//------------------------------//
// Chapter 77: Six months later… 
// Story: Caverns & Cutie Marks 
// by TheColtTrio 
//------------------------------//

	“Next time on ‘Those Three Morons and the Women Who Constantly Pull Their Butts Outta the Fire...” Light Patch paused in thought for a few moments before turning to face Wits End. “Nah, there is too much stuff going on to properly sum up in a to-be-continued 'ender'.”
He turned to face the mares next. “Seriously though, I can’t speak for my friends, but yeah, I didn’t really try too hard to exactly spill the beans. I didn’t wanna try getting too specific because I was afraid you six would get suspicious if I kept coughing just as I was saying something. And I was worried that if Discord wanted our origins known, it’d happen when he wanted it to and not sooner. And I wasn’t keen on finding out what he might do to silence me…” Light looked away, embarrassment and concern mixed on his face. “I don’t wanna sleep with the fishes; just eat them,” he finished quietly before turning back to the mares. “I guess what I’m trying to lead up to saying is: I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to forget and forgive this soon, but I am sorry. So...friends?”
Before the mares could respond, Purple Heart spoke up. “I’d like to think that we all know each other pretty well after the trials we’ve been through. I mean, us colts certainly know a bit about you mares thanks to you being the main characters of a popular television show and I hope you six have at least picked up some things about us. I’m a guy who can be an arse when I choose to. Light Patch is an arse when it’s funny. Wits is an arse all the time, mostly because it’s funny. But we aren’t trying to be bad people. We don’t go out of our way to be immoral. Twilight, you remember that little spat we had back in Gallopilli?” Twilight nodded, eyes narrowing. “Well, we think differently. In your world, there’s sunshine and daisies, everyone is happy and bad things only happen when plot demands it. In our world, there’s a great deal of grey. Not everything is certain, not everything is happy, and there definitely isn’t sunshine everywhere. We’re Grim Dark compared to Equestria, and that makes us think differently.
“We aren’t trying to be mean. We aren’t even trying to make things difficult. We just want to go home. And eat sushi. Home is good, but sushi is great. So yeah...we good?”
The mares turned to Wits End; the natural next subject to speak. He looked up from the small tower of flat stones he had been stacking. “What? I already did my reveal of a big secret this arc.”
“You need to add your own brand of sappiness,” Purple Heart muttered, pushing the pinto forward. “Light and I bared our souls, it’s your turn. Get to it.”
Wits grumbled. “I’m not drunk enough to be sappy… Fine.” He sighed and shook his head. “I mean, I don’t know what there is to say that you guys didn’t get to first. This was an opportunity for us to be adventurer hero persons instead of boring ordinary persons. I’m not gonna try to convince you all to forgive us…” He went silent. “Yeah. That’s it.” The colt turned to Discord. “Seriously, though. You’ve been watching. I feel like aside from Patchy’s drama llama moment back there, I’ve done the lion’s share of emotional soul-baring in this adventure.”
The mares quietly looked at each other before they all drifted off into their own thoughts, occasionally glancing at the stallions or each other. As the seconds turned into minutes, Light Patch sighed, missing a final look between all of the mares before Applejack nodded and stepped forward.
“Ah ain’t exactly happy with all of th’ secrets, an’ partial an’ half lies an’ everythin, but Ah can’t say Ah don’t entirely blame y’all for the way ya’ll acted. If Ah’d been in similar circumstances Ah’m not sure Ah’d have acted so differently. And Ah can tell that y’all three’re serious in being sorry, so Ah guess Ah can still work with y’all three, but a little more honesty would be nice.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and chuffed. “I guess they aren’t all bad. But I still don’t trust them after that.”
“They were protecting themselves, so I guess it was alright,” Fluttershy allowed. “But more honesty would be nice, please. I forgive you.”
“I’m not willing to forgive yet,” Rarity sniffed. “We all grew to trust you and you abused that trust multiple times. We shan’t allow that to happen again. I need time to think about this.”
“I forgive you!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully, moving to slap Purple Heart on the back with a hoof. She paused upon seeing him jerk away from her and she settled for a simple pat on the shoulder.
The group turned to look at Twilight. “I- I don’t know,” she said quietly to the three stallions. “If you’ve kept this covered up, how much can we really trust everything you’ve been saying?” She looked at her friends, noting the varied looks. “This is another thing piled on everything else that's been happening that I haven’t even had a chance to think about!” she shouted, “I’m sorry, I just- I need more time to sort this all out. To figure out if I can trust you again.”
Light Patch sighed and looked at Twilight, “That's better than I feared. I can understand, though”
“Not to interrupt this new and improved drama llama session,” Wits cut in, “but trust issues should probably go on the back burner for now.”
“Really?” Rarity shot a glare at the mint-colored stallion. “What could be more important than the ability to trust the other members of our little party?”
“Gee, I dunno.” Wits End made a great show of looking up at the sky. “Maybe the fact that Ganondorf has taken over Hyrule and decided to bring Bowser and King Dedede with him. We didn’t even get a fancy sword or skip puberty for our trouble.”
“...What?”
“EVERYTHING IS BAD AND WE’RE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN MAKE IT UNBAD.”
Purple Heart nodded in agreement. “Like the midget said, we’re stuck here until we deal with the three villains. We don’t really have time for all of us to in-fight right now.”
“So what should we be doing then?” Rainbow Dash asked coldly.
“Making the power base the villains have built look like an advanced game of Jenga?” Light Patch guessed.
“He’s got a point,” Applejack said with a nod. “Without a good homestead, we’ll be halfway up a creek without hide or hair of a paddle.” The farmpony frowned. “Not ta mention, we ain’t exactly set up ta handle whatever powers those three’ve got now.” She shot a glare at Discord. “Thanks kindly fer that, by the way.”
Discord rolled his eyes with an exaggerated sigh. “Yeesh, you ruin a game world by creating three supervillains one time... How many times do I have to apologize?”
Purple Heart gave the draconequus a glare. “Once would be good,” he growled.
“Fiiiiine…” Discord looked around. “So, how about I get this little burg up to snuff while you lot go out and do some fetch quests?”
“Fetch que- That’s your idea of an apology?” Wits End made an annoyed horse noise. “What kind of fetch quests are you on about, anyway? Collect seven rhesus monkey bottoms?”
“Not quite. You see, I had created a quest line for… about halfway through the adventure? You were supposed to go assault someplace called Logtown, rescue some pirate king or something like that. Anyway, there’s some places you might be able to get some help for, say, taking down a group of super powered, incredibly dangerous villains?” Discord grinned, revealing a set of mismatched teeth. Purple Heart stared at the draconequus for several seconds before his brain finally caught up.
“Ugh,” the Purple Barbarian groaned. “Where’s Garp when you need him?”
“What is there?” Twilight asked, ignoring the purple earth pony’s plight.
“Well, there is a relatively new kingdom that I’m sure has little interest in falling back to the darkness from which it was born.” Discord said with a smile. “It’s time for Light Patch to face his fans and admirers once again.” The grey pegasus’s eyes popped open in surprise before he sighed.
“The Arachcolsid.” He said contemplatively, “The queen is smart. She’d know they couldn’t avoid spill over from what's happening up top. Would they be able to spare a chance to help though? I mean there isn’t any telling what’s woken up in the deep caverns because of the power shift.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure if it was you asking, the queen would be more than willing to send support. Whether or not the they could spare it.” Discord grinned like a snake.
“Shut up,” Light Patch grumbled, trying to ignore the small blush and the group’s chuckles.
“Next up,” Discord said, patting the blushing stallion on the head, “we’ve got our friends in the capital. Since you’ve managed to keep it out of the hooves of Boomer, Bastion, and Holdfast… well for now, you lot should probably go secure Princess Amber’s safety.”
Purple Heart’s eyes narrowed for a moment. “What’s going to happen to her?”
Discord shrugged. “How should I know? I’m not in charge of this anymore. However, there’s at least one of the three villains has a want for the throne, so…”
The purple barbarian frowned. “Great…”
“I’m talking,” the draconequus chided, poking Purple Heart. “You, being the Primarch that you are, could go chat with that Emerald Legion of yours. Requisition their help and all that. Or you could get help from the Hare Clans you helped back in Mistakwe. Your choice.”
“Perfect,” Purple Heart grumbled. “I have to make a decision. Thanks.”
“And finally,” Discord said, stifling a false yawn as he ignored the purple earth pony’s irritation, “there’s the matter of alicorns.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Say what now?”
“Not you.” Discord waved a dismissive claw. “Like your friend Sol Eater.”
Wits End raised an eyebrow. “Say what now?”
“I thought Sol Eater was the only alicorn still in this world,” Rainbow Dash said. “Besides Twilight, of course. Where are they?”
“How should I know?” Discord shrugged. “I set it up so that their location was randomized.”
“Thaaaaanks.”
“But!” Discord interrupted. “You can find it in a certain library.”
Wits End’s other eyebrow raised to join the first one. “The alicorn library? Why would there be-” He paused and pursed his lips. “Shut up. I didn’t actually say it.”
“So there you have it.” Discord smiled nervously. “All you gotta do is work together and make your way through those four quests, and then you’ll be ready to take on the villains! I recommend you start with Amber, but this is technically one of those branching path moments.”
“Let’s just split up,” Light Patch said.
Discord froze. After several tense seconds passed, he turned, very slowly, to face the grey pegasus. “What? I literally just said to ‘work together’. Like, ‘go together’. As a group. One group. The opposite of splitting up.”
“Think about it though: if we move as one big group, we’re more noticeable. Plus, any battles we get into will be big and noticeable to the villains. Eventually they’ll notice what we’re up to or see a pattern and move to force us into a fight we’re not ready for yet,” Light Patch replied. “But by splitting up, our movement is more stealthy and all of our objectives would be completed, ideally, at the same time, lessening the chance of the villains catching on. And if they do move to stop us-”
“Then they’d have to either focus one down, or split their power and forces to try and stop us all.” Twilight continued. “It’s not a bad plan, but what if they do decide to focus on stopping just one of the group?”
“Run like your mane was on fire and your tail was catchin’?” the grey pegasus offered sheepishly. “Or hope they want us alive.”
“He’s got a point,” Wits End mused. “If the villains do go after only one of us in full force, the group targeted can switch over to flying interference, figuratively or literally. Besides, we need to finish this up as fast as we can. The longer we wait, the more territory the villains can take over.”
“He’s got a point that he’s got a point,” Pinkie Pie added. “But then again, the points don’t matter.”
Discord made a noise somewhere between an annoyed growl and a sputtering car engine. “Oh, come on! Literally the one time I set things up for you all to go together, and you wanna split up? Don’t you get it? Now if you get beat up in the game, you get beat up for real!”
“And that’s why we need to do this quickly,” Purple Heart grumbled. “After the beating I got in the coliseum at the hooves of a minion, I’ve got no intention to go through that now.”
Another failing-engine noise from Discord. “Fine. Fine! Whatever. Who’s going where then?”
“It’s kind of obvious I should head to the caverns to see about support from the Arachcolsid,” Light Patch said. “The queen knows me the best and would accept my help the quickest if they need any.”
Wits End smirked. “Gotta get that eight-legged waifu, right? Right? Anyone? Okay.” He coughed. “Anyway, since I was part of the party that went to the library, I should go after the alicorns. Plus, uh… I’ve already had one alicorn that thought I was cute, so maybe I’m their thing? Twilight? Do you wanna-”
“No.” Twilight shook her head. “I’m taking time away from you three. I’ll go help Amber Glitter.”
“Then I guess that makes me the group leader for going to the Emerald Legion base or the Hare Clans. Where are the rest of you going?” Purple Heart asked, looking at the rest of the group.
“Um, I think, if the rest of you don’t mind that is, that I should go with Purple Heart to make sure he continues to heal well.” Fluttershy said softly.
Applejack thought for a moment. “Ah should probably go with Light Patch. Not that Ah don’t think he can handle the.. Spider waifu? But somepony oughta keep him in line.”
“I’ll go with Wits End!” Pinkie cheered. “We haven’t been teamed up since we’ve started this whole thing so it’s my turn again. Hey Dashie, why don’t you join us?”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m going with Twilight, I need some space to clear the air.” Rainbow replied hastily shooting a glare at the colts.
“I agree,” Rarity said in a huff. “I’ve had quite enough of intrigue and lies for some time. I shall be going with Twilight as well.”
“Great,” Discord grumbled. “Super terrific. And I’ll be here playing house, ‘cause that’s all I’m good for now that I’m depowered, apparently.”
Fluttershy shuffled closer. “Would you like me to stay here with you?”
“No no, don’t worry yourself on my account.” Discord slid away dramatically. “I angst alone.”
With a roll of his eyes, Purple Heart turned and, after a quick wave to his comrades and the five mares, departed into the brush with Fluttershy following quietly behind. Pinkie Pie gave a much more enthusiastic wave before grabbing Wits End and running away.
“Pinkie,” the stallion shouted, “The library is the other way!”
“Oh right,” The pink mare executed a power slide to turn around and zoomed off in the correct direction.
Light Patch laughed at the expression of horror on his friend's face as he trotted towards the caverns with Applejack alongside.
And finally Discord watched Twilight and her group depart towards the capital. “Be careful,” he quietly said to all of them after he’d watched the last pony disappear into the forest, concern etched into his face. After a few more seconds of silently watching where he’d last spotted one of his friends, he sighed. “Welp, it’s gonna take a lot of work to get Roads Crossed ready. I’d best get started.” With that, the Draconequus turned and made his way towards the town.