Episode 12
開始
The beginning
I woke up before the sun rose. I got up from the ground, and I walked around a little. Emily, who was supposed to have the last guard shift, was nowhere to be found. Then, I heard some noises coming from a nearby clearing in the forest besides which we had set camp the day before.
I went to the clearing. In the clearing, I saw Emily, but her body was not the normal pony body. I hid behind a tree as I kept looking. Her body was still covered with her coat, and she still had hooves, but she was standing on two legs, and she had hands. I heard her groan in frustration.
From my observation point, I could tell that she was training. I knew she could create fire when she kicked, but what I was seeing there was on a whole other level. She was punching and kicking at a huge trunk, fire wrapping her fists and hooves as she moved them around to hit the trunk as hard as she could.
I backed away a little, trying to get a better view, but as I did so, I stepped on a twig. It snapped, and Emily's head turned in my direction.
"Hey!" She said as she began to run towards me.
I jumped out of my hiding place, ready to fight. Emily jumped, a fist ready to punch, already wrapped in fire. I dodged the blow, feeling the hotness of the fire as it barely missed my head. As soon as I recovered, I had to dodge another punch, then another, and another. Eventually, Emily stopped, completely exhausted. Her body glowed deep red for a few seconds before returning to her usual pony body. She spoke.
"What're you doin' here?"
"I woke up, and you were nowhere around. So, I decided to walk around to try to find you."
She let out a sigh, then she walked back towards the camp, leaving me in the clearing. The sun was slowly rising, and the air was getting hotter by the minute. I went back to the camp.
Back at camp, I saw almost everyone was up. David was walking around, the saddlebag I brought along on his back.
"There you are. Here. Take it back."
He levitated the saddlebag to me, and I levitated it to my back.
"We are leaving soon. So get ready." He said before going back to the others.
"Face your fears... Accept your weaknesses... Embrace your jealousy... Experience your own darkness."
"Who said that?" I asked.
"Who said what?" Keith asked.
"Nothing... I thought I heard someone..."
"Live within your lies... Turn your back to your love... Nothing you do will stop what has been started... You are powerless."
"Alright. Lets go. Follow me." David said, and we began walking.
As soon as I took a step, my body kept moving, but my mind was taken somewhere else.
Everything around me was dark. It was empty. Nothing moved, and nothing could make a sound. Then, a figure appeared. A human figure. It spoke.
"So you think you can be The Origin? I doubt that. You are merely a child with ambitions bigger than your head. You are stuck in a world you know nothing about, and you make silly promises to a girl who lied to you? Think again."
I wanted to shout, but nothing left my mouth.
"Because you have no mouth. You are powerless. You are weak. Love makes you weak; friendship makes you weak. These are only illusions. True power lies in hatred, in fury."
'You are wrong. My friends make me stronger.' I thought, and it sounded like it was something I said out loud.
"Please. Stop living in a lie, and look deep in your heart."
The figure then disappeared. After what seemed like a few seconds, another figure appeared. That figure walked towards me, and it slowly took the traits of Sakura.
"You abandoned me."
'No! I didn't! I am coming back soon!'
"Stop lying. I know you won't come back. I am sure you are much better in Equestria than with me on Earth."
I could see tears rolling down Sakura's cheeks. She slowly sat down, then she curled up in the fetal position while crying silently. Watching her made my heart ache. I stretched a hoof to her, but she was out of reach.
"Pitiful, isn't she?" The first figure said as it reappeared behind Sakura.
'Stop it!' I yelled mentally.
I felt tears rolling on my own cheeks.
'Sakura, listen! I love you! I want to be with you!'
"Yeah, like she would accept a guy that forgot his friend."
'Tony?'
Tony's figure appeared beside the crying figure of Sakura. Light sobs were coming from here, and my heart felt broken with each sobs Sakura made.
'Wait! It's only a misunderstanding! I am trying my hardest to go back to Earth!'
"By the time you finally make it we'll all be dead, slow poke."
'Markus!'
Markus' figure appeared beside Tony's. More tears rolled down my cheek.
'Why can't you understand that I am coming back really soon!'
"It won't make any difference. We are already moving on."
It was now Hikari's turn to show up. She went to Markus' side and took his hand. The tears rolling down my cheeks were now continuous streams.
"I should have known I could never get you back."
'Mom? Not you too?'
The pain was now unbearable. I closed my eyes, tears rolling down my cheeks and widening the stream of sadness. Some tears reached the corner of my mouth, entering it, the salty taste giving me a punch to the guts. I began to sob like Sakura.
"Would you see that. The little child is sad." The figure said before laughing.
I felt a new punch to the guts, but this time, it was like my entire body was on fire.
'STOP MESSIN' WITH ME! SHOW YOURSELF!' I yelled as loud as I could in my own mind.
Soon, the figures of the friends I made in Equestria added themselves to those already there. They kept repeating that I was a coward that had abandoned them.
Something then hit me. A fiery punch hit my head, and I felt something new. Pure determination, combined with my fears and hatred. I opened my eyes, and I saw Emily's figure beside me. She was looking at me with a smile.
"How could this be possible?!"
'She knows that her fears can make her stronger. She shows no confidence, just experience. She played with fire, and she burned herself.'
"ENOUGH!"
All the figures vanished, except for the one that kept talking to me directly. The one I couldn't see the features of. I was no longer sobbing, but tears still streamed down my cheeks.
'I won't stand still while you attack me.'
The figure laughed like a maniac as it stepped out of the shadows. It was me, as a human!
"To think you are the vessel of The Origin. You shouldn't even be alive. Your friends don't even stand a chance against your true power."
Then, I was standing in the middle of a wasteland. Burnt tree trunks were still standing, but there was no life in them. The dirt was now ashes, and no grass was visible. Smoke was rising on the horizon. Corpses were littering the ground. The colours seemed to have run away. Everything was grey.
I looked down, and I saw Sakura's lifeless body, her beautiful face covered with blood. A huge hole was occupying the place where her heart should be.
'What happened?'
"You killed her. And everyone else too. Life on Earth was ended by you. And if you don't believe me, look at your hands."
I looked down at my hands. The were covered in blood. Some was still dripping to the ground. I looked at Sakura's face. Her open lifeless eyes and her mouth were frozen in a state of pure panic as she had her heart taken out of her chest by my own hands.
I backed away, panic slowly making its way in my brain. I couldn't have done that. I loved her and everyone else. I let out a scream of terror. It echoed in the empty landscape, sole survivor of this massacre. It carried the weight of murder through countless reverberations, until it finally died.
I fell to my knees. I put my head between my hands, closing my eyes to avoid the spectacle of corpses. I laid down and curled up in the fetal position, rocking myself calm while I cried all the tears of my body.
The laugh of my darker self sounded around me. I opened my eyes, and I saw only darkness.
"You can't even take the sight of your own power. That was what you are capable of. Just forget love and friendship, and then you will be able to destroy all your enemies in a single blast."
'NO! I WILL NEVER DO THAT!'
My darker self laughed again.
"But you're already doing it."
Then, as he finished speaking, I felt a surge of energy. But unlike the surge I have when I attack using The Origin, that one felt darker. More powerful. I focused and tried to ignore it, but it was harder than I thought it would be.
Suddenly, I found myself standing in the middle of a clearing. Some distance away in front of me was Sakura. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Something was odd about her. There was a silver streak in her long pink hair, and she seemed older.
"I can't believe you left us. I can't believe you turned your back on us!" Sakura yelled.
She lifted her right hand, and a beam of light shot towards me. Instinctively, I raised my right arm to protect me. The beam hit and was absorbed by my arm.
"I didn't!"
"LIAR!"
She lifted her left hand, and a sphere of light formed between her hands. She threw the sphere at me, but I jumped in the air, dodging the sphere. The sphere dissipated.
"Why don't you fight?! Coward!"
Another sphere of light was thrown at me. This time, I caught it, and I threw it back at Sakura. The sphere hit her on the chest. She felt to the ground.
"SAKURA!"
I hurried to her side, taking her hand.
"I still love you, Sakura."
Sakura's cheeks were shining with the tears streaming down them. Then, I felt the same dark surge, and I suddenly couldn't control myself. Elemental energies were orbiting around me, mixing with each other. I felt hatred burn deep inside my heart. I closed my eyes, and a single tear fell before all the energy around me was condensed into a sphere.
The sphere exploded, and a wave of energy rushed in all directions, destroying everything in its path. I opened my eyes, and I fell to my knees. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. Where hatred once burned, only guilt could be found. I closed my eyes again, ready to yell.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"Are you okay?" Keith asked.
I looked around. We were in a clearing where stones were organised in a circle. In the middle of the circle was a vortex. I lifted a hand and touched my cheek. It was wet.
"Seriously, are you okay? You've been crying for the entire trip." Keith explained.
I closed my hand into a fist.
"Yeah. I'm okay. I just saw what I must fight within myself."
"...Okay. Suit yourself." Keith said.
I looked at the vortex. All my friends from here were around it, looking at me. They all looked determined. I closed my eyes and smiled, a single tear rolling down my cheek.
"Alright. Lets go!" I said.
They all cheered, and one after the other, they stepped in the vortex, their figure slowly vanishing. David was about to enter the vortex when he stopped and looked at me, a hoof stretched out towards me. I smiled and I hoof bumped. He nodded and entered the vortex, leaving me alone in the clearing. I looked at the vortex, then walked to it. Before I entered, I looked behind.
"Goodbye, Equestria. I am coming Sakura... I won't abandon you. I won't forget you..." I said before stepping into the vortex.
Everything faded into darkness.
Next episode: "Sakura, I am coming. Next episode:
Episode 13
最後
The end
Don't miss it!"
(c) 2014 The master of the game
