Ch 24
It had been ten days since Celestia had been made comatose, and things have been frosty to say the least. While Luna had not seemed to hold my interference in low regards considering the circumstances, and she no longer seemed to view me with the contempt from our first meeting in the woods, that didn’t stop her from being somewhat passive aggressive towards me as I now lived in the castle with her. It had been a shock when she offered it to me with the reasoning that it would be better to look for Ed as long as both her and I were in in close range to convey messages with each other as she had guards searching the countryside for him after his disappearance. There was the occasional sighting here and there the first few days but he always managed to get away and the sightings had begun to become few and far between with each passing day.
As well as my stay and the continued search for Ed, Luna now had to pick up the slack of what was both day and night court which seemed to getting to her, even with her alicorn body. Twilight couldn’t help either in the matter as she and the rest of the gang had to head back and take care of Ponyville. This simply left me wondering around a castle most of the time and a few short trips into the town (with an actual guide this time of course) to try and find that strange shop that gave me the weird feeling. So far though, I hadn’t been able to as I didn’t pay attention to the street names. As I kept searching, I had also remembered the weird feeling from the halls as well but the winding maze that was the castle didn’t help in the matter.
Having finished my latest search around the castle, I made my way back to my quarters for a simple rest and maybe read up on the Equestrian history book that I had been given the other day to catch up on the surprisingly long history of the country. Entering my room, I simply ignored the lavish bed and furniture that decorated the room, and would have made most 5 star hotel rooms cry in shame, and made my way over to the desk that was housing my book.
The True History of Equestria
A simple title for a book but apparently it was the only copy in existence that held all the details of the land as well as the stuff that had been censored out in the public version. Specifically anything that pertained to the time displaced were in the land. Suffice to say, it was a boring read except for a few bits here and there and mostly around the wars, specifically, The Displaced War.
Apparently, before displaced were just considered evil by Celestia, all displaced were welcome in the land, but if they stepped out of line then the usual punishment was to be turned into a statue and placed in the garden of castle that had been built within the Everfree before it had gotten out of control. This apparent peace lasted a long time but eventually one displaced had appeared and he simply didn’t like any of it, he just destroyed what he wanted and killed who he pleased while the princesses found that nothing they tried could truly stop him not even the petrification spell before it was absorbed by the Elements of Harmony at the cost of never being able to use it. (seems kind of strange in my opinion but considering it was magic I, I can’t argue with it to much). After a while, the displaced got the idea that his placement in Equestria was due to the sisters themselves as he believed that they were working with the Merchant who brought everyone to this world. Nobody believed him at first, to afraid really after everything he had done, but soon enough, new displaced came and he pounced on their beliefs like a vulture, quickly making them loyal to himself.
On and on, it went like this until finally some of the old displaced started to believe his rhetoric, believing they could finally go home. It wasn’t an overnight process, in fact it took many years before even a dozen up and left but after that, the swarm started to follow with only the oldest displaced standing their ground and staying by the princesses side and leaving them at a major disadvantage that was slowly growing with each passing day.
Eventually, the army of the still unnamed leader (not a single hint to his name could be found, not even a real description besides him being a male displaced), struck at the heart of Equestria and attacked the castle which caused its subsequent destruction and the beginning rampancy of the soon to be grown forest. The princesses survived the attack but it was unfortunately at the sacrifice of a long time friend to the two named Natsu, which allowed them to escape into the underground tunnels. After days of no food and water, and desperate to end the suffering of the people, the tree that the Elements of Harmony were made from was found and granted them the power to do so. This in turn lead them to where everything was today before Celestia lost the Elements after misusing them for so long as she imprisoned all of the displaced.
Evetually, after a while, the words of the book started to blur together which meant I chould stop reading. Doing so, I gave a good stretch before getting up from my desk and checking the watch I had been given on my third day missing dinner time.
“4:30. Too late for lunch and too soon for dinner. Might as well just go get an apple and train for a bit.” It came upon me, after everything had finally settled down, that I had no idea on what I was really doing with my new power and my skills that I did know where basic at best. So I started training my new forms just to see what my possible limitations were. So far, my Chronicle form was best used for all around combat as it had no real weakness excet to those who used dark magic, which in and of itself was quite rare to begin with, My Harmony form is actually the problem as even though I can feel the power inside of my self being much greater than my Chronicle form, it was actually limited based on how much darkness was in the heart of the opponent I faced, which meant if I were to fight a royal guard like I had already done so before, the best I would get would be something a little above normal human standards for power but not much. This is where the third gashat slot comes into to play. For how my Harmony form can only affect an opponent based on his or her evilness, the change loadout from using Mighty Action X actually boosts what I have with a multiplier while also augmenting my weapon and abilities based on which ever gashat I used (If I ever got any of the others) while having the drawback of not being able to use finishers just some pretty light shows as I focused some of my power into the Breaker Mk 2 for more force.
What I wanted to focus on today was the usage of my energy items while in combat as no matter what I did, the would always be useless unless I could somehow get them out of my pocket in time to actually use and not get killed in the process.
(2 hours later)
“Still no improvement.” I had been practicing my energy item usage for close to two hours now but I still couldn’t properly use them now matter what I tried. Not even when I tried to copy Para-DX’s ability to control the energy items on the field. The best I could do was simply have some out of the binder and in my pocket while I hoped for the best as I used them at random.
“Hmm, hmm.” I was snapped out of my musing by a fake cough coming from Luna who was looking over my practicing.
“Oh hey Luna. I’m guessing I missed dinner time then?”
“Supper and, by half an hour, yes.” Half an hour was a long time in the longevity of food and my stomach knew that as it growled in hunger that I didn’t even know I had five minutes ago. Luna didn’t seem to care though, in fact, she didn’t seem to show any emotion at all. It was somewhat worrying to notice this and I asked if everything was alright.
“Why yes, everything is just peachy. Why wouldn’t it be?” The usual passive aggressive tone was replaced by a much more obviously aggressive tone now which meant something had to be up. Looking closer while Luna waited for some reason, I found what was going on. Luna was seriously sleep deprived as she had dark eye bags under her eyes that would have been almost impossible to see were they not darker than her own fur color.
“Um Luna, have you been skipping sleep these last couple of nights?” Luna seemed to tense which I only just realized stopped a slight sway as she was standing before she seemed to relax somewhat and let the sway begin again.
“Not at all, I just have so duties to attend to during the night that take up some time. I always make sure to got to bed before sunrise.” I didn’t buy it but I had no real way of proving it without causing a sleep deprived and newly aggressive princess from lashing out. This meant that I had to get her to sleep at least a little but before something bad happened. But what could I do?