Author's Note: Okay, this is the official first chapter of this story, since you don't need to read the prologue to kick it off. I will personally say that I think that this chapter doesn’t feel long enough. I’ll edit it later to add more meat to its bones. Another completely unrelated sidenote. I like to listen to music to get the chapter rolling, and yes, the music doesn't just help me write, it matches my writing style and lets it go much faster than without it. So, I'll post a link here --->Chapter One: Awakening Theme<--- Okay then, enjoy!
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Azrael stumbled through the streets, trying to regain his composure and recollect his thoughts. How did he get here? Where was here? He shook his head out of his stupor and surveyed his surroundings.He was in a city that had cobblestone roads, wooden buildings, and lanterns to light the dark asphalt. It seemed very similar to home, until he spotted a newspaper stand and saw the date.

“Whoa- this is!?”

He gasped in shock, which caused many to give him a rude look as he quickly flipped through the newspaper. How is this happening? Not only am I in another city, I’m in another time! He couldn’t seem to find anything else to help him within his newly acquired paper and he stashed it in his saddlebag. At least he still had that with him. He heard a hawk cry out in the distance and let curiosity take him, catching the silhouette of a looming, but graceful castle in the distance. Maybe they can make sense of this mess. Might as well start big.“

Uh, are you gonna pay for that?” It wasn’t difficult to tell that the newsstand owner was perturbed at the free reading.
Azrael blushed and apologized. “Sorry about that. Here.” He laid out a few Discordian dollars before he took off down the street, heading in the general direction of the castle.
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Princess Celestia gazed out her window, trying in vain to sense the unknown anomaly that had suddenly appeared in Canterlot. Sudden sparks of magic were erupting all over Equestria, like the night sky when Luna felt happy enough to create new stars in her spare time. She took a sip of her hot cocoa as she thought of the endless possibilities. What is this anomaly? Were they ponies? Are they hostile or friendly?

“Uh, Tia?”

Princess Celestia turned back to see her little sister and Ruler of the Night, Princess Luna, standing in her doorway.

“Yes? Is something wrong?”

Princess Luna gave a worried glance at her older sister. “Yes, I’m fine. Are you okay though? You’re usually asleep by now. Something on your mind?”

Princess Celestia turned once again out her window. She gazed at the streets while the light of the lanterns were slowly put to rest on the cold winter night. “Didn’t you feel it too, Luna? That strange presence? It’s been bugging me ever since it appeared. I couldn’t sleep since.”

“So, that was real? I wasn’t imagining things?”

Celestia gave a slight nod as she quietly sipped her beverage, deep in thought.

“How will we deal with thi-“

Aardvark, a Lieutenant of the Royal Guard, crashed through the twin doors across from them. He was deeply out of breath and there were dents in his once pristine armor.

“Your Highnesses! I’m sorry to interrupt your conversation. A mysterious pony asked to have an audience with you. When we told him that you were not awake at the moment, he told us that he would not take no for an answer. We tried to subdue him but he managed to take down my entire squad! The other guards are holding him back as best as they can.

Princess Celestia turned toward her sister and gave a confirming nod. They raced down the hallway with the Lieutenant. This must’ve had something to do with the anomaly. No pony would dare request an audience with Celestia without an appointment. They knew it, and they were going to get to the bottom of it.
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They galloped down the hallway towards the ballroom. According to the guard, they were holding him off at the main entrance, but barely. Celestia asked if the guard could remember a cutie mark. She might’ve been able to figure out who the mysterious pony was if she knew that much, but the guard answered that it was partially covered by a dark, leather saddlebag, which hid it well.

“This unknown pony is very skilled in combat. His techniques are a complete mystery to me, and what’s even worse, it doesn’t seem to have a distinct magical affinity of choice. Based on my fight with him, it is apparent that he is capable with almost any weapon, as he was able to use weapons that he disarmed from my guards efficiently.”

“Thank you for this report,” said Celestia, “but we wish to settle this as peacefully as possible. I do not like violence anymore than I like contempt. Once we get there, please stand your guards down. Luna ad I will try and settle this.”

“Yes, your majesty. I will call them off as soon as possible.”

They finally reached the ballroom and could hear the commotion out of the main entrance. The door was massive, which made it all the more apparent how grand the battle was that lay outside. All of a sudden, a grand shout was heard throughout the entire castle. It boomed and the walls shook, making an earthquake feel like a quick trip in a jumper.

“Tia! That’s...!” Princess Luna looked at her sister in true sync and gasped.

Celestia stared at the ballroom door. That voice… It can’t be… “Luna! Hurry! That voice was from-“

Luna turned to her sister with an expression that would make any tough pony come to comfort her. Her eyes were filled with shock and her lips trembled likewise. “That voice. I last heard it-” Luna gazed at the silk azure carpet to remember and almost immediately snapped back up.”Before I was imprisoned. Tia, that was before world peace had taken form in Equestria! The guards won’t have a chance!

Before they could rush through the main entrance, another shout filled the palace and the doors violently swung open, caused by one of Aardvark’s men being shot through the door. Aardvark rushed to his subordinate’s aid while the Twin Goddesses darted out the door.
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There were at least a dozen or more ponies, but they were no match for the unknown pony. Each was quickly countered and dropped by the mysterious pony, one by one, as they all tried to subdue him. He was going to have an audience with the leaders of this country. No matter what happens, he would find the solution to all of his unanswered questions that raged in his mind ever since he had awoken. He gave an immense shout and a quick strand of strikes in order to thin the herd of attackers that he had so recently accumulated. He tried thinking up a few cover stories in order to stay on good terms with the monarchs. Royalty would not accept a pony that had brutalized their entire protection force without good reason, and the guards’ inexperience in combat gave him enough space to in his head to brainstorm. He rarely had to focus fully on combat unless there were dire situations and battles that would be impossible to win. These situations had only happened twice in his life. Once before in defense of his small, rural town, and the second defending his best friend, the latter battle which he had lost his life in. Waking up in another time though, showed otherwise. After he had his fair share of fighting, he finished off the final guard, who had put up more of a fight than his fallen comrades, and he turned towards the door with his back-story in tow, and froze immediately with his cover-up long forgotten. His mind had been blown many times in the two and a half decades that he had been alive, but this one almost left him in a coma, as logic seemed to be void in this new time that he had appeared in.

“L-Luna?!”
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“Tia?! Luna?! Wha-? How did-?” Azrael stepped back onto the cobblestoned steps, on the verge of falling into shock. Instead he fell down the steps with a hard thud. His two best friends had reappeared to him almost 1400 years later, looking just as confused as he was.

“Azzie? You’re alive?” Celestia gazed questioningly at her long-lost friend. He died over a millennium ago. How is he here now?

He sat up and rubbed his eyes with his hooves, seeing if the girls would disappear. They didn’t. “I am?”

“Azrael? Is that really you?” She trotted closer to him and squinted to confirm her suspicions. “Oh, it is you!” Luna ran and glomped her best friend. Tears of happiness rolled down her cheeks onto the marble steps. Azrael ended his mental seizure and smiled as he gently brushed her mane. He thought he had lost the only people that meant the world to him, but now that he knew that he hadn’t lost them, he didn’t care what time he was in.

“We thought we lost you. A millennia and a half is a long time to become one with the Shadows, Azrael” Celestia quipped with a smirk as she watched her sister nuzzle Azrael on the neck.

Azrael did a double take as Celestia mentioned “millennia and a half”. “You mean to tell me that you’ve been living the entire millennia and a half that I was gone? You didn’t just magically appear here like I did?”

“No, we’ve lived this entire time after we beat Discord. When you were hit by Discord, we… we thought we lost you. Your body turned into light right before our eyes and you vanished.”

Azrael snickered, “Guess I can officially call you grandma now then, huh?” Celestia replied by slapping him in the face with a wing shrug. “Tia, why must you abuse me sooooo?” he whined playfully.

Celestia huffed at her insulter. “Still got quite the mouth on you apparently. I was hoping that you might’ve matured in the few years you were gone, but it appears I can’t get everything I want.”

He smiled and turned to Luna who was still burying her muzzle in his neck. “So what have you two been doing ever since I disappeared? A millennium and a half is a long time to be chilling in peace after all that mayhem we were through.”

Luna stopped nuzzling Azrael and looked into his eyes. “We’re the Goddesses of Equestria now. We’ve kept Equestria in eternal peace, which is probably why you made short work of our guards.” She eyed the guards and enveloped them in a dark shroud, riddled with stars. The guards were fully rejuvenated and stood up, shaking off the aches and bruised that were gifted to them by the millennia-old pony. “After you disappeared, everyone had completely forgotten you; it was like you never existed.” She pawed at the dirt that lay in front of her. Luna wasn’t happy that they forgot. He was a hero, but the only people that were recognized as heroes that day were the two sisters that emerged victories that night.

Celestia quickly chimed in. “Okay, Luna. Maybe we should bring him in? It’s starting to get a little chilly out here.” She shuffled her feet nervously. A long dead hero that has been revived without explanation wasn’t something she would want to let slip to the public. It would cause panic in some and hopes for loved ones to return from the grave for others. “Come on, Azrael. We’ll explain the rest to you inside.”
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Jace wandered through the ruins of his town. Everything was destroyed. Homes were broken down to their foundations. Massive trees had been uprooted and snapped like toothpicks. This was Trotstone, a once prosperous town, now reduced to nothing by the twisted schemes of a sadistic pony. The Everfree Forest soon took hold of the town and extended its reach and size, the lovely rural vacation homes’ debris enraptured forever by the growing foliage. Jace stumbled on a root, tripping and fell face first right on one of the old house’s welcome mat. His welcome mat. He tried to regain his balance, but fell flat for a second time. His body ached in pain, not forgetting the massive strain it had been pressured with during that evil pony’s plan to destroy Trotstone with a maniacal weapon that nopony could ever conceive, unless they were mad. He remembered everything vividly, the screams still echoing in his head. Diamond Dogs pillaging houses and taking ponies hostage. The explosion that wrecked all that he had fought to protect. The fierce light that blinded him and caused many to erupt in flames. The shockwave that sent him flying into the stone encropment running along the edge of town, breaking his spine and ending his life. The last part didn’t make sense to him at all though. If he had died, why was he here now? Was it a sick way of telling him that he couldn’t stop Him? That all he had protected had been lost over a paranoid pony’s mental state?

He clambered over the ruins and headed towards what he was hoping for was his former home; instead, he felt an unnaturally placed stone taking residence in what was formerly the town square. He placed his hoof and tried to read the Equestrian Script through touch alone.

Jace’s hoof slowly slid down the memorial in defeat. Tears spilled down his tan fur. “I- I’m so-sorry. He rested his against the base of the stone. “I’m sorry Flower Shine… I’m sorry I didn’t listen.