Sunblock
I’m no trader, merchant, salesman.
As a child I’d failed miserably every time the school or an organization I was a part of decided to have a fundraiser. My dad and close family friends often bought the minimum of chocolates or whatever we were selling so that I wasn’t a complete failure. After graduating I never thought I would be in this position ever again...
“Huuh...”
For what seemed like the 5th time today I resisted the urge to smack the... Thing... across from me.
“I’m telling you, a diamond chest plate is not worth 7 emeralds!” I growled but that didn’t seem to faze the villager that stared back at me with a bored expression and shaking his head.
It had been what seemed like a week now since I’d become trapped here. And while at first I’d panicked, 3 ‘deaths’ later I’d resigned myself to my fate. There seemed no immediate way to escape that I could see, and it’s not like ‘escaping your own mind’ was something I learned on the job or at school (Although you have to wonder how the final test for that would go). It was on the 2nd day that I remembered how this game itself ended, and that quirky scene after beating the game. It sounded like the plot to some movie but... Maybe I could get out by beating this? Slowly gathering resources and slaying the big bad Ender Dragon?
It sounded pretty bad ass in my head, Jean the Dragon Slayer, escaper of mind traps! While no one would ever believe me it was still something that kept me going as I dived cave after cave in the search of diamonds and ores and I’d amassed quite a bit so far. On my head a gleaming diamond helmet sat which matched the sword at my hip. The rest of the armour was iron but it was all remarkably lightweight and fit my form rather well despite being a bit blocky. I felt like I was almost ready...
“Huuuh”
And then there’s this guy, honestly I don’t even know if he was a figment of my imagination or something Sunset conjured up to annoy me along with the rest of this village.
Yes I blame her... Who else could be behind it all?
Giving a resigned sigh I fish out a half dozen emeralds and an iron sword as an offering.
“How about this instead?” to his credit the villager actually picked up the sword and began to look it over, seems like they were smarter than those generated by a computer at least, and could be bargained with. It was still a rip off but by this point I’d given up. After a few moments he looked at me and gave a nod, taking the items and stashing them away in the bottomless pockets we all seemed to have. Motioning for me to follow he then led me into the back of his home where the diamond chestplate he had shown me the day before sat on a table undisturbed. Dashing forward with glee I scooped it up and put it on, my iron equipment being put away in my pocket for later.
Grinning I turn to the villager and give him a nod, “Pleasure doing business with you,”
“Huuh,”
“Right back at you,” and with that I left the home smiling.
I was ready. Sure I didn’t have a full set of diamond armor but considering my destination I didn’t want to risk losing so many valuables if something went wrong and I died. Not that I planned to, dying hurt ( Being pin cushioned by arrows and falling in lava was excruciating!) and it wasn’t a great experience to jolt out of your bed as if waking from a bad dream every time it happened.
The village was a couple hours walk from home, and I made it back as the sun was setting. It wasn’t much, an iron door in the side of a cliff with a bed, some chests, a small farm outside and further in my next destination... The Nether portal. This was what I was preparing for, a world that was not too far away from what i imagine hell would be like.
A short distance away from it was another room filled with bookshelves lining the walls and a table with a book lying upon it in the very center. Occasionally ethereal letters would fly from the shelves into the book on the table as I approached it opened to my presence.
Pulling off the chestplate I set it down on the table and picked up the book itself. It was strange, while ‘magical’ this was nothing compared to what I had felt when using magic as Sunset. There was no feeling as mana was channelled through my body, no power that I directed and controlled with my will alone. Instead I simply peeled words from the pages of the black book and tossed them at the chestplate, hoping that some would stick like they had on my sword and helmet.
After a few minutes I seemed to have something that worked, although its exact enchantments I didn’t know. I lacked a UI that could tell me all this so I hoped that whatever enchantments were on the armor, it would help in the Nether.
Speaking of which...
As I approached the portal with a lit torch I paused for a moment and a bit of doubt flashed through my mind before I pushed it away, I had to stop Sunset from whatever she was doing. While sleeping I occasionally got flashes of what was happening in the real work and one had included a flight. Seems like she had been heading to New York, for all I knew she managed to succeed somehow. I was planning to head there anyway! Why couldn’t that annoying mare have just cooperated?!? Sighing I shook my head and mentally went over my plan of attack.
1: Find Fortress
2: Find Blazemen
3: Kill Blazemen for shiny rods.
4: Avoid death by burning, explosions, pigmen, slime, lava, swords, falling, ect.
I really wished their blaze rods were available for trade with the villagers so that I didn’t even need to enter the Nether but alas... And even if they did have rods it would probably cost me an arm and a leg the way those thieves ran things.
“Nope, vacation in hell it is!” I exclaimed and tossed the torch onto the obsidian. At first nothing seemed to happen but then the torch was swallowed up as a sickly purple vortex swirled into being.
“Ugh... I hope I don’t regret this,” I mutter, extending an arm into the portal. It felt weird, and the part of the arm in the portal itself seemed to vanish completely despite the fact I still felt it. “Actually, I already do,” and with that I took a breath and jumped through, the world spinning away before being swallowed up in darkness.
“Wake up...” a calm voice called out to me, an oddly familiar one at that.
“Wake up Jean...” Mom? No, she’d died during childbirth. I’d only ever heard her voice in old recordings my dad had made. And yet...
Groaning I rolled over, I hadn’t expected netherrack to feel like clouds... Or for the temperature to be room. Frowning I snapped my eyes open and stared at my surroundings.
This wasn’t hell... It wasn’t anything.
I was greeted with a white void. You know that place movies often use for limbo or heaven sometimes? Just complete white where the actors seemed to still be able to stand and walk despite no obvious floor, that’s how I would describe this place. And there standing a distance away was...
“Sunset?!” I asked in surprise, then gasping as one again I seemed be in the ponies body as well, or at least my... No wait, i got peachy hooves. I’m in Sunsets body again, great.
Giving an annoyed huff I slowly got to my hooves and glared at the other pony, my expression shifting somewhat as i noticed that it wasn’t the annoying unicorn. While she looked similar there were a few differences that set them apart, the most obvious being...
“You’re a Pegasus? Who are you?” the mare gave a light laugh and took a couple steps toward me. The mane style was similar to Sunsets, as was the tail, but instead of a blend of yellow and red this ponies mane was black. Her eyes though glimmered with the same color of teal that Sunsets did, and her peach coloured flank had an image of a raven in flight.
“Me? That doesn’t matter does it?” she replied cryptically, looking me over “You’ve grown up so much...” she then muttered softly in a longing tone
Right... That wasn’t foreboding at all. Frowning I take a couple steps to the side.
“Am I dead?” I then ask, trying to figure out who this pony was, I definitely had a hunch but I didn’t want to assume right away...
“No, and if things go right you won’t for years and years to come...”
“Things go right. What do you mean? And if you won’t tell me who you are then how about what?” This was some serious Inception shit happening here... A dream within a dream?
“I could be many things, I myself am not sure. A ghost? A memory? A construct of yours or my daughter’s minds? Perhaps I’m all of them but does it really matter?” Yes! Yes it did! The only thing i managed to get from that cryptic bit was that she was Sunsets mother.
“Great, where’s her dad? Let’s get the whole family in on this!” I retort with a glare, which doesn’t seem to phase the Pegasus one bit.
“Meridian has his own path to take, and i don’t know what has happened to him. I’m only here to talk Jean, and maybe help clarify some things...”
“Well then how about you tell me why I’m stuck in a world of blocks instead of the real world?”
She nods and looks away,
“You met it then, I call it the Echo. I don’t know how it came into being, but it’s fed by my daughter’s thoughts and feelings and in turn drives her ambition. Her anger, hatred, greed, and lust for power has t given it much power and I fear the two might one day become the same being.”
So... Sunsets evil side? I guess that made sense...
“So why does it see me as a threat then?” That really did bug me. I was nothing special, no paragon of virtue that could banish the evil... Right?
“Because you have the ability to change her... The event, the coming of ponies and other creatures to Earth, has derailed its plans, and the potential fate of you and my daughter threatened to ruin them completely. “
“How?” I asked. Potential fate? What is all this hogwash?
“The merge. You felt some of its effects when you and her were together. Eventually, had you become one mind the Echo would have faded away, its influence unable to affect the new individual...”
Wait, what?
“Your mind is a balancing force Jean, one that would act as a counterbalance to my daughter’s darker thoughts.”
What...
“It was my hope when you two found each other that you might help her from becoming a monster.”
Waaaaaaaaaaat...
I stood there in stunned silence for a bit before frowning and glaring at the Pegasus, taking a couple steps towards her.
“Let me get this straight. You think I... A random guy with absolutely nothing at all going for him, would be able to counterbalance HER?!? Have you seen the size of her ego? I’d hardly make a dent in that, never mind the rest! And this merge thing, you realize it’s suicide. Jean Claude Veilleux would be dead, gone, poof. So would Sunset, how could you want your daughter to die? And what makes you think I might be willing to be the one that makes it happen?” I ask accusingly, this was ridiculous!
“The merge would see you both destroyed, but at the same time would create something new. Both your strengths and weaknesses would become one, and in some cases cancel one another out. I’ve seen your mind Jean, and you sell yourself short. You’re kind, generous, and humble. You work hard to achieve what you want and don’t take the easy route if it means hurting others,” she explains, giving a smile in the hopes it would calm me down... And damn her if it didn’t...
“But why me then? There’s millions of humans that would fill that role. Why not the pope or Dalai Lama, I’m sure there would be better fits.”
“I don’t know. But fate decided you would be better. Perhaps it’s because while different you also share some things with my daughter, many similarities in both your lives and personalities. You both dreamed grandly as children, and have lofty goals for the future. Perhaps on a different scale but the point remains. I could continue but in the end Jean, I want you to keep what I’ve said in mind. You’d be saving a life in a way, and while you worry about what might happen to your own being you both will live on in the end should you accept it,” She says and then much to my surprise wraps her forelegs around me and pulls me into a hug. “I just want you to consider it and not be afraid of it as an option. My daughters path is set and barring some extreme intervention I see little hope for her.”
Sighing I eventually hug her back, although my mind is still trying to wrap around it all.
“I’ll think about it, but you’re asking quite a bit so I make no promises or guarantees,” I reply and break the hug, much to the mares disappointment.
“Alright, thank you Jean... Now unfortunately there’s nothing I can do right now to undo the Echoes work so when I leave you will be returned to that place... But what I can tell you is that you’re on the right path to breaking the barriers. Good luck.” And with that the mare fades away and I’m left staring at the void for a time before that too vanishes.
Groaning I get to my feet and wince as I’m hit with the hot and hellish atmosphere of the nether, Sunsets mothers message still fresh in my mind. As I regard the fields of fleshy ground, hordes of pigmen, and lakes of lava I can’t help but think this place isn’t as scary anymore with the knowledge of what I might have to do in the end. It’s still a last resort, if I can find another method of dealing with this ‘Echo’ before it becomes a problem then I certainly will do it.
“Well, back to work I suppose,” I mutter, unsheathing my blade and staring at the massive fortress looming off in the distance.
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Yay story!
So the merge will still happen, I wonder if the further she progresses in the game the more the game will be ponified?
"The kind ghost can give you a hint, but only when you're stuck..."
...The game is to collect random portions of data from Sunset's mind and use them to synthesize the recipe to escape? That must be complicated.
Not surrounding the portal you came in immediately with cobblestone to make a safehouse as soon as you enter the Nether?
I am dissapoint.
It lives!
(not that I'm in any position to talk, but I'm hoping to update mine sometime this month, but still it's great to see a new chapter here in this one!)
Overall an enjoyable chapter, and I'm looking forward to seeing when he'll be able to break his way out again, and how the merge will play out if/when it happens
3579624 I've been thinking that the mirror world was a world created by the "reflections" of our world and the pony world intermingling somehow.
Our world cast a reflection into the multiverse somewhere.
Pony world cast a reflection into the same spot.
The reflections merge.
Creating combined world.
Oh no, ran out of chapters, and it's over a year old.
I hope to see this updated quickly.^_^
this is probably my favorite PonyEarthVerse story! reason why is because of the main character turned into My All Time Favorite Character Ever in the Entire Series: Sunset Shimmer!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3
6531574 She was posing as Cadence while the real Cadence is with Shining Armor.
hay when will more chapters come out
update it
