Hello readers. I am very glad to present this, my first ever narrative of length over 2000 words in total as well as being the first of my stories uploaded to fimfiction. I was so captivated by the idea of the CGotG group that I started this story. I appreciate every critique of this work as well as every favourite and thumbs up. I would also like to thank Shadow Weaver for being my first and possibly only pre/proofreader, go read his story too. The speed of updates for this story will not be very fast unfortunately, this is because I am new to the group and am using most of my free time to become up to date with the canon stories. I would also like to thank Troutking for pointing out the several flaws and inconsistancies present in my character development, thank you Troutking. Finally, for the purpose of avoiding any confusion in you my much appreciated readers, the first section of the story is in third person and then switches to first person for the foreseeable future. That was deliberate and not an ineptitude on my part, even if it isn't the greatest idea. I do hope you enjoy.

“We’re here covering the most recent riot in the city of Giza.”

“I said wait a minute Mat! We haven’t gone live yet.”

“Ah hehe, oops. Guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself.”

They were standing in one of the many derelict unit block balconies, below were just streets. Once normal, the streets were now covered in shrapnel and garbage of the past few years. A thin film of dust and sand coated anything and everything not protected from the wrath of possible sandstorms.

“You think? Wait, here we go. Live in 3…2…1…” click

“Cough Today in the once great city of Giza, conflict has broken out again as the government we have this week has been challenged for turning corrupt. We bring you live to not my usual desk at the studio, in the middle of not the studio, IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO BLOODY ROCKET LAUNCHERS! I hope you appreciate this viewers, because my salary doesn’t nearly begin to cover this.”

clatter  The reporter threw his microphone across the floor of the abandoned unit they had been filming from.

“Mat, chill. This is live, you’ll lose your job.”

“Just switch it off; I don’t have anything more to say.”

“Look, just this once," click, "but you need to be more professional as a field reporter, I thought this is what you wanted.”

“WHAT? Who gave you that idea? I love my anchor job! Look, Monika, just go home, it’s dangerous here; your sister was probably worried sick when she got home from school. There hasn’t even been a single shot fired since the declaration of revolution was sent, that and I could do with my little fix of paradise, okay?”

“I swear that stuff is taking over your life. What's so great about some pixilated ponies with a dash of colour?”

“Ha, hehehe.”

“Wait what? What did I say?”

“Ahh, never mind. Look, I just like that, somewhere, there is a place without war, even if it is make-believe.”

“At least I can understand that. How about we grab a coffee at the station before you get fired, sound good to you?”

“Nah," he declined, "but I just need to get the mic. Go on, I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Monika turned towards the stairwell, camera over her shoulder.

There was a flash of metal in the building across the street as he passed by the window, moving to where the mic had lain to rest.

*BANG*

“Shit.” Monika spun back around, dropping the camera in the process as she ran in the direction of the noise.

“Mat?  Matsimela? No! NO! Shit.” She rushed over to the collapsed body of her coworker; he was bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in his chest, the actual wound itself the size of a golf ball.

“Heh, I think I might take you up on that coffee now..." the reporter choked, before he coughed out several small pellets of blood, the droplets of crimson staining his shirt. "What do you think...?”

“Don’t joke about this!" Monika pleaded, tears ready to spill from her eyes.

"I’m getting you out of this alive, got it?!” She cradled her coworker's head onto her chest and held him as tightly as she could. She knew that he would make it through... because if he didn't...

“I hate to see you break promises..." The reporter coughed violently again. His vision started turning darker, and he was feeling drowsier and drowsier by the second.

'Strange... it's like... sleeping, almost....'

"Good... bye...." The reporter closed his eyes as the orbs of sight rolled into the back of his head, an exhalation of held-in breath escaping his mouth for the last time.

"Mat?" Monika started, pulling away from her coworker to see his now cold face. "Mat! MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!"

“Matsimela Darwishi, I call you!”

'Is that my name? Yes, I remember!'

“Urgh, stop shouting, who died and made you my boss, any…way…?”

I looked up and saw a woman I estimated to be over 10 meters tall and holding out a great pair of multi-hued wings, but she was not at all like any angel I had ever heard about. Glistening gold coated almost all of her clothes, and a crown atop her head held a disc of bright crimson.

”I am afraid that it was your own foolish death within our last domain that made me your…boss,” The great winged lady said with an almost disdainful, but more piteous voice.

"Back up there, I'm dead? That isn't, I mean...what?" I stuttered in my panic. My head was still feeling groggy.

"All will be explained in time, for now you must come with me." I had already started running.

"You cannot hide in these shadows human! These are not the shadows of light, but of time."

"No bloody way I'm going with a giant like you, I'm outta here!" I called back to the stationary figure.

'There has to be some way out of here, where is here?'

I heard a snapping of fingers.

"You cannot escape from me, mortal." She was now before me once again, or rather I before her.

'If eyes are the window to the soul, she has her blinds down. Man, what a stare.'

"pant, pant, I can't be... dead, pant, can I?"

"I know this may frighten you, but it is something you must accept. I am not your foe." Still with that fierce look, but now with a softer, kinder, even motherly tone.

She was disarming me.

"But, I was just. And then there was a noise...Monika's face."

'Urgh, why are my memories so fuzzy?'

I grasped my head in one hand, tilting it down, trying to get a handle on the situation and think things through at the same time. Then I saw the hole.

"Aahh, what the hell? There's a hole in my chest!"

"Indeed there is, try to remember your death. There you will find the answers you seek."

"SHUT UP! THERE IS A HOLE IN MY CHEST. HOW ARE YOU GONNA EXPLAIN THAT?"

"I cannot and will not comply with both of your requests, so I will answer your question. You were shot, you died, I brought you here. There is no simpler way for me to explain that to you."

"I keep telling you, I am not dead. I was just in an abandoned flat, broadcasting some news."

"Yes, you were. But think, think after that. Do not, however, take your time about it. I have need of you soon and cannot allow a significant delay."

"If it will stop you lying to me, fine. This is what happened." Continuing to grasp the hole, feeling a little self-conscious, I recounted the events I was sure of to the giant woman. "Look, my boss sent me as a field reporter, I am usually a news anchor so this caught me by surprise."

"Do not bore me, and do not waste my time. Recall only from the events of ending your transmission. They are all that matter."

"Fine, um. Really? I'd rather not talk about that."

"It is important for you to know, I already know."

"Ok, uh. I...I turned down Monika," I was overtaken by an uncharacteristic pessimism.

"She just wanted to get a coffee."

'Man, what I jerk. I could have at least done that.'

"The mic, it was over by the window, so I want to get it."

'She was right, I'm gonna lose my job for that.'

"Good, this is what is most important, what you must accept. What do you remember?"

"Then I looked out the window before picking it, wait...I never picked it up. What happened? Argh!" I doubled over, that wound in my chest was throbbing.

Memories flooded like water through the hole in my mental block, caused by the surprising detail with which I remembered events.

I really was dead, I hadn't died fighting, standing up for something, nothing like that at all. I was sniped by some damned stranger, probably mistaken for someone in a political party.

"My husband has sent me with a new life to grant. Be grateful that you have another chance at life, for it is much more than most.”  She stooped down onto one knee, held out a hand so perfectly shaped it could have been chiseled from a stone were it not coloured so.

It was then that my reporter's reflex kicked in, it was time to ask some questions of my own. Warily, I stepped forward onto her hand. I tried to hide the smug grin on my face.

She rose to standing level and the darkness surrounding us started to morph and reel, distorted shapes flashed in lighter shades of black, because that can happen.

‘What on earth, or rather off of it, was happening here? Ok, calm, think this through. Use your experience.’

“Um, it appears you have me at a disadvantage. Would you mind telling me who you are, and where this is?”

‘Good, play it like a sir.’

“Even in our last domain of this realm the people have forgotten us sigh. If you are so ignorant as to not have ANY idea you I am, I shall oblige. I am in your terms, Isis the Egyptian Goddess of fertility and magic, among other things.”

'Really? Wow. Here in front of me is a completely mythological figure. Surely there's another explanation?'

“I assure you that I am real, and that I am Isis.. As I said, you are to get a second chance at life. Not this life, and not for your own amusement. But as a servant to our pantheon, and to me.”

“You can hear my thoughts?”

‘Great, she can hear my thoughts. I wasn't prepared for this. Wait. LALALALALALA, don’t think, don’t think.’

“Do not confuse yourself, I may know your thoughts, and I will in your next life also. But I am not invading you, and there is nothing I have not seen before. Since there is nothing you can do, deal with it.”

At that moment a shadow from the reeling darkness around us flashed across her eyes, and a smirk appeared across her as yet emotionless face.

‘Well, that sure was enlightening.’

“Ok, since there is no way that happened by accident, so I won’t enquire. But please, tell me where I’m going if not to the realm of the dead?”

'Good, get back in control of the conversation. Damn it, she heard that. No, I've got to keep going with this.'

“For now we are in the Temporal Plane, not that you know what that mean this is only way in which I may transport a mortal’s spirit to another reality. Though you may not believe which reality.”

“Wait, I think I know this one? Is it…”

”NO GUESSES! This is not a game. That comes later. Ra, you frustrate me.”

'She's treating me like a child. I have to ask something intelligent, grah, she can hear this anyway.'

“Maybe you aren't as dense as the others, what is it you wish to know of your assignment?”

'And again with the motherly voice of disarmament. Why is it so darn relaxing?'

“I am never going to get used to that, urgh. Well, I suppose I want to know, why me?”

“HA, you think there is something special about you, not really. You fit my purposes and that is all you need to know for now, and for awhile. ”

“Aww, come ooon~. There has to be some reason?”

‘Maybe that was a little too whiney. Wait, darn it.’

“You are correct, that is not a way I wish you to speak to me in the future, but I suppose you will need to know this much. But I will tell you some of the important fragments, since you asked so 'nicely'."

'Time to sit back, relax, and enjoy an informative monologue. If I weren't dead, this would probably bore me to death.'

“Now, now. I could just stop you know."

"Eep. Um, hehe, sorry. Please, continue."

  "cough My power is limited to the realms in which I am or have been substantially worshiped, and outside of those only the people which believe in me. You are the first soul that has been at least of decent character that I have been able to pull from your reality."

'Ok, so she isn't all powerful. This is good.'

There are other realities in which I have more power, and one of those is where you are going. So don't get any ideas."

'Oh, great.'

"Moving on. Why you are not special is that you are simply the first to hang on death’s doorstep long enough for me to get a grasp, most others, those violent scoundrels, were planning to die and take as many with them as they could. Naught but children have been of a different mindset until you came along. However, if my range had been greater I may have found someone even more worthy. Until you complete a task I have set, you are not exceptional.”

At that point the shadows slowed to a near stop, no longer reeling in strange shapes but merely looking like a night sky under water. There was even one single pinprick of light visible, and we were heading towards it.

“I will guide you for as long as I can my chosen warrior. We are at our destination and near your new form. Welcome to the land of your myths and magic, welcome to the land that holds Equestria.”

“WAIT, WHAT? Aarrgghh!”At this point she threw me into the now nearby speck of light, no longer a pinprick in the darkness but a hole in the world.

I felt so much pain, blinding light all around me.

Never before had my body coursed with such pain.

It felt as if I was changing, into what I could not tell what.

Stretching, but not really seeming to be spreading, like there was now more of me, like I was absorbing this light around me.

The last two things that sped through my mind as I slowly fell into what felt like sleep were:

‘Is this really happening?’ and

‘SCREW YOU ISIS!’