Sitting on top of the town hall, I simply chosen to wait until some pony came looking for me. Which didn't take long as I spotted Rainbow Dash heading towards me, a wide grin plastered on her face. "Who would have thought big bad Aether would be scared enough to telepo—" Rainbow started to say when she reached me, only for me to stuff a hoof into her mouth in response.
"I was surprised, and that triggered my fight or flight instincts. So it was either me hitting something, or fleeing," I replied with a huff as I pulled my hoof out of Rainbow's mouth. "Can we go now?"
Still bearing a grin, Rainbow answered in a teasing tone, "Sure thing, whatever you say," before she grabbed me and placed me on her back. "Hold on tight!" Rainbow announced before she zipped off at top speed. Instantly this caused me to cling to her as hard as I could. Instead of stopping, I saw that we bypassed the bakery, causing me to wonder what Rainbow is planning. I didn't had to think long, because it only took a few seconds before we arrived at Applejack's barn, where Rainbow promptly dropped me off on my rump before bucking the barn doors open.
"Happy Birthday Aether!" everypony in the barn shouted as Pinkie suddenly appeared with her party cannon, firing it at me to shower me in confetti.
"Sorry about surprising while you were waking up, I was just so excited I couldn't resist," Pinkie said with a giggle. After giving her a nod, I looked around to take in stock of who was here, since this party was much more smaller than the last one Pinkie threw for me. Of course the elements, the crusaders, and my recruits showed up for the party. However, Cheerilee and half my old class along with some of the town's residents have showed up as well. Even Princess Luna showed up, which caused me understand what she meant about seeing me soon. A small group compared to the last party, but a sure sign of the ponies that have accepted me after hearing the truth.
"I wanted to throw you another big party since you missed so many birthdays, but after the last one I thought you would rather have a smaller party. But I still wanted to make it special for you, so I said to myself, 'What can I do to make this party super-duperific for Aether?' Then I realized I could just making you a lot of chocolate sweets!" Pinkie exclaimed, before reaching out and somehow bring over a rather long table filled... with...
"...So much chocolate!" I shrieked in joy as I charged the table. Ever since I gotten a bit fat, Pinkie had made certain that I didn't had too much chocolate sweets in a day, since I developed a sweet tooth for them. Sure, I brushed my teeth and made sure to work off the fat that the chocolate would give me, but both she and the Cakes were firm on limiting my intake. But now, there was a table covered with chocolate cupcakes, muffin, candy, and cake. At the corner of my eye, I saw that there was another table filled with more average party food, but buck it, there was so much chocolate and it's my birthday.
"Wow, I never saw a pony eat so much chocolate before," Apple Bloom announced.
"Doesn't your stomach hurt?" Sweetie Belle asked. "If I ate that much chocolate, I know mine would hurt."
"Yeah... it hurts, but it's so worth it," I answered as I laid down on my back, patting my bulging belly.
The Crusaders backed away from me as Scootaloo said, "You better not puke on me."
"Oh, I'm not going to puke on anypony."
"And how can you be sure about that?" Apple Bloom said.
"Simple, if I puke, I'll just keep it inside my mouth and swallow it back down." This caused Apple Bloom and Sweetie to gagged as their face turned green, while Scootaloo just gagged and looked at me like I was crazy. "Hey, where I came from, food is sometimes hard to come by, so I had to learn to keep everything I eat down in my stomach instead of having it on the floor."
The Crusaders just nod as I looked around the room, seeing everypony talking with each other, while the other foals were getting their share of whatever left of the chocolate goodies that weren't eaten by me. As much as I wanted to just eat everything on the table, I did had limits. So instead, I had four muffins, six cupcakes, half a bowl of candy and a full chocolate cake. This caused some ponies to stare at me while I was feasting, and Twilight's left eyelid started to twitch a bit halfway through my meal. Maybe I was taking after Pinkie a bit too much for the poor mare to handle.
After lying down long enough for my stomach to settle, I finally got up to mingle with the rest of the party goers. My former classmates questioned me about my past, since they never gotten the chance to do so since I've been busy after leaving the class. Lyra also came to mention that she finally wrote down all the questions she wanted to ask me, to which I told her to just send it over to the bakery so I can work on them there. Which I instantly regretted saying when I remembered that it was almost a whole month since I last encountered her, meaning that if she just recently finished, it mean that she had a massive stack of paper for me to look over. Maybe I can get her to share the answers with Twilight, since she was still wanting to drain me for every bit of information she could get.
I had a short discussion with my recruits, with all of them giving me their birthday greetings along with some teasing at my chocolate-filled gut. I countered that remark with the option of them joining me on a few days of exercise runs as I worked it off, on top of their usual training regimen. That ended the teasing instantly, though a couple of them muttered how cruel I could be. After exchanging some pleasantries with the elements and later the rest of the adults, I found myself sitting right next to Luna. It made me wonder if she was using her magic to orchestrate that when she finally spoke to me.
"I see that you're enjoying the party."
"And I see that you're enjoying your playtime with the my former classmates, Princess Luna," I said with a smirk, causing Luna to raise an eyebrow at my jab. Not like she could deny it, since I spotted her playing around with some of the foals earlier.
"True... though I was surprised that instead of joining our merriment, you instead chosen to talk to your recruits."
"Well, since I have an adult mind in a foal's body..."
"That doesn't mean you shouldn't have fun with your old friends. From what I heard, you didn't have a proper foalhood, so maybe you join in some of the games they are playing right now."
"...Maybe later, my stomach is still working off all the chocolate I ate. I wonder though, why isn't your sister here?" I asked, which caused Luna to raise an eyebrow at me again. "What?"
"Is my presence not to your pleasure?"
"What? What are you talking about? I was just being curious. Didn't you forgot that out of the two of you, you're the only one that haven't gave me any headaches?"
After blinking for a second, Luna shook her head before saying, "My apologies, I thought you might be uncomfortable like some ponies are with me due to my... past."
This caused me to stare at her for a moment before I remembered my history lessons, in particular the Nightmare Moon incidents. "Oh... you're talking about that. No, I'm not going to judge you on that, since it sounded like what happened to you wasn’t entirely your fault. It's in the past, so best not to bring it up, that and you certainly aren’t acting like how the stories portrayed you. Besides, you did save my life, so it would be very ungrateful of me to not want you around."
Luna just looked at me with a surprised expression, before she just smiled at me. "It is... nice for you to not judge me through my past," she said, as I just shrugged at her like it was nothing big.
"Hey, since you're here, do either you or Celestia have any plans for me? While I am training a squad... it's too small of a group to make any large impact if we end up in a war."
"That hardly seems like the appropriate thing to discuss during a party, much less for you to bring it up on your own birthday."
"It may seem wrong, but to me, it would be nice to know that there is more planned out. Knowing that either of you two have something big plan would get rid of some of the stress I have over this dimensional issue."
Looking around, Luna made certain that no pony was close enough to overhear us before she leaned down and quietly told me, "We are planning to have another round of recruitment for you, as well as having those weapons the researchers have developed be mass produced for the E.U.P. We also hope that you can train a few instructors for those weapons, since we heard that you think they would help us fare better against the aliens should they ever discover us."
"Good, though they really need to think up of some high explosive weaponry, and a name for them. It's getting tiresome of just calling them weapons," I whispered back.
"Do we really need explosives?"
"Yes, we really do, a lot of them and different kinds. Remember that crystal alien war machine that you fought? Any interdimensional force would bound to have a lot of things that are of that size, if not bigger. So we need them to take those kinds of things down instead of having you and your sister flying all over Equus to take them down personally."
"Hmm... you have a go—" Luna started to say before we were interrupted by Pinkie hopping over to us.
"What are you two doing here? We're playing pin the tail on the pony! Come and join the fun!" Pinkie said, and before I could say a thing, I felt myself yanked halfway across the room before being blindfolded. Even though Pinkie is rubbing off me, I doubt I will ever be able to do the crazy things she can do. Regardless, I decided to roll with it, since like Luna mentioned, I shouldn't be talking business in my own birthday party. So for the rest of the day, I decided to let go of my worries, and just have fun with everypony. Though I got to say, I never expected myself to be so loose and carefree as I am right now. I might not show it much, but Equestria is changing me, bit by bit. Yeah, I'll never be 'normal' as some ponies would like me to be, but maybe in the future I'll end up being a lot less violent and rude than I am now.
I'm still keeping my taser though. There are still some ponies that deserve it out there.
How long until she names the taser considering it looks like they're going to be best buddies.
I want to see some more chair throwing
Nice job, nice job.
Very practical. And there's always the possibility of a Changeling attack or something similar. Plus, the sheer number of critters in the Everfree makes keeping a weapon handy a good idea.
Nice chapter, good to see Aether relaxing a bit and having fun. I can't wait to see what she puts her recruits through next.
6508809 Name it El Thoraldo.
Horrible name I know. See if you can come up with one on the spur of the moment to become second yet meaningful comment!
Hmm, seems rather tame for a XXX Birthday party, other than everyone being naked.
6508809 Absolutely no idea.
Hey Pinkie, how about a new game. Its called pin the laser designator on the bad guy.
Also, how about those new limpet mine cream pies?
Dont forget about the shaped charge cupcakes and the glue muffins.
6508809 considering who she lives with she might start "Mr Spark Sleep"
What do you think she'll name the tazer?
Aether is becoming more like Pinkie everyday, she might even develop a Pinkamina mode.
Man s/he is becoming soft.
She needs to find a way to weaponize poison joke. I know I am blatantly stealing that idea from someone else but it's still a good idea.
Since im on a mobile.
[insert crazy chocolate fish from spongebob here]
6508830 That does remind me. I wonder how Astral would react to the Changeling Invasion?
Changelings are a group hated by everyone on the planet because of what they eat and how they eat, are probably a dieing race if they only had 1 city size group left to feed, and just want to eat and survive. And this is on a planet in nearly complete Peace, with the Food Source being infinite, and eating the food is harmless(Depending on Story World).
They are basically like any other Race from the Interdimenion cities She had to live with and around.
6508924
"When tables don't cut it"
It's genius.
Ain't that the truth. So, have you decided on if you're a big sister or a big brother?
6509243 That could be her catch phrase.
which didn't take long
awesome story m8. keep up the good work! :D
6509258
The trick is to be sarcastic about it.
6509385 Good to know...
that will never change
stayclassy
Chapter XXX? Oh my~
(I'm sorry, I had to.)
(I'm not sorry)
6510411 Dash I could understand. But Twilight, knowing math as well as she has demonstrated in the show, should almost instinctively calculate that the odds of them randomly ending up in Astral's home universe on the planet, in the town, only a short distance from his home BY RANDOM CHANCE is statistically IMPOSSIBLE.
Basically, since they're working in an infinite multiverse... the odds are infinity-to-1 against it happening!
Actually, even Dash is smart enough to know that doesn't make sense.
It's clearly NOT random chance. Something pulled Astral back deliberately or by some recall mechanism he doesn't seem aware of.
A birthday you say? Here's a birthday for you.
vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/kamenrider/images/d/d5/Birth_day.png/revision/latest?cb=20140527024803
6508809 Give it a robot mode and music capabilities, and you can call it Peanut.
6509156 31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7hojbWoea1rb3z8wo1_400.gif
6510681 exactly!
6509480 My thoughts exactly!
6508923 Or just "Sparkle"
6509169 I honestly think Aether would want a bunch of Changelings in her program since they have good battle capabilities and she could sympathize with their plight.
6511023 Indeed. That is another reason why I wanted her to see them. That and a great excuse to taze Celestia again, and maybe even Luna too, if she has a great hate for them.
6511071 Uh...Why? Celestia and Luna aren't neccessarily depicted as bigot tyrant...and how they dealt with Astral pretty much destroy the notion of them being racist or specist...
More chapters!!! Make it a three timer maybe?
6508835
Are you trying to get the maximum number of puns compacted into a single name or the maximum number of references? There’s at least two of each that El Thoraldo could be, and it could possibly serve as a thinly veiled shout out as well.
6510842 I was talking about the taser, I was typing on the phone and missed a few words.
6511244 Maybe, it depends on how the Author portrays the Changelings, if they ever show up. Also remember that they didn't know Astral was an alien till after ponies befriended him, and his past is a very tragic one.
The changelings in the wedding were invading because that's the only option left, and depending on how the Author plays it, their feedings could be completely harmless. In which case there is absolutely no reason to hate Changelings as they have no reason to hurt Ponies, since they feed on LOVE and not FEAR and HATE. But it wasn't even considered because they were seen as a threat, no matter the excuse.
6511515 No idea what I was talking about. Please explain!
Is it just me, or does the story seem like it's just kind of aimlessly meandering about recently? I'm really not quite sure what the plot even is right now. There's this whole overarching "preparing for the eventual invasion" thing, but it feels really more like a background thing at this point, not something that is immediately important. The previous story had a bit more of an active pace to it, which I'm starting to rather miss here. Aether still goes out and does things, but compared to how immediately important stuff like stealing those crystal shards and learning to fit into an entirely new culture was to the whole "saving the world" thing, it all feels kind of lacking in direction.
6513501 fillers~~~~~
6515558
It's not like I mind it on principle, really. Any story needs a bit of downtime to let things settle, so it's not like "filler" is just intrinsically a bad thing. Right now, though, it's starting to go a bit overboard with it.
6515582 guess so.
6515582 Honestly, I actually like it like this! To me, it's showing that not everything has to be BLAM BLAM! BOOM! PEW PEW! And that there is just a regular, (not-so) normal life going on.
6521172
It's nice enough and all, but if I wanted to read a story about a normal character living a normal life, I wouldn't be following the one about the dimensionally displaced alien hobo instead.
6521310 True, but I guess that's just difference of opinion
6521316 I can agree with that. The usual line of fanfic would be like some sort of game, full of explosions and blood, with a minimum of character development, background, and scenery. While I can enjoy that, I like this kind of story.
Nice to see her having fun.
mucher more smallererer
Grrr. This story is still entertaining, but you're still doing a lot of telling as opposed to showing. Scenes between Aether and her troops are reduced to a one paragraph blurb. Scenes about how much chocolate she ate are reduced to a few sentences. And so on.
Aether x Luna! Do it do it now!
And Aether hasn't recalled she stashed her tazer in her mane to use it on Celestia, when she realizes she has already begun to bend reality like Pinkie she will go over the edge I think.
Awww it ended! I wanted to see a more cheerful event happen and to see her play a few party games.