It was the voice that woke me.
“-on't let you get away with this!”
Not that one.
“Ah, but Miss Do, I already have!”
That's the one. It sounded like someone who gargled with marbles and subsisted on a diet of machine oil enriched with helium bubbles.
“HE is already reviving! And there is NOTHING you can do about it!”
I wanted to smack it. But I just couldn't muster the will to move.
“We'll see about THAT!”
What? Me smacking the voice or... Wait.
There was the sound of soft impacts, like stones striking leather, or some such ruckus. As that went on, I tried to piece together why this was so wrong. Everything felt cold, and I could swear there was a reason there was nothing wrong with that. If anything, something was wrong with being able to hear anyone in my-
My eyes snapped open as my thoughts started to catch up. Unfortunately, I found a few things wrong with that.
First one being, light.
It burned.
I snarled in pain, or would have if my chest would obey my orders. Instead, I let loose a hacking moan, cool fluid running down my face.
“It LIVES!” the marble and helium voice cackled, punctuated by an entirely overzealous laugh of victory. Honestly, if only it would shut up. “Now you will finally meet your DESTINY!”
“I don't know,” the other voice, more feminine and slightly cocky declared. “Seems like your sleeping god isn't much of a morning pony. Maybe once I take care of you, a few lullabies and it'll be like none of this ever happened.”
I really need to be in the now.
Blinking, I tried to ignore the burning of light. Orange light, flickering from torches. A few more blinks and I could see the room I was in.
…
What did they DO to the the place?!
I spat the last of the fluid from my lungs and took a deep breath, sitting up as my body protested quietly. The scuffle between the two voices silenced as I did so, a quiet gasp emanating from somewhere in front and below. A few more blinks revealed them to be the local sapients. Ponies, if I recall. One was a winged flier with yellow fur and a two-toned gray mane. The other was an earthen color with a horn and a blue mane. They were both covered in scratches and bruises... At least, I think they were. I wasn't familiar with their anatomy to make a call on that.
“Ugh...” I moaned, testing my voice out a little.
The horned pony, unicorn if I'm not mistaken, scrambled to prostrate himself in front of me.
“Master,” he groveled.
Master?
What?
“Ugh...” I repeated, reaching my hand behind my neck to stretch my arm. “How long was I OUT?”
“Master,” the unicorn repeated in a reverent tone. “I have woken you from your thousand year slumber as was you will.”
Thousand year-!?
“Thousand years?” my voice boomed unexpectedly with my shock. I was supposed to be woken up after only TEN years. That's standard procedure!
“Yes my master,” the unicorn continued to bow in an increasingly uncomfortable display. “As was prophecised in the scrolls, I have awoken you from your slumber so that you may cast your judgment upon Equestria, and the world.”
“Huh...” I commented, ignoring most of what the unicorn was saying. He seemed a bit out there. About that moment, a knot in my neck made itself known. I let out a mighty groan as I worked at it, stretching my arms and twisting my head until it popped.
“Oh,” I relaxed at the sensation, casting a glance at the... Pegasus? ...that was scowling at me. “That's better. You know, a thousand years can really give you SUCH a crick in the neck.”
The pegasus only snorted, ears flattening and leaning back slightly as if I'd smacked her. I think it was a 'her'. The unicorn had 'annoying male voice of marbles and helium' covered.
“If you think you can destroy Equestria, you've got another thing coming,” she spoke up as if this was an entirely different conversation.
“What?” I asked.
“Ignore her,” the unicorn snarled as he stood to face her. “She is but a bump in the path to true power. A mere annoyance named Daring Do, who will soon be an ex-annoyance.”
“Awww...” the pegasus broke her stone-faced glare to cast a condescending look at the unicorn. “That's cute. Colts move so fast these days. Not even kissed me yet and I'm already your 'ex'. I'd make a crack about first dates, but this adventure is close enough.”
The unicorn only growled in response.
I think I'm missing some context here...
“Master,” the unicorn continued to growl. “Allow me to do the honors and remove this FILTH-” the pegasus took offense to that descriptor “-from your sight. Grant me your power, and I'll even make a show of it.”
The Pegasus, what did he call her, Daring Do? She tensed, as if expecting to be jumped any moment.
“Alright,” I began, she tensed even further, wings deploying for takeoff as my arms raised.
“Time out,” I announced, reaching out with my will and lifting the two of them into the air.
“Horseapples!” Daring snapped as I pulled the two of them firmly in front of me, but just out of range to do anything other than flail at me uselessly. “The scroll said nothing about super levitation powers!”
“Hah!” the unicorn scoffed even as he dangled in front of me. “You think a frozen god's full arsenal of powers would be on display on a mere SCROLL?! And you were calling ME the amateur earlier!”
“You ARE the amateur!” Daring snapped. “You set off every single death trap in this place in your mad scramble to get here first! You're lucky half of them were already too far gone to actually go off properly, and that I'd rather have your corpse on my conscience for the rest!”
“It just goes to show how much of an amateur fool you really are!” Marbles- I'm going to call him Marbles -responded. “To let your enemy live-”
His voice didn't get any less annoying in the last five minutes. I flexed my hand and increased the pressure of my power.
“-ack!” he choked as my power squeezed his throat.
“What do you mean, DEATH TRAPS?” I asked, turning my gaze on Daring.
“Uh... The traps that protect your crypt from intruders?” she answered in the form of a question.
“Crypt?” I answered in kind. Again, my eyes swept the torch-lit room, and suddenly the … 'décor' made sense.
Unceremoniously dropping the two ponies, I let my hand rest on the bridge of my nose as I groaned.
“I'm going to kill them,” I uttered quietly. “I'm going to find those prank-pulling princesses, and I'm going to kill them.”
As if this was some other conversation, Daring immediately jumped in front of me, snorting in an adorably futile manner as she blocked what I could only assume was the way out.
“Over my dead body,” she growled.
“Ever the fool,” Marbles coughed yet laughed. “Did you not just feel what he did to us with a THOUGHT? He's going to cut through you like a hot knife through butter! Then he's going to kill the princesses and bring Equestria to its knees!”
Okay, I'm STILL lost.
“What are you two TALKING ABOUT?!” I snapped. Both froze and stared at me in silence as my voice echoed through the chambers into the distance.
“It's like we're in two different places here,” I continued in annoyance. “I mean- Look. I just woke up, and you're going on about wiping each other out, death traps, and bringing Equestria to its knees...? Who do you think I am? A God of Destruction?”
Silence continued for a few more seconds before...
“But the scrolls said-” Marbles muttered.
“What SCROLLS?” I asked. “Context! I need it.”
“The Iron Box Scrolls,” Darring spoke informatively, her eyes locked on my face. “Recovered from the ruins of Castle Everfree. They speak of the frozen god, sealed away by the princesses a thousand years ago, and suspected of being the reason princess Luna lost her mind for a time.”
“The scrolls also tell of the power of the frozen god,” Marbles continued. “That the Key would call to those worthy and that in helping release him, would grant them the power to reshape the land with fire and lightning.”
“So in short,” Daring continued. “Releasing you means the destruction of Equstria, and I CAN'T allow that.”
I blinked in silence, processing that last part.
“I don't want to destroy Equestria,” I stated matter-of-factly.
Silence. Then:
“What?” Daring asked.
“I don't want to destroy anything,” I continued. “I'm just angry Celestia and Luna made my chamber into some kind of silly Crypt and then let me oversleep... by a MILLENIUM!”
“What?” Marbles gulped, dashing over to a bad in the corner. “That can't be right! The scrolls-”
My power flexed as I reached out, grabbing both Marbles and the bag up in my grip, and pulling them back to me. Reaching in, I quickly found what he was rooting around for and pulled it out, dropping the back on the ground.
It only took a few seconds to identify the 'scroll' Marbles had been referencing.
It wasn't a scroll, or a prophecy, or anything of the kind.
“See for yourself,” the unicorn panted, pointing at the old and crinkled synthetic paper in my grasp. “Unless I'm mistaken, it says-”
“For emergency cryo-pod release,” I stated calmly. “Press the EMO button located under panel C.”
“-that th- what?”
“In the event of power failure, use hand crank to charge power cell.” I added. “Hand crank is located under panel H. Use caution when removing panel H, as cryogenic liquid may be present.”
“Is that-” Daring began, her eyes growing.
“This is the instruction manual for my cryo pod,” I stated bluntly. Then looked at the deteriorating material it was made of. “Well... What's left of it. I can only assume someone looted it at some point and since ponies don't write in Standard, you garbled the translation. And from the sounds of it, garbled it BAD.”
Marbles, equally shocked, now struggled in the air.
“But,” he desperately squawked. “But! The temple! The death traps!”
“Not my doing,” I shrugged. In front of me, Daring was now trying to suppress laughter and rapidly failing.
“The Power!” Marbles continued. “You have the power to levitate us with a-”
“You can do that too,” Daring snapped around laughs. “You're a unicorn, remember?”
“But he's so much stronger!” Marbles was all but hysterical.
“I'm a psionic,” I stated bluntly, turning to Daring, now wiping tears from her eyes. “So what's with marbles here? He seems to be of the killy-murder kind of summon bigger fish.”
“Eh,” Daring wing-shrugged. “Typical whack-job. Wants to destroy Equestria and remake it in his image. I'm sure you know the type.”
“Doomsday cultist,” I grumbled, glancing at the unicorn. “Waste of oxygen.”
With a flick of the wrist, I propelled marbles across the room, he yelped before hitting the wall with a thud and sliding down. A moment later, he rose to his hooves, casting a glare before racing out through an arch way as fast as he could.
“Are you sure it's a good idea to let him go,” Daring asked. “He did pretty much succeed in almost destroying Equestria.”
“Did you disable the death traps?” I asked.
An ear piercing shriek came to us from down the hall, the sound of stone-on-stone, splashing water, and snarling animals mixed in with it. Daring winced.
“I was busy,” she shrugged.
“So,” Daring retracted her toasted marshmallow from the camp fire we'd been sitting around for the last few hours. “After your ship crashed in the Everfree, Celestia and Luna helped recover the cryogenic pod from the wreckage and set it up in that cave to protect it from the weather. And your plan was to just sleep until your distress beacon prompted a rescue ship to come pick you up.”
“They were supposed to wake me in ten years,” I shook my head. “But from what you're telling me, the whole Nightmare Moon thing happened and I was kind of forgotten. The pod cult must have happened some time after that and they took the beacon and the manual.”
“And built the temple and death traps,” Daring shrugged. “Man, we all kind of screwed that one up.”
“I don't blame you,” I replied. “At least someone got around to waking me up. Now I just need to figure out where the heck the beacon went.”
“Well,” Daring pondered over a mouth full of toasted, melty sugar. “There is the changeling legend of the 'chirping stone' south of the badlands. Nopony's ever talked about noise making rocks, so there's been very little to go on for that one. Maybe I've been thinking about that one all wrong. Changelings can sense some pretty strange things, and from what you told me, there might be more to it than imagining a stone that sounds like a cricket. You up for some adventure?”
I glanced up at the pegasus.
“I've been a sleep for a thousand years,” I stated bluntly. “Anything to stretch my legs.”