Freedom Through Harmony: Book II

Chapter in color

Forty-three

Derpy

The young Hero of Breath, potential not yet discovered, swiftly makes her way towards the nearby village. On this land, the resident skinks have formed settlements in and around the great steel structures that litter the landscape. Some have interiors, and thus allow parts of the villages and cities to be built inside, while others are simply large masses of metal, like the support beams of unspeakably giant structures.

Derpy senses that this nearby one is in trouble, though. There is a large amount of smoke rising into the sky, more than could be from simple cooking fires, and as she draws nearer, she can hear the sounds of panic.

She digs her hooves into the earth, skidding to a halt before the village, built in the shadow of a great steel pillar. A large monster clings to the pillar, one with a snake like body and four arms that hang onto the steel. Its large head is turned towards the village, a wisp of smoke trailing from its maw. Below, a pair of ogres brandishes clubs of wood, wreaking havoc on the village. The resident skinks run and hide from the monsters, unable to fight.

Derpy grits her teeth in excitement and determination. She is certainly able to fight. She retrieves her boomerang of choice and dives into the fray. She is still unable to fly, but that doesn’t mean she can’t still use her skill at heights to her advantage. She swiftly leaps atop some rubble, gaining enough height to leap atop a roof, and quickly jumps towards one of the ogres. With one mighty leap into the air, she brings her bladed boomerang down upon the ogre’s head, more than halving its HP.

This obviously draws the ogre’s attention to Derpy, but she is already on the move again, towards the other ogre. Making sure the first opponent is following her, she slips between the second ogre’s legs, causing the first one to run clumsily into its partner. Using the confusion to her advantage, Derpy leaps atop some boxes, flips back onto the roofs, and zips across the two bumbling giants, destroying the first and damaging the second.

Before she could plan a third attack, fire rains down from above, roasting the second ogre and narrowly missing Derpy herself. She tumbles to the ground and looks up to see the giant lizard-monster looking down at her, wisps of flame and smoke at the edges of its mouth. It drops down from its perch and lands in the middle of town before Derpy, crushing a building in the process.

Derpy leaps back, then to the side as another ball of fire barrels her way. She ducks behind a building to catch her breath and think; the monster can breathe fire, but its body doesn’t look convenient. Turning would be difficult. If she can get behind it…

The beast launches another blast of fire her way, and Derpy leaps to the right, out of the way. She rolls and springs to her hooves, then sprints through the side street. The beast doesn’t lose sight of her, but she is moving too quickly for it to turn to keep her in front of it. Soon, she manages to get behind it, then leaps and kicks off of the wall of a building, using her wings to glide. They still won’t let her fly, but they’re responsive enough to keep her airborne for a few more precious seconds.

She brings her boomerang down upon the creature’s neck, dealing a critical hit, but not quite killing it. Before landing, she throws the boomerang directly behind the beast, and equips another. Her hooves touch ground, and she moves immediately to avoid being burnt by the creature’s next attack.

The beast snapped its jaws at her, but she managed to leap backward just far enough to avoid the attack. Another blast of fire is already gathering in the creature’s maw, but her bladed boomerang finally comes back around, hitting the enemy in the neck once again. The damage finally proves too much for it, and grist scatters across the town. Derpy quickly moves about to collect the loot from the three enemies, and by the time she’s finished, the townspeople are around her, cheering her success. She is lifted into the air and carried happily to the center of town, giggling.

One of the skinks makes his way quickly to a shop, and enters to retrieve something. He returns with a strange looking device, looking as though it could be an add-on to some larger machine.

“With your abilities, I’m sure you could make use of this Fraymotif. It’s not like anybody around here can afford the things, anyway.”

Derpy frowns slightly. “Why not lower the price then?”

The skink stares at her for a few moments, then shrugs and says “I ‘unno”.

Derpy chuckles and takes the device. She’s about to ask how to use it, but it seems to activate on its own, glowing a soft blue. It flashes several times, illuminating Derpy’s coat, and seems to deactivate after the brightest flash.

“Guess it worked!” Derpy says, then makes her way to the outer edge of the town center while the crowd disperses, free to go about their business again. She retrieves her phone, and checks to see who is online; Doc is busy, but it looks like Quick Fix is free.

cross-eyedAngel began chatting with techTitan at 2:28 P.M.

CA: hey quick fix!

CA: how are you doing?

TT: good

TT: wet

TT: half my land is underwater did I mention that

CA: i think you did.

TT: ah

TT: well its a good thing the rebreather me and fp whipped up works right

TT: my whole land is like the fucking water level in every video game that everybody hates

CA: doesn’t sound like you like it. :/

TT: I can deal

TT: and its not so bad on the surface

TT: but I cant wait until I can get off this place honestly

CA: do you think we will?

TT: no doubt

TT: theres all six of our lands

TT: and prospit and derse

TT: and the battlefield

TT: we will have to go there at the end

TT: its total endgame material, its gotta be

CA: makes sense!

TT: yeah

TT: sounds like Docs world and bros world also have a lot of water

TT: like, half of mine is water, and half of the worlds in general have water

TT: real good freakin thing we can all swim right

CA: heh, yeah!

CA: hey, have you gotten any of these fraymotif things yet?

TT: yeah, I snagged one a little bit ago

TT: you get one too?

CA: yup!

TT: which one

CA: hang on, i’ll check…

CA: ‘steel jungle’s sonata’.

TT: that sounds pretty sweet

TT: I got one called brines bolero

TT: I think these are like midlevel ones

TT: so they should be pretty strong for a while

TT: my bro told me that he saw a couple for sale

TT: there were three that he could use by himself

TT: and five more that would work with him and another one of us as a team

TT: I think thats how it is for all of us

CA: sweet! we’ll have to get more and experiment with them.

TT: definitely

CA: oh, hey, there was something i wanted to ask you.

TT: shoot

CA: and, i’m not quite sure why i never thought to ask earlier, i guess it just never came up…

CA: but why is it that you call leeroy your brother?

TT: woah, shit, did I never tell you that story?

CA: i don’t think so. :o

TT: well I gotta fix that then

TT: get comfy, cuz its story time

CA: yay! *grabs popcorn*

TT: okay, so, I think it started when the battle master for the knight school at Cloudsdale found Leeroy as a baby one day

TT: he was only a few days younger than me

TT: and she found him pretty nearby to my town

TT: so she brought him there to be adopted and taken care of

TT: in theory, that should have been it, but she saw something in him I guess

TT: kept coming back to check on him every couple of months

TT: Leeroy just floated around town mostly, but he saw the battle master as a good friend, maybe even family

TT: but me and Leeroy were good friends too

TT: he stayed at my house sometimes

TT: and we would play with our smarty pants dolls and fake-swordfight with sticks and stuff

TT: real good friends

TT: one day we were playing around some big rocky formation outside of town, and he slipped and hurt himself

TT: it was bad

TT: I got him back to the hospital, but he had lost a lot of blood

TT: they stopped the bleeding, but he had lost so much already that they needed to give him more

TT: so I told the doctor

TT: ‘take some of mine’

TT: the doctor was like ‘you’d need a guardians consent for that’

TT: and I said ‘my dad would tell you to let me do it, you can call him, just please let me help my friend’

TT: so the doc agreed soon enough, and had one of the nurses get dad while he took a sample of my blood to make sure it was the right kind

TT: it was the right kind

TT: same exact kind as Leeroy has

TT: so they pumped a bunch out of me, and I was drowsy as fuck, but I just stayed there with Leeroy

TT: and soon he woke up, recovering pretty well already

TT: so as soon as he was awake enough to understand what I was saying, I told him what happened

TT: we hugged with all the pitiful amount of strength we had at that point

TT: now, this is the point where most other ponies would start dating, right? childhood friends and life saving and all that

TT: but for me and Leeroy, neither one of us really wanted that

TT: me because I dont roll that way

TT: and him because I dont think he rolls any way at all? or if he does, he just never found anyone to roll with

TT: but point was, neither one of us wanted anything romantic

TT: so we decided to build something platonic instead

TT: right then in that hospital room, we decided that we would officially be brother and sister

TT: since right then, we shared a lot of the same blood, that made it even better

TT: and when we left the hospital, dad was totally cool with it and played along

TT: Leeroy stayed at our house a lot more often

TT: we gave him a guest room

TT: but I think the best part of it was when the battle master came by

TT: at those times, with a stallion, a mare, and two kids

TT: hell, it was like

TT: it was almost like we were a normal family

TT: and when he was accepted into the knight academy and the battle master flew him out to Cloudsdale

TT: dad got to sign the papers for him

TT: and me and dad saw him off like the proudest family you could imagine

CA: wow…

CA: that is the sweetest thing i’ve ever heard~

CA: i think i totally understand, now.

CA: you really love him, don’t you?

CA: like family i mean.

TT: yeah, I know what way you mean

TT: and… yeah

TT: I do love him like my own family

TT: its no halfassed thing

TT: I honestly consider him to be my brother

CA: hng…

CA: you two are just adorable.

CA: thanks for telling me your story.

TT: hey, thanks for listening

TT: Im always glad to tell it

TT: it makes me feel good too, cuz Im reminded just what a good friend I have and how lucky I am

TT: know what, Im gonna

TT: Im gonna talk to him

TT: havent done that very much since we began the game

CA: hee hee, you do that! let him know how much he means to you.

TT: kay

TT: ttly Derpy

Quick Fix

The young Hero of Void, extent of her reach not yet tested, looks upward at the water above. At the bottom of the sea of Lowac, towns and great cities exist, built over time by the turtles that inhabit the land. Settlements on the surface are typically little more than villages; the underwater settlements are typically safer from attacks by the monsters of the Incipisphere- the system of planets the six ponies now find themselves in- and the imps and other agents of Derse.

The cities under the sea are equipped with areas of air pockets. The turtles don’t really know how they got there, or why, as they breathe water as much as they do air. But Quick Fix is glad for it all the same. Due to the changing air pressure levels that come from swimming to and from the bottom of the sea, her ears have been popping constantly, and her legs are tired. She finds it nice to be able to relax and recover for a time, without fear of another imp attack.

She accesses her computing device again- a tablet computer with propulsion devices on the back, allowing it to keep itself in place in the air in front of her- and opens another chat window.

TT: bro

GG: Sis.

GG: What’s up?

TT: not much

TT: I just wanted to talk and stuff

TT: we havent done that in a while

TT: I also just wanted to say that

TT: I love you

GG: Oh

GG: Uh

TT: platonically of course

TT: I just told Derpy the story of how we decided to be bro and sis

TT: and I guess it got me all emotional

TT: I remembered all the stuff weve been through

TT: and how lucky I am to have you as a brother

GG: Geez, sis, you’re making me blush out here.

GG: I’m really glad to have you too. And… I love you too, sis.

TT: next time we meet up

GG: Yes. Big hugs all around.

TT: fuck yessss

TT: glad were on the same page

TT: you are getting mega hug

GG: I look forward to it.

TT: anyway, Im gonna get back to Cheerilee in a minute

GG: Oh. Hey, before you do that…

GG: I wanted to say I’m sorry about that.

TT: huh

GG: She contacted me a little while ago, and I dunno, something about the way she was acting struck me, and it’s been hanging over my head.

GG: And I know you’ll say it’s not my fault, but… I’m still sorry.

GG: I know you really like her, and she really likes me, and I don’t really like anyone in that way.

GG: It’s a big awkward mess, and I’d just as soon have it be more simple and just have you and her together.

TT: I know

TT: I wish that too

TT: one of these days Im just gonna tell her

TT: hope that changes her mind

TT: but I dont want to fuck everything up, so I have to wait for the right time to do it

TT: I will do it sometime though

GG: Why not now?

TT: eh, its

TT: I dunno

TT: I need time to prepare

GG: You’ve been planning how you’ll do it for the past eight years of your life.

TT: its different

TT: its different imagining how it would go down, and actually being in the moment

TT: plus, I never imagined wed be in a situation like this

TT: fighting for our lives

TT: fighting for pony kind

TT: gotta brace myself you know

GG: Yeah, I suppose so.

GG: Just try not to overdo it, alright? Something daring, but not over-the-top.

TT: yeah, that sounds right

TT: anyway, Im gonna get back to stuff

TT: but I just wanna say again

TT: I love you bro

GG: I love you too, sis. And good luck, whenever you decide to act.

TT: yup yup

techTitan ceased chatting with guardianGuitarist at 2:45 P.M.

Leeroy

The young Hero of Blood, yet to awaken the power that courses through his veins, stands atop a slight outcropping of rock overlooking a village. The balmy ocean breeze blows through his hair gently. Upon completing his latest quest and achieving the rank of SCUMRUNNER, he had chanced upon a piece of information; a legend of a great sword hidden away somewhere in the bowels of the land. Upon further investigation, he had even tracked down a location to the entrance of the underworld, where it was fabled to lie in sleep. The swords Fancy Pants had sent him are of excellent quality, but judging by the rising toughness of his enemies, they would not be enough forever. He would need to update his arsenal sooner or later, and a legendary sword sounds like just the way to do it.

guardianGuitarist began chatting with gamingAvarice at 2:50 P.M.

GG: Bro, how close are we to the second gate?

GA: halfway to the third one, my good man.

GG: Hah. Should have known you wouldn’t waste any time.

GA: i think you’ll find that when it comes to multitasking, i’m simply the best there is.

GA: i’ve made good headway on my own quest.

GA: got a nice fraymotif recently. rampart’s refrain.

GA: thing makes an absolute mess of the underlings. it’s great!

GG: I haven’t had the chance to test out my fraymotif yet.

GG: I’m sure I’ll get the chance though. Legendary sword cave is bound to have some tough enemies.

GA: yikes.

GA: that sounds like a central story goal.

GG: Uh, yeah? And?

GA: if it were me, i’d avoid it for a little while. sidequest a bit first. get some extra xp and some good items. then go for the main mission.

GA: but that’s just the completionist powergamer in me talking.

GG: There’s another side of you than that?

GA: yeah, the devilishly handsome ladykiller side.

GA: no mare can resist.

GG: Heh. That would explain why the three girls on our team are all after someone else.

GA: irrelevant.

GG: Heh.

GG: But, back to the topic at hand…

GG: You’re the expert on video game quests here. And I trust you, bro. So if you say I should stay away from the underworld for a while and get stronger, I’ll do it.

GG: I need to figure out where the Battle Master went, anyway. We got separated, and are staying solo and reporting to each other.

GG: But I haven’t heard from her in a while.

GA: sounds like a real solid place to start.

GA: when you wanna head back home, use one of the gate-looking things around the world.

GA: i just figured out that they’re ‘return nodes’ and do just that, return you back to your starting point.

GG: Good to know. Thanks man.

GG: Good luck on your own quest.

GA: yup, you too.

guardianGuitarist ceased chatting with gamingAvarice at 3:03 P.M.

Leeroy switches windows on his phone, now upgraded into a much more efficient tactical device, and opens a channel with the Battle Master.

guardianGuitarist began chatting with CelestiasShield821 at 3:04 P.M.

GG: I’ve received some intel on the location of a more powerful sword.

GG: It may be some time before I am able to get to it though. It’s sealed away within Locas.

CS: Excellent. Keep me updated.

CS: I’ve become a bit waylaid, but I am still capable of completing my mission in this place.

GG: Where are you?

CS: An entirely different planet.

CS: I chanced upon a shuttle leaving Locas, and stowed aboard to investigate. I’m now on Lowac.

GG: Lowac… I think that’s where Quick Fix and her dad are.

CS: I haven’t run into either of them, but I suppose it’s a big planet. I will let you know if I see them.

GG: Good.

GG: How has your recon been progressing there?

CS: I’ll admit, progress has been slow. The residents of this planet seem to be semi-amphibious, and I am unable to reach the underwater cities.

CS: I procured a boat though, which has allowed me to move between islands.

GG: That’s good.

GG: I think Quick Fix got a rebreather and oxygen packs to let her explore underwater. By the sounds of it, that’s where the good stuff is.

CS: Interesting… I’ll make a note of it.

CS: Oh, while we’re at it, can you give me your sister’s screen name?

CS: I don’t need to contact her at this moment, but if I need to in the future, I want to be able.

GG: Oh, yeah, sure. It’s techTitan.

CS: Got it.

CS: I’m signing off for now. Good luck, Leeroy. Keep me updated.

GG: Likewise.

CelestiasSheild821 ceased chatting with guardianGuitarist at 3:15 P.M.

Leeroy nods, stores his computing device, and leaps from his perch. He uses his wings to glide to the ground, lands in a roll, then pops and locks to his feet. He gallops off in a random direction, ready for some training and sidequests. He is ready to become stronger, to become the defender he needs to be.