Lucas Chronicles, the Afterstory Part 2: Monster Behind Mountain Dew Interlude; Of Skillets, Waffles, and Other Things

"Alright," I said as I studied the map as we walked down the hallways, "it looks like she's marked the general area of each object on the map. Huh. She must REALLY want me gone to make it THIS easy."

Korey looked uncertain. "There HAS to be a catch. Nothing's EVER that simple."

I shrugged. "Wait a minute..." I looked closer at the map. "This says that there's a Holy Sweetroll right here in the castl-"

"Um... Lucas?" Fluttershy interrupted.

I turned to see that she was staring down a corridor. "Yeah?"

"I... I think I found something..." She squeaked.

I walked over to see what she saw. At the end of the corridor, a single glass case stood on a podium, housing what seemed to be a pure white muffin in a golden wrapper. We walked over to the case and. Under it was posted a golden plaque that read 'HOLY SWEETROLL'.

"Hmm. Convenient." John commented.

Fluttershy squeaked, "But it looks really heavy... I don't think we can lift-"

Without warning, I shattered the glass with the hilt of Chillrend. The sound caused Fluttershy to jump and faint. "Problem solved." I looked down at the unconscious pegasus. "...Whoops."

I looked back at the Holy Sweetroll. I reached for it, then stopped short.

"What's wrong?" Fluttershy asked, now conscious.

I jumped and screamed, "BLOODY HECK!" I took a breath to slow my now-fast paced heartbeats. "What did I say about doing that?!?" She whimpered as I answered the question that scared me so. "Anyway, this thing is supposedly 'Holy', right?"

"So it says." Jen answered.

"Well," I continued. "if that's true, what happens if we were to even come in contact with it?"

Fluttershy asked, "What do you mean?"

I explained, "You see, as Christians, we know that we aren't perfect, which is why we needed Jesus in the first place. 'For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.'"

John nodded. "...Romans 3:23."

"I'm still confused..." Fluttershy stated.

"It's the Bible." I replied. "It's the thing we Christians try to live by. Don't worry, we'll teach you about it later. Anyway, we're imperfect, I.E. UNholy. I'm just saying that I don't what to spontaneously combust into flames by touching something holy."

"Good point." Korey placed her hoof on her chin.

We sat there thinking until Seth finally exclaimed, "Oh wait! I just remembered! I had bought a baseball bat at one of the shops! We can use that to nudge the sweetroll into one of the bags. I also bought this killer baseball cap."

He pulled each item out of his saddle bag, placing a black cap with the Wonderbolts symbol on his head. He grasped his new bat and swung it like he was hitting a baseball.

I smiled. "Dunno why you bought it, but I don't care. That's an awesome idea! But hold on. We should probably empty one of our bags into someone else's so we carry it without killing any of us. It seems that Fluttershy and I have the least amount of stuff, so we'll just combine ours, and she'll carry the Holy Sweetroll."

Just before we started unpacking her things, John raised his eyebrow, "Why don't we just grab this last?"

We froze. I facepalmed. "That's actually a really good idea. But... The glass is broken now. I don't want guards to find the sweetroll like this and then place it under even tougher security."

I had an idea. I impaled the holy dessert with Chillrend. "Hey Seth?"

"Yeah?" He replied as he continued to swing his bat.

"Could you bash a hole into the wall for me?"

He paused in confusion, then shrugged and did as I asked. I smiled as I scraped the Holy Sweetroll into the hole in the wall. "Thankee Kindly." I commented. He nodded as I pulled out the map out to study it. "Hmm... The map says that the Almighty Waffle of Power and the Ever-Wandering Soul of Admiral Bobbery are in two TOTALLY separate directions... I like waffles, so I say we go for that one first." There were no objections. I smiled as I rolled up the map and returned it to my backpack. "Alright! Let's start heading towards the first mapmarker!"

______________________________________________________________________________________

It had gotten really late as we traveled somewhere in the wilderness of Equestria, so we had to set up a camp. But since we didn't exactly expect to be thrown into an adventure, we never bought tents. So, we set up our sleeping bags around our newly made fire pit under the stars (which Luna had made particularly beautiful that night, I'd like to say).

John and I had tried to start a fire (though much effort I might add. I'm not exactly an outdoorsman, but I've had people show me before) when he asked, "Hey Lucas, what's the deal with the Princess? I mean, she REALLY didn't like you back there."

I replied while stirring the fire, "It's kinda a long story. We should wait so I can tell everyone. I don't want to have to tell it twice."

So I stood up, now happy with my fire, and gathered everyone around it. I started explaining. "Now, you see, Celestia didn't always hate me. Actually, she brought me here from earth because they needed help with something." I laughed. "She's actually the one who gave me my weapons in the first place."

"Then why did she want them back?" Korey asked.

I continued, "Well, actually, that's where it gets slightly confusing. You see, that was a Celestia from the future, a future torn apart by beings called Reapers, like from the game Mass Effect. Basically, giant robot insectoid aliens that shot laser beams of death.

"When I described what they actually were to Celestia, she figured fighting in that timeline would be absolutely fruitless. She sent me to the past along with one of her commanders, a pegasus named Derpy Hooves. She did that so we could stop the one responsible for summoning them, the Changeling Queen Chrysalis, before she got too powerful. So, we informed the present day Celestia about the threat. However, due to the time jump, we had like six months to kill. I had various adventures here and there, and they were quite entertaining. They don't really have to do with why Celestia hates me, but I'ma tell you guys about them anyway.

"Firstly, we had a pretty great snowball fight. We called it the Great Snowball War. Nothing interesting really happened other than a fun snowball fight. After that, one of the unicorns- her name was Twilight by the way- cast a magic spell that switched- oh, I forgot to mention, Fluttershy here had five other friends that we constantly hung out with- our bodies. I was unfortunate enough to be in the room. I was put in Rainbow Dash's body."

"You mean the one pegasus we met yesterday?" John asked.

"Yeah." I laughed. "It was really weird. I actually accidentally killed someone in that body, along with destroying a town called Cloudsdale. It was pretty bad... That might be why Celestia hates me. Anyway, during that same misadventure, Celestia kidnapped a few a my friends from earth. They were NOT happy. It was VERY tough to actually get them to cooperate in any given situation. Celestia changed us back afterwards, so that was kind."

"So, she doesn't hate you yet." Seth commented.

I laughed, "Nah, I guess not. Then, my partner, Derpy, accidentally spilled a premature potion all over Fluttershy here, causing her to become a giant. THAT was interesting. My friends and I almost died from laughter."

Fluttershy chimed in, "Ooh! I remember that! I thought you guys didn't like me anymore after that, so I flew away..."

I chuckled, "To be fair, my friends already hated you. But, honestly, if I hadn't been laughing so hard, I would've been kinda scared. Y'know, you never wanna anger a giant for the shear fact that you may end up like a pancake."

She frowned. "I wouldn't ever do that! Not to my friends... Anyway, something good did come out of that." She smiled. "I got to meet the Dragonborn. He was really nice."

I nodded as rubbed my chin, "He was. He was very oddly kind for a bloodthirsty dragon killer." I continued my account. "Soon after that, Discord, their world's god of Chaos, captured me. Derpy saved me shortly after, along with the help of a my friend named Ben. Then, Twilight did another magic spell. From what I can gather, she, Rainbow Dash, and another one of their friends named Pinkie Pie were sent to an older generation of My Little Pony. Y'know, the evil, demonic abominations that give these ponies a bad rep. You know the ones. Funny thing is, I could've brought them back instantly via Chaos Emerald, but I was lazy. Heh... They were TICKED."

"Why..." Fluttershy interrupted. "DIDN'T you save them earlier?"

I rubbed my head, "Because, y'know, we were having fun playing Terraria and such! And that was one great Go Fish game! Even if I did think it was poker... Now that I think about it, that bruise Rainbow Dash gave me probably wasn't worth it... Anyway, moving on. Now, we've come to the Changeling Invasion. Basically, there was an invasion, we stopped it, but it killed Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and one of our friends named Applejack."

"And they were the ones whose graves you visited?" Jen asked.

I nodded, "Yeah... Anyway, at their funeral, Celestia wanted to take our weapons from us, but I didn't let her. I sent us back to our world- via Chaos Control of course- and sealed the way through so she couldn't follow us."

"But," Korey questioned, "the princess said you had turned ANOTHER one of her subjects against her. I can see that Fluttershy here was the 'another', but who was the first?"

Seth interrupted, "And how did your weapons even end up back here?"

I continued, "My partner, Derpy Hooves, was the one she was implying. I took her with me back to earth. As for my weapons, that's another story."

There was silence. "...Well?" John stated, "We're all ears."

I closed my eyes and chuckled as I continued. "A little while after I had gotten back to earth, I went to the E3 gaming convention. On my way back home, I got lost. I then found this school- I wanna say it was in Ohio somewhere, but don't quote me on that- where Fluttershy and her friends were humans. I met a human Twilight-"

"Wait," John interrupted, "didn't you say that she was one of the ones who died in the invasion?"

"Yeah, which confused me as well. She also told me something about Pinkie Pie, another one who died in the invasion. I have a theory, but I'll mention that in a bit. Anyway, I met Twilight and gave her my Bible. After that, it got really trippy... And slightly boring. Anyway, I started a band there- we performed some of your songs actually!- and through a series of unfortunate events that I'd really rather not remember for many reasons, I nearly suffocated at the hands of a giant, human Fluttershy.

"I mean, I STILL don't understand how that even happened. AGAIN! My best guess is that- this is my theory by the way- all parallel realities have to be somewhat similar."

"But..." Fluttershy whimpered. "I would never do that... not on purpose at least..."

I shook my head, "I don't think she meant to either."

Seth laughed, "From what I understand, you don't have much luck with giants."

I chuckled as well, "Oh, no! Not at all! But, on the bright side, at least she didn't transform into a Titan. That would've been awful, since she probably would have eaten me. Heck, she would've eaten the entire school."

I laughed some more, then sighed as I continued, "Anyway, like I said, I was suffocating. I used the Chaos Control to save myself, sending me back here. But when I fell through the portal, my head bashed something hard. I blacked out. I awoke to Fluttershy here standing over me and my weapons gone. We started our trek to Cantorlot, watched your concert and you guys know the rest."

"But," John pondered. "one question still bugs me. From what you've said, you didn't exactly do anything to warrant that kind of hate that the princess showed you in her throne room. I mean, sure, you killed someone and destroyed a town in that one rainbow pony's body- which is still not good in any way- but that was SO accidental. So, why does she hate you?"

I shrugged, "Honestly, I... I dunno. Couldn't tell yo-"

Fluttershy squeaked out an interruption, "Actually... um... I don't mean to interrupt... but I think I know..."

We all looked at her with raised eyebrows. She looked down as her mane covered her eyes, "Um... Celestia said something once about Twilight's, Pinkie's, and Applejack's deaths being your fault."

My jaw dropped, "So, let me get this straight. She's only mad at me because we were overrun by changelings?!? That's a load of crap!" I sighed as I placed my hands behind my head. "I guess it can't be helped. Those with false beliefs are not easily swayed."  Then, something dawned upon me, "Wait, why in heck did Celestia even bring me to Equestria in the first place?"

John replied, "Well, you said she needed help with some kinda robotic aliens of death."

"Yeah, I understand that, but why me? I'm just a simple high-school student who plays video games, chills on the Internet and works part-time at Chick-Fil-A!"

"U-Um..." Fluttershy responded. "Didn't you tell us once that the future Celestia found you on their own version of the Internet, the one they linked to yours?"

"Pffft!" I spat. "I'm not famous on the Internet! Not at all in the slightest! My best YouTube video has about forty-five views at best. And my-"

I stopped myself there. I didn't DARE let these few know about the fan fiction I write on occasion... A shudder burned it's way up my spine at that thought.

"...And your what?" The yellow mare asked.

"It's not important." I dismissed.

"Oh..." She paused. "...I also think I heard somepony say Celestia had a nickname... They called her "Trollestia". I'm not sure what that means though..."

My face emitted an bemused looked. "Great. I think I understand. The Celestia that brought me here had already given up hope and simply just started messing with people. Not cool." Then, I cracked a smile. "Although, I can't say I regret it. You were guys were pretty awesome to me here."

Fluttershy blushed as silence fell on us.

Then, I had an idea. I thought we should sing a song, since that's what sometimes happens around a campfire. I started one.

[QUICK AUTHOR'S NOTE: I suggest changing the color of the background to see some lyrics. I found that the 'Fluttershy' setting works well. I suggest using that.]

Youtube Video

"Angry words and honking cars... Satellites and fallen stars... "

John smiled as he realized what I had started. He joined in. "Distant, dark blue radios that whisper down my boulevards..."

Jen sang the next part, "Ghosts in chains rattle in the attic..."

"Broken headphones filled with static..." Korey chimed in.

"Lonely room, you’ve got nowhere to run." Seth sang.

"Three..."

"Two..."

We all casted our eyes to Fluttershy.  She was slightly hesitant, but then joined with her beautiful voice. "...One for all and all for one."

We all smiled as I continued. "Times will be bad!"

"Times will be good!"

"Things I wish I hadn't done..."

"...And some I wish I would!"

"Cutting through the American Noise!"

"You’ve got a voice!"

"...And a song to sing!"

"And a song to sing!"

"Drink deep in the morning!"

"Drink deep in the morning!"

"See what the day will bring!"

"La, da, da, da!"

"Lift up your voice!"

"Let love cut through,"

"the American Noise!"

"La, da, da, da!"

"Lift up your voice!"

"Let love cut through,"

"The American Noise!"

"Slammin' doors and cell phone rings..."

"Hurricane force of silent screams..."

"...Dunno what to believe..."

"Bend the rule, just to break it,"

"You're so tired 'cause to gotta fake it..."

"But you just wanna be someone..."

"Three..."

"Two..."

"...One for all and all for One!"

"Times will be bad!"

"Times will be good!"

"Things I wish I hadn't done,"

"and some I wish I would!"

"Cutting through the American Noise!"

"You'’ve got a voice!"

"And a song to sing!

"And a song to sing!"

"Drink deep in the morning!"

"Drink deep in the morning!"

"See what the day will bring!"

"La, da, da, da!"

"Lift up your voice!"

"Let love cut through,"

"the American Noise!"

"La, da, da, da! "

"Lift up your voice!"

"Let love cut through,"

"the American Noise!"

"...No matter who you are,"

"You'’ve got a voice!!"

"Why don'’t you use it?"

"Sing your own song!"

"Take all the noise,"

"and make it into music!!!"

"La, da, da, da,"

"La, da, da, da,"

"La, da, da, daaaa!"

"La, da, da, da,"

"La, da, da, da,"

"La, da, da, daaaaaaa!"

At this point, we all sang together. "La, da, da, da! Lift up your voice! Let love cut through, the American Noise! La, da da, da! You have a choice! Let love cut through, the American Noise!"

"YOU'VE GOT A VOICE!!!"

"Let love cut through the American Noise!" We finished in unison.

We laughed for a while, until Fluttershy asked, "...What is 'American' exactly?"

We all laughed even harder until I finally answered in between by laughter, "It's where we're from. America, the land of the free and home of the brave!"

"Oh!" Fluttershy said as we continued to laugh.

When we all finally settled down, Jen yawned, "Well, I'm going to hit the hay."

We all agreed to do the same as we stood up.

But then, something inexplicable happened. A Chaos Control portal opened.

Fluttershy looked to me, confused. I just stared at the portal, "Wasn't me..."

Just, then, a girl, probably somewhere in her early-twenties, flew backwards through the portal and through our campfire, diminishing the remaining embers. She sat up and rubbed her head. I noticed that she was wearing Daedric Armor, something I had only seen worn in real life by the Dragonborn the last time I was in Equestria. Her hair greatly resembled Fluttershy's mane. I actually had do a double-take between the two to make sure.

However, what confused me the most was the weapons this girl had in her possession. In her right hand, was the Legendary Blade of Eternal Frost, Chillrend, and chained to her hip was a Chaos Emerald.

My brain started to hurt. I ran to my sleeping bag to see if I still had my stuff. Lo and behold, my Chillrend and Chaos Emerald were right where I had left them.

I walked back over to her with my weapons in hand, jaw agape, and asked, "...What?"

The girl smiled, "'Sup kid. So, you have them too-"

She was interrupted by a voice from the portal, "KID! We could really use your help!"

I recognized that voice, "WAS THAT THE MASTER CHIEF?!"

Another voice yelled from the portal, "Hey FLUTTERSH!! C'mon! You're too slow!"

My jaw dropped even further, "SONIC THE HEDGEHOG?!?!?"

The girl chuckled, "Well, time to go."

She jumped back through the portal. It closed.

I looked back to Fluttershy and the band mates, all who wore the same confused expression that I did.

I was speechless. All I could say was, "...WHAT?!?"