Friendship is herrrrreeeeeee!!!by Unlimited Harmony XtremeChaptersTo Catch A MonsterThe Dark Percursor ComethFourze Takes The StageA Quite Interlude’s BeginningThe Artifact’s Great SecretTo Catch A MonsterWow! Simply wow. When I posted the first chapter, I didn’t dare hope for the response that I got. I’d like to thank everyone for their positive feedback. Also, one more thing; I felt that the Gate Switch’s one time use was a serious design flaw (two episodes even revolved around this this out). I felt that if it worked like a key it would be far more useful Chapter 2: To Catch A Monster The city of Canterlot, the jewel (and capital) of Equestria. Truly it was a wonder of architecture, but that’s to be expected of the home of the rulers of all of Equestria; Princess Celestia and Luna. The eldest sister currently found herself in the throne room, waiting for a very important pony “I really hope this isn’t as bad as Twilight’s letter makes it seem” she murmured to herself. She was pulled from her musings by the door opening, inside walked the captain of the royal guard; Shining Armor Trotting up to the throne, he bowed before the regel mare “you summoned me princess?” Celestia nodded. Before speaking, she cast a sound proofing spell on the walls “I did Shining. I’m afraid that Equestria may be on the verge of another catastrophe” Jumping back up to his feet in surprise, Shining cried out “what!?” Celestia nodded “this letter explains the current situation” she told him as she handed the letter to him with magic Grabbing it with his own magic, Shining Armor quickly scanned through it, worry slowly growing inside him, but he was a royal guard, he could handle it…until he reached the end “Twilight sent this!?” his big brother instincts went into overdrive, he wanted nothing more than to run to Ponyvile to save her from this bizarre creature…but then his common sense kicked in and reminded him that there was no way he could run that far in a day “princess…why are you showing me this?” “I don’t want the public to find out about this. Not right away” she began “that’s why I can’t go to Ponyvile myself. However, a concerned big brother going to visit his injured sister shouldn’t draw much attention” Her message clear, Shining nodded in confirmation “understood princess, I’ll assemble a chariot” “That’s already been taken care of” Celestia told him “Blitzkrieg and Skywalker will transport you there and be your backup” “I take it they’re been briefed?” Celestia nodded “you are to report back to me via letter if you find yourselves overwhelmed. I don’t want you taking any unnecessary risks. Is that clear Shining Armor?” “Crystal you majesty” he confirmed “Then you are dismissed” she said, ending their meeting Shining Armor gave a quick salute before running to the hanger to meet his team ‘Twilight…please be ok’ The strange creature was running through the Everfree forest, sweat coating its body and lungs on fire. No destination in mind other than ‘away from the mutant talking horses’ “Just where the hell am I!?” The creature nearly yelled “I have never even seen this much plant life before in my life.” Then a thought occurred to the creature “wait…is this that Mars bio-engineering lab I heard about!? Did they build it already!?” shaking its head, it answered its own question “no way, that’s impossible. They said building it would take…” the creature froze in place, the implications of what it was about to say now clear “…how long was I in stasis?” the creature’s musings were interrupted by a strange growling “who’s there!?” it pivoted around, trying to find the source of the sound. It didn’t have to look long; out of the bushes in front of the creature leapt a manticore, teeth bared and looking quite terrifying “AHHHHHH!!! Mutant lion!!” the creature screamed in fear as it fled from the manticore “I take it back; there’s no way this can be the Mars bio-engineering lab, no one smart enough to get a job there would be stupid enough to make that!” Rainbow Dash was getting impatient, pacing around the library with her wings “what’s taking them so long!? It’s been an hour already!” the tomcolt speedster nearly screamed “Just be patient Dash. Travel between Canterlot and Ponyvile takes a while” Twilight said in an attempt to calm her down…it didn’t work “Yeah right! I could have gotten here in half the time it’s taking them!” She boasted “While pulling a chariot?” Twilight asked deadpan “…Ok, maybe not half the time” Dash reluctantly conceded “You know Dashie; if you’re really so board, we can play tic tac toe to pass the time” Pinkie offered her prismatic friend Dash sighed “yeah sure, whatever” “You girls try to keep busy, I’ll go check on Fluttershy” Twilight told them as she climbed up the stairs to her bed. Shaking under the covers was a frightened pegasus “Fluttershy?” the quivering mare jumped slightly in shock “are you feeling any better?” Her first attempt at an answer was little more than incoherent mumbling. When Twilight leaned in closer, she repeated it louder “I don’t know what that thing was” Twilight gave her friend a quick nuzzle to try and calm her down “it’s going to be alright Fluttershy. Remember the dragon?” “At least I know what a dragon can do to me. For all I know, that hairless ape could spit acid” Twilight cocked an eyebrow “’hairless ape’?” “It’s ears and hands were ape like” Fluttershy explained “Oh” was all Twilight said ‘leave it to Fluttershy to notice something like that’ However, a voice from downstairs cut off any further musing “Twilight! They’re here!” her pink friend cheered Startled out of her thoughtful state, she looked at her friend and said “I’ll be right back Fluttershy” before running downstairs and out the door with her other friends and Spike. There was only a single chariot; two pegasi pulling it with one unicorn riding “Took them long enough” Dash mumbled “Is it jus me, or does our backup seem tah be lacking?” Applejack asked, a bit skeptic about the numbers Twilight however, was thinking about something else; her eyes widened upon seeing the sole occupant of the chariot “Shining!? The princess sent Shining Armor!?” Leaping out of the vessel as soon as it touched the ground, Shining Armor ran to his little sister “Twilight!” pulling her into a nuzzle he said “when I read your letter, I was so worried you were hurt” Twilight pulled back, confusion visible in her eyes “what? I never said I was hurt in my letter” Shining sighed “ok…maybe I overreacted. Why wouldn’t I though? You know how much you mean to me” he finished with a warm tone Rarity, who had sneaked next to Twilight, nudged her friend’s side “Twilight, aren’t you going to introduce us to your coltfriend?” The white mare’s words were like an electric shock to violet unicorn “coltfriend!?” Shining simply chuckled “you never told your friends about me? Why Twily, I’m hurt” The two pegasus guards; Blitzkrieg and Skywalker, snickered Regaining her wits, Twilight properly introduced the stallion next to her “everypony, this is my brother Shining Armor” “Your brother!?” everypony gasped “Um…sir” one of the Pegasus guards began “I never knew you had a sister” Twilight gave her big brother a non-verbal ‘oh really’ via her big amethyst eyes. Seeing the glare from his little sister, Shining decided it was time to get down to business “Anyway; as I bet you all know, Princess Celestia sent us her to capture the monster you saw” “Wait” Dash stopped him right there “only you three!?” “Is that a problem?” Shining asked, his emotions hid behind his captain’s mask Dash scoffed “Uh, yeah! There are only three of you. For all we know, that thing-” “Hairless ape” Twilight interjected Applejack raised an eyebrow “…beg pardon sugercube?” “Fluttershy said it had hands and ears like an ape” Twilight explained There was a look of relief on Shining Armor’s face “so that just means that we’re dealing with some kind of super monkey?” “If Fluttershy thought it was just a super monkey, she wouldn’t still be curled up in my bed” Twilight finished, dashing her brother’s hopes of an easy mission “So much for this being easy” he mumbled under his breath. “Alright then, which way did it go?” “Into the Everfree forest” Twilight answered “I’ve heard about that place” One of the pegasus guards mentioned “They say that nature runs automatically there” “Oh but it does! And there are all sorts of dreadful beasts in there as well” Rarity added “That doesn’t change a whole lot” Shining said “the three of us still need to go in there and retrieve this…hairless ape” Pinkie Pie (who had been awfully quite up till now) “silly willy Twilight’s brother…there’s 9 of us, not 3” “8” Dash corrected “Fluttershy is still out of commission” “9” added Spike “I’m going with you” “8” Twilight said “no you’re not” “3” declared Shining “I’m not risk any of your live by bring you along” “But Shining!” Twilight complained “No buts Twilight. There’s no way I’m going to take my little sister into a place as dangerous as the Everfree forest” Shining said, putting his hoof down Twilight hung her head defeated “alright” Unable to leave his beloved little sister like this, Shining put a hoof on her back to comfort her “look Twily. I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to risk you getting hurt in there” “I’m a grown mare now Shining” Twilight countered “But you’re still my little sister. You’ll never grow out of that” he rebuked warmly. Her counter argument came in the form of a hug. After breaking it off, Shining said “I assume the Everfree forest was the forest we saw right next to Ponyvile from the air” Twilight nodded “Alright then, we’ll be back before you know it with a hairless ape” he boasted as he got back into the chariot. Quick as a lick the three guards took off back into the skies, heading towards the Everfree forest “Um, Twilight…your brother does know about all the times we’ve gone into the Everfree forest and how well we know it…right?” Dash asked. All Twilight did was facehoof The hairless ape stopped to catch its breath “ok…I think I lost it” slumping down to rest, the hairless ape contemplated what it had just gone through “what the hell was that thing? Some strange lion with bat wings and a scorpion tail……I really hope those things don’t work” wiping the sweat from its brow, the hairless ape rose to its feet “I need to keep moving. Who knows what those horses will do to me if they catch me. Hell, who knows what they’ll do to me if they know that I’m sentient” it mumbled to itself A sudden rustling nearby ended the musings of the hairless ape. Its muscles tensed up, preparing to run at the next sign of danger. It came in the form of a bolt of blue magic aimed at its face. Tumbling to the left, the hairless ape was able to dodge it. It scrambled to get to its feet to escape, but it was too slow Taking aim, Shining fired another bolt of magic at the hairless ape, this time it found its mark; its legs. The spell took effect immediately; first, everything below its knees became numb, which considering it was in the middle of running proved to be problematic “Gah!” with the loss of some pretty important motor functions, the hairless ape tripped and fell down on its face “Wah!” ignoring the pain on its face, the hairless ape began desperately crawling away. One of the pegasus guards flared up his wings to take off, but Shining stopped him “wait! Let the spell finish” the guard simply nodded and relaxed his wings. However, something was bothering Shining ‘this isn’t right; I used an instant sleep spell, and a powerful one at that. So why is it slowly spreading through its body?’ The hairless ape wasn’t in good shape; everything below its waste was now dead weight ‘this really sucks’ was the sole thought in its head. The spell began spreading faster running up its body to reach its shoulders and then its arms, leaving them inert ‘craaaap!’ the hairless ape mentally moaned. When the spell made it to the hairless ape’s neck, it slowed to a crawl, as if mocking it. However there still wasn’t much ground to cover, so it reached the hairless ape’s head rather quickly. With its brain now stewing in arcane energies, the hairless ape found it harder and harder to stay awake, its eyelids quickly gaining the weight of giant cement blocks, and pretty soon slumber took hold of it The 3 guards stood there watching the hairless ape for what felt like hours before one of the pegasi asked “is it done?” “That was way too easy” the other said Lifting a nearby branch, Shining moved it over to the sleeping form of their catch and poked it several times. When it made no response, Shining answered “yep. Now let’s get haul this thing back to-” but a sudden sound from the hairless ape halted the three of them “…Just five more minutes Alex…” A chilling fear gripped the stallions “um sir…did that thing just-” “-Talk?” Shining finished the other guard’s sentence “yeah” We never learn when or how Twilight’s friends find out about her brother (since in S2 EP25 they don’t seem surprised that she has one), so I thought to myself ‘why not have some fun with it’. Also, I don’t feel like Shining’s overreaction was out of place. If one of my loved one sent me a letter (or something) that basically said ‘I just saw an evil monster’ my first concern would be that they got hurt. Plus it makes sense to me for Shining to share just a little of Twilight’s crazy. As you can see; I’ve been really playing with the whole ‘fear of the unknown’ thing, everypony is so worried about the ‘hairless ape’ because they don’t know what it is. Also, I’m working with the theory that every royal guard wears armor that enchants them to look exactly the same…except for the captain. One last thing; I'd like to give a shout out to my new prereader: TheNumba1shadowfan, stay awesome man The Dark Percursor ComethTime for chapter 3. Just a heads up; this was originally 2 chapters that I put together because the old chapter 3 was so short (before the merge, it was called “The Jail Cell Interlude”). Also, because I’m a jerk, I’ll let you in on some behind the scenes secrets. Originally; the human’s name was going to be Alex…let the wild mass guessing begin Chapter 3 The Dark Precursor Cometh Out in the middle of nowhere, in a giant hole in the ground bigger than Canterlot castle, an archeologist named Dig Dug was busy expanding the hole. Not too long ago they had found a strange artifact that seemed to still work (despite its function remaining a mystery), which left them in high spirits and hopeful for more wonders. Dig was merrily chipping away at dirt with his pickaxe, when he heard a ‘clang’ sound “huh?” grabbing a nearby shovel and began chipping away the dirt, it only took a couple of scraps to get through to metal. Feeling a rush of excitement, Dig called out to the others “hey everypony! I found something. Grab some shovels and help me” quick as a wink, ponies began to gather around, shovels in mouth to dig out their latest find. It wasn’t long before they removed a good chunk of the dirt, revealing a large grey half oval surrounded by some ominous black metal. In the center; there was a dazzling golden gem, orbiting it were 12 strange symbols. It looked like most of it was still buried “This is amazing” One pony remarked “This site is the find of the century!” another cheered “History shall remember this day!” A rather overzealous one added “Anypony else think it looks like a door?” that question got the attention of the rest “You know…it kind of does” somepony agreed A hush fell over the ponies in the pit “anypony else get the feeling that we just unearthed something we really shouldn’t have?” before an answer was given however, the golden gem gave off a tremendous light that engulfed the entire pit The hairless ape sat on his bed; one made for a pony half his size. His room was a musty cobblestone cell, rectangular in shape with a metal door in the right corner on the other side, it had a sliding metal plate for a window. His hands were bound together with enchanted shackles and a magic collar around his neck. His fate was unknown, but he didn’t plan on fighting it ‘I have to be brave’ he repeated in his mind. Time had melted long ago to him (or had it only been a few minutes?); he couldn’t remember how long he had been sitting there, waiting. He sighed “dad was right; it really is the waiting that kills you.” Not long after he said that (or maybe it was) the door opened and inside walked the white male unicorn from before, still decked out in armor “so…what’s going to happen to me?” “I don’t know yet” Shining Armor answered “I take it that means you’re not here to take me to the gallows or dissect me?” “What!? No! Why would you think that?” Getting annoyed, the ape added a hint of venom to his next words “oh I don’t know; maybe it was how you captured me or perhaps that spazy purple unicorn yelling ‘ah! Monster!’ might have tipped me off!” “Hey! That’s my little sister you’re talking about!” Shining shot back The ape reeled back “oh.” He put on a sheepish smile “I just made everything awkward…didn’t I?” “Yeah, you kind of did” Shining replied The two of them sat in an uncomfortable silence before the ape broke it “so if you aren’t here to take me to my death, then why are you here?” “To talk” he answered simply “About what?” “Well…you, as far as any of us know, you’re the only one of your kind. I’ve never even heard of hairless ape before-” Shining was cut short “Human” then ‘human’ interrupted “Oh, um sorry” “It’s ok; humans do share 98.5% of their DNA with chimps. So I can understand the confusion” Shining raised an eyebrow “DNA?” “You know; deoxyribonucleic acid, our genetic blueprints” Seeing the blank expression on the stallion in front of him, he asked “how advanced is your genetics department?” “What’s genetics?” he answered The human rolled his eyes “well that answers that question” he mumbled. A few seconds later, he remembered something “Hey, can I ask you something?” “What is it?” “Where did you find the Gate Switch?” “The what?” “The little thing your sister and that pink horse-” “Pony” Shining corrected The human had to suppress a groan “wait…your species calls themselves…” remembering his situation, he wisely decided to move on “never mind. Anyway; since the gateway was open, that must mean that they entered the Rabbit Hutch using the Gate Switch” It took him a couple of second to remember what he was talking about “oh! You mean that little gold rectangular” he waved his hoof in the air, searching for the right word. Not finding it, he settled for “…thing with the triangle on top-” “Yes! That. Where did you find it?” “It was found inside a giant metal…box I guess, one big enough to fit dozens of ponies. It was very, very deep underground” “Were there others like it nearby?” He nodded “yeah, quite a lot. Come to think of it, we also found what looks to be animal remains…but I’d never seen an animal with a skeletal system like that. Not only that, but most of them were in horrible shape” His suspicions confirmed, the human let out a long sigh “They were humans” Shining’s eyes widened “Really!? Wait, how would you know? You haven’t seen them yet” “Because if they had the Gate Switch on them, then I know who they were; OSTO. They were responsible for developing weapons to combat the Zodiarts. Those metal boxes you found them in had to be Hover Tanks. The fact that you found them underground proves what I thought; I’m very far into the future” Being the soldier he was, the human’s comment about weapons development caught his attention “wait, you had to make special weapons just to fight them? Just who were these Zodiarts?” “Probably who wiped out the rest of my race, unless something else unexpected happened” the human answered with a shrug Now one thing to keep in mind about Equestria: the concept of war, and murder, is really little more than a scary story to its inhabitants, the last one having taken place 1000 years ago (and even then it’s debatable whether or not it counts). So it comes as no surprise that the concept of genocide, of mass murder, would have the effect it did “they wiped out an entire race!?” “Shocking right?” After a few seconds, the human corrected himself “well not an entire race, they did miss one after all” His brain still broken, the poor unicorn had trouble forming his next question “but, how…why?” was all he could muster “The Zodiarts saw us humans as mere insects; I think half of them just did it for laughs” “What kind of excuse is that!?” Shining exploded “Who could take a life for a flimsy reason like that?!” The humans response was a surprising one; laughter “What’s so funny?!” The human shook his head in what looked like a nonverbal ‘oh, you’ as he let out the rest of his laughs “you clearly have no idea what the human race was like” Shining, having been made cautions by the humans comment narrowed his eyes “what exactly are you saying?” “I’m saying that as a species, we never knew what we wanted to be. The biggest collection of saints and sinners you’ll ever see” all traces of humor left his face as he finished that last sentence “that’s probably why the Zodiarts were able to grow as fast as they did” Unable to come up with a smart reply, Shining could only say “I’m sorry for your loss” The human gave a small nod “thanks…um. I must admit, I’m a little shocked that me being able to talk isn’t surprising to you” “You talk in your sleep” was all Shining needed to say The human groaned “well that’s embarrassing” “While we’re on the subject; you seem to be taking this pretty well” Shining commented The human shrugged “let’s just say I got all the crazy out of me in that forest, and that sitting in here gave me ample time to calm down” and then it occurred to him; he didn’t know the pony’s name “I just realized something; we skipped the introductions” Shining froze for a few seconds before facehoofing “such an idiot” he muttered to himself while shaking his head “I’m Shining Armor” he said holding out a hoof Willing himself not to make any snide comments, the human took Shining’s hoof with his hand and shook “Carter Rhodes. Anyway, since we’re introducing ourselves, care to tell me who you are” “But I already told you-” “-Your name” interrupted Carter “which is great for calling you from across a room because ‘white male unicorn with blue mane and shield tattoo’ is pretty cumbersome in conversation. What you haven’t told me is what your rank is. The armor you’re wearing is a big enough give away that you’re in the military” Seeing no real harm in it (since it wasn’t a big secret to begin with), Shining told him “I’m captain of the royal guards” “…I noticed you said you were captain, not a captain does that mean you’re the head of the military or something?” “It does” Shining said simply Carter massaged his head like only a person with handcuff on could, that is to say; poorly “well now I know I’m screwed” “What do you mean?” “I mean if they sent in the highest authority in the military, then everyone else must be terrified of me. Which is how I know just how screwed I am” Ignoring his use of the word ‘everyone’ Shining said “Hey come on, it’s not that bad” in an attempt to cheer him up “Worst case scenario I get executed, best I simply get locked away in some dark room until I die” “That’s pretty pessimistic” “Where, or I guess ‘when’ would be more accurate, I’m from, that’s called being realistic” Shining was a bit taken back by that last comment “jeez, the past sounds horrible” Carter sighed “I pray you never find out how right you are” The land between settled areas was empty most of the time. However, sometimes you might come across a fellow traveler or two…this was one of the more awkward meetings. A strange red armored biped was strolling down the path, no real destination in mind, when it came across two arguing earth ponies “-well if we had just stopped and asked for directions-” the armored being caught the female saying “Mare, don’t you start with me!” the male complained ‘Talking horses?! Crap…what the hell happened to the earth?’ the armored being wondered “Hey, excuses me you two!” he, for that’s what his voice suggested, called out The earth pony couple stopped their argument, the male sighed “look, we’re kind of in the middle of an-” but the rest of his words died in his mouth when he saw who was talking to him “I know” the armored being said “and I’m really sorry to interrupt, but this will only take a few seconds” “Um…ok” he might have looked terrifying…but he was just so polite “Thanks. Could you point me in the direction of the capital?” The couple briefly stared at each other in confusion. Then the female turned back to face him “if you follow this road, you’ll get to Canterlot” “…Canterlot?” the armored being repeated slightly stunned, before breaking out into laughter “my god! What a wonderful pun” with that, the armored being went along his marry way towards Canterlot “I’m on a ‘quest for Canterlot’” for some reason, that seemed to reignite his laughter. Now left to their own devices, the earth pony couple gave each other a quick look before continuing along the path. Neither felt like picking up where they left off “So this is Canterlot huh? Not bad for a bunch of ponies. Shame I have to wreak the place” The strange armored being mused as he walked up to the capital of Equestria. “It’s just uncanny; this place looks just like a human city…a really, really old one, but a human city none the less. I wonder how they did it without hand” “Halt!” a voice above him called out. Looking up, the armored being saw 3 identical armored pegasi “who goes there!?” The armored being broke out into laughter “my god! Did you really just say ‘who goes there’!? Oh man, that is just so full of win!” Confused at his outburst, the pegaus in the middle answered “um…yes I did” The armored being let out a few more chuckles before speaking again “What time is it by the way?” “It’s…” the pegaus on the left checked the position of the sun “about noon” “Alright then, would you kindly inform your leader, and or leaders, that the 12 o’clock invader is here” the armored being said with a completely steady voice “…Uh…” the three pegasi were speechless. Getting his wits back, the middle one spoke “um sir, is this not your first language, because I don’t think you understand what an invader is” But the armored being shook his head “I know what I said; I’m here to destroy your capital, kill your leader, and or leaders, loot the place, etc.” Shocked out of their confusion by his words, the three pegasi entered a fighting stance; forelegs bent and their rears raised, like a hissing cat. The one on the right attacked first; drawing a sword hidden in his armor with his mouth. He flew above the armored being, only to dive down, sword lined up with his head. The blade connected with the head of the armored being and…*snap!* it broke in two. The half that snapped off cartwheeled in the air before landing, pointy end down, stuck in the ground right behind the unlucky attacker “…what…” the pegaus in the middle said dumbstruck The armored being threw its arms in the air and proclaimed “it’s good!” If the three guards were surprised before, they were just plain stunned now. “Hey, you guys want to see a magic trick?” none of them could bring themselves to move when the armored being walked up to the broken blade sticking out of the ground and picked it up. Balancing the flat part on the palm of its hand, it held its other hand above it, and with a strange word “abracadabra!” he crushed the blade. After rubbing his hands together for a few seconds, he separated them and metal dust flew into the wind “tada!” The middle guard was the first to regain his wits “hurry! Alert the princess!” He ordered his subordinates “I’ll hold him” The other two guards took off at once for the castle to warn the princess about the incoming attack The armored being lightly chuckled “you’re either really brave or really stupid…eh, who am I kidding? They’re the same thing” the armored being closed in on the last guard… Shining Armor had a lot on his mind. Aside from the normal cluster of worries that came with being the captain of the royal guard, he was also thinking about the human Carter ‘what happens now?’ “…Shining…” ‘He doesn’t look dangerous. In fact, he seems more scared than anything’ “Hello?” ‘The technology in that Rabbit Hutch place looked far beyond anything we’re capable of…just who were the human?’ “Are you feeling ok?” Then a thought came to him; being one of the few ponies who believed they existed, it seemed plausible to him ‘could...could it be possible that the humans are…the Precursors!? It certainly wouldn't be the first time an old foals tale ended up being true’ his musing were broken when he felt something wet touch his lips “wha?” now free from his self-induced trance, he saw that the wet thing that broke him out of it was Cadence’s lips. Suddenly remembering his date at the café, a sheepish grin wormed its way onto his face “sorry. I kind of spaced out there for a second” “Work?” she asked in that tender voice of hers He sighed “yeah” “Do you want to talk about it” He shook his head “I’m not allowed to” he replied, feeling guilty for having to keep this a secret from her Cadence, in her infinite wisdom, picked up on this “its ok. I’ll just ask aunt Celestia later” Once more being reminded why he fell in love with her, Shining leaned in to give her a chaste kiss “have I told you I love you today?” She giggled “you tell me so much I lost count” That roguish grin that made her breathless snuck onto his face “better safe than sorry” he gave her another kiss “I love you” She responded with a quick nuzzle “you make me feel like the luckiest mare in the world” Their conversation grinded to a halt when they heard the screams “what the!?” Shining got up from the ground turned to his fillyfriend “wait here” he ran out the café to the street, what he saw out there nearly made him trip in shock; a red armored monster with a club and shield. It was wading through a sea of royal guards. Quickly clearing them away with its weapon “Ha Ha!” the monster laughed “keep ‘em coming! I haven’t had this much fun in a long time” Snapping out of his shock, Shining Armor put on his captain face and ran towards the monster “halt!” “Hmm?” The monster glanced at him then chuckled “oh look; fresh meat” The rest of the injured guards backed off at the sight of their captain “My name is Shining Armor; I am captain of the royal guard. This is your last chance to turn yourself in” he managed to offer the monster one last chance to come in peacefully as per regulation The monster was silent, almost as if it was considering Shining’s offer…until he started laughing “my god! That was rich! A knight named Shining Armor; you can’t make this stuff up!” Thanks to his training, Shining was able to hide his annoyance “since you won’t come quietly, I’ve have to drag you to the dungeons myself!” despite his tone, he was happy the monster made the choice it did. It gave Shining the chance to pummel him for his troops. Shining channeled magic into his horn The monster tilted his head “hey um…unicorn guy; your horn’s glowing. Is it supposed to do that?” His answer came in the form of a magic beam aimed right at his head. The attack connected, but failed to do anything “what!?” The monster whistled, despite not being able to move its lips “nice shot. Looked like it would have hurt too, but it’ll take more than that to harm a Zodiart” While the name “Zodiart” didn’t mean much to most of the ponies there, Shining understood just what he meant ‘this is a Zodiart!?’ he suddenly remembered his early theory ‘if Carter really is a Precursor…does that mean that these Zodiart are the Dark Precursors?’ his confidence was now shot by the revelation “Aww, what’s wrong?” the Zodiart cooed “feeling a little scared after seeing your magic beam do absolutely nothing to me?” ‘Wait, what I am doing’ Shining admonished himself ‘I’m captain of the royal guard! I can’t back down just because I’m a little scared’ putting up a small (in size) shield spell, Shining charged at his opponent “Oh boy! This looks like fun” the Zodiart gushed. He altered his stance, standing sideways with his club held in both hands. When Shining was in striking distance, he swung “homerun!” the club tore through his shield like it was tissue paper and struck Shining right in the face, sending him flying into the side of the café “Shining!” Cadence ran out of the building to her coltfriend’s side “Shining, please. Speak to me. Say something” Before he got a chance to say anything, a bright light appeared in the middle of the impromptu battlefield. When it vanished, an angry Celestia was left in its place “how dare you walk into this city and start attacking my subjects” she fired a magic beam immediately after speaking, giving him no time to respond. However it had about the same effect as Shining’s The Zodiart laughed again “oh this is just wonderful! A pretty pony princess!” after getting most of that batch of laughs out of his system he continued with a quick chuckle “you know, it really is too bad I have to kill all of you. You guys are the most fun I’ve had in a long time” he sighed “but in all honesty; you guys don’t have the weapons to even scratch me” And that’s when Shining was hit with a burst of inspiration ‘weapons! Of course! Carter has to have something that could beat him in the Rabbit Hutch. I just need to bring him the Gate Switch’ Shining tried to get to his feet, only to find that the pain from his injuries kept him down Noticing her beloved’s pain, Cadence gently tried to get him back on the ground “please Shining. You’re too hurt to fight anymore. Just let aunt Celestia take care of this” Realizing he was in no shape to get to Carter, Shining decided that Cadence would have to go instead “Cadence, honey. I need you to listen to me” he pulled the Gate Switch out of his armor “you need to take this to the dungeon. Inside the cell farthest away from the entrance, there’s somepony who can help, he’ll need this. Tell him that a Zodiart is attacking. If the princess can’t win….then he’s our last hope” Cadence was confused “Shining, what are you-” Shining didn’t let her finish “Cadence we don’t have time. Please just trust me” he asked her in a desperate voice Cadence gave a hesitant nod and grabbed the Gate Switch with her magic. Then she took off for the dungeons As Cadence quietly traversed the dark and dank dungeons, a thought occurred to her; what if this ‘Carter’ didn’t really exist. What if it was just Shining’s last attempt to keep her safe ‘no’ she chided herself ‘I can’t think like that, I need to trust him’ When she got to the jail cell farthest away from the entrance she paused. ‘what kind of pony could we be keeping in here?’ worry started bubbling in her mind ‘if Shining thinks he’s strong enough to stop that monster…just what is he?’ she followed this train of thought for all of 6 seconds ‘no! I have to be brave. For Shining Armor’ mustering her courage she opened the door and ran in. What she saw was a strange ape like thing “wha….” The cell occupant turned his head before speaking “damn you’re adorable” If Cadence were to compile a list of things she least expected him to first say to her, that would certainly make the cut. Pushing his comment aside for the moment, Cadence asked him “um…are you Carter?” “You see any other humans around here recently?” was his reply “so…what can I do for you my pretty little pony?” Once again pushing aside his comment, Cadence relayed to him the current situation “Shining Armor is in trouble! He sent me here with this” she pulled the Gate Switch out of her mane with magic “he told me to tell you that he thinks a Zodiart is attacking” Carter froze, almost like time itself had stopped “…what…” Cadance removed his bindings with her magic “please! You have to help him” she began to tear up “If…if I lose him. I’m not sure what I’ll do!” Jumping up from his seat, he snatched the Gate Switch from Cadence; Carter grabbed her horn “let’s get out of this jail cell. Trust me, you do not want to be here in a few seconds” he said as he dragged her out If it wasn’t for the fact that Cadence understood that Carter most likely didn’t know what he was doing by grabbing her horn like that, she most likely would have blasted him ‘settle down Cadence. You can’t kill him just yet.’ Carter closed the door and let go of her horn. He then pointed the Gate Switch at the door, flicked it, and opened the door, only this time there was a strange white hallway behind it. Cadence’s eye’s shot open “Wha……” she muttered dumbly “I’ll be right back, feel free to come along if you want” Carter told her before running down the strange white hall. Snapping out of the shock, Cadence followed him “wait for me!” she broke out into a full gallop to catch up with the human. When she caught up, he was standing in front of a white wall Carter gave her an analyzing look “ready?” she nodded “ok, here we go” the human took a step towards the wall and… it opened up like a door “AHH!” Cadence jumped back in surprise “what was that!?” Carter replied with a simple “a door” after waiting for the mare to catch her breath, Carter walked inside “be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home” he chuckled “Um…Carter?” Cadence tested his name “where are we?” “My home: the Rabbit Hutch” he said as he made his way to the door across from where they entered Cadence paused “uh…” “I didn’t name it!” Carter shot out too quickly. He entered the door in the same way as the last one. Cadence followed him again. Inside was a chair and a table with odd machinery on it. Part of it glowed. Carter sat down in the chair and began pressing buttons “give me a minute” As she continued to scan look around the room, her eyes settled on a framed picture. In it was a human that looked a lot like Carter. He was holding a blue ribbon with a #1 on it. He was flanked by two other humans “is this you?” she asked Carter stopped pressing the buttons and glanced at the picture. He sighed “that’s……yes, that’s me. It was at a science fair. Those are my parents in there with me” not willing to waste anymore time, Carter resumed what he was doing before “bingo!” a circle shaped object hummed to life, and a strange crescent shaped item appeared above it suspended in mid air “Ah!” Cadence jumped back in surprise. She quickly caught her breath and took a good look at it: the item was small enough to fit on the human’s waist or neck by the look of it. Taking a closer look, Cadence noticed it had 4 smaller items on it, not unlike the one Carter used to open that otherworldly portal. Near each of the smaller items was a switch “what is that thing?” she asked, pointing at the crescent shaped thing “That’s what we came here to get; the Fourze Driver” “I just need to check something first…” Cadence however, didn’t want to wait “we need to hurry! Shining could be even more hurt” Carter huffed “well I’m not getting into a fight with a Zodiart without-” but something he saw on the glowing screen stopped him “yes!” he tapped a few more button and two more small items appeared on the circle object. He got up and pushed the Fourze Driver on his waist and a strap came out of seemingly nowhere to fasten it to him. On his right side, a weird looking lever had also appeared along with the strap. He grabbed the two new items and jogged to the door “ready. Let’s go” Things were looking bad for princess Celestia; not only was the captain of her royal guards out of commission, but she wasn’t faring much better against this monster herself. Her magic seemed to have no effect on it, and she had been pretty badly beaten up. As she lay on the ground, unable to keep fighting, a single thought crossed her mind ‘just what is this monster?’ The Zodiart rested its club on its shoulder “you know” it began “I never thought I could get tired of wailing of a pretty pony princess…but hey, I guess we all learned something new today” the Zodiart slowly made its way towards Celestia, humming a sinister tune that began slow, but picked up speed with time. The crowd that had gathered could do nothing but watch as the Zodiart moved in for the kill. Like the horde of defenseless ponies that had gathered, Shining Armor was also watching the events before him play out, only he was taking it differently ‘buck!’ he mentally exclaimed ‘the one time the princess really needs me, and I’m completely useless’. In one final desperate act, Shining gathered magic in his horn, trying to recast his shield spell to save his princess. However his injuries got the better of him again, the pain proved too strong for him, keeping him from focusing ‘buck!’ he exclaimed again ‘is there really nothing I can do but watch?’ Now within striking distance; the Zodiart held its club vertically, aligning it with Celestia’s neck “before I kill you, I just want you to know; that this is going to hurt you a lot more then it’s going to hurt me…really. I can only assume that bashing your neck in with a club is an extremely painful way to go, and since I won’t even feel it…yeah” he raised his club into the air slowly, when it was as high as he could lift it, he taunted Celestia one more time “well…I guess this is it. It’s gotta suck knowing you let down your entire species by losing to me. Now I get to wipe them all out.” The Zodiart tightened his grip on his weapon, but before he could deliver the finishing blow, he heard something he really didn’t see coming “ORION!!!” The Zodiart now known as Orion froze “…who just said my name?” A chill ran down Celestia’s spine ‘Orion…It couldn’t be, could it?’ she took another look at the strange pattern on Orion ‘…impossible’ was all her mind was able to conjure Orion and the horde of ponies turned towards the direction the voice came from, it was then that they saw Carter and Cadence “what!?” Orion jumped “how can there be any of you left?” “I could ask you the same thing” was Carter’s reply. Without skipping a beat, Carter flipped the switches on the front of the Fourze Driver, when all 4 were on, the Drive itself spoke “3” “2” “1” Immediately after ‘1’, Carter pulled the leaver on the side of the side of the Drive, and was engulfed in a white fog. When it dissipated, he was clad in a strange white armor. The helmet was an odd cone like shape, and his limbs each had bracer with a shape on it. Carter entered a fighting stance and uttered only 3 words; “meet Fourze motherfucker” I’ll be honest here; writing Shining Armor here was hard. I don’t feel like the two episodes we saw him in was enough to flesh out his personality, in fact we only really saw him interact with Twilight and Cadence, but I made do with what I had. I decided to try and sprinkle a little of Twilight into him. Disclaimer: no ponies were killed in the writing of this chapter…just a little serious maiming. Fourze Takes The StageThis chapter…oh boy. Wow this one was fun to write, more so than usual. I’m pretty confident that this is my best chapter so far (and not just because it’s the first fight). I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it Chapter 4: Fourze Takes The Stage “Mommy, mommy” a small colt cried out from the audience “it’s a Precursor. It looks just like the pictures in my book” “So it’s true…Carter really is the last Precursor” Shining marveled, seeing Fourze in all its glory “Wait. He’s what!?” one of the guards near Shining balked “What the hell are you doing!?” demanded a baffled Orion ‘That’s a good question; just what the hell am I doing! I just grabbed the Fourze Driver, some Switches and ran out here, why!?’ Fourze mentally chided himself. Gathering his wits and courage, Fourze gave the him his ultimatum “leave this place now Orion…or I ’ma whoop your ass” Orion took time to consider this, and came up with a clever, well thought out rebuttal “Buwa ha ha ha!!! Ok, ok. I got to hand it to you; that was pretty funny. Because you gave me the best laugh I’ve had in forever, and because we’re both kinsmen; I’ll let join me in my rampage” this caused a generic group gasp from the onlookers, which the two combatants ignored Fourze cocked his head to the side “who still uses the word ‘kinsmen’?” he mused. Suddenly realizing the implications of what he just said Fourze shot up and replied with “hey! The two of us are nothing alike! You monsters have taken countless innocent lives.” Orion sighed “so you’re goanna be like that huh? It’s too bad really; we could have had a blast wrecking this place. It all looks so…” despite the fact that Orion had no facial control, his expression and voice seemed extremely menacing with his next word “breakable” A chill ran down Fourze’s spine “I’d rather die than join the demons that took everything from me! You monsters killed my family!” “I’ll take it you’re not going to accept my offer?” Orion checked “What the?” Fourze’s shook a little in disbelief “no I’m not going to join you! How thick are you!?” Orion cupped his chin with the hand that held his shield “well I do have a lot of armor plating…” One of the knights by Shining Armor’s side turned to his downed captain and asked “um…sir is this how Precursors and Dark Precursors fight?” Instead of answering back immediately, Shining Armor, who Cadence was trying her best to heal, found that he actually had to think about it “you know; I’m not sure” “That’s not what I meant!” Fourze raged “Now you’re just messing with me” “Whatever would make you think that?” Orion asked with any annoyingly sarcastic voice “That! What’re you’re doing right now” “Get on with it!” some random pony, a female, from the audience yelled “What!?” Fourze balked. Turning to the direction the voice came from he said “I’m fighting to keep this guy from killing…whoever that is” he pointed at Celestia “and destroying this city. And you have the gall to tell me to ‘get on with it’!?” “Yes” the same voice answered “Oh screw you random audience pony!” Fourze yelled in frustration Meanwhile, Orion was laughing it up “oh man! This is rich!” “Stop laughing!” Fourze demanded “This is supposed to be a dramatic moment!” “Oh really?. I couldn’t tell” Orion said, jovial as always Fed up, Fourze finally said “alright screw this!” forgoing what little banter there may have been left to go through, Fourze charged at Orion. Orion held his arms out, as if to say ‘come at me bro!’ Reaching Orion, Fourze hit him square in the chest with the hardest punch he could muster “take this you monster!” Fourze cried out as he hit him. The ‘smack’ sound that came from the blow seemed to send out a wave of silence; everyone stood right where they were, frozen, until Fourze broke the silence “AHHHHHH!” quickly pulling back his hand he tightly gripped it with his other one and began shaking it Orion broke out into laughter again “this…this is just amazing! I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun before” “Why YOU” Fourze cried indignantly before kicking him just as hard as he punched him. The kick sent a second wave of silence, only this one was over rather quickly “AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Fourze pulled his foot back and started hopping on his good one “that was so stupid, why did I do that!?” After a few seconds of laughing at Fourze, Orion spoke up “yeah, my armor is pretty hard, but you know what’s even harder?” If anyone could see his face, they would have noticed Fourze giving Orion a blank stare “dude I swear, if you say your di-” but a smack to the head from Orion’s club stopped him mid-sentence, one that sent him flying into a nearby water fountain “My club” he answered “and really man, there’s kids here” ‘This is really bad’ Fourze lamented ‘I thought the Fourze Driver would give me a fighting chance, but I can’t even scratch him’ Then it hit him ‘duh! The Switches! Wow do I feel dumb’ picking himself up, Fourze prepared to charge back into the fight “ok, let’s try this one” he switched on Rocket. When he did, a computerized voice announced “ROCKET ON!” and the Rocket Module appeared on his right hand; it was an orange rocket about the size of one of his legs, his hand and wrist were stuck in the middle. Examining it, Fourze turned it over so it was pointing forward, to get a good look at the engines “huh, neat. Now how do I-” but the Rocket Module suddenly roaring to life put an end to his question “AHHHHH!” it took off fast, and dragged Fourze with it, straight towards Orion “Oh this is goanna suck” complained Orion right before the out of control Fourze hit him. The impact not only made him lose his grip on his club and shield, but got him tangled up with Fourze; they were both spinning now, kept together with centrifugal force. His attempts to get free only succeeded in altering their trajectory; the two of them were now spiraling up to the sky very slowly. Back on the ground, Shining Armor noticed Orion’s weapons lying on the ground “quick! Somepony get rid of that club and shield” two nearby unicorn guards did just that; picking both weapons up with telekinesis and hiding them on a nearby roof. Satisfied with that, Shining lifted his head back up “come on Carter, you can do this” he murmured to himself Just then a familiar voice boomed from the direction of the castle “sister!” the princess of the night arrived on the scene, rushing to her elder sister’s side “Luna” Celestia said her sister’s name with a weighty breath “Sister! Are thou…are you ok?” “I…just need to rest” she replied, still breathing heavily The sight of her powerful sister beaten instilled a strange sense of rage and foreboding in Luna “who, or what hath done this to you?” she asked straining to keep a calm voice “Luna…they’re real” was all she said “What!? Who is real!?” “The Precursors and the Dark Precursors” “Sister…surly you must be joking! They are but old foal’s tales from long before our birth” “Well Luna, that means I got defeated by an old foal’s tale” “But sister-” “The monster that did this to me bore the markings of Orion’s belt Luna. I wasn’t sure at first, but when the Precursor started calling it ‘Orion’ then there was no doubt left in my mind. The stories tell of an evil race that was marked by stars, what else could it mean?” While Luna was processing what her sister told her, something jumped up at her “wait! You said there was a Precursor here as well! I take it the two are locked in mortal combat somewhere in the city” her voice sounded both excited and panicked at the same time. Celestia’s response was simply to look up at the sky, Luna followed suit, mentally preparing herself for what was sure to be the most awe inspiring thing she had ever seen in her life. What she saw however, was what looked like something flying around in a circle. “…I find this quite underwhelming sister” “Trust me; it was very humorous before they took to the sky. It’s really a shame you had to miss it” “It is indeed, I wish that I had been awoken earlier” Luna lamented Back up in the sky, Orion and Fourze were halfway between the ground and the cloud barrier and were engaging in polite and intelligent conversation “what the hell are you doing!?” Orion finally demanded, now more than sick and tired of being dragged in a loop “I don’t know!” Fourze replied, voice filed with panic “Then stop it!” “I don’t know how!” “Well find a way to!” Orion bellowed as he started twisting Fourze’s right arm making them fly around sporadically. Unfortunately for both of them, during this Orion yanked it down, so now the Rocket Module was pointing straight at the ground, sending them both into a nose dive Legend has it, that one that day, the screams of sheer terror the two of them let out reached as far as the griffin kingdom. “You moron!!! Look what you just did!” Fourze yelled, absolutely lived “Pull up! Pull up!! Pull up!!!” Orion stammered “I’m trying!” “Well try harder!” Struggling to get control, Fourze began jerking his arm around. He managed to adjust their trajectory at the last second, and they barely skimmed over a blue unicorn mare with a very light blue and white mane “hey! Watch it!” Fourze tensed up “you!” he yelled, remembering her voice “I’ll be back for you random audience pony! I’ll remember your face…” he managed to yell before flying out of earshot Were he able too, Orion would have most likely hurled by this point “getting dizzy!” “Ok, screw this!” Fourze switched Rocket off. The Rocket Module disappeared and the two of them began to slow down. Once they reached the peak of their accent they came apart, no longer held together by extreme G’s As gravity kicked in and dragged them back to earth, Orion vocalized his displeasure “you fool! Now we’ll both plummet to our death! Are these horses really worth giving your life to protect!? This isn’t even stopping us; we will return here and wipe them all out!” Fourze’s response was simply “you done?” Orion nodded “good” Fourze switch Rocket back on “ROCKET ON!” and flew down to the ground “…oh yeah, I forgot all about that.” Orion plummeted to the ground, landing face first on the ground, leaving a crater. When Fourze was just a few feet above the ground, he switched Rocket off. He landed on his feet, but stumbled and nearly fell down “really need to practice with that” he mused. Taking a look at Orion, Fourze saw that he was struggling to get back up. Which was mostly due to his dizzy state “now’s my chance!” Fourze switch the switch next to Rocket on “LANUCHER ON!” the Launcher Module appeared on Fourze’s right leg. It was a single blue greave with 5 slots for projectiles on the right side of it “time to-” but before he could finish his sentence, something occurred to him “oh crap. I can’t blind fire with this many civilians around. What was I thinking!?” Orion was now on his knees, still struggling to get up thanks to his injuries. “Carter!” Shining called out “he’s getting back up. Hurry up and do something!” “Yeah, yeah, hold your horses” Fourze briefly chuckled at his private joke before switching on the switch opposite of Rocket “RADAR ON!” the Radar Module, a dish connected to a glowing screen much like the one in the Rabbit Hutch, appeared on his left arm. He pointed it at Orion, and after a few seconds it started beeping “target lock! Fire” the five projectiles in the Launcher Module shot straight at Orion. Each hitting him dead on and exploding on impact “AHHHH!!!” Orion cried out in pain as the explosions knocked him back into a building. “That’s it!” he bellowed “I’ve had enough of this!” he easily got back to his feet from his position, imbedded in a wall “prepare to die!” With a loud war cry, Orion charged at Fourze “Awwww, is someone cranky?” Fourze mockingly cooed. He switched off Launcher and Radar and replaced them with the other two switches “Chainsaw! Parachute!” he switched Chainsaw on “CHAINSAW ON!” like Launcher, the Chainsaw Module was blue. Unlike it however, The Chainsaw Module had a…well…chainsaw on it. The chainsaw pointed up, parallel to his leg. Armed and ready, he charged to meet Orion Orion threw a punch at Fourze’s face which he caught, as well as the second punch. Now locked in a stalemate, Orion could only mock him “you fool! Do you honestly think you can defeat me!?” Fourze sighed “geez. Did I knock something loose in your brain when I hit you with Launcher, or are you just this bad at being original and witty when mad?” The Chainsaw Module came to life. The blade spinning as it lowered itself onto Orion’s leg “AHHHH!!!” Orion cried out in pain for the second time today. He broke off from Fourze, not wanting his leg cut off “what the hell was that!?” “You know?” Fourze began “I always used to wonder why my dad thought it was a good idea to make Chainsaw a leg switch. Now that I’ve gotten to use it in battle…I can see why” “I’ve had enough of this!!!” Orion bellowed “You already said that” Fourze remarked His comment made Orion make a noise that sounded bot angry and hurt “that’s it! I’m going to slaughter everyone here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Orion started yelling Fourze scoffed “this isn’t Dragon Ball Z bub” his mocking was cut short when he saw Orion begin to glow a sickly golden color “shit! That doesn’t look good! I need to get him out of the city” he switched Rocket on “ROCKET ON!” and took off flying to Orion. This time he knew what he was doing. He grabbed Orion and readjusted the Rocket Module to send them up. After they had risen above the nearby mountain, Fourze let go “let’s try this one” He switch on the switch between Chainsaw and Parachute “DRILL ON!” The Drill Module manifested itself as a yellow drill on his left foot “wait a minute…” he gave a quick glance at the Rocket Module, and then the Drill Module “oh ha ha, very funny dad. Honestly, I would expect something more creative from him the a rocket powered drill kick” Orion raged from his position in the air below Fourze “you’ll never beat-” “Oh will you just shut up” Fourze screamed as he pulled the leaver on the side “Limit Break!” with the Drill Module spinning at high speeds, the Rocket Module shot him down to Orion, tearing right through him in a massive explosion The crowd below witnessed in horror as Fourze was engulfed by the flames “no” Shining lamented, as he tried to hold back his tears “Mommy” the young colt from before nudged his mother’s leg “is the Precursor going to be alright?” Not knowing how to answer her son, the mother just stayed quiet The solemn silence was broken by a familiar voice “PARACHUTE ON!” out of the dissipating cloud of Debris fell Fourze, the Parachute Module’s 3 parachutes slowing his decent. The assembled ponies exploded in cheers. “He survived…he survived!” Shining cried out "Wow! As Fourze touched down on the ground, he was swarmed by many little colts and fillies “whoa! Personal space.” “Wow! A real live Precursor! I told you they were real mommy, I told you!” one of the fillies bragged “Hold on a second. What’s a Precursor?” Fourze asked Shining now healed enough to walk, got to his hoof and trotted to Fourze “the Precursors are a mythical race that existed long before recorded history. Legend has it that one of them, The First Mother, was the one to give us language. It’s said that they had technology far beyond our capabilities and that they were wiped out by the evil Dark Precursors” Fourze shrugged “eh. That does kind of sound like my species; don’t know what to make of ‘The First Mother’ though. And I know that I’m in the future. So…yeah, it sounds like I’m what you call a Precursor” a gasp ran through the crowed ‘got to hand it to these ponies, they sure are synchronized’ “What do you mean you sound like a Precursor?” the colt from earlier asked Fourze knelt down and ruffled his mane a bit “well little guy, we didn’t call ourselves Precursors. That would sound a little weird” Because of her sister’s injuries, Luna took it upon herself to greet the newcomer in the name of Equestria “Greetings noble Precursor” while she managed to hide it well, she was extremely nervous. There was no standard procedure for dealing with lone surviving members of an elder race. So she was just going to have to play it by ear “Hey, what’s-” he froze upon seeing Luna Worried she had somehow offended him, Luna asked “have I said something to-” but Fourze interrupted her “Oh my god!” he exclaimed much to the shook of everyone around “you are so adorable!” Celestia let out a quick laugh. A very light blush appeared on Luna’s face “…did you just call me adorable?” she couldn’t remember the last time someone had referred to her like that “I could just hug you right now. But I don’t want to invade your personal space” he continued Most of the crowd didn’t know how to react. Shining however did; a simple facehoof conveyed his current feeling quite well. Treading carefully, Luna wisely changed the subject “yes well…thank you. I believe there are things we need to discuss” Fourze let out an amused breath “yeah I bet we do.” A team of medics finally made it to the scene, they had with them a stretcher and several first aid kits “those your medics? They sure took their sweet time getting here” “Yes, I suppose they did” Luna made a mental note make sure she and the medics were alerted soon the next time something like this happened. She addressed the head medic “attend to my sister” the medics lifted the princess of the sun onto the stretcher and carted her off “I believe it would be best to wait until my sister recover” “Fine with me” Fourze answered “what should I do until then?” “I can take you to the guard barracks to wait” Shining offered “Fine with me” he replied “that cool with you?” he asked Luna “Yes. That is quite… ‘cool’” she answered Fourze turned back to Shining “alright then, lead the way” Well, that the first battle, tell me what you think. For the most part, the Zodiart fights and switch debuts will happen in the same order as the original. Also, about the first line of dialog this chapter; there are books with stories about the Precursors in Equestria. They include very crude pictures of them. A Quite Interlude’s BeginningBad news guy, school work is piling up for me. That means that this is the last update for a while. But don’t worry; I will get back to this Chapter 5: A Quite Interlude’s Beginning Carter, having turned off the Fourze Driver a while ago, was lounging in the captain’s quarters with Shining Armor and Cadence “I didn’t mean it like that” he moaned, pushing his face into the book he was reading. The small room was well furnished. Aside from the book shelve; there was a small couch that Cadence was lying down on. The floor was covered by a red rug. Shining Armor was sitting behind his deck, directly across from the door “Well how did you mean it?” Shining asked, a little peeved “You ponies look like talking animals to me” he defended “What!?” Cadence balked “Before I was cryogenically frozen, there was a species of animal on the earth called horses. You ponies are likely descended from them” Carter explained “so when I called the princess adorable, I meant she was adorable in the same way that a cat or bunny is. Though I have to admit; you look pretty huggable too Shining” he finished with a smirk Shining backed up as fast as he could, though since his desk as already at the end of the room, he couldn’t go far, he simply bumped into his window “you stay away from me!” Carter got up and held out his arms “aww, come on big guy. Want me to brush your mane? I could put pretty, pretty ribbons in it. You’ll look so beautiful” he cooed Fear swept over Shining’s face. Cadence on the other hand was in a laughing fit “I have some old accessories we could use” she offered “Why are you encouraging him!?” Shining panicked “But Shining, don’t you want to be pretty for your lady?” It had been a long time since anyone had mercilessly teased Shining like this. As such, he was not prepared “My lady!? But, how-” “Did I know?” Carter finished “I really hope for your sakes this isn’t some big secret, because anyone with eyes can see it. Those quick looks you share, the blushing, the kiss you snuck in when you thought I was out of earshot” that one added a hint of red to their faces “and then there was Madam Sherbet begging me to save your life. I believe your words were ‘If…if I lose him. I’m not sure what I’ll do!’” “Madam Sherbet?” Cadence repeated confused “Your hair reminds me of sherbet. That reminds me; what kind of sweets do you have here? I need me some sugar” Grabbing a paper bag from his desk with magic, he levitated it over to Carter “well, you can try some doughnuts-” Carter yanked the bag out of the air “my god! It can’t be…” he pulled out the contents of the bag “…it is. You ponies have doughnuts!!” he began scarfing the surgery dough down “You know what a doughnut is!?” Cadence asked surprised “Yeah, we had them back in my day” he let out a wistful sigh “too bad dad never figured out how to replicate them” “Um, ‘replicate’?” questioned Shining “Oh, yeah” Carter lightly bonked himself on the head “forgot to tell you about my dietary needs” but before Carter could tell them the door opened and Luna entered “Oh hey. Where’s your sister, I thought we were waiting for here to get better?” “My sister does not want us to wait for her to regain her health” despite her regal statue, she seemed nervous “I must confess, I have not conversed with a member of an elder race before. I am not sure how to proceed” Carter shrugged “Eh, don’t worry about it; we’re all in new territory here. I’m not used to speaking with talking animals” Luna raised an eyebrow and looked to Shining, hoping he could explain. He caught her gaze and understood what she wanted “apparently when the Precursors, or ‘humans’ as they called themselves, were the dominate species, there was a race of animals called horse which Carter here believes are our ancestors” Luna nodded at him. Now finally understanding what Carter meant when he called her adorable “’Carter’ was it?” she tested the foreign name on her tongue, she was rewarded when the human nodded his head in conformation “would you care to explain just what these Dark Precursors truly are?” Carter nodded again “they’re called the Zodiarts. Each one is based on one of the 88 constellations” “88!? There are 88 of them!?” Cadence panicked “Well…” Carter started nervously “more like 100” “100!?” she nearly fainted Carter nodded yet again “the strongest 12 Zodiarts are called the Horoscopes, each one being based off of a constellation in the zodiac” then Carter realized something “oh wait, I doubt all the same stars are still around. You probably don’t know which constellations I’m talking about” “Dorado, Andromeda, Coma, Sextans Pavo” Luna listed off a few of them “…ok wow. How do you know about those?” Carter was baffled “A very long time ago, I acquired some very old Pre…human star charts. I thought that they looked quite beautiful, so I decided to paint them in the sky each night. Of course I was unaware that they had been made by humans at the time” “…‘Paint them in the sky’…is that some kind of metaphor or something?” “It is not” Luna answered “It seems I may have neglected to inform you of my status as princess of the night” “…The what?” Carter flatly asked “The princess of the night” she repeated “it is my duty to raise the moon each night and set it each morning, I am also in charge of the stars” “Yeah…I’m going to call bull shit here” Carter deadpanned Luna blinked “forgive me, but I am unaware what it means to ‘call bull shit’” “It means I don’t believe you” Luna’s eyes widened “let’s ignore for now your claim that you’re moving a giant rock in space more than capable of moving round the earth on its own. Your claim that you control the stars is the one that really bugs me” Though she felt offended, Luna still made a great effort to keep her emotions in check “and pray tell, why does it ‘bug’ you so much” “Because I doubt anything in the universe could control that many suns” was Carter’s answer Luna’s head reeled back in surprise “suns? I had thought we were talking about stars” “Stars are really just very far away suns” Carter explained. Although reeling from another revelation, Luna didn’t say anything. She knew that if she interrupted every time Carter said something surprising, that they were going to be here a while. “And honestly; controlling celestial bodies” Carter disapprovingly shook his head “what are you going to tell me next? You ponies also control the weather? Do you just drag clouds where ever you want and make them rain? Maybe you also need to change the seasons too” As rude as his words were, they gave Luna a much better understanding of his situation “there is something I must show you” She effortlessly lifted Shining and his desk up with magic, much to his surprise, and led Carter to the window. When he looked outside, he saw several pegasi were dragging around black clouds up to an even bigger black cloud that loomed over the city. A few seconds later, the giant cloud released its payload Maintaining a neutral expression and voice, Carter turned towards Luna and asked “the fuck did I just see?” “The Canterlot weather team” Luna answered As much as he wanted to flip out, Carter still had yet to recharge his crazy reserves, so he settled for a sigh “great…the earth’s gone completely manual” “Now do you believe in my connection to the moon?” Luna asked “Does your ‘connection’ to the moon allow you to sense its position and stuff?” Luna simply nodded “then I know a way to find out if you’re really telling the truth” Carter pulled the Gate Switch out of one of his pockets and used it on the door “let’s go.” The three ponies followed him through the gate, and into the Rabbit Hutch Upon stepping inside, Luna was overcome with a strange sensation “does…does nopony else feel that?” “Feel what princess?” Shining asked Luna took a minute to think of how to describe it “It…it reminds me of the sensation I felt of being sealed in the moon” The three ponies looked at Carter “look, I’m all crazed out. I’ll complain about the possibility of being sealed in a giant space rock later” “No. Why would the princess be feeling this way” Shining clarified “Oh. That” Carter walked over to the terminal and pressed a button “let me show you” a line of panels opened up near the roof an all sides, reveling to the ponies the window, and outside “What the!?” Shining gazed out into the inky blackness, the stars seemed oddly placed “but its daytime, why is it so dark outside?” Cadence was the first to spot a strange object outside “what is that!?” her hoof pointed to a mostly blue sphere amidst the darkness Now thoroughly confused, Luna turned to the smirking Carter “where have you taken us?” Instead of a straight answer, Carter asked a question “where’s the moon?” Luna internally panicked “I…I cannot sense it. This strange feeling is hiding it from me” Carter sighed “well princess, you’ve convinced me” “Convinced thee of what?” “Your connection to the moon” “I have?” Luna asked confused “how was I able to do so?” Carter sat down in a chair and put his feet up on the table “because I know what that strange sensation your feeling is, and why you can’t feel the moon anymore…ok maybe not ‘know’ but I have a really good idea why” He got up and pushed a few buttons on the terminal and a drum roll started, after a brief silence he answered them “We…are on the moon” Luna answered with a flat “what” Cadence’s eyes bugged out “the…the moon!? How is the even possible!?” “Cosmic Energy” was Carter’s answer “its discovery was a complete accident, but it was the biggest scientific breakthrough in human history” Carter sat back down in his chair “since the very beginning, my dad was the biggest expert in Cosmic Energy” he shook his head wistfully “it was a science so new, we didn’t even have a name for it. But dad just got it somehow. He used it to make this place; the Rabbit Hutch, the Fourze Driver, and the Astro Switches” he got back on his feet “but enough about that. Who wants to go outside?” Despite her connection to it, Luna had never walked on the moon before. It was an amazing feeling. “This view…breathtaking” she awed as she watched the Earth from behind the visor of her space suit “Cool, isn’t it?” Fourze beamed “I always loved playing out on the moon. It’s just so peaceful up here. Made me forget about the war on Earth” “To not only be able to reach to moon, but to build space suits that could fit any species…truly the time of humans must have been magical” Luna gushed “even if these ‘sensor’ things that made my suit are itchy” Fourze gave a small shrug “eh, it wasn’t so hot. There were a lot of bad people back then, and I mean really bad. Not only that, but there was too much pollution too. I’m a little surprised the planet managed to recover” Fourze folded his arms and shook his head “maybe it’s a good thing we got wiped out, we would have destroyed the earth sooner or later otherwise” “Do you really have such little faith in thy fellow humans?” Luna asked with a sad look in her eyes “Well we did have weapons that could do the deed. Everyone was just too afraid to use them for fear of retaliation” “Why would such weapons need to be made?” Luna asked with a twinge of fear in her voice Fourze sat down and sighed “look Luna, I’m going to be honest with you; humans weren’t a very peaceful race, we weren’t complete bastards, but we were still pretty bad. There’re a lot of wars in our history, each one waged for some stupid self-righteous. So many live have been pointlessly lost” Fourze lamented “those weapons I was talking about, they’re called nuclear weapons. They’ve been around almost a century…and they’ve only been used twice, in the same war” “Only twice?” she echoed in a question “That’s how afraid of them we were. Once mankind saw the destruction they could cause…well…it scared a lot of people” “Then why keep building them? Why not make an accord to ban them?” “Because we couldn’t trust each other” Fourze shook his head “humanity has never been fully united for anything. Not even when the Zodiarts began their attack. We were still kept apart by old grudges and other such stuff. We might have been less biologically diverse then you ponies, but there were still plenty of things to keep us divided. We didn’t have two immortal rulers to guide us. We were on our own” “Truly the past sounds like a most horrible place” Luna commented Behind his helmet, an amused smile appeared on his face “funny, that’s the same thing Shining said” he got up and turned around to watch Shining and Cadence frolic on the moon. However, their carefree attitude only served to make him more depressed “it’s really too bad that you’ll soon find out just how right you are” I figured that a princess that had to fight Discord, and the captain of the royal guard would be able to handle the crazy better than a civilian. I hope that Cadence was able to convey that. Also, did anyone notice anything strange in this chapter? The Artifact’s Great SecretHello everybody, this is my first attempt at a MLP: FIM fic. I had lots of ideas for my first dive into bronydom (this fic itself can be considered a much lighter and softer version of another fic I was planning to do). This is not going to be your typical HiE story, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. Also, quick heads up; this takes place long before A Canterlot Wedding. So without further ado, I present to you: Friendship is herrrrreeeeeee!!! Chapter 1: The Artifact’s Great Secret Twilight Sparkle was one of the brightest unicorns in Equestria, having been taught by princess Celestia herself. She was a straight A student, could pick up on complicated concepts that most ponies never understood with ease, and to top it all off; she had the raw magic power of a baby alicorn. So why was this one artifact giving her so much trouble!? “Nothing, nothing, nothing!” Twilight screamed into the night from her lab in the basement if her library tree home. The mare shot daggers at the small object setting before her, how it dare mock her! What with its gold color, rectangular prism shape, small triangle on top connected by a smaller pole, with an out of place plate of black plastic on what she assumed to be its front “I’ve ran every test I can think of, and still nothing!” Unable to sleep, her baby dragon assistant Spike, opted to watch “I’m telling you Twi; there’s a reason why you can push that little triangle” he commented Twilight applied a small amount of pressure to the triangle and it tilted to the front of the artifact accompanied by a click and a light shining from the front “I know that Spike, but it doesn’t seem to do anything” she took her hoof back and the triangle shifted back. Twilight sighed “I just have to figure out the secret behind this thing, the princess is counting on me. I’m even starting to think that this thing is merely a small illumination device” Spike simply rolled his eyes, wisely opting to not say anything about that. A yawn reminded him of something rather important “look, it’s late. You need to get some sleep. We both do. What if you fell asleep early during the slumber party tomorrow?” Twilight’s body slumped and her eyes closed “I guess you’re right Spike. I just really don’t want to let the princess down. She rarely asks anything of me” leaving the strange object on a table, she slowly walked up out of the lab and to her room with Spike close behind It was a typical day in Ponyvile; the sun was shining, the weather was beautiful, nature itself just seemed happy in general. Inside a familiar tree, a baby dragon was sitting down on the staircase while rereading a letter “‘-so I’m sending it to you to see if you can find out what it is. Princess Celestia’” he put it down with a sigh “that’s what I thought; Twilight is just over reacting again. This letter doesn’t seem urgent. She really needs to learn how to chill out” His musings were cut short by a call from upstairs “Spiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike! Have you seen my checklist for today!?” “You put it under your bed so you wouldn’t forget it!” he replied He waited a few seconds for her reply “found it, thanks” Spike started making his way towards the kitchen to make breakfast “geez” he started mumbling “she’s a grown mare; I shouldn’t have to remember where everything is” When he got to the kitchen he was greeted by a familiar and somewhat unwelcome sight “hi Spike” a pink earth pony that had more energy than should be physically possible greeted him “AHHHH!” he yelped in surprise, jumping up and falling on his butt “Pinkie Pie! What are you doing here!?” Pinkie giggled, the sound seemed to ooze sugar “silly Spike, I’m here for the party” no longer able to stand still, she began bouncing in place “I’m just so excited!” The sudden sound of hoof steps alerted Spike to Twilight’s presence “Spike! What happened!?” The second she entered the kitchen and saw Pinkie, her expression changed from worry to relief “oh Pinkie, it’s just you. For a minute there, I was worried something awful happened” Suddenly the fact that Pinkie Pie was in her house hit her “wait. What are you doing here Pinkie?” Pinkie let out another giggle “oh Twilight you silly willy filly. I’m here for the party. It funny, Spike had to ask me that too” “Um Pinkie, we’re having a slumber party. You know, a night party” Twilight explained “Well duh” Pinkie exclaimed getting too close to Twilight’s face “that’s why I’m here; to help set up. I brought streamer” she made a little hop and confetti flew out of her mane “woops, that was the confetti” Not wanting to hurt her feeling, Twilight put on an uneasy smile and said “Pinkie, I’m pretty sure that slumber parties don’t have decorations” immediately after saying that, she remembered he own inexperience “…or do they?” she took off in search of a book to give her the information she needed “Well that’s just great” Spike huffed “Twilight’s goanna be busy for a while” Pinkie however didn’t seem fazed by this in the least “That’s ok. I can get started without her” she pulled out her party cannon from…somewhere, and wheeled out of the kitchen and into the library where she proceeded to launch party decorations all over the hall of books. Twilight, who was still looking for the right book, didn’t notice. In only a matter of seconds, the library was decked out in decorations. “That was fun!” Pinkie chirped, satisfied with her work thus far she scanned for somewhere else to decorate when she spied a familiar door “ah ha, Twilight’s lab! That could use some partyfying” party cannon in tow, she made her way to Twilight’s lab “Pinkie Pie, wait!” Spike hurried to catch up with her “be careful down there” “Oh don’t worry Spike, I’m a wiz with the party cannon” she reassured the baby dragon before opening the door and going down. Now inside the lab, Pinkie dragged her party cannon to the bottom of the stairs and left it there “now what should I shoot?” she wondered. As she sized up the room, her eyes came upon a small golden object “hey, what’s this?” picking it up with her hoof she examined it “I wonder what happens if I do this?” she asked herself as she applied pressure on the triangle. When nothing happened she tried pushing it forward, she was rewarded with a flash of light and a ‘click’. A silly smile wormed its way onto her face as she decided to show Twilight. Running back up the stairs with her find in her mouth, she stopped in front of Twilight, dropped it into her hoof, and poked the unicorn to get her attention “Twilight, Twilight! Look what I found!” Gazing up from her book on slumber parties, Twilight’s eyes widen when she saw what Pinkie had “Pinkie! Be careful with that! It’s an ancient artifact with some unknown purpose” Patting Twilight on the head, Pinkie attempted to calm her down by saying “aww, it’s ok Twilight. I just want to make it flash” bouncing on her flank and spinning in place, she kept flickering the light on and off. “This is fun” Concerned for the wellbeing of the item that Pinkie was mercilessly flickering, Twilight froze her in place with telekinesis, Pinkie Pie was now facing the door to the lab “Pinkie” Twilight said the name of the hyper mare, annoyance in her voice Pinkie Pie’s head drooped “I’m sorry Twilight” giving her friend a sheepish smile, she asked “one more?” Twilight sighed “fine, one more” “Yay”! Pinkie cheered. Planning to make the most of it, she got ready for one last flick. She slid her hoof into the triangle on top and flicked it, giving off a flash of light. Letting go of the small object, Twilight grabbed it with telekinesis and walked towards her lab door. Before opening it however, she turned back to Pinkie and said “listen Pinkie…I’m sorry for snapping like that. It’s just that the princess sent this to me. I’d hate for it to break under my care” “I’m sorry too Twilight” she replied Satisfied that everything was cool again, Twilight opened the door. What she saw was not her lab “AH!” leaping back in surprise, she lost her concentration and dropped the artifact “where did my lab go!?” on the other side of the door, there was a room of endless whiteness, with traces of other light colors, that almost seemed to be made of energy “Ohh, that’s really neat Twilight! I didn’t know you could do that” Pinkie gasped “Pinkie this wasn’t me” Twilight said “what could have…” then it hit her “the artifact…it did this! It makes strange portals in doors” suddenly remembering where Pinkie’s last flash was aimed at, she ran up to the mare and gave her the biggest hug she could muster “Oh Pinkie, you’re a genius!” releasing her from the hug, Twilight’s natural curiosity took over “come on! Let’s see where it goes” with that, she ran off into the strange gateway making sure to grab the artifact again, with Spike and Pinkie Pie close behind. “Wow, this place is amazing!” Spike commented in awe “YEP, it’s really pretty” Pinkie agreed as she hopped along “but it needs more colors…oh, maybe some pink!” After only a few seconds of walking, they stopped when they came across a strange rectangular white wall; unlike everything else, it looked solid, it was also really small for a wall “this can’t be it” Twilight said. She continued towards it, but after her first step the wall split in half and slid left and right, disappearing. It was then that Twilight realized something; that wasn’t a wall, it was a door “…a magic door?” on the other side was a dark room “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s explore!” Pinkie Pie declared as she ran in “Pinkie, wait! We need to be careful” Twilight warned As Pinkie took her first step into the strange room, she was lifted into the air and flew into a wall on the other side before slowly falling back down “ouch!” “Did Pinkie just fly!?” Spike yelped Suddenly feeling a sense of foreboding, Twilight mumbled to herself “just what is this place?” carefully walking inside she instantly felt 6 times lighter, Twilight used the light from the artifact to get a better look at the room; from what she could see, it was circular and nearly all white, in the middle was a table (also circular) with seats attached to it by metal bars. There were 3 doors that she could see; the one she came through, one to the far right of that one, and one on the other side. On the wall in-between the first two doors, there was a strange machine with all kinds of buttons and switches. Right by the entrance there was a lever and a strange tube, under the lever were the words ‘Gravity Control’ “What!? How can anything control gravity?” reaching out with her magic, she pushed the lever up. When nothing happened she pushed it back down “yeah, that’s what I though” she said to herself, feeling silly for having believed that sigh, how dare it lie to her! Meanwhile Pinkie was busy bouncing around in the low gravity “WEEEEEEEE, this is fun! You two should try it” “Pinkie, we still don’t know just what this place is…or even where it is” Twilight protested Mere seconds after Twilight spoke, Pinkie bumped into a glowing half circle button near the strange tube “ouch!” the impact sent her flying to the other side Carefully traversing the low gravity room, Twilight and Spike walked over to check on her “Pinkie, please be careful. I don’t want you to hurt yourself” Twilight voiced her concerns for her hyper companion Before Pinkie could respond however; a strange female voice spoke “cryostasis chamber: depressurizing” “AH! Who said that!?” Spike panicked “It’s coming from everywhere!” Twilight screamed The voice began talking again “non-vital systems: online” immediately after the voice spoke, the lights came on and the gravity changed to match earth’s “I’m scared Twilight” Spike said as he grabbed Twilight’s leg “Me too Spike” Twilight admitted “Unlocking cryostasis chamber” the tube cracked open just like the door, and a strange white gas that fell to the ground came seeping out, after a few seconds it opened full…and a strange biped came tumbling out. The three friends were now huddled together as they watched the biped struggle to get to its feet, much like a newborn. It used one of the seats of the table to help itself up, and once it did the three of them got a good look at it; it was pale, seeming devoid of fur except for its short brown mane. Had a lanky form, one that seemed to be a cross between a diamond dog and a monkey. On its torso was a strange white cloth piece of clothing completely covering it along with half of its upper limbs. Bellow it was another piece of clothing, this one however was blue and made of a strange material that none of them recognized, that covered all of its lower body except its feet, which were different from its arms, being black with strange string on them tied into bows. Twilight’s heart was racing ‘this is bad! Just what did we free!?’ the strange creature, finally standing on its own, made a strange grumbling sound and slowly opened its eyes. Her panic having risen to uncontrollable levels, Twilight did the only thing she could think have in her state; scream “ah, monster!” Her voice seemed to shock the slumber right out of the creature. Its eyes shot open as it jumped in surprise. The creature just stood there for a while, watching them ‘This is the end’ Twilight lamented. As the creature slowly lowered itself to the floor, Twilight began to shake in fear. As she mentally prepared herself for death (or at least tried to) the creature did something unexpected; it ran out the door. Stunned, the three of them just sat there for a few seconds before Twilight realized the implications of what just happened “oh no! It’s heading to Ponyvile! We have to stop it!” Quickly jumping to their feet, the three of them ran out the door, hoping they could catch it in time. When they got to the end of the strange hallway, they saw the door to Twilight’s lab open. After returning to the library they heard a shrill cry of terror “EEEEKKKKKK!!!” “Oh no, that’s Fluttershy!” Spike realized Filled with worry, the three of them ran out of the library and headed in the direction of Fluttershy’s voice. Getting the better of her, Twilight’s paranoia started running wild “what if it hurt her…or worse” Giving her a gentle sideways head-butt, Pinkie Pie said “snap out of it Twilight! She’s just fine...I know it” her voice betraying her words Near the edge of town, they saw three familiar forms huddled around something “Applejack! Rarity! Rainbow Dash!” Twilight called out to her other friends The three mares turned to face them “Oh darlings it’s simply dreadful! Poor Fluttershy just saw a monster leaving Ponyvile! How did it even get in without anypony seeing it?” Rarity told them “Is Fluttershy alright?” asked Twilight “She’ll be ok, just a bit shaken up” Applejack answered. Sure enough, the butter yellow pegasus on the ground was a quivering, but unharmed, mess “Well that monster won’t be when I get my hoofs on it!” Rainbow Dash declared “nopony scares Fluttershy like that and gets away from it” “Quick Fluttershy, which way did it go?” Twilight asked. Fluttershy’s answer sounded like a cross between a squeak and a sob “um…could you repeat that please?” Leaning in closer, Rarity was able to pick up what she said “the Everfree forest!” “Ah ha! Trying to slink back to its den no doubt. You can’t escape me monster, you hear!” she yelled at the forest Twilight sighed, she knew she couldn’t keep this a secret “everypony…I have a confession to make; that monster came out of a portal in my house” The three mares standing gasped “I’ll tell you the whole story later, but right now we need to inform the princess. She needs to know that there’s a monster loose in Equestria” her words caused a hush to spread over them Finally breaking the silence, Pinkie asked “does this mean the party’s canceled?” It was a typical day in Ponyvile; the sun was shining, the weather was beautiful, nature itself just seemed happy in general, and a strange creature had just been released from its, who know how long, slumber. Just another normal day I’ll be honest, even after all the work I put into trying to make the first chapter good, I still don’t feel like it’s right, although it ended up twice as long as I thought it would be, so that’s a plus. I just can’t think of anything else to do that wouldn’t interfere with the plot. If anyone has some constructive criticism I’d love to hear it. I can only hope that it doesn’t suck completely.
To Catch A MonsterWow! Simply wow. When I posted the first chapter, I didn’t dare hope for the response that I got. I’d like to thank everyone for their positive feedback. Also, one more thing; I felt that the Gate Switch’s one time use was a serious design flaw (two episodes even revolved around this this out). I felt that if it worked like a key it would be far more useful Chapter 2: To Catch A Monster The city of Canterlot, the jewel (and capital) of Equestria. Truly it was a wonder of architecture, but that’s to be expected of the home of the rulers of all of Equestria; Princess Celestia and Luna. The eldest sister currently found herself in the throne room, waiting for a very important pony “I really hope this isn’t as bad as Twilight’s letter makes it seem” she murmured to herself. She was pulled from her musings by the door opening, inside walked the captain of the royal guard; Shining Armor Trotting up to the throne, he bowed before the regel mare “you summoned me princess?” Celestia nodded. Before speaking, she cast a sound proofing spell on the walls “I did Shining. I’m afraid that Equestria may be on the verge of another catastrophe” Jumping back up to his feet in surprise, Shining cried out “what!?” Celestia nodded “this letter explains the current situation” she told him as she handed the letter to him with magic Grabbing it with his own magic, Shining Armor quickly scanned through it, worry slowly growing inside him, but he was a royal guard, he could handle it…until he reached the end “Twilight sent this!?” his big brother instincts went into overdrive, he wanted nothing more than to run to Ponyvile to save her from this bizarre creature…but then his common sense kicked in and reminded him that there was no way he could run that far in a day “princess…why are you showing me this?” “I don’t want the public to find out about this. Not right away” she began “that’s why I can’t go to Ponyvile myself. However, a concerned big brother going to visit his injured sister shouldn’t draw much attention” Her message clear, Shining nodded in confirmation “understood princess, I’ll assemble a chariot” “That’s already been taken care of” Celestia told him “Blitzkrieg and Skywalker will transport you there and be your backup” “I take it they’re been briefed?” Celestia nodded “you are to report back to me via letter if you find yourselves overwhelmed. I don’t want you taking any unnecessary risks. Is that clear Shining Armor?” “Crystal you majesty” he confirmed “Then you are dismissed” she said, ending their meeting Shining Armor gave a quick salute before running to the hanger to meet his team ‘Twilight…please be ok’ The strange creature was running through the Everfree forest, sweat coating its body and lungs on fire. No destination in mind other than ‘away from the mutant talking horses’ “Just where the hell am I!?” The creature nearly yelled “I have never even seen this much plant life before in my life.” Then a thought occurred to the creature “wait…is this that Mars bio-engineering lab I heard about!? Did they build it already!?” shaking its head, it answered its own question “no way, that’s impossible. They said building it would take…” the creature froze in place, the implications of what it was about to say now clear “…how long was I in stasis?” the creature’s musings were interrupted by a strange growling “who’s there!?” it pivoted around, trying to find the source of the sound. It didn’t have to look long; out of the bushes in front of the creature leapt a manticore, teeth bared and looking quite terrifying “AHHHHHH!!! Mutant lion!!” the creature screamed in fear as it fled from the manticore “I take it back; there’s no way this can be the Mars bio-engineering lab, no one smart enough to get a job there would be stupid enough to make that!” Rainbow Dash was getting impatient, pacing around the library with her wings “what’s taking them so long!? It’s been an hour already!” the tomcolt speedster nearly screamed “Just be patient Dash. Travel between Canterlot and Ponyvile takes a while” Twilight said in an attempt to calm her down…it didn’t work “Yeah right! I could have gotten here in half the time it’s taking them!” She boasted “While pulling a chariot?” Twilight asked deadpan “…Ok, maybe not half the time” Dash reluctantly conceded “You know Dashie; if you’re really so board, we can play tic tac toe to pass the time” Pinkie offered her prismatic friend Dash sighed “yeah sure, whatever” “You girls try to keep busy, I’ll go check on Fluttershy” Twilight told them as she climbed up the stairs to her bed. Shaking under the covers was a frightened pegasus “Fluttershy?” the quivering mare jumped slightly in shock “are you feeling any better?” Her first attempt at an answer was little more than incoherent mumbling. When Twilight leaned in closer, she repeated it louder “I don’t know what that thing was” Twilight gave her friend a quick nuzzle to try and calm her down “it’s going to be alright Fluttershy. Remember the dragon?” “At least I know what a dragon can do to me. For all I know, that hairless ape could spit acid” Twilight cocked an eyebrow “’hairless ape’?” “It’s ears and hands were ape like” Fluttershy explained “Oh” was all Twilight said ‘leave it to Fluttershy to notice something like that’ However, a voice from downstairs cut off any further musing “Twilight! They’re here!” her pink friend cheered Startled out of her thoughtful state, she looked at her friend and said “I’ll be right back Fluttershy” before running downstairs and out the door with her other friends and Spike. There was only a single chariot; two pegasi pulling it with one unicorn riding “Took them long enough” Dash mumbled “Is it jus me, or does our backup seem tah be lacking?” Applejack asked, a bit skeptic about the numbers Twilight however, was thinking about something else; her eyes widened upon seeing the sole occupant of the chariot “Shining!? The princess sent Shining Armor!?” Leaping out of the vessel as soon as it touched the ground, Shining Armor ran to his little sister “Twilight!” pulling her into a nuzzle he said “when I read your letter, I was so worried you were hurt” Twilight pulled back, confusion visible in her eyes “what? I never said I was hurt in my letter” Shining sighed “ok…maybe I overreacted. Why wouldn’t I though? You know how much you mean to me” he finished with a warm tone Rarity, who had sneaked next to Twilight, nudged her friend’s side “Twilight, aren’t you going to introduce us to your coltfriend?” The white mare’s words were like an electric shock to violet unicorn “coltfriend!?” Shining simply chuckled “you never told your friends about me? Why Twily, I’m hurt” The two pegasus guards; Blitzkrieg and Skywalker, snickered Regaining her wits, Twilight properly introduced the stallion next to her “everypony, this is my brother Shining Armor” “Your brother!?” everypony gasped “Um…sir” one of the Pegasus guards began “I never knew you had a sister” Twilight gave her big brother a non-verbal ‘oh really’ via her big amethyst eyes. Seeing the glare from his little sister, Shining decided it was time to get down to business “Anyway; as I bet you all know, Princess Celestia sent us her to capture the monster you saw” “Wait” Dash stopped him right there “only you three!?” “Is that a problem?” Shining asked, his emotions hid behind his captain’s mask Dash scoffed “Uh, yeah! There are only three of you. For all we know, that thing-” “Hairless ape” Twilight interjected Applejack raised an eyebrow “…beg pardon sugercube?” “Fluttershy said it had hands and ears like an ape” Twilight explained There was a look of relief on Shining Armor’s face “so that just means that we’re dealing with some kind of super monkey?” “If Fluttershy thought it was just a super monkey, she wouldn’t still be curled up in my bed” Twilight finished, dashing her brother’s hopes of an easy mission “So much for this being easy” he mumbled under his breath. “Alright then, which way did it go?” “Into the Everfree forest” Twilight answered “I’ve heard about that place” One of the pegasus guards mentioned “They say that nature runs automatically there” “Oh but it does! And there are all sorts of dreadful beasts in there as well” Rarity added “That doesn’t change a whole lot” Shining said “the three of us still need to go in there and retrieve this…hairless ape” Pinkie Pie (who had been awfully quite up till now) “silly willy Twilight’s brother…there’s 9 of us, not 3” “8” Dash corrected “Fluttershy is still out of commission” “9” added Spike “I’m going with you” “8” Twilight said “no you’re not” “3” declared Shining “I’m not risk any of your live by bring you along” “But Shining!” Twilight complained “No buts Twilight. There’s no way I’m going to take my little sister into a place as dangerous as the Everfree forest” Shining said, putting his hoof down Twilight hung her head defeated “alright” Unable to leave his beloved little sister like this, Shining put a hoof on her back to comfort her “look Twily. I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to risk you getting hurt in there” “I’m a grown mare now Shining” Twilight countered “But you’re still my little sister. You’ll never grow out of that” he rebuked warmly. Her counter argument came in the form of a hug. After breaking it off, Shining said “I assume the Everfree forest was the forest we saw right next to Ponyvile from the air” Twilight nodded “Alright then, we’ll be back before you know it with a hairless ape” he boasted as he got back into the chariot. Quick as a lick the three guards took off back into the skies, heading towards the Everfree forest “Um, Twilight…your brother does know about all the times we’ve gone into the Everfree forest and how well we know it…right?” Dash asked. All Twilight did was facehoof The hairless ape stopped to catch its breath “ok…I think I lost it” slumping down to rest, the hairless ape contemplated what it had just gone through “what the hell was that thing? Some strange lion with bat wings and a scorpion tail……I really hope those things don’t work” wiping the sweat from its brow, the hairless ape rose to its feet “I need to keep moving. Who knows what those horses will do to me if they catch me. Hell, who knows what they’ll do to me if they know that I’m sentient” it mumbled to itself A sudden rustling nearby ended the musings of the hairless ape. Its muscles tensed up, preparing to run at the next sign of danger. It came in the form of a bolt of blue magic aimed at its face. Tumbling to the left, the hairless ape was able to dodge it. It scrambled to get to its feet to escape, but it was too slow Taking aim, Shining fired another bolt of magic at the hairless ape, this time it found its mark; its legs. The spell took effect immediately; first, everything below its knees became numb, which considering it was in the middle of running proved to be problematic “Gah!” with the loss of some pretty important motor functions, the hairless ape tripped and fell down on its face “Wah!” ignoring the pain on its face, the hairless ape began desperately crawling away. One of the pegasus guards flared up his wings to take off, but Shining stopped him “wait! Let the spell finish” the guard simply nodded and relaxed his wings. However, something was bothering Shining ‘this isn’t right; I used an instant sleep spell, and a powerful one at that. So why is it slowly spreading through its body?’ The hairless ape wasn’t in good shape; everything below its waste was now dead weight ‘this really sucks’ was the sole thought in its head. The spell began spreading faster running up its body to reach its shoulders and then its arms, leaving them inert ‘craaaap!’ the hairless ape mentally moaned. When the spell made it to the hairless ape’s neck, it slowed to a crawl, as if mocking it. However there still wasn’t much ground to cover, so it reached the hairless ape’s head rather quickly. With its brain now stewing in arcane energies, the hairless ape found it harder and harder to stay awake, its eyelids quickly gaining the weight of giant cement blocks, and pretty soon slumber took hold of it The 3 guards stood there watching the hairless ape for what felt like hours before one of the pegasi asked “is it done?” “That was way too easy” the other said Lifting a nearby branch, Shining moved it over to the sleeping form of their catch and poked it several times. When it made no response, Shining answered “yep. Now let’s get haul this thing back to-” but a sudden sound from the hairless ape halted the three of them “…Just five more minutes Alex…” A chilling fear gripped the stallions “um sir…did that thing just-” “-Talk?” Shining finished the other guard’s sentence “yeah” We never learn when or how Twilight’s friends find out about her brother (since in S2 EP25 they don’t seem surprised that she has one), so I thought to myself ‘why not have some fun with it’. Also, I don’t feel like Shining’s overreaction was out of place. If one of my loved one sent me a letter (or something) that basically said ‘I just saw an evil monster’ my first concern would be that they got hurt. Plus it makes sense to me for Shining to share just a little of Twilight’s crazy. As you can see; I’ve been really playing with the whole ‘fear of the unknown’ thing, everypony is so worried about the ‘hairless ape’ because they don’t know what it is. Also, I’m working with the theory that every royal guard wears armor that enchants them to look exactly the same…except for the captain. One last thing; I'd like to give a shout out to my new prereader: TheNumba1shadowfan, stay awesome man
The Dark Percursor ComethTime for chapter 3. Just a heads up; this was originally 2 chapters that I put together because the old chapter 3 was so short (before the merge, it was called “The Jail Cell Interlude”). Also, because I’m a jerk, I’ll let you in on some behind the scenes secrets. Originally; the human’s name was going to be Alex…let the wild mass guessing begin Chapter 3 The Dark Precursor Cometh Out in the middle of nowhere, in a giant hole in the ground bigger than Canterlot castle, an archeologist named Dig Dug was busy expanding the hole. Not too long ago they had found a strange artifact that seemed to still work (despite its function remaining a mystery), which left them in high spirits and hopeful for more wonders. Dig was merrily chipping away at dirt with his pickaxe, when he heard a ‘clang’ sound “huh?” grabbing a nearby shovel and began chipping away the dirt, it only took a couple of scraps to get through to metal. Feeling a rush of excitement, Dig called out to the others “hey everypony! I found something. Grab some shovels and help me” quick as a wink, ponies began to gather around, shovels in mouth to dig out their latest find. It wasn’t long before they removed a good chunk of the dirt, revealing a large grey half oval surrounded by some ominous black metal. In the center; there was a dazzling golden gem, orbiting it were 12 strange symbols. It looked like most of it was still buried “This is amazing” One pony remarked “This site is the find of the century!” another cheered “History shall remember this day!” A rather overzealous one added “Anypony else think it looks like a door?” that question got the attention of the rest “You know…it kind of does” somepony agreed A hush fell over the ponies in the pit “anypony else get the feeling that we just unearthed something we really shouldn’t have?” before an answer was given however, the golden gem gave off a tremendous light that engulfed the entire pit The hairless ape sat on his bed; one made for a pony half his size. His room was a musty cobblestone cell, rectangular in shape with a metal door in the right corner on the other side, it had a sliding metal plate for a window. His hands were bound together with enchanted shackles and a magic collar around his neck. His fate was unknown, but he didn’t plan on fighting it ‘I have to be brave’ he repeated in his mind. Time had melted long ago to him (or had it only been a few minutes?); he couldn’t remember how long he had been sitting there, waiting. He sighed “dad was right; it really is the waiting that kills you.” Not long after he said that (or maybe it was) the door opened and inside walked the white male unicorn from before, still decked out in armor “so…what’s going to happen to me?” “I don’t know yet” Shining Armor answered “I take it that means you’re not here to take me to the gallows or dissect me?” “What!? No! Why would you think that?” Getting annoyed, the ape added a hint of venom to his next words “oh I don’t know; maybe it was how you captured me or perhaps that spazy purple unicorn yelling ‘ah! Monster!’ might have tipped me off!” “Hey! That’s my little sister you’re talking about!” Shining shot back The ape reeled back “oh.” He put on a sheepish smile “I just made everything awkward…didn’t I?” “Yeah, you kind of did” Shining replied The two of them sat in an uncomfortable silence before the ape broke it “so if you aren’t here to take me to my death, then why are you here?” “To talk” he answered simply “About what?” “Well…you, as far as any of us know, you’re the only one of your kind. I’ve never even heard of hairless ape before-” Shining was cut short “Human” then ‘human’ interrupted “Oh, um sorry” “It’s ok; humans do share 98.5% of their DNA with chimps. So I can understand the confusion” Shining raised an eyebrow “DNA?” “You know; deoxyribonucleic acid, our genetic blueprints” Seeing the blank expression on the stallion in front of him, he asked “how advanced is your genetics department?” “What’s genetics?” he answered The human rolled his eyes “well that answers that question” he mumbled. A few seconds later, he remembered something “Hey, can I ask you something?” “What is it?” “Where did you find the Gate Switch?” “The what?” “The little thing your sister and that pink horse-” “Pony” Shining corrected The human had to suppress a groan “wait…your species calls themselves…” remembering his situation, he wisely decided to move on “never mind. Anyway; since the gateway was open, that must mean that they entered the Rabbit Hutch using the Gate Switch” It took him a couple of second to remember what he was talking about “oh! You mean that little gold rectangular” he waved his hoof in the air, searching for the right word. Not finding it, he settled for “…thing with the triangle on top-” “Yes! That. Where did you find it?” “It was found inside a giant metal…box I guess, one big enough to fit dozens of ponies. It was very, very deep underground” “Were there others like it nearby?” He nodded “yeah, quite a lot. Come to think of it, we also found what looks to be animal remains…but I’d never seen an animal with a skeletal system like that. Not only that, but most of them were in horrible shape” His suspicions confirmed, the human let out a long sigh “They were humans” Shining’s eyes widened “Really!? Wait, how would you know? You haven’t seen them yet” “Because if they had the Gate Switch on them, then I know who they were; OSTO. They were responsible for developing weapons to combat the Zodiarts. Those metal boxes you found them in had to be Hover Tanks. The fact that you found them underground proves what I thought; I’m very far into the future” Being the soldier he was, the human’s comment about weapons development caught his attention “wait, you had to make special weapons just to fight them? Just who were these Zodiarts?” “Probably who wiped out the rest of my race, unless something else unexpected happened” the human answered with a shrug Now one thing to keep in mind about Equestria: the concept of war, and murder, is really little more than a scary story to its inhabitants, the last one having taken place 1000 years ago (and even then it’s debatable whether or not it counts). So it comes as no surprise that the concept of genocide, of mass murder, would have the effect it did “they wiped out an entire race!?” “Shocking right?” After a few seconds, the human corrected himself “well not an entire race, they did miss one after all” His brain still broken, the poor unicorn had trouble forming his next question “but, how…why?” was all he could muster “The Zodiarts saw us humans as mere insects; I think half of them just did it for laughs” “What kind of excuse is that!?” Shining exploded “Who could take a life for a flimsy reason like that?!” The humans response was a surprising one; laughter “What’s so funny?!” The human shook his head in what looked like a nonverbal ‘oh, you’ as he let out the rest of his laughs “you clearly have no idea what the human race was like” Shining, having been made cautions by the humans comment narrowed his eyes “what exactly are you saying?” “I’m saying that as a species, we never knew what we wanted to be. The biggest collection of saints and sinners you’ll ever see” all traces of humor left his face as he finished that last sentence “that’s probably why the Zodiarts were able to grow as fast as they did” Unable to come up with a smart reply, Shining could only say “I’m sorry for your loss” The human gave a small nod “thanks…um. I must admit, I’m a little shocked that me being able to talk isn’t surprising to you” “You talk in your sleep” was all Shining needed to say The human groaned “well that’s embarrassing” “While we’re on the subject; you seem to be taking this pretty well” Shining commented The human shrugged “let’s just say I got all the crazy out of me in that forest, and that sitting in here gave me ample time to calm down” and then it occurred to him; he didn’t know the pony’s name “I just realized something; we skipped the introductions” Shining froze for a few seconds before facehoofing “such an idiot” he muttered to himself while shaking his head “I’m Shining Armor” he said holding out a hoof Willing himself not to make any snide comments, the human took Shining’s hoof with his hand and shook “Carter Rhodes. Anyway, since we’re introducing ourselves, care to tell me who you are” “But I already told you-” “-Your name” interrupted Carter “which is great for calling you from across a room because ‘white male unicorn with blue mane and shield tattoo’ is pretty cumbersome in conversation. What you haven’t told me is what your rank is. The armor you’re wearing is a big enough give away that you’re in the military” Seeing no real harm in it (since it wasn’t a big secret to begin with), Shining told him “I’m captain of the royal guards” “…I noticed you said you were captain, not a captain does that mean you’re the head of the military or something?” “It does” Shining said simply Carter massaged his head like only a person with handcuff on could, that is to say; poorly “well now I know I’m screwed” “What do you mean?” “I mean if they sent in the highest authority in the military, then everyone else must be terrified of me. Which is how I know just how screwed I am” Ignoring his use of the word ‘everyone’ Shining said “Hey come on, it’s not that bad” in an attempt to cheer him up “Worst case scenario I get executed, best I simply get locked away in some dark room until I die” “That’s pretty pessimistic” “Where, or I guess ‘when’ would be more accurate, I’m from, that’s called being realistic” Shining was a bit taken back by that last comment “jeez, the past sounds horrible” Carter sighed “I pray you never find out how right you are” The land between settled areas was empty most of the time. However, sometimes you might come across a fellow traveler or two…this was one of the more awkward meetings. A strange red armored biped was strolling down the path, no real destination in mind, when it came across two arguing earth ponies “-well if we had just stopped and asked for directions-” the armored being caught the female saying “Mare, don’t you start with me!” the male complained ‘Talking horses?! Crap…what the hell happened to the earth?’ the armored being wondered “Hey, excuses me you two!” he, for that’s what his voice suggested, called out The earth pony couple stopped their argument, the male sighed “look, we’re kind of in the middle of an-” but the rest of his words died in his mouth when he saw who was talking to him “I know” the armored being said “and I’m really sorry to interrupt, but this will only take a few seconds” “Um…ok” he might have looked terrifying…but he was just so polite “Thanks. Could you point me in the direction of the capital?” The couple briefly stared at each other in confusion. Then the female turned back to face him “if you follow this road, you’ll get to Canterlot” “…Canterlot?” the armored being repeated slightly stunned, before breaking out into laughter “my god! What a wonderful pun” with that, the armored being went along his marry way towards Canterlot “I’m on a ‘quest for Canterlot’” for some reason, that seemed to reignite his laughter. Now left to their own devices, the earth pony couple gave each other a quick look before continuing along the path. Neither felt like picking up where they left off “So this is Canterlot huh? Not bad for a bunch of ponies. Shame I have to wreak the place” The strange armored being mused as he walked up to the capital of Equestria. “It’s just uncanny; this place looks just like a human city…a really, really old one, but a human city none the less. I wonder how they did it without hand” “Halt!” a voice above him called out. Looking up, the armored being saw 3 identical armored pegasi “who goes there!?” The armored being broke out into laughter “my god! Did you really just say ‘who goes there’!? Oh man, that is just so full of win!” Confused at his outburst, the pegaus in the middle answered “um…yes I did” The armored being let out a few more chuckles before speaking again “What time is it by the way?” “It’s…” the pegaus on the left checked the position of the sun “about noon” “Alright then, would you kindly inform your leader, and or leaders, that the 12 o’clock invader is here” the armored being said with a completely steady voice “…Uh…” the three pegasi were speechless. Getting his wits back, the middle one spoke “um sir, is this not your first language, because I don’t think you understand what an invader is” But the armored being shook his head “I know what I said; I’m here to destroy your capital, kill your leader, and or leaders, loot the place, etc.” Shocked out of their confusion by his words, the three pegasi entered a fighting stance; forelegs bent and their rears raised, like a hissing cat. The one on the right attacked first; drawing a sword hidden in his armor with his mouth. He flew above the armored being, only to dive down, sword lined up with his head. The blade connected with the head of the armored being and…*snap!* it broke in two. The half that snapped off cartwheeled in the air before landing, pointy end down, stuck in the ground right behind the unlucky attacker “…what…” the pegaus in the middle said dumbstruck The armored being threw its arms in the air and proclaimed “it’s good!” If the three guards were surprised before, they were just plain stunned now. “Hey, you guys want to see a magic trick?” none of them could bring themselves to move when the armored being walked up to the broken blade sticking out of the ground and picked it up. Balancing the flat part on the palm of its hand, it held its other hand above it, and with a strange word “abracadabra!” he crushed the blade. After rubbing his hands together for a few seconds, he separated them and metal dust flew into the wind “tada!” The middle guard was the first to regain his wits “hurry! Alert the princess!” He ordered his subordinates “I’ll hold him” The other two guards took off at once for the castle to warn the princess about the incoming attack The armored being lightly chuckled “you’re either really brave or really stupid…eh, who am I kidding? They’re the same thing” the armored being closed in on the last guard… Shining Armor had a lot on his mind. Aside from the normal cluster of worries that came with being the captain of the royal guard, he was also thinking about the human Carter ‘what happens now?’ “…Shining…” ‘He doesn’t look dangerous. In fact, he seems more scared than anything’ “Hello?” ‘The technology in that Rabbit Hutch place looked far beyond anything we’re capable of…just who were the human?’ “Are you feeling ok?” Then a thought came to him; being one of the few ponies who believed they existed, it seemed plausible to him ‘could...could it be possible that the humans are…the Precursors!? It certainly wouldn't be the first time an old foals tale ended up being true’ his musing were broken when he felt something wet touch his lips “wha?” now free from his self-induced trance, he saw that the wet thing that broke him out of it was Cadence’s lips. Suddenly remembering his date at the café, a sheepish grin wormed its way onto his face “sorry. I kind of spaced out there for a second” “Work?” she asked in that tender voice of hers He sighed “yeah” “Do you want to talk about it” He shook his head “I’m not allowed to” he replied, feeling guilty for having to keep this a secret from her Cadence, in her infinite wisdom, picked up on this “its ok. I’ll just ask aunt Celestia later” Once more being reminded why he fell in love with her, Shining leaned in to give her a chaste kiss “have I told you I love you today?” She giggled “you tell me so much I lost count” That roguish grin that made her breathless snuck onto his face “better safe than sorry” he gave her another kiss “I love you” She responded with a quick nuzzle “you make me feel like the luckiest mare in the world” Their conversation grinded to a halt when they heard the screams “what the!?” Shining got up from the ground turned to his fillyfriend “wait here” he ran out the café to the street, what he saw out there nearly made him trip in shock; a red armored monster with a club and shield. It was wading through a sea of royal guards. Quickly clearing them away with its weapon “Ha Ha!” the monster laughed “keep ‘em coming! I haven’t had this much fun in a long time” Snapping out of his shock, Shining Armor put on his captain face and ran towards the monster “halt!” “Hmm?” The monster glanced at him then chuckled “oh look; fresh meat” The rest of the injured guards backed off at the sight of their captain “My name is Shining Armor; I am captain of the royal guard. This is your last chance to turn yourself in” he managed to offer the monster one last chance to come in peacefully as per regulation The monster was silent, almost as if it was considering Shining’s offer…until he started laughing “my god! That was rich! A knight named Shining Armor; you can’t make this stuff up!” Thanks to his training, Shining was able to hide his annoyance “since you won’t come quietly, I’ve have to drag you to the dungeons myself!” despite his tone, he was happy the monster made the choice it did. It gave Shining the chance to pummel him for his troops. Shining channeled magic into his horn The monster tilted his head “hey um…unicorn guy; your horn’s glowing. Is it supposed to do that?” His answer came in the form of a magic beam aimed right at his head. The attack connected, but failed to do anything “what!?” The monster whistled, despite not being able to move its lips “nice shot. Looked like it would have hurt too, but it’ll take more than that to harm a Zodiart” While the name “Zodiart” didn’t mean much to most of the ponies there, Shining understood just what he meant ‘this is a Zodiart!?’ he suddenly remembered his early theory ‘if Carter really is a Precursor…does that mean that these Zodiart are the Dark Precursors?’ his confidence was now shot by the revelation “Aww, what’s wrong?” the Zodiart cooed “feeling a little scared after seeing your magic beam do absolutely nothing to me?” ‘Wait, what I am doing’ Shining admonished himself ‘I’m captain of the royal guard! I can’t back down just because I’m a little scared’ putting up a small (in size) shield spell, Shining charged at his opponent “Oh boy! This looks like fun” the Zodiart gushed. He altered his stance, standing sideways with his club held in both hands. When Shining was in striking distance, he swung “homerun!” the club tore through his shield like it was tissue paper and struck Shining right in the face, sending him flying into the side of the café “Shining!” Cadence ran out of the building to her coltfriend’s side “Shining, please. Speak to me. Say something” Before he got a chance to say anything, a bright light appeared in the middle of the impromptu battlefield. When it vanished, an angry Celestia was left in its place “how dare you walk into this city and start attacking my subjects” she fired a magic beam immediately after speaking, giving him no time to respond. However it had about the same effect as Shining’s The Zodiart laughed again “oh this is just wonderful! A pretty pony princess!” after getting most of that batch of laughs out of his system he continued with a quick chuckle “you know, it really is too bad I have to kill all of you. You guys are the most fun I’ve had in a long time” he sighed “but in all honesty; you guys don’t have the weapons to even scratch me” And that’s when Shining was hit with a burst of inspiration ‘weapons! Of course! Carter has to have something that could beat him in the Rabbit Hutch. I just need to bring him the Gate Switch’ Shining tried to get to his feet, only to find that the pain from his injuries kept him down Noticing her beloved’s pain, Cadence gently tried to get him back on the ground “please Shining. You’re too hurt to fight anymore. Just let aunt Celestia take care of this” Realizing he was in no shape to get to Carter, Shining decided that Cadence would have to go instead “Cadence, honey. I need you to listen to me” he pulled the Gate Switch out of his armor “you need to take this to the dungeon. Inside the cell farthest away from the entrance, there’s somepony who can help, he’ll need this. Tell him that a Zodiart is attacking. If the princess can’t win….then he’s our last hope” Cadence was confused “Shining, what are you-” Shining didn’t let her finish “Cadence we don’t have time. Please just trust me” he asked her in a desperate voice Cadence gave a hesitant nod and grabbed the Gate Switch with her magic. Then she took off for the dungeons As Cadence quietly traversed the dark and dank dungeons, a thought occurred to her; what if this ‘Carter’ didn’t really exist. What if it was just Shining’s last attempt to keep her safe ‘no’ she chided herself ‘I can’t think like that, I need to trust him’ When she got to the jail cell farthest away from the entrance she paused. ‘what kind of pony could we be keeping in here?’ worry started bubbling in her mind ‘if Shining thinks he’s strong enough to stop that monster…just what is he?’ she followed this train of thought for all of 6 seconds ‘no! I have to be brave. For Shining Armor’ mustering her courage she opened the door and ran in. What she saw was a strange ape like thing “wha….” The cell occupant turned his head before speaking “damn you’re adorable” If Cadence were to compile a list of things she least expected him to first say to her, that would certainly make the cut. Pushing his comment aside for the moment, Cadence asked him “um…are you Carter?” “You see any other humans around here recently?” was his reply “so…what can I do for you my pretty little pony?” Once again pushing aside his comment, Cadence relayed to him the current situation “Shining Armor is in trouble! He sent me here with this” she pulled the Gate Switch out of her mane with magic “he told me to tell you that he thinks a Zodiart is attacking” Carter froze, almost like time itself had stopped “…what…” Cadance removed his bindings with her magic “please! You have to help him” she began to tear up “If…if I lose him. I’m not sure what I’ll do!” Jumping up from his seat, he snatched the Gate Switch from Cadence; Carter grabbed her horn “let’s get out of this jail cell. Trust me, you do not want to be here in a few seconds” he said as he dragged her out If it wasn’t for the fact that Cadence understood that Carter most likely didn’t know what he was doing by grabbing her horn like that, she most likely would have blasted him ‘settle down Cadence. You can’t kill him just yet.’ Carter closed the door and let go of her horn. He then pointed the Gate Switch at the door, flicked it, and opened the door, only this time there was a strange white hallway behind it. Cadence’s eye’s shot open “Wha……” she muttered dumbly “I’ll be right back, feel free to come along if you want” Carter told her before running down the strange white hall. Snapping out of the shock, Cadence followed him “wait for me!” she broke out into a full gallop to catch up with the human. When she caught up, he was standing in front of a white wall Carter gave her an analyzing look “ready?” she nodded “ok, here we go” the human took a step towards the wall and… it opened up like a door “AHH!” Cadence jumped back in surprise “what was that!?” Carter replied with a simple “a door” after waiting for the mare to catch her breath, Carter walked inside “be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home” he chuckled “Um…Carter?” Cadence tested his name “where are we?” “My home: the Rabbit Hutch” he said as he made his way to the door across from where they entered Cadence paused “uh…” “I didn’t name it!” Carter shot out too quickly. He entered the door in the same way as the last one. Cadence followed him again. Inside was a chair and a table with odd machinery on it. Part of it glowed. Carter sat down in the chair and began pressing buttons “give me a minute” As she continued to scan look around the room, her eyes settled on a framed picture. In it was a human that looked a lot like Carter. He was holding a blue ribbon with a #1 on it. He was flanked by two other humans “is this you?” she asked Carter stopped pressing the buttons and glanced at the picture. He sighed “that’s……yes, that’s me. It was at a science fair. Those are my parents in there with me” not willing to waste anymore time, Carter resumed what he was doing before “bingo!” a circle shaped object hummed to life, and a strange crescent shaped item appeared above it suspended in mid air “Ah!” Cadence jumped back in surprise. She quickly caught her breath and took a good look at it: the item was small enough to fit on the human’s waist or neck by the look of it. Taking a closer look, Cadence noticed it had 4 smaller items on it, not unlike the one Carter used to open that otherworldly portal. Near each of the smaller items was a switch “what is that thing?” she asked, pointing at the crescent shaped thing “That’s what we came here to get; the Fourze Driver” “I just need to check something first…” Cadence however, didn’t want to wait “we need to hurry! Shining could be even more hurt” Carter huffed “well I’m not getting into a fight with a Zodiart without-” but something he saw on the glowing screen stopped him “yes!” he tapped a few more button and two more small items appeared on the circle object. He got up and pushed the Fourze Driver on his waist and a strap came out of seemingly nowhere to fasten it to him. On his right side, a weird looking lever had also appeared along with the strap. He grabbed the two new items and jogged to the door “ready. Let’s go” Things were looking bad for princess Celestia; not only was the captain of her royal guards out of commission, but she wasn’t faring much better against this monster herself. Her magic seemed to have no effect on it, and she had been pretty badly beaten up. As she lay on the ground, unable to keep fighting, a single thought crossed her mind ‘just what is this monster?’ The Zodiart rested its club on its shoulder “you know” it began “I never thought I could get tired of wailing of a pretty pony princess…but hey, I guess we all learned something new today” the Zodiart slowly made its way towards Celestia, humming a sinister tune that began slow, but picked up speed with time. The crowd that had gathered could do nothing but watch as the Zodiart moved in for the kill. Like the horde of defenseless ponies that had gathered, Shining Armor was also watching the events before him play out, only he was taking it differently ‘buck!’ he mentally exclaimed ‘the one time the princess really needs me, and I’m completely useless’. In one final desperate act, Shining gathered magic in his horn, trying to recast his shield spell to save his princess. However his injuries got the better of him again, the pain proved too strong for him, keeping him from focusing ‘buck!’ he exclaimed again ‘is there really nothing I can do but watch?’ Now within striking distance; the Zodiart held its club vertically, aligning it with Celestia’s neck “before I kill you, I just want you to know; that this is going to hurt you a lot more then it’s going to hurt me…really. I can only assume that bashing your neck in with a club is an extremely painful way to go, and since I won’t even feel it…yeah” he raised his club into the air slowly, when it was as high as he could lift it, he taunted Celestia one more time “well…I guess this is it. It’s gotta suck knowing you let down your entire species by losing to me. Now I get to wipe them all out.” The Zodiart tightened his grip on his weapon, but before he could deliver the finishing blow, he heard something he really didn’t see coming “ORION!!!” The Zodiart now known as Orion froze “…who just said my name?” A chill ran down Celestia’s spine ‘Orion…It couldn’t be, could it?’ she took another look at the strange pattern on Orion ‘…impossible’ was all her mind was able to conjure Orion and the horde of ponies turned towards the direction the voice came from, it was then that they saw Carter and Cadence “what!?” Orion jumped “how can there be any of you left?” “I could ask you the same thing” was Carter’s reply. Without skipping a beat, Carter flipped the switches on the front of the Fourze Driver, when all 4 were on, the Drive itself spoke “3” “2” “1” Immediately after ‘1’, Carter pulled the leaver on the side of the side of the Drive, and was engulfed in a white fog. When it dissipated, he was clad in a strange white armor. The helmet was an odd cone like shape, and his limbs each had bracer with a shape on it. Carter entered a fighting stance and uttered only 3 words; “meet Fourze motherfucker” I’ll be honest here; writing Shining Armor here was hard. I don’t feel like the two episodes we saw him in was enough to flesh out his personality, in fact we only really saw him interact with Twilight and Cadence, but I made do with what I had. I decided to try and sprinkle a little of Twilight into him. Disclaimer: no ponies were killed in the writing of this chapter…just a little serious maiming.
Fourze Takes The StageThis chapter…oh boy. Wow this one was fun to write, more so than usual. I’m pretty confident that this is my best chapter so far (and not just because it’s the first fight). I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it Chapter 4: Fourze Takes The Stage “Mommy, mommy” a small colt cried out from the audience “it’s a Precursor. It looks just like the pictures in my book” “So it’s true…Carter really is the last Precursor” Shining marveled, seeing Fourze in all its glory “Wait. He’s what!?” one of the guards near Shining balked “What the hell are you doing!?” demanded a baffled Orion ‘That’s a good question; just what the hell am I doing! I just grabbed the Fourze Driver, some Switches and ran out here, why!?’ Fourze mentally chided himself. Gathering his wits and courage, Fourze gave the him his ultimatum “leave this place now Orion…or I ’ma whoop your ass” Orion took time to consider this, and came up with a clever, well thought out rebuttal “Buwa ha ha ha!!! Ok, ok. I got to hand it to you; that was pretty funny. Because you gave me the best laugh I’ve had in forever, and because we’re both kinsmen; I’ll let join me in my rampage” this caused a generic group gasp from the onlookers, which the two combatants ignored Fourze cocked his head to the side “who still uses the word ‘kinsmen’?” he mused. Suddenly realizing the implications of what he just said Fourze shot up and replied with “hey! The two of us are nothing alike! You monsters have taken countless innocent lives.” Orion sighed “so you’re goanna be like that huh? It’s too bad really; we could have had a blast wrecking this place. It all looks so…” despite the fact that Orion had no facial control, his expression and voice seemed extremely menacing with his next word “breakable” A chill ran down Fourze’s spine “I’d rather die than join the demons that took everything from me! You monsters killed my family!” “I’ll take it you’re not going to accept my offer?” Orion checked “What the?” Fourze’s shook a little in disbelief “no I’m not going to join you! How thick are you!?” Orion cupped his chin with the hand that held his shield “well I do have a lot of armor plating…” One of the knights by Shining Armor’s side turned to his downed captain and asked “um…sir is this how Precursors and Dark Precursors fight?” Instead of answering back immediately, Shining Armor, who Cadence was trying her best to heal, found that he actually had to think about it “you know; I’m not sure” “That’s not what I meant!” Fourze raged “Now you’re just messing with me” “Whatever would make you think that?” Orion asked with any annoyingly sarcastic voice “That! What’re you’re doing right now” “Get on with it!” some random pony, a female, from the audience yelled “What!?” Fourze balked. Turning to the direction the voice came from he said “I’m fighting to keep this guy from killing…whoever that is” he pointed at Celestia “and destroying this city. And you have the gall to tell me to ‘get on with it’!?” “Yes” the same voice answered “Oh screw you random audience pony!” Fourze yelled in frustration Meanwhile, Orion was laughing it up “oh man! This is rich!” “Stop laughing!” Fourze demanded “This is supposed to be a dramatic moment!” “Oh really?. I couldn’t tell” Orion said, jovial as always Fed up, Fourze finally said “alright screw this!” forgoing what little banter there may have been left to go through, Fourze charged at Orion. Orion held his arms out, as if to say ‘come at me bro!’ Reaching Orion, Fourze hit him square in the chest with the hardest punch he could muster “take this you monster!” Fourze cried out as he hit him. The ‘smack’ sound that came from the blow seemed to send out a wave of silence; everyone stood right where they were, frozen, until Fourze broke the silence “AHHHHHH!” quickly pulling back his hand he tightly gripped it with his other one and began shaking it Orion broke out into laughter again “this…this is just amazing! I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun before” “Why YOU” Fourze cried indignantly before kicking him just as hard as he punched him. The kick sent a second wave of silence, only this one was over rather quickly “AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Fourze pulled his foot back and started hopping on his good one “that was so stupid, why did I do that!?” After a few seconds of laughing at Fourze, Orion spoke up “yeah, my armor is pretty hard, but you know what’s even harder?” If anyone could see his face, they would have noticed Fourze giving Orion a blank stare “dude I swear, if you say your di-” but a smack to the head from Orion’s club stopped him mid-sentence, one that sent him flying into a nearby water fountain “My club” he answered “and really man, there’s kids here” ‘This is really bad’ Fourze lamented ‘I thought the Fourze Driver would give me a fighting chance, but I can’t even scratch him’ Then it hit him ‘duh! The Switches! Wow do I feel dumb’ picking himself up, Fourze prepared to charge back into the fight “ok, let’s try this one” he switched on Rocket. When he did, a computerized voice announced “ROCKET ON!” and the Rocket Module appeared on his right hand; it was an orange rocket about the size of one of his legs, his hand and wrist were stuck in the middle. Examining it, Fourze turned it over so it was pointing forward, to get a good look at the engines “huh, neat. Now how do I-” but the Rocket Module suddenly roaring to life put an end to his question “AHHHHH!” it took off fast, and dragged Fourze with it, straight towards Orion “Oh this is goanna suck” complained Orion right before the out of control Fourze hit him. The impact not only made him lose his grip on his club and shield, but got him tangled up with Fourze; they were both spinning now, kept together with centrifugal force. His attempts to get free only succeeded in altering their trajectory; the two of them were now spiraling up to the sky very slowly. Back on the ground, Shining Armor noticed Orion’s weapons lying on the ground “quick! Somepony get rid of that club and shield” two nearby unicorn guards did just that; picking both weapons up with telekinesis and hiding them on a nearby roof. Satisfied with that, Shining lifted his head back up “come on Carter, you can do this” he murmured to himself Just then a familiar voice boomed from the direction of the castle “sister!” the princess of the night arrived on the scene, rushing to her elder sister’s side “Luna” Celestia said her sister’s name with a weighty breath “Sister! Are thou…are you ok?” “I…just need to rest” she replied, still breathing heavily The sight of her powerful sister beaten instilled a strange sense of rage and foreboding in Luna “who, or what hath done this to you?” she asked straining to keep a calm voice “Luna…they’re real” was all she said “What!? Who is real!?” “The Precursors and the Dark Precursors” “Sister…surly you must be joking! They are but old foal’s tales from long before our birth” “Well Luna, that means I got defeated by an old foal’s tale” “But sister-” “The monster that did this to me bore the markings of Orion’s belt Luna. I wasn’t sure at first, but when the Precursor started calling it ‘Orion’ then there was no doubt left in my mind. The stories tell of an evil race that was marked by stars, what else could it mean?” While Luna was processing what her sister told her, something jumped up at her “wait! You said there was a Precursor here as well! I take it the two are locked in mortal combat somewhere in the city” her voice sounded both excited and panicked at the same time. Celestia’s response was simply to look up at the sky, Luna followed suit, mentally preparing herself for what was sure to be the most awe inspiring thing she had ever seen in her life. What she saw however, was what looked like something flying around in a circle. “…I find this quite underwhelming sister” “Trust me; it was very humorous before they took to the sky. It’s really a shame you had to miss it” “It is indeed, I wish that I had been awoken earlier” Luna lamented Back up in the sky, Orion and Fourze were halfway between the ground and the cloud barrier and were engaging in polite and intelligent conversation “what the hell are you doing!?” Orion finally demanded, now more than sick and tired of being dragged in a loop “I don’t know!” Fourze replied, voice filed with panic “Then stop it!” “I don’t know how!” “Well find a way to!” Orion bellowed as he started twisting Fourze’s right arm making them fly around sporadically. Unfortunately for both of them, during this Orion yanked it down, so now the Rocket Module was pointing straight at the ground, sending them both into a nose dive Legend has it, that one that day, the screams of sheer terror the two of them let out reached as far as the griffin kingdom. “You moron!!! Look what you just did!” Fourze yelled, absolutely lived “Pull up! Pull up!! Pull up!!!” Orion stammered “I’m trying!” “Well try harder!” Struggling to get control, Fourze began jerking his arm around. He managed to adjust their trajectory at the last second, and they barely skimmed over a blue unicorn mare with a very light blue and white mane “hey! Watch it!” Fourze tensed up “you!” he yelled, remembering her voice “I’ll be back for you random audience pony! I’ll remember your face…” he managed to yell before flying out of earshot Were he able too, Orion would have most likely hurled by this point “getting dizzy!” “Ok, screw this!” Fourze switched Rocket off. The Rocket Module disappeared and the two of them began to slow down. Once they reached the peak of their accent they came apart, no longer held together by extreme G’s As gravity kicked in and dragged them back to earth, Orion vocalized his displeasure “you fool! Now we’ll both plummet to our death! Are these horses really worth giving your life to protect!? This isn’t even stopping us; we will return here and wipe them all out!” Fourze’s response was simply “you done?” Orion nodded “good” Fourze switch Rocket back on “ROCKET ON!” and flew down to the ground “…oh yeah, I forgot all about that.” Orion plummeted to the ground, landing face first on the ground, leaving a crater. When Fourze was just a few feet above the ground, he switched Rocket off. He landed on his feet, but stumbled and nearly fell down “really need to practice with that” he mused. Taking a look at Orion, Fourze saw that he was struggling to get back up. Which was mostly due to his dizzy state “now’s my chance!” Fourze switch the switch next to Rocket on “LANUCHER ON!” the Launcher Module appeared on Fourze’s right leg. It was a single blue greave with 5 slots for projectiles on the right side of it “time to-” but before he could finish his sentence, something occurred to him “oh crap. I can’t blind fire with this many civilians around. What was I thinking!?” Orion was now on his knees, still struggling to get up thanks to his injuries. “Carter!” Shining called out “he’s getting back up. Hurry up and do something!” “Yeah, yeah, hold your horses” Fourze briefly chuckled at his private joke before switching on the switch opposite of Rocket “RADAR ON!” the Radar Module, a dish connected to a glowing screen much like the one in the Rabbit Hutch, appeared on his left arm. He pointed it at Orion, and after a few seconds it started beeping “target lock! Fire” the five projectiles in the Launcher Module shot straight at Orion. Each hitting him dead on and exploding on impact “AHHHH!!!” Orion cried out in pain as the explosions knocked him back into a building. “That’s it!” he bellowed “I’ve had enough of this!” he easily got back to his feet from his position, imbedded in a wall “prepare to die!” With a loud war cry, Orion charged at Fourze “Awwww, is someone cranky?” Fourze mockingly cooed. He switched off Launcher and Radar and replaced them with the other two switches “Chainsaw! Parachute!” he switched Chainsaw on “CHAINSAW ON!” like Launcher, the Chainsaw Module was blue. Unlike it however, The Chainsaw Module had a…well…chainsaw on it. The chainsaw pointed up, parallel to his leg. Armed and ready, he charged to meet Orion Orion threw a punch at Fourze’s face which he caught, as well as the second punch. Now locked in a stalemate, Orion could only mock him “you fool! Do you honestly think you can defeat me!?” Fourze sighed “geez. Did I knock something loose in your brain when I hit you with Launcher, or are you just this bad at being original and witty when mad?” The Chainsaw Module came to life. The blade spinning as it lowered itself onto Orion’s leg “AHHHH!!!” Orion cried out in pain for the second time today. He broke off from Fourze, not wanting his leg cut off “what the hell was that!?” “You know?” Fourze began “I always used to wonder why my dad thought it was a good idea to make Chainsaw a leg switch. Now that I’ve gotten to use it in battle…I can see why” “I’ve had enough of this!!!” Orion bellowed “You already said that” Fourze remarked His comment made Orion make a noise that sounded bot angry and hurt “that’s it! I’m going to slaughter everyone here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Orion started yelling Fourze scoffed “this isn’t Dragon Ball Z bub” his mocking was cut short when he saw Orion begin to glow a sickly golden color “shit! That doesn’t look good! I need to get him out of the city” he switched Rocket on “ROCKET ON!” and took off flying to Orion. This time he knew what he was doing. He grabbed Orion and readjusted the Rocket Module to send them up. After they had risen above the nearby mountain, Fourze let go “let’s try this one” He switch on the switch between Chainsaw and Parachute “DRILL ON!” The Drill Module manifested itself as a yellow drill on his left foot “wait a minute…” he gave a quick glance at the Rocket Module, and then the Drill Module “oh ha ha, very funny dad. Honestly, I would expect something more creative from him the a rocket powered drill kick” Orion raged from his position in the air below Fourze “you’ll never beat-” “Oh will you just shut up” Fourze screamed as he pulled the leaver on the side “Limit Break!” with the Drill Module spinning at high speeds, the Rocket Module shot him down to Orion, tearing right through him in a massive explosion The crowd below witnessed in horror as Fourze was engulfed by the flames “no” Shining lamented, as he tried to hold back his tears “Mommy” the young colt from before nudged his mother’s leg “is the Precursor going to be alright?” Not knowing how to answer her son, the mother just stayed quiet The solemn silence was broken by a familiar voice “PARACHUTE ON!” out of the dissipating cloud of Debris fell Fourze, the Parachute Module’s 3 parachutes slowing his decent. The assembled ponies exploded in cheers. “He survived…he survived!” Shining cried out "Wow! As Fourze touched down on the ground, he was swarmed by many little colts and fillies “whoa! Personal space.” “Wow! A real live Precursor! I told you they were real mommy, I told you!” one of the fillies bragged “Hold on a second. What’s a Precursor?” Fourze asked Shining now healed enough to walk, got to his hoof and trotted to Fourze “the Precursors are a mythical race that existed long before recorded history. Legend has it that one of them, The First Mother, was the one to give us language. It’s said that they had technology far beyond our capabilities and that they were wiped out by the evil Dark Precursors” Fourze shrugged “eh. That does kind of sound like my species; don’t know what to make of ‘The First Mother’ though. And I know that I’m in the future. So…yeah, it sounds like I’m what you call a Precursor” a gasp ran through the crowed ‘got to hand it to these ponies, they sure are synchronized’ “What do you mean you sound like a Precursor?” the colt from earlier asked Fourze knelt down and ruffled his mane a bit “well little guy, we didn’t call ourselves Precursors. That would sound a little weird” Because of her sister’s injuries, Luna took it upon herself to greet the newcomer in the name of Equestria “Greetings noble Precursor” while she managed to hide it well, she was extremely nervous. There was no standard procedure for dealing with lone surviving members of an elder race. So she was just going to have to play it by ear “Hey, what’s-” he froze upon seeing Luna Worried she had somehow offended him, Luna asked “have I said something to-” but Fourze interrupted her “Oh my god!” he exclaimed much to the shook of everyone around “you are so adorable!” Celestia let out a quick laugh. A very light blush appeared on Luna’s face “…did you just call me adorable?” she couldn’t remember the last time someone had referred to her like that “I could just hug you right now. But I don’t want to invade your personal space” he continued Most of the crowd didn’t know how to react. Shining however did; a simple facehoof conveyed his current feeling quite well. Treading carefully, Luna wisely changed the subject “yes well…thank you. I believe there are things we need to discuss” Fourze let out an amused breath “yeah I bet we do.” A team of medics finally made it to the scene, they had with them a stretcher and several first aid kits “those your medics? They sure took their sweet time getting here” “Yes, I suppose they did” Luna made a mental note make sure she and the medics were alerted soon the next time something like this happened. She addressed the head medic “attend to my sister” the medics lifted the princess of the sun onto the stretcher and carted her off “I believe it would be best to wait until my sister recover” “Fine with me” Fourze answered “what should I do until then?” “I can take you to the guard barracks to wait” Shining offered “Fine with me” he replied “that cool with you?” he asked Luna “Yes. That is quite… ‘cool’” she answered Fourze turned back to Shining “alright then, lead the way” Well, that the first battle, tell me what you think. For the most part, the Zodiart fights and switch debuts will happen in the same order as the original. Also, about the first line of dialog this chapter; there are books with stories about the Precursors in Equestria. They include very crude pictures of them.
A Quite Interlude’s BeginningBad news guy, school work is piling up for me. That means that this is the last update for a while. But don’t worry; I will get back to this Chapter 5: A Quite Interlude’s Beginning Carter, having turned off the Fourze Driver a while ago, was lounging in the captain’s quarters with Shining Armor and Cadence “I didn’t mean it like that” he moaned, pushing his face into the book he was reading. The small room was well furnished. Aside from the book shelve; there was a small couch that Cadence was lying down on. The floor was covered by a red rug. Shining Armor was sitting behind his deck, directly across from the door “Well how did you mean it?” Shining asked, a little peeved “You ponies look like talking animals to me” he defended “What!?” Cadence balked “Before I was cryogenically frozen, there was a species of animal on the earth called horses. You ponies are likely descended from them” Carter explained “so when I called the princess adorable, I meant she was adorable in the same way that a cat or bunny is. Though I have to admit; you look pretty huggable too Shining” he finished with a smirk Shining backed up as fast as he could, though since his desk as already at the end of the room, he couldn’t go far, he simply bumped into his window “you stay away from me!” Carter got up and held out his arms “aww, come on big guy. Want me to brush your mane? I could put pretty, pretty ribbons in it. You’ll look so beautiful” he cooed Fear swept over Shining’s face. Cadence on the other hand was in a laughing fit “I have some old accessories we could use” she offered “Why are you encouraging him!?” Shining panicked “But Shining, don’t you want to be pretty for your lady?” It had been a long time since anyone had mercilessly teased Shining like this. As such, he was not prepared “My lady!? But, how-” “Did I know?” Carter finished “I really hope for your sakes this isn’t some big secret, because anyone with eyes can see it. Those quick looks you share, the blushing, the kiss you snuck in when you thought I was out of earshot” that one added a hint of red to their faces “and then there was Madam Sherbet begging me to save your life. I believe your words were ‘If…if I lose him. I’m not sure what I’ll do!’” “Madam Sherbet?” Cadence repeated confused “Your hair reminds me of sherbet. That reminds me; what kind of sweets do you have here? I need me some sugar” Grabbing a paper bag from his desk with magic, he levitated it over to Carter “well, you can try some doughnuts-” Carter yanked the bag out of the air “my god! It can’t be…” he pulled out the contents of the bag “…it is. You ponies have doughnuts!!” he began scarfing the surgery dough down “You know what a doughnut is!?” Cadence asked surprised “Yeah, we had them back in my day” he let out a wistful sigh “too bad dad never figured out how to replicate them” “Um, ‘replicate’?” questioned Shining “Oh, yeah” Carter lightly bonked himself on the head “forgot to tell you about my dietary needs” but before Carter could tell them the door opened and Luna entered “Oh hey. Where’s your sister, I thought we were waiting for here to get better?” “My sister does not want us to wait for her to regain her health” despite her regal statue, she seemed nervous “I must confess, I have not conversed with a member of an elder race before. I am not sure how to proceed” Carter shrugged “Eh, don’t worry about it; we’re all in new territory here. I’m not used to speaking with talking animals” Luna raised an eyebrow and looked to Shining, hoping he could explain. He caught her gaze and understood what she wanted “apparently when the Precursors, or ‘humans’ as they called themselves, were the dominate species, there was a race of animals called horse which Carter here believes are our ancestors” Luna nodded at him. Now finally understanding what Carter meant when he called her adorable “’Carter’ was it?” she tested the foreign name on her tongue, she was rewarded when the human nodded his head in conformation “would you care to explain just what these Dark Precursors truly are?” Carter nodded again “they’re called the Zodiarts. Each one is based on one of the 88 constellations” “88!? There are 88 of them!?” Cadence panicked “Well…” Carter started nervously “more like 100” “100!?” she nearly fainted Carter nodded yet again “the strongest 12 Zodiarts are called the Horoscopes, each one being based off of a constellation in the zodiac” then Carter realized something “oh wait, I doubt all the same stars are still around. You probably don’t know which constellations I’m talking about” “Dorado, Andromeda, Coma, Sextans Pavo” Luna listed off a few of them “…ok wow. How do you know about those?” Carter was baffled “A very long time ago, I acquired some very old Pre…human star charts. I thought that they looked quite beautiful, so I decided to paint them in the sky each night. Of course I was unaware that they had been made by humans at the time” “…‘Paint them in the sky’…is that some kind of metaphor or something?” “It is not” Luna answered “It seems I may have neglected to inform you of my status as princess of the night” “…The what?” Carter flatly asked “The princess of the night” she repeated “it is my duty to raise the moon each night and set it each morning, I am also in charge of the stars” “Yeah…I’m going to call bull shit here” Carter deadpanned Luna blinked “forgive me, but I am unaware what it means to ‘call bull shit’” “It means I don’t believe you” Luna’s eyes widened “let’s ignore for now your claim that you’re moving a giant rock in space more than capable of moving round the earth on its own. Your claim that you control the stars is the one that really bugs me” Though she felt offended, Luna still made a great effort to keep her emotions in check “and pray tell, why does it ‘bug’ you so much” “Because I doubt anything in the universe could control that many suns” was Carter’s answer Luna’s head reeled back in surprise “suns? I had thought we were talking about stars” “Stars are really just very far away suns” Carter explained. Although reeling from another revelation, Luna didn’t say anything. She knew that if she interrupted every time Carter said something surprising, that they were going to be here a while. “And honestly; controlling celestial bodies” Carter disapprovingly shook his head “what are you going to tell me next? You ponies also control the weather? Do you just drag clouds where ever you want and make them rain? Maybe you also need to change the seasons too” As rude as his words were, they gave Luna a much better understanding of his situation “there is something I must show you” She effortlessly lifted Shining and his desk up with magic, much to his surprise, and led Carter to the window. When he looked outside, he saw several pegasi were dragging around black clouds up to an even bigger black cloud that loomed over the city. A few seconds later, the giant cloud released its payload Maintaining a neutral expression and voice, Carter turned towards Luna and asked “the fuck did I just see?” “The Canterlot weather team” Luna answered As much as he wanted to flip out, Carter still had yet to recharge his crazy reserves, so he settled for a sigh “great…the earth’s gone completely manual” “Now do you believe in my connection to the moon?” Luna asked “Does your ‘connection’ to the moon allow you to sense its position and stuff?” Luna simply nodded “then I know a way to find out if you’re really telling the truth” Carter pulled the Gate Switch out of one of his pockets and used it on the door “let’s go.” The three ponies followed him through the gate, and into the Rabbit Hutch Upon stepping inside, Luna was overcome with a strange sensation “does…does nopony else feel that?” “Feel what princess?” Shining asked Luna took a minute to think of how to describe it “It…it reminds me of the sensation I felt of being sealed in the moon” The three ponies looked at Carter “look, I’m all crazed out. I’ll complain about the possibility of being sealed in a giant space rock later” “No. Why would the princess be feeling this way” Shining clarified “Oh. That” Carter walked over to the terminal and pressed a button “let me show you” a line of panels opened up near the roof an all sides, reveling to the ponies the window, and outside “What the!?” Shining gazed out into the inky blackness, the stars seemed oddly placed “but its daytime, why is it so dark outside?” Cadence was the first to spot a strange object outside “what is that!?” her hoof pointed to a mostly blue sphere amidst the darkness Now thoroughly confused, Luna turned to the smirking Carter “where have you taken us?” Instead of a straight answer, Carter asked a question “where’s the moon?” Luna internally panicked “I…I cannot sense it. This strange feeling is hiding it from me” Carter sighed “well princess, you’ve convinced me” “Convinced thee of what?” “Your connection to the moon” “I have?” Luna asked confused “how was I able to do so?” Carter sat down in a chair and put his feet up on the table “because I know what that strange sensation your feeling is, and why you can’t feel the moon anymore…ok maybe not ‘know’ but I have a really good idea why” He got up and pushed a few buttons on the terminal and a drum roll started, after a brief silence he answered them “We…are on the moon” Luna answered with a flat “what” Cadence’s eyes bugged out “the…the moon!? How is the even possible!?” “Cosmic Energy” was Carter’s answer “its discovery was a complete accident, but it was the biggest scientific breakthrough in human history” Carter sat back down in his chair “since the very beginning, my dad was the biggest expert in Cosmic Energy” he shook his head wistfully “it was a science so new, we didn’t even have a name for it. But dad just got it somehow. He used it to make this place; the Rabbit Hutch, the Fourze Driver, and the Astro Switches” he got back on his feet “but enough about that. Who wants to go outside?” Despite her connection to it, Luna had never walked on the moon before. It was an amazing feeling. “This view…breathtaking” she awed as she watched the Earth from behind the visor of her space suit “Cool, isn’t it?” Fourze beamed “I always loved playing out on the moon. It’s just so peaceful up here. Made me forget about the war on Earth” “To not only be able to reach to moon, but to build space suits that could fit any species…truly the time of humans must have been magical” Luna gushed “even if these ‘sensor’ things that made my suit are itchy” Fourze gave a small shrug “eh, it wasn’t so hot. There were a lot of bad people back then, and I mean really bad. Not only that, but there was too much pollution too. I’m a little surprised the planet managed to recover” Fourze folded his arms and shook his head “maybe it’s a good thing we got wiped out, we would have destroyed the earth sooner or later otherwise” “Do you really have such little faith in thy fellow humans?” Luna asked with a sad look in her eyes “Well we did have weapons that could do the deed. Everyone was just too afraid to use them for fear of retaliation” “Why would such weapons need to be made?” Luna asked with a twinge of fear in her voice Fourze sat down and sighed “look Luna, I’m going to be honest with you; humans weren’t a very peaceful race, we weren’t complete bastards, but we were still pretty bad. There’re a lot of wars in our history, each one waged for some stupid self-righteous. So many live have been pointlessly lost” Fourze lamented “those weapons I was talking about, they’re called nuclear weapons. They’ve been around almost a century…and they’ve only been used twice, in the same war” “Only twice?” she echoed in a question “That’s how afraid of them we were. Once mankind saw the destruction they could cause…well…it scared a lot of people” “Then why keep building them? Why not make an accord to ban them?” “Because we couldn’t trust each other” Fourze shook his head “humanity has never been fully united for anything. Not even when the Zodiarts began their attack. We were still kept apart by old grudges and other such stuff. We might have been less biologically diverse then you ponies, but there were still plenty of things to keep us divided. We didn’t have two immortal rulers to guide us. We were on our own” “Truly the past sounds like a most horrible place” Luna commented Behind his helmet, an amused smile appeared on his face “funny, that’s the same thing Shining said” he got up and turned around to watch Shining and Cadence frolic on the moon. However, their carefree attitude only served to make him more depressed “it’s really too bad that you’ll soon find out just how right you are” I figured that a princess that had to fight Discord, and the captain of the royal guard would be able to handle the crazy better than a civilian. I hope that Cadence was able to convey that. Also, did anyone notice anything strange in this chapter?
The Artifact’s Great SecretHello everybody, this is my first attempt at a MLP: FIM fic. I had lots of ideas for my first dive into bronydom (this fic itself can be considered a much lighter and softer version of another fic I was planning to do). This is not going to be your typical HiE story, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. Also, quick heads up; this takes place long before A Canterlot Wedding. So without further ado, I present to you: Friendship is herrrrreeeeeee!!! Chapter 1: The Artifact’s Great Secret Twilight Sparkle was one of the brightest unicorns in Equestria, having been taught by princess Celestia herself. She was a straight A student, could pick up on complicated concepts that most ponies never understood with ease, and to top it all off; she had the raw magic power of a baby alicorn. So why was this one artifact giving her so much trouble!? “Nothing, nothing, nothing!” Twilight screamed into the night from her lab in the basement if her library tree home. The mare shot daggers at the small object setting before her, how it dare mock her! What with its gold color, rectangular prism shape, small triangle on top connected by a smaller pole, with an out of place plate of black plastic on what she assumed to be its front “I’ve ran every test I can think of, and still nothing!” Unable to sleep, her baby dragon assistant Spike, opted to watch “I’m telling you Twi; there’s a reason why you can push that little triangle” he commented Twilight applied a small amount of pressure to the triangle and it tilted to the front of the artifact accompanied by a click and a light shining from the front “I know that Spike, but it doesn’t seem to do anything” she took her hoof back and the triangle shifted back. Twilight sighed “I just have to figure out the secret behind this thing, the princess is counting on me. I’m even starting to think that this thing is merely a small illumination device” Spike simply rolled his eyes, wisely opting to not say anything about that. A yawn reminded him of something rather important “look, it’s late. You need to get some sleep. We both do. What if you fell asleep early during the slumber party tomorrow?” Twilight’s body slumped and her eyes closed “I guess you’re right Spike. I just really don’t want to let the princess down. She rarely asks anything of me” leaving the strange object on a table, she slowly walked up out of the lab and to her room with Spike close behind It was a typical day in Ponyvile; the sun was shining, the weather was beautiful, nature itself just seemed happy in general. Inside a familiar tree, a baby dragon was sitting down on the staircase while rereading a letter “‘-so I’m sending it to you to see if you can find out what it is. Princess Celestia’” he put it down with a sigh “that’s what I thought; Twilight is just over reacting again. This letter doesn’t seem urgent. She really needs to learn how to chill out” His musings were cut short by a call from upstairs “Spiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike! Have you seen my checklist for today!?” “You put it under your bed so you wouldn’t forget it!” he replied He waited a few seconds for her reply “found it, thanks” Spike started making his way towards the kitchen to make breakfast “geez” he started mumbling “she’s a grown mare; I shouldn’t have to remember where everything is” When he got to the kitchen he was greeted by a familiar and somewhat unwelcome sight “hi Spike” a pink earth pony that had more energy than should be physically possible greeted him “AHHHH!” he yelped in surprise, jumping up and falling on his butt “Pinkie Pie! What are you doing here!?” Pinkie giggled, the sound seemed to ooze sugar “silly Spike, I’m here for the party” no longer able to stand still, she began bouncing in place “I’m just so excited!” The sudden sound of hoof steps alerted Spike to Twilight’s presence “Spike! What happened!?” The second she entered the kitchen and saw Pinkie, her expression changed from worry to relief “oh Pinkie, it’s just you. For a minute there, I was worried something awful happened” Suddenly the fact that Pinkie Pie was in her house hit her “wait. What are you doing here Pinkie?” Pinkie let out another giggle “oh Twilight you silly willy filly. I’m here for the party. It funny, Spike had to ask me that too” “Um Pinkie, we’re having a slumber party. You know, a night party” Twilight explained “Well duh” Pinkie exclaimed getting too close to Twilight’s face “that’s why I’m here; to help set up. I brought streamer” she made a little hop and confetti flew out of her mane “woops, that was the confetti” Not wanting to hurt her feeling, Twilight put on an uneasy smile and said “Pinkie, I’m pretty sure that slumber parties don’t have decorations” immediately after saying that, she remembered he own inexperience “…or do they?” she took off in search of a book to give her the information she needed “Well that’s just great” Spike huffed “Twilight’s goanna be busy for a while” Pinkie however didn’t seem fazed by this in the least “That’s ok. I can get started without her” she pulled out her party cannon from…somewhere, and wheeled out of the kitchen and into the library where she proceeded to launch party decorations all over the hall of books. Twilight, who was still looking for the right book, didn’t notice. In only a matter of seconds, the library was decked out in decorations. “That was fun!” Pinkie chirped, satisfied with her work thus far she scanned for somewhere else to decorate when she spied a familiar door “ah ha, Twilight’s lab! That could use some partyfying” party cannon in tow, she made her way to Twilight’s lab “Pinkie Pie, wait!” Spike hurried to catch up with her “be careful down there” “Oh don’t worry Spike, I’m a wiz with the party cannon” she reassured the baby dragon before opening the door and going down. Now inside the lab, Pinkie dragged her party cannon to the bottom of the stairs and left it there “now what should I shoot?” she wondered. As she sized up the room, her eyes came upon a small golden object “hey, what’s this?” picking it up with her hoof she examined it “I wonder what happens if I do this?” she asked herself as she applied pressure on the triangle. When nothing happened she tried pushing it forward, she was rewarded with a flash of light and a ‘click’. A silly smile wormed its way onto her face as she decided to show Twilight. Running back up the stairs with her find in her mouth, she stopped in front of Twilight, dropped it into her hoof, and poked the unicorn to get her attention “Twilight, Twilight! Look what I found!” Gazing up from her book on slumber parties, Twilight’s eyes widen when she saw what Pinkie had “Pinkie! Be careful with that! It’s an ancient artifact with some unknown purpose” Patting Twilight on the head, Pinkie attempted to calm her down by saying “aww, it’s ok Twilight. I just want to make it flash” bouncing on her flank and spinning in place, she kept flickering the light on and off. “This is fun” Concerned for the wellbeing of the item that Pinkie was mercilessly flickering, Twilight froze her in place with telekinesis, Pinkie Pie was now facing the door to the lab “Pinkie” Twilight said the name of the hyper mare, annoyance in her voice Pinkie Pie’s head drooped “I’m sorry Twilight” giving her friend a sheepish smile, she asked “one more?” Twilight sighed “fine, one more” “Yay”! Pinkie cheered. Planning to make the most of it, she got ready for one last flick. She slid her hoof into the triangle on top and flicked it, giving off a flash of light. Letting go of the small object, Twilight grabbed it with telekinesis and walked towards her lab door. Before opening it however, she turned back to Pinkie and said “listen Pinkie…I’m sorry for snapping like that. It’s just that the princess sent this to me. I’d hate for it to break under my care” “I’m sorry too Twilight” she replied Satisfied that everything was cool again, Twilight opened the door. What she saw was not her lab “AH!” leaping back in surprise, she lost her concentration and dropped the artifact “where did my lab go!?” on the other side of the door, there was a room of endless whiteness, with traces of other light colors, that almost seemed to be made of energy “Ohh, that’s really neat Twilight! I didn’t know you could do that” Pinkie gasped “Pinkie this wasn’t me” Twilight said “what could have…” then it hit her “the artifact…it did this! It makes strange portals in doors” suddenly remembering where Pinkie’s last flash was aimed at, she ran up to the mare and gave her the biggest hug she could muster “Oh Pinkie, you’re a genius!” releasing her from the hug, Twilight’s natural curiosity took over “come on! Let’s see where it goes” with that, she ran off into the strange gateway making sure to grab the artifact again, with Spike and Pinkie Pie close behind. “Wow, this place is amazing!” Spike commented in awe “YEP, it’s really pretty” Pinkie agreed as she hopped along “but it needs more colors…oh, maybe some pink!” After only a few seconds of walking, they stopped when they came across a strange rectangular white wall; unlike everything else, it looked solid, it was also really small for a wall “this can’t be it” Twilight said. She continued towards it, but after her first step the wall split in half and slid left and right, disappearing. It was then that Twilight realized something; that wasn’t a wall, it was a door “…a magic door?” on the other side was a dark room “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s explore!” Pinkie Pie declared as she ran in “Pinkie, wait! We need to be careful” Twilight warned As Pinkie took her first step into the strange room, she was lifted into the air and flew into a wall on the other side before slowly falling back down “ouch!” “Did Pinkie just fly!?” Spike yelped Suddenly feeling a sense of foreboding, Twilight mumbled to herself “just what is this place?” carefully walking inside she instantly felt 6 times lighter, Twilight used the light from the artifact to get a better look at the room; from what she could see, it was circular and nearly all white, in the middle was a table (also circular) with seats attached to it by metal bars. There were 3 doors that she could see; the one she came through, one to the far right of that one, and one on the other side. On the wall in-between the first two doors, there was a strange machine with all kinds of buttons and switches. Right by the entrance there was a lever and a strange tube, under the lever were the words ‘Gravity Control’ “What!? How can anything control gravity?” reaching out with her magic, she pushed the lever up. When nothing happened she pushed it back down “yeah, that’s what I though” she said to herself, feeling silly for having believed that sigh, how dare it lie to her! Meanwhile Pinkie was busy bouncing around in the low gravity “WEEEEEEEE, this is fun! You two should try it” “Pinkie, we still don’t know just what this place is…or even where it is” Twilight protested Mere seconds after Twilight spoke, Pinkie bumped into a glowing half circle button near the strange tube “ouch!” the impact sent her flying to the other side Carefully traversing the low gravity room, Twilight and Spike walked over to check on her “Pinkie, please be careful. I don’t want you to hurt yourself” Twilight voiced her concerns for her hyper companion Before Pinkie could respond however; a strange female voice spoke “cryostasis chamber: depressurizing” “AH! Who said that!?” Spike panicked “It’s coming from everywhere!” Twilight screamed The voice began talking again “non-vital systems: online” immediately after the voice spoke, the lights came on and the gravity changed to match earth’s “I’m scared Twilight” Spike said as he grabbed Twilight’s leg “Me too Spike” Twilight admitted “Unlocking cryostasis chamber” the tube cracked open just like the door, and a strange white gas that fell to the ground came seeping out, after a few seconds it opened full…and a strange biped came tumbling out. The three friends were now huddled together as they watched the biped struggle to get to its feet, much like a newborn. It used one of the seats of the table to help itself up, and once it did the three of them got a good look at it; it was pale, seeming devoid of fur except for its short brown mane. Had a lanky form, one that seemed to be a cross between a diamond dog and a monkey. On its torso was a strange white cloth piece of clothing completely covering it along with half of its upper limbs. Bellow it was another piece of clothing, this one however was blue and made of a strange material that none of them recognized, that covered all of its lower body except its feet, which were different from its arms, being black with strange string on them tied into bows. Twilight’s heart was racing ‘this is bad! Just what did we free!?’ the strange creature, finally standing on its own, made a strange grumbling sound and slowly opened its eyes. Her panic having risen to uncontrollable levels, Twilight did the only thing she could think have in her state; scream “ah, monster!” Her voice seemed to shock the slumber right out of the creature. Its eyes shot open as it jumped in surprise. The creature just stood there for a while, watching them ‘This is the end’ Twilight lamented. As the creature slowly lowered itself to the floor, Twilight began to shake in fear. As she mentally prepared herself for death (or at least tried to) the creature did something unexpected; it ran out the door. Stunned, the three of them just sat there for a few seconds before Twilight realized the implications of what just happened “oh no! It’s heading to Ponyvile! We have to stop it!” Quickly jumping to their feet, the three of them ran out the door, hoping they could catch it in time. When they got to the end of the strange hallway, they saw the door to Twilight’s lab open. After returning to the library they heard a shrill cry of terror “EEEEKKKKKK!!!” “Oh no, that’s Fluttershy!” Spike realized Filled with worry, the three of them ran out of the library and headed in the direction of Fluttershy’s voice. Getting the better of her, Twilight’s paranoia started running wild “what if it hurt her…or worse” Giving her a gentle sideways head-butt, Pinkie Pie said “snap out of it Twilight! She’s just fine...I know it” her voice betraying her words Near the edge of town, they saw three familiar forms huddled around something “Applejack! Rarity! Rainbow Dash!” Twilight called out to her other friends The three mares turned to face them “Oh darlings it’s simply dreadful! Poor Fluttershy just saw a monster leaving Ponyvile! How did it even get in without anypony seeing it?” Rarity told them “Is Fluttershy alright?” asked Twilight “She’ll be ok, just a bit shaken up” Applejack answered. Sure enough, the butter yellow pegasus on the ground was a quivering, but unharmed, mess “Well that monster won’t be when I get my hoofs on it!” Rainbow Dash declared “nopony scares Fluttershy like that and gets away from it” “Quick Fluttershy, which way did it go?” Twilight asked. Fluttershy’s answer sounded like a cross between a squeak and a sob “um…could you repeat that please?” Leaning in closer, Rarity was able to pick up what she said “the Everfree forest!” “Ah ha! Trying to slink back to its den no doubt. You can’t escape me monster, you hear!” she yelled at the forest Twilight sighed, she knew she couldn’t keep this a secret “everypony…I have a confession to make; that monster came out of a portal in my house” The three mares standing gasped “I’ll tell you the whole story later, but right now we need to inform the princess. She needs to know that there’s a monster loose in Equestria” her words caused a hush to spread over them Finally breaking the silence, Pinkie asked “does this mean the party’s canceled?” It was a typical day in Ponyvile; the sun was shining, the weather was beautiful, nature itself just seemed happy in general, and a strange creature had just been released from its, who know how long, slumber. Just another normal day I’ll be honest, even after all the work I put into trying to make the first chapter good, I still don’t feel like it’s right, although it ended up twice as long as I thought it would be, so that’s a plus. I just can’t think of anything else to do that wouldn’t interfere with the plot. If anyone has some constructive criticism I’d love to hear it. I can only hope that it doesn’t suck completely.
