Legends Never Die

by bookhorse125

Pizza Night

“Look at this!” Pipp said excitedly, pointing at the picture on the newspaper article once she’d managed to round everypony up.

Zipp sighed. “Pipp, there’s nothing there but storm clouds-”

“No!” Pipp insisted, getting frustrated. She thrust the paper at them and forcefully tapped the picture. “Look!”

Sunny glanced at Zipp rolling her eyes and decided to give Pipp the benefit of the doubt that this was something important. She leaned forward and studied the image as Pipp removed her golden hoof, looking at them expectantly and waiting for them to figure it out. Sunny squinted at the fuzzy picture. Up in the clouds… were those lights? There were three of them, circling above the city.

“What are those?” she asked Pipp, who excitedly thrust her cell phone in her face.

“I took a picture and enhanced it as much as I could,” she explained eagerly. “It’s still kind of blurry, but you can see it a whole lot better.

The lights now had slightly equine features, though the grainy picture was still very hard to make out. Zipp’s jaw dropped.

“H-how did you-” she started.

“I told you, I have an eye for detail,” she said brightly, a proud smile on her face.

“I should say you do,” Hitch admitted, studying the picture with Sunny. “I never would have noticed that on my own.” He flexed his hoof and winced. Izzy looked at him concernedly, but he flashed a handsome smile and acted like nothing was wrong.

“Yes, but what are they?” Sprout asked, looking unhappy that he hadn’t been the one to discover the magic glowing horses in the clouds.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Pipp admitted, a sour look on her face that she quickly squashed. “But that’s why I wanted your journal, Sunny,” she said, brightening again. “I thought they sounded kind of like the Windigos that Hitch found out about back in Zephyr Heights-” Hitch puffed out his chest, “-but I wasn’t sure. So I thought that, since the Guardians had fought them, they would talk about them in their journal.”

“Did they?” Izzy asked, standing next to Sunny.

“Yes! It says here that the Windigos had equine looks, but they appeared to be made of blue smoke and appeared in the clouds.” She pointed at her sister. “Back in Zephyr Heights, you asked why the Windigos didn’t come back when the three pony tribes separated. But I think they did! They did come back, but instead of uniting to defeat them, the Windigos were defeated by… something else. I don’t know what. Wait, why are you all staring at me like that?” Indeed, everyone was staring at Pipp like she was speaking in Old Ponish (which, by the way, was still a dead language that was studied).

“Sorry,” Izzy said hurriedly, breaking the awkward silence. “It’s just… it’s a lot to take in, that’s all.”

“What do you think made the Windigos disappear again?” Sprout asked, tilting his head at the former pegasus princess as she scrolled through her phone.

“I can’t find anything about the Windigos on MyStable… go figure,” she grumbled.

“That’s all right, Pipp!” Sunny said cheerfully. “This is a huge discovery! Now we know that the Windigos did come back, we just have to figure out how they disappeared again. Which shouldn’t take too long…”

“Just please tell me we don’t have to search through any more files,” Hitch said, a touch of whine in his voice, flexing his wrist again. His eyes widened, and he added, “Not that I’m complaining, or anything.”

“Hear, hear,” Zipp agreed.

“Did anypony find anything else about Ancient Equestria?” Izzy asked, stretching like a cat. “I didn’t, but my back hurts too much for me to care too much.”

“I did,” Sprout said eagerly, happy to finally contribute something. “Hitch, you do know that the oldest files are in the corner where Zipp and I were, right? That place may seem disorganized, but there is some kind of loose - very loose - system that goes on.”

“Really?” Hitch asked. “I-I mean, I knew that. I just thought, you know, that something may have slipped into another box, like that.” He pointed a hoof at the newspaper article. “That’s why I was over there. Searching for things left behind.”

Sprout raised an eyebrow at him. Sunny pulled out her dad’s journal and flipped open to a blank page. Seeing her father’s hoofwriting brought another wave of sadness as she recalled what she had found upstairs. At least her father had tried hard to spread the message, like she had. She picked up the newspaper and slipped it into the journal. Her father documented everything he found about Ancient Equestria in the notebook in case he needed it later. Sunny felt the need to carry on the tradition. She pulled out a pen and wrote what Pipp had discovered.

“This is a box of files from when Maretime Bay was called Manehatten,” Sprout said as he lugged the giant box downstairs. “Took me forever to find it, but…” He flipped open the flaps, sending clouds of dust, causing the other ponies to cough. “Sorry,” he apologized. “There’s not much here that could help us, anyways. Just a couple mentions and stuff.”

“Better than nothing,” Sunny decided, leaning over and pulling stuff out. After hours of nothing new, she was thrilled to see words like Manehatten, Fillydelphia, and Canterlot sprinkled in, even if it did, as Sprout had said, yield no results.

Izzy used her magic to lift the last few things out of the box and distribute them amongst her friends when she noticed something sticking out from underneath the flaps on the bottom of the box. Curious, she reached down with her hoof and slid it out enough that she could pick it up and see what it was. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Um, guys?”

Everypony turned to Zipp, who was holding up another newspaper article. “I found something,” she said, reading the big black headline aloud. “It’s from a newspaper called The Manehattan Times. Open revolt in Canterlot; Pegasi take over the city.” She glanced meaningfully at Pipp. “Guess that’s how we’re royals.”

“Used to be royals,” Pipp gloomily reminded her.

Sunny took it from Zipp. “I think I might start getting the newspaper delivered,” she declared. “Maybe a couple hundred years from now, ponies will be researching what happened to the crystals or something, and old newspapers hold all the answers. I didn’t know these things could be so useful.”

“I agree. I usually only get them for the comic strips,” Sprout said, nodding before noticing the strange looks everypony was giving him. “What?”

“This says that the main pegasus city, a place called Cloudsdale, dissolved, and the pegasi were forced to search for shelter on the ground,” Sunny reported. “That’s strange. It makes it sound like they couldn’t build another floating city made of clouds… or even fly. Magic must have disappeared by this point.”

“It doesn’t mention anything about the Windigos,” Hitch remarked, scanning the passage with Sunny. “Perhaps they were defeated.”

Zipp nodded. “With magic gone, it would make sense that beings made of magic would disappear, too.”

“They were defeated,” Izzy announced, taking the floor. “By the last surviving member of the Guardians of Harmony.” She slid yet another newspaper article towards Sunny, the headline visible for all to see: Last ruler of Equestria faces off against Windigos alone. “According to this, Twilight Sparkle went out to face the Windigos and defeated them by supposedly contracting her magic into a gem that blasted the creatures back to wherever they came from and setting up a protective barrier that would prevent them from ever returning. The gem then broke, and the pieces were scattered.” She gave everypony a look. “And I think we can all agree that gem must have been…”

“The one that we put back together to get magic to return?” Sunny finished, looking astonished. Izzy grinned.

“Exactly! With the Windigos gone, and ponies still divided, the lack of harmony that was required to defeat the Windigos before stuck around, and ponies lost their magic.”

“Because friendship and harmony were what kept their magic in the first place,” Sunny added, catching on to what Izzy was saying. “With ponies separated, there was no friendship or harmony between the three tribes, and since the Windigos couldn’t come back, magic vanished!”

“So to get it back, all three pony tribes had to reunite!” Izzy exclaimed.

“Just like last time! So to get it back this time, we need to reunite the three pony tribes again!” Sunny actually had to take a deep breath to calm herself from the excitement. All hope wasn’t completely lost. “Should be a piece of cake, right?”

The other ponies had been looking back and forth between Sunny, Izzy, and the newspapers on the floor as this whole conversation was taking place. “Uh, yeah, piece of cake,” Pipp said weakly. “I mean, we did just do it, so…”

“Except that this time, instead of the earth ponies wanting to go to war - uh, no offense,” Zipp hastily added, glancing at Sprout, who shrugged. “But now it’s the pegasi, which is actually a lot worse, because in their current state, the pegasi aren’t going to get cold hooves and turn tail at the sight of a unicorn.”

“At least the other tribes don’t want to go to war,” Sunny said brightly. “Count your blessings, right, guys? Now, who’s ready for pizza?”

“I get fifty percent off for being Customer of the Month,” Sprout said helpfully, which just caused everypony to give him strange looks again. “What?”

Author's Note:

In case you didn't know, in the sheriff's office, on the wall, Sprout has a certificate for Customer of the Month at the Maretime Bay pizza place, which is hilarious.

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!

Comments

[Block]

Sprout keeps getting strange looks in this chapter.

[Yoshifan30]

Wow that's actually a pretty big discovery pipp found it looks like the windigos are here but they attacking yet and they still read about the article about the whole equestrian history and everything and Sprout really did help out as well so that's good for him and you know what pizza sounds pretty good

[TherealNightblader]

It's always seems to be the fall of coudsdale that starts it

[Wizz Kwami of wisdom]

Sorry but even in my infinite wisdom I have no clue about anything that happened in this chapter. Pleas explain this!