The Many Shaped One

by Alpha Scorpii

Chapters

• The shadow of a drooling god
• The floating embryo
• The black wind and the pink princess
• Unfinished business, part one
• Unfinished business, part two
• The Dark Beast
• In the shadows of a dungeon
• With love, to my new family
• Artwork 1
• The red planet
• Star of despair
• The lonely couple
• Visitor from a forgotten future
• Words of a trickster
• A beautiful light for a beautiful world
• Artwork 2
• Funny Eyes
• What am I?
• The Many Shaped One
• Some words from the author
• Epilogue

The shadow of a drooling god

The shadow of a drooling god

   When Francisco opened his eyes, he saw a red sky, like something directly taken from a painting of the Apocalypse. He was nude and alone, laying in a ground made of millions of tiny round stones. Slowly, he stood up and looked around. There were no mountains or other geological formations, only that same ground, extending to, apparently, the infinite.

   No... there was something. A tower. A lonely tower in the horizon, shaped like a human arm, with its hand opened, like if it was ready to catch something that could fall from the blood-colored sky. It was very, very far away, and yet its shadow was reaching Francisco.

   He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t even remember what was he doing there, or how had he ended in that place. So, without any other better thing to do, Francisco started to walk towards the tower, following the hand-shaped shadow...

---------------------------------

   It was raining. How appropriate. Francisco always felt better whenever it was raining, because it completed the image. It was a cliche: if there was a homeless in the picture, it had to rain. It was mandatory.

   Of course, Francisco hadn’t always been homeless. Not so long ago, he had had a family, a house, dreams... not a job, but he was hoping to get one soon. However, Destiny had other plans. Yes, the Fate... At the beginning, Francisco had blamed it for all his bad luck, because it was the easiest thing to do. Then, as the days passed, he started to blame the others. The government, the society... It was their fault. The crisis, and all those things. Later, he decided to blame himself. He hadn’t studied hard enough, he hadn’t bothered to search for a job. Instead, he had foolishly tried to live of his dreams of becoming a famous writer, without having a back-up plan.

   And, finally, Francisco decided that it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It had happened what it had to happen, just that. He wasn’t made for the world, he wasn’t made for society. He was an outcast, darkness and loneliness had been their destiny all along.

   Destiny, again...

   That rainy night, under a stone bridge, Francisco was waiting for death. He wasn’t searching for it, in fact, he still wanted to live. After all, one cannot get rid of his survival instincts so easily. However, he wasn’t going to escape from the Reaper, either.

   At that moment, he found it. No, not death, but another thing. Half-buried in the mud of the river, right in front of him, there was a strange, perfectly round stone, no bigger than a nut. Moved by a strange curiosity, Francisco picked it. While he was observing it, its surface opened, and a small yellow eye looked directly at him. Francisco dropped the stone, and the eye closed.

   After a few seconds, he picked it again. For some reason, when he was holding that in his fingers, death didn’t look so bad. But he thought that was a terrible feeling.

---------------------------------

   For how many days had Francisco been walking? Maybe none, maybe too many to be counted. Time seemed to not exist in that place, the sky was always red, there was neither day nor night, and Francisco didn’t get hungry, or sleepy.

   The tower was still a distant image in the horizon. He hadn’t reached it yet, even though he was sinking into his ominous shadow more and more.

   So, he kept walking, as the memories kept returning to his mind...

---------------------------------

   Unlike other homeless, Francisco didn’t beg, he didn’t want charity. In fact, to avoid receiving cents from the bystanders, he usually spent all his time on the outsides of the city. Alone and in darkness, as that was his destiny.

   However, sometimes, like that afternoon, he liked to walk a bit through the city. He always chose streets with few people, so he wouldn’t clash with anyone, although that usually never happened, since everyone avoided him, due to his shredded and dirty clothes.

   He walked in front of a TV store. In one of the televisions displayed on the other side of the glass, they were broadcasting an episode of the third season of My Little Pony, Friendship Is Magic. Francisco used to watch that show, when he had a home. He watched it on the Internet, in original version, since he didn’t like the Spanish dub. However, he had also blamed it for his current misery. That cartoon, those colourful ponies had been an inspiration for him. He had wanted to write something like that, something happy, something moving, something... beautiful. But Francisco only knew to create ugly things. Scary, hideous things. After all, H.P Lovecraft was his favourite writer.

   However, he had tried to do it, as hard as he had could. Sadly, he couldn’t created anything, his fingers used to paralyze over the keyboard, before the white and empty screen. And so, he didn’t publish anything, and when he tried to do something else, it was too late. Francisco couldn’t help but think that, if he had continued with the hideous things he liked, he would have accomplished his dream. It was the fault of those ponies.

   But he had also dismissed those thoughts, he wasn’t able to hate that show. It was so innocent, it had made so many people happy... It had changed the world in a way Francisco would never had been capable of. He couldn’t hate it. Even in darkness and loneliness, he still loved those colourful ponies.

   And, besides, his situation wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was his destiny...

   Francisco introduced his hands on his pockets. In one of them, there was the mysterious stone. He had kept it, but he didn’t know why.

   Then, he saw the fire. He watched as the firemen entered in the building to rescue everyone, but, apparently, there was one person they couldn’t reach.

   While still touching that stone in his pocket, Francisco started to think. He thought of keep walking, there was nothing he could do there. One person was going to die, and that was sad, but there were people dying everywhere, every time, why bother?

   But he also remembered his dreams of becoming a writer to change the world. Avoiding one death was also a way of changing the world. He was not a writer, he had nothing, and he probably was going to die soon. But he still could...

   “Dammit.”

   Francisco ran inside the building. Somehow, he managed to rescue that person, but his body was left burned and severely damaged. He hadn’t eaten anything for the past days, he was too weak to survive. The firemen couldn’t do anything for him, neither could the paramedics.

   And so, Francisco died. The last thing he saw was that perfectly round stone, which had dropped from his pocket. Its yellow eye had opened, and it was looking at him...

---------------------------------

   Finally, once his memories were fully restored, Francisco reached the tower. His body had changed in the process, he wasn’t human anymore. He didn’t have legs or arms, he was just a shapeless blob, crawling under that big shadow. Only one eye left in his deformed head, and no mouth he could speak or scream with. Before him, it was the tower, that immense hand of stone.

   A hole opened in the red sky, and a gigantic creature descended trough it. The entity landed in the hand, accommodating his multiple tentacles between the five fingers. It was a blob, just like Francisco, but gray. It had several eyes, and several mouths which were drooling a colourless goo, which ran down the tower like tears.

   That vision awoke new memories in Francisco. He remembered the things he used to read, he remembered Lovecraft... and he remembered the blind, idiot sultan of demons, bubbling in the center of the Universe...

   “Azathoth?”, he thought, or at least he wanted to think, but his words sounded in the air, despite the absence of mouth.

   “If you want,” answered the creature.

   That voice made him tremble. The words hadn’t come from the drooling mouths, instead, they seemed to have been spoken by reality itself.

   “What are you?” Francisco asked.

   “I am a god,” said the entity.

   “G- God?” Francisco asked again.

   “If you want,” repeated the creature.

   “What am I doing here? I... I think I died...”

   “Indeed.”

   “Then... is this Heaven, or Hell? Or just an hallucination caused by my dying brain?”

   “This place is real, I assure you. If it is Hell or Heaven, you have to decide that. You came here because you answered to my call, and you paid the price.”

   “What are you talking about?”

   “Take a closer look at the tower.”

   Francisco did, and discovered that the tower, as well as the rest of the landscape, was made by those perfectly round stones with yellow eyes. How could he have not noticed it earlier?

   “What are they?” he asked.

   “Keys,” explained the drooling god. “Keys to this dimension, keys to power. Keys to Heaven, or Hell. I send them to the world, I have been sending them for millennia. Every human being receives one, but usually they forget about them, and the keys disappear from their lives and memories.”

   “Why do they forget about them?”

   “Because the price required to activate the keys is, for many, high. Too high. The price is no other than rejecting the humanity of oneself. In order to acquire the power, Heaven or Hell, they have to cut themselves from their world. But humans love humans, and they cannot even conceive those actions. But you did.”

   “Did you mean, my sacrifice? I did it only because I thought it was the right thing to do, not because...”

   “You did it because you did not care anymore. You hated your world, you accepted that you had no place in it, and you welcomed death. Your last act of heroism was remarkable, but secondary. You rejected what you were, and the final proof of that is your actual shape. While you were walking towards this tower, you unconsciously abandoned your human form.”

   Francisco looked at herself, physically and mentally. At first he denied it but, eventually, he recognized that the drooling god was right. He hated his world, he hated himself. He just had wanted to go doing something heroic.

   “What do I do now?” he asked.

   “Whatever you want.”

   The answer caught Francisco offguard. He had read enough lovecraftian literature to know that making deals with abominations from beyond reality used to backfire, there had to be some kind of trick in all that.

   “Why do you do this?, Francisco inquired. “Why do you want to.. reward me this way?”

   “Because I am a god. An incomplete, drooling god. I want to be happy. Now you are  part of me, your essence is connected to mine in the depths of your heart. If you enjoy your existence, so will I. Be happy, do whatever you want.”  

   Whatever you want...

   “I want...” said Francisco. His shapeless carcass raised, looking directly at the god and his tower. “I want to go to that colourful world. And I want a new body.”

   “So be it. Which body should I give you?”

   Francisco opened his eye, widely:

   “All of them. I will be your Nyarlathotep.”

***

   Pinkie Pie opened her eyes. She wasn’t sweating, she hadn’t had a nightmare. However, she felt an uncanny sensation.

   Carefully, to not disturb Gummy's dream, she walked to the window and looked at the starry sky. The moon was full and shiny. It was an incredibly beautiful night... yet the pink pony had the disturbing feeling that something big was about to come to her life. Maybe, to the lives of everypony.

   But her Pinkie Sense couldn't tell if it was something good... or something bad.  

The floating embryo

The floating embryo

   “I’m telling you, Twilight, I had never felt anything like this before!” said Pinkie, walking around the purple unicorn, who was trying to organize the books of the shelves.

   “So, is it another doozy?” questioned Twilight.

   “Yes! No, wait! It’s actually bigger than a doozy! It’s like... A Super Doozy!”

   Twilight looked at the pink pony, wrinkling her nose.

   “A Super Doozy?” she asked. “Is that even possible?”

   “It seems so. My Pinkie Sense has been crazy about it all morning!”

   Since the last incidents with the famous Pinkie Sense, Twilight Sparkle had decided to take predictions of the pink pony seriously, no matter how crazy they could look. It had become a survival instinct for the purple unicorn. After all, she didn’t want to have a piano falling over her head. Again.

   “And do you have any idea of where it will be this time?” Twilight asked.

   “I think so...”

   Pinkie went to one of the windows, and she put her hooves in the glass. She could see, in the distance, a bunch of sinister shadowy trees. It was that place, the one that even little fillies knew they should stay away from. A very serious expression appeared in the face of the pink pony, like if she was about to confront Destiny itself, when she said:

   “It will be in the Everfree Forest.”

   “Hey, hooves out!”, shouted Spike. “I’ve just cleaned that window!”

   “Ups. Sorry,” Pinkie moved away from the glass. “Like I was saying: It will be in the Everfree Forest.”

***

   “I hope this is important,” said Rainbow Dash, floating over Twilight’s head, with her front legs crossed. “I was busy. Napping.”

   ‘Oh, what a shocker...’ thought the purple unicorn. “Look, girls, Pinkie has had another of her twitches, and this time it appears to be something really big. I don’t want to take risks, so we’re going to the Everfree Forest to investigate.”

   “Ah, I get it,” smiled the pegasus. “You needed some brave and strong pony to watch over your backs. Well thought, Twilight!”, and she started to punch the air.

   Actually, Twilight’s original idea was to gather all the six, but Applejack was having a family reunion at the farm, and Rarity was busy making some dresses, so she and Pinkie had had to conform with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

   “Do... do we really have to go?” whispered the latter. “Maybe it’s nothing... No offense, Pinkie Pie.”

   “Yeah, that’s a possibility,” said Twilight. “However, like I said, I don’t want to take risks. Better safe than sorry.”

   And so, the four ponies ventured into the dark forest, two of them walking, the third one flying, and the fourth one bouncing happily.

***

   What was the Everfree Forest? Generations of ponies had tried, in the distant past, to answer that question, without any result. That place had been the source and inspiration of many legends and horror stories. After all, only in nightmares could the mind of a pony conceive the existence of that accursed forest, where plants grew without any help and there were no seasons, that place roamed by bizarre animals and horrible monsters.

   Eventually, everypony had decided to stop searching for answers, and just let it be. The Everfree Forest became another common element of the world, one that was better to leave alone. A dark domain of the unknown, and maybe even of evil, which should not be disturbed.

   “Echo!” said Pinkie Pie, as loudly as she could, bouncing between the trees. “Echo! Echo! Oh, why is there no echo?”

   “For the last time, Pinkie Pie: that happens on caves!” groaned Twilight.

   “And what happens on forests?”

   “Bad things...” whispered Fluttershy, trembling. “And... If we keep making noises... bad things will happen to us...”

   “Hey, Twilight,” said Rainbow Dash, flying over them. “If Pinkie’s prediction is true, what will we do when we encounter that big thing?”

   “I’ve been working on new spells,” explained the unicorn. “I think they’ll be able to deal with that thing, whatever it may be.”

   “I also have a plan,” said Pinkie, suddenly turning serious. “Trust me, I have a plan...”

   The other three gulped. Pinkie Pie being serious? Twilight Sparkle was pretty sure that somewhere, maybe not too far from Ponyville, there was a list with the events that would foresee the End of Equestria. Pinkie Pie being serious had to be one of them.

   They kept walking. They even paid a visit to Zecora and asked her if she had seen something weird in the forest recently. The problem was, there were too many weird things in the Everfree Forest to pick just one and say it was weirder than the others. So, they left Zecora’s house and continued with their search, although they were starting to get tired.

   “I don’t think there’s anything big in this forest,” said Rainbow Dash, eventually. “I’m sorry, Pinkie, but I’m afraid your twitch failed this time.”

   “It hasn’t failed!” replied the pink pony. “It’s just that we haven’t found the Super Doozy yet!”

   “Anyway, we should stop and go back to Ponyville. My wings are starting to get tired, and I still need to catch up with my Napping Timetable! I’ll have to sleep extra hours to recover the lost time!”

   “I agree with you, Dash,” sighed Twilight. “I’m sorry, Pinkie, but I’m tired too. We’ll continue searching tomorrow, if your twitches persist, ok?”

   “But... but... Oh, ok...”

   “Good. Now, which is the road back to Ponyville?”

   The four ponies looked around. They had reached an unknown part of the forest, the dark trees seemed bigger than usual, and their branches were tangled over their heads, creating a ceiling of wood. They couldn’t see the sky.

   They were lost.

   “Look!” said Dash, pointing at one lonely branch. “A raven! Fluttershy, ask him if he knows the way out.”

   “All right,” smiled the yellow pegasus, happy for having encountered a normal animal she could talk to.

   However, when she approached the bird, Fluttershy suddenly stopped, and went back. She looked worried.

   “What happens?” asked Twilight.

   “That’s not a normal raven,” explained Fluttershy. “There’s something wrong with him... But I don’t know what.”

   The black bird flew in circles over the ponies a few times, and then landed on another branch. It croaked, and pointed one direction with its wing. The ponies looked, but there were only trees.

   Then, suddenly, a black wind came out of nowhere and engulfed those trees. When it dissipated, the sinister plants had disappeared, and there was a road which led directly out of the forest, back to Ponyville.

   “What?!” asked Twilight. She looked back at the raven, but the bird had flown deeper into the woods.

   “Who cares?” said Rainbow Dash. “Come on, let’s return home!”

   But Pinkie Pie had gone the opposite direction, right after the raven.

   “What are you doing?!” shouted Twilight.

   “That bird!” answered the pink pony. “He is the Super Doozy!”

   “What? Pinkie, wait! Oh, that reckless... Come on, girls, we can’t leave her!”

   A pink figure was running under the trees, following a black bird she could hardly see, in all those shadows. Her Pinkie Sense had returned, stronger than in the morning. That raven was the big thing she had felt.

   “Stop right there!” said a cyan body, landing right in front of her.

   “Move away, Dashie!” moaned Pinkie Pie. “I have to follow that bird!”

   Twilight and Fluttershy catch them, exhausted.

   “You...” said the first. “You can’t... be so reckless...”

   “But girls! He’s the Super Doozy! We can catch him!” she looked over Rainbow’s shoulders. “Oh, no, we can’t. I’ve lost him...”

   “Come on, Miss Twitches,” said Dash, pushing her back. “I think you have had too many cupcakes this morning, or maybe not enough. We’ll go back to Ponyville, and...”

   Then, they heard that sound. A strange growl, which actually sounded more like a mix between a gurgle and an actual growl. The four ponies felt that they were being watched, that they had been surrounded.

   Creatures came out of the shadows. They looked like ponies, but their bodies were made of water. Although they were totally faceless, it was perfectly clear that they were not friendly. At all.

   “What are they?” asked Rainbow Dash, preparing to defend herself and her friends. “Melted windigos?”

   “Kelpies!” said Twilight. “Be careful, girls! They’re dangerous water spirits!”

   The horn of the unicorn started to glow, as she stood in front of the kelpies, protecting Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash snorted and flapped her wings, trying to look menacing. She was hoping to scare those things, because she wasn’t sure she could fight entities that were made of water.

   The kelpies walked forward. They also came from behind, so their preys could not retreat.

   Then,  the black wind from before appeared again, forming a defensive whirlwind around the four ponies. The dark breezes created spirals that hit some of the kelpies, forcing the others to step back.

   Pinkie Pie felt it again. She looked up, pointed with a hoof, and exclaimed:

   “It’s him again! The Super Doozy!”

   Her friends looked, expecting to see the raven, but it wasn’t a black bird what it was floating over her heads. Inside of a bubble, acting like the core for that supernatural wind, there was an embryo. Maybe from a pony, but it was still not completely formed, so it could be from any kind of animal.

   It looked really, really, really angry.

   The embryo gave a deadly stare to the aquatic demons.

   “Go away” said a voice.

   Immediately, like if they had seen the most terrific of visions, the kelpies ran away, returning to the shadows.

   Slowly, the bubble rotated, and the embryo looked directly at the ponies.

   “You!” shouted Pinkie Pie, literally jumping from behind Twilight. “We’ve been all day searching for you! It’s nice to finally meet the cause of my twitch!”

   The black wind engulfed the ponies. At the next second, they were outside the Everfree Forest. The last spiral of blackness disappeared over the shadowy trees. There was no trace of the embryo, and Pinkie’s Sense wasn’t tingling anymore.

   “Wait!” said the pink pony, yelling at the forest. “Don’t go! Tell me your name!”

   But he had gone. Not a very sociable supernatural being, after all...

   Pinkie looked at the ground, disappointed. She really wanted to meet that strange entity, specially after all the troubles they had had searching for it. Twilight put a friendly hoof over Pinkie’s shoulder, and suggested that they should go back to Ponyville.

   But, as soon as the pink pony turned around, a voice came from within the trees:

   “My name is Francisco.”

   Pinkie smiled and jumped.  

   “Weeeee!” she squeaked. “Did you hear him, girls? His name is Francisco! Mmh... A bit weird, actually...”

   “Ok, Pinkie, calm down,” said Twilight.

   “Well, it seems that you’ve finally met your Super Doozy,” smiled Rainbow Dash.

   “He doesn’t look like a bad guy,” said Fluttershy. “Only a bit creepy.”

   The pink pony looked at the Everfree Forest.

   “And now, it’s time for my plan!” she announced. “Be ready, girls, because my plan is... pause for dramatic effect... A party!”

The black wind and the pink princess

The black wind and the pink princess

   “A what?” asked Twilight, while returning to Ponyville with her four friends.

   “You’ve asked me the same question eight times already. You should go see the doctor, Twilight,” said Pinkie. “ I said: we’re going to do a Welcome Party for Francisco!”

   “A what!?”

   “Twilight, you’re starting to worry me...”

   “She’s right, Pinkie!” interrupted Rainbow Dash. “Look, I know you have good intentions, but Francisco is not a pony, or a zebra, or a buffalo, not even a friendly dragon, he’s... a thing!”

   The pink pony turned his head to look at Fluttershy.

   “What do you think?” she asked.

   “Uhm... Will we have to enter the Everfree Forest again?”

   “No, we can make the party outside the forest! I’m sure Francisco will come if we call him hard enough!”

   “Then, I think he’ll maybe appreciate the gesture...”

   “Fluttershy!” groaned Dash, seeing that the yellow pegasus was supporting the crazy idea of the crazy earth pony.

   “Please!” begged Pinkie, falling at Twilight’s hooves. “What will Francisco think if he sees that nopony welcomes him to the town? He’ll live alone and sad in the Everfree Forest, and he’ll have no friends, and he will never smile again, and that would be sooooooo saaaaaad, Twilight!”

   And then, she put the eyes. Dear Celestia, those eyes... Even the heart of a windigo would have melted at seeing those eyes. No, actually, the heart of a windigo would have exploded. So, imagine what that stare did to the heart of Twilight, who was just an unicorn.

   “Ugh...” she sighed. “Ok, I guess we can tr...”

   “Yeah!” shouted Pinkie, while jumping. “Oh, I have to prepare everything for the party! We’ll need cake, and balloons, and games, and... I have a lot of things to do! Oh, you have to tell Rarity and Applejack about this! The party will be tomorrow afternoon, at Fluttershy’s cottage, since she lives near the Everfree Forest! Bye!”

   And she ran away, directly to the Sugarcube Corner.

   “You had to accept...” said Rainbow Dash.

   “She used the eyes, what could have I done?”

***

   The next morning, while Pinkie Pie was untiringly bouncing all over Ponyville and buying things for the party, Rainbow Dash went to tell Applejack about the situation.

   “Could yah repeat that again?” asked the orange pony, after the initial explanation of her pegasus friend.

   “Dammit, Applejack, is not so hard to understand: yesterday we entered in the Everfree Forest and met a shapeshifter abomination who probably comes from beyond the dawn of time, and now Pinkie Pie wants to throw a party for him this afternoon.”

   The farmer put her hoof in the front of Rainbow Dash.

   “I think ya’ve been flyin’ at too much speed lately,” she said.

   “I’m not sick! Although, honestly, I wish I was... Look, Applejack, this is serious.”

   “Really? Do yah realize ya’re talkin’ about an embryo in a bubble?”

   “I know it sounds weird, but I assure you: it happened. I don’t really want to go, but you know, it’s Pinkie Pie, she’s very excited about this. We can’t leave her alone.”

   “Ah guess we can’t... An embryo, seriously?”

   “Would you stop thinking about that?” Rainbow Dash flew away. “Don’t forget: this afternoon at Fluttershy’s place.”

***

   Speaking of the yellow pegasus, she was trying to convince Rarity.

   “... and that’s why we have to go to a party this afternoon,” said Fluttershy, finishing her summary of the situation.

   The white unicorn had listened to her very quietly, without missing a single detail. However, as the story had progressed, her face had become the living image of the horror and the disgust.

   “Uhm... are you ok?” asked Fluttershy. “Did I went too fast? Do you want me to repeat something?”

   “You are joking, darling, right?” said Rarity. “Please, tell me you are joking.”  

   “Uhm... I’m afraid not...”

   Then, the unicorn laughed. Immediately after that, she screamed.

   “You can’t really expect me to even be in the same place as such a monster!” was her response. “Only Celestia knows what horrible things will that creature do to a pony of my beauty!”

   “But Francisco is not bad, he saved us.”

   “Probably he was just pretending to be nice! Take look at this!” Rarity went to her room, and then returned with a book on her hooves. “Look!”

   It was The Canterlot Horror, written by somepony named Hoof Phillips Partycraft. The image on the cover showed a yellow monster with several tentacles about to attack a distressed female unicorn.

   “I know everything about creatures like that Francisco you speak about!” said Rarity.

   “Partycraft? I wonder if  he’s related to Pinkie...”

   “And I have several other books that warn about those monsters! The Shadow over Ponyville, The Doom that came to Haynath, The Horse of the Dark... All of them terrifying tales of what happens when ponies meet creatures they weren’t supposed to meet in the first place!”

   Fluttershy gave another look at the cover, and then said:

  “But Rarity, Francisco doesn’t have tentacles...”

***

   “Spike, take quill and paper...”

   “I already have, Twilight,” sighed the baby dragon. “You’ve told me to do it three times already!”

   “Oh, really? Sorry, I am a bit... distracted...”

   Twilight Sparkle hadn’t been able to sleep properly, she had spent almost the entire night thinking about Francisco. Should she warn Princess Celestia about him? He was nearly as powerful as Discord, or at least that was what it looked. After all, he practically had expelled a bunch of evil water spirit, right before teleporting she and her friends outside the Everfree Forest. True that he didn’t seem to be a menace... but a force like that should be watched.

   But Pinkie seemed to trust him. Maybe the Pinkie Sense was telling her that Francisco was not dangerous...

   “What should I do, Spike?” she asked.

   “Go to the party and meet Francisco again. If he’s really a nice guy, you won’t have to write to Celestia about him.”

   “But what if he is dangerous? What if he attacks us at the party? Better safe than sorry, Spike.”

   “But Twilight, if he had wanted to eat you or something, wouldn’t had he done it yesterday?”

   “Maybe he wanted the six of us at the same place! Maybe he knows we are the bearers of the Elements of Harmony and wants to destroy us, to conquer Equestria!”

   “If he knew, wouldn’t he attack each one separately, instead gathering all of you in one place, since together are more powerful?”

   “Uh... good point, Spike.”

***

   Finally, the time of the party came. The six ponies met at Fluttershy’s place, Pinkie had already prepared everything: there was a long table filled with cupcakes, cookies, chocolate cake and punch; right under a signal that said ‘Welcome, Francisco’. There was also a portable Pin the Tail on the Pony, and many balloons of different colours.

   With a green party hat on her head, Pinkie Pie turned to the Everfree Forest and called for Francisco several times. She waited, but he didn’t appear.

   “Could you help me a bit, girls?” she asked.

   The five ponies approached the edge of the forest and called for the entity.

   “Francisco!” Twilight Sparkle.

   “Hey, Francisco!” Applejack.

   “Francisco...” Fluttershy.

   “Louder!” Rainbow Dash. “I mean... Hey, dude, come out!”

   “We are not edible!”, Rarity.

   But there was no response. The six ponies turned their backs on the shadowy trees, Pinkie Pie being particularly sad.

   “Don’t worry, sugarcube,” said Applejack, trying to cheer her up. “This forest is bucking big, probably he didn’t hear us.”

   “I was sure he was going to come...”

   “Well, he didn’t look very sociable to begin with,” pointed out Twilight.

   “Maybe he’s busy with something,” suggested Fluttershy.

   “Well, if he doesn’t come, worse for him,” said Rainbow Dash. “More cake for us!”

   “Phew...” Rarity sighed.

   “Who are we waiting for?”

   The six ponies froze in the instant they heard that voice right behind them. They turned back, slowly, and they screamed.

   A tree had come out of the forest. A moving tree, black as charcoal, with its trunk filled with grinning faces, their yellow eyes and mouths glowing with a ghostly light. And its leafless branches... no, it hadn’t branches. It had tentacles.

   “You said he didn’t have tentacles!” screamed Rarity, hiding behind Fluttershy, who was hiding behind Applejack.

   “What in the hayrnation?!” exclaimed the orange pony.

   The demonic tree giggled, and said:

   “I apologize,” The faces of its trunk gave a sincere sorry look. “I couldn’t resist.”

   “Oh, it was a prank!” laughed Rainbow Dash. “A very good one! But don’t it again. Seriously, never again.”

   Pinkie Pie approached the entity.

   “Francisco?” she asked. “Is that you?”

   “Yes,” answered the moving tree.

   “You don’t look like you looked yesterday...”

   “I like to try new forms every now and then. It keeps my creativity awake. Now, why were you calling me?”

   “Because we’re about to start your Welcome Party!”

   Francisco looked at the balloons and the sweets. Pinkie took a red party hat and put it in one of the tentacles.

   “Is it... for me?” the shapeshifter seemed really surprised.

   “Of course!” smiled Pinkie Pie. “To welcome you to Ponyville, and to thank you for saving us for those meanie wettie kelpies yesterdays!”

   “Ah... It was nothing...” the other ponies couldn’t believe it, but the tree was actually blushing.

   “Come on!” insisted the pink pony, pulling of one of the roots. “We can’t start this party without the honor guest!”

   “I... I don’t think I should...”, Francisco seemed to be reticent to abandon the shadows of the forest.

   “Oh, don’t be shy! It’ll be fun!”

   “Actually, I’ve never been a party guy... I mean, I like a good fun sometimes, but...”

   Pinkie stopped pulling, and looked up to the talking tree, with a sad face.

   “Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate this, but... It’s just that...”

   “Come on!” said a voice. However, this time wasn’t Pinkie, but Twilight. “We just want to officially welcome you to our town!”

   “Yeah!” Applejack stepped forward. “Don’t be so shy!”

   “That’s my job,” smiled Fluttershy.

   “You were very brave against those kelpies!” said Rainbow Dash. “Don’t tell me that you are afraid of a little party!”

   Even Rarity approached Francisco. Well, sort of. She remained behind Fluttershy. However...

   “You don’t look that hideous from this angle...”

   Pinkie smiled to her friends, and then smiled back at the moving tree.

   Francisco wasn’t sure about what he should do. He had come to that world to escape from the darkness and the loneliness... but he also feared the light, and those colours. What if he was not good enough for them? What if they hurt him, or if he hurt them? That’s why he had sheltered himself in the Everfree Forest, because he was still a bit scared.

   But one can’t be scared always. Sooner or later, he would have to try and embrace that light, those colours...

   Francisco slowly approached Pinkie Pie, completely coming out of the ominous presence of the Everfree Forest, and said:

   “Thanks. Let’s... let’s have that party.”

   “Yes!”, shouted Pinkie, jumping so high that she landed in one of Francisco’s tentacles. “Let’s paaaaaar-taaaaaay!”

   “Not so fast,” said Twilight. “Francisco, would you mind to... uhm... take a less monstrous appearance?”

   “Not at all.”

   The shapeshifter put the pink pony on the ground, and his body began to shrink. His tentacles became a mane, and his roots, a tail. The faces disappeared, and on the trunk sprouted four legs, each one ending in a hoof.

   After a few seconds, Francisco had turned into a black stallion with a yellow eye for cutie mark.

   “How is this?” he asked.

   “Black really suits you,” Twilight smiled. “Now we can start the party!”

   The ponies went to the table. However, soon they realized that Francisco hadn’t moved.

   “What’s the matter?” asked Pinkie.

   “Uhm...” Francisco blushed again. “Could you please teach me how to walk?”

   The six girls blinked and looked at each other. Had they heard correctly?

   “I beg your pardon?” said Rarity.

   “I don’t know how to walk with four legs,” explained Francisco. “In which order do I have to move them?”

   “You’re kidding, right?” asked Rainbow Dash. “Yesterday, when you were that raven, you could fly perfectly, and now you don’t know how to walk? So much for a Super Doozy...”

   “I don’t know how to fly with wings, either. I did this...” and the black stallion started to levitate. “I just flapped the wings to make it look realistic.”

   “Ok, don’t worry,” said Twilight. “We’ll teach you how to walk. Look, you have to do this...”  

   After a lot of trial and error, and the help of six patient ponies, the shapeshifter managed to walk to the table without falling to the ground one single time, even though his steps were still a bit clumsy.

   They spent the next minutes talking, drinking and eating. Francisco told them his story, although he omitted several details. He just explained that he was a visitor from another world, and that he had come to Equestria because his dimension of origin was sad and ugly.

   “Oh, poor thing...” said Pinkie Pie. “But you don’t have to worry anymore! Now we’ll be your friends, so you won’t be sad anymore! Come on, everypony, it’s time to play my favourite game!”

   They allowed Francisco to try first. They put a white bandage on his eyes, and the black stallion took the fake tail with his mouth. Pinkie guided him to the picture of the pony. He only had to walk a few steps forward.

   “All right,” said Francisco, taking off the bandage, once it was done. “Did I do it?”

   He had put the tail on the nose of the pony.

   “Dammit. Can I try again, please?”

   “Of course!” smiled Pinkie.

   And so, the black stallion tried it again. This time, he put the tail on a hoof.

   “Dammit.”

   He put the tail on an ear.

   “Dammit.”

   He put the tail in the background of the picture.

   “Dammit!”

   He put the tail on the nose. Again.

   “Oh, you son of a...!”

   Putting the bandage on, Francisco decided to do it his way. From both of their flanks sprouted several tentacles, and each one picked one of the fake tails of the box. Then, completely at random, he put all the tails in the picture.

   “Aha!” he said, taking off the bandage. “This time I did it, I’m sure! I’ve had to pin right at least one of them!”

   The pony of the picture had tails everywhere: the face, the legs, the mane, the back... Everywhere, except where it was supposed to have the tail.

   “Oh, come on!”

   Pinkie Pie couldn’t help but laugh, and so did the others. Francisco looked at his disastrous performance, and he also laughed.

   The party lasted until sunset. They played more games, they ate cake, they danced... The shapeshifter decided to use his powers to entertain his new friends, and he began to transform into whatever they could think of. Pinkie asked him to turn into a cotton candy monster with lollipop wings on its back and streamer cannons on its feet, and he did. They laughed again.  

   Eventually, when the first stars appeared in the sky, the six ponies decided it was time to return to their homes, so they said goodbye to Francisco, once again welcoming him to Ponyville.

   “Thank you, girls,” he said. “I hadn’t had so much fun in a really long time. I’m truly happy to have come to this world.”

   “Tomorrow we should introduce you to the rest of Ponyville,” suggested Twilight. “And I’m sure Princess Celestia would like to meet you as well.”

   “And I will be happy to meet everybo... everypony on this town.”

   And so, the six walked away, back to their homes. Pinkie Pie was going last, bouncing, as always.

   “Wait...” said Francisco.

   “Yes?”, smiled the pink pony, turning back.

   “You... you did all this for me, and you looked so happy to have found me yesterday... Weren’t you afraid of me?”

   “Well... I have to admit, you were kinda ghostly, and maybe so much that I think giggling at you wouldn’t have worked! But I had the feeling that you weren’t going to hurt us.”

   “Did your Pinkie Sense told you that?”

   “Actually... no. I had a feeling, but it wasn’t one of my twitches. At first I wasn’t sure if you were good or meanie, but after seeing you for the first time, I had no doubt. It was kinda weird.”

   The shapeshifter, who had returned to his black stallion form, smiled.

   “I’m glad that you are the first pony I’ve met in this world,” he said.

   “And I’m glad you’re the first black wind, embryo bubble, moving tree, cotton candy monster thing I’ve met in this world, too!” she laughed.

   “Pinkie, before you go...” Francisco blushed again. “Can I... Can I hug you?”

   He thought that he had said something stupid. He thought that he had said something creepy, and that the pink pony would ran away, scared.

   However, happily as always, Pinkie Pie bounced to his side and gave him that desired, warm hug. Francisco smiled as he had never smiled before.

   Then, he transformed into the black wind, and ascended to the stars, in a spiral movement. By doing so, Pinkie’s mane and tale floated to the breeze. For a moment, they took a beautiful and delicate shape, they were elegant, like the mane and the tail of Celestia.

   For a second, Pinkie Pie looked like a princess.

   “Thank you very much,” said Francisco’s voice, once again. “For everything. I hope we’ll be friends for a long time.”

   And the black wind returned to the everfree forest. Smiling, with her mane and tail back to their natural puffy state, Pinkie Pie bounced back to the Sugarcube Corner.

***

   Francisco was flying through the shadowy trees of the Everfree Forest, trying new forms. He became a gargoyle, then an eagle, then a swarm of mutant bees. He landed on a branch and transformed into a silver spiderweb, with a golden spider on the center. Then he returned to the air, under the shape of a winged snake with sapphire eyes.

   He became a colourful bubble, and started to calmly float over the trees. He was happy. He didn’t hate himself anymore, and he loved his new home and the new friends he had made. His destiny wasn’t darkness and loneliness anymore, now he could reach the light, if he wanted to.

   Francisco was really happy.

   The bubble looked up at the sky, at the constellations, and at the mysterious infinite that was sleeping behind the stars. For a moment, he could hear a voice, the voice of that drooling god, saying:

   “Thank you.”            

Unfinished business, part one

Unfinished business (part one)

   Francisco was a in a colourful, happy place. There were other kids with him, some of them accompanied by their mothers, Francisco’s mom was also in that place. Everyone looked happy, everything was alright.

   Except it wasn’t, Francisco knew it. Because nothing of that was real, it was all just a dream. However, he wasn’t able to wake up, and he couldn’t control it, either. In his bones, he knew that something bad was about to happen, and that he had to wake up, but it was impossible. Francisco told that to his mom, but she just laughed at him. He told the other kids and their moms, but they just smiled and said that there was nothing to be afraid of.

   They were wrong.

   Then, he came. The king of that place. Everybody called him Willy, everybody smiled at him, because he was the ruler of that happy room. He sat on his throne and laughed loudly. The other kids and their moms laughed too, but they weren’t aware, they didn’t see the reality...

   They were laughing with him, but Willy was laughing at them. Because all of them were under his control, without even knowing. Then, he noticed that Francisco wasn’t smiling. He walked down from his throne and asked:

   “What’s the matter, little boy?”

   His voice was sweet and kind, like if he really cared about him. But that was a facade.

   “I want to wake up...” Francisco whispered.

   Willy’s face deformed into a twisted smile, and then he laughed again, this time louder than before, maniacally. He took off his face, like if it was a mask, making Francisco scream in terror. Under it there was another face, pale and wrinkled. Willy started to destroy that place with his bare hands, while the kids and their mothers were still laughing with him.  

   They were laughing at Francisco, because he would never be able to wake up...

...

   Francisco opened his eyes. He was back at his bed, in his room. He was sweating, his heart pounding like it had never done before. He had just came out of his first nightmare, and maybe the worst of them all. He was just eight years old.

-------------------------------------------------

   Francisco opened his eyes. The light of the sun was filtering through the shadowy trees of the Everfree Forest. He had just had a weird dream about Superman fighting a cotton candy monster with lollipop wings on his back and streamer cannons of his feet. Then he looked to himself. He was a cotton candy monster with lollipop wings on his back and streamer cannons on his feet.

   He didn’t know he could transform unwittingly while sleeping. He had to be more careful, or else Ponyville could wake up with the view of a squid as big as the Everfree Forest.

   Francisco yawned, and his feet fired two cloud of streamers. Then, he noticed something weird around him: footprints. They were perfectly visible, thanks to the wet ground, but they couldn’t be his, since he had flied to his sleep place, not walked. Besides, the footprints were going away. Oddly, the trail seemed to start right by his side. Maybe he was a sleepwalker?

   But the weirdest of all was that, without a doubt, those footprints had been made by human shoes.

***

   It seemed like a normal morning in Ponyville. The market had just opened, and the first clients were already there. The Weather Patrol had cleared the sky, despite the absence of one member.

   Rainbow Dash was walking. Not flying, walking. She didn’t look well, her face was pale, and her eyes, tired. Her wings were trembling.

   The blue pegasus was spotted by a pink figure in the distance. Immediately, Pinkie Pie ran towards her friend. She didn’t bounce, she ran. Just like Dash, the face of the pink earth pony was pale, and her mane, straight. Her tired eyes were wet.

   “Dashie!”, she screamed, hugging the pegasus.

   “Don’t touch me!” roared Dash, violently pushing her friend away.

   Pinkie Pie fell to the ground. She curled and began to shake, making a big effort to not cry.

   “I’m sorry!” apologized Dash, instantly. “I’m sorry... I didn’t want to push you, It’s just that I have had a very bad night, Pinkie... sorry...”

   “Yeah? M... me too, Dashie...”

   The blue pegasus was about to help her friend, when she heard the sound of a scooter not too far. Opening her eyes widely, she ran, pursuing the sound, until she found a winged filly. Rainbow Dash hugged Scootaloo, while crying.

   “Dash?” asked the little girl, confused. “What’s happening?”

   But the cyan pegasus was unable to talk properly. She could only mumble: “Those fillies... Dear Celestia, all those fillies, and I... I...”

   Still curled, wiping her tears with her own tail, Pinkie Pie watched everything from the distance.

   “Darling?” asked Rarity, approaching. “Is there something wrong?”

   “Bad...” whispered Pinkie. “I’ve been very bad... to Dashie... She hates me...”

   The white unicorn looked at Rainbow Dash, who was still holding Scootaloo between her hooves. Then, she looked around. There were other ponies who seemed to be tired and scared. She had heard that Big Macintosh had refused to leave his room that morning, forcing Applejack to enter there. The orange earth pony had found her big brother curled on a corner, staring at his own hooves, horrified. It was like if Ponyville had suffered a plague of nightmares, if something like that was possible.

   “Come on, darling,” she said, softly, to Pinkie Pie. “Let’s go back to Sugarcube Corner, shall we? I bet you haven’t had your breakfast yet. Would you like some cupcakes?”

   However, at the mere mention of that word, the pink pony screamed.

   “No!” she said, covering her head with her hooves, crying. “Don’t say that! Don’t you ever say that again!”  

   Rarity began to worry. Pinkie was at the very edge of a crisis, if she wasn’t already in one. She needed help, and the white unicorn thought of warning Twilight, but she couldn’t leave her friend alone in that state. Then, a black stallion entered the town, coming from the Everfree Forest. His steps were a bit clumsy.

   “Rarity!” he said. Then, he saw Pinkie and Dash. “What’s happening here?”

   “I don’t know,” answered the unicorn. “It seems that they, as well as the half of the population of Ponyville, have had terrible nightmares. And what are you doing here?”

   “I am searching for something, or someone.”

   “Wouldn’t you mean somepony?”

   “No, someone, I’m afraid, although I don’t know who. But that can wait, Is there something I can help with?”

   Then, they heard a laugh coming from the shadows of an alley. The two of them looked. There was a big figure in the darkness, too big for being a pony. And it was bipedal.

   The creature stepped forward, revealing his shape. A human, a very corpulent human dressed in a gray suit, with arms and legs that were like columns, and enormous hands. His big black shoes were a bit dirty, with mud of the Everfree Forest. And his face... pale, with tiny eyes of black iris, and a sinister grin.

   “Long time no see, little boy” he said.

***

   Twilight was walking through the streets of Ponyville, accompanied by Applejack.

   “How’s your brother?”, she asked.

   “Bad,” said the orange pony. “Granny Smith and Applebloom are takin care of him, but everytime mah sister is near, he starts to cry. I’m worried, Twilight, Big Mac had never had any trouble with nightmares before.”

   The purple unicorn looked to the other ponies in the street.

   “It looks like a plague,” she sighed. “Spike has been affected, too. The poor thing woke up screaming nonsenses about me being a spider.”

   “Do yah think all this is natural?”

   “Half of the ponies in the town having such horrible nightmares just a coincidence? It’s hard to believe. Maybe it’s a spell someone casted on us.”

   “But who would...?”

   The two mares looked each other.

   “Do yah think...?”, asked Applejack.

   “No,” answered Twilight, almost immediately. “That’s impossible, Francisco is our friend! He would never...”

   “Look! There he is!”

   The two ran towards the black stallion. Rarity and Pinkie were there, too, the latter sobbing in the ground, with her mane and tail straight. The shapeshifter was talking to a strange and menacing-looking creature.

   “You!” said Francisco.

   “Ah, I see you remember me,” smiled the human. “It’s been a while, isn’t it? Twenty years, if I’m not mistaken...”

   The mane of the black stallion started to move, even though there wasn’t any breeze. Twilight saw red sparks coming from the charcoal-colored hair. Also, Francisco’s cutie marks, those yellow eyes, became bloodshot.

   “Willy!” he shouted, clenching.

   “I like this town,” said the pale human, looking around. “So colourful... It’s like our happy place. Do you remember it, little boy?”

   “What are you doing here?” asked Francisco. The air around him was, literally, electrified. “No, a better question: why do you even exist? You’re not real, just a nightmare I had when I was a little kid!”

   “And does that matter? After all, aren’t you living right now in a fictio-?”

   “Shut up!” Francisco looked around. None of the ponies seemed to have understood that last line. Good. “Was it you? Are you the responsible for the nightmares?”

   Willy laughed slightly, maliciously, and lifted his index finger.

   “One touch,” he said. “Just one touch on their candy-colored heads, and the darkness comes out. You have chosen wonderful friends, Francisco, all of them are the perfect material to build the sickest nightmares.”

   “Why did you do this?!”

   “Isn’t it obvious? Because it amused me.”

   Twilight approached Francisco, not much in order to not be zapped by the electricity.

   “What’s happening?” she whispered. “Do you know him?”

   The black stallion didn’t answered, he had his eyes fixed on Willy.

   “I am a coward,” he said. However, it was talking to himself and to that human, rather than to Twilight. Then, his body began to change. “I am a coward, I’ve always been a coward, running away from things. I ran away from responsibilities, I ran away from my world, I even ran away from my humanity. But you...”

   Francisco had transformed into an angel. A white faceless angel with three shiny red eyes on his head. His two wings were way bigger than his body, and each one was covered in yellow eyes. At the end of his legs, he had sharp claws instead of feet. Actually, he looked more like an strange alien, rather than an angel.

   “You!” he shouted, pointing at Willy with his index finger. “I’ve been waiting all my life to see you again! We’ll end what we began twenty years ago!”

   Francisco took off, catching Willy and flying to the Everfree Forest.

   Twilight looked at Applejack, no one of them was sure about what had just happened, but they were confident that Francisco would solve it by himself. After all, it seemed to be a personal issue. Meanwhile, they should help Rainbow Dash and the other ponies who had been affected by the nightmares.

   Rarity was hugging Pinkie Pie.

   “Don’t worry, darling...” she was saying. “Our new friend is going to solve everything... you’ll see...”

***

   Francisco dropped Willy in a clearing of the Everfree Forest. The corpulent human fell sonorously to the ground, but that didn’t seem to hurt him. He stood up, still with that evil smile on his face. The white angel landed in front of him. Like if it was a duel from an old Western movie, the two of them looked silently at each other.

   “How?” Francisco asked. “How did you became real?”

   “I thought you would have already figured it out” said Willy. “Now you have many different bodies, and body and mind are connected, never forget that. You have spare avatars for each one of your inner demons, I just had to pick one, change it a little, and the I jumped off your mind. Metaphorically and literally.”

   “I don’t have inner demons. Or at least, I won’t, once I’ve finished with you.”

   Willy laughed. He also massaged his shoulder.

   “It aches a bit,” he explained. “Apparently, the only rule of your powers is that you can’t transform into a human.”

   ‘It makes sense,’ thought Francisco. ‘After all, I had to reject my humanity to acquire them.’

   “Fortunately, it seems that my monstrous soul counteracts my human shape, and so, I can exist with just some aches here and there. But don’t worry, I think I’ll be able to give a good spectacle.” Then, his face deformed in a twisted smile, the one that Francisco had been remembering since his childhood. “Let the fight begin!”

----------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: This is not an attack to Cupcakes, Sweet Apple Massacre, Rainbow Factory, The Spiderses and other similar fics. I haven’t read them, I have no intention of reading them, and I don’t care if there is people who reads/likes them.

I just thought it would be fun.

Unfinished business, part two

Unfinished business (part two)

   Twenty years... It had happened twenty years ago, and Francisco remembered it like if he had had that nightmare the previous night. So clearly...

   Twenty eight years. He was twenty eight when he died, on Earth. Not very much if we think about the average human lifespan, but every time he remembered everything he had done in those almost three decades, Francisco couldn’t help to think of them as an eternity.

   ‘I guess even a short life, if well lived, is long enough...’, he thought.

   Twenty eight years... But, for some reason, Francisco felt really old every time he remembered his human age. In fact, when the drooling god had given him his new body, he had also asked to return to be seventeen again, wish that had also been granted. Francisco had thought that, that way, it would be easier to befriend the Mane Six, after all, they were supposed to be between twelve and eighte-

   His thoughts were interrupted when Willy attacked him. He barely avoided the giant punch, which opened a big hole in the ground. Francisco decided to leave the existential musings for later. He avoided another punch and flew to the air, five meters over Willy’s head. The pale human laughed.

   “What’s the problem?” he asked. “You could end this fight right now, both of us know that. You could just turn into Godzilla and squash me.”

   “I still want to known,” said Francisco. “Why?”

   “Why?” Willy laughed again. “Why does the fire burn? Why does the water wet? I’m a nightmare, fear is what I create and what I eat, that’s why I did it. Also, I wanted to anger you, so our fight could be more intense.”

   “You were looking forward this?”

   “So you were. I’ve been inside your mind all these years, knowing all you thoughts. Every time you wished of dreaming with me again so you could get your revenge, I knew it. You have spent two decades waiting for this moment, and I wouldn’t like it if you weren’t going for my head. To assure that, I angered you.” He extended his arms. “But look at it, little boy! This is not a dream, but a real fight! Better than what you were expecting, right? There’s only one thing that will make this battle different from the one in your fantasies...” Wily unrooted a tree with his bare hands and launched it to Francisco. “You will die, and I will live!”

   The white angel extended his wings, and the yellow eyes between the feathers fired a web of energy beams. The tree was burned in mid-air, and its ashes fell to the ground. However, that moment of distraction was more than enough for Willy to jump and grab Francisco for a leg. The pale human smashed the angel-like creature against the ground. Then, he grabbed Francisco for one of the arms and punched him in the face, launching him to a couple of meters away.

   Pain. The shapeshifter hadn’t felt any pain since he had come to Equestria, but Willy was able to hurt him. He’d better be careful, or that product of his nightmares would beat him up beyond recognition. Francisco flew again, avoiding another of Willy’s punches.

   “And just what did you show to them?” he asked, from the sky. “What kind of horrors did you put into their minds?”

   “Ah, good question,” smiled Willy. “I showed them very funny stories, little boy. For example, that pink one you like so much... I told her a hilarious tale about two friends... who were making cupcakes...”

   Francisco’s three red eyes opened widely.

   “No!” he shouted. “How dare you?!”

   “That’s right, little boy, show me your anger...”

   “How did you knew about them?!”

   “Ugh... Seriously, Francisco, you’re disappointing me a lot today! Will I have to explain everything? I’ve told you that I’ve been in your mind all your life, remember? Everything you saw, I saw it too.”

   “But I never read those fanfics!”

   “Ah, but you read about them. You knew the concepts, and that’s all I needed. My imagination did the rest,” He laughed again. “In fact, I would dare to say that my version of Rainbow Factory is, with all probabilities, worse than the original!”

   “You monster!”

   Francisco’s wings fired again, and the energy beams hit Willy. They left hundreds of holes on the gray suit, but the pale skin was left unharmed. The angel pointed at Willy with his left arm. A blue eye opened on the palm of his hand, and fired a powerful energy wave that caused an explosion. When the smoke dissipated, there was only a big crater.

   ‘Is it done?’ thought Francisco. Then, he was hit a big rock, right between the wings. He fell to the ground, Willy was laughing at his back.

   “Surprised?” he asked. “I may not be very fast, but I’m not a snail, either!”

   Willy started to approach Francisco, slowly. The shapeshifter tried to stood up, and he began to consider the possibility of changing his body.

   “You have provided me so much fun, that I’ve decided to be merciful,” said the pale human, while cracking his knuckles. “I will kill you right now, and you won’t see how I play with your pony friends. Don’t worry, I will not cause nightmares to all of them at the same time, it’s only funny if there are non-affected ponies around to interact with the ones who have had a bad night.”

   “Don’t touch them...” whispered Francisco. “Monster...”

   “Monster? Me? Well, maybe... But, if you think about it, my nightmares have actually improved Ponyville. Did you see Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo? They looked like if they were sisters, didn’t they? I bet that, for now on, that blue pegasus will appreciate that filly more than ever. Same goes for Big Mac, I’m sure that he is thankful that his little sister is still alive.”

   “Shut up...”

   “Speaking of Applebloom...” Willy raised his punch, prepared to deliver the final blow to Francisco. “I think I’m going to show her the same nightmare I showed to her big brother. That way, she will appreciate the fact that her two little friends are not dead.”

   He shouldn’t have said that.

   Willy was hit by a punch bigger than his own head, and harder than steel. Francisco had transformed in the blink of an eye, now he was a huge beast, with sharp teeth and a long tail ending on a blade. His skin was a hard armor, like the exoskeleton of an insect, filled with horns and spikes that were, literally, minerals. His head was elongated, and now he had two tiny eyes, similar to Willy’s, but totally white. White of rage.

   To put it shortly, it looked like a mix between a xenomorph of the Alien movies and the monster Doomsday, from the Superman comics.

   Willy laughed maniacally.

   “Yes!” he said. “That’s what I wanted! The real fun begins no-!”

   Francisco punched him again, launching him against a tree, which Willy broke. Before he could stood up, the beast jumped over him and started to punch him repeatedly. The shapeshifter grabbed the head of his enemy and used it as a hammer to open holes in the ground.

   The pale human managed to free from Francisco and tried to counterattack, but the shapeshifter saluted him with a direct headbutt. The beast grabbed Willy by the neck and prepared his tail. The blade descended quickly. However, the pale man, still smiling like a demented, caught it with his teeth. Then he punched Francisco in the belly. Despite the exoskeleton, despite the minerals, the shapeshifter felt pain.

   Willy stood up, with his suit shredded. He punched Francisco in the face, then kicked him in the chest. The boy retreated back to his angel form, and tried to fly again, but a new punch left him on the ground, defenseless.

   “Pathetic,” spitted Willy. “And I thought you will put up a decent fight for longer... Anyway, I should end this right here. I have ponies to attend.”

   “No,” Francisco stood up, barely. “I won’t let you-”

   “Oh, shut up. You are not funny anymore, probably you never were. That’s right, you never stopped being that baby, crying because you couldn’t wake up. Well, be ready, because I will send you to a dream where you will sleep forever. But before that, I want to hear your screams one more time. Say, do you remember this?”

   And he took off his face, like a mask. Under it, there was another face, as pale as the previous one, but wrinkled, as if it was the face of an evil old wizard, or an ogre from a dark fairytale. Willy laughed one more time, and launched his final punch.

   His big knuckles hit Francisco’s face, but nothing happened. The white angel didn’t move an inch.

   “First of all, I’m not a kid anymore,” he said. “I’ve seen many horror films, I’ve known the dark side of the Internet, I’ve been living in the cold streets, I’ve died, I’ve met a drooling god, and many of my new bodies are heavily inspired by lovecraftian imagery. You can’t scare me with those old tricks.”

   Willy punched again, and again, but his attacks had no effect.

   “Second, let me thank you.”

   “What!?”

   “You told me the way of defeating you, I’ve just realized right now. You said that I had spare avatars for my inner demons, which means that the body you’re using right now comes from me. In other words: I can control it.”

   The smile of the pale man faded away. He kept punching, but it was like if the angel was a wall of solid steel, and he was just a mere human.

   “You’ve lost,” said Francisco. “This is for making Pinkie Pie cry.”

   And he slapped Willy, launching him against another tree.

   “This is for making Rainbow Dash cry.”

   An invisible force lifted Willy into the air, and then let him fall to the ground.

   “This is for Big Mac, and all the other ponies you traumatized.”

   Willy was lifted, higher than before, and then he fell again.

   “And this...” Francisco, using his talons, grabbed Willy by the head and flew, so high that Ponyville could be seen in the distance. “This is for me. For that horrible night, when I was eight years old.”

   The angel descended at highspeed, smashing Willy’s face against the ground and opening a big crater. Francisco released his enemy from his claws and stepped away, wrapping himself in in his white wings. He looked at the pitiful pale human, he wasn’t scary or strong anymore. Willy, the nightmare from his childhood, was now in his power. With just a thought, Francisco could make him explode. He could take his revenge, quick and without leaving marks.

   However... was it right? Should revenge exist in Equestria, that beautiful world of colours? Francisco had gone to that place to be happy, not to kill someone. Not even a part of himself.

   “Go,” he said, turning his back on Willy. “Hide yourself in some cave, far away, and live a peaceful life. Don’t come near Ponyville or any other city in Equestria, and I will let you live.”

   Willy didn’t answer. He stayed with his face on the ground, moaning, growling. Francisco started to walk away.

   The pale man stood up, with the rage filling his body. He tried to attack, again.

   “You shouldn’t have turned your back on me, fool!” he shouted.

   Francisco closed his three red eyes. Apparently, there was no other option.

   Then, Willy exploded, and not a single cell remained. The white angel didn’t look at the explosion, he just kept walking, silently. It was done. After twenty years, it was finally done.

***

   A black stallion came out from the Everfree Forest and entered in Ponyville. His steps were slow and a bit clumsy, like if he was injured. His body had no wounds, yet somehow he looked like if he had just came from a fight. But it was ok, because he had won.

   Francisco found Twilight on the street. She was alone.

   “Where is everypony?” he asked.

   “Rarity has taken Pinkie back to Sugarcube Corner,” explained the unicorn. “We called Fluttershy, and she’s taking care of Rainbow Dash. Applejack had to return to the farm, to help his brother. What happened with that pale creature from before?”

   “He won’t harm any of you anymore. He’s gone.”

   “I’m glad to hear that. But you seemed to know him, who was he?”

   Francisco gulped. He had been dreading that moment in all the way back to the town. The time of the explanations.

   “I’m sorry,” he said.

   “What do you mean?”

   The shapeshifter told Twilight everything: that Willy was a nightmare from his childhood, and that he had became real thanks to his powers.

   “It was my fault,” he whispered, looking at his hooves.

   “No, it wasn’t,” said Twilight. “You had no idea that this could happen.”

   Francisco looked at the unicorn, surprised.

   “Then, will you forgive me?”, he asked.

   “There’s nothing to forgive. And even if there it was, we forgave Princess Luna for becoming Nightmare Moon incident, we can forgive you.”

   “Thanks.”

   “Don’t worry about that. Now we have to help those affected by the nightmares. I’ll go back to the Library, to search for a spell. See you later.”

   “Goodbye.”

   The purple unicorn went away. Francisco looked at the streets, there were much less bystanders than usual.

   Twilight was wrong, it was his fault. If he had forgotten about Willy instead of wishing to encounter him again for twenty years, maybe that demon would have vanished in the corners of his mind, and nothing of that would have happened. It was his fault, and he had to fix it.

***

   Rarity left the Sugarcube Corner. Finally, with the help of Mr. and Mrs. Cake, they had been able to put Pinkie to sleep again. Hopefully, this time she would dream nice things.

   Then, the mane of the unicorn started to move. A strange wind had appeared out of nowhere in all Ponyville, but it wasn’t black, so probably Francisco had nothing to do with it. Surely it was just a natural weather phenomenon. Rarity ignored it and decided to return to her boutique. She had work to do.

   The strange wind surrounded the entire town, including Sweet Apple Acres and the house of Rainbow Dash, like an invisible dome. Francisco was going to erase the memories of those terrible nightmares from the heads of everypony. They wouldn’t remember Willy, either.

   Yes, they were going to forget...

   “Did you see Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo? They looked like if they were sisters, didn’t they?”

   The wind stopped.

   “Same goes for Big Mac, I’m sure that he is thankful that his little sister is still alive.”

   ‘Damn you, Willy,’ Francisco thought. He could almost hear the laugh of that demon in his head.

   If he erased the memories of the nightmares, all the feelings derived from them, even the good ones, would also disappear.

   Was it worth to conserve them? They were feelings of love, but they had born from the pain and the fear. The ponies would forget valuable things, but their minds and souls would be cleaned from the darkness of the previous night. It would be a necessary sacrifice.

   But... Francisco had lived on Earth, which was way different from Equestria. Sometimes, in some places, there were only a few good things on Earth, and they couldn’t allow to miss a single one, they had to treasure every one of them, because the sadness was outside, and it could come at anytime.

   Not a single good thing should be lost, ever. And maybe the true solution was not to forget things... but to face them.

   And so, the wind blew again over Ponyville, in every street, in every house, in every room. It didn’t erase the memories of anypony, but it gave them strength. Strength to overcome the nightmares, strenght to see that they had been only bad dreams which could not hurt them, strength to defeat the darkness and banish the horror to the corners of their imagination.

   And strength to embrace the new valuable things they had learn from those unpleasant experiences.

   Soon, everypony was healed. They stopped talking about the nightmares, and those who still did, laughed at those ridiculous dreams, wondering how could they had allowed them to disturb their lives so much. Unlike Francisco, the ponies wouldn’t have any unfinished business with their nightmares, which would never return.

   Pinkie Pie woke up from a short, yet very nice dream. Her mane and tail were puffy again, and she didn’t remember the nightmare very well, only that it was about a laughably impossible situation involving cupcakes and Rainbow Dash. She felt the urge to make a party for the blue pegasus. Why? She was Pinkie Pie, she didn’t need a reason for a party.

   She went downstairs. The Cakes were glad to see that she had recover her smile.

   Then, somepony knocked at the door. It was Francisco.

   “Hi!” said Pinkie, bouncing around him. “Have you come to visit me? How nice! Hey, can we play the Transformation Game again, can we?”

   “I’m sorry, Pinkie,” smiled Francisco, looking back at his cutie mark. The yellow eyes on his flanks were closed. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to transform into anything for some days. I used all my powers to do... a little miracle, and it will take a while for them to grow back.”

   “Oh, well... I doesn’t matter! I know more games we can play!”

   “Actually, Pinkie, I was thinking if you could show me the town.” He blushed. “That’s it, if you don’t have other things to do, of course...”

   “Okey dokey lokey!”

   The pink pony bounced away, and Francisco followed her. He was glad to see her happy again.

   “Do you know what?” he asked. “I’ve been thinking, and I’m going to stop living in the Everfree Forest. I want a house here, in Ponyville. I will also need a job.”

   “No problem!” smiled Pinkie. “We’ll find a house for you, but after your welcome party!”

   “Uh... I already had a welcome party.”

   “Then, we’ll make a welcome party for your house!”

***

   Rainbow Dash was flying over the town, searching for somepony. She found her.

   “Hey, Scootaloo!”, she said, landing near the filly.

   “Hello, Rainbow Dash. Are you ok now? You were acting weird before.”

   “Yeah, I don’t know what happened to me... Say, Scoot, do you wanna hang out with me?”

   The eyes of the pegasus filly shone.

   “Yes!”, she shouted. “Yes, of course I do! ... Wait a minute, Rainbow Dash, you never want to hang out with me! What’s going on?”

   The blue mare scratched her head with a hoof.

   “I had a bad dream that made me think.”, she said. “I’ve decided that I owe you a bit more of dedication. After all, you’re my number one fan, aren’t you?”, and she winked. “Come on, let’s see if you can catch me with that scooter!”

   “All right!”

The Dark Beast

The Dark Beast

   A monotone sound was the only thing that could be heard in that darkness. A breathing, from something which was sleeping.

   The door opened a bit, allowing a shy ray of light to enter in the dark room. Fortunately, it didn’t hit the face of the sleeping creature, so it didn’t woke up. Good. In silence, two little intruders approached the bed, following the snores.

   Then, they jumped on it.

   “Ugh!”

   Mrs. Cake turned the lights on, illuminating the room and revealing that the ones who were jumping on Francisco’s tummy were none others than Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake.

   “Kids, don’t do that!” said Mrs. Cake, taking the foals away. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you ok, Francisco?”

   “I don’t have stomach anymore...” whispered the black stallion, embracing his belly.

***

   Pinkie had convinced the Cakes to give Francisco a job at Sugarcube Corner, as well as one small room. His tasks included: cleaning the store, taking the deliveries to their destination, and occasionally, taking care of the twins. The Cakes only could paid him in a few bits and some cupcakes, but it was ok.

   Francisco looked at his cutie mark. It had been four days, and the yellow eyes were still closed. His powers hadn’t came back yet. Who would have thought that a multi-injection of self-confidence would drain so much energy? Well, paraphrasing Morgan Freeman in certain movie: Transforming into a cotton candy monster is not a miracle, just a cheap magic trick. Now, giving strength to dozens of ponies and helping them to overcome their fears? That is a miracle.

   Francisco sighed and entered in the kitchen.

   “Good morning!” said Pinkie Pie. “Today I’m in charge of the breakfast! Take your seat, and we’ll eat in no time!”

   “I don’t know if I will be able to digest anything...” moaned Francisco, rubbing his tummy with a hoof. “Your little stepsiblings used me as a trampoline. Again.”

   “Don’t be mad. They do that because they like you!”

   “Does that mean they jump over you, too?”

   Pinkie’s eyes shrank, suddenly.

   “No!” she screamed. “They don’t jump over me! That means they don’t like me! Oh, no, I must do something! I know, I’ll make them the best breakfast ever!” and she started to bake frantically.  

   The Cakes also entered in the kitchen, putting the twins in their baby chairs. Pound and Pumpkin rotated their heads very slowly to look directly at Francisco with their shiny happy round eyes, and gave him two big, joyful, and yet very uncomfortable grins.

   ‘They can smell my fear...’, thought the black stallion, while gulping.

   “Today we have to take these two to the Pediatrician,” explained Mr. Cake. “I’m afraid we will be out all the morning.”

   “What a coincidence!” said Pinkie Pie, who had somehow managed to bake an entire breakfast in twenty seconds, and now she was serving it. “I have to go help Fluttershy with some of her animals, and I will be out all morning and all afternoon.”

   “It seems that Sugarcube Corner is yours, Francisco,” smiled Mrs. Cake. “We’ll open it in the afternoon, once we come back. You can use this free morning to rest, you have worked a lot these past four days.”

   “Certainly,” nodded Mr. Cake. “We thank you for all your help.”

   “I do my best,” Francisco looked at his breakfast, but his stomach complaint. He could still feel the twins, jumping and jumping... “I think I’m not very hungry this morning, I’ll wait till lunch time. Here you have it, foals,” and he passed his breakfast to Pound and Pumpkin, who had already started to eat solid food.

***

   Pinkie and the Cakes left after the breakfast. Francisco did a basic cleaning of the place, and then returned to his room, to sleep a bit. Eventually, though, he became bored and decided to do something else...

   Francisco moved his pawn. On the other side of the chessboard, a little alligator was looking at the two edges of infinity at the same time.

   “Your turn, Gummy,” said the black stallion.

   The alligator blinked. Then, he picked a tower with his toothless mouth and moved it.

   “Checkmate again?!” shouted Francisco. “How do you do that?”

   Gummy blinked.

   “Well, I guess I’ve had enough chess for today.”

   Francisco was thinking about trying with the Monopony, when he heard the sound of the door’s bell.

   “Sorry, we’re closed this morning,” he said, leaving the games and going to see who had come. “Oh, it’s you, Twilight.”

   “Hi, Francisco,” smiled the unicorn. “I was searching for you. Do you have a moment?”

   “Of course. I have the entire morning free.”

   “Good! I need you to come to the Library. I think I’ve found a spell that will restore your powers!”

   “Really? That would be great!” Francisco rubbed his tummy again. “If I could transform again, those two little Horses of the Apocalypse could jump over me as much as they wanted, and I wouldn’t feel any pain.”

   “Then, let’s go. If everything goes as planned, you’ll have your powers back in less than an hour.”

   “Thanks a lot, Twilight. You didn’t have to...”

   “After all the things you did for us? Of course I had! Besides, it mustn't be nice to be four days without your powers, that would be like if I had to spent four days without my magic. “, she trembled at that thought. “That would be terrible! Also, I had thought that you should meet Princess Celestia soon, and that it would be better if you had your abilities back. But the main reason why I do this is because we are friends. Friends help each other.”

   “Friends...” mumbled Francisco.

   “Yes, we are friends,” said Twilight, thinking that the stallion had asked a question. “And Pinkie and the others are also your friends, and Ponyville is your new home. And the Cakes are almost your family now!”

   ‘Family...’ thought Francisco, without talking.

   He had had a family on Earth, and now he was trying to not to think about them, he didn’t want to think about the concept of family, in order to avoid sad memories. Francisco hadn’t planned on being adopted by a couple in Ponyville, or to marry, and much less, to have foals. Besides, he wasn’t a pony, he was a shapeshifting abomination. Could something like him have a family? And more important: did he want a family, to begin with?

   The answer to both questions was: maybe.

   “Let’s go,” he smiled.

***

   Some ponies said that Twilight Sparkle had brought the magic to Ponyville, and in certain sense, they were right. Since the arrival of the purple unicorn, lots of strange events had happened in the town, most of them related with magic. So, when that morning the windows of the Library opened violently and a black wind flew through them, everypony assumed it was just another of Twilight’s experiments.

   However, when they saw the unicorn being dragged out of the building by a nervous Spike, they immediately knew that something was wrong. At the same time, in other point of the town, the knee of a pink pony was pinching.

   The black wind gathered in the center of the town, creating a figure, a body. It was something big, even more than the Ursa Minor, to the point that everypony in the town could see it, no matter how far they were. The creature was completely covered by shadows, like a black mist, so its real shape couldn’t be seen. Only three things were visible in that curtain of darkness:

   Two claws, each one as big as a building.

   Three long horns, like obsidian columns.

   A face. Two eyes and a mouth, the three of them glowing with an orange fiery light, like if they were the pits of Hell.

   “Twilight!” said Rainbow Dash, landing near her friend. “What’s happening?”

   “Something went wrong!” coughed the unicorn. “The spell... I must have committed errors...”

   “What are you talking about? What is that thing?”

   “It is... Francisco...”

   The blue pegasus looked at the entity. Honestly, she had already imagined that Francisco had something to do with that, after all, the black wind was his trademark, more or less. However, when she looked at those hellish eyes, Rainbow Dash didn’t see that shy black stallion, the one that had saved her from the kelpies, the one that was terrible at playing Pin the Tail on the Pony.

   There was no kindness or shyness in those eyes, in that creature. Only rage, darkness and violence, all of them united under the command of a mindless soul. Rainbow Dash was looking at a Beast, and the Beast was looking at Ponyville.

   Buildings, living creatures... colours, sounds, shapes... That place was full of life, and he had to destroy it.

   The monster raised one of his claws, prepared to annihilate everything on his path. Some ponies foresaw his intentions, and ran away. However, when the beast was about to start his rampage, he saw something on the streets.

   A couple. A yellow stallion and a blue mare, with two foals. The babies weren’t scared, they were too little to understand what was that gigantic mass of darkness that had appeared out of nowhere. But they were worried, because they were old enough to see that something was very, very wrong.

   The Beast stopped, and groaned a word:

   “Family...”

   Then, two colossal wings of shadows opened on his back, and he flew to the skies. For a moment, his gigantic body blocked the light of the sun.  

   “Call the others...”, whispered Twilight.

***

   The Beast looked down. For some reason he couldn’t understand, Ponyville had to be spared. He wasn’t allowed to destroy that town.

   He looked at the distance, and saw a beautiful white fortress in a mountain not so far away.

   The monster roared. He had just found his next objective.

***

   Francisco realized he wasn’t in the Library anymore. He tried to stand on his four hooves, only to discover that he had no legs. No mane, no tail... not even eyes. He had become a disembodied conscience, floating in a very strange place.

   He was in a gray, very long corridor that seemed to extend to the infinite. The walls were made of thousands of stacked glass cages, and inside each one of them, there was a body frozen in time. Francisco saw a white angel, an embryo, a black stallion, a cotton candy monster... and many, many others.

   His avatars. Those were the things trapped inside the cages.

   “Hello, boss,” said a voice.

   Francisco tried to turn back, but he couldn’t. He didn’t need to, either, since he was able to see in all directions in his new bodyless state, he just had to focus in one of them.

   The entity who had talked was a broom. A living broom with arms, like those in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It was holding another broom in its hands, a normal one, and it was using it to sweep the floor. Kinda redundant.

   “Where am I?” asked Francisco.

   “I would say that this is the metaphysical equivalent of a storehouse.”, explained the broom. The one with arms, not the normal one.

   The shapeshifter didn’t recall going to that place. The last thing he could remember was that he was in Twilight’s Library, the unicorn had explained to him that his powers hadn’t gone, they just had ran out of batteries, and that she was going to try an energy transfusion. After that, he remembered nothing.

   “Why am I here?” he asked.

   “Well, I would say that one of your bodies has taken control of your being, banishing you to this place in your subconscious.”

   “What? That’s impossible! I mean... I am the mind, the others are just avatars! How can they act on their own?”

   “Don’t you remember? Mind and body are connected, I think Willy told you that. Besides, the body we’re talking about is a special one.”

   “What do you mean...?” asked Francisco, but then he shaked his head (or at least, he tried) and decided that it was no time for questions. He had to return to Ponyville. “How do I get out of here?”

   The broom shrugged.

   “No idea, boss,” it said, still sweeping.

   “Damn it... I think this is going to take a while. I hope that body is not causing troubles out there.”

   “He was about to destroy Ponyville, but for some reason he decided to crush Canterlot instead.”

   “What?! I have to stop him!”

   “Good luck, boss, you’ll need it. Like I said, this is a special body.”

   Francisco decided to obtain all the information he could about his rebel avatar.

   “What do you mean by ‘special’?” he asked.

   The creature broom left the object broom in the floor, and then started to walk towards the end of that long, long corridor.

   “Follow me,” it said.

***

   The streets of Canterlot were empty. Fortunately, the Beast was big and loud enough to see him coming from miles of distance, so Princess Celestia had ordered the immediate evacuation of all the citizens. She wasn’t willing to have any civilian loss. Actually, she would prefer to not have any loss at all.

   The monster was almost above the city. The army of royal pegasi took off like a swarm of killer bees. Their job was to stop the advance of the creature, and if it was possible, to make him retreat. However, the Beast flapped his dark wings, and a hurricane of black wind hit all the pegasi, making them fall over the streets of Canterlot like rain. At a sign of Celestia, the army of royal unicorns, stationed on the battlements of the castle, fired magic beams all at once, but it was futile, since the attacks were absorbed by the shadowy body of the monster. It seemed that nothing could stop him.

   A bit far from there, but gradually coming closer to the city, an emergency train was rushing his way to Canterlot, with six very important ponies on the inside.

   “Why would Francisco do this?” asked Fluttershy.

   “It was my fault,” explained Twilight. “My magic must have caused him to transform that way.”

   Pinkie didn’t say anything. She was on the window, silently looking at Canterlot.

   “You don’t know that, Twilight,” said Rarity trying to comfort her friend. “Maybe it was just an accident.”

   “Thank Celestia, he didn’t do anything to Ponyville,” said Applejack. “But I wonder why.”

   “I know why,” said Pinkie Pie. “Didn’t you hear what he said?”

***

   “Here it is,” said the broom.

   They had reached a strange cage, much bigger than the others, made of black glass and covered in chains. It was broken.

   “What was in there?” asked Francisco.

   “You tell me, boss,” shrugged the broom. “As soon as the drooling god gave you your powers, you unconsciously sealed that body in this prison, so I guess it must be something serious.”

   Francisco approached. The broken cage was surrounded by a frightening aura, even though it was empty.

   “Twilight’s spell must have freed him,” he said. “But how? She didn’t know it was here, neither did I!”

   “When we don’t know that something is there, it is much easier for that something to move and act at our backs.”

   “But what is it? I don’t have any more nightmares!”

   “A mind is made of many elements, and not only the nightmares can turn against us. Forbidden desires, emotions that we repress... dark feelings...”

   “I have to stop him!” repeated Francisco.

   “Try it, boss.”

***

   A clash of two titans was taking place in the skies of Canterlot. The Dark Beast, a mindless monster of shadows and destruction; against the Princess of the Sun, the powerful white alicorn who ruled that land. Celestia’s body was surrounded in a heavenly light, and an incredible accumulation of magic was glowing in her horn.

   The Beast roared, and his orange mouth spitted a river of flames. With her light, Celestia managed to stop and deflect the attack. Then, she fired a powerful energy beam that managed to harm the monster, but only a bit. The Beast flapped his wings again, creating a violent dark wind that could have left Canterlot in ruins. However, Celestia summoned her own wind, white as her skin, and the two tornados clashed in the air and disappeared without causing any damage to the city.

   The Beast tried to catch Celestia with his claws, but the alicorn, agile as a pegasus, avoided his attacks and shot more energy beams. Then, a powerful blast of blue-colored energy descended from the sky and hit the Beast right in the head.

   “I’m here, sister!” said Luna, flying near Celestia. “What is this creature?”

   “I don’t know. Be careful, it is a powerful foe!”

   The monster roared in anger, causing the entire mountain to tremble. He spitted his flames again, but the two princesses combined their powers and blocked the attack. Then, the shadows that covered the creature’s body became tentacles of darkness, and tried to catch the alicorns. Celestia and Luna avoided them as they could, but there were too many.

   The alicorn of the moon was brutally hit and launched against the walls of the castle.

   “Luna!” shouted Celestia. She got distracted by a second, and another tentacle caught her, wrapping around her body and squeezing it like an anaconda.

   The white alicorn summoned all of her powers and zapped the Beast with a magic discharge. The monster roared in pain, but he was stronger, and Celestia soon ran out of her powers. The Beast freed the princess from his tentacle, and she fell to the streets of Canterlot.

   Injured, Celestia looked up. The creature was over her beloved city, prepared to start a devastating rampage. It seemed that everything was lost....

   “Leave it to us, Princess!” said a familiar voice.

***

   Francisco approached the cage even more, decided to stop his rebel body. He wasn’t sure about how to do that, but he had to try. He didn’t want to think about how much destruction his avatar would cause for each second he wasted in that place.

   “You!” he said, shouting at the broken black glass. “You are one of my bodies! By the power granted to me by the drooling god, I command you to return to your prison!”

   Two seconds passed, and nothing happened. However, at the third second, a wave of darkness came out of the cage, and engulfed both Francisco and the broom. It was like a river, a whitewater made of shadows. The shapeshifter tried to resist, but in his bodyless state, he couldn’t do much. He tried to reach the other cages, maybe his other avatars could help, but the darkness didn’t let him.  

   Then, Francisco sensed it. There was something in that blackness, a conscience, but very simple and primitive, not the mind of a human or a pony. He felt rage, bloodthirst, and desire for destruction The darkness was alive, and it wanted to devour him. It wanted the absolute control.

   Francisco couldn’t do anything. Feeling hopeless, he let himself be swallowed by the  dark wave. There was no salvation...

   Then, he saw a tiny light in the distance.

   No, he saw six tiny lights in the distance .

   “My, my...” said the broom, who had been almost devoured by the shadows. “It seems you’ve made powerful friends out there, boss.”

***

   The rainbow of the Elements of Harmony hit the Dark Beast right in the face. The monster roared, louder than a thunder or a volcano, and the land trembled again. He tried to flee, but Celestia and Luna, using their last strengths, chained him with magic, so he couldn’t escape the purification.

   “Hold on, my dear student!” said the Princess of the Sun. Near her, the six ponies, each one wielding her Element, were attacking with all the strenght they were capable of.

   The Beast tried to flap his wings once more, but they banished. His dark body began to shrink, and his roar became a whisper, until it dissipated on the wind. The shadows were compacted in a much smaller body, which laid on the streets of Canterlot, unconscious.

   It was a black stallion. His cutie marks were yellow eyes. They were opened.

   Twilight and the others stopped the attack and approached Francisco, carefully. The shapeshifter opened his eyes and stood up slowly, horrified by what he had almost done. The purple unicorn was going to say something, when she noticed that Princess Celestia was behind her, also looking at the mysterious black stallion.

In the shadows of a dungeon

In the shadows of a dungeon

   Not even an hour after the incident, Canterlot was back to normal. At least, for the citizens. In her castle, Princess Celestia was dealing with the cause of what could have been a disaster. She had listened to the story of Francisco, who was surrounded by guards, and now she was hearing Twilight’s explanation.

   “... and I guess something went wrong with my spell, and caused Francisco to transform into that monster,” said the unicorn.

   She looked at her teacher. The white alicorn, as well as her sister, had bandages in several parts of her body. Twilight had never seen Celestia wounded, and wondered if she would be mad. But even if she wasn’t, how would the Princess of the Sun react to a force like Francisco, who was able to leave the two rulers of Equestria in such bad shape?

   “It was my fault,” Twilight added, quickly.

   “No, it wasn’t,” said Francisco. “Your Majesty, Twilight Sparkle didn’t know that the Beast was inside me.”

   “And I assume neither did you,” said Celestia.

   “No, your Majesty.”

   The white alicorn walked near the black stallion, studying him.

   “You have quite peculiar powers,” she said. “No entity in Equestria could have give them to you, so I assume that your tale about the drooling god is true.”

   “It is, your Majesty.” Francisco bowed before the Princess. He was trying to be polite and, at the same time, to show that he was really sorry.

   “I can see that you are not a bad pony,” continued Celestia. “Also, my student and her friends seem to trust you, and that’s enough for me. If you tell me that this incident was nothing more than an accident, I’ll believe you. However, you must understand, Francisco, that I can’t just let you go after the terrible power you showed.”

   “I understand, your Majesty. If you allow me, I would like to choose my punishment.”

   Celestia raised a hoof.

   “I’m not going to punish you,” she said. “I just want to keep you under vigilance, to avoid future disasters. About which method should I use, the choice is yours.”

   “Then, throw me in your deepest dungeon and keep me there forever.”

   Everypony gasped.

   “It’s not necessary to-”, said Celestia, but Francisco interrupted her.

   “I can’t promise that I will be able to control that Beast. My mere existence is a threat to Ponyville, Canterlot, and all of Equestria. Please, banish me to the shadows, so the monster may never return.”

   “Neither you will,” warned Celestia.

   “So be it.”

   The six mares opposed the idea, even Luna said that it wasn’t necessary to reach that extreme. However, Francisco was looking directly at Celestia, silently begging her to fulfill his wish.

   The white alicorn sighed.

   “It is his choice,” she said. “Guards, take him to the dungeons.”

***

   In the dark depths of the Everfree Forest, two enormous eyes opened, glowing with a green light and vanishing all the shadows in the proximities. The parasprites, the kelpies and the timber wolves ran away at the sight of that emerald flash, because they knew its meaning. The humongous creature stood up and advanced, crushing trees and stones in its path.

***

   The guard opened the gate, and six mares entered in the dungeon. That place was silent, all the cells were empty. It hadn’t been used in several centuries.

   “Francisco?” asked Pinkie. “Is that you?”

   All the cells were empty, minus one.

   Hiding in the shadows at the other side of the bars, a small faceless creature, not a pony, was curled.

   “Leave me alone,” he whispered.

   “Stop with the theatre!” said Rainbow Dash. “You shouldn’t be here, you know it, we know it, even the Princess knows it! So, come out and let’s go back to Ponyville!”

   “I can’t go back. I will destroy everything.”

   “That’s not true,” said Fluttershy. “You just had a tantrum, everypony has them sometimes, even me.”

   “It was an accident,” said Twilight. “It wasn’t your fault, neither it was mine, you said it. But the Beast is gone now, everything is ok!”

   “No, it isn’t,” moaned Francisco. “Don’t you see? I have caused only disasters since I came to Equestria. First, the nightmares, and now, I almost destroyed your capital...”

   “But you also saved us from those nightmares!” said Rarity. “You defeated that monster, Willy! And I’m sure you would have also battled that Beast to save us!”

   “You don’t understand. I saw it, the darkness inside me. It is a demon, it will try to take control of my powers as soon as I get weak or distracted. But it’s worse than that, the Beast is a mark, a reminder of from where I come. I left my world because I wanted to escape from its ugliness and be happy, but that ugliness is inside me. All the rage, all the negative feelings... No matter how much I change my body, no matter how far I run away, that darkness will be always inside me, because it’s the darkness of the place I come.”

   “Oh, please!”, groaned Applejack. “Ya’re always talkin’ about how horrible yer world is, Ah think ya’re exaggeratin’ a bit. It can’t be that bad!”

   “It is. You haven’t lived there.”

   “Uh... I think...” said Fluttershy. “Maybe the darkness is inside you because you have such sad thoughts about your home.”

   “It is not my home anymore, neither is Equestria,” Francisco looked at the ceiling of stone. “Again, darkness and loneliness are my destiny. No home, no family, no friends. Don’t waste your time with me, and go back to your town.”

   The six ponies looked at each other. They wanted to help their friend, but nothing could be done if the shapeshifter didn’t want to be helped. Applejack shook her head, saying that there were no more reasons for them to be in that dungeon, at least, for the moment.

   So, they went away, silently. They didn’t even said goodbye.

   “Francisco,” Pinkie Pie was still in front of the cell, looking at the small creature. “When you were the Beast, you didn’t touch one building of Ponyville. Do you know why? I know it, I saw it. You looked at us, and you called us ‘Family’. What I mean is, if that bad meanie monster knew that we are your family, you should know it even better, shouldn’t you?”

   Francisco looked at Pinkie. If he had had any face at that moment, it would have been a surprised one.

   “But, If you want this...” smiled the pink pony. A sad smile. “Goodbye, Francisco.”

   And she walked away.

   The shapeshifter was left alone in the darkness, thinking.

***

   Twilight and her friends returned with Princess Celestia. The white alicorn didn’t have to ask, just seeing the long faces of the little ponies was more than enough to understand that Francisco had refused to forgive himself.

   “I am sorry,” she said. “Give him time. I’m sure that, maybe in a few days, he’ll change his mind.”

   “We hope so, Princess,” sighed Twilight.

   “Allow me to thank you for your quick response to this crisis. After what happened with Discord, I knew that leaving the Elements of Harmony under your care in Ponyville would be the best solution. Your fast reaction has saved uncountable lives.”

   The six ponies bowed, although they were not in the right mood to consider themselves heroes, specially Pinkie Pie.

   Then, a scroll materialized over Celestia’s head in a ball of red fire. The white alicorn took it and read the message. However, as she did it, an expression of horror appeared on her face.

   “Is there any problem, Princess?” asked Twilight, worried.

   “I’m afraid so,” said Celestia, whiter than usual. “It is a message from an outpost in the Everfree Forest. A Scorpius is approaching Ponyville. And, according to this report,  its behaviour is clearly hostile.”

   Immediately, the purple unicorn became pale, too.

   “What’s a Scorpius?” asked Rainbow Dash.

   Twilight gulped and explained it:

   “A scorpion five times as big as the Ursa Minor.”

   “Five times?!” shouted Applejack. “But not even the Beast was that big!”

   “It will destroy the entire town!” screamed Rarity, putting her hooves in her cheeks.

   “We need Francisco!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie. “He’ll be able to defeat that thing!”

   “You heard him, Pinkie,” said Rainbow Dash. “He’s not going to abandon that dungeon. We can’t count on him on this one.”

   “Besides, he could probably do nothing,” added Twilight. “Only the Beast would be able to fight the Scorpius in an equal match, and I doubt he wants to transform into it again. Princess, can’t you do something?”

   Celestia looked at her bandages.

   “My sister and I used nearly all of our powers to defend Canterlot,” she explained. “I can use my magic to teleport all of you back to Ponyville, but I’m afraid I cannot face the Scorpius. You’ll have to use the Elements again.”

   “Leave it to us!” said Rainbow Dash. “We’ll take care of that bug!”

   “Good luck, my little ponies.”

   Celestia’s horn glowed with a golden light. In two seconds, the six mares found themselves back in their town. There was nopony on the streets.

   They heard a terrible sound coming from the Everfree Forest. They looked back, and saw a gigantic green scorpion tail. Several trees were crushed as the starry body of the Scorpius made its way out of the woods. His two main eyes were glowing like moons, and the other six, significantly smaller, like stars. His two gigantic pincers chopped in the air, threateningly .

   The six mares, even Rainbow Dash, gulped. It was going to be a really tough battle...

***

   In a gray corridor, that seemed to extend to the infinite, a broom with arms was sweeping the floor using a normal broom. Kinda redundant, isn’t it?  

   “Welcome back, boss,” it said.

   “Hi.”

   The bodyless conscience of Francisco approached the big black cage. The glass and the chains had been repaired, and the shapeshifter could feel the Beast behind them, trapped in the shadows of a dungeon, just like him.

   “Stand back,” he said to the broom. “I’m going to release this one.”

   “What?!” the broom with arms dropped the other broom. “Are you sure, boss?”

   “The Beast and I are going to have some words.”

***

   A gigantic sting descended, and Applejack jumped away to avoid it. It didn’t seem to have poison, but honestly, with that size, that wasn’t necessary. The sting left a quite big hole on the ground. The orange pony ran towards one of the eight legs and kicked it, but the starry exoskeleton was too hard, and the Scorpius didn’t feel a thing.

   Rainbow Dash created one of her tornadoes and launched it against the beast, but one of the pincers moved and blocked the spiral wind without any difficulties.

   “Dammit!” said the blue pegasus. “Fluttershy, are you going to use The Stare or not?!”

   “I can't!” screamed the yellow pegasus, flying over the Scorpius. “It has eight eyes! I can’t look directly to all of them at the same time!”

   The monster moved his long tail, forcing Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash to fly back. Then, he continued his way to Ponyville.

   “We have to do it now!” shouted Twilight. “Everypony, come together! We’ll use the Elements of Harmony!”

   The six ponies stood in front of the giant scorpion, and their magic jewels started to shine. Immediately, a rainbow was shot directly at the mouth of the Scorpius, but he covered his front with his pincers, and the energy beam was deflected. At the same time, the sting descended again.

   “Watch out!” shouted Rainbow Dash.

   The ponies prepared themselves for the impact, but it never happened. A black claw stopped the green tail. The ponies looked up, and saw a gigantic figure of shadows, with three horns and glowing eyes.

   The Dark Beast used his fire breath to force the Scorpius to retreat back to the edge of the Everfree Forest. However, the arachnid wasn’t really harmed by the flames, and moved his tail and pincers in a menacing way. The Beast extended his wings to do the same, but the starry scorpion didn’t got scared by that. No one of the two titans was going to flee, apparently.

   The Scorpius charged and attacked with his two pincers. The Dark Beast covered himself with his wings, making a shield of shadows that protected him. At the same time, he fired two orange energy beams through his eyes, hitting the scorpion right in the chelicerae.

   The Beast opened his wings an roared. Then, he spoke with Francisco’s voice:

   “I won’t let you hurt my family!”

With love, to my new family

With love, to my new family

   As soon as the chains and the black glass broke, a torrent of darkness surrounded Francisco, and two orange eyes shone in front of him.

   “I’ve discovered who you are,” said the shapeshifter, with a firm but not hostile voice tone. “Fluttershy was right, you are my sad thoughts. You are all the hatred I feel towards Earth, my desire to forget, maybe even destroy, that ugly world. That’s why I imprisoned you here when I came to Equestria, because I have no need of you anymore. This world is not ugly, I don’t want to destroy it.”

   In the blackness, the orange eyes retreated a bit.

   “You are scared, aren’t you?” asked Francisco. “Because, if there’s no Earth, if I don’t hate my new home, you will cease to exist. That’s why you took control of my being in the instant Twilight gave you the strength. Am I right?”

   The Beast nodded.

   “I’m sorry,” said Francisco. “I shouldn’t have exiled you to this prison so recklessly. But it’s not too late, you don’t have to be chained, your cage doesn’t have to be black. I’ve come to make peace with my feelings, with all of them, even those regarding that world I want to forget. Come on, let’s turn this hatred in something more productive.”

   The Dark Beast waited, in silence, for seconds that looked like hours. Then, his orange eyes disappeared, and the wave of darkness swallowed Francisco.

   But this time, he retained control.

------------------------------------------

   Celestia’s sun was shining over the two fighting behemoths. The Dark Beast was the only thing that stood between the Scorpius, bigger than him, and the destruction of Ponyville.

   The starry arachnid attacked with his tail, but Francisco avoided it. Then, he used his fire breath again. His objective was to push the scorpion back to the Everfree Forest, since they were still too close to Ponyville. It would be impossible to fight in that place without causing some damage to the town.

   The Scorpius attacked again, this time with his pincers. Francisco turned his wings into a second pair of hands and blocked the emerald claws. Then, he used his other hands to stop the attack of the stinger. The shadows of the Dark Beast turned into an enormous dark fist and punched the Scorpius in the mouth, forcing him to step back. Then, Francisco recovered his wings and flew to the sky. They had already entered a bit in the Everfree Forest, it was time to attack that bug from above.

   There was a flash of light in the right shoulder of the Beast. Francisco looked, and saw Twilight, who had just teleported. She lost the balance and fell, but the shapeshifter caught her with his hand.

   “I’m glad to see you!” said the purple unicorn. “Say, do you have the Beast under control?”

   “Yes,” answered Francisco. “But I don’t know if this would be enough to defeat that thing.”

   On the ground, the Scorpius was looking at him, raising his pincers.

   “You have to be careful!” warned Twilight. “I’ve read about this creature! You have to watch out for the Antares Crown!”

   “The what?”

   “That thing!”

   Twilight pointed down with a hoof. In the body of the Scorpius, right above the two main eyes, there was a big red orb.

   “It is like an energy core,” explained the unicorn. “Like the heart, more or less.”

   “I understand. I can’t attack there, or I could kill the Scorpius. I don’t want to kill anypony... er, anything.”

   “Actually, the reason why you have to be careful is-”

   Then, the green arachnid fired several energy beams through the Antares Crown, hitting Francisco and taking him down. Twilight fell too, but Rainbow Dash caught her before she could hit the ground.

   The Dark Beast stood up, but the Scorpius shot more energy beams, which went up to the sky, and then fall. Francisco flapped his wings as strong as he could, and he created a black wind that diverted the enemy projectiles, sending nearly all of them back to the Scorpius, who was momentarily engulfed by explosions. The shapeshifter rushed towards him and put his claws right under the green cephalothorax. He also turned his wings into hands, again, and used them to immobilize the pincers. Then, he pushed up.

   His plan was to put the Scorpius on his back, leaving him defenseless and unable to attack. Francisco was protected in that position: the sting couldn’t reach him, neither could the energy beams of the Antares Crown, and the pincers were blocked. He only needed to keep pushing.

   But then, a hole opened in the belly of the Scorpius, and the Antares Crown appeared through it.

   “Son of a-”

   Francisco was hit by several energy beams, and his wings were completely destroyed. The Scorpius attacked one more time with his tail, and the Dark Beast couldn’t avoid it. The sting hit the head, brutally tearing off the three horns, which fell to the ground and disappeared in shadows.

   The Beast stepped back, roaring. The Scorpius hit him again, in the face, this time with a pincer, and then, as the final blow, he stung him in the stomach. Francisco fell to the ground, causing a small earthquake. After that, the green arachnid turned around and started to move towards Ponyville.

   The shapeshifter tried to stood up, but his body didn’t obey, it was too damaged. He thought about transforming into another thing, but he had been beaten up too bad to think in a new shape that could fight that giant scorpion.

   “I...” he mumbled. “I have... to protect...”

   He tried to stood up again, but it was futile. Too tired. Black blood was coming from his wound in the belly.

   Then, a pink body jumped on his damaged face.

   “Pinkie?” he asked.

   “Stand up!” she said. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

***

   Still holding Twilight Sparkle on her hooves, Rainbow Dash flew in circles around the Scorpius, while the unicorn was shooting magic beams at him. However, the exoskeleton didn’t get a single scratch.

   “This is useless!” groaned the pegasus, who was starting to get tired. “We have to think in other thing!”

   “If only we could use the Elements... but we need to immobilize him first!”

   Then, the land trembled again. The Scorpius turned back.

   The Dark Beast was on his feet, surrounded by an indigo aura.

   “I need...” said Francisco. “I need wings.”

   And he grew two wings. White, feathered, and covered with yellow eyes. He also sprouted several horns and spikes through his body, all of them made of minerals. The wound of his belly transformed into several black tentacles, surrounded by a ring of yellow ghostly faces. Finally, his three lost horns grew again, but this time, they were made of cotton candy. Pinkie Pie was in one of them.

   “Leeeeeets gooooooo!” she shouted.

   Francisco roared and rushed towards the Scorpius, who launched more energy beams through the Antares Crown. The Beast extended his new wings, firing his own burst of energy beams and destroying the enemy projectiles in mid air. Then, he attacked with his fire breath, creating a curtain of flames that distracted the Scorpius. Francisco broke through his own fire and punched the scorpion in the mouth with his claw, now covered in diamonds.

   Then, before the Scorpius could react, the black tentacles of the Beast enlarged and wrapped themselves around the pìncers, the eight legs, and the tail. The colossal arachnid had been totally immobilized.

   Rainbow Dash flew to Francisco’s head, and Twilight shouted:

   “There’s something wrong with the Antares Crown! Is not supposed to be that big!”

   Like if it had heard the words of the unicorn, the red orb started to sink into the green body. Francisco used his claws to stop it and keep it on the surface.

   “We should ask Fluttershy to see this,” said Twilight. “She’s the animal expert.”

   “But this is not an animal, Twilight!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie.

   “It’s a bit big and it’s made of stars, but it’s still a scorpion, and scorpions are animals.”

   “Could you discuss it later?!” groaned Rainbow Dash. “Twilight, you’re too heavy!”

   “Excuse me?”

   Francisco wasn’t paying attention to the conversation. Some shadows had appeared in the surface of the Antares Crown, and were adopting a shape. A face... a human face.

   “Hello, little boy,” it said.

***

   Celestia was meditating in her room. She had been the ruler of all Equestria for one thousand years, and before that she had been the co-ruler for several centuries, and she had learned to listen the breath of the land. If the Princess closed her eyes and opened her heart, he could feel the mountains, the rivers, the clouds... even the Everfree Forest, although it was a strange place that looked like if it had come from a totally different world.

   Luna entered in the room.

   “How is it going, sister?” she asked.

   “They are fighting,” answered Celestia, opening her eyes. “Francisco is using his powers to help us.”    

   “Do you think they can win?”

   Celestia listened to the breath of the land again, and she perceived how the Dark Beast, in his new form, had immobilized the Scorpious.

   “I’m sure,” she smiled.

   But then, the two Princesses heard a frightening roar, and everypony in Canterlot heard it too. Like the loudest thunder of the most terrible storm, it came out from the Everfree Forest and flew across the entire land, echoing in the ears and minds of all the creatures, ponies or not. It even reached the far Appleloosa as a weak growl in the wind.

   It was a roar of rage.

***

   “You again?!” shouted Francisco. Pinkie almost fell from his head.

   “Like cockroaches, little boy,” smiled the dark face of Willy, in the surface of the Antares Crown. “You will never get rid of me.”

   “But I destroyed you! I made you explode! Every single cell of your body was burned!”

   “Are you sure? Because I think you forgot... a face.”

   Then, Francisco realized, and wanted to punch himself in the eye. Willy had took his face off during their battle, in a futile attempt to to scare him, and he had forgotten to destroy that slice of skin.

   “I crawled through the Everfree Forest,” explained Willy. “I was weak, but then I found this little green fella. Parasitizing his body was a piece of cake. Now, I will use his power to destroy everything you love... and to destroy you too, of course.”

   “This time, I will reduce every single atom of your being to nothingness.”

   “Ha! Now I am one with the Scorpius, a body that is not yours! You can’t make me explode with your thoughts anymore! And you cannot take me out of here without harming the Antares Crown, and I know you too well, you wouldn’t do that.”

   “And you can’t move. We’re both at the same situation.”

   “Oh, really?”

   The red orb became completely black, and a wave of shadows came out of it. Rainbow Dash and Twilight were pushed back, and Francisco’s head was completely engulfed by the darkness.

   Between the cotton candy horns, everything went totally black. Pinkie Pie could hardly see her own hooves. It was then when, she heard a familiar voice...

   “Pinkie... Let’s go play, shall we?”

   The dark mist opened, like a curtain, and revealed another pink pony, one with straight mane and tail. She was holding a knife on her hooves, and had a sinister grin on her face.

   “Let’s go play, shall we?” she repeated, coming closer to Pinkie. “With our friends... Yes, we will play with Rainbow Dash, and then with Rarity... Applejack could go next... How about Spike, or Applebloom and her friends? Oh, we’ll have so much fun... together...”

   Noises started to sound. Cries, voices who were screaming in pain and begging for their lives... The pink stranger was right in front of her.

   “Together..., she repeated.

   Then, Pikie Pie laughed.

   “What?” asked the other Pinkie, starting to fade in the shadows. “Why do you laugh?”

   “Because I remember you!” the real Pinkie honked the nose of her dopplegänger. “You were that nightmare I had the other day.”

   “Then, why do you laugh?!” repeated the false Pinkie. Her voice started to sound like Willy’s.

   “Because you were soooooooo implausible... I would never hurt my friends! And if you believe that, you don’t know me at all!.” She started to digress. “No, I would make chocolate cupcakes, because I love chocolate, and then I would share them with my friends, and I would have to make lots of them, because the last time Rainbow Dash ate more than the half. That pegasus is such a sweet tooth-”

   “Stop!”, shouted Willy, angered. “Shut up!”

   But Pinkie Pie kept digressing and laughing. The darkness retreated, its power had been defeated. The shadows returned to the Antares Crown, freeing Francisco from their grasp. In the head of the Beast, Pinkie was still laughing.

   “That trick won’t work again,” smiled the shapeshifter. “Not with them.”

   “So what?” grunted the face of Willy. “You can’t win either, you don’t have the power to expel me from this body!”

   “Oh, but I know six ponies who do have.”

   A light flashed on Francisco’s head, and Twilight and the other four appeared. At a sign of the unicorn, the six activated their Elements of Harmony, firing a rainbow at the Antares Crown. The colourful beam vanished the shadows, and Williy’s voice was heard for the last time in Equestria.

   Finally, both the Scorpius and Francisco were engulfed by a column of seven colours, which the two Princesses saw from a balcony in Canterlot.

***

   Eight green eyes blinked while the last traces of the seven-colored light vanished in the air. The Scorpius was confused. How had he gotten there? He was quite far away from his cave, almost outside the Everfree Forest. Why would he go there in the first place? With one of his pincers, the giant arachnid touched his Antares Crown. Everything seemed to be normal, so he shrugged (or he did the scorpion equivalent of shrugging) and decided to return to his home.

   In the woods, seven little figures looked at the starry titan as he went away.

   “Yippie!” laughed Pinkie Pie. “That was fun! Can we do it again, can we?”

   “Oh, please, no!” said Rarity. “Look at me, my hair is a mess! And my hooves are all muddy! Eeew!”

   “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill,” said Applejack. “Ah get worse in a regular day on the farm.”

   “Oh, shut up both of you!” groaned Rainbow Dash. “I’ve had to fly back and forth carrying Twilight, and I’m tired! Can we go home now?”

   The six mares looked at each other, and laughed.

   Pinkie Pie searched for the shapeshifter. The black stallion was contemplating the shadows of the Everfree Forest.

   “What do you say, Francisco?” she asked. “We go home?”

   He looked back at the pink pony, and smiled:

   “Yes. We go home.”

***

   It had been a crazy day. The Dark Beast, the Scorpius... Fortunately, the town had survived without a single building destroyed. Otherwise, that would have been the new entrance in the book: ‘The Worst Days of Ponyville.’

   The Cake family, including Pinkie, was returning to the Sugarcube Corner.

   “And then he transformed!” explained the pink pony, bouncing everywhere and re-enacting the battle against the Scorpius. “He had wings, and spikes, and horns made of cotton candy! And then he said Raaaaargh!, and shot fire, and it was like Booom, Flash, Ziuuuum! Francisco should work at parties, he would be better than a clown and a magician together! He would be like... a Clowician! No, better a Magiown. Or a Magilown...”

   ‘And here we go again...’ thought Mr. Cake, rolling his eyes.

   “Clowgician... Maclown... No, I think Magiclowcian sounds better.”

   The five entered in the Sugarcube Corner, and they were left speechless, even Pinkie Pie.

   A blue squid the size of an adult pony was using his long tentacles to put party decorations all over the place. There was a table in the middle of the store with several cakes, which undoubtedly had been baked by a novice, and yet they looked edible. There were also balloons of many different colors, and a banner that said: ‘With love, to my new family.’

   Then, Pound Cake sneezed, and the squid stopped. He looked back, and transformed into a black stallion.

   “Uh...” said Francisco, with his ears down. “Surprise... I guess...”

   The Cakes and Pinkie looked at the decoration, with their mouths widely opened.

   “Did I overdo it?” asked Francisco. “Sorry... I wanted to do something, and I know parties are Pinkie’s speciality, but I couldn’t think of anything else. Uh... Probably the cakes aren’t be very good, although I followed the recipes to the letter. I guess the next time I should ask somepony for help-”

   He couldn’t keep talking, as Pinkie jumped over him and hugged him tightly, and so did the baby twins. Even Mr. and Mrs. Cake did it.

   And Francisco smiled. Truly, that was his new family.

Artwork 1

Artwork

Hi, everypony. Alpha Scorpii here.

Requested by Oblivion Alarika, I’m going to show you a bit of the artwork of The Many Shaped One. The following images are how I view the creatures of my fanfic, but if you wanna imagine them in a different way, it’s ok for me.

They’re all made with Paint, and they’re probably not very good, but I hope you like them.

The drooling god at the top of his Hand Tower, and his size compared to a normal human.

The drooling god would look more or less like this, but with more eyes, more tentacles, and more mouths. Add as many as you want.

The shape adopted by Francisco when he met all of the Mane Six for the first time. Notice the red party hat on the tentacle, courtesy of Pinkie Pie.

The angel

Ugh, look at those wings... I’m not good at drawing feathered wings, not at all. Thank Celestia that Francisco doesn’t really need them to fly...

The eyes of Derpy are hidden in this picture. Can you find them?

The... this thing

The second shape adopted by Francisco in his battle against Willy. I’ve decided to name him ‘Steamroller’, but I don’t know why...

Mmh... I think Steamroller could have a few more diamond horns here and there... Diamond horns are like eyes: there’s never enough of them.

The kelpies

This was my original design for the kelpies, heavily inspired by a kelpi that appears in the manga Berserk (not suitable for children. Actually, it’s not suitable for a lot of people). Basically, it is a frog crossed with a pony, somehow a homage to the Deep Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos.

But then, I decided to go for a bit more classical aspect, and the kelpies ended looking more or less like this:

I don’t know how to draw water, either...

The Dark Beast, size compared with the Sugarcube Corner

The design of the Dark Beast was inspired by the giant monster Mao Dante (again, not suitable for children). The Sugarcube Corner is too hard to draw, at least for me, so I just made a copypaste. Yeah, I’m lazy...

The Dark Beast, upgraded.

All of your powers combined. Yeah.

And of course, the cotton candy monster with lollipop wings in his back and streamer cannons on his feet:

Only Pinkie Pie could imagine something like this.

Cover of the fanfic from chapters 1 to 3[/url] (The Welcome arc)

Cover of the fanfic from chapters 4 to 8[/url] (Inner Darkness arc)

The red planet

The red planet

   It had been a month since the arrival of Francisco to Ponyville, and he had become one more neigbour of the town. Everypony knew him, and they were aware of his powers. In fact, they usually asked his help for certain tasks, which were less tedious if done with tentacles or claws instead of hooves. Soon, asking favours to Francisco became as common as asking apples to Applejack, books to Twilight, or parties to Pinkie Pie.

   And, in his spare time, the shapeshifter wrote. He had decided to try again, hoping that he would have more luck there than on Earth. Since he didn’t know about the literary tastes of the ponies, Francisco asked Twilight for some books from her library, to read them and learn.  

   Writing in Equestria wasn’t an easy task for Francisco. He was used to write in a computer, and now he had to do everything manually. His letter was horrible. At first he transformed into creatures with hands or tentacles in order to take the quill, but soon he started to write in his black stallion form. He discovered that earth ponies could write, by taking the quill either with the mouth or the hooves, the latter if they were skillful. In no time, Francisco’s desk was filled with papers, lots of different stories which he created in his spare time.

   The problem: he didn’t like anyone of them. In fact, most of those tales had been left unfinished.

   “Hi!” said a voice, right behind Francisco.

   “Ah!” the black stallion was startled at first, but he knew who was there. “Hi, Pinkie Pie.”

   “What are you doing?” she inquired, looking over Francisco’s shoulder. “Ooooh, did you write all these stories?”

   “Yes, but-”

   “How fun!” Pinkie took some of the papers. “Are they stories about pony knights and dragons? Or are they about us and our fight against the Scorpius? I’d love to be a characters in a book!” then she gasped, and gave a naughty look to the stallion. “Don’t tell me... have you been writing dirty stories?”

   “What? No!”

   Giggling, Pinkie gave a look at the pages.

   “Wait a minute...” she said. “These are incomplete! Why?”

   “I... I don’t think I like them,” explained Francisco, returning to his writing. “So I’m going to try over and over again, until I find one I think is good.”

   “And what will you do after that?”

   “I’ll try to publish it. Twilight told me that there is an editorial in Canterlot.”

   “Good luck, then!” smiled Pinkie. “Now, why did I came here? Mmh...”

   She looked back at her tail. Gummy was chewing it.

   “Oh, yes!” she laughed. “I’m going to the park with the others, we’re going to play with our pets. Pound and Pumpkin are asleep. I think the Cakes should return soon, but could you watch over them for a while?”

   Francisco left his quill. Either way, he was lacking inspiration.

   “Sure, no problem.” he smiled.

   “Oh, thank you, thank you!”, said Pinkie, bouncing. “I’ll bake something very special for you this night! Well, I’d better get going! Bye!”

   And she left. The black stallion raised a hoof and tried to call her back, but his voice turned off involuntarily. He could only mumble:

   “Wait... I have something... to tell you...”

   But he couldn’t. Frustrated and furious with himself, Francisco smashed his head against the desk.

   “Ouch,” he said. “That hurt...”

***

   On the surface of the moon, Princess Luna was watching the space. One would think that, after being banished there for one thousand years, the blue alicorn would like to be as far from the satellite as possible. However, it was not the same to be imprisoned by a magic field than being able to walk freely through the surface of the moon, plus knowing that she could return to Canterlot whenever she wanted. It was not her prison anymore, but her domain.

   Luna liked to look at the stars from her moon. It was a silent and calm place, ideal for meditating. A bit cold, but she liked low temperatures, too. The alicorn used her nearly god-like sight to examine the remote stars.

   Then, she saw it.

   “Princess, are you ok?” asked one of her bat-winged pegasi guards. “You’ve turned a bit pale.”

   “Quick!” she shouted, very nervous. “Take me back to Canterlot! I must warn my sister about this!”

***

   Pinkie Pie returned to the Sugarcube Corner, with Gummy still attached to her tail.

   “I’m home!” she announced, happily.

   The Cakes were already back, and the twins were awake and playing with their toys.

   “Where’s Francisco?” she asked.

   “He has gone to the Library,” explained Mrs. Cake. “He wanted to ask Spike for more books. Apparently, he’s still without inspiration.”

   “I’ll go see them, then! Maybe one of my jokes will awake Francisco’s creativity!” She shook her tail, making Gummy to fall off. The alligator, staring at the two opposite extremes of the eternity, calmly went stairs up, to Pinkie’s room.

   The pink pony abandoned the bakery, bouncing. When she reached the Library, she found that not only Francisco and Spike were there.

   “It’s a letter from Princess Celestia,” explained Twilight, looking at the scroll who was levitating in front of her face, thanks to her magic. “She wants to see all of us in Canterlot as soon as possible, included you, Francisco.”

   “Well...” sighed Applejack. “It had been a very quiet month, Ah knew that something like this would happen sooner or later.”

   “I hope it’s not another dragon...” whispered Fluttershy.

   “I hope it’s not another Scorpius!” said Rainbow Dash. “I had enough with the last one.”

   “I hope it’s a surprise party!” shouted Pinkie.

   The others looked at her, with strange eyes.

   “What?” she asked.

   “Anyway, we have to go to Canterlot,” said Twilight. “We’ll go in the next train.”

   “We don’t need trains,” smiled Francisco.

   Two seconds later, the Dark Beast was standing next to the Library. There were many bystanders around, but nopony was surprised by that. ‘Oh, it’s Francisco, again...’, they thought.

   The giant monster lowered his claw, allowing the six mares to jump on.

  “We’ll be there in a few minutes,” he announced, extending his wings of shadows and flying to the sky.

***

   The seven ponies were received by the two alicorns. Celestia looked worried, and Luna was a bit pale.

   “We’re here, Princess,” said Twilight, bowing. “What’s happening?”

   Celestia looked at her sister and nodded. The horn of the blue alicorn started to glow, and then it created an image on the air: a black void filled with tiny silver stars.

   “I saw this from the surface of the moon,” explained Luna.

   “What?” asked Twilight, unable to see it.  

   Then, the image zoomed, and a new object appeared: a tiny red dot, in the distance. With another zoom, that small point became bigger. At the third zoom, the seven ponies could see what it was.

   A planet. A red planet, covered by clouds which were of a darker tone of red. It was, probably, two or three times bigger than Earth. It had no oceans, only some lakes scattered through its surface, so big that they could be seen from far away. Another zoom revealed that they weren’t lakes... they were blue eyes, and they were moving, and blinking slowly.

   Immediately, everpony looked to Francisco, but the black stallion ensured that he had nothing to do with that.

   “It is approaching us,” explained Luna, and the image disappeared. “In a few days, it will be within the orbit of our moon. I have no idea of what it may be, but when I saw it, I felt a terrible aura of danger. I’m afraid this red planet is a new menace.”

   “We’ll use the Elements of Harmony!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “We’ll defeat that thing, just like we did with Discord and Willy!”

   “That was my plan,” said Celestia. “However, to defeat a foe of such scale, the Elements are going to need help,” and she looked at Francisco.

   The black stallion bowed, politely.

   “My powers are at your service,” he said.

***

   Equestria doesn’t work as a normal world, and neither does the space that surrounds it. There is air, and sound can travel through it. Due to this, normal ponies can survive beyond the skies of their home planet, not only the alicorns.

   In a flash of golden and blue light, a giant figure materialized in the way of the red planet. Francisco had transformed into the Upgraded Dark Beast, he had decided to attack with his strongest shape. On his head, in the cotton candy horns, he was carrying the six bearers of the Elements of Harmony, as well as the two Princesses.

   The multiple eyes of the red planet looked at them, and the clouds of its atmosphere reunited, completely covering the surface.

   “What happens?” asked Twilight.

   “It’s shielding itself,” said Francisco. “Or, at least, that’s what it looks like.”

   “That means it’s intelligent!” exclaimed Celestia. “Maybe we can reason with it!”

   The Dark Beast approached. He was much bigger than any building in Ponyville, but less than a flea compared with the size of the red planet. Celestia and Luna combined their two Royal Canterlot Voices, forcing the six mares, and even Francisco, to cover their ears.

   “We are the rulers of the world known as Equestria!” they said, perfectly synchronized. “We are forced to inform you, strange entity, that you will collide with our planet if you keep this trajectory, so we would like to ask you to change it. We do not desire to start any meaningless conflict, and if what you want is to live peacefully in this section of the Universe, we will...”

   But something came from below the shield of clouds: a gigantic red tentacle, made of something that was neither earth nor flesh, or maybe a combination of both. It had an enormous mouth at the extreme, and it tried to swallow the Dark Beast. Francisco burned it with his fire breath, forcing it to retreat.

   “I don’t think it’s friendly!” he said.

   “There is no other choice, then!” exclaimed Celestia. “Prepare the Elements! Sister, lend me your power!”

   Francisco reunited a sphere of blue light in his claws, and then he shot a powerful magic blast, which was immediately followed by a rainbow beam with two added colours: white and black. The attack of the shapeshifter destroyed the shield of clouds, allowing the magic of the Elements, empowered by the two alicorns, to reach the red planet. Waves of light started to spread across the surface. For some seconds, the planet was as shiny as a star.

   Then, the light faded away, and nothing happened. The red planet grew more tentacles, and tried to catch the Dark Beast.

   “It hasn’t worked!?” asked Twilight, surprised.

   “Retreat!” shouted Luna.

   And they teleported back to Equestria.

***

   “I don’t understand it!” said Celestia, walking in circles. Around her, Francisco and the others were trying to think in a new plan. “Why didn’t the Elements work?!

   “They were designed to expel the evil, right?”, asked the black stallion.

   “Yes. Expel or seal the evil, that is their primary function.”

   Francisco scratched his chin with a hoof.

   “Maybe...” he said. “Maybe they didn’t work because the red planet is not evil.”

   “Excuse me?!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “Need I remind you that it tried to eat us?! Of course it’s evil!”

   “And scary...” whispered Fluttershy.

   “I looked at its eyes,” continued Francisco. “I didn’t see evilness in those eyes. I didn’t even see rage, like in the eyes of the Dark Beast, before I took control of him. I saw... neutrality. Pure neutrality.”

   “Shouldn’t that be a good thing?” asked Rarity.

   “But I felt danger!” said Luna. “If it’s neutral, why I sense it as a menace?”

   “Natural disasters are also pure neutrality,” shrugged Francisco. “This is bad. That planet probably doesn’t hate us, but it’s not going to show pity, either. I don’t know what it’s going to do to us, but we cannot beg, nor negociate.”

   Celestia sighed.

   “If only we had more information about it...”

   “Leave it to me,” said the shapeshifter. “I know someone who may answer our questions. Be right back.”

   And he disappeared, in a spiral of black wind.  

***

   The sky was red and without clouds, as always. Walking over the ground made of those tiny round stones, a black stallion approached the Hand Tower. He didn’t have to wait too long to meet, for the second time, the lord of that dimension.

   “Ah, I am glad to see you again,” said the drooling god, descending from the red sky and landing in the palm of stone.

   “There are troubles in Equestria,” explained Francisco. “A creature from outer space is threatening my world of colours. I was hoping that you could tell me-”

   The drooling god moved his tentacles, and a hole opened in the sky, revealing the image of the red planet.

   “I am aware of your situation,” said the entity. “Yes, I know it.”

   “What is it?”, asked Francisco.

   “A planet that eats other planets. I am afraid that Equestria is the next dish in its menu."

   “What?!” the black stallion looked up, at those demonic blue eyes in that red spherical body. To be honest, he was dreading that the answer would be something like that. “I have to tell Celestia and the others! We have to find a way to stop it!”

   “I am afraid you can not,” said the drooling god, closing the hole in the sky. “The rulers of Equestria do not have enough magic to do that, and those tools, the Elements of Harmony, are useless. Your theory of the neutrality is right.”

   “Then... Then I will do it! Yes, that’s it, I can do it! I will use the Dark Beast! After all, he was born of my desire to destroy my world, he’ll be able to do it, right?!”

   “At his best... in one year.”

   “What?!”

   “Your desire to destroy your old world is not as big as you think. You were not that heartless or violent in your previous life. The Beast can do nothing against an entire planet, he does not have the power to fight it.”

   Francisco fell to the ground, with his ears down.

   “And, as you imagined, talking with that entity will not work, either,” continued the drooling god. “For that creature, you and the ponies are nothing more than nutrients in its food. It will not listen to any of your words. Its goal is to consume everything.”

   Francisco covered his head with his hooves. He was starting to feel really hopeless. The image of that red planet devouring his beloved Equestria and all of his friends started to take form in his mind.

   Rage and despair filled his heart.

   “And can’t you do something?!” he asked, almost shouting. “Can’t you leave your stone throne, for once, and help us?!”

   The drooling god looked a bit offended by that. He gave a severe stare to Francisco with all of his eyes at the same time, and then he said:

   “If I could abandon this dimension, I would go search for happiness by myself, instead of relying on messengers and servants.”

   That short verbal beatdown helped Francisco to calm a bit.

   “And why can’t you leave?” he asked.

   “There are Rules.” The entity pronounced the r in a way it clearly sounded like a capital R.

   The shapeshifter knew, once again thanks to all of the books he had read in his previous life, that there was nothing to do. Once a supernatural creature starts to talk about Rules, there is no use in begging.

   “But”, said the drooling god, “you could gain enough firepower to destroy that planet.”

   “Really?” the black stallion stood up. “How?”

   “I shall submit you to a special training.”

***

   Francisco returned in a new spiral of black wind. The Princesses and the six mare were expectant, almost dying to know the news. The shapeshifter explained everything, and they didn’t like what they heard.

   “It is going to eat us?!” shouted Rarity.

  “It is going to eat Equestria?!” shouted Rainbow Dash. “How can a planet eat other planets?! Where did it come from?!”

   “I don’t know that,” said Francisco. “I didn’t ask about it, actually.  But the drooling god told me that he can increase my strength. If I go to that training, I will be able to save you all.”

   “Then, go,” said Celestia. “You proved to be a powerful and reliable ally in the past.  Now, we leave the destiny of our world in your hooves.”

   “And in your tentacles,” added Pinkie Pie. “And in your claws, and in any other appendix you can grow.”

   “And what will we do, sister?” asked Luna.

   “I don’t know,” the Princess of the Sun was worried, without a doubt. She looked bad, not even the Discord incident had hit her so hard. “I have to think about it.”

   “I’ll be going,” said Francisco, summoning the black wind again.

   “Good luck, friend from another world.”

   While the black spiral was engulfing him, Francisco looked at Pinkie Pie, and a voice in his head shouted: ‘Come on, you idiot! Tell her right now!’.

   “Pinkie...” he said.

   “Yes?” asked the mare, at the other side of the wind.

   “I... I...” but he couldn’t, so he just said: “I’ll be back! I promise!”

   And he disappeared.

   While he was being transported to the dimension of the drooling god, Francisco wished for another desk, so he could smash his head against it.

Star of despair

Star of despair

   In one of the many universes that form the Multiverse, in a region of space, shines a solitary planet. Unlike other similar celestial bodies, it doesn’t orbit around any star, but a tiny fireball and a rock satellite spin around it, moved by the magic of two physical goddesses that live on its surface. Just like some countries have the same name as their capital cities, this planet is named after the largest kingdom under its atmosphere: Equestria.

   Honestly, you can’t blame their inhabitants for that. The kingdom occupies the 30% of the surface of the planet, and the 60% of that same surface is water. Do the math.

   Sadly, this lonely world is about to die...  

***

   A whole day passed. Celestia had ordered to not tell anypony about the red planet, at least not for the moment. She knew that, sooner or later, all of the inhabitants of Equestria would see it in the sky, but she didn’t want the panic to spread. However, at the second night after the dreadful discovery, a new star appeared: a red one.

   The ponies started to ask questions, and the Princess of the Sun had no other choice but to tell what was really happening. The news flew with the winds of fear, and reached every corner of Equestria. Soon, every pony, every zebra, every buffalo... every creature under the skies was aware that their world was being threatened by something terrible. Fortunately, panic didn’t spread. Most of the inhabitants had total confidence in their Princesses, and if they had said that they had a plan, their subjects would believe them. So, everypony continued with their lives, as if nothing was happening.

   However, they couldn’t avoid it, sometimes they lost their smiles for a second, or they dropped things unwittingly, or they became nervous. Because there was a voice in their heads, a voice that was always there, saying: ‘What if the plan fails?’

   The despair was growing in their hearts.

   Pinkie Pie was looking at the red star from her room, through her window. The Cakes had decide to ignore that ominous crimson dot in the sky, mostly for the little twins. They wanted Pound and Pumpkin to be happy, even in the darkest of hours, and they had never been so grateful of having the pink pony with them. Smiling was a lot easier when Pinkie was around.

   At that moment, she was wondering what would be Francisco doing...

***

   In the royal castle, Celestia was also looking at the red star.

   She had spent the past days trying to think, with her sister, in a backup plan, just in case Francisco couldn’t make it in time, or his training wasn’t enough. However, none of the solutions they devised seemed to be effective.

   They could combine their powers to change the position of Equestria in the cosmos, but that would be useless. After all, the red planet was sentient and could change its trajectory, it would just pursue them through space until they were too exhausted to keep running away.

   They could also evacuate all of the population of the planet to another, but to which one? Equestria was a lonely world, it wasn’t part of a solar system, so it didn’t have near neighbours they could migrate to. The Princesses had scanned the outer space for new planets, but the only candidates were too far away. Transporting all of the population of Equestria to one of them would take, even with the help of the Elements of Harmony, six days at minimum, and, according to Luna’s calculations, they only had four until the arrival of the red planet. And they would have to transport not only sentients beings, but also plants and animals. They would also have to re-establish every ecosystem in the new world, as well as the magic field, or else pegasi wouldn’t be able to walk on clouds, among other things. The entire process would last more than a week, and it would also consume a titanic amount of energy. Not only the Princesses, but Twilight and the others could also end dead. And besides, the red planet would probably follow them to their new home, eventually...

   They could only wait for Francisco.

***

   Imagine an army of creatures made of stone. Made of tiny round stones, to be accurate. Imagine headless golems with arms like columns, wingless dragons, giant insects and spiders, floating geometrical figures, monoliths, and many more.

   Francisco was fighting that army.

   He had chosen a new form to do that: a four-armed knight in golden armor. Actually, it looked more like a highly-evolved insect rather than a knight. Each one of his two upper arms, significantly bigger, had a sharp blade attached. Francisco was jumping between the stone creatures, cutting there and here and shooting energy balls with his two lower arms. The drooling god hadn’t made it easy, the stone monsters were attacking with no mercy, and all at once. The idea behind that training was that Francisco had to learn to focus his energy as much as possible, so he could defeat several enemies with a single blow. ‘If you are able to perform such feat, destroying a planet should not be a problem for you.’, had said the drooling god, who was observing everything from the top of his Hand Tower.

   The stone creatures surrounded Francisco. He transformed into the diamond monster known as Steamroller and made his way out, tearing one of the headless golems apart. The tiny round stones fell and returned to the ground. However, for each enemy he defeated, two rose up.

   Francisco roared and charged again, thinking that two days had already passed, and he still hadn’t progressed anything. He had to hurry.

***

   Two more days went away. The red star was bigger, and could be seen even during the day, almost like a sinister, smaller and less bright second sun.

   Applejack was bucking the apple trees, under the increasing red light. Rainbow Dash landed near her.

   “Morning, AJ,” said the blue pegasus. “How are you doing?”

   “Fine,” answered the orange pony, kicking a tree.

   Fine... Dash wished she could say the same. She wasn’t fine, she was sick of flying in that red light, she was tired of seeing the planet in the sky. She, who had always been the bravest of the group, was starting to feel despair, and she needed help. But asking for support was something that Dash wasn’t used to, after all, she was always the independent one. But she couldn’t take it anymore. The blue pegasus needed the strength of the only pony in maybe all Equestria that she could see as her equal.

   “So... applebucking?” she asked, trying to break the ice with something trivial.

   “It helps me to not think about that,” Applejack pointed at the red planet with a hoof. Then, she looked directly at Dash, and the pegasus gasped.

   Applejack was crying.

   “Hey!” said Dash, nervous. She wasn’t expecting that. “Hey... Hey, AJ, calm down. What happens?”

   “Ah’ve never been a smart pony,” said Applejack, weeping tears. “Ah mean... like Twilight, Ah’ve never been a brainiac. Ah... Ah like all of this: the apple trees, the farm... This is the world Ah like, simple and peaceful. Ah like to be simple, because I know that there are scary things out there, beyond the Everfree Forest, beyond the mountains... beyond the stars! Ah’ve always had mah farm and mah trees, mah little place to hide from those things, but now...” she looked at the red planet. “Now... everythin’s going to end... Mah little place... and Ah can’t do anything...”

   And she kept crying. Rainbow Dash was astonished, she had never seen Applejack so broken, not even when she hadn’t won the Equestrian Rodeo. What to do now? What could she do? Dash had gone to see Applejack because she needed a friendly shoulder, but it had turned out that the orange pony was also needing one, and maybe even more than her.

   What do do now? Well, she was the Element of Loyalty...

   “Hey, hey...” said Dash. “Don’t worry, it’s not so bad as it seems.”

   The blue pegasus hugged her friend, letting her cry over her shoulder.

   “That’s it, cry as much as you want,” Rainbow Dash patted on Applejack’s back. “Look... I know things seem bad right now, but don’t worry, I’m sure that everything would be fine!”

   “Really?”

   “Of course! You’ll see, Francisco will come in time and he will send that horrible planet back to space! And if he can’t, I’m sure that Celestia has a Plan B.”

   “And... And if she doesn’t have one?”

   Rainbow Dash thought it for a second, and then she said:

   “Do you know what? We don’t need any Plan B, I’ll do it myself! Yes, I’ll kick that planet in one of its eyes so hard, that it will run away like a mouse!”

   Applejack sniffed and laughed. Then, she used her own mane to wipe her tears. Rainbow Dash kept hugging her friend, giving strength to her. But she also received strength, Applejack had helped her to find, inside her pegasus heart, a power she didn’t know she had.

   Rainbow Dash looked at the red planet. That star of despair was trying to suck their will and happiness before devouring them, but that was not going to work, not while the Element of Loyalty was there. ‘You may eat our bodies, but never our spirits.’, she thought.

   “Hey, Dash,” said Applejack.

   “Yes?”

   “If ya’re not too busy... could ya help me with the applebucking?”

   And they spent the rest of the morning kicking trees, talking and laughing. Eventually, the orange pony returned to be the same as always, as if there was no red planet.

   “Thanks, Dash,” smiled Applejack, once they had finished.

   “Hey, Element of Loyalty, remember?,” the pegasus smiled back. “Actually, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. Simply, you’re my friend. I just couldn’t left you like that, what would we do without our brave and strong Applejack?”

   “Aw, shucks...” the earth pony blushed. “I’m not that important...”

   “Oh, yes you are. You have no idea.”

   The blue pegasus took off. Suddenly, that red light wasn’t that sickening anymore.

   Dash flew at highspeed over Ponyville, leaving a rainbow trace that vanished after a few seconds. However, although short, that vision of seven colour was more than enough to stop the despair caused by the red star. Every pony and every mare looked up, at that rainbow, and felt better.

   Because even in that dark hour, even under that bloody light, there was still hope.

The lonely couple

The lonely couple

   Another day passed, and the image of the red planet in the skies of Equestria became bigger, as it came closer. Actually, the astronomers of Canterlot were fearing that it had increased its speed. Both day and night were filled with that red light. Again, like something taken from a picture of the Apocalypse.

   There was a crowd reunited in the main square of Canterlot. Princess Celestia was about to announce something of great importance:

   “I have decided that it is time to act,” she said. “While we wait for Francisco, we’ll reunite as much information as we can about the red planet. I’ve created a spell that will teleport three ponies to the surface of that monster.”

   Everypony gasped. That totally sounded like a suicidal mission.

   “I have been thinking,” explained Celestia. “Probably the red planet won’t notice a few little ponies on its surface, in the same way we don’t notice bacterias in our face. A team will be sent to explore that world and reunite information. Hopefully, if we learn enough about the red planet, we’ll discover a way to stop it.”

   The crowd responded with a deadly silence. Nopony was sure if that was really a good idea.

   “The members of the expedition team have already been chosen,” continued Celestia. “My student, Twilight Sparkle; her friend, the loyal Rainbow Dash; and my sister Luna, whose powers will not only protect them, but will also make me easier to teleport them back to Equestria.”

   The three ponies stepped forward.

   “I would like to send more ponies, but I’m afraid that any major discharge of magic would alert the red planet of their presence, thus endangering their lives. Let’s hope that luck may be with them, and that they can return safely to our hooves. Expedition team, are you ready?”

   The three ponies nodded. Celestia gave them her blessing, and then made them disappear in a flash of light. The crowd looked up at the menacing planet, worried. A little dragon, a yellow pegasus, a pink earth pony, three fillies and an orange earth pony had a knot in their stomachs. They did not want to believe that their beloved friends had just gone to that dangerous red place.

   ‘Please, come back safely,’ thought Applejack. ‘What would we do without our brave and strong Rainbow Dash?’

   Spike ran towards Celestia, who embraced him under her wing. None of them said anything, but their desire was the same: to see Twilight again.

   Pinkie Pie was having a hard time to smile. She stared at the red planet, and mumbled:

   “Francisco, where are you?”

***

   When the teleportation was done, before none of them could open their eyes, the three ponies suddenly felt heavier. The gravity of the red planet was doing its work.

   They looked. The landscape was red, like fresh blood, and made of a material that was neither earth nor flesh, or maybe both at the same time. But, without a doubt, it was alive. There were gray stone formations scattered all over the place, like islands in a vast crimson sea. The air had a bitter taste, and the sky was of a darker tone of red.

   “Ugh...” groaned Rainbow Dash, flapping her wings. “It’s harder to fly in this planet.”

   “We must move quickly,” said Luna. “We have to gather the information, and...”

   But, suddenly, the ground under their hooves trembled. Twilight screamed when a red hand grasped one of her legs. Luna and Rainbow flew to the skies, the first using his alicorn magic to free the purple unicorn and lift her into the air. Under them, a small section of the red fleshy ground had turned into a swarm of tentacles, hands and claws which were stretching to the skies, trying to catch them. Rainbow picked Twilight, allowing Luna to concentrate and create a magic shield that protected them. Eventually, the tentacles and hands retreated, and the ground returned back to normality.

   “Well, we’ve learned something,” sighed Twilight. “That red ground is not safe.”

   They landed in one of the stone formations, the biggest they could find. It was a whole mountain chain, with maybe half a kilometre of length. And yet, compared with the immense red plains, it looked like something insignificant.

   “I think we should get a sample of those things,” said Twilight, approaching the edge of the stone. “Rainbow, do you think you could fly and tear one tentacle? With your speed, they won’t be able to catch you.”

   “In ten seconds flat.”

   The pegasus descended like a meteor, doing a low flying. The tentacles and the hands sprouted again, feeling her presence. Rainbow Dash caught one of them with her mouth and flew high. However, the tentacle divided in other several, and tried to catch the pegasus. Dash had no other choice but to leave it and return to the safety of the stone.

   “I couldn’t,” she groaned.

   “Let me try,” said Luna.

   The horn of the alicorn glowed. A tiny fraction of the red ground was sectioned and lifted in the air. However, the tentacles appeared again and retrieved the missing part. Also, the land trembled again, this time more violently than before.

   Twilight Sparkle, who was on the edge of the stone, fell, and a swarm of hands tried to catch her. Luna and Rainbow flew to help her, the first blasting the red arms with magic bolts, and the latter just kicking and biting them.

   Then, from the opposite direction, a new red hand grasped one of Twilight’s hooves, and lifted her. The unicorn returned to the gray stone, and moved away from the edge. Luna and Rainbow also landed in the rocky ground. The hands and tentacles calmed, and went away.

   The three ponies looked at the creature who had just saved Twilight. It was a strange bipedal entity, red as the planet, with two arms and no hair in its body. It had small black eyes, two little holes instead of a nose, triangular ears and a little mouth. Just like everything else red on that planet, it was made of that strange substance that looked like flesh, although it wasn’t. Immediately, Luna prepared her horn to attack again.

   “Wait,” said the creature, raising his three-fingered hands. “That won’t be necessary, I’m not like them,” he pointed at the red ground. “I’m defective.”

   “You can talk?” Twilight was surprised. “I wasn’t expecting to find any sentient species on this planet!”

   “Species? No, there aren’t species here. Just me and my wife. We are the only inhabitants, and we’re errors.”

   “So, must we assume that you’re not an enemy?” asked Luna.

   “I won’t harm you, if that is what worries you. I won’t try to assimilate you, either. I’m very excited to have visitors, we haven’t had any visitors since... never.” The creature stepped forward and extended a friendly hand. “I’ve named myself Adam. Nice to meet you.”

   “I am Twilight Sparkle,” said the unicorn. “These are my friends, Princess Luna and Rainbow Dash. We come from a world named Equestria, which your planet is about to eat.”

   Adam adopted a sad face when he heard that.

   “So, it’s doing it again...” he said. “I’m sorry.”

   “Can’t you do something?” asked Dash. “This is your planet, isn’t it?”

   “This planet is of itself. The Hivemind won’t listen to me, and it won’t listen to you,” Adam turned back and started to walk towards the mountain chain. “Come with me, to my house. My wife will be happy to meet you.”

   The three ponies decided to follow him. He didn’t seem dangerous, and they didn’t have much more options. Adam would give them the information they were searching for.

   “Could you tell us what is that?” asked Dash, pointing at the red ground.

   “The Hivemind,” said Adam. “It’s everywhere, it’s all the planet, except for these stones, which are reminders of the distant past.”

   “Why did it attack us?” asked Luna. “And why is it trying to eat Equestria?”

   “That is the Hivemind’s mission: to assimilate everything. Planets, stars, living beings... Everything.”

   “Why are you different?” inquired Twilight.

   “My wife and I are defective. One day, we started to think and to feel. The Hivemind detected us, because we weren’t supposed to do any of those things, and it tried to recycle us, but we escaped. Now we live alone in these mountains. We have each other, but we’re alone.”

   They reached a small cottage made with rocks and steel pieces. It didn’t have a door or windows, just holes in its structure. When they approached, another creature came to receive them. It was exactly identical to Adam, it was impossible to distinguish them. The two red beings held hands.

   “It has named itself Eve,” explained Adam. “It is my wife... or am I the wife?”

   “I’m not sure,” said Eve. “But we can both be the wife, if you want.”

   The three ponies looked at the red creatures, confused.

   “We are genderless,” said (presumably) Adam. “We’ve tried to adapt the roles of a marriage, but it’s difficult.”

   “Genders disappeared in the Great Assimilation,” explained (maybe) Eve. “As well as faces, skins, hair, feelings, religions, political ideologies; and any other thing that could make a unit different from another.”

   “Eventually, the units disappeared, too. Now, there’s only the Hivemind.” Adam, hit himself in the forehead. “Oh, I’ve forgot to make the introductions... Eve, these creatures are visitors from a near planet.”

   “Nice to meet you,” smiled Eve. “Please, come inside. Our house is small, but I’ll try to make it comfortable for you.”

   Twilight, Luna and Rainbow didn’t reject the invitation, of course, but they were starting to think that the horrible red planet was getting weirder and weirder.

***

   A white three-eyed angel was flying under a red sky, shooting energy beams at the stone monsters which were trying to take him to the ground. A giant snake tried to swallow him, but there was an explosion of shadows, and the angel was replaced by the Upgraded Dark Beast, who promptly destroyed the stone ophidian with his claws. Then, like Godzilla, he fired a blast of blue energy through his mouth, defeating the army of monsters.

   The Beast shrank and transformed into a black stallion. Exhausted, Francisco returned to the Hand Tower and asked if that was enough.

   “You have progressed,” said the drooling god. “However, you are not ready yet to fight the red planet.”

   “Oh, come on!” groaned Francisco, laying in the ground.

   “The training will continue, but later. Now, it is time for you to take your nutrients. What would you like to eat today?”

   “I don’t know...”

   “Are you sure you do not want meat? You are not in Equestria now, you can eat it.”

   “Mmh...” Francisco licked his lips. “I would love to eat a juicy steak... but no, that would be cheating. Now I am a citizen of Ponyville, and I must follow the same rules as everypony. Just give me something sweet, please.”

   The drooling god moved his tentacles, and a silver plate with cupcakes appeared in front of the black stallion. Francisco took one and bit it.

   “Delicious!” he exclaimed. “Just like the ones Pinkie Pie makes...”

   “You really like that creature, right?”

   “Yes...” Francisco blushed. “I like her... a lot...”

   The entity kept silence for a few seconds, and then he opened his multiple eyes, like if he was surprised by something.

   “I understand it now!” said the drooling god.

   “What?”

   “When I gave you your powers, I assumed you also wanted eternal life, but you rejected it and said you just wanted the lifespan of an average earth pony. It was due to her, right?”

   “Yes...” Francisco took another cupcake. “Yes, it was for her...”

   “Were you planning, since the beginning, to form a family with her?”

   “Well...” the black stallion blushed even more. “To be honest... I don’t know if a family, but I was hoping to be her friend and... and maybe something more, and I don’t want to outlive her, I want to live with her.”

   “Then, why do not you tell her your feelings?”

   “I tried, but I can’t! I’m too shy for that!” then, Francisco realized where he was, and what he was doing. “Why are we talking about this?!”

   “I thought that a conversation about an informal topic would help you to relax.”

   “Well, it doesn’t. I prefer to talk about the red planet. I still haven’t asked you from where it came, or what it really is.”

   However, the drooling god didn’t answered. All of his eyes looked elsewhere.

   “So?” insisted Francisco. “From where it came? Do you know it, right?”

   The entity sighed with his many mouths.

   “If you want to know it...”

***

   Somehow, the cottage of Adam and Eve was smaller on the inside. Or, at least, that was the impression it gave to the three ponies. It had just one room, with no beds, no furniture, no kitchen, no bathroom... only a table with two chairs, which hadn’t been designed for ponies, so Twilight, Luna and Rainbow sat on the ground.

   “I apologize for not offering you food,” said Eve. The ponies still were having difficulties to tell which was which. “Nothing grows on the planet, and we don’t need it.”

   “There’s nothing much to do here,” said Adam. “We don’t need to even sleep, so we just sit there and talk, while time passes slowly.”

   “And I thought your hobbies were boring...” whispered Rainbow Dash to Twilight.

   “It was a fortunate coincidence that you had decided to came here during my daily walk,” continued Adam. “If you had come sooner or later, I wouldn’t have seen you, and you would have been assimilated by the Hivemind.”

   “We have data about marriages,” explained Eve. “Apparently, even if they’re married, man and woman need some time alone sometimes, so Adam goes to walk for twenty minutes everyday at this hour, while I stay in the house.”

   “And normally, in three hours, we would do the inverse. But not today, since we have guests. Please, tell us a bit more about you.”

   The blue alicorn decided to speak first:

   “I am Luna, one of the two Princesses that rule over the kingdom of Equestria, in the planet of the same name. My job is to rise the moon every night, while my sisters rises the sun every morning.”

   Adam and Eve seemed very excited by that.

   “Do you have a moon?” asked (maybe) she. “And a sun, too?”

   “Tell us, what do they look like?” requested (probably) he. “Are they beautiful? Is the light of the sun warm? We have data about that, but we’ve never seen them.”

   Twilight and Rainbow looked at each other.

   “Uh...” said Luna, a bit confused. “Yes, they are pretty beautiful... I guess...”

   “Allow me to ask a different question,” said Eve. “Are you married?”

   “What? No, I’m not.”

   “Is anyone of you married?” asked Adam to Twilight and Rainbow.

   “Of course not,” said the unicorn. “We’re still a bit too young for that.”

   “But love exists in your world, does it?”

   “Yes.”

   “We would like to know what love is,” said Eve. “Adam and I have tried to love each other, but it is difficult. We have data about it, but that is not enough.”

   Suddenly, Twilight realized how sad Adam and Eve must feel on the inside, despite their smiles. They had been alone for maybe centuries, doing nothing, not even loving, although they sure had tried. Then, she realized:

   “Francisco!” she shouted. “Princess Luna, we have to return to Canterlot now! And we have to bring Adam and Eve with us!”

   “What are you talking about?” asked the alicorn.

   “If we don’t, Francisco will destroy the red planet with the two of them still in it! They’re innocent, we must save them!”

   “Excuse me...” interrupted Adam. “Did you just said that someone is going to destroy the Hivemind?”

   “Yes! A friend of ours!”

   “That is wonderful!”

   The three ponies were left speechless, as the two red creatures started to celebrate.

   “What a blessing!” exclaimed Eve. “Finally, the Hivemind will be stopped!”

   “For years, we could do nothing but sit down and see how this planet ate other celestial bodies,” explained Adam. “But now, if your words are true, such nightmarish events will never happen again! Thank you, thank you!”

   “But you have to come with us!” insisted Twilight. “Otherwise, you will die too!”

   Adam and Eve smiled, and hold their hands again.

   “Yes, we will die,” said she.

   “We cannot abandon this planet,” explained Adam. “You’ll see... sometimes, its preys defend themselves, and the Hivemind has to send troops to fight the enemy forces. Since the soldiers die if their connection with the planet is cut, the Hivemind extends a special energy field around itself, with allows its warriors to keep moving, even without a direct connection to the red ground of the planet.”

   “That same energy field is what keeps us alive, even though we are not part of the Hivemind anymore,” said Eve. “If we abandon this planet, if we go beyond that energy field, we’ll die.”

   “Actually, death seems to be our only destiny. If we abandon the planet, we will die.”

   “If we try to fight the Hivemind, it will recycle us, and we will die.”

   “We are such useless errors... We hate what we are, but nothing can be done to change our nature.”

   “The only reason why we didn’t kill ourselves is because... pride, I guess. The Hivemind wanted us dead, so we stay alive in order to defy its will.”

   “Obviously, it’s all symbolic. The Hivemind has totally forgotten about us, and we cannot harm it just by staying alive.”

   “But you have just brought great new to us! Finally, the Hivemind will die, and we will be there to see it. Thank you.”

   Those two last words gave shivers to Twilight. Adam and Eve were thanking them the fact that they were about to die soon, and by the hands of one of her friends. Their lives must have been really bad, if death looked so nice to them. The unicorn felt really sorry for the lonely couple, so much, that she almost cried.

   “Do you know what?” said Adam. “You three seem very familiar to me.”

   “That’s impossible,” said Rainbow Dash. “You had never seen us before.”

   “But I have the feeling that I know about you.”

   “Me too,” said Eve. “Somehow, I remember your names. I remember... I think we have data... about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.”

***

   Francisco dropped the cupcake, and looked at the drooling god, with his eyes widely opened.

   “What did you say?!” he shouted.

   “The red planet is Earth. Your Earth”.

Visitor from a forgotten future

Visitor from a forgotten future

   “What?!” repeated Francisco, unable to believe what he had just heard. “That’s impossible! I mean... Dammit, that is just impossible! The red planet is two or three times bigger than Earth!”

   “It has been feeding,” explained the drooling god. “Its mass has increased.”

   “No!” the black stallion tried to scratch his head with his hooves. “This cannot be... This is just... Oh... Oh, good Heavens...” finally, he gave up. If the drooling god had said it, it had to be true. “When it happened? It was just after I died, or when?”

   “It will never happen. The red planet was one of the futures of Earth, but not anymore.”

   “Wait... what?”

   “I will try to explain it, listen carefully... The Past is carved in stone, while the Future is undefined. However, undefined is not the same as nonexistent. Just like the branches of a tree, the Future sprouts from the Present and divides itself in millions, maybe billions of possibilities, all of them different in several degrees. Obviously, at the end, only one of those possibilities will become a new Present, and the others will disappear in the Sea of Probabilities. While they are in this state of pre-happening, the futures exist as mere concepts, shadows of what they may become. Do you follow me?”

   “Yes... I think.”

   “In one of the futures of Earth, mankind will develop a system to transmit information, images and thoughts directly from one mind to another. To put it shortly, humans will invent telepathy. Eventually, as biotechnology progresses, they will be able to store thoughts, feelings, personalities; whole human minds in machines, as if they were data from a computer. At first, this system will be used by scientists, to preserve their intelligence and knowledge after death; and by rich people, who will pay overly large amounts of money to avoid the Grim Reaper or to have their minds downloaded into more suitable bodies. In time, every human will have access to this technology, and changing bodies will be as common as changing clothes.”

   Francisco was listening, without interrupting, almost holding his breath.

   “Then, one day, the humans will improve this technology to its ultimate form,” continued the drooling god. “They will connect all of the Mind Storehouses of the Earth into one worldwide biomechanical web of consciousnesses. Thousands... no, millions of souls united in the same artificial container, sharing thoughts and information, while their original bodies rest in cryogenization chambers. They will call it ‘the Hivemind’. However, something will go horribly wrong (or maybe horribly right, depending on the point of view), and the Hivemind will become partially sentient. It will consume all the human consciousnesses inside of it, eliminating individuality. Then, it will assimilate not only the frozen human bodies, but also plants, animals and machines. The Hivemind will parasitize the land itself, reaching the very core of the planet and becoming one with Earth. And so, the blue marble will transform into a red abomination, and it will start to wander the Cosmos, swallowing other worlds and stars... until nothing is left. This was one of the possible destinies of Earth, but recent events in the actual timeline have caused this future to become completely non-viable. Following the normal process in this cases, it disappeared in the Sea of Probabilities.”

   “Then, why is it here, now?!”

   “Because something unexpected happened. By means I do not know, the red planet made the impossible: it stopped being a concept and acquired an existence of its own. It escaped from its dying timeline and entered in the Present, in the Multiverse, when and where it will fulfill its goal of consuming everything.”

   “What were the events that made that future non-viable?” asked Francisco.

   The drooling god also looked reticent to answer that question.

   “Tell me!” insisted the black stallion.

   “You.”

   “What?!”

   “Do you remember that person you save from the fire? He was destined to die there. In the future, his descendants will be important opponents to the telepathy technology. Without them, the Hivemind had a small chance of becoming real. Now, the possibilities are absolute zero.”

   That answer hit Francisco like cold water. Once again, he was the main cause of Equestria’s imminent peril.

   “No...” he mumbled, falling to his knees.

   “Look it in this way: you saved your Earth.”

   “But I doomed my new world!” Francisco smashed his head against the stone ground.

   “Hey, do not do that!”

   “Why?!” shouted the black stallion, while smashing his head again, this time harder than before. “Why do I keep bringing menaces to Equestria?! Why?!”

   “Calm down, you did not know that this would happen. Not even I saw it coming.”

   “I’m such a... useless... And let me guess, the red planet came to Equestria following me, the cause of its inviability, right?”

   “I can not assure it... but it is a possibility.”

   Francisco roared in rage, and smashed his head against the ground one more time. The drooling god picked him with one of his tentacles and lifted him. The black stallion tried to transform, but for some reason, he couldn’t.

   “Do not forget who gave you your powers,” said the entity.

   The shapeshifter, fought a bit, moving his legs frantically, but eventually, he gave up.

   “Do not moan more about this, it is useless,” said the drooling god. “Complete your training, and save your world of colours.”

   Francisco looked at him. The forehead of the black stallion was bleeding, and his eyes, crying.

   “But what will I do after?” he asked. “What if more monsters keep coming to Equestria by my fault?”

   “You will be there to stop them. Besides, the ponies are not defenseless. It is just that the red planet is too much for them.”

   “But I will not live forever. Who will protect Equestria then?”

   “You can still ask for eternal life. I will give it to you.”

   Francisco looked directly at one of the enormous eyes of the drooling god. Yes, he could become the eternal protector of his new home, and work alongside Celestia and Luna. However, he would also see his friends pass away, and the children of their friends, and their children... He would see the world change before his eyes, century after century. That idea was terrifying for him. He was not made for immortality.

   There had to be another... Yes, yes it was.

   “Call your stone creatures,” said Francisco. “I must train.”

***

   “Yes, I remember now,” said Adam. “It was a unit named... Lauren Faust?”

   “Correct,” confirmed Eve. “A female unit. She passed away many years before the Great Assimilation. She created a cartoon show based on a previous cartoon show, I think.”

   “And that cartoon show had a remarkably huge success. Do you remember the name of the characters?”

   “Besides our three guests, I remember the names Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Celestia, Fluttershy, Spike, Rarity, Discord, Derpy Hooves...”

   “How do you know all those names?” asked Twilight.

   “Because we have data about all of you,” explained Eve. “Many years before the Great Assimilation, there was a cartoon show called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and you were the main characters.”

   “What is a cartoon show?” asked Rainbow Dash.

   “A work of fiction.”

   “A what?! Wait a second, are you saying that, in this planet, there was a work of fiction about us?!”  

   “Yes.”

   “How is that possible?” asked Luna. “How could your people know about our world?”

   “I think they didn’t,” answered Adam. “They just created it. They created all of you.”

   The three ponies were punched in their souls. They created all of you. How would you feel if a creature said to you that everything you know and love is just a work of fiction, created by the inhabitants of a planet which was about to eat you?

   “I must say, this is amazing!” said Adam, unable to see that they had just caused a breakdown to their guests. “We’ve just met the characters from a work of fiction from our own past! What were the possibilities of that?”

   Rainbow Dash jumped on the table.

   “Quit that nonsense!” she shouted, angered. “We are not fictional!”

   “Oh!” exclaimed Eve, excited. “Does that mean that the evolution of your world has given origin to creatures that look exactly like a work of fiction from our past? What an incredible coincidence!”

   “Maybe the unit Lauren Faust did know about the real Equestria,” said Adam. “Maybe she had access to a dimensional portal, and we don’t have data about that.”

   “It’s probable. We lost several data when we escaped from the Hivemind.”

   “Enough!”, shouted Luna. “I don’t want to hear anymore of that!” her horn was glowing. “We’re going home!”

   And the three ponies disappeared in a flash of light. For the next seconds, Adam and Eve remained sit, silently looking at the spot where their guests had been. Then, still holding their hands, they came out of their cottage and looked at the red horizon.

   Soon, everything would end...

***

   The main square of Canterlot was empty, except for a few ponies who had decided to stay and wait for their friends.

   Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash and Princess Luna appeared in a flash of light. Immediately, their friends and family approached to give them a warm welcome. They didn’t know it, but the three ponies really needed one.

   “Welcome back, sister,” said Celestia, hugging the blue alicorn. “I’m glad to see that you are safe.”

   “Oh, sister!” cried Luna. “What a horrible place that planet is!”

   “Don’t worry, you will never have to go there again. Say, have you discovered something useful?”

   “Nothing!” shouted Twilight, almost instantly. She was sweating, and a bit pale. “We’re sorry, but we have discovered nothing about it!”

   “Don’t worry, it’s ok,” said Applejack, while hugging a very nervous Rainbow Dash. “We’ll just wait for Francisco.”

   “That’s right!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie. “He’ll save us all!”

   The purple unicorn, the blue pegasus and the moon alicorn looked each other. They had learned a terrible truth about their world, about their friends and about themselves... but they couldn’t tell it to anypony. The red light was filling the air, and that monstrous planet was over their heads. They had managed to maintain hope even in those dark times, but if anypony knew about that horrible truth, their spirits would break.

   The three couldn’t help it, and cried. Their friends comforted them, thinking that they were just stressed due to their nightmarish journey.

Words of a trickster

Words of a trickster

   With only a few hours left for the arrival of the dreaded red planet, life in Equestria was paralyzed. No stores were opened, no foals were playing in the parks, and no letters were being delivered. Some ponies hid in their homes, decided to spent their last minutes with their loved ones. Others formed crowds in the cities and looked at the red planet, now so big that everypony could see its demonic blue eyes. They were afraid and worried, like everypony else, but they also had faith in their Princesses. They had said that somepony would come to save them.

   All of the colours of the world had disappeared, except for red, which now was everywhere. Suddenly, Equestria seemed to have lost all of its beauty and happiness, sucked away by that crimson light. Nature itself was affected by the proximity of the planet: the flowers had closed their buds, and the animals had took shelter all over the world.

   However, even if that red filter wasn’t there, Equestria would still look like a sad place for Twilight Sparkle. Since their return from the planet, she couldn’t look anywhere without thinking that everything she saw, from ponies to mere objects, were all fictional. The same happened to Luna and Dash. They were all in Canterlot, waiting for the inevitable. Pinkie, Celestia and the others were at the balcony, looking at the red planet and waiting for Francisco.

   The purple unicorn, the blue pegasus and the moon alicorn, on the other hand, were in the garden. Luna had convinced them to go there, to see the only creature who could know if the words of Adam and Eve were true or not.

   A creature trapped in stone.

   “I...” whispered Twilight. “I don’t know if we should...”

   “I want to know,” said Rainbow Dash. “If we’re going to die, I want to know. I we’re going to live, I want to know, too.”

   “Do not worry,” said Luna, while drawing a circle around the statue, using her horn. “This magic symbols will allow us to free just a small portion of Discord, more than enough for him to answer us.”

   Twilight looked at the red planet. To be honest, she also wanted to know.

   Luna finished the circle. Then, she stepped back, and her horn glowed. The drawings in the ground shone, too, and created a column of blue energy that surrounded the statue. Then, they heard a crack. And another one. And another one...

   Finally, the head of the draconequus became flesh again. Just the head.

   “Oh, my neck!” he groaned. “Just a year and a half trapped in stone, and my neck already hurts this much? Good Chaos, I don’t want to think of how much it will hurt in one century...” He looked at the three ponies. “Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and my beloved Luna. What can I do for you?”

   “Don’t try anything, Discord,” warned the alicorn. “The 90% of your body is still trapped in stone, and a powerful magic shield is around you. Your powers can do nothing.”

   “Yes, I can see that,” the draconequus looked around. “Why is there so much red? Oh, I can’t believe it! You were angry at me for painting all Canterlot in bright green, and now you do the same with other colour?! Shame on you!”, then, he looked up, and he saw it. “What has Celestia done to her sun?”

   “That is not the sun, you buffoon! It is a planet, and it is about to eat us.”

   “Oooh... I see. You want me to destroy it, right?” he smiled. “It will be a pleasure, my ladies. Just take me out of here, and I-”

   “We’d rather be swallowed by that monster than accepting your help, Discord!”

   “And we don’t need you, either,” said Rainbow Dash. “A friend of ours is going to blow up that planet anytime soon!”

   “Really?” Discord looked honestly surprised. “Oh, I would like to meet him.”

   “Enough!” shouted Luna, stomping. “We’ve freed you only to ask you a question!”

   “Very well, then. Ask.”

   “Do you promise to tell us the truth?”

   “Yeah, why not? After all, I’m going back to stone anyway, am I not?”

   “Yes. But first, the question,” the blue alicorn gulped. She looked at her companions, and they nodded. “Is it true... Is it true that we’re just a work of fiction?”

   The draconequus raised one of his gray eyebrows. Then, he bursted in laugh.

   “So, you’ve discovered it, haven’t you?” he asked. “Well, it was about damn time!”

   “Do you mean...” said Luna, with her lips trembling. “Is it true?”

   “Of course it is! Why do you think I am so crazy? Because I discovered the truth many, many years ago, and I became mad from the revelation!” and he kept laughing hysterically.

   The weak flames of hope that were left in the hearts of the three ponies were extinguished by a merciless cold wind. Their worst fears had turned out to be true. Their lives, their dreams, their friendship... all of that was nothing more than the vagaries of a screenwriter. And the unbearable laugh of the draconequus echoing in their ears wasn’t making things easier.

   “Who told you that?” asked Discord. “Nah, forget it, it doesn’t matter... I wish I could have seen your faces when you discovered the horrible reality! Oh, are you crying, Twilight Sparkle? Well, you should!”

   “Shut up!” shouted Rainbow Dash.

   “Did you know that the cartoon show started right in the moment Twilight Sparkle came to Ponyville? Do you know what that means? That everything that you remember that happened before that point actually never happened! They’re false memories brought up by flashbacks every time the director commands it! Hey, Rainbow Dash, do you remember your first Sonic Rainboom, when you were just a filly? You actually never did it, it was just a flashback of something that never happened!

   “Shut up, you...!”

   The pegasus tried to hit the laughing Discord in the face, but Luna stopped her. If Dash had gone through the magic shield, it would have broken, and the draconequus would have been sent free.

   Then, Twilight Sparkle ran away, crying. Rainbow Dash followed her. She may be just a fictional entity from a cartoon show, but she was still the Element of Loyalty. Princess Luna imprisoned Discord again. This time, the statue of the Spirit of Chaos had a deformed smile on its face.

***

   Rainbow Dash found Twilight curled in a corner, crying. The pegasus landed near her friend and put a friendly hoof on her shoulder.

   “I...” she started to say. However, she was as broken as the unicorn, and she couldn’t take it anymore. Desperate, almost wishing for the red planet to devour them as soon as possible, Dash curled too, in the grass.

   Luna found them, and she embraced them under her wings. The three ponies were lost, lost in their own world. They couldn’t tell the truth, nopony would believe them, and those who do, would become as miserable as them. Their lives had turned out to be a lie, and they could do nothing about it.

   Suddenly, Twilight Sparkle understood the point of view of Adam and Eve. She wanted to die...

   But she also realized about something:

   “Wait a second!” she shouted. “If that work of fiction started when I first got to Ponyville, and before that there was nothing, then how could Discord discover the truth many, many years ago?”

--------------------------------------------------

   It was raining. Stones. From a red sky without clouds.

   A figure was walking through the still unfinished landscape, under a colorful umbrella to protect itself from the tiny round stones which were falling everywhere. He took one of them, and studied it. The stone studied him too, with a yellow eye.

   “Creepy”, said Discord, throwing the stone away. “What are they?”

   “Keys,” explained the drooling god, levitating several meters over the head of the draconequus. “I will use them to bring lesser beings from other worlds to my dimension. I will grant them their wishes, and I will share their happiness.”

    Discord made the umbrella disappear in a little flash of light. It wasn’t raining stones under the drooling god.

   “Why don’t you use your power to see all the possible futures?” asked the draconequus. “See in which of them you will be happier, and make it happen.”

   “Past and Future do not exist for me, only Present. I can only see the possible futures of other entities and worlds. But by doing that, I have discovered some curious things. For example...”

   The drooling god moved his tentacles, and two holes opened in the red sky. Discord could see a planet in each one of them, both blue and pretty similar, except for minor details. One of them was orbiting around a sun, while in the other, it was the inverse. The drooling god pointed at the latter and said:

   “In one of the possible futures of this young planet, which is most likely to happen, its surface will be populated by sentient candy-colored ponies.”

   “You’re making that up, aren’t you?” asked Discord.

   “And in one of the possible futures of the other planet, which is also most likely to happen, its surface will be populated by sentient hairless apes.”

   “Oh, you have to be making that one up. It’s impossible that something like that could happen naturally. Hairless apes... by the Chaos...”

    “But the most interesting thing is that, in one of the possible futures of the second planet, one of the apes will create a cartoon show which will be almost identical to the world of the ponies. What an amazing coincidence.”

   “Yeah, cool...” the draconequus was looking at the world which would be eventually known as Equestria, playing with his goatee.

   He was thinking that ponies would be much more fun to play with than apes.

--------------------------------------------------

   When Discord’s head became flesh again, the draconequus kept laughing for a while. At first it was his typical sincere laugh, he was really having fun. Then, when he realized that Luna, Twilight and Rainbow were looking at him with very angry expressions on their faces, his laugh became a bit forced and lost strength. Eventually, he shut up.

   “So, you have realized, haven’t you?” he asked.

   “Discord!” roared Luna, so angry that her eyes were glowing in white. “You promised to tell us the truth!”

   “Hellooooo? I’m the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, I love lies and I don’t keep my promises. You three should know it by now.”

   “I’m tired of this!” growled Rainbow Dash. “We’ll ask it one more time, and this time, you will tell the truth!”

   Discord yawned.

   “You’re so boring...” he said, looking up. “Well, since it seems that we’re going to die soon... Equestria is real. Totally real, and so are all of you. And yes, all the things that you remember that happened in your past, did happen.”

   “Then, what about the cartoon show?” asked Luna.

   “Just a cosmic coincidence.”

   However, the alicorn wasn’t really convinced by that.

   “Hey, now I am telling the truth, I swear!” said Discord. “I assure you, it’s just a coincidence! And besides, the cartoon show is not even 100% identical to Equestria, there are small differences.”

   “But still...” mumbled Twilight. “That means lots of creatures watched us... or they watched images that were doing the same as us... that’s creepy...”

   “What’s the matter, Twilight Sparkle? Scared that a bunch of hairless apes may have watched you in the bathroom? Probably they didn’t, that cartoon show doesn’t replicate the 24 hours of your everyday life.”

   “Who cares if they did?” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, touching her cheeks with her hooves. She was crying again, but this time, of happiness. “We’re real! Good Celestia, we are real! And our friends are real, and the grass is real, and the clouds are real!”

   And she hugged Princess Luna without warning.

   “Uhm...” Discord looked at the red planet again. “Are you sure you don’t want me to get rid of that thing? It’s coming closer...”

   “Thank you for answering your questions, Discord,” smiled Luna. “I’ll remember this if someday Celestia tries to smash your statue,” and her horn glowed.

   “Oh, come on! At least let me adopt a more dignifying stan-!”

   And the head of the draconequus was stone again.

   The three ponies couldn’t help but to cheer in loud voices. They could feel the ground under their hooves and the wind in their manes, and it was wonderful, because all of it was real, and so they were.

   Then, everything started to tremble.

***

   The red planet was getting bigger and bigger, probably it had increased its speed again. Now it was covering a good portion of the sky, and the blue eyes were perfectly visible. They were looking at Equestria, hungry, avid.

   Earthquakes were happening all around the world of the ponies. The coasts were being hit by terrible waves, and violent winds howled all across the Everfree Forest, uprooting trees. The mountains started to die in avalanches, and some volcanoes were re-awakened. The proximity of the red planet had started to unbalance Nature itself.

   Luna, Twilight and Rainbow Dash reunited with Celestia and the others in the balcony. All of them looked up at the nightmarish eyes, all of them stared at their imminent doom.  

   Then, the planet removed its atmosphere, allowing everypony in Equestria to see its surface: bright red, pulsating and knurled, like a gigantic ball made of skinned muscles. It was alive, and it was hungry.

   It was time to eat.

   But then, a figure appeared out of nowhere and stood in the path of the red planet.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Special thanks to Thepple for suggesting the idea that Discord could know about the drooling god.

A beautiful light for a beautiful world

A beautiful light for a beautiful world

   The creature, although still small compared with the red planet, was way, way, way bigger than the Dark Beast. It was... hard to describe. We could say that it kinda looked like a crab, but only in the same way a venus flytrap kinda looks like a common daisy. You are sure that probably both of them have a common ancestor in the distant past, but that’s all.

   Its body was more or less spherical, and covered in a grayish exoskeleton, with four crab-like legs coming for the sides. It also had a four-eyed white mask in its belly, and above it, at the end of a golden neck, a horned ‘true’ head. In its back, two yellow chitinous wings. Also, it had two gigantic blue arms, each one ending in a hand, and in the palm of each hand, a white and red eye.

   The creature extended his arms, and the red planet stopped, clashing against some kind of invisible wall. Then, Francisco pushed. Surprisingly, it worked, and the abominable planet started to go back, and everypony that saw it from Equestria cheered.

   From the red surface, a tangle of tentacles stretched towards Francisco. The white mask on his belly opened and fired a web of energy beams, cutting the enemy tentacles, while still pushing. The red planet unleashed an immense horde of crimson insectoid creatures of different sizes, although no one of them was smaller than a Ursa Minor. However, two new fighters appeared at Francisco’s side: the Dark Beast and the Upgraded Dark Beast, existing as independent entities. Using all of their power, they protected the shapeshifter from the swarm of red monsters. Meanwhile, Francisco kept pushing.

   Eventually, the red planet was forced to retreat beyond the orbit of Luna’s moon. The shapeshifter stopped pushing, that place was as good as any other. At that distance, Equestria wouldn’t be damaged from the crossfire.

   While the two Beasts were incinerating the army of the red planet, Francisco took a few seconds to look at the mutated Earth. There it was, the world he hated, the planet he rejected. Bigger and with a different colour, but those were minor details. It was still Earth, and Francisco still hated it. But he didn’t want to hate anymore, he just wanted to... forget. Yes, to forget and be happy. A little portion of himself would be morbidly happy for destroying the red planet, he couldn’t deny it, but for the most part, hatred wasn’t the fuel for his actions, but the desire to protect everypony.

   He was going to do what had to be done. Not a revenge.

   Francisco’s body began to shine with an azure light, and he started to descend, right towards the red surface. The planet reacted by calling back its atmosphere and making it denser than before. The swarm of creatures attacked again, but the two Beasts launched a massive rain of fire breaths and energy beams, opening Francisco’s path. Some of the red soldiers managed to get to him, but they were disintegrated by the azure light, which became more intense as the shapeshifter was approaching the surface of the red planet.

   The Upgraded Dark Beast was surrounded, overwhelmed and devoured by the enemy soldiers. The normal Dark Beast managed to reach the atmosphere, but he dissolved when he made contact with the dark clouds. However, Francisco’s light opened a hole in them, and he kept descending.

***

   Outside their cottage, Adam and Eve were contemplating the battle. They saw the azure light of Francisco tearing the atmosphere apart, and then they saw him, like a gigantic beacon, destroying the last clouds. The Hivemind sprouted more tentacles and tried to stop the shapeshifter, but his light burned it. Its soldiers surrounded Francisco, but the light destroyed them all.

   The lonely couple saw the shiny blue giant clashing against the red horizon.

   “Adam,” said Eve. “Do you think this is what a sunset looks like?”

   “I don’t know,” answered he. “But I hope, because it’s beautiful.”

   The two errors hugged, knowing that their end was near, but they were happy about it.

   “What is that?” asked Eve, pointing at the ground.

   And they picked two things, two tiny round stones, which looked at them with yellow eyes.

   Then, the powerful shock wave caused by the impact of Francisco in the planet reached them, destroying their bodies, their house, and all the mountain chain.

***

   Francisco was tearing through the red flesh at highspeed. Like a blue fireball, he burned the entrails of the red planet, digging directly to the core.

   Eventually, he reached it. An immense cave filled with columns of flesh, almost  a biological cathedral, like the inners of a human heart. It was pounding, although not to send any blood, but information. Francisco could feel the electric pulses flowing through the red matter. That was the core of the Hivemind.

   Thousands of eyes, blues like the ones on the surface of the planet but smaller, opened on the fleshy walls, and the shapeshifter heard a chorus of many voices, all of them identical:

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”    

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”  

  “We are the Hivemind. We shall assimilate you.”       

   And several tentacles, with mouths and claws on their extremes, attacked Francisco, biting him and piercing his exoskeleton. The shapeshifter, still glowing blue, didn't try to defend himself. However, he said:

   “Yes, you will assimilate me. You will assimilate every me.”

   And his body shone again, this time stronger than ever. The color blue infected the tentacles of the Hivemind and filled the core, and then extended through the rest of the planet, which also began to shine. Like if it was a second moon, or a smaller sun, the celestial body glowed in the skies, bathing Equestria in the azure light.

   The Hivemind had been created by humans, and it wasn’t programmed to comprehend, not even to conceive, a creature like Francisco, with the powers of the drooling god. That way, the shapeshifter had it easy to overcome the monstrous conscience and take control of the whole planet. It had come from a different timeline, from a different Universe, and it could do it again. Now, it was a key.

   Using the capabilities of the Hivemind, which exceeded the power of any supercomputer, Francisco examined the Multiverse, searching for himself, for any thing related to him. Any world created by his death, any entity that could have come to existence due to his demise. If he saw a creature that could be a menace for Equestria or any other world, it was immediately extracted from its reality and absorbed by the Hivemind. The good beings or the harmless ones, however, were left untouched.

   No more monsters would come to his world of colours. At least, no more monsters related to him.

   However, performing such feat had a prize...

***

   Everypony was looking at the red planet, now far away from them, although still visible. They were almost holding their breath, while contemplating the azure light, waiting for something to happen. Anything.

   “Can you hear me?” sounded a voice in the air.

   “Francisco?” asked Pinkie Pie. “Is that you?”

   “Yes I am,” said the voice. It sounded distant, but at the same time, very close.

   “Where are you?” asked Celestia.

   “Inside of the red planet. Don’t worry, everything is going to end soon. I just wanted to thank you, all of you, for everything you’ve done for me. This last month has been the happiest of my life, of my two lives. I don’t know where I will go now, but wherever it may be, I will never forget you, my friends.”

   Then, the surface of the planet started to break, and the light became more intense.

   “What are you talking about?” inquired Pinkie Pie. She wasn’t understanding his words, but her Pinkie Sense was tingling, and she didn’t like it.

   “I’m sorry,” apologized Francisco. “I’m going to die with the red planet.”

   “What?!” gasped everypony.

   “I created it,” explained the voice of the shapeshifter. “Unwittingly, but I created it. I’ve used its power to clean the Multiverse from other monsters born from me. Equestria will never be threatened by them again. However, neither my body nor the red planet can hold this much energy. We will die. Consider this my apologies for having brought so much disasters to your world, I really didn’t want any of this to happen.”

   “No!” begged Pinkie. “Don’t be silly, it was not your fault, we are not mad at you! You can’t do that, you promised that you would return!”

   “I’m sorry, Pinkie. I’m sorry, friends. Please... be happy.”

   And the red planet exploded into a glorious flash of light, so bright that everypony had to cover their eyes. An azure wave extended and covered the world, its sun, its moon, and the space surrounding them. Magnificent aurora borealis were seen in the skies of Equestria when the energy released by Francisco’s death entered in contact with the atmosphere. The red filter vanished, and the colours returned to their legitimate place. The volcanoes and the seas calmed, and plants and animals started to wake up, feeling that the menace was no more.

   The light of the explosion kept shining for several minutes, before fading away. That was Francisco’s gift to the planet that had made him so happy, to those colourful ponies.

   A beautiful light for a beautiful world.

***

   A shapeless blob was crawling in a ground made of millions of tiny round stones. It had no arms, no legs, no mouth to speak or scream with, and only one eye.

   Francisco reached the Hand Tower. He was surprised to see that the drooling god was talking to other two shapeless blobs, both of them red. The entity moved his tentacles, and his guests disappeared. Then, Francisco approached.

   “Welcome back,” said the drooling god.

   “Who were they?” asked the former shapeshifter.

   “My two new messengers. I have send them to a world where they will be happy.”

   “That’s good... I guess...”

   “Congratulations, you did it. Even though you did not train your powers as I had intended, you saved Equestria, your beloved colourful world.”

   “Yes... yes, I did...”

   “Are you not happy about it?”

   Francisco looked at the drooling god with his only eye. He mumbled a bit, looking for the adequate words. Yes, he was happy. After all, he had... he was...

   Oh, who was he kidding?

   “Of course not!” he shouted. “I’m not happy at all! I didn’t want to end like this, I didn’t want any of that garbage to happen! I just wanted to go there to be happy, not to blow up myself in order to stop a mutant Earth from a future that doesn’t exist anymore! Just hear what I’ve just said, for the love of God! That sort of things shouldn’t happen in Equestria!”

   He wished to have hands, so he could punch the ground. Or himself.

   “But...” he continued. “But now they will be ok, they will be safe, so I guess I did the right thing, although I didn’t want to abandon them. I did the right thing, but I’m not happy about it. At all.”, Francisco approached the tower. “I guess I have no right to beg, but... can’t you do something?

   “I am afraid not. Now that you have died a second time, our contract is over. I must let you go.”

   “And can’t we make another deal?”

   “No. This time you do not hate the world you come from. Remember, that was the main requisite.”

   “Then... what will I do now?”

   “You must go to the Afterlife. Since you lived in both worlds, you can choose between Earth Afterlife or Equestria Afterlife, but I do not know anything of what may await you there.”

   Francisco looked down.

   “Are you sure you can’t do something?” he asked, one more time.

   “No,” answered the drooling god. “There are Rules.”

   Francisco turned back and started to crawl away. He wanted to cry, but he didn’t have lacrimal glands, either.

   Then, he stopped, suddenly, and looked back.

   “But I don’t come from Equestria,” he said. “I come from the red planet, that’s where I died this time. And I hated that world.”

   The drooling god gave him an inquisitive glance with all of his eyes. The shapeless blob remained silent for seconds, under the shadow of the stone tower, waiting for an answer, hoping for a miracle.

   Then, the drooling god laughed.

   “Bravo,” he said. “A loophole in the Rules, very well done. I guess we have another deal, then. Do you still want to be my Nyarlathotep?”

***

   Happiness. Equestria was overflowing with happiness. Not just ponies, but every creature, sentient or not, was cheering, dancing and laughing under the skies, which were blue again. Hope had returned, and stronger than ever, because they had just escaped from death. They were alive, and their world looked much more beautiful than they remembered.

   But one pony was not celebrating. Pinkie Pie was still on the balcony, staring at the sky, waiting.

   “Uhm...” whispered Fluttershy, behind her. “You should come inside, Pinkie.”

   “He may return now,” said Pinkie. “I have to wait for him.”

   “Darling...” said Rarity. “I’m afraid... I’m afraid Francisco is not coming back.”

   “But he made a promise! He would not break his promise!”

   “Pinkie, you don’t understand...” said Twilight. “Francisco... Francisco sacrificed himself for us. He had to break his promise, so we could live on.”

   The pink pony looked back at her friends, with a sad look.  

   “Come on, Pinkie,” Twilight put a hoof on her shoulder. “He wouldn’t like you to be sad. Remember what he said? ‘Please... be happy.’ Will you be happy for him, Pinkie Pie?”

   “Y... Yes. Yes, I will,” and she smiled. A sad smile, but a smile. “I guess... I guess it’s ok that he had broken this promise. After all, it wasn’t a Pinkie Promise.”

   “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” said a voice.

   The mares turned around. There was a black stallion in the middle of the balcony, with one of his hooves on his eye.

   “Now it is a Pinkie Promise,” he said. “And nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise.”

   Immediately, he was hugged by all the six, specially by Pinkie Pie, who jumped on him and almost broke some of his ribs. Even Celestia and Luna joined them, glad to see that their friend from another world was back.

   “I knew you would return!” exclaimed Pinkie, embracing Francisco so tightly, that the black stallion almost couldn’t breath. “Oh, I’m so happy, that I want to throw the best party ever! Come on, everypony, to the castle! I’ve brought my Party Cannon with me, which means that I can have everything ready in less than ten minutes! Let’s go!”

   “Wait, Pinkie...” said Francisco.

   “Yes?” asked she, with a big and bright smile on her face.

   “Er...” the black stallion blushed and gulped. “I... I wanted to tell you something. I...”

   With her head, Celestia told everypony to leave the two of them alone.

   “I... I wanted to tell you, since... well, since... I mean...”

   The words were stuck on his throat, and it wasn’t an easy task with Pinkie directly looking at him with her big blue eyes and her ridiculously adorable smile.

   “I...” no, he couldn’t. His voice faded away in a comical squeak.

   However, still smiling, Pinkie approached Francisco and kissed him in the cheek.

   No one of them said anything. She knew.

***

   Happiness. Equestria was overflowing with happiness. There was a big party in Canterlot’s castle. What were they celebrating? The defeat of a terrible foe, the return of a beloved friend, and the fact that they were still alive.

   Or maybe they weren’t celebrating anything. Sometimes, just like Pinkie Pie, you don’t need a reason to be happy.

Artwork 2

Artwork 2

Time for artwork! Again, although this is how I see my creatures, you can imagine them the way you want.

The red planet.

Inspired by Hellstar Remina (Maybe I should stop reading horror manga...)

The red planet without its atmosphere

The soldiers of the Hivemind.

Remember: they come in many different sizes, and the smallest ones are as big as the Ursa Minor.

The blue squid from 'With love, to my new family'.

I’ve taken several liberties to design this creature. It’s not really a squid, since it has four eyes, claws, more than ten tentacles... Actually, I think squids look kinda creepy. Search for images of the Giant Squid in Google, and tell me if those eyes are not directly staring into your soul. Ugh...

The golden insect knight.

I wanted to give this shape a bit more of screentime, but meh...

Francisco, Destroyer of Worlds.

In this shape, Francisco is more or less the size of Pluto.  

Cover of the fanfic from chapters 9 to 14. (The Red Planet Arc)

Funny Eyes

Funny eyes

   Francisco woke up in his bed, sweating, almost as traumatized as if the Twin Cakes had jumped over him again and he couldn’t transform in something gelatinous to avoid the total obliteration of his stomach.

   He cleaned the sweat of his forehead with a hoof, and then looked at the clock. The nightmare had awakened him with accuracy, it was almost breakfast time, and that morning, he had to prepare it.

   The black stallion went to the kitchen, still musing a bit about his dream. He opened the fridge to get the milk, and...

   “Surprise!” shouted Pinkie Pie, jumping from inside the appliance.

   Francisco was startled so hard, that he transformed into a bunch of green bubbles.

   “Good morning!” smiled Pinkie.

   “How do you do that?” asked the shapeshifter, returning to his pony form. “How did you get inside the fridge, and when?”

   “I don’t know!” replied Pinkie, bouncing around without worries. “Let me help you with the breakfast!”

   “Oh, no,” smiled the stallion. “Today it’s my turn, and this time, I’ll handle it myself. Now, go back to bed and sleep for a bit more, ok? I’ll make your favourite cupcakes.”

   “Chocolate cupcakes!” exclaimed Pinkie, while Francisco was gently pushing her back to the stairs. “I love them! I love chocolate! And I love you, too!”

   She kissed him, and bounced upstairs. Francisco returned to the kitchen and started to bake.

   “You look worried.”

   “Agh!” Francisco turned into bubbles again. “Pinkie, stop startling me!”

   “Ups, sorry... But seriously, you don’t look very good. Have you slept well?”

   “N... No,” the black stallion re-appeared. “I’ve had nightmares. About the Hivemind.”

   “Oh, poor thing...” the mare took Francisco’s head with her hooves and pressed his head against her chest. “Now, tell your fillyfriend Pinkie all about it,” she said, gently tapping the head of the shapeshifter.

   “Pinkie, I should really start baking... Oh, whatever... I dreamed that the Hivemind returned, not as planet, but as some kind of giant red... thing, and it started to assimilate everything... everypony... all of you.”

   “But you destroyed the Hivemind, remember? It went BOOOOM in the skies, all of us saw it. That monster won’t return, it’s impossible!”

   Truly, it was impossible for the Hivemind to return, but it didn’t have to. It could still be there, Francisco had thought a lot about it.

   The Hivemind wasn’t stupid. After all, it was a worldwide supercomputer who had absorbed the minds of all mankind, it just had been unprepared to fight him. But it could had foreseen its own destruction, and sent something like a seed, a part of itself, to Equestria, the nearest world avaliable. Maybe his nightmares were residual memories of the thoughts of the Hivemind, which Francisco had shared before the explosion, when both of them had become, briefly, one entity.

   That was possible. Although Francisco had scanned the Multiverse and destroyed any other menace related to him, he hadn’t even looked at Equestria, and that had been a big mistake. If the Hivemind had sent a part of itself there before the purge, it would had survived, perfectly.

   “Maybe I should patrol the town later,” he said. “Just in case.”

   “Don’t worry your many heads about that,” whispered Pinkie. “Not even a week has passed since you saved the world, you have to rest!”

   “Aw, just like when we were young...” said a third voice.

   The young couple turned back. The Cakes were looking at them with a nostalgic expression on their faces. Pinkie blushed and Francisco turned into bubbles again.

***

   Even though the memory of the red planet was still fresh, life in all Equestria had already returned to normality. In some places, things had gotten even better than they were before. After being at the very edge of extinction, some ponies had decided to rethink their lives. Some enemies reconciled and became friends, sons that had refused to see their parents for years had returned home, and some grumpy ponies decided to be a bit nicer with their neighbours.

   For Derpy Hooves, however, life was still the same. ‘Don’t touch that, Derpy!’, they said to her. ‘Move out of the way, Derpy!’, ‘No, we don’t need your help, Derpy.’, ‘Stop being so clumsy, Derpy!’. They used to say those things to her before the red planet, and they were still saying them after.

   But it wasn’t her fault. She was just trying to do her best, like always. It was the fault of those doors, columns and closed windows that appeared out of nowhere and stood in her path all the time. Those damn inanimate objects...

   The gray pegasus landed on the shore of a small river, outside Ponyville. Her face was black due to a bit... shocking visit to the Library, while Twilight was in the middle of an experiment. Actually, the purple unicorn was one of the few ponies who were kind to her. ‘Don’t worry, Derpy.’, she had said. ‘Anypony can have an accident.’ Twilight was very patient with her, so was Rarity, even though she wouldn’t let her anywhere near her boutique. Derpy also liked Pinkie and Fluttershy, the first was always giving muffins and sweet things to her, with a big smile; and the latter was one of the kindest pegasus she had met. Sometimes, Applejack let her help with the apple trees, and the earth pony always nursed her whenever she bucked a tree with the head instead of the hooves.

   Those damn trees, appearing out of nowhere...

   Rainbow Dash was the less kind of the six, and sometimes she used to scold Derpy, but the gray pegasus knew that, actually, the best flyer of Equestria really cared about her, no matter how many times she shouted in anger.

   But still, Derpy felt she was alone. Every time she looked herself into a mirror, or every time she walked near water.

   The gray pegasus wet her hooves and cleaned the soot of her face, and she felt alone again, because she saw her reflection in the river. She saw those eyes, those Funny Eyes, as some ponies had named them, maybe maliciously, maybe not.

   Why was she the only pony with Funny Eyes?

   Then, a sound made her look up, at the other shore of the river. In front of her, trying to hide itself in the bushes, there was a creature. Bipedal, of elongated body, and red. Its body was covered with eyes, and all of them were Funny Eyes, just like those of Derpy, because each one was looking at a different direction.

   At first, the gray pegasus was scared, because the creature kinda looked like that terrible red planet. However, she calmed when she realized that, while the eyes of the cosmic monster were blue, the eyes of that strange being were yellow.

   Again, just like hers.

***

   “Hello, Twilight,” said Pinkie, bouncing across the streets of the town. “Uh, your face is a bit black. What happened?”

   “Derpy Hooves crashed through my window while I was conducting an experiment.”, explained the unicorn.

   “Oh, that poor pegasus...” Pinkie put a sad face. “Twilight, please tell me that you didn’t scold her.”

   “Of course not! I know that she is just trying to do her best, it’s not her fault that... well, you know, her eyes...”

   “We should throw a party for her!”

   “What? I mean.... yeah, that would be nice, and I’m sure that Derpy would appreciate it; but why a part-?”, then, she realized that she was talking to Pinkie Pie.

   Parties had no need for a reason.

***

   The white angel landed in the balcony and wrapped himself in his wings. He bowed before Celestia, and said:

   “I came as soon as I received your message. What’s the problem?”

   “There’s something I wish you to see, friend from another world.”

   The white alicorn entered in the castle, and Francisco followed her. Soon, he met the cause of all that: a cocoon. Bigger than Celestia herself, red, and it had already hatched.

   “It was found on the outsides of Manehattan,” explained the Princess. “There were footprints near it, but the trace had been partially erased by the wind and the rain. We believe that, whatever it was inside of this thing, it came out one of two days ago.”

   The angel approached and touched the cocoon. He recognized the material.

   “This was created by the Hivemind,” he announced. “It comes from the red planet.”

   “How is it possible? You destroyed it!”

   “I’m afraid that the Hivemind sent this to Equestria before that, probably when I trespassed its defenses, in my way to the core. But this is just a dead carcass, it’s harmless.”

   “I thought so. The question is, what was inside this cocoon, and where it is now?”

   Francisco remembered his nightmares, the horrible images he saw in his dreams about a reborned Hivemind devouring Equestria, and his three red eyes shone.

   “I’ll find it, and I’ll destroy it.”, he said.  

What am I?

What am I?

   A raven was flying over Canterlot. Nothing very remarkable, right? Just a bird flying, it was something normal.

   However, if somepony had decided to follow that raven, it would have discovered that the black bird was, in fact, not normal at all. Sometimes, maybe every two kilometres or so, he transformed into another bird, like a falcon or a seagull; or maybe in black wind, or in some kind of bizarre insect.

   But he never stopped flying around, searching for something.

   Francisco knew that he had to hurry. With all probabilities, the spawn of the Hivemind had already started to assimilate living beings, to become just like its progenitor. And, if the hatched cocoon was any indicative of the size of  the monster which slept inside, the spawn would be big enough to have ponies for its first meal.

   He had to hurry.

***

   Pinkie Pie was excited. She had convinced Twilight and the others to celebrate Derpy’s party that same night. Sadly, her party cannon was in the repair shop for a complete checkup, so she had to prepare everything manually. She was bouncing through all the Sugarcube Corner, baking and cooking. Soon it would be midday, and she still had to buy the decorations.

   “Where are Francisco and his many arms when you need them?” she whispered.

   Then, the little bell of the door sounded.

   “Welcome to Sug- Oh, Derpy! What are you doing here?”

   The gray pegasus approached the counter. Pinkie didn’t know exactly what, but there was something different on her.

   “I would like to buy muffins,” said Derpy. “Many muffins.”

   Happiness. That was the difference: the pegasus looked happier than usual.

   “Of course!” smiled Pinkie. “I’ll give you a whole box, but don’t eat too much, because this nig-” she put her hooves in the mouth. She couldn’t ruin the surprise. “Er... Because if you do that, you’ll get a tummy ache!”

   “They’re not all for me,” explained Derpy, leaving some bits in the counter. “I’m going to share them with my new friend.”

   “You have a new friend?” the eyes of Pinkie sparkled. “That’s wonderful!”

   “I’ve just met him today. Later I will introduce him to all of you.”

   Derpy took the box of muffins with her mouth and went out of the bakery. Pinkie was  doing a big effort to not squeak of excitement. The gray pegasus had found a friend, and she would have a party that night. So much joy in the same day!

   Derpy was going to be so happy in a few hours...

***

   Pass the river, inside the woods (not the Everfree Forest), the red creature was waiting, looking at itself. Its long arms, each one with a four-fingered hand at the end... Its feet with no toes... Those yellow eyes, everywhere... All of them parts of its own body, and yet all of them so unknown...

   It heard a sound. The sound of  a flying body clashing against a tree. Those damn vegetable lifeforms, appearing out of nowhere...

   “I’m back!” said Derpy, leaving a purple box on the grass.

   The creature approached her. It had no idea about what that winged lifeform could be, even though he knew the concept of Wings. And the concept of Legs, and the concept of Head... It knew each one of the components of that gray being named Derpy, but the whole of them was something unknown for it. The same happened with its own body.

   The gray pegasus opened the box.

   “They’re muffins,” she explained. “I love them! You can have some.”

   The red creature took one of the unknown brown units and studied it.

   “They’re delicious!” said Derpy, while eating one.

   A hole, kinda like a mouth, opened in what we could say it was the head of the creature. It tried to bite the muffin, but the red lips didn’t even touched the baked good.

   “I think I don’t eat of these,” it said, putting the muffin back in the box.

   “You can talk?” exclaimed Derpy, surprised. “I didn’t know! Tell me, what’s your name?”

   “Name?” the red creature looked confused. “I know the concept of Name, but I think I don’t have one.”

   “But everypony I know has a name.”

   “You must know a lot about names, then. You could give me one.”

   Derpy scratched her head with a hoof, thinking. She had never been good at naming things. Well, actually she had never had to name anything... But there’s a first time for everything, don’t you think?

   “Uh...” she said. “I think... How about... Red?”

   “I like it,” said the creature, almost instantly. “I think it’s appropriate. Thank you.”

   “You’re welcome!”

   “Derpy, since you’ve just given me a name, do you think you could also answer one question?”

   “I... guess...”

   “What am I?”

   Derpy scratched her head again. That was a difficult one.

   “Sorry, I don’t know,” she said. “You should ask Twilight Sparkle, she may know. She is very smart.”

   “You are also very smart.”

   “No, I’m not,” Derpy looked at the ground, sad.

   “You gave me a name. Also, you teached me about muffins, and I didn’t know about them. You’re smarter than me,” That was not a poor intent of making the mare feel better, the words of Red were sincere.

   Derpy smiled, and also blushed slightly. She ate another muffin.

   “Where do you come from?” she asked.

   “I don’t remember,” said Red. “I woke up in a place far from here, near a big city, but that’s not where I was born. I didn’t want to go to the city, it scared me, so I came here. This place is nicer.”    

   “Do you remember anything?”

   “I... I remember voices in my head. Many voices, all of them identical. Now there is only one voice, mine, and it does not know much. I’m lost.”

   “Why don’t you come to live with me, here in Ponyville? There are very smart ponies in the town, and some doctors, they can help you to recover your memories!”

   “Are... are there others like me?”

   “No, only ponies.”

   Red looked sad. Well, it was hard to tell, since it had no face.

   “Then... I’m still alone...” he mumbled.

   Derpy approached Red and tapped him gently in a leg.

   “I’m alone, too,” she said. “I’m the only pony with Funny Eyes. I’m clumsy, and the others are often mad at me,” she smiled. “But you also have Funny Eyes, we could be friends!”

   “If we were friends... I wouldn’t be alone, right?”

   “Of course not. I will be with you all the time.”

   “Then... yes, we shall be friends.”

***

   The hours of the afternoon went away, and the sun disappeared under the horizon. Pinkie had finished all the preparations for Derpy’s party, and she had already reunited  her five friends at the doors of Sugarcube Corner.

   “Ok, everypony!” exclaimed the pink mare. “Everything’s ready, now we have to search for Derpy! She doesn’t know about this, it’s going to be a big surprise! Oh, I can’t wait to see the smile on her face!”

   “Now that I think about it,” said Twilight, “I haven’t seen Derpy since this morning.”

   “I haven’t seen her in all day,” added Rainbow Dash.

   “I haven’t seen her since she bought those muffins this afternoon,” said Pinkie. “I haven’t seen Francisco, either.”

   Then, they noticed something over their heads: a black wind, flying to the outsides of the town.

   It seemed in a hurry.

***

   Derpy and Red had been talking all the afternoon. The mare had teached the creature everything she knew about the forest, Ponyville, and Equestria in general. Then, when the time came, they contemplated the apparition of the first stars.

   “Are you sure you’re not hungry?” asked Derpy. She had eaten all the muffins, because Red hadn’t wanted.

   Hungry... the creature also knew the concepts of Hunger and Eating. Actually, yes, it  was hungry. It had been all the day feeling the urge to absorb nutrients, but the muffins weren’t an adequate meal for it. No, the adequate food, the one its body was screaming for, was...

   No. Red didn’t want to hear that instinct. It was not going to do that.

   “I am fine,” it lied.

   Derpy laid his back on the grass and looked to the sky, which was filling itself with new stars.

   “They’re beautiful,” she said.

   “I think...” mumbled Red, looking up. “I think I’ve been out there... up there...”

   “I wonder what kind of place it is. I hope it’s a very nice and quiet place, where nopony is angry at you for being clumsy...”

   Slowly, Red raised his arms to the sky, almost as if it wanted to touch the starry blackness with its fingers. The more it looked to those little silver dots, the more it felt that it had been there, and the more it wanted to go there, for some reason.

   Then, something landed near them. A golden four-armed knight, which actually looked more like a highly-evolved insect.

The Many Shaped One

The Many Shaped One

   “I’ve found you,” mumbled Francisco, looking at the crimson monster.

   Red was studying the golden insectoid creature with its multiple yellow eyes, because it looked familiar. Derpy also stood up, wondering why the shapeshifter was there, and why he didn’t seem very happy.

   “Stay away, Derpy,” he said. “I have to kill him.”

   “What?” gasped the gray pegasus.

   Then, the Mane Six, who had followed the black wind, came to the place.

   “Why?” inquired Derpy. “Red hasn’t done anything to you!”

   “He’s the spawn of the Hivemind,” explained Francisco. “He’s dangerous, I have to finish him before he decides to assimilate all of us!”

   The multiple eyes of Red blinked at the same time. Hivemind... that was also a known concept.

   “I remember you,” it said, pointing at Francisco. “You are... The Destroyer...”

   That surprised the shapeshifter. He remembered the voice of the Hivemind, and that didn’t sound like it, at all. However, that creature was not a full-grown Hivemind yet, just a larva, obviously it had to sound different!

   “I won’t let you!” said Derpy, standing in Francisco’s way. “Red is my friend.”

   “You don’t understand!” insisted he. “That thing was programmed to absorb every lifeform in existence, it’s dangerous to have him around!”

   “No, it’s not!”

   “He will assimilate Equestria to re-create the red planet! I have to kill him!”

   “Oh, stop with that!” shouted Pinkie Pie, jumping by Derpy’s side.

   “Pinkie?!” exclaimed Francisco. “What are you doing?!”

   “Just look at him!” said the mare, pointing at Red with a hoof. “He’s so not like the red planet! When I look at him, I don’t feel the same, and my Pinkie Sense hasn’t tingled!”

   “But... He’s dangerous! He could turn into a monster!”

   “So could you, or have you forgotten what the Dark Beast almost did?”

   Francisco stepped back. His fillyfriend had just gave him the verbal equivalent of a megaton slap.

   “And despite that, you’re living in my house!” continued she. “Well, it’s not really my house, since the Cakes are the owners, but...” she shaked her head. “What I’m trying to say, Francisco, is that you can’t solve everything with explosions and fights! I know that he looks like a monster... but so you do, when you’re transformed! If we believed you when you said that you weren’t dangerous, why can’t you do the same thing for him?”

   Francisco lowered his four arms. She had a point. But then, Red stepped forward, and it stood right in front of the shapeshifter.

   “He is right,” it announced. “I’ve remembered what I was, where I came from. I’ve remembered my mission, but I don’t want to fulfill it. Do your work, Destroyer, and kill me.”

   “No!” shouted Derpy.

   “It’s the best thing. I have seen what I was... If I my existence implies even a small possibility for the red planet to reappear, then I must be exterminated. Kill me, Destroyer.”

   Ironically, Francisco was feeling bad for Red. Pinkie had just calmed his rage, now he didn’t want to kill it. But the creature was, sadly, right.

   Francisco put a hand on the shoulder of Red, wanting to give him some condolences before delivering the killing blow. However, as soon as he did that, the residual memories of his fusion with the Hivemind returned, revealing new information.

   The shapeshifter stepped back and returned to his black stallion form, looking at the ground, with his ears down.

   “Well?” asked Red.

   “I don’t need to kill you,” said Francisco, with sad voice. “You’re going to die soon.”

   “Mmh... I thought so.”

   “What are you talking about?” asked Twilight.

   “His lifeforce is running down,” explained Francisco. “He’s dying, because he hasn’t eaten.”

   “He said he wasn’t hungry,” explained Derpy. “But there are lots of food in Ponyville!”

   “It’s not so easy, Derpy. He doesn’t eat our food.”

   “Then... what does he eat?”

   Red pointed at the gray pegasus with its index finger.

   “You,” it said. “And you, and you, and the grass, and the birds... I was supposed to assimilate every living being on this planet to keep existing, but I don’t want to. I’d rather die.”

   Then, Derpy extended her front legs.

   “Eat me,”  she said.

   “What?!” gasped everypony.

   “Eat me,” repeated the gray pegasus. “That way, you’ll live, and you will enjoy this world. It doesn’t matter, after all, I’m clumsy and dumb. It’ll be better for everypony if I go.”

   Slowly, Red knelt to look at Derpy’s face. It surrounded her with his long arms, and for a moment, Francisco feared that the creature was going to do it

   “No,” said Red, hugging the pegasus. “You are precious, Derpy. Not clumsy, not dumb, you’re precious. I’m not going to eat you.”

   “Eat grass, then!” she begged. “There’s nothing wrong in eating grass!”

   “I can’t. If I assimilate a living being, even a small one, my program could take control again, and I would devour all of you. I have to go, Derpy, but I’m glad to have met you, you have been a wonderful friend.”

   The creature stood up. Derpy was crying a bit. She didn’t understand.

   “Destroyer,” asked Red. “Before I die, tell me, what am I?”

   “You are a spawn of the Hiv-”

   “No, no. That’s what I was. What am I now?”

   “I... I don’t know.”

   “I see. Then, could you do me a favour?” Red pointed at the starry sky. “I want to go there.”

   Francisco smiled, and transformed into an enormous phoenix of white flames.

   “Let’s go,” he said.

***

   A small body of flames was floating outside the limits of Equestria’s atmosphere, giving his back to the planet. The fiery wings of the white phoenix were holding a dying crimsom body.

   “It’s... beautiful...” whispered Red, as he contemplated the cosmos. “So many stars... And Derpy was right, it’s so quiet and nice... So peaceful...”

   “Hang in a little bit,” said Francisco. “There’s another thing that I think you should see.”

   The shapeshifter turned around. Red gasped when he saw the planet Equestria right before them, gigantic, blue, and almost... magical. Silently, it was floating in space, sustaining life on its surface, defying the black Void. That image awoke new memories in the mind of Red, memories which were from a long time ago, before the many voices, before the Great Assimilation... Memories of a blue marble, like that one, floating in the Cosmos, like a beacon of hope.

   Red cried. Through its many eyes, it cried golden tears.

   “I remember!” it exclaimed. “Before the Hivemind... I was Earth!”

   Earth? Yes... yes, it could be.

   Maybe the Earth had always had a spirit, some kind of Gaia; or maybe it had developed one after God-knows-how-many years of being parasitized by the Hivemind, and now Red was that spirit, finally free of its abhorrent prison. Maybe the magic of Equestria had had something to do with all that, maybe it had altered Red when he was in the cocoon, awaking that same spirit, giving it a conscience and allowing it to overcome its program.

   Francisco then realized, he was holding Earth in his wings.

   Earth... he hated it, he had rejected it, and he had no intention to return there never, because it was an ugly world.

   But... if Earth, from the outside, looked anything like Equestria, if his former home planet was really that nice and innocent creature known as Red; perhaps he had been a bit harsh with her.

   Maybe Earth wasn’t so ugly, after all.

   “Destroyer...” whispered Red.

   “Yes?”

   “I still don’t know... what I am...” Its life was about to vanish. “But I don’t care... I just... would like to be... Earth... once more...”

---------------------------------

  “Bravo,” said the drooling god. “A loophole in the Rules, very well done. I guess we have another deal, then. Do you still want to be my Nyarlathotep?”

   Francisco had the answer very clear: No.

   This time, he wanted to return as a normal earth pony. No more weird powers, no more bizarre transformations. He had thought that being able to transform into anything would be awesome, and truly it was, but eventually it had turned to be a bit stressing. Francisco had meditated about it, and he just wanted to live a normal life in Equestria, nothing more.

   No more Nyarlathotep.

   However, for some reason, he didn’t said No. He asked for all of his powers back, but he didn’t know why.

---------------------------------

   Now, Francisco knew. The mysterious reason why he had wished his powers again was right now in front of him. One last miracle had to be done. One last transformation.

   The white phoenix embraced Red, and both of them became a golden light. And, in that light, a voice spoke:

   “Do whatever you want. Be Earth. Be life.”

   Then, the golden beacon split in two shining comets. The smaller one returned to Equestria, and the other, much bigger, flew towards the deep space.

***

   The seven mares saw the two lights. The small one fell from the sky and landed right in front of them. It vanished, leaving Francisco on its place. Pinkie ran towards him.

   “Are you ok?” she asked. “What happened up there? What was that light?”. Then, she realized: “Oh, your cutie mark!”

   The yellow eyes had disappeared. Now, the black stallion had quills on his flanks.

   “Well...” he said. “No more transformations for me. It’s ok.”  

   “Where’s Red?” asked Derpy.

   Francisco looked up. The golden light was still visible, like a new star in the skies, even though it was slowly fading away.

   “He’s gone,” he explained. “But he’s not dead, he has just went to another place, one where he will be happy, where he will finally be what he wanted to be.”

   The mares didn’t understand his words very well, but they didn’t ask anything. Maybe it was that golden light, now just a tiny spot, but they had the feeling that everything was ok. They were sure that that was a happy ending.

   Derpy wasn’t crying anymore. She looked up at the fading star, and moved her hoof, saying goodbye.

   “You were a wonderful friend, too,” she whispered.

   Francisco and Pinkie looked at each other, and smiled. They approached Derpy, and asked:

   “Would you like to be our friend?”

***

   Imagine a silent dead planet near a small yellow star. There’s nothing in its rocky surface, no movement, no green plants, no animals. Not even air to breathe.

   The comet of golden light, at an incredible speed, clashed against that planet, but it didn’t make any crater. Instead, it bathed the celestial body in its glow, filling it with energy.

   The energy of a miracle.

   The silent rocky surface broke, and the magma ascended through the mouths of roaring volcanoes, elevating columns of black smoke to the heights. Electricity started to jump between the dark clouds, and shortly after, it came the first rain.

   It was going to take time, maybe millions of years, but the process had already started. Eventually, the rain will fill the immense valleys of stone, creating seas, and in those waters, the first small lifeforms will be born, someday.

   From that point, everything could happen. The tiny bacterias could become billions of different lifeforms, billions of different possibilities, and several of them could happen at the same time, sharing oceans, mountains and skies. The first animal to step on land in that planet, what will it look like? The answers to that question were nearly infinite.

   Life is the true Many Shaped One.

THE END

Some words from the author

Ok, first and foremost, I have to apologize for this ending, because I’m sure there are people who won't like it. To be honest, I’m not sure of what I was thinking. I wanted to do one of those weird, kinda symbolic endings, like in Space Runaway Ideon or 2001 A Space Odyssey; but I guess I failed. I also wanted to give Derpy a small role in the story, something bigger than just a cameo. And I had to make up with poor Earth, after being hated by the main character trough all the story, and after had turned her into a world-eating abomination, don’t you think?

I also apologize for... well, for having finished, although maybe some of you saw it coming when I uploaded the new cover, which is an amalgam of all the previous covers. I know some of you would have liked the story to continue, and I also wanted to write more, but honestly, I think I’m at my limit. I can’t think in new plots (at least, I can’t think in plots I consider good enough. Believe it or not, I’m very picky with myself when it comes to writing), and more important, I can’t think of new shapes for Francisco. I’m also starting to suffer from Writer’s Block, so I’ve decided to end the story right now.

Just like Francisco said, I thought that having a main character that could transform into practically anything would be awesome for writing, and it certainly was, but I have to think constantly in new bodies and in situations for him to use those bodies, and I’m afraid that my imagination is reaching its limit. Also, I think I’ve put a bit too much of myself in this story. Maybe that is the main reason why I’m feeling a bit stressed.

I have to confess, this was actually an experiment rather than an actual fanfic. I took some ideas I had, I put them together and I threw them in Equestria, hoping that they would become something readable, and I’m truly surprised by the good reception it had. When I uploaded the first three chapters I thought that it would end there, but people started commenting and asking for more, so my imagination got fuel and I wrote more. Now we have 17 chapters, plus two Artwork pages and these words. I never thought it would grow to this size!

Give a round of applauses to yourselves, people. You made this fanfic possible.

Again, I’m really sorry if you didn’t like the ending.

So, what happens now? I would like to write a new fanfic, maybe centering on other characters, and maybe more light-hearted, maybe focused on comedy and aventure, and with a better thought plot. But I can’t promise anything.

I hope to return soon with new stories. Until then, take care everypony, and thank you for all the support.

Epilogue

Epilogue

(Thepple was right, this story needed an epilogue. I hope you like it. If you don’t... I’m doubly sorry)

   Francisco left the quill over the desk, and frowned while contemplating the white sheet of paper. He was out of inspiration that afternoon.

   He looked trough the window, at Ponyville. Four years had passed since its arrival to Equestria. His relationship with Pinkie Pie had advanced, and now he lived in her room, one with magnificent sights of the town. Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake were talking already, and their spontaneus explosions of flight and magic had stopped. Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had adquired their cutie marks (a hammer and some nails, a musical note, and a silver scooter, respectively), but they were still as active as always. Rainbow Dash had finally managed to enter in the Wonderbolts, even though she still had to pass the trainings before having her own suit, but she always found some spare time to spent with her old friends... and Derpy. The gray pegasus had become a full new member of the group.

   Of course, not everything had been joy and peace in those four years. There had been threats, monsters, evil entities... but the Elements of Harmony were more than enough to take care of them.

   At first, the ponies had missed Francisco’s transformations, since they made several tasks easier, but eventually they rolled with it. They had been doing those task without supernatural help many years before the shapeshifter, and they could still do them after.

   Francisco went stairs down. He was a bit thirsty.

   The black stallion approached the fridge and put one hoof in the door... but then he waited. Everything was quiet, too quiet. Francisco knew what that meant...

   “Aha!” he said, opening the fridge. However, nopony jumped from inside.

   Francisco shrugged, thinking that maybe Pinkie was already tired of startling him, and he took a milkshake. Ah, nothing like a fresh drink in a quiet Spring afternoo...

   “Hi!” shouted Pinkie Pie, coming from the sink.

   “Ah!” Francisco almost dropped the milkshake. “What?! How did you...? Oh, who cares... Hi, Pinkie.”

   “Can we go to play somewhere?” she asked, bouncing. “I was going to do some pranks with Rainbow Dash, but she has to train. Can we go play? Can we, can we?”

   “Sure, why not?” Francisco finished the milkshake.

   “Weeeeee!”

   In those four years, the black stallion had been happy. He still hadn’t published anything, it seemed that Destiny didn’t want him to become a writer in any universe, but he didn’t care. He was in an incredible world, with probably one of the best families (even though they weren’t blood related), and with amazing friends.

   There was no room for more happiness.

   When they opened the door to go outside, Derpy Hooves landed in front of them.

   “I have a letter!” she announced. “It’s for you, Francisco!”

   “Really?” he wasn’t expecting anyone.

   The black stallion took the letter and read it. He read it several times, and his pupils became bigger. They also sparkled.

   “Yes!” he shouted, dropping the letter and hugging both Pinkie and Derpy. Then, he started to bounce all over the place, while repeating: “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

   Great, he had become the new Twilight Sparkle...

   Pinkie and Derpy took the letter and read it:

Dear Mr. Francisco,

We are much pleased to inform you that we have decided to publish your book ‘A hoof of Antares’, and that we will take care of all expenses of publication. Please, come to Canterlot as soon as possible to sign the contract.

Yours sincerely,

Editorial SilverQuill.

   Francisco was wrong. There’s always enough room for more happiness.

THE END (this time, seriously)