I woke with a start, hands pressing against my face, dragging me into the depths of my bed. I tried to scream but my attempts were cut short by long coils of Darkness forcing themselves down my throat. I couldn’t draw breath, every part of me was convulsing, wanting to vomit up the poisonous tendrils that had entered my body. The weight on top of me pushed down harder and harder until it felt like my ribs would snap under the pressure. A single tear escaped from the corner of my eye, trickling slowly down my cheek, this was the end for me. I had eluded capture for nearly thirty years, but finally my past had caught up with me. No, I thought to myself, this was not how I wanted to die and I certainly was not about to let myself lie down and be subjected to a most villainous execution. Gathering my mind in the ever decreasing fraction of time I still had left I focused my attention onto the creature that was devouring me. A blast of energy exploded from my body a bright, white hot light leaping forth consuming the monstrous beast. I felt the weight lift, the Darkness leave my body, I could breathe again. Gasping in great lungfuls of air I lay still, minutes went by, slowly those minutes turned to hours and then days. Eventually I mustered the strength to move. Fighting the Darkness had taken its toll on me. Even the most skilled guardian would have struggled against such a dark and powerful entity.

Even though the order lay in tatters and my kinsmen spread throughout the universe, I had so far managed to cling to some fragments of hope that we would someday be great once again. Until then I needed to continue to hide away, far from the reaches of the Darkness and wait. For how long I was not sure, but eventually the Phoenix would be reborn and then I would be called back home. To fight alongside my kinsmen in the last and greatest battle of the universe, I would fight and most definitely die. But I would not rest, even in death, until the usurper was dead.

But, more urgent matters needed to be taken care of; the rebellion was a long time away. Right now it was up to me to survive, the Darkness had found me. I ever so gently sat up, pain shooting through every part of my body. I had just enough power left in me to summon an orb of light; it hung above me, almost as if it were protecting me from another attack. The light cast a harsh, clinical glow on the cave, leaving long shadows and dark patches at the far end that lead deeper down into the bowels of the mountain.

Looking down at my body I realised that I was in worse shape than I had originally imagined, the Darkness had caused severe damage to my body. My right leg was missing; three fingers on my left hand, an ear and two large chunks of flesh had been gouged out of my side. To heal what I had lost would require more power than I could muster. I was able to deal with cuts and bruises, but missing limbs were extremely difficult for even the most well practiced of guardians. Placing my hands over the wounds I had sustained, I attempted to close them. Burning the skin so that it sealed, if I had been a normal human the blood loss would have killed me long ago. Dried blood covered the floor and as I struggled to stand on my one remaining leg flakes of it showered down from the remains of my tattered clothing.

Although my injuries were bad, it wasn’t the worst of my problems. The Darkness had found me, more would surely follow, so I needed to move once again. Looking around at the place I had called home for over a year I sighed. I glanced over to where my bed had been, all that remained was a charred pile of ash and splinters of wood. Sighing once again I thought about what my next move should be. Moving location would be a pain, I had lived in isolation for so long that I had become complacent and forgetful of the dangers that pursued me. It was time I hid somewhere unexpected, to throw my enemies off of my trail. I needed to go somewhere where I could hide amongst others, as one of them. I needed to go to one of the primitive worlds that existed in the universe. First, I would have to find Celestia, she could restore my body, make it whole again.

Hopping over to an isolated area of the cave I traced the symbol of the guardians into the wall. The jagged stone grated against my smooth fingertip, the cold rock still singed from my recent encounter. The tracing began to glow, a bright blue light shone out from the wall, the symbol I had drawn pulsating with a mystical energy. The blue light battling with the light from the orb, which remained resolutely hanging over where I had been attacked, like a silent witness to the suffering the Darkness created. The wall shone brighter causing me to shut my eyes for fear of being blinded. The cave began to vibrate, stone grinding on stone as the walls changed and shifted into position. The shaking became more and more violent, I merely stood as still as I could, hunched with my arm covering my face, waiting. Then as if I had imagined it all, everything stopped.

The cave was still. The cave was silent. I was alone.