Chapters Chapter 1: Left with my thoughts
I have to say, the multiverse is an odd place to travel through. It looks like a nebula with small vortexes strewn throughout them, each vortex leading to a different universe entirely. Normally a child going through this would probably be going through massive amounts of inner turmoil but honestly, I was strangely calm. Yes I was in shock for a long time, the speed at which things happened caused my brain to have to repeat the scenario over and over again before I started to come to terms with it.
My family, my friends, everything I knew was gone, so why was I so calm? Surely I should be crying, angry... hell, even delving into insanity would have been fine. But I couldn't feel anything.
Millions of thoughts passed through my brain at one time, each one crowding for attention. “What happened?” “Why me?” “What am I going to do now?” were some of the more common ones. In order to purge these thoughts from my mind, I tried to remember things about me. I'm not entirely sure why, maybe I figured I would find peace in thinking about things I understood.
“Ok, I'm 9 years old. I have two parents that love me. I got my cutie mark last year, a picture of a planet with a yellow ring around it. My fur is light grey and my mane is black. My name is... my name?”
It was odd. No matter how much I tried I couldn't remember my name for the life of me. I simply passed it off at the time. “I'm sure it will come back to me sooner or later.”
Slowly my brain switched back to reality and noticed I was heading directly towards one of the vortexes. I had been taught on what to do when passing into a vortex and started to get into position. Normally multiverse travel is safe for the user but it can, on rare occasions, be fatal. So the user needs to be ready to fall from a great height, dig through the ground, or simply brace for a short impact.
Naturally there wasn't any way of me surviving a fall from a great height and due to the state of my body, I doubted I could dig through anything stronger than fine sand. So I went into the basic bracing position, bent my knees, get ready to allow my legs to take the brunt of the fall so my body wouldn't be too damaged. Legs heal easily, organs not so much.
The vortex before me opened up to reveal a field of some sort. The portal was going to drop me maybe 6 feet down which is actually extremely lucky for portal placement. I swear whoever created some of the portals in the multiverse must be some sort of sadist... or just really stupid, whichever one works for you.
I could already feel the gravity of the planet taking hold of me, pulling me towards the ground at an ever increasing speed. It was when I was around 20 feet from the portal that fear and doubt started to set in.
“What if something goes wrong?” I thought, “What if the gravity suddenly changes and I fly into the portal at some breakneck speed?”
As absurd as it may sound, there have been stories told of such things happening. Where the gravity is weaker in the multiverse but as soon as the user passed through the portal they immediately splattered onto the ground from the sudden change of gravity.
Thankfully nothing like that happened. There was a slight change to the gravitational pull but not enough to cause me any harm. It still knocked the wind out of me when I hit the ground though. I lay there gasping for air; the bracing position had worked. The fall had sprained a leg but other than that I was fine. Maybe a little bruised but no real damage done.
After what felt like hours (it was actually near enough 5 minutes) I opened my eyes, squinting them at the sudden change of light, to see the most beautiful sight I had ever laid my eyes on. It was just like home, but without the war, and far more primitive technology. There was a small town sitting a couple of miles from me that I could only assume to be Ponyville and an immense city built on the mountains that I could immediately identify as Canterlot. I had never really visited Canterlot but everypony knew what it was. The capital of Equestria and home to the two princesses.
A few moments passed as I took in the landscape around me. The majority of the landscape was plains but I could see forested areas and a few mountains scattered around. I had seen pictures of what it was like before the war but to actually see it with my own eyes was impressive to say the least.
I was unsure on what to do at that point. I couldn't go home; I didn't belong here and I literally had nothing with me. After a minute of thinking I decided the best course of action was to try and head into town, maybe I could try and get help from the ponies that lived there? Who knows, I might even like it here...
And with that thought I started the long walk to Ponyville, not knowing that a certain chaotic god had been watching from a tree line nearby...
As I got closer to the town I could make out more and more of the town itself. The town looked a lot like it did in those history books I had read in school, but that couldn't have been right. After all, the town hadn't looked like that in over a century. Strangely enough, the walk didn't tire me at all, even with me being an earth pony, a walk of that length should have at least tired me a bit. I just chalked it up to be adrenalin from when I travelled from my own world and continued forward.
“No need to think too hard on things like that. Right now I just need to figure out where, or when, I am.” I thought as I shook my head to clear out my thoughts.
After about 20 minutes I arrived at the outskirts of the town. Being this close to it really showed how primitive its technology really was. The houses looked like something out of a fantasy book, being entirely made of wood, thatch and plaster. There where various exceptions of course. The biggest being a house that looked like it was made out of a various assortment of cakes, chocolate and other confectionery. (Just a tip, don't try to lick it. Trust me I tried and lets just say that it wasn't a great idea.)
The skies had no ships and the roads had no vehicles. Ponies either walked to their destinations or used a carriage. I had never seen such a clear sky, normally there would be so many ships in the air that the sun would have difficulty getting down to the ground. But here? Besides the occasional pegasus, the sky was completely clear.
One of the first things I noticed as I walked around the town is the lack of hostility. Every pony that I passed either smiled, waved at me or passed me a simple 'hello' before moving along with their day. I had never seen such a welcoming community, sure Ponyville back on my world was welcoming, but no where near to the extent that these ponies where being.
As I continued to take in my surroundings I realised something pretty important: “Where am I going to stay?”
I obviously had no money so I couldn't get a hotel room and I doubted any of these ponies would just take in some random filly off of the street. As I tried to figure something that I could do to get a roof over my head a voice suddenly came from behind me.
“Hey there little one, I haven't seen you around here before. Are your parents on vacation here or something?”
I quickly turned around to see a lavender unicorn staring down at me with a little smile. She had a purple mane and tail with a lighter purple and pink highlight going through both of them. Her cutiemark was a star with 5 smaller stars around it.
I thought about how I should respond for a second, if I told her that I was a filly from a different world she would most certainly not take me seriously. I hated to lie to this pony, especially with how welcoming they had been to me. But I had to be realistic. I needed information about where I was and I wasn't going to get that in an insane asylum.
“Yes they are.” I lied, “I'm from Manehattan, my parents just wanted to get away from the city for a while.”
Honestly this was complete guesswork. I knew Manehattan had been around for a long time in my world and so I put my hopes in that I hadn't been put in a world that was that primitive that Manehattan didn't exist.
“Well I hope you and your family have a great time in our little town. The ponies here are really welcoming to new ponies so I'm sure you will be fine. Oh but you should probably steer clear of Pinkie Pie for a few days. She gets far too excited about meeting new ponies.” She replied, apparently buying my well guessed lie.
“Ok thanks, I'll keep that in mind” I responded, hoping to end this conversation before she started asking more in depth questions. I'm not exactly the best liar.
She nodded her head and walked away to go continue to do whatever it was she was doing before she met me. When she was out of earshot I released the breath I wasn't aware I was holding. That could have gone a lot worse, I needed to keep away from ponies like that before somepony gets curious.
I almost facehooved when I realised exactly what I had done though. Because I said that I was on holiday I couldn't exactly ask anypony for lodging since I claimed I had my parents with me. I doubted that these ponies would appreciate me lying to them and I still needed to find out where I was.
“Maybe this town has a library. The history books said that there was one here once but it had been destroyed during the battle of Tirek.” I thought to myself as I looked for anything that resembled a library.
When I did eventually find it, it most certainly wasn't what I expected. I had found a massive hollowed out tree that seemed to have been re purposed as a house. There where multiple windows on the structure with a couple of platforms on the sides, one of which had a telescope on it. The oddest thing about it was that the tree appeared to still be alive, even though the majority of the original tree was no longer there. There was a sign outside that stated that the tree was called the “Golden Oaks Library” so I headed over to the door and knocked on it.
Imagine my surprise when a very familiar lavender unicorn answered the door.
“Oh hey there, I remember you. Come on in, what can I do for you?”
“Damn it”
“By the gods, does she ever shut up? ” I thought as I clutched my head in a vague attempt to block the inane drone come from the unicorn. As soon as I said that I was looking for books to do with recent history, she went on a massive tangent about various books, most of which I had never heard of.
Apparently not noticing my obvious torment, she had continued to lecture about these books for a solid hour.
“Ahem- Twilight, I really would love to sit here for another hour and listen to you explaining the ins and outs of 'The History of Starswirl the Bearded, Volume 16', but I really do need those books I came here for.”
My voice was apparently enough to snap her out of her mindset and it took a few moments before she finally blushed in embarrassment and promptly apologised.
“Oh, um... sorry about that, I don't often get the opportunity to talk about Starswirl to other ponies and I guess I got carried away, what was it that you where looking for again?”
'Finally, some progress ' I thought before replying, “I need any and all books on recent history. Preferably ones that go over massive events. I need them for... uh, research. For school.”
I know that I could have asked a bit less... suspiciously, but I couldn't concentrate on anything for the previous hour and so I had not come up with a good reason as to why I actually needed them.
Twilight didn't seem to pick up on it, thankfully, and began moving around the room, gathering various tomes from the bookcases built into the walls.
After a few minutes of searching she finally came back with an impressive pile of books, and placed them on the table in front of me.
“There we go, everything I could find that detailed recent events. If you need any help, feel free to call me over.” She said with a smile before going back to the shelves.
'Okay, here we go. ' I thought as I readied myself for the next few hours of reading.
- - Three and a half hours later - - -
It had taken me hours, but I had finally gone through all of the books I had available to me. Much of it I had already known, but there where a couple of differences. Mostly tame things that didn't mean much but there where a couple of pages in there that caught my eye.
One page detailed that the Changelings where not always an evil race, and had attempted to integrate into pony towns peacefully. However, they where pushed away due to their appearance and fear of their diet. After multiple attempts to reason with the ponies, the hives queen at the time decided that it would be in the hives best interest to move into the Badlands and sneak into towns to harvest what they can. This was a long stretch from what our history books said about the Changelings. Until I had read that book I had though that they where an evil race, bent on world domination. So much so that it had lead to their extermination at the hooves of the Seekers.
The other entries where about wars that I had never seen documented, like the griffon war in which a civil war broke out in the griffon borders and had lasted for nearly fifty years before a peace treaty was signed. Its amazing what historians will do to history sometimes.
A voice broke me out of my thinking and I turned to face the origin of it, not actually hearing what was said.
“Sorry, I didn't quite hear that.” I said when I recognised the face before me to be Twilight.
“I said, are you done with these books? I need to close the library up.” She repeated.
“Is it that late already? I apologise for staying this long, I lost track of time.” I said sheepishly, only now noticing the night sky out of the window.
Twilight giggled before responding, “It's okay, you haven't held me up or anything, and it is wonderful to see a young filly so interested in learning.”
“I'm glad I haven't been a bother, I'll leave now. Thank you for letting me stay.” I said as I hopped off of he chair before starting to head to the door.
“Oh, are you going to be walking home alone? Would you like somepony to come with you?” Twilight asked, I had to admit it was nice to see a pony that cared for strangers like that. However, I couldn't accept it, after all, I didn't have a home in this world.
“I appreciate the offer, Twilight, but I'll be okay.” I said with a smile before stepping out into the night.
“If you're sure you'll be okay then I'll believe you. You be safe now Echo.” She replied. I could tell she wasn't happy with the decision I had made but I needed to get more set up before I start getting into situations that may cause me to give may secrets.
“Goodbye Twilight, I hope to see you again soon.” I said as I turned away and closed the door.
'Now where to go from here? ' I thought to myself as I began the walk to the outskirts of the town.
- A few hours of walking later - - -
Fields spread out before me as I walked, I had begun to grow tired a while before this and the walking had not helped that, but I was confident now that I had found a spot that I could settle. I had learned some building methods in school. Nothing fancy, but enough to go with to build a temporary shelter. The only problem with that is I had no tools.
'Hmm... I really only have two options here. Attempt to find work so I can pay for tools, or try stealing them. ' I thought, as I looked at the small area of land I had chosen to be the starting area for my new home.
'Well, to run through both options... I have no skill in anything major, meaning that it would be unlikely that a business would hire me for anything. There is also the matter of me being a filly. Unlike my world, fillies here are required to go to school most days so I wouldn't be able to wander freely without arousing suspicion. If I tried to steal the tools then I could get them with no work required but if somepony saw me stealing then I would have the guard all over me before I could blink... '
I eventually came to the conclusion that I should decide when I can think clearly. My mind was foggy from exhaustion and I was beginning to sway.
After a moment of looking around, I settled under a large tree and closed my eyes. It wasn't comfortable, not by a long stretch, but it provided a small amount of cover from the elements. That would do for now.
It took less than a minute for me to fall asleep.
- - Canterlot Castle, Princess Luna's room - - -
Luna sighed as she entered her room. The night court was being held off for tonight thanks to what had been happening the last couple of days. A massive amount of unknown energy had been building up until yesterday, when it had spiked before disappearing. The guard where sent to the location that the energy had spiked but came back empty hooved.
'I will never think this through while my mind is this clouded. ' She sighed again as she thought to herself.
Turning to her bed she came to the decision to enter the Dreamscape, her realm of dreams where she aided all ponies that suffered from nightmares or other such things while they dream.
It didn't take long for her to enter the realm and it took even less time to realise something was wrong. There was a dream that she had never seen before. This was nothing unusual as ponies came and went quickly through the Dreamscape, but it was the energy emanating from the dream that got her attention. It was almost exactly the same as the energy that she and her sister had detected not even three days ago.
Steeling herself, she entered the dream, prepared to destroy whatever creature had entered this world.
She wasn't ready for what she found.
- - - Echo's dream, Luna's POV - - -
Going into the dream was easy for Luna, what with the hundreds of years in experience that she had, it was what she found on the other side of the portal that made it far more difficult to focus.
Instead of seeing some foul creature that had entered Equestria, Luna found a young filly sitting before her. She couldn't have been any older than a teenager. The land around her was utterly devastated, fires dotted the landscape while dark, menacing clouds covered the skyline as far as the eye could see.
Luna was speechless, never before had she seen a nightmare so... detailed. It was almost as if she had been in a world that looked like this.
Turning her attention to the filly before her, she found her staring forlornly down at the scene that played out before her, her ears splayed backwards and a frown dominating her face.
Attempting to ignore the devastation around her, Luna focused on trying to calm the filly. After all, that was her job in the end. Unfortunately this did not have the desired effect.
As soon as Luna took a step forward, the filly became aware of her. She spun around from her sitting position to face the intruder before her. Her face lit up in confusion when she apparently did not recognise who was before her.
“W-what?” She stuttered, clearly trying to understand how this pony was in her dream.
“It is okay, little one. I am not here to hurt you, I am here to help.” Luna replied, hoping to stop the young filly from panicking and waking up. If she woke now then Luna would not likely find her again so easily.
“Help? Help me how?”
“It is my duty to aid anypony that struggles in their dreams, and it would seem that you need some of that aid more than ever.”
At this, the filly looked down to the ground, thinking. After a few moments she lifted her head and asked, “so you are real then?”
“Of course, little one, my name is Luna, princess of Equestria and younger sister of Celestia. I control the moon's orbit and watch over all of the sleeping ponies during the night.” I responded with a smile. Surely she would calm now, knowing that a princess of Equestria was here to aid her.
However, instead of calming, or even becoming a slight bit happier, her face became one of fear.
“What!? Why are you here!? Oh no, I can't let this continue! I can't let you find out, it's too soon!”
Luna recoiled, never before had a pony reacted in this way when she had introduced herself.
“Please young one, there is no need to panic, panicking will only make it worse.” Luna said, trying to defuse the situation that was quickly getting out of hoof.
“How can I be calm!? You shouldn't be here! I should have realised this would happen, I gotta wake up!”
Luna was beginning to lose her hold in the realm, as the filly became more agitated her dream became less stable, chunks of land had already began to shift into darkness as the dream quickly began to deteriorate.
Realising that nothing would prevent her from waking at this point, Luna reluctantly backed away from the dream. As quickly as she had entered it, she left, and watched as the bubble imploded in upon itself before completely disappearing.
'What in Equestria was that?' She thought as she stared at the space that once housed the bubble to the filly's dream.
I woke with a start, gasping for air as I tried to calm down.
'How could I have been so stupid, of course Luna would have seen my dream. I could have risked everything with that mistake. I need to be more careful in the future. ' I thought as I slowly began to catch my breath. Looking at the moon it seemed that I had maybe gotten around five hours of sleep before I was awoken.
I sighed before standing, wobbling slightly as I was still trying to wake up. 'What am I going to do now? Now Luna has seen my mind AND what I look like. If she thinks that I am some sort of threat then it would make things far more difficult .'
I shook my head to try and clear my mind. I still had a lot of work to do before I could start telling ponies about why I was here. 'I only have one chance at this. If I can't stop this war from starting then my parents dies for nothing. I cannot accept that' I thought as I looked around to begin gathering sticks for a fire.
'But first, I could do with something to eat... '
- - Canterlot castle, Luna's POV - - -
“Sister, are you awake?” Luna asked, she had left her realm shortly after the dream had ended and immediately left to alert her sister of what had happened.
“Yes Luna, come in.”
Hearing that, Luna pushed the door open to find her sister going through various documents. Most of which where likely requests from nobles for tax reductions.
“How can I help you, dear sister?” Celestia said as she looked up from the paperwork before her.
“I may have found something that connects with the unknown energy we found a few days ago.” Luna responded
That certainly got Celestia's attention, as she had nearly given up with searching for an answer for it.
“What have you found Luna?” She asked, her full attention on Luna.
“I had entered the Dreamscape to aid ponies in their sleep, as usual, when I came across a dream that was emanating the same energy we had found. The dream was clearly a nightmare which caused me to become curious, I hadn't expected to see a nightmare in that realm at all when I had thought of a monster. As I entered, however, instead of finding a monster, I found a filly. I tried to comfort her but she reacted... unexpectedly. She became incredibly agitated before ending the dream.”
Celestia thought about this for a moment before responding, “did you manage to learn anything about the filly? If we could speak with her we could learn about what this energy was and what had lead to it spiking.”
“No, sister. All I can describe it her appearance. I never managed to get her name and it ended too quickly for me to learn anything substantial about her.” Luna said, unhappy that she couldn't provide any more information.
At this Celestia stood and embraced Luna, “It is fine, Luna. This is wonderful news as it means that we can now begin to discover what had happened. If you can, please describe the filly to the best of your abilities and I will have the guard be on the lookout for her.”
Luna smiled before going into a detailed description of the filly, when she had finished, Celestia sent word to the guard to be looking out for a filly with the description that Luna had given.
'Finally, progress is being made ' Celestia thought with a smile as she returned to her paperwork.
The smile quickly faded as she read another nobles attempts to extort money from the princesses.
-sigh- 'But some things will never change. '
Fire. That was the first thing I saw as I opened my eyes. Endless fire crossing entire fields, cities burning on the horizon, Canterlot in ruins to the point that it has nearly toppled off of the mountain it sits on. Ponyville, my old home, in ruin. The dead where the next thing that my mind registered. Hundreds of corpses lay scattered around. Guards, stallions, mares, even children filled the streets with their lifeless corpses, staring with lifeless eyes.
“Is the sequence nearly done yet?”
My fathers voice brought me from my horror induced daydreaming. My mother and father have been trying to activate a multiverse teleport for a couple of minutes now and its clear they are getting anxious. They are not experienced with the technology needed as they tried to stay away from it during the technological age that we where going through.
“Dammit storm, it wasn't ready three minutes ago so what makes you think that I got it working this time? I'm trying my best to do this as quickly as possible just hang on.” My mother replies.
Perhaps I should describe my parents for you. If you don't care then you can just skip this. My father's name is Nightstorm. He is a grey Pegasus with a slightly darker tone of grey for his mane. His cutiemark is a night sky with storm clouds scattered across it. My mother, Dawnlight is a dark red earth pony with a pink mane. Her cutiemark is a lone candle in front of a sun rising up from the horizon.
“Okay, okay. Just hurry. I don't know how much longer we are going to get.”
At the moment that he said that a loud roar filled our ears. A sound that we had come to dread over the last few weeks. It was the sound of the landing thrusters for the ships that had come from the griffon territory. Nopony knew what to make of them before they arrived, they where on a level of technology that we had never seen.
“Dawn! We need to move! NOW” My father yelled over the noise.
“Yeah just give me... I got it!” Mother exclaims happily as a cyan portal opens in front of her.
And of course. Fate decided that it had been too easy for us so far. The portal began to collapse. What with it being opened by a pony that had next to no knowledge of technology, it couldn’t maintain itself. Quickly thinking, my father grabbed me and promptly threw me into the portal. I couldn't even move as my vision came back to my parents staring into the barrel of a gun. Just as the portal closed I heard an ear shattering explosion and then...
Darkness.