I'll hold out my hoof...

by Wooberjig

Rating: teen
Tags: Random, Adventure, Dark, Romance
Length: 1975

Celestia wakes up in a dark alley in the city she knows as Canterlot, stripped of her alicorn powers, and covered in various injuries. When she wakes up, she recalls that Discord had escaped again, and she had been unable to stop him. She immediately sets out to regain her throne, but finds that the city and it's inhabitants have changed drastically. She quickly finds Luna, but she's accompanied by someone who isn't exactly happy to have someone try to take her away from him. And Celestia later discovers that Discord's influence reached even her…

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-01-15 09:16:47 UTC

Awakening

Clop clop clop.  'What is that noise?'  She thought.  Clop clop clop.  Her head hurt.  Wait, that was an understatement.  Her everything hurt.  She didn't want to open her eyes.  She thought that she would be able to lay there and that would be enough and she would be happy.  Life is not that easy, she knew.  If she lay down any longer, she did not think that she would be able to get up.  But just a little longer wouldn't hurt, would it?

These thoughts belonged to a certain alicorn.  Her mane, without her magic sustaining it, now lay disheveled on the ground.  It was now a single color.  A bright pink.  It hung over her face, bothering her eyes and tickling her nose, to her annoyance.  Her coat usually a pure white color, was now matted with dirt.  She just wanted to lay there.  But her mane was starting to bother her, and that clopping noise was annoying her as well.  She opened her eyes a crack.  She was met with pink.  It contrasted deeply with the darkness when her eyes were closed.  She reached a protesting, pained hoof and moved her mane out of her face.

A confused expression found her face a moment, but was quickly replaced with a frown.  This wasn't the sight she wanted to see.  A voice rang through her head.  It rang through mine as well.  "You should thank me.  I'm letting you live.  In MY city even."  He had put emphasis on the word "my".  This voice irritated her, and filled her with anger.  I felt the same.  It gave her reason to stand.  She should be able to stand on anger alone for a while.

"Guess it's time to... wake up."  These words left her mouth as she raised her head and placed her hoof on the ground to lift herself up.  Good, she's getting up.  I was afraid that she wasn't going to leave that spot.  That would've been bad, for both me and her, and for the rest of the world.  "I can't leave my kingdom to that lunatic."

After she had managed to stand up,(which took her longer than she expected), the once pure, now dirty white alicorn saw that she was in some sort of dark alley.  She looked to the sky, which was a black color.  It looked as if the dark clouds covered the entire sky, through the crevice she was looking through.  Which didn't really offer anything on the sky.  She moved her gaze lower, to discern the clopping noise.  As she predicted, it was simply other ponies walking on a stone street.

She had an odd feeling though, about the citizens of this city.  There was a certain air around all the ponies she saw, it was a many number of things.  The most prevalent were... depression, and a certain air of hopelessness.  Almost as if there was nothing left to be done, no reason to do anything.  It was definitely not normal.  A chill ran down the pink maned alicorn's back.  She wasn't exactly expecting everything to be alright, but for everything to change this drastically this soon?  'What in the world has happened to my people?'  There was only one way to figure out.  She slowly began walking towards the street, out of the ally.

Every step she took filled her legs with pain.  But she had to figure out what had happened.  What "He" had done.  She couldn't begin to fathom what exactly had happened that could cause the change in atmosphere.  Another step.  It felt like it took her ages to get to the street.  For a moment, she thought that she had been walking slower on purpose.  A million disaster situations ran through her head as she neared the exit out of the alley.  She noticed that most of the ponies busily walking up and down the street were wearing cloaks.  She finally exited the alley and looked around.

The benevolent alicorn breathed a sigh of relief.  Nothing was on fire, there were no great slaughters taking place, nothing looked out of place really, save for the sky which still looked strange to her.  But her sigh of relief turned into a gasp as a pony accidentally bumped into her, causing the hood of his cloak to fall and show his face.  Normally, since the pony had a horn, the face of a fellow pony should've been underneath his hood.  But it wasn't.

Time froze for the white alicorn.  What was there was the face of a dog.  The body of a pony, but with the head and face of a dog, the pony's horn still remained, but it was extruding from the head of a dog.  'What is the meaning of this?!?'  This definitely was not normal.  For a moment, the dirty white alicorn simply thought that it was an illusion, but it was not.  She turned to look at a different pony and saw a strange combination of pony and lizard.  There was even a youngster that was a fusion of owl and pony, it even had talons.

And it seemed that it was business as usual for everyone except the confused alicorn.  There were no screams of horror at their appearances.  It almost seemed like... nothing had changed, save for the atmosphere.  2 ponies that she didn't recognize were trading with each other on the side of the street.  They were both hybrids of pony and another species of animal.  Heavy breathing could be heard to the side of her.  She turned to it.

A pony that looked relatively normal, save for the feathers growing in random places on his body, was breathing heavily, while staring up at the alicorn that was much taller than most passersby.  He had an empty look in his eyes, the pupils were contracted, but he was smiling.  'Drugs?'  And no pony took notice.  Nothing more than a simple glance, as if it was business as usual.  The same case could be found a couple feet down.  Empty look, heavy breathing, but large smile.

She was beginning to think that this was business as usual.  'Just how long have I been out?  It couldn't have been too long...'  There was another thing.  Metal limbs.  She had noticed that a few mutated ponies had metal limbs that released smoke every few seconds as they moved.  'Did we have such technology?'  It was slowly becoming clear to her.  Celestia had not been present for longer than she had originally thought.  She almost didn't want to deal with this sudden change, just crawl back into the alley and go to sleep.  And hope that when she wakes up, everything will be back to normal.

Discord wouldn't break free, the friendship report would arrive through spike as usual, and she would spend time with Luna.  They still had so much to catch up on.  She would sit through boring meetings, and have a little fun with her overly serious staff.  It would've been so easy  for her to just give up right there.  But...

"Hello there, Celestia,"  a whisper.  "Take a good look at the crowds."

Her gaze moves naturally.  Through the moving crowds walking up and down the street, one of them caught her eye, for she easily stood out.  A dark blue mare was being prodded to move forward.  Her mane too, lost it's ethereal glow, it now rested against her head and face.

"Luna?"  It was Luna.  The beloved little sister of the much taller, now pink maned alicorn.  She wanted to run right up to her and hug her.  The dark blue mare was the only thing that she recognized, the only thing that was normal.  She wanted to hug her.  Things would be easier if she had Luna around.  But there was an obstruction.  A big, living one to be precise.

The one that was prodding her was... larger than the celestial alicorn herself.  Not much taller, no, that wasn't the problem.  The problem was the sheer size of his arms.  He was a giant, in that sense.  He stood up on his hind legs and walked around as if it was natural.  He was occasionally stumbling though.  He seemed to be under the effects of something similar to the pony she had seen earlier.  There was a certain vacancy in his eyes.  He was the same as the other ponies that had changed.  The one word that came to the mind of the older alicorn was...  "Behemoth".

Their eyes met, the two alicorns.  A brief surprise, then a pleading expression.  Neither of their eyes left each other.  'Look's like I'm going to have to confront him.  That was very dangerous, however.  She was reminded of her near-powerlessness by her no longer flowing pink mane that now rested against her.  Just what exactly was she supposed to do?  But that didn't matter to her.  They were constantly widening the distance, and in this crowd it would be easy for her to lose sight of her younger sister.

The once all-powerful alicorn began to run, towards the odd pair of her sister, Luna, and the "Behemoth", shoving a few unknown ponies out of the way.  The "Behemoth"'s back got larger and larger until it was nearly close enough to touch.  Then she jumped in front of the odd pair.

"Huh?  What... do... you want?"  His words were slurred and it took him a while to fit a sentence together.  He was clearly under the effects of some kind of drugs.

"There appears to be some kind of mistake."  The once divine alicorn tried to sound as confident as possible, make it seem as if she was telling the truth.  She felt like some kind of hero out of a fantasy story, confronting the beast to save the princess.  Though, she was princess herself.  The crowds slipped past them, not even a curious glance.  It made sense.  Who would want to get involved in something like this?  There was one though.  Behind his shoulder, she saw.

"What are you... saying to me... of all ponies?  Get out.... of my way."  The "behemoth's" unhealthy voice told her to let go.  This was bad.  It didn't look like he was going to give up Luna easily.  She was already scared of the size of him, but now the prospect of him getting violent was adding to it.  "Huh... what are you... no mutations... don't get so... full of yourself!"  Mutations?  'Is that what they're calling it?  And there's even racism geared towards it?'

"Look, there's no difference between anyone here.  Even if they have these 'mutations' everyone is equ-"  Equal in Equestria.  Celestia's vision lurched suddenly.  She was aware of an agonizing pain in her side.  Her body shook horribly. A metallic, salty taste grew in her mouth.   He must've gotten tired of talking.  She was hit in the middle of her sentence.  His fist was nearly the same size as The majestic alicorn's entire torso, and it dug deeply into her side.

She could feel the sensation of her ribs breaking, fragments of her broken bones piercing her organs.  This truly was dangerous.  If she was hit in the same place, she would die.  But the second fist impacted somewhere else.  She found herself marveling at his strength.  Once more she was hit.

Then with one hand, the "behemoth" grabbed her neck, and raised his target into the air.  'So he wants to try and break my neck with one hand?'  It didn't seem impossible.  A creaking sound rang out.  There was a weird sound coming from behind her ears.  Her younger sister could be seen out of the corner of her eye.  He was moving further away from her.  In a sense, she had been successful.  Another creak.  This time it was probably her neck bone giving way.

The dangling alicorn had assumed she would be strangled in the air, but for the fourth time a fist beat into her side.  She saw it as a huge iron hammer.  He raised his fist in the air, aiming at the beaten alicorn's cranium.  'This isn't good...  Is she not going to notice...?

"Stop.  Now."  Her voice still sounded the same, though her appearance was different.  The "behemoth" dropped the broken alicorn.  She landed hard on the ground, facing her attacker.  He towered over her.  He had found a new target to take out his drug induced rage.  'No... this isn't what I wanted... run away with Luna...'  She could only think this however. When she opened her mouth, blood gushed out.  She thought that she had done this all for naught when...

A wind blew.  Sharp, slicing sounds.  'Huh...?  Slicing...?'  Barely anything could be seen through her hazy vision, the field of her vision was shrinking with every passing second.  Red danced from her attacker's arm.  She didn't know the cause.  The last thing she saw was red... and rainbows.  She finally lost conscious.

...

..

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