Fallout Equestria: Crossroads
Chapter 1: I Beseech Thee
Chapter One: I Beseech Thee
"Where are we?...The future. Or rather, the present."
Time.
It’s a tricky concept. There are no certain theories or laws concerning it because, truthfully, we can’t possibly understand how it functions. Only Starswirl the Bearded, the greatest scholar in pony history, has come close to analyzing and defining its nature. I mean, he created a time travel spell for Celestia’s sake! That’s incredible!
But even then, it was like a power tool in the hands of a child.
He may not have fully understood its power, but he had a lot to say on the subject. Later in his life, his notes became more cynical and…verbose; nothing like the mechanical and concise scribblings of his earlier career. My guess is that living in such close quarters with Celestia and Luna – two immortal and all-powerful beings – constantly faced him with his own deteriorating mortality.
He wrote this passage in the margins of his notes (splotched in tea stains), and I find it to be the most profound thing he ever said…or maybe the saddest:
“…we are inside it, moving through it, like a river. It is like a painting: we can see its brushstrokes, ponder our perception of it, yet we are too close; without the full picture, we can only guess at its meaning. Time…yes, it’s like a river. Unyielding, constant, it blazes a path through the unknown and flows regardless of any attempts to stop it. It pays no heed to those trapped within its swelling.
And we are trapped within it. Make no mistake, Time does not care about our feelings. It moves regardless. We are, in many ways, drowning in its depths. Those of us who fight against it, who meddle with its great power – who try to divert it, slow it, reverse it, change it – we are drawn kicking and screaming further into its mighty torrent. Time does not care about our feelings.
Some forces are simply not to be meddled with.”
That was actually the first thing I learned from Twilight Sparkle: that when messing with things we don’t know a whole lot about, bad things can happen. It’s better to just let sleeping dogs lie, as it were.
You could say it was my first “friendship lesson”.
I remember that day vividly. It’s a day of little consequence in Equestria’s history; truly, only a hoofful of ponies in the whole world know of its importance. The day when fate decided to wrap its strings around six incredible ponies – and one lovable dragon – cinching their individual destinies into one. I remember because I tried to stop it from happening.
But Time had other plans.
Really, I had thought (foolishly), what could possibly be so important about a single group of friends? Out of all the friendships in Equestria – in the WORLD for that matter, maybe in the universe – what made this one so special? I guess it doesn’t really matter if I understand it or not. Time doesn’t care about my feelings.
That’s what I learned that day, the day that became the most important one in my life, as well as the lives of the ponies who have become my friends.
If I’m going to tell you my story, then there’s something you need to understand right off the bat: I didn’t want to change Time or mess with it.
I wanted to learn from it. Watch it from afar. Every version of it.
I always preferred endings, anyway.
***
“Starlight Glimmer!”
EEEEEEEE!
“Snk-AAH! Huh?” I slurred in a half-woken babble. I lifted my head up, cheek wet from the pool of drool that had formed on the desk in front of me.
Twilight’s disappointed face leered at me from her position in front of the chalkboard across the room. In her magic grasp, she held a length of chalk against the board. Sunlight fell through the castle windows as the sweet singsong melody of a bird flitted by on a light breeze.
“Are we awake now?” Twilight asked.
“I dunno, I was having a dream sort of like this,” I retorted.
The chalk moved with gusto. EEEEEEE!
“Aagh!” I screamed, protecting my ears. The bird was gone from the windowsill now. “Stop that!”
“When are you going to stop falling asleep in my class, Starlight?” said Twilight, pointing the chalk like an accusatory hoof. “It’s only been three weeks since you made up with Sunburst, and you’ve barely made any progress in your other studies.” She set the chalkboard down on the sill with a sad clunk.
Sunburst. I hadn’t stopped thinking about him in those three weeks. Back when we were foals, I had never really appreciated his friendship; he had been a constant in my life, an element that I never imagined I could live without. Until I lost him.
Now, having met him again, it felt so…freeing? Nostalgic? It was hard to put into words. I was just glad…because I’d made a friend. For someone like me…after what I’d done…I just didn’t think I deserved something like that. Sure, I’d made other friends since then: Trixie, the girls, Spike. But none of them knew me like Sunburst. I wanted to see him again and talk about old times, new times, everything in between.
I wiped the drool off my cheek, soaking my hoof in the process. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I guess I’ve just been kind of stressed out lately.” I slumped in my seat, eyes downcast, the way I did every time I felt a “Twi-lecture” coming on. “You must think I don’t really care about becoming a better pony.” Wait for it…
With a flutter of her wings, Twilight was at my side, wrapping me in one of her feathery appendages. “Not at all, Starlight!” Easy. All it took with Twilight was a little self-pity and the tension diffused itself. “After what you’ve been through, I know you’re trying your best to make things right. You’re my brightest student after all.”
“Not a very tough position to hol-“
She retracted her wing. “But sleep is for nighttime. Try going to bed earlier, okay?”
“Sure thing, Twilight.” Off the hook! Now she’ll give me a break for lunch or something.
“Oh, hey!” Twilight chimed. “Speaking of Sunburst, he’s coming here later today, isn’t he?”
“Yup!” I sat up in my seat. “He managed to get some time off from babysitting…um, Shining and Cadence’s daughter—”
“Flurry Heart.”
“Yeah, her! And he’s coming to Ponyville.” My heart fluttered in excitement.
“That’s great! You can finally spend some time getting to know each other.”
My smile faltered. “Get…to know each other? But I already know him.”
Twilight tilted her head ever so slightly to the left and pursed her lips. I had come to recognize that as her “confused” look. “Yes,” she started, “but you haven’t seen each other in years. A lot has changed in that time. I mean, you certainly aren’t the same pony you were when you saw him last, are you?”
Well, obviously not, so much had happened…oh. “No, I guess I’m not.” Oh, Goddesses, she was right! What was I even thinking? I didn't know anything about Sunburst! His interests, his ambitions, his fears…and he didn’t know about me.
Well, except that I was evil, once. Would he judge me for something like that? Everypony else usually did.
Twilight seemed to read my thoughts. “Hey, don’t think about that. You’ve come a long way since you enslaved your village and tried to destroy Equestria.”
“I wasn’t trying to destroy Equestria!”
“See? You’re not a bad pony, Starlight. Misguided, sure. Evil? Come on. We’ve all done things we regret. Sunburst wouldn’t hold it against you! Especially when he sees the amazing pony you’ve become.”
I wasn’t convinced. “I’ll bet you’ve never done anything like that.”
“I have regrets too, Starlight. Even Celestia and Luna regret fighting each other all those years ago. Everypony makes mistakes; nopony is perfect.”
I was pretty sure ghosting a friend was not on the same level as rewriting history and bringing about the apocalypse, but I just nodded and smiled. Besides, there was another reason for inviting Sunburst to Ponyville other than polite conversation.
A project I had been working on, keeping me up at night…only he could help me finish it.
Twilight nodded, satisfied. “Trust me, there’s nothing to worry about. You two will be the best of friends.” With that, she glided back over to the chalkboard. “So, now that you are awake, let’s get back to discussing Equestria’s first and second Discord conflicts!”
I groaned internally. Twilight Sparkle was the only pony in the world who would ever get excited to discuss the times her friends and Equestria were in imminent danger. She had spent nearly an entire week drilling me on the details of Nightmare Moon’s return. All in the name of something as silly as history. Really, why dwell on the past?
Twilight began writing on the chalkboard. “In the early days of Celestia’s reign, there was one who sought to bring about total chaos: Discord.”
I felt my eyelids getting heavier by the second.
***
“I mean, I thought I would learn about friendship, but so far all I’ve learned is how to point six of the most powerful relics in Equestria at big bad villains and shoot beams of love at them.”
“Yeah-huh,” Trixie droned. She was levitating ten balls around in a circle above her head, straining from the effort.
“Like, I get it! You’re the greatest group of friends in Equestria! Not everyone can be the Elements of Harmony.”
“Mm-hmm,” Trixie said, now pulling a length of scarves tied together out of her hoof.
“Why can’t we move on to the more important stuff, like how to compromise? Or what to do when your friend is annoying you, but you don’t want to tell them because you’ll hurt their feelings—"
“Starlight!” Trixie screamed, dropping the balls. They bounced off the stage and into the grass outside her wagon. A few ponies walking through the park looked our way in concern, then quickly trotted along. I winced and put my hoof on one of the balls to keep it from rolling away.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just needed to vent, is all.”
Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “Well, do you need to do it while I’m PRACTICING?”
“Heh…maybe not.”
“I can’t concentrate when you’re going on like that, Starlight.”
Trixie fired up her magic again, picking up the balls one by one and grumbling to herself. Her light pink magical field sputtered slightly at the exertion. Sometimes, I felt a little bad for my best friend. She loved magic more than anyone I had ever met (well, except for Twilight); she adored its power to amaze and bewilder, to entertain and capture the hearts of her audience. And yet she was never quite able to achieve more than telekinesis and simple illusions. It didn’t help that I had much higher magical potential, either.
I picked up all ten balls at once and set them carefully on the stage, stacked in a pyramid. “Gee, thanks,” mumbled Trixie. She hopped down from the stage and sat down next to me in the soft grass. “So, you want to tell me about your problems?”
I sighed. “I dunno. I just...I think sometimes when I hear all about her friends and how great and perfect they are for each other, it reminds me how bad I am at making friends.”
“We seem to get along pretty well,” Trixie chided with a smirk. “That Twilight thinks she’s an expert when it comes to friendship. Sure, she’s had some practice in the past few years, but she used to be just like us: a loner. It’s a wonder she didn’t turn into a nutjob, honestly.”
“What, like us too?”
“Well, maybe you,” Trixie snidely remarked.
I shoved her hat down over her eyes.
“Ow, Ow, OW! Okay, I’m sorry!”
I let go. She threw the hat off.
“Ok, I’ll admit,” Trixie said, brushing her mane back, “I was a little crazy too.”
We laughed, sitting there in the park filled with the warmth of the sun, the song of chirping birds, and scores of ponies enjoying the day. At that moment, I felt something I hadn’t felt since I was a filly, playing board games with Sunburst. It was a warm, fuzzy feeling that made me smile bigger, laugh brighter. I was glad to have friends again.
“I wish…no, never mind.”
“Oh come one, now you have to say it,” Trixie teased.
“It’s silly,” I sighed. She nudged me. “Fine. I wish I could see the trajectory of my life.”
“Uhh, what does that mean?”
I mulled my thoughts over in my head. Finding the words, I spoke: “My life. I don’t know what to do with it. I had thought I knew my destiny, thought I could just reach out and grasp it. But now my world is so different. I’m being taught like I’m back in school. I’m not at all where I thought I would be in life…I made some pretty bad mistakes, and I’m…worried.”
“About what?” Trixie asked.
“That I might do it again! I feel like I’ve changed, but what if I haven’t?”
Trixie put her hoof on my shoulder in a surprisingly gentle gesture, coming from her. “It’s okay, Starlight. I know how you feel. Twilight has that effect on people. You’ll always have your good pal Trixie to show you the way.”
“Thanks, Trixie,” I said, wiping my cheek. “Everything would just be so much easier if you could see your whole life spread out for you, y’know? All the choices you’ll make and paths you’ll walk. Then things wouldn’t be so…vague all the time.”
“But where’s the fun in that?” Trixie asked, brushing her mane out of her eyes as she swept her hat back onto her head. “I enjoy the mystery of life.” She threw a ball of smoke on the ground, reappearing on the stage when it cleared. “It’s what gets me out of bed every morning: the thrill of not knowing what’s in store.” She waved a wand in the air, and from the end, a bouquet of flowers shot out. I clapped my hooves together.
“Anyway,” Trixie cooed, winding down, “when’s your friend coming from the Crystal Empire?”
“Sunburst? I think the train isn’t supposed to arrive for another few hours.” Thankfully, I added silently. All week, I had been looking forward to seeing Sunburst again, but now, I wasn’t so sure. All kinds of questions and doubts ran through my mind. What if we don’t have anything in common? What if I’m boring, or he doesn’t like Ponyville? What if he finds out what I did?
Will he hate me?
“As much as I want to meet this guy, I’ve got a show to get to in Appleloosa. Gotta leave soon if I want to make it in time.”
Probably better that way. Trixie could be…a lot. “I really want you to meet him, but I understand. Maybe some other time?”
“Of course. Just say when.”
“Oh!” I said, hitting on a new topic. “You said you had a new spell you wanted to show off, didn’t you?”
“Oh, how could I forget? Yes, it’s true, the Great and Powerful Trixie has added yet another spell to her already impressive repertoire!” She posed with her hoof held up like she was holding something. “You are about to witness its debut.”
“Go, Trixie!” I cheered, pounding the ground.
“You’ve seen card tricks, cup tricks, and rope tricks: illusions all. You’ve seen unicorns teleport, levitate and transmute objects, clothing, and even themselves.” She waved those all away with a hoof, pulling her cape in front of her face so just her eyes peeked out. “Pshaw. Child’s play. The Great and Powerful Trixie will now demonstrate the magic of…invisibility!”
She threw away the cape just as…she continued standing there on stage with a massive gloating smirk on her face.
“…um, Trixie?”
“Ha! You can’t see me, but I assure you, I’m still standing right here onstage!”
“I can see that.”
“You can—” Trixie looked down at herself. “What? But why isn’t it working?” She drew the cape in front of her face again, then threw it away. “Invisibility!” Then again, with a slightly more desperate, “Invisibility!”
“Mayyybe you should focus more on doing the spell rather than shouting it.”
“I did it earlier! Why can’t I do it? Invisibility!”
“Is it…performance anxiety?”
“Ugh, do you really think the Great and Powerful Trixie gets anxious to perform?” Now she was screwing up her face in concentration, pink light shooting out the tip of her horn. “Turn. In. VISIBLE.” Her horn popped and fizzled, the pink light going out as she slumped, gasping.
“It’s okay, Trixie. Invisibility is one of the hardest spells a unicorn can master. It’s a little more advanced than your party tricks.”
“Party tricks!?”
“Ok, look at the time! I really need to meet Sunburst at the station. Gotta go bye!”
I activated my magic and disappeared from reality, turning my body completely transparent.
“Starlight, you get back here right now and say that to my face! Starlight!”
***
The streets of Ponyville: I knew I would never get used to them. Bright multi-colored and at times gawdy ponies walked the streets in pairs and groups, smiling and laughing. Everypony just seemed to pop out of their surroundings. In Ponyville, the sun was always shining, the grass growing, the bees buzzing, the weather relaxing. It stressed me out.
A place this perfect shouldn’t exist. It just didn’t make any sense. How could ponies be so happy here all the time? Weren’t there ever fights? Dangers? Did the crops never die, the sky never shade? I had only been living here for three weeks, and yet there always seemed to be some constant level of happiness among the citizens of this little town. Why was that?
The answer to my question came speeding past me in a pink blur. “Hi, Starlight!” she screamed as she passed.
“Pinkie?” I said, looking in the direction the party pony had sped off in. Just as quickly as she had gone, she was coming back around. Right towards me.
I braced for impact. She skidded to a halt inches from my muzzle, the dirt screaming under her hooves.
“Hey! I heard your friend is coming to Ponyville. Does he like vanilla or chocolate?”
“For what?” I asked.
“Cake flavors, duh! I’m throwing him a welcome party.”
Uh-oh. A party might ruin my chances to get Sunburst to help with my…project. “Um, I don’t think that’s necessary, Pinkie.”
“Nonsense, Starlight! I already bought streamers for the décor, paint for the banner, fruit for the punch, confetti for my cannons—”
“Actually, Pinkie,” I interrupted before she could continue (and she would, believe me), “what I mean is that it’s probably better if you don’t. Sunburst is a quiet type. Kind of a shut-in. He hates being the center of attention. If you threw him a party, I think it would just make him nervous.”
Pinkie Pie stopped jumping up and down. “Oh, well that’s okay! I won’t invite the town then. We can just throw a small little get-together, just him and the rest of our friends. I’ll even invite Trixie; she can put on her show for us! I’m sure Twilight is over it by now--”
“No, really Pinkie, we just want some time to sit down and—”
“Did ah jus’ hear somepony turnin’ down a good ol’ fashioned Pinkie Party?”
There was only one pony I knew with a strong southern drawl like that. Turning around, I beheld Applejack leaning against a nearby fencepost in her signature pose of smug confidence: hooves crossed, head down, hat covering her face. She looked up slowly, peeking out from under her hat; one eyebrow was raised intimidatingly, a heavy smirk weighing on her muzzle.
“Come on, now, Starlight,” Applejack drawled. “It’s not every day a new pony comes to Ponyville. Pinkie’s welcome parties are always the best! Why not introduce us to yer friend over some punch and cookies?”
“Oh, I don’t know Applejack.”
“Come on, Sugarcube! It’ll be fun.”
“I know, but he’s only here for a few days, and—”
“Did the phrase ‘Pinkie Party’ just emanate from this general vicinity?” An elegant and composed accent interluded from behind Applejack.
Rarity trotted up, levitating a couple of rolls of fabric beside her, her coiffed mane bouncing happily. “I could really use a night to let my hair down, so to speak!”
Okay, this was getting out of hand. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Rarity,” I warned. “I was just telling Applejack that Sunburst and I want a stress-free evening to catch up on things.”
“But darling, parties are meant to relieve stress, not induce it. Are you feeling quite alright, Starlight? You don’t strike me as the kind of mare to turn down a good hoot…erm, hooootenaaaannyyyyy!” That last word she spoke slowly, with a concerned and questioning tone, as if testing it out. Applejack nodded in approval.
“Leave the poor filly alone, girls, she doesn’t wanna party!” came a raspy voice from above. I had barely looked up when I saw the cyan blur of Rainbow Dash flash out of the sky and end up next to Rarity. She flipped her hair back casually. “She may not, but I certainly do! Pinkie, let’s do it over at Twilight’s place. As much as I love Sugarcube Corner, it’s a little cramped for a flier like me. And you know how I start doing laps every time you bring out your Spike Punch—”
“Ssshh! Rainbow, there are children around,” said Pinkie in a hushed tone. “Don’t let Fluttershy hear you talking about that either; she freaked out when she drank the wrong punch last time.”
“I freaked out when what happened?” came the sweet and quiet voice of the yellow pegasus behind Pinkie Pie.
“You wouldn’t remember,” Pinkie countered.
“Where did you all even come from?” I cried.
“Pinkie told me about a party,” said Fluttershy. “So I had my birds send messages to all the girls to pick up some supplies.”
“So how did you know about Sunburst, Pinkie?” I asked, confused. “Was it your Pinkie Sense?” I had pretty much the same reaction to Pinkie’s prophetic abilities as Twilight when she first found out. After weeks of studying her, I came to one conclusion: never try to define Pinkie’s abilities.
“Duh, Twilight told me!” shouted Pinkie in her signature ear-splitting pitch. Oh. That makes sense. “She said you could use some cheering up.”
“What? Me? Cheering up? I’m so cheery though! You could call me…Cheer…ilee?”
“Riiight,” said Applejack. “Listen, Starlight, let me give you some advice about makin’ friends: jus’ be yourself. I know it sounds like a…platypus—”
“Platitude,” I offered.
“—comin’ from me, but it’s the honest-to-gosh truth. Truth is a better foundation for a healthy relationship than lies. It’s like buildin’ a barn—”
“Darling, I think she gets it,” said Rarity politely. “That’s excellent advice, Applejack, however crude.” Rarity turned to me and smiled sweetly. “Be…unwavering, darling!”
“That’s a beautiful way to put it, Rarity,” breathed Fluttershy. They all nodded in agreement.
“Thanks, guys,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind. And we don’t need a party.”
“Too bad! You’re getting one anyway!” Pinkie shouted back before racing off between the market stalls.
“Just face it, Glim-Glam!” laughed Rainbow Dash. I hated when she called me that. “When Pinkie Pie sets her mind to throwing a party, she’s like a natural disaster: it’s gonna happen one way or another. Ya just gotta prepare for it.”
***
I think a bit of context is in order, and it may as well go here.
Starswirl the Bearded was known as Equestria’s greatest sorcerer. His studies in the field of magical phenomena pioneered entire systems for magical research, education, and engineering. He dug into the heart of our universe, excavating its secrets, panning for knowledge in a muddy stream. He developed new lines of magical theory, crafted unique and complex spells from arcane essence, and invented technology that fast-tracked the development of ponykind by thousands of years.
He was a scholar, a friend to the princesses, and a truly virtuous pony. He was also incredibly irresponsible.
Some spells he abandoned haphazardly, never to be finished or even understood by ponies half his intelligence (believe me, I’ve tried). Projects dropped, theories half-baked, like the Creator of All setting down his quill, leaving behind his tools of creation.
Twilight Sparkle nearly suffered at the hands of his reckless abandon. The half-baked spell of an over-burdened sorcerer had made playthings of her friends’ destinies. The future of Equestria, held hostage by a flimsy, under-developed poem. What might have happened had Twilight been unable to reverse the damage? What might have become of Equestria without its Elements of Harmony?
I’ll admit…even I have been led astray by Starswirl’s work; his spells are too good to be true, it seems. I thought that if I could actually change the past, I could have the life I always wanted. The life that was taken from me by the power of cutie marks; by destiny itself. You already know what I’m going to say: Time doesn’t work like that.
Starswirl was intelligent. He was reckless, certainly, but he knew what he was talking about.
Before he disappeared, I believe he discovered something. The beginnings – nay, the very inklings of an idea regarding travel through Time.
His final notes read as follows:
5/12
Fact: A pony who travels through time can change its events.
Based on this logic, we know the past is refutable, that it can be changed. Destiny is not chiseled in stone.
Hypothesis: Changes in the past, no matter how minor, will lead to different outcomes in the future, resulting in a present unlike our current one.
Only a fool would attempt to change the past. Irrevocable damage could be caused, paradoxes abound, chaos unleashed…no, it’s much too dangerous. Therefore, this theory will forever remain a theory.
Thought: If the above theory were indeed correct, then what would happen to the previous future? If the pony who went back and changed the past could remember the events of their own present, then that present did indeed exist. But if the present changed, then what happened to the previous present? Did it disappear, never to have existed at all? This is a perplexing paradox. I must mull this over.
5/13
Hypothesis: There exists an infinite number of possible timelines, the creation of which are the result of every single choice, probability, and chance event. Entire universes, unique in one or infinite ways. Therefore, changes made in the past do not eradicate the previous timeline; rather, they facilitate the creation of a new one.
Question: By what means would a pony be capable of traveling to a new timeline at will?
The notes end there; likely he planned to come back to his line of questioning later. But he hit on something marvelous. His theory was sound: changing the past did change the present. Seeing as Twilight was aware that it had changed every time, that means that his paradox about the non-existent “previous timeline” was also true. And there’s only one way that paradox can be solved.
His second theory – the “Theory of Multiple Universes”, as I plan on calling it – must also be true.
***
As the oversized pastry-shaped train emerged from a swirling cloud of steam into the station, Time…seemed to slow.
I was excited to see Sunburst again…wasn’t I? Why did I feel so anxious then?
We had spent a brief amount of time together back in the Crystal Empire: sipping on tea and politely pondering each other’s lives, sizing them up, comparing them. But we hadn’t really connected on any level deeper than sub-surface. We were pen pals at best, and at worst…complete strangers.
Now I was inviting him to my new home with friends I’d barely known for a couple of weeks and whose relationships I had tried to destroy. Nothing awkward about that, right?
Shaking my head, I tried to clear my thoughts; I had to get Sunburst in Twilight’s library. If he just saw my notes, he might believe me…might help me achieve my dream.
The train came to a stop, reminding me that Time doesn’t slow for anyone’s feelings. With my heart hammering in my chest, I waited on the platform for the passengers to disembark. The smell of charcoal and oil came wafting downwind from the engine, which did little to relieve my nerves.
The doors opened. Out stepped…a mint green pony with white stripes in her mane. I’d seen her around many times, but I still didn’t know her name. Some of the ponies in Ponyville tended to sort of fade into the background. She hugged a beige pony with purple and pink mane waiting on the platform and they walked off together.
More ponies exited the train. With each one, my anticipation grew. Was that him there? No. There? Nope.
“Hiya, Starlight!”
“Gah!” I nearly jumped right out of my skin. Sunburst smiled at me, a couple of feet away to my left. “Where did you come from?” I screamed.
“The Crystal Empire, silly,” he replied with a goofy laugh as he pushed his glasses further up his muzzle.
“I know that” I growled. “Just…never mind. It’s great to see you again.”
“Yeah, same here.” He raised his hoof for a hoofshake, but I completely misread the intention and went in for a hug. “O-oh,” he said as he hooked his hoof around me.
Pat. Pat.
We pulled away quickly before it could get any weirder, and I got a better look at him. He was wearing the same ridiculous cloak as the first time I met him (I had thought they were some kind of pajamas, but I guess not). Poking out the bottom of his cloak were his cream-colored hooves, contrasting the sunset shade of the rest of his coat. His bedraggled hair and beard were the same unwieldy nests as before. I’d better keep him away from Rarity, she’d have a field day with him.
“Sooo,” I crooned, walking down the platform. “Welcome to Ponyville!”
“Heh, thanks!” he said, following behind with his suitcase in tow. “I’m so glad to finally be visiting this place.” As we rounded the corner of the train station and the streets of the town came into view, he plopped down on his haunches and waved his arms, gesturing to take it all in. “This place has such rich history! Nestled in every corner of every alley, every wooden beam, haybale, molded plaster, and cobbled stone there lies the beating heart of Equestria! Evidence of times past and present, and I can’t wait to see it all!”
How in Tartarus was I supposed to respond to that? “Um, yeah! I know what you mean. Twilight has this chandelier in her throne room made from the dead roots of her first home here in Ponyville. It’s kinda creepy, but you get used to it.”
Sunburst stood up and levitated his suitcase onto his back. “Where to first?”
I fumbled to a halt, suddenly realizing something very important: I had nothing planned! “Er, I guess I just kinda figured we could do whatever you wanted to do. There’s a bowling alley, a movie theater…Sugarcube Corner has the best cupcakes in town!”
Sunburst blurted, “What about the pawnshop, Pawnyville? I did some research before I came, and they seem to have a lot of cool antiques!”
“Uh, sure! Why not?” I guessed window shopping wasn’t completely boring; better than listening o Twilight lecture me about history, that’s for sure…
***
“Sunburst, this is all very interesting, but I’m getting kind of hungry. Why don’t we pop on over to Pony Express—”
“Just one more, okay? I promise.” Sunburst levitated a vase painted with pony-like figures depicted in a state of worship in front of my face. The sixth one in the last hour. “This one, here. Look closely at the shape of the figure in the center. What do you notice about her?”
I sighed and did as I was told. The picture showed the single-colored silhouette of a large pony in the center, surrounded by smaller ponies kneeling in the large one’s presence, heads lowered, but their eyes were cast upwards to the figure. I ventured a guess,”…wings…a pegasus?”
“Mmhmm. And not just that. There’s something else, similar to another vase that I showed you.” Sunburst was nearly bursting at the seams.
I sighed and looked closely at the figure’s face. The figure was painted in only one color, so the silhouette wasn’t easy to make out…except—
“She’s blindfolded?” I realized. “Is that…Sombra?”
“Close, but very good!” Sunburst said, nodding enthusiastically. I rolled my eyes. “Somnambula, the fierce and hopeful protector of her people. I told you about her earlier: about her bravery in facing the evil Sphinx, and her daring leap of faith to save the pharaoh's son—”
“Yeah, you did already tell me that,” I groaned.
“Somnambula existed during a dark time in Equestria’s history," he continued, unfazed. "Notice on this vase how she stands over the people, simultaneously a guardian, a protector, and also a symbol of worship. Some called her the “Lightbringer”, the bringer of hope.”
I looked around us at the narrow space we inhabited. Wedged in between shelves of dusty vases, artifacts, and other such trinkets, the stuffy air and smell of dust combined to give me a dueling sense of vertigo and nausea. Sunburst’s lectures – all of the names, dates, locations of ponies I didn’t know or care about – were making me dizzy.
“Are you going to buy anything?” I asked in as polite a tone as I could muster.
“Hmm, maybe not this time. I’ll have to bring more suitable containers for transporting these back to the Crystal Empire as safely as possible.”
“Great!” I said, marching to the front door. “Let’s get a move on, then. I decide where we go next!”
“Ok!” Sunburst said, trotting closely behind me as we exited into the refreshing breath of the wind and rejuvenating sunshine. “Is it another historically important landmark?”
“Hmm, sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
***
“How is…storically…ortant?” Sunburst asked.
“What?” I shouted over the thumping music. I was thrashing my arms around, dancing in time with the rhythm.
“I said!” Sunburst yelled, “How! Is this place! Historically important?”
Even though everyone around us, myself included, was dancing and thriving to DJ-Pon3’s hypnotic tracks – a genre of music she called “Wubstep” – Sunburst stood stiff as a board on the color-changing squares of the dance floor. I paused my movements to get close enough for him to hear me over the din.
“It’s historically important to my relaxation! Trust me, you don’t want to see me when I’m stressed out.” I laughed and punched his arm.
“Ow! Ok, but what am I supposed to be doing?”
“Unwind! For one, you can take your cape off.”
“It’s a cloak. And I think I’ll leave it on, actually.”
“Ok, fine. Just watch me and do as I do.” I swayed my hips back and forth, bobbing my head up and down with the music. As the melody swelled, I got more into it, lightly stepping my hooves around in complicated motions: criss-cross, grapevine, running pony. I opened my eyes to watch Sunburst.
His movements were robotic. He was watching me closely and copying verbatim, completely out of time with the music. He took an experimental step backward and caught his hoof on his cape.
“Wo-aahhh!” He went crashing to the ground. I giggled.
Shooting a momentary glare at me, he picked himself up and stormed off the dance floor, red in the face. “Crap,” I said under my breath. Way to go, Starlight, you’re really showing him a good time. “Hey, Sunburst, wait,” I called after him, following him off the floor.
“I’m sorry, Starlight,” Sunburst said once I’d caught up to him. It was easier to hear him now that we were off the dance floor; I wondered if he even had an “outside voice”. “I guess this just isn’t really my kind of scene.”
“Okay, that’s fine,” I said. “We can do something a little more your speed.” Then I added, “Sorry, I’m new to this whole friendship thing.”
“Well, I don’t want to bore you, or anything,” Sunburst mumbled.
“No, not at all! Besides, DJ-Pon3’s music all kinda sounds the same. Gets a little boring after a while.”
Sunburst offered a small smile before pushing his glasses further up his muzzle. My heart fluttered in my chest. No, stop it, I thought to myself. You barely know the guy!
“Ok, I have an idea,” he said as he stood up straighter. “You mentioned Twilight’s castle, right? Are we…allowed inside?”
“Pssh!” I scoffed, my heart beating. Yes! My plan was working. “Allowed inside? I live there.”
***
“Wow!” Sunburst exclaimed as we stepped into the library. Stuffed shelves set into the walls rose up toward the high-set ceiling, looming over us. Windows at the top helped to brighten the interior, making it feel open and airy. His voice was carried up, echoing into the vast empty space of the chamber. “I knew Twilight must have a big library, but this is incredible!”
My voice added to the rising cacophony, “When Lord Tirek attacked, he destroyed her last one. I don’t think she minds all that much, this one’s waaaay bigger,” I offered, glad that Twilight wasn’t around to hear. “You won’t find a more complete collection of magical journals and spell catalogs in all of Equestria.”
Sunburst levitated tomes off the shelves, revolving them around his head in a very similar fashion to Twilight. It struck me how similar the two were when he began speaking without breaking his attention from the books, “Where did she get them all from? Heh, the bookstore?”
“Actually,” I laughed. “When the Tree of Harmony created this castle for Twilight, it was kind enough to fill her library for her. These books were all a gift from the Tree.”
“Incredible,” Sunburst answered, levitating even more books close enough to read their titles. “I already exhausted the Crystal Empire’s stores of knowledge years ago during my studies. I’ve been sending letters to Princess Celestia to grant me access to the Royal Archives in Canterlot.” He looked away, and I noticed a slight slump in his shoulders. “I guess a dropout like me doesn’t have much weight to throw around.” His magic blinked precariously.
“What about Princess Cadence?” I asked, stepping closer. “Can’t she put in a good word for you?” I placed my hoof on his shoulder. “And you saved the Crystal Empire! Even Celestia and Luna couldn’t have done that. I think you’ve proven yourself to them.”
“Yeah…” he said, facing me with a hopeful tilt in his smile. “Thanks, Starlight.” I could tell he wasn’t convinced.
I nodded as he put the tomes back in their places (I checked to make sure they were put back correctly, or else Twilight would have another lecture in store for me). That’s when it happened. Turning, his eye caught my work desk on one side of the room, a work lamp illuminating the piles of notes littering its surface. Placed squarely in the middle of the desk was a dark red leather-bound journal with swirling inscriptions of runes on the cover. He trotted over, looking back at me. “What’s over here? I can barely read these scribbles.”
I approached his side, barely able to contain my excitement. Running through the script in my head, I said, “Just Starswirl’s notes. I’ve been studying them with Twilight’s help.”
Sunburst edged forward, a look of awe and reverence plain on his face. “Starswirl the Bearded?”
“Mmhmm. His mind was truly incredible.”
“I can’t imagine…” He bit his lip. “Can…can I read them?”
I waved a hoof over the notes and backed away. Sunburst carefully levitated the cover open on the leather journal and swept his eyes over the pages, taking in the scribbled sketches, the hastily scrawled notes, even the stains of spilled tea on the parchment.
“This is truly marvelous, Starlight. You should have brought me here sooner!”
Here we go: “Actually, now that I think of it, there is something else I’ve been meaning to show you.”
Sunburst whipped his head around, sparkles in his eyes. “What is it?”
“A project I’ve been working on, regarding one of Starswirl’s last theories: under-developed, barely researched. I think he disappeared soon after brainstorming it. Could you take a look at it, see what you think about it?”
Sunburst took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “If it has to do with Starswirl the Bearded, then count me in.”
Hook, line, and sinker. “Follow me.”
The throne room was yet another large, cavernous space in the castle with a tree’s roots hanging down, adorned with sparkling gems. Despite how creepy it seemed, the inclusion of the rustic, wooden tree roots actually did a lot to help with the cold emptiness of the room.
Below the tree sat six thrones fashioned out of the same crystal that made up the structure of Twilights castle, surrounding a large circular table. I placed my hoof on its strangely warm surface. It hummed in response to my touch, spreading a light across its surface which revealed a map of the entire land of Equestria. I was struck with the impression that this room suddenly looked like a war room.
I was used to the light show by now, but Sunburst oohed and aahed at the spectacle.
“So, this is the map that sends the Elements of Harmony on their quests?” he asked in earnest, waving his hands through the holographic mountains.
“Yeah, I still don’t really know how it works. This castle, it sort of…responds to them. It was made for Twilight, but I get the feeling it belongs to all of them. It sent them to my village; that’s how we first met.”
“Your village?” Sunburst asked. “Where is that?”
Oh no, I said too much! “Don’t worry about it, it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere.”
“Hmm,” he said, idly twirling his beard in his hoof. Thankfully, he moved on to another topic. “It’s a brilliant artifact of magical proportions. It probably contains a complex array of magical spells. It would need to be able to constantly survey all of Equestria, sense the emotions and turmoils of ponies and other creatures, decide on its own – is it intelligent? Never mind – decide whether the Elements can help, then choose the ones best suited for the job. This was created from the Tree of Harmony, correct? I can’t even imagine how this all came to be. And don’t even get me started on how it makes their cutie marks glow! Cutie mark magic is woefully misunderstood, and the magic to manipulate them is far from the reach of unicorns like ourselves.”
“You have no idea,” I mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Uhh…nothing! Did I say something? I didn’t say anything.” Was it getting warm in here?
Sunburst continued, “The Elements of Harmony are truly some wonderful ponies, aren’t they? You have some really great friends there, Starlight.”
I smiled back. “Yeah, they really are, aren’t they?” Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash…Twilight Sparkle…they’d all shown me a better way to live my life. I couldn’t think of any other ponies in my entire life who had inspired me to change like that. Maybe I didn’t thank them enough. I’d have to remember to give Twilight a big hug to show her grateful I was.
Sunburst tore his gaze from the table. “So, what did you need help with?”
“Right!” I sat on my haunches, clearing my head of all those warm, fuzzy feelings. I gestured for him to sit too. “Before Starswirl disappeared, he made one final contribution to the study of arcane sciences. It has to do with the theory of time travel.”
“What? Time travel?” Sunburst breathed, listening closer. “You mean the process of traveling back and forth through time?”
“Exactly. Starswirl was pioneering a technique for traveling through time.”
“Why have I never heard of this before?” Sunburst asked, shaking his head. “I practically know everything about Starswirl.”
“It was never published,” I answered. “Barely even developed. I only know about it because of his notes. I don’t think Twilight’s read them yet; she tends to linger on the past, starts with the beginning and works her way up. I prefer the endings.”
“Okay, so what were his notes about? Did he…succeed?”
“Oh yeah, I should probably start with that,” I said, pulling out a scroll of parchment paper. “Starswirl created a spell, written on a piece of parchment, which allowed the spell’s caster to travel backward in time. And it worked.”
Sunburst stared at the scroll, working his mouth, but no sound came out. The best he manage was: “Whaaa—”
“This isn’t the original, of course. That one was lost, got sucked back up into the portal.”
“Portal?”
“Nevermind. Before I lost—Er, before it was lost, though, I spent months studying its inscriptions.” I opened the scroll and held it up for Sunburst to read it. “Starswirl really was a genius. This spell alone contains almost one hundred individual spells, intertwined like a brilliant tapestry – well, not even as organized as any weave or stitch, it’s more like a magical spaghetti, each strand of text depending upon and supporting the others. I managed to create this copy entirely from memory. But there’s a problem.”
I waited for Sunburst to stop drooling over the scroll. Catching up to the conversation, he asked “Well, if it’s an exact copy, what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that it isn’t exact. As I said, it was made from memory. I can’t tell if I made a mistake somewhere, inscribed the wrong rune, painted in the wrong location. There’s too much going on in this spell, and I barely understand any of the theory behind it. But I know someone with enough knowledge of spells and magical theory to rival even Starswirl.” I smiled at Sunburst, nodding.
“Twilight?” he said.
“No, goofball! You”
Sunburst shook his head and took a hesitant step back. “What?”
“You know all about magical spells, don’t you? I mean, you went to school for it and everything. You’re a wizard!”
“A failed one! I dropped out, remember? I’m no magic scholar, Starlight. I…I couldn’t possibly help you with something as huge as this. I’m useless…”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “What about the Crystalling? You saved the Crystal Empire with your magical knowledge alone! Knowledge that no one else had even considered or counted upon! How could you think you’re useless?”
“Can’t you just ask Twilight?”
“Come on. At least look at the thing for more than a minute.”
Sunburst looked as though he was about to say something, then took the scroll in his hooves, holding it gingerly. He skimmed the document up and down. I felt my carefully laid plan to get his help crumbling in my hooves. He was supposed to be flattered! Motivated to work on it with me! Instead, he was shutting down, refusing to try. As I stood there, silent and hopeful, I studied my options to see if I could reel him back in. Maybe we could take a break, come back to it later? Talk about it over tea and cupcakes at Sugarcube Corner? I could try flattery again, that seemed to boost his ego. But his ego was so fragile! What could I do?
His eyes narrowed on one line. At some point, he had begun stroking his scraggly beard.
“Sweet Celestia,” he mumbled to himself. “It’s like a tangled ball of yarn. Where do I even start?” He pointed halfway down the sheet. “This line here, it’s reminiscent of Scry Tail’s Opulent Opalescence, but it’s missing a subject.” He glanced further down the page. “Wait, but then Mage Meadowbrook’s Oracle Orb spell needs a pointer…maybe if I…yeah, that could work.” Without looking up from the spell, he said, “Starlight, could you find me a quill?”
“Gladly,” I beamed.
***
“…And placing this one here…that would give Pronto Portal the necessary parameters—”
“Well yeah,” I said, shaking my head. After hours of scrutinizing the scroll, making edits and adjustments, searching through magical journals…the fatigue was setting in. “But now it needs a time and location. How would you—”
“Wait, I remember seeing something for that!” Sunburst shouted excitedly, ruffling through the sheets of paper and books that now littered the Cutie Map’s surface. “Aha! Right here, in Advanced Spells and Incantations! You can modify Heartfelt’s Telltale Time to provide an output in the exact format that would work with Pronto Portal! Oh Celestia, it’s genius! If we just write that in…” He scribbled the quill across the parchment, adding in lines where I knew the spaces looked too big but hadn’t remembered what to fill them with. “Then we writer here…Done!”
I sat back in Twilight’s chair as he held up the parchment, the light of the gems from Twilight’s tree chandelier falling across it in shifting shades. “Oh my Goddesses, Starlight,” he said breathlessly. “I think we did it.”
“Well, I only helped,” I shrugged. “I knew you could do it!” I snagged the parchment from his hooves and began clearing the table of books with my levitation.
Sunburst pranced in place. “Ooh, I can’t believe it! We just finished reconstructing one of Starswirl’s most important works! His magnum opus! I can’t wait to show it to Twilight.”
“We can’t show this to anypony,” I said, still clearing the table.
The look on his face was as complex a mixture as the spell we just finished: shock, confusion, disappointment, and betrayal all ran across his features. “What?? What are you talking about, Starlight? Some scholars go their whole lives without ever taking part in something as incredible as this! How could we just…NOT tell anypony?”
“Just…trust me on this, okay?” I had done this before; I knew I could do it again. I lit up my horn and lifted the parchment above the Cuite Map, now clear of journals and papers. The parchment began glowing.
Sunburst approached the table. “What are you doing, Starlight?”
“Look, Sunburst: I…I did some bad things. Terrible things. And I feel…SO much shame for them.” My cheeks felt wet, my vision blurry from the sudden tears.
“I don’t understand, Starlight. You told me already, didn't you?”
“It doesn’t really matter, okay? I don’t want to get into it now, but know this: I want to be a better pony. And I know just how I’m going to do that.” The table lit up in response just as a portal grew overhead. A dark, endless tunnel appeared through the portal, swirling with raw magical energy. Lights flashed as I was lifted into the air.
Hovering there, I held out a hoof to Sunburst. “Come with me. I’ll explain later, just please trust me.”
Sunburst appeared, understandably, gobsmacked. “Come with…where? Why are you doing all of this?”
Just then, the doors to the throne room burst open. Pinkie wheeled a cart full of streamers and party favors behind her while Rarity followed, decked out in a magnificent dress far outclassing the occasion. Next came Rainbow Dash, carefully pushing a cart with a tall, multi-layered cake swaying side-to-side while Fluttershy hovered beside it, keeping it from falling.
“Careful with the cake, Dashie!” Pinkie cried over her shoulder.
“I got it, Pinkie!”
“’Cos when Big Mac gets a couple o' barrels o’ cider in ‘im,” Applejack was telling Twilight, “ya’ll know yer in for one heck of a party—”
They all froze in their tracks when they saw me mid-spell.
"What the—" Rainbow Dash started.
“What is this?” Twilight asked, barely a whisper.
“Wait!” I shouted. “I can explain!”
“I…I trusted you Starlight Glimmer!” Twilight screamed. “I thought you wanted to be a better pony!” She balked when she saw the pony I was with. “Sunburst, you too?”
“Sunburst!” I screamed. “Come with me! Now!”
Sunburst took one look at Twilight and the others and jumped onto the table with me. He began floating alongside me, his mane flicking in the nonexistent breeze as Twilight thrust her wings out, taking to the air.
“Starlight!” Twilight shouted, racing across the room. “Stop!”
She wasn’t fast enough.
The portal sucked me and Sunburst up, closing behind us.
We raced down the tunnel at an incalculable speed. Sunburst had his eyes clenched shut, but I had already seen this before. Well, a different version of it. Lights swirled around us, pulsating, like stars. They formed into being as we passed, dense balls of undulating mass that burned hot and bright, and winked out in an explosion of color and passion.
I watched as images raced by, but instead of seeing events that had already happened, they depicted things that had not yet passed. The spell was working! Exactly how I had modified it.
We weren’t racing backward. We were travelling forward.
It felt…different than before. The images, which had before appeared solid and specific, were now becoming jumbled and blurred. They seemed to glitch: where one pony stood a moment before, the image changed, and a different pony now occupied the same space. The further we traveled, the more confusing the images became until they stopped entirely, instead showing a mess of white noise. I felt my pulse quicken as, for the first time, I contemplated the possible consequences of my actions.
Traveling to the past was a sure thing: the past existed, after all. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered: how could one travel forward to something that doesn’t yet exist?
As we raced unceasing down the tunnel of bending light towards an uncertain and possibly nonexistent point in space and time, the gravity of our situation slammed into me like a brick wall. What had I done?
Time waits for nopony; farther and farther we traveled into unknown territory, unable to stop until the spell allowed it. The images were no longer just blurry, they were entirely black, like an empty film reel. They wrapped around the tunnel, blotting out the lights and colors. We were traveling through a black void.
From the void ahead, bars of colorful light like rainbows spread from above and below so it looked like we were squeezing between them. Just as I had that thought, I felt a pressure pushing from all sides like a vacuum sucking at my skin, like we were being pushed through a tube that was growing smaller and smaller. The pressure in my ears grew until I could barely hear the rushing noise around me; only a high ringing noise filled my world now. I wasn’t even sure if I was screaming or not. Sweet Celestia, we were going to be crushed!
I reached out in the void and took hold of Sunburst’s hoof. He squeezed back.
As quickly as it had started, it stopped. Wit ha pop, we stopped moving, the pressure was gone, and we were left floating in the black space. I could see Sunburst clearly outlined next to me, although no light source seemed to exist with us. Tears were streaming down his face, and his breathing was rapid. I couldn’t blame him; I was also close to panicking.
“What…” he started. “What is HAPPENING, Starlight?” He took in gulping breaths.
“D-don’t worry Sunburst, it’ll be fine,” I said, trying to keep myself from trembling. “Please, just…just calm down.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t…” he repeated over and over between shallow, shaky breaths.
“Snap out of it!” I screamed as I slapped his face. His eyes shot wide open and stared at me with fearful indignation. I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him closer until my face was only inches away from his. “I’m going to get us out of this, alright? But I can’t think when you’re going on like that. Just take some deep breaths, okay?”
Eyes still wide in fear, he nodded. A second later, he began sucking in air in long, shaking breaths, and carefully blowing it out. Doing the same to calm my erratic heartbeat, I looked around us. We were surrounded by the most total, all-consuming blackness I’d ever experienced. Nothing for miles but inky, still darkness. It was thick, tangible; I felt like I could reach out and touch it.
Kicking and waving my arms, I tried to move within the empty space. No luck. At least I knew we wouldn’t accidentally float apart from each other.
Wait, what was that? I squinted. Below our hooves, like the slow-crawling light of dawn, a surface began to materialize out of the surrounding darkness. So slow I could barely see it transitioning, but in a matter of minutes, it had become completely opaque. Solid. We were no longer floating in space—we were standing in the middle of a road. The pavement stretched out in two directions towards an unseen horizon.
No, I was wrong! There was a third road branching out from our position. How did I not see that before? No, a fourth! We were standing in the middle of a four-way intersection now. I turned around and around, a new road appearing each time I looked away and back. By now, countless paths had now sprouted from our intersection, overlapping one another and seeming to flicker in and out of existence at the edges of my vision. They all reached out towards that same black horizon in every direction, a complete 360-view of possibilities.
Before I could wrap my mind around our surroundings, a noise began that was unlike any I’d ever heard in my life. Sunburst covered his ears, and I mine. It didn’t help at all. The noise surrounded us, seemed to move through us. I felt it moving through my body, filling my thoughts until I could barely think anymore. It was an indescribable noise that sounded like nothing, yet…it was familiar. Yes, it was! I had heard this noise once before in my life…a memory surfaced in my mind which I had thought impossible to recall. The moment of my creation; my birth from this very same darkness, where this noise encompassed every facet of life, and the point when I was brought into the world, the point when the noise stopped—I had always known this sound, and yet I hadn’t.
It stopped as if it had never sounded in the first place. As soon as the noise had left us gasping in pain, grateful for the silence, I realized it had not been a noise, but a voice, and it had spoken these words:
You should not be here.
Shaken to my core, I looked to Sunburst; his eyes were wide, his face pale, his mouth a pencil-thin line. He looked on the edge of insanity, one step away from becoming a broken and screaming mass of flesh. I knew because I felt exactly the same. And if I started screaming, I knew I would never stop.
Reaching into the depths of my mind, I managed to string together what meager courage I had left to voice the thoughts currently pounding against my skull, “W-where…where are we?”
The noise started again, and it was all I could do to shut my mouth and eyes until it passed. I once again reached out for Sunburst’s hoof, and he thankfully grasped it, squeezing so tight I thought he would cut off my blood flow. When the noise stopped, I recalled what it had said.
You have tampered with forces far beyond your understanding. The very fabric of reality has been torn asunder by such mortal misgivings. For these crimes against the universe, Starlight Glimmer, you are to be—
The noise began again suddenly, only multiplied into a cacophony of horrible sound. Like a hellish chorus, it rose around us, reaching such a pitch that I felt I would go blind from the sheer pounding of it in my head. They stopped immediately, and their words swam to the surface in my mind: some kind of argument.
This is the one! I’m sure of it.
She has come, just like he said she would.
Watcher, you know what must be done.
Send her there, she is needed there…the Alpha timeline…
SILENCE!
Like a cannon going off, I felt the boom of the last voice like a shockwave through my body. I obeyed it rigidly, even though I hadn’t been speaking. Were they…talking about me??
Starlight Glimmer, it began again, it seems the Time to fulfill your destiny has come at last. Despite your blatant disregard for the laws of the universe, you are our only hope against its coming destruction.
Looking up, I finally made out the faintly glowing silhouette of a pony that looked to be as large as the moon. No, it wasn’t just a pony. It was an alicorn, adorned in a pillar of purple robes that flowed down, well beyond the ground we stood on. Its eyes glowed like giant white orbs.
I beseech thee, Starlight Glimmer, it said, splaying its hooves out to me. You must stop the spreading darkness threatening to consume the Multiverse, or else we are all of us doomed.
The infinite paths spreading out from our intersection began swirling up and down the paved road like a chainsaw, no longer a radial spreading outward from a single point but a conveyor belt of paths. One path stopped directly in front of us, and an invisible force tugged us down it. Picking up speed, we were once again racing down the road, which transformed into the tunnel of swirling lights and colors from before. The inky black returned to images racing past, images of green mushroom clouds, darkened and cloudy skies, and ponies screaming as the flesh is ripped from their charred skeletons. The wind rushing past served to carry my screams away from my ears as I clenched my eyes shut from the nightmarish images surrounding us.
Suddenly the wind in my hair ceased, as did its noise. The silence enveloped us, deafeningly quiet. I peeked out from behind my hooves, which were covering my face.
Sunburst and I were standing on the Cutie Map again, only Twilight’s castle was nowhere in sight. Instead, we were treated to a perfect view of Ponyville, stretched out before us.
It was in ruins.
The buildings that weren’t toppled over had gaping holes in the walls, missing roofs, and blown-out windows. Wagons lay in the streets, hastily emptied or pushed over. If there were any stars out tonight, I couldn’t see them; the sky was dull and dark, overcast by shifting clouds.
“Wh-what happened…?” Sunburst trembled, standing up and taking in the view. “What…what did you do, Starlight!?”
“I didn’t do this!” I screamed, struggling to stay calm. I knew the last thing we needed right now was to panic, but reason doesn’t really trump situations like this, does it? “How could I possibly have caused this? It was a time travel spell!”
“Did we change something in the past?” Sunburst cried out. “I-it posits that if something in the past were altered, logically it would result in a different future, right? What did we change?”
“Nothing,” I said weakly. “We didn’t go to the past. I sent us to the future.”
Sunburst stood gobsmacked for a moment. “The future…why, why why WHY did you want to go to the future?”
“I…I wanted to see the ending, okay? People say hindsight is twenty/twenty, right? I wanted to see my future and know what choices to make; is that so wrong?”
“Wrong?” Sunburst laughed. He was trembling. “Starlight, I could write an essay, a fucking THESIS about how wrong everything you just said is. I mean, first of all—”
“Wait,” I whispered.
“—The past is one thing; I mean, it’s already there, isn’t it? But the future, ohh boy now that’s a whole mess of probability—”
“Sunburst, wait—”
“—Maybe one could predict it all to a certain point if one calculated—”
“FUCKING WAIT ONE GODDESSES DAMNED MINUTE, SUNBURST!”
Sunburst clammed up, eyes wide at my outburst. “Did…did you just…cuss?”
I nodded. “You just did it a minute ago. That’s what I was trying to tell you. We can swear here.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Sunburst whispered, “Shit.” He covered his mouth in shock. “I’ve…never even considered the possibility of inappropriate language before. But somehow, it seems a whole catalog of vulgar words are appearing in my head.”
“I know, it’s like some sort of…censor has been removed,” I said, then eloquently followed it up with “Fuckity Fuck Fuck FUCK. How is that possible?”
“I’m not sure, but if it’s all the same to you, I think I’d prefer to avoid such language. It’s…coltish.”
“Says the stallion wearing a cape.”
“Hey, it’s a wizard’s cloak!” He said, blushing. I laughed, making him blush even brighter. He laughed too. All of the nervous, frightened tension leftover from our dissipating adrenaline loosened as we sat on the table, howling with laughter. No matter what happened from this point on, I knew only one thing: I was glad that I wasn’t alone.
Sunburst wiped a tear from his eye as we both settled down. “This doesn’t change anything, Starlight Glimmer,” he said sternly. “I’m still furious with you; what you did was reckless…selfish even! And now…” He waved his hooves around. “We’re stuck here. W-what if we can’t get back?”
Weakly, I argued, “Well we can just use the spell again, right?”
Sunburst opened his mouth to retort. Just then, a new voice came from the direction of town. “What the…”
Sunburst and I whipped our heads around, taking in the newcomer. Standing on the edge of town, about fifty yards away from us, was a small gray unicorn with brown hair and green eyes wearing...was that supposed to be armor? It was leather with spikes and bloodstains. Strapped on her right hoof, a device with dials and a large screen glowed softly, matching the shape of her cutie mark.
I hadn’t known it then, but this would be the first of many strange and confusing encounters that paved the pathway of the rest of my life: my first meeting with the mare who seemed to be right in the middle of it all, the center of this universe, at the beginning of her own journey.
She who would become the Hero of the Wasteland, the Lightbringer, the humble PipBuck technician of Stable Two, and occasional toaster repair-pony: LittlePip.
“Uhh,” she said. “Who the hell are you guys?”
Author's Note
Thanks to Kkat for writing Fallout: Equestria and inspiring hundreds of people like me to write their own tales within its world.
And thank you reader for joining me on this adventure. This is only the beginning...
Fallout Equestria: Crossroads
Chapter 2: Falling Out
"I'm really...mad at you. You lost Twilight's map table...it's like you don't even care you could get me into a lot of trouble!"
As Sunburst and I stood frozen on the cutie map, staring in unison at the wide-eyed gray unicorn mare not fifty feet from us, a single glaring question arrested my thoughts and bubbled to my lips:
“Are all ponies in the future that small?”
“THAT’s where your mind went?” Sunburst cried.
The unicorn mare shook her head and blinked at us. “I…must have soaked up too much radiation from that library,” she said in a squeaky voice as she began pacing back and forth. “Yeah, yeah that’s it. I’m not crazy or anything, no sirree. Just rad-poisoning.”
Radiation? I shouted, “Do you know what happened here?”
The mare stared blankly back. “Uhhh…”
“Ponyville,” I said, pointing my hoof. “What happened to it, where is everypony? Did Tirek attack again?”
The unicorn mare took a hesitant step back. “Are you with those raiders from the library?” Her horn ignited with an emerald shimmer that matched her eyes as she levitated a shoddy-looking piece of scrap metal out of her saddlebags and pointed it at us.
“Raiders?” I replied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—can you just come closer? I can barely hear you from over there!”
The mare approached hesitantly, still aiming her scrap metal at us. “You are, aren’t you? All you surface ponies are so…” Her eyes briefly swept over Sunburst. “…Weird.”
“What, this?” Sunburst scoffed, holding up his cloak. “It’s a wizard’s cloak,” he announced. Then, slightly more defensively, “All wizards wear them.”
“They look like pajamas,” said the unicorn mare.
“They do not!” He looked at me with pleading eyes.
I shrugged. “Eh.”
“Grr.” He pointed his anger back at the unicorn mare, “You’re one to talk, pipsqueak! You look like you swam through a butcher’s dumpster!”
“You think I want to look like this? It’s not even mine, I took it off some raider’s corpse. It’s for protection.”
My breath caught in my windpipe. All of Sunburst’s indignation dissipated, and he deflated like a balloon. “C-corpse? Did you…kill somepony?”
I tried to swallow, but my throat had dried up. I became vividly aware that we were really not meant to be here, in this unknown place, alone with a strange and possibly dangerous pony. I held the scroll tighter in my grip, ready to use it if things went south.
She balked and lowered her gaze. That calmed my nerves a little; her defensiveness had left, and for a brief moment, she looked how I felt: scared.
“It was me or him,” she said, staring unflinching at Sunburst. “Th-that’s the way it is out here.” She didn’t look very convinced, but her expression quickly became one of confusion as she contemplated the two of us. “You two,” she said, lowering her metal. “You’re new up here, aren’t you?”
Sunburst and I exchanged looks. I cautiously answered, “How could you tell?”
“You’re clean. You look like you’ve had a bath in the last twenty-four hours. Are you from a Stable, too?”
“I’m sorry, a what? Are you asking if we came from a barn?”
“No, I said ‘Stable’.” At our deeply confused looks, she added, “Have you…never heard of Stables before?”
I felt Sunburst tap my shoulder. “Starlight, this is really freaking me out. We shouldn’t even be here. Can we just go?”
“It’s okay, Sunburst, just calm down for a second.”
“Do not tell me to calm down, Starlight! Look around us. Ponyville is in ruins, the Goddesses know what year this is, and that mare is clearly crazy!”
“I know, Sunburst, I know.”
“Please, can we just go home? I don’t like this place.”
The unicorn mare had tiptoed closer and was now standing at the table. “Look, I’m really sorry if I freaked you out,” she said. “From what I’ve seen of the surface so far, caution and doubt are effective companions.” She shook her head and laughed. “The first civilized ponies I’ve met, and here I am threatening to shoot you.”
I raised a skeptical eyebrow. “With a piece of metal?”
“Oh, right, you’re in the same boat I was! No, this is something called a ‘gun’. Just watch.” She pointed the metal at a nearby tree and—
BLAM!
My heart leapt into my throat as an explosion issued forth from the tiny ‘gun’. Sunburst rolled clear off the back of the table with a shrill scream. It happened so quickly that I could be mistaken for it never having happened, save for the chipped and smoking hole that had appeared in the tree’s bark. As the ringing in my ears disappeared, the sound of the mare’s uncontrollable laughter came to my attention.
“Yeah, youheh-heh…you get used to tha-hahat,” she said in between hiccupping laughter.
“You were POINTING that at us?” I screamed.
“Yeaaaah, sorry about that,” she said. “I know it’s not a very good feeling staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, but like I said…” Leaning against the table, she held her hoof up to me. “Anyway, let’s start over. My name’s LittlePip.”
“Wow,” came Sunburst’s meek voice as he climbed back up onto the table. “It’s even in her name.”
“I’m trying to be nice here!”
I reached down and awkwardly shook her hoof. Despite the decrease in tension and our new friend, I was still hesitant to leave the table. It was a comfort to know that even in this frightening and strange world, there was something here that I recognized—a piece of life I desperately wanted to return to as soon as possible.
“It’s nice to meet you, LittlePip,” Sunburst said. “But we don’t really belong here, so we’re just gonna head out.” He swiped the scroll from my hoof and positioned himself in the center of the table.
LittlePip’s confusion was obvious. “What do you mean? Where are you—”
From the edge of Ponyville came a shout, “She’s over here! The mare from the library!”
LittlePip whipped around to meet the owner of the voice, a scrawny earth pony decked out in similar attire to her and holding a similar gun in his mouth. The armor looked too big on him; he was practically swimming in it. Behind him, more ponies appeared looking weathered and beaten, bloodied and scarred, but their eyes…they all had the same look in their eyes: mania. And they were headed straight for us.
Fear stabbed directly into my heart. I ripped the scroll out of Sunburst’s hooves and opened it. The table began to glow again as we were lifted into the air. I felt bad leaving LittlePip alone with the…what had she called them? Raiders? But this was her world; we didn’t belong. Thankfully, she looked like she was holding her own against the wave of crazy knocking on our doorstep.
She took down a few ponies in the front with her gun, levitating new projectiles into the chamber with precision. The device strapped onto her hoof was flashing and beeping. The way she aimed looked mechanical, automatic. She glanced briefly at us, and I caught her look of wonder and amazement at the magical energies swirling around us before she returned to the fight. She ran out of ammo and launched herself directly into the nearest pony, batting aside his sharpened metal pipe and sweeping his legs out from under him. Another pony ran up beside her with a wooden club, but she reached out with her magic and launched the sharpened end of the pipe directly into his throat, washing herself in his blood. She was like a storm in perfect motion.
Before I was sucked up into the portal, I watched her scavenge more ammo for her gun and turn on the remaining ponies who were firing at her from a distance; I was struck with the lasting sense to never get on this mare’s bad side.
That was the last I saw before Sunburst and I were once again speeding down the tunnel at breakneck speed. Images flashed by just like before, but…something was wrong.
The images were scrubbing forward: we were going even further into the future!
“No!” I screamed. “Go back, damn it!” I stretched my hooves out, reaching for the edges of the tunnel to try and slow us down. My hoof pushed right through the edge of the tunnel like water and came into contact with the pictures.
A blinding light filled my head so suddenly that I barely had time to scream in pain. Now the images were flashing on the insides of my eyes. I closed my eyelids, but I could still see them. No matter what I did, I couldn’t look away!
The pain ceased—much to my relief—but the images remained, and there was nothing I could do but watch as they etched their figures into the depths of my memory.
The mare we had just met appeared in all of the images. I watched as she was shot and nearly killed by a pegasus; then they became travelling buddies. She saved a charcoal unicorn from what looked like some sort of camp of slaves and slavers. I saw how she fought and killed a dragon, how she escaped from Phillydelphia (half of which had somehow been turned into a slave-driven hellscape), how she ventured into the iraddiated and magically devastated ruins of Canterlot, how she defeated a giant alicorn monster (who vaguely resembled Trixie for some reason), and how she took control of a tower and defeated a pegasus army. Finally, I saw her sacrifice to stay inside the tower.
Despite my current state of panic, I was struck with awe. The mare whom we had just met moments ago, scared and alone in an unfamiliar world, had become its greatest hero in a matter of minutes.
Up ahead the tunnel opened up, and we slowed just enough to spill onto the wet grass without breaking our necks. Cold rain splattered my skin, soaking me within seconds. Mud caked my aching underside and weak hooves. Overhead, the portal closed with a wink.
Sunburst groaned beside me on the ground. “Couldn’t you have designed the spell to be a little gentler?”
“The spell…” I groaned. “We went forward again.” I picked myself up, shivering as a light breeze tore through. The mud squelched under my hooves as I paced to gain some warmth.
I looked around us, and saw the exact same surroundings we had just left behind: Ponyville in ruins and no castle. Only now it was worse thanks to the torrential rain.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” Sunburst whimpered. He reached down to pick up his glasses, flicking a speck of mud off the lenses and letting the rain clean them the rest of the way. “But I was worried that would happen. You designed the spell to travel forward. In other words, it’s hard coded into the scroll. You can’t just travel backwards without rewriting the entire thing.”
Just then, it hit me. We were standing on grass and mud. I snapped my head around in every direction, slipping in the mud as I turned violently but kept my hooves under me.
“Where is it?” I gasped. I whirled around, searching our surroundings. We were in the same spot as before: just on the outskirts of town, right where Twilight’s castle should have been. And now, the only trace of her castle left to prove its existence was gone too. “Where is the map?”
Sunburst was attempting to wipe mud off his cloak. He only succeeded in smudging it further into the blue fabric. “You still have the spell, right?”
“Where is the table?” I shouted at him, panic rising in my chest. I looked down. Is it in the ground? I dug my hooves into the mud, shoveling it out. It had to be there.
“Starlight,” Sunburst said, placing his hoof on my shoulder. “Starlight!”
“I-it has to be here! It has to be!”
“Starlight,” Sunburst cooed, his voice strained with concern. “Why do you need the table? You have the spell, right? Right?”
I stopped digging; there was no point. Panting, I looked up into his searching, sky-blue eyes and answered, “You helped me repair it, Sunburst, you should already know: the spell doesn’t work without a catalyst.” Now I was searching his dawning expression, silently pleading for him to tell me I was wrong. “Without the table, we are stuck here.”
I couldn’t read his flat expression, but I didn’t need to.
“No…n-no, we can’t be…we just have to find the table, right?” He whirled around on the spot, searching the surrounding area. His wet hair swung around like a mop. “It should be here, we were just on it, weren’t we?” He spun frantically, a wild look on his face. I felt my stomach drop as I watched him scramble in the mud, just like me.
“Sunburst.”
“I-It’s here! It’s in the ground.”
“It’s not there.”
“IT HAS TO BE.”
Taking shuddering breaths, he turned away, stumbled a couple of feet, then carefully lowered himself back down into the mud. His body rose and fell as the full realization of what I’d said hit him.
“Did…did we leave it? H-how—?”
Without the table, we could never go home.
“It’s ok, Sunburst, take deep breaths.”
He was hyperventilating, wheezing on each breath.
I softly rubbed his back with my hoof. “Sssshhh, just take a deep breath. Come on, do it with me.”
His eyes didn’t leave the grass in front of him, but he began taking smoother, longer breaths and stopped wheezing. He began shaking his head and muttering to himself.
“Why, why, why, why…?”
Suddenly, his eyes shot directly into mine, eyebrows furrowed and mouth twisted.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Starlight?” he snarled.
The look in his eyes made me recoil slightly in fear. “Wh—what—”
“Don’t give me that.” He smacked my hoof away and stood up. “You just had to bring me along, didn’t you? Did you even think about what would happen?’
“You helped me!” I cried, finding my own anger. “You’re the smart one! You’re the one who fixed the spell, how did you not figure it out?”
“I knew it was dangerous all along! I thought you knew too; I never expected you to actually use it.”
“Of course I was going to use it, why else would I ask for your help?”
Sunburst seemed awestruck. “Do you have any idea the years of study and research and experimentation that go into the creation and perfection of new spells? Especially spells that change the very fabric of time and space itself! What were you thinking? I…”
A burst of sardonic laughter escaped from him. He sounded one step away from breaking into a fit of manic tears. “I just don’t get it, Starlight. Why did you do this to me?”
An icy breeze cut through the air, but I barely felt it from the heat of my embarrassment, hot blood flushing to my cheeks. I could have sworn the rain was steaming off my head. I wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to go.
“Well?” he asked. “Why? Why did you bring us here, what could possibly have been so important that you had to go and trap us in this hellhole of a future?!”
I bit my lip. This was not going to sound good no matter how I put it.
“I—” I took a shaky breath. “I wanted to see how my life panned out so I could make all the right decisions.”
Sunburst just stared. “You…” He searched my face endlessly. I felt my cheeks blushing again. “You put our lives in danger so that you could cheat?”
“N-no, it’s not—”
“You wanted to know all the answers ahead of time. And cheat on the test of life.”
Well, when he put it like that…
“That is so…petty! And cheap! And foalish! Goddesses, it’s so…stupid!” He laughed again, but I heard no mirth in his voice.
There was something else he wanted to say, I could see it: words were inching their way up his throat, sitting on his tongue, waiting to be spat into my face, but he swallowed them.
Instead of what he wanted to say, all he croaked was, “I can’t be around you right now.” I couldn’t say anything back, my mouth simply wasn’t working, so I just nodded. He picked himself up and trotted into one of the nearby buildings, leaving me alone in the downpour. I lowered myself into the mud. I barely even felt the rain.
***
I don’t know how long I sat out there—minutes, hours…Time just kept on moving. Before long, I was shivering uncontrollably. I clenched my eyes shut and tried to focus my thoughts on something else. What could we do? What were we even supposed to do? We were in uncharted, dangerous territory with no weapons and no concept of what dangers lurked nearby; not to mention Sunburst wanted nothing to do with me! Where could we go? What even occurred in this timeline’s past that caused it to end up this way?
As if in answer, the image of a mushroom cloud surfaced in my mind like a damaged film strip, splotched and burned but still visible. It made my head ache slightly and my stomach churn. Oh yeah, whatever that was, that giant explosion. The word “megaspell” swam up to the surface alongside the image. How did I know these things? Where was I getting them?
I felt helpless, alone, scared—dwarfed by the overwhelming odds stacking up against me. I remembered feeling this way only once before in my life: when Sunburst got his cutie mark. He was sent off to Canterlot, my best friend gone forever. My only friend.
Now here I was again, muddy and soaked. Alone. Miserable. I felt tears streaking hot paths down my cheeks and plopping onto my hooves. They stung worse than the falling raindrops. Once they started, I couldn’t stop them. My sniffles turned into heaving sobs. I buried my face in my hooves, hoping the sound wouldn’t carry. I knew I should have been keeping an eye out for more of those crazy ponies that attacked LittlePip, but I couldn’t bring myself to lift my head up.
That’s when I felt a sudden warmth drape over me. I knew I should’ve been paying attention! Now they were getting the drop on me. My head shot up, ready to run or fight—
It was just Sunburst, laying his cloak on top of me. I looked away.
“I-I’m sorry,” I gasped between sobs. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Sshhh,” he whispered, his own voice hoarse. “Come on, let’s go inside. You’ll freeze to death out here.”
“I-I’m sorry,” I repeated as he helped me stand up. I pulled the cloak tighter around me, doing little to calm my shakes and shivers as we walked inside the blasted-out building. Water poured through holes in the roof, forming rivulets that streamed down and out the doorway. He helped me over to a dry corner and we hunkered down in the small space. Even with Sunburst’s cloak and the protection that the walls provided from wind and rain, I couldn’t stop shaking. The cold was set in my bones; my teeth and muscles were clenched, struggling to calm my shivering.
Sunburst pulled me closer with his hoof. The guilt of having to be taken care of by him even after everything he’d said tightened around my heart like a cobra, but I did appreciate the added warmth. Slowly, my shakes and shivers ceased, and I felt myself drifting off into deep and fuzzy unconsciousness.
***
“Can Sunburst come out and play?” I asked, looking up at Sunburst’s mother standing in the doorway. She fixed me with a confused, somewhat sad expression.
“Oh, honey, didn’t he tell you?” she answered in an apologetic tone. “Sunburst left for Canterlot yesterday to attend a special school for unicorns.”
“Oh. When he comes back, then can he come out and play?”
“…I’m sorry, Starlight…he’s not coming back.”
……..
I was sitting at the dinner table across from Daddy, an untouched bowl of tomato soup sitting in front of me.
“Why not, Daddy? It’s not fair!”
“Sorry, Starlight, you’re not going to Canterlot. Sunburst’s parents thought it would be best for him to learn from the most gifted magic teachers in Equestria. As much as I want what’s best for you, we just don’t have the kind of income to—”
“It’s not fair!” I shouted back. I felt the tears coming again, my eyes already puffy from earlier that day. “It’s not fair.”
……..
“Glim-Glim,” Mom cooed softly just inside my doorframe. “The fillies from school are asking for you. Do you want to go play with them?”
I stayed under my heavy comforter, turned away from the door. I didn’t answer. They weren’t my friends anyway. I only had one friend.
Mom sighed as she approached the bed. “Ok, honey, that’s fine. But you can’t stay in here forever.” She brushed a hoof through my hair, clearing a lock out of my face. “Eventually, you need to just move on, okay?”
I still didn’t answer. He’d write to me…eventually. Sunburst would come and visit, or at least send a letter, or tell his parents to say hi…anything. He wouldn’t just forget about me…would he?
He didn’t…hate me, did he? Why else would he just leave me like that?
Stupid…stupid Sunburst! How could he…
We weren’t friends anymore. I hated that he never visited, never even tried to contact his best friend. I hated him.
More than anything, though, I hated the thing that took him away from me…his cutie mark…
***
“Could we rewrite the spell?” I asked. My voice was still weak, but my shivers had receded, along with the exhaustion of my earlier blubbering.
At some point the rain had stopped, and muted sunlight now broke through the gaping holes in the roof. After we had both awoken feeling slightly calmer and more grounded, I had turned my thoughts to more practical necessities. “I mean, I know it’s a highly complex array of spells, but would it really be that difficult to change a couple things to make it send us backward?”
Sunburst smiled sadly and shook his head. I had given him his muddy cloak back—it draped off his form like a deflated balloon. “I don’t think it’s that simple. That spell is like a house of cards: each incantation depending on the ones that came before it. Changing even the slightest one could bring the rest toppling down. Even with all our notes and books in Twilight’s castle, it would be just as much work as before—maybe even more. And we don’t have those.”
Right. All of our notes—Starswirl’s research, Twilight’s books and journals—were back in her castle, which didn’t seem to exist in this universe. “There’s something else we don’t have,” I added. “The cutie map. Without it, we can’t activate the spell.”
“And besides,” Sunburst continued. “Even if we could go back in time, how do we even know we’d end up back where we started?”
“What do you mean?”
Sunburst was pacing now. “Well, this isn’t our universe, right? In Starswirl’s notes, he mentioned multiple universes of possibilities. Changing one thing results in the creation of an entirely new timeline: a new universe.”
Multiple universes. “The multiverse,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“That’s what the, um…alicorn called it. A multiverse.”
Sunburst groaned. “Please don’t remind me about that. I don’t ever want to think about that place again.”
I couldn’t stop thinking about it though. “All those different paths…do you think each one was a different universe?”
“It’s possible. I mean, think about it: if every choice you ever made in your whole life branched off into multiple universes, all of which created even more branching decisions and timelines, all of that would add up. Now consider every single living organism in our known universe making decisions.”
“The infinite crossroads,” I said, trying desperately to wrap my head around Sunburst’s words. The image of the crossroads came to mind, its pathways stretching into oblivion. “It’s gotta be infinite, right?”
“I don’t know about infinity,” Sunburst said, his voice shaking, “but that number’s gotta be pretty high.”
I remembered the alicorn, too; how could I not? Its size had been inconceivable, its towering purple robes unimaginable. The crossroad dimension was one thing, but the being who oversaw it, watched over it…I couldn’t even bring myself to imagine that level of consciousness, that plane of existence. It was probably the closest to “god” that a being could become.
And it had spoken to us—no, pleaded with us.
I beseech you, Starlight Glimmer. Those words sent a massive shiver down my spine.
“You ok?” asked Sunburst. I wasn’t, but I nodded anyway. The alicorn’s words…they filled me with anxiety, a kind of pressure I had never felt before. So many questions flooded my consciousness, but they all echoed the same sentiment: What was my purpose? What evil was the alicorn talking about? How was I supposed to find it, much less defeat it? Why didn’t he tell me more??
Why me? Twilight and her friends were the Elements of Harmony, not me. Sunburst was a magic scholar, not me. Even the alicorn had said I broke the laws of time when I almost destroyed Equestria, so why was I the one sent here? Was this my punishment? Was the universe finally bringing down its righteous retribution upon me?
“Grahhh!” I cried. Without thinking, I lashed out with my magic towards a massive chunk of cement and threw it against the wall, smashing it to pieces. Sunburst nearly jumped out of his cloak.
“Goddesses, Starlight! What’d you do that for?”
Panting, I replied, “Sorry, I’m just so frustrated! I don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing, or how we can even begin to get home. It’s just…it’s hopeless, isn’t it?”
Sunburst sighed. “The way I see it, the only way to return to our own time and universe is to change the past to be exactly like the one we know. But this universe is completely different from our own, in more ways than we can probably imagine. Changing every single thing, preventing the consequences from occurring…even if we could learn this timeline’s past, rewrite the spell, and find the table…I mean can you even imagine going back and changing everything so that it all happens correctly? It’s just…I can’t…” He sat back, defeated, pulling his cloak tighter around him as he fell into troubled silence.
The situation was solidifying in our brains; reality was sinking in. We were stuck here, with no conceivable chance of getting home. All we could hope to do was sit here and wait for one of those raider ponies to finish us off quickly.
You can’t stay in here forever, honey.
Eventually, you need to just move on, okay?
“Start small,” I whispered.
“Hmm?” Sunburst picked his head up. “Did you say something?”
“Don’t look at the bigger picture right now, it’s too daunting,” I said, finding my voice. One-by-one, the pieces were sewing themselves together, my thoughts building a linear progression of events and steps. I locked eyes with Sunburst and shook my head: “If you so much as glance at our odds, you’ll lose all hope of ever getting home. So, start small. Start with something you can feasibly accomplish.”
“But what can we do, Starlight? Where do we even start?”
“We don’t know anything about this universe, but it’s not like we’re starting from scratch.” I held up the scroll. “We have a blueprint, right here.”
Sunburst shook his head. “But my notes—”
“This is still Ponyville,” I argued. “Those ponies, the ones that attacked LittlePip, they mentioned a library. And if I’m right—if what I’m thinking is true—then we might be able to find some helpful resources after all.”
“What makes you so sure?” Sunburst asked.
I smiled. “Follow me.” I cantered over to the door.
“Starlight,” Sunburst said. I looked back. He hadn’t moved to follow; his face wore a pained expression. “There’s something I need to say first.” I halted my trot.
“What is it?”
He rubbed his arm nervously, clearly working up his nerve. I waited patiently.
“After what you did…I don’t know if I can trust you anymore.” I could hear the finality in his tone, despite the uncertainty in his body language. I had expected to hear this speech from him, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. “We need to stick together, so I’ll come with you. But when this is all done—whether we get home or not—we’re through. Got it? I don’t ever want to see you again after this.”
I nodded; I had expected this, but if I let myself accept it, then I would end up right back in the same place I was before: alone, miserable, dead to the world. I couldn’t let that happen, not when he was depending on me.
I matched his gaze. “Then let’s get home.”
Ponyville was unlike I had ever seen it. Now empty of bright-colored ponies, the place felt eerie and unnatural, even without the rubble and ruins of buildings I had just seen fully in-tact yesterday. There was Sugar Cube Corner, its ginger-bread roof crumbling apart and caving in; the cupcake-shaped tower had crashed to the ground some time ago, the supports rotting and bent. The stalls of the market I had just seen the girls in now sold only dust; some had been overturned, others completely dismantled for their parts.
As we walked through the winding pathways of the ghost-town, we spotted remnants of life: old firepits, ashes scattered and washed out by the elements; tents knocked over and trampled, any supplies that may have once been in them pilfered; bottles and trash strewn about. Most prevalent, though, were the blood stains: painting the buildings, decorating the stone paths, coloring the lifeless lamp posts. Whoever occupied this place last must have been either very unfortunate or very cruel.
We passed the pawnshop, the sign on front had been painted over with—you guessed it—blood. It now read “HornyVille”.
I glanced over at my companion. He was taking in the town too, and from the look on his face, I could tell he was taking it just as well as I was. Which was to say not very well. His face was pale as his wide eyes darted frantically around. He clearly didn’t want to see any of this, but his nerves were too active to let him relax. So, he took it all in, just like me, letting every single gruesome detail etch itself into memory.
Look, Sunburst, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. I…I did some bad things. Terrible things.
Sunburst didn’t know that I had time travelled before. I mean, sure I mentioned it to him once, back when I reunited with him in the Crystal Empire, but he had clearly forgotten about it. When I showed him the time travel spell in Twilight’s castle, it was like his first time hearing about it.
He also didn’t know that I rewrote Equestria’s future and nearly destroyed the entire world. His trust in me was already so low…what would happen if he found out he was stuck in another universe with a supervillain?
I hadn’t realized I was staring at him until he looked my way. I quickly found interest in a passing cloud.
Actually, the clouds were pretty sparse today. That was one thing we had going for us at least: clear weather. From the look of things here on the ground, everything just felt so…bleak. Not for the first time, I wondered what cataclysmic events could have led to such a future as this? I almost didn’t want to find out.
Cloud…mushroom…cloud…
I shook my head. What was that? A strange sensation came over me, like I was on the verge of remembering something. It was on the tip of my tongue, at the edge of my recollection…a flash of green…guttural screams…
It was gone.
I felt uncomfortable all of a sudden, like I was being watched. I glanced around us, but there was nothing but the dilapidated setting of a worn-down Ponyville. The sunshine helped to cheer me up a little.
“Starlight, look!” came Sunburst’s voice beside me. Disturbed from my reverie, I shook off those confusing feelings and turned my gaze to the object of Sunburst’s attention. “I think you were right.”
The building directly in front of us looked unlike any other surrounding it. A giant tree towered over us with a watchful gaze, a door set into its trunk and windows carved out of its bark. A balcony sat in its gnarled and twisting branches. From the pictures I had seen in Twilight’s room, I recognized this tree.
It was Ponyville’s Golden Oak Library, clearly past its prime. Its twisted and overgrown branches were devoid of leaves, the tree’s massive roots clawed its way out of the surrounding soil, and the bark was much drier and more wrinkled.
Just like everything else in this town, the Library had lost its magic.
“This should be impossible,” I said, shaking my head. “Tirek destroyed this place.”
“It seems that in this timeline, Tirek never attacked,” Sunburst posited. “It’s possible he never even really existed! We don’t know how similar this timeline is to ours, or where they diverge. There’ s so much we don’t know…” His voice trailed off, but I could sense him getting overwhelmed again.
“But the important thing,” I cut in quickly, “is that Twilight’s treehouse remains intact. Hopefully, her books are too.” I patted his shoulder, an unavoidable smile betraying my features. “We just might be able to find Starswirl’s notes in there.”
Sunburst slinked away from my touch, coughing into his hoof to cover up his discomfort, but I noticed. This really was going to take a while to get back to normal. “Or at least some scholarly journals that can help us reconstruct the spell.” He pushed his glasses up on his muzzle. “There’s only one way to find out.”
I nodded, feeling embarrassed as I lowered my hoof back to the ground. “Let’s go.”
Pushing away awkward tension and steeling ourselves, we stepped inside to find…
Well, I’m not really sure what I was expecting.
Perhaps the word “library” had been misleading. Silly me! It was an honest mistake to think I would find books in a place like this.
We stepped into the hollowed-out trunk of the treehouse to find…nothing. It was barren, empty, deserted. The life and warmth that I had only seen in pictures before had long-since been sapped from every inch of the now dry and chapped wooden room. The shelves carved directly into the walls were occupied only by dust. Not even a single scrap of paper had been left.
I took a deep breath…and let it out. “Okay,” I started carefully. “That would’ve been too easy, anyway.”
“I guess I’ll check upstairs,” Sunburst sighed as he trotted away.
I was actually a little surprised by this place’s cleanliness. Whereas the rest of the town’s general theming screamed “Raider Chic”, the walls of the library were spotless.
I began searching as well. Through a nearby doorway, I entered what appeared to be a kitchen, or the remnants of one. Pots, pans, knives, utensils, anything that could feasibly be used to cook was gone, but there remained a fridge, oven, and island in the middle. Strangely, the island was covered in tools: hammers, screwdrivers, rulers, levels, even a couple rolls of duct tape. Was somepony planning a renovation?
Then I noticed the buckets spread around the room. Some were turned over, but the rest were filled with still, cloudy water. Rags hung off the sides and in piles nearby. It took me a while to realize this was yet more evidence of previous residents of this place. It looked like they had gotten up to some heavy-duty cleaning, but why? What was the purpose when the rest of the town looked like…that?
All that work, and they were nowhere to be found. What happened to everypony?
“Uhh, Starlight?”
“One sec, Sunburst,” I called back, taking a closer look at one of the buckets. The natural lighting from outside didn’t help very much, but I could clearly see that the water in the buckets wasn’t just cloudy. It was dark, dark red.
“Starlight!” Sunburst’s voice was now filled with panic. “I think you should come right now!”
I ran into the main room and froze. We were not alone.
Sunburst stood at the top of the stairs, staring at me with wide, frightened eyes. Behind him stood a pony holding a much longer gun than what LittlePip had been carrying. The moment he laid eyes on me, he pumped the handle, producing an ominous “chk-chk” sound. Sunburst flinched.
“Oh, you didn’t tell me your friend was so good lookin’, wizard-boy,” the stallion said in a rough voice. “You holdin’ out on me?” He pressed the barrel against the back of Sunburst’s head.
“Please, please, just let us go!” Sunburst whimpered.
“Aw, but you just got here. At least give me a chance to show you a little ‘raider hospitality’.” The pony leaned in closer to Sunburst’s ear and stared straight at me. His grin widened. “Don’t you worry, little buddy. I’ll let you watch.”
I reached out with my magic and pushed the gun’s barrel to aim above Sunburst’s head. The stallion’s smile disappeared as he instinctively pressed down on the trigger. The resulting blast was like a miniature cannon; even from across the room my ears were ringing.
“GAAHH!” Sunburst cried, clutching his ears as he curled into a ball. I ripped the gun out of the pony’s hooves and turned it back on him, cocking the barrel just like he had done.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I ordered. “We’re going to leave through the door. If you even think of following us—”
He interrupted with a sudden burst of laughter. Sunburst scurried down the stairs, still clutching his ear.
“You’re a fighter, ain’tcha?” the raider rasped through clenched teeth. “Ohh, I’m gonna have fun with you.” He slinked slowly down the stairs, one step at a time. “You don’t even know how to use that thing, do you?”
I levelled the gun at his head. He took another careful step, like a panther stalking its prey. “Stop!” I shouted. “I swear to Celestia I’ll shoot you.”
Another step. I squeezed the trigger with my magic.
Click.
The raider took off down the stairs, lunging for me. I tried to move out of the way, but my body was too lethargic. He tackled me and we went rolling onto the ground. I tried to use our momentum to roll on top, but Goddesses he was strong!
He stopped me from rolling and pinned my hooves to the ground with his knees, pushing his face inches from mine. This close, I could smell the sweat rolling off of him, the bitter stench of his labored breathing. A scar ran diagonally across his face, from forehead to chin. It must have been infected because it appeared milky white and surrounded by red, puffy skin. I gagged at the sight of it.
In his crazed and bloodshot eyes, I saw my own dead body reflected back. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die.
In blind panic, I squeezed the trigger on the gun with my magic over and over.
Click! Click! Click!
The sound of sharpened metal filled the air as he unsheathed a dagger nearly as big as my hoof with a serrated edge. “I was gonna have fun with you,” he spoke in a low tone. “But now, I really just want to hear what your screams sound like.”
I struggled to slip my limbs out from under his knees, but he only pushed down harder.
“P-please…don’t…”
The knife hovered over my eye. I felt the cold tip against my bottom eyelid like a red-hot cattle brand. The pressure against my eyeball was excruciating; panic rose up fast.
Without thinking, I swung the gun with as much strength as I could muster in the grip of my magic. The gun’s thick wooden handle connected with the raider’s skull with a dry crack, sending him toppling over. I scrambled out from underneath him and found my footing, panting hard as I levelled the gun at him again. No point: he was still.
The silence was impenetrable, only intruded upon by my heavy breathing, and the thrashing drumbeat of my own heart.
Sunburst was cowering in the corner. “Is he…did you…”
“He was…he was going to cut out my—”The words caught in my throat, and I collapsed on the ground, shivering. My magic grip weakened, and the gun clattered to the ground as my shaking gave way to tiny sobs. That feeling of the knife pressed up against my eye, the simultaneously hot and freezing cold blade…it brought with it a fresh wave of chills all through my body. Oh Goddesses!
What have we gotten ourselves into?
I wiped my eyelid, checking for signs of a cut. My hooves came away bloodied. Only then did I begin to register the sharp stinging on my cheek, each new tear bringing a fresh wave of pain.
“Is…is my face okay?” I asked between sobs.
Sunburst didn’t reply. He was still staring at the floor.
“Sunburst!”
That shotgun blast so close to his ear must have really shocked him. He reluctantly picked his gaze up and levelled it at me. Even from across the room, I could see the color drain from his face.
“Ohhh, I don’t…” He mumbled, clutching his head in his hooves. He seemed very dizzy all of a sudden. “So much blood.”
I closed my eyes, trying to still the rapid beating in my chest. I stood up on shaky hooves and managed to hobble into the kitchen. My nerves were still shot from the sudden rush of adrenaline, but I just took measured breaths to try and calm them.
Staring down into one of the cleaner buckets of water, I looked at the pony staring back. Blood smeared one side of her face, making tracks down her chin and dripping off like crimson tears. The source of the blood was clear: a large gash, curving from just below her eye socket down to the edge of her chin. As I watched, new tears formed in her eyes and travelled down into the gash, sending a fresh wave of stinging pain through my throbbing head.
Breathe, Starlight. Breathe.
Never before in my life had I sustained such a wound. From the looks of such a deep cut, I knew that it would remain forever, a reminder of the horrible decisions I had made in trapping us here. We might eventually find our way home, but now, I would never be the same.
I think I left behind a crucial part of myself back there in that kitchen. A part of me that had been there since childhood, who stuck with me even when Sunburst left, had grown alongside me and stuck it out even when I was going through rough times. Unblemished, unchanging, she still saw herself as the same little filly she was when she came into this world. She was now just a reflection in a pool of murky water, looking back at me with sad eyes. I steeled my own.
By now I had gotten my breathing under control and felt my heart rate slow. I picked up a filthy rag in my magic and blasted it with a disinfecting spell. The dirt and grime were eliminated, and it glowed white, as if brand new. I touched it gingerly to the side of my face, dabbing off the blood and tears that had become somewhat dried and crusty at this point.
Without all the blood, it looked so much better; less horrifying and more…hardened? Battle-tested? Maybe the scarring wouldn’t be as bad as I thought! Maybe…hopefully…
I came back out into the main room. The raider and gun were right where they had fallen. The only thing missing was…Sunburst.
I heard the scuffing of hooves upstairs, the bumps and bangs of doors being opened and searched. He wasn’t very subtle, but at least he was being thorough.
Hooves trembling, I approached the raider and checked for a pulse. As much as I hated even the thought of touching this vile creature, I don’t know what I would’ve done if he was dead. He probably would have deserved it, but…I didn’t want to be the one to do it.
LittlePip’s words echoed in my head: It was me or him. That’s the way it is out here.
He was breathing. I felt a huge weight off my shoulders. I was glad he wasn’t dead, but if we just left him like this, what would stop him from following us?
Sunburst sulked down the stairs without saying a word. He was clearly still shaken from earlier.
“Here,” he said, extending his hoof out to me. He held a small pile of bandages, colored with grime and spotted with blood. “They’re the best I could find.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, picking them up in my magic and applying the same disinfectant treatment as the rag from earlier. Now how to stick them to my face?
I looked to the raider, still out cold.
“One more thing, Sunburst.”
He started out of his reverie. “What?”
“Could you grab me a roll of duct tape from the other room?”
***
We walked in silence for miles. There wasn’t much for us to say to each other. After what had happened in the library, Sunburst had become strangely silent, unwilling to offer much in the way of conversation, and giving short answers in reply.
“What do we do now?” he asked, his first utterance in hours. We were walking down the only road that had led out of town, out into what looked like open wasteland. Something in the atmosphere had clearly changed the environment—it all just felt really off.
The dull green shades of wild grass danced in the wind like ocean waves. What struck me most about the landscape were the splashes of color here and there: streaks of yellowed grass snaked in random paths like electric tendrils, sickly yellow trees dotted the landscape, their branches drooping and twisting like licorice. It looked like autumn, only diseased and rotten rather than natural and majestic.
“Well, Ponyville isn’t the only town in Equestria,” I answered, inspecting the shotgun as we walked. “There’s gotta be libraries in other places, right?”
Sunburst had disliked the idea of bringing such a dangerous weapon with us. It’s just a deterrent, I’d told him. I promise I won’t use it. I really hoped that would be true. I had found some shells in the raider’s pocket and stored them in my saddlebags. I remembered the way he had pumped the gun’s barrel and tried that now. It gave slight resistance, but as it moved a spent shell ejected out of its side. I looked in the compartment that the shell came out of. There was another one nested in, probably ready to be used.
I had made a nifty little strap out of some of the rags back in the library, allowing me to sling the gun around my shoulder and let it rest comfortably on my back.
“And what makes you think they’ll be any different from this place?” Sunburst asked, turning on me. “What if there are no books left in this world?”
“You saw the same things I did,” I fired back. “The images in the tunnel: we know LittlePip met plenty of civilized ponies, and that towns of them exist nearby. We just have to find them.”
He didn’t seem convinced. “Look,” I continued, “this is still Equestria; I know my way around these parts. This road leads us toward Appleloosa. From what Applejack told me, Appleloosa is a pretty resilient community. If something bad happened in this timeline, I’ll bet they weathered it somehow.”
“And if not? If that place is just as dead and deserted as Ponyville?”
“We’ll go to Phillydelphia, then. Or Manehattan. Canterlot! Just don’t give up, alright? This is just the beginning.”
Sunburst sighed. “Alright.”
As the two of us fell silent once again, we approached the entrance to a small forest. I felt relief at finally having some cover from the open terrain, but as we drew closer, I began to feel a sense of discomfort deep in my gut.
The greenery here was…anything but green.
Bright orange and purple foliage grew in large clumps, sprouting out of the ground and out of tree stumps and trunks. Grass pushed up through the detritus like leftover confetti, spotted with weeds and budding flowers. Bushes like pimples dotted the forest floor. Lavender vines climbed up the trunks of the nearby trees. Even the tree bark somehow naturally formed a shifting kaleidoscope of hues: blue, fuschia, salmon, emerald, all fusing together through gradients like an alien sunset.
It didn’t seem dangerous. At least not yet.
Sunburst had noticed it too. “Wha…how…why—”
“Don’t ask me.” As we entered the woods, surrounded by the gawdy colors, I was briefly reminded of Ponyville. But nothing in that town had ever seemed so grotesque, so…wrong. The candy-colored surroundings did little to ease my nerves: they just served to make me feel even more alienated from this world than before.
I tried to take my mind off of it. There were more important matters at hoof, anyway.
“Have you ever been in a fight before?”
Sunburst looked taken aback. “Do I look like much of a fighter?”
“Point taken.” I levitated the gun off my back. “Here.”
He backed away. “No, Starlight! I don’t want anything to do with that death machine!”
“You don’t have a choice, Sunburst. If we get into another situation like back there, I need to know I can count on you to help me.”
His eyes flicked back and forth between me and the gun between us. “But he…that thing almost took my head off.”
I couldn’t hide the disgust in my reaction. “You’re really gonna stand there and complain to me about what almost happened to you?”
His eyes glanced momentarily at the bandages on my cheek before taking sudden interest in the ground at his hooves. With a begrudging neigh, he gingerly lifted the gun in his own telekinesis and turned it around, inspecting it. “How do you use this?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” I said, levitating the extra shells out of my bag and giving them to Sunburst. “But I think you load these into this compartment here, and then you have to pump the barrel before you can shoot it.”
He tried pumping it, but it wouldn’t budge. Seriously? He could lift his weight in books, but he couldn’t pump a rusty barrel?
It finally gave, and the resulting chk-chk sound gave him a small smile. He glanced at me, and I smiled back as he slung the gun around his shoulder. Now I knew he could at least defend himself.
As we continued our trudge through the strange forest, my thoughts turned to the giant alicorn we had met at the infinite crossroads.
The Watcher. I still trembled inwardly at the experience of being in the presence of such a powerful being. His words hadn’t left my mind; they bounced around, ringing in my ear, reminding me of some greater purpose:
The Time to fulfill your destiny has come at last…You must stop the spreading darkness threatening to consume the Multiverse, or else we are all of us doomed.
No pressure. Everything the Watcher and those other voices had said created so many questions in my mind that I could barely focus on answering one before another appeared to take its place. What darkness was he talking about? Where was I supposed to find it? How was I supposed to stop it? How was I supposed to save the Multiverse when I didn’t even know where I was??
I only had one clue to work with, and that wasn’t saying much. One of the other voices had mentioned an “Alpha timeline”, which I assumed was the one the Watcher sent us to, the one we currently found ourselves trapped in. I wondered if there were other timelines of this world, different in subtle but drastic ways. What exactly made this the alpha?
My head began to thump in pain, each throb feeling as though it came from the gash on my cheek. I shook the questions away, too many to think about at once. I didn’t even know where to begin. Luckily, something way more pressing came to my attention that dwarfed those confusing thoughts.
I heard…music? Somewhere nearby, the sound of an upbeat polka melody floated gently to my ears. I could tell Sunburst heard it too because he was looking all around us for the source.
“What is that?” he asked.
The sound came closer. Finally, I noticed a bobbing silhouette just ahead of us. It was a flying object, no bigger than my head, that seemed to flit around in obvious glee.
“Is that…a parasprite?”
No, it looked like a parasprite. But as it came closer, I noticed the glint of metal, the tinny sound of music coming from its speakers, and the antennae poking out of its hull. It floated past us, going back the way we had come. Sunburst and I looked at each other with equally confounded expressions.
“I don’t even want to know.” This world just kept throwing me for a loop. Between that and all the questions brought on by the Watcher, I was getting exhausted.
Daylight was rapidly diminishing. Who knew what kinds of dangers came out at night in this world?
“We should set up camp for the night.” I slowed down, searching nearby for fallen trees to camp under.
“We need to keep moving.” Sunburst ventured ahead.
“We’re exhausted, we need to rest,” I countered. “We’re not going to find a way home overnight.”
Sunburst kept moving forward. I trudged after him. “Sunburst, if we run ourselves into the ground, we’ll never find a way back. Besides, all this foliage will do us good. Shields us from the open, makes it harder for us to be spotted.”
A voice directly behind me cut in. “Doubt that.”
I whirled around just as a cloud of bright dust blew into my face. I coughed and backed away, my eyes and nostrils burning. I heard Sunburst cry out, and then a gunshot, followed by the cry of another pony. I picked my head up and looked around us.
My vision was blurry, and every movement I made felt like I was moving through molasses. Sunburst needs help! I tried to move, but time seemed to skip forward as I was suddenly lying on the ground. I tried to look around but my head felt heavy, and the world was spinning.
“Wwhaa thee heeeeellll,” I slurred. Strong hooves held me down, overpowering my dazed struggling. “Geroff mee, you azzholez!”
I reached out with my magic, but the strength to conjure up even the simplest telekinesis seemed to escape me. No matter how much I pushed myself, nothing but feeble sparks emanated from my horn.
“Careful, watch out for his gun!” one of the ponies cried out. Sunburst was fighting back! A body was laying on the ground near him, unmoving. He swung the gun around like a club, keeping his attackers back, but they quickly closed in on him. With a crazed look of terror, he pointed the gun at one of them and pulled the trigger. It clicked. He had forgotten to cock it.
The ponies tackled him to the ground, sending the gun clattering out of his reach. As I watched, I saw him reach out with his magic to try and pick it up again, but one of the ponies on top of him slammed a hoof into his horn.
“GAAH!” Sunburst cried, his magic cutting out immediately as tears streamed down his face.
“Suuuburst!” I cried. “Le him goooo, you fuggin’—”
I was met with my own deterrent: a hoof across the face. Thankfully, they hit my non-injured side.
“Shut up, bitch.” The pony holding me down pushed me harder into the ground, mashing my face into the dirt. Every breath was a challenge as I coughed and sputtered.
A green earth pony stepped calmly into my view. A cloak rested over his form, similar to Sunburst’s only black and emblazoned on the back with the image of a large, open eye, blood red in color, and a single tear dripping from its duct. He bent down to get a better look at the body lying a couple feet away from Sunburst. As his face entered my field of vision, I noticed his right eye was covered by an eyepatch, adorned with the same crimson decal.
The pony growled. “He killed Meringue!” He spun around to face Sunburst. “You’re going to pay for that.”
He gestured to his lackies, who picked Sunburst up onto his knees, holding his hooves out to the side. Sunburst’s eyes were wide with fear as he struggled against their grasp. “Please, I-I didn’t mean to—"
Eyepatch turned his back to Sunburst and bucked. Hard.
Sunburst doubled over as far as he could go, still held up by the other ponies. He gasped multiple times, trying and failing to gulp down air. I could see the panic in his tear-stricken eyes.
Eyepatch wasn’t finished yet. He pulled Sunburst’s head up by his hair and slammed a hoof into his face. Blood immediately gushed from his nose like a fountain, bringing with each desperate gulp of air a wave of hacking and coughing as he struggled not to drown in his own blood.
He hit him again. And again.
“Stoppit!” I screamed. “Please, stop!”
Eyepatch pulled away and the ponies dropped Sunburst, leaving him curled up and heaving. His whole body shivered as he was wracked with sobs of terror and panic. One of his eyes was swollen shut and purple. I wanted to crawl over and comfort him, but with each struggle the hooves only held me tighter.
Eyepatch held his hoof out. A pony ripped my saddlebags off and handed them to him. He rifled through my stuff before retrieving the one thing I wished he hadn’t: the scroll.
“Nononono,” I repeated in a drunken slur. A hoof bashed the side of my head, sending a flare of pain through my skull. Despite the pain, one thought burned fiercely in my mind: we cannot lose that spell.
One of the ponies who had attacked Sunburst whispered, “Sweet Celestia…”
“Overcast was right.” Eyepatch sounded astonished. “They were right where she said they’d be.”
“How did she know?” asked another pony.
“Does it matter?” Eyepatch snarled. “We did what she asked, got what she wanted. Now, she better hold up our end of the deal. Come on, let’s get back to camp.”
“What about them? What should we do?”
Eyepatch reached into my saddlebags with a wicked smile on his face and pulled out the roll of duct tape.
I began struggling against their grip again. “Please, we need that spell—”
A hoof bashed the bandaged side of my face. I screamed as a whole new wave of stinging pain dulled all my other senses by comparison. I felt wet streams running down my face, dripping onto the ground.
A few minutes later, the ponies left in high spirits. They had gotten what they wanted.
Sunburst and I were left on opposite sides of the road, our hooves taped together in an uncomfortable hogtie and our mouths taped shut. Sunburst’s back was turned to me, but even in the dim light of dusk I could see his body shaking from here. I tried to scoot closer to him, but I could barely move an inch. He needed help, needed comfort, but I couldn’t reach him.
I tried screaming for help, but the tape covering my mouth seriously muffled my voice. I doubted anypony outside of a 100-yard radius could even hear me, much less help. We were trapped here until somepony happened to come along. How long would that be? What if they weren’t friendly?
Night was here now. My eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, but I could only barely make out Sunburst’s silhouette. Beyond that was inky blackness. I couldn’t even register the bright hues of the forest anymore. The night was silent, save for the buzzing of a few insects. I only sat there, staring at Sunburst’s back, as if I could somehow make him feel better through sheer willpower. I could make out the soft rising and falling of his body, hear the soft whimpering on each wheezing breath. How badly did Eyepatch wound him? At least he was still breathing.
I became aware of a shape floating in the air, just beyond Sunburst. How long had it been there? It looked like the parasprite robot from before, only it wasn’t acting like it. Instead of bobbing around, it was completely still; instead of playing polka music, it was eerily silent. It just stared…watching us…
Almost as soon as I noticed, it bobbed away, down the road and out of sight. Any hopes I had of asking it for help were dashed. How could it help us? It was just a mindless robot.
“Welll, what the fuck do we have here?” came a terrifyingly familiar voice from the darkness. I looked in the direction of the voice.
Another group of ponies came within eyesight, but these weren’t just any ponies. They wore spiky leather armor, decorated with gore and blood.
Raiders.
At the front of the pack, the pony from the library swaggered up with a massive grin. “Came to get my shotgun back from you fucks and teach you a lesson in manners. And would ya look at this! You’ve gone and trussed yourselves up for us. How kind of you.”
Sunburst cried out against his gag and tried to scoot away, but just like me, he couldn’t move.
“Aww, look how excited he is to get started,” said one of the other ponies. “You weren’t kidding, Scarface. I think we’re gonna have fun with that one.”
“Right? Doesn’t he just look like such a little bitch?”
I closed my eyes and mustered up all of my concentration. The wooziness from that powder they blew in my face earlier had worn off by now, so I just needed to push with all of my effort.
Sparks erupted from my horn, and I felt the block slowly giving way. My magic was building up. Almost there!
Scarface planted a kick directly on my horn. The sensation of a shard of glass being lodged directly into my brain exploded from my forehead. I screamed in pain, every bit of concentration I had built simply melting away as my entire world became searing, blinding pain.
“What’s wrong, cat got your horn?” he taunted with a crazy laugh. He ripped the bandage off my cheek, and I felt the night air brush against the tender skin of my wound. “Look at that,” he mused, pointing to his own infected, pus-oozing scar. “Just like me.”
Another cackle filled the air as he threw a clump of dirt on the wound, mushing it around. I screamed as it burned, trying to shake him and the dirt off. I tried my magic again, if only to just cleanse the wound before it got infected like his! Please, anything but that!
His eyes were drawn back up to my sparking and quivering horn. “Maybe I should start by cutting that thing off. You’ll be much easier to handle that way.”
My eyes shot wide with fear. He wouldn’t…he couldn’t!
Turning to address the group, “Hey, someone grab my shotgun.”
I pulled desperately against the tape on my hooves, praying to Celestia for the strength to rip it off and gallop far away from here.
It held strong.
I searched for any other option, but none revealed themselves to me. Scarface pressed my head into the dirt and held it there, levelling the shotgun at the base of my horn.
“MMmmph!” I tried to wriggle my head out of the way, but he held it there like a vice. I cried and shook, trying to scream through the gag to please stop!
He cocked the barrel. He knew what he was doing. An icy calm passed over my body as I braced myself, aware that this was going to happen, that nothing could stop it from happening.
What did I think was going to happen? In a world like this, why did I ever think we stood a chance at going home?
Boom!
Torrential gunshots ripped through the silence of the night, berating my eardrums. I flinched and screamed at the sound, but a distinct lack of pain caused me to realize that my horn was still intact. I opened my eyes to see Scarface’s blank, surprised stare right back at me. I pushed away his lifeless body and looked up to see hellfire raining above me.
Some of the raiders were struck by the wave of bullets, ripping their bodies to shreds and painting the ground with showers of blood. A couple dove to the sides, taking cover behind the nearby trees. The sound of maniacal laughter rose to my ears, but it wasn’t coming from them.
I looked to the source of the bullet storm, and what I saw nearly broke my currently fragile mind.
Standing in the middle of the road, bracing against the force of the two giant guns attached to either side of her saddle, was the last pony I ever thought I’d see with such heavy weaponry. The guns’ barrels spun rapidly, and the light from the bullets exploding out of them lit up the pony’s face like a ghostly apparition.
Trixie grinned from ear to ear, her eyes blazing with passionate glee. She looked brown in the dim light, but it was her, my best friend! I could have cried; I was so happy to see a familiar face. Not to mention one that was saving me from getting my horn blown off.
It must have been too much for me; after everything that had happened that day, I didn’t blame myself. The world around me disappeared as my vision turned black, and I passed out.