~Chapter 5~
Following the pink creature, I picked up on some odd things about it. For one, it didn't fly in a straight line, preferring to instead zoom through gaping holes in trees just wide enough for it, whizzing under and above branches ranging from the size of a quill, to the size of the handles on one of AppleJack’s carts, and flitting in circles around random trees; it looked just like a dog in a new section of town. Watching it reminded me of what I was missing, and I turned to look at my back longingly.
As it flew, it occasionally paused at random plants, mostly flowers, and its eyes would stare intently at the flower, almost as if they were looking through it. Its eyes didn't look angry or sad, nor did they look particularly happy. They just.... Looked at the flower. After several seconds of this, it would pull away and resume its flight.
It did this with many different plants, nearly all of which I did not recognize. Tempted, I nearly plucked a couple for later analysis, but I knew that they would still be here, even when I was not.
We continued in silence for some time, before I sighed and decided to start up a conversation to break the quietness. "Hey, would you mind telling me where we're going?"
"Oh hey, you were so quiet, I almost forgot you were there!" It chirped, stopping in midair and looking at me. "Don't worry, we're going to one of the Travel Trees. They let you go almost anywhere in here."
"Travel Trees?"
"They're these big, ginormous trees that have these pink bubbles floating inside. All of them are connected, and have holes that let you go in and out. They're really, really fun to have races in!" It finished.
"Um, okay. How do we know when we're at one?"
"Don't worry, I know where all of them are, and we're super close to one. It'll probably be another minute or two though before we get there."
We continued on in silence for a moment, before I realized something. I didn't know what its name was. Celestia, I didn't even know I it was a colt or a filly!
Smiling awkwardly, I decided then was the best time to ask. "Uh hah ha, I kinda have something to ask you. I never really caught your name, and I was wondering if you could perhaps tell me." I said, hoping that it's name would give away its gender.
"Easy! My names Mew, although how you forgot already, I really don't know." It called out in a light voice, steadily spiraling to the ground ten yards ahead.
"Wait, I thought you said you were a Mew." I replied, confused.
"Yep! Most Pokemon don't have names. We just choose to be called by our species. But nowadays, a lot of other kids are deciding to get nicknames. Like, um, remember those guys from earlier?" At my nod, it continued. "Well, they all had nicknames. The Vulpix’s name is Chloe, the Eevee is named Yuzee, the Totodile’s Riptide, and Zorua's is Z. They all decided that they'd be called that, so that's what everyone calls them."
At this new piece of information, my mind was reeling. How could they all differentiate between each other if they all were called the same thing? Why, if everypony was called Unicorn, or Pegasus, then there would be way too much confusion.
"That- that's terrible!" I exclaimed. "That must be horrible, with everyone having the same name!"
"Well, it's not really all that bad. When you call out for a specific Pokemon, then that one is usually the one that comes. Sometimes, though, you can get like five to come over, and then that's really awkward!" Mew answered as it flew out from a log.
"So then you don't, like, really care then about it?" I questioned, unsure.
"Well no, not really. It doesn't mean anything to me. I've always been Mew, and it would be kinda weird if I just decided to use a nickname one day." Mew answered, slowing its flight speed to match my pace. "And hey, you never told me your name!"
Smiling, I laughed at my idiocy. Oh, how could I have forgotten to tell them my name? Well, I suppose he should learn it now. Better late than never, I suppose. "My name is Twilight Sparkle, student, apprentice, and element of Magic."
"Hey, that's cool! I always loved magic! It's so cool when I see people do it!" Mew joyfully exclaimed. "When we have some time later, do you think you could show me some?" He asked, looking expectantly at me.
"Well, sure, I guess I could show you some later. I mean, I'm not the best or anything, but I am pretty decent." I said, blushing at his words. Almost nopony had ever wanted to see me do magic before, and even then it was usually just young unicorns who were learning it for themselves, and whose parents either didn’t have time, or weren’t Unicorns.
"Alright! Let's get a move on then!" He shouted excitedly.
As we walked on, I realized that there was still one thing that I had no idea about: it's gender. Deciding that I'd rather go through the awkwardness now rather than later, I plunged ahead. "Hey Mew, remember when I asked what your name was? Weeeell, I kinda don't know what your gender is, either." I said, smiling awkwardly.
"My gender? Oh, my gender! Well, a lot of Pokemon say I'm a guy, so I guess I'm a male then!" He answered, his eyes crinkling as he smiled.
Coming to the conclusion that he was joking around, I smiled along with him. "Alright, thanks Mew. Any idea where the tree is?"
"Yup! It should be right up here!" He said, quickly flying up to a tree that was way bigger than the other trees. In fact, it was so large, I had no idea how I had missed it before. A semi-large hole sat in the base of it.
The tree was different from the other trees in the fact that it was not a pine, but an enormous oak. Long branches snaked their way through even the pine trees, allowing a sort of mixture between the two.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Come on in!" Mew exclaimed, right before floating through the hole.
Placing my trust in him, I slowly peered inside. Mouth agape, I was in awe. Hundreds- No, thousands of pink bubbles bounced around. Ranging from the size of my hoof to nearly two times as large as Princess Celestia herself, the bubbles all seemed to float in one of two directions: up, or down.
Tentatively reaching out my forehoof, I gently prodded a smaller, slower moving bubble. It didn't pop, but instead jiggled madly. Pulling it into my body, I pushed it in together with both hooves. The bubble didn't burst, but instead simply bent inwards. Letting it go, it began to float up to the sky, only to quickly begin moving in the opposite direction, and back into the tree.
"Hey Twilight, what are you doing? You can't just stand outside the tree and expect to get there. Come on!" I heard Mew call from within the tree, although it sounded as though he was significantly farther away than when he originally entered.
Deciding to place the rest of my faith in Mew, I took a deep breath, and jumped. I free-fell for about one or two seconds before I landed on one of the pink bubbles. The impact didn't hurt, it was just.... unexpected. Grinning, I looked up to try and find Mew, only to see him on the other side of the tree, going down. He was sitting on one of the bubbles, and was looking directly at me.
"Why hello, Twilight! You might wanna try getting on this side of the tree. Otherwise, you're gonna be in here a lot longer." Mew joyfully said, steadily getting quieter as he went downwards. "I mean, you'll eventually start going down when you reach the top, but that might take a while."
"It's okay Mew. I'll be fine staying in here a bit longer." I called out to him, as he was now at least fifty yards below me.
"Okay Twilight! I'll make sure to get you when you're supposed to come out." He shouted to me, but his voice was already sounding faint.
Realizing that I now had this magnificent place all to myself, I began to observe my surroundings. The tree I was in seemed to stretch upwards for another one hundred meters, and was at least fifteen meters in diameter. The bubbles on my side all seemed to float up, and across the tree on the other side they all seemed to float down.
Realizing that I was most likely in a place never before seen by pony eyes, I did my best to remember everything about the place. I didn't have any parchment, quills, or books, so I had to settle for memory alone. Perhaps I could obtain some paper from Mew later....
As I neared the top, I saw that the bubbles seemed to go within five yards of what appeared to be some sort of wooden ceiling, before they turned and began to head down on the other side. Heading downwards, I noticed how some of the bubbles near the middle would be heading down, and end up colliding with bubbles heading up. But rather than bounce off each other, they simply passed through one another.
As I passed by where we had originally entered the cave and went lower down, I saw that the bottom of the tree, where the roots usually were, was a large expanse of hallway-like rooms. Bubbles constantly flowed in and out of these rooms, and it looked like they all were on a set path.
I allowed the current of the bubbles to take me where they would. Right now, I absolutely didn't care. These rooms could keep a pony occupied all their life, and then still have rooms that went unexplored. Magnificent designs littered the walls of the caverns, and were mostly swirls and squiggles. They made absolutely no sense to me, but they still looked stupendous.
I stayed in the rooms for what seemed to be hours, but was most likely really closer to several minutes. As I passed another hole in the wall, I heard a voice call out to me.
"Hey Twilight! Over here!"
Looking towards the direction the voice came from, I saw Mew about a dozen or so yards ahead. When I got within jumping distance, I stepped to the edge and leaped forth from the bubble. Landing on my hooves, I looked up at Mew, a huge grin plastered on my face.
"Mew, what.... What was that place?" I asked, still stunned. There was nothing like that I had ever read about before. The designs, the bubbles, the cavernous rooms underneath- it was glorious.
"That was just the midway. A lot of Pokemon don't use it because of how confusing it is, but you can learn all the different routes to it." Mew explained. "Unfortunately, by the time they learn enough to use it, most Pokemon are either too old or too big for it to be of any real use to them. The midway goes all throughout the entire Tree, and it lets you skip a lot of the obstacles you would normally have to endure."
"Wait, so then how far did we go?" I asked Mew, unsure of it. If we bypassed the entire forest, and perhaps even the rocky cliffs, then were we even in the same area?
"Well, you skipped about an hour and a half of traveling, but for distance? I don't know, about four or five miles."
Miles? What in Equestria was a mile? "Hey Mew, how far is a mile exactly?" I asked, confused. It had to be a relatively short distance, seeing as how I was in there for about twenty minutes at most.
"You don't know what a mile is?" Mew asked in a surprised tone. "What, do you use kilometers or something?"
"Actually yes, we do use kilometers! Do you know how many that was?" I replied.
"Well, I never was good at mathing, but I think that a little more than one and a half kilometers equals a mile. So I'd say it was about six or seven kilometers, eight if we traveled really far."
six or seven kilometers!? There was no possible way! At the speed we were traveling, that should have been only four or five, but definitely not seven!
"But how is that possible? We should've only gone four kilometers at most! How in Equestria did we cover seven?" I asked, not believing it possible.
"Oh, that's easy! The bottom of the Tree is rounded, so the closer to the middle you get, the shorter the time it takes to get to the other side."
"Wait, the bottom of the Tree is rounded?" I asked. If the bottom of the tree was round, then how could it stand? Unless.... "Does the tree use some form of magic to stay standing?"
"Mmm, nope, no magic whatsoever!" Mew cheerily replied. "It’s just held up because so many Pokemon need it to! Okay, so now that that's out of the way, I have to show you something. Don't worry, we can get there by walking."
As Mew left the room, I followed him. He led me to a small and short tunnel, about three meters long, and we made our way through to another room, this one considerably darker. Realizing that I never got a good look at the last room, I turned back around to see, but I didn't even catch a glimpse. The room and tunnel were gone.
"Wha- Mew, where did the tunnel go?" I asked, tapping on the stone with my hoof.
"Don't worry about it, Twilight." Mew said. "We're here now, so now I can explain a lot of things to you." Right as he finished, a bright light began to erupt from orange crystals. Ranging from thinner than a quill to taller than a door, these crystals jutted out in large clusters in the ground. The only crystals not lit were a large bunch in the middle
Looking around, I saw that there were no exits in the room. Instead there was a giant dome around us, made out of what appeared to be more orange crystal. The entire ceiling was literally lit up, and it bathed Mew’s entire body in an orange glow, causing him to look the color of a pale tangerine.
"This is the heart of the Tree." Mew suddenly said, startling me. "Along with being my home, this is also the place where two heroes lie. Two heroes, who gave their life for myself, and for thousands of others." When he finished, the cluster in the middle lit up, and within I could see two figures lying motionless within it, side by side.