//------------------------------// // Badlands // Story: Extraordinary League of Equestrian Gentlemen and Assorted Nettling Travesties // by BlasserundTeurer //------------------------------// Chapter II Badlands Before his eyes, John saw incredible things, he saw the universe not as any creature would, but as only an observer could. Events normally spanning millions of years took place in mere seconds. He was dreaming of course, Odd. He hadn't dreamt in nearly fifteen years now. Well, at least not that he can remember. What he saw was astounding. First, a massive burst of energy, jolting the universe into life and spreading energy, and then matter into every direction. Then came the forming of stars and galaxies, the stars eventually dying, turning into giants and then dwarfs. Some of them, no, a lot of them so big that instead of going out quietly they instead shrunk in on themselves before erupting in humongous explosions, sending their remains out into the universe. This process repeated itself like a series of punches, and each time it happened, the universe got ever nearer towards total entropy, but not before the atoms that were blown outwards from their respective stars bonded together to form dust, then rocks, until finally John saw the birth of a beautiful blue planet. It had just started to settle and turn solid when out from the reaches of this planet's solar system, another, smaller planet slammed into it and evaporated, leaving behind the original, now slightly larger planet and a large cloud of dust and debris. The debris eventually clumped together to form a natural satellite to the now almost peaceful blue orb, both of them flying around in this nothingness in perfect harmony. However, eventually even this would turn towards the ever progressing entropy, until there was nothing left but darkness. Cold, harsh, darkness. 'What a nice circumscription for life and death', John thought in his dream. John snapped his eyes open, the sunlight rushing in to blind his vision for a moment, until he regained focus. He looked around, and was confused by his surroundings: 'Since when is there a desert in Germany?' His brain finally kicking into gear, synapses firing, nerves responding, John felt the tremendous pain emanating from all around his body. He tried to move but found that caused an even more excruciating pain and stopped his futile attempts at locomotion. John craned his neck to study his surroundings: an arid wasteland full of nothing but rocks as far as the eye could see, it looked to be dry and his immediate surroundings seemed to be devoid of any fauna. He tried to remember how he got here, but all he could conjure up was the faint recollection of him being assaulted by three teenagers full of hate in their eyes. Hate at what? John didn't know. Maybe it was the societal norm turned to the extreme, or maybe they just really hated beggars. But why drag him off to here? Wherever here was. Couldn't they have just left him to die at the edge of town, or in a nearby forest? It wasn't like the police would even care about someone like him. John swivelled his arms around so they were at his side, and tried planting some of his weight on them to get up. Big mistake. Pain once again shot up towards his brain, now coming from his left shoulder. He glanced towards said shoulder, only to find that his duster had been torn there, and the clothing underneath had been stained a dark red, and when he tried to move his arm, he felt a slight twinge. 'Those punks must have stabbed me', he thought to himself, slightly annoyed by the fact that he was stabbed, and beaten without any semblance of reason or logic behind the attack. Stemming all his weight onto his relatively unhurt right shoulder, he propped himself up on his side and then onto his knees. He unclothed himself from the hip upwards, and inspected the wound. It was a small wound, not very deep or large, but his attackers seemed to have hit a muscle, as he wasnt able to move his arm or shoulder much without it hurting. The wound was still bleeding a bit so he took his shirt in his mouth, and used his right arm to rip it into small pieces. John used the pieces of his shirt to wrap around the wound, and tied them up using a strong knot. After that was done, he inspected the rest of his body. No cuts, only a few bruises, and dark blue spots around his abdomen and his sides. That was good, he wasnt in immetdiate danger of passing out or dying. However that still didnt explain the strange place he found himself in now. Deciding to get out of the heat, he scanned the horizon for any semblance of shelter. Not finding much else but rocks, he started walking towards a rock formation that seemed large enough to shield him from the sun. Not seeing any sort of civilization, or any sort of clue as to where he should be headed he, propped himself up against the rocks and watched the sky. The sun was already setting so he figured out the cardinal points quite easily, and then contemplated which way he should move. It was quite hot out, and John was starting to get thirsty, having no idea as to what to do, he decided to start heading north, even if only for the stupid hope of it being cooler there. Light was starting to fade, as the sun had just set over the horizon, leaving the night sky a light blue that was slowly fading into blackness. John looked up, and was surprised to find that he recognized all the major constellations in the sky. What was even more confusing, was that the sky above him looked eerily similar to the sky one would see over the atlantic, or on the edges of the north american continent. Deciding that he could use this to his advantage, he looked up to Cassiopeia, and then further up, he found the north star. He was off North by quite a bit, but not too much. He looked around while walking, but there wasn't much to see. Dried out trees clinging on to dear life, or already past hope towards his north. Absoloutely nothing towards the east, and a giant mesa towards his immediate west. 'Well', he thought, 'Even dead trees are progress'. South of him there was... nothing again. John walked on for hours, feeling a tad depressed at the desolate landscape around him. When he couldn't bring himself to take another step, dehydrated and tired as he was, he sat down, resting his back against the trunk of a dead tree. „Just a few minutes“, he said to himself, but it sounded more like wheezing and rasping coming from his dried out mouth. John swallowed, forcing whatever saliva was left into his maw, but only felt a sharp pain at the back of his throat. The few drops of fluid not nearly enough to lubricate his mouth, or even ease the soreness therein. Minutes turned into an hour, and John, not seeing any immediate dangers around him, decided that he could risk falling asleep here, and that he could search for water tomorrow. The human body could survive for up to five days without water after all, not that John was well versed in biology, or the arts of medicine, but he was simply too worn out to continue. So after settling his mind, he quickly fell asleep, still sitting with his back against the tree. The next morning came, and John awoke with a dry and sticky mouth, and an extremely soar back. He sighed, stretched a bit while sitting down, and sat there for a few minutes, trying to figure out if yesterday had actually happened. But a quick look around confirmed his fear, that he was, in fact, still stuck in this desert. Finally getting up, John felt light headed, and propped himself up against the tree with his right arm for a bit until his head finally cleared, and he started marching onwards, still roughly remembering the direction of north. To take his mind off the situation, and to stay level-headed, John started to count the distinctive features in the wasteland before him. A few boulders the size of cars there, a legion of dead trees over yonder, an enormous black shape... John shook his head, stopped, and looked again. Nothing there. He stood there for a minute or two before moving on, counting what he saw off as a mirage, or a side effect of dehydration, hoping for the former, but fearing the latter. He continued this routine well into the evening, until he couldn't make out any distinctive shapes in the dark anymore. Soon after, he found a comfortable looking boulder, simply collapsed next to it, and fell asleep. The third day was uneventful, apart from the fact that John couldn't concentrate on anything, and he was completely out of breath after only a few steps at a normal pace. The need for water was at the forefront of his thoughts, but John saw no way to get the badly needed fluid anywhere around him. Feeling overwhelmed, John stopped his shambling, and tired and thirsty, he slumped to his knees. He wished now that those punks had finished their job properly for this, this was a much worse way to go. Stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere, nowhere to go, nothing around him but sand, dirt, and rocks. John felt the urge, no, the need to cry, to shout at the heavens for forsaking him like this, and he even tried to do so, but nothing ever came out of his now dried up tear ducts. There was no point to anything now, he forced himself to fall onto his side, and ignored the pain that shot up from his still open wound on his left shoulder. His head buzzed, and throbbed, but he didn't care anymore. John tuned out the world around him, and it helped, the buzzing even stopped, although the throbbing was still relentless. He thought back to his childhood. Would his parents have some meaningful words for him at a time like this? Probably not. His father had been a raging alcoholic, that left him when he was around two years old, and his mother had not been the same ever since that, distant, treating him more like an object, than a human being. Perhaps his former boss at the railway workshop had been right. He never had the drive to do anything great, hell, he couldnt even die in a spectacular fashion that would be remembered by everybody. No, his lot in that matter was to die alone, forgotten, god knows where. 'Funny that', he thought. 'I'm not even religious'. And so it was that John, the non-religious hobo, lay there in some desert or other, looking up at the sky and waiting for his existence to finally come to an end. As he lay there, the buzzing having returned together in an alliance with the incessant throbbing in his forehead, he mused with himself, even talking out loud, and answering his own questions that were often rhetorical in nature. He did this for a while, but the act of thinking became ever harder, as the buzzing in his head just wouldnt cease, but instead became louder. Finally, in his dehydrated and confused state he, snapped and shouted as loud as he could, „Can somebody please turn down that annoying buzzing sound?!“, before falling into a coughing fit. When he finally stopped coughing, and took a few deep breaths to steady his breathing. He found, to his surprise, that it was quiet now. He was confused to say the least. Had it all just been some auditory delusion in his head? Or was it just part of his headache, and had he supressed it for a short while somehow? John was deep in thought, staring up at the sky when a bright white flash blinded him. He closed his eyes a few milliseconds too late, and needed to rub furiously at his eyelids, trying to make the pain go away. When he opened them again, his vision was still a bit blurred, but it was slowly coming back into focus. Trying to ascertain as to what caused the bright flash, he craned his neck a bit, but saw nothing. He was about to pin the blame on his deluded and dehydrated mind again, when he heard a voice ask him. „There, is that better?“. When he turned to face the voice, there was again nothing, and then suddenly, two enormous yellow orbs with red dots in their center, stared at him. The orbs were attached to a truely gruesome face, akin to that of a horse, with two floppy ears at the top, next to an antler, and a disheveled looking blue horn. Further down the beast's elongated face was its maw, smiling, a single tooth sticking out it's right side and a long beard flowing out from underneath its lower jaw. John blinked once, twice, then muttered: „I'm finally going nuts.“. He then proceeded to faint in the most ladylike manner. Discord stood there for a moment, eyeing the unconscious creature before him, when his ears perked up a bit, and he heard a faint sound in the distance, just on the edge of audibility. At first it sounded like nothing more than a distant rumble, intertwined with short specks of other sounds, but as the sound seemed to get closer, it became clearer. There was definitely a rumble, but now he could make out shouting in the mix of sounds. It wasn't just shouting, no. It was the shouting to end all shouting. „DISCORD!“ Discord felt a shiver run down his spine, as he turned to see what was causing the commotion. An enormous dust cloud rose before him, and he could see a large writhing mass of black just in front of the cloud, and just behind a small midnight blue speck, that was undoubtetly moving towards him. He looked at his at his hands, the left one a large talon, not unlike that of an eagle, while the right one, was the paw of a lion, or another large cat. Discord frowned a bit, as he asked them: „Now which one of you did that?“ His interrogation was interrupted, by the sound of explosions coming from the direction of the massive cloud of dust. The writhing black mass has been joined now, by the addition of vibrant green flashes of light travelling at incredible speeds, towards the now slightly more distinct speck of blue. Discord, the spirit of chaos, now relegated as part time protector and investigator of all things chaotic in equestria, sighed, it seemed that the fulfillment of the creature's wish had, quite accidentally, caused the scene that lay before him. It wasn't like he did it on purpose. He only moved the scouting group of changelings a teeny tiny bit away, to accomodate the apparently sensitive hearing of the hairless ape. It also wasn't his fault that his subconcious seemed to think the best place to move them to was to the nearby princess of the night. Now that they were closer, he could make out the different shapes of the changelings behind Luna, who was now close enough that Discord could see the expression of seething rage on her face as she dodged bursts of pure, concentrated magic, while at the same time retaliating against the attacks with her own quick volleys of magic. Discord was slightly amused by the sight before him, what with the princess absoloutely furious, and trying to outrun the clueless and yet dangerous group of changelings. It was an absoloutely magnificent lightshow of shining green and dark blue, the only thing missing now was some music, and he might even have started dancing, he thought. That however, was quickly discouraged by the look that Luna gave the amused draconequus. If looks could kill. then Discord would quite certainly be dead by now, so after letting the group of combatants get a bit closer, he simply snapped his talons and hoped, best he could, that his subconcious didn't decide to deposit the group somewhere even less suitable. Luna didn't realize what he had done, until she ran well past him. Quickly looking back to continue repelling the attackers, she finally noticed, that she was no longer being followed. Stopped, turned around, and galloped towards a now very nervous looking Discord. „THOU INSUFFERABLE, INFANTILE, HOMICIDAL CREATURE!“, she bellowed as she came to a halt. Discord quickly jumped into an apology before she regained her breath. „Now now princess, Insufferable? Yes quite. Infantile? Absoloutely, but I am definitely not homicidal!“, he assured, indignantly, „It was only an accident, my dearest Luna, please, oh please forgive me.“ He quickly got to his knees and gave her his best, albeit magically enhanced, puppy dog eyes. While awaiting her answer, he silently roamed her midnight blue form with his eyes, looking for any signs of a reaction. It was quite sleek, and her appearance, even while so enraged, was quite regal. Her tail and mane, both ethereal masses of royal blue and violet, sprangled with distinct yet ostensibly insubstantial stars, flowed quietly in the non present wind. Lunas coat was a flowing mix between navy and midnight blue, the same color adorning the feathers on her wings, which were twitching with held back rage. It might have been quite a beautiful sight to behold, had it not been for the scowl on her normally so gentle face. She eyed him angrily as he presented himself apologetically, he was sitting on his knees, one that of a lizard. and the other that of a horse, or another hoofed creature. His serpentine form almost curled up, and his dragon's tail wormed itself around him protectively, the simple white feathers on the end of it swaying slightly back and forth. Almost a whole minute passed, and Discord could only hope she would believe him. Just as she turned her head slightly away, and he believed himself to be safe, a crystal adorned hoof shot up from the ground before him, and landed in his face with an audible smack. „Thy apology is accepted, although thou should refrain from using such pathetic means of persuasion as thine eyes Discord, it only enrages us further when thou dost that.“, she stated as she acquired a more regal posture and looked away from him. „Now pray tell, why hast thou abandoned thine post at our side?“, Luna asked as she turned her head back towards him, and eyed him suspiciously. Discord rubbed at his quickly swelling eye, and responded. “Why thank you dear princess, I am very grateful for your acceptance and understanding“, he said sarcastically as he stood back up. Luna shot him a sour look from the side, „Cease thy prattling Discord, and answer us.“, she demanded. „Fine, fine.“, he said and rolled his eyes in a dramatic fashion. „I simply felt as if something were a bit... out of place, and as i am ever so curious I simply had to investigate the matter.“, he declared. Discord looked at her to see if she had caught on, and indeed, she seemed more curious now than angry. He continued,“When I attempted to find the source of the disturbance, I stumbled upon this fellow here“, he said, and pointed his claw at the still unconcious John. Luna gasped in surprise, when she saw the creature lying on the ground behind Discord. A tall, hairless being clothed in rags. Her eyes widened, when she saw marks of combat on his face, and upper body, as well as signs of severe dehydration and exposure. „Discord, this creature is injured and weak, we must bring him to the settlement at once!“, she ordered, and proceeded to lift John into the air, and onto her back with her magic. Not waiting for an answer, she quickly disappeared in an azure flash of light, leaving Discord standing alone in the desert. He sighed, still rubbing at his now irritated eye, and snapped his talons once more, before he also disappeared in a bright flash of light. Well, he also briefly thought of how exciting this situation was for him. An hour earlier Luna was sitting on her haunches on the edge of an immense mesa, while looking through a spyglass. Discord was lying on the ground next to her making himself as small as possible, while playing around with the loose dirt and gravel beneath him. He was quite clearly bored out of his mind, and it wasn't long before he gave voice to his thoughts. „Tell me, dear princess, what are we doing here again?“, he asked. Luna frowned at that and gave him a sideways glance before answering. „Discord, thou knoweth perfectly well the reason for our presence here. Alas, in the event that thou hast forgotten, let us remind you that we are here to observe the remnants of the Changelings, who had the audacity to disturb our niece's wedding, and attempted to take over the city of Canterlot, and judge wether or not they have the makings of a future threat to us“. Discord stopped drawing obscene scenes into the dirt, and looked up at Luna. „That is not what I mean Luna. I asked why I am here with you, of all ponies. To be honest, I had been expecting to be thrown into a dungeon, and the keys to be thrown away after what I did.“, he said, reminiscing for a moment on his betrayal of his friends. It was something he had not even forgiven himself for yet. Luna mulled this over for a moment before responding. „It is indeed true that many ponies, even we, would have thrown thou unto Tartarus without so much as a second glance...“, she paused for a moment and looked at the Draconequus, who turned his gaze to the dirt once more at those words, before continuing. „But our sister, in her infinite wisdom, hath decided together with princess Twilight Sparkle, that thou would be better suited, to once more take thy role as a protector of Equestria.“, she said, and quickly added „Albeit under our expert supervision“. Discord snorted with amusement at that last statement, before he quickly silenced himself when the princess gave him an unamused look. There was only silence between them for a long time, Luna looking through the spyglass and observing the structures in the distance, which she assumed were the current dwellings of the Changelings' hive, and Discord continuing to draw his admittedly detailed rendition of Luna as a slave-driver whipping a very handsome looking Draconequus into pulling a wheelless Charriot. Suddenly, his ears perked up, and he could sense something, no, he could almost smell the imbalance of magic near him. In mere seconds, he had identified the rough direction towards the disturbance, and was gone in a flash, leaving Luna staring intently at the hive, none the wiser of his disappearance. She continued staring for a few minutes before she spoke again, this time to thin air, as if their conversation had never stopped. „Although, we do suppose that our dear sister attempted to dispatch two birds with a singular stone. We have been quite the recluse as of late“. There was another flash of light, this time she noticed it. When she turned back to see, her eyes widened in shock, and she only sat there for a moment, looking at the large group of black, chitinous creatures with immense blue orbs, and glistening fangs that looked back at her with surprise etched on their faces. That however, didnt last long, and soon she found herself being bombarded with expulsions of glowing green energy while running for her life. The only thoughts going through hear head at this point were ones of self defense against multiple enemies, and how Discord was going to pay very dearly for his actions. Back in the present The residents of Dodge Junction were disturbed from the unchanging routine of their daily lives by a blur of brown, blue, and human, that arrived in their small town in a bright flash of light and immediately proceeded to invade said town's small clinic slash quill shop. Some were surprised, some were confused, and some were startled, none more so than the owner and resident practitioner of the clinic slash quill shop, Saw Bones, M.D. The blue-gray unicorn was enjoying dreams of cotton candy and apples, when his front door was almost blown off it's hinges by what could only be described as a veritable blue bulldozer, utilizing all the force of a freak wave of magic to make it's entrance. The sound startled him enough, to cause him to fall out of his office chair, which in reality, was a bench with a side mounted support to hold up a resting pony. Flustered by the disturbance, he made to get up while not quite shouting. „By Luna's lascivious moon! Don't you ponies know you're supposed to knock before entering?!“ He froze however, when he saw who had entered the clinic's office. Luna stood there, seemingly about to say something, but she halted after the doctor's outburst and just continued to stand, one of her hooves half raised, mouth agape, with a single eyebrow raised.