//------------------------------// // Tying Up the Loose Ones // Story: Nightmares in Ponyville // by Tower of 0 //------------------------------// Justin's eyes slowly open and he blinks a few times. He is met with the rather familiar sight of his living room, fully furnished, and a pair of teal eyes staring at him. A quiet yawn leaves his mouth as he stirs to sit up while rubbing the sleep from his eyes before looking at the alicorn. "G'morning, Luna. Staying for breakfast?" Justin asks with a lightest hint of a smile. Luna shakes her head. "Unfortunately, I cannot. It is close to dawn and I must return to the castle." "Fair enough, don't be a stranger though." Justin rises to his feet. The two say their goodbyes to one another and Luna teleports away with the pillow. The gem embedded in it's cover has died down and stopped glowing. Justin mutters something and starts making his way to his kitchen to start on breakfast for the household, he's feeling pancakes with chocolate chip. His stomach seems to agree with a growl and the decision is final. The human rummages through his cabinets and cupboards for the ingredients and utensils he needs. By the time he gets to putting the batter on the skillet, the sun has risen. The morning light is warm and welcoming to the point that Justin takes a moment to bask in it after his long night. The house remains silent for the most part, save for the soft sizzling of batter on cast iron. Then her hears a door open and hooves clamber their way down the stairs. "You're up early." A female voice calls out to him before pressing her cheek against his side. "Wanted to surprise my girls with some pancakes." Justin responds as a hand absently reaches down to scratch Derpy's chin. The mailmare makes a sound of content, almost like a purr, and leans in to the touch. Soon another set of hooves come racing down the stairs and come to a halt. "Awe, Princess Luna wasn't going to stay for breakfast?" Fudge's question cause Justin to relapse a bit. "Uh.. no. She has her own duties to care of." "Luna was here last night?" Derpy asks as she breaks away slightly. "Erm, yeah, very short visit." Justin replies as he flips one of the pancakes over. "Was it about you not sleeping?" The grey mare questions. "You could say that." The human replies as he puts one of the pancakes on a plate. "Well, that was nice of her." Derpy nonchalantly says as she goes to the table. It doesn't take long for the human to have a full platter of fresh pancakes and have the table set for the three of them. Each with a small stack of the delectable mixture of flour, milk, chocolate chip, and vanilla extract. There were definitely some other ingredients involved, but those didn't matter as of right now. What matters right now is the breakfast he's sharing with the ponies he cares most about. Today was going to be somewhat of a busy day for him. The human wanders around the market with some bags slung over his shoulders. Going about his usual business and conversing with some of the denizens. Yet, he doesn't stick around for long due to his mission. Justin buys what he needs and heads right for the library. He's gonna have some words with Twilight. His fist bangs hard against the door to the tree home. "Twilight! Open up! We need to talk!" The door opens to a slightly irate lavender alicorn with a dagger-like stare. "Do you really need to be banging that hard?" "Yeah, we need to have a chat." Justin says as he easily pushes past the librarian. "About what? Last night?" Twilight asks, trying not to be bothered by the human's rudeness. He just stares at her and reaches into his bag, fishing out the journal and slamming it against the center table. "Oh no, we are NOT doing that again!" Twilight tells after staring at the book for a full minute. "Of course not. We need to get rid of this thing." Justin tells her. "Okay... but how?" She seems skeptical. The human just shrugs his shoulders. "I dunno... thought you could figure it out. Cuz.. y'know.. magic n' stuff." Twilight brings a hoof to her chin and taps it a little, then the imaginary light bulb goes off over her head. "I have an idea. I'll go get the girls, so just wait here and I'll be back as soon as I can!" With that, she bolts out her own front door and leaves the human there in silence. "Uh, kay... guess I'll find something to read then." Twilight's been gone for the better half of an hour to track her friends down. Justin's just sitting on the stairs with a spell book in hand, reading through the different effects within. There's an occasional hum of delight or intrigue when he finds something. Muttering a few things to himself as he makes a mental note for later. Then the door to the library swings open with Twilight leading her company through the door. The alicorn doesn't say anything and neither does the human. His eyes watching the lavender mare walk about the library as if searching for something. She comes to a stop once she sees the human reading on her stairs. "Are you reading a spell book?" Twilight asks. "Yup, got bored." Justin replies, slowly closing his reading material and setting it down next to him. "Pretty interesting spells in there." "Humans can't cast spells though?" Twilight's look a little incredulously at him now. "No." Justin shrugs. "But I do got a unicorn filly at home who'd probably be eager to learn." There's a small snicker from somewhere amongst the group of five mares still hanging around at the front door with one trying her best to hide from the human's gaze. Twilight looks over and remembers what she was looking for. Her horn lights up, opening a display case next to the stairs and levitating six trinkets out of it. Justin recognized the trinkets as the Elements of Harmony but was more concerned with how he missed them being next to them. Twilight attached each of the Elements to their respectful bearer and placed the tiara-like crown on her head, tucking it firmly behind her horn. Then she engulfs the journal their human ally brought in her magical grasp and set it on the floor in front of her, after which she motions her friends to circle around it. Once she feels everything is in order, she turns to the human who is intently watching on the stairs. "You may want to leave for this." Twilight says to him. "What? Why? It ain't often you get to see the Elements in action." Justin tells her with a small smile. Apparently that warm smile of his is infectious. "We don't know what'll happen with this kind of magic. We don't want to run the risk of anypony else getting hurt." "Twilight, that damned book told me I have another Discord's Chaos inside of me, I think I'll be fine." "Woah woah woah there, Big Guy!" Rainbow interjects. "That's a huge bombshell you're just dropping on us like that!" The revelation more or less struck most of them in awe, except Pinkie, it just makes her excited for some reason. "Are you sure?" Twilight asks, she can tell he wasn't in his usual joking tone but she had to be sure. Justin just nods his head as he leans forward on the stairs. "Sure as I can be, Twi, but I trust you girls not to let anyone know. Especially Discord." "What about the princesses?" Pinkie all but yells across the room. "I have a hunch about that." Justin tells her. "Why not Discord? He could help you understand it better, darling." Justin visibly shivers a bit. "He'd be all over this like flies on honey." "Right, we should probably begin then." Twilight says, wanting to move on. The six gather around the journal again and Twilight initiates whatever her idea is. Each of the gemstones start to glow their brightest, turning the Bearers' eyes white in the process. Justin continues to watch the strange light show unfolding before him from the stairs. A ribbon made of rainbow light starts to weave in between each of the gems. The Elements start to glow before a beam of their respective color bursts forth to hit the book. The journal gets wrapped up in the multi-spectrum lights as a tightly knit ball of magic. The human is awe-struck at the sight, almost a little too much. he doesn't get time to react as a beam of white shoots out between Raity and Rainbow just to hit the man square in his chest. What follows is unexpected to the lot of them, they're all treated to some kind of vision. The vision is broken. The first part of it consists of the ever-familiar magical storm with a figure emerging from it. The second depicts a conflict between six ponies and the same figure. Something was different about it though, they aren't really sure about it. The third part of this vision depicts the two similar beings clashing. That was it, the vision ends right there with everyone passing out afterwards. Twilight shakes the human awake against the side of her bed. She watches as his eyes groggily flutter open and look at her. His signature smile spreads across his features as a hand find it's place on her side. She continues to stare at his half-sleeping state and leans in closer to him. "Are you feeling okay?" Twilight asks as she looks into his eyes. "Never... bett.." Justin doesn't finish as he slips back into a sleep. "Oh pony feathers." Twilight mutters and heads back down stairs to her friends. The five mare were chatting amongst one another in a circle. Twilight Asked earlier from them to keep it down for the human currently knocked out in her loft. They all turn to her with smiles, she knows they're expecting something, well, somepony really. "So, how'd it go, sugarcube?" Applejack asks. "Got a minute out of him." Twilight says, almost sounding defeated. "He's been out for so long though!" Rainbow quietly retorts. "Longer than any of us were at least." "You have to remember, Rainbow, he's a human after all." Rarity chastises a bit. "His kind has no inherent magic, it may have taken a toll on him." "Especially with that chaos magic in him." Twilight says, she hasn't made eye contact with any of them yet. "I'm starting to worry." A few more hours pass by and Twilight has sent her friends home. Celestia's sun is lowering well into the evening and the human still isn't awake yet. She tries a third time, gently shaking his body awake once more. There's a grunt and his eyes flick open to look at the mare. For the briefest of moments, Twilight feels some excitement as it seems he's fully awake now. He starts to get up, at least to his knees, then collapses on to the floor. Twilight sighs in defeat and goes down the stairs again, deciding some dinner would be nice. She just barely makes it through the kitchen doorway when she hears it. "Uh... Tiw?!" Twilight turns around. "Strange, it sounded like he was just beside me." "Up here!" Justin calls out above her. "What in the name of all that is good?!" Twilight stammers out at the floating human. "A little help, please?" Justin asks. Twilight is more than happy to comply, her horn lighting up as she brings him down from near her ceiling. "I thought you were asleep." "I was, until I didn't feel the floor." Justin replies as his feet finally meet ground. "Where's the book?" "Gone." Twilight says. "Good." The human looks to her, right in her eyes. "I saw something. A shield of some sort. Didn't quite get any details." Twilight nods a bit, not saying anything. Justin closes the door to Fudge's room, having told the filly a bedtime story to get her to sleep. It's become a nightly ritual for him to tell her a story or continuation of one, even if most of them are from past movies he's seen. She doesn't have to know yet. He turns his head towards the end of the hall, near the guest door. There, standing in somewhat darkness is a silhouette of a pony with some saddlebags. "Hey Luna." Justin says as quiet as possible. "Come by for some tea?" Luna nods as she steps in to the light, her face has no hint of emotion. Justin just nods back to her and leads the moon alicorn down stairs. He offers for her to sit on his couch while he goes into the kitchen to fetch cups and the kettle he left on a low heat to keep it warm. He fills up the two cups and goes to sit in his reading chair. "I trust you know why I am here." Luna asks him before taking a sip. "Mhm" Justin replies, looking right at her. "To talk about what happened with the lightning thing." Luna doesn't say anything for a moment while she swirls the contents of her cup a little. "I went to see Twilight about the journal, got rid of it, but learned some things." Luna sat silent, listening in on the human as he explains what happened. The visions they all went through, the ritual type spell to send the book back, his own smaller portion of the vision, and even his conversation with what he is now calling the 'Aspect' about his discovery of the chaos magic. He lays everything out for her to mull over. At first, it's hard for him to read her expression, she has a damn good poker face. Then she sighs, setting the empty cup down and pouring more tea into it. "This all sounds like much for you to handle." Luna says. "A little bit, yeah." Justin admits. "Not exactly too enthused about potentially being a second Spirit of Chaos here." "As troubling as it is to hear of it, at least we know you will not use it against us." Luna gives him a small, but reassuring smile. "True, but I've gotta get them honed first. Randomly floating around doesn't make for a good surprise." Justin tells her. "May have to ask Twilight to help me with that." "Why not Discord, you know he is reformed now. Do you not?" Luna asks with a tilt of her head. "No, absolutely not." Justin visibly shudders again. "I can't imagine what he'd try to put me through if he finds out. Dude gets a little... competitive." Luna simply nods her head at him. "Very well, if you must take help from Princess Twilight, do not let us stop you." "Thanks." Justin says, now refilling his cup. "This Kronos, you think he is coming here?" Luna raises a brow. "We have a name for this threat, yet not a face to put to it." "That' what the Aspect thingy says." Justin takes a sip of tea. "As for the face... about that." "Justin, what is wrong?" Luna looks to her friend. "Well... he's... me." Justin looks down a bit. "An alternate version of me. Who's evil, and I believe can use magic, somehow." "Very well. There is another matter we wish to discuss. I come with gifts." Luna's horn lights up as she pulls forth an urn, seals, and a pendant from her bags. Justin gazes at the urn and sets of seals. "What is it?" Luna chuckles a little at his confusion. "In case you need to reach me or my sister. The urn has a special enchantment on it that will work much like Spike's dragon breath. Depending on the seal, it will go right to me or Celestia. The pendant will work much the same way if we must reach you." Justin stares for the moment and chuckles a little at a different thought. "Or if you just want to reach me and be a pain." "It does work both ways, my friend." Luna chuckles back with a smirk. They both share a laught as Justin reaches out and picks up one of the silver-looking seals and examines it. It bears the markings of the moon, more resembles her cutie mark. Then he picks up one of the gold seals and its much the same, except themed after Celestia. He returns both of them back to their respective stacks. He takes his tea back into his hands and takes a sip. "So, do you two just have this stuff on hand-er, hoof?" Justin asks. Luna giggles at his correction. "One could say that. Usually granted to allies beyond our borders should they our help." "Does friends of the crown apart of that now or you just don't want to wait for the post to deliver my letters." Luna just smiles at him. "A princess never reveals her secrets, but I will admit that it is both." "Secret revealed." Justin smiles a little at the lunar princess. "My friend." She calls out and grabs his attention. "We must be ready for what is to come." The human nods a little at her. "We will, I believe we'll be ready by the time he comes."