My Little Forumites are Magic

by Mx Story Anomalax

Sunset

Darkness. Darkness everywhere.

Ying found himself in his old room on his old planet when he finally opened his eyes. He sat up quickly, gasping and sweating profusely, like he had just had a nightmare. He got up and headed over to his computer to tell his matesprite about the dream. When he finally got a hold of her he started explaining it, but something was wrong. The more he explained it the less sense he made. This wasn't the nightmare he'd had. And then things started to come back to him, one by one. His old matesprite seemed to be stuck in time while he started trying to ask different questions about where he was and what was going on and why he was in a dream bubble but his girlfriend didn't seem to even be paying attention to his frantic posts and was just going on and on about what had once happened. Ying got up quickly, pacing about his room as memories flooded back to him. About how he hadn't been able to save his matesprite. He started crying again as though the old wound was now fresh. Like time was happening all at once and everything started weighing on him. He remembered how he hadn't been able to get to her in time, unaware that he'd never see her again because he couldn't get her into the game with him. She wasn't one of the destined players, and it had hurt him bad. He had spent so much time grieving when he was alone, regretting his failure when he had learned what had befallen her. What had befallen everyone on his old planet. He held closer to his principles and values the more he grieved, becoming a knight through loss. The space that had been in his heart from her inevitable death opened new. He cried for her, and for Rainbow Dash, as everything started colliding together. He felt so many open spaces in his heart, he felt like he was about to have a heart attack. And then he realized where he was. He hadn't been able to change much of anything, a weakness he had soon started associating with his space aspect, constantly despairing that he hadn't been the hero of time. He didn't realize that even if he was, it probably wouldn't have worked if he'd tried to save them. He held his head in his hands and jumped onto his bed. He sobbed and felt the presence of other dream bubbles trying to connect with his own, but he used his space power to push them away. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to pity himself after all the bad things that had happened. It hurt so much. He felt a tug on his being, and realized that he was dead. And yet... He knew prospit well, and also was familiar with the horrorterrors. Through his time in the session they had all often given him advice and seemed to act like teachers toward him, as though he had something important to do in the future. But he didn't hear the voices of the horrorterrors now and he knew for a fact Skaia was gone. He couldn't get advice from anyone. He started to despair even more, wanting to die twice so all of this would just go away. He felt like he'd failed, having never found his predetermined purpose.

And then it hit him. Slowly. He hiccuped and started to think. Thinking back on all the things and his thoughts resting on the heir of time he had fought. He wondered about the doomed timelines, and started to wonder... The horrorterrors and the Skaian clouds had guided him during their long session, and he had considered them great teachers considering before he had mostly been on his own.

He started to wonder... Did he really have a predetermined purpose? If he did, wouldn't it have come by now? He felt so confused, and his crying ceased only for him to desperately want to bang his head against a wall. This was so confusing, and the memories were just making it worse. He didn't want this. He wanted out. He was so exhausted, and felt so weak in so many ways.
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Ying felt like he had been out for hours. Maybe even days or months or years. He felt refreshed, but all the memories slowly came back and he started tackling them again. He thought about the idea of his predetermined purpose. Everything he had been taught made him wonder if like the empty and full spaces in his heart. Maybe... Maybe he was supposed to determine his own purpose? And then he wondered if that would make his predetermined purpose his chosen purpose? It made his head hurt despite being in a dreambubble and being dead. He sat down on his bed, musing on this. The spaces in his heart felt extreme, and the more he started focusing on it, he realized that he still had Dash to take care of. His eyes opened wide, shocked. He still had more to do. And he wondered if that was his purpose. And then he sensed something in the void. Spaces that were empty and spaces that were filled.

"I know you're there."

The voice was of one of the horrorterrors, but he could understand their speech perfectly despite it being extra-dimensional. He seemed to understand it better than a lot of other players and people. The horrorterror that spoke to him whispered to him in their own tongue. That he was brought here for a reason, and that reason was to muse. To figure things out. And then the horrorterror whispered to him that his aspect was the answer.

And that's when Ying fully realized his potential. He realized slowly but surely that despite the void, he could go anywhere and wherever he wanted. Wherever there was space. And as he thought, he realized his eraser sword had been a key clue, telling him that he was the knight of space. He was the knight of making space and defending space. Did this mean he lived to destroy the void? The horroterrors whispered no, trying to guide him to the truth. Was he supposed to protect space? Be it full or empty?

Not exactly.

He started to think on this and the area around him grew bright. And then he understood. He was as free as space. He was not limited, much like the heir of time hadn't been limited. He could make space wherever he wanted, he just needed the will. He needed the drive. He needed to live for himself for the sake of others. He needed to make space for more. He needed to make space and work with the others.

Even if that meant he had to be someone that he wasn't, so that he could be someone who he was, whenever trouble arrived. The contradiction threw him for a loop, but he felt like he'd had the epiphany of epiphanies. And everything went white.

Rarity and Applejack were crying, Applejack's face buried in her stetson. Typo and Jordan (Jordan being aged a lot still) stood in silence and respect, thinking about Ying.

And that's when it happened.

It took forever, but the glow started. The rainbow glow that signified a player's revival. And it was fast.

A groan came from the ground as the others backed away and gasped.

Jordan almost screamed, "Is he a zombie or something!? No one can stay dead that long why did it even take that long?!"

Another groan and Ying tried to lift himself up. His whole body was sore, but he felt renewed. His memory was pitch perfect and he was ready for a battle. He felt changed, but at the same time he still felt the same. The contradiction was nice and it was almost comforting in a weird way. A lot like he had felt being guided by both Skaia and the horrorterrors. It was nice.

"Yo." He smiled and waved at the others around him. The ponies smiled and huggle-tackled Ying, who were smiling. The contact made him feel fuller. "So, what'd I miss?"

Typo and Jordan had hanging open mouths as they looked at each other, closed their mouths, and smiled at Ying, their friend brought back from the dead, or brought back from the edge of death, if not slightly over the precipice of death.

"We're almost done here Ying, we just have to destroy whatever's causing the doom aspect to spread in this area. Once we get rid of it we can go back to Ponyville and meet up with the others." Typo stated.

Ying nodded. "I doubt we'll have anymore resistance." It was a feeling he had. A hunch. Like things had gone the way they needed to go, and yet he still felt a lingering feeling that things could be changed in a second by the mere thought. It was kind of a disturbing feeling, thinking that change could happen so easily with someone with a strong enough will.

They left the ponies behind and made their way into the forest, same as before, Ying finding and grabbing his two swords. But this time they destroyed the statue of Gamarya that had been placed. It felt like it had been bolted down, but it hadn't. Ying and Jordan found that they had to combine their powers, using space and life to uplift the statue from the ground before it could be destroyed, as though it belonged on the earth. No doubt it had been carried by a captchalogue card. Ying was aware how easily they could end up running into another enemy, but his subconscious was calm and healed. He felt like everything would be okay, no matter what happened. It was a peace that had been given to him during his "near"-death experience. And it stayed with him after the epiphany. He understood more, and at the same time he was aware there was so much more to understand.

On the way back Typo and Jordan talked about how the hundreds of years that had been forced on him caused him to feel a little more fragile than when he was a younger god-tier. Jordan explained his desire and hope that soon he'd be able to shed or shave off the years again.

Their missions were successful. They had the ancient weapons and they had slowed, if not completely stilled the growth and infestation of doom powers. Everyone was joyous, and yet everyone was sad, having learned about Rainbow Dash and what had happened.

Twilight had taken it hard. She was unable to speak the rest of the day, trying to come to grips with it and the fact that all the magic in the world couldn't save her. She thought about going back in time and fixing this, and was confused. She tried to figure out if the failure to save Rainbow Dash was because she had already gone back in the past to try it, or if there had been a failure to save Rainbow Dash because she never did go into the past. She was so confused, and talked about it with the other players, especially Ying who knew a lot about time. Over a period of a few days she came to grips with it, but was still in grief and would occasionally remember something that would set her off. She put it to the side though as they tried to decide what to do with the body and what to do about the funeral, Rainbow Dash being kept at a small morgue on the outskirts of town, and focused on strengthening her allies through her own work and knowledge. She'd built an artificial hand for Jordan made mostly out of gems, imbuing them with the magic of motion and giving some of the bigger gems on the inside the power of telekinesis, so that maybe Jordan would be better equipped for later battles. For Vark she immediately started working on a replacement leg, and knowing what she did of Vark and sound, decided to build it so that it could send out vibrations that could brutally affect her enemies. She tried to strengthen it as much as possible by encasing it in metal, and putting in small holes for the sounds to be released. Vark appreciated it a lot.

Another project Twilight worked on was absorption. She learned quickly how to absorb magic with Pinkie Pie's occasional help, having finally woken up and seemed better than ever. She learned how to absorb magic from other creatures and after learning what happened to Jordan had tried to find a way to reverse it, soon coming up with the idea to absorb time and age. The experiment was successful and much joy was had.

Pinkie Pie spent most of her time locked up in Sugarcube corner after hearing about Dash, talking with imaginary friends in the shapes of bags of flour, rocks, and other such things. Over time she came to grips with what had happened, grieving in her own way, and learned from her own subconscious that Rainbow Dash wouldn't want her death to be mourned. She would want her death to be awesome, and there was nothing more awesome in Pinkie Pie's crying eyes than an enormous party. She would make the others happy. She would make the others laugh. And most important of all, she would learn how to laugh again herself after losing her long sought-after crush, knowing she would never get to tell her how much she loved her. They had about a month to prepare to face the lord of doom, which gave her enough time to plan it.

Machine Whisperer instantly went into hiding, only coming out to socialize once in awhile and try to find a girlfriend - which he did in spades. Or, rather, hearts. He did it in hearts. The relationship was healthy, and practicing what he preached he found his own place in Ponyville, though he often kept to himself and his inventions, talking to players about their captchalogue cards once he figured out that they were very similar to each other.

Fluttershy had also taken it hard. She had spent a lot of the time in her cottage, trying to come to terms with Rainbow's death. It hurt her hard, and she felt weak and unable to change anything. That she couldn't succeed no matter how hard she tried. She felt like a failure that would almost always be too weak to do anything. Her animal friends tried to help cheer her up, and succeeded over time as a determination as strong as Rainbow's started coming over her.

Rarity worked with Twilight in trying to figure out and find a use for the gem that Smeareyes had brought back to Ponyville. They set it to the side and would work on that later.

Phynicxs, over time spending by himself, finally decided he should come out with the truth. It just felt like she couldn't keep the secret anymore; although she wasn't exactly sure why. Meeting up with Ying and Smeareyes, he revealed herself as a she. She told them about her time growing up and how in order to live in the world and be able to show her natural talent at her job, that she had to disguise everything about herself as a guy. She sighed, knowing that she would understand if they didn't want to be friends anymore. But that was far from what happened. Smeareyes had figured it out awhile back, very, very slowly. She was his best friend and would love her no matter what. Ying was taken aback and shocked, until he started to think about it. He was just as accepting as Smeareyes; although he felt a little bad that he wasn't able to figure it out for himself, considering he often knew lots of things, partially from his time with both the Skaian clouds and the horrorterrors.

Smeareyes and Machine Whisperer collaborated and made a new strife specibus, setting it to chakramKind.