A New Rule

by Sylpheed Dashstep

The Land of Friendship and Magic

I cracked my eyes open and instantly lifted my hand up to my eyes, trying to shield my eyes from the sun...Wait, why was I out in the sun in the first place? Being in the sun felt...wrong for some reason and I moved under the shade of a nearby tree, the feeling that something wrong still present. My gray skin felt like it was about to blister under the heat of the sun and my eyes were insanely itchy. My olive green eyes roamed across the clearing I had woken up in and I wondered how I got there in the first place. Another question appeared in my head a few moments later.

Who am I?

I felt my chest seize up as I realized I knew nothing about myself. I didn't know where I'd gotten the ridiculous clothes I was wearing, some sort of extravagant robe that made me think of a master wizard for some reason, or who had put me wherever I was now. A name appeared in my head suddenly and I knew it was the name of where I was from.

Alternia.

I knew this wasn't Alternia though, this was some other world. For one thing, it was too bright. I don't know how exactly I knew that but I just did. I could tell my body was used to sleeping during the day and roaming during the night, but why was the thing I couldn't place. I heard some voices coming and I scrambled behind the tree I was hiding under.

"So where was it," one voice asked.

"Ah think it was right up here," another voice replied, a southern accent applied to the words.

Two ponies stepped through the bushes around the clearing and the one leading them, an orange one, stopped while the one following it, a purple...unicorn, continued onwards for a few more paces before realizing its companion had stopped.

"Applejack, what's wrong," the purple one asked.

"It was right here," the orange one replied.

"Wait, are you sure it was dead," the purple one asked.

"As sure as Granny Smith's apple pies are the best in Equestria," it replied.

I picked up on the fact that they were talking about me and I debated with myself on whether I should come out or let them search some more. My choice was made for me as I was prodded in the back and a voice spoke.

"You know, it's not very nice to spy," the voice said.

I turned around to find myself facing a pink pony and I felt like there was something extremely wrong here. I knew for a fact that there was something I was missing here and I desperately needed to find out what it was, before something bad happened.

"Berry Bubble," the voice of the purple unicorn called out, "is that you?"

"Yep," 'Berry Bubble' called out, "and I found the troll that Applejack found earlier."

"Umm, troll," 'Applejack' asked as the two of us came out from behind the tree.

"Is that what I am," I muttered.

"Wait, you don't know what you are," the purple one asked, getting closer to me so it could study me.

"Dusk, I don't think that's such a great idea," Applejack said.

"Oh no, it's perfectly fine," Berry Bubble said, "he doesn't have anything equipped in his strife specibus and there's nothing in his sylladex other than a note."

We all three looked at him (as I'd finally figured out that the three were male) and all gave him blank looks.

"One, what are those two things, and two, how do you know that," Dusk asked.

"A strife specibus is what I use to equip a weapon," I muttered, not even knowing how I knew it, "and a sylladex is what I use to hold items on my person. But how did you know that, not even I remembered that, then again I can hardly remember anything."

"Oh that's easy, these two ponies who just appeared in my room holding these really futuristic looking things told me," he said. "They also said that your name is Eli and I was supposed to give you this."

He pulled out a piece of paper from nowhere and handed it over to me, looking at me expectantly. I looked at Dusk and Applejack and swirled my finger around beside my head and whistled. The two of them just gave me confused looks and I sighed before looking at the paper.

"It's a bunch of musical notes," I said as I read the lines. "I...think I'm supposed to play this."

I looked to Berry because he seemed to have most of the answers and he nodded. I took the paper over to the nearest tree and rapped the beat out with my knuckles, giving a small grasp of surprise as a note appeared in front of me.

"My fetch modus is activated by music," I muttered, "I remember now! Each slot is activated by a certain beat and this is the note sequence to activate the first slot. If I remember right, I have ten slots in total."

I picked the note up in my free hand and slipped the beat pattern in my sylladex, only having to think to have it achieved. I read the note, noticing that Berry was peering over one shoulder and Dusk was peering over the other, while Applejack was still where he had entered the clearing from, still not entirely trusting me apparently.

Dear Elijah,

We know that you're a bit scared right now and don't entirely understand what's going on, in fact we don't know what's going on either, we're pretty much just rolling with the punches. The point is that pretty soon things are going to get confusing and we're going to need you to trust your partner.

Honestly, we don't know if you're with Omega right now, but when you do meet up with him, then things are going to go to hell. We don't know what exactly that means, we're just relaying information that Prim and Percy told us. The point is, you're going to have a troubling task ahead of you and if things are going to end how they need to, you need to help Omega to finish this task.

We're sorry that we can't tell you more about yourself or what exactly happened to cause you to be there, but to be honest, we don't know. We know nothing about you other than your name and how your fetch modus and strife specibus work. And even though I would love to tell you how your strife specibus is set to, I sadly can't because Prim warned us that to do that without you already knowing otherwise a bunch of paradoxes would occur and then Ingrid (whoever that is) wouldn't be born and then shit would just collapse on itself.

In other words, live your life for right now and when the time comes help Omega. Help him fix whatever the problem is, wherever and whenever it occurs.

~Josh and Eli

I read over the note again and gave a small sound of confusion as I tried to process what exactly I was reading while also wondering who everyone in the note was. Prim, Percy, Ingrid, Josh? The thing that confused me the most was my name at the bottom of it but after a few more moments I figured that it was the second person writing the note. That still didn't answer who they were or why they knew so much about me.

"Well that's...vague," Dusk said.

"No shit," I said. "I don't think they could have left me with anymore questions."

I put the note back in my sylladex and gave a sigh as I sat under the tree, wondering exactly what to do next.

"So what now," Berry asked, mirroring my thoughts.

"We get him a place to stay," Dusk replied, as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

---

I had been living in Equestria for a week now, my living condition somehow being decided to let me live at Applejack's house as long as I assisted in working on the farm. Within the week I had been there I had found all ten beat sequences for my sylladex, as well as what my strife specibus was allotted to. Unsurprisingly I was apparently talented enough to use a musical instrument as a weapon. I had found out after Lyra had let me use his lyre after finding out I could read music. I had picked up the instrument and began strumming it, looking a bit surprised as I saw the sound waves eject from the instrument and hit Lyra hard enough to knock him off his hooves and over the back of the couch sitting behind him. I was worried that I'd hurt him but after finding that he was unharmed we both shared a laugh. From there it escalated as I learned how to properly wield the weapon type I had chosen.

At the end of the seventh day I walked into the barn to rest after a hard day of work but stopped as I saw two ponies I'd never seen before sitting on a pile of hay.

"Hmm, you're two seconds late, I hope that's not a sign," the stallion said.

The mare beside him have him a look and said, "Dear, you have to stop focusing on the specifics, if you keep doing that then we're never going to get everything done right."

"What are you talking about, if we're too lax about this and don't get the timing right then everything is going to break down," the stallion said.

"Okay, both of you shut up. Now, who are you and what do you want," I asked.

"Who we are isn't important," the mare said, "what is important is that you're in the wrong place. If you're going to help Omega then you need to allow us to take you to the right session"

"The right session,"I asked, "what the hell does that mean?"

"You'll find out soon enough, but for right now, you and Omega have a divide between you and you need to come with us," the stallion said.

I'm getting tired of this incessant prattling. You two aren't accomplishing anything.

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once and the two ponies in front of me yelled something at me, but I didn't hear whatever it was, I was already falling into the darkness.

Author's Note:

I'd honestly never heard Elijah's story before now. I always thought that he had woken up in Equestria with Omega, but I'd honestly never known why he was a troll while Omega was Equestrian if they had both...nevermind, you lot can wait for the next chapter and find out then.