The Cat, Witch and the Wormholes

Chapter 14. The Pony and her cat

"But haven't we gone too far from the city?" Asked Sunset, who began to think that they were going so long that they probably already left the country.

"Don't worry, we just went to the other side of the river."

"But we are on the road for almost a hour!"

"Pfeh. It's not that long, and I know that you can always teleport back to the tower in just a couple of minutes."

"Yeah, but it will take so much energy and concentration that I will be tired all evening."

"Well, they still don't let you out on patrols, and sitting at the console doesn't require much effort."

"How do you know about it?" Lisa smiled mysteriously at her. "Right. You are a psychic."

The car turned off the highway and rolled down a narrow street towards the sea. Multiple silhouettes of two-storey houses flashed outside the window and soon the car drove up to a long white apartment building standing on the coast not far from the marina. Lisa parked next to the house and after leaving the car the girls went up to the apartment on the second floor.

The day was already falling towards evening when Seth heard the sound of a car parking outside the window. He did not know how far Sunset school was from this house, but if it took the quasi-psychic almost three hours to go there and back, then perhaps he was very far from the Protectorate tower, and that means his fear of being discovered was in vain.

While waiting for their return, he many times played an imaginary dialog with Sunset, thinking over how and what he should tell her in order not to anger her. Because he never told anyone before that he is not just a cat, and she might be offended or start hating him. And when they get home, she may tell Princess Celestia about that and then she will deprive him of his source of magical knowledge, or even turn him into stone.

The key grated in the lock of the door and it opened with a click, letting two girls into the small apartment, the first of whom was his current caretaker, and the second was Sunset. She hesitantly went inside, and then, looking around, noticed a bandaged cat lying on the sofa, after which she let out a joyful squeak and in the blink of an eye she appeared beside him hugging him with all her might.

"You are alive, alive! I knew that you would not leave me alone!" She exclaimed happily. "Oh, how much I missed you!"

'Yeah, and apparently that's why you decided to strangle me with joy.'

"I think you should go easier with hugs, he has not yet recovered from his injuries." Noted Lisa.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I was careless." Sunset quickly apologized and freed the cat from her grip. "Why did you run away, dummy? I was so worried! How would I explain this to Cadence if you were lost?"

'I had no choice, I couldn't let this maniac capture you, so I preferred to sacrifice myself.'

"He says he decided to sacrifice himself for your sake."

"What? What do you mean?"

"He said that he had no choice but to sacrifice himself so that the Butcher didn't capture your body."

"He said? I do not understand. What are you talking about?"

"Ugh." She facepalmed. "Okay, this sounds weird, but as you probably already know, I have a power."

"Your psychic power?"

"Sorry, I lied a little, and this is not quite psychic, it is rather something like a superpowered deduction, which allows me to understand and learn even the deepest details in the smallest pieces of information. For example, one glance at you is enough for me to understand that the upright bipedal form of movement is not native for you and you have to subconsciously restrain yourself not to go on all fours because you are a pony turned into a girl."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, my power somehow allows me to hear what this cat says in the form of a normal clear speech."

"But he does not say anything, only meows sometimes."

"Actually, he is talking, just nobody but me can understand him."

"Oh. Okay then." Sunset stiffly and nervously smiled.

"You don't believe me." Lisa stated this as a fact.

"No, no. I believe you!" Sunset's smile has become even tighter. "He's clever, of course he is talking."

'Tell her about the blond prince, and about her secret collection of socks that she hides under the double bottom of the lowest drawer of her dresser.' Seth winked at Lisa and she happily grinned back.

"Well, then maybe I will show my remarkable talents and, with my mind touching the higher planes of existence, I will look into your most intimate secrets."

"Oh."

"I see. I see a beautiful blond male, he is noble, rich, he is a prince living in an ancient majestic castle..." In a mysterious voice said Lisa.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not so gullible!" Sunset snorted.

"Oh, I see that my visitor today is especially stubborn."

"I'm not stubborn, it's just your statements are ridiculous."

"Young Miss Unicorn denies the obvious, but apparently she does not value her secret collection of socks so much that she hides in her dresser in the secret compartment of the bottom drawer."

"What?! How did you know that?!" Exclaimed startled Sunset. "Nobody knows about this! I even enchanted it from discovery!"

'Tell her that the prince will especially like those black laced socks.' Smirked Seth.

"My powers say that the prince likes things with black laces..." Lisa happily quipped and winked to cat.

"Wha?! You can't! Nobody should have known!" Sunset fervently panicked. "No one could know about them! I got them out only once! And no one saw me for sure! Cadence was asleep, and the cat was fascinated by the book! Oh, Celestia! I thought he was reading a book. No! It can't be!"

"But it's true." Lisa's smile widened. "Seth told me."

"He... He can talk?"

"Yu-p." Answered Lisa, popping last 'p'.

"Wait. You said 'Seth'."

"Yeah, that's his name."

"What? But Cadence named him Mister Silky Paws."

"And you call him Midnight. But his real name is Seth."

"He told you that, too?"

"Oh, girl, you can't even imagine what he told me."

"It's not something bad?"

"Of course not! But I can't tell you without his permission."

'Well, you can tell her everything, but without excessive embellishment.' Meowed Seth which immediately attracted the attention of the Sunset.

"He said something, right?"

"Yep. He doesn't mind me telling you everything."

"Uhm."

"I warn you, you better sit down."

"Are you sure this is not something bad?"

"Perhaps, but we cannot change what happened."

"Okay, I'll sit down then." Sunset gently landed on the couch next to Seth and looked at him with studying gaze.

"So, it all started a long time ago on a planet far, far away..."

Even so, it took Lisa almost two hours, in order to tell a brief version of the history of the Goa'uld Empire and their conquests, as well as the tale of Seth's misadventures. Outside, the sky began to darken, and occasionally petted cat even managed to doze off. And Lisa even had to run into the refrigerator for juice, because her dry throat began to resemble the Egyptian desert.

The history of the great and terrible interstellar empire struck Sunset, who didn't even imagined that her best friend's cat could be a fake alien god from deep space. And although at first she even felt disgusting to hear about their slavery practice and conquests, but later when the story went directly to Seth’s life, she listened very carefully.

Seth meowed from time to time, complementing what Lisa said, and clarifying some historical episodes. And for Sunset it was a real revelation that almost the whole history of her home world that she knew was in fact a deep hoax, the reasons and the need for which she did not yet understand. Even the fact that Cutie Marks and Special Talents appeared only a couple of thousand years ago was a shock for her.

And the creature of which she considered the cat of her best friend turned out to be a alien who lived for so long that he personally saw civilizations and times existence of which remained only in myths. Even though that Seth himself was not always in the places described in the myths at the right time, but he confirmed that the disappeared civilization of Anugypt was created by descendants of people from this world whose ancestors pursued him through his improvised Stargate.

She even found out that her world in ancient times was similar to the world of Earth Bet, and was part of the heliocentric star system, until the apocalypse created by Discord happened. And during the apocalypse, all the old civilizations fell, and many of their inhabitants and even whole intelligent species ceased to exist. The world, for many centuries, plunged into the darkness of bloody massacre and cruelty, until the Alicorn sisters appeared, who defeated Discord and became one of the founders of the new civilization.

And Princess Celestia was not always so wise, kind and caring, she and her sister Luna were fairly ruthless rulers, and not because of their natural cruelty, but rather out of necessity. It was just time of the birth of Equestria were merciless, the land was filled with bloodthirsty bandits, and in the far corners of the country, new maniacal conquerors appeared every now and then.

Sunset could not help comparing life in the world before Discord fall, and life of the present days, and was forced to admit that despite the fact that the Alicorn sisters' actions seemed cruel and heartless to her, but they were necessary, and without them life in Equestria would not be so beautiful and carefree. Still her own perception of Princess Celestia has changed forever.

Despite the fact that Seth described her actions in a grotesque manner she did not cease to love her, as the great and beautiful ruler of Equestria, but now didn't consider her to be some kind of sublime essence, which is always watches over the world, infallible and divine. For her, Princess Celestia became more real and close, in some way indistinguishable from them, mere mortals, became more of a pony than she seemed before. And Sunset's respect for her has grown to an even higher level.

Seth did not personally meet the sisters, and was not present at the time of Luna's fall, but it became obvious to Sunset that the choice between her sister and the well-being of Equestria was the most difficult for Princess Celestia. And probably no one will ever be able to adequately evaluate and understand the value of the sacrifice she brought on the altar of the country's prosperity.

But not everything in Seth's history was so gloomy, because during his excessively long life he went to nearly every corner of her home world, saw all its beauty and wonders. And so when time came to interrupt the story she was incredibly sorry, since her free time was running out and she had to go back to the Protectorate tower.

"You will still have many opportunities to hear the continuation of his story." Noted Lisa.

"Yes, but it will be extremely difficult to get here, and I cannot take him with me. Who knows what they will do to him." Said saddened by this fact Sunset.

"Well then, I have a solution!" Foxily smiled Lisa. "After all, I have never planned to linger in this apartment for a long time, and now I even have reason to move directly to New York."

"You will do it for me?" Surprised Sunset.

"Hold your horses darling. I do this not only for your sake, but also for the sake of the cat and for the sake of our mutual friendship! After all, I promised that we would definitely become great friends!"

Sunset could only silently agree, and once again embracing the cat as a farewell, she teleported to a specially designated room inside the Protectorate tower.

It turned out that moving to a new place is not such a simple matter. Lisa did not want to leave even the fluffy carpet that she did not particularly like, and because of that the search for new housing and preparation for the move took almost another week. In addition, it was necessary to hide such a noticeable cat somewhere, so Seth had to live in a rented van for several days.

Not that he was particularly worried about this, but when thieves tried to steal this van, the hijackers got a big surprise in the size of a decent bloodhound. Fortunately for our duo, the thieves turned out to be stoned by drugs, and so when they told the soon-arrived police that they were beaten by a giant cat, cops just laughed.

Lisa managed to find a small two-story house, built of light orange bricks, in a couple of blocks from Sunset’s school. Rent was relatively cheap, because homeowners were going to Europe for a year, and Lisa seemed to them to be a quite decent tenant. They didn't even protest that she would keep the cat in the house, although they probably did not know what kind of cat it would be.

The owner of the house herself seemed a bit strange to Lisa, with all this strict manner of her speech, in an expensive black business suit and fedora on her head, plus Lisa’s superpower decided to go on strike and instead of useful things gave out all kinds of crap. The owner’s husband never appeared for the whole week, but there was no reason for particular concern, and the price for rent was very affordable. Plus, the house had an indoor pool, which at once gave it a hundred points of odds before any other rental option.

Seth already knew that Liza was earning money by playing an illegal game on the stock exchange, using her Special Talent to the fullest, and he himself did not see anything wrong with that, only Sunset had grumbled a little, but didn't make a scandal of it or complained to the authorities. Anyway, the prohibition on labor using their Special Talents was extremely idiotic and everyone survived as best as they could.

Sunset came to visit almost every day, except for weekends, since she could not leave the tower without a good reason for it without arousing suspicion. Although her visits were mostly short, he and Lisa managed to tell her much of what Seth knew. And most importantly, they told her about the likely opportunity to return home.

"We can go back?" Sunset asked hopefully.

"Well, no one can give us an absolute guarantee, but the chances are quite high."

'It all depends on whether humans managed to plunder the outpost or not.' Meowed Seth.

"He says that an outpost maybe looted."

"But if we run away from the city and instead of the parts that we need, we will only find empty ruins, then everything will be in vain?"

'Perhaps, but I yet to see any evidence that humans have ever found anything of Goa'uld's technology.'

"Everything that has ever been found may be hidden in government secret warehouses."

'And our chances of getting there are close to zero. But maybe worth a try.'

"The cat wants to search the government warehouses."

"This is madness! We will be caught faster than we have time to blink!"

"I agree with you, but then we just have to make fake ids for us and travel around the world in the hope of finding an intact alien outpost."

"Everything is better than making a suicide raid on secret vaults."

"You don't take into account that there will certainly be a chase after us. Nobody will let you go so easily, they will search, and time will only play against us. And with each failure to find outpost our pursuers will be getting closer."

"But why? We are not some dangerous criminals!"

"For them, it is all the same. You know too many of their internal secrets, you know the identities of few heroes without masks, you know the secret security protocols of Wards, and besides, you are very powerful yourself, and that mean that you a very dangerous if you are not under their control. None of them will let you escape."

"Are you saying that they will never let me leave this job?"

"Well, you're smart, guess yourself."

"Oh, buck!" Said dumbfounded Sunset. "I have never thought about it before. I thought it would just be a temporary job until I found a way to return."

"I’m sorry to disappoint you, Sunset, but it’s likely to end with the need to escape."

'You don't need to worry about it now, it is still too early, we haven't even figured out where to start. I remember several dozen places where our bases were, but thousands of years passed, and things maybe different right now, so we will have to start from places where humans have been extremely rare. This mean jungles, deserts and remote islands.' Seth pawed a map.

"He says that we should start the search from hard-to-reach places like jungles or deserts."

"It is reasonable, then we need to prepare in advance equipment, food for a long time, and think through a disguise to stay longer from the chase."

"Then while you're busy with the Wards, Seth and I will start preparing maps, collecting equipment, and you will need to practice high-speed teleportation over long distances with a cargo and several passengers."

"It will be difficult, and after each jump I will be very exhausted, because it will take too energy from me."

"Hmm. Say. Is it possible to store energy in advance?"

"Do you mean make Charge Stones? Magic batteries?" And when Lisa nodded Sunset thought for a moment. "Technically, this is possible, but I need large, durable crystals with a transparent structure. Quartz, topaz or best of all rubies and diamonds."

"Whoa! It will not be easy, if Quartz is still relatively cheap, the rest are too rarely found in large sizes and are always stored in secure storage vaults."

"Then try to find at least Quartz. It is certainly not perfect, but if we need magic batteries, then we cannot do without it."

"Alright, I will find a supplier and buy a couple dozen large crystals, I hope they will be enough."

"Yes, well, even if some of them shatter in the process of enchanting, even a couple of working crystals will suffice."

"Okay, the primary goals are clear to us, and we just have to prepare everything."

The accumulation of required capital was delayed for almost two months, and despite the efforts of Lisa to speed up the process, nothing happened as quickly as they wanted. The search for equipment, the purchase of consumables, route planning, the choice of hotels, the elaboration of backup plans in case of failure or pursuit, and teleportation training took another month.

Sunset was nervous because of delays in preparation, Lisa was worried about the money spent and hassle, and Seth was just already tired of being in the same apartment for three whole months without the possibility of going out. But in the end everything was ready and they were about to escape, as life, like always, has made its own adjustments to their plans.