Darkest Days, Brightest Nights

[A/N]: Note on POV: I realize that this can be a little jarring, but please bear with me here. The story is now being told to Noctus from Dusk's POV. Third-person is still possible with this POV if Dusk has been told what happened in a certain scenario by someone else who was present. This style is maintained at least until Act 5.

[Post-Editing A/N]: TAB brought to my attention that he was actually unsure about whether or not this was meant to be a troll chapter. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him: It’s not. I would like to clarify that at this point, Dusk is some random guy who reads too many fanfics, and behaves kind of like Pinkie Pie but with less sugar. He thinks he was just plopped in a happy world of rainbows, where he can just mess around and take nothing seriously. Dusk (The one telling the story) has gotten a bit more mature since then, but maintains some childish tendencies. When bad stuff starts happening, he still thinks he’s some sort of invincible Gary Stu who’s gonna beat all the bad guys. That doesn’t work out. Also, reread [REDACTED] if you want an example of what his personality becomes. Now yes, Dusk is modeled after my personality, thus the username. The thing is, I’m probably more like the Dusk who’s telling the story right now. I love to mess around, but I know when it’s time for serious shit to go down.

Last: a few little secrets have been strewn throughout the story. Some are only need to be read, some are riddles, and a few are simply encoded. The secret in [REDACTED] is the biggest. It hints at what Celestia is talking about in this chapter. It's also the hardest, so I added a clue. Speaking of which, I'm also still waiting for someone to guess one of the words. A lot of them really aren't that hard...

That was an obnoxiously long A/N. Sorry.

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Shattered Stars (1004CR)

Chapter 3: A New World

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Sept, 1004th Year of Celestia's Reign.

It seems like quite a long time ago now. I was just starting my last year of high school. Of course I'm actually almost done university now. Did that the last time I went back. But yeah, back then... I was so young. So naive. It might have been possible to avoid this whole thing with Celestia if I had just been more careful. Hey, don't look at me like that. I'll have you know that, despite my foalish behaviour, I've made quite a bit of progress.

So anyway, I was at the point where I managed to remain conscious each day because of dubstep and coffee. I think it was around midnight when I went to bed that night. I felt like I'd been drinking, but I'm fairly sure my house was lacking a bit in the vodka department.

Just like every night, I gave a little prayer to... bet you never would have guessed, Luna. I thanked her for the beautiful night, asked forgiveness for sleeping through half of it, then wished to wake up the next morning in Equestria. That had been my ritual every night for about a month. Figures that it was about the time I was starting to think that it'd never happen that I just so happened to wake up in the middle of a field.

'Wait... It actually worked that time? Meh... I can't complain. In fact...' "YES!" 'So... I assume 'Self-insert'  scenario. Canon or non-canon universe?'

'Well, I just need to find Ponyville and ask a few questions. Hold on... Before questioning them, I have a couple questions for myself. Question one: Where am I? Question 2: Who am I?'

I stood up and looked around. My totally awesome magical warp to another universe had apparently taken place in the middle of an empty field. It appeared to be a little past midday, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. There also wasn't anybody... anypony around. Apparently no Princesses had fetched me from my world, and Twilight hadn't been doing any experiments. There was another option for how I came to be in Equestria, but I couldn't see any cotton-candy so I decided that my luck had simply changed to the best in all universes.

I took a few hesitant steps forward. Oddly, I didn't have any trouble adapting to four legs. I took a mental note to look into that later. I made my way to the top of a nearby hill, and stopped in shock at what I saw. In the distance, almost straight ahead, was Ponyville.

'Wow. HiE Self-insert with Ponyville within walking distance. I feel so cliche right now. Oh shit. what if I'm in a fanfic right now!?'

I looked up and yelled as loud as I could in complete defiance of the fourth wall, "THIS IS SO FUCKING META!"

…

'Why did I expect a response...?'

My next task was to figure out who I was. I was rather excited when I realized that I knew the identity of my new body. It took a few seconds of staring at my cutie mark to realize I wasn't just imagining things. I actually was my OC. Unicorn of course, but presumably my body would be as powerful as the one I made up. That meant that ascension would hypothetically be easy. From everything I had gathered in my... 'studies', ascension could be obtained in one of three ways. Being born an alicorn, marrying an alicorn, or simply obtaining a ridiculous amount of magical energy. I figured I was in the last category.

During the walk to ponyville, I decided to see if there was anything else I somehow knew how to do instinctually. Namely, magic. I would have thought that it was so hard for foals to learn magic because it needed some sort of training and studying to figure it out. Apparently, it was actually just because they didn't have much magic in them at such a young age. For me, lifting a massive rock was just a matter of willing it to move. Either that or I had just designed my new form to be completely badass. Probably both.

My next magical test was teleportation. I hadn't seen anypony other than Twilight and the Princesses teleport, but I figured I could do it easily. No, I'm not egotistical at all. For teleportation, I figured it would once again be a simple matter of willing myself to be somewhere else. Specifically, at the entrance to Ponyville. The concept seemed to be the same, the execution however, required much more power. Then again, I had just teleported nearly a quarter of the distance between Ponyville to Canterlot, so perhaps a slight decrease in strength could be expected.

Up until then, I had complete confidence in my ability to attain ascension. After that, I wasn't so sure. I wasn't too worried though. I was still quite powerful, and I was fairly certain that teleporting would potentially use much less power if I could figure out how to do it without appearing in a swirling orb of black flames. There appeared to be a few terrified ponies that would have appreciated me getting to work on that as well. "Sorry!"

I was halfway to the library when I started to get the feeling I was getting followed. When I saw a flash of pink out of the corner of my eye, horror music started playing in my head. I resisted the urge to scream in terror as my world was engulfed in poofy pink doom. "Hi Pinkie."

*GASP!* *WOOSH!*

"Well, shit."  I had kind of been hoping for a private party. Perhaps without the entire village in attendance. Luckily, Pinkie had realized that she didn't get my name and really had no idea who she was supposed to be planning a party for.

She returned in a blur of death-to-the-eyeballs neon pink, and immediately stated the situation to me in clear and concise terms. Yes, that was sarcasm. "Hey! I'mPinkiePiebutyoualreadyknewthatbecauseIwasalllike"who'sthat!?"Andyouwerealllike"HiPinkie"AndIwaslike*GASP!*AndthenIranofftoplanasurprisepartyforyoucauseyou'renewhereandIhavepartiesforallthenewponiesbutthenIrealizedthatIdidn'tknowwhoIwasplanningapartyforsoIcamebacktogetyournamebutIaccidentallytoldyouthatIwasplanningasurprisepartyforyousonowit'snotgoingtobemuchofasurprisebutatleastyoustilldon'tknowwhentheparty'sgoingtobesoit'llstillbekindofsurprisingbutIstillneedtoknowyournamesowhatisit!?"

"..."

"..."

"Wat?"

"Well that's a silly name."

"Huh? No, that's not my name. I was expressing my confusion at whatever you just said. So you asked my name?"

"Uhuh!"

"Since I don't doubt that you'll bounce off again the moment you know my name, I think I'll hold off on telling you until we've discussed a few things."

"Okie-dokie-lokie."

"I don't want the whole town coming to the party. Just a few specific ponies." She nodded her head so vigorously that my neck started to ache. "Alright. Ponies who I'm fine with are Lyra, The Doctor, and any of the Elements of Harmony. All of these ponies are allowed to bring any family they want, and one friend each. Go ahead and invite a few others if you really want to, but I do not want the entire town there."

"Got it!"

"My name is Dusk."

"Oh! IknowTwilightyoushouldgoseehercauseyoubothhavenamesthathavesomethingtodowithatimeofdayandIbetyoutwowillbegreatfriends-"

"Don't you have a party to plan?"

*GASP!* "Omigoshyou'reright!" *WOOSH!*

I watched her disappear into the distance, then turned around and walked directly into the aforementioned purple unicorn. "Oops, sorry."

"No, no. It was my fault, I wasn't looking where I was going."

"Reading while walking again?"

She laughed awkwardly. "Hehe... Yeah. Wait, again?"

"What's the book about?" 'Question avoided.'

"Oh! It's a study on the mechanics of teleportation. I'm going to be the first pony ever to see into another universe!”

"That's unfortunate..."

"What? Why? Oh no! Somepony already did it didn't they!?" Her mane was starting to get frizzy. "I knew I should've started sooner, butSpikesaidthatIwasstressingaboutnothingandgotallmyfriendstocalmmedownbutnowI'mtoolateandsomeponydidit befoore mee!"

"Uh, please calm down, you're starting to talk at Pinkie Pie speeds and I've had enough of that for one day."

"What!?" She began pacing back and forth in front of me. "How could anypony be calm at a time like this!? That project was my last chance to get noticed by anypony in the University of Canterlot..." Her ears drooped and she sat down on the ground in the middle of the street.

"I guess maybe I should have worded that differently. How about you lead the way to your house, where I'll explain the situation properly."

She stood up and began to half drag herself through town. "Okay..."

I watched her for a second before following. "Cheer up."

"No. My career is ruined."

'And I thought Rarity was dramatic...' "Uhh... Nopony has successfully created a portal to another universe as far as I know. So, you’re still good with that."

Her ears perked up and she gave me a look that I wasn't certain I liked. "You know something don't you?"

I grinned. "Yep." She was about to say something but I interrupted her. "Conversation best saved for private location."

"Are you from Canterlot?"

"Nope." She stopped again and appeared to look into my soul. "Stop that."

"Who are you?"

"Oh, right. I forgot to tell you my name."

"That's not quite what I meant, but that would be nice too."

I gave a slight bow as I said, "Dusk Star, at your service. Well, not really, but you get what I mean."

"Should that name mean something to me?" She asked skeptically.

"No. According to any legal document in Equestria, I don't exist."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Should I be letting you into my house?"

"Probably not, but it is a public library."

"Wait. You know where I live?"

"Uh... Yes? Well, now that I don't have to keep the act up, let's just teleport straight there."

"What!? Wait! You can't teleport somewhere if you-" We teleported. "-don't know... what the... location... looks like..." She eventually trailed off. "You know what the inside of my house looks like. Of course you do."

"Of course." I looked to my right. Spike was standing there looking horrified. He was also holding a fire extinguisher. "Hey Spike. Sorry about that. I swear I'm going to work on it."

Twilight began looking back and forth between Spike and I with a confused expression. "Am I missing something?"

Spike managed to snap himself out of his daze to answer, "You seriously didn't notice that you appeared in a ball of black fire!? I thought the whole library was gonna burn down!"

"Don't be silly. Everypony knows that black flames are magical in nature and are actually cold rather than hot. Also, I have wards in place to protect against fire. How do you think we have a fireplace in a tree?" She took a second to think about what she just said. "I thought Princess Luna was the only one who can make black fire..."

'I just knew that being completely OP would cause problems with trying to lay low.' After a minute of having Twilight stare at me expectantly, I decided it would be a bad idea to tell the truth. But I did it anyway. "The hay if I know. That was only the second time I've teleported, so it's a bit of a work-in-progress."

"You'd only done it once before, and you thought it would be a good idea to try teleporting yourself and me to somewhere you couldn't even see!?" She shook her head. "For that matter, I thought I was the only unicorn who knew how to teleport! You shouldn't be able to do that! You shouldn't be able to do most of what I've seen you do! Also, you shouldn't know any of the things you know about me! THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!"

Spike and I watched in silence as she panted for a second before storming off to another part of the library. "So, Spike. She's a tad bit stressed out over this whole portal project, eh?"

"That's one way to put it..."

"I figured as much. She's usually not this... spazzy... unless she's got some big project."

"So how do you know so much about her?"

"I'm an interdimensional traveler."

"Oh. Cool."

"That's it?"

"Wait, you aren't joking?"

"No, did you think I was?" Before he could respond, Twilight came back, levitating a scroll beside her. "Is that what I think it is?"

"I'm going to ask the Princess about you."

She started to move the letter towards Spike. Before it was even halfway there, with no forethought, I yelled, "Vot der'mo!" and blasted the floating scroll with a burst of black flames. Spike and Twilight both slowly turned to look at me with wide eyes after the crystallized scroll shattered on the floor two meters away. "Eheh... Oops?"

Spike glanced nervously at the frozen shards of paper that were lying on the floor. Meanwhile, Twilight just calmly asked, "You speak Draconic?"

"Draconic? Wait, so... Oh I get it! Cause there was that one story with that dragon that was Russian!" I couldn't help but burst out laughing at that coincidence. ‘Wait... Why do they speak Dragon in Stalliongrad?’ "Anyway, yeah, I sometimes accidentally say stuff in... Draconic when I'm panicking. You speak it?"

"No, I just recognized it. The only foreign language I know is Old Equestrian, but that doesn’t really count. It’s not really foreign, just thousands of years old."

"Utinam esse hoc lingua?"

"How...?"

Spike suddenly decided that learning time was over. "Am I the only one who notices that somepony just blasted something into pieces in the middle of the library!?" He asked, waving his arms.

I decided to answer truthfully again. "Nope! I noticed too!" A fraction of a second before Spike facepalmed, I stated, "Facepalm." and afterwards continued, "Called it."

Twilight completely ignored my antics and asked, "So where are you from?"

"Uhh..."

Spike answered for me. "He said he was an interdimensional traveller."

It took Twilight an entire five minutes to answer, "Uhh..."

I put a stupid grin on my face and pointed out, "Hey! That's what I just said! And by the way, I would like to mention that we arrived here in one piece, thank you very much.”

"Are you talking about when I said that teleporting like that was dangerous? That conversation ended seven minutes ago! You know what? I don't even doubt that you're from another world anymore. Your thought patterns could probably give Discord a headache."

"Ha! Yeah, in fact I'd be willing to bet that Discord was the one who made my world in the first place!"

"Wait... you weren't joking?"

"Why does everypony assume I'm joking when I say it!?"

"Because it's ridiculous!"

"You did hear when I emphasized the word 'pony' when I said that nopony has ever created a portal to another universe, right? Oh, and if you hadn't realized, this would be the reason that I said the conversation should be private. Honestly Twi, you're the only pony I'd ever think of trusting with this. Well, you and The Doctor, but I'm attempting to have one of those moments so let’s just forget about him.”

“...”

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Sorry, I thought I’d just give you a while to have your 'moment'.”

“Oh. Thanks, but I’m already done.”

“Okay then. So, who made the portal if not a pony? I mean, I know you came through it, but you’re a pony so you didn’t make it.”

“Well I wasn’t a pony before I got here, and I honestly don’t know who made it. I went to sleep one night and woke up in a field outside of town.”

“Not a pony!? Okay, okay. Let’s just keep calm.”

“I am calm.”

“I was talking to myself.”

“Shouldn’t do that. Somepony might think you’re crazy or something, and I’m sure you don’t need any help to further any rumors of you being a mad scientist with that creepy lab you’ve got in your basement.”

“Stop knowing everything about my life.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Where’s Spike?”

“He went to go make tea.”

“I love tea.”

“Great. So how long have you been in Equestria?”

“Ah dunno. What time is it now?”

“Twelve thirty.”

“About half an hour.”

“And you already know how to teleport?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty awesome.”

She shook her head and dragged a hoof down her face. “Right. So why won’t you let me tell the Princess about you?”

“When should we head to Sugarcube Corner?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I don’t want to miss my own ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party.”

“You still didn’t answer my question.”

“And I’m not going to.”

“I thought you trusted me.”

'That monster.' “Along with being the only pony I trust, you’re also the only pony who can successfully guilt trip me.” *Sigh* “Very well, I can tell you that I intend to tell Luna myself in a day or two.”

“Luna?”

“Yes. She can tell her sister if she wants to.”

“Why Luna?”

“I chose her as my Patron Goddess.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t really think of a decent way to explain the concept to you if you don’t already know, so I won’t. Let’s just say that Luna gets the news first, and leave it at that.”

“Okay, fine. I notice that you still haven’t explained how you know everything about me.”

‘uh-oh.’ “Alright... Um... Huh... What do you know about the Multiverse Hypothesis, particularly the notion of fictional realism?”

“What does that have to do with-” *gasp* “Are you a fictional character!?”

“What? No, how would that even explain anything? It's the other way around, actually..”

“Oh.”

'Why isn't she more surprised? Does she know something?' “Really? Just 'Oh'? I kind of figured that the appropriate response to being told that your universe is fictional would be to completely freak out, but okay.”

“I’m perfectly fine with accepting that. After all, even your universe is likely a work of fiction also. As are most others.”

“That... is incredibly philosophical. What is reality!? Who are we!? What is our purpose!? When will the tea be ready!?”

“Probably not much longer.”

“Fantastic.”

We had tea, then afterwards I slept on the couch for a while. I had apparently been dumped in Equestria mere minutes after falling asleep, and realized quite suddenly that I was bucking tired. Twilight woke me up at around five, and told me that Pinkie had stopped by to suggest that she take me to have supper at Sugarcube Corner. One: Who has cupcakes for supper? Two: Come on, we all know what’s really going on.

During the walk there, (No, don’t ask me why we didn’t teleport) Spike got this crazy idea in his head that was uncomfortably close to being exactly what I was thinking. “So Dusk, Twilight’s taking you out for supper.”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds like a date to me.”

“If it were a date, you wouldn’t be here.”

“...”

“...”

“Dusk and Twilight sitting in a tree-”

“Finish that song and I will throw you to the moon.”

“K-I-S-S- AHHHH!”

Twilight, who was ahead of us by about three meters, stopped and looked at me. Spike had somehow left very suddenly. “Dusk?”

“Yeah?”

Spike suddenly appeared beside me in a swirl of blackfire, lying face-down on the road. “It was cold up there...”

Twilight just shook her head. “Just hurry. You don’t want to be late do you?”

“Nope. I’ve gotta ask a few of the ponies I’ve invited some questions to determine if this universe is canon or non-canon.”

“If it’s canon?”

“I determine where I am in the known timeline.”

“If it’s not?”

“Things get a lot more interesting.”

“In a good or bad way?”

“Either.”

“Well you’ll have to elaborate further later. We’re here.”

“Uh-oh. All the lights are off. Guess they must be closed. I suppose we should just head back then.”

There was an audible gasp from inside. Twilight fixed me with a stern glare. “Dusk.”

“Okay, okay. I was kidding. Sheesh...” I opened the door...

“SURPRISE!” *PARTYCANNONTOTHEFACE!* “Uh... Oops?”

As I was lying on the ground, I managed to wheeze out, “That was canon with two n’s, not three.”

My entire field of vision was once again obscured by pink. “Oh! My bad!”

"That's okay, Pinkie. I can see how you might have been confused." I got up and stumbled through the door into Sugarcube Corner. I noticed that Lyra and The Doctor took me up on my offer to bring friends. Lyra brought Bon-bon of course, and The Doctor brought... Uh-oh. The Doctor brought Derpy. Canon: Zero, non-canon: One.

Everypony was looking at me expectantly. "Hey everypony. Uh, is my spine on right?" They all laughed. "Really? No. Stop humoring me. That was terrible. I'm not even certain if I meant that to be funny. Now, you all just go back to... mingling and whatnot, and I'll get around to talking to everypony. Two of you I need to talk privately with. Parallel universes may or may not be involved." I made a vague gesture with a front hoof and said, "Mingle..."

As I stepped further inside, I noticed that the room seemed to have no decorations. There were of course tables set up with food and drinks, but the lack of decor was extremely suspicious. 'Why would Pinkie skimp out on decorating for a party?'

“Because I didn’t know what decorations to use for a ‘Welcome to the Universe’ party, silly!”

I immediately adopted an ‘Oh Shit’ face. “You knew about that the whole time?”

“Well, yeah.” She answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“You didn’t tell anypony, did you?”

“Nopers!”

“Alright. Don’t. I’ll have Twi do that in a gentler way.”

Speaking of Twilight, she had apparently realized that I was no longer following her, and came back from wherever she had wandered off to. “What are you still doing over here? Don’t you want to meet the rest of the ‘Mane Six’?” I could taste the air-quotes. Apparently she disapproved of the pun.

“Well yeah, but I-” Aaand, she’s ignoring me. Unfortunately, she left me with no choice but to follow. “Twilight?” Still ignoring. “Seriously. I need to- Oh come on!” Our destination turned out to be a table at the back of the room. The remaining four elements were sitting at it, chatting amongst themselves.

Twilight introduced me to them, but before any of them could speak, I held up a hoof and said, "I gotta go do important sciency stuff. Twilight, fill them in on the situation, but make sure you get them to Pinkie Promise not to speak a word of it to anypony."

I spotted The Doctor sitting at a table on the other side of the room. No idea where Derpy wandered off to. Actually, she was probably at the muffin table. I decided to show off by teleporting to the chair across from The Doctor. Yeah, the flames of darkness make me look like a bit of a badass. They’re also good for drawing the attention of the guy sitting across from you. “'Ello Doctor!”

“Waah!” He just barely managed to stop himself from knocking his seat over. He put a hoof to his chest. “Woah... please don’t do that again.”

“Sorry. Do you by any chance have a hearts condition?”

He gave me a strange look. “No?”

“What do you think about pears?”

“They’re horrible. What is this for?”

“Do you like timey-wimey stuff?”

“My cutie mark is an hourglass.”

“Touché. Last question. Do you know where I could find a police call box?”

“...No...?”

“Aha! You said that you didn’t know where I could find one. Ponies don’t have police call boxes so you shouldn’t have known what I was talking about! Ding ding ding! I win! Good poker face though.”

“How do you..? What?”

“I did say that parallel universes could be involved, right?”

“Are you...?”

“Shouldn’t you have a british accent?”

“BRITISH!? What are you!?”

“Silly Doctor. I’m a pony.” I answered with a smirk.

I next teleported to directly in front of Lyra and Bon-bon, causing the latter to fall over backwards. Lyra promptly burst out laughing. I gently slapped her shoulder scoldingly. "Don't laugh at her. The Doctor had the same response."

She snorted once more before saying, "Fine..."

I looked at Bon-bon. "I'm sorry, though I'd be lying if I told you that that wasn't the reaction I was looking for. Now, I need to talk to Lyra in private for a minute." She gave a look that basically said, 'Is it safe to leave her alone with you?' "Come on. I didn't make that bad an impression, did I? Anyway, she'll be fine."

Her answer of, "Okay..." sounded a bit skeptical, but she left us alone anyway.

I returned my attention to Lyra, who appeared to be rather curious of what this was all about. "Lyra?"

"Yeah?"

"Humans."

*sigh* "Do want to tell me I'm right, or make fun of me?"

"Depends. What do you think about them."

"I believe that they once existed, and that they may still exist in some far off corner of the world." Her voice changed from wistful to dark as she continued, "And you will never be able to convince me otherwise."

"I wouldn't try to. In fact I don't even know if you're right or not. I've only been a pony for a day."

"What were you before?"

"You seem to believe me. You're the first one to do so without me having to say it more than once. I now consider you a friend. Therefore, I am going to answer your question. This is something that I haven't told anypony. After I tell you this, you will not make a scene, and you will not attempt to question me about it unless I say you can."

"Why would I do that anyway? It's not like you're a- ...No..."

"Woo... Let's not go jumping to conclusions just yet. Anyway, in order to attain your answer, you'll also refrain from stalking me."

"Deal."

"I think you already know what I am. Although I suppose I should say 'what I was' since this isn't a disguise or something. Jumping dimensions somehow changed my entire biological makeup."

"So you're really a human?"

"Yep, and let me tell you, hands are awesome... I think... I admit that I actually haven't attempted to pick something up with hooves yet."

"A real. Live. Human." *squee*

"Quite so. I’ll let you ask one question, then I have to go. Ooh! That rhymed...”

“Hmm... Let’s see...” She took up the universal thinking pose and placed a hoof on her chin. “Oh I know!” ‘Eureka’ pose. “What do humans eat?”

My ears immediately drooped. Then they went up again as I remembered that my ears could move. I rapidly flopped them up and down a few times while grinning before realizing that Lyra was still expecting an answer. “Sorry. Just realized my ears could move.” I flopped them a few more times. “This is so cool...”

*ahem*

“Oh! Right, sorry again.  So, ‘what do humans eat’ eh?” *sigh* “Why couldn’t you have picked an easier question? Humans are... omnivores.”

“...”

“Oi! Quit looking at me like that! I bet this body couldn’t even digest meat.”

”Hmm...”

“I swear, if you try to eat somepony...”

“Eheh... I wasn’t thinking of doing any experiments to see if ponies could digest human diets. No, thats... just silly. heheh...”

“That was oddly specific.” I motioned at Bon-bon to come back over.

“What was all that about?” She asked when she got back to her original position.

“Human stuff. Be careful Lyra doesn’t try to eat you.”

The last thing I heard and saw before teleporting back to Twilight was an indignant, “Hey!” from Lyra, and a horrified expression from Bon-bon.

Back at the table with the elements, who were all stunned at the way I had appeared, reclining, in an empty chair, sipping some sort of drink. “I don’t know what I’m drinking, but I like it.” I took another sip before returning to an upright position and placing the glass of mysterious-yet-glorious liquid on the table. “So what’d I miss?”

Twilight looked at the floor and mumbled, “They made me do it.”

I facehoofed. “Oh, what now?”

“I send a letter to the princess.”

She cringed when the glass I’d been levitating towards me hit the ground. “Princess... Luna?”

“Celestia.”

“BOG CHERTOVSKI CHERT VOZʹMI!”

Rarity flattened her ears. “My, what... colorful language.”

“Eheh... Yeah. Well, she is not sending me home. Nuh-uh. Nope. Not. A. Chance.” Everypony except the elements and myself dived to the floor as Princess Luna and Princess Celestia both appeared in the middle of the room. “Govno.” I turned around and looked at Celestia. Then proceeded to completely ignore her and bow to Luna. “Mea Filia Reginae.”

Luna took a step back, looking confused. Meanwhile, Celestia took a rather threatening step forwards, her eyes narrowing. “You.”

I stood up. “Uh, hi? What about me?”

“You!”

“Why do I feel like I’m in danger right now?”

“I should have ended you when I had the chance!”

“I am... So confused.”

Rather than explain, she decided to simply fire a flaming beam of sunlight at me, which I hastily ducked under. I knocked over a table and dived behind it, pressing my back to the wood. Because that would totally stop an angry Goddess, right?

I peeked over the table to see Luna hastily saying something to her sister. When Celestia noticed, she forced me back behind the table with another beam of light. I quickly started constructing a small white flag with a napkin attached to a splinter of wood that I found on the floor. I held the flag over my head and out from behind the upturned table. In an admittedly pathetic voice, I squeaked out, "Misericordia?" There was a slight warmth on my hoof, and I looked up to see that my impromptu flag had been vaporized. "Guess not..."

There was a strange 'psst' noise to my right. I looked in that direction and saw Rainbow Dash taking cover underneath an upright table to avoid any stray death-rays. She looked at me with a combination of confusion, respect, and anger. "Dude! What did you do to get the Princess this pissed?" She whispered at me.

I rolled my eyes, then whispered back, "The buck if I know..." I noticed Fluttershy curled up in a quivering ball under Dash's wing. I nodded at her and asked, "She gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, as long as Princess Ragelestia over there would stop missing you."

"Gee, thanks Dash." I quickly peeked at the Princesses again, and saw that Luna and Celestia appeared to be arguing about something. Hopefully Luna was requesting that I not be turned into burnt toast. It only took one last glance at the terrified Fluttershy to decide that I had to do something stupid to stop this from getting out of hoof.

I yelled out from behind my cover, "Hey I'm gonna head out to the Everfree before you accidentally fry somepony! Seeya!" I then exited in style by sprinting at a wall and teleporting at the last second so that my little fire thing gave the impression that I had ran straight through the wall.

Once I was safely out of that crazy scenario, and out by the border of the Everfree, my heart managed to stop attempting to explode out of my chest cavity. Of course, it started up twice as bad once Luna and Celestia appeared again, a few meters away. "O, yebatʹ moyu zhiznʹ!"

Celestia then got the creepiest grin I've ever seen on her. "Then you won't mind if I kill you?"

"Um, yeah, actually. I do mind."

"Too bad." Her mane turned into white and blue fire... That’s probably not a good thing.

"Uh-oh..."

Her next move was to try blasting me with a ball of fire that looked rather similar to her new manestyle. Acting purely on instinct, I hit it in midair with my own black fire. The two negated each other. Celestia was looking a little worried, and even angrier than before. "What have you done!? That's alicorn magic!"

"Really? Cool!" I immediately sent two more orbs of black fire at her, which she deflected with a shield of radiant yellow energy. "So how long 'till I ascend?"

"How do you know about that!?"

"Um... Huh... I don't really know. Does it matter?"

"No, because you will not be around to find out!"

Before I could react, a new voice added itself to the fray, and it wasn't Luna, who had been standing off to the side, looking unsure of who she was supposed to be helping. Twilight ran over the crest of a nearby hill. "Princess! What's going on!?"

Celestia didn't even stop to think about what she was doing as she launched another fireball at her with a scream of fury. Also not thinking, I yelled, "TWILIGHT, MOVE!" and teleported to directly in front of her, putting up the strongest shield I could manage, despite having no idea how I knew how to do so. It didn't matter anyways. The shield didn't work. My vision faded as the orb of flames blasted straight through my barrier.

Words from worlds beyond, flowing in the void as echoes through time.