Canterlot Palace

David spent the next hour or so explaining to the gathered ponies how they were little more than a work of fiction in his world, needless to say they were… skeptical.

“So, let me get this straight” said twilight “where you come from, thousands of people watch us through a piece of technology called a ‘tell-o-vision’ as we live out our lives and go on adventures, but it’s all a work of fiction?” She had a deep frown telling me how little she believed the story, as well as how much she approved of the idea of her and her friends having their lives watched.

“It’s absolutely true, it didn't show anything indecent, but I do know about you all, most of your immediate family, the threats to Equestria, the princesses, your pets, the crusaders, I can name a good portion of the apple family… I may even be able to tell you about some things you yourselves don’t know~” David said, mischief clear in his voice, especially for the last sentence.

Celestia spoke up quickly “such as?”

David smiled “the river serpent Rarity gave her tail to when you girls first met? His name is Steven Magnet, he is a good friend of Ponyville’s resident donkey, Cranky Doodle.”

“WHAT?!” Pinky seemed quite surprised by this fact based on her sheer volume. After her friends recovered from her shout, they all took on surprised expressions as well.

“Indeed, I hadn’t seen it coming either” Said David “of course if you don’t believe me you can go ask one of them yourselves, after we’re done here of course.”

“Anything else? That hardly proves your words. This information could be acquired simply by speaking to either of the two parties mentioned.” Said Luna still very suspicious.

“Oh? Then how about this? I can tell you exactly how each of you were corrupted by discord, down to the smallest detail.” This made everyone’s eyes widen, Discord’s especially, who, while being decidedly embarrassed, was even more so exceedingly furious.

“No way! We haven’t even tolled each OTHER that, how could YOU possibly know?” This time it was Rainbow Dash who spoke.

“I couldn’t, not unless I’m telling the truth, or at the very least, something close to it.” David said with a grin. “shall I tell you?” All of them went quiet, deep in thought as most of them tried to decide if they wanted to relive one of the worst blunders their friendship had ever faced. A certain draconequus hoping the answer would be no.

After a few minutes of silent deliberation, Apple Jack decided to step forward. “do it.” The others looked like they wanted to say something but she turned to answer their concerns before they could voice them. “We need to know for sure whether what he’s saying is true, besides, I’m sure we would’a told each other eventually, but we’ve definitely put it off longer than we should’a, this’ll just speed things along some…” she wore a sad smile when she was finished, clearly not looking forward to this any more than any of the others.

Twilight smiled back at her friend as she stepped forward and rest her hoof on the farm mare’s shoulder, she looked back to David with a look of determination. “we’re ready.” The others present, barring Discord, nodded in agreement.

“Very well~” He proceeded to tell all about the events that led to Discord’s second defeat and subsequent imprisonment. As he told the story, the girls could be seen with shame clear on their face, having forsaken their friends for even a second was the greatest mistake they could have ever made in their eyes. However, every time one of the friends started to feel down, the other element bearers would come to support them. All their friends received this treatment, except perhaps the one who needed it most…

As David finished his story, all of the girls came together in a quick embrace, feeling an even greater bond then they had before. As they embraced, he caught site of the being of chaos fading out of the room from the back of the group, a look of depression he recognized all too well being the last he saw of him. ‘they have so much to learn…’he thought before coughing into his hoof to gain their attention. “glad to see you’re all chummy but am I correct in assuming that you all believe me now?”

“For now,” twilight said with a glare. “but what does that mean for us? Are we just supposed to accept that we’re the product of somebody else’s imagination?”

“Oh, heavens no” answered David “the very fact that I have made it to this dimension PROOVES that this is reality.” Those gathered looked confused, including the princesses. “Here, let’s think of it this way, Twilight, what is the current belief regarding multidimensional theory?”

“Well, it mostly consists of the thought that for every action we perform or decision we make, a myriad of dimensions are born that are the representations of the different possible outcomes of those events.” She said knowledgably.

“Precisely, we have a similar theory, however we also have may variations of the theory including one that includes the realm of imagination.” Again, confused looks. David rolled his eyes “Basically it alters the theory slightly to include works of fiction and other such imaginary worlds. Saying that by merely having a thought, letting your imagination run wild, a world can be born. The more you think about it, the more it comes to life. There’s also another version of this theory that says that any time we imagine something it’s not actually an original idea, it’s the result of two realities passing close to each other and influencing each other just slightly.” He looked to them all hopefully, but, despite their minor understanding, they were all still quite lost. He sighed “long story short, whether this world is the result of someone else’s imagination, or if your world, or rather, some version of your world, influenced ours in the form of a tv show, it doesn’t mean that this isn’t reality, no matter how your world, or even mine, came into existence, they are still our worlds, our lives to live…”

Pinky pie was the first to speak “huh, I never thought of it like that…” she, and everyone else sat there with thoughtful expressions before eventually David broke the silence.

“Yes well, now that we’ve got the philosophical questions out of the way, we can get to the main event.” He clopped his front hooves and rubbed them against each other in anticipation.

“You mean that wasn’t it?” said rainbow dash

“Not in the slightest” he said chuckling. “surly you all are wondering how I got here, and what my plans are, are you not?”

“Well yes, but we didn’t think you would give us that information willingly.” Said Rarity.

“As opposed to unwillingly?~” David said teasingly.

Rarity blushed and began fumbling with her words “oh, um, that’s not what I meant I can assure you…”

“Why Rarity, if you wanted to tie me up and punish me, you could have just asked~” He chided

Her lips locked themselves shut as her normally pearlescent white fur turned bright red, along with the faces of a few others in the room, princes Celestia included.

“what? What is wrong with you all?” said Luna, a confused look on her face.

“It’s one of those ‘modern concepts’ Luna, I’ll tell you about it later…” Celestia’s color brightened as she alleviated her sisters curiosity, however temporary. She was certainly not looking forward to that conversation. She turned to David with a cough before returning to the stern look she had been holding during most of this confrontation. “well, since you claim to be SO forthcoming, what exactly ARE your plans?”

David held up his hoof “Ah ah, not so fast princess. I have some other things to go over first, such as this!” He said as he pulled out a piece of animal hide. The element bearers looked disgusted while the princesses just looked curious.

“What’s that?” said Luna

“Animal hide” he said with a smile, Luna was unamused.

“Yes, but what KIND of animal hide? And for what purpose?”

“I’m so glad you asked!” He said before holding it up to be viewed by everyone. “this is 100%, genuine dragon leather.”

“Where in Equestria did you get that?” said twilight.

“Royal vault.” He answered simply.

“So you broke into the royal vault and stole an extremely valuable material at risk of being arrested the moment you showed it to us… why?” Celestia wasn’t amused either evidently.

“What’s one or two rare materials when you get to learn a lost magic right?” he said as he pulled out a corked jar with a glowing green fire in it.

“Hey! That’s mine!” said spike, pointing to the glass container.

“What a very astute observation spike.” Said David with a light chuckle as he swirld the jar around, this causing the flames inside to dance about hypnotically.

“Well at least we know how he hijacked our letter system now” said Celestia, seeming almost more curios or impressed than angry.

“I’m sorry, did you say lost magic?!” said Twilight, her curiosity bleeding through her suspicion.

“Indeed, specifically, a technique for making a magic contract.” He said as he lifted the bottle and hide in his magic. “I’m going to need a small donation from two of you, a scale and tear from spike, and a feather from Celestia.”

“And why should we go along with this?” said the solar monarch.

“oh relax Celestia, this won’t affect any of you, this contract will serve as a bonding experience between myself and those who are in this room. No one will come to any harm… besides more than a small prick.” He emphasized this point by using his magic to lightly tug on one of her feathers. Not hard enough to hurt her or remove the feather, but enough to be uncomfortable and get the point across. “as for the technical reasons, I need items imbued with natural magic to serv as components in making the contract. What has more magic than an alicorn?” he said with a grin.

“yeah, well, good luck getting a tear out of me! I’ll have you know I’m a hardened warrior! There isn’t anything you could do to make me-OUCH!” Spike was cut off as he had a small scale on the back of his head plucked off by David’s magic. He held the back of his head as a single tear rolled down his cheek only to be caught by the mystery pony as well.

“two down one to go.” David uncorked the bottle and held the scale over the flames that were now lapping hat the entrance to the container. It began to burn before quickly being engulfed and turned to ash and funneled inside, followed quickly by the tear that he dropped in before swishing the mixture around in the bottle causing everything to melt into a green liquid with a warm glow to it that seemed to swirl inside the bottle.

Everyone oohed and aahed before eventually Rainbow dash spoke up. “whoa, what is it?”

“liquid dragons fire, one of the best magical liquids that can be synthesized in existence, at least, as far as I’m aware” he said before turning to Celestia. “Well, what do you say? Just like a regular contract, it doesn’t take effect unless all parties involved, agree. So if you don’t like the contract you can just not sign it and that’ll be the end of it.”

She hummed in thought for a second, looked at the already gathered materials, at him, then at her wing. With a heavy sigh, she pulled a feather from her wing and gave it to him. “there better not be any funny business, I’ve read millions of contracts over my thousands of years of life, don’t think you’ll be able to slip something past.”

“I understand princess.” With that he took the feather made sure the tip was an adequate shape, dipped it in the liquid dragon fire, and began to wright. It took him a few minutes to finish drafting the contract onto the leather, but when he was done he held it up for the princess to look at, as she read it he began to speak. “I, Dark Façade, swear that there is one thing that I will never tell anyone in this room. What that thing is is for those present to figure out. Is it my birth day? My blood type? Who knows? Those present are allowed to make a guess at any time in my presence and I am required to honestly tell them if they are correct or not. This may seem like a strange yet simple game, but I promise you if you can figure it out, it will reveal any plans that I have made up to the point that the guess is made. And even if it doesn’t it will give you the means to find out what they are if you don’t know already.” Celestia finished reading the same time he finished speaking. “Celestia is the only one who needs to sign, as long as you all attest that you agree to my little game in the presence of the contract, everyone present will be included.”

She frowned “Dark Façade?”

He nodded “Yes, David does standout a bit in your world so I figured I should come up with something more appropriate, I would like to take the moment to request that everyone present call me by this name from now on. Also, Don’t worry, I can assure you the contract will still be valid.”

She turned to everyone else to see what they think. After more silent deliberation, they all nodded at her. With a deep sigh to steel her nerves, she signed the contract.

There was a bright flash as the contract flew into the air floating for a second before bursting into green flames along with the quill leaving nothing left.

After a few seconds of confused silence Twilight spoke up. “Whaaat just happened?”

“The contract was completed. Now I must follow the rules of the game lest I be executed.” He said with a smile.

“Executed?” said Luna “surely you jest.”

“No I’m quite serious. If I fail to follow the rules of the game, I shall burst into flames just like the contract and die an excruciatingly painful death” the smile never left his face, as he spoke, seemingly as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Everyone looked horrified, even the princesses looked taken aback. Luna was the first to recover however and spoke up. “what could possess you to put your life in such danger over a mere game?!”

He chuckled “It’s true I formatted the contract like the rules of a game, but that was to keep things fun for you all, I did this because I do take this contract deadly serious, pardon the pun. If I can’t manage to follow this contract, then I don’t deserve to live, at least in my opinion.”

All present were mortified that some one actually existed that put so little value in their own life, it took everyone a minute or two to readjust themselves, but after they had, twilight managed to push the words out that the atmosphere had tried to keep inside of her. “so… are we allowed to guess now?” everyone present looked at her in exasperation. “what?! We don’t know for sure that he’s telling the truth, and this could be our only chance to find out what he’s really up to!”

“Yes, you are allowed to guess, if you want, I’ll even use your first guess to demonstrate the abilities of the contract.” Said David.

This made her even more worried, but she pushed through. “Is it your plans?”

He stood there for a second, intentionally refusing to answer, nothing happening at first, but before long, slowly, smoke began rising from the bottom of his hooves, shortly after, his hooves burst into green flames, he crumpled over in pain as smoke began pouring from his mouth with a green glow coming from the back of his throat, everyone watched on in horror until he finally looked up and choked out the word “no”. with that the flames died away and he was left to recover for a second before eventually standing back up and dusting himself off. “The contract clearly states that should you guess correctly I will end up telling you my plans one way or another, so that can’t be it. Now, with that settled let’s proceed to how I got here shall we? There’s also a few other details I’d like to cover.”

Some of those present looked like they were debating whether they wanted to proceed after everything that had happened but they soldiered on regardless. “what details specifically?” said Twilight.

“Well first of all, the world I come from has zero magic, none whatsoever.” Everyone looked flabbergasted, they couldn’t even imagine such a world, but none the less he continued. “with this in mind, I’m sure you may be wondering how I had the power to get here, as well as how I acquired knowledge of lost magic despite only just recently entering your reality.” He got several nods and looks of curiosity. “well, first, how I got here.” He explained the events leading up to his dimensional jump, how his latent magic essentially pulled him to their world dropping him on his face in the woods. Most of the ponies were fascinated with his story but twilight looked like she wanted to ask something, but Dark beet her to it. “and before you ask, no, I don’t know where my latent magic came from, I have a few theories, but for all intents and purposes, it shouldn’t have been possible.” She closed her mouth a bit perplexed at not knowing what caused this phenomenon but decided to leave it for another time. “as for my unexplained knowledge, as it turns out, your world is surrounded with more than just a dimensional barrier, something that surrounds all dimensions, sort of like a cell wall if you will, anyway, as it turns out, you all also have a magical field that has been infused with the fabric of your reality, and since, in passing through the dimensional barrier I also essentially tore through your reality, from what I can tell, I have had a millennia of lost history and knowledge essentially shoved into my head. I know some magic that has been lost to time as well as magic that has never been discovered. I have newfound knowledge that no one else knows, and before you ask Twilight, I will be sure to share this knowledge with you all over time so you can be sure you won’t miss out on anything” the afore mentioned mare closed her mouth and squeed in excitement at the thought of learning something nopony else had before.

“That is quite interesting but now that that’s out of the way, I’m still wondering just what you plan to do from here on out.” Celestia was still eying him up with distrust.

“Oh not much, I’ll train an army, find and free nightmare moon, subjugate the changelings, save Equestria, start a family, raise some kids, advance the world into a new era, and whatever else that comes up. How does that sound?” Celestia looked at him as if he were crazy, a look mirrored by most of the others, as well as a few looks of disbelief. He started laughing. “you should see the looks on all your faces! my word, can no one here take a joke?” they maintained their expressions, most having thoughts along the lines of ‘Who makes a joke like that?!’ “Celestia, if you want to know my plans, you’ll have to play the game just like the others~” she frowned but resigned herself to trying to figure it out for herself seeing as she didn’t have the option of interrogation… yet.

“Now if you’ll follow me twilight, we can start discussing magical theory and I can tell you about some of those new and olden magics.” She looked apprehensive about following him, but before she could even make a decision, he stopped and held up a hoof.

Celestia noticed his rigid stance and grew immediately concerned. “what is it? Is something wrong?”

Dark turned his head to look over his shoulder at those behind him, with a deep frown on his face, he simply answered “Intruders, lots of them…”

Author's Note

Enjoy the update, I got another one coming...