//------------------------------// // Swarm of the Century // Story: The Everlasting Hope // by Plasmadon //------------------------------// Chapter 9: Swarm of the Century WARNING! Two songs are in this chapter, so… yeah. I awoke to the faint smell of apples. I turned my head, trying to process what happened last night, when I found orange obscuring my view. My mind raced as I remembered the kiss. Well, that settled it. I officially LOVE Equestria. I tried to slip out from under AJ’s grip, but she squeezed me in her sleep, drawing me tighter. I tried a kiss, but even that wouldn’t wake her. Okay. Teenage boy in a land full of talking animals with a hot girl clinging to him? If I didn’t have to use the toilet, that thought alone would’ve made my effing day. I spent the next fifteen minutes slowly extricating myself from AJ’s grip and rushed to the bathroom. Yeah, let’s skip ahead. You probably don’t wanna read about what happens in there. Thirty minutes later, I emerged, feeling relatively cleaner and with less of my bowel space filled. Going to the kitchen, I started working on my breakfast specialty: omelets! Flipping eggs in a pan, I heard a small yawn from behind me. “Morning, AB,” I whispered, not looking back. “Mornin’, Andrew,” she squeaked back. “Mah sister still in the livin’ room?” I nodded. “You have nightmares about the Angels, I guess?” “How’d yah know?” I turned to her, the memory of “Blink” still in my head. “Because I did too the first time I saw them. Be wary around town, Applebloom. Tell me if any statues move around too often, or if somepony goes suddenly missing.” She nodded, and I went back to making omelets. Applebloom left, and another pony took her place. “Mornin’, Andrew,” AJ said from behind me. She stifled a yawn. “Mornin’ gorgeous,” I said back. I could feel, rather than see, the blush on her face as she sat at the table. “So…” she stammered. “Yah… remember last night… huh?” I flipped five completed omelets onto their respective plates and magicked them to the table. As I passed, I gave her a swift kiss on the cheek, making her blush deepen even more. “Yeah, and you know what? It was one of the best nights I’ve had in a while.” I swear to God, if you readers get the wrong idea of that… AJ herself breathed a sigh of relief. “So, yer not mad?” “Why the hay would I be mad, AJ?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I pretended to count with my non-existent fingers. “Let’s see. One, you’re beautiful. Two, you’re caring. Three, you’re honest. Four, you are , quite frankly, an amazing kisser.” I decided to stop there, as AJ looked like her face was going to explode with redness. “I could go on for the rest of the day and describe the things that make you awesome. And not one of them would get me even remotely pissed off.” I backed off, realizing AJ seriously looked like she was going to pass out. I rounded up the rest of the family for breakfast. As usual, it only took about two seconds to get Applebloom downstairs. Big Mac was a light (and very paranoid) sleeper, so I wasn’t surprised that he was already awake. Granny Smith was the trickiest. In the end, I blew a foghorn in her general direction to wake her up, with mixed results. Once we were all seated at the table, I reviewed the plan for the day. “Alright, applebucking with AJ until noon. Big Mac, you said you wanted more wood to replace the doors to the barn?” he nodded. “After that, I help Applebloom and her friends try to earn their Cutie Marks.” Applebloom nodded this time. “Okay, last but not least, school time. I promised Cheerilee I’d help the unicorns with their magic.” I finished my omelet, and with one swift motion, got out of my chair and jumped through a window to get started applebucking. About two hours later, I was gulping lemonade by the quart and soaked in a sheen of sweat. You ever need exercise? Screw the gym. Try kicking five hundred trees until all the apples fall off. A passing Rainbow Dash thankfully kicked a storm cloud over my head, hitting me with a torrent of water and cleaning me off quite nicely. Next, to hit the shed. I got the wood, and with newly developed strength (I’m serious. Those trees work miracles for your body), hauled all of them back to Big Mac in one load. After that, it was my time with the kids. In other words, me being used as a test dummy while they did everything short of pouring radioactive waste over me. Seriously, we did a lot of dangerous stuff today. Deep-sea diving, blasting, drug-trafficking investigation. Anything that involved some form of danger, we did it. But besides that, nothing much happened. Probably the biggest shock of the day, however, came from Scootaloo. When I was escorting them to school, she buzzed up behind me and jumped on my back. “Thanks, big bro,” she said. That comment alone quite literally made my day. In fact, I realized something for the first time: Scootaloo was basically Sarah, but littler and orange. A warm smile touched my face. “No problem, little sis.” Second biggest shock of the day: trying to teach four unicorn foals how to control magic when it’s already haywire. Cheerilee welcomed me with a small smile and ushered me into the schoolhouse. Can I just say one thing in advance: so many bleeping colors. Seriously, these foals were like a demented, ultra happy rainbow. “Everypony, calm down,” Cheerilee said in a bright voice. “This is Dusk. He’s going to be teaching the unicorns how to better control their magic for the day, while the earth ponies will stay with me. The pegasi are going to be taught by miss Rainbow Dash.” Rainbow zoomed into the building and landed next to me. I grinned. “Rainbow,” I whispered just loudly enough for her to hear, “Don’t cause too much property damage. They’re only kids, after all.” A quick thought crossed my mind. “Oh, and don’t treat them like badly. Especially Scoots. I am not having my little sister degraded.” Rainbow looked stunned. She leaned over to me and whispered back. “You guys adopted her?” there was a twinge of sadness in her voice. “No, but she called me ‘big bro’ this morning, and I feel the same way. She pretty much is the sister I wished would come back.” I left it at that and brought the unicorns to a secluded clearing near the edge of the forest. “Now, you’re all here to learn about magic. First thing’s first: can anypony actually use magic yet?” I asked. No one raised their hooves. “Good. That makes my job one hay of a lot harder, and I love hard work.” I started pacing back and forth. I noticed the kids were staring at me with strange looks. “Um, Dusk?” a bluish colt asked. “Aren’t you gonna be teaching us?” I nodded. “Yes, but there’s a special teacher I’m waiting on. Ah, here she is now.” A familiar wolfish shape formed in the shadows. Starlight popped out of the trees, shaking her fur. “Ugh, I hate smoke-travels. Always pop my ears.” She stopped to look at three terrified foals and an excited filly. “Hello, all. Hello, miss Belle.” She tipped her head towards Sweetie Belle, who waved back. “Aw, come on, guys,” I coaxed. “I know she may not be much of a looker, but she ain’t that bad!” I dodged a swipe from Star and danced backward, laughing. Once everypony had calmed down, I began again. “Alright. There are two parts to this lesson: actually unlocking your magic, and then taking control of it. I prefer to do these separately, but only because the magic is more uncontrollable when combining these two.” I summoned the Keyblade. “Now, this is a shortcut, but I won’t use it unless absolutely necessary. The key to unlocking your magic is actually understanding magic itself. Can anypony tell me what magic is?” The blue colt raised his hoof. I pointed at him. “Archer, you’re up.” “Magic’s the energy all ponies absorb from the planet’s core, Gaea, right?” “Correct, Archie. Now, Gaea is, in itself, a living being. Think of her as… the ultimate alicorn. That much energy, super-compressed and spinning at extremely high speeds, mutates very easily. Now, about five, maybe six thousand years ago, Gaea began to give off huge amounts of energy. Nopony knows why, but most theories point to the fact that she just couldn’t build up any more power. The unicorns were hit by this the most heavily, and so we’re the ones that can use magic.” I rubbed my hooves together. “Now, let’s move on to practice. Star will be the one who teaches you to unlock your magic, and I will help you master it.” And so, the lesson began. After some concentration, all four unicorns were able to let their magic flow. The interesting part was that it manifested as different runes: one for fire, one for flight, one for emotion, and the last for music. Then we got to the magic mastery, and things got a little… explosive. Turns out, Archer was very good at handling blast spells. I wasn’t sure what Dinky was doing, but whenever she was nearby, I began to get this uneasiness in my gut. Probably an instinct-twisting spell. The third unicorn, Blaze, wasn’t very surprising. Guess what? Fire! It was actually Sweetie Belle that was having the most trouble. I found her straining on a rock, struggling to redirect the flow of magic to her will. She gave up, panting, and looked at me with tears in her eyes. “I’ll never get it,” she moped. I placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder. “Sweetie Belle, I have an idea. Something that’ll calm you down.” I pulled my guitar out of thin air and adjusted a knob. “Damn space-travel. Always bends it out of tune.” Sweetie made a sad laugh. I started strumming again. “Beauty queen of only eighteen, she had some trouble with herself He was always there to help her she always belonged to someone else I walked for miles and miles and wound up at your door I’ve had you so many times but somehow I want more I don’t mind spending every day, out on your corner in the pourin’ rain Look for the girl with the broken smile, ask her if she wants to stay a while ‘Cause she will be loved, oh she will be loved Tap on my window, knock on my door I wanna make you feel beautiful I know I tend to get so insecure, but that don’t matter anymore It’s not always rainbow and butterflies, it’s compromise that moves us along My heart if full and my door is open You can come any time you want I don’t mind spending every day, out of your corner in the pourin’ rain Look for the girl with the broken smile, ask her if she wants to stay a while ‘Cause she will be loved, oh she will be loved And she will be loved And she will be loved I know where you hide alone in your home Know all of the things that make you who you are I know that goodbye means nothing at all Comes back and begs me to catch them every time they fall Yeah Tap on my window, knock on my door I wanna make you feel beautiful I don’t mind spending every day, out on your corner in the pourin’ rain Look for the girl with the broken smile, ask her if she wants to stay a while And she will be loved, And she will be loved, And she will be loved, And she will be loved.” As usual, Sweetie’s flawless voice captivated all those around her. This time, though, it was different. The notes were laced with extremely subtle hints of magic; so subtle, in fact, I doubt Rarity or Twilight would be able to catch it. The music twisted the laws of nature. The trees swayed, though no wind was blowing. The grass was growing at an alarming rate, and the other three unicorns stared at her with half-conscious smiles. “Sweetie Belle, I think we just found your control,” I said. Sweetie stared at me for a second, then with a massive smile, jumped on me and hugged me. Beautiful moment, right? Well, it was all ruined by the damn parasprites. There was an explosion of sound, like hundreds of ponies screaming in agony at once. The unicorns snapped out of their trance in time to dash for their homes. Sweetie, Starlight and I raced back to town to see what the commotion was all about. In the town square, hundreds of little multicolored flies were buzzing around and eating things. Cake, veggies, anything that was related to food and was dead, they ate. Whenever they swallowed something, however, they multiplied. Now I was starting to see what kind of threat these things were. “Twilight, what’s going on?!” I yelled to a passing lavender unicorn. She turned. “Fluttershy found these things in the Everfree and now they won’t stop eating!” she yelled back. I ran around town, helping out as many ponies as I could. Twilight found me barricading a bunch of them in a bucket. “Andrew, I’m going to try a spell to make them stop eating!” she shouted. I nodded. “Just make sure it doesn’t end up like last time!” I called back. She blushed a little and set to work on a spell. If I know Twi, there’s gonna be some collateral damage… And I was right. Twilight’s spell worked perfectly. The parasprites turned away from any and all food. The only problem was, they started to eat everything else instead. Houses and trees were devoured instantly. The ponies running around town were screaming with terror. And Vael was enjoying every last second of it. “Can you shut up for a second?” I asked myself. “I’m trying to concentrate.” I tried to focus, but a horrible thought crept into my mind. “The Acres…” I whispered in horror. I quickly teleported. Sweet Apple Acres was a complete disaster. Apples were half-eaten on the trees, parasprites were everywhere, and the house was in tatters. AJ was running around with Big Mac, trying unsuccessfully to protect their property. “ENOUGH!” I shouted. Magic buzzed through me like a storm, and a golden wave of light flashed from my horn. Everywhere in a two mile radius, the parasprites froze and dropped to the ground. With another burst of magic, the apples and the house were once again normal. I stalked up to the nearest parasprites. Though its body was unmoving, its eyes were wide with terror. “Listen to me, you insolent little bastard,” I hissed. “If you or your friends even come close to this farm in the future, there will be consequences. Understood?” the parasprite’s eyes bobbed up and down in agreement. I released the stunning spell, and the insects zoomed into the Everfree faster than you can say “nuisance”. The rush of magic left me dizzy and nauseous. I grabbed the nearest empty bucket from its tree and vomited in it. Spitting the taste of bile out of my mouth, I turned to the gaping Apple family. “If I ever do that again, you have free permission to buck me from here to Ponyville for being such an idiot,” I told them. Big Mac just kept staring while AJ grinned. “What in the hay happened here?” a voice asked from behind me. Applebloom was sitting at the gate, her head cocked to the side with a quizzical expression. “Wasn’t there weird critters like the ones in town over here?” “Applebloom, let’s just say I got the good end of the bargain with those cheeky gits.” I turned to the house. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if stomach acid reacts with baking soda.” I turned back to the house. Stomach acid + Baking Soda: not a very good idea. It explodes. Violently. So, after cleaning up the kitchen and brushing the taste out of my mouth, I returned to the chaotic Ponyville. Twilight was apologizing profusely to everyone who would stop long enough to listen. As I rushed down to help, Pinkie whizzed by. I caught her by the tail (it really DID taste like cotton candy!). “Pinkie, where are you going?” I asked mildly. “I have to find a trombone, quick!” Okay. “Casting the total randomness of that statement aside, why do you need a trombone?” “Silly!” Pinkie exclaimed with her usual smile. “Everypony knows that parasprites love music. I wonder if they love cupcakes. I saw a few eating a tray of cupcakes in my kitchen, you know.” As Pinks rambled on, the dots slowly connected in my head. “Pinkamena Diane Pie, you are a frigging genius!” I shouted, pulling Pinkie into a hug. “Go find the rest of those instruments. I know somepony who can help.” She nodded, saluted and then dashed off. Running back through town, I quickly weaved my way to Rarity’s boutique. Flinging open the door, I completely disregarded Rarity and headed straight for Sweetie Belle’s room. “Sweetie Belle!” I shouted when I opened the door. She came rushing up to me. “No time to explain. Grab on!” she clung to my foreleg as I teleported. Reaching the other side of town in less than ten seconds? No problem. Call on Rainbow Dash or Andrew for all your speedy needs. Pinkie was waiting for us just outside of town. She had a one-man band getup: accordion, trombone, snare drum, etc. I pulled out my second favorite instrument and tested it. “You play sax?” Pinkie asked me. Sure enough, there was a beauteous gold saxophone in my hooves. “What can I say? I like jazz.” I tossed it back into the crack in reality and pulled out my guitar. “Ah, there we go. Alright, we’re ready. Sweetie, when I start playing, sing, alright?” she nodded. I twisted a knob and began. “I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known Don’t know where it goes, but it’s home to me and I walk alone I walk this empty street, on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams Where the city sleeps, and I’m the only one and I walk alone And I walk alone, and I walk alone And I walk alone, and I walk a- My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me But till then I walk alone I’m walking down the line that divides me somewhere in my mind On the border line of the edge is where I walk alone Read between the lines, what’s screwed up and everything’s alright Check my vital signs to know I’m still alive Then I’ll walk alone And I walk alone, and I walk alone And I walk alone, and I walk a- My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me But till then I walk alone I walk alone, I walk a- I walk this empty street, on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams Where the city sleeps, and I’m the only one and I walk a- My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me But till then I walk alone” Ah, the joys that song can bring you, even when you’re crying. The parasprites themselves were so moved that they went single-file down the street and Pinkie, Sweetie and I passed. We led them deep into the Everfree Forest, to a clearing I knew well; it was t place Vael went berserk twice a month. All around the clearing there were shattered boulder, uprooted trees, even a bloody manticore carcass. “Oh, dear,” I said quietly. “I hope that wasn’t Leroy.” “Who’s Leroy?” Pinkie asked excitedly. “Ooh, can we throw him a party?” “Leroy was that manticore that Nightmare Moon attacked back in chapter 1, Pinks.” “Ooh! Does that mean we can throw his ghost a party?” Pinkie asked. Damn that exuberant attitude. “Fine. We can throw Leroy’s ghost a party. It better be a freaking good one, though.” I was aware that I didn’t just say damn. Oh well, it must be those “never cuss around children” instincts. Believe me, I’ve already gotten into enough trouble like that. “Now, we must escort the savior of Ponyville back to her home!” I shouted in mock glory. Sweetie laughed and hit me on the shoulder. How come all the girls in this town can throw the deadliest punches in history? Must be something to do with the hooves. I headed back towards Carousel Boutique with Sweetie. Rarity was half demonically enraged that I would drag her into the Everfree without prior knowledge, half kissing the ground at my feet for bringing her back safe. “Rarity, you’re worrying me. I was under the impression that you and AJ were the only ponies in our little clique who didn’t have their bipolar moments.” Running away as fast as I could to get away from the constant mood swings of Rarity, I dashed back to AJ’s farm as the sun set over the sky. I teleported my way onto the roof and fell asleep. I know it’s an anticlimactic end to the day, but come on! There were two songs in this chapter, I had to explain magic to four kids, I had to help lead a horde of parasprites away from the town, and on top it all off, I was working my ass off in the morning. In other words, I was tired. Goodnight.