Wolfenstein: Worlds Collide

B.J. stared down into the hole in the ground, squinting in the dim light. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but the shadows did nothing to stop sound, and he could clearly hear a soft, persistent trickling, the sound not unlike that of a shallow stream.

“…you sure this is safe?” He wasn’t a geologist, but he was still pretty sure that that noise wasn’t a good sign. If he could hear the sound of water flowing meant that the flowing water making it was eroding the stone, increasing the risk of a cave-in and maybe even causing some flooding.

“I’m sure it’s not safe,” Twilight declared, slipping past him and dropping down into the blackness. A moment later, and a familiar violet light had sprung to life atop the pony’s horn, revealing that she had dropped down to the cavern floor safely. “But it’s pretty sedate in comparison to sneaking into a city chock-full of Nazis and attempting to break a few rebels out of the biggest prison complex in said city.”

“…fair enough,” B.J. admitted, leaping down after her. Almost immediately, he was enveloped by the cavern’s damp, chilly air. For once, he was actually glad for his new, unsettlingly equine body; after a lifetime of walking on two legs, the captain found moving around on four weird in a way that defied all description, but his fur did quite a bit to keep out the cold. Twilight was already trotting ahead, and nothing had collapsed yet, so B.J. fell into step behind her.

Their footsteps echoed as they walked deeper into the rocky tunnels, the sounds bouncing and reverberating off of the damp, dark tunnels. Water dripped down from the cracks of the ceiling above, a few droplets landing on his coat and mane, punching tiny holes of moisture in his protective layer of fur; it wasn’t long before he started to shiver a little. It wasn’t anywhere near as cold as the waters of the Berlin Catacombs, but it was enough to make him wish he still had his Air Force-issued flight jacket.

“You okay?” Twilight asked, the sound of the pony’s voice snapping B.J. out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ve been in places much colder than this.”

“Good, because we still have quite a ways to go.” Twilight rounded a corner, her light suddenly reflecting off of something out of sight. “At least there’ll be plenty to see down here.”

B.J. opened his mouth to ask what Twilight meant by that, but then he rounded the corner and promptly found himself staring at the answer to his question.

The tunnel they’d been walking through had opened up onto a massive underground cavern positively crammed with crystals and gemstones. Shining white quartz made up the vast majority of it, shooting up in spear-like formations from the floor and ceiling, thick enough they were the ceiling or walls in some places. The trickling sound he’d heard earlier was louder here thanks to a near-constant flow of water leaking down from the ceiling, sliding off of the crystal formations and raining down in dozens of miniature waterfalls. The air here was even more humid than it was before, but the damp chill was suddenly the absolute last thing on B.J.’s mind.

“...wow,” B.J. commented as Twilight led the way deeper into what was possibly the biggest and most elaborate geode in existence. The purple pony’ light refracted off and through the trickling streams and glittering gemstones, spreading it throughout the cavern in a slowly shifting display of violet light.

“Yeah, wish I could say that was my reaction too when I first fell down here. Unfortunately, I was kinda distracted with saving my brother from an evil doppelganger of his betrothed.”

“Wait, what?”

“Long story.” Twilight offered. “Anyway, these caves were once home to a pretty big mining operation on account of all the gems down here. That was a long time ago, though; most ponies have forgotten that these caves even exist. As a result, they’re a great way to bypass all the checkpoints the humans have set up in Canterlot. All the wreckage from before Canterlot was invaded that wound up down here also makes it a good place to scavenge for supplies I can’t find in the Everfree forest.”

Now that Twilight had pointed them out, B.J. could see several fragments of structures that looked like they’d been ripped right out of a fairy tale city, like bits of food caught in some unfathomably huge giant’s teeth. The front wall of a hut, propped against a spiky hill of quartz. A fragment of a building that was probably once part of a restaurant pinned between an outcropping of yellow crystals and a glittering green pillar. He could even see a piece of a library impaled upon a crystal-clear spike, decaying, waterlogged books spilling out from tilted bookshelves onto the cavern floor.

Fitting. B.J. mused silently to himself. The nazis killed a city and replaced it with one of their own, blissfully unaware the old city’s corpse got buried right beneath their feet…

The shifting display of refracted violet light came to an abrupt stop, freezing in place and snapping B.J. out of his thoughts. He looked up at Twilight, noticing that she’d come to an abrupt stop right in time to avoid running into her. “…what is it?”

Twilight didn’t respond, at least not right away. B.J. stepped out from behind her, following her gaze to the remains of some kind of outdoor streetside stall. Based on all the pony-shaped wooden mannequins (ponnequins?) scattered around it and the tattered, decaying clothing on said mannequins, it was apparently dedicated to selling clothing at one point. Though B.J. had no clue why this particular piece of wreckage had caught her attention-

“A friend of mine used to make things like this.” Twilight finally spoke up. The purple pony had trotted over to one of the life-sized dummies and was now kneeling in front of it, staring down mournfully at the pony-shaped hunk of wood.

“She worked here?”

“No, but she was planning to. She’d wanted to open up another boutique in Canterlot for a while, had picked out a store, even found a manager for the sister location…” Twilight trailed off into silence, a single tear splattering onto the cavern’s stony floor. For a long, long moment, the only sound was the ever-present trickling of water.

“...we should probably get moving.” B.J. finally said, gently nudging Twilight’s leg with one of his hoofs. The purple pony nodded mutely, sniffling a bit as she turned away from the small collection of tattered cloth and wooden debris. B.J. stole one last glance at the scattered clothing… and promptly did a double-take so hard he could almost swear he heard his neck crack.

“B.J.?” Twilight called out, but the captain barely heard her, preoccupied as he was with figuring out how the fuck that mannequin ended up wearing that suspiciously familiar sheepskin jacket.

“…where the hell did that come from?”

“Umm… the pony who owned this stall?” Twilight answered, the faintest hint of nervousness creeping into her voice. He couldn’t exactly blame her for being a little worried; from what he’d heard, he could come off as a little crazy at times, and that was before he got dumped into a world that looked like it had been plucked straight out of a particularly realistic acid trip. “Why’d you ask?”

B.J. stepped toward the mannequin whose jacket had caught his eye, gently tilting it back into an upright position as he studied the article around its limbs. “I asked because the pony who ran this stall apparently made a jacket that looks almost exactly like a jacket I used to wear.” The color was a slightly darker brown than he recalled, the sheepskin lining was lighter in coloration, the sleeves extended all the way down the wearer’s front legs, the left half of the jacket didn’t fold over the right half quite as much, and the buckles were different, but other than all those minor details, the jacket was pretty much identical in appearance to his old GI flight jacket.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” B.J. began slowly undoing the buckles and zippers on the jacket, being careful not to damage it as he stripped it off the mannequin. In all likelihood, though, he probably didn’t have to worry; for an article of clothing that had been gathering dust in this dark, damp cavern for who-knows-how-long, the jacket was free of mold, not at all torn, not fraying anywhere, and otherwise looking like it had been made yesterday. Given everything else that he’d seen so far, he wouldn’t be surprised if it had some sort of enchantment that made it supernaturally durable.

And if that enchantment prevents wear and tear from damaging the jacket, then maybe it’ll prevent bullets and knives from damaging it too. And if it doesn’t… well, it’s still a pretty nice jacket.
“Umm… do you need help getting that on?” Twilight offered, stepping a little closer as B.J. began trying (with mixed success) to get the jacket on. No wonder Twilight never bothered with clothes; to call getting just this jacket on a hassle was an understatement, and he didn’t have wings that might get in the way.

“Just give me a minute…” B.J. responded as he finally managed to slip one hoof into a sleeve. Several tries later, and he’d managed to do the same with the other front hoof. With that, he began working on the buckles, struggling to manipulate them with just one hoof…

“You do realize you can just use your tail for those, right?” B.J. froze for a moment, before glancing back at his tail, its prehensile hairs still wrapped around the LaserKraftWerk and holding the rifle-sized laser cannon aloft.

“...not until this moment, no,” B.J. admitted, the faintest hint of an embarrassed blush creeping onto his face. He set the LaserKraftWerk down on the floor, freeing up his tail so that it could manipulate the buckles. Surprisingly enough, he had absolutely no trouble using his tail to secure the straps and clasps; unlike his hooves, which were roughly akin to flexible but thumbless mittens, the hairs of his tail could split apart into something approaching fingers, and were much more dexterous. As a result, it took only a few seconds to secure each strap, and only three straps before the jacket was fully on. “Mind if I keep this?” He asked, looking back at his equine body… and his heart skipped a beat.

“Sure, why not?” Twilight answered, shrugging nonchalantly, but B.J. barely even noticed; all his attention had been seized by something else. Something that was, in his opinion, exponentially more alarming than a suspiciously familiar-looking jacket. “I mean, it’s not like anyone’s using it-”

“Why is there a livestock brand on my flank?!”

“...you got branded!? When did- Oh. Don’t worry, that’s just your Cutie Mark.”

B.J. looked up at Twilight, then back at the black, winged-parachute-shaped “cutie mark” on his flank, and then back at Twilight. “…my cutie mark? What the hell is that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, the mark on your flank?” The violet-eyed pony responded, lifting one hoof to cover her mouth and the tiny chuckles slipping out of it. “Y’know, the one you got when you discovered your special talent?”

B.J. glanced back at the marking again, noticing how suspiciously similar it was to a USA Parachutist Badge. He was basically a natural-born supersoldier, and served as a Ranger in the army, so having that represented by a set of Jump Wings made a certain amount of sense… but then again, people didn’t just gain markings on their flanks tied to their special talents. Nothing did. And besides… “...you don’t find having a marking just appear outta nowhere on your body regardless of whether you want it or not concerning? At all?”

“Yeah, because you’d have to be either crazy or afflicted with something that screws up your cutie mark to not want it.” Twilight was still trying to suppress her giggles, with rapidly dwindling success. “Sorry, it’s just… first, you claim you aren’t a pony, then you freak out on seeing your reflection, and then you mistake your cutie mark for a brand. Are you a human in disguise or something?”

…she hasn’t realized I’m not just another pony, has she? Far as Twilight was concerned, B.J. was just a pony with a few screws loose, not a wayward human out of their element (and body). “Umm… yeah, actually. I wouldn’t say “in disguise”, but I was a human before I got turned into… well, this.” He admitted, gesturing with his tail to his equine form.

In an instant, Twilight’s chuckles went completely silent, every fiber in her body going rigid, her eyes going wide as if B.J. had just announced that he was a serial killer. “You’re… you’re joking, right? You weren’t actually-”

…oh. “Oh hell no!” B.J. exclaimed the instant he realized where Twilight’s comment was going. “I mean, I was the same species as those nazi bastards, but that’s about the only thing I had in common with them.”

“...so you were a human… who wasn’t a nazi?” Twilight was looking skeptical; apparently, she’d never met another human who wasn’t a full-fledged nazi. But at least she wasn’t looking like she was going to bolt at a moment’s notice.

“Who hated their friggin’ guts, too,” B.J. responded, nodding in agreement. “Let’s just say that the engagement back at your hideout wasn’t the first time I’ve gone to town on a bunch of nazis.”

“...oh,” Twilight answered, the tension leaving her body as quickly as it had formed. “Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me that there were humans who weren’t Nazis.”

“Kinda hard to blame you for that; if there are any humans here who aren’t Nazis, they’re probably in hiding, dead, or locked up in a prison somewhere,” B.J. responded.

Twilight shuddered ever-so-slightly. “Speaking of prisons… well, like you said, we should probably get moving. My friends aren’t going to rescue themselves.”

“Need any help getting that open?”

“N… no…” Twilight answered between grunts. She didn’t venture onto the streets of Canterlot very often, but when she did, it was usually through this concrete drainage shaft. She’d managed to find a fissure in the wall of this shaft that linked it with the crystal-filled caverns underneath Canterlot, small enough that it had escaped notice yet large enough that she could slip through with relative ease. This wasn’t the only way to the street level that she knew of… but it was certainly the one she used the most. That didn’t make the hatch at the top of this shaft any less stubborn, though.

“Almost…” She grunted, the circular slab of steel letting loose a loud, audible groan as the rusty valve holding it shut finally decided to cooperate. “Got it.” Her back hooves and wings tightened their grip on the ladder’s bars as she pushed with her front hooves, the hinges of the hatch squealing as she forced it open. Once the metal hatch opened fully, she quickly scrambled out and into the rectangular chamber beyond, B.J. following close behind.

“...no guards? Or cameras?” B.J. asked as he studied the chamber that they’d entered, a large, rectangular room with concrete walls, light flowing through barred vents, and a few more ladders affixed to the walls, ladders that led to smaller hatches.

“Nope,” Twilight answered him as she trotted over to one of the ladders. “When the Nazis took over, they pretty much demolished Cloudsdale when all the pegasi up there refused to submit to them. But Cloudsdale had a weather factory, and the ponies working up there kept stockpiles of rain and thunder clouds up there. And when the factory was destroyed with the rest of Cloudsdale… those stockpiles got released into the atmosphere.”

“And Canterlot got slammed with one heckuva storm?”

“Pretty much.” Twilight came to a stop beneath the closest ladder, pulling a small, 8-inch disk enclosed in a square plastic case out of her saddlebags with one wing as she began to climb it. “There was pouring rain, hailstones the size of soccer balls, even rainbow-colored lightning.”

“Thing is, the Nazis didn’t know that the only weather here is artificially produced back then. They assumed that they’d have to deal with storms like that on a regular basis, and thus, when they rebuilt Canterlot, they built the drainage system to handle a truly absurd amount of rainfall. And when they finally realized these oversized flood-control drains were completely unnecessary, they decided to just build over top of them instead of taking the time to fill them in.” Twilight paused for a second underneath the second hatch, checking that the runes she’d inscribed onto the magnetic disk were doing what they were supposed to. They were. “Not that I’m complaining, since they make sneaking into Canterlot a piece of cake.” And with that, she undid the latch and climbed out onto the streets of Canterlot.

The first time she’d emerged from one of those grates and onto the streets that stretched between the towering spires of steel and concrete, in the handful of seconds that had passed before the cameras had alerted the humans to her position and she’d found herself fleeing for her life, she’d assumed that she’d somehow ended up in Manehattan. It was only after she’d managed to lose her pursuers that she’d started to notice the distinct lack of glass, the rigid, angular construction of the buildings, the red banners and flags that were draped all over the grey walls.

Those banners and flags never failed to creep Twilight out before; even if she put aside how much they reminded her of the makeover Canterlot had received at the hands of the Trixie the Nutty and Power-mad, the big white dots and black, crooked crosses in the center of each still looked entirely too much like massive, unblinking eyes, always watching and ready to call down a crushing iron fist upon anypony who dared step out of line.

But now… the ‘gaze’ of the banners felt a little less intense, their presence a little less oppressive. They still left her feeling exposed, weak, and small… but not quite as much as they usually did.

Probably because this time, she wasn’t alone.

As B.J. emerged, Twilight saw his eyes lock on a white, rectangular device with a circular black ‘lens’, a camera that had the both of them in its viewing arc. “We need to move. That camera-”

“Can’t see us, thanks to this little piece of artifice I whipped up.” Twilight cut him off, holding up the piece of artifice in question.

B.J. looked at the glowing violet runes on the disk, then at the faint, sparkling aura that had enveloped the camera. “That thing you pulled out can shut down cameras?”

“Better; it taps into the camera’s video feed and edits the two of us out of it,” Twilight responded as she reached into her saddlebags with her other wing, pulling out two black cloaks and putting one on. It was unlikely that any nazis would be looking close enough at her to recognize her as the Princess of Friendship, but better safe than sorry. “It can only affect a few cameras at a time, and it’ll only hide the two of us, but the guy watching the camera feeds probably won’t even know something’s wrong.”

“...so, in other words, we don’t have to worry about the security cameras.” B.J. climbed the rest of the way out, taking the second cloak and putting it on. The last thing either of them wanted was for a nazi to notice the man-portable laser cannon on his back. “You know where we’re going, right.”

Twilight nodded, unfurling a map of the streets of Canterlot, post-nazi redevelopment. “Next stop; Eisenberg prison.”