1. An intro to Carbon

Two years had passed since Carbon the black pegasus pony escaped the crystal, and he wasn't particularly eager to recall any of it. He was moderately pleased with the new name he picked for himself, though. He had spent these years doing nothing in particular, at the same time he felt a little bit worn out. the strangest thing was he still didn't have his cutie mark. This was unheard of among ponies at the age of 22.

Celestia generally left him to his own business, but she did ask him to start going to magic school. her letter was so encouraging he couldn't refuse. Carbon felt terribly awkward attending the classes, being seemingly the only pony in Equestria with a shiny black coat. If anypony thought anything about it, they never spoke it.

At the same time he was beginning to suspect that he was some sort of apple vampire. He had already sucked a couple hundred trees worth of wild apples dry in the valleys north of Ponyville. It was certainly a relief to know he was an apple vampire, and not a normal pony with a terrible apple eating disorder ... and fangs. It was also a relief to know the evil crystal seemed to have failed in its purpose. Looks like that fear of blood Carbon acquired as a little foal had come in handy, albeit those events better be left to themselves.

Whenever Carbon felt stressed the apple craving doubled up. In fact, before Celestia sent him to magic school he found it quite manageable, but now he had to fly down to the wild apple valleys almost every night.

In the past he was quite scared about it, like he might turn into an actual vampire. Now he was beginning to suspect that Celestia knew more about his problems than he did. If Celestia was cool with it, he was cool with it. It was certainly nice of her to get him a house in Ponyville of his own.

And the hoof band with the royal crest on it. Yesterday Carbon decided to put it on, go down to the bakery, and ask for a free cake. Out came the biggest, most delicious cake you can imagine. He tried to look as gracious as possible, as he carried it home to pig out in private.

Fancy those Ponyville ponies thinking he's somepony important. He still wasn't gonna talk to them, being a weird apple vampire and everything. Yeah, that band best be used sparingly. Although ... it could have some proper uses; the royal library would no longer be off limits. Tomorrow he could put it on and strut straight in there like like a big, bad magician pony; walk into the forbidden section like he was Twilight Sparkle or something. Hopefully there'd be some good books about apple vampires there, and without too much technical magic rubbish. Maybe the band wasn't really that royal, but the thought alone made for a good nap.

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Carbon was surprised to find out how easily he was admitted into the "forbidden" section. Jolly well didn't seem to be that forbidden altogether. Too bad the only vampire, changeling, or anything leecher-pony-related was some dusty old book by some crotchety old pony full of graphic descriptions of vampire pony and changeling victims. Most of them were from hundreds of years ago and the book claimed that king Sombra was the last of the lot unaccounted for. Good to know he was accounted for now, getting practically dismembered and everything. As for the book it probably could've been discarded, but Carbon put it back on the shelf.

The only thing concerning apples in the forbidden section was the appropriately titled "Forbidden Magic With Apples", which (as the note indicated) was taken out just yesterday by ... Twilight Sparkle. Celestia knows what she was doing with it. In any case, it probably wouldn't be possible to get it back from her for quite some time.

Carbon had tried several times before with other books, but it seemed like he had some sort of spell on him that made everypony oblivious to meeting him. That would explain why it didn't bother anypony that a black pegasus was studying magic with unicorns. Why hadn't he ever thought about that before? Must have been some sort of residue from the crystal wearing off of his mind. It certainly felt like an enchantment, especially now that he had a couple years away from it for reference.

The origin of hatred in Equestria remains undiscovered ... The plague has appeared at rare, turning-point events in history and sometimes takes the shape of black crystals. The crystals have always appeared sparsely and are most commonly found in dark and unlikely places ... Ponies who have lingered long around the crystals for study have been known to come under strange and chaotic enchantments ... Nothing else is known of these crystals save that they disappear within a few decades of the turning of the age.

Well, there it was in a nutshell; good old practical enchantments encyclopedia. Carbon put the heavy volume 47 tome back on the shelf. Eight years encased in hatred, to think of it! The pegasus pony shuddered. No wonder he didn't want to remember it, but it already seemed to be lost in the past. At the same time he was quite sure that he reduced that bit of hatred to nothing.

He paused for a little bit as the first bits of morning light came through the tall windows over the even taller, eerie, ancient, stone library shelves. So what now? Should he just stick around in Ponyville and study something he had no interest in until the enchantment wears off? Maybe he could make some friends and have a nice, peaceful life. The age would turn just like any other time and be completely forgotten about within his lifetime, wouldn't it? Carbon didn't even wonder about it much more than that. He had some curious feeling that everything would work itself out soon, so he decided to explore the library a bit instead.

He wandered around soaking in the space of the room for a little bit. Then he skimmed through some entries for black ponies, which weren't of much help either. Something about an extinct race, king Sombra again, something about some fairy tail half-blood ponies that didn't actually have skin and weren't really ponies at all...what, an eastern unicorn festival that involved dying one's skin black for a couple days. Carbon chuckled about being extinct a little bit while he put the books back.

He was on his way out now and he looked through the dusty cracks in between the shelves as he passed each stack of books, hoping he'd find something that fell in between the shelves. He wasn't sure why, it just seemed like a fun thing to do all of a sudden. To his delight one of the cracks had some paper at the far end, near the wall. It's no trouble for a pegasus to carefully move a bookshelf, even if it is the size of a cathedral. The paper itself was old and dusty, as expected. It looked like a map of the library - worth one look, maybe, but not a second. What's this? It looked like the map was outdated; it had a passage drawn where there was clearly a wall.

Celestia found herself feeling worried all of a sudden. Of course she would be, Twilight was just about to become an alicorn, a monumental occasion. Everything was prepared, did she miss something?

She found her mind shifting toward Cotton Cloud. She'd almost forgotten about the young stallion. Carbon is what he called himself now, after having cycled through about 10 names or so. What a troublemaker. It really was remarkable that he managed to wake Sombra from his slumber prematurely. With one of his crystals destroyed Sombra felt threatened and decided to attack the Crystal Empire immediately, which left him so vulnerable that the elements of harmony could easily overcome him.

Come to think of it Carbon had a forgetfulness enchantment on him, which was one of the strangest side-effects a hatred crystal had ever had on a pony. The enchantment was bound to wear off one of these days, and then... . Oh, what was she worried about? No use losing your peace over one pony so much. All these royal preparations for Twilight compounded with all her responsibilities were probably getting the best of her. If Carbon could just stay out of trouble for a day or two everything would be fine, might as well just forget about it.

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At the end of the secret passage was a spacious underground study. Judging by the trashy antiques on the walls the study belonged to prince Lionhoof. Hold on, why would he have a large image of himself on the wall? More likely than not, this was his burial chamber. Carbon knew just enough about him from history books to feel quite comfortable in the room, dusty and torch-lit as it was (he had just lit the torches).

Lionhoof was notable for always wearing a strange pair of plain hoof bands on his forefeet that he never took off, even when he went to sleep. Sure enough, here were the hoof bands inside a display case on top of a high stone slab.

Carbon put on the hoof bands, pushed the display case aside, and stood upon the stone slab while mimicking the poster and addressing an imaginary crowd.

"Dear Equestrians," he bagan. The crowd cheered.

"I declare that under my rule we shall have 5 years of peace. After that we'll have a couple years of wars just to mix things up, followed by an indefinite amount of peace until my death, which will be at least 15 years," the crowd cheered.

"Furthermore, you can all kiss my flank," the crowd went wild with acclamation.

"We love you, Carbon!" yelled a group of filly sluts from the front row right under the balcony.

Carbon became indignant all of a sudden. "You don't want me, you want prince Lionhoof," he yelled back.

"No, you retard," the ponies yelled back, "If we wanted Lionhoof we'd go to his daydream, but we're in your daydream cause we want you!"

Carbon remained in his kingly pose for a moment, wondering what the buck he just imagined.

Well, that's enough fun for one day. He was going to put the hoof bands back in place, but they wouldn't come off for some reason.

Carbon stood still for a little while pretending to be angry with himself. This was the proper thing to do if one didn't want to be a wise-flank. Truthfully he didn't really care. Eight years in a dark crystal sort of trumps any sort of fears you might have about enchanted hoof bands.

So there's that. That's why Lionhoof never took his hoof bands off. He bloody well couldn't. They were quite comfortable though, couldn't even feel them there.

Carbon sighed. Better check around the room to see if he could find something about the hoof bands. Almost immediately he found a letter from the prince lying on the book case against the wall; how convenient. He blew the dust off of the parchment and began to read.

Dear explorer,

it is my sincere intention and enchantment, that whoever finds these hoofbands will be the pony destined and qualified to have them ... These hoofbands grant the bearer unlimited power at will and will not come off by any means until the life has departed from their host. The power of the bands has no restriction, but beware: it cannot remove the wearer from the divine order of reaping what he sows ... If you would wish to have the artifact destroyed before putting it on this can be done quite easily now, but not afterwards; and I can't hold it against you, but I didn't feel it right to have it destroyed by my order ... Instead, I'm having a trusted friend place these bands over my tomb inside this enchanted burial room for safe keeping. May the authorities that be decide who should have this gift,

your good friend,

prince Lionhoof.

"Ah ha hah," Carbon thought, "an artifact that gives power with no restriction. That's a good joke. If that's what it did I could just teleport straight to my h..." He was in his living room. He teleported into the bathroom and splashed some cold water in his face.

"All right, play it cool," he thought, " this might be a whole another mess to deal with. Probably some sort of spell that imprisons the mind in some sort of enchanted replica of the real world." He teleported back into the dusty room and put out the torches. The passage was already sealed behind him when he came in. Then he teleported back to his bathroom and splashed some more water in his face.

"Derp, could've just put out the torches from here. Well, that's enough teleporting for one day." He walked to his bedroom.

"1:39? Let's make it 7:39." Time jumped forward 6 hours, the sun outside had gone down.

"No, that's messed up, back to 1:39." He went back to the moment where he left off.

"1:40 in the afternoon. Can't think of a better time to take a nap." Carbon lay under his blanket in a nasty state of shock for quite a while before snapping off to sleep.

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He woke up late in the evening and teleported to the apple trees. The hoofbands probably could have taken care of it, but he was starting to take pride in not using them overmuch. Plus it's not like the hoofbands knew how to fix the apple issue. They were still a dumb artifact and the wearer had to make all the decisions. Trying to cure irrepressible desire for sucking apple juices, which bloody well nopony understands, could easily prove disastrous both physically and mentally.

After that he flew down to a cliff he liked 700 miles east of Ponyville. Fast pegasi have been clocked at over a thousand miles per hour in a dive (Equestria is a big country), so it didn't take very long.

The cliff belonged to a plateau with a wheat field in the middle. Carbon settled between the wheat stalks not far from the bare rock of the cliff's edge. He tested how powerful the hoofbands were a little bit by moving some stars around and turning them funny colors, even black light, but he put everything back in its place in the end. He made a little light rain fall down over the wheat field. Wouldn't bother anyone. It was a warm night.

Now that he could do everything he didn't want to do anything. He just wanted to sit on top of the cliff and soak in the endlessness of everything. And it didn't seem to matter if it was a hoax, or enchantment, or test of some sort anymore, either. Why did the bands come to somepony who didn't even need them? Just so he could have fun with them? He shot some lightning bolts out of his eyes just to see what it was like and immediately wished he didn't. It made the air smell funny for a few minutes.

After a while he got up. Depression, that's what this was. Just because he had no social skills after spending 8 years in a crystal and was a little on the skinny side didn't mean he couldn't find somepony special. Not to mention he had unimaginable power in his hooves. Confounded hoofbands. They probably lost all their power as soon as one got a girlfriend. He still didn't trust the things. Of course, if the hoofbands were reliable, he could just jump back in time if anything went wrong with his relationships, couldn't he? Or would that make...

Another Carbon appeared next to him.

"Yep, two instances of the same pony simultaneously," said the other Carbon and disappeared.

"Sweet, now i don't even have to check," said the first Carbon.

Wait a second, how is that possible if he never went back in time to begin wi... .

Carbon woke up in the field several minutes later with a skull-splitting headache.  That's it. No more messing with time travel. Period. He could, supposedly, just turn the entirety of time backwards and erase it, but if he turned time back how would he know he ever did anything? Wouldn't it just end up exactly the same? He'd have to go back in time and tell himself to... . No. No messing with time travel of any sort. Period.

Wait a second, who needs friends when you have a destiny? Couldn't he just wish his cutie mark to appear? He did so. It was a long, thin vial with strange bubbling liquid and two snakes curled around it. He was scared about the thing for a while and trotted around uneasily. Was that really his destiny?

Consequently he realized it looked sort of like the sign at the doctors, except with a potion in the middle instead of the staff thing. Did that mean he was some kind of cure maker? He wasn't sure if that was it. He never even imagined his destiny would be anything like that. If it was he'd be one of the few ponies in history to discover their destiny without trying. Carbon decided to sleep on it and teleported to bed.

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