A RIFTS ODYSSEY

by Baran3

Rating: mature
Tags: Science Fiction, Crossover, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure
Length: 8158

The story of a genetically artificial Alicorn created by a fanatic Brony in the setting of RIFTS Earth.

Earth 2098. A geneticist and long-dreaming Brony achieved his fondest wish. He couldn't go to Equestria so he used Science to recreate Equestria on Earth.

Behold! The first Alicorn Princess entirely created by genetic!

But in wanting to recreate his dream, did the brony make a monster or a savior?

And what about the Apocalypse tomorrow?

Published 2017-03-29 12:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-04-10 22:37:06 UTC

Prologue

A RIFTS ODYSSEY

Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story.

Prologue

Earth, December 21, 2098

The future holds nothing but promise.

Humankind has enjoyed an age of science, learning and relative peace for over fifty years. The human genome has been mapped, explored and tweaked. Medical cloning, genetic manipulation, nanotechnology and advanced bionics are all a reality. Most diseases have been cured, the average life expectancy is 180 years and new breakthroughs in medicine promise to extend life 50% longer than that. Thus, a ninety-year old looks and feels like a thirty-year old, the mind sharp and the body strong.

The ocean depths are a new frontier being plumbed for secrets in medicine, farming and history. The fringes of outer space are also being conquered with several national and international space stations locked in orbit around the Earth. The moon is home to the Cyberworks Aerospace Network, a mega-corporation that specializes in space research, robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual reality robot systems and is a leader in space exploration. Other small colonies also exist on the moon and a tiny outpost has even been established on Mars.

Back on Earth, massive megalopolis-style cities cover the globe. Skyscrapers regularly exceed 100 floors and ribbons of highways cover the landscape. Hovercraft of seemingly infinite variety are the latest in automotive technology and have all but replaced conventional “wheeled” vehicles. The highways and byways of the civilized world are made of a new concrete that last ten times longer than anything known in the 20th Century. What “wilderness” remains in North America and much of the world are nature parks, cultivated logging territories and government sponsored preserves.

Even more impressive is the fact that after 27 years of terrorism, vendettas, treachery and war across the globe from 2001-2028, the major nations of the world put aside their differences to bring about a new age of peace and science. The world had finally become the “global village” people had talked about ad infinitum during the later part of the 20th Century. All the major powers shared their ideas, technology and resources, truly working together.

Poverty, inequity, injustice and war still existed and there remained impoverished and hostile “third world nations” but they were in the minority and generally considered exceptions, outcasts and backwater places.

There were many contributing factors leading to the new “global age of prosperity and learning” but three had the greatest impact. One was a universal weariness of constant strife and war, another was the North American Alliance Pact (the United States of America, Canada and Mexico) and the third was an unexpected series of explosive technological breakthroughs that set the world on its ear and sparked the imagination of people everywhere. The sharing of knowledge, the mutual exploitation of ideas and the sharing of technology among many friendly nations led to unprecedented succession of advancements and breakthroughs that had a domino effect, spawning more innovative ideas, breakthroughs and rapid exploitation of those ideas that gave birth to a new age of science, technology, cooperation and excitement.

If this were not the Golden Age of Humankind or the Age of Prosperity, it was without a doubt the age of wonder. Humankind felt unchained, and now believing anything was possible, looked to conquer the universe before them. Old age, sickness and human frailty were all washed away, outer space and the inner space of the oceans and the human body became the new frontiers and the impossible seemed within reach in every direction.

It is said that all good things must come to an end and so it is that the Golden Age became tarnished over the last twenty years.

One of science's and society's obsessions centered around the area of human augmentation. The quest to create the perfect human, physically, emotionally and psychologically. All sorts of research and technology involving genetic manipulation, cloning, chemical augmentation, brain implants, nano-machines, cybernetics and robotics had been developed in the quest to make the ultimate human. Many offered diverse and diametrically opposing views. Many claimed to be superior to the others for one reason or another and each was pitted against the other in a fierce social-economic war to win the world market. The ever increasing pressure of intense competition, the desire for personal recognition and unbridled greed put a quick end to two generations of international exchange and cooperation. It put a chill on the Golden Age of Science and ushered in a new age of secrecy, ruthless business maneuvering and the reckless application of crackpot theories and shortcuts in problem solving and product testing.

This turn of events made nations and corporate powers reexamine other areas of technology and pull back on the availability and exploitation of their scientific discoveries. This caused a slowdown in technological development which translated into a sharp decline in the global economy. Worse, after two generations of peace, many of the “wonders of the Golden Age” were now being applied to the military. Robotics, cybernetics, lasers, super alloys and other advancements, even genetic engineering, cloning and other medical discoveries held vast potential for war.

Even the vast majority of world powers who did not rush toward military supremacy looked at their fabulous creations with a twinge of horror. For two generations, they were so busy creating, building and developing scientific wonders that they had not realized they had unleashed a thousand Genies from their bottles. Suddenly they realized how recklessly they had thrown themselves into science without completely thinking the global ramifications and the potential for misuse and outright evil. And as the fairy tale warns, once unleashed, the Genie can not be easily put back.

Heroes of science and business were now condemned for being short-sighted, greedy and even outright villains concerned only about fame and profits (many were). The nations suddenly found themselves as “rivals”. The age of enlightenment was over. Envy, suspicion, paranoia and disharmony raged, reshaping the landscape.

The “new Cold War” era had arrived with a vengeance.

Still, all in all, the world was a better place than anything known in previous centuries. Most believed this decade of reduced growth simply represented a natural slowdown, stabilization and necessary move towards responsibility that would turn into an even greater age of advancement and prosperity.

Life was good. The future bright. And it would all end tomorrow.

The man was old, very old by the 20th Century standards. With the prodigious leaps in medical care, he was approaching 128 years old. Not a record, but simply an average number for the era. Still some medical problems during his early days condemned him to a high-tech wheelchair with a medical care-unit constantly surveying him and injecting various medical drugs. Ironically, the unit or Bio-comp was almost the same that was used to create the “Juicers”, the chemically augmented super-soldiers.

His name wasn't important. His function... No, his PROFESSION was important...

Important because his long life-dream was finally realized.

To the public he was a geneticist among others, but to him, he was first and foremost a “Brony”.

Brony, a portmanteau coined from Brother and Pony and designating the male fans of the cartoon known as “My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic”. A cartoon based on a product of Hasbro that was simply, in the beginning, small toys for little girls.

Its fourth incarnation, created by Lauren Faust, was such a success that it touched the heart of almost everyone who saw it. Children, teenagers, adults and older people of the two sexes felt something deep inside them resonating with a cartoon about multicolor talking ponies in the magical land of Equestria and together they built something that never ceased to grow.

One dream that many Bronies and Pegasisters (the female part of the fan-base) have and wrote about it was to somehow having Equestria real. Generally by being transported into the magical land. Fictions about that theme abound and many heartfelt wishes were expressed on its realization.

Of course, it never happened...

But the old man also never gave up. It was one of the lessons from the cartoon. He tried to see if Science would be able to pierce the walls between dimensions in vain...

He then had the idea to go the other way. If he couldn't go to Equestria, he would find a way to BRING Equestria to him. In one form or another...

The result of more than half a century of research was before him: A bio-containment tube, a giant vertical transparent tube with a greenish oxygenated and nutritive fluid, various electronics probes and tubes for the life-support of the floating life-form inside.

He couldn't stop the tears of joy from his eyes as he looked upon his creation. She was a small equine of four feet at the shoulder. Her coat was a creme color, her hooves black and her mane and tail were silver. He also knew her closed eyes were emerald-colored and faced forwards on a surprisingly humanized equine face. Her most striking features were the pair of feathered wings on her sides and the unique spiraling horn on her forehead. The name he choose for her was engraved on the tube.

Silver Dawn was the result of the progress made in genetic manipulation, cloning and nanotechnology during this Golden Age of Science. And, originally she had been... human...

The old geneticist had a vast room overcrowded by his... past errors. Silver Dawn was meant to be perfect, so he tried and experimented a lot in genetic engineering, cloning and gene splicing. He rapidly determined that he couldn't create a pony, any kind of Equestrian pony, from nothing. The creations obtained from a pure equine basis were also lacking the... spark he was searching for.

So he continued to experiment and dissected his failures to progress on his path. He finally found that only a chimera using a human base was his best shot. Using military funding and the growing paranoia around genetic research, he appropriated by legal and illegal means the knowledge of foreign labs and his own country research made in Texas which enabled him to pass the last hurdle: Magic.

During the beginning, the old man discovered that Magic DID indeed exist on Earth but was so feeble in scope and power that it was unusable for him or would required decades of hard study from his creation. The research of his peers showed however that Psionics were a reality and more easily available.

Well, since Magic was closed to him, he would give his creation a level of psionic powers equal to an Alicorn of Equestria.

The alteration of a human into Silver Dawn had been painstakingly planned from the very beginning. The old man used the existing public medical system to search for a compatible DNA that he could splice with various species. He kidnapped the specific young girl and carefully brainwashed and indoctrinated her with ABSOLUTELY everything from “My Little Pony”, even the fan-base creations. He even took great care into creating a background appropriate for an Equestrian Alicorn along with including the basic skills necessary for a princess. Finally, hoping for another miracle, he downloaded all he found about magic on Earth.

The twelve years old girl was then progressively altered physically by nano-machines as her cells were spliced with genetic material from many species and reworked by nano-viruses and implanted artificial chromosomes. Nothing from her original body escaped from multiple alterations as she was designed to be the point of origin of any and all equestrian ponies. The goal of the old man was to recreate all the attributes of an Alicorn with the exception of replacing Magic with Psionic.

And now, a year after he began the final phase of his Masterwork, Silver Dawn was a reality. Tomorrow he would prepare his secret lab in Atlanta for her awakening, another delicate phase, and his life-dream would be achieved. The only thing he couldn't arrange was for a proper Cutie Mark. He managed to give her flanks the capacity to change the pigmentation of the coat and linked the controls to her subconscious, but so far no Cutie Mark.

He frowned as he consulted the readings of the bio-tube. Artificially maintained into a dream-state to better reinforce her conditioning, Silver Dawn had... an agitated sleep cycle for some time. It was now one week since this particular pattern, sign of an intense cerebral activity around the pineal gland, appeared on his monitoring and nothing he did with the brainwashing/indoctrinment apparatus worked to resolve this small problem. Perhaps his creation was sensing the moment of her glorious awakening..?

Earth, December 22, 2098 at midnight and thirty seconds: Day One of The Great Cataclysm.

Author's Note

Notes: This is rather an old project that begins about 10 years ago. It was first inspired by the Palladium product “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” or “TMNT”.:twilightsmile:

I found the inspiration to create a hybrid of human and animal to play in the role-playing game “RIFTS”. I created a Coalition States Feline mutant with the class of Ley Line Walker. I constantly revised and updated the concept and character.:scootangel:

Then two new products of Palladium and one cartoon sparked a true explosion of creativity. Silver Dawn, my Alicorn OC is the final result of a long journey.:twilightsmile:

The setting of “Chaos Earth” is only for the origin of the character.:yay:

Silver Dawn is mostly a Eugenic Hero from “Heroes Unlimited”. With an unlimited budget...:rainbowlaugh:

I didn't put everything in her but she is significantly more powerful than any beginning heroes. The first chapters will deal with her origins, what is Chaos Earth and the events leading to her arrival on RIFTS Earth.:twilightsmile:

This is Silver Dawn writing. My author has FINALLY wrote a story about me. Of course, he took the worst version for my origins AND the world of my adventures.

I am mostly an artificial Alicorn genetically created. And I am going to a world where EVERYTHING can happen.

Oh, and don't think you'll see more than a few chapters. My author is notorious for having a fickle muse that give him a few chapters and then went on a totally different story.

Still, I hope you'll enjoy what he will write.

Apocalypse now

A RIFTS ODYSSEY

Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story.

Chapter 1: Apocalypse Now.

Day One: December 22, 2098

A dream is something out of the reality.

During a single night, the average dreamer could live an entire life.

Trapped by the power of Science, the one known as Silver Dawn dreamed... Dreamed of the present as it happened.

Ironically, despite humankind's predisposition toward self-destruction, Earth's people played a tiny role in the coming Apocalypse. Most of the events leading up to the Great Cataclysm were pure coincidence and unfortunate timing.

Unknown to human science, there has always existed a sublime energy source that courses throughout the planet and indeed through the infinite Megaverse. Since ancient times, this primordial energy was known as “magic”. On Earth, this energy had faded over the eons but was still flowing through what is called ley lines, the equivalent for the planet of blood vessels. Only the most sensible and those spiritually or psychically attuned could sense it in modern times and generally only at a Nexus where two or more ley lines crossed like Stonehenge.

In South America, two small nations reeling from economic hardship and civil unrest clashed repeatedly. One was supported by the USA (who has the uncanny knack for backing the wrong horse). Under protest, NEMA (Northern Eagle Military Alliance), armed extension of the NAAP (North American Alliance Pact), was ordered to provide this South American ally with a dozen of USA-G10 Power Armor (aka Glitter Boys). The G10s should have only be used for “defense under extreme duress” but were deployed against a raiding party and followed it across the border. Fueled by a blood lust born from generations of hate twelve USA-G10 slaughtered 12,000 soldiers, 24,000 townspeople and obliterated the town of Gauda Marta. With the defensive capacity of their Mega-Damage reflective super alloy coupled with their shoulder mounted rail-guns, the twelve power armors could have destroyed a conventional force three times as large... without a single loss...

The invading nation withdrew but refused to apologize or make any overture to their enemy claiming “self-defense” and the need to “neutralize the potential threat”. The injured nation appealed to the world, condemning NEMA and the USA, calling for worldwide sanctions and vowing bloody revenge. They were ignored, worse the invading nation threatened them to do it again and tensions rose to a fever pitch.

On December 22, 2098, the two South American nations struck at each other with a very limited exchange of outdated nuclear weapons. Millions of lives perished in a heartbeat. The brutal event in and of itself would have been horrible but an isolated incident with minimal direct impact on the rest of the world. This was where the ley line network and magic entered the picture.

Ley lines are channels of “magic”. Psychic researchers had come to label this energy as Potential Psychic Energy or PPE for short. The PPE inside a living creature is unleashed at double its normal magnitude at the moment of death. Likewise the energy level at ley lines ebbs and flows, increasing during certain times of the day or year, often coinciding with the position of the sun and the planets.

As Fate would have it, the planets were aligned, causing the ley line energy to surge at its highest possible levels to begin with. The hour was midnight, a peak time when ley line energy spikes and the first city nuked was built on a pair of intersecting lines with other ley lines nearby. When the bombs went off, a million lives perished in a flash, their magnified PPE energy, doubled at the moment of death, poured into the already active and magnified energy of the ley lines, causing them to burst with energy like a dam that could no longer contain the waters it held. This had a ripple effect on the neighboring ley lines causing them to surge and flare with energy not seen in 150 millions years! A moment later came the retaliatory strike that sent the life's energy of a million more lives into the lines of mystic energy causing them to erupt with power starting an unstoppable chain reaction.

The surge of ley line energy raced across the globe under three minutes, igniting ALL the other ley lines. The uncontrollable magical energy touched off massive natural, unnatural and dimensional disturbances causing sudden freak storms of immense power, maximum strength earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, huge tidal waves, flooding and all manner of disasters, killing hundreds of thousands more every time. The succession of mass deaths of humans and animals fed the ley lines, making them more powerful with every passing second, which in turn, created greater disasters and death by the millions. This fed the ley lines even more causing them to erupt and run wild, tearing open the very fabric of reality, unleashing more destruction and death joined by supernatural horrors from hellish dimensions.

In a matter of minutes, half of all life on the Earth was destroyed... The ley lines radiated with such power that the Earth was being realigned on a cosmic scale becoming a trans-dimensional nexus spanning the entire Megaverse. Rifts opened at a hundred locations over the world, linking the Earth to alien worlds and the realms of the supernatural.

And Silver Dawn saw and sensed all of it...

The earthquake had surprised the old man as he was leaving the bio-tube chamber. It is a terrifying experience to feel the ground trembling and being able to do nothing except crawling under something solid and waiting an eternity for it to pass.

Unfortunately, while the lab was solid, it was still underground and Atlanta, while not being near an earthquake epicenter, was severely damaged despite his mega-damage structure. A support beam, supposedly unbreakable, fell on the old man, breaking his hips and legs and trapping him in a burning lab as short-circuits in the machinery ignited multiple fires.

So near the final goal and he was going to die from fire if the smoke didn't asphyxiate him first or the volatile and toxic chemicals he used didn't explode. This time he was crying tears of sorrow and bitterness as he looked where the tube should be and could only see broken debris and puddles of life-support fluid.

Light... A silvery light diffused through cracks in the crumbled room. Under his awed eyes, debris began to float aside in the air as she emerged from her broken high-tech cocoon.

His Silver Dawn, her coat, mane and tail still damp, softly illuminated by her glowing horn and with emerald eyes focused on the retreating debris as she piled them to open a path. Such a magnificent vision... And he was dying, broken. Oh, may Celestia give him enough strength to finish his Masterwork.

“Silver Dawn...” His voice was hoarse and so weak with his impeding death. Her ears lifted up and pivoted in his direction before her head and eyes followed. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks as she looked at his broken form under the fallen beam. She walked to him her mouth opened in dismay as she examined him. Yep, he was boned.

“Not... enough time... Please listen...” She leaned to him and the creator looked into the magnificent emerald eyes of his creation. “I created you from the dreams of all bronies on Earth... Please go forth and bring Harmony to my Earth. You are... a princess of Equestria... Here, the only... magical item... I managed to found...” Oh Celestia, it hurt so much to speak. Trembling, he extracted from his lab coat the ONE object he never let go so far. Finding this unique and true magical item had been an epic adventure in his younger days.

It was an elegant, light, delicate and beautifully shaped circle of gold with silver filigree. A round and polished ruby stand in the center and the circle itself was set with faceted emeralds. He reached for her head and felt her shivering under his touch. He smiled. His creation understood the sheer scale of this dramatic moment.

The crown took its place behind her horn as if it has always been here. His eyes blurred as he silently wept. “The stone sleeps...”

She blinked, looked up at the circlet on her head and he finally heard her angelic voice. “Sleeps..?”

“Yes... When worn by one with a courageous heart... the stone... glows... and becomes a blinding radiance, igniting Hope in everyone seeing it... Courage of the heart is very rare... the crown has a power when it's there...” He felt himself going... somewhere. With his last strength he touched her hoof. “Please... Promise... me... Please...”

Silver Dawn didn't break her gaze. “I promise... I will do everything in my power to bring Harmony around me as long as I breath.”

Darkness crept along his perception and he breathed his last. “Thank... you... Thank youuu...”

As he went into the Great Beyond, he heard her one final time. “I forgive you...”

The young Alicorn contemplated the cooling broken body at her hooves. Tears began to leak from her sorrowful emerald eyes. She collapsed on the ground and lowered her head.

“I... I forgave... you...” Her breath hitched. “But I will never... forget...” She closed her eyes, sobbing. “You... You were a... monster..! You took a young girl and remade... No... TWISTED her into your vision of an Equestrian Alicorn..!” She looked back at the dead with wrath. “The Silver Dawn you created could only have looked at you with horror and righteous anger!” She ragingly shook her head. “You heard the lessons of Friendship, but you certainly DIDN'T listen to them..!” She trembled with scorn and loathing. “She... I would have destroyed you...” She stopped and her pupils shrunk with deep fear. “I... I don't... I'm not even sure... of who... I was...”

Her mind was a swirling and roaring storm. She awoke SURE that the End of the World was happening. She remembered her panic when she found herself immersed in a bio-tube and her horror when she discovered she wasn't human in appearance anymore. Then there was the sheer terror when the lab crumbled on her and her incredulity when she found herself safely inside a psionic force-field. Testing her memories reignited her terror as she could only remember... ALL of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” with many scenes and episodes remade into high-quality CG movies. And her identity... Her identity was... simply gone. She knew she was human, a fil... GIRL and about twelve or thirteen years old, but now...

Silver Dawn. Alicorn. Filly. Born from the purified remnants of Nightmare Moon. Raised by Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Mane Six. Anointed Princess of Equestria by Celestia and Luna. Bystander and actor in most of the adventures of the Mane Six...

...no... No... No..! NO!

IT WASN'T REAL! It wasn't real..! It wasn't real... it... wasn't... real...

She could remember movies she saw, musics she likes, places she went, knowledge and skills available only to a girl on Earth circa 2098, but... no memories of people... Nopony... She KNEW she had a mother, a father, a whole family! But where did she live? Where did she go for schooling? Who were her friends?

She could name all the USA presidents since the foundation of the country. She could point any capitals on a globe. Hay, she could remember the last forum war on the internet about the latest change in Cola composition..!

Sweet Celestia..!? Nopony? Hay? She even had the so particular way of speaking from Equestria. WHAT did he do with her brain!?

“Buck it..!” She clapped her hoof over her muzzle. By Luna's mane, she couldn't even swear except with Equestrian idiomatic.

The replica of the earthquake cut off her spiraling falling mood. Once again she instinctively generated a psionic force-field around her. Right, first escape from the destroyed and doomed lab and climbed up to the surface.

It was a long and harrowing path, but Silver Dawn managed to reach a still intact access door. Curiously, her force-field had handled everything thrown at her. Fires, explosions, falling debris,... Nothing had been able to pierce her protection and yet her implanted memories shown that psionics weren't that powerful when the Argentinean Project Achilles tested its feline psionic mutants.

In fact, she was surprised by how well she was using her body right now. It seemed that the geneticist made sure for her to have muscle memories for moving along with everything about what he “gifted” her. She shook her head. A madman... An insane and obsessed senile man. She used her glowing horn to find the emergency release lever and pulled with her telekinesis.

The exit door was built on the rooftop of a low and non-descriptive building that was the public face of the genetic lab. How to best hide a secret genetic lab? Put it on the phone-book as an ACTUAL genetic facility.

The Apocalypse greeted her.

Her eyes widened before shrinking as the Alicorn gazed upon the destruction around her.

The whole city of Atlanta was burning, turning the night into a nightmarish day. Many of the tallest building had shattered and lied in broken rubble.

On her left was a literal wall of glowing blue energy that was stretching for miles and was shooting three miles! into the sky. Her five primary senses and perhaps another one were on the fritz from the sheer presence of energy radiating from the blue line. Ley line, a channel of magic, something whispered in her mind.

In the streets, people were running without directions, like headless chickens. There was only panic and instinctive reactions. Some were pillaging stores and she watched with incredulity people stealing TV sets..! What was the utility of a TV in such circumstances. Her gaze, powerful like eagle eyes saw people trying to escape crumbling buildings. Mothers with children searching for a safe place where none was. Family members digging into the ruins of their homes for their loved ones. Many were trying to use their cells and portables for information, any kind of information... In vain. People were trampled to death by the crowd. She saw a man kicking away a young girl before falling into the sinkhole in the ground where she was running. A little girl was crying and staying immobile on a bench in a flaming park.

And the sounds... The sounds! A cacophony of sounds... Shouts, cries, sirens, screams, pleas for help, begs, swears, death rattles, breaking masonry from the tumbling buildings, the crackling of fire, explosions, gunshots, prayers to God, the screech of twisting steel, the sounds of digging, running footsteps, the bellows of hate, the moans of agony, the whimpers of fear... her sensitive ears were picking anything and everything.

The smells... The scents of burning brick and wood, bone and flesh, oil and rubber, sweat and blood, death and tears mixed with the stench of sulfur, ozone and a thousand other odors... Her nose was assailed and hammered, her stomach wretched, she felt she was suffocating.

She wobbled as the sensations continued to attack her: A constant rush of light and motion. The sting of smoke carried by winds, the fist in her stomach, the throbbing at her temples, the desert-like dryness of her mouth and the unending rivulets of obscuring tears.

Hell on Earth. Pandemonium. Bedlam. Chaos. Armageddon. Apocalypse. Madness.

Words... Words with right now too much meaning for the young Alicorn.

She should have abandoned, gave up. She should have lied down there and waited for death. The combination of her traumatic rebirth coupled with the Great Cataclysm she not only sensed lately, but was now seeing before her own very eyes should have shattered her psyche leaving a breathing corpse that didn't realize she was dead.

And yet...

Her trembling limbs firmed. Her out-of-control breathing slowed to only a rapid rhythm. Her pupils regained their normal size and focused. Her erratic heart regained a normal beating.

She pushed aside her psychological issues for now. She would crash in the future when she could afford it. For now, survival was the word.

She didn't know if she was Silver Dawn or simply a beleaguered girl into a world crisis, but people were in dire need and by helping them she could help herself.

She was still terrified but acting was preferable to waiting for death. Her wings deployed as she reached the edge of the roof.

Silver Dawn, artificial Alicorn, took a leap of faith and glided into the Apocalypse's maw.

On her head, a spark shone in the depth of a red stone.

Author's Note

Note: It was surprisingly difficult to start this story.:derpytongue2:

I have plenty of ideas and a whole notebook of references and yet...:facehoof:

Very heavy chapter. Like all RPGs about post-apocalypse settings, “Chaos Earth” is not a very good place.:applecry:

Our media constantly show us images and videos of catastrophes around the world, but only the survivors could truly make us understand it... barely.:fluttercry:

For once, I will not write the sheet of my Alicorn OC. Feel free to ask questions however.:twilightsmile:

This is Silver Dawn writing. In the setting of Chaos Earth, the genetic manipulations that made me are possible. Access to psionics is also canon.

The existence of magic came from another RPG from Palladium: “Beyond the Supernatural” which is about a secret shadow war of psychics and sorcerers against monsters from beyond. Yes, magic existed before the Coming of the Rifts. But it was hidden and not that spectacular.

The Rifts will change everything by boosting by two whole magnitudes Psionics and introducing high levels of Magic back. I am able to affect Mega-Damage structures.

The crown is currently a plot device of my author. He stole it from “the secret of Nimh”.

Yes, I don't remember who I was as a human. My identity was replaced by the imaginary Silver Dawn of Equestria.

Feel free to ask questions since I'm sure I'll be able to answer them... Not like my author.

Feel also free to write Omake with me since my author certainly indulged himself in quite a few forums.

Two steps from Hell

A RIFTS ODYSSEY

Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story.

Chapter 2: Two steps from Hell.

Day one: Sunrise, December 22, 2098

Silver Dawn felt numb. It had been more than 6 hours since she had decided to take a stance and help anypony she could.

She couldn't say it was a disaster with the End of the World crisis everypony was experiencing. The rising sun didn't bring any hope, on the contrary, the daylight seemed only to contrast with the darkness of the situation.

The problem number one of Silver Dawn was her appearance: She wasn't human in shape. She could talk and reason, she even had the advantage of the Amphib Scandal, a decade ago, when a ruthless South American corporation, ShaperCorp, had been caught engaging in illegal human experiments with thousands of innocent people who had been “volunteered” to undergo massive genetic alterations designed to allow humans to survive underwater. So she could rightfully present herself as an illegal experimentation in human genetic.

However, in the current hysteria, people tended to scream monster first and opened fire right behind. It had been then that she discovered her seemingly invulnerability to conventional weapons. Hand-held improvised weapons, punches, kicks and personal small weapons simply couldn't pierce her flesh even without her protective psionic force-field.

Still, she continued her one-pony rescue mission.

At least, she tried to do right when people didn't react to her as if she was an abomination. It was curious as she had the impression that some of them acted that way because of encountering something threatening and abnormal before.

The woman looked at the Alicorn with terror and tried to crawl away despite her grievous wounds. “Go away you monster!”

And unfortunately, there was no shortage of people in need. Her psionic powers proved invaluable as she focused her will and remade the demented reality immediately around her safer, at least relatively and for a little time.

The man reached for the hovering flying Alicorn, desperate for some help as his home burned. “Please, help me!”

The late Brony geneticist had been a madman, but he did manage to give her Earth Pony levels of strength. Despite being 4 feet at the shoulder, she could literally lift tons and her small size allowed her to crawl in all sort of little places.

With a broken voice, the old woman could only point at the pile of debris that had been her home a mere minutes ago. “My husband is under there!”

Most of the people she helped were at first wary, then incredulous as not only she assisted them, but was also pulling little miracles with her psionic gifts. Some were even taking videos of her on their cells to have a proof of her existence.

The teenager could only stare at Silver Dawn as she landed near him before focusing her telekinesis on trapped people. “Are you real?!”

Too many times, she had to raise her force-field, either to protect herself, but generally also to protect her charges as hysteria and panic made armed people hair-triggering and completely undiscriminating.

The hysterical man pointed his trusty shotgun on the monster and opened fire, unmindful of the people behind the Alicorn. “Die you bio-freak!” The force-field snapping into existence and protecting the group and Silver Dawn seemed to only amplified his furious madness.

The worst was about the children. Too many were alone, either lost in the panic, abandoned or just having seen their parents die. She could only gather them, check their health, help them as much as she could, reassure them and finally and tragically push them into the arms of adults or older children willing to take them.

Silver Dawn gently lift the young child in her telekinetic embrace and searched for someone who could or would take her. “Mommy! Where are you mommy!?” She winced in dismay as she suddenly saw a burning corpse that bear some resemblance to the crying child.

And even with her vast gifts, she was limited. She could feel that the use of her powers consumed little by little her willpower and some things simply couldn't be healed or mended no matter how much she pushed herself into it.

Silver Dawn focused her willpower on the man on the ground. Pain flowed away, flesh mended and broken bones realigned and fused together back. But, even her power had its limitations and the man looked in dismay at his unresponsive lower limbs. “I can't feel my legs...”

There was also a limit to what she could do for their spirits. The veil of Doom was so thick and it seemed to thicken hour after hour. People pushed into despair lashed at everything and everypony around them. Even at a gentle Alicorn helping them to the best of her capacities.

The hysterical mother pointed an accusing finger at the Alicorn as she clutched her no longer living child to her breast. “You are the one! You are responsible of all this!”

Still, her appearance managed to reach the younger folks. After all, she was a walking myth in the flesh even if the cartoon that spawned her existence was no longer aired. “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” was still a part of the world culture and thus echoed in the heart of somepony.

The little blonde girl was still in her pajamas as she looked at the Alicorn helping her family out of their crumbling house. “Wow... A real winged unicorn...”

In fact, it seemed she had a soothing presence for the young children. Many a child crying and lost looked at her with wonderment and reached to her, drawn in by the mantle of her borrowed legend.

He was a six year old boy with a dirty nose and a little blanket that looked at her with widened and starry eyes. His hand reached for her silver mane. “Can I touch you..?”

Her heart reached for those hurt, lost and broken and her psionic powers soothe pain and healed harmed flesh, burnt skin and broken bones. With the rarity of medical personal in the area and the destruction of too many hospitals, anypony able to heal or more simply to administer first aid was invaluable.

The teenager girl sobbed. The crowd had trampled her and only the timely telekinetic grasp of the Alicorn saved her. “It hurts... It hurts!”

Death however was still not something she could wave away. Too many times she hauled corpses from piles of debris and crumbled homes. Too many times, her power was insufficient to treat mortally wounded people. Too many times did she help to lay down row after row of hastily enveloped bodies in various states.

Silver Dawn closed her wet emerald eyes. It was too late. She gently closed the eyes of the dead woman and lift her corpse towards other bodies that some people were covering with canvas. A man rushed out of the crowd around and clutched the levitating dead woman. “No...No! Not my wife!”

The worse for Silver Dawn was that she was only one Alicorn. Despite her might, her speed and the sheer scale of her powers, she couldn't be at two places at the same time. She wasn't powerful enough to affect this crisis except in her very immediate area and even then she found herself powerless many times.

A mother caught her wing as she was preparing to take her flight. “Please, I can't find my son.”

An old man dropped on his knees to beg her before a still burning ruin that had been a residential building. “Please, you must help me!”

A little boy... “Please...” A man... “Oh my god...” A woman...“Help us...” And others... So many others...

She found herself in a small play-park still relatively intact. Atlanta was still burning and crumbling, the earth was still trembling from time to time, gigantic lightning bolts erupted from the ley line and struck irregularly, people still ran in panic or pillaged or gathered to share presence, warmth and whatever help they had. Physical fatigue seemed to not touch her, but her spirit needed a breather. Her creme coat, silver mane and tail were dirtied by ferro-concrete dust, soot, blood, oil and too many things that she didn't want to think about. Curiously, her crown was still correctly situated on her head.

She looked at a patch of tall grass and shrugged before digging in. The taste wasn't so bad for her altered palate and it was food for her modified digestive system although she knew she could still eat like a normal human. She then focused her telekinesis or more exactly psychokinesis as she seemed to be able to manipulate more than simple matter. Water vapor gathered and condensed into a bubble of pure water. She then closed her eyes and stretched the bubble into a film all over her body willing it to collect the dirt, twigs and grit. She then refocused on the filthy bubble of water and completely re-purify it before drinking it. Waste not, want not.

Laying down to recover more of her strength, she considered what she accomplished so far. It was both working and not. She did make a small difference, but her efforts were wasted overall. Being alone looked like she was trying to prevent a dam from rupturing by putting her hooves and wing-tips wherever a leak appeared and of course more and more leaks occurred.

Her emerald eyes shone with tears as she realized she couldn't save many people in a crisis of this magnitude. Her visions of the Great Cataclysm when she was in the bio-tube were real, that was a fact. So many people had already died and so much more deaths were to happen in the near-future. It was horrible, disgusting and not fair at all but she'll have to make choices and let people to their death in order to save others.

She frowned. The best way to help people was to gather those in need around her or someplace relatively safe and organize them. She needed helpers, healers and a whole lot more. She needed clothes, blankets and tents as the buildings seemed less and less safe. She needed to salvage or found clean water and non-spoiled food. She needed... THEY needed so many things.

She looked again at ruined Atlanta. She wasn't even sure it was her birth city. But who was sure of anything during the Apocalypse. Still, she was supposed to be a Princess of Equestria, a leader of ponies and a rock in the tempest. It was perhaps time to use those imprinted skills and this Dramatis Persona for something more concrete than giving lessons in friendship at the end of a cartoon.

She spread her wings and began to preen. Her genetic make-up seemed to include some various and bizarre instincts. She understood without knowing how to realign her feathers properly for a smooth and controlled flight. Very strange since most of her flight capacity relied on her psionics as her wingspan was too small for her size.

Still, the ability to fly and hover was too good a thing in such a situation to not maintain it properly.

The screams pierced through the hellish brouhaha made by the whole of Atlanta: The voices of children confronted by sheer terror beyond their understanding. A siren call to the stressed Alicorn. She charged ahead, unmindful of her current state.

It was a group of a dozen of families, with women, children and a few armed men trying to find a safe place in the pandemonium. They were trying to flee from...

Her emerald eyes widened as she saw the threat: They were a dozen of foul, gluttonous vermin the size of a large house cat or a small dog. They really looked like vicious giant rats of two to three feet with an over-developed lower jaw, coarse dark fur and a long, white, wiggling tail. One of them jumped suddenly ten feet in the air and fall on a fleeing person, crushing his head between its jaws like an overripe fruit.

The attacked people were panicking, sporadic fire did nothing to the beasts..? No... Hang-jaw demon rats. Always in groups. Low intellect and cunning. Burrower and fair leaper. Vulnerable to silver and garlic, resistant to fire and cold and preferring the cover of darkness and night. Carrion eater, but do not hesitate to attack vulnerable preys.

She blinked and her pupils shrunk, but it wasn't the time to question those sudden bursts of occult knowledge even about demons that shouldn't exist... Like ley lines and apocalypses... Yes, she was terrified, but courage isn't the absence of fear: Its acknowledging this fear and going beyond. As Frank Herbert wrote “Fear is the mind-killer”. She jumped into the air and instinctively used her “Royal Canterlot Voice”.

“Do not panic!” The whole of the group turned to her and could only be flabbergasted. “All children, regroup under the cement playground! Women and non-fighters around them! Fighters with weapons on the perimeter!” They were hesitating. “Quick, people!”

The demon rats were still devouring the poor man they killed and it let Silver Dawn time to guide the beleaguered people in a more defensive position. She focused anew her psychokinesis and generated a three layers defense of force-fields around them. Should the worse happen, the force-fields would fail, enabling the people to flee.

She put herself in front of the people while still hovering out of melee range and took a deep breath. Until now she had only use her power in a defensive way. It would be the first time she used the offensive powers the geneticist gave her. Her horn shone more intensively as her whole body generated energy.

A particle beam erupted from her horn and struck directly one of the demon rats, bringing their attention to her. The beam pierced its whole body and deeply in the ground under it. Silver Dawn frowned. Her beam should rated only at a man-scale heavy weapon level and she was obviously emitting beam in the Mega-Damage range. All her shots must hit either the targets, the sky or the ground or she risked to vaporize bystanders in the vicinity. Unless... Her eagle-like vision locked on something just outside the park.

She abandoned her previous tactic of ranged warfare and flew right at the pack, killing another one as she made a low pass near them. They jumped at her, jaws clacking and she screamed in pain as one scored a hit. A shallow wound bled on her lower barrel but her trick worked as the vermin pursued her, ignoring the entrenched people.

She reached with her telekinesis for some items in the ruined wedding store nearby the park and flung them in the screeching charging mob. The silver made cutlery bit deeply and lethally into the demonic flesh, killing many and wounding severely the rest. A point-blank shot with her particle beam dealt with the survivors.

She checked her throbbing barrel. The wound achieved to stop bleeding due to the quick-clotting agent in her blood. She could already feel her flesh knitting back as her healing factor kicked in. Still, it was the first time she had been wounded, period. She wasn't invulnerable and she already knew that a sufficient firepower could penetrate her force-fields. This first wound of many to come proved she was as mortal as the rest of Humanity in the Great Cataclysm despite her gifts.

She looked in dismay at her hoof as it was trembling not only because of adrenalin but also with her terror. She fell back on the lessons in breathing that Cadence gave to Twilight Sparkle and looked again at her hoof. Good, just a little shaking.

She trotted back to the people she protected, noting their relief and wariness to her appearance, powered down her force-fields and smiled to them. She had perhaps found the first survivors she would stay with and help to reach some safety.

Author's Note

I really have some difficulties to write this story.:facehoof:

Silver Dawn uses super-powers and psionics to emulate the magical capacities of an Alicorn. For now, the only magic she have is the crown on her head. The coming of the Rifts has amplified existing psionic powers to a level equal to Mega-damage weaponry and defenses.:twilightsmile:

Magic is going to appear among humanity, but not for a few weeks.:twilightsheepish: