Good day all, I hope you've enjoyed the story so far. But Shadow's time in the afterlife as come to a end. After the events in the last chapter Shadow is in for a big change of, well, everything. Let's find out if we're left with more questions or not!
Lights...swirling lights of every color, endless rainbows. Falling...falling forever through the endless vortex of light. Silence...the all consuming silence never broken, screams of pain never making a sound. Pain... terrible pain, bones molding, becoming thick solid legs instead of fragile bones, rib cage spreading and hardening, forming a solid barrier around his middle as his flank bones grew flatter and more solid. Growth... something growing inside this new body, his soul hardening into a crystal. Soul Shield...the strange old Soul-pony falling with him, something different happening to him, turning into a harness of bone, his spirit refining into a gem with a blue swirling mist inside and settling in the center. Fire...the flames from his soul turning a deep blue, his tail a mix of green and blue. Then blackness...all consciousness lost from the pain.
It was the middle of the night, ponies across Equestria were sleeping the night away, safe-guarded by their Princess of the Night. But not all could share that claim. Princess Celestia woke suddenly, a dark chill running down her spin, yet also a warmth accompanied it, like that of meeting an old friend after long years. The princess' train of thought was suddenly interrupted as her sister barged into the room. "Sister! Are thou all right?" asked Luna, worried for her sister "I'm fine Luna, though something has happened, something involving ancient magic." Celestia answered calmly. "We are glad, we feared something had happened to our sister." Luna said, her face full of relief, which suddenly turned to fearful curiosity. "If you did nothing, then what could have happened to cause us to feel so strangely?" "I don't know sister, I really don't know..." Celestia's voice trailed off at the end, lost in thought once more.
_ Later _
'Another beautiful morning' thought a certain yellow-colored pegasus, looking to see the orange glow of sunrise through her window. 'Time to let all my friends out' Fluttershy thought to herself, softly getting out of bed and trotting down her wooden stairs. Looking around her living room, she noticed all her animal friends were huddled in their dens, shaking with fright as she opened the door to let them out. "That's strange, they've never done that before." she thought aloud, "Come one everyone, you need to go and stretch your muscles... come... please?" she asked, trying to gently coax them out. But still the animals refused to budge, Fluttershy looked outside again trying to see if there was anything that could have them all scared. That's when she walked out and looked at the sky, only to see the moon was still high in the sky. "But if the moon is still there, then what's tha..." that's when Fluttershy realized that is wasn't the sunrise she saw, THE MEADOW WAS ON FIRE! "oh no...oh no oh no oh no oh no" she said repeatedly rushing out her door towards the fire, galloping to see if any animals where trapped.
Galloping through the fire, Fluttershy couldn't help but cough and look around as she searched for any animals trapped in the inferno. Thankfully finding none on the outer edges, she headed in deeper, reaching a circular clearing of short grass. Fluttershy gasped in horror at what she saw, in the center of the clearing was what looked like the charred remains of a pony, fire surrounding it except for a small part that was already burned to ash. Squeezing onto the thin black path, Fluttershy made her way to the corpse, feeling as if she was going to be sick the entire way. When she finally reached it, Fluttershy was scared of what she saw. The skeleton, or what appeared to be one, had a blue glow where a mane would have been, and where a tail should have been was a swirl of the same blue and a brighter green. But what she found most frightening was that there were no eyes, only the same blue glow yet again filling both sockets, that was the last thing she saw as everything went black.
Fluttershy woke up with a start, fear gripping her heart like a vice. She looked around, surprised to be back in her own bed, in her own room. 'It was only a nightmare Fluttershy, come one' she berated herself in her head, but still she wondered "Then why did it feel so real?" she asked aloud. Wanting to make sure it was just a nightmare, Fluttershy went over to her window and looked out. There were no flames in the meadow, nothing to that could cause any alarm. She went back to sleep, still uneasy about her nightmare.
Shadow woke up slowly, his body still aching from whatever happened to him. As he got up, he looked around, fanatically hoping that what he saw happen to Soul Shield was just some sort of terrible hallucination. But as he looked around the field he was in, he saw the bone harness, the gem that contained his Soul Shield's soul resting at the collar, proudly displayed. Shadow couldn't help but feel remorse and guilt, Soul Shield sacrificed himself to get here, all for Shadow. Not being able to part with what remained of the old Soul-pony, Shadow slipped into the harness, similar to that of a large complex necklace.
Shadow recovered himself, he knew what was supposed to happen, he had to find the other Elements of Disharmony. But first though, he needed something to drink. Walking over to a nearby pond, Shadow froze at what he saw. The still water of the pond gave off a clear reflection of Shadow, who reveled at how he now looked. He could feel his soul inside him, levitating as some sort of crystal emitting the flames. His bones seemed to have melded together, forming some sort of shell around his body, where his spine used to be was now a solid neck of bone, his leg bones thickening and into strong solid legs. And his eyes no longer glowed green, instead they glowed a deep blue, the same with his mane; although his tail still had wisps of green flame amongst the blue. All in all, he thought he looked rather terrifying.
"I'm not going to get very far if everypony thinks I'm some sort of monster." Shadow thought aloud. All of a sudden, all around his body fur started growing, the same gleaming black, his flames replaced by an equally matching mane and tail, and his eyes turned into irises, though just that, no pupil or anything else. 'Not sure what just happened... but let's go with it' he thought to himself. As Shadow admired his new body once again, he remembered something, living ponies had cutie marks. He looked at his own flank, which was blank, and thought about what his cutie mark could be, only to have it appear on it's own as a flame of blue and green. "Fair enough." he shrugged.
That's when he started hearing noises, looking in the direction they came from he saw some pegasi flying around in the sky, moving clouds about at their whim. "Well if there's pegasi around here, there should also be a town of some sort" Shadow thought aloud. Shadow smiled, beside himself with a sense of relief, even though he lost so much, he was finally here. "We did it Soul Shield, we made it to the world of the living." he whispered to the gem, which seemed to glow a bit brighter.
After trotting through trees and underbrush, Shadow found himself following a dirt road which lead into a small town. At the outskirts of town, Shadow saw a pegasus with a yellow coat and pink mane talking to some animals, appealingly trying to get them to eat. She looked friendly so Shadow trotted over to her "Excuse me, miss, I seem to have gotten lost. Could you tell me where I am?" he asked, trying to be as polite as he can. Letting out a squeak of fright, the yellow pegasus jumped and turned around to see him smiling at her a little awkwardly. The yellow pegasus started mumbling something inaudible, shaking in fear as she did so. "I'm sorry, I couldn't quite hear that, I guess my hearing isn't as good as it used to be." he said, lying a little bit to make her feel better, Soul Shield's words echoing in his mind.
'Sometimes lies are better than the truth.'
Finding a bit of courage, the yellow pegasus spoke in a barely audible whisper "You..you're in P.. Ponyville." Shadow managed to hear this and nodded thoughtfully. "Ponyville." he said to himself, rolling the word around a bit "It sounds like a quiet town." suddenly remembering what he doing Shadow apologized. "I'm sorry, I forgot my manners. My name is Shadow Skull, it's a pleasure to meet you, miss.." he trailed off. "Fl..Fluttershy" she responded, still seemingly whispering. "A pleasure, miss Fluttershy." Shadow restated, "Could you by chance point me in the direction of someplace where I could get a map of the town?" "Try..try the Town Ha..Hall" at this Fluttershy zipped away, faster than anypony would have thought possible towards Ponyville. "Well, off to town hall then." said Shadow, resuming his trot along the dirt road.
Soon after Shadow resumed his walk he arrived in the town called Ponyville, cheery and brightly colored, the town was the opposite of what Shadow was expecting, busy and loud compared to quiet and sleepily like he had figured. As Shadow proceeded into town he noticed everypony was giving him a wide berth, walking on the other side of the street from him and whispering about him after they passed.
'Figures. No matter where I go, be it living or dead I'm still the odd ball' Shadow thought to himself. 'Maybe it's the bone harness..." continuing his train of thought Shadow didn't even notice he had walked straight into the sign outside of the Town Hall.
"ompf" the sound once more escaping Shadow's mouth. "Well, that was real smooth Shadow" he mumbled to himself, rubbing his head. Looking at the sign he walked into he realized it was a map of the town, along with a list of jobs available. "Apple bucker wanted: 4 bits an hour, hmm…" he mused, figuring that bits are what they used for currency here, he thought this was reasonable. "Off to this Sweet Apple Acres then." looking at the map one last time for directions, he set off at a brisk trot.
Luckily, Shadow arrived at Sweet Apple Acres without running into any pony else, saving him from some unwanted attention. As he approached, he noticed it was an extremely apple orchard, a house and a barn near the entrance. Not seeing anypony in the immediate area, he went up and was about to knock on the door when he heard somepony say from behind "Howdy partner, what can I do for ya?" Shadow turned around and saw a brightly colored orange mare wearing a hat, her mane in a long braid. "Hello, my name is Shadow Skull, I'm here for the job offer." he said, bowing his head slightly, 'It always pays to make a good first impression' he thought, "Well, ya sure got some manners I'll give ya that, but if ya want tha job yer gonna need leg strength and endurance. C'mon and I'll see what ya got" she said, motioning for him to follow, "Name's Applejack, by the way." "A pleasure, miss Applejack." he added.
Walking over to one of the nearest trees filled with fruit, Applejack said "Here, try bucking all these apples off this try in one go." "That doesn't seem too hard." Shadow said, to which Applejack chuckled a little, "Well then Mr. Toughguy, go ahead and give 'er a try." So Shadow lined himself up with the tree and gave a slight kick, causing all the apples from the tree to fall neatly into the basket. "Like I said, not too hard." Shadow said with a smirk, "Well, you got yourself the job there, partner." said Applejack, holding out her hoof, which Shadow shook gladly. But before either parted ways, Applejack said "You have some mighty strange eyes, gotta say 'ave never seen any like them before." referring to how he only had a large blue iris. "I bet mah friend Twilight would love to meet ya." "Maybe I'll go and see her later." Shadow mused, thinking it over.
It had been a long day at his new job helping out at Sweet Apple, but he didn't mind. He enjoyed working there, knocking the apples down, carrying them inside the barn, and even helping out with the cooking once, though that didn't end like he had hoped.
'Well, I might as well go meet this Twilight Sparkle.' Shadow thought to himself "Who knows, maybe she might even be able to help find the Elements." he added aloud. Going back to Town Hall, he found that Twilight Sparkle lived in the local library and that she was apparently the personal student to Princess Celestia, whoever that was. 'I'm going to need to learn some history... great.' he thought 'No place better than a library.'
Making his way over to the library, which Shadow was surprised to find was built into a tree, he knocked on the door. When the door opened though, it wasn't a pony that stood there, rather, it was some sort of big reptile "Uhh... hello there, I'm here to speak to Twilight Sparkle." he said, not really sure what to say. What he got in response didn't surprise him one bit though, as the reptile looked into Shadow's eyes it started to shake and said "uhh.. Twi..Twilight, we've go..got a visitor." "Ok, be down in a second." came a light voice from somewhere inside "Go ahead and let them in Spike." The reptile named Spike practically zoomed up the stairs as Shadow entered the cozy ground floor. 'Maybe I'll get used to all of them not liking me that much.' Shadow lied to himself.
Waiting around, Shadow started browsing the books that were close at hand, though he didn't have time too pick one out and start reading before a purple unicorn came trotting down the wooden stairs. "Hi my name is Twilight Spark.." she stopped mid-sentence when she saw Shadow. Shadow couldn't help but break the now awkward silence "Hi, my name is Shadow Skull. Pleasure to meet you, miss Sparkle." he said with his normal greeting. "Applejack told me you might like to meet me?" he said in a questioning tone.
Next thing Shadow knew, he was being bombarded with questions by the excited unicorn, mainly focused around his cutie mark and eyes. He lied a little of course, Soul Shield's words still echoing in his mind, plus he didn't want anypony to know how he actually got here, even if it made him feel like one big lie. After answering her questions, Shadow asked a few of his own, mostly about the area, the locals, and other little unimportant things.
It was soon dark, so Shadow said his farewells and left. Only then did he realize he had no where to stay, quickly deciding that he could find someplace to stay in the nearby forest, he galloped into the darkness of the Everfree Forest, once again unaware that he was being followed
Well Shadow's finally in the Land of the Living, with a new appearance to boot! But what pony could follow him into the Everfree Forest? Stay tuned!
Hey every reader, first off, I'd like to thank you all for being dedicated enough to keep reading my story. Secondly, I'd like to apologize at how long this chapter is, there was just a lot I wanted to get established upon Shadow's arrival. There are even a few more secrets coming up that I'm not gonna fully expose just yet, but it involves a certain pegasus not yet mentioned. Once again, thank you all for reading, reviews are always appreciated, and enjoy the afterlife!