Author's Note

I know a promised lewds for this chapter, but I just didn't feel like this was the right moment, but it DID happen. Just so we are clear.

May the darkness grant you peace.

Act 23: Another Shift In The River Of Time

The next day soon came. Ryuji walked through the castle in his usual operator gear. Though as of now, the poor tenno was grabbing at his hips and limping every now and then. As the night before certainly took to a...heavy impact upon his body. Though he wouldn’t say he didn’t enjoy himself. He was definitely going to have to become a bit more durable when those nights came along, or else his pelvis was going to be turned to dust in no time.

Eventually, Ryuji made his way from the main part of the castle out to the eastern courtyard. Here, this is where the gardens could be found in the castle maze. A fun place for Ryuji to hide from Celestia when they had a moment to play together. Sometimes Luna even joined in when it was quiet and they didn’t have any royal duties to worry about. But Ryuji had a rather special place in the maze that only he could access thanks to his tenno abilities. Once he finds the right spot, he void dashes forward to pass through the tall bush wall into a little area that has overgrown with vegetation, essentially blocking out any prying eyes that could find him, but leaving enough light to see around his little hiding place.

He falls back into the soft grass with a sigh of relief as he gazes up at the lush vegetation above which the sun only peeks through slightly. He places his hands behind his head and smiles to himself as he enjoys the silence of the maze. In fact, he was becoming so very relaxed, that his eyes started to droop slowly, lulling him into a light slumber.

A couple of hours pass, bringing the time to 2 PM in the afternoon. Ryuji is suddenly woken up by the sound of flapping wings hovering overhead. He sits up and let out a long yawn and stretches his arms out, his arms and shoulders lightly popping as he does this. He hears his name being called out. But the voice wasn’t Celestia or Luna. But it was certainly familiar. SO, he hops up onto his feel and void dashes out into the open before looking up into the sky to see who was calling out for him.

“Ryu?! Where are you hiding?!”

The voice called out to him again. This time he could tell who it was right away. He runs into a clearing of that maze and calls out.

“Twi, down here!”

He shouts as he waves his hand to catch her attention as he called out to her. The lavender alicorn mare sees her dear friend and gives a rather excited smile as she makes her way to the ground. Once she lands in the clearing, she runs to him and wraps her arms around him in a big warm hug, nearly smothering him into her breasts as she nuzzles her cheek against the top of his head. He wraps his arms around her with his own embrace, not even bothered by her bust. He has gotten used to it after all. After their warm hug, they both release each other and Twilight grabs his wrist and leads him over to one of the white stone benches.

“Oh Ryu, you won’t believe what’s happening! A huge map table just..came out of nowhere in the castle! It’s the map of all of Equestria! And it’s sending us somewhere!”

“So you and the other girls are heading off on some kind of...friendship quest? That’s pretty neat. Hope you all have a good time doing...what it is you all do with that kind of stuff.”

“Oh but you haven’t heard the best part, it’s calling you to!”

Ryuji’s normal calm expression changed as his left eye twitched and an annoyed smile formed across his face.

“Wait...I have to go to..?”

“Yes! Oh, this will be so exciting! The others and I will finally get to spend time with you! We will go and solve this together and hopefully fix this friendship issue the make has called us for!”

She continued on and on. Ryuji could only sigh and lower his gaze to the ground. He really didn’t want to go anywhere now that Hydroid had been taken from him. But at the same time, he needed to learn to be more independent of his warframe. He is a tenno after all. And he possesses great power that he doesn’t need his frame for. Reluctantly, he decides to go with her. He stands up and looks towards her.

“Alright, alright. Calm down Twi. Let me grab a bag with a few things and we can be on our way. I need to get out more and see the world rather than just Ponyville and Canterlot.”

“Yay! This will be so exciting!”

She exclaims, bouncing up and down on her hooves as her tail sways behind her.

“Meeting me at the castle entrance. I will be down after I see Tia.”

After seeing his lover and packing a few things, Ryuji, Twilight and the others set off on the long train ride to the destination that the map had pointed out for them. Ryuji did his usual thing on the way there when it came to train rides, sleep. In which the girls watched him every now and then thinking that he was the cutest thing in all the world. Even Dash couldn’t help but smile and look at him in such a way. Ryuji could care less though, he was sleeping and in dreamland.

“So what do you think about Ryu coming with us on this mission? He is more of a rogue element than anything wouldn’t you think?”

Twilight asked her friends, keeping their conversation to a whisper.

“Well, the map did call him just as it called us. And I think he will certainly be of help. If anything, he is a wonderful young stallion to have around~.”

Rarity said as she sat across from him and lightly brushed some of his hair out from his face.

“He may be small, but that boy can sure handle himself in a fight. Ah was impressed with how he handled Tirek with those fancy gadgets of his and that flyin’ ship as well. That’s some serious firepower.”

“From what Celestia has told me, he has been a little down ever since his Warframe was taken from him that day. Hopefully, this time away from the castle will keep his mind off of it and he will focus more on the task at hand. He is very special to me..and I don’t want to see him feeling like that.”

Ryuji lightly stirs in his sleep before slowly opening his eyes. He sits up to find all six of the mares nearly surrounding him with expressions of adoring smiles. He rubs his eyes and looks between the group with a confused look.

“....What?”

“Oh, it’s nothing sweetie. You are just the cutest thing ever when you sleep is all~.”

Said Rarity before the others nod in agreement. Ryuji simply shook his head and turned his head to gaze out the window just as the train came to a stop. They were finally there. Ryuji went out ahead of them and came to the cliffside that overlooked the town that they had been sent to by the map. Not wasting any time, he jumps and slides down the angled face of the cliff and began advancing towards the little village.

Once he got to the village, he hid between the building as he observed the ponies from the shadows. Right away, he could tell something was very off about them all. They seemed...too happy. And the way they were smiling, it nearly made him shudder.

“Wow...Pinkie is going to be able to call these ponies out just as quick as I did...if not quicker.”

He said as he continued to sneak about the town. Eventually, the girls made it in as well but were stopped by the welcoming committee. But since they were distracted by distracting Twilight and the others, the first house that Ryuji snuck into was the one that the head of the village. Cause to him, it made sense that the leader would live there. He didn’t waste any time in searching for any kind of clues that he could use to further complete this job. Eventually, he stumbled up a dresser. After finding rather..revealing underwear and clothing. He comes across a case of black makeup and a piece of paper that had an equal sign cut out into it.

“Now what in the world would this be needed for..?”

He continues his search throughout the house, making sure that things were put back the way they were to make sure that no suspicion was caused. Soon he came across a stack of papers that revealed even more to him once he picked one up. His expression was all too clear when he read what was printed on the paper.

“Equality for all? Who needs cutie marks when we can all be the same? What is this garbage? Sounds like their leader is about as nutty as the Red Vale’s leaders…”

He resumed the search once more, coming across a chest that had some old belongs inside of it. He came across what appeared to be an old journal of sorts. Perhaps with this, he could learn more about this crazy leader of theirs and finish up this mission. Just as he was about to read it, he heard the doorknob to the front door turn. He closes the chest and makes sure to take the book with him before void dashing through the back wall of the house and makes a run toward the path that seemed to be leading up to a cave of some sort.

While the girls are doing their thing, I will see what else I can find…”

He said as he started walking up the path. He finally made it to the cave entrance that the path lead to after a good while. Once he made sure that the coast was clear, he makes his way into the rather spacious cave. And what he saw only confirmed what he was thinking in the first place once he saw those papers before. He walked up to the enormous wall of...cutie marks. It glowed bright blue and each little cube of the whole thing housed a cutie mark in it! His eyes then turned to look at a floating staff in the center of the cave which also had a glowing light blue aura around it. He walked over to it and take hold of the staff. Once he touched it, the aura went away. As he examined it. He didn’t feel the sense of...magic that he felt when he came into contact with a unicorn or Celestia. Not even a magical artifact. Normally if it was a magical artifact, it would feel like you are running the tips of your fingers over electrical wiring and would feel the flow of power through it. But with this..nothing.

“Alright, time to find out what the hell is going on here.”

Ryuji makes his way over to the wall of cutie marks and sits on a rock before taking the journal and begins to read it. Soon enough, the tenno would understand why their leader was acting the way she was. As time passed while he read, he began to sympathize with her. But it was still wrong to make people think that just because they are different doesn’t make them better than anyone else. And forcing that thought process onto others simply because your best friend went on to a magic school and thought that he forgot about you? Ryuji continued to read the journal until he heard voices coming from the entrance of the cave. He closes the book and takes hold of the staff once more as he sees Twilight and the others being lead in by a light lavender colored unicorn with a dark purple mane with blue stripes.

“And this here is our cutie mark vault-.”

The unicorn’s eyes widen as she gazes upon Ryuji who had the staff in hand. She was speechless for words as she had not thought ponies would find their way up here. But then again, Ryuji wasn’t a pony.

“W-who are you?! What are you doing here?!”

“Ryu!”

Twilight and the others called out in happiness and relief to see that he is alright. Ryuji holds up the staff and looks at the unicorn who stared down at him with a glare. This made him smile slightly as he began to unravel the truth in front of her.

“Starlight Glimmer is your name, yes? And you started this whole ‘equality’ nonsense because your friend got his cutie mark before you and he went off to learn at Celestia’s school? That’s pretty petty if you ask me. Your little journal here told me everything about you and this Sunburst guy. And this staff? It’s just a fancy piece of wood.”

He said before turning around and slamming it down on one of the large rocks hard enough that it shatters into a few pieces. Starlight watched in complete shock as her plot was revealed by a complete stranger. Her horn glowed brightly in the cave as shock turned to hot anger before she fired a concentrated shot of magic toward Ryuji who deflected it with his spectral blade that came out just in time to do so. He jumps over at the wall of cutie marks and holds his left hand against it as his void energy built up in it.

“This ends. Now.”

“No, You can’t do this!”

She shouted as she ran towards him. However, it was too late. Ryuji released a void blast against the surface of the vault which began to crack in all directions before completely shattering. The cutie marks that were once stored suddenly flew about the cave and returned to their rightful owners both in and out of the cave. Starlight fell to her knees as she watched all her hard work crumble before her. All those years...and within a few minutes, this tenno destroyed it all. Ryuji began to walk toward her, his eyes fixed on hers.

“You...you will pay for this. All my hard work. All that time I spent..gone! Because of you!”

Ryuji now stood before her. What happened next was something that she or the others didn’t expect. He lowers himself down to a knee and meets his gaze with hers again. He lets out a light sigh before speaking.

“Look, Starlight. I get it. I really do. You were upset because of what happened between you and your friend. But you did all this because of that. It’s not like you were alone after that. You had your family. And you could have made more friends. Besides, you had a better chance of doing that than I did. I had no friends for a long, long time before I came to this world. Both of my parents died when I was a child and I could do nothing for them. You think you had it rough? I was asleep for over a thousand years combating clones and robots that were trying to kill me. And I did that while all on my own with my warframe. But you? You chose to let something as small as that ruin your chance of having more friends.”

Starlight glanced toward Ryuji. As she listened to him speak and looked into his eyes, she could tell that he was being genuine with his words. As if she could see everything that had played out in his life. She then lowers her head and looks to the ground.

“I just..I just wanted the world to understand how I felt when Sunburst left out of my life when I was little…”

Ryuji places a hand on her shoulder and offers her a light smile. His expression sympathetic to her feelings as he held out his other hand to her.

“Then shrug off the past. And make new friends. You never know who will want to be yours without taking any risk. After all, when I first came here, I didn’t think I’d fit in with any of these ponies that came with me. And yet, Twilight and the others accepted me and showed me I had nothing to fear. Now, I want to help you, Starlight. Will you accept my friendship. And start anew? I promise I won’t turn my back on you. And neither will they.”

The unicorn looks down at his extended hand. His words were genuine and comforting to her. And coming from not another pony, but from a being that wasn’t even from this realm, that was definitely something. She hesitantly reaches out and takes hold of his hand. Ryuji smiles and wraps his hand around her and helps her to her hooves.

“My name is Ryuji. And I’d like to be your friend.”

Starlight’s eyes welled up with tears and a smile came across her muzzle.

“My name is Starlight, it is a pleasure to meet you, Ryuji. And I want to be your friend too!”

She suddenly wrapped her arms around him in a hug. Ryuji smiled lightly and returned the gesture in kind. Twilight and the others all watched with smiles of their own. Happy that this all worked out in the end. Suddenly, the whole entire world started shaking, as if something was under the planet. Everyone had a hard time standing up because of it as they stumbled about. And this feeling that Ryuji was getting...he felt it before when…

“What the hay is goin’ on?!”

Applejack shouted as she grabbed the wall for support. Ryuji knew exactly what had just happened. Once the world had stopped shaking. Ryuji looked towards the others as he released Starlight.

“It seems I have done something to piss the Fates and the flow of time off. That shaking was the flow straining itself with the choice that was just made here today. The path it had originally decided on is no more.”

“S-so what happens now..?”

Asked Starlight.

“Well, for now, we start with apologizing to the villagers. And then, we will go from there. And don’t worry, I will be there with you. Once you tell them your story, they will understand…”