//------------------------------// // An Abundance of Paradoxes // Story: Legends Never Die: Friendship is Magic // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// “Is she alright?” “Calm down, Fluttershy, she just fainted, I’m sure she’ll be alright in a moment-” “Do you think it was something I said?” “Twilight, it was nothing you said, we’ve already been over this-” “Yes, but I introduced myself, and then she collapsed. How is that not my fault?” “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll figure this out.” Sunny moaned and blinked her eyes open. Her head hurt. Her mouth tasted like rocks, and she could barely see anything except for colorful fuzzy blobs in her line of vision. “Oh, look, she’s waking up-” Sunny pushed herself into a sitting position, which made a splitting pain cut through her head so powerfully that she almost collapsed again, but somepony caught her. “Woah, there,” said a kind, soft voice, “you’re alright. Just take it easy…” “What…” Sunny swallowed and shook her head, trying to clear away her fatigue. “What happened?” She blinked again, and the pony helping her came into focus: a butter yellow pegasus with a long pink mane that fell partially in her face, and large, caring, blue-green eyes that told Sunny that she was safe, that everything was alright. The pony helped Sunny stand up, and Sunny looked around, trying to figure out where she was. She was standing in a large circular stone room that was filled with tents and ponies. Most of them were going about their business, but three of them were staring at her. One of them was the yellow pegasus who had helped her. Another was an orange earth pony with a blonde mane that was tucked under a brown cowboy hat. The third was a lavender pony with a deep purple mane with stripes of purple and pink, and a horn pushing its way up through her bangs. But she also had a pair of wings folded over her back… Sunny’s sluggish mind struggled to comprehend this. Was this pony an… an alicorn? But she was the only alicorn… except for Flurry Heart… or maybe this was Opaline? Maybe they hadn’t defeated her after all? “Sorry about that,” the alicorn said gently, looking at Sunny with relief written all over her face. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that.” “You didn’t scare me,” Sunny muttered, still trying to get her mind working right. There was something familiar about all of these ponies… what was it? “We sure are glad to see that you’re alright,” said the earth pony with a heavy country accent. “It’s Sunny, right, sugarcube?” “Yeah…” “This is Applejack,” the alicorn said, gesturing to the earth pony, who tipped her hat in greeting. “And that’s Fluttershy. And I’m Twilight.” Twilight. Twilight. “Twilight Sparkle?” Sunny blurted. “Yes.” Twilight looked at her strangely. “Are you okay?” “As in, the Twilight? The Twilight from - from all those stories?” “I’m just going to assume so-” “And they’re your friends?” Sunny went on, gesturing to Applejack and Fluttershy, who were also watching her with interest. “Last I checked-” And then Sunny’s mind broke. She might have screamed. She might have danced. She might have wrapped the nearest pony in a massive hug while screaming and dancing. She might have jumped right through the ceiling and up to the moon and screamed and danced on the moon. All she knew for sure was that Twilight carefully guided her through the exit and up the stairs until they were back in the crystal tunnels under the vent again. They stood there for an awkward moment, Sunny still hyperventilating, Twilight standing there patiently until she was sure that Sunny wasn’t insane. “Are you really Twilight Sparkle?” Sunny finally burst out. Twilight tilted her head at her. “Why do you keep asking me that?” “Oh, uh, no reason,” Sunny stammered, suddenly very interested in looking everywhere except for Twilight’s face. “I just - wow, I - wow - I’ve wanted to meet you my whole life,” she finally managed to say. “I’ve always looked up to you, and you’re - well - you’re just - wow - a-and I-” She stopped, holding her hoof in front of her face as if to make sure that it was, indeed, her own. Sunny took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry,” she peeped. Twilight looked like she found Sunny’s reaction mildly amusing. “Well, that’s alright, then,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay - you know, before you strangled any more ponies.” Sunny looked up at the vent, then down the tunnel toward the chamber. “What are all of you guys doing down here, anyway?” The alicorn sighed. “You mean you don’t know?” There was something in her eyes that made this pony seem less of a legend and more - real. Sunny thought for a moment. “The wolves,” she finally said in a quiet voice. Twilight nodded sadly. “A few days ago, I was in town to meet with my friends for our usual meeting. Then, this strange rip appeared in the sky. And all these wolves came pouring out of it. They began to attack Ponyville, grabbing ponies and pulling them inside themselves. And they just kept coming. There must be hundreds in Ponyville alone. I haven’t been able to contact any of the other cities, but I can only imagine that things are the same there. My friends and I gathered up all the survivors and brought them here. The Tree of Harmony is strong down here, and I think its magic is keeping the wolves at bay. Every day I go out in search of more ponies, but you were the first one I found. How did you survive?” Sunny thought about telling her the truth. Oh, I’m a future descendant of yours who fell out of a magical portal in the sky! But for some reason, she just couldn’t bring herself to tell Twilight the truth. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want to bring up her problems right then. And… a small part of her was telling her that she wasn’t worthy of other ponies’ help, especially not legendary ponies like Twilight Sparkle. It was all her fault that she was in this mess, anyway, and she needed to take care of it herself. She realized that Twilight was still waiting for an answer. “Um, I was actually… traveling. From Mareti… I mean, Manehattan. Yeah. And then the wolves started chasing me as I was going through the… Everfree Forest. I made it to that old castle ruin and hid in the crystal treehouse, and the wolves couldn’t follow me there. After a couple days, I thought the coast was clear, but it wasn’t, and that was… when you found me.” Twilight nodded. “That was very lucky. Without any magic to defend yourself, you were lucky to be able to outrun those wolves at all.” “Ha ha, yeah… no magic whatsoever.” Not that my alicorn magic did me any good, Sunny thought bitterly. And ancient Equestrians didn’t have earth pony magic, so there was no way she would be able to explain that one away. Twilight smiled at her. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to the rest of my friends.” No one paid much attention to Sunny as she made her way back through the tent city behind Twilight. This was probably because most of them were paying attention to Twilight, although there was one pony who, upon seeing Sunny, blanched and scurried away as fast as he could. Sunny could only assume that this was the pony she had accidentally almost strangled. In the center of the circular room was the largest tent of the bunch, large enough to accommodate a dozen ponies easily. Something occurred to Sunny as they approached it. Most of the tents and other structures were made from blankets and sheets, with a few actual tents. It was like a massive fort gallery. Then Sunny remembered where they were: the School of Friendship, where creatures of all kinds could come to learn about friendship. With so many unexpected guests, Twilight and her friends probably raided all the dorm rooms upstairs to get enough supplies for every creature to be comfortable. The inside of the tent was darker than the outside, with the only light coming from a few lamps hung around the edge of the room. Inside each lamp was a small chunk of crystal that was providing the glowing light. In the center of the room was a round table, and six ponies were standing around it. Sunny instantly recognized most of them. Applejack and Fluttershy were there, as well as Rainbow Dash, the pegasus that Sunny had met earlier. A unicorn with a white coat and curly purple mane was there, too, as well as an excited-looking pink earth pony with an equally bouncy mane. She knew that these must be Rarity and Pinkie PIe, respectively, but the final unicorn - one with a light purple coat and a purple mane with a streak of teal - was one that Sunny had never seen before. And - she paused and did a double take - there was a small dragon with purple and green scales hovering between the strange unicorn and Rarity. “Sunny, I’d like you to meet my friends,” Twilight said, gesturing to each pony as she named them. “You already know Applejack and Fluttershy, but that’s Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Starlight Glimmer, and Pinkie Pie. Oh, and that’s Spike over there.” Of course, Sunny had met Spike before - he was the Dragon Lord of the Isle of Scaley - but that was future Spike - way, way future Spike. Still, she had a hard time picturing this small creature, who stood barely as tall as her shoulder, as the massive Dragon Lord who had helped her defeat Opaline. “Hi, everypony,” Sunny said, waving and mentally commanding herself to keep her cool. She was not going to fanpony out in front of these legendary heroes… at least, not any more than she already had. “Everypony, this is Sunny.” There were scattered greetings all around, and Sunny got shivers down her back. Twilight turned to her. “Sunny, I have to do some princess stuff, but feel free to explore all you’d like, okay? I’ll come find you after we’re done and get you settled in.” Sunny nodded, and, feeling everypony’s eyes on her, walked out of the tent. She shut her eyes and shook her head. “Calm down, Sunny, this is all perfectly normal,” she muttered to herself. “You just traveled back in time to meet your legendary ancestor while the world is falling apart around you. And your world back home is also probably in grave danger. But it’s fine, because this is all perfectly normal, right?” She looked around and trotted off toward the crystal tunnel she had come in from. Twilight had said that the Tree of Harmony was powerful here - maybe she could try and talk to it. The tunnel was dark yet brightly lit at the same time. The crystal branches that twisted their way through the stone were so plentiful that Sunny had to be careful not to trip. There was powerful magic in this place, she could feel it. It danced across her skin and made it tingle. “Hello?” she called, feeling rather silly. “Tree of Harmony? Are you there?” She waited. “No answer. Of course. Why did I think this would work? That was from my time, not this one-” “Sunny.” Sunny spun around, gasping. There was the sparkling ethereal version of Twilight Sparkle that she had spoken to in the past - the one that called itself the Spirit of Harmony. It was the Spirit of Harmony that told Sunny the truth about her ancestors, but she hadn’t seen or heard from it in months. “Tree of Harmony?” The Twilight-not-Twilight inclined her head in greeting. “You must warn them.” Suddenly, Sunny remembered why she hadn’t exactly tried to go looking for the Spirit of Harmony recently - it was beyond annoying sometimes. “Warn who? About what? Also, what is happening here? Could you maybe give me an explanation?” The Spirit of the Tree shrugged. “I think you already know.” Sunny blew a frustrated breath and decided to take a stab in the dark and give it her best guess. “Warn… Twilight and her friends about… the shadow wolves? Are they coming?” The Spirit nodded and said, “I have done my best to hold them at bay, but they have grown stronger. There is only so much I can do.” “So… we’re supposed to, what, fight them? How are we supposed to do that?” There was something about the way the Spirit of Harmony looked at her that made Sunny nervous. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I can’t fight them. My powers aren’t good for helping other ponies - they aren’t good for anything. Besides, those ponies back there - they’ve faced way worse stuff than this! Why can’t they use their whole magic-of-friendship thing to get rid of these wolves? I’m not even sure what to do, but surely they can-” The Spirit of Harmony held up a hoof to stop Sunny’s rambling. “Once,” she said, her gaze getting distant, “those Guardians were faced with a similar choice. The Pony of Shadows, a creature very similar to these shadow wolves, was threatening to destroy Equestria - the usual. The Guardians tried to force him into a portal to limbo, but before they could successfully defeat him, they had to rescue the pony trapped inside - a young stallion named Stygian. It is the same with these wolves. They use a host from which to gain power and strength. If you want to defeat them, you need to free their hosts. Unfortunately, the only pony who can do that is you-” Panic was rising in Sunny’s chest, as well as bitter guilt. “I couldn’t even protect one of my friends! How am I supposed to free hundreds of ponies when I can’t even save one?” The Spirit of the Tree opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, there was a rumble above them. “You are out of time,” she said. “You must warn them.” And then she disappeared. Sunny desperately wanted to do anything but face those wolves, but as another thundering sound came from above, making dust rain from the ceiling, she realized that she had no choice. She turned and ran back toward the tent city to find Twilight and her friends.