//------------------------------//
// Chapter 74 
// Story: A New Beginning in a New Land 
// by REDACTED99999 
//------------------------------//

Jax looked in puzzlement at the door. It was rare to get somepony knocking these days. He met with his friends, and they would set up meetings with those who had asked, so he was ready out by the tables at the right time.
He went over and opened it nonetheless. “Hey Lyra, Vinyl. You know you’re not supposed to be in here, right?” He would invite them in for tea but… yeah, they shouldn’t be inside the barrier.
“Yeah, the guard told us.” The green unicorn waved off his worries. “Don’t worry, I’m just here to tell you that me and Twilight are leaving to meet with our old school-mates. Twilight wanted you to know she won’t be available in case something happens, and I wanted to set up a meeting with you anyway. You have time tomorrow around three? I’ll bring Bon Bon and some of her candy.” She smiled sweetly at him.
Naturally, he smiled back. “I believe I’m free. I’ll look forward to it” With that she waved and trotted off. He focused his gaze on Vinyl, who was still standing there.
She took out a piece of parchment and magicked it to him.
‘Hey Jax. 
I know you’re in a pretty bad spot right now. I know that if I wasn’t able to leave my home for so long, I would go crazy. So I brought you the one thing that brings me most joy - Music.’ His eyes widened as he read on. ‘No, don’t thank me, just consider it as thanks for the pen. I included some of my own work and some of Octavia’s - and of course some of our shared work. Enjoy, and come see me when you want to party again. Last time was awesome.’
He looked up to find her standing with a vinyl player and several vinyls in her magic. Before he knew it, he had his arms around Vinyl’s neck in a tight hug. “Oh my God, thank you so much Vinyl. This is great! I love music.” He should have bought this ages ago, but stuff was always happening and it slipped his mind.
He released her as she started writing something with her pen. ‘Yeah, no problem. I hope things settle down with you soon. Good luck.’ With that she threw him a nod, and went off as well.
He looked at her retreating form until she was out of sight, then he ran in to figure out how to make these vinyls sing for him.
Soon sweet, sweet music surrounded him, and he found some peace in the waves he drowned in. It was good to have friends.
***
Moondancer looked around at her friends. Twilight and Lyra had just joined them, making this the first time they had all been together since… well it had been a while. Twilight sat on her left, with Lyra beside her. On the opposite side of the table, Minuette almost blended into the light blue wall, only her bluish gray and deep blue mane keeping her distinguished, Lemon Hearts lighted up the room with her brilliant yellow coat, and Twinkleshine tapped her light goldish gray hoof on the table in mock impatience.
“So you finally joined us.” Twinkleshine spoke up sternly, the smile on the corner of her lips betraying her. “Took you forever.”
“Some of us had to catch the train and then find this tiny restaurant.” Lyra responded in kind. “We seriously couldn’t all meet up someplace we knew? The school perhaps?”
“I’m trying to avoid that place. Reminds me too much of the time-“ Lemon Hearts started, only to be interrupted by Minuette.
“You got your head stuck in an Erlenmare Flask!” They all laughed at the memory, some harder than others. “How you got your head in there without using magic is the biggest mystery of all! You should have written an article on it, Moondancer.” They all turned their gaze towards her, making her fidget a bit.
“Yes, I’m sure that is exactly what Canterlot’s scientific community would pay to read. The elastic properties of foal heads.” She deadpanned.
To her relief, they laughed some more. “I can see how it could be hard to make tests on that… from a moral standpoint that is.” Twilight joined in.
“Not to mention finding sources? I guess you would have to find doctors and interview them or something.” Moondancer put a hoof under her maw in thought. What had started as a joke could actually be an interesting project.
“Or nurses. I think they might have more contact with foals than- actually, there should already be some documentation on this, if nothing else than by accidental findings.” Twilight looked about as interested as Moondancer was becoming. “If we swing by the library we can-“
“Girls! Girls!” Lyra interrupted them with laughter in her voice. “We are not turning this reunion into a library trip, especially not over something like this.” She waved over the waiter and ordered a bottle of wine. “What we will do is sit here, drink some wine, and catch up. How about you start Moondancer, we all know you started working with Princess Luna. How is that going?”
“Oh, it’s going very well.” Moondancer smiled brightly at her friends. “Since I suggested appointment based court instead of open court like Princess Celestia, more and more ponies have started showing up. It’s so much easier to make an appointment and be guaranteed a spot than to show up and hope to make it.”
“Yeah I can see that.” Lyra agreed, before a thoughtful expression overtook her. “Actually, should we be careful with this wine? Don’t you have work tonight?”
Moondancer waved her off. “Princess Luna gave me the night off while she’s at the psychologist.” Her eyes widened as she realized what she had said. “Oh, but I don’t know if I was supposed to keep that a secret so… please don’t tell anypony. She’s a good pony, really, she just… has some problems.”
Lemon Hearts twirled the wine around in her glass. “You say that as if there’s something wrong with going to see a professional. I say it’s good that she finally gets some help. Being stuck on the moon for a thousand years couldn’t have been easy, what with everypony dying and times changing…” upon seeing the unconvinced look on Moondancer’s face, she smiled encouragingly. “Besides, everypony is tired of rumours about Luna at this point. Heck this might be an improvement to all the stuff I’ve heard.”
“Yeah,” Minuette concurred. “By now nopony wants to hear about Luna anymore. It really went crazy for a while, but since nothing happened, and with Celestia’s reassurance… everypony finally stopped talking about her. If I hear one more time how Luna and Jax are going to take over Equestria I’m going to punch somepony.” She punctuated the statement by punching the air lightly, with a slight smile to indicate she was joking.
“Speaking off.” Twinkleshine turned towards Twilight and Lyra. “How goes it for Equestria’s lone human? Still having that whole… Sombra problem?”
Twilight sighed heavily and Lyra grimaced. “It’s… better than it could have been.” Lyra started. “He’s taking it as a champ, as with most things, but I just wish he could be happy, you know? Without all this… stuff.”
“Yeah.” Twilight continued. “It’s not perfect, and the work I do with Zecora to get Sombra out of there is going slowly. She said something about having to ask her elders, but that would require us to go to Zebracon.”
“Hey…” Minuette spoke up, a light igniting in her eyes. “What if we simply go there and do that?”
Everypony simultaneously looked at each other in confusion.
“What, you mean…” Lemon Heart started.
“Go to Zebricon and get the cure?” Twinkleshine finished.
Minuette couldn’t have smiled brighter, her eyes alight with the prospect of adventure. “Exactly! We go to the castle, get Twilight to get us a carriage and some guards, fly over to nab Zecora or what her name was, and then we’re off to save the day! Easy Peasy, Lemon Heart Squeezy” Her excitement, along with Twilight’s giggles, flooded the surrounding ponies and eased their concerns.
“I don’t think Zebricon is like a market stall that you can just drop in on, get your groceries, and leave again within a short time.” Lemon Heart’s smile turned thoughtful. “… Is it?” She turned the question to Twilight and Moondancer.
“Well no.” Twilight started. “It would take us at least 10 hours to get there and come back, if we have some good fliers. Plus all the time it would take to get to the Elders, and gain their wisdom….”
“Hold up everypony.” Twinkleshine held up her hooves for everypony to stop talking. Moondancer noticed she had the same kind of look in her eyes that Minuette had. “You’re telling me that we have six former students of Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns and not one of us is going to mention long distance teleport? Between the six of us, we have enough power and precision to make the jump, and this Zecora pony knows the location, right?”
“But… I’ve only recently tried a few short distance teleports.” Moondancer objected. It wasn’t a spell you used lightly. Then again… going all the way to Zebricon… all the knowledge they could gain. She tried hard not to drool at the thought.
“That’s okay.” Twilight assured her. “I’ve been teleporting for a while now. I can bring the practical experience and a lot of power into the mix. I know Lyra doesn’t have that much power, but she does have great precision. And wasn’t Lemon Heart great at leading group spells?” Even Twilight seemed to be in on the idea, and Lemon Heart and Lyra were both blushing at the praise.
Moondancer just wasn’t sure if she could do it. Sure, she would love to experience Zebra culture first hoof, but… to actually leave and do it seemed so… big. And what if something went wrong? What if they didn’t make it back before she had to go to work? Would she get fired? Would Luna be mad at her? Would she get banished to the moon and be able to fulfil her lifelong dream of dancing on it?... probably not. Luna wasn’t like that. She was kind, kind enough to accept an awkward nerd like Moondancer as her secretary. Moondancer didn’t want to disappoint her.
“I don’t know girls…” she started awkwardly, not wanting to kill the mood that was flying sky-high with anticipation in a sort of ‘are we really doing this?!’ kind of way. Everypony looked at her, which made her almost resort to some familiar snarkiness, but in the end only honesty came out of her. “I don’t think I’m brave enough.”
The mood, as she had predicted, plummeted like a rock. “Well, as exciting as this random adventure could be, it is sort of… sudden.” Lemon Heart spoke first. “Could we even make it before tomorrow morning?”
“And I guess things would be bad if we got a disease, or bitten by a snake or something. It is a dangerous country after all.” Twinkleshine came back down as quickly as she had risen.
“I do want to help Jax, but it does seem sort of sudden.” Lyra conceded.
“Girls, girls! Come on!” Minuette held on. “Think of the adventure! If Twilight or any of her new friends had given up before they even started, Nightmare Moon would be on the throne right now. We aren’t going to go to Zebrica to have fun and dance all night, we’re going there to help a soul who’s desperately in need of help. The longer we wait, the more he’s going to suffer, and even though I may not know him, I know enough to deem this a worthy cause! Since when have ponies shied away from helping a fellow po… being? Didn’t Princess Celestia teach us better than that when she came to visit us at the school? What did she say back then?”
Moondancer thought back to one of the times Princess Celestia had visited the school, imparting her wisdom on the young foals. She had been so brilliant, so shiny, that young Moondancer had had to look away from her. But her words had resided somewhere deep within her. “True kindness is when you help somepony without expecting anything in return.” She recited along with the rest of them, making them all smile at the memory.
“Even back then she was trying to teach me about friendship… too bad I didn’t get it.” Twilight sighed. “If you don’t want to do this, then I can understand. Finding that sort of bravery within you isn’t easy, at least it wasn’t for me when I had to stand up to Nightmare Moon. I have never been as terrified as when I stood face to face with her, the elements shattered underneath her hooves. But I had to find bravery in my heart, not for myself, but for my friends. That’s when I realized everything, and I knew in my core that they were my friends, so much so that I would die for them, just as they would for me. It was… scary, but it was also the most comforting thing I have ever experienced. That no matter what, I wasn’t alone, and I never would be again, because I had them. That’s what I want Jax to feel. That’s what I want everypony to feel, even Sombra.” She smiled at all of them, one by one. “And all of you of course. I think that, even though her goal may be more about the adventure than to help Jax, that Minuette’s plan was very sweet. I can promise you that, though it might still be dangerous, these sort of adventures help you grow, and tighten the bonds you already share. But if you don’t want to, I’ll go with-“
“We’ll do it.” Moondacer spoke for all of them, steel in her voice. She hadn’t felt this inspired to do something in a long time, and judging by the nods of the ponies around them, they felt the same. Lemon Heart even cried a little bit. “Let’s go get Zecora.”
***
The soft sound of a cello filled the house as Jax drank it in greedily, eyes closed, relaxing on his soft bed. He had just gone over the important parts of Star Wars, just about nearing the end. ‘…and that’s how Darth Vader redeemed himself and finally found peace.’ He finished narrating.
‘You know, when I asked what a Sith was, I did not expect you to spend hours explaining a fantasy world.’ Sombra deadpanned grumpily, though judging by how little he had interrupted the story, Jax had a suspicion he actually quite enjoyed it. ‘So… he sacrificed ruling the galaxy to save his son. He should have waited for the old Sith to be done with it, then throw him down afterwards.’
‘I guess, deep down… he couldn’t let his son die. No matter the cost.’
They lay in relative silence (since the music was still playing) for a long while, Jax let his mind wander to when Luna would answer the letters he sent her using dragonfire. It was still day, so she was probably sleeping… but since it had just been some bragging about his new vinyl player, there was no rush for her to do so.
Suddenly, there was knock on the door. Puzzled as to who it could be, Jax heaved himself up, took the needle of the vinyl, and went to open it. All he got out was “Hey, it’s a chang-“ Before the fucker threw himself at Jax, biting into his arm. “What the he-!” He started, before he felt the weirdest feeling in his life.
It was like… all he held dear in his life, everything he loved, was slowly being drained out. It didn’t hurt, physically at least, but to have a picture of Luna in his mind, and slowly have that picture mean less and less to him was… it was the most, and somehow least, terrified he had ever been at the same time. Suddenly, nothing really mattered the same way it did before. He just looked as the changeling let go of him, not even having the required emotional energy left to be angry.
“I’m sorry.” The changeling sobbed, thick tears leaving its blue eyes. “They made me do it. I’m so sorry.” But it didn’t matter what he was sorry about. He knew that it should but….
‘Jax, let me take over real quick’ Sombra spoke with a dangerous edge in his ‘voice’. Jax just shrugged, and felt his control over his own body diminish into nothing. Suddenly he bent down, took the changeling by the horn, and smashed it into the wall. “If you have any desire to keep this horn…” He spoke low and threatingly, making it frighteningly clear that he wasn’t kidding. Jax observed with a sort of detachment that he had never spoken like that to anyone in his entire life. “…you will tell me who sent you, and why.”
“I-I don’t know! They were a bunch of lunatics, that’s all I know, I swear!” The changeling started crying earnestly. “They just suddenly showed up, ponynapped me and my band-mates, and told me to do this unless I want them to die!”
“Band mates? Wait, you’re the one from the concert… Epic Riff, was it?” The statement seemed to center the changeling a bit. He sniffed a few times before drying his eyes.
“Heh, not many ponies can differentiate between us. I guess you’re not a pony though… how come you aren’t affected by the drain? I guess it doesn’t matter.” He looked at them with big, sorrowful eyes. “I really am sorry about this. We promised to go straight, but here I am… abducting somepony.” He turned his eyes away in shame. “They don’t trust me. They’ll come if I take too long… you should prepare.”
Sombra finally let go of Epic’s horn, and rose to Jax’ full height. “How many?”
“I’m not sure. More than ten.”
***
Sombra almost hit the wall in frustration. All of a sudden this changeling dares come here while he and Jax were relaxing, drain Jax of his love, and try to take him to meet… who exactly? Who would want them like this? Was it him or was it Jax?
He looked at the changeling before him. “If you really are sorry, then you will tell me truthfully: Is there anything else you know about these ponies? Anything at all?” He asked the changeling, not really expecting anything useful, but to his surprise, the changeling’s eyes lit up.
“Actually, I know where their hideout is.” Sombra could hardly believe what he was hearing. This was too good to be true. “I don’t know how much this will help you, but… it’s close to this really old castle in the Everfree forest. There is a crumbling statue of something I think was Princess Luna, if you follow the direction it’s facing, you’ll come to this cave. It goes on for quite a while, the opening tunnel, before finally revealing their hideout.”
Sombra opened and closed his mouth a couple of times in disbelief. “Go over there and pretend I knocked you out.” He finally managed to say.
He didn’t know much about changelings, but he could read the alien bug’s face well enough. He was being honest. As the changeling did as he was told, Sombra considered his options.
Run? No, if they did not trust the changeling, they would have surrounded the house. Then again, they did show him their hideout… but that’s more reason to be careful, no matter how stupid they seemed.
Take the chance and use magic? That could work. He was fairly certain he could get a spell out, and Jax body could do some pretty amazing feats. Even just making a portal somewhere would save them now. But….
He needed ‘fun’ to make that work… at least according to the lord of chaos. Sombra was fairly certain that fun did not mean anything to Jax right now, and he himself did not have the right attitude to do it properly. He could still take the chance but….
The safest choice right now would probably be something he did not want to do. With the information he had, it could work, and quite favourably too. Or… it could be very bad, and he honestly did not want to do it.
How he hated asking for help. He spent another few precious seconds trying to decide if there was anything, anything else he could do without risking too much, but came up with nothing.
With a heavy heart he picked up a pen and wrote a few sentences on some nearby parchment. Just as he laid the pen down, the door was banged entirely open from its ajar state, and a heavy earth pony barged in. After a brief second where the stallion took in what was going on, and Sombra registered that he should probably do something, the smashing of a kitchen window that announced the entrance of an unknown pegasus finally got him running into the bedroom and the dragonfire jar he was looking for. Another pegasus smashed through the bedroom window landing on the bed just as he entered. Sombra raised a hand and smacked the pegasus with all the strength he could muster form the unfamiliar body… which was not very much, but he managed to disorient his opponent further, which gave him time to jump over to the bedside table where the jar stood. Just as he grabbed it, he was tackled from behind by the earthpony, but luckily the jar did not break upon landing. The earthpony had not gotten hold of his arms, so all he had to do was stuff the letter into the jar, where it burned into ash and flew off out of the broken window.
“What did he do? Why did he burn it?” The earthpony, who held him much too tightly asked, as the pegasus took out some rope.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, just hold him while I tie him down, and then let’s get out of here.”
“Hey guys? The changeling seems to be unconscious over here. Do we just leave him?” The pegasus in the kitchen asked.
“Don't you remember the plan? Just leave him behind.” The pegasus answered while he did some impressive rope-work on Jax’ body.
Sombra wanted to smack himself in the face. They were leaving behind the bug that knew the location of their hideout? He suddenly became very afraid that it was been some kind of feint, and their real hideout was somewhere different... it all came down to whether they were really stupid or really clever.
He sighed heavily. He hoped that the Princess of the Night would hurry, and that she would bring some some backup. She was probably asleep though… hopefully Jax would come to himself soon, and they could have magic as a plan b. After all, all this rope was not going to stop Sombra from using magic, if it came to it.