BridgeWorld

[994AB Day 296]
"I'm—not sure, but I'm pretty certain we must have been talking about two different things just now," Shining Armor muttered as he helped remove the chains from the princess.

"That is the impression I got, too," she replied, frowning as she looked down at the mess that left in front of her. "She may have been running before because she was afraid of us, but now she's running because she's terrified of something else. Something else that she may have thought she escaped once, but now suspects that she hasn't escaped it at all."

"Princess Celestia, can we find her again?" Gandon anxiously inquired.

"That may take some doing, Gandon," Princess Celestia replied, sighing. "It took us long enough to figure out her pattern when she was just afraid of me. Now, she's operating on a completely new motivation. This is a disappointing setback."

"But Your Highness!" Shining Armor protested. "We did get through to her!"

"Yes. Yes, we did," she responded, nodding. Then she looked to him and smiled. "And we will do better next time," she added.

"Captain! Your Highness!" Corporal Wingnut called out as he stood near one of the other houses surrounding the Square, pointing to the space beneath an elevated porch attached to the building. The three of them walked over as the corporal backed away to give them room. Beneath it, they saw Jackie cowering there, shivering in cold and terror, staring out at them in wide-pupil horror.

"Jackie, please! Please let us help you," Princess Celestia gently pleaded. "Whatever monsters you are terrified of, you don't have to face them alone. We can help. We've fought plenty of monsters for centuries and won against them all. The Wendigos, Discord, King Sombra—Nightmare Moon. You're not alone." The smell reached them at that moment. "And let's get you cleaned up, young one. I know the difference between fear and terror, and you are terrified. I know how it can cause you to lose control of your body. There's no reason you should have to suffer in your own filth. You've done nothing to deserve suffering so."

"'Young one'?" Jackie snarled at her, making the princess smile.

"Trust me, Jackie. Compared to me, every creature is young," she giggled. "Even Lord Torch, the ancient ruler of the dragons."

Slowly, Jackie Valentine crawled out from under the porch. When she was standing before them, Princess Celestia slowly reached out with her right wing, letting the creature first see the primaries gently caress her. "Please, Jackie. You have friends here in Gandon and all the others from the restaurant who are out looking for you. And I want to be your friend, too," she said before taking a tentative step forward to fully envelope the bipedal feline with her wing and reassuredly hugged her.

"Y-you sh-shouldn't be doing this," Jackie Valentine stammered. "I-I'm filthy! And-and you're this country's ruler?"

"I've had many mentors when I was young, long before I became a princess," Princess Celestia told her. "One of my favorite mentors was a unicorn named Mike Roan. You would never believe how many dirty jobs he taught me to do and how much I appreciate his tutoring," she said, giggling.

"I know you must be so terrified by whatever horrors you're concerned about, Jackie," Celestia addressed her while she levitated the sponges to clean her up, "so I won't press you before you're ready to speak about them. But it would be helpful to know just what it is that we are going to be going up against. Although I promise only when you're ready, not before. Besides that, I really hope you can speak about what news you have about the humans you have encountered," she said cheerfully. "It's been so long since I've seen any. The music you provided your friends was so amazing, and from what I gathered from them, it seems that there have been many changes with humanity in all this time, too. I'm very interested in hearing what you can tell me."

"Well, I—don't know if I'm ready to talk about those monsters yet," Jackie responded with a snarl. "But if I'm going to explain anything about humanity, there's no avoiding talking about what those abominations did to me. There's a reason I know so much about humanity. You know how I said Dmitri is a griffon, who looks so much like Gandon over there?" she asked, nodding to him.

"Yes?" Celestia inquired.

"Well, Dmitri, me, the others who were on that boat—we were all human," Jackie stated, causing Princess Celestia to drop the cleaning items in shock.

"Tho—those creatures you're terrified of—they used transformational magic on you!?"

"I don't know what they used on us, but they dropped us into vats of acid—" Jackie backed up, shivering. "It—it ate away all my flesh! My entire body!" she whimpered, hugging herself. Princess Celestia instantly moved forward and enveloped Jackie in her wings to hug her.

"And it took its sweet time in doing so. It burned so much!" Jackie whined, then she began sobbing. The princess held on to her, whispering words of comfort that Shining Armor couldn't quite make out, but the whole scene made his soul ache in sympathy for the poor creature.

"I—I have no idea how long we were in those things," Jackie said, after she was finally able to recover some emotional control again. "But that acid somehow rebuilt us. I'm—I'm this thing now! Dmitri is a griffon, Patty, Sherry, Cathy are all like me, but are different cats. Patty's a black panther, Sherry a lioness, and Cathy a cougar. Mrs Anderson is some sort of birdlike creature, while her daughters are dragons, and Willy is some big, winged, cobra-thing, now."

"Beings who play with Dark Magic are those who frequently engage in senseless and needless torture," Princess Celestia told her. "King Sombra was one such pony, to everypony's shame of him being a pony at all. What creatures did this to you and your friends, we will find them and put a stop to their activities. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is any way to reverse what they did to you."

"Even if you could reverse this," Jackie asked, "where could we go? We were abducted from our home world by something that sucked us underwater. We don't have any idea where we ended up. And this doesn't look to be the same world where we were held."

"Dimensional portals," Shining Armor muttered, "to other worlds?"

"Possibly," Princess Celestia agreed, turning an ear to him.

"The report—the report about your arrival—in Manehattan," Shining Armor continued, "where you apparently saved Thomas Mane and his family—it mentions there was a loud bang and an intense flash of light."

"I—I have no memory of that," Jackie muttered with a look of concentration on her face. She looked at Princess Celestia. "One moment, we were fighting those monsters, the next, I was in that jail cell with you pulling that stuff out of me."

"Then it is as I had feared," Princess Celestia said. "Removing the Dark Magic from you has evidently erased your memories of those days soon after your arrival. But know this, Jackie Valentine, the stories I have heard about you were all good ones. Moments after your arrival, you apparently intervened in an attempted robbery and murder of a prominent business pony. Then the next day, you met up with Gandon here and a pony friend of his at the Griffon's Way Restaurant and got a job working there. While there, you provided several magnificent songs to a musical band who have been also working at the restaurant. You've made plenty of friends in Equestria in the short time you have been here, Jackie. They will all be very relieved to hear you are safe and sound."

"I—I don't know what to say," she sadly replied, shaking her head. "I don't—I don't remember any of that."

"Those actions tell us that you are a good creature, Jackie Valentine," Princess Celestia told her. "If you were an evil being, your nature would have been revealed many times over, given your opportunities, and especially given your extraordinary abilities. But even while you were running from us after leaving Manehattan, we had many reported sightings of you, and you never harmed or threatened another, no matter how desperate you must have been. That says a lot about you, Jackie."

"Even if you don't remember Big Joe, Fireplate, Gus and the others in the band, or me," Gandon told her, "we would all be honored to have you get to know us all over again, and to help you find any of your missing friends, too."

Jackie looked at each of them, Shining Armor, Gandon, and Princess Celestia, each in turn, then nodded.

"Yes, that—that sounds like maybe something I should do," she softly said.

Her decision to trust the equinoid monstrosities was easier said than done, however. When it came to being transported to their capitol city, Jackie completely balked at getting into a chariot to ride the flight there.

"Let me get this straight," she hissed. "You want me to stand in that while those creatures pull it through the air!?" she finished with a scream. The lead unicorn and the winged unicorn looked at her, then at each other. Their expressions could have been almost comical if it weren't for the fact that they genuinely seemed to think it was a reasonable thing to do.

"It's—perfectly safe," the unicorn muttered to her, apparently not able to understand her reluctance. "I do it all the time," he added with a softer voice a few moments later.

"Jackie, would you be willing to ride me there?" the griffon gently spoke up, coming to her rescue, "or would you rather follow us and run there?"

"Are—are you afraid of flying, Jackie?" the tall equine inquired. "We just don't want you to tire yourself out by running there on your own."

"I'm okay with flying," she replied. "We flew all over the world to do our gigs in other countries. Fiji's out in the middle of the Pacific, after all. It would have taken us weeks to sail there. It's just—that thing isn't exactly—aerodynamic. The space shuttle would do better than this will, and it flew like a brick!"

"Ánthropos—" the tall equinoid muttered.

"What was that?" Jackie demanded.

"Ánthropos," she repeated. "It's what you humans used to call yourselves, thousands of years ago. As I recall, your people always had trouble with understanding and using magic."

"Well, except for the fact that magic doesn't exist, we humans don't have any problems with magic," Jackie flippantly replied. That got the tall equine giggling, and it was a rather disconcerting thing for Jackie to see and hear.

"Oh, Jackie, you have a lot to learn," the leader of the equines told her. "For one, your speed is entirely due to magic. For another, without magic, none of us here could fly. Not Gandon, not my pegasi guards, and not me," she said, spreading her wings and with just a few flaps, the horse was hovering in midair. "Our wings are simply too small to carry our weight without the use of magic," Celestia continued before concluding the demonstration and settled back to earth.

Jackie was utterly at a loss for words.

"Ánthropos," Jackie finally muttered. "That's Greek, as I recall. You—your people had contact with my world?"

"A very long time ago," she replied. "And we lost contact around the time I was born. I grew up with the stories of the far-off magical land of Elláda and its magnificent cities Ánthi, Thíva, Spárti, and others. And there were a few remnants of the Elliniká on this side of the barrier to tell us their stories, but they all died off over the centuries since then."

"Athena, Thebes, and Sparta," Jackie said, smiling at the memories. "We did a number of gigs in those cities years ago, as well as Thrace, and Thessalonica."

"Yes, Thessaloníki and Thráki, too," Celestia whispered. "So, those cities still exist!"

"Probably not in the same form as they did back then, but yes, they're still around," Jackie assured her. "But—wait—you said your people lost contact with mine back around the time you were born!?"

"That's another thing that magic is responsible for: alicorn longevity," the smug horse said, smirking, to which Jackie harumphed.

"But I am also concerned about you, Jackie," Celestia said. "With you having been infected with Dark Magic, and what you told us about being transformed against your will, I want our medical staff to give you a thorough checkup when we get back to Canterlot. I was skilled enough to find and remove the influence from you, but you should be looked over by more qualified experts I have on staff so to ensure I haven't missed anything."

"I understand," Jackie finally said. She looked over at the chariot. "But I'm not comfortable about getting in that!"

"Would it help if I rode with you?" Celestia offered.

"Not really," Jackie muttered. "You can fly without that damned thing."

"True," Celestia giggled. "Would it help if I offered to let you ride me?" The flinch that every equine about her, as well as the griffon's expression, had when Celestia made the offer finally decided the issue for Jackie.

"I—I think I should take Gandon up on his offer," she said, sighing. "That is, if you don't mind, Gandon?" she inquired.

"I would be honored, Jackie!" he said, dipping his head to her in a bow to her.

"But—can you carry me? And for that distance—for however far it is?"

"You're not that heavy, and yes, I can fly that easily," he assured her.

"You have to understand, Jackie, that griffons will sometimes bite off more than they can swallow," Celestia said as she set down in the courtyard of the castle. "But they mean well. Besides, he got you most of the way here."

"Like many folks back home will try to do," Jackie said, dismounting from the tall equine creature. She went over to greet Gandon who was stepping out of the landed chariot and carrying the music player. "And I do appreciate the effort, Gandon," she said, giving him a hug. "Thank you!" During this exchange, Celestia dismissed the Guard to take care of their matters.

"And thank you, Cel—Princess Celestia," Jackie added after releasing the griffon to turn and bow to the horse queen.

"My pleasure, believe me," she replied. "And when we're in private, you're welcome to drop the 'Princess'. You're a friend, Jackie. I do apologize for all the bad looks you were getting for not addressing me as such. It's a habit I've tried for centuries to break my little ponies from doing, but they insist. After a while, even immortals, like me, will eventually give up," she finished, giggling.

"I suppose so," Jackie admitted. "I guess I can see where they're coming from, with you being able to control the sun and moon the way you apparently can. It freaked me out enough when you caused the moon to zigzag like that!" Celestia giggled as she did when Jackie had doubted her claims and challenged Jackie to direct where the moon should move, whereupon Celestia just lit up her horn and moved the damned orb!

"It's not like I really have a choice, Jackie," Celestia said, shrugging her wings as they walked toward one of the castle entrances. "The natural motions of the sun, moon, and stars were initially disrupted by Discord—permanently so, I'm afraid. And—before I came along, the tasks of raising and lowering the celestial bodies was taken up by several of our most powerful unicorns at the time. But the effort to do so every day and night quickly burned them out of their magic and shortened their lives. Not to mention the continued depravations from Discord over the years of his reign as he spread his chaos over the world. We—well, he was finally imprisoned by the Elements of Harmony. After that, we—we did our best to rebuild," she sadly finished.

They walked along several of the corridors in silence for a while. Jackie could tell the recounting was having a deep affect on the equines, especially Celestia, it seemed. The griffon, however, seemed to be more intrigued by the story, as was she.

"And I'll probably will hear a ton of complaints tomorrow morning for moving the moon around, like that," Celestia suddenly said, snorting after several minutes had passed.

"Fortunately, that was a long time ago," she continued brightening and smiling at Jackie. "Things are much better now, and they continue to get better, too. Now, let's get you something to eat and a place to sleep. And with the word going out to the other search teams that you've finally been found, I'm sure you'll have lots of relieved and eager visitors tomorrow. After that, we'll get you checked out with the clinic."

"Yes, ma'am," Jackie replied.

"Mmm, that's a new one," Celestia giggled.

"What's that?"

"Being called 'ma'am', instead of 'Your Highness' or variations of it," she quipped. "I rather like it," Celestia finished, smiling.

"These—hallways—they—seem to go on forever," Jackie said as she slowly became aware of just how big the castle was.

"That—they do," Celestia sighed. Then, she looked over with a conspiratorial grin. "Wanna race?" Jackie just blinked in surprise, then laughed. And it took her several moments before she could stop. When she finally did, she saw that Celestia had enveloped her in a wing and was helping to hold her upright.

"Th-th-thank! I needed that," Jackie said, sighing.

"That, you did," Celestia kindly yet sternly said. "You obviously have been going through way too many problems and haven't done enough to avail yourself of any joy in life."

"Yeah," Jackie sadly replied. "Well, lately, there hasn't been much to be joyful about. What with the shipwreck, the deaths of several friends and the constant attacks to take away the rest of them—or me along with them—the 'joy' of the acid bath that ate away my body and turned me into this cat—yeah, that quaint little island deathtrap I left behind was so much fun."

"Pardon me, but all that sounds like a collection of contradictions," a voice behind them suddenly spoke out.

"What?" Jackie blurted, looking at the speaker. It was a small purple unicorn staring back at her in apparent confusion. If Jackie had to guess, she would think this was one of their youths.

"Oh, good evening, my most faithful student!" Celestia cheerfully greeted the newcomer. "You are up late, tonight."

"My apologies, Princess Celestia. I was busy studying the lessons you assigned me—" the unicorn replied.

"And kept going for another twelve chapters after you finished what I had tasked you?" Celestia asked.

"Fourteen, actually," the creature squeaked out in a tiny voice, getting the taller equine to giggling.

"Only to stop when Spike reminded you that the both of you were hungry and needed to eat?" Celestia pressed. The unicorn looked down at her front hooves as she shifted her right forehoof behind its mate, seemingly like a child caught with her hands in the cookie jar again.

"Ididn'twanttostop," came a soft mutter, and Celestia giggled even more so.

"Come along, then, Twilight," she told the young unicorn. "You can bring Spike his food when you're finished eating with us. But I advise you to stop reading for tonight. Otherwise, you'll be too sleepy for tomorrow's lessons."

"Buh-buh-but PRINCESS CELESTIA!? If I don't study hard, I CAN'T LEARN!" the unicorn, named Twilight, practically screamed.

"Tell me, Twilight Sparkle," Celestia scolded. "Did you fully understand the lessons I assigned to you?"

Twilight Sparkle? Where have I heard that name before? Jackie wondered, cocking her head.

"Of-of course, Princess Celestia!" she instantly protested.

"And did you understand the extra material you read up on?"

"Well—y—yes?" she replied, clearly a little less certain. "At least the first ten or eleven chapters—"

"Then you are doing very well, indeed, Twilight," Celestia told her. "Your enthusiasm to learn serves you well, my most faithful student. But you must also learn to pace yourself. If you wear yourself out trying to absorb so much information all at once, you'll end up sleeping through your lessons during the day!"

"I promise, I only did that once, Your Highness! I swear I won't fall asleep again!" This time, Twilight did scream. "PLEASE DON'T SEND ME BACK TO MAGIC KINDERGARTEN!"

"Twilight Sparkle, nopony's sending you back to Magic Kindergarten!" Celestia scolded her. "I just want you to stay healthy as you are learning your lessons. So, come along with us, and we'll get you something to eat. And Twilight, this is Jackie Valentine and her friend, Gandon. Gandon, Jackie, this is Twilight Sparkle, a unicorn I have undertaken to tutor."

"Honored to meet you," Gandon said, bowing to her. Twilight did likewise in return.

"I am also honored to meet you, sir," Twilight responded. "I've never met a griffon before. You are even more impressive than I've imagined."

"I am not much of a great or grand specimen of griffons, but thank you very much for the compliment," he replied.

"Pleased to meet you, Twilight," Jackie said, reaching out a hand to shake. And had to wait as the unicorn looked at her in curious fascination.

"I'm—not familiar with your species," Twilight blurted out. "You—resemble the descriptions of a diamond dog, but you could also be an Abyssinian said to live near Kludgetown—those spots, however, aren't normal for eith—"

"I'm human, actually," Jackie told her, to which Twilight's eyes got huge.

"Human!? A real live mythical human!?" she excitedly exclaimed, but instantly shifted to an expression of skepticism. "But—you don't look anything like the descriptions about humans, either! *gasp* Can the books be wrong!?" she exclaimed, suddenly getting a horrified expression. "Oh, my gosh! If the history books can be wrong about what humans look like, what else could they be wrong abou—?" she screamed as she began running about in a tight circle.

"Twilight! Calm down!" Celestia spoke up, grabbing the purple unicorn in her horn glow and brought her to a halt to stand before them. "We are in the middle on introductions! If you had remembered the proper protocol, you would have learned in due time, that Jackie was born as a human, but that she is the unfortunate victim of transformational magic, or something very much like it."

"Oh," Twilight said. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Are—are you okay?" she asked.

"That's what we hope to find out after Jackie has had a decent meal and rest," Celestia answered for her.

"It wasn't exactly a pleasant experience," Jackie said. "I'm not in any pain now. And I do find it awkward to be naked, but then, all of you are, too, so I guess I'm not too outlandish with everything I have out on display."

"Is something wrong, Twilight?" Celestia inquired at the unicorn who had suddenly halted and was getting left behind.

"That—that statement, and the ones you made earlier, they don't exactly match up," the unicorn complained. "Your earlier comments indicated that you had suffered, and there wasn't much joy, yet you said the experience was so much fun. And now, it wasn't a pleasant experience. I—don't understand. It's all contradictory," she finished.

"I was—using sarcasm to remind Celes—Princess Celestia—of what I had told her earlier when we had talked in that other town," Jackie explained. "I—" she started to speak but then stopped, as her memories were dredged up again. Celestia quickly enveloped her in a wing to hug her and was gently speaking to her, but Jackie was now having a hard time making out the words the more her panic took over.

"Is—is she going to be okay?" Twilight asked as she stared wide eyed at Jackie. The young unicorn glanced worriedly at the mess on the passageway floor after Celestia had quickly lifted the creature into the air with her magic to move her away from it.

"We hope so, but it may take her some time to be able to face down whatever horrors that exist within her memories," Princess Celestia replied, continuing to nuzzle, and hug and caress the bipedal creature with her left wing.

"It's okay, Jackie," the princess spoke to the being. "You're safe here! Nopony is going to harm you! You can get through this, and we can help you. You are not alone! You have friends here!"

"It seems she suffered—terribly—before getting teleported to Manehattan, where I first met her," Gandon quietly said. "Even though she was safe in Manehattan, she still had some curse affecting her. Princess Celestia tried to help remove the curse, but Jackie ran off before she had finished. Jackie has been on the run for almost a month. We had a little time to talk when we finally caught up with her in Trotten. Whatever horrors she went through, when she's forced to recall them, she's like this."

"What happened to her?" Twilight asked.

"I was told she was infected by Dark Magic," Gandon replied.

"Dark Magic!?" Twilight exclaimed. "Could there be such a thing!?"

"There is, indeed, Twilight!" Princess Celestia spoke sharply to her, taking her attention off of helping the bipedal creature, "but that is a lesson I will teach you only after I feel you can appreciate the severity of the subject—and not before! It is an extremely dangerous matter to discuss. You have tremendous intellect, Twilight, and you may well have sufficient intelligence to use Dark Magic, but there is much more needed than mere intellect to do so safely. Emotional maturity and wisdom are even more important to have before you are ever exposed to those lessons! You may develop such in time, but you are not ready right now! As of yet, you do not yet have enough of either needed to learn of this! Do I make myself understood, Twilight!?"

"Y-yes, Pr-Princess Celestia," Twilight stammered, fearful she had displeased her teacher with asking about this subject.

The small blast had scorched his face, but he was still smiling. Of course, it wasn't for the lack of will on his part. Indeed, he wanted to frown, but he simply couldn't. His face was practically frozen in the rictus grin he sported since the explosion at the warehouse had destroyed his goal of getting rich.

"Hmm," he grunted, staring at the remains of the table where he had been trying to mix the minute amounts of poison joke and magic mushroom to restart his operation.

His partner cautiously peered from behind a massive piece of machinery in the building they were using as a laboratory which was nestled in the middle of the abandoned amusement park.

"It was working so well back at the warehouse," he muttered.

"We had the help of that zebra back at the warehouse," she offered as a suggestion.

"Ah, true," he replied, sighing. "I would rather that we shouldn't need that sort of help, though. Zebras are just—creepy!" he said, turning his face to her to grin at her in a creepy manner. "Despite looking like ponies, they simply don't think like us at all! Do you remember any of what that shaman did to stabilize the mix?"

"Well, she was being very careful to hide whatever she was doing from me," she replied, frowning enough to satisfy both of them.

"OH!" she suddenly exclaimed, searching herself. "I almost forgot—! YES!!" she triumphantly yelled, pulling a small metal box from its hiding place within her mane.

"I planted several cameras about the vat," she happily giggled as she opened the box to show him. "I recovered the recording crystals and stashed them away for safekeeping after her last visit!"

The rictus grin he sported was again genuine.

"Oooh, so, what we need now is a player," he happily said. He gazed up and out, seeing the digits of the clawless paw dancing on the tiles and momentarily read through their dance. "Wow! Look at that! Our first caper as supervillains! Rob a VAD store! Heh, heh! HEH! HEE! HEE! HA! HA!! HAH!!! HAH!!!!"