//------------------------------// // A Moment of Peace // Story: Eight Out of Hell // by The card holder //------------------------------// The eight warriors all told their stories again, though notably less enthusiastic this time. Regardless, Celestia listened to them with rapt attention. She noticed that Marine in particular seemed fond of his memories of, as he put it, “ripping and tearing through demons galore”. Once they were all finished, the princess nodded, looking from one human to the next, thinking about just what to do. Before she could come up with an answer, Twilight came downstairs. “Celestia, could I see you for a second?” “Of course, Twilight.” She bid farewell to the eight, who waved halfheartedly back. Celestia ascended the stairs, finding Twilight in her room. A book was open on her desk, turned to a particular page. “You know that legend I mentioned in my letter?” Twilight asked. “I am aware of it, though it has been a while since I’ve read it. Why?” “Well…” Twilight pointed a hoof at the open book. “I’d look at it again. Tell me if any part of it sounds… familiar.” Curious about what her former student meant, Celestia leaned over to read the book. Zandronum Thousands of eons ago, before the pony race even existed, there were many evils roaming in the lands. These evil beings threatened to annihilate all life in the world. But it was impossible, for it always was a group of eight heroes to stop them. These eight, the chosen ones, stood in the way of the darkness, stopping them from destroying life as it was known. These heroes rose from the midst of the population, showing incredible skill and valor in battle. Of the eight, two came from similar origins, but bear no relation; one will carry an incredible bloodlust, but will remain on the side of good; one will not kill his enemies, with the belief that then he would be no better; one will succumb to numerous vices, but is still firmly a hero; one will rise far above himself to combat evil; one will have traveled across space to defeat evil; and another will have been captured by the evil forces, before fighting his way out. These eight protected the world from evil, but one day, they vanished. It is foretold that, one day, the greatest evil ever seen will arrive, and the heroes will once again return, to combat the threat, and destroy it for good. Celestia read and reread the passage many times, thinking over the implications that the words carried. She turned to face Twilight. “So, you think that the eight of them are the ones from this legend?” Twilight could only nod in response. Suddenly, they heard a loud noise coming from downstairs. It almost sounded like a roar. They went downstairs as fast as they could, just to find the rest of the ponies looking at a surprisingly endearing scene: the eight humans were asleep on Twilight’s floor, a couple of them even using Chex’s armor as a pillow, despite it not being soft at all. The loud roar was heard again. Twilight and Celestia glanced all over the room, just to be surprised when Rarity made a sign with her hoof to keep silence. She then pointed to the human in green armor, who snored loudly, the sound being very similar to a roar. Celestia just smiled softly and pointed Twilight to the upper room. Once in there, Celestia headed to the balcony and stretched her wings. “I’ll talk with Luna about this. We’ll communicate our decision to you in the morning. Goodnight, Twilight.” And with that, she took off to the nocturnal skies, heading towards Canterlot. Back in the lobby, Twilight said her good nights to her friends and went to her bed, leaving the humans in their pile. Just as she was starting to get comfortable, Marine’s snoring was heard again, almost making the whole tree-house tremble. “Oh, Celestia… this is gonna be a long night.” Twilight said to herself. Twilight opened her tired eyes at the warm feeling of the sun in her face. That was the little inconvenience of sleeping near the window. For who-knows-what reason, she never thought to change her bed from that position. She got up and stretched her legs and wings, letting out a long yawn. Next, she brushed her mane with the aid of her mirror. After that, a nice breakfast would be required. Going downstairs, she noted her refrigerator somewhat dirty and disorderly. Why it was like that, she couldn’t figure out. After all, she couldn’t think straight when her stomach was empty. Going through her breakfast, she eyed a book while eating. She thought over the fact that she really liked reading all kind of books: the ones which contained pony history, the ones which contained botanic lessons, the ones which had legends in them, the ones that had… … Wait, legends? Suddenly, her brain made all the connections: her waking up still somewhat tired, her refrigerator was a mess, the humans weren’t in the lobby… THE HUMANS WEREN’T IN THE LOBBY! She instantly ran from the kitchen to the window, looking frantically for where those humans could have gone. Hard to guess, due the fact that there wasn’t a single trace of their existence left in the library. Suddenly, looking at a table, she found a small note written in a sloppy, but still readable style: We left to explore the town, get used to things. Marine and the Seven Others The Total Badasses and Chex The Humans She instantly panicked. If those eight beings were out there, who knew what could happen. After all, they caused a total commotion yesterday just by walking into town, and a few of them seemed quite violent, especially Marine. Rushing out of her library, Twilight noticed that everypony was going about their business as usual: walking around, chatting with other, buying stuff, etc. “Hey there, Twilight!” A voice called to her from the sky. Twilight looked up to see Rainbow Dash floating above her in a cloud. “Good morning, Rainbow! Hey, have you seen … them?” “Them? Who?” Rainbow asked while scratching her head. Suddenly, she figured out what she was talking about. “Oh, them. Yeah, I think I saw them over by the town hall.” Twilight got more and more panicked while she strode toward the town hall, soon breaking into a full gallop. Once she got there, she saw a crowd of ponies surrounding something. Some of them were cheering. Using her wings, she flew over the crowd just to see one of the humans in the middle. It was the one with sunglasses, posing with his chest naked, showing his muscles to the ponies in there. Now that she looked closer, the crowd was entirely made up of mares. She just sighed and landed next to the building. “He’s such an asshole, isn’t he?” Twilight turned to see the other humans sitting at a table while eating some apples from a large bucket in the middle. BJ, who said the remark, punctuated his statement with a large bite. “Oh, good morning,” she greeted them, her earlier panic disappearing. “Umm… Can I ask where did you got those apples from?” “Oh, your friend, the orange one, gave these to us,” Corvus explained. “So… what is he doing?” Twilight asked while looking at the crowd of ponies cheering again to the human. “Duke has a massive ego boner like nothing else,” Marine said bluntly, his somewhat crude manner forcing a small blush to her face. Since he had to take his helmet off to eat (although Parias somehow didn’t), Twilight couldn’t help but notice that him and BJ had somewhat similar faces... Well, that wasn’t important. “So, what exactly are your plans here, if you don’t mind me asking?” “We were hoping to just pass through and continue on our way fighting demons and such,” Chex began, “but Cyber did some math, and apparently for now we’re stuck here.” Twilight hummed in response, thinking. A sudden collective gasp from the nearby crowd of mares broke her out of her concentration. “Wait, so why is it all those mares are suddenly captivated by… whatever he’s doing?” she asked. “Duke, for all his arrogance, has an undeniable charm of some sort about him, especially with females,” Parias said. “A number of times in our journeys, he had caused many a woman, human or otherwise, to swoon. It baffles me, honestly.” “Well, he can fight,” Ranger said, “and that’s good enough for me.” As if he could tell he was being talked about, Duke broke through the crowd, his tank top now back in place. “I see you ladies are getting along with Twibright Speckle here.” “It’s Twilight Sparkle.” “Whatever.” Duke snatched an apple and bit into it. “So, what’s our plan?” “Just stay here and take it easy for a bit,” BJ explained. “It’s really all we can do.” While the crowd of mares was dissipating, Applejack made her way to the humans and Twilight. “Howdy Twi; humans.” The group gave various grunts of acknowledgement. “Alright, so,” Marine began, tossing an apple core behind him, “what exactly are we going to do now? Because I’m honestly not a big fan of sitting on my ass for too long.” Twilight looked towards Canterlot in the distance. “Princess Celestia said she would discuss the matter with her sister, Luna, but I’m not sure what they’ll come up with, yet.” “Ah’m sure everythin’ will be fine,” Applejack said. “It’s not like anything’s gonna go horribly wrong today.” Before any of them could even say ‘Murphy's Law’, a small pegasus filly came running towards them, screaming and even crying slightly. She stopped in front of Twilight and Applejack, still sniffling. This close, they could see that she was dirty and unkempt, as if she was just attacked. “Shh, calm down,” Twilight said, using her best impression of Celestia’s motherly tone. “What’s wrong?” The filly took a few calming breaths, but it was obvious that she was still very scared. “W- We were taking a school t- trip to Zecora’s place, a- and on our way back, we were at- attacked b- by…” She paused for a few seconds, before a reassuring hoof from Twilight spurred her to go on. “...by timber wolves…” Applejack gasped. “Where are they?” “I- I don’t know, somewhere in the forest. I- I ran as soon as I c- could…” Applejack looked towards the direction of the forest, a determined look etched into her face. “Come on, ya’ll, we gotta save mah sister and ‘er friends!” She took off at a gallop, Twilight following close behind her. The humans just looked at each other and shrugged, before taking off after them. “‘Bout time we got some action,” Marine said. “You realize we fought a dragon just yesterday?” Chex remarked. “And we went nearly a whole day with nothing else. That’s quite a bit for my tastes.” “You’re psychotic, you know that?” Marine grinned. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”