The tree of life part 1
'Come...on...Caden! Keep...moving,' The wounded bat pony thought as he slowly limped down the path that led down an abyss with only the moonlight illuminating his path. 'It won't be long...before they get to me...SO STOP DRAGGING YOUR HOOVES, KOLF!'
The common clothes he had on were severely damaged, a simple shirt covered in cuts, blood, and sweat. That damaged exposed the chainmail shirt he had hidden underneath it, that piece of armor had protected from many blows, but now it was beyond repair and could only protect a handful of places.
His pants were in the same condition as the common shirt. On his hip a sword long enough to keep others at bay, but not enough to be used with both hands. Not that he could use both arms anyway, his sword arm, the left one, was badly wounded. His eyes, like most bat ponies, were yellow. His coat was light grey, his mane was white, or at least that was their usual color. They were now tainted red by the numerous wounds in his body.
On his back, a pair of wings that used to keep him in the air and allow him to flee with ease given how fast he was. That was...until he got his right-wing wounded in his last fight, now it was hanging on his back as a deadweight. Using the cliff's wall as a clutch, Caden Kolf, a deserter from the Night Guard clutched the bag he had in his right hand with everything he had as he made his descent.
He had seen it all, he was there when the stallion in the moon broke free from his prison and he saw the six stallions that stopped him. Caden fought in the front lines when the prince of love was about to marry the captain of the royal guard during the invasion of the Changeling King. He did his best against the magic of chaos from Discord. Almost succumbing to the dark magic from King Sombra wasn't a pleasant experience.
He lost his talent to Tirek and was captured by the storm king's army when they invaded Canterlot. Yet he saw the six stallions rising time and time again to fight, leading their ranks as they donned the rings containing the magic of the elements of Harmony.
Caden had never lost his faith in those six ponies, it didn't matter how much pain they got through, how much suffering they endured, the injuries they sustained. Those six would always stand up and fight time and time again, and that faith...that belief that they were the unbeatable and incorruptible symbols of hope made what happened even more painful.
And he wasn't the only one who had trusted these six, the entire country of Equestria relied on them to keep them safe. To put their lives on the line to fight, Caden knew he was but an afterthought in the grand scheme, a simple pawn that couldn't do much. But even so, he kept going as a soldier in the front lines of each one of these conflicts, trying his best to reduce the threats the six elements had to face.
But now...the symbols were lost. They became twisted and dark versions of their former selves, nopony had seen it coming. It was sudden, the Academy of friendship had just opened and all species seemed to be coming together at long last. And then...then it happened. The six stallions used the power of the elements to prevent anypony from the outside the enter the place and did as they pleased with all the students inside.
The male students were tortured, the rare females that existed were...Caden couldn't believe it when he heard what had happened. So you can imagine what happened when he saw the two princes being taken down and locked away by the same six stallions. They became the rulers, they forced the army to take every mare they found and bring them as prisoners to these six stallions.
These mares were never seen again after they were handed to the Elements of Harmony. Then a war broke out, a rebellion led by the prince of love and the big sister of the leader of the elements. All of it was wrong, Dusk Shine, the leader of the elements, went far enough as to use the two princes he had captive as a way to prevent any advances from the rebellion.
And to make things worse, the remaining five went on to fight in the frontlines. They slaughtered every single being that they considered to be a challenge, be a civilian or an actual rebel. Children, women, small animals, if it did anything they considered an insult it was over for them.
At that point...at that point, Caden simply gave up on these stallions. Can you blame him? The symbols of hope for him turned into monsters that were causing the destruction of the world he called home. The day came when he could no longer do their bidding, and that was the day when he took up arms and went on to take away what gave those monster the power to cause all that.
Generosity, Laughter, Honesty, Kindness, Loyalty. Five virtues twisted into sins and corrupted to a point where its magic became unstable and practically uncontrollable. Caden had to face each and every one of them, he barely got out alive of each one of the encounters. As for his opponents...the vultures got something to eat in the end.
Caden wasn't sure if it was sheer luck or something else that allowed him to get out of these situations. However, when he finally had the fifth element, he prayed that whatever it was carrying him through would keep him safe. Fate, however, had other plans, Dusk Shine had been waiting for him.
The ambush nearly killed him, leaving a crippled combatant to face off against the leader of the elements. Caden must have used whatever luck he had left because Dusk Shine's element failed to activate when he was about to finish Caden off. That gave Caden an opening to rip the ring off Dusk Shine's hand along with the finger.
With the wounded alicorn cursing and screaming in pain, Caden jumped out a window from the castle and tried to fly away. Only to be shot down by an endless wave of spells and arrows from his former companions, causing him to crash into the Everfree. That was when he broke his wing, after a long walk he reached the old castle where supposedly the prince of the sun and his brother found the elements attached to a tree.
That is how he had gotten into such a bad condition. As he finally reached the bottom of the chasm, Caden heard marching hooves and the sound of multiple wings flapping.
'They're on to me! I need to find that tree!' He thought right before noticing a cave that could not be seen from the top of the chasm. 'I might be able to hide there!
Moving as fast as he could, Caden entered the cavern. That was when he saw a huge tree made out of crystal, each one of its branches was dried out and black. The roots had shriveled and were also turning black, at the center an empty slot shaped like the small gem attached to Dusk's ring. Black vines covered in white thorns were spread out the black areas.
"I-Is it...dead?" Caden muttered as his legs gave in and he landed sideways. "No. It can't! Maybe...if I can place them back!"
Caden tried to get back on his hooves, but his legs weren't responding. He had been walking for too long while injured, so it was no surprise. Seeing that his legs had turned their back on him, Caden dragged himself to the tree with his good arm while holding the bag with his teeth.
'Come on!' He screamed in his head as the vibrations on the ground got louder and louder.
When he finally reached the tree, Caden realized that he couldn't reach the spot where the slot was. Caden then reached out for the vines and gripped it, forcing the thorns to sink in his skin as he pulled himself up. Once he was close enough, Caden moved his body just so he would be stuck to the vines and freed his hand.
Then he picked up his bag and searched around until he found the ring with the right jewel. However, when he managed to get it Caden heard the sound of numerous hooves behind him.
"SEIZE THE TRAITOR!" Dusk Shine's voice echoed behind Caden.
"Please! Just make everything peaceful again!" Caden screamed as he slammed the ring into the slot.
A bright white light blinded him and suddenly Caden found himself in the middle of a big empty white area. There weren't any signs of walls or an exit. Just a white empty void.
"D-did I die?" Caden muttered as he tried to move again, which ended up causing him a lot of pain. "N-NO! I'm alive!"
"Of course you are," A voice extremely familiar came from every direction.
"Huh?"
"I thank you for coming to my aid," That was Caden's own voice. "You asked to make things peaceful? Sorry, but this isn't the world one where you can get a peaceful life. Or a regular one."
"Cut the crap!" Caden shot back. "You are the tree of harmony! The books say you're the only reason our world even exists! You're practically a god, so cut the crap and change things back to the way they were before. Restore the bearers of the elements of harmony!"
"Why would I do that? They corrupted them. They nearly killed me!"
"Because they are the only ones that can keep the world safe! I saw it all, without them...we would have been taken down long ago."
"They only prolonged the inevitable. Equestria always falls. It's just a matter of who will take it down. This world's demise was them, in another one is Tirek. In another one is a unicorn called Trixie. You can't expect that fate will change."
"SHUT UP!" Caden cried out at the top of his lungs. "You don't get to decide that! Who is to say that Equestria won't fall? Just turn back time. Send me back and I'll make sure they won't be corrupted this time! I know everything that happened. I will help them."
"Do you even know why they fell in the first place?"
"I..." Caden tried his best to reply, but he didn't have anything. He had never met them personally, so he knew nothing about them other than their feats and all the battles they endured. "That's it!"
"What are you babbling on about?"
"It was all the fights they had to do on their own, isn't it? How everypony relied on them and they didn't have anypony to turn to when they needed. They broke under the pressure."
"That's ridiculous," The voice said before it started to laugh very loudly. "Are you confident in that answer?"
"Just send me back! If I'm wrong, then you can go on ahead and erase me for all I care."
"Well, I was planning on giving you something because you saved me. If that is what you wish, so be it."
"Thanks!"
The white void he was in started to crack, and then he fell through the floor.
'Like I can actually send a being back in time. He doesn't even realize that when he woke me up that world ended. And I was about to create a new one. But he couldn't be part of this one anymore. Well, I hope he enjoys the version I sent him to. Good thing that the tree there was ok with it.'
A stinging sensation took over Caden's body, he felt the weight of his body. He was laying somewhere soft, slowly opening his eyes, Caden saw something familiar. Above him columns and a ceiling made out of white stone, he could see the crystals that were keeping the room illuminated.
Turning his head to the side, Caden saw a big open window. "Canterlot..." He muttered before trying to sit up straight.
Caden felt something wrapped up tightly to his torso. Looking at it, he saw bandages wrapped up around it, there were some around his arms as well. They seemed to have been swapped recently, there was extra weight on his back, on the same side as his broken wing.
Caden looked back and saw that his wing was immobilized. 'Did I go back? Or...did the tree revert Dusk Shine back?' Suddenly, Caden heard the sound of a door opening.
"Did you hear that this year's Summer Sunset Celebration will happen in PonyVille?" That sounded familiar to Caden.
"Yeah! That's near where the-?" The two mares that had just walked in stopped immediately after they saw him sitting up straight. "Oh! Are you okay, dear? Meri, go tell the captain that he's woken up," One of them said before the other left in a hurry.
"Am I in Canterlot?"
"Indeed you are," The mare dressed up like a nurse said before picking up a thermometer near his bed and placing it in his mouth. "You should consider yourself lucky. After all, you got here at death's door. You stallions can't be so reckless with so few of you around."
"What?" Caden said with the thermometer in his mouth while he raised an eyebrow.
"Shhhh. You're in good hands. We will take care of you. There is no need to worry," She said in a soft tone before she began to check his bandages. "The name is Patches by the way...you stallions are usually so feeble. But you seem more resilient. You must have a lot of mares in your herd."
Before Caden could begin to make sense of what she had just said, the door opened again. This time, however, there was the sound of metal hitting against metal. When Caden looked at the source, he saw somepony familiar.
"Captain," The nurse said making a slight bow. "I'll just be a minute. Let's see...his temperature seems to be way lower than when he got here," Patches said before removing the thermometer. "His body on the other hand..." She muttered those words before winking at Caden and walking away.
'What the fuck was that about?' Caden thought before shaking his head violently and looking at the captain.
"Captain Gleaming Shield! Did you and your husband take back the castle? Has Dusk Shine been defeated? Is Prince Solaire safe? What about Prince Artemis? And how is prince Bolero? I hope you two haven't been injured in the fight."
"What are you talking about?" The mare said looking at him with a deep frown. "Listen, I do not know what you've been through. Considering the state you arrived, it must have been terrible. But you can be sure that you are safe. Our doctors are the best around. However, I have to ask. Where did you get this?" She asked holding out his ID tag, the only thing he had kept from his time as a soldier. "The symbol and materials for it are right. But the numbers here were scratched off."
"Oh...I...I took it from a deserter," Caden said scratching the back of his neck.
"I see. Well, a doctor will come by later to check on you. Rest assured, you will be out there long before the Summer Sunset Celebration in a few months. You probably won't want to lose this one. It is the thousandth year of this celebration," Gleaming Shield said with a smile, that piece of information made Caden's ears perk up.
'I-I'm back! I'm back in the past! The tree did it. I can change it all!'