Pete Powell's Life as a Pony, and Beyond

She had been ecstatic to find herself inside her young body. Dash had seen her death coming from a long way off, and she'd gone into it about as gracefully as an enraged monkey. That was right up until the end, when a calm suddenly passed over her. It had been a strange surreal feeling, but not altogether unpleasant. The next she knew, she was in a strange field of grass, her body once more youthful, her muscles back in their prime. There was nothing around her though, it was as though the world ended just a few feet away in every direction but forward. That was where her problems began.

No matter how hard she tried, strained, flapped, she couldn't even stand up. After a while she just stopped trying, unsure of what to do, or even what would happen when she did, she just laid there.

“If this is supposed to be heaven,” she said to herself, “Then this sucks! I can't even stand up.”

As if spurred on by divine cue, Rainbow Dash suddenly found herself being lifted off the ground by a pair of arms. After a moment of situating on behalf of both pony and human, Rainbow was face to face with Pete. She had no words, they simply could not convey what she felt in that moment. The one thing, the only thing, that had made this small field less than paradise had been the lack of his presence. Over the past 264 years she had found that she could endure anything, so long as the blue unicorn had been by her side. Now here he was once more, though no longer a unicorn, that had never mattered. He was her husband, regardless of which form her took, and her love for him was as unfathomable as the strength it gave her.

No words were spoken as the cyan pegasus laid her head on his shoulder and shut her eyes. She knew where she was, and what his being here meant. It also occurred to her that this was exactly what he would do, and she should have seen it coming from day one. Rainbow simply laid there as Pete walked forward following the only path that existed in this world.

They watched as Pete stepped forward, Rainbow Dash in his arms, making slow progress towards them and the ultimate goal. Applejack and Fluttershy watched on with tears standing in their eyes, Pinkie Pie out right bawling between them, at the sight of their friends. Such was the nature of this place. Celestia standing next to them, however, was not pleased at all. This was made apparent by her tone when the human approached.

“This was not your burden.”

“I would argue otherwise,” Pete said, coming to a full stop in front of the Sun Princess.

“The point of this world is to shoulder ones own burdens and achieve peace with their life.”

“And when I married her I swore that her burdens were as much mine as mine were hers.”

“She will have to start over.”

Pete smiled his 'calm before the storm' smile, “Then I'll go back and get her, as many times as it takes.”

Celestia's eyes narrowed, “Then I'll stop you.”

Pete's smile went from calm, to the twisted grin of a madman, “Then I've nothing more to say to you, sunny butt.”

The human turned on his heels and started walking back, his goal the small field where they had started. The three Elements next to Celestia were absolutely shocked, and slightly appalled. Even the Sun Goddess was upset, though she should have seen this coming from the man that was willing to kill himself for his wife.

“And that's what makes this beautiful, Celly!”

Celestia recoiled as an arm was suddenly thrust over her neck. Looking to the side she saw another human, similar to Pete, but at the same time very different. This human was about six feet tall, dressed in all black as Pete had been known to do. His hair was shorter than Pete's was now, and unlike the Pete from the apartment, this human's hair was not flat but rather messy. The most noticeable differences were the sword on his back, and the markings on his hoodie. The black over-wear had the designs of all six of the Element bearer's cutie marks on the back, and featured Celestia and Luna's on the front on the pockets.

“Who are you?!”

“I've been talking in you and Luna's head for like, 200 years now, and you have to ask? Celly, I am disappoint,” pulling his arm from around Celestia, the human stepped forward, “Hey! You with the pegasus, get back here!”

“...I've hardly walked ten feet,” Pete said turning around, “There's no need to shout.”

The other human smiled, “I know, but yelling is fun. Anywho, get your ass over there with your friends, I'm giving you the pass.”

Pete looked at Celestia with a cocked eyebrow, “Can he do that?”

She responded with a “No,” at the same time the human said, “Yes.” Causing the new arrival to look at the Princess of the Sun, a maniacal grin on his face.

“Please tell me we're going to argue about this, or better yet that you're going to try and fight me. I love knocking all of your counterparts around.”

“I'll ask again, who. Are. You?”

“...” The smile faded, “Fine,” he started, his voice suddenly becoming serious, the amused glimmer in his eyes dying, setting fear loose inside of Celestia. “I'm known by many names, most notably for you all would be the griffon's 'All-Maker.' Simply put, we all know that every story about the creation of the world, or any world, typically starts with 'In the beginning there was nothing.' Well, that's what I am, the Lord of Nothing, I hold all the forces of The Void in the palm of my hand. I use these powers to travel from reality to reality and help folks out.

“After you all crash landed in Pete's apartment I made a quick executive decision. Which of course turned into a couple of splintered timelines where the decision didn't work right. This is one of those, and the Pete that passed through a few hundred years ago was the 'real' Pete, or the Alpha Timeline Pete. I picked him because he's actually me, just from a parallel reality where something was different. Don't strain yourself trying to understand the big timey-whimey bubbly stuff, it seems like you never understand it until you've looked at if from above and it all just sorta clicks. The point here though, is that I have powers that are completely unfathomable, the kind that can destroy entire realities. Among my various titles is 'Overlord of Death,' not to be confused with my demonic title of the same name, it kind of gives me absolute jurisdiction in all cases of someone, or somepony, being dead. Because, as the name implies, I'm the Overlord of Death.”

“...and you honestly expect me to believe that?” Celestia asked, calmly.

“Well, here, let me show you,” the Lord of Nothing stepped forward until he and Celestia were practically kissing, “Look into my eyes.”

With a roll of her own Celestia did as she was told. No one knows what she saw, except herself, Kayn, the Lord of the Void, and me. They stayed locked onto each others eyes for a solid five minutes, by the end of the first Celestia had broken out in a cold sweat and her fear was visible to those around her. By the end of the second minute she was crying silently. When it was over, she collapsed on the ground.

“Now do you understand?”

It took her several minutes to recover, when she finally did she looked up at the human, “How do you go on?”

Kayn crouched down, “Because, I have friends that need me. Even if they're not the exact same as the ones I knew, even if there's a million little differences, or even a few big ones, Equestria is STILL my HOME. And I won't rest until every single world is free from the grip of my enemies.”

Celestia sighed shakily, then slowly rose back up, “And this is all you want? Just let them through when the time comes?”

Kayn smiled, the light coming back to his eyes, “Exactly! I'm part of why he's here in the first place, and we both know that all of the 'baggage' that Rainbow feels is stupid stuff. I mean, your test doesn't work right in my opinion. Letting the weight that each pony feels from their individual actions, instead of working on some kind of system for it is silly.”

“Wait,” Pete interjected, causing Kayn to turn around, “What does that mean?”

“Oh, well it's simple. See, the reason why you feel so light is because you have no doubts about the choices you made. That's part of what makes us, these various alternate... well I'll leave him nameless, great. After we have some time to grow, and think about things, we start to get this impossible clarity, and then we feel no guilt about our actions because we know that we're doing what WE need to do. Dash on the other hand tends to be plagued by doubts and worry about some of the most inane stuff, I know I've married her a couple of times myself. So, instead of this working like 'well, that wasn't too bad, so it's not heavy,' it works on how bad YOU feel about it. When it comes to Rainbow Dash she just has a tendency to sweat the small stuff into big giant things.”

Pete shot Celestia a look, “I see,” he muttered.

“Right, so!” Kayn shouted and clapped his hands, “I hope we've got this all sorted out, yeah?”

“If it makes you go away,” Celestia said, looking at the Lord of Void in annoyance. Her new knowledge of his existence not changing how she felt about him personally.

“Excellent! Well then, take care all. Have a good next life!”

And with that, the six were left alone. There was a tense moment of silence as they waited to see if he would come back, when that was over Pete stepped over to the other three Elements and sat down, Rainbow Dash in his lap. There was more silence for a while, then finally Dash broke it.

“So, what are we waiting for here?” she asked, looking between her friends and Celestia.

“We're waitin' for Twilight and Rarity,” Applejack said.

“Yeah,” Pinkie Pie chimed in, “It just doesn't seem right to reincarnate with out all of us being together one last time!”

“Pete,” Celestia said, stepping over to the human, “May I speak with you?”

“Aren't you doing that now?”

“...You're not going to move are you?”

“Probably not. We're dead now, I don't think there's anything you can bring up that I'm going to feel the horrible need to hide.”

“Very well. Why were you so willing to give up your own reincarnation for Rainbow Dash?”

Pete sat there for a minute, a full sixty seconds, just staring at the Princess.

“You're just outright stupid aren't you? I don't give a DAMN what's behind that big golden door of yours. If Dash and I don't walk through it together you can keep it. Seriously, how many times do I have to turn down immortality and ultimate power, and all this other shit, before you and Luna get this?”

There was another tense moment, this time it permeated everypony present. It was more than ballsy to call a Goddess 'stupid,' it was practically suicide. Pete had already done that though, so it was hardly out of his nature. As they all sat there, waiting, Celestia suddenly laughed.

“Yes, I suppose I should have seen this coming two hundred years ago when you turned that down. Though I can't say I saw this particular scenario going the way it did.”

Pete smirked, “Who could? An interdimensional human called the All-Maker staring down the Goddess of ponies? That's just absurd sounding, but it happened.”

After a while Celestia disappeared, the other three ponies assuring the couple that it was normal and that she would be back when the next pony died. Until then it was just the five of them now, sitting, waiting, and reminiscing. In time the other two would show up. First Rarity, then Twilight. After the reunion was over they all stepped through the door together, and on into their next lives.