And Odd Kind Of Game
It was less than a week before I got a reply to the letter I sent to my parents, though the reply was not a letter, but a direct visit. Just as I got home from work I saw the familiar figured of Mom and Dad flying up to my door.
"Seth! It's been years! How have you been!" My dad joked in a very similar manner to Discord's own mockery.
"It's only been a few months. What are you doing here?"
"Well, we got your letter, and since we were coming this way anyway for one of my business trips, I thought I'd stop in. Now, I knew you'd be fine but your mother was such a worry wort that...." Mom elbowed dad in the ribs, hard. "... we've been following you since you left."
"I would ask why, but given what I found out about your past I think I know the answer." I glared. "Because of who you are, you were afraid I might be targeted. wouldn't I be better off knowing? Wouldn't I be better off being aware of the possible dangers?
"We just wanted you to have a normal life Seth." Mom explained, "Despite that, we made sure to teach you quite a few useful things, didn't we? How to control your shadow manipulation, how do use barriers and healing magic, along with other utilities. We wanted you to know how to protect yourself, being prepared for threats without looking over your shoulder in fear of them."
So, we sat down at my cloud table, poured some coffee, and they began explaining everything in detail, about how he wasn't originally from this dimension, something I'd have difficulty believing had I not known for a fact it were possible, what with Sombra living inside a book and my own dimensional severance spell.
"I'll be honest son, back then.... I was completely bonkers. A proper nutcase. Arrogance, self importance, hypocrisy. I had lived a life where I was always at the bottom, and having gotten a taste of being at the top, I got drunk on it. Took another psychopath beating the hell out of me to make me snap out of it. That being said, what I did had purpose. Being irrational and unpredictable means people can't plan around you, and making myself out to be some sort of monster or demon intimidates people, which makes them much less likely to fight. To say I didn't enjoy it would be a lie, one which I often told myself." He actually seemed a little sad when he recounted this part. To realize that you enjoy fighting and being hurt is a rather sad thing, isn't it? "For a while I even believed it. I think I came to the realization during one of my.... business trips."
Dad would go on a business trip twice or three times a year. Usually on summer vacation and winter holidays, and sometimes on spring break, when school was out and he didn't have to teach at the academy. He'd go away for a week or so, then come back looking refreshed.
"Dad, what do you actually DO on your business trips? Don't try and give me some mundane answer either."
"Well, you know I teach at the Signal Warmage Academy. You didn't think it was all theoretical, did you?" He asked.
"Obviously not." I replied.
"Well, theoretical knowledge needs practical application, and practice, and training. A sword left to rust gets dull. A great deal of the peace of the current era is based on the strength of those who maintain it. If I let myself get dull, things could start to crumble. So, how do I practice fighting on that scale without hurting anyone, or letting people find out?"
"I'm not sure." To my answer, he took out a scroll, lit a fire in his claw and burned it. Muttering something under his breath, the smoke turned to wisps that flew out the window towards Canterlot.
"Stand over here, next to me. We're going to teleport in a couple minutes."
About 10 minutes passed before a wisp of purple smoke flew in through the window and wrapped itself around father, mother, and myself. There was a loud 'pop' and we found ourselves in a barren wasteland, devoid of life. The only features of the landscape where craters, jutting, jagged rocks, and a pair of ruined castles.
"Welcome to the Badlands Seth. About a decade ago there used to be a changeling hive here, before the old queen decided to be a bitch and ruin everything. If she needed more she could have just... no... That's not why we're here." Looking around there was only one other figure in this place, one who I had not met, but recognized as Princess Luna.
"Summer is almost over! Here I was thinking you were going to skip our session!" The dark mare boomed.
"Not a chance. Oh, I brought Gilda and, you know my son Seth, right? He'll be watching as well this time." Dad replied.
"So then, I take it you've finally told him?"
"Yeah, he knows, though I don't think he knows the extent of what we did so, I figured it would be best for him to see for himself."
"He knows protection spells yes?"
"What kind of unloving, irresponsible father do you take me for? Of course he does! He'll be fine, so don't worry, we won't have to hold back."
"By all means, continue talking about me as though I am not here." I interrupted.
"Oh... my sincerest apologies. It is nice to meet you Seth, I am Princess Luna. My excitement is no excuse for poor manners. Please move to the viewing area over there." She pointed to a trench with some dirt barricades. "Remain in the trench for the entire duration, and do not falter in your protection spells." She then turned back to addressing dad. "What shall we play today?"
"I was thinking we'd start with tag, have a quick breather, then follow it up with catch. I was thinking you'd be it."
"Which 'Ball' should we use for catch?"
"Lets not do the biggest one, how about M 23?" Dad suggested.
"Sounds good."
Mom and I took our positions in the trench, only our heads poking out above ground. Dad and Luna took positions opposite one another, a fair distance apart.
"Ready?" Mom shouted. "Set! GO!" In a blur of motion, Luna darted towards dad, reaching out a hoof to strike him. He nimbly jumped to the side with grace one would not expect from someone his size, like his legs were made of springs and his entire body weighed no more than a feather. A red mist spilled off of him, leaving behind pinkish clouds wherever he traveled as he continued to dodge the ponys strikes.
"Your dad is using telekinesis on his entire body. Normally your brain fires a signal to your nerves, which activate your muscles, which move your body. He's using magic to directly move his body along with normal movement, making him faster and limiting the effects of inertia. He's also letting his magic spill out into the surrounding area. Since it's still a part of him, it increases his awareness and interferes with his opponents spells, making them expend much more effort to cast. While she tries to catch him, he's making a net to snare her."
Luna backed away and charged a glow at her horn, firing a barrage of magical bolts. As the shots entered the fog of fathers magic, he reacted to them, dodging them effortlessly.
"Are you not trying, or have you just gotten slow?" He taunted.
"It's important to warm up first. I've been sitting on my rump in the castle for most of the day, I can't just go all out from the start." She picked up the pace, then the magic surrounding her horn began to flicker. She blinked out of existence, then reappeared elsewhere. The glow returned to normal as she fired a bolt, then flickered, teleporting again, then another bolt, then teleport. The two different glows on her horn, one coinciding with the magic bolt, the other, with the teleport spell, blinking faster and faster. Soon she was teleporting so quickly that it was hard to keep track of her, and that is me from a distance. If dad could keep track in the midst of it, would be astounding.
"So, at this point your dad can't keep track of her anymore." Oh. "But he can still dodge. He looks ahead. If he doesn't see her, he moves in that direction and rotates. If he still doesn't see her, he moves in one of the empty directions and rotates again, and he keeps going until he can spot her again. This entire time, he's trying to work out her pattern to predict where she'll show up next, then he'll fire a shot at that location. As her thoughts become more automatic, from the sheer speed of repeating the pattern, she becomes more predictable. At that moment your dad will take his shot."
Their dance in the sky, with her barrage of shots and his nimble dodging, continued for almost ten minutes before a heavy beam of energy fired out, lighting up the evening sky. At that moment, dad got hit in the back by a magic bolt and tumbled out of the sky, righting himself before he hit the ground.
"FUCK." He shouted. "Alright, we'll take a break now, you guys come on out."
"So, what happened? It was so fast I could barely keep track of it." I asked.
"Well, obviously, I got hit. Luna, did I get you?"
"Nope." She replied, smug.
"Are you SUUUUUURE?" Dad questioned with childlike glee. He reached out a claw and plucked a few strands of her mane that were clearly burnt on the ends.
"Oh come on, it only counts if it's a direct hit, we both know mane hits don't count." Luna pouted.
"Alright, fine, it's your win." Luna clapped her hooves in excitement. "What is that, 5/30?" Dad asked.
"No, you won 2 summers ago, it's 6/30."
"Ah! You're right. That was just luck though, I've never been able to handle fast opponents." He bopped her on the nose. "I'll get you next time though."
"Suuuuure you will."
"So.... this is the kind of relationship you have with the princessess? You come out here two or three times a year and do this?" I asked.
"Well, it's not always tag. Sometimes we beat each other up. Sometimes we make... sand castles." He looked over at one of the ruined forts. "And then we try to knock down each other's fort without losing our own. We also like to play 'catch', which you'll see shortly. So, Seth, did you know the badlands here used to have a lot of small mountains?"
"No I did not.... You didn't."
"We did."
"Well, where are they now?" Dad looked to Luna, she looked to him, they both looked at mom, who nodded.
"So... you know I told you about how a long time ago there were apocalyptic type events happening basically every week right? Well, we decided what if we made preparations to deal with them? Like, if something big were to show up, we could deal with it quickly?"
"Dad, where are the mountains?"
"So, your mother and I got to brainstorming, and we had this idea, which we told Luna, and she liked it so..."
"Dad what did you do."
"We got to thinking 'What if we could just bomb the hell out of whatever shows up? Some big nasty comes knocking, we lure it to a fairly open place and then...."
"Dad."
"..... drop a mountain on it." I facepalmed. "I mean come on, we haven't actually had to do it! We've just made preparations."
"Dad... you said you were going to play catch, and the ball would be M 23. Don't tell me M stands for mountain."
"Seth, M stands for mountain."
"YOU PUT A MOUNTAIN IN ORBIT?!?!?!!? And not just one, AT LEAST TWENTY THREE! And you're going to drop one on yourself, FOR FUN!"
"Well son when you say it like that..."
"How do you even...."
"Seth." Mom walked up beside me. "When dealing with your father, the best course of action is to throw common sense out the window. He has none, and it doesn't apply to him."
"And he's dragged the princess along with his insanity?!?"
"Hey, it's not that crazy, she moves the moon on a daily basis." Dad stated in his defense.
"I think I'm gonna go sit in the trench for a while."
And that's what I did. I sat in the trench and watched as Princess Luna pulled a massive chunk of rock, the size of a castle, out of the sky. The clouds parted and the ball of stone blazed on re-entry. Dad reached out with his magic, the red mist forming a great pair of hands that clasped the massive stone, then threw it at Luna, who caught it in her own magic. Then she and my dad would toss it back and forth, taunting each other to 'Don't drop the ball', while laughing like children, before they worked together to put it back into orbit.
After a while, they both came over, looking tired, and sat down next to mom and I.
"So Seth, do you understand now why I wanted to keep this sort of thing a secret? Do you think you could have had a chance at a normal life if you'd known that this is who, and what, I am?"
"My father plays catch with a princess, using a castle sized rock as a ball. He giggles like a child as they beat the stuffing out of each other."
"Correct." My dad replied.
"My mother is a terrible judge of character who married a lunatic"
"Also true." she stated.
"And I am?" I asked.
"Whoever you want to be son. That was the point. No matter who WE are, the point was that you get to choose who YOU want to be. You can live a normal life, go to school, have a normal job, meet a normal girl, have a normal family. Or, you can be just as bizarre and abnormal as we are. My father back in the other world was an abusive drunk and my mom was a promiscuous waitress. I am neither of those things. Your mother is the child of slaves. She is not one. We are not defined by our lineage, by who we come from, we can come from greatness, or mediocrity. While that does have some bearing on who we become, it can only do so IF we let it define us. It is our ACTIONS that make us who we are. Celestia and Luna were not born Alicorns, and yet they became them, and the leaders of Equestria. Yes, I, and you as well, are descendants of Hades, but so was my father and he did nothing with that. Many others have 'greatness in their blood' or whatever, but do nothing with it, or don't even know they have it. Someone 'being great' to begin with comes from that person DOING something worthwhile, and that isn't something you inherit. I am the king of the New Dominion not because my father or grand father or great grand father, but because of my own actions. You are the son of the king, and yet you are not a prince. The country is a democracy governed by a council of those trusted by the people. If you become a 'king' is entirely up to you and your choices, and what you become a 'king' of is also up to your choices. You could be the king of a country or, if you so choose, you could become the king of afternoon naps."
"So then.... none of this matters at all? Who you are, what you've done, your history, everything you showed and told me today is pointless?"
All three of them looked to me and, in unison, said,
"Yep!"
After teleporting home, Mom and Dad prepared for their trip back to Signal. They stayed the night at a hotel in Cloudsdale, then headed out the next morning after saying farewell. There was only a few days left before summer vacation would end and I'd begin class at Twilights school. I had began this trip to figure out what I wanted to do with my life but it was my own parents who gave me the answer.
Whatever I want.
Fin