"Hey I think I got a live one here!" The medic pony called out to the guards assessing the damage to the Grand Galloping Gala. It was the night it was held as per usual in Canterlot; with the elite and prestigious all showing their muzzles and socializing, discussing politics, business and so on. It wasn't meant to be any different from the last thousand G.G.G's that had been held, save maybe for the display from both the finest artists and sculptors as was the theme this year, fine arts. The east and west wings just adjacent to the main ballroom had a museum like assortment of pieces from artists for all to see, comment on, maybe even purchase, only now those pieces didn't look very fine anymore.
Medics and guards where now combing the ballroom and the two wings because in the span of at least an hour, the guests had all collapsed to the floor, (medics where confirming almost all the guests in an "unconscious" state) the paintings and sculptures of the gallerias had been vandalized, the stained glass window in the foyer over the main castle gates had been shattered, and whoever or whatever had committed these acts had escaped.
The white coated medic finished running his stethoscope over the barrel of the fifteenth pony he was checking, a pretty white mare with more jewels on her dress than in a trotting-ham pawn shop. He hoped to Celestia that he would hear a heartbeat. *ba dum....ba dum.............ba dum ba dum* "Oh thank cloudsdale she's alive." He said hoisting the mare into a stretcher and wiping his brow in relief, so far no times of death where called, no muzzles had to be covered with blankets as ponies where rolled out.
"I think they're all still alive," the guard said to the medic, he didn't look happy with having to be woken up at one in the morning to reply to a distress call even if it was to the princess's castle. "What I don't get is why bother keeping them alive? I mean the place is trashed and almost a hundred and fifty thousand bits worth of artwork and property damage has been committed here. Who would have any morality left to not kill anyone after that?" He said trotting over to a portrait of discord; which who ever vandalized it had done so by spraying shaving cream on the canvas, and cutting the draconian's beard off with a razor.
"Must have thought if "murder" wasn't on the list of crimes to pay for we'd go easy on them?" The medic answered while busily checking another pony. He was slightly nervous as while he couldn't be sure until he fully checked; the barrel on the stallion he was checking didn't appear to be rising and falling, and he was just barley picking up what could be considered a pulse. He was used to having to call "deceased" IF he had too but it always hurt to have too.
"Get ready officer, you may have to add murder to your list of charges after all...." He paused and listened, the beat came maybe just at thirty or thirty two BPM or less but he had it. "Alive, but just barley. Get this one to the ER ASAP!" He told the paramedics wheeling him out, before face-hoofing himself. "Oh Celestia this is gonna be a long night."
When it came to the damage done to the paintings, most of them had a few "modifications" done to them. A prime example was the Whistler's mare; a painting of a an elderly farm mare with a green coat, sitting comfortably in her chair. Only now the face of said portrait had been smeared with ugly off white paint, and a crude little smiley; like the sort a foal would draw, had been drawn on it! Possibly even in crayon like a foal's drawing. In addition; several streaky botches of orange, blue and yellow blobs of paint and bits of broken hard plastic had stuck to the portrait in places, some even ripped holes in the canvas.
Then there was the "Trots-on and the shark," a third era oil on canvas depicting the botched rescue of Trots-on Brooks. Only this one had been defaced by having these big goofy eyes painted over Trots-on's face, and a mouth. As well as a cartoon caption of "HELP! SHARK!" Next to his muzzle. What monster couldn't see the priceless treasure in all the sweat, blood and tears that had gone into these works?
On the second floor of the ballroom at their table where the six ponies who once; and in some albeit less potent ways still did, represent the elements of harmony. Unlike the others though; they where wide awake.
"Sweet Celestia! Princess Twilight!" The guards called before galloping over to her showing almost no concern for her friends. "Are you hurt your highness?!" "What happened here?! Who did this?!" They barraged her with questions as she and the others sat eating nonchalantly as if nothing had happened.
"Hmm? Oh you guys; of course we're OK, just enjoying our diner at...the Grand galloping....oh buck this, where's Princess Celestia and Luna?! We need to talk to them both NOW!" She snapped at them both as she was know to do.
Applejack placed her hoof on her friends shoulder in the hopes of calming her down, having gone through this with her.
"Twilight maybe we should just start from the beginning and explain what happened here. Don't you think?" She said to her as her friends got close to her at the table, intending to help her get it together to recollect what happened.
"Okay, I'm calm, I'm fine it's just..." She took a deep breath and let her wings slacken and relax, and she began.
"My friends and I had been invited to the Gala, now I' know the last time that happened a few years ago it didn't go very well but..."
"This year I was made the official Gala planner, said pinkie interrupting, "and Rarity..."
"Was Made The official Tailor for the guests, every-pony here is wearing my own personally made clothes" The fashionista finished for the pink party lover as the guard took notes on the sordid affair.
"I was made To book a pre-event air show the Wonderbolts, so that's why I showed up." Said Rainbow Dash,
"I was picked to be the caterer along with pinkie doing it in addition to the planning." Added Applejack.
"Ladies? Please, just tell me what happened? I don't need all the details." the annoyed guard added with a shake of his head.
"Sorry, sorry, Well we had just taken out seats and the guests where...Well as you see them downstairs only awake, One second everyone's having a wonderful time, our dinner was brought to us, when half way through it one of servers trots over and hands us....this, show him Rainbow." She instructed her friend. Rainbow Dash reached under the table and pulled up a big gift box; it had dark purple and black pinstripes on it and green ribbon where the top had been fastened on. Inside where Six masks made to fit over the girl's muzzles.
"Mine looks like my funny glasses." Said Pinkie taking her's out of the box.
"Mine's basically my Wonderbolt's face mask." Added Dash taking her's out and placing it next to her. The girls did so until they had them out; with Applejack getting a beekeeper's mask, Fluttershy getting a laughing theater mask the opposite to the sad faced tragedy one, Rarity's being the aforementioned frowning mask, and Twilight's being a mask of her mentor Princess Celestia.
"You see officer; each one has inside it a layered filter, effectively turning it into a gas mask, what surprised me the most is the maker used ABEK-HgP3 for the filter, That's one of the most powerful filters for the most dangerous toxins and substances." "making me think that there was going to be some powerful stuff gassing us in a second."
"There was also this." Applejack added handing the guard a note, all it said was Put these on unless you want a ticket to Dreamland!
"We threw them all on and looked around; when all the sudden this mist started seeping in from almost out of nowhere, it just seemed to coming from out of nowhere like, we looked around and not one of us could tell exactly where it was coming from but as soon as it floated around the party goers down there, I'm sure you know what it did to them." She said as Pinkie made collapsing and thudding noises with her mouth.
"The Door's burst open like something right out of Daring-Doo; and He's standing there, unlike anything I or any of us have ever seen." Added Rainbow.
"That coming from the ponies that have seen Discord, Tirek, and the changeling queen Chrysalis." continued Twilight. "Are you a sketch artist officer? Or can you get one here?"
"I've taken a few wanted sketches in my service." He replied taking a sketch pad up with his horn. "Go ahead describe him for me." The girls described a being that walked upright unlike a pony, and had feet that jutted outwards not flat like a pony, and he had a flat head...unlike a pony. Every detail was unlike anything a pony possessed, but it also ruled out the intruder being a griffin, a dragon, or even anything native to Equestria. The guard finally flipped his pad over
"Was the jacket and jeans all that he was wearing girls?" The guard asked upon finishing his sketch.
"That, and he also had on this long almost cape like coat on his shoulders, it practically touched the floor and had this belt thing hanging down the back and a hat on his head too black fedora, and gloves" Fluttershy reluctantly added and the guard drew them on.
"And the shirt's off it was all black with a rather ugly looking design on it, a white outline of a big, ugly spider on it, I mean really who would walk around with a spider on their clothes?"
"Rarity!" An annoyed Twilight said chastising her.
"Sorry, force of habit."
"So what he do after he burst in here?" He continued.
Twilight continued. "He started walking through the halls, there where these others with him but we couldn't see them clearly; there must have been like seven of them behind him; hidden under these robes or maybe cloaks...I can't tell. Anyway they all started stepping over the guests when the...boy I guess he seemed young enough to be a boy even though I don't know for sure."
Dash picked up the slack, " He said "Slapstick heaven fellas, grab a stick and start slapping," whatever that means, and those..goons of his set all these paint cans and brushes and these weird things like...like."
"Like my party cannon only smaller, small enough to fit in the weird things at the ends of their...fore hooves I guess. and they shot out these messy balls that burst paint all over the paintings" pinkie chimed in. "So they started Painting on the paintings, and the sculptures and busts, and shooting the other paintings and at first it seemed like fun but then I remembered all the sleeping ponies on the ground."
"And the fact that they where wrecking all the artwork on display and Making their way up here to us." Rarity tried to say over the hyper pony's blathering. "they started singing and dancing around like this was some kinda play and they where a troupe of messed up performs putting on a twisted show of vandalism." "Once they seemed satisfied the boy made his was up the stairs, his companions stayed on the landing, over to the table and just sat down with us like this whole thing was no big deal! He had no idea what he had done was totally unacceptable!"
"Did he hurt any of you girls?" The Guard asked them getting only nos all around before it became Fluttershy's turn to speak.
"I'm sure there was a reason for all this girls, and I don't think he meant anypony any harm, I mean Everyone's OK and I guess even if the artwork is irreplaceable they have copies right?" she hid behind her mane as she spoke. "Well he did sit politely at the table with us, he hung his coat up on his chair and even took his hat off."
"Fluttershy, I don't think Manners make up for THIS!" Rainbow shouted pointing her hoof out over the destruction down below.
"Now Rainbow, we have to give him a chance, we've seen villains do far worse and feel no shame in what they did."
"So says the girl who yelled at a dragon once for sleeping." was all she could say to her comment.
"Well anyway, all he did was sit there and he looks down at...him," she gestured to a passed out waiter under the table. "He told him "I'll take a chocolate malt and some FRENCH FRIES, not hay fries not Prench fries, FRENCH FRIES, got it?" "Then he turned back to us and well...he introduced himself and said his name was Danny....Danny Keith."
Twilight had lost all her patience, "Enough! we can't keep hoofing around with the minuet details, where are the princess?!" she yelled at pretty much everyone.
"Princess Twilight why is it so imperative you see them now?" The guard asked with his head tilted, as it seemed the princess was going back to a place she hadn't been and probably never should go back too.
"The kid told us all something that I don't think We should be repeating to anypony else but them." Twilight said collecting herself.
"Why in Equestrian can't you repeat what he said to me?"
"Because if his story is true, I don't think you'd ever look things the same way again officer." Twilight answered him. "Even I don't know if I fully believe it myself."
Above the Everfree forest
It Floated just above the treetops, doing so to avoid the eyes of the flyers up in the clouds. It was in design very similar to an Equestrian's balloon, especially one the purple unicorn turned allicorn had a tendency to us before she no longer needed it to fly. It was more tube shaped as opposed to the balloon shape the ponies used.
He sat at the helm of this airship he had a knowledge on how to fly and operate it despite looking too young to even drive a car. His hands locked in a ponderous pose; the tails of his coat draping down to the floor. Not far from him where the "companions" he had accompany him on his night of wrecking. They lay on the floor limp and lifeless, but they where hand made by him for the sole purpose of being the closest to a companion in his lonesome life without even a friendly face to talk too...Soon he would have the only real magic he ever learned about that the Equestrians had developed mastered, and no longer would they be just old relics from the life he once had; made to move around and lifelessly amble to and fro. No, he was going to bring them to a state of being;, almost alive.
Canterlot
"And that's basically what we told the guard up until you finally showed up and brought us here." Twilight said to her mentor turned ally Princess Celestia. The six and The two "regal sisters" where gathered in the privacy of the throne room. Twilight had gone through the room several times to make sure nopony was at the door listening or windows. She even cast a few sound proofing spells to be absolutely sure.
"Princess Celestia? What was the world like in the beginning?" She asked closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.
"What?...Why my faithful friend Twilight, surely YOU of all ponies know that, our history goes back to the era just before my sister and I where born, you and your friends where in that play on Hearths Warming that tells of all that."
"What happened before the first Hearths Warming Princess? Where did all of ponydom come from?"
It was Luna's turn to take a side in this questioning, "Even beings as old and long lived as us don't know that twilight, there's no records going back that far presumably because there was only a very limited knowledge of writing or presses to mass produce any documents or books." "Why are you bringing this up now? What does this have to do our little troublemaker?"
Twilight let her horn glow until an oval shaped portal seemed to form, the portal brought up a black and white image like a photo, of the dinner that had occurred previously with the boy they knew as Danny Keith sitting beside them all.
Above the Clouds of the Dragon's mountains
A thousand years. Alone for a thousand years, without even a mom or dad...No he still technically had a dad but it wasn't the same dad he had in his old life, his old life. just thinking of it made him feel as if...how long had it been since the biggest concern on his mind had been something like; Is this essay formatted right? The thoughts almost made him take his eyes off the equipment and given where he was flying that wouldn't have been good at all.
"OH jeez!" He cried out grabbing the wheel and lowering the lights, as the unmistakable form a large red dragon flew right by the ship. The beast looked him square in the eyes as it glided beside him through the window, would it attack? That orb of blood red stared into his normal eye the teeth bared in a bit of a snarl and...it flew off.
Canterlot
"My sister and I are far older than a thousand years my ponies, we are in many aspects as old as time and space themselves...the equine forms you see us in are ones we created to gain a physical manifestation that lesser beings like you would be able to..understand better." There clearly was more to Celestia and Luna being the Goddess's of the sun and moon than anyone could understand, it wasn't just a title they held.
"We traversed the known universe, looking to hopefully spread gifts of prosperity and peace to a primitive world, tell me do you know where the term earth comes from?" conveyed and asked the moon's Goddess.
"Well; don't it come from how ponies like mah-self," answered Applejack, "don't have any magic in our bodies and can't fly, so we are all tied to the earth or ground?"
"That is the basic meaning in this world yes, but long before anything you knew existed it was the name of the world that existed before Equestria" continued Luna
"So what he was saying is true, you both did reveal yourself to his people...and I take it he wasn't lying about the reception the two all powerful twin goddess sisters of the sun and moon being...less than open to you?"
"They saw us both as harbinger's of the end of days" Celestia said lowering her head in shame at herself.
"In some ways dear sister they where right, where they not?"
"Luna! They tried to hunt us down and destroy us! even after we tried to reason with them, but their weapons are like foal toys to us back then..." she paused turning to her dear six. "By that I mean I'm sure you all know that even I and her are nowhere near the limitless omnipotence we once had, my apologies my ponies, these are...not our best memories."
The blimp
Why did the one they call Celestia keep him and his father, the sole survivors of the curse that destroyed...OK not destroyed, but still took away everything. alive after all this time? He lived with his dad in a nice little house, where in what city one of the few minor details that had been lost to memories. while the world of humans was busy trying to either fight or understand them, those...allicorns. his dad had been home and kept him home, the both of them trying their best to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was going on outside their door. Just a three day stay at home vacation for them.
Throne room
"I cast a curse on them all, a curse that every three days; their World would be struck by powerful magic attacks, each more terrible than the last. I conducted these attacks from their planet's moon, which I claimed for myself. for I admired its tranquility and silence but also saw and still see, a great power hidden behind the silent beauty in it" Luna said looking through a stained glass window up at her domain and once former prison.
"As for me, I did the same only with the earth's sun, and I tried to counter every attack, I only got far enough to save them all from being completely destroyed but even then it didn't exactly save their lives"
A void
Almost hard to believe that the whole world was once like this. He thought to himself as he lowered the blimp to the ground, if you could call it that. There was no sense of time where he was; the sky was grey and misty, the ground nothing but a glowing white almost stone like surface, and nothing else. Aside from there being no sense of cold here but for some reason, no sense of heat either not much changed in this empty bleak land. The white space; home.
Throne Room
"So out of all those lives that you couldn't save why Simon and Daniel J, Keith?" Twilight asked her Princess, the one who tried to keep them alive,
"I still wonder that myself to this very day Twilight, why did I spare the lives of a father and son? Many other father's and sons, and mothers, daughters and such perished that day, what made them so special?" Maybe I saw the possibility in them both staying with me by my side in the world I would create. Or maybe I picked them both at random; the exact reason eludes even me." She said nonchalantly as if Twilight had asked why she skipped one of her famous desserts one night and nothing more.
Luna stretchered out her wings and let out an equally nonchalant yawn the both of them growing disinterested in old memories."When I came to my senses and calmed soon after the last of my attacks had struck the earth, I expected the planet to be some, pitiful scorched rock left with no hope of ever rebuilding itself."
"I had saved the earth from such a fate but it was now all pure white ground and sky without a single drop of water and steamy, musty air. With no sighs of life or habitation save for the orbs of pure magic floating around in a white mist, These where the humans and the forms of life on earth converted into pure magic. The final destination for all life on that planet. was to be a source of magic for my sister and I to rebuild from. "
Ruins
It had been a house once, his house. It's Victorian facade centuries old and once strong and proud; the finest of it's time, a mansion turned into apartments a century after its construction. Now only A solid drained gray, the colors swept away when the wave of magic swept through this land. In the swirling fog like mist, he could see the other buildings that hadn't been as lucky as his house. For this house only had its paint job erased; but others, where smashed in, collapsed, had walls missing or crumbling away or swept away in the blast.
Inside, the house was as silent as the grave. The front hall past the door; with it's faded cheap carpet, baseboard walls with faded and lifeless family photos along the walls, where oddly peaceful to come home to. He made his way down the hall to what had once been the kitchen, he wasn't hungry.
Throne room
"We searched for days but found no other survivors, the both of them didn't know how to feel. The father said to the son "We, should be thankful and happy to be alive." The boy was not as optimistic." Celestia said growing sleepy as dawn was fast approaching and both her and Luna had been awake all night.
"We granted them a freedom from their mortal needs to eat and drink, as there was no food or water left at the time in the world, and the Longevity of our selves and offered them both a chance to stay with us, but Simon Keith and his son retreated into their home, we assumed we would never see them again." "It took a while but we poured almost all of our nearly limitless power to turn the hard white ground into soft ground, of grass and soil again. To make the misty fog float into the sky to be life giving rain clouds; and for almost two months all it did was rain. Filling up the empty seas, oceans, and lakes."
"You created the breeds of ponies once the world seemed back in order didn't you?" Was all Twilight could ask.
"When Equestria was almost as it is now, save for the lesser ponies, my sister and I each took up a hoof-full of clay; we sculpted it into three roughly pony shapes, and in one; we gave a feather from our wings; the other a piece of our horns." Celestia said, before her sister took over.
"The sculpture that would become the earth ponies, we only made with more clay and packed a stone inside it. granting the earth ponies their impressive strength, with the last of our magic fading from so much use; we used a duplication spell until we had a tiny Terra cotta of our new..."children" lined up, and we breathed on them bringing the first of many generations of ponies to life."
Kitchen
He didn't need to eat anymore, not that he couldn't but it seemed almost tedious to try. They thought they helped them by taking away their natural needs. From the dinghy little table outside the two of them sat around for what felt like ages until the food finally ran out in their house, He told his son not to go out there, but he did anyway. wherever there was at this point, for whatever reason the had been relocated to the very southern end of the world. the white space seemed to stretch on forever; but with time it gave way to dark brown soft ground almost like walking on clay, the sun came back and later so did the moon, it wan't long before the soil became grass, and he started seeing trees again.
When he finally found the two sisters, he asked to stay with them. Only to be shooed away back into the place he came from; told that they had their chance and blew it. when he got back to his home, the man known as Simon Keith had ceased to speak, to think and to feel. He found him still siting at the very chair he had last seen him; only now he didn't speak, look at him, say hello, nothing. Could it have gotten any worse?
Approaching Dawn
"Thus most of the history of Equestria is as it is; the age of Tirek and Discord, the foraging of The Elements of Harmony, even my own descent into Nightmare Moon." Luna; now very sleepy, finished off the explanation. What he had said to them back at the Gala what felt like a lifetime ago, had been true.
Twilight and her friends trotted over to the princess's as they made their way to their bedrooms. "Princess Celestia? This doesn't change how we feel about you, or you Princess Luna, but please; if you will, can you tell us what to do about them."
Yawning and opening her bedroom door, Celestia left her former student with only a simple. "Twilight, you're not that little filly you once where and your friends have come a long way as well, and besides if you really think one little boy with a chip on his shoulder to us is a major problem we leave it entirety in you girl's hooves. Now go and tell the council and officals i'm taking today off, I need to sleep."
She shut the door, leaving the six to face the newly found perspective and outlook.
Basement
A long dimly lit hallway stretched before him, he made his way down it with his walk seamless the darkness nothing to be afraid off. As he had made this trip more times than anyone else. He was the only one who could be down here, the other's his...creations, they where told to never come down here and they listened. The dark hall ended in a steel door with several bolt and chains on it on the outside with a port hole window granting him a vista to the room beyond.
Danny Keith, the strange human boy was the last the second to last human alive, he was the only other one who knew the truth behind the origins of this world. It was created when the rulers of it; in his eyes, saw it necessary to destroy his old world, his old life, to make their new one. He placed his hands on the knob knowing full well it wouldn't budge under all the locks. His regalia of a troublesome Juvenile Delinquent had been checked at the upstairs door to this hall, for there was no need to look like a little mean S.O.B here. His vista was to a room of pure white with a harsh white light shining on the room. There was no furniture save the big chair and a coffee table.
"Hi dad," The thousand and ten year old said through the glass to a thousand thirty-three year old man sitting alone in the chair. He had a shorter crop of the boy's straight red hair on his head and his bushy matching beard on his face. The beard and hair hadn't grown in a millennium. He'd been dressed in a pair of white surgical scrubs that had been salvaged by his son from the remains of the old earth, as few there where left after the sun goddess turned the earth's shell into her new kingdom.
"I...I know I did some...bad things tonight but...I did it to help you." he stammered in a mix of fear of being scolded, despite no such threat being there, and what he was to see. He turned the knob and the door opened, the locks undone and he approached the almost comatose father. Father and son looked at each other; the eyes that were hollow and sunken into the skull looked into the one's that had seen a thousand years more than anyone should ever see. the eyes only seemed to stare and look back into his sons.
"Hello Danny, did you make the baseball team?" Long had the Boy given up any hope of his father saying something consistent and cohesive. most of what the man said these days where tidbits of old memories from his past.
"Dad...I know I'm not always the best kid out there in that world, but...they refused to help us when you still had your brain intact and they don't help us now. You and I both tried time and time to reason with them, and every single time it was the same thing. There's was nothing they could do for you...Dad one way or the other I will make them find a way to bring back what you used to be, my dad." He said with tears finally coming to his eyes and he threw his arms around his father. "No more mister nice guy, I'm tired of asking and only getting flack from them all....but...dad I promise no matter what happens, I will never go too far to where I'd do something I'd regret....I'll be like the superheroes from the comics we used to collect together remember dad?...well anti heroes I guess, but hey they where cool too right? Dad?" In truth the boy had no idea why he was doing this or what would it accomplish, he was just a confused lost little boy, for all his years spent alive, for all the skills he'd acquired in his unnaturally extended life, Danny Keith was still a ten year old kid.
Simon Keith only looked at the boy in front of him silently, eyes shifting around everywhere and no where. The attack may not have been what drove him to this state, but it was only a matter of time before his mind slipped away to almost nothing, nothing but a cluttered unorganized mix up of memories and the basic actions his body makes to function. The Simon Keith in those memories, was no more.
"Oh that's alright son, you tried, let's go get a death by chocolate sundae from the Baskin Robbins." He was remembering the time Danny didn't make the cut for the little league, he may have struck out there but he made up for it; despite there being no need for him to do so for a dad like him, by making the track team when they held those tryouts a month later. The father and son where silent for an unaccountable amount of time.
"I love you dad."
