The scene: the Fire Nation’s Capital City, one of the private royal arenas. A simple square made of stone flattened to perfection and covered in a layer of practice mat material – firm, but forgiving enough not to break bones when one fell on it. Black metallic buildings with fires atop them rose around the arena, a tribute to old Fire Nation architecture.
The people: a filly, roughly twelve years of age standing on her hind hooves, as of yet without a cutie mark. Her coat was orange, her eyes green, and her mane a soft blue. Her opponent, the large firebending master Iroh. He may have been tubby and old, but that was no reason to underestimate him. He had figured out how to adapt firebending to the quadruped form, after all.
The action: the filly surrounded in a burst of fire, yelling in rage against the onslaught of flames coming from Iroh’s finger.
“Corea, focus less on your rage and more on your passion!”
“Stop helping me during the exam, Iroh!” Corea blurted. “I know!”
“And yet all you’re doing is brazenly deflecting my fire. Passion Corea, passion.”
“YOU CAN DO IT!” Corea’s aunt, Apple Bloom, called from the observation lounge. Unlike Allure, who had retained her small physique well into adulthood, Apple Bloom had grown to be taller than her sister and had become decidedly muscular for a mare. “GIVE HIM THE OL’ ONE-TWO!”
“That’s meaningless,” the only other person in the audience, Corona, said. “If she remembers her training it won’t be hard to land a hit on Iroh.”
“Ah’m bein’ supportive,” Apple Bloom huffed.
Corona smirked. “Then keep doin’ what you’re doin’.”
“GET HIM COREA!”
“Planning on it!” Corea shouted back, a smile on her face. She took in a deep breath – she was going to have to use just firebending to land a hit on Iroh. However, she remembered the rest of her training…
Water is of submission…
Earth is of strength…
Fire is of passion…
Magic is of mind…
She leaped into the air, out of the rush of Iroh’s fire.
Iroh looked disappointed – he clearly thought he had her, and that she wasn’t going to pass today.
The old man’s going to be in for a surprise. She angled her front hooves like she was going to hit Iroh with a burst of flame. He reacted as he was supposed to, angling his arm for a retaliation strike Corea would not be able to deflect in her current position.
“COREA!” Apple Bloom shouted.
Corona smirked. “She’s got a plan.”
Iroh realized this the same instant Corona did, but it was a bit too late for him; he was already committed to his attack. “Clever girl.” He purposely put less energy into the flame than he was planning so as to prepare himself for whatever she was going to do.
She did shoot fire with her front hooves – but she also used her hind legs to create fire as well, shooting her under Iroh’s new jet of fire. She landed on the ground right in front of him and swirled around in a tornado of flame. “Gotcha!”
Iroh used his bending to divert the tornado, the complex motions far beyond something Corea could comprehend in her current state. “Not quite.”
Corea didn’t let this surprise her. She opted to leap toward him physically instead of with fire, swirling her entire body around in a quick arc motion. Iroh had been prepared to deal with an attack of flame – not a hoof to the leg. He went down, hitting the ground hard. He let out a yowl of pain.
“Oh, Iroh!” Corea said, hoof to her mouth. “Did I go too far?”
“Not at… All.” Iroh grunted. Corona teleported herself and Apple Bloom to him. The earth pony mare reached into her many-layered pink bow and took out a health potion ‘grenade’. She threw it at Iroh, covering him in healing magic juices.
“There you go, good as new!”
Iroh sat up, stretching his back. “I’m getting too old for this…”
“News to absolutely nobody,” Corona said, helping him up. “So, think she passed?”
“She did get me down.”
“It wasn’t with firebending though, it was with her wit,” Corona pointed out. “Great for an Avatar, but does it really prove her mastery of the firebending basics?”
“She was holding back my flame for a full minute there and pulled some rather advanced tricks,” Iroh said. “I think she passed.”
Corona smirked. “Well then… Corea, consider it official. You’ve mastered the firebending basics. Three out of four.”
“Five,” Apple Bloom reminded her. “Five.”
Corea ignored Apple Bloom. She just squeeed. “I’m so close to becoming the full Avatar! Eeeeeeeeeeeee! All that’s left is air and BAM!”
“Ah’m chopped liver, apparently,” Apple Bloom muttered.
“Oh, magic’s important too,” Corea admitted, punching the air and letting out a few pathetic magical sparks from her hooves. “But it’s not part of being the Avatar!”
Iroh looked to Corona. “I remember when I was afraid she wouldn’t want to be the Avatar.”
Corona chuckled. “Oh, the things we used to worry about.”
“Such needless fretting over silly trivial things,” Iroh said, nostalgia on his face.
Corea looked at her aunt. “Aunt AB? What are they going on about?”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “Somethin’ about fate or some other nonsense.”
“…Cool, cool.”
Corona rolled her eyes. She kneeled down and put a hand on Corea’s shoulder. “There’s still much you can learn about the art of firebending – and earthbending, and waterbending – and I hope that as you grow you continue to sharpen your abilities. Don’t get too cocky, most firebenders who put any serious effort into their craft are still better than you.”
Corea nodded. “Got it.”
Corona smiled. “But don’t forget to have fun, okay?”
“I won’t! You were a great teacher, Corona! The best!”
Iroh blinked. “Hrm… How should I take that…?”
“Uh…” Corea looked around nervously. “Agree that you trained someone better than you?”
Corona laughed. “Well, that’s certainly true.”
“Wonder what Toph and Katara would say about it…” Iroh mused.
“NEVER TELL TOPH I SAID ANYONE WAS BETTER THAN HER!” Corea shouted. “I’M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!”
Iroh chuckled. “It will be our little secret.”
Corea let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks…” She returned her expression to one of excitement. “So, when do I get to start learning air, huh, huh?”
“As soon as you wish,” Iroh said.
“Then let’s go now!”
Apple Bloom blinked. “…Don’t you want a break? You’ve earned it.”
“NOPE!” Corea said, rubbing her hooves together. “Ever since I read that article on plasma I’ve been wondering if I can get air to ignite like that using a combination technique…”
Apple Bloom shivered. “Combination techniques… Ah’ve unleashed a monster.”
“The mud golems were cool. …I wonder if air will be anything like my steam…”
“…I think I created this monster,” Corona said, smiling awkwardly. “Science… It made her think too much.”
“We are all to blame for this creative bundle of apocalyptic potential,” Iroh said with a smirk. “It’s time she learns her fourth element.”
“Y’all never give her time to learn the art of magic,” Apple Bloom muttered. “Ah can only squeeze in side lessons!”
Corea put a hoof around her aunt. “Hey, Aunt AB. After air, you’ll have me all to yourself. I can learn about the arts of sparky punching and potion making then. But I need to become the Avatar for this world first. It’s my destiny.”
Apple Bloom glanced at her cutie mark, reminded of a time long ago when she helped a much younger filly realize what being the Avatar meant. “Yeah… Yeah it is. Ah’ll wait. But expect quizzes on the trip.”
“I’ll take my leave then,” Corona said. “This has been quite the vacation, teaching you, but I’m sure Lady Rarity and the others are lost without my presence.” She winked. “Have fun with her.”
Iroh nodded. “As always.”
Corea turned to Iroh. “So. How am I going to learn airbending?”
Iroh’s expression saddened. “You only have one option. There is only one airbending master in all of the Elemental Nations. He’s not much older than you.”
“…Oh,” Corea said, remembering. “…Tenzin.”
“Yes. Tenzin. A man born out of the proper time…” Iroh said, looking to the distance. “I’ll charter an airship for Air Temple Island. Do whatever you can to prepare yourself for the meeting.”
“Tenzin…” Corea said, mulling the name over in her mouth. “Right…”
“Ah’m sure he’ll be fine,” Apple Bloom assured her. “Ah bet you have to have a lot of discipline to be an airbending master at sixteen.”
Corea nodded slowly, starting to wonder if she should have gone with magic before air…
~~~
“TODAY’S MISSION!” Pinkie declared, throwing a data pad on a table in the entrance hall of Renee’s Crystal Castle. “GO HERE.”
“Unknown dimensional coordinates V-5oi6,” Flutterfree echoed. “Confirmed safe. Of interest because of its location outside of any Sphere or the Strands, symbolized by a V at the start of the coordinate system.” Flutterfree narrowed her eyes. “You know, sometimes I wish Nanoha would just tell us what the letters meant.”
“That’s part of the fun,” Vriska said.
“You know, just tell us,” Flutterfree begged. “What does the V mean?”
“I’ll let you know if we don’t find out while we’re there,” Vriska said, smirking. “But I’m going to love seeing you try to guess before that.”
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro said.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Pinkie asked. “Let’s go~!”
“…Yeah. Let’s go,” Nova said, halfheartedly.
Flutterfree sighed. “Nova, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all!”
Jotaro put his head into his hands, saying nothing because he felt it was too soon to start repeating himself.
Nova sighed. “Okay, yeah, something’s bothering me. But it can wait until after today’s mission.”
“Nova, we’re more than willing to put the mission off for a day to help you,” Flutterfree said.
Vriska gave her the thumbs up. “Yeah, totally. We can always do it tomorrow. Nothing will change about unknown universe V-5oi6.”
“…Maybe not. But…”
“Just tell us,” Flutterfree said. “Please.”
“Actually she’s right,” Pinkie said, jumping to Nova’s aid. “We should probably do this after today’s mission.”
“…Seriously!?” Vriska blurted. “That was… not what I was expecting.”
“Normally I’d be all about getting her to talk about her feelings and problems sooner rather than later, but today is going to be a special day,” Pinkie said, pointing at the coordinates. “I know it. Plus, it’d be better if she could gather everyone together at once later.”
Nova nodded slowly. “You already know, as always.”
Pinkie put a hoof on her. “Yeah. I can tell you I’ll be fine with everything. Rest easy there.”
“That’s a little weight off my chest,” Nova admitted.
“All this has done is made all of us curious,” Jotaro pointed out.
“And a little worried…” Flutterfree added.
“Just wait a few hours, yeesh,” Nova asked, sweating. “You can do that, right?”
“Yep!” Pinkie said. “Come on, let’s dial a new universe and have a landmark day!”
“This better not be another Zhui,” Vriska muttered.
“…Not that kind of landmark,” Pinkie said. “Something… else.” Pinkie pulled out her dimensional device and entered the new coordinates.
The universe they appeared in was certainly a unique one. They appeared on top of a floating island made entirely of blue crystals. The part they were on top of was so smooth as to be like ice, but other parts were covered with jagged crystalline growths so uneven it would have been impossible to walk over them. The island floated among many other islands similar to it, all oriented with the same ‘up’ and ‘down’, even though no bottom or top could be made out. As far as they were concerned, the islands floated alone amongst a black backdrop filled with brightly colored stars.
The portal closed behind them. Vriska’s jaw dropped. “No fucking way…”
“Huh? You know this place?” Flutterfree asked.
“Know this place?! Know this place!? This is the Void! The universe I operated out of with Twilence and the rest of them!” She let out a big laugh. “I never thought I’d see this place again!”
“…You don’t talk much about your past, care to elaborate?” Nova prodded.
“Right, you know I was part of a group before you guys, right? Twilence, Rarity, Mite, and Creek. Well… This was our Hub. This… Void connected to so many different worlds.”
“Doesn’t seem very voidlike,” Jotaro pointed out. “It’s filled with… stuff.”
“Over the eons tons of junk and such has been sucked into the Void. But man, it looks just the same as when I left it! I wonder if Empy is still in charge!”
“Empy?”
“The Empress of the Void,” Vriska said. “She’s a Twilight. The being currently in control of the ancient ‘machinery’ that keeps the Void together. Or, she is as far as I know, I suppose it could have changed hands since I’ve been gone…”
“You’ll be glad to know it hasn’t,” a Twilight’s voice said. A purple alicorn larger than Cosmo landed on their crystal island gracefully. Her mane was a bright mixture of purple sparks and magical waves near her scalp, but as it flowed away into the air it vanished into blackness so deep that no discernable ends to the mane could be seen. A soft, dark aura surrounded her in a way that didn’t seem threatening, merely authoritative. Her wings were far larger than even Celestia’s, the purple pinions tipped with black color. “It’s good to see you again, Vriska.”
“Aaaaaay, Empy! How’s the family?”
“Twice as large as last time,” Empy answered. “Great-great-grandchildren have a habit of expanding beyond belief.”
“I’ll say.” Vriska smirked. “So, this is my current team…”
“Don’t listen to her, she’s not in charge,” Pinkie said with a chuckle. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie, but you already know that. I represent the Class 3 Society Merodi Universalis. This is Nova, Flutterfree, and Jotaro. We are the primary team for first contact and exploration!”
“And I am simply Empress Twilight Sparkle,” she said with a warm, motherly smile. “Come, any friends of Vriska’s are friends of mine. Welcome to the The Void. Class 2, since that scale seems to mean something to you.”
“You’ve upgraded,” Vriska observed.
“Thanks in no small part to you.” With a wave of her wing, Empy created a spherical portal to a much brighter, greener place. “Come, I’m sure we have much to discuss about our respective realms and old friends to catch up with.” She led them into the sphere, leaving the crystal islands once again alone in the Void’s empty space.
~~~
Apple Bloom, Iroh, and Corea took one of the Fire Nation’s airships to Republic City. In the past, the journey would have taken a few hours – but the airships had what basically amounted to controllable rocket engines strapped to their backs now, so it would take less than an hour. They moved so fast the sun was moving backward across the sky.
Apple Bloom set a pot filled with soil in front of Corea. “Time for a test.”
Corea groaned. “Uuuugh, what is it now?”
“Make me a growth potion.” Apple Bloom set a glass on the ground, already filled with the proper ingredients for the growth potion. All it needed was an enchantment.
Corea stared at the green liquid. “Right…” She waved her hooves over it, trying to get a feel for the natural magic already around the ingredients. She just needed to get them to infuse with her own magic. She wasn’t anywhere near skilled enough to do it the way Apple Bloom did – by simply pushing her own internal magic through her hooves with a thought – Corea was the Avatar, she had to move her internal energy to get anything accomplished. She pulled her hoof back, drawing some of the magic within the ingredients back with it. She let out a breath and pushed forward, stopping just short of shattering the potion with a punch. Small sparks of magic energy flew off her hoof, and the ingredients changed color to a golden yellow.
“Well, you got it to react, that’s something,” Apple Bloom said. “Let’s see if it worked.”
“Please don’t be another dying dandelion,” Corea muttered, pouring a drop of the potion on in the soil. A small snapdragon flower appeared – though the flower was green and the stalk was blue.
“…Ah suppose that’s technically a growth potion,” Apple Bloom mused.
“Still a fail though.”
“Yeah.”
Corea grunted. “Why’s it so difficult?”
“Aang only really figured out how to do it in relation to his spirit-bending,” Apple Bloom reminded her. “You have no talent buried in Raava for you to tap into for this.”
“I wish there were teachers for spirit-bending…”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “I think that rests on you discovering the Avatar State and controlling it.”
Corea winced – reminded of the one part about her she feared.
“Hey, after you finish your basic training, there are gurus who know how to help you with that.” Apple Bloom smiled. “You don’t have to worry.”
“What if I’m called to save the world from some crazy threat before then?”
“You have something Aang didn’t,” Iroh said. “A lot of powerful friends who could take the burden if you are unable.” He smiled. “You will never have to stand alone if you don’t want to.”
Corea looked at Iroh – and smiled. “That’s… Right. Thanks! I was getting worried there for a second. Again.” She looked at her blank flank. “I wonder if that’s what it’ll be… The Avatar state I mean, not never standing alone.”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “Ah’m almost positive it’ll be somethin’ about masterin’ the elements or the Avatar itself. Ah wouldn’t expect it anytime soon though, you’re still young.”
Corea nodded with a smile. “Hey, at least I know what it’s probably gonna be! Saves a lot of the suspense!”
“Ah wish more fillies had that unending positive attitude of yours.”
“We’re there, by the way,” Iroh said, standing up. Corea ran to the window to get a good look at the metropolis that was Republic City, the most advanced city on the entire planet, of a similar vein to Ponyville in how advanced it was and how quickly it had grown. The entire shoreline of the bay was lined with buildings of every shape and size, and boats continually moved in and out of the tremendous harbor. Their goal was a small island in the middle of the bay.
It only had a handful of structures on it – a few houses, some gardens, and a large temple that looked a lot like a lighthouse. The airship touched down on a landing area, dropping a docking ramp onto the flat marble ground.
Iroh stepped off first, breathing in the scent of sea air. “Ah… Such pure energy in this place.”
A teenage human walked up to him. He wore yellow and orange airbender garb, and his body had the blue air tattoos signifying an airbending master. His head was shaved, and his young chin was attempting to grow a beard and failing for the most part. Behind him were a handful of men and women in similar robes, but without the tattoos.
The airbending master bowed. “Iroh, this is a pleasant surprise.”
Iroh bowed in return. “It is good to see you so well, Tenzin.”
“What brings you to Air Temple Island?”
Iroh stepped to the side, revealing Corea. “The Avatar has completed her firebending basics training. Only one element remains. As the only airbending master of Merodi Universalis, we have come to you for her training.”
Tenzin took one look at Corea. His serene expression soured into one of contempt. “No,” he said, turning and storming off toward the temple proper.
One of his followers, a teenage girl, sighed. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“You don’t need to do that, Pema,” Iroh said, furrowing his brow. “We can deal with him.”
“Wait, Pema?” The gears turned in Corea’s head. “But that means…”
“Tenzin doesn’t want any spoilers, Corea, so watch what you say.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Corea smiled nervously at Pema. “Pretend I don’t know anything.”
She blinked. “…Sure.”
“Anyway, Iroh, can I try to talk to him first?”
Iroh chuckled. “By all means, see if you can get through to him.”
“Challenge accepted,” Corea said, tapping her hooves together. She gulped and set off toward the temple.
~~~
It took Flutterfree a few moments to register that the green pasture they were in was still part of the Void universe. Despite the blue sky, she couldn’t actually see a sun anywhere, and was still able to make out the multicolored stars in the distance.
The pasture was clearly a nexus for the Empress’ civilization – the spherical portals appeared and disappeared left and right. There was not a moment where a portal wasn’t active in one way or another. Numerous structures existed to aid the travelers, constructed of silvery metal and magic crystals that were usually blue. The buildings rarely had any sharp edges, instead opting for flowing, almost natural curvy forms. They sparked with light, some activating portals, while others simply kept track of everything that happened. In the center of the field, there was a tall tower made entirely of crystal that may have once been a version of Equis Vitis’ Castle of Friendship.
Humans were by far the most common being to pass through the area, but there were more than a few ponies with the third most common race being a conglomeration of magical crystals and mechanical parts.
“What do you call this place?” Nova asked.
“Tangleglade,” Empy answered.
“I call it the Tanglade,” Vriska huffed. “I was sure that was going to catch on.”
“It didn’t.”
“That’s Rarity’s fault, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
“She never could get over that…” Vriska said, rolling her eyes.
“What are those crystal beings?” Jotaro asked.
“Crystalline Ones or Fal’cie, depending on the universe you visit,” Empy said. “They are a staple of almost every universe the Void is in contact with, though rarely are they a very populous race. They are beings made of minerals and magic, some with the power to hold entire universes together, while others are nothing more than a particularly shiny unicorn.”
“Maud would absolutely love them,” Pinkie said. “Actually made of rocks! I mean, the Gems are just computer crystals infused with magic, their bodies aren’t rocks!”
Empy chuckled. “Mauds do tend to like them. Pony worlds may be comparatively rare within the Void, but enough exist that I’ve seen many Mauds do many things.”
“Lots of worlds seem to exist ‘within the Void’,” Nova commented. “What exactly does that mean?”
Vriska chuckled. “This’ll be fun.”
Empy teleported them to the base of her castle. “This may look like a castle, but it is really the control seat of the Void.” She teleported them to the top, which was a flat plane of crystal with a single raised ‘podium’ in the middle. Empy put her hooves on it and closed her eyes, tapping into the Void’s energies. Dozens of spheres appeared in the air around them, direct portals to different universes. “And these are all different worlds ‘within the Void’. It would be more accurate to say they are all different universes the Void has direct connections to, but even that doesn’t fully state what the Void is.”
“Then tell us, what is the Void?” Flutterfree asked.
“It is an ancient construct,” Empy explained. “We used to think it was built by Starswirl, then someone named Enuo, and then we realized there were multiple versions of all of them. What we came to realize was that all those who claimed they ‘built’ the Void just created different consoles by which to control it, and all these consoles consolidated themselves into one.” She gestured at the magical podium in front of her. “The Void had already existed, created an unimaginable amount of time in the past. We believe it was created as a navigation tool – because what the Void does is connect many universes together that shouldn’t naturally be connected, tying together not just their physical natures, but also their fates.”
“…Ka?” Jotaro asked.
“As it turns out, it is a ka-manipulating structure,” Empy admitted. “It makes all universes ‘within’ the connections share a single thread of fate. Almost every universe will have crystals, a similar magic system, etcetera. Sometimes these worlds are pure alternates, with the same people in the same roles doing slightly different things. But a much more common phenomenon is one we have called ‘reimagining’.” She pointed at two different spheres. “These two worlds couldn’t be more different. One is a standard fantasy-type world with magic, dragons, and high adventure, while this other one has spaceships, artificial gods, and energy weapons. And yet, both of them not only have a similar magic system within them, but the spells have the same names. Most of the people within each world are vastly different, but there’s this one man named Cid in both places. The themes, as they were, seem to stay the same, but everything else is a tossup.”
“Wow, that’s… A bit bizarre,” Nova commented.
“Oh, it gets more complicated.” Vriska chuckled. “The Void doesn’t connect to all universes in this section of the multiverse we’re in. Guess what the V actually stands for?”
“I thought you were-“
“Changed my mind, rule of funny.” Vriska held up her hand and Pinkie hoofbumped it. “C’mon, guess.”
“…It doesn’t mean Void…?”
“It kinda does,” Vriska said with a laugh. “The Void universes exist within The Great Void of the multiverse.”
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro muttered. “That’s not confusing at all.”
“Learn your Voids! The Void is just a collection of universes that share a fate through an ancient construct! The Great Void is a section of the multiverse between the E and Q-Spheres that is relatively ‘south’ of the Strands where, rather than having a million connections for every little thing, most universes maybe have five active connections to other universes.”
“I can see that making it a mess to navigate,” Nova observed.
“The areas of The Great Void not within my Void are nearly impossible to cross,” Empy agreed. “It takes hundreds of translations to get to any specific universe. It’s a sparse web with a lot fewer universes than normal – hence why they call it the Great Void.”
“It’s also the most direct way to the ‘southern sphere’ you’re so curious about,” Vriska said with a grin. “Good luck!”
“The Unrealities?”
“Empy, I’m trying to be mysterious!”
“Oh.” Empy raised an eyebrow. “Why? The Unrealities aren’t worth anything to them, or us.”
“Bu-”
Empy turned to Pinkie. “Don’t waste your time trying to find the fourth sphere. The Unrealities are the collection of universes that drift further and further away from the standard model of physics, so far that, eventually, most eldritch deities can’t even survive without assistance of some sort. It’s not even a proper sphere, just a trailing-off connection of universes that keeps spiraling further and further away from anything sensical.”
“…Ah,” Pinkie said. “That makes sense.”
Vriska folded her arms. “You’re no fun, Empy.”
Flutterfree decided that, now that someone was talking, it was time to take advantage of it. “What can you tell us about the structure of the entire multiverse?”
“You’re already aware of the three Spheres right?”
Flutterfree nodded.
“That’s basically it. The areas of the multiverse that aren’t the Unrealities are all just ‘between’ locations, combinations of one or the other. All three form the Strands, E and Q form the Great Void, E and D form the Cosmic Heavens, while D and Q form what is known as Outer Existence. The Cosmic Heavens hold a lot of afterlife universes, while Outer Existence is the source of many worlds’ magic. These are, of course, just generalizations – there is near infinite variety within each location. There’s a few other location names that fly around – usually trying to classify the edges of the multiverse, but I believe that’s an exercise in futility.”
“You’re not a Class 1,” Vriska pointed out.
“No, I’m not. But the Void is nothing to scoff at. …Though admittedly, beyond the worlds within the Void itself, our society is rather weak. The absolute control we have over space and portals within our domain cannot extend to other worlds without calculated effort. The Void never grows unless a new universe is created within its folds, and let’s just say creating a universe is not the easiest thing in the world.”
The implication that they could create a universe, if they wanted to, did not go unnoticed by the primary team.
“Normally I wouldn’t be telling you all this,” Empy said. “But you’re Vriska’s friend – and most of her friends are friends of mine.”
“Ouch,” Vriska said, rubbing the back of her head. “Hey, I may have brought some bad company in from time to time, but I admitted they were fuckers later!”
Empy raised an eyebrow.
“…Most of the time.”
“Just quit before you dig yourself deeper into this hole,” Pinkie suggested.
Vriska grunted, but didn’t say anything further.
“We’ll have to contact Evening,” Nova said. “She’ll want to forge more official relations a- hold on. What’s going on in that sphere over there?”
Everyone turned to look at a sphere currently connected to a world with a large metropolitan city. A crystal dragon the size of a small mountain was in pursuit of two individuals – a tall humanoid in orange armor with a halberd, and a white cyborg-alicorn with a red and black mane.
“LOOK, A VOID SPHERE!” Blackjack shouted. “WE’RE HOME FREE!”
“I… don’t think… I can run that far…” Gilgamesh wheezed.
“You don’t have to!” Blackjack grabbed onto him with her magic and teleported through the sphere, appearing in the midst of Empy and the Merodi.
“CLOSE IT CLOSE IT!” Gilgamesh shouted.
Empy didn’t even need to be told – she had already dispelled all the portals.
“Must be nice to have complete control,” Gilgamesh muttered.
“It is,” Empy asserted. “Though I do admit this is inconvenient, you have interrupted quite the meeting.”
Flutterfree blinked. “…Blackjack!?”
“…Fuck,” Blackjack said, smiling nervously. “Heeeeeeey there!”
“Don’t be scared!” Flutterfree insisted. “We’re not going to hurt you!”
“Speak for yourself,” Vriska muttered, clenching her fist.
Pinkie put her hooves on her hips and shook her head at Vriska. “I know she hurt you, but she ended up saving us.”
“I can still punch her in the face for being an asshole.”
“I’d take the punch,” Blackjack said, raising a hoof. “List of things I deserve includes a punch to the face.”
Vriska obliged before anything else could be said.
“…Man, you pack a real doozy,” Blackjack muttered, standing back up. “Anyway, uh… We’ll leave you to all this politics stuff you’re doing. We were never here…”
“Go to see Twilence then?” Gilgamesh asked Blackjack.
“Yeah. Wonder if she has anything else for us…”
Vriska stared at the two of them in disbelief. “Twilence… is here?”
The two nodded. “Uh… Yeah. You know her?”
Empy nodded. “Vriska was part of her original team.”
“…Woah,” Blackjack said. “You’re old.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Vriska muttered. “I want to see her.”
Empy nodded. “Of course – I was planning on doing this after the meeting, but old friends must see each other, I understand.” She smiled knowingly.
“I’ll call Eve,” Pinkie said. “You can talk to her while we go visit the mysterious Twilence.”
“That will do wonderfully.”
Pinkie pulled out a phone and called Eve. Meanwhile, Gilgamesh used his own power over the Void – significantly less powerful than Empy’s – to create a spherical portal to a dark library. “She should be right through here.”
Vriska took in a deep breath – she clearly wasn’t sure if this meeting was going to go well or not. She stepped through the portal…
~~~
Tenzin sat down in the air temple, feeling the currents of the atmosphere flowing through the room, the way they bounced off the marble columns and created a slight whirlwind effect only perceptible to the most attuned airbenders.
…Which was to say him and only him.
But, as usual, he put that out of his mind through meditation. He closed his eyes, controlled his breathing, and entered a state of serenity, detaching himself from the world and allowing his mind to drift in the freedom of the sky…
“Ohm…”
The sound of a female voice broke his concentration in an instant. With a grunt, he opened his eyes.
“Ohm…” Corea said next to him, her body in its own meditation position with the back legs splayed and the front hooves pressed together. “Ohm…”
Tenzin jumped up. “What are you doing here!?”
“Meditating, clearly. Be quiet, you're interrupting my focus.” She took a breath. “Ohm…”
“Why!?”
“Learning through osmosis,” Corea said with a smile.
Tenzin stormed out of the air temple without another word. He marched down the marble stairs to the house he called his own, slamming his front door behind him.
He was not going to deal with that filly today.
He would go meditate at his personal shrine. That would work. He walked to one of the sliding doors in his house that led to a balcony, one with a small spirit statue that conducted the wind excellently.
Corea was already there, smiling at him. “Come and join me, I’m sure the wind is great here. We can feel the currents of the breeze around each other!”
Tenzin closed the door, clenching his fist. She wouldn’t leave him alone… What was with her?
He went to the kitchen. Maybe a snack would help. He began to rummage through the cupboards, but nothing looked good to him – not even the pop rock cereal he had specially imported from Earth Stand. He loved that stuff.
I need to meditate and get this sour mood out of my head, he thought to himself, opening the last cupboard.
Corea was inside of it. She blew a gust of air at him with her hoof – a rather pitiful piece of airbending, but proof enough that she had the power inside her. “Teach me.”
“No,” Tenzin said, slamming the cupboard door in her face. He left the room in a huff. He marched out of his house and to one of the gardens where a handful of Flying Bison were sleeping. He was about to take position on his favorite of the bunch, Iggy, and begin meditating, but he saw Corea climbing onto Iggy’s back from a distance.
“Hey! Want to go for a fly?” Corea called.
Tenzin turned away.
“Maybe I can learn airbending from this bison! Ever think about that!?”
Something in Tenzin made him stop. “That’s how I learned, Korea.”
“…You’re saying it wrong. It’s not Core-ee-ah, it’s Core-ah. It’s a shortened version of Core Apple. Core Apple. Core-A. Corea.”
Tenzin stormed off again.
Corea sighed, rubbing Iggy’s fur. “So what about it, want to teach me the ways of air?”
The Flying Bison yawned and fell asleep.
“Of course not,” Corea said, stretching. “Time to go scare the bejeezus out of him again…”
Tenzin marched to the airbending training grounds. In hindsight, this was probably the worst place he could have gone. Corea wasn’t there to start, but she arrived soon after he did and started weaving in and out of the training poles. “I’m sure this would be a lot more helpful if I only had a little gust of air!”
Tenzin obliged, shoving as much air as he could into the training poles. They started rotating, their flat edges slapping Corea around like a ragdoll. She flew out of them and landed flat on her back. “Ow…”
Tenzin began to walk off again.
“TENZIN! Train me!”
He didn’t respond, merely decided to go to the beach. He found her behind a tree. “Teach me.”
He went to a rocky outcropping. She popped out of a hole in the ground a few seconds later. “Teach me.”
He air blasted himself to the top of the lighthouse-like air temple. There was no way she could get up here…
He gawked at her – she was using a mixture of fire and water to generate steam beneath her hooves, creating a burst of air pressure that launched her onto the roof. She landed painfully, but still managed to let out another “teach me…”
“No,” Tenzin said, leaping off the air temple and gliding to the ground. Corea had to use fire to slow her descent, which resulted in a faceplant into the ground.
She shook her head and turned to Tenzin. “Then at least tell me why not.”
Tenzin began to walk away.
“I’ll leave you alone if you do.”
Tenzin stopped walking away. Then he turned around, his eyes those of fury. “My only clear memory of my father is the Bloodbath.”
Corea didn’t flinch – she had asked, the best she could do was accept the answer.
“I was four, sitting in the audience when Siron, Six, and Flagg appeared. I saw the life drain from your predecessor’s eyes, far too early for an Avatar who wasn’t in a war. In one fell swoop, I was the only airbender in existence, and I had never been seriously taught the way of the Air Nomads. That memory haunts me, even to this day. It drove me to learn everything I could. I read all the airbending scrolls I could find, all the histories, all the books, everything my father had placed on this island in hopes of rebuilding the Air Nomads from nothing. It had fallen to me at the age of four.” He glared at her. “I had to learn from scrolls and sky bison. I had to prove to myself that I was an airbending master. I stand alone here, trying to build what my father had taken from him.”
He pointed at Corea. “And then I found out what was supposed to happen. I wasn’t even supposed to have been born yet. I was to be born nineteen years after the end of the hundred years war. Not ten. I was born at the perfect time to just barely remember my father. To remember him dying. This wasn’t supposed to happen this way, but I’m following my destiny just the same. I will rebuild the Air Nomads. But you… you are even more of a mistake than I am. At least I was supposed to exist. You never were, Corea. You stole that destiny from a girl in the water tribe. I won’t teach you because you have no right to be the Avatar.”
There were tears in Corea’s eyes. “…Okay.” She turned and walked away.
Tenzin walked back into the Air Temple, finally alone.
He found that he couldn’t meditate.
~~~
Pinkie, Vriska, Nova, Flutterfree, and Jotaro entered the dark library, Gilgamesh’s Void-sphere portal vanishing behind them. The library was a simple place – wooden bookshelves filled with books. There was a window that showed many brightly-colored stars of mostly purple and pink coloration. Otherwise, the only light came from dim amber crystals, with a brighter light source coming from a fair ways in front of them, behind another bookshelf.
Nova levitated one of the books to her face, opening it. “This is handwritten.”
“She did always prefer quills and pens to typewriters or computers,” Vriska said. “I think most of these books are hers, or ones she’s involved in.”
“That’s right, she’s a Prophet,” Flutterfree said, remembering a conversation they’d had some time ago. “A very powerful and Aware one too, right?”
Vriska nodded. “She’s even more of a source of enigmas than Pinkie is.” She walked toward the brighter light source, turning a corner to bring it into her view. It was a simple scene – a desk with a single book open on it, and numerous pens littered around. A single gas lamp hung from the back wall, lighting everything well enough to read comfortably, but not enough to feel harsh.
I sat at this desk, scribbling word after word into the book. When I reached the end of my paragraph, I closed the book and fixed Vriska with a smile. “Hello, Vriska. …It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, it has,” Vriska said, unsure of what exactly to say.
“Too long,” I said, getting up from my desk and walking up to her. I, despite my age, had never grown beyond the standard Twilight model, simply because I didn’t want to. I had to crane my neck to meet her eyes. “You don’t have to be sorry for that day.”
Vriska rubbed the back of her head. “Going right to that, are we?”
I shrugged. “Not if you don’t want to. I could talk to your friends first.” I smiled at the other four members of her team. “Hello. You don’t know me, but I know you. I know you very well.”
“…Are you writing our story?” Nova asked.
I laughed at this. “Parts of it, but those are generally just the parts I’m involved in. I’m not your Prophet, and that’s good news for you and me both.” I looked into the distance. “We actually share the same Prophet. In some ways, I’m just a tool of his, a particularly bizarre plot device.”
“Nothing escapes ka,” Pinkie said.
“True, nothing does,” I agreed. “All Prophets are subject to the overall ebbs and tides of stories. Even those who write stories about the multiverse, as ours does, are not immune by any stretch of the imagination.” I shook my head. “But that’s not something we need to talk about now. I’m here to finally introduce myself to you. You’ve come along far enough that knowing about me isn’t really a cheat anymore.”
“Using you would be,” Pinkie pointed out.
“But what are the chances I’ll ever be around when you think you could use me?” I asked. “I’ll always know when you want to, and until my time really comes, I can always just conveniently vanish.”
“That always sounds like a copout,” Jotaro commented.
“It’s no different than what I was doing before you found out what ka was,” Pinkie pointed out. “I couldn’t tell you things. She knows more things than I do so the bar of stuff she can tell us is significantly higher.”
“It’s the highest the bar can be,” I admitted. “I was written with the purpose of having as complete an understanding of ka as is possible. I can see this story as it is being typed on a laptop on a version of Earth – though I do not know if it is an Earth in the same metatime as ours or not. I can also, at the same time, see many of the readers of this story – including every version and revision of it. Only the final version actually happens, but the reactions to all of them are available to me. I see comments across over three locations, and I see derivative works. I see outlines, plans, and I see things the Prophet doesn’t. An eternal paradox – I know things about the future even he doesn’t know yet!” I chuckled at this, reveling in the absurdity of my situation.
Flutterfree blinked. “…How do you manage?”
I sighed. “It is difficult, being able to see almost everything. I was introduced to the truth of the world rather jarringly, I almost went insane. …In some ways, I did.”
Vriska rolled her eyes. “You can say that again.”
I tapped the mechanical eye on my chest. “But I realized that I had been given a gift. Those readers, they helped set me on a path similar to the one you started on. But rather than creating a society, we just… explored. Explored and explored, using our gifts to change what we could… Sometimes it was a mistake. Sometimes entire worlds were destroyed.” I shook my head. “I’m not perfect. Even understanding has its failings.”
“And its drawbacks,” Pinkie pointed out.
“Yes… Yes it does. You know that more than most.” I put a hoof on her shoulder. “I wish I could be like you Pinkies and just smile in the face of it all. But we’re different.”
“It’s okay,” Pinkie said, pulling me into a hug.
“It’s not, but thanks,” I said, accepting the embrace. I pulled back, looking at the others.
“…I feel like I know you from somewhere,” Nova said, suddenly.
“You do,” I said. “I’ve been watching. You’re probably thinking of the time you saw me in the Static.”
“…Wow that was a long time ago…”
I chuckled, thinking of at least six reasons that wasn’t quite an accurate assessment.
“Why were you there?”
I tapped the eye on my chest again. “Most of the Eye of Rhyme was constructed there. It was by no means the only ingredient needed to create this device of Awareness, but it was one of the most important. Though if I’m being honest the real reason I was there was foreshadowing.”
“...You live your life by ka, huh?”
“The tropes of narrative,” I confirmed. “For instance, there were a few options for this meeting. I could be open and provide a conversation, but because that’s simple it would have to turn to drama eventually – which it will. The other options were for me to manipulate things from the sidelines and have you discover me at the end, offering some cheeky and rather mysterious explanations. Lastly I could have continued to be in the background – but frankly I’m sick and tired of being in the background. The time is coming where I can just be another character in this song. I’m really looking forward to that.”
“When will that be?”
“Spoilers!” I said with a playful smirk. “So many spoilers!”
“…Fun.”
I put my hoof on her. “Don’t worry, Nova. Everything will go fine.”
Nova caught my double meaning. “Clever.”
“Thank you,” I said, turning to Jotaro. “Yes, I can see Star Platinum flexing behind you. No, I don’t have a Stand. Yes, I knew you were testing me this entire time. No, I don’t hold it against you. Yes, I know you like it if you don’t have to actually say anything to have a conversation. You’re welcome.”
Jotaro smirked slightly.
“Also, stop doubting yourself so much. You’re a strong man and a good father. Be sure to pass on what you’ve learned to anyone who could use it.”
Jotaro nodded slowly.
I turned to Flutterfree last. “So, I actually don’t have much to say to you, sorry.”
Flutterfree blinked. “Really?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. You don’t have anything wrong in your life at the moment. And I don’t know of anything in the future I could help you prepare for.”
Flutterfree chuckled. “Something something I have no major flaws?”
“Something like that,” I admitted. “…Actually, I just thought of something. Don’t be afraid to disagree with Rev.”
“I know she’s not always right, Twilence.”
“There is a discontinuity between knowing and doing. You’re actually doing fine, but be aware of it.” I shrugged. “It might or might not be a problem, I’m not sure.”
“Thought you knew everything?”
“I just know lots of things. Not everything.”
“Yeah. …Know where Earth C is?”
I sighed. I pulled a purple cubic crystal out of my desk and created a spherical portal back to the Tangleglade. “Could you four excuse us? Vriska and I need to have a talk.”
“Gotcha,” Pinkie said, nodding. “Everybody out! Good luck Vriska!”
Soon, only Vriska and myself remained.
“…I could find it,” I said. “I now know things that wouldn’t even make it that hard.”
“And you’re not going to.”
“No. There are things that need to happen, Vriska. If you find Earth C, they won’t happen.” I held up a hoof. “And no, I’m not saying the rules are preventing me from interfering. They might be, but even if they are I happen to agree with them. I’m choosing not to help you find them.”
Vriska curled her fingers into a fist. “Fucking… Why do you always do this?”
“You know why.”
“Can you at least tell me if I find it or not?”
I looked right at her. “I can tell you that you’re right where you need to be.”
“That’s vague bullshit and you know it.”
“It has to be.”
Vriska put her hands in her pockets and leaned against a bookshelf. “…At least you’re honest about it. You’re always honest about it.”
“The Doctor’s not as bad of a person as you say he is.”
“Maybe I’ve just got a personal vendetta, ever think about that?”
“That’s exactly what it is.”
Vriska looked away. “Still can’t forgive him.”
“Not asking you to. He betrayed you.”
Vriska had no response to this.
“…We should talk about what happened after you left.”
“…Fuck, that’s not a tone of voice you use when you have good news.”
“Feel free to scream and yell at me for what I did,” I said. “After I told you to leave with your luck, I began writing a counter-narrative. I did manage to use a group of wandering heroes to stop Polymarchus and his sackcloth monsters. It was a game with complex plots and multiple Prophets intertwining to bring down the evil.” I looked Vriska in the eyes, my own watering. “Creek was killed in the process.”
Vriska put a hand to her mouth. “…I always thought…”
“She’d grow old, yeah. She didn’t. And it’s my fault. I wrote that story.”
“How could you sacrifice her!?”
“Polymarchus took her body!” I shouted. “I gave the heroes a way to… But they didn’t… And…” I looked to the ground, tears falling. “…I knew if I forced her alive everything would fall apart. I just… It was so long, but it was yesterday. I… I ruined it. I don’t even know where Mite is, I only see Rarity occasionally, and… And…”
Vriska pulled me into an aggressive hug. “Stop it,” she demanded.
“But I-”
Vriska slapped me. “STOP IT! You’ve been alone in this library for too long, letting yourself fall into a depressed spiral. I know you, Twilence.”
I stared at her, blinking. Then I shook my head. “I see… The drama has arrived.”
“You don’t get to cheapen this with your stupid meta-knowledge.”
I shook my head. “Yeah… Yeah you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for tearing us apart there. I’m just… I failed, Vriska.”
“It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. We’re fucking screwed-up people, Twilence.”
I nodded slowly. “…That’s one of the truest things you’ve ever said.”
“I’m a barrel of wisdom.”
I laughed. “Riiiiiight. You. Wisdom.”
She wiped her eyes. “I’m a fucking genius. Not as much as Creek was, but y’know.”
“Yeah. I know.” I sat down at my desk and looked at the words I had written recently. “…I’m not going anywhere, Vriska. If you ever want to talk… You’ll be able to find me here so long as nobody wants me to do anything.”
Vriska nodded slowly. “You sure you won’t be called away by ka?”
“Not for very long. I know what my fate is for the next little while. I’ll be here.”
“Good.”
~~~
Apple Bloom and Iroh were sitting in one of the many tables on Air Temple island set up in the middle of a bunch of trees, probably used mostly for having lunch in nature. The two of them were working together on a little project. Iroh was heating a glass potion bottle while Apple Bloom hovered her hooves over the exceptionally complicated brew, carefully watching the colors and temperature of the rainbow-mish-mash of magical power.
She didn’t shoot sparks from her hooves like Corea – she wasn’t able to bend magic from the air, she had to make do with her own. Which meant exceptionally careful movements of her hooves and precise thought patterns. High-level potion brewing was no picnic, but it was certainly rewarding since it was a form of enchantment that could be done at any time and never went stale. Well, so long as the actual ingredients within didn’t rot, and she usually kept her brews in air-tight containers.
She slapped her hooves together above the glass potion, forcing it into a brilliant golden color. “You can stop heating it now, Iroh.”
Iroh retracted his flame, examining the golden brew. “So what’s this going to do?”
“This, if Ah did it right, is a potion of spiritual connection, augmented to be trans-universal. It’ll let one person connect to any other person they wish for a short time, with both individuals experiencin’ what the other one experiences. It’s like a short-term meldin’ of consciousness.”
“…And why did you make it?”
“Because it’s unimaginably hard to do,” Apple Bloom said with a laugh. “It’s not like healing, or explosions, which can be done on the fly with the right ingredients and trainin’ – it needs focus, plannin’, and very very precise motions.” She lifted the potion. “Ah don’t really have a use for it. It’s also pretty dangerous and powerful, now that Ah think about it.”
“I may have a use for it down the line,” Iroh said, looking closely at it.
“…That’s right. The spirit world.”
“I’ve already been here longer than I was planning,” Iroh admitted, looking off into the distance. “I had actually thought I would go after Unification, if you could believe that.”
“Really?”
“But then Corea was born, and the world needed me again.” He looked at his old hands. “It was very hard to train her in firebending…”
“Ah know, that’s why Ah called Corona.”
Iroh nodded. “All this magic and medicine works wonders in keeping me running. I’m sure I’ll be able to live long enough to see Corea become a great Avatar for this world. But it won’t be long before I won’t be able to actually do any training… It may be that my last real fight was her graduation. I may be acknowledged as the strongest firebender alive, but one lucky hit from someone who has even the slightest idea what they’re doing…”
Apple Bloom looked at him sadly. “She still needs your wisdom, Iroh.”
“I’m not so selfish that I won’t let myself wear down,” Iroh said with a bitter chuckle. “I know. I’ll follow the path of Joseph Joestar, be old and frail but still full of fire. He knew how to live.”
Apple Bloom nodded.
“I think I have maybe ten years left here,” Iroh said.
“We have ways to access the Spirit World,” Apple Bloom said. “It doesn’t have to be goodbye.”
Iroh looked down sadly. “…I would rather the Spirit World remains a sacred world that none touch with human – or pony – civilization. I wish that it would remain separate, secluded, and the way it was meant to be.”
“…You sure?”
“There’s nothing for Merodi Universalis there,” Iroh asserted. “The strongest spirit has been sealed away since time immemorial, and their counterpart is the Avatar Spirit. As powerful as the Avatar Spirit is, it’s nothing compared even to a Star. Or Discord.”
Apple Bloom nodded. “You’ve told the Overheads, right?”
Iroh nodded. “The Spirit World has already been set aside as a nature preserve. Only those with religious obligations are allowed to do anything relating to it at all.” He looked at his hands again. “It will be a new life…”
“…Ah hope you find what you’re lookin’ for.”
Iroh nodded slowly. “I hope so too, young one.”
Corea walked into the clearing, wiping her face. “...Hey.”
“Didn’t go well?” Apple Bloom asked.
“No,” Corea said, taking a seat at the table. “…Iroh, can we just go to Elemental Eight? They have airbenders. They can teach me.”
“They can teach you the way of their airbending. Not only is ours different, but it relates directly to your Avatar Spirit,” Iroh said. “It has to be Tenzin.”
“He says I have no right to be the Avatar. That I was a mistake. I mean, I know he’s wrong but how do you get through that kind of block!?” She let out a groan and rammed her face into the table.
Iroh sighed. “I’ll go have a talk with him.”
“What kind of talk?”
“I’ll tell him exactly what his father would think of his actions,” Iroh said with a grimace.
Corea winced. “…Ouch.”
“It will be a painful discussion, but he will agree to teach you.” Iroh stood up and walked toward the air temple.
“…Today has sucked,” Corea told her aunt, grumbling.
“Hey, at least it’s going to turn out well!” Apple Bloom said. “Iroh knows Tenzin, this’ll definitely work.”
“Yeah… OW!” Corea looked at her neck. “Something bit me!”
“Same…” Apple Bloom said, looking at her own neck. There was a small dart sticking out of it. “Great.”
Corea fell asleep instantly from the drug. Apple Bloom wasn’t even fazed – she just took up a fighting stance on top of the table. “All right, if you’re expectin’ me to keel over in the next few seconds, you’ve got a problem. Ah’ve got so much magical juices runnin’ through my veins that Ah’m immune to basically every poison.” She pulled a potion out of her bow, shifting it to a blood red color with her magic. “Bring it.”
Three people leaped out of a tree – a waterbender, firebender, and earthbender. They tossed their respective elements at her. She tossed a potion.
The potion exploded, sending the three attackers flying. With a controlled use of her magic, Apple Bloom was able to divide the earth in two with her other front hoof. She opted to take the flame head on and get burned rather than tossed to the side by the water. She yelled through the pain, but smashed a healing potion against herself to heal her burns instantly.
And then someone shot her with an actual gun in the leg. She wailed in pain, having to waste precious seconds to grab another healing potion. She slapped it against her leg, but it was too late – three more attackers had already come out of the trees. She readied another explosion potion, but a slab of rock hit her in the face, knocking her out.
The benders quickly grabbed Corea and took her away, leaving Apple Bloom out cold on the table.
~~~
Eve walked out of a meeting with the Empress of the Void, appearing from the spherical portal in the Tangleglade.
“So…?” Vriska asked.
“She put it to me rather plainly. We’re small fish and can’t be expected to ask favors from them.” Eve shrugged. “We’re welcome whenever we want, and borders are open, but we simply don’t have much to offer them. She was a bit colder than Nanoha, actually.”
Vriska shrugged. “Well she didn’t come from a Friendship is Magic world, she came from a fantasy adventure something or other. Nanoha did, from what I understand.”
Eve shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t expecting much. The Sparkle Census is going to want her data, and then Valentine is going to be curious about the magic, and I’m sure Starbeat will have more than a few questions for Blackjack and Gilgamesh. …If they’re still here.”
Vriska shrugged. “I’m not sure how they fit into all this. I get the impression they’re a wandering group, like I was.”
Eve nodded. “Right. Anyway, there’s one last thing I want to do… I’ve heard a lot about this Twilence. I’d like to meet her.”
Vriska nodded. “Right this way.” She tapped on one of the crystal-machine structures in the Tangleglade, and it recognized her signature. It gave her clearance to enter my library. I was waiting for them.
“Vriska, leave us please,” I said before anyone could say anything. “This is going to be a private conversation. Well, as private as it can be, anyway.”
Vriska blinked. “Uh…”
“No, you can’t ask why. …Well, you could, but I wouldn’t tell you. Again, not because I can’t, but because it would be horribly rude.”
Vriska looked at me for a moment. She decided the best reaction was a nostalgic chuckle. “Gog, I actually missed this.”
“Glad to hear it.” I levitated her back through the portal and forced it closed, leaving me and Charter-Princess Evening Sparkle alone in my library.
“I would offer you a chair but I know you aren’t going to take it,” I said.
“You could have stopped it.”
“Actually that was a case where I couldn’t,” I said. “The death of Twilight of Equis Vitis was something that needed to happen. There was too much foreshadowing, too much prophecy. She could not have outlived her friends. I had no power over that.”
“But you pulled her aside at the last minute!” Eve shouted. “You had the power to do that!”
“I wanted to give her hope. I wanted to give her something… Something that wouldn’t just become you.”
Eve twitched. “Well you gave her hope that quickly turned to terror and death. I hope you’re happy.”
“I am. I actually got to speak with her,” I said, a smile forming on my face. “Because she was about to die… I got to show her what you would become. I got to show you so much. I showed her the window in Celestia City, you know? The one with all of you in beautiful stained glass. Even as she left us, she knew that was the future. I told her more, but I shouldn’t tell you all of it.”
Eve narrowed her eyes. “Is that a ‘don’t want to’ or ‘can’t’ scenario?”
“A little bit of both,” I admitted.
“…You lied to her.”
“I told her no direct lies, Evening.”
“You were misleading and lied by omission.”
I lost control of my expression and allowed minor contempt to seep through. “Hypocrite.”
“What the-”
“They still don’t know what you are! You’ve been lying to them by omission for decades! Most of them have now known you longer than they knew Twilight! Soon enough that will be everyone. And need I remind you about the little scene at Sparky’s grave with Pinkie?”
Eve’s expression clouded.
“She doesn’t know, Eve. Our Prophet, GM, has blocked it from her intentionally. Because she would make you tell everyone. The secret wouldn’t be keepable!”
A tear rolled down her face. “I can’t tell them.”
“You will have to eventually,” I said. “But I can tell you that, since you’ve waited this long, you’ve ensured that all the things you feared would happen when you tell them are no longer just you panicking internally. They really will be hurt beyond imagination.”
Tears began to roll down her face. “W-why are you telling me this!?”
I let out a deep sigh. “…Because I got angry. I’m sorry.” I looked out the window at the stars. “I hate lies, but I have to hold myself to them so much. It just angers me when someone who doesn’t have to lie does.” I looked back at her, meeting her gaze. “…It was a mistake to wait any time at all to tell them. But now that it’s been years… Don’t go and tell them on account of me.”
Eve didn’t have a response to this.
“…Prepare yourself, Eve. You know it’ll happen eventually. …You’ve always known. I didn’t even have to tell you that.”
“I didn’t know all my fears were going to be true!” Eve shouted. “That’s… That’s just horrible! Which one of them is going to stop being friends, Twilence? Which one!?”
Tears appeared in my own eyes. “…I can’t tell you that.”
“But you know!”
“Yes. I do.”
She wept bitter tears, heaving her entire body. She couldn’t accept what I’d just told her.
I was, to put it simply, a horrible pony. I had let something slip I really shouldn’t have said…
I sighed. “Eve… Make use of this knowledge.”
“Make use of it!?”
“Cherish your friends while you still can,” I said. “Live every moment as if it would be your last with them.”
Eve was reminded of many dark things Pinkie had told her – that there would be great death, great struggle, and that at least one of them wasn’t going to make it. She stared into the abyss, shaking. “H-how do you cope?”
I wiped my own face. “…I don’t.”
“Wh…?”
I pointed at my Eye of Rhyme. “I had this thrust upon me. I suddenly had access to virtually everything. And shortly after that I knew what ka was, what it all meant, and… Eve, it’s not something you can deal with.”
“But you seem to have it together!”
“Me? Together!?” I twitched. “You think I have it together!?”
“I…”
“Do you want to know who lives and who dies?” I ask, allowing the calm exterior I always keep up to fall. I don’t care that those reading are seeing what they did to me - finally time for a secret to come out, I suppose. “I can tell you with exact precision what happens to who up to a certain point. Guess what happens to you?!”
“No, stop…”
“I know if you live or die, Evening Sparkle. I know what all of your major foes will be. I know what happens to the Collector a few years from now. I know what his plans are, what his origin is, and how he relates to everything in the larger picture of things! I know what the Dark Tower hides!”
“Stop!”
I cackled, a truly disturbing slasher smile placed on my face. Fitting. “Guess where my knowledge ends, Evening! Guess! Oh, too scared? It ends not all that far from today, believe it or not! We’re about halfway there, actually, if we use your narrative path! The entire multiverse will hang in the balance, Evening! The entire multiverse and the lives of everyone in it will hang on the actions you, I, our friends, our enemies, and those close to us! And I can’t see the result!” I spread my wings wide and screamed in her face. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT IT’S LIKE TO KNOW BASICALLY EVERYTHING AND THEN HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END!?”
“STOP!” she boomed, summoning Seraphim in all its glory. I felt my magic drain to nothing. I was defenseless. She held a magical blade to my neck.
I dropped the smile and looked to the ground. “I know you won’t do it. You can’t. I live at least until the point I can’t see. If you somehow do kill me here, there’ll be a revival.”
Eve twitched, tears streaming down her face. Then she threw me to the ground. “You’re screwed up in the head.”
I nodded slowly. “I am. It’s… It’s not as bad as it could be. My origin had multiple endings. …I could have been the new Collector, except instead of having uncertain motivations and a complex philosophy, I’d just be an omnicidal maniac. As it is, the ending that turned out to be true was the second best one.” I stared right at her. “…Even the best one still would have left me like this, eventually.”
Eve looked at me with horror. “W-what in…”
“I am what needed to be created to understand,” I said, shaking my head. “And true understanding is a horrible curse. But somepony needed to have it. It just ended up being me.”
Eve took several steps back from me – she was terrified. Understandable. She should be. Everyone should be, really. I’m the worst kind of horror. I’m not a villain, and I never will be. I’m the epitome of uncomfortable truth.
How’s that? Do you all like what’s… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take this out on you. Only a small number of you had any actual understanding of what you were doing, and… …I already forgave you. This conversation should never have happened. Unfortunately I do not possess the power of retcon…
I wiped my eyes. “…You should go,” I told Eve. “If you want, I can wipe this entire conversation from your mind.”
She considered it. She really considered it. She was an instant from accepting the wipe when her mind went somewhere. She remembered what I had told her.
Use this information.
“…I will take part of your burden onto myself,” she said, putting her hoof to her chest. “Now we both know what’s coming. You’re not alone anymore.”
I blinked. Then I started laughing through my tears. “Of course… Of course!”
“Hm?”
“That’s why… And then you’re here… And…” I couldn’t help myself. I rushed her into a hug. “…Thank you.”
She recoiled from me – still clearly terrified of what I was and what I stood for. I understood – a lesser mare would have been broken over this realization. But I had seen it too many times over the years.
“I’m sorr-” she began.
“It’s fine,” I interrupted. “It’s fine. You’ve done more than I thought you would. Strange how the finer details can sometimes mean so much.” I shook my head. “…You can feel free to tell Pinkie or the others anything you’ve learned here, just so you know.”
“…Everything hinges on our actions in the end…” she stared into the distance. “I’m the protagonist, aren’t I?”
I nodded. “No use hiding that fact from you anymore… Yeah, you are. You are the protagonist. You really shouldn’t go telling people that, though. There are… higher powers that would love to get a hold of you. Ones that can manipulate ka like putty. The kinds of powers that could change everything in the end.”
“…Knowledge is power,” Eve said.
“Knowledge is pain,” I added. “But it’s also needed. We… We can’t ignore it.”
“…But we can make of it whatever we want,” Eve said. “For all your screaming… You clearly don’t know everything. You didn’t know what I was going to do here.”
“I could have looked into the script.”
“You chose not to. And that allowed this to happen. Allowed us to… I don’t know, this is certainly some bizarre bonding. But that’s what it is. We were bonding. And now we have a bit of an understanding and a shared burden.” She stuck out a hoof. “You’re clearly suffering from those burdens. Let me take some of them.”
I smiled at her, taking her hoof. “There are some I can’t give you.”
“I don’t want any you don’t have to give me,” Eve said. “But I can have some. I’m sure Pinkie will be available as well.”
I nodded slowly. “It’s so good to be able to actually talk to you all. All I’ve been doing is watching… Waiting… Sitting in the background. But I can see it… I can see a time where that ends.”
“The ending?”
“A bit before that, actually,” I revealed. “I won’t have to be like this forever. I’ll be able to join you all out there. I just… Have to wait a little longer. And until then… It looks like I’ll be having visitors.”
Eve nodded. “You definitely will.”
We talked for a bit after that, but what we said either wasn’t important, or were things not meant to be known. She eventually left, and I told her she was always welcome back.
That… was not how I was expecting it to go. At all. I had been expecting a brief confrontation where we were at a standoff and basically agreed not to like each other. That’s where the plan for this scene was originally going, too. But it didn’t go there. Instead… We were laid bare.
I think this is better.
…I also apologize to those of you out there I hurt with what I said. I… wasn’t doing well. You’re fine, reading this story, leaving comments, and doing what you can to help it come along. I just had some stress. Don’t take it personally.
…Please?
…
I’m going to go cool off for a while. You probably won’t see me around for a bit. You need to find out what happens with Corea anyway. …I should probably apologize to her for overshadowing her chapter…
~~~
Corea woke up angry. “I’LL TAKE YOU ALL, HOOF TO HAND, YOU’LL GO DOWN DOWN DOWWWWN!”
“Feisty Avatar…” a tall man with a white beard said. “Or, should I say, not Avatar.”
Corea looked around – she was on a stage under an absurdly bright spotlight. All she could see was the man, a few people who were probably his followers, and the electric chair she was tied to.
The electric chair she was tied to.
“...Shit.” Instinctually she looked around to see if Iroh or Apple Bloom had heard her, then she realized how stupid that was. She couldn’t move her hooves at all, so there was no bending – and she really wasn’t good enough at magic to trigger any sort of effect with just her mind…
She started trying to pry herself out of the chair with brute earth pony strength, but that wasn’t working either.
“Are you done yet?” The man asked.
“What are you going to do to me!?”
“We’re going to kill you and create an Avatar that has a right to exist!” He said, spouting in her face. “And we’re going to televise the whole thing.”
“…That’s stupid. Seriously, if you wanted that you should have shot me with deadly nightshade or something in the forest. You’d have what you want, there’d be no chance someone comes to rescue me, and you also wouldn’t be such a bonehead that you would broadcast your faces on television!”
Everyone stared at her.
Oh, wait, that’s right, I’m in mortal danger. It was only as she realized this that the real fear started to set in.
The ringleader clearly picked up on this. “Ah, there it is. This is why everyone has to see the false Avatar at her most vulnerable. They have to see the fear, the brokenness, the lies printed on your face.”
“You’re crazy!” Corea shouted, already crying from the fear. She wasn’t able to counter anything he said anymore – fear had taken over. She just started screaming.
He slapped her, shutting her up. “You’re just some brat from another world destroying the way things should be. You have no right to be the Avatar. It’s time you gave it up to someone who deserved it.”
I’m going to die, she thought as he took a button out of his coat pocket. I am going to die to this moron.
The voice of other Avatars spoke to her.
You will live on, Avatar Kyoshi promised.
You have every right to live as we do within Raava, Avatar Roku consoled.
You will guide the next one to be more understanding, Avatar Wan said.
You are always within me, Corea, Raava herself promised. You belong. I chose you.
Screw this! Avatar Aang said. Corea, you’re not going to die here. Not today.
The rest of the Avatars looked at Aang like he was an absolute moron.
It seems like all is lost, Aang said. But you do not stand alone.
Raava’s vast presence shifted. He is right. I sense something following our spiritual energy…
A hurricane blasted through a nearby wall, knocking everyone to the ground and tearing Corea’s electric chair off its fixture. Tenzin leaped between Corea and her kidnappers, keeping a tremendous hurricane of wind around the two of them for protection.
“Tenzin!” Corea blurted. “You came to save me!”
“Of course I did. You’re the Avatar.”
Corea looked to the ground. “…They wanted what you wanted.”
“I did not know what I wanted. I still don’t.” Tenzin pushed forward, blowing the fire from the firebenders away – none of them knew how to deal with an airbender. It was a form of combat they knew nothing of. “But I know I can’t condone the killing of a child.”
Corea nodded. “…Thanks.”
“Don’t menti-”
A bolt of lightning went off, connecting at the ground beneath Tenzin’s feet. It sent him backward, knocking him against part of the wall that was still standing.
Tenzin’s carefully constructed shield of swirling wind fell, revealing the last man standing to be the ringleader. “I have no qualm with you, Tenzin.”
Tenzin began to stand back up. “I have a qualm with you.”
The man pointed a finger at Tenzin without hesitation. “I will take you out if you stand in defense of this imposter.”
“No.” Corea said, her eyes white with the energy of all the Avatars. A gust of wind mixed with a purple magic laser hit the man in the chest, knocking him to the ground. “You will not end the Air Nomads. You will not end Tenzin before he gets to live his life. You will not kill our son.”
Tenzin blinked. He could see them – the Avatars, all lined up behind Corea, standing with her.
His father was the closest.
Aang took a moment to smile warmly at Tenzin before forcing his energy into the next attack. They rushed into the man’s spirit. It did not take long for the light of his spirit to be engulfed by that of the Avatar – his powerful firebending stolen from him in only a matter of seconds.
They all spoke as one. “This is Avatar Corea, the One Hundred and Eighty-Third Avatar. She is one of us just as all of those in the past, and all of those in the future. We have chosen her to carry on the burden of this world. You have no right to go against what we have chosen.”
The man passed out, utterly defeated.
Take good care of her, Tenzin.
Corea dropped to the ground, dazed. She took a moment to realize what had happened. “…Oh no, I did it again didn’t I? Did I hurt anyone!?”
“You removed a man’s ability to bend,” Tenzin said, limping over to her. “…And showed me the face of my father.”
“I… Did?”
“Yes. You did.” He kneeled down to her. “…I recently had an old man tell me to teach you or suffer the consequences.”
“Iroh has a way of being persuasive, huh?”
“…Yes. He does.” Tenzin stood tall. “You will not only have to learn airbending – you will have to learn the ways of the Air Nomads. You will eat what we eat, breathe what we breathe, and sleep where we sleep. You will learn to meditate, and to understand what air is.”
“What is air?” Corea asked.
“Air is peace.”
Water is of submission…
Earth is of strength…
Fire is of passion…
Magic is of mind…
Air is of peace…
“I’ll take that to heart,” Corea assured him.
“Be sure that you do. We’ll start tomorrow.”
“Sweet. …Can you get me out of this chair first, though?”
“Sure.” He untied her. The first thing she did was wrap her hooves around his legs and start crying.
He didn’t recoil. He just sighed and accepted the embrace.
~~~
Eve returned to Equis Vitis with all of Pinkie’s team. Renee and Daniel were there, seeing the team of Rubies off.
Renee beamed when she saw them. “Oh, you’re back! I trust everything went well?”
“Nothing really changed,” Vriska said, shrugging. “We know about another Class 2. Friendlier than most, but not exactly going to bend over to help us. Though she did ruin a lot of the fun I was having with you guys…”
“I expect a full report by tomorrow with everything you learned. That includes you, Eve,” Renee said.
Eve blinked, processing the comment. “Oh. Yeah. Right. You’ll have it.”
“…Are you okay?” Flutterfree asked.
“Not especially,” Eve admitted. “Pinkie, we need to have a talk later.”
“Twilence spilled something didn’t she?” Vriska asked.
“Yeah,” Eve admitted. She had plans to tell Pinkie what she had found out from Twilence… But not about her true identity. She was going to go with it for now, like she’d been told. “It doesn’t have to happen now though.”
Pinkie nodded. “I know. …There is something that does need to happen though.” She turned to Nova. “Everypony’s here.”
Nova nodded. “Yeah… Okay, so this is going to start out sounding like really good news, and then get really soured really quickly. So prepare yourselves. I already know you’ll be understanding, but… It’s still going to be difficult.”
She had gotten everyone’s attention – even Eve’s.
“So…” She took a deep breath. “…Sunburst and I are getting married.”
Renee squeed. “Oh Nova that’s wonderful!”
“Seems a little fast…” Flutterfree commented.
“Pshaw, it’s love darling, it can happen however fast it needs!”
“You need to talk to Cadence, Renee,” Eve said.
“Quiet,” Jotaro told everyone, leaning down to Nova, keeping his eyes level with hers. “There’s a reason for this.”
“Yeah.” Nova coughed. “I’m pregnant right now. Found out two days ago.”
Vriska cocked her head. “Uh… Why are you saying that like it’s a death sentence?”
“Their parents. Their family,” Jotaro said, standing up and grabbing his hat. “They will not approve.”
Vriska put a hand to her mouth. “Oh. Oh I completely forgot about that…”
“Yeah,” Nova said, sagging. “My family is about as traditional as you can possibly get, not to mention Star-revering to boot. Sunburst’s is similar. We just… We can’t have them finding out. It’ll tear everything apart. So… this is what we decided to do. You are the only ones who know. I think Sunburst is going to tell Sunny and Corona, but that’s it. We just… we didn’t want to lie to you, like we’re going to lie to everyone else.”
Eve looked at Nova with sad eyes. “…Are you sure about this, Nova?”
“…I’m very sure, Eve. Both of us are.”
Eve saw she was serious. “I… I want to say you should feel free to tell them. To admit to what you two did.”
“But…?”
All your fears are true.
There are some mistakes you can’t come back from.
Eve sighed. “You know them best. What do you think they’d do to you if they found out?”
“Excommunication,” Nova said, tears forming in her eyes. “And I… I still want to be able to talk to my mom, Eve! I… I don’t want to push her away again…”
Flutterfree put a wing around her. “We understand, Nova. …We’re glad you told us. And we’ll respect your choice.”
Jotaro leaned back down and grabbed Nova’s shoulders. “Nova, whatever you do, care for your family. Don’t push them away for any reason. Care for your husband and keep him close. Love him. And love your child. They are your responsibility.” His fists tightened around her shoulders. “You can ruin them just by not being there.”
“I… I know…”
“We’ll understand if you have to leave,” Flutterfree said.
“I’ll have to go on maternity leave, yeah,” Nova said. “But I’ll be back. Sunburst and I already talked about this. I’m never gone for long. But he…” She shook her head. “He’s going to have to give up the surveys… he says he doesn’t mind, that’d he’d love an opportunity to return to his scholarly studies, but I know he’s disappointed!”
Eve put a hoof on her shoulder. “I think he’ll be happy as a stay-at-home dad. I don’t think you’d be happy if you gave all this up.”
“But I-”
“It was a mistake both of you made. You have to think about both of you,” Eve said, smiling.
“It’s a balance,” Daniel admitted.
Renee nodded in understanding. “…Your life is about to get quite rocky, Nova. But we’ll be there alongside you. Daniel and I know a thing or two about making a marriage work. We can help you.”
“Jotaro too,” Pinkie said, gesturing at the huge man. “Don’t underestimate him.”
“I… I know,” Nova said, a smile coming to her face. “You all… Thank you.”
Eve pulled everyone into a group hug that became more of a group dogpile.
Pinkie was the first to speak. “Well, I have another wedding to start planning!”
“Now now, Pinkie, I’m not the one getting married this time,” Renee said coyly. “I have a few ideas this time.”
“Psh, you already got your wedding. Plus you designed like half of it against my wishes. We also need to get this done fast for their sake – no dilly-dallying for a few months like you and Daniel did. We gotta mush mush!”
As Renee and Pinkie delved deeper and deeper into ‘planning’, Eve put a hoof around Nova.
“Sometimes I wish I was as strong as you,” Eve said.
“…What?”
“To just come out and say things. There are times in the past where… Well, everything would have been better if I just said something.”
“…Are you okay?”
“I talked to a version of myself who knew just about everything and told me more than she was supposed to. So not really. But I’ll be working that out with Pinkie, you can worry about your own problems.”
Nova nodded. “Yeah… Problems.”
“Hey. You made a mistake. Forgive yourself.”
Nova wiped her eyes. “…Thanks, Evening.”
“Anytime,” Eve said, hugging her closer. “As long as I’m able.”