EVERFREE: A Post-Skaian Story

Ponyville had certainly seen better days.
That's really all there was to say on the matter.

Ponies had gathered at a somewhat disheveled town hall per the request of Princess Celestia, who stood patiently, awaiting her quarry's retrieval. Everypony else in the room felt cold, as if Celestia's radiance had turned bitter and dark. They silently prayed that it wouldn't stay like that for long.

The guards brought in that two-legged creature, the human, who seemed confused and scared.
She dropped to her knees and stared up at the Princesses.

Then more guards entered the scene, carrying a slightly different human, except this one was kicking and screaming, shouting things like, "I helped you ungrateful little shits out!" and "Let go of me!" This one was covered in cyan blood, for some reason, and the wounds were wrapped in what seemed to be fabrics from Rarity's boutique.
The other human, the one with red blood, shuddered and clutched the metallic pearl on her necklace, and the blue one shifted suddenly into the other. Everypony gasped, as they saw the fabric wrapped around one head transfer to the other.

Her facial expressions suddenly warped and twitched, anger and grief mixing and smearing into the general muddy emotions of fear. She slammed a fist against her own head, and the ponies all recoiled, not sure what was going on.

=> C-Side: Get Delta to shut the fuck up.

You two have an internal argument about who should front and handle the situation. The one who knew about etiquette and political positions of this society, or the one who wouldn't crumble in the face of an authority figure. It takes a lot of deliberation, and some self harming, to get Delta to see that maybe she shouldn't make like Icarus and taunt the Sun, literally.
Not to mention that the Moon and the Stars were right there.

=>

The human stared up at Celestia with suddenly heterochromic eyes, and said nothing. Celestia decided this was the best moment to test her hypothesis.
"Name and Rank, human."

The human shivered again, and her face screwed up again for a moment. She shook her head, and spoke.
"C-Side Disco, Seer of Blood."

Checkmate, Celestia thought. Her face grew darker.
"C-Side Disco. You, in your reckless actions, have brought a dire threat to Equestria, her crowns, and her ponies. What say you in your defense?" Celestia asked with an uncharacteristically cold tone.

"Uh.." The human stammered, shaking, standing there like an absolute dolt.

"This wasn't part of the plan...!" C-Side screamed internally.
"No shit, huh! What're you gonna do about it, C-Side? Kiss her ass? Brownnose that fucker?" Delta countered.
"Maybe! Yeah, maybe! Most villains of Equestria don't pull the 'let me fix this' card!"
"Yeah, uh huh. Did you forget what the denizen said?"
"Fuckin.. choose to squander one world or another, I know. Trolley problem thing, I get it."
"It's either this place, which hates us already, or something new, maybe better."
"We can make them like us! It's what we do."
"Sure. Fine, go ahead, but don't come crying to me when they opt to hang us."

"We plead guilty, your majesty."
"You-" Celestia faltered for a second. "Plead guilty..?"
"Like.. yeah. This was our fault. We screwed up. We didn't know that monsters and constructs from our Skaia session were following us when we escaped it. Everything that happened here tonight, and the following few days? Our fault. And I'm not in a position to justify it.. but we only came here to find a place to call home."

Luna tilted her head upward a bit and stared down at the human. "You know the purpose of a Skaia session, do you not? Why wouldst thou do such a thing?!"
"..Yeah, we do. We left it because it.." The human seemed to flinch away some tears. "Failed." She finished.
Celestia and Luna looked at each other, their gazes softening just a bit.
"It failed," Delta continued her face moving sharply from grieving to steely eyed, "And we had nowhere else to go. We didn't want to be made into literal nothing. So we came here."

=>

Twilight and her friends huddled up. "Okay girls," Twilight whispered, "Does anypony know what a Sky-uh session is?"
The girls muttered and uttered, and came up with a general 'no'.
"I thought they were just talking about the sky. Like just," Rainbow Dash waved vaguely upward, "That. The sky. And she just fell from it? Like.. Pchoooo, pbbt." She mimicked the sound of somepony falling flat on their face from a long distance, slowly lowering a hoof while doing so. The girls giggled a bit.
"Well, wha'd'y'all think is gonna happen? They ain' just gon' send her back there or somethin', do ya?" Applejack mused.
"Well we can't just let that pony get punished for something she didn't mean to do! That'd be really mean!" Pinkie frowned a bit.

The gang looked at her with bemused looks.
"Pinkie, do you need glasses? That ain't no pony I ever seen." Applejack said.
"Uh, yeah, Pinkie. From what I can remember from my studies, that's a.. Human? And I don't think they've been in this world for millennia - even before Princess Celestia and Luna's time." Twilight tacked on a few facts. "Though I will admit - I'm not sure where the second human comes in.. From the symptoms she displayed when combined like that.. I wonder if it's multiple personality disorder.."
"Multiple personality disorder?" Rainbow Dash cocked her head. "Woah, woah, woah, what are you saying? The two humans becoming one human.. was once just.. One human? That split up her brain?"
"..More or less. However, it seems she's found a way to cope, judging by her ability to manifest her alter to work alongside her. So technically, we're dealing with two humans."
"No! C-Side's a pony! Duuuh!" Pinkie argued, "You can't see it, but she's a caring pony and her brain buddy is a sweet dragon! I plan to throw them both a party if they get to stay!"
The others stared at her.

"Well.. regardless of whatever she is.." Rarity tried to get back on track, "Delta, the other one, she gave me her name, and C-Side did put their well-being on the line to ensure our safety, as well as everypony else's. So I believe I agree with Pinkie, as ridiculous as that may sound. No pony or.. human.. should be punished for a good deed."
"Uh, yeah! She did all these insane moves and stuff! She knows how to kick some serious flank! I don't want her getting banished to the moon or whatever." Rainbow Dash concurred.
Applejack hummed. "I guess she did work mighty hard to keep my farm safe. Kept my sweet ol' granny from gettin' hurt too. I don' see why she's gotta go."

Twilight looked to Fluttershy. "How about you? What do you think of C-Side Disco?"
"...I'm really torn.." She meekly replied.
"How so, darling?" Rarity asked.
"The first thing she did when she saw me was attack that big cyclops and save me, and.. I don't know.. That was her first instinct. She's been trained to fight.. but it's not good for her... and.. she apologized when she said she was going to kill the monsters.. oh, I don't know." Fluttershy looked over to the trial, and was silent for a minute. "She knew my name. I don't know how, but she seems to know a lot. Way more than is possible.. I don't know how to feel about that. Rainbow, she knew you'd be impressed by flashy moves. Applejack, she knew you'd be on her side if she helped save your family and farm. She knows a lot about us!"
"Uh, she knows about us because we're awesome, obviously!" Rainbow Dash interjected.
"No, Rainbow, that's not it. She's not.. from here." Fluttershy tried to hold her ground. "Didn't you hear her? She was talking about 'coming here', and finding a new place to call home. I think.. I think she's from somewhere that nopony in history has been to - not even the Princesses. And wherever she came from made her really powerful. I don't want her to hurt anypony.. but I don't think she wants to either.."
The group was quiet for a little bit.

=>

"And if we have any say in what will become of us.. the primary thing is that we want to fix this. Please just let us fix this." C-Side offered.
Celestia opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Her mane seemed to float over her eyes. "You started a chain of events that could lead to the end times, and you think you can fix it. Explain how."
"Uhm.. the Denizen we had warned of something." C-Side began, "It said that we would.. make a choice. Squander a world's safety in exchange for another's."
"Those exact words?" Luna asked.
"To the letter." Delta affirmed.

Celestia solemnly shook her head.
"I am afraid I cannot tolerate what you've done. For the safety of my ponies, my loved ones, and my world, I must-"
"WAIT!" Twilight shouted.
And wait she did. She slowly turned to look at Twilight, who moved along with her friends to form a protective formation in front of the human.
"What if what she says is true? What if our world is in danger, and that we need her help to fix it?" Twilight posed the question.
"Hey, wait-" C-Side began.
"Yeah! If it weren't for her help, both of them-" Rainbow Dash faltered a little, not sure if the human counted as one or two, "Then Ponyville would've been wiped off the map!!"
"And she did say she didn't *mean* to do it.." Fluttershy added.
The other ponies, including other citizens, argued their cases, Pinkie being exceptionally adamant that "nopony comes to Ponyville and gets away without a party".

"No, this is our fault-" C-Side kept trying to interject, growing more and more agitated, before Delta screamed, "NO! SHUT UP! THIS IS OUR FAULT, DAMMIT!"
Everypony in the area stopped and stared at the human, clutching her head in her strange, claw like hooves.
"We were never supposed to come here, we were TOLD that, but we made the choice to, and now look at this shitshow we've caused!" Delta's voice suddenly switched to C-Side's, "We released four ancient anti-magic statues upon a place that literally relies on magic!! And if magic equals friendship and friendship equals harmony, therefore magic equals harmony, we just let loose FOUR DOOMSDAY DEVICES ON YOUR WORLD! We fucked up! I didn't want to end this fucking world! Fuck! God! Dammit!"

She kept slamming her fists against her head, the wound on which suddenly reopened. Blood trickled down into her eyes, and she shut them tight, and shuddered.
She lifted two of her arms, pointing in two separate directions. Another set of arms, belonging to Delta, appeared and pointed in the perpendicular.
"The four Dark Hearts are in these directions." They announced simultaneously. "Please, allow us to collect them, dispose of them, and leave your world in peace." before suddenly resuming a more normal posture, and wiping the blood from her eyes.

Celestia blinked. Stars and stones, this mare is all sorts of damaged. She thought, and then said aloud, "Luna, what say you?"
Luna pondered it darkly, before realizing something critical, and slowly approaching the human, the other ponies skirting out of the way.
"How wilst thou thwart the Dark Hearts, lest they bring magical creatures of all sorteth low, as you say?"
"Oh, humans aren't innately magical." Delta replied.
"Allow me to test that.."
Luna suddenly charged a magical bolt, and shot it at the human, to seemingly no effect at all. C-Side blinked, and patted her chest down to see if she was still alive.
"Just as thou said. Then there be my answer, sister. She is the only one who can take care of this problem thusly. However, as everypony can see, she is gravely wounded, and shan't be able to fight on her own. She will need.. assistance."

The entirety of the crowd gasped and murmured to each other.
"Not the Element Bearers, please."
Luna turned her head, confused. "And why not?"
"If we fail.. The closer the Elements are to their bearers, the longer it'll take for the inevitable snowstorm."
"You think it'll be a snowstorm. For what reason?" Celestia asked.
"Well, disharmony means big yum yum for Windigos." C-Side answered.
The other ponies murmured and nodded their agreements. Disharmony DID mean big yum yum for Windigos.
"You are quite well versed for somepony from another world. Twilight? What do you and your friends say?"
"We say she stays to help!" Twilight declared, her friends concurring.

Celestia nodded, her expression still a little dark. "Very well. You start your travels tomorrow morning. You will be assigned one assistant and some chaperones to monitor you in your endeavor. This impromptu court is adjourned!"

As the ponies in the room departed, Celestia stood and waited until she and the human were alone. She slowly approached CD, who noted they were similar in height. Despite that, C-Side couldn't help but feel intimidated as Celestia stared her down.
"Do Not. Screw. This. Up."