we are your friends?" He asked just to make sure.

"No, I didn't" Mystic quickly replied before he pushed the Changeling away from his body. "Just when I left the castle, I noticed how there was a whole swarm of Changelings flying towards it. I figured that dealing with them would be too much for you so I decided to lend you a hoof while I am still here," Mystic explained, although Tagma couldn't figure out if Mystic was genuinely concerned and tried to hide it or if he still didn't care.

Of course, the Changeling Commander was everything but happy about this interruption and straight out charged at Mystic because of it. Both Mystic and Tagma managed to dodge to the side in time and Mystic countered with his magic that the Changeling Commander managed to dodge. Soon, both of them exchanged attacks. The Changeling Commander resorted to use magic beams as well, to counter Mystic's attacks but the Unicorn seemed to have the upper hoof for most of the time.

Eventually, the Changeling Commander began to get angry by all of this. "Stay out of this!" He said angrily. "This is none of your business! Why does a pony even bother helping a Changeling?" He asked in a mix of frustration and confusion.

Mystic replied smugly. "Maybe I just like messing with you Changelings?"

The Changeling Commander got even angrier than before but surprisingly, he quickly calmed down again and even smiled. Confused by this sudden behavior both Tagma and Mystic kept their eyes open for anything suspicious that the Changeling would pull. "Tagma...you need to return to us! You honestly can't expect to live happily in Equestria surrounded by ponies. Do you think they would accept a Changeling among them? That you could just live in one of their towns or villages, expecting them to treat you like one of them?"

Those words began to hurt Tagma. Especially since he actually believed that himself. Of course, living in Equestria as a Changeling was not easy if not even impossible. For a moment, Tagma actually considered to listen to his commander and reconsidered returning to the Changeling Kingdom. But one thing kept him from making this decision. One thing remembered him how things don't have to be how the Changeling Commander described them. Tagma touched his yellow headband and bravely stood up to the Commander with a determined expression on his face.
"Maybe not everywhere, maybe even most ponies won't even give me a chance. But I think...no...I know that out there, are ponies who will accept me! Ponies who don't see me as some kind of fuel for their species and who don't want to conquer Equestria! In the short time that I spent in Equestria, I was happier than in all those years that I grew up in the Changeling Kingdom! That is why I will not return! So go back and tell that to Queen Chrysalis!" 

Mystic was surprised to hear those words from Tagma and even seemed a little proud to hear them. But the one who those words should have affected was not taking them seriously at all. "This is not over! I am not going anywhere," he replied before he looked over to Mystic. "I know that I can not win this battle on my own but I also know that you won't leave this place with your other friends still being here. So how about we see each other later?" He said with a victorious smile on his face.  "As for your words from before...how about you tell them to our majesty herself?" He simply said before he ran away and vanished into the shadows of the hallway.

This gave Mystic and Tagma a second to catch their breath. However, those words still gave Tagma a really bad feeling. Whatever it was, not only he was affected by this attack. His friends were too.

"Mystic! We have to go back to the throne room! The others might be in danger!" Tagma said in his frustration.

"And that is my problem because?" Mystic coldly replied.

Tagma then grabbed Mystic's shoulders. "Please!" He begged with tears almost coming out of his eyes out of frustration. Just the realization of his friends getting in danger was enough to drive him into this.

But the question is if Mystic would help him out now...


In the meantime...


"Hiya!" Rosa exclaimed as she was kicking a Changeling away who was about to attack Wildheart, sending him flying across the room.

"Thank you...Rosa..." Wildheart replied.

"Don't worry about it. Just stay right behind me!" She advised as she kept an eye out for every Changeling that could attack them. She also kept her view on Fade, who was doing most of the work on fighting off the Changelings that were all over the throne room. Some of them charged at him in large groups and some of them stayed behind and analyzed the situation. Fade did a good job fighting off every single Changeling that came after him and sometimes after Rosa and Wildheart but with probably hundred of Changelings inside of the room, waiting on the ceiling or all around them, not even he would be able to fight them all off. And he was fully aware of that too.

What worried Fade, even more, is the fact that there could be even more of them outside. Then again, the question was why there were so many Changelings, to begin with. But Fade had a slight guess why that would be the case and before he knew it, the answer revealed itself after he was done fighting another group of Changelings.

"Enough!" A female voice said from afar, causing the Changelings to back up a little. They all walked to the side and let another Changeling enter the room. This Changeling was bigger than the rest of them. She was about as big as Princess Celestia. She had a long dark cerulean hair color, a black skin color like the rest of the Changelings, big see-through wings and a big horn on her forehead. Her eyes were green and on her head was a small crown. She walked over to the three and only looked arrogantly at them. "We don't have time to waste with ponies like you,"

Fade had no doubt who that was and decided to get close to Rosa and Wildheart before he focused his sight on the female Changeling again. "So that is why there are so many of them here," he mumbled just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear it. "Normally, most of the Changelings stay behind to protect their queen from danger but now she stands right before us..."

Rosa was shocked to hear this. "Wait...you mean that is...?"

"Yes," Fade replied. "The leader of the Changelings, Queen Chrysalis," he said, looking directly into the eyes of the queen.

"Exactly," Queen Chrysalis replied proudly and with a smile on her face. "And judging from your armor, you are one of Princess Celestia's lapdogs. But judging from the color of your armor, you are not an ordinary member of the Royal Guard. In fact, this purple armor only belongs to the Captain of the Royal Guard," she quickly figured out, much to Fade's dislike. "This, however, begs the question why the captain would be in a place like this," she added as she began thinking about an answer. "Maybe Princess Celestia somehow found out about Tagma and tries to use him for herself?"

Fade already expected the queen being here because of Tagma. Luckily, he was not there at the moment but sooner or later he would either be captured by some Changelings or return to the throne room, falling right into a trap.

Fade had to prevent this. Not only did he want to protect Tagma from being captured but he also needs to keep him away since Queen Chrysalis has clearly planned to use Tagma for attacking Equestria sooner or later. This was the perfect opportunity to take care of the Changeling Queen. They might be outnumbered but if Fade takes out Queen Chrysalis then the other Changelings may retreat. There was a slim chance for that "plan" to work but right now, it may be the only thing to do.

Fade readied himself for an attack directly aiming at Queen Chrysalis, who was only reacting in surprise. "You're kidding...you're kidding, right?" She only said back to Fade.

"As a pony of Equestria, it is my duty to protect it from creatures like you who want to take over it! I will deal with you, right here, right now!" Fade said determined with his horn glowing already in a bright purple light.

Queen Chrysalis only chuckled mockingly and began channeling some magic in her as well, covering it in a light green light. She was very confident that Fade would not stand a chance against her and waited for Fade to fire his shot. Fade realized this and took his time to concentrate as much magic as he could. Rosa and Wildheart could only watch and hope that Fade would overpower Queen Chrysalis.

Then, almost out of the blue, Fade fired right at the Changeling Queen who returned a magic beam of her own. The two beams clashed in the middle, releasing a shock wave that could be felt all over in the throne room. Both Fade and Queen Chrysalis seemed to be fully concentrated and the beams were not moving that much to either of their directions, meaning that none of them were overpowering the other. That was until Fade decided to go out even more which slowly caused his beam to overpower Chrysalis. However, instead of feeling threatened by this, she only smiled.

"It is really amusing to watch how you think that you can defeat me!" She said, still smiling widely.

Only seconds later, Someone landed a few meters next to Fade. It was the Changeling Commander who dealt with Tagma and Mystic a few moments ago. Fade recognized him as well as the commander who he fought against back then before he accidentally attacked his own men. As soon as the Commander noticed the surprised look on Fade's face, he began smiling for a moment. "It's time to repay you for beating us up earlier," he said before his horn began to glow in a light green light.

Rosa and Wildheart quickly realized what he was about to do and tried to step in, to help Fade. However, their way was blocked by a bunch of Changelings who were not even thinking about letting the two through. As if that was not bad enough, even more Changeling's began to surround Fade. Of course, he knew what they planned but he couldn't stop his attack while Queen Chrysalis was still shooting at him. If he focused on the Changelings around him, then he would get hit by her magic beam. He was trapped, and there was nothing that he could do.

"It's over!" The Changeling Commander exclaimed, giving the other Changelings a signal to attack.

Fade closed his eyes and prepared himself for the impact while still trying to block Queen Chrysalis's attack. Soon, all Changelings around him were shooting at him, causing him to scream in pain and forcing him to drop down to his knees.

"Fade!" Rosa screamed in shock.

Queen Chrysalis saw her opportunity and increased her magic, powering her magic beam up even further. Fade got hit directly and was thrown across the whole room until he got knocked directly against the single throne at the end of the room. He was unconscious after this attack and laid on the throne as if he was literally sitting on it.

Rosa and Wildheart only looked in shock and felt helpless after seeing this. They wanted to run straight at him but were blocked by Changelings who only laughed at their misery. Queen Chrysalis joined the laughter and stepped forward a little. "As expected by Princess Celestia's little guards. At least, now we have no more interruptions and can focus on retrieving this little traitor. Which reminds me," she said before she turned towards the Changeling Commander who bowed down to her. "Where is Tagma?" She asked.

The Commander was about to answer but got interrupted by someone else. "I'm here!" Said Tagma who stood at the entrance of the throne room, accompanied by Mystic.

Queen Chrysalis turned towards Tagma with a serious expression on her face which quickly would have intimidated him if Mystic wouldn't stand next to him. They both realized the situation the others were in. Fade was unconscious and Rosa and Wildheart were surrounded by Changelings. Things were not looking good but Mystic decided to step in front of Tagma in an attempt to show that he is not afraid.

"What did you do with Fade!?" Tagma exclaimed.

The Changeling Commander ignored this question and explained to his Queen. "As expected, his newfound pony friends are so important to him now that he can't leave this place,"

Queen Chrysalis did not seem to be happy about this one bit. "I am glad that you spared us the time to look for you but the reason for you to return here is quite disappointing. It is already bad enough that you betray us, but now you decide to side with ponies?"

"They are my friends!" Tagma replied.

"Friends!?" Queen Chrysalis screamed angrily while hissing at the little Changeling. "Once we drag you back to our Kingdom, I will make sure to knock those stupid things out of your skull!" She said before she gave a signal to some of her Changelings to go after Tagma.

The Changelings slowly walked up to the two in an attempt to attack them but Mystic stepped up and made sure to let them know that they had to get past him before they want to take Tagma with them. In fact, he looked like as if he was about to attack them instead.

"Hold on for a moment!" The Changeling Commander said, grabbing Mystic's and Tagma's attention. He then pointed towards Rosa and Wildheart who were surrounded by even more Changelings now who were ready to attack them at any moment. "You better watch out if you don't want your friends to get hurt,"

Of course, The Changeling Commander didn't know Mystic all too well or else he wouldn't have resorted to that. However, Tagma was concerned about this and stepped in front of Mystic. It was similar to what happened recently with the Royal Guard attack. Mystic was aware of that as well. "Listen, I know exactly what you are trying to do now. You want to go with them so that the others won't get hurt. But look over there," he said as he pointed towards Fade who was still unconscious on the throne. "Fade already got hurt because of you and I will probably get hurt too because I will not run away now,"

"What? Why?" Tagma replied confused. "This has nothing to do with you, right?"

"Exactly. I will stay here and fight because I want to and for no reason else. And you should think about what you want to do and how you want to live your life. And for that, you just have to do what you believe is right and not what some kind of stupid queen tells you," Mystic replied while he stepped forward preparing himself to fight every Changeling in the room.

The Changeling Commander was not really intimidated by those words. "This pony is actually strong, your majesty but there is no way that he can take on every single one of us,"

"Of course not..." Queen Chrysalis replied confidently before she gave a signal for her Changelings to attack.

"Here they come!" Tagma exclaimed in a panic.

"Let them!" Mystic said before he used his magic to create a thick mist in the whole room, causing all Changelings to lose sight of the two. The two were no longer at the entrance and split up. Hidden under the mist, Rosa and Wildheart saw their chance to slip away from the Changelings that surrounded them. With the help of Wildheart's sense of smell, it was easy to navigate around the Changelings. They decided to meet up with Fade to check if he was okay.

Queen Chrysalis, just like everyone else in the room couldn't see anything and kept her eyes open for anything suspicious. All she could hear were noises of confused Changelings and some battle sounds. But luck turned in her favor once a familiar face approached her. "Your majesty!" Said the Changeling Commander as he walked up to his queen to make sure she was safe. "They are over there!" He said pointing to his left. He most likely meant Tagma and Mystic who were taking advantage of the mist to escape somewhere save.

Queen Chrysalis followed to where the Changeling Commander was taking her so that she could deal with the two themselves. But to her surprise, the commander led her to the corner of the room with neither Tagma or Mystic in sight. Of course, Queen Chrysalis was confused by this and turned to her commander. "Where are they?" She asked in an angry tone. 

"Above you! Your majesty!" The Changeling Commander then shouted. However, the voice came not from in front of her but from her left, further away. There were now two Changeling Commanders and the one in front of her smiled before he changed back to none other than Tagma who was hiding his yellow headband cleverly under his wings.

"You little!" Queen Chrysalis began as she readied her magic to shoot at the Changeling. Unfortunately for her, she completely forgot the warning of the real Changeling Commander and did not look above her. Because above her head was Mystic, who levitated himself with magic preparing a huge magic blast to rain down on the Changeling Queen. Eventually, Queen Chrysalis noticed the bright light coming from above her and looked up but by the time she noticed, she was already hit by Mystic's magic blast. The blast was strong enough that it blew the Changeling Queen right through the ground and to the floor below, leaving a hole in the ground.

After this attack, the mist slowly vanished again. The Changelings did not know exactly what was happening at this moment, but they do know that something happened to their queen so they were all quiet and looked at Tagma and Mystic in shock. The one who was shocked the most was the Changeling Commander who only stepped forward a little. "Your...majesty..." he said in shock, reaching out his front leg.

Rosa and Wildheart could feel the sudden change of atmosphere in the room. They only saw shocked Changelings who were concerned for their queen and Tagma and Mystic, the latter one being a little exhausted from the last attack.

"Mystic...won?" Wildheart asked.

"I don't know..." Rosa replied confused.

Mystic was already on the ground again, breathing heavily from that last attack. Still, with all the Changelings looking at him, he could not afford to show weakness so stepped right up to the Changelings. "Did you see that!? There is more where that is coming from!" He shouted across the room to intimidate the Changelings. And it worked. The Changelings began to step back further after this outburst. Even the Changeling Commander could only clench his teeth in anger and frustration after seeing that. but Mystic didn't stop and continued taking away the spirit of the Changelings. "What's the matter!? Who is next!? Did you really think that your numbers scare me!? I'll take every single one of you on! I will crush you all! Just like I will crush-"

"-HOW DARE YOU!"

Suddenly Queen Chrysalis came flying through the ground, with her body surrounded by a bright green aura. She directly rammed Mystic in the process and knocked him through the air. Mystic had no idea what hit him by the time he was landing on the ground, rolling and coughing in pain after this blow.

"Mystic!" Tagma screamed before he attempted to go and help him but Queen Chrysalis stepped right in front of him before he could do anything. Being tricked and treated like this made her more than furious right now. She clearly had enough from all of this.

"You are coming with us now," she simply said before the aura around her horn began to glow even brighter, making her look more intimidating than ever before. "Don't even think about resisting!" She said, giving Tagma a glare that almost froze his blood.

Rosa and Wildheart attempted to help out Tagma but as soon as they even moved a muscle, the Changelings around them blocked their path and prevented them from doing so. Things quickly went downhill. Mystic was down, Tagma was about to be taken away, Rosa and Wildheart were outnumbered and there was nothing that could prevent this now.

"Let's go. We've wasted enough time here," Queen Chrysalis said to the Changeling Commander.
There was no response from him though. He just stood there with his eyes widened looked at the end of the room. "What's wrong?" Queen Chrysalis asked before she looked at what her commander was looking at.

After Queen Chrysalis was keeping her eyes on whatever the Changeling Commander was looking at, soon every other Changeling turned around which eventually caused Rosa and Wildheart to turn around as well. As soon as Rosa saw what it was, her face was colored in surprise, shock, and even fear. 

It was Fade. He was no longer unconscious and slowly stepped forward as if he was still not fully awake with his head still looking at the ground. But that was not what caused everyone to react in shock. What caught everyone's attention was the dark aura that was surrounding him.

"...Fade?" Rosa said in fear after seeing him in this kind of state.

Wildheart quickly saw a resemblance of what he saw years ago and stepped back a little. Tagma also had a really bad feeling about what was happening next. Queen Chrysalis instead, was too confident to get afraid or confused by this. She even decided to take care of him. "Keep an eye on Tagma while I take care of this," she ordered to the Changeling Commander but he didn't reply and had his eyes glued to Fade. His eyes were filled with terror and he simply could not hear the words of his queen who was slowly losing her patience. But soon, she got only surprised by the next words that he said.

"It's...like back then..." the Changeling Commander said as his knees began to shake in the process. "No...not again..." he said in a trembling voice.

Fade began to raise his head and looked towards Queen Chrysalis. His eyes were glowing in a white light and the expression on his face was nothing but determined to defeat the Changeling Queen. The battle would start soon...
And the end will determine if Queen Chrysalis can be defeated or if they succeed to take Tagma away...


To be continued...
> 14. Battle in the Forgotten Castle - Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The throne room was crowded with Ponies and Changelings who were fighting against each other. Tagma was about to be taken away from Queen Chrysalis, who wants him back in the Changeling Kingdom. Rosa and Wildheart were surrounded by Changelings and Mystic laid down on the ground defeated. But there was still one pony who was ready to confront Queen Chrysalis and her Changelings.

Fade.

All eyes in the room were focused on the stallion after he showed himself with this dark aura surrounding him. Some of them filled with fear, some of them widened in surprise. Queen Chrysalis was the only one who still kept up her smile, either because of her confidence or ignorance. "Looks like somepony still didn't have enough," she said amused before she turned towards some of the Changelings in front of her. "Get him! Just deal with him like the last time," she ordered.

The confidence of Queen Chrysalis seemed to have rubbed off to the Changelings who were eager to fight Fade. However, the Unicorn didn't do or said anything in response and kept his eyes focused on the Changeling Queen. In the meantime, the Changelings surrounded Fade just like they did before and prepared themselves for an attack. Their horns began to glow and they each were ready to fire at him but Fade still kept his eyes on Queen Chrysalis. It was almost as if the Changelings around him were not even worthy to look at.

"Fire!" Queen Chrysalis screamed.

The Changelings then all fired at Fade at the same time. He didn't move a muscle. Only the dark aura around him responded to the attack. A ring of darkness emerged from the ground around Fade which blocked all shots that were fired at him easily. Needless to say, this caught the Changelings by surprise. Their attacks were not even coming close to even touch Fade.

"What!?" Queen Chrysalis said to her surprise, especially after how this strategy worked against him earlier.

This sudden turn of events also wasn't unnoticed by the other Changelings and Fade's friends. Wildheart saw this behavior before, a few years ago and had a really bad feeling for what was about to come. "This...not Fade!" He said as a warning for Rosa who stood right beside him, giving him some worried looks.

Mystic, who was still laying on the ground after Queen Chrysalis's attack, couldn't believe what he was seeing at this moment. "What happened to him all of the sudden?" He wondered. "Did he always had this much power?"

After the Changelings failed attack,  Fade finally made a move. His eyes began to glow and the dark magic circle around him grew bigger. Wildheart's instincts told him that something bad was about to happen. "Rosa...hide!" He said in a panic before he grabbed Rosa's leg to get further away from Fade. Considering what happened next, this was a really good idea.

Fade raised his chest and his horn up. His horn was soon covered in a dark aura which surrounded his whole body. The dark magic circle then expanded and covered everything around him in dark magic that struck down everyone who was unfortunate enough to be close by. Luckily, this didn't involve any of his friends.

Queen Chrysalis realized that underestimating Fade right now, was probably a mistake so she decided to deal with the situation herself to finally get rid of him for good. "Keep your eye on Tagma while I take care of him," she ordered to her Changeling Commander so that she could still make sure that her plan to take him back to the kingdom would not fail. She expected some kind of response from the commander but there didn't come any, causing her to get a little angry. "Is that clear!?" She then exclaimed as she looked over at the Changeling Commander.

She was surprised to see her Commander paralyzed by fear, slowly stepping away as he looked at Fade with a terrified expression on his face. "It's just like...back then...in the forest..." he said in a trembling voice as he was slowly backing away in direction of the entrance of the room.

Queen Chrysalis was anything but happy about this. "Where do you think you're going!?" She said angrily to her commander who didn't even react to her words.

"No! I have to get out of here! Or else..." He said, struck by fear as he watched Fade standing near the throne. Then, for a moment, Fade looked over to the Changeling Commander with his glowing white eyes. This caused the commander to scream on top of his lungs before he eventually, ran out of the room, leaving his Queen and the other Changelings.

Queen Chrysalis was furious seeing her commander running away. "I'm surrounded by nothing but traitors!" She said angrily as she looked over at Tagma. "Don't even think about running away. There are still Changelings outside. There is nowhere for you to escape," she said towards the little Changeling before she then turned towards Fade again.

The Changelings made room and stood on the side as Queen Chrysalis walked towards the middle of the room. They did the same for Fade. Seeing him move was enough to strike some fear into them so they moved to the side to not get caught in this battle that was about to unfold.

Soon, both Queen Chrysalis and Fade met each other in the middle of the room, staring into each other's eyes. After seeing what Fade did to her Changelings, Queen Chrysalis got a little more cautious and kept her guard up. Fade had a serious expression on his face which only began to amused the queen again. "One of your friends already experienced what happened if you stand in our way," she said, obviously referring to Mystic, who was still on the ground a little behind Queen Chrysalis. "Royal Guard or not, you ponies should stay out of Changeling matters," she advised as she made the green aura on her horn grow even brighter. "Know your place!" She said with an evil grin on her face, ready to attack anytime soon.

Then without warning, the dark aura around Fade shot up towards the ceiling and came down on Queen Chrysalis who jumped back to dodge the attack. She was angered by this sudden move and clenched her teeth. "How dare you!" She screamed before she unleashed all of her magic at once, shooting directly at Fade. The Unicorn did not move and let the dark magic build a wall in front of him, blocking Queen Chrysalis's attack completely, much to her surprise since she was using a lot of magic on this last blast. It only angered her, even more, seeing Fade standing in there as if her attack was nothing which was most likely the case. "What is the meaning of this!? You were not this strong before!" She exclaimed angrily.

The dark magic wall, in front of Fade, vanished, revealing his face again to Queen Chrysalis. This time it was a little more determined and directly focused towards Queen Chrysalis instead of being a little more distant. There was a slight echo in his voice that even sent some shivers down on Queen Chrysalis's back. "Know your place...Child of Chaos," Fade then said, his eyes glowing in a bright white light shortly after.

The dark aura around Fade then got bigger and once again shot towards the ceiling before then eventually, hitting the ground in front of him which released a wave of darkness on the ground that was about to go wash away everyone who was standing in his way. Rosa and Wildheart were lucky enough to not be in the way of this attack. But Unfortunately, Mystic was...

He tried to get up but he didn't have enough strength and collapsed to the ground again. There was no way that he could escape this attack in time. But then, just before he got hit, Tagma appeared next to him and lifted him on his back just before the dark wave hit him.

The few Changelings who were hovering in the air felt save to not get hit by this attack but to their surprise, the waves began to climb up the walls and reached out to them. It was like this dark wave had a mind on its own and wanted to make sure to deal with every single one of them. Every single Changeling soon got caught by it and was pushed towards the wall of the entrance to the throne room. Every one except Queen Chrysalis who still stood in the middle of the room, trying to fight of this dark wave,  however, she was pushed towards the entrance of the room as well while still standing on the ground.

Fade eventually stopped his attack and let the Changeling catch a breath for a second. Tagma who was lifting Mystic on his back approached Rosa and Wildheart who could only stand there with surprised expressions on their faces. "Did you know that Fade was this strong?" Tagma asked towards Rosa.

"No," she replied shaking her head. "But I have a really bad feeling about this magic aura around him. It looks...unnatural..." she added, looking at Fade with a worried expression on her face.

Tagma looked over to Fade, trying to find out what would happen next. "In any case, whatever this magic is it looks like as if we can actually win now, right?" He then said, looking over to Mystic this time who's eyes were glued to Fade.

"Yes..." he simply said, not looking away from Fade for one moment.

The Changelings started to get up again, one by one. Queen Chrysalis clenched her teeth in anger and only looked at Fade with a furious expression on her face. She noticed the condition of her fellow Changelings and couldn't help but to worry about them. She knew that they were in no more condition to fight which only made her angrier. Of course, this anger was directed towards Fade who still stood in the middle of the room, waiting for Queen Chrysalis's next move. But she was not stupid. She knew that this battle was lost. The last attack drained her energy way too much to make her able to continue fighting so she did the only thing that she could do now. "We are retreating! Leave this castle and tell everyone to go back to the Kingdom!" She ordered. The Changelings didn't like to admit defeat but they did as their queen ordered and left the room to retreat. Before Queen Chrysalis walked out of the room herself, she turned around to Fade one last time. "This is not over, lapdog of Celestia...or...whatever you are!"

After that, only Fade, Rosa, Tagma, Mystic, and Wildheart were left in the throne room. The dark aura that surrounded Fade slowly began to vanish as well, making it safe for the others to approach him again. Just now, Fade felt exhausted and dropped down to his knees but he slowly got up again once his friends got closer to him.

Rosa sighed after noticing how the dark aura vanished. "You did it," she said relieved after how everything was finally done.

"Yes! That was awesome!" Tagma said. "I can't believe you all did this to-" but he then stopped in mid-sentence once he came to a realization and frowned. "I'm sorry...this is all because of me. They were after me...that's why you had to fight them..." he apologized.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Rosa then said as she put her hoof on Tagma's shoulder.

"Tagma...friend...we...help friend..." Wildheart added.

"Exactly!" Rosa said happily. "You could have tried to run away but you came back and helped to save us all!"

Fade walked up to Tagma. "Besides...Queen Chrysalis and her Changelings are a danger to Equestria. You decided to oppose her and proved that you put the safety of others above your own," Fade explained before he put a hoof on Tagma, comforting him. "I don't know what exactly happened while I was knocked out but it seems like you were helping us out quite a bunch. I'll admit that I have my doubts about you but now you fully earned my trust,"

Hearing that made Tagma really happy. He almost shed a tear in fact. But he felt like earning all those thanks was not necessary. "I didn't do much! You should thank Mystic for going up against Queen Chrysalis as well," he said pointing towards the Unicorn who was standing in the background.

Even though Rosa didn't like to admit it, Mystic helped out too so she thanked him as well, however, once he replied she immediately regrets it again. "I actually have an idea how you could thank me," he said looking towards Fade with a serious expression on his face. "That magic that you used...show me how to use it," he demanded.

Fade was surprised to hear this, as well as the others who didn't really liked the idea of two ponies having this sinister magic. He bluntly stated what he thought about it himself. "This magic...I'm not entirely sure what happened after I woke up again. I don't think I was much in control while fighting,"

Rosa seemed relieved. "Thank goodness that you are aware of that because it was really hard watching you like this,"

"Yes, it was like you were possessed by something," Tagma added.

Rosa especially had a very bad feeling about this magic. "Why are you interested in using this magic?" She asked towards Mystic confused.

"Are you kidding me?" Mystic replied. "Didn't you see how he was handling those Changelings!? All thanks to this Dark Magic!" He explained.

"Dark Magic...again?" Fade replied with an upset tone in his voice. It quickly brought him back to what Princess Celestia said after the incident with the Royal Guard and how she was prepared to rip him off by his magic in order to save Equestria. At this moment, Fade realized why she was tried to do that. He looked at Mystic with a serious expression on his face. Princess Celestia was probably looking at him in the same way after she heard about Fade's Dark Magic. She saw the danger coming from Fade and wanted to protect Equestria. Seeing Mystic in this position now, made it clear what Fade needed to do. "I will not teach you how to use Dark Magic..."

"What!?" Mystic replied angrily.

Fade explained. "This magic is not something to be taken lightly. It is dangerous. That is why I will not teach it to you..."

Mystic, unsurprisingly, didn't like the answer and got angry. "Are you kidding me!? So you mean you want to keep all this power to yourself!?" He asked.

Fade explained again, "Dark Magic is said to corrupt you. The more you use it, the more it is likely to end up as a danger to everyone around you...something that I would like to avoid,"

Hearing that, made his friends smile. Even though he showed how powerful he was while using this magic, they were relieved to hear that he didn't want to be corrupted by it. But shortly after, they were shocked to hear what Mystic had to say about it. "But I don't!" He exclaimed angrily.

Of course, his friends were shocked to hear this. Rosa couldn't help but share her opinion with Mystic. "What is wrong with you!? Don't you realize that, in a way, Fade is trying to protect you?" She pointed out.

"Shut up!" Mystic then shouted at Rosa, making her react in surprise. She was aware that Mystic didn't care about her or anyone else but this time, he was especially angry and was not afraid to show it. Mystic clenched his teeth in anger and looked over to Fade again.

But Fade stood by his decision. "With your hate towards Princess Celestia, it would be more than foolish to let you get your hooves on Dark Magic. I know what you are trying to do once you archived it. I can't afford that to happen..." he explained as he kept looking into Mystic's eyes.

"There you go again!" Mystic exclaimed angrily. "Hunted by the Royal Guards, Running away from anyone, seeing yourself as a danger because you can use Dark Magic...and you still think that you can save Equestria! You can't even save your own daughter!"

Rosa got angry after this statement. "Mystic! That's enough!"

"No, it isn't!" Mystic shouted back before he turned towards Fade again. "You said you want to save your daughter!? You want to save Equestria from danger!? Well let me tell you, you are not! If I had power like this, then..." he lowered his head and frowned a little before he returned his glared towards Fade again. "But you! You have all this strength and you refuse to make a change! You said you wanted to save your daughter but you put Equestria above her! I knew that, the moment when you tried to turn yourself into the Royal Guard! At this moment you gave up on saving her! Instead, you asked for forgiveness of the very Princess that took her away from you in the first place! You don't care about your daughter one bit!" Mystic further and further pummeled into Fade's head.

Hearing Mystic saying all those things actually had an effect on him. He lowered his head and thought about his daughter sleeping in Canterlot with no way of waking up while her father was considered a criminal and ran away from Royal Guards. It made him almost regret all of his decisions that he made up to this point.

Shortly after, Fade saw a blue light in front of him so he raised his head again and noticed how Mystic's horn began to glow while his face was filled with anger and determination. "If you don't want to tell me how to use this magic, then I will just force you to tell me!" He said, clenching his teeth.

Tagma then rushed in front of Mystic. "No! Mystic, stop it! Please!" He begged but it didn't seem to have any effect on him since his eyes were still focused on Fade.

"Listen to Tagma, Mystic!" Rosa then added.

But her words were also ignored by him. He only looked at Fade with an angry expression on his face and focused even more magic in his horn. "You may abandon your family...but I will not!" He shouted before he used his magic to move Tagma to the side before he charged right at Fade angrily with his horn glowing in a bright light.

As he looked at Mystic charging towards him, for a moment, it felt like as if time was standing still.  Mystic was charging at him and he should feel threatened but right now, he felt calm and thought about his daughter and how she was probably never waking up. At least not if Fade continued to tun instead of doing something. 

Why was he thinking about that in a moment like this? 
Why thinking about it while he was about to be attacked by Mystic?
His words seemed to have clouded his mind more then he thought.

Before he knew it, Fade acted on instinct and countered Mystic's attack by shooting a magic beam at him. Because of his previous fight with Queen Chrysalis, Mystic still seemed to be a little hurt and was not able to dodge or even react to this and got hit directly, causing him to get knocked away a few meters and dropping on the ground. It was only then that Fade actually realized what he was doing, making him widen his eyes in surprise after he saw Mystic on the ground a few meters before him.

"Mystic!" Tagma exclaimed before he walked over to the Unicorn in order to help him up again.

But once he was close enough, Mystic quickly tried to get up again and shooed him away. "Don't touch me!" He exclaimed at the Changeling before he stood up again and turned away from the group. "I got enough of this! I'm leaving!" He said as he practically crawled away from the group.

"But..." Tagma only managed to say after this with a frown on his face.

"Mystic...rest..." Wildheart advised.

"Yes! You should at least stay until your wounds are healed from the battle," Rosa explained.

But Mystic didn't listen and continued to walk away. He turned his head around to face the group one last time. "Listen! I don't care about any of you! When it comes down to get something done, the only one you can trust is yourself! If you want to run away from everything then go ahead but I won't! I will get stronger! I will make a change in this world! I don't know how or when but I will not stand around here and wait until things change on its own! And...I will also get my revenge on Celestia...and I will do it without the help of anyone of you,"

After that, Mystic left the room and would leave the others for good. The rest of the four stood in the room with a bitter taste in their mouths. Mystic already attempted to leave the group earlier so no one was taking this turn too bad and just accepted it. Fade, on the other hoof, could only think about Mystic's words.  Not only could he not stop thinking about his daughter but he also started to think about what he was about to do in the long run. 

There was huge mood drop after Mystic was gone...but the group dealt with it in silence...


Later that evening...


The Changelings didn't come back. The group was busy searching all over the castle to look if there were still some of them hiding somewhere but that wasn't case. The four could breathe easily for now. Eventually, Tagma, Rosa, and Wildheart met up in the hallway of the castle. They all felt a little awkward after what happened between Mystic and Fade, especially, Tagma, who was feeling a little more closer to Mystic then the others.

Rosa felt as if she should say something to cheer him up but before she opened her mouth, Tagma said something instead. "I know we all know each other for a very short while but...I really thought that we would stay together like this..." he said with a frown on his face. "But I guess that was just wishful thinking, right?"

Rosa started to frown as well but she then pulled herself together in order to cheer the Changeling up again. "We sure are a strange bunch, huh? Maybe it was unavoidable for us to confront each other like this?" She said. Somehow she thought this would sound a little more cheerful but then she realized that it was probably not helping at all.

"Mystic...left..." Wildheart then said. "Rosa...Tagma...Fade...leave too?" He then asked accompanied with a frown on his face now.

The mood between those three was again down to the bottom. Mystic felt that being alone was the only solution for him. But was it for the rest of the group as well? Soon memories began to fly around in their heads. Rosa thought about her mother and Tagma thought about Sole. Knowing that both of them would not want Tagma and Rosa to be sad was something that made it clear to them what to say.

"No!" Then both Tagma and Rosa said in unison, much to each of their surprise.

Rosa then began to explain what she was thinking. "Maybe this world doesn't want us to be happy...maybe we are destined to either run away or live in solitude but as long as I have the chance of being together with you, I will not throw it away," she explained with a smile on her face.

Tagma smiled back while grabbing his headband tightly. "Me neither! Sole would probably be very upset if I met him again while being all alone again!" He briefly explained himself.

"So...we...together?" Wildheart asked confused to which the two nodded in response. while smiling.

"As a mare, I don't expect anything less than staying in a castle," Rosa said, raising her head in the process. "Even if it looks like this..." she added, obviously hinting at the dirt all over the castle.

"Yes! This could be fun, right?" Tagma asked to which the other two only returned a smile.

Those three agreed of staying together even after all those things that happened. They were alone for the longest time now so being around those who they could call friends was something that they didn't want lose anymore. This was something that they would agree on. The world might see them as Outcasts but that was something that they just had to deal with. Every single one of them, with the help of others...

This only left one more pony...

Fade was returning to the throne room. The words of Mystic were still on his mind. Was he really giving up on his daughter? Did he put Equestria above his own family? Why was he even running away from Princess Celestia and the Royal Guard if he was considering getting caught by them?
But could he even make a change like Mystic said? With Dark Magic?

He sat down on the throne and began thinking. "Can I bring my daughter back with enough power? Does it even make a difference now? The Royal Guard is no longer something that I can return to...so does it even matter if I try to do the rightful thing now? Maybe I should just embrace it? Maybe...this power will help me? Or maybe...there is even more power to archive?" As Fade began to think about all those things, Dark Magic began to surround him and the throne. "Solar..." he said quietly with tears running down his cheeks. "Why did you left me? Was I really that bad of a father?" He asked as if he expected some kind of answer.

To his surprise...there actually came one. It was the same voice that he heard while he was imprisoned in the dungeon of Canterlot, right before he escaped. He didn't wonder where it came from or who it was who talked to him but he listened carefully while answering at the same time.

"She is waiting for you..."

"What?"

"All you have to do...is abandoning this world, that took her away from you...and create a new one..."

"Create a new World?"

"The two sisters are the key...Use them...and you will be able to see your daughter again..."

"Yes...I will do that..."

It was like as if Fade was in some kind of trance. He didn't seem to be aware of the Dark Magic, surrounding him. Before he knew it, the voice was gone again. Whether it was his unconsciousness that played a trick on him or the Dark Magic playing a trick on him, he wanted to believe in what this voice told him. It gave him hope.

"This world...I know what I have to do now..." he said quietly as he was looking towards the moon with a determined expression on his face.


A while later inside of a fortress in the south of Equestria...


Things changed a lot for Mystic. He was still determined to get revenge on Princess Celestia and in order to archive this, he resorted to going against his believes of doing it on his own. There was this group called The Storm Wings who were considered as heroes in Equestria by Princess Celestia herself because of the things they did to help the ponies of Equestria. Due to some manipulation, Mystic managed to get himself on top of this group and used them for his own good. He used them to steal and hurt the ponies of Equestria for most of the time and was waiting until something big would appear that could help him get his revenge on Princess Celestia.

Finally, this day came...

"You wanted to see me?" Said a green coated Pegasus with a windmill-shaped blue and yellow mane and light blue eyes.

Mystic turned around. "Yes, Cyclone Wing. There is this rumor that I came across and I want you to investigate," he said.

"About what?" Cyclone Wing replied.

"There is this town, called Ponyville...there were seven Ponies caught in the Nightmare Moon incident. It was them who defeated her and stopped her from bringing her Everlasting Night. All with the help of something called, the Elements of Harmony," Mystic explained.

"Elements of Harmony?" Cyclone Wing asked, clearly not knowing what exactly that was.

"I want you to concentrate on this matter above all else, for now. Get me every piece of information that you can gather," he simply explained before he turned around and looked out of a window at the end of the room. "That is all,"

Cyclone Wing didn't say anything in return and just left the room again, leaving Mystic alone with his thoughts. "The Elements of Harmony were strong enough to defeat Princess Luna. If I had magic like that...then I could finally get my revenge on Celestia..." he looked out of the window and saw Cyclone Wing leaving the fortress and flying away. "Very soon...Mysteria..."


Meanwhile, in the Forgotten Castle...


"Did you hear the news?" Rosa asked towards Tagma. "About the Storm Wings?"

"What about them?" Tagma replied confused. "You mean how they shifted from heroes to criminals, a while ago? Yeah, that sure was weird,"

Rosa shook her head. "No, not that...I mean, yeah but not exactly! I got a hold of some information that explained why that is the case. They say that it was because somepony took over them, causing a change of leadership,"

Tagma was still confused..."And that is important because?"

"Well, you will never guess who took charge of them," Rosa teased.

"Who?" Tagma replied before Rosa finally revealed who it was, causing Tagma to react with a mix of happiness and confusion. "Mystic!? Really?"

Rosa nodded. "Yes! Believe it!"

There was a sudden change of mood inside of the room until Tagma came to a realization. "Things sure a changing a lot recently..."

Rosa instantly knew what Tagma was referring to. "You mean...Fade?" Tagma nodded in response. "Yeah..." she added with a frown on her face.

Fade underwent a huge change since the Changeling incident. He was spending a lot more time on his own and inside of the throne room. He was also no longer thinking about returning to the Royal Guard. He even changed his armor from dark purple to dark blue. The star emblem on his chest plate was also changed into a black circle with a white crescent moon in front of it. This was supposed to represent how he was no longer allied with Princess Celestia, who was represented by the sun.

He and his friends stayed in the Forgotten Castle living a rather secluded but still fun life, compared to what they used to live like before. But Fade only had one thing in mind. Only one goal was in his mind, and he was about to archive it.
He once again sat down on the throne in the throne room. He was silent and got his mind ready for what he was about to do soon to this world. "Nightmare Moon returned...and with her...Princess Luna. That means that the two sisters are now here and that I can finally set our plan in motion. Just wait a little more, Solar..." He then began to smile. "I will create a world where you and I can be together again...and for that...I just have to dispose of this one first...Just wait a little longer..."


It would not take long until he would attempt to capture both Princess Celestia and Luna to set his plan in motion. He didn't care about this world anymore. He didn't care about any pony in it. Anyone except, his daughter...Solar Smile.

But if his plan would succeed...that was another question...and who knows what would happen to him if he lost...

Only the future would have the answer for this...the answer of what would happen...
To the Outcasts...