//------------------------------// // Reminiscing // Story: CCC-Back Home Again // by Fresnor //------------------------------// Stepping outside I was amazed with the change that had come over Ponyville from what I can only assume was a result of the party cannon. Somehow Pinkie had managed to fit a Ferris wheel and a rollercoaster in that ball she gave me and I decided to not even question it. The buildings were also covered with streamers and balloons and I kind of felt bad to whoever was going to be tasked with cleaning everything up. I was more prepared for the insanity of what happened this time so I just decided to accept it like I did with Pinkie Pie, but I found that Twilight was not prepared as I found her staring up at some banners stretched out between two buildings. I stop next to her and look up at the banner before reading it out loud. “Welcome Back Home to Ponyville Flarenza and Cheer Up Twilight Party.” I notice a cord hanging down off to the side and wonder what it is for when Twilight starts speaking. “This is impossible! How could Pinkie even know that you would be back and that there would be somepony that would know how to use her party cannon?! Not only that how is the food still fresh as if it was made not even hours ago?!” She flails a limb in the direction of some buffet tables which are still steaming hot like she mentioned. I just shake my head as I realize where things are going if someone doesn’t stop her from overreacting. Unfortunately the worst pony for the job suddenly appeared in front of Twilight. “Ooh Princesses do you see what I did isn’t it amazing I haven’t seen anything so amazing since I made my first cake with my cousins the cakes. This is so amazing that I want to do it again and again and again and I found this neat book that shows me how to make even more parties for everything.” She pulls out a book from her mane titled Pinkie’s Party Planners Primer to Planning Perfect Parties Perfectly and showed it off to Twilight whose eye was starting to twitch erratically, just like Surprise’s tail. I double take at her tail before nudging Twilight’s side with a paw. “Um Twilight? Twitchy Tail.” My words bring an instant reaction as she dives to the ground with her hooves on her head while I instead look up to see a flower pot falling towards her. I sigh as I stick a paw out and catch it before it lands on her head before I lean down to whisper to her. “Twilight, do you really want to make the same mistake you did with Pinkie just to end up with another concussion and no answers?” She shakes her head as she looks up at me holding flowerpot before she accepts my offered paw to help her to her feet with a sigh. “You’re right. With everything else that is going on I really don’t have time to waste on trying figure this all out anyways.” I’m about to say something to reassure her but I notice surprise poking at my wooden leg before she comments on it. “Oh wow it really is made of wood but it looks so real how do you have a leg that looks real but is really a fakey fake wooden leg?” I wince when I see Twilight’s jaw drop open as she looks at my limb in shock. “Flarenza! What in the world happened to your leg?!” I sigh as I knew I wasn’t going to get out of this one without an explanation to satisfy her. “Early on when I was in that other world I was looking for a certain tree so I could create a timberwolf.” I gesture to Rose who was running around with Surprise on her back to my amusement. “Of course I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been and I was bit by a dangerous breed of snake that was immune to magic. There was no known cure from its venom which was turning my leg to stone so the only way to survive was to lose the leg.” I look at my leg sadly as I flex my wooden paw. “That was probably the closest that I ever came to dying and I’ve faced down undead hydras and dragons. It taught me many things, the least of which was that magic is too often the worst choice of things to rely on as you never know when it will fail on you. Even with the bad some good came of it as I would never have learned how to create this leg if it didn’t happen and the knowledge came in handy later on which I guess was another lesson. Sometimes when bad things happen you may be down but there are many good things that you can learn because of the situation.” Twilight looks at me sadly as I explain this and Surprise looks as if her mane is becoming deflated a little. “But that’s enough about something so depressing. This is supposed to be a party isn’t it?” This was the right thing to say as Surprise brightens up and starts to bounce around again. I start to turn towards Twilight when I catch a flash of purple on Surprise’s rear which causes me to smile. “Especially as there is another reason to celebrate today, isn’t there Surprise?” She looks confused for a moment until I gesture to her new cutie mark of a trio of purple balloons which even causes Twilight’s eyes to widen. “My cutie mark! This is the best day ever and it’s all thanks to you! I have to go show this to everpony now!” With that she quickly latches onto me in a hug before dashing off to show the rest of Ponyville what happened. Using my magic I decide to pull on that cord I saw which revealed another part of the banner which said ‘and Congratulation on your Cutie Mark, Surprise.’ I look at Twilight who is once again rubbing at her head at the impossibilities. “I really should have paid more attention to what was going on in Ponyville. I’m almost afraid to ask, but have you noticed anyone else that is disturbingly like our old friends?” I gesture over to a nearby table that is empty, though not many are as the town seems to be enjoying the spread of food and games as if there won’t be another party anytime soon. As we pass the tables of food I grab a few things and take a seat with Twilight joining me with a bit less food. I pass her a couple of the things I grabbed as I knew she had issues with eating when she got distracted and she was about to argue before she just sighed and gave in. I set out a pair of mugs and pull out the bottle that I had been saving which caught Twilight’s eyes as she recognized it. “Is that what I think it is?” I nod as I fill both mugs with zap apple cider and we watch as it settles into a rainbow of separate layers of color. “One of Applejack’s best seasons for it as well. I figured that this would be a good time to break open a bottle of it.” I take a small sip of it, which Twilight soon follows suit with, and savor the burst of flavor that changes with each color of the liquid. “It seems that they lost the technique to make more of this some time ago at Sweet Apple Acres. I talked with B.B. at the farm, she’s the head mare though is about the same age as your student, and I told her that I’d see if you wrote down the steps somewhere.” Twilight thinks for a second before answering me between bites. “I think I have it somewhere in that book of Applejack’s recipes in my private library. I’ll be sure to send over a copy of the entire thing just in case, though why were you there in the first place?” I gesture towards Surprise who can be seen running around town still. “Oh, right.” She shakes her head at the sight of another pony so much like Pinkie Pie that she could have been a twin. “You never did answer my question about if you noticed anypony else like Surprise.” I think back to the few ponies that I had met but none of them were as bad as Surprise though I did see elements of them. “I think Surprise is the only one that is that close and that can easily explained by her being a Pie. B.B. on Sweet Apple Acres would probably be the closest as she looks and acts like a mix of AJ and Rarity. She has the ivory coat of Rarity with AJ’s golden hair, and has the mannerisms of either depending on if she is working or not. Other than her there may be a small resemblance to or exemplify and element of someone we knew back then but Surprise is unique. Though I swear I saw Derpy once, and thinking about it that one pony was definitely her Doctor friend she was often with.” It was a good thing Twilight wasn’t drinking anything at the time, as it was bad enough when she started choking on the hayburger she was eating. Luckily we both new some techniques with our magic to help with that problem as she was soon gasping for breath after removing the offending object. “You mean you saw them here today? Great, now I have to find my checklist before something goes wrong. Why did Spike have to hide them all before he left, as well as the backups and backups of the backups?” I roll my eyes as she starts to work herself into a panic over what I saw to be nothing. “Um Twilight? Why do you need checklists for when he shows up anyways? I’ve seen him a lot of times when I was last here and he was usually pretty helpful. Actually, a little too helpful at times now that I think about it.” Twilight just stares at me for a moment in shock before she brings a hoof up to her forehead. “Right, you haven’t been around to see what usually happens when he shows up after you left. There are too many incidents to explain them all but the main point is the when he shows up something big is usually about to happen which often ends in a lot of damage. We had to rebuild much of Trottingham once because of an invasion of some strange metallic creatures after he showed up. Plus he’s an annoying know-it-all.” She mutters the last part which would be too low for a pony to hear but my hearing is much better. “He showed you up in something regarding science or magic once didn’t he?” She looks away from me as I say this before she just sighs. “I still think that I had something with magically transplanting ponies into metal bodies so they didn’t have to deal with old age would have worked. But he somehow even got Celestia and Luna on his side to get me to stop with the research. I mean it was only that one time that I accidentally flooded Canterlot when I missed something when I created those mop golems but they act like I was doing something worse.” I bury my face in my paws as I hear this, though I want to hear more about the mop golem incident, as I can see where they were coming from. “Oh, Twilight. Just because it sounds like a good idea doesn’t mean it is one. You were skirting awfully close to the edge of mixing golemancy with necromancy, but on the darker side of necromancy. What you were trying to create was basically a lich using a golem body, and you remember what happened the last time we had to deal with a lich.” Twilight’s eyes widen as I explain it before she starts shuddering at the thought of the lich that tried to seduce her those many years ago. “When you put it that way it makes a lot more sense. They only told me not to do it because it was a bad idea but never said why it was. It’s a good thing I never could figure out how to get the mind to interface correctly with the body, or replicate the magic of pegasi or unicorns to be used by them.” I sigh as she at least understands why now, though it probably won’t stop her from making a mistake in another way. “How is it that Derpy and this Doctor fellow are still alive after all this time anyways? They didn’t look like alicorns and I’ve never felt any kind of odd magic from them either.” Twilight winces as I hit what must be another sore topic with them. “The Doctor seems to have some kind of a time machine, though he also claims to be thousands of years old as well. How it works or what the machine looks like is still a mystery to me though it violates every principal Starswirl made regarding time travel. I was once able to sit down and talk with him about it but he just kept making up silly words and wouldn’t tell me how it worked.” I figured that this was a good thing as Twilight probably wouldn’t think before doing things that could create a catastrophe of some kind. She was starting to look a bit down so I needed to find something to distract her with which I luckily had. “Well before we are interrupted again, I brought you a present that I’m sure you will like, and you really need some of the advice it gives.” Twilight perks up a bit as I say this and starts to look giddy as I pull a book out of my bags which she quickly snatches away. When she looks at the cover though she gets an odd look on her face as she tries to comprehend what she is reading. “Really Flarenza? I remember you used to joke about this back then with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie but to actually go out and find a book like that?” She turns the book around towards me to reveal the words ‘Don’t Panic’ in bright bold letter emblazoned across the cover as I start laughing. “You also forget how we used to say that you would always listen to anything that a book told you and you really could have used that advice often enough.” Twilight blushes as she grumbles in annoyance, but doesn’t try to argue about it. “Besides, it’s a really good book even if it is a work of fiction. It’s probably up there with Daring Do at the least, even though it is a bit strange at times. Whoever wrote it was also a genius as you can find little bits of advice in it that do come in handy at times. Besides, how often are you going to be able to read a book written in another world?” Twilight rolls her eyes at me but still smiles at the gift. “I suppose you have a point, though I’m not sure if it counts if the writer’s race was originally from this world.” I decide not to disabuse her of this notion as I had no idea what world the book came from and if she heard about the library I was bringing she would constantly ask about it. Instead I lean back and just enjoy the time spent with Twilight as it really had been too long. Glancing around I could see some of the ponies looking at me oddly, but I knew I would receive stares until they got used to me again. Twilight looks around as well when she sees me doing it before she sighs at what she sees. “Don’t worry Flarenza; I’m sure they’ll get used to you being here once again. They just are wary about seeing other races considering what has been happening with the war.” I hadn’t considered that last part which made me curious about who all is involved in it right now. “While I did say that we would talk about it tomorrow, I think I might need to know who is involved before that.” Twilight looks sad when I say this and she finishes off her cider before speaking. “The real question is who isn’t involved in it right now. While some factions have dropped out of the war long ago on our side we still have the zebras and buffalo helping us where they can. Saddle Arabia has closed its borders and is dealing with its own problems and the Canine Countries have refused to join a side openly.” I’m not sure I like how short the list of allies is, but hearing that the diamond dogs are neutral is a good thing. “Unfortunately this means we are outnumbered as the gryphons, minotaurs, some sort of feline federation, and quite likely the changelings are against us. Even worse is that they somehow found some centaur clans out there that are assisting them, as well as some renegade unicorns from the civil war that happened a hundred years before this war.” Hearing about a civil war is a bit of a shock, though thinking back to the nobles I met it wasn’t too surprising, but Twilight continues. “In fact many of the noble houses broke away from Equestria during that war and only the most loyal of the major houses and most of the minor ones are left. In fact only House Sparkle and Blueblood are the only major houses alive today in Canterlot.” While I’m not surprised about the first house, the second one actually does as I remember both Prince Blueblood as well as his son being rather poor examples of nobility. “So not only are you outnumbered, but you also have traitors that know many of your secrets helping them. Not to mention the possibility of changelings feeding them information even if it is only a faction of them.” Twilight looks at me for clarification on my wording. “I know of at least one friendly changeling and I recommended that she speak with you sometime. I found out about how the changelings view me from her and she is nothing like the changelings you know. She could probably pass as a strange kind of pony if she wanted to because of how different she looks.” Twilight looks unsure about my vouching for a changeling. “I’d like to speak with her as well, but until I see her I can’t really tell you what I can do about her. I’ve never even heard of there being more than one type of changeling before until you mentioned it.” I shake my head but can’t really expect much more. “Well as long as you keep an open mind with her at least. At the very least she won’t be discovered anytime soon by a guard or alarm as the spells used by them aren’t attuned for the type of changeling she is.” I look around to see that most of the ponies have stopped looking at me and Surprise is also out of sight now. “Well since Pinkie was so nice to have this all ready for us, how about we enjoy it before we have to get down to business tomorrow?” I ask Twilight as I rise to my paws with a stretch. Twilight looks as if she is mentally arguing with herself before she just nods to me. “I guess it would be wrong of me to let this go to waste and she’d probably show up to scold me if I refuse, so sure.” While it wasn’t the best of reasons it was still good enough for me as tomorrow was probably going to make me miss days like this.