Discord takes a vacation; Eddie Riggs meets ponies. It all goes downhill from there.
Eddie Riggs had just a few errands to run. Just a few, that's all. Once he was done, he could get back to Ophelia and teach her the finer subtleties of French Kissing. At the exact same moment, in another world entirely, Discord decides he needs a vacation. Cue Eddie Riggs, the Ultimate Roadie, needing to get used to some of the most non-Metal things in existence, and some of the most non-Metal things in existence needing to get accustomed to the Ultimate Roadie, Eddie Riggs.
(Knowledge of Brütal Legend is necessary to understand many things in this story. Heed my warning; ignorance of the source material will result in becoming lost)
Eddie Riggs smiled, gripping the demonhide-bound wheel of his beloved Deuce in overlarge hands as the machine growled over the hilly terrain outside of Bladehenge. All around him, the grassy slopes held groups of the victorious army of Ironheade, from Headbangers to Zaulia, mingling together, partying, knocking back some of that awful piss Mangus called “Momma’s Brew”, and generally celebrating their triumph over the Coil, all the while making toasts to Lita and Lars Halford.
He nodded, satisfied. It really didn’t bother him, the fact that his exploits weren’t being sung. Sure, he had been the one to gather the army, had been the mind behind the strategy, had been the man to finally face Emperor Doviculus and behead the monster.
He was a roadie, the best one, in fact. And as the best roadie, he knew what his job was.
‘Yep. Making someone else look good, keeping someone else safe, and helping someone else do what they were put here to do.’
And frankly, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
His grin broadened a bit as he looked into his rearview mirror at the small figure standing on the ridge. Eddie couldn’t see her face, the distance and failing light preventing such a feat, but he didn’t need to.
Ophelia’s eyes were on him, he knew. He could feel it.
Shaking his head, Eddie Riggs settled back into his seat as the Deuce started climbing another hill. He’d be back soon, he promised himself. Just a few loose ends to tie up; a few more of those Bound Serpents, was all. His demonic side could sense the spirits deep within the statues, and it irked him to know that they were unable to be free, to take part in the hard-won independence that the rest of the land now enjoyed.
He allowed his mind to wander. Maybe he’d drop by a Metal Forge, invite the Guardian to some of the festivities. The guy looked like he could use a day out…
The Deuce then crested the hill, and Eddie paused for a moment, gently pressing the brake. He watched as the sun began to truly and properly set, a glorious wash of fiery reds and oranges quickly being chased below the horizon by the deep bruising of oncoming night.
He parked and set the e-brake, allowing a hand to reach back and softly, lovingly, pluck a few strings on Clementine, slung over his back. The guitar twanged just as softly and lovingly, a perfect little melody to join in with the approach of dusk.
Eddie Riggs allowed a sigh to escape him. For years, he had followed that shitty little band back…could he really call it home? Now, after all he had been through here in this antiquated period of time, it felt so much more like home than he could have ever believed. Here, he felt like he had purpose, direction…
Back in the old place, he had no real meaning. Just follow that band, pour his heart into his work, and watch them piss all over it. But here?
Yeah…here was home, now. Here his skills propped up people who actually needed and appreciated it, however subtle that appreciation was. Here, he had friends, family, prospects, even.
Eddie closed his eyes as the last strains of sunlight warmed his face, cooling as the kiss of dusk finally took its turn. “Yep…I got it made, alright…”
“Totally.”
Eddie’s eyes snapped open as his head spun around to look at the empty passenger seat…
Or the formerly empty passenger seat.
It was now occupied by some sort of…snake…horse…goat…lion...chicken…dragon thing reclining back on the cushion. Hard to tell what it was, really…no two parts seemed to match in anything except function. Whatever it was, it was long, it was big, and those claws looked dangerous.
And those eyes…the only things that were an identical pair...yellow surrounding scarlet that seemed to bore into him, as if they could see into his soul.
The thing smiled at Eddie Riggs, teeth glistening white in the lights from the dash, one long fang hanging low on the lip.
Eddie Riggs felt the blood in his veins freeze at the creature now eyeballing him. He swallowed, hard.
“Yo,” he said.
The whateveritwas allowed its smile to fall slack. “’Yo’?” it said incredulously. “That’s it? ‘Yo’?” The lion’s paw and the chicken foot crossed themselves like arms. “If that was the greeting I’d known I was going to get, I would have dressed fittingly.”
The chicken foot snapped its talons. A bright light dazzled Eddie’s disbelieving eyes, and he shielded his face for a moment. When he looked back, the creature was clad in an ensemble straight from the Baron’s wardrobe: black leather peaked cap and matching jacket and pants.
The roadie merely stared as the oddity inhabiting his passenger seat whipped a pair of mirrored aviators from a pocket and donned them, the sunglasses warping themselves to fit its muzzle perfectly. “Wotcher, mate,” it said, putting a toothpick into its snaggle-toothed mouth.
Eddie resumed staring. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Uh…hi…”
A moment of silence followed, during which the creature lowered the shades with its lion’s paw to frown mightily at the roadie. “The polite thing to do,” it said, voice the very sound of effrontery, “would be to introduce yourself, shake hands…you know, the typical niceties.”
The chicken claws snapped again, and Eddie found his hand gripped by the lion paw, the owner of which now dressed in a short-sleeved white button-down, with thick glasses and braces on his teeth.
“My name is Discord, Lord and Master of Chaos, Mr. Eddie, sir, and I’m your biggest fan!!” The lion paw began pump up and down relentlessly, and Eddie found himself jostled relentlessly.
“And now,” the creature named Discord said, “you’re probably wondering why I’m here, hmm?”
Wrenching his hand from the leonine mitt, Eddie snarled. “Actually, I’m thinking about how much I’d like to kick your ass!” He reached back for the handle of the Separator. “Now, get the fuck outta my…hey, what the fuck?”
As his fingers grasped empty air, Discord waved the axe in the air, tossing it from paw to claw and back. “Ooooo, yes…now this is familiar…” he cooed. “The weapon of Succoria herself! Just as shiny and sharp as I remember…”
Eddie froze, even as one massive fist had clenched in preparation of a beatdown. “Wait…how do you—”
“Oh, everyone knows about Succoria,” Discord said, flapping a dismissive appendage as he continued to stare at the weapon. “Honestly, did you think that this world and your old home were the only ones she and Riggnarok visited?”
The half-demon remained silent, eyes narrowing as the beast before him admired its reflection in the blade. Finally, Discord seemed to get bored with the axe; he turned to look at Eddie.
“Yes, we were all old, old friends…when we weren’t trying to kill each other, mind. I was even hoping for a little get-together, a reunion of sorts…and imagine how I am feeling right now! I go through the ether, looking for both of them, searching for their auras…and I find you!” He propped his chin on a poultry fist. “Now, why would that be?”
Eddie snorted, deciding to humor the creature. “Yeah…Mom died. So did Dad.”
Discord rolled his eyes. “Oh, dear, don’t tell me she died giving birth to you…how dreadfully cliché…and I told Riggnarok a thousand times, those cigarettes were going to kill him.” He paused.
“He…did die of lung cancer, correct? Don’t get me wrong, I remember everything, it’s just that maintaining a physical form requires that I only have so much room in the old melon, and unimportant details tend to get left behind...”
No answer was forthcoming; the eyes of the roadie had gone a dangerous shade of yellow, and the veins under his rapidly-darkening skin began to bulge.
“Oh, come now,” Discord said, “I didn’t upset you, did I? And here I thought we were getting along so well…” The point at the top of the Separator was used to pick Discord’s front teeth. “I do so hate how these meetings with mortals always degrade into violence…and the worst part is, you don’t even know why I’m here, and you’re ready to knock my block off!”
Eddie paused a moment, quashing the urge to knock out that single fang from his unwanted guest’s mouth as he considered the chimera’s words. He was nothing if not a fair man, and there was some truth to what Discord had said; it didn’t sit right, not knowing what it was the creature wanted.
“Okay,” he grumbled, settling back. “What’s your angle?”
Immediately, Discord brightened up and lifted his talon. “Finally! I thought you’d never ask!”
SNAP!
Now clad in a business suit, Discord stared down the long table that had appeared before the Druid Plow’s front bumper. “Firstly, the board would like to congratulate you, Mr. Riggs, on your victory over the Tainted Coil and its leader, Emperor Doviculus.” Immediately, twelve other Discords, similarly clad (save for one near Eddie’s left fender, dressed in a skirt and blouse) began to clap in polite enthusiasm (save, once again, for the one in the skirt; that one blew a lipsticky kiss and winked an overdone eye at Eddie. Eddie, for his part, merely felt slightly nauseous).
“However…”
The clapping stopped, and every eye went back to the Discord at the head of the table, who began to pace back and forth, using the Separator as a cane. “We here at Discord, Discord, and Discord, LLC, believe that a man of your talents isn’t exactly cut out for the rigors of peacetime. You, Mr. Riggs, are a man of action, a hot-blooded warrior who needs to get up and go!”
“Yeah?” Eddie crossed his arms. “And what makes you say that?”
The Discords smiled as one. “Simple; instead of staying with your friends and lover to celebrate, you decided to go and seek out the Bound Serpents, did you not? Instead of taking the night off, just a single night, you get back in your car and head off to another job. Albeit not a strenuous one…”
Eddie nodded, grudgingly so. He could see that line of logic. “Okay...your point?”
“Our point, Mr. Riggs,” a random Discord retorted, “is that we think that, instead of sitting around this land, waiting for the next conflict…which is coming, fundraising issues or not…you could be utilizing your abilities elsewhere. More specifically, another Realm entirely.”
Eddie Riggs stared. “…elsewhere.”
“Yes.”
“…as in…leave here.”
“Right.”
“…as in…go somewhere that isn’t the holy land of Metal?”
“Exactly.”
A pregnant moment of silence went by. Discord watched as it did, shook the father’s hand, and offered him a cigar.
“Okay…what part of that,” said the exasperated roadie, “even seems like it would be something I would want to do?”
At this, Discord smiled grimly. “Oh, but my dear boy,” he said, raising the chicken claw once more.
“I do not recall giving you a choice.”
The talons snapped, the table, business suit, and dopplegangers disappeared, and a massive hole, a swirling vortex of black energy that still shone with its own, unnamable light, opened up above Eddie Riggs and the Deuce.
Eddie, for his part, merely stared at it; then he said what was possibly one of the most profound things he had ever conceived.
“Huh. Well, that’s new.”
And then he had the most peculiar sensation of falling up.
Discord watched his progress, and then looked down.
“I suppose,” he said, “that you think he’ll be needing you?”
The Separator said nothing, as it was an axe and would find itself hard-pressed to do so, seeing as how it had no mouth. Discord looked at it askance.
“Are you certain? You and I could have a real slice…” He snickered. “Get it? Slice? Because you’re an axe?”
Once again, the weapon said nothing.
The Lord and Master of All Things Chaotic sighed. “No need to get snippy. Alright, then…Tee-Tee-Eff-Enn.”
And he pulled back and threw Succoria’s Favorite Weapon through the portal, which closed up behind it, disappearing as if it had never been there in the first place.
“Well…now that that business is over…” And Discord rubbed his paw and talon together in excitement as he gave a little wriggle.
It was no use, later on, for Eddie Riggs, the Ultimate Roadie, to try and remember exactly what it was like passing through that void. He couldn’t even truly remember existing in there, let alone experiencing the actual journey. He could vaguely recall that there was the smell of basil, and the distinct flippy feeling in his gut that came when he was getting used to having wings and fell from too high, and the completely new sensation he got when he fell up (there was no other word for it; he hadn’t levitated up or flown up, he had fucking fallen up), but that was the extent of it.
Well, that, and a feeling of mind-numbing terror due to the fact that he felt a million-and-three inhuman eyes upon him, watching him, scrutinizing him as he had traversed the space that belonged to the eyes’ owner(s(es)), but that had been it.
That is, until Eddie felt like Eddie again, and that odd, new sensation of falling up turned into the completely familiar sensation of falling down, and he found himself looking at what appeared to be a forest floor rushing up to meet his—
THUD.
“Ow.”
—face.
Eddie Riggs took the opportunity to just lay there and bleed awhile. The fall hadn’t really hurt him; while it was next to impossible for him to access his demonic powers when not in the heat of battle, there were enough of them latently active to kick up his body’s natural healing process a notch, and so a broken nose was easily fixable.
‘Still hurts like a sumbitch, though…’
At least he hadn’t landed on his back; poor Clemmy. She was so going to need a good old-fashioned tuning to make up for all the punishment she had gone through recently.
Resolving to do just that as soon as the opportunity afforded itself, he idly cast his eyes about, searching his surroundings; yep, forest. Trees everywhere, bushes and crap, sounds from whatever unsavory predators were stalking whatever…
Eddie quietly groaned. And of course, he was stuck in a forest full of large animals—
An enormous snarl, some distance away but from an animal big enough for it to still be loud, pierced the air.
— make that large, dangerous, and pissed off animals, and that stupid snake-thing still had his fucking axe!
Eddie Riggs cast an extraordinarily annoyed look over his shoulder at the swirling vortex, just in time to see the shiny orichalcum of his beloved weapon flip end over end through the empty not-space, landing blade-first into the hard-packed dirt not an inch away from his still-throbbing nose as the hole closed, leaving no trace.
He looked at his reflection.
His reflection stared back.
“…okay,” he muttered. “That was a close one.”
Grunting, he pushed himself up off the ground, dusting himself off. Healing factor or no, Eddie knew that he was going to be hella sore in the morning, no mistake about it.
‘Of course,’ he thought to himself, ‘I have to live to morning, first.’
In reality, it likely wouldn’t be a problem. As long as he had Clementine and the Separator, a sharp edge and the magic of Metal, he’d be just fine…
The collective howl of a wolfpack rang through the air, and he set his jaw. Pulling the battle-axe from the earth, he ran an absent thumb over the edge, eyes darting around. It was better safe than sorry; the wise thing to do would be find some sort of shelter. What little sky he could see seemed to be shifting toward the late afternoon; that meant there was only a limited time to locate a hidey-hole, since the thickness of the canopy here would block the—
Again, a bone-chilling set of howls, sounding closer than before. Eddie nodded to himself. Time to go.
He had just begun to hack through the nearest underbrush when he heard the howling again, even closer…but underneath it…
‘Was that…a kid?’
Listening intently, the half-demon stayed quiet, hoping to catch it again…
Ah-wooooooo!
And right below that, the sound of…no, not one kid screaming…a few kids!
Without a second thought, Eddie Riggs spun around and dashed off in the direction of the shrieks. ‘Ain’t no way in hell I’m going to let some poor kid get eaten!’
Luckily, he didn’t need to look far; another clearing, this one with a small hill in the middle, a small cavern in its side, and surrounding it, snarling and snapping, were wolves.
Big wolves.
Big wolves…made out of branches?
It is a credit to Eddie Riggs’ mental adaptability that he saw this and didn’t even break stride; granted, he had seen his share of weird in the past few months, which probably helped, but even then, the oddness to which he was being subjected to would give even the most metal of metalheads pause.
All that went out the window when Eddie heard a trio of small, high-pitched voices screaming in abject terror from the grassy hillock’s innards.
Without a second thought, he launched himself into the air, axe raised high, straight at the wolf closest to the hole. This particular specimen was scrabbling around the edges, desperately trying to enlarge the hole to fit its monstrous head into, and so did not see the newcomer to the fray.
But it heard him, and he was the last thing it would hear.
The Separator slammed into the wood-wolf’s neck, cleaving through branches, splintering where it didn’t cut, crushing what remained, and an outpouring of golden sap sprayed everywhere as the head and body fell in two pieces.
Silence filled the clearing as the small voices fell dumb, and the snarling, growling pack of wolf-things were struck mute at the death of their Alpha.
The hulking figure of Eddie Riggs straightened, bringing the head of his axe to his shoulder as he casually wiped a stripe of sap from his cheek. “Alright, bitches,” he said, kicking the lifeless pile of kindling away with a boot.
“Which one of you wants to party next?”
Apparently, all remaining seven of them did. Eddie found himself beset on nearly all sides as the four-legged plants began to dart in and out at him. He raised the Separator in front of him, blade flat, as he braced himself against the hill.
“You kids...urgh…just stay inside…agh…okay?” Jerking his head back as a wood dog clamped its jaws around the axe handle, inches from his face, he lashed out with his boot. A satisfying crunch, quickly followed by a yelp, signaled the splintering of pine teeth breaking against the stainless rod. Eddie laughed out loud, and followed up his kick with a downwards swing, reducing the reeling animal’s head to toothpicks.
“Yeah, bitch! Ya like that?!”
Another broad swing of the heirloom stove in the chest of a leaping monster, which was followed up by yet another heavy hit, and another. Even as the remaining wolves leapt frantically, slashing him cruelly with fang and claw, Eddie Riggs still swung his axe.
Five wolves became four. Another fell, bisected, and four was three.
A wolf jumped onto his shoulders, only to be dashed to pieces against the stony face of the hill as he slammed against it.
Finally, only two were left, and Eddie Riggs, covered in sap and bloody scratches, merely grinned at them.
“What’s the matter, ladies?” he growled. “Eddie playin’ too rough?”
The wooden beasts looked at him, and then at each other…and promptly ran off into the woods, whimpering.
The bloodied roadie slung his axe back over his shoulder, throwing a lazy middle finger at the retreating enemy. “Yeah, yeah, fuck you, too…”
Turning around and bending as he did (once again, reminding himself that soreness was an inevitability come morning), Eddie did his best to peer into the mouth of the miniature cave. He couldn’t see too far into it; darkness mixed with the late-afternoon sun to shadow the inner portions of it.
“Uh…hey…” he called. “You, uh…you okay in there?”
There came the sound of a very swift conversation being held by small voices. “Y-yeah…” one finally replied. “Who’re you?”
Eddie raised an eyebrow. Straightforward little snot, this one. “Name’s Eddie. Eddie Riggs.” He paused. “And who are you?”
Another whispered conversation. “My sister says we shouldn’t talk to strangers,” another voice squeakily piped up.
Eddie rolled his eyes. On the one hand, he really couldn’t argue with that logic. On the other, it pissed him off no end when people told kids that without any context. “Okay,” he said. “So you can’t talk to strangers, but you’re allowed to walk around alone in the woods?”
There was a moment of silence.
“He’s good,” said the first voice.
“So, you gonna come out and tell me your names or what?”
“Heck, naw!”
Feeling the beginnings of a migraine coming on, the rocker pinched the bridge of his nose. “And why the hell not?!”
A third, raspy little voice chimed in. “’Cuz there’s a huge Timberwolf behind you, ya big dumb plothead!”
It was only then that Eddie noticed the breeze tugging and pushing against his vest.
“Oh, shit…”
The unseen Timberwarg roared its challenge to his back.
Before his mind could even truly register what was happening, his hand shot backwards, grabbing his beloved Clementine, and, as he wheeled on his heel, his other hand rose up and fell back down across the strings, unleashing a mighty power chord.
The air thrummed with the sound as the earth beneath the massive abomination bulged, cracked…and finally split, spewing forth a gout of red-hot fire directly under its belly.
Eddie watched the creature writhe in apparent agony, its branches blackening as it howled. It leapt backward, a four-legged fireball, and sprinted into the woods, roaring the entire way.
As the glow faded and the noise went with it, the roadie slung Clementine back over his shoulder. A quick glance around showed no other apparent threats—no tree dogs, no snakes, no giant spiders…
He didn’t know why the Metal Queen had popped into his head all of a sudden, but he had seen those movies with the orcs and hobbits in them, and big-ass spiders liked woods.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Eddie gave it an idle crack as he turned to the hole. “Okay, kids, it’s cool. No, uh…shrub wolves around.”
“It wasn’t a shrub wolf, dummy; it was a Timberwolf.”
The forgotten migraine began tap-dancing in his temples once more. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Timberwolf. Sorry. My mistake.”
A silence punctuated by the odd chirp of a bird pressed around them.
“So…uh…you coming out?”
The sounds of another hushed conversation emanated from the hole. “Well, that depends,” said the first voice. It had a distinct twang to it; Eddie had heard something like it when Kabbage Boy (may they forever be forgotten) had passed through the Ozarks. “Ya gonna eat us?”
He stared at the hole, whose inhabitants seemed to be content to wait on his answer. “Why would I want to eat you?”
The raspy voice piped back up. “We’re asking the questions here, bub!”
Eddie facepalmed. “Okay. Fine. I promise I won’t eat you. Now, will you just get your butts out here so I can get you back to your homes?!”
“Wait...” said Squeaky. “You know where we live?”
“No, but as soon as you get out here and tell me—“
“See?! I told you, he’s a snatcher!”
“Sweetie Belle, I don’t think he’s a snatcher…” said Country.
“Yeah.” Raspy snorted. “He looks too dumb to be a snatcher.”
“But Rarity got snatched by Diamond Dogs…”
“Well, no offense, Sweetie, but Rarity ain’t exactly…uh…”
“Apple Bloom’s right; Rarity’s kinda wimpy…”
“No, she’s not! Take that back, Scootaloo!”
“Make me!”
“Well, uh…Rainbow Dash is…um…”
“HEY!!!”
The three voices immediately clammed up at Eddie’s outburst.
“Alright. I am going to count to three…and when I get there, I had better see you guys out here front and center.”
“…and if we don’t?” Raspy still had a little sass left in her, it seemed.
“Then,” he growled, “I’m going to leave you out here and let the wolves get you.”
Another pause.
“He’s good,” said Country.
Eddie was having none of it. “One…T—”
“Wait, wait! We’re comin’out…”
Allowing himself a deep breath, Eddie Riggs tried to find his center. He wasn’t necessarily a kid-hater, but he had never had much cause to deal with anyone below the age of sixteen, and if their voices were any indication…these…these…
Eddie’s eyes widened as three little…horse…pony…things slowly and carefully crawled out from the hole. One was lemon-yellow, with a red mane dominated by a huge, even-redder bow. The second was orange, with a violet, scruffy-looking mane, and the last one was white with a curly, pink-and-lavender mane. They stood before him, side-by-side, watching him with eyes that seemed to take up the majority of their heads, which only reached up to his knee. Maybe.
He stared at them, face frozen in a rictus of disbelief.
They stared at him, almost-human faces fixed in expressions of innocent curiosity.
Eddie Riggs found himself flabbergasted; even after all the things he had seen in recent months, all the turns his life had taken, all the things he had done, what he was seeing now had stricken him speechless.
“What,” he rasped, “the everloving…fuck?”
Well…close to speechless, at any rate.
The three little…oddities glanced at each other, huddled together in yet another whispered conference, and then split to stare at him again.
The smallest one, white-with-cotton-candy-hair, raised her hoof in the air, as if in a classroom.
Eddie nodded dazedly. “Yeah?”
“What’s ‘fuck’ mean?”
‘Aw, shit…’
Several miles away, in Canterlot, a certain white alicorn was preparing to enjoy a cup of her favorite tea; her final cup of the day, in fact…
When, inexplicably, the fragile porcelain cracked, just as she had grasped it with her magic.
There were many possible explanations. The first was that the cup, being many decades old, had merely broken from age. Another was that perhaps it had been too cold, reacting aversely to the piping-hot beverage being poured into it. Still another said that she had exerted too much arcane pressure upon the thin material.
However...the last time something like this had happened...her little sister had caused a rebellion and attempted coup.
And looking down at her broke cup and the puddle of brown tea in its matching dish, Princess Celestia Sol Invictus knew, as her stomach curdled with sickening certainty, that something was not right in her Equestria.
Princess Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville liked to think that she was a fairly organized, logical, and intelligent pony, and, in truth, she was. She was personally responsible for revolutionizing the current library sorting system used across Equestria, had written several papers on Haycart’s Methods (all seventeen known and documented Methods, that is, and four more besides that existed only in the realms hypothetical), and had achieved two Doctorates (in Magical Physics and Magical Theory), four Master’s (Math, Chemistry, Lingua, and Library Sciences), and an honorary Baccalaureate (in Business Management, just so she had something to fall back on in case the other six did not pan out).
Not only was she learned and organized, she was also one of the storied Elements of Harmony, which entailed another list of accomplishments in and of itself.
Currently, though, none of her learning or experience was coming in handy as she raced around her little underground laboratory in the bowels of Golden Oaks Library, frantically comparing the printout she held in her telekinetic grasp against whatever screen or other chart she could.
“Come on…what is it…what is it…?”
Spike the Dragon, Number One Assistant Extraordinaire (he had added that little extra title on at the end in an effort to impress Rarity Belle, She of the Fashion Sense, Spotless White Coat, and Beauty Enduring), merely sat on the steps leading up to the main halls of their library home, and watched his caretaker run around like a chicken with its head cut off. Kicking his scaly little feet in midair, he munched on his favorite summertime treat, vanilla-chocolate swirl ice cream with crushed sapphires on top, idly licking a stray dollop off the end of his nose.
He had come up with a system for knowing exactly how upset Twilight had gotten ever since the Want-It-Need-It Incident revolving around her mane; put simply, the frizzier her hair got, the wiser it was for him to stay out of her way. One "doink" (named so for the noise they created as they escaped the confines of their styling) was nothing to be concerned about. Two was slightly worrisome. Anything above that could call for anything from slipping her some herbal tea instead of her habitual coffee to calling Princes Celestia to calm her down.
Right now, four doinks had made themselves apparent, and a fifth one was beginning to bow outward; Spike had felt the most prudent course of action was to stick around, keep her within sight at all times, and have an emergency letter to Celestia ready at a moment’s notice (hence the rolled up scroll next to him within paw’s reach that simply read “HELP” in big, blocky letters).
The amazing thing was that merely fifteen minutes before, he and Twi had been finishing a nice little dinner (cooked by his own hands, no less) on the balcony outside her room when a sudden magical disturbance had made itself known.
Normally, Twilight would just ignore such things; funky junk happening around Equestria, and Ponyville in particular, wasn’t anything odd, and she would usually jot down some note or other about it in a journal, the reason being that the vast majority of these oddities had been observed many, many times in the past, and she was intimately familiar with what caused each one, anyway.
This one, however, had been different, had a fundamental sense of off-ness about it that more than attracted Twilight’s attention.
What had truly sealed the deal had been the sudden cacophony of alarms that had gone off in the lab, which brought them to the point they were at now, namely Spike eating ice cream, and Twilight about to go into a complete melt-down.
“Aargh!”
Spike’s attention was drawn back to the present, and he looked down at the Alicorn currently crumpling the chart she had been matching to the maddeningly-different one into a ball.
DOINK.
He sighed; there went another lock of hair. Casting a glance down to his empty bowl, Spike briefly wondered what it would be like to live with another version of Twilight, one that didn’t have conniption fits over anything that didn’t fit into her neat, organized little world, one that merely was happy to be content in the knowledge that…
‘Nah…way too boring…’
“Hey, Twilight!” he called. “You think that you could tell me what’s going on?”
Twilight jerked around to face him, cockeyed gaze telling him that she had, indeed, forgotten his presence. Blinking rapidly, she focused on his questions, and a scowl broke upon her face.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” she fumed. “The whole world’s gone crazy!”
BAMF!!!
Spike tried not to jump as Twilight vanished and then reappeared next to him, face close to his as she bored holes into him with half-mad eyes. “Look at this. Look at it. Have you ever seen such gobbledygook in your life?!” She thrust the chart at him, filling his sight with a vision of white paper and black lines.
Reluctantly, Spike grasped the proffered paper, eyeing it carefully. “…uh…”
“Ha!” Twilight crowed triumphantly, a smile hitching itself crookedly on her face. “So you see it, too!”
“No.”
“…what.”
“No, I don’t see it.” The drakeling shrugged as he handed the paper back to the stressed pony princess. “Only thing I see is a squiggly line.”
Twilight snatched the chart. “I don’t mean what’s on the paper, Spike, I mean what the paper means!”
“That you need to have a more planet-friendly way of keeping track of your findings?”
This earned him a flat look, which he found a pleasant change from the previous unhinged expression that had rested on her face. “No; it was a measurement of the Magiquantum Harmonics Field surrounding our very reality as we know it!” She held the chart up in the air and used her hoof to point out details. “As you can see, the line represents the Field itself. Due to the very magical nature of our world, there are always little variances happening, and since the instruments blahblahblah…”
Spike allowed himself to retreat into the little world he reserved for when Twilight started to wax eloquent on things he really had no understanding of and knew he had no chance of convincing her to stop doing so. It was a nice place, a sunny meadow, just warm enough to render him comfortably drowsy, with a great big tree casting the right amount of shade to relax under.
“…resonance allows us to yaddayadda—“
Sometimes he imagined that there was a blanket with a picnic basket under the boughs, and lounging beside it was Rarity, as soft and beautiful as she had ever been, beckoning him closer with a bat of her sleepy, come-hither eyes, and he would obey, fully under her spell… “—yakkity yak yak listening to me?”
They would just laze about on the blanket together; she would stroke his headspines, calling him her “little Spikey-Wikey”, and he would tell her about how she was more beautiful than the gems in Celestia’s ceremonial crown (and infinitely more delicious-looking), and she would giggle at how poetic he was and gently lean in, lips pursed as she finally graced him with a—
“Spike!”
“Huh?!” Snapping out of his daydream, Spike was confronted not with the visage of his beloved Rarity, but the frustrated scowl of Twilight.
“Are you done daydreaming yet?” she asked testily.
Spike frowned and pooched his lower lip out. “I wasn’t daydreaming…I was…thinking…”
A patented Twilight Sparkle Flat Look was her response. “Anyway,” she said after a moment, “this variance here,” and she levitated a pen over to point out a short blip in an otherwise-uninterrupted line, “is an anomaly the likes of which hasn’t been seen in our lifetimes! In fact, the last time something like this occurred was when Celestia banished Nightmare Moon!”
Spike nodded. “So, Luna did something else to tick Celestia off and got sent back?”
“…no. Firstly, I doubt that she would do anything like that...again. Secondly, even if she would, she’d need the Elements for that, and I have them all here in the library, remember?” Twilight looked thoughtful as she said this, rolling the chart up and setting it and the pen down on a nearby table. “That’s my point, though; I don’t know what it is! Something to create such a disturbance in the Magiquantum Harmonics Field is sure to be important! Luckily, I know almost exactly where it happened!”
Spike rolled his eyes. Cue things going wrong…now. “Alright, fine…where did it happen?”
“The Everfree Forest!”
She trotted up the stairs, and Spike scrambled up to follow. “Twilight! What are you doing?!”
“Getting a saddlebag together! We need to check this out as soon as possible, before any evidence or observable aftereffect disappears!”
The little dragon made it through the door in time to see a pile of parchment, a hoofful of quills, and an inkpot fly through the air and land in Twilight’s favorite satchels, followed shortly by a pair of binoculars, a map and compass, and what appeared to be a light crystal. It was this last item that caused Spike’s stomach to curdle with dread. “Twilight, you’re not planning on going out there now, are you?!” “No time like the present, my Number One Assistant! We have to reach the site before anything contaminates it!" The purple glow of telekinetics accompanied a small group of apples and grapes as they, too, were placed within the saddlebags.
“But look outside, Twilight! It’s almost nighttime! You can’t go into the forest at night, that’s just crazy!”
DOINK.
Hair Number Six broke free of its moorings as Twilight spun around to stare at him. “Crazy, Spike? Me not going out into the Everfree Forest to observe what might possibly be a once-in-a-lifetime event of unknown magnitude and consequence on what we know about magic, now that’s crazy, Spike!” She smiled at him, one that was more a baring of teeth than an expression of joy. “Cuh-ray-zeeee!” the Alicorn sing-songed.
“Of course, Spike, I wouldn’t think of risking you out there!” At this lick of common sense, Spike perked up considerably; if she wasn’t going to take him, then she could still be talked out of going herself. He scampered over to her as quickly as he could as she levitated the bags over her back.
“Twilight, please! What if something happens to you? What if whatever caused that disturbance in the…the whatchamacallit—“
“Magiquantum Harmonics Field, Spike, I’ve only said it fifteen times…mostly while you were daydreaming…”
“Yeah, that…what if it’s dangerous?”
Twilight Sparkle gave a very strange giggle. “Oh, Spike, come on! It’s just a ripple in the very fabric of our dimension as we know it; what’s the worst that could happen? Besides,” she said, stepping up to the door and turning the handle. “It’s not like foals are suddenly disappearing or something.”
Spike was about to reply when the Twilight opened the front door…and revealed Applejack on the other side. She had one hoof raised as if to knock on the door; sweat stuck her mane to her forehead and her lungs fought for each breath, as if she had sprinted all the way to the library from Sweet Apple Acres.
The violet Alicorn jerked backwards in surprise. “Applejack! Are you alri—“
“T-Twilight!” gasped the Earth pony. “Applebloom…Sc-Scootaloo…Sweetie…Sweetie Belle…Everfree Forest…disappeared!”
DOINK.
“Oh, horseapples…”
Eddie Riggs resisted the headache that was, even now, threatening to blow out his temples like cheap subwoofers in a crappy sedan.
They had been walking for some time now, he and the little horse-things, in the hopes that eventually the route out of the forest would be found, which meant returning the…creatures…to their rightful homes and him figuring out what the hell was going on.
However, there was one simple thing that Eddie had forgotten about children, and now he had proof that it was a common factor among them, no matter where one went.
They. Didn’t. Shut.UP.
Once he had successfully evaded the question from Squeaky, whom he had learned was really named Sweetie Belle (this little feat had required some rather fantastic mental and verbal gymnastics in order to fool her into thinking that he had said “buck” instead; the flat looks he had received from the other two in conjunction with Sweetie Belle’s instant acceptance of this lameassery clued him in that he wasn’t dealing with the brains of the group at the time), the other two had immediately begun their own line of interrogation, into which Sweetie happily jumped in.
It was the typical kid stuff; the orange one, or “Scootaloo” had opted for some tough-guy routine, which ended up being more adorable than intimidating, and the bumpkin, or “Apple Bloom”, had gone into a folksier list of questions.
And Sweetie Belle had started asking whatever question popped into her little mind.
If he had been able to confront them one at a time, Eddie figured that perhaps he could have put up with them a bit better than he currently was; however, being sucked through a Dimensional Asshole by some smartmouthed douche with the power of snappy fingers, slamming facefirst into the unforgiving ground, and then having to fight off a pack of wolves made from last year’s Christmas trees, followed by three children who didn’t know how to shut the fuck up was kind of wearing on him.
“So, where’re y’all from, then?” twanged Apple Bloom for the third or fourth time. “Sure ain’t seen anythin’ like you in Equestria…”
“Maybe,” Scootaloo whispered, “he’s some sort of alien from outer space who’s here to steal our brains while we sleep! Like in that one comic book Spike has— “
“I thought ya weren’t allowed ta read that one, Scootaloo? Way I remember it, Princess Twilight said that it was too old for you…” Sweetie Belle scampered in front of him, walking backwards while she stared up to see his face. “Why do you have so many metal pieces on your clothing? And why are your eyes so small? And why are your legs so skinny? And why—“
Eddie stopped, pinching the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes, and counting to ten in an effort to control his rising temper.
Surprisingly enough, the three quieted down while he was doing so, and when he had finished centering himself (his old Guru back in New York would have been proud), he saw three set of enormous eyes staring innocently up at him.
“Okay,” he said. “How about…instead of talking, we play the quiet game for a while, huh?”
Scootaloo scowled mightily. “But how are we supposed to get out of here if you keep leading us the wrong way?”
Eddie stared at her. “Wrong? …you know which way to get out of here?”
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah! What kinda Cutie Mark Crusaders would we be if we didn’t know our way home?”
He stared. “…you know how to get out of here.”
Sweetie took a step backwards from that frozen gaze. “Uh…yes?”
A massive hand clenched into a fist as Eddie sought to center himself once more. “Would you mind me asking…” he said with some difficulty, “…why…you didn’t tell me this…in the first place?”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “Ya didn’t ask, silly!”
The Roadie nodded. “…Ah.” He looked around for a moment, and then walked over to one of the large trees lining the pathway and began relieving some stress.
Sweetie Belle cocked her head to the side. “Um…Scootaloo? Apple Bloom? Why is Mr. Eddie banging his head on a tree?”
A chromatic blur swept into Ponyville Town Square, the end of its journey revealing it to be the fastest Pegasus in Equestria plowing her hooves into a stop on the cobblestoned streets before Twilight Sparkle and AppleJack.
“I did a quick flyover of the fringe and about a mile into the forest, guys.” Rainbow Dash ruffled her feathers back into place and folded them against her barrel. “I didn’t see anything that looked like the Crusaders; no signs, nothing.”
Twilight nodded. “Alright, then…that means they may have gone in deeper. Is Zecora home? Maybe she’s seen them?”
AppleJack shook her head. “Last I checked, Twi, she had another week or so ta go for her visit back home to Zebrahara…”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yeah, and I checked her hut, anyway. No sign of Squirt or Apple Bloom or—“
“Sweetie Belle!!!”
Twilight, AppleJack, and Rainbow Dash all rolled their eyes as one at the shriek of melodramatic dismay that emanated from the white Unicorn nearby. “Rarity,” Twilight said testily, “will you please get a grip?”
Rarity looked a sight; her pristine mascara was running down her cheeks in a black river as she blubbered away atop her favorite fainting couch. Nearby was an apologetic yellow Pegasus mare half-hiding behind her pink mane as she patted Rarity’s hoof sympathetically.
“Um…I’m sorry, Twilight, but Rarity said she had to get it out…”
A meaningless warble of noise escaped the histrionic Unicorn as she levitated a white hanky to her nose and blew, causing everyone nearby to cringe slightly.
“I-I-I’m s-sorry...” Rarity sobbed. “Bu-but all I c-can think about i-is poor little Sweetie l-lost and alone in the…the…WAAAAAAH!!!!” Another snotgun blast into the hoofkerchief curdled everyone’s stomach.
AppleJack shook her head. “While I ain’t gonna go on about it like all that, she’s right, y’all. Normally I wouldn’t be too worried, but the Everfree Forest ain’t the safest o’ places, and with Zecora gone, I can’t think o’ half a reason for those three ta be in there.”
Rainbow Dash snorted. “Oh, please…it’s the Cutie Mark Crusaders! By the time we find them, half of the monsters in there will be a hundred miles away, running for their lives!”
Twilight Sparkle gave a half smile. “That might be true, Rainbow, but still…there are things in the Everfree that could hurt them that aren’t monsters, especially since it’s starting to get late.” She cast a quick glance to the sun, brow furrowed. “AppleJack is right. We need to get them out, and right now that means we might have to go in there ourselves.”
Rainbow Dash nodded (and joined everyone in a cringe as Rarity unloaded another deposit of green gold on the now thoroughly-used cloth square). “Right. I’m gonna go get a saddlebag of stuff, just in case. Where do you want us to meet?”
Fluttershy stepped forward, bowing her head apologetically. “Uh…if you want to, we could all meet at my house…it’s the closest to the Forest…”
Twilight nodded firmly. “Then it’s settled. In fifteen minutes, we all meet at…” She paused, not believing that she had overlooked a particular pink party pony’s absence. “Um…where’s Pinkie Pie?”
AppleJack shrugged. “She said she had to get something ready for a guest…she said she’d meet up with us at wherever it is we decide to get ready to go into the forest.”
Twilight stared. “…how does she know where we’re going to…”
AppleJack raised a knowing eyebrow at Twilight.
“…never mind…”
It was a much more subdued trio of Ponies (as Eddie had learned they were called) who now followed him through the darkening forest, and the Roadie was certainly enjoying the peace and quiet.
Of course, he mused, seeing him break a tree that was as thick around as his waist using nothing more than his head may have had something to do with it.
In actuality they had seen him do it twice; the first time when he had found out that they had known how to get out of the forest since meeting him, and the second time after finding out that they each had a different idea as to where that illusive exit actually was.
After that, they had seemed content to merely follow him as they picked their way along the forest path.
Eddie had the Separator in one massive mitt as they walked along, and he idly swung it as he kept a weather eye out for anything that might threaten them; as annoying as the tiny creatures following him were, he still didn’t want anything to happen to them.
If anything, it would mean all that work he had put in being a hero had been for nothing.
He had toyed idly with the idea of making camp at some point—the shadows were steadily growing deeper, and despite not knowing the exact time, it was a mere fact that the day was wearing on—but had decided against it, at least for a little bit longer; the woods had to end sometime, and the more ground they made now was less ground to go over later.
Eddie cast a look over his shoulder to the three Ponies; again, they were close on his heels, staring at them with those ridiculously huge eyes.
He suppressed a shiver; it wasn’t as though he felt particularly threatened by the little creatures…but something that adorable couldn’t survive long in a world with things like “Timberwolves” without either growing up into something kickass, or having some sort of magical deathbeam crap come shooting out of some orifice or other.
He looked back again, this time allowing his eyes to alight on the more interesting features of the ones called Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, namely the former’s wings and the latter’s dinky little horn.
Contrary to his slack appearance, rough manner of speech, and rocker lifestyle, Eddie Riggs was no slouch in the mental acuity department; he had been a voracious reader growing up, fueled by his Dad’s insane stories of metal days gone by (he kept his favorite book, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, in an inside pocket of his vest at all times), and many of the most awesome tales had been the ones of ancient legends.
Riggnarok had no need to embellish things with these stories; somehow, Dad had been able to make even the most sissy things sound utterly badass, like Pegasi and Unicorns. Eddie had lived on these stories, of the winged horse Perseus had ridden to face the Kraken, and of the most pure and beautiful creature in the world, the Unicorn, so hardcore it could kill any man who tried to tame it.
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle rendered those stories a little…uh…flaccid.
“So…” he said, finally breaking the silence. “Uh…Scootaloo, right?”
The gruff little Pony immediately scowled at him, trying to ooze toughness.
Again, it just wound up being adorable.
“Yeah, what’s it to ya?”
The Roadie ignored her tone. “Just wondering…you’re a Pegasus, right?”
Scootaloo gave a reluctant nod of her head.
“So, uh…why don’t you just…I don’t know, fly on home and bring help?”
Immediately, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked at him reproachfully, even as Scootaloo seemed to droop to the ground.
The Ultimate Roadie eyed the little filly’s rather pitiful wingspan, and it clicked. “Oh…uh…sensitive spot, huh?”
The little orange filly perked right back up, glaring daggers at him. “No! Someday I’m gonna be a great flier, like Rainbow Dash!”
He stopped short. “Rainbow what?”
Another twenty minutes down the road, and Eddie was regretting the knee-jerk decision to ask that question.
“—in twenty-four seconds! That’s a new world record!”
Scootaloo had barely stopped for a breath, extolling the virtues of her apparent role model (for whom she was also the founder and sitting president of the local fanclub), and Eddie’s forgotten headache was beginning to keep time with his footsteps again.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, for their part, merely held the bored-but-amused looks that came when one had been exposed to either the same or similar spiel before to the point where one could have recited it by heart but the sheer energy of the speaker kept it from being grating to the nerves.
Scootaloo inhaled, obviously about to plunge into part 37 of the Epic Records of Rainbow Dash. Eddie Riggs resisted the urge to find another tree to break with his forehead (although that might cow her into being quiet again, come to think of it), and instead strained his eyes to see through the sylvan shadows. Night was falling now, and they really should have been looking for shelter a while back.
Something in the distance against the purple backdrop of the twilight sky caught his attention then, and he held up a hand, silencing the young Pegasus. “Hey, Apple Bloom,” he said, squinting.
The small yellow form of the young filly came up next to him. “What is it, Mr. Eddie?”
He pointed to his line of sight; what appeared to be a ruin was perched on a cliff, some distance away. “What’s that?”
Apple Bloom squinted as well. “What’s what…oh! I know that place, my sister went there a coupla times!”
“It’s the Castle of the Two Sisters!” Sweetie Belle piped. “I remember Rarity telling me about it!”
“And Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo said excitedly.
Eddie grunted. “Huh. So, what, it’s ruins or something?”
Apple Bloom nodded, red bow bobbing as she did. “Eyup! That’s where Princess Celestia and Princess Luna used to live, a thousand years ago!”
Eddie blinked. These ruins were a millennium old?
“Long ass fucking time ago…” he muttered.
“What’d you say, Mr. Eddie?” Sweetie Belle asked innocently.
Eddie clammed up hurriedly. “Nothin’.” He began to stride forward toward the ruins, the sound of the fillies catching up to his longer legs clattering behind him. “We’re going to hole up in that castle for the night, get a fire going. Maybe tomorrow you lot can get your bearings, huh?”
They didn’t answer him, instead bursting out into a joyous yell.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, RUINED CASTLE EXPLORERS!”
Eddie’s headache began pounding once again.
Twilight Sparkle had ignored the pronking of the pink party pony as best as she could, instead devoting all her attention upon keeping the four were-lights she had hovering around their little group mobile and lit.
Rainbow Dash, having been grounded due to a combination of the approach of night and the increasingly thick canopy of branches, was slightly ahead of her, the Pegasus’ natural desire for speed propelling her to the fore of the group.
Fluttershy was behind with the still-occasionally-sniffling Rarity (who appeared to be doing it more out of absent habit than anything), and Applejack brought up the middle next to Twilight.
Pinkie Pie had finally shown up to the meeting spot a scant few seconds before they were to have begun without her, her usually-wide smile even more so than usual. No one had been able to get the reason for her jubilation from the ebullient partymaker; all she would say was that she’d been kept making a special treat for “someone new”.
Their trip had been a quiet one, save for the occasional cry of “Apple Bloom”, “Scootaloo,” or “Sweetie Belle” from one or another of their little party.
However, neither hide nor hair of any of the lost fillies had been seen, and it eventually became too dim for travel to be made safely. Picking out a spot for the night’s bivouac was simple enough, and soon enough, a small fire was crackling brightly in the middle of their circle.
Pinkie Pie looked around at her sleeping friends; as usual when these things came about, she was the last to fall into Luna’s embrace. She didn’t mind; part of being a party pony meant making sure that your friends were all safe when they went to sleep. Granted, this wasn’t exactly a party, but she still felt a sense of kindly obligation toward her spirit-sisters.
And honestly, she was a bit too excited to sleep just yet.
Pinkie Pie didn’t know how she sensed things; her Pinkie Sense had always been there, ever since she was a silly little filly back on the rock farm. She didn’t question it. It was like smelling through your taster when you breathed open-mouthed over a freshly-baked cake; you didn’t exactly know how you were doing it, but you were doing it, and so you just accepted it.
…Well…maybe Twilight knew…but Pinkie Pie didn’t like to bother Twilight too much with silly things like that.
All Pinkie Pie knew was that her Pinkie Sense was never, ever wrong…and it had told her today that something super-fabulous-splendiferous was going to happen, and it involved making a brand-new friend, not just for her or the other girls, but for all Equestria and maybe the world!
She curled up in her sleeping bag, laying her head down and closing her eyes.
Her smile did not fade.
Deep in the Everfree Forest, sensitive tongues lashed the air, tasting the scent of fresh meat on the wind. Glowing eyes narrowed in the darkness as minds lacking in intelligence but immersed deep in predatory cunning guided enormous legs through the underbrush, focusing on a single thought-instinct.
Eddie Riggs dumped his armful of wood into the large pile he had made, and stepped back to admire his handiwork. Yep, that should do it; enough to see them through the rapidly-darkening night, and more besides. Luckily for him, he’d not had to go too far from the castle grounds; just outside the gate, there had been the remains of a wooden footbridge that once stretched across a rather wide ravine, but had collapsed some time ago. The wood had been more than dry enough for burning, and there had been a lot of it.
He and the three fillies, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle, had reached the courtyard of the castle some half-hour before, right when the twilight was giving way to true nightfall. It was almost exactly what Eddie had imagined an abandoned castle’s entry to be like, with formerly-grandiose walls having given way to the ages, massive stones that had once lent their strength to the battlements having collapsed into the yard itself, weeds growing everywhere, ivy, lichen, and moss obscuring everything that had fallen prey to their clutches.
Looking around, Eddie found himself more and more receptive to the idea that this place truly was over a thousand years old.
“So, lemme get this straight,” he said, turning back to the three little ponies. “You guys are ruled over by two Princesses. One controls the sun, and the other the moon.”
Apple Bloom, who was sitting patiently alongside Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo nearby, nodded, a big smile on her face. “Yep!”
He nodded. “Ok.” Bending back over the wood pile, he dragged out some of the more choice pieces to start the fire. “So...Celestia controls the sun, yeah? And Moonie—“
“Luna,” corrected Sweetie Belle.
“Yeah, right, her...she controls the moon.”
“And dreams!” Scootaloo piped up.
Eddie got up and lugged his new armful a short distance away. It had only taken a few swings of the Separator to clear out a relatively safe place to build a fire, and the weeds, dead and dry, would make excellent kindling. “Right, right, right. So, anyway, Celestia and Luna got into a big fight because Luna wasn’t as popular as Celestia was, and so Celestia...did what now?”
Scootaloo pointed up at the sky. “Locked her inside the moon!”
“Well,” said Apple Bloom awkwardly, “Nopony knows all the details—“
“Princess Celestia doesn’t talk about it much!” Squeaked Sweetie Belle.
“—but I get the feelin’” the yellow filly continued after shooting Sweetie Belle a dirty look, “that it was a bit more complicated than all that.”
The hulking human dumped his load and went to a knee, arranging the sticks into a pyramid. ‘Boy Scouts really is coming in handy...’
“Okay,” he said. “So they had a fight, Celestia sent Luna to the moon, and then...what, a thousand years go by?”
“Somethin’ like that,” replied Apple Bloom.
“And Celestia makes a new castle over in...Cantaloupe?”
“Canterlot.”
“...Canterlot.”
“Yeah, it’s the second-biggest city in Equestria!”
Eddie’s brow furrowed. He was having a bit of a hard time wrapping his mind around all of these names and their tendency to sound like bad horse-based puns. “Alright...”
Sweetie Belle piped up. “Yeah, there’s actually some talk about moving the capital to Manehattan, but Rarity doesn’t think it’ll happen.”
Eddie Riggs paused for a moment before continuing his work. If he hadn’t been experiencing this firsthand, he would have been laughing his ass off at whoever was telling him about all of this; it sounded like some fucking kid’s show, cutesy-ness, bad puns, and all. Not that he was going to say anything. ‘I mean, it’s kind of low hangin’ fruit, y’know?’
“Right. So, two sisters, both Princesses, big fight, one in the moon for a thousand years, the other one abandoned this castle and built a new one, and now the other sister is back.”
“Thanks to Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo shrilled.
“And Rarity!”
“Yeah, but Rainbow Dash took down the Shadowbolts and Nightmare Moon!”
“Well, Rarity scared off a sea serpent—“
Eddie raised a hand. “Wait, wait, wait...Nightmare what now?”
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. “Luna turned into Nightmare Moon back when Celestia and her fought a thousand years ago.”
“Yeah! And Rainbow Dash totally whooped her butt!”
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes again. “Not really...”
Sweetie Belle stepped forward. “Yeah, because Rarity beat her!”
“Nuh-uh!” Scootaloo said.
Sweetie Belle stuck her tongue out at her friend. “Uh-huh!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh!”
Eddie and Apple Bloom watched this go on, heads switching back and forth between the two, like spectators at a ping-pong match.
“They, uh...they do this a lot?” He asked.
“Eeyup.”
————————————————
Darkness comes early in the deepest forests, and the Everfree was no exception.
It appreciated this, for the light of the sun hurt its sensitive eyes, and allowed its prey to see it long before it entered into striking range.
Yes, the night was preferable to hunt, and so it did.
Fillies, the scent, the holy scent of prey, told it, three fillies, and something else, something that it had never tasted before, had never eaten, had never given the caress of death to, had never snuffed the brief candle of life from in order to sustain its own.
Fillies, something new, and the scent of...rancid smoke and pine sap.
It could not make heads-nor-tail of the smoke smell, but it did not like that last particular scent; wood-hounds had never been good to eat, far too much like eating a tree, too pokey, too hard to crush or swallow.
But it did not smell the hounds themselves, merely their sap. The something-new had killed wood-hounds, recently too, and many of them.
It would have to be careful, it knew. Something that could fight many wood-hounds was not something to be trifled with.
Dangerous, the something-new was...
Dangerous...but not deadly...
Tongues flicked the air, and it followed the scent once more, the path leading it to the place of many stones. It had avoided this place in the past, as a large battle had occurred there recently, but its hunger was large, and the prospect of three tender, succulent young fillies was too much to ignore.
And if the something-new was there?
Well...waste not...
In surprising silence for a creature its size, it moved through the trees and brush, many eyes glowing in the night.
Closer.
————————————————
The fire crackled merrily as the foursome sat around it. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had ceased arguing a few minutes after Apple Bloom and Eddie had gotten tired of watching the back-and-forth (sometime around the mutual accusations of “smelling funny”), and they had watched as Eddie used his lighter to ignite the weeds and bark at the base.
As he reclined and meditated on a job well done, the girls had talked idly amongst themselves for a while. Luckily, they had come to the mutual consensus that perhaps exploring a dilapidated, thousand-year-old ruin in the dark was not the best of ideas, and so they were now pondering what they could do to earn their...their...
“Yeah, what’s a Cutie Mark, anyway?” Eddie asked before he could stop himself.
The three looked at him as if he had grown a second head.
Five minutes later, Eddie had managed to glean that a Cutie Mark was essentially some sort of magical tramp stamp that told you what you were going to do for the rest of your life...except not really, because you could do something else related to it, but that wasn’t right either because it was supposed to tell you what your destiny was, and so on.
He got the impression that it was some sort of...status symbol or rite of passage or coming-of-age thing, and that it happened randomly because magic.
And apparently, these three were on some sort of extended mission to find theirs, usually involving some sort of death-defying stunt or other that invariably involved bodily injury, property damage, or both. The three had fallen into bickering among themselves, something about whether or not their next attempt at hang-gliding would have any effect if they did it blindfolded. Eddie shrugged. Apparently, this was a common thing for them to argue over.
Reaching into his vest, he pulled out his cigarette carton, tapped one out, and then used his lighter on the end. He took a drag, and blew the smoke into the air. Immediately, the three fillies stopped arguing, and looked at him, noses wrinkled in disgust.
“Ugh! What’s that smell?” Scootaloo demanded.
Apple Bloom gagged. “Smells like that time Winona went out to the pastures and rolled in a cow pie!”
“Or when Rarity left her curling iron in her mane too long!”
“Or when we tried to get our outhouse-cleaning Cutie Marks!”
Edde Riggs facepalmed. Egads, but the puritans were everywhere.
“It’s called,” he growled, “a cigarette, and I’m smoking one because if I don’t, then I’m going to get very cranky, and a cranky Eddie is the last thing we want right now. Okay?”
The trio looked at him reproachfully. “Yeah,” Apple Bloom said. “Well, at least blow that nasty smoke downwind, got it?”
“Ugh, fine...”
The minutes passed in relative silence; as Eddie finished his cig, he watched the fire. ‘Wonder what Ophelia’s up to right now? Knowing her, she and Lita are probably arguing, or maybe Mangus is getting her to help him soup up the bus...’
He looked over to the fillies; they were curled up in their places, gently dozing, flanks touching. He smiled.
He remembered nights like this with his old man, when he was a kid, probably not much younger than these three. Dad would take him out to the Great Plains in the Midwest, and they’d camp out in the old Volkswagen minibus, watching the stars come out until the night sky was an ocean of them. So far out from the cities, the stars did not have any light pollution to fight for supremacy of the night, and Riggnarok would tell young Eddie about all of them. The large man, even larger than Eddie was now, in his prime, would spin tales about warriors long ago who pleased the gods so much that they rearranged the stars in their image to be seen forever. He told his son about great battles and wars fought over the most important things in the world, or the stupidest, and how the greatest friendships were made and broken upon these conflicts.
Eddie rubbed his belt buckle, one of his father’s last gifts to him.
He missed his dad, more than he would ever admit. He missed his big, bear-like arms, the scratch of his beard when he hugged young Eddie, missed the smell of his old-man aftershave, missed the big, raspy laugh that, later in life, had turned into deep, body-shaking coughs.
Eddie sighed. Riggnarok had deserved a better death than wasting away in some sterile hospital room.
On a whim, Eddie looked at the sky. Yes, the stars were out tonight. They certainly weren’t stars he was used to; they appeared much bigger and closer than the ones on Earth, or the world that would come to be called Earth, but they were, indeed, beautiful.
He tried to trace out any sort of pattern to them. His dad had always encouraged that in him, to look for new patterns that nobody else was seeing.
‘Yeah...that one could be...yeah, an eagle...no, a hawk, yeah...and those over there are a fish...up there, that’s a sword...and those right there...huh...’
Eddie frowned a bit. Directly over him, some distance above the battlements on this side of the courtyard, were six stars, almost perfectly in line with each other from left to right.
He had never seen that before...in fact, he could have sworn that they hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.
On the other side of the fire, Apple Blooms ears flickered. Immediately, her eyes snapped open and she looked about, face a mask of concern. “Mr. Eddie,” she whispered. “Did you hear that?”
Eddie didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for the Separator.
When Apple Bloom had awakened, the stars to the far right had disappeared for the briefest of moments.
Like they had blinked.
In that instant, Eddie came to a sick realization.
‘Those ain’t stars...”
And then the Hydra’s middle head snapped forward.
————————————————
Pinkie Pie snapped awake. Her body was trembling like it had never trembled before! Her hind legs were doing a jitterbug, her front legs were waltzing, her ears flapped like a hummingbird’s, and her nose! Holy halibuts, her nose was tickling like it had a whole hive of Breezies up in her snoot!
She gasped.
This was no ordinary Pinkie Sense reaction.
This was...
‘A DOOZY!’
Immediately, she rocketed to her hooves...only to fall flat on her tummy. She frowned at her dancing legs. They were twitching and jerking so much that she’d never be able to get up and going! Fine, then. If her legs wanted to dance so much, then by gum and by gosh, Pinkie Pie would dance! She immediately pulled out her favorite cane, spats, and top hat from her sleeping bag (and Mrs. Cake said she would never need them! HA!), donned them all (with great difficulty; doing anything while babymilling was rather hard) and opened her mouth to burst into song...
“Ugh...jeez, Pinks, what’s the big deal?”
Rainbow Dash was irritably rubbing a cannon across her sleepy eyes whilst glaring at her pink friend.
Offensively pink curls nearly went flat for a moment as Pinkie realized that her preparations had gone to waste, but then she moved past that frustration, transitioning from a moonwalk to a charleston.
“Dashie! You have to help me wake the others up!”
The prismatic Pegasus looked around. “Kinda surprised you haven’t woken everypony up by now.”
Pinkie sighed heavily as she oppan’d in the gangnam style. “Fluttershy sleeps next to snoring bears, Twilight takes too much sleeping powder, Rarity has those earmuffs on, and AppleJack works too hard! Of course I haven’t woken them up!”
Rainbow gave this some thought. “Ok, yeah. But, uh...Pinks?”
“What?!”
“Could you maybe stop dancing? It’s kinda distracting.”
Pinkie Pie nodded as well as she could while doing the worm. “Help me get the others up, and I’ll see what I can do!”
Rainbow Dash stared at her, nonplussed. “Uh...why?”
“Because, Dashie,” and here the party pony tapped over to her pranking-buddy, “I’m having a doozy, and this one is telling me that somepony needs help!”