Hollow Mask

The moment Olivia left the Portal she knew something was wrong. Or in this case, many things.

Pretty much everyone was staring at her, now separated from Hunter’s mind and back in action. “What?” she asked.

Hunter, who was also staring and back in her equine body, answered, “Ähhmm, you have wings.”

Olivia froze on the spot. She checked the spells responsible for hiding them and found them inactive. She guessed that they didn’t reactivate when she was exposed to the Equestrian magical field.

And now she was standing in Twilight’s Crystal Castle, her wings going from one end of the room to the other, which were almost 20 meters. Embarrassed by the reveal she furled the wings on her back and reactivated the disguises.

“Sorry for that,” she excused herself. She hadn’t planned on revealing it so early.

“Wait… Where are we?” asked Hunter, finally taking in her environment.

Twilight smiled and put a hoof to her chest, “You are in the Crystal Castle of Friendship and standing in front of the ruling princess of the Ponyville District of Equestria.”

Behind her, Spike finally stepped into view, “But it is not a library, Twi.”

Olivia focused on the little dragon. With a snap of her fingers she froze time and walked over to the little green lizard.

Bowing down until she could see him directly in the eyes she inspected his features, “You shouldn’t be here, little one. You shouldn’t be here at all.”

She inspected Twilight’s little friend using her magic. No shapeshifting magic. No leftovers of necromancy. She was about to give up when her scan found an anomaly.

“Heh, figures.” The little reptile was covered in Time Vortex Energy. Someone had altered the timeline and brought him back. ‘This will get interesting,’ she thought.

With another snap she teleported back in her original position and let the scene unfold.

Hunter remained frozen for some additional time, taking in the words Twilight and Spike had spoken.

“I’m in a castle?” she inquired.

“Yup,” answered Spike.

“That belongs to a pony princess?”

“Eyup!”

There was a short pause before Hunter reacted.

“EVERYBODY HIT THE FUCKING DECK. FLEE FOR YOU DIGNITY! I’M IN THE CASTLE OF SOME PRISSY PONY PRINCESS!” she yelled and jumped out of a nearby window.

“Hmm. I’ll follow her and make sure she won’t hurt herself,” said Olivia calmly and vanished.

Hunter was flying through Ponyville at suicidal speeds, taking almost impossible turns. She had already flown half across Ponyville when she was suddenly stopped by a solid object.

She hadn’t paid attention to the object, not because she was careless or because it was invisible, but because it was somebody else’s problem.

Hunter was now busy slowly sliding down the side of the object, after impacting it at high speed. Lucky for her, pegasi are quite durable and can take such impacts without much injuries.

After successfully sliding to the ground she tried to regain her bearings. Olivia appeared on her side, smiling.

“I see you have finally found it. Now, we don’t have much time now, would you kindly follow me into the library?” she asked.

Hunter complied, although still quite dizzy. “Hey, mum, you’re ‘n angel,” she slurred while walking towards the Ponyville Library.

After Tirek’s attack on Equestria, the library had been rebuild again. A quick scan using her magic, revealed to Olivia that it had been burned down twice. A few things were always constant, just like the library of Ponyville.

After they had both entered the library, Hunter had regained most of her senses, which lead to her asking the most obvious question.

“Sooo, wings, eh? What’s up with that?” she asked.

Olivia sighed. She had planned to hide this little fact for a while, until Hunter was ready. She was uncomfortable telling her, but since she herself couldn’t modify memories, there wasn’t much choice anymore.

“I’m an Angel.”

“Wut?” Hunter was surprised by the answer.

“Are you deaf? I said I’m an Angel. Immortal God. That stuff.”

“Last time I checked, Angels weren’t immortal gods.”

“Well, I’m not your everyday Angel either,” quipped Olivia while checking a watch she had summoned. “It is almost time.”

Hunter angled her head slightly, “Time for what?”

Olivia facepalmed, “I’ve been assigned to a moron. You are still dead. Kind of.”

“Aaand?”

“Time to cheat death,” Olivia smiled. She sat down on a nearby pillow on the ground and leaned back, “This will be interesting.”

For about half a minute the library was absolutely silent, as they waited for something to happen. The silence was interrupted by Hunter, “Woah.” Her eyes widened.

She looked down on her cyan colored hooves. A slight golden shimmer was surrounding them. Hunter looked up again, “So, I am a…” She didn’t complete the sentence but Olivia nodded.

The golden shimmer was slowly spreading upwards, covering more and more of her body. When it had finally covered her, the shimmer increased its intensity to an enormous level.

The explosion of light filled the whole room, some of it pouring out of it and blinding a few ponies outside the Golden Oaks Library. It remained lit for a few more seconds before it died down.

Alerted by the explosion, Twilight had finally managed to teleport into the library to investigate what had happened. She was almost certain that only Hunter could be the responsible. Her initial attempts to teleport were interrupted by a strange magical signature inside the library.

After she had fully rematerialised she scanned the whole room. Olivia was sitting on the couch and munching popcorn. In the middle of the room stood a rather dazed Unicorn. She had yellow and red hair. The hair was cut short and ruffled, giving her a slight tomboyish look. Her coat was yellow with a slight hint of orange. When she opened her eyes, Twilight could see that they were a bright red, like parts of her mane.

Ignoring the fact that she had never seen the unicorn she asked the more important question, “Where is Hunter?”

The Unicorn looked at her, as if she had said something wrong. Her voice was soft and deep, but at the same time demanding, “Hunter is currently not available. Please speak after the tone. Beeeep. Uhhh, scottish accent… Heeellooo… Test 1 2 3… Pancake…”

“I don’t have time for you shenanigans. Hunter might have hurt herself,” groaned Twilight. She didn’t have the nerves to deal with a psycho Unicorn right now.

“I don’t have the time either. Bye!” the Unicorn exclaimed. She changed her stance, as if she wanted to take off like a pegasus.

Not a second later she had tried to jump, which resulted in her crashing face-first into the floor. After a few groans the Unicorn looked at herself, “Well, atleast I beat him to the ginger part.”

She turned her head to Twilight, “If you ever tell anyone that I tried to fly without wings, I’m going to murder you, Twi.”

It was only then that the lavender Alicorn finally saw the Unicorn’s cutie mark.

“Hunter?”

“Who do you think I am, little miss sunshine?”

In the background, Olivia was rolling on the floor, laughing.