The First Crystal War
If you lose it all and it just won’t feel the same
In the fight to carry on, stand and face the rain
And as you watch it fall, you’ll learn to live again
It isn’t all that bad when you’re still standing in the end
- Pillar, “Lose it All”, from the 2011 album “Confessions”
A baritone a capella song roused me awake from a rejuvenating sleep. I knew that voice well – it was the voice of the human-turned-pony who had arrived in Equestria one year earlier. We had barely gotten reacquainted when I and my friends were whisked away by a resurgent Crystal Fist. I had spent the entire time fighting to remain alive and sane in a void of utter nothingness, and to hear any friendly voice at all was like seeing a bright sunrise after a week spent in a damp, dark cave. I smiled slightly and kept my eyes closed as the melody that punctured my dreamscape brought me to full consciousness. A sudden yawn betrayed my illusion, which interrupted the first enjoyable sound produced by something other than my own voice that I had heard in nearly three months.
“Ah, you’re finally up.”
I groaned playfully and opened my eyes. As soon as I did, I was jolted awake by the giant that stood before me. I thought I had dreamed this! Zytharros, or at least his representation in this twisted realm, was a monster of six feet tall and coated with golden hair. He was more reminiscent of an ape of the Kongo Jungles of sub-Zebraharan Aperica than the pony I remembered, though his legs and arms were the same length and he only had hair on his head. However, I also recalled the letter from the last time he was here. This was his true form, his real state.
This was a human.
Scientific excitement and curiosity welled up within me, along with a healthy dose of fear. It was enough of a balanced conflict that I couldn’t move, speak, nor even show any emotion whatsoever. So many questions… what did they eat? How did they walk? Did they think like ponies? Did they, Celestia forbid, eat us?... They were a volcano within, ready to shake the stone beneath my feet in a tectonic forewarning of pure chaos to follow. Yet, in spite of myself and my musings, he fearlessly approached me and held out an apple.
“Food?”
I reluctantly took it from the familiar unfamiliar. “Where did you find this? There isn’t any food in this entire-”
It was then that I finally fully awoke to my surroundings, and what I saw shocked the living daylight out of me.
Ponyville.
How did I get in Ponyville!?
I dropped the apple and ran around the town, inspecting every little nook and cranny for imperfections and illusions. The town was perfect in form, if a little simplistic in construction. Sugarcube Corner was there. Rarity’s Carousel Boutique was there. Even the Bowling Alley and Quills and Sofas were present. I giddily squealed, thinking we were home. However, I soon deflated as I analyzed it further. There were no other ponies. The books in my library were a solid wall. There was even a mysterious blue trailer where the post office should have been, and nothing in town was actually in its proper place.
That confirmed my suspicions: it was, in fact, only an illusion.
“It’s the best I could do,” he said. “Believe me: I’m amazed I could do this. In this form I shouldn’t even be able to pull magic of any kind off.”
What? No magic? Humans are magic-less? Then how come he can cast illusion magic?
“I don’t know. This place seems to eat magic up,” he replied. “The darkness seems to just draw it out of me.”
Apparently I voiced that out loud. Whoops.
“Try it. You’ll feel it soon enough. Like, use a teleport spell or something.”
Curious, I bega-… o-o-o-o… kay. I just appeared at a crude representation of Celestia’s castle. That was too fast. I quickly warped back to Zytharros.
“Okay,” I said. “This is intriguing.”
“I know. Isn’t it?” Zytharros snapped his fingers and produced a watermelon. He cracked it over his smallest finger and produced a chicken… What? Is this Discord’s doing!? I arched my back and prepared my strongest magic for the villain who had taken the form of a good friend.
“I swear, Discord, if you’re trying to deceive me, this is not a good way to do it!” I screamed.
Zytharros cocked an eyebrow as he let the chicken roam free. “Discord? He’s here?”
He drew a… bizarre humanoid box with rectangular appendages. It came to life with a snap of the fingers. He chuckled. It only made me angrier. I was certain he was Discord now.
“I’m serious, Discord! I’m in no mood for your games! Show yourself!”
He sighed. “I spend a lot of time and energy on what I know of this town to keep you sane and try and find out what I can, and then tell you of it, and I’m okay. Like, I’ve spent the better part of three days, at least according to the sleep cycle I’ve kept, just trying to care for you, keep you alive, get your spirit back up to snuff, et cetera. Yet I play a little and I’m suddenly that lunatic?” He glared at me. I could tell he was clearly offended by what I said. I backed down a little as he bitterly muttered his next reply. “If there’s anything I know of Discord, he would have already showed himself to you because he loves being the center of attention over anything else, along with that freaky-” he pantomimed swirls beside his head “-narcissistic psychosis thing he’s got going on.” He pointed sharply at me. “I know who I am, and after all the work I just did, I’d think you would be the one to notice what effort I could put in based on what I knew.” He put his arm down by his side as I nibbled a lip. I had made a seriously wrong accusation, and I needed to apologize badly. He waved the little square robot and the chicken away and sighed again before shaking his head and yawning. “…Okay, maybe I went a little overboard there. I’m so exhausted. The last time I remember sleeping was when Sugarcube Corner was half-done. Then I made myself some beer, got on a tangent and… holy snap! When’d I start working on Equestria Castle?” He yawned again, glancing over at the place I just teleported from, which also happened to be where Sweet Apple Acres was supposed to be. “It looks downright horrible! That must’ve been thirty-six hours ago or something. The last thing I really remember was starting on a full-scale replica of an Arwing for my TV’s satellite dish.”
Phew. Disaster averted. Note to self: Zytharros is a motormouth when he’s a little tipsy and tired. I chuckled and smiled. “Maybe you should sleep. I’ll take over from here. You missed a few details.”
“No, duh,” he deadpanned. The next few words of what he said were mangled to death by another yawn. “…my last visit. You know the rest. If you have to move my house, put my trailer near an open meadow close to the center of town.” He moved towards the giant blue box. “I’ll be inside it, snoozin’ like a baby. Good feather-bucking night.”
I chuckled and turned away, eyeing his work. First, though, I picked up the apple I had dropped and tasted it for accuracy. I frowned. He made it a little too tart! I set my magic on the apple and adjusted it to the perfect flavour before walking on and beginning a little reconstruction as I ate.
I slowly disassembled the houses piece-by-piece, my horn flashing with transport magic as I began learning exactly what Zytharros meant by ‘this place eats magic up’. I adjusted my magical carrying power a little more. Suddenly Sugarcube Corner and Carousel Boutique hovered in full over my head, gleaming in my magical aura. I puzzled over this and attempted to lift more buildings, each time cautiously keeping myself aware of the amount of magic I was putting out. Before I knew it, I suddenly held half of the entire town of Ponyville above my head, and I wasn’t even breaking a sweat! It felt like I was manipulating library books back home! I squealed and hopped ecstatically from one pair of hooves to the other. This was fantastic!
As I held a town over my head, it occurred to me that I should be writing my observations down. I conjured up a piece of parchment and a quill and began jotting down little notes on what was happening. I couldn’t miss a second of this!
It was then I noticed the shapes and sizes of the buildings that hovered over my head. A few of them were missing pieces, a couple were simply front facades, and others were… utterly plain and dull in comparison to what I remembered. So, using my vast knowledge of the town, I quickly finished where he could not. Sugarcube Corner got its back wall and a little green metal dumpster in the back. Carousel Boutique got a cellar, an upstairs, and several hundred more sheets of cloth. A large number of my books filled out and filled up. Some of the minor buildings I simply dissipated and rebuilt from scratch, including Vinyl Scratch’s Scratchy Strings Music Emporium, Bar, Club and Grill she runs with Octavia and Lyra when they’re not on tour, a few random houses, and a market vendor’s stall that, to be honest, I had no idea what it actually sold because he was usually sold out every time I passed by, so I filled it with books.
“Everyone needs to read a little more,” I spoke with a grin and a chuckle.
Over the next few hours, I completed the town and organized it to the precise dimensions I had observed on my walks throughout Ponyville. I saw little place for Zytharros’ trailer in the centre of town, so I carved a small corner out of Sweet Apple Acres close to town for him to use for himself roughly half of an acre in size. I was unsure of how to arrange his yard, so I set the domicile down in the middle of the unfenced paddock and decided to let him arrange his yard when he awoke. I also created a sun and moon and built the valley around both Ponyville and Canterlot. With my magical capabilities being what they were, and the fact I could just think things into being, I completed the whole valley nearly down to Appleloosa in no time at all. In fact, my time was largely spent moving to a large, blank space and simply imagining my surroundings, then passing through the acreage I -recalled and fixing little bits here and there with a wisp of the mystic.
Eventually, what had to have been almost twelve hours later, I completed everything I knew about Equestria. I teleported to Canterlot Castle and reeled at the scale of what I had just accomplished. I had barely broken a sweat, too!
I squealed. I squealed so loud and so long I was sure I was about to faint. I hopped in circles and squealed. I stood on my head and squealed. I sat upside down on a rice cake and-
I leapt up with a shout. Not realizing up was down, I ploughed my head straight into the earth beneath me. A deep laugh reverberated across the wilderness, muffled by the dirt that was sure to have wormed its way into my ears. I pulled my head out of the dirt just as a crunching sound came from nearby. I opened my eyes and saw Zytharros taking a second bite from the cake I had just leapt off of, bits of rice and some chocolate chips dropping from the crispy disk. He looked around at the kingdom and smirked.
“Nice piece of artwork here,” he mused. “Far better than I could ever have done.”
“How’d you heal so quickly?” I asked, looking skeptically at his figure, emotionless in his eating.
He shrugged. “Magic. ‘Sall I can explain it as. I mean, I should’ve healed much slower than that. I guess our combined efforts on this plain lately have sped up our recovery times.”
I closed my eyes and thought for a second. It would make sense, but what would work in our favours magically that way? Would it be that the magic of the area was somehow influenced by our devotion to one another? Was it my magic? His mind? What would make the most sense? Would it be that which protects us? Or was it something more?
“Um, Twilight…”
The tone in Zytharros’ voice was nervous. I immediately opened my eyes and spotted a large cloud floating in front of us. Immediately, I adopted a fighting stance. I was sure Zytharros did the same, judging by the shuffling of his large form next to me. Whatever this was obscured all our work.
The cloud coalesced around us, transforming the pillar we stood upon into a glowing platform of gold and blowing level the rest of Canterlot Castle with an explosion equal to the power of a small mana bomb. I shuddered and took a step back as the shards of our work amalgamated with the dark cloud, giving form to a shape within the darkness. The dust and pieces assembled into the shape of a gigantic spermatozoon, elongated and serpentine, with the back trail of dust whirling in ever smaller pieces back into the fog. The cloud was arranging even the minutest of details into an unmistakably creepy pattern. The purple of the castle was striping itself in even places around the outside of the rocks, the gold disappearing somewhere within. For a full minute the streams swirled and whirled, bearing strong resemblance to a whirlpool. They briefly caused me to wonder if I was going to be sucked into the void as the winds got stronger, yet we hardly moved in the hurricane. Eventually, a shimmer overtook the collection as the streams ended, and with a sound like crackling thunder and a flash of magmatic light, the entire shape solidified into a single mass. Another creak and some shed dust later, and the eye opened in the fashion a chameleon’s does.
It spooked me to no end! The veins were shimmering, pulsing with golden blood. The pupil was green as acid. The sclera was stone gray. The iris was the color of my mane. I nearly threw up at how horrid it was.
And it spoke with the voice of an enemy I hadn’t seen in months.
“How do you like your new home?”
“Crystal Fist!” Zytharros spat.
A laugh echoed throughout the void. “It is I, your lord and master.”
“Not mine,” Zytharros spat. “What do you want?”
The eye’s gaze never left me. I slowly began curling up.
“Twilight.”
I felt Zytharros turn to look at me. “Y-yes?”
“Kill him.”
I froze and swallowed. I looked from the Eye to Zytharros and back. My friend’s resolve did not waver at the command, though I can’t say the same for mine. Horrible scenes played before my eyes. The last few months of torture and loneliness filled my thoughts, and caused me to look at my friend in tears. I was torn beyond all measure. Crystal Fist had completely overwhelmed my magic, and so she showed herself the dominant one. But this human had been the strength of the Elements one year before. He had been friendly and true, never telling a lie to us.
Obey my master.
Protect my friend.
Obey…
Protect…
Obey protect obey protect obey protect…
Which one do I-
“Silence!”
I looked, wide-eyed, over at Zytharros. He had a mischievous grin on his face. I wondered what he was planning. When I chanced a glance at Crystal’s Eye, she had a confused look about her.
Without waiting for a response, Zytharros continued.
“You think you can overrun me in a place where my imagination can come to life?” he queried. “I figured this world out over the last forty-eight hours… or so.” He clapped his hands together. Instantly, an army of beings I had never seen before stood behind us.
There were five beings that looked like aerosol cans, and all were of the same height. One had a triangle with the letters ‘S’ and ‘C’ on his chest. Another had a bow, one I assumed was female. Another had a triangle and very stubby legs making up his lower half, from about his waist to the other being’s knees. A fourth was slightly taller, with two large, curved spikes like shark teeth protruding from his back. A fifth was similar to the first, but with the letters ‘S’ and ‘B’ on her chest.
There were several hundred humanoids. The two that stood out were both dressed identically – black pants, white long-sleeved shirts – and they radiated pure power. One glowed with an orange illumination, the other with a purple hue, and they were clearly a father-son team.
There were also monsters of many stripes. The most prominent members of that squad were an absolutely monolith snakelike dragonoid beast whose body looked like it was made of pure lava, a weird ice ball with a second snake of electricity encased inside, and a much smaller third semihumanoid beast that looked like a giant head with arms and legs. This group numbered the largest of them all, and had even weirder combinations and such illogical evolutionary patterns so wild I half-wondered if Pinkie Pie happened to help him with some of the creations.
“Meet my army,” he said, “and my generals. Each of these characters have appeared in some form or another in my original works since I was eight. The first general is Supercan. He has the distinction of being my oldest original character. The ones standing next to him are as follows: Supercanette, Jame, Hyperslam, and Sheila Blast. They make up the T.Z. Squad.
The next pair are my strongest characters, and command my entire Anthroid Army: Lance Neon and his son Joshuen Canadine.
The leaders of my Massive Monster Missive, or M3, are Maltar, Icestatic, and Mostro.”
The Eye laughed. Zytharros remained undeterred. I nearly wet myself. Crystal’s voice boomed loud and clear.
“You forget that you are in a universe where I am god,” she snarled.
She tried to remove his army. He just smirked as a golden force field, erected by some unknown force, repelled her erasure wave.
“You can’t kill what’s not your creation,” Supercan said, in a voice that was simply a deeper tone of Zytharros’ own. He dropped his hand and the shield dissipated. “T.Z. Squad, attack!”
Countless robotic types flew towards the Eye and began to barrage it with blasts of energy and weaponry. Supercan led his unit into a close-range combat assault. Supercanette and her squad peppered the Eye from a distance. Jame’s unit ran around and helped heal those who were injured. Hyperslam’s unit assisted both in Supercan’s and Jame’s unit. Sheila Blast’s disappeared, working from the shadows to engage the enemy. Lance Neon and Joshuen Canadine commanded their units from near Zytharros, and once their orders were given, Supercan and Hyperslam joined Lance and Joshuen beside their leader. It was clear he was saving them for last. Maltar, Icestatic, and Mostro had disappeared with their units, though I saw the sixty-foot-long lava snake spinning circles above everyone and dropping what may as well have been nuclear bombs made of lava on the eye.
Yet the Eye was matching them tit-for-tat with foes of her own. She was generating two foes for every one Zytharros could put out, with power equal to their own, and some with counterin elements.
At the same time, Zytharros was commanding his units like an efficient pro. It didn’t take me long to sense a telekinetic transmission between him and several of his monsters – he had made a few of them, especially a little one that was three-quarters eyes and barely half an inch tall… Psyeyes, I think he called it… capable of telekinetic communications and was using them as spies, which fed him all the information he needed. He would discuss strategy with his advisors and very quickly decide on what his army was doing.
I was absolutely mortified at the war going on in front of me. I was frozen in place, watching the battle rage. I had fought changelings. I had outplayed Discord. I had even took care of Night Mare Moon, but this war… it was huge. I bit my lip as Zytharros relayed messages to those who came up, wondering where I might be of use.
Kill him while I have him distracted.
Crystal.
Kill him, you bitch!
I decided then, that I had enough of her.
“No.”
What? You can’t be serious!
“Crystal Fist, you no longer have my support. Ever since you took over Equestria, things haven’t been right.”
I felt power surge into my horn.
“In fact, I think it’s time you left.”
The war went dead silent. I had to assume I was glowing. I noted Lance Neon had begun charging a blast. After a split second, his son Joshuen did the same.
“Zytharros has returned and given me the strength I need to break free.”
I looked over at Lance and Joshuen. They nodded. Supercan and Hyperslam had also prepared energy. I smiled at the show of support.
“I see now why you kept me and Rarity separated. You can’t handle two friends working together. Well, we’ll break free, and we’ll find our friends. When we do, rest assured, you will pay. For now…
BEGONE!”
Five blasts of deadly energy flung themselves murderously at the Eye. Lance and Joshuen’s energy waves were by far and large the strongest waves there. Joshuen’s in particular nearly doubled the rest of us combined. Supercan’s was the fastest. Hyperslam’s was the largest. Lance’s was the most controlled. Mine moved to the center of them all, and enhanced their power, speed, and focus even more. Eventually, the purple drill-like whirlwind collided with the Eye. The resulting shockwave vaporized all the original work on the floor, except Supercan, Lance, Hyperslam, and Joshuen. We battled the Eye, throwing everything we had into the blasts.
The entire area was bathed in a yellow glow. Rocks and stones were lifting off the ground. They were dragged up into the energy and vaporized. Flowers and banners met the same fate. Even the darkness that surrounded her swirled into the blast, deepening the purple hue that had passed over the thousand-fold scale replica of a drill bit as it did so.
And yet, it didn’t faze her.
“Very well,” she said, taking the brunt of the blasts straight into the iris. “I will open up a way for you to escape. Find it and I’ll let you live.” She slowly allowed herself to vaporize, but from the opposite end of the blast zone. As she did, she reconstituted herself into the imaginary Canterlot Castle once more. “Be it known, though, that if I die, I will take you down with me.”
Zytharros’ voice followed hers. “Noted. Now scrap yourself.”
“As you wish, you little human fucker,” she seethed.
The beam ceased, the last of the blast shattering the stones, incinerating the cloth, and fusing the gold to the stones still steaming with heat.
Zytharros collapsed. I collapsed.
With a few indiscernible concerned words from Zytharros’ original characters forming the backdrop of our exhaustion, we were consumed with darkness.