Freedom

I was boarding the train to New Dravus and bidding my goodbyes to Twilight and the girls, I had Twily babysit Scruff, wanted her to meet her Aunt, and was taking Donal and Pinkie with me, both at their insistence. I saw Scruff waving goodbye from the window while riding on Twilights shoulders. “Goodbye, Daddy! Come back soon!”

I smiled and waved to my daughter as the train puffed away, clicking and clacking down the track. I turned to Pinkie and frowned “You do realize that if things get dangerous, I am having Donal here send you to ponyville first and help me out second, right?”
Pinkie sighed “Yeah, I thought you’d say that, but here’s the thing, Caithy, I can handle myself!” At this I raised my eyebrow doubtfully, to which Pinkie frowned and pulled out a whip and pulled me to her with it before holding me to the ground “What do you think of my skills now, Caithy?”

I smiled and laughed “I think I’m even further in love with you than before, but still, if it turns out we are fighting a full grown Dragon, or some sort of demigod like being, I’m having Donal take you home.”

Pinkie pouted and sat on my back, after awhile of waiting and realizing she wasn’t going to get off I firestepped out from under her and rematerialized by Donal, laughing as Pinkie fell backwards onto her rump with a loud thud. She looked to me and pouted even more “That wasn’t funny…”

I smiled and walked over to Pinkie as we entered a long tunnel, taking us deep into the innards of the beast that was Equestria “Sorry, it was just the look on your face was cute.”

Pinkie smiled bashfully and kissed me on the cheek as Donal fake gagged “Heads up, we’re almost there.”

Pinkie looked to Donal “Really? I had no idea there was a Diamond Dog Warren so close to our village.”

Donal and I nodded grimly, speaking in unison “They rarely ever do…”

Pinkie looked to me curiously “What do you mean?”

I looked sadly to the ground “Ponies that are being targeted by Diamond Dogs for enslavement.”

Pinkie looked to me in surprise “Diamond Dogs do that?”

{They are almost here, are you ready?}

[Born ready]

I nodded as I saw light come in through the windows and saw the city of New Dravus in the distance. It was a brilliant construction of an underground Civilization… multicolored glowing stone used as the ceiling to imitate the night sky, sprawling buildings reaching up from the distant floor of the cavern, and at its center, a glowing spire crackling with magical energy that I knew from my visits to similar encampments acted as the exact opposite of a lightning rod; instead of drawing the magical energy and storing it, it generated it and filled the entire cavern with purple mana, making it glow with an almost ethereal light, even making parts of the cavern buoyant, making it necessary to chain them to anchors on the ground below. Pinkie gasped, undoubtedly overwhelmed by culture shock “It… it’s beautiful…”

Donal grunted. “Ye should see the capitol of Dravidiums Empire, it makes this look right bland in comparison.”

Pinkie looked to Donal curiously “What makes it so much better?”

Donal laughed “Lass, the proof is saturatin’ the air around us, see how the mana’s only one color?” Pinkie nodded “Well, add about five more colors and ye’ve got the bloody capitol, tha’s five times the magical energy. It’s a bloody honor on this outpost fer the king ta be here.”
Pinkie gasped “I can’t imagine a place with more magic than this… it feels almost like when I used the Elements of Harmony, but more wild and crazy cuckoo loco!”

Donal nodded “Dravidium studied the Elements back when Celly had em. They seem to be pure mana, and have been designed by an ancient being, older than Celly herself. Even Dravidium, who saw the birth of the first Draqonequus and the sealing of the last of the species, does nae come close to the Elements Age. They seem ta be programmed tae only work fer those who have the right traits in em, like a fingerprint fer yer soul.”

I nodded in agreement as we reached the center of the outpost, right next to the spire “Dravidium is supposed to meet us here, right?”

Donal nodded and pressed his hand to the wall of the spire, making a doorway appear from where he touched “Follow me.” We did as he said and followed him to a teleportation circle, he standed at attention as King Dravidium materialized.

A giant among even his people, whom averaged on the height of 15 feet tall by five feet wide, Dravidium wore a cross between a blacksmiths apron and warriors armor, with a metal helmet I knew to be designed to keep his head as hot as possible, due to the fact that Stone Ogres brains are more functional when heated, the smoke from the heating venting via two pipes resembling demon horns. I bowed to Dravidium and gestured to Pinkie to do the same, once we bowed, Dravidium spoke to us “Tell me, have you ever heard of a man named Jericho?”

I looked to Dravidium in confusion “Who?”

Dravidium sighed “I was hoping that Celestia would have had made this public knowledge… but alas, I have given up trying to understand her motives.”

Donal nodded “In me opinion, all mares be right mad.”

I laughed as Pinkie took on an offended look “True, but you gotta love ‘em.”

Pinkie smacked me playfully up the back of my head “You are so, so… Gugh!”

I laughed and looked to Dravidium “You were saying?”

Dravidium nodded “He is the reason we have the peace meetings. The reason the Stone Ogres and Ponies are not currently at war… the reason me and Celestia, hell… all of Equis are still alive.”

I looked to Dravidium curiously “Why are you telling us this?”

Dravidium sighed sadly “Because he died saving us from the dark being that you are going to have to fight…”

{Dad…}

[It’s okay, George, I’m here.]

{Wha…why?}

[ Because we are brothers, and we have to stick together, listen, if this goes wrong… I just want you to know that I’m proud to have known you.]

{… I am… I’m proud to have known you as well.}

I looked to Dravidium and stood back up “What happened?”

Dravidium sighed “Well, first you should know, the Umbra Pader is pure evil, he seeks to bathe all of reality in darkness, to bend all living things to his will or break them trying, and him and Jericho were bitter enemies, each one the antithesis of the other.” I nodded and waited for him to continue, Pinkie eating popcorn off to my side. “Jericho met us, and befriended the both of us. Giving us a reason to get along, we actually came to have an understanding… we made peace and studied magic together with Jericho. Well, to be more specific, we learned from him.” Dravidium sighed “But then He came…” Dravidium shuddered “His power corrupted anyone who opposed him into willing pawns… he fed off of the darkness in our hearts. Jericho had no option but to make a magical weapon the likes of which no one in Equis has ever seen, rivaling even the balefire megabomb spell in sheer power,” He then turned to Donal “From what I understand, the magic in this weapon acted similar to the Ray Sphere, except you size up the device to be the size of Pluto from your dimension, and it comes without the… unfortunate casualties…”

Donal paled “I-it gave him that kind of power?!”

Dravidium nodded “He became a god, with power that would put Discord to shame, and set out to banish the Umbra Pader, whom had already corrupted Sombra into serving him, and had begun corrupting Luna in the dream realm… he defeated the Umbra Pader after five days of combat and banished him to a separate dimension, but it came at a great price, his body was destroyed by the power running through it, and his spirit split into two beings, John of Order, and George of Chaos.”

[Here it comes.]

{Let’s do this!}

Dravidium pulled out a strange diamond shaped puzzle-like stone, with pieces that would remove themselves only to rotate and reinsert themselves at different points. “This is the weapon he had made, it now contains both of his split selves, I have a feeling you have been hearing them?"

I gasped "They are the voices I had been hearing?! I just thought I was going nuts!"

Dravidium chuckled heartily "No... they have been heard for the first time in millennia. They need you, and your friends that you have made. John, George, why don't you say hello?"

Two orbs of energy came out of the artifact, one an energetic, crackling electric red, the other a soothing, luminescent opaque blue. The red orb ran flew into my face in an excited manner "HI! I'M GEORGE!

It'sapleasuretomeetyouandIamsuperexcitedtofinallybetalkingtosomeoneotherthanmybrotherand-"

The blue orb generated a blue cattleprod and zapped the red orb "Calm, the fuck, down." It then dragged the pulsing orb away, I guess he was twitching, now that I was thinking about it... The orb then laughed gently "What my... excitable brother was trying to say was that we need your help, the Umbra Pader has awoken and is trying to make his way out of the pocket dimension our father sealed him in. We are going to fuse our beings with this artifact, which we then humbluy ask you insert into one of the eye sockets in the skull on your buzzaxe."

I nodded thoughtfully "And... what happens then?"

John sighed sadly "We will fade... becoming naught but mystical energy that will empower you. We will bring the last element of order into play in our dying moments, and then... we can finally rest..."

George bobbed up and down in what I assume was a nod "We are tired... we have been watching over this world, doing what our father would of wanted for a VERY long time... we just want to stop... and with this, we can do both, helping our dad and ending our suffering..."

I stood there, dumbstruck. Pinkies hair deflated and Donal became stone faced, I eventually found my voice "What will happen to me and my friends?"

John dimmed "The Elements of Harmony and the Elements of Order shall become linked again, and the other Elements of Order will manifest as well, Strength and Benevolence already have their hosts, but Valor, Law, Honor, and Knowledge... We know not who will become their hosts. You... we only know that you will become capable of harming the Umbra Pader, as well as the other elements, both Order and Harmony."

I looked to John curiously "Linked? What do you mean?"

John sighed, how did he even do that? He had no lungs... nor a diaphragm... "The Elements will be capable of firing off a singular blast, as well as empowering your attacks greatly."

I nodded and took the artifact in my hand before looking to the two orbs "You sure about this?"

The two orbs flickered and bobbed in what I assumed was a nod, I then placed the artifact in the left eye socket of my buzzaxes skull, and gasped as an overwhelming power flooded my body and a blue and orange portal opened up, a British looking individual with black hair and a bored face walked out of it, I was incapable of getting a better look at him before I heard a massive roar "DRAGON!"