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Thunderstruck was gasping, still trying to pull in air to breathe as she realized the air was different here.

There was no oxygen, which scared her at first, tasting the environment, but the way the energy filled her lungs and body made it feel like she didn't need to breathe.

It made her uneasy as the world around her came into focus and she was surrounded by endless fields of billowing grey clouds, with a full white moon and pale sun far above them, casting an overcast stark light on herself and the world around her.

Her bamboo colored coat, blonde mane, and Raincloud-with-Sparks Cutie Mark, Thunderstruck felt her legs go numb like she never noticed the brand on her own side before. Feeling it, rubbing her flank, she stared and blinked at the design. Had it always been there?

"Agh," She said, climbing to her hooves. Expecting coldness of concrete and metal to the touch, she felt the ground beneath her hooves and the sensation of grass was beneath.

The clouds pulled backwards, away from her as shapes solidified and took form, she saw what appeared to be houses.

Thunderstruck was standing in the center of a culdesac, almost identical to Sanctuary Hills, with the designs of the homes modeled after the 'House of Tomorrow', all two stories tall. Within the center of the culdesac was a single large oak tree and a small playground of a swingset, sandbox, teeter-totter, slide, and a bench in the shade of the tree, the tiny playground was enough.

This culdesac of houses had a road surrounding the park in the center, with seven houses placed equal distance around the circle like a septagon.

There was no road leading out and away from this place, Thunderstruck quickly saw. Only houses and fences, tall trees, and the endless grey billowing clouds and ethereal eternity beyond the development.

"Welcome," Thunderstruck heard.

Turning to the voice, she expected to see someone, but a pony sitting on the front porch, expectant expression on his face like he knew she was coming.

And for a long time too, his face, as if he was about to ask, 'What took you so long?'

The Alicorn sitting there, leaned back and reposed, she recognized the horn and wings, instantly seeing the power he held.

"I'm Adam the Ant," he said, the Glowing Alicorn was lacking most of his mane, balding, but his coat was still there, even though it appeared to be sun-bleached green.

All across his body, Thunderstruck could see the clear x-ray like images of Adam's bones and circulatory system beneath his skin.

The wings on Adam's side were devoid of feathers, which she knew from experience, it looked like they all fell out and was now a scaley membrane, like a plucked bird's wing.

Adam the Ant was lacking a horn as well, a melted bored-hole directly into Adam's skull was visible, she could even see brain as well, but there was a glowing green outline of a unicorn's horn atop his head where one ought to be.

His cutie mark was a single black ant holding up the sun in his pincer mandibles.

She glanced to the other houses, suddenly expecting to see others come out and great her, but the Alicorn was aware of this, as he had seen it twice now before, along with his own experience.

"The others will realize you've arrived here soon enough. I delegated myself the task of being the unoffical greeter, since it's only going to happen a few more times before all the Alicorns come together."

Thunderstruck moved from the park, walking towards him and stopping on the edge of his lawn. Talking to him from the sidewalk as he spoke down from the porch.

"I'm Thunderstruck. What is this place?"

"For a while now, I've been calling this place Tranquility Lane. But that doesn't really explain what this realm is. This place is within a spell matrix, a cast one so large that only ponies capable of channeling fantastic amount of magic and energy through their body are able to parse through the margins. This is where SPECIAL Alicorns will be working once we're all gathered. I was the first, Iron Horse followed, then came Firelance, along with Miss Vivi Roulette, and now you. You're here because right now you have to make a choice. The kind that quiets the mind."

"What do you mean?"

"This is a job offer. You see, right now, your body was completely vaporized, down to the last molecule. As of now, there is no more Thunderstruck on Earth. You are for all intensive purposes, dead. If you decide to leave this place without becoming an Alicorn, you will die upon your return to Earth, but you will of completed an undertaking so great in your lifetime, that it will be remembered for hundreds of years until one day, all that remains of you and your legacy are four vast granite trunkless legs of granite standing in the desert. Near them, half sunken in the sand lies your shattered visage..."

Frowning at the thought of a desert wasteland, Thunderstruck asked, "What kind of future is that?"

"A parse from a sonnet, Miss Thunderstruck. A warning that I wasn't given that I had to figure out for myself. For you see, I when I arrived, I accepted death the way only a fool staring at a bomb about to go off in front of them could, and then after my eyes adjusted from the brightness, I stood where you stood not so long ago. My thoughts weren't that this was some sort of eternal paradise, but a distraction from it." Beyond the borders of Tranquility Lane, the etherial void of grey clouds surrounded their paradise shining down with rays of sun on it.

" I could've let my part in this story be over, the cost of that choice to return was that I was able to prevent many nuclear warheads from detonating on the surface, protecting tens of thousands of lives. The cost was my wife and children, and friends. family. All those first connections that seemed so important, nobody save myself can remember what they even looked like. Any survivors of my family tree have all gone to spread and grow, but every single person or pony I knew back then have all passed away since then. Which is to say the first 100 years does take some adjustment. It's only through the company of other Alicorns that this existence isn't lonely, which is why I believe this place was designed in such a way to accomodate the seven of us. We're expected to work together once you and the other Alicorns to be awaken."

"What happens when all seven Alicorns show up?"

"The real magic starts. You see, we have the capability of casting a spell so large and powerful, that it will remove all traces of radiation from the surface of the planet, but we need to cast it once a day until the year 3580. Over half a million times we will cast the same spell that will be for the benefit of the entire planet for the next 1300-1500 years or so. After that...After that..." Adam said, trailing off, "I've spent much of the first two centuries wonder what true oblivion looks like. When not even the atomic fire is oblivion, the sun touching your face and skin, wrapping around you like a warm blanket instead of a pulverizing blast...Ode to ponder what true oblivion awaits the nearly immortal alicorns? Maybe our heart beats get weaker, or we wake up feeling tired, so sore and tired that it takes too much effort to even breathe in," Adam inhaled, wind whistling through his teeth and nostrils, sucking air in. "Until we can't even do that. That would be oblivion then...to die of old age where the heart beats slower and slower until not enough oxygen reaches our lungs and limbs that we fall unconscious...Whatever happens then, the bonds we've created, the communities we've learned from and built up, educated and raised take over. They will guide our bodies to the next phase of rebirth and death, Thunderstruck. That is what comes next."

"So what happens until then? Where are the others now?"

"Well, you haven't even made the decision if you want to be an Alicorn yet, you're still you. You must make the choice, a valiant death now, or return and keep fighting."

"But I'm not done yet," Thunderstruck said, "I was winning, I won against the other pegasus I was fighting, I...was about to..."

"To die, yes. It's the same type of situation I found myself in all these years ago. I thought I'd won, I chased down the first warhead flying through the skies on October 23, 2077, and thought I did it, my life was complete, there was no other bit of life I could offer since what I did would surely end my life, but in that moment I came here I was still pounding my hooves against the casing, weeping, crying, begging for it to detonate so it wouldn't keep falling and strike the earth in a massive mushroom cloud...I screamed for God to hear me, and heard a deafening silence so loud, it quieted my mind long enough to realize there were still thousands more. Jetstreaks and vapor trails of all the missiles sailing through the air around me...I felt like the biggest fool, a wasted opportunity that I spent all my energy only going after one, and not all of them. I decided to return and finish what I started. To endure."

"What you did today is only the first in a long series of battles that you need to accept are coming your way. The only way to live through this without succumbing to fear and loss is other alicorns friendship. We may be Alicorns, but that doesn't mean we've exactly figured out how to get along yet. That's why we have separate houses, and not all lumped under the same roof...Thunderstruck. What's your choice?"

"I...well..." Thunderstruck found her mouth dry and she needed to swallow, "Knowing that I'm going to die once I leave this place if I don't say yes certainly puts a point in favor of becoming an Alicorn...and you say by becoming one..."

"Then you won't get to die for quite some time...As someone who can absorb a nuclear blast and walk on the surface of the sun, trust me. There's not much you won't think of or come to discover with enough time."

"You sound depressed," Thunderstruck said,

Adam the Ant's shoulders raised then fell, an exhausted drop, "I hate being melodramatic, but sometimes it feels like I'm carrying the weight of the world, Miss. It's a heavy weight, but I can't let it fall. I know my purpose in life now...you know I'm from Equestria? Born under a different sun, on a different planet, I thought coming to Earth was both a challenge back then, and a goal. To save all the ponies trapped on Earth...funny to remember what we believed at the time...Going into a new situation, all this talking...all these deals and promises back then...the only thing that matters is what is actually done. More than saving ponies and helping them survive, I remember being young enough to want every pony in existence to become an Alicorn...I had children, and they had children. I miss them terribly, which is why I wanted them to join me...if only for a while longer... It's taken great humility and loss to see that those goals are just a dream. But... by chasing that dream and tempering my expectations, I seek to raise up the self-consciousness, worth, and value of all ponies on Earth so that they may find peace and see that life is more than survival. It is. Life is."

"Life is what?"

"Life is." Adam said, tears streaking down the side of his eyes, Thunderstruck couldn't tell if the Glowing Alicorn was happy or sad, "It's beautiful, fantastic, amazing, fulfilling, worthwhile, beyond anything we could ever hope for. We will pass one day, but it's up to us to make the time and life worthwhile, raise others up so that they can teach others to do good as well."

Thunderstruck nodded, then turned to house number 5 in the culdesac.

"So what do I do? I've made my decision...I need to become an Alicorn if I don't want the rest of my friends dying off the day after we just found our home to settle down...and after that...is it wrong to say I don't want my friends to die and I don't want to give up what I fought for, yet?"

"That is a constant truth in life, so many people and ponies all with projects and needs to tend to, until one day it's passed along to someone else. I thought I was dead when I came here, so the choice to go back was more a case of so much left unfinished, that I felt drawn to make the choice to go back as an Alicorn, not everypony feels that way."

"What do you mean?"

"There was one pony who came here before who decided not to go back, and accept their story ended. Solar Scorcher, 126 years ago. He was angry when he came here, mad that all this power was available but out of reach, he said he felt like he was tricked into coming here, but came to understand that this was the only time in his life he was actually given a choice. So, he declined, and said no. Solar Scorcher returned to his home, and was then laid to rest. Both before him and since, ponies have been knocking at the gates to Tranquility Lane, trying to force their way in...You'll hear the noise they make trying to reach this place...I've heard someone recently trying to get into this realm with force alone for some time now. Knocking and throwing themselves against the walls, trying to become something they're not meant to be."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Desperation breeds curious results. Anger and loss grant clarity and wisdom, but being here means that you've put yourself and come from a place where there are no other options left except for the way forward. Where rational reason is put aside; Oscar Wilde wrote it is absurd to classify people as good or evil, they are nothing more than tedious or charming. I find that we all bring a certain type of charm to the table, even though we live tediously long lives. Thunderstruck, do you feel like you've been tricked? That I've tried to hide any of the truth from you?"

"If anything, I've heard your warnings and considerations for both sides, that this is for the long-haul, and just because I have access to all this power, doesn't mean anything special except for what we do with it, and there's others who are going to be mad, or jealous because they feel that fate is working against them."

Adam the Ant smiled, tearing up again, "Agh, dry eyes. Too much staring directly into the sun...tehe" He said, raising his hoof and pointing across the culdesac he gestured towards a blue painted house with the number 5 on a mailbox, iron gate, and a third time adjacent to the front door. "Don't take my appearance to heart, I did much of this to myself after becoming an Alicorn while I was still younger and testing my limits. I must admit I'm excited to see another Alicorn moving into the neighborhood. And house number five too, that must mean you are the Alicorn of Intelligence, hmmm...you know nothing is more divinely appealing and exotic than a fantastically smart mare with an equally powerful body, I need to get my flirting in now before Iron Hoof, Firelance, or Miss Vivi Roulette comes along with their pretty faces and tries to woo you." Flaring out his wings and raising his head up, appearing to be taller and larger, he guffawed and turned her attention to the fifth house in the group of seven. Thunderstruck cracked a smile, looking towards the houses down the row, then back to Adam the Ant.

Rolling her eyes over towards house number five, Adam the Ant saw that his attempts were only partially successful. He saw the bare hints of a smile on her face, and Adam the Ant said to himself that he was "...Stillgame."

"Go up to your house, in the foyer there's stairs directly to your left, living room to your right, and a hallway straight forward after you enter the door. Hanging on all the walls of this hallways will be pictures and memories of your life leading up to this moment. Reach the end, and you'll be in the kitchen where you'll find Princess Twilight waiting for you. She has a piece of advice to offer, a bit of insight to share, and as the creator of all this, she will guide the energy of this matrix to you and write you into the spell."

"Princess Twilight is in there? She's here?"

"She stops by to help with the whole moving-in process. The seven of us are going to be working a lot together in the future, so I'm glad to meet you, neighbor," Adam the Ant said, offering a friendly hoof to shake. Thunderstruck reached up and shook it.

"Nice to meet you too, Adam,"

"Welcome Home, Thunderstruck. Go move in."

\111/

Do yourselves a favor and watch the pilot episode of Stillgame, the buildup and payoff for the whole episode comes right in the last minute and knocks you off the couch from laughing so hard.

Along with Season Five's episode, "The Distillery" where the two old codgers decide to keep looping back around in a whiskey distillery tour to enjoy the endless free samples. Third or fourth time around they can recite most of the tour by heart, and keep on hurrying other tour groups to the end to reach the tasting room.

Comedy Gold.