Friends, Forgiveness, and Magic

by Invinsible


............................................Thinking.......................................

Friends, Forgive...................................................

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In a time and place far from Everfree, there was a simple town. Technically it was more than large enough to be called a city, but the ponies who frolicked within the city’s walls liked to think of it as ‘just a big town’. A simple Ponytown, with over 50 pony stores, 3 pony schools, and hundreds of pony houses. Everything was as sunny, wholesome, and perfect as could be within Ponytown.

The teacher rang a little bell outside the Ponytown Elementary School, letting all the colts and fillies know that their recess was halfway over and to keep an eye on the time. But they still had twenty minutes left to keep laughing and playing games with each other. The fillies and colts ran back and forth, threw balls at each other, played jump rope, played hopscotch, and climbed all over the giant tree that was planted in the middle of the schoolyard.

On the left side of the schoolyard, there was a shorter tree. This tree was almost overstuffed with leafy branches and provided a huge amount of shade. It wasn’t particularly popular with the other colts and fillies because it wasn’t good for climbing and it didn’t let them enjoy the sunlight.

At the base of the tree, there was a single unicorn filly. There was nothing remarkable about this filly, except perhaps how pale she was compared to the other children. The unicorn laid back against the tree with a book held in her hooves and a peaceful smile on her face. Her ears folded and unfolded and her tail kept swishing back and forth, but she didn’t seem to notice. She turned to the next page of her book and grimaced, but her smile quickly returned.

She let out a gasp as she felt one of the colts roughly push against her side, shoving her into the tree trunk. “Tag, you’re it!” the colt exclaimed before he ran off laughing.

The filly shot the colt a very confused look before she settled down and picked up her book again. She flipped back to the page she was on and kept reading.

She let another gasp as two fillies, one pegasus and one earth pony, ran up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. “Tag, you’re it!” they exclaimed before they ran off again, looking back at her with eager grins.

Again, the filly blinked in confusion before she returned to her book. Her ears twitched and she squinted a bit as she kept reading before her face relaxed.

She let out a third gasp as a ball smacked her in the face and rolled to the side. “Hey, come on Lily! Pass it over here!”

Lily looked over at the group of kids shouting at her. She grimaced a little and picked up her book with her magic and walked over to where the ball had landed. She carefully rolled the ball back to the kids.

“No, no, you’re supposed to throw it to me!” a colt said with a wide smile. “Then I’ll throw it to you, and you throw it to-”

“Okay,” Lily mumbled. “Um, sorry I have to study.”

“What?” the colt asked.

“I have to study.”

“What? Could ya speak up, you’re really-”

“Uh, nothing. Excuse me.” Lily walked away from the strange looks the other kids were giving her and sat back down at the tree. She opened her book and smiled.

A few minutes later, a ball came whizzing towards her. But before it hit her, somebody else caught the ball in her magic.

Lily looked up in surprise at the unicorn mare smiling down at her. “Hi there.”

Lily blinked up slowly at the mare. “Hi.”

“Is it okay if I sit here?” the mare asked.

“Um…” Lily mumbled.

“Sorry, I brought some books with me, and I’m just looking for a quiet place to study.”

Lily blinked rapidly at the mare. “Um…okay.”

Lily stared at the grown-up mare curiously as she sat down against the trunk, keeping plenty of space between herself and Lily. She pulled out a book from her saddlebag and started reading. Lily’s tail swished a few times before she turned back to her own book.

The two ponies sat in silence.

Lily flipped to the next page, paused, and looked up at the cover of the book the mare was reading. “Um, excuse me…”

“Yes?” the mare asked with a smile.

“Um, what book are you, uh reading?”

“Heh, it makes sense you’d be curious. I had to travel a really long way to find a library that carried this book. It’s called Robots Vs. Fairies.”

Lily’s eyes widened and she blinked rapidly. “Robots Vs. Fairies?”

“Yep.”

Lily’s ears and tail flicked and swished. “So, it’s about robots fighting fairies? How advanced are the robots? Do the fairies belong to a royal court?”

“Take a look,” the mare said as she levitated the book over to Lily. She smiled as Lily stared at the cover. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

As Lily carefully opened the book, the mare continued. “This is actually a collection of stories. Each chapter tells a different story about robots OR fairies. Though there are one or two where they fight, yes.” The mare smiled. “For the most part, the book is split between two kinds of stories. Perfectly balanced. As all things should be. Until you get to the happy ending, or at least, what I think the happy ending is.”

Lily examined the table of contents and nodded slowly. The mare smiled and added, “My favourite short story in here is about a mortal girl who becomes a librarian and works for an immortal fairy princess. She even meets her special somebody at the library.”

Lily blinked in surprise. “She meets a colt in a fairy’s library?”

The mare shook her head. “Not a special somepony. A special somebody.” She grinned a little. “She falls in love with a shape-shifting, living book. When the book is in her fairy form, she has bright green skin, a sweet personality, these cute little outfits and she gets drunk by reading poetry the same way adults get drunk by drinking hard cider.”

Lily’s eyes brightened. “That’s so cool! Where did you find this book?”

“I’m sort of rereading it, so I suppose I can let you borrow it. Just make sure you don’t say any of the swear words in it,” the mare said as Lily flipped to the first story in the book and started reading.

“Hey Lily, ball’s coming your way!” a colt’s voice shouted as a ball came hurtling towards their tree.

Without even turning her gaze away from Lily, the mare's horn shot out a burst of magic that swerved through the air and struck the ball. It froze solid and crashed into the ground, shattering into hundreds of tiny ice cubes.

Lily gasped. “H-how’d you do that?!”

“Something from a standard book of spells I found. I can let you borrow it too, if you’d like.” The mare levitated another book out of her saddlebag.

Lily smiled at the bag. “How many books do you have with you?”

Before the mare could answer Lily, a group of colts made their way towards the tree. “Hey! What happened to our ball?!” a blue pegasus colt shouted. “Lily, why’s our ball turned into ice?”

Lily’s ears folded down before they turned up and flicked three times. “Um, uh, I…uh…”

“Lily, we’re playing jump rope! Come on!” a trio of fillies came galloping over with some skipping rope held in one earth filly’s teeth. They paused to stare at the ice cube pile. “What happened?”

The mare shrugged. “I have no clue how that ball got like that. But I think you can ask your teacher for a spare ball.”

The fillies and colts grinned at the mare. “Howdy there!” one colt said. “My name’s-”

“Listen,” the mare interrupted quickly. “I’m not staying here for very long. There’s really no point introducing yourself to me.”

The fillies and colts blinked in confusion, giving the mare very sour looks. “What? Who are you?” a filly asked.

“I’m just someone here to help Lily study.”

One of the colts frowned. “But we only have to study stuff in school. It’s recess now! Lily should be playing with us!”

Another filly frowned and squinted at the books in Lily’s grasp. “I don’t recognize those books either. What…”

The mare sighed and stood up, facing the other children. “Okay I lied about the studying-”

“My daddy says you shouldn’t lie!” one of the fillies cried.

“Friends don’t lie to each other!” another colt shouted. “That’s what my mommy said!”

The mare let out another sigh, a cloud of fog rolling out of the corner of her mouth. “Well, parents aren’t very astute or congenial.” As the other children frowned in confusion, the mare continued. “The point is, Lily and I are spending time reading together.”

“Uh, um…” Lily mumbled, her gaze focused on the books in the mare’s saddlebag. Several of the kids frowned at her.

One of the other fillies raised her voice. “But-”

“I’m sorry, but don’t you think you all need to be heading back to class soon?” the mare said as wisps of white light formed around the edges of her calm smile.

One of the colts glared at her and wrinkled his muzzle. “Why are you being so weird?”

What happened next caught all the kids by surprise.

Lily wrapped her hooves around herself as she felt an unnatural chill sweep through the playground. She gasped as she saw ice began to form and cover the tree trunk. She turned around to see if any pony else noticed this, only to discover that all the other children were gone. It was just her and the older mare left.

“Uh, where’d everyone go?” she mumbled.

“I think they left to go back inside. Things have gotten rather heated,” the mare said as she began to slowly walk away from the tree. The forgotten jump rope burst into flames and shriveled into ashes as her hoof brushed along it.

“Um, what’s…” Lily started to ask, before she felt…something enter her mind.

“Go home, Lily,” the mare gently commanded.

Lily walked away from the tree, a few books clutched in her magic. Her eyes were unfocused and glowing a tiny bit as she left the school. Eventually the glowing faded away, although her gaze remained spacey.

The mare sighed as she began to walk towards the town.

“Stop!” A shadow from underneath the larger tree slithered across the ground and jumped out in front of her path. From the shadow a unicorn stallion with a gray coat and a short, dark blue mane and tail emerged.

The mare blinked in surprise before she frowned. “Stygian. What are you doing here?”

Stygian held his hooves together and pleaded, “Please my queen. You don’t have to do this.”

The queen glared at the town. “Nobody else is doing anything to fix things. The hardest choices require the strongest wills. And right now, I’m the only pony who has the will to fix the world. I guess I was just too afraid to see it before.”

Stygian glared at her. “Who was that filly you were talking to? What did you do to her and those other children?”

The queen sighed. “Lily is a piece of the puzzle. She has a very unique set of skills. She’s one of the most unique beings I have ever known. People who are like her are very special. And very, very rare.” She frowned at his confused expression. “All you need to know is that she is a diamond living around dirt. I won’t hurt people like her, but I make no promises about else I will do.”

Stygian looked around. “Where are we anyway? This place feels…”

“This place is as real as I say it is.” The queen’s horn glowed again as an angry shout rose up from the town before an orange earth pony stallion with a blonde mane and tail came rocketing towards them.

The stallion hovered in midair and growled out, “What…”

And his voice was quickly silenced as his mouth vanished from existence. The queen shot the frightened stallion a glare so cold it could freeze suns. “No more.”

Stygian gulped. “Please my queen, what good will this do?”

“It will make me happy. That’s all the good it needs to do.”

The stallion dropped from the air and landed with a crunch onto the ground. But before Stygian could express his relief that the earth stallion was unharmed, the orange pony began to…crumble.

The orange stallion’s eyes widened and he cried out in silent fear as his fur, flesh, and bones peeled, flaked, and floated away. The stallion turned into ashes within seconds. Then, even less than ashes.

Stygian gulped and turned away from the other stallion, keeping his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to look at him. When the other stallion was no more, dark shadows began to ooze out of Stygian’s form. Ten shadowy blades of dark magic rose up from Stygian’s shadow and threw themselves at the queen.

But the queen didn’t even flinch when the blades washed over her like drops of rain. “Well thank you for convincing me to speed things up but you can stop now. The more you try to talk me out of doing this, the faster I will work.”

Stygian grimaced but still commanded the shadows to roll back into his body. “Even if I can’t stop you, somebody will.” He turned and raised an eyebrow as a crowd of angry stallions and mares marched their way out of the town and towards them. “Seems you’ve attracted a crowd.”

The mare sighed and walked around him. “Something else to work my frustration out on, I suppose.”

“That must be her! The witch who kidnapped our mayor!” a pegasus stallion from the crowd shouted. The angry mob roared with him and marched even faster.

Before Stygian could say anything, a blast of magic from the queen’s horn teleported him far away. “Like always, you refuse to listen. My plan will be nearing completion any minute now.”

“What’d you do to our mayor, you witch?!” a pale pink unicorn mare shouted at her as the mob stopped in front of the queen, jabbing at the air with shovels and pitchforks.

The other ponies glared at her in anger and confusion as the queen walked over to them, without a trace of concern on her face. “Believe me, I know. My heart has sunk pretty low. But whatever I’ve done, you deserve.”

One of the pegasi in the background scratched her head. “Is she singing? What’s wrong with her-”

“Quiet,” the mare ordered. The other ponies screamed as the head of the pegasus mare disappeared. Her body kept moving, hooves scratching away at her bloodless, empty neck stump.

“Monster!” a peach colored earth mare screamed as she threw a rock at the queen. The crowd gasped as the rock flew right through the queen as if she wasn’t even there and smacked one of the stallions who had been pointing a pitchfork at her.

“You called me the bad guy, well that’s fine. It’s no fault of mine. And some justice at last will be served.”

The peach coloured mare tried to pick up another rock, but she suddenly lost control of her body. Her mouth snapped shut, her front hooves raised over her head in a diving pose, and her body stretched and twisted. She dove into the side of the headless pony’s stomach like it was a pool of water and came out the other end. There was no blood or screams, especially since the other ponies in the angry mob found that their mouths were being sewn shut and their heads were inflating with hot air. The only sound came from the peach coloured mare, like melting and screeching metal as she finished transforming into a golden arch that passed right through the pegasus mare and kept both ponies trapped.

The queen walked around the floating ponies as two clouds swirled down to the earth. The cloud on the right turned into Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria. The cloud on the left turned into Princess Nightmare Moon of Everfree. The queen stared at the two illusions, completely ignoring the former crowd.

“Now it’s time to rise up, or it’s time to back down and there’s only one answer for me.” The queen turned away from two princesses, causing the clouds to dissipate and faded away. “So I’ll stand up and fight, because I know what is right. And I’m ready…ready as I’ll ever be.”


Within the kingdom of Everfree there was an abandoned castle tucked away into the very edge of the kingdom's map. The castle was completely unknown to the general public, but there was a group of ponies that made use of this dark, lonely castle quite often. A unicorn mare with a pale gray coat, a curved horn, and a flowing green mane and tail bit her lip in thought. To her left, a large hole in the ground gently hummed as it held a portal between realms within it. To her right, held in her telekinesis, a finely crafted mirror floated. Her beautiful face turned from one magical artifact to the next.

“I’m worried about Merry,” the unicorn said.

“Leave her alone, Mistmane,” another mare’s voice came out from one of the cloaked ponies who were there with her.

Mistmane frowned at the cloaked ponies who were busy flipping through ancient books or polishing shields. “I’m calling her,” Mistmane decided as she levitated the mirror closer towards her. The other cloaked ponies in the room sighed but didn’t press the issue as the mirror started to glow and vibrate.

A few seconds later, Mistmane could no longer see her own reflection in the mirror but saw Megan William’s face instead. “Mistmane? Goodness, I haven’t seen you in ages.”

Mistmane smiled. “It’s good to see you again Merry. I’m sorry to hear about what happened between you and our queen. Try not to worry though, I’m sure our queen will restore your pony form soon.”

Megan smiled gratefully before her eyebrows narrowed in unease. “You shouldn’t be wasting time talking to me. How are you and the others doing?”

“It won’t be long now. We’re packing everything up and heading to this ‘Equestria’ now. Our queen shall do what must be done, while we keep our counterparts occupied.”

A cloaked stallion snorted. “The Pillars. Couldn’t they have come up with a better name?”

“Our own team name isn’t that much better, Rockhoof,” a cloaked mare said. “And either way, we shouldn’t make fun of them. They haven’t done anything…well, I suppose they have made mistakes but they’re not bad people. They don’t deserve our ridicule.”

Rockhoof sighed. “I’m sorry, Som…Som-na…I’m sorry, I still have problems with names and…”

As the two ponies walked out of hearing range of Mistmane and Megan, the two friends returned to their own conversation. “As you can see, if we’re relaxed enough to bicker about team names, then you know we’ll be okay. And you?”

Megan grumbled. “The Elements of Redemption have escaped from me. I have my loyal ponies searching through Tambelon but this city is bigger than I remember it. What’s worse is I don’t know if they’re even still here.” She sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “What happens if I’m not strong enough? What if I can’t make them understand our message? Argh! I’m just…I’m scared, Mistmane.”

Mistmane smiled reassuringly. “Don’t be.” Her voice shifted a little as she started to sing,

“Now it’s time to redeem
Or it’s time to resolve
And the answer will hardly come free.”

Megan nodded and wrapped her fingers tightly around a locket in her hand. “I promise I’ll save my home and family.”

Mistmane nodded in approval at her resolve. “Now the line’s in the-”

“That’s…enough singing for now.”

Megan and the other ponies all gasped as a creature made of white light appeared in the middle of the room. Everyone in the castle immediately knelt before the powerful being.

“M-my queen! W-we’re ready to-”

“Everyone in the castle will leave immediately. Pack everything of value to you and leave nothing behind. As soon as this castle is empty, it will be destroyed. There’s no going back at this point.”

“As for you, Megan, you and I need to talk. Leave us.”

Mistmane quickly levitated the mirror over to the creature of light and hurried off with the other ponies to pack all their belongings. Megan gulped even as she kept her head bowed to her all-powerful queen.

“M-my queen. I have captured and converted every non-pony inside of Tambelon. Grogar is no more. B-but I fear that although I was able to turn Discord, Chrysalis, and Gilda to our side, the pony members of the Elements of Redemption escaped with…um…”

Megan trailed off as the queen sighed. “I actually like dragons.”

Megan stared at the queen with fear in her eyes. She was a deer staring at the face of a falling meteor. “W…what?”

“I like dragons. And changelings and griffons. Minotaurs are quite interesting. Zebras have an interesting culture and I admire their skill in potion brewing, although I find the rhyming just a little annoying. Donkey and cows, I’m neutral towards. Even Discord has his own charm.”

Megan gulped. “My queen, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t agree with you when you say ponies are the best species. I’m saying that even though I admire your loyalty, I can no longer accept your blind hatred.”

Megan shuddered in horror as tears spilled out of her eyes. She held her piece of the communication mirror tightly and cried. “My queen, please I…why didn’t you tell me this earlier?! I would have changed for you! I’m sorry! Please my queen, please have mercy on this stupid human!”

The queen sighed. “I’m sorry too Megan. I should have told you this sooner. I let myself get too distracted with growing stronger. But I have ignored my destiny for too long. Time to set things right now.”

“Yes my queen!” Megan said with a hopeful smile. “I am your faithful servant and humble friend!”

“Glad to hear it. And with this new information, I hope you understand that I’m quite eager to see what a changeling Nightmare Moon or a dragon Trixie or Sunset Shimmer would look like.”

Megan gulped. “Yes my queen. The next time they face my Rainbow of Darkness, I won’t hesitate.”

“Good. Continue your quest Megan. Don’t stop for anything.”

Megan bowed one last time before the mirror cracked and broke apart, the tiny shards of glass turning into shimmering dots of light that floated away. The queen tilted her glowing, ethereal head to face the rest of the empty room. She could sense that there was no pony left in the castle.

She smiled at stared at the computer screen.

“Hello little bronies. Are you having fun?”

“Pinkie Pie could break the fourth wall. Did you really think I couldn’t?”

“What do you think of situations like this anyway? Do you think breaking the fourth wall is too much of a gimmick? Does it suck the drama out of the story?”

“Me. Knowing who you are. What you’re doing. No. You probably don’t care for this sort of thing. But then again, do you really care about anything?”

“We’ll find out together I suppose. I hope you enjoyed this teaser chapter. The next chapter, you’ll actually learn my name. You’ll see how Everfree is doing. And you’ll discover what I have planned for Equestria...and what I’m going to do to your world. You might dismiss me as a fictional character, but it’s in your best interest to let me win.”

“Oh, and if you’re feeling confused or disappointed by the unfinished song, I have something for you. It’s down .
.
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.
..”

The creature of light lifted her right front leg. An orb of swirling, glowing blue words and images formed in her hoof. The queen began to flicker and fade away before she slammed her hoof into the floor. The castle erupted in an explosion of bubbles, debris, and light.