New Ponyville Days

The scene shifts to New Dawn Hospital, where strange things were happening.

“Doctor, ready to open stasis chamber 4!” shouted an earth pony nurse, as he pointed at a large machine with mist pouring from the bottom of it.

“Well, get to it, then! We don’t want to be late for this one, now do we?” said the unicorn doctor as he pushed a large cart of medical tools and supplies over near the machine. Ponies were rushing to and fro, in all directions, preparing gurneys, IVs and other things to care for their patient. The camera moves in front of the chamber’s blue glass and white metal front.

Inside is a vague unicorn-type shape, wearing an oxygen mask, and floating in liquefying stasis gel. The figure slightly opens its left eye and the camera dramatically zooms up to the figure.

“It’s opening! Get ready!” another Doctor shouted as the machine drained itself of the liquid, and made a loud hissing sound.  The machine opened, and a familiar blue-green unicorn was lowered down onto the gurney. The nurses get to work, removing needles and hoses that were in the patient and rushing towards the operation room.

“Patient’s name?” said a doctor as he attempted to check for a heartbeat with a stethoscope manipulated by magic.

“Lyra Heartstrings, she was stabbed seven times 31 years ago and was put in stasis until now,” answered a nurse as she rushed along the gurney.

A group of surgeons were the operation room and started right away; applying strange materials and using even stranger tools that glowed brightly and made bizarre noises. The surgery goes on for over 3 hours.

Medical science was the first to advance rapidly as you just saw; cryogenics were perfected around 1026 CR.  Wound-sealing gels and infection blasting medicines were recently created just last year. These miracles of science were costly though, and only the wealthy could enjoy the luxury of having their lives having almost guaranteed safety. Lucky for Lyra Heartstrings, her insurance barely covered most of the costs of her Celestia-sent procedure.

Lyra wakes up, her whole body is sore, especially her right side. It was a dulled type of soreness, like she knew it was there, but didn’t quite feel it. She tries to lift her head but is too woozy to do that.

Last thing she remembered was… she was living in Fillydelphia after Ponyville was destroyed, with her cousin, Chartreuse. She was walking home when...when… Lyra strained to remember what happened after that, but she was too exhausted, and all she could see was white. White walls and white ceiling tiles and white curtains. The only thing that was dark is that it was night outside…night! It was all coming back to Lyra!

She was walking home one night when she was attacked by a knife-wielding psychopath! Her mind had repressed the rest of the brutal details… Lyra couldn’t sleep with the pain in her side like she was… well, stabbed seven times! I can’t think of any more accurate simile to describe it!

“How are you feeling, Miss Heartstrings?” a doctor said in a soothing voice, who was accompanied by a pegasus nurse.

“Great…” Lyra feebly said, still looking at the ceiling

“That’s good to hear, Miss Heartstrings, most ponies that got attacked by James the Slasher(the copycat killer of Rick Stabbington, who copied from Mitch the Mutilator, and he copied from Jackie the Marekiller) didn’t survive, in fact, you were the only one that ever survived!” the doctor happily pointed out with a progressively energetic voice.

“Luck…Lucky me, huh?” Lyra groaned out quietly. Her strength was slowly returning.

“Yes, lucky you, welcome to New Ponyville, Ms. Heartstrings, and welcome… to the future!” the doctor sounded like he was announcing the prize winner of a radio contest as loud game show music started playing.

“Wai-wha—WH—what, the future? What are you talking about?” Lyra asked, confused as could be.

“Youuu were in stasis for 31 years, Miss Heartstrings, and it is now the yyyear 1048 of Celestia’s Rrruuuuuulllleeee!!!” the hospital scene has melted away now, and the doctor is wearing a purple suit. He is standing behind a podium and shouts,” Congratulations, Ms. Heartstrings! Now, head on over to claim your prize, a brrrand spanking new, pair. Of. Haaaaaaannnndsss!!!!” The crown behind Lyra was cheering wildly as she smiled as big as she possibly could.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the doctor asked,” Um, nurse? How much pain medicine did you give her?”

The nurse examined the IV and said,” ooh, just enough to send her to Happy Town, by the looks of it! Sorry, doc…” the nurse adjusted the valve on the IV with her teeth. Lyra was mumbling quietly to herself about fingers while slowly waving her hooves around while a bit of drool escaped her mouth as she stared listlessly ahead. The doctor scolded the nurse as the two left the room and Lyra to her own fantasies.

Later, when Lyra wasn’t higher than a pegasus shot out of a cannon, she was properly explained her situation. There was the standard future shock and she tried escaping, and then there was this cool, action-movie chase scene where there were white birds flying around and they were doing parkour over tables and other things in slow motion. I mean, everypony was! Lyra, all the doctors, even this guy in a full body cast… She almost succeeded, too, until she was sedated by one of the doctors. Then Lyra woke up from her dream and groaned in frustration.

“Ah, you’re finally awake,” said the sun with a smile. Lyra looked out her window with a face of mixed seriousness and anger and just stared at the sun, which had a big, happy smile on it. Somewhere in the distance, Lyra heard sompony calling her name,” ~Miss Heartstrings… Miss Heartstrings… MISS HEARTSTRINGS!!!”

Lyra bolted up in her hospital bed, in the real world, “Ms. Heartstrings, you’ve been asleep for three days! That’s longer than anypony here in a long time, that wasn’t in a coma. We even tried using smelling salts on you! That must have been one HELL of a painkiller we had you on.  There was a story in the paper about you and everything. I guess they didn’t have any real news to report on… oh yeah, some guy named Trellis or something is here to see you, said he knew you.”  A young doctor told Lyra as Tellis walked in the room.

“Lyra, long time, no see! How ya been?” Tellis, to be a huge jerk, waved with his robotic hand,” looks like you haven’t aged a day! Those stasis chambers really do wonders, don’t they?”

“Tellis! How are you…hey! How did you get fingers? Tell me!” Lyra demanded as she magically pulled Tellis over to her.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly my choice to have my left hoof blown off, Lyra! And the eleven surgeries weren’t exactly a party! Now put me down!” Tellis answered.

Lyra dropped Tellis to the floor and he said,” I’m just glad you’re alive! When we heard the news…”

“We?” Lyra asked with a puzzled look on her face.

“Oh, yeah… you know how it’s like 30 years in the future and stuff? Kids! Get in here; I want you to meet who we came here for!” Tellis called out.

Comet and friends came into the room, except for Ruby; she had some “important” business to attend to. “Dang, lady, you look like you been to Tartarus and back! “ Molly called out with her Manehatten accent.

”Molly! I don’t want to hear that kind of language from you, young lady.” Shining scolded Molly

.

“Sorry Shine, won’t do it again… psyche!” Molly said, her chin length pink-and-black mane moving around slightly as she laughed.

“It’s a pleasure to meetcha, Miss Heartstrings,” said CJ politely as she tipped her hat towards Lyra.

“Please, call me Lyra, and you are?” Lyra answered.

”Cinnamon Jack, but most folks just call me CJ,” she told Lyra.

“And my name’s Hank!” Hankie Pie shouted as he came out from under the hospital bed.

“Who’s that over there, in the back? She looks familiar…” Lyra was moving to and fro, trying to get a better view of Comet, who was just trying to get this whole ordeal over with.

“(Sigh), my names Comet,” she said, feigning interest.

“Well, that’s the gang,” Tellis said, “ after 30 years, hospital food would seem like food fit for royalty, but what do you say we hit up Wacarnolds?!“

The group all cheered loudly, including the doctor that was in the room.

“Whatcu you cheering about, we aint takin you!” Molly told the doctor.

“Aww…” he said dejectedly.

They all went to Wacarnolds, in Shine’s and Tellis’s autobuggies, where Lyra had 11 double veggie cheeseburgers, 8 Dr. Hoppers, a spicy chickpea sandwich, 2 Cold’ns (Chocolate shakes), a salad, and an egg club sandwich.

Tellis heard the price when Lyra ordered, 126 bits! “Hey, uh Shine, you wanna split the bill?”

They all laughed except for Tellis. He ordered his food and all the others’ food, bringing the total price to 168 bits.  They all went to eat, and Lyra voraciously devoured all of her food and drink, actually scared the young ones a bit, even Tellis had a concerned look on his face.  After Wacarnolds, Hank decided to honor the age-old tradition of welcoming a new friend into New Ponyville with a party, even if Lyra did live there before it was new. Tellis was tasked with keeping Lyra busy until they could finish preparing the party at his house

“Lyra, it’s time to show you around town,” Tellis said as he drove his buggy down the highway towards downtown NPC. It was late in the evening, so the sun bathed the city in a beautiful golden glow. New Ponyville has grown to about 75% of what Fillydelphia was 30 years ago after it was rebuilt. Lyra was astonished at how different everything was, yet saddened at the same time. This wasn’t her home; her home was taken a long time ago by those mercenaries that tried to kill her and everypony she knew. She was really hung over at the time, but she does remember Tellis carrying her to the train station and getting as many ponies as he could out of Ponyville. She shed a tear at the unknown fate of her friend, Bon Bon and all the others she lost that day.

“Woah, you okay? Need a tissue?” his prosthetic dispensed a tissue and he offered it to Lyra, trying to focus on the busy city streets.

Lyra took the tissue with magic,” I’m fine, Tellis, it’s just so much to take in at once, I mean, almost getting killed, again, and now where I used to live is probably some kind of flower shop or a lightning-house!”

You hear a record scratch, time freezes, and the screen darkens slightly as Shining Sparkle, who is wearing a lab coat and glasses, walks onscreen, activates a projector and says, “Lightning is an illegal narcotic derived from rainbow juice mixed with concentrated sunlight powder, and altered with other chemicals until it becomes a powerful hallucinogenic in the form of yellow, lightning bolt-shaped crystals, which are smoked, ingested, inhaled, or injected into the bloodstream, lightning-houses, or Bolt huts are usually signified by yellow lightning bolt graffiti with a circle around it or other, more localized tags. Lightning has several street names, such as Zap, Yellow, Crazy Juice, Lemo-“

Tellis walks in and grabs Shining’s coat with his metal hand and starts pulling her off screen,” C’mon, Shine, let’s get the show rolling again”

“But, but I haven’t finished yet and I think everypony is learning a lot a…” Shining’s voice fades as she’s’ pulled away. The movie resumes.

“Actually, if I remember correctly, I think I saw that there was a Music Mania where your house used to be,” Tellis said as he made a right turn down Moontrane Street, “You wanna see it?”

“Yeah, I think it would be nice,” Lyra answered, looking out her window with a deep looking expression on her face.

“Alllrighty, then!” Tellis shouted and put on the flight goggles that were hanging around his neck as he gunned the engine, and then sped off towards Music Mania. When they got there, they saw that the sign said Music Mashrs .There was a curtain over the word ‘Mania’ and painted rather well, actually.

They went inside and when Tellis saw who was behind the counter, he said, “Well, I’ll be damned, if it isn’t the one and only Vinyl Scratch!”

Vinyl, who was half asleep from boredom, jumped up, causing her glasses to become askew on her horn, which she then corrected, “Lyra? Is that you? It is! And other guy! It’s you too! What’s it been, 20-30 years?”

“Yeah, Vinyl, what happened to you? I thought you were one of the most successful DJs in Equestria!” Lyra asked her old acquaintance.

“Well, I’ll tell ya, things change. After Ponyville got destroyed, I fell into a deep depression, turned to drinking, and my music got stale. Nopony would buy it, or even listen to it after a while. They called me a… a washout! After all that, my music career was reduced to fillies’ parties and other small gigs. So I decided to get out, but not completely. Now, I run this music store, but not for long if I can’t pay my bills! In short, DJs don’t die, they just fade away,” Vinyl told her friend from the past.

Tellis whispered to Lyra, and they both nodded in agreement, they went around the store, grabbing as much interesting- looking music as they could. The two returned to the desk and met a wide-eyed Vinyl Scratch, “Th-thanks you guys! This’ll pay my bills for…at least three months! How can I ever repay you?”

“Well…” Tellis leaned up to Vinyl and whispered something in her ear, she smiled and said, “Will do, cap-i-tan!” Vinyl saluted Tellis as he made his purchase which came up to 768 bits! Lyra and Tellis left the store with their bags of bulging sound, and Lyra said as they loaded their loot into the back of Tellis’s buggy,” Okay, I have two questions, what did you say to Vinyl? And where did you get all this money?”

“1: You’ll see, Lyra, and 2: When I got to NPC, I almost immediately won the lottery for one hundred thousand bits, lucky me, huh?” Tellis answered Lyra as he put his bags into the buggy.

“Yeah, lucky you, the colt with 3 hooves, winning the lottery!” Lyra said as she opened a buggy door with magic. It was 8:30 now as they drove towards Tellis’s home in Plate Town. Tellis put in a disk from the music store into the CD player. It was an energetic chip-tune soundtrack that was pretty good, actually.

Tellis got home around 8:50. Tellis carried all the bags of music out of the buggy and over to his house, and Lyra went in first. The lights suddenly go on and Lyra hears,” WELCOME TO NEW PONYVILLE!!! Hit it VS!” Vinyl Scratch starts up her turntable and plays a funky dance beat and they all get down. All the furniture has been moved out of the way to make a dance floor in Tellis’s living room, and for good reason, the gang seems to be really going wild tonight. Tellis went over to his dining room and set down his mountain of music. And he saw Comet in the kitchen, looking miserable. He grabbed a handful of music cases with his prosthetic and went over to her,” Hey, kid, got you a present, happy birthday, again,” Tellis set the tunes on the counter and asked, “Hey, what’s wrong, Comet? You can tell me.”

“I’m fine Tellis, just leave me alone!” Comet shouted as she ran up to her room. (Did I forget to mention that she lives with Tellis cause her mom died in a shooting a few weeks ago?)

Tellis went over to Shining and asked, “Hey, what’s wrong with Comet? I tried talking to her and she just ran off to her room.”

Shining answered Tellis, “When we tried to go get Ruby for the party, she said some pretty hateful things about Comet’s mother…”

“Oh Celestia… Tell me everything!” Tellis demanded.

“Okay, we were driving to Hanks house…” Shine said, trailing off. (It’s Flashback Time!)

Shining Sparkle drove her autobuggy down towards Hank’s house, where he kept massive quantities of party supplies he inherited from his grandma

“So hank, what do we need?” Molly asked Hank.

“Oh, the usual, streamers, balloons, confetti, more balloons, some glow sticks…” Hank listed out.

“I think this is gonna be a great party!” Comet said from the backseat.

After picking up the party supplies from Hank’s mom at the costume store she owns/lives in, they head over to the Goldenlight District to see if Ruby would want to go to the party.

“Yes? How can I help you?” answered a butler at the door to Diamondgem Estate.

“We’re here to speak with Ruby,” Shining said to the butler.

“Yeah, we wanna talk to her!” Molly called out from the air, hovering above the group.

“Right this way,” the butler led them through the estate towards Ruby’s room.

“Shoot…Ruby’s got some nice digs,” CJ said, admiring the extravagance of the hallway they walked along, marble pillars, silk curtains, huge paintings, and chandeliers everywhere.

“I’ll say, can’t wait to see what Miss More-Important-Than-You-Are’s room is like!” Molly said mockingly.

“Molly, that’s not nice! What would your grandmother say if she heard you saying such mean things?” Shining asked Molly.

“She would probably say somethin like ‘~Hey, M-Molly, you shouldn’t say things like that…’” Molly said with a perfect Fluttershy voice.

“Wow! That was really good! How long is this hallway, anyways? Are we there yet? Haven’t I seen that painting before?” Hank asked as he bounced up and down.

“We have arrived,” the butler said in an extremely dry tone.

As the gang approached the giant, eldritch door they could hear Ruby inside shouting, “Hideous! Just awful! Dreadful! Absolutely appalling! Oh, never in a million years!” She was grabbing clothes and tossing them behind her with every exclamation. Where an assistant was catching them, and she pleaded, “Miss Ruby, Please! I don’t think I can carry anymore!”

“Ahem, Madame Ruby, you have guests,” said the butler as he opened the humongous doors to her room.

“Not now, Javier! Can’t you see im- Oh, it’s you five, what could you possibly want?” the white unicorn said as she started to brush her long crimson hair in front of a mirror made out of glass from Atlantis, advanced reinforced chrome backing from Stalliongrad, and eldritch framing. In fact, there was eldritch wood all over her room, giving off a slight blue aura from it all; there was even a large eldritch chandelier with magic flames producing extra light.

For once, Molly was speechless as she looked around the room, mouth agape, Comet tried to look unimpressed, Hank was shouting about all the blue wood everywhere and CJ was commenting on how it looked like a villain’s evil lair.

Shining said to Ruby, “Tellis found an old friend, and we are throwing her a party to celebrate, and we were wondering-“

“Oh, please! Not another of your agonizing commoner ‘parties’, I’d sooner wear cotton! The other day, you guilted moi into showing up using Comet’s mother as ammunition, and now here you are, begging me to grace your poorhouse again with my presence!” Ruby said with a look of pure malice in her eye.

A teary-eyed Comet roared and launched herself at Ruby, only to be grabbed mid-air by her comrades, “YOU TAKE THAT BACK!! YOU TAKE IT BACK!! I’LL KILL YOU!! YOU’RE DEAD, YOU HEAR ME?!?! DEAD!! GRAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

“Ruby! What has gotten into you? This, this isn’t like you at all!” a shocked Shining Sparkle said to Ruby as she signaled for security to"‘escort" them from the building.

Outside, Hank, CJ, and Molly were consoling a sobbing Comet as she sat on the steps of the estate, while Shining stood nearby, trying to piece together what just happened, “I just don’t… I mean, she just… and then…”

“Save it, Shine, let’s just get Comet home,” Molly said,”Shoulda just never came here…” she whispered to herself angrily while rubbing a hoof on Comets back in an attempt to comfort her.

They boarded Shine’s Troterim 6SX Autobuggy and drove off towards Tellis’s house. They didn’t say anything the whole way there.