Impact

Spontaneous parties were Pinkie's forte. Of course, she had guidelines, restrictions to work around, but who didn't? When she was given just a couple of hours to get everything prepared, she knew it was going to be a whopper. Restriction breeds creativity, after all. Twilight had given her a brief explanation of who the party was for, and how things had to be set up for the event to go off without too many problems. Summoning circle, 30-foot radius, blah, blah, blah. A hue-man! She didn't even know what that was, but excitement was building in her heart, as a grin stretched across her face. What were they going to be like? Probably really colorful. Big, colorful apes!

So, with all the party favors, all the tables and all the decorations she could come up with in a small amount of time, she made her way to Ponyville's town square. The fact that the summoning circle was so large caught Pinkie's interest, but she had so little time that she didn't bother to question Twilight, who was still carving the symbols into the dirt. Hue-mans had to be huge if the circle needed to be that big. She pictured giant, rainbow-colored apes in fancy suits, and started giggling.

Everything was just getting finished up, as the Cake family rolled out their desserts, and the Apple family set up their stands, the banner that read "WELCOME" was nailed across town hall. Almost every pony in Ponyville had attended, most of them worriedly looking towards the ritual site. Pinkie had just loaded the cannons, as Twilight finished drawing the markings.

"I need everypony to stand at least thirty feet away, I don't know exactly how big the portal is going to be," Twilight said.

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that all the ponies partook in. Everyone could feel each other's hearts sink when she said that. Everyone except for Pinkie, who was bursting at the seams with anticipation, save for one lingering thought in the back of her mind. Twilight didn't know how big the hue-mans were. If she was planning to introduce a new friend to Ponyville, shouldn't she know everything about them first? But, if she were summoning them in the first place, and in such a public way no less, then she would be sure. Right? She pushed down the doubt, she had to trust her friend. It was Twilight, after all. If anypony would be the one to triple—No, quadruple check anything it would be her.

Twilight skimmed through a smaller book, then set it down, and set all of her concentration towards the spell. Her horn lit up, and soon too did the markings on the ground. From the corners of the symbols shot beams of light into the center of the circle, forming a small, star-esque concentration of energy. With time, the beams faded. The light in the center rose, and pulsated as it came to its resting position a few feet in the air. The few seconds that it sat there were agonizing. Pinkie could feel herself holding her breath, both hooves on the confetti cannon.

The spark violently stretched out in all directions. The light which was once its whole, was now only the border, and the darkness in the center grew with each moment. It looked as though it would never stop expanding. Finally, as the amorphous energy was about to escape the limits of the drawn symbols, it ceased, and the darkness was replaced with the light of another world. Foreign air, and otherworldly sounds flooded through the portal.

Then it came through.

Light overwhelmed her as the world crashed back into existence. Her head pounded and throbbed, as she laid on the ground, coughing up blood, barely able to breathe. She heard screaming from near and far; some voices she recognized as coming from her best friends, others she couldn't quite place. Smoke swirled in the air above her, as buildings caved in, and ponies flew and galloped in terror. As sirens bellowed, Twilight stared up with a wide, empty gaze. It wasn't her fault. She couldn't have known.

Twilight's mind reeled as the events kept repeating. She thought she had everything prepared just right, from the research she had conducted of humans, to the spell itself, but the moment that giant, roaring, metal monster violently crashed through her, all of the confidence, all of that curiosity, and excitement that she held within her evaporated, being replaced with a paralyzing shock.

Blood flooded out into the dirt. Her skull was cracked open, her legs were broken, and her ribs had been destroyed. Her shoulders had been decimated, she didn't think she would be able to walk again. How was she still conscious? Just as the question came to mind, her vision began fading in and out.

She became aware for only fragments of time, seconds at most, though unsure of how much time was passing between the bursts of conscious thought. The screaming had faded, but she heard weeping in the distance. She felt a stabbing pain as she was lifted onto the gurney, and cried out before losing consciousness again. When she awoke again it was in the middle of Ponyville. She saw crumbled buildings, corpses of ponies she had seen walking around that day, and smears of blood as if a brush hit a canvas. She saw her home as she passed it. A dead, green, hairless ape was crushed up on the front of the metal behemoth, which had apparently died as it collided with the tree. He was mangled, his limbs broken and bent at odd angles. Deep, dark red was spilling across the ground. She thought she could see his internal organs pooling out of him.

Now in the hospital, she was rolled through a hallway. She watched through her blurred vision, as the lights on the ceiling came and went. Doctors and nurses frantically spat orders to each other as they tried to tame the chaos. Twilight felt the pounding pain fading back into her torso. Her senses were overwhelmed, until she heard a familiar voice that shut every distraction down, silencing the world around her. Twilight strained her neck to look up and around, ahead of the gurney. Pinkie Pie was sitting in a chair, unharmed. She was subtly rocking forwards and backwards, her body trembling, her eyes wide open as she stared into the room across from her.

"Hiya, Mr. and Mrs. Cake..." she muttered repeatedly, her bottom lip trembling. She looked as though she was always on the edge of crying, but not quite there; as if she couldn't, or perhaps refused to, process what had happened.

"Why?" Twilight thought as she let her head fall, her mind fading from reality once more.

Twilight awoke in a hospital bed to the subtle beeping of a machine to her right, when she opened her eyes the light from the sunset outside pierced her. Squinting, her gaze traveled downward. Most of her body from the neck below was covered in bandages, her legs were in casts. She had no feeling in her forelegs. She didn't want to focus on that, not now, and so her focus shifted to the window. How long had she been asleep? She felt like it had been weeks, it was as though her body had been sucked dry.

In her first true moment of clarity following the accident, Twilight looked out at the sunset, trying to piece together where she had gone wrong. It had been a long journey getting to that point, months. Maybe the spell wasn't right. It was a delicate process after all, anypony could have made a mistake. No, it was the human. That human shouldn't have been trusted, he probably planned for it to happen, surely. Twilight paused, before looking down. She shouldn't have brought so many ponies there. She wanted to create a celebration; an event to be remembered for centuries, one for the history books. She had hoped for another ally, another species to befriend, and this is where it all led her. Twilight stared down at herself, and felt tears building in her eyes.

Picking up a noise from the opposite end of the room, she looked up. There was a conversation happening right outside the door, though she wasn't able to make out the words. The door gently opened, and a doctor walked in, looking down at a clipboard he was levitating with his magic. He looked up briefly, doing a double take.

"Miss Sparkle, you're up," he said, closing the door behind him.

"Hello," Twilight responded, not being able to look him in the eyes.

"You're one tough mare, you know that? How are you feeling?" he said.

Twilight didn't speak. She felt like a monster. She couldn't get the noise out of her head; all of Ponyville crying out in pain, not being able to tell where one scream ended and another began. The black smoke rising into the sky, as a town crumbled before her. All of the stone and wood of the houses breaking apart as it crashed through them.

"Well, I'll try to make this quick. We don't know if walking is going to be an option, but we'll have to play it by ear. A couple days ago we thought you'd be dead by, well, now, actually, but we worked our magic and we think you'll do just fine. We had to remove some of your ribs, but that's better than a leg, eh?" he paused. "Anyway, you'll be here for a while, so try to get some rest. I'll be around if you need me," he said.

Days? Twilight nodded. The doctor did the same with a hum, and turned to leave, but swiftly turned back around.

"Oh, you're gonna have a visitor coming in, in a few hours. Unless you want to cancel?"

She had a few ideas as to what would happen, none of them good, though all of them deserved. One scenario had Princess Celestia coming in, only to scold and cut ties with her, disowning her as a student before giving her a list of charges and imprisoning her. Or it could be one of the members of the families she helped destroy, a filly and their mother left without a father. Maybe one of her best friends would come in and declare their hatred for her. She stayed silent once more.

The doctor smiled sadly. "Try to rest, Twilight, we'll get through this," he said, leaving the room and shutting the door behind him.

The metal knob rattled. Twilight looked at the door with a groggy, half-lidded stare. She didn't recall when she had fallen asleep. The door cracked open just a tad, and the doctor peeked his head through. He wasn't as quiet as he would like to be.

"Oh, she's awake," he said, looking back.

Her stomach dropped. This was it. She thought she would be ready to handle this, but her anxiety had ramped up considerably. Maybe she should have cancelled. The door opened completely, and the doctor let her in, though he chose to stay outside. Applejack stiffly walked in, and frowned as she saw Twilight.

"I'll give you two some time alone," he said.

The door was shut. Silence hung in the air, as Applejack stared at Twilight, whose eyes were wandering elsewhere. The only sound that could be heard was the ticking of the clock on the wall, and the near silent breathing from both of the ponies. Applejack sighed, shook her head, and walked to the side of the bed. Each step pounded on Twilight's skull, and between each hoofstep was an agonizing stillness that gnawed at her heart.

Applejack took off her hat, and set it down lightly on the bedside table. She looked Twilight over. Most of her body was wrapped in bandages, and casts. Her hair, as well as her coat, had a dirty roughness to them. Even though Twilight had her head down, she could still see her expression. It was like the hope was ripped from her eyes. Applejack tried to speak up, but her voice was caught, so with a pause she tried again.

"How are you holding up?" Applejack asked.

Twilight didn't move, nor speak.

"I tried to visit you a few days ago, but you weren't awake then."

...

"Well, I'm glad you're alive, if nothing else," Applejack said, looking away, prodding her hat.

"Why?" Twilight asked.

Applejack paused. "You shouldn't be asking something like that," she said.

"But, you shouldn't be glad. You know what I did."

"Yeah, I do, but I'm still here."

"You shouldn't be, not after everything."

"Probably not, but I'm gonna stay," Applejack said.

Twilight nodded, looking up at her. She remembered something, one of the few things she saw as she was rolled into the hospital.

"What happened to Pinkie?"

Applejack paused. "She's not talking. Won't talk to anypony, from what I've seen, but I ain't seen her much."

Applejack recalled the first time she saw Pinkie after everything had settled down, after the hysteria, when the isolating dreariness enveloped the town. She was sitting on her bed, staring toward the furthest wall. Whenever Applejack would ask her a question, or say anything really, she would just hum, or nod, giving only the simplest responses. Sometimes there wouldn't be a response. She had never seen any pony like that, let alone Pinkie. If Pinkie was anything, she was a talker. Was.

"Applejack... How many?" Twilight asked.

Applejack felt a hitch in her throat, and she wavered; she looked away and considered.

"I don't know if I—"

"Please," Twilight said, looking her in the eyes.

Every part of her told her not to answer. Her limbs clenched, and her chest tightened. She thought she could handle the force of the memories that would barge their way in every time she even thought about Twilight. She could see it as clear as anything in the room. Rarity rushing to Sweetie Belle in tears, she probably could've burst that little filly open with how tight she hugged her. The working ponies who were left with no home to go back to, the way some of them collapsed as they would each approach their own piles of rubble. The ponies she had to bury on her own land. Family. She struggled to remember Rainbow's face, only able to recall the bloody, twitching mess that was splayed out on the grass before her.

"Rainbow," Applejack whispered.

Twilight winced, it was as if she was stabbed in the heart. That wasn't right. She wasn't supposed to say that. Surely, she didn't hear her properly. Out of any pony she could have killed, it had to be her.

"And Fluttershy," she continued.

Twilight became numb. She made a selfish decision, but she shouldn't have this pain. This wasn't the way life was supposed to go. She just wanted everyone to be happy again. She and all of her friends had a meal around a table together just a couple of days ago, now it was all gone. Where did it all go?

"And Granny," Applejack's voice cracked as her body stiffened, she collapsed into the bed, barely able to hold herself up. It was like her body shut down. She couldn't cry, she had to be strong. That's what she was always taught. She always tried to be strong. "I'm sorry, I can't—" she picked up her hat and walked out.

The slam of the door marinated in her mind. Twilight stared forward for an eternity. She thought those good times would last forever. For a while, it seemed like the sun would never set. After all, if you were around the ponies you loved, the wind could never stop blowing. The world used to turn. Had she taken it all for granted? She felt herself deflate. There was nothing she could do, except wait. A hint of fear settled in the back of her mind, a thought. What if she didn't die? What if she had to live through this?