My Little Rider: Friendship is Joker

by lilAngel

Intermission - I Will Return

The Champion of Justice looked down at the box in front of him. He was a muscular stallion, and the ornamental casket looked too small in his giant hooves, like it might break at any moment. He knew it wasn’t as fragile as it looked, but he always felt like he shouldn’t be handling something so pretty.

He opened it, and lifted out a pseudo-Memory, a wafer of glass threaded through with the same copper and silver circuitry that allowed a Gaia Memory to more reliably connect to a living host. The letter on the side was a stylised ‘E’, and it had a tiny switch on the back that could be set to four different positions, to enable different attacks.

“The new Engine Memory, as promised,” his wife smiled at him, “I decided to bring it myself, as she couldn’t find the time to travel all this way.”

“And the other one?” he held up a second Memory, this one some semi-precious black stone born from the Gaia Fountain. The letter on the side of this one was an ‘A’, and while the metal spikes that formed the spirit connector were the same as any other memory, the main part of the crystal was flat and curved, with edges like a knife.

“Something to help deal with the Champions of Harmony. The last remaining G2 memory. The original wielder was defeated by a Champion known as Skull, who had been almost forgotten by the history books even before the Princesses rose to power. But the dopant’s soul was absorbed by the Memory, and as soon as anypony uses it, the former Lord of Misrule will be reborn. He will be useful for our purposes, because the Elements of Harmony cannot harm him unless wielded by an alicorn.”

“So what do we do when he turns out to be as bad as the other previous-generation dopants?” the Champion seemed angry for a moment, “I mean, I took this Memory so I could help protect you and your family from the monsters who don’t attempt to control the power, so that the Gaia Memories could provide a path to a brighter future. I shouldn’t be hurting good ponies. I wake up at night screaming, when I dream about a Memory that I sold going out of control and coming back to hurt my sisters, or the citizens of Ponyville.”

“Don’t worry. That’s exactly why you have the power to keep the dopants under control, and we study every failure to try to determine how we can better purify the Memories. Remember, we’ve got the most talented mineralogist in Equestria working on this. And as for the ancient knight, he’s bound by a spell just as old as he is. It originally meant he cannot betray his brother. That bond still exists today, except that now it binds the dopants allegiance to the current bearer of his brother’s Gaia Memory instead. Don’t worry, he won’t be able to hurt you.”

The Champion didn’t know what to say after that. He muttered something to imply he accepted it, and said rather more clearly that he trusted her no matter what.

---

“He won’t hurt you,” the Terror Dopant read aloud with a smile, standing among the shelves of the Gaia Library and leafing through a book whose cover now only displayed the word ‘Nascar’. For all the power of the Gaia Memories themselves, she still thought that this place was one of the greatest gifts of the Fountain.

“At least,” she continued the sentence with a wry smile on her lips, “As long as you’re useful to us.”

Author's Note:

I really need a better title for this episode; any suggestions welcome. Could also use another proofreader, as I've caught myself making a few dumb mistakes and would prefer to catch them before release.