My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic: Heart of Friendship

by ShadowDurza

Chapter 1: The Gatekeepers of Core Metro

Author's Note:

From here on out, expect a monthly serialization!

“Oh! It’s so dirty! And dank! And this hard, rocky ground is definitely going to ruin my hooficure!”

“Well sugarcube, at least you have a horn to light the way. I can barely see past my snout!”

“You think you have it bad? I can hardly stretch my wings, much less fly!”

Twilight squints while looking into the distance. “Hold on everypony, I think I can see something ahead.”

After cantering for several minutes, they saw a dim light at the end of the tunnel. They cantered right to it to behold a vast cavern. It looked big enough to hold a quarter of Equestria. Around the edges, rivers of lava flowed from the top down. But the source of the light they saw from the tunnel was undoubtedly in the exact center. Surrounded by walls as tall as a mountain was a city at least ten times the size of Manehatten, full of more lights and buildings than any of them could count. From the front gates of the wall, a worn path extended outward and branched throughout the cavern and into numerous caves such as their own.

Twilight’s eyes brightened at the sight of it all. “Well, it certainly seems that they’ve done well for themselves! Even despite this environment.”

Applejack looks upon the sight with skepticism. “They’ve done pretty well for themselves despite a lot. I don’t really see anything resembling farmland, or any land suitable for farming at all. I didn’t think any community could thrive without agriculture.”

“There’s clearly enough room to fly here, but I don’t see any clouds either. Where do they get their water? The pictures didn’t make it look like they were the kind of creatures that didn’t need it.”

“And I also don’t see much in the way of critters. If they really eat um… meat… where could they find any of it?”

Suddenly, they were beset by a rapid series of booming quakes. From out of the darkness leapt something huge and hairy that landed in front of them. Applejack leaned closer to Twilight, slowly. “Twilight. What is that?”

“I… don’t know. I guess it kind of looks like the pictures.”

Rainbow Dash assumed a crouched position. “If you ask me, it kind of looks like the pictures the same way a pony kind of looks like a horse.”

Fluttershy was the first to take the initiative. She flew upward and forward so she was eye-level with it. “Hello there, mister, um… creature. I’m sorry if we’ve intruded on your territory, but we mean you no harm. If you’ll allow us, we’ll leave without causing you trouble.”

At first, the creature just stared at her. Then, it straightened it’s back, inhaled deeply, and thrust its face directly at Fluttershy. “GWAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”

Fluttershy was caught by a speedy Rainbow Dash after being flung back by the force of the creature’s roar. After touching down, she scowled at the creature and pointed her hoof at it. “Now look here! There’s no reason to bring my mother into this! Especially with that kind of language!”

Rainbow Dash scraped at the ground with her hoof and snorted. “I take it that it’s not interested in letting us go?” The beast answered by baring its fangs and charging.

Twilight flew back and shot a series of powerful magical beams into its face. The beast shook its head but continued its charge. It swept its claws at Applejack and Pinkie, who jumped out of the way. Meanwhile, Applejack gripped her teeth around the rope sticking out of her saddlebag and swung her lasso at the beast’s other claw. She wrenched her neck to the side and managed to pull the beast off-balance. Pinkie pie jumped up after pulling a party cannon (out of nowhere) and blasted it in the face, sending it toppling. Rainbow Dash sweeped down several times and got in multiple kicks to its stomach.

The beast managed to rise and roar right as Rainbow Dash sweeped down, knocking her back and disorienting her. The beast charged towards her, but Rarity managed to shoot magic from her horn and protect her with a barrier of ethereal crystal. As the beast fruitlessly struck at the dome with its claws, Twilight began concentrating her magic above herself. She shot her magic bomb at the beast. It collided with the beast’s side and blasted it away, but it quickly recovered to its feet.

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. “Nothing’s working! It’s taking everything we’re throwing at it and shrugging it off!” The other ponies regrouped around her.

Twilight’s horn began to glow intensely. “I could blind it with a flash and we could make a break for it.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “If it could track us from a distance, it might have other well-developed senses. The flash would only stun it for a few seconds, but it would still chase us.”

Suddenly, they all craned their necks as they spotted something huge and bright flying in from above. The beast was smashed into the ground by a big flaming boulder. After a few moments, longer than any of the ponies’ attacks did, the beast rose from the smoldering rubble and roared.

Dashing out of the darkness, something larger than the ponies but less than half the size of the beast hefted something long, broad, and blunt jumped, and smashed it against the beast’s head. After a momentary flinch, the beast tried to swipe its claws at the figure, only to have each of its strikes turned aside by the same weapon held in a defensive position.

As the beast recovered from it’s onslaught, a stream of fire flew out from the distance, briefly illuminating a figure holding a staff at the point of its creation. It floated over the beast and spread out, before coming down as a deluge of darts made of fire.

The beast roared and thrashed around, but it’s small rampage was brought to an end as the figure with the weapon made an upward sweep, causing a pillar of stone to erupt on it’s path and jab the beast into a stagger. The beast recovered from its stagger and leaped into the air with it’s arms extended overhead. The figure with the weapon countered by doing a short leaping slam of its own into the ground, causing a number of shorter but stouter spikes of stone to erupt and intercept the beast as it made landfall.

The beast quickly rose after it was flung back, but it appeared to be moving sluggishly. The figure with the staff created a large quantity of fire and concentrated a small sphere of flame. It let it fly and the fireball hit the beast’s neck and exploded. The beast fell over, and this time it didn’t get back up.

The figure with the weapon gestured overhead with one of it’s upper appendages. The figure with the staff was illuminated by a series of fiery orbs shooting from it’s tool, which hung in the air illuminating the surrounding area. The figure with the weapon looked around and froze as it saw the ponies. It hefted its weapon over its shoulder and slowly approached them.

When it got closer, the ponies could finally get a good look at it. This time, the creature they saw looked exactly like the pictures from the artifacts. It had brown hair, hazel eyes, and a tan complexion. It wore metal armor around it’s torso, the ends of its limbs, and a metal mask covering its forehead and cheeks. At first, they just stared at each other for a minute. Then, it looked around as if searching for something. When it appeared that it couldn’t find what it was looking for, it spoke, or rather yelled: “Hello? We heard a ruckus and sensed some magic! I think I’ve found your beasts of burden! They’re really well trained, they stayed close together!”

Rarity scoffed and tossed her mane aside. “Beasts of burden? Why, I never!”

The human stared at Rarity, blinked a few times, and screamed, falling on its behind. “SANCTIFIED MOTHER OF ULTIMA!”

The figure with the staff called out from a distance. “Gus! What’s going on?”

The human stood back up and called out to the figure. “Gus! Get over here! You’ve got to see this to believe it!” After a few minutes, the figure with the staff came into view. It had brown eyes, black hair, and a lighter complexion. It was wearing cloth robes, a leather apron, and for some reason had a pewter soup cauldron on its head like a hat.

It looked over the ponies, then turned to the other human. “Gus, we’ve known each other for years, and you should know I’m open-minded enough to believe in multi-colored beasts of burden when I hear about them.”

Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow and extended her neck. “How many times do we have to say that we’re not beasts of burden, or even beasts?”

The human with the pot’s eyes grew very wide as he leaned on his weapon. “‘Sanctified mother or Ultima’ indeed!” The human with the armor looked like he was about to say something, but the human with the pot held up his upper appendage with one of his digits extended upward. He walked closer to the ponies and took a more straight posture. “Who are you people, and do you come in peace?”

Twilight stepped forward and bowed her head, smiling. “I am princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria. These are my friends, Applejack…”

“Howdy.”

“Rainbow Dash…”

“‘Sup?”

“Pinkie Pie…”

“Hellooo!”

“Fluttershy…” Fluttershy nodded her head, smiling.

“And Rarity.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

“We come as ambassadors to reestablish friendly relations between the ponies and the humans.”

The human with the pot scratched his chin. “Reestablish? Are we supposed to know you? Are you from another cavern or something?”

“Actually, we’re from the surface, and we-”

“The surface?” The human with the pot got a dreamy look in his eyes. “You mean, with the sky, and the sun, and the moon, and the clouds, and the mountains and seas, and the grass, trees, and flowers?”

The human in the armor started arrogantly laughing. “Gus, you’ve been reading too many old story books! Every grown-up knows that the surface and all those silly things are a myth to get kids to sleep!”

The human with the pot scowled at him. “Oh yeah, Gus? Who told you that?”

The human in the armor puffed out his chest. “My dad, of course!”

“Didn’t your dad also tell you that if you drop a big rock and a little rock from the same height at the same time, the bigger one would hit the ground fist?”

The armored human slouched and looked at the ground. “Yes…”

“And…?”

“And he was wrong! I admit it! Happy?”

Twilight arched an eyebrow. “Um… Sirs? I think we’re getting off the subject matter.” They glanced at Twilight and back at each other.

The Gus with the pot pointed at Twilight with a digit. “The pony’s right…” He looked back at Twilight. “That’s what you said you were called, right?” Twilight nodded. “If there’s even a chance of there being a civilization of creatures every bit as smart as we are and able to use magic living right over our heads, we’ve got to tell someone! We’ve got to tell the Directors! Heck, this’s gotta go all the way to the High Director!”

The Gus with the armor leaned back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down there! Even I understand that we’ve found something way, way, WAY big, but we haven’t even told the Gatemaster yet!”

“So you agree that we should bring them back with us?”

The Gus with the armor gave a quick worried glance to the ponies. “Yep.”

The Gus with the pot went back up to Twilight. “Looks like you bunch’re going back to Core Metro with us. I’ll take the lead, Gus’ll man the back. And tread carefully, you never know what could’ve been attracted by all that noise.” The Gus with the pot made a snapping sound with his digits, and all the flames above went out. He pointed his staff forward and its tip burst into flame.

Twilight turned to look at her friends. “Come on everypony. We’re in their world now, so we must follow their rules.” Twilight followed the Gus with the pot. The others looked at each other for reassurance and followed.

***

“You know, Twilight, right? The more I think about it, the more I remember stuff I’ve read about you folk.”

Twilight perked up. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that… Gus?”

The Gus in the back shouted ahead. “Yeah?”

“She was talking to me, blockhead!” The Gus in the front glanced back at Twilight. “I’m sorry, this whole event has been a big shock, but that’s no reason to discard etiquette. I’m Gus as in Gustoff.” Gustoff gestured behind them with one of his larger digits. “He’s Gus as in Augustus.”

“What?”

“I was introducing us, boulder brain!”

“Burn butt!”

“Mud mouth!”

“Sizzling sneeze!”

Twilight raised her brow in concern. “Um… is there an issue between you guys?”

“Nah, this is just how we act casually. We're actually really good friends.”

Twilight looked relieved. “That’s good. I could kind of tell. Friendship is what I’m all about. In fact, it’s what all of us are about.”

Gustoff shrugged. “Well, that’s what I’m getting at.” He pointed at Pinkie and Applejack with the back of his staff. “I remember that they’re what earth ponies look like…” He pointed at Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. “They’re pegasi...” Then, he pointed at Rarity. “And she’s a unicorn.” Finally, he pointed to Twilight herself. “But I don’t know what to call a pony with both wings and a horn. Are you some kind of hybrid or mutation or what?”

“It’s a long story, but I was born a unicorn. When I proved myself worthy of being a princess, I just sort of turned into an alicorn.”

Gustoff glanced back at Twilight. “You mean like an immortal?”

“What’s that?”

Gustoff looked back forward and shook his head. “Oh, nothing. Just an old legend.”

“Now look who’s being incur… incru…”

Gustoff turned to shout back at Augustus. “Incredulous, you twit!”

“The immortals are real! And when they return, they’ll lead us to glory!”

“Did your dad tell you that too?” Augustus loudly groaned, but held his tongue.

After an awkward pause, Rainbow Dash flew up closer to Gustoff. “So, I just gotta ask. What’s with the pot? Seems like an awkward choice for going into battle.” Augustus tried to cover up his grin.

“Whoops.”

Gustoff jerked his head back to Rainbow Dash. “Watch it, quadruped! My father fell in battle wearing this cauldron! And his father! And his father! And his father before him!”

“And let me guess, you hope to one day fall in battle wearing that helmet?”

“What? No! I hope to go out peacefully in my sleep surrounded by my many descendants! Do I look like some kind of freak to you?”

Rainbow Dash flew back behind the others. “Gee. Sorry I asked.”

Augustus laughed under his breath and leaned closer. “I asked him the same thing when I first met the guy, the exchange was word for word. He’s usually the people person, but when it comes to that dingy soup pot, he gets wound up so tight.”

Rainbow Dash giggled. “I think I can think of somepony just like that, or rather, somepony that used to be like that.”

“Really? Do tell.” Twilight gently smiled as she listened to the conversation, and rolled her eyes as certain unflattering subjects came up, which coincided with a series of muffled giggles.

Eventually, they came upon a crest on a hill, and beheld the gates of the city. The giant plates of riveted iron served as an entry point in an otherwise impassable wall of smooth, solid stone. But what really drew their attention was the thing standing in front of them. The metal construct stood twice as tall as the beast they encountered previously, holding an ax with a blade bigger than the beast’s head with one appendage. Gustoff guided them towards it, and as they neared, the construct’s empty visor began to glow with two orange lights as it stepped towards them. “WHO GOES?”

Comments

[Sunkaiju]

How long till next chapter?

[ShadowDurza]

11142889
I'd say, the 20th of this month.