"Mom? Mom!"
I bounded to the front door, where my mother was waiting. She smiled, slightly but sadly.
"Reiss..." She bet over and hugged me, with her army gear on that smelled of sweet roses. I sniffled in her arms, tears in my eyes.
"D-do you have to go?" I asked, trying to keep back the tears.
Mom nodded, taking in a shaky breath. "Yeah. Mommy has to go, sweetie." She started crying. "And... mommy probably won't be back... for a long time."
Her hesitation freaked me out. She was normally upbeat and nice. But now, she was just sad.
"Listen to me, sweetie," mom said. "When the time comes, you'll do something great. And... and through some miracle you will continue to do so. I've seen you do it... I know you can do it."
"... Ramona?" My dad appeared behind me, voice shaky with tears. Mom looked up, looked at him the same longing way she always did. I always thought that she was just missing him already... but it was something more...
"Dad?" I asked as he paced about the adobe.
"Hmm?"
"Who are these ponies you and and Steins keep on talking about?"
My dad's eyes widened. "You... you've been eavesdropping?"
I shrugged. "What does it matter?"
"It matters, son." My dad took in a deep breath. "Ponies, huh? Well, they're icky creatures living beyond the village. They threaten our way of lifestyle. They eat all vegetation, not meat and such. They live in groups and are loud. And I daresay they are all motivated by sexual drive. Most importantly, though, these are our natural nemeses. They try to take our land for theirs, and kill many of us while they're at it. They have killed many of our kin. But now is the counterattack." My dad placed his hoof over his heart. "We will reclaim our land. We have to."
No, they're not, dad! I thought. I grew in size, to match my current height. You've been deceived from the very beginning.
I felt vertigo. I was completely still, but yet, it seemed I was flying upward at hundreds of miles an hour. Everything appeared to be glossy around me, almost surreal.
But then, just like that, the vertigo suddenly stopped. I was able to move now, like I was void of gravity. I spread my tattered wings to stop me from front-flipping.
In front of me, there was a silhouette. It was solid, and had a feminine figure. It stood tall above the earth—or whatever she was standing on—taller than any pony I've ever seen. Atop the crown of her head was a cone-shaped thing, like a horn.
Her voice echoed off the emptiness around her as she proclaimed something in a language that sounded vaguely like Latin. Then, she finally said, "Reiss, I am grateful you found the truth out."
My ears twitched. That voice, I thought, could that be... no. She just can't be her... my mom...
I knew I was lying to myself. I felt connected to her as if I'd been with her my whole life, and she had the figure of her.
"Are you surprised, my little pony?" She looked down. "... Son."
I couldn't believe it. I felt like I was seeing a ghost. I was unsure whether to be angry at her, or relieved that she was there. "Mom..." I whispered in near unbelief.
The light started to drift overhead, and I could see her smile. "Yes. I'm happy to see you again."
I couldn't help but smile now. A tear dribbled down my face. "Mom..." I looked around me. "Does this mean I'm gone? I mean..."
"For the time being, yes."
"Huh?"
"Reiss, I have something to tell you. Something that you and your father have semi-figured out through your lives."
My heart sank. I did not like the way she said that. Could my dad... be dead? I thought.
The area around us dimmed. To either side of me, there floated a diagram. No, I thought, a map. It was rather labyrinth-like, with a circular design and many streets diverging and converging again. In the center there seemed to be a four-tipped star with blunted edges. A building? I thought.
But I remembered the map. It was in a book I think... the four-tipped star in the middle of the labyrinth was a castle. The Crystal Castle to be precise.
She was showing me a map of the Crystal Empire.
"Thousands of years ago," my mom started, "Discord took the world, leading it into a slue of slavery and fear." The area darkened further, the map turning red. The map quickly shrunk, and a group of white dots appeared, far away from the Crystal Empire. "There were freedom fighters who fought against him, but we haven't got enough time for that lecture.
"Aside from the freedom fighters, there was another deviation of common understanding." The map zoomed out even further, showing the entire Equestrian continent, but along with several others I did not recognize. Red dots grew in seemingly random areas like sparks in fire. I imagined rounding up all the red dots and putting them in one place. That was only a little less of thirty percent of the world. "These ponies were called the 'Discordians'. Ponies who actually worshiped Discord as a god.
"They became part of Discord's army, and they fought valiantly. But when the fateful day came, when Princess Celestia's and Princess Luna's reclaimed the throne, the Discordian numbers fell dramatically." Almost half of the red dots faded from the world map. "Some died in battle. Most casualties were caused by execution. But what happened to the remaining half? They wandered in the wilderness and dwindled into nothing. All they were was a shell. A shell that could take form as other existing ponies, and feed off of love."
Us, I thought. The changelings. So my dad was onto something.
"Now," my mom continued, the display fading, and light started seeping through again, "you are on the rise. You are gaining personality, a sense of purpose and a reason to live. You are no longer empty husks anymore. Now it's time for you to live once again."
The air in front of me glowed and started to hum. Suddenly, a mirror appeared out of thin air.
"Look into the mirror, and tell me what you see," my mom ordered.
I did as she said. And what I saw shocked me. A pony stallion was in the reflection, with a long brown mane and a grey-ash coat stood in my reflection. No horn, no wings. He followed every movement I did; tilting my head to the side, pitching slightly in the anti gravity; everything I did, he did.
"Wha...?" I mumbled.
"The time will come when you shed your dark skin and become what you really are." My mom smiled. "However, that day is not today, nor is it near. But I'm not joking around when I say that you are different than what you used to be."
I nodded. "Right."
She nodded back. "Now, we are out of time. It's not your time to die yet, Reiss. That is a long time away. I will send you back down to Equestria. Your girlfriend is in danger. She doesn't have much time until the black arrow's poison takes her."
My eyes popped wide open. "B-but she's not my girlfriend!"
My mom smirked. "Yet."
I blushed redder than red. "Yep, you're definitely my mom."
She smiled. "I will miss you, my son. I love you."
I smiled. "Love you too."
A teardrop shimmered down her face as vertigo suddenly hit me again. This time, though, I was falling to fast. It felt like I was never going to reach terminal velocity. I saw my lifeless body, black arrows burning from it, zoom toward me. Before I could brace myself, I came in contact.
I sat up swiftly, effectively scaring some of the townsponies around me. I looked to my side.
I wished I didn't.
There lay Caeser, head smashed in, shot with dozens of white arrows. I held back my rage. It simply wasn't time for that. Never would be a time like that.
We didn't receive word of Evras' attack being stopped, I thought. Then my eyes widened. No... this can't be...
"I always knew you were a traitor," gurgled Evras' voice.
I turned. There he was, with an arrow sticking out of his chest, pinned to the ground.
I galloped toward him and placed my hoof on his throat. "How many died?" I demanded.
All Evras did was laugh.
I put more pressure on his throat. "How. Many?"
"All of them!" he rasped. "I led the entire village to battle. Those who resisted died."
I took a step back in disbelief. My village... I thought, ... was wiped out? Anger bubbled up inside me. "You son of a bitch!" I kicked him in the side, misplacing the arrow just enough to have him wail in pain. I took a step back before I had the chance to put him out of his misery. I need to go, now, I thought, taking a deep breath.
"Hey," I called to the townsponies. "Where's the hospital around these parts?"
As I've heard, almost everything here was ran by earth ponies. Even the hospital.
They were not going to get the black arrow out of there without magic.
My hoofsteps echoed in the hall, more constantly as I picked up the pace. I was told that she was taken to the very back of the first floor, and the hallway was longer than long. Finally, I burst through the doors of the room. The doctors nearly went self defense on me when I explained what was happening.
"I can use magic to remove the black arrow and its poison," I said. "So you need to trust me."
"How can I trust you?" one of the doctors sneered. "You little—"
"That's enough, Ember," said another doctor. "We need every chance we can get." She turned and looked at me. "You say you can remove the arrow and its poison?"
"Yes," I confirmed. "I can."
"If I may ask," said Ember in a peeved tone, "what relations do you have with Ms. Fluorescence here?"
I shrugged. "I was her captivator." I lit my horn before any of them could say anything to me. A grey aura surrounded Fluorescence. Her right side, I remembered, and sure enough, there the stub was. The aura faded around her whole body and surrounded the arrowtip.
I grimaced before I did it. "Be ready to dress the wound," I said as I tugged the arrow out. It was harder than I expected, but at the end, it popped out of the wound, resulting with me being a sweaty mess. I pulled the poison out with it. I wasn't too keen with blood, so I had one of the doctors help me dispose of it before I got sick. The doctors wrapped layers of bandage over a large gauze pad and pinned it together with a safety pin.
Now, the moment of truth, I thought. I was nervous beyond all belief. I was afraid my heart was going to pop from my chest when the doctors finally reported back to me.
"She's going to be okay," they concluded. "She'll have to be bedridden for the next week or so."
I sighed out of relief. "Good, good."
The doctor, Ember, walked to my side. "So... captivator, huh?"
"Nothing illegal; I was doing it for her life."
He scoffed. "Nothing illegal? I've heard of the likes of you. Using sex as a motivator."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm pretty sure I've heard the same from my race to yours."
"Pft. As if. But you can go back to your village now."
"My village was wiped out."
"Well, good for them."
My eye twitched. "Hey, doc. Do you, y'know, want your ass kicked?"
"This conversation is now over," Doctor Ember blurted.
"Hmph. Yeah, it'd better be."
We sat in silence for about two seconds.
"So," Doctor Ember started, "would you mind telling me of your misadventures here?"
"I wouldn't call them misadventures," I said. "But fine, I'll tell you."
"Reiss?" a weak voice said. "Reiss, wake up."
I cracked my eyes open. In the small room, I had settled down on the glinting tile floor and... took a nap, I guess. Fluorescence was on a stretcher in the almost over-sanitary, white room, her cute eyes half-open. She managed a smile. "Come here," she invited.
I obliged. I walked over to her and stroked her mane. She nuzzled against my hoof.
"So, how long have I got in here?" she asked.
"'A week or so,'" I said, quoting the doctors.
"Ah," she acknowledged. "That's too bad. I wanted to ask you out sometime this week."
I blushed and crossed my forelegs. "Well, this could be considered a date..."
"Are you kidding?" she said. "Lying in a stretcher and recovering from an arrow wound is not fun at all."
"Hmm..." I put a hoof up to my chin. "We could break you out," I joked.
"Please don't pee on my again," she played along.
"You almost sound ungrateful," I said.
We shared a light laugh, and boy, did it feel good to laugh again. When we calmed down, the nurse walked in and nearly dropped what she was holding.
"H-how...?" the scared nurse stuttered.
I smiled. "Well, I guess I'll be going, before I give the nurse more of a heart attack."
Fluorescence nodded. "Okay, but... before you do..." She was blushing a bright red. She pushed herself from the stretcher and our lips met. I personally didn't know what to do. I'd never kissed anyone before. I just decided to follow her movements, between lip lock and lip lock. When we broke the kiss, my heart fluttered.
She smiled. "See you, Reiss."
I stumbled back in awe. "I see you too—er, I mean, bye!" I walked out of the room, the nurse looking as if she was about to faint.
Though many things horrible that day happened, despite all of them, I felt happy for the first time since the past week. I had done my job, I got her back to her village, and possibly put a stake through the heart of the underground army.
And was it worth it? Yes, Fluorescence, it was.