War of the Unfoals

by NPP6

Chapter 9 - The Unfoals

The colt sat up blinking. “Where…” It came rushing back.

To his credit, he did not scream. He did choke in the process of not screaming however, which led to him falling off the couch. A few rough pats on the back later, the colt was warily eyeing the other five ponies currently in the house.

“Colt…” Midnight paused for a moment, shook his head, and continued, “What are you?”

“…What do you mean?”

“The Unfoals. What are you? Exactly? How did you come to be?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“…Diamond. She tells me she thinks you deserve a chance, which means there’s probably something we aren’t seeing about why you’re working for Demon Blood. I thought it might be a good idea to start with what you are before talking about how you got here.”

“And why should I tell you anything?”

“You already know.” All eyes turned to Black Diamond. “You’ve already seen what’s waiting if you don’t help us. From within or without, the Darkness will take you, all of you.”

The colt sighed. He closed his eyes for a moment, then spoke…

---

You call us Unfoals. The name is more fitting than you know. We are those that are not, yet might have been.

What if he had asked her instead of her? What if she had said yes? What if they had turned right instead of left?

We are potential unfulfilled. We are the unborn, unconceived. We exist in the void, without bodies, souls floating between the universes.

Some of us stay that way longer than others. Once you are no longer possible, you begin to fade away from your old birth. Souls are not abandoned by any means; you get repurposed, given a new set of birth conditions, just as soon as you move on.

Some of us don’t want to move on.

The fewer “what ifs” it would take for you to be born, the fewer changes you would have to make, the stronger you are. You can hold on longer, retain details better.

We aren’t really as common as you’d think. There are plenty of universes out there where this colt was born a filly, or that pegasus is a unicorn instead. And almost none of us last past a decade.

We cannot enter any of these worlds, but we can view them. We can watch as life happens without us. It can be torturous.

There’s a group of us who would have been born to ponies around here. For some reason this is one of the easier realities to watch. A little while back there was a painful day, one that hurt all of us in one way or another.

He came to us then.

He was… suffering some long-term effects from the battle in Manehatten. It left him sensitive to fluctuations in reality and the various planes. He made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.

A recent ally of his had knowledge of a spell that would let a pony create a foal, as long as a soul could be provided. He could give us bodies, make us real. All we had to do was take vengeance on those who were denying us our existence through theirs.

You all have so many realities, so many versions already. Why do you get to be real? What makes you so special? I… I’m getting off topic.

We took his offer. All seventy-one of us took his offer. The bodies he provided were… basic. He explained that that was a consequence of the rush jobs. He was under time constraints.

It wouldn’t be long before the other alicorns sensed his actions and stopped him. That could not be allowed.

Two of us came out different than the others. We were detailed, distinct. We had definition in our bodies and personalities that the others lacked. I don’t know why she was so close to being real, but I know that my existence was averted by a single day. We became his lieutenants.

There are side effects. For example, even now we aren’t quite real. That’s why we can ghost through ponies’ attacks. We exist on the fringe of reality and you have to go there to touch us. We were also specifically shielded against the magic of each alicorn individually. We were also carefully instructed to avoid Laughter, as it is unknown what affect her reality warping powers would have on us.

We spent two weeks having an agent infiltrate Ponyville, and when he’d discovered what we needed, we attacked with a perfect plan.

The first snag was when we found out the Ranger could touch us. We thought there would be no resistance.

We changed tactics after that, focused on softer targets. You already know what happened here, and an unknown factor rescued Generosity’s sister. I can only assume that the attempts to capture Kindness and Loyalty’s apprentice met with similar results.

They’re going to be desperate soon, especially since I am no longer connected to the mind-link. Which means they probably think I’m dead.

Whatever you’re planning, do it quickly.

---

Midnight nodded slowly as the colt finished his tale. “That… actually explains a lot.” He sat in silence for a moment, and then a wicked grin began to spread across his face. “I… have an idea. An absolutely terrible idea…

“Diamond, I’m going ahead. I need to try and catch Twilight before she does something stupid. Meet me at Nightstone Castle, and bring the colt.” Midnight paused halfway out the door. “Actually, bring Applebloom as well; the Doctor’s family usually skips town at times like this, so if I can’t track down Discord or Pinkie, the Crusaders are our only real source of Chaos magic.”

“Chaos magic?” Applebloom asked.

Midnight smiled. “How exactly did you get tree sap on you the times you weren’t even near trees? Answer: It wasn’t tree sap.” The alicorn stepped out the door and vanished in blue light.

---

Inside Sugarcube corner, a pink mare was tapping her hoof impatiently. “Why did my Pinkie Sense tell me to be ready for a siege if nothing was going to happen?”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want a fight here?”

Pinkie shook her head, her mane drooping slightly. “No. It’s just… the feeling keeps getting worse. Something’s coming and… I don’t know what more I can do.”

The filly thought through what her father usually did. There were entire racks of rations in back in case this battle ran on for more than a few hours. She had seen all of the cannons around the building. What little they had in way of medical supplies was gathered, and none dared venture out for more. There weren’t really any sails to speak of, or any point in tying things down for that matter. That really only left…

“Raise the colors?”

---

For a moment, Discord had the highly amusing image of Pinkie Pie hoisting Rainbow Dash up a flagpole flash across his mind. He waved it off after a moment, blinking as he saw something in the distance.

It was a cupcake.

And somepony was shining industrial grade floodlights on it.

“Discord, I… I’m scared. The entire town is dark and I don’t know where to go and–”

Discord silenced her with a single claw on her lips. He then reached back and gently turned her head to face the artificially lit baked good.

“Oh good, Pinkie’s home. Let’s go talk to her.”

---

Button and Sweetie were running again.

Well, Button was running and Sweetie was along for the ride.

They had actually jumped several roofs over before jumping down, but their departure from the last roof had been less than silent, largely due to Button misstepping when they heard Miss Cheerilee scream. They had a good head start on the creatures chasing them, but they were slowly losing ground.

They also had no idea where to go. Whether intentionally or otherwise, their pursuers had cut them off from all routes to Button’s house.

It was at this point that a light began to flicker in the distance. Then another, and another. They came around the corner and almost lost time to a shocked halt. Sugarcube corner’s cupcake was lit up bright as day, a dozen more lights waving around randomly to draw even more attention to it.

“There’s a good chance that’s a trap.” Sweetie whispered.

Button nodded.

“What do we do?”

“Either way, we have to go.” Button spoke around the key in his mouth.

After a moment, Sweetie nodded. “If it’s a trap, we have to go save whoever walks into it. If it isn’t, we’re running out of places to run and we need to get to safety.”

The filly tightened her grip as the colt redoubled his efforts. The pair raced towards the shining confection at a full gallop.

---

Midnight appeared in front of the two mares in a flash, then teleported again to avoid their instinctive attacks. “Twilight, I need your help. I think I know the solution to the unfoal problem, but I need to know what you know about Nyx’s spell.”

“Nyx’s spell?”

“The one that birthed her.”

Twilight opened her mouth to ask, paused, thought better of it and settled on, “I’m getting an explanation later. For now head to my castle. Starlight should still be there, have her get the file on Nyx from my lab. The one in my room won’t be very helpful unless you want to see long-term effects–”

“I might need to.”

“Then feel free to take that too. Just… promise me that this will help bring my daughter home.”

“Twilight… I think this may do more for her than that, but yes. I swear to you, this will help us bring her home safely.”

The stallion took to the air and the mares returned to their gallop.

---

Diamond glanced at her companions. “Okay. I’m going to try and shadow travel us all the way to the castle. There’s a good chance I’ll pass out afterwards.”

Applebloom rolled her eyes. “Ya sound like Midnight.”

The black filly beamed. “I guess my master is rubbing off on me. Anyway, if I can’t make it all the way, leave me. I’ll be fine, trust me. If all else fails, my armor will pull me into shadow and let me rest.”

The colt raised a hoof. “Didn’t you just say that entering shadow uses energy?”

“It does when I have passengers, or when I want to be aware and moving. If I don’t go anywhere, do anything, or pay attention to what’s going on around me though, it keeps me safe while I recover.”

Applebloom nodded, already deciding to ignore the request to leave Diamond behind. “Alright then, let’s go.”

All three of them vanished into a shadow that raced off into the distance.