Ghosts of the Past

CHAPTER 6 – Down in the Dark

Date: 25th of July, Second Year of the Game. Location: Diamond dog den, north of Appleloosa.

During the whole descent, the dogs kept complaining about what would happen to them. According to what they said, their Alpha often tortured those who failed to do what he ordered them. Sometimes, some of them even disappeared and were never heard of again. It was quite unusual in a dog pack, as far as I knew.

I kept listening about their terrible fate until we reached the end of the stairs. A big hall, lit up by hundreds of torches, was waiting for me. Its architecture reminded me of the dwarven tunnels depicted in some fantasy movies, with tall columns at regular intervals and a few carvings in the walls. It was far too refined for simple dogs… Yet, it still retained a visible roughness that made it clear they were the ones who made it.

The dog group walked along the stone pillars for a few minutes, and very soon reached a room where two guards were waiting. The leader waved them off and entered the room as the others stood there, behind the door. I followed him, and I could only be surprised by what I saw.

Facing the door, a colossal stone throne was resting against a wall, precious gems embedded in its rims and armrests. It was surrounded by torches, as well as by several weapon racks, which held gilded swords and shields of various sizes and shapes. As for most of the other walls in the room, they were almost entirely covered in pole-arms and tower shields. This den undeniably was prepared for war.

But the weapons weren't the most impressive thing in that room. On the throne, an extremely tall dog was sitting. He looked more like a wolf than common diamond dogs. Quite the opposite of his subordinates, his muscles were rippling and he looked well fed. Blacker than my suit, his fur contrasted with the golden collar he wore. His pale blue eyes gave him an appearance quite unlike anything I saw so far in the den. This diamond dog transpired authority, and, more than that, he visibly took advantage of it. Judging by the looks that the few females around the place gave him, he most certainly wasn't one to deny any of them the right to spend the night in his company. As for the males, they almost all looked extremely jealous of that; but they also -and more importantly- looked like a simple chat with him was their worst nightmare.

While I was busy looking around the room, the meager and feverish Delta kneeled slowly, showing both veneration and fear to his colossal leader.

Curious, I walked towards him, and, upon closer inspection, I noticed the dog king’s hands were trembling. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. “Maybe it was why he was kidnapping ponies,” I thought to myself.

The king immediately ordered: “Report, Sly. What happened?”

His vassal looked at him with what could only could be qualified as puppy eyes, and said: “Smoke again. We-”

Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, the Alpha’s fist hit him so hard his head bounced on the ground. “You reek of fear and piss. Weakling.”

A few seconds later, he was back on his knees, trying to speak through the blood running from his nose. “It. Message.”

The Alpha looked suddenly interested, although he was still gnarling.

“It. Wants. Us. Stop. Taking. Ponies.”

The dog king looked at him with nothing but hate. “And you came back with empty hands because of this?”

“It said. It. Death,” the bleeding Delta said.

“What did it look like?”

“Black. Tall. Sharp weapon. Smoke,” Sly enumerated slowly. “It. Brings. To Tartarus,” the dog painfully managed to say.

For once, the Alpha looked worried as much as he was angry. He paced around for a while, and Delta’s eyes widened a bit.

Finally, the Alpha stopped walking, and pointed at Delta. “Transmit this order to everyone: it is crucial that the smoke does not see any of us again. Stop going near the city. Dismissed.”

The Alpha sat on his throne and watched his subordinate walk out of the room as he muttered to himself.

I followed Sly and looked at him on the way out. In his eyes, there was nothing but misery and pain. But as much as I wanted to, I felt that didn’t have the right to fix that and take care of their Alpha myself. It was their way of life, so far as to be engraved in their DNA…

Instead of worring longer about the way their pack leader governed, I decided to stroll through the den and check for any slaves. Walking through the mostly deserted den, I looked for any sort of being that wasn't a diamond dog, but there were only empty cells in the prison area, miners in the shaft only seemed to be diamond dogs, and I didn't see any other area where ponies could eventually have been kept.

Seeing as staying in that den was useless, I made my way back to the stairs and walked back to Appleloosa.

Date: 26th of July, Second Year of the Game. Location: Appleloosa.

When I reached the city, it was night time. Most of the ponies were asleep, although one or two still were awake, judging by the light coming through some windows here and there.

My powers were slowly regenerating over the hours. But their regeneration was slow. I had to wait for the day, wandering in the little town’s alleys randomly, trying to come up with a plan. I was mostly thinking about what I was going to say... How would I tell them what I am without saying too much or too little? Eventually, I even had a conversation with Mercury about the whole thing. After an arduous negociation that took about an hour and a half, he finally agreed, on the condition that I stayed in Appleloosa.

When the sun rose, I knew what I had to do. It was perfectly ridiculous and I found the whole thing as pathetic as laughable, but the ponies most likely wouldn’t have a choice. And that was for the better. I didn’t want them to have the wrong reaction.

When I deemed it was the right time, I counted the ponies and waited until they all were outside, except for the few kids and elderlies who stayed inside their houses.

That day started just like every single one before. Sun shone, grass grew, birds flew, and ponies were tending to their jobs. Or, rather, it was like this, before I jumped through dimensions and my pony avatar appeared in the middle of the main street.

Everyone suddenly stopped walking at the sight of the towering dark horror that stood there. Mothers hid their children behind them, elders closed their doors, and most male ponies assumed a fighting stance. Some of them grabbed tools, visibly intending to use them as weapons, and others just stood there, staring at me.

Crouching, I simply whispered: “Musica a memoria.” Incorporeal drums immediately started playing, and less than a second later, my magically altered and transferred voice was echoing through Appleloosa, as well as extremely upbeat guitars and basses.

I sang the first verse alone. The ponies looked at my shrouded body in a curious way, not quite understanding why I was doing this. The song was telling them to be happy and live the best they could. It told them I would try to free them from darkness and hate. It told them that I only wanted to live in peace with them, as a brother instead of as a stranger.

During the second verse, they all dropped their weapons, lost their stance, and some of them slowly rocked back and forth, matching the music’s rhythm. After that, a mare in the crowd sang with me. And, very soon, the whole town was accompanying me.

Once again, I was alone for the fourth verse, and they all stopped singing.  As if they knew it was not a verse they could actually identify themselves to. But when it was time for the fifth verse, they sang again. I could see most of them smile during my solo part, and the smiles they had only grew wider. For a strange reason, the sun even seemed to shine brighter.

When the song died down, they all looked at me, hesitant, as I walked towards the closest one, a strangely black and white unicorn colt.

Watching his curious but unafraid expression, I declared: “I am not here to do any harm. I only wanted you to stop fearing me now, because it makes no sense anymore. I am but a traveler searching for a temporary asylum, and I’m tired of being lonely… ”

He slowly moved his head back and tilted it slightly, an eyebrow raised high. “Ooookay? So… Who are you and why were you scary in the first place?” He had a slight accent that denoted a possible zebra ascendance, quite obvious if you also looked at his fur’s colors.

My avatar answered with its classical ghoulish voice. “As surprising as it may be, I don’t have the right to tell you who I am. However, what you need to know is that there was a pack of diamond dogs who tried to enslave ponies around here, and that I got them to stop doing that. I needed to push them back without letting you know what I truly did. I didn’t want you to blow my cover. And, well, now that they are not going to come back here, I chose to show myself. Being alone is boring.”

He considered what I said for a few seconds, and asked: “So you were the one who made these fire spells against the diamond dogs at night? And the smoke, was it you too? The guards told me about that.”

My avatar and I nodded. “Indeed. Look,” I said, while making some smoke appear behind me.

The crowd murmured: “It’s the black smoke thing!”

“Well then, I suppose we owe you something,” he said with a cheerful smile and a hoof held in the air.

“Uh… Sorry, I can’t shake your hoof.”

He looked at me, taken aback. “I don’t understand… Is it not a sign of politeness where you come from?”

“My problem is far more down-to-earth than that.” And, with that, I passed my hand through his hoof, my avatar's hoof overlapping with my hand.

His brain took a second to process the fact someone else's leg was inside his hoof. He shrieked like a little filly as he jumped back, holding his hoof against his chest, all of his hairs suddenly straightened. “A-a-a-agha ghost!”

“Come on, stop being silly, I’m not a ghost. Ghosts are dead, and I’m alive. I only have a few… tangibility problems, that's all.”

One of the ponies behind me trotted to us and talked too. “Ah, I get it. But… Do you have any way to prove what you say you did, then? I don’t see how a ghost would make diamond dogs go away.”

I turned back suddenly, and he gulped as my avatar waved his foreleg around.

Mere seconds later, no one could see the sun through the smoke that rose from the ground. A dark dome surrounded the village, and every single pony there was trying to escape the flames bursting from the ground randomly. The smoke clouds made them want to cough, they started sweating, and their skin was greyed by the ash flying around.

Then, flames enveloped my avatar and I kneeled in front of the suspicious pony again, slowly approaching my magical puppet's burning mask from his cringing face. “Do you think that is not enough?”

He turned his head around, looked at the chaos I caused in a few seconds, and smiled in embarrassment. “Yes, I think it is.”

The smoke and flames disappeared instantly and the crowd, slightly blinded by the sun, looked at me as if I was a demon. Many ponies were whispering to others.

One of the mares there yelled: “What do you think you’re doing? Monster! My baby almost got burned!”

Once again, my pony avatar waved its leg. A pillar of fire came out of the ground and passed through the dubious mare.

She yelled immediately. “AIIYEEEE!”

And, very soon, she noticed nothing actually happened. She babbled: “Bu-bu-buh, but, I felt that flame burn me!”

“Nope. It was just an illusion. Just like everything else I’ve done. Anypony got burned here?”

No one answered me. “Good. Now, believe me or not, I just want to have some company. Being the way I am is boring.”

Some of the ponies were still unconvinced, but a few ones seemed to trust me and smiled.

The black and white pony walked around me and said: “So what’s your name?”

I sighed. “I don’t have the right to tell you that either.”

“Great! I’ll give you one then!” He exclaimed, and a grin appeared on his face as he trotted around me.

“Whatever.”

Every few steps, the pony put a hoof on his mouth, and squinted his eyes. “No, no… no, no again…”

He slowly walked away on three legs, before suddenly turning back with a jump. “Yes! I know! I’ll call you… Phan-tooom!”

The crowd whispered in amazement, as the pony in front of me looked like he just told the conclusion to a spooky story, his forelegs suspended in the air.

I raised my fists to the sky and looked straight into the sun. As I was doing this, my pony avatar stood on two legs. “Nooooooooo!”

The pony turned back, and looked at me. “That’s final, I’ll call you that, no matter what you say. After all, I can’t call you Ghost, that’s just silly. Ghost the ghost,” he chuckled. “And Phantom is more mysterious. You are mysterious. You’re a pretty good Phantom.”

“Good god. This guy looks like he’s as stubborn as Pinkie Pie, and I can’t even tell him he called me Phantom while I’m supposed to be a 'phantasm'. Fuck. And I thought that 'Griffin the griffin' was retarded. I have to do something!”

“Listen dude, I ‘d rather you call me-“

“Phantom. I’ll call you phantom.”

“But I don-“

“Zip it, Phantom.”

“No! This name is-“

“Great. Phantom is great.”

“No, it’s not-“

“Terrible. Because it’s great.”

“You know, I’ll-“

“Like it, because it’s great.”

“SILENCE!”

“Will not be your name because Phantom is so much better.”

“Aw, FUCK!”

I threw my arms up and abandoned the fight, my avatar simply letting its shoulders hang low.

The pony looked at me with a smug grin. “You aren’t very persevering, Phantom”, he said, accentuating the last word in particular.

“That’s called strategic retreat. But anyway. What’s your name?”

He took a big breath before asking. “I’m Jolly Jester! And there’s the Sheriff Silverstar, and Southern Shine, and Big Bee the apiarist, and True Notes, the town’s musician, and Morton Saltworthy, and Vanilla Roll, my favorite baker, and Speedy Hawk, our weather guy, and Nurse Sunheart, and-“

“Okay, okay, I get it, you know everyone here. But I didn’t ask for their names, only yours. Is that hard to understand?”

“God dammit. He really is some kind of Pinkie Pie, only worse and colorless. I hope they never have children together.”

I decided it was enough. I addressed the crowd, boosting my voice as much as I could with the magic I had left after all these illusions. “Appleloosa! Now that you somehow know me, I will ask two things of you. One, accept me as one of yours, even if only temporarily. Talk to me, maybe even give me some jobs. As long as I can live a rather normal life for a while, I’ll be happy.”

The sheriff walked in front of the others and curled his moustache with a hoof, pondering about my expectations for a minute. Finally, he stomped the ground with a hoof, displaying a determined look. “So be it! As long as you don’t do anything shady again, like this scary illusion, I think we can allow you to stay here for a little while.” He looked at me, squinted his eyes, put his hoof in front of his eyes, and pointed it at me.

The pony under me nodded. “You’ll be watching. Gotcha.”

My new checkered nemesis then yelled: “Who wants to help the big scary monster settle in?”

The crowd walked one step back. The message was clear.

Jolly looked at me with a big smile and said: “Hey hey hey! It seems you’re all mine, big guy! How about we go on a tour in town?”

“Whatever. But consider yourself warned: sometimes, I make jokes that you will regret hearing.”

“Oooh, I look forward to these! I love jokes, no matter what!”

“I couldn’t have guessed…”

Date: 28th of July, Second Year of the Game. Location: Appleloosa.

“What’s the hardest part of making vegetable soup?”

“I don’t know… Peeling them, I guess.”

“Crushing the wheelchairs.”

“Wait, what wheelchairs? Oh. Ah. No! That kind of vegetable, you mean! That’s horrible.”

“Told you.”

Date: 29th of July, Second Year of the Game. Location: Appleloosa.

“What’s worse than a foal in a trash bin?”

“What could be? This is the worst!”

“A foal in two trash bins.”

“How… Argh! No!”

Date: 30th of July, Second Year of the Game. Location: Appleloosa.

“How many foals does it take to paint a house?”

“They would never know how to use paintbrushes…”

“Depends on how hard you throw them.”

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

Date: 2nd of August, Second Year of the Game. Location: Appleloosa.

“A priest, a pedophile and a rapist walk in-“

“Okay, stop, I’ve had enough. You made your point. I don’t even want to know what a priest is.”

Date: 3rd of August, Second Year of the Game. Location: Appleloosa.

“You know… Apart from the horrible jokes that I absolutely love, I also appreciate much lighter humor. For example, I even pranked Celestia and Luna a while ago.”

“You… You didn’t dare to do anything to royalty! You did? Tell me… How!”

“It’s easy, in fact. When I repeatedly pass through ponies, they sneeze. I learned that when I passed through someone I wanted to talk to… And, one time, when I was in Canterlot, I couldn’t resist and spent a few hours making the two princesses sneeze repeatedly, while I was invisible. I even did it to Luna while she was raising the moon, it was hilarious.”

“Wait… You’re telling me that YOU are responsible for that time when the moon was going back and forth in the sky?”

“Yup.”

“That’s… awesome! I wish I had that power too…”

“Well, I wish I actually could interact with people instead of passing through them.”

“Touché.”

Date: 5th of August, Second Year of the Game. Location: Appleloosa.

Life went on like this for a while. I spent my days hanging out with Jolly Jester, discussing about Equestria and joking around. I helped him with a few pranks here and there, and when the night came, I just laid on a couch, immobile for a few hours, while he was sleeping.

During these nights, I thought about what I had accomplished so far. Apart from training and scaring a few dogs away, it didn’t amount to much. Yet, Mercury wanted me to stay there and do nothing. Why? Was there something supposed to happen here? Was I supposed to do something he didn’t order me to do in order to prove my independence? Was I supposed to do something outside of the town thanks to pony intermediaries, like when he asked me to push that button and expected the passengers to push them? But if I was supposed to do something like that, what was I supposed to do exactly? Or, maybe that even he didn’t know what I should do. Maybe he actually had no plan, and simply told me to stay there so he could find something meaningful to do.

All these interrogations haunted me; but quickly they were forgotten, as the day led me to live an almost-normal life.

During these days, I also befriended True Notes. It turned out he was a pianist, and, even though I didn’t have hands to push on the keys, I could use telekinesis to play the notes of the songs I knew, almost as naturally as when I used my hands. I played many songs that entertained a lot of ponies, from the works of C418 to those of Nobuo Uematsu…

Of course, True Notes loved some of them, but he was better than me at playing piano. He taught me a few things. I still was a beginner, and certainly didn’t mind the free lessons.

The most important thing with that piano is that it soothed me. Playing it was a great pastime, and it let me forget about everything that happened. Every time I played a song, for a few minutes, there was only the piano, and music. Nothing else mattered. My mind was resting, and it really was enjoyable.

I liked this life, as shallow as it was.

I knew it wouldn’t last forever.

Date: 14th of August 2013. Location: A road.

That day was one of the best there had been during this summer. It was hot and slightly windy at the same time: a perfect day for motorcycle enthusiasts.

On a thin stripe of tar lying in the middle of sunflower fields, a shrilling motorbike was carrying its driver, who was slightly too heavy. The bike lacked horsepower, but it still managed to move at least.

In the distance, another bike was approaching. It was much more powerful. Entirely ignoring the speed limit, the reckless driver pushed his vehicle to its limits.

The first biker noticed there was someone else, coming close at an alarming speed. He moved to the side of the road before the other guy did something stupid. He did not trust anyone on the road.

The speeding bike looked like it would quickly outpace the smaller bike, before disappearing in the distance even quicker.

It did not disappear.

Instead, its driver activated both of its brakes before going further than the other bike; leaving a large black mark on the ground. The screeching was atrocious to both drivers. When it ended, the larger bike was almost leaning against the smaller one. Its driver tapped on the shoulder of the other one, and said: “Compliments of Mercury.”

Then, he put his hand on the smaller bike and patted it. “Go.”

He braked again, coming to a full stop.

The other driver did not understand what happened. He was too stupefied to talk. Who was this guy? What did he do?

Before he had the time to solve these questions, another problem surfaced.

His bike’s whine gradually became more and more acute, as its speed was rising far away from its normal levels. He tried braking, but it did not work. The controls weren’t answering.

At some point, he noticed his wheels were on fire.

Then, he was on fire too, for a short time. Something exploded, and he lost consciousness.

Back on the road, still sitting on his immobile bike, the chopper’s driver watched his victim vanish while a trail of flames remained on the road. “Next step: get them to meet.”

He laughed, accelerated enough to lift the front of his bike into the air, and disappeared in a flash of light.