//------------------------------// // 'The Worst Creature To Summon' // Story: Familiar // by Cookies //------------------------------// Bright colored lights tore through the darkness of the night with distant blast sounds. It's the national holiday and I'm actually out to watch the firework show among other people for once, instead of just looking at it from the balcony back home. Can't say it's refreshing, I'm not one for crowds and it's still hot outside. A whooping 36°C (just under 100°F) near midnight, it really makes me longing for Winter right there. Damn heatwave from the south. I still wonder why I listened to my sister. "Go out with us for once, it's been years since you last went in town to watch the show." she said earlier today. I eventually gave in after she pestered me for a while. And so I went with her and her barely-out-of-babyness son. The father being at their apartment, probably already sleeping for his nightshift later tonight. The show eventually stopped 10 minutes later or so with an explosive finish. The light emitted was bright enough that you could've sworn it was midday for a second. It was alright. "We should go before there's too much people on the road." I said to my sister, my gaze still turned toward the night sky. "Come on, I'll buy you ice-cream." came her reply, which made me look at her expectantly, until I realised she spoke to her son, making me deadpan in disappointment. What? It's still hot out there. ~ ~ ~ A few minutes later and we were heading back toward the car, the little boy awkwardly holding his sweet delicacy while I held him on one arm and having an ice-cream of my own in the other hand. It was then that the little dude let me down in the worst way possible. He let his ice-cream fall on the ground. Horror showed on my face as I looked at the perfect refreshing sweet sprayed on the ground. I looked back to my nephew, who was now pouting and sobbing softly and my sister gave me a disapproving look, like I was the one who made the kid let the sweet goodness fall down. "Give him your ice-cream." I heard her say, but my mind blocked it as white noise. I couldn't possibly think of getting separated from MY ice-cream. It was then that the sobbing on my left arm intensified and it made me remember that the kid actually could cry very, VERY loud. I hastily presented the top of my milky treat as a sacrifice to the little devil. He took a few seconds to realize it was now his. He didn't hesitate to plunge his hand into the cone while giggling, then properly put his hand on my shoulder for support, smearing the stuff over my shirt as he tried to reach for the ice-cream with his mouth. I held back some manly tears that night. ~ ~ ~ It was a little after midnight that my sister got me back at my place. I wished her a goodnight and waited for her to drive off before heading to the short path toward my building. Though as I passed near the small lavender bushes along the way, I spotted something not right in the corner of my vision, like a small part of my vision suddenly turning off. I blinked and turned my head toward the anomaly, which apparently was in the middle of the small unruly 'garden', instead of my eyes having a problem. It was strange though as there was public light nearby, it shouldn't be dark right there. I approached the thing while blinking quickly. Looking at it was freaky, it's like I peered at a literal piece of the starry sky that crashed down there. It was a bit taller and wider than me and vaguely had the shape of a grain of rice. Thinking it was just an optic illusion, I tentatively reached for it. I saw my hand disappear before my eyes, I freaked out and tried to pull out, but my hand was stuck in place! Though it was a bit cold in it, so it felt kind of nice. After having a few seconds to calm myself, I tried putting a bit more of my arm inside so I could do a quick pullout with added momentum. Grave mistake. It seemed like I couldn't even pullout a hair width worth of my precious arm, though I found out that I could walk around the sky piece thing and my arm moved with me, but I still couldn't pull out. After turning around the thing twice, I suddenly stopped in fear as I felt something brush along my hand. It's the same sensation you have when you're standing in the water at the beach and something brush against your leg. Pretty freaky. Of course I tried to pull my arm as hard I could right then, but I felt the thing instantly had a death grip on my hand and it started pulling hard. I didn't even have time to scream as I got forcefully pulled in the anomaly, closing my eyes instinctively. ~ ~ ~ ~ A few minutes earlier, in the ruins of an old castle ~ ~ ~ ~ "--the spark, that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth Element. The Element of... Magic!" exclaimed Twilight Sparkle with a grin. Bright lights erupted from each of the mares opposing Nightmare Moon, each Elements being suddenly reactivated and forcing the Mare From The Moon to shield her eyes with a wing. Having used them in the distant past, she knows of their power, and she tries to think of something to stop her rapidly upcoming defeat, and at that crucial moment, she recalls a particular passage of an ancient dark book. To summarize, do not attempt to summon this creature as the danger of doing so is too great. It is an abomination you wouldn't even wish to send on the ones standing against you. It is most possibly the worst creature to summon on your enemies. As she watches the six mares rising in the air, her dark horn lits up with old powerful magic, charging the air with electricity and having the fur of everypony around to stand on edge. She releases the spell in front of her, making a starry portal appear between the Bearers and herself. That makes Twilight pause for a second, she only heard of this magic from her teacher, Princess Celestia. It was supposed to be a forbidden act of pulling a creature from its world and enslave it to eternal servitude. The Princess said herself she had to get rid of every trace of it to protect lives. At the time, Twilight didn't understand why her teacher was sharing the existence of this magic to her. Maybe she knew this moment would come? Nightmare Moon let out a maniacal cackle as her display of power visibly stunned the obnoxious purple unicorn. She laughed even louder as she spotted something starting to pass through the portal, but her laugh died down pretty quickly as she felt the portal reacting violently to the creature. Reacting fast, she was now continuously pumping an astounding amount of magic in the portal to keep it stable. It must be a creature with formidable magic prowess to be able to disrupt such magic. Perhaps it will really live up to what was written in that dang book. she thinks to herself, grinning widely but having a bead of sweat forming on her temple. Each of the Bearers were now stunned at the sight of five terrifying wiggling things emerging from the portal. Fluttershy did her best to not faint right then, but nopony could even move as fear took hold of their body. Twilight noticed that Nightmare was putting a lot of magic into the spell. It was probably a really powerful creature. Everypony held their breath as they watched the strange thing wiggle but otherwise not emerging further for a few seconds, until the forearm suddenly poked through, which made the little ponies gasp. Nightmare was barely able to keep the grin on her face, feeling a millenia worth of excess magic being burned in mere seconds just by maintaining the portal. She wondered what could be taking so long for the creature to pass through, her eyes widening in disbelief as the arm was now turning in circles around the rift. The fear-striken mares were now watching the wiggly thing with confusion, it even get a repressed giggle from Pinkie which considerably de-stressed the other mares. Nightmare Moon was furiously glaring at them, then at the arm. She wills her light blue mane to extend toward the latter to grip it in anger, then pull with all her might. ~ ~ ~ ~ Back to the Present ~ ~ ~ ~ The first thing I felt --beside fear, and pain from my hand-- when I stepped through, was that it was much much colder than I thought in there. I shaked my trapped hand, feeling it being released almost immediatly, only leaving the pain from the grip and a tingling sensation. I opened my eyes to observe my surroundings, being greeted by the sight of old ruins, and a strange looking creature with snake eyes staring at me with an unsettling grin, a blue mist coming from its head apparently retreating from my position. I froze, trying to not blink to keep the creature in field of view, but my ears caught some movement behind me. My breathing accelerated and my heart was pounding in my chest. I slowly moved on the right, putting myself sideways so I could take a glance at what was behind me. It turns out there were 6 little colored creatures that looked somewhat like the big one. Are they its childs? I wondered, and my thoughts reminded me of mom birds bringing food to their babies. My heart rate suddenly spiked. That's when the black creature emitted some noises ressembling a neighing horse. "Neigh neigh neigh neigh neigh!" It said while looking at me and pointing its leg toward the group colorful creatures. I gotta say I didn't expect it, it was apparently communicating, but I didn't understand what it said. Though I kept taking glances between the group and the black creature. It's a good thing they were expressive with their face though. The black one was progressively glaring at me, indicating she wanted something to happen, but it did not. I looked at the group, they were all wide eyed at me, except the purple one which had a look of determination on its face. That made me flinch, and I took a small step back when it spoke. "Neigh neigh neigh! Neigh neigh neigh neigh neigh!" It said hopefully, still looking at me. What she said provoking looks of disbelief from the other five next to her. The black creature obviously didn't like what she said and she was now barking neighs at me, which were countered by the purple creature's neighs. I let this back and forth continue for a couple seconds, taking the chance to back away slowly, until I hit a wall. "Alright, that's not good." I said to myself, but it seemed like both creatures heard me as they went silent. Both of them muttered some neighs of comprehension. The yellow one saying something that made all the others emit a "Neiiiiiigh" of understanding apparently. "NEIGH!" yelled the black creature. At that moment I didn't notice that her voice literally invoked a gust of wind in my direction, because I was more concerned by her horn lighting up with a dark blue aura, and it was pointed at me. I've seen enough movies to know that when something spells your doom, the obvious best option is to put your arms in front of your face. And so I did. I saw a bright flash from behind my arms, and felt my skin tingle again. That means I wasn't dead right? I hesitantly lowered them and looked at the black creature with a frown. "Whatever you tried, it didn't work." I said with all the calm i could muster, while patting myself at various place to ensure everything was alright. I saw the pained look on the creature's face twist into a devilish grin. "We believe it worked fine" she replied. The shock on my face made her grin even wider. "Mighty fine indeed. Now do as We, your Mistress, ordered you to do, and destroy these fools!" she barked at me again, pointing toward the group. Countless questions were flooding my mind, though only one managed to escape my lips. "What?" To say the night went colder is an understatement. The creature was visibly furious at me now, she was clearly glaring at me and her wings --she had wings?!-- were spread beside her. "We know you understood what We said, servant! We were the one to summon you, so make haste and execute Our order!" The blast of wind that hit me from her outburst pushed me back against the wall. I shot a pleading look at the six little creatures. "Help?" I asked to them. That got a scream of frustration from the now 'qualified: dangerous' creature. Her horn lit up again, but she was now aiming at the group. "We will take care of them Ourselves then! Such a waste of magic!" It was then that Nightmare Moon realized the double meaning of the ancient text she read back then, eliciting a groan. I just realized they looked somewhat like horses, despite hearing the neighs earlier. The purple equine spoke to the others, as I listened to the big blue mist black horse thingy. They were now levitating into the air, their jewelry glowing. Though it seemed like the evil horse was quicker on the casting of her spell and she was about to launch it before the group could do anything. There was no time and I couldn't run fast enough to push and disrupt the evil looking horse, but I spotted some rubble on the ground. I grabbed what I could in one swoop with my good hand and threw the lot at her as hard as I could. Luckily one hit her near one of her eyes, which made her flinch and close her eye. The only problem was that she didn't have time to properly aim the small horses with just one eye, so she decided to take out at least one other creature before her defeat. That creature was me. She pointed her death horn at me and unleashed the most powerful spell she could muster while a massive rainbow washed over her. I think I screamed as a black lightning hit me square in the face, my vision turning to black. It took me a few seconds to notice I was still concious and up on my legs. The little equines were talking among themselves now. My head itched like mad though, and I was more concerned by my blindness so I wasn't exactly listening to them. I put my hands to my eyes, gently rubbing and blinking repeatedly. The itching stopped and my vision returned after a few seconds, at the same time than a big swan horse thing appeared in a flash. It looked similar to the one that attacked me, with its long horn, big wings and flowey hair, so I already went down to prepare a fist full of rubble, just in case you know. "Princess Celestia!" I hear the purple one say, the others bowing to Celestia. "Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student" she replied in a sweet motherly tone. I couldn't help but squint when hearing the names. They were strange. "I knew you could do it" she continued. "But, you told me it was all an old pony tale." said Twilight, looking up at her teacher. "I told you that you needed to make some friends." came Celestia's savage reply. "I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon's return, and I knew it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her. But you could not unleash it until you let true friendship into your heart." Celestia said gently. Now I didn't know what to think of the situation. I could've sworn that conversation would be perfect in a kid's cartoon, and I was in a place with talking horses and magic. That was both terrifying and exciting at the same time. "Now if only another will as well." she said with a sad frown, now looking where 'Nightmare Moon' was. "Princess Luna. It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this." Wait what? Wasn't the evil horse supposed to be there? I can still see remains of her armor on the ground, and there was a new horse lying next to the pieces. Could it be that Nightmare Moon took a new form to fool them? I'm so lost. Celestia knelt next to the now dark blue horse. "Time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister." "Sister?" came a collective response from the group of tiny horses and I. Celestia completely ignored it. "Will you accept my friendship?" she asked to her smaller little sister. It was obviously an important moment for them, but I couldn't help but roll my eyes a little at the choice of words. "I'm so sorry! I missed you so much big sister!" said Luna with a higher pitched voice than before. She ran to her sister and hugged her, tears flowing on both of their faces. Okay it was a pretty heartwarming, but I was still lost there. I was about to put my hand in front of my mouth to fake a cough, but I remembered I still had the rubbles in it. I just left them to drop on the ground, then looked back at the sisters. Luna was staring at me with her eyes in tears. I hesitated to get some rubbles again, but decided it would be safe for now. "I am deeply sorry" she directed at me. "I tried to make you my familiar, so you could do all sort an unspeakable things under my rule, and then I attacked you. It is a miracle that I missed at the last moment, else you wouldn't be there anymore." I furrowed my brow. That doesn't make any sense, was I supposed to die? "You... didn't miss. You got me right in the eyes I think. I was blinded for a moment." came my hesitant reply. "Impossible! Darkness would have swallowed you if it did." said Luna in disbelief, untangling herself from her sister. She observed the wall behind me, seeing no trace of impact from her spell. Her face turned to one of worry. She whispered something to Celestia, who nodded slightly. "May I ask for your name?" said Celestia, her imposing regal look making me want to take a step back despite already being against the wall. Having doubts about giving my real name, I just gave a popular name from the Internet. "Anon. Just call me Anon." I said, trying to keep eye contact but eventually looking away. Searching for something to fix my gaze on, I finally set on watching the group of colorful horses. Most of them were staring at me, the pink horse was smiling and waving, the orange one --was it wearing a cowboy hat?-- was squinting at me, the rest were either looking worried at the blue princess or had a brow raised as they looked between the royal sisters and me. Celestia wasn't convinced by my response, but she didn't press on the matter. "Very well, Anon. We believe you may be in need of medical assistance, as you were hit by one of the most dangerous spells in existence. Despite your apparent well-being, there may be side effects. Would you accompany us in town to be checked on?" Part of my mind screamed at me that were were just trying to lure me in so they could dissect and examine my body. The other part was worried about the effect of Luna's spell, because I did got hit by it, there was no question about that fact. Spotting my hesitation, Celestia spoke again. "As the ruler of this land, I promise to try and send you back as soon as possible after we made sure your health isn't in danger." "I.. I don't know you. How am I supposed to trust your word?" I said, rubbing my hurt hand. The grip and pull were really strong. "You ain't be callin' the Princess a liar now, are you?" I heard from my left, it was the cowboy horse that spoke just then. The others gasped at the implications of what she said. She was frowning at me. "I don't know what to trust. You may be lying to me too." I said, pointing a finger at her. The look on her face was similar as if i insulted her ancestors over twenty generations. "Ah'm wearin' the Element of Honesty, for Celestia's sake! Ah' never lied in my whole life!" she screamed at me, her whole face turning a bright shade of red in anger. The outburst was surprising, I put both hands in front of me in defense, ready to rebutt, but I got interrupted by Twilight Sparkle. "You have every right to be suspicious, but we already helped you once. If you're worried, we can make sure that nothing bad happens to you." she said while approaching. Her steps making clippity-clopping sounds. "Just- just what ARE you?" I said, stepping sideways to put some distance between her and I, stopping her in her tracks. "We are ponies, though we aren't all the same. There are four kinds of ponies, and all four are represented here." replied Celestia. Sure enough after glancing at them, i spotted some differences. "Yeah, I see regular horse, horn horse, bird horse, and horned bird horse." I mumbled. Twilight, being closer than the others, heard it though. "It's ponies. Not horses." she corrected with a small smile. "Ponies are just small horses though, aren't they?" I asked, scratching my temple. "Well technically horses are taller and bigger ponies. Princess Celestia could be called a horse but the term was abandoned in favor of social unity approximatively twelve centuries ago, thanks to the initiative of--" Twilight started rambling, and Celestia coughed politely to stop her. "Thank you Twilight but I believe we do not need an extensive explanation." Celestia said solemnly. Twilight blushes at the Princess' remark, letting out a quiet embarrassed laugh. "What is your decision, Anon?" the monarch finally said. I sighed. "Alright." I heard a squeaking sound from the pink pony. "But no funny stuff. I'll be watching you all." "What?!" exclaimed the pink pony, being suddenly in front of my face. I fell down backwards from surprise. "How can there be no funny stuff? We still have something to do!" "What th--!" I yelled, trying to put some distance between the now bouncing pony and myself. I saw her being levitated away in a golden aura. "We still need to have the celebration happen of course, but I'll order Ponyville Hospital's most competent doctor to run a check up on Anon to make sure he'll be alright. It is the least we can do." Celestia said while I got up with a frown, dusting myself off soon after. Her gaze never leaving me while I did. "...Whatever, but before we go, can you all tell me your names?" Celestia's eyes widened. "How could I forget to present myself. I am Princess Celestia, and here is my sister, Princess Luna." They both bowed their head slightly in a respectful manner. "The purple unicorn is Twilight Sparkle. She is my protegee and faithful student." Unicorn, like the mythical beast? So the winged ones should be pegasi? Uh. Then the one with the rainbow hair spoke with a raspy voice. "I'm Rainbow Dash, the most awesome pony around!" The cowboy hat pony eyerolled, and followed with a simple "Ah'm Applejack." The pink one was visibly vibrating. She threw her arms --legs?-- in the air, yelling "I'm Pinkie Pie!" My will to groan was getting stronger each time I heard a new name. Were they all named after their look or image on their backside? Why even would they have these things there? Then I heard a rather dignified voice, coming from the white unicorn. "My name is Rarity. It is quite the pleasure to meet you." She sounded like some noble in old movies. I didn't know what to think of it. I caught her staring at my left shoulder, where the icecream stain was, before she immediately averted her gaze. Then I looked at the last one, which visibly recoiled when my eyes were set on her. She squeaked something I didn't understand and hid her face behing her pink hair. "Come onnn Fluttershy, I know you can do it!" encouraged Pinkie Pie. "You just told her name, Pinkie." came Rainbow's answer. "Oops, sorry!" she replied with a wide grin. It didn't look much apologetic. "I'll try to remember all of them. Now let's move, the sooner we go, the sooner it'll be over." Celestia nodded at the statement, nuzzling her sister and wrapping a wing over her. We went on our way toward the entrance of the ruins.