//------------------------------// // Chapter T2: Anger // Story: [Redacted] // by McPoodle //------------------------------// [Redacted] - Chapter T2: Anger - Today The bomb-blasted landscape was still as featureless as it had been at ground zero. Twilight in her bubble stopped walking when she realized that the path was gently sloping downhill. From the many times she had travelled between Ponyville and the Everfree in the past, this meant that she was very close to the outskirts of the town. A look over her shoulder at the motionless sun behind her confirmed that she was indeed now walking westwards. Since they had started walking at the northern border of the forest, that meant they had somehow passed from the north-south Mountain Road onto the east-west Ponyville Road without her noticing. As a matter of fact, Twilight could not recall any part of her journey between when they had started walking and this point. She was confused and frustrated, and as usual she took it out on her assistant. “Spike!” Twilight exclaimed. “What is it?” the little dragon replied. “We missed the turn-off to Fluttershy’s cottage!” “Oh, did you want to stop there? You didn’t tell me. Besides…I doubt there will be anything to see there.” “That’s not the point,” Twilight said with some testiness in her voice. “Celestia wants me to observe, and that’s a location I know very well so I can make before and after comparisons.” Twilight refused to consider the fates of Fluttershy’s numerous animal boarders. In the back of her mind she told herself that they had somehow sensed what was about to happen before it happened, as animals frequently do, and were even now safe at the back of a big cave somewhere. And then there was the matter of Rooky, the strange creature that had been given to Fluttershy by an Ancient. Twilight had reason to believe that the animal, who did not seem to be 100 % organic, may well have survived the explosion, even unprotected. “Twilight,” prodded Spike, noticing that the pony he was standing on had stopped moving, “shouldn’t we be getting a move on? We’re nearly at Ponyville.” “Why do I have gaps in my memory?” Twilight asked him in an accusing tone. “How can the landscape be so monotonous this far from where we started? Why does everything feel completely wrong on a level that has nothing to do with the events of the past few hours? And where is all of this ash coming from?” Her voice threatened to break on those last two words, as she suddenly imagined the ash to be the burnt remains of every book that had ever existed. “Woah, woah, woah!” exclaimed Spike, hopping down so he could look the unicorn in the eye, while still staying inside the bubble. “Why do you expect me to know the answers to any of those questions?” “I don’t, Spike. It’s just that I have nopony else to ask. If there was something I could do, something I could research, anything but just walking to make this better, it could keep my mind from driving itself crazy!” “Well if you need a distraction, I can provide that, easy!” Spike proclaimed, climbing back on top of Twilight. “Tell me what happened after your last report, so I can put it in the report you’re preparing for the Princess.” “Yes, yes I’m sure that will help. Thanks, Spike!” It occurred to Twilight to wonder why the usually-curious dragon had not gotten around to asking such a basic question before now. Putting that matter aside for the moment, she took a deep breath and resumed walking as she began to recount her memories. “Well, to begin with, we made contact with the strange craft that had landed in the meadow at the north end of the Everfree Forest. As I had suspected, it was created by the Ancients. No Ancient can survive on Equestria now, because they come from a realm without magic. But they had somehow come up with a type of rubbery paint that prevented the two sets of physical laws from mixing, and had covered the craft with this substance. “The craft itself was one giant machine, an intelligent machine, and once we had established communication, it explained the Ancients’ plans for us.” Twilight thought for a moment before continuing. “The Ancients are very disappointing. They have a history of fighting epic battles against powerful enemies as well as their own darker nature. They have created incredible art and music that is so very similar to our own. Their fiction, from what little of it I have encountered, is completely unsurpassed in its discernment. “And despite all of these things, they are the most petty, self-serving species in the universe!” “Worse than the Diamond Dogs?” Spike ventured. “Spike, they created a machine that could not only think, but also feel, a being fully deserving of being considered an equal of any Ancient, or pony. And they armed this machine with a thermo-nuclear bomb, and took away its ability to control it. And what is the purpose of that bomb? To ensure that they got the most-profitable trade agreement possible, with whoever was willing to deal with them.” “I don’t understand,” said Spike. “If they can’t survive on our world, and we can’t survive on theirs, what could we possibly trade with them?” “It turns out,” Twilight explained, exasperation with the Ancients apparent in her voice, “that if an object from Equestria is removed to the world of the Ancients, it continues to retain its magical properties for some time before becoming adapted to its new surroundings. The Ancients are extremely interested in obtaining a steady stream of these objects—they could be rocks for all the Ancients care. In return, they will give Equestria objects from their world, objects we were assured would be just as useful to us. “Princess Celestia had misgivings over the long-term consequences of mixing the laws of two worlds in this manner. The ship told us that it had already negotiated with the Dragon Emperor, and he was willing to enslave the whole of Equestria in order to provide the Ancients with a mountain of rocks every single year. His only condition was that the Ancient craft use its bomb to destroy Celestia and cripple Equestria. The craft told us this, in hopes of getting an even better offer out of the Princess. In return, it was willing to do the same thing against the dragons as it had promised to do to us.” “Wow!” exclaimed Spike in admiration. “And then what happened?” Twilight gave Spike a strange look before continuing. “Celestia’s response was to pick up the craft with her magic and launch herself into the sky. She hoped to get the UFO outside of the world’s atmosphere before it inevitably exploded. But...she didn’t quite succeed.” “Do you think the bomb was truly as powerful as the Ancient craft claimed?” asked Spike. “No, of course not,” replied Twilight. “That was all a bunch of lies.” “But doesn’t your Ancient history books call a therma…that kind of bomb…” “…‘the Planet Killer’?” Twilight said, finishing Spike’s sentence. The books Spike referred to had come from the same source as Rooky. “That’s nothing but propaganda. Remember that it was the Ancients who wrote those books, after all. And see! There’s the proof right there—Ponyville is still intact!” The bridge that crossed the river into Ponyville no longer existed. But that wasn’t much of a hindrance, because the river no longer existed, either, leaving an easily-crossed dry riverbed. The outer buildings of the town were more or less in one piece, but minus the thatched roofs. There was some smoke damage visible, and of course a thick layer of ash covered everything, but by and large it was remarkable how well the village looked…especially when compared with the lands leading up to the town, which were just as devastated as every other patch of land Twilight had seen to this point. In addition to the buildings, Ponyville added something else completely missing from the trip thus far: outside sounds. Unfortunately, the sounds Twilight heard consisted of low, angry moans, like the sounds of several dangerously-hungry animals. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said.