//------------------------------//
// Recalled To Life  
// Story: Twilight's Guide to Extraterrestrials 
// by Eventual Perception 
//------------------------------//

Riddick, Twilight, and Trixie all sat in the interrogation room, the morning sun rising through the windows as they sat: Riddick and Trixie looked bored and Twilight looked incredibly nervous. The room was quiet, except for Twilight's endless murmuring to herself, worryings spoken aloud about the damage done to the Changeling/Pony Alliance and to her relationship with Starlight and whether they had a relationship at all anymore. She twisted her fingers together, desperately hoping one would give way and break and give her something to think about beyond this awkward problem. Trixie did not seem to mind Twilight's mutterings, merely content to sit beside her lover, eyes closed. "How do I not know how she got here?" Twilight whispered to herself. "They can see her-- I'm not crazy-- they can see her too--" Riddick sighed. 

"You know, muttering to yourself like that won't make them show up any faster." 

"What do you know, Riddick?! You were supposed to behave yourself! You were supposed to let the guards watch you, not kill them! What were you thinking! Do you know how many ponies you traumatized?! What do you have to say for yourself?!"

Riddick leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. "Same thing I said before. It was self defense. Although, you know, Twilight, if that thing is after me, and you've got me locked up here, in a castle, where do you think it's going to go next?"

"Ohmygosh you're right! It's going to come here! It was bad enough that it wiped out Ponyville but now it's going to come here where there's even more innocent ponies it can harm and it's all my fault because I insisted you be put under arm guard and you caused problems and caused a ruckus and now you're locked up and that thing is going to come here and it's going to ruin everything!" She stopped for a breath, and was quiet for a moment. It was then the door opened and Celestia and Chrysalis walked in, Luna at their heels. Celestia sighed. 

"Well, that's.... I don't even know how many that thing has killed. Riddick, you're up to four. Tell me, what were you thinking." 

"It was self defense."

"It was, Celestia. My soldiers told me - your guards failed to prevent an assault from occurring, and when Riddick defended himself, they turned on him."

"My Royal Guards would do no such thing!" 

"Tia," Luna said, leaning against the wall, "what reason would the Changelings have to lie to us?"

"I don't know, Luna." 

"Sister; Applebloom corroborated the Changelings story!" 

"Then she's lying! And what about that?" She pointed at Trixie, who kept her eyes closed despite the commotion around her. "How is that she's here when she's dead. This clearly shouldn't be a thing. Twilight - explain!" 

"I don't know, Princess Celestia." Twilight slumped in her chair. "She was with me every time I met with Karellen, but Karellen said she could only exist in his ship. At least, I think it was his ship. Nevermind. At any rate, by all accounts she shouldn't be here."

"And yet she is. How?"

"I don't know."

"You must know."

"I don't!"

Chrysalis sighed and interjected. "Look, let's deal with more pressing issues. It seems that our mystery mare here only goes beserk when she's away from Twilight, so, for the moment, I think we should let her be."

"But what about Starlight?" Twilight asked. "What do I-- How do I explain this to her?"

Chrysalis sighed again. "Oh, please, lets forsake the marauding invader who's butchering ponies and Changelings left and right so that we can focus on your lover's quarrel!" 

Celestia shot her a glare. "Chrysalis!"

Luna shot her elder sister a glare in response. "What, Tia? She has a point? A murdering alien is a little more important than Princess Twilight's love life!"

Tia looked at her angrily. "Don't you take that tone with me!"

Chrysalis, again sighing, interjected, saying "Calm down! Both of you! I have an idea. If it's really after this Riddick," she pointed nonchalantly, "then all we have to do is use him as bait, lure the beast in, and use our armies to defeat him. Surely, it can't be that hard. We can pull it off easy."

"You can barely pull off a conversation," Riddick said. 

"Hush you ingrate!" 

"Or," Riddick ignored the queen, "you could just let me go. I'll be on my way, take a ship, and it'll follow me off of your planet. You're left alone to bicker among yourselves, and I get off the planet and lose the fucker in space. Everybody goes home happy."

The two sisters and the Queen replied simultaneously: "No!" Riddick shrugged. 

Luna looked at Twilight. "What do you think, Princess Twilight?"

"I'm not sure." Twilight leaned forward, curled in on herself. "From what I've heard, Riddick is quite talented physically. Perhaps we should use him to defeat this thing. I mean, worst case scenario, Riddick dies, right?"

"Still right here." 

"And if we set up a trap with our best, most elite soldiers, there's no possible way that thing could overtake them all, right?"

"We're not so sure, Princess Twilight," Luna spoke. "The reports from the scouts who came across the Ponyville massacre were pretty shaken up. Not a single surviving soul. Carrot Cake was beaten to death with a filly."

"A filly? You're kidding right?" 

"We're afraid not, Twilight Sparkle. Smashed the filly's head into Carrot Cake's, after beating him with it first, from the sound of it."

Riddick simply said "see? I told you it ain't me you gotta worry about."

Twilight thought for a moment, then grabbed Trixie's hand. Trixie didn't respond, but Twilight spoke. "Maybe Chrysalis is right. Maybe we should just overpower it."

"How many soldiers are going to die, Twilight? What about the coming army you told us about?"

"If we don't stand up to this thing now, there will be nobody left to fight against an army." 

The mention of an army caught Riddick's attention. "What army?"

"We don't know," Luna said. "All we were told is that an army would be one of the trials we faced."

"Trials?"

"Yes; we assumed you are one."

"How thoughtful." 

"So?" Chrysalis said. "Are we going with my brilliance or not?"

"Brilliance, indeed!" Celestia said. "Why not give him the key to the castle and recline while he kills us?" 

"Temper, temper, Tia," Luna said. "It is obvious we need a solution to this problem. Why not we explore all options?"

"Because it's suicide, Luna!" 

"Maybe it's not," Twilight said. "Surely, we can set some kind of trap for it."

"Maybe Riddick should give some thoughts," Celestia said. "He brought it here."

"I told you, I didn't bring shit here." 

"Hmmpf! So you say," Celestia huffed. "It followed you, didn't it?"

Chrysalis sarcastically clapped. "Very good, Tia! What wonderful logic."

"Don't call me that." 

"Oh, testy, testy, Princess. Do we need a nap?"

They continued to bicker, and Riddick said: "If you use me as bait, what's the plan?"

Luna looked at him. "You will agree to be bait?"

"If it will get them to shut up for five minutes."




Rarity looked at the Changeling medic. "Is she going to be alright?" 

The Changeling continued to look at the unconscious Applejack. "We've done all we could. We managed to get the jaw wired up, but all we can do now is wait and see if it properly heals, and hope for the best." 

Applejack, in her slumber, moaned and shifted position again, and Rarity went to the side of the bed and knelt down beside her friend, putting a hand on a shoulder. "Shhhh, darling," she said. "It's alright, you're friends have all come to see you." Applejack's lip twitched slightly. "Look! Girls, look! She's smiling!" 

"Not really smiling," the Changeling said. "It's just a reflex. She probably can't hear you and, even if she could, right now she can't control any of her facial muscles, there's still too much damage for conscious control."

"Oh," Fluttershy said. "I'm sorry, Rarity."

Rarity sniffed. "It's not you're fault, dear."

Fluttershy asked, "when will she wake up?"

Again the Changeling didn't look away from Applejack. "Don't know, it will happens when it happens. If it happens."

"Are you sure you're a doctor?" Rainbow Dash asked. 

The Changeling glanced at Rainbow Dash. "Quite sure." Rainbow Dash fidgeted nervously. 





The Hish had traveled through the trees for days, the desolate ruins of Ponyville falling farther and farther behind it with every restless moment. Before it had set off in search of the Riddick, it had returned to its pod and collected the most useful of tools in a loose leather sack and slung it over it's shoulder. It had then returned to Sweet Apple Acres, and had butchered the body of Granny Smith into a hearty meal that would hold it over for quite a while; what it couldn't eat, it preserved and put in an additional leather sack which it slung over its shoulder with the first.





Starlight Glimmer sat by herself in her room, a blanket wrapped around her shaking form as she let herself be enveloped by darkness. She sniffed, wiped a tear form her face, and sat there some more. She couldn't take it, not everything at once, the creature and Riddick and the thing named Trixie. She couldn't, it weighed on her like a suit of cement, and no matter what she did it ate at her, silently, in the back of her mind, threatening to consume her entire existence. She had, more than once since the incident in the hallway, through about introducing the cold steel of a blade into the warm flesh of her wrist, ending it. Still, she could never bring herself to total commitment to the idea, just as she could not bring herself to the total commitment that Karellen as not behind the thing named Trixie. A black hole consumed Stralight's breast, stole her breath and her happiness and she was, once again, where she had been so many years before, in control of nothing yet seeking control of everything. Starlight opened her eyes, the shapes in her room just vaguely visible in the looming gloom. She laid down, turned on her side and hugged herself. Her horn itched violently, and she wrapped her tail around her. She began to weep into the pillow. 

There was a knock at the door.

"Go away," Starlight's voice was barely more than a whisper. She kept her eyes closed. Again, there was a knock at the door. "Go away," Starlight said in a slightly louder voice. There was silence, and then a knock again at the door. "Go away!" She yelled before shoving her head into the mattress, her horn holding her head at an odd angle. She took a deep breath, thankful that the knocking had -- another knock. Starlight growled into the mattress and pulled a pillow over her head. "GO AWAY!" She screamed into the mattress, but again the knock came at the door, and again. 

The door opened slightly, and there was a voice. "Starlight?" 

"Fpike?" Starlight spoke into the mattress. "Fpike? If that you?"

"Of course it's me, Starlight," Spike said. "Are you alright?"

Starlight still spoke into the mattress. "Fwere haf you bween? Eferybody haf been looking for you."

"Can I come in?"

"Of courfe you can come in!" 

Spike shut the door behind him. "Hey, can I turn on a light?"

"No!"

"Okay." 

"Fwere haf you bween, Fpike?"

"I went up to the Crystal Empire. I got a letter from Shining Armor saying he needed my help. He told me not to tell anypony about it at all." Spike stopped. "Um, Starlight, do you think you could keep this just between us?"

"Fure, Fpike." 

"Are you okay?"

"No."

Spike felt his way across the room, bumping over several chairs, and finally sat on the edge of the bed. "What's wrong?"

"Trixie's back." She whined into the mattress. "And Twilight loves Trixie more than me." 

"Oh, I'm sure that's all in your head, Starlight," Spike said. He patted her back.

"Don't patronize me, Fpike."

"Well, you know, Twilight wouldn't do that. I know Twilight."

Starlight lifted her head from the mattress. "But the problem isn't Twilight, Spike. The problem is that thing named Trixie, and Karellen. He caused all of this, I'm sure." Spike was silent, and then Starlight asked: "What was the deal in the Crystal Empire?"





"So, what's the plan?"

Chrysalis leaned over the table as she stood, one hand rubbing the small of her back. "It's easy. We just send some guards to Ponyville, have them mention Riddick, and the thing follows them back. Once it's here in Canterlot, we have Riddick in the open, surrounded by hidden soldiers, and when it attacks, so do we with everything we have." 

Celestia looked at her. "Are you sure that's going to work? It wiped out Ponyville, why would it even still be there?"

"Where else would it be, Princess?"

"Probably looking for me." Riddick was sitting down, his feet on the edge of the table. "Like I said, I have a bit of a reputation for being a badass."

"You think it's actively looking for you?"

"It's much better to get the drop on me than for me to get the drop on you," Riddick responded. He looked at the ceiling through his darkened goggles. "Still, the big question is where will it go? If it's moved, how are you going to find it?"

Celestia looked at the table. "Hmmmm. Well, I suppose we could always send patrols out in every direction, have them mention Riddick and hope they run across it and it follows them."

"Some plan." 

"Oh, shut up, Riddick! What plan do you have?" Chrysalis hissed. 

"I don't know. I don't even know how it sees." 

"What do you mean?" Celestia asked. 

"You haven't seen it, so I don't expect you to know. But it wears a mask, which is hooked up to a weapon. So, it begs the question - how does it see? I mean, that's a pretty fancy piece of tech, it probably does some wicked things. But killing it, well, that shouldn't be to difficult."

"What do you mean it shouldn't be too difficult?" Celestia glared at Riddick. "It wiped out an entire village by itself!"

"A village who didn't know it was coming. And besides, it bleeds. And if it bleeds, we can kill it."

"How?"

Riddick looked at Celestia, removed his goggles. "Set a trap, like she said. But, as far as I know, it doesn't know I can see in the dark." 

Chyrsalis huffed. "Ha! You? See in the dark? Likely story. Nopony can see in the dark!" 

Riddick shielded his eyes from the window and the final rays of late afternoon light. "Do those curtains block light?"

"Yes."

"Close them."

Celestia moved to the window and let the curtains down. The room immediately grew darker. "Okay; now what?"

"Kill the candles." 

"What?"

"Blow out. The candles." Riddick repeated. 

"You're actually going to listen to him, aren't you?" Chrysalis asked as Celestia moved towards the two lit candles. 

"What? Do you suddenly believe me?"

"No! Of course not! The Changelings have the best night vision in all of Equestria, and even we cannot see in true darkness."

"Then what do you have to worry about?"

Chrysalis growled.

"So, should I 'kill the candles'?" Celestia asked. 

"Yes," Chrysalis growled. "Do it." 

Two quick breaths, and the room was in darkness, and Riddick was up, silently squeezing from his seat as Celestia and Chrysalis looked back to his location. Their ears followed the faint sound of his footsteps but their eyes wandered aimlessly, Chrysalis looking anxious. As silently as he could, Riddick slinked behind Chrysalis and snatched her crown from her head. He then did the same to Celestia, in a matter of seconds, before he was at the door. He threw on his goggles and opened the door, light flooding in. 

"How much do you think these are worth?"

"Hey! Give me my crown back!"

"Quite impressive, Riddick," Celestia said enthusiastically. "Maybe we can use you after all."





The others had left, and the room was clouded in the shadows of the very early morning, but Rarity couldn't bring herself to leave Applejack's side. She had pulled up a chair and sat at the side of the bed with Applejack's hand in her own and had snoozed on and off while her friend occasionally moved around in her unconsciousness, as if in protest to something horrible that Rarity could not see.  At such time she took Applejack's hand in both of hers and squeezed, convinced that on some level her friend knew it was her, and appreciated it, and that if she squeezed hard enough Applejack would find her way to the light and wake up again. But she never did, and while it stung deeply to admit it, Rarity knew that she could not save her friend. 

The door opened, and Rarity looked to see Spike and Starlight walking into the room. "I heard what happened," Spike said softly. "How is she doing?" 

"Oh, you know, Spike, she's..... hanging in there, I suppose."

"I'm so sorry, Rarity." Spike looked at his crush with wide eyes.  "Is there anything I can do to help?" 

"No. I'm afraid not, darling. How are you holding up, Starlight?"

"Oh, I'm feeling better. Thanks to Spike, he can really cheer a pony up."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You know, sometimes you just need some perspective." 

"I'm great with perspective," Spike said. "I really am."

Rarity looked at Starlight. "Starlight, are you sure? You were heartbroken; you look fine now."

"Yes, Rarity," Starlight giggled, "it's true. Everything has been put in perspective. My happiness is not dependent on Twilight, it's dependent on me." She took a step toward the bed and looked at Applejack.