The Medieval Agesby Burnt ToastChaptersNew BeginningBad StartHappeningsNew StartA ResolutionNew BeginningAs soon as it happened, I knew. I had been put into a new life while keeping the memories of the last. It was like waking up, only more sudden, and less intense. I was simply aware of having muscles and a body. I also knew that I was being born. Just like last time, the doctor smacked my back, and I took it as a cue to start breathing and moving. I heard sighs of relief all around me. "Well it looks like he wants to live after all," the doctor said jokingly as I opened my eyes. I was met with a unicorn I had never seen before. I felt a little sorry that she had the luck to give birth to me. "I'm sorry ma'am." I said, looking straight into her shocked face. "I'm sorry I can't be your son, but I just can't do it again." "What?! What is going on?!" My would be mother cried in frustrated confusion. "I'm sorry," I repeated as I turned to look for a mirror. There was one across from the bed, and I was amazed to see that I was the same. Red coat, white mane, and wings. And of course, the cutie mark. "What does it mean?" The unicorn asked, staring wide eyed at my mark. The doctors huddled up and whispered to each other. Before they could come to a conclusion, I interrupted. "It is the catalyst. That thing started it all." Everypony looked pretty confused at that, but I ignored them. I decided to try out my magic. I focused on having an older, more fit body. This time I made sure to think of it as permanent. I must have scrunched up in concentration, because when I opened my eyes and released the power, I was met with a few strange looks. I didn't think it possible, but when the magic dis what it was supposed to, their eyes got even wider. When the feeling passed, I looked to the mirror again. I was met with a tall stallion, slightly muscular and large, strong wings. Satisfied with my appearance, I summoned up a black hooded cloak, so as to hide my cutie mark from the public eye. "Are... Are you discord?!" one of the doctors asked, shaking a little. "I assure you, that is not the case," I replied, which seemed to calm them all down a little. Then a thought crossed my mind. "How long has discord been imprisoned?" I asked, because in my last life, it had been about 1000 years. "Why, almost 200 years I should think," replied the unicorn who gave birth to me. 'Holy shit, this means that... I have been reborn in the past!' I thought, and walked outside after thanking the unicorn and the doctors. The looks on their faces were priceless, but I couldn't seem to dwell on it. I have been reborn into the past! This actually explains the encounter with Celestia. I must have told her to tell me something, and since I knew it, I had changed my own future, and the part of the past in which I talked to her. And now I knew what non-linear immortality meant. It meant that my spirit was immortal, but it would not live on forward along time. It would live on in different sections of time, like a scatter plot. I sighed, realizing what it meant for me as I kept on walking forward. It would mean that I would never forget my pasts. And so, I walked forward. I didn't even stop when I hit the woods. I just kept going. As I went along, I realized that I should probably learn to defend my physical body in case somepony ever tries attacking me again. I practiced kicking trees with speed and precision until I dropped from exhaustion. That night, however, the nightmares returned, this time blending my two deaths together, and somehow making it more terrifying. The next morning, I awoke to being terribly hungry. Realizing where I was, I tried not to panic as I picked a direction and just kept on walking. After about an hour of walking, I started to see some clear sections through the trees. Excited, I picked up the pace, my cloak starting to flap in the small breeze it created. When I got out of the woods, I slowed down, satisfied that I had indeed found a town. Ponies were wandering around all over the place. As I stepped into town, I started wondering what I would do to have money for food. The answer came quicker than I thought. “You there! Can you help me out?” a tan colored earth pony cried out, and rushed over to me from a nearby tavern. “Depends, what is it?” I said, thinking of what this could do for me. “Can you be the janitor? It would be just for a week! I’ll even pay you! I’m in desperate need of one, and nopony wants to clean up at my place!!” he said, looking at me hopefully. “As it just so happens, I need some money, so you’re on!” I replied. “Just show me the supplies, and I’ll get to it.” Looking very excited, he hired me right there, and led me inside, explaining that they opened in about four hours. He showed me the supplies, and told me I had to clean the floors, but to make sure that any trash I picked up was really trash, and not somepony’s belongings. After making sure that I could do it on my own, he left. Groaning a little on the inside, I proceeded to grab the cleaning supplies when a thought occurred. I took a large ball of industrial strength string (hey, it was in the supplies closet) and used the extreme dexterity of my wings to help me form a large net. I swept everything out into the largest square area of the floor, and set my net up. I made sure that the cross-hairs would drop dirt and mud clumps, while keeping paper, watches, and other trinkets in the net. First, I pushed the net under the pile I had lined up, then I grabbed a few spools I found lying around (there was a lot of junk on the floor) and rigged them up on some wall corners. Then I made sure to let the strings on each net end that attached to the spool be extra-long. I had them reach up to the ceiling in their respective places, had them converge in the center, and then braided them back across the ceiling and down the wall behind the bar counter. With this setup, I pulled the main string to lift up the net, and shook it a bit. This made some things fall out of the net. After looking through what fell out of the net, I found no Items and Proceeded to super clean the floors. Then I grabbed some cardboard from the supply closet (which had a lot of things in it) and fanned the pile of stuff in the net. It spread out a bit, and I easily picked out actual items from the pile. There wasn't much in the way of personal belongings in there, but some of the things that were there could have been there for ages and never been found. Like a fancy watch, some random figurines, and even a balled up coat. Once I had triple checked that there were no more items in the net, I let it drop back to the floor and swept/mopped up that area again. After some thought, I stepped out back and grabbed some rocks. I used them to hold the net after I spread it flat across the floor so that nopony would trip over a loose string. Plus, once I finished, you could barely tell they were there in the first place. Seeing nothing else to do, and wanting to simply do something to distract me from being hungry, I just cleaned glasses. As I did, I laughed. I felt like a classic bartender in some old time movie. About thirty minutes before we were supposed to open up, the owner came back in. He couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the place completely clean. “How in equestrian did you manage this?!” he cried out in shock. “I just may never reveal my ingenious secrets!” I said jokingly. “Well, you are totally hired!” he said, and shook my hoof. “Welcome to the crew! Or at least, it would be if we had at least one more pony… My name is Spiked Punch, what about you?” “I’m Sky Gear,” I replied. “And I really need some food. Pay me with that. I’ll be on the road in a while, so I’ll show you how I do it before then.” He laughed, and showed me how to get the food from behind the bar. I tried to eat slowly, and savor the taste, but in the end I wolfed it down. “Alright, you can stay if you want to, but please be back in the morning, OK?” he said after I had cleaned my plate. “Sure, I need the exercise anyway,” I replied, reminding myself to go ahead and come back later that afternoon. For the rest of the day, however, I practiced my fling. It took a while to tire me out, so I decided to see how high I could go. As it turned out, I could go so high, all the high flying clouds looked small and mostly lumped together. That was when I decided to Fly straight down as fast as I could manage. I think I ended up breaking the sound barrier before I even reached the clouds, but I was going so fast I could hardly tell. I ended up banking my speed into a super powered back flip that quickly turned into seven back flips before my wings slowed my down enough so that I could glide back to the ground. Before I decided to find a place to sleep, I remembered that I was a pegasus, so I grabbed a cloud, moved it to hover over the bar, and fell into a light sleep. Bad StartI forgot about the nightmares again. They never seemed to lose the smallest bit of pain and fear they came with. When I finally shot out of my sleep, I remembered where I was. I was going to drop in the tavern this afternoon, and the sun was starting to set. Before I went in, I decided to use my magic. I created a cardboard sign saying "will quest for bits" and a Lincoln style top hat to have papers put in. I lowered my cloud to ground level, and placed the hat and sign on top of it, making sure that it stayed down with a little more magic. 'I really need a training outlet for using this...' I thought as I headed inside. When I stepped inside, I instantly felt the atmosphere focus on me for a second, as if everyone took a second to acknowledge my presence, and then return to normal. "Here! Have the signature drink! On the house for you today! More ponies are coming in than ever!" Punch said as I took a seat at the end of the bar furthest from the door. The drink he gave me was pretty tasty, and left a warm feeling as it traveled down. It really helped me clear my head, and just enjoy being alive. I don't know when, but time escaped me, and the only indication of how long it was was the level of my drink. I took the last of my drink, and was headed to the door, when two stallions in matching brown capes came in. Nopony could see their cutie mark. The first thing they did after getting their drinks was come over to me. "Hey stranger, why do you hide your cutie mark?" said the first. "Yeah, are you embarrassed? Or ashamed?" added the second. "Neither. I simply despise it." I replied, which led them to be very curious. "But it shows what your destiny is! What you are good at, or something only you can do," the first one said. I just had to laugh, and maybe it conveyed that I was drunk. "Yeah I can't think of anyone else who does what I do!" I said, laughing all the harder. Then the worst thing that could happen at that moment happened. The second earth pony got a peek at my cutie mark. His eyes went wide, and he whispered something to his buddy. "What does this mean? Why is that your mark? How is that your destiny?!" The first one said frantically. "It isn't what you think it is, so you can relax. Recently, well actually, a few centuries from now, I was killed. For the second time. Now if you would please excuse me, I need to check on something. I left the bar knowing that they wouldn't believe me, and that more ponies would come and bother me. I got to my cloud and checked the hat. Nothing. Then, I heard Punch shout "WHAAT?!?!" from inside the tavern. 'Great. Now he's going to pull a classic bartender and place a notice looking for me. Oh joy,' I thought bitterly. I decided that I would leave after giving the instructions on how to operate the net that helped clean the bar to Punch. I quickly summoned some paper and a pencil and sketched out the details, taking a few moments to picture it in my head. When I finished, I decided to change some of my appearances. My cloak became striped with red, and the hood became longer so as to hide my face, but thin enough to see through. I walked in, and people started whispering. Guess they recognized the red fur and wings. 'This ought to be fun,' I thought sarcastically, as I walked up to Punch at the bar and handed him the folded up paper. I made sure to include a thank you for the food, and walked back out. As soon as the door closed behind me, I stopped and eavesdropped on what ponies were saying. "That was him!" "What did he give you?!" "A murder note?" "A hostage letter?" "No. It would seem to be the sketch for something he put in here... Oh I get it! So that's how he did it..." I heard Punch say as he walked towards the door. I hopped back onto my cloud and scrapped the hat and cardboard. I was about to leave when Punch stopped me to ask a question. "Are you really a killer?" he asked. "*Sigh*. It doesn't matter what I tell you now, does it?" I retorted, getting a little tired of this shit. He stopped, as if to ponder it for a moment, but I didn't give him time to reply. I had taken my cloud with me to the high skies, where nopony could bother me for a while. Soon I would find the full extent of today's incident, and it wasn't very glorious. HappeningsThat night I rested on a cloud higher than I ever had before. I did it mostly to hide from other ponies, but it also helped me think clearly. The sunset was beautiful. Much more than the sunset on earth. But when the moon rose, it was very pretty, but somehow dull and lackluster. I wondered if it was because Luna was on the moon. Staring at the beauty of an Equestrian night eventually lulled me to sleep. But tonight, there were no nightmares. Instead, I found myself in a garden near the castle. Mom was there. So was Celestia and Luna. They all had misty eyes, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. Me and Dads bodies were being buried. The twist was that there was an expression of disbelief. When the burial was complete, they headed inside, where i followed them and heard something interesting. "Celestia, why did his cutie mark vanish?" Mom asked. "I fear he may have been born again, in another age. When he retaliated against his mental attackers, his blows did physical damage. My guess is that he has somehow freed himself from death, or at least a form of it." "What do you mean?" Luna asked, and mom nodded along with her. "From what we can know, when somepony dies, they don't just cease to exist. It is my theory that they cam be born again, but they will be the same as a brand new pony. For Sky Gear, it would seem that he retains his identity across death. In a sense, he is immortal, but not linear with time." That made sense to me. I was a non-linear (to time) immortal. If I were to die now, who knows when I would end up. Feeling that I heard enough, I flew outside and decided to try and visit Ponyville. If what I just witnessed actually happened, then there might be something going on back there. When I arrived, I checked the school first. Apparently, the news was just about to come to them, because the girl who tried talking to me asked Ms. Cheerilee if I was here. Ms. Cheerilee looked sad, and sighed. She passed out copies of the local paper. The headline read: "Most Powerful Psychic Event In Centuries! Murder Victim Strikes Back." Most were shocked after reading it, and some just sat there wide eyed. Then she told them all to turn to the second page. Looking over Applebloom's shoulder, I saw a picture of my mom holding my body, with the cutie mark gone, and the mangled bodies of my killers just behind me. Lucky for the foals, it was in black and white, because if it wasn't, you would see that there was much more blood. "What does this mean?" Applebloom asked. "It means that Sky Gear held a vast potential. Today's lesson is taken from the article,..." Cheerilee started a lesson on psychic attacks and how normally they would leave one exaughsted, and at the very most put a hairline fracture on your horn. At that point, I left. I went the only place I could think of going- home. When I arrived, mom was by herself in the yard holding what I had given her. She had misty eyes, but looked better than when I had seen her last. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I would like to think you are in a better place now," she said, clutching onto the crystal flame. As I walked closer, the crystal fire started to glow the color of my eyes- deep sea blue. When I was standing right next to her, something strange happened. I could feel myself being drawn to it like a weak magnet that didn't have strength enough to actually do anything. I could also feel my surroundings become slightly more vivid, and I finally realized that everything had been tinted grey. "S-Sky Gear?!" Mom cried. "How are you here?!" "I'm not sure, but You don't need to cry. I don't want you to cry. I don't want ponies to suffer for having known me," I said, trying to hold back tears. I was a little angry for wallowing in my pity, but sad that others were hurt just because I existed. "Ok, I-I will try... For you," mom replied, choking back tears. Just after that, the attraction from the piece of me diminished, and I could tell that soon she wouldn't see me anymore. "Just remember mom; I will never forget you as long as I exist," i said before I faded out of her perception. She looked happy, and headed back inside without moping a lot. Then, it started to rain. But something felt wrong. It didn't feel like anything from my faded dream world. It felt... Real. I somehow managed to disconnect with whatever strength I seemed to be using to be when I was and shot out of my dreams and woke up. There was a lone raincloud above me being emptied by somepony. "Hey wake up! We gotta clear the skies for Nightmare Night!" said an earth brown pony. "What?" I replied groggily. "Oh right, yeah ok I'll go," I said, pushing myself up and taking off, destroying the cloud behind me as I did. While the pegasus carried on, I realized that that was the first Time in a while I had actually woken up normally- still tired. It felt nice to be a little tired, and it was fading away quickly. If my recent dream was as real as it seemed, then it looked like I didn't have to worry about mom anymore. She'd be fine, just as the fillies at school would be eventually. It must mean something else, but I just can't place it. As I headed towards town, I decided to read up on history. If I ever went further back, it would be nice to have a clue as to when I am and what ponies do. But when I arrived, I saw something odd and depressing. Ponies all around were wearing black cloaks with some sort of red stripe pattern. "Hey, nice costume! You going as Sky like the rest of us?" an earth pony with a mint green coat and red mane asked, sweeping a hoof at what must have been his friends. "Uuhh, sure. Could you point me to a library? I'm looking to study up on history," I replied, hoping he wouldn't ask questions. "Sure man, go right that way!" he exclaimed with a wave of his hoof and a smile. I thanked him and walked away, steaming a bit about how ponies treated different things. I suppose it's better than what humans do (flip out and try to control it), even if it is very mocking. I made it to the library without seeing many other ponies around. Once inside, I could see that Twilight had taken some designs in from the older structures. This library was like maze, with warping walls and circular clearings. Thankfully, there was a stack of maps to guide ponies. The place itself was an incredible feat of magic and engineering. The whole place was bigger inside than out, and it appeared that magic directed the massive weight straight to the ground. There were some sections way up high that was meant for winged ponies, and some had enchantments made to be bent by unicorns for access. As I walked, I realized that I was staring at an unmapped section in front of me. Right when i turned to get a better look at it, a section of shelves started to close the gap. Without hesitation, I ran through the "secret passage" and suddenly found myself locked from going back Sighing and face-hoofing myself, I walked on towards what looked like a clearing section. When I arrived, I found it to be a common room, with a coffee table surrounded by 3 long couches. Deciding to take a break, I took a seat and started trying to think of what to do with my eternity, and how long ponies everywhere would alienate me. As I sat, alone with my thoughts, somepony had entered without my being aware of it. "Who's there?" said an unmistakably familiar pony. "Well, fancy that. Hello Starswirl, how is magic studies?" I replied, instantly recognizing him from a poster in Twilight's room. "How... How do you know me?" he asked, as he fully entered the room. "The future is relative," I replied, without thinking if ponies had anything like- "Einstein's relativity relative, or are you just being funny?" he snapped back, taking me by surprise. "Who named somepony Einstein?! Thought he was only back in Germany..." I said, wondering how Earth was doing. Had my other friends and family moved on? What year is it over there? "Indeed. I came from Earth as well. I was left to die by my own family, and somehow came here, born for the second time. They said I was the second, and the last..." "They?!" I retorted. "What year were you from?" "Hard to say. After the fallout, we lost track for a while, and had to estimate from there. Closest guess is 4021. They said my emotions were powerful enough to alter time and space. But they also said that the one who came before me was so strong, he could rip it to shreds," he replied, looking at me in wonder. "Whoever they were, they were probably right. Have you had a mental battle with anypony?" "One. My human form was too much, and I beat his mental form to a bloody mess." "What became of him in the physical realm?" "He was broken inside, and it showed. He went completely insane." "That is the extent of your abilities. When I went against two ponies at once, I sliced them open and ripped through their mental forms." "What became of them?" "The damage I did carried into the real world. One was severed in half, and both spewed blood everywhere." Starswirl could only sit there stunned. "How much of your memories made it through? I have only shattered pieces left... They said that after this life I could be reborn normally, but sometimes I think about it and wonder if that is what I really want..." "Hmmph. I want to talk to 'them'. 'They' gave you a great deal, and what have I got? I have everything. I don't want to have to remember everything that bastard did, not to mention the pain of being alone. Again. I challenge 'them' to do their job, and hit the reset button.." I retorted, realizing that "they" must be the force that would prepare a soul for the next life. I was so angry that I didn't even realize when they had come. One moment I was standing, and the next I felt the familiar floating sensation I had learned to associate with my mental landscape. "Hmmph. Here you are, and I still can't believe it," said a voice in front of me. New Start---In Ponyville--- Pearl Rain had moved past the death of her son, who might be an immortal spirit. The parting gift he gave her turned into a necklace at some point, so she wore it everywhere she went. One day, as she was returning a book to Twilight, she saw a book that had a picture of a heart that looked as if it were made of the same thing as her fireball. "Twilight? What is this?" she asked, her heart racing with imagined possibilities. "Oh? I'm not sure, but you can check it out if you'd like," she responded quickly, preoccupied with her scheduling to think about it. So Pearl Rain took the book home, and started reading about the centerpiece of the crystal pony society- the crystal heart... ---Present--- "What do you mean? Care to explain why I'm here and not wherever you are supposed to take me? Why I have this?" I cried out, pointing to the knife. "Something nobody believed could happen. You denied the laws of your universe, and created your own. Since you are no longer bound to any one universe, we couldn't even touch you. Boss said to send you here. No one knows why, and it was tough to get you through, but here we are. I still can't believe that one spirit managed to sever its ties to reality the way you have. You friend here, he was like you too, only he didn't completely make the cut. He only has some of his memories, and they too will be gone at the end of his current life. Don't be jealous, but he will move on normally," the cloaked figure explained, leaving me more angry, but with nothing to direct it at anymore. "Hmph. Angry at nothing specific huh? I'd suggest finding somewhere to hone your skills as well as grow a little. I'll just leave you with this: don't use magic to hold a form for much longer than two days- it can mess you up," he said, and left my mind the same way he came in- silently. What i didn't expect was for me to black out upon reentering my body. I woke up some time later in a daycare of some sort. My black and red cloak had... Shrunk? "Wha?" I exclaimed as I realized what had happened. I reverted back into my regular physical form- an infant. It would appear that I'd arrived recently, as nopony was flipping out over my cutie mark, and it was still covered. In fact, I could see Starswirl walking out. I transformed back into the older me and quickly realized what the reaper man was talking about. I could feel a small pressure, and could barely tell that it was increasing ever so slightly. I felt like I could take on a lot of that pressure, but for now I'll just take his advice. I reverted back again and flew over to the pony who thought it must have been funny to leave me there. "Real funny Einstein. Leave somebody like me here, why don't you?" I said as I flew myself over to him. "What did he tell you?" "Nothing much. Just that you needed to grow out. What will you do?" he asked, trying hard to conceal a smirk. "I don't know yet. Maybe just haul ass to some mountain and train. After that, well I don't really know," I replied, ignoring his mirth. We talked for a while, walking back through town to the library. There must have been some party out here, because there were ponies passed out all over the place. After some while I finally decided that I should go the mountains or somewhere similarly remote and just build myself up. Partially because being an infant limits me, and also because I didn't want to rely on my magic abilities too much. "Well, I'll be going... That guy must have some wisdom in him after all. Gotta go out and see the world after all. So many possibilities available in a new world." "As long as you enjoy yourself. And be careful about using your full abilities. When you turned into a foal again, well I'd be surprised if anypony with magical talent in 3 miles couldn't feel the burst of released energy. I have never even sensed a magic like that. But before you go, would you mind joining me for a drink?" "Bwahaha! With a little foal tagging along? You must be joking!" I cried, my sides almost hurting from the laughter. He laughed too and said, "I was thinking back at my place." "He he! Not the library I take it?" "Not quite. It is in the library, but deeper than where you went." I agreed that a nice drink would do me good. I started to smile even when I realized that I was making a friend. And somehow, it hurt. It hurt to have a friend, to trust someone, even a little. I know he saw it when I started to pretend to smile and laugh, but he didn't press on. When we got back in the library, Starswirl casted a unique spell- it called down some clouds from the pegasus section and formed a door and key. When it opened, it lead to a house. "Pocket dimension," he stated as I gaped around. "Clouds infused with magic are good for widening the opening, and once you're in you can make something resembling a lock, and a key spell will open it. With enough magic and some luck, you can even bind the pocket to an object!" He continued on, and a few hours later I found myself on a couch with a bottle of fine wine talking about the possibilities of using pocket dimensions. "You know, it's a good thing you're the only one with access to this place. Ha ha! Imagine if somebody caught us like this!" I cried, and we shared a laugh. "Starswirl, why is there an infant with a bottle of wine on you couch?" asked a familiar female voice from behind the chair I was in. "Hey crazy lady! *Hic*," I called out, setting the bottle down and turning to see who was interrupting the party, when I met the face of Celestia. "Hoo hoo! This should be fun!" "H-how old are you young colt?" She stammered, clearly not expecting a capable infant. "Well Celestia, I think I'm about four or five days old. Well, if you count the last one, that's another couple months, and before that about 17 years. Ooh *Hic*! And if you count the amount of centuries i've travelled then i must be like 6 or 7 hundred years!" "..." "Ooh! I have consciously aged 18 years *hic*! Happy adulthood!" I cried out, laughing along with Starswirl. "Oh stop it the both of you!" Celestia exclaimed and then blasted a spell that sobered us up so fast we fell over. “Booo. She’s no fun, is she Starswirl?” “While I shouldn't be surprised that you speak English, I figure it’s only natural. And she is being an extra party pooper today. Wait. Have you seen her in a previous life set in the relative future?” “Yes. Sadly, only for a couple of months, Why?” I asked. “You should just be careful. Who knows how she would react? She is a ruler with supreme power…” Starswirl replied. “Yeah, yeah, but if she did do something, I’d rather like to just die again. Maybe I’d be back in the time period I left…” I though aloud, leaving Starswirl with a wistful and sympathizing expression, and Celestia actually sitting down with a confused look on her face. “Well, I think I’ll leave for the everfree forest. Goodbye Starswirl. Study hard and be the best at magic.” “What the- oh. Closest thing to the old home huh?” “Yeah. Well I don’t feel like dealing with you today your majesty, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving.” Apparently, Celestia wasn't satisfied with that, and decided to leap into my mindscape. Her mistake. “GET. OUT.” I stated as she just stood there. Unsurprisingly, her mental form was identical to her real one. She proceeded to sit there with her mouth agape. “Fine. Sit there. Looks like I've got a few minutes to do something I’I've needed to for a long time now.” I then proceeded to conjure up a fresh green meadow with a couple hills. The sky was still that vast collection of space, but now it more resembled the night sky with all its points of light. Just for fun, I made a Tardis the center of the whole field, only it was midnight purple (favorite color) instead of blue. Inside it, I made a basic room with three walls, and made a table upon which to set my memories and the knife. Upon exiting to the field again, Celestia was now sitting down again staring at the “sky” that was above us. “..I will leave, but I must first know. Why so empty? Why did your mind have nothing in it?” She hesitated like she wanted to say something more, but I didn't give her the chance. “Let it be known that if you ever do this again, then so help me god I will find a way to send you to the moon with your sister.” Slapping her across the face with just enough force to prove I had bounds more strength but just gave her a small cut. “Do you want to know what happened to the last pony who barged into my head?” I asked, feeling my anger surge at me. I displayed the memory of the murderer across the sky, and smiled at her shocked expression. “Now, before you leave, I believe you had something you wanted to say?” “... *Gulp* Are… Are you Sky Gear? You’re all across history! You need to-“ “STOP. I don’t care. At the very least, I want my lives to be surprising, for better or worse. I could tell you how your sister fares in the future, or maybe about a certain special pony you meet. But I won’t because that would ruin the surprise, and make you live centuries for nothing. Be happy that your life is linear to time. You already know where I am going. Don’t come after me unless you have something damn important to tell me about the present, or I will find a way to send you to Tartarus or something.” After saying that, I left my mindscape, and left her majesty to sit there ogling at the scratch I gave her. I flew high into the sky and eventually found the everfree forest. It was much larger than I had suspected it to be, and even had its own mountain. Once there, I headed for the ruins of a castle and started what would turn into years of the same day over and over again. A ResolutionAt least, I thought it would end up that way. Day one consisted of finding a nice place for shelter, which I ended up just building next to a river of surprisingly clean water. Day three was my first encounter with wildlife. In particular, the cockatrice. As it turns out, if you stare at them for about 7 seconds or so and don’t blink or anything, the curse reverses. The first time it happened, my eyes were sore for a couple of days, but I guess it was better than being turned to stone like other critters I’ve seen in the forest. Day 6 was my first encounter with a manticore. I tried dealing with them as you would a bear, and it seemed to work. For the most part, I just left them alone, and soon enough they tolerated my presence. Or maybe it was because I won the fight with the hydra. That was a fun day… it all started with me going out late one night to look for fruits, berries, and plants to eat when I found a bog. Thinking nothing of it, I set up some makeshift torches and started looking around. I found some things to try eating, but nothing definite, and was about to leave when a 7 headed hydra came out of the mud and tried to eat me. I still can’t understand why the bodily fluids of a hydra are not only flammable, but highly explosive. It could have just been that one, but I haven’t seen any others since then. That was also the day I discovered pegasi magic. When I flew away from the explosion of a hydra choking on a lit torch, I could feel something fading away when I stopped. Over the next four months I decided to take the effort into seeing how far this magic could go, and what were to happen if I were to not use the magic. The results were interesting. Without any magic at all, I couldn't really fly, but could still glide pretty decently. That only took a relatively small amount of magic. As long as there was pegasi magic in me, I could grab clouds like relatively solid objects. The fun part was when I stretched the limits. If I really focused, I could essentially magically tether myself to the sky- becoming a mist, fog, or cloud. The four months paid off in the end, because now I could escape nearly any situation I found myself in as well as explore some unique places. Like quicksand, being stuck in the mud, and being hopelessly entangled in some vine or brush. The coolest places were all in the underground networks. They must go all over Equestria! They look almost like they were done by a boring machine the way the walls were so smooth. The tunnels lead to big caverns, which were almost large enough to house a small village in it. There seemed to be no real exits, and every entryway and exit way I found seemed to be tony holes dug by worms and such. Almost all the entrances I found were at the bottoms of lakes and rivers, and none were large enough to fit into, and required me to turn into fog, which felt very strange under normal conditions, and weirder under water. A small handful of entrances were found in really strange places like a hollowed tree or under a boulder. The entrances all had a really unique purple and green polka dot patterned flower growing near it. I called them fluffle biscuits (for no particular reason). When I found vast underground caverns, I decided that I’d set up my home base in one that was near town, mostly because of how truly vast it was- big enough to fit a small city- and also because it had a little river that was fed by a waterfall on the ceiling that ran out into a dead end lake. The walls and roof of the cavern itself were a true sight to behold. It was all some sort of crystal that somehow reflected the sky above ground. As it turned out, if I had a piece of it, I could let some magic flow through it and it would become a flashlight. The one that I had mad my home was always my favorite, because of its nearly perfect dome structure- as opposed to the others being less perfect -and the way it captured all the light from the moon and stars, so it was never too dark to see. They also seem to have some sort of air circulation system, because I’I've lit many bonfires in a cavern and the smoke would dissipate after a short time leaving no traces behind. It was here that I set up a course made up of braided vines and posts to help me keep up my agility in other ways than teasing predators and running or flying away, which I did when I either had a stockpile of food or otherwise was ok for the day. It was a good judge of my speed, especially against the timberwolves, which could be surprisingly fast- particularly when they merge into one. This is not only how I built my running speed, but learned to recover midair from any trip. It’s all about throwing your momentum in the right way as soon as you trip. Depending on how it’s done, you don’t need wings, they just make it easier. In the deeper woods of the everfree, the creatures were much stronger, and after a year and a half, proved to be the better work out. Plus, the manticores there liked to wrestle. It took me a while, but eventually I managed to build up the strength to resist them, but often times it felt like pushing back a cement truck loaded to the top. Also, resisting the stare of a cockatrice proved much harder. I had to return the look that they gave me on top of not blinking, which turned out to be pretty tough. My eyes were sore for weeks. One huge event did happen though. Whenever I went to sleep, I usually just retired to my mindscape and either reviewed information from somewhere or compiled all the pages of books and clips of movies I've seen and putting them on shelves. Otherwise I would read and watch them. But at one point I decided to see if I was still plagued by nightmares of my deaths. I was. Even letting them run through me for three whole months after almost one and a quarter years had passed did nothing to affect them. Except for the last day of that third month, when I let myself drift to sleep and found myself in another hyper realistic dream. This time it was right there in the cavern I slept in. It was somewhere in the midst of winter, just like in real life. I had also taken on my mental form, which was my regular human body with red fur, pearl white hair, plus I had wings and a tail. It stayed like this for a few moments. Then the sky turned into concrete. Suddenly, it looked and felt like I was falling, but I was still standing on something. When the world stopped zooming upwards, I realized that I had just fallen into place like a sci-fi movie special effect. But as to where, I couldn't tell at first. Then I realized- it was a prison. A prison cell. I turned around to see who was in there if anyone, and was met with the last person I’d ever want to see. Arnold. A few years older, but still the same. Just seeing him made me swell up with rage. Then he spoke. “Wh-who are you? What are you?” “I hope I haunted you in your nightmares you rotten ass. I bet finding the body wasn't very hard, was it? What did you tell your mom? Or my mom? What were you sentenced with?” I snapped at him. “Wha-buh… R-r-r-r-roy?!” he managed to stutter. “Yeah you fuck, it’s me. Why. At this point I hope they execute you, but why. How could you do it?” “Oh god! It told me… it told… it said… …. I you shouldn't even… L-let me start from the beginning,” he stammered out. “It all started a few months before… it happened. I started getting these dreams. They were just dreams, but they were so real man. There was this thing that showed me what happens to people after they die. It wasn't’t a person, more like an entity, made of something just beyond my sight. It showed how the afterlife is more of a process for becoming reborn or re used to supply energy to the cosmos or something. It said that nothing will ever cease to exist, but will always live on in a different form, conscious or not. Then it started to show you. It was trying to look into your future.” He paused, closing his eyes to remember something while I continued to stare at him, not knowing whether to believe him or not. “It told me: it said that you would deny the universe; that you had to; so that a precious world can be saved. It said the first attempt didn't succeed and he needed me to... k-kill you myself. The entity even started doing things to prove who or what it was. Remember my older brother’s terminal cancer? It cured it. It took away mom’s lung problems and fixed dad’s metabolism. He did so many other things too, like make the weather come in specific patterns, and shape the clouds that I looked at to remind me. I believed him. I still do,” he admitted, now hanging his head in… shame. This isn't what I expected. Not by a long shot. “You didn't answer me,” I replied, my voice losing a lot of its edge. “It… it made me a vow. It said that if I did it, it would reveal my destiny; my fate. And, that you would be sent to a place where you would find a greater purpose and happiness. Then it showed me something I will never forget- it revealed to me how to perceive the fourth and fifth dimensions. I think that’s why I can see and hear you now. I can’t expect you to believe me, but I swear on my worthless life that it’s the truth.” At that point, I couldn't hold my anger against him anymore. I had grown up with this man, and I could read his face like a book, as I’m sure he could mine. Everything he told me fits with what I know so far, and the whole time, I saw him in a state that I haven’t seen him in since he pulled the prank on his brother that ruptured his spleen. Shame. “I think,” I said after a long silence, “that I can forgive you. But, I still want to know… how is everyone? Have they moved on?” “I told them all myself. I’m in this insane asylum of course, but seeing you, after five long years of doubt… that thing still sees me every year. It thanks me. Says I did the right thing. Until now, until I've seen you again, I just couldn't believe it. I hated myself for the first three years. Only recently have I resigned myself to just having faith that when I was told it was destiny, and I believed it with all my heart, that I was right. Roy Parker, can you truly forgive me?” he asked, and looked me dead in the eyes. In those eyes I saw it. The torment he put himself through, trying in vain to assure himself his heart was in the right place. The look of a man defeated by his demons, and recently given the power to obliterate them. I could tell that though he was a broken man, he was whole again, and I could see the friend I know and love again. “Yes,” I said, tears coming to my eyes as I gave him a great big hug. I finally had my answer, and I could feel my anger and confusion slip away, being slowly replaced with an aching, longing sorrow. “Have you made any friends here?” I asked, praying that he didn't isolate himself and break that part of him too. “Yeah man. Yeah I have,” he said, smiling at me. “I met some other guys who were visited by the entity I told you about. Turns out, in the first dream, we all saw the same place. It was a small abandoned Native American village looking place next to a river. In the center though, there was a fire. Now that I look back on that image, the fire was one of those things that the fifth dimension fostered. We built a scale model replica in the recreation room. They are coming any minute to take us all there. Want to come?” “I’d love to,” I replied, and followed him out of the cell into a new building that definitely looked more like a mental institution. “It’s connected to an old jail, isn't it?” he nodded, likely not wanting to start anything with the escort guy. When we arrived, I immediately knew who the people he talked about were. They all turned their heads and looked straight at me. Arnold waved his hand to say he’d talk with them later. After the escort left, we sat down on one of the benches and just talked. I told him about the life I was living now, leaving out the last one. He in turn talked about how being here enabled him to understand people on so much of a deeper level. Here, he told me how the people are all open with each other. How his new friends all enjoyed their lifetime stay because of each other’s company. It made me happy for him. He finally found a place in which he could simply live, not caring what others think, and be genuinely happy. In a way, it’s a true paradise. Nothing really existed to create hatred and everything was in supply enough to be satisfied. One just needs to have a truly open mind to accept it. After a few hours of shooting the breeze with Arnold and some of his new friends, and even playing a few board games (Arnold moved for me), it became night time, and everyone was escorted back to their respective rooms. “Why are you in here? This looks more like a prison,” I asked him when we were alone again in his cell. “I asked for it. It seemed fitting at the time, and now I like to stare at the ceiling and picture the cosmos running through it. Plus, I can see the moon from the window.” We sat for a while, looking at the now full moon, reminiscing about the good times we shared in. another couple hours passed, and Arnold told me that I was fading from his view. “That means I’m leaving soon doesn't it?” “Yeah. I think it does.” “I will never forget you. Even after all that has transpired, I will always be your friend. Just promise me one thing. Be happy. Make friendships as strong as ours. That is really the best I can ever wish upon you.” “I will. I’ll never forget you. In a way, this has given me a happy new life. Thank you for your forgiveness. I think I can live with myself again.” “You’re welcome,” I said, and then I felt it. A tugging sensation that wanted to pull me back. “Goodbye, friend!” I exclaimed with tears in my eyes as he waved goodbye in return. Then the world was sucked away into blackness and my eyes shot open into the morning light reflecting from the crystal walls. I don’t know what compelled me to do so, but I turned and looked at my cutie mark, only to find that it was gone. The rest of that day I simply sat at the edge of the lake staring at my reflection and reflecting on what I had said to him. I told him to live his life and be happy. I supposed that’s what I would start doing to. And so I did. since that night, the nightmares stopped, and i could sleep peacefully again. I lived every day in the everfree as I saw fit to enjoy. I would have probably stayed that way to if it weren't for what happened three and a half years into my stay in the woods. That’s when they entered my life.
New BeginningAs soon as it happened, I knew. I had been put into a new life while keeping the memories of the last. It was like waking up, only more sudden, and less intense. I was simply aware of having muscles and a body. I also knew that I was being born. Just like last time, the doctor smacked my back, and I took it as a cue to start breathing and moving. I heard sighs of relief all around me. "Well it looks like he wants to live after all," the doctor said jokingly as I opened my eyes. I was met with a unicorn I had never seen before. I felt a little sorry that she had the luck to give birth to me. "I'm sorry ma'am." I said, looking straight into her shocked face. "I'm sorry I can't be your son, but I just can't do it again." "What?! What is going on?!" My would be mother cried in frustrated confusion. "I'm sorry," I repeated as I turned to look for a mirror. There was one across from the bed, and I was amazed to see that I was the same. Red coat, white mane, and wings. And of course, the cutie mark. "What does it mean?" The unicorn asked, staring wide eyed at my mark. The doctors huddled up and whispered to each other. Before they could come to a conclusion, I interrupted. "It is the catalyst. That thing started it all." Everypony looked pretty confused at that, but I ignored them. I decided to try out my magic. I focused on having an older, more fit body. This time I made sure to think of it as permanent. I must have scrunched up in concentration, because when I opened my eyes and released the power, I was met with a few strange looks. I didn't think it possible, but when the magic dis what it was supposed to, their eyes got even wider. When the feeling passed, I looked to the mirror again. I was met with a tall stallion, slightly muscular and large, strong wings. Satisfied with my appearance, I summoned up a black hooded cloak, so as to hide my cutie mark from the public eye. "Are... Are you discord?!" one of the doctors asked, shaking a little. "I assure you, that is not the case," I replied, which seemed to calm them all down a little. Then a thought crossed my mind. "How long has discord been imprisoned?" I asked, because in my last life, it had been about 1000 years. "Why, almost 200 years I should think," replied the unicorn who gave birth to me. 'Holy shit, this means that... I have been reborn in the past!' I thought, and walked outside after thanking the unicorn and the doctors. The looks on their faces were priceless, but I couldn't seem to dwell on it. I have been reborn into the past! This actually explains the encounter with Celestia. I must have told her to tell me something, and since I knew it, I had changed my own future, and the part of the past in which I talked to her. And now I knew what non-linear immortality meant. It meant that my spirit was immortal, but it would not live on forward along time. It would live on in different sections of time, like a scatter plot. I sighed, realizing what it meant for me as I kept on walking forward. It would mean that I would never forget my pasts. And so, I walked forward. I didn't even stop when I hit the woods. I just kept going. As I went along, I realized that I should probably learn to defend my physical body in case somepony ever tries attacking me again. I practiced kicking trees with speed and precision until I dropped from exhaustion. That night, however, the nightmares returned, this time blending my two deaths together, and somehow making it more terrifying. The next morning, I awoke to being terribly hungry. Realizing where I was, I tried not to panic as I picked a direction and just kept on walking. After about an hour of walking, I started to see some clear sections through the trees. Excited, I picked up the pace, my cloak starting to flap in the small breeze it created. When I got out of the woods, I slowed down, satisfied that I had indeed found a town. Ponies were wandering around all over the place. As I stepped into town, I started wondering what I would do to have money for food. The answer came quicker than I thought. “You there! Can you help me out?” a tan colored earth pony cried out, and rushed over to me from a nearby tavern. “Depends, what is it?” I said, thinking of what this could do for me. “Can you be the janitor? It would be just for a week! I’ll even pay you! I’m in desperate need of one, and nopony wants to clean up at my place!!” he said, looking at me hopefully. “As it just so happens, I need some money, so you’re on!” I replied. “Just show me the supplies, and I’ll get to it.” Looking very excited, he hired me right there, and led me inside, explaining that they opened in about four hours. He showed me the supplies, and told me I had to clean the floors, but to make sure that any trash I picked up was really trash, and not somepony’s belongings. After making sure that I could do it on my own, he left. Groaning a little on the inside, I proceeded to grab the cleaning supplies when a thought occurred. I took a large ball of industrial strength string (hey, it was in the supplies closet) and used the extreme dexterity of my wings to help me form a large net. I swept everything out into the largest square area of the floor, and set my net up. I made sure that the cross-hairs would drop dirt and mud clumps, while keeping paper, watches, and other trinkets in the net. First, I pushed the net under the pile I had lined up, then I grabbed a few spools I found lying around (there was a lot of junk on the floor) and rigged them up on some wall corners. Then I made sure to let the strings on each net end that attached to the spool be extra-long. I had them reach up to the ceiling in their respective places, had them converge in the center, and then braided them back across the ceiling and down the wall behind the bar counter. With this setup, I pulled the main string to lift up the net, and shook it a bit. This made some things fall out of the net. After looking through what fell out of the net, I found no Items and Proceeded to super clean the floors. Then I grabbed some cardboard from the supply closet (which had a lot of things in it) and fanned the pile of stuff in the net. It spread out a bit, and I easily picked out actual items from the pile. There wasn't much in the way of personal belongings in there, but some of the things that were there could have been there for ages and never been found. Like a fancy watch, some random figurines, and even a balled up coat. Once I had triple checked that there were no more items in the net, I let it drop back to the floor and swept/mopped up that area again. After some thought, I stepped out back and grabbed some rocks. I used them to hold the net after I spread it flat across the floor so that nopony would trip over a loose string. Plus, once I finished, you could barely tell they were there in the first place. Seeing nothing else to do, and wanting to simply do something to distract me from being hungry, I just cleaned glasses. As I did, I laughed. I felt like a classic bartender in some old time movie. About thirty minutes before we were supposed to open up, the owner came back in. He couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the place completely clean. “How in equestrian did you manage this?!” he cried out in shock. “I just may never reveal my ingenious secrets!” I said jokingly. “Well, you are totally hired!” he said, and shook my hoof. “Welcome to the crew! Or at least, it would be if we had at least one more pony… My name is Spiked Punch, what about you?” “I’m Sky Gear,” I replied. “And I really need some food. Pay me with that. I’ll be on the road in a while, so I’ll show you how I do it before then.” He laughed, and showed me how to get the food from behind the bar. I tried to eat slowly, and savor the taste, but in the end I wolfed it down. “Alright, you can stay if you want to, but please be back in the morning, OK?” he said after I had cleaned my plate. “Sure, I need the exercise anyway,” I replied, reminding myself to go ahead and come back later that afternoon. For the rest of the day, however, I practiced my fling. It took a while to tire me out, so I decided to see how high I could go. As it turned out, I could go so high, all the high flying clouds looked small and mostly lumped together. That was when I decided to Fly straight down as fast as I could manage. I think I ended up breaking the sound barrier before I even reached the clouds, but I was going so fast I could hardly tell. I ended up banking my speed into a super powered back flip that quickly turned into seven back flips before my wings slowed my down enough so that I could glide back to the ground. Before I decided to find a place to sleep, I remembered that I was a pegasus, so I grabbed a cloud, moved it to hover over the bar, and fell into a light sleep.
Bad StartI forgot about the nightmares again. They never seemed to lose the smallest bit of pain and fear they came with. When I finally shot out of my sleep, I remembered where I was. I was going to drop in the tavern this afternoon, and the sun was starting to set. Before I went in, I decided to use my magic. I created a cardboard sign saying "will quest for bits" and a Lincoln style top hat to have papers put in. I lowered my cloud to ground level, and placed the hat and sign on top of it, making sure that it stayed down with a little more magic. 'I really need a training outlet for using this...' I thought as I headed inside. When I stepped inside, I instantly felt the atmosphere focus on me for a second, as if everyone took a second to acknowledge my presence, and then return to normal. "Here! Have the signature drink! On the house for you today! More ponies are coming in than ever!" Punch said as I took a seat at the end of the bar furthest from the door. The drink he gave me was pretty tasty, and left a warm feeling as it traveled down. It really helped me clear my head, and just enjoy being alive. I don't know when, but time escaped me, and the only indication of how long it was was the level of my drink. I took the last of my drink, and was headed to the door, when two stallions in matching brown capes came in. Nopony could see their cutie mark. The first thing they did after getting their drinks was come over to me. "Hey stranger, why do you hide your cutie mark?" said the first. "Yeah, are you embarrassed? Or ashamed?" added the second. "Neither. I simply despise it." I replied, which led them to be very curious. "But it shows what your destiny is! What you are good at, or something only you can do," the first one said. I just had to laugh, and maybe it conveyed that I was drunk. "Yeah I can't think of anyone else who does what I do!" I said, laughing all the harder. Then the worst thing that could happen at that moment happened. The second earth pony got a peek at my cutie mark. His eyes went wide, and he whispered something to his buddy. "What does this mean? Why is that your mark? How is that your destiny?!" The first one said frantically. "It isn't what you think it is, so you can relax. Recently, well actually, a few centuries from now, I was killed. For the second time. Now if you would please excuse me, I need to check on something. I left the bar knowing that they wouldn't believe me, and that more ponies would come and bother me. I got to my cloud and checked the hat. Nothing. Then, I heard Punch shout "WHAAT?!?!" from inside the tavern. 'Great. Now he's going to pull a classic bartender and place a notice looking for me. Oh joy,' I thought bitterly. I decided that I would leave after giving the instructions on how to operate the net that helped clean the bar to Punch. I quickly summoned some paper and a pencil and sketched out the details, taking a few moments to picture it in my head. When I finished, I decided to change some of my appearances. My cloak became striped with red, and the hood became longer so as to hide my face, but thin enough to see through. I walked in, and people started whispering. Guess they recognized the red fur and wings. 'This ought to be fun,' I thought sarcastically, as I walked up to Punch at the bar and handed him the folded up paper. I made sure to include a thank you for the food, and walked back out. As soon as the door closed behind me, I stopped and eavesdropped on what ponies were saying. "That was him!" "What did he give you?!" "A murder note?" "A hostage letter?" "No. It would seem to be the sketch for something he put in here... Oh I get it! So that's how he did it..." I heard Punch say as he walked towards the door. I hopped back onto my cloud and scrapped the hat and cardboard. I was about to leave when Punch stopped me to ask a question. "Are you really a killer?" he asked. "*Sigh*. It doesn't matter what I tell you now, does it?" I retorted, getting a little tired of this shit. He stopped, as if to ponder it for a moment, but I didn't give him time to reply. I had taken my cloud with me to the high skies, where nopony could bother me for a while. Soon I would find the full extent of today's incident, and it wasn't very glorious.
HappeningsThat night I rested on a cloud higher than I ever had before. I did it mostly to hide from other ponies, but it also helped me think clearly. The sunset was beautiful. Much more than the sunset on earth. But when the moon rose, it was very pretty, but somehow dull and lackluster. I wondered if it was because Luna was on the moon. Staring at the beauty of an Equestrian night eventually lulled me to sleep. But tonight, there were no nightmares. Instead, I found myself in a garden near the castle. Mom was there. So was Celestia and Luna. They all had misty eyes, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. Me and Dads bodies were being buried. The twist was that there was an expression of disbelief. When the burial was complete, they headed inside, where i followed them and heard something interesting. "Celestia, why did his cutie mark vanish?" Mom asked. "I fear he may have been born again, in another age. When he retaliated against his mental attackers, his blows did physical damage. My guess is that he has somehow freed himself from death, or at least a form of it." "What do you mean?" Luna asked, and mom nodded along with her. "From what we can know, when somepony dies, they don't just cease to exist. It is my theory that they cam be born again, but they will be the same as a brand new pony. For Sky Gear, it would seem that he retains his identity across death. In a sense, he is immortal, but not linear with time." That made sense to me. I was a non-linear (to time) immortal. If I were to die now, who knows when I would end up. Feeling that I heard enough, I flew outside and decided to try and visit Ponyville. If what I just witnessed actually happened, then there might be something going on back there. When I arrived, I checked the school first. Apparently, the news was just about to come to them, because the girl who tried talking to me asked Ms. Cheerilee if I was here. Ms. Cheerilee looked sad, and sighed. She passed out copies of the local paper. The headline read: "Most Powerful Psychic Event In Centuries! Murder Victim Strikes Back." Most were shocked after reading it, and some just sat there wide eyed. Then she told them all to turn to the second page. Looking over Applebloom's shoulder, I saw a picture of my mom holding my body, with the cutie mark gone, and the mangled bodies of my killers just behind me. Lucky for the foals, it was in black and white, because if it wasn't, you would see that there was much more blood. "What does this mean?" Applebloom asked. "It means that Sky Gear held a vast potential. Today's lesson is taken from the article,..." Cheerilee started a lesson on psychic attacks and how normally they would leave one exaughsted, and at the very most put a hairline fracture on your horn. At that point, I left. I went the only place I could think of going- home. When I arrived, mom was by herself in the yard holding what I had given her. She had misty eyes, but looked better than when I had seen her last. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I would like to think you are in a better place now," she said, clutching onto the crystal flame. As I walked closer, the crystal fire started to glow the color of my eyes- deep sea blue. When I was standing right next to her, something strange happened. I could feel myself being drawn to it like a weak magnet that didn't have strength enough to actually do anything. I could also feel my surroundings become slightly more vivid, and I finally realized that everything had been tinted grey. "S-Sky Gear?!" Mom cried. "How are you here?!" "I'm not sure, but You don't need to cry. I don't want you to cry. I don't want ponies to suffer for having known me," I said, trying to hold back tears. I was a little angry for wallowing in my pity, but sad that others were hurt just because I existed. "Ok, I-I will try... For you," mom replied, choking back tears. Just after that, the attraction from the piece of me diminished, and I could tell that soon she wouldn't see me anymore. "Just remember mom; I will never forget you as long as I exist," i said before I faded out of her perception. She looked happy, and headed back inside without moping a lot. Then, it started to rain. But something felt wrong. It didn't feel like anything from my faded dream world. It felt... Real. I somehow managed to disconnect with whatever strength I seemed to be using to be when I was and shot out of my dreams and woke up. There was a lone raincloud above me being emptied by somepony. "Hey wake up! We gotta clear the skies for Nightmare Night!" said an earth brown pony. "What?" I replied groggily. "Oh right, yeah ok I'll go," I said, pushing myself up and taking off, destroying the cloud behind me as I did. While the pegasus carried on, I realized that that was the first Time in a while I had actually woken up normally- still tired. It felt nice to be a little tired, and it was fading away quickly. If my recent dream was as real as it seemed, then it looked like I didn't have to worry about mom anymore. She'd be fine, just as the fillies at school would be eventually. It must mean something else, but I just can't place it. As I headed towards town, I decided to read up on history. If I ever went further back, it would be nice to have a clue as to when I am and what ponies do. But when I arrived, I saw something odd and depressing. Ponies all around were wearing black cloaks with some sort of red stripe pattern. "Hey, nice costume! You going as Sky like the rest of us?" an earth pony with a mint green coat and red mane asked, sweeping a hoof at what must have been his friends. "Uuhh, sure. Could you point me to a library? I'm looking to study up on history," I replied, hoping he wouldn't ask questions. "Sure man, go right that way!" he exclaimed with a wave of his hoof and a smile. I thanked him and walked away, steaming a bit about how ponies treated different things. I suppose it's better than what humans do (flip out and try to control it), even if it is very mocking. I made it to the library without seeing many other ponies around. Once inside, I could see that Twilight had taken some designs in from the older structures. This library was like maze, with warping walls and circular clearings. Thankfully, there was a stack of maps to guide ponies. The place itself was an incredible feat of magic and engineering. The whole place was bigger inside than out, and it appeared that magic directed the massive weight straight to the ground. There were some sections way up high that was meant for winged ponies, and some had enchantments made to be bent by unicorns for access. As I walked, I realized that I was staring at an unmapped section in front of me. Right when i turned to get a better look at it, a section of shelves started to close the gap. Without hesitation, I ran through the "secret passage" and suddenly found myself locked from going back Sighing and face-hoofing myself, I walked on towards what looked like a clearing section. When I arrived, I found it to be a common room, with a coffee table surrounded by 3 long couches. Deciding to take a break, I took a seat and started trying to think of what to do with my eternity, and how long ponies everywhere would alienate me. As I sat, alone with my thoughts, somepony had entered without my being aware of it. "Who's there?" said an unmistakably familiar pony. "Well, fancy that. Hello Starswirl, how is magic studies?" I replied, instantly recognizing him from a poster in Twilight's room. "How... How do you know me?" he asked, as he fully entered the room. "The future is relative," I replied, without thinking if ponies had anything like- "Einstein's relativity relative, or are you just being funny?" he snapped back, taking me by surprise. "Who named somepony Einstein?! Thought he was only back in Germany..." I said, wondering how Earth was doing. Had my other friends and family moved on? What year is it over there? "Indeed. I came from Earth as well. I was left to die by my own family, and somehow came here, born for the second time. They said I was the second, and the last..." "They?!" I retorted. "What year were you from?" "Hard to say. After the fallout, we lost track for a while, and had to estimate from there. Closest guess is 4021. They said my emotions were powerful enough to alter time and space. But they also said that the one who came before me was so strong, he could rip it to shreds," he replied, looking at me in wonder. "Whoever they were, they were probably right. Have you had a mental battle with anypony?" "One. My human form was too much, and I beat his mental form to a bloody mess." "What became of him in the physical realm?" "He was broken inside, and it showed. He went completely insane." "That is the extent of your abilities. When I went against two ponies at once, I sliced them open and ripped through their mental forms." "What became of them?" "The damage I did carried into the real world. One was severed in half, and both spewed blood everywhere." Starswirl could only sit there stunned. "How much of your memories made it through? I have only shattered pieces left... They said that after this life I could be reborn normally, but sometimes I think about it and wonder if that is what I really want..." "Hmmph. I want to talk to 'them'. 'They' gave you a great deal, and what have I got? I have everything. I don't want to have to remember everything that bastard did, not to mention the pain of being alone. Again. I challenge 'them' to do their job, and hit the reset button.." I retorted, realizing that "they" must be the force that would prepare a soul for the next life. I was so angry that I didn't even realize when they had come. One moment I was standing, and the next I felt the familiar floating sensation I had learned to associate with my mental landscape. "Hmmph. Here you are, and I still can't believe it," said a voice in front of me.
New Start---In Ponyville--- Pearl Rain had moved past the death of her son, who might be an immortal spirit. The parting gift he gave her turned into a necklace at some point, so she wore it everywhere she went. One day, as she was returning a book to Twilight, she saw a book that had a picture of a heart that looked as if it were made of the same thing as her fireball. "Twilight? What is this?" she asked, her heart racing with imagined possibilities. "Oh? I'm not sure, but you can check it out if you'd like," she responded quickly, preoccupied with her scheduling to think about it. So Pearl Rain took the book home, and started reading about the centerpiece of the crystal pony society- the crystal heart... ---Present--- "What do you mean? Care to explain why I'm here and not wherever you are supposed to take me? Why I have this?" I cried out, pointing to the knife. "Something nobody believed could happen. You denied the laws of your universe, and created your own. Since you are no longer bound to any one universe, we couldn't even touch you. Boss said to send you here. No one knows why, and it was tough to get you through, but here we are. I still can't believe that one spirit managed to sever its ties to reality the way you have. You friend here, he was like you too, only he didn't completely make the cut. He only has some of his memories, and they too will be gone at the end of his current life. Don't be jealous, but he will move on normally," the cloaked figure explained, leaving me more angry, but with nothing to direct it at anymore. "Hmph. Angry at nothing specific huh? I'd suggest finding somewhere to hone your skills as well as grow a little. I'll just leave you with this: don't use magic to hold a form for much longer than two days- it can mess you up," he said, and left my mind the same way he came in- silently. What i didn't expect was for me to black out upon reentering my body. I woke up some time later in a daycare of some sort. My black and red cloak had... Shrunk? "Wha?" I exclaimed as I realized what had happened. I reverted back into my regular physical form- an infant. It would appear that I'd arrived recently, as nopony was flipping out over my cutie mark, and it was still covered. In fact, I could see Starswirl walking out. I transformed back into the older me and quickly realized what the reaper man was talking about. I could feel a small pressure, and could barely tell that it was increasing ever so slightly. I felt like I could take on a lot of that pressure, but for now I'll just take his advice. I reverted back again and flew over to the pony who thought it must have been funny to leave me there. "Real funny Einstein. Leave somebody like me here, why don't you?" I said as I flew myself over to him. "What did he tell you?" "Nothing much. Just that you needed to grow out. What will you do?" he asked, trying hard to conceal a smirk. "I don't know yet. Maybe just haul ass to some mountain and train. After that, well I don't really know," I replied, ignoring his mirth. We talked for a while, walking back through town to the library. There must have been some party out here, because there were ponies passed out all over the place. After some while I finally decided that I should go the mountains or somewhere similarly remote and just build myself up. Partially because being an infant limits me, and also because I didn't want to rely on my magic abilities too much. "Well, I'll be going... That guy must have some wisdom in him after all. Gotta go out and see the world after all. So many possibilities available in a new world." "As long as you enjoy yourself. And be careful about using your full abilities. When you turned into a foal again, well I'd be surprised if anypony with magical talent in 3 miles couldn't feel the burst of released energy. I have never even sensed a magic like that. But before you go, would you mind joining me for a drink?" "Bwahaha! With a little foal tagging along? You must be joking!" I cried, my sides almost hurting from the laughter. He laughed too and said, "I was thinking back at my place." "He he! Not the library I take it?" "Not quite. It is in the library, but deeper than where you went." I agreed that a nice drink would do me good. I started to smile even when I realized that I was making a friend. And somehow, it hurt. It hurt to have a friend, to trust someone, even a little. I know he saw it when I started to pretend to smile and laugh, but he didn't press on. When we got back in the library, Starswirl casted a unique spell- it called down some clouds from the pegasus section and formed a door and key. When it opened, it lead to a house. "Pocket dimension," he stated as I gaped around. "Clouds infused with magic are good for widening the opening, and once you're in you can make something resembling a lock, and a key spell will open it. With enough magic and some luck, you can even bind the pocket to an object!" He continued on, and a few hours later I found myself on a couch with a bottle of fine wine talking about the possibilities of using pocket dimensions. "You know, it's a good thing you're the only one with access to this place. Ha ha! Imagine if somebody caught us like this!" I cried, and we shared a laugh. "Starswirl, why is there an infant with a bottle of wine on you couch?" asked a familiar female voice from behind the chair I was in. "Hey crazy lady! *Hic*," I called out, setting the bottle down and turning to see who was interrupting the party, when I met the face of Celestia. "Hoo hoo! This should be fun!" "H-how old are you young colt?" She stammered, clearly not expecting a capable infant. "Well Celestia, I think I'm about four or five days old. Well, if you count the last one, that's another couple months, and before that about 17 years. Ooh *Hic*! And if you count the amount of centuries i've travelled then i must be like 6 or 7 hundred years!" "..." "Ooh! I have consciously aged 18 years *hic*! Happy adulthood!" I cried out, laughing along with Starswirl. "Oh stop it the both of you!" Celestia exclaimed and then blasted a spell that sobered us up so fast we fell over. “Booo. She’s no fun, is she Starswirl?” “While I shouldn't be surprised that you speak English, I figure it’s only natural. And she is being an extra party pooper today. Wait. Have you seen her in a previous life set in the relative future?” “Yes. Sadly, only for a couple of months, Why?” I asked. “You should just be careful. Who knows how she would react? She is a ruler with supreme power…” Starswirl replied. “Yeah, yeah, but if she did do something, I’d rather like to just die again. Maybe I’d be back in the time period I left…” I though aloud, leaving Starswirl with a wistful and sympathizing expression, and Celestia actually sitting down with a confused look on her face. “Well, I think I’ll leave for the everfree forest. Goodbye Starswirl. Study hard and be the best at magic.” “What the- oh. Closest thing to the old home huh?” “Yeah. Well I don’t feel like dealing with you today your majesty, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving.” Apparently, Celestia wasn't satisfied with that, and decided to leap into my mindscape. Her mistake. “GET. OUT.” I stated as she just stood there. Unsurprisingly, her mental form was identical to her real one. She proceeded to sit there with her mouth agape. “Fine. Sit there. Looks like I've got a few minutes to do something I’I've needed to for a long time now.” I then proceeded to conjure up a fresh green meadow with a couple hills. The sky was still that vast collection of space, but now it more resembled the night sky with all its points of light. Just for fun, I made a Tardis the center of the whole field, only it was midnight purple (favorite color) instead of blue. Inside it, I made a basic room with three walls, and made a table upon which to set my memories and the knife. Upon exiting to the field again, Celestia was now sitting down again staring at the “sky” that was above us. “..I will leave, but I must first know. Why so empty? Why did your mind have nothing in it?” She hesitated like she wanted to say something more, but I didn't give her the chance. “Let it be known that if you ever do this again, then so help me god I will find a way to send you to the moon with your sister.” Slapping her across the face with just enough force to prove I had bounds more strength but just gave her a small cut. “Do you want to know what happened to the last pony who barged into my head?” I asked, feeling my anger surge at me. I displayed the memory of the murderer across the sky, and smiled at her shocked expression. “Now, before you leave, I believe you had something you wanted to say?” “... *Gulp* Are… Are you Sky Gear? You’re all across history! You need to-“ “STOP. I don’t care. At the very least, I want my lives to be surprising, for better or worse. I could tell you how your sister fares in the future, or maybe about a certain special pony you meet. But I won’t because that would ruin the surprise, and make you live centuries for nothing. Be happy that your life is linear to time. You already know where I am going. Don’t come after me unless you have something damn important to tell me about the present, or I will find a way to send you to Tartarus or something.” After saying that, I left my mindscape, and left her majesty to sit there ogling at the scratch I gave her. I flew high into the sky and eventually found the everfree forest. It was much larger than I had suspected it to be, and even had its own mountain. Once there, I headed for the ruins of a castle and started what would turn into years of the same day over and over again.
A ResolutionAt least, I thought it would end up that way. Day one consisted of finding a nice place for shelter, which I ended up just building next to a river of surprisingly clean water. Day three was my first encounter with wildlife. In particular, the cockatrice. As it turns out, if you stare at them for about 7 seconds or so and don’t blink or anything, the curse reverses. The first time it happened, my eyes were sore for a couple of days, but I guess it was better than being turned to stone like other critters I’ve seen in the forest. Day 6 was my first encounter with a manticore. I tried dealing with them as you would a bear, and it seemed to work. For the most part, I just left them alone, and soon enough they tolerated my presence. Or maybe it was because I won the fight with the hydra. That was a fun day… it all started with me going out late one night to look for fruits, berries, and plants to eat when I found a bog. Thinking nothing of it, I set up some makeshift torches and started looking around. I found some things to try eating, but nothing definite, and was about to leave when a 7 headed hydra came out of the mud and tried to eat me. I still can’t understand why the bodily fluids of a hydra are not only flammable, but highly explosive. It could have just been that one, but I haven’t seen any others since then. That was also the day I discovered pegasi magic. When I flew away from the explosion of a hydra choking on a lit torch, I could feel something fading away when I stopped. Over the next four months I decided to take the effort into seeing how far this magic could go, and what were to happen if I were to not use the magic. The results were interesting. Without any magic at all, I couldn't really fly, but could still glide pretty decently. That only took a relatively small amount of magic. As long as there was pegasi magic in me, I could grab clouds like relatively solid objects. The fun part was when I stretched the limits. If I really focused, I could essentially magically tether myself to the sky- becoming a mist, fog, or cloud. The four months paid off in the end, because now I could escape nearly any situation I found myself in as well as explore some unique places. Like quicksand, being stuck in the mud, and being hopelessly entangled in some vine or brush. The coolest places were all in the underground networks. They must go all over Equestria! They look almost like they were done by a boring machine the way the walls were so smooth. The tunnels lead to big caverns, which were almost large enough to house a small village in it. There seemed to be no real exits, and every entryway and exit way I found seemed to be tony holes dug by worms and such. Almost all the entrances I found were at the bottoms of lakes and rivers, and none were large enough to fit into, and required me to turn into fog, which felt very strange under normal conditions, and weirder under water. A small handful of entrances were found in really strange places like a hollowed tree or under a boulder. The entrances all had a really unique purple and green polka dot patterned flower growing near it. I called them fluffle biscuits (for no particular reason). When I found vast underground caverns, I decided that I’d set up my home base in one that was near town, mostly because of how truly vast it was- big enough to fit a small city- and also because it had a little river that was fed by a waterfall on the ceiling that ran out into a dead end lake. The walls and roof of the cavern itself were a true sight to behold. It was all some sort of crystal that somehow reflected the sky above ground. As it turned out, if I had a piece of it, I could let some magic flow through it and it would become a flashlight. The one that I had mad my home was always my favorite, because of its nearly perfect dome structure- as opposed to the others being less perfect -and the way it captured all the light from the moon and stars, so it was never too dark to see. They also seem to have some sort of air circulation system, because I’I've lit many bonfires in a cavern and the smoke would dissipate after a short time leaving no traces behind. It was here that I set up a course made up of braided vines and posts to help me keep up my agility in other ways than teasing predators and running or flying away, which I did when I either had a stockpile of food or otherwise was ok for the day. It was a good judge of my speed, especially against the timberwolves, which could be surprisingly fast- particularly when they merge into one. This is not only how I built my running speed, but learned to recover midair from any trip. It’s all about throwing your momentum in the right way as soon as you trip. Depending on how it’s done, you don’t need wings, they just make it easier. In the deeper woods of the everfree, the creatures were much stronger, and after a year and a half, proved to be the better work out. Plus, the manticores there liked to wrestle. It took me a while, but eventually I managed to build up the strength to resist them, but often times it felt like pushing back a cement truck loaded to the top. Also, resisting the stare of a cockatrice proved much harder. I had to return the look that they gave me on top of not blinking, which turned out to be pretty tough. My eyes were sore for weeks. One huge event did happen though. Whenever I went to sleep, I usually just retired to my mindscape and either reviewed information from somewhere or compiled all the pages of books and clips of movies I've seen and putting them on shelves. Otherwise I would read and watch them. But at one point I decided to see if I was still plagued by nightmares of my deaths. I was. Even letting them run through me for three whole months after almost one and a quarter years had passed did nothing to affect them. Except for the last day of that third month, when I let myself drift to sleep and found myself in another hyper realistic dream. This time it was right there in the cavern I slept in. It was somewhere in the midst of winter, just like in real life. I had also taken on my mental form, which was my regular human body with red fur, pearl white hair, plus I had wings and a tail. It stayed like this for a few moments. Then the sky turned into concrete. Suddenly, it looked and felt like I was falling, but I was still standing on something. When the world stopped zooming upwards, I realized that I had just fallen into place like a sci-fi movie special effect. But as to where, I couldn't tell at first. Then I realized- it was a prison. A prison cell. I turned around to see who was in there if anyone, and was met with the last person I’d ever want to see. Arnold. A few years older, but still the same. Just seeing him made me swell up with rage. Then he spoke. “Wh-who are you? What are you?” “I hope I haunted you in your nightmares you rotten ass. I bet finding the body wasn't very hard, was it? What did you tell your mom? Or my mom? What were you sentenced with?” I snapped at him. “Wha-buh… R-r-r-r-roy?!” he managed to stutter. “Yeah you fuck, it’s me. Why. At this point I hope they execute you, but why. How could you do it?” “Oh god! It told me… it told… it said… …. I you shouldn't even… L-let me start from the beginning,” he stammered out. “It all started a few months before… it happened. I started getting these dreams. They were just dreams, but they were so real man. There was this thing that showed me what happens to people after they die. It wasn't’t a person, more like an entity, made of something just beyond my sight. It showed how the afterlife is more of a process for becoming reborn or re used to supply energy to the cosmos or something. It said that nothing will ever cease to exist, but will always live on in a different form, conscious or not. Then it started to show you. It was trying to look into your future.” He paused, closing his eyes to remember something while I continued to stare at him, not knowing whether to believe him or not. “It told me: it said that you would deny the universe; that you had to; so that a precious world can be saved. It said the first attempt didn't succeed and he needed me to... k-kill you myself. The entity even started doing things to prove who or what it was. Remember my older brother’s terminal cancer? It cured it. It took away mom’s lung problems and fixed dad’s metabolism. He did so many other things too, like make the weather come in specific patterns, and shape the clouds that I looked at to remind me. I believed him. I still do,” he admitted, now hanging his head in… shame. This isn't what I expected. Not by a long shot. “You didn't answer me,” I replied, my voice losing a lot of its edge. “It… it made me a vow. It said that if I did it, it would reveal my destiny; my fate. And, that you would be sent to a place where you would find a greater purpose and happiness. Then it showed me something I will never forget- it revealed to me how to perceive the fourth and fifth dimensions. I think that’s why I can see and hear you now. I can’t expect you to believe me, but I swear on my worthless life that it’s the truth.” At that point, I couldn't hold my anger against him anymore. I had grown up with this man, and I could read his face like a book, as I’m sure he could mine. Everything he told me fits with what I know so far, and the whole time, I saw him in a state that I haven’t seen him in since he pulled the prank on his brother that ruptured his spleen. Shame. “I think,” I said after a long silence, “that I can forgive you. But, I still want to know… how is everyone? Have they moved on?” “I told them all myself. I’m in this insane asylum of course, but seeing you, after five long years of doubt… that thing still sees me every year. It thanks me. Says I did the right thing. Until now, until I've seen you again, I just couldn't believe it. I hated myself for the first three years. Only recently have I resigned myself to just having faith that when I was told it was destiny, and I believed it with all my heart, that I was right. Roy Parker, can you truly forgive me?” he asked, and looked me dead in the eyes. In those eyes I saw it. The torment he put himself through, trying in vain to assure himself his heart was in the right place. The look of a man defeated by his demons, and recently given the power to obliterate them. I could tell that though he was a broken man, he was whole again, and I could see the friend I know and love again. “Yes,” I said, tears coming to my eyes as I gave him a great big hug. I finally had my answer, and I could feel my anger and confusion slip away, being slowly replaced with an aching, longing sorrow. “Have you made any friends here?” I asked, praying that he didn't isolate himself and break that part of him too. “Yeah man. Yeah I have,” he said, smiling at me. “I met some other guys who were visited by the entity I told you about. Turns out, in the first dream, we all saw the same place. It was a small abandoned Native American village looking place next to a river. In the center though, there was a fire. Now that I look back on that image, the fire was one of those things that the fifth dimension fostered. We built a scale model replica in the recreation room. They are coming any minute to take us all there. Want to come?” “I’d love to,” I replied, and followed him out of the cell into a new building that definitely looked more like a mental institution. “It’s connected to an old jail, isn't it?” he nodded, likely not wanting to start anything with the escort guy. When we arrived, I immediately knew who the people he talked about were. They all turned their heads and looked straight at me. Arnold waved his hand to say he’d talk with them later. After the escort left, we sat down on one of the benches and just talked. I told him about the life I was living now, leaving out the last one. He in turn talked about how being here enabled him to understand people on so much of a deeper level. Here, he told me how the people are all open with each other. How his new friends all enjoyed their lifetime stay because of each other’s company. It made me happy for him. He finally found a place in which he could simply live, not caring what others think, and be genuinely happy. In a way, it’s a true paradise. Nothing really existed to create hatred and everything was in supply enough to be satisfied. One just needs to have a truly open mind to accept it. After a few hours of shooting the breeze with Arnold and some of his new friends, and even playing a few board games (Arnold moved for me), it became night time, and everyone was escorted back to their respective rooms. “Why are you in here? This looks more like a prison,” I asked him when we were alone again in his cell. “I asked for it. It seemed fitting at the time, and now I like to stare at the ceiling and picture the cosmos running through it. Plus, I can see the moon from the window.” We sat for a while, looking at the now full moon, reminiscing about the good times we shared in. another couple hours passed, and Arnold told me that I was fading from his view. “That means I’m leaving soon doesn't it?” “Yeah. I think it does.” “I will never forget you. Even after all that has transpired, I will always be your friend. Just promise me one thing. Be happy. Make friendships as strong as ours. That is really the best I can ever wish upon you.” “I will. I’ll never forget you. In a way, this has given me a happy new life. Thank you for your forgiveness. I think I can live with myself again.” “You’re welcome,” I said, and then I felt it. A tugging sensation that wanted to pull me back. “Goodbye, friend!” I exclaimed with tears in my eyes as he waved goodbye in return. Then the world was sucked away into blackness and my eyes shot open into the morning light reflecting from the crystal walls. I don’t know what compelled me to do so, but I turned and looked at my cutie mark, only to find that it was gone. The rest of that day I simply sat at the edge of the lake staring at my reflection and reflecting on what I had said to him. I told him to live his life and be happy. I supposed that’s what I would start doing to. And so I did. since that night, the nightmares stopped, and i could sleep peacefully again. I lived every day in the everfree as I saw fit to enjoy. I would have probably stayed that way to if it weren't for what happened three and a half years into my stay in the woods. That’s when they entered my life.
