Chapter 42: Everything All At Once
The tense silence that filled the large room was stifling and my awkward wave didn’t help in any way whatsoever. Falling Star’s breathing had evened out and he was peacefully sleeping, Aaron on the other hoof was still struggling against his ice and glass prison… I'm gonna have to heal him too, don't I sigh. Seeing that no one was going to be speaking any time soon I took my time looking over the other players. The gryphon players were all different in slightly different ways, some had the usual eagle heads and lion bodies while others had different types of birds. I saw one with the head of a cockatiel near the back, a few others had a slightly different lower half. Mostly different kinds of large cats like pumas and tigers, the most eye-catching one was a half parrot half bengal tiger. My gaze switched over to the multitudes of diamond dogs, a few flinched as my eyes passed over them.
A few resembled the diamond dogs from the show, hunched over bipedal dogs, while others stood taller and were much more humanoid. The taller more humanoid diamond dogs lacked the same strong paws as their hunched counterparts and instead had longer hooked claws, like an odd mix between a diamond dog and a monkey. There were many different breeds of dogs that I honestly couldn’t identify, I did recognise a few different types like german shepard and a chihuahua. The chihuahua one was odd to look at because they weren't tiny like the actual dog but were actually pretty tall… they were pretty uncanny to look at. There were changelings sprinkled throughout the mob and had a variety of forms and differences, most kept with the dark chitinous theme while others went with the colorful mismatched animal look.
Everyone here was armed in some way, various swords , knives, spears, and axes were sprinkled here and there. A few weapons were in claw or hoof/magic but thankfully none were aimed in my direction, though many were held in a tense grip. I took a moment to start gathering up everything I had spilled in my rush to stabilize Falling Star. A few players in the tense crowd flinched when my magic activated but relaxed again when they saw I was just cleaning up. The sound of a low rumbling chuckle pulled my attention up to Spike who I forgot was watching the whole thing. I was about to ask what was so funny when the sound of hooves and wings rapidly approaching cut me off and stole my attention. A gust of wind followed behind David and Morgana as they rounded the last corner and caught sight of me. The two rushed into the room and the moment they crossed the threshold they stopped on a dime. I watched with concern as both David and Morgana’s fur began to stand on end. The looks the two were sending me were concerning and… familiar.
“Markus… your control is slipping… “ David’s strained voice quickly pulled me from the emotionally gray zone I was floating in. Ah…so that’s what's wrong, I refocused myself and pulled my sphere of influence back into myself… I really need to find out what the deal is with this thing. I could see the relief that burst from everyone as my sphere of influence was pulled from over them, they looked like a large weight had been pulled from them and they could finally breathe. I felt pretty bad for not noticing it earlier, the strain on everyone’s face was obvious now. The slight tremble in a few while others seemed to be physically exhausted, another rumbling chuckle from Spike didn’t make me feel better… Now that I'm paying attention again, I have so many questions for that dragon. The crowd of players parted easily for David and Morgana and they gazed at them with a similar look of trepidation that I felt responsible for… so much for first impressions. The two ignored the other players and focused on the newly bandaged Falling Star at my side, Morgana’s expression turned almost pained when she saw Falling while David’s turned almost vengeful when he realized why Aaron was restrained. Speaking of Aaron, he was still wriggling in his cold restraints and had an almost feral look in his eye that was actually starting to concern me.
“I should probably do something about him huh… “ A few of the diamond dog players edged away from Aaron and his thrashing, I almost didn’t notice Morgana approaching him and with a swift flick of her hoof… knocked him out cold.
“There!... fixed!” The proud smile she sent me startled a laugh out of me, after such a tense situation my emotions were a bit frayed. The tension in the room gradually dissipated and a few players stepped forward, a player from each race. A gryphon, two changelings (one with the black carapace and the other a hodgepodge of animal parts) , and two diamond dogs (one tall and one short). David and Morgana had joined my side and I was in the middle of gently putting Falling Star on my back, thankfully he was still sleeping peacefully.
“Well that was… a thing, nice to meet you three!” The first to speak was the black changeling, his voice was upbeat and held a bit of bass to it. The others nodded in agreement while I wondered internally what I should be feeling, on one hoof I might have ruined our first impression, on the other… I didn’t care about that more than I cared about saving a kid's life. Speaking of first impressions, I just remembered that I was covered in blood and ash, I quickly wrapped myself in my mana and used the cleaning spell. I would take the smell of burnt mana over the cloying coppery smell of blood.
The group before me flinched at my casual use of magic and blinked at me for a moment to take in my sudden cleanliness. The cleaning spell removed the blood on my hooves and the ash on my coat but left the swirling burned filigree on my cloak. As much as I like the design, the cloak isn’t going to last long if I keep burning swirls into it.
“We’re glad you were able to make it, you’re a bit earlier than we expected. We thought the pony players would have the most trouble getting here, but you beat the other player species” I perked up at his mention of other species, I guess there were more choices beyond ponies, gryphons, diamond dogs, and changelings. “There’s still two more groups we’re expecting within the next few days and I bet you three want some rest after such an… eventful day. There are plenty of open buildings around so you can just claim one, let’s try and get along and figure this all out!” He talks like a camp counselor, extremely upbeat and happy and trying really hard to make me like him. The other players around him smiled awkwardly and nodded along to his words.
I felt like something was off with this group but I didn’t want to waste anymore time, I needed to get Falling Star somewhere to rest. Then I need to talk to Spike about everything, hopefully we can find out what is going on with Equestria. I put an amicable smile on my face and gave a thankful nod, I didn’t say anything. Being able to stay in one place, even for only a few days, will give me the chance to increase my skills immensely. My lack of response seemed to end the conversation, thankfully I didn’t have anything to ask. The changeling player (who didn’t offer his name… ) didn’t seem to be a leader of all the players here, all the players here seem to run off a fairly democratic system. No one other than the clique that just spoke to us had stayed around to speak with us, I readjusted Falling on my back and turned to David and Morgana.
“Do you two want to find a house for us while I talk to Spike or do you want to stay?” Both of them paused at my words and for a moment David looked like he considered finding us a place. I remember David telling us that he doesn’t know all that much about mlp so he’s probably thinking he wouldn’t be able to contribute much to the conversation. A moment of thought later David said he would stay with us, much to my surprise. Morgana grabbed my bag off of the ground and we started trotting our way over to the massive dragon that was patiently waiting for us.
“Sorry for taking so long” My apology only made Spike’s grin grow larger, something tells me that he’s enjoying having so many people around. After confirming that we weren’t a threat the rest of the players quickly left the large atrium, leaving just the three of us and Spike. Spike leaned down to make it easier to speak to us, I heard Morgana let out a small awed gasp next to me.
“Before you ask anything, let me say that your fellow humans already filled me in on what’s happening. This is something straight out of the comics I used to read, I don’t know what’s going on with the whole ‘interface’ thing but I can tell you what going on with Equestria as a whole” Spike’s voice came out as a pleasant rumble that resonated in my chest, I was slightly disappointed that he couldn’t tell us about the system but I kinda expected that. I think the only ones who could really tell us about it would be my Goddess and… The Book of Hours. A shiver ran down my spine simply from thinking that name, that’s gonna get annoying if that's gonna happen every time I think of their name.
“Well since you probably told this story a bunch of times already, can you give us a summarized version of why Equestria is… Bucked?” Morgana held in a wince at her last substituted swear word and glanced around and waited for anything to happen. The silence stretched for about ten seconds before Morgana let out a relieved sigh. Spike shuffled for a moment and got comfortable on the ground, crossing his claws and resting his head on the floor before us so we could look him in the eye.
“I’ve gotten pretty good at telling this story now and there’s no need to summarize it as it isn’t all that long in the first place. Everything I know is second hand from people or from… Twilight” Spike’s pleasant expression dropped for a moment and a deep sadness seemed to reveal itself, a hard blink removed that darkness from his eyes and he was back to his pleasant self though that doesn’t change the fact that we all saw his facade drop for a moment. How long has he been alone up here, something tells me he didn’t just outlive his friends.
“I know that everything went wrong on the day of Twilight’s official coronation. Celestia and Luna had officially announced their retirement and wanted to hoof the throne down to Twilight. It didn’t happen during the actual coronation but during the banquet afterwards, the party was so fun and personally I think it was Pinkie’s best work… I miss Pinkie. Our first warning was the quiet, a sound we all had grown so used to that it had become part of our lives. Pinkie had disappeared… poof… gone. Disappeared into thin air, the dress she was wearing was all that was left behind. Then Applejack disappeared right before our eyes, didn’t even blink but she was there one moment gone the next. I was holding Rarity when she disappeared, my claws still remember what her coat feels like” Spike paused for a moment as he stared over at his claws for a moment, the calm and pleasant mask dropped as the age-old anguish showed clearly on his face.
“Rainbow Dash was comforting Fluttershy when they disappeared, I'm glad they got to go together. Celestia and Luna were in the middle of coordinating with the guards when they vanished. Everypony was panicking at that point and trying to evacuate but something or someone had trapped the castle in a barrier, even Shining Armor couldn’t break through. Twilight was the only one left who hadn’t disappeared and was trying to calm everypony down to try and fix everything… I was too busy crying over Rarity to notice what happened next” Spike’s claws gripped tightly into balls, I could hear his scales creaking from the pressure. “A group of ponies had entered the barrier and nopony noticed them. They waltzed right up to Twilight and… apologized. They apologized for the inconvenience and said that this needed to happen for the greater good… then they made her disappear as well. Just like that everyone I loved was gone and I was alone, that hurt more than any pain I could ever experience. It even hurt more than what happened next, those ponies called out to something. Something that I can only describe as wrong yet familiar” I watched as Spike the full grown dragon shivered in fear at the memory of something horrible.
“It doesn’t matter what it was, what does matter is that it’s strong enough to burn a hole through Mt.Canter and disintegrate Canterlot castle. I really did think I was about to die that day and the only reason why I'm not dead is because the last creature I would ever expect saved not only my life but every pony trapped in the castle… Discord” A somber smile slowly grew on Spike’s face. “ Of course he couldn’t save all of me” Spike gestured to his back and quickly clued us in that he had lost his wings in the blast.
“Apparently we weren’t the first to be hit and Discord had just come back from the Crystal Empire and saved it the only way he could. He sealed the Empire again so it could avoid total destruction, I always knew Discord was powerful but… not that powerful. Saving all of us, Sealing the Empire… trying to help us was killing him. He didn’t tell me much, he just said he wished he hung out with me more. I think I blacked out at that point or maybe he knocked me out, I really don’t know. I do know what he did after though, Discord has messed with time before but not to this extent. He sent us far into the future, far enough that the world would have recovered from whatever that thing had done to it. The effort killed him… We built him a statue in his honor, I made sure everypony knew he was a hero” The bomb that Spike dropped left us stunned, Discord was dead and then there’s the unsettling idea that the group of ponies behind all of this might have been the Book of Hours. I stopped the shiver from running down my spine by refocusing on Spike who had taken the lull as an opportunity to grab a nearby reservoir of water to take a drink.
“Would you believe that whatever happened in the past nearly wiped out all life off the planet, everything and everyone that survived was so much more… violent. Even the ponies that survived had an edge to them now, we tried to rebuild as you can see… we didn’t last long. Everyone except for me left, Candace and Shining left for the frozen north to wait for the Crystal Empire to reappear and I haven't seen them since. Pinkie’s sister Maud and Trixie stayed for a while but eventually the both of them moved on, everyone was growing older. Months were turning into years and soon I was the only one searching for a way to get them back. It wasn’t until a few months before all of you players appeared that I found my first real hint that I could fix everything” Spike’s story had us completely enraptured and he knew it, a spark of joy was growing in his eyes as he spoke about his clue. We all were leaning closer as Spike paused before his big reveal.
“...The Sun and Moon…” His words made the three of us pause in confusion for a moment. The sun and moon…? What does he mean by… wait. Who is moving the sun and moon?
“At first I thought Candance was moving them but she told me early on that she didn’t know how to move them, the only ponies that can move the sun and moon are Alicorns or an equivalent of one and even then it’s still a difficult feat of magic. It took quite a bit of time but I followed that magic back to its source… The Tree of Harmony… or the spot it used to be at least. After all this time and the weathering the calamity that rocked Equestria the tree kinda… went berserk. Now the Everfree is now the Prismatic Forest that borders the Greenlands… which used to be the Badlands” The sudden name drops had us blinking in confusion… the Greenlands? Prismatic Forest? This really is a whole different world, Spike waved his claw to disregard that part and continued on.
“Anyway, in the center of the Prismatic Forest are three special crystals. I could tell what they were at first glance, Celestia, Luna, and Rarity! Or atleast parts of them. This is what I’ve been asking every player that speaks to me but I want to ask you three in particular. Will you help me bring back my family… they’re out there in pieces, waiting to be found and put back together” I was drowning in the revelation, the main characters were alive and could be brought back! “Now before you say anything… let me say that I know for a fact that you three in particular can do this.” The absolute certainty in Spike’s voice caught me off guard. What about us gives him that much confidence? Something inside me quivered, some part of me was incredibly nervous for some reason.
“Why… What about us makes you so confident?” I didn’t even consider that I was being incredibly rude by asking that, but whatever feelings I had were shut down by the elated smile on Spike’s face.
“It’s because you already have a piece of Twilight with you”