Rebirth of Magic: The Misfit

by The Blue EM2

I'll Take the Stairway to Heaven

Considering the potential danger the world could have been in, the world around us couldn't have been more peaceful at sunrise. I'd made sure to sneak out of the tent nice and early to get going on a nice surprise for the others. Well, mainly for Pipp. The 'argument' we'd had, if you can really call it that, had left me quite worried for her.

I mean, she was right to say what she said. This whole mess was rather my fault, and if I was going to get their trust back I was basically going to be living through a redemption arc for a bit. Luckily, I had an idea what I felt could fix their problems and tickle their taste buds at the same time.

So, I got the things I needed out of a bag. Pancakes, butter, some cooking oil, syrup, that's all you need. The butter goes both on top of the pancake and in the pan in case you're wondering, so that way the pancake can still cook properly and not stick in the pan. Trying to dig a stuck pancake out is a nightmare, even with utensils, although using utensils isn't too hard in this world given everypony seems to have magnet hooves. I still haven't figured out how that works, incidentally.

Izzy had left her grill for me to use. I was left cooking responsibilities when out on the road, as whilst I appreciated her offer to make food in a microwave, it's nice to have properly cooked food after a few days on the move.

I got back to work, and adjusted the temperatures to get the food cooked properly. I got the pancakes suitably browned, and we ate them together to start the day. Safe to say I think it helped to repair our bonds a bit.

But after breakfast and we were all done eating, things didn't entirely go to plan. We couldn't agree on a route to take. Hitch wanted to take a road over the mountains as it was shorter as the dragon flies, whereas I favoured our original planned route of Ghastly Gorge, as it was flatter and easier to follow despite being longer in terms of miles.

It was quite the debate that followed, and it ended with us splitting up and taking different paths. I'm not sure who thought that was a good idea considering the state of the world, but it had to be the case or else we'd never have left that campsite. Small losses, big wins, eh?

Anyway, we soon left camp and made our separate ways onto the terrain. We headed into the gorge and saw all the things around us. Safe to say it was pretty amazing to look at. We went onwards, passing under ledges and into the nearby terrain, and made sure to stay safe and watch our steps.

WELCOME TO GHASTLY GORGE NATIONAL MONUMENT. WE WELCOME CAREFUL TRAVELLERS. So they'd had National Parks and Monuments, huh? Interesting bit of trivia they don't allude to in the show. I wonder why?

As we headed into the gorge, we suddenly found an abandoned wooden building, which was somehow still standing despite the apparently centuries of a lack of maintenance. Buildings were scattered all around, again all empty and falling apart. This must have been the administrative centre of the area based on how they were all arranged. The Parks system back in the human world often had nerve centres where the staff would work from, and outlyer stations where they could be posted for the day.

I pointed to the building. "There could be vital clues in there, not to mention supplies. We'll need to keep stocking up if we're gonna keep moving along."

Izzy nodded. "Good idea!" She opened the door and we both went inside.

We stopped and looked about the interior of the building. To be honest, seeing buildings abandoned as they were when in use is something I've always found pretty creepy. Things were left all over the place. A newspaper sat on a desk, somehow still readable despite the date being hundreds of years in the past. The devices around hummed, and the shelves were still stocked with produce and products, waiting for the customers who would never come.

It was that eerie. It was like I'd stepped onto the set of a horror movie, and any second now Leatherface would jump round a corridor and chase me with a chainsaw. Or Gollum would ask if I had seen his 'precioussssssssssssssssssss'.

As I looked through some documents, Izzy looked in a fridge. "Donuts!" she said, suddenly.

"Izzy, you shouldn't eat those. They're probably hundreds of years old, and you'll be sicker than a mule if you eat them." Considering the pressure we were under, we couldn't afford to waste time on treating the party for medical issues. It's not as if they just gain extra life points for being given medicine. Besides, eating severely out of date food is an incredibly bad idea.

"Isn't that offensive to mules?" Izzy asked. I certainly hadn't seen a mule. Were mules still alive, even? This entire journey I'd seen nothing but ponies. I know the dragons come back at some point, but as far as I was aware the other races don't exist anymore.

"Are mules even alive in Equestria anymore?" I asked. "I know ponies and dragons are still about, but the others? No sign of them yet."

We continued to dig through the documents. I found this whole process very bizarre. When defending G5 on message boards, I frequently pointed out that the characters lacked critical knowledge as there are gaps in the historical record, and as a result lacked information we viewers had. As a result, they were basically archeologists, digging through evidence to find the truth.

And here we were, doing the exact same thing, trying to piece together the past from leftover documents.

"Sunny! Look at this!"

I trotted over, and saw Izzy was holding a flyer. "The Battle of Thunder Bay National Historic Site? Come and visit this historic battlefield, which celebrates the Earth Pony victory over the unicorns and pegasi. Don't miss out on the cyclorama of Gadsden's Charge and the shrine to earth pony liberty."

Was this their version of Gettysburg? I looked over and saw Izzy's face looking confused, so I prompted her to speak.

"I looked at unicorn history before I left Bridlewood, and I read that Thunder Bay was a unicorn victory!"

"No doubt each tribe believes they won the battle. If we get the earth pony, unicorn, and pegasus narratives together, we can figure out what really happened by noticing the similarities!"

We spent a few more minutes looking around inside, including being noticably disheartened by some very racist toys, before we got on our way. After a while of walking, we soon began to climb out of the gorge and into what appeared to be some mountains and cliffs. It was absolutely stunning, and the mountains seemed to glisten with imperial majesty. Why couldn't the show have shown us this?

I, however, was growing uneasy. The path around us was littered with things lying about. Metal, what appeared to be vehicles, and one shape that looked eerily like a pony. Some sort of disaster happened here?

Well, sort of. We soon came across a huge war memorial. Some sort of battle had happened here, and it seemed the earth ponies had been on the defence against unicorns. The text at the bottom proved to be especially painful, though.

TO THE BRAVE SOLDIERS WHO NEVER CAME HOME.

That brought back some unpleasant memories. I tried to swallow as best I could, but holding it back proved to be hard.

And Izzy noticed. "What's wrong?"

I looked down, not wanting Izzy to see how I felt. "Back in the human world, I had ancestors who fought in the Great War. One of them never came home. He's still out there, somewhere, unable to leave the battlefield. He died in the service of his country in a completely pointless war. And the same here. All of this could have been avoided if everypony had just sat down and talked! So answer me this- how can ponies be so cruel to one another?"

Clearly being here was having a severe emotional toll on me, as I broke down again for the second time in two days. Thankfully, Izzy was much more understanding than Pipp had been. "Hey. If it's any consolation, we can work to prevent a war like this from ever happening again."

"What chance do we have of preventing another war if Twilight couldn't prevent one?"

Izzy paused, but what she said next reminded me that, behind the wackiness, there's remarkable wisdom in there. "I don't know. But that's no reason to not try."

Suddenly, a series of loud noises sounded nearby, and something pulled itself over the clifftop and looked at us.

My nightmares had somehow stepped into reality.

Author's Note:

Another travel chapter down! This chapter is based on my experiences of travelling the National Parks of the American Southwest. Ghastly Gorge is largely based on Zion National Park, with elements of Devil's Tower National Monument and Kodachrome National Monument worked in as well. There's also a small nod to Yellowstone National Park if you can spot it. The empty cabin was inspired by seeing bizarre abandoned buildings and ghost towns in the region; one of the largest is Rhyolite, Nevada, which is preserved as a stabilised ruin.

The overall tone of this segment is a reference to the Battle of Col di Lana (Blood Mountain), an engagement during WW1 that occurred in the Alps between Austrian and Italian troops which resulted in thousands of troops being buried in snow and ice. The title of the chapter is taken from Soldier of Heaven, a song about this incident told from the perspective of one of the soldiers who died in the battle.

For a very long time, racist toys and products pervaded our society, through a mixture of both actual prejudice or social ignorance. Whilst examples such as Ben's (formally Uncle Ben's) are well known, other famous examples include gollies, children's toys that were based on racist caricatures of Black people. These toys were still popular well into the 1960s in the UK; one of my father's older siblings had one. A similar phenomenon was seen in the United States with toys and media themed around Native Americans; the films of John Ford, although technical masterpieces, rarely depicted Native Americana accurately.

And what could Sunny mean by her nightmares coming true? Find out tomorrow!

Comments

[The Blue EM2]

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New chapter, folks!

[Comickook]

Again, you did some really good work on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Definitely liked "Sunny's" additional reflection on "Pipp's" words to her as well as the effort on making a good breakfast in addition to the observation on how magnetic hooves seem to be the only magic most ponies still have aside from still being able to get Cutie Marks. Also appreciated "Sunny" stopping "Izzy" from eating that centuries-old doughnut and that acknowledgement of mules (yeah, FiM dropped THAT running gag in the third season) and how they still don't know if the other species besides ponies and dragons are still around (of course, Allura, a winged snow leopard, is the closest we've seen to a Griffon [being a sapient hybrid of a cat and a bird], but as she doesn't appear until the final episode of Chapter SIX and they've all been pulled in from BEFORE Chapter FOUR, it makes sense that they don't know about her yet) . That is certainly something to think about for if/when the group's adventures start going back this first one (and especially for if and after the adventures start going past Make Your Mark Chapter Six). And "Sunny's" viewpoint on that discussion concerning ancestors who died in military service is also really appreciated.

Anyway, really looking forward to the next chapter/final chapter for phase three of "Sunny's" story.

And, before I forget, I appreciate the stuff you mentioned in the author's notes concerning the historical nods. Of course, these days, when I hear the name "Uncle Ben", I tend to think of the man whose death reminded most versions of Spider-Man that "With Great Power, There Must Also Come Great Responsibility.". But that's probably just me. I know which Uncle Ben you actually meant, which wasn't that one. And that just an aside I couldn't help for some dumb reason. I apologize for wasting your time.

[shining paladin]

awesome chapter mate keep it up can't wait for the next chapter the italian soldiers were brave indeed but led by fools of a took as gandalf would say

[ScisetShimmerEvan]

It was quite the debate that followed, and it ended with us splitting up and taking different paths. I'm not sure who thought that was a good idea considering the state of the world, but it had to be the case or else we'd never have left that campsite. Small losses, big wins, eh?

Still a loss in my eyes.

WELCOME TO GHASTLY GORGE NATIONAL MONUMENT. WE WELCOME CAREFUL TRAVELLERS. So they'd had National Parks and Monuments, huh? Interesting bit of trivia they don't allude to in the show. I wonder why?

Huh.

We stopped and looked about the interior of the building. To be honest, seeing buildings abandoned as they were when in use is something I've always found pretty creepy. Things were left all over the place. A newspaper sat on a desk, somehow still readable despite the date being hundreds of years in the past. The devices around hummed, and the shelves were still stocked with produce and products, waiting for the customers who would never come.

Wow!

"No doubt each tribe believes they won the battle. If we get the earth pony, unicorn, and pegasus narratives together, we can figure out what really happened by noticing the similarities!"

Hopefully.

We spent a few more minutes looking around inside, including being noticably disheartened by some very racist toys, before we got on our way. After a while of walking, we soon began to climb out of the gorge and into what appeared to be some mountains and cliffs. It was absolutely stunning, and the mountains seemed to glisten with imperial majesty. Why couldn't the show have shown us this?

You and me both.

Suddenly, a series of loud noises sounded nearby, and something pulled itself over the clifftop and looked at us.

Uh oh!

[The Blue EM2]

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Allura would currently be busy bossing the Auroracorns about, but that's a valid point; our heroes are wandering blind into the scenarios they face, and lack a lot of context we readers take for granted.

I noted back in the comments section on Izzytastic that much of my speculation about the between times is based heavily on WW1, a conflict which continues to be controversial today (whereas it's not particularly controversial to argue that WW2, although still terrible, was ultimately neccesary.

No need to apologise for the Marvel info-Uncle Ben is a great character who is critical to Spiderman history.

[The Blue EM2]

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White Friday was a truly dreaful day. Most people had never heard of the Alpine Front of WW1 until Sabaton did a song about it.

[The Blue EM2]

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1. True. But it makes for better storytelling.

2. Same here.

3. That's a nod to an expansion for Fallout: New Vegas.

4. That's the job of the historian!

5. Starlight Ridge is pretty close, though.

6. More on that tomorrow.