Daniel sat on the couch as he continued to read his book, unaware it was already morning. He was feeling much better than how he felt yesterday, the party that his kids made for him really helped and what further contributed to it was that Alpha could now express his emotions without fear. So all together it was a good night and a great morning but he knew it wouldn’t last long.

He heard the door to Aperture open and looked to see both Elizabeth and Freddy speaking. He listened in no their conversation.

"I’m telling you Freddy, the digging will be much faster if we just use some explosives to clear large areas in seconds." Elizabeth was complaining about how the digging was taking up lots of time so she was trying to convince Freddy to accept her plan in hopes that Alpha would agree too, she had already asked Alpha but he refused.

"Yes it’ll be quicker, but it will also leave much more of a mess and who knows where the explosions would send the pieces. Furthermore, unless you find the resources to make them, you’re not getting any TNT because the matter machine is already occupied."

"But...but..." Freddy groaned in annoyance and turned to Daniel.

"Dad. Would you please tell Elizabeth that explosions are a bad idea?" Daniel chuckled.

"Elizabeth. Explosions on the inside are a bad idea." Freddy looked at her and nodded in satisfaction. "I’m sorry Elizabeth, but I’m going to be very busy and probably tired for...who knows how long. But when I have some time off we can test out some explosions in a wasteland if you want." She didn’t look disappointed but she also didn’t look happy.

"Ok, Daddy." She walking back into Aperture, leaving Daniel and Freddy to looked at each other.

"I’ll go and make sure she’s not too upset." Daniel nodded in agreement with him and Freddy went back into Aperture.

Daniel continued to read his book until Mother Nature appeared, she did say yesterday that she would be here today to start his training. Daniel would have woken up Annabelle by this time but he let her sleep in today because it was the start of a weekend and he had woken her up a good amount of times before, even when there was nothing that needed to be done.

He saw a flash at the side of his eyes as he continued to read and he knew it was Mother Nature as not only did she say she would be here but because she was the only one that he knew of that appeared in his house like that.

"Hello Nature." He said, not looking away from his book.

"Well, you seem happier than before." He lowered his book and looked at her.

"You can thank my kids for that." Daniel got up from his seat. "Well then, where will we be training?"

"Same place as before." They both walked out of the front door and she turned to face Daniel. "Ok, I am going to teach you something I have a feeling you might like. It's a power similar to one of mine. It will let you hear the thoughts of others." Daniel kind of liked the sound of that.

"Ok, so what do I do?"

"You...Ehh...It's hard to explain. Let's start out small, like thought reading while looking at someone's eyes. Try and imagine that looking into another's mind is like trying to open a book. Think of a book above their head that is blank but their thoughts are written in it when they think of it. Be creative." Daniel was about to try this but stopped.

"Wait, I can't fully control my powers. I might hurt you." She giggled at this.

"Daniel. You didn’t even manage to hurt me even slightly when you lost control of your emotions or got me with a surprise attack. To me, you're not that much of a threat. I am not saying that you’re weak, just inexperienced."

"Fine. I will try." Daniel looked into her eyes and tried to imagine he could read her thoughts.

"What did I think of?" She asked.

"I don't know. I didn’t do anything."

"You creeped me out, that's something." She said with a laugh.

"Oh Ha-ha, very funny." Daniel tried again and he saw a faded book over her head but it was closed. It started to open up but then closed with a slam and that seemed to cause Daniel to get a headache. "I forgot how hard it was to try and control new powers when I first using them."

"You look like you’re getting the hang of it. Keep trying." She was right and Daniel decided to try again. This time the book opened all the way and a word appeared on it. It said 'Daisy Sandwich'.

"Daisy Sandwich?" Daniel asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, it seems you got it right, and yes I thought of that randomly." Daniel had a feeling this power would come in handy in certain situations. "Now I want you to try it without looking at me." Daniel sighed and did it anyway.

Hours had passed and it was now night time again. Daniel felt exhausted and was sweating from his forehead, but he didn’t feel like sleeping. He had spent the entire day training with Mother Nature and he could now read unprotected minds and he also learned to have more control over energy manipulation. The second one took a toll on his body but he knew he would heal soon.

Annabelle came outside to see him training about an hour after it started and she sat at the side and watched. Daniel made some popcorn for her while she watched, after a while she went back into the house to watch a movie.

For the most part the training was insane. There were more than a few awkward moments made by Daniel when he lost control, like the incident where he tried to learn to control larger amounts of reality alteration energy but ended up turning mushrooms into lollipops and another one where he ended up turning Mother Nature's grass hair into spaghetti. There was also an incident where he thought he almost brought a rock to life until he realised, after a few strange moments, that he was controlling what it said and what it did with his mind.

Some were funny, others were strange and just ended in silence from both of them. Sometimes Mother Nature would laugh at the things he did, like when he turned her hair into spaghetti but she then got a bit and threw it at him which lead to a spaghetti fight.

"Not bad. You did well for today."

"I feel like I just ran a marathon." Daniel said still panting. Mother Nature offered him a hand to help him up and he took it.

"So...did you think about my offer?" Daniel knew what she was talking about which was introducing him to the other entities in the location between dimensions. While Daniel didn’t take much time to think about it, he did think it would be a good idea as it sounds like a place he could learn and study more with lots more teachers instead of just himself and a few others.

"I accept." He said and she smiled.

"Do you want to wait a day so I can let them know or go now and surprise them?" Daniel knew he couldn’t leave Annabelle here alone but he wasn’t sure if he should take her with him.

"What about Annabelle? Will that place have air?" He asked and she nodded.

"Some need air to breath or practice with so we have air there so they don't have to use any magic and are always at their best. Some have great power over fire and without air there..." She let Daniel figure it out.

"Without air they can't practice. Alone or with others." She nodded.

"Correct. So you can bring your sister." Daniel went back into the house only to see Annabelle passed out in terabithia, under a small blanket and sleeping happily. Daniel had forgotten it was night time so he decided to let her sleep, but take her another time.

"She’s asleep. So perhaps a quick visit will do."

"It's just an introduction. We won't be too long. So do you want to go now?" Daniel nodded and Nature turned around and put out her hand. After a moment it started to glow and expanded into a green circle. She then stood back and offered for Daniel to go in first.

Daniel stepped into the portal and his eyes were hit with a bright light. As his eyes adjusted he got a clear look at the place. If he could explain it in the best way he could it would be that it was a very large circular area that had two levels. He was on the bottom level that was covered by grass, flowers and trees of all kinds with streams of water going through the garden. There were stairs made of marble going from the garden and up to a large area and that is when it expanded more. It showed a large building that looked like it was made of circles that were lying down and as it went up it got thinner and thinner, almost like lumpy stairs if looked at sideways.

Daniel looked at it and saw that it got thinner a total of 25 times, so he assumed there was 25 levels of flooring and if he had to make an estimate of how large a level was, then from where he is right now he would assume each level was around 40 to 50 foot tall. This building took up about 70% of the marble expanse and about 50% of the land in total.

There were 7 towers around that main building that were all connected to each other and the main building. Around the rest of the place were what looked like training grounds and seats made out of different material from wood to metal and even ice. Daniel wasn’t going to lie, while this place was HUGE, it was a wonder to see with the eye.

"My goodness Daniel. You made it here." Daniel turned to his left to see who was speaking to him. It was Death and the ground he stood on was grey and lifeless as the grass withered away in the mist.

"Death. It's been quite a while." Death turned to face Mother Nature.

"Life. You brought him here?" She nodded.

"I sure did. I figured his training would go along quicker if he had different training partners." Daniel looked around the place and there seemed to be a few others outside and they were in many different shapes and sizes. Some were sitting down together at tables and others were alone reading and some writing while sitting under trees.

There was a sun that shined brightly above and it provided a nice warm feeling. There was a slight gust of wind that felt wonderfully cool and also seemed to be going around the place in a sort of circle. Daniel looked to the sky and saw it was a wonderful orange, like a sunset, and there were stars shining along with nebulas. The sun shined on the water which caused it to sparkle like jewellery. Altogether, this place was wonderful.

"Stunning, isn't it?" Nature said and Daniel just nodded without looking at her. "Well, come 'on. Let's get you introduced as a friend of mine." She turned into a form that was human-like and pushed Daniel forward. In her new form she wore golden vines on her head like a tiara and she was wearing a lovely white robe along with sandals, she still had her bright blue eyes. As she pushed him forwards she looked back at Death and put her finger to her lips, telling him to keep quiet.

Daniel walked to the door himself and when he got there she opened the door. As soon as they stepped inside he looked around, there was so many others moving around the place but this seemed to be the level to eat as there were mostly tables on this floor. The floor was in black and white coloured garnet squares, there was a cafeteria to the left and lots of seats on the right. In the centre of this giant room was a fountain that was around 15 foot tall. There was an open hole in the top center of the roof and the rest of the ceiling was covered in a painting that could only be described as the multiverse with each universe being one bubble amongst thousands. Daniel almost lost his footing from looking around at it and Nature caught him before he fell. Not long after they stepped in Mother Nature was greeted by someone.

"Life. You’re back. It is nice to see you again." Daniel got a good look at the individual. By the sound of the voice she was female. The top of her head had a glass dome around it which exposed her brain and half of her face was mechanical. This continued to go down her body which covered her left arm and both of her legs. Her right arm and the other half of her face all seemed to be flesh however and to top all of this off, she spoke in a sort of French accent but it didn’t sound robotic. It wasn’t a French accent she had but whatever accent it was it was very close to it.

"Curie? What’re you doing on this level?" Nature asked.

"I might like the library on level 10 but I don't stay there all the time." Curie looked at Daniel. "And who might this be? Your facial structure does not match any in my databanks." Nature looked at Daniel and smiled.

"Me and her are good friends. She will keep it a secret." She turned back to Curie. "Curie, this is Daniel. He is the..." Nature looked around to make sure nobody was listening in. "The heart bearer." She whispered.

"The heart bearer? But there has only ever been 2 others. The first one being that King and the previous one being human." Nature smiled.

"Well, he’s human too." Curie looked at him curiously and then her eye changed colour.

"Curious. Daniel, what do you know about the previous bearer?" She asked him.

"I-I don't know anything other than she was likely female, she kept to herself and she beat King N." Curie didn’t take her eyes off of him.

"Aside from the Heart's power, this bearer has the same energy as the previous bearer." Nature pretended to be surprised but Daniel could hear sarcasm in her voice.

"Daniel's energy is the same as the previous bearer's energy?" She asked with a slightly tilted head.

"It is rare to see two energies that are the same, but it is possible." Daniel wanted to know something.

"Wait. How long was the previous bearer around for?"

"She was last seen around here about 800 years ago. She did mention that she had only been the bearer for 4 years and she continued to be here and fight with us on occasions until she DATA REDACTED." Curie froze when she said that. "I appear to have some corrupted data. I will need to fix that." Another voice was heard, this time it sounded male.

"Curie. We need you on the top level now. We have something you might want to study." They looked above them and saw an almost human like person that had bat wings and scales across his skin. He looked like he was half human and half dragon. His eyes were yellow and he had a scar on his face that went down over his left eye.

As Daniel looked at mother Nature he saw her breathing was getting a bit faster. Like she was panicking.
“ He’s here. I thought he had an assignment that needed to be completed. This is not good. I can’t let him know what Daniel is. I do trust him but who knows how he will react. [i/]”

Curie spoke to him next.

"What is it Archie?" Archie looked to Daniel and Nature before smiling.

"Do you two promise not to tell anyone else what I am about to say to you?" They all nodded. "We’ve found out what kind of heart piece we obtained was. So far we have calculated it to be the part that represents neutral energy." Curie looked to Daniel and then back at Nature. Nature shook her head in a ‘No’ way and Curie spoke.

"Sir. Nature has a new friend that she wants us to meet." Archie looked back at Nature and she smiled at him.

"You do? This is great. Where is he...or she." Curie pointed to Daniel.

"This is him." Archie seemed to be looking at him in a judgemental way.

"No offence but you don’t look that strong. Perhaps you specialize in energy and magic rather than physical power but I can’t sense any strong energy coming from you." While Daniel felt a little hurt to hear that he understood why he would think that, as he was new to all of this.

"He’s my new friend. I trust him so I let him come here to meet us and perhaps become one of us."

"Well I hope you enjoy your stay. Just please keep this place a secret. Don’t want any word spreading on the outside." Archie then looked at Daniel with more of a curious look. "What species are you?" Archie asked Daniel directly and both Mother Nature and Curie watched Daniel for his answer.

"My species is homosapien...or human." Archie didn’t look convinced.

"Did she train you at all?" He asked while pointing at Nature Daniel nodded. “Can I see what she taught you?”
Daniel was now scared. Was Archie planning to hurt him? To fight him? Will Nature be able to help him? He was likely the weakest entity in this whole place. Archie stepped forward towards Daniel and Daniel stepped backwards.

"Are you planning to fight me?"

"I just want to see what you can do. Nothing extreme. Just come at me with everything you got. I won’t attack back." Daniel felt a bit better hearing that and Archie didn’t seem like that bad of a guy so he accepted.

Daniel ran forwards and punched him but he didn’t flinch, but Daniel didn’t want to hurt him so he was holding back. Daniel then threw punches as fast as he could and no matter where he hit Archie. In the chest, neck or head. Nothing hurt him.
Daniel then actually started trying to hurt him and he ended up losing all feeling in his arms from the punches before he stopped.
“Not bad. For a normal life form she trained you to punch just a little faster than sound and your punches were strong enough to shatter moons in 1 hit.”

"Well he did put the effort in." She said meaning she couldn’t take all the credit.

Archie offered a hand to Daniel and he took it.

"It’s always nice when we have a new entity or one in training. I hope to see you around more.” Archie said before turning to Mother Nature. “Come along. Let’s go and find out what more of our scientists have discovered about this heart piece.”
Nature let out a sigh of relief, she was relieve that Archie didn’t find out what he was.

“Well let’s go to this heart piece then.” Nature said and walked with Daniel.

Along the way Daniel looked all over the place and there was no spec of dirt or dust in the whole place and it showed no signs of old age. Like it was trapped in time.

Daniel had only been here for less than 1 hour and already someone wanted to test his abilities. He wanted to head back home and Mother Nature saw this on his face. He would come back here to learn and perhaps hang out sometime but for now he just wanted to go back home.

"I’ll take you back home after we see the heart piece, ok Daniel?” Daniel nodded and Archie spoke next.

“Daniel. I think you need to see the heart piece.”

"Why me?" Nature’s heart ended up going a few beats faster. Did Archie know and was just pretending to not know?

"When the piece was first brought here I had a vision. A picture flashed in my mind and it was of you." Daniel would have just left it but the fact that Archie said this image was of him, this caught his interest.

"Where is it?" Daniel asked.

"Nature. Take Daniel to the top level, Room 100. I will be along shortly." Nature nudged Daniel and indicated for him to follow her. They took flight and headed through the hole in the roof, for those who couldn’t fly there was a total of 4 elevators, one on each side of the building that seemed to teleport to the next level. As Daniel followed Nature he took a look at each level. There was a laboratory on level 5, a storage and an experimentation area next to it on level 13, a very large library was passed at level 10, a construction factory on level 20, a sparring arena on level 22 and multiverse map on level 24. There were other things like archives and even training areas where someone with more experience in something would teach someone who was new to it.

On the top level there seemed to be desks and chairs in a few locations and a larger table in the centre. Looking behind, Daniel saw what looked like a large vault that was sealed shut.

"What is this level?" Daniel asked.

"This is for the oldest and most experienced of us. They are mostly like teachers but also leaders when the time is needed for them to be. Archie is the oldest of them, he took over after the last one...died." Nature looked a little sad when she said that last part. Daniel figured she probably knew the previous leader quite well.

"If you don't want to talk about it..."

"I’ll be fine. Just some memories." She took a quick sharp breath to calm herself down. "Anyway, we are here to show you the piece. If you know what it looks like then you might be able to find the other two parts. Wait here." Nature walked off to a desk with a giant spider at it and then she started to speak to it.

Daniel wasn’t scared of all spiders, only the giant ones like tarantulas and very poison ones like the black widow. But this one was almost as tall as him and its colouring was a bit off. It had a blue swivel mark on its back and the rest of it was a dark brown colour. The size of this one cause his hair to stand on edge.

Nature walked back a few moments later and informed Daniel that Agren, the spider she talked too, would be taking them into the vault. As Agren approached them Daniel started to feel a little shaky and Nature saw this.

"Relax, he is a friend."

"I don't blame him. Not a lot out there aren't scared of my kind." Agren said and by the sound of his voice he was elderly. "It's usually the face or the eyes that scare others."

"Or the pincers." Nature added.

"Yes, that too." They all walked to the vault door and Agren inputted a passcode and had both a body and an eye scan done. When it was over the vault unsealed itself.

On the inside was a train cart and they all stepped inside. Daniel looked forward and all he saw was a long rail track that had doors at the left and right for as far as he could see. He started to wonder how this fitted in as the architectural layout didn’t make sense to him but then he figured out it was likely some kind of space alteration. The cart started up and within a few seconds it was going at insane speeds, but then it instantly stopped and Daniel was flung out of it and into a wall.

"Daniel!" Nature ran over to him. "Are you ok?" She nudged him and he fell down to the ground, his eyes spinning all around the place.

"I'm fine Mom." Nature was taken aback at his word.

"Daniel, I’m not your Mother." Daniel shook his head and his eye returned to normal.

"What happened. I felt like I was flying and then the next thing, just a flash and then darkness and feeling horrible." Nature decided to let what he said slide, it was likely the hit sent him into a confused daze.

"When the cart stops you were ejected forward and into a wall." He stood up and rubbed his head.

"If I may, we are here." Daniel looked to the door next to him and its number which was 10000. Agren put a key in the door and turned it then put one of his legs on a scanner and the door soon opened. Daniel looked into the room and he saw lots of machines attached to a pillar that had a glowing object on the top of it.

There were 4 different coloured circles each one going inwards was getting smaller. The smallest one that was in the centre was white and the one around that was orange, then blue, then gold. Some of the white was in little dots that went into the orange before fading and the orange into the blue and so on.

As Daniel stood there and looked at it, he felt drawn to it, like something was trying to pull him to it.

“Closer”

Daniel heard a voice but when he looked around he saw that Nature was talking to Agren.

"So where did you find it?" Nature asked.

"It was during a mission. We were to get a planet with sentient life outside of a supernova blast radius. We were successful and we wondered why the star took so long. It went at its normal lifespan and was going to explode but.....on the last day when it was suppose too, it didn't. It took 500 years in that universes time for it to blow up." Agren kept looking at the Heart piece while he talked. "We got curious and checked the black hole that was left, and found that. After some study we found out this is the neutral side of the first Heart. It was keeping that red giant alive for so long but not permanently as the gravity killed it. The energy it was supplying however wouldn’t run out."

Daniel was shaking his head, trying to get the voices out of his head but they wouldn’t stop.

"Closer" Daniel tried to resist but his legs acted on their own and he started to walk towards it.

"What have you found out so far?" Nature asked and Agren looked at her.

"Not much. It's hard to understand without trying to use force, but we think we are close to a breakthrough." Daniel was halfway up the stairs by now and he couldn’t stop himself from trying to get to it. He reached the top and tried to reach for the heart piece which was behind a barrier but his hand phased through the barrier like a ghost.

"We think the piece we have contains a-" Nature looked back to where the heart piece was but her expression changed to one of horror.

"DANIEL!" She screamed. Daniel touched the piece, he felt a force hit him and his vision went bright white. The last thing Daniel heard was the sound of an alarm.

❊ ❊ ❊

Location: ???
Date: ???

Daniel's vision came back to him and then the rest of his scenes.

"What happened?" He asked, expecting a reply but there was none. "Nature? Agren?" Daniel looked around but he didn’t see any of them.

He looked at his surroundings and he soon found he was in space and hovering in a giant load of sparkly bubbles. As he looked closer at one of these bubbles he saw miniature galaxies in them. These weren’t bubbles. They were universes.

He looked around and saw what looked like a golden star and it was huge but he continued to look around but then he wished he hadn’t. When he turned around he noticed another star thanks to how bright it was but standing in front of that he saw King N right in front of him. But something was off, he was injured and missing his left arm. Daniel stood in the spot where he was, shaking with fear.

"Heart Bearer. I swear I’ll destroy you." A ball of energy appeared in his hand and it was fired right at Daniel. He closed his eyes and waited for the impact, but he felt nothing. Opening his eyes again he saw the same kind of blast hit King N in the head which sent him back a few feet.

"Nice try." Daniel heard another voice behind him and when he turned around he saw a figure in dark robes with a hood covering their face. By the sound of the voice she was female.

"You took my place. I should have that power, not you!" He launched another attack but she easily deflected it. Daniel looked at himself and he saw he was like a ghost. "Well. I can't beat you normally, but I came prepared." King N pointed his right hand at the robed figure and a red light shined on her before a blast fired and she was left standing like nothing happened.

"What was that supposed to...AH!" She held her chest and screamed in pain.

"I was the bearer before you and know about the power a cosmic heart has. So I found a way to damage it." Daniel stood to the side and watched the event's unfold as King N launched an attack on the heart bearer and injured her. "I discovered that if you kill the bearer they will just keep coming back. In order to beat the bearer you need to damage the power source. So I attacked the heart which is connected to your spirit with powerful artefacts of my own. By damaging the heart like this, you will soon disconnect from it and when that happens all I need to do is kill you before the heart reforms and remerges with you."

The Bearer started to laugh and it caught both King N and Daniel by surprise.

"You’ve just sealed your fate. Now I have no choice but to destroy you." She disappeared and reappeared next to King N's face before she launched a blast that was bigger than him and sent him into the giant golden star, the blast she used caused the golden giant to start blowing up upon impact. She put up a space shield to protect the universes from its blast and after she did she clenched her chest and almost fell over.

"Bearer. Are you Ok?" Daniel saw Archie trying to help her.

"Get us out of here." She said weakly. There was a yellow glow in her chest but it started to change to red then back to yellow and back again.

"Hold on. You’ll get better."

When Archie said that Daniel's vision started to brighten up again.

❊ ❊ ❊

Daniel slowly opened his eyes and was greeted by the feeling of a soft fabric touching his skin and a warm feeling coming from the sunlight that was shining through the window. He heard something hit the ground and looked to the source of the sound, it was the piece of the Heart that he touched before but he did not feel drawn to it now. He picked it up and looked at it.

A few moments later he heard the door open and Mother Nature walked in, but she seemed to be surprised when she saw him. Daniel just rubbed his head, trying to make sense of what he saw when he touched the piece he held in his hands.

"Hi Nature. What happened?" Her surprised look changed to one of a frown.

"What were you thinking Daniel? Why did you go and touch that?" She had a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"Hey, it was not me. I...I felt drawn...attracted to it. I couldn’t control myself." She looked at the piece he held in his hands.

"You can let it go now." She said.

Daniel placed it on a table next to him but when it started to roll off he grabbed it and held it.

"I think I should hold onto it until we find a safe place to put it. Would you mind telling me what happened?" He asked her.

"Well...After you touched that piece you were hit backwards and the alarm got set off, just about every single entity in the place came to where we were. You were on the ground with white streams of energy were coming out of the piece and were going into your eyes, you also wouldn’t let go of the thing. About 7 minutes after we got you here, it stopped and I have had to explain to almost everyone here what you really are." Daniel jumped at this information.

"Wait...so everyone here knows who I am? So much for keeping it quiet." Daniel lay back down on the bed, it was so cosy he felt like he did not want to leave it, but he knew he had to. He sat up and put his shoes back on and walked to the door, with the heart piece being held in one hand. Nature was worried too. Archie now knew what he was and she was worried how he would react to that.

"I wouldn’t go out there unless you are ready for a swarm. Needless to say, Everyone, and I do mean everyone who was in at the time of the alarm, wants to meet you." Daniel cursed himself in his mind, but then had a thought.

"Can't you just teleport us out?"

"No, This medical room stops all powers."

"...Why?" Daniel honestly wanted to know why.

"You’re not the first and likely not the last who doesn’t known how to control their powers. So there’s 2 medical rooms. One that stops all the power of those who don't know how to control them to stop them from getting out of hand and a normal one." Daniel understood why they put him in this room now.

"Do I have too?"

"If you want to leave. Yes." Daniel sighed, closed his eyes and put his hand on the door handle and opened the door.

When he opened the door and opened his eyes he saw a lot of people, lots of shapes and sizes, who stopped talking to each other and looked at him. Daniel felt like he was on a stage with the amount of eyes that were on him and it almost causes him to panic so he swallowed the panic that was in his throat and waited.

A few moments of awkward silence passed by until Nature walked out and close the door. Everyone's eyes were on her until she looked at Daniel with a smile. "Told you. Everyone’s here. Well, almost."

"So, are you really the new Heart bearer?" Daniel looked to the source of the voice and he saw it was a child, a Gollum of metal but he sounded just like a child. He had strange markings all over his body that glowed a vibrant blue and he was about half of Daniel's size.

"So I have been told." He answered his question. Nature saw his unease and decided of a much easier way to do this.

"As you can all see, he’s still very young and new to all of this. He might feel overwhelmed with all of you looking at him so how about this, Write your questions down, I will sort them and he can answer them in his own free time." Nature said and got a smile from Daniel when he saw what she was trying to do for him.

"Can I just ask one thing first?" That voice was Archie. Nature tensed up when she saw him. Daniel looked to him and waited for his question.

"How old are you?"

"I am 19...wait...20 years old." Daniel did the math in his head to the number of days and added the day that has passed since his birthday. “Or more precisely, 7301 days." They went wide eyed at that.

"Wow. You’re very young. The youngest here in fact and the 3rd youngest ever." Daniel didn’t know how to feel about that. But before anything else could be said, Nature spoke.

"Well. I think he’s had a fun time here. But he should really get back home; he has a little sibling to take care off." Nature looked over to him. "I’ll bring the questions in a week." Archie flew over to him.

"If you are leaving, I should take that back." He indicated to the piece Daniel was holding and he just gave him it.

"Let's get you back home. You were out for a few hours so Annabelle might be worried about you." Daniel wasted no time following Nature down a set of stairs until she walked to a window and plant vines started to make stairs that let her down off of the tower they were in. Daniel was taken to the tower at the back which contained the medical wing, but he quickly chose to focus on following Nature down this giant ramp of stair vines.

When they were at the bottom she opened a portal and indicated for Daniel to go through it. He took one last look around this place and decided to make a mental note to come here alone and explore sometime before he headed through the portal.

When he went through the portal he found himself back at his house and he heard Nature speak.

"I’ll go and set up places for them to ask their questions. You should take it easy for now. You deserve it." The portal closed and Daniel was left outside his house. He looked to the sky and saw it was late in the afternoon; he’d been gone for quite some time. He walked through the door and sat down.

With all that has happened Daniel decided to head for a shower to calm himself down. After that he headed back to the living room, deciding to go out and see his friends today. He remembered what Cherilee said about Annabelle being moved up in her education so he wrote down on a piece of paper and put it on the wall.

‘Find better place for Annabelle to be educated.’

Just as he finished writing that he heard Annabelle clear her throat and saw she was waiting for him. He put on his jumper and was fully dressed before he threw the towel into a basket.

"What is it Annabelle?"

"Thag is waiting for you in the lab and I want to come along with you next time. You always run off somewhere while I am here." He kneeled down to her and spoke.

"I do that to keep you safe."

"Don't you think you’re overdoing it?" Daniel was about to reply but he froze. She was right; he has been a bit over protective lately.

"Fine, you can come along." She smiled and they both walked into Aperture. When he entered it he looked around and saw Thag talking to Alpha. Getting closer, Daniel overheard a part of their conversation.

"I don't think Daniel will accept it, he’s not a violent person."

"He’s the only one we can turn too right now. The Diamond dogs are not strong enough yet and the changelings are still new and our relationship with them is not that strong as of now." Thag had distress in his voice. Daniel cleared his throat to catch their attention.

"Daniel. How long have you been there?" Thag asked.

"Not long, but I can hear something is distressing you." Daniel walked up to Alpha and looked at him. "I’ll deal with his problem Alpha." Alpha walked off to the matter machine and started to work on the controls. Daniel looked back at Thag. "What's wrong?"

"Griffons. A team of hunters have entered the everfree on a mission to trap the Shadow. Celestia warned them of it but they didn’t listen." Daniel rolled his eyes.

"Great. Now others are hunting me. But why is that a problem for you?"

"Besides hunting some of my children for sport? They are close to an area where a large nest is and this nest is the main one for our trading with the Diamond dogs. The trading route goes right through it.” Daniel froze when he heard that. If they saw the two of them trading, then it might be very bad for them. Their alliance might be exposed, and Daniel's fear of a war could become reality. He wanted none of that to happen and while he had a feeling Celestia wouldn’t just go to war he was worried about the others. There are griffins but what about other nations that perhaps don’t have leaders like Celestia.

"Don't you worry. Just have Scar take me to them. I’ll get them out of the forest." Both of them walked through the door that lead to the wolf citadel, where Daniel stood patiently in the throne room. While he waited he was still thinking about the voice he heard through the heart piece, he knew he heard it before but he couldn’t remember where. Which means that there is likely another piece somewhere in Equestria.

After a few moments Thag returned with Scar and Scar spoke.

"We need to hurry, each second could be the last." Daniel picked up Scar and placed him on his back, then picked up Annabelle and held her in his hands.

"Flying would be quicker. Just point me in the direction." Daniel flew out of the citadel and followed a multitude of directions that Scar pointed him to. As Daniel flew he saw Annabelle was a little uneasy so he held her tighter to reassure her that she was safe.

"Here." Daniel stopped when Scar said that. As he did he was immediately surrounded by 5 Berserker wolves but Scar got off Daniel's back as he spoke. "He’s with me; He is the Human that Thag told you about."
They backed down when he said that and went back to their posts.

Looking around, I saw what their nest was like. It was like the rest of the forest but with large piles of leaves that nested young wolves. There were about 37 young ones sleeping soundly in different leaf piles. He continued to look around and he saw some other leaves over different sections of the ground, getting closer he saw what they were. Pitfall traps.

There was a giant rotten tree close to the nest that was hollowed out, with tunnels visible from where he was. The Dogs must have been using those to get through the everfree safely. While this place was defended, it was not something that could hold off a force of more than 25 warriors at the most. 35 if each trap gets a soldier and holds them in the trap. Meaning they must rely on the forest to keep hunters out from fear or getting lost and letting traps deal with them.

Daniel had decided he should get down to business, he was here to get rid of the griffin hunters. Turning to one of the Berserkers, he spoke.

"Anything I should know on the Griffins I’m hunting?"

"There is a group of 40, plus their leader who’s called 'Hide'. He is a very famous griffin in the Griffin lands, he has only failed one hunt in his career of hunting criminals, monsters and rare items. The failed hunt was his 2nd one when he was young and became overconfident from the success of his first one." The Wolf responded.

"Well he’s about to add another failure to that list." Daniel said before he continued. "Where are they?"

"North, about a mile or so." Daniel looked up to the sky and saw night time was approaching, which caused him to grin.

"Alright then. Annabelle." He walked up to her and placed his hand on her head, within a moment both her and Daniel were in shadow forms. Hers was the same as his, only smaller. "I want you to hide while I deal with them and this form should help you stay hidden."

Daniel and Annabelle spent the next few minutes talking, mostly about what his plans for the covenant were in the future. Daniel told her that he made the alliance for them to try and live in peace with each other. He intended to have a robot army read to fight King N by the time he or his sphere arrived. He chose robots to avoid innocent lives being lost.

After a few moment's Annabelle was away and playing with one of the young wolves that had just woken up, which did get a little scared of her form first but soon started running around playfully. They mostly played chase and she threw things for it to fetch. Daniel just stood to the side and spoke with Scar about what his plans were for dealing with the Griffins.

"I’ll scare them away. If I can't scare them...then I’ll have to hurt them, Hopefully their pride and honour don't go to their heads." Daniel had no intention of hurting them unless he needed too.

"Griffins tend to be prideful, you might have to break that first, which won't be easy."

It was now quite dark and Daniel decided it was now time to put his plan to action. He picked up Annabelle and flew up into the sky where he looked around, until he saw a light in the distance. He figured that must have been the fire of a camp that likely had the Griffins in it so he flew that way. When he was close to it he put Annabelle down and told her to get behind a nearby bush and just enjoy the show.

Daniel approached the camp and hid behind a tent, where he listened into a conversation that was taking place in it.

"5 days and still nothing!" He then heard a slam that was a fist on a desk. "How can this Shadow creature have nothing, no tracks, no trail left where it goes, How!?" Whoever this was, they were clearly very angry.

"Hide, Calm down." Daniel used his power of space and looked into the tent and saw 3 Griffins around a map of the everfree. Two of them were in leather armour but the 3rd one was different. He had a bow and arrows while the others had spears. His left eye was milky white with a scar going down it and his armour was different, His leather was much thicker and darker than the others, his feathers were more grey than white which showed he was an old hunter so likely an experienced one.

"Calm down!? This is the hunt of the century!! If we beat this thing, which beat an ursa, do you know how much our names will be known!?!?" So this was about fame. That made Daniel angry but also happy. Angry for hunting something for fame, but happy for the chance to embarrass him by ending his hunting success record.

Daniel started to wonder how he would start it off, and he then got an idea. Looking at the ropes of the tent, he grabbed them and increased his body temperature. Soon the ropes were on fire and he waited in the shade of the trees until it started to spread some more.

"Sir, Do you smell something burning?" One of the griffins asked.

"It's likely one of the others burning something on the fire. Now focus. We need to find this thing." The fire started to brighten up which seemed to catch the attention of one of the griffin lookouts who just woke up from sleeping on the job.

"Fire!" The camp became alert and others quickly woke up and rushed out of their tents. Daniel made a reminder to play around with his forms more often as there was so many thoughts going through his head about how he could do this, and he liked the thought of almost every single one.

"Get some water on that!" Hide yelled and when some griffins came with a bucket of water Daniel got ready to make his entrance. When they poured it over the fire and the smoke was up he moved forward and imagined the smoke around him expanding, and it did. The smoke started to obscure everything and the griffins had a look of confusion on their faces. He retracted the smoke before he opened his eyes, now his white eyes were visible in the dark smoke that was around him. He took a few steps forward, which caused the griffins to step back, all of them except Hide.

Daniel saw one griffin tried to shoot him with an arrow but he easily grabbed it and flicked it back with his finger, causing it to snap on contact with the griffin who shot it at him and it gave said griffin a decently sized cut on its arm. He now turned his head to look at Hide and he decided to freak them out, so he spoke in an eerie voice.

"I heard you were looking for me." Daniel almost lost his act because when he spoke the griffins feathers stood on edge, like they had just been electrocuted or puffed up after drying off.

"You can speak?" Hide showed no emotion and Daniel was hoping to change that soon.

"Did you think of me to be just like a normal creature of this forest?" A Griffin lunged forward and hit him with a sword; Daniel saw this coming and imagined his skin to be stronger than diamond. The sword made contact and broke in half; silence filled the camp as the piece of the broken sword hit the ground.

Daniel was then hit with a stinging feeling on his skin so he quickly made it go back to normal and the feeling soon disappeared. He stood there, silent. Waiting for one of them to do something but after a while he decided to make the next move.

He used his knowledge of illusions to make it look like he was getting bigger and his hands turned into claws that shined as they reflected the light from the campfire. He then looked at a large boulder that was close to him and made his illusion cut it but as he did that he used his real hand and fingers to cut it so it looked like his fake claw was sharp enough to cut clean through flesh.

Looking back at Hide, he grinned and managed to see some nervousness in them.

"Do you think it’s worth it? Do you want to die?" Daniel started to walk closer to them and they all backed off but didn’t run. As he got closer to the campfire he decided to try something else. He used the same power again but made himself spit into 4 others that all kept on walking to the scared Griffins who had now circled around the camp.

"And now to finish this." He used his power of space to make a field around the fire, which caused it to start going out, but he kept on slowly walking towards them. When the fire was out completely he let out a bloodlust scream and made all of his copies rush towards the Griffins, who screamed but stayed where they were with their weapons pointed outwards.

When they opened their eyes they saw that they were surrounded on all but one side by Daniel's copies. He walked up to them and grinned as menacingly as he could before he whispered to them.

"This is the part where you run away." The Griffins started to shake like they were having a seizure before they all bolted in the one direction that wasn’t covered by Daniel's copies, leaving a trail of dust behind them. "And stay out!!!" He shouted to them. Daniel just then saw that Hide had run into the bush Annabelle was hiding in. Needless to say, he was speechless when he saw her after she got knocked out of the bush.

"A youngling?" Hide tried to grab her but Daniel reacted quickly, he rushed forwards and managed to get himself between Annabelle and Hide.

"Leave her alone." He grabbed Hide by the neck and tossed him back to the ground. "If you hurt her, you won’t get out of here alive." Hide tried to strike Daniel with his sword, but unlike the other Griffin, this time he aimed for his face. "Fool!" Daniel grabbed the sword and punched Hide in the chest, and with a few audible cracks, broke a few of his ribs.

Hide recovered after a few seconds and started to run away. Daniel looked back at the sword he caught but thankfully he didn’t get cut. Looking back at Annabelle, he knew he needed to find a way to share his powers with her as soon as possible and with little to no risk of the transfer hurting her, or worse.

"She’s going to grow up eventually. I can't stay there for her forever. She needs to learn how to defend herself." Daniel said to himself quietly and was about to pick her up then head back to tell Thag everything was fine, until he heard a voice in the distance.

"Girls!" He knew that voice, it was Fluttershy, so he quickly picked Annabelle up and followed her voice. He didn’t realise that his sudden rush through the forest a few minutes ago had awakened a manticore.

He continued to follow Fluttershy for a few seconds until he heard another voice.

"Fluttershy?" Daniel put himself and Annabelle down just out of their sight. He saw that she was talking to three fillies and Daniel also knew that if Fluttershy sees him in his Shadow form then she will likely panic so he quickly changed into his Mew form and both of them hid behind a bush and listened to their conversation.

"Girls, thank goodness I found you."

"Fluttershy wh-" Applebloom was interrupted by Fluttershy.

"Girls, we have to leave the forest at once." Fluttershy moved forward in an effort to get them out.

"But we haven't found the chicken yet." Sweetie belle said.

"There's no time for that. A cockatrice is on the loose."

"A coc-a-what-now?" He too got confused by that name.

"A cockatrice. it's a frightening creature with the head of a chicken and the body of a snake. Now, come on." Fluttershy talked quite fast, she was clearly in a panic. But she wasn’t paying attention to the fillies and they walked away.

"The head of a chicken and the body of a snake? That doesn't sound scary, that sounds silly." The 3 of them were walking off together.

"Why if ever I saw one of them coc-a-thingies face ta face, I'd laugh at how silly it was." Fluttershy somehow got ahead of them.

"How did she.....Never mind." Daniel chose to forget it and continued to listen in. Annabelle seemed to be interested in what they were saying too.

"No, you must never look one in the eye. If you look a cockatrice in the eye-" She was cut off.

"A chicken." One of them said and they all ran after it.

"Girls, wait." Daniel picked up Annabelle and followed them.

They stopped at a bunch of bushes and looked around; a chicken’s head was peeking out of a bush close by.

"There he is." But another chicken head peeked up out of a bush.

"Two chickens?"

"I thought only one escaped." They walked forward to grab them.

"Grab 'em both." They ended up missing both of them however

After they missed the second one a large snake body suddenly started to come out of the bush, with a chicken head. Daniel had a bad feeling about this so he conjured up reflective glasses and gave one to Annabelle. She looked at it and understood what it meant so she put them on.

The cockatrice jumped an impressive jump, right to the chicken and turned it to stone with a glare. The fillies ran from it and both Daniel and Annabelle followed them.

They continued to run until they tripped up over a rock and landed on a stone version of Twilight. When Daniel saw Twilight like that and the look on her face he started to feel his anger appearing again but he tried to control it. When they were safe he would give this cockatrice a piece of his mind.

He continued to watch from where he was and saw that Fluttershy was having trouble keeping them calm as they were running and screaming all around the place. When Fluttershy saw the cockatrice she called out.

"Behind me, now!!!" The 3 of them listened to her and did just that. After a few seconds Fluttershy seemed to lose it and lashed out at the cockatrice. "You, just who do you think you are going around turning others into stone?" It started to look guilty about what she said but it then went through with its glare and Fluttershy was getting turned to stone faster. "You should be ashamed of yourself, I have half a mind to find your mother and tell her what you have been up to young man."

It looked like it was starting to back down but then it just glared harder. Daniel didn’t see what the cockatrice had to be ashamed of, considering its size, that stone glare was more or less it's only way to defend itself.

"Now you go over there and turn Elisabeth and my friend Twilight back to normal and don't you ever let me catch you doing this again." It seemed to back down fully now and whatever part of Fluttershy that was stone was now broken. "Do you understand me?" The cockatrice nodded and ran off. "Are you girls alright? I was so worried."

They all said they were fine and thanked Fluttershy. Calling her the 'Stare Master'. They all apologized and said they would not sneak out again.

"Oh you do, do you? Well you better or I'll give you, the stare." She said while looking at them with one eye. Which they all laughed about a moment later. Daniel now made the glasses he and Annabelle had on disappear.

"What-What happened?" Twilight was back to normal and this brought a smile to Daniel’s face. He decided to not scare that cockatrice more as what Fluttershy did probably traumatized it. Fluttershy went to help the chicken that was stuck in the ground and they were all soon starting to head back.

"You were turned into stone by a cockatrice." Fluttershy explained.

"WHAT!? NEVER MIND I'LL GET THE DETAILS LATER, we should be getting back. It is not safe to stay here-" A roar was heard and Fluttershy cowered. "-at...night." Twilight finished.

A manticore walked out from the forest but unlike the one Daniel met before, this one was dark around the eyes.

"A manticore! A tired one at that!"

"Fluttershy, what do we do?" Twilight asked.

"I don't know, it is still half asleep, it probably doesn't know what it's doing. Something disturbed its sleep." The manticore rushed forward and tried to take a sweep at Fluttershy with its claws but she ducked under and its claws went straight towards Sweetie belle.

Daniel stood in shock and so did the others as Sweetie belle was struck by the manticore's claws and was tossed into a tree. Twilight turned to face the manticore and, with rage in her eyes she fired a blast of magic that shook the ground. Hitting the manticore off into a distant mountain.

"Sweetie!" Twilight and the others rushed over to her. Daniel waited at the side to check on things, but what he heard next made him feel guilty. "She is not breathing. That claw slashed her jugular!" Daniel could see blood squirting out of her neck as she lay on the ground, lifeless.

"You could have saved her you fool. You stayed to the side, for what?" Daniel looked to the side to see Annabelle was crying at what just happened to Sweetie belle. "This is a dangerous forest, I stayed to keep her safe. But..." Daniel had no clue what to think, if he wasn’t with Annabelle and the Manticore went for her and killed her, he would never forgive himself, and his parents likely wouldn’t too if they were to meet in death.

Daniel was about to turn around and leave, he knew he could not reverse death. Until he remembered what Death taught him. If the body could be repaired, and both the heart and brain were fully operational before the spirit moves on, they can be brought back. Daniel looked at Annabelle and spoke telepathically.

"Stay here. If you see anything jump out at you, run to me. I don’t care if you are seen by them. You run to me and I’ll help you." He didn’t care if she was in a shadow form, he did not care if this would give them more knowledge on his other forms and could likely expose him sooner. All he cared about was doing what was right.

He flew over to his friends and the fillies, which were in tears. He lowered himself to Sweetie belle's corpse to study it, this caught Twilight's attention.

"What...You're back?" Daniel didn’t look at her and focused on Sweetie's injuries. He lowered his hands to the giant wound on her neck and willed it to heal. He started to glow a radiant gold colour for a few seconds and after it was done he checked her body. Her injury was gone but she still wasn’t breathing. "Ho-How did you do that!?" Twilight was amazed but Daniel continued to heal Sweetie.

Placing his blood covered hands on her chest he did the same again and in a few moments he started to feel a very small rise and fall on her chest, and he also felt her heart beat slowly.

"Now to find the soul." Daniel activated the spectral vision that Death taught him and he looked around. What he saw almost broke his heart. Sweetie was looking at her friends and she was crying.

"Why are you ignoring me? Do you not like me anymore?" Daniel flew up to her and tapped her shoulder, she turned around and was surprised to see him and she took a few steps back in fear. He held out his paw for her.

"Take my paw, I’ll take you to your friends." Daniel spoke to her telepathically. He did not know if it would work with her being a spirit but it seemed to as she walked forwards and took his paw and he smiled. Annabelle and the others were looking on in confusion until Daniel smiled and they saw a faded version of Sweetie appear.

"Sweetie belle!" Twilight called to her. She looked at them but then back and Daniel.

"Just follow me." He told her and led her to her body. He then lowered her hoof to it and she seemed to fade from his sight. The next thing Daniel heard was Sweetie belle gasping for air and coughing. All of the others ran over to see how she was doing and to their delight, she was fine.

Daniel was about to fly away but Twilight called to him.

"Wait!" He stopped and turned around to face her. "How did...I mean...Thank you for saving Sweetie Belle." She saw that he had injuries all around him but they were healing almost instantly. "What...are you?" Daniel decided to play with her a little so he made a donut appear and threw it at her, and got it right on her horn. He chuckled and gave her a smile and a wink. She seemed to be a little surprised by this and he just flew away chuckling.

When he was out of sight he quickly flew back to Annabelle and changed both of them back to normal. Twilight was just looking in the direction that he flew away in for a few seconds. She eventually turned around and spoke to the others.

"We should be getting back."

"What happened?" Sweetie asked.

"Don't worry about it Sweetie, you're fine now." Daniel and Annabelle followed them until they were safely out of the forest. When they were out he turned back to Annabelle.

"We need to get back. You need some sleep and I need to get ready for Luna tomorrow."

"But I'm...not tired." She said with a yawn in between. She also cleaned the tears from her eyes.

"You’re tired. Come on. Let's go home." Daniel picked her up and turned invisible. He then flew back towards his everfree house. When he was back in his Everfree house he took Annabelle to her tree bed and then headed to his lab.

He found Thag speaking to Alpha and his kids were around him, so he listened in.

"-So that’s what a king has to do, and listening to nobles about their problems is not easy." Elizabeth raised her hand.

"Do you like your position as king?"

"It can be a little bit of a headache at times, but ever since Daniel started to help us it’s taken a lot of stress off." Freddy spoke next.

“Are you kept alive by a magical energy?” Thag nodded.

“All of us are. This is how we can reform easily but just like all things, time makes it weak till it can’t keep going.” Elizabeth then asked her question.

“How long do they last and how what about you?” Thag seemed to be lost in thought.

“They usually last for a few hundred years. As for me. Well. It’s my own subjects that keep me alive. See, just like there are different versions of other animals, us Timberwolves are different too. While other packs would have an Alpha and have that alpha as leader, I am a king and I store the life energy of my subjects in me. The forest gives life energy to them, they die and I take the energy and then give it back to the forest which restores it and the cycle repeats and also adds some extra time onto my life. I too will die but not for thousands of years thanks to this method.” They all listened to his explanation and then Alpha asked him something.

“If you don’t mind. How did you become king?”
“Well my childhood was like any normal timber wolf but when I got to adulthood I left my pack to explore. I found a few omegas which were kicked out of their own pack so I asked them if they wanted to make one. As the years passed I developed new leadership skills and we made a nest. After that we expanded and met with other wolf packs which were concerned about the Diamond dogs and their tree cutting at the time and we formed one pack. Me and the other Alpha’s all fought for position as Alpha over this one large pack and I won the battle. Over time we expanded and I grew into what I am now. Larger than normal and king of the wolves.” Daniel cleared his throat which caught the attention of Thag.

"The Griffins have been dealt with." Thag sighed.

"Good, that is one thorn in our side removed." He stood up and headed to the door to the citadel. "I’ll see you another time Daniel. I’m quite tired and have to assign troop patrols tomorrow."

"Good night." Thag left and the door closed over and locked. Daniel had a talk with Alpha and discovered that his kids will be getting new bodies soon and when he saw they were all busy fooling around the lab he went to his living room and laid down on the couch, happy that the work of today is done. "Now all I have to do is make a convincing story for Luna that she will hopefully believe, and I have all night to do it. Perhaps I should have my Mew and Shadow forms fight sometime. It would be fun to see what theories the ponies come up with."

❊ ❊ ❊

It was late in Canterlot and Celestia was just about to go to her bed and finish up for the day until she heard a guard running her way.

"Princess! Hide requests a meeting in the hall with both you and your sister." She groaned in annoyance.

"Tell him I’ll be there in a moment." The guard ran off to do just that. Celestia was wondering why Hide had returned from his hunt, she did warn him about what the Shadow could do but he insisted he and his crew would be fine. She was sure that the most likely way it would end would be the Shadow defeating Hide and the rest of them, but now that they are back.

"He...He couldn't have killed it, could he?" With that realisation she ran towards the main hall. Her mind racing at how he could have beaten it and if that was not the case then how was he still alive?

When she reached the main hall she was greeted by Luna and when she saw Hide and the rest of his crew, she saw they were in bad shape. The soldiers were shaking violently and were white in the face. Hide was the same but in a condition that was worse; Celestia could clearly see his ribs were greatly damaged.

"Hide, what happened?"

"Princess, you didn’t tell us we were dealing with an intelligent creature." Celestia tilted her head to the side.

"Are you talking about the Shadow?" The soldiers froze at the mention of that name.

"Yes. You didn’t tell me it was intelligent." Celestia was at a loss for words. The Shadow showed no amount of intelligence before besides how to fight.

"Please tell us the whole story." Hide told them of their first few days in the everfree and how unsuccessful they were in finding any trace of it. He mentioned a few encounters with Timberwolves and one encounter with some Diamond dogs.

When he got to the part where he and the others met the Shadow, he spoke about how it was likely the one who started a fire on one of the ropes that held up one of their tents and of how it seemed to just appear from the steam that came off of the extinguished fire. He told them about what it said to them and how it seemed to multiply itself.

That got Celestia worried, that such a powerful creature could do such a thing. But what she heard next surprised her much more.

"But I think he let us live because it was showing a youngling how to scare and hunt." Both princesses looked at each other before Luna spoke.

"How do you know that, and who is he?"

"The shadow. By the sound of its voice, it’s a male and when I saw a smaller one of its kind and tried to get to it, it said 'Leave HER alone.'" Celestia looked a bit worried but Luna looked more curious than anything else.

"Thank you for telling me this. What’re you going to do now Hide?"

"I am heading home, my life is more important than my hunting reputation. Thanks for letting us hunt in the forest anyway." He tried to make it to the door but he was struggling to walk.

"Hide, stay here for a while. You and your crew can leave in a few days." Hide smiled at that.

"I appreciate that, thanks."

"Guards, take them to the medical wing."

When Hide and his crew were out of the room Celestia turned to Luna.

"I never expected the Shadow to be able to speak or to have a young one. This worries me, what more can it do that we don't know of? How many of them are there?" Luna was about to answer but she was interrupted when a scroll fell to the floor and it had Twilight's insignia on it. "Another friendship report?" She unfolded it and started to read it. She got a smile on her face and continued to read it, her smile changed from a smile to a look of surprise.

"What is it sister?"

"If this report is true then that Mew creature has the power to revive the dead. Twilight mentioned that it brought back a filly that was killed by a manticore."

"What are we going to do about this?" Luna asked with a little worry in her voice.

"I think we should tell the guards, Twilight and her friends. If the Shadow does mean to cause harm then we must be prepared, but until then my first decision still stands. Leave it alone and find out what we can about it. If the worst comes, we may need to ask this ‘Mew’ for help against it, if it can even understand us." Luna smiled.

"I am sure Fluttershy could talk to it and from what we’ve seen, it doesn’t like to see any suffering and is always playful." Celestia smiled at what Luna said.

"We will do all of this first thing tomorrow. Get some sleep Luna, you have a student coming over in the morning." Celestia walked off to her room and Luna did the same.

As Luna walked towards her room, her mind started to wonder on the new info she just heard.

"It is too much of a coincidence. Cosmos has a little sister, Daniel has a little sister and the Shadow has a youngling. My expectations must be correct." Luna walked into her room and changed out of her royal gear. "I better be careful when Cosmos comes over, if I build up our friendship then he might trust me enough not to go nuts when I mention I know who he is. I don't want to have to fight him, it will only end in disaster. But i‘m still unsure what his species is. I found nothing close to what could be related to him." Luna laid down on her bed and was starting to fall asleep.

"I’ll just ask him when I meet him."

❊ ❊ ❊

"So this is ponyville? It seems like a small and quiet town." Bravacho and Dravia were standing on a hill that overlooked ponyville. It had been quite a walk and Bravacho's injuries had healed along the way.

"I can see why the heart bearer would want to stay in a place like this." Dravia adjusted her backpack and got ready to walk to the town. Bravacho opened his bag and looked at the heart piece he had with him.

"Please, help us find him or her." The piece started to glow a bit more brightly and he smiled. He closed his bag back up and started to walk towards the town.

"What will we do for currency?" Dravia asked him.

"Don't worry, I’ve got it covered. I multiplied a load of bits before we started to move." He held up a sack for her to see and she could hear it was loaded with bits.

"Good. So what is our plan of action?"

"Get to know the ponies, see who stands out, wait for something unusual to happen and hopefully we’ll find the bearer." She smiled at him.

"Sounds like a plan." They both continued their walk to ponyville.

❊ ❊ ❊

Archie was walking around in the containment area of the heart piece that they found. Ever since he met Daniel he could not get what the first bearer told him out of his head.

Walking up to the piece that was behind the glass, he placed his hand on it and sighed.

"I hope you’re right about him my friend." Archie started to think about the last time he spoke with her, about what she told him.

Years ago

"Are you sure about this?" Archie asked her but she just nodded.

"It's the way it has to be, besides, I have done what I was needed to do." She stood in the center of the room and her chest was still changing between yellow and red.

"But...what if something happens that we need your help with? You and I are a team. You said it yourself. We’re best friends." She smiled and put her hand on Archie's shoulder.

"Archie. I know how you feel about me and you know I can’t keep doing this forever. It’s not what I want and now I have a chance to be normal again. But don’t worry my friend. Daniel...will take care of you." She shuddered a bit when she mentioned Daniel.

"Who’s Daniel?"

"He will be the next bearer of the other heart. I have already seen it." Archie wouldn’t give up.

"There must be some way you can stay." She sighed.

"Archie. I might be strong, but I am not unbeatable. What King N did is going to kill me if I don't do this. I need to clean my body of this energy then when I disconnect from the heart I have it will break down to disperse the energy in it then it can be rebuilt."

"Well can you at least tell me more about this Daniel character? What will he do?"

"I was able to see the next bearer and I know what will happen. What I did a moment ago was something I had to do. But sadly, my time is up being the bearer." She walked towards Archie and hugged him. "Thank you for being my best friend Archie, and remember, don't give up. No matter how dark the future looks." She started to teleport.

"Wait, what did you do a moment ago?" She just grinned at him.

"Spoilers. But before I go I need you to know. I have seen the past. I know why King N became evil. But he is not the real threat. I saw into the future and I know that for sure. There is one who is worse than King N. Oh and one last thing…" She walked forwards and whispered something to Archie which made him jump in surprise and after she said what she needed to say, she teleported and a small version of the first heart was left before it started to glow and vanish after breaking into 3 pieces.

Present time

"I don't know what Daniel will do, but if you trusted him, then I will too. I will keep on fighting for you, my friend." He removed his hand from the glass, left the containment chamber and headed back to his desk on the top level.

Author's Notes:

Ok, I will just like to say a few things.

1: I am planning to give this story a little redo eventually (like I have for weeks but have not gotten around to it), nothing too important. Just fixing grammar and spelling errors.

2: If you go back to 'Powers and Problems in a few days you will see a change in Daniel's powers. I plan to keep that change. I am planning to make Daniel have semi-immortality and change a few parts in some chapters to show it.

3: I WAS planning to start ending this story in the next few chapters after Discord, but I think I will keep writing until the Sombra incident and then I will start to finish it up. Yes I already have an ending planned out but it will probably change.

4: If this story gets more likes then I MIGHT write a prequel about the first heart bearer and, if I can think of some way too, a sequel as well.

I would like to say thanks to all those who have put up with my bad grammar so far and have helped me by telling me of my errors and giving me ideas for this story. I likely would have cancelled it long ago if it was not for your support.