What if the lostbelt of the rejected human history were given a second chance at life in equestria
The Lostbelts. Failed timeline of greater history of man, the history of winners born of the correct choices that lead to the right path of the present state of human history. These lostbelts are the results of human failing to follow the right path due to the wrong choices in life and were deemed unworthy or exsistance to the world they came from. Such is their nature of failure that they are even cut off from the greater multiverse as a result of this. But what if they were given a second chance at life, but on a different planet? Where they could be given the life that were stolen from them and thrive in a land no unlike their own? This is the tale written by the failures of the lostbelts kings and their subjects. Though the world of the proper human history may not hear their story, the world of the Friendship and Magic will hear their story. For this is the tale of the Lostbelt Kingdoms.
The lostbelt of the permafrost empire of Anastasia had been denied to exist in the world once again. Only this time it wasn’t because of the world itself this time, but by the only master of the proper human history and Chaldea. Ritsuka Fujimaru. The man that saved the world from incineration by the hands of Goetia, The beast of pity. It was wrong for this place to be denied an existence. Even though this was a wrong point in history. The lives of the now free nation of Russia were doomed to once again fade away into nothingness. Never to know what lies beyond the borders of Russia, never to experience new things in their new found freedom, never to live out their new lives in peace.
All that they could experience in their new but short lived existence of freedom was the sound of Antonio Salieri playing twinkle twinkle little star on the piano that survived the battle with Chaldea and Ivan The Terrible. The Yaga’s that survived the aftermath standing in awe at the music he was performing. This music that he said it was called was something that lifted their spirits and sense of wonder. Was there more of this music out in the world? Could they make music like the hairless Yaga is making? This made their curiosity peak more and more by the seconds...but sadly their questions would not go answered as the Lostbelt began to quickly fade away.
The snow that covered the ground, the destroyed building where the battle was fought against the two giants of ice and earth, the remains of the fantasy tree, all of it was fading away. Salieri took notice of the Lostbelt fading away, but continued to play on the piano. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for these poor creatures that were once humans. It’s not like they wanted to be the way they are, it was the only way to survive in a world ruled by a tyrant and a place where no one is given mercy from the harsh weather of the cold.
“Goodbye, Yaga’s of the Lostbelt. May you find rest and peace wherever you may go in nothingness.” Salieri said as he played the last note to the song he was playing. The moment he played the last note on the piano, everything vanished into nothingness. Thus, brings an end to the false history of Russia...But...where one story ends, a new one begins.
(Equestria, Treehouse of Harmony)
Equestria, the land of friendship, magic, and harmony. Home to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, co-rulers that had ruled over and protected the ponies for the past one-thousand years. That is until The Elements of Harmony had chosen Twilight and her friends to be the shield that protects Equestria and the ponies from enemies that might want to cause harm or take over the world. It was here that Princess Twilight Sparkle and her number one assistant Spike were making their way towards the Treehouse of Harmony.
For the past couple of days or so, she had been having weird dreams lately. Dreams of weird wolf-like creatures with body structure of a human in the mirror world, demonic beasts with fangs that can rip a pony into pieces, giants that towered over a city to clash with each other. What got her to head over to the Treehouse was the dream she had of it glowing before exploding into prismatic colors. The moment the light from the explosion vanished, it revealed one of the wolf-like humanoids standing in front of her, but she couldn’t tell what it looked like due to the dream ending from hearing Spike waking her up.
“If you don’t mind me asking Twilight, why are we here at the treehouse of harmony again?” Spike asked as Twilight looked around the area as if looking for something.
“We’re here because of the dream I’ve been having for the past couple of days.” Twilight answered while continuing to search around the area of the tree.
“You mean the one with the weird looking wolf creatures? I thought it was just a nightmare you had from reading too many fantasy books late at night.”
“That had nothing to do with the dreams I’ve been having...also I stopped after you and the girls had an intervention for it three months ago. But that’s not the case.”
“Then why are you looking around the tree? Did you lose something the last time we were here?”
“No, but I am looking for something that might lead to a clue to dreams I’ve been having.” She said before turning her attention onto the treehouse. “All I know is that the tree of harmony started to glow and exploded. Meaning that there’s something that might be happening to Equestria that not even Celestia and Luna are prepared for if the dreams are a sign of a warning or something.”
“Shouldn’t we bring the others here? You know, so that we might be able to find where the source might be hiding?”
“The girls are busy teaching a class with the students over at the school of friendship. If I can’t find what I’m looking for today, then I’ll ask them to help with it tomorrow.” Twilight said before returning to her search. “Now keep an eye out for anything suspicious, Spike or odd. Leave no stone unturned.” She said as Spike was about to look around the area they were in, only to notice the tree began to glow brightly.
“...Does that count as something suspicious or odd?” Spike asked at Twilight turned her attention onto Spike for a moment before looking at the treehouse glowing. Her eyes widened upon seeing this as a beam of magic shot out from it and into the sky. There was a moment of silence within the area they were in, but was soon broken as a massive earthquake shook the very ground they were on followed by a giant booming explosion sound.
“What in the name of Celestia was that!?” Spike yelled as he felt himself falling to the ground, only to be picked up by Twilight’s magic and placed onto the purple alicorn’s back.
“Don’t know, but we better check outside to see what’s going on.” Twilight suggested as he flew out of the area they were in while avoiding some of the rocks falling from the side of the cliffs due to the earthquake. Seconds later, Twilight and Spike would be outside of the area that leads to the treehouse of harmony and look around to see if anything had happened. The alicorn would feel Spike tap her on the shoulder to get her attention. Twilight would see the young dragon’s shocked expression on his face as he was looking up at the sky.
Twilight in turn looked up to see what the young dragon was looking at as her eyes widened and her jaw dropped in both shock and awe at what they were looking at. What they saw was some kind of giant purple and cosmic color tree shooting from wherever it was sprouting from as it gave off an otherworldly glow. The alicorn stared at this marvel for a few seconds before taking up towards the sky to get a better view at this...thing. Upon reaching the height that she needed, the alicorn took notice of the tree blooming as a purple-cosmic colored flower erupted from it.
“Twilight...Do you know what that thing is?” Spike asked.
“I don’t know what that thing is, Spike. This is something I’ve never seen before.” Twilight answered before analysing the weird tree-like structure shooting out from the badlands. Upon seeing the plant reaching full bloom, a powerful gust of magic and wind flew past them as it caused Twilight to stagger a bit in the air before regaining her composure of dominance in the sky. Twilight’s mind began to ponder what this plant was. Could it have something to do with the dreams she's been having? A sign from the tree of another mission involving friendship?
“Maybe Princess Celestia might know what it is? I mean she does know a lot about the tree of harmony then we do, right?”
“That is true, but we better inform the girls first and make sure everypony is alright. If that plant’s the reason behind the massive earthquake, then it might’ve caused damage throughout equestria given the height, mass, and volume of this thing.” Twilight said as her horn began to glow. “Once we know that everypony is safe, then we’ll inform Celesita and Luna about what we just saw.”
“Really hope they have an answer for this. Because so far, I’m getting tired of having one weird thing after another weird thing appearing to cause trouble for Equestria.”
“You’re not the only one, Spike..” With that the princess of friendship and her number one assistant teleported off to Ponyville.
“What’s the status of Ponyville? Was anypony hurt or injured during the earthquake?” Twilight asked as she and her friends were inside the alicorn’s home. Specifically the map room.
“So far, everypony in town is doing okay. A little shake from the sudden earthquake, but other than that, no major damages or injuries.” Applejack answered. “What on earth just happened?”
“An earthquake just happened, Applejack. Weren’t you paying attention?” Rainbow Dash said as the farm pony rolled her eyes.
“I know an earthquake just happened. I’m asking what caused the earthquake?”
“Maybe that weird plant thing off in the distance is the cause of all it?” Pinkie Pie said as she noticed the same plant that was outside appear on the crystal map in the badlands area. “Oh, pretty!”
“Pinkie Pie is right about it being the cause of the earthquake.” Twilight said before focusing her attention onto it. “While I was busy searching for something around the Treehouse, it started to glow for a moment before firing off a magical beam towards the sky. Seconds later, this tree flower thing appeared out of nowhere.”
“Y-You think this might be a sign from the tree of harmony?” Fluttershy asked as Twilight pondered the idea of this.
“Maybe, but it’s hard to tell if it is a sign from the tree of harmony.” The alicorn said as she noticed Her and her friends’ cutie marks floating over to where the fantasy tree was located.
“I think that might be a clear sign, don’t you think?” Rainbow Dash asked as a smirk appeared on her face. “Looks like we’re going on another adventure!”
“I do hope that it’s not as dangerous as last time?” Rarity asked as she shivers a bit from her last experience with going on an adventure. “I prefer not to have somepony take my cutie mark...no offence Starlight.”
“N-None taken.” Starlight said before examining the area of where their marks were glowing at. “Weird...Aren't the badlands supposed to be a barren wasteland?”
“Yeah, it’s basically a desert of shorts. Why do you ask?” Twilight asked as she looked over at the area of the make slowly being covered in snow. “Then how come it’s slowly being covered in snow and ice?”
“You think that tree thing might be the cause of it?” Applejack suggested as she noticed Twilight writing something before having Spike set it on fire. “I take it you're getting the Princesses involved in this matter?”
“I have a feeling that everypony in Equestria felt the earthquake. And given what is on the make, it makes sense that it would cause something like this.” She said after sending off two more letters. “Given how this tree is the same color as the element of magic, I can only assume that this is a friendship problem much bigger than anything we had faced before in the past.”
“You mean this new area might be a threat to Equestria?” Fluttershy asked as Twilight shook her head.
“We can’t assume that until we investigate this new area. For all we know, this might be a second of the Crystal Empire that was lost when King Sombra rained over the Crystal Empire. Hence I sent a letter to Cadence along with Celestia and Luna to help us in this matter.”
“Is it that dangerous that we need the help of the princesses? I mean, not that I’m against asking them for help or anything.” Rarity asked.
“We’re dealing with an area that caused a massive earthquake throughout Equestria. It’s better to play it safe then sorry.” Twilight said before looking over her friends. “We’ll take the friendship express over to the halfway point. Once there, we’ll walk on hoof until we make it to the area pointed out on the map. Be ready girls, we don’t know what we might face once we get there.”
(Lostbelt, Russia)
The lostbelt of russia. Home to the inhabitants that called themselves Yaga. This land of snow and frost was once a place that was hard to survive in. Mainly due to the constant snow storms, blizzards, demonic beast, law of the land, and it’s former Tsar Ivan The Terrible. This land was a cold and harsh land that only followed one thing above all else. Only the strong survive. It wasn’t always like this for this country. The Yaga’s used to be humans at one point in the past, but in order to survive the harshness of the frost and snow, they had to alter their physical bodies to adapt to their environment. Thus because of this, they were deemed unworthy to be part of the proper human history and were made into a lostbelt. Within this lostbelt, a pack of Yagas were making their way through the easy to walk snow. Leading them was an anthropomorphic purple and white wolf with bandages covering parts of his upper body. Following behind the pack were a group of humanoid like beings dressed in black clothes as if they were the rear guard for the pack of yagas.
Their leader stopped once they were on the top of a nearby snow mount as he pulled out a pair of binoculars to assess the area they were in. While he was doing this, he noticed that the borderline that reached the end of the lostbelt they were in had desert stretching for miles on end.
“Same as everywhere else, Patxi?” asked a female yaga as he simply nodded.
“From the looks of it, yes.” he said before placing the binoculars back into his coat. “With the blizzard gone, more unexplored areas are starting to open up. This means we’ll be able to reach anyone else outside of Russia.”
“I still have my doubts that we’ll find anyone outside of this place.” said a male yaga. “For all we know, they might attack us so they can eat us.”
“We don’t really have much choice in the matter now do we?” Patxi said as he winced a bit from his injuries. “We have a lot of injured Yagas back home, myself included.and the Tsar isn’t doing so well either. It’s a miracle that he’s even alive given the wound he has on his chest.”
“Which still bugs me as to why we’re helping the Tsar? Isn’t he the one that killed a lot of our kind and put this place through hell?” asked another female Yaga. “Shouldn’t we just kill him for the crimes he’s done to us as payback?”
“The Tsar agreed to help us in exchange we patch him up. Given the state Russia is in, we do all the help we can get if we’re going to bring help.” Patxi answered which caused the female yaga to huff in annoyance.
“You make a valid point...I still don’t trust him though.” She said before looking over at the oprichnik. “Though I can say that having the Tsar’s royal guard is really helpful with killing the demonic beast that ambushed us along the way.”
“I’m wondering what they are. I mean, are they Yagas trained to defend the Tsar, or what?” asked a male yaga as he tried to touch one of them, only to get a light bap on his nose from the oprichnik causing him to yelp in surprise.
“We’ve been over this before. They’re Yagas trained to defend the Tsar, also don’t touch them unless you want them to do that again to you.” Patxi said with a smirk on his face, as the male Yaga rubbed his snout and glared at him. He was about to say something, but soon heard something flying off in the distance.
“Something’s flying above us.” He said as the group readied their guns and swords before looking up at the sky. Patxi pulled out his binoculars again to see what was flying above. From what he could tell, it was three weird but colorful looking horse creatures flying over them as they headed towards the borderline that connects the desert to the lostbelt. “What do you see?”
“....I might’ve found a means of traveling long distances.” He said before looking back at the group. “Those demonic beasts are heading over to where the edge of the snow ends. If we can try and capture three of them, then we can use them to carry supplies from long distances via air.”
“Is that even possible?” asked another female yaga as Patxi shrugs.
“We won’t know until we find out. Let’s hide in the snow and make our way to them.” He said before looking over at the oprichnik. “You guys get the capturing rope ready.”
“At once sir.” One of the oprichnik said as they quickly hid underneath the snow as well and headed towards where the alicorn princesses were flying off to. Before Patxi could follow after them, he looked up at the vast blue sky in both wonder and amazement. From the time he was born till the end of his life, he never once thought of what the sky would look like behind the blister cold of the blizzard. Now that he was able to see it...he couldn’t help but stare in awe and wonder.
“Ritsuka Fujimaru...I wonder if you did manage to bring your world back.” he said before following his pack into the snow. “....Okay, bad idea to go into the snow with somewhat open wounds!”
“Ugh! How come you couldn’t teleport us to that area on the map Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked as she leaned against the window of the train cart she and her friends were in.
“You can thank the giant flower tree thing for that. Ever since it appeared out of nowhere like that, the magic in Equestria has begun to act...strange. Like something is interfering with my own magic.” Twilight said as she tried to use her magic, only for it to fizzle out.
“She’s not the only one.” Starlight said as she tried to use her own magic, but fizzled out just like Twilight’s magic. “My magic along with Rarity’s and any other unicorns that we walked by are having the same issue as we are.”
“I hope this doesn’t become a prolonged issue.” Rarity said as she tried to use her magic only to fizzle out just like Starlight’s and Twilight’s magic. “It would be a pain to have to complete the orders I have with my hooves. Not that it's impossible to do them by hooves, but it would take me far too long to get them done even with help.”
“It might be like that for a while until I can get a better understanding of the plant. Not to mention we need to see if there’s anypony that lives in that area that might know what it is.” Twilight said. “By the time we get there, the princesses should have a head start into investigating the matter.”
“Let’s just hope we don’t have to fight a giant monster or something.” Applejack said as she tilted her hat and leaned back in her seat. “It would be nice to have an easy going adventure and not something that involves saving the world or something.”
“T-That would be nice.” Fluttershy said as Pinkie Pie bounced up and down in excitement.
“I wonder what the ponies would look like in this area that we’re about to go into? Oh! You think they’ll like the part I’m going to throw for them?”
“Darling, what party?” Rarity asked as she noticed Pinkie pulling out a large banner from out of her mane along with some confetti and streamers.
“The Welcome to Equestria mysterious land party. Duh?” The party pony said as Rarity and the others stared in uttar shock. Mainly as to how she was able to fit something like that into her mane without it sticking out or causing discomfort.
“Um...maybe we should wait on giving them a party until we establish some kind of connection with the ponies, or whoever the inhabitants are in this place we’re going.” Starlight suggested as Pinkie shrugs and placed the banner back into her mane. “.....How is that even possible?”
“It’s Pinkie Pie. Don’t question it.” Rainbow Dash said bluntly as Starlight looked over at Twilight, who simply nodded.
“Trust me on this Starlight. It’s better to just accept it now, and spare you from the hardship of trying to figure out Pinkie Pie, later on.”
“....But-”
“Accept it and move on.” Applejack said. “Less you want to end up like Twilight did in trying to understand Pinkie.”
(Lostbelt, Russia)
Patxi and his pack made it to the borders of where Russia and Equestria meet as they were within earshot of the ponies that they saw flying in the distance. One of the yagas popped their head out of the snow slightly while staying hidden as she saw them talking to a group of colorful looking ponies wearing gold armor before talking to each other. It did answer a couple of questions as to see if it was a demonic beast, which it wasn’t if it could talk like they can. But now it just raises even more questions to the already answered ones.
“I’m not the only one who’s seeing this, right?” The female yaga asked as Patxi slowly popped his head out of the snow as well.
“Seems like they’re just like us...well I can assume they’re like us intelligence wise from the conversation they’re having. There goes my plan to see if we can tame them so we can ride them.”
“You think they might be hostile?”
“I doubt a bunch of colorful horses can be considered hostile.” A male yaga said as he popped his head out of the snow as well. “But just to be safe, we might want to wait and see what they’ll do, and listen to their conversation.”
“Agreed. Back into the snow.” Patxi said as they quickly sank back into the snow and listened to the ponies conversation.
“It would seem that this place is the cause of the earthquake.” Luna said as Celestia and Cadence nodded in agreement.
“It would explain the off worldly magic this place was giving off as we were making our way here. Compared to other places in Equestria, the magic here feels...familiar.” Luna said before looking over at the fantasy tree as it gave off a pulse of magic. “Like it’s the element of magic. This might be the reason why Twilight is having those dreams that I mentioned to you before, sister.”
“You think Twilight and the others might know the reason behind this?” Cadence asked.
“We won’t know until they come here. But until then, we will have the royal guards scout out the area until then.” Celestia said as she ordered some of the royal guards to scout out the area of Russia, while the rest would be making a small base camp of operation. “For now, we will scout the area to see who or what might live in this frozen land of snow and ice.”
“I will take the lead with the pegasus. Don’t want them to get in trouble with whatever creatures that live in these lands.” Luna said before taking flight after the pegasi guards. As the ponies of Equestria began their work, the yagas would continue to watch from and listen for the moment. Though that moment seemed to come to an abrupt stop as they heard something coming from a distance.
“You guys hear that?” Patxi said as the other yagas turned their focus onto the sound in the distance. Their ears flicked a bit upon hearing the sounds of a demonic beast heading over to where the ponies were located.
“Demonic beast. And by the sound of it, it’s a big one.” said a female yaga and Patxi cursed under.
“Dammit, of all the time for them to appear. How are we on ammunition?” he asked as a male looked into his bag.
“About enough to get us back home, why?”
“We’re going to have to kill it.” Patxi said, which took the whole pack by surprise.
“Are you insane? We can’t take down a demonic beast of that size if it’s a big one. Not to mention, you’re still injured, or did you forget that?” said a female yaga as Patxi looked over his injuries as he noticed they were starting to blood onto the cloth covering them.
“Not like we have much of a choice in the matter.” He said before pulling out his rifle while still remaining in the snow. “We were bound to run into it anyway, so might as well be now then later. Let’s distract the beast so we can get them out of the area and back to the village.” Patxi said as he looked over at the oprichnik. “You guys will fight on the front line, we’ll provide you with support.”
“Understood.” The oprichnik said as they quickly pulled themselves out of the snow and headed towards the group of ponies.
“The rest of you, get your weapons ready. We’re going to feast tonight if we survive this.” As the Yagas and Oprichnik were executing their plan, Celestia’s ears twitched upon hearing the sound of a loud roar off in the distance.
“Did you hear that Cadence?” Celestia asked as Cadence turned her focus from the royal guards to Celestia.
“Hear what?” The alicorn asked as she tried to hear what her aunt was hearing. In a matter of seconds, she soon heard the sounds of something heading towards them at great speed as she focused her attention onto a nearby hill of snow. Upon looking up at it, she soon sees a giant demonic looking boar standing on top of the snow mount as it glared down at them. The demonic boar soon lets out a mighty roar as it causes everypony within the area to look up at it. “What in the name of Equestria is that!?”
“I’m going to assume it must be the wildlife of this land.” Celestia said as her horn began to glow for a moment, only for it to fizzle out in a second. “My magic. It’s not working?”
“Let me try.” Cadence said as she was about to fire a magical beam at the demonic boar, only for it to fizzle out as well. The pink alicorn’s eyes widened upon seeing this as she looked over at Celestia with the same expression on her face. “Oh no.”
“Fear not princesses. We’ll protect you.” said one of the earth pony guards as they along with some of the unicorns and pegasi that stayed with Celestia formed a defensive line in front of the princesses. “All units! Defend the princesses with your life!”
“Yes sir!” They yelled before a few of them formed a circle around the princesses with spears in mouths at the ready. The demonic beast lets a primal roar as it starts to charge towards the equestrians. As it was heading towards them, a few of the earth ponies started to do the same as they charged at the boar with the attempt to impale it. But sadly, that plan didn’t work. As their spears made contact with the boar’s hide, they broke with little to no effort. The ponies that were attacking the beast were either sent flying off to the side like water off of a duck’s feather. The boar soon looked over at Celestia and the others as it stomped its feet and began to charge at them. The royal guards were prepared to throw their spears at the beast, only to pause upon seeing the beast stopping in its track as the oprichnik appeared from out of the snow as it surrounded the beast.
“Eliminate the threat.” said one of the oprichnik as the small group quickly began to attack the beast in a hit and run tactic as some would attack with their axe, while some would attack from a distance with their crossbows. While this was happening, the ponies would hear the sounds of gunfire from behind as they saw the Yaga’s firing at the boar from a distance.
“If you don’t want to die, then I suggest you gather your stuff, and follow us!” Patxi said as he fired a shot into the demonic beast’s right eye. The boar lets out a loud roar of pain as it staggers backwards.
“Princess, you can’t seriously think of trusting that...thing?” asked one of the royal guards as Celestia looked over at the injured ponies that the boar charged through.
“We’re not prepared to handle something like this. Right now, we need to get everypony away from here, and these creatures seem to know what they’re doing given what they’re doing to this monster.”
“But what about Twilight and the others. We can’t just leave without telling them where we are going. And I can’t send a message to her or Luna because whatever it is that’s messing with our magic.” Cadence said as it caused Celestia to think for a moment. In a matter of seconds, an idea appeared in her head as she ordered one of the pegasus to come over to her as she started to write a letter.
“Not to sound rude or anything. But we have to go!” Patxi said as he noticed some of the oprichnik getting hit by the demonic boar’s tusks as they vanished into dust. “Because the oprichnik aren’t going to last long against a demonic beast that size, and we’re not suited for prolonged battles.”
“Take this to Princess Twilight Sparkle. She’ll know what to do once she reads it.” Celestia said as she gave the pegasus the letter and quickly flew off to the train station that leads towards the badlands. Once she saw that the pegasus colt was a good distance away from where they were, she turned her attention onto Patxi as she looked at him up and down. “I take it you’re along with those creatures who are attacking that boar are the inhabitants of this land?”
“Yeah, we are. And like I said before, but we need to get going.” He said before walking over to Celestia and placing a hand on the white alicorn’s mane as a means to get her to move, only to be met with spears pointed at him by the royal guards as he took aim at them.
“Stand down everypony.”
“But princess-”
“I said stand down.” Celestia said in a authorintary tone as it caused them to lower their weapons. She lets out a sigh of relief before looking over at Patxi who lowered his weapon in return. “I’m sorry about them. They tend to do that when meeting new po-” before the alicorn could finish her sentence, the yaga quickly tackled Celestia towards the ground as an oprichnik flew by them before vanishing into dust.
“Talk later, we need to leave. Now.” The young yaga said before pulling Celestia up onto her hooves. He soon looked over at the oprichnik as he saw that five were remaining. “Dammit, everyone retreat! We’re heading back to the village!” he ordered as they began to make a quick retreat while still injuring the demonic boar. “I advise you to follow us, less you want to be that boar’s lunch.”
“...Everypony! Follow the...um...I’m sorry, I hope I don’t sound rude, but what are you?” Cadence asked as one of the yagas answered her bluntly while retreating.
“We’re Yaga!”
“Follow the yagas to their village!” The pink alicorn yelled as they quickly began to follow after the pack of yagas while helping the injured ponies up to their hooves to follow after them. As the groups began to retreat, a cat-like humanoid with two tails and a boar’s head-like hide on her shoulder was off in the distance watching them leave. She continues to watch them a bit more before looking at the demonic boar and glares at it.
“Are you planning on going after them, boss?” A male yaga asked as the woman shook her head.
“Take the pack and go after them so that no demonic beasts try to kill them. I’ll deal with the boar.” Atalante said before summoning her bow into her hands.
“And the creature that flew off into the distance to where the desert is located?” asked a female yaga.
“I get the feeling that they’re bringing in more of those creatures here. So I’ll have to kill it so that it doesn’t attack them.” She said before getting ready to jump off the mountain top they were on while watching both groups leave. “Not only that, but this will give us enough food to last for a month for the yagas at the resistance camp.” Having said that, she quickly launched herself into the air for a moment before descending towards the demonic boar.
While Celestia and Cadance were busy making their escape the yagas of the russian lostbelt, Luna and the pegasi that she was leading made their way through the cold skys of the lostbelt while scanning the area for any sign of life. So far the only beings that they saw during their travels were demonic beasts that were traveling in packs to hunt for food or to move to place with other demonic beasts to either eat them or join them. Luna had to admit, this land’s wildlife was something she was not expecting. Minutes later upon traveling through the skies, the group soon saw that they were getting close to the fantasy tree. In front of the fantasy tree was what looked like a small town, similar in length to that of Ponyville, but without the Everfree Forest.
“Princess, we’re coming upon a small village near the tree. Should we land near it?” One of the male guards asked as Luna nodded.
“It’ll do us good to see what the inhabitants of this land look like. Not to mention forming a relationship with them will serve us well when I send a message for my sister to come here. Three of you will come with me, the rest will go back to report to my sister about this” Luna said as she ordered the other pegasi to follow her down towards the snamm town. Once they appeared at the entrance of the village, they would see some of the yagas walking around the place carrying supplies of wood, bricks, and other materials needed to repair buildings and other things.
“....Princess Luna...are these the inhabitants of this land?” asked a female pony guard as Luna was at a loss of words from seeing the yagas. Never has she seen creatures like these before. They almost look like humans, but with wolf-like features.
“It...it would seem so...I was not expecting this.”
“What should we do, ma’am?”
“Stay here until I return. If we all come in at once, they might think we’re trying to take over their home.”
“Are you sure Princess Luna?” asked a male pony guard as she nodded.
“The key to diplomacy is to not be a threat. We need to be careful and not scare them. And judging by the looks of how damaged this place is, they seem to have been hit by something hard.” She said as the male guard nodded and ordered for the others to remain at the entrance of the village. Luna gave them a small smile before turning her attention onto the village. She soon took in a deep breath before letting it out and walked into the village. “Alright Luna, time to work your magic with your diplomacy skills.” The moment she stepped foot into the village, a group of Oprichnik appeared around the dark blue alicorn. Luna yelped in surprise which caused the pegasi to quickly form around their princess. Luna was about to hit the Oprichnik with a magical blast of energy, but her magic gathering in her horn fizzled out.
“What happened to my magic?” She asked before looking back onto the Oprichnik as she saw them getting into a line across from each other, as if welcoming her into the village. The alicorn princess blinked in surprise.
“You are the inhabitant of the country beyond the land of snow and ice?” asked one of the Oprichnik as he appeared in front of the moon princess.
“I-I am.” Luna said as she regained her composure. “I am Princess Luna, co-ruler of Equestria along with my sister Celestia. May I ask who you are...um...creature.”
“I am nothing more than a servant to the Tsar. If you are an ambassador of a far away country, then I take it you’re here to help us?”
“What is it that you need help with?” She asked as she saw the Oprichnik motions for her to follow him. The alicorn princess along with the royal guards quickly followed after it while noticing the odd looks they were getting from the yagas. Mainly looks of curiosity from the children, and dumbfounded looks from the adults. She can’t really blame them for the looks they were receiving. Seeing a bunch of colorful ponies and not one of the yaga’s kind would make them look at them oddly.
“The Tsar needs medical attention. At the moment, we don't have much medical supplies to be able to help him along with the other yagas who were injured. At best, we were able to patch them up as best we can. But without proper medical care, they’ll surely die. It doesn’t help that the demonic beast tends to come into this area.”
“Demonic Beast?”
“Monsters that prey upon the weak or their own kind. At the moment, we can’t move him without the means of doing it.”
“This Tsar you speak of. Is he your king?” Luna asked as the Oprichnik nodded while still leading them to where the Tsar is located in the village. “What had happened to him?”
“Injuries from a fight he had with a demonic beast.” He said as the group would notice that they were coming up to a large fancy, but broken looking house. The Oprichnik soon stops in front of the broken door of the house entrance as he moves to the side. “Tsar is up the stairs, down the hall to your left. There’s a Yaga in there that’s currently tending to his wounds as we speak.”
“Of course. Thank you, good sir.” Luna said she before motions for the royal guards to stay outside as she enters into the house. Upon entering, her eyes widened at how broken down and messy the place was. It was as if a tornado had struck the house from the inside and then exploded. Her attention soon turned towards the stairs as she heard someone coughing as she walked up the steps. She soon made a left down the hallway to see the door at the end of it open. She continued to make her way towards the room and stood in front of the entrance. Her eyes widened upon seeing their king. Words couldn’t describe what Luna was looking at. Originally, she thought that the Tsar was going to be someone that looked like the yagas from outside. But seeing him now...it was like he was some kind of mutant minotaur mixed with an elephant.
“You must be the creature I sensed in the air heading for this village” The Tsar said, which took Luna by surprise. The Yaga that was tending to his wound turned around to see Luna in front of the room they were in
“Yes, I am. I assume you are the Tsar of this village?” Luna asked as the Tsar looked over at the female yaga as he nodded at her. Indicating that he wanted to be alone with Luna as she left.
“Accurate term would be the whole of Russia that you’re in. But yes…” He said before staggering to his feet and walked over to the princess of the night and bowed to her. “I am the Grand Prince of Moscow, Ivan IV Vasilyevich. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Princess Luna. Co-Ruler of Equestria and Princess of the Night.” Luna said as she bowed in return. She soon pulled her head up after feeling the room shake due to Ivan kneeling down onto the floor in discomfort. “Mother of me, are you alright!?”
“I-I am fine.” He said while pulling himself back to his feet and went back to his bed. “Forgive me. Had I known that I would have guests from another country, I might’ve had one of the yaga’s make you something to eat...then again there’s not that much that we have food wise.”
“It’s fine, no need to do something like that on my account.” Luna said as she eyed Ivan up and down. “If you don’t mind me asking this...But what are you? You almost resemble that of a human, but you have the animalistic traits of an elephant?”
“I would like to go into details about why I along with the yagas look the way that we are now. But I think there are some important matters I would like to talk with you about. Specifically medical wise.” The Tsar said as he motions to his injuries. “As you can see I’m currently in no position to walk or leave this room.”
“Not to sound rude, but given how...well...big you are...how were you able to fit into this room?” She asked as Ivan stared at her for a moment before pointing up to the ceiling above himself. Looking up, Luna blinked to see a giant hole above him before turning her attention onto him. “...I take it you were thrown in there by something?”
“Giant demonic boar would be the reason why I am in here along with...other reasons. But that will be a talk for a later date. I would like to make a deal with you, Princess. I, along with my citizens, need medical help. If you can provide us with the means and food to help us, then I am willing to tell you everything about this country.”
“Hm. Getting you the help that you need shouldn’t be a problem for the most part. But getting you out of this room without causing your wounds to open up will prove to be a challenge. Especially seeing how I can’t use my magic at this time. But nevertheless! We will help you and your subjects in this matter.”
“Thank you. You will be rewarded for your help in this endeavor.” Ivan said as the lunar princess smiled at this.
“I will have to get my sister to assist me in this matter.” She said before spreading her wings and taking flight. “I will be back as soon as possible. Till then, I’ll have my guards stay in town and see if they can assist your subjects in anything that they need help with.” With that, Luna flew outside of the house. Leaving Ivan to his own thoughts...but one thing did come to his mind. He looked over at himself, then back at the door, then back at himself again as he let out a groan of annoyance. If the inhabitants of this foreign country were consistent of talking demonic horses with sentient knowledge or if they were like them. Humans that were forced to be fused with animals to become demonic humanoids. Then getting them out of this room might be a challenge within itself given how big and heavy he was.
“...Mental note. Have the constructors make doorways bigger...also make a law that it’s mandatory to have big doorways.” Ivan said before going back to his thoughts once again.
“Listen up everypony, we need some ideas on how to get the Tsar out of the room he’s stuck in. Normally I would use my magic to get him out, but for some reason my magic isn’t working at this time. So we will need to think of an idea to get the injured Tsar out of the room.” Luna said, which caught the attention of the royal guards and some of the Yagas in the village who were talking with the ponies of Equestria. “Does anypony have an idea? There are no dumb answers.”
“Why not cover him in butter and push him out of the room?” asked a male guard as it caused Luna to deadpan at him.
“Okay besides that dumb idea, anypony have an idea where it doesn’t involve causing harm to the poor...elephant man creature?”
“Why not fire him out of a cannon?” said a female guard as Luna’s deadpan deepens.
“And how are we going to do that when I have no magic. And even if we were able to do that, that would hurt him even more than how he is right now. Come on, ponies. Take this seriously.”
“Why don’t we tie ropes around him so we can carry him by air lift?” asked a male guard as it got Luna thinking.
“That might work. But we would need a lot of pegasi to carry him...he’s rather big….like the Tierk if he was fused with an elephant...which kinda is ironic given the Tsar’s appearance.”
“If you ponies need help, maybe Anastasia can help with getting him out the room.” said a child yaga, which caused some of the adult yaga to wince at the idea.
“Who’s Anastasia?” Luna asked as an elderly male yaga spoke up.
“The Tsar’s former wife.” He said before walking up to Princess Luna and showed her a picture of Anastasia, which took her by surprise to see that she was a human, not a yaga.
“This is the Tsar’s ex-wife?” Luna asked as he nodded. “But...how? I mean I’m not judging or anything, but how can she...and him?”
“It’s best that you don’t think too hard about it.” He said before placing the picture back into his pocket, and pointed over to the house off to the side of the entrance of the village. “She lives in that house to your left near the entrance of the village. Be warned. She may act harsh and cold, but she is caring and protective of us Yagas.”
“I’ll make a note of that.” Luna said before looking at the royal guards. “Continue coming up with ideas...one that doesn’t involve hurting Ivan like coating him in butter or firing him out of a cannon.” She said as the two ponies lowered their heads in embarrassment. The dark blue alicorn turned to walk over to the direction of Anastasia’s house. Once she was there, she knocked on the door to see if she was inside. “Hello, is anypony in there?” There was a moment of silence behind the door before the princess heard the sounds of someone making their way towards the door. The door soon opens up to reveal a young girl with silvery-white long hair, aqua-blue eyes, pale white skin, and was wearing clothing that looked like it was more suited for a light snow storm.
“...Can I...help you?” Anastasia asked as she blinked at Princess Luna. The moment the door was open, Anastasia was taken by surprise by who it was that was standing in front of her. She was expecting one of the yagas at her door who might need her help with something, not a rather tall horse with flowing cosmic mane and crown on her head.
“Greetings, human. I am Princess Luna. Co-Ruler of Equestria along with my sister, Princess Celestia. I, along with my subjects, would like to welcome you to our fair lands.” Luna said as she bowed to Anastasia. The servant looked at her for a moment, then back at the group of ponies and yagas who were currently gathering supplies of woods, nails, metals, and ropes. The servant soon looked over at Luna with a slight smile on her face before speaking up.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. I welcome you to the village with a feast, but I wasn’t expecting the inhabitants of this world to be...well ponies.”
“And we are surprised to see that you’re the only human in this land of wolf people and weird elephant man creatures.” She said before noticing Anastasia’s facial expression turned from happy to trying to stifle a laughter from the last part. “Is something wrong?”
“N-No, no. I-It’s nothing Princess.” The servant said as she calmed herself down. “Why don’t you come in so we can talk more, if you don’t mind that is?”
“I wouldn’t mind.” Luna said as the snow duchess moved back inside and let the princess of the night enter. Upon entering her home, she was surprised at how warm it was along with how nicely light and clean it was compared to Ivan’s home.
“Would you like some tea and cookies Princess? It may not be the best way to welcome you to the village, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Well I can’t pass up an offer like that.” Luna said as she followed Anastasia into the kitchen. The kitchen looked almost the same as the one in Sugar Cube Corner back in Ponyville, but was bigger to suit the servant’s height and possibly someone else's height and width, similar to that of Ivan’s. The alicorn took a seat at the table as she noticed Anastasia pouring tea in a cup for the two along with making a tray of cookies. “I hope you don’t mind me asking a few questions.”
“I take it because of the way things are in this land.” The servant said as the alicorn nodded. “Understandable, I’m going to assume that you never heard of Russia or the word Lostbelt before have you?”
“We...have not. Our friend Twilight might know of Russia, but not one where wolf people, king elephant Tsar, or one lone human inhabits this frozen land of snow and ice.”
“I’ll try to make it simple for you to understand so as not to get confused. In a different timeline, on a different planet where magic existed and was a normal thing. This land of snow and frost is named Russia. Russia is a very cold and unforgiving country for those who are not prepared to live in. Compared to most places on the planet earth, Russia was becoming extremely cold. So cold that it was nearly impossible for humans to live in. It was abnormal for something like this to happen. So as a means to adapt to Mother Russia’s harsh cold environment, the people used magic to fuse themselves with demonic beasts that could survive the cold. As you can tell by the Yagas outside and...Ivan’s appearance.”
“Yes, I have noticed.” She said before noticing Anastasia walking over with her tea and cookies as the servant took a seat next to her. “So your subject turned themselves into wolves and an elephant as a means to combat the elements.”
“Yes, but in doing so created a problem. Because of them fusing their D.N.A with demonic beasts, the world that we lived on deemed it unsuitable for humans to live in. Thus, the word lostbelt comes into play. Lostbelts are failed timelines of the Proper Human History that were deemed failures. And so the planet decided to erase the failure.” She said which caused Luna to have a confused expression on her face. “Hm, how about this. Think of a story with two endings. One is good, while the other is bad. The Author of the story can only pick the one that has a good ending. While the other is erased or thrown in the trash.”
“....Mother of me! You mean that the planet you’re from deemed this place unworthy of existence!?” The alicorn yelled as the duchess nodded. “But...why? Surely with enough hard work and perseverance this place could be a place for humans to live in.”
“It could, but given the dark history of this lostbelt. It wouldn’t pan out well.” Anastasia said before taking a sip from her tea as she looked out the window off to their left. “During my time in the lostbelt as Ivan’t wife, things have become much worse. Food shortages, yaga’s fighting against each other for survival, Ivan killing his subjects due to his so called advisors helping him...this lostbelt’s history is dark and bathed in blood. But I’m no better than Ivan. I have killed my fair share of people to get what I needed.” She said as the lunar princess noticed a disgusted and angry expression on her face. “Why is it that we were given a second chance to live, I don’t know. But I don’t think I’m worthy of being given that chance.”
“You wouldn’t be the only one who's done things in their past they’re not proud of.” Luna said which caught Anastasia’s attention. “It may not be the same as yours, but it might well be had I not been stopped.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I may not look it, but I am one-thousand years old.” Luna said which caused the servant to blink in surprise by this. “I know, hard to believe that I look so young for my age~” she said which caused the caster servant to roll her eyes and a small smile appeared on her face from the joke Luna made. “One-thousand years ago, I became a creature known as Nightmare Moon out of jealousy and hatred towards my sister. Mainly because our subject favored her more than me. For she is The Princess that raised the sun, while I am The Princess that raised the moon.”
“So that would mean your subject would see more of your sister’s work, but not yours due to them being asleep when night time came.”
“Correct, I tried talking to my sister about this. But it was ignored or pushed off to the side as if it was nothing. Over time this keeped on being a thing until I had enough. If my sister wasn’t going to listen to what I have to say, then I will take over Equestria and show her that the night is better than the daylight...needless to say, that didn’t pan out so well and got me imprisoned on the moon for one-thousand years.”
“...Wow...you do know that what you did would possibly end up making Equestria a lostbelt. I mean having it be nighttime for all eternity would cause a lot of problems for the planet. Granted you could adapt to the night, but not everything can survive in darkness forever.”
“I know, I was young and stupid at the time! I just wanted to be appreciated more for my work.” Luna said before slumping her head onto the table. “I know my sister messed up, but I also messed up on my end in doing that. It left my sister to rule over Equestria for all those years during my banishment. When I returned I tried to do it again, but was stopped by Twilight and her friends.” she said before pulling her head up to look at Anastasia. “My point is, ruling a kingdom is never easy. No pony is perfect, we’re going to end up making mistakes later on in life. We just need to learn from it.”
“I suppose...still.”
“If you want to make up for your past mistakes, then make them up now by helping your subject. Ivan is doing that by letting us help the yagas in getting medical treatment and fixing the town.”
“H...He is?” Anastasia asked as Luna nodded.
“The planet you may have come from may have deemed you not worthy of being part of it Proper Human History, but you’re in Equestria now. Where we’ll accept you no matter your past sins!”
“By that you mean some will accept us while some will judge us?”
“In fairness, that’s the way with everypony, no?”
“...Fair enough, you’re not wrong about that.” The caster servant said before taking a bite out of the cookies she made. “I will accept the olive branch of friendship, Princess Luna.”
“Please, call me Luna, friend.” The alicorn said as Anastasia gave her a small smile. “I know this might be a bit sudden, but I would like for you to help with something involving your...um, ex-coltfriend.”
“Ex-coltfriend?” She asked before suddenly realising what Luna meant. “Ah, you mean my ex-husband...I only pretended to be his wife so that I could overthrow him as King of the lostbelt..not my best moment during that time. But what is it that you need help with involving him?”
“...How good are you at getting a giant elephant injured man out of a room without the use of butter or cannon fodder?”
“Wow...I was not expecting him to be this badly injured.” Anastasia said as she and Luna were in the room where Ivan is currently in. “I’m surprised you would be willing to protect the yagas from the demonic boar.”
“They are my subjects after all. A country can’t flourish if it’s inhabitants are dead.”
“Right...anyway. Have you anyone thought of a way to get Ivan out of the room?”
“We’re still trying to figure out how to get him out without hurting him.” Luna said as she looked over at the two guard points with the previous idea, “Two of my subjects suggested that we coat him in butter and fire him out of a cannon.” she said, which caused the two guards to look away in embarrassment.
“....I mean I’m not against the idea of doing that.” Anastasia said which caused Ivan to clear his throat.
“I prefer not to be coated in butter or sent flying out of a cannon...which I doubt anyone can make to fit my size.” Ivan said as Luna spoke.
“If he was a bit smaller, then we could have the pegasi lift him out and we can carry him to Equestria. I would use my magic, but that tree next to your village is causing an interference with it.”
“You mean the tree of emptiness?” Anastasia asked as Luna turned her attention to her.
“You know what that tree is?” Luna asked as the caster nodded.
“It was created by the Alien god that saved this lostbelt. Long story short, this tree is what kept Russia from disappearing into nothingness.”
“....I would like to talk more about this, but I think we should focus more on how to get Ivan out of the room.”
“....I might have a solution for that...but it’s not going to be pleasant.” Anastasia said as an innocent smile appeared on her face. But behind that innocent smile, was something evil that only Ivan could sense as he noticed the caster looking at him. “Would everyone please leave the room?”
“...Is there a reason for that?”
“Trust me, I know how to get him out~” She said as that singsong tone sent shivers down Ivan’s spine.
“If you say so.” Luna turns her attention to the royal guards as she orders them to leave the house. As they left along with the alicorn, Anastasia looked over at Ivan with the same innocent expression on her face. But he knows that it was just a facade. Behind that innocent face, hides a devil. And that devil wanted revenge.
“....If you’re going to kill me, I’ll allow it. Just look after the yagas when I’m gone.”
“Oh, I’m not going to kill you dear. Much as I want to do that for the hell you put everyone in, the Yagas are giving you a second chance. And given what I’ve been hearing and seen from your injuries, you really want to turn over a new leaf in this world. But we all know that some of the Yagas still see you as a threat.”
“You mean the rebels…”
“Atalante and her rebels, not to mention some of the bandits. Much as I made my point that I’m not involved with the issue between the two groups. This issue needs to be resolved asap once you’re fully healed.”
“Because she will think I’m forming an alliance with the horses of Equestria and might attack them, and the bandits will end up attacking the village or invade the ponies' homeland due to the mindset of the strong eating the weak.” Ivan said as Anastasia nodded. “Given from what I’ve seen so far, the Equestrian seems to rely heavily on magic. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I get the feeling that they’ve never been in a war or fight for life or death before.”
“Seems like it, but that might be due to the fact that they have two immortal beings protecting them...You don’t think that they’re divine spirits of some kind, do you?”
“I thought that they were demonic beasts. But given how they can speak human language and have a military of sorts. Then that idea isn’t out of the realm of possibilities. How long have they been ruling over their country?”
“One-thousand years from what Luna had told me. But they don’t seem to be that powerful if they ruled for that long from what I can sense off of them, magic wise. This might be due to the Tree of Emptiness messing with their magic...might be messing with my senses as well and possibly yours too. This might be a problem for them later on if this continues to be an issue.”
“What would you suggest?”
“We can’t ask them to fight our own battles. We need to handle this without letting them get involved. We are going to give the bandits an option. Have them change their ways and join us in the change that’s going to happen, or we kill them and make sure they won’t cause trouble for us in the future..”
“That would be where the rebels will come in, if you can get them to help do that?” Ivan asked as the caster girl nodded.
“If I can convince them to help us deal with the bandits. If not, then I will take care of the bandits. This will be the last piece of cancer to be cut off before moving forward for everyone.”
“Wouldn’t it be wise to have me do the killing instead of you?”
“You’re the king of this lostbelt, someone has to be diplomatic around here.” She said as it caused Ivan to pause upon hearing her say that.
“...I know I died back on that other earth...but seeing how I died, wouldn’t that make you the king of this lostbelt?” He asked as it caused Anastasia to look at him with the same expression as before, only it hid her fury. “...I’m right, am I?”
“No.” Anastasia said as Ivan felt the temperature getting colder than usual in the room. The Tsar was about to say something, but soon felt the bed he was on buckle. He looked down to see the floor covered in ice as he looked up at her in fear...or what could be considered as fear if he had facial expressions. “You’re the King of Russia. I’m just the ex-wife of the king.” She said before sending him flying off into the air by a pillar of ice and was soon flying a good distance out of the village. “...Might’ve gone too far with that.”
“What in the name of Equestria just happened!?” Luna asked as she appeared next to the caster servant.
“I told you that I found a way to get him out of the room, right?” She said before pointing at Ivan soaring towards the entrance of the village. The moment she locked eyes with the entrance of the, she noticed a group of ponies and yagas standing in front of the entrance. “Hey, those ponies at the entrance wouldn’t be with you, would they?” Luna turns her attention at the entrance to see Princess Celestia, Cadence, the royal guards, and yagas at the entrance. The dark blue alicorn smiled upon seeing her sister, but that smile faded upon seeing where Ivan was going to land.
“Oh no.”
“What do you-” Before Anastasia could finish, she noticed where Ivan was going to land as a loud booming sound followed by the sounds of screaming could be heard. Both Luna and Anastasia’s eyes widen upon seeing this as they look at each other for a moment before back at the scene at the entrance. “...I take it the white pony with wings and a horn is your sister Celestia?”
“Yep.”
“And Ivan crashed onto her and a yaga that she was carrying on her back.”
“Yep.”
“...I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
“Most likely...He also landed on my niece to make it worse.”
“Great. There goes our first impression.” Anastasia said as she covered her face with her hands due to embarrassment and slight shame.
“In fairness, you didn’t know that she would appear at the entrance like that, nor was I expecting my sister to bring herself along with the rest of the royal guards and yaga here...I’m going to assume that they might be the search party that was sent out by Ivan.”
“He did that?”
“Well given the poor state Russia is in, and the storm that was around it is no longer blocking the country. He decided to send out a party to see if there was anyone outside the country that could help us...which we might do the same seeing how Ivan crashed on top of three of them.”
“R-Right.” Luna said as she, Anastasia, and some of the royal guards quickly rushed over to the village entrance. “This day can’t get any worse. Can it?”
There’s a lot of things that the altered servant has seen before coming to this new land. She's seen titans fight against each other that could be considered to be gods, mythical beasts of legends, and Horrid atrocities beyond the realm of reality...what she never expected to see was a cream colored pegasus taming a wild demonic boar like it was nothing. Especially given the size of the damn thing and how much trouble it was causing for her and her pack.
“Aw you poor thing. You must’ve been in so much pain for having that arrow stuck in your foot like that?” Fluttershy said as she was patting the demonic boar’s head to comfort it as Applejack and Rainbow Dash finished patching the boar’s foot up.
“...Boss...Am I the only one who’s seeing this?” asked a male yaga as Atalanta shook her head.
“Y-You’re not the only one who’s seeing this...I didn’t think these...creatures were capable of doing something like this.”
“You think it’s some kind of magic or something that these creatures have?” asked a female yaga.
“Hard to say. I can sense that they have magic, but I don’t think it’s the same kind of magic that I can use. But now it’s not the time for questioning. The beast is taken care of...albeit that we couldn’t kill it for the meat.”
“And what’s stopping us from killing them along with the horses?” asked a male Yaga as he recoiled back from seeing Atalanta glaring at him.
“That would be me and my bow. Talk like that again and you’ll see what happens.” She said before noticing Twilight and the others walking over to her and the pack. “I take you’re with the ponies that came here to Russia?” The servant asked which took Twilight by surprise.
“You met Celestia, Luna, and Cadence?” The alicorn asking as Atalanta shook her head.
“I only saw them leaving the area with a pack of Yagas.” She said before noticing Twilight looking at her up and down. “Is something the matter?”
“Forgive me for asking...but are you a human?”
“Have you heard of humans before?”
“I’ve met some in the mirror world...but I’ve never seen a human that looks like...well...do humans wear cat ears and tails from where you’re from?” Twilight asked as Atalanta blinked at the mare upon hearing this.
“I’m not a human.” Atalanta said bluntly as she walked over to Fluttershy. “You, pegasus. Is the boar able to walk?”
“Um, yes. At least I think he should be able to seeing how the arrow didn’t hit anything vital or threatening.”
“Good, then use the boar to travel to the town off the north. Keep going until you see a town that’s in repair.” Atalanta said as she and her pack began to make their leave. Twilight took notice of this as she quickly flew in front of her as a means to stop her.
“Wait! Surely you wouldn’t let ambassadors from another country wander into unfamiliar lands would you?”
“Not my problem. I gave you directions to where you need to go. You want questions that need answers, you go ask the Tsar of Russia.” Atalanta said before pushing past Twilight along with the Yagas what was with her. “If you are able to tame that demonic boar, then you’re strong enough to survive the harshness of Russia.”
“Wait, there are still questions that I need-” Before Twilight could even finish, the servant and her pack quickly ran off towards the mountain from where they were scouting originally. The purple Alicorn blinked for a moment before her bland expression turned into disgruntled frown.
“Hey, where are they going?” Pinkie Pie asked as Twilight turned her attention onto her and the others. “I wanted to ask if they were interested in coming to a party I was going to throw seeing how they’re the first ponies to interact with in this frosty wonderland.”
“Perhaps they’re not the party type given how they were fighting this poor creature.” Rarity said as the demonic boar snorted.
“He said he didn’t mean to attack them or the ponies that were here. It was just the pain was unbearable and he was trying to get somepony to get the arrow out of his foot.” Fluttershy said as Twilight looked over at Fluttershy and the demonic boar.
“Fluttershy, can you ask...um...the boar as to where we are?” She asked as Fluttershy nodded and began to have a conversion with the boar. “Hard to believe that this is a boar.”
“You’re joking right? There’s no way this thing can be a pig.” Rainbow Dash said as she soon felt herself being buried in snow. The other girls looked over to their right to see that the demonic boar was the one that did as they soon heard Fluttershy speak up.
“Um, he prefers not to be called a pig. He prefers to be called Mr. Boar.” The cream colored pegasus said as Rainbow Dash popped her head from out of the snow and glared at the boar.
“Alright, good to know.” Twilight said as she placed a hoof to her chin. “Something doesn’t add up. The woman said this place is called Russia, but from what I was able to read up in the human world, Russia doesn’t have p-” The alicorn paused after hearing the boar snorted. “B-Boars! I was going to say Boars.” She said which caused the demonic boar to snort again before going back to chatting with Fluttershy. “Russia doesn’t have boars that look like this, nor the size of a house. Not to mention it doesn’t have humans with cat-like features or humanoid like wolves.”
“I bet Discord has something to do with this. I mean this screams chaotic and weird.” Rainbow Dash said as Applejack shook her head.
“Discord may be the god of discord and disharmony, but I doubt he can snap a finger and make something like this.”
“Applejack is right. Not to mention if our magic is being affected by that flower-like plant thing, then so is his magic.” Twilight said before looking over at the fantasy tree. “If what the guard told us about what happened and from the direction that the human gave me, Celestia and the others are interacting with the citizens of this land. We should head over to where they are and see if they have any information on this land.” She said before looking over at Fluttershy. “Fluttershy, can Mr. Boar takes us to the village?”
“He can, it’s the least he can do seeing how we saved him from being hurt.” She said before flying above him before landing on top of his back. “Hop on please.” The girls looked at each other for a moment before hesitantly getting onto the demonic boar’s back. Once they were on his back, the boar let out a loud snort before charging into the direction of where the Yaga village was located.
“Were you able to ask him about this place called Russia?” Rarity asked as a troubled expression appeared on the cream pegasus’s face.
“Not so much. All he knows is that this place is covered in snow and that there are more creatures like him, but different.”
“How so?” Twilight asked as it caused Fluttershy to think.
“Well, there are more boars like he is, though they range from large to small. Snakes with multiple heads on their body like a hydra, and for legged monsters with scorpion tails.” The mare said as it caused Twilight and the other to stare at her in surprise. “That’s pretty much all he could give. Mainly because he’s been focusing more on hunting for food in this land.”
“....You sure Discord doesn’t have anything to do with this place?” Rainbow Dash asked as Twilight shook her head.
“Like Applejack said. Discord may be powerful, but even he’s not that powerful to make a place like this...At least I hope he didn’t.”
“He’s also reformed. Don’t forget about that?” Pinkie Pie added before Rainbow Dash spoke.
“Yeah, but do keep in mind the other things he’s done that almost brought about the end of Equestria. Like how he was aiding Cozy Glow, Tirek, and Chrysalis? Or the time where he turned on us and went with Tirek.”
“And he was very sorry for what he did.”
“Sorry doesn’t excuse the fact that he might have caused this problem. For all we know, he might just be doing the same thing again, only with the person behind the magic issue.”
“We can say that Discord is the reason behind this without proof. Once we meet up with Celestia and the others, then we’ll possibly get our questions answered. I just hope that we don’t run into any other problems in this land.”
Elsewhere in the permafrost land of Russia, the sounds of gunfire and blades slicing through a combination of flesh, stone, and wood echoed throughout the area that the sound was coming from. In a matter of seconds, a loud road erupted as a young male yaga was sent flying out of a large fortress made out of stone and wood. The male yaga staggered to his feet with a missing arm as he glared at the beast that destroyed the bandit’s hideout in less than a matter of seconds.
“Damn monster! Do you know who we are!? We’re the new yagas of Russia!” he yelled before picking up a magic induced rifle and began to fire at the monster attacking their hideout. “We’re going to rule this land and any other lands outside of this. We’re going to be-” Before he could finish, he was soon sliced in two by a giant halberd-like weapon as the force by the weapon caused his body parts to splatter around the area. The beast let out a triumphant roar from killing off the bandits within the hideout and was about to eat the remains of what was left, only to pause as something caught his attention in the air. He began to sniff the air for a moment as he quickly rushed over to a nearby mountain cliff from where the bandit’s hideout was located. He sniffed the air once again as looked down and focused his gaze onto Twilight and her friends riding a demonic boar as they were heading towards the village where Celestia and the others were.
A hungry grin appeared on his face as he licked his lips. A demonic boar of that size would feed him for days. And having small snacks to play with in his labyrinth. The monster soon lets out a loud primal roar as he jumps off of the mountain he was on and begins to chase after Twilight and the others.
Meanwhile back at the village of the Yagas, the ponies of equestria along with some of the adult yagas were busy trying to pull Ivan off of Celestia and Patxi. It only took them about a good hour or so to get the servant off of them given their lack of magic and have to make some kind of lifting device. So far, none of them suffered from any lasting damage on the physical aspect thanks to the snow supporting the fall and impact for the most part...Mentally on the other hand is another story altogether. But, nevertheless. Such matters at that will have to be pushed to the side as Celestia and Anastasia begin their conversation. Specifically filling her in on the situation at hand.
“Again, I am really sorry for what happened. Had I known that more ponies would’ve come to this village sooner than expected, then I would’ve sent him flying off somewhere else then at the entrance.” Anastasia said while bowing to the white alicorn.
“It’s fine, really. No need to apologize for an honest mistake.” Celestia said as she looked up and down at Anastasia.
“Is something wrong?”
“Not to sound rude, but are you the only human in this land? Because so far from what the Yagas have informed me, there aren't that many of their kind that don’t have fur covering their entire body. And from what Twilight had seen, the humans from the mirror world don’t...well look like the way that you look.”
“I don’t know what you mean by this mirror world place. But for clarification, I’m not a human. I’m a servant.”
“Okay...so you’re a human that serves Ivan then?”
“No. I don’t serve Ivan...anymore. And that’s not what I meant by a servant by your terms.” She said before noticing the confused expression on the alicorn’s face. “To make it as simple as possible. Servants or Heroic Spirits, are humans who’ve either made a contract with the planet or recorded in human history into the throne of heroes.” The caster said as she noticed Celestia was about to say something, only for her to lift a hand in front of the white alicorn. “Before you assume anything. The throne of heroes doesn’t necessarily mean that all humans are heroes or good people. Just like with your own species they range from being lawful good, neutral, or chaotic evil.”
“I see...so this throne of heroes records events that take place in the human world?”
“In a way, yes. It mainly records events that can impact human history. Though it seems that can apply to people within the lostbelts.”
“Is that the name of this land?”
“No, the name of this land would be Russia. Or at least a Russia that couldn’t support human life.” She said as Celestia tilted her head in confusion. “How can I put it into terms? The planet that we came from didn’t like how this version of Russia turned out and decided to reject it’s very existence.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Given how it’s the planet that did it, I can only say yes.”
“If that was true, then shouldn’t this land be...well..erased from existence?” Cadence asked as she noticed Anastasia pointing a finger at the fantasy tree.
“That tree is what’s keeping this place from disappearing. The alien god that made it called it a fantasy tree or a tree of emptiness.”
“So that’s the reason why our magic isn’t working properly.” Celestia said as it caused Anastasia to look at her.
“Luna did inform me about that. If you think I can do something about this, I hate to say that I can’t do anything about it given how I wasn’t the one that made it.”
“And the creator of it isn’t here?” Luna asked as the caster shook her head. “Is there a means to contact them?” she asked as Anastasia looked at her for a moment before shaking her head.
“No, nor would it be a good idea to do it if you want your planet to be destroyed.” She said which took Celestia, Luna, and Cadence by surprise. “It’ll take a while to explain in great detail about this. So it would be best to head into my home so that I can talk about that and how to get Ivan and the other Yagas some medical attention.”
“Right...forgive me if I’m having a hard time understanding all this. Our lack of human knowledge might be the reason for it.”
“I’m not surprised by that given how your species isn’t based around humans. But no need to apologize for that, you wouldn’t be the first ones to have that problem.” She said before placing a hand to her own chin “This mirror you mentioned has humans in them, no? You wouldn’t happen to have someone that would be able to understand what I’m saying?”
“That would be Princess Twilight.” Luna said as it caused the caster servant to raise an eyebrow to her. “She has gone to the human world more times than we have.”
“That is true. If there’s anypony with knowledge of human history, then it would be Twilight. I just hope she got my message about the monster that attacked us.” Celestia said as Anastasia noticed a demonic boar with a small group of ponies heading over towards them from a distance.
“This monster wouldn’t happen to be a giant demon boar, would it?” She asked as Celestia blinked in surprise by this.
“Yes...how did you know?” Celestia asked as the caster servant pointed behind her. The White Alicorn turned around as her eyes widened upon seeing Twilight and her friends riding on the back of the Demonic Boar as the monster started to slide as an attempt to stop itself from crashing into both the yagas and ponies in front of the entrance to the village. Celestia closed her eyes for a moment due to the snow powder being kicked up from the boar as it’s snout was inches from Celestia's face. “Oh...I see. I’m surprised you were able to notice it.”
“I’m more surprised that you ponies have the means to tame a demonic beast such as this...they mostly end up attacking people and can only be tamed via magic.” Ivan said while being treated for his injuries by the medical ponies as they started to replace some of the old medical bandages with new ones to help soak up some of the blood dripping from his wounds.
“Celestia, Luna, Cadence! I’m so glad you’re all okay-” Twilight said as she paused upon seeing Ivan, Anastasia, and more Yagas who were repairing some of the damage dealt by Anastasia sending Ivan flying.
“Wow, I was not expecting to see something like this,'' Starlight said as she along with the other girls hopped off of the boar’s back as they scanned the area of the town they were in. “Guest that cat-woman was right about there being a town if we followed her directions.”
“Man, this place looked like it got hit by a traveling storm.” Rainbow Dash said before noticing Ivan as she flinched back in surprise. “Who or what the hay is that thing!?”
“Rainbow Dash! It's rude to say something like that to a creature.” Rarity said in disappointment as she looked over at Ivan. “Given his attire and crown on his head, he must be the king of this land.”
“Seriously? That’s the wolf creature’s king?” The cyan pegasus said, only to receive a jab to her side by Applejack as a means to tell her to be quiet.
“I’m very sorry about my friend. She tends to say things without thinking of the outcome of her actions.” Twilight said as she walked over to Ivan and offered him a hoof. “My name is Princess Twilight Sparkle. It’s a pleasure to meet you...Um.”
“Ivan. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He said before looking at her hoof. “I’d shake your...um...hoof? But as you can see, I’m currently being treated right now.”
“Geez, what happened to you that made you look like that?” Rainbow Dash asked as she noticed Starlight and Twilight’s deadpanned expressions. “What? It’s a general question.” There was a moment of silence in the air as Ivan and Anastasia looked at each other as the rider servant nodded. The caster servant soon turned her attention onto the group of ponies as she motions for them to follow her inside her home.
“Perhaps I should explain the situation that’s going on with this country. It would help to get a better understanding and clear some confusion that I’m sure everyone is having at the moment.” She said as the ponies of Equestria follow after her. Though she paused as she felt the ground shake from the demonic boar following after them. “Might want to tell the boar to wait outside my house. Mainly because of how big he is.” The boar in return let out a snort of annoyance as Fluttershy patted its head for comfort.
“There, there, I’m sure you can listen in on the conversation from the window if she has any.” Fluttershy said as Anastasia continued her walk to her house with the ponies following after. While this was happening, off in the distance of the village. Minotaur watched as they entered into the home of Anastasia as he licked his lips. The moment he sees the ponies leave the house of the servant, he would begin his assault. It’s not like he couldn’t go a day without for. Hell, he could go on for years just by absorbing the new magic that mixed with the previous magic from Equestria. It’s the fact that he enjoyed the thrill and taste of new prey.
A few hours had passed as Ivan and Anastasia explained everything. Where they came from, what they are, the throne of heroes, servants, etc. The former Tsar of Russia explained his part of the story without sparing any detail. He informed the ponies of Equestria about how Russia’s harsh winter forced him along with the citizens to take up the forms of demonic beasts through the help of magic, the bloodshed that was spilled by the yagas and himself, how he ruled this tundra, and how he was killed by both the last humans of Chaldea. Once he was finished with his part of his story, Anastasia explained her side of the story. The Crypters and how they were ordered to keep in charge of their respective lostbelt, the fantasy tree, the alien god, and how she became the king of the lostbelt after Ivan fell. To say that Twilight and her friends were shocked upon hearing this was an understatement. Hearing that this entire country had gone through something like this was something that was never heard of. The planet cutting off sections of failed paths for humans was messed up, but given what both servants had said about this country is understandable. There was a moment of awkward silence within Anastasia’s home for a good few seconds until Twilight spoke.
“So...if I’m getting this right. You’re from a version of earth where magic is used on a daily basis, only different.” The purple alicorn asked as both servants nodded. “Now, because of how things turned out for Russia. The planet decided to wipe you all out from the face of existence?”
“It’s not because of that…well for the most part,” Anastasia said before using her magic to make an ice version of the earth for them to see. “It’s the timeline of Russia. You see, lostbelts are made because of the wrong actions that person or country had made. That action can cause a huge effect on whether or the timeline is not the right line for humans to be able to survive in. The blizzard that appeared in Russia after the asteroid collided into the earth, forced the people of Russia to merge with a demonic beast that could survive the harsh winters. So far it worked, but there was another problem.”
“Food shortages,” Celestia said as Ivan nodded his head.
“We may have solved the problem with surviving the blizzard, but not the food shortages. Most plants can survive in cold climates thanks to magic, but with the constant blizzard hitting us, it was nearly impossible to grow plants. Hunting for food was the next option, but even the strongest of warriors can’t last long out in the cold with demonic beasts hunting them down as well.” Ivan said as Patxi let out a sigh of disappointment before speaking.
“Because of this, things began to change for Russia. Instead of helping each other to survive, it was survival of the fittest. If you weren’t strong enough to survive, then you were either killed or eaten by the demonic beasts or the Yagas that were strong enough to survive.” He said which Twilight and her friends to gasp in horror.
“That’s horrible!” Rarity yelled before looking over at Ivan. “How can you let this happen to your subjects!? Aren’t you the king of this place?”
“Former king. I lost that title the moment I was killed by the last master and Anastasia. But even before then I wasn’t the best at ruling the kingdom of Russia.” Ivan said as he adjusted himself a bit. “When you’re ruler you will be faced with a lot of things. Assassination, uprising, invaders from another country. All this without help from people you can trust will lead the ruler to make bad decisions. I don’t think you have the right to judge me upon my actions seeing as how you never once ruled a kingdom.” He said before looking over at Celestia and Luna. “They on the other hand have every right to judge me on my actions seeing how they're rulers of a foreign land that Russia is in now.”
“We will not judge you for the path you’ve taken with your country, Tsar of Russia,” Luna said as she placed a hoof on his shoulder. “As I said before, you’re not the only one who has made mistakes in the past.”
“Indeed, though it may not be the same as yours, we do understand what it means to make mistakes as a ruler,” Celestia added as Anastasia spoke up.
“Because of this path that Russia has taken, the universe decided to prune this version of Russia from existence.”
“Is that even possible? I mean, I know the universe isn’t a living thing, but how can it just decide something like that?” Starlight asked.
“The universe that we come from is a machine. It determines what can be possible or impossible for a proper timeline for the human race.” The caster said as she used her magic to summon up a small demonstration of a giant tree with lots of branches on it “You see, think of the universe as a gardener. The tree that I made represents earth and its many timelines where humanity. They’re strong, sturdy, and can survive just about anything.”
“Is it weird that I’m getting what she’s saying?” Pinkie Pie asked as Rainbow Dash nodded before speaking.
“At least she does a better job at explaining things than Twilight. All she does is just say things and not show.” She said which caused Pinkie Pie to agree, but Twilight to deadpan at the two ponies.
“I’ll have you know that I do a rather good job at explaining things.”
“In fairness, Twilight. You tend to go too far to where it can be confusing.” Applejack added as the purple alicorn huffed in annoyance.
“If I may continue? The universe is a gardener for the tree.” She said as she made more branches appear. “Its job is to make sure that the tree is manageable.”
“So if the timeline isn’t good, then the universe cuts it off?” Starlight asked as Anastasia nodded.
“Correct, lostbelts are pretty much a dead end to where there is no possibility to advance?” She asked as she made some of the branches come off and disappear into dust. “Its job is to make sure that humanity follows a path of surviving. So If the universe sees a timeline that no longer has the possibility for humanity to survive in, then it simply cuts it off and lets it die off into nothingness.”
“That’s horrible!” Cadence said. “How can the universe do something like that? Doesn’t it care that it’s wiping out an entire civilization?”
“It doesn’t do this to be evil. It does this for the greater good. The universe that we come from has multiple timelines. Some good, some bad. But they all can continue to grow and survive. Russia sadly faced a dead end. There was no room or possibility for humanity to survive. If this version of Russia and other lostbelts were to exist in the universe, then it would throw the solar system into chaos and begin to break. I shudder to think what would happen if that were to come true.”
“You explain it like that does make sense,” Patxi said with an annoyed look on his face. “Still doesn’t mean that it sucks that we get the short end of the stick in all this.”
“I will agree with you on that. But I can’t be angry at the universe for doing its job.
“Is this the only lostbelt that had suffered the same fate?” Luna asked as Anastasia shook her head as she pulled up visual images of seven of the lost belts, but one of the images was blank.
“There are seven lostbelts that the Alien God had saved from being erased. The one you’re in is called Russia. Next to it, Scandinavia, China, India, Atlantis, Olympus, Britain, and the last lostbelt…I don’t have much information on it other than it’s in South America.”
“Interesting,” Twilight said as she looked over the six visible lostbelts. “Does each of the lostbelts have someone that rules over it?”
“Indeed, they are called the lostbelt kings,” Anastasia said before pulling up six images of the lostbelt kings. "The former King of Russia was Ivan the Terrible, but seeing how he died, that title belongs to me. Though I allow him to help out given his past mistakes."
“Kind of an appropriate name given what he told us.” Rainbow Dash said as Applejack elbowed her side. “Ow! What!? It’s true.”
“Next on the list is Scathach-Skadi. The only Norse god who survived the Twilight of Ragnarok. The end of the world for those who don’t know.”
“I read something about that in the human world,” said Twilight. “There was a battle between the gods of Norse mythology and the titans. Only a few of the gods manage to survive Ragnarok.”
“Yes, but in this lost belt, things took a turn for the worse when Surtr ate the wolf Fenrir and obtained his ability or ice. It took all of the gods to seal the ancient titan away within a pocket dimension which became the sun of that place. By sacrificing themselves to do it. Thus Skadi was the only true Norse god to remain within the lostbelt and became king of it.”
“So she’s just like the princesses?” Rarity asked.
“Motherly personality, yes. Level of magic, depending.” She said before looking at Luna and Celestia. “I can sense that you two are on the levels of a divine spirit, but over the years you must have been slacking in keeping up with your training due to ruling over your kingdom for one-thousand years. Which means you must have relied on Twilight and her friends to help take care of problems that you can’t do anymore?”
“...Well…yes,” Celestia said with a blush on her face. “Of course, we tried to help Twilight when she needed it…it’s just…I’m not the spring chicken as I used to be.”
“We told you eating too much cake would cause you problems, later on, ~,” Luna said as it caused Celestia to blush and glare at Luna. “You know it’s true.”
“The key difference between us and your princesses is that servants never age. We are recorded in the throne of heroes during our prime years. Mainly within the age of being young and able to fight. This applies to lostbelt servants as well, but I believe that we’re stronger than the servants of the proper human history.” Ivan said as Anastasia nodded as she pulled up another picture of the next lostbelt king.
“Next is Qin Shi Huang, The lostbelt King of China.” She said as it caused Rarity to let out a surprised gasp.
“Such regalia, such beauty! Those clothes are simply divine! I would love to learn more about this place called China and its culture in clothing!”
“I’m willing to give you the information on that from memory when I get the chance,” Anastasia said before focusing back onto Qin. “In this version of China, Qin discovered the remains of an artificial human body made by the Xian, Taiyi Zhenren from the historic ruins of the Yin dynasty, and by analyzing it, he acquired the technology to mechanize the flesh. Thus, the Qin Shi Huang who obtained his dearest wish, immortality, avoided an era of wars with his iron wall-like rule, and thanks to this, even before the Western Renaissance, China has accomplished an Industrial Revolution. Due to the overwhelming gap in technology, he managed to conquer the whole world.” She said before looking at Twilight. “I’m going to assume you know how this became a lostbelt.”
“The mirror world version of China wasn’t so technologically advanced to the point of being able to obtain immortality or be able to take over the world without the risk of a backlash from it.”
“Correct. Seeing how the entire world was taken over by one country and ruled with an iron grip, that was a dead-end for that version of China. Humans couldn’t grow, they were stunted with limited freedom to do whatever they want. Thus the universe cut this timeline off and it was made into a lostbelt.”
“It would make sense that this was a lostbelt,” Luna said as she shivers. “It would be the equivalent of if I were to let Nightmare Moon take control of me and rule over Equestria, had she won the fight with Celestia.” She said before noticing Anastasia pulling up another image of the next lostbelt king.
“The lostbelt king of India, God Arjuna.” He said which took the ponies of Equestria by surprise. “This version of Arjuna absorbed all the gods of the Hindu pantheon except for Karna and Ganesha. Because of this, he lost most of his humanity and became the last Indian god of the lostbelt. Thus he took it upon himself to make his world a place without evil, bloodshed, or violence. To exterminate evil, to make the world end, he wields and brings peace with his Noble Phantasm, Mahāpralaya: Revolving Sword that Adjudicates Reoccurring Destruction. With this ability, Dissolution, and rebirth... Destruction and reconstruction... Cataclysm and genesis are within his capability. To destroy and remake everything in the Indian Lostbelt, Arjuna Alter extracts the unified divine power from all Divinities inside him, and condenses them into a sword, using the tenth to control its execution.”
“So basically he can recreate the world that he rules and eliminate anything evil in his eyes.” Starlight said as it took everyone by surprise. “How is it possible that humans can obtain this much?”
“Because each lostbelt is from an era where gods existed,” said Ivan. “That where humans and gods were walking the same road as most would say. Like how it is with you and your subjects. You would be classified as a god given your divine properties and whatnot.” he said before noticing worried expressions on the ponies' faces. “Rest assured, I doubt this world will end up like the lostbelts seeing how it doesn’t have humans in it.”
“That may be true, but it’s scary to think something like this exists for the human race,” Twilight said. “It’s almost sad…in a way that these lostbelts have turned out to be…no offense.”
“None taken. You wouldn’t be the first to say that.” Ivan said as Anastasia pulled up another image.
“Next is Zeus. God of the Olympus and Atlantis lostbelt. From what I can remember from my master’s conversations with the other masters. In this version of Olympus, the gods of Olympus are a highly advanced alien race. Over the time they’ve been on earth, they soon manifested into humanoid-like terminals to interact with the natives. The humans granted them names and faith, and in return, the Machine Gods gave them fruits of civilization. But of course, just like with all ancient civilizations, there’s going to be conflict within it.” She said before showing them a picture of the white titan.
“The Lostbelt's history diverged in 12000 BC during the invasion of the Earth by Sefar, the white titan. In the Leukosmachia Unlike what occurred in the primary history, where the gods abided by the boundaries of their respective domains and subsequently had their true bodies destroyed, Zeus fused with the other Olympians against their consent, gaining their bodies and power which allowed him to stalemate and repel Sefar, at the cost of being ostracized by the other gods for his unilateral violation of their domains, even as he secured his position as their absolute leader. Because of this, The gods continued their rule, with their powers and technology eventually advancing to the point where they redefined the concept of Gods, with the use of powerful divine nanomachines known as Klironomia as their Authorities. Yet even with this, there was still conflict. The Olympians managed to defeat Sefar, but when Zeus decided to expand the Age of Gods to further their reign, Hephaestus, Hades, Athena, Apollo, Hestia, Ares opposed him and got destroyed in the resulting war. Zeus survived alongside Artemis, Poseidon, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hera, and continued to rule the world. ”
“Wow, he must be really strong if he could do something like that.” Rainbow Dash said as she looked over at the caster servant. “What does Olympus place look like anyway?” She asked as Anastasia pulled up an image of Mount Olympus as hers along with the other ponies' eyes widened.
“Mother of Celestia! That place is bigger than Canterlot!” Rarity yelled. “Canterlot, it’s bigger than the Crystal Empire!” Cadence added. “How is this even possible!?”
“That’s the lostbelt in a nutshell for you. What you consider impossible becomes possible.” Ivan said as he noticed Anastasia bringing up another picture.
“The last lostbelt King that I have information on is Morgan la Fay. Ruler of Great Britain and the kingdom of fairies. Her lostbelt along with the seventh lostbelt are known to be the most dangerous out of the others. Mainly because of the calamities within them. Don’t know much that’s going on within them, but out of all of the lostbelt kings, Morgan is the strongest out of them all.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she destroyed the fantasy tree that’s supposed to keep the lostbelt from disappearing from what I’ve heard.” She said which took everyone by surprise. “That means that she must’ve some kind of means to keep her lostbelt from disappearing without the help of the Alien God.”
“U-Um, should we be worried that these lostbelt might come to this world? J-Just like the one we’re in right now?” Fluttershy asked as it caused the two servants to wonder that.
“Well…it is a possibility. But that would depend on if the last human master of Chaldea can deny the existence of the other lostbelts.” Ivan said as it caused Rainbow Dash to speak up.
“What do you mean by the last human master of Chaldea?”
“The alien god wiped out humanity to bring the lostbelts to the planet earth that we came from. Safe for a small band of humans from the proper human history that survived. To bring their humanity back, they would have to deny the existence of all seven lostbelts. Meaning that they would have to destroy the fantasy trees that reside within the lostbelts.” Patxi said as it took the equestrians by surprise. “A heavy burden to carry for anyone that wants their planet back. Especially in the human’s case seeing how she’s the one doing it.”
“Isn’t there a way where everypony can live together?” Fluttershy asked as Anastasia shook her head.
“As I said before, if there are timelines where there can’t be any possibility of growth or continuation, then the solar system, if not the universe will break. It’s a bum deal, but that’s how the universe works.” She said before making the images vanish. “Having the lostbelts exist in the proper human history will cause problems. And not in a good way.”
“War, chaos, mass genocide. I can go on, but you get what I mean?” Ivan said as he noticed the disgruntled expression on the pony's face. “But that’s beside the point. Russia is given a second chance to thrive in this new land, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes so that her people can live a happy life then.”
“I still have my doubts about your claim. Especially given the hell you put us through.” Patxi said before aiming his weapon at the former Tsar of Russia. “For now, I’ll watch. But should you ever go back to your old ways, I won’t hesitate on putting a bullet through your head.”
“Whoa, their partner. I get that what he did to your kin was wrong, but killing him isn’t going to help.” Applejack said as she walked over to him and used her hoof to lower his weapon.
“I have no problem with that.” He said which took the farm pony by surprise. “I’m no longer the Tsar of Russia, that title goes to Anastasia. She did obtain the title after I died,” he said as everyone looked over the caster servant. In return, she simply hunched down in her seat while taking a sip from her tea…though she blinked upon realizing that it tasted like hot chocolate. Looking down she noticed that her cup was a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows in them.
“Wait, how did my cup get replaced with a mug of hot chocolate?” Anastasia asked before noticing the same mug with everyone’s cups. “Wait, what happened to my teacups?” She asked as everyone took notice of this, though the caster servant did notice Twilight looking over at Pinkie Pie, who was secretly giving Mr. Boar a large mug of hot chocolate out the window. The Pink party pony paused upon feeling a pair of eyes on her as she looked over at the group.
“Why am I not surprised by this?” Rarity said with an amused expression on her face.
“In my defense. Hot chocolate goes well in cold climates like this.” Pinkie said with a sheepish smile on her face, though the servants and Patxi would be dumbfounded by this. For Patxi, it was because he never tasted something like this before and it tasted real good. For the servants, it was mainly due to how quick Pinkie Pie was in replacing their cups and drinks with mugs and hot chocolate…was this pony secretly a pseudo servant of the assassin class? Though that question will have to wait for another date in time, mainly because they heard the sound of a primal roar echo throughout the small village they were in.
“What on earth was that?” Twilight asked as she noticed Ivan and Anastasia tensing up.
“Of all the servants of the lostbelt to be alive, it had to be him,” Ivan said as he quickly began to make his way outside along with Anastasia. The ponies and Patxi looked at each other for a moment as they quickly made their way outside. The moment they were outside, they noticed the Yaga running inside their homes and the royal guards quickly making their way over to Celestia and the others.
“Can someone explain to me what’s going on?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Why did all the yagas run inside their homes with their tails between their legs?”
“Not to mention that dreadful roar. Did a dragon end up in this place?” Rarity asked as Anastasia shook her head.
“The lostbelts are different bad ends of the proper human history. That also means as the bed of human history, there will be different versions of the servant of the proper human history. One of them is here, which I was hoping he wouldn’t be here.”
“Which one would that be?” Luna asked as her answer came with the sounds of monstrous footsteps. Looking over to her right, her eyes widened upon seeing who it was that made the roar and thunderous stomping noise.
“The legendary Monster of the Greek Lostbelt, Minotaur.”
The ground shook from the force behind Ivan and Minotaur's fists collided with each other. Both titans were at a stand-off for a good couple of seconds before they both pulled away and began delivering heavy blows between each other. Though Ivan’s punches didn’t hold much force behind them to do as much damage as he intended to do, the minotaur’s on the other hand did as it caused the former Tsar to be pushed back with each punch that was landed upon him. The moment he was about to use his ax-like weapon to impale him, he was soon stopped by a rainbow blur zooming around him at blinding speed. The Minotaur turns his attention to Rainbow Dash as he tries to hit her with his weapons, only to miss by a hair as she starts to circle him. In doing so, she started to create a miniature tornado made out of snow around the minotaur. There was a few seconds of silence after Rainbow Dash landed next to Ivan, as the Minotaur sliced the tornado in two like a hot knife through butter and began to charge at them.
The moment he brought his weapons up in an attempt to slice them both in two, a wall of ice erupted in between them as it caused his weapons to be stuck in the ice wall. He looked around to see who was the cause of this as he locked onto Anastasia. The caster servant locked eyes with the Greek legend as she took a step forwards in doing so, she created a flood of spear-like ice heading toward him. The Minotaur quickly rolls out of the way of the attack before charging at her. The moment he took one step forward, he was instantly sent flying up into the air from a pillar of ice shooting up from below. The moment he was in the air, Ivan aimed with his staff and fired off a beam of electricity at him. The beast let out a roar of pain from the lightning strike as he came crashing down onto the ground.
“Did it work?” Rainbow Dash asked before noticing Minotaur quickly standing up.
“It takes more than just that to bring down a legendary spirit. Especially if they’re in the Berserker class.” Anastasia said as she appeared next to the cyan-colored pegasus. “We just need to stall him long enough for your friends to get the yagas out of this town.”
“With just the three of us?” She said before looking at Ivan. “Well, two and a half.”
“Just because I’m in a weakened state, doesn’t mean I can’t hold my own,” Ivan said before turning his focus on the Greek lostbelt servant. “Worry about your safety then mind, horse.”
“Hey! I’m a pony! Not a horse!” Rainbow Dash said before hearing Minotaur standing up. “Uh-oh. The big guy’s getting up.” She said before noticing him glaring at the trio. “And he’s mad.”
“Well, we did send him flying and struck him with lightning. Who wouldn’t be pissed off from getting hurt like that?” Anastasia said before the ice started to form around herself. “You two keep him distracted, I’ll provide support as best I can.” Ivan simply nodded before charging at Minotaur once again and delivering a strong right hook to the monster’s face. The monster was unphased by the punch as he countered with a punch of his own it sent Ivan flying backward into an abandoned house. The Minotaur quickly jumps back to avoid a pillar of ice appearing below him as he locks eyes with Anastasia. He quickly picked up a piece of the frozen earth underneath him and tossed it at the caster servant. Anastasia tapped the ground with her foot as she summoned a wall of ice around her causing the earth that the minotaur tossed to crumble into pieces. The moment the piece of earth crumbled into pieces, the minotaur thrust his hand through the ice, grabbed the servant, and then quickly began to squeeze the life out of her as she let out a grunt of pain.
Just as he was about to slam Anastasia into the ground, a familiar rainbow blur zoomed around him multiple times before bringing a hoof to his face each time she zoomed past him. The minotaur was getting annoyed by this. Granted it didn’t hurt him, but it was rather annoying that he couldn’t hit her due to how fast she was going. The beast soon stopped his attempt to grab Rainbow Dash as he let her hit him a few more times. Just as she was about to come in and hit him on the nose, the minotaur saw her coming and soon tossed Anastasia at her. Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened upon seeing this as she and Anastasia crashed into each other before hitting the ground.
The Minotaur soon appeared over the two downed fighters as was about to stomp on them with his foot, only for him to recoil back in pain from a bullet being fired into his eye. The beast let out a cry of pain before looking around to see where the attack came from. He soon felt another bullet hit him on the head as he looked up to see Patxi riding on Twilight’s back as he started to reload his rifle.
“Never thought I would be riding on a flying demonic horse’s back while fighting a monster,” Patxi said as it caused Twilight to glare at him.
“I’m not demonic or a horse. I am a pony. Pony. Please get it right.” Twilight asked as the Yaga simply rolled his eyes as he finish reloading.
“Just keep to the sky so I can give them cover fire.” He said before aiming and firing upon Minotaur. The minotaur brought a hand up to protect his face from some of the bullets as the other bullets bounced off his body as if nothing happened. He soon moved away from Rainbow Dash and Anastasia as he picked up another giant piece of the frozen earth. Only this time, he didn’t throw it. Instead, he simply took about a hand-size piece of it and crumbled it up with both hands. Patxi was confused as to what the lostbelt servant was doing, but Twilight on the other hand knew what was going on and began to fly out of the way just as the minotaur fired the remains of the earth he crumbled up like a shotgun. The purple Alicorn and Yaga were successful in dodging the first round of a scattered rock, and the Yaga was about to counterattack with a hail of bullets of his own. But couldn’t due to the lostbelt servant firing another round of scattered rocks at them as Twilight continued to dodge out of the way.
Just as the minotaur was about to fire a third round of scattered rocks at the two, a pair of elephant tusk burst out of the house Ivan was thrown into as they impaled themselves into Minotaur's chest. Once they hit their target, Ivan unleashed a current of electricity into the minotaur as the beast grunted in irritation before slowly grabbing onto his tusks, lifting him out of the house, and throwing him into the direction of an oncoming Luna. The princess of the moon saw the giant servant heading her way as she quickly dodge out of the way and saw Ivan land into another home. Though this time it was Anastasia’s home.
“Seriously!? I just built that home not too long ago!” Anastasia said as she and Rainbow Dash pulled themselves up from the ground. Just as she did that, she heard something land next to her and Rainbow Dash. The caster servant looked over to her right to see Luna landed next to them before looking over at Minotaur. “How’s the evacuation going?”
“We need a little bit more time. How are you all holding up against the beast?” Luna asked.
“Not so well,” She said before noticing Patxi and Twilight getting the minotaur’s attention by doing hit and run tactics while dodging the barrage of stones he’s throwing at them. “Ivan’s being thrown around like a rag doll, not that I’m complaining about, but his along with our attacks aren’t doing enough damage. Though I shouldn’t be surprised given Ivan’s condition and I’m not strong enough due to not having a master to draw magic from.”
“Then how are we supposed to take this behemoth down?” Rainbow Dash asked as Anastasia bit the nail of her thumb.
“Guess I have no choice,” She said before pulling out a pale-blonde-haired doll with green leaves as a dress, and a small crown on its head. “I hope I can damage him with this.”
“A doll? What’s that going to do?” Rainbow Dash asks as she notices the servant giving her a cold stare at her, which in turn causes the pegasus to flinch back a bit.
“Get close to me and do not leave my spot.” She said as Luna noticed the temperature around them getting much colder than it was already. As this was happening, Ivan pulled himself out of Anastasia’s home as he felt the change in the temperature around him. He looked over at Anastasia for a moment before looking over at Twilight & Patxi who crashed onto the ground after Twilight felt one of the rocks nick her wings badly.
The moment the two hit the snow-covered ground, Patxi notices the minotaur heading towards them at blinding speed. He looked over at the dazed alicorn as he quickly grabbed her main and tossed her to the side. Twilight was about to say something out of annoyance but was cut off by seeing the Minotaur charging into the Yaga and sending him flying backward towards a pile of broken planks of wood.
“Patxi!” Twilight yelled as she watched the Yaga heading towards a piece of wood in the shape of a spike. She soon closed her eyes to avoid looking at what was about to happen as she heard the sound of something crashing into the wood. She soon opens her eyes to see what happened but was taken by surprise by Ivan catching the Yaga in his hands. From what she could tell, it looks like he charged through the pile of wood to quickly catch. But in doing so, she noticed a large trail of blood in the snow as the bandages he had on were soaked red in his blood. The former Tsar’s body started to glow as he quickly charged at the minotaur. The moment he was close and the minotaur was about to deliver a strong right hook to the rider servant’s face, the former Tsar quickly ducked underneath the right hook, quickly picked up Twilight, and headed over towards Anastasia and the others with Minotaur tailing behind him.
“They’re coming this way,” Luna said as Rainbow Dash noticed Minotaur following.
“So is tall, pale, and gruesome!” The pegasus said as she looked over at Anastasia and was about to say something, but her eyes widened upon seeing a shadowy figure with light blue eyes.
“Viy, I beg you,” Anastasia said the shadowy figure grew taller and taller by the second. It soon shadowed over them as it locked eyes with Minotaur. “Curse them all,” The figure soon lifted a hand into the air before bringing it down upon the Greek lostbelt servant, causing him to be pushed onto the ground. “Freeze them all,” The figure lifted its other hand and slammed it onto Minotaur again, pushing him deeper into the ground. “Kill them all!” The moment Ivan ran behind Anastasia, Viysoon lifted Minotaur into the air and cast a blue flash upon him and the area behind him. “Activate Mystic Eyes…Go, Viy!” The light caused Luna, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight to close their eyes for a moment before the flash died down. Once it was over, their eyes widened upon seeing the Minotaur and the area encased in a large case of ice.
“Dear Celestia…” Luna said in shock at what Anastasia did.
“....Okay, that was pretty awesome…just not as awesome as me of course…but still awesome.” Rainbow Dash said
“This is the power of a servant!?“ Twilight said in utter shock as she looked over at Anastasia who fell to her knees and panted. “Oh my goodness, are you okay?”
“Y-Yeah, j-just put too much into that attack,” Anastasia said before looking up at the Minotaur frozen in ice. Upon looking at him, she notices cracks starting to form within the ice. “The ice’s not going to hold him for long. We need to leave, now.” She said before trying to pull herself up but soon fell back onto the snow. When she tried to stand up again, she felt Luna moving underneath, picked her up, and placed the servant on her back. The caster servant blinked in surprise as she looked down. “Um…thank you.”
“It’s the least we could do for risking your life,” Luna said as she looked over at Ivan. “Are you okay to stand long enough to get to the entrance?”
“I can manage.” He said before taking the lead towards the entrance of the village. “This pain is nothing to me.”
“It’s nice to see he’s still up and running,” Luna said before taking off into the air along with Rainbow Dash as they both followed after Ivan.
“Is this everyone?” Celestia asked as one of the male Yaga soldiers nodded before speaking.
“We can manage from here. There’s a hidden fortress not far off that we use for when we have to deal with a giant demonic beast like that pig you all are riding on.” He said looking at the citizens for a moment before looking back at Celestia. “We appreciate the help in rounding up the citizens of this town.”
“It’s the least we can do. We can’t just stand by and let you suffer any more than you already have.” She said as the soldier smiled and began to make his way over to the other Yaga. The moment he left, Celestia’s ears twitched upon hearing the sound of heavy foot stomps heading her way. She looked over to Ivan along with Anastasia, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, Ivan, and an unconscious Patxi making their way over to her. “Mother of me, are you all okay.”
“Other than a few cuts and bruises, we’re doing fine,” Anastasia said as she looked over at the giant wall of ice that she made. She squinted her eyes a bit as she saw that it was starting to form cracks. “We need to leave. I froze the monster, but that ice isn’t going to last long given his monstrous strength.”
“Is everyone evacuated?” Ivan asked as Celestia pointed a hoof over to the fleeing Yagas heading down the snow-covered path. “Good, then we can leave.”
“But wouldn’t that monster follow us if we leave?” Rainbow Dash asked as the caster servant nodded.
“That’s the plan. While Minotaur follows after us, we’ll be able to give the citizens enough time to make it to the hidden fortress to hide in for a couple of days before returning.”
“Admirable, but also dangerous,” Luna said as she pointed out Ivan, Patxi, and Anastasia’s weakened state. “But you three aren’t in the position for a prolonged battle. Not to mention I still can’t use my magic to assist you.”
“We don’t need to beat him, just keep him on our tail until we reach the borders of Russia…I’m hoping he doesn’t follow us after that.”
“...You’re hoping?” Twilight asked.
“We don’t have a lot of options,” Ivan said before making her way over to the demonic boar and placing Patxi on its back. “And I advise you all to start running.”
“And why is-” Before Cadance could finish her sentence, the giant wall of ice that Anastasia made began to crumble into pieces.
“That’s why.” He said before hopping onto the boar along with Twilight’s friends.
“Yep, time to leave,” Anastasia said as she felt Luna take to the air. Cadence, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, the pegasus guards, and Celestia took to the air while Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Starlight, and the earth & unicorn ponies hopped onto the demonic boar and bolted down the snowy path towards the borders of Russia and Equestria. Moments after the groups left, the Minotaur made his way to where they were. He scanned the area to see if there were any signs of life or at least a trail to follow after them. He sniffed the air for a moment as he caught the scent of both the Yagas and Ponies.
On the one hand, if he went after the group of Yagas, he would get a free meal. On the other hand, he was pissed that he was humiliated by the two servants, the yaga, and that cyan flying horse. He weighed his option for a moment before choosing to go after the two servants. Eating them might help increase his powers and possibly sedate his constant hunger. He sniffed the air again to track their scent before charging off towards the group fleeing Russia. While he was making his way through the snow, a familiar cat girl servant was watching the scene unfold to her from a nearby mountain as she watched the Minotaur rushing through the snow to chase after the two servants and the equestrians.
“Should we go after them?” asked one of the male Yagas as Atalanta shook her head.
“Follow after the group of Yagas who are making their way to the fortress. I’ll see if I can assist the foreigners and the former King in escaping.” She said before heading towards the border of Russia. “If I’m not back, continue to protect them from the bandits or any other monsters that might attack that fortress.”
“Yes ma’am!” The yagas yelled in unison as they watched the altered servant leave.
While Atalanta made her way to where Russia and Equestria borders meet, the fleeing servants along with the Equestrians were halfway towards the borders thanks to the boar’s help. While making their way through the snow-covered trail, Anastasia and Fluttershy finish reapplying new bandages on the former Tsar’s body.
“You know, you didn’t have to bandage me up. You could’ve waited until we were in a safer place than on the boar’s back while running away from the monster.”
“Having you bleed out and die would be a pain on us,” Anastasia said before returning her attention onto the road. “Don’t think this means I’ve forgiven you for what you did to me or the Yagas. You’re still a monster in my eyes.”
“That seems a bit harsh don’t you think?” Luna asked as she flinched from seeing the servant’s ice-cold stare.
“Forgiveness is earned, not given. Though I may not have been the Tsar for long, I at least tried to save my country instead of resorting to an iron grip or killing our subjects.”
“Hey, cut the big guy some slack. If it weren’t for him, I’m pretty sure we would be in even more trouble than before.” Rainbow Dash said as she flew in front of the caster servant’s face. “He at least gained some trust from me in my book.”
“There is no need to defend me. Understandably, she wouldn’t forgive me, and I’m okay with that. My time as the Tsar has ended the moment I died by the last human’s hands. All I want is to see that our country thrives once again like it used to before the changes that caused it to be erased from existence.”
“Hm, I’ll believe that when I see it,” Anastasia said before noticing Pinkie Pie looking behind them with a pair of binoculars. “Is something the matter?”
“You know that Minotaur that you said that you froze in ice?” She asked as she handed the binoculars over to her. “Well, she’s following us…I think he might be mad that you gave him the cold shoulder.” The caster servant looked over to see what she meant as she saw Minotaur charging at them at blinding speed.
“How is he still standing after being frozen in ice!?” Rainbow Dash yelled as Ivan summoned his staff into his hand and began firing beams of lightning bolts at the berserker servant. Only for him to use his halberds to deflect them away.
“We’ll handle this princess.” One of the guards said as he along with the other earth ponies were about to attack the Minotaur, only for Celestia to extend her wings out as a means to stop them from attacking.
“Attacking him now will be pointless. I know some of you saw what he can do and how strong he is, but we’re trying to escape him with three being injured. Adding more to the list will make it harder for us to escape even more.” Celestia said while biting her lower lip in frustration. “All we can do is hope that our friend here can outrun him.”
“Which might be a problem given how he’s plowing through snow and trying not to let anyone fall off him.” Applejack said as Fluttershy tried her best to encourage the boar as best as she could. “This would be so much easier if y’all can use your magic.”
“Can’t you use that spell of yours to freeze him again?” Cadence asked as Anastasia flinched a bit from hearing that.
“There’s a limit to how much a servant can use a noble phantasm.” She said before looking over at Minotaur and using her ice powers to manipulate the ice and create spikes to try and slow the berserker down, but easily burst or cut through the spikes made out of ice. “I’m a masterless servant. So using my noble phantasm again without a master to supply me with magic will drain me more.”
“So all we can do is just run and hope your attacks can hurt him enough to back away?” Rainbow Dash asked as Anastasia nodded. The cyan pegasus was about to say something, but an idea appeared in her head as she grins. “Keep the big guy busy. I got an idea.” Before Anastasia could say anything, the cyan pegasus took to the air and flew off above the clouds.
“Where is she going?” Ivan asked after noticing Rainbow Dash flying off towards the clouds.
“Oh, horse apples.” Applejack said before looking over at everyone. “Everypony brace yourselves! She’s about to perform a sonic rainboom!” She yelled as everyone besides Anastasia and Ivan held onto the fur of the demonic boar.
“...A sonic rainboom?” Ivan asked as Twilight looked over at the two confused servants. “Care to explain what that is?”
“It’s best that you watch and possibly hold onto something so the blast doesn’t accidentally send you flying,” Twilight said as the two servants looked at each other for a moment before hearing something soaring through the air. Looking they saw the clouds moving around slightly before seeing a familiar cyan-colored pegasus bursting through the clouds with a Mach cone around her.
“....Is she planning on ramming into Minotaur!?” Anastasia yelled in disbelief as she noticed the pegasus heading towards Minotaur at breakneck speed.
“Seems like it,” Ivan said before grabbing the caster servant and pulling her in close to him as if he was hugging her. Anastasia was about to say something and pull away from the rider servant, only for her to notice that he used his tusk to extend out towards Minotaur, only for him to jump into the air to avoid it. In doing so, it made him much easier for Rainbow Dash to unleash a sonic rainboom upon the berserker servant as the blast behind it caused the demonic boar and the two servants to be sent flying forwards and crash into a mountain of snow made by the boar when he was charging through the thick snow.
Ivan soon pulled himself out of the snow along with Anastasia, who struggled out of his grip to stand up on her own feet. She staggered a bit upon doing that as she looked around to see what happened. From what she saw, there was a huge crater from where Rainbow Dash made after she crashed into Minotaur, the cyan pegasus’s feet were sticking out of a pile of snow due to being forced back from crashing into something hard and sturdy, and the equestrians were currently scattered around the area due to being sent flying off of the boar.
“Everyone seems to be okay. But what about Minotaur?” She thought before looking over at the crater that the minotaur was in, but was taken by surprise to see that he wasn’t in there. She began to quickly look around to see where the berserker servant was, but soon heard something hard hit Ivan from behind as he was sent flying into the crater. The caster servant soon turns around to see Minotaur standing over her. She was about to attack only, but couldn’t react faster as he grabbed her. The moment she was grabbed, she could feel the servant starting to squeeze the life out of her as she gritted her teeth from the pain she felt. “D-Dammit, I let my guard down.”
“....Die,” Minotaur said as he continued to squeeze the life out of the caster servant as she felt and heard certain bones in her body beginning to break from the pressure. The moment he opened his mouth and was about to bite the servant’s head off, he quickly released his hold on Anastasia after feeling a sharp pain in his arm and hand. Looking over his hand, he saw a volley of arrows embedded in his flesh. He soon heard the sounds of arrows flying through the air as he quickly brought his halberds up to protect himself from the arrows. While this was happening, Anastasia felt herself being pulled out of the way of the assault by Applejack from the side as she tied a rope around the caster servant’s leg.
The Minotaur took notice of the farm pony pulling his meal away as he was about to throw his weapons at the pony but was sent flying backward by Ivan as he charged into him with full force. The berserker servant quickly recovered from being sent flying backward by using her halberds to stop himself from sliding backward. The soon glared at the demonic boar and was about to charge at him, only to push himself backward from seeing a volley of darkish purple-colored arrows heading towards him.
“You okay sugarcube?” Applejack asked after pulling Anastasia to a safe area where the ponies were helping each other out of the snow.
“N…No…No, I’m not okay.” She said before coughing up some of her blood.
“Hang on, we’ll get you to Equestria in no time.” She said before noticing the boar pulling himself up and shaking the snow from off his body. The farm pony quickly moved underneath the servant as she placed her on her back and quickly made her way over to the others. “Girls, we need to leave, like now.”
“Mother of me,” Luna said as she noticed the state of the caster servant was in as she grimaced a bit. “Place her on my back. I’ll carry her back to Equestria.”
“What about Rainbow Dash? She’s fast enough to get from here to Equestria, right?” Rarity asked as Twilight cleared her throat to gain their attention. The group looked over at the princess of friendship as she saw a passed-out Rainbow Dash and Patxi laying on Twilight’s back.
“She’s currently out of commission after hitting Minotaur with her sonic rainboom. Our only form of transportation is the boar.” She said before looking over at the ponies getting back onto the boar. She soon looked over at the Minotaur who was currently dodging the volley of arrows and Ivan’s lightning attacks. The moment she saw an opening where Ivan stood away from Minotaur, she quickly flew over to him and spoke. “We can't stay here for much longer. Especially given how Anastasia and Patxi are knocked out and in critical condition.”
The former Tsar turned his gaze onto the alicorn as he noticed she was having trouble staying in the air due to having to carry Rainbow Dash and Patxi. The rider servant nodded upon seeing this as he took the two off of her back and began to make his way over the demonic boar along with Twilight. The Minotaur noticed the two fleeing as he was about to chase them, but was blocked by a volley of arrows as they formed a wall of falling arrows to block his path. The berserker servant gritted his teeth upon seeing the group escaping him. He would pursue them, but the fact that someone was preventing him from giving chase, that all he could do is watch them leave. The moment the volley of arrows stopped he looked around the area to see where or who it was that attacked him. He sniffed the air a couple of times but couldn’t pick up the scent of the newcomer. The lostbelt servant snorted in annoyance as he began to retreat for now. Eventually, they will be back, and the moment they do, he will kill and eat them all.
As he was retreating, Atalanta watched the minotaur leave. She lets out a sigh of relief upon knowing that he gave up his pursuit as she turned her attention onto the group that was feeling. She was tempted to follow them to this country full of talking demonic horse beasts but chose not to as she was more focused on making sure the minotaur didn’t attack the yagas that were fleeing or any other towns that the beast might attack. It’s the least she could do seeing how the former tsar is being treated along with Anastasia.
The equestrian along with the former kings successfully made their way out of Russia and into Equestria. So far from what Celestia could tell, there weren't any serious casualties among the Equestrians. Though the Servants and Patxi on the other hand were in serious condition given what happened to them in the fight with Minotaur. It took them a good couple of hours for the boar to make it to Ponyville given how Fluttershy led the boar through certain areas inhabited by ponies, who were scared upon seeing the demonic boar making his way through different cities and towns with a bunch of ponies on his back.
Upon making their way to Ponyville, the servants took notice of the colorful town though more focused on the ponies who were looking at them with mixed expressions. Some took notice of them due to the princesses being with them, while others quickly hid inside their homes due to them and the demonic boar that they were riding on, but still looked through a window from their homes or around the corner they were hiding behind. It was understandable. A demonic beast walking through town with weird-looking creatures on the boar’s back. Who wouldn’t be scared of them?
From what the servants saw on their travels to Ponyville the civilization of Equestria was almost similar to how the proper human history was. Just a bit different with a lot of the towns being horse-related puns. A bit odd for the servants to hear this, but it doesn’t look like this place what Ivan would consider as a threatening place…at least what he considered as threatening. Ponyville seems to resemble more of the town they were in with the Yagas before Minotaur appeared in, only without snow and there wasn’t a castle made out of crystal in the center of town.
“So, this is where you ponies live?” Ivan asked as he looked around at the town. “Not to sound rude, but this place is a bit of an eyesore due to how colorful this place is.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot.” Starlight said with a slight awkward chuckle in her voice. “But I can assure you, this place is very peaceful at times.”
“At times?”
“Well, this town lives next to the Everfree Forest. It’s a forest that not many ponies would go into due to how dangerous it is.”
“Not to mention some of the animals there tend to come into Ponyville and cause trouble for us,” Twilight added. “But don’t worry, we always make sure they don’t hurt anypony and make them go back into the forest.” She said as Ivan and Anastasia stared at her.
“So…you live in a town…that’s next to a dangerous forest…filled with monsters?” Anastasia asked as Twilight and her friends nodded. “...You know, considering where we’re from, we don’t have much room to judge...but this seems like an awful place to live in if monsters could just walk into town and cause trouble…doesn’t this place have a barrier or something to keep them out and away from town?”
“Or a foreign invasion?” Ivan asked as the ponies other than Celestia, Luna, and Cadence shook their heads. “...How is this country still standing?”
“Going into detail about how things work in Equestria might take a while to explain. Though I can provide you with books about our history once you’re in a better condition than how you are now.” Celestia said as she pointed a hoof at the large gashes on Ivan’s body and the blood-soaked bandages.
“Ponyville hospital is just a few feet away from. I’m sure they’ll be able to help patch you guys up in no time.” Applejack said as the caster servant gave her a weak smile.
“We appreciate you willing to help us, but I would be more focused on helping Patxi and your pony friend who took a head-on collision with Minotaur,” Ivan said as he looked over at the passed-out pegasus. “Pretty sure she has a broken, if not a fractured skull given how durable we servants are.”
“That may be true, but you two still need medical treatment,” Luna said as she moved over towards the two servants. “And we’re not taking no for an answer.” She said with a smirk on her face. Ivan and Anastasia looked at each other for a moment before returning their gaze onto the lunar princess.
“Fine…I suppose having a place to recover wouldn't hurt. But I want a separate room away from Ivan.” She said before looking at him. “I’ll tolerate your existence, but nothing more.”
“That…might be a problem,” Celestia said as the caster servant looked over at her. “It would be best for you two to be in the same room. Mainly because once you recover, we need to figure out how to deal with a few problems going on in your country.”
“You mean Minotaur, right?” Ivan asked as the white alicorn nodded.
“There’s that and the issue with us not being able to use our magic,” Luna added as she tried again to use her magic, only for a small spark to appear for a moment before vanishing. “We’ll have to use the device to move the sun and the moon for the time being.”
“...I’m sorry but…what?” Anastasia asked as Pinkie Pie spoke.
“Oh right, we didn’t tell you guys. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna can use their magic to raise the sun and the moon.” She said which caused the servants to stare at the two alicorns in surprise.
“She’s right,” Celestia said. “While I raise and lower the sun, Luna raises and lowers the moon.”
“...I’ll have to see proof of that. Because it would be impossible to move the sun and the moon with just magic alone.” Anastasia said as her comment caused Celestia and Luna to chuckle.
“It doesn’t surprise me given how they’re off the same divinity as a divine spirit, albeit a bit weaker,” Ivan said before noticing some of the ponies watching them. “It would appear that they’re being watched.”
“Well given how we’re on the back of a demonic boar walking through town. It would make sense that they would be watching.” Anastasia said as she noticed some of them watching from their homes before closing the curtain to prevent themselves from being seen. “I get the feeling we’re not going to be welcome here as well as you all were back in the Yaga village.”
“We just need to talk things over with the ponies of Ponyville and explain the situation that’s going on,” Twilight said. “Though I think addressing it to everypony in Equestria might be a better idea. At least to settle their worries over the giant tree and the loss of magic.”
“We’ll have to do it when your diplomats are fully recovered,” Celestia said before feeling the boar stopping. She turns her attention to Fluttershy who in turn looks back at the group with a smile on her face before pointing a hoof at the hospital.
“We’re here.” She said as the royal guards quickly hopped off the boar’s back and formed a line on opposite ends of each other that led to the front doors of the hospital.
“Do they do that all the time?” Anastasia asked as she felt Luna move underneath her and placed the caster servant on her back.
“Both the Royal and Lunar Guards are ordered to do that. Mainly for protection reasons.” She said before noticing Ivan picking up Rainbow Dash and Patxi and hopping off of the boar’s back. Upon making contact with the ground, it made a loud thud while shaking the ground a bit as it caused the royal guards to buckle a bit from the small earthquake. As Ivan and the others began making their way into the hospital, Celestia brought Cadence to the side for a small chat.
“I need you to stay outside and make sure everypony is calm and not scared of what’s going on.”
“What do you mean?”
“Given how we have foreign diplomats from another world…or in this case country, and we made quite a ruckus getting here, it wouldn’t surprise me if certain ponies might snoop around the hospital for…information.”
“You mean the pony press?”
“Indeed, give them a small piece of information and they’ll hound you for more,” Celestia said before looking over at the small crowd of ponies starting to form in front of the hospital, though they kept their distance due to the demonic boar drinking from a nearby stream of water. “Though having the boar here doesn’t help, for the most part, we still need to be careful.”
“Understood, but what if they start asking questions about what just happened?”
“I’ll explain everything to them tomorrow. Right now we have more pressing matters to attend to.” Celestia said before following after Luna and the others. “I just hope things don’t go out of proportion or worse.” As she enters the hospital, Cadence turns her attention to the royal guards as some of the pegasi guards land off to the side of her. The pink alicorn walked over to them as they quickly stood at attention.
“Is there anything you need from us, Princess Cadence?” The stallion asked.
“I need you all to make sure nopony other than the medical ponies or any injured ponies enter this building. I’m sure you are all aware of the situation of our foreign diplomats, correct?” Cadence asked as the group nodded. “Good. We’re trying to keep this on the down-low as kids say. Trying not to cause the ponies to panic, or gather false information on them and label them as monsters or invaders.”
“Should we ask ponies who work here or if they have families here to show information if they’re telling the truth or not, ma’am?” asked a female guard as Cadence nodded.
“As much as I hate to do this, it’s going to have to be this way until they can fully recover.”
“Okay,” She said before noticing the demonic boar digging around in the ground. “What about the giant pig?” she asked which caused the boar to snort in annoyance.
“He’s a boar, not a pig. And as for the boar.” Cadence said before walking over to the demonic boar, who in turn turned his attention on her. “If you behave yourself, I’m sure we can get you some nice truffles to eat, or if not that something to suit your palate until Fluttershy returns. Okay?”
The boar stared at her for a moment before returning to digging in the dirt. The pink alicorn blinked at the boar's reaction for a moment before noticing the size of the hole he made. Once he was done, he simply sat down into the hole, adjusting himself in it, before letting out a low oink-like growl before falling asleep. Upon seeing this, she along with the guards look at each other for a moment before looking back at the boar in a mix of confusion and oddly curiosity.
“I think that would be a yes, princess.” One of the male guards said as Cadence looked over at him.
“I hope so, but just in case. Bring over food that boars are willing to eat for the time being until Fluttershy returns.” She said as the colt nodded and headed off towards town with some of the other royal guards. “Hope this day can’t get any worse than how it is now.”
“In all my years of medical studies, I’ve never seen anything like this.” Dr. Horse said as he looked over the injuries of both Ivan and Anastasia. It had only been a few hours since the servants were taken to the hospital and treated for their injuries early in the afternoon. Even though the sun was still up, it was now nighttime and Ivan’s and Anastasia’s injuries were almost perfectly healed. The doctor soon looked over at the servants, then at the book he was holding given to him by Twilight about the human body, and then over at Twilight herself with a dumbfounded expression on his face. “I know that the girl is a human, but the larger gentlemen…I….honestly don’t know what to make of him…And you’re saying they’re rulers from another country that you happen to run into?”
“It’s a…long story that will be explained later,” Twilight said with a somewhat awkward expression on her face. “What about Rainbow Dash and Patxi?” She asked as the doctor pulled out papers on the pegasus and yaga.
“For Rainbow Dash, just a few bruises and a hairline fracture in her left hoof. Nothing too serious, but she’ll need to stay off that hoof and not do anything that requires heavy lifting for a good two weeks.” He said before pulling up the papers for Patxi. “The…yaga that you call him…I don’t even know how to explain it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Celestia asked.
“Well…on all accounts. He should be dead.” Dr. Horse said as he showed her the results of Patxi’s condition. “It’s like something pierced through his body, hitting or grazing important arteries and organs, the right arm is completely broken, and a broken left eye socket…at least from what we could tell from the parts that were human organs from the book Princess Twilight gave us. Everything else is to that of a wolf…a wolf that we never heard of in Equestria.”
“Is there nothing you can do for him?” She asked as the doctor shrugged.
“We managed to do as much as we could to the vital areas. We’ll keep him under twenty-four-seven surveillance, but all we can do now is hope he’ll recover on his own.” He said before leaving the room. “You have about five minutes before visiting hours are over. I know you all have important matters to talk about, but that’s no excuse for prolonged conversations. Especially given how the foreign diplomats still need to recover after what has happened.”
“Understood, thank you for informing us,” Luna said as she watched the doctor leave before looking back at Ivan and Anastasia. “It would seem you weren’t kidding about servants recovering by absorbing magic from the surrounding area. Will you two be fine by the morning?”
“We should be,” Anastasia said as she raised a hand to flex it a bit. “This country has an unusually large amount of magic coming from just about everything alive.”
“Indeed, compared to Russia, this place is like a fountain of water where a servant can find shelter in and recover their strength,” Ivan said as lightning began to form around his tusk. “It’s oddly invigorating, to say the least.”
“It’s nice to see that you two are recovering rather well. But I hope you’re not planning on going after Minotaur?”
“Much as I would like to, we can’t go back. At least not without a plan to deal with him.” Ivan said as he leaned against the wall of the room they were all in.
“Isn’t there somepony that took down that monster from your world?” Applejack asked.
“The master of Chaldea along with his servants were the ones that took Minotaur down. Asking for the human’s assistance would be impossible given how he’s back on Earth where we were before coming to this place…Though she might be of some assistance.”
“You mean Atalante, don’t you?” Ivan asked as the ponies raised their eyebrows at the two servants before Twilight spoke up.
“Who’s Atalante?” She asked as Anastasia made a magical image of the servant, which took the ponies by surprise.
“Isn’t that the cat-human that gave us direction to the town?” Starlight asked before hearing Cadance speak up.
“She’s also the one that helped Celestia and me when that boar attacked us. You mean she knows how to take down that monster that attacked us?” She asked as the caster servant nodded.
“Well shoot, that shouldn’t be a problem. All we have to do is find her and ask her for her help, right?” Applejack asked as she noticed Anastasia’s awkward facial expression. “Something wrong?”
“Getting her help might be a problem,” Ivan said as he chimed in on the conversation. “For starters, finding her is going to be a problem seeing how she tends to move from one place to another with her pack. The second would be the fact that she doesn’t trust me…no, trust is an understatement. More like she’s willing to kill me if given the chance.”
“And even if we were to find her, getting her to help us is another problem within itself. Especially seeing how the three of us are enemies in our point of view. Though, unlike me, I can tolerate Ivan’s presence.” Anastasia said as she leaned back in the bed she was resting in. “For years the three of us never worked together because we never cared so much for each or cared about our subjects. Mainly Ivan and I.”
“So what you’re saying is?” Twilight asked as Ivan spoke up.
“If either I or Anastasia were to go and ask her for help, she would leave or attack us.”
“So getting her help is going to be a problem,” Luna said before placing a hoof on her chin. “Perhaps she might be willing to help if Celestia and I were to meet her?”
“It’s not impossible, but I’m more worried about the fact that you might end up having to fight her,” Ivan said as Anastasia made the image of Atalante vanish. “Some servants are willing to help depending on what you say. Others will help if you're strong. And given how you and your sister are rulers of a different country, she’ll most likely want you to prove to her that you’re strong enough to hold your own in a fight.”
“So we’ll have to fight her to gain her assistance?” Celestia asked as Anastasia nodded.
“But they can’t fight her.” Rarity said before flinching from seeing Celestia and Luna raise an eyebrow at her. “W-With all due respect princesses, but unicorns still can’t use our magic and don’t know when we’ll be able to.”
“That is true,” Celestia said before letting out a sigh of annoyance. “We’ll need a few days to think of a plan on how to deal with this matter.”
“Why a few days?” Fluttershy asked.
“We need to make a public announcement about our foreign diplomats and why unicorns can’t use their magic,” Celestia answered. “I prefer not to let false information spread around seeing how ponies saw us making our way through Equestria while on a demonic boar.”
“And everypony knows how gossip spreads. Hence the reason why Celestia ordered the royal guards outside to make sure no pony without proper clearance enters the hospital.”
“That seems a bit much don’t you think?” Ivan asked.
“Better to be safe than sorry, right?” Celestia said as she began to make her way to the door of the room they were in. “We’ll talk more in the morning. I believe we’re all due a nice restful sleep after today’s events.”
“But it’s still daytime,” Anastasia said as she pointed at the sun still in the sky. She soon noticed a slightly mischievous smile on the alicorn sisters' faces as Luna reached into the saddlebag herself to pull out a strange device that resembled a clock, but it had the sun and the moon on it. “Um…what is that?”
“I had Luna stop by Canterlot to get a device I made a long time ago whenever I get tired from work, or if I end up getting sick,” Celestia said as she motions for the two servants to watch the sky. Luna soon turned the arrow pointing from the sun to the moon as the servants noticed that the sun was setting and the moon soon raised behind it. A dumbfounded expression appeared on both Ivan and Anastasia’s faces upon seeing this…well Anastasia’s only. Ivan didn’t have anything that would be considered a facial expression, but he was dumbfounded as to what he saw. The two servants looked over at Celestia and Luna who were trying their best not to laugh. “I did say we could control the sun and the moon…though in this case, I suppose the small device will have to do as proof of what I mean.”
“...How is that even possible?” Ivan asked as he pointed at the device. “Something like would be impossible to exist let alone be made.”
“I’m willing to explain it, but you might want to brush up on Equestrian history first before anything else. Mainly because you both will be in Equestria for a while.” Celestia said before looking over at Twilight and her friends. “I would like for you all to help our new guest become accustomed to how things are in Equestria if you don’t mind that is.”
“Of course, we can do that,” Twilight said before looking at the servants. “I’ll stop by after my meeting with Mayor Mare to give you both books on both the history and laws of Equestria.”
“I take it you’re going to her because of the giant boar we rode on?” Ivan asked as Starlight spoke up.
“We managed to calm down some of the ponies that were scared upon seeing the pig walking through town, but that still doesn’t help when they want answers as to what happened, why is a giant cosmic-looking flower in the distance, and why unicorns can’t use their magic.”
“Needless to say, the explanation we told them didn’t help for the most part. So Twilight suggested that she talk to Mayor Mare to gather everypony to town hall and explain what’s going on.” Rarity said. “We’re hoping this will calm everypony’s worry and not see you three as invaders or something worse.”
“I suppose telling a small town would be for the best. Makes hiding out here less of a problem than in a huge city.” Anastasia said as she looked out the window. “Though something tells me it’ll take a while for them to get used to us.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Once we introduce you both to the ponies of Ponyville, I’m sure they’ll be accepting of you both.” Applejack said as she began to make her way to the door while yawning. “Not to say that I don’t mind talking with y’all, but I should head on home. Got a busy day tomorrow and I’ll need all the rest I can get.”
“We should be going to,” Twilight said as her friends nodded in agreement before heading out. “We’ll talk more in the morning, but for now. Get some rest and welcome to Equestria.” She said before the group left. Once they heard the sound of hoof steps leaving the area, Anastasia spoke up as Ivan turned his attention to the caster servant.
“You think they’ll be able to convince Atalante to assist us in fighting Minotaur?”
“It’s not like we have much of a choice in the matter. So far, she did help them in escaping from the boar and guided them to us. I think the biggest problem is trying to find her while making sure Minotaur doesn’t attack them.”
“Meaning that we’ll have to go with them to protect them?” She asked as Ivan nodded. “I feared as much. You have a plan on making sure she doesn’t run off?”
“Other than threatening her, I have nothing.” He said before pulling himself up and beginning to leave her room. “We’ll talk it over with the ponies when we’re ready to head back. For now, we should learn more about this country and its culture for the time being.”
“You, wanting to learn something that didn’t involve inflating your ego or conquering the world?” Anastasia said in a sarcastic tone to her voice which caused the former Tsar to pause.
“Russia is given a second chance. Though the blood that spilled on her can’t be removed, she along with her citizens deserve better…Something that we couldn’t do.” He said before leaving. Anastasia stared at the door for a moment before looking over at the night sky. For years, Russia’s sky had been blocked off due to the constant cloud blocking the sky and hailing down snow upon them. She had seen pictures of what the sun and the blue sky looked like, and she had seen pictures of the moon and the vast sea of stars. Never would she have dreamt to see both the endless blue sky of day and the endless cosmic sea of stars.
“Kadoc,” Anastasia said as she gripped the covers to her bed. “I hope you’re doing okay.”
Morning came to the country of Equestria as the citizens of Ponyville went about their day as if nothing strange happened...well almost like nothing happened as everypony was talking about what happened yesterday with the princesses, the boar, and the strange creatures heading over to the hospital. Almost if not all the citizens of Ponyville were asking questions as to who or what they are, were they from the Everfree Forest, are they here to take over Equestria, or were they invaders from another planet? Questions upon questions were asked as the ponies of Ponyville asked Princess Twilight for answers, but were met with “All will be explained shortly.” or “Meet in front of Town Hall later this afternoon.” Needless to say, some of the ponies went to the town hall, while others were admitted as they continued to follow after Twilight for answers. While Twilight was busy avoiding the citizens of Ponyville while making her way to Mayor Mare’s office. The former Tsars of Russia were currently busy informing Rainbow Dash as to what happened yesterday after being knocked out from colliding into Minotaur.
“Seriously!? Not even a sonic rainboom was enough to take that thing down!?” Rainbow Dash yelled in annoyance.
“If it was a rider, caster, or assassin servant, that might’ve worked. But seeing how we’re dealing with a berserker servant…it’s going to take more than just that to take him down.” Anastasia said as she let out a sigh of disappointment. “Would’ve been nice if my noble phantasm could’ve kept him in ice. That way we might be able to at least move him someplace where it would be difficult for him to escape for a while.”
“Great, so the big guy’s going to keep hunting down more yagas and we’re powerless to do anything about it?”
“The remaining villages know what to do when it comes to the Minotaur. We were able to make shelters where it’ll hide their presence and scent so that he won’t be able to track them. If anything he’ll be going after the bandits that prey on the weak and innocent. That will buy us some time before going back to Russia.”
“Seriously? You’re going to use your subjects as food for that monster?” Rainbow Dash asked in disgust before hearing Anastasia speak up.
“It’s not like we can change the way their mindsets are. Keep in mind that the yaga had the “Only the strong survive” mindset for generations because of how it was before coming here, remember.”
“I mean, yeah…still it’s kind of messed up you would do that.”
“Believe me. I know, but we can’t change their minds. Not even by force.” She said before noticing hearing the pegasus snort in annoyance.
“Fine. I suppose I have no right to judge given what you told us. But I don’t have to like it.” She said before looking at them both. “So what’s the plan? Are we gonna go back and kick that monster’s butt?”
“Not without the assistance of another servant as Anastasia mentioned to your friends yesterday,” Ivan said. “Also you’re still recovering from your injuries, so going there now would be a bit of a problem in your case.”
“Oh please, you think something like this is gonna stop me from-” Just as Rainbow Dash was about to stand up, she felt a surge of pain flowing through her body at her attempt to stand it caused her to wince in pain.
“Determine as you are, your body has its limits. Should you continue to ignore that fact, you might be out of commission for much longer than how the doctor said you’ll be out.” He said as the pegasus huffed in annoyance.
“The plan is to seek help from Atalante. The servant that gave you and your friend's directions to the village of the Yagas?” Anastasia said as Rainbow Dash nodded.
“Yeah, I remember her. But wouldn’t having you two be enough to take him down seeing how you both are fully recovered?”
“If it was a different servant in a different class, then we wouldn’t have a problem. But seeing how he’s the legendary minotaur and he’s a berserker class servant, then he’s going to be hard to take down even at full power.” Ivan answered. “Fighting him is out of the question until we can get the assistance of Atalante. Hence the reason why the princesses will be the ones to do so.”
“Why not you or Anastasia?” Rainbow Dash asked as she noticed them both going silent for a few seconds before Ivan spoke up.
“Given our actions as Tsars of Russia, she doesn’t trust us. Especially me seeing how I ended up killing a lot of our subjects. Because of that, we think it would be best for you ponies to be able to talk to her so she can help us in this matter.”
“Though the problem with that is that unicorns still can’t use magic,” Anastasia added. “Might be because the fantasy tree is still trying to coexist with the magic of this world.”
“So we’re going to have to wait until that issue is solved?”
“That or we sneak into Russia and try to find Atalante while keeping ourselves hidden from Minotaur.” She said before looking outside of the window in Rainbow Dash’s room. “Though I think we should wait to think of a proper plan before trying that.”
“Geez, one thing after another. And here I thought things were going to be smooth sailing.” Rainbow Dash said as she leaned back in her bed. “So what's the plan now, seeing how you can’t do much until then?”
“We will learn a bit more about Equestrian culture. Seeing how we’re kind of ambassadors of Russia, it would do us good to know the rules and laws of Equestria so we don’t cause too much trouble.”
“Yeah, that might be hard to do. Especially given how you two aren’t ponies, but magical beings from another world. It also didn’t help that we came here on a giant pig that would give an Ursa Minor a run for its money.” Rainbow Dash said as both Anastasia and Ivan deadpan at her, though it couldn’t be seen on Ivan’s face, the pegasus could feel that he was deadpanning her. The mare flinched upon seeing their expression as she raised her hooves in defense. “Hey, I’m just saying from past experiences. Ponies in Ponyville aren’t exactly chill when it comes to new things like you, Ivan, and wolf boy.”
“Not surprising, but did you have to be so blunt about it?” Ivan asked as Rainbow Dash shrugged.
“Better to hear it now than later.” She said as Anatasia was about to say something, only to be interrupted by the door to the room they’re in. The trio looked over to where the door was as they saw Twilight entering the room.
“Oh good, you’re with Rainbow Dash. I thought you two might’ve wandered off into Ponyville to find me.” She said before closing the door behind her. “How are you all feeling this morning?”
“We’re fine, though Rainbow Dash might not be due to being out of commission due to her injuries,” Anastasia said as the pegasus snorted in annoyance. “So I take it that the meeting you had with Mayor Mare was successful?”
“For the most part, yes. Though she does want to meet you two someplace that doesn’t involve a lot of ponies bombarding her with questions and to make sure you both aren’t dangerous.”
“Anastasia can get by with the whole not being dangerous given how she looks like a human, Ivan not so much given how he’s about the size of Big Mac if he was on steroids and was fused with an elephant.” Rainbow Dash said as Twilight rolled her eyes and made her way over to them.
“Yes, Ivan may look different and a bit threatening looking. But underneath that, he is a nice person.”
“Nice is an understatement. I would go with him “Understand what he did wrong” for once in his life.” Anastasia commented as Twilight shot her a glare, which in turn caused the caster servant to look away while acting innocent as she whistled.
“I’m sure ponies won’t find him that scary. Remember what happened with Zecora and who we thought was evil for being different?” Twilight said as Rainbow Dash grimaced at the memory of that incident. “We just have to remind them about tolerance and acceptance of our new friends' appearances.”
“Not to sound rude or anything, but I have my doubts that they’re easy to win over. I mean it’s not like you have a school that teaches them about that kind of stuff.” Anastasia said.
“There is,” Twilight said as the two servants stared at her as if she was joking.
“You…have a school…that teaches ponies about friendship?” Ivan asked as the lavender alicorn nodded with a smile on her face. “This must be a joke. School isn't meant to be about friendship. It’s a place where you learn about mathematics, English, history, etc. There’s no such thing as a school that teaches friendship.”
“Maybe where you come from, but here in Ponyville, that is a thing. I mean we do have a normal school that teaches stuff like what you said, but the school of friendship teaches ponies and others about the magic of friendship.” Rainbow Dash said as she noticed the two of them still not convinced by what she was saying. “You two don’t believe me, do you?”
“It’s just…very hard to believe that a school would be made for something as ridiculous as that,” Anastasia said. “I mean something like that would only exist in a fairy tale made for children.”
“Maybe we should take you two to the school so we can show you what I mean. It’s also where Mayor Mare wanted to meet you both.” Twilight said as she began to make her way over to the doorway.
“Wait, wouldn’t it be a bad thing for them to be walking around. Especially when everypony is already afraid of them?” Rainbow Dash asked as Ivan spoke up.
“We can turn into our spirit forms if we have to walk about without being noticed,” Ivan said as Twilight and Rainbow Dash looked at them in confusion.
“Spirit forms? What do you mean by that?” Twilight asked as she watched the two servants vanish within a blink of an eye. Twilight and Rainbow Dash were taken by surprise by this as they scanned the room to see where they were, only for them to return to their physical forms.
“....Okay how were you able to do that?” Rainbow Dash asked as Anastasia smirked.
“The perks of being a servant. We don’t have a physical form per se, so we can turn into spirits as a means of conserving magic, recover from certain injuries, and go invisible as a means to avoid being seen.”
“T-That can work actually,” Twilight said before hearing Rainbow Dash speak up.
“Wait a minute, why didn't you do that during the time Twilight and the others were making their way through town?”
“Because we didn’t know if Minotaur would be chasing after us, and remember that you guys still can’t use magic to defend yourselves from his attacks,” Ivan answered as Rainbow Dash was about to say something else, but didn’t have anything to come back with. Not like she could, seeing how it was true about Twilight and the Princesses still not having magic. “So we’ll follow you while remaining invisible. Sounds like a plan?”
“Y-Yeah, that can work. That way ponies won’t run around screaming and cause a panic.” Rainbow Dash said before seeing the servants vanish once again. “I’d go with you guys, but I’m still stuck here until the doctors give me the okay sign for me to leave.”
“Try to get better soon, and don’t be afraid to ask for help from us, okay?” Twilight asked as Rainbow Dash nodded. She soon turned her attention in the direction of where she could guess the servants were still sitting in. “You two ready?”
“We’re ready, just lead the way and we’ll follow,” Anastasia said as she and Ivan follow after Twilight to the school of friendship
There were a lot of things that didn’t surprise Ivan and Anastasia. Seeing the mutilation of their subjects through cannibalization, Ivan going on a rampage when he was having his moods, demonic beast hunting the Yagas and other demonic beasts, the list goes on as to the stuff the two servants went through during the years within the lostbelt of Russia…though seeing a school that caters around friendship, this pretty much took them by surprise that it’s a real thing. I mean the concept of friendship isn’t a bad thing, but having it be a school was a mix between odd…and unsettling to say the least to the servants.
“This is…I don’t even know how to put it into words.” Ivan said as he and Anastasia stared at the school in bewilderment.
“I would say it’s an odd concept…but then again we’re in a country full of talking colorful horses, so this shouldn’t be surprising…I think?” Anastasia said while trying to keep a straight face but noticed Ivan staring at her. “Let’s just see how it is before judging them.” She said before noticing Twilight walking in front of them and towards the front doors of the school.
“Welcome to the School of Friendship!” Twilight said before pushing the door open to the school with her hoof and motioning for them to follow her inside. “Now I know it may not be what you would expect, but I can guarantee that we do teach students from different areas of Equestria ranging from griffons, dragons, hippogriffs, ponies, yaks, changelings-”
“There’s more than just ponies on this planet?” Ivan asked as the alicorn nodded.
“Yep, I would go into much more detail about it but that will have to wait once we’re done with meeting Mayor Mare.”
“You sure she won’t freak out about meeting us? I might be able to pass as being seen as harmless…Ivan on the other hand…he looks like he would gobble up a pony or two in his sleep.” Anastasia said, which caused Ivan to stare at her.
“I’m right here you know?”
“Doesn’t make it less true. The Yagas may not find you scary. But given what happened yesterday when we were riding on the demonic beast, you can imagine how they will react.”
“Aren’t you being a bit rude to Ivan? I mean I know he made some mistakes but-”
“I will never forgive him for what he did to me. End of discussion.” Anastasia said with a cold tone in her voice. Twilight was surprised by the sudden quickness of the servant’s answer but also felt the atmosphere around them getting cold for a moment before returning to normal.
“Um…N-Noted,” Twilight said before looking over at Ivan, who in turn shook his head. The alicorn soon turned her attention forwards and continued to lead the two to the principal’s office. “I-If you don’t mind me asking, you said that your world has magic as well, correct?” She asked as the caster servant nodded. “I was wondering what kind of magic can the yagas perform?”
“Sadly the Yagas can’t perform magecraft,” Ivan answered. “That’s mainly due to multiple factors. One of which involved cannibalism over the years.”
“The other would be stagnation due to being stuck in time because of the constant snow. Because of that, no progress could be made to further the progress of humans. Hence the reason why it became a lostbelt and was pruned from existence. Though just because they can’t perform Magecraft, doesn’t mean we can’t give you a rundown of how magecraft worked for humans before the ice age.” She said which caused Twilight to perk up a bit due to her curiosity. “Magecraft is the artificial reenactment of Mystery, which is ordinarily possible only by inhuman beings. It is the ability to bring about what is possible through science with supernatural means; although the process is considered a miracle, the result is not. The limits of Magecraft have changed with time, as science evolved and Magic from the past became possible through science.”
“A bit odd but understandable given how they do share some properties that can rival each other to some degree,” Twilight said as the servants continued to follow her through the school while occasionally getting a good layout of the area they were currently walking through. “Are there limitations to human magecraft? Like they can’t use it to bring back dead humans or change their molecular forms?”
“There are limitations to magecraft. Mainly in modern magecraft in pan-human history from what Kadoc mentioned to me. Modern magecraft follows the rules of the world and the limits of human intellect. Magecraft acts as the reenactment of preexisting phenomena. It’s impossible to use it to create new mysteries, or on your terms. New magic. Even with an infinite amount of research, there’s going to be a wall that prevents human wisdom from doing so in the current era they live in.”
“I see. And which era did you and Ivan originate from?”
“The lostbelt was from the age after the age of the gods had ended. The China lostbelt falls under the same category as Russia’s lostbelt of being in the age after the gods. Scandinavian, Atlantic, Olympus, India, Britain, and possibly the seventh lostbelt, fall under the category of the age of the gods…which would explain why we were ranked the weakest lostbelt out of the others.” Anastasia said as Twilight heard a slight annoyance in the caster’s voice upon saying that. “Modern-day magecraft is inferior to that from the Age of Gods in terms of magnitude. This is mainly because the magi from that era had acquired their magical energy from the Root.”
“The root? What is that?” She asked as Anastasia looked over at Ivan for an answer.
“To make it sound less confusing without taking so long due to meeting with this pony named Mayor Mare. The root is a force within the universe which we originated from. It exists outside of time and stores and archives information about all possibilities and events, past, present, and future, of the world. It is the place from where all souls, including those of Heroic Spirits recorded on the Throne of Heroes, originate and to where they return after death.”
“So it’s a library that holds information from the past, present, and future?”
“Something like that. Though, unlike a library, reaching the root is…difficult.”
“Difficult as in how?”
“From what Kadoc mentioned, using first and fifth magic would work. But both are kind of rare in modern magecraft.”
“First and fifth magic?”
“It’s a bit hard to explain when your master isn’t that well-versed in the history of magic. But from what he mentioned, the first magic is the denial of nothingness. I can assume that it involves using the element of nothingness or the void to reach the root. Fifth magic’s concepts seem to revolve around consumption and extinction, which could mean that the Fifth Magic might manipulate heat values as energy to achieve various effects like time travel. Though second, third, and fourth magic would allow you to time travel as well, in a different method I believe.” She said which caused Twilight to stare at her in disbelief and fascination. “Is something wrong?”
“You wouldn't have time after this to talk about this in great detail, would you?” She asked while getting a bit closer to Anastasia.
“No, but Ivan would be willing to do that.” She said as she could feel Ivan staring at her with a deadpan expression. “I mean wouldn’t it be more obvious to get the information you need from the first Tsar, right~?”
“You do make a valid point,” Twilight said as she looked over at Ivan with an innocent smile on her face. “You wouldn’t mind if you could explain in great detail about the different magecrafts, would you?”
“...I suppose it wouldn’t be an issue to go into detail about the different magecrafts.” He said as Twilight smiled in delight. Though Ivan would glare at Anastasia who was giving him a devilish smile of innocence. “I’ll be sure to remember this.” He whispered as Twilight looked forward and continued to lead them to the room Mayor Mare was waiting.
“Please do~” Anastasia whispered back as she noticed Twilight stopping in front of a door that was labeled Principal’s Office. “I take it this is where we’ll be meeting with Mayor Mare?” She asked as the alicorn nodded while placing a hoof on the doorknob.
“Now, try not to take what she says..offensive. She just wants to make sure you aren’t trying to take over Equestria or think of you both as a threat.”
“Again, I might be able to pass as non-threatening, Ivan on the other hand might be an issue due to his appearance.”
“...We’ll figure something out.” She said before opening the door to the room. The moment Mayor Mare heard the door open, she turned her attention to the doorway to see Twilight. A smile spread across the earth pony’s face to see a familiar face, but it soon faded upon seeing Ivan and Anastasia entering the room after Twilight enters.
“Wow…when you said they were ambassadors from where the giant tree appeared off in the distance, I wasn’t expecting them to be so…unique.” Mayor Mare said while trying to keep a straight face. “I-It’s a pleasure to meet you…um…creatures from another country?”
“The pleasure is our ma’am,” Anastasia said before bowing to the earth pony. “My name is Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, but you may call me Anastasia for short.” She said before hearing Ivan speak up.
“My name is Ivan Vasilyevich, former Tsar of Russia.” He said as he bows to Mayor Mare. “I would like to apologize for what happened yesterday when we came to your town. I’m sure Princess Twilight has informed you a little bit about what happened before coming to this small town?”
“F-For the most part. A lot of it was…or is confusing from the somewhat summary Twilight explained. I’m still trying to understand the whole pruning of an entire country, timelines, and a few other things that I can chalk up to magic. But what I do understand is that your country is in trouble and you two need a place to stay until you can recover from your narrow escape from this Minotaur pony…creature…thing?”
“That is correct,” Ivan answered. “Our country is currently trying to recover from an…incident that caused a lot of damage. Because of what happened, Anastasia and I had to stand down as leaders of Russia, and let the Yagas rule over the country. Of course, if they have any questions, we’re willing to answer them and give them some solutions to certain problems. But we want them to think for themselves instead of relying on us.”
“Yagas?” Mayor Mare asked as Anastasia used her magic to show a visual of what a Yaga looks like. “Huh…I was not expecting to think werewolves were a real thing.”
“Yagas, not werewolves.”
“Not to sound rude, but what’s the difference between the two?” Mayor Mare asked as Anastasia deadpans at her.
“Yagas are humans who have fused with demonic beasts. The reason behind that is that Russia was a very cold place that was bombarded by snow storms due to a meteor changing the climate to the point where it would be called the ice age. So as a means to survive the harsh coldness of the storms, mages performed a ritual that fused humans with demonic beasts to survive. It worked…for the most part.”
“For the most part?”
“While we solved the issue with surviving the cold…it didn’t solve the issue involving food shortages which resulted in self-cannibalism, strong ruling and eating the weak society, and regression of civilization to where the Yagas lost the ability to use magic,” Ivan answered as he noticed the earth pony’s expression turning from calm to that of horror and shock.
“While it is not my place to judge seeing how I’m not a ruler of an entire country, but a small town…How can you two let something like this happen?” Mayor Mare asked as Anastasia looked off to the side in shame while Ivan continued to stare at the earth pony with a stoic expression on his face…or at least that’s what it appears to be from what the Mayor could tell.
“Given how we didn’t have many options at the time, survival was the most important out of everything else.” He said before letting out a sigh of disappointment. “Though leaving things in the hands of Rasputin and the fox woman might’ve made things progress even worse.”
“Might’ve helped if you weren’t asleep and let your bodyguards kill a lot of the Yagas that were deemed to be traitors,” Anastasia added as Mayor Mare looked over at Twilight with a deadpan expression.
“And you want me to let them live in my town until they can recover?” She asked as the alicorn let out a slightly awkward chuckle.
“While I understand you might be worried that they might cause trouble in Ponyville. I can assure you that they’re not dangerous or threatening. They just need a safe place to stay until we can formulate a plan to help their country.” Twilight said as Mayor Mare had a concerned expression on her face.
“I have my concerns about letting them stay in Ponyville. Not because of their appearances. But the fact that the citizens of Ponyville might have some…speculations about them. Especially after what happened yesterday with the giant pig walking through town.”
“Demonic Boar if we’re trying to be a bit accurate on the species of animal.” Twilight corrected before flinching at the deadpan expression on her face. “Right, sorry.”
“If I’m being honest, I would prefer to not have them in my town due to me getting the feeling that something bad might happen if they stay long in Ponyville. But if you insist on keeping your friends here in town, then I suggest I can let them stay here until the time comes for them to leave.”
“You mean they can stay until they can recover?”
“So long as they don’t cause trouble or attack anypony in town, then I see no reason to take legal actions that would make them leave Ponyville. Just because you’re a princess Twilight, doesn’t mean you can't ignore a petition under legal action of ejecting a pony out of town for safety reasons.” Mayor Mare said before adjusting her glasses. “In exchange for allowing this, I would like a full detail of their country’s culture if that’s okay?” She asked as Twilight looked over at Ivan who sighed in annoyance.
“I suppose that’s fair seeing how Twilight did offer us some books on Equestrian culture and the laws of this land. Would you prefer it be written on paper or verbal?”
“Written is fine by me.” The earth pony said before standing up. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting to set up for the afternoon in front of the town hall. I believe it would be best to have you two present around that time so that the explanation would be easy to explain?”
“I figured that would be the case. Especially seeing how some of them have seen us from yesterday.” Anastasia said as she watched the earth pony leave the room. The moment she left the servants turned their attention onto Twilight who let out a sigh of relief from how the meeting turned out.
“Well, that went better than expected. For a moment I figure she wouldn’t be okay with the idea.”
“You are a princess. Kind of hard to say something when you pretty much rule part of Equestria, right?” Ivan asked.
“Well…yes. But I prefer not to abuse my powers as a princess. Fewer ponies think ill of me.”
“Pretty sure they would think ill of you no matter the situation,” Anastasia said, which caused Twilight to deadpan her. “I’m just speaking the truth as a former ruler.” She said as the unicorn sighed.
“Perhaps, but I have faith that ponies wouldn’t think that.” She said before walking over to the door and motioning the servants to follow her. “Now, while Mayor Mare is off setting things up for the meeting this afternoon. How about I give you a tour of the school so you can get a better understanding of how things work around here?”
“It still baffles me that something like this is even real. I mean, who’s idea was it to think of a concept of teaching friendship to others like it’s normal?” Ivan asked as he and Anastasia began to follow after Twilight.
“That’s kind of a long story. If you’re up for listening, I would be glad to tell you the whole story of how this school was made if you don’t mind?”
“Not like we have much of a choice seeing how it would be a bit boring to wait until the afternoon,” Anastasia said as she noticed a smile appearing on Twilight’s face as the mare began to explain in great detail how the school of friendship was made. As the trio was walking down the hallways of the school, a small familiar trio of ponies was watching Twilight and the servants making their way down the hall from around the corner they were hiding behind. The trio looked at each other for a moment before secretly following after the alicorn and servants.
“And that’s pretty much how the school of friendship was made,” Twilight said as she and the servants were currently making their way through the garden part of the school. For the past three hours, Twilight told the servants about her journey over the years. How she met her friends, the many adventures they went on, to villains they faced, and how the school of friendship was made. Though Ivan wasn’t that impressed by the alicorn’s tale, Anastasia on the other hand was mildly interested and a bit impressed by the tale.
“...If I’m being honest. I’m not that impressed by your story.” Ivan said which caused Anastasia to jab her elbow into his leg. “I’m just being honest. Stuff like this would be heard in fairy tale books that you would read to children. While I will not discount that the trials you faced were challenging for your kind, this place wouldn’t last long if greater horrors were to come to this land and rampage through the lands.”
“While you are entitled to your opinion, I believe we can face any foe that’ll come our way.”
“You only manage to get this far because your opponents weren’t that smart, overconfident, or just underestimated you. While I will not discredit your efforts in defeating your foes, sooner or later, you will end up facing an opponent that will outmatch you in strength, wisdom, and even magic.” He said before looking up at the sky. “All kingdoms fall eventually. You best be prepared for the aftermath of what will come when it does end. Let's hope it won’t end in blood or with your head on a pike.”
“Do you not have that much faith in us?”
“No, I do not. There are a few things that I’m willing to change about myself to help better Russia. But the one thing I will hold is strength. Words are meaningless if you don’t have the strength to back them up.”
“Much as I dislike how Ivan is putting things, I would have to agree with him on the whole strength behind your word deal thing.” Anastasia said, “Though, unlike Ivan, I do have a little bit of faith in these ponies given what happened back in Russia with the evacuation of the Yagas and from their fight with Minotaur.”
“You may be convinced, but I’m not. Throughout their entire lives so far, they have fought against their kind, god-like beings, shapeshifting bug-pony species, a pony that wanted to take away ponies' cutie marks that were on equal footing with an alicorn and could time travel, a teenage girl turning into a demon and want to take over Equestria with an army of mind-controlled teenagers, and a small ragtag group of villains that were able almost brought chaos and separation between the three pony races. Yet in all the foes they fought, they’ve never killed them. While I am against killing teenagers and little children, you let your enemies live, seal them away, or reform them.”
“While I can understand your point of view, surely even you spared or befriended your enemies, right?” Twilight asked as Ivan simply stared at her for a good few seconds before speaking.
“My enemies are six feet under the ground. And that’s where they’ll stay.”
“Along with innocent bystanders when your noble phantasm was activated,” Anastasia added as Ivan deadpans at her as she looks off to the side while whistling innocently.
“My point is, they are weak in my book and I have less faith in her and her friends when we have to deal with killing the Minotaur. And unless I’m given a reason to place my faith in your kind, then I have less faith in you than I do with the princesses of the sun and moon.” He said before walking past Twilight and Anastasia. “Now, if you’re done talking, I believe you were going to show us more about this school of…friendship?”
“Right…perhaps maybe introducing you to some of the students might help?”
“There are students in this school?”
“Well, it is a boarding school in a way. It’s mainly for those who are from different kingdoms. Makes it less time-consuming and less time for them to travel back home to their nations, right?”
“I…suppose that is fair and understandable. But wouldn’t you have some kind of magical device that would allow you to teleport them from this school to their homelands?”
“...What do you mean by that?”
“What’s there to explain? If you can use magic to teleport, why not make a magical device that can allow those who can’t use magic to teleport from point A to point B?” he asked. “I mean it should be possible given the abundance of magic Equestria has. Gathering enough of it to make such a device shouldn’t be an issue for an alicorn such as yourself, no?”
“Well…I mean it’s not a bad idea. But the amount of research and test run to make would be a problem. Not to mention the materials to make something like that would be required.” Twilight said as she started to ramble on about scientific methods and magical items.
“You do realize that you just open up another can of worms for yourself, right?” Anastasia asked as Ivan turned his attention onto her. “It’s bad enough you’re going to have to explain the five different types of magic, but now you’re going to have to help her in testing out the new means of traveling via teleportation magic into a device.” She said which caused Ivan to stare at her for a few good seconds before noticing Twilight reaching into her saddle bag to pull out a piece of paper, an ink bottle, and a quill. The moment the mare pulled out the items, she began to write down some notes on the piece of paper.
“...You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”
“More than I should be, and I would make it even more enjoyable to see you suffer, but I think we shouldn’t linger on the subject of teleportation. At least not right now when the princess is giving us a tour around the school.” She said before sneaking over to Twilight from behind as the alicorn was busy writing. Once she was close, she leaned towards Twilight's neck and pointed a finger at it as a small mist of cold hit her. Twilight lets out a yelp as she shoots up into the air from the sudden sneak attack before falling face-first onto the ground. There was a moment of silence hanging in the air as the alicorn pulled herself up and deadpans at Anastasia.
“Was that necessary?”
“Yes, yes it was. Now I believe you wanted to show us how this school runs by introducing us to your students?” Anastasia asked as the alicorn brushed herself off and readjusted her mane a bit.
“Yes…of course. Follow me please if you would.” Twilight said before taking the lead and motioning for them to follow after her. As they were making their way to another part of the school, the same pair of eyes just like before were currently watching them making their way to the classroom where the class was being held. The pair of eyes looked at each other for a moment before quickly darting off in the opposite direction of Twilight, Anastasia, and Ivan. Within a matter of a couple of minutes, the group would arrive at an occupied classroom with students and Applejack standing in front of the class
To say that they were taken by surprise by seeing other species other than ponies is an understatement. It was said that mythical creatures used to live alongside humans during the age of the gods, but they eventually departed to the other side of the reverse world due to the advancement of human progression. Never have they ever thought that they would be in a world where mythical creatures could form civilization and form certain things that are similar to human society…well almost similar. The fact that they don’t have weapons of mass destruction is a godsend. Needless to say, Anastasia and Ivan were once again flabbergasted at not only does a school of friendship exist, but other mythical creatures with human intelligence exist as well in this world. The two servants stared at the class from the small little window that was on the door for a moment before looking over at Twilight.
“It’s…I don’t even know how to put it into words.” Anastasia said before backing away from the window.
“Creatures like them would only exist in fairy tale books or be summoned by a servant in the rider class like me. But never would I believe to see a dragon, hippogriff, and a griffon in a classroom studying the lessons of friendship…You would think we would be on the reverse side of the planet.” Ivan said before examining the students.
“Reverse side of the planet?” Twilight asked as Ivan waved it off dismissively as a means of telling her he’ll explain what he meant later.
“So there’s a yak, dragon, griffon, hippogriff, changeling, and pony. In a room together…there should be a joke in what I said, but I can’t think of one.” Anastasia said while examining the students. “I know I might be beating a dead horse on this, and no offense to the idiom I just said, but I still find the concept of a school of friendship…frightfully disturbing.”
“Is the concept of teaching friendship to others too hard for you to understand?”
“It’s not that we don’t understand the concept of friendship…it’s just that…well.”
“Having a school base around that is the most ridiculous thing we have ever heard of,” Ivan said as he turned his attention to Twilight. “That would be like having a school in which you teach a person how to make butter or how to host a party…dear god, don’t tell me you have something like that in this town?”
“What? Of course not. That would be ridiculous.” Twilight said with a nervous chuckle, though would notice Pinkie Pie behind Ivan and Anastasia making her way out of a classroom with her party cannon. The moment Pinkie Pie saw them she was about to say something to them but paused the moment Twilight secretly motioned for her to walk back inside. The pink earth pony nodded as she slowly walked back into the class and closed the door behind her. The moment the sound of a door being closed was heard by the servant, they quickly turned around to nothing before returning their attention to the alicorn with a raised eyebrow. “Like I said we don’t have a class like that.”
“...I have a feeling that you’re lying about that,” Anastasia said as she noticed a nervous smile appear on Twilight’s face.
“Why would I lie about something like that?” Twilight asked as she noticed Anastasia was about to say something but cut her off by speaking before her. “A-Anyway, why don’t we head inside so we can introduce you both to the children? Think of it as a cultural educational lesson for them.” She said as Ivan and Anastasia followed Twilight into the classroom. While they were following after Twilight, the same three figures from before were peering from around the corner of the hallway that they were hiding behind before secretly following Ivan, Anastasia, and Twilight.
“Geez, looking at them from this much of a distance, I can see why they could be a threat to Equestria,” Scootaloo whispered. “You think they’re behind the whole magic being gone issue the unicorns are having?”
“Given what I’ve overheard from Rarity, they came from where that giant flower was in the distance.” Sweetie Belle answered.
“Y’all don’t think they're here to try and invade us, are they?” Apple Bloom asked as Scootaloo nodded.
“Well duh, I mean look what happened to Rainbow Dash because of them? I bet they’re just holding Princess Twilight as their prisoner and she’s buying time by giving them a tour around the school just so the other could come and save her.”
“I don’t know. Shouldn’t we go and ask Princess Twilight first and not assume that they’re trying to invade Equestria?” Apple Bloom asked as Scootaloo shook her head.
“And risk blowing our cover and putting us in more danger. I think not.” The pegasus said before motioning for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle to follow after Twilight and the others. “We can’t take any chances in this. We’ll try and make a distraction so that we can save the princess and Equestria.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Sweetie Belle asked as she noticed a smirk appearing on the young pegasus’s face.
“Pinkie Pie is teaching a class on how to make their very own party cannon, right?” She asked as her friends nodded. “Good, follow my lead and get ready to pull Twilight away the moment they’re outside.”
It was awkward. Very awkward for the servants the moment they entered the room. All the students that were busy talking to each other due to being given free time after finishing up their work, or were getting work done for their next class stopped and turned their attention to Ivan and Anastasia. Most were taken by surprise by the sudden appearance of the servants, while others that weren’t ponies found them either odd or funny looking. The room was silent for a good few minutes before Smolder spoke up to break the awkwardness in the atmosphere of the room.
“Princess Twilight, why is there a hairless ape and an ugly gorilla in the class?” She said which caused the servants to flinch from the sudden burn/comment. Though it didn’t hurt them physically, it did hurt them internally on their appearance.
“Smolder! That’s very rude of you to say something like that.” Twilight scolded as the dragon shrugged.
“What? I’m being honest. You can’t expect anypony not to ask something like that when two weird-looking beings enter the room looking like that?”
“....Hm, she’s not wrong about that,” Ivan said as Twilight rolled her before looking over at the students.
“I would like to introduce you all to the ambassadors of the country that was recently discovered.” She said as Ivan and Anastasia bowed to the students. “Meet Ivan Vasilyevich and Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, Former rulers of the Russian lostbelt as they say.”
“Former rulers? What, did someone overthrow you two or something? Because if it’s due to the way you look, then I can’t blame them for wanting to do that.” Smolder asked, which caused the servants to deadpan at her.
“Smolder, hush please,” Twilight said while giving the dragon a quick glare before looking back at the other students. “I know you all have a lot of questions about what’s been going on, why unicorns can’t use magic and the strange flower that’s growing off in the distance. I can assure you that all will be explained at Town Hall this afternoon. Before that happens I am giving them a bit of a tour around the school and a small history about Equestria.”
“Which is not that impressive in my point of view,” Ivan mumbled, which caused Anastasia to elbow him in the ribs.
“We are honored to meet such interesting individuals from this country. We’re hoping that we can establish a friendship between us and Equestria if it’s possible.” She said before noticing Silverstream quickly appearing in front of Ivan as she poked his horn.
“Whoa, I’ve never seen somepony like you before.” She said while continuing to poke at his horns. “Especially one with very pretty glowing horns. Are you a unicorn?”
“What kind of unicorn looks like that?” Gallus asked while eyeing Ivan up and down. “He looks like a Minotaur and a unicorn had a baby and made that.” He said which caused Anastasia to let out a muffled snort of laughter. Ivan looked over at her as she quickly looked away before the rider servant turned his attention to Gallus and Silverstream.
“While my appearance may be…odd. I can assure you that I am not a unicorn or a minotaur. I was a human that fused with a demonic beast to survive the harsh snowstorms of Russia.” He said as a moment of silence hung in the air for a moment before Smolder spoke up.
“Okay…so what are you? A monster, unicorn, or hooman?”
“Servant,” Ivan answered as he noticed the confused expression on the children’s faces.
“He’s a demonic elephant.” Anastasia said which caused some of the students to let out an “Oh!” as if they understood, but also let out an “Ew.” due to imagining some weird ways someone can be fused with an elephant or just gross in general as the caster servant could feel Ivan deadpan expression deepen even more before letting out a grunt of annoyance.
“So he is a unicorn fused with an elephant?” Silverstream asked as Ivan let out a sigh before speaking.
“It would be complicated to explain in great detail how I ended up this way, but for the time being you can assume that I am a unicorn for the time being,” he answered before looking at Twilight. “I’m still not impressed by this so-called school of friendship if this is how kids are towards Ambassadors from another country.”
“They’re still in the process of learning about friendship, but you can’t expect everypony to act polite around other ponies…Though I will give them an extra lesson on manners and using their words carefully so as not to hurt another pony’s feelings.” She said while giving a stern expression towards Gallus and Smolder who in turn looked away while whistling innocently.
“In their defense, they’ve never seen yaga’s like us before so, understandably, they would react this way. Though I do like the blue griffon and orange dragon consider Ivan as a freak and abomination~”
“Of course, you would say that,” Ivan said before hearing Twilight speak up. “Does anyone have a question they would like to answer?” The alicorn asked before noticing a few hooves being raised. “Questions that don't revolve around Ivan’s appearance.” She asked before noticing a few hooves going down. Twilight gave them an unamused look at the classroom before pointing a hoof at a changeling. “Yes, Ocellus?”
“I was wondering. What is the country that you two come from?” Ocellus asked which took Ivan by surprise. “Do all creatures from your country look the same as you two?”
“If you’re referring to the Yagas, then yes,” Ivan said before using his magic to make magical images of himself, Anastasia, and a random male Yaga. “Russia is home to the Yagas who were once human,” he said, pointing to Anastasia as a prime example of what a human would look like. “Humans used to look like her, but due to the harsh snowstorms within Russia, we had to use magic to fuse with demonic beasts to survive the cold.”
“You were once a hairless ape?” Smolder asked as Ivan shook his head.
“Human, not hairless ape child. Keep that in mind less you offend someone with that statement. But yes, Anastasia and I used to be humans before Russia became a harsh environment to live in at the time.” He said before making a magical image of a random demonic beast. “We figured that demonic beasts can survive the cold due to their magical and biological make-up in adaptation. So with the country’s best mages, we conducted the magical experimentation of fusing humans with demonic beasts. The process worked, but it only solved one of the many problems that Russia had due to the snowstorms.”
“Like what?” Sandbar asked.
“Loss of knowledge, magic, fertile land for crops. The biggest one would be food shortages. You see, because we fuse with demonic beasts, yagas require more food to eat to maintain their high metabolism. Because of this, the yagas would have to fight each other to steal food from either villages or rival packs to survive. Sadly there is not much I can do given how we didn’t have the power to control the weather like the pegasus in this country.”
“Is that the reason why you came to Equestria? To seek help from the princesses?” Yona asked as Ivan nodded.
“Indeed. With the snowstorm finally gone due to some magical yet odd reason, we can now leave the country in search of assistance in rebuilding Mother Russia to her former glory…or at least to where it’s decent to live in.” He said before looking at Silverstream who was admiring his horn. “Is there a reason why you’re admiring my horns child?”
“Oh, sorry. It’s just that they’re so glowy and shiny.” Sliverstream said while continuing to admire the servant’s tusk. “I mean, I have never seen an elephant creature like yourself that can do something like that. Is there anything else you can do?” She asked as Ivan stared at her for a moment before looking over at Anastasia, who simply shrugged not knowing what to do, then Twilight who simply motioned for him to answer Silverstream’s question.
“Hm…perhaps a demonstration of magic is to be in order.” He said before making his way to the front of the classroom. Applejack quickly moved to the side to where Twilight and Anastasia were standing as a worried expression was on the earth pony’s face.
“Are y’all sure this is okay to do? I mean, shouldn’t they be in hiding so that they don’t cause a misunderstanding?” Applejack asked as Twilight shook her head.
“While I can understand your worries, this would be a good opportunity for us to see their magic at work. Not to mention sharing with others about another person’s culture is another way of friendship.” She said before looking at Ivan standing in front of the class. “I wonder what kind of magic he’ll perform? Maybe teleportation magic? Levitation?”
“I don’t think he’ll be doing that,” Anastasia said before noticing Ivan summoning his staff into his hand. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spell that repairs damages to objects, do you?”
“What do you mean by-” Before Twilight could finish her question, she heard a surge of electricity coming from Ivan. She soon turned her attention to the rider servant as electricity was forming around his body for a moment before flowing into his staff. A small blue ball could be seen forming in the tip part of the staff. Within a matter of seconds, he would fire a concentrated beam of electricity through the roof of the room they were in as the students, Twilight, and Applejack were taken by surprise by the sudden beam that erupted from Ivan. Within a matter of a minute, the beam slowly vanishes as a giant hole can be seen in the ceiling of the room they were in. The entire room fell silent upon seeing what Ivan just did as Twilight and Applejack’s mouths gaped open in surprise and shock.
“That’s why.” She said while trying her best not to laugh at their reaction. “Ivan isn’t the best at being subtle with things like this.” The air of silence continued to linger in the classroom a bit longer before a random unicorn colt yelled.
“That was so cool!” He yelled as the others began cheering in excitement at what they saw. “Do it again!”
“No!” Applejack yelled as the calls fell silent upon the earth pony’s yelling. “I-I mean, not in this classroom mind you. P-Perhaps we should take this to someplace else with a bit more room?” She asked before looking over at Twilight. “Twilight, you wouldn’t happen to know of a place where he could perform magic without destroying the school?”
“Oh, um…We could take them to the place where Rarity goes to gather gems with Spike.” Twilight said before looking at the classroom. “Think of this little trip that we’re going on as a demonstration of cultural education.”
“Sweet! Free class period!” a random earth pony colt said as Twilight deadpans for a moment, but smirks.
“There will be a quiz on this by the end of the week. So I suggest you all take notes about what Ivan mentioned because I will put it along with his demonstration of magic on the quiz as well.” She said, which caused the students in the classroom to groan in annoyance, and Smolder to punch the random colt on the shoulder. The alicorn soon turned her attention to Ivan and Anastasia as she spoke. “I hope you don’t mind giving them a demonstration of magic from your world, would you?”
“I am not against demonstrating magic to children, though I will need some assistance in doing so.” He said before looking at Anastasia who noticed him, Twilight, and Applejack staring at her.
“Hm, well I suppose showing off to the children would be that bad…I’ll stomach my dislike towards you for a while, but I’m only doing it because we do owe Twilight a lot for helping us.” She said as a smile appeared on Twilight’s face.
“Wonderful. I’ll go and get Fluttershy and see if she can get the boar to carry the children to where we need to go.” Twilight said before looking at Applejack. “Applejack, would you be okay fixing the hole that Ivan accidentally made in the ceiling?” She asked as Applejack looked up at the hole as a small piece of wood that was hanging off fell to the floor. A sigh of annoyance escaped her lips before shooting an annoyed look at the alicorn.
“If I do this, I get two weeks off from teaching.”
“One week and my eternal gratitude~?” Twilight asked as she gave the farm pony the puppy dog look. A small smirk appeared on Applejack’s face before nodding.
“Fine, fine, but you owe me for doing this.” She said before walking off out of the room to gather supplies to fix the hole in the ceiling. The moment Applejack left the room, Twilight began to spread her wings before taking flight into the air.
“I’ll be back with Fluttershy. Please keep an eye on the class while I am gone will you?” The alicorn asked as Ivan and Anastasia nodded. Upon seeing that, she soon looked over at her students before speaking. “Feel free to ask them about anything you ask. And be nice to them while I am gone.” She said before flying off. The moment that Twilight left the room, Ivan and Anastasia turned their attention toward the students who were staring at them with excitement in their eyes.
“So,” Ivan spoke as the class turned their attention to the mammoth of a servant. “Any unicorns interested in learning how to use simple magecraft?” he asked as he noticed the unicorns raising their hands in excitement. While this was happening, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo stared in shock at what they just saw Ivan just did. They soon looked at each other for a moment before looking at the party cannon that they borrowed from Pinkie Pie before Scootaloo spoke up.
“Yeah…we’re going to need a bigger cannon…and bigger ammunition.”
With the assistance of Fluttershy asking the demonic boar for transportation help, the students, servants, and teachers were taken to the area where Rarity usually takes Spike to go gem hunting for her clothes design. Within a matter of thirty minutes, the group would arrive at the location where the servants would demonstrate examples of their otherworldly magic. Ivan and Anastasia hopped off of the demonic boar’s back and took a few feet away from the group of ponies.
“What you’re about to see is a small demonstration of what we servants can do. Princess Twilight and her friends have seen only a small fraction of it, but now that we’ve recovered thanks to this land’s abundance of magic.” Ivan said as Anastasia interrupted his speech.
“We can demonstrate magic on a much greater scale.” The caster said as Ivan quickly moved away from her. “Now, caster class servants may not be the strongest servants when it comes to physical strength, durability, and speed depending on the servant. But what we lack in those, we make up for in excelling in magecraft.” She said before taking a step forward. The moment her foot touched the ground again, a sheet of ice quickly spread across the dirt, rocks, and boulders within the area she was in. “They also have certain skills that allow them to create territory over certain areas depending on the servant and the ranking of that skill.”
The moment she turned her attention onto Ivan, she soon took a step forward as pillars of ice were heading towards the rider servant. Ivan took notice of the pillar of ice heading towards him as he raised his staff a bit, and fired a beam of electricity to burst through the pillars of ice. As the beam was trailing along the ground and heading towards Anastasia, she tapped her foot on the ground as she created a pillar of ice underneath her, and sent herself flying into the air. While in the air, she brought her doll and fired off a gust of arctic wind at Ivan. The former Tsar brought his arm up as means to protect himself from the harsh winds as he noticed that his arm was beginning to become covered in ice.
“Harsh as always, but beautiful nonetheless,” Ivan said before flexing his muscles to shatter the ice that was covering his arm. The moment his arm was freed, he used his tusk to extend itself toward Anastasia. Once they were inches from their target, Anastasia quickly pushed herself down toward the ground to avoid the oncoming attack. Just as she lands on the bed of ice, Ivan raises his foot for a moment before bringing it down with tremendous force. The force behind his stomp caused the ground to break as an earthquake erupted around him and was heading toward Anastasia.
As the spikes of earth headed towards the caster servant, the magic circuits in her arms and hands lit up as she thrust them into the ground. Just as the spikes were within range of impalement, a giant wall appeared underneath Anastasia as she avoided the spikes. The servant looked down at Ivan with a slight smirk on her face as she slid down the wall of ice. Halfway down the wall of ice, she lunged herself from off the wall and headed towards the mammoth she brought her fist back as the magic circuits in her arm lit up again. Ivan took notice of Anastasia coming at him to deliver a punch to his face as he countered with his fist. The moment their fist collided with each other, a small shockwave erupted from the force behind their fist as they were pushed back slightly from the recoil.
The moment they were pushed away from each other, Anastasia raised her hand into the air as swords made out of ice appeared above Ivan and descended upon him creating a pillar of ice that encased Ivan in it. A smirk appeared on the caster’s face for a moment before noticing cracks forming from the pillar of ice. Within a matter of seconds, the former Tsar burst through the pillar of ice as he used his tusks to fire off a beam of electricity at Anastasia. Her eyes widened upon seeing the giant beam coming at her and she quickly brought her arms up to protect herself from most of the damage done to her by the attack. Just as the beam died down, it revealed a somewhat slightly cinched Anastasia with parts of her clothes being tattered a bit. The caster servant looked over herself from the battle damage she received as she looked up at Ivan with a slightly annoyed expression on her face.
“Seems you still haven’t lost your edge,” Anastasia said as an aura of ice started to form around her body. “I would think after what Chaldea did, you would still be recovering by now.”
“You can thank the magic in this land. This place would make a good resting spot for servants to recover from injuries, or to fight with an unlimited supply of magic all around us.” He said before demonstrating what he meant by gathering magic from the surrounding area into his fist before making it disappear. “Makes you wonder if this place is similar to the age of gods.”
“Given how there are no humans in this world or advanced technology from modern human history, I would have to assume that this place is like the age of the gods. Only that humans are replaced with sentient mythical creatures that you would see in the reverse world.” She said before raising her hand at Ivan. “We’ll have to learn about this place before we can assume anything. For now, I suggest you get ready. Because I’m about to deliver a long overdue payback for the hell you put me through.”
“...I figured as much…don’t suppose an apology will make things better?” Ivan asked as he noticed spear-shaped ice hovering above him. “Yeah, I didn't think so.” While the servant continued the demonstration of their abilities, Twilight, and the others stared in astonishment at what they were seeing.
“Twilight…are you sure this was a good idea for them to do this?” Applejack asked as Twilight turned her focus onto the farm pony.
“W-Well, it would give us an idea what a servant is capable of…but dear Celestia, I didn’t think they would be able to rival that of Celestia and Luna.”
“That’s a bit much don’t you think? I mean, Celestia and Luna can move the sun and moon.”
“Yes, but even the princesses can’t perform feats like they’re doing. I mean, did you not see Ivan stomp the ground with his foot? Or Anastasia with that giant wall of ice that would tower over Ponyville. It would’ve taken a few seconds for Celestia and Luna to make something like this, but she did it within nanoseconds!” Twilight said as she turned her attention back to the fight. “I’ll have to ask Ivan more about their world’s history once this is over.”
“Try not to bombard him with too much. Less you end up going into one of your episodes again.” Applejack said before looking back at the servants, though something off in the distance would draw her attention. “Twilight, you sure this place doesn’t have other ponies in the area.”
“There should be. Rarely anypony other than Rarity comes out to this place. Why do you ask?”
“Just wanted to make sure…Say, I’ll be right back. I need to go check something out.” The farm pony said before hopping off of the demonic boar and walking in the direction of where she saw something in the distance. While the servants continue to demonstrate their abilities in the middle of the frost and rock-covered field, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were currently setting up a few of Pinkie Pie’s party cannon. How they were able to pull them such a long distance, it’s beyond anyone’s imagination. Then again, it’s the Cutie Mark Crusaders, they somehow make the impossible possible…at times.
“Are the cannons loaded?” Apple Bloom asked as Scootaloo nodded after looking inside the last cannon to see a strange round ball within it.
“They’re loaded, but I think Pinkie left something inside them.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Might be a ball or something. Couldn’t get a good look seeing how I can barely see what’s inside them, and I didn’t want to accidentally set them off.”
“Well whatever is inside them, we’ll use them as a distraction.” She said before looking over at Sweetie Belle, who was pushing some gems that were roughly about the size of their heads.
“Found some gems that we can use on them, but is this a good idea?” Sweetie Belle asked as Apple Bloom pointed a hoof over in the direction of the servants as Anastasia made another giant wall appear off in the distance. “...Again, is this a good idea?”
“Would you rather have them causing trouble around Ponyville? Especially now seeing how you and every other unicorn can’t use their magic.”
“Apple Bloom’s right, we gotta do something before they bring an army with them,” Scootaloo said before walking over to one of the cannons and taking aim. “Um…does anypony know how to use this?”
“I think you pull the string part on the cannon?” Sweetie Belle said as she watched the pegasus pulling on the string. The moment she did, the cannon fired off the object that was inside, and the recoil caused the cutie mark crusaders to be knocked off their feet. “Dear Celestia! Just how powerful is this cannon!”
“Strong enough to where it should knock those two out like a log…at least I hope it does.” Apple Bloom said as the trio quickly recovered from their fall. “Starts firing the other cannon. Then reload them with the gems Sweetie Belle found.” She ordered as Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded and began firing off the other cannons.
As the cutie mark crusaders were setting off the cannon fire, the servants continued to demonstrate their abilities to Twilight and the others. Just as Ivan was about to deliver an earth-shattering punch to Anastasia, he soon tumbles to the side due to being hit by something hard by surprise and losing his footing because of it. The moment he pulled himself up, Anastasia noticed that half of his face was covered in a mix of cake batter and party confetti. The caster servant stared at the mammoth for a good few seconds before covering her mouth as she tried her best not to laugh. Though her attempt to not laugh was soon interrupted as she too was hit with the same object as she fell flat on her face onto the hard ice.
“...It would appear we’re being attacked from a long distance,” Ivan said as he noticed Anastasia pulling herself up with a slightly annoyed expression on her face. “Perhaps this is part of Twilight’s lesson plan?”
“I doubt it,” Anastasia said while wiping the cake batter off her face. She soon looked over the area to see where the shot came from, but soon summoned up a wall of ice as another ball filled with cake batter and confetti collided with said wall. “She’s off on the side still god smacked by what we were doing.” She quickly popped her head to the side of the ice wall she made as she once again looked around the area they were once. The moment she looked up at the sky, she saw a barrage of flying objects coming at them. Ivan lifted his hand to summon his staff into his hand. The moment he did this, a surge of electricity erupted from the staff and zapped the oncoming hail of objects heading towards the two servants out of the sky with ease
“I believe that our assaulters are off in the distance near that rock formation,” Ivan said as the caster servant looked off in the direction the mammoth mentioned. The caster’s eyes gave off a slight glow as she looked in the direction of where their assaulter was located. From what she could tell it was three foals currently reloading the cannons that they have set up. A slight smirk appeared on her face as she looked over at Ivan.
“Three foals from the look of it. I could only assume that they think we’re trying to take over Equestria.”
“It would seem so. Should we postpone this fight and confront those who would be heroes?” He asked before seeing Anastasia using the ice-covered ground to skate her way over to where the Cutie Mark Crusaders were located. “Suppose that would be a yes.”
“Come on, come on, we need to find more ammunition for the cannons,” Scootaloo said as Apple Bloom was frantically looking around for more ammo.
“All we got are rocks of different sizes. I doubt that would do anything to them given what we saw.” Apple Bloom said before hearing the young pegasus groaning in annoyance.
“What about the gemstones? Don’t we have any of them left?”
“We used them up with the first attack, remember?” Apple Bloom asked before looking over at Sweetie Belle. “Any news on the invaders?”
“....You want bad news or worse news?” Sweetie Belle asked while looking through a pair of binoculars. “Because I don’t think you’ll like either of them.”
“Don’t you mean bad news and worse news?” Scootaloo asked as the young unicorn looked over at her.
“Well, both are bad. But I think the worst news is more pressing than the bad news.” Sweetie Belle said before hearing Apple Bloom speak up.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well…bad news…they’re heading towards us.” She said which caused Scootaloo to quickly grab the binoculars out of Sweetie Belle’s grip to see what she meant by that. Her eyes widened upon seeing Anastasia and Ivan making their way over to the trio. “Worse news, we might be looking to have an early grave.”
“Oh horse feathers! Quick, launch everything we have at them before they reach us!” Scootaloo yelled as she frantically began picking up rocks of different sizes and shoving them into one of the cannons they had set up.
“Did you not see what they did!?” Apple Bloom yelled before doing the same as Scootaloo. “How can a bunch of rocks do anything to them!?”
“Do you want to have written on your tombstone, death by elephant and hairless ape!?”
“...Fair point,” Apple Bloom said before placing more rocks into the cannon until it was filled to the top. Once it was loaded, Sweetie Belle took the binoculars back from Scootaloo to get a better look at the servants. As they were in her sights, she quickly positioned the cannon to lock onto the servants.
“I’ll take care of positioning the other cannons, you girls fire at them.” Sweetie Belle said as the pegasus and earth pony nodded before firing at the servants. As the Cutie Mark Crusaders began their assault upon the servants, Ivan and Anastasia were quickly closing the gap between them and the young fillies. As they were at the halfway point, they would hear the sound of cannons being fired. Looking up, they could see a hail storm of rocks heading towards them. Just like before, the tip of Ivan’s staff sparked up as he fired off a wave of electricity at the oncoming bombardment of rocks and reduced them to nothing but dust.
“Seriously, how come they can do magic while every other pony that we know can’t!?” Scootaloo asked after firing off another volley of small rocks and pebbles.
“Well, they’re not ponies, remember?” Apple Bloom answered as she flinched from seeing the young pegasus glaring at her. “What? It’s true. They’re not ponies.”
“Whatever, just keep firing until you see the whites of their eyes!” She said which caused Apple Bloom to tilt her head in confusion.
“But one of them doesn't have any eyes…at least from what we saw at school.”
“Just keep firing!” Scootaloo ordered as the young earth pony frantically fired off the other cannons one by one after Sweetie Belle adjusted their aim to be locked on the servants. The moment Ivan saw another swarm of rocks and pebbles heading towards them, Anastasia raised her hand to unleash a veil of frost at the oncoming assault. The moment the stones made contact with the sub-zero attack, they quickly fell to the ground and crumbled into smaller rubble. A smirk appeared on the caster’s face from what she did, though that smile vanished upon seeing an actual cannonball inches from her face.
“Oh you have got to be-” Before she could finish her sentence, the cannonball exploded upon making contact with her face, causing an explosion of confetti, streamers, glitter, and surprisingly cake batter. Ivan quickly covered his face from the sudden smoke that came from the explosion but quickly clapped his hands together to make a shockwave to clear the smoke away from around Anastasia. The moment the smoke was gone, it revealed Anastasia being covered in party accessories, glitter, and cake batter.
“Ha! How’d you like that villain!? That will teach you to try and take over Equestria.” Scootaloo yelled in confidence, but Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle felt a sense of dread in the pit of their stomach due to feeling a chill running up their spines. There was a moment of silence hanging in the air before the former Tsar spoke up.
“...I get the feeling that you’re angry?” He asked before noticing the caster giving him an icy death stare. “Right, stupid question on my part.”
“I’m going to hurt them…badly.”
“Remember, they’re children. Not to mention we’re trying not to let them see us as monsters, nor do we want to revert to our old ways.” He said before noticing the air around them getting colder by the second. “Plus I’m sure Twilight will make a suitable punishment for them once we capture them.”
“...Fine, but don’t think I’m going to let this pass.” She said before looking at the cutie mark crusaders carrying rocks and putting them into the cannons. With a deep breath, Anastasia’s eyes lit up for a moment before locking eyes with the young fillies. As she locked eyes with the cutie mark crusaders, Viy appeared behind her with its eyes glowing pale blue for a moment. Just as Scootaloo was about to fire another shot at the servants, she soon felt something cold covering her hooves. Looking down, she saw them covered in a small casing of ice which took her by surprise.
“Gah! I can’t move my hooves!” Scootaloo yelled as she looked over at Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. To her surprise, Sweetie Belle was completely frozen in a block of ice, while Apple Bloom had her body covered in ice safe for her head.
“C-Can’t…M-M-Move….S-So….C-C-Cold!” Apple Bloom said while trying to struggle within her somewhat icy prison. As Scootaloo continued to look over at Apple Bloom, she heard the sound of ice slowly moving below her. Looking down she saw that the ice covering her hooves was steadily creeping up her legs. She tried to move her limbs in an attempt to try and break out of the ice, but the more she tried to struggle, the more the ice crept up and covered her body.
“Oh horse feathers! I didn’t think they could do magic from a distance like this!” Scootaloo yelled before looking over at Apple Bloom. “Apple Bloom, try and bite your way out of-” Before the young pegasus could finish her sentence, her eyes widened in horror upon seeing Apple Bloom completely covered in ice. “Gah! Can this get any worse!?”
“Oh trust me, it’s about to get a lot worse for you three,” Anastasia said, which caused Scootaloo to gulp in fear before looking behind herself. Behind her was the servant and the shadowy figure known as Viy staring down at her.
“Indeed.” said a new voice as she looked over to her right. “It’s about to get a lot worse in your case. Of course, we won’t be the one delivering the punishment for attacking ambassadors of a foreign country, that would be decided by either Princess Twilight or your parents/Guardian.” Ivan said before noticing a small devilish smile appear on Anastasia’s face.
“Yes…but before we take you three troublemakers over to Twilight,” Anastasia said as she reached into her pocket to pull out a marker. “I’m gonna have a little bit of fun drawing on your faces.”
“Wait what!? You can’t do that!”
“Oh, I can. There’s nothing you can do to stop me~” She said while getting the marker closer to the filly’s face.
“H-Hey, weird elephant thing! Do something! Aren't you two married or something!?”
“...Sorry little one. Even if she was my wife…I don’t think I can stop her. Plus consider this as a lesson for you in not attacking someone before getting to know them.” Ivan answered, which in turn caused Scootaloo’s color to turn pale upon hearing this. Just as she was about to scream in horror at having her face covered in markings, a familiar Southern voice was heard coming from their right.
“What in tarnation is going on here!?” Applejack yelled as she blinked in surprise from seeing Anastasia, Ivan, and the somewhat frozen Cutie Mark Crusaders. Though her focus was more on Anastasia as she was covered in party accessories and her holding a marker toward Scootaloo’s face. “Dear Celestia, what happened to you? You look like the aftermath of one of Pinkie Pie’s party cannon mishaps.”
“Why don’t you ask your sister and her friends?” Anastasia asked before glaring down at Scootaloo. “Well, this child should be able to answer. The others are currently…on ice.” She said which caused Scootaloo and Applejack to deadpan at Anastasia for a moment before hearing Applejack speak up.
“Scootaloo, please explain why you and the other girls are attacking Anastasia and Ivan?”
“They’re here to take over Equestria!” Scootaloo yelled while trying to break free from her icy restraints. “Did you not see what they did at the school? Or how unicorns can’t use their magic? It’s a plan for them to invade Equestria and take over the world!” She said which caused Applejack to stare at the young filly for a moment before looking over at the caster and rider servants.
“....Anastasia, is there a reason why you have a marker in y’all hand?”
“I figure this would be a fitting punishment for assaulting the former Tsars of Russia,” Anastasia answered before looking back at Scootaloo with the same devilish smile on her face. “It’s not hurting her or anything, just going to mark her face up a bit~,” She said before noticing Scootaloo, who had a pleading expression on her face as if she was saying “Save me from this deviant monster from Tartarus.” The farmer pony looked over at Ivan with a raised eyebrow.
“Like I told the child. There’s not much I can do when she gets into one of her…pranking moods. She should be glad that it’s just her marking up her face and not something worse.” He said before shivering at the memories of her pranking fits back in the lostbelt. “I prefer not to wake up frozen in a block of ice floating in the middle of a lake.”
“Ah…I see…and y’all going to unfreeze my sister and Sweetie Belle afterward, right?”
“Of course, they’re going to share the same punishment as this pegasus. That is if you don’t mind me doing that?”
“Of course, she wouldn’t-”
“Sure, knock yourself out,” Applejack said, which took Scootaloo and Ivan by surprise.
“What!? Y-You can’t be serious!?” Scootaloo yelled before flinching from the harsh gaze she was receiving from the farm pony.
“Because you attacked two of our friends from another country, thinking of them as villains because of the way they look, endangering yourselves by attacking them during the demonstration of their magic, and stealing Pinkie Pie’s party cannons. I think this is a fitting punishment for y’all. Well part of your punishment, I’m sure Rarity and your Aunts will want to get involved in this matter.”
“But, they-”
“Twilight will explain what’s going on much better than me. For now, accept your punishment.” Applejack said before pointing a hoof at Anastasia. “Because I’m pretty sure she’s going to enjoy it much more than Dash and Pinkie.”
“Oh, she’s not wrong~,” Anastasia said while looking at Scootaloo struggling. “Now hold still little pony, this isn’t going to hurt…much~.” The only thing that could be heard was the sound of Scootaloo screaming in terror, and Anastasia laughing like a mad woman…which wasn’t a very good laugh. If anything, it was a laugh of pure blissful pleasure that sent shivers down the rider servant’s spine. If a god or goddess was looking over this land, they would be turning a blind eye to this act of terror. For there was only one goddess here in this isolated location…and she was fresh out of mercy.
“I know that you’re angry. But was freezing their bodies in ice and drawing on their faces necessary?” Twilight asked as Fluttershy was currently placing blankets over the cutie mark crusaders, and Pinkie Pie giving them hot chocolate.
“They’re lucky I didn’t leave them like that until the next day,” Anastasia said while still covered in the mess that the cmc put her in. “Honestly, do you know how much it took me to make these clothes similar to those from Pan Human History? A lot of materials were sacrificed to do this.” She said while fake crying dramatically. “Even worse…I don’t even have an extra set of clothes on me. Oh, what a dilemma.”
“Dilemma my foot, you pretty much used up all of my royal attire just to make that.” Ivan thought before shaking his head.
“We’ll make a quick stop over to Rarity’s place, but before we can do that,” Twilight said before looking over at the kids who were staring at the servants in astonishment. “You girls are in a lot of trouble. Assaulting foreign diplomats and stealing Pinkie Pie’s party cannons. I am very disappointed in you girls. Did you not learn anything about judging a pony by their appearance?” “B-But Twilight, they are trying to t-take over Equestria-” Scootaloo said, only to get cut off by Twilight interrupting the young filly's sentence.
“I don’t want to hear it. You girls could’ve gotten yourselves hurt or worse.” Twilight said before taking a deep breath to calm herself. “Normally this would be the time when I would punish you girls for this, but I’ll leave that to Applejack due to having the meeting Mayor Mare set up at town hall.” She said before looking at the other students. “We’ll be having a small test tomorrow about what you learned and saw today. I hope you all paid attention to our foreign friends' demonstration and the small bit of information they gave up in class today.”
“Seriously?” Smolder asked in annoyance. “But they weren’t even done showing us what other magic spells they have.”
“Much as I would love to show you all more. We have a busy schedule to keep. Maybe next time, but for now. We need to get moving.” Twilight said before looking over at Fluttershy. “Would you be so kind as to drop the kids off back at school after dropping us off at Rarity’s place?” She asked as Fluttershy nodded and motioned for the kids back onto the demonic boar’s back. While the ponies were busy gathering the kids, the servants were currently off to the side talking to each other about an important matter.
“I still find it hard to believe we’re not on the reverse side of the world,” Ivan said while noticing Fluttershy ordering the demonic boar to kneel for the children to hop on him. “A rider servant like myself could order a demonic beast like the boar around due to the class that they’re summoned in. But that pony can just tame it like it was nothing with little to no effort…Hard to believe a creature like her can exist.”
“Hm, she could be useful in taming some of the demonic beasts back in Russia,” Anastasia said before noticing Ivan looking at her with what she could guess was a raised eyebrow. “Hear me out. From what I can remember, taming a demonic beast is a challenge within itself. If we can somehow have her assisting in convincing more demonic beasts to help us, then it would make traveling from town to two through the snow much easier than having the yagas travel on foot.”
“...That’s not a bad idea for once. It would bring traveling time and casualties by half. We might even set up a traveling system of some kind.” Anastasia said while pondering different ideas about the idea. “Might need to ask the princesses about this, but we can do that after dealing with Minotaur.” She said before ending the conversation and making her way over to the demonic boar.
“Right…” Ivan said before following after the caster servant. While the group was busy assisting in getting onto the demonic boar’s back, a familiar berserker huntress would watch the group from a distance. She would soon pull the string to her bow back and aim with two arrows pointed at Anastasia and Ivan. Her eyes squinted at the two former Tsars in rightful anger and rage for a moment before lowering her weapon and biting her lower lip a bit. “No. Not yet. They could be useful in taking down Minotaur.” Atalanta said before quickly following after the group from a distance the moment she saw them leaving the area.
[Carousel Boutique]
Carousel Boutique. Home to Ponyville’s seamstress and fashion designer, Rarity, and her sister Sweetie Belle. Here ponies from across Equestria come to commission her to design costumes, dresses, tuxedos, wedding dresses, etc. It is here that Twilight, Anastasia, and Ivan made their way into the Boutique. Though upon entering, Rarity let out a glass-shattering scream that cracked the windows in her home and the surrounding building near her.
“Dear Celestia! What happened to you!?” Rarity yelled as she stared at Anastasia. “You look like the aftermath of Pinkie Pie’s party cannon mishap!”
“You can thank your sister and her friends,” Anastasia said with a deadpan expression on her face. “They thought that Ivan and I were invaders. So as punishment for their transgression, I doodled on their faces while half their bodies were frozen in ice.” She said which caused Rarity to look over at Twilight with a flabbergasted expression on her face.
“Your sister is fine. She didn’t receive any permanent damage or anything. Though I think she’ll be keeping her distance from Anastasia for a while.”
“I’ll take your word for it, but right now I don’t care.” Rarity said before making her way over to the caster servant. “How could they do this to you and your clothing!? Such elegant material, such style, such otherworldly attire! Ruined by a combination of confetti, cake batter, and other party accessories!” She said before letting out a gasp of air in dramatic fashion. “Oh, this is The. Worst. Possible. Thing!”
“...Are you sure she’s the right person for the job?” Ivan asked as Twilight let out a slight chuckle of nervousness.
“She can be a bit…dramatic at times. But I assure you, Rarity’s the go-to mare when it comes to getting clothing made or fixed.” She said before looking at Rarity. “You can fix this…right?”
“Hm, that would depend.” Rarity said before circling Anastasia. “Keep in mind, I can’t use my magic. So having this be a rush job won’t do until our magic returns. So cleaning her clothes will take about three days or so. Sadly, the only thing I can do for you is offer to give you a bath to get the mess out of your hair.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking a shower after this morning’s assault by children who would be mistaken as archer-class servants.” She said while pretending to cry. “Even worse, those were the only pair of clothes I had in Russia. So much materials and magic put into making something from the pan-human history, all ruined.”
“Oh, you poor thing. No mare…or in this case, a servant should ever have to go through something like that.” Rarity said before looking over at Twilight. “How long before the town meeting begins?”
“In two hours, why?”
“Perfect, that will give us enough time to get her cleaned up before the meeting. Though making her a new outfit might be a bit of a challenge seeing how I don’t have anything in your size.” “Hm, I might be able to help with that. I just need the following materials to create a different set of clothing.”
“You can do that?” Rarity asked before noticing Anastasia raise a hand to create a medium size sapphire gem from out of thin air. “Certain servants can create items through magecraft, though mine isn’t as good as most caster class servants, it’s enough for me to make what I need.”
“Wonderful, would it be okay if you showed me how to do it? Your way might be more efficient and time-consuming for some of the orders I have.” She asked while leading the caster servant upstairs to the bathroom. The moment the two of them were gone, Ivan let out a small sigh of relief before sitting down on the floor.
“I assume you’re tired after what happened in the rock quarry?” Twilight asked as Ivan shook his head.
“No…just oddly more relaxed…which I am not used to.” He said while looking around the boutique. “Throughout my rule over Russia as its king, I tried my best to lead my people to the best of my abilities given what we were put in. Never would I have thought that I would end up in a place like this. I was content with dying at the hands of the human of Chaldea. Though it would seem I’ve been given a second chance at life. Ironic given how I named Ivan the Terrible.”
“What do you mean?” The mare asked.
“I want to ask you something. You say that there is a mirror version of this world. Where instead of ponies, there were humans. What are your opinions on humans and the history behind them?” He asked which caused Twilight to be taken by surprise.
“Where did that kind of question come from?”
“This world…I don’t know if it’s changing me for the better or punishing me for the sins I’ve committed within the lostbelt. But I’m starting to think more clearly than I ever thought I could. My mind isn’t a jumbled mess. I can remember certain events that led to my actions of the country being forced to fuse with demonic beasts to survive, the hell I put Anastasia in, and the death of my son by my own hands.”
“You had a son?” Twilight asked which took her by surprise.
“This was before the transformation,” He said before crossing his legs and placing his hand over his face a bit. “My mind wasn’t my own at the time. Pretty sure I was suffering from some kind of mental illness or something, but even if that were the case. It was no excuse for what I’ve done. The date was November sixteenth fifteen eighty-one. I was currently trying to figure out how to fix the current problem of the constant snow storms. My son, Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich, came into my studies in a fit of anger after killing off innocent people who I thought were spies sent from another country. His words were this.” Ivan lifted his other hand to create a magical image of a young man wearing royal attire.
“What’s the point of the Tsar if he’s just going to kill his people like this? This country will die and you will be the cause of it.”
“I was angry. All I could see was red. The gull of my son questioning my ruling. Out of anger for what he said, I delivered a fatal blow to his head. Killing him within less than a couple of minutes. As I cradle him in my arms, regretting what I did to him, his last words were that he forgive me for what I did to him.” He said before making the magical image of his son disappear. “It was after his death that I spiral down the hole of madness and destruction. I didn’t care so much about the future of Russia, I didn’t care so much as to the people's suffering, I didn’t even care if I was killing them with my noble phantasm when I slept. All I could think about was…nothing…nothing but trying to put pieces of my shattered mind together. I ask you, princess, does a person like me deserve a second chance? Does the lostbelt deserve to continue even with its folly of blood and death?”
There was a moment of silence hanging in the air between the two. Twilight could only imagine what sort of horror and unforgivable acts Ivan had committed during his rule over Russia. Though Princess Luna had a similar situation when she was overcome with anger and jealousy towards Celestia, she never did kill her. Normally, if she was her old self back when she first started as just a unicorn learning about friendship, she wouldn’t want anything to do with him. But over time she had learned that not everything is black and white as she thought it was, it was a huge gray palette. The alicorn took a deep breath before speaking.
“...I believe you do.” She said which caused him to focus more intensely on the alicorn. “If I’m being honest, no pony is perfect. Nor does the history behind a species or race. I did a bit of a brush-up on the mirror world’s history a while back. While it’s true their history is paved with blood, Equestria isn’t so different, mainly without technology, but replace it with evil would-be conquerors trying to take over Equestria, a god of chaos, and magic. I don’t like the idea of the universe erasing history that would lead to a dead end, but you and the lostbelt you’re from were given a second chance. Which means you should be given a second chance here in Equestria.”
“And how do I know that things will be different?”
“Because you’ll have friends to lean on if you’re having trouble. After all, we are the elements of harmony.” Twilight said which caused Ivan to stare at her for a moment before speaking.
“...If I had people like you as part of my inner circle of people to trust. Things might’ve turned out differently than how they are now.” He said before leaning back a bit.
“If you don’t mind me asking, but would you be willing to talk about your life story?” Twilight asked which took Ivan by surprise.
“You sure? I will warn you, it’s not that much of a pleasant life compared to most people you hear.”
“We got time, plus it seems like you need to talk to someone.” She said before getting comfortable on the floor. “We got time before Anastasia and Rarity are done getting ready, so why not have a bit of a talk between two rulers, no?”
“...I…suppose you’re right,” Ivan said before clearing his throat. “I was born on August twenty-fifth in the year fifteen thirty in Kolomenskoye, Russia.” As Twilight listened to Ivan’s story about his life, Anastasia and Rarity were secretly listening from halfway up the stairs. There was a slight moment of silence before Rarity spoke up in a whispering tone.
“It seems he’s changing a lot more than how he was in the past, no?” Rarity asked as the caster servant huffed.
“I suppose, but that doesn’t change how I feel about him.” She said before carefully making her way upstairs without the others hearing her. “Though I can’t deny that this world is changing us. Which I hope is for the better.”
“I’m sure it will be for the better. Now come along, we have to make you look presentable for everypony to see you~”
