//------------------------------// // Dark Secrets // Story: Legends of Equestria: Hesturland // by The Blue EM2 //------------------------------// Meadowbrook's abode, for lack of a better word, looked an absolute mess. Papers, boxes of papers, books, piles of other written documents, and many other things were scattered about as they looked through them. "Ah," said Stygian, "here we have a document on the travel passes." "Travel passes?" Meadowbrook asked, confused. "When did we get those?" "Didn't you read the memo that I sent you?" Stygian asked. "No," Meadowbrook replied. "Ah was redrafting the redraft of the draft of a potion!" "Most unfortunate," Stygian sighed. "Though I suppose they could get away with calling it Louisiana Express, as travel passes rather do fly in the face of the idea of British liberty." "What's Britain?" Rockhoof asked, looking through another pile. "This is getting silly. This has far too much paper. It's like they're trying to do a deal here!" "Louisiana Express in return for relieving us from the memo mountain, the document lake, and the punch card ocean," Stygian sighed. "Does the state department always smother everything in red tape?" "Yes," Meadowbrook replied. "None of these documents have red tape on them," Rockhoof said. "Red tape is a figure o' speech for excessive beaureaucracy," Meadowbrook explained. "Government departments seem ta have loads of it for some odd reason." "I may have something here, but I daresay it's not massively comprehensible," Stygian noted. "Hearg sylfum se Ponhenge, wir gingen weiter Toward dol grimlic of Fola Firgenbeorg user endemest scield. Das beste elements innerhalb uns kann Ausbreitung Licht und virtue, und ich kennt ponies Wer represent Sie alle." He looked over. "I do apologise. My old Ponish is rather rusty. But there is this document that I think will be of interest to you." Meadowbrook took a look at the piece of paper that was now levitating in front of her face. "This is some text from the lost journal of Starswirl the Bearded!" she exclaimed. "This will be very useful for helpin' us ta figure out what is goin' on here!" "I see," said Rockhoof, who truth be told had no idea what was going on. "Fancy reading it to us?" "Ah can't read Old Ponish, only scholars can. Luckily, I do have this." Meadowbrook trotted over to her table where she kept many things, took the cork off a bottle, and ingested a substance of some description. After a few seconds of coughing, she went back over to the document, took a single look at it, and started to read it aloud. "At the Temple of Ponhenge, we kept going towards the base of Foal Mountain, where we will make our final Stand. However, there is every possibility that we may not make it back, and others will need to continue the struggle against the Evil One when we are expired from this Earth. To this end, these artefacts will carry a fragment of our power, for that will allow others to stand against the Darkness." "That doesn't really answer much," Stygian said. "What else do we have to work on?" Meadowbrook got an idea. "Stygian," she said, "remember when you were possessed by the Pony of Shadows?" "It's not as if you'll forget your body being hijacked by some demonic entity," Stygian replied. "Did you figure something out?" "Yes. Check this passage again. 'However, there is every possibility that we may not make it back, and others will need to continue the struggle against the Evil One when we are expired from this Earth. To this end, these artefacts will carry a fragment of our power, for that will allow others to stand against the Darkness'. The original Pillars lived in Equestria thousands of years ago, and amongst other thin's they fought the Pony of Shadows. However, he proved to be far too stron' to fight, so they tried ta lock him in limbo. But the spell went wron'! Instead of putting the Pony of Shadows in limbo, it teleported him and the Pillars to an alternate universe, the one inhabited by humans." "Which one?" Stygian asked. "According to Starswirl's research, there are more than one thousand dimensions populated predominantly by humans." "Earth 1218," Meadowbrook suggested. "The number don't matter. What does matter is that the Pillars knew that the time would eventually come when they could no longer continue the fight themselves, so they imbued fragments of their power into their artefacts. This would give others who found them the ability to stand against him. But they put this world in terrible danger, and I believe the Pony of Shadows is back fer revenge." "Indeed he is," Rockhoof noted sagely, "if the video recording of the being in action was anything to go by, he seems to be a most severe threat. Just what is he capable of, exactly?" "When he possessed me, he was very weak, and yet he was able to overhelm the Native Guard and badly damage several buildings," Stygian said, looking towards the floor in shame. "And then those men turned up yesterday and attacked the place. I wonder if there's a connection." Meadowbrook looked over to him, her eyes wide. "Wait a second," she said. "Stygian, Ah think yer onta somethin'. When Ah were out there and looked at them, I noticed their armour had a number on it. 722." She went over to a draw and pulled out a dart. "This is the dart Ah found stuck in Stygian when Ah were treatin' him when he brought him in fer his injury. It also has the number 722 on it. Ah think they were both connected somehow." "As do I," Stygian said. He brought out a document, as well as a big floating thing with a symbol like a sideways triangle on it. "These documents are reports into incidents that occurred in the last few years. The first refers to something called Southwest Airlines Flight 405, which crashed in the California desert in 2019, killing everybody on board." "Not quite right," Rockhoof said, looking at another document. "It says here that one person survived. Then the rescue team found a pink pegasus. That was followed by the military turning up and helping to fight off a big cat. The officer in charge of the response was a Colonel Peterson, who was then reassigned to something called Project 722, set up by James Mattis. Whomever he is." "Former Secretary for Defence," Stygian said to him. "Then we have this report into a train crash," Rockhoof went on. "An Amtrak service derailed in the swamps not far from here, but the report says that the lightning bolt wasn't powerful enough to destroy the train, instead merely knocking a rail out. The sturdy construction of the coaches meant that none were destroyed or damaged, but one passenger was reported missing and still hasn't been found." "Ah vaguely remember that," Meadowbrook said. "So that crash wasn't an accident! Project 722 have been huntin' us this entire time to prevent the prophecy from comin' true!" "I have another bit of evidence that may help, that reveals the fate of the missing passenger," Stygian said, floating the big device in front of him. "I shall press play now." He did so, and the audio began to play. Unfortunately, he'd set it to partway through. He stopped the recording, set it to the beginning of the track, and hit play. "OW! MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!!!" A few minutes passed on the recording, with groans and cries of pain, all the while rising in audio pitch. "Well, Ah'll be! Ah can't go anywhere like this, can Ah?" There was another pause, before the voice, a Cajun voice, spoke again. "Well, this is better! Well, Ah'll suppose Ah'll head there!" "That was Meadowbrook's voice," Rockhoof said. "This is confusing. Are there two Meadowbrooks runnin' about now?" "No," Stygian said. "Remember, Meadowbrook, the thing about leaving the artefacts?" "Yes?" "Well, the procephy of which you speak puts it like this; Two shall become Six, and the Six shall Become One. Their might will become unstoppable, and their Victory shall Shake the Heavens! The Pillars (the original Pillars) left artefacts of themselves behind when they arrived in this world, so that they could pass on their power and knowledge when evil once more threatened the world and all who lived in it. Those who find the artefacts are imbued with the power of the Pillars, and become them. That is what happened to those who found them. This explains the Two, as there are multiple duplicates of the same person in different places finding the artefacts and being changed. As for the six, I can already see two are here, and I've seen a Mistmane mentioned in dispatches across the country. This would suggest that there are at least three Pillars here already, which leaves us to find three more." "But what if the Pony of Shadows gets them first?" Rockhoof asked. "Well, Lord Torch and his units are already in the area, so I think it's more a case of them getting us first than them finding others first," Stygian said grimly.