Kapitel 1: Den Alkemisten
Kapitel 1
Den Alkemisten
By Cookie
* * * * * * * *
Teep's wordless, angry glare.
Nilesy's disgust.
Ravs's sudden cutoff from his closest friend.
Those things depressed Rythian, more than could be imagined. Now, he went to great measures to keep things close to him. The mage checked Ringo's cage, making sure it was locked, three times a day. He always had extra pumpkins and snow blocks on supply, in case Gilbert ever decided to commit suicide again. There was enough iron to create one-hundred iron golems, let alone rebuild the two he already had. Fishton was locked away in a chest. Hell, even the mushrooms were still in place. Just how she left them.
Even all of the science was still there.
Rythian was scared to touch the lever. It was going to hurt him. It was going to sting, greater than anything in the world. Greater than the Ender Bane, which scarred him. Science was evil. Science was not natural. Science took Zoey from him. Science was Duncan. Rythian was not, nor would he ever be, anything like Duncan. The scientist was cruel, cold. He didn't care about anything living. The only science he allowed was the kind Zoey did, even if it was a mix of magic, as well. If Duncan or Sjin came around and did science, they would not live to see another day.
Science destroyed Rythian's home, Blackrock. Science took Zoey's arm. Science would be the death of him. It destroyed nature, while magic could rebuild it. Science depended on natural resources, to operate. Once they were out, however, he would laugh. He would laugh and laugh until he fell over, then he would keep laughing. Magic was first, and it will be last. It didn't matter how many machines they built, or forests they cut down, magic would be a constant variable. Their machines would break, and the forests will grow back.
But, for now, there was still science.
And there was still magic.
There wasn't, however, a girl. A girl with red hair. A girl with one arm. A girl who would cheer his name, and smile as she did. There was not a girl who would hug him when he felt sad, or to hug when she did. Nobody was there to make Rythian feel like he was worth something, like he could do anything. All there was was a radioactive sheep, a couple mushrooms, a dead fish, two iron golems, a suicidal snowman, and a depressed alchemist. No girl.
There would never be one again. Her laugh would no longer echo for miles. Her voice was not there for him to hear, to be comforted by. She would never share stories as they ate dinner around the fire, or go swimming in the nearby river. There would never be a Zoey Proasheck again, and Rythian was fine with it.
She was dead, anyway.
Surviving an explosion once is a miracle. There's no chance it would happen again.
The screens Zoey had set up in their desert base surrounded Rythian. If he pulled the lever, not saying he would, he might be able to tell if the beautiful girl was still alive, on the off-chance she was. They would tell him where she was, and if she was okay. It would give him status conditions, where she currently was, how she was feeling, what her thoughts were. There was just one teeny-tiny problem.
Science.
The screens were science.
That had been a word nobody was allowed to even mutter before Zoey revealed herself to be a Technomage. The very idea almost gave Rythian a heart attack. Zoey liked science. Zoey liked science. When she showed him the lab, when Teep had gone missing, he didn't believe it. The then two-armed vegetarian had created an entire lab, full of 'mushroom workers,' and chemicals. Full of science. He had felt sick, just looking at what she'd done. A chamber for killing pigs, with 'volunteers.' Why hadn't she told him this was here, under his own house? How could he not have known?
The alarms in there screamed science. She screamed science. He couldn't believe his ears when she told him that she actually enjoyed this kind of thing. Science destroyed, magic created. You can't be both. You can't be Duncan. It was absurd to think she could be a... Technomage, without him even knowing. Sure, he was fine with letting her do what she wanted, but not without telling him. She couldn't just build a lab on her own! How could she have done such a thing, in the past? It had completely shattered his trust for her, at the time!
When Zoey came back from the Mushroom Rebel Base, they talked about it, and came to a conclusion. She could do whatever she wanted with her science, as long as she told him, first.
Duncan had already placed the nuke under their base, then, and Rythian was aware of it.
Zoey said she had it under control, that she could disarm it, but she seemed unsure of which wire she had to cut. At one point, she said the yellow one, but not five minutes later, she said the red. Ringo, the sheep, had run off after Ravs visited them, and let him loose. He had later mused if he was a ninja sheep, as Ringo had disappeared almost instantly.
Ravs had left, and Rythian had gone off with all the animals, trusting that Zoey could save their home. He'd just been trying out the Lever Game with Teep, which was a game where one person placed the lever down, and you hit it back and forth until someone gives up. Ravs was better at it. Then, they were interrupted.
BOOM!!!
The nuke had gone off, and Zoey was still there.
That day, Rythian panicked. For the first time in forever, he really panicked. She landed in the water, exactly where she had at the start of their adventure. Ignoring how much it hurt, Rythian pulled her out. There wasn't a left arm attached to her body, anymore, and a now mutated Ringo floated nearby. He hadn't gone far, after all. As fast as he could, Rythian poured his magic into keeping her alive. They would go to Sick Bay, a desert village later to be renamed Cabertown, where Zoey would make a full recovery thanks to the doctors there.
And now, here we were. Months after, no Zoey.
Rythian gulped, before reaching for the lever. He closed his eyes, and pulled it towards himself. The screens instantly illuminated, and he looked through them.
Not, not Sips...
Simon, not even close...
Lewis...
Hannah...
Ravs...
...Tee
There we go.
Name: Zoeya
Codename: Mushroom
Danger Level: Medium
Status: Alive, Sad
Thoughts: This place is nice, but...
Notes: Not in this world
Location: Equestria
"Wait, where?!" Rythian exclaimed.
Kapitel 2
Drömmar
By Cookie
* * * * * * * * * *
Equestria? What was that?! No, where was that?! It couldn't even be in Minecraftia, for sure. If it was, Rythian was sure he would have heard of it, before now. Maybe the screens were glitching, because if she was anywhere, it definitely wasn't a non-existent place. The screen was probably... what was the word? Snitching? No. Pitching? Closer, in a way. Glitching? Yes, the screen was probably glitching.
Well, wherever this Equestria was, Rythian definitely wasn't going to get there with a mind as tired as his. The moon was high above him, already, signalling yet another midnight. Sleepily, he stumbled back to his tent. He crawled back into bed, for the millionth time, and fell fast asleep.
"But, um, to do so, first, of course, I am going to need to basically prepare myself," Rythian said, looking over the plains that would soon, with time, become his home. A pig gave him a sort of weird look, wondering just who this strange creature was talking to.
"And I'm going to create a... Mage Tower, of sorts," he continued to ramble, "A little fortress. A little... y'know, a little home, one might say. Or I can live and basically have a cool place to be- Oh, hello Creeper."
The Creeper exploded behind Rythian, but he barely even noticed.
"Pssh," he said, in regard to the explosion, "You gotta be quicker than that if you wanna kill me."
Somehow, Rythian's subconcsious was dragging him towards a nearby body of water. Why, he didn't understand, but he was not about to question it.
"Anyway," Rythian picked up right where he left off. "The way I figure it, I'm going to-"
Zoeya joined the game.
"-W-wait, what?"
"Woaaah!!" a female voice exclaimed, "Okay! Okay!! OKAY!!!" She took a small gasp, before letting out a small plff, by sticking her tongue between her lips and breathing out, as she hit the water.
"Hello?"
"Hello?!" she said, swimming towards him, "Hey, wh-... Oh, hello!"
"Hi... hi Zoey," he smiled, "Where the hell did you come from?" To exagerate his point, Rythian looked up at the sky she had just fallen out of. That was a mystery.
Zoey answered simply, "I don't know... Hello... How?"
"Hi."
"Rythian wake up."
"Maybe, I... wait, you didn't say that."
"Rythian! Wake! UP!!!"
The words were definitely coming from Zoey's mouth, that's for sure, but they weren't the words she'd said. They definitely weren't the ones she'd said. And she definitely hadn't started shaking Rythian, which she did surprisingly well considering she was more than a head shorter.
"Rythian!! WAKE UP!!!!"
"Zoey, calm down!" another feminine voice said.
"Yeah, Zoey, don't want to make him all grumpy-wumpy."
Those last two voices were unfamilar.
The first was Zoey.
Slowly, Rythian blinked his eyes open, and there she was. Zoey. As beautiful as she had been all that time ago. Her sparkling blue eyes, her fiery red hair. It was all so amazing. But, for some reason, he wasn't buying it.
"If this is a dream," Rythian said, "It's fucked up."
"Rythian I don't-" Zoey started.
"Ponies?" Rythian sat up on his elbows, throwing his head back, "Figures. My mind is broken. So very broken. Just end this dream and go away, brain! Do you hear me?!"
Zoey started panicking, "Rythian, calm down. It's really me! It's Zoey!"
Sighing, Rythian reached his right arm over to his left, and pinched it as hard as he could. He hadn't expected to feel pain. This was real life, he realized, as he cursed under his breath. This was actually happening. There was a purple pony, with wings and horn, and a pink pony, with neither, and standing between them was Zoey! How impossible was that?!
He rubbed his face, "You're not high, Rythian. You didn't drink, earlier. You. Are not. High."
"Oh, wow," Zoey said, turning away from the tent and looking at the enire camp, "It's been forever since I've seen this place. It's really a mess, Rythian, you should do something about that. Still, nice to see Gilbert, Ringo, the golems, and the mushrooms are alright. Hey, wait a minute, where's Tee?"
Where's... Teep?
Where is Teep?
Where had he gone?
In response, Rythian just shrugged. 'Beats me.'
Zoey's face fell, "Oh, well... I'm sure he's fine, then. Tee is a smart dinosaur."
"Um, Zoey," the purple pony said.
"Oh, right!" Zoey recalled, "Rythian, this is Pinkie Pie," she gestured to the pink one, "And Princess Twilight Sparkle."
Princess, hmm? Odd, that kind of sounded like...
Prince.
Rythian shuddered, pretending to have never thought that. Afterall, the prince he'd once known had died, long before he'd met anyone even in the old world. You cannot, even with science, revive someone who's been gone so long. No matter how hard you try, it won't happen.
"Hello, Rythian," the one Zoey had called Twilight said, "Zoey has told me so much about you! You do magic, right? Do you think we could talk about spells sometime?"
Rythian sighed, "At least I like purple."
"What do you want for your Welcome to Ponyville Party?!" Pinkie asked, "Red or blue streamers?! Confetti! What is your favorite flavor of cake?!!!"
"Welcome to Ponyville Party?" asked Rythian.
"Uh, surprise?" Zoey glared at Pinkie, who grinned, "We're taking you back to Equestria with us. Long story short, Sombra has been revived by Chrysalis and they've teamed up to take Equestria down and we need you, and someone else, who we can talk about later, to help us destroy them as a threat. Could you do it, please?"
Rythian bit his tongue. This was not what he expected, when he imagined Zoey coming home. He had expected hugs, maybe a kiss or two. But this shattered that reality. She didn't even come back for him, she'd done it for them! Ponies! And now, she was asking him to go back with said equines. It was ridiculous, stupid, and he wanted no part in this.
"Excuse me?" he asked, "Did I hear you right? Because, I think you just said you wanted me to follow you thorugh a portal, because these ponies want you to do that! Do you not know how long you were gone?! Do you not know what happened because of that?!"
"How long I was gone?" Zoey asked, "Of course I know! It's been three months!"
That's where Rythian was shocked, "No, Zoey. It's been five years.
Prolog
Den Mänskliga
By Cookie
* * * * * * * *
Fluttershy was not sure what she had just found. It was a hairless ape. Except, the top of it's head wasn't hairless. There was a sort of mane, long and red. This was not a kind of creature she had ever seen. It appeared to be wearing clothes, too, and it was asleep. The right arm was... strange. It looked, and felt, fake. Had the creature been in some sort of fight, before? Had it been smart enough to give itself a replacement? If not, than who had? All these questions danced around the yellow mare's brain, as she placed it on her couch.
When Fluttershy felt the creature's forehead, it was warm. This thing was sick, and required immediate attention. Quietly, the mare slipped into her kitchen. She grabbed a rag, and wet it under the sink. After ringing it out, she placed it on the creature's head. That should help the fever go down.
Fluttershy's memory jogged. The book Mother read to me when I was little, the one on mythological creatures. It's one of them, a... a human! Yes, that's it. It's a human. The butter-colored pegasus found a blanket, and gently pulled it over the human. They were said to be as smart as ponies, right? Maybe even smarter. But... humans don't exist. Mother said so.
Nonetheless, Fluttershy started to make a soup. If this creature is sick, they'll need some nice, warm noodles to help them get better, again. She stirred the liquid, before chopping up and adding carrots and mushrooms. A nice, healthy bowl. The steam would definitely help clear a stuffy nose, if it could have one.
Thoughts raced through Fluttershy's head. Humans were omnivores! They could eat meat! What if this creature, if it was a human, tried to eat her? Or what if... it ate her animals?! She didn't want them to be eaten, no matter how tiny or small they were. All of her animals were special, in their own way. The birds and bats could fly, the rats and mice were small and quick, the dogs were loyal, the cats were pristine. Everything was just so amazing. The yellow pegasus just could not imagine all of them being eaten by one thing. Oh no, that would be terrifying.
Suddenly, a scream interrupted Fluttershy's thoughts.
"RYTHIAN!!!" an obviously feminine voice exclaimed. Then, sobbing.
The human was awake.
