Whether they wanted it or not, two beings of immense power are brought to Equestria in the most unprobable of circumstances. And nothing bad happens!
Purpose fulfilled and second life fully lived, a Guardian lies down to die one last time. Sadly for him, his dirt nap is interrupted by a multiversal hiccup (which conveniently fixes itself almost immediately) that leaves him stranded in another reality with nothing but a small box of stuff, his fashion sense, and a friend.
Fortunately for everyone but the readers, this isn't an adventure and our lovely ex-protagonists get to take a well deserved break from facing down the cosmic horrors and eldritch abominations of an increasingly stressful reality.
Unfortunately for everybody but the readers, the sudden appearance of a being equivalent to a god tends to cause some ripples.
And no, I'm not explaining all the little Destiny details sprinkled into this. I'm too tired for such refined, principled, drawn-out writing.
Night had fallen over Old Russia. Snow had piled high over the vast expanse of forgotten country in the past few years. Without any fighting or scavenging going on, the old shipyards and steppes were almost peaceful. Almost.
Two boots crunched through the rusting, battered remains of an old cosmodrome, where rockets once soared into the sky, carrying colony ships to the stars beyond.
Beneath the cover of a pale cloak, a tired warrior sighed, his breath fogging the visor to his cracked and busted helm. He looked up, staring almost soullessly at a titanic metal wall. He approached the structure, simply placed his hand against it, let it drag down for a moment, and walked away. It left a mark in the frost that caked the metal, next to dozens of others. He'd been here before. Countless times.
Just outside the wall, he trudged until he found an entrance. A road, centuries old, used to lead into the cosmodrome. Frames of old cars were piled up all along the long, winding, broken highway, stretching for miles and miles into the distance. He followed along the road to a sudden drop in the ground, where a bridge once held up the road. It had fallen long ago, breaking apart in the small canyon. He stared down the trench for a good, long while. Breathing. Staring. Thinking.
He backtracked towards the wall, turning to walk through the column of cars, and turned back toward the trench. His gaze slowly wound it's way through the cars and up to a small outcropping near where the bridge used to be. It was an empty space. A place of beginning. His place.
There was a soft flash beside his covered head, a small mechanical eye materializing next to him. Following his gaze. Hanging beside him in silence. He knew what he was thinking.
"You want to stop now, don't you?" spoke the eye, his blue robotic iris shining in the dark.
The man nodded once, expression unseen beneath his dirtied golden visor. His movements were slow. Thoughtful. Perhaps pained. He had only been alive again less then two decades and he had already done so much. Seen so much. Killed so many. Saved even more. His job was done, he wanted to rest.
The eye, the man's Ghost, almost seemed to quiver. His voice was solemn, much like the man.
"I won't leave you." chirped Ghost after a long silence.
The man's head lowered. His chest rose and fell, much like the tempo of a slow song. He walked closer to where he awoke all those years ago, standing roughly around where he was first resurrected. It was hard to remember exactly where, but he could remember what happened clear as day. Rising, looking up at the world around, the sky, the clouds, the rocks, the ancient skeletons trapped inside each car, and his violent introduction to life's fragile cycle of living and dying. He learned a lot about both of those over the years. Mostly the dying part, though. Especially dying. It was the one thing he could never do for very long.
"Did you want the box now?" asked Ghost, floating around to hover in front of the hooded warrior. "I just...I think you should open it, before...You know."
Silence reigned once more, the man silent, unlike the air rushing by. A storm was blowing in.
"I just...Maybe you should sit? Then open it?" pleaded Ghost, bumping his fragile form against the man's helmet. That seemed to snap him out of whatever daze he was in, and he nodded again, turned to face the wall, and slowly sat back against a pile of snow. A sleek, black box materialized between his legs, and he picked it up, sliding a hand over the top before slowly removing the lid. Ghost flew in close, hovering just over the man's shoulder. Watching. Hopeful.
Inside was a small collection of things the man had collected over the years. Things he managed to hold on to. Mementos.
An old, definitely expired ramen coupon nearly brought tears to the man's eyes when he picked it up. A white, bull-barreled revolver with an ace engraved on each side of the handle did the trick. Two roses; one red with blackened thorns, the other white and smooth as stone. An iron sigil, depicting a wolf's head.
There were a few other meaningful baubles and trinkets littering the box, but what really got the man's attention was a smaller box within the box. Ghost chirped excitedly, and the man picked it out, setting the bigger box down between his legs. Ghost gave a supportive nudge, and the man opened it, finding a small sticky note stuck to the ceiling of the lid. Inside, there were rounded, home-made sugar cookies.
He tugged the note free from the lid and read, Ghost casting a faint light to make it easier.
Dearest Guardian,
I know this time of year is especially hard on you, reminding you of, well, everything, and all of us at the Tower thought you could use a little cheering up. Something to remember the good times, along side the bad. The cookies are from all of us. We each made one in the same oven that you used to make so many delightful treats for us all during my first Dawning back at the Tower after the Red War. After all you've done for us all back in The City, and at the farm, and everywhere else your travels have taken you, this is the least we could do for you before you go. Here's to hoping you can finally get some peace and quiet.
With love, Eva Levante
He read through the note a few more times, took off his helmet, and took a few bites out of one of the cookies, savoring the crunch. Sugar cookies weren't supposed to crunch, but that was fine. A lot of things weren't supposed to be like they were, but it all worked out in the end.
"Remember that one Ghost who said she wanted to eat candied bugs if she had a mouth? Just for the crunch?" blurted Ghost rather loudly, making the Guardian laugh and promptly choke on his cookie. The laughing/coughing fit lasted for a few seconds before he managed to get himself under control, staring at his Ghost with a mixed expression. Obviously, the man did remember, and was both grateful and spiteful toward his Ghost for bringing up the memory. After all, he was trying to eat a cookie. Very important hero business, eating cookies. Terribly rude to interrupt such a thing.
Just as he was taking another bite, Ghost snuggling close to his scarf in the cold Russian breeze, the universe hiccuped. Well, that's what it sounded like. The very fabric of reality stretching and popping, a burst of paracasual energy sweeping the area from an undisclosed point, washing over the two Beings of Light the way a blast of water washes over a soggy piece of paper.
It was over as soon as it had started, and the snow blew on over an empty patch of ground.
Discord sneezed loud and clear across the Canterlot Royal Gardens, accidentally spilling some of the coconut lime (with vanilla extract!) tea he had been drinking. The cartoonishly loud sound echoing approximately seven times before fading to nothing, the sounds canceling each other out.
"Well, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that was rather septemal."
He sniffled, blew his nose into a tissue he whisked from a conveniently placed floating box, and went back to his tea like nothing had happened.
---
In the entirety of his relatively short life, The Guardian had done much, seen many places, and felt oh so many different flavors of pain. From the cold blaze of necromantic soulfire, to direct exposure to the intense energies of a star, The Guardian had felt it all. What he felt as he was sucked into whatever pinprick of a dimensional hole and immediately spat out the other end was remarkably similar to the sensation of clawing into the Void.
Only instead of briefly reaching within to borrow the vast power between realms, he was unceremoniously spat through the ethereal expanse, shattered into concept and soul, and promptly squeezed atom by atom into a passing reality. He could have sworn he saw the flickering not-shape of Toland the Shattered as he passed by. If the long-since-soul-torn Warlock could have looked surprised, The Guardian imagined he must've been. After that, everything swarmed and swam as he was lost in the bounds of the Void, tangled in cosmic threads.
---
A small-yet-bright mote of light flared in the center of Canterlot Castle's throne room in the wee hours of the morning, effectively blinding the single maid sweeping the floor. She eeped, skittering out of the room as fast as she could, while the mote grew and burned. With the constant turmoil and general weirdness that seemed to plague the mostly-Pony nation of Equestria, she assumed this to be the start of more dramatic shenanigans and ran to get the guards.
The heavy doors slammed shut behind her as she ran out of the room, her little maid hat falling off and catching in the door, keeping it open just a tad. The maid's hooffalls clicked and clacked down the halls. She wasn't entirely sure where the nearest guard was, or where the barracks were, but she ran nonetheless.
A fine silvery dust flaked to the carpet from the pulsing little sun, coiling and circling on the ground, before being disturbed by the soft thud of a metal ball. The little sun then winked out of existence and the only proof it had ever been there was the cloud of glowing, silver dust and the tennis ball-sized orb. A minute passed, the dust settled, and Ghost's eye blinked on. He slowly rose from the ground, blue light trailing off of him as he turned about, his little eye blinking and turning as he gazed around the large, ornamental throne room. It was...remarkably peaceful. The setting reverberated a calm he hadn't ever experienced, and the posh architecture reinforced the overbearing sensation of stillness to an almost sleep-inducing degree. Fortunately for Ghost, he was built of machinery and Light, and coudln't get sleepy. Besides, whenever he did sleep, he would dream, and his dreams were...Strange.
"This is...different." he eventually said, taking notice of the stained glass windows riddled with the antics of ponies throughout the years. "Very different indeed. Do you think-" and that was as far as Ghost got before he realized he was alone. He stopped himself from wandering and turned his attention to the glowing pile of dust.
"You've never glowed like this before...usually you're just a grey pile of charred mush when you get incinerated." muttered the orb to himself in a curious, cautioned tone while he flew closer in, hovering just above the shining particles. "I'll just...bring you back again. No sense staying dead here. Besides, being out in the open in unknown territory makes me feel vulnerable, and your 'backpack' is cozy. I'm a glowy robot that opens doors and states the obvious, I shoudln't have to deal with being shot at. Now, come on, eyes up, Guardian."
And with the cheesy lines out of the way, Ghost flew back up, expanded his field of radiant blue, concentrated on...well, his Guardian, and closed his eye. One radiantly milky flash later, and The Guardian was back. Sort of. He groaned, going from standing to flopping on the floor unceremoniously in a tangle of limbs and cloak.
"Five more minutes..." he groaned quietly, speaking for the first time in years. Again.
"Oh, come on! I know you wanted to rest, but something happened! Something...weird! And not our usual level of weird either." Ghost insisted, flying a little lower near where he guessed The Guardian's head was under the large hood of his cloak. "Besides, you never finished your cookies. They're the first thing you've shown an interest in eating in a decade and you're not just going to throw them away. How do you think I feel, never getting to eat anything?"
Another groan and some shuffling passed. Ghost retreated a few feet back up into the air and waited. He knew his Guardian would get back up. He always did. What he didn't expect was how he got back up.
The Guardian rose, eyes closed, and sighed, feeling his body work...differently. He opened his eyes and looked down at the snouty-nose thing sticking out of his face, blinking twice before sighing. He worked his jaw, feeling the differences, licking his teeth. Different. He flicked- flicked? Yes, he flicked his ears under his hood, feeling them brush against the fabric and what felt like a massive amount of fluffy, warm hair.
Since he was already facing the bunch of thrones over by the end of the room, he gingerly made his way over to the glorified chairs, wobbling along as his brain rapidly worked out how to function properly. With all memory of his past life stripped away, his brain had plenty of space to work with. "Pony walk" was added to the list of things he could do flawlessly. It rested comfortably below "handle literally all weapons" and "dance like a sexy beast". For whatever reason, all Guardians seemed to be capable of the same few basic things upon resurrection. The Guardian was never one to question that particular aspect of his beginning.
He looked down at the largest throne, frowning a little. He didn't feel like sitting in it. Furthermore, he wasn't sure how to sit in the first place. He peered over at the other thrones, his frown never shifting. He could see creases and marks in the cushions of the seats. They were in constant use. Or, at least used enough to have long-lasting marks.
Ghost seemed remarkably unfazed by his Guardian's ponification, simply poofing into a cloud of scattering mist and rejoining The Guardian in his head.
"Right! So, recap. You look weird but I think you're still you, you still have your cloak and suit, and I still have the box. We're in a nice place that doesn't look like a murdery death trap, and I'm almost ninety percent sure this is actually happening. Your thoughts?" chirped Ghost, his voice much louder inside The Guardian's head, and nonexistent outside of it.
Just as The Guardian was about to speak, the large door at the beginning of the room slammed open as a small group of guards barged in. The Guardian spun around, heart beating a little faster as he went over his options.
"I would avoid doing anything violent until you need to. Remember Mithrax? This might be like that. Only, you know, this time we're not on Titan, the Hive aren't here, and there's no reactor core that needs taking." Ghost piped. The Guardian's ears flicked again- damn, that was going to take a while to get used to- and he considered blitzing past the small group of golden-armored guards.
"Halt, intruder!" one of them shouted. Immediately after, more Guards piled in, bolstering their numbers from "a few here and there" to "an entire advancing line of adorable little horse guards". Notably, a few had horns, and one or two had wings. It was hard to see in the dark.
"What business do you have here after Night Court's end?" barked one of the darker-furred winged ones in a voice much like the first.
Night Court? Must've been why the seats were freshly rumpled. He didn't know much about the audiences leaders held with those they led, but the concept must've been pretty universal.
"I'm keeping a low profile for this one. Just in case something happens. Though, you should probably say something soon."
Ah, yes, saying things, because that's what The Guardian excelled at. Talking with guns, bows, and swords is what he did, and since he had none of those presently, and didn't want to hurt anyone unnecessarily, he was left with trying to think of something to say.
Nothing came out. What was he supposed to say? That he's actually a god-slaying being from another dimension who accidentally bopped in while trying to take an extended sleep? The line of guards was slowly becoming a ring. Fortunately, they seemed content with keeping their distance as opposed to circling in too tight. He supposed the goal was containment and explanation before anything more rash was undertaken.
"I, ah...Didn't mean to intrude..." he tried, noticing how much taller he was compared to those on the ground. Even the large ones seemed a head or two shorter than him. No wonder they all seemed tense, he must've been huge. Though, not even ten minutes had passed since he was alive in this world, so, he didn't have a lot of comparison material. "I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I didn't intend to be here?"
The guards shuffled, glancing around at each other before all moving in a little closer.
"Not particularly..." one of them muttered in a tiredly annoyed voice.
"Can we all just dogpile him now, save the questions for later?"
"No! That'd breach protocol."
"It's three in the morning, protocol be bucked!"
And the jabbering began. All the tired, cranky day-guards who had been woken by the maid began to argue over what to do with the intruder, no one ever seeming to agree on anything. A few bat-winged ponies garbed in darker colors seemed to back away from the noisy conflict, setting themselves apart from the babbling herd.
Figuring it a good opportunity, The Guardian looked at the open door at the other end of the hall and bolted, approaching the arguing crowd of guards at an alarmingly fast pace. A few vainly stepped in between him and the door, and he smiled to himself, respecting the gusto, even though it was useless. He jumped, concentrated, and felt his body displace itself from where he was in the air to the open door on the other side of the guards. Simply put, he Blinked.
He kept running, turning down the first hall he could find and galloping down it, eyeing a plain glass window at the end. Death-defying jumps weren't anything new, so if it was an uncomfortable height, he figured he'd be fine. Ignoring the shouts from the few pursing guards, most of which were the bat-winged ones who were flying, he thundered on down the hall, feeling his hood fall back as his long, wild mane dumped down, bouncing down past his neck and whipping back as he ran.
With everything out of his face, he was able to spare a glimpse at a slender, pale horn poking out of his forehead. Upon noticing it, he could feel a slight tingle running throughout it, like it was acting as a focus for his Light. He noted this and focused on running again, hearing the shouts of the guards grow louder. He wasn't entirely sure what they were saying, but he assumed it was something about stopping.
Moments before reaching the window, a dark blue flash lit the end of the corridor, and a winged unicorn nearly as tall as him had blocked his immediate path, wings spread and horn glowing. She was about to say something when The Guardian Blinked again, jumping and flashing past her. There was a cry of alarm before he smashed through the window, getting a good look at the raw end of a mountain side. He spoke in the few seconds he had, hanging in the air so briefly.
"Ghost, standby for resurrection..." he muttered.
And then he fell, voices calling out into the night after him.
Luna thought she'd be able to catch a break, just this once. To be able to end her nightly court session a little early so she could have some time to herself, without consequence. She had planned it, alerted those who made regular visits that she wouldn't be in at that time in the early morning, and had a few general postings throughout Canterlot that Night Court would not be in usual session past the first ringing of the bell(s).
She should have known better, and was scolding herself for thinking nothing would happen the one time she didn't show up, even if it was pretty damn clear she wasn't going to be there.
From what she had gathered from the guards rushing to and fro, it sounded like a wandering mage or scribe had teleported into the room from afar, likely unaware of the changed schedule. All in all, nothing too serious, but she wondered if she would get to the throne room before the guards did something brash. It was late, after all, and sleep inertia did tend to skew rational thinking.
The flash of a teleport (or rather, what appeared to be a teleport at first) and the telltale rumble of stampeding guards swiftly cut down Luna's hopes of resolving the situation in a dignified manner. She sighed, watching the tall, pale, hooded individual speed past the hall perpendicular to the one she was trotting down. Not long after, several guards rushed past, likely in pursuit.
She hurried to the end of her hall, peering around the corner and watching the pursued individual grow closer to the end of the corridor. She had often meandered down that particular hall in days past and was confused. There were no exits or other halls branching out in that direction. Where could they be headed? Into a dead end? All that was there was a large window, letting in the moonlight through tinted glass. Surely they wouldn't-
Luna stopped thinking for a moment and sprung into action, her horn glowing a deep blue before she flashed into the path of the running mage. Haphazardly, she had misjudged the distance and was a little closer than she would have liked. She went to say something, beginning to raise a shield, and was promptly shut up as she felt the oddest of sensations, like the very soul and essence of a blindingly complex creature was shoved through and around her. It left her dazed for but a second, and when she returned to her senses, she was greeted by the sound of a window shattering and a rush of air blowing by.
After everything he lived and died through, after every challenge and struggle, The Guardian had consistently been confronted with sights like the one below him. Empty air and crushing death down where gravity welled. Normally this wasn't an issue, and he was numb to frightening heights by now. Falling down a steep mountainside was nothing new at all. He had died a few dozen times trying to climb the cliffs above the Iron Temple at Vostok Observatory, up near the peak of a mountain that loomed over the Cosmodrome in Old Russia.
So. Big drop out a window over the side of a mountain? No biggie.
No. No, the biggie came from the "mouth" of his Ghost.
"I might not be able to do that..."
And with that, the falling began. Fortunately, he managed to keep himself feet- er, hooves first. Flailing around wouldn't do him any good, especially in this- his new body. Presently unable to respond, The Guardian focused on trying to figure out how an equine would jump, hoping he'd be able to stop his fall just before hitting the ground. Meanwhile, Ghost continued his line of thought. Briskly, though. Big a drop as it was, it wouldn't last forever.
"Okay, so, I MIGHT be able to bring you back if you die, but I don't know for sure. Everything feels different here and I can't explain this in the span of a few seconds so just keep doing whatever it is you're doing while I run a few diagnostics on the ambient energies of...wherever we are."
Cutting to the chase, The Guardian wasn't able to figure out exactly how to stop falling before making contact with the ground.
The downside was that this immediately broke his legs and sent him sprawling down the mountainside, rolling rather cartoonishly instead of violently tumbling.
On the upside though, Ghost was making progress in his little...endeavor, trying to figure out how to work the natural "magic" of Equestria. All of The Guardian's friend making and group heroism seemed to be paying off, or so Ghost thought. Whatever power that resided here seemed to amplify when one was in alignment with their comrades. Ghost and Guardian were, more or less, an inseparable duo, so, there was power to spare.
Skipping forward a minute or five, and The Guardian had come to an abrupt stop near the foot of the mountain. Ghost wasn't sure exactly when or where The Guardian had died on the way down, but he hoped it was earlier on. There were a few drops and bumps that were...particularly nasty. The little light hovered above the tangled mess of cloak, limbs, and red-stained mane, expanding his Light out once more and focusing it back inward. There was another milky flash, and The Guardian dropped from a few feet in the air and landed safely in a nice, soft patch of grass. Where his mangled corpse used to be was just a bunch of flattened tall grass.
The Guardian inhaled as he took in his surroundings, exhaling softly and staring at Ghost, expressionless. He tilted his head and snorted. The blast of air sent Ghost fluttering- if such an errant airborne path could be described in such a way -back a few meters, and he seemed to huff, flying back again and bonking The Guardian on the forehead, right under his long, slender, pointed horn.
"Oh, don't be like that. There wasn't much I could have done, short of bashing your skull in!"
He paused.
"Besides, that would have been ridiculously hard with how fast you were moving."
The Guardian looked around, gazing back up the mountainside, up at the castle he jumped out of. He wasn't entirely sure what the consequences of that action were going to be, but he figured things would work themselves out. Eventually. Maybe. They usually did. Unless they didn't. He really didn't like it when things didn't work out.
Looking forward, he flicked his head back to drop his hood, shaking his head around to loosen up all the matted down mane. Really, with how fluffy it was, it was more akin to a lion's mane than a horse's. Though, he'd never seen an actual lion. Just cats, tigers, and statues of both.
The little glade he had unceremoniously flopped into was more lively than he was used to. A variety of wildlife populated the area. Lush plants, plenty of trees and flowers, birds, dragonflies, bees, and countless other things he had never seen before. Small, six legged creatures with three main body parts and two antennae sprouting from the head. Long, armored little creatures with what looked like dozens of legs, scuttling around rocks and roots. The Guardian moved slow, taking time to just watch life. It was...new, in a sense. Familiar, but never this abundant. Never this calm. Ghost floated along with him, staying close to his side, and eventually just flying into his lowered hood and plopping himself down in it.
Ghost gazed up at the moon, briefly showing through a cluster of clouds high up in the stratosphere. Memories of Earth's corrupted nightmare hellscape of a moon began to surface, but the longer Ghost stared, the longer he scanned and analyzed, the more he realized that it wasn't the same moon. This moon was whole. Pure. Untouched by anything unnatural to it. He nestled down a little more comfortably with that thought in mind, allowing his Guardian some time to explore all the little things the glade had to offer.
"I meant what I said, 'Tia. I have recounted my experience in full, and if you doubt my words, you're free to find him yourself and ask him to repeat what he did with you."
Celestia groaned, though in more of a quiet, tired kind of fashion. The last few minutes had been rather loud and metaphorically explosive. Her doors were proven to be useless at keeping ponies out, as Luna had just 'ported herself right onto her bed and began to shake her frantically in an effort to rouse her from her sleep as fast as she could. So far, this was the fourth recap, and the story had a lot of gaps in it.
Well, from Luna, at least. All the guards seemed to have their own personal idea of what happened, why it happened, and how it happened, and all felt the need to explain everything in as much detail as possible. Efforts to find the maid who had originally been in the room when everything began were fruitless, as most of the staff had either been in entirely different areas, were sleeping on the job, or were clueless as to what was going on.
It was shaping up to be a bad night, despite nothing really bad happening. Yet. The recap continued.
"And, immediately after that, he jumped out the window, smacked into the cliffside, rolled down the mountain, and then got up and walked away without a scratch?"
"As far as I could see through the binoculars I was given, yes, but I cannot guarantee how accurate all of that is. I saw what I saw from a distance and nothing more."
Another exasperated sound left Celestia in that moment. This time it was a sigh, low and resigned.
"Is there a search ongoing yet?"
This question was new.
"I directed available guards to their respective positions in the event of an emergency search and rescue, though this would be more of a search and less rescue. Still, few reported in, and those who did were either sleeping beforehoof or recalled from ongoing assignments, so..."
"Uhg...Call them back. This can wait until morning. Whoever it was will either have turned up, caused an easily trackable ruckus, or disappeared into the blue by then."
Little else was said of the matter as everyone settled down. Most who were sleeping simply went back to sleeping, some stayed up for an additional shift (solely for security reasons, even though there was little need for it), and Luna went back to trying to enjoy the rest of her night.
She couldn't.
Curiosity and concern had gotten the better of her, and she decided to do something investigative-ish. It was night, so, she figured whoever had manifested and promptly disappeared (out the window) would, probably, sleep at some point. Trailing along that line of thought, if the window-breaking mountain-roller slept, then she could easily find him within the dream realm! Or...whatever it was she was calling it. She had never really settled on an exact name for the shifting, warping, bendy land that was everybodies' conscious minds venting. It was a weird place, and she couldn't quite remember what she had called it last. Whatever the case, surely one who could teleport vast distances, and carried the height of an alicorn, would have peculiar dreams. Finding him would be easy! Maybe. Hopefully. All she wanted to do was ask a few questions.
-~elsewhere~-
The Guardian had meandered aimlessly for a while, as he usually did when not doing anything particularly important, and had found himself a nice little cave in the side of a hill. The forest outside, interesting as it was, was getting chilly, and he didn't feel like burning a tree just to keep himself cozy. Besides, he had felt a lot worse than only uncomfortably cold. It was hard to forget clawing through collapsed Martian ice caps with compromised environmental protection. That was...unpleasant.
Tucked beneath his oversized cloak (which had somehow avoided conforming to the reality boopage and stayed regular size as opposed to conforming to his new bodily standards) and excess fluff. A little fire fueled by twigs and Hive guts burned in front of him, providing both Guardian and Ghost with a little bit of light and warmth not otherwise given by their own inherent energy. The box Ghost had managed to keep inventoried was nestled close to The Guardian's side.
As previously stated a few chapters ago, it contained a few mementos and farewell gifts from a few friends. The cookies, still unfinished, were out and being tentatively nibbled on by the Guardian as the duo stared at the fire. The very flammable Hive innards were so conveniently gifted by Wu Ming, also known to most as just "The Drifter". The Guardian liked Wei Ming better. It was a reminder that even the nameless had names.
Well, except for him. He still didn't have a name yet. Sadly, he didn't think he would ever have one. His role in the universe seemed to fit the bill. He was simply THE Guardian, and his Ghost THE Ghost of THE Guardian. It was a little depressing at times, just being known by titles and deeds. Hive Bane. Young Wolf. Wayfarer. Shadow. Reckoner. The Unbroken. Etc.
Lots of titles, not a lot of personality behind them. Any Guardian could have done what he did. He just...happened to be the one who did them.
Regardless, he munched another cookie, savoring the sweetness and near perfect composition. He didn't want to guess who made any of them. The fact that his friend(s), mentors, and supporters had gone and done something for him for once was enough to keep him happy. He...never really got much from anyone. Not like this, anyway. It was always just Ghost and him unless someone either needed him or wanted him to partake in the current festivities.
After some fiddling with his hooves (he was really missing fingers) he managed to close the cookie box and slip it back into the little box of other goodies. He'd further dig through them later when he was in a more secure and less vulnerable position, both literally and emotionally. Opening that box and...seeing everything inside was like, well, opening an emotional box and feeling everything that that entailed. He wasn't ready for that, so, closed it stayed unless he needed something out of it. At some point in his fire-staring, Ghost wisped back into The Guardian's head (or whatever he does when he disappears, no one really knows exactly what's going on, and the Traveler isn't the type for a Q&A). The twigs and sticks had long since burned out, but the gooey chunk of preserved alien crustacean/insect/worm/thingy was still smoldering nicely. Sure, the fire was turning green, but who didn't love a little ominous coloring every now and then? That thought reminded the Guardian of the moon and he immediately regretted using a chitinous chunk of Hive for a fire.
Eventually, literally everything in his life, ever, began to catch up with him and he finally felt a little drowsy. Maybe it was the fact he wasn't being shot at, or maybe it was the fact he was in an entirely different universe, but his body finally got the signal that physical rest was something he could do safely. Consciously, he just stopped thinking and lowered his head into his folded forehooves, curling up around the box and tugging his cloak over him while the fire sizzled and popped. He wasn't sure if it was supposed to sizzle or not, but it was swiftly drowned out by the endless droning of crickets, frogs, and other nightlife fauna. All of which pointedly avoided the unnatural green flames, by the way. Flaming Hive guts. Fire starter and wildlife repellent.
One fade to black later, and Luna was flying about in the ethereal expanse of the dream realm(s?), going in what seemed to be the general direction the teleporting shenaniganizer rolled off to. Physically, as we can all pretty much assume, Luna was back in her room, sitting on her bed and looking like she was in the Avatar state. Or something.
Back in sleepy land, Luna was busying herself with looking for anything unusual. She was sweeping back and forth, going to far as the outskirts of Ponyville and the Everfree forest each time before turning back. She went on with this for what felt like a few hours, but was actually around two seconds for how hard it was (meaning it wasn't that hard). Her patience with the search eventually bore fruit, and she had hovered across a dream so chaotic centered around something so entirely calm that it couldn't possibly be anyone from the surrounding area. From her experience, most dreams of those in the Ponyville-Canterlot range were chaotic in the center with a calm realization waiting to be made. Though, what she was seeing had to be...something. Something was better than nothing, so, without too much more thought, she focused and went in.
Never one to lead a conversation, The Guardian did a lot of listening during his time in the Sol system (and beyond.) Listening to his Ghost, Cayde's jokes, Lord Shaxx's screams of encouragement, recordings left for him by various renegade-type individuals, and the offers of reality-altering wish-dragons from somewhere he didn't want to think about.
Out of everything though, he loved listening to people around him just...talking. Not about the fate of the universe, not about the next target to hit, and definitely not anything related to wars with the Cabal on Mars and of stepping into them (whether we wanted it or not.) He loved sitting around for hours, just listening in on scraps of scattered radio chatter and pieces of other people's conversations. It was a nice reminder that there was more going on than just his own story. That, even with how big everything was to him, entirely different things were just as big to countless others.
Sure, maybe his business was kind of important, but still. Eavesdropping on random civilian conversations reminded him why he was enduring all the hellish punishment the galaxy had to offer. It reminded him that his story wasn't just about him, and that if he stopped throwing himself against the Dark, countless people would suffer. Countless would die. All those other stories mattered to him. And for them, he endured. For them, he killed. For them, he died.
One of the many thing he liked to listen to where conversations about dreams, dreaming, and what it was like. What little sleep he ever got was purely to relieve himself of exhaustion, and whenever he was resurrected he was all set and ready to go. He only ever dreamed once or twice in his lifespan, and those were just visions that were put into his head by external powers.
Whenever he'd hear about dreams, he'd be captivated by both the abstract absurdities of them and how realistic they seemed to get. He learned from his listening that people would sometimes dream of things they did, experienced, or people they knew and spent time with. He had also heard of dreams that made absolutely no sense in regard to anything. He often wondered what he'd dream about. Based on what he knew of nightmares, he imagined he'd probably have a lot of those. He didn't exactly have many serene, calm, pleasant memories to have nice dreams about.
Right now, he wasn't entirely sure what he was experiencing. He was sitting in a circle of bright, luminescent silver light as a veil of dark swarmed all around, swirling and twisting like a hurricane. From what he knew of most dreams (as described to him by others,) you almost never knew when you were in a dream until you woke up. He could tell he wasn't awake, and was confused as to how he knew he was dreaming.
He could hear voices in the shifting storm, gunshots and explosions too. It didn't take long for him to realize they were memories. Strike briefings, encounters in Raids, Crucible strategy discussions, the screams of the Hive Wizard Omnigul, words from countless missions and encounters, all sounding out right next to steady, thrumming screams and explosions.
Looking down, he noticed two things. Firstly, he was still the whatever-he-was thing that he was when he fell asleep. Secondly, he was without his cloak.
Clearly, the second thing was more a problem than the first.
After a brief push of his will, something ruffled on his back and he saw/felt his cloak materialize around his neck and down over the rest of his body. He tugged the hood over his head, trying to ignore the maelstrom of chaos and death circling his little area of peace. If this was how all of his "sleeping" was going to go, he wasn't sure he wanted to sleep much. He had no desire to relive anything from his past, so in the circle he stayed.
That is, until he heard something different. Someone was screaming. Distant. Imperious. Desperate. New.
He stopped thinking and charged toward the sound. Hesitation killed. He had learned that the hard way more than once.
elsewhere
Luna often found dreams to be rather easy to peer into, and only marginally harder to enter directly. Simply trying to glimpse the outermost machinations of the intruder's internal workings was akin to pushing against a snowed-in door. Certainly possible to get past, but extremely draining to do so. Whoever this stranger was, they kept their mind sealed tight.
Eventually, a few minutes into weaseling forward, Luna caught a snippet of something. A recognizable strand of thought, whisking by and offering easier passage inward.
m o o n
A chill ran down her physical spine as she tasted the dread and malice dripping off the memory. The topic, in the stranger's head, brought her nothing but impressions of N I G H T M A R E S and DARKNESS. Despite her experience with both abstract thoughts, what she was subjected to was an almost physical telling of them. It made her shiver, if only for a moment. Though, she felt her chance slipping away, and decided to push, grasping onto the familiar concept(s) and hoping for the best.
The little circle of radiant light continued to shine and shimmer, little motes of incandescent luminescence trailing up from the ground and twirling around the battered forms rushing in and out of it, basking in it's comforting glow before passing on to darker eventualities.
Another circle, much like the first but larger, more yellow, and with a spire sticking from the center, did much the same, except faster and hotter, less intimate and infinitely more functional. The minds who devised such a simple yet effective implementation of raw energy were lost in the growing crowd of those who discovered for themselves how to apply it. Understandably, this larger circle was proving itself to be more effective in the present situation.
Healing. Light to see with. Both good when you were pitted against innumerable foes who thrived in the dark. At least, that was the most logical thing running through Luna's mind as she was sucked into the form of the biped who had so forcefully established themself in the middle of an open cavern with no cover facing a horde of varying monstrous enemies in what would otherwise be pitch blackness. If she was supposed to be reliving this event, she was shocked to find herself unable to feel much of anything, which was a surprise. Normally when things like this happened, she would be momentarily hit with the sensation of feeling in a new body. Or rather, remembering what things had felt like at the time, emotions included. While she wouldn't experience them for herself, she'd understand the memory of the emotion. It was intrusive, and almost never intentional.
On the less rational side of her thoughts, she was, well...What is one supposed to feel or think when experiencing a slaughter from the body of the killer who seemed to only feel the recoil from the buzzing projectile weapon in their grip and a vague notion of pitying sadness?
It was all very loud. It would have been almost deafening if not for the helmet on her, er, their head. She had to remind herself that this was someone, and something, else entirely. The weapon- and by now Luna was certain it was a weapon, for it was being used to destroy so easily -was blaring and roaring constantly, its front end glowing from the continuous blasts. The weapons of some in the horde (or perhaps some were spells being cast? It was hard to tell) made distant booms over the screams and deathly cries from the approaching and receding horde that was circling the burning emplacement of light and flame.
This went on for some time.
Eventually, the horde was depleted and the weapon ceased to function. Her- er, its- er...The...Luna believed the proper term for the appendages she was looking at was "hands." She watched as the hands she felt shook and trembled. The body she was watching from within a dome of lightly glowing purple, and thus everything was tinted so. The joints, trembling and quivering, cracked loudly in the silence while they slowly closed into gloved fists, and for the first time since being sucked into this "dream", Luna felt an alien pain through her host. Tendons and sinews ached. The soreness set in. Muffled screams and wails came from beyond the stinging, shielding veil.
She felt a breath. Two. The hands opened again, and when they closed, they closed on twin daggers, shining in their own luminous darkness, pulsating like the dome that surrounded. And with a whisper, she was pulled from the body she had been experiencing this horror in and watched as it disappeared from the dome, only to light up the shuffling, skittering horde of screams.
And with that, the purple slowly pulled up into a faintly glowing white and the dark ambiance shifted to that of a booming, swirling storm.
A presence crouched by her seated form, and she felt the warmth of someone next to her face, though she couldn't see anyone in her peripherals. A moment passed.
"Was that all you saw?" The voice was soft, inquisitive, stallionesque, and definitively sorrowful.
She wasn't sure how to answer. Were there worse things lurking in that hellscape of a memory?! Possibly. She felt no reason to lie.
"Yes," she answered simply, waiting a moment or two before saying anything else. The growing uncomfortableness the two were feeling from the awkward closeness had grown fast. The presence had moved a little more to her left, as to not be so close to her.
She thought she heard him- for she was fairly certain he was a him - sigh, though it was quiet and likely reactionary. Possibly in relief?
"I'm glad. You wouldn't want to have seen anything else. That place holds nothing but nightmares and death." He laughed once, grim yet reminiscent. "Geez, I sound like Eris..."
"A memory of yours?" she asked him, turning her head to look at him while she did so. She hadn't noticed before, but the swirling dark had been gradually drawing upward, as if the stark whiteness of the ground was rising up like a curtain. This was only significant when she tried to get a good look at the stallion she was conversing with. His coat seemed to match the exact coloration of the rising lightness around the pair, while she herself remained her cool, nightly blues and blacks. The most prominent feature she was able to determine was that his eyes were a dusty brown. Every other detail was smoothed over by the omnipresent light source and his fur's matching color to the background. It was like seeing through him. She almost reached out to poke his chest.
"Regrettably, yes. I'm not used to being like this yet," he admitted, and she could hear his ears flick around. It was quiet. Seeing his mouth in contrast to not seeing most of his body was admittedly strange. Furthermore, his teeth weren't the typical white she was used to. if anything, they were a little yellowed, and his tongue a little greyish in the middle. Since she was staring at his face already, she figured she'd look up at his eyes again. Along the way, she noticed some serious bags beneath them, breaking his solidly pale visage and painting a more pained expression on his appearance.
The longer she stared, the more different he seemed to become. More little details began making themselves apparent. His long, fluffy, messy mane that hung wildly down the back of his head and crowned over down his face like a flood of snow. He'd flick it aside whenever it drooped over his eyes. His directly facial features were refined, if a little starved looking. Regal, yet deprived. Pinkie would have make a joke about him having a long face.
"What will you do here?" Luna asked, sitting herself up a little straighter and adopting a more formal tone. As curious as she was, she needed to gauge his character. All she knew now was that he was a softspoken murder machine. Perhaps that description was a bit harsh, but she really didn't have any other context to go off of. He didn't kill the guards in the castle though, so, he had that going for him.
"I didn't choose to come here, yet here I am. I suppose I'll be seeing more of you in the nearby future." Honest words, but he didn't directly answer.
"While that may be true, you didn't answer the question," Luna noted, tilting her head and raising a brow.
"Forgive me, I'm not used to talking this much. Usually I have far less to say and far more things trying to kill me. It's been a quite couple of years on my part." He seemed to shrug, bringing into focus the large cloak he had draped around his body. Only his two forehooves were poking out the front. It was like a giant blanket, really. A giant rectangular blanket, tattered and stained, with a hood. He was sitting on his haunches, no doubt why the cloak was wrapping around him so fully. "If I am to answer honestly," he continued, "then I'll say that I am unsure. I do not intend harm, and would honestly prefer some peace and quiet, but I cannot assure you of anything. If there's one thing I'm not, it's reliably predictable."
"The honesty is appreciated, if you are indeed speaking truthfully," Luna spoke with a nod, her eyes never blinking.
Silence reigned again. The two just stared at each other, him with a look of understanding and her with the eyes of a concerned leader and a confused heart.
"So..." she began again, "back in what I...experienced, what you lived through-"
"Died through, too," he muttered almost incomprehensibly.
"-might I ask...why?" Luna finished.
The Guardian sighed. He never thought he'd have to be the one explaining this story.
Stories are great, even better when you already know the context and have a general idea of what the storyteller is talking about. The only thing Luna remotely understood was mention of "space magic", and even that was...loose.
The two were seated on either side of an oaken table, within one of The Guardian's nicer memories. They were inside the tower of an old church, somewhere in a territory known as the "European Dead Zone". Luna shivered at the name. The Guardian had been talking for the better part of over an hour by now, only ever stopping to answer a question or two, and those tangents usually became in-depth explanations on their own. He was trying to keep things as simple as he could: explaining the Hive, explaining the Light and the Dark, and explaining Humanity. She had only asked about the situation on the Moon, and he really didn't want to overshare. Not yet, at least.
"So, to summarize..." Luna began, sounding skeptical.
"Uh-huh," Guardian murmured, nodding attentively.
"A genocidal species of bipedal crustaceans splits it's power-"
"Yep."
"The most powerful of the three monarchs at the time sends his spawn to end the Traveler-"
"Right."
"And upon arrival, said spawn, Crota, is repeatedly delayed in his conquests, but never truly defeated, over the course of centuries-"
"Mmmhm."
"And you just...walked in and killed him and all of his highest, most powerful servants? One by one?"
"...More or less."
"And then fought your way into his personal dimension, slew him on his throne with his own sword, when he'd no doubt be most powerful..?"
"Yep again."
"And later, did the same to his vengeful, more powerful father?"
"I had a little more help that time, but yeah. Pretty much."
"And then, years later, ended the rest of them?"
"Most of THAT time was a bit of a blur, but yes, others and myself brought them low."
Luna cocked a brow. "I'm finding all of this a little hard to believe. Would you mind shedding a little more light on all of this?" she asked. She was concerned that this "Guardian" was either the most self-deceived liar in all of Equestria's history, or the most potentially dangerous truth-teller to ever walk on pony soil.
The Guardian merely shrugged and sighed, a wince on his face. He really didn't want to subject her to more of his past so directly, especially on purpose. It made him uncomfortable, putting someone else through exactly what he went through, even if it wasn't actually happening to her. "Do you honestly want to see more of what you've already seen, but worse?"
His tone was sincere. Almost pained. Luna considered this. She had almost forgotten that little nugget of absolute hell she was witness to not long ago. "Your point is fair, I'll take you at your word. And, if you are to be considered capable of such things, I'd like for you to meet with myself and the other princesses of Equestria. It is not uncommon for beings of great destructive magnitude to pass through this realm, and we hardly ever have the chance to resolve situations calmly and civilly right from the start. It would mean much to myself, as well as everypony else privy to your arrival, if you were to return to the mountain you fell from. The last thing any of us need is a misunderstanding."
The Guardian thought for a moment, his eyes drifting as he set his forehooves on the table and rested his head between them. He found it to be rather cozy, wondering what other comfortable positions this new body had to offer. He'd have to explore later, though, there was a choice-that-isn't-really-a-choice to be made! Might as well make it as nice as possible.
"Can we meet over tea?" he asked, a sheepish smile having slipped up his face. Luna merely bowed her head in affirmation.
"That can be arranged quite easily. I prefer coffee myself, but my elder sister enjoys the leafy variant of boiled water almost as much as I the beaned."
It was early in the morning and the sun had risen not long ago. Birds fluttered about the trees, crickets chirped, and all was at a general peace. The Guardian was no stranger to calm moments that would often fill the gap between intense combat, so the shock of how nice everything was was negligible. He could simply enjoy it, despite the creeping, irrational little tingle he was getting. It won't last, a small part of his head whispered to him in mournful despair. He tried his best to ignore it. Whatever would happen would happen, and at least this time he seemed to have SOME manner of control over things.
For now, the peace was more than welcome.
Ghost had nestled himself in The Guardian's hood, which was down, and was doing the equivalent of sleeping for a Ghost. He had collected a lot of data that The Guardian never really understood overnight and was spending some time trying to make sense of it. Evidently, wherever they had wound up worked on a different set of causality and paracausality, and Ghost needed time to synchronize their Light with the driving rules of the world. Until he was finished, Ghost had urged The Guardian to keep his power usage to a minimum.
"And, you know, don't die. I brought you back before, twice, but that was before I knew it was risky. So, please, don't die. I'll be so lonely here without you."
Ghost had said that an hour or two ago. The Gaurdian couldn't really keep track of time. He did, however, keep track of how wonderful the scenery was. All of the life around him was just so stunning. Literally stunning, every now and then. He'd see a small meadow of flowers between trees and just stop. Or a large patch of moss bathing in a sunbeam, green just radiating from the circle of moist, squishy life, fixed ever so keenly on every little detail, every delicate organism living free from the perils of Sky and Deep. Ghost had mentioned that "here" was operating by a different set of rules. The Guardian really hoped so. Being the most versatile pawn in the balance between "Light" and "Dark" swept him to some very dark places, and he didn't want to revisit any of them anytime soon.
Time passed as it did, and the Lightbearing duo arrived at the base of the mountain just past noon. Ghost had moved from hood to head, keeping a low profile until things were determined to be definitely safe. Even still, Ghost worried. Bad things had happened to him even when he was hidden away in The Guardian's "backpack", as proven by the incident on the Moon. Nasty business, that. Ghost still felt dirtied, somehow. There was something twisty in being possessed and used as a verbal relay as your best friend is baited into one of the most dangerous structures to exist in the Sol System.
"So. How do you suppose we get up there?" Ghost asked, his voice a little more shaky than he intended it to be.
The Guardian shrugged, looking to the left and right of the mountain's base. Nothing but landscape. He then looked back up at the mountain, squinted, looked down at his hooves, and slowly smiled.
"I really hope you're not considering what I think you are." Ghost whisked out into the air in front of him, giving him a suspicious look. He just smiled a little wider.
-Several Hours Later-
"So he just bolted out to this window and jumped?"
"Eeyup. Flopped down the mountain like a fish and just walked off."
Two Royal Guards were, well, "guarding" the aforementioned window. What they were really doing was keeping post in case the mysterious teleporter decided to come back in the way he went out, despite the notion being so far-fetched. Princess Luna had mentioned coming to an agreement to meet with the property damaging offender, for whatever reason, and hadn't been very specific as to how the window smasher should go about getting back. As such, guards were posted in a few more places than usual, like at the window, or various train stations in the surrounding area, etc. etc. Places where one could get to Canterlot City, and thus to the Canterlot Castle.
Given how ridiculous it was that somepony would climb the mountain and try the window, the two guards stationed there weren't expecting company outside of others in the castle.
---
Matted with sweat and shaky in the legs, The Guardian was standing on his two left hooves with his body flat against the mountainside, twenty feet or so from the window he had crashed out of not long ago. It had been a tricky climb, but he had realized if he went at it goat-style, it'd probably be easier. It was. However, it only got him so far, and he was stuck with no other ledges to barely cling to, trying to keep his shaking to a minimum for fear of losing balance and getting blown off by the wind.
Meanwhile, Ghost had decided to leave the safety of backpack-land to do a little scouting, "eep"ing to himself upon finding the two guard ponies near the window talking with each other about rotations. He dropped back down to eye level with The Guardian, who looked a mix of thrilled and constipated.
"There's two by the window, both guards judging by the shiny armor and plumed helmets. Since you don't have a way back down that doesn't involve a lot of unpleasant crunches and snaps, I'm thinking we just ask for help. Any objections?"
---
"So, who do you think'll win the Hoofball regionals?" one of the guards started. The other was about to talk, but they were interrupted by a strange, crackly chirp from the window. They both looked over in alarm to find a small, floating blue eye in a spiky chassis of white and gleaming silver.
Ghost chirped again, as if beckoning, and floated back down. The two guards exchanged worried glances before creeping over to the window. One looked up and the other looked down before they stuck their heads outside. Finding nothing waiting to fall from above, the guard looking up looked down to where the other guard was staring befuddled. A pale, proportionally large unicorn with a long cloak and sheepish smile was peering up at them from where he stood. Vertically. On the side of the mountain. Twenty feet from the window.
"Got any rope?" the unicorn asked, his mane blowing over his face after a gusty blast of wind. That seemed to shake the guardponies out of their stupor. Words between the three were exchanged and one of the guards ran to get something or somepony to help and the other stayed, just in case something happened. Nothing did, of course, but still.
Minutes passed, the guard who stayed occasionally peeking back out the window to make sure the pony on the mountainside was still there. Each time the guard received the same concerned look from the curiously tall unicorn. Again. And again. Still there. Still there.
The telltale clippity clops of hooves on castle flooring rang as the other guard returned with two other guards, these two unicorns.
"Just out the window, right?" one of the newcomers asked, having slowed to a trot.
The guard at the window did another check. "Yup, he's still down there." The two unicorn guards, now at the window as well, peered down, getting a brief smile from the tall pony stuck on the cliff face.
"How in the hay'd you get there?" one of them yelled, their voice muted by the cold wind. The big unicorn was about to answer before being cut off. "Y'know what, nevermind, let's just get you up here and not out there."
The two earthpony guards stood back a bit while the unicorn guards focused on levitating the larger unicorn up from where he was and into the building. They struggled at first, having underestimated how much oomph they needed to put into the spell.
"Geez, how's a fella like you get to be so heavy?" the other guard asked as they stepped back, slowly and carefully floating the big unicorn through the window and onto the floor. Up close, all it took was a glance to have that question answered.
Before them sat a regally defined, lean muscled unicorn of empirical heights, his long and wild mane flowing in the draft from the window, brilliant sunshine washing in and around him, giving the mysterious mountain climber a radiant glow-
And everyone was promptly snapped out of it when the big giant unicorn let out a big giant sneeze, shaking the corridor and knocking himself over from the brute force of the nasal reaction. The guards scrambled to help him up, doing so rather gently while he sniffled, his mane all ruffled and messy, his cloak in dirtied tatters.
"You the one the Princesses are expecting?" one of the original guardponies asked, and the big fella nodded, his nose twitching as he sniffled again. "Well, just follow us then. We have orders to keep you somewhere comfortable until they can all arrive." Another nod from the big guy and the five were on their way. The two unicorns, who had been assigned to a similar position nearby, were following along.
---
If there was one thing that was reeeeallly going to bother him, it was how loud walking was as a hooved quadruped. Clickity clack, clack clickity. Boop dee da doop all this trotting was really noisy. Especially in the big, echo-y halls of Canterlot Castle. Lots of click clacks. They were walking through the halls in relative silence, hooffalls not included, and reached a cozy-looking waiting room in a matter of minutes.
There were two doors, one of which they had just entered by, and no windows. The walls matched the rest of the castle's castley scheme, but the furniture was much more "modern". Honestly, some of the decor in the room could have passed for City goods. A large sea foam green rug was placed in the center of the cube-ish room, in the center of which was a rich mahogany table with a few unused coasters scattered around it. Around the middle of the large rug were three sitting couches (likely meant for the normal-sized ponies, given the sizes) and a big basket that seemed to contain several dark green sitting pillows. Knitted blankets and quilts were neatly folded in another basket, making The Guardian realize that he was, indeed, one cold boi. He hadn't noticed his shivering before, and went right for the sitting pillows, dragging one out of its basket and nosing it into position close to the table.
That got him a few odd looks, from both the unicorns and the earth ponies, but he was too busy tossing one of the heavier quilts over himself to notice. Quilt still covering him (much in the way a sheet would cover a child pretending to be a ghost) he circled round on the pillow seven times before plopping himself down and curling up, poking his head up through a hole in the wrapped up blanket.
The four other ponies in the room were still just staring. Both at him, and his horn. They didn't ask, but the looks on their faces would have been question enough.
The Guardian, finally noticing the stares, just stared back innocently confused. What'd he do wrong?
I'm pressed for time and am writing this as I'm preparing myself for the rest of the day, so I do hope you'll excuse my tactfulness. I'm sure by now you've heard the chatter about the teleporting unicorn that allegedly launched himself out a window. I'm writing to you specifically to let you know that he is fine and the situation is under control. Luna has assured me that our unexpected visitor is merely lost and just needs some help finding his way home. I do apologize for being vague, but my own knowledge of the situation is limited. As such, it wouldn't be a bad idea for you and your friends to keep the elements at hoof, just in case. I'll send you word of how the situation develops when I can.
Wishing you a pleasant morning, Celestia
...
Well, it was crude, but it would have to do. Celestia had to admit, she didn't like sending messages so early in the morning. If Spike wasn't already awake, well, he was about to be. There was a puff of green flame and the rolled parchment sizzled away. With that out of the way, Celestia returned to brushing her teeth.
Luna suspected their mysterious intruder would be returning sometime around late-afternoon, and had planned to sleep until then. Or, until word of a tall, cloaked, pale unicorn reached the ears of the Royal Guard (and subsequently the Princesses). The Sun Princess herself had only heard the general summary from her sister before she went off to bed, and, while trusting of her sister, did not fully trust the word of a pony whose eyes she had yet to stare into.
If she were to forget Luna's account for a moment, two things seemed most likely. One: a locational mix-up in a botched teleportation spell, or two: an assassin with terrible timing. The cloaked intruder hadn't fought his way out, however, and had put himself in harm's way in order to simply escape. Additionally, the intruder bolted past her sister instead of engaging her in the hallway, after having directly appeared in the throne room after-hours. Any knowledgeable assassin would have seen the fliers and posters regarding Night Court's early dismissal that night, so...
Option one was the most sensible. In the case that the intruder really was an assassin, they weren't very good at planning. Despite the open invitation, Celestia was still taking precautions. More guards stationed and alert, special orders to specific units, hidden tunnels and such being employed, a secure meeting room being put into use, etc. All of that work had to go side-by-side with the rest of the day's duties, making things just a wee bit more stressful for those stuck organizing it all, Celestia included.
The hours whisked on by like a coastal breeze, constant yet wavering in speed. Some tasks took what felt like ages, others passed like tumbling leaves caught in a strong autumn gust. Such were the natures of her bureaucratic duties, equatable to wind speeds under varying conditions. Celestia mused over the analogies, finding renewed amusement in them. She made this comparison once every few weeks.
Every now and then, she'd find extra interest in her handlings regarding the setup and security of the speedily approaching meeting. It was just past noon and things were still being put into place. Certain guard positions needed review, some areas needed to be covered more thoroughly than others, refreshments had to be decided on, backup refreshments needed preparing, etc. Preparations for the best and worst outcomes had to be made, meaning things had to be both comfortable AND under close guard. Still, the comfortable aspect of things was just as important. In a cushy environment like Canterlot Castle, Celestia had found that friends were best made while cozy and relaxed. Well, most of the time. It was hit-or-miss sometimes.
Just then, there was the telltale sound of nervous hoofsteps just outside her study door, followed by a few hesitant knocks.
---
Luna was asleep, snoring under her blankets. Celestia loomed over her with a mischievous grin and a bucket of cold-ish water. Part of this was to wake Luna, the other part was payback for earlier.
He saw himself about to speak, about to say something. Head tilted upward, mouth opening.
awe,thegardengaspsinawe
He really didn't want to go through this again, and fell backward, two fingers- one on each hand -raised at himself in the distance. Down he went, expression blank, fingers flipped, and right back into his waking self.
The Guardian lifted his head, yawning slowly before rubbing his eyes with his hooves, opening and blinking them a few times before really processing anything he was seeing.
Still in the nice room with the nice guards and the nice blankets. Mmmhm. Still warm and cozy in one of said blankets, all tucked in on one of the few nice pillows. Mmhm. Ghost chattering excessively somewhere next to his head..? Meh, nothing new. Ghost was smart. He would never keep himself exposed unless he knew it was safe. Ghost was smart. He knew things and opened doors. Smart smart smart-
The Guardian then felt a little bonk on his forehead. It was Ghost, looking at him like he had done something silly.
Across from him (The Guardian, that is) was Luna, looking like she had just gotten out of the shower, and another alicorn of similar but contrasting appearance to the Moon Princess. The Guardian was guessing, on a whim, that the bright, shiny, rainbow-maned sunbutt in front of him was Luna's sister and co-princess, Celestia.
Was he asked something? Should he say hello? Did they really let him sleep???
He looked at Ghost with furrowed brows, as if wordlessly asking for a recap.
"You didn't hear a word of that, did you?", asked Ghost, his mechanical voice teetering between annoyed and amused. It was hard to tell sometimes. The Guardian shook his head no.
"Are you used to this whole 'sleeping' thing yet? Because I'm not used to you sleeping. You're less attentive when you're sleepy." A little sigh from a Little Light. "I could just repeat everything I just said- it really wouldn't be that hard -but I've been out for an uncomfortably long time and would like to return to 'the backpack', if that's possible. Do you two mind filling him in?" Ghost asked the Princesses. The sisters didn't immediately object, and Ghost whisked himself away, disappearing before any objections had the chance to develop. It wasn't meant to be rude, and wasn't taken as such. Ghost really was feeling quite antsy, despite the conversation having put him at greater ease.
Though, it was a conversation that The Guardian had missed thanks to how damned comfy he was. Not that he was complaining about it...
He had to shake himself awake before sitting with his neck straightened, as opposed to his initial sleepy slouchiness, leaning forward a tad since he was still technically lying down. Someone had drawn his hood up while he was out, apparently, and shaking his mane out of his face made it flop back. There was an audible poof when his mane fluffed up, streaking long and floofily.
It was immediately back down in his face, and he blew at it fruitlessly. Hmph. He never had to deal with hair before this, and now he was glad he hadn't. Hair was tricky. Too tricky for day-to-day Guardian-related misadventures. He could never guess how other Guardians went about managing all those complex, interesting hair styles while also constantly putting on and taking off sealed helmets. Blech, he didn't even want to think about it. Having fluffy hair with just a hood was starting to get on his nerves. A little. He did like how it bounced, though. He thought that was fun.
Regardless of his hair- er, mane, he supposed, he had some catching up to do, evidently.
Through a tiny straw, since he hadn't gotten used to his hooves yet.
He, Him, The Guardian. Enjoying a pleasure as simple as this in the presence of what he knew to be the two major heads of an entire nation, in a different reality. It was absurd, he knew, but when it came to existing as either an existentialist or an absurdist...Well, while he did find purpose in action, and had lived most of his second "life" under that mindset, every new revelation about his existence whispered to him that, ultimately, nothing mattered in the grand scope of everything because the grand scope of everything didn't exist, and he was one of many anomalies in a pattern that had previously dictated all prior struggle (the REAL kick was that the pattern didn't matter either, so, he just went with trying to keep everything he cared about from the approaching mass-extinction).
The times being what they were, nihilism had crept ever so slowly into his head. A few minutes of self reflection midway through a firefight had brought on an epiphany. If none of it mattered in the long run, he wouldn't care if the long run mattered or not, and thus went about doing everything he had set out to do because it was the only thing he could have done other than stopping.
And, if he were to be honest with himself, stopping would have been a lot worse than going.
By then, he held the lives of millions in one hand and the deaths of thousands in the other.
He had grown powerful.
He was a player in the game, not a piece.
What he did, how he chose to go on, would have a permanent effect on-
So yes. He was perfectly happy sipping on his hot chocolate while he thought of words to say. If Ghost had already been talking, he wouldn't have to, right? Though, that did beg the question of what Ghost had said while he was asleep. The best course of action, as it seemed to him, would be to immediately ask about the contents of Ghost's words. He was just about to stop sipping and open his mouth to say something when his focus was cut off by the fact that Celestia was already talking, and he had been phased out. The willpower to process the words being directed at him suddenly reappeared, and he did his best to figure out what was being said to him.
A few seconds of conversational assumptions later and he had pieced together that he was being told that Ghost and the Princesses had gone over the odd events of the past day or two and had worked out a little deal that went something along the lines of agreeing to a list of terms in exchange for staying in a small cabin west-ish of the mountain and by a nearby town.
The exact wording didn't quite stick, but, in roughness, the terms went something like this: - Don't cause mass hysteria - Don't intentionally start a cult - Don't intentionally attract the attention of known or unknown hostile powers - Don't consume the magic of ponykind to become the most powerful - Don't mess with the timeline(s), as they're already screwed up enough as it is - Don't summon an eldritch horror near populated areas - Don't summon an eldritch horror that could be considered hostile without means to quickly "put it back" - Don't forget to make tea and scones if you summon an eldritch horror that could be considered friendly - Don't loom too intensely around the shorter ponies - Don't engage in typical or atypical villainy - Don't consume- okay I'm sure the point has been made by now
All he had to do was, well, not do any of the stuff mentioned above (and a few more similar, but increasingly specific, "don't"s) and he got the keys to a lovely little cottage until someone more in-the-know figured out what the hell was going on. All in all, wasn't a bad deal.
n.The exchange of thoughts and feelings by means of speech or sign language.
That was the result Ghost had come up with when The Guardian had idly wondered aloud what it really meant. And, yes, he had to speak to get this result. As "in sync" as the two were, neither or them could actually "read" the other's mind. Ghost had explained that to him way back when "Nightmare Daddy Oryx" was causing sterile-neutrino related problems, in a rusty elevator going up to the desiccated passenger pods of a dead colony ship.
Fun times.
Anyway, the word was hot on his mind at the moment. Any official hullabaloo was out of the way (for now) and the "official meeting" still had half an hour left on the royal schedule. The Princesses were understandably quite eager to squeeze in as much idle small talk as they could, and The Guardian was picking up on it. The current topic was about a certain warm beverage.
"Ignoring a plethora of other related anomalous similarities, I find it rather intriguing that both our 'worlds' have tea," Celestia noted with a hint of bemusement, just before taking a sip from her chamomile. "The specific similarities of all these coincidences may hint at the nature of your displacement here, but we can fuss about that later. What's tea like in The City?"
Well, shit, he didn't know. He never really stopped to get any for himself. Or much of anything, really. He shifted about under the big, heavy blanket atop his withers, taking another sip of his mind-fuzzifying hot cocoa before giving his most eloquent of answers: "I dunno."
Amazing.
He took another sip before elaborating. He could practically sense the coming questions. "I've never had much in the way of food or drink. There are plenty of Guardians who do, but most Guardians live for longer periods than I and a few others do. Resurrections bring us back either completely fine, or just at the brink of starving if resources are unavailable. Lord Shaxx, the Guardian who handles Guardian-on-Guardian training, would know a thing or two. He's been yelling quite a bit these last couple of years, and sometimes loses his voice. Takes the Vanguard's entire private stock just to get it back. Heh."
The inquisitive looks on their faces told him he may have forgotten to explain something. The two looked at each other, then back at him. That was all the confirmation he needed.
"Right, what wasn't covered?" he asked with a dejected little sigh.
Celestia spoke first, her eyes narrowing by the slightest degree. "Your eating habits, 'resurrections', and this 'Vanguard'. I don't believe I've heard about any of those from your Ghost or Luna." She seemed a little more on edge. Maybe it was her stiffened neck, or the way she lowered her teacup, or, some other cue he might've been subconsciously picking up on.
Whatever the case, he had already explained most of the important details to Luna back in their little dream-talk, but figured repeating some of it would be fine. He wasn't used to doing this much talking, and it was beginning to grow uncomfortable. Regardless, he'd soon be alone with Ghost in a nice little cabin somewhere, hopefully undisturbed, so-
"The eating and the rez' thing tie into each other, though they might need some background. Ghost tells this story better than I do, but I don't want to bother him. He's got enough going on in his head right now. I think." He took another sip, about halfway done the steaming cup. The hot liquid tingled slightly as it went down, not feeling TOO hot, despite what his eyes told him about the wavering wisps drifting upward from the rim of the mug between his hooves.
"So! Uh...where to begin?" He smiled a little, awkwardly, and shifted under the blanket. "I was dead for two hundred years before Ghost found me. Roughly. I have no memory of who I was prior to being initially resurrected, but Ghost and I have deduced I was, like millions of others at the time, trying to flee the planet during an invasion of what I can really only describe as great tetrahedral ships that caused intense existential collapse in most of my species across maybe, I don't know...Slightly less than a dozen planets? We were rather spread out at the time, and larger populations only existed on a few planets close to home, but still.
"From records I've found, and I'll spare you the details, it wasn't pretty. Long story short, the spherical god-entity responsible for the creation of the Ghosts managed to spare a good amount of life on our home planet by retreating there and making a 'final stand'. We call it the Traveler, though due to some discoveries I've begun addressing it as the Gardener. I wont bore you with why right now, it's an entirely different story that I'm sure you'd love to hear later, but it is...rather long. The point is, just as it spent the last of it's power, it created small mechanical bodies for the 'Ghosts', who then set out to find those among Humanity's dead who had...preferable traits for the purpose of ensuring human survival, societal recovery, and eventually natural recovery of the Traveler itself. Purposes weren't entirely clear in the years following the Collapse, and a lot of troublesome characters with dangerous abilities and immortality were pitted against those who weren't assholes. It was messy, from what I've heard. A friend of mine's managed to survive from close to the beginning and, well, he didn't have a lot of happy stories."
"And so," Celestia interjected, starting to understand, "-you were brought back much later then. I'd ask how such a feat is possible, but from what I understand, our realities work on entirely different sets of 'rules'. No form of resurrection 'here' could ever result in a specimen such as yourself, no offense intended. Most of the time, one would get either soul or body to come back to life, not both at the same time."
Luna smiled, jumping at a chance to calmly tease her sister. "Been fiddling with necromancy, have you Celestia?"
That made the solar diarch twitch. "It would be horrid of me to do so! I would often the effects firsthoof of such magical blasphemy centuries ago, when ponies were foalish enough to commonly meddle in such dark arts. It never ended well for anypony, alive or passed."
A few sipping-filled moments passed before The Guardian continued.
"Right, so. Food. Every resurrection brings me back in a state that I exist in in at least several other possible timelines. I've figured that you know what these are, at least on a conceptual scale, so I'll skip that part and jump to the current theory on how Guardians come back so perfectly fine each time. Since the number of branching timelines splits at what is presumably an exponential rate, there are presumably a lot of other 'me's and 'you's existing in mostly parallel timelines. The running theory is that when a Ghost goes to resurrect a Guardian, they're combing through similar timelines to recreate us using preexisting mental information and copied physical information to construct an entirely 'new' body while maintaining the same mind.
"The reason why some of us used to come back starving is because, in an overwhelmingly large amount of timelines, starvation was the most common trend. Recently, with the existence of the city, that's less of an issue. Presumably, most of the other 'me's have the common sense to feed themselves, so, when I get revived I'm not immediately stricken with hunger pains."
There were a few more seconds as the information processed. Celestia was running the logic through in her head, and most of it seemed to work out, barring a few flaws here and there. Then again, he wasn't talking about Equestria's special type of time-flow, so, anything was possible. Different dimensions and all.
"And this 'Vanguard' you mentioned?" Celestia prompted.
"Oh! I almost forgot. Yes, that's fairly simple. It's just the title for the main gathering of Guardians who operate our of The City. There are a few other prominent groups, but the Vanguard is one of the only one most heavily populated with Guardians."
The conversation lapsed into less informative and more casual talk after that. Sometimes the sisters would slip into their own branching tangents that The Guardian didn't understand a word of, and he'd simply work on slowly finishing his hot chocolate until he was either addressed or had something to say. Much to his comfort, this didn't happen often.
It was odd how easily perturbed he was by talking. Sure, he could speak just fine, and he never had any problems with stuttering or the like, he just preferred not to talk. Ghost had always done most of the talking, even when he wanted to say something. It just...was. Ghost had mentioned this before, but the topic only ever came up once. Years of staring certain death and existence deletion in the face had turned his visible reactions into one constant stoic expression, so, it was never really clear when he was uncomfortable. As such, he sort of just said whatever came to mind to try ending his part of the conversation as fast as possible. Most of the time, in his experience, the only things being said were both related to the current world-ending events and typically weren't said by him. He just showed up, tried not to die, and did the killing. Most of what he did was all the same. What was he supposed to talk about? Himself? His thoughts about what he did? How could he even try when he wasn't sure himself? How many senseless sprees of slaughter had he gone on during patrols simply out of routine? Distantly, he could feel something knocking in his chest. His head felt fuzzy and something dripped down from his left eye socket. What kind of "Guardian" was he really? One out of countless iterations all doing more or less the same thing to the same end with-
"Guardian! Snap out of it!"
A solid thunk dinked him on the horn as metal bonked whatever-the-hell horns were made of.
Ghost was out, the Princesses were staring at him concerned, and there was hot chocolate spilled all over his forehooves, the mug shattered into chunks and grains.
A previously unnoticed egg-timer on the table dinged. Official meeting time was spent.
The Canterlot Royal Gardens looked a lot like the gardens in the Dreaming City, a place which held no meaning to any of the Princesses or Guards that Ghost had tried to make conversation with. The Guardian had announced a sudden desire to go for a walk, just a quick jog to get his thoughts in order. He hadn't been lying and was indeed doing exactly what he said he'd do, running his concerns through his head over and over, as if he were reading the same book over and over to draw some new insight from it. He was so involved in his thoughts, he hardly noticed the crackling blue hoofprints he was leaving. Little fires in the grass were subsequently being put out by two accompanying guards, who did their jobs without complaint or expression.
So, he thought to himself, what was it that he thought of himself? Of everything he did? What exactly was he supposed to do in his situation? Facing genocidal wars from multiple species for a plethora of reasons, he was given a gun and prompted to start shooting. It hadn't stopped since then. He remembered Ghost saying something about that, about the shooting never stopping. That, along with a bunch of other things he remembered, stuck with him, all of it bumping around in the back of his mind like a flock of Saint's pigeons fluttering about in The City's walls.
But now, he realized, he was presented with a situation in which the shooting had stopped. Or at least seemed to have stopped. It was odd. Like a-
His simile was interrupted by Ghost flying right in front of his face, chittering urgently as he fluttered his shell bits around.
"You're about to walk off a cliff and you're setting the ground on fire." Ghost's tone was something between concerned and sarcastic, his shell tipped down in scrutiny. "I know you've got a lot going on in your head, and normally I wouldn't interrupt because you think through these things pretty quick, but your energy levels have been fluctuating lately and the spikes have been increasing."
The Guardian turned his head, looking back at the tiny patches of flame, absent of guards putting them out. He carefully peered over the balcony edge he had almost stepped over and looked the two pegasus guards, who had likely been waiting to catch him in case he fell. He opened his mouth, trying to think of something to say, but then closed it.
"Alrighty, now that I've got your attention, please sit still while I, ah...Try to figure out why you're so, erm, unstable. Physically, I mean."
Ghost hovered a little closer while The Guardian backed away from the ledge and the guards swooshed up and onto the balcony, taking position nearby while maintaining a comfortable distance. The Guardian was being treated as a "special guest" at the moment, so while he was being accompanied by guards mostly everywhere, he wasn't under special watch. As such, he was thinking of it as having a CCTV camera network watching him for general security reasons, and not like he was anyone's prisoner.
Idly, he looked down at his noticeably crackling hooves, watching as faintly blue arcs of Light flashed beneath his fur and lashed out at the ground around his hooves, leaving scorch marks on the grass. He lifted a forehoof and noted the small fire that was beneath it. Aaaand back down goes the hoofsie, he thought, snuffing the flame with a 'pwomp'. He looked from his hooves to up around his torso, noticing more of the flickering arcs washing around. It was like watching ocean waves lapping at some inconsistent shoreline, occasionally overlapping and tangling. Well. That certainly explained why he felt like he had just downed a few pints of espresso. Sort of. Ghost mentioned being physically unstable, and this certainly looked like instability. It FELT a lot different though, like nervous energy building up, making him want to fidget and tap his hooves.
The swirls and arcs of energy were getting brighter, and it wasn't entirely hard to notice the staring the guards were doing. Ghost was still fluttering around him, occasionally scanning and mostly just looking (sounding, rather) concerned. A brief pushing kind of feeling began to build up from inside his chest, er, barrel? Whatever the term was, he felt something odd, and noticed a stronger pulse in the arcs. He inhaled, felt a sneeze coming along, and Ghost noisily panicked.
"Well, this is bad. You two! Run!" the talkative little dinklebot exclaimed as he flew past them and around a column. The pegasi had dived behind a stone bench just as The Guardian's head was tilted back on the inhale. One exhale later and a shockingly energizing blast of lightning shook the castle, leaving a very shiny pile of dust where The Guardian had been sitting.
Tentatively, Ghost peered around his hiding column. "Fiddlesticks, this again."
---
"So, he was just sitting there, and blew up?" Celestia asked rhetorically, a single eyebrow raised as she spoke. Ghost made a chittering sound equal to a passive shrug. One of the castle maids had carefully swept up the silvery, glowing ashes into an ornate bucket, which was now set atop Celestia's desk in the Sun Princess's secondary office. Celestia was seated behind the aforementioned desk on a floor pillow. Two guards were stationed outside the doorway and two more inside the room by the door. Ghost was hovering just above the bucket.
"One second he was sitting about, charged with energies, the next he sneezed and blew up."
A moment of quiet passed.
"Do remember that I can resurrect him. He's fine, but, well, just a bit more atomized than usual."
Celestia, who had been organizing trade regulation paperwork before the little explosion, sipped her late-afternoon tea and leaned her head a little closer to the bucket.
"And this is, well, all of him?"
"I think so. I've checked a few times to be sure, so if it isn't, well...You've got the whole 'Sun Princess' motif going, so I'm assuming you'd be able to incinerate him rather quickly should he be missing anything too important."
Celestia squinted, both brows raised. "Well, if it comes to that...Are you waiting to bring him back for any reason in specific?" The entirety of the resurrection business had Celestia altogether uncomfortable. The only form of total resurrection she had ever heard of was both necromantic and rather unseemly, but both Guardian and Ghost seemed completely nonchalant about it. She knew the rules were different where they were from, so she was assuming that their version of a resurrection was much different from the one she was imagining.
"What? Oh, yes, actually. I have a few questions I'd like to ask. I'm afraid my Guardian will explode again after a certain amount of time, and-"
And so began a very long and very complicated series of questions, comparisons, mathematical conversions, and brief philosophical discussions. Ghost had been wondering why The Guardian's body seemed incapable of properly storing and re-purposing his rapidly accumulating stores of Light. In order to keep his fleshy friend powered and revivable, Ghost had been slipshoddily converting the preexisting 'magic' all around them into both stable and unstable charges of Light. He had figured out how to do this not too long ago, back when the first weeks of the Dreaming City's time-loop curse was in effect. The energy conversion had been from extra Light funneled into physical charges, however, and not from a vast ocean of this new energy into, well, the physical body of his Guardian. How any of this was possible in the first place drew back to the paracasual nature of Guardians and their ability to store excessive amounts of energy in their bodies. The writer would like to take this sentence to apologize for the virulent use of the word "energy" and its various forms in this paragraph.
Anyway, it boiled down to this: Ghost believed that when they were dumped into this reality, the Universe went "Bah, screw it, just shove his soul into one of those ponies and be done with it" and The Guardian was subsequently framed with a body that could not handle the sheer amount of awesome that came with being a Guardian. He was, by several Logics, pretty freaking powerful, and would thus need a body that would be able to store and release that power without much disaster. A pony body wouldn't cut it, and, after a little exposition, Ghost and Celestia agreed that an Alicorn body would only cause trouble. That thought reminded the two that there wasn't a way to alter his consistent physical form yet, and a discussion about transmutation was swiftly booted up.
To cut the summary short, Celestia noted the Elements of Harmony being used to turn Discord to stone, and an idea was born.
---
"So the plan is to wait until I blow up again, then blast the urn my ashes are in with a friendship laser in order to try giving me a new, fully operational body that wont explode?" asked The Guardian, his tone hard to read. Ghost bobbed, likely in affirmation. He had just been revived a few minutes ago, minutes that Ghost had spent filling him in on what he missed. Part of that was keeping him in a more explosive-resistant environment until the Elements were assembled and used by their Bearers. Guardian nodded, frowning in consideration. "Alright, sure, lets do it. Not the weirdest thing we've ever done."
It'd be a few days, the Guardian learned, until the equivalent of a raid team came to solve his little exploding problem. Something particularly nasty had slinked out of the forest next to the town they all conveniently lived in and was causing problems.
"They'll be fine," said the guard-slash-messenger who had come to tell him exactly what you just read above. "Things like that happen all the time, they're more than capable of handling...stuff." The guard was wearing an interesting expression after saying it all, thought the Guardian to himself. He sniffled, then, his attention being returned to his congested sinuses. Along with his metaphysical issues, he was experiencing the wonderful ride of what was commonly known as the "common cold." Why it wouldn't go away when he was resurrected was the most baffling thing about it, really. He hadn't ever gotten sick before, likely due to lack of exposure to...anything, so, being sick for the first time was a lot less exciting than he had imagined it. It was like being drunk and keenly aware of everything at the same time, sort of. He had never gotten drunk before, either. Recent events were taken into consideration, and he decided changing that was a very, very high priority.
Ghost pulled him out of his thoughts with a chirp.
"Hey, that one kind of looked like how other Guardians look when they talk about all the stuff you do. Sort of," he said, bobbing in the doorway that the guard had been in not long ago, watching him trot off to somewhere else. The Guardian peeked around the door, watching the guard turn a corner and disappear.
"Part of why I don't like talking to them." The Guardian sighed and shook the soot out of his coat, rather upset that his cloak hadn't come back the second to last time he was resurrected. Without anything covering him, he felt exposed, especially since anyone who both knew who he was and looked at him looked right at his ass. He was told it was because of the marks sizzling on his flanks. It didn't help too much. It was an odd thing, watching a mixed amalgamation of the Guardian class symbols shift and crackle. It only burned a little, but only when he looked at it for too long, watching the lines cross and the colors change. Any pony who looked at it was mesmerized by it, asking what it meant and a thousand following questions. The Guardian typically found himself unable to give much of an answer, his lips tightening and drawing back, his speech function essentially freezing up. Ghost did his best to fill in for him, but it was still uncomfortable to listen to, all the back and forth. It was odd, how it was easy to talk to unquestioning guards and the Princesses, but the moment any of the other staff took interest, hardly a peep came out of him. He didn't like it, he wasn't used to it, and he didn't want to be in the same room after it would happen.
He spent half a day pretending to nap in the little blast room that had been set up to contain his explosions. It was boring, but no one bothered him.
The other half of the day, after he blew up again, he was sitting in the gardens, in a secluded little patch of hedges and a few statues. The statues were lined up along a cobblestone path in the center of the courtyard, and the hedges lined the area like walls. The path led to a little balcony by the edge, overlooking the distance. There wasn't much to see out there. Only the occasional gardener would come by, mostly leaving him alone. Whenever they would say anything, it was usually just a passing greeting. A small "hello", or a little nod. Little acknowledgements, no staring, no prolonged conversations where they would look right into his eyes and expect him to talk back, no looking confused when Ghost would start talking, and no excessive "woah"ing at his height. Or his horn. His very long, slender, pointy horn. Yes, he knew it was big, he didn't need it pointed out. Just over half a week in a new body and he was already self conscious about it. How fun.
The sun was, oh, maybe seventy-five percent through the sky by then, going down but not sinking or making the sky look all orange and colorful. He was lying down, a small cube of this black wax-like stuff between his hooves. He had kept it since the first few deep delves of the Hive King Orxy's Dreadnought. The massive ship was still parked in Jupiter's rings, Oryx was dead, most of his cronies were being slaughtered in combat rituals Guardians were actively encouraged to participate in, so, "why not explore?" asked a bunch of suicidal Hunters, curious Warlocks, and amazingly thick-skulled Titans. The results varied, and the Guardian only kept around a few little treasures that weren't lethal. Among them was the cube of pseudo wax, which he had kept in his little box. It would wobble back into the shape of a melting cube after some meddling and squishing, eating up a little bit of his Light in order to do so. Ghost had told him it was doing that, but it wasn't a problem, since he was generating enough to briefly put a dent in a star. Well, he would be, if his body didn't keep exploding. Getting a body that wouldn't explode was an extra point of concern, when he thought about it. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted that much power. Besides, what would he use it for here? Back home, he had a job, sort of, and killing eldritch abominations on limited power was, well, it worked for him. Having slightly less limited power and not having to use it against eldritch abominations was a daunting prospect.
He sniffled again, setting his cube aside and digging through his box with a hoof. He didn't really know if he had kept any tissues in it, but it wouldn't have hurt to check. Any fabric would have worked, really, but the most he found was a purple strand of cloth, torn around the edges. He put it back, took out a cookie to nibble on, and closed the box. The day he blew his nose in one of Saint's accolades- well, it would never happen. He munched on the cookie, tasting vanilla and sugar, chewing for a moment then swallowing. He grimaced. The snot was starting to run down his throat, somehow, even though his nose was all the way at the front of his face and it didn't make sense how it could get from there to his gullet.
"Blegh," he vocalized. Snot was gross.
"Not to your liking?" asked an intriguingly charismatic voice to his left. He wanted to look, but decided against it. Talking was easier without eye contact.
"No, no, the cookie's fine. Just sick for the first time."
"Well, I think we've all been there before. This has been following me around for the past few days, but I think you'll have more use of it than I will, so I'll just, oh, leave this here, right in your peripheral.~"
The edge of a light blue box slide into the Guardian's view.
"Uh...Thanks, actually. Been needing something like this for a while."
"Not a problem, friend, happy to help a kindred being. All that chaotic energy bubbling about inside you simply must be driving you crazy! Can't imagine how it must be, living with it all so repressed.~"
The Guardian's interest was poked, stabbed rather, and he turned to look at the owner of the voice, who wasn't there anymore. The box of tissues was, though. He prodded it with a hoof, finding it was very much real. A moment or two of paranoid looking around confirmed that whomever he had just been conversing with had left without a trace, besides the tissues.
A pregnant pause passed, wind whisking the bushes idly, a few leaves blowing about, scraping on the cobblestone behind him.
"Honestly, with how this has been so far, if this doesn't end horribly, I'm going to be disappointed."
He snagged a tissue in his hooves, somehow managed to blow into the tissue without much issue, aaaaaand nothing happened. Well, talk about a let-down. It was nice to have a slightly clearer shnozz, though. He sniffled again, enjoying the brief feeling of respite, and immediately felt the repercussions of inhaling with a clear nose in a garden-y-ish area. Pollen.
One sneeze later and he was whisked away off to what would be the southwestern region of Whitetail Woods, if it were to be pointed out on any modern Equestrian map. He didn't know that, of course.
The past few days had been nothing but curveballs. This was no exception.
Ghost was a little worried. More than a little, really. More like...mildly worried. Passively concerned? Deeply sick with fear? They all worked, depending on how he thought about the situation. He'd gone off to scan something interesting for one second and suddenly his Guardian was just gone. This wasn't the first time his Guardian had been spontaneously teleported, but it WAS the first time the two had been separated by it. Adding to the concern was how his Guardian wasn't dead. If he was, then he'd be able to revive him. Yank his body from wherever it was before and pop it back to where he was. Ghost didn't understand why most other Ghosts never talked about how they could do this, and why they didn't do it more often, but that was beside the point. He put the thought aside as he continued to scan the patch of flattened grass where his Guardian had been lying just a minute ago. Nothing. Still nothing. More nothing. Just the grass, dirt, and the stone below.
The only thing he learned was how pristine the soil was. Interesting, but not important. He put his worry down by thinking about how his Guardian might tilt his head when he inevitably told him about the soil quality. He never talked much, but that was fine. Most of his communication was visual. Body language, facial expressions, the amount of Light concentrating in his hands, and a thousand other little cues that helped piece together what his Guardian was thinking.
He stopped his scanning and huffed- well, chittered, really -and looked about the spot again. He paused there for a moment, just looking, before swinging around and flying off back into the castle proper. He doubted he'd be able to figure this out on his own.
---
The Guardian felt as if he had just bellyflopped into a pool of oil. Given the distance his body was just magically displaced, it really wasn't too surprising. His head breached the surface of a dark pool, pitch black fluid noiselessly dripping off of his disturbingly dry mane and fur. There was no concussive sensation and he was just as awake as he was when he was lazily wasting time in the gardens, so, he figured he had probably just arrived. Maybe. Everything is subject to question when you've just been schwooped off by a handsomely rumbly voice with magic tissues. His nose DID feel a lot clearer though, so, there was that.
He stood up and looked around, taking note of his surroundings, studying in depth and detail the total darkness he found himself in. Mmm, yes, so much to be learned from seeing absolutely nothing. Channeling just a litt- okay, a lot, on accident, of his Light into his beautiful beautiful horn resulted in a nice, toasty jet of Solar energy. In layman's terms, his horn was on fire, sprouting off flame into the air, and blowing his mane out of his face harmlessly. Lovely.
Pivoting his attention forward, he saw what he could see. Before and around him was a whole lot of mossy rock. It looked fairly cobblestone and formed a very wall looking wall in front of him. He turned around, and beheld a stairwell made of a slightly smoother stone, though it was mostly covered in moss. Up the stairs was a big stony hatch, one that he figured would look great if it didn't exist anymore. Ghost wasn't around to open this door, so he'd have to do it himself. He looked for a button, didn't find one, and did a very Titan-ish thing.
The hatch crumbled as a semi-circle of Void smashed through it, sending sizzling bits of granite across the courtyard. The Guardian steadied himself afterward.
"Good to know that still works," he muttered, the sounds of an outdoor setting quickly settling in. Birds were around, and not just pigeons or crows. He'd seen and heard a few pre-Collapse recordings, so, he could recognize all the extra noises. There weren't a lot of different birds left around the Earth he left. Not that he'd seen, really. His life had kept him rather busy, so exploring the rest of the planet he hailed from hadn't been much of a possibility. His hooves clacked noisily on the cobblestone ground, eyes skimming over the area around him. What he had presumed was a courtyard was actually the deteriorating interior of a large stone hall. The roof had completely collapsed, and the "cobblestone" he was walking on was, well, the roof. The hatch he had blasted through must've just been another piece of rock. Despite the lack of a ceiling, the walls of the pale structure were still marginally standing, despite the telltale wear-and-tear of time. Vines and other foliage had crept up the sides, flowers blooming along the more successful plants near the top of the walls. Mosses and lichen dotted the lower bits, and the occasional patch of weeds cropped up from the broken and eroded ground.
There was a large, rotted-looking wooden double-door at the far end of the building, conveniently unblocked by any of the rubble. The Guardian made a note to check it out once he was done looking around elsewhere. There was plenty of sunlight to make everything nice and noticeable, so he looked around for any hints or clues. Useful details. Things he might need to know should the knowing of those things prove useful. Curiosity was only a part of it. Experience alone was enough to get him to start looking around.
From the hole he had charged through, there were six visible stone columns that used to hold up the roof. Four of them were completely collapsed, partially sticking up from the condensed rubble in shattered heaps. Two were mostly intact, being the two closest to the door. A look behind him confirmed the existence of two more columns, also mostly intact. The collapsed pillars would make useful low cover, and the larger ones could be used for quick hide-behinds. Maybe if he kicked them hard enough, he could collapse them? Maybe. Might just break his legs, though. He DID know how to heal himself, so, it would only be a temporary issue. Maybe.
If anything else had ever been in the room he was in, it was covered in stone from above. He took a few minutes to pick through the rubble, but only found the occasional collection of bugs. He'd have to remember where they were in case he was out here long enough to starve. Light could do many things, but it couldn't fill stomachs. Not in a meaningful way, anyway.
As he moved towards the wooden door from all the way across the room, he heard a wet splat behind him. It had come from the hole he had come out of, so naturally the only thing to do was roll forward and skitter behind one of the larger bits of debris.
He forgot he didn't know how to roll in this body and landed flat on his back, exhaling sharply though his nostrils as the pain flared. It did get him away from the oily, pitch black look-alike that had, for all intents and purposes, just smacked it's chitinous hooves into the ground where he was just standing. Said hooves immediately cracked apart, spilling that dry black fluid out onto the stones. The thing made a gurgling hiss of a noise before slipping back into itself and hobbling forward, pulsing a bit. The Guardian rolled himself around and flung his head in one motion, doing his best impersonation of flinging a Dawnblade at the thing. A good bit of Light was put into the effort, and a single slice of firey purging was sent at the thing. It was ash on the stone a moment later, a neat little explosion making a nice, echoing boom that shook the walls just a little.
The Guardian stood, eyes focused on the dark stairwell. There might be more, experience dictated. He waited a minute. Two minutes. Five. He blinked, and there was another, slowly pulling its oily self up the stairs, its head just barely above the top of the stairs. Since it had worked the first time, another slice of flaming death cremated yet another horribly constructed double of himself. He really didn't like it when things that weren't him started to look like him. Something else had done that before, and it didn't end very well. At all.
Two more of the things had come crawling up at him, and he didn't want to be babysitting the weird pool of gunk forever, so, an idea was had. After the fifth was dealt with, he took a deep breath and floated upwards, Light keeping him uplifted as he concentrated. He didn't have hands for this, so, all of the juice went to his horn. Angled down the stairs, he inhaled, lifted his chin upwards, and channeled a rocketing blue-white storm down the stairwell. Immediately he was hit by the stench of ozone, the torrent of air-cutting Arc energies buzzling deliciously. A line of scorched stone trailed along the ground in front of the dark hole, leading into it, and right to where the pool would be below. A foul burning smell eventually made it's way up, making him wrinkle his nose and sneeze, breaking his concentration and subsequently breaking his hold on the little storm he had going.
A skull-ringing pain erupted in the general area of his forehead as his horn exploded somewhere in the middle, the torrent of arc energy thundering up into the sky, flashing out angrily over the surrounding area. He fell slowly to the ground, breathing erratically as he felt the new sensation. He rated it a four out of ten on the pain scale. Maybe a five? Wasn't as bad as making a crater in the ground in the Last City, so, definitely a four.
He made a noise with his mouth, something like the sound a child makes when they sneak a sip of wine when their parent isn't looking. It was the most he did in reaction to his horn blasting off. He could see the top half impaled in the far wall, smoking from one end. His own half was smoking a bit, too, all burnt and sensitive on the stump.
It wasn't that bad, really, he had just been using it as one channel for his Light. He had others. He cautiously stepped down the stairs, setting what was left of his horn alight so he could see. What had been a creepy pool of evil oil was now a very crispy looking room of burnt rock. Lovely. And with that, he trotted back up and kicked what he hoped was a grenade back down behind him. The juicy sound of a Void blast made him smile a little as what was left of the room was...negated. He glanced back for a mere second, just to make sure he wasn't being followed (as the paranoid often do) and turned to be face to face with a set of scrutinizing orange eyes.
They glowed a little, matching his own silvery eyes, and they stood there lighting up each other's faces for a minute. Eyebrows furrowed, foreheads tensed, and nostrils slowly tugged up just a tad. Tan coat, more curved horn, big leonine mane (also orange, though a brighter hue than the eyes), smaller-ish snoot. An interesting complexion, really. Different from all the other ponies he'd seen so far, but still similar enough to consider being a pony.
Two genuine, joyous, likely insane sets of laughter filled the deteriorating structure, echoing mildly. They didn't know each other, obviously, but they knew enough from how the other existed that there was at least one thing in common.
