The red planet

   It had been a month since the arrival of Francisco to Ponyville, and he had become one more neigbour of the town. Everypony knew him, and they were aware of his powers. In fact, they usually asked his help for certain tasks, which were less tedious if done with tentacles or claws instead of hooves. Soon, asking favours to Francisco became as common as asking apples to Applejack, books to Twilight, or parties to Pinkie Pie.

   And, in his spare time, the shapeshifter wrote. He had decided to try again, hoping that he would have more luck there than on Earth. Since he didn’t know about the literary tastes of the ponies, Francisco asked Twilight for some books from her library, to read them and learn.  

   Writing in Equestria wasn’t an easy task for Francisco. He was used to write in a computer, and now he had to do everything manually. His letter was horrible. At first he transformed into creatures with hands or tentacles in order to take the quill, but soon he started to write in his black stallion form. He discovered that earth ponies could write, by taking the quill either with the mouth or the hooves, the latter if they were skillful. In no time, Francisco’s desk was filled with papers, lots of different stories which he created in his spare time.

   The problem: he didn’t like anyone of them. In fact, most of those tales had been left unfinished.

   “Hi!” said a voice, right behind Francisco.

   “Ah!” the black stallion was startled at first, but he knew who was there. “Hi, Pinkie Pie.”

   “What are you doing?” she inquired, looking over Francisco’s shoulder. “Ooooh, did you write all these stories?”

   “Yes, but-”

   “How fun!” Pinkie took some of the papers. “Are they stories about pony knights and dragons? Or are they about us and our fight against the Scorpius? I’d love to be a characters in a book!” then she gasped, and gave a naughty look to the stallion. “Don’t tell me... have you been writing dirty stories?”

   “What? No!”

   Giggling, Pinkie gave a look at the pages.

   “Wait a minute...” she said. “These are incomplete! Why?”

   “I... I don’t think I like them,” explained Francisco, returning to his writing. “So I’m going to try over and over again, until I find one I think is good.”

   “And what will you do after that?”

   “I’ll try to publish it. Twilight told me that there is an editorial in Canterlot.”

   “Good luck, then!” smiled Pinkie. “Now, why did I came here? Mmh...”

   She looked back at her tail. Gummy was chewing it.

   “Oh, yes!” she laughed. “I’m going to the park with the others, we’re going to play with our pets. Pound and Pumpkin are asleep. I think the Cakes should return soon, but could you watch over them for a while?”

   Francisco left his quill. Either way, he was lacking inspiration.

   “Sure, no problem.” he smiled.

   “Oh, thank you, thank you!”, said Pinkie, bouncing. “I’ll bake something very special for you this night! Well, I’d better get going! Bye!”

   And she left. The black stallion raised a hoof and tried to call her back, but his voice turned off involuntarily. He could only mumble:

   “Wait... I have something... to tell you...”

   But he couldn’t. Frustrated and furious with himself, Francisco smashed his head against the desk.

   “Ouch,” he said. “That hurt...”

***

   On the surface of the moon, Princess Luna was watching the space. One would think that, after being banished there for one thousand years, the blue alicorn would like to be as far from the satellite as possible. However, it was not the same to be imprisoned by a magic field than being able to walk freely through the surface of the moon, plus knowing that she could return to Canterlot whenever she wanted. It was not her prison anymore, but her domain.

   Luna liked to look at the stars from her moon. It was a silent and calm place, ideal for meditating. A bit cold, but she liked low temperatures, too. The alicorn used her nearly god-like sight to examine the remote stars.

   Then, she saw it.

   “Princess, are you ok?” asked one of her bat-winged pegasi guards. “You’ve turned a bit pale.”

   “Quick!” she shouted, very nervous. “Take me back to Canterlot! I must warn my sister about this!”

***

   Pinkie Pie returned to the Sugarcube Corner, with Gummy still attached to her tail.

   “I’m home!” she announced, happily.

   The Cakes were already back, and the twins were awake and playing with their toys.

   “Where’s Francisco?” she asked.

   “He has gone to the Library,” explained Mrs. Cake. “He wanted to ask Spike for more books. Apparently, he’s still without inspiration.”

   “I’ll go see them, then! Maybe one of my jokes will awake Francisco’s creativity!” She shook her tail, making Gummy to fall off. The alligator, staring at the two opposite extremes of the eternity, calmly went stairs up, to Pinkie’s room.

   The pink pony abandoned the bakery, bouncing. When she reached the Library, she found that not only Francisco and Spike were there.

   “It’s a letter from Princess Celestia,” explained Twilight, looking at the scroll who was levitating in front of her face, thanks to her magic. “She wants to see all of us in Canterlot as soon as possible, included you, Francisco.”

   “Well...” sighed Applejack. “It had been a very quiet month, Ah knew that something like this would happen sooner or later.”

   “I hope it’s not another dragon...” whispered Fluttershy.

   “I hope it’s not another Scorpius!” said Rainbow Dash. “I had enough with the last one.”

   “I hope it’s a surprise party!” shouted Pinkie.

   The others looked at her, with strange eyes.

   “What?” she asked.

   “Anyway, we have to go to Canterlot,” said Twilight. “We’ll go in the next train.”

   “We don’t need trains,” smiled Francisco.

   Two seconds later, the Dark Beast was standing next to the Library. There were many bystanders around, but nopony was surprised by that. ‘Oh, it’s Francisco, again...’, they thought.

   The giant monster lowered his claw, allowing the six mares to jump on.

  “We’ll be there in a few minutes,” he announced, extending his wings of shadows and flying to the sky.

***

   The seven ponies were received by the two alicorns. Celestia looked worried, and Luna was a bit pale.

   “We’re here, Princess,” said Twilight, bowing. “What’s happening?”

   Celestia looked at her sister and nodded. The horn of the blue alicorn started to glow, and then it created an image on the air: a black void filled with tiny silver stars.

   “I saw this from the surface of the moon,” explained Luna.

   “What?” asked Twilight, unable to see it.  

   Then, the image zoomed, and a new object appeared: a tiny red dot, in the distance. With another zoom, that small point became bigger. At the third zoom, the seven ponies could see what it was.

   A planet. A red planet, covered by clouds which were of a darker tone of red. It was, probably, two or three times bigger than Earth. It had no oceans, only some lakes scattered through its surface, so big that they could be seen from far away. Another zoom revealed that they weren’t lakes... they were blue eyes, and they were moving, and blinking slowly.

   Immediately, everpony looked to Francisco, but the black stallion ensured that he had nothing to do with that.

   “It is approaching us,” explained Luna, and the image disappeared. “In a few days, it will be within the orbit of our moon. I have no idea of what it may be, but when I saw it, I felt a terrible aura of danger. I’m afraid this red planet is a new menace.”

   “We’ll use the Elements of Harmony!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “We’ll defeat that thing, just like we did with Discord and Willy!”

   “That was my plan,” said Celestia. “However, to defeat a foe of such scale, the Elements are going to need help,” and she looked at Francisco.

   The black stallion bowed, politely.

   “My powers are at your service,” he said.

***

   Equestria doesn’t work as a normal world, and neither does the space that surrounds it. There is air, and sound can travel through it. Due to this, normal ponies can survive beyond the skies of their home planet, not only the alicorns.

   In a flash of golden and blue light, a giant figure materialized in the way of the red planet. Francisco had transformed into the Upgraded Dark Beast, he had decided to attack with his strongest shape. On his head, in the cotton candy horns, he was carrying the six bearers of the Elements of Harmony, as well as the two Princesses.

   The multiple eyes of the red planet looked at them, and the clouds of its atmosphere reunited, completely covering the surface.

   “What happens?” asked Twilight.

   “It’s shielding itself,” said Francisco. “Or, at least, that’s what it looks like.”

   “That means it’s intelligent!” exclaimed Celestia. “Maybe we can reason with it!”

   The Dark Beast approached. He was much bigger than any building in Ponyville, but less than a flea compared with the size of the red planet. Celestia and Luna combined their two Royal Canterlot Voices, forcing the six mares, and even Francisco, to cover their ears.

   “We are the rulers of the world known as Equestria!” they said, perfectly synchronized. “We are forced to inform you, strange entity, that you will collide with our planet if you keep this trajectory, so we would like to ask you to change it. We do not desire to start any meaningless conflict, and if what you want is to live peacefully in this section of the Universe, we will...”

   But something came from below the shield of clouds: a gigantic red tentacle, made of something that was neither earth nor flesh, or maybe a combination of both. It had an enormous mouth at the extreme, and it tried to swallow the Dark Beast. Francisco burned it with his fire breath, forcing it to retreat.

   “I don’t think it’s friendly!” he said.

   “There is no other choice, then!” exclaimed Celestia. “Prepare the Elements! Sister, lend me your power!”

   Francisco reunited a sphere of blue light in his claws, and then he shot a powerful magic blast, which was immediately followed by a rainbow beam with two added colours: white and black. The attack of the shapeshifter destroyed the shield of clouds, allowing the magic of the Elements, empowered by the two alicorns, to reach the red planet. Waves of light started to spread across the surface. For some seconds, the planet was as shiny as a star.

   Then, the light faded away, and nothing happened. The red planet grew more tentacles, and tried to catch the Dark Beast.

   “It hasn’t worked!?” asked Twilight, surprised.

   “Retreat!” shouted Luna.

   And they teleported back to Equestria.

***

   “I don’t understand it!” said Celestia, walking in circles. Around her, Francisco and the others were trying to think in a new plan. “Why didn’t the Elements work?!

   “They were designed to expel the evil, right?”, asked the black stallion.

   “Yes. Expel or seal the evil, that is their primary function.”

   Francisco scratched his chin with a hoof.

   “Maybe...” he said. “Maybe they didn’t work because the red planet is not evil.”

   “Excuse me?!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “Need I remind you that it tried to eat us?! Of course it’s evil!”

   “And scary...” whispered Fluttershy.

   “I looked at its eyes,” continued Francisco. “I didn’t see evilness in those eyes. I didn’t even see rage, like in the eyes of the Dark Beast, before I took control of him. I saw... neutrality. Pure neutrality.”

   “Shouldn’t that be a good thing?” asked Rarity.

   “But I felt danger!” said Luna. “If it’s neutral, why I sense it as a menace?”

   “Natural disasters are also pure neutrality,” shrugged Francisco. “This is bad. That planet probably doesn’t hate us, but it’s not going to show pity, either. I don’t know what it’s going to do to us, but we cannot beg, nor negociate.”

   Celestia sighed.

   “If only we had more information about it...”

   “Leave it to me,” said the shapeshifter. “I know someone who may answer our questions. Be right back.”

   And he disappeared, in a spiral of black wind.  

***

   The sky was red and without clouds, as always. Walking over the ground made of those tiny round stones, a black stallion approached the Hand Tower. He didn’t have to wait too long to meet, for the second time, the lord of that dimension.

   “Ah, I am glad to see you again,” said the drooling god, descending from the red sky and landing in the palm of stone.

   “There are troubles in Equestria,” explained Francisco. “A creature from outer space is threatening my world of colours. I was hoping that you could tell me-”

   The drooling god moved his tentacles, and a hole opened in the sky, revealing the image of the red planet.

   “I am aware of your situation,” said the entity. “Yes, I know it.”

   “What is it?”, asked Francisco.

   “A planet that eats other planets. I am afraid that Equestria is the next dish in its menu."

   “What?!” the black stallion looked up, at those demonic blue eyes in that red spherical body. To be honest, he was dreading that the answer would be something like that. “I have to tell Celestia and the others! We have to find a way to stop it!”

   “I am afraid you can not,” said the drooling god, closing the hole in the sky. “The rulers of Equestria do not have enough magic to do that, and those tools, the Elements of Harmony, are useless. Your theory of the neutrality is right.”

   “Then... Then I will do it! Yes, that’s it, I can do it! I will use the Dark Beast! After all, he was born of my desire to destroy my world, he’ll be able to do it, right?!”

   “At his best... in one year.”

   “What?!”

   “Your desire to destroy your old world is not as big as you think. You were not that heartless or violent in your previous life. The Beast can do nothing against an entire planet, he does not have the power to fight it.”

   Francisco fell to the ground, with his ears down.

   “And, as you imagined, talking with that entity will not work, either,” continued the drooling god. “For that creature, you and the ponies are nothing more than nutrients in its food. It will not listen to any of your words. Its goal is to consume everything.”

   Francisco covered his head with his hooves. He was starting to feel really hopeless. The image of that red planet devouring his beloved Equestria and all of his friends started to take form in his mind.

   Rage and despair filled his heart.

   “And can’t you do something?!” he asked, almost shouting. “Can’t you leave your stone throne, for once, and help us?!”

   The drooling god looked a bit offended by that. He gave a severe stare to Francisco with all of his eyes at the same time, and then he said:

   “If I could abandon this dimension, I would go search for happiness by myself, instead of relying on messengers and servants.”

   That short verbal beatdown helped Francisco to calm a bit.

   “And why can’t you leave?” he asked.

   “There are Rules.” The entity pronounced the r in a way it clearly sounded like a capital R.

   The shapeshifter knew, once again thanks to all of the books he had read in his previous life, that there was nothing to do. Once a supernatural creature starts to talk about Rules, there is no use in begging.

   “But”, said the drooling god, “you could gain enough firepower to destroy that planet.”

   “Really?” the black stallion stood up. “How?”

   “I shall submit you to a special training.”

***

   Francisco returned in a new spiral of black wind. The Princesses and the six mare were expectant, almost dying to know the news. The shapeshifter explained everything, and they didn’t like what they heard.

   “It is going to eat us?!” shouted Rarity.

  “It is going to eat Equestria?!” shouted Rainbow Dash. “How can a planet eat other planets?! Where did it come from?!”

   “I don’t know that,” said Francisco. “I didn’t ask about it, actually.  But the drooling god told me that he can increase my strength. If I go to that training, I will be able to save you all.”

   “Then, go,” said Celestia. “You proved to be a powerful and reliable ally in the past.  Now, we leave the destiny of our world in your hooves.”

   “And in your tentacles,” added Pinkie Pie. “And in your claws, and in any other appendix you can grow.”

   “And what will we do, sister?” asked Luna.

   “I don’t know,” the Princess of the Sun was worried, without a doubt. She looked bad, not even the Discord incident had hit her so hard. “I have to think about it.”

   “I’ll be going,” said Francisco, summoning the black wind again.

   “Good luck, friend from another world.”

   While the black spiral was engulfing him, Francisco looked at Pinkie Pie, and a voice in his head shouted: ‘Come on, you idiot! Tell her right now!’.

   “Pinkie...” he said.

   “Yes?” asked the mare, at the other side of the wind.

   “I... I...” but he couldn’t, so he just said: “I’ll be back! I promise!”

   And he disappeared.

   While he was being transported to the dimension of the drooling god, Francisco wished for another desk, so he could smash his head against it. Next Chapter: Star of despair Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 14 Minutes