Luna looked out the window at the setting sun on the horizon, confliction in her heart as she tried to think of something to write on her report on the human...on Ryan and about how he had saved them all. Yet he never made it back from that world where Discord had taken him and since no other pony (except the silver mare and Zecora) knew him as well as she had, Luna was the one who had to think up a report.
She sighed as she looked down at what she had written so far, smirking at her own writing. She had claimed him to be an insufferable asshole who would sooner make fun of you then he would make friends with you. But beneath all of her jokes about him she had written the more heroic side of Ryan, how no matter what he was thrown up against he would face it head on, with no quit or worries about himself.
"Having trouble sister?" Luna stretched her wings as she turned to look at Celestia, who walked up to her little sister and wrapped her in a wing hug.
"Well, I have done as you asked and written my report about what little I knew about the human, but it is sadly lacking," Luna muttered with frustration as she hoofed her sister the barely half a pages worth of writing. Celestia skimmed over it quickly with a frown before offering it back to Luna.
"You said that Zecora will not tell you what else she knows about the human?" Celestia asked, Luna shaking her head in response.
"She says that it is not her place and that he asked her not to reveal anything about him to us," Luna answered. "I cannot understand that zebra sometimes. How are the repairs for the areas affected by Discord going?"
"Progress is going well, but sadly none of the ponies remember anything that happened," Celestia said with a bit of regret in her voice. "All of the ponies just assume that we and the Elements of Harmony saved them. They have no recollection of what the human...Ryan did for them or what he sacrificed."
"And that's where we meet our dilemma," Luna muttered as she rose from her chair, turning towards the window and focusing her magic so that she could raise the moon for the night. "Do we tell the ponies of the land the truth about the human and that there have been others before him? Or do we let them believe their own words and that we saved them all?"
"We've hushed the truth before," Celestia reminded her sister. Luna frowned at those words as she placed the moon into place before turning to her sister.
"Yes, but at those times we were not lying sister. With the knight we did aid him against the dragon and we did save the ponies. That was a fact," Luna reminded her sister, memories of that ordeal flashing through their minds as if it had happened the other day. "But this time we were helpless to stop Discord and without that human we would all be under his power. I say we tell them what really happened, tell them about the hero that that asshole was deep down."
"Very well sister, I suppose that we will have to tell them," Celestia mumbled with a yawn as she headed to her room. "Tomorrow though. I'm far too tired after what we've been through." Luna nodded as she went back to her report, but she felt something in the back of her skull and she turned around.
"You can come out. I can vaguely sense you," Luna said to the moonlight room, smiling a moment later when the mare of silver emerged from nothingness. "I am glad to see that you are alright. We had no idea whether or not you would recover from the damage Discord had done to you."
'Yes, I must thank you for helping to restore me slightly,' the mare gratefully said before looking at the crack in her sphere, which had grown slightly larger. 'But I did not come here to talk. I came to say farewell. It is time...that I return to my home and put my plan into action. Please do not ask me what it is, all you need to know is that...I am grateful to you and I hope one day to repay my debt. If the human taught me anything, it's that debts need to be repaid.'
"Yes. I am just sad that we will never be able to repay him for what he did," Luna said with a sad sigh. "Farewell, whoever you are." The silver mare nodded and vanished into nothingness once again, leaving the princess to sigh and turn back to her report.
\\ //
//; ;\\
The brew in her hut had just began to boil when Zecora heard a knocking at the door and she grumbled to herself as she walked over to and opened the door, blinking in surprise when she found Twilight and Lyra standing on her porch. "Twilight and Lyra, this is a surprise. So rarely do you come through this forest of lies."
"Sorry to intrude on you like this Zecora, but we bring news that we figure that you'd want to hear," Twilight said as she and Lyra entered the room, sitting down when Zecora offered them seats. "I thought that you'd like to know that we're going to tell the public about Ryan and what he did for us in the fight against Discord." Zecora raised an eyebrow at this, but she motioned for her to continue.
"We figure that they deserve to know who truly saved them," Lyra added before Twilight could speak. "Plus...Ryan was the only member of his race left and with him gone...if we don't remember the humans then who will? They might have wiped each other out, but I'm going to try to help the ponies remember them in the best light I can, using Ryan as an example."
"So an egotistical jerk with more baggage than a pony on the move?" Zecora teased with a chuckle. "But I agree that showing the good he caused is something that you must prove. I did care for him even if I did not show it, but with him I couldn't resist matching wits."
"I just wish that I could have learned more about him like you had," Twilight said with a sad shake of her head. "The last human is now gone and with him died all knowledge of the human race. All of their books, all of the inventions that they created. (Sigh)...I guess they're just another race to be added to the Book of Mythical Creatures now."
"At least we got to kinda know one before he died," Lyra said, trying to look at it with a positive spin. "And from all the horror stories that he told us, I'm glad we got one of the good ones."
"Maybe you're right there," Twilight said with anther sad shake as she stood up. "The announcement with take place at six tonight. I would recommend coming Zecora, we'd like somepony there who knew at least something about Ryan to make a speech about him."
"I will try, but for now I must say goodbye." Twilight nodded before looking at Lyra, wondering if she was going to come with. She shook her head and Twilight left the room with a shrug, leaving the unicorn and the zebra to look at each other before huge smiles broke out on their faces and they began to laugh.
"If you assholes are laughing at me then we're going to have a problem," Ryan snarled as he walked out of the closet, smiling at the two who stifled their laughter as best they could. "It's amazing how little these ponies think of me. I survive everything else that happens to me and they believe that something as pathetic as an inter-dimensional barrier crushing me would kill me."
"It may not be my place, but please tell me how you managed to escape?" Zecora asked with a smile as Ryan sat down in the chair that Twilight had just vacated.
"You can thank little miss "useless" over there," Ryan said as he jerked his thumb to Lyra, who blushed slightly under the praise. "She apparently spent most of her life practicing a spell that would allow her to teleport any human to her no matter where they were and just when death was finally about to claim my ass did it finally work, teleporting me out of that place and to her. Never told me about it. I'm surprised that you didn't tell any of the others that you got my ass out of that fire."
"I did try to tell you, but you blew me off. And I figured that was your call," Lyra bashfully said. "But I'm more surprised that you didn't want the ponies to now that you survived! Knowing you I thought that you would lord it over their heads for years after this and since you saved them all they'd have to put up with it."
"That's actually a pretty good idea, but sadly I do not believe that I'm going to be around much longer," Ryan muttered before turning in his chair to see the silver mare behind him. "I still owe you my life at least three times over. And I have a feeling that you still have need of me." The silver mare walked over and sat beside them, looking up at Ryan with a smile that was hidden beneath her hood.
'I am glad that you are alive,' she said softly, Zecora smiling slightly as Ryan looked at her with confusion. 'But you are right. I need your help one last time.'
"Well tell me what we need to do already, we're burning daylight."
'Captain Marvel. The Incredible Hulk and Bruce Banner. Batmare. Trixie the Misfit. Mr. Bubbles. And the now fallen Mr. Freeze,' the silver mare began as she brought up images of each of the six champions. 'These are the six who were supposed to help me defeat a darkness that would claim my home and then from there all of the multiverse. Yet as I said, Freeze fell defending his land and I was not able to save him.'
"So you want me to replace him?" Ryan asked. "Sure, sounds easy enough. I just have to fight alongside five other creatures that could kill me by blinking."
'He was chosen by the power, something that you have not been,' the silver mare said. 'At first I truly believed that I would have to find another champion in the short amount of time that I had, but after meeting you...after getting to know you, I believe that if anypony can take his place it would be you.'
"So I'm going to be the only one on this team that wasn't chosen? Ugh, it's like high school all over again," Ryan joked.
'You may not have been chosen by the power, but you were chosen by me,' the silver mare said with another hidden soft smile.
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" The group laughed at that before Ryan stood up and slung his backpack onto his back, heading for the exit. "I'll come with you soon, but there a few things that I need to get done before we go. I have a few goodbyes to say and also something I need to...finish. Catch you later."
"I should probably be getting back to," Lyra said as she got up and walked out of the room as well. "Thanks for everything silver and Zecora. Never thought I'd see the day when I got to be a hero, even if it was only for a moment."
'Through my travels I have found that almost all ponies have the potential to be heroes, whether or not they know it.' Lyra smiled at the kind words before she turned to leave, leaving the silver mare alone with Zecora. 'I truly do not know if this plan is going to work. I was specifically told that I needed the six champions, but with Freeze dead...'
"Did you not say that you believed Ryan was a suitable replacement? So I wonder where all that confidence went?" Zecora asked.
'That's not a rhyme. And yes, I said that he would be a suitable replacement, but that was more of a...selfish reason,' the silver mare admitted while looking at the floor, getting a chuckle out of Zecora. 'But I still don't know if this will work! What if it doesn't? The original Elements have abandoned me and said that they cannot help me! I-'
"Did you not say yourself that all have the potential to be heroes, it's that they only think of themselves as zeroes?" Zecora asked her with a raised eyebrow. "Another might be able to take up the power, but only if you are there to help them in that hour." The silver mare sighed softly before looking up at Zecora, removing her hood and moving her silver mane to the side so that the zebra could see the lightning bolt mark on her neck.
'Thank you for never giving up on me,' the silver mare said as she rubbed the mark. 'But why help out Ryan? Why did you choose to watch over him all this time?'
"Because he needed my help if he was to survive, but I am glad I managed to free him from his own lie. Normally I prefer to remain mysterious and withdrawn, but this was easier as I could be one who was gone, " Zecora said with a sad sigh as she stood up, smiling at the silver mare. “Because all deserve to have a chance at happiness, especially those filled with emptiness. But now I must say farewell, for I am needed in another hell. Oh and give this to Ryan. Without it he'd lose to an ant lion. Now I must go say farewell to my friends...then my time here is at its end." The silver mare nodded as she backed up, covering her eyes a light flashed from Zecora's eyes. When she could see again, both Zecora and the hut were gone, as if they had never been there at all. Ryan approached from as the silver mare looked down at the ground, smiling at what Zecora had left.
"The hell did the zebra go?" Ryan asked as he walked up besides the silver mare, who smirked as she walked by him.
'She is gone to help others who need her, but I have the feeling we'll see her again. Speaking of which, she gave me this,' the mare said as she tossed Ryan his other baton, the human looking down at it before he looked back to where the hut had been with a smirk.
"I freaking knew it," he said with a laugh as he placed the baton in his bag, looking at where the hut used to be.
'Are you certain that you don't want to stick around here? The ponies would see you as a hero.'
"Just because they see me as one doesn't make me one," Ryan shrugged. "I'm just an ass who stumbled into things that he should have stayed far away from. Now come on, we have to go save your world, right?"
'Indeed. Let us go.'
====---====
'My future looks as bleak as ever, as I no longer am certain if I will be able to save my home,' the mare said to herself as she looked around at all six of the Elements, her eyes resting on the one that no longer had an owner. 'Now I have five champions and one who might as well be a champion, but I do not know if this will be enough. There is just such an uphill climb that we must face. The warring sister, the power of Teth and the eventual being of darkness and destruction that will descend. I just pray that they can-'
"Are you monologing to yourself in there? Hurry the hell up; we need to get me that replacement hand!" The silver mare smirked at the voice before looking one last time at the six items in front of her, suppressing her fears as best she could. She then turned and headed towards Ryan, preparing her magic to summon the five champions and the plaything of the gods.
'They are not perfect, but if my adventures have shown me anything it's that they shouldn't be,' she silently thought to herself. 'Their flaws make them strong and their courage will win them the day. Sister...Freeze...watch over me. For it is time for the Elements to be re-forged.'