I Wanna Set The World On Fireby FireheartThePoneChaptersFirest ContactA Warm WelcomeCuriosity Incinerated the CatBurning ThingsEveryone LivesFabric Burns Easily, I've Discovered.Forest FireHot ApplesThe Sky Cracked And BurnedAshes to AshesAftermathIs Sugar Flammable?Firest ContactIt was a normal day in Megaton. At least, as normal as a day can be when the Capital Wasteland’s hero lived there. Oh, and did I mention she’s not completely sane? So, when a power armored foot kicked a door open, a lady stepped out and disappeared in a flash of light, nobody paid it much notice. “Hey guys!” Kara yelled, stepping onto the bridge of Mothership Zeta. “Got everything set up?” She asked, walking over to a small girl who was fiddling with alien controls. “Yup! All ready!” Sally replied, looking up at the woman. Clad in Prototype Medic Power Armor, with a sword at her side, an alien blaster on her other hip, and covered in burns, Kara was known to her friends as the Friendly Firestarter, and to her enemies as the Worldburner. “Great.” Kara walked over to a nearby door, opening it with a touch to the controls at it’s side. It led to a ladder, which in turn led to the small cockpit of Gamma, one of Zeta’s scout craft. As she dropped into the pilot’s seat, a small grumble came from her armor. “I still think this is a bad idea…” “Oh, come on, Mike!” “Michael…” “There’s a whole universe to explore! And besides, Gamma has an emergency recall. If we get into trouble, we’ll just zap back here.” “And if Gamma gets destroyed?” “Then we’ll sort it out. Besides, I survived Purity. I’ll make it home.” “We hope…” “Anyway, onward to adventure!” The Wanderer yelled, slamming a hand down on a large blue button. Music started to play. Kara listened along for a while, singing to herself, before twisting around and punching the speaker off the wall. “Never liked that song.” She then proceeded to hit another button, which finally sent them flying off into space. Only one sound could be heard, besides the loud thrusters. “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” EQUESTRIA Smoky Mirror was doing well. His illusion magic was great enough for Princess Celestia herself to want to see it! He knew he was good, as it was both his special talent and what he had been practicing his whole life, but he never thought it was that good. So, he was happily trotting along, before noticing that the nearby ponies had stopped and were staring into the sky. He turned around himself, to see what it was that had caught their attention. What he saw, amazed him. Something was soaring through the sky, and a loud whistling was soon heard. By now, most other ponies had run off screaming, but not Smoky. He stuck around, wanting to see what it was, and so was one of the only ponies to see the thing smash into the street, crushing some market stalls, but somehow injuring no ponies. As the smoke and dust cleared, it became visible as a large metal disc. It had some form of rocket thruster on the back, and all in all looked very high-tech. Suddenly, a hatch on what looked like the underside of the thing opened. An odd creature poked it’s head out of the new opening. It looked kind of like a minotaur, but it had fur on the top of it’s head, hanging down around it’s ears, and no horns. It was wearing what looked like sunglasses, a suit of some kind of armor, and a large metal container on it’s back. It uttered but one thing. “Aww, is the ride over?” Before falling over onto the street, unconscious. Author's Note So! This is a thing! Kara is definitely not sane. As always, don't be afraid to give me constructive criticism! A Warm WelcomeWhen she got the message, Twilight Sparkle was ecstatic. An alien landed in Equestria? And she was one of the ponies who got to establish first contact? It was almost a dream come true! She had to fight the urge to just teleport straight to Canterlot, and go collect her friends to take the train. But now she was here, and her first action upon stepping off the train had been to zip straight to the hospital, where the alien was being kept. When her friends caught up, she was in a heated argument with the receptionist pony. “What do you mean, I can’t see it?” “I’m sorry, Princess, but I was given express orders not to let anypony meet her until she’s healthy. And at the moment, she’s not. Oh, hello!” The receptionist noticed Twilight’s friends walking in the door, waved at them, and went back to Twilight. “Until I have confirmation she’s ready for visitors, she’s staying isolated.” “We won’t harm her!” “You won’t mean to, but you might. She’s a completely alien life form, it’s highly likely that she’ll have a completely different immune system to match. Feathers might be fatally deadly to her. Just because her friend can speak Equestrian doesn’t mean-“ “Her friend? Could we meet them?” “Well…” The pony sighed a sigh of defeat. “Yes, all right, but please for Celestia’s sake at least cast a sterilization spell on yourselves. I’ll ask some of the doctors to go get him…” About three minutes later Four unicorns walked into the waiting room that Twilight and Co. were currently residing in. Between them, they were levitating something that looked like… armor? It was an odd shape, that would look better on a minotaur than a pony. They set it down in one of the chairs, sitting in a very minotaur-like shape, and left the room. Fluttershy was the first to speak up. “U-um, hello?” “Ah. Hello, madam!” A loud, gruff voice emitted from the armor, causing all beings present to jump in surprise. “Oh. Sorry about that. I am Michael, no matter how much Kara calls me Mike, designation MPA-P3. What are your names?” The ponies quickly introduced themselves, Twilight finishing with “I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle, and how in Celestia’s name are you…” She gestured to the metal mass. “…That?” “I was wondering when you would ask, Princess. I am an Artificial Intelligence, or AI. Since you don’t appear to have as advanced technology as me, I’ve come up with an explanation that worked with the doctors. Think of me as a soul, enchanted to live within the armor. But, I was also created to live in the armor. Does that make sense?” “Sort of… So you’re intelligent armor?” “Pretty much.” “Hmm.” This seemed to satisfy Twilight, as she sat back in her seat, only for Spike to spring forward. “So you’re a robot?” “Yes and no. I’m not capable of independent locomotion, such as a Protectron, but I can assist the wearer in their movement, inject painkillers when needed, and am of course a separate intelligence. I’m curious now, how did you know what a robot was?” “I read a lot of comic books.” “Hmm. Interesting. Anyway, Kara should be waking up soon. You’ll want to stay in here.” “What? Why?” As Rainbow asked this, a loud bang came from above, followed by a clang, a whoosh, and maniacal laughter. “That’s why.” “Ooo! I wanna see!” Exclaimed Pinkie, as she rushed out of the room. Her friends quickly followed. “Hey! Don’t… Damnit.” Came the gruff voice from inside the room. A purple aura surrounded the armor and hoisted it out of the room. “Thanks.” When the ponies reached the upper level, they were met with a horrifying sight. The alien, “Kara,” was holding some kind of sword wreathed in flame. She swung it around, burning every potted plant in the room to ashes. She was wearing some kind of blue jumpsuit, with golden accents, and a large ‘101’ on the back, though this was mostly obstructed by the massive gas tank she was wearing like a backpack. On her left hip was an odd, red, silver, and blue device, and another odd device, this one brown and orange, on her left wrist. “Kara! What the hell are you doing?” Michael yelled, as he was levitated into the room. Kara turned around, spotted the ponies and the hovering Michael, and blinked. “Oh, hey, multicolored brahmin. Mike, use the connection to my Pip-Boy. Am I on Jet?” An audible robotic sigh was heard, before Michael answered “No, your bloodstream is completely free of Jet, Punga fruit, or anything of the kind.” “Ya sure your sensors aren’t malfunctioning?” “Kara, I’m using the Pip-Boy sensors, and those literally survived Armageddon!” “Maybe the damage is catching up to them.” “Kara, you’re not hallucinating. It’s hard to believe, but you’re not.” Pinkie spoke up, oddly serious. Up until now, she and the other ponies had just been watching the exchange. “Huh. Well, even if you are a hallucination, you’re a fun one!” Kara exclaimed, suddenly slipping into a crazier tone and sheathing her sword, the flames vanishing in the air flow. “Can I just, uh, get changed?” “Oh, of course!” Twilight answered, stepping back to allow Kara room. “…Uh, Mike?” “Oh.” Twilight blushed slightly, levitating the talking armor over to Kara. “Thanks.” And a marvel of technology was seen. Michael opened up, the backside of the armor unfolding, until Kara could just step inside. Which she did, dropping the gas tank on the ground, allowing him to close around her, leaving just her head exposed. She walked into the room beside her, and walked out wearing a pair of sunglasses and hoisting the gas tank onto her now armoured back. “So, shall we?” Author's Note Yay! Kara questions reality, then accepts it because why not. As always, don't be afraid to tell me what I'm doing wrong, and things like that! The next chapter's going to be about Kara meeting other important ponies, like the Sisters, exporing Canterlot, and just generally having some insane fun. Curiosity Incinerated the Cat“So, Kara. What’s it like where you come from?” Twilight asked. The eight were walking along the streets of Canterlot towards the Castle, ponies sometimes stopping to give the human odd glances, but going about their day when they noticed the Elements of Harmony alongside. “Hell.” Kara responded flatly. Twilight choked on her next words, as the others gave Kara looks ranging from curious to horrified. “S-surely it can’t be that bad, can it darling?” Asked Rarity. “No, it really is that bad. Humanity blew the world up.” Kara answered, in the same emotionless tone, before switching to a more confident one. “But, we didn’t blow ourselves up. Just everything else. Humanity’s still surviving!” Then she went into a dark, angry-sounding voice. “But, people are idiotic sons of bitches. Tell me,” She stopped, swinging around to face the six ponies and one dragon. “Have you ever seen a corpse, stripped of everything, even it’s clothes, mutilated beyond belief, and hung up as decoration??” Rarity’s face went green, as did multiple ponies who had overheard, Fluttershy was trying to turn herself into a singularity, Rainbow had just stopped in midair, staring at the woman before her, Applejack stared, able to tell that Kara wasn’t lying and had seen such a horrible thing, Twilight had a manic twitch in her eye, and Spike let out a gasp. Pinkie, while her mane and tail had gone flat, signifying she had heard, just stood there, showing no other reaction. Kara stopped, looked around at all the motionless ponies, before asking Michael “Bit much?” “Yep.” “Damnit.” She looked at the still unmoving horses. “I broke them, didn’t I?” “Looks like it.” “Damnit.” She said again. She waited a few more seconds, before picking the Main 6 and Spike up manually, and continued on her way. 5 minutes later or something By now, the ponies had regained function and were walking along the path beside Kara again. They didn’t dare talk to her, now knowing the kind of things the human had faced. How could people be so twisted? When they reached the castle gates, two guardsponies stepped into her path. She replied with a simple “Fuck off.” and continued walking. When they didn’t move, she stopped, looked at them, and unholstered the odd red and silver device from her hip. She pointed it at a nearby plant. They looked from her, the device, and the plant, and back again. She pulled the trigger. With a loud fizzling, screeching noise, a ball of blue energy shot out of the device’s tip. It hit the plant, and the foliage burst into flame. Kara raised an eyebrow at the guards, not that it was visible underneath her sunglasses, and watched as… they didn’t move. She blinked. “Huh. Even though you saw that, you still stand up to me? Hmm…” She thought about this for a few seconds, all ponies in the area getting increasingly uncomfortable, before she completely dropped the serious tone and started talking in a far more jovial voice. “I like you. But seriously, get outta the way.” When they still didn’t move, she whistled. “Okay, mildly impressed, but did you not see who’s behind me?” She gestured to Twilight and Co., causing the guards to finally register that they were blocking royalty and scramble to the side. “Thanks. I’ll see if I can get you a raise. Wait, Twilight, what currency do they use here?” Kara asked, as she walked inside. “Oh! Well, we use little coins called Bits…” The voices faded away as the door slammed shut. Both guards blinked, looked at each other, and promptly fainted. Starbutt’s Throne Room “Blueblood, please. The alien is not a threat. Even if she was, she’s currently bed-ridden in Canterlot Hospital, and-“ The door to the throne room suddenly emitted a series of frantic knocks, as if the pony doing the knocking was in a panicked state. “One moment.” Celestia told the noble in front of her, before getting down from the throne and walking over to the door. Before she could open it, however, it slammed open, a power-armoured figure charging through. Blueblood screamed, and ran out of the room. Kara stood up amid the dust cloud, looking down at her feet and noticing the prone figure of Spike. He had been the one to knock before her entrance, and she had bowled him over. She picked him up, set him upright, and turned to look at the bemused Princess of the Sun. “Oh. Sorry.” “It’s… All right. Honestly, I was expecting you to still be asleep an hour from now, considering how powerfully your vehicle crashed.” “Ah, yes. Gamma. How is it?” Michael asked, ignoring the odd look Celestia cast around. “Who was that?” The Sun Goddess asked, her eyes flicking from corner to corner. “That was me, Your Highness. The armor.” She stared at the metal suit, before stating a single word. “What?” “Well-“ Kara began, before being cut off by the Main 6 bursting into the room. “I’msosorryPrincesswejustcouldn’tstopherand-“ Twilight rambled, before Celestia calmly closed her mouth. “Do not worry, Twilight. She has not harmed me, and I do not believe she wishes to.” Celestia carefully told the lavender alicorn, before turning back to Kara. “You were saying?” “Well, it’s something like this…” Kara continued, proceeding to explain exactly how Michael worked, and then how they arrived after being reassured that Gamma was untampered with. “So, yeah. That’s pretty much what we did.” “Interesting. So you managed to take control of an alien ship, then took one of the scout craft for a test fly?” “Yup.” “Tell me. What is your world like? Luna has told me that it’s horrible,” “Horrible’s an understatement.” “but I wish to know details.” Celestia continued, ignoring the interruption. “All right. I’ll give you a name.” “Deathclaws.” Kara proceeded to explain what a Deathclaw was. How they could end lives in single swipes. How they operated on a mix of intelligence and instinct. How even this was one of the lesser evils of the Wasteland. Needless to say, the ponies had much the same effect as they did in the street outside. Twilight managed to croak out a whisper. “I see now what you meant when you called it Hell…” Celestia still appeared unfazed. “It seems you have quite the demons at home, Kara.” “Demons? Nah. One of my friends deals with them. Luckily nobody launched nukes at Mars, so he’s doing fine.” Kara responded, back to her normal, carefree tone. It unnerved the others how she could talk about such things so casually. “Anyway!” Kara yelled, startling everypony else. “I wanna explore!” And she barged out again. Out the window. Author's Note Just so you know, Michael doesn't actually talk much. He generally just alerts Kara to hostiles, argues with her occasionally, and otherwise stays quiet. ...I was going to tell you something else, but I've forgotten. Damnit. Burning ThingsThud. Kara had landed. She had jumped from one of the highest windows in Canterlot, and therefore she should have been dead, right? Nope. For some insane reason, she was completely unharmed. This, understandably, confused Twilight to no end. “B- Bu- H- How?!” Twilight sputtered, running out the front door alongside her friends, after seeing Kara was fine. “Because, Princess…” Kara leant down to look the purple pony in the eyes. “This world can’t live without me.” She chuckled. “Nah, Nate gave Mike some hydraulics upgrades. Short of falling off the moon, I can take a drop.” She straightened up, ignored the sleepy “Michael…” from her armor, span in a circle, and started off in a random direction. “What’s down this way?” She asked. “Um, the side of Canterlot. It’s on a big platform, and if you fall off you’ve got several kilometres to go.” Twilight replied, running after her. “I was thinking of taking you to Ponyville? If you’re going to fit in anywhere, it’ll be there. Or possibly Ramsey, but since that’s on the edge of Equestria it’d take too long to get there.” “Sure. How do we get there?” Kara asked, stopping. “By train. Follow me.” Twilight turned, and started walking towards the train station, Kara following behind her. A period of time later Kara stepped off the train, the ponies close behind her. She took one look at the dark, nighttime station, promptly pulled out her sword, and lit it ablaze. “What’s that for?!” Twilight exclaimed, having nearly been caught by the burning blade. “Well, it’s nighttime. We need to see.” Kara replied, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. “Well, yes, but we can do this.” Twilight responded, lighting up her horn. “Oh.” Was Kara’s only response, before she put the blade away. While it was still on fire. Surprisingly, she didn’t even seem to notice. Luckily for all around, as soon as she let go of the hilt, the gas flow halted and the flame died. “Well,” Twilight started, “How about we go back to my castle, and we can discuss each other’s worlds there? I’m still really curious, Kara, and I suspect you are too.” “Nah. I just wanna burn things.” Kara was met with a chorus of shocked expressions. “What?” “Why do you want to burn things?” Twilight asked carefully. “I may or may not have pyromania, according to Angela. By the way, do you have any fireproof rooms in your castle?” “Okay, that makes things… complicated.” Twilight replied. “And yes, the whole castle’s made of fireproof crystal, I’m sure we can find an unused room.” “Great! Take me there, and I’ll answer most of your questions.” Kara stated, speeding up slightly. “All right…” Twilight responded, hanging back slightly from the not-quite-stable girl. Another period of time later, though this one was a bit shorter Now sitting in one of the Big Crystal Palace of Friendship’s storerooms, the ponies intently waited for Kara to start. “All right. So, I myself only have one question.” She suddenly rounded on Twilight. “Can I call ya Moira?” “Um… Why?” “Because, back home, there’s a girl called Moira Brown. She’s nice. Helped her write a book. She’s impossibly curious, and very enthusiastic. I think you two would love each other.” Kara stopped for a moment. “Or you might hate each other. I dunno.” She sat down on the floor. “Well? Go ahead. Ask me questions.” “But, aren’t you going to ask us any?” Applejack questioned. “Nah. I suspect I can learn as much as I want about your world just by wandering it. That’s what I do, anyway.” “All right then. Well, can ya give us some pointers? We know nothin’ about your world.” Applejack continued. “Sure, that’s fair. War, Megaton, Purity.” “How about Megaton? Isn’t that a unit of explosive power?” Twilight questioned. “Yup! Very good! Megaton was a town built around an undetonated nuke.” At the ponies’ blank expressions, she clarified. “Nuclear bomb.” Now, Twilight understood. “Wait. Nuclear energy, utilized as a bomb… Just a few of those, at strategic positions, could crack the world in half…” She whispered. “Yup. Great lead in to the War, where humanity actually did that. They blew up the world.” “B-b-b-bb-but if the planet were broken, the grav-“ “No, no, I don’t mean they literally blew the planet apart. I mean they managed to obliterate things so well that all that’s left is a wasteland. I won’t go into any more detail than that. Megaton was built around a nuke that failed to detonate upon impact. I defused it later, but I question why anyone would be enough of an idiot to build around one in the first place.” She received varying noises of agreement from around the room. “All right, what about Purity, darling? That sounds much better than all these horrors you’re talking about.” “It is. In a way. Ya see, rads, radiation, got into the water. Drinking it was unsafe, but it was all anyone had. The Brotherhood of Steel-nice guys and gals, bit obsessive over their tech though-decided that they’d had enough. So, they decided to get a big water purifier called Project Purity up and running. It was a thing my dad was working on.” “Oh, yer father?” Applejack asked. “Dead.” The coldness with which she said that unnerved the ponies for what, the seventeenth time that day? “I’m sorry.” Twilight said, resting a hoof on Kara’s shoulder. “What about your mother?” “Died in childbirth.” Suddenly, the tone of the room had gotten a lot gloomier. “Uh, how about we finish the questions for today?” Rainbow asked, her usual brashness gone. She received hushed noises of agreement, and they filed out of the room, leaving the Firestarter alone to her thoughts. Author's Note So. This happened. The title, 'Burning Things', was supposed to be a pun on 'Learning Things'. I already used the Curiosity joke, I didn't have any other material. A different name would be appreciated. OH DEAR GOD I HATE MY MOUSE WITH A BURNING PASSION UNINTENTIONAL PUNS YAY Also, I'm starting on a sequel. Already. Because I'm so bored I don't have anything better to do. DELETED SCENE I was originally going to put this in as the ending, and then I hit on the idea I used in the actual chapter. However, I did write the later chapters before finishing this one, as I had hit on some writer’s block for this, so this was going to be an explanation for how Kara knows Discord in Fluttershy’s chapter. ANYWAY, DELETED SCENE TIME Suddenly, there was a hearty, dark chuckle. A section of the wall peeled off, before morphing and changing color to become a strange being. It looked like a cross between a dragon, a snake, a lion, an eagle, a pony, a goat, and other strange beings. He also had a massive cannon pointed at him, one that was being carried by Kara. “Hey! Pulling things out of hammerspace is my job! And yay! I finally get a speaking role in this story!” yelled Pinkie. “What radioactive hole did you crawl out of?” Kara remarked to Discord, not lowering the Tesla Cannon. “Hey! I’ll have you know, it was only mildly radioactive!” The draconeqqus replied, hovering about a metre off the ground. “Though it was certainly a hole. Took me years to get to the top.” “Hmm…” Kara pondered this for a moment… And fired the cannon. There was a loud buzz, a blinding light, and when it faded there was a large hole in Discord’s chest. It quickly filled in with cheesecake, which then remorphed into Discord’s chest. He didn’t say anything, while the ponies stared at Kara with looks of shock. “Huh.” The lady in question stated. “I like him. Can we keep him?” Everyone Lives“Kara? Are you all right?” Twilight asked, poking her head into the storeroom, where Kara had decided to stay for the night. “Yup!” The girl herself was fiddling with a bunch of contraptions laid out around her. They appeared to be her sword, the energy device, two large contraptions that looked like they were supposed to spray something from back-mounted tanks, another device that looked similar to the previous two, but missing the tank, a massive cannon of sorts, a long, thin weapon, and something else. “Where… did you get all these?” Twilight asked cautiously. “Oh, these? Well, I built some of them, and found the others.” She picked up the last object, something that looked somewhat similar to the long, thin weapon, but was shorter, thicker, and had a large handle on the side in the centre of a circle, as if you were intended to pull something out. “Aside from the Shishkebab,” She gestured to her sword, “This is one of my favorite weapons. The Gauss Cannon. Or Rifle. Either works.” “Wait… Gauss… Magnetic propulsion?” Twilight asked. Kara looked surprised. “Huh, yeah. So you know what it is. Anyway,” She picked the weapons up, appearing to sling most of them over her back, where they just… phased out of being. Having seen Pinkie do similar things, Twilight decided to just file it under the ever-increasing pile of ‘That’s not scientifically possible, but okay.’ “I want to explore Ponytown!” “Ponyville.” “Whatever. C’mon, Moira!” Kara raced out the door, ‘Shishkebab’ and blaster at her side. Only then did Twilight notice that the Shishkebab’s gas tank was on Kara’s back again, despite the human never having put it on. She filed that away too. Kara crashed out the front door of Twilight’s Castle, creating a massive bang that caused everypony in the general area to look towards the source. Which was why, when Twilight caught up with the surprisingly fast biped, every pony in sight was staring blankly at Kara. And then somepony fainted. Chaos ensued. Ponies were running every which way, some were following the first’s example and dramatically collapsing, and one mint-green unicorn ran up to Kara with a look of utter joy before being dragged away by her friend. “Well,” Kara started, “That went a lot better than most times I walk into a new place.” “B-better?!” Twilight sputtered. By now, the area was mostly clear. The only ponies visible were those who had fainted and not been dragged away by their conscious friends, and that green unicorn, Lyra, who was fighting furiously, and vainly, to get away from Bon-Bon and back to Kara. She didn’t need to though, as the human walked over by herself. As she approached, Bon-Bon got increasingly more frantic, until Kara was right beside her. “Hi.” Was all the girl said. Bon-Bon looked at Kara suspiciously, while Lyra was just staring at the woman. “What are you doing here?” Bon-Bon asked, not letting go of Lyra, but also having stopped moving. “Exploring. Having fun. Seeing what I can and can’t burn. Okay, maybe not that last one. Yet.” Bon-Bon just stared. Finally, Lyra broke. “OhmyFaustyou’reahumanI’vereadsomuchaboutyouwhat’sitlikeathomewhat’syournamehowoldareyoueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Kara, without even hesitating, replied; “That I am, show me some time, Hell, Kara, probably around 21.” At Bon-Bon and Twilight’s looks of amazement that she had interpreted so quickly, she shrugged. “What? I’ve had lots of practice.” To this, Michael scoffed, replying with a “Yes, and it’s mostly yourself.” “Oy! Shaddup!” Was the response. Meanwhile, Bon-Bon had leapt up again, looking around for the source of the voice. Kara sighed, and called out “Magic armor!” Bon-Bon looked back at Michael with a look of incredulity, then shrugged and left it at that. As for Lyra, she had gone into a shock-induced state of unresponsiveness. “Welp!” Kara called out, straightening up again. “Let’s go find more ponies to talk to. Away, Moira!” And she ran off again. Twilight sighed, even as she followed. “Today is going to be a long day…” Pagebreak “Hi!” Kara yelled, barging into a house. And discovering it was bigger on the inside. This didn’t concern her. In fact, she was rather used to it. “Ah! Hello.” A brown earth pony in a tie called, fiddling with an odd machine. “How do you do, my dear? The name’s Time Turner. Also known as Doctor Turner, or just The Doctor.” “Nice to meet ya. What ya workin’ on?” Kara asked. “Oh! It’s… Well… Essentially it’s a long-range letterbox. My assistant is a mailmare, so about half of the things you’ll see in here are designed to help her in that business.” He picked up the object, showing it to indeed be a letterbox, however with a large amount of tech on it. “Problem is, it can receive messages fine, but not send any. Perhaps you could help?” He held it out to her, letting her examine it. “Hmm… Have you tried reversing the polarity of the photon chargers?” She asked. “N-no! I hadn’t! Wow… I’ve been learning science all my lives, and yet I never thought of that. Are you a scientist too?” The Doctor asked her. “Nah, but being a pyromaniac can require a knowledge of science. Besides, I live with like five different scientists. I’ve picked up some stuff.” Twilight chose that point to burst in the door, panting heavily. “Oh! Moira! How ya doin’?” Kara exclaimed. “Looking for you. I hope she hasn’t been bothering you, Doctor?” Twilight asked, still breathing heavily. “No, not at all! In fact, she helped me out with a puzzling dilemma! And in return…” The Doctor had finished with the modifications to the letterbox, and presented it to Kara. “You came from a faraway planet, correct?” At her nod, he continued. “Well, if we could somehow hook this up to something back there, we could have a communications system!” He yelled excitedly, before calming himself with a sheepish smile. “Well, I don’t have a teleporter or something to use. The closest thing I have is the Gamma Team Relay, and considering I ‘aint getting signals from anyone back home, I suspect the Relay won’t work either.” Kara explained. “Oh. Well, all the more reason to keep trying, right?” The Doctor said, before turning back to fiddle with the box. Kara and Twilight bid him farewell, before walking out again. “Well, Moira, what nOW!” Kara yelled, as a pony under a brown cloak ran by. A tiny strip of skin had ripped itself off of Kara’s face, being levitated by the pony, not enough to leave any kind of lasting damage but still painful. “Oy! Get back here with that piece o’ my face!” Kara yelled after the pony, starting to run, but Twilight stopped her. “Kara, you’ll never catch them. I don’t know what they wanted with a bit of your skin, but it’s probably nothing. Might have just wanted to look at the cell structure. Speaking of…” “No, Moira, you do not have permission to study my body. If you really want figures, ask Mike. Being Medic Power Armor, it’s kinda his job to keep a track of how my body’s doing.” “Michael, but yes. I have data files on everything you could want to know about the human body, Madam.” Came the agreement. Twilight sighed. “All right. Well, since we don’t have any reason to go back to my castle for the moment, how about you get to know my friends better? Come on, Sugarcube Corner’s just this way…” Author's Note MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA No matter where you run, no matter where you hide, as long as you read my books, you cannot escape the Doctor Who! I couldn't think of any sufficient fire puns, so I made a DW pun. The point is, as well as being a DW quote, is that everyone is important. Everyone has a life. Everyone lives. Fabric Burns Easily, I've Discovered.“Ratiry?” Kara yelled as she walked into the Carousel Boutique. “Rarity, darling. I suppose it’s my turn to teach you about our world?” Came the response, as the alabaster unicorn walked down from the upper floor. “Yeah, I guess.” Kara replied, as she walked into the room. Rarity took one look at her, and shrieked. “Oh sweet Celestia! You’re even dirtier than you were before! What in Tartarus were you doing?” “Uh… I burnt down Sugarcube Corner?” Kara sheepishly replied, before yelping as she was tugged forwards by Rarity’s magic. “Well, we need to get you cleaned up before we do anything else. Come on, and consider yourself unbelievably lucky Sweetie’s out with the other Crusaders having adventures.” “Aw, but I like adventures! Can’t I- Wait how did you even know that was the opening mechanism?” Kara yelled as the wheel on the back of her armor turned, it unfolded, and she was deposited unceremoniously on the floor. Rarity looked at her, confused. “I didn’t.” “No, she didn’t. I opened it. She’s right, Kara. You need a shower.” Michael spoke up, closing back into a suit of armor again. Kara pointed an accusing finger at him. “Traitor!” “Oh, shush.” Rarity stated, giving Michael a thankful nod as she threw Kara into the bathroom. The human herself continued to screech insults directed at her treasonous armor, only stopping when Rarity shoved her into the shower, Kara stopping to remark “Oh hey, this is kinda nice. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Screw you, Mike!” Rarity put a hoof under the water to check the temperature, before yelping in pain. “Ow! You… How are you completely fine under such scalding heat?” Kara turned to face her, having left her sunglasses on the nearby table along with the Vault 101 jumpsuit. “Girl. I literally play with fire on a daily basis. At this point, anything below ten degrees is unbearably uncomfortable for me.” She turned away from Rarity again, mumbling something about “It was a good thing those crystals were worth it…” Eventually, Rarity decreed Kara clean enough for now, and let her out of the shower, where she actually used the Shishkebab’s heat to dry herself off before putting the jumpsuit back on. “So! Now that that’s done with,” Kara exclaimed as Michael folded around her. “What now?” “Well, I was going to see about getting you something other than that ghastly jumpsuit to wear-“ Rarity was cut off by a flaming sword pointed directly at her face, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off of it. “Don’t you dare call the last piece of home I have ghastly.” Kara said. Her voice was calm, focused; the kind of voice that sent chills down the spine. “The last… Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry darling, I didn’t know.” Rarity replied, looking the human in the eyes. “As you said, ya didn’t know. No hard feelings. Just don’t do it again.” Kara replied, back to her usual carefree voice. “W-well. I think, darling, that perhaps you should go? If you’re not going to let me make you something other than the jumpsuit, I should really get back to making these dresses…” “Yeah, yeah, sure. I wanna go see Fluttershy anyway.” Kara walked out the door, Rarity giving her a feeble wave. Once the mare was sure Kara was out of earshot, she collapsed. “Sweet Celestia… I’m not going to be sleeping tonight. I have to make it up to her…” Author's Note This is entirely filler. Sorry Rarity fans, I know next to nothing about her. It's not that I don't like her, it's that someone has to be on the bottom of my favorites list. I'll try to make up for it with the next chapters. Forest Fire“Yo, Flutters!” Kara yelled as she barged into Fluttershy’s cottage. Needless to say, the mare herself eeped, then fell over backwards. “That wasn’t very polite.” Discord said, appearing from… Somewhere. “Ah, shush. Not my fault she faints whenever something happens.” “Yes, but you could at least try to be quieter. I’m the literal Spirit of Chaos,” He pulled a lollipop out of thin air to prove it, then stuck it in one of his eyes, which had turned into a mouth with very sharp teeth. “and even I respect her.” “Yeah, but I’m not you.” Kara replied bluntly, sitting down on one of the chairs. Discord sat beside her. A small white bunny hopped onto Kara’s leg and looked angrily up at her. She gave him a vaguely uninterested expression through her sunglasses. “That’s Angel. Acts like he owns the place.” Discord told her. Kara didn’t take her eyes off the bunny in question. “Right, so he’s a bitch. Good to know.” Angel responded to that with a stomp on Kara’s leg. “I wouldn’t advise that.” Michael told the bunny. Angel glanced at Kara’s chest, where the voice had come from, then dismissed it and went back to staring into her eyes. Kara herself raised an eyebrow. “You challenging me?” Angel nodded. “Idiot.” Kara laid back, completely ignoring Angel. Until he snatched her sunglasses. “Oi!” Angel leapt off her leg and ran outside, the human fast behind him. Meanwhile, Discord was sitting upside down and eating something that looked like popcorn. Kara stopped, Angel still ahead of her. The bunny turned to look over his shoulder, and stopped dead. Kara was carrying something that looked like a massive cannon, pointed directly at him. “Oi! Fallen Angel! Gimme back my sunglasses, or I get roasted rabbit tonight.” She stared at him with her burning emerald eyes, still with that vaguely disinterested look. Angel gulped, slowly walked up to her, and held up the eyewear. She took them, put them on, and slung the cannon onto her back, where it faded out of existence just before slamming into the gas tank that was already there. “Great. Let’s go have some food, huh?” Kara walked back into the cottage, while Angel stood outside, before slowly toppling over. Kara barged into Fluttershy’s house, causing the recovering mare to faint again, and was immediately stopped by Discord. “A hammerspace fabricator? I’m amazed you managed to construct that, considering your race isn’t supposed to have magic.” “Yes, in Kara’s own words, Old World America was populated by very clever idiots.” Michael responded, before being cut off by the girl herself. “Supposed? Whadya mean by that?” “Oh, you’re attentive. Well, you have some manner of magic in you. But it’s not a kind I recognize. All my chaos abilities are picking up is a name.” He spun around, and leaned forward to stare her in the eyes, despite being on the other side of the room. “Queen of the Flame.” “Huh. Cool.” Discord reeled back. “What, you’re not even surprised?” “Well, it sounds like the kinda thing that’d fit me.” Kara walked over to the couch, flopping down again. She pulled the Firelance off her belt and started fiddling with it. Fluttershy slowly got to her hooves again, to see Kara fiddling with that blaster thing. The girl pressed a button on the handle, causing a blue ball of energy to fly out the end and narrowly miss Fluttershy’s head. As she passed out for the third time that day, she heard Kara’s voice. “…Maybe I should come back later.” Author's Note Oh hey I updated again I kind of rushed this one. Expect ~~second best pone~~ Applejack's chapter... sometime. Hot Apples“Yo!” Kara yelled out, vaulting over the small fence around Sweet Apple Acres. “Howdy!” Applejack called back, bucking another tree and causing apples to fall perfectly into the provided baskets, because comic physics. She trotted over to the human, leaving the baskets to pick up later. “How’re ya doin’?” “”I’m fine. How’dya do that?” Kara responded, waving in the general direction of the baskets. “Oh, that. Well, ya gotta hit the tree in the right place, with enough strength to knock the apples off, but not so much ya break the tree… It’s really an art in an’ of itself.” “Huh. Got any trees you don’t care too much about? I wanna try something.” Kara fiddled with the amber-screened device on her arm. “Well…” Applejack guided them over to a small, isolated area. “This is what we call our testin’ grounds. We use them so new applebuckers can learn their own strength. That good enough?” “Perfect, if she’s doing what I think she’s doing.” Michael responded, as Kara was still fiddling with the Pip-boy. She pressed a button, and the air… shimmered, before she reached into the haze, her arm vanishing. She pulled out something, pressed the button again, causing the haze to vanish, and pulled the device onto her right hand, revealing it as some manner of mechanical glove. “What’s that?” Applejack asked, pointing at the glove. “It’s called a Pneumatic Power Fist. I dunno how strong your trees are, so I’ll just turn it up to maximum and work from there. I mean, it would make more sense to work up from the bottom, but, ya know, where’s the fun in that?” Kara twisted a small, almost hidden dial on the side, reared her fist back, and punched the tree as hard as she could, the Power Fist letting out a loud hiss. Not that the hiss was heard, as it was drowned out by the loud smash of the tree breaking in half and falling over. Applejack stared. “Well, that worked.” Kara said happily to herself. “Are ya tryin’ ta destroy mah orchard?” Applejack shouted, turning on her. “No, I wanted to see how tough your trees were. I’ve only ever seen withered, broken ones. I mean, Oasis exists, but I didn’t punch any of those trees. Well, one, but that one was literally asking for it.” “Oasis?” “Yeah, it’s this place up in the north of the Capital Wasteland. Got a tree hybrid thing in the middle called Harold and Bob. He ended up creating more trees, then some people came by and made a cult, and stuff happened. Anyway, should I meet your family, or should I keep testing the Power Fist?” “Uh, Ah think you should come meet mah family.” Applejack quickly replied, trotting off towards the house. Kara shrugged, dropped the Power Fist back into the depths of hammerspace, and followed. “Howdy!” Apple Bloom called out as AJ and Kara walked up to the house. “Yo!” Kara called back. She walked onto the deck, and leaned down to pat the filly on the head. Applejack walked up behind her, and pushed through the door. Apple Bloom quickly followed, with Kara behind her. “Howdy there!” Granny Smith called from the other side of the room. This caused Michael to ask “Is their only greeting ‘Howdy’?” “I dunno.” Kara replied, looking around the small room. It was quite homely. “Well, that’s Apple Bloom, Granny Smith, and… Granny, where’s Big Mac?” Applejack asked. “Upstairs, I think.” The wizened old mare responded. Applejack turned to the stairs, just as a large red stallion entered the room from them. “Hi!” called Kara. Big Mac acknowledged her with a nod. “Welp,” Kara said, spinning to face the whole room again. “This has been great, but I should probably get going. First, I want to do something. Do I have permission to burn one of your training trees?” At the protesting noises she received, she quickly continued. “Just the one! I’ll make sure it doesn’t spread.” AS she continued receiving protests, she finally yelled “I’m a pyromaniac! I’d probably end up doing it anyway, and it’ll look really cool as well!” At this, they stopped. Granny Smith finally asked “Yer a pyromaniac?” “Yup.” “Oh, well that changes things. If yer this old, and ya been burnin’ things for that long… You probably know how t’ control it. And true, fire is very pretty when contained. All right, but be careful.” “I will. Now, who wants to see me burn a tree?” Apple Bloom jumped up, with a cry of “Ah ain’t seen much fire before!” “Right. AJ, come on. You’ve got enough common sense to keep Bloom safe.” Kara walked out again, fiddling with the Pipboy. As they got to the training trees again, she finally found what she was looking for, and pulled it out of the distortion. It looked like one of the rifles she had earlier, but it was… weird. At first, it had black and white stripes, like a zebra. But as it moved in her hands, it’s appearance changed. One moment it had the consistency of sand, the next it was made of cold, lifeless stone. Then it was rusted metal, with a strange yellow symbol on the side, and then a stark white, no detail at all. It hurt to look at. Finally, it settled on being made of wood, exactly like the trees surrounding them. Kara raised it up to her face, to look through the scope. She carefully lined up a shot, and pulled the trigger. With a soft pfft noise, the tree burst alight. “Woah!” Apple Bloom gasped. Applejack raised an eyebrow. As the tree cracked and fell, Kara tossed the rifle into hammerspace, and started walking away. Applejack ran after her. “Where’re ya goin’?” “To go meet Rainbow. I’m tryin’ to meet everyone. Seeya.” “But-“ Applejack was cut off by Kara suddenly breaking into a sprint, the last words she heard from Michael. “Don’t bother! She’s got her mind set on it.” And so the pyromaniac travelled towards the prismatic speedster. After going back to Applejack and asking for directions. Author's Note The rifle mentioned is the Zebra Rifle, from a mod. I have a bug where modded things with unique textures don't use those. Instead, they pull textures from the surrounding area, like the stony ground. I was just making a small nod to that. Anyway, Rainbow is the last chapter until the ending. The Sky Cracked And Burned“Yo, Dash!” Kara yelled up at the cloud mansion floating above her. She didn’t get a response, so she pulled out her gauss rifle and blew up the balcony. That got Rainbow to poke her head out the door that used to lead there. “Hey! Don’t blow up my house!” “I ain’t blowin’ it up, I’m shooting it! There’s a difference!” “I’m pretty sure you blew it up.” Discord said, because he was suddenly there. “Shaddup.” And just like that, he was gone again. “Anyway, what should we do?” Kara called up to Rainbow. The mare sighed and flew down to meet her. “I dunno. You can’t fly, so we can’t do that…” “Actually, I think I have a fix for that.” Kara responded, fiddling with the Pipboy again. Rainbow watched her curiously. Finally, Kara pressed a button, causing a rift in the fabric of reality to tear open once again. The human reached inside and pulled out what looked like a long L of reddish metal, and then another, a large box with a hatch on one side and a hole on the top, and then a bunch of long rods of metal. Finally, she pulled out a small yellow cylinder. “What’s all that?” Rainbow asked. “Science, my friend.” The pyromaniac responded, hefting the box up. She slotted the Ls into the sides, so they stuck out in front of it and turned up at the end. Now that Rainbow looked closer, she saw they looked something like… Handles? Kara continued putting pieces together, slotting one of the rods into the top of the box, and affixing the others to the top of that so it looked like… “Hey, that looks like one of Pinkie’s flying machines!” Rainbow cried. “Oh, really? Not surprised that she’d be the one to make a functional vertibird…” She finished constructing the device, and slung it onto her back, since the gas tank had mysteriously vanished. She picked up the yellow cylinder, and pulled open the hatch on the side. Four claws sprung out, which she plugged the cylinder into, pushing them back into the machine as she did so. She pulled the hatch closed again, took hold of the handles, and pulled them back. And she flew. The blades span, generating a downdraft that sent Kara’s hair flying. It slowly lifted into the air, wobbling slightly, and lifted her with it. She hovered about a meter off the ground, wobbling slightly, but not falling. Rainbow picked her jaw off the ground, and asked “How does that work?” “Science, mixed with the natural field of screw physics I emit, probably.” Kara responded, twisting and manuvering the handles in order to shift position in the air. She flew up to meet Rainbow in the air. “I’m not too fast, but I can fly. What’cha wanna do?” The two soared for a time. As she said, Kara wasn’t very fast, but she was capable. This continued for a while, until Rainbow spotted something in the distance. “What’s that?” She called, squinting to look at the light. Kara spun around to look. She squinted, looked at her Pipboy, frowned, and called out a reply. “I dunno! Go get your friends. The Pip’s saying there’s hostiles down there!” Rainbow started to retort, but was cut off with a “Don’t argue, just go!” Kara angled the helipack to travel closer, until she could see a small group of ponies around a door in the hill. She touched down a little ways away, packed up the helipack, and walked closer, drawing her trusty Shishkebab. One of the ponies turned, and noticed her approaching with a gasp. “It is the Fallen!” The other ponies turned to stare as well. “I’m the what now?” Kara asked. “We received a prophecy many years ago. A being would fall from the stars, and their flesh would be the final ingredient to summon the Karmic.” “The what now?” Kara vaguely noticed Rainbow arriving with her friends, but she was more focused on the ponies in front of her. She had a feeling things were about to go downhill very quickly… “The Karmic will unite every being in glorious destruction!” One of the ponies cried. The Main 6 flinched back, while Kara stared. Michael decided to speak up, muttering “They have the Children of Atom here too?” “You what?” Kara slowly asked, tightening her grip on the Shishkebab. “The Karmic will travel across the land, leaving a trail of destruction in it’s wake! And from that destruction, we shall achieve Unity!” “No.” “What?” The head pony looked at Kara curiously. “No, it won’t. Because I’ll stop it. Because you’re morons if you think this will work.” The pony narrowed his eyes. “Then we will have to show you firsthoof. Brothers! Sisters! To arms!” Author's Note Oh hey a chapter I was running out of ideas, so I created the helipack. Wow I suck at writing books Ashes to AshesThey fought. They battled through the underground facility, leaving bodies, most unconscious, in their wake. Finally, they made it to the control room. A massive place, big enough to fit multiple Gammas, with a control board on the opposite side. A lone unicorn, green with a blue mane, was working. She turned, spotted the ponies and human, and panicked. She started pulling levers and pressing buttons frantically, before Kara caught her. The lady spun the mare around, and pulled her closer… Onto the Shishkebab. The other ponies gasped. Kara had just impaled this pony, and she didn’t even look upset, or sad, or anything. If anything, she looked… angry. “What the hell did you think you were doing?” Kara hissed at the pony. “You’re going to kill us all!” “Yes,” The mare told her, smiling despite her wound. “We will all be united in glorious obliteration!” “You idiot!” Kara shouted. “It’s the fucking Children of Atom all over again! Releasing the Karmic isn’t going to do jack shit but get us all killed! I’ve died before! I would know! There’s no ‘Unity’ waiting for us beyond death!” The ponies gasped at Kara’s careless swearing, while the mare just laughed, though not without a hint of caution. “You can’t have died. You’re standing right here.” “Girl, look at me. You have no idea what kind of things I can do and you know it. But.” Kara twisted the sword, making the mare grunt in pain. “If you find some way to communicate with the other members of your fucking cult, tell them this. The Worldburner is coming for them, and she will walk through fire and Hell and death and pain and destruction to bring them the karma they deserve!” Kara screamed. She pulled the trigger on the sword, causing the blade, still buried in the pony’s body, to burst into flame. She stared into the burning pony’s eyes, before throwing her to the ground and sheathing her sword. “Kara…” Twilight tried to talk with the lady, get her to calm down. “No. Fuck off, I have something to do.” Kara walked over to the control board, trying to figure out how to shut down the rift. “Kara, listen to me!” Twilight tried again, this time using her magic to actually pull the girl away. Kara turned to her, her sunglasses falling off to reveal her crying eyes. “No! You fucking listen to me!” Kara yelled. “I’ve seen this before! If I don’t stop this, we’re all going to fucking die! Now run! Go! I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again!” Kara screamed, before they all heard a click. They turned, to see an arcane glow fading from a lever. The same glow that was fading from the dying unicorn’s horn. “Shit.” Kara stated bluntly, before running over to the panel. “Shitshitshitshitshit!” She began pulling levers and pushing buttons frantically, yelling “Moira! I mean it! Run! Run like Armageddon itself is on your tail, because quite frankly it might be!” Twilight and her friends didn’t need any further encouragement, dashing out the door. “It’s Purity all over again…” Michael muttered, as Kara tried furiously to halt the rift’s opening. “No shit…” Was the only response he got. Then the world exploded. A monster tore it’s way out of the rift, knocking Kara back to the other side of the room. “Huh. You think you scare me??” The lone human yelled up at the demon before her. A monstrous being, built out of the parts of the beasts of the Wasteland- A Deathclaw arm, a Meta Human leg, etc, the Karmic loomed over her. “I’ll say it again- you think you scare me?” Kara yelled at the beast, her blazing sword in hand. It gave what could be interpreted as a laugh, and told her that she should be. “Well, lemme tell you something. I survived billions of rads being pumped into my body! I survived a simulation of the Great War! I survived the swamps of Point Lookout, with my head cut open for most of it! I survived Mothership Zeta, where aliens used me as an experiment! I survived the Pitt… And the choices I made there.” On this last sentence, she quietened, and hung her head slightly, before going back to normal. “I’ll say it again. One. Last. Time. You think you scare me?” She looked up, stared the abomination in what could pass for it’s eyes. “Because ya do.” At this, the thing recoiled. It hadn’t expected that response. But before it could make any further action, she continued. “I’m terrified. In fact, if I was wearing pants, I’d probably have pissed them. But! Being afraid does not mean you can’t be brave. In fact, it’s one of the requirements for being brave! True bravery is facing your fears, while simultaneously being completely fucking terrified! So come at me, ya big bitch!” She stopped, still staring the beast in the eyes. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. This continued for a short time, until the thing roared, and leapt at her. “Now that’s more like it!” Kara leapt out of the way of the rampaging demon… And sheathed her sword. As the beast picked itself up off the ground, she shrugged her left shoulder. As her arm came down again, the pauldron split open with a hiss of steam for dramatic effect. She reached within with her right hand, and drew out a small revolver. Nothing seemed too fancy about it. As she did the same with her right arm and reached inside, having dodged out of the way of the Karmic again, Michael spoke up. “Are you sure this is safe? You know how much the Magnum puts out. If you miss, and the bullet goes flying off towards something important…” “Mike. Look at the thing. How the fuck can I miss?” Kara responded curtly, dropping the cylinder of the gun out and beginning to load bullets in. She was interrupted by a massive, robotic claw slamming down on her position, forcing her to leap to the side once again. “Oy! I’m loading a gun here! Gimme some space, geez…” After she finished loading, she swung the cylinder shut, ignoring Michael’s “That damages the gun, and you know it…” before spinning around, pointing the gun straight at the Karmic’s ‘face’. “Do you know what this is?” The Karmic laughed, and replied, saying it was just a silly little gun. “Well, yes. It is a silly little gun. But it was given to me as a gift… By a rather mysterious friend.” At this, the Karmic recoiled, recognizing the weapon for the demonslayer it was. It backed away, shrieking and screaming for mercy. Kara listened to it’s pleas, thinking. “Hmmm… Normally, I’d forgive you.” The Karmic raised it’s ‘head’ hopefully. “But… you were being a complete ass.” She pulled the trigger. As the Karmic died, it screeched one word. One word that every being heard, no matter where they were in the universe. “fARmeRRrrRrRrrr…” Kara fell to her knees, the Mysterious Magnum falling to her side. “Holy fuck, that hurt. It’s a revolver, how the fuck does it have that much recoil…” She sat there, before pulling herself to her feet. She stumbled past the glowing, glitching body of the Karmic, finally reaching the control panel. “Kara, you need to close the rift. It’s still outputting energy, it’s going to blow soon. If you close the rift, the blast won’t be as strong. …But we’ll still be caught in it.” Michael told her. “I know. As you said…” Kara grunted, as she dragged herself to a small, inconspicuous switch marked ‘Emergency Override’. “…It’s fuckin’ Purity all over again.” She reached out, her hand on the switch. “Well…” Kara chuckled darkly, before escalating into maniacal, pure insane laughter. “At least we’ll go out with a bang!” She flicked the switch. Aftermath2 Weeks Later… The blast was visible from Canterlot. A great glow, like a second, Earthbound Sun. When the light faded, all that was left of the once-hidden facility was a great wound in the ground. Only one thing had survived the wreckage; A bent, twisted, but still intact sword, with a red crystal embedded in the hilt. The blade had been set up in Twilight’s Relic Room, as a reminder to those they had lost. Otherwise, life continued as usual. Everypony who had known the Wanderer was sad, of course, but all they could do was keep going. That’s all anypony can do… “Twilight! Twilight!” A small, green and purple shape burst into Library #42, surprising the Princess of Friendship. “What is it, Spike? I’m reading!” Twilight responded, waving her copy of ‘Arson for Beginners’ for emphasis. “The- The- The Shishkebab! It’s gone!” Spike panted, having obviously run as fast as possible to alert Twilight. Twilight, being Twilight, was not hampered by such trivial things as distance. After a loud “What?!” she vanished in a flash of purple light. Spike sighed, and began the long trip back to the Relic Room. Why couldn’t she have been in Library #13? That one was just outside the place. Well, at least she hadn’t been looking at dream magic in Library #547 on the other side of the castle… The Bearer of the Element of Magic rematerialized in the Relic Room. Unfortunately, panicked as she was, she had miscalculated position, and landed flat on her face. After getting up again and passing the mysterious Neverending Scarf and the dimensional box containing Gamma, she discovered that yes, the last remaining fragment (Aside from the previously-mentioned Gamma) of their hyperactive visitor from another world was gone. But before she could have a breakdown, she noticed something that Spike must have missed. A small note, sitting on the far side of the pedestal. She levitated it out, and read it. After a second, she tossed it to the side, and yelled “Spike! Stay here! I need to get our friends!” before teleporting again. Spike dashed into the room just in time to hear this, and picked up the discarded piece of paper. It had only one sentence on it. See ya soon, Moira. Author's Note There will be a sequel. Eventually. Is Sugar Flammable?“Hi!” Pinkie Pie called out, noticing the two as soon as they walked in the door. “I’m Pinkie Pie, but you already knew that of course and why can I hear music?” Pinkie looked around, before looking at an inconspicuous bit of wall. “Oh, the author’s just listening to something. Okay!” Twilight turned to tell Kara to just not question Pinkie Pie, only to find her staring at the same bit of wall. “Yeah, I can hear it too.” Twilight stared, her brain unsure if it could handle two Pinkie Pies. “Oh, don’t worry Twilight. It’ll get a lot worse in the sequel.” Pinkie reassuringly told her, before turning to Kara. “Can you break the Fourth Wall too?” “Nah, I’m just insane. Anyway!” Kara walked over to the counter, leaving Twilight to re-establish contact with reality. “What’cha got?” “Well, we have blueberry muffins, Cupcakes, raspberry muffins, strawberry muffins, Rainbow cupcakes, Rockets of Insanity, and lots and lots of cakes!” Pinkie exclaimed, pointing to each in turn, gesturing to the back room door for the cakes. “I’ll take five of each.” Kara stated, earning her a gasping cough from her armor. “F-five?? Of each?? You’re going to kill yourself!” “Since when has that stopped me?” Michael had no answer to this, instead letting out an exasperated, robotic sigh. By now, Twilight had recovered from the earlier mini-breakdown, walking over to the two. She didn’t ask for anything, instead dragging Kara over to a table. The only other pony in the building aside from Pinkie Pie was a grumpy-looking blue pegasus with a white mane. He looked at them as they sat, before returning to his muffin. Pinkie soon returned from the kitchen, despite them never seeing her enter it in the first place, placing a large plate in front of Kara. “I wasn’t able to get five of everything, so I just made one of everything!” She disappeared again, as Kara dug into the massive mound of food. Kara soon finished, somehow, and Pinkie came back. “So, now that you’ve had some food, what would…” She trailed off as she stared at the blue pegasus. As the others twisted around to look at him, he held up a previously unseen necklace, and vanished in a burst of black light. “…What?” Twilight asked. “Huh. That wasn’t supposed to happen.” Pinkie muttered to herself. “Ah well. Probably a script change I didn’t know about. Anyway, as I was saying, how’d you like to learn to cook?” She asked Kara excitedly. “Huh. Sure, can’t be much harder to cook sweets than it is to cook something I found out in the Wasteland.” A short while afterwards Kara, Pinkie, and Twilight stared at the still-smoking Sugarcube Corner. Luckily, Twilight had been fast enough to douse the fire before it could spread to other houses, but most of the bakery was gone. Pinkie had one remark about this. “The Cakes are gonna kill me when they get back from vacation…” “Ah well.” Kara replied. “You’ve got that to look forward to. What should we do now? Blow something else up?” Twilight was quick to derail that plan. “No! We are not destroying anything else! …Pinkie, maybe you could go show Kara things? I need to finish fixing this…” “Sure thing, Moira. Welp, Pinkie, what first?” Pinkie pulled herself out of her mutterings, bouncing up into the air. “Well, you’re gonna see all the other places in the next few chapters, but I can show you some stuff I can do, and you could show me? I dunno why, I think the author just ran out of ideas and’s doing this to extend the chapter length.” “Sure, why not.” And so the two went on a great journey, braving great dangers, fighting monstrous demons, and blowing many a thing up… To end up about 50 metres from where they started. “So! Most of what I can do can’t be displayed in a text format, or the author’s too lazy to try, so how about we start with you, Kara?” “Sure.” Kara pulled all her weapons out of hammerspace, dropping them in a big pile. “Well, this is the Firelance. Nifty little thing.” She fired the energy pistol, lighting a nearby tree ablaze. “The Slo-Burn and Rapid-Torch Flamers,” Two new scorch marks upon the grass. “Heavy Incinerator,” Another, larger patch of soot. “The Tesla Cannon,” The tree from earlier was blasted in two. “The Sniper Rifle,” The stump of the tree got a hole in it. “The Gauss Rifle,” The stump exploded. “And the Shishkebab, but you already know what that can do.” “I do?” Pinkie scratched her head. ”Oh wait, I do! You used it back in A Warm Welcome! Well, I think you should head to the Carousel Boutique.” “Huh? Why?” “Because Fireheart ran out of time and ideas for this chapter and just wants to get to the next one!” Pinkie told her, gently pushing her towards the building. “Well, all right, if you insist…” Kara started towards the building, her weapons having vanished into the ether again. Pinkie watched her, muttering to herself and to the readers; “Plus I need to plan your Welcome to Ponyville party…” Author's Note Yeah, I was kinda rushed when writing this one. I decided to blow up Sugarcube Corner, then realized I didn't have any ideas beyond that. Rarity's probably won't be much better, I'm afraid. However, I'll try to pick up in Appul Horse and Butter Horse's chapters.
Firest ContactIt was a normal day in Megaton. At least, as normal as a day can be when the Capital Wasteland’s hero lived there. Oh, and did I mention she’s not completely sane? So, when a power armored foot kicked a door open, a lady stepped out and disappeared in a flash of light, nobody paid it much notice. “Hey guys!” Kara yelled, stepping onto the bridge of Mothership Zeta. “Got everything set up?” She asked, walking over to a small girl who was fiddling with alien controls. “Yup! All ready!” Sally replied, looking up at the woman. Clad in Prototype Medic Power Armor, with a sword at her side, an alien blaster on her other hip, and covered in burns, Kara was known to her friends as the Friendly Firestarter, and to her enemies as the Worldburner. “Great.” Kara walked over to a nearby door, opening it with a touch to the controls at it’s side. It led to a ladder, which in turn led to the small cockpit of Gamma, one of Zeta’s scout craft. As she dropped into the pilot’s seat, a small grumble came from her armor. “I still think this is a bad idea…” “Oh, come on, Mike!” “Michael…” “There’s a whole universe to explore! And besides, Gamma has an emergency recall. If we get into trouble, we’ll just zap back here.” “And if Gamma gets destroyed?” “Then we’ll sort it out. Besides, I survived Purity. I’ll make it home.” “We hope…” “Anyway, onward to adventure!” The Wanderer yelled, slamming a hand down on a large blue button. Music started to play. Kara listened along for a while, singing to herself, before twisting around and punching the speaker off the wall. “Never liked that song.” She then proceeded to hit another button, which finally sent them flying off into space. Only one sound could be heard, besides the loud thrusters. “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” EQUESTRIA Smoky Mirror was doing well. His illusion magic was great enough for Princess Celestia herself to want to see it! He knew he was good, as it was both his special talent and what he had been practicing his whole life, but he never thought it was that good. So, he was happily trotting along, before noticing that the nearby ponies had stopped and were staring into the sky. He turned around himself, to see what it was that had caught their attention. What he saw, amazed him. Something was soaring through the sky, and a loud whistling was soon heard. By now, most other ponies had run off screaming, but not Smoky. He stuck around, wanting to see what it was, and so was one of the only ponies to see the thing smash into the street, crushing some market stalls, but somehow injuring no ponies. As the smoke and dust cleared, it became visible as a large metal disc. It had some form of rocket thruster on the back, and all in all looked very high-tech. Suddenly, a hatch on what looked like the underside of the thing opened. An odd creature poked it’s head out of the new opening. It looked kind of like a minotaur, but it had fur on the top of it’s head, hanging down around it’s ears, and no horns. It was wearing what looked like sunglasses, a suit of some kind of armor, and a large metal container on it’s back. It uttered but one thing. “Aww, is the ride over?” Before falling over onto the street, unconscious. Author's Note So! This is a thing! Kara is definitely not sane. As always, don't be afraid to give me constructive criticism!
A Warm WelcomeWhen she got the message, Twilight Sparkle was ecstatic. An alien landed in Equestria? And she was one of the ponies who got to establish first contact? It was almost a dream come true! She had to fight the urge to just teleport straight to Canterlot, and go collect her friends to take the train. But now she was here, and her first action upon stepping off the train had been to zip straight to the hospital, where the alien was being kept. When her friends caught up, she was in a heated argument with the receptionist pony. “What do you mean, I can’t see it?” “I’m sorry, Princess, but I was given express orders not to let anypony meet her until she’s healthy. And at the moment, she’s not. Oh, hello!” The receptionist noticed Twilight’s friends walking in the door, waved at them, and went back to Twilight. “Until I have confirmation she’s ready for visitors, she’s staying isolated.” “We won’t harm her!” “You won’t mean to, but you might. She’s a completely alien life form, it’s highly likely that she’ll have a completely different immune system to match. Feathers might be fatally deadly to her. Just because her friend can speak Equestrian doesn’t mean-“ “Her friend? Could we meet them?” “Well…” The pony sighed a sigh of defeat. “Yes, all right, but please for Celestia’s sake at least cast a sterilization spell on yourselves. I’ll ask some of the doctors to go get him…” About three minutes later Four unicorns walked into the waiting room that Twilight and Co. were currently residing in. Between them, they were levitating something that looked like… armor? It was an odd shape, that would look better on a minotaur than a pony. They set it down in one of the chairs, sitting in a very minotaur-like shape, and left the room. Fluttershy was the first to speak up. “U-um, hello?” “Ah. Hello, madam!” A loud, gruff voice emitted from the armor, causing all beings present to jump in surprise. “Oh. Sorry about that. I am Michael, no matter how much Kara calls me Mike, designation MPA-P3. What are your names?” The ponies quickly introduced themselves, Twilight finishing with “I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle, and how in Celestia’s name are you…” She gestured to the metal mass. “…That?” “I was wondering when you would ask, Princess. I am an Artificial Intelligence, or AI. Since you don’t appear to have as advanced technology as me, I’ve come up with an explanation that worked with the doctors. Think of me as a soul, enchanted to live within the armor. But, I was also created to live in the armor. Does that make sense?” “Sort of… So you’re intelligent armor?” “Pretty much.” “Hmm.” This seemed to satisfy Twilight, as she sat back in her seat, only for Spike to spring forward. “So you’re a robot?” “Yes and no. I’m not capable of independent locomotion, such as a Protectron, but I can assist the wearer in their movement, inject painkillers when needed, and am of course a separate intelligence. I’m curious now, how did you know what a robot was?” “I read a lot of comic books.” “Hmm. Interesting. Anyway, Kara should be waking up soon. You’ll want to stay in here.” “What? Why?” As Rainbow asked this, a loud bang came from above, followed by a clang, a whoosh, and maniacal laughter. “That’s why.” “Ooo! I wanna see!” Exclaimed Pinkie, as she rushed out of the room. Her friends quickly followed. “Hey! Don’t… Damnit.” Came the gruff voice from inside the room. A purple aura surrounded the armor and hoisted it out of the room. “Thanks.” When the ponies reached the upper level, they were met with a horrifying sight. The alien, “Kara,” was holding some kind of sword wreathed in flame. She swung it around, burning every potted plant in the room to ashes. She was wearing some kind of blue jumpsuit, with golden accents, and a large ‘101’ on the back, though this was mostly obstructed by the massive gas tank she was wearing like a backpack. On her left hip was an odd, red, silver, and blue device, and another odd device, this one brown and orange, on her left wrist. “Kara! What the hell are you doing?” Michael yelled, as he was levitated into the room. Kara turned around, spotted the ponies and the hovering Michael, and blinked. “Oh, hey, multicolored brahmin. Mike, use the connection to my Pip-Boy. Am I on Jet?” An audible robotic sigh was heard, before Michael answered “No, your bloodstream is completely free of Jet, Punga fruit, or anything of the kind.” “Ya sure your sensors aren’t malfunctioning?” “Kara, I’m using the Pip-Boy sensors, and those literally survived Armageddon!” “Maybe the damage is catching up to them.” “Kara, you’re not hallucinating. It’s hard to believe, but you’re not.” Pinkie spoke up, oddly serious. Up until now, she and the other ponies had just been watching the exchange. “Huh. Well, even if you are a hallucination, you’re a fun one!” Kara exclaimed, suddenly slipping into a crazier tone and sheathing her sword, the flames vanishing in the air flow. “Can I just, uh, get changed?” “Oh, of course!” Twilight answered, stepping back to allow Kara room. “…Uh, Mike?” “Oh.” Twilight blushed slightly, levitating the talking armor over to Kara. “Thanks.” And a marvel of technology was seen. Michael opened up, the backside of the armor unfolding, until Kara could just step inside. Which she did, dropping the gas tank on the ground, allowing him to close around her, leaving just her head exposed. She walked into the room beside her, and walked out wearing a pair of sunglasses and hoisting the gas tank onto her now armoured back. “So, shall we?” Author's Note Yay! Kara questions reality, then accepts it because why not. As always, don't be afraid to tell me what I'm doing wrong, and things like that! The next chapter's going to be about Kara meeting other important ponies, like the Sisters, exporing Canterlot, and just generally having some insane fun.
Curiosity Incinerated the Cat“So, Kara. What’s it like where you come from?” Twilight asked. The eight were walking along the streets of Canterlot towards the Castle, ponies sometimes stopping to give the human odd glances, but going about their day when they noticed the Elements of Harmony alongside. “Hell.” Kara responded flatly. Twilight choked on her next words, as the others gave Kara looks ranging from curious to horrified. “S-surely it can’t be that bad, can it darling?” Asked Rarity. “No, it really is that bad. Humanity blew the world up.” Kara answered, in the same emotionless tone, before switching to a more confident one. “But, we didn’t blow ourselves up. Just everything else. Humanity’s still surviving!” Then she went into a dark, angry-sounding voice. “But, people are idiotic sons of bitches. Tell me,” She stopped, swinging around to face the six ponies and one dragon. “Have you ever seen a corpse, stripped of everything, even it’s clothes, mutilated beyond belief, and hung up as decoration??” Rarity’s face went green, as did multiple ponies who had overheard, Fluttershy was trying to turn herself into a singularity, Rainbow had just stopped in midair, staring at the woman before her, Applejack stared, able to tell that Kara wasn’t lying and had seen such a horrible thing, Twilight had a manic twitch in her eye, and Spike let out a gasp. Pinkie, while her mane and tail had gone flat, signifying she had heard, just stood there, showing no other reaction. Kara stopped, looked around at all the motionless ponies, before asking Michael “Bit much?” “Yep.” “Damnit.” She looked at the still unmoving horses. “I broke them, didn’t I?” “Looks like it.” “Damnit.” She said again. She waited a few more seconds, before picking the Main 6 and Spike up manually, and continued on her way. 5 minutes later or something By now, the ponies had regained function and were walking along the path beside Kara again. They didn’t dare talk to her, now knowing the kind of things the human had faced. How could people be so twisted? When they reached the castle gates, two guardsponies stepped into her path. She replied with a simple “Fuck off.” and continued walking. When they didn’t move, she stopped, looked at them, and unholstered the odd red and silver device from her hip. She pointed it at a nearby plant. They looked from her, the device, and the plant, and back again. She pulled the trigger. With a loud fizzling, screeching noise, a ball of blue energy shot out of the device’s tip. It hit the plant, and the foliage burst into flame. Kara raised an eyebrow at the guards, not that it was visible underneath her sunglasses, and watched as… they didn’t move. She blinked. “Huh. Even though you saw that, you still stand up to me? Hmm…” She thought about this for a few seconds, all ponies in the area getting increasingly uncomfortable, before she completely dropped the serious tone and started talking in a far more jovial voice. “I like you. But seriously, get outta the way.” When they still didn’t move, she whistled. “Okay, mildly impressed, but did you not see who’s behind me?” She gestured to Twilight and Co., causing the guards to finally register that they were blocking royalty and scramble to the side. “Thanks. I’ll see if I can get you a raise. Wait, Twilight, what currency do they use here?” Kara asked, as she walked inside. “Oh! Well, we use little coins called Bits…” The voices faded away as the door slammed shut. Both guards blinked, looked at each other, and promptly fainted. Starbutt’s Throne Room “Blueblood, please. The alien is not a threat. Even if she was, she’s currently bed-ridden in Canterlot Hospital, and-“ The door to the throne room suddenly emitted a series of frantic knocks, as if the pony doing the knocking was in a panicked state. “One moment.” Celestia told the noble in front of her, before getting down from the throne and walking over to the door. Before she could open it, however, it slammed open, a power-armoured figure charging through. Blueblood screamed, and ran out of the room. Kara stood up amid the dust cloud, looking down at her feet and noticing the prone figure of Spike. He had been the one to knock before her entrance, and she had bowled him over. She picked him up, set him upright, and turned to look at the bemused Princess of the Sun. “Oh. Sorry.” “It’s… All right. Honestly, I was expecting you to still be asleep an hour from now, considering how powerfully your vehicle crashed.” “Ah, yes. Gamma. How is it?” Michael asked, ignoring the odd look Celestia cast around. “Who was that?” The Sun Goddess asked, her eyes flicking from corner to corner. “That was me, Your Highness. The armor.” She stared at the metal suit, before stating a single word. “What?” “Well-“ Kara began, before being cut off by the Main 6 bursting into the room. “I’msosorryPrincesswejustcouldn’tstopherand-“ Twilight rambled, before Celestia calmly closed her mouth. “Do not worry, Twilight. She has not harmed me, and I do not believe she wishes to.” Celestia carefully told the lavender alicorn, before turning back to Kara. “You were saying?” “Well, it’s something like this…” Kara continued, proceeding to explain exactly how Michael worked, and then how they arrived after being reassured that Gamma was untampered with. “So, yeah. That’s pretty much what we did.” “Interesting. So you managed to take control of an alien ship, then took one of the scout craft for a test fly?” “Yup.” “Tell me. What is your world like? Luna has told me that it’s horrible,” “Horrible’s an understatement.” “but I wish to know details.” Celestia continued, ignoring the interruption. “All right. I’ll give you a name.” “Deathclaws.” Kara proceeded to explain what a Deathclaw was. How they could end lives in single swipes. How they operated on a mix of intelligence and instinct. How even this was one of the lesser evils of the Wasteland. Needless to say, the ponies had much the same effect as they did in the street outside. Twilight managed to croak out a whisper. “I see now what you meant when you called it Hell…” Celestia still appeared unfazed. “It seems you have quite the demons at home, Kara.” “Demons? Nah. One of my friends deals with them. Luckily nobody launched nukes at Mars, so he’s doing fine.” Kara responded, back to her normal, carefree tone. It unnerved the others how she could talk about such things so casually. “Anyway!” Kara yelled, startling everypony else. “I wanna explore!” And she barged out again. Out the window. Author's Note Just so you know, Michael doesn't actually talk much. He generally just alerts Kara to hostiles, argues with her occasionally, and otherwise stays quiet. ...I was going to tell you something else, but I've forgotten. Damnit.
Burning ThingsThud. Kara had landed. She had jumped from one of the highest windows in Canterlot, and therefore she should have been dead, right? Nope. For some insane reason, she was completely unharmed. This, understandably, confused Twilight to no end. “B- Bu- H- How?!” Twilight sputtered, running out the front door alongside her friends, after seeing Kara was fine. “Because, Princess…” Kara leant down to look the purple pony in the eyes. “This world can’t live without me.” She chuckled. “Nah, Nate gave Mike some hydraulics upgrades. Short of falling off the moon, I can take a drop.” She straightened up, ignored the sleepy “Michael…” from her armor, span in a circle, and started off in a random direction. “What’s down this way?” She asked. “Um, the side of Canterlot. It’s on a big platform, and if you fall off you’ve got several kilometres to go.” Twilight replied, running after her. “I was thinking of taking you to Ponyville? If you’re going to fit in anywhere, it’ll be there. Or possibly Ramsey, but since that’s on the edge of Equestria it’d take too long to get there.” “Sure. How do we get there?” Kara asked, stopping. “By train. Follow me.” Twilight turned, and started walking towards the train station, Kara following behind her. A period of time later Kara stepped off the train, the ponies close behind her. She took one look at the dark, nighttime station, promptly pulled out her sword, and lit it ablaze. “What’s that for?!” Twilight exclaimed, having nearly been caught by the burning blade. “Well, it’s nighttime. We need to see.” Kara replied, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. “Well, yes, but we can do this.” Twilight responded, lighting up her horn. “Oh.” Was Kara’s only response, before she put the blade away. While it was still on fire. Surprisingly, she didn’t even seem to notice. Luckily for all around, as soon as she let go of the hilt, the gas flow halted and the flame died. “Well,” Twilight started, “How about we go back to my castle, and we can discuss each other’s worlds there? I’m still really curious, Kara, and I suspect you are too.” “Nah. I just wanna burn things.” Kara was met with a chorus of shocked expressions. “What?” “Why do you want to burn things?” Twilight asked carefully. “I may or may not have pyromania, according to Angela. By the way, do you have any fireproof rooms in your castle?” “Okay, that makes things… complicated.” Twilight replied. “And yes, the whole castle’s made of fireproof crystal, I’m sure we can find an unused room.” “Great! Take me there, and I’ll answer most of your questions.” Kara stated, speeding up slightly. “All right…” Twilight responded, hanging back slightly from the not-quite-stable girl. Another period of time later, though this one was a bit shorter Now sitting in one of the Big Crystal Palace of Friendship’s storerooms, the ponies intently waited for Kara to start. “All right. So, I myself only have one question.” She suddenly rounded on Twilight. “Can I call ya Moira?” “Um… Why?” “Because, back home, there’s a girl called Moira Brown. She’s nice. Helped her write a book. She’s impossibly curious, and very enthusiastic. I think you two would love each other.” Kara stopped for a moment. “Or you might hate each other. I dunno.” She sat down on the floor. “Well? Go ahead. Ask me questions.” “But, aren’t you going to ask us any?” Applejack questioned. “Nah. I suspect I can learn as much as I want about your world just by wandering it. That’s what I do, anyway.” “All right then. Well, can ya give us some pointers? We know nothin’ about your world.” Applejack continued. “Sure, that’s fair. War, Megaton, Purity.” “How about Megaton? Isn’t that a unit of explosive power?” Twilight questioned. “Yup! Very good! Megaton was a town built around an undetonated nuke.” At the ponies’ blank expressions, she clarified. “Nuclear bomb.” Now, Twilight understood. “Wait. Nuclear energy, utilized as a bomb… Just a few of those, at strategic positions, could crack the world in half…” She whispered. “Yup. Great lead in to the War, where humanity actually did that. They blew up the world.” “B-b-b-bb-but if the planet were broken, the grav-“ “No, no, I don’t mean they literally blew the planet apart. I mean they managed to obliterate things so well that all that’s left is a wasteland. I won’t go into any more detail than that. Megaton was built around a nuke that failed to detonate upon impact. I defused it later, but I question why anyone would be enough of an idiot to build around one in the first place.” She received varying noises of agreement from around the room. “All right, what about Purity, darling? That sounds much better than all these horrors you’re talking about.” “It is. In a way. Ya see, rads, radiation, got into the water. Drinking it was unsafe, but it was all anyone had. The Brotherhood of Steel-nice guys and gals, bit obsessive over their tech though-decided that they’d had enough. So, they decided to get a big water purifier called Project Purity up and running. It was a thing my dad was working on.” “Oh, yer father?” Applejack asked. “Dead.” The coldness with which she said that unnerved the ponies for what, the seventeenth time that day? “I’m sorry.” Twilight said, resting a hoof on Kara’s shoulder. “What about your mother?” “Died in childbirth.” Suddenly, the tone of the room had gotten a lot gloomier. “Uh, how about we finish the questions for today?” Rainbow asked, her usual brashness gone. She received hushed noises of agreement, and they filed out of the room, leaving the Firestarter alone to her thoughts. Author's Note So. This happened. The title, 'Burning Things', was supposed to be a pun on 'Learning Things'. I already used the Curiosity joke, I didn't have any other material. A different name would be appreciated. OH DEAR GOD I HATE MY MOUSE WITH A BURNING PASSION UNINTENTIONAL PUNS YAY Also, I'm starting on a sequel. Already. Because I'm so bored I don't have anything better to do. DELETED SCENE I was originally going to put this in as the ending, and then I hit on the idea I used in the actual chapter. However, I did write the later chapters before finishing this one, as I had hit on some writer’s block for this, so this was going to be an explanation for how Kara knows Discord in Fluttershy’s chapter. ANYWAY, DELETED SCENE TIME Suddenly, there was a hearty, dark chuckle. A section of the wall peeled off, before morphing and changing color to become a strange being. It looked like a cross between a dragon, a snake, a lion, an eagle, a pony, a goat, and other strange beings. He also had a massive cannon pointed at him, one that was being carried by Kara. “Hey! Pulling things out of hammerspace is my job! And yay! I finally get a speaking role in this story!” yelled Pinkie. “What radioactive hole did you crawl out of?” Kara remarked to Discord, not lowering the Tesla Cannon. “Hey! I’ll have you know, it was only mildly radioactive!” The draconeqqus replied, hovering about a metre off the ground. “Though it was certainly a hole. Took me years to get to the top.” “Hmm…” Kara pondered this for a moment… And fired the cannon. There was a loud buzz, a blinding light, and when it faded there was a large hole in Discord’s chest. It quickly filled in with cheesecake, which then remorphed into Discord’s chest. He didn’t say anything, while the ponies stared at Kara with looks of shock. “Huh.” The lady in question stated. “I like him. Can we keep him?”
Everyone Lives“Kara? Are you all right?” Twilight asked, poking her head into the storeroom, where Kara had decided to stay for the night. “Yup!” The girl herself was fiddling with a bunch of contraptions laid out around her. They appeared to be her sword, the energy device, two large contraptions that looked like they were supposed to spray something from back-mounted tanks, another device that looked similar to the previous two, but missing the tank, a massive cannon of sorts, a long, thin weapon, and something else. “Where… did you get all these?” Twilight asked cautiously. “Oh, these? Well, I built some of them, and found the others.” She picked up the last object, something that looked somewhat similar to the long, thin weapon, but was shorter, thicker, and had a large handle on the side in the centre of a circle, as if you were intended to pull something out. “Aside from the Shishkebab,” She gestured to her sword, “This is one of my favorite weapons. The Gauss Cannon. Or Rifle. Either works.” “Wait… Gauss… Magnetic propulsion?” Twilight asked. Kara looked surprised. “Huh, yeah. So you know what it is. Anyway,” She picked the weapons up, appearing to sling most of them over her back, where they just… phased out of being. Having seen Pinkie do similar things, Twilight decided to just file it under the ever-increasing pile of ‘That’s not scientifically possible, but okay.’ “I want to explore Ponytown!” “Ponyville.” “Whatever. C’mon, Moira!” Kara raced out the door, ‘Shishkebab’ and blaster at her side. Only then did Twilight notice that the Shishkebab’s gas tank was on Kara’s back again, despite the human never having put it on. She filed that away too. Kara crashed out the front door of Twilight’s Castle, creating a massive bang that caused everypony in the general area to look towards the source. Which was why, when Twilight caught up with the surprisingly fast biped, every pony in sight was staring blankly at Kara. And then somepony fainted. Chaos ensued. Ponies were running every which way, some were following the first’s example and dramatically collapsing, and one mint-green unicorn ran up to Kara with a look of utter joy before being dragged away by her friend. “Well,” Kara started, “That went a lot better than most times I walk into a new place.” “B-better?!” Twilight sputtered. By now, the area was mostly clear. The only ponies visible were those who had fainted and not been dragged away by their conscious friends, and that green unicorn, Lyra, who was fighting furiously, and vainly, to get away from Bon-Bon and back to Kara. She didn’t need to though, as the human walked over by herself. As she approached, Bon-Bon got increasingly more frantic, until Kara was right beside her. “Hi.” Was all the girl said. Bon-Bon looked at Kara suspiciously, while Lyra was just staring at the woman. “What are you doing here?” Bon-Bon asked, not letting go of Lyra, but also having stopped moving. “Exploring. Having fun. Seeing what I can and can’t burn. Okay, maybe not that last one. Yet.” Bon-Bon just stared. Finally, Lyra broke. “OhmyFaustyou’reahumanI’vereadsomuchaboutyouwhat’sitlikeathomewhat’syournamehowoldareyoueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Kara, without even hesitating, replied; “That I am, show me some time, Hell, Kara, probably around 21.” At Bon-Bon and Twilight’s looks of amazement that she had interpreted so quickly, she shrugged. “What? I’ve had lots of practice.” To this, Michael scoffed, replying with a “Yes, and it’s mostly yourself.” “Oy! Shaddup!” Was the response. Meanwhile, Bon-Bon had leapt up again, looking around for the source of the voice. Kara sighed, and called out “Magic armor!” Bon-Bon looked back at Michael with a look of incredulity, then shrugged and left it at that. As for Lyra, she had gone into a shock-induced state of unresponsiveness. “Welp!” Kara called out, straightening up again. “Let’s go find more ponies to talk to. Away, Moira!” And she ran off again. Twilight sighed, even as she followed. “Today is going to be a long day…” Pagebreak “Hi!” Kara yelled, barging into a house. And discovering it was bigger on the inside. This didn’t concern her. In fact, she was rather used to it. “Ah! Hello.” A brown earth pony in a tie called, fiddling with an odd machine. “How do you do, my dear? The name’s Time Turner. Also known as Doctor Turner, or just The Doctor.” “Nice to meet ya. What ya workin’ on?” Kara asked. “Oh! It’s… Well… Essentially it’s a long-range letterbox. My assistant is a mailmare, so about half of the things you’ll see in here are designed to help her in that business.” He picked up the object, showing it to indeed be a letterbox, however with a large amount of tech on it. “Problem is, it can receive messages fine, but not send any. Perhaps you could help?” He held it out to her, letting her examine it. “Hmm… Have you tried reversing the polarity of the photon chargers?” She asked. “N-no! I hadn’t! Wow… I’ve been learning science all my lives, and yet I never thought of that. Are you a scientist too?” The Doctor asked her. “Nah, but being a pyromaniac can require a knowledge of science. Besides, I live with like five different scientists. I’ve picked up some stuff.” Twilight chose that point to burst in the door, panting heavily. “Oh! Moira! How ya doin’?” Kara exclaimed. “Looking for you. I hope she hasn’t been bothering you, Doctor?” Twilight asked, still breathing heavily. “No, not at all! In fact, she helped me out with a puzzling dilemma! And in return…” The Doctor had finished with the modifications to the letterbox, and presented it to Kara. “You came from a faraway planet, correct?” At her nod, he continued. “Well, if we could somehow hook this up to something back there, we could have a communications system!” He yelled excitedly, before calming himself with a sheepish smile. “Well, I don’t have a teleporter or something to use. The closest thing I have is the Gamma Team Relay, and considering I ‘aint getting signals from anyone back home, I suspect the Relay won’t work either.” Kara explained. “Oh. Well, all the more reason to keep trying, right?” The Doctor said, before turning back to fiddle with the box. Kara and Twilight bid him farewell, before walking out again. “Well, Moira, what nOW!” Kara yelled, as a pony under a brown cloak ran by. A tiny strip of skin had ripped itself off of Kara’s face, being levitated by the pony, not enough to leave any kind of lasting damage but still painful. “Oy! Get back here with that piece o’ my face!” Kara yelled after the pony, starting to run, but Twilight stopped her. “Kara, you’ll never catch them. I don’t know what they wanted with a bit of your skin, but it’s probably nothing. Might have just wanted to look at the cell structure. Speaking of…” “No, Moira, you do not have permission to study my body. If you really want figures, ask Mike. Being Medic Power Armor, it’s kinda his job to keep a track of how my body’s doing.” “Michael, but yes. I have data files on everything you could want to know about the human body, Madam.” Came the agreement. Twilight sighed. “All right. Well, since we don’t have any reason to go back to my castle for the moment, how about you get to know my friends better? Come on, Sugarcube Corner’s just this way…” Author's Note MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA No matter where you run, no matter where you hide, as long as you read my books, you cannot escape the Doctor Who! I couldn't think of any sufficient fire puns, so I made a DW pun. The point is, as well as being a DW quote, is that everyone is important. Everyone has a life. Everyone lives.
Fabric Burns Easily, I've Discovered.“Ratiry?” Kara yelled as she walked into the Carousel Boutique. “Rarity, darling. I suppose it’s my turn to teach you about our world?” Came the response, as the alabaster unicorn walked down from the upper floor. “Yeah, I guess.” Kara replied, as she walked into the room. Rarity took one look at her, and shrieked. “Oh sweet Celestia! You’re even dirtier than you were before! What in Tartarus were you doing?” “Uh… I burnt down Sugarcube Corner?” Kara sheepishly replied, before yelping as she was tugged forwards by Rarity’s magic. “Well, we need to get you cleaned up before we do anything else. Come on, and consider yourself unbelievably lucky Sweetie’s out with the other Crusaders having adventures.” “Aw, but I like adventures! Can’t I- Wait how did you even know that was the opening mechanism?” Kara yelled as the wheel on the back of her armor turned, it unfolded, and she was deposited unceremoniously on the floor. Rarity looked at her, confused. “I didn’t.” “No, she didn’t. I opened it. She’s right, Kara. You need a shower.” Michael spoke up, closing back into a suit of armor again. Kara pointed an accusing finger at him. “Traitor!” “Oh, shush.” Rarity stated, giving Michael a thankful nod as she threw Kara into the bathroom. The human herself continued to screech insults directed at her treasonous armor, only stopping when Rarity shoved her into the shower, Kara stopping to remark “Oh hey, this is kinda nice. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Screw you, Mike!” Rarity put a hoof under the water to check the temperature, before yelping in pain. “Ow! You… How are you completely fine under such scalding heat?” Kara turned to face her, having left her sunglasses on the nearby table along with the Vault 101 jumpsuit. “Girl. I literally play with fire on a daily basis. At this point, anything below ten degrees is unbearably uncomfortable for me.” She turned away from Rarity again, mumbling something about “It was a good thing those crystals were worth it…” Eventually, Rarity decreed Kara clean enough for now, and let her out of the shower, where she actually used the Shishkebab’s heat to dry herself off before putting the jumpsuit back on. “So! Now that that’s done with,” Kara exclaimed as Michael folded around her. “What now?” “Well, I was going to see about getting you something other than that ghastly jumpsuit to wear-“ Rarity was cut off by a flaming sword pointed directly at her face, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off of it. “Don’t you dare call the last piece of home I have ghastly.” Kara said. Her voice was calm, focused; the kind of voice that sent chills down the spine. “The last… Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry darling, I didn’t know.” Rarity replied, looking the human in the eyes. “As you said, ya didn’t know. No hard feelings. Just don’t do it again.” Kara replied, back to her usual carefree voice. “W-well. I think, darling, that perhaps you should go? If you’re not going to let me make you something other than the jumpsuit, I should really get back to making these dresses…” “Yeah, yeah, sure. I wanna go see Fluttershy anyway.” Kara walked out the door, Rarity giving her a feeble wave. Once the mare was sure Kara was out of earshot, she collapsed. “Sweet Celestia… I’m not going to be sleeping tonight. I have to make it up to her…” Author's Note This is entirely filler. Sorry Rarity fans, I know next to nothing about her. It's not that I don't like her, it's that someone has to be on the bottom of my favorites list. I'll try to make up for it with the next chapters.
Forest Fire“Yo, Flutters!” Kara yelled as she barged into Fluttershy’s cottage. Needless to say, the mare herself eeped, then fell over backwards. “That wasn’t very polite.” Discord said, appearing from… Somewhere. “Ah, shush. Not my fault she faints whenever something happens.” “Yes, but you could at least try to be quieter. I’m the literal Spirit of Chaos,” He pulled a lollipop out of thin air to prove it, then stuck it in one of his eyes, which had turned into a mouth with very sharp teeth. “and even I respect her.” “Yeah, but I’m not you.” Kara replied bluntly, sitting down on one of the chairs. Discord sat beside her. A small white bunny hopped onto Kara’s leg and looked angrily up at her. She gave him a vaguely uninterested expression through her sunglasses. “That’s Angel. Acts like he owns the place.” Discord told her. Kara didn’t take her eyes off the bunny in question. “Right, so he’s a bitch. Good to know.” Angel responded to that with a stomp on Kara’s leg. “I wouldn’t advise that.” Michael told the bunny. Angel glanced at Kara’s chest, where the voice had come from, then dismissed it and went back to staring into her eyes. Kara herself raised an eyebrow. “You challenging me?” Angel nodded. “Idiot.” Kara laid back, completely ignoring Angel. Until he snatched her sunglasses. “Oi!” Angel leapt off her leg and ran outside, the human fast behind him. Meanwhile, Discord was sitting upside down and eating something that looked like popcorn. Kara stopped, Angel still ahead of her. The bunny turned to look over his shoulder, and stopped dead. Kara was carrying something that looked like a massive cannon, pointed directly at him. “Oi! Fallen Angel! Gimme back my sunglasses, or I get roasted rabbit tonight.” She stared at him with her burning emerald eyes, still with that vaguely disinterested look. Angel gulped, slowly walked up to her, and held up the eyewear. She took them, put them on, and slung the cannon onto her back, where it faded out of existence just before slamming into the gas tank that was already there. “Great. Let’s go have some food, huh?” Kara walked back into the cottage, while Angel stood outside, before slowly toppling over. Kara barged into Fluttershy’s house, causing the recovering mare to faint again, and was immediately stopped by Discord. “A hammerspace fabricator? I’m amazed you managed to construct that, considering your race isn’t supposed to have magic.” “Yes, in Kara’s own words, Old World America was populated by very clever idiots.” Michael responded, before being cut off by the girl herself. “Supposed? Whadya mean by that?” “Oh, you’re attentive. Well, you have some manner of magic in you. But it’s not a kind I recognize. All my chaos abilities are picking up is a name.” He spun around, and leaned forward to stare her in the eyes, despite being on the other side of the room. “Queen of the Flame.” “Huh. Cool.” Discord reeled back. “What, you’re not even surprised?” “Well, it sounds like the kinda thing that’d fit me.” Kara walked over to the couch, flopping down again. She pulled the Firelance off her belt and started fiddling with it. Fluttershy slowly got to her hooves again, to see Kara fiddling with that blaster thing. The girl pressed a button on the handle, causing a blue ball of energy to fly out the end and narrowly miss Fluttershy’s head. As she passed out for the third time that day, she heard Kara’s voice. “…Maybe I should come back later.” Author's Note Oh hey I updated again I kind of rushed this one. Expect ~~second best pone~~ Applejack's chapter... sometime.
Hot Apples“Yo!” Kara yelled out, vaulting over the small fence around Sweet Apple Acres. “Howdy!” Applejack called back, bucking another tree and causing apples to fall perfectly into the provided baskets, because comic physics. She trotted over to the human, leaving the baskets to pick up later. “How’re ya doin’?” “”I’m fine. How’dya do that?” Kara responded, waving in the general direction of the baskets. “Oh, that. Well, ya gotta hit the tree in the right place, with enough strength to knock the apples off, but not so much ya break the tree… It’s really an art in an’ of itself.” “Huh. Got any trees you don’t care too much about? I wanna try something.” Kara fiddled with the amber-screened device on her arm. “Well…” Applejack guided them over to a small, isolated area. “This is what we call our testin’ grounds. We use them so new applebuckers can learn their own strength. That good enough?” “Perfect, if she’s doing what I think she’s doing.” Michael responded, as Kara was still fiddling with the Pip-boy. She pressed a button, and the air… shimmered, before she reached into the haze, her arm vanishing. She pulled out something, pressed the button again, causing the haze to vanish, and pulled the device onto her right hand, revealing it as some manner of mechanical glove. “What’s that?” Applejack asked, pointing at the glove. “It’s called a Pneumatic Power Fist. I dunno how strong your trees are, so I’ll just turn it up to maximum and work from there. I mean, it would make more sense to work up from the bottom, but, ya know, where’s the fun in that?” Kara twisted a small, almost hidden dial on the side, reared her fist back, and punched the tree as hard as she could, the Power Fist letting out a loud hiss. Not that the hiss was heard, as it was drowned out by the loud smash of the tree breaking in half and falling over. Applejack stared. “Well, that worked.” Kara said happily to herself. “Are ya tryin’ ta destroy mah orchard?” Applejack shouted, turning on her. “No, I wanted to see how tough your trees were. I’ve only ever seen withered, broken ones. I mean, Oasis exists, but I didn’t punch any of those trees. Well, one, but that one was literally asking for it.” “Oasis?” “Yeah, it’s this place up in the north of the Capital Wasteland. Got a tree hybrid thing in the middle called Harold and Bob. He ended up creating more trees, then some people came by and made a cult, and stuff happened. Anyway, should I meet your family, or should I keep testing the Power Fist?” “Uh, Ah think you should come meet mah family.” Applejack quickly replied, trotting off towards the house. Kara shrugged, dropped the Power Fist back into the depths of hammerspace, and followed. “Howdy!” Apple Bloom called out as AJ and Kara walked up to the house. “Yo!” Kara called back. She walked onto the deck, and leaned down to pat the filly on the head. Applejack walked up behind her, and pushed through the door. Apple Bloom quickly followed, with Kara behind her. “Howdy there!” Granny Smith called from the other side of the room. This caused Michael to ask “Is their only greeting ‘Howdy’?” “I dunno.” Kara replied, looking around the small room. It was quite homely. “Well, that’s Apple Bloom, Granny Smith, and… Granny, where’s Big Mac?” Applejack asked. “Upstairs, I think.” The wizened old mare responded. Applejack turned to the stairs, just as a large red stallion entered the room from them. “Hi!” called Kara. Big Mac acknowledged her with a nod. “Welp,” Kara said, spinning to face the whole room again. “This has been great, but I should probably get going. First, I want to do something. Do I have permission to burn one of your training trees?” At the protesting noises she received, she quickly continued. “Just the one! I’ll make sure it doesn’t spread.” AS she continued receiving protests, she finally yelled “I’m a pyromaniac! I’d probably end up doing it anyway, and it’ll look really cool as well!” At this, they stopped. Granny Smith finally asked “Yer a pyromaniac?” “Yup.” “Oh, well that changes things. If yer this old, and ya been burnin’ things for that long… You probably know how t’ control it. And true, fire is very pretty when contained. All right, but be careful.” “I will. Now, who wants to see me burn a tree?” Apple Bloom jumped up, with a cry of “Ah ain’t seen much fire before!” “Right. AJ, come on. You’ve got enough common sense to keep Bloom safe.” Kara walked out again, fiddling with the Pipboy. As they got to the training trees again, she finally found what she was looking for, and pulled it out of the distortion. It looked like one of the rifles she had earlier, but it was… weird. At first, it had black and white stripes, like a zebra. But as it moved in her hands, it’s appearance changed. One moment it had the consistency of sand, the next it was made of cold, lifeless stone. Then it was rusted metal, with a strange yellow symbol on the side, and then a stark white, no detail at all. It hurt to look at. Finally, it settled on being made of wood, exactly like the trees surrounding them. Kara raised it up to her face, to look through the scope. She carefully lined up a shot, and pulled the trigger. With a soft pfft noise, the tree burst alight. “Woah!” Apple Bloom gasped. Applejack raised an eyebrow. As the tree cracked and fell, Kara tossed the rifle into hammerspace, and started walking away. Applejack ran after her. “Where’re ya goin’?” “To go meet Rainbow. I’m tryin’ to meet everyone. Seeya.” “But-“ Applejack was cut off by Kara suddenly breaking into a sprint, the last words she heard from Michael. “Don’t bother! She’s got her mind set on it.” And so the pyromaniac travelled towards the prismatic speedster. After going back to Applejack and asking for directions. Author's Note The rifle mentioned is the Zebra Rifle, from a mod. I have a bug where modded things with unique textures don't use those. Instead, they pull textures from the surrounding area, like the stony ground. I was just making a small nod to that. Anyway, Rainbow is the last chapter until the ending.
The Sky Cracked And Burned“Yo, Dash!” Kara yelled up at the cloud mansion floating above her. She didn’t get a response, so she pulled out her gauss rifle and blew up the balcony. That got Rainbow to poke her head out the door that used to lead there. “Hey! Don’t blow up my house!” “I ain’t blowin’ it up, I’m shooting it! There’s a difference!” “I’m pretty sure you blew it up.” Discord said, because he was suddenly there. “Shaddup.” And just like that, he was gone again. “Anyway, what should we do?” Kara called up to Rainbow. The mare sighed and flew down to meet her. “I dunno. You can’t fly, so we can’t do that…” “Actually, I think I have a fix for that.” Kara responded, fiddling with the Pipboy again. Rainbow watched her curiously. Finally, Kara pressed a button, causing a rift in the fabric of reality to tear open once again. The human reached inside and pulled out what looked like a long L of reddish metal, and then another, a large box with a hatch on one side and a hole on the top, and then a bunch of long rods of metal. Finally, she pulled out a small yellow cylinder. “What’s all that?” Rainbow asked. “Science, my friend.” The pyromaniac responded, hefting the box up. She slotted the Ls into the sides, so they stuck out in front of it and turned up at the end. Now that Rainbow looked closer, she saw they looked something like… Handles? Kara continued putting pieces together, slotting one of the rods into the top of the box, and affixing the others to the top of that so it looked like… “Hey, that looks like one of Pinkie’s flying machines!” Rainbow cried. “Oh, really? Not surprised that she’d be the one to make a functional vertibird…” She finished constructing the device, and slung it onto her back, since the gas tank had mysteriously vanished. She picked up the yellow cylinder, and pulled open the hatch on the side. Four claws sprung out, which she plugged the cylinder into, pushing them back into the machine as she did so. She pulled the hatch closed again, took hold of the handles, and pulled them back. And she flew. The blades span, generating a downdraft that sent Kara’s hair flying. It slowly lifted into the air, wobbling slightly, and lifted her with it. She hovered about a meter off the ground, wobbling slightly, but not falling. Rainbow picked her jaw off the ground, and asked “How does that work?” “Science, mixed with the natural field of screw physics I emit, probably.” Kara responded, twisting and manuvering the handles in order to shift position in the air. She flew up to meet Rainbow in the air. “I’m not too fast, but I can fly. What’cha wanna do?” The two soared for a time. As she said, Kara wasn’t very fast, but she was capable. This continued for a while, until Rainbow spotted something in the distance. “What’s that?” She called, squinting to look at the light. Kara spun around to look. She squinted, looked at her Pipboy, frowned, and called out a reply. “I dunno! Go get your friends. The Pip’s saying there’s hostiles down there!” Rainbow started to retort, but was cut off with a “Don’t argue, just go!” Kara angled the helipack to travel closer, until she could see a small group of ponies around a door in the hill. She touched down a little ways away, packed up the helipack, and walked closer, drawing her trusty Shishkebab. One of the ponies turned, and noticed her approaching with a gasp. “It is the Fallen!” The other ponies turned to stare as well. “I’m the what now?” Kara asked. “We received a prophecy many years ago. A being would fall from the stars, and their flesh would be the final ingredient to summon the Karmic.” “The what now?” Kara vaguely noticed Rainbow arriving with her friends, but she was more focused on the ponies in front of her. She had a feeling things were about to go downhill very quickly… “The Karmic will unite every being in glorious destruction!” One of the ponies cried. The Main 6 flinched back, while Kara stared. Michael decided to speak up, muttering “They have the Children of Atom here too?” “You what?” Kara slowly asked, tightening her grip on the Shishkebab. “The Karmic will travel across the land, leaving a trail of destruction in it’s wake! And from that destruction, we shall achieve Unity!” “No.” “What?” The head pony looked at Kara curiously. “No, it won’t. Because I’ll stop it. Because you’re morons if you think this will work.” The pony narrowed his eyes. “Then we will have to show you firsthoof. Brothers! Sisters! To arms!” Author's Note Oh hey a chapter I was running out of ideas, so I created the helipack. Wow I suck at writing books
Ashes to AshesThey fought. They battled through the underground facility, leaving bodies, most unconscious, in their wake. Finally, they made it to the control room. A massive place, big enough to fit multiple Gammas, with a control board on the opposite side. A lone unicorn, green with a blue mane, was working. She turned, spotted the ponies and human, and panicked. She started pulling levers and pressing buttons frantically, before Kara caught her. The lady spun the mare around, and pulled her closer… Onto the Shishkebab. The other ponies gasped. Kara had just impaled this pony, and she didn’t even look upset, or sad, or anything. If anything, she looked… angry. “What the hell did you think you were doing?” Kara hissed at the pony. “You’re going to kill us all!” “Yes,” The mare told her, smiling despite her wound. “We will all be united in glorious obliteration!” “You idiot!” Kara shouted. “It’s the fucking Children of Atom all over again! Releasing the Karmic isn’t going to do jack shit but get us all killed! I’ve died before! I would know! There’s no ‘Unity’ waiting for us beyond death!” The ponies gasped at Kara’s careless swearing, while the mare just laughed, though not without a hint of caution. “You can’t have died. You’re standing right here.” “Girl, look at me. You have no idea what kind of things I can do and you know it. But.” Kara twisted the sword, making the mare grunt in pain. “If you find some way to communicate with the other members of your fucking cult, tell them this. The Worldburner is coming for them, and she will walk through fire and Hell and death and pain and destruction to bring them the karma they deserve!” Kara screamed. She pulled the trigger on the sword, causing the blade, still buried in the pony’s body, to burst into flame. She stared into the burning pony’s eyes, before throwing her to the ground and sheathing her sword. “Kara…” Twilight tried to talk with the lady, get her to calm down. “No. Fuck off, I have something to do.” Kara walked over to the control board, trying to figure out how to shut down the rift. “Kara, listen to me!” Twilight tried again, this time using her magic to actually pull the girl away. Kara turned to her, her sunglasses falling off to reveal her crying eyes. “No! You fucking listen to me!” Kara yelled. “I’ve seen this before! If I don’t stop this, we’re all going to fucking die! Now run! Go! I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again!” Kara screamed, before they all heard a click. They turned, to see an arcane glow fading from a lever. The same glow that was fading from the dying unicorn’s horn. “Shit.” Kara stated bluntly, before running over to the panel. “Shitshitshitshitshit!” She began pulling levers and pushing buttons frantically, yelling “Moira! I mean it! Run! Run like Armageddon itself is on your tail, because quite frankly it might be!” Twilight and her friends didn’t need any further encouragement, dashing out the door. “It’s Purity all over again…” Michael muttered, as Kara tried furiously to halt the rift’s opening. “No shit…” Was the only response he got. Then the world exploded. A monster tore it’s way out of the rift, knocking Kara back to the other side of the room. “Huh. You think you scare me??” The lone human yelled up at the demon before her. A monstrous being, built out of the parts of the beasts of the Wasteland- A Deathclaw arm, a Meta Human leg, etc, the Karmic loomed over her. “I’ll say it again- you think you scare me?” Kara yelled at the beast, her blazing sword in hand. It gave what could be interpreted as a laugh, and told her that she should be. “Well, lemme tell you something. I survived billions of rads being pumped into my body! I survived a simulation of the Great War! I survived the swamps of Point Lookout, with my head cut open for most of it! I survived Mothership Zeta, where aliens used me as an experiment! I survived the Pitt… And the choices I made there.” On this last sentence, she quietened, and hung her head slightly, before going back to normal. “I’ll say it again. One. Last. Time. You think you scare me?” She looked up, stared the abomination in what could pass for it’s eyes. “Because ya do.” At this, the thing recoiled. It hadn’t expected that response. But before it could make any further action, she continued. “I’m terrified. In fact, if I was wearing pants, I’d probably have pissed them. But! Being afraid does not mean you can’t be brave. In fact, it’s one of the requirements for being brave! True bravery is facing your fears, while simultaneously being completely fucking terrified! So come at me, ya big bitch!” She stopped, still staring the beast in the eyes. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. This continued for a short time, until the thing roared, and leapt at her. “Now that’s more like it!” Kara leapt out of the way of the rampaging demon… And sheathed her sword. As the beast picked itself up off the ground, she shrugged her left shoulder. As her arm came down again, the pauldron split open with a hiss of steam for dramatic effect. She reached within with her right hand, and drew out a small revolver. Nothing seemed too fancy about it. As she did the same with her right arm and reached inside, having dodged out of the way of the Karmic again, Michael spoke up. “Are you sure this is safe? You know how much the Magnum puts out. If you miss, and the bullet goes flying off towards something important…” “Mike. Look at the thing. How the fuck can I miss?” Kara responded curtly, dropping the cylinder of the gun out and beginning to load bullets in. She was interrupted by a massive, robotic claw slamming down on her position, forcing her to leap to the side once again. “Oy! I’m loading a gun here! Gimme some space, geez…” After she finished loading, she swung the cylinder shut, ignoring Michael’s “That damages the gun, and you know it…” before spinning around, pointing the gun straight at the Karmic’s ‘face’. “Do you know what this is?” The Karmic laughed, and replied, saying it was just a silly little gun. “Well, yes. It is a silly little gun. But it was given to me as a gift… By a rather mysterious friend.” At this, the Karmic recoiled, recognizing the weapon for the demonslayer it was. It backed away, shrieking and screaming for mercy. Kara listened to it’s pleas, thinking. “Hmmm… Normally, I’d forgive you.” The Karmic raised it’s ‘head’ hopefully. “But… you were being a complete ass.” She pulled the trigger. As the Karmic died, it screeched one word. One word that every being heard, no matter where they were in the universe. “fARmeRRrrRrRrrr…” Kara fell to her knees, the Mysterious Magnum falling to her side. “Holy fuck, that hurt. It’s a revolver, how the fuck does it have that much recoil…” She sat there, before pulling herself to her feet. She stumbled past the glowing, glitching body of the Karmic, finally reaching the control panel. “Kara, you need to close the rift. It’s still outputting energy, it’s going to blow soon. If you close the rift, the blast won’t be as strong. …But we’ll still be caught in it.” Michael told her. “I know. As you said…” Kara grunted, as she dragged herself to a small, inconspicuous switch marked ‘Emergency Override’. “…It’s fuckin’ Purity all over again.” She reached out, her hand on the switch. “Well…” Kara chuckled darkly, before escalating into maniacal, pure insane laughter. “At least we’ll go out with a bang!” She flicked the switch.
Aftermath2 Weeks Later… The blast was visible from Canterlot. A great glow, like a second, Earthbound Sun. When the light faded, all that was left of the once-hidden facility was a great wound in the ground. Only one thing had survived the wreckage; A bent, twisted, but still intact sword, with a red crystal embedded in the hilt. The blade had been set up in Twilight’s Relic Room, as a reminder to those they had lost. Otherwise, life continued as usual. Everypony who had known the Wanderer was sad, of course, but all they could do was keep going. That’s all anypony can do… “Twilight! Twilight!” A small, green and purple shape burst into Library #42, surprising the Princess of Friendship. “What is it, Spike? I’m reading!” Twilight responded, waving her copy of ‘Arson for Beginners’ for emphasis. “The- The- The Shishkebab! It’s gone!” Spike panted, having obviously run as fast as possible to alert Twilight. Twilight, being Twilight, was not hampered by such trivial things as distance. After a loud “What?!” she vanished in a flash of purple light. Spike sighed, and began the long trip back to the Relic Room. Why couldn’t she have been in Library #13? That one was just outside the place. Well, at least she hadn’t been looking at dream magic in Library #547 on the other side of the castle… The Bearer of the Element of Magic rematerialized in the Relic Room. Unfortunately, panicked as she was, she had miscalculated position, and landed flat on her face. After getting up again and passing the mysterious Neverending Scarf and the dimensional box containing Gamma, she discovered that yes, the last remaining fragment (Aside from the previously-mentioned Gamma) of their hyperactive visitor from another world was gone. But before she could have a breakdown, she noticed something that Spike must have missed. A small note, sitting on the far side of the pedestal. She levitated it out, and read it. After a second, she tossed it to the side, and yelled “Spike! Stay here! I need to get our friends!” before teleporting again. Spike dashed into the room just in time to hear this, and picked up the discarded piece of paper. It had only one sentence on it. See ya soon, Moira. Author's Note There will be a sequel. Eventually.
Is Sugar Flammable?“Hi!” Pinkie Pie called out, noticing the two as soon as they walked in the door. “I’m Pinkie Pie, but you already knew that of course and why can I hear music?” Pinkie looked around, before looking at an inconspicuous bit of wall. “Oh, the author’s just listening to something. Okay!” Twilight turned to tell Kara to just not question Pinkie Pie, only to find her staring at the same bit of wall. “Yeah, I can hear it too.” Twilight stared, her brain unsure if it could handle two Pinkie Pies. “Oh, don’t worry Twilight. It’ll get a lot worse in the sequel.” Pinkie reassuringly told her, before turning to Kara. “Can you break the Fourth Wall too?” “Nah, I’m just insane. Anyway!” Kara walked over to the counter, leaving Twilight to re-establish contact with reality. “What’cha got?” “Well, we have blueberry muffins, Cupcakes, raspberry muffins, strawberry muffins, Rainbow cupcakes, Rockets of Insanity, and lots and lots of cakes!” Pinkie exclaimed, pointing to each in turn, gesturing to the back room door for the cakes. “I’ll take five of each.” Kara stated, earning her a gasping cough from her armor. “F-five?? Of each?? You’re going to kill yourself!” “Since when has that stopped me?” Michael had no answer to this, instead letting out an exasperated, robotic sigh. By now, Twilight had recovered from the earlier mini-breakdown, walking over to the two. She didn’t ask for anything, instead dragging Kara over to a table. The only other pony in the building aside from Pinkie Pie was a grumpy-looking blue pegasus with a white mane. He looked at them as they sat, before returning to his muffin. Pinkie soon returned from the kitchen, despite them never seeing her enter it in the first place, placing a large plate in front of Kara. “I wasn’t able to get five of everything, so I just made one of everything!” She disappeared again, as Kara dug into the massive mound of food. Kara soon finished, somehow, and Pinkie came back. “So, now that you’ve had some food, what would…” She trailed off as she stared at the blue pegasus. As the others twisted around to look at him, he held up a previously unseen necklace, and vanished in a burst of black light. “…What?” Twilight asked. “Huh. That wasn’t supposed to happen.” Pinkie muttered to herself. “Ah well. Probably a script change I didn’t know about. Anyway, as I was saying, how’d you like to learn to cook?” She asked Kara excitedly. “Huh. Sure, can’t be much harder to cook sweets than it is to cook something I found out in the Wasteland.” A short while afterwards Kara, Pinkie, and Twilight stared at the still-smoking Sugarcube Corner. Luckily, Twilight had been fast enough to douse the fire before it could spread to other houses, but most of the bakery was gone. Pinkie had one remark about this. “The Cakes are gonna kill me when they get back from vacation…” “Ah well.” Kara replied. “You’ve got that to look forward to. What should we do now? Blow something else up?” Twilight was quick to derail that plan. “No! We are not destroying anything else! …Pinkie, maybe you could go show Kara things? I need to finish fixing this…” “Sure thing, Moira. Welp, Pinkie, what first?” Pinkie pulled herself out of her mutterings, bouncing up into the air. “Well, you’re gonna see all the other places in the next few chapters, but I can show you some stuff I can do, and you could show me? I dunno why, I think the author just ran out of ideas and’s doing this to extend the chapter length.” “Sure, why not.” And so the two went on a great journey, braving great dangers, fighting monstrous demons, and blowing many a thing up… To end up about 50 metres from where they started. “So! Most of what I can do can’t be displayed in a text format, or the author’s too lazy to try, so how about we start with you, Kara?” “Sure.” Kara pulled all her weapons out of hammerspace, dropping them in a big pile. “Well, this is the Firelance. Nifty little thing.” She fired the energy pistol, lighting a nearby tree ablaze. “The Slo-Burn and Rapid-Torch Flamers,” Two new scorch marks upon the grass. “Heavy Incinerator,” Another, larger patch of soot. “The Tesla Cannon,” The tree from earlier was blasted in two. “The Sniper Rifle,” The stump of the tree got a hole in it. “The Gauss Rifle,” The stump exploded. “And the Shishkebab, but you already know what that can do.” “I do?” Pinkie scratched her head. ”Oh wait, I do! You used it back in A Warm Welcome! Well, I think you should head to the Carousel Boutique.” “Huh? Why?” “Because Fireheart ran out of time and ideas for this chapter and just wants to get to the next one!” Pinkie told her, gently pushing her towards the building. “Well, all right, if you insist…” Kara started towards the building, her weapons having vanished into the ether again. Pinkie watched her, muttering to herself and to the readers; “Plus I need to plan your Welcome to Ponyville party…” Author's Note Yeah, I was kinda rushed when writing this one. I decided to blow up Sugarcube Corner, then realized I didn't have any ideas beyond that. Rarity's probably won't be much better, I'm afraid. However, I'll try to pick up in Appul Horse and Butter Horse's chapters.
