Chapter 5: The Reboot

Volume 1: Rise

Arc I: Purge

Chapter 5: The Reboot

Perspective: Blake Marshall

I sit up slowly, activating my aurasight so that I can get up, seeing as how I’m… where am I? This definitely isn’t my house in Ponyville Square. I look around and examine the area around me before I realize where I am. “Hmm? Why am I in Twilight’s library?” This is definitely her room. The tapestries depicting Princess Celestia, her pictures with Cadance and Shining Armor, her pictures with the others… it’s obvious I’m in her room at the top of the stairs.

I get up and look for my armor… to find no sign of it. What’s up with that? First a hundred bits disappears from my earnings chest, now this? You have to be kidding me. Wait, what am I doing? I completely forgot I can just summon it to me.

I walk down the stairs quickly, looking for Spike. I call out to him, but when he walks in, I can tell something’s wrong. “Hey, what’s- “
“Who are you? And what are you doing in here? Twilight’s not here, so if you’re looking for a book, you’re going to have to wait until she gets back!” What? It’s as if… No, I can’t believe that.

“Do you recognize me, Spike?”

“I’ve never seen you before? And how do you even know my name? What are you?” He drives me out the front door and slams it in my face. I just stand there for a minute, trying to comprehend what just happened. He acted as if he’d never met me. What’s going on?

I see ponies walking around me, but the second I dare to get close, they start to back away or sprint off altogether, acting the same way as when I first arrived. Alright, what’s going on? I know just about everybody… pony in Ponyville. Why are they avoiding me?

I spend the next ten minutes trying to ask what’s going on, but when I finally am able to get an answer, I am stunned by what I’m told. “I’m sorry… sir, but you’re referring to a date in the future.”

“What?! What day is it?”

“Today is the day of the Summer Sun Celebration.” I hold back a string of curses when I hear this. If that’s to be believed…

I suddenly feel dizzy, and fall, my aurasight deactivating of its own accord as I lose consciousness…

Two Hours Later

I get up slowly, having just woken from whatever knocked me out, and check to make sure I have everything with me, before I move forward, heading for the forest immediately. I check my body and notice that I still have both the amulet containing my enchanted armor and Falathiel, my sentient sword. With this in mind, I power up as I sprint into the Everfree Forest, using memory recall and past explanations by Twilight to figure out where I need to go to get to the old Canterlot castle.

I find the path that leads to Zecora’s… then decide I’m not going there. As cool as her rhyming is, it tends to get on my nerves, so I don’t want to deal with it right now. I also don’t want to deal with her questioning my existence, if my being in the past is to be believed. That said, I approach the path and run down it, hoping the other part of it will lead to the castle.

After twenty minutes of straight running, I make it to a large clearing… that gives me a perfect view of the castle and the path I need to take to get to it. Ha, could this day get any more convenient?

I sprint down the path and onto a rickety bridge. I can hear the wood barely holding my weight, so I sprint across as fast as my legs can carry me until I reach the other side, barely reaching it in time to avoid parts of the wood snapping off and falling into the ravine many hundreds of feet below.

I keep running toward the castle, running through my memories as I do so. If what Twilight and the Elements told me is correct, then they should be at the castle, fighting her right now. I need to get there and help her.

Luckily, assuming she’s preoccupied with the Elements… or soon-to-be Elements, nothing tries to trap or trick me like they told me she tried to do to them. This allows me quick, unhindered passage to the castle.

I bolt inside and look around. Two thrones sit at the far end, which means this is some sort of briefing room or courtroom. Outdated and tattered tapestries of the two Princesses hang above them, barely remaining on their flagpoles. A stone door exists on each side of the area, leading away from each throne and to what I assume is their personal bedchambers.

A flash of light on the far right of my aurasight temporarily blinds me and forces me to deactivate my magic for a short second. When I recover, I reactivate it and run to the right door, kicking it open with a blast of magic and sprinting up the spiraling stairway to the castle tower.

When I come through the doors leading to the tower storage, I break the door down with a precise application of magic to the center of the door, blowing it off its hinges, before I step into the room.

I have enough sense to shut off my aurasight as I sense a very powerful magical discharge… and can still see, but nothing blinded me. I blink a few times before I realize I can actually see! When did this… well, if the Text sent me back in time, it probably restored my condition from back then.

A quick check of my body shape confirms this, as I have about the same body shape as I did before I came to this world. At least now I don’t have to risk being overwhelmed by my own magic in the middle of a fight.

I take a breath and stop for a second before I push the doors to Luna’s ancient bedchambers open. As expected, Nightmare Moon is fighting Twilight… what’s not expected is Twilight’s unconscious body lying against a pillar. OK, then it seems I’ll have to deal with this myself.

I shout at Nightmare Moon to get her attention. “Hey, Nightmare Moon! You might have been able to take Twilight out, but you’re not getting me!” She turns to me, her eyes completely white, before she activates her magic and fires a beam of black-colored energy with small blue lines at me, intent on getting rid of me. Ha, it won’t be that easy.

I put my arms up in a cross and activate my magic, pouring it into my arms as the beam hits. My willpower allows me to hold up against the attack, and it slowly dissipates. I let the golden and blue threads dissipate around me.

I charge forward and move to punch her in the face, but am flung back by what I can only describe as gravity manipulation, smashing into a pillar hard. I quickly get back on my feet, just in time to be forced to dodge another black beam where the first came from.

I employ a little police training and run along the side. As expected, Nightmare Moon moves to the side, and the beam follows the same path, intent on cutting me into two pieces: Blake and Marshall.

I drop my legs from under me and into a baseball slide, and I end up right under her, which is exactly where I want to be. I put my hands on the ground below me for support and leverage, and then proceed to put my feet on her stomach, following up with a violent hurl that sends her flying into the air. I push off the ground with my hands, cracking the ground and appearing above her in a flash of blue and golden archaic power. I immediately bring my hands down just as she turns to look at me in a vicious vertical haymaker, sending her back down to earth.

I notice another human walk in, but stay focused on the fight, and it’s a good thing I decide to do so, because I’m barely able to avoid another beam, one that would have successfully bisected me had I not looked back to her sooner.

I move into a crouching position and take off at blinding speeds, appearing next to her and landing a wicked right hook that sends her barreling into a nearby pillar, causing it to crumble and fall right on top of her. She gets out, and her eyes increase in luminosity for a split second before she stomps the ground, causing the ground to crack as it approaches me.

Nope, not going to work. I take off before the cracks can reach me, appearing next to and latching onto a wall behind me ten feet in the air as the ground where I was just standing starts convulsing, until the stone is replaced by dirt from under it. That attack would have put me six feet under, quite literally. If she intends on doing that, then I’m going to get serious. That thought running through my head, I tap my amulet and call on my armor, feeling the familiar weight of my shield latch itself onto my right arm as I pull out my Starsteel sword and summon my golden wings.

I dodge the beam of energy sent at me, summon an energy hammer with my magic, dropping myself through the air, and hammer the ground, causing massive spikes of energy to burst out of the ground that Nightmare Moon barely avoids, flying into the air, where she proceeds to send wave after wave of magical bisector beams at me, all of which I fluidly dodge or block quickly enough to mitigate the majority of the damage.

As I take a moment to recover, I hear a pop and look to my right to find Nightmare Moon right next to me. I barely have any time to react before she turns on her forehooves and buck me hard, sending me flying into the next wall. As I slowly and painfully extricate myself from the nearly caved wall, I stretch my limbs, hearing satisfying pops ring out, echoing slightly across the stone and marble walls of the room.

I have to jump and propel myself into the air as a blast of black and blue magical energy strikes the ground where I just was two seconds ago. Nightmare Moon starts throwing out beam after beam of magical energy, trying to outright kill me, and manages to get lucky when one of the blunt beams strikes my left wing, causing me to cry out in pain and banish them back to the amulet, dropping back to the ground in a roll. That’s going to take a while to heal.

I dash forward using my magic and get in a few strikes with my sword before that cursed gravity manipulation comes down on me, sending me into the ground hard. I quickly recover, but I’m forced to dodge yet another bucking attempt as Nightmare Moon flashes right in front of me and charges her horn.

I dash forward using my magic and get in a few strikes with my sword before that cursed gravity manipulation comes down on me, sending me into the ground hard. I quickly recover, but I’m forced to dodge yet another bucking attempt as Nightmare Moon flashes right in front of me and charges her horn.

I appear to the right of her and prepare for a vicious punt kick, but I immediately turn to guard myself when I realize this was her plan all along: she’s facing me, her eyes glowing with a brighter luminosity than before, and before I have any time to react, a blunt magical beam strikes my chest, sending me barreling into the far wall.

I grunt and painfully struggle to extricate myself from the wall, and barely manage to do so in time to avoid another of Nightmare Moon’s beams. It’s evident the last one had more power, because a large hole has completely erased any trace of my being there a scant few seconds ago.

I’m quickly put on the defensive as Nightmare Moon continues attempting to kill me with her beams. I barely manage to dodge them, but the both of us suddenly stop when I feel a powerful presence in the air.

Nightmare Moon suddenly turns into tacky purple smoke and flies out of the hold made by her last attempt to kill me. “Oh no you don’t!” I dash out of the window after her, but my magic spontaneously shuts off the instant I leave the building, and I hit the ground hard.

A scant few seconds later, I know no more.

Author's Note

Well, there's Chapter 5, everypony! After reading, drop me a review telling me how well I introduced Blake's character, because I kind of had to write the chapter last-minute. Hopefully, once the arc is over, I'll be able to come back and edit out or change any discrepancies.

For now, I'm going to have to stop writing chapters, because the next three weeks of school are all preparations for finals week, so I'm going to have to put all my focus there. Chapters 6 and 7 will be posted sometime during Christmas Break, so I'll see everypony then!