Zenara the Forgotten Pony

Chapter 3: Shadows of Ourworld

Twilight opens her eyes to find herself in a distorted shadowy place that looks just like where she had been standing before only with very little color. "what? Where is this place?" Twilight wonders.

"This is the shadow realm." Zenara says appearing through the floor out of a shadow. "everything here is darkness. Magic from the light realm doesn't work here. Only shadow magic and chaos magic."

"why did you bring me here!?" Twilight glares at Zenara. "send me back."

"I can't do that princess. Not until you have felt my pain." Zenara begins walking. "your welcome to stay here and hide, but you should at least visit ponyville while you're here."

"hu?" Twilight questions.

"you are interested in learning are you not?" Zenara stops and looks over her shoulder. "when your friend brings me Celestia and Luna I will honor my agreement and set you free back into the light realm, however while you're here you may as well look around. If for any reason you should find yourself in trouble come back to this place. All the ponies here are afraid of it so they won't follow you back here." She turns forward once more and disappears through another shadow hole.

"ponyville?" Twilight wonders. "oooookay then..." she decides to take Zenara's word for it and go explore this weird place. "she said there are other ponies here? I wonder what they're like?" Twilight makes her way through the Everfree forest all the way to ponyville. When she gets there she spots Fluttershy's house. "well that doesn't seem to have changed at least." As she trots up the path from the forest to Fluttershy's house she sees a dark purple pony with a mane of midnight blue and a black stripe. "um... hello excuse me." she calls.

When the pony turns to look at Twilight she looks just like fluttershy but darker.

"FLUTTERSHY!?" twilight gasps.

The shadow fluttershy scoffs and narrows her eyes. "who are you?"

"twilightsparkle..." twilight replies.

"well Sparkle..." the pony stands, flips her hair off her face, then walks towards twilight with a sinister stare. "didn't your parents teach you anything?"

"hu?" twilight's ears go back. 'this isn't like the fluttershy I know... this fluttershy is scary.'

"it's rude to come onto people's property without an invitation." Fluttershy growls.

"i... I'm very sorry for the misunderstanding." Twilight bolts the other direction towards sweet apple acres. 'maybe fluttershy is different but there is no way Applejack could have changed so much.' She checks behind her to make sure the scary fluttershy was not following her.

Twilight arrives at the apple farm and to her horror it appears that nobody has lived there in years. "where is everyone?" Twilight wonders she walks up the path towards the gate. At the gate she stops and looks around. Everything was there it just looked so old and broken that she was having trouble deciding if anyone was living there. "hello?" she calls.

"hu what?! Who goes there!?" Applejacks voice echoes through the area, then she stumbles out of the barn with her mane a-mess covered from head to hove in dirt. Unmistakably this is another shadow pony, easily identified by the dark colored flank and mane.

"Applejack?" twilight questions unclear about whom she is looking at, she narrows her eyes to see better.

"what of it?" Applejack replies. She then frowns. "yall come here ter distract me? I'm busy! go away." She disappears back into the barn.

"wait applejack!" Twilight rushes forward without thinking. She stops at the barn door and peers inside. "ap..." she stops talking when she sees the whole inside of the barn has been turned into some kind of apple processing factory. "what happened here!?"