Prelude: Back in the Black

She ran.

It was all she could do. The sound of her pursuer was close behind, always the same distance, as if it was toying with her. She ran through the burning remains of the children she failed on Placid Harbor, past the mangled corpse of her teacher, Has-Ka, past every human, korg, aviva, and pony she failed to save, the sound of her hunter trailing behind her every step.

Finally, she left the field of dead behind, sighing in relief... relief that didn't last long.

She skidded to a halt as another group of bodies spread out before her.

Her eyes wandered from Applejack's decapitated form to Aden, her tech-savvy former squad mate, impaled on a steel spike. Only the pink mane and yellow feathers hinted at the identity at the one being devoured by timberwolves. It was as if some mad scientist thought to see if Rainbow Dash's and Debby's similarities in personality and flight skill would make it possible to fuse their bodies together in a horrendous abomination.

Each and every person she cared about, pony or otherwise, was here, dead in some twisted form of torture, littered the ground. All but one.

Hanging from his arms was the most important person in her life, his pained cries calling out to her. Cuts and gashes adorned his body as his life bleed away. Curtis Dupree, her love, the first human she met after being flung through space just over two years ago. The fun loving, intelligent – even if he didn't show it all the time – special forces soldier was her first friend when she needed one most. He made her laugh when she was down, and offered shoulder to cry on when she needed one. He saved her life and she saved his.

“Do you see what you did?” The silky, venomous voice startled her, causing her to jump and turn toward the voice.

“Who's there!?” she called back.

“Look at all the beautiful pain you caused.”

“Wh-what!? I... I didn't do it, I swear!” she defended.

“Oh?” the voice said as its owner moved into the light. Lavender, draconic eyes peered back at her from the dark purple face. Its shadowy mane billowed in an ethereal wind, the pink and purple stripes being the only things bright on her. “But you did...”

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Twilight woke with a start. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for any sign that the nightmare was real. To her relief, she was still in the room she and Curt shared aboard the Turnatu, an avivan spaceliner, said human still draping an arm over her.

It was funny how much could change in two years. From being a naïve bookworm, and caretaker of Golden Oaks Library in Ponyville for eight great years, she was thrown far from her home world of Avol by a traitorous unicorn named Xander.

There she found the galaxy at war with a race of misguided zealots, the Dratali, reptilian magic users that believed life was a disease killing the galaxy. After witnessing their brutality firsthand, she joined the Alliance, a union of several independent sovereign empires formed to encourage peace between the spacefaring races, in their fight.

She was commissioned as an officer and assigned to the Griffin Squad, the special forces unit that included Curt and Seth, the other human with Curt when she found them. It was there, after fighting and bleeding together, that she started to develop feelings for him. Of course, Twilight's self-doubt kept her from saying anything.

She and her brothers and sister in arms, Seth, the leader, Curt, the sniper, Raak, the combat specialist, Debby, the pilot, and Aden, the tech guy, then went on to follow the cryptic leads of James, the human-like disguise of Mayhem, one of twenty three chaos lords... or as they were called on Avol, draconequi.

They learned a great deal about the history of both humans, and ponies. The first was that Avol was created by the chaos lords from Avalon, the legendary kingdom of King Arthur Pendragon of Camelot. The chaotic demigods decided that humans were too young of a race to possess both their incredible drive and ambition as well as possess powerful magic. So it was decided that humans would keep their ambition, but their magic would be given to the people of Avalon, who in turn surrendered their ambition as their bodies were transformed for reasons that were not specified. If Mayhem and Discord were the standard among them, though, it was probably just for the hell of it.

Twilight and her friends also learned that King Solaris, Celestia and Luna's father, was King Arthur himself, while Starswirl was Merlin, and Twilight and Curt's distant ancestor of several dozen generations. Though the strangest was learning that Mayhem left the Order of Chaos because he fell in love with a simple earth pony mare. He had been living as an earth pony rock farmer named Clyde with his wife and three daughters, Inkie, Blinkie, and Pinkie. Twilight wasn't as surprised by that last bit as she would have thought. At least she knew where her hyper friend got it from.

“Mmm,” came a pleasant groan from behind her. “Morning... You've been sweating. Did you have another nightmare?”

Twilight rolled around and put her hooves around him, “It's fine. It was just a dream.”

Curt smiled and kissed her gently before saying, “If you're fine then...”

“I am,” Twilight assured him. “I'm going to go get cleaned up.”

With that, she twisted back around and dropped to the floor, stretching before trotting toward the bathroom. The lights flicked on automatically and she stepped up to the mirror. She had changed a lot, physically, in two years. Not even two hours after her exile she took a grazing bullet to the face, leaving a long scar under her right eye. That was the first, but far from the most noticeable. Her mane was next up on the list. Its short, kind of spiky look was a far cry from her old, ruler straight cut before.

After she turned the hot water on, she revealed the next major change. With a twist, the shiny, lavender metal detached from the stump of her right foreleg. She once again thanked Technia, silently. The unicorn technophile had repaired the prosthetic after it was destroyed, improving it to accept mana-flow like a natural leg. She examined the scarred stump, the silver strands of metal that linked her leg to her nervous system. The day that mech self-destructed and took her leg was still one of the worst days of her life, but she adapted well.

Twilight took a deep breath, readying herself to examine the most radical change, the one she hated most. Focusing on her back muscles, she flexed the most recently acquired ones. Great lavender wings extended to either side, though, these weren't the majestic wings of an alicorn. No, these were the leathery wings of a Nightmare.

The worst day of her life. She was on a mission to rescue Curt from a Dratali prison. Her combat magic teacher, Has-Ka, had showed up to help. He was a Dratali Archon, an elite mage, that defected to the Alliance. He wasn't the first to try leaving the religious ranks, but he was the only to succeed. He taught Twilight the more deadly side of magic, and the two became close friends. Unfortunately, he met his end while leaving the prison.

Twilight had bottled up so much fear, sorrow, and anger from the past months. From the loss of her home and loved ones, to seeing the murder of those children that had been so happy just minutes before, to all the other atrocities had built up until finally, the loss of her teacher topped it off. All the negative emotion, fed by a massive mana font sparked the creation of the most feared being on Avol, a Nightmare.

Twilight went mad as her body was taken over by the demonic emotional manifestation. She left a trail of blood and gore in her rampage. She slaughtered everything she encountered without remorse, even medics and engineers, non-combatants. Ironically, it was Xander who saved her from herself, though not in a way one would really call 'saving'. He severed her horn, and nearly drained her of every drop of her magic, almost killing her in the process. The lack of magic to fuel the parasite, it became dormant... that was until she used the alicorn amulet.

After going back in time with a spell cast by Princess Celestia to seek the help of Starswirl, the only pony in history to have more than a basic understanding of Nightmares, he crafted the alicorn amulet out of her own severed horn. It was supposed to absorb her Nightmare and contain it within, but part of its space was used when Trixie, having a developing Jealousy Nightmare of her own, used the amulet. As a result, the amulet malfunctioned and tried to pull out more than it could hold. The result was a partial relapse that left her with only enough control to not kill her friends.

When Xander destroyed the amulet, it destroyed the part of the Nightmare that was absorbed, but the backlash from the part that couldn't be taken was permanently fused to her very soul. Like it or not, it was a part of her and likely always would be.

Granted, the only physical signs of her change were the wings, though functional, she has yet to do more that glide short distances, and her left eye. Her senses were slightly augmented, but not very much, as was her mana font. Her temper was a bit worse, but not too much. Over all, she didn't change that much, but in her own eyes, she had become a monster.

With a sigh, she stepped into the shower and, using her magic, turned on the steaming hot water. As the cleansing liquid cascaded down her fur, her thoughts continued getting darker. She thought of all those who lost their lives when the Dratali found Avol and invaded. Even with Alliance ships in orbit keeping the majority of the invaders out, a few managed to slip by. Even though the Equestrian army that gathered out numbered the aliens ten to one, the battle was more of a massacre. Well over half of the ponies that fought died that day.

Her darkening thoughts were interrupted when she felt a hand brush along her back.

“Mind if I join you?” Curt asked.

A seductive smile formed on the purple pony. “Go ahead. Can you wash my back?”

“Sure,” he replied.

And just like that, her dark thoughts did a u-turn. The silver lining made itself known, as she remembered some good came of it. After all, she had found love. The man scrubbing her back was the very first human she had ever met. Sure, he was a bit of an idiot sometimes, and rarely took things seriously, but he had been by her side since they met. He helped take care of her after she was nearly killed by Xander. She remembered how helpless she was. Being a magical being, if Xander would have taken all her magic she would have died. She didn’t even have enough magic for her horn to regrow without outside help. Curt fed her, washed her, and even changed her diapers until she regained control of her bodily functions.

She wasn’t the only one to receive something from this, either. Avol was now a part of the Alliance. She and her friends were chosen, along with several others, to be the first to venture out and start to share their culture with their new friends. She was going to Earth to teach scholars there about the culture, biology, and magic of her home world, as well as write a sort of guide for Avolians that want to take that journey into space.

A new day in pony history was dawning, and she was the one to usher it in. The thought sent shivers down her spine at the thought of foals a thousand years from now learning about her and what she did. Of course, the kisses being peppered down her neck may have been a part of that feeling.

“We still have a few hours before we dock at Anderson Station,” Curt said huskily, “You wanna fool around?”

Twilight's smile grew.

Oh yeah. The future looks bright indeed.

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Twilight levitated the last of their luggage into Curt’s ship. His mom had it brought up for them earlier in the day, seeing as they wouldn’t be arriving until after midnight.

“So,” Curt began, “What’s first on the schedule?”

Twilight thought for a moment before answering, “Well, I have a couple days before my first lecture, so how about something educational? Something that is important to human culture?”

Curt got a mischievous grin, “I might know something.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at him, “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to do something stupid?”

“Because I usually do.”

Twilight sighed, resigning herself to it as she and Curt made their way through the ship and into the cockpit. Despite the worry of what her lover was planning, she couldn’t keep her excitement away.

Finally, I can actually study the cultures of the Alliance without interruption.

Twilight really needed to learn to stop tempting fate.