Man, I tell ya. Being trapped in stone…. It’s strange. I can’t breathe, I can’t move; yet at the same time, there's no stiffness that you’d expect from being in one position for an extended period of time. It’s more of an annoyance than anything; being unable to move or change what you’re looking at. But I know it will end up pissing me off at some point or another.

Admittedly, it is kinda dehumanizing. Others look at ya and don’t even acknowledge that you are, or even were a person. They just look at you with the same regard a child has for something they’ve never seen before; passing curiosity, but never an actual interest.

Actually, that wouldn’t be a fair assessment. Not EVERYONE looks at me like that. The one who put me in this situation will frown every time she sees me. I’d return the favor, but I’m a bit stuck at the moment. I can’t even do anything to try and spite her. Eh, I guess my mere existence will have to suffice.

What’s also annoying is the constant barrage of information constantly cluttering my vision. What do I mean by this? Well, I came into contact with a certain… artifact let's call it. From what I can gather, it allows me to get information on things just by looking at them. Sounds cool, right? Well not when you can’t control it. They look like little transparent popup windows you’d see as a hud on a computer game or something like that. Not that I can see my own information, rather I can see others. How it’s like that if it’s an ancient artifact? Hell if I know. My best guess is that it adapts to a form that’s familiar with the one who has it. All I know is that when I stared at it for too long it felt like somebody was stabbing my eye.

The first few days I was practically blind due to how much text I saw. My left eye is the only one affected by this it seems, as when I closed it, it would all stop. That lil tidbit doesn’t help me right now though, as I can’t really close it. I’ve managed tone it back a bit through sheer force of will, but it’s still fairly cluttered. At least I can see something other than words now though.

Speaking of things other than words, here comes lil miss sunshine herself. Looks like her sister is with her. She only gives me a passing glance, while her sister stops when she’s in front of me. She sits down and stares up at me. Unfortunately I can’t really get a good look at her as my vision is locked in one direction. Not being able to move my eyes and such.

“Sister, why did we have to use the elements on this one?” She asks after staring at me for a moment.

Celestia stops and turns back around to look at her sister. Eyeing me as she walks back to her sister, she speaks. “This one possessed a dangerous power. That’s why.”

‘Dangerous my ass! I'm more of a hazard to myself than anything; my vision is so poor with this left eye that I’m liable to walk off a cliff without even realizing it! Well… I was.’

Luna tilted her head at me with a frown. “Yes, I know. You told me when you were trying to convince me to use it on it. I mean what makes his power so dangerous? Let alone what even is it?”

Celestia pondered this for a moment, as if she didn’t know. Which would really piss me off if she didn’t have a good reason. “It came about when Discord was still running about. Surely it can’t be good.”

‘Don’t call me Shirley! Wait, don’t call me an ‘it’ either!’

“That doesn’t answer my question, sister.” Luna threw at her.

Celestia let out a sigh. “There’s just no hiding things from you, is there?”

Luna shook her head and maintained her no bullshit look.

“You remember something called a “Left Eye”?”

Now they had my attention, whereas before I was only half paying attention and mocking them. the hell was a Left Eye?

Luna’s eyes widened at just the mention of it, which couldn’t be good. I may not like these Ponies but that doesn’t mean I wanna be under something’s control or whatever this could entail.

“You mean THE Left Eye? Who’s last holder was undefeatable in battle, at least according to legend?” Luna asked aloud.

Celestia nodded. “The very same.”

Now this confused me. I don’t see how this thing could have any practical battle applications. Maybe in a logistical sense, but not in actual battle. Who was this “undefeatable” person? Why did they have to use this power for bad? Fucked it up for me ya know!

“But… just because it has the Left Eye, that means it was inherently evil? How is that fair of us to assume that of it? Who are we to consider ourselves judge, jury, and executioner?”

‘Thank you! A voice of reason!’

Celestia at least had it in her to look guilty at that. “Perhaps not. But it was not a risk to be taken while Discord was still out. Perhaps, in another time, we might have been able to be friends. But what’s done is done. If I could go back I would still do it the same way.” she actually looked a slight bit downtrodden by that fact.

Unfortunately for her, her answer only seemed to piss me off even more than her having no answer at all. ‘All based on a what if?! A possibility!? Fuck you too Celestia!’ sighing internally, I try to calm myself. ‘There’s nothing for it. I’m stuck like this for god knows how long, maybe even forever. During my little mental bout with myself I failed to notice a few things the two said, as they had now just finished up a hug and were once again on their way.

Sighing to myself, I resign myself back to my fate. Watching the environment. Can’t even sleep to pass the time… And I LOVE sleeping! damnit!

Today marks day number 7300...I think that’s…. 20 years? I tried keeping track of time by the seconds after the 4th year as a means to pass the time, but it just made it go by slower. But now I know that there’s 31,536,000 seconds in a year! So… that’s handy as a fuck. Anyways, what’s going on with me? Nothing much, thanks for asking! Just, you know. Still FUCKING STUCK AS A STATUE.

Celestia seemed to stop paying me any mind after the first year or so. Luna however seems to visit me every once in a while. She doesn’t really say anything,or even look at me, just sits there. They thought I could read minds -which is why they stoned me to begin with- but I can’t. I only barely manage to keep the info boxes down enough so I can see. Still can’t read any of them. You’d think after 20 years I’d have gotten the hang of them by now eh? Not so much.

Anyways, Luna just kinda glances at me occasionally, thinking things to herself. She seems to find the garden to be a get-away I guess. She nearly smashed some other poor bastards statue at some point. That one doesn’t actually have a person in it, but someone probably paid good money for it. Eh, fuck ‘em. Better their statue than mine. Hm… maybe not. What if just breaking the statue would free me? But on the other hand… it could just kill me. Best not to chance it. Wouldn't have been my choice either way but still.

Sometimes I can hear the two sisters fighting. What’s worse is that I can’t ignore it. There’s nothing else to focus on. Thankfully it’s not a common occurrence, but it’s still annoying. Usually after one of those fights Luna will come down here to vent. To me or to herself, I don’t know. Methinks this girl has some issues. Maybe it’s just peace of mind, thinking you have someone to talk to who listens and takes your side. Talking to yourself is easy enough, but I guess pretending something else is listening can help. Hell if I know, I’m no shrink. Fuck, I’d probably need to see a shrink myself if I ever got out of this place.

To be honest I think it’s Luna’s visits that have been able to keep my sanity intact. Not to say I forgive her or anything, but SOME form of contact, even one sided is nice. If I ever got outta here, I think I’d kill her last. Whoa, speak of the devil and she shall appear.

Luna is out and about again, and boy does she seem pissed. Wonder what happened. Not like its my business; but when all you can do is observe, does it really matter what is and isn’t my business anymore?

“Why is it always her…”

‘Hm? This is new. Jealous of her sister perhaps? Sounds like normal sibling rivalry to me.’

She continues to herself as she nears the bench in front of my statue; which, might I add, was very nice of them. I like that bench. “Why does sister get all the suitors?! Am I not as beautiful or graceful as her? Am I not as deserving of that kind of attention?”

‘Youch…. That's what you’re pissed about? Come on girl, you’re better than that. Who cares if you don’t have guys lining up to date you. Just means your sister is a huge slut.’

She continues to herself, because of course she can’t hear my input. “Why doesn’t anypony pay any attention to me? Is it because I’m younger? Am I just not seen in that light because of my age?”

She starts to break down into a fit of tears, the telltale sound of sniffling and hitching in her breath which leads to the eventual crying. I’d guess she’s past the first two stages of grief and is heading into the bargaining stage.

She looks up at the stars; or rather, what can be seen of them. It’s a pretty cloudy night and sounds like it’s going to rain. “Please… just let somepony love me… I don’t want to be alone. I want to feel the warmth of another… to be told I’m loved…”

‘Fucking called it!’ And as fate would have it, down comes the rain. Ain’t that a pitiful sight. Almost makes me sad. Almost. I still don’t care for these ponies, having done to me what they have and all. My heart does go out to her though, at least in this one instance. Being alone is no fun; I would know. And while she hasn’t endured the loneliness I have, having been through so much of it, I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. It’s a fate worse than death in my opinion.

At this point shes in a full on crying fit, just crying and wailing to herself in the rain. Jeeze, how old is she to be crying over love? Eh… I mean I guess some care about that stuff. I stopped caring towards the end of middle school. Too many failed attempts of asking out girls.

‘God, is she still at it? Fucking shut up already! Hell, I’d fucking ask ya out just to get you to shut up!’

Unfortunately for me, my bitching and moaning affects nothing. She continues to cry for what I would guess to be the better half of an hour. Surprising nobody else has heard her or come by to console her. No guards have been around, not even a bird has flown by. At this moment, she’s truly and utterly alone. God I think I actually feel bad for her. Wait… what is she doing now?

Her crying seems to have at least died down now, but it’s kinda hard to tell; rain and all that. But that’s not the weird part. The weird part is that she seems to be looking at me.

‘The hell you looking at me for? I can’t help you. And I doubt a one way relationship with a statue is healthy either.’

“You… probably can’t hear me... “ she looks away, “This is stupid… I’M stupid… Why am I talking to a statue? It’s not like it’ll change anything…” she looks back up at me. “You’re no god, you don’t represent anything! You’re not even alive! You’re just like them, you don’t even care!”

She then picks me up with her magic and brings me face to face with her. ‘Whoa! Easy now, this is the most movement I’ve had in years! Take it easy or I’ll get motion sickness!’ I don’t even know if I CAN get motion sickness but that’s how my mind responded to the stimuli.

“I’ll still be alone… you were never there for me, it was all just a trick of the mind… I don’t know why I even come out here... I could destroy you and it wouldn’t make a difference! You are nothing!” she says as she lifts me up and starts to slam me down.

‘No no no no no NO NO NO STOP!’

Almost as if she heard me, I stop mere centimeters from the ground. ‘I nearly fucking died there… or I could have been freed but once again, the risk or not worth chancing. Wait a minute… why the fuck do I care?! Either way is a win win! If I die, I’m free from this hellhole, if I’m released, then I can be free again!’

Whop, there we go I’m moving again. This time she sets me back down on my pedestal. I’m somewhat angled to where I’m looking downwards and can actually look directly at her now. She’s staring at me, tears and rain streaking down her face.

“No… you don’t deserve that… you didn’t do anything wrong… you’re just a statue…” she turns away from me for a moment. “This is so silly… I’m talking to a statue...” she says, then turns back to face me again. “Please… just… help me… I don’t wanna be alone anymore…”

‘The hell you asking me for? I’m a statue, I can’t do anything for ya.’ putting on a fake friendly voice in my head I say ‘oh sure, lemme just set you up with a couple’a dates! I know a couple of buddies who would just LOVE to meet you!’ dropping the voice, I focus my attention back on her. ‘Sorry kiddo, nothing I can do for ya.’

Once again, she isn’t even aware I actually exist. She has no idea of the one act play that’s goin’ on inside of my skull! Instead, she just gives me a brief smile and utters two words that confused me for the rest of that night.

“Thank you…”

She then gets up, and leaves, opting to fly to her tower.

… ‘You’re welcome?’

‘Day-! Eh…? What day is it again?’ I stop and think to myself. ‘I’ve only been doing this for the past… what… 40 years? Started that long ago I think... ‘

Going over the numbers in my head and doing the mental gymnastics for a solid hour, I finally remember what day it was. It felt like mere seconds in the grand scheme of things really.

‘Day 64970! Give it up for day 64970!’

Yep. ya boy is still stuck as a statue. And I don’t think thats gonna change anytime soon. Been a statue for… what was it… 178 years now? Yeah! 178 years.

You’d imagine quite a bit would happen in the last 158 years... But if I’m being honest, it’s been boring. Go figure, yeah? Well, I wouldn’t say NOTHING happened… but to me most of it was boring. Staring at one particular point in space can get repetitive if you know what I’m saying.

Well, as it turns out, after Luna nearly destroyed me, the very next day, she was swarmed with suitors. Well, maybe not swarmed, but she did have quite a few. How do I know this if I’m stuck in the gardens?

Well… the very next night I saw Luna flying towards me at a decent speed; enough so that she could knock me off my pedestal. I remember that because I also remember being terrified of dying that night. Still don’t know why that scares me anymore… some silly part of me is still holding onto the fleeting hope that I might someday get out of this stony prison.

Anyways, I was surprised when she came to a gentle stop right in front of me and hugged me. Like, a legit fucking hug. As you can imagine, I was fucking shellshocked. ‘Why the hell is this bitch hugging me?’ I thought to myself.

As it turned out, she thought the reason some suitors turned up was because of me. Like I was some sort of good luck charm for her or something. Sure; it had NOTHING to do with the fact that she was screamin and hollerin all through the night about how lonely she was.

But, I digress. She regards me in a good light. Remember that silly little part of me that thinks I can get outta here? Yeah. that’s the part that cares. Maybe if she cared enough, she’d try to find a way out for me. It’s a small shot; one that gets increasingly smaller with each year that passes. If she was going to, she’d have done it by now.

Ever since then, she’s seen me as a sort of confident. Something she can give her secrets too. Like a diary of sorts. So almost every night, she came down to the gardens, and told me about her day. Of course, not every day was a good day, but you take the good with the bad; Can’t have one without the other, right?

Did I care about how her days were going? Hell no. At least not at first. Regrettably, over the years, she’s grown on me. It’s like I’m her best friend. I fucking told ya she had issues. And now, those issues are mine to bear as well. Because she tells me about them any time a new one shows up. Every failed friendship, every argument with her sister, every noble who pissed her off.

I still don’t know why she chose the garden of all places to be her safe haven. She’s got all this open expanse of forest she could choose from. Yet she chose my pathetic little hovel; if it could even be called that. The gardens have grown quite a bit. There’s a couple more fountains, some new vegetation that’s been discovered, a couple new animals that weren’t here befo- ‘hey! Stop beatin on your brother!’

Sorry. Fucking squirrels. Did they listen to me or even hear me? No, of course not. Being here for as long as I have, I got to watch more than just ponies walk by or sit at my bench. I got to watch quite a few animal families grow up. A Lot of them are gone now, and it upset me when I had to stare at little reggie’s corpse for a week before someone finally noticed it. I’ve given up on trying to name them all, so I just call them as I see em. Mom, dad, brother, sister, son, daughter. You know how it goes.

Anyways, back on topic! … What was the topic again? Oh yeah! Luna!

She views me as that. She’s even named me. It’s kinda fucked up and pissed me off when I first heard it; but I can’t even remember my real name anymore, so why bother? My name is now Null apparently. Fucking. Null. A zero. An invalid… I don’t think she even knows what it means, but it’s somehow oddly fitting. In the grand scheme of things, I am an invalid. I don’t belong here. I am a zero. I’m nothing. Just a fucking statue.

In other news, I think I finally got this eye thing down. My vision is no longer cluttered with popups. I swear I even saw a few for a free IPhone and kitten videos. Probably just my mind playing tricks on me. But yeah. Things only pop up now when something crosses my vision. Still don’t know how to use it on command though…

I know I know. ‘You’ve had this ability for 178 years and still don’t know how to fully use it?!’ short answer? Yep. long answer? I think this ability was meant to get the person who had it killed or drive them to insanity. When I first got it, I couldn’t see a damn thing through it. Average lifespan of a human is 79 years, give or take. Tack on the fact that I was like… 15? No way, maybe it was 16… ah shit, maybe it was some time in between… hey! That rhymed! If my statue cracked every time I did that unintentionally I’d have been free YEARS ago. Anyways- wait! It wasn’t either of those, for fucks sake. I remember with 100% certainty now. I was 14 when I first arrived here. So yeah. 79 minus 14, 65. Add on the fact that I’d probably have gone senile or had some sort of mental degradation due to age somewhere around my 60’s. So shave about 15 years off that 65. 50 years is how long I would have had to learn this ability in my natural lifetime; assuming I didn’t go insane somewhere along the way. And I’ve had it for 178 years and STILL can’t use it properly.

That’s why I think it’s meant to try to get me killed or drive me insane. Why? Maybe so it can use my body as a host? Hell if I know. Maybe that’s why the guy who had it before me had such a bad rep. If that’s the case, you fucked up by bringing me here when ya did, ya parasitic fuck. I’m using your little curse/gift and making it my bitch!... one day at a time. Or maybe it just wasn’t meant for humans or something. Maybe I’m just overthinking it. But when you’ve got nothing but time on your hands, what else can you do but theorycraft?

Hell, I’ve probably thought up so many variations to every single story I’ve heard, every single game I’ve played, every show I’ve watched, I’ve probably thought up how they all actually end and I’d never know.

Oh look! Here comes Luna. She seems to be in a good mood this time. That’s good. I don’t feel like having another fight with her. Yeah, I know. A fight with a statue. Pretty sad, right? She’s always apologized and forgiven me for whatever I said in her mind; but god, if it isn’t annoying to put up with.

… The hell am I doing? I’m a fucking statue. Look at me over here acting like it matters what a pony does socially with a statue. That’s even sadder than her spending her time with a statue; because at least with her, she can do what she wants with her time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m probably overplaying how much time she actually spends with me. Sure, she comes down almost every night, but wouldn’t you write in your diary at the end of every day as well? That’s essentially what she does. And there’s been times when she hasn’t come down for weeks at a time. Sometimes even months. So I’m sure she has a life outside of talking to me. Of course she does, else she wouldn’t have anything to tell me. Plus, she’s a princess. She runs a fucking nation. Alongside her sister of course, -fucking cunt she is-, but still!

It’s amazing I can still hold a grudge this long….Anyways, let’s see what she’s so happy about.

She comes and gives me a hug; which is not a rare occurrence, but still pretty uncommon. She must be in a really good mood. She takes a moment to get herself situated, then leans up against my pedestal. She hums a little tune to herself, one I can’t really discern. Must be a new song that came out or something.

‘Damnit, Moon Moon! Reveal to me your secrets!’

Once again, she cannot hear me. I’m sensin’ a bit of a theme here, aren’t you?

“Good evening, Null.”

Well that’s new. She usually just starts off with what she wants to say. Greeting me was never really a thing she did.

‘What are you up to Luna…’

“Today went well. The nobles didn’t have much to complain about. My sister and I had a conversation that gave me an idea. And I liked it so much, I decided to follow through with it.”

Well, that’s something. Usually you just throw those ideas in a book and leave them to be forgotten. I know this for a fact. She’s shown me the book. She did describe it as something different, but that’s basically what it is.

“I wanted to do something to thank you. You might be just a statue; you may not even be there at all. But I’d like to think that you’re in there somewhere. That you can hear me. See me. It may not seem like it, but you do a lot for me. Just by listening; or being here I guess, in case you aren’t there. It really helps. And I know you don’t exactly have a choice in the matter, but that just makes me all the more thankful. And a bit regretful… you know, forcing you to listen to me like this. But, I don’t think I’d be the mare I am today without your help. So. Thank you. I hope you like it.”

During this entire little speech, my mind is spazzing the fuck out. Like, just imagine someone just twitching on the ground uncontrollably, arms and legs jerkin around in all kinds of ways they aren’t supposed to.. Kinda like the guy who had boneitis. That’s what my mind is doing. I just can’t process this at all. She’s thankful for me being what I am? You don’t ever see anyone thanking their diary. Why would she thank me? Let alone treat me like a person? I’m just a statue…

while I wasn’t paying attention, she levitated a what looks to be an elegant silverish looking plaque in front of me. On it reads the name she gave me, along with… is that the year I came to this place? Wow, I managed to land smack dab on the year 1000. Huh. go figure. It also says, ‘The Auspicious Observer'. The observer part I get, but the hell is she calling me auspicious for? The hell did that mean again...

“You see? It’s a plaque made of pure silver. That way everypony can know who you are. You won’t just be that nameless statue in the gardens. Silver is generally associated with inner wisdom, protection, subtle strength, and luck; as well as being connected to the moon. All of which I thought was applicable to you. That last bit just made it feel a little more personal to me.” she blushes a little but maintains her smile.

“You’ve always brought me good fortune, things don’t really go wrong when I tell or ask you something. And you’re always here. Always watching. I thought it was all rather fitting. Don’t you?” she asks with a smile.

She lets me look at it for a little bit longer, then affixes it to my pedestal with what I would assume to be magic, as she doesn’t have anything else with her.

After that, she looks up at me with a genuine, wholesome smile. “I really do hope you like it.”

She waits a few more seconds, as if expecting an answer. I assume she got one, because then she nodded, and walked off back to the castle.

I… I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless. Humbled. She actually sees me as a person, not just a statue. Maybe…. Maybe one day I will get outta here.

Ya know… this place has changed quite a bit since I first arrived. When I first got here, this place was nothing but a little hovel. Castle still being built. Town just starting to flourish. Everyone was still shaken up by this ‘Discord’ fella. Now everyone seems to be taking life for granted. Running amok without a care in the world. The mere mention of ‘Discord’ makes everyone scoff. Admittedly it makes me laugh too; but for an entirely different reason. I’m a statue. Essentially a dead man. What more can he do to me? He already screwed over my life by being a problem when I just happened to show up.

Not like my eye has helped at all. Hell, it’s also what got me into this mess. Had I never found it, I wouldn’t be here. Admittedly, I’d probably be dead in a coffin by now, but still! At least I’d have spent my time how I wanted. I could have gotten a job, found a girlfriend, maybe even get married and have kids. I had my whole future ahead of me, and now… My life, my future, and even time I shouldn’t be able to call my own is robbed of me. I was just a kid…. Hell, I am still a kid. This statue hasn’t let me grow at all, and sitting around for years at a time doesn’t help ones maturity. Talking to Luna has helped, as I’ve learned things from her; as well as this eye manages to help in making me aware of various things… along with watching ponies go about their lives, discuss their plans and goals in life… not being able to live out a childhood of my own, I’m forced to listen to that of others.

Anyways, yeah. This place has come a long way. They’ve got an actual town going now. A growing economy. A school was built not too long ago as well! A school for gifted unicorns. That’s an interesting tale to be sure. Apparently this guy named ‘Starswirl’ came along, and showed the ponies that magic could go beyond what they thought it could. It was hilarious too, because he had just so happened to do it not far from the gardens; well within my sight. Imagine like… some dude in the 80’s being told about the wonders of technology we had in 2014. Yeah. that’s what it was like for these ponies. But with magic.

After his little performance, every unicorn and their momma were trying to do shit with magic. Almost all failing miserably. Those miserable failures had left quite a few injured apparently. But instead of lynching him for “misleading them” like humans would have, he and the princesses came to an agreement for him to teach them how to use their magic properly. And just like that, it was a sealed deal. Hehe… that rhymed. Another proverbial crack on my statue.

This was all… 15 years ago? Ish? Maybe 17? And I think it took them a year to make the school? Hell if I know, my memory is starting to get shaky. It’s all still here, but it’s so disorganized that I can’t remember something if I wanted to. If something just happens to float through my mind, that’s what I latch on to.

Oh yeah, speaking of time; Today marks day 77380. 212 years. Why do I even still count? I dunno… gives me something to hold onto I guess. Got no possessions, nobody that I can talk to. What else can I have besides numbers? Either way, I don’t plan to stop.

But hey. Guess where they decided to build that school? That’s right. Right on the castle grounds. Not far from the gardens; right in my view. So that means I get to watch ponies of every age show up to class, eager to learn more about magic. From what I can tell, they have class from 9 a.m. to about noon ish… that’s when they break. Then they come back about an hour later and leave at 2 p.m.

None of it is mandatory of course. It’s all voluntary. If you don’t wanna learn, that’s your own fault. But magic is such a hot thing right now, anyone who doesn’t wanna learn it is bullied. Of course, pegasai and earth ponies are given a bit of leeway, as they aren’t physically capable of it; but that doesn’t stop most unicorns from acting like they’re better than everyone else.

Word from the grapevine tells me that Luna wants to implement magic into their military, as it would be a valuable asset. And she’s right. It really would. But in my opinion? I think these ponies are too new at it to where they’d think they were god and get wrecked from being overconfident. Celestia on the other hand, thinks it would be a terrible idea. To her it just seems inhumane to allow magic to be used against their enemies. My opinion on that? Eh, she’s kinda right; to a degree. But being able to nuke another country with the push of a button is also inhumane. Yet we still had to ability to do so. Though with this situation, I guess it would be a bit more common to use magic versus how common nukes were used… I guess it would be more comparable to something like napalm or chemical bombs. Things that are outlawed now, but were still used. While these ponies may not have any form of Geneva Convention as far as I know, their morals seem to keep them in check.

This of course, led to a heated debate between the two sisters. One that I had to listen to, as Celestia decided to follow her sister as she walked away and continue arguing. They eventually came to a compromise, and decided to see how far magic would progress before deciding on what to do with it.

They too had also been learning magic from Starswirl, but in private and at a way more advanced level and faster pace. Can’t let their subjects get more powerful than them, no? Speaking of which, it was hilarious to see some cocky unicorn think they were god and try to overthrow Celestia and Luna. He showed up, tried firing a few blasts at them, then failed when Celestia threw up a shield, and was immediately arrested. Haven’t seen him since.

Meanwhile, Starswirl himself seem’d to be as busy as a bee. When he’s not teaching at school, he’s teaching the princesses. When he’s not teaching the princesses, he’s off experimenting; learning and creating more magic. I’m almost sure he doesn’t sleep; I always see something going on in his tower at night. I think it will be quite some time before the princesses catch up to him, even with how fast they are learning.

All this does leave one question ringing in my head however… where did this ‘Starswirl’ character come from? How does he know so much about magic? Let alone why did he show up in the first place? It seems he could easily overrun this nation if he wanted to. Yet here he is, sharing his knowledge with this nation.

Huh? Now this is new. Starswirl seems to be out and about past dark. Bastard usually never wanders…. ‘What are you up to old man…’

He wanders around the grounds seemingly aimlessly for a while; first passing the school, down a couple laps around the courtyard. Looks like he’s thinking about something. I notice Luna heading towards the gardens as per usual; however, Starswirl seems to be heading this way too. Chances are they’ll notice each other.

Looks like I’m right too, because Luna perks up at the sight of him and speeds up her pace to a more brisk walk and calls out to him.

“Starswirl. How are you tonight? Besides that, what are you doing out so late?” Luna asks.

Starswirl tries to put on a fake smile. “Can’t an old geezer just take a walk to clear his mind?”

But it seems Luna saw right through it and fixed him with a womanly look. It looks odd on her to be honest. “Starswirl, I know as well as anypony else that you do not take walks. You’re almost always doing something. Now tell me, what’s the matter?”

Starswirl lets out a sigh and drops the fake smile. “It’s not good, Princess. Something has taken place that plagues my mind and makes me worry. I cannot shake the feeling something bad may happen in the future as a result.”

Luna adopts a look of genuine concern. “Starswirl, what happened.”

He looks out into the forest past the gardens; a place I can’t look at as it’s behind me. “A Student has been rather troublesome…”

Luna simply smiles and laughs a bit. “A student has you in a tizzy? Starswirl, when did such trivial matters become so important to you? Had I not known better, I’d think you were a changeling.”

Starswirl for his part just maintains his distressed look. “It’s not such a simple matter, Luna. this student has turned down a dark path. He’s traversing a field of magic I dare not teach; and when I confronted him about it, he was severely distraught. He thought I’d praise him; for having ventured further into magic than most would. I tried to tell him that some magic is better left forgotten…. Now him and a couple of others have gone missing, along with a couple of my research journals… I can’t help but feel it’s my fault and that something terrible will come to fruition.”

Throughout his explanation, Luna lost her smile, and her expression morphs into one of deep concern. “This is troubling… you think they stole your research?” at this Starswirl nods and Luna lets out a sigh. “How long ago did all of this take place?”

Starswirl finally looks up at her and there’s a deep regret in his eyes. “A few days ago…”

Luna for her part just hangs her head. “They could be anywhere by now…” her head pops back up. “We should send out a search party.”

Starswirl shakes his head. “They are all full grown adults; we can play no part here. They are gone, Luna.”

“But they stole your research. Thievery is a crime, remember?” Luna says with a tilt of her head.

“Yes, but by this point they would have already learned everything they could from it and burned the journals. On top of that, there is no definitive proof that they are the ones who stole it; even if we did find them and bring them back for trial, it wouldn’t hold up in court. Knowledge is something we cannot take from others. Face it, Luna, it would be a fruitless venture, and a waste of time.” he explains.

Luna hangs her head once more and remains silent for a moment. “What was this students name? The one who catalyzed all of this?”

Starswirl looks to the sky before looking back down at the ground with a sigh.

“Sombra.”

Sombra huh? That name actually sounds familiar… I think he used to frequent the gardens with some mare. They seemed like normal love birds to me. Then one day they just stopped coming here. I had guessed they just got into a fight or something.

Before I can think over this new information, starswirl decides to change the subject. “Nevermind that, there’s nothing for it. No good will come from fretting over it too much.” he puts on a smile that looks albeit weak, but still genuine. “Now, I’ve told you why I’m out here, what about you? What brings you to the gardens?”

Luna for her part blushes and tries to hide behind her mane. “It’s somewhat embarrassing, but not really a secret. I come to the gardens quite often actually.”

“And what’s embarrassing about that?” Starswirl queries with a tilt of his head.

Luna blushes a bit more. “The reason. I tend to… confide in the statues. One in particular.” she says as she casts a glance my way.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Starswirl, and he examines me a bit more closely. “Talking to statues probably isn’t good for one’s mental health, but I won’t tell you what kind of diary to keep.” he then adopts a puzzled look. “This one is strange though. I’ve never seen anything like it. What was the sculptor going for? And why this one in particular?”

Luna perks up a little bit at the chance to show me off a little. “This is Null.” her smile drops a little as she remembers my history. “He… was once a living being. My sister and I used the Elements of Harmony on him out of fear for a potential risk. He possessed something called a Left Eye. I’m sure you’ve heard of what happened with the last time a ‘Left Eye’ was around.”

Starswirl looks away from me and back at Luna. “you make him out to sound like a villain. Yet, his title implies otherwise. Coupled with the fact that you confide in him, surely you understand my confusion?”

Luna smiles and giggles a bit. “Yes, I can see how it would be confusing. But rest assured, I do not believe him to be of malicious intent. He has always brought me good luck. And many ponies come to the gardens and pray to him for luck. Most of the time, they come back thanking him. Some even view him as a deity of sorts.”

“A deity, hm? I notice you refer to him as if he is still among the living. Why is that?” Starswirl asks.

“Well.” she turns and looks at me. “Deep down, I feel he’s in there somewhere. Watching. Listening. That’s why I gave him that title. I like to believe he is alive.”

“If you praise him so, why haven’t you free’d him?” starswirl questions.

She lets out a sigh. “Were it so simple. I’ve tried to think of a way, but I’ve no idea how or even where to begin trying to figure it out… some friend I am, huh?” she perks up a bit. “Maybe… you could look into it? Even if only as a side project?”

Starswirl puts a hoof to his chin. “I’m not sure Luna. The elements of harmony are a powerful magic. A good one, but one I would rather not meddle with.”

Luna hits him with some puppy eyes and pouts, with a little curl of the lip for extra effect. ‘Damn, I’m glad I’m not on the receiving end of that… wait… she’s trying to find a way to free me? How long has this been going on?’

Starswirl smiles and lets out a chuckle. “Alright alright. I’ll look into it for you. But I make no promises.”

She leaps at him and gives him a big hug with a look of pure glee on her face, rocking him side to side. “Oh thank you! You have no idea how much this means to me!”

Meanwhile I’m still stuck on the fact that she’s been trying to free me. I’d all but given up hope that someday I might get outta here. I’d smile if I could.

“Easy now Luna, these old bones aren’t what they used to be!” the old wizard pony cries out. After which, Luna sheepishly puts him down and smiles.

Starswirl turns and looks me in the eyes. “Well then Null. If you’re in there… well, you heard it all for yourself. I look forward to this project and hope to meet you properly one day.” He says with a smile.

He then turns and starts hobbling off. “I trust you’ll still show up for your daily lessons, Princess?” he calls out over his shoulder.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” she calls back with a smile. She then turns and faces me, and gives me a hug.

‘Damnit with the hugs! I can’t even shove her off! Er… hug her back! God, indecisiveness is a bitch!’

Man… things have gone to hell recently. Right now I’m watching entire military squads praying to me for a safe return. Return from what you ask? Well, Equestria is at war apparently. What’s that? With who you ask? Why the hell you got so many questions! What are you, a private investigator? Heheh… you should have seen the look on your face. They’re at war with the new up and coming ‘Crystal Empire’.

Well, new wouldn’t exactly be a 100% accurate term. They announced their presence about… 20… 30 years ago? Time is a blur for me. Oh, speaking of which; it’s day 115340. That’s 316 years for those of you who didn’t know.

Back on topic though. The Crystal Empire showed up some time ago, and about 3 years ago, they made an unofficial declaration of war against Equestria by launching a full on assault on the nation’s capital. They all fought right to the death; It seemed like their intent was to just wreak as much havoc as possible, as none of them ever showed any signs of retreating.

It was… disturbing to say the least. Corpses of innocent ponies strewn about. Destruction and chaos everywhere. Fires. It was surreal to look at. Even looking at the yet to be repaired damage that remains, it still doesn’t feel like it’s actually there. At first, hellfire rained down, looking like the heavens had decided to pass judgement on equestria; and found it lacking. The first struck the castle directly; dead center. The others touched down in town or the courtyard, with a few more actually hitting the castle. One even hit the gardens and completely destroyed any sign of life within. Thankfully I was either far enough away, impervious to fire or just extremely lucky as I came out unharmed. Next, a devastatingly giant beam of magic blasted the gates to hell and carved a path of sheer ruination all the way to the castle, carving its way through the castle in the process, completely eradicating anything that got caught in its path. Ash rained from the sky as it took on a fiery orange hue, dulled black by the smoke from burning buildings and the surrounding vegetation.

It was new for me however, as my eye picked up on a lot of things. The hellfire? It was magical in origin. Whether from a scroll imbued with magic over time, or a really strong unicorn, I don’t know. Same goes for that giant beam of magic that left the trail of destruction in its wake. The enemy…? Not moving of their own will. They had enchanted armour that forced them to fight. The implications of that are frightful. Forced to fight something you don’t want to until your death must be terrifying. It also implies that someone forced them into it as well.

About 50ish years ago, Celestia and Luna finally agreed to implement magic into their military, but not to that much an extent. It was mostly a utility; with very few learning offensive magic, even fewer who learned it legally. But this assault showed them that magic had already been taken to such an extreme; that they had no choice but to ramp up research into the arcane. Made entire companies of battle mages. Magic has really advanced in the past three years, especially with Starswirl spearheading it.

Speaking of Starswirl, he’s still alive as well. How the hell this happened, I don’t know. The old bastard just like… refuses to die or something. Not that I want him to die! He’s the one trying to find out how to get me free. Though I kinda fell on the back burner right now; you know, war and all. If I ever do get free, that’s the first thing I’m asking him.

Speaking of trying to free me, there has been very little actual progress. He’s trying his best, but the element of harmony are difficult for him to figure out. Intricate as hell, and unknown in origin, unlocking their secrets is very time consuming. Luna has been understanding and as patient as she can be, even if it is weighing on her.

Celestia also caught wind of what Starswirl was trying to do for Luna however. And boy, did they have a heated debate about it. Long story short, it ended with Celestia telling Luna that she would be 100% responsible for the outcome. It was something akin to a parent telling their child that a pet is a lot of responsibility. And that no matter what has happened to skew the perception of me over the years, the reason they imprisoned me in the first place remains the same, that i could still be evil; even more so now as I would be vengeful, as she said. Luna said quite a few things that really struck Celestia hard as well though. How I was wrongly imprisoned, suffered enough, and am revered by the subjects. It touched me but I found it odd. Basically played me up as a victim that still helps the bully.

Bah! I ramble too much. Hard to stay on topic, let alone follow one train of thought. Back to the war.

The cause of this war? Sombra. That fuckwit who defected from Equestria a hundred something years ago. How is he even still alive and well enough to run a nation? Fuck if I know. He was at least an adult when he left. Maybe he learned it from one of Starswirl’s journals. Apparently he wasn’t quite the edgy manchild I thought he was. Word is, he alone created the entire Crystal Empire in the span of a few days. Do I believe this? … Maybe. Magic is something I still don’t quite fully understand. Hard to understand when you can’t ask questions.

He apparently created a whole new subspecies of ponies as well: Crystal Ponies. Kinda mundane, but apt. It's a bit disturbing to be honest. To do something of that scale would require a lot of magic, time for population growth, and resources to sustain said population. Sombra managed all this somehow. So for as ruthless a leader he is, he damn well can run a nation. Even if it is doomed to collapse just because of its form of government.

Through my ramblings, failed to notice Luna and Celestia walk up to the groups of soldiers currently praying. Celestia clears her throat to gain the attention of the soldiers, to which they all notice and quickly stand at attention.

“I hope all of your preparations are in order. We’re leaving soon.” she states. At this, some of the soldiers show clear signs of unease; something she clearly picks up on. “I know what is asked of you is not easy.” she lets out a sigh. “But I would not ask it of you all had we any other choice. Sombra started this war and has no desire for a peaceful resolution. As such, we have to fight back.” she casts a glance around the destroyed gardens. “Take a look around you. This is the state of our home after a single assault. And not just here; All across the land, places have been left devastated just like our great capital.” After this, she looks at one of the younger looking soldiers. “Not just for us here and now. But for our children. Our future generation of ponies. Do you want them to live a life under King Sombra’s rule?”

At this the soldiers are in an uproar of protest at the very idea of their young living under Sombra. Celestia smiles as her little speech had its desired effect of riling them up. “Then I ask of you. Fight. Not just for yourself, not for your country, but for those who live in it. For those who cannot. For those who stand beside you. For the future of everyone! Sombra will not stop here! Should we fall, he will continue on to other nations! We must stop him at all costs.”

Again my perception fails me as I was so engrossed in her speech that I didn’t notice all the other soldiers who happened to gather around as it went on. A bunch of soldiers now stand around, cheering and all clearly amped for the coming battle. They all went off to finish preparing, morale clearly improved, leaving Celestia and Luna alone in what's left of the gardens.

Luna lets out a sigh, to which Celestia looks at her curiously. “Are you alright, Luna?”

Luna looks back at her sister with a sad look in her eyes. “You know we are practically sending them off to their deaths? An assault on the Crystal Empire itself will never work.”

“You know as well as I do that we need Sombra’s forces to be kept busy if we want any hope of defeating him.” Celestia states.

Luna looks her in the eyes. “But are we sure this is the only course of action? Surely there must be other options we could consider?”

Celestia looks down at the ground. “Had there been any others, we would have taken that choice over this one. But this war has gone on for far too long; and the longer it goes, the more casualties there will be. We have to end this as soon as possible.”

Luna just remains silent and walks off. Celestia lets out a sigh, and to my surprise, actually looks at me. Like, actually looks at me; not just her usual glance as she walks by. “She speaks very highly of you. Vouches for you. Claims you are a good… being.” She walks up to me and looks at me.

‘She’s actually talking to me? Fucking hell, has she finally gone off the deep end? I thought I’d be the first.’

“I want to believe my sisters words, but I would be lying if I said I did. I just cannot. There is too much risk and mystery surrounding you.”

‘Yep, heard this all before. Can’t trust me, yada yada, what’s your point? Or are you just trying to annoy me?’

“However… “

‘… What?’

“I would like to thank you. Whether intentional or not, things can only be called coincidence so much. Times have changed, and things have happened that normally would not. All after you arrive.”

‘Thank me? The fuck? The hell is wrong with you! You hate me, remember?!’

She’s perfectly within my line of sight, and after a fierce staring contest between us two, we both wince in pain; her more than me as she can actually move. She brings a hoof to her left eye, and holds it there for a minute. Meanwhile, I’m hearing snippets of indiscernible whispers, screams, and conversations; all while images are flashing in my vision.

This calms down after another minute, and she looks at me almost fearfully. What catches me off guard though, is not only am I looking at her, but I’m looking at myself. It’s hard to describe, but its like I have a second layer of vision laid over mine.

‘What the hell is this… did...did I do this? How did I… was it my eye? But I’m trapped in stone! How could I have done anything!? I thought I had this thing figured out, but apparently not. Is it intention based? So many questions.... So little answers…’

Celestia starts talking, which draws my attention away from the second layer of vision I now have, which bobs up and down a little as she speaks. “W-what did you do…”

‘Hell if I know lady! You’re guess is as good as mine! Though probably not as you’d probably assume it was a bad thing that just happened.’

She turns her head and the layered vision turns to look where she’s looking. This honestly terrifies me, as I haven’t have any significant vision movement in forever. Like, imagine sitting in your room and your parents walk in on you. You’re not doing anything wrong or anything, but the fact that someone just suddenly rips your attention from whatever it is you were doing nearly gives you a mini heart attack.

‘Honestly, if I’m stuck with this, it is a bad thing. I don’t need to see you getting fucked! Assuming you survive this fight you’re about to go have.’

“I don’t know what you just did… but please. I can only hope it's nothing of malicious intent…”

‘Malicious inten-.... Mother fucker! You think I’m doin this on purpose!? What, do you know!? Do you know that I’m in here!?’ I let out a sigh of frustration. Internally you fuckwit! Of course I can’t actually sigh. ‘I know it’s not right of me to be mad at you because you have no way of knowing… but… fuck! Being forced to be an observer is a pain in the fucking ass, especially when start doing things that aren’t just with my own two eyes!’

I’m thrown for a loop when she starts to walk away, as for once, I’m not just stuck here ONLY watching someone walk away. It’s disorienting… it's like being on a roller coaster, without being able to see the tracks. You can kinda guess which way it’s gonna go based on where it’s currently going, but there's still a huge chance you are completely wrong.

As I watch her walk towards the courtyard where a small division awaits from her own perspective, I’m startled when I hear her voice clear as day as if she was right in front of me. “Is everypony ready?”

‘I can hear everything she does too? God this is so fucking trippy… I wanna hurl… but I can't.’ I try focusing my vision between hers and my own, and to some extent, it works. But no matter what I do, there's still always a little bit of the other vision. I give up and just watch to see what happens, as I really don’t have a choice.

I am after all, The Auspicious Observer.

Celestia gets a series of nods and shouts of confirmation from her small army. Luna comes into view from Celestia’s left side, and the two start preparing a spell. In a minute, the two alicorns, and the entire group of soldiers are gone. I can see from Celestia’s viewpoint that they are now in a frozen tundra like area, with a giant crystal looking castle with a crystal town in the distance.

This thing is massive; certainly larger than Celestia and Luna’s castle. The crystals seem to be assorted shades of black and grey, and there are soldiers milling about, ushering along what looks like crystal ponies who are all wearing shackles.

All around Celestia, I hear shouts from soldiers and commanders barking orders, preparing for the assault that is to come. Some seemingly random pony walks up to Celestia, gaining her attention and making her look down.

‘Finally, a view I’m somewhat familiar with…’

“I am ready to assume control of the operation, princess.” she states with a salute.

“We’ll leave it to you then, Major General.” she says, to which the apparent Major General walks off and continues to bark orders.

Celestia then looks at Luna, who nods knowingly. The two then take off into the sky and fly directly to the top of the castle. Luckily, nobody seemed to notice them, and they land on a balcony with no trouble. Upon entering the door after a quick spell to unlock it, they notice a group of guards patrolling the halls they are are in. Celestia turns her head to defer to her sister, but she’s already one step ahead of her as she is already rushing the group of twenty something soldiers. She conjures a blueish phantom looking blade and hops up into the air before slamming down into the ground just in front of the patrol, who at this point is already taking up a position against them. Unfortunately for them, they stood no chance, as Luna drove her blade diagonally into the ground, a wave of spikes that look like they are made of pure moonlight encased in darkness rise up from the ground and impale them all, killing them all instantly.

I personally try to examine the spikes with my eye, but nothing comes up. ‘Huh… guess it doesn’t translate over through… whatever this is.’

Luna stands there for a moment before pulling her blade out of the ground with a quick tug and with it, the spikes fade from existence. Celestia looks shell shocked, clearly not expecting Luna to make such a bold move right off the rip. Luna looks at her and tilts her head. “What is it?”

“I just… wasn’t expecting you to do that. To actually kill them, that is.” she says a little shakily.

Luna merely scoffs. “We are at war, sister. They have killed many of our subjects, why should we not be allowed to do the same to their soldiers? Besides, the deaths I gave them were a mercy. Instantaneous and relatively painless. That’s more courtesy than they gave our citizens.”

Celestia nods a bit, then asks. “This is true but… where did you even learn to do that? I don’t remember learning that from Starswirl.”

Luna actually has it in her to blush a bit, despite having just killed twenty or so soldiers. “I may have experimented a bit. And trained. Drawing power from the moon is… exhilarating.” she trails off.

Celestia regains her composure, and clears her throat after a moment of silence. “We need to move. Somepony will notice this group has gone missing, and there are too many bodies to try to hide.”

Luna adopts her serious look again and nods. Together, they move swiftly and silently through the halls, trying to find their way to what I would assume to be the throne room. Why the throne room? I just assume that’s where Sombra will be. He is ‘king’ after all.

Meanwhile, I’m freaking the fuck out trying to contain myself. I’m actually seeing things. Wait, I worded that poorly… you know what I mean! I’m not stuck staring at the same thing for creator knows how long! I say creator because I gave up on god. If there is one out there, he either hates me, or his power doesn’t reach here. Either way, he’s useless to me.

The two sisters are caught off guard when a barrage of various elemental spells are sent flying at them from a hall to their right. Celestia reacts upon instinct and erects a barrier, which each consecutive spell crashes against and reacts different than the last. By the end of the barrage, there is a cloud of smoke hazing their vision, but I can see clear as day that her barrier splintered a bit.

The sound of hoofsteps approaching gets louder and louder. “Team one, standby at the ready until kills have been confirmed.”

She’s breathing heavily, and glances to her sister. Luna gives a knowing nod and Celestia redirects her attention towards her fractured shield. Her shield suddenly splinters way more, but in a pattern that forms a bunch of little triangles. These triangles quickly fly out in a buckshot like spray, and a chorus of screams ring out as a result.

“Team one scatter! Team one fucking scatter!” the apparent leader calls out with a grunt of pain. Looks like Celestia’s scattershot wasn’t enough to kill them all. Thankfully, Luna doesn’t hesitant like Celestia did after her one attack, and sends the cloud of smoke that was just now starting to settle flying at the enemies, which starts to get darker and darker until it gets to be a solid black color, and we hear the group start to choke; coughing, hacking and wheezing until they are done in by what I assume to be suffocation. Hell of a way to go…

After the noises die down, the black smoke fades away in a similar fashion the spikes did, and Celestia is staring at the spot where the group of soldiers now lay dead. To her credit though, she shakes her and gathers herself quicker than she did last time. “Somepony would have heard that little exchange…” she states.

“All the more reason to hurry.” almost as if the creator had planned it himself, we start to hear screams and explosions going off outside the castle proper. Immediately after, the sound of battle cries, clashing blades, and various pained screams can all be heard coming from below.

The two sisters glance out a window, observing the battle for a moment before turning towards each other and nodding. They run around the castle for a hot minute, trying to find the throne room. Up and down the halls they run, seemingly going nowhere. ‘Damn this place is huge…’ eventually though, they come upon a door that is way bigger than others, and seems a bit more extravagant than others. ‘My money’s on this door being the one to the throne room. Either of you wanna take me up on it?’

In this little moment of actually seeing things move around, I forget that I’m not actually there with them, nor can they hear me. ‘Man… this is just gonna make me depressed if I can’t find a way to undo this.’

The sisters had a brief exchange of words, but I missed it due to my small fit of sadness. Something about an entry plan I think it was. Irrelevant now, as I’ll never know. They blast the door open with a spell of some sort, sending both doors flying, one gaining a bit more air than the other, knocking a group of pegasai out of the air; the other crashing into some unicorns on the ground. Those left standing in the massive throne room are immediately up in arms, rushing Celestia and Luna.

The throne room itself is massive, about two thirds the size of a football field -assuming I even remember correctly what football is-, and in front of the throne appears to be this massive hole in the ground that has a staircase spiraling downwards.

Back to the immediate threat, I hear Luna call out to Celestia as she rushes the oncoming hoard with three phantom swords surrounding her. “Try and keep up Celestia!”

Celestia lets out a confused sound. I guess she’s surprised her sister can be so calm about this, playful even. A bright yellow runic looking circle appears in front of her, and out of it comes a golden halberd with a few intricate designs on it, and a small trinket hanging off the end of it in the shape of a crescent moon. She snatches it out of the air with her magic, and bounds up to the hoard.

This all happened so fast that she had time to reach the oncoming wave of enemies before even Luna did, and crashed into them with a wide sweeping triple spin slash, with the final spin swinging harder than the first two and coming to a dead stop mid air. She recovers from her own attack, reorienting herself and diving headlong into the fray.

The small skirmish lasts a little while, as there was A LOT of soldiers within the throne room. Lots of blood spatters the floor, walls, there's even some on the ceiling. Corpses strewn about. Various body parts as well. Celestia regains her composure soon after, doing her best to even out her breathing. Even Luna appears a little winded.

Together they walk towards the inverted spire and look down it. Pitch black as far as the eye can see. “Sombra is probably down there… are you ready sister?” Luna questions.

Celestia appears to be a bit hesitant, but nods her head anyways. “Let’s end this.”

Luna doesn’t seem to pick up on this, as she dives into the hole. Celestia soon follows behind her, and together they are in a dead freefall. However, it doesn’t remain a calm one for long, as fireballs shoot up at them from the bottom. They both spread out their wings to dodge out of the way of the incoming projectiles, continuously dodging effectively for a couple of minutes, the patterns getting more and more difficult to keep up with as they get closer and closer to the bottom. The fireballs finally die down, and we can finally see the bottom as well. And there he stands… King Sombra. He looks a lot different; he actually has a cape and armour on. It… surprisingly looks pretty good.

Luna glares at Sombra, and I can only assume Celestia has a similar scowl on her face. Sombra however, has a smug grin on his face.

I notice there is also a black spinning crystalline heart in the middle of the room.

“Champions of the day and night. Such an honour to be on equal standing instead of beneath you… like all those years ago.” he starts.

“However, I’m afraid our meeting will have to be cut short. The heart is almost ready. And when it is, you, and your entire army outside will be annihilated. Reduced to ash. If that.”

‘Fucking hell. This guy is cliche as fuck… and here I was thinking he was a badass.’

Luna finally cuts in with a black spike like from before, but this time it’s just one big one. It impales Sombra, lifting him up into the air a few feet. I notice through Celestia’s vision that Luna wears a cocky grin on her face. “That won’t be happening anytime soon.” with that, Luna starts walking towards the heart. However, before she can get close to it, the spike she conjured spikes up even more and nearly stabs her; she’s lucky enough to hop back in time.

Looking up, we see Sombra is still on the spike, but somehow still very much alive. The spike he is impaled on is absorbed into his body and he is slowly lowered to the ground as he absorbs more and more of it.

Licking his lips, he lets out a dark chuckle. “You are not the only one who has dabbled in dark magic, Luna.” he is lifted up into the air a bit by a pillar of crystal forming under him. Calling forth a pair of swords that appear to be made of crystal as well.

His eyes become pure black with a white outline as he adopts a menacing grin.“Come…” he taunts.

‘Holy fucking hell… pretty badass… wait a minute, the fuck am I thinking! Luna could die!’

I’m caught off guard by this thought. Why the fuck do I care? Hold up a tick… why the fuck WOULDN’t I care… she’s the only one who actually fucking cares about me in any capacity. She’s kept me from going insane all these years… how is a complete mystery to me, but the point is she did! Admittedly I’m no longer COMPLETELY sane, but the fact that I’m still coherent is something in and of itself.

So yeah, I do care… can’t let myself forget that.. No matter how much time passes, I still care. Can’t let go of my sense of humanity like that.

Celestia and Luna cast a spell and are now clad in an armour that matches their magic colors. Afterwards, Celestia is the first up to charge Sombra with a heavy thrust of her halberd, probably angered that he nearly injured her sister. Luna soon follows up with an attack of her own, two of her three swords clashing with sombra’s blades after he hopped back from Celestia, leaving him open to her third sword. He bounces his focus between keeping her two swords at bay, and dodging around her third, that he fails to avoid Celestia taking a wide swing at him that manages to connect with his neckpiece; denting it but surely with enough force to choke him up for a moment.

They don’t let up either, never giving him a moment to breath; continuously keeping him under pressure. Sombra leaves a couple of what look like glyph mines around, forcing Luna and Celestia to change up their movement a bit to avoid them. Regardless of this though, they seem to be in almost perfect harmony, switching off and coming in to immediately allow the other to recover, allowing for big hard hitting openings as well.

The entire thing is so surreal to me as well. There’s no prompt, no alternate angles to give the best view of the action, no music to create an atmosphere. Only the sounds of weapons clashing, hoofsteps, wingbeats, grunts and screams of battle. Eventually Sombra slips up a bit more than he usually does, the attrition of having kept up a defense this long finally catching up to him. Both Celestia and Luna capitalize on this big time, and both go in for a full on attack. Both impale him on their weapons, and Sombra’s crystal blades clatter to the ground.

“Its over, Sombra.” Celestia states, emphasising her point by shoving her halberd in deeper and twisting it a little.

He grunts in pain, but manages a chuckle. “I told you… our meeting would have to be cut short. The heart is ready… and now, all of your ponies out there will die.”

They both gasp as they glance at the heart, which is now spinning in place at terminal velocity. They give each other a glance as well, and a small nod. Celestia pulls away from Sombra, and Luna impales him with 3 more swords to keep him down.

The heart is glowing with a soft blow light, one that seems to get brighter and brighter as Celestia approaches it. For WHATEVER REASON, she decided to try magic on the damn thing. I don’t know what the hell she’s doin but honestly, anything is better than nothing at this point.

She must have gotten lucky or something, because the heart itself starts to change from black and grey to a soft light blue. Sombra lets out a shrill cry of anger, and fires off a beam of magic at the crystal heart in a fit of desperation. Whatever the intent was, it clearly had some sort of effect, as the heart started glowing more and more brightly. At this point, Celestia grew a fucking brain cell and decided to teleport herself and Luna out of there, as it would appear the heart is about to explode with raw uncontrolled and unknown magic.

They reappear on a mountain cliffside, and watch as the empire is surrounded by a giant hemisphere that encases the entire empire in a brilliant white light. The light fades after about 30 seconds, and anything that was once there has now disappeared. As in, like, gone. Completely. Entirely. I dunno how else I can convey this to you. The damn thing isn’t there anymore! Not only that, but about half of the fucking army they came with is now gone as well! And half of the ones left are dead! The fuck just happened...

“The empire... “

At this, Celestia’s vision cuts out, and I no longer see anything from her vision. This actually fucking scared me as I wasn’t expecting it to cut off as suddenly as it did, bringing me back to my destroyed garden. Alone…

What the hell did I just witness...

Man… ponies are… strange. it’s currently morning and I’m watching a bunch of students of various ages milling about the courtyard as they wait for the school’s doors to open. While this isn’t unusual, it’s what they are doing that strikes me odd. I never really bothered to think about it until now, but a war can completely change a society’s outlook on… well everything.

What are they doing? Well, currently they are all watching two students dueling. Officially of course; there are guards there to make sure nobody gets seriously hurt, and a magic circle to make sure no spells hit any spectators. When the war started, Equestria was hit HARD. They have never been in any full on conflict since Discord, and as a result, they grew soft. It was only through heavy conscription and rapid magical advancements that they even stood a chance. Of course, there was a number of ponies who wanted out; but surprisingly, a lot of them wanted to fight. They had secured a place in the world for pony kind, and they didn’t wanna lose it.

Now you’d think that after a defensive war, a nation would want nothing more to do with it, right? That’s why ponies are strange. When the war ended and the news was delivered, and everyone was given their time to mourn, ponies petitioned that they work on developing their military. They were too under prepared when they were too weak when they were attacked. The patchwork system they had set up during the war, while it worked, had flaws that couldn’t be overlooked. Lastly, they simply wanted to feel safe in their own homes. To live without fear that one day they may suddenly be running for their lives and lose everything they had. They wanted to be prepared in case another war broke out.

These petitions, were of course, met with silence. Celestia wanted to dismantle the army, or at least weaken it. Why have such tools of destruction was her reasoning. But her counsel, and more importantly, her sister, would hear nothing of it. The ponies of Equestria were right. They could have easily lost that war. Should another one happen, they might not be so lucky.

OOOOOO that one looked like it hurt! The thestral that was currently dueling the unicorn just got slammed into the barrier by a kinetic blast. He’s shaking it off though. Looks like he’s not out yet.

Wait a minute… y'all don’t know about thestrals! They’re like… pegasai but all edgy. Bat ponies essentially. They showed up a little after the war ended. They were a tribal race that was attracted to Equestria after seeing it defend itself from the Crystal Empire. They respected Equestria as a nation, but never really wanted to join because they were unsure if they would be safe with them; They thought hiding away would be a better option.

Initially, there was some opposition to letting them integrate into the nation. Ponies just didn’t wanna trust anything that wasn’t a normal pony; crystal ponies being an example. However, it was princess Luna who, against all the flak, still allowed them to become part of the nation. For that grace, they came to revere her; treating her like a goddess with undying loyalty. She was their savior after all.

It was this cult like loyalty that lead to them forming their own branch in the military, to further show their devotion. They wanted what Luna wanted, and if Luna wanted to protect Equestria, then so did they.

Back on topic, the ponies demanded for an improved military. Celestia had no choice but to comply. She handed those decisions over to her sister however, seeing as how the thestrals already added themselves to the military. It would give her something to do, and help improve her image with the citizens. And it worked too, she was now widely respected and considered Equestria’s Phoenix of War. symbolism relating to how phoenix’s burn out, but then rebirth from their ashes. It’s a weird one that I don’t quite get, but meh.

How does this all relate to the magic duel? Still, 80 years after the war, the ponies still want to be prepared. So here they are. Keeping their skills sharp in case something were to ever happen. The school now offered offensive and defensive magic classes, as well as a combative course for pegasai. On top of that, a new school was opened; Kinda like ROTC, but for pegasai. It was like an introductory to fighting for pegasai, who would then go on to the main school. Of course, it also helped improve their ability to fly, but that was just a given for pegasai to even be able to fight.

Now, how would a thestral even be able to compete with a unicorn you might ask? Well, number one rule to fighting a unicorn, always have a mojo. Mojo’s prevent a unicorn from just straight up holding anyone down and just mopping the floor with them. Doesn’t nullify magic entirely, but it does weaken it; thus allowing others to fairly fight unicorns. But how do they fight? Well, in actual combat, they used to be feral as fuck. Bitching bitches and clawing at them with their wings. Now they default to the weapon most commonly used by flyers of any kind. Wingblades. Cool as fuck in my opinion. Its like this metal rig with blades that mimic the movements of a pegasai or thestrals wing. So, they fight with their wings. Dangerous as fuck, as they have to focus on flying and attacking with the same limb.

Of course, since this is a duel, he’s using a wooden variant; but I imagine it still hurts like a bitch to get hit by it. Speak of the devil, that unicorn just got blitzed the fuck out of! For those of you who don’t know, blitzing a unicorn is where you go for the horn in order to completely throw off their focus and prevent them from casting. How hard ya blitz them determines how long they can’t use their magic. How good the unicorn is at magic also matters, as some can power through a blitz; much like you could still walk after getting stabbed in the leg if it meant you could get away. Adrenaline and all that.

This unicorn however, looks like he ain’t all that tough, as with his magic down and out, the thestral makes quick work of him. The unicorn tries dodging and keeping himself at a distance, but the thestral viciously keeps on him with a vengeance, throwing out all kinds of fakes and jabs to trick the unicorn into going where he wants him to go. It’s only a matter of time until- oooo, there it is. Both of the duelists are caught in a field of magic as the arena itself and all the markings on the ground light up, holding them both in place. Looking at how they are positioned, the thestral, covered in a blue aura, is almost right on top of the unicorn, who is covered in a red aura. This means that what the thestral was going to do would be considered a finishing blow. The thestral is moved away from the unicorn and they are both released from the spell, the thestral landing on the ground gracefully. Both the unicorn and thestral grin at each other, and walk over to each other and shake hooves and call good game.

Good. no bad blood between the two. Hasn’t been much of that lately, but that arena isn’t always used in good fun. Some use it to settle disputes; which admittedly is better than straight up killing each other, but it does enable some rather hot headed mindsets. As the arena barrier fades away, the two in the arena are startled by the cheering crowd that gathered around them and the arena. See, ponies in the dueling circle can’t hear or see the outside world, but those outside can see and hear everything. It helps keep the duelists from getting distracted. That’s another reason why the guards are present. If an emergency came up, they can end the duel, which would result in a yellow aura catching both combatants.

But yeah, those two showed up before anyone else to get a little early morning practice in. Good friends those two are. Two of the top in the region as well. So of course everyone would jump at the opportunity to watch them spar. They sheepishly rub the backs of their heads and start making their way through the crowd towards the school. Almost if on cue, the bells ring, signaling the start of the school day.

I internally sigh as the courtyard slowly clears out, minus a couple patrol guards. For whatever reason, time seems to be going by slower than usual. The passage of time, while a set standard, can be perceived to pass by fast. Which, usually for me, unless something interesting happens, is the case. Normally, day and night become a blur. Sometimes an entire months have gone by without me even noticing. But lately, time seems to be moving slower than Helen Keller’s reaction time.

‘…Who the hell is Helen Keller? Where the hell did that even come from…’

I've noticed myself doing that occasionally. Saying random bits of nonsense that, as of now, make no sense. But they FEEL like its an appropriate analogy. If that doesn’t make any sense, trust me, I’m right there with you.

Know what else doesn’t make any sense? My fucking eye! At this point, I’m claiming it to be my own. I may have found it, but fuck whoever else lays claim to it. I have it and have been stuck with it for… how long has it been… 144540 days… 396 years now. Either way, if I’ve had it for that long, I’m pretty sure I can safely call it mine. Anyone who says otherwise can go fuck themselves!

That’s another thing though. My eye. What happened at the Crystal Empire. Seeing it all from Celestia’s perspective. Apparently when her vision cut out, it was because she passed out. When she came back, she was unconscious and being carried by Luna. The stress of the war, the battle, fatigue, and watching an entire empire was too much for her. Admittedly, it was too much for me as well; minus the fatigue. However, instead of passing out, I seem to have blanked out for a couple years.

My guess? Mental overstimulation. I’m used to the stimuli I normally get. Watching OTHER things move. Watching everything from Celestia’s perspective, while not as consistent as if I was moving around on my own, was still close enough that my mental state just couldn’t handle it. As for why it was so long before I regained any form of coherent thought? Probably because I have no means of rest or recovery. I can’t sleep, can’t let the mind or body rest. I can only sit here and watch…

Still haven’t even figured out that new trick with my eye either. I can only surmise their eyes being in my vision at just the right angle triggers it. It might not even be that. I can’t exactly try different things to test it either, so I’m stuck with it happening at seemingly random intervals. Each time it does, I blank out for a couple years.. It’s only happened… a few times since Celestia. Once with Luna, which was surprisingly informative. Seems I had caught her with it right as she was on her way to check up on Starswirl’s progress towards figuring out a way to free me.

Turns out, he’s still found out jack shit! Meh… I should probably give him some credit. They were spouting a bunch of junk about magic that I didn’t understand at the time. Yeah, he’s still around. Still don’t know how, but whatever he’s doing seems to be working for him. Nothing I can do about it. What do I mean by, ‘at the time’, though?

Well that leads me to the second time I was seeing things through other people’s vision. A random unicorn happened to get snared by my eye. How does that help me understand magic? The bastard didn’t sleep for three weeks! He spent three weeks straight studying magic. All kinds simple, intermediate, advanced; all kinds of magic. My vision doesn’t seem to cut out until the person loses consciousness by whatever means. So I was stuck watching what this guy did for three weeks. During those three weeks, I managed to pick up on a few things. Highly doubt I can use magic, but an understanding of it helps.

The most recent time it happened… really gives me nightmares. That is to say it would if I was capable of sleeping. What was it you might ask? A. Fucking. BIRD. And not just ANY bird. Nooooo no no no no. this little fucker had to be THE MOST adventurous little cunt ever! Bastard was doing all kinds of twists and turns and flips and a whole assload of tricks. And it flew for the entire day! Fucking majestic! That one really hurt my head… I blanked out longer than usual from that one.

I like animals. But fuck birds. Especially that one in particular. I’m glad the little shit is dead.

Speaking of magic however, something has happened regarding it since the Crystal Empire disappeared. After the war was over, dark magic was banned. Branded an evil and forbidden magic. Reason why? Sombra. He turned down a dark path, and let it consume him in a greedy pursuit of knowledge. So they used him as an example of the harm that can come from the use of dark magic. Hypocritical of them anyways. Luna used dark magic and she’s still fine. Matter of fact, she still uses it. Celestia even learned a little bit of it, and is still continuing to learn it. Starswirl was reluctant to continue teaching it to them, especially after the war, but Luna managed to convince him. Just because its not allowed doesn’t mean everyone will listen. How can they combat dark magic without an understanding of it? You can’t. At least not effectively enough to beat it.

They also are carefully monitoring each student to make sure they don’t fall down the same path as Sombra, and taking extensive measures when even a hint of curiosity towards dark magic is found.

Overall, I understand their reason for being hypocritical regarding this subject, but it doesn’t change the fact they are hypocrites. Speaking of Starswirl’s teachings though, he still continues to teach at the school. He’s just no longer the only teacher. Most of the other teachers are prodigies that graduated from his classes anyways, but the point there’s more than just him. He also doesn’t teach any offensive or defensive magic. It’s not from lack of knowledge either, because trust me, he knows some shit. He just prefers not to. Rather focus on other things.

Other things… things like Luna. him and Luna are getting a bit close. Really close. He likes her and I know it. How do I know this? Starswirl has been showing up occasionally during Luna’s time with her diary. All coincidence according to him. I beg to differ; I’ve seen enough love birds to know when an individual likes another. Plenty of ponies sneaking into the castle garden to make out, or… other things… don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m disgusted by it or anything. Not that I’m into that kind of stuff either! Don’t get it twisted!

It’s just that spending so much time watching it, you kinda get desensitized to it. Believe me, first time I saw it was when I was sixteen; two years after I showed up in this strange world. And I was traumatized. And even stranger, I had no reaction from it at all except for my own mentality. I had no impulse to throw up. No desire to join in. no desire to pleasure myself in any way. Just me watching, thinking it was disgusting from the sheer fact that it was two, what I thought to be animals at the time, going at it. Just because that’s what my frame of mind was. Now I’m numb to it. Just don’t care. And while I have come to understand what passes as ‘attractive’ here, and I can appreciate the beauty of it, I don’t think I could muster any sort of attachment to anyone here; even if I got free from this entrapment. Not off looks alone.

I’ve gone 396 years as a statue; that means I haven’t felt anything in so long that I don’t even remember what feeling is like. I can’t feel. Things like arousal, pain, cold, stiffness, nothing. Those are all things that require the mind and body to work in conjunction. With my body being stone, nothing is registered. Nothing moves. No signal from the brain goes anywhere. And it’s not even the brain, because that is stone as well! It’s difficult to accurately describe, but it’s just… I am, in all sense of the word, dead. Maybe not, but that’s essentially what petrification does to the body. Effectively dead. Forced to just be a consciousness. Yeah, I can see and hear, but that’s it. Not sure if that’s more a blessing or a curse honestly. Just… here. Watching. Waiting. Stuck within my own mind.

Ever declining sanity… which is strange, as I’ve come to realize that insanity isn’t necessarily a real thing. It’s a social construct to describe those who are of a different mindset. Mania, dementia, psychosis, hysteria, madness, lunacy. I’ve had fits of all of them. And through them all, one thing remained true. What I saw remained the same. The only difference is what is seen alongside it. I was still able to think coherent thoughts. They were coherent to me. They might not have made sense to anyone else, but I knew what I meant. It might be a different case for me as I can’t actually move around and interact with anything, so my reality is only what I perceive. I can’t change anything about it… it’s… frustrating beyond all possible imagining. Everything in my life. Taken away from me. Forced to watch others go about their own. Can’t even express it to anyone. Can’t do anything. I cannot stress it enough, can never put enough emphasis on it for anyone to even come close to comprehending it. Even I cannot understand it, it’s just part of my seemingly meaningless existence.

But I suppose there's nothing for it. Can’t do anything about it, so why waste the mental capacity being angry at it? I’m no longer mad at anything really. Cept birds; but honestly, fuck birds. That aside though, I’m not even mad at Celestia anymore. Holding a vendetta is too much mental effort for me to put forth; and I’m runnin out of capacity to care about and process much. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate her guts and I’d kill her given the chance to do so with no repercussions. But I’m not mad at her. I know I hate her. But I just don’t have the inclination to waste the seemingly infinite time I have on it. Because if I ever do get out of here, what will it get me? A reassurance of something I already know? I know I hate her, why waste more time trying to convince myself even more than I hate her? It’s pointless. At least this way I can use this time to learn more and grow mentally as I have been. That, and I know that I’d essentially doom the planet if I killed her. She moves the sun here. Maybe I can dedicate my time to making her life a living hell instead… who knows, all I know is that I’m stuck here as a statue and I shouldn’t have hope. Hope is just more fuel for the pyre when it’s eventually crushed.

I don’t even know what I’d do if I got out… would I be the evil they initially thought me to be? Would I cause chaos and start killing ponies; ponies like Celestia? Would I be petty and an asshole to everyone?... Probably, but that’s just how I’d be anyways. Or, would I be the good that Luna see’s in me? That Starswirl believes Luna for. All those soldiers who prayed to me during that war, those that came back and those who didn’t. Would I render their beliefs in vain? Heh… look at me talking like I could actually do something. I don’t have magic, I wasn’t strong at all when I came here, I lack any form of social skills since I haven’t had to use them in fucking forever. I’m a single man with an eye that I can’t completely control; that, as far as I know, only has two abilities. Both of which are non-applicable for any sort of offensive purposes. Even if it did have some offensive uses, would I have the energy to do it? Probably not… I’ve spent so much time alone… I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want to talk to others. I want to be known as something other than that statue in the castle gardens. I want a friend… I can’t have what I want by emptying the world and rendering it uninhabitable by killing the sun. no doubt that’d get me on everyone's shit list anyways.

It’s weird to hate someone but not be mad at them, I know. But that’s just how I feel. I just… wish I could sit down, and have a conversation with her. Listen to her answers to my endless string of questions. Try as hard as I can to drill it into her head exactly what she did to me. If she has a heart, it’d surely be broken if she knew what she did to me. And if she doesn’t… oh well. If she becomes stricken with guilt, I’ll forgive her. Why? Why would I forgive someone who has done something so horrible to me? Because I know that she’d never forgive herself. She’d want to make it up to me in any way she can. And to forgive her right from the start would be to deny her any chance of making anything up to me. That would fill her with even more guilt. That, would be her ultimate punishment for what she has done to me.

The main thing I want to ask her? It’s a rather simple one. One simple question that has been ringing in my head ever since I was turned to stone. Can you guess it?

Why.

You know… in all my time… there were few occasions where I thought: hey, I could actually die here. Even fewer where I thought that the world might legitimately be ending. The thought of the world ending terrifies me more than death ever could. Why? Because there's the chance that I might be spared from whatever armageddon might bring. Lost among the rubble. Forever watching; Never a chance to be free. And knowing my luck, that would probably happen. And if I was spared whatever armageddon throws at the world, knowing me I’d probably be freed when there is nothing left. No civilization, no food, no life.

Very rarely do I think these kind of thoughts. Now happens to be one of those times. Why? Because another fuckwit is striving for world domination. Except… it isn’t really world domination… more like… he wants to pretty much kill everyone. Now, the thought of death doesn’t scare me anymore. I’m not phased by it at all. But it certainly seems to scare the hell out of everyone else. I don’t see why though. I mean, I understand that death scares them, but I think it’s just because that’s how they are; I don’t actually understand the reason for it. It’s such a simple prospect. So easy to cause.

Maybe I’m not scared because I want to die. Fuck living. Fuck the world. Fuck Celestia, Luna, Starswirl, and fuck birds! I’m beyond caring for this world! It’s been 109500 days since Luna asked starswirl to try and find a way to free me. And in 300 fucking years, he still seems to be nowhere close. Bless his soul for trying, but fuck, he isn’t even trying that hard anymore. He thinks I’m a lost cause. Celestia is scared of me, but fuck her anyways because it’s partly her fault I’m in this mess. And fuck Luna because… because… okay maybe I take that one back… she’s the only good I’ve got. The one reason I would maybe NOT want to die, is her. I want to thank her… and tell her how much I appreciate everything she’s done for me.

In all the 186880 days I’ve been here, I cherish the ones with her the most. She’s… my anchor… and I hate her for it. It seems passive aggressive, but hear me out. She’s kept me partially sane by keeping me company. That’s a good thing, right? But if she hadn’t done that, my mind probably would have went blank a long time ago. And that can be seen as a good thing and a bad thing. But to me, it would have been good. Because then I wouldn’t have to fade in and out of time in partial coherence and sanity. In hindsight, I wouldn’t want to have gone this long like this. So you see, I’m grateful to her for making these days somewhat bearable, but I hate her because she’s the reason I even still experience days.

It’s a weird love/hate relationship, I know… it’s like a drug, you love the feeling, but you hate yourself for it later. I should probably backtrack a little bit here though. The part about Starswirl still not being anywhere close to freeing me in particular. I got the chance to see through his eyes about… 40 years ago. Give or take a few, as time is extremely hard to keep track of when it all blurs together in the seemingly short spans of the mental nothingness that exists when there’s nothing going on. Anyways, back to the point. I got to see what goes on behind closed doors with this fucker. And no, I did NOT see him masturbate! Just want to make that clear!

He’s hardly ever working on my problem. Only once a week. Just so he can say he’s making progress when Luna asks him how things are coming along. Maybe he thinks that if I’m ever freed, his chances with her with be reduced to zero. If that’s his fear, he’s sorely mistaken; I don’t see her in that light. If anything, I see her like a little sister; even though she’s probably older than me. And don’t you dare call that a friendzone, I pretty much don’t even exist in the social spectrum.

A more logical explanation, and much less petty one, is that he’s just an entrepreneur who’s thirst for knowledge is never ending. It would make sense, considering he’s still constantly developing more magic. Yeah, that’s right, I said I’m being petty. I know I am and I’ll continue to be petty because I see no reason to change. I’m dead, what do I care? I’ve noticed that emotion like anger, happiness, and even amusement still exist to me, just not how you would think. For example, say something was to ‘piss me off’. I wouldn’t actually feel anger, but I would know that’s what I’m SUPPOSED to feel. So I just continue to use logic to figure out that I’m supposed to feel angry, and continue to formulate my responses and thoughts from there.

Another reason I’ll continue to be petty is because I know something will come along later on that will change my thoughts. So I’ll wait for then instead of bothering with it right now. It’s like… imagine you’re playing a game. And there’s this really cool ability you can get. You get it automatically after a certain point, but you can get it earlier if you grind. Why waste your time grinding for that ability when you can continue on and get other abilities you’ll need, and get the cool one along the way? I hope that makes it a bit more easy to understand. Either way, for now, fuck Starswirl.

Because one way or another, he’s keeping me in suspense. If there’s nothing to be done, then I had hope for nothing. If there is something that can be done, then I waited for longer than I might have had to. It’s a huge clusterfuck. Besides that though, the thing that allowed me to find all this out: my eye. Starswirl’s not the only one who’s been doing some researching. It seems Luna has been doing some snooping around of her own. She’s been trying to find out more about my eye, which definitely has my interest piqued. I never really thought about it as an explorable option, not just because I can’t move on my own, but because I didn’t think there would even be any information on it to begin with.

Turns out, I think I really got the short end of the stick. From what I saw Luna looking at, the one who had the eye before me was really powerful. They never had a chance to actually study the eye, as once he was killed, the eye disappeared; likely to where I found it. Now whether their power was attributed to the eye, or something else, I’m not sure. Last one who had it was also a human; or at the very least, looked human. No way to be sure. And last I checked, humans didn’t run around with powers capable of destroying life as we know it.

That’s another thought though… Man, I haven’t thought about humans in a long time. Anyone in the world I knew is now gone; whether that be due to natural causes, murder, or the world somehow came to an end. My family left to wonder where I went; never to know how I disappeared off the face of the earth. My friends all grown up, met someone who made them happy, had kids of their own, who went on to repeat the cycle. Even they are gone. But the worst part of it all? I can’t remember what any of them looked like, nor their names. My friends, my dog, my sister, my mom and dad… all are just blanks. Any character from any book, movie, game, all blanks. I only remember the fact that I know what they are. It’s a depressing thought; but it only upsets me for the fact that I lost something, not what it was. Can’t miss something if you don’t remember what it was, right?

Holy fuck, I completely went off track. Pending death really gets one to think, doesn’t it? Hell, I would have kept going had I not noticed the big hulking thing walking towards me. Wide fella, has wings, top heavy, furry, has a tail, a belt, and oddly enough, a triangle shaped necklace. I’ve seen him around a little bit, but not much. Apparently he’s Starswirl’s friend. And he ain’t alone right now. The very same old mage along with Luna are heading my way. Why? Ask them yourself; I’d do it myself but something tells me you’d have better luck than I would.

“Pray tell, what is this? And why have you brought me to it? I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in the Nether Lands.” asked Starswirl’s friend, who also happens to look weird as fuck. Yeah, I didn’t say shit about you but you’re quick to assume I’m some sort of whore hound from hell or something ain’tcha.

Luna at least had my back as she had it in her to look somewhat offended. “This, Scorpan, is Null. He appeared in Equestria around the time Discord was wreaking havoc.” She lets out a disappointed sigh. “Unfortunately, I foolishly gave in to my sisters fears of him and helped imprisoned him in stone with the elements of harmony.”

“You used the elements of harmony on him. But now you regret this decision? More importantly, what would cause your sister fear of such a small creature? He hardly seems dangerous.” he says with a confused look as he continues to examine me.

“Yes, I regret it dearly. It was a hastily made decision, and almost groundless. What causes Null to scare Celestia? Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared as well. The possibility of what could have happened couldn’t be ignored, but I wish we had went about it differently. But to answer the question, he possessed what we call a Left Eye.”

“Left Eye?” Scorpan parrots questioningly, finally tearing his gaze from me. Bout time too, he’s adding onto the heeby jeeby shivers that are just piling up.

Starswirl decides to chime in this time before Luna could respond. “The Left Eye; a mark bearing great power. A long time ago, another creature similar to Null here nearly wiped out all life in existence. He also had the Left Eye. at first, we thought it was just unique to him, but if Null has it, we know it can’t have been.” he scratches his beard in thought, while Luna stares at him somewhat slack jawed.

“Starswirl, you were around when Harbinger was?!”

This was new information for me. I had never known the name of the one before me, and now my curiosity was piqued; everything else be damned!

Starswirl simply looks at Luna, then realizes what she asked as his eyes go wide and he laughs awkwardly. “N-no, perhaps I phrased something wrong. I was not around at the time; however, an ancestor of mine was. And he kept a journal that for a page or two, detailed his observations of Harbinger. They weren’t much, and hardly worth looking at. In fact I believe you have already read it if you know that it was called Harbinger.” he tacks on at the end.

Luna lets out an ‘oh’ and falls back into silence. A silence Scorpan decides to break. “I see. That still doesn’t tell me why you brought me to it.”

Yeah, why did you bring this thing to me?

“Well, you said you wanted to know more about Equestrian Culture. I figured I would show you one last piece before we go to fight your brother, as the unfortunate reality is: we might not get another chance to share like this again.” Luna says with a bit of sorrow in her voice.

Scorpan, confusingly, takes on a look of disdain at the mention of his brother. Frankly, I didn’t know the freak had a brother. “I’ve tried to convince my brother to forgo his plans to rend Equestria of its magic; that doing so would bring about a societal collapse.” he lets out a sigh as he turns back and faces me directly, which threw me off because he’s at eye level with me; I’m not used to that. “But he would hear none of it. Said that you’re kind was below us. That you should be lucky he doesn’t kill you all outright.” His expression morphs from disdain to outright disgust as he continues to talk about his brother. “But I’ve seen the damage he can cause. When he feeds, it leaves them a husk of their former selves. Devoid of any magic, barely able to stand, left to just rot in the elements. And even if he was defeated and the stolen magic returned, there will be many who will not recover. He has no magic of his own; so when he absorbs and uses the magic of others, that magic is expunged. Gone and used forever. Never to be returned to its owner, and leaving them in such a state in which they cannot help themselves. Which is why we need to put him down as swiftly as possible.” his expression finally settles on one of anger, and he takes a few breaths to calm himself. “I apologize as I have probably downplayed the severity of this issue in the past, but I made the mistake of believing my brother could change.”

Luna and Starswirl are stunned in silence, but angered nonetheless. Not at Scorpan, but at his brother for doing such things without a single thought about the repercussions his actions have on his victims.

Scorpan is disturbed from his brooding as a raindrop hits his head and causes him to look up into the sky. Odd, as it’s winter time. Just cold enough to make the rain freezing, but not enough to make it snow. Combine that with a darkened sky, the sun blocked out by clouds entirely? That’s the scene I have in front of me. Scorpan looks at me again, and this time, his eyes catch mine just right, causing me to internally yell out in pain. Despite having done it before, it has never been a seamless transition; always a huge pain. Scorpan, for his part, seems to only have a twitch in his eye, which I assume he must have passed off as a raindrop, as he doesn’t say anything regarding it.

As his vision comes into focus for me, I can see myself once again. And absolutely NOTHING has changed. Did I expect anything to change? Not really… but one can always hope, right? Wait… what… no fucking way…. SON OF A BITCH! FUCK BIRDS! THAT IS CLEARLY BIRD CRAP ON MY SHOULDER! The world is ending, and a bird decides to be the final fuck you to me… fucking amazing. It better wash off in the rain…

Scorpan turns his sight away from me as Celestia descends from her tower directly to them. And once again, the moving vision is causing turmoil in my head. I’m handling it well enough though. “It is nearly time. Are we all ready?” Celestia asks the small group.

Luna and Starswirl give off a nod, while Scorpan turned from her and faced the forest that surrounds the castle and village. Letting out a snort through his nose, he nods. “I suppose it’s time to end Tirek’s conquest, isn’t it… we’ll need to end this quickly to maximize the amount who will recover.”

Celestia taps on Scorpan’s shoulder, causing him to turn around and look down at her. “We have the plan. But it will require Tirek to be distracted long enough to give us an opening.”

The hell are you planning on doing? You want a new lawn ornament or something?

Luna nods in agreement with her sister. “Yes, Starswirl’s research on the elements have revealed some new properties. With a bit of influence, hopefully we can use them to extract the magic Tirek has stolen and return it to where it belongs. After that, we’ll end him.”

Scorpan shakes his head. “Returning the magic is the top priority. Evil or not, he is still my brother and I won’t kill him. He needs to pay for his crimes anyways, not take an easy way out. We’ll banish him. Something I’m sure you two are capable of?” he asks as he continues to look out into the forest above the treeline.

From my own view, I see Celestia and Luna glance at each other with looks I can’t quite place… unease perhaps? Maybe they know how but have never done it.

But if that’s the case, they don’t let it show as Celestia speaks up. “Y-yes, that is something we can do.” she lets out a sigh. “I’m sorry Scorpan, but if for any reason it fails, we will have to… you know.”

Way to show no hesitation princess… truly a great leader. Even Scorpan can tell you aren’t exactly telling the truth as his eyes dart down to the side. He turns around and faces the princesses. “You sound unsure. Whether that be because you do not believe yourselves capable of banishing him, or you really fear it won’t work for some other reason, I don’t need to know. However, you need to trust in the path of mercy. Your nation is so peaceful, yet so ready for war at the drop of a hat. Developing more and more will only push others to try and keep up. Think, if you had not befriended me, you and your nation would have fell. It was friendship that brought us together, friendship that will see us through today, friendship that will have you banish Tirek, and if you are smart, friendship that will lead you to the future. Always remember that.”

Luna speaks up at that, somewhat indignantly. “You expect us to simply roll over and befriend any who are against us?”

Scorpan scoffs. “Hardly. Of course, be ready to defend yourselves. I’m simply suggesting you arm one hand, but offer the other. Friendship is a very powerful thing. No one can stand alone against everything. Remember that.”

They are about to say something back, are interrupted when a faint thud is heard in the distance. Then the crack of a tree falling. A louder thud. It continues to get louder and louder, and Scopran finally turns around. When he does, I see some trees falling towards us, and after a moment, a red centaur emerges from the treeline.

He seems to stare at the group for a moment, possibly sizing them up. Even through the stone, I can feel the tension rising. Finally, after a solid minute of constant eye contact, Scopran breaks the silence. “Tirek. You know I stand here as your enemy, not your brother; I will not hold back.”

Tirek scoffs, showing no sign of caring. “So be it. If you cannot help, you are useless to me. And if you cannot help me, you are against me. You were against me the moment we set hoof here. Your interference will end here!” he charges forward at Scorpan, who also charges forward to meet him halfway.

I see Celestia and Luna don their armour with magic and summon their Halberd and Swords respectively. Starswirl stands there with his eyes closed and horn glowing. What are you doing old man…

Celestia and Luna dart off and crash into Tirek head on, pushing him back a bit, both on either side of Scorpan. Tirek smirks and opens his mouth, but before he can do anything, Scorpan lets Tirek push his momentum, and uses it to swing him around back the way he came; interrupting whatever tirek was doing. Starswirl finally opens his eyes and they are glowing white. He teleports away, and through Scorpan’s vision, who has jumped high and flown far to keep Tirek in his sight, I see Starswirl Reappear on over top of Tirek and shoot a ball of magic at him. This ball connects with Tirek and explodes like a tripwire mine, sending him flying down towards the ground. Celestia and Luna catch up and meet Tirek as he hits the ground and goes skidding; trying to get up, The princesses slam into him, driving him even further from the castle due to his uneven footing. Scorpan flies down and slams on him from above, and starts laying into him with a series of punches.

Tirek seems to finally have had enough, as he blasts Scorpan off of him with a huge beam of magic that obscures our vision. As scorpan goes flying, I can hear another explosion go off somewhere around him and see his vision jerk around a bit. This repeats itself a few times before another kind of explosion, and the sound of Tirek yelling out is heard. Scorpan’s vision clears slowly, the white light fading to allow him to get a view of his surroundings. Around him, the tree’s are almost all have their top halves blown off, others with chunks missing. Scorpan looks up to see Starswirl blasting Tirek with a beam of magic, and Celestia and Luna charging at Tirek from behind, weapons at the ready to stab into him. Tirek jumps before he can be impaled, causing Starswirl’s magic to nearly hit the princesses, who luckily saw it hurtling towards them and peel off to either side.

Watching this fight go on, I get flashbacks to when They fought Sombra. Everything is so similar, yet different. Once again, there is no music, no perfect view of every part of the action. Simply the sound of combat. It’s a unique sound, not heard very often. It’s… refreshing; As morbid as that sounds.

I’m thrown from my moment of thought as Scorpan lands in front of tirek, and they start to exchange a series of blows. After a moment, Tirek starts to overpower his brother with punches and elbows, and goes in to spear him. Scorpan takes the hit, and grabs onto him and lifts him up, fucking piledriving his ass hard into the ground, and kicks him away hard.

Starswirl catches up once again, but his white eyes seem to be fading a bit; this is probably very taxing on him. Nonetheless, he still manages to cast his next spell, which appears to be a gridlock barrier around Tirek, the inside of which is soon rained down upon by fucking meteors! Tirek, confused by the barrier, didn’t see the meteors coming and starts to get absolutely pounded by each one as they explode on contact with him. Starswirl immediately starts casting another spell, this one being a series of lightning bolts slamming down on Tirek from the sky.

Tirek appears to have had enough of this as he lets out a huge scream, and does something which shatters the barrier around him, sending fragments of magic flying, which all impale themselves on trees before fading away. “Enough! I have let this go on far too long!” he yells out. “I’ll kill you!” he yells out before charging Scorpan with his horns pointed directly at him.

Scorpan is unable to react as Tirek was too fast, and gets impaled by his horns. Scorpan’s breath catches, and he looks down at his older brother, both horns bloody and stabbed through him. He regains his sense of self, and grabs onto tireks horns, trying to either pull them out or break them. Before he can make any headway, Tirek starts to gather magic at his horns, which causes whatever he’s casting to go on directly inside of Scorpan. The spell seems to be a fire spell, as an orange glow emits from inside his abdomen. Scorpan falls to the ground, unable to scream as he’s in a state of shock, and Tirek rips his horns out. “You were always useless.” Tirek states with indifference, and turns to walk away.

However, before he’s able to, a rainbow seems to slam into him, causing him to let out an ear splitting shriek. What this rainbow is doing to him, I don’t know, but seeing it scares the absolute shit out of me. I’ve only seen it one other time, and back then, it was directed at me.

Wisps of all sorts of colors start flying away from Tirek, heading in all kinds of directions. Through the rainbow, I can see his silhouette getting smaller and smaller, and until a portal opens up next to the rainbow. The rainbow disappears, leaving tirek standing there, confused and angry. He can’t do anything however, because Celestia and Luna slam into him from the side and kick his ass into the portal, then cut off the magic flowing from their horns, thus closing the portal.

The vision starts to fade away, and disappears completely as I assume Scorpan is either dying or passing out from blood loss and having his innards fried. But just because his vision fades, doesn’t mean mine is what I see. Once again, my vision is going blank. My final thoughts going out to Scorpan, hoping he walks away from this alright. I won’t be able to see it, but I’m sure I’ll find out one way or another.

“...Ugh…. Stupid cat… Stop meowing!” I yell as I chuck a small pillow at my door frame, hoping to silence the incessant yowling. I’m rewarded with the sound of tiny claws scrambling to run away, causing me to smirk. Having no door has its perks and downsides.

Turning back over to try and fall asleep again, I lay there unable to pass out. I deduce that I’m not going to be getting any more sleep today until it’s time for bed; and with a groan and a little bit more effort than I’m willing to admit, I kick off my blankets and roll off my mattress four inches down to the floor. Yeah, my bed is a mattress on the floor in the corner; life’s rough man. I look up at my digital clock and see that it’s 10:48 A.M.

It would be so easy to just keep sleeping; it’s the middle of summer, my parents are at work, and I’m an only child. But thanks to that cat, I can’t. Oh well. I push myself up, stretching in that way you wouldn’t really stretch around anyone; cracking my back in all kinds of ways. You know the one, the morning one where you hold your breath manage to touch the floor as you do it. Letting out a huff of breath, I take a deep breath through my nose and hop from one foot to the other doing a bit of playful shadow boxing in an effort to wake myself up more.

Stopping after about 10 seconds of this, I yawn and head for the kitchen to find something to eat. I look through the fridge for a good 5 minutes before deciding on a bowl of cereal. I bring my bowl to the living room and turn the T.V. on, flipping it to the cartoons. ‘Ah Spongebob… you never fail to disappoint.’

I ended up watching cartoons til noon, and decide to do something I haven’t done in a while. I head into my room and change into something a little more acceptable for exploring in. I say exploring, but I really just mean going to meet my friends in the woods. We built a little hidey hole there and usually hang out there on our days off. Even if nobody is there, it’s still a decent place to chill.

Settling on a hooded shirt and cargo pants, because why not, and grabbing my backpack loaded up with some odds and ends. Solar charger, a really good slingshot I got for christmas, and a sizable ammo pouch filled with various sized metal balls for said slingshot, a couple of spare slings for the slingshot, notebook, pencils, a knife my dad gave me, a reusable water bottle, and probably more than what’s an acceptable amount of beef jerky. Because you can never have enough jerky.

After putting on my shoes, I sling my backpack over my shoulder and grab my phone and earbuds. I put them in, open the music app and hit shuffle a bunch of times until I find something that catches my interest. After putting on my watch, I head out the door with a purpose, then immediately turn around and head back inside as I forgot my keys and wallet. After snatching them from my window sill and putting them in the appropriate pockets, I return to the door and lock it after going outside.

I start walking down the street in the sunny afternoon. The heat is annoying but bearable; better than the frigid temperatures we get any other time of the year. The woods are a little ways away, but not so far as to warrant a bike or anything; not that I have one anyways.

After a twenty minute walk, I find myself at a bridge that just crosses a little gap. No water under it, just solid ground. This bridge usually marks the path I take to get to our little hang out. But I recall my friend told me about a different path he takes that he says is faster. I shrug to myself and decide to test that theory for myself. Setting my watch to stopwatch mode, I start heading to where my friend said his path was.

Long story short, his path is NOT faster… I’ve been walking for half an hour, which is double the amount of time it usually takes me. I don’t mind the exercise, and the breeze that flows through here is nice, but that doesn’t change the fact that my friend’s a dumbass. Out of boredom, I pull out my slingshot and put on my ammo pouch. As I’m walking I start slinging some of my smaller steel shots in random directions as I walk; I don’t really care, I have a whole tub of these things at home. As I walk, I notice the ground to my left getting more and more steep; but being who I am, I keep walking close to it. Not on it, but close.

Curiosity gets the better of me and I pull out an earbud and fire off a steel shot down there just to see what would happen. To my surprise, it flies true, managing to not hit the abundance of trees, and I’m met with the sound of steel pinging off something metallic. That’s odd… firing taking out my other earbud and pocketing them, I fire off another steel shot in the same general direction. Another metallic ping. So I’m not going crazy.

Pocketing my slingshot, I carefully descend the steep hillside and nearly trip a couple times on some roots, but manage to get down unscathed. I start walking in the general direction I fired off at, and not long after I’m surprised to see a cave I couldn’t see through the trees. Even more shocking, there’s a metallic door just 6 feet in. curiosity grips me even harder as I walk towards the door. What could be behind the door I wonder.

Stopping in front of the door, I eye it for a moment. It’s rusted to hell and back, and there’s a small glass window in the door. Looking through it reveals nothing as it leads deeper into the cave and the light from outside isn’t enough to reach it. I look at the door itself one more time before finally giving it the proverbial fuck it and reaching for the handle. “To adventure and all that jazz.”

I’m extremely surprised when the door actually gives a little. “Holy fuck!” I yell out as I jump back. My hearts pounding a little bit as whatever this is, is a legitimate thing and my sense of adventure is getting to me. Ya know when you discover something alone and you just want to know more? Yeah, it’s that kind of feeling I got. Hesitant to go on, but curious enough to do it anyways. I grab the door once more, and give it another tug. It budges a few centimeters. I start giving it a series of tugs; and with each one, I feel the door giving more and more. Eventually I get the door open enough to where I can slip through. Let go of the handle and slide through the doorway, pulling out my phone and using the flashlight app to see where I’m going.

So far, after walking for about 3 minutes, it looks like a regular cave. But there was a really heavy metal door; There has to be a reason for it! I’m about to turn around and give up, but I notice something shining in the light of my phone on the wall. Walking closer to it, I notice that it’s a fucking crystal of some sort. Grabbing at it, I try to pull it from the wall; but the damn thing just refuses to come free. Giving up on that little venture with a sigh at not being able to get that cool looking crystal, I continue forward.

By this point I’ve already taken out my earbuds and jammed them haphazardly in my bag. As I keep walking, I notice more and more crystals along the wall. As much as I’d want one, I’m not going to try my luck with each and every single one of them. Pretty soon though, there starts to be more crystal than rock, almost as if I was in a crystal cave of some sort. I decide to take a few pictures for the hell of it, and proof in case anyone wouldn’t believe me.

Eventually, I come to a dead end. Now, I’m taking that with a grain of salt; if video games has taught me anything, that wall over there is lookin pretty breakable. Walking over to it, I knock on it a few times. It sounds hollow, but still pretty thick… looking around for something to break it, I spot a small head sized rock. My sense of adventure overriding my regard for the structural integrity of this cave, I pick up the rock and start smashing it against the wall. Smashy smashy as they say.

CRACK

A few more hits and the wall is busted down! Get fucked upon wall! I’m about to step through, when I notice a loud rumbling from behind me. Stopping dead in my tracks, I slowly turn around to the direction I came from. Fear taking over, I book it back the way I came. Only about halfway there, right where the cave starts to look like a cave made entirely of crystal, there’s a huge pile of rocks. A fucking cave-in!

“No… no no no no no no no! This can’t be happening!” I yell out to myself as I scramble to the rubble and start trying to pull rocks away to try and get through. I move about 8 rocks before I hear more collapsing and see dust falling from the ceiling, prompting me to back away for fear of getting crushed. Fear gripping me completely, I grab my phone and attempt to call 911….

... What? Nothing? looking back at my phone, I see a no signal sign, and my heart sinks. There’s no way out… this is it? This is how I’m going to die? Alone in a stupid fucking cave? God damnit…

Looking at my phone, I note that I’m at 78%. I sit there for… I don’t know how long… just watching the battery percentage. It drops by one percent before I realize something. When this dies, I’ll have no light. My solar charger can’t do anything because there’s no light here. I’m forced to face the realization that I might never get out of here… opening the camera app on my phone, the beginnings of tears forming in my eyes, I start recording. I pan from right to left, first showing the crystal caves, then the cave in to my left. I turn it and face the camera towards myself.

“Hello. My name is Jace Ingram Soto, and I’m 14 years old.” I look at my watch and point the camera at it. “It is, 1:48 P.M., Thursday, June 20th, 2014, as of recording this.” turning the camera back towards myself, I continue to speak. “Today I was going to meet up with a couple friends of mine, and I got a bit sidetracked, and found a cave; this cave was closed with a metal door that I pulled open to get in here. Like an idiot, I wandered deeper into the cave. There was a couple crystals along the way, and as you can see now, the cave from this point on is almost entirely crystal. It’s beautiful… but despite its beauty, I’m trapped in here. I was being stupid, and used a rock to break down a crystal wall; after which, a cave in happened as you can see here.” I was aiming the camera at each thing I was talking about as I talked about it.

Taking a deep breath after a moment of silence, I feel my breath hitch in my throat. I clear my throat, and with a shaky voice, continue on. “I don’t want to die here… I’ve got some snacks and water, but it won’t last me long. I don’t want to die… but I understand that it’s a huge possibility that it could happen. That’s why I’m making this video. I don’t want to just disappear without a trace, found a couple years later with nothing to identify myself. First… Mom and dad… I love you… and if you’re watching this… I’m sorry… I’m sorry I was such an idiot… I’m sorry for giving you two a hard time…” I choke up and tears are now freely flowing down my face. I cry to myself for a solid minute before regaining my composure. I stand up and start walking towards the wall I broke down.

“I’m going to try and find a way out of here. Hopefully, nobody ever has to see this video. And… if I find anything else worthy of note, I’ll record it.” I say more to myself than the video. Stopping the recording, I close the camera app and step through the decently sized hole in the wall. “I’ll be damned if I die down here without at least trying to find a way out.” I tell myself.

Now on the other side, I see the path continues down for an indeterminate amount of distance. Giving out a shaky breath and wiping away a bit of snot that had dripped from my nose, I start walking. I walk for a while before I notice a bit of light that isn’t coming from my phone. It’s a soft blue light, and it seems to be coming from all around me. Turning off my flashlight app and putting my phone in my bag to save battery, I notice the faint blue light is enough to see by. I can’t see very far, but it’s enough to where I decide to save battery. As I continue to walk, I notice the light get brighter and brighter. I turn a corner and see a bright blue ball floating at a dead end. The only dead end. The only path. My heart sinks at not having found a way out, but I’m mildly curious about this bright blue ball. Teary eyed, I approach the ball of light.

As I get closer and closer, I start to notice a reverberating hum coming from it; and I might be going crazy, but I swear I hear some whispers as well. I can’t tell what they’re saying, but I’m a bit distracted by the light. Its…. calming almost… but despite its calming effect, my heart is still planted deep within my gut. I circle the small ball, examining it. It’s just… there. Floating… not attached to anything. Pulling out my phone, I record myself again.

“Jace here… uh… so. Looks like I am going to die after all. I couldn’t find a way out, and the cave leads to a dead end. But, as you might have noticed, there’s some natural light here. I don’t know how, but the crystals are glowing enough for me to see by. Even stranger, I found this weird ball of light.” I point the camera at it. “It’s just. Here. floating.” I circle around it to show that it is indeed floating. “I don’t know what it is. But I intend to find out.” I stop the recording and put my phone in the bag again, and reach out to touch the light. As soon as I touch it, I’m blinded as a bright blue light envelops my vision; beyond that, there’s a searing pain in my left eye. I try to scream but no sound comes out. Or maybe it does, but I just can’t hear it. I certainly can’t feel anything other than the pain. Scratch that, I can, but everything is numb. Like that feeling of when you can feel something but you can’t at the same time. It feels like my entire body fell asleep. Pins and needles all over, convulsing muscle spasms, and a splitting headache.

All of this goes on for… hell if I know how long. It eventually stops however, and I feel a sense of vertigo and weightlessness. My hearing comes back to me, and I notice the sound of something flapping in the wind. Next is my sense of touch, and I notice that it’s my clothes, still on me, flapping in the wind. This confuses me and scares me to high hell. I slam my right eye open, and look around. I can’t open my left eye because it still hurts like hell. With my right eye open, I notice I’m up in the sky. Really high up. Like… above the clouds high up. My body is too sore to react however, as I just continue falling lazily upside down.

“Well… at least it’ll be quick and painless.”

I continue to fall upside down, and I notice my bag falling beside me and continuing to drift further away from me. Closing my eyes, I let happy thoughts of my parents take over.

SPLASH

I scramble around, sore from hitting the water so hard, and sore all over anyways. where the hell was there water!? I struggle but reach the surface, and take a huge gulp of air. Looking around, I see I’m in a lake, and the shore isn’t that far. Swimming, if you could even call it that, to the shore, I lay there and catch my breath, staring at the sky, half my body still in the water. After however long, I gather the strength to pull myself up and observe my surroundings. I notice I’m at a lake in a huge field.

“...where the hell am I?”

I am sick... and tired… of being sick, and tired… I’ve been wandering for four days now… and haven’t found a single person, town, sign, or any indication of life; just fucking nature everywhere. I’m almost out of beef jerky, and it’s pissing me off as much as it worries me, because I’m a goody two shoes who can’t bring himself to litter in such a beautiful place, so I’ve been stuffing them back in my bag; and the constant sound of wrappers shifting is annoying the ever living fuck out of me... Yeah, bite me, I can appreciate nature.

At least I can when I can fucking see it! For whatever reason, if I open my left eye, a whole bunch of shit pops up in my view. It’s like a fucking computer filled with viruses I tell ya. I tried rubbing my eyes, hitting myself upside the head, splashing water in my face. Nothing clears it up. Eventually, I took a picture of myself with my phone to see if it was something else…. And forgot to turn off the flash, so I blinded myself for a moment. After my vision cleared, I looked at the picture, and nearly broke my phone when I dropped it. There’s some fucking symbol on my eye where my pupil would be. No idea what it is, as I’ve never seen anything like it before. Nearly had a panic attack, and had to take an entire day just to come to terms with it.

Nothing I can do for it, so I opted to keep my left eye closed. Wish I had something to wrap around my head to block it for me, but it seems god fucking hates me apparently. So I bite the proverbial bullet and fight back years of habit of having my left eye open, and keep it shut. I still accidentally open it, but the pain from the surge of bullshit that pops up in my vision makes short work of it. I don’t even know what it is, I can never get a good enough look at it on the off chance I do open my left eye, because I’m never expecting to open my left eye; it’s just habit.

That aside, I don’t know where the hell I am. While I’ve never seen much of the world, I’m sure this place isn’t anywhere I’ve heard of. It looks too… untouched. Colors are brighter, the sky is nicer, even the air smells and feels different. Aside from the aesthetic differences, there’s also not been a single bad day of weather since I got here; clear skies far as the eye can see, with the odd cloud here and there. But even those clouds are strange; they don’t move. Now I know clouds don’t move that fast and it could be me not paying attention properly, but I’m telling ya, they don’t move. I’ve watched a couple of the clouds I’ve seen for a couple minutes, to a couple hours, and they didn’t move a single inch. Even tested it by leaving my backpack in the shade of a cloud and waited for a bit to see if it would move. It didn’t.

I sigh and pull out my water bottle and shake it, hearing the swishing of water indicating its almost empty. Maybe 20% full… if that. I open it and take a small sip, savoring the smooth liquid as it glides across my tongue. Wish it could last longer, but I don’t have enough water to indulge myself. Makes me miss the days when I could just flip on the sink, take a few gulps, and dump the rest down the drain like the wasteful child I was. Now I realize exactly how much I took for granted. And that’s pretty much everything. Beds. AC. Electricity. Food. And of course, water. There’s more I’m sure, but it would be a waste of energy to systematically list off everything.

I miss my home… my parents especially. They’re what made home what it is. I don’t think I’ll ever get home though… I’m pretty sure I’m stuck here. But, like I told myself back in the cave, I’ll be damned if I go down without at least trying. Pulling out my phone, I open it up and look in the various chat rooms I was in. all these people I knew… gone from my life… or rather, I’m gone from theirs. Just… deleted. Of course, no new messages come in either; No blasted signal. I sigh and open up to my gallery, looking through the pictures I’ve taken. There aren’t that many, and most of my picture folders are memes, videos, and… less than savory things. I’m 14! Give me a break! But back on topic, my camera roll. Various pictures of selfies taken with my friends, to vacation photos with my parents… I feel a tear roll down my cheek, and quickly wipe it away and put my phone back in my pocket before I waste more time. Not gonna get anything done by sitting here wishing.

It’s been a couple more hours of walking. And the sun is setting. And I see civilization! Fuck yeah! It looks rural as fuck, barely gettin started, but it’s something! I take off running towards the small hamlet as the sun continues setting, casting the world in shadows. However, I’m caught off guard when the sun springs back up instead of continuing its way down. It startled me so much, I jumped back and fell on my ass backwards and scramble away from the direction I was heading. I stop in place, and place a hand on my still beating heart, thumping away in my chest with reckless abandon. “WHAT THE FUCK!?”

The sun does NOT do that! It’s been fine the past 4 days, and now its just defying physics!? Why the fuck did it go back!? I look at my watch and confirm that the time still shows that it should be approaching night time. Then, almost as soon as that thought goes through my head, the sun darts back down past the horizon, shrouding the surrounding area in complete darkness. I’m quiet for the next few seconds, my mind drawing a complete blank. Then the sun darts back up, almost as if playing a game of peek-a-boo. At this point, I’m getting more irritated than anything else. “Alright, what the fuck is going on!?” I yell out to the sun. of course, I get no response.

I decide to get up and start hoofin it to the small village as the sun and moon keep being bipolar. Maybe they’d know something about this, but I highly doubt that. When I’m halfway to the village from where I was, the ground suddenly changes to a fucking purple checkerboard, tripping me up and making me fall flat on my face. I bring myself to my hands and knees, examining the ground below me. Knocking on it, I find it to be some kinda of hard plastic or something similar. Putting this information in the back of my head, I get back to my feet and keep running. I slow down but keep running as I see a couple strange animals running by, except they seem more like one of those ‘has science gone too far’ animal mix up memes. Fucking long legged rabbits with antlers, bats that are fatter than a grapefruit, some that are actually grapefruit with bat wings. I raise an eyebrow and keep running. Par for the course I guess. I DO stop running however, when something pops in front of me from out of nowhere with a positively chaotic cackle. Once again, I’m on my ass and scrambling away. “WHAT THE FUCK!” I yell out, but immediately throw my hand over my mouth and curse myself and my mouth.

The creature before me, some kinda amalgamation of various animal parts congealed together in some sick and twisted looking way, stops his cackling and turns to look at me; and my heart fucking sinks… like, past my stomach and down into my fucking foot. Then out the foot and deep into the earth below me. That’s how fucked I felt.

“And, What in the wide wide world of Equus might you be? My my, certainly not something I conjured, that’s for sure. Some sort of monkey perhaps?” I don’t even have time to react or ponder my confusion at the things he apparently said, as he disappears from in front of me with a snap of his clawed limb, and reappears beside me, lifting me up and holding me by my arm and eyeing me somethin’ fierce. “No no no, not enough hair. Unless you’re a hairless monkey... “ he pulls my mouth open, and I panic as I feel it stretch open to lengths it shouldn’t be able to, and he sticks his fucking head inside my mouth! “Not the right kind of tooth formation either…” he states as he lets go of my mouth, and I feel it snap back to the way it’s supposed to be. He spreads my fingers and even pulls one off, examining it. At this point, I’m freaking out, and looking at my missing digit in horror. However, it isn’t bleeding, nor does it hurt. It just… isn’t there. I can still feel it, but I feel it in the grip of this reality breaking creature. Wiggling it around, it wiggles in his grip too. It disappears from his grip and pops back on my hand after he tosses it away carelessly and looks back at me.

“Y-you’re the thing causing all this fucking madness!” I stutter and point at him.

He seems surprised I can talk, but his surprised expression quickly melts into a smirk. “Ah, what a lovely word you used to describe it. I prefer the term chaos myself, but you’re word works just as well. Do you like it? Oh I hope you do, I did put a lot of hard work into it!” he disappears again and appears coiled around me with his weird elongated body, and whispers into my ear with an elbow nudge, “between you and me, I really didn’t. I can do way more, but I like to let things progressively get more chaotic.” he says, then gives me a wink and chuckles. Now, I have no idea what compelled me to do what I did next, but I was startled and annoyed.

I fucking punched him.

And, my hand literally phased through his face. His chuckle dies down as he looks at me, my arm literally in his head. And going out the back of it. And he’s fine. “Now that’s a bit rude, don’t you think?” he snaps his fingers and reappears on the path towards the village, leaving me behind him. “I’ll deal with you later. Whenever we next meet...“ He says with an evil smirk as he looks at me over his shoulder. Before I can even respond, he snaps his fingers and the entire world is gone in an instant. I feel like my body is tearing itself apart and putting itself back together, being squashed and stretched, pulled and pushed… all sorts of feelings that shouldn’t be possible to feel at the same time, and with such intensity. It all passes in a second though, and I hear a pop and feel myself falling yet again.

“-et away with this, Discord!” I hear a female voice call from below me. I, however, start screaming and hit the ground with a sudden and sharp pain in my back. My eye screws shut in pain, and I wince, trying to roll over and get off my back. At least I apparently wasn’t that high up. Through my pain, I notice the sound of silence. Nothing but the wind. Then, laughing. No… cackling… of the chaotic variety… this same mother fucker is laughing at me! I wince and slowly bring myself to a sitting position, and glare at him.

“My my, how nice of you to drop in!” he says between laughs, putting extra emphasis on the word drop. Fucking hate puns. I’m about to say something, but I’m startled when I hear another voice behind me.

“What is the meaning of this Discord? An attempt to distract us?” I turn and face the voice, and I’m even more confused when I see two horses standing there, clad in armour and weapons floating beside them, encased in a glow. Actually, getting a better look, I notice they have wings and fucking horns; horns that are encased in the same glow as the floating weapons. Are they doing that? is all I have time to think before this ‘Discord’ finally stops his laughing fit and wipes a tear from his eye, and starts talking again.

“Oh please, Celestia. This is as much a surprise to me as it is you, I assure you.”

After hearing him say that, I had to call bullshit. He knew what he did with me! “Bullshit! Don’t act like you didn’t just start fucking around with the world not 10 minutes ago!”

After that, I stare at him, and he stares back. I can feel the stare of the ponies staring at the back of my head as well. To be honest, it’s a little uncomfortable. Then, for whatever reason, Discord starts giggling. Then chuckling. Then breaks down into full blown laughter. I turn to the ponies behind me to see what they think of this, but they’re looking at me like I’m crazy.

The blue one who’s name I didn’t know brings a hoof to her mouth and coughs into it awkwardly, then speaks up. “Creature, Discord has been wreaking havoc across the land for four days now.” she’s about to say something else, but Discord doesn’t give her a chance as he buts in with something to say of his own.

“OOooooo, havoc. I like that word. Better than the one this thing used four days ago.”

After hearing that, my mind just stopped. ‘Four days? But I was just talking to him 2 fucking minutes ago!’. My eyes, both of them are wide open in shock. The pain from all the clutter clouding my vision is completely numb, and I just stand there in shock. The world seems to continue on as if I wasn’t there. I think Discord and those two horses are fighting. Now that I think about it, the area does look different… that village and the path to it is nowhere in sight. Despite the chaotic look Discord gave it, I can still discern it to be a different location. How else would I have gotten here? Getting to my feet, my jaw clicks shut as I pick it up off the floor, but I continue to stare straight ahead. All I hear around me is the clashing of blades against… something… I didn’t care to look. ‘Four days… did he send me into the future?’

Things go quiet, and all of a sudden, I feel an intense pressure all over my body. I try to move, as this sudden pressure snaps me out of my little stupor, but find that I’m unable to. Panic starts to grip, and I struggle to move, or do anything; breathe, close my eyes, anything. It’s all in vain. I start to lose my sense of feeling. After a moment, I realize I no longer feel the need to breathe. However, I also don’t feel anything else. All I see is my clusterfuck of a vision because my eyes are still open apparently. I can still hear everything going on around me though, so I focus on that. I hear footfalls approaching me, in groups of four. Four seems to be a common number recently, eh? Panic stricken however, I barely register the two horses who I assume are in front of me talking. I catch something about relocation, and that’s all I get before I pass out from the mental overload.

After what feels like an eternity, the world of static white light that envelops my vision finally gives way to something different. This something happens to come in the form of a static view of a garden expanse, with a castle off to my left, and a gate to my right, leading to what looks like a village from what I can see from my point of view.

’Where the hell am I now? First I’m wandering for four days… then some fucking rejected muppet lookin’ thing yeets me four days into the future…’

Then suddenly it all comes back to me; millions of thoughts and memories surging through my head. 186880 days of petrified solitude. At least, thats how many it’s been when I last had consciousness… no clue how long I’ve been out for. That was a helluva black out; first time I’ve actually had something of a dream too. All in all… not bad. Except the whole part where I wake up here… what a drag.

Well. let’s take a look around, shall we? Last I remember, Scorpan got fucking speared and Tirek got sent to who knows where. Must have been some other dimension or something, seeing as this place is still standing. Pft… some other dimension. Wish they could do that for me and send me home. Wherever home is… at this point, I doubt my home is still standing. It’s been far too long… for all I know, the planet could be destroyed by the sun or a comet or something by now. I’m just another missing person that’s left to fade with time. I don’t even remember what home is or anyone there anyways… so know what? I don’t want to go home. I don’t know what I want beyond freedom from this stoney prison, but I don’t want to go home. Who knows what will happen.

Right! Looking around. Well… more like gathering what I can from one point of focus, as I still can’t shift my vision. To put it simply, the place looks different; in a negative way. It’s… hard to explain. Everything just has a darker feel to it. The gardens look gloomy, with various plants dying or dead. Judging from the many dirt patches, the gardeners are doing what they can to replace the dead ones.

Past that, the courtyard sports many cracks along its cobblestone, and quite a few stick up at odd angles where they should be flat across the ground. The school across the way seems almost derelict. Seems like it’s still active, but the standards seemed to really drop, as if the staff just stopped caring about seeming presentable. It’s still clean, just… falling apart. Did something happen to Starswirl? I doubt he’d let the school get like that.

Over the top of the school, I can see the trees of the surrounding forest. They’re a lot closer… like… a lot closer… I used to be able to see the tops of the tall trees. Now I don’t think I even see halfway up the trees. And the wood itself just seems almost black and ominous; not nearly as warm and inviting as I remember it.

To the leftmost of my vision, I see the castle itself. And even that doesn’t seem to have escaped the gloomy nature of the rest of this place. The pristine white now a more subdued dark grey, with a lot more vines and such growing up the walls. The cracked steps leading up to the main door, an- hold the phone. Are those guards outside the door? That’s new. Haven’t seen that since the war with Sombra. But then again, back then guards were everywhere. Either way, the fact there are guards there is a bad sign. Something else I notice is that Starswirl’s tower seems quiet. That’s… very strange. Wonder if that old bastard finally kicked the bucket.

To the rightmost of my vision, I notice there are guards at gates as well, along with the gates being actually closed instead of open, like they usually are during the day. Even the gate seems to have vines intertwining with it. Strange…

All in all, the place just seems way more dark. Like it’s not even ponies that live here anymore. It feels… almost like home. Which is strange, because I don’t even remember home. I just… get the feeling it was like this. Not perfect all the time like Equestria usually is. Gotta say though, this is kinda creepy, considering this IS Equestria. It shouldn’t be like this.

Ah, here comes Luna; maybe I can glean something from her.

Man, she looks like shit. I mean, she looks like her normal regal self, but I can see right through it. She takes her time walking over towards me, each step seeming heavier than the last; her expression shows clearly that she’s deep in thought. When she finally gets here, she plops down on the ground and leans back against a tree. She goes through a series of motions, a satisfying and resounding series of cracks and pops following each one. After she’s done, she lets out a breath she’s been holding in the entire time, and does a small breathing routine, and finally opens her eyes and looks up at me. ’finally done there princess? Man, what the hell’s got you so stressed out?’

“It’s… been a while. 50 Years now? I might be mistaken.”

’50 years? You’ve ignored me for 50 years? Why the hell would you go and do that?’

She lets out a sigh and looks down. “It’s been 50 years since Starswirl disappeared. I still can’t believe it.”

’...Oh

“Sister had a statue made in his honor… and while its a nice thought, I still feel its too soon. But, to ponies like us, 50 years would seem like nothing, wouldn’t it?” she lets out a small forced laugh. “Sister… she’s... been wearing on my nerves, to say the least. It’s not even her own fault if I’m honest. But I can’t help but be cold towards her. I… regret it, but at the same time, I don’t. Strange, isn’t it?”

’Very strange. Why the hell are ya hatin’ on your sister? I have more reason than you. You better not be being petty over some stupid shit!’

“Either way, I digress. That’s not what I came to tell you. When I picked up where Starswirl left off on his research, I thought I’d never complete it. I still haven’t, but I think I just hit a major breakthrough. Progress has sped up rapidly since the discovery I made. I won’t bore you with the details, else we’d be here all day; and while you have that kind of time, I’d much rather spend it trying to continue Starswirl’s research. Suffice it to say, I think I could have you out of there within 300 years!” she says with a bit more happiness than I’d think that time frame would warrant. She drops her smile and sighs to herself. “I know it doesn’t seem like that big of a breakthrough, but before I didn’t even have a time frame! I used to just toil away day by day, hoping something would come along to give me an end goal. But it finally has! Now I KNOW I can get you out of there. I know what I have to do, I just… need more time. There’s a lot that needs to be done, and It took me the entire month just to get it all down into writing so I don’t forget it. I could get you out of there sooner, but I can’t just abandon my duties as a princess. Maybe it’ll be sooner than I thought, depending on how long it all takes, but 300 years is the most time I estimate it will all take.”

At this point I’m somewhat stuck in my own thoughts. Well, I always have been, but I mean it a bit differently this time. ’She actually found a way? Holy shit, that’s fucking awesome!’ sucks about Starswirl; I wanted to ask him how he lived so long. Though she didn’t say he died… said he disappeared. Didn’t say how either. I’m sure she phrased it that was for a reason… still though; that doesn’t explain why everything is so different. Luna’s been acting cold towards her sister as well. They usually seem closer than any other siblings I’ve ever seen; wonder what’s got her so mad at her.

“Ah, sister, there you are. I thought you might be here.”

’God, that voice… I wanna stab the owner.’

Luna for some reason looks like she wants to as well, but quickly hides the look behind a neutral mask. Celestia walks into my peripheral with a statue of what looks like Starswirl floating next to her in her magic. “Good evening Celestia.”

Celestia motions to the statue of Starswirl with a small pained smile. “I figured I’d let you have the honors; he was a closer friend to you than he was to me.”

Luna nods indifferently, and takes the statue from her sister in her magic, and makes a show of looking around for where to put it. Eventually, she settles on somewhere to my right that’s out of my view. After which, she turns back to Celestia and nods. Celestia walks up to her sister and pulls her into a hug, one that Luna takes a moment to return. When Celestia pulls away, she gives a curt nod, turns, and walks away. When she is fully turned away, Luna gives her sister a mild scowl.

’Whoa now, easy girl. If looks could kill, your sister would be dead.’

She lets out a defeated sigh and just decides to sit in silence with her eyes closed. It’s getting pretty dark out. It’s been so long I start to think she might have fallen asleep sitting. After about an hour, she finally opens her eyes and lets takes a deep breath through her nose and lets it out through her mouth. She repeats this action a couple more times, before turning and starting to walk away.

Something stops her though. Something that confused me as well. Whispers. She turns back around and looks in the direction it came from. “Nopony except staff are permitted on castle grounds at this hour. This is a law punishable by jail time. I’m feel generous, so show yourself and I’ll let you go. Fail to do so, and I’ll personally ensure your consequences are far worse.”

’Damn, she don’t play around.’

Honoring the princess’s request, the pony hiding reveals themself. Except… it’s not really a pony. It’s a shadowy form that resembles a pony. And it didn’t come out of any sort of hiding, it just sorta formed itself in front of Luna, taking on a similar shape to her. “Good evening Princess. Lovely night that you undoubtedly worked so very hard on, isn’t it?”

’Trying to butter her up? I already don’t like you.’

Luna for her part gets in a very defensive stance. Seems she doesn’t trust this individual.

“What does a shadow like yourself want.” she snaps.

The shadow for its part merely laughs. “You act as if shadows are not already everywhere. Besides, if I was here to cause harm, I’d have already done it, wouldn’t I? You and I both know shadows aren’t the most… talkative sort.”

Luna seems to lessen her defensive stance a bit, but is still on guard. “While this is true, what makes you the outlier?”

The shadow tilts its head in mock thought, not really possessing any facial features to portray any sort of expression. “Is it truly so hard to believe that not all shadows are evil creatures? You gave the thestrals a chance, why not me? Are you not the ‘Mother of the Night’, as they call you? A symbol of opportunity for those not fortunate enough to be simply born a normal pony?”

Luna doesn’t budge an inch. “While those are all true, I know shadow’s aren’t one to be so easily trusted. Especially when I fight against your kind in the dream realm each and every night.”

The shadow sighs, and hangs its head. “Yes, they are quite simple minded. What I wouldn’t give for even an ounce of their savagery. Being a creature that isn’t meant to be burdened by intelligence, surrounded by your own kind who can’t understand a simple concept other than attacking anything on sight that isn’t its own kind, is very daunting.”

Luna cuts her off before she can say anything else. “Stop with the sob story. What do you want.”

The shadow just looks at her blankly. It’s impossible to tell what they’re thinking, as there’s no expression to read. “Very well, I’ll get right to the point and hope this will convince you I’m not here to cause trouble. I overheard that you were trying to free the entity that resides within that statue over there.” she says as she motions towards me.

Well now, this is interesting.

At this, Luna perks up a tad. “I might. What’s it to you?”

The shadow looks at me. “Would offering my assistance be enough for you to trust me?”

“Why would you want to help me? What do you know about him?” Luna questions.

“Only what I heard just now. Three hundred years seems like such an awfully long time. The two of us working together, or even just me working when you are not, would surely cut the time down significantly, wouldn’t it? You even said you already have all the steps in writing.” The shadow states.

“This is true… but you’re going to have to do more to prove to me your true intentions. If you are genuine, I’ll apologize later, but I’m sure you understand my hesitation.” Luna retorts.

The shadow stares at Luna for a second before turning and walking away. “Fine then. I was just hoping someone such as yourself could understand. Being one with the night yourself and all.”

Luna looks conflicted, but takes the bait. “What does being one with the night have to do with anything?”

The shadow stops. “It has everything to do with this. You know the creatures of the night and how they are. You understand the terror they can cause. But you also know the wonders and beauty the night can bring. Something most others don’t seem to grasp. They should though.” she turns and faces Luna, walking towards her. “You work tirelessly each and every night. Defending your citizens against creatures like me, creating a wondrous night for all to observe and be in awe at, running the nation, and your research towards this.” she states, motioning towards me again. “But what do they do? They retreat indoors, and hide away! They sleep all throughout your beautiful night, and work and play in their precious sunshine. You and I both know, nobody appreciates your work!” she was getting louder and louder as she kept talking, but stops and takes a calming breath. “But I do~! Having lived my entire life in the world you create each and every night, I know how hard you work. I only wish to help you Princess. I was hoping you’d give me a chance. But I guess I was wrong.” she finishes and turns to walk away again.

This time, Luna lets her get a bit farther before stopping her once more. “Wait!” she calls out.

The shadow stops again. “...Yes?” God, I can almost hear the cheshire grin that would be on her face if she had one.

“...What’s your name?”

The shadow turns back around, and I swear, I can almost see a fucking grin on her faceless head.

“They call me, Nightmare Moon.”

Damn… I know I’ve said things look bad before… but now… I think it’s finally over. The town’s completely devoid of life, there’s a huge circular crater surrounding the actual castle now, black vines are encroaching on the castle, the forest is so dark, even I can’t see through it very far. New forms of wildlife are coming from out of nowhere, and are extremely hostile towards anything; that’s why the town was evacuated. Nothing seems to dare actually try to get on castle grounds though; almost as if it was a dead zone for them. To them, this place just didn’t exist. Like a void in the middle of their little forest.

Right now, Luna is the only one left in the castle. Celestia left along with her subjects a couple weeks ago. And Luna has sat there, on her throne, almost the entire time. Staring at a single spot in the floor while her horn worked away at some magic; presumedly towards freeing me. She moved me into the throne room itself as well, so now I sit squarely against the wall pretty much in the corner, overlooking the entire room, with Luna in the corner of my eye.

Luna refused to leave the castle when Celestia suggested they abandon it. Their debate nearly turned into a fight, but Celestia decided to leave before it could get that far; A mix of not wanting to fight her younger sister, thinking she just needed a bit of time to calm down, and needing to lead her people. Luna looked rearin’ to go for a fight though.

It’s sad, because I know why Luna’s being this way. That Nightmare Moon shadow was really bad news. I knew it from the moment I saw her, but I couldn’t say anything. She convinced Luna to let her reside within her own mind, because hiding in her shadow was difficult to keep up day in and day out while doing magic to try and make progress towards freeing me. Well, almost immediately Luna changed. Her eyes changed from their normal pony looking eyes, to almost cat like slitted ones. Her wings grew a bit bigger, and got darker towards the tips, and her teeth got a bit pointier. All things that were hardly noticeable, to most. Then, she started to laugh. And her voice had a second echo to it; Nightmare Moon’s voice. This was a week or two before Celestia left with her subjects.

It’s been 84680 days since Luna first met Nightmare Moon, and supposedly they are close to freeing me; and with all this newfound freetime, progress seemed to pick up as well. After I’m free, I’m not sure what to do. On one hand, this shadow is influencing Luna. On the other, she opposes Celestia. There’s also the fact that Nightmare Moon is still working towards freeing me. I don’t see why she would though, she’s already got Luna. maybe she knows the legend of my eye, and wants a very powerful ally out of me. Well, don’t mean to disappoint, but I really ain’t that powerful. Maybe my eye has some powers I simply can’t use because I’m stuck in stone, but I can’t be sure. So I’m gonna stick with the idea that I can’t do that kind of stuff with it, until proven otherwise. Not sure I’d side with her anyways; I don’t like being manipulated, and I don’t like others manipulating the only person left that I would call a friend. Maybe I’d sneak off and find Celestia, as much as I hate her guts, and tell her all of what’s going on. But that could also lead Luna to think I’d abandoned her…

Uh oh, looks like there’s no more time to dwell on this. Looks like Celestia’s come to try and collect her sister again. Wonder how things will turn out this time.

“Luna. this little fit of yours has grown old. You need to come with me, everypony needs you. I need you. You can’t just sit here and waste away, toiling at a spell that will never be complete; a spell better left incomplete.” Celestia states as she approaches the throne her sister sits atop.

Luna’s eyes snap up towards her sister from the spot on the ground they were on. “You’re wrong… WE, were wrong… we wrongly imprisoned him, but I’m trying to right that wrong! By this day’s end, Null will be free, and the night will finally be upon us!” Luna boasts.

wait, she’s THAT close?! By tonight… but that might not happen… Celestia might actually stop her… and I could get caught in some kind of crossfire…

Celestia stops her approach, anger on her face for her sister defying her, but a touch of confusion is mixed with her expression as well. “What do you mean by that, Luna?”

Luna gets up and starts walking towards the middle of the throne room. “Did you honestly expect me to sit idly by, while the ponies of Equestria all basked in your precious light? There will be only one Princess of Equestria after tonight… and that Princess, will be ME!” she states as she slams both hooves down on the ground, cracking the ground beneath her, and the window behind her shattering, letting the light of the sun cascade in. aftwards, she flies into the air, and the sun is eclipsed by Luna’s moon, and Luna is encased in dark and red shadows, similar to that of the eclipse itself. After a moment, it shatters like glass, flying out in all directions, and in Luna’s place stands a different pony. Its… disturbing to say the least. She starts laughing, while Celestia watched on.

After her laughing, she immediately scowls at her sister, and starts firing a continuous beam of pure magic across the ceiling of the throne room, causing a huge hole in the ceiling, and making the debris fall around Celestia.

To her credit though, Celestia doesn’t move a muscle, and continues to stare down what used to be her sister. “I won’t fight you Luna. You have a duty to Equestria! You have to lower the moon!”

Luna tilts her head, but smirks a wicked smirk. “Luna? No… I’m Nightmare Moon. And you, are dead!”

The now Nightmare Moon fires another beam of magic exactly where Celestia is, but Celestia dodges it to the side, and takes off flying through the hole in the ceiling.

“Where do you think you’re going!? Get back here and die!” Nightmare bellows as she fires another beam of magic to block Celestia’s escape path, causing her to rear back and watch her as Nightmare summons six phantom swords, three on each side of her. Nightmare then rushes at Celestia at a blinding speed, all six swords ready to crash down on her from different angles.

Celestia’s eyes widen, and she summons her golden halberd as well as a big golden and royal red shield; both of which she uses to catch 4 of Nightmare’s six blades, two from above, two from her left. She’s forced to give a hop back however, as the remaining two nearly took her head clean off. Nightmare uses this as an opportunity to fire another beam of magic at Celestia.

Her reaction is to bring her shield right in front of her, with her halberd at the ready by her side. As soon as the spell is done, she moves her shield to the side to catch another one of Nightmare’s attacks, and lunges at her with a mighty thrust of her halberd, rushing in quick to try and put Nightmare on the defensive. Its all for naught however, as her halberd is caught in clash with four of Luna’s blades, locking her halberd in place. Luna then attempts to bring down her remaining two swords on Celestia from behind. Celestia catches them with her shield again, and lets out a powerful blast of magic that sends Nightmare flying and crashing through the wall, her six blades following her out. Celestia raises her shield and halberd in a defensive stance, and approaches the new hole in the wall.

Good thing too, because Nightmare sends a blast of magic through the dust that crashes into Celestia’s shield. Celestia then pushes forward, and they start fighting out of my sight. All around me I can hear the clash of metal on metal, the blasts of spellfire going off. They even crash through the walls shortways and land outside again, out of my view.

Shit… this isn’t good! If Celestia wins, I won’t be free! But if Nightmare wins, that leaves her in control of Luna, and me with nobody to turn to to try and get help freeing Luna! Yeah, I know. I want Celestia dead, but it’s called paying it forward! Plus, it’ll throw off the world’s balance! Even I know that!

Suddenly, I’m shaken from my spot, and sent crashing through the wall in front of me. Landing on a tilt, I can see the reason behind this is Celestia went crashing into me after I would guess being thrown through the wall. I don’t see Nightmare following, so she must think that it was a killing blow. And looking down on Celestia, I would have thought so as well. Blood trails down her forehead, originating from her horn, as well as her sides, and a huge gash across her chest. Should have worn armour…

Surprisingly, Celestia gets up. “You’ve left me no choice sister…” she discards her weapons as her horn lights up, and a square on the ground slides away, letting a big monolith with five gems on branching pedestals.

The Elements of Harmony! She… she’s not gonna turn her to stone too, is she?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbQ5sV-xvGM

After taking all five gems, a sixth one comes out from the big spherical orb on the top of the monolith, shaped like a six pointed star. She continues to do some sort of magic, and the elements start circling her very quickly, causing her to radiate a brilliant rainbow like glow. She then takes off into the sky, the force of her take off knocking me back, and nearly sending me over the edge of the huge circular crater surrounding the castle; however, I’m barely kept up by a couple of vines.

Celestia confronts Nightmare in the sky, and starts channeling her magic.

...No… No no no no no! Don’t do to her what you did to me!

She then fires a huge rainbow of magic at Nightmare, and she fires back a beam of her own magic. She’s able to challenge the rainbow for a few seconds, but it quickly overtakes her, the rainbow encasing her and then flying towards the moon that’s high in the sky. The rainbow touches down on the moon, then upon its surface, an imprint of a face on the moon.

Suddenly, the vines holding me up over the edge finally snap, sending me plummeting down towards the ground, spinning a little. NO! NO NO NO NO NO! THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!

I land face down into the ground, and my vision goes black.

NO! LUNA, NO!

Then it all fades to white...

Out in the middle of the everfree, a group of ponies were trekking towards the Castle of the Two Sisters.

“Can you believe it? Princess Celestia keeps this place off limits for years, then when she finally lets some ponies go in, she chooses us of all ponies! Oooo, I’m so excited! Think of all the relics and artifacts we’ll find! Maybe we could dedicate a whole section of the museum towards this place if we find enough!” one of them rambles excitedly.

“Calm down, we’re all excited yes; but there’s a reason the Princess had this place off limits. It’s dangerous!” the rest of the group nods but stays quiet, trying not to draw too much attention towards themselves. They had a small detachment of guards with them, but other than that, it was just the two of them.

They keep quiet for the rest of the trek, and when they finally reach the castle, the energetic one bolts forward across the bridge. “I call the interior, you take the outer perimeter!” she calls out as she runs towards the front entrance. A couple pegasai take off to follow her, and two unicorns teleport beside her and follow her. The more level headed of the two lets out a sigh as she runs off into the castle. “Free spirit she is. Alright, let’s take a look shall we?” the guards nod, and he walks around the castle grounds, observing and picking up every little thing he finds to be of some sort of significance. He starts walking along the outer edges of the crater, seeing if there might be something down there.

After a couple minutes of walking, he’s about to give up and continue searching the castle grounds, but stops when he sees something halfway into the dirt. Being a pegasus, he flies down to it and examines it. “This… this is very interesting… all the statues in the garden were pretty much destroyed, but a statue still fully intact? I wonder why... “ he looks at a unicorn in his group who teleported down with him. “Do you think you could get this out of the ground without damaging it?” the unicorn looks at the statue, then starts channeling some magic, and starts lifting the statue from the ground. It takes a moment, but he finally wedges it free, and fully intact.

The pegasus gives off a wide grin, and starts clearing dirt off of the statue, to try and get a better idea of what it actually is. “Obviously an interpretive creation, but still. This thing has got to be hundreds of years old!” he continues clearing away dirt, and when he gets to the pedestal, he notices a plaque. Wiping all the dirt away, he gets a better look at the dirty silver plaque. “Null. The Auspicious Observer… and the plaque is made of pure silver… this statue must have had some sort of significance to warrant a title and name. I’ve never heard of anyone by the name of Null though…” he says. Curiously, he looks up at the face and for the first time, he’s unsettled by the statue. “It’s left eye is very strange…”