//------------------------------// // Suns and Storms // Story: Brony vs. Fanfics // by Cog Archival //------------------------------// “One... two... three...” It was morning in the Nightlands. Now there’s a wonderfully ironic oxymoron for you. The sun was shining out over the grassy plain, making the faint layering of morning dew sparkle as it started to evaporate. “Six... seven... eight...” I was standing out on the plain, a fair distance from the tent where my impromptu roommates and I had spent the night. I had left my shirt and glasses over to one side, and so I just had my jeans and boots on as I engaged in some early morning aerobics. Right now, I was busy doing squats. Movement made it easier for me to think; something I had found out long ago. This ‘fan fiction’ I was in now was very different from the Appletheosis I had just left... or been evicted from, or whatever. As close as I could remember, the backstory was that at some point, Luna and Celestia had one of those delightful sibling clashes that threatens the very stability of the universe. While they and their armies were fighting each other, some unknown alicorn known only as the Grey Mare appeared. Both sides thought that the Grey Mare worked for the other side, and didn’t realise the truth until much too late. “Fifteen... sixteen... seventeen...” When Celestia, Luna, and both of their respective forces took on the Grey Mare, both Celestia and Luna were exiled to their respective heavenly bodies, and the Grey Mare basically was reduced to the status of a vengeful storm spirit, haunting this massive, everlasting storm known as, surprise surprise, the Everstorm. The Everstorm apparently stretches all the way around the whole Faust-danged planet, cutting it neatly into two halves. The Daylands are inhabited by griffons and ponies who worship the two alicorn sisters as goddesses (well, mostly Celestia). The Nightlands, where I currently was, were inhabited by the Lunar Republic, which is almost exactly what it sounds like. Apparently there are also changelings in the Nightlands, and diamond dogs roam on both sides of the Everstorm. “Twenty-five.” I stopped squatting and switched to a fairly generic arm and shoulders stretch. It wasn’t anything to write home about, so I won’t bore you with the details. So then Rainbow Dash gets thrown several hundred years, maybe even a millenium, into this future. She meets Star Fall, a pegasus with a special talent in Magic. How that even works, I’m not sure, except apparently at this point in Equestrian history circles are magic. That, or the author is a fan of Fullmetal Alchemist, because now magic can be done with geometric shapes and circles on a piece of paper. Don’t ask me to explain it, I’m a brony, not a magician, damnit. Anyway, she meets Star Fall and her griffon bodyguard, and they go back to the Sunlands. That’s how it’s supposed to happen. Things might be different now that I’m messing things up with my presence. Also, there’s the small matter of the changeling spy the Lunar Republic has sent after the rainbow colored super pony a couple of their agents encountered, and then... there’s Max Cash. I quit stretching my arms and back, took a couple of deep breaths, and started doing some push ups. “One...” I went over the little I knew about Max Cash: he was some pony crimelord, one of those slippery ones who covers up his tracks well enough that no one (or pony) could touch him, but it was common knowledge that he spent more time breaking the law than not. He also apparently had some sort of fetish for archeological sites, in addition to being a textbook sociopath. "Five..." The mindless repetition of the exercise let my mind wander across half baked theories of why I was here and what I should be doing while I was. I had no idea how I had gotten into Appletheosis. I had gone through the wormhole... or whatever that thing was... that brought me here, but I still didn’t know how or why this all was happening. There was still a chance that this was all a hallucination, but that was seeming less and less likely the longer things dragged on. But still... Equestria? Out of all the possible alternate dimensions out there, I have so far been dropped in not one, but two versions of Equestria? And what’s more, they’re versions I’ve read about, and both times, I’ve landed in the thick of the action, so to speak. I’m not so good at fancy mathematics, but even to me that seems pretty unlikely, bordering on the impossible. “You know there’s a problem when you find the possibility of being stuck in an alternate dimension more probable than what’s actually going on,” I muttered to myself, as I finished up my exercises, and stared down at the ground. My hypothesis was that someone, or something, was messing with me. It has been my observation that one does not simply wake up on another world, there has to be some force that acts on you. That, and there was the fact that the portal... wormhole... thing... hadn’t actually sucked me in. Some glowing yellow force reached out of it and yanked me in. Just remembering the sensation of travelling through it made me nauseous, but I remembered the predominant color of the inside of the portal being green. So what was that yellow glow from? My frown became more pronounced as my gaze settled on my stomach on its way to the ground. I may not have a six pack, but at least I don’t have a keg either, I thought to myself as I picked my shirt up off the ground and put it back on, walking back towards the tent. ----------------------------------------------------------- Star Fall was looking over some sheets covered in magic runes while absent-mindedly munching on a hoof-full of grass. She looked up momentarily, and then turned back to her papers armed with a correction quill. “Breakfast is on plate,” She informed me as she made a judicious edit on one page. “On the plate.” I corrected automatically. I sat cross legged opposite her and reached over to pick up a plate with a portion of ration bread on it. I bit down on the loaf, shuddered, and reluctantly swallowed. It was pretty reminiscent in both taste and texture of bad granola bars. “Well, that’s one more thing our worlds have in common,” I muttered in between bites of bread. “And what would that be?” Star rattled off her question in New Equestrian. After a moment’s thought, I replied “No, I do not own a monkey.” We looked at each other for a moment. A rather awkward moment. “... You are not well at learning languages, are you?” Star questioned in regular English/Equestrian. I hung my head. “Not at all.” Star sighed, and motioned towards the tent. “She has been recovering from bad head, and she still knows most than you.” “More than you.” “Close enough. Now, listen carefully: what would that be?” I frowned as I ran the sequence of New Equestrian through my brain. It was recognizably descended from English/Equestrian as far as grammar rules went, but had an utterly different vocabulary. It was sort of like trying to understand genuine Old English, as in Chaucer era Old English, not just Shakespearian. In any case, it’s not the sort of thing one can easily learn in just a week. “What what would be?” I tried. Star rolled her eyes as she pushed her papers to the side. “No, what would that be?” “That’s what I’m asking: what would what be?” “No, I say ‘what would that be,’ and you are saying ‘what would what be.” “That’s what I’m asking you!” “... What?” “He’s on second base.” “... Who is where?” “First base.” Star facehoofed. “I’m seriously doubting by this point that your species is in fact sentient.” “Do you expect me to try to translate that as well, or are you taking advantage of the fact that I can’t understand you to insult me?” I inquired with a raised eyebrow. Star Fall fumed. “You... do you try to make ponies angry?” “... Well, I haven’t really had many chances to engage ponies in conversation before.” I took note of the way the sheet her hoof was laying on was starting to crumple. “I’ll leave you alone now.” I sighed as I crawled into the tent that had been set up for the lot of us to stay in. It had not been designed with bipeds taller than a pony in mind, so I spent a good deal time either inside sitting, or outside if I wanted to stand up. I settled into a crouch as I looked over at the recovering Rainbow Dash. Unsurprisingly, she was sleeping. I looked her over for the umpteemth time in the week since I had arrived here in the Harmony Theory-verse. The past week had been mostly occupied with Star Fall working to help Dash recover after the crash she had been involved in, as well as trying to educate both Dash and myself in Futuristic Equestrian. Other than that, though, I hadn’t had much to do besides stare at the equines and griffon around me. That much, at least, hadn’t changed much from when I was back on Earth. I smiled slightly. The rainbow-maned pegasus even made sleep look cool. Granted, almost everyone looks relaxed when they’re sleeping, but Dash seemed to have this knack for making it seem as though she were radiating enough coolness that she didn’t even have to be awake to be awesome. Plus, that little snoring thing she does is adorable. I shook myself out of... whatever it was I was just doing. Time to leave before I tip over the edge back into obsessive fan mode, I thought to myself as I snatched up my jacket from where I’d left it inside the tent, and flipped open my notebook to study a couple pages of notes before wandering outside to sit opposite Star Fall once again. I cleared my throat as I found the particular scribbled notes I wanted. “I am sorry I that make you mad. Please continue.” Star raised an eyebrow, before saying dryly “That I make you mad. Word order matters.” I groaned inwardly. Holding in the natural response that was waiting on my tongue, I readied myself for a lengthy language lesson. ----------------------------------------------------------- It had been about a week since I had arrived here from the wormhole. I had spent that time deflecting questions from Astrid the griffin about my origins, (failing at) learning the language, and generally doing whatever I could to avoid falling into shell shock over everything. The stress of facing this kind of existential crisis, combined with sharing a tent with two pegasi (one of whom snores) and a griffon was taking its toll on me: I was crankier and snarkier than usual. Dash was still recovering from her fall, although Star was amazed by how quickly she was doing so. Apparently because magic saturates Equestria so deeply, all creatures in Equestria had evolved to rely on magic about as much as they do on air and everything else. Unfortunately, the whole Grey Mare debacle seriously messed with the flow of magic, or something, so now all living things could barely survive. Dash, having been born long before then, still had enough magic flowing through her that she could do things ponies today couldn’t even dream of. One of which included rapid healing, apparently. “I told you Star, I’m fine! I just need to-” “Rest! It has been only a week, and you had many broken bones! There is no way that you could be able to walking already.” “Walk.” Dash and I spoke in chorus, her from where she was trying to limp her way off of the bed, me from where I was poking my head into the tent. Star paused in her attempts to keep Dash from getting out of the bed without actually touching her to give me a sardonic look. “You are not helping!” Dash shared a grin with me, before adopting an innocent expression when Star whirled back around to stare her down. “You’re right, he’s not. We both are. We’re helping you learn to talk right!” Dash feinted, and then slalomed her way around Star when she dove the wrong way. “By the way, how’s that ‘keeping the fastest pegasus in Equestria down’ thing working for you?” “Rainbow Dash!” Star yelled as she finally grabbed the mare by the tail. “You should not have lived through that fall, and it has only been a week! You need to let your wings heal before fly around-” “I’m not gonna go flying,” Dash sighed heavily as she rolled her eyes. “I just need to get some fresh air! It’s so booooring in here, I feel like my brain’s going to melt. What do you think I’m gonna do, try doing my full stunt routine with a broken wing?” Neither Star nor I missed a beat before saying “Yes.” “Ha ha. Come on Star, please? I just need to get out of this tent!” Star Fall, reluctantly let go of the rainbow-hued tail she’d been holding in her teeth. “All is right, but if I see you try to place one feather in the air, Astrid will haul you back inside herself.” I don’t know if Dash caught anything beyond Star’s capitulation, but either she did hear Star’s warning or else her wings were really hurting, because she walked just a few feet out from the tent before promptly sitting down and staring up into the sky. I shifted where I was sitting just outside the tent. While it’s never easy to identify with a female, multicolored pegasus, I believed I had a good idea what was going on in her head just then. That awful feeling of thinking you might never see home again- I shook the depression out of my skull. I couldn’t afford to think like that. All I had to do was get my sanity to last long enough that I got to talk with Professor Twinkle Shine, Star Fall’s mentor. If anyone could get me home, it would be her. Although there was the slight issue of her being possessed by Nightmare Umbra to worry about... “So how do you know her?” I started as Star Sat down next to me. Considering she had hooves, she didn’t make all that much noise. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. “What do you mean?” I whispered back. “You know who she is, but somehow she does not.” Star whispered aside to me as she kept a watchful eye on Dash. Astrid plonked down on my other side to give me the full force of her “I’m watching you” look. “You never seem surprising when she talks on who she thinks she is.” I thought about it for a moment. I could just say that I came from a world where Star was a character in a fanfic about a show Rainbow was in- aaand I can already tell that that’s a horrible idea. Plan B: BS her. “Rainbow Dash is... well, she’s a legend. Surely you’ve heard the stories, because I have.” Star narrowed her eyes. “Yes. But stories is what they are, almost a thousand years old. It is impossible that she is the Rainbow Dash.” “Not impossible. Merely highly improbable.” Under my breath I added, “About as improbable as my being here.” “What was that?” “Nothing.” I leaned back and looked up at the stars while Star translated our conversation so far to Astrid and Astrid replied in her growling dialect of New Equestrian. “Astrid says she still does not quite trust you.” Star pointedly said. “And I suppose she’s very proud of that.” I mused as I studied the stars. I didn’t recognise a single constellation. Oh well, gave me an opportunity to brush up on my “connect the dots” skills. Look, a Rorschach test in space! Star sighed exasperatedly. “We will leave for the Sunlands in a four or five days. I suggest if you are to go to leave, you should consider doing so soon.” I frowned. A bunch of major problems in the original story, I recall, happened because Dash and company ran into the Lunar Republic changeling agent hunting Dash down while crossing the Everstorm. Figuring that we might as well save on a couple of brawls, I casually suggested “We might perhaps want to shift up that schedule. Maybe leave within a couple of days.” Star gave me a distrustful look as she translated for Astrid, whose feather’s immediately ruffled up slightly. “Why is that?” I tried to think up a good story. “Well, put it like this. You’re the commander of a Lunar Republic police force. Two of your men- or stallions, rather, two of your stallions run into some kind of supermare that mentions Celestia a lot, and then leaves at supersonic speeds. After being shot with a tranquiliser dart.” I paused to let that sink in, and then continued. “I don’t know about you, but if I were a Lunar commander, I’d be trying to find this supermare and quickly, just so I know where the potentially overpowered Celestian agent is.” Star brought Astrid up to date, and then exchanged some hushed words with her. “Dash still is not well enough to be moved,” Star confided in me. “It is a blessing that she can already walk, but she cannot cross the Everstorm yet.” “She’s gonna have to. I don’t much fancy getting Changelings sicced on me, and I doubt you two do either.” I frowned, rubbing my head. I had this faint feeling at the back of my thoughts, like I was forgetting something. But it wasn’t like I was forgetting something, more that something was broken, and I didn’t know what it was. Just what was going on with me and my feels lately? “Still, she is not ready for a trip through the Everstorm! One just does not walk through the Everstorm, you have to have the right spells, and be in peak condition as well, or else it will just eat you up.” “That sounds like a challenge, and I accept!” Our heads all whiplashed around to face Rainbow, who no one had noticed moving over into hearing range. Star, naturally, was the first to find her voice. “Rainbow, you are not well enough yet. If we just wait a few more days, then we can try it safely.” “I think we have more to worry about than safety.” Dash seemed oddly calm about it all. “The sooner we get to your professor, Star, the sooner I can get back home. Besides,” she rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly for a moment, “I don’t think those Lunar Republic guys were too happy with me the last time we met. I’d rather not run into them again when I’m not at the top of my game.” Star facehoofed. “You admit that you are not at “the top of your game,” but you still want to go through the Everstorm? I had enough trouble getting Astrid and myself through last time, but now that there are four of us-” “Now that there are four of us, even if we can’t just slip through, I’m sure that between the four of us we have enough spells,” I gestured to Star Fall. “Daring,” I pointed to Dash, who grinned widely, “brawn,” I gestured to Astrid, who was getting a fast translation from Star Fall now that the conversation was slowing down, “and cunning to make it through.” I tapped my chest proudly with my last words. “What makes you the brains?” Rainbow snickered, soon followed by Astrid, who she translated the joke to. “The point is,” I frowned, “that between the lot of us, we should be able to make it through this thing. Besides, things are never as bad as people say they are. I am sure that in that aspect, the Everstorm is no different.” ----------------------------------------------------------- “Sweet mother of holy #@$#&, that is a huge storm!” Rainbow smirked a little, amused by my outburst, but apparently unable to laugh while looking at the storm in front of us. Star Fall just wasn’t amused at all. “Have not you ever heard of the Everstorm?” She quipped as she drew out a spell sheet from her saddlebags and checked it for the umpteenth time. I shook my head. “I’ve read about it, but... god dangit, that is huge!” Just half a mile or so in front of us was a literal wall of clouds. Not even a single blade of grass was being disturbed that I could see, but the clouds were swirling and rocketing past as if caught in a tornado. Lightning flickered in every color that it could, and a few that it shouldn’t, within the roiling slate grey clouds, and a faint howling sound like a million angry hornets, could be heard. That much I had expected: I’d read the story, I was expecting a wall of clouds and storms. I was not expecting it to be this big, though: it reached way up into the sky, up from its earthly beginnings in a way that not even mountains do, and it stretched from horizon to horizon in one unbroken line. It was like the constructors of the world had gotten this far, thrown up their hands, said “screw it,” and just parked a huge cloud bank here to cover up their lazy workmanship. There was a malevolent feeling about it I had never felt before, except for that time I looked at the Everfree Forest. Which was probably an apt comparison. I heaved out a resigned breath. I felt tired just looking at that thing. "This is nothing. Once we get inside, that's when you'll see the real shit. Remember the rules?" I didn’t quite grasp what Astrid said in New Equestrian, but her world weary tone got the general point across. "Yeah, stick close to Star," Dash replied. I nodded numbly. That part I had gotten. "Don't get more than five feet away from her, no matter what you see or hear," Astrid warned. "The Everstorm likes to trick you, to separate groups and make ponies walk off of cliffs or into a vortex. It can make you see things that aren't there, hear people you know calling for you. You can't trust any of your senses. Distance, size, everything you take for granted in navigating the world are skewed. Fall's magic holds most of that at bay, but you can still hear things, and sometimes see things." Dash swallowed hard. I coughed sheepishly. “Mind running that by me again?” Dash rolled her eyes at me. "No running off. That’s the general gist of it." She stared at the menacing wall of storm. "How many times have you gone through?" Astrid replied with a curt New Equestrian sentence. I half-caught and half-remembered her answer from the fic well enough to get a number. “I wouldn’t have thought anyone would be crazy enough to go through that thing once, let alone tence... decaduple...” I frowned. “Okay, that thing has me making up words. Let’s do this before I really loose it.” We all started marching forward again.” "And ponies do this all the time, right?" "Yeah. Some ponies do. And a lot of them never make it out the other side," Astrid looked down at Rainbow Dash. "You're shaking a bit there, Dash. Don't tell me that you, the 'awesomest' pony in Equestria is afraid?" She also smirked over at me. “I wouldn’t have thought a self- proclaimed meat eater would be so cowardly, either. Although I guess I shouldn't be so surprised if you can’t even clean and gut a fresh catch!” I frowned. I didn’t catch the exact phrase, but it sounded similar to the disdainful comments Astrid had been been making in my hearing ever since I nearly hurled the first time she brought me a freshly killed rodent in an attempt to be friendly, or at least sociable. It had taken her damn near ten minutes to stop laughing, and I’d just gone back meekly to vegetarian rations after that. Dash narrowed her eyes as she visibly stopped shivering. "Me? Frightened? Ha! It's just a big storm, and there's no storm in the world in any time that can get the better of Rainbow Dash!" She glanced over towards me. “How about you? Don’t tell me you’re about to chicken out on us all!” I grinned at her, displaying my full set of omnivore’s teeth. Something I had noticed over the past week: grinning at ponies disturbs them if you have actual canines. Probably a latent herbivore instinct: avoid anything with sharper teeth than you. “Last I checked, my color scheme was blue and green, not purple and orange. The only thing I’m worried about is possibly having to carry you through that storm myself.” Rainbow gasped. “Hey, you saying that I’m... heavy?” She raised a dramatic foreleg to her forehead as she almost swooned. Her Rarity impression was ruined only by her voice, and the incessant grin threatening to break out all over her face. Astrid rolled her eyes, catching the drift, if not the exact meaning, of our conversation. “Ladies, you’re both pretty,” she said, elbowing the two of us apart. I frowned. “She just insulted both of us, didn’t she?” “Nope. Just you.” “Well, as long as- hey!” "Done," Star Fall said, stepping up to the three of us. She had several rolled up spellsheets sticking out of her saddlebags, in easy reach. She looked worriedly at the storm, rattling off a string of New Equestrian, before translating for my benefit: "We are going to need to make good time. I figure how long we have with the spells we have, and unless we pull up our usual speed by twenty percent we will not have enough to completely exit the Everstorm." I cocked my head while Astrid and Star started arguing routes. “Twenty percent.” I grinned. “I see what you did there, Sharaloth.“ I picked the thread of the conversation back up right about then. Star Fall was explaining her intention to cut through the eye of the Everstorm, a calm spot in terms of wind and lightning, but even more active in terms of magic. For that reason, Astrid did not believe that it would work. "It will work!" Star Fall was insisting. "The dampening spell is designed to negate magic. I know it won't do that in there, but I've calibrated it to be strong enough that while we'll still get a lot of magic leakage, it won't be enough to make us sick. Look, this is the only way! If we don't cut through the eye we will run out of protection before we reach the other side." I cleared my throat, and folded my arms across my chest. “Do we really even need the protective spells? I mean, sure that looks a helluva bad, I’ll admit. But I have a feeling that using protective spells might just piss that storm off, and make it even worse than it normally is, especially for anyone else who might be travelling through...” I trailed off as I looked down to catch the ‘are you fucking kidding me/crazy’ looks I was getting from Star and Dash. Astrid confusedly looked at me, then at the others, barked (squawked?) out a question, rolled her eyes at the quick explanation from Star, then flapped a wing beat up to smack me across the top of the head. BAP “Okay, so that was a stupid question. I’ll just shut up now.” I stepped back, and let Rainbow explain how since Star was the resident egghead, she was going to trust her judgement. Astrid sighed out an agreement. Dash promptly teased her for being “afraid of a little storm.” "This Storm? Yes." Astrid said. "Damn right I'm afraid." I sighed, looking reluctantly forward towards the storm that was now only a few feet in front of us as Star activated the first spell sheet we would be using to push our way through. “You and I as well, sister.” ----------------------------------------------------------- Hard Boiled rubbed his horn as he pushed what seemed like the thousandth paper he’d read that evening to the side. The Lunar Republic Police detective growled under his breath, eyeing the seemingly unchanged pile of literature he had yet to look through. With a thought, the book on the top of the pile was picked up by a field of shimmering magic. Clenching his teeth at the effort, the detective plopped the book down in front of him, dusting off the cover with one forehoof to read the embossed title, Pre-Schism Myths and Legends, by Studious Note. He sighed as he reached for a nearby mug with one hoof, while holding a bottle of pills steady with the other so that he could pry the lid off with telekinesis. He frowned, examining the suspiciously light mug with a critical eye. Empty. “No rest for the wicked,” he muttered, standing up from his seat, and walking off to get a refill, with his mug held in his magic. Ever since this Luna-damned Celestian super-mare had beaten two of his officers senseless, after being suspiciously close to a murder scene, he’d been burning even more midnight oil and medication for his horn problem, just trying to find out who she damn well was. It didn’t help that the only mare who matched her distinctive description had been dead for almost a thousand years, but if she had taken a fashion choice from an almost forgotten mythic hero, maybe there was more that could be learned about her by finding out more about this ‘Rainbow Dash.’ It was ironic that a pony so devoted to the pursuit of truth and knowledge completely failed to notice what happened behind him. The volume he had placed in front of his chair suddenly lifted up, surrounded by a distinct golden-yellow glow. In mid air, it vibrated for a moment, before flipping open to a random page, a vague illustration and description of a barely recognizable cockatrice. The glow intensified, settling over the page in question as its contents melted and twisted, before vanishing to let the book drop back down just a split second before Hard Boiled walked back into the room. He squinted around the library’s reading room. “Hello? Anypony there?” He looked with distrust toward all of the room’s shadows, before grunting, and returning to his seat. Taking a pill and washing it down with a swig of coffee, he looked back down towards his work... … Only to be graced by the vivid image of a screaming, bipedal thing resembling a deformed minotaur, a sun-like insignia branded into its bare chest. Jumping a little at the shock, Boiled leaned in and looked closer, taking note of the fanatical gleam in the creature’s beady eyes, and the fists clenched around its wooden club. “Humans: Worshippers of the Demon Sun,” Hard Boiled muttered aloud, as he settled down to read the description below the disturbing picture.