MLP: Darkness Rising
Chapter 6 - Greater Power, Part 1
Disclaimer: My Little Pony is owned by Hasbro, and Stardust Balance was created by the Warrior of Twilight. I just own this story.
When Rainbow woke up again the following day, she was confused at first as to why she wasn't sleeping back in her own house, but a quick glance over at the nearby Anti-Stardust immediately caused her to remember last night's events, and the blue pegasus began to frown.
I know that Twilight's sort of giving him a second chance, but there's gotta be something that he isn't tell-
"... Rainbow… I'm… I'm sorry..." muttered a sleeping Anti-Stardust in a soft tone, and his expression now looked troubled, for some reason, while Rainbow's own turned to confusion as she wondered why he had said those words.
The scarred pony began to toss and turn on the blanket that he was laying on, and then, he quickly sat straight up with eyes opened wide and heavy breathing, looking like someone who'd just woken up from a bad dream.
"What… where…" Anti-Stardust began looking around the throne room, and his eyes soon settled on Rainbow, his breathing returning to a calm level as he remembered what had happened last night.
"You're still here, are you?" He muttered, rubbing away the oncoming tiredness in his eyes. "Maybe Twilight should just hire you to be her official royal guard of this castle… or has Stardust already taken that position?"
Irritation flashed across Rainbow's features as she replied, "It's like I said to you last night: You hurt Twilight in any way, and I'm gonna beat the livin' skylights out of you."
Anti-Stardust gave her an unimpressed look after hearing her 'threat' towards him, and asked, "Is all of this hostility towards me really just because I wrote some offensive stuff over your house?"
"No, it's because..." Rainbow started to say to him, but she stopped after the two of them noticed one of the doors to the throne room opening, and watched the castle's owner make her way in.
"Good, I was wondering when the two of you would finally be awake." Twilight began making her way inside, walking over to her throne. "Now we can get this meeting officially started."
Anti-Stardust was about to ask the young princess what she meant by that, but his answer was given by the entering of the rest of the Mane 6, and the scarred Earth Pony started to feel just a little nervous as he watched everyone quietly take to their respective throne.
Twilight made a gesture for him to join them, and with a sigh, Anti-Stardust walked over to the throne that belonged to his counterpart.
Just as he was about to get ready to sit in it, a scowling Rainbow cried, "Hey! Don't even think about sitting in something that doesn't belong to you!"
Stardust's girlfriend frowned at her friend's exclaimation, but after clearing her throat, the young alicorn said, "It would, uh, probably be best if…"
"Understood, Princess," replied Anti-Stardust, choosing instead to just stand in front of Stardust's throne, and Twilight gave a small nod.
"Right, then… the reason for why we're all here this afternoon is because Anti-Stardust has something very important to tell you all, which me and Rainbow and Spike are already aware of." She gestured over to the scarred pony with her hoof, and Anti-Stardust winced a little after seeing the rest of the ponies look at him, with only Rainbow's expression being the most negative one. "The floor is now yours."
After letting out a sigh, Anti-Stardust took a step forward, and thanked the young princess before recounting the events that had led to his appearance in the castle last night - entering the mysterious dungeon, defeating Xenos' henchmen, watching the hologram of Anti-Twilight disappear, and so on.
Then, once he was done, the rest of Twilight's friends softened their expressions a little (except for Rainbow), and the dark gold pony said, "I know I haven't exactly shown myself to all of you to be a trustworthy per - pony based on what occured in the past, but as I told Twilight yesterday, I'm not asking any of you ladies to show me forgiveness. All that I am asking for is help in getting back Anti-Twilight from wherever she is being held at, and once that's done, I… uh… yes, Pinkie?"
Pinkie had been raising her hoof up in the air, and after Anti-Stardust had spoken to her, the pink pony lowered it while asking, "Just a quick question! Um, do we still call you Anti Stardust, or just Stardust?"
Before the scarred pony could answer Pinkie's question, Rainbow gave out a scoff, and she exclaimed, "I have an idea - how about we just don't call him by that name in any way whatsoever?"
"Huh? But he looks and sounds exactly like our Stardust and all the other ones I've seen," pointed out Pinkie. "I mean, aside from the facial scars and the rougher voice and his eyepatch and whatnot."
"How did, ah, you even get all them scars anyway?" wondered Applejack, and the dark gold pony was quiet for a moment before he answered her.
"After… someone else close to me was taken away, I ended up having a sort-of momentary angered breakdown that involved a lot of, um, crystal being broken."
"Who was it?" asked Fluttershy.
Anti-Stardust became hesitant to answer the yellow pegasus, but then Pinkie suddenly raised up her hoof again, so he tried giving Fluttershy an apologetic look before going to the pink Earth pony. "Uh, let me get back to you on that real quick… yes, Pinkie?"
"How's the other me doing?" The rest of her friends all looked at her. "What? We sort of became friends the last time that I saw her."
"Why would you even want to be friends with an evil version of yourself, Pinkie?" exclaimed Rainbow.
Pinkie rolled her eyes, to the pegasus' surprise, and replied, "Anti-Me isn't that mean anymore, Rainbow; she just likes to blow stuff up."
"But her name is 'Anti' Pinkie-" pointed out a bewildered Rainbow.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean she has to act anti all the time, and that's also why I asked you earlier about your own name since it doesn't look like you're so mean as you used to be."
If Anti-Stardust had anything to say to her in response, he wasn't able to have that opportunity, thanks to a heated blue pegasus.
"I don't care what the heck he calls himself, but it shouldn't be Stardust! He doesn't even deserve to be called that!"
Alright, this mare's getting on my nerve, thought an irrited Anti-Stardust, now glaring at Rainbow. "Do you know how clueless you sound right now? First of all, I didn't ASK to be like this! You can blame that on Casey and Stardust for that. Second, what you said is... it's like me saying to Anti-Twilight that she doesn't deserve to be called Twilight."
"Well, she wasn't the one who did the things that you did to all of us, to Sunset, to the actual Stardust, to Casey," retorted Rainbow, now hopping right out of her throne while glaring back at him. "And do not call me clueless!"
Anti-Stardust scoffed, and he shook his head. "You gave me a reason anyway to say it, Rainbow, and not just with the whole 'name' thing. You have no idea how dangerous Xenos is in mine and Casey's universe… hell, he'd wipe the floor with Stardust if he ever went up against-"
"Alright, that's it!" exclaimed Rainbow, who was about ready to fly towards Anti-Stardust and presumably do some damage, but found herself being held back by Applejack. "Hey, let go of me!"
"You hush up for a lil' bit," said the farmer pony, and glanced back over at Anti-Stardust. "Um, you mind steppin' out in the hall for a lil' bit while we discuss some stuff?"
The scarred Earth Pony nodded his head, and swiftly headed out of the throne room before possibly doing something that he would regret.
As for Rainbow, she collapsed to the floor after being released by Applejack. "Oof! What was that for?"
"You need to take a page outta your own book, and chillax for a moment," said the orange mare. "He ain't had any reason to say those kind of things 'till you provoked him into doin' it."
"Yeah, well, he started it first by doing all of those bad things that happened to us in the past," reminded Rainbow, once she got back up to her hooves, and she rubbed the side of her head. "I don't even know why we're even talking about helping him in the first place."
"Um… well, he did ask us in his own polite way for help," pointed out Fluttershy.
"And I can't help but feel just a little sorry for Anti-Stardust after seeing what's happened to his face and everything since the last time we saw him," said Rarity.
Pinkie just nodded her head in agreement, and Rainbow started to groan in utter disbelief. "This is just… Twilight, please tell me that-"
However, for some reason, the purple alicorn princess was no longer inside of the throne room, and a confused Rainbow asked, "Um, where did she go? I didn't even hear her walk out."
"She did her vanishing teleportation thing right around the moment your argument with Anti-Stardust got worse," replied Pinkie, which made Applejack look at the blue pegasus with disappointment, and Rainbow turned away with a small expression of guilt on her face.
After walking out into the hallway, Anti-Stardust continued onward until he heard what sounded like familiar video game music coming from a nearby room, along with the frustating cries of a young dragon.
"Um… is everything okay in here?" asked the scarred pony, standing by the doorway to what he assumed was Spike's bedroom.
"It'd be fine if I could remember what the… darn level select code is for this - shoot!" groaned Spike, after failing to punch in the correct pattern of numbers for the game that he was currently playing. "Really wish Dad was here to…"
Did he say 'Dad' right now? thought Anti-Stardust, eyes widening in surprise. That must've been one hell of an episode, depending on what route Hasbro went with.
"So, you finally met your dad… what does he look like?" wondered the curious stallion. "He sleep on the roof of this place?"
Spike gave him a confused look. "No, Dad has his own room here… and he, uh, looks like - oh, come on!"
Anti-Stardust couldn't help but chuckle at Spike clearly not enjoying the fact that he was being so unsuccesful in punching in the game's level selection code.
"Try 1965, 09, 17."
The young dragon gave him a confused look, and Anti-Stardust nodded his head.
"Trust me, you punch in those numbers, and it'll make a different sound effect than the one you keep getting. When you see the title screen, press A and Start at the same time, and wa-lah, you got yourself the level select option… then, punch in 4, 1, 2, 6 on the sound test to get-"
Just as he was about to finish his sentence, Anti-Stardust saw something from the corner of his eye, and Spike watched the scarred pony quietly walked away from his doorway before turning his attention back to the television screen. "So nineteen... sixty-five… nine… then seventeen, and - whoa!"
A silent Twilight continued to slowly walk down the long hallway until reaching the door to her bedroom, and lowered her head so that she could push it open with her horn.
Then, after closing the door behind her, the young princess went over to the area that her desk was at, and turned around while laying back against the wall, followed by slowly sliding herself down until she was sitting down on the floor, making a "THUD" after doing so.
While lowering her head, Twilight let out a sigh before looking at the necklace that she always wore, and closed her eyes, becoming unaware of an unopened letter that had fallen off her desk after having sat down.
"What am I supposed to do?"
Outside of the bedroom door, Anti-Stardust had a roof raised up in preparation of knocking on it, but something inside of him was saying that it wasn't a good time to talk to Twilight, so he lowered his hoof down, and walked away in silence.