“99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beeeer~”
“Take it down, pass it around~”
“98 bottles of beer on the wall!”
Gwen thought this would be easy. Just sit in stone for over a thousand years in a garden, rise up, and beat Discord again.
Unfortunately, she and her partner had a mental bond with the crazy god thing, which meant she had to listen to her fluffy companion, Allie, and Discord sing the same song over and over and over!
The only times they stopped were when Luna was banished into the moon (which Allie cried at) and the occasional tour group.
“And here, we have the avatars of Restraint and Rage.” Gwen watched the Purple and pink earth pony walk in front of the two statues that imprisoned the odd couple. She was flanked by colts and fillies of all different colors.
“Why’d they have to name me Restraint?” Allie spoke up in the mental link. Gwen groaned at her partner’s mistaken vocabulary, Allie talking over the pony discussing their impressive history. “I mean, I don’t hold anything back!”
“They called you Rage, not Restraint.” Gwen had to point out, missing her ability to face palm for the millionth time. “It means you had no control what so ever.”
“But I do have control.” Allie whined, her voice matching the fluffy body she had. She looked like a dog, only with a few differences. She stood upright, her ears were basically part of her long hair, and she had claw tipped hands. She was wearing a white battle dress with a leather corset over it, with pieces of armor on her legs. He pose in the stone showed her pulling out one of her long katanas from its sheath.
Gwen groaned at how her partner contradicted herself yet again. Gwen herself seemed to be on the opposite spectrum. While she looked more human, she was still as far from human as Allie. She was a little shorter than Allie and for good reason. She looked overall too thin to be human. Gwen also had black tipped animal ears. Gwen’s hair was longer than Allie’s but was done up in twin pigtails with two flowers. She was wearing a simple dress with black boots that stretched to underneath it along with black, fingerless gloves that stretched to her shoulders. Her pose was just her in a defensive position with her staff.
“Miss Cherilee, what’s Restraint?” A yellow filly with red hair and a little bow asked, poking one of Gwen’s legs.
“Who cares?” Gwen went from mentally glaring at the tiny pony that had touched her to staring at the two little ponies that reminded her too much of those stuck up Royals back at home. “It’s just an ugly jelly bean.”
Some of the ponies frowned, none more so than the children’s apparent teacher. Allie was yelling at the little pink pony for calling Gwen ugly.
“For the record, nopony knows what Restraint was, only that she had the ability to keep Discord in place while the princess and Rage fought him.” The teacher, Cherilee apparently, responded, pointing with her hoof to Gwen. “Not even Princess Celestia herself knew what the two were.”
Gwen started turning out the rest of the talk to focus in on Discord.
“…Discord, you are being oddly quiet.”
That’s when both stoned beings felt it and they didn’t notice as the ponies left, three of the little ones arguing.
They were far more focused on the growing chaos energy coming from the stone prison nearby and the growing cracks.
They could feel the cracks forming on their own prison in response.
In the statues, all three beings tensed up for the fight that would happen.
“I’m telling you, Rage has gotta be some kind of mutant Diamond Dog.” Scootaloo spoke up to friends as they lagged behind.
“No, it can’t be!” Apple Bloom replied, twisting to look at the Pegasus. “Mutants don’t have any fur.”
“Maybe she’s like a super diamond dog from space!” Sweetie Belle suggested.
The three where so wrapped up in their talking they didn’t notice that they were being left behind or that the statues were cracking and shaking slightly.
As the fillies argued, the cracks grew.
“Okay, we’ve come to agreement!” Apple Bloom exclaimed, the statue that looked like a Diamond Dog was shaking even more violently. “We shall be…CUTIE MARK CRUSAD-!”
They were cut off with a loud explosion and a cloud of dust hitting them from behind, knocking them off their hooves.
“I can mooooooooooooooooove!” A loud female voice yelled out right when Sweetie Belle was about to speak. “I can fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight! I can driiiiiiiiiiink!”
“I am aware, Allie.” A more cynical sounding female voice replied, with the sound of clothes getting brushed off. “I just wish you would have done it with less explosive tendencies.”
“But explosions are awesome! I mean, remember when we took down that evil prince guy?”
The three fillies looked over to where the voices were coming from to see the two statues, now in color, moving around and talking.
There was a ‘shink’ noise as the very real katana was put back in its sheathe.
The crusader’s watched as the two beings stepped off their pedestals with a grace and ease that seemed otherworldly.
“Girls!”
The three fillies snapped out of their reverie and looked back to Cherilee running up, the rest of the class following. “Are you all-“
She stopped speaking when the former dog statue rushed by the earth pony in a flash of flames, stopping in front of Diamond Tiara.
“You!” Allie barked in rage, some flames licking off her.
Everyone was frozen in fear except Diamond Tiara, who fell on her flank in fear, staring up at those emerald green eyes in fear.
“Gwen is not an ugly or an jelly bean! I do not know what a jelly bean is but I am certain that Gwen is not one of them! She is a vessel and pretty to all humans and very healerific!”
“Healerific is not a real word.” Every pony there jumped in surprise when they noticed the thin one had appeared right in the middle of the group, behind Allie.
Allie looked back. “Yes it is, I just made it up. It means you are super gifted at being a healer person~”
“Um-“ Cherilee was cut off by the thin one holding up a finger.
“Besides, we need to see Tia.”
Allie’s tail perked up, the flames disappearing. “Okay…but I wanna punish that pony that called you ugly later.”
The thin one, Gwen, just sighed and rubbed Allie’s head before starting to walk off.
Allie pranced behind her, looking completely at odds with her furious look a minute ago.
It was after the odd duo left was when somepony finally spoke.
“What just happened?”
Then, Diamond Tiara fainted.
(1490 years ago, Tharsis)
“Come on, Gwen!” A red haired woman spoke up, walking with a dark-skinned woman and blond haired woman down the main road in the large city.
Gwen ran after her other guild mates. ‘W-wh-why do w-we have to s-see these new M-merchants?” The vessel asked, looking to the fluffy bushi walking up beside her.
“Well, because they might bring us new stuff from other parts of the world~” Allie hummed, stopping Gwen from tripping on a brick. “I mean, don’t you wanna give the Medium some souvenirs from Etria? I bet she’d love some of the plants~”
“P-please don’t a-a-assume f-for the Medium.” Gwen stuttered, gripping her staff tighter. She couldn’t go anywhere without it. “I-I mean, w-what if we get s-something she doesn’t l-like?”
“The Medium will like whatever we get her~” Allie cheerfully remarked, slapping Gwen on the back.
Gwen flinched in pain, looking at the street. “I hope so…”
The vessel stopped when she noticed an old looking man sitting on the side of the street on a carpet, a large amount of odds and ends sitting around him. She grabbed Allie’s sleeve and pulled her over to the merchant.
Gwen tried to ignore Allie’s ‘ooooh’ing as she examined everything but her eye kept getting pulled back to this one necklace.
It was very simple. An En coin covered in gold on a chain.
Gwen picked it up as Allie examined a bracelet.
“How much is this?” The two spoke up at that same time. They looked at each other and looked away, Allie giggling.
“For the lovely couple, it will only be 200 En.” The old merchant chuckled.
“W-we’re not a couple.” Gwen stuttered as Allie went into her coin bag, to take out the money.
Gwen put on the necklace as she walked off into the road.
“Gwen! Look out!” Gwen’s eyes shot up as she saw a horse charging at her with a fully laden cart.
Time seemed to slow down as the horse was about to slam into her. Gwen felt sheer terror and some irony at that scene.
She had faced down giant fire breathing lizards, golems, dragons that could destroy airships with a without thinking about it, and a giant tree monster that could turn people into plants and now she was about to get killed by a horse because she wasn’t paying attention.
Gwen felt something slam into her side as her new necklace started glowing. The light engulfed her vision. Before she passed out, the old merchant’s voice suddenly echoed in her head.
“Have fun~”