Chapter 1

Once upon a time in the magical land of Equestria there was peace and harmony throughout the land. This was created by the two goddesses Celestia and Luna who brought out the sun to begin the day and the moon to start the night. But one day all of this changed. The day the humans descended upon Equestria. At first the ponies offered friendship to the humans; this was the wrong thing to do. The humans had advanced technology that quickly and brutally conquered all of Equestria with such speed that their efforts were met with little resistance.

The proud land fell in just over a month. Both the goddesses saw that this was a losing battle and in a last ditch attempt had all of the ponies they could gather leave the land. Thousands fled to the zebra home lands over the seas, Luna and the elements of harmony chose to stay behind and hold off the army till the ponies had made it to safety. But as powerful as they were even the elements of harmony could not stop an army. Hope was fleeting and the future looked bleak.

Despite how evil the humans were not all of them conformed to their leaders’ greed filled ideals. Small groups of humans stepped out of the shadows of their rulers, risking their own safety, to help the ponies escape the bloodshed. The group of humans were calling themselves ‘The Ascended’. Swiftly ‘The Ascended’ arrived and helped with the evacuation. With the help of ‘The Ascended’ the ponies of Equestria made it safely to the zebra lands. When they got to the shore Celestia put up a shield of protection over the entire land. The humans did not attempt a full invasion because the ponies had one advantage; the land which they now called home was rich with magnetic rocks. The rocks created a magnetic field preventing the humans from using most of their technology. To this day the humans have not invaded new home of the Equestrian ponies, allowing the ponies to enjoy peace once more.

The end.

The book closed with a dull thump. Turning to see all the fillies sound asleep, Lucas pulled himself up to leave. As he made his way out of the room, Lucas paused, he heard a little noise. Looking round to see where the noise had originated from he spotted one of the filly’s mumbling lightly in her sleep.
“Thank you Celestia” Lucas could not help but crack a little smile at this. Leaving the room he came into the all too familiar hallway. The wall paper was starting to peel and the lights flickered on and off but this was to be expected of a youth home. The maintenance ponies did their best to keep the place looking presentable, but everyone had to make sacrifices in the new Equestria. As he started to walk down the hall he saw a familiar unicorn. She had a light blue coat with a dark blue mane and her cutey mark was three pills

“Hi Heartbeat,” he said giving the pony a wave.

“Hi Lucas, are the filly's asleep?” she asked.

“Yes I was reading them the Equestrian invasion” she shuttered a bit at hearing this.

“Don't you think there a bit too young for something like that,” she asked, not really wanting to hear any answer except for 'I guess so'.

“It's not like we can deny it, although some days I wish it was just a legend, they should know the truth.”

“It must have been hard for you being a human an-” she was cut off.

“Don't call me that!” He was not yelling but it was evident that he was angry. “Sorry it’s just that when the invasion happened I gave up being human. I am an ‘Ascended’ and proud of it.”

“I’m sorry it's just that...”

“No, it’s not your fault.”

“But it must have been hard I wouldn’t know being born here” she just stared at her hoofs.

“It's a good thing you where, no pony should have to go through what I did.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Not right now,” and with that he slowly started to walk past her. “Another time maybe,” at this Heartbeat perked up a bit.

“OK, I’ll see you later then,” she walked on down the hallway, “oh but before I go, I’ve got to tell you Celestia wants to see you.”

“What for?” A wave of nerves washed over him, Lucas did well to hide them. Celestia did not want to see him often, but when she did it was usually important.

She just shrugged “I don't know.”

As Lucas entered the throne room he was immediately greeted by a sight that was very different from the rest of the buildings he had seen. The walls were a prestigious white, as were the floor and ceiling. A large throne adorned with gold trim dominated the middle of the. There, upon the awe inspiring throne, sat a majestic white Alucorn with a flowing multi-coloured mane and tail.

“You called princess?” He spoke up, more to announce his presence than actually asking a question, giving a bow.

“Please it is just Celestia, I don't deserve the title of princess” she lowered her head a bit, “at least not after what happened to Equestria.”

“It was not your fault and you know that.”

“I know but as the princess, it was my duty to protect my little ponies, I failed.”

“No you saw that the humans were too strong, you made the right decision to evacuate. You got as many ponies to safety as you could.”

“No I made the wrong decision if it was not for you and the other ascended showing up when you did we would have been captured or killed,” now her head was hanging very low.

“Celestia you had to evacuate otherwise every last pony would have been slaughtered anyway, you saved as many as you could,” she seemed to perk up a bit at this.

“I guess you’re right, any way down to business, the reason I called you here was that I discovered some type of anomaly north of this land.”

“What type of anomaly,” this grabbed Lucas’ interest

“We don't know but I want you to be on the recon team that investigates, your special ability will be very handy on this mission.”

“Do you what us to bring it back?”

“No, your mission is just to gather information. I want to know if this is dangerous or not.”

“As you wish,” with that Lucas left the room.

A/N
This is my first fan-fiction so constructive criticism is welcome, I will add tags for characters as they come in to the story. Also thanks to my brother, and ‘Craig at Black-Dragon’ (his fanfiction.net username) for proof reading.

Chapter 2

It was midday and around the town pony's and zebra's where going about their business as normal. Lucas casually walked down the street, receiving weird looks from some passers-by and occasionally a mother would pull her fillies behind her. This was nothing new, even after 30 years and princess Celestia telling every pony they had nothing to fear from the Ascended some pony's still didn't trust them too much. It did not help that he was wearing a leather trench coat and had long black hair and on top of that he was 6ft 4. From the way he dressed he didn't make it easy for other ponies to like him. Lucas was just happy to know that he did have some friends. As he entered a café and was beckoned over to a table in the far corner, he sat down and was happy to see his friends; a mint green unicorn, she had a light green mane with a white streak and her cutey mark was a golden Lyre. Next to her was a middle aged man he had white hair which was always spiked up, He wore a plain white T-shirt and some light blue jeans. There was also an earth pony sitting with them that Lucas did not know. She had a cream coloured coat with a pink and blue mane and her cutey mark was three sweets.

“Hi Lyra hi Tom, how’s it going? Who’s your friend?” Lucas said with a smile that seemed odd against his current dress choice.

“Hey it’s fine, and this is my room-mate,” she said Pointing a hoof at the earth pony

“Nice to meet you, names Bon-Bon and you must be Lucas, Lyra has told me so much about you. But I was wondering, how did you two meet?” she look over at Lyra.

Lucas sighed. This was the second time this week he had to play the story teller

“Well it all started when...”

I was in town and decided to try a new shop. As I went in I saw a security pony. I noticed that the pony seemed to be intensely watching me but paid no attention to it and just looked around the shop. I knew that I was breaking no laws, I had a right to be there, Celestia herself had made it clear that the Ascended got Equal rights. Even so some ponies did not see them as equals, not after what the humans did. What most ponies did not know or didn't much seem to care was that the Ascended didn't like humans either, and are proud to say they are not human. But prejudice is not something that can just be wished away, not matter how powerful the magic.

I was wandering round the shop I was hit in the back of the head, although pretty dazed I looked in the direction I was hit from, I was shocked to see a little colt standing there. “Ha! take that you monster!” He said with pride in his tone.

Then a pony that I could only assume was the colts mother grabbed him and she pulled him away. Then she said something I really did not want to hear.

“Stay away from that thing it’s dangerous,” I hated being called a thing, it boiled my blood, but despite the overwhelming need to scream at the mother I held it in.

I had finished my shopping and was about to pay for it, the pony at the counter gave me a threatening stare

“I’m not serving you,” she said with spite in her voice.

“Why not?” I put on a confused face but knew all too well why not.

“Because you are bothering my customers” I took a quick look around the room and knew the pony was right, all the pony's were watching me, some looked angry and others just looked afraid.

“Well I am sorry about that, but I can't change the way I look. I’m not breaking any laws by going about my business,” I just wanted to pay for my things and leave.

“I don't want to hear it just get out,” the pony was almost shouting.

I didn’t have to shout in the end as all the ponies behind me started saying the same thing, “yeah get out”, “your just a freak”, “no pony likes you.”

This was the last straw, I threw down the things I was going to buy and left. I crossed the street outside the store, every pony on the street was watching, I heard some pony call out “Wait!”

I stopped and turned to look at who it was. Standing there was a mint green unicorn “oh you want to call me freak as well” but then I looked down and saw that the unicorn had brought out all the things I was going to buy in the shop laying there in front of her.

“This is what you were going to buy, wasn’t it?” she said nudging the stuff to me.

“Why?” was all I could manage to say.

“Because you kind helped us escape the humans, you earned the right to be equal and that means you should be able to buy these.” I couldn’t tell if she saw lying, was it possible that she didn't think that I was a monster?.

“What is your name?”

“Lyra” she started to look away “but I guess you want to be alone... I should go now” she said with a bit of sadness in her voice.

“Wait” she stopped and looked up at me “do you want to hang out?”

She perked up at this “I would love to.”

That day I made my first real fried.

“Oh I didn't know you guys had it so rough,” Bon-Bon said she was on the verge of tears. “I didn't see much ascended after the invasion; I didn’t know how bad it was for you. To be honest this is the first time I have been this close to one of you.”

“Hey don't be sad it has got a lot better since then, and it is not your fault that you did not notice us. In this whole land there are only just over 100 of us left.” Lucas explained trying to put on a reassuring tone.

At this point a waiter pony came up to their table, “what can I get you?” he asked in the politest tone he could manage.

“I’ll have a muffin,” Lucas said. This came as no surprise to Lyra because every time he has been to this café with her always had a muffin. If humans had cutie marks Lucas' would be a muffin, no doubt.

“I'll have five, no wait six, six cups of coffee,” Tom said with more energy than was physically possible.

Lyra and Bon-Bon both had some hay fries.

When they were all done eating Lucas switched his gaze over to Tom. “I wanted to talk to you Tom.”

“What about?” Tom said in confusion. Lucas had a very serious tone in his voice so it was probably important.

“The princess wants us for a mission,” this got his interest; it had been so long since the princess had given him a mission.

“What is it?” he asked with excitement in his over energised voice. Bon-Bon and Lyra were also looking at Lucas with interest.

“Sorry it’s rather secret, I can't say in public,” they were all a bit disappointed at hearing this.

“Just meet me at the entrance to the north forest at 8 tonight.”

“Aye aye captain,” Tom gave a strong but slightly sarcastic salute and left.

Tom was very excited about this mission, so excited he had arrived 30 minutes before the rest of the group. I was just past 9:00 when the last member of the group had arrived, four in total. Including Lucas and Tom there was a blue Pegasus with a blood red mane and a torch as his cutey mark, alongside a zebra with some metal rings on his right foreleg.

“OK Tom, Night Light, Zanjin you are all probably wondering why we are here,” Lucas said his voice cutting through the distance noises of the town behind them.

“YES!” they all shouted in unison. How they did that he will never know.

“It is because the princess detected an anomaly north of here.”

“What sort of anomaly?” Tom asked, and by the looks on Night Light’s and Zanjin's faces they were thinking the same thing.

“That is what we are going to find out.”

“But why us?” Zanjin asked

“I picked all of you for specific reasons,” pointing to Zanjin first, “Zanjin you are our survival guide. The mission will take 4 days and we only have 4 days’ worth of supplies, food, water and various other essentials. In the event that we get held up or have to ditch our supplies you will help us survive off the land. Can you do that?” this was less of a question and more of a statement.

“You can count on me” Zanjin said with a grin.

“Good now Night Light” turning to the Pegasus “you are the night watch, when we camp down for the night you will you will be keeping a look out for any signs of danger. If you spot anything wake us up.”

“Wait, what about during the day? I can't stay up all day and all night” Night Light was quick to point out.

“Don't worry, you will sleep during the day and ether me or Tom will carry you.”

“Oh OK” he said, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding. The idea of have to stay up 4 day's straight was enough to make him collapse right there.

“What about me?” Tom asked wanting to hear his part in the mission.

Lucas looked at him with a soft smile.

“Your part in this is simple,” taking out a map and laying it on the ground he pointed to the bottom, “this is where we are,” tracing his finger up the map and stopping at the top, “and this is where the anomaly is. As you can see there are a fair amount of rivers blocking our path. If we change our route so we cross the bridges it will add an extra 2 day's to the trip.”

“Aw come on, surely you need me for more than just crossing rivers” Tom said sounding disappointed.

“Your right, you are also here because you and me are the only trained fighters in the group, so in the event that we come under attack, we’ll be the defence.”

Then Zanjin asked a question that was on everyone mind, “what about you, where do you fit into all of this?”

“My skills won’t be needed until we reach the anomaly,” he said. Tom having been on mission before with Lucas knew what he was talking about all too well. Zanjin and Night Light however did not, but both decided not to pry as it was getting late.

“Did you all bring a weapon for the trip?” Lucas asked.

“Yes” they said in unison, ‘seriously how are they doing that’ Lucas thought.

They all got their weapons out. Zanjin had a crescent shaped dagger with a tiny bit of purple liquid on it which Lucas could only assume was poison. Night Light was holding what looked to be a simple pipe, but Lucas quickly realised what it was when he saw a couple of blow darts in Night Lights’ pouch. Tom was wearing a metal gauntlet with metal plates down the fingers ending in raiser sharp claws, and finally Lucas had a modified hunters bow with a Quiver full of arrows.

“Right then here are your supplies,” Lucas said handing a bag to each member of the team. “All right, we are ready to go then” Lucas announced.

And with that they all set off on their journey.

A/N
Shout out to my brother Liam and my friend ‘Craig at Black-Dragon’ (his fanfiction.net username) for proof reading this.

If it was not for the urgency of the mission they were on Lucas would have liked to take in the scenery as the forest was quite beautiful. As they walked past the trees on the path they heard a light rustling in a nearby bush.

“What was that?” Night Light said looking at the bush scared stiff.

“Don't be so scared, it was probably just a rabbit,” Zanjin said

Just then a manticor jumped out of the bush landing in front of them, “that’s one big rabbit,” Tom said with a sarcastic tone.

They all readied there weapons as the manticore leaped for them, rolling out of the way just in time, Zanjin was the first to attack swinging his blade at the manticores paw leaving a big gash on it. Whist the manticore reared back howling in pain its tale swiped at Zanjin, he saw this coming but had no time to move so he braced for the strike. The manticore howled in pain yet again, looking up Zanjin saw that the tail had been pinned to a tree by an arrow. Tom charged at the manticor swiping his gauntlets claws across the manticores face leaving four very deep cuts. The manticore put its paw to its face, at that point Lucas was aiming another arrow at the face and fired. It pierced through the paw and face imbedding itself in the manticores brain; killing it instantly.

As Zanjin got to his hoofs, he just had to know “how?” directly the question at Lucas.

“What?” Lucas countered.

“How did you make that shot with the manticores tail? Even with years of training I would not be able to come close to doing something like that.”

“Oh right this is the first time you have worked with an ascended” Lucas said scratching the back of his head. “Well unlike humans we have powers.”

“What kind of powers?” Night Light interrupted perking up at this.

“It is not the same as pony magic you can't learn it, it's in our blood” Lucas said.

“What does that mean?” Zanjin asked puzzled by what Lucas said.

“No two Ascended’s powers are the same, also one of us can't learn how to use another’s abilities.”

“What can you do?” Zanjin said.

“My power is in my eyes when I use them time slows down for me,” Lucas said waving his hand in front of his face very slowly to enforce his point, “I can do over stuff but that is another story for another time.”

“OK then,” Zanjin and Night Light replied and with that they started waking again.

It was nearly midnight and the team had set up camp in a clearing, after finishing off the first set of their rations. There was just silence until Tom broke it, “so what do you think this anomaly is?” The others just looked at the night sky not sure what to say, “I mean it has to be something important or powerful, because the princess herself sent us to investigate.”

“Hey that is a good point how do we know that this thing is safe. It could explode when we get near it,” Night Light said, her face contorted, obviously not liking the thought of getting blown up.

“Maybe or it could be something helpful like a really big energy core,” Zanjin replied.

“I’m sure whatever it is we can handle it,” Lucas said trying to reassure rest of the group.

“I think it is time to sleep,” Tom said attempting and failing to hold back a yawn.

“Your right, Night Light you ready for your first shift?” Lucas asked.

“As I'll ever be,” Night Light retorted and with that they all called it a night.

It was morning and Lucas was the first to get up looking around he saw Night Light sitting down looking into the forest. “Good morning” Lucas said taking Night Light by surprise as he spun round to see Lucas.

“Oh you’re up, does that mean my shift is finished now?” he said wobbling a bit as he tried to stand up.

“Yes you can get some rest.”

“Thank Celestia” then he fell to the ground. Lucas could not help but laugh a bit at this.

It was late morning when they set off. Tom offering to carry Night Light they were walking for about two hours with not one word until Zanjin broke the silence, “Lucas?”

“Huh” Lucas said coming out of his thoughts and back to reality, “something on your mind?”

“Yes I just was wondering about a story I heard.”

“What story?”

“The one where you saved a colt from a gang leader, can I hear it?”

“Oh that one OK well it all started.”

Lucas was sitting just outside a café, there was not very many ponies around but off in the distance he could see a mother trying to protect her colt from another pony this got his interest, so he walked over to the ponies to see what was happening

“I am sorry, but I just can't make this week’s payment I just need a bit more time,” the mother said she was a light yellow earth pony with a light blue mane and a sunflower as her cutie mark.

“You think I care? But if you don't want to pay I guess I can always take your son he would make a fine addition to the gang, once we rough him up a bit, make him tougher,” the other pony said he was a brown unicorn with a black mane and a bow and arrow for a cutie mark.

Her eyes went wide at this “no, not my son please anything but him.”

“You can’t make the payment, so you’re not giving me a lot of choice hear but look on the bright side you would not have to pay us for the next three or so months what do you say?”

“NO!”

“Well if you’re not going to give him to us willingly.”

“STOP!” both the ponies look at Lucas.

“Hey look it a human! Shouldn't you be off burning some innocent pony’s home right now?” The unicorn said, making Lucas’ blood boil but somehow he remained calm.

“Tell you what I will make you a deal,” the ponies just looked at Lucas confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“A simple game, if you will. You see that tree over there?” Lucas pointed to an apple tree 50 meters from them.

The unicorn looked at where he was pointing and saw it “yeah, so what do you have in mind?”

“We both take a bow and one arrow, the one who can knock the most apples to the ground with their shot win. If I win you will leave these two alone and forget about the money they owe you, but if you win I will pay you double what she owes you.”

“This will be easy you see the mark on my flank, archery is my special talent,” the unicorn almost fell over laughing.

“So do you accept then?”

“Hell yes!”

Lucas pulled a bow from his back and one arrow from his coat handing them to the unicorn, a red glow appeared around them as they levitated in the air just above the ponies, as he took aim at the tree and fired. The arrow went straight through the branches and three apples fell to the ground. “HA beat that!” he said giving the bow back to Lucas.

Lucas pulled out another arrow and took aim and fired the arrow hit the bass of one of the branch’s and nothing happened

“Oh would you look at that I win!” 'CRASH' the unicorn turned to see that the entire branch had fallen and there was at least 20 apples on the ground.

“I think that is a couple more than you got,” Lucas said with a hint of sarcasm. “So that means I win.”

“There’s no way you could of known that the arrow would break the branch!”

“Who cares if it was luck or skill the end result is that I got more apples to the ground. Now are you going to accept defeat?”

“Like hell I am,” and with that he spun around and tried to buck Lucas, but Lucas was too fast, he side stepped at the last second and the unicorn missed, then without missing a beat Lucas swung his bow smacking it in to the back of the stallions head, who fell to the ground clutching his head in pain.

“Last chance, will you accept defeat?” Lucas spat he was clearly losing his tolerance with this stallion.

“Yes,” he managed to say weakly before getting up and stumbling off. Lucas was just about to walk away when he heard the pony behind him say, “thank you.”

“No problem he was not all that tough,” Lucas replied putting his bow away.

“I just can't thank you enough, if it was not for you he probably would have taken my son away,” she said hugging the little colt tight.

“Yeah you’re a hero!” a voice came from behind him. Looking around Lucas could see that he had drawn quite a crowd. There where at least 15 ponies standing around looking amazed at what he had done. How; even with eyes as good as his, he had not known they were there was beyond him.

“Maybe we were wrong about them, they’re not evil,” another voice came from the crowd.

“Wow that was amazing you stood up to a gang leader, beat him at his own game and got him to run off with his pride broken all to protect a pony you didn’t even know!” Zanjin said in awe.

“How come you do not answer any of my questions?” Tom said with a bit of annoyance in his voice.

“Because your questions are always stupid,” Lucas replied, “like asking me why I wear my leather coat when I have told you a hundred times.”

“Yes I know, you want to look like he did, but why did he betrayed us?”

“No I still don’t think he did, there has to be some other reason he disappeared.”

“Face it Lucas he left and we had to fight the humans on our own.”

“Who are you talking about” Zanjin interrupted thinking he only heard half of a conversion.

“Brimstone,” Tom said.

“Oh Brimstone... who's he?”

Lucas ended the conversation with, “our leader.”