Fallout Equestria: The Ashlands Timeline

Monday, 10/31/2287
POV: Twilight Sparkle
The Everfree Forest

Twilight expected to crash into a tree, but Starlight expanded her shield, which deflected their path enough to avoid a direct collision. Instead they bounced about between obstacles like a pinball as they plummeted to the ground.

At least until the shield collapsed, at which point dozens of branches and thorns jabbed her. She landed hard, pain shooting through her previously injured leg as she collapsed.

Twilight looked about as she tried to regain composure. A quick survey of her surroundings revealed no new danger, but showed how the forest had changed. Trees were more twisted and gnarled than Twilight remembered. The newer trees were like bonsai, while the more ancient trees had a normal bulky trunk with twisted branches.

She also recognized the reason that the joke blooms stayed out of the forest. There were bunches of purple flowers that looked like poison joke aside from color, shimmering visibly with magic. They were in bunches at regular intervals as if someone that understood their range planted them in such a way to create the perimeter with the killing joke.

When the pain died down to a throb, Twilight pulled herself off the ground and unhitched herself from the wagon. She shook the thorns and twigs from her wings and mane, grabbing a flower in her muzzle and carrying it back to show the others.

“Well, the good news is I can feel my everything again.” Solar said as Twilight approached. “The bad news is… I can feel my everything again. Ow.”

Twilight flapped her wings to boost herself up into the air and landed inside the wagon. Most everypony looked okay, Starlight wobbling to her own hooves and rubbing her horn as if she jarred it during the crash.

The one that didn’t look okay was Dinky, who was snarling like a feral, snapping her teeth at the living ponies as Limestone restrained her limbs with rope. Starlight latched the magic restraint that had been on Mercury onto Dinky instead. Next to them, Mercury was holding a sealed beaker with a killing joke bloom inside. The bloom thrashed in agony at the proximity to the other flowers, but remained alive.

“Why is Dinky doing that?” asked Twilight.

“It’s the joke bloom,” said Limestone as she kept Dinky pinned. “Dinky told me before that she was afraid of becoming feral and hurting somepony. If it realized that…”

“It wanted to get her killed by her own friends,” Starlight sighed. “That seems like a murder method killing joke might think hilarious.”

“Should I put her down?” Maud asked.

“We will not!” Limestone’s response was venomous enough that even Maud took a step back.

“It’s okay, Limestone,” Twilight tried to calm the situation, dropping the purple bloom on the wagon’s floor. The killing joke in Mercury’s beaker shied away from it. “I think these flowers are what’s keeping the killing joke out. They feed on latent psychic energy, which debilitates some psionic creatures. Zecora’s cure for poison joke used these pha-”

“Phantasmal flowers!” Mercury recognized them. “I’ve only seen pictures!” She paused, clearing her throat and trying to contain her glee at seeing new flora. “I bet I can make a remedy with this since I have the joke bloom to study too.”

“Indeed,” Twilight smiled at Mercury’s enthusiasm. “I once helped my Zecora weed them out of a section of our Everfree so they wouldn’t slowly drive the poison joke into town.”

“Get more of them,” Limestone said, regaining her cool. “But make sure not to remove enough that the joke will come in after us. We’ll keep Dinky bound until we get to Zecora's hut. The full recipe could be there.”

“Think she’ll have other recipes?” asked Mercury. “I’d love to get my hooves on a zebra alchemy book!”

Twilight smiled again at Mercury’s thirst for knowledge, but also patted her shoulder to calm her. She wouldn’t mind finding such a book herself.

“Can we carry these with us on our way out?” asked Limestone.

“We can, but it won’t ward them off,” said Twilight. “The psionic effect wears off quickly unless they’re planted in the ground, not in a vase or planter. They require very specific conditions; Everfree was the only place they’d grow even before this mess.”

“Right now, I’m more concerned with the wagon,” said Starlight. “I don’t see paths and the trees are too close together further in.”

“We couldn’t use paths anyway, since patrols might follow them,” said Limestone, cradling the squirming Dinky and rocking her. “Can you put a perception filter on the wagon?”

“Zebra mysticism eludes me,” Starlight shook her head. “Break only knows how they managed such things without horns.”

“Very well,” said Limestone. “Pinkie, Maud, cover the wagon as much as you can with branches and brush. We’ll carry the supplies we require to the campsite and hope we can come back for the rest.”

“What about Solar?” asked Mercury. “Should somepony stay here with her?”

“We can’t split up in the Everfree,” Limestone shook her head. “There’s no guarantee that Midnight cleared out all the dangerous creatures.”

“Okay, but we have team members that can’t walk,” said Twilight. It’d be hard enough for her to walk.

“That occurred to me, but we must make do,” said Limestone. “I’ll carry Dinky since she won’t bite me. Pinkie can carry Solar so we can move faster. I’ll let Crimson walk to carry more supplies, but Maud will keep her on a leash… while carrying Kamikaze I guess.”

“Nightmare plague me with 1000 buckless nights,” swore Kamikaze. “I’m back to being luggage, then.”

“That is an adequate arrangement,” said Maud. “I want Crimson within murdering distance.”

“You mean you want me on a leash,” chuckled Crimson.

“The two are not mutually exclusive,” Maud said as she tied a rope around Crimson’s neck. She tied it into a slipknot to make it easier to choke her and yanked it when Crimson tried to speak again, showing the slightest hint of a smile.

“Pinkie will take the pegaslut, but demands she limits her movements,” Pinkie said as she hefted Solar onto her back, legs hanging off either side. “Pinkie carries many explosives so perverse hip grinding could be deadly! Yes.”

Limestone carried Dinky’s muzzled and bound form. She had ceased lunging at ponies but eyed her living comrades angrily. Everypony else loaded supplies, taking as many as possible in case they couldn’t return to the wagon.

Twilight took more of a load than she should with her leg, but wanted to feel like she was pulling her share. It was hard for her to bear leaving Spike’s body there alone, and Limestone seemed equally reluctant to leave Marble. Luckily, the preservation spells would keep them from attracting wild animals.

“Tranquil’s camp was about three hundred hoofsteps this way, and I don’t see any other signals in that area,” said Starlight, projecting her pipbuck map and then pointing. “Maud. You go first so we don’t step on any tracks you can examine.”

“Affirmative,” Maud said and stepped to the front, yanking at Crimson’s leash harder than she needed. Twilight wished Crimson would stop moaning when Maud mistreated her.

The brush was thick, but Maud may as well have been walking in the open, bulldozing it for the others that followed. Starlight used her magic to pull branches back together behind them to not leave an obvious path.

They soon came upon a clearing where Tranquil had camped, which had a lot of broken brush already. Signs of a struggle surrounded a small cave opening, dark and narrow enough they’d need to enter singlefile. An overturned iron cart lay at the edge, small enough to pull between trees, but too big for the cave. It was empty.

“That’s the cart I gave Tranquil,” Limestone said. “Looks like they cleaned out any remaining supplies.”

“Some tracks match Tranquil’s hoofprints that we saw leaving Canterlot,” said Maud. “Other tracks look like bat or pegasus hooves. I think they chased Tranquil into the cave. There are also a few tracks I do not recognize. The underside of the hoof is ridged in odd patterns.”

“Changelings have ridged under-hooves,” said Twilight. “Because of their chitin exoskeleton.”

“Changelings work for Trinity, not Midnight,” said Crimson.

“Their tracks are covered by other tracks, as are Tranquil’s,” Maud said as she walked to the cave entrance. “They could have been fleeing with her.”

There was blood on the ground, almost dry, and places where bodies fell before being dragged away. Twilight cringed as Maud licked each of the blood spots.

“These are all bat blood,” Maud said. “And the only pegasus blood I found tastes male. Tranquil may be uninjured.”

"Well that’s a sexy ability," Crimson commented. "Being able to identify blood from complete strangers. Color me envious."

“I’m seeing damage from both bullets and horn beams on these trees,” said Limestone. She dragged a hoof against a damaged tree. “Not enough damage to have been a Twilicorn. Can changelings use beam attacks?”

“Yes,” said Twilight, rolling it around in her head more. “If Midnight’s enemy uses changelings, perhaps these were prisoners. Tranquil may have rescued them, or they rescued her after she was captured.”

“You think Tranquil went commando and stormed out of the castle with two of their prisoners?” laughed Crimson.

“Why not?” asked Mercury. “I mean few would have expected Solar to take on dragons and live.”

“Yes,” Pinkie said. “Pinkie has seen unimposing ponies do interesting things when backed into corners, sometimes due to Pinkie.”

“Maybe they weren’t in the castle,” said Twilight. “What if they escaped in transit to or from the castle?”

“That seems more likely,” Maud looked back at them from the cave mouth. “However, for now I require light.”

“I got it,” Starlight said. Her horn glowed as she stepped into the cave behind Maud.

As they all followed Maud into the cave, it remained narrow. The widest point would allow two ponies to walk side by side, but it was full of twists and turns.

“Hm,” said Starlight, her pipbuck map projecting in front of her. “When I tried to map it, looks like it leads outside the edge of the forest but… there’s something odd. I’m picking up levels of structures beneath the surface, not connected to this cavern. A stable?”

“There wasn’t a stable in Everfree,” said Crimson. “They could have built something like one since then; they had plenty of time.”

“Looks huge,” commented Starlight. “The structures right beneath us look like I’d expect from a residential district, but it's shielded like Stable 27, so I can't see details.”

“Not surprising,” said Crimson. “Midnight claims to protect ten thousands of bats and hundreds of pegasi, but Midnight Castle isn’t nearly big enough for that.”

“That many?” asked Starlight.

“This isn’t her only settlement,” said Crimson. “She has others further south. With all that, fruits are probably the most populous species of pony left.”

“Makes sense,” pondered Twilight. “They weren’t very populous in my timeline, but most lived outside major cities, and would have avoided direct hits.”

“That could be a problem if they’re loyal to Midnight,” said Starlight. “But no time to worry about that now.”

They arrived upon signs of a camp. Spent rations from the Canterlot stores littered the area and there was a bedroll left open. It had fluorescent green blood on it, as did several of the rocks.

“This is changeling blood,” Twilight said. She’d seen plenty after the changeling invasion of her Canterlot. Shining and Cadance’s repelling energy wave crushed some changelings against walls if they were unlucky enough to be indoors when it hit. Cadance and Shining had felt terrible when they found out.

“If I had to guess,” said Limestone. “She met escapees, tried to help them, and got surrounded by Midnight’s troops.” She looked deeper into the cave. “If the other end of this is outside the border of the forest, that’s how they escaped. Let’s look.”

Maud walked cautiously as they trotted deeper. The cave split at several points, but she followed the hoofprints to know where they had fled.

“This cave was in use prior to them being here,” said Maud. “There are older hoofprints and somepony drew arrows on the floor to show the correct way. The markings are discrete, but the changelings might have known about them already.”

“That explains why they didn’t get lost on their way through it,” Limestone said.

It was a long path, but the opposite end was indeed outside the border of the forest and beyond the killing joke. The path allowed one to get past the killing joke, though it was far too small a passage for their wagon.

There weren’t as many hoofprints here because of the wind in the Ashlands, but there was a strange creature about thirty hoofsteps from the entrance, facing it. It looked like she held off their pursuers and died for her efforts. Twilight felt anger rising at how the pursuers left a body to rot, enemy or not.

The creature didn’t look like a changeling though. It might have even been cute if it weren’t dead. It was covered with bright lime green chitin rather than black, with purple fairy wings and a stubby changeling-like horn. Her empty eyes were bright red, fluorescent blood surrounding her from the gunshot wounds in her chest.

“There is horn damage above the cave,” said Maud, kneeling next to it and looking at the creature’s underhoofs. “And broken stone around the entrance. If she blasted it shut, they could have dug it out. I think there were two of these creatures though. The underside of this one’s hooves only match some hoofprints I saw.”

“If the blasts only partially collapsed the cave,” surmised Limestone. “The pursuers might still fire out at the one that collapsed it. Any others must have made it into the Ashlands by the time they dug it out. At that point I guess the effort to capture them exceeded their importance.”

“Is that a changeling, Twilight?” Starlight asked.

“Not any kind I’ve seen,” Twilight sighed. “It’s similar though. Maybe a related fairy species, maybe mutated, or maybe just descended from a different hive. We only confirmed the existence of one hive, but there could have been different genetic strains.”

“What did the changelings you encountered look like?” asked Starlight.

“Solid black with empty blue eyes,” said Twilight. “They look emaciated and have holes in them.”

“Everypony has holes in them,” Solar said. “It’s one of my favorite things about ponies.”

“Not like that,” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Like in their limbs, sometimes right through where the leg bone would be if they didn’t have exoskeletons instead.”

“Really?” Solar thought about that and her wings slowly perked up.

“She has injuries that healed before she died,” Mercury said, leaning down to examine the body. “I assume she was the one they cared for in the cave. Sad that it was for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” said Limestone. “Tranquil and her other friend may still be alive because of this creature. The area south of here shouldn’t be as desolate, so I hope they found safe food and water.”

“Can we bury the poor thing?” Mercury asked, moving a hoof to gently pull the creature’s eyes closed.

“I’ll cremate the body,” offered Starlight.

“Apologies, Empress, but we shouldn't do that yet,” said Limestone. “We should leave as little sign we were here as possible. More guards will probably come to collapse the cave, and I’m surprised they hadn’t already. Something must have happened that suddenly required a lot of troops elsewhere for them to leave it unfinished and unguarded… I wonder what...”

“Fair enough,” said Starlight. “We don’t need the cave, since we know now to fully shield the wagon on the way out. We’ll go look at the Tree of Harmony next, but we’ll do so as far away from it as we can.”

“It’s in a ravine,” said Twilight. “We can peek over the edge.”

Twilight looked at the strange creature once more, trying to place it. Finally, she shook her head and turned away.

They found an edge of the ravine around Midnight Castle without further incident. Limestone let Twilight look through Ashmaker’s scope to tell them if she recognized anything.

The castle looked like the castle from the Nightmare Moon Timeline, which made sense. Half a dozen bat ponies guarded the entrance. When a 'twilicorn' landed nearby and walked into the palace, the guards bowed. Given she didn’t wear Celestia’s skin, Twilight figured it wasn’t the real one either, but the bats still treated her with respect.

“They based the New Lunar Republic here when they made it this far north,” said Starlight. “But they barely had time to finish repairs before being driven back.”

“How did you drive them back?” Twilight asked. Any detail might help.

“We didn’t,” said Starlight. “Discord was freed and sent both sides running.”

“Yeah, he does that,” Twilight chuckled. It was too bad she didn’t have her own Discord handy. She never thought she’d miss him so much.

Twilight scanned around with the scope, moving to the edge of the chasm. She looked inside and found what she sought: The Tree of Harmony. It had large cables connected to it, a forcefield barrier, and another half dozen bats guarding it.

The Elements were in the tree branches though the symbols on them weren’t the ones Twilight knew. They still had the simple geometric shapes on them like they had when Twilight first found them in the ruined castle, with a symbol of a lightning bolt pointing to the base of the tree, towards a small locked chest with six keyholes on it.

The tree may have looked similar, but it didn’t feel the same. Twilight couldn’t explain why or how, but there was something wrong with it, giving her an uncanny feeling.

Upon more examination, she realized the cables didn’t all lead to the palace. The thickest, almost a half-hoofstep in diameter, led to a small portal opening. It was drawing energy from or sending energy to another location. The portal was no larger than the cable’s diameter.

“They’re either using it as a power source, or drawing energy from elsewhere to power it,” said Twilight as she hoofed Ashmaker back to Limestone. “They haven’t opened the chest though. The whole thing seems odd, different in more ways than that, but I can't put my hoof on it.”

“The six-lock chest?” asked Starlight, who was also looking it over via a spell and apparently knew of that. “Why? Is that important?”

“It could have been a huge asset in the war, even won it for you,” said Twilight. “Even now it might be useful. When we opened it in my timeline, it gave us special power to defeat an otherwise impossibly strong foe. I don’t know if it’d dent this mess, but it couldn’t make it worse.”

“Right,” grumbled Starlight. “We tried to open it, but we had other things to worry about. I wanted to dig up the whole tree and take it to the Ministry of Magitech to study but couldn’t without risking the black vines returning.”

“How did you open it, Twilight?” Limestone asked. “And what inside gave you these powers?”

“I could pick the locks,” offered Solar.

“No amount of picking will work on this,” sighed Twilight. “The keys are symbolic so there’s nothing to pick. Basically, each lock represents an Element of Harmony: Laughter, Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, Kindness, and Magic. Each Element Bearer learned a lesson about their element and taught someone else the same lesson. The one they taught gave them a gift, which if touched to the chest would become a key.”

“That sounds unduly complicated,” said Maud.

“And highly specific,” said Limestone. “Are you sure all of those steps are necessary to make an object into a key? Like teaching someone else a lesson?”

“I don’t know,” sighed Twilight. “That’s how it happened for us. Now that I think about it, I don’t know for certain if it has to be the lesson-learner that brings the item to the chest. Either way, it contains Rainbow Power, a supercharged version of the Elements. It defeated Tirek when he had the power of all the princesses, the Element Bearers, Discord, and the populations of several major cities.”

“Tirek?” Starlight arched an eyebrow. “That centaur bum? All I remember about him is that he got taken out by Canterlot’s automagic defense system and Daybreaker thought it was hilarious.”

“Well you did better on that one, then,” smiled Twilight. Though she wondered how exact the friend vs foe detection of such defenses would be, and how many innocents got blasted in exchange for being ready for Tirek. She decided it best not to antagonize Starlight by asking.

“Such power would be useful,” Maud said.

“Pinkie calls being the pink ranger!” Pinkie added. “Yes.”

“Not necessarily useful in the way you’re thinking,” sighed Twilight. “But definitely useful.”

“Okay then,” Limestone lowered Ashmaker. “Be on the lookout for lessons. If you get an item while learning one, keep it.”

It caught Twilight off guard when Limestone took her seriously. At first she wondered if she was being sarcastic.

“Uh, I got an item,” Kamikaze mentioned. “When I got tossed out of the reactor. I kept the tip of Twilight’s broken horn and made a necklace out of it. I guess I learned a lesson too?”

“Rainbow Dash in my timeline was the Element of Loyalty,” said Twilight, blinking. “General, this horn could be a key now.” She smacked her hoof against her forehead. “Oh my Celestia, I remember now. You mentioned when you got it you saw a rainbow shimmer. I thought you were delirious, but come to think of it, we all saw one when we got our keys.”

“I don’t know how much use I’ll be as an element now,” Kamikaze shrugged.

“Eh heh… this seems far-fetched,” chuckled Starlight, scratching her head.

“Keep hold of that, Kami,” Limestone nodded. “I feel weird ordering that, but… we need to grasp at every string that might help us.”

“Hmph,” Starlight grunted, but trusted Limestone’s instincts enough not to protest.

“Thank you for taking the idea seriously, General,” Twilight said, as thankful as she was surprised. “You’re a credit to Equestria.”

“Who were the other Elements in your timeline?” Limestone asked.

“Well,” said Twilight. “Pinkie was Laughter, Fluttershy was Kindness, Rarity was Generosity, Applejack was Honesty, and I was Magic.”

“Pinkie cannot spell slaughter without laughter,” Pinkie approved. “She will laugh harder during murder and look for rainbows in the blood of her victims!”

“I am not sure that it works that way, Pink,” said Maud.

“Eris was kindness?” Limestone peered at Twilight a moment, then continued. “Well Applejack and Rarity were the Minister of Wartime Technology and Morale respectively, but are unaccounted for. And you’re in no shape to be Magic, no offense.”

“Rarity survived,” said Crimson. “She made it into a stable in New Manehattan. Probably still alive since she had a soul gem.”

“I hope she is,” said Twilight.

“You might not if you meet her,” Crimson smirked, but Twilight knew she’d refuse to elaborate if asked for more.

“Anyway, I doubt there’s a requirement they be the same ponies,” said Twilight. “Long ago, Celestia and Luna wielded three each simultaneously. I assume somepony else wielded them before that, or at least represented them in creating the Tree of Harmony.”

“We can talk more of this later,” Starlight finally cut them off. “Let’s get on our way before we’re noticed.”

Afterward, they headed to the Mirror Pool. They chose an area a good distance away at a higher elevation so they saw it without drawing attention.

“The old entrance to the Mirror Pool is covered,” said Twilight, seeing nothing but a clearing where it had been. “Much better than we did in my time.”

“Definitely something under there,” said Starlight, looking at her pipbuck screen. “There’s thick metal sheeting about five hoofsteps under the surface covering something, and I’m detecting enchantments on the ground above it. There might be a nasty surprise for anyone that digs here.”

Starlight’s words settled it. There was no reason Midnight would secure a random spot in the forest unless she was protecting that cave. So there was a whole army of evil Twilight mirror clones. Great.

“It’s as I feared,” sighed Twilight, hoofing Ashmaker over once again. “They covered the entrance, but I assume they burrowed a more convenient passage into it from the palace.”

“I was definitely afraid of this,” sighed Starlight. “It creates copies of ponies, right?”

“You knew?” Twilight asked.

“Pinkie told her!” Pinkie took credit. “Nana Pinkie told Pinkie of it, and its many questionable applications. Yes.”

“We studied it,” said Starlight. “And I admit we tried what Midnight seems to be doing, but abandoned the concept after an order from then-Celestia.”

“Was there a specific reason for that order?” asked Limestone.

Starlight sighed as if not wanting to talk more about her previous experiments, but continued. “In short, we discovered the literal existence of trapped souls within the pool. We were ordered to find a way to release them but…”

“We were distracted by imminent threats and unable to make progress,” Crimson said. Twilight wished she didn’t chuckle when she said it.

“Can we make a copy of me and transplant her legs?” asked Kamikaze.

“I wouldn’t try, even if it wasn’t cruel,” said Twilight. “At any rate, they’re bad copies, with none of the memories and only a vaguely-similar personality of the original. According to the book I studied, they have short life expectancies and no self-awareness, and would become increasingly corrupt given time.” She sighed. “Though if you discovered real souls, my information may have been incorrect. You can sometimes tell them apart because they have odd verbal tics, related to the original’s intent when making them, which explains why the one we fought kept blurting out 'kill'.”

“If she can do that,” said Limestone. “Why aren’t there millions of them? She shouldn’t need bats at all.”

“The Mirror Pool has a limited amount of energy,” said Twilight. “Or souls even, as Starlight’s research discovered. If I get back to my own time… I’ll have to discreetly look into how to help them, and you should here too when you can. Either way, only so many copies can exist at once. You’d have to wait for some to ‘die’ to make more.”

“What’s the maximum?” Limestone asked.

“I don’t know,” Twilight admitted. “At least four dozen, but maybe thousands. I didn’t study it much for fear it’d cause more problems.”

“Studying was the right thing to do in this case,” said Starlight, as if trying to fit in a bit of justification. “The development of soul gems was a direct consequence of understanding how to trap a soul. The previous version of the tech, life gems, wasn’t a true way to revive someone...just copy. And without transferring the soul to correct flaws in the copy, there was a large chance of… missing memories or even mental… illness...”

Starlight trailed off as if having a sudden realization, but seemed unwilling to elaborate. In fact, she went wide-eyed in terror for a moment before turning away and shifting her face back to a fake-looking smile.

“We’ll assume the worst,” Limestone said. “That she does in fact have a whole army.” She smiled as she added unsarcastically, “Good. I was worried things would get too easy.”

“Can we take it out?” asked Maud. “That would be a serious blow to Midnight.”

“That would be insane in our current condition,” said Starlight. “We need healing and backup before trying that.”

“Not just that,” said Limestone. “If Midnight and Trinity are evenly matched, that’s better for everypony. I assume that Trinity and Cozy can make new super-mutants, so if Midnight suddenly loses the ability to make new twilicorns, the conflict could end very quickly.”

“I’d take my chances if we could destroy it,” said Starlight. “But since we can’t, there’s no need to discuss it.”

“It’s been this way since shortly after the Breaking,” said Crimson. “Every time one side or the other gets the upper hoof, even by a little, something sets them back. Strange betrayals, mysterious explosions, plans leaked with no explanation, stuff like that. And despite usual competence, Trinity occasionally gives really stupid orders to the mutants, who are just stupid enough to follow them. The whole situation is uncanny.”

“For 200 years?” asked Twilight. “Strange neither side pulled ahead by now.”

“There’s nothing wrong with strange,” shrugged Crimson. “But if one had to get the upper hoof, I’d rather it be Midnight, which should tell you something about Trinity.”

“Right,” sighed Twilight. “I know a spell that dispels them, in my time at least. But if she found it and knew how to use it, she probably read what I did. She’d definitely have warded against such a spell by now.”

“Good,” said Limestone. “Dispelling them sounds too easy. Anyway, let’s get to our campsite before they notice we’re looking at it.”