The Dreamer
Chapter 3: Shadows

"OSCAR! Get up!" was the first thing Oscar heard as he groggily awoke. He noted that his feet were still hanging over the end of the bed, and decided he'd mention it later. Today he was supposed to start practising his 'talent'.

After a quick shower, quick because such a small shower was uncomfortable, he got dressed and headed into the main room of the library.
"Okay, we're going to go practice in the fields near Sweet Apple Acres. They're empty this time of year." Twilight said as Oscar waited impatiently in the middle of the room. There was still nothing large enough for him to sit on comfortably, so he was resigned to standing most of the time.
"Well, let's go. I don't know the way, so I'm just waiting for you." Oscar replied, anxious about how things were going to turn out.
"Alright alright, no need to panic." Twilight said as she put her bags over her back.

As they arrived, Twilight opened her bags and set up a small table, and placed a glass vase on top of it.
"Alright, to start off with I am going to teach you basic telekinesis." She said as she finished setting everything up.
"Tele what now?" Oscar replied, dumbfounded.
"Picking things up and moving them with your mind."
"Oh, right."
"Okay, for this to work, you need to concentrate. Put everything else out of your mind, and focus on the vase."
Oscar quickly cleared his mind, and then began to focus on the glass.
"Okay, I can feel your mind pouring itself at that glass, so you're going to have to work on control, but that can come later. For now, I want you to try to lift it into the air."
Oscar, squaring his concentration, began to envision the glass lifting up, but it just wouldn't move. In frustration, he tried again with a bit more force, and the glass exploded. Tiny pieces of it went wizzing past both him and Twilight, in every direction.
"Okay, you're going to need a lot more control. For now, we'll just use something a little less fragile." Twilight said, and pulled a book out of her bags. "I was hoping to get some reading done once I had taught you enough to practice on your own, but it seems that's not going to happen now." Twilight placed the book on the table, then hesitated. "As a second thought, I have something that the Princess gave me to give to you in the case that you had troubles." She pulled a small clear crystal out of her bag, and a strip of silver. "Put out your hand."
Instantly obeying, Oscar put out his right hand. Twilight used her magic to wrap the silver around his fourth finger, and embedded the small clear crystal into the top of it. Just as she finished, the crystal changed to a golden brown that matched Oscar's eyes.
"This crystal is used for two things. The first is to provide a smaller, easier way to control magic, and the second is to dampen your magical abilities. The second is more of a by-product of the small size of the crystal, forcing a bottleneck effect on your magic. Anyway, try again, on the book this time. And do be careful, that's my personal copy, and I still want to read it."

Oscar focused, gathered in his will, and began to slowly pour it into the book. Without thinking about it, he raised his arm to point at the book, and slowly began to lift both in unison. As he got the hang of it, he started to move the book around, by swinging his arm around. He was quite enjoying this, until he saw the look of disapproval on Twilight's face and his concentration broke, sending the book flying.

"What this time?" Oscar complained, annoyed that she had ruined his fun.
"We are not here to play games Oscar, we are here to practice. You seem to have pretty much mastered telekinesis. Now let's move onto something a bit more challenging: translocation."
"I thought you said that was dangerous, I could end up anywhere." Oscar replied, recounting her warning last night.
"I did, but we aren't going to be moving ourselves. Once more, it will be the book getting abused by your practice."
"Oh, fair enough."
"Okay, so translocating an object is much more difficult then simply moving it. There's reasons why control is necessary for these things. A unicorn may point their horn, as your pointed your arms, but the movement of translocation is faster then one may turn their head, or arm. For this you must be able to control the movement of the object without moving yourself, then when you can do that, I will teach you the next step."
Frustrated that he had to continue with basic telekinesis, Oscar aimed his arm at the book, and picked it up again. He held his arm stiff, and tried to the move the book horizontally, to no avail. Again he tried, and once more, nothing happened. As an idea, he took his ring off when Twilight wasn't watching, and the book immediately dropped to the ground. He aimed his arm back at it, and once more concentrated, lifting it into the air. He tried to move it, keeping his arm locked in place, and once more, it refused. He tried again and again, but the only difference it was making was how violently the book was shaking as it hung suspended in the air. Finally he tried again, when the book exploded, and the pages shredded apart as they flew up into the air, then slowly settled back down.
"I thought I told you to be careful!" Twilight shouted at him.
"I was being careful!" Oscar protested loudly.
"Oh really, then why aren't you wearing the ring? It was supposed to help!"
Defeated, Oscar glumly put the ring back on, and then realised he had no target any more.
"Alright, I'll get out the other vase, but be careful this time. This is the last one and I don't want to have to go back for more." Twilight said as she carefully moved the glass over to the table, but before it was safely planted, a loud boom and an earthquake came out from the direction of the forest, causing Twilight to drop the glass, and as it hit the ground, it shattered.
"Damn, that was the last one. We're going to have to go get-" Twilight was suddenly cut off as another boom, along with a shudder in the ground, came out from the forest.
"We'd better go see what that is." Oscar mumbled.
"Way ahead of you." Twilight said as she ran over to him and translocated them into the forest.

"Man it's dark in here." Oscar said as they tried to discern their surroundings.
"Give it a minute, your eyes will adjust." Twilight said, as she wandered around. "Ah, I don't think the cause of the noise will be that hard to follow. It's left a faint track of broken shrubs and freshly disturbed earth." Twilight said as she started down a track that seemed slightly wider then the others.

As they walked, the booms and shakes were getting louder, until they could hear the falling of trees, the leaves rustling as the fell, the crack of branches snapping, and the thunder of their landing, which was second in volume only to the sound of them being knocked down. As they approached, they saw one tree, in the middle of a clearing, with all the surrounding trees knocked down, or snapped near the base of the trunk. As Twilight approached the tree, its features twisted into a look of malevolence and evil, but Twilight just shrugged this off and laughed, mentioning that this had happened before. Oscar, however, wasn't so sure, and when he saw the look of triumph on the tree, he noticed it had a large branch raised in the air, ready to strike. He ran over and shoved Twilight out of the way, jumping the other way just in time to avoid being crushed. The tree's roots flew out of the ground, and started pulling the tree towards the pair. They got up, and ran back the way they had came.
"Oscar! Take off your ring!" Twilight shouted as they ran.
"What? Why?" Oscar shouted back.
"Just do it! Then focus on the branches of the tree, like you did with the glass!"
Oscar, suddenly understanding, began to pull the ring off. As he got it off, he noticed a black glimmer in the centre of the crystal, but it was only there for a second, so he dismissed it for his current issue. He turned around and aimed his arm at a branch on the tree and began to focus, when the tree got too close and he had to run again.
"I don't have enough time to focus!" he shouted over to Twilight.
"Don't try to watch it! Now that you've seen it, just picture it in your mind, and aim yourself at the image." Twilight screamed back at him.
Oscar, taking that into account, began to picture the tree in his mind when he heard a large crack, and a quick glance behind him and at Twilight told him that Twilight was doing the same.
He returned to his mental image, focused on the large limb the tree was using like an arm, and poured himself into it. He heard another large crack and saw splinters fly past him as the branch exploded. He began to focus on another point, when he tripped over an unseen rock protruding from the earth, and fell to the ground. Twilight stopped few paces further away, and started back when the tree's roots grabbed his ankles and lifted him up. Still dazed from the fall, Oscar hung limply from the branch. As it brought its other huge limb into place, ready to crush him, Oscar slipped out of consciousness. The root placed him on the ground, still holding his ankles, and the limb started its decent. As Twilight watched in shock, the large branch fell on top of Oscar, and a sickening thud rang out across the forest upon the impact.

The branch began rising again, and it cracked and splintered as it rose, revealing a black spherical shape around where Oscar had been. The shape dissipated, and Oscar stood up. His clothes were almost completely shredded, with only the upper part of his pants remaining. Twilight, still paralysed in shock, could not understand what was happening. By all rights Oscar should be dead, flattened by the blow. As he stood up, she glimpsed his normally golden eyes, and saw something strange: his pupil's had expanded to fill his eyes, making them as black as his skin, and he had a dead calm expression on his face as he turned to face the tree. He raised his arm, with an open hand, and once more she felt him gathering energy. Then he released it with the force of a storm as he clenched his fist shut, and the entire tree cracked, then shattered. Darkness was rising off of the shattered tree like smoke as the wood returned to its natural lighter colour, and, albeit lying on the ground, it seemed peaceful compared to before. Oscar stood in the shrouds, dazed, but also back to normal, when he collapsed. Twilight, broken of her paralysis, ran over to him. Unable to figure out what to do, she moved him to be leaning up against the side of a tree, and then nestled up beside him and rested her head against his chest. His warm skin and heartbeat reassured her that he was going to be fine, and she drifted off to sleep.

"Twilight. Twilight, get up. Twilight!" Oscar shouted out as he struggled to get the pony off of himself. "Oh stuff it." He said to himself as he aimed his arm at Twilight and began to gather his will.
"Don't you dare." Twilight said sleepily.
Oscar, ashamed, put his arm back down. "Well you still need to get off me Twilight, I can't get up."
"Oh, sorry." Twilight apologised as she lifted herself into a sitting position.

"Why were we asleep against a tree anyway? Oscar asked as he shifted into a more comfortable seat.
"Don't you remember anything?"

"Well, we came to the forest, and that tree attacked us. We were running, then you told me to take my ring off. After that, nothing until now."
"Well, you were successful, to say the least. You managed to break one of its branches, but then you tripped."
"Really? Well, thanks for saving me then."
"Oscar, I didn't save you. There was no way I could have."
"Then how am I-"
"I don't know. The tree swung its largest branch at you. You should have been crushed, but then the branch lifted, you were surrounded by some sort of shield. As it disappeared, you stood up and turned to the tree. Then you just, broke it. That mess over there is what's left after you finished it off."
Stunned, Oscar looked over to the pile of wood and leaves. "That mess!"
"There was another thing too. Your eyes went completely black."
At the mention of this Oscar remembered his ring, but when he looked at it, the crystal was still golden brown. "I remember, my ring, when I took it off, a glimmer of darkness flashed in the centre of the crystal."
"I will look into that, but for now, you need more rest." Twilight got up and faced Oscar. Her horn started to glow, and before Oscar even realised what was happening they were back in the Library. He went back downstairs and hopped into bed, dosing off almost immediately.

"Spike! I need to send another letter to Princess Celestia." Twilight called out after Oscar had closed the door. Spike ran over with a quill and paper in his hands, ready to write. "Dear Princess Celestia, Oscar's training has started, but progress is slow, to say the least. He's using the gem you gave me, which is a golden brown for him, and is also the purpose of this note. I need to speak with you immediately about Oscar, as there seems to be more to his abilities then either of us anticipated. Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle." Spike finished writing down the note, then sent it off to the Princess.
"Is he gonna be okay?" the little dragon asked.
"I think so, he just needs to rest up. Off to bed Spike, its getting late."
"Awwww" the dragon complained as he walked away.

The Princess, upon reading the letter, immediately went to Ponyville to speak with her student. Twilight told her all about the tree, the ring and the darkness.
"It's worse then I thought." The Princess thought aloud.
"What is it Princess?"

"He's a Shadeling. Although he possesses the abilities of a Shade, he is unaware to his heritage and has no control over his, darker, nature. It resides in the subconscious, and will only awaken when his life is threatened, or when a Shadelier brings it forward. In the first case, it is relatively harmless, it will just surface, save itself, then recess back into his subconscious, but if he is awakened by a Shade, then the Shadeling spirit will take over and we will lose him forever. You must never tell him about this, if he doesn't know, then the Shadeling won't surface. Make him master control, it will be necessary for the trials he's going to face. Prepare him. One day, a Shadelier will seek to awaken him, and you must stop that at all costs, even his life." As she finished her sentenced, the Princess turned and left. Twilight stood still, thinking about what the Princess had said. She didn't feel prepared to deal with a situation like this, much less help someone else through it. She went to bed, and her sleep was filled with nightmares.

Sorry it took so long, I have exams and stuff atm. I promise I'll put more effort into the next chapters! The first and second half of this one were written about 2 weeks apart, which is a bit bad for the story.
This story is going to tie in with my other one (Aeturna Nox), so I'm going to write them at the same time. Aeturna Nox features an OC (pony this time) discovering the Truth of her past and stuff. Oh, and by "tie in" I mean relate to, there won't really be any significant plot stuff between the two of them.

Disclaimer: I wrote the story, all characters (except OC) belong to Hasbro etc etc.