Chapter_03: EQ_Not_What_It_Seems

Chapter_03: EQ_Not_What_It_Seems

11/10/2174, 4:35 AM, Campsite approx. 5 miles from Pegasi Inc. S.D. , EQ

Gold Rush wakes me up the following morning - way too early.

“Wakey, wakey!”, She says while she’s continuing to nudge me.

I try to bury myself further into my sleeping bag. “Just a few more hours, Rush…”, I groan.

That must’ve pissed the mare off, cause’ she started to nudge me harder.

“Come on, dang it!”, She presses. “It’s time!”

She stops nudging me for a moment, and I sit up. “‘Time’ for what?”, I asked sleepily, cleverness in my tone.

“Time to go,” She answered hastily. “Or you going to stay her and be sent back to that ‘prison’ of yours?”

“Jeez, it’s not mine,” I dismissed the idea with a hoof. I go ahead out. “Let’s go.”

What I see outside is everypony else packed up and ready to go, while I just rolled out of bed (Well, I mean sleeping bag).

It irks me a little for some reason, but I just ignore the feeling.

“So, we ready?”, Aquashine cheerfully asks Gold Rush.

“Yes,” Rush replied, glancing at the area where the tents used to be. “Sorry, I had to go old school - don’t want to attract attention with those tents they make now: Shiny and flashy.”

“No prob, Gold,” said Davis, a light-brown, blonde-maned stallion.

“Ok to hear everything was fine, guys,” Rush happily reflected. “Let’s roll out!”

So we begin our trek across uncharted territory, not that Gold Rush or somepony else had a map.

Which also meant that we absolutely had no idea of where we were going.

“So,” Rush remarks. “Um...your name’s Rainer, right?”

“Yes, Rainer Blitz,” I reply back.

“Ain't that sound familiar, Dubs?”, The blue-green maned, yellow unicorn exclaims, nudging her brother.

“Yea, Boxi, yea,” He absentmindedly answers. “Don’t he sound like...um...Rainbow Dash...? From the Celestian region?”

“Course’ not, ya dum dum!”, Boxi smacks Dub upside the head. “It’s Rainbow Blitz, remember that Wonderbolts’ Festival from a few weeks ago? The guy who made it on teh team?”

Dub sniggered. “Yea, before you n’ Vinyl had a little...les see here...a marefight!”, His snigger turns into a guffaw.

“Aw, SHUT UP!”, Boxi roars. “I was supposed to whup Discord’s ugly ass, not her! We agreed on it after upgrading that bass cannon!”

“Yea...”, Her bro teased after he calmed down. “Some fight over a stupid bass cannon, you were probably so busy with something else anyway, she had to step in.” He shrugged. “Either that, or he takes over the Celestian region, with us in it. She saved our hides.”

“You little…”, Boom starts, her face red, eyes flaring with anger.

“Alright, girls, break it up,” Rush chides. “That’s enough drama for today. Now can we please get along?”

“Hey, I ain't a mare, ya kno-”, The big brother protested, but his sister stuffed a hoof in his mouth, her horn glowing a pink aura. She whispered something in his ear, he nodded.

That seemed to shut him up. Serves him right.

But some of what they said kind of got me wondering. I went ahead to ask Rush about it.

“Hey, Rush?”

“Yep,” She sighed.

“I think I overheard something from their little conversation, ‘Celestian region’?”

“Yes,” She urged. She perked up a bit. “Go on.”

“So can you spill the beans about these ‘regions’?”

“Sure,” She replied cheerfully. “No problemo.”

She cleared her throat.

“Well, there are currently 4 known regions in Equestria, Celestian to the west, Topsetter, the one we’re in right now, is to the east, Utopian (aka Serpentine) to the south, and Lunar to the south-east.”

"But it wasn't always this way. Long ago, there was once only two regions, Topsetter and Celestian. Both the regions lived in complete harmony and peace. That is, until Lord Blackwing and his followers made their home in the area to the south. He called the region Utopia. It was the leader of industry, in front of Topsetter. But later on, Blackwing suddenly waged war on the other two regions, forcing King Topsetter and Princess Celestia to unite in order to defeat him. Eventually, they did, and shrunk Blackwing’s territory on one side. There was peace again. It's also known as the Serpentine region because Queen Serpentine, the current leader, is notorious for releasing a virus that turned ponies into...monsters..."

She shuddered. "Ugh. Thank Celestia the epidemic's done..."

“But anyway, as for the fourth one,” Gold Rush continued. “The fourth one was created rather recently, about, I think, 10 years or so ago? Well anyway, a panic caused the Celestian region to split in half.

“Apparently, Celestia’s star student, Dusk Shine, who had been made into a prince a few months before, had somehow gone insane and slaughtered his mentor and role model, as well as some of the most talented and successful Royal Guards, one of them my brother, saying that ‘they were of no use to him anymore.

“This horrified his friends and Princess Luna, so they, and many of their followers, fled to the south-east, away from the clutches of the corrupted Prince Dusk Shine, where they are to this day. And that made the Lunarist region.”

It took me a little while to absorb that second-to-last part. Dusk murdering Celestia?

That just doesn't click, even for me.

Aquashine must've noticed my confusion.

"I-I know it's hard to believe, Rainer," She said sadly. "Because of that murder, Luna, my half-sister, she...she gave up on the idea of leading Equestria. I know how that feels."

“Yea, yea…”, I mutter, still trying to recover from the shock of the murder.

There’s silence for a few minutes, before Dub pipes up.

“Land ho!”, He calls. “I think we hit the jackpot this time; looks liek a village!”

“Oh good!”, Aquashine sighs with relief. “We haven’t had a decent stay for while!”

But even though everypony else is celebrating, it feels like something’s not right, something’s off about that “village"...

Hmm...

I don’t think we’re out of the woods just yet...