Author's Note: Hey, everyone! Once again, I apologize for any grammar mistakes. : ) This chapter is actually a combination of three separate chapters that I felt were too short on their own. You can probably figure out where the breaks are.
Chapter 9
Gale was running.
Everyone was. All around him people were screaming in mass panic. The world was dark and nobody could see what they were running from. They only knew that down in the depths of their souls that this thing would end their lives. Gale kept silent as he ran. He was more concerned with trying to see through the darkness, to know what was causing this. People bumped into him and he bumped into others. The darkness and utter bedlam it caused seemed to go on forever.
Suddenly, like a light switch being turned on, he could see. Instead of seeing what humanoid eyes would process as the world, however, he saw something almost alien. The world was still dark, but he could see the outlines of people running around. Inside the outlines were ones and zeroes. Green ones and zeroes running around a black background. There were outlines of trees, rocks, and other such things dotting the landscape too. Each was filled with the numbers, like crayon scribbles inside a coloring book.
Gale stopped running and looked down at his hands. He was formed of ones and zeroes too. He ran again, his eyes darting everywhere. There had to be a reason for all of this. There just had to! He had to find it. The screams of the people he passed propelled him forward.
Smack! He ran into a wall. This wall was different. It wasn't made of numbers. It was translucent, but Gale couldn't see what was on the other side. He banged his fists against it. It felt like a pane of glass that was too thick to break. He tried to anyway. He had to escape from this world of numbers. He had to free the people that were screaming within.
Choke! He suddenly couldn't breathe. It felt like there was water rushing into his nose and mouth, drowning him, but there wasn't any water anywhere. He gagged, gasping for air…
And woke up.
It had been a vision in the form of a dream. This time he was sure of it. Ones and zeroes? Who knew that numbers would be the monsters that would plague his nightmares?
Gale couldn't go back to sleep right away. He needed to calm down first. He slid out of bed, taking extra care not to disturb Molly, and went outside. The stars were shining brightly against a clear sky. Their presence alone helped to calm him down a little. He decided to go look through his telescope and catalog some stars. It had been a while since he wrote his last astronomy book. A few minutes later he sat in front of his telescope and put his eye up to the glass.
Some of the stars seemed a little…off. Not by billions of light-years by any means, but still off enough that anyone who professionally studied them would notice. Gale sat back and pondered this. It could have just been a simple miscalculation on his part. The angle of the planet changed by very slight degrees every year after all, which would put the stars in different parts of the sky. It was very likely that he had just done the math wrong. He went to his desk to check his notes. Eventually weariness came over him and he fell asleep with his head wedged between his papers.
Vivi could feel the environment ready itself for the change coming. Could it be that Gale could see the stars?
O/O
Sixty-five thousand, five-hundred, and thirty-five floors.
That's how big Forget Me Not Valley's fourth and final mine was and Pony was almost at the bottom of it. Her head swirled and her body shuddered with agonizing pain and exhaustion. Time was irrelevant in the deep abyss. She could have been down there for hours or days, her secluded trek only occasionally interrupted by a walkie-talkie message from Carter and Flora to make sure that she was alright. She would always answer, "yes," of course. There was work to do and mysteries to be solved. Pony couldn't afford to be weak. With a gulp of bodigizer, she descended another floor.
There was a large, purple bruise that now blanketed Pony's entire back from her encounter with Skye the night before. Nobody knew about it but her. When she returned to the valley she had stopped by the excavation site to drop off the astronomy books before heading back to her house. She had to sleep on her stomach that night. Carter had yet to gather any new information about the mural and still had his nose deep into one of the books as far as Pony knew. He had also yet to learn anything about the sword or the tablet that came with it. It was their hope that a clue to both finds could be found at the bottom of the last mine.
It was strangely quiet the closer Pony got to what she hoped would be the final floors. The bugs had stopped buzzing and even the echoes of her steps were deafened by the silence. Her mind was a haze. She couldn't comprehend the eeriness of the stillness, nor could she see the hundreds of scarlet eyes that watched her in wait. There was only one thing on her mind. Get to the bottom. Get to the bottom.
The final sixty-fifth thousand, five-hundred, and thirty-fifth floor was unspectacular, but Pony was too far into a semi unconsciousness state to be upset. She stumbled, wobbling back and forth as she searched the room. No murals, no weaponry, no tablets, and no cursed farming tools. She shrugged to herself. This mine was a bust.
There was a sliver of a glimmer in the far corner. Maybe it wasn't a total bust.
Pony stumbled to the corner and fell to her knees. The object was small and round. She picked it up and ran her thumb across it and felt an indent the shape of a rainbow. After adjusting the beam of light from her miner's hat, she could see that it was rainbow colored as well. Was it an ancient coin, perhaps? A talisman? A worthless trinket? Whatever it was, Pony threw it into her rucksack and used the wall to pull her up. She turned around.
And came face to face with herself.
Pony blinked. In the shadows stood a mirror of herself, her eyes glowing crimson, her mouth grinning wickedly, her ponytail parted perfectly in two. Pony felt a rush of air.
And then there was blackness.
O/O
For the second time that week, Pony awakened to the sight of Doctor Hardy's ceiling.
The light burned her eyes. She gasped and closed them again.
"Doc, she's awake!" the sound of Rock's voice bellowed into her ear drums.
"Aug!" Pony's head was pounding.
"Give her some space, boy," she could hear Hardy say softly, but still agonizingly loud with her headache.
"Wha-What happened?" she whispered.
Doctor Hardy put a cooled compress on her head. Slowly, it began to numb the pounding.
"You really need to stop over exerting yourself," he began as he pulled up a chair beside her cot, "Without time to repair itself your body can become brittle."
"See! I told you work way too much, Pony!" said Rock.
She ignored him.
Hardy continued, "Carter and Flora found you collapsed at the bottom of a very deep mine. The trip there and back wore them out too. They're actually in the other two beds. You need to stop doing these things, Miss Harvester! You're starting to put other people in danger as well!"
"Did they see another me down there?" Pony's voice was tired and slurred.
"Pardon?"
"Never mind. It was probably just…a dream…"
"Now, go back to sleep. I'm going to make sure that you don't leave this clinic until your health is fully recovered."
Pony was too weak to object. She closed her eyes and let sleep overcome her once again.
When Pony woke up again, she was in her house.
"Morning, Pony! What would you like for breakfast?" Flora's voice called over from the kitchen.
It only took a moment for Pony to register the deadly implications of Flora making breakfast. She was out of her bed and by her stove in three seconds flat. Her stove was turned off even quicker. It took another moment for Pony to think about the odd implications of Flora being in her house.
"Flora, what are you doing here?"
"Injecting you with painkillers, mostly. Dr. Hardy asked for someone to be your nurse maid and I volunteered! Well, technically Rock raised his hand first, but nobody wanted to trust him with a syringe."
Pony pulled out a chair from her kitchen table and sat in it with a groan.
"You know," she sighed as she slowly rubbed her forehead, "I think I've caused myself more physical pain in this past week than most people do in their entire lives."
Flora chuckled and sat in the chair across from Pony's, "I think you're just about to give the ol' doc a mental break down. He practically banged his head against the wall when the professor and I carried you into his office yesterday!"
"That's right. He said something about you guy's having to rescue me…I'm sorry about that. If I have learned anything the past few days, it should be what my limits are."
"Don't be sorry! It serves us right for sending you off to do our jobs anyway! The trek sure was tiring, though. Sixty-five thousand, five-hundred, and thirty-five floors! Who could've imagined? "
"Ugh! I know! Which reminds me…" Pony stood up and went to fetch her rucksack. She found it in the corner, completely covered in dust. She unzipped it and coughed as some of the dirt dispersed into the air. Her hand dug around until it felt the small, round object. Pony handed the medal to Flora.
Pushing her glasses up her nose with one hand, Flora held it up to the light with the other. The rainbow colors glistened and glimmered and sent spectrums of colorful light disco-balling around the farmhouse.
"I found it in that last floor," Pony explained, "Is it anything important?"
"Hmm. It's hard to say really. There are no markings on it other than the little rainbow shape. It looks like it's made of goddess ore, which is more common in the areas around Flower Bud village, but is still very rare," Flora flipped the medallion over a few times, "It doesn't look like any ancient currency I've ever studied, so I don't think it's a coin. Maybe it belonged to whoever owned the sword? From what I've been able to gather the sword was forged with goddess ore too. Whoever owned these must have been very important."
"So maybe the mines are this person's tomb?"
"That's what Professor Carter seems to think. I'm not so sure, though. After all, you didn't see signs of human remains while you were down there, did you?"
"No, but I did miss a bunch of floors in the third mine when I fell, remember?"
"That's true," Flora scratched her head, "The professor did say something about searching that mine more thoroughly while I'm off searching for Calvin…" Flora suddenly got a dreamy look on her face.
Pony was taken back.
"Wait…what? Off searching for who now?" she asked.
Flora was snapped back into reality. Blushing, she stared down at the table and started to trace a wood grain with her finger.
"Err…Calvin Carson. He's an old colleague of mine from back in archeology school. He specializes in ancient languages and symbols. He's one of the best in the field actually. The professor and I think he would be the best bet in deciphering the mural and the stone you found with the sword."
Pony looked at Flora's blushing face and couldn't help but grin, "So…He was JUST your colleague, huh?"
Surprised, Flora looked up, "Oh, no, no, no! It was nothing like that! I don't think he would've been interested in a girl like me anyway! Calvin's just so…" she sighed and stared off into the distance again, "You'll understand when you see him…"
"When I see him? What do you mean?"
Once again, Flora was snapped back into attention, "Opps! Silly me, going about this all backwards! I wanted to ask if you'd like to come with me to find him. I could use the help and the company."
Pony looked out the window forlornly. It had been so long since she had left Forget Me Not Valley for an extended period of time. She couldn't just leave her farm and all the responsibilities that came with it. The very thought of it made her stomach jump.
"I don't know, Flora…"
"Please, Pony? Dr. Hardy isn't going to let you out of anybody's sight for a while anyway and I could really use the help. You could stand to take a little vacation and you'd be advancing the field of archeology in the process."
Wincing at the term vacation, Pony stood up and walked outside to look at her fields. Flora followed her. As usual, Jack had done his job spectacularly. The pit in her stomach helped Pony remember that she still wasn't fully comfortable in just leaving the machine alone with her land, though.
"What about Carter?" Pony asked, "Won't he need my help searching through the rest of the third mine? Someone of his age shouldn't be risking perilous falls. He could break a hip or something."
Flora laughed, "Oh! The professor isn't THAT old! Your spelunking days are over anyway, missy. The doctor made us promise! Although…" she pushed up her glasses and looked at the shipping bin where Jack stood, waiting for Mayor Thomas to pick up the shipments, "…I did notice that you have a little hubot helper. I watched him do your chores earlier. Very efficient. I was thinking that you could maybe tell him to help out the professor after he finishes the farm work. I figure that would be better than risking anymore human lives?"
"You may have a point there," Pony sighed.
"So, would you like to come with me?"
Struggling, Pony tried to think up more reasons to stay in the valley but came up empty. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how curious she was about the strange things she had found in the mines. It might be kind of fun to help unravel their mysteries first hand. And she would still be keeping busy and wouldn't stand the risk of falling back into her old, sloth filled ways.
"When do we leave and how long will we be gone?" she asked.
"Yay!" Flora hugged her and Pony patted her head awkwardly, "I want to leave early tomorrow morning and the trip shouldn't take longer than two weeks. This is going to be so much fun!" Flora released her and ran towards the exit to the farmland, beckoning for Pony to follow, "We have so much to do! Come on! First we have to get you more meds from Hardy's, and then we should get some supplies from Mineral Town..."
What had Pony gotten herself into? With a shake of her head, Pony ran after Flora. Jack tipped his hat to her as she passed him.
And so the two women spent the rest of the day gathering supplies and preparing for their journey.
O/O
Pony adjusted her rucksack before taking one last look at Forget-Me-Not Valley. The valley was still dark and the only light came from the setting moon and the stars that were slowly blinking out one by one. It was five AM and most of the world was still asleep. Flora had said that they needed to get an early start on their journey. They had already been up for an hour already, making final preparations. Jack was going to have total control of the farm now, a thought that made Pony cringe, and was going to help Carter with the dig.
With a yawn, Flora led the way as she and Pony left the valley and started walking down the well-worn path to the crossroads. She adjusted her rucksack as well. She carried the stone tablet and copies of the mural along with a sleeping bag, food, and other various supplies. Pony carried the sword, a sleeping bag of her own, and her doctor prescribed medication. None of it was heavy, but still made Pony wonder…
"…So why couldn't we bring my horse?" she asked.
"Our first stop is going to be the Archeology Guild, so I can figure out where Calvin was last studying. I didn't think it would be very safe to bring a horse into the city," Flora yawned again.
"The city?" Pony gulped at the memory of her last visit there, "I used to live there as a kid."
"You and Rock also use to sneak off to the clubs there on a regular basis, if I remember correctly," Flora laughed, "It's been a while since I've been there myself. Years, actually. It was always farther ahead technology wise than the towns were, but now with things like hubots, I wouldn't be surprised with we get into a flying taxi later!"
"I don't think it will have changed that much."
The two traveled in almost silence for a few hours. Occasionally Flora would hum to herself or sing a little half-song. The sun had completely risen by seven and the tall skyscrapers of the city were beginning to rise in the distance. It would still be another several hours until they arrived.
"So, Pony, what's your story?" Flora asked as they walked.
"What do you mean?" Pony looked up from the dirt road to face Flora.
"What was your childhood like? What brought you to the valley? Why don't you and Rock hang out anymore?"
Pony raised a questioning eyebrow at the last one.
"What? Did you think that nobody else would notice when you ditched him? It was all Muffy and Lumina would talk about for weeks!"
"It would figure that Muffy of all people would spy on me…" Pony sighed as she kicked a stray pebble with her shoe.
It was Flora's turn to raise a questioning eyebrow.
"Muffy's my aunt and let's just say my family has always been a little too…interested in matters of my life."
"Muffy's your AUNT?!" Flora gawked, "Tell. Me. Story. Now."
Pony sighed again and crossed her hands behind her neck, "There really isn't much to tell. The farm has been in my family for generations and when my Great Grandfather Mark owned it, he married a woman named Muffy. Our Muffy and I are just both descended from them."
"Now that you mention it, I think that most everyone in the valley were named after their ancestors. The professor had a grandfather Carter, I had a great grandma Flora…They all had the same jobs too. It's very weird to think about."
"Indeed."
Flora pushed her glasses up her nose, "Sooo…what else?"
"You really don't want to hear the story of my life, do you?" Pony groaned.
"Of course I do! You've matured a lot since you first came to Forget-Me-Not and I'm curious about how you got from here to there!" Flora gave a warm smile.
Pony hesitated. Most off her life story wasn't one that she would be proud to tell, but she also knew that Flora wouldn't give her a rest until she had at least came partially clean.
"Well, if you must know," Pony rubbed her forehead as she began, "I was actually born on the farm back when my father, John, owned it. I don't remember anything about it, but my older sister, Molly, told me some stories. My father passed away when I was barely a year old and my mom, Sara, packed me and Molly up and moved to the city. She wanted to run the farm, but…she just couldn't. Not alone with two little girls to raise…It-it took me years to understand that and my ignorance made me say things that I'll always wish that I could take back," some tears began to form in Pony's eyes, but she pushed them back.
She continued, "I grew up to be as stereotypical as a city girl could get. Dirt appalled me and I was so prissy and…Ugh! I was so spoiled. It wasn't even my mother's fault! I was just a natural born brat! I was always so relieved that Molly was born first and would inherent the farm, because how could I stand to survive without my precious shopping malls and my exclusive clubs!" Pony's voice rose as she mocked herself, "But when Molly turned eighteen, a Harvest Sprite flew into our apartment and carried her away to Castanet, where she still is to this day."
"Did you just say…Harvest Sprite?" Flora raised her eyebrows.
"You're the one that wanted to hear this story. So, anyway, the farm fell to me and Pony-brat was not happy. I fought it for as long as I could and my mother was so nice about it. She gave me the chance to find my way, basically. To choose my own life. Unfortunately, I chose to party every night. My mom was concerned and sent Takakura to collect me. She told me to at least just give farming a chance…"Pony paused. Tears began to fall down her cheeks.
"I-I told her off, Flora," she wiped away some tears, "I called my own mother every swear in the book and called her a hypocrite for not taking the farm over herself. I-I told her that I never wanted to see her again…"
Pony looked up forlornly at the sky before saying the next words.
"I never did. She died about a year ago."
The two women walked in silence for several miles. Flora handed Pony a tissue and decided to not question her anymore. But the flood gates were open and Pony had a whole lot of guilt she needed to let out.
"As for Rock," Pony winced, "I think it's partially my fault he is the way he is. He was just turning eighteen when I first arrived and he was just so damn impressionable! I think I corrupted him. I basically told him it was awesome to be a lazy bum and dragged him with me to the clubs…and, this makes me gag so much to admit, I was possessive of him. I didn't want him around any other girls, but I never told him that I was attracted to him, because I wanted him to make the first move, only he never did. And because I was around him constantly, he never got to 'spread his own wings,' so to speak."
"So you and he never dated?" Flora cocked her head, "Everyone just assumed you did."
"Nope. Eternal friend-zone and boy am I grateful for that now! Ugh! Just thinking about those days makes me throw up in my mouth a little," Pony wasn't kidding. She had to stop and spit at the side of the road, "So, then the Harvest King punished the Harvest Goddess, because I was so lazy…"
"…Harvest King? Harvest Goddess?"
"Yes, try to keep up, Flora. And after that…I realized what a brat I had been. I changed my life around and became the extraordinary farmer you know today. Rock, however, still hasn't grown up. He's had plenty of time away from me to realize that what I taught him was wrong. Heck, I even admitted to him that I was wrong! But he still insists on being a lazy freeloader. It pains me to look at him. It's like looking into a mirror of who I would have become if I hadn't eventually found the right path," Pony's face became determined, "And I refuse to be that selfish waste of life ever again."
"Oh, Pony," Flora wistfully sighed as she watched the skyscrapers grow taller the closer they got to the city, "You are still very young. There are still plenty of paths you need to travel."
"Excuse me?"
"You'll understand when you're older. People never stop growing."
"I never said that. I just said that I've grown."
"And that you have, but you still have a long way to go."
"Whatever," Pony grumbled, "So what's your life story?"
Flora plucked a flower as she passed it. She sniffed it before she spoke, "Oh, mine isn't as…colorful…as your story is, but if you're curious…" she smiled, "I was born and raised in the city. I've always been fascinated with old tales and legends and figuring out things that happened in the past. So I decided to study archeology. I graduated from the College of Anthropology and was soon employed by the Archeologists Guild. They sent me to assist the professor in Forget-Me-Not, and here we are now."
"So I'm getting the non-Calvin version?"
"Like I said yesterday, Pony, you'll understand when you see him. But, if you want to know, Calvin and I were in the same grade. He was one of those popular boys who always had gaggles of girls around him. And for good reason! He was so handsome! And so smart! He graduated at the top of our class. And he was so nice! He always partnered up with me during class assignments and complimented me on my work…" she let out a blissful sigh and soon Flora was lost in memories. The rest of the trip was spent in silence.
They arrived at the city at eleven AM.
The city was a towering mass of buildings, technology, and people. While they didn't fly there were thousands of cars emitting water vapor into the air. That was new. The last time Pony was in the city, the cars still ran on toxins. The gigantic electronic screens that used to be connected to buildings were now on hover crafts. Across them flashed advertisements for musicals, hubots, shampoo...The fashions had changed too. The trend had been bright neon colors when Pony left and now people were sporting calm pastels. The buildings were still made of brick, mortar, and steel, but now, thanks to hubot hands it seemed, were in much better shape and there were no signs of dilapidation. There were hubots everywhere! Washing high-rise windows, going down into the sewers, pulling food out of ovens. The humans walked past them as if it were completely ordinary and didn't show a shred of uncanny valley.
"Wow…" Flora breathed as she took it all in.
Pony just shrugged.
They flagged down a taxi and were soon standing in front of the Guild of Archeology. It was a large marble building complete with rising stairs and tall pillars. It looked out of place and old fashioned among the glassy skyscrapers.
"It's member's only," Flora explained as she climbed the steps, "I'll only be a few minutes! How about you wait at the arcade across the street?"
Pony shrugged again and walked across the street to the arcade. It had been a long time since she had been in one, but it felt familiar and nostalgic just the same. Molly had taken her to arcades all the time when they were young and it invoked memories of her youth that didn't make Pony cringe. She settled for an older looking console that read Fix It Felix Junior and fed it a gold coin through the slot. An eight-bit jingle played and soon she was controlling a little man that fixed buildings as she jumped and avoided the objects thrown by the villain at the top. It made her smile and remember some of the conversations she and Molly use to have about the video games they played. They liked to pretend that the characters were really alive and that the console was their world. "Did they know that they were just video game characters?" they wondered. It was silly to think about now. Felix and the pixelated people were just computer code and would never be truly alive.
Eventually Pony came to a level that was too hard for her to beat and "Game Over" flashed across the screen. She turned to find Flora standing behind her.
"Calvin's in Castanet, just like your sister!" Flora smiled.
Pony smiled too, "That's great! I haven't seen her since her last daughter was born. I can visit her and I'm sure that she and her husband will let us stay with them."
"Awesome, now we just need to go buy some boat tickets and we'll be on our way!"
"Why do we need boat tickets?"
"Isn't Castanet an island?"
Pony groaned and put her palm to her face, "No, and I have NO idea where people get that misconception! Molly traveled there by horse-drawn cart, for the goddess' sake. You'd think it would be something that people would remember!"
Flora had no idea why Pony thought that everyone would know how her sister arrived in Castanet, or why she said it with such force, but chose to ignore it, "So why is it called Castanet then if there is a place called Harmonica Town within it? Shouldn't the whole place be called Harmonica Town?"
"That's actually a good question. Castanet is huge and the land is spread across many areas. The town is fairly far away from some of these areas, so the whole community was given a name to encapsulate it all."
"Fascinating."
"It's about a five day walk from here. We better get started."
Pony and Flora bade goodbye to the city and were soon back on the trail.
Their journey had only just started.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fix-It Felix Junior.
