The Legend of Fauna

It was twenty three on Wednesday night. Zephraim and Twilight had just gone to sleep, and Spike still hadn't sent a letter to Celestia yet. He quietly tip toed out of bed when he noticed his sister shivering on her couch.

Typical Twilight. He took the blanket off his bed and draped her in it. He then grabbed his backpack and made his way down stairs. He took the keyboard out of it and placed his disk on the jack on the keyboard. Spike stared blankly at his duel disk and the keyboard before him, and couldn't think of anything to write.

        He needed to though, otherwise he wouldn't be following orders. He figured he might as well tell her what he could remember about dinner... And probably about that interaction Twilight and Zephraim had not too long ago. He sighed.

What is even going on with those two? Are they fighting again? And that's another thing, he's been acting weird since yesterday. And there was the last two mornings, they slept in the same bed. I thought Twilight didn't like him? But then again, I just can't tell if that's the case anymore... Maybe I should ask herabout it... Spike decided that that was going to be his start, and then he went to work on his letter.

        This all started on Tuesday when he felt a very strange sensation in his stomach. After performing an action that was akin to vomiting, he spouted fire and a parchment letter with the Queen's seal on it. As confused as he was by the event, he couldn't think of anything else but picking up the letter. Upon inspection, it was addressed to him from Celestia. He carefully tore off the wax and unfurled that oddly plain looking piece of paper covered with Celestia's swirly perfect handwriting.

'Hello Spike. Are you and Twilight doing well? I am sending this letter as a test, and if it works, a set of instructions. After performing more testing on the data we gathered about your flames, I have reverse engineered the magic that causes material to teleport through your fire. The spell isn't as difficult as I had expected it to be, and after several tries, I have managed to get somewhere close to the same magic working on my own fireplace.

I wrote this letter anticipating that this will work this time as I did the other hundred or so, but I have a good feeling about this one. If you do happen to get this, I'd like you to report to me what you've seen yesterday and the days following today, once every night. You remember that fire place in my office at the school? If you could, I'd like you to send me a page there. Just write your name on it, and I'll know. I'll keep the fire going at all times to make sure I never miss anything you send. Gods, I hope this one works.

-Celestia Iscandor'

After reading the letter, he was approached by Zephraim who had just finished whatever he was doing in the basement that day.

        “Oh hey, is that from mom? I have like, a hundred missed messages from her saying 'did it work?' over and over again.” Spike nodded.

        “I guess? I mean, yeah, it is, but... I kinda feel like I just threw up.” He said, unsure if he wanted to experience that again.

        “So, you're saying that breathing fire makes you nauseous?” Zephraim said, typing away at his duel disk.

        “Probably? I think it's always been like this, though. I have to kinda burp to get a flame out, so I guess it might be the same thing, but... it's never involuntary... Uh-oh. BUUURP” Spike belched another large flame, and like the first, this one had a letter inside it too. Zephraim quickly unfolded it and began reading.

        “She says,

'I'm so glad it finally worked. Send something back, quickly please.'

I'm just gonna draw a little thing on the back of this and then you can send it back.” Zephraim said. He took the page and turned it to it's empty side, then grabbed the nearest writing utensil and began scribbling away. After he finished, he handed it back to Spike with three hexagons in various shades with weapons inside them. Specifically, an Ax, a Lance, and a Sword. The little picture had an unusual amount of detail to it, at the point where it looked like one might be able to pick one of the black and white weapons up.

        “What is that?” Spike asked. The Angel wasn't wearing all his belts or his coat, and he pulled up the right sleeve of his black shirt.

        “This.” He said, pointing to a mark that looked nearly identical to the one on the page.

        “Wow, that' amazing! It looks exactly like it!” Zephraim shrugged.

        “Eh, I draw as a hobby. Now send it back. We need to see if it will go to wherever mom's fireplace is.” Spike stared hard at the page in front of him. He thought hard about the way that room looked, the domed ceiling, the purple drapes, the ivory granite desk, the marble floors, and the dragon spine stone fireplace.

        He focused on the white box with burn-stains all over the interior and with a good heave, covered the piece of paper in his hand with green flames. After he was done, the paper was gone, and there was no pile of ash on the floor, so that meant it teleported at least. He turned to look at Zephraim, who was monitoring his duel disk.

        “Well? Did it work?” Spike asked. A noise went off coming from Zephraim's green duel disk.

        “That would be a yes. She says she expects a letter from you by the end of the day.” The dragon boy frowned and Zephraim began sizing him up. Finally, he said, “How's you handwriting?” Spike looked down and started to push his fingers together.

        “Well... it exists, I guess...” He said reluctantly. To that, Zephraim ran upstairs and then returned a few minutes later with a Faunan standard 104 mechanical keyboard, and wearing all his normal gear.

        “Give me your disk, I need to see if this will work.” He said. Spike reached for one of the large pockets of his cargo pants and took out his school duel disk that Twilight had 'liberated' of the school software. He handed the device to Zephraim, and then Zeph laughed.

        “Ha, even the elementary school kids can remove the security systems on these things. Or, did your sister do this for you?” He said, scrolling through menus on the disk.

        “It was her. I don't know how to work it all that well. All I ever do on it is play games and read. I don't duel all that much either, so it doesn't see much else.” Zephraim furrowed his brow, frowned, then went back to what he was doing. After locating whatever software he needed, he plugged the card jack into the octagonal disk's graveyard slot. The keys started to light up and it looked to be in working order.

        “Well, that should do it for you. I don't know what she has you doing, but you should try to get it done sooner, rather than later. I'm sure you know by now that mom can be a scary person when necessary. Anyways, I have my own work to do, so I'll be gone for a while. Send me a text around seventeen. I'd like to be here before anyone else gets back, if possible.” And before Spike could say anything, Zephraim was out the door and in the air.

        Spike stood beside the large oak table with his hands in his hair. He finally relaxed his shoulders, and then pulled one of the chairs around in front of the keyboard. I might as well get started. I guess I should begin with Sunday after Twilight woke up.

Dear Princess Celestia.

I'll have to start with Sunday night since that's where the first weird thing happened that I saw. It was later in the day, and eventually it was dark out. I guess she must have saw you do something that day and wanted to try and copy it. I guess it worked because she summoned a person from her Andromeda card.

Well, I guess she summoned Andromeda outof his card actually. I only recently got the whole rundown on what a 'Soul Art' is, so I'm not real sure on how that works yet. We spent the whole night listening to him talk about the long history before our history, and he explained how that 'Chrysalis' woman is currently just a body for the dark spirit Umbra. Then he gave Twilight super powers or something, but she can see in the dark better than I can now, which is weird.

The next day, he made us new clothes that can I guess, grow with us? Some kinda spell, he made it all by hand, and I think he might have stolen things from the fabric room in the school. But, that's probably not important. Twilight freaked out about the uh, 'girly stuff' that he made her, and she demanded that they be changed to the same things I was wearing, and that lead us to go get breakfast while he did that.

It got interesting when we ran into your youngest in the school cafeteria. Twilight took a good look at him, and after he said a few things, she figured it out. He put us in a pocket dimension, and that was the first time I'd ever seen the world without color. But it was just the beginning, this happened like, three more times that day.

He and Twilight got along a lot better than I've ever seen Twilight get along with anybody, but I think that might have been more because she liked what she saw. Apparently so did he, because they exchanged numbers after it ended in a draw. I don't think they've contacted each other yet though.

The next thing that happened was the train ride. Unlike the last boy she met, Twilight kinda had this innate immediate hate for your other son. They were pretty much arguing with each other most of the train ride, until Zephraim finally took it to another car.

I followed, but I guess neither of them noticed, and they had a big duel. Zephraim took Andromeda, and they teamed up on her. I honestly don't think I've ever seen Twilight so desperate to get one of her monsters back, but even when she did accomplish that, he summoned a big fiery fusion monster and she surrendered, which was also a first.

They had some kind of heart to heart, but that only made their dynamic a little bit more friendly. We learned that Mr. Fume, the train conductor, was involved with the accident that screwed up our family so bad years ago, and both of Ruby's parents died in it. Oh right, Ruby Apple, the train chef. But you knew that, right?

We got off the train after Ruby and Mr. Fume had come to terms with the Apple family reunion that was going on today, and decided to follow them since Jaquline Apple, or Applejack as she liked to be called, was supposed to be there. We were surprised by the hospitality they offered to complete strangers in a town that had so many murders recently.

We met the family that owned the land, and the old woman with the ridiculous grip. Apparently, Applejack had been in a funk and wasn't willing to talk to anyone today because of the anniversary of a tragedy that took her father was on the same day. She and her older brother fought about it until he finally over powered her. I think that Granny Smith had set this up or something, because this led into Twilight and Applejack dueling.

Another weird thing happened, and the world lost color again. I guess I was hidden enough by the crowd for them not to notice me, but I didn't do anything to make it known I was there either. They had a talk, The new guy that looked like he could have been Applejack, Macintosh, and Applebloom's dad and Andromeda mostly dominated the conversation though. I would later learn that his name is Ephraim.

I wonder if you named Zeph after him or something, considering their names are so similar. He and Applejack had a heart to heart, we learned how her father died in an accident searching for a present for her birthday, and that she blames herself for it. Ephraim managed to cheer her up, and then Twilight explained what was going to her. The duel resumed, and the world returned again, so I figured it was the same spell from earlier. Another draw, even though it seemed like Twilight had it for a minute there.

After that, we left the reunion and things got... depressing. Rainbow Fume, Mr. Fume's granddaughter and one of the descendants had been following us after she got caught in the spell Andromeda cast. It was about fourteen, and it was hot outside. Zephraim started to egg Twilight and Rainbow into a fight, which wasn't hard considering that Twilight wasn't Rainbow's biggest fan.

Another duel, and this one had a nasty ending. Andromeda and his sister, Valkyriana, found themselves on opposite sides of the field. I think he just wanted to talk to her at first, but then they started fighting, and the duel turned into an all out war.

Twilight and Rainbow started to lose interest at one point because another weird thing kept happening when the two would clash. A loud, but not jarring tone came from each Harmonian card in the area, and the three would resonate with each other. They both decided that that was something that should be looked into, but Andromeda and Valkyriana wanted to finish the fight.

It looked like Rainbow was going to win it, but then Twilight pulled something similar to a pot of greed fake out to make Andromeda strong enough to beat over Valkyriana and win the game. And then... Well, Andromeda was mad. He was really mad. He said he wanted to 'destroy' her himself, and he did exactly that.

He got this really nasty smile on his face when he went in for the stab, and she just took it. She hugged him, and it looked like she was crying, or failing to hold back tears. They dropped on the sand, along with a good pool of blood, and that snapped Andromeda out of whatever evil thing was eating at him. He realized that the last part of the effect would have hurt rainbow if he didn't do something, so he took the final blow to keep her safe.

In silence, for a good twenty minutes to a half hour, we kept following Applejack to the store where the next girl was. She was one of the most beautiful people I think I've ever seen. Her name is Rarity Belle, and she was a different kind of person compared to the other three. She had class, and style, and she was dressed oddly casual compared to the extravagant clothes she was selling, but she was still so pretty.

Then this other fag waltzed and started an argument with her. He had a fake accent and everything, gods, I just wanted to punch him in the face. Then they got into a duel. It came out that he was really one of your SIGA agents. Rarity was mad, and that ended with him getting thrown across the room and nearly getting killed because of blunt force trauma.

Through the combined magic of Rarity and Twilight, they managed to heal him, but at the same time, another weird thing happened. Their magic started to mix and become more like steam, and the whole room started to fill with a fine fragrance and two parts of an orchestra.

After he was all fixed up, we went to the next girl's house, but you know all about her. As soon as we reached the place, Zeph said it was a good idea for us to hang back a good ways, and man, did he mean it. He and Fluttershy were sword to sword within seconds of being there. They both beat each other up for a good intense few minutes, and then they suddenly halted when she pulled out her duel disk.

The fight was a real battle between them both, Fluttershy with her misty spirit monsters, and Zephraim going at her with just about everything he had. It got weird then his cards started to get this dark red glow to them. His eyes began to change, and I could wear his teeth started to look sharp. He summoned a crazy XYZ monster that ended up shooting him in the leg.

It looked like all was lost for Fluttershy until her own cards started to glow like his, but with blue. The next thing she summoned was a tuner, which she didn't have before, and it synchronized Monarcha for a whole new card! She looked like some kind of goddess from ancient carvings or depictions in ruins. Torrents of water washed over Zephraim, and Fluttershy ended taking the game.

Twilight and Fluttershy had a rough start at first, but eventually they got used to each other. It was a little strange how she reacted just about the same way Zephraim did to Twilight the first time too. Zephraim spouted a whole bunch of stuff we probably weren't supposed to hear about you and Mr. Sombra, So Fluttershy decided to fill in her life story for us.

So, with six of us filled in on what was going on with your family and a good chunk of the story that Twilight and I didn't have about our own, we learned the girls all seemed to get their marks at the same time. I don't know about anyone else, but that's probably not something that happens all the time. She finished her story, and Zephraim had come to after about four hours. It was almost night time at this point, and we were still missing one.

Fluttershy was talking about some kind of four month period where she was locked in the castle without help, and that started an argument between her and Zeph. It didn't last long though, because the library was on fire. Or, so we thought. Pinkie Pie has some kind of ability to manipulate fire, and she does it so well, that she can basically use it like he own hands. She started the fire to draw Twilight in, and apparently, duel her.

Fluttershy caught on, or knew something we didn't and reprimanded her for it, but that didn't stop the duel from happening. Twilight smiledduring their game. I honestly don't believe I've ever seen her smile or laugh unless she just trounced her opponent or something. She had fun in a duel. I don't know how pinkie managed to do it, but she achieved the impossible that day.

With everybody finally gathered, we had a discussion with the Harmonians and their respective incarnates. Amethyst explained how the whole 'powers' worked, but if you ask me, that's just a different flavor of magic. Everyone who didn't have theirs yet got them, Applejack tried to go overboard and hurt herself, and her Ephraim didn't have nice words for her because of that.

Zeph then explained the lo-down to the rest of the girls, and basically told them what you told Twilight in her letter, but with all the 'hidden information' that we weren't exactly given. Did I mention she read that letter to me? Well, she did, in any case. It was stormy that night, and so everybody decided to go home around twenty two. Twilight's fear of lightning came up, and after the long day, she just about fainted after a few booms of thunder.

Well, that just about covers yesterday and the day before. I'm watching something, but I'm not too sure about it yet, So I'll let you know if I get an update on that.

-Your student, Spike Sparkle.

        When Spike finally put down his last period, he took in a deep breath of air and stretched out his arms, wings, and tail. He checked the clock at the bottom right hand corner of his disk and realized it's almost seventeen now.

        “Geez, How long have I been typing?” He said, thinking he was alone.

        “I'd say about four, possibly five hours if I had to guess.” Spike turned around to find that Andromeda was rearranging the furniture in the room. He had some more materials with him, most of them looked like deteriorating scraps of leather, or just busted pieces of wood. He took two pieces in the air with his magic, and a folding chair from near by and started to spin them around.

        A spell circle carved itself into the floor in the same color as Andromeda's light blue magic. He then pulled everything toward the circle and pressed his hands against it. In a flash, the materials had become one and formed a kind of leather recliner. He pushed the new recliner against the wall, sat in it, and pulled the lever on the side so that it might recline.

        “I must say, I am quite glad that I remembered Ephraim's carpentry after all these years. I'm sure he could build a better one with the proper time, but this will do for now. How goes your letter Master Spike?” The sorcerer asked from his new chair. Spike shook his head to try and return to reality.

        “Oh, I uh... I just finished it actually.” The sorcerer stood and nodded to him.

        “Very good. I'm positive that Celestia will be thrilled to read it. She always enjoyed receiving hand personal letters, even if her favorite version of them has faded out. What did you write about?” He asked after gathering more materials and preparing to make another chair.

        “You know, just the stuff that happened yesterday. I hadn't really though about it, but a lot did happen yesterday, didn't it?” Andromeda paused his spell for a moment.

        “Yes, I would say so. However, you might want to add this to your letter. We found a girl that had been taken out of time this morning, closer toward midnight. She has no fingerprints, no mark, and nothing that would point to who she actually is. Eclipse had managed to save her from Umbra during his duel that night, but we have very little information on her, even with my own magical search. Her only memories are the dates, December fifteenth, 2985, or the day she was born, and January first, 3000, your sister's birth date. You should add that as a post script, saying it was from me.” Spike frowned.

        “So, wait. What does that mean? Are there seven of them? Who is she?” Andromeda finished another chair and sighed.

        “We don't know. Not without the proper equipment at least. Eclipse will discern the details after he takes her elsewhere, but...” Andromeda stopped. It was as if the world around him had turned to ice, he was so still.

        “What is it? Look, Twilight does that too when she doesn't want to tell me something, so just go ahead. If you think it's a concern, then Queen Celestia should probably know.” Spike said. Twilight had a number of little quirks that gave away what she was thinking, and Andromeda seemed to share most, if not all of them with her. Andromeda sighed.

        “I'm beginning to think she may be Umbra's incarnate. Her demeanor, her visage. The way she moves, the way she speaks. She reminds me of that sweet little girl that Monarcha picked up from the stone so many eons ago. If we all had incarnates, it almost makes sense for her to have one as well. I simply... hope that she is not. For if she is... then we may have to intervene.” He finally said.

        Spike didn't reply, but instead just copied down what Andromeda said as best he could.

The incarnate of an evil creature, but before she was tainted? What could that mean for everyone else?

        The dragon boy finished typing his letter and then grabbed the pieces of paper Zephraim had left for him. He folded them in half, then fed them into the disk for it to engrave his words on. With his pages printed, he folded them neatly into thirds.

        He breathed a flame and heated the wax seal from Celestia's letter. He pressed the seal to the new letter with his thumb print on it, then thought hard about the fireplace again. With a single deep breath, he burned away the pages. With no ash to be found, the letter had been sent. As if on queue, Zephraim returned just as the letter went out.

        “Well, those are new. I like the chairs Andy.” He said as he made his way upstairs.

        “Thank you, Master Zephraim.” He called out as the Angel disappeared upstairs. He then turned to spike, and Spike started to hear a voice, but not one coming from anywhere.

I want you to keep what I just told you between you, me, and Celestia. We don't need to worry anyone about this, and we don't need the girl to feel ostracized, lest we cause a disaster. Celestia will decide the next action, and we will carry it out, whatever it may be.

Spike blinked, and Andromeda nodded. The sounds of pots and pans clanking around started to come from upstairs, and Andromeda had finished making his last chair.

        “It seems as if Master Zephraim is making dinner for you all. You might go watch, possibly learn a thing or two about cooking. If my own skills are anything to bet one, it's likely Twilight isn't allowed near any kind of cooking utensil. You might have to feed the both of you if Zephraim is ever away in the future.” He said, now working on some candles and raking old scraps of metal from his pile of junk.

        “That's... probably a good idea. Can we... can we talk later? I think I need to know what is really going on here. I know I can't fight, but if I can help from an outside perspective, then maybe...” Andromeda put a hand on Spike's shoulder.

        “The time will come. For now, let your mind wander elsewhere.” He said, in that grave and sincere tone he likes to use. Spike sighed and made his way to the stair case. Andromeda was at least right about one thing.

Twilight would set the place on fire if I ever let her try and cook again.