It was… bizarre, to say the least, to walk among these ponies, one that she had visited several times; she had seen the beginnings, she had seen the crisis that fell upon this world, one that she had carefully wrote about, and in all that time, she had always found fascinating they way the little creatures around… Equestria, right? That was the name given to this world.
The way the little creatures around Equestria behaved and acted, entities that enjoyed every day, but the differences were enormous with every single iteration of the world that she had seen, with many having simple problems about misunderstandings, where the biggest threat was not being invited to a party or a cake being burn, not dark forces threatening the very fabric of reality like what the current princess in charge of the government had to deal with across the years.
She had seen them time and time again, in one way or another, but this time she felt… different, yes, it was different in a way, as if this was the world she had envisioned, but at the same time it had been touched, molded by other hooves, as if the form and destiny of such place had been irreversibly changed by an enormous force, and that force felt warm, it was the love of the sun.
The white pony smiled at the feeling she got from the small little town called Ponyville; she had lived a long time and she had grown used to places like this, quaint, relaxed, almost idyllic some may say, what with being so far away from centers of urbanization and stress and work, and movement, this place felt slow in comparison, but instead there was a feeling of joy, of contentment that made her smile and be in awe at what one crazy alicorn mare could build given enough time and passion.
She didn’t ask for directions, she didn’t stop to smell the flowers, or even take a little bite, no matter how yummy they looked, but she wasn’t trotting aimlessly, oh no, she already knew where she needed to be, where her curiosity will be finally sated and in a couple of minutes of lazily walking she got to the place where she needed to be, after all, an alicorn was never late, nor was she early, she arrives when she means to, and she truly meant it this time.
With one unadorned hoof she lightly tapped the wooden door of the local library and waited, after all, she didn’t want to be a bother and just waltz in, the little pony in charge may be the librarian in a way, but she still wanted to be civil.
The door was quickly opened, but not by the pony she was expecting, instead the young dragon opened the door and stood there, completely frozen at seeing her.
“Spike? Who is it?” She heard the voice from deeper in the library, then got closer and closer after not getting any answer “Spike, are you okay? What happe-” and for a second, Twilight Sparkle stood there, gawking before falling over unconscious due to the surprise.
“Was it something I said?” The white alicorn named Faust asked no one specifically, worried at what had happened to the two inhabitants of the library.
-
“Wait, what?” Gilda was definitely not prepared for what the alicorn at her side had just uttered, it came out of nowhere “ woah, hold on, you can’t just say something like that and keep on walking!” Taking to the air, Gilda began to float in front of Celly to stop her in her tracks, meanwhile the alicorn sighed, rolling her eyes, she didn’t need more distractions, she already had one with the piece of Celestia that had been awakened.
“Can we leave that part for later? I need to do something about what is going on, so if you’ll excuse me,” a golden hand appeared in the air due to celly’s magic and with the index and thumb, the hand grabbed Gilda by the scruff of the neck and pulled her aside as if she was a misbehaving cat.
“Hey, it is not fair! At least give me something! You cannot just drop a mountain like that on me, please, this is serious.”
“I know, I’m even using my serious face,” pointing at herself with one hoof, Gilda really couldn’t see if the princess was being serious or just her usual self, but while it may have been heard like a joke, the eyes of the princess were completely focused and there was an intensity that made Gilda shiver; this was probably what most wannabe conquerors saw before being annihilated.
“Okay, I get, just, try to explain a bit, alright?” Celly sighed once more before making the magical hand disappear, Gilda was right, she deserved some answers, or at least some information considering this was her home and these were her people.
“Yes, you are right, you deserve to know, basically what you have been feeling? It is a very dark branch of magic, one that has been monitored strictly by my academy; the more ‘traditional’ forms of mind control magic, let’s put it that way, is very easy to break those enchantments and spells because it is really easy to notice the mind control. Creatures don’t act like themselves, mostly they act like puppets, without much autonomy, but this… this is dark magic of the worse caliber, I don’t know how they have been able to do it, but something tells me that whoever is behind this, well, they got their claws on some very dangerous artifacts,” with that information already given, the princess then began to walk, not in the direction of the mines as they were before, but instead she began to walk in another direction, to the manor and home of the current ruler of Griffonstone.
While it was true that there was no gryphon kingdom anymore, the city states of the griffons still worked together and they all recognized different rulers of the cities, so what had happened in the last few months to become like this? This was beyond bizarre, so she needed answers and what better way than to go directly into the epicenter of it.
“Hold on, are we just going to just walk into the King’s manor?”
“Eeyup.”
“Are you going to pummel anyone that tries to stop you?”
“Eeyup.”
“... can I help?” It was funny how giddy Gilda’s voice became with that answer, so Celly grinned back and nodded.
“Eeyup,” she simply said before continuing the trek across the city, keeping an eye out for the buildings, the people, how they all seemed almost listless, even when they got into the nicer parts of the town they all looked the same, without hope, lifeless and lost, whatever was happening left no one safe.
Finally they reached the doors, but besides a couple of griffons who, admittedly, were way over their heads, everything had been rather easy; Gilda took one of the swords from one of the unconscious guards and kept on walking behind Celestia, ready to start a revolution by herself if it was needed; the combative nature of griffons was always one of the major obstacles for a united Gryphon kingdom, but this time it may be useful.
Reaching the inside of the manor, the trio were ready to start their investigation when they were stopped by another trio, several guards that were getting closer, two griffons and a… unicorn? He had a midnight blue coat and he was wearing the Griffonstone bronze armor of the guard, how was that possible?
“Holy shit dude, that’s Celestia!” The unicorn's words made something inside Celly wince, it was a bizarre voice and an even more bizarre choice of words, for his part, one of the griffons simply rolled his eyes at his companion.
“Man, chill out, she is just an NPC,” excuse me? She was definitely not an NPC and… hold on, what did he say? Looking at the other griffon with darker plumes in search of answers, she only got a shrug of shoulders.
“Hey, you are as lost as me, these two and many others have been talking nonstop about NPCs and skills and hive knows what else, is complete nonsense, I haven’t understood a single word they have been saying,” well, that just made things even more confusing, but the unicorn simply turned to look at the darker gryphon as if he was insane.
“I still don’t know if he is another player or if he is just an AI, but man, is too realistic.”
“The whole thing is, but look, our ‘job’” and at that point the gryphon even used air quotations, wait, Celly was the only one that did quotations around, what is going on? “is to stop creeps and weirdos from getting inside so let’s just take care of Celestia and go back, hell, maybe we could get a level up from it,” it was way too creepy to hear him say that with such glee, but once he took out his sword Celly made him meet face first one of her favorite creations.
The white hammer impacted directly into the face of the gryphon, sending him spiraling into the air before crashing against one of the walls, instantly knocking him out in less than a second, making the unicorn guard stand gawking at the hammer.
“Wait, that’s not fair, since when does Celestia have a weapon!”
“Since I made it myself more than a century ago, do you know how hard it was to synthesize enough Ark Nova Adamantine to create this weapon? Of course you don’t, you probably don’t even know what adamantine is or even what is happening, so start talking buddy or my hammer is going to make you regret even thinking about getting into this world!” The guard was suspended into the air by the force of Celly’s magic.
“Woah, hold on! Dude, aren’t you going to help me or something?” He was clearly talking about the guard at his side, but this one simply smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Why should I? I work for her after all,” and with a snap of his fingers, the disguise fell off, green energy traveled across his body turning the feathers into dark chitin, in a second a dark insect-pony hybrid stood where the gryphon once was.
“Holy shit! You are a changeling? How didn’t we get the option to be a changeling? Besides, aren’t changelings and ponies at war or something like that?”
“At war? What the heck are you talking about? Princess Celestia, please tell me you have an idea of what is going on, because since I infiltrated this garrison all I’ve been hearing is absolute nonsense.”
“He… he thinks this is a game… he thinks this is a video game.”