//------------------------------//
// Chapter 26 - Right 
// Story: Reborn 
// by Pensive 
//------------------------------//

"Snacks?"

Luna's magic showed a bowl of some chip-like snacks.

I simply returned a smile and nodded to her delight.

Mark got comfortable in his seat to my side as Eclipse yawned to his side.

Luna brought us to what I could comfortably guess was some kind of break room mixed with an office. 

Relatively simple but with an excellent design. The round table was empty save for the snacks Luna had brought and the games she had neatly stacked off to the side.

"So, Ogres and Oubliettes? What is it about?" Mark asked.

My intuition tells me this is a game similar to Dungeons and Dragons. Though, neither Mark nor I have ever played. Mark prefers to game on his computer, while I like to socialize and go out with friends.

"I have no idea," Luna stated happily, "never played it before, but I have this."

With a flash and pop of magic, a book sporting a title I couldn't quite read fell into the table.

"Er... What...?" I questioned.

Luna ignored my question as a few more books came into existence but placed to the side as well.

"Luna, that looks like a book." Mark deadpanned.

"Well, it may look like a book, but it's full of story and adventure for you and your party."

That still did not answer the unsaid question. Mark and I just stopped to stare into the void of Luna's eyes with a glare until she gave in. It didn't happen; she only tittered at our deadpanned stares. With a broad smile, she looked back. 

"My my, such vicious expressions," she turned to Eclipse, "and you watch them every day?"

Eclipse, who was out of my view thanks to Mark, snorted, "You have no idea."

Luna chuckled more, "Well, I suppose I could tell you two, buut first we have to set up."

Opening one of the boxes to the side, Luna pulled out some paper and passed it to Mark, Eclipse, and me. A few moments later, she pulled out various pieces of miniature props that I can assume are for the game. I took note of some odd parts of a weird octopus character with a crown holding a staff of some kind.

It was rather amusing. Among other pieces were more minor and negligible octopus-squid-like characters, buildings, pony characters, swords, gems, and too many other things for me to count as Luna's magic began bringing more pieces out of the box. Piece after piece, the items had a small pile on the rather large round table that was large enough for at least seven ponies.

Now larger props were coming out, a background wall, maps, and other such pieces. I blinked, looking back to the ever-growing pile. Luna hummed, dissatisfied, and brought the box to her face to look in. It was out of view so I could only guess at what she was doing.

"Uh, Luna...?"

Luna held a hoof up to my unspoken question. Moving the box toward the pile, she turned it upside down.

Now, Mark and I had been in what we've been told was Equis for a long time now. Between the odd, and sometimes downright creepy, mysterious alchemy we've seen Silica and Mythic do, to the wonders of magic that have recently come around us, we've been pretty desensitized to the things around us. At least, for a part.

From flying to an entire city hanging off the mountain, that's something we can somewhat comprehend. I mean, back home, maybe, through complex engineering, we could probably do it. Flying? Well, that was already a thing. But boxes spitting out more objects that shouldn't ever be able to fit inside? Well, that’s when logic decides it wants to flip you on your head; nay, it just smacks you in the face.

"Star?"

Eight hoof-sized bags stuffed with various dice, armies of characters, enough miniature buildings you could build a town, and you'd have to walk to the other end(however short a walk it'd be), bags of various miniature gear, pony characters, cat-like people, ponies but with the hind hooves replaced with a large fin-

"Star."

"Hhuh...?"

I blinked, pulling back a bit as Mark's hoof waved in front of me. A little disoriented from the shock of all my senses and logic crashing, I couldn't get another word out before Mark continued his sentence., "You're drooling."

Realizing that, in fact, I was drooling, with my mouth was hanging open, I closed my mouth and wiped it any sliva away. Returning a sheepish smile, I turned to see Mark, and Eclipse who was currently leaning back past Mark towards me with a smirk. I felt a small tinge of red lightly washed my cheeks.

With two pairs of eye rolls, we all turned back to Luna, who had given up on getting everything out of the box to read the instructions.

"It appears," she started squinting, "Pinkie has given me a 'LifeTime Edition' version of the game... It says it requires a day or more of setup."

"Who?" Mark questioned.

"A close friend," Luna offhoofedly answered while casually sliding the pile of stuff back into the box, "so it seems we'll have to substitute with something else."

Putting the box with all of its contents away, she pulled out another board game from the pile. It was much smaller, maybe the size of a box you'd expect when someone would prepose to another. Reading the title and what other text was on the side, Luna smiled before looking up at us.

"Ah, how do you feel about Power Ponies and the Maniac, Powered edition?"

I shrugged, to which Mark and Eclipse reciprocated, "Dunno, only one way to find out."

Luna smiled, "I suppose we shall soon see."

As she opened the box, she pulled out a ruby red gem.

"Huh?" came the reply of Mark, Luna, and I once we saw that was the only item in the box. Well, actually, there were some papers, likely more instructions, but that's beside the point.

"Ohh," Eclipse squealed happily, "it's one of those games!"

"A what?" questioned Luna.

"It's a Crystal game; I've heard they're quite expensive. Thanks to the Crystal Empire, their ancient crystal magic, and techniques, we've been able to incorporate gems into the modern world more. Gem enchanting is one of the leading fields that have seen major improvements, which therefore helped the technological field go to new heights as well. But they've also been put to other uses than pushing certain sciences, one such uses being in the entertainment business."

...

"And you know this... how?" I incredulously questioned after her short rant.

Eclipse, promptly realizing her blunder, blinked, looking at us before she turned her head to the side with a harumph, "Who said I couldn't be nerdy or like games?"

Mark began to stifle a laugh behind his hoof at the abrupt confrontation before he gave up, laughing aloud. Eclipse was just a little confused, while Luna just looked amused.

"Well," I sighed as Eclipse dropped all pretenses and laughed as well, "either way, might as well get the game started. Which, I somehow doubt a gem could even be called a game."

"Silly, did you forget I mentioned magic?"

'You didn't, but okay...' I thought as Luna placed the small gem in the middle of the table and fired a small beam of magic at it. Not even a moment later, a holographic board appeared, showing an entire city. It was an entire, holographically detailed down to the small indents in the sidewalk, dynamically changing, larger than the borders of the map city...

My mouth dropped at the displace as did Mark. Eclipse laughed and Luna squealed in delight clapping her hooves at figuring it out from the instructions.

"See~," sang Eclipse, "magic."

I closed my mouth to face hoof at that timing.

"Let's just get this over with," I groaned.

"You see, Star, this type of game imprints a pre-made set of illusion magics in the gem, allowing it to be amplified and projected for entertainment!"

"Yeah, Yeah," I dismissed, still somewhat peeved, “How do we play?"

"Oh, apologies, I forgot to give you these," Luna said, passing small duplicate rule books and instructions.

Skipping past the setup part of how to set up the gem to how to play, the first step to join a game was for every player to tap the gem to join. Looking to the gem seeing Mark already reaching for it, I waited to see what'd happen.

The moment he touched it, the illusion shifted, and a miniature illusion of a unicorn pony. The pony was a mare. I was reminded of the time Luna used illusion and basically gender-swapped us, even if it wasn't real. 

"Y-you're a mare!" I laughed.

"Yeah yeah, I see that," he said dismissively, "doesn't really matter much to me."

I still smiled looking at his character before I myself reached and tapped the gem along with Luna and Eclipse.

An undisclosed amount of time later

"Muahahaha! You think that mere chemistry and magic could dissolve MY mane spray!? Fools for even trying!"

"You can't do this, the consequence reaches around the globe!" Eclipse's character yelled, stuck in place.

"Consequence you speak of? The devastation you say? You know what I see, little pony? I see REVENGE!"

As the villain continued to monologue, the hoof I've been using to hold up my head was getting a bit sore. Everyone was quiet as the cutscene played out. Honestly, I felt kinda bad about the villain, since in my eyes she was a victim.

We'd been playing for so long that the night started passing by. The quiet, echoing sounds of the game in the darkroom played on and on. Long past had the castle gone to sleep, and now the only light in the room was from the game.

I had no idea how far we'd made it into the campaign, but we were on the verge of losing. The game was quite fun since the action we took mattered thanks to the entire storyline being non-linear. I have no idea how they did it, but this magic stuff was quite fun.

"So... about earlier."

I looked up, yawning whilst trying to fight my sleepiness off.

"About what..?" I asked wiping my eyes a tad.

"When I told you that you had the right to know about something I've been hiding."

I was surprised Luna was bringing this up now, a few hours into the game. Pushing my head off my hoof, I sat up properly from my slumped state to look at her. She was deafly looking down at the game, though with a sullen look.

"Look, I wanted-"

"Luna," I cut her off, "if you don't want to say, then Mark and I are more than fine with that."

"But-"

She was cut of by Mark, "You've done so much for us, and we're grateful for that. You brought us to your home, gave us a place to stay, food, promised education-"

"Respected us," I continued, "you, for all intents and purposes, took us in. You never asked for anything. You let us be, you've helped us, never asked us of anything, and let us roam around. Luna, thank you for everything, but after all you've done for us, we couldn't possibly ask anything of you."

The game was long forgotten, not even background noise anymore as Luna finally stopped looking at the game to look at us directly, "You know I wasn't responsible for all of that."

"Yes, but you were still there and you helped us," I answered.

"Yeah, to be honest, I'd never thought we'd reach this point," added Mark.

"Luna, even if you say we have a right to know, if you don't want to say, then don't."

Luna sat there, staring pensively at us before she sighed after a few moments, "I know... But... This is something I'd rather say now. Rather then you find it on your own."

"What do you mean find on our own?" asked Mark.

Eclipse answered this time, "It's... Something that you'd inevitably find. Luna had quietly ordered everyponies silence on the matter. It's not my place to say, nor is it mine to question her orders."

Mark and I turned to Eclipse, a gentle on her face even as it tilted down a bit in respect to Luna. I mulled over Eclipse somewhat solemn words. I had questions of course, but for now, I just decided to accept it as it is for now.

Turning to Luna I softly gave a reassuring smile at her, "Okay... If you want to, we'll listen."

Closing her eyes, Luna took a deep breath.

"I was not always the pony before you now. Nay, I wasn't even close to how I am now. I-... We, my sister and I, during the early days of Equestria, did not always get along. The world then was far more dangerous. Monsters were commonplace, and our allies non-existent."

I listen with a smile, listlessly staring at the game as most of my mental focus went to Luna's words. Though I took notice of a small movement from the corner of my eye that showed Eclipse, respectfully listening.

"In those days, Celestia and I lead the way for the newly birthed nation. Ponies looked up to us. It was years later, when we grew up, and changed. After decades, the horrors of the world were being put behind us. We fought the horrors back, I included."

"Then... Then I noticed the ponies' prejudices. Twas her, their beloved princess of the ponies. So great was her reign, that she never knew where her shadow fell. To me. Those days... those days..."

Noticing Luna faltering, I leaned over the table and placed a gentle hoof over hers. Luna, whose head had been slowly falling down looked up to me in surprise. I did what I could and smiled, giving her my support. She briefly looked over me to either Mark or Eclipse, but for looking back to me with indecision.

It wasn't long until Luna returned a weak smile and I was satisfied enough to lean back into my chair.

"Those days, I grew bitter... I... do not wish to bore you with the details... but, the result was in the end. I myself became a monster. I... tried to rebel against Celestia. In the end, she was forced to banish me. And for one thousand years, I stayed upon the moon. Upon my return, with the Elements of Harmony, the same tools used to banish me, they helped me let go of my anger. It has been three and a half years since my return, and that is my story."

My mouth was dry. This was important for Luna, but Mark nor I were or could just toss it to the side and pretend didn't exist. I... We can't just be all willy-nelly and suddenly everything is fine. With a deep breath, I looked to Luna and spoke carefully~not for our sake, but for her.