//------------------------------// // Takin' the high road! // Story: A Crossover // by Dudofall //------------------------------// Chapter 11: Takin' the high road! The weather in this place is controlled by the ponies, or so I've been told in informational meetings with Princess Celestia. Thus I'm rather surprised when clouds float towards Twilight's castle without being guided by a single pegasus. "Let's get inside, a storm's a-comin'!" the lie detector pony exclaims. I nod and head quickly to the door. Only Twilight fails to move out from under the thunderclouds. "I'll stand out here all day until you tell me if you're evil!" she says, resulting in shocked gasps from Spike and the orange one. I place my face in my hoof, "For the thousandth time, I'm not evil!" At this, Spike gasps, but whatever her name is eyes me intently. All focus shifts to her, because we all want to know if I'm telling the truth. *** "Come on, Applejack! Is he lying or not?" Spike demands. Raindrops have begun to collect in a puddle at his feet. Applejack frowns. "I ain't sure. Yer hard to read, Mr. whatever your name is." "Olde," I say. It is perhaps one of my briefest common utterances, tailormade to convey my name as quickly and efficiently as possible; I decided many years ago to make up for my verbosity with a few short phrases peppered into my syntax. "How old are ya?" "You misunderstand, Olde is my name." "Howdy, Olde! I'm Applejack!" "I never thought I'd meet someone-" "Somepony," Twilight corrects. "-named after a kind of cereal." Spike groans, "Can we please go inside now? I'm getting cold feet." I consider making a joke at his expense, then think better of it. After all, that would be evil, which I am not. I nod, "It would behoove you to take care of your servant, Princess Twilight. He's already seconds away from getting hypothermia." "Spike isn't a servant, he just does some chores around the castle every now and then," Twilight says. Applejack opens the door and everyone follows her into the castle. Spike leads the way through the labyrinthine corridors, taking care not to slip on the crystal floor. I take this opportunity to socialize with gusto, "So, how did you get to be friends with a princess, Applejack?" She smiles, "Twilight was organizing the Summer Sun Celebration a while back, and me and ma family were in charge of th' food!" So her profession matches her namesake confection? The plot thickens. "Did the prepared food include-" "We're here!" Twilight interrupts me, maintaining a false smile as I give her a questioning look. She gestures to the room we have entered. "The hall of friendship, where everyone gets their own chair and we can talk more about whether you were lying about being evil!" She laughs awkwardly before taking a seat at a throne marked with her cutie mark. Spike sits next to her, and Applejack has a seat as well. The orange pony sighs, "I already told ya he's hard t' read, Twi. Why're ya makin' such a fuss, anyway? He seems like a nice pony!" I grin at this high praise. "Princess Celestia sent me a letter saying he was extremely troublesome and manipulative!" Twilight says defensively. So that's what Celestia truly thinks of me? Oddly enough, those are the exact same words I would use to describe her. Applejack continues to argue with the princess, and a fowl, green fog begins to emit from both of them. I glance at Spike, who is biting his claws. I motion for him to come closer, and he does so quietly and quickly. He whispers, "The sirens are back!" I raise my eyebrows. "Is that in any way related to the green fog coming from Twilight and Applejack?" I whisper back. He nods sadly. "The sirens get more powerful when people or ponies argue. But they're supposed to be powerless, and in another world!" Twilight snaps, "Spike! Why are you plotting against me with him?" Spike gulps, "I was telling him how we beat the sirens in another world! Remember how fun that was?" "I don't remember, 'cause I wasn't there!" Applejack yells. I step forward, "Perhaps Twilight could recount to us how this all played out, and we could join hands and sing Kumbaya afterwards." "We don't have hands here!" Twilight screams. The green fog intensifies, and I notice a stream of it floating down the hallway. I take a few hesitant steps towards it, and Spike follows me. Behind us, Applejack raises her voice in argument with her friend. As we walk, the dragon speaks. "The sirens sing to make disharmony." I find that my ears can move, and I attempt to hear more from further down the hallway. There's a faint voice singing low, sorrowful melodies. I indulge him, "Isn't disharmony a friend of Fluttershy's?" He glares at me, "No, that's Discord, stupid!" He shakes his head as if to free it from an EEG helmet. "Sorry. We must be getting close to the sirens." "Let's agree not to argue until they stop singing." My pony ears pick up the music better now that we're closer, but there seems to only be one voice singing. I can almost feel the magic assaulting my brain, trying to make me more argumentative. I can only assume that the dragon next to me is being similarly attacked. I decide to walk closer to him, and together we arrive at the door to the outside. It's wedged open, and a giant, purple monster head is stuck in the doorway, singing about broken hearts and broken pendants. It is with great fortitude of will that I say, "Excuse me." The monster head stops singing, and breathes in green fog through its nose. It blows a few fog rings into the air before it speaks. "Who are you, and why did you interrupt my song?" I keep my expletives to myself. "I am Robert Olde, former CEO of Olde Hotels. Your song is causing ponies to argue and as a non-evil entity I must ask you to refrain from manipulating others." The head thoughtfully sniffs up more fog. Spike clings to my back left leg. "Manipulating is what we always do. What I always do, now that I'm on my own." Spike edges out from behind me. "What happened to your sisters?" "They didn't want to deal with me after we lost our powers. Makes sense, I guess. I'm basically the worst. I couldn't get steady job like Sonata, and Adagio has been better than me at manipulating for decades." This supposed creature of villainy and disharmony is remarkably maudlin. But if she came from another world, is it possible I could escape my punishment earlier? I wonder aloud, "If you lost your powers, why is your music still able to cause arguments, and how were you able to travel here from another world?" "I used the portal. Somehow going through there gave me back my powers. Not that it matters. I'm still alone and directionless in life." "Does this mirror lead back to the real world?" "What's real? I don't know. I'm just an unreal husk of siren now, with no reason to-" the creature's head is suddenly pulled out of the doorway. The ground below it rolls, driving it further and further from the castle. I spot an aquamarine pony in the distance, planted firmly in the muddy road and focused intently on the depressed siren. I smile, "If it isn't Dawn Twinkle! Is your house melting in the rain?" She glares at me. "Ça n'est pas amusant. Stop joking around and get the Princess! We need her and her friends to defeat this siren!" "Absolutely not! I must prove I am not evil by defeating the creature myself!" I exclaim. "You can't beat a siren!" Spike challenges. I turn to him angrily, "What disqualifies me from doing so?" A green haze clouds the edges of my vision. The dragon rolls his eyes disrespectfully, "Only the Elements of Harmony singing about friendship can do that, and you're not an Element of Harmony!" He begins to emit a green fog. "Hey," Dawn yells, "are you ignoring me?!" She rushes towards us. As she draws closer, I find my animosity towards Spike is diminishing. The green fog he was formerly creating dissipates. Dawn reaches us. "Let's get inside and find the Princess!" *** Spike leads the way, looking decidedly ill-at-ease that Ms. Twinkle is with us. "So...will Aria still be there after we get Twilight?" He asks hesitantly. "That creature outside is named Aria?" I ask. "Yup," he affirms, then chuckles, "Her last name was something silly, like Blast, Flamespitter, or O'Connor." "I saw her dragging herself to the castle earlier, it took a long time," Dawn adds, "she'll be there, certainement!" I attempt to put the dragon's mind at ease as well. "It is considered bad form to simply walk away from your opponent in a battle. There's no doubt in my mind that the siren will remain nearby." "You mean like we did?" Spike asks sarcastically. He has a point there, I suppose. On the other...hoof, we are attempting to gain a tactical advantage in the fight, as opposed to avoiding it entirely. Before I can explain this to Spike, we walk into the same room we were in earlier to find Applejack and Twilight singing. "Sompony's in trouble, Faust, come by here," Twilight sings. "Somepony's sick, Faust, come by here," sings Applejack. Dawn and Spike join in to belt out the ending line, "Oh, Faust won't you come by here!" It's a little different from the version I know, but the song puts a smile on my face anyway. If not for half of the board of directors voting against it, my proposal to make the only song our hotel elevators played Kumbaya would have brought joy to many people. "Howdy stranger! I'm Applejack," the orange lie-detector introduces herself. Dawn smiles and says, "I'm Dawn Twinkle. Bonjour!" The two shake hooves, with Applejack showing exceptional enthusiasm to degree that Dawn's leg keeps shaking due to momentum. She looks somewhat confused, and her new acquaintance stops the leg, seemingly out of habit. "There's a monster out there. We need your help, Princess Twilight," Dawn explains. The Princess of stares looks intently at the aquamarine earth pony. She seems conflicted, although I am hard-pressed to determine why. Fighting monsters is an exceptionally clear-cut case of good and evil. Finally, she makes a decision, "I'll do everything I can." Dawn breaths a sigh of relief, and I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. Perhaps with Twilight's help, I can more easily defeat Aria and determine what she knows of a possible way to get home early. "So, who are we up against," she asks, "timberwolves, manticores, a cockatrice?" Spike elucidates the problem, "We're up against something way worse. Aria came back for revenge!" *** The Mineighaha river runs from just south of Baltimare into the Everfree forest, where it intersects with the Ponyville river before heading southwest, past the Macintosh Hills. Aria and her sisters had used it in the distant past to get to Los Pegasus, and then later to get closer to Canterlot. Now she used it to move towards Baltimare again, planning to feed on as much negative energy as possible before facing off against the elements of harmony. By her calculations, she would need at least three times as much power to stand up against the seven heros. A manticore burst out of the trees and roared at her. "Leave me alone," Aria moped, "it's what everyone else did." The creature paused, not used to potential meals being unafraid of it. It roared a second time with more oomph. The siren sighed, "Just go away." The manticore let out a low growl before heading back into the trees, away from the river. Aria shrugged and continued to swim, letting her thoughts drift. She found herself thinking of her sisters back in the other world, wondering how they would take her sudden disappearance. The three always told each other where they were going and when they would be back. She hadn't seen the point of telling her sisters that she was never coming back. *** "I'm sorry, okay? It just seemed like a good idea at the time!" Twilight says indignantly. I cannot believe what I am hearing. "If I had a portal to another dimension, I would want it where I could see it," I proclaim, "not in a castle miles away protected by Celestia's guards." Applejack nods, "It was a pretty dumb idea, Twi." "It could have been worse," Dawn comforts her. "We've all had bad ideas before. Une fois, j'ai acheté un billet d'un spectacle de magie. C'est vingt bits dans les égouts!" Twilight seems to be the only pony who understands her. "Est la magie s'apelle Trixie?" she asks hesitantly. "Oui!" the aquamarine pony replies. The two burst out laughing. I exchange a confused glance with Applejack and Spike. The former shrugs, and the latter rushes off somewhere, leaving me to wish I'd taken up Mary on her language tutorial computer program. "Ta prançais n'est pas bon. Je peut t'apprend, si tu veut," Dawn says to Twilight. I sigh, "Could you please speak in a language that we all understand? It will make it easier for us to plan our battle against the siren, with the added benefit of keeping everyone-" "Everypony," Twilight interrupts. "-On the same page." I look at each occupant of the room, and then Spike returns with a large book. He flips through it rapidly. Dawn frowns, "I'm sorry you don't understand the beautiful language of my homeland." "I accept your apology," I smile, "now, let us discuss the plan." *** Baltimare's lights shone in the distance, reminding Aria of the skyline in the other dimension. She never thought she'd miss it, but that didn't stop the nostalgia from washing over her as she tread the dark water of the Mineighaha. The Cederville Forest stood in the distance, providing a natural backdrop for the blocky, squat buildings. The siren took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and began to sing. Her voice floated over the plains surrounding the city. It echoed through the cobblestone alleyways, bouncing in between the slate apartment buildings and under the brightly-colored awnings of the shopping districts. Aria watched from the river as a green fog slowly flowed out of Baltimare. For the first time since coming back to Equestria, she smiled.