//------------------------------// // Act III: Chimera Conflict Resolved // Story: A Blissful Planet // by VonArmen //------------------------------// Act III: Chimera Conflict Resolved Upon hearing this roar, we all rushed outside in the hopes of finding its source. In response, the creature made another ear-shattering cry and this time I believe I heard the sound of a loud crash. It probably stepped on a building. The Chimera is most definitely a large force to be reckoned with. I should be careful. Twilight and Rainbow, to my surprise, were maintaining their composure in the situation and rushed off to where the sound was coming from almost immediately. Twilight started off with a run and then bounded into a sprint, while Rainbow took to the sky and flew upwards to get a view as to where the assumed Chimera was. They certainly don’t waste any time, do they? Realizing that they would probably need help, I sprinted in the direction Twilight was headed (seeing as I couldn’t exactly fly with Rainbow) and managed to keep up a relatively stable pace behind her, despite the fact that she has an advantage with running on four hooves instead of two feet like me. Fortunately, I didn’t have to keep the pace for long, due to us making it to our intended destination: right in front of the Chimera. It surprised me how strikingly similar it was to the way my species described it. A tail in the form of a serpent thrashing about, thumping the ground every so often; two heads, one of a goat, the other a lion, and claws about the size of a tire that would fit on a Semi. The coloring of its body was mixed, due to it being made up of at least four different animals (from what I can remember, at least); the body from its neck to rear end was a dark brownish color, while the serpent’s tail was a dull green. The goat’s head, on the other hand, was a pale gray, its horns a swirling black. The lion’s head was tan brown, its mane resembling a more maroon-like color, I think. The size (from approximation) that the Chimera stood was about 30 feet tall, a very intimidating size to ponies. Maybe not so intimidating for dragons, but then again, I haven’t exactly seen a full grown one here, yet, so it would be sort of impossible to get a size reference at this point, especially considering I was only assuming that dragons got up to the height I was thinking of. Anyway, regardless of the size advantage, Rainbow and Twilight went rushing in toward the Chimera, eager to defend their now-under-siege town. By instinct, I reached for my sword, readying myself for a battle… But I hesitated. Hold on. If this world has ponies AND dragons that are self-aware, shouldn’t it mean that all the rest of the species are, as well? It may be a logical fallacy, but it’s at least worth a shot to try and get this thing to listen to reason. Avoiding this fight seems like a really good idea, right now… “EVERYONE STOP!” I cried, desperate to get the attention of everyone involved in the fight. I couldn’t believe it. Not only did Rainbow and Twilight stop in their tracks, (in Rainbow’s case, stopped in midair) but even the Chimera ceased its destruction, even though the serpent-tail still kept thrashing about violently. Realizing this might be my only opportunity to reason with the Chimera, I jumped at the chance for a conversation with this thing. Metaphorically, of course. “You are the Chimera, are you not?” I asked, hoping for a reply from the 30 foot tall beast. It merely nodded its lion head in response. I heard some indistinguishable murmuring from Rainbow up in the sky, to which Twilight responded by teleporting her down and covering her mouth. Momentarily distracted by this, I thought to myself, She probably realized the same thing I did when I got the chance to reason with this thing. But still, I wonder, how does she use teleportation like that? Most likely magic, considering she’s a unicorn, but I still want to ask later, anyway. I shook my head a few times to clear my thoughts of distractions, looked back up at the Chimera, and continued, “I thought as much. Your reputation precedes you, even in my universe.” The Chimera’s serpent-tail slowed down to a much less violent pace as she cocked her goat head toward me, most likely inquiring what I meant. So she’s self-aware, but can’t communicate in languages? Unfortunate that I can’t actually have a full conversation with her, but I’ll take what I can get. “Ah, yes, well, to put simply, I am from an alternate universe. My universe has managed to record stories of you and the rest of your family… Somehow… And let me just say, mere stories of your existence have spawned a great deal of scientific discoveries and advancements in our world. You are an inspiration.” …What? I figured it’d be a good idea to start with exaggerated flattery to try to calm her down. There was some merit to what I said, after all. In response, the Chimera sat down, causing a bit of a rumble, and I think I heard a bit of purring coming from the lion head. “So, would you mind telling me why you’re all the way out here? This is a pretty long way from home, from what I hear,” I asked, hoping I wouldn’t offend her to the extent that she would just continue her rampage. The Chimera unsheathed one of her claws and started scratching something into the ground for about thirty or forty seconds. I took this time to glance around the area, only to find a lot of the ponies residing in this town outside of their homes and staring at us anxiously, probably praying for nothing to go wrong that would cause the Chimera to start acting up again. After the quick scope of the area I took, I looked back at the Chimera, who was finishing up her drawing. Once done, she lifted her paw up only to reveal a rather crude, stick-figure like drawing of what I could make out to be a creature on four legs with three heads. Recognizing the defining feature immediately, I asked, “You were looking for your brother after he left his post, weren’t you?” She perked all three of her heads up almost simultaneously, to which they answered my question by nodding profusely. “And I take it that some ponies obstructed your search, which would explain their… disappearances?” The Chimera looked a lot less excited, and this time it was only the lion head that nodded response. “Well, what’s done is done. There’s not really anything you can do about it now,” I said, to which she looked at me with what seemed like a look of relief on her faces. I continued, “Well, if all you want to do is see Cerberus again, perhaps I can help find him with you? I do have a map with me; it would be easy to cover ground with your speed and my directional skills.” All the ponies in town stared at me with a look of utter disbelief that I would even consider offering a helping hand- or in their case hoof- to the Chimera. She looked at me with what seemed like sheer delight that I was offering help, getting very eager once more and started nodding all her heads again simultaneously. I walked towards her, getting ready to climb onto her back, until Twilight stepped forward and interrupted us. “Hold on,” she said, “I don’t think that’s going to be necessary to travel all around Equestria.” I made a confused face, which she couldn’t see, and asked, “Why would that be?” “Because I already brought Cerberus back to Tartarus. It was almost right after he left his post, too.” She turned her head more toward the Chimera “You probably just missed us going to Tartarus. He should still be there, if he didn’t go out looking for you, anyway. I can help guide the way if you want.” “Any help is appreciated, as far as I’m concerned,” I said back, “As long as it’s okay with you, of course.” The Chimera merely shrugged and her goat head nodded to us. “Looks like we have a journey ahead of us!” I proclaimed a bit over-the-top. “Well, we might as well head out now, assuming that you don’t have anything you want to bring with you?” I questioned toward Twilight while starting my climb onto the Chimera. “No,” she replied, “Tartarus isn’t too far away from here, and considering we have the Chimera to take us there, it should only take an hour or two at the kind of speed she has.” So it’s only getting back in enough time we have to worry about, I pondered. “Well then, onwards to Tartarus! Allons-y!” I’ve been waiting to use that line. “What does that mean?” she asked, skeptically. “It’s French for ‘Let’s go!’” I replied, “Now come on, we don’t want to waste any time.” I reached down from my climb on the Chimera’s back and offered my hand to help her up. She extended her hoof, accepting my offer. I then grasped her appendage and tossed her up onto the Chimera’s back, Twilight giving an “oomph” as she landed. I followed suit, finished my climb up the back, and promptly sat down next to Twilight, still lying down from being previously tossed up the Chimera’s back. Upon feeling this, the Chimera kicked her hind legs and started bounding westward out of town. Twilight, suddenly realizing something that I couldn’t make out at the time, called back behind us, “Rainbow! Tell Spike to take care of the Library while I’m gone!” She didn’t get a response; Rainbow merely turned back after seeing that we made it out of view. “Do you think she heard me?” she asked. I shrugged, “Probably. No way to tell until we get back.” “I think you’re right.” After that, Twilight started barking orders at the Chimera, giving incredibly accurate directions, even better than what I could do with a map. I guess she’s gone through here more than once. Either that or she remembers a great number of details after only one experience. Our path took us fairly far, leading us through quite a number of places. The most notable of these places being a very large bridge that extended over a massive chasm, which Twilight told me was called “The Path to Friendship.” Apparently, the chasm that the bridge allowed crossing over divided two former nations that never really got along with one another, from what she hinted at, at least. At one point, they even started a war with each other revolving entirely around catapults and seeing how much damage they could do to the other side with said catapults. This reminded me very heavily of World War I, only instead of each side having trenches, there was just a massive one between the two. Thinking that there might be parallels between the wars, I decided to ask what started this, but she didn’t really give me an answer other than “They had their differences.” Realizing that asking for reasoning in this story was most likely futile, I dropped that category and instead asked what prompted the fighting to end. Twilight perked up at this question, and said that the ending of the war came when a stallion from the side closest to Ponyville (called Mustanium) and a mare from the other side (Geldria) fell in love. Upon seeing the close friendship between the lovers, the townsfolk realized the error of their ways and extended their hooves in alliance to one another. Thus, the bridge was constructed as a peace offering between Geldria and Mustanium. These towns and the bridge, however, were annexed into Equestria after word spread around that the bridge was complete. Apparently the bridge was such an appealing addition that it was worth annexing two small countries over it. I figure it must have been for transportation-based reasons, but Twilight never really gave me any more details regarding the matter. Furthermore, pegasi can fly, and unicorns (from what I’ve seen, at least) can teleport, so transportation wouldn’t have really been an issue unless a normal pony wanted to cross. Very strange, that situation, but I digress. Since that point, ponies slowly started to leave the towns year by year until, eventually, Geldria and Mustanium became ghost towns. Well, that was a happy ending by my standards; then again, I do set my standards low for such things. From Twilight’s brief history trivia, the bridge’s completion only took about four or five years. Surprising, considering it was approximately half a mile in length… and built by ponies. Still don’t know how this species managed to construct anything without the usage of hands, though. I suppose magic is a fairly plausible explanation, seeing as it exists in this world, but it still bothers me a bit to just conclude “magic did it” without any other explanation. I guess I’m still just too used to my world. That quick tangent aside, the other places we came across weren’t really too noteworthy; just a quick patch of forest, (which didn’t even have a name) and the remnants of Geldria and Mustanium on the opposite sides of the bridge. Other than that, it was mostly just plains between mountain ranges, stretching a decent three miles at least. After having traversed these plains, we came across a massive opening in the mountain, signifying the halfway point of our journey. We descended from the Chimera’s back upon our arrival, to which the Chimera let out a loud roar directed at the entrance. Another loud roar echoed in response from inside the cave, signaling its acknowledgment of the Chimera. The owner of the second roar stepped out of the cave and revealed his appearance to be none other than the whole reason the Chimera left in the first place: Cerberus. The Chimera dashed toward Cerberus and nearly knocked him over, nuzzling him with all three of her heads. Cerberus responded by nuzzling back, the two of them sharing a… Heartwarming moment, I suppose. Rather disturbing, if you ask me. I’m not quite sure what it was, but something about that scene just didn’t seem right. Maybe it was the Chimera being quite larger than Cerberus in height? I wonder… Well, regardless, they finished having their moment and the Chimera turned back towards us. She then started scratching something that I couldn’t quite make out into the ground, which took about as long as when she drew that crude drawing of her brother back in town a few hours ago. She moved her paw away to reveal another crude drawing, this time of a four-legged figure with a horn (which I assumed to be Twilight) and a larger, two-legged figure with its face scratched out (me, I would assume) with a heart in between them. Twilight smiled at this, thanking the Chimera kindly for the drawing. I, on the other hand, merely nodded my thanks, promptly turned away from the cave, and walked away from the siblings. Twilight apparently hadn’t noticed my curt leave and called to me while running, “Hey! Wait up!” “What’s the rush?” “Look at the sun,” I replied, pointing to the sky. She craned her head upward only to find that the sun was nowhere in sight. “Uh… Where?” “Exactly. Day is already at an end, and if we don’t find a campsite soon, then I doubt we’ll make it through the night.” Twilight gave a confused glance, “You really think that we could die here?” “It’s a possibility I'd rather avoid. Now, let’s hurry and find a suitable campsite to avoid that.” She nodded and helped me look for a campsite as we wandered in the direction of the bridge we crossed not even a few hours prior to that conversation. Looking around was, fortunately enough, a fruitful effort as we found a clearing near the path we traveled that was secluded enough to both allow us to build a campfire and not set the area ablaze, and provide us a decent bit of protection against the possibility of invaders, considering that the trees that surrounded the clearing were rather thick. Another bonus was that it didn’t take very long at all to find it along the path (I had estimated somewhere around 10-15 minutes, at least). “Seems like a perfect spot to set up camp,” I stated aloud, “Would you mind finding some loose branches lying about the area? We’ll need them to start a fire.” “Isn’t it a bad idea to start a fire in the middle of a forest? I may not be an expert on wildlife, but that’s pretty dangerous, don’t you think? Not to mention the fact that even if you're worried about something coming for us in the middle of the night, won't the fire be a big giveaway that we're here?” Initially, I found this question to be rather… Misinformed? That sounds about right. Despite this, however, I decided to humor her and, instead of responding with a snappy comeback, I gave a factual response. “Firstly, this is the middle of the night. For predators to hunt here, they would need to have some form of night vision, which is greatly interfered with by light, which fire provides. The only thing a fire should mean to the wildlife here is to stay away. Had we been dealing with bandits of some form, I would have agreed with you, but since that shouldn't be the case, especially since word that the Chimera has been returned to Tartarus definitely hasn't gotten out yet, we don't have to worry about that. Second, we won't cause a forest fire if we line up a makeshift fire pit made of rocks. Basically all we do is surround the initial point of the fire with rocks, and the ashes and sparks of the burning fire won't spread around to the other trees as long as we keep the fire down. Simple enough, right?" Twilight looked at me with a hint of wonder, "You know a lot about wilderness survival, especially considering you don't even know the area. I still don't agree with the fire, though. Cerberus does a fantastic job of guarding Tartarus, nothing is going to get in or out of there with him guarding the gates. Also, we really don't need it for this temperature, anyway." I scoffed, "Says the pony living with a fur coat. I know I'm not exactly the best example to say this, considering I wear clothing that covers my entire body, but humans don't have fur coats. At most we have little hairs growing across our body and our hair." "Really?" she questioned, "How does your species survive in the winter, then?" "You're looking at it," I replied, pulling at my cloak, "We just wear heavier, insulated clothing during the colder seasons. Well, where I'm from it stays at a pretty moderated temperature, due to being so close to the ocean, so it never really gets that cold, but everywhere else that has seasons that actually change, that's what my species does." "Why would you not prepare for the possibility of colder weather when you came here?" Does she think I meant to come here? “You... know I didn’t intend to get flung here, right?” “So then your coming here was accidental?” That was a bit of an obvious question, but whatever. “That’s right. Honestly, I’m not sure how I got here, exactly, but I do have a couple of pretty good ideas.” “Those are..?” And here I thought I was the only one who prompted a response from someone like that. “Well, if what’s theorized in physics actually works, then my first guess would be that a random wormhole appeared close enough to me and for just long enough to suck me into an alternate universe. In other words, something triggered a momentary rift in the space/time continuum of our universes and flung me here.” “Hmmm…” She thought for a bit, before nodding her head in agreement, “That does sound plausible, but you said ‘ideas.’ Plural. I take it you have another?” I’m liking her more and more as this conversation passes. “Yeah, just one other idea for the moment. Since magic exists in this world, I would think it would be possible for someone to cast a spell to pull me here, whether it be intentional or not. Is something like that possible as of yet?” “Not that I know of. If something like that was intentional, then whoever developed it would have taken credit for something like that by now, especially with what you did to help out Ponyville. I doubt you’ll get many reactions like mine by the time we get back.” Twilight looked down away from me after saying this, as if out of guilt. I, on the other hand, just laughed at this, “I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you, Twilight. Honestly, had I been in that situation in place of you, I probably would have done the same thing.” She looked back up to me, “You… Really?” “Yeah, probably. I mean, if I were you and came home to find a massive biped that’s at least twice my size with dark-colored attire, a sword, and was conversing with one of my best friends, momentary panicking would definitely be my first thought.” “What would the second be?” I chuckled, “Probably fighting it. If anything, your reaction was a lot better than mine would have been had I been in that situation. Sorry for what I said back there, by the way.” She tilted her head a bit and gave a puzzled look. Apparently she forgot. “Y-you know, the one about you knowing what to do in that situation?” “Oh, that one! Hey, don’t worry about it. We all say things we’re not proud of.” “Yeah, tell me about it,” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my voice. “Well, before we forget, we might as well go get the things for the fire.” Twilight became sterner here, “We’re not starting a fire.” “You’re really not letting up on that one, are you?” She stared at me with a deadpan expression. I gave in. “Oh, fine. But if I die from wild animal mauling, you’re the first one I’m blaming.” Twilight giggled, “Oh, please. If anything you might just be able to reason with it like you did the Chimera. Besides, it definitely won’t get that bad, I promise.” “Just because you promise something doesn’t make it true, you know.” “Oh, stop being morbid.” I laughed, “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”