//------------------------------//
// Stranger at the Gala 
// Story: Godzilla's Lost Child II: The Lost City of Atlantis 
// by Cipher800 
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It was night time in the city of Canterlot, but it was quiet. There were no ponies on the streets, and every house had their lights turned off, and the only things moving were the rustling of leaves, some stuff moved by the wind, and the occasional nocturnal animals. The reason why was because everyone was at the year's Grand Galloping Gala. However, there was one being walking about, a bipedal figure draped in a snappy suit fit for a human executive, whose face was concealed by the shadow of his hooded cloak. He gazed onto the only building of light and walked until he saw two guards flanking the door. Quickly, he turned invisible and walked towards the door, pushing it open, much to the two guards' confusion.

"Wait, what?" one of the guards said as he looked at the doors seemingly open by themselves.

"Probably just your imagination." the other guard replied. "All that boredom must have been getting to your head."

Meanwhile, the hooded figure walked across, looking at the various ponies donned in fancy clothing. "Alright, this is the place she is at." He said as he looked at the place, not that anyone would be able to hear him. He kept walking around the place until he found his target: a purple alicorn pony with a navyblue mane. However, there were hybrid features, such as fangs, claws, and a tail currently hidden by the dress she was wearing, which was light blue with dark blue trimmings.

That was Twilight Sparkle, the lost child of the King of Monsters. But he was not going to kill her. No, he was going to have a talk with her about her dream. Pulling out a watch, he clicked it, and everyone and everything stopped except for him and the now panicking hybrid. "Wha- what's going on?" Twilight asked, trying to get them to move, but to no avail.

"They cannot move, not even Pinkie can. Time has been stopped." the hooded figure said, causing Twilight to turn around, and he was no longer invisible, and was now unhooded, revealing the face of a human man with brown hair that greyed at the bottom. "We need to talk."

"Who, who are you, and what do you want with me!?" Twilight asked, pointing a shaking finger at him.

"Oh, just a stranger. And I don't want anything to do with harming you." the Stranger said. "I'm currently here because of your little dream about the lost city of Atlantis."

"But how? I thought my dreams weren't run by magic."

"They aren't, but I don't use plain old hocus pocus to do my thing." the Stranger said as he pulled out a cigarette before sitting on one of the stray chairs. "Come on, have a seat..." Twilight, seeing that there's no choice, sat down upon the nearby chair. "Do you know anything about Atlantis?" he asked.

"I don't know about any city called "Atlantis", though if you referred to the city in my dreams, which is kind of creepy, it rose out of the water, and-"

"That's all I wanted you to know before, kid. The island of Atlantis was real, and so was the city." the Stranger said as he pulled out something, which pulled out a holographic map of the Earth's globe. "Alright, here's the skinny. This is what the planet looks like now." the Stranger said before pushing a button, and the world seemed to rewind like a television would if you press a button on the remote. As the globe rewinded, time seemed to go backwards instead of being frozen, and everything went from there.

"To start our story, we must go way back in time."

"But that still doesn't explain why you take human form, no offense. Though, I haven't heard your name."

"None taken, but I have to say, I don't really remember my name, it slipped from my mind ages ago." the Stranger said as he pulled out another cigarette before pushing pressing the "Play" button, returning to normal speed. Twilight began to notice a few things on the globe. First off, what used to be Equestria was now a different landmass. There was also a small island right off where the straits of Griffonstone used to be. "And this was what Earth looked like at the dawn of the Atlantean Empire." the Stranger said as they looked on at the scenery. First off, they were not in the castle anymore, but the table and chairs were being suspended above what looked like a city.

"That, that's the city from my dreams." Twilight said.

"Yes, the very same. This is the Atlantean capitol city of Megali-Nero, around 4,500 B.C.E. or so." the Stranger said as the hybrid pony gazed upon the city. "We are currently in the human era, but at Atlantean times, there were absolutely no other civilizations on the map, leaving the Atlanteans to do as they please. Just as some of the nobles in Canterlot see anyone who is not a pony as barbarians, they see anyone who isn't Atlantean as barbarians. Two thousand years before this, the kingdoms united into a single confederation and began to invade the Eastern Americas, the Mediterranean, and anything within access through the Atlantic Ocean. They were a savage people, settling the areas and forcing the local tribes out of their homelands." the Stranger said.

"At their height, the Atlantean Empire was like a Super-Roman Empire of sorts, they were at the top of the world, or so they thought." the Stranger said before he pressed a "Fast Forward" button, causing it to speed up and went through five hundred years. Twilight looked on to see that it was storming. "However, the Atlantean greed was also their downfall. They were so obsessed with expansion that they hardly paid attention to any major disasters that would've come on their home. A rebellious man known as Kronos was experimenting with an early form of magic, and it went from there. One faulty spell and the whole island began to fall underwater." Twilight's eyes widened as she saw the massive city submerge into the ocean down below. "Without the island, the Atlantean Empire was a headless chicken. The colonies soon fell into anarchy and eventually fell to the very 'barbarians' they've outcasted so very long ago. From the ruins of the once great empire came the foundations for the Egyptian and Sumerian empires, then eventually, the rise and fall of your father." the Stranger said as he fast-forwarded time back to the way it was.

"Now, it is best you do not tell this experience to the others. The city will rise, and when it does, you must go there with an acquaintance of mine before someone else takes the knowledge for his or herself. But don't worry, you won't have to worry about it tonight, at the very least it would be tomorrow. I wish you luck, Daughter of Godzilla." And with that, the Stranger pulled out his watch, and with a flash of light, he was gone, and time was moving normally again. Twilight blinked her eyes and shook her head, just as her friends looked back at her.

"Twilight, how did you get up here so quickly?" Pinkie asked.

"Ummm…" Twilight muttered before the pink party pony bursted out laughing heartily. Twilight couldn't help but laugh alongside her. Truth be told, she was surprised that Pinkie Pie did not know about, even when the Stranger gave her a warning beforehand. She put aside those thoughts for now and began focusing on the Gala.

The night was still young, after all.