Chapter 1: Legacies Revealed
Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie! I used to be your everyday party pony who dedicated her life to making everypony she met smile, but these days I have a new life’s passion: fighting for truth and justice and that kinda stuff as Equestria’s newest hero, Vibe. Don’t tell anypony I told you my secret identity, because it’s supposed to be a secret, and if it got out, there’s no telling who might get hurt. At least, that’s what Spike, my boyfriend and go-to guy for all this comic book superhero stuff keeps telling me. He’s the one who gave me the name Vibe. Well, that and a message from an ancient race of creatures called Humans.
But, seeing as this is my origin story, maybe a good place to start would be the beginning. I mean, that’s where all origin stories start, am I right? I'm pretty sure I'm right.
…
“Scooter! Here, scooter, scooter, scooter, scooter!” called a pink anthropomorphic Earth Pony mare with a bushy pink mane and tail wearing a blue shirt with a white undershirt underneath bearing the image of a pink heart, blue jeans with cake batter splattered all over them, and pink and white tennis shoes. This was Pinkamena Diane Pie, or as everypony in Ponyville called her, Pinkie Pie. She had been asked by Scootaloo, since Rainbow Dash was busy with weather duty, to help her find her beloved scooter. Although, why Pinkie thought calling for a scooter like a cat would work was anyone’s guess.
“HEY SCOOTER! WHERE ARE YOU?!” Pinkie Pie screamed at the top of her lungs.
As Pinkie continued to make her way through town, she caught sight of a wall that somehow looked out of place to her.
“Hmm… I could swear that wasn’t there before. I’m intrigued,” said Pinkie as she approached the wall and tapped on it. The wall then fell over, having only been a piece of cardboard, and on the other side was Scootaloo’s scooter.
“Oh, there you are, scooter! Now, let’s get you home!” said Pinkie as she grabbed the scooter.
At that very moment, the world around Pinkie Pie vanished. Well, not so much vanished as became distorted and turned some kind of weird bluish hue.
Where am I? What’s going on? thought Pinkie as she looked around the distorted world, feeling confused and maybe a little bit afraid, which were feelings she was not okay with feeling. But, aside from that, this almost felt like Pinkie Sense, except a LOT more powerful.
”Here! Let’s hide it here.”
Pinkie turned around and saw two colts around Scootaloo’s age carrying a scooter that looked exactly like Scootaloo’s. Neither of the colts seem to notice Pinkie as they somehow set the scooter in the exact same place the real one was in before setting up the exact same fake wall, snickering gleefully at their prank.
Then, just as suddenly as the vision had started, the world returned to normal, and the wall was gone.
Pinkie just stared ahead of her before her mind registered what just happened as a meeting of the spectral kind. So Pinkie did the only thing logical to Pinkie.
“HAUNTED SCOOTER!”
She freaked out.
Pinkie ran as fast as she could away from the scooter, somehow breaking the sound barrier in the process, darted into her home, grabbed her party cannon, and raced back to the scooter, business end of the cannon aimed at the scooter.
“All right, Mr. Ghosty! You listen here! That is a scooter, it belongs to a poor little pegasus filly who can’t fly named Scootaloo, it is not a Victorian Mansion or a graveyard, so get your ghostly tail BACK to the great beyond or I’ll blast you there!”
*caw caw caw* a crow cried over head. Pinkie just kept standing there as nothing happened, no extradimensional apparition appeared before the startled pony. The scooter simply sat there.
“Okay, maybe you're not haunted.” she said as she lowered her guard, picked up the scooter, and placed her party cannon inside her mane… somehow. “Anyways, I’d better get you back to Scootaloo before she gets worried!”
With that, Pinkie Pie merrily skipped away, humming a happy tune as she did. Before long, she found a teenage pegasus filly with an orange coat and a purple mane and tail wearing a black shirt with a white undershirt, khaki shorts, and blue tennis shoes was looking around, a desperate look on her face.
“Hiiii, Scootaloo! Look what I found!” called Pinkie as she skipped over to the filly, whose eyes lit up with a bright smile.
“Hey, Pinkie. Alright, you found my scooter!” Scootaloo said happily, as she made to take it back from Pinkie though, said mare had another vision as soon as their hands touched.
The air around Pinkie became a shade of blue again as this…not Pinkie Sense began to act up again. Scootaloo was still in front of her, but clad in a yellow, spandex-like suit with a red lightning bolt in the center of the chest area. The not Scootaloo just nodded before she pulled up a cowl, covering her face, leaving her muzzle, eyes, and hair unobscured as she zipped off in a blur of speed as she crashed through several things that looked like aliens from scary stories. She continued to observe the scene before another blur went around the things that were attacking Ponyville, leaving a red blur, with yellow lightning as it streaked back and forth until it stopped in front of her. The flash was Dash! Pinkie would never forget any of her friends and the speed, sky blue muzzle, and purple eyes absolutely made her Rainbow Dash. Pinkie tried to say something but she just ran off to take down more of the meanies hurting her home. Up in the air a burst of light appeared as an obscured alicorn figure appeared engulfed in flames. Pinkie didn't know who she was because the only Alicorns she knew of were Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Cadence, Twilight’s sister-in-law, and she didn't look like any of them. Before she could make sense of what she was seeing an archer, cloaked in a green hood, raised their bow and drew back an arrow, promptly releasing it as soon as they could.
Pinkie thought the archer was aiming for her, which is why she ducked, but when she did duck she saw the arrow go through the head of another alien. Pinkie couldn't believe what she was seeing, it must be a dream! She then noticed another archer, smaller than the first one and wearing a red cloak, reach down towards her with an eagle’s claw.
“You okay?” the figure asked in Scootaloo’s voice as the vision flickered away, showing Scootaloo looking up at Pinkie concerned.
Pinkie muttered something about how she was fine before making her way back to her house, which took longer than normal due to her not really noticing where she was going in the first place. More than once she walked into the same wall many times in a row. Finally, though, she made it home.
“What’s happening to me? Who can I talk to about this… not Pinkie Sense?” Pinkie Pie asked herself. Twilight? No, she remembered what happened the last time Twilight had anything to do with Pinkie Sense, but this was different from her normal Pinkie Sense, so maybe. But, if not her, then who?
Pinkie smacked herself in the forehead with her hand. Duh! Her family! Pinkie walked over to her telephone and dialed her older sister’s phone number.
”Hello. Maud Pie speaking,” said the almost robotic voice of Pinkie’s older sister, Maud Pie.
“Maud! Listen to me, I need your help it’s urgent! I think something’s wrong with my Pinkie Sense! I’m starting to actually see things! Weird things! Aliens!”
Maud’s voice suddenly turned urgent and deadly serious, or as urgent and deadly serious an eternal monotone could get. ”Pinkie, be honest with me. When you have these visions, does everything around you turn a bluish color?” asked Maud.
“Yeah, why? DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME!?” Pinkie asked distressed.
”I’ll be over in about an hour, maybe more, maybe less. I’ll explain everything when I get there.”
With that, Maud hung up, leaving Pinkie Pie feeling even more scared and confused than she was before. She began to hyperventilate as she curled herself into a ball and began feeling as though the walls were closing in around her.
Pinkie heard something creak, which was somehow that much scarier in her terrified state. She screamed in terror and held her hands out in front of her. What happened next in her panic ridden state of mind didn't help in the slightest, as she held her hands up two shockwaves went from them to the wall, blasting a large hole in it.
Pinkie let out another scream and released more shockwaves in her fright, demolishing her house as she did so.
Before long, what was left of the front door was kicked down, and through it stepped Pinkie Pie’s closest friends. Twilight Sparkle, a unicorn with lavender fur and a dark blue mane and tail wearing a purple blouse, blue jeans, and purple shoes, Twilight’s cute dragon assistant/son Spike, who had purple and green scales and wore a purple zip-up hoodie with a black undershirt, black jeans, and green shoes, Applejack, who was an orange Earth Pony like Pinkie with a blonde mane and tail wearing a green t-shirt, blue jeans, brown leather cowboy boots, and a brown stetson hat, Fluttershy, a butter yellow pegasus who had a light pink mane and tail and wore a white blouse, a green skirt, and pink sandals, Rarity Belle, who was a white-furred unicorn with a curly purple mane and tail wearing a black blouse, blue jeans, and black ankle boots, and Rainbow Dash, a pegasus with a rainbow patterned mane and tail wearing a blue shirt with a white undershirt bearing the image of a rainbow-colored lightning bolt, tight blue jeans, and pink sneakers.
“Pinkie Pie, are you-WHOA!” yelled Twilight, ducking before a shockwave could eject her from the house.
“What in tarnation?!” cried Applejack in terror, jumping out of the way before a shockwave knocked the boots out from under her.
“Since when did Pinkie Pie have superpowers?!” yelled Rainbow, swiftly dodging out of the way of a shockwave before it could knock her out of the sky.
“Since today, it appears!” replied Rarity.
As Pinkie’s fellow Elements of Harmony kept avoiding the blasts, only one of them was brave enough to go straight towards Pinkie.
“Fluttershy, you're supposed to be running away from the danger! WOAH!” Rainbow Dash said, narrowly avoiding the attack.
“She’s not a danger! YIPE!” Fluttershy hollered back in her shy way, which is to say she talked like a normal pony would, as she did a split to avoid another of the shockwaves. “Pinkie is our friend!” she said recovering from the split and finished reaching Pinkie. “Pinkie, it's okay, it's us! Your friends! It’s okay.” she spoke like she would to a wounded animal as Pinkie calmed down and opened her eyes.
“Fl-fluttershy?” Pinkie croaked out before she threw her arms around her and started bawling.
“Well, it looks like the first part of my job is already taken care of,” said the same almost robotic voice from Pinkie’s phone call from behind the girls.
Twilight and her friends turned around to find what seemed to be a… dull… version of Pinkie. The mare had stone gray fur, a dull purple mane and tail, and wore a simple black dress with heels, along with an expression that made her look as though she was incapable of expressing her emotions. She carried a strange device of some kind and what looked like an ancient book.
“And who might you be?” asked Twilight.
“Maud Pie. Pinkie’s sister. I take it you’ve seen what Pinkie can do?” she said in her emotionless voice.
“W-well… yes. This wouldn’t have anything to do with her Pinkie Sense somehow, would it?” asked Twilight.
“It has everything to do with it. However, I suggest we move to a more structurally sound location. Do not forget Pinkie’s pet alligator,” said Maud.
…
A short time later, Maud, Pinkie, and the other Elements of Harmony were in Maud’s hotel room. Fluttershy was squeezing Pinkie’s shoulder to comfort the party pony.
“What can you tell us about what's been happening to Pinkie?” Fluttershy asked Maud meekly, but urgent out of concern for one of her best friends.
“All that's happening is that her Metagene is finally maturing.” came Maud’s monotone reply. She got confused looks from everyone in the room.
“What's a Medda-jean?” Rainbow asked Pinkie’s sister.
“Let me answer that question by asking another. Do you know what a human is?”
“What's a human?” was the near unanimous reply. Twilight was the only one in the room that recognized the word.
“Humans, or homo saipens were a precursor race to modern ponies that supposedly existed millions of years ago, although they were unable to harness magic. What they lacked in magical ability, they made up for in scientific prowess and ingenuity. They had all kinds of machines far more advance to Equestria’s current technology. Then, one day, they just disappeared. Poof. It’s a common belief in the scientific community that pony DNA contains certain genes from humans. Lyra Heartstrings is obsessed with them, their culture, and their history,” explained Twilight.
“Very good. My family’s rock farm-”
“Pardon me fer askin’. Ah mean no disrespect, but why would you want to farm rocks?” asked Applejack.
“We call it a rock farm. But it is actually one of the largest mining operations in all of Equestria. As it turns out, it happens to be on the site of an ancient human city called Central City. The very first Pies found this when they drilled the mines,” explained Maud as she slid the device in front of Pinkie and her friends and pressing what seemed to be a button on it.
The device sparked a little causing everyone but Maud and Gummy to jerk away. “Don't worry, it does that.” she said as It projected what looked like a scrying spell into the air. The image remained blank for several seconds before static started to play across the image. Maud just made a fist and hit the top of the device clearing up the image.
“Testing, testing, doremi.” said the image, which had taken the form of what appeared to be a elderly being of primate decent, with matted shoulder-length hair wearing a damaged outfit of some kind with futuristic-looking sunglasses. His face bore several scars, suggesting that he was a warrior of some kind.
“Hopefully this thing’s on and I'm not talking to an empty room. Where to start? I suppose I should start by saying ‘Greetings’! If you're watching this then you're either an extraterrestrial race who have come to scavenge this planet for valuables, or the next generation of sentient and/or sapient life on Earth! Congratulations if it's the latter. You're probably wondering what I am, and if not then you at least look like we did, I am what's called a Human, a bipedal organism that evolved here on Planet Earth. I'm gonna pause for a couple seconds to let you talk amongst yourselves.”
The recording stopped talking and stood in place as everyone in the room gazed up at the being in front of them.
“So, Equis was once a planet called Earth? Fascinating…” said Twilight.
“Who is that guy, sis?” Pinkie asked, her head tilted like a confused dog.
“‘Who am I’, you may be asking. My name is Francisco Ramon, and no I'm not psychic. Not technically. If you're an advanced species, no this is not an artificial intelligence. I'm what's classified as a Metahuman, regular humans who have an abnormal genetic trait that allow said human just as abnormal abilities. My abilities for example, are what I call Vibes. They allow me to predict future events, but I've managed to work the ability to become offensive by making shockwaves. The Vibe ability is what made me able to predict what would happen if this video journal was found. Everything I've said up to this point I've ‘Vibed’, including the part where I just sat still making it look like the recording had been paused.”
“Keep watching, all will be explained soon.” Maud said in her ever flat voice.
”The reason I'm recording all this in an extremely broken down laboratory is because of the Exterminators, a splinter faction of an alien race called the Dominators by humanity, that, as their name implies, exterminates any life they deem a threat to the universe at large. The Dominators felt that anyone with a metagene was a danger to the universe and created an explosive that would destroy the metagene and kill anyone with said gene. The worst part was it would also destroy the area it was dropped in.”
The girls just gasped at that, but that changed to dread at what came next.
“That was tame compared to what the Exterminators did. Unlike their fellow species, they felt Earth and every living thing on it was a threat, especially after my friends managed to stop the Metabomb from falling. What they did was nothing short of genocide on a global scale. But they didn't get everyone. I and Professor Martin Stein managed to survive, so we created our own explosive, one that contained a majority of the DNA and RNA of every species that lived on the Earth plus the Metagene. Professor Stein is probably dead already in his bunker which means I'm the only one left to go before the bomb can detonate, covering the world with the genetics of the human race, and every other flora and fauna this world has ever had on it. If you have anything similar to my powers and are native to this planet, then our plan worked. On this little hologram player is my entire journal about what brought the Metagene to life, all the way till now. Good luck.”
With that, the device switched off. The girls simply sat there in shock and awe at what they had just seen, unable to find any words to express what they felt.
“When Pinkie first developed her Pinkie Sense, we began to suspect that this Metagene had finally begun to surface. And now that it’s coming to full maturity, we need to figure out what to do,” said Maud.
“I already know what to do, sis,” said Pinkie, a determined gleam and a serious look on her face for a change. “I’m going to use my new gifts to honor the memory of the human who was able to bring Ponykind into existence. I’m going to be a superhero. Besides, if I have this Metagene, then I wouldn’t be surprised if there were others out there like me. If I’m right, then someone needs to be out there, making sure they don’t use their gifts to hurt anypony.”
Maud nodded. “Then I will do what I can to help you. That is my responsibility as your big sister, after all,” she said.
“We’ll help you too, Pinkie,” said Twilight, to which the others nodded in agreement.
“Thank you. Well, if I’m going to be a superhero, then I’ll need a codename.”
“What about… Vibe?” suggested Spike.
Pinkie smiled. “Thanks, Spike,” she said.
“Well, if we’re gonna do this, then you’ll need a uniform to conceal your true identity. I’m sure Twilight and I can come up with something,” said Rarity.
Pinkie’s smile grew ever the more wider. “What would I do without friends like you?” she said.
…
Later that evening, Twilight was in her basement laboratory, running a few experiments of her own.
“Okay, this needs documentation. A recording from a human and Metagenes. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing! Oh where did I put my diary?”
CRACK!
Twilight stopped what she was doing, looked down, and watched as cracks appeared around her in a circle. “Uh-oh.” was all she managed to get out of her mouth before she fell through.
“Ow, my back.” Twilight said as she rubbed her spinal area. “Where am I?” she said before lighting up her horn, thus illuminating the room. All around her was advanced technology, but the most advanced was the large desk in the center with a swivel chair in front of it. Twilight could just barely make out a shape sitting in the chair.
“Um, excuse me?” Twilight received no response so she went a little closer to the chair and called again, “Sir? Ma’am?” again Twilight received no reply so she walked up to the chair. “Um, excuse me but could you tell me where I am? You see I just fell into this room from my basement and-” she cut herself off as she touched the chair making it swivel towards her revealing the bones of a long dead being. Twilight screamed. When Twilight had managed to calm herself down she got up off of the ground and inspected the remains. Clinging onto the right side of the clothes was a small sticky tag that Twilight read aloud.
“‘Hello my name is: Professor Martin Stein.’”
Unknown to Twilight, those last three words activated the desk in front of her which began to produce light that coalesced into a male head.
“Oh, hello there.” the head said, causing Twilight to jump and let out a yelp in fright.
“Apologies ma’am, if you are a ma’am. Apologies again, I am unaware of what gender you identify yourself by.” the head said, sounding somewhat embarrassed.
“I am a girl.”
“Wonderful. I do believe introductions are in order.”
“Oh, well, my name is Twilight Sparkle.”
“Hello, Miss Sparkle. My name is Martin Stein, and I am a professor.”