My Little Pony Heart of Friendship: Tales of a New Beginning

by ShadowDurza

Rise Again: Postlude

Spike wiped frosting and crystal flecks off his mouth after shoving in his seventh gem-encrusted cupcake and spoke with a muffled, full-mouthed voice. “Gee, it sure was nice of team Rising Dragon to spend half their winnings catering and arranging this victory party!”

Maxine wiped her mouth after laying down another neatly-folded wrapper to make her third stack. “And of course, they’ve divided the other half among themselves to take care of their rent and grocery bills for the next couple of years.”

Discord, after having sampled from a stack of what used to be muffin tops that he’d turned into muffin bottoms with a snap of his talons, arrogantly scoffed. “This is such a nice and honest usage of an instant fortune… That it makes my stomach sick.” Maxine was about to ask Don’t you mean sick to your stomach? Until Discord opened a hatch on his belly to show the round, pink organ in a small bed with an ice pack and thermometer where its head and mouth should be.

Maxine gave Discord a wry smile and drew out a handful of letters from her coat to place on the table the three of them were sitting at. “Speaking of ‘honest’... That match drummed up a ton of publicity and interest for human warriors and adventurers. In a world full of magic like this, there’s always something that needs done, found, or fought that requires a certain expertise that not a lot of ponies have, so there’ll definitely be paying work for more than a few disposable incomes.”

Meanwhile, the party was jumping in the hanging bazaar and more than a few unexpected combinations were hitting it off. Fluttershy was sitting down having tea with Ellis, happily making smalltalk. Russ was sitting down talking with Rarity and Applejack, all of them drawing out their ideas for full remodelings of their farm and shops for a bargain rate. Oro and Krank were talking with Rainbow Dash about working security for Wonderbolt shows knowing how disruptive some of the more over-energetic fans can get, and not to mention her connections to the Canterlot royal guard for consultation work. Pinkie and Twilight were both talking to Otto and Slash, both of them very curious about human sign language for reasons both scholarly and to make a few young unlucky ponies smile, but Twilight was especially curious about where Slash found knowledge on human secret magic and the means he used to make it his own.

Twilight took her notes to a table in a more quiet corner to make a few letters to share what she’d learned about advanced human elemental magic to a few magic-scholarly correspondents. However, she found herself startled when someone asked, “Is this seat taken?”

She turned to look at her new company and was startled by how different he looked even from his own kind. He was a tall human with whitish, silver, unkempt hair and dark blue eyes dressed in a thick, roughly stitched cloak and hood of dark rags with linen bandages wrapped around his forearms, hands, shins and bare feet. One very distinct feature he had was a tattoo-like mark on his left cheek, a pair of solid-black blots that extended down and curved toward his mouth in lines that smoothly tapered to points. She then remembered her manners and gave this new human a smile, tapping a hoof on the stool to her side. “No, please, help yourself!”

The human nodded and took a seat with his tray full of snacks. And began slowly sampling and savoring each one. He took a look at Twilight’s notes then turned to the alicorn. “That was an excellent match, one that will be talked about for centuries! That Kris boy probably would have won it all if he’d used that Artifact of the Immortals he has, but he chose the high road and banked on the might and ability he cultivated with his friends instead. He might have lost the match, but he won great honor. Not a lot of human warriors have integrity like that, admittedly. A little too eager to trade dignity for shallow glory.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and gave him a giggle. “If we’re both being honest, things like friendship, kindness, loyalty and the like might seem like really big things for us ponies, but we only hold them up as our core values because it’s always been very easy for us to forget them and fall into self-interest.” She then looked away with a sad look. “And if we’re being really honest, even after everything that my friends and I have achieved, I can still see so many different ways harmony could be lost and everypony to start turning on one another. I’m only a little ashamed that I’ve recently started making plans to make sure magic doesn’t wind up in the wrong hooves if friendship is forgotten again.”

At that, this new human gave Twilight a warm, beaming smile. “It’s always been like that, hasn’t it? Only a fool denies the existence of the disparity that is good and evil, but in the end, evil will always promote the rise of good. A hero is only heroic because they know how much sorrow and destruction a truly evil villain can wreak.” This human then looked away with an expression of deep sentiment. “An old friend once told me that the harmony of the universe does the same refrain over and over: People seek to help because they know what it means to be helpless, the kind seek to be kind because they know the pains of cruelty. The loving seek to spread love wherever they go because they know the suffocating hurt of indifference. Some people might hate how history seems to repeat and rhyme, but there is hope knowing the universal truths of harmony and mercy.”

Twilight was stunned by that. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her wings, then held up another quill and paper. “That was beautiful! Do you mind if I quote you on that, Mr….?”

This human just laughed and made a dismissive gesture. “It’s yours! I insist! All I ask is that you go back over to Kris and give him my best!” Twilight slid all of her papers and supplies back into her bags and trotted back over to the losers table, where the victors were laughing, exercising their bragging rights, and waxing about good times long past.

“I think I made a new friend that acts like an old friend of yours!” Kris quickly sobered. And gave his pony friend a look of concern.

“Old friend? I was always a pretty reserved person even as an apprentice back in the old guild. Outside the others of the brave six and our rivals the mighty six, I was pretty content with a small, sincere circle of friends. What were they like?”

Twilight, held her hoof to her mouth with a look of contemplation for a moment. “Well, he seemed pretty wise, silver hair, blue eyes, all wrapped up in rags and bandages… Oh! And he had a mark on his cheek that looked like a couple of curving, solid-black bull’s horns!” Twilight kept thinking for a moment, but later noticed an odd silence. She looked back at the humans and found them all staring at her, aghast. “Um… Was it something I said?”

Kris took a moment to try to calm himself, taking a deep, shaky breath, and exhaling. He looked Twilight right in the eyes. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but you just described Omega Ultima, Immortal of Mercy, one of the Seventy-Two Immortals of Law, and the original owner of my Omega Weapon. And there’s the fact that despite being our spiritual but supreme leaders, nobody’s seen any of the immortals in over a thousand years! Where did you meet him?”

Twilight craned back her neck in shock, then turned back where she came from, pointing her hoof. “He was right over-” But the spot where what she thought was her newest friend was sitting now sat empty, the supposed immortal gone without a trace.

Twilight was dumbfounded. She quickly turned back to the table of humans with several inquiries, only to find the group of human warriors frantically deliberating with one-another with worried looks. “Um… Is there something I should know about?”

Kris turned back towards Twilight. “Well… The immortals have always exerted more soft power over our affairs than you alicorns have over the ponies, leaving that kind of thing to human leaders chosen by the humans themselves. They’ve always either just offered advice, possible paths to take, presented opportunities to those that would plead for them, and appeared to warn of times both auspicious and inauspicious.” He then held his fingers to his chin and looked away in contemplation. “Omega appearing here and now could mean all kinds of things good or bad. But one thing’s for sure, the times to come are going to be very… memorable.”

Twilight looked concerned for a moment. Then she looked back towards Celestia’s table, who was uncharacteristically bellowing as she does whenever she was beholden to major sporting events to an equally loud Boros, apparently having started an argument upon becoming a big fan of team Rising Dragon. Twilight and Kris gave one another exasperated looks, then laughed and started towards their mentors/leaders, intending to prevent a potential political incident.

Author's Note:

Here it is, a whole saga all wrapped up tight in a nice bow of friendship formed from honor and mutual respect, and the icing on the cake is a hint of mystery and wonderment for what's yet to come. I know all this is coming a day early, so consider it a New Year's/Late Christmas present for this project that took the better part of a year.