Twilight ; 3 DAYS AFTER FIRST CONTACT, 18:30 HOURS
After the incident in the tree house, Varos opted to live on the outskirts of the Everfree in a house he made himself, much to our objections. We later learned that Fluttershy had heard the sounds of fighting and, more curious, music. Out of curiosity and worry for our friend, we were going to figure out what he was doing. Today he seemed anxious, like something was going to happen, and he didn't want to miss it. After dinner at my place as usual on a Saturday, we followed him at a discreet distance. We followed him past his house to a clearing not far into the forest. There were three impromptu caskets lined up in a row, with three equal sized holes waiting for them. We hid in the bushes near the clearing as he began.
"What's he doing?" Rainbow asked me. Applejack shushed her.
"Maybe if you're quiet, we'll find out." Varos kneeled before the caskets and muttered just loud enough for us to hear in Gryphic.
"Έτσι τώρα θάβουμε νεκρούς μας με τις ελπίδες τους εξεύρεση ειρήνη στο μαύρο του κενού. Καληνύχτα." He broke down and cried, but there was nothing we could do. Yet.
"It's a funeral service." I breathed. The others withdrew a breath. Varos composed himself and moved the caskets into the holes. One in each. He looked to the sky with his mouth open and black mist swirled out. Much to the agitation of all of us. The black mist formed the body of Nightmare Moon and we gasped. Nightmare had a solemn expression. Varos half glared at her.
"I don't want your pity. It only makes my strain worse." He said sadly. She nodded and the mist engulfed her again. But instead of going down his throat again, the mist dissipated and before us stood another human like Varos. He looked shocked. Nightmare laughed at his reaction. She grabbed his PDW, and we thought she was going to shoot him. However, before we could react, she pointed it at the sky and tried to pull the trigger, but it was stuck, she tried multiple times, but it didn't budge. When Varos noticed what was wrong, he facehoofed and laughed.
"It helps If you take the safety off." He said, still laughing. Nightmare stuck her tongue out, wearing a smile of her own.
"Let's finish the service so we can get to my favorite part." She flicked the safety off and he called out something I couldn't make out, and she shot one bullet. Again and one more shot. One last time and she shot a third time. After Nightmare put the gun down, Varos looked at her apologetically.
"I don't have an American flag to use in the service, so that's the end of it. Let's cover these bodies and we can get to the fun part." Fortunately, Nightmare asked the question we were itching to have answered
"Alright. Let's get on with it then? We don't have all night." He went to his duffel bag that was way too close to our bush for comfort and took out a sword. Mist swirled around Nightmare and formed a sword made of black mist. He took the black rectangle that played the music the first day we met him. He set it to a new song and smirked. He took his position in front of Nightmare with a neutral stance.
"Hey, out of curiosity, could you make a Naginata? It looks like a staff but it has a sword blade on the end of it." She nodded and had mist swirl around Varos' hands. It formed into the weapon he described and he twirled it in his hands getting a feel for the new weapon. He started twirling the weapon so fast we couldn't see it. He took an offensive stance as a new song came on. He started singing as they clashed blades.
"Voices won't go away,
They stay for days and days.
They say some awful things,
Ways to make you fade away.
I don't think no one's home,
And we're just here alone.
I better find you first,
before you find the phone."
In my opinion the song was very creepy.
"Better run better run better run
yeah I'm coming after you
When you're sleeping at night yeah
There's nothing you can do
There's no place you can hide
'Cause I'm coming after you.
I wish there was another way ou- ou- ou- ou- out for you
I wish there was another way ou- ou- ou- ou- out for you"
He twirled the Nagasaki and made the staff part hit the joint of her leg, making her kneel to him. He pointed the blade at her throat and she conceded. He continued the song.
"I'll break you down,
And put it back together again."
With that he let her up and the weapons dissipated. They started hoof to hoof combat. Varos took Nightmare down almost immediately. He then got an idea.
"Can you put a spell on me so I can switch forms? Like I can have a pony form and stuff like that." Nightmare nodded. Her horn glowed and engulfed him. The glow turned too bright to look at, so we looked away. After the glow faded we looked to see where Varos was, and saw a black coated ALICORN?! He had a black coat and navy blue flowing mane and tail but his wings were very different from Celestia and Luna. They were metal with leather straps leading to what I remembered of what Varos described as a shoulder holster. Inside was Varos' pistol, Stormchaser. His Cutie Mark was a brain split into two parts with an overlay of his PDW and his Naginata. He looked disturbingly like Nightmare Moon.
"What in tarnation?!" Applejack whisper yelled.
"His coat is so depressing! I have my work cut out for me." Rarity said, annoyingly forgetting that we were supposed to be hiding. Varos and Nightmare slipped into combat mode. Nightmare went back down his throat and his mane changed from pure navy blue to navy blue with stars in it. Armor appeared on his hooves, wings, and head. When he saw who had been spying on him, he groaned.
"Oh hell." He said before turning to mist and going deeper into the Everfree. We tried to follow him but we eventually lost him in a thick fog. Two Alicorns came out of the mist on either side of us. One male, one female. The female seemed suprised to see the male.
"I just want to talk to you two." The male said. I recognized the male as prince Timeithian. Or Red Dawn as he preferred to be called. The fog around our hooves seemed to be hesitant. The fog lifted and shifted into Varos' Alicorn form. The female shifted into mist and went down Varos' throat. He gained the armor but didn't assume a combat stance.
"Yes?" Varos asked with a deeper voice than usual. He shook his head and his voice turned normal.
"Sorry. You asked to talk, so, with all due respect, talk." The other Alicorn nodded.
"My name is prince Timeithian or Red Dawn as I prefer to be called. I wanted to speak with you with both of my sisters present, but Celestia really doesn't like you." Varos snorted.
"I hadn't noticed." Red Dawn rolled his eyes. Varos' eyes widened as he realized something.
"Where is your other sister?" He turned around and kept a vigilant watch on anything around him. A bright light appeared and as our vision cleared, we saw Luna standing next to Red Dawn.
"Hello my friend, tis nice to see you again." Varos responded with a curt nod of his head in respect. Dawn cleared his throat.
"Down to business. I want to know if you will be a threat to the inhabitants of this country." Varos laughed.
"Yes. I know for a fact that ponies will eventually want my head for being some kind of sick beast, so I will establish my superiority if they decide to attack me. That won't be my fault. That will rest on the shoulders of the dumbfuck who thought I was harmless." Dawn and Luna nodded at his logic.
"That is... acceptable." Dawn said.
"Anything else?" Varos asked almost sarcastically. Dawn looked to the six of us.
"I want to ask a favor of you." At Varos' nod, Dawn continued. "Can you watch over the Elements of Harmony? They get into trouble more times than is good for them, and I want someone competent enough to protect to be by their side." The others seemed to disagree, but Dawn cut them off with a look. Varos seemed to be in deep thought.
"Sure. On one condition. I want their" He pointed to us, "memories erased. Only of tonight." To our surprise and dismay, Dawn and Luna nodded. Their horns glowed.
Varos ; 4 DAYS AFTER FIRST CONTACT , 9:30 HOURS
Not much happened after the elements' memories were wiped. Thankfully the spell had an added bonus of knocking them out, so we put them in their respective homes and no one was the wiser. As soon as the elements woke up, they came to me to ask what happened last night. I told them that we spent the night together dealing with some, anomalies. Not a lie. I evaded questions about said anomalies as best I could. I had NM make me a separate pony form to keep a disguise among the regular pony folk, but unfortunately, the mane, tail, and coat were the same color, and I was half a foot taller than regular ponies, but I am a unicorn, with my cutie mark being a sword over a shield. My aura was black as the void, but with the boost from NM, my magic is very powerful. I called myself Shadow Catcher and established myself as a bartender in one of the inns. I continued to train at night, being a hell of a lot more careful with who followed me. Now all I waited for was a crisis to rear its ugly head and allow me to put my training to use…
AN: This took me a lot longer than desired because my tablet has been in the depths of Tartarus for about a month now, but it is just in time for Christmas! Next chapter we look at some of Varos' backstory, and some into how his had was split open. Until then, this is Bloodycyclone, signing off!