After Equestria: The Crystal War

IV

Eclipsed Star

“You’re alive,” Eclipsed Star said, staring at Firestorm.

He had regained conscious only a few seconds ago, only to find himself in a strange hut with Firestorm smirking down at him.

“Don’t sound so shocked, Starry,” Firestorm said coolly. Eclipsed Star shut his eyes, and then opened them again, as if by doing so the pony in front of him would disappear-a gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by Firestorm.

“What?” Firestorm asked, smirking. “You’re worried about me being dead? Ha! Dude, you just got freaking run over by a pack of bloodthirsty Changelings and you’re worried about me?”

“I …” Eclipsed Star stammered staring at Firestorm as if he was a ghost-which in fact, seems very likely at the moment. Eclipsed Star tried to get up am winced.

“Ah!” Eclipsed winced, laying back down. “What the hell-?”

“You got run over by a pack of Changelings,” Firestorm told him, casually, glancing around the room. “You almost died, but luckily Twilight found this old hut and got out some potions to fix you up.”

“Where am-?” Eclipsed Star began, before being cut off.

“I don’t know.” Firestorm scowling at the mud and hay walls which were decorated by strange oval shaped masks. “Some weirdo hut-thingy that Twilight found.”

“Twilight?” Eclipsed Star asked, confused. “Who’s-?”

“You know,” Firestorm said, cutting Eclipsed Star of again-which was, in fact getting on his nerves. “The Princess Twilight-you’ve heard of her, right?”

“Princess Twilight is alive?!” Eclipsed Star practically shouted, wincing in pain afterwords.

Firestorm rolled his eyes. “Calm your tits boy, and yeah, she’s alive-and so are her friends.”

“Calm my-?! Princess Twilight Sparkle is alive and you me to-to calm my tits?!” Eclipsed Star demanded.

“Yes, yes I do.” Firestorm said, looking through some jars with strange plants and animals floating inside of them. “I wonder what this is.” Firestorm asked, sounding mildly curious as he levitated a large glass jar filled with murky somewhat transparent liquid with some strange creature floating inside it.

“Who cares?!” Eclipsed Star shouted, angrily.

“I do.” Firestorm replied simply, and then his face broke into a smirk. “I love pissin’ you off.” Firestorm said, snickering.

Eclipsed Blade stared at Firestorm something about him was just … off. His whole personality seemed to have changed; he used to be calm, cool and collective. Now he was … well, arrogant and sarcastic.

Suddenly the sound hooves striking loose boards filled the air and a lavender alicorn ran in the room.

“What’s going on?” The alicorn asked, frowning at Firestorm. “I heard shouting and-“

“Nothing much Twilight,” Firestorm told her in a cool voice that was nothing like the cocky, sarcastic tone that he used with Eclipsed Star. “Just a reunion of two, ah, friends.” Firestorm smirked at the word 'friends' like it was supposed to be funny.

“Whose-?”Eclipse Star began, before he was once again, interrupted by Firestorm. Seriously that’s getting really annoying really fast.

“Eclipse Star,” Firestorm began in mock formal tone. “Meet Twilight Sparkle, Princess of friendship-and the only one who calls a Friendship Council in a time of international security risk.”

  The lavender alicorn scowled at Firestorm. “Are you ever going to give a rest?”

Eclipsed Star wanted to say something to excuse his friend, but Firestorm beat him to the punch.

“Relax Princess, I was just kidding!” Firestorm told her coolly.

  Eclipsed Star kicked him in the shin.

  “Ow! Man, the heck?” Firestorm demanded, angrily.

   “Please excuse him, Princess,” Eclipsed Star said in an overformal tone. “He’s a moron.”

    “Hey, don’t talk about yourself like that, Starry!” Firestorm said in mock protest, “only I can talk about you like that!”

  “If you’re done arguing,” a deep voice grumbled. “Let’s focus on how we’re going to get to this, ‘Lunar Republic’ thingy.”

    “Who’s that?” Eclipsed Star asked, frowning.

     Twilight opened her mouth to say something, but Firestorm cut her off.

     “Oh, it’s nobody.” Firestorm said smirking. “Yeah, there’s, like, totally nobody there.”

      Eclipsed Star scowled, Firestorm’s eyes had mischievous glint in them, like Eclipsed Star was about to become the butt of a joke. Rolling his eyes and ignoring Firestorm’s snickering, Eclipsed Star opened the hut door.

“MOTHER OF CELESTIA!” Eclipsed Star yelled in fright. “THERE’S A DRAGON OUTSIDE, RUN! GO, RUN SAVE YOUR-”

  Eclipsed Star stopped abruptly when he saw that everypony was laughing there head off, hay even the dragon was laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Eclipsed Star asked, suspiciously. “Why are you all laughing?”

“Nothing!” David said, biting his lip, clearly trying hard not to laugh.

  “Ah, give the kid a break.” The pony with the rainbow mane said, giving Eclipsed Star a sympathetic look. “Yo, Eclipsed Star, these guys are playing a prank on you. Spike a friendly dragon, okay? He’s not going to eat you.”

  It took a couple seconds for that message to sink in. “Oh.” Eclipsed Star said stupidly, feeling his face heat up. Why was he acting like this? This wasn’t him; he wasn’t some clueless moron-that was Firestorms job!

It was this place, all the bad memories … well; they were making him fairly twitching. And who could blame him? After all life in Ponyvile wasn’t always sunshine and daisies …

“Alrigh’,” a voice said, snapping Eclipse Star out of his stupor. “That’s enough, stop makin’ fun of th’ poor fella’!”

Oh great, know I need people to defend me, apparently. Eclipsed Star thought, bitterly.

  “Alright then,” Twilight said, still smiling. “Well, we better get to this … Lunar Republic soon.”

   “Alright then,” Eclipsed Star said, glad for distraction. “Let’s go!”

   “Um, actually, you still need time to recover.” The yellow Pegasus pointed out, eyeing his bandages.

“What?” Eclipsed Star asked, “no way, I’m completely- ah!” He tried to get of the bed only for his ribs to flare with pain, forcing him back onto the bed.

“Dude,” Firestorm said shaking his head. “I admire your sense of duty, but, you got run over man! You think your gonna be up and running’ any time soon?”

“That’s exactly my point!” Eclipsed Star snarled, seriously, Firestorm was pissing him off. “We need to signal the Lunar Republic so that-“

“Already did that,” Rainbow Dash pointed out. “A bunch of weirdo transformer ponies-bug-thingy’s nearly found us after we did that. So were going to wait awhile before we try it again.”

  “So were trapped,” Eclipsed Star said, hopelessly.

  “Nope,” Firestorm said.

  “So then what are we waiting for?” Eclipsed Star snarled, “we should-“

   “Were waiting for-“Twilight began, but was cut off when the door burst open.

  “Eclipsed Star, what the hell happened?” A light brown pony, Eclipsed Star recognized as Striker.

  “Who are these-?” Glimmer began, then she stopped abruptly her eyes widening. “Firestorm?!” She gasped, “You-you’re supposed to be dead!”

“Yeah, I missed you too.” Firestorm said sarcastically. “And my names not Firestorm it's David.”

Glimmer stared at Firestorm, gaping. Then she seemed to have recovered her wits.”That’s not important!” Glimmer said, urgently her eyes flashing with worry. “We got to get him to sick bay, now.”

“But there isn’t enough time!” Twilight said in poorly controlled voice.

“I think … I think I might be able to take us to the Lunar Republic thingy.” Firestorm said uncertainly. “But, I’ll need help.”

“Alright,” Twilight said, nodding her head. “I lend you some of my magic.”

  Eclipse Star blinked, what the hell is going on? He wondered, things were going way too fast for him to understand.

“If it involves not dying I’m all for it.” Eclipse Star commented.

“Alright,” Twilight said, taking in a deep breath. “Everypony picture this … Lunar Republic in your minds!”

     Eclipsed Star closed his eyes imagining his real home in the Lunar Republic.

     “NOW!” Somepony yelled and Eclipsed Star felt his body relax as he drifted into a dreamless sleep.