Fullmetal Pony

by clearshot01

Revelations

I woke up to hear Meadhbh and Twilight talking in hushed tones. “How? How is that possible? And are you sure that Rainbow is”. “ Yes I'm sure Twilight. I don't know how it's possible, but you have to promise me you won't tell Stephen, I can't let him find out yet”. “Alright, I promise”. “Pinkie Promise?”. I could see her rolling her eyes. “Yes”. I saw her make the motions and as usual, she managed to hurt her eye performing the final action. “OW, how do I always manage to do that?”. “I dunno Twi, but it's funny. And thanks”. “No problem. I don't want to see Stephen get hurt either”. I heard them go back to sleep, but I lay awake, my head spinning. What were they talking about. What could it be that would hurt me so badly that she keeps it a secret. I knew I wasn't going to get any answers just sitting around thinking about it. But I had no idea how to find out what it was they were talking about, short of actually asking them, and I was pretty sure that they wouldn't tell me willingly. I decided to try and put it out of my head. But that proved next to impossible, because I was afraid. I was afraid that, if I found out, something terrible would happen, but I was more afraid that not knowing would drive me insane and cause me to hurt the people around me. I decided that once this fight was over, I would confront them and ask them what secret they were keeping from me. In the meantime, I decided to sleep. My dreams actually helped me to calm down, and then I realised why. Someone was here with me, someone I had seen just the night before, under similar circumstances. There, standing not ten feet in front of me, was Princess Luna.

“Greetings Stephen, I trust you are well”. Her speaking style is slightly different than usual, I think. She doesn't refer to herself as we. I wonder what changed, or if that was ever how she really spoke? I guess it doesn't matter. “Yes Princess, but I”. “Please, call me Luna. I would prefer my friends drop the royal title when I speak with them”. “A friend? Me?”. “Yes. I was wary of you and your friends at first, but after seeing you all and how close you came to be with the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, I decided to ask you if you would consider being my friends. But that is not the only reason I am here tonight. Something troubles you, does it not?”. “Yes, actually. My sister is hiding something from me. I heard her and Twilight talking, and she made Twilight Pinkie Promise to keep it secret, saying she didn't want to hurt me”. “I see. And you worry that if you do not find out what it is they hide, that you will begin to lose your sanity and try to hurt them?”. “Yeah, that's it exactly, it's like you can read my mind or something”. “That is not entirely false. As it is with all living beings, whatever is most prominent in your mind is visible to anyone who can enter dreams, although there are few other than myself who have that ability. I saw what you feared would happen. So in a way, I guess you could call it mind-reading”. “Sounds complicated”. “It is. But I have strayed from the matter at hand. You must try not to worry about this. Doing so will only push you closer to losing your sanity, and none of us want to see that happen to you”. “But what if...”. “There are no 'what ifs', you must simply leave the matter for now, and focus on the task ahead. My sister and I have almost reached you and your friends. We will be there by the time you awake”. “Alright. Thanks Luna”. “You are welcome. And before we go, will you consider our offer of friendship?”. She looks hesitant, as if she's afriad I'll say no. “Nothing to consider. Welcome to the gang, Luna, though I think we still need a cool team name”. She chuckled. It actually calmed me down. “Thank you, and I'll try to think of one on the way". And with that, she was gone, and I was alone in my dreams.

We all woke up relatively refreshed. It seemed that when Luna entered my dreams she did something, cause I felt better than I had in a long time. Luna and Celestia were both asleep beside each other close to our campsite. The mane 6 were all stretching the sleep out of their bodies. Christian was looking around for something Probably dreaming about pie again, he always starts looking around as if he's gonna find that dream pie. Riley was cleaning his pistols. Claudius was scrawling what looked like a recipe for some sort of cake in the ground. Meadhbh was just sitting, staring off into space. She gave a smile when she saw me, but I could tell it was forced. Twilight saw that I was up and went to wake Celestia and Luna. “Well, are we ready to move on? Those shadows aren't going to beat themselves”. “True, so let's get to it”. So we set off, for what we hoped would be our final battle against the shadows.

As we walked through the forest to the castle ruins, I started to hear something strange, something that seemed out of place in the forest. “Do you guys hear that?”. “Hear what? I sure can't hear anything”. “Are you girls sure? I can hear something, but maybe my hearing's just a little bit better than yours”. “Rainbow, I swear, I'm gonna hogtie that big mouth of yours if you don't cut it out”. “Stephen, what is it?”. “It sounds like....music?”. It was faint at first, but it gradually got louder. Where is it coming from? But finding out where it came from suddenly lost all importance when I realised I had hear it before. No, it can't be, it's just not possible. But it was. It was a song my mother had used to sing to me whenever I refused to sleep, for fear of the monsters that I was sure hid in my closet and under my bed. No matter how afraid I was, that song would always make me feel safe. I turned to ask them if they could tell where it was coming from. But as I looked, I realised that none of the others could hear it. None except for Celestia and Rainbow Dash. They both looked pale, as if they had seen (or rather heard) a ghost. Wait, do they recognise this song? No way, it's not possible. My mom made this song up when I was a kid, I haven't heard it since... I shifted my focus towards finding the source of the music, not wanting to dwell any more on bad memories. But then an immense pain surged through my head, and I felt memories float to the surface of my mind. But theses memories were alien to me. They were my memories, but at the same time they weren't. First I saw myself jumping across trees, dressed in some sort of strange uniform, with a sword on my back and a strange mask covering my face. Then it shifted to an entirely different scene. I was walking with two strangers, one a short boy with blond hair in a ponytail, wearing a red cloak, while the other was in a full suit of armour, and I had a metal arm again, except this one was made of normal steel. Even though I had never met them before, I felt like I knew them. More and more images flooded my mind. A younger version of me, looking at a burning house where his family had all died (from the world where I wore the strange uniform). Me, standing in an endless expanse of nothingness, except for a strange door I'd never seen before. I could see the others watching, afraid to step close. Finally, I saw the one memory I hoped never to see again. But this time it was different. It was the true version, not the one my subconscious had created in an attempt to keep me sane.

We were driving home, and Meadhbh was beating me at the silent game. As usual. “Argh, I hate the silent game. You think I'd be good at it, seeing as I don't like talking to people, but I can't stop thinking of stuff and then just blurting it out. So annoying!”. “Woah, calm down kiddo, we're almost there, so don't blow a gasket, or we'll have to send you for repairs” Typical dad, still can't make any good jokes I thought, although I still forced a small chuckle, to keep him from taking desperate measures (Namely, singing badly on purpose, when he had a great talent for singing). “Ok, so, what do you wanna have for dinner?”. “Pizza”.” No, I can't stand the sauce, remember?”. “Oh shut up, Stephen, quit being such a baby”. “I am not a baby Meadhbh, I'm two years, eight months and eighteen days older than you” I said proudly. Jeez, how do I remember it down to the number of days? “Ok, enough you two, or I'm gonna take off my seatbelt, go back there and”. She never finished that sentence. It was at that moment that another car, seemingly out of nowhere, just rammed straight into us. I didn't hear it. I was already unconscious. I don't even remember how that happened in the first place. The next thing I knew, I was in a stretcher, being led into a waiting ambulance. The paramedics were covering up three bodies, one of which, was smaller than me. NONONONONONO! This can't be happening. Please tell me this is some sort of nightmare. Please just let me wake up in my bed. PLEASE! But it wasn't a nightmare. And that made it more painful, because I knew that this was going to haunt me worse than any nightmare ever could, because at least with a nightmare, you wake up and it's over. This was worse because I had to wake up and live my life knowing that this would never be over, that I'd never be able to see my family again. I spent the next year of my life just going through the motions, very rarely stopping to talk to anyone, and even then only briefly. Even so, I made a friend, Christian. But I never told him of my past, and he never pressed the issue. I think I went insane for a time, in fact I'm sure I did, because I started seeing my sister when I was at home, not as how she used to be, but as how she would have been if she had grown up. I refused to tell anyone about this, instead just trying to ignore it. It was the day that I finally decided to say something that I wound up in Equestria, to find that my memories were no longer the same (not that I noticed it), that I couldn't remember that my sister had died that day.

I turned to face my so-called sister, with the rage inside me evident for all to see. “Who are you?” I asked. “Stephen, calm down, you need to”. “WHO ARE YOU?”. She cringed. “I wanted to wait until after the fight to explain, but I guess that isn't an option anymore, huh?”. “Shut up and talk. NOW”. “Alright. I am your sister, and at the same time, I'm not”. “That doesn't make any sense”. “Ok, ok. When I....died, most of my soul left my body to be reborn. Yes, when someone dies they are reborn. The rest of my soul just stayed with you. I guess it was trying to keep an eye on you. And you weren't exactly going crazy when you saw me. The part of me that remained managed to partially manifest itself a few times, though never for very long. And I couldn't actually say anything, no matter how hard I tried. Either that or you just didn't hear me”. “Oh yeah, and what did you have to say?”. “I was trying to tell you to move on. Did you think we wanted you to act the way you'd been acting since we died YOU IDIOT?”. I just stared at her. I had nothing to say. “Well, we didn't, and that's why I showed up. To get you to stop moping and move on. I'm not saying I want you to forget about us, just to stop feeling like life is never gonna be ok anymore because no matter how bad things are” Typical, her catchphrase makes a comback “it could be worse”. Somehow, hearing her say that made me laugh, and all my hostility towards her suddenly vanished. “Alright, but how'd I forget about what really happened? And what about Riley?”. “ To answer your first question, that was my fault. When you arrived, I got separated from you and sent back to our original world, and I kinda took that piece of your memory with it. You subconsciously replaced the missing piece with a false version, I think. In regards to Riley, I finally figured out how to manifest myself physically, don't ask how, so I found him and recruited his help. And you know the rest”. “Ok, well, that makes more sense than I thought it would. So, what happens now?”. “Well, none of you can ever return home to the world you came from, seeing as the thing that brought you here in the first place made irreparable changes that resulted in, well, let's just say it's as if you guys never existed. On the bright side, I learned something cool”. “Oh yeah? What?”. “Everyone that exists in one reality has alternate incarnations of themselves in other realities. You know those weird memories? Well, they were of you, but from other realities. You even merged with your alternate selves from this world when you got here.”. “Wait, does that mean” “Yup, there's another incarnation of me and mom too. I tried finding out about dad, but, well, he's not around anymore in this world”. “Oh. Well, any ideas who your alternate self is?”. “Yup, but you're probably gonna think I'm crazy when I say this. And just so you know, I didn't merge with my alternate self because it's only possible when the soul is whole, not broken into pieces”. “Just stop beating around the bush and tell me who it is already!”. “Ok, ok, jeez, you're an even bigger killjoy than you were back home. Anyway, my alternate self is actually RD”. Everypony except Twilight gasped. She just looked as if it was just a casual comment. That must've been what they were talking about. RD looked like she was about to charge at Meadhbh. “Wait, you mean this guy, who I still think is kinda crazy, is supposed to be my brother or something? Are you nuts?”. “No, and I'll explain how I know this. Before I died, I was a lot like you are now. I was kind of cocky, overconfident, and prideful, but I always stuck up for my friends. True, I got in trouble a few times at school because of it, but I didn't care, cause I was glad to help them out. Also, when I met you, I saw something. I guess you could call it a flashback. Anyway, I heard a lullaby being sung, one I hadn't heard since I was 7. But it wasn't me being sung to. It was you. You were the one that the lullaby was meant for. That's how I know that you and I are counterparts”. “Ok, somehow I managed to follow that, and for some strange reason, I'm gonna go out on a hoof here and say I believe you. So, can you tell me who your mom's alternate is?”. “No, the one who brought us here is keeping that particular information from me”. “Ok then, we just have to find this guy, kick his tail and then, everything goes back to normal right?”. “Pretty much, except you will actually remember who your mom is, and she'll remember you, so, what happens from there is up to you”. “Well then, now that we're all up to speed, how about we get going and finish this mission?”. “Alright, Twilight”. And so we set off again. I looked to the others, wondering why none of them said anything even once. Even Pinkie Pie looked lost in thought, and she's, well, Pinkie Pie. Maybe they're just too shocked to speak. Somehow, I doubted that, but I decided to just put it out of my head for the moment, and get on with the mission. Stopping those shadows came first, and then the one who brought us here. That guy had a lot of explaining to do.

Comments

[clearshot01]

484113
Well, I could probably use some help in that regard. I'm not really good at giving depth to anything. I'm actually surprised that I could write a work of fiction at all, with my difficulty seeing the deeper meaning behind things. It's probably the reason I was so bad in English class, especially poetry

[TearsofFire]

Celestia. The mom is totally gonna be Celestia, right?