Miracles

by awesomesauce4

Chapter 6 - The Problem

They walked across the palace in silence, the Princesses occasionally opening doors that lead to short, curved marble bridges between buildings. Finally, they stopped at a single tower, embossed with Celestia’s and Luna’s Cutie Marks on the surface.

“This is our tower, where we live when we are not performing our duties,” Luna explained.

“Neat,” Josh commented disinterestedly.

Apparently somewhat miffed by his apathy, Luna silently ushered them in.

Luna’s new room was precisely as cluttered as her old room, books and half-finished experiments littering the tables.

“Sister, I’ve told you to clean your room for three years now,” Celestia exasperatedly groaned.

Luna shook her head. “Nay! I have told you, tis’ a tactical decision. Nopony can sneak up on us without stepping on something, see?” she gestured at the piles of paper littering the room.

Ben looked like he was about to laugh, but Josh nodded appreciatively. “You know what? I do the same thing in my room,” he commented, Luna looking at Celestia triumphantly.

Ben turned to Josh. “Who’s going to sneak up on you?” he asked.

Josh snorted in amusement. “I dunno. It was left over from when I was still afraid of the dark,” he explained.

Ben rolled his eyes. “That sounds like an excuse,” he pointed out, and Celestia returned Luna’s triumphant look, the latter adopting a petulant expression.

“Anyway, back on topic,” Josh reminded everyone, and Luna and Celestia stiffened before adorning matching guilty smiles on their faces.

“Right, right. Luna, if you would?” Celestia prompted.

Luna sighed, lighting her horn and lifting over a book. “Interdimensional Summoning, by Star Swirl the Bearded,” Josh read.

“So it was you that brought us here!” Ben realized.

Luna solemnly nodded. “Yes,” she began, “but-“

Josh cut across her. “So I was right, you do need us for something!”

Luna slapped a hoof to her forehead. "I was trying to-"

"Are we or are we going on a quest? Because if we are, I'd like to be prepared-" Josh began.

Luna stomped a hoof in exasperation. “I was attempting to summon our sons back!” she spoke imperiously over them, and Ben and Josh stepped back in shock.

“W-wait… I didn’t mean…” Luna added weakly, seeing their expressions. She turned to Celestia, lip quivering. “Oh, sister, I’ve messed up again…”

Celestia immediately hugged Luna with her wing. “It’s okay, Lulu. I’ll explain.” With that, she turned to the two humans, somewhat of a pleading look in her eye. “It seems that the spell worked after all – you two were summoned to the last place you’d been on this world: The Everfree Forest. You… you are our sons, Prince Miracle Matter and Prince Clockwork Chronology. You’ve returned to us…” she softly murmured, tears streaming from her eyes as she began walking towards them, a watery smile on her face.

Josh and Ben stepped back in unison, realizing that they were cornered in Luna’s room by an extremely emotional sun princess.

“W-wait! Hold up!” Josh half-shouted, afraid of the look in her eye.

Celestia stopped short, seemingly hurt. “What is the matter?” she asked, ears splaying back.

“This… this is just a lot to take in at once. Can me and Ben talk this over?” he asked.

Celestia nodded uncertainly.

“Alone?” Josh prompted.

“Oh! O-of course! Come along, Luna, we shouldn’t disturb them,” Celestia ushered Luna out of her own room, leaving Josh and Ben to stand amongst the clutter of papers and apparatus.

Ben took a seat on the floor, holding his head in his hands. “Oh my god, oh my god, ohhhh my god…” he murmured, seemingly hyperventilating.

“Of all the outcomes I was expecting… this was not one of them,” Josh mused, wide-eyed himself.

Without warning, Ben collapsed on the floor, and Josh looked over in alarm – Ben had fainted. Immediately, his long-forgotten Scout training kicked in, and he piled a few books under Ben’s legs before tearing off the blanket from Luna’s bed and throwing it over his friend. “Oh, jeez,” Josh sighed, as Ben’s breathing slowly calmed down. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Ben woke up just a few minutes later, dazed and groggy, and Josh quickly prepared a glass of water for him.

“Drink,” he instructed, handing Ben the cup.

Ben obediently drank, spilling some on the blanket. “What… what happened?” he asked blearily, rubbing his eyes after he set the cup down.

“Celestia and Luna told us we were their children,” Josh reminded him, and Ben nodded.

“Right, right…” he agreed tiredly.

“Wait, what?!”

Josh cracked a small smile at his friend’s antics. “Yeah… I dunno. They didn’t present much evidence, other than ‘we summoned our kids and you appeared, therefore you must be our kids.’ Dunno what they’re hoping to get out of it… we’re both, like, 20 years old. Kinda missed the mark for all of those childhood memories.”

Ben snorted. “Aren’t they thousands of years old? We’re probably still babies to them.”

Josh chuckled halfheartedly. “Still… what do you think? Should we leave, or… should we stay?” he asked.

Ben’s mirth immediately dissipated. “I… I don’t know. If we stayed, everyone we know on Earth would hate us. If we left… we’d have to live our lives knowing we could have been princes.”

Josh shrugged. “Being a prince is actually a lot of work. I’m not sure I feel like getting that involved.”

Ben slugged him on the shoulder. “Of course you wouldn’t, you’re too lazy,” he accused.

“Guilty,” Josh grinned. “But… ah, hell. What are we supposed to do?”

Ben groaned in response, squeezing his eyes shut. “I mean… we can’t just say no! But we can’t say yes, either, because we have human parents that we’d be ditching!”

Josh remained silent.

“Well… I would be ditching them, at least,” Ben amended, seeing his expression.

“Yeah… well, what if we talked to them?” Josh tried.

“You mean… tell them that two talking, magic ponies from another dimension are claiming they’re our true parents,” Ben clarified, grimacing.

“Sure, why not? We’re all reasonable adults. If anything, it would raise some interesting questions about how your parents had you,” Josh pointed out.

“Okay… well… it’s a start,” Ben admitted. “But how are we going to convince Celestia and Luna to talk to our parents? I feel like they’d just blast them out of existence for stealing their children, or something.”

Josh raised an eyebrow. “Now who’s all doom-and-gloom?” he rebutted. “So far, I’ve seen no reason to doubt that we’re in the alpha timeline. As far as we know, then, this version of Celestia and Luna will think twice before blasting their opponents.”

Ben sighed once more, massaging his temples. “I just… I just can’t see any way this will go well.”

Josh shrugged. “Personally, I’m in favor of going home too.”

Ben looked at Josh in surprise. “You are?” he asked disbelievingly.

Josh nodded. “What’s one more set of parents going to do for me? I’ll just disappoint them like usual,” he scoffed.

“Hey…” Ben started.

“What? We both know it’s true. There’s no love lost between me and any of my so-called ‘parents,’ and pretending otherwise was a mistake I’m not willing to repeat,” Josh aggressively replied.

“Jesus, dude… lighten up,” Ben murmured quietly.

Josh quickly fixed his posture to look less intimidating, shooting an apologetic look at his best friend. “I’m sorry, I just… I just can’t do it again. Okay? I can’t… I already know I can’t love anyone that calls themselves my ‘parents.’ I’d rather these two don’t find that out the hard way,” Josh admitted, slumping down.

They opened the door to find Celestia and Luna, who clearly hadn’t been listening in if their inconspicuous distance from the doorway and refusal to look at it was anything to go by.

“Oh. Joy. Now you’re eavesdropping,” Josh pointed out, an unamused look on his face, and the Princesses stiffened in unison.

“I… We apologize. That was very rude of us,” Celestia quickly replied, blushing guiltily.

“Anyway, in case you somehow didn’t hear, we’re going to go talk to Ben’s parents, and see what they think. How soon can you get us home?” Josh asked.

Luna winced at the careless use of the word ‘home.’ “It… it will take some time,” Luna admitted. “But you’re in luck: The mirror we use for interdimensional teleportation will be ready to use as of tomorrow. And with what I learned from the summoning charm from earlier, it should be relatively simple to send you back to… your world. But… what about you, Josh? What about your parents?” Luna asked.

“What about my parents? We’ve made it clear to each other that we don’t actually care about anything the other has to say,” Josh replied callously.

Luna looked as though she’d been slapped, and Josh turned to leave, Ben uncertainly following. “What troubles you so?” she pleaded with him. “You were not this angry when you first found out…”

Josh whirled on the spot, furious. “What troubles me is that yet another set of parents thinks that they can mold me into what they want me to be. You want me to be a prince? All bowing and smiles, and pretending to be obsequiously polite to a bunch of puffed-up, spoiled brats who’re too busy measuring their own dicks to do their jobs? Well, how about no! I’ll be what I want to be, and neither you nor anyone else will stop me! I will not be CONTROLLED!”

With that, he stormed away, leaving a flabbergasted Luna and Celestia and a tired-looking Ben to stare after him. Once he was out of sight, Ben sighed.

“We need to talk,” he stated to the two Princesses before him.

It wasn’t a request.

“Josh has… issues with parents,” Ben began. “See, he found out this summer that he wasn’t… conceived normally. Wait, I’m starting this wrong,” he added after seeing the confused and afraid looks on both alicorns’ faces. “Okay. So. From what he told me, when his parents were about a year younger than us, they went to a party. It was an alcohol party, so they both got drunk, and… when his mom woke up the next day, she was pregnant and the dad was nowhere to be found.”

Luna clapped her hooves to her mouth in shock. “He jilted her?” she exclaimed incredulously. Ben raised an eyebrow in consternation.

“It means ‘suddenly rejected her as a lover, for no apparent reason,’” Celestia explained.

“Oh. Then, yeah. That’s exactly what he did. Only, Josh’s mom knew where he was. She made a lot of calls, even got a few legal representatives involved, but the guy’s family hid him in their house and refused to respond to any legal summons. His mom tried to contact the guy for years, but he eventually moved. But, nine months after the initial incident, she gave birth to Josh. She was nineteen years old, a college student at the time. She couldn’t raise a kid, even Josh understands that. So, she put him up for adoption. At two days old, he was adopted by his current parents.

“I don’t think Josh knows what he feels about his current parents. He says he doesn’t love them, and that they don’t love him, and treat him as an obligation at best. But… he also says they try to do some stuff with him. Go on trips, stuff like that,” Ben explained. “He also tells me stories, sometimes, of how he’s had to leave the house. Either out of fury at his parents’ behavior, or… out of fear for his safety.”

Luna’s irises had constricted to the size of pinpricks, and Celestia looked as though she were about to cry.

“You have to understand, he’d never say any of this to anyone but me. For some reason, I’m the only thing he cares about. Not his parents. Not even himself. He tries to laugh it off, but…” Ben trailed off. “He won’t be an easy kid. Most of the time, even to me, he’s completely emotionless. Like he’s built up this, this unbreakable shell of apathy that helps him get through things.” Luna swallowed noisily, breathing hard. “You know? I once asked him if he’d ever contemplated suicide,” Ben remarked sadly.

“W-what did he say?” Celestia asked.

“He said he’d never even considered it. Not out of a will to live… but out of spite to everyone that had tried to make him live their life. He really hates that,” Ben emphasized.

“I never… he seemed so normal. He didn’t smile much, but… I had no idea he was hurting so badly,” Luna softly murmured.

“He’s gotten really good at hiding it. We all have, in this day and age,” Ben muttered.

“I… I should go talk to him. Do you know where he might have gone?” Luna asked Ben.

“He likes to walk far. Really far. I’d try the nearest edge of the mountain,” Ben answered.

Without another word, Luna took off, wings spreading as she flew as fast as she could.

Author's Note:

I'm aware that this chapter contains extreme amounts of edge. However, I wouldn't write it in if it wasn't important, so please, bear with me.

And with that, allow me to be the first to make fun of it:

Comments

[cosmic flash]

Still need a little more proof that they are who the Princesses say they are. Also how did they get to earth and I doubt Equestria would accept a human for a leader. Though I figure with the use of the mirror they will be ponified on their return trip.

[Razzy]

It'll be interesting to find out just how in the hell they ended up on earth.

[Sharp77]

7603316 I KNOW RIGHT

[wlam]

I’d try the nearest edge of the mountain

Topical.