Sometimes They Call Me Super

by KorenCZ11

Finale II: Epiphany

A lost filly

---

“Papa? Papa, where are ya!?” Ah called.

The cloudy skies of Manehattan were cold and gray. It was always like this in the wintertime, but it wasn’t wintertime, not yet. It was still fall, it shouldn’t have been so cold. Maybe it was the dust in the air, there was a lot of it. Ah would probably have called it fog, if it didn’t feel so grainy. Like havin’ chalky sand in my mouth, breathin’ in silt, walkin’ through a sticky, heavy fog.

Papa was just here. Ah saw him. He talked ta me. He told me ta run, but… but the fightin’ was over now. He should still be here.

“Papa!?” Ah called out again. My voice didn’t seem loud enough ta cut through the cloud and Ah couldn’t see very far, either. So many ruined buildings, so much fallen and broken concrete; exposed rebar and steel. Glass crunched under my hooves, water sprayed out of smashed fire hydrants nearby, and the smell of hot asphalt trickled through the air.

Did Manehattan burn, or did somepony break it? My memory was about as clear as all this dust in the air. The headache didn’t help much, either. But, worst of all was this… awful pain in my chest. It was like my heart had been stabbed over and over again. It hurt ta breathe, but at the same time, it felt so cold and numb.

Where is Papa? When Ah’m hurt, Ah can always just go ta him, and he makes everything better. He only left the house a little while ago, where did he go?

When my hooves found a clean patch of road, unmarred by the chaos and destruction, Ah noticed a streetlamp that was still on. It had a weird blueish glow ta it that felt familiar, but Ah couldn’t quite place why. Sittin’ underneath it was the silhouette of somepony on a bench. Somepony that looked a lot like Papa.

“Papa!? Papa, is that you!?” Ah ran as fast as my hooves would carry me, but when Ah got ta the bench, it wasn’t him. The shape was right, but the colors were all wrong. This stallion was somepony else. “Oh, Ah’m sorry mister.”

He shook his head. “Oh, I don’t mind. I get mistaken for other ponies all the time.” His voice was warm and deep and he sounded like somepony familiar too, but Ah just couldn’t place him. Somethin’ about those red eyes.

Maybe he’s seen him?

“Mister, have y’all seen my Papa? He’s about yer size, with a bunch of muscles and a big fuzzy brown beard, and curly brown hair, and a yellow coat like yers, but a little lighter. Oh! And he’s got big green eyes too.”

He looked at me, almost like he was seein’ right through me with those piercin’ red eyes, but shook his head. “Oh, I’ve seen him alright.”

My ears perked up. “Ya have!?”

He sighs and leans back. “Mmhmm. Why don’t you sit with me? I’ll tell you a secret about him.”

Ah blinked and tiled my head. “A secret? About Papa?”

He nodded and patted the seat next to him with his hoof. Ah took the invitation and climbed up on the seat ta sit next ta him. My hooves didn’t quite reach the ground just yet.

“Your father is only a couple years older than me, did you know that?”

Ah shook my head. “No, Mister. Ah didn’t.”

“Course you wouldn’t. I’m sure he never told you anything. Too young to understand what he would’ve wanted to say. The only other ponies that knew the truth are…” he let out a breath that almost looked like it was painful, “…long dead. I doubt your brother knows either. He probably wanted to just let it fade away. His life is here now, with you.”

Ah frowned. “Why’s that, Mister?”

He shrugged. “Too confusing, bad memories, a story nopony would believe? There are plenty of reasons. See, when we were kids, we didn’t exactly live in Equestria. Even now, I forget the name, but this place was… far, far away. When ponies here think of the future with all that ‘imaginary’ technology, like flying cars, and cities above skies, and robots, and spaceships; that was what it was like where we were born.

“The skyscrapers in this city were nothing compared to the ones back home, because they couldn’t even be called ‘sky’ scrapers. They went above, and, beyond the sky. A ring that was half constructed in space and touched all the way down to earth, they called it the ‘orbital elevator.’ We didn’t have any princesses. We hardly had magic, and ponies weren’t… the top of the world, like they are here.

“Our home just so happened to be near one of the elevators. There were six in total and the world constantly fought over who could have one. It was the only way to get energy to fuel our special machines, because the magic in our world was fading. The techniques they used to build the elevators were long lost, or weren’t possible anymore. Little by little, it felt like the world was ending.

Our father was a unicorn and, by our standards, he was a very talented mage. When we first came to this world, children could do what was hard for our father, something was very, very different about this place.

“You papa was a unicorn?” Ah asked.

He nodded. “He was. He was always a little disappointed that neither your father, nor I, were unicorns; for him to pass on what he knew. But, that didn’t make him love us any less.” The stallion leaned forward and his gaze drifted away, like he was lookin’ at somethin’ Ah couldn’t see.

“I don’t remember when, or why; I was very little when it happened, but a war broke out. They happened often, because the elevators were such important commodities to the world’s energy supply. It was rare that a country could ever hold more than one at a time. Our home country had two for nearly three decades. We just so happened to be unlucky enough to live at the base of the target.

“Our home was destroyed, but thankfully, nopony was in it at the time. We escaped to a refugee camp in the next city over; but, as with all things, when it rains, it pours. Attacks destroyed a research facility near the military base by the elevator. It set loose a virus they had been experimenting with that could turn your average pony into a weapon. It would change and alter the genetics of somepony that contracted it and give them powers to make them into powerful soldiers.

“It was in the very early stages of development and highly illegal under world war conventions. As the ponies, and every other creature under the sun, started to contract this virus, the world devolved into chaos. One infection led to two, two to four, four to eight, eight to sixteen, sixteen to thirty-two, thirty-two to sixty-four, et cetera, et cetera. In a matter of months, most of the world was infected, and not all powers were equal.

“Order was lost, everyone, and everything, fought each other in the streets. Governments fell to pieces. Only the rich managed to escape into the stars, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Elevators were destroyed in the fighting, power was cut to most of the major cities of the world, and very quickly, food was becoming scarce.”

Ah frowned. “Well, if all that happened, how’d ya get out, Mister?”

The older stallion shrugged. “Well, that is the question, isn’t it? It was both your grandparents that really made it happen.”

Ah raised an eyebrow and looked around the foggy street. “Both of ‘em? Are they here?”

He shook his head. “No, they… they certainly aren’t. You see, my mother, your grandmother, was part of a very special line of ponies. The mares in this family could always see things that might happen. It was as if they were built with a warning system for a future that might come. They always knew when danger was near.

“They’ve been like that for generations, and she had a vision the day before the attack. My parents told me that we were going on a trip, shortly before the first missile struck. When things devolved further, she received another vision and told us that there was a way for us to escape. Civilization had collapsed, the powers at be had abandoned us, and nopony was going to save us.

“There was, however, an old legend about a mirror that belonged to a long dead king from an ancient civilization. If we could get to it we could find somewhere else to live on the other side of that mirror. Another place that was similar to our world, but one that took a different path.

“My father was not somepony special like my mother was, but he was definitely a hero. No matter how bad things got, no matter how hungry we were, desperately searching for this last hope that we weren’t sure existed; my father never lost his smile. Even when my mother got sick and… and she couldn’t come with us anymore, he still pressed on; betting everything on this last chance in an effort to get us out of that hellscape.

“My father was a real hero. When we finally arrived at the Lost City of the Last Pony King, it was like seeing a place that had been taken out of time. Once, ponies had been at the top of this world. Ponies had ruled all under them beneath a powerful king. Our pony ancestors invented some of the very technology that would one day dethrone him.

“The very mirror my mother had told us about there, somewhere. It was real. We could finally escape to a better place and leave the burning world we were trapped on.

“We spent days searching that castle for it. By some stroke of luck, my brother stepped on a hidden switch behind the throne. A secret passage down into the depths of that ancient castle led us to a chamber with a giant mirror sitting atop a raised pedestal. There were six empty slots all along its edge for what might’ve been a power source long ago, but nothing like that would’ve stayed after all this time.

“The hope we had, finally finding the mirror and proving that mother was right all vanished in an instant. We couldn’t turn it on. My father didn’t know the ancient language that was written on it, we didn’t know anything about this lost civilization, and we didn’t have enough resources to make it back to somewhere relatively safe. This palace, like it was for the ponies who built it, would be our tomb.

“However, even as hopeless as everything seemed, my father didn’t give up. He was the hero, after all. He wasn’t allowed to give up. He was the stallion who would stand and fight, even when the world was against him. He smiled and told us everything would be okay, that it would be just a little while longer and we’d be off to greener pastures.

“For a week my father tried his best to use the still intact books around the castle to get a grip on the lost language. It didn’t work, but what he did find was a spell circle hidden away in the depths of the castle. While the language had changed over the years, magic was consistant throughout history, and this he knew.

“It was some form of a teleportation spell, but not one that could simply be performed, it needed to be cast at a specific location, specific conditions had to be met, and a lot of magical energy was needed. It only made sense that this was the way to turn on the mirror, so to work he went.

“Another week passed, our resources were nearly running dry, and my father, the hero, pulled through. He figured it out and realized that he could only perform this spell once. I barely remember what he said, but he pulled my brother and I aside to tell us that he wouldn’t be able to come with us. I remember falling into tears. He told us to be strong; to live for him and mom, once we were in a better place.

“My father was not a very powerful unicorn. If we’d been born on this side, he might be average to below average on the scale here. A spell like the one he used to turn on the mirror would probably kill a pony like him if he cast it.

“He gave us all the food and water we had left and did everything in his power to make sure we lived another day. He shoved us into the mirror the moment it was on and the portal closed as soon as we were through. I never got a chance to look back.

“Whether or not he survived, much like your father... I doubt I’ll see him again for a very, very long time.”

Ah felt my ears droop. “Are ya… are ya sayin’ he’s gone? Ah-Ah’ll never see Papa again?”

The older stallion put his hoof on my shoulder and shook his head. “Well, I don’t know about that.”

Ah sniffed and looked up at his red eyes. Somehow, they seemed closer than Ah remember. “How so? If… if he ain’t around, doesn’t that mean he’s…”

“It does. But, I’m not very young anymore. As I’ve grown, I’ve learned many things, and there are some things that, even between worlds, seem to be consistent. It’s true, I may never see my brother or my father again in this life; but, maybe this life isn’t all there is to living.”

Ah blinked. “What?”

He let out a breath. “I… am an older stallion. If I were born in this world, my birthday would be… sometime later in the fall of 1985. When I was young, I didn’t know what to think about death. The scary end to all things, that every day brings us an inch or more closer to. But, time has a habit of changing things, and now I wonder if death is less of a hard stop, and more of a new beginning.

“No matter the world I’m in, I’m simply an average pony with nothing of note to him. I, like all things, have an expiration date. But, if magic teaches us there’s a soul and there are other worlds out there, then what’s to say that we don’t simply just go somewhere else when we aren’t tethered to physical bodies? I can’t know until I experience something like that myself, and clearly, if I could come back and tell you about it, then somepony else would’ve done so by now, right?”

Ah struggled and took a moment ta process what he was sayin’. “But, how could death not be the end? What’s the point of livin’ if we just start over and move on when we stop? Is there an end? What if you’re wrong, and that really is all there is ta life?”

His face was nearly at eye level with me now; Ah could see the confusion in his eyes. The lifelessness, the years of pain that aged him beyond what he should be, the despair he’d lived through.

He let out a short chuckle. “You always did have a hard time listening, didn’t you? Let me tell you another story then. This one starts a little after we made it here.”

---

“I was nine when we first arrived. We were lucky that the language here was the same as the one back home, save for the writing system anyways. A couple of foreign kids that couldn’t speak to the ponies around them might’ve died here. We, however, talked and learned Once we knew enough, we figured out how to survive.

“Jeweled Laundry was the mayor at the time, and Manehattan was a much cleaner place. A nicer place. A safer place. A better policed place. My brother and I were homeless and surviving. Getting carted off to an orphanage and potentially split up wasn’t something either of us wanted, so what do we do, but run to the king of the mafia in place at the time, Tommy G.”

“Like us, he was an immigrant to Equestria and his family had been poor since they crossed the ocean to get here. They never managed to get out of living like that; his parents started to get addicted to the substances floating around, and that’s when he started getting involved in drug trafficking. ‘No matter what, you don’t abandon family,’ he would always say.

“He took pity on us, like he did to so many other strays and scum that came to him looking for help. Thus, we found ourselves as part of the family. A new family, however, needs new family names, so my brother and I decided to take names after our cutiemarks, cutting off our link to our old world. We looked like Equestrians, we had names like Equestrians, and now we were part of an Equestrian family.

“For six years we did various jobs for the family. From being delivery boys, to substance sellers, to the ‘acquisition of goods,’ as Mr. G would say. We were good at it all, too. My brother and I grew up without magic in our world for the most part, so I knew how to work things with my hooves that most ponies would expect to be done with magic. Fine precision, accuracy, being able to trace the mechanism of a machine more advanced than anything they had here. There weren’t any biometric locks here yet, so the old ones were nothing to us.

“Yes, we were very good at breaking the law. However, as time went by, my brother, much more than I, started to develop a conscience. He started to notice the effects of our dealings in this city and, as a young stallion would, he felt the injustice of it all. We were criminals, in a criminal organization, that helped spread misery to the ponies around us in an effort to better our own lives. We were the problem.”

The older stallion leaned back on the bench and put his hooves behind his head. Ah found myself in this strange position where it was… almost like Ah was some kinda nun and he was confessin’ ta me. It was… startin’ ta make me uncomfortable. Like he was gonna tell me somethin’ Ah never wanted ta hear.

“In the year 2000, many, many lives were changed. Unknown to myself or even my brother at the time, a virus had leaked out and spread through the waters, all the way to Manehattan. Though I didn’t contract it, it seems as if my brother did. We shared everything with each other. All we had was each other, yet this, he kept from me. I-I wish, good Goddess, I wish he’d told me about his powers all those years ago. Maybe, he thought it was in my best interest that I didn’t know. Maybe he thought he was protecting me from it by not saying anything; I could never know his reason now, but, damn it all, I wish I’d known.”

He hunched over and put his elbows on his knees, and then put his forehooves together. “That year was the year that everything changed. We’d been part of the gang for six years by then and we were very trusted by Mr. G. One day, the boss came to us with a simple task; a very wealthy family had moved into Manehattan to start up a few chain stores called Angel Company, and they were in good with Mayor Laundry. Preferential treatment had their stores patrolled by the cops more often, which made our jobs very difficult.

“Mr. G managed to arrange a meeting with the CEO of Angel company; one Mister Garnet Shine, and while he was supposed to talk him into ‘relocating,’ or there would be ‘consequences,’ my brother and I were supposed to make those ‘consequences’ real by foalnapping one of his kids.”

Ah scratched at my chin. Those names sound awfully familiar. “Ya mean ta tell me that y’all kidnapped somepony? Look mister, Ah really don’t have any reason not ta believe ya here, but ya just don’t strike me as the kidnappin’ type. Ah know the kinda ponies who do that, y’all sure ain’t one.”

He chuckled and nodded. “Oh, you’re right. What happened and what we’d planned to do were very different things.”

Ah tilted my head. “So… what did happen?”

He shrugged. “I got kidnapped.”

Ah frowned. “You did?”

He lazily held a hoof up. “Figuratively, not literally. Probably. Anyways, we go to get the girl, a young mare by the name of Droplet Shine, who was unprotected, separated from her mother, not quite her father’s biggest fan, and a few years younger than us. It might be presumptuous to say, but my brother and I were not bad looking young stallions back then. Mr. G figured that if she was like any other rich girl, she’d be rebellious and maybe even a little willing to come with us. That was the understatement of the decade.

“We get there, we break in, silently of course, and we barge into her room. She puts down a book she’s reading and says, ‘Oh, is it that time again? Sure, whatever, let’s get this over with.’ And more or less leads the way out of her house for us. She didn’t care. She was used to this.

“Naturally, we didn’t exactly know what to make of this, so we just continued to follow our orders. Bring her to the warehouse, make her comfortable, and take a picture of her all tied up. She wanted ice cream, so we got her ice cream. She wanted a toy out of a claw machine, so we wasted an hour and ten bits doing that. She was bored waiting at the warehouse, so we went and got her book. In a sort of backwards mixup, it was more like we’d become her servants for the day than kidnappers.

“We didn’t hear a word from Mr. G for a while, so we got to talking to Droplet. She explained to us that Garnet Shine was not a pony that Mr. G was going to get to cave in by some threats. She was just a piece to him, a way for Garnet to keep that old bat of a mother of hers out of his mane without things getting messy. The only pony Garnet really cared about was his son, Droplet’s half-brother. That colt was better protected than anypony in Manehattan, we had no chance of getting to him. Holding Droplet hostage was a lost cause.

“My brother and I were very concerned at this point. If she was telling the truth, and by the way she was acting, she was, Mr. G was in deeper trouble then he knew, and his gang wasn’t going to last much longer if this guy was who we thought he was. Shortly thereafter, we got the call to send the picture, so we set the stage and took care of that.

“A day passed. We’re still keeping Droplet company, she and I had more in common than we knew, and my brother began to get suspicious. Something was wrong. We were supposed to hear from Mr. G by noon, and we hadn’t gotten a word. Then Droplet lets us in on a secret; her book had a tracker in it and Garnet knew where we were.

“She was tired of living under her father’s hoof and being used as a distraction. The gang he led was going to come and wipe us out, and if we didn’t leave then, our lives were basically over. Mr. G picked the wrong stallion to make an enemy of, and because Droplet had seen this all play out before, he was likely already dead.

“At first, we didn’t believe her. My brother was nervous and I was skeptical, at best. Then came the banging. We’d locked the doors and put a chain around it to make ponies think this warehouse was unoccupied. The only ponies who would come to bang on those doors were ones that knew who was in here.

“So, my brother and I started to make a run for it; knowing full well that we were screwed if we stayed. That was when Droplet begged to come with us. My brother had seen something here that I hadn’t recognized yet and he made the decision to draw their attention while we escaped. I tried to fight him, to get him to come with us, but we knew how gangs like this operated. There was a good chance we were surrounded, and if somepony didn’t make a fuss and draw their attention, there was no way we would have all gotten out unscathed.

“If it were just the two of us, we would’ve been fine, but because she was there, it was different. My brother ran off, undid the lock, and ran straight out, drawing the thugs after himself. Once the heat died down, Droplet and I managed to get away through the fire exit on the second floor. My brother was nowhere to be found, and I was left alone with Droplet.

“We were fast friends. She was always quick witted and feisty, always willing to crack wise, easy on the eyes, and she had the deepest blues I’d ever seen. My brother saw what I couldn’t, and after a week with me and Droplet hiding out in my apartment, I figured it out. She wasn’t just anypony, she was somepony I wanted to be with; forever.

“Two weeks went by, I was so enchanted with her that I’d nearly forgotten about my brother. Finally, he called me from southern Equestria. He’d managed to take out several of Garnet’s thugs, but not without paying a price for it himself. He was shot and hurt pretty bad when he managed to hide out on a train. When he finally came to, it was already on its way across the country. He didn’t have much of a choice but to ride it out. Once he did, he found himself in the middle of nowhere.

“Some backwater town named Ponyville that relied on the rail for just about everything to keep it alive. They had a famous apple orchard there that had seen hard times recently, and it just so happened that the mares that owned it picked him up and nursed him back to health. It was a miracle he survived. That was probably the best thing that ever happened to him.

“Based on a number of factors, most of which revolved around not getting caught and killed by Droplet’s father; my brother decided to stay with those mares in Ponyville. He gave me the rest of the savings we’d stored up until then and told me to get out of the slums and find a decent place away from Angel company to live. I tried to get him to come back to Manehattan, come back home, but I would later learn that he was already home. A place he felt he finally belonged.

“Droplet, who’d taken up a new name, and I then made our new lives together. It was hard, but we were in love, so we didn’t really care. Working every day at part time jobs just trying to keep food in our bellies under a leaky roof that I could never fix over our heads for… Goddess, two years? It had to be something like that long.”

He shook his head and chuckled. “At least two years, for sure. We were both awful cooks so we ate out a lot, sometimes even when we shouldn’t have. Ci-”

The light above us blinked a few times. It made me notice the color again, which felt so damn familiar, but Ah just couldn’t place it.

“Er… my brother always cooked for us when we lived on our own and I would just do the menial chores while he made dinner. Droplet wasn’t treated well; she was used to having the money to do whatever she wanted to, so cooking was never something she had to think about. It was miserable for a long time, really. But then, things changed again when I got a call in 2002.

“My brother had proposed to the farmer’s daughter, and she’d said yes. I’d never heard him so elated before. He wanted us to come down and be there for the little wedding they were going to have out in the orchard, and I just… didn’t have the heart to refuse him. Droplet and I didn’t exactly have the money to take such a long trip like that because where we were struggling, my brother was not.

“Ever since he’d started working there, the orchard had been more productive and prosperous, and business was good. He financed the whole trip for us, and a few months later, we got to see the wedding in person. It was the first time I’d seen him since that fateful day and he looked so much like our father.

“My brother was really a hero, you know that? He saved Droplet’s and my life, took that orchard from near bankruptcy to flourishing in just a couple years, and as time went on, it would only get better. He helped me buy a ring for Droplet when I’d finally worked up the courage to propose myself. He had a son and managed the orchard on his own for an entire harvest season. He paid the way to get me into college. He helped us move out of our leaky apartment into somewhere nice in north Manehattan.

“It just seemed like he could do anything. He went on to have two beautiful little girls. Later, he lost his wife and his stepmother just a year apart from each other, but even still; he did everything in his power to keep his kids healthy and happy. He really was a hero.”

Finally, somewhere deep inside, the fog was beginnin’ ta clear. Ah know this pony. Ah know this part of the story. Why does he know this story? Why is he tellin’ me all this?

“I never believed that I could be my father when I was young, and as I grew older, I didn’t think I could be my brother either. All he suffered through, all he struggled with and still managed to turn around, I could never be somepony like him. I lived in fear of my past. In fear of what I might not be able to do if I were ever in his position.

“The first time Droplet brought up having foals, I was so afraid. Could I ever compare to my father? Could I even match up to my brother? The stallion who single hoofedly raised me from ten to sixteen, fought off a gang all on his own, and found a new life; all by himself? Compared to them, I was just the kid who got lucky. I always had somepony else to rely on, could I be relied on? Was I worthy of that lofty title those two had gone above and beyond to become?

“I never thought I was. As the years went by, I turned her down every time she’d ask, and then one day… I realized what a coward I was. My brother, even after everything we’d been through, suffered hardship after hardship. He still kept being the amazing stallion I always believed he was.

He’d managed to raise three foals alone for years, and he was still strong. Just like dad, the hero. I thought that maybe, if I just had one, then I could try to be my foal’s hero. But, that never happened.”

Ah could see tears start ta well up in his eyes and he was quick ta cover ‘em with his hooves. “I lost my wife to a tragedy that would break me. She was carrying our son at the time too, and he never got to take his first breath.

“I let my guard down, and then everything went wrong. My world turned upside down, I was nothing but an avatar of hate, and I had one sole outlet to keep me sane, to keep my vengeance focused on so that I didn’t lose it completely.”

No… no, no, no! Don’t tell me this! Ah don’t wanna hear it! Ah got up and started ta back away, but he caught me and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“My brother was always so amazing, you know? He never lost hope. He never gave up on me. I wish so dearly that he’d told me sooner about who he’d become since he left for Ponyville all those years ago.”

He never told anypony! Don’t tell me!

“The pony I thought was responsible for killing my family, the pony I directed all that hate at was my brother, under a mask.”

Stop it!

The tears came back in full force, but he wouldn’t let me go. I was struck by those watery red eyes filled with nothing but a deep, aching, longing regret. “I… I killed him. With my own hooves. I beat him to death. And he let me do it, you know? He… h-he felt guilty about it! It wasn’t his fault, but he still felt responsible for it! He let me kill him, a-and he… even with his last breath, he still believed in me! How can you be somepony like that? How can you be so stupid, so stubborn, so… so… noble?”

Ah covered my ears. This is wrong. Ah refuse ta believe it. Ah won’t believe it! Ah won’t hear it. Ah won’t, Ah won’t, Ah won’t!

“I still haven’t forgiven him for it.”

Ah pressed my hooves against my head harder, but he just wouldn’t stop.

“My big brother was everything to me. And he just… gave up, right at the end.”

Ah tried ta close my eyes, but it was like they were stuck open. They wouldn’t let me look away.

“He left me, he left his kids, he left his city, all of it behind. I could never have been him or our father, so the city was beyond me. But, at least his kids... I could try to keep them alive.”

The sting in my eyes grew worse and worse. Ah wanted ta hide, Ah wanted ta run, Ah wanted ta look away, Ah wanted ta stop listenin’, but Ah just couldn’t. This pony wasn’t just anypony. This was the pony who raised me. This was the pony who’s always been at my side. This was the pony who was… my hero.

“So… I did my best. But, my best just was never good enough. I’m sorry, Applejack.”

---

A Widow

---

When Ah opened my eyes, Ah couldn’t see clearly. Ah tried ta rub at ‘em, but my legs were stuck. Ah couldn’t move any of ‘em. “What’s goin’ on!? Where am Ah?”

“This is… the training room, as far as I’ve been told.”

My ears twitched. “U-uncle Blood?”

“I’m right here, Applejack.”

Ah blinked furiously until my eyes were clear again. Sure enough, he was standin’ right there in front of me. And so was Princess Luna. And Celestia, Twi, Rainbow, Scootaloo, Rarity, Pinkie, Shy, and… some other pegasus mare Ah didn’t know. What is he doin’ in the castle? Who is that? Why do they all look so… upset? Has… have they been cryin’?

Ah swallowed. This was wrong. This was all wrong. “W-where’s Goose?”

Every single pair of eyes turned away in an instant, like water splashed on the floor. Even the one pony Ah never would’ve expected ta do that, Celestia, wouldn’t look at me. Some kinda mix of fear and anger ran up my spine. “Ah asked y’all a question, damn it!”

Fire flooded my forelegs, and with a quick twist of my hooves the crystal that encased them shattered like glass. “Answer me!”

They were silent. Ah was about ta free the rest of my body and go start knockin’ heads when Twi stepped up. “Applejack…”

“What!?” More fire and the rest of my hooves were free. Ah grappled and snapped the collar on my neck and jumped down ta stand snout ta snout with Twi. She wouldn’t look me in the eyes.

“D-don’t you think that he… he would be here if he could?”

Ah swallowed. “W-what do… ya don’t mean-”

A white wing draped around Twilight and drew my attention upward. Even she looked like she’d shed tears recently. “He’s dead, Applejack.”

My heart was still. Memory flooded me and all at once. Ah watched that moment again. “No…” Ah tried ta take a step back, but my hoof missed the floor or somethin’ and Ah fell ta my haunches. Ah swallowed again. “That ain’t right. H-he’s gonna just pop in outta nowhere, like he usually does, ain’t he? We just… it was only a few days ago!” Ah tried ta grab at somethin’ that Ah should’ve been wearin’ around my neck, but it wasn’t there. “He’s just… not here, r-right?”

My uncle came and sat beside me, put his foreleg around my shoulders, and used the other ta bring my head inta his chest. “I’m sorry, Applejack.”

The tears started ta fall from my eyes all at once and the memory played again.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep our promise.”

“No!” Ah pushed my uncle away and ran as far as Ah could from everypony. Ah backed up against the wall as the group of ponies closed in on me. “You’re a damn liar! He promised! We were gonna have a family!”

Uncle Blood charged ahead of the group and stood in front of me. “Applejack, please calm down. I understand how you feel, but you know we’re just trying to help you.”

My eye twitched. “Help me? Help me!? Why are you even here!? How did ya get in here!? Y’all don’t know anythin’! Y’all don’t know shit! None of ya!”

At this point, Ah didn’t even know what Ah was sayin’. Ah was fightin’ just ta breathe, Ah couldn’t stop cryin’ ta save my life. There was nowhere Ah could run ta get away from these ponies. Why are they all here? Why are they all surroundin’ me? Why are they lookin’ at me like that?

“Stop it! Stop lookin’ at me!” My teeth stabbed inta my lip and my hoof flooded with fire. Ah slammed it down inta the trainin’ room floor and sent a shock wave after them. Before it could hit my uncle, blue shields covered everypony and fire blazed in front of my destruction.

“You will calm down this instant!” the monster demanded.

The heat was intense, but not unbearable. Ah noticed that Ah had no blue shield ta protect me, and suddenly it occurred ta me that somethin’ else was wrong. The crystal Ah shattered was beginnin’ ta melt. If… if the crystal of the castle is meltin’, how am Ah…?

“What’s happenin’ ta me?”

The monster’s flames faded all at once, replaced by a softly glowin’ dawn colored ethereal mane. “You are resonating with an element of harmony. As you are now, it would take more than my power in this form to stop you, do you understand?”

My breathin’ slowed, Ah rubbed at my eyes, and the heat all over me seemed ta get just a little bit cooler. Ah could see a thin veil of black energy all over me, like it was the aura of a unicorn’s horn. Ah shook my head. “Ah don’t understand. Ah don’t understand anythin’. How can Ah… how could Ah possibly be calm? My… my husband, he…”

“I know,” Celestia began, “but there are at least two ponies here who understand how you feel. So please, calm down and be rational. Nopony here is trying to hurt you.”

Ah rubbed at the wetness in my eyes again and swallowed. My mouth felt so dry, but my face was so wet. It doesn’t make any sense. Ah thought Ah was gonna die. Ah couldn’t move my legs. There was somethin’ wrong with my back. Why am Ah… okay now? There was a haze in my memory, just after… just after…

My hooves slid out from under me and Ah sank ta the floor. Ah brought my knees ta my chest and curled my head in ta hide as best as Ah could from all those concerned eyes and said, “S-somepony, please tell me what’s goin’ on.”

Again, my uncle spoke. “After taking a form, more powerful but similar to the one you’ve been wavering between in the past few hours, you managed to kill Sahaquiel. Then, after destroying part of Manehattan in a fit of rage, Celestia went out to stop you. Manehattan burned, you put up a fight for a while, but eventually, Celestia knocked you out.

“Persona’s original goal was to expose the true forms of the Princesses to the public in an effort to make everypony see them as monsters, and as far as we can tell; it at least has stirred up the nation. Nopony knows what to make of anything yet, and nopony knows what exactly will come of this.”

I looked up from my ball and wiped at my eyes again to see him right in front of me, those red eyes filled with somethin’ Ah just didn’t understand. What is it? Why does he keep lookin’ at me like that? Pity? Shame? Sorrow? Disappointment? Regret?

“And… what about y’all? Who is that mare? Why… why are ya here, uncle?”

Luna stepped forward. “You have been unconscious for eight hours, Applejack. The elements of Harmony have never resonated in such a way as they did today, and we did not know how to fix them, or you for that matter. Something strange happened, however, and after Celestia had an idea, we thought we could get you back if somepony could resonate with you properly. Using a combination of my magic and Twilight’s new spell, we invited Miss Brightness and your uncle here and sent him into your consciousness to retrieve you.”

“Do you remember anything? Any of what I said, that is.” Uncle Blood asked.

I felt my lip waver.

I killed him.

No.

With my own two hooves.

No!

I beat him to death.

“NO! Ah don’t remember anythin’!”

Uncle Blood looked like he was about ta throw up. “Applejack, please.” He tried ta get closer ta me, but Ah uncurled and shot away ta the nearest corner.

“No! Nopony said anythin’ ta anypony! Don’t say anymore! Ah don’t wanna hear it!”

Celestia stomped a hoof. “Applejack!”

“What!? Don’t say a word! Ah don’t care who ya are! Don’t fuckin’ do it! Ah can’t take any more! It was all just a dream! Nopony said anythin’! So much is already broken! Ah can’t… Ah can’t take anymore! Ah can’t do this! Ah don’t wanna do this. P-please… please don’t…”

“I am Zeruel.”

My ears shot up straight. “Stop it!”

He looked me straight in the eye and Ah couldn’t turn away. “I am the Mirror.”

Ah shook my head and covered it with my forelegs. “No ya aren’t! You’re nopony! You’re my uncle! Ya didn’t do shit!”

“I… killed your father.”

Ah screamed. Ah screamed and Ah ran. Ah ran as fast as my legs would carry me and Ah didn’t look back. Ah ran and Ah ran and Ah ran til Ah was out of the park. Ah kept runnin’ until Ah was back home. And when Ah looked at the house, Ah realized… it was empty. So many tears, it felt like it was endless.

Ah turned and ran the other way. My hooves skipped through the mostly empty streets like rocks on a pond, makin’ little waves as Ah went. This feelin’ was… all too familiar. Where else could Ah go? Where could Ah stop? There was nowhere Ah could hide. Ah couldn’t go back ta the apartment. They were there.

Ah wandered fer what felt like hours until Ah came back ta the place where it all began.

An empty house fer sale with a small yard in a relatively safe neighborhood on the northern side of the city. The house didn’t look like anypony’d touched it fer years. Dust filled the places where furniture never was and made shapes where furniture once was. The empty rooms were dark and lifeless, and only in one room was anything left. A bed we couldn’t take, a bed we couldn’t bear ta look at, a bed Ah collapsed on.

Even after all these years, it still smelled like him.

Comments

[sykko]

What a devastating thing to throw into a freshly grieving widow's lap.