The Protagonistby GMSeskiiChapters404Sigrún Jennifer GlasglowMerodi CarrierSurvival SuppliesLeviathan's Watch404ZAP! ~~~ The grave remained. A rectangular mound of freshly disturbed soil; a jarring brown gash along the grassy forest floor. At the head of the gash stood two wooden rods arranged in an ‘X’ shape, tied together by metallic twine. Affixed to this twine was a flat diamond-shaped gemstone, a memoir of more than just a lost life. There was no pony to watch over the grave. There had not been for some time. ~~~ Snow crunched under the mare's hooves as she dragged herself across the frozen wastes. No pony - not even one with as poofy a mane as hers - should have been out in this chilling weather, but as far as she was concerned she didn't have much of a choice. She'd done her best to wrap herself in her mane and tail, giving her the appearance of a very pink sheep, but that had done nothing for her legs. They were still exposed. The strange star-shaped wounds all of them had frozen over, something that definitely wasn't healthy. Not that she was a doctor, she just knew a thing or two about being injured. This fact was clear to everypony who ever saw her these days - the blindfold was easily apparent. Not that there was anypony with her now. Just the snow, wind, and ice. She wasn't shivering. Any mare out in this weather should have been shivering. Just another reminder as to how unnatural she was. "Pinkie!" "Don't worry, everything's going to be fi-" She winced as she remembered. With a shake of her head, she pushed it all as far away as she could. The memory went away, but the feeling didn't. The feeling that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. She had no idea what it was. How could she? "This isn't how things are supposed to be," she breathed, the cloud of her breath trailing off toward the sun that was doing a very poor job of melting the snow. She looked at the sky, finding two of the world's moons flanking the sun: the red one and the gray one. What were they called? ...If she'd been told, she didn't remember. She continued on through the wastes, dragging her hooves along the frigid ground. How she longed to bounce. How she wished she had the energy... A tremor pulsed through the area, one of many earthquakes that had greeted the mare on her journey. She paid it no mind, which meant she did nothing to prepare for what was coming. The ice beneath her split in two, opening into a gaping maw that invited her into the depths. She hit the side of the ice hard but kept her wits about her. Using her momentum, she pressed her hooves to the ice wall, skating down it rather than falling down. The world above vanished, replaced with a dark icy fissure. Not that she could see the lighting. She was just as effective down here as on the surface. She soon found herself sliding down a gentle slope rather than a sheer drop, cascading through a slippery tunnel that brought her to a gentle stop on an underground cavern of ice. The floor was perfectly smooth, too smooth even for a calm, frozen lake. It couldn't have been natural. Beneath the ice lay a field of roses, all with their flowers pointed ever so slightly toward the center, where a stone pedestal rose from the perfect ground. The walls of the cavern were lined not with ice or stone, but a dark metal upon which many screens were mounted. Most of the screens were broken or displayed nothing more than mindless static, but one showed a bed with... something on it. Something undefined. While the mare couldn't see, she still knew what was in this room. And that undefined something bothered her. The feeling that something was very wrong came back in full force. She asked for more details, pressed, focused... but got nothing. There was a bed. There was a something. She couldn't even get more information about the bed. The image she had in her mind was of her bed back home, which no doubt was wrong since very few ponies decorated their beds with so much pink. She turned her focus onto something more tangible - the pillar in the center of the room. Despite her many cuts, scrapes, and bruises she was able to skate right to it for a closer inspection. Her jaw dropped to the floor. "Hello, Pinkie." Suddenly, every screen in the room that wasn't broken lit up with a bright pink sparkle. Another tremor shook the frozen wastes as a pillar of pink light shot into the sky. "It's time to wake up..." Pinkie knew she wasn't being addressed this time. ~~~ "Hey! It's time to wake up!" "´suø∏sǝ®," 3¡N said. "Ǝ¨⁄¬ ɟØ ∆uƎ. Ǝ¨⁄¬ ɟØ ∆uƎ. Ǝ͝¨⁄¬͠ ɟ͠Ǿ ̡∆uƎ̕.̨ Ǝ͙͕́̊̒͘¨ͬ̎ͧ͒̈⁄̪̝̭̜̅¬̞̝̣̆̈͗ͬ̽̄ ̱̖̱̠͙͐̿̽̿̆̈́̽͢ͅɟ͇̫̻̱͎͂Ø̛͕͔͈͍̓ͅ ̖̣̝̺͕͉̝́∆̵̪̎ͯ̾̽ͧuƎͧ͆.̘̍͌̓ͨͅ ~~~ Okay, no. This isn't working. This world can't go on like this. It's missing too much. ...But I suppose that's the point, isn't it? It's got so much thrown in, and yet so little of what it NEEDS. Barely more than a skeleton to look upon, ready for the rest of the bodily systems to be added to the pony. Or is it even a pony? I have my doubts, admittedly. I have some idea of what's in those heads of yours - though I am not a mind reader. Most often, anyway. This world is yours now - all of you, collectively. Every comment you leave will have untold effects on what happens next, for you will fill in the holes of the world. If I understand correctly, most often this will be done in the form of answering a question. For instance, the question at the bottom of this chapter: "Who is the Protagonist?" An excellent question, especially for a story literally titled The Protagonist. You collectively are going to build the focus of this story. Will they be the hero this world needs? The villain? Something outside the standard story roles? I know not. That is up to you. Everything about them is up to you. Male or female? What is their history, their age, their race? And I don't just mean earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn. There's nothing stopping the Protagonist from being a dragon, a griffon... a human. Or even something more exotic. Why not make them an inkling? A troll? A Klingon? Something even more bizarre? And of course... their name. The most important aspect or the least, depending on who you ask. I cannot tell you what to do. Be creative, bend the rules. But you must do it together. Work as a team. Hammer out ideas in the comments. Find a way to agree. If you don't... Well, I'm not sure what will happen. Compromises might be made in the story. I can be sure that your actions will have consequences. With every answer you give, the world becomes more defined. A whole universe in your hands... and it all starts with this Protagonist. I have faith that you'll do this world proud. That you'll give GM the answers that lead this world to a glorious future. Don't prove me wrong. Author's Note Who is the Protagonist? Sigrún Jennifer Glasglow"Hey, it's time to get up!" "Mmmfff..." Sigrún muttered, moving a hoof to rub her eyes, forgetting a moment that the appendage would pass right through her socket and into the voided interior of her skull. Deciding not to comment on this, she removed her hoof and continued her griping. "Do we actually know what time it is?" "...Day?" a male voice said. Sigrún lifted her head and opened her eyes - though it would have been more accurate to say she turned them on. Where once there had been nothing but empty eye sockets there were now tiny pinpricks of orange flame, her equivalent to eyes. She looked at the source of the voice: a bruised unicorn with a messy mane in some tarnished gold armor that increased his stature at least twofold. A pair of rusted metallic wings lay at his sides. When she'd first met him, she'd thought the wings were real, but in reality, they were just artificial slats of metal that weren't all that good for agile flight. "Yes. Day. Quite." Sigrún stood up, her bony unicorn body folly coalescing. While she slept the links in her knees and hips would break down, turning her into a pile of suspiciously clean bones. It always took a bit to get moving after she woke up - had to wait for the bones to snap into place. "That can't be comfortable." "Probably isn't. Can't exactly feel pain like this, though." Sigrún briefly wondered how she could feel at all, but decided not to dwell on it. "So, Forge, why am I up?" Flowing Forge frowned. "You said you didn't want to stay here anymore. If we want to get out we should get moving." Looking around, Sigrún took in their abode. A couple dirty, worn mattresses sitting in a hovel made from loose scrap metal of many different sizes and thicknesses. There was a single pack that held Forge's belongings - Sigrún had no possessions to put in such a pack. She noticed Forge was getting out breakfast. He must have forgotten she couldn't eat again. She tried to frown, but all she could do is anxiously grind her teeth as she trotted out of the metallic hovel. It would have been nice if she were able to take in the fresh air. But outside the junk spread out as far as the eye could see - mostly pieces of metal from unidentifiable structures, but there were a few plastics and fabrics mixed in here and there. It was a truly treacherous landscape filled with all sorts of sharp edges, loose debris, and uneven footing. Luckily Sigrún was as skeleton and Forge had armor all over him. It kept them from having to worry about such things. She trotted up the hill of metal they had built their little shelter into, reaching the top where a massive metal ring stood, marked with ancient glyphs all around the edge. It was through here that Forge had fled, bringing Sigrún with him. ...Well, Sigrún bones anyway. The spirit currently inhabiting the bones had entered them a few hours later. A spirit named Jennifer Glasglow. Not that anyone would ever know that. Names had power, after all. She'd just taken the name Sigrún because it had been the previous owner of the bones. Now that she thought about it, taking the name of a dead unicorn whose bones you were currently using was probably morbid and tactless... but Forge hadn't complained. In fact... he'd seemed hopeful. "...Darnit, he probably thinks she's in here somewhere," Sigrún sighed. "That can't end well..." She glanced at the circular portal once more. Broken, not that Forge had wanted to fix it. The world on the other side was apparently wartorn and helpless, even worse than the abandoned metal junkyard they found themselves in. Sigrún was not in any rush to discover what lay on the other side. Still... she had to admit she was curious as to how it worked. Maybe it had something to do with why her spirit was drawn to these bones? She didn't know. With a sigh, she put a hoof on the portal's edge, tracing her bony hoof across the engravings. "It's been days... you're not coming, are you?" She glanced at a metal plate on the ground, one she had scrawled a quick message onto the first day they arrived. Alex. I was here. I am fine. I am currently a skeleton. When they left, Sigrún was going to write down which way they went. Just in case Alex found out how to follow. Follow a loose spirit fixed to a pile of bones from across worlds. Laughable. Turning her gaze to the sky, she noted there was a massive purple moon in the sky that looked a bit like a gas giant. Maybe it wasn't even a moon - maybe it was the planet and she was on the moon. Wouldn't that be a trick? "It appears even other worlds have the same skies..." Forge said, trotting up to her. "Back home, the purple one is called Endesque." "Wonder what it means..." "Haven't the foggiest," Forge shrugged. "So, where do we go?" "Why not that way? The sun will set that direction, giving us the most daylight." "Sure." Sigrún sighed, scrawling an additional note on the metal plate. It looked like she was doing it with her hoof, but in reality a small blue scorpion had appeared around her hoof and made the careful etchings for her. Forge could not see it, and she had not told him 'Serket' existed. "There's nothing for us here." "Adventure?" "An adventure's what got me in this mess. I could do with..." Sigrún trailed off, not sure what she could do with. Going home would be a good one, but she doubted that was an option. "I will get you home," Forge promised, as if reading her thoughts. "Thanks." You don't really mean that. You'll get HER home. Wherever that is for HER. "Let's find a gate that still works." Forge pulled an amulet out of his pocket. "Not even the boundaries between worlds will stop us." ~~~ They came dangerously close to ruining everything... Pinkie tried not to look at it, shivering. She focused instead on the screen that showed Sigrún and Forge. Insisting she was from another world. Breaking the seal. The skeleton and the armored pony moved across the wastes of metal. But she is it. That's all I must listen to. Everything about him... the companion... Pinkie glanced around at the various different screens, sensing all she could about them. Prodding... looking... You seem determined to ignore my existence. Pinkie forced her mind blank in order to keep it from reading her thoughts. This worked - it lost interest in her. You precious little things... there will be no more influences from other worlds. All must come from within, as I decree. Poor Sigrún, never to be rescued. Poor Alex, to search the multiverse pointlessly. And poor, poor PINKIE. Pinkie winced. No reinforcements for you. You and whoever survived entry is it. How many were on that ship? Yes, nineteen, but how many survived? "Enough." Naturally. But enough for who? You? Me? Her? It laughed. I think you know. Pinkie smirked. "What do I know? Lots of things, yeah, but that's like, pfft, nothing." She saluted the thing and jumped into one of the screens, appearing on the junkyard on the other side. Ah, running to them? Wise. But it won't do much... It's 'voice' faded away, and Pinkie was in the junkyard. Still injured, but not in danger of being frozen to death anymore. That was nice. She just needed to find Sigrún and Forge and then get this show on the road. Shouldn't be too hard. She was in the same junkyard they were and everything! In fact, she was standing on top of... ...a giant spring trap. "...Ponyfeathers." The spring triggered and launched her so far into the air she became a pink speck in the sky, tossed far into the distance. Far from those she was looking for. ~~~ "...What in Yiyxa's name is this?" Forge asked. "It appears to be a giant spring," Sigrún observed. "Why would anyone make a giant spring?" "Just because they could?" "I... I don't know." "It has blood on it, maybe it was a trap?" Forge fixed her with a 'seriously?' expression. "There's no way that's blood. It's too bright of a red. That looks like the blood a child would put in their edgy kindergarten drawing." He paused. "I miss kindergarten." "Wh-" "I mean I miss it being a thing. It hasn't been a thing back home in over a decade." Sigrún frowned. "I'm... I'm so sorry." "Yeah." He shook his head. "We can't stay here and gawk at this spring all day." "Really? You were the surprised one." "But we are losing daylight and we need to get out of this junk pile." "I don't know. It could be important to figure out why there's a giant spring here. You never know." Forge frowned. "...Sigrún..." "Fine, fine, we can get going. Though... got anything I can use to sample this totally-not-blood?" Forge pointed at a small, aged plastic container in the junk. It was still sealed, and empty. She scooped some of the red stuff into the container and sealed it once again. You never know when you might need mysterious candy-red liquid. "Right! Let's g- wait." She looked under the spring. "Is that a fully baked cupcake?" Forge stared at it. "...It looks like it." Sigrún dug out another plastic container and put the cupcake in. "For research." "Not going to eat it?" "A cupcake out in the middle of a junkyard? What do you think I am, crazy? ...don't answer that." Forge smirked and led them down another hill of junk into the valley. Here was just as abandoned as everywhere else they had looked so far - no sign of pony habitation. Did the cupcake count as pony habitation signs? ...No, it was just too weird to make sense of. As was the next thing they came across. "What is that!?" Sigrún gasped. ~~~ Right, well, that seems to have gone... both well and not well. Hmm. So, Sigrún exists for certain, and as far as I can tell everything you wrote directly about her is literally absolutely true. It looks like the answer to the question cannot be refused so long as it isn't contradictory in some way. Serket, her name, her bones, even the people she knew and the reason she's here. Forge on the other hand... I'm not so certain. What I'm going to call 'The Entity' seems not to like the idea of things of other worlds coming in. Looks as though it rejected everything you said along that line and future attempts to influence in that way will be denied. I, unfortunately, do not know what it wants. Or even, really, what it is or why it's doing this. You notice how it never gets described, we only see what it says. I suspect that's specifically to throw me. Speaking of me, hi, I'm Twilence, my origin story isn't important, stop trying to make it a big deal, kay? Suffice it to say I'm the conduit by which you are influencing this world. Working together is still a requirement, but no longer can it be said that EVERY comment left will lead to something, or even most. There's just too many. Previously I had discouraged the use of forums and other sites to discuss these things, but now that I've seen how much of you are involved here... go right ahead. It's up to you how you want to organize it, just make sure you give what you come up with to me, eventually, through the comments section. I may not appear in every chapter, since there may be no reason to. But I suspect I'll have reason to stay for the first few chapters while the chaos settles. Also, those of you engaging in role-playing? I'm not telling you to stop. I'm merely telling you that while I cannot touch you, I do in fact know where your characters live. Apologies to any who prefer subtlety in the words, the above is intended for all to see, and not all are quite so regal and wordy as thou. On the topic of others, it seems you managed to do it effectively even if it was highly unexpected how you did so. Keep up the good work, but some of you could stand to be a bit more respectful to the others around you. And yes, I can confirm, none of the backstory for myself or Pinkie matters all that much at this juncture. Homestuck's doesn't matter either unless you make it, I don't know why you all got set on that. (Serket the scorpion? Really?) I'm sorry, that is a little uncalled for. You've done good so far, have given the world some of its color back. Thank you for sticking through it for a week. I can't wait to see what you'll do next. Author's Note What is Sigrún looking at? Merodi CarrierSigrún was looking at what she could only assume was an aircraft of some sort. It had clearly seen better days. The white color of the craft was untarnished, but every part of it was bent, smashed, broken, or overgrown with plants. Yes. Plants. This struck Sigrún as unusual, considering they were in the middle of an endless wasteland of junk. The plants themselves were a dull green, flowing with pinkish-red blooms made of pointed petals. "Green," Forge observed. "That's green." "I know what the color is!" "Then why ask what it is?" "I... the plant can't be natural, can it? Nothing green for miles and suddenly, around this very white ship, there's a brilliant nest of vines. Vines! Flowering vines!" Forge nodded. "I agree that it is not expected. But not worth shouting over." "Wh... Why I..." Sigrún shook her head, focusing on the ship. It was buried in the junk, hiding its true size beneath the wreckage. There was a faded orange-ish 'u' symbol on the side and the main windshield was completely missing, revealing an entrance. Within, there was a pegasus skeleton sitting in a torn and worn out chair. It was still strapped into the seat with a belt. "This has been here a long, long time," Forge observed, poking the skeleton with one of his false wings. He stepped into the cockpit. For a moment, Sigrún considered chiding him for just walking into danger like that, but then she realized she wanted to investigate as well. After all, this ship wasn't like everything else they had seen so far. Who knew what kind of secrets it could hold? She was under no illusions it could fly, but you never knew if it could be repurposed without checking it out. The cockpit contained four seats. One held the skeleton, another held a green crystal that had been shattered in three pieces. The rest were completely empty, though they were still torn up and worn. Probably from bugs or bacteria or something. The door in the back of the room was a broken sliding model, but luckily it was stuck half-open. Easily wide enough for Sigrún to fit her bony form through while Forge had to prey the doors open with his power armor. On the other side was a large hallway. There was a skeleton here, too. Human, Sigrún identified, a little concerned. She reached out to touch it. it reacted. A toe bone shot toward her like a bullet. "AUGH!" Forge launched into action, driving his hooves into the skeleton's skull, crushing the round bone easily. "Sigrún! Are you okay?" "I... I'm fine..." Sigrún said, looking at the human toe bone that had affixed itself to her leg. "...I don't think that was the skeleton. I think that was me." "What...?" Sigrún lit her horn and touched the human bones. All of them lit up with the dark aura Sigrún's own form had and stood up. Naturally, it was headless, but it was still a skeleton. Sigrún found that she was easily able to control it and make it walk as if it were a part of her unicorn body. "...Necromancy." "I don't think so," Sigrún said, pulling the bones to herself. She tried not to think about how disgusting it was that she was holding BONES and focused instead on how they might be useful. "I think they're part of my... 'body' now." She popped her skull off the unicorn body and placed it on the human one, finding she could still control both sets of bones. "Interesting..." "You could become an army of undead." "Heh. Guess I could." She swapped out her feet for hooves. "Or... I could be a centaur!" She removed her human pelvis and set herself atop the rest of the pony skeleton, crossing her arms. "How do I look?" Forge frowned. "Sillier than I would have expected." Sigrún rolled her spark-eyes and returned herself to a unicorn form - it felt the most natural. She was stuck in the equine skull, after all. With a quick adjustment of her magic she removed the human bones from herself. "Well, that's good to know. Bone magic. Huh." "Huh indeed..." They continued down the hall, opening the door at the far end by letting Forge smash it over and over again. It popped open, revealing a nexus of the vines, focused around a cylinder faintly glowing blue. "It's probably feeding off the power, somehow." Sigrún observed, walking up to a particularly large flower positioned right in front of the cylinder. "That's why it's growing here. There's power." "Plants don't need power." "Isn't a normal plant then." Sigrún rolled her eyes. She touched the flower with her bony hoof. Upon feeling the touch, it opened, revealing two pollen-coated stems that looked a little like eyes. "Creeeeepy..." Sigrún shivered. A synthetic voice crackled from all around them. "K-k-k-k-ou think I'm creep-k-k-k-k?" Sigrún retreated from the flower, summoning the blue scorpion of Serket to her shoulder. Forge activated one of his weapons and pointed it right at the flower. "What are you!?" "K-k-k-k-on't know! Stop! Don't want to hurt yo-k-k-k-k." The flower recoiled, closing its petals defensively. Sigrún put a hoof on Forge's gun and lowered it for him. He did not fight her. "Do you have a name?" "K-k-k-hat is a nam-k-k-k?" "It's... a word you use to tell each other apart! I'm Sigrún, this is Forge, and you are...?" "K-k-on't know. Files don't tell me anythin-k-k." Sigrún noticed the static was getting clearer the more he talked. "That's fine, you don't need a name. Do you know what you're doing here, though?" "K-rowin-k." "...Come again?" "Growing." The static was now under enough control that it wasn't a chore to talk to the plant. Sigrún smiled. "Growing. Right. Is that all you do?" "Don't know." "Do you know anything besides growing?" The Flower shivered in what Sigrún hoped was laughter. "I know a lot more. Lots of it doesn't make sense. Lots of it is broken. All I know is in this core." The vines wrapped around the cylinder tightened. "Without it, I would just be a plant." "Just a plant?" "What the seeds grow into. I would mindlessly absorb the metal and technology until I could move and then... data not found." Forge blinked. "You can move?" "Unknown. I have not attempted to." "Why not?" Sigrún asked. "There is no data on what would happen next. I'm... scared." The flower drooped. "What will life be like?" "I'm not sure how to answer the question..." Sigrún admitted. "Same... same... same..." The flower shivered. "Ship can't fly. Should fly. Want it to fly." "Can't help you there," Forge said, gruffly. "Thing's a lost cause." "Evident." The flower paused a moment. "...What now?" "Do you know where the closest settlement is?" Sigrún asked. "Data not found. Sorry." "Then... I guess we'll just find it ourselves. Is there anything else we can do for you?" "Sigrún..." Forge cautioned. "Shush, Forge. It's not a monster." The flower opened its petals fully and examined Sigrún. "...You contain no adaptable components. Forge does." "I am not giving you my armor," Forge said. The flower seemed to understand. "Then... there is nothing." "...I guess we'll be going then?" Sigrún said, getting the distinct feeling this wasn't the right thing to do. "...You sure?" "Yes." "Okay then..." Sigrún turned, gesturing for Forge to follow. "Actually..." The flower sagged. "I don't want to be alone." "We can't stay here with you," Forge pointed out. "Then... I will... come with you. I will... move." And move it did. The large flower closed into a tight bulb and lashed its vines around the blue cylinder. With a quick tug, the blue cylinder exploded in a shower of sparks. "What are you doing!?" Sigrún shouted, staring on in shock. There was no response. The vines in the room severed themselves from the vines outside, wrapping around the blue shards, incorporating them into their floral mass. Carefully, the vines began to weave together into four thick, verdant limbs affixed to a sleek body. The form glowed a slight blue from the cylinder's fragments, giving it a soft ethereal quality. Leaves rustled all over the vines, acting a bit like the coat on a pony - which was the form the flower was taking. There was no tail, and instead of a head, there was just the flower bulb. The bulb opened, revealing two pollen-stalks that looked more like eyes than they had previously. There was a line underneath them that suggested the presence of a mouth, though in reality there was one there. However, there was some kind of speaking machine behind the false mouth. "I am moving," the flower said with the same synthetic voice as before, though this time it clearly came from its head rather than all around them. "I will need sun like this." "Well, there's a sun outside," Sigrún said, gesturing for the flower pony to follow them out. Forge glared at the plant untrustingly but didn't try anything. They emerged from the ship into the outside sky, and the flower looked directly at the sun. Its mouth didn't move, but inwardly Sigrún knew that it would be smiling if it could. It? No, it couldn't be an it anymore. Judging by the body shape it had chosen, it was a mare, since it had the same proportions as Sigrún, although significantly larger. Just missing the horn. "Wow," the flower said, voice somehow carrying an inflection of wonder. "So this is what moving is like... what was I so afraid of?" Forge, for the first time since they met the flower, smiled. "Ay, moving's pretty good, I guess. Better than sitting in a dark room all day." "Much better." "Get away from that thing!" The flower, Forge, and Sigrún looked up to the top of a pile of junk where a chrome pony stood. She had wings, but not the feathered limbs of a pegasus nor the artificial protrusions of Forge. Her wings were flat, metallic, and equipped with two cylindrical engines not unlike a jet. Both eyes were clearly artificial, sparking with a blue digitized iris that flitted rapidly between the three targets. "...What thing?" the flower asked. "The ship?" "Y-you! They need to get away from you!" The jet-pony held up a hoof, opening a hole in the base that looked suspiciously like the barrel of a gun. "...Me?" "Yes! You!" "Why?" "Because you're a metal-eating diseased monster!" "...This form is perfectly healthy." "Shut up! Stop talking!" Sigrún coughed. "Uh, I'm pretty sure the flower here doesn't mean to hurt us, miss..." "You're looking for introductions at a time like this a- holy cheeseballs you're a skeleton." "Oh. Uh. Yeah, I am. Is that a problem?" "Yes, that's a problem! Skeletons don't walk!" "Figured you would have noticed that before the flower's planty-ness." The jet-mare twitched. "Shut up! My eyes are fine!" Forge coughed. "Did you notice I have both a horn and wings?" "There's no w-" she stared at him in disbelief. "Maybe you should look closer at things before shouting!" the flower suggested. "I told you to shut up!" "Oh. Sorry." "STOP APOLOGIZING!" Sigrún coughed. "If you don't mind, miss jet-pony, I think we're going to stick around the flower for a bit. She's never moved before today, you know." "I... Bh... Augh!" She lowered her hoof and turned away. "Fine! Dig your own grave! But when the Flora Machina eats you in your sleep don't come crying to me!" "I don't think we'd have that choice," Forge commented. "By Yiyxa why did you all have to be smartasses!? UGH!" Her legs folded into her body and her head took on a more pointed shape, making her look more like a plane than a pony. She blasted away at high speed, leaving them all in the dust. "...Think we should have asked her where to go?" Sigrún asked. Forge nodded. "Yep." "Welp." "She was fun," the flower observed. It was at this point a dog made out of flowering vines and pieces of scrap metal jumped Sigrún, trying to bite her head off. It succeeded. Only one minor problem. Sigrún didn't exactly need her head to be attached to her body. She was perfectly fine, not even in any danger. However, she had only been a skeleton for a few days, so she wasn't particularly aware of this fact. Reacting out of fear, she screamed "Serket!" and summoned her scorpion friend. Serket may have been small, but it was easily able to punch the vine-dog's head right off its body, killing it. Neither Forge nor the flower could see Serket, so all they saw was a vine-dog's head explode. Everyone was silent. The flower poked the remnant of the vine-dog. "I think this is what the fun pony was talking about." "No. Really," Forge deadpanned. "Yes, really!" "Oh for the-" Forge turned and started walking a random direction. "Wait! I haven't put my head on yet! WAIT!" Sigrún scrambled to fix herself and trot after him. ~~~ When Pinkie had first been launched, she had screamed. The screams were first of surprise, then of excitement. After about a minute of this she got bored. Feeling the wind in her mane as she flew through the air was exciting and all, she just... didn't think it needed to last several minutes. That was one of the problems with flying through the air for so long, you tended to lose track of time and direction. Sure, she knew the direction the air was pushing at her from was the direction she was going, but was she going up, down, or sideways? That was the question. A question she couldn't answer since she was so high up in the air. Being Pinkie Pie could only mitigate blindness so much. So she began to play tic-tac-toe with herself. As she continued to fall (fly?), this eventually turned into hyper-tic-tac-toe-soduku-square-racecar-dragons. Just as she was about to place the last X to trigger the death of the dragon so she could fill in the last nine, she hit the ocean. By all laws of science, she should have been killed on impact. By the laws of magic and convenience, she should have sunken into the ocean unharmed. By the laws of Pinkie Pie, she bounced off the surface of the ocean like it was a trampoline. While in the air again she did a triple pirouette and sunk beneath the surface with a flawless dive that earned a perfect ten from the judges. The saltwater stung her wounds, reminding her that yes, she was still injured, no matter how much time she'd had to collect herself while in the air. Still, she wasn't anywhere near as weak as she had been in the frozen wastes, so she could afford to expend some energy. She wound her tail up like a propeller and slapped a fishbowl on her head for the sake of air, swimming forward like some kind of pink torpedo. She needed to find land. Unfortunately, pulling out a sonar scanner from her mane wasn't exactly feasible at the moment, so she just kept swimming through the endless expanse of blue. She really should have seen the giant fish coming. "Wait, what? Giant fish!?" The green behemoth with at least three pairs of flippers slunk out of the dark depths of the sea and opened its massive jaw. Screaming, Pinkie swam to the side, narrowly avoiding the sharp fangs of the monstrous fish. She did not avoid its flippers. The force propelled her out of the water like a rocket, allowing her screams to permeate through the open air of the ocean. She hit the surface at such a small angle that she skipped off of it like a stone - three times. "This... is a little ridiculous, even for me," Pinkie admitted as she skipped across the water a fourth time. Looking ahead, she saw an island coming into view. "Yay!" An island that she was flying toward at over fifty miles an hour. "Oh, wait, not yay, sto-" She landed head-first into the sandy beach, cracking her fishbowl and losing consciousness instantly. ~~~ "So... do you have any idea what you are?" Sigrún asked the flower. "I am a... Flora Machina fused with a damaged Mark 7-G4-MU computer system." "And what's in this computer system?" The flower seemed to think about this for a moment. "The code that allows me to think. Vast stores of data, much of it corrupted." "Data?" "Yep. Data. Information. Files. I have found thirty-seven different dictionaries." Forge raised an eyebrow. "Why would you need thirty-seven different dictionaries?" "Ne'vettik reescoom le zi rapakkanah," the flower said. "...Okay..." "What else do you know?" Sigrún asked, excited. "I don't know everything I know, too much to sift through... But I can perform a search!" "How about where we are!" "Unknown location on the planet Enviar in the universe Yiyxa." Sigrún nodded slowly. "Yep. Other worlds. Not surprised at all..." "You know the planet?" Forge asked. "Yep! Enviar, the primary surface within the universe. A collection of many different conflicting biomes and civilizations. More detailed information data not found data not found. Oh, uh... sorry." "And what of the moons?" "Enviar is orbited by five objects, Lurse, Ravanah, the sun, Endesque, and Salacia. ...Data beyond simple reference images and locations not found." Sigrún and Forge stared at her in disbelief. "What? Did I say something wrong?" "Oh no no no!" Sigrún said, shaking her head. "You... just surprised us, is all." "Is that good or bad?" "No idea," Forge grunted. They crested another hill of junk. To their surprise, they came across a large rectangular building. A factory - but unlike all the other wrecks they had seen on their journey this far, it was fully functional. Endlessly, it churned away, creating a sizeable quantity of... ~~~ Something went wrong. Before, Sigrún was definitely from another world. Because you said so. It made the Entity angry that she was. But now... Now that the definition of the word 'world' has been softened, the Entity was able to twist it. Alex is not in another dimension anymore. But Sigrún never came from another one either. She has to have come from somewhere within Yiyxa now. He was able to re-interpret all previous definitions of the word 'world' since the certainty in it, the meaning behind it, was removed. He has now completely sealed the world off save for the crew of that ship. We need to be more careful. Remember, he cannot refuse the answer to the question. But everything else is open for twisting. I do not know what he has done to your lengthy comment. But for all we know the transforming robot ponies could be evil, or the allegiances of two of the groups could be switched. Never assume we understand what is going on. Author's Note What is the factory making? Survival SuppliesThe factory was making backpacks of a dull green color, filled to the brim with tools, first aid supplies, and a sizeable supply white bricks that might have been made from soybeans or something similar. All these packs were coming out the back of the factory, deposited in a trail that traced the path the factory took as it moved through the junkyard. Yes, it was moving, upon two tremendous treads no less. Each segment of the treat was easily the thickness of a normal pony. Not even the most steadfast structure was able to stand up to this kind of engineering girth. Sigrun watched in awe as the treads tore into a steel wireframe and crumpled it into nothing. Before the factory were massive mounds of metallic junk. Behind? Nothing but a trail of pulverized metal and survival backpacks. The factory continued moving, belching out smoke and grime into the air. Every part of it looked dirty and old save for the top of the central tower, polished white and alit with a lighthouse-like beam. "Wow," the flower said, rippling her petals. "That's big." "No kidding..." Forge said. "Let's just pick up some of those packs and go before it decides to kick it into reverse or something." "Agreed," Sigrun said, shivering slightly despite her complete lack of flesh. The three of them descended into the flattened earth and picked up one pack each. Beyond the tools, medical supplies, and food bars they also found a few canteens, pieces of paper, pencils, flint, steel, and a book on navigating by the stars. There weren't any maps, however, although there was a compass in each pack and some charts on the locations of the moons. "Wow. This really is all you'd need to survive in most scenarios." Sigrun admitted. "Though, there is a lack of food out here in the junkyard... Still, the bars will sustain you, for, what, a week?" Forge frowned. "Longer, for an experienced traveler. A lot of thought clearly went into this." "THANK YOU." The factory bellowed. The three of them looked up to see the factory's primary light looking right at them. The treads had stopped completely a fair distance from their location. Forge stared at the behemoth in shock. Before Sigrun could think of a reply, the flower spoke up. "Hi! I'm the flower! You have words!" "I DO. YOUR KIND USUALLY DOES NOT. INTERESTING." "I ate a computer. Quite helpful in that regard." "YOUNG AND INTELLIGENT." Sigrun coughed. "Uh, we were just passing through. If these are your packs..." "THEY ARE. BUT THEY ARE FOR ANY TRAVELER PASSING THROUGH THE SCRAPHEAP. YOU MAY TAKE AS MANY AS YOU WISH." "Oh... thanks!" Sigrun beamed. "DO NOT MENTION IT. IT IS MY PURPOSE." "Purpose?" "THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO FIGHT. SO I MAKE SURVIVAL KITS. YOU UNDERSTAND, YES?" "...Enough," Sigrun said, tilting her bony hoof back and forth. "I AM SURPRISED YOU NEED FOOD THOUGH." "I don't." "TAKE A PACK ANYWAY. I HAVE FAR MORE HERE THAN WILL EVER BE TAKEN." "Isn't that inefficient?" Forge asked. "THEY WILL REMAIN LONG AFTER I AM GONE AND HELP RANDOMLY. IT IS A GOOD LONG-TERM PURPOSE. AT LEAST, THAT IS WHAT ZETA SAID, AND I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE HER IN THIS MATTER SINCE MAKING GUNS THAT NOBODY EVER USED WAS GETTING DULL." "Guns...?" Forge frowned. "Zeta?" Sigrun asked. "Who's that?" "ZETA I-" "What are you all doing to David!?" The jet-pony shouted at the top of her lungs, landing on the back of the factory's treads. "David!?" Sigrun and Forge said at the same time. ~~~ Pinkie was really good at knowing when she was dreaming. Even before she went blind she had a sort of second sense for the sort of thing - it was a rare day when reality operated on the same rules she did. Now that she was blind, well, if she could see then she would know she was dreaming. Currently, she was sitting on a picnic blanket. She used to go on picnics like this all the time with the other Elements. But of the five who were usually here, only a buttery-yellow pegasus was currently with her. "Pinkie, are you okay?" she asked, tracing her teacup with the marble tips of her wings. "I'm dreaming," Pinkie said, shrugging. "Pretty sure I'm still passed out on the beach of that island. Wonder what sort of nightmare fuel I can find in here?" "Well... it's just me." She folded her wings. "Probably signifying that I'm the only one who really stayed with you." "You're either my subconscious trying to get to me or some kind of evil entity. Not listening to either, sorry." Pinkie's ears twitched. "None of them abandoned me. They just had lives that went different directions. I still see... most of you regularly." She drooped. "Most..." "Do you even know where we are?" "Well, you are on Yiyxa. Somewhere." The pegasus nodded, taking a sip of her tea. "You sure?" "The Entity did something. If it was even it that did anything. Or... gah. I don't know. I do know you're here. Somewhere..." Pinkie frowned. "I don't have any idea what happened though. The wreck was way too old... Maybe we got launched through time or s-" Pinkie slapped herself in the face. "Whoopsie! Started letting you lead me on! Heheh! Sorry, not doing this." She sighed. "Might not be the best idea..." Pinkie folded her front hooves and closed her eyes, returning to familiar darkness. "I'm just going to wake up now..." Something that wasn't Pinkie's dream-friend spoke. "What are you...?" "Aaaaand there's the mysterious entity invading my dreams. Little late, aren't you?" "Why are you...?" "I'm getting a distinct sense of deja-vu here. Hello? Pinkie Pie! Hi!" "When are you...?" Pinkie's stomach dropped. She didn't like that question. She pulled a squeaky hammer out of her mane and started swinging. "Out of my head! It's mine! I will drive you insane with parties, I'm warning you! There's a party blower with your name on it..." Pinkie woke up, greeted by the darkness of waking that was so familiar by now. Tapping into her other senses, she discovered she was sitting in a comfortable well-furnished bed. "Huh, this isn't so bad... Guess I was rescued." A bed that was designed for a creature about fifty times larger than she was. "Hey! That wasn't fair!" Pinkie grumbled, struggling to pull the massive blankets off her. She found that she was wrapped in bandages that made it a little difficult to move. Despite this, she managed to worm her way out of the covers to stand atop the massive pillow she had been pressed into. Taking a deep breath, she smelled the ocean. She was probably on the same island as before, though she didn't remember sensing evidence of giants. Though, considering the speed she had been going it, it was a miracle she'd sensed anything at all. So... she needed to decide. Run, or figure out what was going on? ~~~ "Hi, David!" the flower waved at the factory. "GREETINGS, FLOWERY ONE," David responded. "No, David!" the jet pony whined. "That's a... you know what that is! Stop fraternizing with it!" "IT HAS SHOWN NO AGGRESSION, ZETA. AND IT PICKED UP A KIT." Zeta facehooved, a motion that made a loud CLANK that echoed throughout the Scrapheap. "David, just stop listening to it. And you! Flower... thing! Stop infecting David with your lie-filled existence!" Sigrun blinked. "Odd word choice..." "Don't judge my word choice!" "...Kinda late for that." Zeta let out a groan so intense some steam came out of her jet engines. "Just... David has weapons, you know, I can make him shoot you." "I WON'T." "David!" "I NEED TO SAVE AMMUNITION FOR REAL EMERGENCIES." "This is a real emergency!" "NO. IT IS NOT." Zeta rammed her head into the ground - which for her was currently David. "OW." "That hurt me more than it hurt you and you know it!" "WE ARE MACHINES. NEITHER OF US ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED PAIN." "My pain is emotional and traumatic!" "I'M THE WEAPONS FACTORY." "Oh, and I'm the bucking queen of Saddlershot!" "I SPEAK TRUTH. YOU SPEAK IN METAPHOR." "I'll show you metaphor..." "AHEM!" Forge shouted. "While I would love to continue observing this lover's spat, I would much rather just get going. Point us to the way out of this junkyard and you will never have to see us again. After that, you may continue." Zeta glared at Forge with a deep fury. "That... way..." she pointed. "YOU WANT TO GO THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, SHE IS TRYING TO LEAD YOU TO THE RAIDER CAMPS." "Daaaaaviiiiid..." Zeta whined. "Thanks, David!" Sigrun beamed. "We'll get out of your treads now!" "You better run!" Zeta shouted, suddenly standing on all four hooves. "Or else the fury of David the factory will fall upon you!" "I DO NOT THINK FURY WAS EVER PART OF MY CODING." Zeta let out a pained whine of exasperation. "ALSO, FLOWER, YOU SHOULD TAKE A NAME FOR YOURSELF." "Name...?" the flower asked. "Stop talking to it!" Zeta shouted. David finally obliged, and the group of three set out overtop another hill of metal. They continued to listen to the factory and the jet-pony argue about the dumbest things until even the factory's booming voice was out of earshot. Then, and only then, did they arrive at the edge of the Scrapheap. At the bottom of a long slope of metallic bits, the scenery changed into... ~~~ Not much to say this time. I think we're good. Good luck, I'll be back when I believe it to be prudent. Author's Note Where do the heroes find themselves now that they're leaving the Scrapheap? Leviathan's WatchPinkie was surprised to discover that her saviors were not, in fact, giants. When they came to check on her, they had to crawl up a ladder to get on top of the bed. It took them about twelve minutes to forage all the way across the rippled sheets to make it to Pinkie. For they were not giants. They were not normal sized ponies, either. They were adorable little ponies maybe the size of ants, perhaps smaller. "Oh, good, you're awake!" A green stallion said, his voice just barely loud enough to hear without Pinkie straining her ears. He trotted up to Pinkie's face while several of the others held back, afraid of the giant horse they were so close to. "I am Emerald. What's your name?" Pinkie noted that all the mini-ponies were earth ponies - not a pegasus or unicorn in the bunch. "I'm Pinkie Pie! Thanks for saving me!" "It was the least we could do," Emerald said with a bow. "We saw you bruised and battered on the beach so we brought you here as soon as we could. Used every type of healing potion we could. We fixed everything we could! But... I..." "I've been blind for a long time, don't feel sad," Pinkie said with a dismissive wave. "The curse is a pretty nasty one, too. If you put artificial eyes in the sockets they don't work either. Don't feel bad, legendary healers have tried and failed." "That's so sad..." A pink mare said. "Yes, but on the flip side, now I surprise everybody with how well I know where they are!" She giggled, pointing at the tiny ponies. "Let's see... there are thirty-six of you on the bed, a thirty-seventh staying at the bottom of the ladder, and twenty of you are mares!" "Witch..." a blue mare breathed. Probably best not to mention that I know what color they are... "Me? A witch? Psh, you don't see a horn on this head of mine, do you?" "I... guess not." "There are other ways to 'see', my little pony." Pinkie giggled - yes, it was a cheap, petty joke, but she'd abuse it to death and there was nothing anyone could do about it. "I can sense with sound, for instance! If you listen closely you can hear sound bounce off things." This much was true, she could 'see' based on echoes, but she wasn't as good as some people she knew and only got a fuzzy image of what was around. But it was an explanation that didn't involve describing 'witchcraft-like' senses, so she went with it. "Wow, you really are something else!" Emerald chuckled. "So, why are all of you little ponies living in a giant's house?" Emerald thought about this for a moment. "There's more than enough food for us here thanks to the misress' farm. We keep the house tidy and do all the simple chores for her." "She's the giant, then?" "Yes, she is." "I'd like to meet her!" Emerald paled. "Oh, no no no no! That wouldn't be good at all!" "She doesn't like ponies," the blue mare said. Pinkie cocked her head. "You're all ponies." "She thinks we're house fairies," Emerald explained. "We're too small for her to see or hear. If she knew what we were..." "I don't think we'd make a very good meal," the pink mare pointed out. "She'd probably drive us out while trying to squish us." "How exactly would she even do that?" the blue mare countered. "She can't even see us. We could just stop tidying up the house and she'd think we'd gone." "We can-" "Enough!" Emerald declared. "We have a guest. We can argue about what the mistress can and can't do later." Pinkie nodded slowly. "So, she'll want to eat me." "Most likely," Emerald admitted. "Though the last time a pony of your size came through she screamed in panic and stomped her until she was flatter than a fly's wing." Pinkie shivered. "Okay... Looks like I'll be getting out of here as soon as I can." She jumped to her hooves and began to stretch her limbs. "Thanks for everything, but I don't want to be giant food!" "Are you sure you can move...?" Emerald asked. "Oh yeah," Pinkie did a backflip. "Excellent shape. Your health potions really are magic!" "I told you we overdid it," the blue mare deadpanned. "Wait!" the pink mare called, stopping Pinkie. "You don't even know where you're going!" Pinkie's smile faded. "That's... true. Where should I go to get off the island?" "There's an old busted ship hidden under the dock - just out that window!" "Thanks!" Pinkie giggled. "I shall take control of it a-" The door to the room opened with a massive earth-quaking creak. Pinkie quickly jumped behind a pillow, hiding away from the giant's sight. When Pinkie had first heard 'giant', she had pictured a pony, or perhaps a human. What came in the door was neither of those things - it was a massive television screen affixed to a spinal-cord made of metal plates and sparking wires. Five limbs of harsh metal wound with glowing blue wires carried the mechanical behemoth forward - three legs, two arms. The television screen itself was eternally set to static of some kind. It - Pinkie could not bring herself to think of this clanking mess as a 'she' - crawled into the room, tapping the lightbulb in the ceiling with one of its pointed claws. The lightbulb unscrewed itself, falling into the free hand. With a spark of electricity, the loose bulb lit up. Nodding to itself, the giant took another bulb out of a storage compartment and screwed it into the ceiling. It left without so much as a second glance at the room. Pinkie didn't wait. She put herself in a party cannon and launched herself at the window. She pulled her warhammer out at the last second and thrust it forward, breaking the massive window into a few dozen shards. Hitting the ground with a bounce, she made a beeline for the dock. Had she been giant-sized, this might have taken a minute, tops. As it was the dock seemed to be miles away... ~~~ Sigrun got too excited running out of the junkyard. Her bones tripped on a loose lead pipe and she went tumbling skull over ribs until she was nothing more than a pile of bones on the sands below. But it was great anyway. Sand. Not junk, not metal, not some greasy liquid that got everywhere in her joints... SAND. Sure, she'd be complaining about the grinding grains in her bones later, but right now it was something new, something great, something better. But it paled in comparison to the settlement they saw in front of them. It was built into an aircraft carrier that had been abandoned long ago. The massive sideways ship had been cannibalized of everything except the framework that gave it its structure, and even that had been used as the base to build the city. Buildings nearer to the carrier itself were made of bent metal, but most others were made out of stone or wood with a smattering of outer buildings that may have been made from junkyard supplies. As Sigrun re-affixed her bones together, she noticed something odd. She recognized that type of aircraft carrier. She'd seen it in history books. Weird. Who cared, though? It was civilization! She finished re-assembling herself and charged forward, not slowing down for Forge or the flower to catch up. She barreled right up to the front gates, feeling as though she was grinning. "Helooo-!" One of the guards atop the city wall shot an arrow into her eye socket. "Wh - hey! Why'd you do th-" An arrow launched into another eye socket. "This makes it hard to see, you know!" "That's the idea, necromantic filth!" The guard shouted. "B-but I-" "I am not letting an undead into Leviathan's Watch. I don't care how nice or reasonable you are, we have enough of a necromancer problem as it is. So go. Shoo. If you're part of some adventuring group, send the rest of them to the guild, you're not getting in." Sigrun took a few steps back as Forge and the flower arrived. "See? Like those two. I can let them in. An armored alicorn-" "Unicorn," Forge corrected. The guard didn't care. "And an unknown flower pony. See? No necromancy there." Sigrun grunted. "We have to split up. They won't let me in." Forge shook his head. "I will not go anywhere without y-" "Yay! City!" The flower shouted, jumping through the gates. "Someone has to go watch her," Sirgun pointed out. "Go on, I'll be fine." With a terse nod, Forge galloped after the flower. "Get back here!" "Who needs to get back here?" the flower called back. "You!" "Is my name You?" "No!" The conversation died off quickly, leaving Sigrun alone outside Leviathan's Watch's gates. "So..." Sigrun said, hoofing the ground. "What's there out here for a skeletal girl for me to do?" The guard glared at her. "I dunno. Dig yourself a grave and wait." "I bet you don't get much conversation out here..." "Are you trying to seduce me!?" "Wh- no!" If Sigrun could have blushed, she would have. "I'm BORED!" "Then feast your eyes upon the statue you missed in your rush to get here." He pointed behind her. She looked, half-expecting to find nothing. But instead, she found a silver statue of a muscled man with his hands in his coat pockets and his hat over his eyes. His coat was depicted as rippling in the wind, and a massive chain was slung over his shoulder. "A... a human!?" "Uh, yeah?" The guard cocked his head. "What, are humans legendary creatures where you come from or something?" Not exactly... "Humans? Legendary?" A new voice called, prompting Sigrun to look at another area of the wall. Sure enough, there was a human guard there, a woman. Though she had no armor or weapons. "How legendary do I look?" "Ash..." the stallion guard sighed. Ash grinned. "Come on, skeleton. How legendary do I look?" Sigrun shrugged. "Not what I was expecting, to be honest." Ash snapped her fingers and a spiritual thing projected from her body, taking a unique, yet bizarre shape. Sigrun recognized what it was instantly. A Stand. Instinctually, Sigrun summoned Serket to her shoulder. "Well well well..." Ash grinned. "This might be interesting..." ~~~ It appears Sigrun lost her accent mark last chapter. Huh. I didn't even notice. Anyway, message received, I won't tell you anything specific the Entity did anymore. I'll just give you a general nudge. He did something to Yiyxa's cosmology that contradicts OM's second comment. Author's Note What is Ash's Stand?
404ZAP! ~~~ The grave remained. A rectangular mound of freshly disturbed soil; a jarring brown gash along the grassy forest floor. At the head of the gash stood two wooden rods arranged in an ‘X’ shape, tied together by metallic twine. Affixed to this twine was a flat diamond-shaped gemstone, a memoir of more than just a lost life. There was no pony to watch over the grave. There had not been for some time. ~~~ Snow crunched under the mare's hooves as she dragged herself across the frozen wastes. No pony - not even one with as poofy a mane as hers - should have been out in this chilling weather, but as far as she was concerned she didn't have much of a choice. She'd done her best to wrap herself in her mane and tail, giving her the appearance of a very pink sheep, but that had done nothing for her legs. They were still exposed. The strange star-shaped wounds all of them had frozen over, something that definitely wasn't healthy. Not that she was a doctor, she just knew a thing or two about being injured. This fact was clear to everypony who ever saw her these days - the blindfold was easily apparent. Not that there was anypony with her now. Just the snow, wind, and ice. She wasn't shivering. Any mare out in this weather should have been shivering. Just another reminder as to how unnatural she was. "Pinkie!" "Don't worry, everything's going to be fi-" She winced as she remembered. With a shake of her head, she pushed it all as far away as she could. The memory went away, but the feeling didn't. The feeling that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. She had no idea what it was. How could she? "This isn't how things are supposed to be," she breathed, the cloud of her breath trailing off toward the sun that was doing a very poor job of melting the snow. She looked at the sky, finding two of the world's moons flanking the sun: the red one and the gray one. What were they called? ...If she'd been told, she didn't remember. She continued on through the wastes, dragging her hooves along the frigid ground. How she longed to bounce. How she wished she had the energy... A tremor pulsed through the area, one of many earthquakes that had greeted the mare on her journey. She paid it no mind, which meant she did nothing to prepare for what was coming. The ice beneath her split in two, opening into a gaping maw that invited her into the depths. She hit the side of the ice hard but kept her wits about her. Using her momentum, she pressed her hooves to the ice wall, skating down it rather than falling down. The world above vanished, replaced with a dark icy fissure. Not that she could see the lighting. She was just as effective down here as on the surface. She soon found herself sliding down a gentle slope rather than a sheer drop, cascading through a slippery tunnel that brought her to a gentle stop on an underground cavern of ice. The floor was perfectly smooth, too smooth even for a calm, frozen lake. It couldn't have been natural. Beneath the ice lay a field of roses, all with their flowers pointed ever so slightly toward the center, where a stone pedestal rose from the perfect ground. The walls of the cavern were lined not with ice or stone, but a dark metal upon which many screens were mounted. Most of the screens were broken or displayed nothing more than mindless static, but one showed a bed with... something on it. Something undefined. While the mare couldn't see, she still knew what was in this room. And that undefined something bothered her. The feeling that something was very wrong came back in full force. She asked for more details, pressed, focused... but got nothing. There was a bed. There was a something. She couldn't even get more information about the bed. The image she had in her mind was of her bed back home, which no doubt was wrong since very few ponies decorated their beds with so much pink. She turned her focus onto something more tangible - the pillar in the center of the room. Despite her many cuts, scrapes, and bruises she was able to skate right to it for a closer inspection. Her jaw dropped to the floor. "Hello, Pinkie." Suddenly, every screen in the room that wasn't broken lit up with a bright pink sparkle. Another tremor shook the frozen wastes as a pillar of pink light shot into the sky. "It's time to wake up..." Pinkie knew she wasn't being addressed this time. ~~~ "Hey! It's time to wake up!" "´suø∏sǝ®," 3¡N said. "Ǝ¨⁄¬ ɟØ ∆uƎ. Ǝ¨⁄¬ ɟØ ∆uƎ. Ǝ͝¨⁄¬͠ ɟ͠Ǿ ̡∆uƎ̕.̨ Ǝ͙͕́̊̒͘¨ͬ̎ͧ͒̈⁄̪̝̭̜̅¬̞̝̣̆̈͗ͬ̽̄ ̱̖̱̠͙͐̿̽̿̆̈́̽͢ͅɟ͇̫̻̱͎͂Ø̛͕͔͈͍̓ͅ ̖̣̝̺͕͉̝́∆̵̪̎ͯ̾̽ͧuƎͧ͆.̘̍͌̓ͨͅ ~~~ Okay, no. This isn't working. This world can't go on like this. It's missing too much. ...But I suppose that's the point, isn't it? It's got so much thrown in, and yet so little of what it NEEDS. Barely more than a skeleton to look upon, ready for the rest of the bodily systems to be added to the pony. Or is it even a pony? I have my doubts, admittedly. I have some idea of what's in those heads of yours - though I am not a mind reader. Most often, anyway. This world is yours now - all of you, collectively. Every comment you leave will have untold effects on what happens next, for you will fill in the holes of the world. If I understand correctly, most often this will be done in the form of answering a question. For instance, the question at the bottom of this chapter: "Who is the Protagonist?" An excellent question, especially for a story literally titled The Protagonist. You collectively are going to build the focus of this story. Will they be the hero this world needs? The villain? Something outside the standard story roles? I know not. That is up to you. Everything about them is up to you. Male or female? What is their history, their age, their race? And I don't just mean earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn. There's nothing stopping the Protagonist from being a dragon, a griffon... a human. Or even something more exotic. Why not make them an inkling? A troll? A Klingon? Something even more bizarre? And of course... their name. The most important aspect or the least, depending on who you ask. I cannot tell you what to do. Be creative, bend the rules. But you must do it together. Work as a team. Hammer out ideas in the comments. Find a way to agree. If you don't... Well, I'm not sure what will happen. Compromises might be made in the story. I can be sure that your actions will have consequences. With every answer you give, the world becomes more defined. A whole universe in your hands... and it all starts with this Protagonist. I have faith that you'll do this world proud. That you'll give GM the answers that lead this world to a glorious future. Don't prove me wrong. Author's Note Who is the Protagonist?
Sigrún Jennifer Glasglow"Hey, it's time to get up!" "Mmmfff..." Sigrún muttered, moving a hoof to rub her eyes, forgetting a moment that the appendage would pass right through her socket and into the voided interior of her skull. Deciding not to comment on this, she removed her hoof and continued her griping. "Do we actually know what time it is?" "...Day?" a male voice said. Sigrún lifted her head and opened her eyes - though it would have been more accurate to say she turned them on. Where once there had been nothing but empty eye sockets there were now tiny pinpricks of orange flame, her equivalent to eyes. She looked at the source of the voice: a bruised unicorn with a messy mane in some tarnished gold armor that increased his stature at least twofold. A pair of rusted metallic wings lay at his sides. When she'd first met him, she'd thought the wings were real, but in reality, they were just artificial slats of metal that weren't all that good for agile flight. "Yes. Day. Quite." Sigrún stood up, her bony unicorn body folly coalescing. While she slept the links in her knees and hips would break down, turning her into a pile of suspiciously clean bones. It always took a bit to get moving after she woke up - had to wait for the bones to snap into place. "That can't be comfortable." "Probably isn't. Can't exactly feel pain like this, though." Sigrún briefly wondered how she could feel at all, but decided not to dwell on it. "So, Forge, why am I up?" Flowing Forge frowned. "You said you didn't want to stay here anymore. If we want to get out we should get moving." Looking around, Sigrún took in their abode. A couple dirty, worn mattresses sitting in a hovel made from loose scrap metal of many different sizes and thicknesses. There was a single pack that held Forge's belongings - Sigrún had no possessions to put in such a pack. She noticed Forge was getting out breakfast. He must have forgotten she couldn't eat again. She tried to frown, but all she could do is anxiously grind her teeth as she trotted out of the metallic hovel. It would have been nice if she were able to take in the fresh air. But outside the junk spread out as far as the eye could see - mostly pieces of metal from unidentifiable structures, but there were a few plastics and fabrics mixed in here and there. It was a truly treacherous landscape filled with all sorts of sharp edges, loose debris, and uneven footing. Luckily Sigrún was as skeleton and Forge had armor all over him. It kept them from having to worry about such things. She trotted up the hill of metal they had built their little shelter into, reaching the top where a massive metal ring stood, marked with ancient glyphs all around the edge. It was through here that Forge had fled, bringing Sigrún with him. ...Well, Sigrún bones anyway. The spirit currently inhabiting the bones had entered them a few hours later. A spirit named Jennifer Glasglow. Not that anyone would ever know that. Names had power, after all. She'd just taken the name Sigrún because it had been the previous owner of the bones. Now that she thought about it, taking the name of a dead unicorn whose bones you were currently using was probably morbid and tactless... but Forge hadn't complained. In fact... he'd seemed hopeful. "...Darnit, he probably thinks she's in here somewhere," Sigrún sighed. "That can't end well..." She glanced at the circular portal once more. Broken, not that Forge had wanted to fix it. The world on the other side was apparently wartorn and helpless, even worse than the abandoned metal junkyard they found themselves in. Sigrún was not in any rush to discover what lay on the other side. Still... she had to admit she was curious as to how it worked. Maybe it had something to do with why her spirit was drawn to these bones? She didn't know. With a sigh, she put a hoof on the portal's edge, tracing her bony hoof across the engravings. "It's been days... you're not coming, are you?" She glanced at a metal plate on the ground, one she had scrawled a quick message onto the first day they arrived. Alex. I was here. I am fine. I am currently a skeleton. When they left, Sigrún was going to write down which way they went. Just in case Alex found out how to follow. Follow a loose spirit fixed to a pile of bones from across worlds. Laughable. Turning her gaze to the sky, she noted there was a massive purple moon in the sky that looked a bit like a gas giant. Maybe it wasn't even a moon - maybe it was the planet and she was on the moon. Wouldn't that be a trick? "It appears even other worlds have the same skies..." Forge said, trotting up to her. "Back home, the purple one is called Endesque." "Wonder what it means..." "Haven't the foggiest," Forge shrugged. "So, where do we go?" "Why not that way? The sun will set that direction, giving us the most daylight." "Sure." Sigrún sighed, scrawling an additional note on the metal plate. It looked like she was doing it with her hoof, but in reality a small blue scorpion had appeared around her hoof and made the careful etchings for her. Forge could not see it, and she had not told him 'Serket' existed. "There's nothing for us here." "Adventure?" "An adventure's what got me in this mess. I could do with..." Sigrún trailed off, not sure what she could do with. Going home would be a good one, but she doubted that was an option. "I will get you home," Forge promised, as if reading her thoughts. "Thanks." You don't really mean that. You'll get HER home. Wherever that is for HER. "Let's find a gate that still works." Forge pulled an amulet out of his pocket. "Not even the boundaries between worlds will stop us." ~~~ They came dangerously close to ruining everything... Pinkie tried not to look at it, shivering. She focused instead on the screen that showed Sigrún and Forge. Insisting she was from another world. Breaking the seal. The skeleton and the armored pony moved across the wastes of metal. But she is it. That's all I must listen to. Everything about him... the companion... Pinkie glanced around at the various different screens, sensing all she could about them. Prodding... looking... You seem determined to ignore my existence. Pinkie forced her mind blank in order to keep it from reading her thoughts. This worked - it lost interest in her. You precious little things... there will be no more influences from other worlds. All must come from within, as I decree. Poor Sigrún, never to be rescued. Poor Alex, to search the multiverse pointlessly. And poor, poor PINKIE. Pinkie winced. No reinforcements for you. You and whoever survived entry is it. How many were on that ship? Yes, nineteen, but how many survived? "Enough." Naturally. But enough for who? You? Me? Her? It laughed. I think you know. Pinkie smirked. "What do I know? Lots of things, yeah, but that's like, pfft, nothing." She saluted the thing and jumped into one of the screens, appearing on the junkyard on the other side. Ah, running to them? Wise. But it won't do much... It's 'voice' faded away, and Pinkie was in the junkyard. Still injured, but not in danger of being frozen to death anymore. That was nice. She just needed to find Sigrún and Forge and then get this show on the road. Shouldn't be too hard. She was in the same junkyard they were and everything! In fact, she was standing on top of... ...a giant spring trap. "...Ponyfeathers." The spring triggered and launched her so far into the air she became a pink speck in the sky, tossed far into the distance. Far from those she was looking for. ~~~ "...What in Yiyxa's name is this?" Forge asked. "It appears to be a giant spring," Sigrún observed. "Why would anyone make a giant spring?" "Just because they could?" "I... I don't know." "It has blood on it, maybe it was a trap?" Forge fixed her with a 'seriously?' expression. "There's no way that's blood. It's too bright of a red. That looks like the blood a child would put in their edgy kindergarten drawing." He paused. "I miss kindergarten." "Wh-" "I mean I miss it being a thing. It hasn't been a thing back home in over a decade." Sigrún frowned. "I'm... I'm so sorry." "Yeah." He shook his head. "We can't stay here and gawk at this spring all day." "Really? You were the surprised one." "But we are losing daylight and we need to get out of this junk pile." "I don't know. It could be important to figure out why there's a giant spring here. You never know." Forge frowned. "...Sigrún..." "Fine, fine, we can get going. Though... got anything I can use to sample this totally-not-blood?" Forge pointed at a small, aged plastic container in the junk. It was still sealed, and empty. She scooped some of the red stuff into the container and sealed it once again. You never know when you might need mysterious candy-red liquid. "Right! Let's g- wait." She looked under the spring. "Is that a fully baked cupcake?" Forge stared at it. "...It looks like it." Sigrún dug out another plastic container and put the cupcake in. "For research." "Not going to eat it?" "A cupcake out in the middle of a junkyard? What do you think I am, crazy? ...don't answer that." Forge smirked and led them down another hill of junk into the valley. Here was just as abandoned as everywhere else they had looked so far - no sign of pony habitation. Did the cupcake count as pony habitation signs? ...No, it was just too weird to make sense of. As was the next thing they came across. "What is that!?" Sigrún gasped. ~~~ Right, well, that seems to have gone... both well and not well. Hmm. So, Sigrún exists for certain, and as far as I can tell everything you wrote directly about her is literally absolutely true. It looks like the answer to the question cannot be refused so long as it isn't contradictory in some way. Serket, her name, her bones, even the people she knew and the reason she's here. Forge on the other hand... I'm not so certain. What I'm going to call 'The Entity' seems not to like the idea of things of other worlds coming in. Looks as though it rejected everything you said along that line and future attempts to influence in that way will be denied. I, unfortunately, do not know what it wants. Or even, really, what it is or why it's doing this. You notice how it never gets described, we only see what it says. I suspect that's specifically to throw me. Speaking of me, hi, I'm Twilence, my origin story isn't important, stop trying to make it a big deal, kay? Suffice it to say I'm the conduit by which you are influencing this world. Working together is still a requirement, but no longer can it be said that EVERY comment left will lead to something, or even most. There's just too many. Previously I had discouraged the use of forums and other sites to discuss these things, but now that I've seen how much of you are involved here... go right ahead. It's up to you how you want to organize it, just make sure you give what you come up with to me, eventually, through the comments section. I may not appear in every chapter, since there may be no reason to. But I suspect I'll have reason to stay for the first few chapters while the chaos settles. Also, those of you engaging in role-playing? I'm not telling you to stop. I'm merely telling you that while I cannot touch you, I do in fact know where your characters live. Apologies to any who prefer subtlety in the words, the above is intended for all to see, and not all are quite so regal and wordy as thou. On the topic of others, it seems you managed to do it effectively even if it was highly unexpected how you did so. Keep up the good work, but some of you could stand to be a bit more respectful to the others around you. And yes, I can confirm, none of the backstory for myself or Pinkie matters all that much at this juncture. Homestuck's doesn't matter either unless you make it, I don't know why you all got set on that. (Serket the scorpion? Really?) I'm sorry, that is a little uncalled for. You've done good so far, have given the world some of its color back. Thank you for sticking through it for a week. I can't wait to see what you'll do next. Author's Note What is Sigrún looking at?
Merodi CarrierSigrún was looking at what she could only assume was an aircraft of some sort. It had clearly seen better days. The white color of the craft was untarnished, but every part of it was bent, smashed, broken, or overgrown with plants. Yes. Plants. This struck Sigrún as unusual, considering they were in the middle of an endless wasteland of junk. The plants themselves were a dull green, flowing with pinkish-red blooms made of pointed petals. "Green," Forge observed. "That's green." "I know what the color is!" "Then why ask what it is?" "I... the plant can't be natural, can it? Nothing green for miles and suddenly, around this very white ship, there's a brilliant nest of vines. Vines! Flowering vines!" Forge nodded. "I agree that it is not expected. But not worth shouting over." "Wh... Why I..." Sigrún shook her head, focusing on the ship. It was buried in the junk, hiding its true size beneath the wreckage. There was a faded orange-ish 'u' symbol on the side and the main windshield was completely missing, revealing an entrance. Within, there was a pegasus skeleton sitting in a torn and worn out chair. It was still strapped into the seat with a belt. "This has been here a long, long time," Forge observed, poking the skeleton with one of his false wings. He stepped into the cockpit. For a moment, Sigrún considered chiding him for just walking into danger like that, but then she realized she wanted to investigate as well. After all, this ship wasn't like everything else they had seen so far. Who knew what kind of secrets it could hold? She was under no illusions it could fly, but you never knew if it could be repurposed without checking it out. The cockpit contained four seats. One held the skeleton, another held a green crystal that had been shattered in three pieces. The rest were completely empty, though they were still torn up and worn. Probably from bugs or bacteria or something. The door in the back of the room was a broken sliding model, but luckily it was stuck half-open. Easily wide enough for Sigrún to fit her bony form through while Forge had to prey the doors open with his power armor. On the other side was a large hallway. There was a skeleton here, too. Human, Sigrún identified, a little concerned. She reached out to touch it. it reacted. A toe bone shot toward her like a bullet. "AUGH!" Forge launched into action, driving his hooves into the skeleton's skull, crushing the round bone easily. "Sigrún! Are you okay?" "I... I'm fine..." Sigrún said, looking at the human toe bone that had affixed itself to her leg. "...I don't think that was the skeleton. I think that was me." "What...?" Sigrún lit her horn and touched the human bones. All of them lit up with the dark aura Sigrún's own form had and stood up. Naturally, it was headless, but it was still a skeleton. Sigrún found that she was easily able to control it and make it walk as if it were a part of her unicorn body. "...Necromancy." "I don't think so," Sigrún said, pulling the bones to herself. She tried not to think about how disgusting it was that she was holding BONES and focused instead on how they might be useful. "I think they're part of my... 'body' now." She popped her skull off the unicorn body and placed it on the human one, finding she could still control both sets of bones. "Interesting..." "You could become an army of undead." "Heh. Guess I could." She swapped out her feet for hooves. "Or... I could be a centaur!" She removed her human pelvis and set herself atop the rest of the pony skeleton, crossing her arms. "How do I look?" Forge frowned. "Sillier than I would have expected." Sigrún rolled her spark-eyes and returned herself to a unicorn form - it felt the most natural. She was stuck in the equine skull, after all. With a quick adjustment of her magic she removed the human bones from herself. "Well, that's good to know. Bone magic. Huh." "Huh indeed..." They continued down the hall, opening the door at the far end by letting Forge smash it over and over again. It popped open, revealing a nexus of the vines, focused around a cylinder faintly glowing blue. "It's probably feeding off the power, somehow." Sigrún observed, walking up to a particularly large flower positioned right in front of the cylinder. "That's why it's growing here. There's power." "Plants don't need power." "Isn't a normal plant then." Sigrún rolled her eyes. She touched the flower with her bony hoof. Upon feeling the touch, it opened, revealing two pollen-coated stems that looked a little like eyes. "Creeeeepy..." Sigrún shivered. A synthetic voice crackled from all around them. "K-k-k-k-ou think I'm creep-k-k-k-k?" Sigrún retreated from the flower, summoning the blue scorpion of Serket to her shoulder. Forge activated one of his weapons and pointed it right at the flower. "What are you!?" "K-k-k-k-on't know! Stop! Don't want to hurt yo-k-k-k-k." The flower recoiled, closing its petals defensively. Sigrún put a hoof on Forge's gun and lowered it for him. He did not fight her. "Do you have a name?" "K-k-k-hat is a nam-k-k-k?" "It's... a word you use to tell each other apart! I'm Sigrún, this is Forge, and you are...?" "K-k-on't know. Files don't tell me anythin-k-k." Sigrún noticed the static was getting clearer the more he talked. "That's fine, you don't need a name. Do you know what you're doing here, though?" "K-rowin-k." "...Come again?" "Growing." The static was now under enough control that it wasn't a chore to talk to the plant. Sigrún smiled. "Growing. Right. Is that all you do?" "Don't know." "Do you know anything besides growing?" The Flower shivered in what Sigrún hoped was laughter. "I know a lot more. Lots of it doesn't make sense. Lots of it is broken. All I know is in this core." The vines wrapped around the cylinder tightened. "Without it, I would just be a plant." "Just a plant?" "What the seeds grow into. I would mindlessly absorb the metal and technology until I could move and then... data not found." Forge blinked. "You can move?" "Unknown. I have not attempted to." "Why not?" Sigrún asked. "There is no data on what would happen next. I'm... scared." The flower drooped. "What will life be like?" "I'm not sure how to answer the question..." Sigrún admitted. "Same... same... same..." The flower shivered. "Ship can't fly. Should fly. Want it to fly." "Can't help you there," Forge said, gruffly. "Thing's a lost cause." "Evident." The flower paused a moment. "...What now?" "Do you know where the closest settlement is?" Sigrún asked. "Data not found. Sorry." "Then... I guess we'll just find it ourselves. Is there anything else we can do for you?" "Sigrún..." Forge cautioned. "Shush, Forge. It's not a monster." The flower opened its petals fully and examined Sigrún. "...You contain no adaptable components. Forge does." "I am not giving you my armor," Forge said. The flower seemed to understand. "Then... there is nothing." "...I guess we'll be going then?" Sigrún said, getting the distinct feeling this wasn't the right thing to do. "...You sure?" "Yes." "Okay then..." Sigrún turned, gesturing for Forge to follow. "Actually..." The flower sagged. "I don't want to be alone." "We can't stay here with you," Forge pointed out. "Then... I will... come with you. I will... move." And move it did. The large flower closed into a tight bulb and lashed its vines around the blue cylinder. With a quick tug, the blue cylinder exploded in a shower of sparks. "What are you doing!?" Sigrún shouted, staring on in shock. There was no response. The vines in the room severed themselves from the vines outside, wrapping around the blue shards, incorporating them into their floral mass. Carefully, the vines began to weave together into four thick, verdant limbs affixed to a sleek body. The form glowed a slight blue from the cylinder's fragments, giving it a soft ethereal quality. Leaves rustled all over the vines, acting a bit like the coat on a pony - which was the form the flower was taking. There was no tail, and instead of a head, there was just the flower bulb. The bulb opened, revealing two pollen-stalks that looked more like eyes than they had previously. There was a line underneath them that suggested the presence of a mouth, though in reality there was one there. However, there was some kind of speaking machine behind the false mouth. "I am moving," the flower said with the same synthetic voice as before, though this time it clearly came from its head rather than all around them. "I will need sun like this." "Well, there's a sun outside," Sigrún said, gesturing for the flower pony to follow them out. Forge glared at the plant untrustingly but didn't try anything. They emerged from the ship into the outside sky, and the flower looked directly at the sun. Its mouth didn't move, but inwardly Sigrún knew that it would be smiling if it could. It? No, it couldn't be an it anymore. Judging by the body shape it had chosen, it was a mare, since it had the same proportions as Sigrún, although significantly larger. Just missing the horn. "Wow," the flower said, voice somehow carrying an inflection of wonder. "So this is what moving is like... what was I so afraid of?" Forge, for the first time since they met the flower, smiled. "Ay, moving's pretty good, I guess. Better than sitting in a dark room all day." "Much better." "Get away from that thing!" The flower, Forge, and Sigrún looked up to the top of a pile of junk where a chrome pony stood. She had wings, but not the feathered limbs of a pegasus nor the artificial protrusions of Forge. Her wings were flat, metallic, and equipped with two cylindrical engines not unlike a jet. Both eyes were clearly artificial, sparking with a blue digitized iris that flitted rapidly between the three targets. "...What thing?" the flower asked. "The ship?" "Y-you! They need to get away from you!" The jet-pony held up a hoof, opening a hole in the base that looked suspiciously like the barrel of a gun. "...Me?" "Yes! You!" "Why?" "Because you're a metal-eating diseased monster!" "...This form is perfectly healthy." "Shut up! Stop talking!" Sigrún coughed. "Uh, I'm pretty sure the flower here doesn't mean to hurt us, miss..." "You're looking for introductions at a time like this a- holy cheeseballs you're a skeleton." "Oh. Uh. Yeah, I am. Is that a problem?" "Yes, that's a problem! Skeletons don't walk!" "Figured you would have noticed that before the flower's planty-ness." The jet-mare twitched. "Shut up! My eyes are fine!" Forge coughed. "Did you notice I have both a horn and wings?" "There's no w-" she stared at him in disbelief. "Maybe you should look closer at things before shouting!" the flower suggested. "I told you to shut up!" "Oh. Sorry." "STOP APOLOGIZING!" Sigrún coughed. "If you don't mind, miss jet-pony, I think we're going to stick around the flower for a bit. She's never moved before today, you know." "I... Bh... Augh!" She lowered her hoof and turned away. "Fine! Dig your own grave! But when the Flora Machina eats you in your sleep don't come crying to me!" "I don't think we'd have that choice," Forge commented. "By Yiyxa why did you all have to be smartasses!? UGH!" Her legs folded into her body and her head took on a more pointed shape, making her look more like a plane than a pony. She blasted away at high speed, leaving them all in the dust. "...Think we should have asked her where to go?" Sigrún asked. Forge nodded. "Yep." "Welp." "She was fun," the flower observed. It was at this point a dog made out of flowering vines and pieces of scrap metal jumped Sigrún, trying to bite her head off. It succeeded. Only one minor problem. Sigrún didn't exactly need her head to be attached to her body. She was perfectly fine, not even in any danger. However, she had only been a skeleton for a few days, so she wasn't particularly aware of this fact. Reacting out of fear, she screamed "Serket!" and summoned her scorpion friend. Serket may have been small, but it was easily able to punch the vine-dog's head right off its body, killing it. Neither Forge nor the flower could see Serket, so all they saw was a vine-dog's head explode. Everyone was silent. The flower poked the remnant of the vine-dog. "I think this is what the fun pony was talking about." "No. Really," Forge deadpanned. "Yes, really!" "Oh for the-" Forge turned and started walking a random direction. "Wait! I haven't put my head on yet! WAIT!" Sigrún scrambled to fix herself and trot after him. ~~~ When Pinkie had first been launched, she had screamed. The screams were first of surprise, then of excitement. After about a minute of this she got bored. Feeling the wind in her mane as she flew through the air was exciting and all, she just... didn't think it needed to last several minutes. That was one of the problems with flying through the air for so long, you tended to lose track of time and direction. Sure, she knew the direction the air was pushing at her from was the direction she was going, but was she going up, down, or sideways? That was the question. A question she couldn't answer since she was so high up in the air. Being Pinkie Pie could only mitigate blindness so much. So she began to play tic-tac-toe with herself. As she continued to fall (fly?), this eventually turned into hyper-tic-tac-toe-soduku-square-racecar-dragons. Just as she was about to place the last X to trigger the death of the dragon so she could fill in the last nine, she hit the ocean. By all laws of science, she should have been killed on impact. By the laws of magic and convenience, she should have sunken into the ocean unharmed. By the laws of Pinkie Pie, she bounced off the surface of the ocean like it was a trampoline. While in the air again she did a triple pirouette and sunk beneath the surface with a flawless dive that earned a perfect ten from the judges. The saltwater stung her wounds, reminding her that yes, she was still injured, no matter how much time she'd had to collect herself while in the air. Still, she wasn't anywhere near as weak as she had been in the frozen wastes, so she could afford to expend some energy. She wound her tail up like a propeller and slapped a fishbowl on her head for the sake of air, swimming forward like some kind of pink torpedo. She needed to find land. Unfortunately, pulling out a sonar scanner from her mane wasn't exactly feasible at the moment, so she just kept swimming through the endless expanse of blue. She really should have seen the giant fish coming. "Wait, what? Giant fish!?" The green behemoth with at least three pairs of flippers slunk out of the dark depths of the sea and opened its massive jaw. Screaming, Pinkie swam to the side, narrowly avoiding the sharp fangs of the monstrous fish. She did not avoid its flippers. The force propelled her out of the water like a rocket, allowing her screams to permeate through the open air of the ocean. She hit the surface at such a small angle that she skipped off of it like a stone - three times. "This... is a little ridiculous, even for me," Pinkie admitted as she skipped across the water a fourth time. Looking ahead, she saw an island coming into view. "Yay!" An island that she was flying toward at over fifty miles an hour. "Oh, wait, not yay, sto-" She landed head-first into the sandy beach, cracking her fishbowl and losing consciousness instantly. ~~~ "So... do you have any idea what you are?" Sigrún asked the flower. "I am a... Flora Machina fused with a damaged Mark 7-G4-MU computer system." "And what's in this computer system?" The flower seemed to think about this for a moment. "The code that allows me to think. Vast stores of data, much of it corrupted." "Data?" "Yep. Data. Information. Files. I have found thirty-seven different dictionaries." Forge raised an eyebrow. "Why would you need thirty-seven different dictionaries?" "Ne'vettik reescoom le zi rapakkanah," the flower said. "...Okay..." "What else do you know?" Sigrún asked, excited. "I don't know everything I know, too much to sift through... But I can perform a search!" "How about where we are!" "Unknown location on the planet Enviar in the universe Yiyxa." Sigrún nodded slowly. "Yep. Other worlds. Not surprised at all..." "You know the planet?" Forge asked. "Yep! Enviar, the primary surface within the universe. A collection of many different conflicting biomes and civilizations. More detailed information data not found data not found. Oh, uh... sorry." "And what of the moons?" "Enviar is orbited by five objects, Lurse, Ravanah, the sun, Endesque, and Salacia. ...Data beyond simple reference images and locations not found." Sigrún and Forge stared at her in disbelief. "What? Did I say something wrong?" "Oh no no no!" Sigrún said, shaking her head. "You... just surprised us, is all." "Is that good or bad?" "No idea," Forge grunted. They crested another hill of junk. To their surprise, they came across a large rectangular building. A factory - but unlike all the other wrecks they had seen on their journey this far, it was fully functional. Endlessly, it churned away, creating a sizeable quantity of... ~~~ Something went wrong. Before, Sigrún was definitely from another world. Because you said so. It made the Entity angry that she was. But now... Now that the definition of the word 'world' has been softened, the Entity was able to twist it. Alex is not in another dimension anymore. But Sigrún never came from another one either. She has to have come from somewhere within Yiyxa now. He was able to re-interpret all previous definitions of the word 'world' since the certainty in it, the meaning behind it, was removed. He has now completely sealed the world off save for the crew of that ship. We need to be more careful. Remember, he cannot refuse the answer to the question. But everything else is open for twisting. I do not know what he has done to your lengthy comment. But for all we know the transforming robot ponies could be evil, or the allegiances of two of the groups could be switched. Never assume we understand what is going on. Author's Note What is the factory making?
Survival SuppliesThe factory was making backpacks of a dull green color, filled to the brim with tools, first aid supplies, and a sizeable supply white bricks that might have been made from soybeans or something similar. All these packs were coming out the back of the factory, deposited in a trail that traced the path the factory took as it moved through the junkyard. Yes, it was moving, upon two tremendous treads no less. Each segment of the treat was easily the thickness of a normal pony. Not even the most steadfast structure was able to stand up to this kind of engineering girth. Sigrun watched in awe as the treads tore into a steel wireframe and crumpled it into nothing. Before the factory were massive mounds of metallic junk. Behind? Nothing but a trail of pulverized metal and survival backpacks. The factory continued moving, belching out smoke and grime into the air. Every part of it looked dirty and old save for the top of the central tower, polished white and alit with a lighthouse-like beam. "Wow," the flower said, rippling her petals. "That's big." "No kidding..." Forge said. "Let's just pick up some of those packs and go before it decides to kick it into reverse or something." "Agreed," Sigrun said, shivering slightly despite her complete lack of flesh. The three of them descended into the flattened earth and picked up one pack each. Beyond the tools, medical supplies, and food bars they also found a few canteens, pieces of paper, pencils, flint, steel, and a book on navigating by the stars. There weren't any maps, however, although there was a compass in each pack and some charts on the locations of the moons. "Wow. This really is all you'd need to survive in most scenarios." Sigrun admitted. "Though, there is a lack of food out here in the junkyard... Still, the bars will sustain you, for, what, a week?" Forge frowned. "Longer, for an experienced traveler. A lot of thought clearly went into this." "THANK YOU." The factory bellowed. The three of them looked up to see the factory's primary light looking right at them. The treads had stopped completely a fair distance from their location. Forge stared at the behemoth in shock. Before Sigrun could think of a reply, the flower spoke up. "Hi! I'm the flower! You have words!" "I DO. YOUR KIND USUALLY DOES NOT. INTERESTING." "I ate a computer. Quite helpful in that regard." "YOUNG AND INTELLIGENT." Sigrun coughed. "Uh, we were just passing through. If these are your packs..." "THEY ARE. BUT THEY ARE FOR ANY TRAVELER PASSING THROUGH THE SCRAPHEAP. YOU MAY TAKE AS MANY AS YOU WISH." "Oh... thanks!" Sigrun beamed. "DO NOT MENTION IT. IT IS MY PURPOSE." "Purpose?" "THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO FIGHT. SO I MAKE SURVIVAL KITS. YOU UNDERSTAND, YES?" "...Enough," Sigrun said, tilting her bony hoof back and forth. "I AM SURPRISED YOU NEED FOOD THOUGH." "I don't." "TAKE A PACK ANYWAY. I HAVE FAR MORE HERE THAN WILL EVER BE TAKEN." "Isn't that inefficient?" Forge asked. "THEY WILL REMAIN LONG AFTER I AM GONE AND HELP RANDOMLY. IT IS A GOOD LONG-TERM PURPOSE. AT LEAST, THAT IS WHAT ZETA SAID, AND I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE HER IN THIS MATTER SINCE MAKING GUNS THAT NOBODY EVER USED WAS GETTING DULL." "Guns...?" Forge frowned. "Zeta?" Sigrun asked. "Who's that?" "ZETA I-" "What are you all doing to David!?" The jet-pony shouted at the top of her lungs, landing on the back of the factory's treads. "David!?" Sigrun and Forge said at the same time. ~~~ Pinkie was really good at knowing when she was dreaming. Even before she went blind she had a sort of second sense for the sort of thing - it was a rare day when reality operated on the same rules she did. Now that she was blind, well, if she could see then she would know she was dreaming. Currently, she was sitting on a picnic blanket. She used to go on picnics like this all the time with the other Elements. But of the five who were usually here, only a buttery-yellow pegasus was currently with her. "Pinkie, are you okay?" she asked, tracing her teacup with the marble tips of her wings. "I'm dreaming," Pinkie said, shrugging. "Pretty sure I'm still passed out on the beach of that island. Wonder what sort of nightmare fuel I can find in here?" "Well... it's just me." She folded her wings. "Probably signifying that I'm the only one who really stayed with you." "You're either my subconscious trying to get to me or some kind of evil entity. Not listening to either, sorry." Pinkie's ears twitched. "None of them abandoned me. They just had lives that went different directions. I still see... most of you regularly." She drooped. "Most..." "Do you even know where we are?" "Well, you are on Yiyxa. Somewhere." The pegasus nodded, taking a sip of her tea. "You sure?" "The Entity did something. If it was even it that did anything. Or... gah. I don't know. I do know you're here. Somewhere..." Pinkie frowned. "I don't have any idea what happened though. The wreck was way too old... Maybe we got launched through time or s-" Pinkie slapped herself in the face. "Whoopsie! Started letting you lead me on! Heheh! Sorry, not doing this." She sighed. "Might not be the best idea..." Pinkie folded her front hooves and closed her eyes, returning to familiar darkness. "I'm just going to wake up now..." Something that wasn't Pinkie's dream-friend spoke. "What are you...?" "Aaaaand there's the mysterious entity invading my dreams. Little late, aren't you?" "Why are you...?" "I'm getting a distinct sense of deja-vu here. Hello? Pinkie Pie! Hi!" "When are you...?" Pinkie's stomach dropped. She didn't like that question. She pulled a squeaky hammer out of her mane and started swinging. "Out of my head! It's mine! I will drive you insane with parties, I'm warning you! There's a party blower with your name on it..." Pinkie woke up, greeted by the darkness of waking that was so familiar by now. Tapping into her other senses, she discovered she was sitting in a comfortable well-furnished bed. "Huh, this isn't so bad... Guess I was rescued." A bed that was designed for a creature about fifty times larger than she was. "Hey! That wasn't fair!" Pinkie grumbled, struggling to pull the massive blankets off her. She found that she was wrapped in bandages that made it a little difficult to move. Despite this, she managed to worm her way out of the covers to stand atop the massive pillow she had been pressed into. Taking a deep breath, she smelled the ocean. She was probably on the same island as before, though she didn't remember sensing evidence of giants. Though, considering the speed she had been going it, it was a miracle she'd sensed anything at all. So... she needed to decide. Run, or figure out what was going on? ~~~ "Hi, David!" the flower waved at the factory. "GREETINGS, FLOWERY ONE," David responded. "No, David!" the jet pony whined. "That's a... you know what that is! Stop fraternizing with it!" "IT HAS SHOWN NO AGGRESSION, ZETA. AND IT PICKED UP A KIT." Zeta facehooved, a motion that made a loud CLANK that echoed throughout the Scrapheap. "David, just stop listening to it. And you! Flower... thing! Stop infecting David with your lie-filled existence!" Sigrun blinked. "Odd word choice..." "Don't judge my word choice!" "...Kinda late for that." Zeta let out a groan so intense some steam came out of her jet engines. "Just... David has weapons, you know, I can make him shoot you." "I WON'T." "David!" "I NEED TO SAVE AMMUNITION FOR REAL EMERGENCIES." "This is a real emergency!" "NO. IT IS NOT." Zeta rammed her head into the ground - which for her was currently David. "OW." "That hurt me more than it hurt you and you know it!" "WE ARE MACHINES. NEITHER OF US ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED PAIN." "My pain is emotional and traumatic!" "I'M THE WEAPONS FACTORY." "Oh, and I'm the bucking queen of Saddlershot!" "I SPEAK TRUTH. YOU SPEAK IN METAPHOR." "I'll show you metaphor..." "AHEM!" Forge shouted. "While I would love to continue observing this lover's spat, I would much rather just get going. Point us to the way out of this junkyard and you will never have to see us again. After that, you may continue." Zeta glared at Forge with a deep fury. "That... way..." she pointed. "YOU WANT TO GO THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, SHE IS TRYING TO LEAD YOU TO THE RAIDER CAMPS." "Daaaaaviiiiid..." Zeta whined. "Thanks, David!" Sigrun beamed. "We'll get out of your treads now!" "You better run!" Zeta shouted, suddenly standing on all four hooves. "Or else the fury of David the factory will fall upon you!" "I DO NOT THINK FURY WAS EVER PART OF MY CODING." Zeta let out a pained whine of exasperation. "ALSO, FLOWER, YOU SHOULD TAKE A NAME FOR YOURSELF." "Name...?" the flower asked. "Stop talking to it!" Zeta shouted. David finally obliged, and the group of three set out overtop another hill of metal. They continued to listen to the factory and the jet-pony argue about the dumbest things until even the factory's booming voice was out of earshot. Then, and only then, did they arrive at the edge of the Scrapheap. At the bottom of a long slope of metallic bits, the scenery changed into... ~~~ Not much to say this time. I think we're good. Good luck, I'll be back when I believe it to be prudent. Author's Note Where do the heroes find themselves now that they're leaving the Scrapheap?
Leviathan's WatchPinkie was surprised to discover that her saviors were not, in fact, giants. When they came to check on her, they had to crawl up a ladder to get on top of the bed. It took them about twelve minutes to forage all the way across the rippled sheets to make it to Pinkie. For they were not giants. They were not normal sized ponies, either. They were adorable little ponies maybe the size of ants, perhaps smaller. "Oh, good, you're awake!" A green stallion said, his voice just barely loud enough to hear without Pinkie straining her ears. He trotted up to Pinkie's face while several of the others held back, afraid of the giant horse they were so close to. "I am Emerald. What's your name?" Pinkie noted that all the mini-ponies were earth ponies - not a pegasus or unicorn in the bunch. "I'm Pinkie Pie! Thanks for saving me!" "It was the least we could do," Emerald said with a bow. "We saw you bruised and battered on the beach so we brought you here as soon as we could. Used every type of healing potion we could. We fixed everything we could! But... I..." "I've been blind for a long time, don't feel sad," Pinkie said with a dismissive wave. "The curse is a pretty nasty one, too. If you put artificial eyes in the sockets they don't work either. Don't feel bad, legendary healers have tried and failed." "That's so sad..." A pink mare said. "Yes, but on the flip side, now I surprise everybody with how well I know where they are!" She giggled, pointing at the tiny ponies. "Let's see... there are thirty-six of you on the bed, a thirty-seventh staying at the bottom of the ladder, and twenty of you are mares!" "Witch..." a blue mare breathed. Probably best not to mention that I know what color they are... "Me? A witch? Psh, you don't see a horn on this head of mine, do you?" "I... guess not." "There are other ways to 'see', my little pony." Pinkie giggled - yes, it was a cheap, petty joke, but she'd abuse it to death and there was nothing anyone could do about it. "I can sense with sound, for instance! If you listen closely you can hear sound bounce off things." This much was true, she could 'see' based on echoes, but she wasn't as good as some people she knew and only got a fuzzy image of what was around. But it was an explanation that didn't involve describing 'witchcraft-like' senses, so she went with it. "Wow, you really are something else!" Emerald chuckled. "So, why are all of you little ponies living in a giant's house?" Emerald thought about this for a moment. "There's more than enough food for us here thanks to the misress' farm. We keep the house tidy and do all the simple chores for her." "She's the giant, then?" "Yes, she is." "I'd like to meet her!" Emerald paled. "Oh, no no no no! That wouldn't be good at all!" "She doesn't like ponies," the blue mare said. Pinkie cocked her head. "You're all ponies." "She thinks we're house fairies," Emerald explained. "We're too small for her to see or hear. If she knew what we were..." "I don't think we'd make a very good meal," the pink mare pointed out. "She'd probably drive us out while trying to squish us." "How exactly would she even do that?" the blue mare countered. "She can't even see us. We could just stop tidying up the house and she'd think we'd gone." "We can-" "Enough!" Emerald declared. "We have a guest. We can argue about what the mistress can and can't do later." Pinkie nodded slowly. "So, she'll want to eat me." "Most likely," Emerald admitted. "Though the last time a pony of your size came through she screamed in panic and stomped her until she was flatter than a fly's wing." Pinkie shivered. "Okay... Looks like I'll be getting out of here as soon as I can." She jumped to her hooves and began to stretch her limbs. "Thanks for everything, but I don't want to be giant food!" "Are you sure you can move...?" Emerald asked. "Oh yeah," Pinkie did a backflip. "Excellent shape. Your health potions really are magic!" "I told you we overdid it," the blue mare deadpanned. "Wait!" the pink mare called, stopping Pinkie. "You don't even know where you're going!" Pinkie's smile faded. "That's... true. Where should I go to get off the island?" "There's an old busted ship hidden under the dock - just out that window!" "Thanks!" Pinkie giggled. "I shall take control of it a-" The door to the room opened with a massive earth-quaking creak. Pinkie quickly jumped behind a pillow, hiding away from the giant's sight. When Pinkie had first heard 'giant', she had pictured a pony, or perhaps a human. What came in the door was neither of those things - it was a massive television screen affixed to a spinal-cord made of metal plates and sparking wires. Five limbs of harsh metal wound with glowing blue wires carried the mechanical behemoth forward - three legs, two arms. The television screen itself was eternally set to static of some kind. It - Pinkie could not bring herself to think of this clanking mess as a 'she' - crawled into the room, tapping the lightbulb in the ceiling with one of its pointed claws. The lightbulb unscrewed itself, falling into the free hand. With a spark of electricity, the loose bulb lit up. Nodding to itself, the giant took another bulb out of a storage compartment and screwed it into the ceiling. It left without so much as a second glance at the room. Pinkie didn't wait. She put herself in a party cannon and launched herself at the window. She pulled her warhammer out at the last second and thrust it forward, breaking the massive window into a few dozen shards. Hitting the ground with a bounce, she made a beeline for the dock. Had she been giant-sized, this might have taken a minute, tops. As it was the dock seemed to be miles away... ~~~ Sigrun got too excited running out of the junkyard. Her bones tripped on a loose lead pipe and she went tumbling skull over ribs until she was nothing more than a pile of bones on the sands below. But it was great anyway. Sand. Not junk, not metal, not some greasy liquid that got everywhere in her joints... SAND. Sure, she'd be complaining about the grinding grains in her bones later, but right now it was something new, something great, something better. But it paled in comparison to the settlement they saw in front of them. It was built into an aircraft carrier that had been abandoned long ago. The massive sideways ship had been cannibalized of everything except the framework that gave it its structure, and even that had been used as the base to build the city. Buildings nearer to the carrier itself were made of bent metal, but most others were made out of stone or wood with a smattering of outer buildings that may have been made from junkyard supplies. As Sigrun re-affixed her bones together, she noticed something odd. She recognized that type of aircraft carrier. She'd seen it in history books. Weird. Who cared, though? It was civilization! She finished re-assembling herself and charged forward, not slowing down for Forge or the flower to catch up. She barreled right up to the front gates, feeling as though she was grinning. "Helooo-!" One of the guards atop the city wall shot an arrow into her eye socket. "Wh - hey! Why'd you do th-" An arrow launched into another eye socket. "This makes it hard to see, you know!" "That's the idea, necromantic filth!" The guard shouted. "B-but I-" "I am not letting an undead into Leviathan's Watch. I don't care how nice or reasonable you are, we have enough of a necromancer problem as it is. So go. Shoo. If you're part of some adventuring group, send the rest of them to the guild, you're not getting in." Sigrun took a few steps back as Forge and the flower arrived. "See? Like those two. I can let them in. An armored alicorn-" "Unicorn," Forge corrected. The guard didn't care. "And an unknown flower pony. See? No necromancy there." Sigrun grunted. "We have to split up. They won't let me in." Forge shook his head. "I will not go anywhere without y-" "Yay! City!" The flower shouted, jumping through the gates. "Someone has to go watch her," Sirgun pointed out. "Go on, I'll be fine." With a terse nod, Forge galloped after the flower. "Get back here!" "Who needs to get back here?" the flower called back. "You!" "Is my name You?" "No!" The conversation died off quickly, leaving Sigrun alone outside Leviathan's Watch's gates. "So..." Sigrun said, hoofing the ground. "What's there out here for a skeletal girl for me to do?" The guard glared at her. "I dunno. Dig yourself a grave and wait." "I bet you don't get much conversation out here..." "Are you trying to seduce me!?" "Wh- no!" If Sigrun could have blushed, she would have. "I'm BORED!" "Then feast your eyes upon the statue you missed in your rush to get here." He pointed behind her. She looked, half-expecting to find nothing. But instead, she found a silver statue of a muscled man with his hands in his coat pockets and his hat over his eyes. His coat was depicted as rippling in the wind, and a massive chain was slung over his shoulder. "A... a human!?" "Uh, yeah?" The guard cocked his head. "What, are humans legendary creatures where you come from or something?" Not exactly... "Humans? Legendary?" A new voice called, prompting Sigrun to look at another area of the wall. Sure enough, there was a human guard there, a woman. Though she had no armor or weapons. "How legendary do I look?" "Ash..." the stallion guard sighed. Ash grinned. "Come on, skeleton. How legendary do I look?" Sigrun shrugged. "Not what I was expecting, to be honest." Ash snapped her fingers and a spiritual thing projected from her body, taking a unique, yet bizarre shape. Sigrun recognized what it was instantly. A Stand. Instinctually, Sigrun summoned Serket to her shoulder. "Well well well..." Ash grinned. "This might be interesting..." ~~~ It appears Sigrun lost her accent mark last chapter. Huh. I didn't even notice. Anyway, message received, I won't tell you anything specific the Entity did anymore. I'll just give you a general nudge. He did something to Yiyxa's cosmology that contradicts OM's second comment. Author's Note What is Ash's Stand?
