Llama Spike twisted his neck around as he inspected Fluttershy, Sea Breeze was still preoccupied cursing out the nonexistent conductor for leaving his post.
"Why hello," Spike Greeted Fluttershy in a polite tone "It is indeed I, Spike the Great Genie of the lamp," Llama let out a prideful snort before looking back at Fluttershy "Pleasure to meet you! now who might you be, oh, and do tell me how you recognized me, was it Starswirl maybe? I love that guy, How's he been? Wait I just saw him in Saddle Arabia I know how he's been, Still very Bearded If I might say," Llama merrily skipped past Fluttershy, blissfully unaware who she was as he inspected Sea breeze with interest. Sea Breeze took mild offense to be snatched out of the air, but his rage fizzled out similarly to how Fluttershy had when he saw the Llama. Sea Breeze instantly latched onto Spike's hoof with all his might.
"We found him, Fluttershy get the others, I'll hold him in place until we find a way to free him,"
"Aw, that's so cute, it reminds me of those blocks from the old Breezie cave, I felt so bad when they tried to stop the lamp from launching into the horizon, although in retrospect the Lamp beat the ever-loving daylight out of me for it," Llama easily slunk out of Sea Breezes might grasp and pulled a random lever among many "Any who, you two where with Rainshine and that Moose looking fellow so I assume your two of the creatures Cozy has instructed me to stall for as long I and the other two me's are able,"
Llama merrily waved at them again "So I guess it is nice to meet one or both of you again?" Llama gave them both a once over before shrugging "Or maybe It's nice to meet one or both of you for the first time," Llama waved a magic-coated hoof, and the Train began violently shaking as a steering wheel popped out of the floor and the Llama grabbed hold of it, Now sporting Goggles and a long scarf as it turned the wheel and caused the Train to jump track and barrel across the neighboring body of water that had been created by the rising flood water accumulating across Equestria. "Well Regardless, Good luck stopping me, and sorry in advance" Llama raised his hoof to the still dumbfounded Fluttershy and Sea Breeze and with a simple circular motion teleported them both back to their seats to the shock of their companions.
"What's happening?" Rainshine questioned as Thorax remained preoccupied trying to stop the Breezies from giving themselves panic-induced heart attacks due to how fast they were currently going. "This Train seems to be going off the rails but also seems to be moving normally?"
"It's Spike!" Sea Breeze said as Fluttershy simply sat down, staring ahead of herself still dumbfounded at the event she had just taken part in. "Cozy glows sent him, or parts of him I guess, to stall us,"
"Spike is here?" Thorax demanded as he finished using his magic to settle the panicking Breezies to sleep.
"Not all of him," Sea Breeze corrected "He didn't recognize Fluttershy, and he referred to you as a Moose,"
Thorax looked hurt at the statement before a familiar voice cut into the conversation.
"Don't feel too bad Thorax, That Crazy Llama didn't recognize Applejack either, think he's gone mad," The group all turned to the voice and watched as Kirin Spike placed a piece down on a chessboard and spoke calmly as he did so "Randomizer Dolphine,"
"God dammit," Breezie Spike said angrily as he materialized a Fork Trident and threw it at the Kirin angrily "This is why we've been stuck on the same game for 10,000 years, Just let me win you dick!"
"But if you win you also lose," Kirin noted casually.
"That joke stopped being funny a thousand years ago," Breezie snapped.
"But didn't you technically make it?" Kirin shot back with a smug look. "This never stops," He added as both he and Breezie stared at the group "I have spent centuries doing nothing but this and it just gets worse with time,"
"Spike" Rainshine rushed to the Kirin Spike who, jumped up and accepted the hug he had been eagerly waiting for since Rainshine had made her last wish.
"Oh I missed you," Spike noted as Rainshine chose no favorites and pulled Breezie Spike into a hug too.
"You were always my favorite master," Kirin noted as he held onto the friends he had spent so much time wishing he could see again "But I can't stay, I have a new master, and I have to stall you so..."
"You're stalling me," Rainshine said without hesitation "I'm content to stand here for the rest of time if it means I get to be with you again,"
"Alright so I have dibs on this," Kirin said without hesitation as Breezie Spike slithered out of Rainshines hug "Breezie you go distract Thorax, and his new Breezie buddies,"
"Of course, I'm the one who has to actually go out and do stuff," Breezie grumbled irritably as he fluttered forward to the trio already standing at the ready.
"Allow me to introduce myself," Sea Breeze managed to say before Spike spoke up.
"I know who you are, you're not the one who was my master, but you are a part of his lineage, Dunno if you knew that but regardless I do want to apologize for not making it plain what would happen after the third wish, your ancestor wasn't really picking up what I was putting down and I probably should have noticed, it all just happened so fast you know, didn't even get the poor guys name, But I do know yours, so to you, I say Hello Sea Breeze, sorry about that time I messed with the winds and caused that whole ordeal with your team trying to slack off with Fluttershy,"
"The Apology is mine to deliver," Sea Breeze replied calmly "Because of you so many Breezies have known only peaceful days, My wife and child included, and I vow to see you freed of your chains as payment for the wishes we forced upon you in ignorance,"
"That's very kind of you," Breezie noted before turning to Thoarx, who got all he needed from the look on his face "Oh don't pout at me, I'll be honest my memories of you are hazy, but I mostly know who you are Thoarx, not entirely sure why you went from classic changling to candy Moose, Guess Kirin got those memories, but it is still nice to see you again, how's Ember? still a ball of rage?"
"Who's Ember?" Kirin Spike pondered in confusion.
"Don't worry about that right now," Rainshine said in a soft tone "Your mind's been damaged by thousands of years of solitude, I'll help you with that once we've freed you of that lamp,"
"Yes," Thorax noted with a smile "although her rage is mostly aimed at Celestia, Luna, and Discord nowadays for what they did for you,"
"Well in their defense they were plugging a Paradox," Breezie noted "But in Ember's defense I also Hate them with ten times the intensity of the Sun!" Breezie let out literal steam from his ears before quickly adding "You tell Discord that as soon as I see him I'm kicking his ass, this mess is all his fault," Breezie continued huffing before shooting across the room and landing on Fluttershy's nose.
"So, you must be Fluttershy," Breezie gave her a once over and simply shook her head "I'm sorry I got nothing, on you or whoever that Applebuck Kirin saw was, I think back to the good old days and I have fond memories of partying with Pinkie but..honestly that's about all I got, Some Thorax stuff, a little bit of some pony named Big Mark I think, a lot of Ember stuff, and Pinkie Parties, nothing much outside that thought, Maybe Dragon, Diamond dog, or Changling have all your stuff with-"
"Changling!" Thorax lost all interest in letting Breezie have a personal one-on-one with everyone present before they had their forced conflict "What's he like, how tall is he, Wigns, horse, or both? Tell me everything,"
"I dunno She a recent introduction to my..." Thorax fainted and Breezy just kind of stared at him in confusion.
"Wha...what?" Breezie looked around bemused before Sea Breeze spoke up.
"Oh, pretty sure that one's gay for you, like specifically, so you having a female version of his species might have overloaded him,"
"Oh, that's...sweet?" Breezie fluttered over and poked Thorax with a small kick to the face "Man I am great at stalling,"
Shining sat angrily on a bench in a cell, The Dutchess, Flutter Heart, and Diamond Dog in disguise all standing outside his cell.
"I'm very sorry about this," The Duchess said as she put one of a hundred keys into the cell lock and failed to open it "My guards heard about your curse and...reacted without my content,"
"It's fine," Shining muttered angrily "Not the first time I've been thrown into a hole," as Shining patiently waited for the Dutchess to try and find the correct key Flurry decided to fill in the silence with some good and bad news.
"So, the good news," She said with a little hoof movement to get her father's attention "Is that Crystal balls still work well enough through the rain, but we can only so far receive messages from the Crystal Empire. the bad news is that Cozy wished Chrysalis Free and Spike swooped in before Mom could contain her and sent her away, presumably to wherever Cozy is hiding out in Saddle Arabia,"
"So we have limited communications but can't send them anything back, and Chrysalis is free, all while I'm still stuck in this town?"
"Not ideal," The Dutchess agreed as she managed to finally find the right key to free Shining "But maybe if we boost power to the barriers we could keep enough of the rain at bay to let you send a message out, probably not a long one but it might work,"
"It's worth a try," Flurry replied with a determined look in her eye "How would we boost your barriers power?"
"I'll take you to the battery chamber, our knock-off Crystal Heart if you would, I'll explain the process once we get to it," The Dutchess pulled the cell open and allowed Shining to exit before shutting it behind him and handed the keys off to the Diamond Dog, who took the keys and, the second the Dutchess stopped looking at her, proceeded to toss em behind her back without much care.
"You're a terrible assistant," Shining noticed.
"Yes that is true," Diamond Dog replied casually. The Group began walking down the hall and Flurry began striking up a casual conversation with the Dutchess
"So does the Dutchess have a first name?" Flurry asked in as casual of a tone as she could.
"I probably had one once," She mused blandly "But I wasn't all that old when I was sold off, the only name I was ever really refused to as back home was the Equestria child and later the Dutchess so I suppose Dutchess is both a title and a name,"
"Over dramatic backstory," Shining noted to himself " I'm dam near confident she's Cozy, but if she is Cozy then this Diamond Dog-" Shining looked over the Dog in question, who didn't seem the least bit interested in conversation, Shining was trying to think of a way to get the Diamond Dog to admit it was Spike when The Dutchess spoke up.
"Diamond Dog could you go look over the reports of yesterday's court cases for me? I suspect I may be busy for quite a while and the prisoners not already sentenced by me need to be given a location to be sent. Oh and do remember the mines are only for slavers, any other crimes of that day should be given the proper prison sentence,"
"Alright," The Diamond Dog replied informally before turning around and walking in the opposite direction of the group. Shining watched the Dog leave just as it was about to round the corner, it turned back to face them and stuck her tongue out at him in a mocking fashion before disappearing around the bend, it was too obvious for Shining's liking and multiple ideas began sprouting in his mind as Flurry and the Dutchess began talking about how The Dutchess had set up the barrier.
"Could it be that Cozy wished for the Dutchess to look like her exact duplicate? Wouldn't she notice? or did she wish she always looked like her, it's even entirely possible she wished for several of her attendants to look like Spike forms and also just wished it was always like that, this situation is bad, any leads could be rendered mute with a simple, I wish that wasn't true from Cozy, she has power beyond power with unlimited wishes, our only chance is the get Spike's lamp and wish him free,"
Just as Shining was about to try and come up with a way to pinpoint Cozy a nasty idea popped into his head, "What if she used a wish to make Spike adore her? or Wished they were best friends or something...Starswirl said you can't wish for love but if Cozy found a way past one rule, maybe she has a way over all the rules. Would...would freeing Spike be too dangerous?" As Shining tried to figure out how he would tell Twilight or even any of the others that had spent countless years looking for him that freeing him immediately might be part of Cozy's plan and that doing so should be delayed until it could be proven without a doubt Flurry noticed the look on his face.
"What's wrong?" Flurry asked with concern, The Dutchess also looked back at him as she slowed to a stop, Shining looked at them for a moment before speaking "Flurry and I need to find Starswirl and have a quick chat, would you mind working on strengthening the barrier without us?"
Llama was taking care to steer the train off course, having been ordered to slow them down but been told not to straight out stop them he was having fun mindlessly driving them across the open waves, any creature that could be in harm's way being picked up by the storm and set down at the closest safest spot. Llama stuck his head out the Window and enjoyed himself for a moment, in all his thousands of years inside the lamp this was the first time he had ever gotten to do something without hefty restrictions and commands, an old Sea Captain had once used a wish to have the Genie save his ship and he had gotten to drive it for a few minutes but that had been the captains only wish before his crew had revolted to take the lamp and it had resulted with it being thrown into the ocean.
"Those eighty years in the ocean were kind of fun," Llama recalled, "although I don't think I was there, it was only the first three I's but I am still us so I do remember enjoying the ambiance of the ocean as we played a fairly spirited game of Cosmic chess," before the Llama could properly recall if that time in the ocean had been the one ended by a fishing net or the time a large fish had eaten the lamp and then fished out of the ocean the door to the cap opened, Fluttershy entered the room alone and walked up next to Llama Spike.
"So," She said awkwardly, having already been told she was the current goal of the mission was to stall them and that there would be painful punishment for a failed wish none of the creatures trying to save Spike had even an ounce of desire to let him be harmed even if it did mean they might save him faster. "You don't remember me?"
"Oh don't take it personally," Llama replied cheerfully "I definitely remember you and it's not like I'll suddenly forget you, it's just that when Rainshine first used the lamp I turned into a Kirin, and then when our time together ended I kept both the Dragon and the Kirin form on in the lamp, as time went on we kind of sorta just got stuck and just kept some of Spikes memories, we could probably swap the memories around if we felt like it, but only the mortal memories got scrambled, any memories made as a Genie are known to all of me,"
"I'm sorry," Fluttershy told the Llama as she petted his back "It all happened so fast and...and all because I went to the Library on that day of all days, and because I brought Discord with me..." Fluttershy's voice cracked and Llama Spike in turn patted her head without a hint of malice terminating from him.
"If you hadn't the universe would have exploded into a million bits," Llama replied casually "Kirin history would be different, Starswirl wouldn't have lived long enough to do whatever it was he was doing I don't really remember, he wouldn't have used me to make the tree that born the Elements of Harmony, even Nightmare moon wouldn't have been around to forge Twilight's friendships," Llama laughed "think of all the history you creatures just because of one trip to the library with a Chaos God!" Fluttershy didn't say anything immediately before asking another question.
"You remember Twilight?"
"I have no idea who that is," Llama replied merrily "But Dragon talks about her sometimes, I got a lot about Pinkie and a little about Rainbow Dash, Kirin got mostly memories about someone named Rarity and a little about some pony in a hat which I think was named after a fruit?" Llama muttered something that sounded like Applehat but shook his head "I just saw her I swear what was her name?"
"Applejack?" Fluttershy smiled back, feeling the tinge in her heart usually reserved for one whose loved ones had forgotten everything.
"Applejack," Llama agreed "No clue who she is but Kirin seemed confident about knowing her, Maybe Breezie remembers...no wait I think he got the ones about you or at least some of the ones about you?"
"Would you like to come sit with us?" Fluttershy offered, she expected the Llama to make a merry comment to the question, properly throw a joke in but he just stared at her slack-jawed.
"Would I?" He asked in confusion "Huh, being with Cozy Glow has been fun," Fluttershy frowned at the comment before the Llama elaborated "This is the first time in ten thousand years somepony has asked me if I want to do something, not even Starswirl did that" The Llama smiled, the most genuine Smile Fluttershy felt she had ever seen "No," He decided "No I...I wanna drive the train and enjoy the rain," The Llama was practically shaking with excitement at the simple word, No.
"Oh, well if you want to come sit with us, it's entirely up to you, so feel free to come when you feel like it," Fluttershy took great care to emphasize that he could do what he felt like doing and could see the excitement dashing in his eyes at the idea of doing something, just because he wanted to do it," As Fluttershy walked away she decided, personally, to advocate for a lesser sentence on Cozy, entirely because she had, purposely or not, been the one who had set up that moment and allowed Spike to taste true, unfiltered, freedom for the first time in what must have felt like forever to him.
the Trio of Shining, Starswirl, and Flurry sat in a room, the Dutchess had allowed them to use her personal quarters, Starswirl had a simple silencing charm around them and the noises of the light rain outside were cut off. Starswirl and Flurry stared at Shining as he finished speaking, something that could only be called poorly covered hostility was coming from Starswirl, as though he knew Shining was right, but still wanted to hate him for saying it out loud.
"He's been in that lamp for ten thousand years," Starswirl said in a forced tone of calm "My single greatest regret was and still is not freeing him, in truth I only avoided doing it because he told me he knew the future and that he had to remain in the lamp to avoid a paradox, my original plan for my Time Travel spell was to travel into the future and give him to my future self," Starswirl let out a huff, "I thought I was being so clever, I can't cause a paradox if I just send you to point after you're thrown into the past," Having somehow turned his frustration at himself Flurry cut in.
"Dad we can't do that," She decided "Even if he was made to be enthralled with Cozy, he'd still be equally enthralled with Rianshine and Startswirl and Probably Twilight, Ember, and Thorax to. At worst he probably just wouldn't let us turn her back into stone and insist her sentence be spent with him or something,"
"Kiddo, she broke one rule, for all, we know she could have broken them all. when it comes to this level of magic, we have to take precaution upon precaution when the rules are bypassed." Shining rapidly swept his gaze around the room nervously as he spoke, clearly unsure the charm would do anything "I'm not saying we don't free him, but maybe we have Luna hide him away until Cozy's natural time runs out, and then-"
Starswirl cut into Shinings words when he began howling with laughter "You honestly think that young Pegasis hasn't already joined me in the eternal realm?" He questioned "If you're that concerned then first we give the lamp to either you or Flurry here and wish to undo all of Cozy's wishes, no all her harmful wishes, I know Spike, and he always told me he hated the idea of some chump getting his mitts on the lamp and just going, I wish away all their wishes, so we should wish away the storm but avoid undoing any of her other wishes, loophole or no loophole Spike was never one to be handed a cheap wish and respond with a fair one,"
"You know this how?" Flurry asked inquisitively.
"Oh well a few years after finding him a few thieves broke in and found the lamp before I had it under protective charms, they basically wasted all their wishes trying to out petty the other and, since I still had a wish, once they both ran out of their wishes the lamp flew right to me, I arrived halfway through and let me tell you Spike Monkey pawed them something fierce," Starswirl smiled at the memory before noticing the looks on Shinings and Flurrys face "What?" he asked in confusion.
"You're telling me, you have confirmation that if someone still has a wish and someone else uses all their wishes the lamp will fly to the one who still has a wish?" Shining demanded.
"Yes?" Starswirl replied, seemingly not understanding the problem.
"Then why did we spend all those years looking for him?" Shining demanded angrily "Luna still has a wish, if and when he was found and the wishes were used up he'd just fly to her!" Starswirl stared at Shining for a very long moment of silence.
"Huh," Starswirl noted.
"HUH!" Shining snipped back "That's all you've got!? HUH!?" As Shining began having a meltdown at the time they had all wasted trying to track down if any pony in Equestria had made a wish only to now realize that it would have just ended up in Luna's hooves if that had happened Flurry looked out the window, and saw a Changling staring at them, she stared back and it proceeded to slink out of sight,"
"The Dutchess mentioned one of her freed Slaves was a Gossipy Changling," Flurry noted "What do you think the odds of it being Spike are? Because I think it was just spying on us,"
"I need a nap," Shining practically cried out as Starswirl tried looking out the window to see if he could get a look at the changling in question.