Hello Bronies, Pegasisters, Non-Bronies and whoever else to my new and improve story, 'Flames of Darkness'! Now to the people that read the story before, a lot of things have changed but a few things have stayed and I hope it sounds better than the original. To the people that are new, welcome and I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Disclaimer: I do not own MLP, all I own is a few OC's, the story and the idea
Chapter 1: New Reality
Its funny how a life can change in a instance. One minute you could be doing your normal routine and the next, you could be dealing something that you've never encountered before. But in the mist of the confusion and chaos, sometimes the truth is revealed. And depending on how well we handle the truth, it will greatly impact our lives.
My story of how my life changed begins one July afternoon with me sitting on my porch, watching everybody else go on about their day. The sun hung high in the sky, beating down on us on the world below, pushing the temperatures up somewhere in the nineties.
The wind blew gently, carrying the scent of the factories and other unnatural scents. I could never get use to the smell as I try to keep my mind on something else.
My name is Brandon Zarazdaiti by the way. Which is ironic, considering that my last name means relied on or trusting others in Parsi, but as for me, I'm not that kind of trusting others kind of guy.
Even though its been a year and a half since I moved to Detroit, it's still unfamiliar to me. Detroit was never a place I would call home because Portland was my real home. So you may be asking how I got from Portland to here?
Well, my father lost his job as a Digital Sales Representative and he thought moving here in hopes of helping of finding a better job and help me with my trusting issues with others.
Way to go, dad, way to go.
As for my mother, she was a Sales Advisor before we moved to Detroit. Once my mother found out about my father losing his job, she started looking for a second job to keep us afloat. She soon found another job working as a night-shift at McDonalds. Most days, my mother leaves for her job as a Sales Advisor at eight o'clock in the morning and doesn't return home until one or two o'clock, if not later, in the following morning as a McDonalds worker.
I even took up a job to help my parents out in their struggling state. But it didn't last long, because of my current trusting issue. So I was fired three days onto the job for not giving a hand to the employees with their work.
Three weeks after me being fired, my father told us to pack up, we're moving to Detroit.
So here we are.
My father took a job as a Marketer in a small business, while my mother took a job as a Financial Advisor.
As for me, I decided to lay back and keep to myself for awhile. But today was different because my father decided it was time that I would get to hold onto something that's been in our family for several generations; our family heirloom.
I grabbed the small chest made out of Hard Maple with a several designs on it and a brownish finishing to it. I opened it up to find a 22 karat of gold and Palladium necklace lying perfectly on a padded purple cloth. I picked it up by the chains to analyze it further. I noticed that the chains were brazed together with Tungsten, a metal that can withstand up to 6,191.6°F, hotter than magma. But that's not what fascinated me, what caught my attention was what was attached to the chains. It was a silver dollar sized amulet. The amulet was made out of some type of metal that was totally unknown to me. But it had a faint glow to it.
On the amulet also had some weird engravings all around the outer part of the amulet, surrounding one of the most bizarre but yet amazing gem I have ever seen. The gem seemed to slowly change color after a while if you stared at it real closely for a good amount of time. But that's still not the bizarre part about the gem at all, inside the gem seemed to have fire within the gem that changes color that is corresponding with the gems color changing.
I closed my eyes and thought back to earlier today where my father gave me the heirloom.
I was laying down on my bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, playing back that faithful day that lead me not trusting anybody anymore. I just wanna forget it all so many times, but how can you walk away and forget something like that, especially after what they left as a reminder.
There was a sudden knock on my door as I sit up to see my dad standing in my door with the chest in his hands.
"Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?" he asked before stepping into my room without an answer.
"Sure, what's up?" I asked as he sat down on my bed next to me.
"I know your still having a tough time adjusting to this place. But I assure you, things will begin to turn around, you'll see." he said, putting his arm around me and shook me a bit, bringing me to a smile to my face for his encouraging words.
"Is that what I think it is?" I asked as my dad nodded and handed me over the chest.
"It sure is. Our family heirloom. It was brought forth by nobles to our family in the late 1600's. It was then passed from generation to generation to the first born son in our family, until in late 1960, where it was kept in a small chest for safe keepings by my father. But when my father died, the necklace was then kept and locked in our attic for years to come. But now, I believe it's your time to carry on our family's legacy."
I stared at my father wide-eyed, flabbergasted by the way he entrusted me to watch over and protect our family's heirloom. I grabbed the chest and opened the chest to see the necklace sitting perfectly in the chest. As I examined the necklace further, my father began to talk once more.
"You might not realize it yet, but that necklace is more important than you might think. With this necklace, son, it will help you in ways you'll never know until you experience them. And with that, you won't lose who you are and never lose trust within yourself or others." he said before he patted my shoulder and walked out of the room, leaving me to wonder what he exactly meant by that.
Dad, what are you trying to tell me? I asked myself as I stopped examining the necklace and turn to stare at the empty driveway.
My parents have left to go grocery shopping, leaving me here to pounder through my thoughts alone. I turned my attention back to the necklace, not sure what to do now.
I fiddled around with it for a moment before finally deciding that putting on the necklace was my only choice now. But before I could bring it close to my head, there was a sudden yank from my hands and the necklace was gone.
I look up to see a hooded figure hopping over our fence, necklace in hand. This guy was about six feet in height, wearing black sneakers, black ripped jeans, and a black hoodie pulled up.
"Hey! That's mine! Give it back you thief!" I yell out as I gave chase to the thief. I hopped over the fence as well before tearing off after the thief.
I wasn't much of an athlete but I kept up to the thief as he tore down the street towards what I call the Factory Plaza.
The thief tried to zigzag through the buildings, jump over obstacles, and push things over to escape me but I easily keep on his tail. It wasn't until we hit 1300 S. Ford Street, when the thief takes a sharp right, right into the Marathon Detroit Oil Refinery. The thief quickly and silently passes through the main gate without getting caught.
"Just my luck..." I muttered to myself, knowing that if I even attempted to do what he did, I would be caught instantly and thrown to the curb for intrusion.
Instead, I continued down the fence, batting an eye at the area beyond the fence to watch where the thief disappeared to.
Once I felt like I was a good enough distance from the main gate, I then back myself to get a running start to the gate before grabbing the top of the gate with my left hand and pole vaulted myself over the fence, plunging nearly ten feet below. I braced for impact before finally hitting the ground and throw myself forward into a roll, channeling the force of the impact through my body, before racing further into the refinery to catch up to the thief.
I raced around, looking for where that darn thief took off to but it was starting to look like my search was becoming in vain.
I stopped in front of one of the silos to finally catch my breath. Anger started to boil within me for losing the thief. How could I be so foolish for letting the likes of him get away! I growled to myself, beating myself over this situation.
But just as I was about to give up and leave for home, I caught something from the corner of my eye. I turn my attention to whatever caught my eye to see the thief silently making his around the refinery, like he was searching for something.
Perfect! This is a good chance to seize him and take back what's mine, I thought before slipping behind the silo before silently made my way over to where the thief was. By the time I reached my position, I peered outward from my spot to see the thief several feet away from me with his back turned.
I continued to watch from afar to see what he'll do next as he scanned his surrounding area, like he was still searching for something. It did make me quite curious of why he was looking around in a place like this to probably steal another item.
I took this chance to finally apprehend the thief, quietly rushing over to him. Using the loose rubble laying on the ground, I used that as a diving board to launch myself right at the thief.
I slammed into the thief as we were both sent to the ground and sent the necklace out of his grasp to the ground. We began to wrestle in the dirt to get the upper hand. I was doing very well for awhile before the thief grabbed q fist full of dirt and flung it into my face, blinding me.
There was a sudden blow to my stomach as I'm thrown to the ground. Through my blinding state, I watched as the thief grabbed the necklace and headed right into the tunnels. I quickly rose to my feet and followed him into the tunnels, wiping the dirt clean from my eyes as I did so.
By the time I finally caught up to him, he has cornered himself at a dead-end with nowhere else to run.
"Now...give me...back...what's rightfully...mine..." I huffed out, clearly exhausted from everything that has gone to down in the matter of hours.
The thief just stood there, not moving a muscle before he reach for his hood and put it down, revealing his face. He was quite intimidating by the way he looks with a clean shaven face, a stern look on his face, jet black short hair and his eyes reflecting a deep Scarlet irises that had to be contacts and didn't have no expression within them, but you could see them full of hatred and anger.
"You shouldn't have followed..." The thief finally spoke in a rather deep voice that sent a chill down my spine.
"What?" I asked in confusion by what he meant by that.
Suddenly, the thief lifted his hand up and just snapped his fingers. Really, that's it? I asked myself, now thinking that this guy wasn't all there.
But I shouldn't have judge too soon because what happened next was beyond my comprehension. The wall began to crack and crumble, revealing... a portal looking thingy? Whatever it was had colors fading in and out around the outer ring of it while the inner part was completely black as night. It only took up most of the wall as well.
"Turn back now, when you still have a chance." the thief said this time around.
Turn back? What's he mean? What's going on? Am I...am I going insane? Clearly none of this shouldn't be happening.
"N-no, I didn't come all this way just to give up. I intend on getting back what's mine if you like it or not." I said sternly, trying to sound brave but the thief just chuckled at my remark, showing off his somewhat sharp teeth.
"Don't say I didn't warn you, kid." he says, chuckling even more. Okay, he's starting to scare me now.
Just then, a sudden explosion shook the tunnels, nearly knocking me off my feet. Before I could regain my balance, fire exploded into the tunnels, engulfing me in its ablaze.
But the weird part was that I wasn't being burnt to a crisp by the intense heat or the flames themselves. Instead, the fire harmlessly licked my skin and allowed me to breath perfectly fine. In fact, just standing in here felt soothing and it also felt...familiar.
But through the flames that engulfed my vision, I saw the thief standing there, looking satisfied with himself that I was taken care of before he turned and walked into the portal of the unknown.
Oh no you don't! you ain't getting away that easy! I thought and began running after him as I flung myself into the portal before it closed behind me.
A sudden wave of drowsiness washed over me as soon as I entered as I tried to fight against it but it was becoming a losing battle. I soon loss consciousness with the last thing being me still on fire as I spiraled through empty space of nothingness.