A pale orange dusk had gently washed over a sleepy Ponyville. Down the sidewalk in the residential district, Zack wearily turned towards the street where his abode was. He was absolutely exhausted, near ready to collapse on the ground if it meant he could release himself into sleep. His movements were slow and clumsy, and with each heavy step he forced out a breath as dry as the morning summer air. His back was slumped over, knees aching from overexertion, and fingers tight and stiff. His clothes were tattered, charred, ripped, and thoroughly drenched in sticky sweat. Using one hand, he pressed himself against a neighbor’s wrought-iron fence; with the other, he carelessly dragged his sword, the Prevailer, against the dirt and gravel path.
When he finally reached the front of his house, a last ebb of energy trickled through his veins. In a few inelegant steps, he blundered towards the front door across the tiny front lawn. He mistepped and tettered towards the bougainvillea bush by the door. In an awkward sway, he limply swung his blade to his side and forced it through the shrubbery. Zack then pushed himself off of the Prevailer’s pommel and forwards, banging his shoulder into the front door.
As he began to pat himself down, a terrible thought suddenly rushed to him. “Oh no…” Zack whimpered to himself. He began frantically pulling his pockets inside out. “No, I couldn’t have. Did I really?...” His heavy form slowly skidded down the front door and he ended up on his knees. “My keys… I lost my keys!…” He reached out his hands towards the dirt and in frustration dug his fingers into the crusty soil. He sighed and looked to his right towards the living room window.
He soon found himself prying the window open with his sword, breaking the hinges in the process. Zack scrambled through the pony-sized aperture like a drunken burglar. With one last focused heave, he squirmed himself through and lazily somersaulted into the room. Zack could forgive himself for the embarrassment of having to climb through his own window, but crashing through his Everfree oak wood end table was unforgivable. When the wreckage and Zack settled, he spread out prostrate in his living room. Sleep soon began to flood through his weary mind, his body relaxed and went limp. His breath became easy and his world began to peacefully dim.
“ZACCCKKKKIIIEEEE!!!!” an annoyingly pink voice screeched out.
“GOD! JESUS! FUCK!” Zack panicked as he flailed out his once limp limbs, all while pushing himself onto his backside. He met eyes with the pink pony as he grasped his chest, trying to force his pulsating heart to not break through his ribcage.
He gasped out in broken breathes, “Wha... Why would you?…”. He stopped himself and rolled back onto the floor. “Why me?” Zack defeatedly moaned. Pinkie gaily bounded over and seated herself next the human. He reached out his hand and tucked his fingers into her cotton candy plume of a mane.
Zack sighed, “How did you get in here?”
“I walked in! It was unlocked.” Zack said nothing. After a brief moment (rare while in dialogue with Pinkie Pie), she lilted out, “How was your dayyyy?” Zack pressed himself up again, his eyes heavy with annoyance and unease.
“Well… where do I begin?...” He crawled himself towards his favorite armchair and sank deep into the soft, crimson cushions. He fluttered his eyes shut, pushing to memory all that took place that day. He began by asking, “Do you remember when that manticore time-mage seized control of Equestria?”
“Of course!” chirped the pink pony. Zack noticed she was shuffling around, but didn’t care to open his eyes.
Pinkie continued, “Wasn’t its name Archmage Kov’Ada?”
“Precisely. Well he escaped his stone statue prison Luna had encased him in and, of course, I had to capture him again. So I Panexus’ed over there, and that’s when he ambushed me. I didn’t know he had the Scepter of Magacab. If I did, this story would have ended here and there.”
“Uh-huh” Pinkie agreed from across the room.
“So we were forced into prehistoric Equestria, which is where I broke the scepter to ensure he wouldn’t travel back in time. Since I beat Kov’Ada last time, I knew how to do it again. THAT, was the easy part! After I defeated Kov’Ada, Valiant was able to open a portal using one of the time keys he had acquired from Kov’Ada’s vaults in the Mires of Forchanna. Well unfortunately, he could only speak through the portal since he needed all nineteen time keys to fully open it. When I tore into Kov-Ada’s mind in mid-battle, I learned where he had hidden the rest of the keys. While he searched for them, I had to battle Kov’Ada’s demon-spirits that could travel through time. They would come every so often, and that lasted years on end.”
“Wait,” Pinkie interjected, “you were stuck in prehistoric Equestria for years?”
“Yeah I know, but since I’m immortal and,” he threw up his hands and motioned air quotes with his fingers, “‘the son of eternity’ I had to do it. You know, for the sake of Equestria or something like that. Anyways, while I searched for them I came into contact with hunter-gather ponies, and next thing you know, now I’m the chief of their tribe. I then had to unite all the tribes to gain access to some of the time keys that were in their lands. To do that, I had to speak with the matriarch goddess mare that all the tribes worshipped. So we talked, things got a little tense, and…”
“Don’t tell me you fought her too!”
“No no no… we made love under the sun and moon. Now that I think about it, it was sunset... and we were on a beach. And that’ll be the last time I’m having beach sex. Too much sand for me.”
Pinkie’s eyes widened “Ohhhh, how… er… romantic?”
“It was the only way, trust me! I solve a lot of problems with-" Zack paused and stated, “Forget it. Anyways, she had two mares she named Celestia and Luna, and now I know the awful truth of things. I probably won’t ever step hoof—I mean foot, in that castle again.”
“Zackie, could you repeat that again? Keep the mic about a hoof away from your face.”
“Wait wha-”, Zack leaned forward and opened his eyes as his face collided with a microphone, creating an electric shrill.
The entirety of the room had changed, all while Zack’s eyes were shut recalling his last adventures. Cords poured out through every other room, connecting into the center of the living room where now a large, wooden table was set up. A television was placed on the wall between the two and a camera was feeding back their live image onto the screen. Pinkie was situated on the other side of the table facing him, her attention engrossed with her guest. Gummy was behind her on a switchboard, which was next to the camera. Zack, dumbfounded by the moment, couldn’t stop peering around his house and wondering how in Equestria Pinkie had managed to do all this in under two minutes. He was even more shocked when he noticed that his end table was repaired.
“What is all this!?”
“This is my new podcast studio!”
“Wait… you’re into podcasting now? How long have you been doing this?”
“Since today,” she cheered “and you’re my first guest!”
“What’s the name of your podcast?”
Pinkie leaned over a soundboard in front of her and bopped a button with her nose. A clash of noises and voices came out of the speakers between them.
“Pink Pony Podcast, check it out” a voice said though the speaker, which suspiciously sounded like Spike’s.
“THE. PINK. PONY.” a robotic voice chimed.
“Pinkie Pie by day,” an obvious sounding Rainbow Dash yelled out, “The Pink Pony Podcast by night… ALL DAY.” A kick drum rolled afterwards, and then a crash of cymbals and a catchy guitar riff followed suit, which slowly faded into the background.
“Hello, freak ponies!” Pinkie began, directing her voice into the mic, “Welcome to the Pink Pony Experience. I’m your host, Pinkie. Today, we’ll be interviewing the man, the legend, the bipedal-iest bipedal of them all. You know him as Zack, but today we’ll be doing a deep dive into the real identity of this mysterious person.”
“What is that supposed to-!?”
“But first,” Pinkie interrupted, “a quick message from our sponsor…” Gummy gurgled out a hiss and chomped down on his gums. Pinkie looked over and placed a hoof to her ear.
“What’s that, Gummy? We don’t have any sponsors? Of course we do! Ummm…” Pinkie trailed off, placing her hoof under her chin. “Oh! I know! Sugarcube Corner! Drop by and use our special discount code word ‘PINKIE2020’ to receive some nasty glares from the owners! They don’t like it, but I tell everyone they’ll get twenty percent off their order if they do it. And I find it hilarious!” Pinkie roared with laughter, nearly slipping right out of her seat.
Zack, still in bewilderment by everything going on, stated “This is the strangest thing that has yet to happen to me in Equestria.” He looked back towards the pony and remarked, “Why did you turn my house into a podcast studio? And have you ever considered working in a recording studio? I couldn’t help but notice you color-coded the wiring for, well, everything.”
“Well I didn’t have room in my attic bedroom! Speaking of which, this podcast is also brought to you by attics! Do you know what’s in yours! Find out today, or never!”
Pinkie stamped her hooves down on the table and stared into Zachary’s eyes as if he was her mortal enemy. “And Zachary, you’re wrong about this being the strangest thing that’s ever happened to you… or should I call you… SECRETS AND LIES!”
Zack, befuddled beyond reasoning, blinked and said, “What!? What are you talking about? I am so confused…”
“I know it, we all did! You’re nothing more than a self-insert character! A writer’s biggest mistake and you KNOW IT!”
“Pinkie,” Zack breathed, gently pushing her pointing hoof out of his face, “I think you’ve finally lost it… That, or what you just said was a pretty whimsical insult.” Zack scratched his head and pondered aloud, “I wish this was all a story. Then again, I did try to kill myself before being whisked off here. It really makes you think if this is all... a badly written story.”
“Oh, I’ll show you badly written!” Pinked leaned forward and asked, “Have you tried PMT?
“Premenstural tension?”
“No!!! Pinkiepimethyltryptamine!”
“I beg your pardon?”
Pinkie tilted back, then swung herself under the table. She popped up and produced a small, silver pen-looking device with a glass straw on the top.
“Here, take this vape.” she said as she rolled the item towards him. Light danced off of the rotating, surgical-steel cylinder until Zack grabbed the vaporizer. An amber liquid washed around inside its casing as he studied it closely.
“Pinkie, I didn’t know you did drugs.”
“Hah!” Pinkie sarcastically laughed, then coolly replied, “You thought I was sober the whole time? Do sober ponies act like me?” She then slammed her hooves back on the table. “Do they!? Of course not!”
“I kind of wish I had known this a long time ago. Where do you get drugs from?” Pinkie rolled her eyes.
“Valient, duh.”
“Valient!? Ah. Of course. That makes sense to me. We’ve smoked pony-weed before at Canterlot castle.”
“Mhh…” Pinkie moaned, “that’s the good stuff…”
Zack’s eyes darted back down to the vape. “So, this will get me high?”
“Oh yeah! Just hit it for maybe, like, I don’t know.” She turned towards Gummy and asked, “How long do you usually hit it?” The alligator let out a long hiss, followed by faint chewing noise. “I see,” Pinkie responded, turning back towards Zack. “About five seconds.”
Zack enjoyed the idea of finally being able to relax. Of course, he couldn’t do it while Pinkie had broken into his home, so he thought maybe this little bit of a drug would help ease or unwind his mind. Zack tried to take a hit from the vaporizer, but it didn’t seem to work.
Pinkie chimed in, “Oh, so press the middle button five times. It’ll blink five times afterwards, then you can hit it.”
“Oh, gotcha.” He followed her instructions, and the pen’s light flashed bright red five times. He held down the button and took a long drag. He could feel the metallic-tasting vapors whisp into his mouth and down his throat. He moved the pen away from his mouth and let out a long breath of faint, gray vapor. Pinkie watched in silence, being attentive to his body language.
Within a few seconds, Zack knew he had royally messed up this time. Not only did he childishly forget to ask what PMT does, he did so in front of an invisible audience of listeners and watchers. Before he could think of the consequences, he felt a sudden headrush while his mind tightened into a shrinking funnel of ever-increasing thoughts. Colors began to brighten as the grains in the wooden table shifted like the current of a river. Between Pinkie and himself, twisting shapes and intricate mandalas began to infinitely assemble and disassemble themselves. He felt his soul opening and receiving all the hidden truths as his world began to slide into uncertainty. His heart ached for all lifeforms, though he felt like everything in the end would be okay, and that world peace could easily be achieved. Zack zoned out, gaze adjusted upwards toward a morphing ceiling. He exhaled a weak laugh as a smile curved up upon his face.
The visions became so immense that he could no longer tell if his eyes were open or closed. He looked up at Pinkie, who seemed shrouded in a saintly aura of iridescent hues. Her curls spiraled infinitely inward, her eyes glowed fresh like sun-lit morning dew. Zack looked towards the mirror on the wall by the front door. His face was becoming lean and his eyes had grown larger. In the transition, his face finally became that of a skeleton, personifying his fear of death and getting older. Then, he began to feel something new, more like someone entering into his mind’s eye and overcoming his personality. His ego began to drift, dissolving into the bleakness of inner consciousness, all while this newness took over his every essence.
He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and grinned towards the pony across from home. He was lucid again. In fact, he was now more clear headed than he had ever been in his life. Scarily sober, yet renewed like the morning of a new day.
Pinkie smiled back and questioned, “Did it work? Did I finally get you here, Secrets and Lies?”
Zack turned towards the camera and said to the world, “Hello, freak bitches.”
_________________________________
Pinkie flipped a switch and proclaimed, “Welcome back, every pony! This podcast is brought to you by the Ponyville Public Library. Where you can find... books! That’s about it. Anyways, back to the show!”
She turned towards the human and started, “What should we call you for this show, mister human person thing?”
“Secrets, I guess?”
“Okay, weirdo! Secrets it is!” She pointed a hoof towards him and promptly asked, “Why are you called Secrets and Lies anyways?”
“Pinkie said it once during the first season, I think it was the one where you go crazy and have a tea party with inanimate objects. I wanted to create a username based off of a quote from you, so I Googled quotes and for some reason I got the ‘Secrets and lies... It’s all secrets and lies with those ponies!’”.
“Aww, I’m flattered!”
“Well, I guess it’s okay to flatter myself at this moment.”
Pinkie pounded her hoof back on the table, spilling over a bowl of jelly beans in the process, and implored, “Secrets, the people want to know the truth! Why did you stop writing!?” Secrets leaned back, eyes tracing the now still ceiling.
“I got bored and life for me changed. I started seeing someone and my attention became diverted. I completely stopped writing after I finished college and moved out of my parent’s house. Over the course of time, I wanted to go back and continue writing. As time went on, it became harder to write, and harder to recall what I had planned for Savior of Eternity. That’s pretty much it.” A new thought rushed into Secret’s head and he added, “Oh. And I distanced myself from the community. Bronies were always a strange, eclectic group of people; but the fandom just started, well, over-sexualizing everything. That kind of turned me away from it in the beginning. That and the show started getting worse. I think I stopped at the end of season four.”
Pinkie scratched the underside of her chin and mused “Well no doubt about that last part. That leads me to the next big question, the juicy stuff every pony wants to hear. What happens in Savior?”
Secrets sighed and replied, “To start, I didn’t really have a plan going into Savior. I mean I didn’t really have a solid idea for the first book either, as you can tell by the jumpiness of the story. The second book was more of an established idea, so it seemed pretty easy to hash out. By the third book, I didn’t know how to tie it all together. Going in I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to explore, I really wanted to expound on Zack’s consequences for his hermit lifestyle choice, as well explore new places and the eventual future of Equestria. I’ll get into those ideas later.”
“Yeah yeah, but what happens next!” Pinkie’s eyes beamed as she tried to recall what had happened in the story so far. “So it starts for some reason with a crazy creation story. Something like there’s a chain of universes (Katkahas), and each link is the entirety of one existence to the next. From each link is taken a being that becomes the ‘Dierus’ of the next link, and also from each link is taken the most perfect elements from the next. The idea was that they would eventually create a perfect realm for the supreme god-pony thing to come to.”
Secrets nodded and stated, “Sure, Aeterus I think was the god-pony’s name. I like the idea of it being a god-pony, but go on.”
“And then thirty-three years after Slave of Eternity, Twilight gets summoned by Celestia to search for Zack, ends up on an island of actual horses, falls in love, continues on her quest to Firelight Woods where she eventually meets the deer people, a.ka. the Cervians, a.k.a. the elves. They take her to their capital, Cervidas, where Zack has been in some dumb silent meditation retreat. Zack whines about not wanting to come back, how he keeps messing things up; well he eventually decides to come back to Ponyville cause he looked into those mirror pools and sees Valak, and a dragon, and all sorts of stuff!”
She took a long inhale and continued, “Meanwhile the griffon king, Valak, who is controlled by Tirek through the staff he found in that temple in the Icicle Mountains, finally goes on his war campaign towards Equestria. He gets delayed by the pony army from Manehatten, but also releases some mountain-sized dragon, Malorga I think its name was... Anywho, Malorga was a part of a race of master-beings that once forced the ponies underground.”
Secrets added, “Just like in Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann.”
“Correct! Anyway, the dragon attacks Manehatten, cool action scenes and stuff. Eventually Zack makes it back to Ponyville and is overwhelmed with culture shock. Something about an evil politician taking over Ponyville is briefly talked about. They all go to Canterlot, Luna challenges Zack to an all-lunar magic duel. Next day, pony delegates meet at Canterlot. After that, Zack briefly meets Rainbow Dash for the first time since they last saw each other until Celestia pulls him away inside, telling him she needs to show him something.”
Pinkie gasped and wheezed out, “Is that pretty much everything so far?”
“Yeah, pretty much the important stuff.”
Pinkie caught her breath and chuckled, “Well no wonder why it was hard to start writing again. You already had so much information packed in there.”
“I could have been better about writing my story ideas down. If I would have done that I probably could have finished it.” Secrets cleared his throat and began, “Well, the next chapter starts when-”
“Hey, Secrets?”
“Yes Pinkie?
Pinkie raised a hoof and said, “Keep your mouth about a hoof away from the mic.”
“Oh, sorry about that.” He adjusted the microphone and continued.
“Celestia takes Zack up into one of the castle towers, into some sort of alchemical lab Celestia owns. She then brings out some large bowl of glowing water and then tells him that she will be showing him what the Foreseer showed her. She casts a spell and all of the sudden we’re back on Earth in the past, when Zack was only a child. Zack’s dad is going to work while neglecting his sons. He drops them off for school and heads to where he works, some large government-funded research lab. He goes through all of these security checks until he is deep underground where we meet his small team of coworkers.
“They’re all supposed to be working on this artificial intelligence, but Zack’s dad is also secretly doing gene manipulation on various animals to speed up their evolution and see which one is capable of sentience first. He eventually experiments with a pony and discovers that it will, somehow, be the next species to evolve into sentience. He presents his findings to the board members of the research department, including the pony (which can now talk). They, of course, are mad that their funding was secretly being used for some unrelated side project. Since he has such a security clearance and knows about the AI project, instead of firing him, the board members force him to destroy his research and continue working on the main project; and that if they find him disobeying again they will kill him. He ends up living at the lab against his will, making his family think he has abandoned them.
“I hadn’t thought it out entirely, but years pass and Zack’s dad eventually sabotages the AI project and connects it to the internet. From there the world descends into quick chaos and the singularity happens.”
Pinkie raised her hoof and yelled, “Quick question! What is ‘the singularity’?”
“Good question!” Secrets replied using his best Shrek impression. “The singularity--or technological singularity--is a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization.”
“Oh... What a peculiarly precise answer. Well, continue!”
“Right, so that happens. What comes next is that Zack’s dad is chosen to be the next Dierus in the next chain link universe... thing. But before he can, he has to bring over every perfect thing from the last universe into the new universe. One of those things is the AI, which becomes what the ponies know as the Foreseer.”
“What!?” Pinkie yapped, “Are you kidding me?”
“Not only that, he brings over his sons, Zack and Jason. He brings Jason to an earlier time in pony history, and his journeys overlap into Moonsinger’s. That was eventually going to be a spinoff series called Secrets of Eternity, where Moonsinger, Celestia’s protege at the time, is tasked to retrieve a sacred flower that grants immortality. This is also where the references to The Ballad of Moonsinger came from, she was a leader of a small group of ponies that were tasked with the same objective.”
“Huh, well that might have been interesting to read.”
Secrets laughed, “Hah! Probably not. But it definitely would have explained why Spitfire was immortal. Anyways, Zack is also brought into the new universe, but was chosen to come at a later time. The moment Zack was sucked into the TV was when the singularity event happened. The physical and digital realities merged into one reality. So that’s the next chapter.”
“Wow! And to think, that might have been fun to read too.”
“Oh yes,” Zack leaned back in his chair and grinned. “I’m full of disappointments.”
Pinkie bounced to an upright position and continued, “That still doesn’t answer my question, Zackie!” Pinkie blinked, then sputtered, “I-I mean, Secrets.”
“After that... my thoughts on the story get messy. There was probably going to be some war preparations, and time for Zack and Rainbow to get reacquainted, or rather end things. The griffon armies eventually make it to Equestria where a legion of ponies, horses, and Cervians are already ready to hold them off. Tirek summons Malorga, and before they can do anything, Nambeleen (the leader of the Cervians) gives Twilight Sparkle the Catalyst Stone. The stone and the Elements of Harmony, the main six combine into a eight-legged, giant angelic alicorn pony called Sleipner.”
“Oh!” Pinkie interrupted, “So Odin’s personal horse?”
“Er... peculiarly precise, Pinkie.”
“I like looking at the norse mythology section in the Ponyville Library.” She turned towards the camera, winked, and added, “Visit it today!”
Secrets carried on, “So they fight, turns out even the Elements of Harmony can’t hurt it. Truth is, not everyone was in sync with another, which made their final form perform worse. Both Pinkie and Rainbow were hurt by Zack’s prior actions and absence, which caused the whole group to fail.”
“Tragic!” blurted out the pink pony.
“They did happen to weaken Malorga, but Zachary would have to finish the job... without the Prevailer.”
“Wait! Where is that stinken sword at anyways?”
“Don’t you remember? He left it at Rhignes Rock where his old hut was that Celestia gave him. He first wanted to fight Malorga on his own, but realized he had to retrieve his sword. So they had to bide their time as Zack used his magic to bring it back all the way to Equestria. Like how he’s called his sword in the past, from one end of a room to his hand, he did the same thing. Once he got it, that’s when he finally fought and killed Malorga. After that, Valak (Tirek) started the battle. Crazy action scenes occur, everyone’s fighting on the ground and in the air, and magic is happening all over the place.
“Zack fights Valak, Valak takes you hostage, and-”
Pinkie’s eyes widened and she proclaimed, “He takes me hostage!?”
“Well, yes... Zack stops his duel and for a moment, he looks like he’s close to killing you. Then Zack uses his lunar magic, summons a spike that impales Valak, who then releases Pinkie. All looks to be going well until the staff Tirek is bound in floats above Valak’s corpse. It speaks and then becomes the classic Tirek we know, the evil centaur looking guy.”
“Hey, that kind of sounds like the end of that video game, Majora’s Mask.”
“Well,” Secrets fumbled for the right words, but gave up saying, “Yes, when the mask is revealed to be sentient.”
“Gosh darn, what a good game!”
“Yes, lots of inspiration for the Eternity series came from that game.”
“You mean Halo?”
“That too, lots of weird Halo quotes in this series. And so, with Tirek back, he rushes towards Pinkie and gores her.” Pinkie gasped and held her hooves over her mouth.
“Secrets! You would kill me off! And like that!?”
“Eh, took long enough.” Pinkie grabbed a hoof-full of spilled jelly beans and pelted Secrets with them.
Pinked yelled in defiance, “I can’t die! I’m the most beloved character in the series, even in the show!”
“I agree with you, entirely. But I think it had to be done. See, I wanted Zack to be further isolated than he already was. This seemed to be the best way to do it. I had further ideas that could only be continued if, well, you weren’t there.” Pinkie scowled across the table towards this new, un-Zack lack human. A moment of awkward silence hung over the makeshift podcast studio. Zack cleared his throat and continued when he thought it was appropriate.
“Zack ends up defeating Tirek,” he proceeded. “I won’t go into any details of the fights, it doesn’t really matter at this point. The griffons had been defeated and Celestia and Luna make a pact with the remaining forces to cease the violence and bring about a new age of harmony. Zack, too shocked and miserably stricken with grief, walks away from the battlefield. Twilight, Valiant, and Luna try to console him, but he won’t listen to them. In his grief, he goes to Canterlot castle to his abode in the western tower. Luna approaches him again, and knowing Zack, she offered her enigma chamber to him. Zack tells him that he’ll use it to meditate in and find peace. Once he’s there, he locks the engima chamber and no one is able to enter it again. Completely separated from Arteria, he finds himself in a stasis chamber of his own making. That would be the end of part one.”
Pinkie took a moment to gather her thoughts and wondered aloud, “The story could go anywhere now.”
“That was the issue.” Secrets explained, “For the second part, I originally wanted to turn Equestria into a modern city in a police-state, where Canterlot has gotten so large that it envelopes Ponyville, turning it into a magic city. Zack is woken up by the Dierus, his father, who tells him something along the lines of Tirek was never defeated, and can’t be defeated without first finding and destroying the Foreseer. Something about the Foreseer merged with Tirek’s spirit, though its power and influence remain unknown to the Father. Zack decides to finally leave the engima chamber into the crumbling, now tourist attraction, Canterlot Castle.
“After that, I was thinking of adding a mystery-stealth element to the whole second part, where he uses that one mask artifact that allows him to take on the appearance of an earth pony. He explores the city, and finds Moonsinger in an alleyway he passes. She doesn’t know who he is, and he finds out that this is the first time she meets him. From there, I believe I get into some stealth and sabotage missions into Apple Acres Corp involving Zack, Luna, Moonsinger, and Twilight Sparkle. That’s about as far as I got. Oh, and Luna was supposed to die in the second part too.
“Did you have any other ideas for Savior? Did it have an end?”
“Yeah I had a few more, and yes it did have an ending. I wanted to either do the future route for the second part, or do a similar plan like I had for Secrets of Eternity, but this time it would be the main five plus Zachary. By the end of the second part, Zack again decides to wait indefinitely in the enigma chamber, forcing himself further into time. By the time of the final act, Zack would have been forced out due to the integrity of the castle. As he leaves, the doors and archway of the enigma chamber crumble behind him. Zack is now in the far future.
“He notices how deserted the castle is, and when he reaches a window he notices vast and intricate skyscrapers and a more wild looking cityscape, except everything is overgrown and large swaths of land are now barren and abandoned. Red deserts encroach around the once megacity of Canterlot. Zack comes to find a weakened Celestia in the top-most tower. She tells him what had happened, how the ponies mined too deep and discovered the Foreseer. The Foreseer than quickly inoculated one pony after another, using them as sources of energy to further increase its own power. Soon enough, the Foreseer took over Arteria, and was more powerful than Celestia could handle. The Foreseer then made a deal with Celestia that he wouldn’t kill her or any other pony, that he would place them in battery chambers and give immortal life, as well as a virtual reality in which they are endlessly happy. All he wanted was for her to continue raising the sun and moon, and to stay out of his plans. She had no real power over the AI, so the Foreseer went through with his plan and Celestia continued her divine duty.
“Celestia gives Zack both the Catalyst Stone and the Elements of Harmony, as well as his ethereal sabatons and other artifacts. He eventually confronts Foreseer, or rather calls out to him. The Foreseer is summoned and soon takes the shape of a human. The Foreseer goes on to tell him how every action Zack made was advantageous to him as well, that almost everything he had done allowed for his power to continue to grow. Zack makes peace with his choice, and decides to fight one last time. The two clash, but in the end, Zack is nearly defeated. In a final effort, Zack swings the Prevailer towards the Foreseer, and the Foreseer destories the sword. In shock, Zack falls to his knees and waits for his life to end. And that’s when we find out that the Prevailer was itself an enigma chamber, and in it was Jason.
“Say what!?” screeched the pink pony “How did he get in there in the first place?”
“The idea was that in the first part of Savior, when Moonsinger tells Zack about meeting Jason in the Forest of Night, and eventually him losing his life to Tirek, Moonsinger used her magic to create an enigma chamber in the sword, and forced Jason into it to save his life. When the Prevailer is destroyed, a blinding light encompasses the battlefield and Zack is thrusted inside. The light turns out to be the enigma chamber slowly dissolving and releasing its magic, kind of like a supernova. When Zack is inside it, Jason meets him and explains that with every fight he had been a part of, he grew stronger himself, and that the magic the Prevailer had in it was Jason’s own magic. In the enigma chamber, his powers only grew stronger. So together, they were able to defeat the Foreseer, releasing the denizens of Arteria, and restoring Celestia’s full strength. In the process of the fight, Zack does end up sacrificing himself in an attempt to siphon magic from himself to Jason to deliver a final blow. After that, Zack eventually dies in his brother’s arms.
“The dierus, Zack’s own father, greets him in the greater realm (Anunimun) and embraces him with open arms. He is ecstatic and tells Zack that if it wasn’t for him, they would once again have to continue the chain further, but because he stopped Discord, Tirek, and the Foreseer, balance had finally been restored. The last and final chain would be the paradise that was envisioned by the first dierus, and finally the supreme creator being, Aeterus, would finally return. Zachary uses this power and creates a new universe, where both ponies and humans come to live... in harmony.”
Pinkie clapped her hooves and concluded, “And they all lived happily ever after!”
Secrets smiled, “Yep, something like that.”
________________
Zack left the confines of his chaotic living room with a hand grasping his forehead. His mind felt like jelly, and his memories of what had happened slowly swept away into a fog of forgetfulness. With a change of temperature and light, he noticed he was out in front of his house, staring down the pathway towards a friendly stallion.
“Care to take a walk?”
Zack nodded, “I would appreciate that, Valiant.”
The pegasus pony used one of his wings to reach inside his messenger back, in which he acquired two smoking pipes. He offered one to Zachary, but the weakened human declined.
Perplexed, Valiant wondered, “What’s gotten into you?” Zack walked towards the stallion and the two proceeded down a dusty road.
“I tried something called PMT that Pinkie gave me, and I think my mind is still pretty fried from it.”
“Oh really,” Valiant chuckled, “I love that stuff.”
The two friends casually made their way to Ponyville Park. It was after midnight and not a soul was out besides the two. The evening air hummed with cicadas and crickets, and frogs croaked back and forth between each other. They reached a small bridge that crossed over a brook, the two stopped and leaned over the railing. Valiant gazed upwards towards the glittering heavens, the arm of a local galaxy swept over Arteria like a cirrus cloud.
Valiant puffed out a cloud of smoke and began to speak, “Another peaceful night in Ponyville.” He drew his eyes away from the sky and set them towards Zack, “Or until there’s trouble.”
Zack breathed, “No doubt...” The evening air was beginning to reel his mind back to its normal sanity. He took another deep breath and sighed, “I just feel so... tired. Like no amount of sleep will get me to wake up.” Zack looked down into his murky reflection in the water. “My life has been so up in the air lately, and I have this horrible feeling that life’s going to get even worse for me. That life itself has already been planned out, like I’m in some torturous destiny.”
“Pshhh, that’s nonsense.” stipulated the stallion. “Zack, you can do whatever you wish here. You don’t need to go anywhere, you don’t need to do anything for that matter. Why put all this unneeded pressure on yourself? It’s not like you’re bound to some destiny out of your control. You have the freedom to choose your path. You get what I mean?”
In that moment, Zachary felt as if a great weight was being released from his body. There was a new path beginning to open in his life, and he felt no longer trapped by his preconceived notions. For all this time, he felt like a stranger in a foregin land, never to assimilate no matter how hard he tried. In all that trying, he felt more isolated; but now it was clear to him, he was free from the shackles he chained himself to.
After some thought, and when the stillness of the night enveloped the two once more, he spoke with clarity, “I think I’m done. I’m done worrying. I’m done trying to be a part of this world. I’m done trying, because I didn’t need to try in the first place.” He smiled down at the tall pegasus pony and recognized, “This place is my home, and I’m going to start enjoying it. I’m finished with adventuring.”
Valiant raised an eyebrow and pried, “You make it sound like it’s a good thing you’re done exploring Equestria. What, you think you’ve seen it all? You think evil isn’t going to come storming into Equestria ever again?”
Zack grinned and replied, “I think I’ve seen enough. And to me, that’s a good thing. To imagine what it might be like to lose a place like this, to give it up so easily. Equestria is an extraordinary place, and ponies are amazing beings, who all have accepted me, a human. Why would I give that up?” Zack peered up towards a crescent moon and added, “If there’s one adventure left to have, its life’s adventure here in Ponyville.” He shrugged and concluded, “If evil does come to Equestria, I’m sure we’ll figure out a way to stop it like we always do. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy this peace for as long as I can.” He turned and made his way off the bridge.
Valiant rolled his eyes and followed him, saying, “Sounds pretty cheesy to me. Not the Zachary I know, that’s for sure. No more PMT for you, oh enlightened being.”
Zack turned and asked, “Ready to turn back home?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Valiant clopped up next to Zack and said, “Listen, I just want you to know that I cherish our friendship. And even though it saddens me that you won’t be adventuring again, just know that I support you in whatever you’re doing.”
Zack smiled and placed a hand on Valiant’s scruffy mane. He gave it a firm rub and concluded, “That’ll do, stallion. That’ll do.”
Valiant was bewildered by such a random response, so much so that he didn’t realize Zack had stopped petting him and had already started walking away.
“Hey!” the stallion called out, “What does that even mean... Wait, come back!” Valiant caught up with Zachary as the two proceeded, side by side, into a sleeping Ponyville.
Pinkie watched them through Zack’s bedroom window as they walked together into the murky distance. She turned away to exit the room, but only stuck her head out into the hall towards the descending staircase. She had a puzzled, perplexing look on her face as she turned to face you.
“What?” She said, slowly approaching towards you from down the hall. “You’re still reading?” Her mouth, agap in disbelief, waited silently for your answer.
“It’s over,” she flatly said, “go home.” Pinkie rolled her eyes and explained, “Listen, this is it. Sorry, no more chapters, no more updates... It’s time to move on, everypony.”
Her attitude changed to exasperation, “I get it, you’re sad or confused, or maybe just as annoyed as I am. But hey, at least he wrapped it up. I did you bunch of bipeds a favor!” Pinkie groaned and said, “Okay okay, probably another blog post is coming, talking about new writings or whatever, but nothing in the My Little Pony universe, okay?”
“How about this...” Pinkie proposed, “Why don’t you write whatever questions, comments, rants, or ravings you have for Secrets in the comment section below, and I’ll make sure he answers them lickty-split. Then again, it is the holidays after all. It’s twenty-twenty, we’re all trying our best here, folks.”
She proceeded towards the bedroom door, but turned back towards the reader. She gestured her hoof out in front her and restated, “Go, sillys! I’ll see you guys in the funny papers. Trust me, I read those every day!” She closed the bedroom door behind her, and that was that.
Thank you for reading my story, the Son, Slave, and Savior of Eternity.
Take care of yourself, it’s a crazy world out there.