//------------------------------// // Chapter 26: Reunion // Story: Return of the Ancient Mage // by Zoshe //------------------------------// Now that Applejack was no longer teacup sized, she was doing her best to tend to her friends in Twilight's absence. She had of course heard Spike's retelling of what had happened while she was taking the poison joke remedy. "The sky went back to normal," Flutterguy said as he looked out the window. She... He was particularly grateful to no longer needing to keep a particularly frisky Pinkie Pie restrained. "What you suppose that was all about?" Asked Applejack as she did her best to keep her two friends that found themselves in the same body comfortable. "And is Twi... Twi... Twilight alright?" Said a shivering Pinkie Pie. "Ah'm sure she'll be alright. Twi's a big girl," Applejack gave Pinkie the stink eye. "And don't think Ah'm bout to let my guard down. Ah catch ya so much as lookin at Fluttershy funny, yer goin back in the shower." "Does it have to be so cold?" Pinkie was huddled up in a blanket that Spike had provided. "Granny always said a cold shower is the best way to keep them loins from a burnin. Until whatever that stuff you ate is out of your system, that's how its gonna be." Applejack said matter of factly. "I'm ne... Never taking candy from strangers again." Pinkie said adamantly through chattering teeth. "That'll be the day," Applejack rolled her eyes, not once believing that Pinkie will follow through on that. Their banter was interrupted as the door to the library creaked open. "Twilight!" Cheered Spike as he rushed to the door to greet her. He had been beside himself with worry ever since she disappeared. It wasn't Twilight at the door though. Once Spike saw who it was, he quickly ran for cover as the Everfree Shade calmly walked into the library. Applejack was on her hooves right away, ready to start a fight if a fight was to be had. "Calm yourself Applejack," the Shade said as he walked right past her and placed a large covered basket he had floating beside him on the table. "I didn't come here looking for trouble." "Oh yeah," Applejack wasn't about to let her guard down. "From what Ah hear from Twi, trouble does a pretty good job followin you home. So forgive me if Ah ain't bout to believe ya." He paused for a moment. "No," he said calmly, "if I was in your position, I wouldn't believe me, either." "Applejack... Don't... Leave him be," A weak voice came from inside the basket that he set on the table. "Don't try to fight him." Applejack raised an eyebrow as she recognized the voice coming from the basket. Slowly she backed away from the shade, not once taking her eyes off him, "Ah'm watchin you, pardner." She made her way to the basket and threw the cover off of it. What was inside completely captivated all of her attention. A young Twilight Sparkle, about the size of a filly, was inside the basket. Not just one, but three Twilight Sparkles were all bundled up together. If that wasn't odd enough, each one of them was a different tribe. There was a unicorn, a pegasus, and an earth pony. Not one of them was an alicorn though. "What did you do to Twilight?" Applejack asked in shock as she looked back up. The shade was currently standing over the prone Raridash laying in the corner. "Hey! Get away from her!" "No, Applejack. Don't." All three Twilight's were out of the basket and hanging onto Applejack, doing their best to try and keep her from going after him. "Leave Random alone. He's not somepony you can fight." "Random's not somepony you can what now?" Came a voice Twilight hadn't heard in a while coming from the stairs. As one, every pony in the room looked towards the doorway that led downstairs. There was Random Fact, in the flesh, standing in front of them. The Shade paused for a moment as he cocked his head at the new appearance. Everyone had to do a doubletake as they looked back and forth between the two ponies. Aside from their colors, they looked completely identical. From the way their jaw was set to the way their mane was styled. There was no discernable difference. "Ok... This is a bit weird...," said Random nervously. "And it looks like it has nothing to do with me. So... If it's all the same to you, I still have a sick pegasus to help take care of. So... I'm just gonna go." He slowly made his way around the room, not once taking his eyes off the ponies that followed him as he opened the door and shut it behind himself. The Shade looked over to Twilight, "it seems you have a friend that looks like me," he casually dismissed. "But you... But he..." The Twilights were doing a strange collective show of confusion between the three of them until they finally collapsed into a pile of Sparkle. "My head hurts." The Shade looked back up to Applejack, his eyes glazed over like he was somewhere else. "The rest of you will recover on your own by morning, but she needs my help immediately," he said as he gestured to the Raridash laying on the ground. "Are you going to let me help her?" "Not without some proper explanation on what yer doin here," said Applejack as she scuffed the ground with a hoof. "How'd you git involved in all this?" "Fine," the Shade steeled himself under the glare of the apple farmer. "Twilight was never supposed to find Smokey. Somehow she found a way to track him across the entire town." "Wait are you saying you had something to do with Smokey?" Applejack narrowed her eyes. "Yes," he said solemnly. "He was one of mine," as the words left his lips, Applejack bolted at him in a leaping dive. The Shade just stood there without making even the slightest effort to get out of the way, even as a hoof connected firmly with his jaw. Silence reigned over the room as he looked down at his attacker. "Feeling better?" He solemnly asked her. He didn't seem bothered that he was just attacked, even though he now sported a bloody lip. "Not really," said Applejack as she brushed her nose with her hoof. "Ah ain't gonna stop until you fix what ya did to mah brother." "He's already awake," he said even as the blood on his lip began to fog and steam. Applejack pedaled backwards in shock, both from what he said and from being unnerved by his already healing wound. "Ya better not be messing with me." He shook his head, "I'm not. Smokey had to use everything he had in order to help me save Twilight from her own personal nightmare. When he did, what he took from your brother should've been returned to him." "Twilight!" Gasped Flutterguy. "What did he mean by your own nightmare?" Twilight shirked under Flutterguy's stare, "I really don't want to talk about it." "You make sure you talk about it with your friends," the Shade said as he looked all three of the Twilights in the eye. "I don't want to wake up one day and find a new mare in the moon. Nopony deserves to go through that or to be separated from those close to them for so long." He paused for a moment, his mind clearly somewhere else. "Now if you excuse me, one of your friends still needs my help." He turned back to Raridash, who had been watching in silence the whole time. It had been clear for a while now that they were in considerable pain. The Shade's horn lit up a brilliant green that lit up the whole room. The amount of magic that was pouring off of him caused more than one pony to recoil. Slowly they watched as Raridash was lifted into the air, her body glowing and pulsating in sync with the shade's own magic. The light grew brighter and brighter before finally dying back down. It took a moment for everyone's vision to recover from the bright light, but when it finally did, they found Rainbow Dash and Rarity lying on the ground together, once again in two separate bodies. The four other ponies in the room, six if you count the two extra Twilights, all rushed forward to embrace their two friends that were slowly pushing themselves off the ground. Tears flowed freely as they all shared a group hug, happy that they were all together and mostly whole again. One of the Twilights looked up as the Shade was making his way towards the door. "Wait!" She called after him, making him pause and turn back to face her. "I don't know if you just did this out of some sense of obligation or guilt, but thank you for fixing them. And..." She fidgeted a bit, "thank you for stopping me when you did." "I am truly sorry you girls had to go through this," he almost started to sound like he was choking up a bit. "If I knew another way... No..." He recollected himself as he looked her in the eye. "Fortunes permitting, you won't see me again." He once again turned to leave. "I never got your name," she called after him. He paused for a moment, it looked liked he was about to turn back to say something else, but in the end he continued making his way towards the door. The door once again burst open, Princess Luna rushing through the door in a panic, "is Twilight Sparkle here?!" She said with some urgency to her voice. "I saw the night sky and I feared the worst. She may have even..." The words died in her throat as she came barely a inch from the face of the Shade. Luna took a quick step back as she held a hoof to her mouth, her eyes instantly starting to tear up. "Can it be?" She forced the words out. "Is it really you?" The Shade took a few quick steps backwards, his lip trembling as he stared at the sudden appearance of the lunar princess. Without warning and without saying another word, he disappeared in a snap of green light. "Tell me girls," Luna looked to the bundle of ponies, tears still filling her eyes. "Who was that?" "We don't know, yer highness," Applejack answered for them. "We just been callin him the Everfree Shade. Apparently he's been makin all sorts of ruckus around these parts." "Tis a curious name you've chosen to call him." She looked back at the spot he disappeared and then back out the door. "No..." She shook her head, "no it can't be. It's not possible for him to still be alive after all these years." "What's not possible, Princess Luna?" Came a small voice from a nearby shelf. Luna's gaze snapped to the nearby shelf, her eyes going wide as she saw the yellow and pink fairy sitting there. "Is... Is that a fairy?" "Good to see you too," came the snide response from Whisper. "Whisper!" Shouted all three of the Twilights. "Where have you been?!" "Whisper? Is it really you?" Luna just stood there in shock. "It's been a while, princess. How's life been treatin you?" Whisper smiled at her. "Then..." She looked back at the place the shade was standing, "was that really?..." "I don't know, it could be." Whisper grinned from ear to ear. If it was possible for Luna to look any more flustered, she found a way to do it. "But he... But I... I need to go." Without any further ceremony, Luna rushed right back out the door she entered through and took off into the night sky. The ponies still left in the room found themselves feeling dumbfounded as they just stared at each other. "What in tarnation just happened?" Said Applejack, breaking the silence. The Shade reappeared back in a house across town. He collapsed to the ground almost immediately, tears filling his eyes as the long seated pain of longing began to ache inside him. He held a hoof to his chest, trying his hardest to keep his racing heart from running away. "Oh no," said Random, who was standing next to where he had appeared. "Are you going to be ok? What happened after I left?" "She... She was right there..." He said as he rolled onto his side and curled up. Tears rolled down from his eyes and began to collect on the floor as he lay there. "Who was there?" Said Cloud Kicker as she entered the room. "Luna... She... I haven't seen her in so long," he sobbed. "What happened, Blossomforth?" Kicker asked the pony standing next to her. A flash of green fire washed over Random's body and familiar looking pegasus took his place. "I don't know," said Blossomforth. "He just collapsed as soon as he got here." Cloud Kicker looked worriedly at the unicorn laying there. She started poking at him with her hoof, only to have him roll over and wrap his hooves around himself. "That look in her eyes... She still remembers me," he began to shake slightly. "Even after all this time..." "What did I miss?" Came a tiny voice as Whisper flew into the room. "Something's wrong with Random," said Blossomforth, pointing to the sobbing mess on the floor. "He's been like this ever since he got back." Whisper landed on him with a soft thud. "Hey dummy!" She began to beat on him with her hooves. "You're making the girls worry. Knock it off." When he still failed to respond, she flew up and grabbed one of his ears and shouted, "Snap out of it!" He slowly turned his head to look at her, his eyes were completely glazed and the fur around his face was completely drenched by his tears. "Why?!" He cried. "Why does it hurt so much?" Whisper sighed and shook her head. "I warned you a long time ago when you made that amulet. I warned you that your heart might not take kindly to being split into pieces or being forced back together again." "Does she still love me?... How could she after all this time?" He asked no one in particular. "I don't think she was completely conscious during her thousand year visit to the moon," Whisper said. "It probably doesn't feel like all that long to her." "But... It's been so long..." He moaned under his breath. Whisper gave a long sigh before turning back to the two mares who were watching and waiting patiently. "He's completely out of it." "Anything we can do to help?" Said Blossomforth. "I don't like seeing him like this after everything he did for me." "He's been separated from the amulet for far too long," Whisper shook her head. "Now that he's reabsorbed it, he's having trouble dealing with his own emotions. Seeing Luna after so long seems to have broken him. He'll recover, but it's going to take some time." Cloud Kicker looked at the stallion with concern. "Let's get him into bed at least." She leaned down and after some concerted effort and some considerable help from Blossomforth, she hoisted him onto her back and slowly made her way towards the stairs. "What has he been eating," she groaned as she began climbing the stairs. "It feels like I'm trying to carry an earth pony." "When have you ever carried an earth pony?" Blossomforth wondered. "Ungh," Kicker groaned as she continued climbing. "...Berry Punch after one of Pinkie's late night parties." "Make sure he relaxes," Whisper called after them but declined to follow. She hovered there for a moment and bit her lip in thought, "you foolish pony. You can't keep trying to do everything by yourself." She let out a long breath as a strong feeling pulled her attention back towards the library. "It's finally time, is it?" She said with some deepening concern. "Alright then. Sorry, but I need to do this."