Twilight Sparkle’s head pounded. Underneath her she felt dirt and dirt. All at once her memory came flooding back, she’d been preparing to enter the human world when something had gone seriously wrong with the equipment monitoring the mirror portal, pulling her and Spike through in the process. Her eyes snapped open and she was greeted by the sight of a deserted road surrounded by barren desert. Immediately her mind went back to the wasteland she visited that was caused by Starlight trying to change history and she gasped in shock
“Twilight?” she heard spike ask. Glancing over she saw Spike sat in the middle of the road a few feet away “where are we?” Twilight glanced around trying to determine the location. But came up empty.
“I…I’m not sure…” she said, glancing around with a mixture of shock and amazement. Twilight went to stand up, only for feel a sudden bout of dizziness, causing her to topple over. All at once she felt a splitting headache that signified magical exhaustion, something she hadn’t felt since she became an alicorn, causing her to let out a quiet hiss of pain “note to self, don’t use magic for a few days” her voice was quiet, almost weak sounding.
“Are you alright?” Spike asked, rushing over.
“I’ll be fine…” she faltered, starting to feel drowsy “I just need to…rest for a while”
Suddenly out of nowhere a droning growl cut through the air and what resembled a car from the human world appeared over a ridge in the road driving towards them at some speed. As a loud horn cut through the air Twilight found just enough strength to jump out of the way of the swerving vehicle before she collapsed on the side of the road. The last thing Twilight saw before she slipped into unconsciousness was a human stepping out of the vehicle holding something long and tubular in its hand and walking towards them, saying something that she couldn’t understand.
I’m Luke, one of the lucky few who survived the end of the world. It happened about 15 years ago, last time I did the maths that put us somewhere past the year 2030, though I’m not sure of the specific year.
Originally I was born and raised in the old UK, in “ye olde England”. Over the years following the end myself and a few other people from the UK found ourselves traveling east until eventually we found ourselves on American soil, but that’s a story for another time. these days we’re aligned with a local tribe that does odd jobs as well as provide escort with a number of ally tribes, and helping them in fending off rival tribes.
Which brings me to today.
I’d finished up a scouting run and I was less than a day away from the city and I had enough fuel left to be able to put my foot down. My vehicle of choice? An old Vauxhall estate car that I’ve used since we were still in the UK. Oh sure it might not be the first choice for most drivers in the post apocalypse, but it has its own charm. Over the years it’s been modified more and more until it’s become a rally-camper hybrid of sorts. Tough and nimble enough to handle off-road, but I removed the rear seats and converted the back of it into a home away from home, add some raised suspension, improvised top-box and off-road headlights and it’s everything I need out in these god forsaken wastes. Well what about when the going get’s tough? I hear you ask, well it’ll do 150+ on the flat and when I’m not running for my life it’ll do more than 30 miles to the gallon…when the engine’s wiring isn’t on the blink. you see, this isn’t some tough car from the 70s or 80s, it’s a product of the early 2000s, it needs an ECU to keep the timing right, which thankfully my step-dad has managed to keep going, though it has started suffering from…gremlins, usually a drop in fuel consumption or the cruise control playing up.
Anyway, getting swiftly back on track. barren desert streaked past me as I raced along the old highway. I was just approaching an undulating section of road when what looked like a rip in the very air seemed to appear out of nowhere about a ¼ mile away. I let off the throttle and prepared to stop, only to crest a hill and nearly run over what looked like two animals. Acting reflexively, I yanked a chain in the ceiling blowing a loud air horn, and swerved to avoid them as they jumped out of the way. The tires squealed as the car slid to a stop a short distance away. Looking out the passenger side window I could see that one of them appeared to be hurt or unconscious or something, whilst the other was stood by it in apparent distress.
Grabbing my shotgun, I got out of the car and cautiously made my way over. Even with them seemingly off their guard I could never be too careful. As I got closer I could make out what they were better. They were both purple, but that was where the similarities ended. The smaller and more alert of the two had green fins, and appeared to be a reptile of some kind, but that was like comparing a lizard to a snake. The larger, and unconscious one, was, I kid you not, a tiny horse with wings and a horn. Regardless, something that stood out was the fact that the reptile had a definite intelligence in his eyes.
“What the hell are you?” I asked, pointing the shotgun at the lizard. In response the lizard spoke, though it was no language I knew or had heard before.
“Plase, ton knochte vetzeh wur!” it said in a pleading manner, in an accent that somewhat approached German. I stopped and looked at the two of them curiously. The lizard at least was intelligent enough to talk, though in no way I understood, I at least understood the pleading in it’s voice, plus it sounded young. I holstered the shot gun in my belt before cautiously making my way over.
“I’m not going to hurt you” I said calmly, hoping my tone of voice more than anything would convey what I was trying to get across. I knew enough to know that the horse-thing was injured or hurt in some manner. I made to crouch down to examine it but the lizard exclaimed defensively. I held my hands up hoping to convey that I wasn’t a threat before continuing to crouch down, slower this time. Everything about the condition of these two just screamed ‘out of place’ not just their physical appearance, they wasn’t a single trace of dirt on them like you’d expect, hell, the horses hair seemed to be actually maintained in some manner.
Once crouched down I began to quickly examine the horse, using what basic medical knowledge I had to try and ascertain what was wrong with it. Ignoring whatever the lizard said. The horse didn’t seem to be physically injured and it was still breathing. Carefully I stood up and power walked back to my car, before opening the rear door up to reveal the austere living space. Walking back I crouched down once more and, ignoring the lizards vehement protests, picked up the horse and began to carry it to the car. Once it was laid on my bed I turned to the lizard.
“The choice is yours” I said, despite the fact I knew it couldn’t understand me “you can either stay out here on your own and starve to death. Or you can come with me and at least have a chance at surviving” I put extra emphasis on my tone of voice and I gestured to the car, followed by the endless wastes behind us. He hesitated for a moment before walking in my direction. It glanced warily up at me as it attempted to climb into the back, before I sighed and in one swift motion picked it up and deposited it in the back before shutting the door. I glanced at the setting sun. deciding it would be better to set up a camp nearby sooner rather than later before getting into the car and driving off, I knew of a location I could use not far from here.
Twilight found herself gradually waking up, first came the feeling of stifling heat, then she could feel that she was laid on a bed of some manner, though it wasn’t that comfortable. She could also hear strange music playing.
Opening her eyes, she was nearly blinded by bright sunlight filtering through from outside, looking around once her eyes had adjusted she seemed to be in a small room of some sort, with rusted metal panelling interspersed by windows, the glass was covered on the outside with a metal mesh that sent patterns of shadows into the room. to her right was some sort of long metal box with various little odds and ends on a small shelf just above it. On the ceiling was a bunch of straps arranged in odd positions, as if to hold several long objects.
Glancing down to the bottom of the bed revealed there to be an opening, outside of which she could make out smoke rising, with what looked like a human sat to one side, tending to it. She cautiously began to crawl her way towards the opening. As what was outside the opening came into view she could see the human better. It was currently tending to a metal pot filled with some liquid, and was dressed in dark, dusty clothes that looked like they had been in use for a great amount of time. Spike was sat opposite the human, he must have heard her because he turned to look and immediately a smile lit up his face.
“Twilight!” he exclaimed happily, getting up and rushing over to her, only to stop short due to the obvious height difference of the room she was in and the ground. “Are you ok?”
“I should be fine” she said, before looking around, all she could see for miles around was open desert with some hills in the distance “Where are we?”
“Beats me” Spike said with a shrug, before jerking a thumb at the creature sat at the campfire, tending to a cooking pot “that thing doesn’t speak Equestrian”
“What do y-” she was interrupted by the creature
“Mơr̵̡̛n̶i̶̕n͘,͘ ̷̸ẁ̧͘a̕n̸t̵̕ ̷o̢͏w̡t̷͡ ̨t͝͠͡à͏̀ ͞è̕a̴͘'̕?” it asked in what seemed to be a male’s voice, though in no language Twilight understood.
“Uh…do you speak Equestrian?” she asked, the creature looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face.
“A̵͡h͡ ͠dó͢u̴n̵̛'̕͜t͠ kn̡a ̕҉l͢͝i' ̛̕wh̸a͡'̛͏ ̨̨t' ̀'ȩ͝͡l̨͘l͏̨ ͜t̴͡ha̷s̵̡ ́͜͜sa̡͞y̵i̧͞ņ̵.̷” he then put his hand into a pouch that was hanging off the side of his waist and pulled out thin, reddish-brown strip of something before standing up and walking over to twilight, he then put placed the strip in front off her. “E͟à͜'̨͞͏, ̷̛͞th̕͜ą̀'̴͟i͞l͏ ͜f̕͜ee̴͢͠l͢͞͏ ̧͘b̡͢҉e̢͡͞t̡̛t͢a҉̨.͜͢͠”
“What is it?” Twilight asked, looking at Spike
“I don’t know, but I think it’s supposed to be food”
“Pemmican” the creature said, gesturing to the strip as he sat back down by the campfire. Twilight went to levitate it towards her, only for her horn to spark suddenly. In response the creature quickly pulled out a strange looking object and pointing at her faster than she could blink, though she didn’t know what it was, she understood that it was a weapon of some manner, maybe like those hoof-held canons that had recently been invented. The air between them suddenly became very tense, after a few moments the creature slowly lowered the weapon and resumed tending to the campfire
“Uh…Twilight, are you sure it’s a good idea for us to be sticking around with this thing?” Spike whispered.
“I don’t think we have much choice” Twilight responded, looking at the desert surrounding them. “it’s either go with him, or starve out here” she then dragged the food-strip towards her with a hoof before tediously attempting to pick it up with both hooves. After a few attempts she succeeded and began chewing away at it, noting the odd texture.
For sometime a silence passed between the three of them, with Spike having eventually climbed up to sit with Twilight. He had explained to her that the “room” she slept in was actually the vehicle that had nearly hit them last night and that she had been asleep for all of last night and half of today. Meanwhile the creature had finished preparing whatever it was he had prepared, drank some and then began to pack it away into a large metal looking tin.
He had almost finished packing away the rest of the cooking equipment when he stopped suddenly just as Twilight began to hear a droning, the creature muttered something sharply under his breath before kicking out the fire and loosely bundling things into the back of the vehicle.
“G̸̛ȩr͠r̵̢͠ ̴̴i͝'̧̛.̛͘͟!” he said, slamming the door behind them them as they climber further into the vehicle. He then dashed around to the side of the vehicle and climbing it, a few moments later a rough burbling noise began to vibrate the vehicle as it lurched forward and onto a smooth surface. Leaving Twilight and Spike huddled together in the back scared and confused.
As I sped down the deserted road I began to panic slightly, not only was my life in danger, but I had two tagalongs when I really shouldn’t have stopped to help. The car was quickly accelerating, its off-road absorbing any bumps in the roads and creating a ride so smooth you could paint a picture. After about 5 minutes I could see a dust cloud in my rear-view mirrors, just as miss purple climbed into the front and sat in the passenger seat to the left of me, looking into the wing mirror with concern. Grabbing the old CB radio I began to contact some fellow tribe members, the aerial on the top of my car should have enough range to reach them.
“mayday mayday, this is Rue Britannia inbound from a scouting run, I'm about 50 clicks inbound towards Haven city on the south road doing 90 with some bandits on my tail” I said “I also have some tagalongs with me, think you have anyone nearby who could lend a hand?” I soon got a response.
“copy that, Rue Britannia” said a female voice there was a pause “there’s a patrol a few clicks ahead of you, I’ll send them your way. Just hang tight till then”
“Roger that” I said, before putting the mic down. Over the roar of my own car’s engine I could begin to hear the engines of my pursuers. Setting the car into cruise control I grabbed the gun which held the most ammo, in this case a cross between a rifle and a revolver, capable of holding no less than ten 50-cal rounds. I then called over to Miss Purple. “HEY!” the horse looked at me with a questioning look
“dach?” she asked, I held up my gun.
“This! ten shots! bang! Ten!” I then motioned ten using my fingers, I then showed her how to reload it, before pointing at her little lizard friend clutching onto the seat behind her “I’ll need him to reload it! RELOAD!” she nodded, seeming to understand what I was saying.
“dach! Zhen boom, ar…relod” she said, mimicking what I had said. I nodded. I then focused back on the road. Our pursuers were now much closer about 50 foot back, so I began to push the engine harder. Now we were doing about 110-115, but they were faster and soon caught up.
Driving alongside us I could see that they were driving what looked like trophy trucks from before the war; custom built vehicles designed to go off road and go fast whilst doing it. Even now I could see the suspension of their trucks moving up and down like the pistons of an engine to smooth out the ride. Their V8 petrol engines roaring over the burble of my V6. On the back of the trucks I could see raiders armed with rifles, their skin tanned with years of being out in the sun.
“That car’s ours now!” one of them shouted, firing his rifle. the round pinged off the bonnet with a loud twang.
“Bugger off, you cunt!” I shouted back. Setting the steering wheel to dead center I pushed a large pin in, locking the steering. Aiming the rifle and pulling the trigger, the gun jolted back violently and the round fired with a loud bang. Meanwhile Miss Purple and Lizard Boy shouted exclamations of surprise. The round hit its mark and his shoulder exploded into a mess of blood, bone and gore, splattering the side of the truck causing him to let out a scream of pain.
Next I aimed for the truck on the other side of us, repositioning the rifle so I could fire through the car and out the other window. Miss Purple gasped and ducked quickly, screaming as I fired, aiming at the driver, and covering her ears. This time the shot missed, ricocheting off the roof of the truck. In retaliation the guy on the back of the truck fired a couple of rounds. One glancing off of the bonnet and another hitting the passenger side door, Miss Purple let out a yelp and began clutching her waist. “Shit!”
“Ah! Freck!” she swore, I didn’t need to translate what she said to get the message. She was obviously hit, in one quick motion I placed the rifle in my lap, pulled out the locking pin and yanked the steering wheel, the car swerved to the right, hitting the truck next to me and it swerved trying to correct, falling behind. Returning to the road I took off the bandanna I usually had hung around my neck in case of a sand storm, pressed it onto miss Purple’s wound, picked lizard boy up from behind the passenger seat and showing him how to apply pressure to the wound. With that sorted I grabbed the radio and practically barked down the radio.
“what’s the ETA on that backup? I have a wounded passenger! Shot to the abdomen!” suddenly I heard an air horn sound off in the distance.
“What’s this I hear about you having a party without telling me!” a familiar voice called over the radio. Looking to the right I could see a dust cloud approaching rapidly. I yanked on my own horn to acknowledge before grabbing my rifle and taking aim once more.
“This is for Purple” I muttered, aiming for a headshot and firing at the truck who’s rifleman had hit the horse. The rifle fired and the driver’s head exploded in a shower of blood and brain matter. the body slumped and the vehicle fell back, hitting two trucks behind it and beginning a chain reaction. I quickly turned and aimed out of the driver-side window, only to see the rifleman already taking aim. Just as he was about to fire I saw a jet of blood shoot out of his head, before he slumped into the back of the pickup. Using this opportunity, I fired at the driver, hitting him in the chest. He was unfortunately still alive so I aimed again and fired. This time the bullet flew true and hit him square in the head.
The truck dropped back to reveal a Toyota pickup with a rifle wielding woman stood on the back. I nodded to her and she nodded back. With the arrival of reinforcements the raiders began to fall back, a small group of our vehicles turned off in order to give chase. With the danger passed I took noticed of Lizard boy’s worried ramblings and looked over to see miss purple seemed to be going pale. Placeing a hand on the cloth I pressed down to try and stem the bleeding “Shit, don’t you die on me, and most definitely not in my car” locking the steering I grabbed the radio handset.
“we need to speed this up, I’ve got a passenger dying on me in here” I said “we need to have medics ready when we arrive there” I heard the roar of an engine and an old muscle car pulled up alongside on the right-hand side before the driver looked across to see the passengers.
“What the hell are those?” he said through the radios “you said passengers, not damn mutated animals”
“It’s complicated” I replied “I’ll explain once this is over” the next 10 minutes or so were incredibly tense. With Miss Purple close to falling unconscious, and Lizard boy having grown increasingly distressed. As we approached the gates of the city I yanked out a pattern on the horn which alerted the gatekeepers to an injured person requiring medical attention. Pulling into the city square just beyond the entrance I could see what amounted to a doctor these days rushed forward with a makeshift stretcher being pushed like a wheel barrow. Jumping out I rushed around to the other side.
“What have we got?” the doctor asked.
“special case, small caliber gun-shot to the leg, bleeding out” I said, opening the door to reveal the two occupants inside “I’m not sure what the hell she is though, but she’s defiantly intelligent, albeit foreign speaking. Same with her friend, though he’s not injured” the doctor stared at them in confusion for a moment, before a determined look flashed across his face.
“I’m gonna need your help with this” he said “lift her onto the stretcher for me” I did as told and he immediately rushed off to the medical hut, with myself and one purple lizard chasing after him.
Twilight Sparkle found herself floating in a white void. No sense of direction, no up, no down, no left, no right.
“Hello? Is anypony there?” she called out, her voice left no echo. But nonetheless a voice called back.
“Twilight Sparkle?” she heard Princess Luna’s voice call as the Princess of the night materialised in front of her, her body hazy and transparent, even flickering every so often.
“Luna!?” she asked in surprise “What’s happened?”
“We aren’t sure” Luna said “we felt a great surge of magic, then you and Spike seemed to…disappear. It was only after a full day and nights worth of searching that I managed to locate you, which brings us to now. Can you maybe tell us where you might be?” Twilight began recounting her time in the strange world, all the while Luna sat and listened, her expression growing even more troubled as time passed. When Twilight finished Luna looked downright mortified.
“That is…disturbing to say the least” she said after some time.
“Is there anything you can do to help me and Spike?” Twilight asked. Luna shook her head.
“Ney, finding one’s mind is one thing, locating them across the boundaries of a universe is another matter entirely” she said “Assuming this
“Human” is able to save your life, I’ll try to teach you everything I know to help you survive on this world, whilst Celestia may have thought you well with most magic, there are still some areas where I feel your knowledge is…lacking”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.
“Defensive and offensive magics” Luna explained “whilst a simple shield or stun spell is useful, I fear there may come a time where you have to defend your life at the cost of another” Twilight went to speak, but Luna cut her off “I’ll explain later, but now I have some business to attend to, Fare thee well, Twilight Sparkle, we pray you will recover” and with that, Luna faded out of existence, and Twilight's consciousness went with it.
I was sat on the bonnet of my car dozing under the evening sun, using a foot-step that I’d bolted to the bonnet for just such an occasion to hold me up, it was to the left of the huge air intake and slight lower than. I’d just finished helping the doctor to patch miss purple up, she’d survived, but barely and now she was resting in the back of my car, which I’d cleaned up for the first time in…actually I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cleaned it. To the right of me, on the other side of the intake sat one purple lizard. The both of us were quite frankly exhausted, Myself because I’d just finished assisting in an operation, and lizard boy because he’d probably never been exposed to violence before, judging by the vacant look and the bags under his eyes.
The gates to the city swung open and a Jeep-turned-halftrack drove through dragging the remains of one of the trucks from earlier, followed soon after by a small convoy bringing in the rest of the trucks. High performance trucks like are a valuable commodity out here, so they would most definitely be put to good use. Just as they swung around and drove past us my vision began to blur and I heard a faint voice, growing clearer. Out of nowhere a large blue horse, similar in appearance to miss purple, materialised, walking towards me. I saw a fellow human walk past, seeming to walk right through the horse.
“Human, can you see and understand me?” it asked in a female voice.
“W-what the fuck are you?” I asked. The horse raised an eyebrow.
“…I’ll take that as a yes” she said “I am Princess Luna, sovereign of the Night and co-ruler of the nation of Equestria, one of my fellow princesses and her assistant have appeared in your world and through fat have come to you”
“you mean Lizard boy and Miss Purple?” I asked, she seemed to bristle at that.
“Their names are Princess Twilight Sparkle and Spike” she said “and you will address them as such from now on!”
“Whatever, your highness” I said dismissively, resting my head back on the windscreen of my car and tipping my flat cap to shield my eyes from the sun “kind of hard to get someone’s name when you don’t speak their language”
“Quite” ‘Luna’ replied.
“How come I can see you anyway?” I asked after a brief pause “for that matter, how can I understand you?”
“I forced you into a dream” she said “Languages become meaningless once you start communicating on a spiritual level”
“Right” I said “I get the feeling that you came to me for a reason, so get on with it and get out of my head” I couldn’t see how she reacted, but I imagined she wasn’t too happy.
“I came here to ask for your help” she said, I tipped my cap up slightly and cracked open an eye, she seemed almost…pleading “Twilight Sparkle and Spike, they’ve never been in a world like yours, and as much as you’ve helped them so far, I’m asking you to keep helping them, watch over them, teach them the specific skills required to survive in your world, I’ll do what I can with Twilight, but I’ll need you to help Spike also, do you think you can do that?” I waved my hand dismissively.
“As much as I’d love to” I said “as I’ve said before, the language barrier is an issue”
“I can solve that” she said, and I heard an honest to god sparkling noise, before I felt an itching on my left hand. Pushing my cap up I glanced down at my hand to see a stretched out 6 pointed star.
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
“It’s the mark of magic” Luna said “It will allow you to speak with Spike and Twilight Sparkle with ease. And in time, use magic yourself, something your species cannot normally do.” Suddenly Luna’s form began to fade in and out of existence. “my connection to you is beginning to weaken, I’m afraid this is where we part ways, human” and with that, she disappeared entirely. At that moment I woke with a start, shaking my head to clear my thoughts I saw that people were carrying on as they were before, seemingly unaware of what just happened. I began to mull over on what Luna had said, when suddenly I heard a bang and my cr rocked. The lizard, apparently called Spike, awoke with a start and yelped as he fell off the bonnet of the car and onto the dirt below. Standing up I could see him looking around in confusion.
“What the hay?” I heard him ask, in perfect English, he sounded young, very early teens at most. Suddenly a purple aura surrounded him and he flew into the air. Soon after I saw Twilight making a run for it with a bandaged hind leg and an apparent limp, holding spike in the air with her…magic, was it.
“Hey, wait!” I called, beginning to run after them. She didn’t seem to have any set destination in mind, pushing random people out of her way with her magic and causing them to shout in surprise and confusion as she ran in a blind panic, despite mine and Spike’s protests. “Twilight, STOP!” suddenly a bolas flew whirled me and entangled itself around Twilight’s legs, causing her to yelp as she face planted the dirt a slid along the ground for a couple feet. A small crowd of confused onlookers created a loose circle around her as I walked up to her.
“What’s all this then?” I hear an old, male voice call. Turning around I saw an old man riding an equally ancient looking 3 wheeled petrol scooter towards us. This was the city’s leader, old man Barnes next to him stood Barnes’ personal body guard, that’d fired the Bolas at Twilight “earlier I heard tale of a certain limey returning from a scouting run with a wounded passenger, you said it was “something complicated”” he mimicked my accent as he said this. “I was expecting an intelligent zombie or some such bullshit, not a couple of escaped experiments from some abandoned government facility”
“I’ll explain later, barnes” I said “right now I’ve got these two to look after”
“well everyone’s here and I’m pretty sure they’re just as curious as I am to know what the hell those two are” he said, gesturing to the small crowd. I sighed.
“long story short…they’re aliens” I said, and was answered by a sea of laughter. “They’re intelligent, and as crazy as it sounds, one of them is royalty”
“And do tell” Old Man Barnes said “How did you come about with this intel?”
“Another of their kind spoke to me in a dream” again, more laughter. I glanced down at Twilight and Spike, the latter was looking around at the gathered people fearfully, meanwhile the former was studying me.
“Ha, after all this time, I’d say you finally gone off the deep end” Barnes said.
“looks that way, doesn’t it” I said “Though they talk, not that you’d understand what they were saying”
“Oh I’d love to see this” Barnes said “You got one minute” I quickly turned around and walked over to twilight, bending down to remove the rope holding her legs together.
“Sorry about this” I said “I know you can understand me, some Princess called Luna put something on my hand that lets me talk to you”
“You spoke with Luna!?” Twilight asked in surprise, she spoke with an American accent.
“We don’t have much time” I said “I’ll explane properly once I can get us out of here, but first, I need you to put on as big a magic show as possible. Most of the people here are practically feeding off your fear, gotta intimidate them back a little, can you do that?”
“Why can’t you just ask them nicely?” Spike said.
“Because things don’t work like that around here”
“I see you talking to those two over there” Barnes said “Times up” suddenly Twilight stood up and began walking towards him, then she closed her eyes and let out a sigh before looking back to me
“I’m sorry about this” Twilight said, before I had a chance to answer what she meant her eyes set ablaze with dark blue flames, a sickly green and purple cloud surrounded her horn and shot towards me, upon striking me I felt a great weight fall on me, my find began to be filled with all sorts of negative emotions, all the negative memories in my life. I barely noticed her beginning to rise up into the air about 5 feet, suddenly I heard her talk, her voice having a strange distorted sound to it. “I’m having to use dark magic against him so that I can talk to all of you in a language you’ll understand, so I’m only going to say this once. My name in Princess Twilight Sparkle, experienced in all kinds of magic, I come from the land of Equestria, I’ve recently been shot in the leg and I’m quite frankly not in the mood to be dealing with any more crud from ANY of you, so let us pass!” with that a shockwave of what could only be described as a wave of negative energy rolled across the gathered crowd, before I felt all the negative emotions dissipate completely. I stared in shock at Twilight, before the silence was broken by a very shaken sounding Old Man Barnes.
“G-get the hell out of here, freak” he said, before jabbing behind him with a thumb towards the direction of the gates. I looked to Twilight and Spike.
“I think it’s best if we leave sooner rather than later” I said, before walking back in the direction of my car, the crowd of people split to let us through, staring at Twilight as she walked past them. We got back to the car and got out of the city as fast as possible. Almost immediately Spike fell asleep in the back of my car, and so we drove for a few hours, until the sun went down, all in complete silence. Eventually I spoke.
“So…care to explain what the hell that was back there?”
“Dark magic” Twilight said quietly, not looking at me, instead staring out the window “it’s ancient magic, forbidden in Equestria…I used a spell that forced your mind to allow me to speak your language…temporarily.” She sighed before letting her head drop on the window sill “I shouldn’t have done that”
“Hey, it’s alright” I said, trying to shrug it off “It got us out of there quicker, didn’t it” she whipped her head around to look at me, her eyes were soaked with tears.
“you don’t understand” she said “that sort of magic, that sort of spell, is always used at the cost of another. I…I used you, I used your soul for my own use” she looked quite frankly horrified at what she was saying. I saw a familiar spot to park the car for the night and pulled over.
“Come on, I want to show you something” I said, stepping out of the car “Your friend will be fine where he is” Twilight reluctantly obliged, following me as I walked further way from the road. Eventually we came to a ridge, where Twilight stopped and gasped.
“What in Celestia’s name happened?” off the end of the ridge, in the distance, was the ruins of an old city, the occasional skyscraper still standing proud, albeit a shadow of its former self. Among the ruins were the occasional flickering lights.
“The war” I said bitterly “about 15 years ago this world was filled with great cities like the one you see before you. With multiple in every country. But it wasn’t peaceful, age old disputes between different nations had already led to two world wars, on the third…we lost it all”
“What caused this to happen?” Twilight asked.
“It started off with two countries, America, which is this country” I said, nodding to the city ahead of us. “And Russia, a huge country to the west of us. They had disputes with each other over many things for years, oil, allies, that sort of thing. Eventually, it came to blows. Words were said between leaders, orders were made, and bombs were dropped. In the end there were no winners, every country paid the price no matter what side they were on. Whilst those left were abandoned to scratch out a living on rocks.”
“what about you?” she asked.
“My home is far from here, an island about 5000 miles east of here. They used to call it the United Kingdom, after the bombs fell it was reduced to craters and swampland, so myself and a small band of survivors gathered what vehicles we could and trekked east. There’s an ocean between my homeland and here, so we had to take the long way around, go via Russia, that was fun. Made the journey closer to 20,000 miles. Even out here, it’s tough; what isn’t vast desert is reduced to impassable woods, swampland or near constant storms”
“And where does that leave me and Spike?”
“Up shit creek without a paddle” I said “If the climate doesn’t kill you, the people will, whether it’s bandits, ghouls or cannibals, everyone’s out for themselves out here. But there are those of us that band together. Common goal, sense of comradery, that sort of BS. I’m one of those types, part of a clan that does odd jobs here and there, and in my spare time I map out what’s left of the old roadways.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Look” I said, turning to her “I’m not sure exactly how important you are back home, but out here, you’re nothing, you may as well be a beggar. Now this “Princess Luna” of yours has asked me to protect you, teach you to survive out here. The best way to do that, is to draft you into our clan. But it won’t be all sunshine and buttercups” Twilight looked at me in confusion.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“well, for a start, I’m nearly out of fuel, down to the last dregs of petrol in the tank and then another canteen” I said “so we need to head back to Haven City. Which, curtesy of your magic show, is going to be difficult”
“meaning?”
“from now on, you can’t be seen in the city, not until I can get you inducted and under my tribe’s protection” I said “And I’m not leaving you outside the city, so you and Spike are gonna have to hide in the hold, which is that metal box on the top of the car. I’ll probably be gone for an hour, maybe more, securing a full load of fuel and a few other supplies. In that time, you’re going to have to make sure you’re not seen. Not only would it put the security of my tribe at risk, but your lives as well. Think you can do that?” Twilight gulped before growing determined and nodding.
“Yes, I think I can” she said, I nodded before turning and walking back to the car.
“good” I said, climbing up on to the bonnet and then onto the top of the roof box “get some rest in the back of the car, if you need food there should be some rations on the shelf, and there’s some purified water in a flask”
“What about you?” she asked as I laid back.
“I’ll keep watch” I said simply, there was a moment of silence before Twilight finally went inside. When I was sure she wouldn’t be able to hear me I sighed, gazing up at the clear night sky before muttering “What the hell am I getting myself into”
