Title:           Anon Falls - The Last Hive, Crystopolis, and Abraxo
Author:          Anonymous
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/11pk83ea
First Edit:      Wednesday 13th of May 2015 08:43:02 PM CDT
Last Edit:       Wednesday 13th of May 2015 08:43:02 PM CDT

"And you're quite certain that wasn't from Taint exposure."
 
"If you pardon the cliché Mother Xeta, we wouldn't be talking to each other if I was."
 
Not entirely convinced, the travelling merchant gave Anon 97 a memorable look of skepticism.
 
"Nothing but snow, snow, and more snow past Stalliongrad?" She pressed his claim.
 
"Yeah."
 
Agreeing, Anon 97 figured given 'The Story' concluded around mid-season 2, nothing past those episodes ever transpired. Events kick-started the tension between Equestria and Zebrica before The Canterlot Wedding could occur, the Crystal Empire.
 
Made sense, 97 reflected, if they existed in this universe where 'The Story' never mentioned them once, it would've just felt pandered and hammered.
 
'I feel pandered and hammered' was 97's glum assessment of himself.
 
The one boon he got out of his pony lottery was that just about every native Equestrian was willing to brave dangers, distance and pay to see him. And 97 seems to give a subtle presence that makes visitors so compliable to pay extra for the town's wares.
 
There were a few who thought he was a super-radioactive mutant, but those were mild compared to all those 'Can I touch you?' requests.
 
Despite the zebra's perplexing at the sight of him, the goods Anon 97 had sold to her today netted him a whole quarter more net than what the Pipbuck projected them for.
 
"But well worth the trip. Your fellows are colorful spirits." Mother Xeta balanced her disbelief to 97's claims, "I'll consider taking up your Go-Two's offer to deposit some of my local wares for safekeeping and ease of burden. And maybe," she gave a wink before she left, "You consider my offer at the tavern tonight."
 
Anon 97 maintained his cheeky smile right until the merchant left, giving way to most tired mid-day yawn he had in a year.
 
The sense of fascination wore off, not to them, but to him. While not one of the core members of the town, he was the best adept to be one of the town's general merchant. Being a cellphone salesman in a past life didn't hurt.
 
But his dreams of visiting the landmarks outside of Rainbow Falls, to sightsee the ruins of Canterlot from a distance, take an anonymous trip to New Appleloosa and give Derpy a surprise hug. Impossible. Prohibited. Because he is in the body of a breed of Pony that never existed in this reality. One of a kind. And that made him a favored target for slavers.
 
And so day in and day out since 97 was dropped down to Equestria, he's been constrained to this elevated wasteland settlement. His customers are awed by what 97 was, but he was awed by the tales they regaled of their journey.
 
"Damn." he cursed *everything*.
 
Might as well take stock of inventory while he's alone, with the town's initial junk loot dwindling, it was a godsend the Anons finally restored the Stable's hydroponics beneath the town, so that at least gave them pure beverages and produce to hand out at premium price.
 
"Three waters, a conductor, two apple ciders..." he listed down wares to restock for tomorrow.
 
The bell's shingle above the door informed him to cut his routine very short.
 
"Hello, hello!" The Crystal Anon beams a smile to...ooookay, customer wearing a full concealing cloak? Don't mind if he pulls the drawer out with the plasma pistol inside. Just in case.
 
"Welcome to Minute Stop." he followed the script, "General goods and all that. If it's weapons, I only got low calibres without the ammo. You'll find the vendor for that in one of the tents outside."
 
This customer clearly was up to something, he, or she was visually scanning across the shelves and ceiling, studying where Anon 97 was working at rather than 97 himself.
 
"The big clinic if you want to find our doctor, believe it or not, and..." he stopped the cloaked guest's straight direction at him with loud clatter of his pistol dropping on his desk, "Right next door for the town guards."
 
A mare Anon 97 could gather underneath that hood, a pearl-rose mane in contrast to her still-youthful complexion. Her eyes though really set a foreboding warning off. Now even raiders carried that cartoonish glimmer in their eyes, something about hers though seemed different.
 
"You can't be real." said the mare and it sounded more rhetorical than an actual accusation.
 
"Beg your pardon?"
 
"I know every face and name in my clan. And nopony except for me ever ventured outside our home." Anon 97 reached his hoof for the pistol the moment hers did, only keeping still over the weapon when it was just to uncurl her hood. "Are you from another lost tribe? Our homeland? I know you’re not the mutant you claim to be."
 
Her eye glimmers, Anon 97 now realized, were pentagonal. With all the mares open features putting the puzzle together. The strands of her mane, melded together in one form with several prisms of color. Only her coat was pale. A telltale sign of a Crystal Pony lapsed in its depressed state.
 
"But this is a sign. I know it is."
 
They're real, Anon 97 couldn't breathe. How could they be real? All the books and orbs the Anons scavenged confirmed the Crystal Empire never remerged.
 
"Help us!" He should've drawn the weapon, but the sight of the impossible kept him frozen when the pearl Crystal Mares reached to touch him, "Whatever you may be, this is a sign. Crystopolis will die out if we don't get help. I don't care what father said."
 
00000
 
*Tsst!*
 
"Shit..." Dash and Stampede doesn't hold shit compared to the stuff back on earth. Anon 93 gave a hearty laugh at the ceiling, what would her rehabilitation counselor think of her right now?
 
Thankfully, her new body can purge chemical impurities with but a thought. It's only weakness, psychological weakness she keeps delving back into this.
 
Goddamn, fuck all those fics who made up changelings opening a brothel for a living, because they were fucking right and wrong at once.
 
She was rich, fucking rich in caps. All in exchange for selling herself for her secondary required nutrition. So that kinda debunks all the 'only needs love to fuel magic' wagon.
 
Some days her clients were good, wanting to make love one more time to their dead wives...or husbands. That Anon 93 didn't mind in the motions, and the euphoric passion they fed her.
 
Then Anon 93 quickly learned never to turn into Fluttershy, or Luna. Nine of ten times it was just to unleash all their anger on a fascmile copy for ruining the world. Tasted like ink. Not even a thousand cap offer was worth it.
 
At least the other Anons show some appreciation and misguided romance when they ask her to change into one of the mane cast. But it was always so weird compared to the native Equestrians. Because, well, she has to live with them every single day.
 
And surprise, surprise, Anon 1 wants 93 to be even less than a whore, they ask her to slip into the raider camp as one of their buddies before slipping a grenade into the fire. Drive an ice pick into a slaver mid coitus. Don't mind it'll cause her fucking trauma to resort to sub-par chems and sex to forget about it! It doesn't help that her marks are still cute fuckin horses as they scream in agony!
 
...and she had already gotten to the sink during her inner monologue. The insectoid Anon douses her face, focusing on the grateful families she saved. A few foals whose smile grew bigger when she showed her true self.
 
And...that little brown filly who found her cutie mark because of her.
 
"It's worth it." Anon 93 said, each and every morning. She cleared her throat, expelling the noxious Dash concentrated mucous into the sink to clear her thoughts for the rest of the day.
 
*Tap Tap*
 
And that would be Mr. 'Cuddle with Derpy before she was a ghoul' client. Good enough sustenance for five days if she conserved her transformation uses.
 
"Come in!" Strange, she thought, Silver Gloom knows she can freely walk in at this hour.
 
And immediately she felt it as the pony walked in, the lack of anticipation. Only cold, hard determination. Her bodily instincts kicked in. False. Imposter. Brethren.
 
'...why brethren?' Anon 93 wondered why that word flashed in her mind.
 
"She is unharmed. She'll just wake up thinking today is yesterday." The mare spoke in an undisguised glutteral voice after closing the office door. The same dual treble tone 93's undisguised voice would give. "Female, Praetorian. Strong." the imposter holding Gloom's shape studied Anon 93.
 
"You shouldn't exist." Anon 93 regarded the fellow doppelganger carefully as he discarded his disguise.
 
"An obsolete footnote of the war." Changeling explained, "Made short work of our race when the ponies industrialized their military. Not even worth the records of Rarity's Ministry."
 
"So you are here to remove a rival hive? Maintain the masquerade?" there was no possible reason of the changeling's arrival. Anon 93 had already listed out everything in this room to improvise against the possible assassin. Screw crying for help, she wasn't that kind of mare...ladybug.
 
"Contrary to your assumption. You do not know our customs." changeling corrected, "We are family. No matter what the origin. You have the open allegiance of this town."
 
"It's not easy living."
 
"Neither for us." changeling replied, "We are but five hundred strong left. Mother Chrysalis had finally laid a future queen to inherit before time took her." A deep bow in reverence of memory. "She's but a newborn. Five years before her own birthing stage. A critical time for her dwindling praetorians."
 
And with his explanation done, the drone bowed before Anon 93, "The last hive beseeches the Anonymous for protection in return for undying loyalty and service."
 
"Protection." 93 focused, "From whom?"
 
"The Tribe of Crystopolis." Anon 97 felt genuine fear radiate from the fellow changeling, "They wish to burn our home and young. Your town must help us."
 
000000
 
Two screens of walls couldn't block out the epitaphs of death threats two of Rainbow Fall's guests have been shooting at each other in their separate jail cells.
 
"So run this by me." The first Anon addressed two of his unorthodox circle, "How is this possible? The timeline stopped before the second finale."
 
"I'd rather say time divergence." the mare doctor theorized, "I mean, how else do you explain this place?" Anon 12 panned her fore-hooves to the detention center they're in, and the town landmark beyond.
 
"Anon 97." The town's military Anon regarded the Crystal member, "Anything you can add?"
 
"Well, before they made eye contact on the street, we had a very genuine talk." Anon 97 gave a shrug towards the source of the neighing insults,
 
"The Crystal City did briefly appear way behind schedule. Right when the bombings happened. Maybe it was the magical shockwave from the balefire bombs that caused it. Not even they know anymore. But King Sombra turned up. And with Equestria bombed to fuck, he regained power and cursed the Crystal Empire back away. It just so happened some of the families deliriously wandered outside when it did. A lot -- died to the cold. But a few families eventually settled south of...I forgot the name of the place."
 
Two years was a long time to forget the episode titles, even for a fan. "The one with Crackle and the baby phoenix."
 
"Caldera next to a volcano?" Anon 12 guessed right, "The Dragon's migration grounds."
 
"The Dragon's graveyard now." clarified the more informed Anon 1, "So what triggered Romeo and Juliet?" obviously referring to the feuding guests.
 
"According to Iodine Drop - yeah," Anon 97 acknowledged everypony's impression of her name. "Her ancestors eventually broke out of Sombra's depression hex and made their home in one of the dragon's old underground den. They eventually adapted to the technology gap, figured out how to use the lava pits to power their community."
 
"Anon..." Anon 1 dissuaded 97's reverent tone.
 
"Just two weeks ago, one of their mining teams dug too deep, and without provocation, changelings have been attacking Crystopolis every sense."
 
"And care to enlighten where they've been the past two centuries, 93?"
 
The former humans regarded the one other Anon the changeling faction tried to appeal towards for help.
 
"Spyre's story's is much less sympathetic. But that makes me inclined to believe him. Apparently the Canterlot Wedding did happen."
 
Shock emanated from the changeling Anon's audience, and she elaborated before Anon 12 could ask how it's possible,
 
"The Ministry of Image during the war did everything to erase any evidence the Changelings ever existed, to hide the panic there were more enemies Equestria had to face. He was not very forthcoming what happened to Cadence and Shining Armor, but the love blast proved to go for the lethal fan theory. A lot of them died from the fast plummet, and it all went downhill for the Changelings one after another.
 
Spyre admitted straight to me that Queen Chrysalis attempted to make an alliance with the Zebras. Somepony slipped the information to The Ministries, went about carpet bombing where they lived and sent a regiment of Steel Rangers for good measure, apparently the armor was too complex to imitate properly. That's what pissed off the Dragons, as the migrant grounds was one of the main battlefields. Turns out that event was what made some of the Dragons side with the Zebra. The zebras had sold the Changelings out in a long gamble to get dragons as allies instead.
 
They never got Chrysalis, but she and the last survivors effectively scattered after the siege. They were parasitic infiltrators not adapted for artillery strikes. The world ending didn't help them much either.
 
Things got hard for them when the raiders gradually outnumbered the sane. Prey with a capacity for love grew scarce, Queen Chrysalis had to go through costly trial and error finding out new ways to get love. They once got desperate and ransacked a town, got in a quarrel with a warlord for the trouble who wanted to raze the town himself."
 
"So it never occured to them to open a hooker bar?" Anon 97 earned a hard glare from the Anon Changeling, "Hey! I'm referring to it as a smart thing."
 
"During the last century actually, the Changelings finally mellowed out. Now, even I'm taking this with a grain of salt." Anon 93 emphasized to her fellows she herself doesn't completely buy into Spyre's claim, "Giving pure water and caps to town beggers, becoming caravan guards to subsist on the appreciation, and yeah...whores." Another glare towards 97, who now fidgeted shamefully for the insensitive suggestion he pitched.
 
"But, the Wasteland finds ways to keep picking them off one by one. And there weren't many of them to begin with. They congregate to the barren forest next to the Dragon volcanos, to give Queen Chrysalis all they love they gathered to give her the energy to..." there was no way to put it lightly, Anon 93 feared, "Lay eggs a final time."
 
"Why the attack?" Anon 1 was the only one not disgusted by the imagery.
 
"Well," 93 gestured to the Crystal Anon, "Their Crystopolis neighbors dug way too far, right into where the young nymphs were being kept."
 
"Ah-oh, shit." Anon 12 grimaced.
 
"The guards threatened the miners to back off. One of the crystal ponies -- overclocked his torch saddle in fright...Spyre says there's nine little bodies he can show as proof. The Hive made sure none of the miners survived. But they feel that did not make things even."
 
000000
 
The leaders from both settlement meet unarmed at the great cavern to negotiate. With Anon's 97, 93 and several Regulator volunteers to dissuade any vocal aggression. That was the term.
 
It all fell apart when Iodine's father and Spyre secretly brought their full fighting force to the meeting in a bid to assassinate the other.
 
"Why are you making this difficult?" Anon 97 demanded the two parties in exasperation.
 
"I'M MAKING THIS DIFFICULT?" Crystopolis's patriarch bellowed at the Crystal Anon, "Day and night they attacked us! And you just want us to let this slide?"
 
"That's not what I-."
 
"Child killers deserve no mercy!" Spyre argued, "No peace until nine crystal foals never to see their future for the nine nymphs deprived of theirs!"
 
Weapons all across the undergrounds caverns heated up at Spyre's provocation. The Crystopolis Militia, though far outnumbered, had disintegrating arsenals at their disposals. Tri-beam lasers, Metal Blasters. Both Anon 97 and 93 knew of their inspired designs from the games.
 
They had held off so long because disguising as one of them was too consuming for the changeling infiltrators. To mimic their glimmering luminescent coats expended their energy far too quickly.
 
Which means to the Changelings, there was no point taking prisoners. Many honeycombed eyes in the darkness waited for Spyre's, the regent of their princess, signal to attack. With scavenged low caliber weapons, knives, and their own teeth if they have to.
 
"You know what? Fine!" To 97's shock, his changeling compatriot abandoned standing between the two warring races. "Kill each other for all I care. I mean, apparently that's what happened before Littlepip-."
 
"93!" The Crystal Anon objected immediately at the slip.
 
"No! You shut up!" The regulator escorts gave each other troubled looks as the two morphed Anons quarreled.
 
"That's what happened! They massacre each other. Maybe some raiders picks over their children in the aftermath. And they end some tragic forgotten footnote who will never see Littlepip bring the sun back. Well, maybe not tragic." She jabbed Crystopolis's chief, earning her the sights of all his soldier's guns, "Just fucking stupid!" she jabbed Spyre.
 
"So go ahead! Kill each other. Maybe DJ-PON3 will give you guys one last send off." Anon 93 balked at everyone.
 
So say the silence was tense was an understatement. Chief Lens Flare's soldiers traded hesitant glances at the only outcome Anon 93 predicted. And in the opposite darkness, Changeling glared turned opposite of wrath, curling into fear at what fate they will doom their young in the aftermath of this battle.
 
"Gladly." Spyre decided, reigniting the fires of war in the whole chamber.
 
"Starting with you." Lens Flare adjusted his lasers to the Anon in changeling form.
 
War never changes.
 
And just then, a figure dropped from one of the hanging stalactites, the audible furling of cloak catching the Changeling and Crystal Pony's attention.
 
The mysterious stranger made the steep landing between Chief Lens Flare and the Anon the crystal pony was about to make the first casualty of the slaughter. Where many would've outright screamed in agony from their femurs breaking, the strange pony did none of the sort.
 
In one fell motion, the stranger pulled two sticks from behind his cloak, racing the tip of them across his metallic hind hooves. And finally.
 
"I am your god now! Bring me your virgins!" Stuck two birthday sparklers right at the tribal leader's faces.
 
"Huh." Iodine's father gave a blank huff at first. Then, Anon 93 and Spyre balked at the large Crystal stallion because only they felt it. All of Lens Flare anger had washed away. "Ha ha..." blankness turned to a smile, then a laughter.
 
"What's so funny?" Spyre demanded.
 
"It...it takes somepony to resort acting just like us to show what we've become." Regent Spyre backed away as Lens Flare gazed upon the changeling. Where the changeling was able to stomach the ink-like hatred that permeated from the Chieftain, this clear sympathy was somehow too much for him.
 
"We have become raiders."
 
What weapons not mounted to saddle dropped unanimously. Crystopolis, who can never know even the privilege of the clouds because of the wasteland's embodied cancer. And the Changelings, who have lost more of their family to the raiders than this feud ever did.
 
Radiance and shimmers returned to the elderly pony, although the offer he will proposition Spyre contracted his apparent demeanor.
 
"Would a bitter chieftan's head be a suitable compensation for your children?" he requested with full acceptance, "I just ask that I can speak to my daughter one last time."
 
The elder changeling entrusted to protect his kind, and his princess studied Lens Flare hard, the genuine acceptance of his sacrifice. And then the metal hoofed Anon that intervened, his emotions even now so undecipherable as those strange sparkling gimmicks thinned halfway. And one more time to the changeling once human, whose trust of peace he nearly broke.
 
"Long ago, Mother Chrysalis thought the concept of love and forgiveness, were stupid things ponies shared that our race could exploit." Spyre confessed to his once racial enemy, "Before she passed, mother...she desperately wished for those times again. We all did." One blink expelled the excessive moisture coming from Spyre's eyes.
 
"Perhaps the best way to honor your children," Anon 97 lent a hoof to the tired Regent.
 
"And your brother," Anon 93 gestured the same to the Crystal Chief.
 
"Peace." and 69's birthday sparkler's extinguished.
 
"Thank you." Lens Flare patted the intervening Anon, "Thank you for showing us what ridiculous fools we could've turned into."
 
"Um...thanks." Anon 69 improvised. "So no virgins?"
 
000000
 
"See?" Anon 14 popped open another metal crate triumphantly, "What did I tell ya. Sixty caps here. Eighty caps there. Tell me that ain't Fortune Finder I got!"
 
"Given I found twelve missiles at a time crammed inside an office cabinet, the possibility we're gifted with perks every now and then doesn't elude me." 28 noted his excited scavenging partner.
 
And their ammo stores has flourished thanks to 28's little scrounging discovery, helping to recoup all and beyond the casings and shells the Anons depleted to clear out the scary cave dwelling beasts around the town.
 
Aside from the need to gather more working missile launchers for their abundant stocks, Crystopolis's crafters have provided the Anons a means to meet the Enclave's energy wielding soldiers on even grounds for the day to come.
 
The downside to this boon is that Anon 28 is doomed to be slated for almost every outdoor scavenging run, where a tenth of the time things for a taste for pony flesh dwelled everywhere in these surrounding cave systems. With Anon 13's recovery and 24's death means Anon 28 had to double his efforts.
 
The fact he was only entitled to five percent of his findings was also an annoyance.
 
"I mean, I get it if I uncover a bunch of caps inside a school desk or locker." 14 tried to rationalize their unique luck, overturning the box's contents into his burlap sack. "Maybe the schoolponies liked to hoard them. But like, a locked safe left behind in a fancy office? It don't make sense to stash caps at all there. Bits yeah, but..."
 
"Don't think about it too much." Anon 28 would say every time someanon tried applying reason to a crossover reality, relenting to finish off scaving this mummified settler's cave. One quick look in the last duffel bag four more wines for the inn, and an apple shaped grenade. "Alright, mark this cave down and lets head back."
 
"Wait a tick." Curious, Anon 14 cleared away one of the collapsed tents, stomping once on the ground to echo a metallic step in the cavern, "I think we only hit the first floor."
 
Anon 28 experienced a little cold shiver along his back, a second level going down always spelled something terrible in this world. "Then mark it down and we'll come back later."
 
"What if it's a Stable?" The chip Pegasus speculated.
 
"All the more reason we come back with a whole team." Anon 28 barely afforded 14 the benefit of the doubt, the young Anon having just recently been promoted from dish cleaner to outdoor scavenging. "We were super lucky the Stable beneath the town was just a narrative tragedy, there no telLLLLRRGG-!!!"
 
A cold shiver had migrated beneath the Pegasus's chin, but this time around something unseen with physical mass. His pupils constricted, finally perceiving the self-refractive shroud right in front of him before his assailant switched on a paralyzing shock through the object.
 
Among the immediate nerve damage, the direct electrical current sent 28's gag reflex on haywire, making him eject half his canteen's worth of water and macaroni meal as he collapsed just as violently, what remained of his consciousness being able to count each grain on the ground in his collapsed state.
 
And a sideways view of his partner Anon 14 being dropped unceremoniously through the now lifted metal hatch by an invisible force. Two seperate mouths took hold of his hindlegs, dragging him the down into the cave's second level.
 
"...ak...p...wak...p!...C'mon, wake up!"
 
Two frayed neurons finally connected again, bringing Anon 28 to finally grasp 14's desperate plea.
 
"Ermurp...I'm up." though it took time for 28's sense of vocabulary to unscramble from the shock. He made out blood caking the side of 14's cheek, the trail originating from an untreated open line around his forehead. Must've been knocked out with brute force, at least he retained full faculties.
 
"Anon 28, we're fucked."
 
"No shit." The dazed unicorn unnerved Anon 14 more than he already was with his lack of assurance, flexing a hoof to feel if the shock ruined some of the sensation. The first mental flag was that his hoof felt much lighter than usual, and breezier...
 
The bastards removed his pipbuck...and as Anon 28 looked down on himself, all his clothing was gone. That narrows their fate down to rape or cannibals.
 
"Obeah." Anon 28 craned his eyes towards a child's accented voice, finally clicking them that it was neither of them keeping this room torched.
 
A little bundle of white and black had peaked her head through the cloaks of their jailors, too young for her symbolic glyph to appear on her rump.
 
"Obeah." she proclaimed again before a frantic zebra mare, presumably the little one's mother nicked her tail in a chiding tone.
 
"Keexah!" the foal's mother hissed. "Hurudi nyuma ndani! Mambo hayo ni hatari!"
 
"Huh." Anon 14 recognized the dialect incredulously, "Swahili, just like the show wanted to do with Zecora."
 
"Wewe ni si kusema ya jina lake, pepo." Warringly entered a winkled elder, though his eyes displayed the quite the opposite of the younger's fear of them.
 
"Yeah, I know where this is going..." Anon 28 slumped back down as the old tribal cave zebra began his religious banter.
 
0000000
 
"So it not enough you to drive my people to hide in caves like vermin?" the striped elder boasted, thankfully speaking in rough Equestrian dialect, "You rob our game, thinning cave beasties so few, slavers of Red Eye no afraid none to trespass like you did."
 
A pretty stupid accusation, Anon 28 wanted to spit back verbally, those mutated abominations from the scariest cave likely didn't make things easy for this tribe apparently surviving right under the noses of Rainbow Falls.
 
"Stealing our survival and hunting stashes ev'ry where you tread!" the zebra continued to list.
 
Oookay, that explained all the random boxes sitting around in these caves.
 
"Zebratown dead. Glyphmark dying. Abraxo all that's left now." The tribal zebra compared the fate of the other zebrican settlements to his own, "Abraxo ancestors hide from Pink Police from taking them to Zebratown." Ministry of Morale, both anons assumed, "Hide from homeland who wanted Abraxo's to spy and fight. Hide from Balefire. Hide from Red Eye. Hide from you." he glared a healthy set of teeth as the last declaration slipped through grinding jaws. "Obeah! Now you seek to curse and desecrate our home. You tempt us to stop hiding!"
 
"Given that I watched Meet Joe Black in the past," Anon 14 quoted, "I know you're calling us bad spirits."
 
"Yeah," 28 agreed with the notion, "Just because you heard we can prophesize the future doesn't put us on the same pillar as Nightmare Moon."
 
"Hah!" The striped geezer found something hilarious with their reply. "Your ignorant wiles don't work. Seers among zebra are honored, not shamed. One of Abraxo's own foretold the coming of star-swimming Obeah long before Equestria burned."
 
All fear of the anon's impending death and execution vanished. After three whole years with no results, a real clue hinting to how the anons all became ponified castaways could be answered by this zebra.
 
"What did your oracle foretell about us?"
 
"Look up. That's where you spawned from after all."
 
He meant it quite literally as the captive anons stared upwards. The entire ceiling of the chamber they were in was one giant mural.
 
Drawn like the show's old storybook segments, if an Equestrian archeologist had uncovered it, they could've only possibly fathomed it being telling a story of a nameless and violent civilization. But the choice of colors and symbols struck the anon's minds as something only the fandom they were once part of could have created. Virtually half of the depicted ponies in the painting were colored green. With their faces not showing any expression but a downward curved scriggle ending with a dog. A question mark.
 
All the painted anons were posed imperiously, with ponies of all other colors depicted as victimized and fleeing. Pegasus's with bodies of black being scattered by an expanding blue ball thrown by one of the Anons...and one of the Anons fornicating with a fallen pegasus.
 
In another, a pack of anons, even the changeling and griffon among them depicted green with a question symbol on their faces tearing through black clad griffons...and one of the anons, the back of his body now depicted grey and silver pouring fire, or maybe fiery urine onto a table while two ponies writhed in agony beneath it.
 
Ponies in sky wagons and griffons battling the anons in the sky. While far below, an anon rides a missile with a following explosion that never happened, sans the bones in his pelvis.
 
An anon wielding a dismembered blue genital in front of a weeping family.
 
An anon shooting dismembered genitals at terrified alicorns.
 
Another corner, the same anon with the silver back legs, fornicating with a purple alicorn against her will.
 
Changelings and Crystal Ponies cowering from an Anon spewing stars from his hooves.
 
In the last corner, was Littlepip and...
 
"Gotta be shitting me." Neither Anon 14 or 28 could not blame these zebras anymore for thinking they're star heralds of destruction, given what this seer of theirs foresaw.
 
0000000
 
"Go-Two." Anon 90 nudged Anon 2 worryingly, "Qu'est-ce que je suis censé dire?"
 
"[What am I supposed to say?]"
 
"[Twist their story. Play with their superstition so it can help us in some way. But don't disprove their traditions.]" Anon 2 whispered in a European tongue they both shared, a boon they were both required to learn in junior high, "[Logic didn't work to convince Xenith about Luna, I doubt it will work on a culture that revolved around fearing us.]"
 
"No pressure." the striped Anon cocked a nervous smile.
 
Prance existed, it's just as dead a language like Latin in the Anon's old world. Appropriate given the dogmatic stares of their hosts, judging their every action and guessing what they were exchanging with the 'demonic tongue'.
 
At least this solved the mystery of the invisible bandits robbing some of their caravan partners blind and making off with some of the town's supplies. Thankfully Anon 1's agenda system allowed them to trace the cave systems 14 and 28 were assigned to investigate when they never came back.
 
The cave dwelling community would not bend to releasing the captive scavengers, with metaphorical hoofs to their ears even with Anon 2's silver tongue. One sight had perplexed the striped warriors into silence however, not expecting one of their mythological demons to be able to take on a striped body. Now all hope of stopping a war lies with a chinese-canadian zebra mechanic.
 
And he had only a ten minute pep-talk about how to communicate before the next peace talks can be resolved peacefully or in bloody guerrilla warfare with the threat of the Enclave to compound on it.
 
These zebras were proving to be formidable, Anon 90 observed, their clay and mud huts appearing to have been erected generations past. It indicates their community flourished against the 'scariest cave' beasts throughout the centuries. Tanning and curing racks can be spotted around every home, indicating to 90 that these zebras made easy sport hunting these creatures.
 
The fact every adult had unique light enchanted firearms and mouth-gripped sticks slung around them probably helped as well in their survival.
 
"He see you now." one of the guards prodded Anon 90 inside the same chambers his lucky compatriots were formerly held. Fetishes and trinkets adorned the inner entrance as two mares chanted quietly besides their leader. Probably chanting a ritual of protection, to guard their eldest shaman from the zebra they believed to be a masquerading servant of the stars.
 
"You mock us by taking that shape, Obeah." Chief Abraxo started hostily.
 
"Obeah evil. I not evil, elder." Anon 90 had always wanted to repeat that magical line. That shift of surprise on the zebra's face showed that he didn't expect the the Anon to speak with an added accent. "This form was chosen because I favored zebrakind over all."
 
"That remains to be seen." Abraxo was only brought at ease by a fraction, still better than the culmination of the past week's attempts
 
"So," Anon 90 brought his eyes to the vertical mural, studying each depiction of the Anons that would've brought the superstitious to fear them so, "What lessons have your drawn from this prophecy?"
 
"You should know, prophet of the Leaping Star."
 
"Then all means, treat me like a child." Anon 90 goaded Abraxo, knowing the elder zebra would never pass up a chance to mock a daemon.
 
"The coming of the Star Heralds." Abraxo pointed up to the first drawn chapter. Of ponies colored sickly green descending to the earth in a fiery trail like shooting stars, "Destructive avatars of the Nightmare to lay waste when the world is at its weakest." he pans his torch to illuminate some of the Anons battling black-clad griffons and the Enclave over a rainbow - likely symbolizing the town, "Shadowing the likes of Red Eye and the winged daemons as the true threat. Your knowledge of every mote in time leaves you unopposed thanks to your unholy contract with The Leaping Star who Abounds."
 
Anon 90 juggles with gleaning as much this tribal can tell him of what it was that blighted the Anons to be trapped in Equestria, while searching for any charming straws that could convince them to set 14 and 28 free. But the painted chapters of their journey did not put a positive light on Rainbow Fall's history. Whoever it was that left these carvings was sorely disturbed by what Anon 69 committed in their vision. The only saving grace was that the victims Anon 69 was having his way with were Equestria's chaotic inhabitants, it still didn't excuse the insane and accurate depiction, unless...
 
"Yah, yah, I can see why you see it as such." Anon 90 stroked his chin with marvel interest, "But it saddens me that you can only conclude demons out of everything."
 
"What is this you speak?" Abraxo stiffened at being challenged.
 
"For demons to exist, there must be spirits." Thank you Bioware, as the striped anon recalled some lore he could borrow to his advantage, "But given only the malevolent chooses to touch the world, it comes to no surprise the benevolent stars never stirred your attention."
 
"I said no deception!" Abraxo's skepticism did not waver, with a loud slam of a staff to accentuate the point. "Only demons swim in the skies."
 
"Rahtid! It is stars that are spirits, the dark all around are the nightmare ilk, elder." Twist the zebra's superstition, Anon 90 applied Go-Two's advice.
 
"N-no. Spirits would never allow our civilization to fear them wrongly." Chief Abraxo shuddered. He hastily pointed towards every lustful indulgence a single Anon has fulfilled. "Then what do you call all your barbarism? The destruction wought by your Herald of Lust?"
 
"Herald of Passion!" 90's organs immediately felt like they were liquidating from spinning *him* like a hero, "What I see here are stars sacrificing their own light and fire to become flesh as they fall from their home up high, so they can pay evil to evil. Prophet of Six and Nine, he doesn't restrain his heart. What he does to Red Eye servants and Star Daemons of Twilight." Anon 90 points to the same foretellings of 69's debauchery, "He unleashes all his anguish for what they done to Equestria."
 
Anon 90 had to stop, feeling so sick for lying to this tribal leader to such an extent. It was one thing to lie about their ancient religion. Claiming Anon 69's perverseness as feats of heroism...nothing can describe the disgust.
 
But the old chieftain was in the same state of silence, his eyes a lips illustrating flipping struggles between consideration and old-value denial with Anon 90's interpretation of the carvings.
 
"Oh, cool." A once unseen ripple in the air unfurled, exposing a disembodied head of an earth pony who had stood between them the whole time, "Somebody drew porn of me."
 
"[We have been deceived! Safeguard the children!]"
 
"Whoa! Whoa! This isn't what-." Anon 90's attempt to diffuse the misunderstanding was met with Abraxo's honor guard uncloaking, aiming their barrels and shock batons at his forehead, "Um, okay..."
 
"[Begone, Star of Lust!]" another zebra trained her sights on the most reviled of the demons as her partner adjusted the voltage of his baton with the knob in his mouthpiece, the mace of the stick crackling and burning brighter from being overcharged to lethal settings, "[The Nightmare will never-.]"
 
"Hey, thanks." With his eyes still clued to the mural, the 69th Anon reached a hoof to touch the melee instrument the male guard was waving threateningly at him, by the club end. Had the zebras known about the grounding attributes of his prosthetics, and multitudes of dead nerves clusters, the chamber wouldn't have thought he was invulnerable as the earth pony drew upon Pinkie-Pie physics to suction the mace away from the zebra's jaw. The closest guard could only tremble as the Herald of Lust demonstrated how futile their traditional weapons were as the mace crackled uselessly.
 
The Elder Abraxo collapsed on his haunches as the demon, who had breached past their spiritual wards approached him, adjusting his hoof to grasp the handle of the weapon.
 
A fitting end, Abraxo surrendered as he closed his eyes for the impending end, to be slain by their own weapons.
 
"[No, spare our shaman! Take ours lives if you have to!]" The sight of the Anon raising the shock baton over Abraxo's head made the guards who had restrained Anon 90 drop their weapons, beseeching the demon in earth pony form to spare their shaman.
 
"Points for creativity, I always like simplistically styled clop." Abraxo opened an eye briefly when the demon spoke another indecipherable phrase. The Star Herald's eyes was still glued to the weapon.
 
No, Abraxo followed 69's eyes, where the weapon was illuminating. Harming him was never the demon's intention.
 
"But for the record, my dick isn't the color green. I forgive you though." the cyborg lectured the aging chief. The killing swing never struck, the anon turning away entirely to meet the center of the chamber again as the soldiers and gathering villagers outside the entrance observed him.
 
"But this here." a hunched shape shimmered as he grasped the air, tossing another stealth cloak aside that he mundanely used...to conceal a chair. "Yeah, sorry." he muttered aside, "You guys seemed really into your banter and I didn't want to bug you."
 
If the demon was able to claim their ancestral tools without being seen as is, Abraxo wondered, the Anon had proven he could've simply slain them all twice over.
 
"Wait. What are you doing!?" Abraxo's heart had nearly given out when Anon chose to stand on the furniture, and touching the prophetic mural for the first time in centuries.
 
"I was holding a really nice hat when this happened." Anon added his own sketch to the foundation of the cave zebra's culture, scratching a top hat on his tribal representation riding a balefire missile.
 
Vandalism, 90 was mentally screaming, who had been outraged as is from the news of grafitti tagged on Egyptian ruins.
 
But the chief, and now half his tribe was interpreting this differently, that their mural was being expanded on, writing events as they really were.
 
"And this, and this here." with some smudges and rolls of the chair, he turned the screaming wails of the first immigrant family he presented a dildo to - the cowering changeling and crystal pony, into big grins. "It all ended with ale and whores for everyone."
 
"C'est une charge de conneries..." the striped Anon cursed in a volume only he could hear, knowing he had to roll with this.
 
"Is this how it happened?" Abraxo looked at Anon 69's revisions. The story of nameless ponies harming evil and good alike had been changed into the innocent and the lost outcast of the crystal and changeling tribes praising the anons for smiting the Star Goddesses and the servants of the Red Eye priest who follows them. "But...why did grandmama draw them so fearful before."
 
"Dunno." Anon 69 disregarded the omens, "I mean, yeah, maybe watching me was too awesome to pay attention to the little details around."
 
"Oh god." 90 wanted to die right then and there.
 
"So the star spirits meant no harm, their messages was just too much for her to bear..." Abraxo filled the false gaps, acknowledging Anon 90's claims by calling them other than demons or Obeah. "So the Striped Star was telling the truth, you sacrificed your existence in the skies to help this world."
 
With no measure of wariness or judgement in his posture, Abraxo helped Anon 90 back to his hooves, defying his tribe's customs that physically touching a Star Herald spelled a cursed life. "I have been such a fool all my life."
 
"No worries, mang." Abraxo stiffened, his reflexes not yet having overcome being so close to the once horrifying of all heralds draping a hoof over the zebra's shoulders, "A little liquor and orgy will fix everything...no virgins though, they're over-rated and messy."