//------------------------------// // The awakening // Story: Omega of the everfree // by Grey Knight Neltharion //------------------------------// Twilight was having a good day. After the incident with Zecora and the poison joke, Twilight thought she should thank her new friend with some books, so here she was, walking through the Everfree forest with some books she thought Zecora would enjoy floating behind her in her aura. She was deep in thought about the books she was bringing Zecora, wondering if she would like them, doing maths in her head to determine the chance that Zecora would like the books, she was so deep in thought about it, she didn't notice when she started walking off the path, and only stopped when she tripped on a large vine. Twilight groaned and got up, finally noticing she had no idea where she was, her ears flopping against her head. The last thing anypony should do in the Everfree is get lost. Taking a deep breath before she could panic, she took notice of the oddly colored vine that tripped her. Unlike the rest of the Everfree, which looked sick, dark and decaying, this vine was bright green and healthy, with large bright red thorns covering it. She noticed it lead into a nearby cave that blended in so well she would have never seen it, had there not been a bright green vine coming out of it. Her curiosity getting the better of her she followed the vine into the cave. To her surprise the cave was very well lit, when she got into the cave she found the the strange vines were everywhere, covering every surface inside the cave, and the thorns were glowing, she'd need to take a sample later and find out when they glowed and when they didn't because she was sure they weren't glowing outside and had found no sign of anything that could produce light in the thorns. It was fascinating, the deeper into the cave she went the thicker the vines became, a couple were as thick as tree trunks and the thorns as big as her hooves. she stopped when the tunnel suddenly opened into a large chamber that resembled ancient castle ruins, and it was a large chamber, she couldn't even see the other end! Before she could wonder who built it though, something in the center of the camber caught her attention In the center of chamber, there was what looked like a large, box shaped, device of some kind. The side that was facing her was made of glass, while the rest of it was made of some kind of plastic. eager to learn about something unknown to Equestria, she rushed over to it and started examining every detail. She quickly discovered the button at the bottom of the glass face of the device, she was Waring in her mind whether or not to push the button or not. On one hoof this could be dangerous, on the other, For Science! it didn't take long for her to decide after that and she pushed the button, eagerly waiting for what would happen. There was a low whirring noise that lasted a few seconds before a blinding white light came from the glass face of the device, causing twilight to slam her eyes shut and stumble back onto her haunches. When she opened her eyes she shrunk back in shock and fear, in front of her was a colossal creature that looked like a mish mash of plant life, metal and flesh. With horror, she realized, the device she had turned on was at the center of it, the glass glowing bright white, a simplistic smiley face appearing on it, before the lines it had for eyes split open, revealing red sclera and bright green iris, before it let out a bone chilling laugh and she screamed, frozen in fear at the monstrosity. She was shaking hard for a few minutes before she realized she wasn't dead yet, so, very slowly and nervously, she popped open one of her eyes, and was shocked by what she saw. Suddenly the colossal monstrosity was lying down in front of her, a cute tired face on the screen, the face on the screen had large, childlike eyes, and short fangs, and looked like it had just been woken up from a nap. It started mumbling tiredly in a high pitched voice, sounding like a child "mooom, I don't want to go to school today...let me go back to sleep..." she opened her eyes and tilted her head in confusion 'school? it almost seems like...' her eyes widened in shock is this thing only a child?!. In the middle of her shock, she failed to realize that the being had woken up properly and was staring at her, when she did realize, she was slightly nervous, talking to this colossal, possible, child "um...hello?" she said, waving her hoof at the thing. Suddenly she felt herself being pulled towards the thing, when she stopped, she found herself being hugged against the face of the creature by two giant, arm like ,vines, with 3 ,large, red thorns on the end of each one, acting as fingers. "PONY!" the creature squealed in delight, she tried to pull back from the creature and noticed that its eyes were sparkling, and it was smiling from ear to ear (if it had ears that is) as it stared at and hugged her. "Um, can you put me down?" she spoke as loud as she could so the thing could hear her, its eyes widened in realization and it blushed, before putting her back on the ground and patting her on the head gently with one of it gigantic arms, before going back to staring at her. She shuffled uncomfortably from one hoof to the other before looking back up to the large being "so, whats your name? what are you doing here?" she asked, wondering why a sentient creature was down here, this deep underground in some old ruins. It took on a thoughtful expression, before answering her "well, my name was acacia, though I guess its flowey now? its confusing...but call me flowey! Queen, mother and creator of the Everfree forest!" it said Proudly, while Twilight's eyes widened in horror "What!? why would you create something so horrible and dangerous?!" she shouted at flowey, who suddenly looked upset "what are you talking about? I created the Everfree to be a place of peace and harmony, meant to protect Equestria!" flowey's eyes widened in realization before her expression turned to dread as the vines around them started moving, shooting through the stone ceiling towards the surface. Not long after, flowey's expression turned to shock, before it turned to sadness and worry, like a mother that had seen their foal come home with a severe injury. "no no no, what happened to my baby, who did this two you? shh, what happened?" flowey started talking like she would to a child, and to Twilight, what she thought was a child suddenly seemed much older and motherly, with how she was acting, it sort of reminded her of Celestia. She suddenly realized flowey was crying as she was speaking, grief and sorrow heavy in her voice. Twilight suddenly felt bad for saying what she did as she realized what this possibly meant, the Everfree used to be a force of good, peace and harmony, created by flowey, but while flowey was asleep, something came along and corrupted the Everfree, turning it into a evil and dangerous place where few would dare tread. She suddenly heard a loud smash on both sides of her, she looked up and saw flowey right in her face with an expression of pure anger and hate "who did it?" Twilight was suddenly very nervous, here was a mother who had just seen her child had been twisted and corrupted, didn't know who did it, and was very angry, and if there's one thing you never do, its make a mother angry. "I-I don't know" she said shrinking back and trying to escape. Flowey growled and moved past her dragging herself to the side of the cave, before she reeled back her gigantic, vine-like arm, and smashed it into the side of the cave, cracks spider webbing across the wall, she did it again, and again, and again, until there was a large hole in the wall that she could fit through, and she started digging, leaving Twilight alone in the chamber. As flowey dug through the earth and stone towards the surface, she dug faster, and faster, until she was practically swimming through the dirt, because she was angry. she was guilty. she was sad. but most of all, she wanted revenge. Her arms were tired. Her Stomach was empty. But she was running on rage. As she got closer to the surface she started saying the same thing over and over again, "who did it?" getting louder each time. When she finally got to the surface, she pulled herself out of the ground, towering over the Everfree and Ponyville, and let out a roar that could be heard across Equestria. "WHO CORRUPTED MY EVERFREE!?"