//------------------------------// // 27 Back to Normal // Story: The Line Between Fire and Light // by Stolenalicorn //------------------------------// Winter was still thick in New Guardia when Rainbow Dash looked out the window as she entered through Twilight's door. She and Scootaloo had come to invite James to help them out with Winter Wrap-up in a few days, it wasn't fun but he needed to remember that his friends cared. And Scootaloo hadn't seen him in a month. Rainbow Dash had seen him put on a smile for everyone but there was no fooling her Lucca or Tali, he was still bothered by what he had to do. Lucca had told them that James's schedule was empty today, and that Amber and Sara were having a sleep over with their friends. It wasn't hard to find James, he was sitting in his study staring at the wall. He didn't even notice as the two ponies walked in. “You working on something?” Scootaloo asked as she looked up at James. Immediately James smiled before he looked to the small pegasus. “Nah, just sitting here thinking too much.” While his tone and smile seemed right, Rainbow Dash could still tell it was a put on. “Well, why not do something fun?” Scootaloo asked happily. Her joy and enthusiasm were contagious as James continued to look at her. “Sure, what did you have in mind?” He said as he relaxed and really smiled. Scootaloo gave James a confused look as she heard the question. “Me?” James gave a quick chuckle. “Yeah, you suggested it. You have any fun ideas?” “Well if we had more ponies we could play Buckball. Oh, there's still snow, we can go sledding!” She happily offered. James shrugged as he smiled down at the excitable pony. “Sure, and I know a good hill for it nearby.” “Great, I'll go get my sled!” Scootaloo offered as she ran out of the study. James and Rainbow Dash watched her run off and smiled. With this brief moment alone Rainbow Dash turned to James. “You've gotta stop beating your self up over this James.” James shook his head as he regarded her. “It was one choice that separates me from him. That's how close I am to hurting everyone.” “Yeah, so what? He's not you, you didn't make that choice. And now you're faced with another choice. Either you can keep obsessing about this, worrying about what you may do. Or you can let it go, and focus on what you can do!” Rainbow Dash said as she walked in front of James and looked him in the eye. “I've heard your stories, I know you can do awesome things. You just have to decide to be awesome!” Her glare pierced him, though he didn't know why. He felt that if she knew him better she wouldn't try so hard to make him happy, but he was still glad she was there and that she still had confidence in him. It wasn't long until Scootaloo returned wearing a scarf and dragging her sled behind her. “So James, do you have any new stories?” She asked while she walked beside James as he collected his own sled from a nearby closet. They were all trying to help him, even Scootaloo although she probably didn't realize it. And Rainbow Dash was right, what he needed to do was make a decision to be better than he could have been, and better than we was now. James grinned down at her. “Well there is a book you'd probably like if you want to hear it.” Once the stars came out they all returned to the castle and continued to James's den where Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash sat near the hearth drinking their hot chocolate as James sat in his arm chair reading a story from his library aloud. Lucca and Tali sat on the couch listening along with the others. It felt good to be doing this, though he did wish that his daughters were there as well. “Alright, I think that's it for now.” James said as he closed the book. “Wait what? But things were getting good.” Scootaloo complained. “Yeah, I want to hear how he handles Fezzik. He can't just get hit by that rock!” Rainbow Dash eagerly said. “Yeah, but it's one thirty in the morning here.” James said with a smile. “Oh.” Scootaloo said, embarrassed that they had kept him up this late. “Can we come back tomorrow and hear more?” She then asked excitedly. James nodded and looked to her. “As you wish.” James Lucca and Tali watched as the two ponies walked away. “That was sweet, James.” Tali said. “You really care about them, don't you?” James quietly nodded as he turned back to his wives. “I never would have believed it years ago.” He said with a chuckle. “I would have.” Lucca said as she hugged him. “You always find something to care about.” “Would have been nice if Amber and Sara were here too.” He said as he looked to the low burning fire. “I know they love this story.” The next day brought a surprise as not only Scootaloo but Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle arrived with Rainbow Dash. Even more of a surprise was Twilight Spike and Applejack joining them shortly after, followed by Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Starlight. “Quite the gathering today.” James commented as he looked at the group gathered in his den. Rainbow Dash smiled as she looked to James. “Yeah. Scoot and I may have talked the book up a bit.” James chuckled as he looked to Scootaloo. “You know, with everyone else here I'll have to start from the beginning.” Scootaloo eagerly nodded as her tail vigorously swished from side to side. “Uh huh.” James smiled at the excited pony before turning back to the rest of the group. “Okay. Just so everyone else knows this story was written as the author retelling a story he heard as a child. He didn't actually hear it as a child, it's all original he just wanted to have some fun with the idea. There will be some interesting breaks while the author comments on the story.” James took the first few minutes getting drinks for everyone before lighting the fire and settling in to read. – – – – – – – – – – – – – While his schedule was no less weighty, James found that more and more often he and his family were being invited to events both formal and casual in Equestria. And that the ponies were becoming more regular visitors to his castle and to Truce. Even welcoming all of the princesses at one time or another. Whether he intended to or not, he was ingrained in the goings on of Equestria. In a small town with only one street a cloaked figure appeared on a chilly spring night. The moon was obscured by a cloud to make this easier. James hoped that whatever pegasus was responsible for getting the clouds cleared away wouldn't get in any trouble for this. He didn't exactly know if his moving it there would even have been considered a problem, he didn't ask. James looked around, as he suspected Starlight's house had been taken down in her absence and a sapling had been planted. He had a plan around this, but the ponies may be startled to find the sudden growth. His omnitool blinked to life and executed it's specifically programmed genetic modification function. James carefully placed a small branch against it as a genetic sample followed by a small red seed. It's been over twenty years since I've done this. I hope I still remember how. James thought as he first scanned the branch. Once the scan was complete he picked up the branch and replaced it in his bag of holding. Alright, now you've already replaced the omnigel with the special medigel. So this should only take a couple minutes. James thought to himself as he brought the microfacturing component of his omnitool to the sapling's trunk. James watched as the Medigel container emptied, he couldn't help but hold his breath as he waited for the reaction. His breathing implant activated on it's own as James's lungs tried to draw breath, he didn't even notice as the discomfort in his chest wasn't caused by any physiological issue. Slowly the sapling began to glow faintly. He watched as the glow faded and his heart began to race. Had he messed this up somehow? He was ready with a replacement if it had, but he would rather make use of the natural flora. Almost in reaction to his concerns a small beam of light came from the tip of one of it's leaves to the ground. James knew the sign; it had worked and the tree was now online. He had several computer trees like this hidden throughout multiple universes. James placed his hand on the trunk and opened his mind, he heard the tree's first thoughts as it quickly acknowledged him. Hahen Nanatsu, James thought. Are you ready for the next step? James felt the tree's acknowledgment and he picked up the seed. Without any resistance the seed passed through the skin of the sapling, while not embedded in the wood the seed was certainly inside the tree. Alright. Now comes the interesting part. James knelt on the ground before the tree and placed his hands in front of the sapling. Quietly he began to whisper a spell he had a great deal of practice with. While he had developed the spell for this purpose it had gotten a prominent role in the yearly Christmas celebration. Points of light popped up from each leaf as the tree grew, both in size and complexity. Branches sprouted from the expanding trunk and those in turn split into more, each filled with leafs. A soft glow filled the area as the spell did it's work. Soon the tree was taller than any of the houses. It's wide, bark covered trunk supporting the large canopy above it. James stood and placed his hand directly on the trunk as he once again began to communicate with it. Protect yourself, protect the seed, and protect them. He calmly thought. He had several operations that the computer tree would perform in it's indefinite lifespan, including casual information gathering. But it's primary purpose was to protect the seed. One day someone would come for it and he needed to know it would be there. “What's going on?” Came a female voice from behind James. James jumped forward slightly as he had thought everyone was asleep. Quickly he checked to make sure his hood was over his head. From her vantage she may be able to see his mouth, but not his face and that was all he needed. James turned to face Night Glider as she looked up at him. Clearly she had just woken up, so it wasn't like she'd been watching him the whole time. “Sorry to wake you miss.” James carefully said as he made his voice gravely. “I was just checking on your marvelous tree here.” “That tree wasn't more than a sapling this evening, what happened?” She said as she walked past James to inspect it herself. “It's a special tree, her name is Hahen Nanatsu.” James said as he looked up into it's branches. “Her? Name? You mean this tree is a creature?” She asked astonished. “A very special tree. You may have difficulty communicating with her, but eventually you'll learn more about her. Just as she'll learn about you.” Several thin beams of light came from the leafs and touched the ground around the two. “She is quite pleased to meet you, miss. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time I move on. There's more of these wonderful trees for me to see yet.” James said as he carefully moved behind Night Glider and violently melted away. “Wait. I don't know anythi …” Night Glider turned to find she was the only one out this night. Well, her and the tree. There were a few small events that James attended as the spring months passed into summer. Nothing that seemed particularly important until things went unusually quiet one evening. While it certainly was unusual, it's not as thought it never happened. His first real hint that something was wrong was when an angry looking Fluttershy carefully stuck her head around the corner as she was apparently looking for someone. “Where am I?” Fluttershy(?) asked as she stepped into James's study. James may not have an implant for every conceivable situation he may have to deal with, but magical camouflage was one he at least had a tool for. “Just a moment.” He calmly said as he walked over to a drawer and collected a pair of glasses. Fluttershy(?) looked at him confused, for more than just his form. “Oh, there you are.” James said as he put his glasses of True Seeing on. It clearly showed him an Equestrian Changling as he looked her over. He allowed the glasses to slip down his nose slightly so he could keep an eye on their form. “I was beginning to think no one was going in for game.” He said emphatically. “I guess this means that everyone's at the castle so no point waiting around.” James ignored the imitation Fluttershy's pleas for him to let go of her as James lifted her up under his arm and walked back to Twilight's castle. Locking the door behind him. He would just have to use the Epoch to catch up on his work. “Come on, you love when I do this.” James happily lied. “Well, I don't like it right now.” The imposter said as she was carried through the halls, trying to spread her wings, kick him or anything to just be released from his grasp. “Well let's go ask everyone else how you feel about this.” James said wickedly laughing. It didn't take long for the other changelings to come to the commotion, and a few even laughed at the imposter Fluttershy's predicament. Their laughing only increased as James hoisted the imposter Rainbow Dash up similarly. James had to think, how was he going to distract seven imposters until Twilight returned. Ideally he would keep them in the castle, confused and ineffectual. *** As the door to Twilight's Castle opened Twilight, Starlight and Spike could hear laughter in the distance. Realizing that they never chased off the changelings in the castle Starlight prepared for a fight. They clearly hadn't heard about the change at the hive yet. They carefully followed the sound to the throne room where the door was open only a crack. More riotous laughter bust from the room as they approached. Twilight and Starlight gave each other a confused look as they carefully opened the door. They could easily see seven changelings sitting around the table with James sitting in a chair he clearly had taken from the dining room. “What's going on in here?” Twilight asked as she walked in, confounded by the scene. James turned around and motioned to Twilight. “Glad to see you.” He turned back to the group of changelings with a wide smile. “Told you guys. Now pay up, we had a bet.” The changelings grumbled as they each produced ten bits and tossed them on the table. James smiled as he collected the money before looking to the changeling in Spikes seat. “Alright Card Czar, call the winner.” He looked over the cards before looking back to James. He had just lost a bet to this guy he didn't want to let James win the game too. “A Box that is in fact not a box but a crate.” He read from the white card. James jumped up and knocked over the chair as he shouted. “Yes! I knew that would get you! I win the bet and the game!” James righted the chair as he sat back down. He took a deep breath as he smiled to the group. “Alright, back to the hive for you.” “Queen Chrysalis is not going to be happy about this.” One of them muttered as he stood up. “Queen Chrysalis isn't ruling the hive anymore.” Starlight said as she watched the scene. “Thorax is.” The changelings stopped and looked at her for a moment before breaking out into even harder laughter. “Okay James. Your friends are pretty fun. We'll have to play again sometime.” A third changeling said as he walked to the exit, a strange shimmer to his wings. “Gladly.” James said as he waved to them. Once the changelings had left the castle Twilight turned back to James as he cleaned the table. “So, what happened?” James didn't stop cleaning as he spoke. “Well, a changeling found it's way to my castle looking for Starlight. I caught it, brought it back and tried to think about how to distract them until you got back. Also called Lucca and Tali to handle Canterlot and the Crystal Empire respectively. I was getting to the point of just locking them up and calling it done when I thought about how Hawke and Varric might handle the situation. But I'm not good enough at any gambling card games to fleece them and keep them trying to get their money back, so I took a page from your book and made friends with them so I could keep them distracted a lot longer. Then I grabbed this game, Cards Against Humanity. I set aside this deck to play with my daughters. It's much cleaner and nicer than the real game.” “Cards against humanity?” Starlight asked. “Yep. Apples to Apples for terrible people. You need to be at least a little twisted to enjoy it. I just happen to be totally bent.” James said with a smile. “So how was your trip?” It wasn't long before Starlight's award ceremony, James came with his family polymorphed and ready to blend in. Even polymorphed he easily mingled and defeated Discords questioning as to why he hadn't joined the crew of misfits. At Twilight's request he spoke at length with Thorax and offered him some advice, including the importance of morale and being approachable to those he leads. He politely congratulated Trixie and listened as Twilight had a nervous meltdown. And decidedly stayed out of the way as Pinkie Pie cleaned up. – – – – – – – – – – – – – Starlight seemed unusually excited as she ran into the library. “Twilight!” She happily exclaimed. “I just realized why James was excited for us to play Minecraft.” “Because he loves the game.” Twilight had no idea what she could mean as that was the reason she had that as her friendship lesson. “No. He likes it, but he certainly doesn't love it. There's games he likes much better that he plays with Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo. Come on, I'll show you what I found.” Starlight eagerly said as she ran off. Twilight followed slowly behind. “It's the middle of the night Starlight. I don't think we should be going there.” Starlight shook her head. “He doesn't care if we're here at night, like Spike he just doesn't want to be woken up. Come on.” Twilight whispered as she followed Starlight into the dark halls. “Well you could at least explain to me what you found.” “It's much more interesting to show you.” She whispered back as she led the way with her horn. It wasn't long before they stood in the corridor with the holosuites. Starlight cleared her throat before speaking clearly. “NG-Com, Game cabinet, two suites.” There was a brief pause before the doors opened up and they walked inside. Inside was a sight Twilight would have expected from a library, and certainly not a game cabinet. There were sections for different games: board games, card games, video games and more. She had never seen this before. As she walked along she remembered James's explanation that this was all illusion. Everything has a real counterpart, but where they were now was illusion. Starlight didn't strictly have to use the game cabinet, but she liked it. Happily she walked to the video game section and found Minecraft: NG edition. “Got it Twilight. This room's about to go away.” Twilight was still awed by the sight as she walked over to Starlight, who gave her one of the ear/eye pieces that let them play the game. Without warning they were standing on nothing as they looked over the last world the game had played. The one they had all played so long ago. Before long they were standing in the field between the houses they had each built. Starlight smiled as she looked to Twilight. “Okay, now what can you tell me about each building you see here?” She asked, her eyes bright in anticipation of telling her what she had discovered. “Just that we built them with the stuff from the game.” Twilight answered frankly. “Yes, but there's something about this that James liked seeing. Here, let's look at Fluttershy's. See her's is a small, well lit cottage with a lot of flowers in the front. Most of them transplanted from other parts of the field.” Starlight explained. “Alright. But that's Fluttershy. It's not like she's going to build some big showy building like Rarity did.” Twilight said calmly. “Exactly. And Applejack built a barn with a farm. You see, he can see what we built to get to know us better. You built a library, even though the only books in this game aren't ones you can read.” Starlight continued to smile as she explained her finding. “Okay, but James built something so small and plain it could go unnoticed.” Twilight said. “That's nothing like him.” Starlight opened the door and walked inside. “That's just the outside. See, just past the chest there's stairs going down. You can't see where they lead to from here so you just have to trust that you'll be fine if you delve deeper. That's when you get to the utilities. Bed, furnace, farm, a few comforts. Even this is telling. He's so used to being alone that the first thing he plans on is self sufficiency. But now there's more stairs down. Again, you can't see but now it's not because of a turn, it's because it goes so far you just can't see it. So you have to trust that you'll be fine to go down.” Starlight led Twilight down the stairs, the walk itself took minutes of just going down. Nothing but the descent. “And then you get to bedrock. You find James's made something actually nice in a place that it doesn't seem like it should be.” Twilight and Starlight looked into the massive cavern. Floating blocks with torches lined up perfectly as a whole forest of trees seemed to flourish in the unexpected environment. Many flowers like the ones outside were scattered amongst the trees and the grass covered dirt below them almost made them forget they were in a cavern. “This isn't even all.” Starlight said with a grin. “Here he's still working in the confines of the rules of the survival game. To really see what he's done you need to go to his creative world. That's where you find the most telling things. NG-Com, Arch.” As Starlight spoke an archway appeared behind her and she walked in. “Okay, Twilight. I'm switching worlds now.” Starlight found that she was getting more excited the closer she got to revealing what she had found. In an instant they were standing on a cliff by an ocean. Twilight looked around and saw that there had been a lot done here. Below the surface of the water was something glowing that she couldn't make out from this distance. There was a small floating island to her right with vines draping down to the water. A look up showed something like a walkway stretching into the horizon. “Come on, let's go see what James wants to build when he isn't trying to fend for himself.” Starlight took Twilight on what could only accurately be called a tour of what she had found already. Starting in the underwater habitat Twilight had seen as she first arrived. “Notice something that every major location has, Twilight?” Starlight asked smiling wide. Even if Starlight weren't obviously trying to point something out Twilight would have noticed it. “Each place has a neighborhood, a creepily similar neighborhood, but a neighborhood.” “Exactly.” Starlight said smiling. “He builds communities and massive farms to feed them. When he's alone all he wants is to have others around him. When there are others there he wants to be sure he's not a burden and able to help however they might need.” Twilight looked around the neighborhood they stood in now, and one thing stuck out clearly to her. “That was really observant Starlight.” “Well, once I saw the communities it wasn't hard to guess. He must have felt a lot like me at times to have built this all.” Starlight said as she walked down the street. Twilight kept pace beside her as they walked. “Well, he's got a lot more friends now.”