Chapter Ten: Telling the Others

私の小さい馬：大きな鉱石の物語

MY LITTLE PONY: THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT CRYSTALS

Daijisshou: Yojin wo Katatte Iru

だいじっしょう：よじんをかたっている

第十章：余人を語っている

Chapter Ten: Telling the Others

Gash had been asleep for a while now, and he was in the middle of a dream, or rather, a nightmare. It was raining, and he was apparently fighting against a shadow figure in heavy rain. There was no sound, and the world around him was black and white, the only color being on Gash’s clothing, which consisted of a long, open, dark-gray robe with a light-blue undershirt, as well as black sweatpants, all of which were ripped and torn. He had no shoes on, and his feet were bleeding from running on the ground beneath him.

They were battling in a rural-looking town, which had apparently been completely deserted, as the buildings were falling apart; some where completely fallen. None of the buildings had any detail-There were no signs, windows, doors, anything. There were no other people or creatures anywhere as Gash and the dark mass fought on the pavement.

Gash had just been struck by a blackened crystal-like object, sending him flying back into a building, completely collapsing it. Gash lay under the rubble, his consciousness slowly fading out. He could see the rubble being removed from around his body, and he could suddenly feel an intense chill running down his entire body. Once the stone had been cleared from his body, standing above him was the shadow. It kneeled down to him, and for a brief moment, it opened its eyes, which were completely white with gray rings in them. It then kneeled down and stuck its hand on Gash’s face, releasing a dark energy all around him. Fire began to surround him, and his consciousness faded immediately when the silhouette’s eyes released a blinding, white light.

Gash was suddenly awoken from his sleep when a loud knock at the door startled him. He rolled off the couch, moaning in pain. He pushed himself off of the floor, using the couch as support. He stumbled over to the door, opening it slightly to see who it was. When he saw that it was Rainbow Dash with the rest of the Mane Six and Chrysalis, he opened the door completely to let them in. He walked back over to his spot on the couch, motioning to Chrysalis to sit next to him. The others sat at random spots around the room on the floor. He looked to Chrysalis. They all looked at him as he glanced around the group of ponies in front of him.

“So, what did y’all bring us here for?” Applejack finally asked, after multiple moments of Gash thinking about how to start.

“I brought you all here to discuss the books and what they really are,” he answered, pulling his book out. Chrysalis stared at him, as if to ask ‘Are you really going to give out this information?’

“Whatever do you mean by that?” Rarity asked.

“At first, you may have noticed that they are like spellbooks, and this is because they are. When I read the words in the book, I can use various electrical powers. When Chrysalis reads the words in hers, she can transform, etc. etc.”

“Speaking of which, you two have the exact same books, except the color is different. What is that about?” Twilight asked.

“I was just about to get to that. Although, I think that Chrysalis can explain this better than I can,” he inferred, knowing of Chrysalis’ greater knowledge of the subject. He turned to her, and she looked hesitant.

“Are you sure you want this information to be spread?” she doubtfully asked.

“I don’t see any harm in it.”

“Uh…okay. It all starts with mythology. Hundreds of thousands of millions of years ago, there was nothing in the universe. It was a barren, vast collection of nothingness spread out over a huge area. At some point in the universes existence, there came a goddess of light, of which designed the universe to her liking. She spread out planets and stars all over the vastness of space, grouping them together to create galaxies, nebulae, and all of the other things that exist in the expansion. On one of these planets, she decided to fabricate her own…experiment. Her own test. She began by putting water and plants on the rock. Then, she put trillions of little organisms of various shapes and sizes on the planet, wanting to see where this would bring her. Over billions of years, these organisms evolved into creatures like insects, gryphons, ponies, etc.”

“Where is this leading us?” Twilight quizzed.

“I was getting to that!” Chrysalis shot back, causing Twilight to flinch. “Over time, she was glad that creatures were able to flourish on this beautiful planet, but she got bored with the normal way they were living. She then began to become very aggravated, because the life she had created wasn’t doing anything or evolving past a certain stage. This aggravation led to insanity for the goddess, and she created a new…game, for lack of a better term, that they could play to switch things up. She devised a series of challenges for the inhabitants to experience. At first, this ‘game’ had many variants, ranging from things like strength, knowledge, and ‘heart’ tournaments, to survival of the fittest, to creating a bond with someone close to you and working with them. There was one thing that all of these had had in common: They were all centered on fighting with one another, and they were all bloody and murderous.”

“That wasn’t very nice of her!” Pinkie cried.

“What a total sleaze!” Rainbow Dash agreed.

“Well, she did this in her darkest moments, and she was clearly not thinking straight. Anyway, this trial, which is now ‘commonly’ referred to as the ‘Millennium Battle,’ was hosted on this planet every thousand years by the goddess, with different sets of rules each time.”

“So, what does that have to do with our current situation?” Twilight asked, confused by the explanation of mythology.

“At this moment, we are in the middle of a Millennium Battle.”

“What!?” They all shouted in disbelief.

“No way!” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Surely, you must be telling a lie!” Rarity asked.

“I’m telling the truth.”

“In that case, what are the rules of this battle?” Twilight questioned.

“There are none. It’s basically a free-for-all match, and there are no limits on what the creatures of this battle can do.”

“There are no restraints, or anything?”

“The only restraint is that you are most likely going to be attacked by another Mamono.”

“What’s a ‘Mamono?’” Pinkie Pie interrogated.

“’Mamono’ is another way to say ‘demon.’”

For a moment, they all stared at her with different expressions on their faces. Twilight and Rarity had looks of complete horror on their faces, while Applejack and Pinkie Pie were completely stunned at this information. The only one who didn’t seemed very moved by this information was Rainbow Dash, who raised a question.

“What do you mean, ‘demon?’”

“…I don’t quite understand what you mean by that.”

“Are you trying to say that spawn of Tartarus itself have come here to live on this planet?”

“Uh…that’s not what I had in mind. The actual term for the ‘demons’ of this battle are the ‘Holders of the Books.’ I just call them demons, or more commonly Mamono, because that’s what they’ve always been called up to this point.”

“I see.”

“You say ‘Holder of the Books.’ Does that mean-“ Twilight started, but was cut off by Chrysalis.

“Yes. I and Gash are both Mamono.”

“But, Fluttershy does as well!” Rarity shouted.

“She’s a Mamono as well.”

“No. That can’t be possible! She’s so kind and caring! She would never participate in such a battle for ruffians!”

“As hard as it may be to accept the reality, nothing can change the fact that Fluttershy is a demon.”

“It’s just so…surreal that somepony like her would have to fight like that…” Rarity trailed.

“That meanie-pants goddess! Let me introduce her to my party cannon!” Pinkie Pie cried. Chrysalis rolled her eyes.

“What in tarnation is that girl thinkin’, choosing Fluttershah of all ponies to fahght?”

“Well, she doesn’t administer the battle. She just put the books in this world and left it to the inhabitants to figure out what they do and mean. It was by complete chance that Fluttershy was able to read that book.”

“Speaking of the books,” Twilight started, “what do they mean?”

“What do they…mean?”

“You say that the Holders of the Books have to battle. When I say ‘What do they mean?’ I meant to say ‘Why are they important?’”

“Oh. That’s a good question. The books are important because they are practically the essence of a Mamono. The books have a power that is determined by the feelings of a Mamono. When Gash gets angry, his anger can be turned into a spell, for example. They are directly influenced by the emotions of the user. The other reason they are important is that they are the one thing that keeps a Mamono in the battle itself.”

“What do you mean by that?” Rainbow Dash queried.

“When the book of a Mamono is burned, that Mamono is eliminated from the battle and they disappear. This battle continues until there is only one left.”

“Where do they go?” Twilight wanted to know.

“That is something I do not have the answer to.”

“Oh. What does the final holder get for winning?”

“It is said that the winner is allowed to be granted one wish of their choice.”

“Anything?”

“Yes. It could be something small, such as immortality or getting infinitely rich, or something large, like galactic domination.”

“…That sounds incredibly dangerous. What if a bad holder won?”

“If that happens, we’d all better pray they don’t wish for something that will screw the rest over.”

“That thought scares me. I don’t like it.”

“I don’t think anyone does, Twilight.”

“I have a question,” Rarity let out.

“Yes?”

“How long has this battle been going on for?”

“This individual battle has been going on for about fifteen years, although it has only just started to pick up in pace in the last week or so.”

“That sudden?”

“Well, a Mamono do not know that they are a Mamono at first. As I have said, they have to learn about it on their own. Most demons don’t learn about this battle until they are about fifteen or sixteen years old, some even later than that. This, in turn, makes it so the battle doesn’t immediately begin once the participants are born. I was lucky, in that my mother knew all about this mythology and the battle, and she was able to pass off this information to me when I was but a nymph.”

“Who’s your mother?”

“Her name is Pillaria.”

“Pillaria!? The queen of the changelings!?”

“You are well informed.”

“Does that mean-“

“Yes, I am a princess. But don’t make it a big deal, please. I never liked that kind of attention, and I still don’t,” she informed, looking away from the ponies, who were all struck by this information, like arrows.

“Isn’t being a princess fun or anything?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Not really. It’s just high expectations and responsibilities. There’s nothing fun about that.”

“What about the power you have?”

“Listen. I can understand that you’re interested and all about me being a princess, but I really don’t like to talk about it,” she told, looking down to the ground. “All it brings are bad memories,” she stated, her ears splaying against her head, letting a few tears drip out from her eyes.

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t know,” she declined, wiping at her eyes with a tissue. The rest looked at her with concern.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine, see?” she quizzed, giving a light smile. The others looked to each other and gave their own faint smiles as well.

“Well, I’m glad that we know this information now. Surely it can help us to fend off these other demons,” Twilight assumed. The others nodded in agreement to her statement.

“Is there anything else about this that we should know?”

“That’s pretty much everything that I know about the topic at this moment,” Chrysalis informed.

“As for this topic, that may be the most of what we know right know. There’s also another problem that we’ve come across,” Gash said, pulling out the mysterious letter. “Fluttershy’s book came with this letter,” he finished.

“What does it say?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Gash proceeded to read the contents of the letter, which horrified the entire group, except for Twilight, who got chills instead.

“Who would dare to send this kind of message to our dear Fluttershy? That’s just horrible!” Rarity scoffed as Gash handed the letter over to Twilight.

“This guy is cruising for a major bruising!” Rainbow Dash shouted, pounding her hooves together.

“Yeah! Let me blast him away!” Pinkie chanted, pulling her cannon out of seemingly nowhere. Gash and Chrysalis both stared that this.

“Did she just-“

“It’s just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie. Don’t question it,” Twilight said, shaking her head.

“Twahlight, we need to send a letter to Princess Celestia!” Applejack roused.

“I’ll make sure of it once I get back to the library,” Twilight informed. “Meanwhile, is there anything we can do at the moment?”

“I don’t think so. For all we know, this ‘Death Blast’ may not even be a real pony. He might be another pony using that name. We also don’t know where he is or what he looks like, or even if it is a pony, so we’re pretty in the dark. I think that the best thing we can do at the moment is let Celestia and Luna take care of it once they are informed,” Gash said.

“Oh. Well, I’m hoping we can track this guy down as soon as possible. This is unacceptable,” Rarity huffed, gaining agreement from the others. There was silence for a few moments, before Gash spoke up again.

“And I guess that’s everything that I came here to let you know about. If anything else comes up about either of these situations, we should let each other know immediately,” Gash suggested.

“Definitely. As for the rest of us, be wary of this ‘Death Blast.’ He could be under our noses at any moment,” Twilight inferred, standing up.

“Oh, and just for word of warning,” Chrysalis started, once again getting the attention of the others. “If you see another Mamono, steer clear. Most are vicious or volatile, and they can and most likely will kill you if they learn that you know of the battle.”

“That’s…rather unsettling.”

“I know. It’s frightening, but as long as you are conscious of what you are saying and where you say it, you should be fine.”

“I understand. Shall we be on our way, girls?” Twilight asked, getting nods and replies from the others, who all stood up, making their ways to the door. They all walked out, except for Twilight, who turned back around.

“Is there anything else you need, Twilight?” Gash asked.

“Do you think we should tell Fluttershy about what happened?”

“I think that would be a bad idea. Just knowing the fact that she caused so many ponies such serious pain and injuries would probably crush her inside. The general public doesn’t know that it was Fluttershy, so I think it’ll be best if she doesn’t know that it was herself, either.”

“I see. Do you think that Fluttershy will be alright in terms of a physical standpoint after using the book?”

“She’ll be fine. She passed out from using too much energy from the spell, and the worst that could happen is she has a headache when she wakes up,” he reassured.

“Are you sure?”

“We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Okay.”

“See you later.”

With that, Twilight was out the door and off to the library to send a report to Celestia. Gash sat back on the couch, relaxing.

“So, what do we do now?” Chrysalis asked.

“Well, I’m going to fall back to sleep. You can do whatever you want to,” he let know as she yawned.

“I think that sleep sounds nice. I’ll go with that as well,” she stated, folding her legs underneath her, resting her head on a pillow that was sitting on the armrest. She closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep. Gash nodded, also laying his head down on a pillow, shutting his eyelids.

‘I hope that the information we just gave them will come to some sort of use…’ he thought as he took the train to Snoozeville.