I apologize if it seems like I'm rushing things. I didn't feel like there was too much I could do for the beginning parts of the story, so it may seem pretty rushed. I DID, however, reach my word goal! I know this because I'm writing this A/N on the day I uploaded this chapter. I'm gonna shut up now so you can read the chapter! :)

Chapter 3

Darkness Emerging

"This might be a problem" Savior said, looking at me with a very worried expression.

"Define "might be?"" I asked sarcastically.

"Well it won't be too big of a problem for a while" he continued. "Remember what the legend said. "Start off slow, it most certainly will; then much more will gather and towns they will fill; until it comes to a halt, Equestria will face fault; for the blood of the innocent shall spill.""

"So we've got time to prepare" I said, letting out a sigh of relief. "We've gotta warn everypony! ASAP!"

"No shit, Sherlock!" Savior yelled at me. "Anyway, we'll take over alerting everypony as well as the ruler of Equestria. In the meantime, you should make sure you have any gear you need or anything of the sort, and see if you can get me a ranged weapon of some kind because I can help. Even if you can't find me a ranged weapon, I can still kick ass! After all, I am The Unicorn Wizard!"

"Oh, fuck you!" I sighed. Leaping out the door and taking off to fly to Fluttershy's small cabin, I felt like Bo was going to say "I told you so" or something like that. I rushed through the front door and checked to find all my gear. I found all of it, but I still needed a weapon for Savior… RIFLE! I remembered my rifle. I rushed over to my equipment and grabbed out the scoped rifle. I checked the magazine to make sure there were bullets in it… 3… 3 bullets… fuck…

I decided to pay a visit to that old blacksmith to see if he could find out how to make more bullets. I doubted it, but it never hurts to ask, right? "Hey, I was wondering if you could find out how to make more projectiles for this" I said, swinging my gun up on the counter.

He examined the gun, and activated the mag-release somehow. He looked inside the magazine and popped out one of the bullets. "These?"

"Yes" I spoke firmly.

"I don't know what the hell this thing is" he laughed. "It looks like a little casing with a pointy piece of metal stuck to the top of it."

"That's kind of what it is" I told him. "The only thing you forgot is inside the little casing, there's a grainy substance called gunpowder and a little piece on the bottom that ignites that gunpowder and launches that little piece of metal at the top at an insane speed."

"Gunpowder… gunpowder…" the old blacksmith stood there thinking for a little while. "OH! You mean the stuff in fireworks!"

"Yes!" I nodded.

"Okay, I think I might be able to work with it. This'll be on the house, since I may screw up your… doohickey" he said, pointing at my gun. I thanked him and flew off back to Fluttershy's house.

"Oh, hi there Reaper" she greeted me as I walked inside. "Where were you?"

"I was just asking the blacksmith for something" I answered. She was grooming Angel, who looked to be quite unhappy that I had interrupted his grooming. I shrugged off the look he gave me, knowing that he was always just irritable. Since I had found out about the Shadow Forms, I decided to inform Bo, regardless of it being fairly late at night. I walked into the bathroom and gently tapped on the mirror after closing the door behind me. Bo appeared and certainly didn't look happy that I had woken him up. "We found out what that bad feeling was."

"Oh, good" he sighed. "I thought you woke me up for nothing."

"It's lost souls that have escaped from Limbo!" I explained to him. "They're gonna kill everything in this world if we don't give a blood sacrifice at the heart of some mountain."

"Okay, well…" Bo thought for a minute. "I'll look into this, because it sounds like this is one of the more "slow-moving" kinds of things."

"Oh, and Bo?"

"Yeah?" he responded.

"Is it just me, or does this seem a little bit… familiar to you?"

"…The fuck are you talking about?" he asked

"I dunno" I shrugged. "Just a feeling."

I walked out of the bathroom to see Angel in front of me. "Howdy, Angel." He raised an eyebrow. "What?" I asked. He facepalmed and hopped away. I laughed to myself, knowing he heard me talking in there but he himself couldn't properly speak to ask me anything. Such a perfect combination: curiosity and inability to communicate.

Fluttershy was sleeping off in her bed tonight. I felt dizzy and a little lightheaded, probably from so much happening that day, so I began to walk over to the sofa to sleep, but then…

My muscles all locked and I fell to the ground. Right before I hit the ground I passed out. I couldn't feel anything… I suddenly woke up in surroundings that were… strangely familiar, but at the same time, very new… it was my old house. The Rev walked straight to me out of nowhere. "Hey Peter, remember me?"

"How could I not?" I chuckled. "You are, were and probably always will be the best drummer ever!"

"Well, that's nice to hear" he nodded, smiling. "Anyway, I felt like it might be necessary to remind you a little bit about your past."

"Why?" I asked.

"People who receive a special case often try to be someone else, but we want them to live THEIR life" he explained. "That and I thought it might help you get thinking about this entire "Lost Souls" mission thing."

"Oh, okay" I agreed. "But what part of my past are we viewing?"

The Rev disappeared and I saw a young human me sitting on the sofa in our small house. My big brother came walking over past the sofa, holding a piece of paper, and sat down in one of the chairs to the side of the sofa. "What's wrong, big bro?"

"Peter, we need to talk" he sighed. I knew what was coming and I didn't want to relive this. "It's about your grades. You've failed your math, history and science classes. You're gonna have to go into a special class to help you with it."

"I tried my best" the young me sniffled.

"Your best isn't good enough, Peter" my brother yelled, scowling at the young Peter. "I don't want to have a dumbass as a brother. You're in the seventh grade, Peter! You should be able to handle all your shit on your own!"

Young Peter started to cry. "Dad always told me to try my best! To just do what I could and I would be fine!" he sobbed. "But you don't care! You're not Dad! You're just a dick!"

My brother reached across and smacked my young self across the face with the back of his hand. "Don't you DARE call me that, dumbass!" he screamed. "You need to suck it up! You're not a fucking 3-year-old! Stop crying, go to your room and do whatever the fuck you want to! As long as what you do makes you smarter than you are right now!"

I was starting to cry myself. The memory stopped and The Rev reappeared beside me. "I'm sorry I had to show you that, but it's for the best" he said. "I'll be back to show you another one soon, but until then, take care and good luck with your mission!"

Fluttershy was standing over me crying uncontrollably. I felt lacerations and hemorrhaging on my tongue and I had bruises all over my body. I also had a headache that could make you think you had a brain tumor. "What the fuck just happened" I moaned weakly, propping myself up against the sofa I had fallen down beside.

"Reaper!" Fluttershy squealed happily, rushing to hug me. "Oh! I was so scared! I didn't know what had happened and I was afraid you were going to die and-"

"I'm fine" I assured her. "I just had another seizure. Damn things give me warnings only a quarter of the times they happen."

"I woke up and you were just on the ground" she continued. "I didn't know what had happened!"

"Well, then I guess the Tonic phase has failed me once again" I thought out loud, stretching all my aching legs to loosen them up after they had convulsed.

"Your mouth!" she gasped, seeing the blood dripping from the cuts on my tongue.

"It's fine" I repeated. "That's very common in seizures. I'm normally just lucky when it comes to that."

"But… you're bleeding a lot"

"It's okay" I assured her once again, standing up. "It's only a couple of small cuts. I've had to deal with much worse before." I thought of those wolves tearing my chest apart. Now THAT was painful. "Thank you for worrying about me, though."

"I was so scared" she winced. "I thought you might die."

"Hey! I've had a lot of seizures in my lifetime" I reminded her. "They never get any easier to deal with, but they don't get any harder either!"

Savior opened the door and waltzed right on in. He was about to say something, but then he spotted all the blood on the floor and around my muzzle. "Holy shit on a stick, what in the hell happened here?"

"You should probably know the answer" I growled, angry at him for just walking in like that.

"Seizure?" he raised an eyebrow in his questioning.

"Congratulations! You know something that's totally obvious!" I hissed sarcastically.

"I just came by to tell you something, but I can come back later" he said. "You know, when you aren't an asshole!"

"No, no, just tell me now."

"You know Rarity?" he asked.

"Does Twilight live in a library?" I responded, once again with a lot of sarcasm.

"Okay, well…" he paused. "Her sister Sweetie Belle is missing."

"WHAT?!" I yelled.

"She's missing! Gone! Poof!"

"Okay, but do you think this is linked to the you-know-what?" I hinted.

"Wha- oh! Yeah, it probably is linked" he agreed.

"I've got a guy that's gonna help on finding out about these Lost Souls, so we need to wait for him right now, then we can go and put a stop to this shit" I told him.

"Lost souls?" Fluttershy interrupted.

"I'll explain it to you later 'Shy" I said back to her, smiling.

"Alright, we'll wait for your little friend to gather some info" he agreed, "but if the shit hits the fan, it's your fault!" He turned and dashed out the door.

"What's this about Lost Souls?" 'Shy asked again.

"You know how Nightmare died?" I said, looking in her eyes. She nodded slightly. "Well, there's a legend that foretold of Lost Souls escaping from Limbo when Nightmare tried to get in there. Those Lost Souls can take the shape of anypony they want to, and they will commit as many evils as possible. The only way to tell them apart from the originals is that the Shadow Form will be darker than the original. It seems that the legend was true, and now some of the Lost Souls are on the loose, meaning we have to prepare for the worst. The only way to put an end to these Lost Souls' reign of terror is to give a blood sacrifice at the center of a mountain. We need to find out which one though, which is why I have somepony working on finding info for us. We think that Sweetie Belle's disappearance is linked with the Shadow Form of Big McIntosh that me, Savior and Twilight saw earlier."

Fluttershy stood there petrified in terror, just looking at me with those innocent, adorable eyes. I walked her over to the sofa and sat her down. "It's a lot to take in. I understand" I said sitting down beside her. She scooted closer to me and pulled me into a tight hug. I smiled at the warmness of her embrace and returned her hug.

She began to quietly cry as she buried her face in me, making my fur wet. We sat there and she continued to cry until she finally lifted her head out and sobbed, "I don't want you to go!" She buried her face back into me. "I don't want you to die!"

"I know, I know" I sighed, almost starting to cry myself. "I have to though. If I die, I want you to live on. I don't want you to die with me."

"You can't go, Reaper!" she sobbed.

"I don't have a choice" said, tears beginning to form around my eyes. "I don't wanna die, but I want you to live even more. I might not even have to die."

"It's gonna happen! You'll be the sacrifice!" she cried. "I know it!"

"It'll all be fine" I sniffed quietly. "Nothing bad is gonna happen to you, Fluttershy, I promise."

We sat there and held each other for a long time, until we both just curled up right there and started drifting off to sleep, my wing put over her to hold her close. I was just about to fall asleep when Fluttershy quietly said "I love you, Reaper."

"I love you too, Fluttershy" I replied. "I always will."

Chapter name based off of the song "Darkness Surrounding" by Avenged Sevenfold