Sleeping in the Light

by Wheller

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The change of scenery from the Divide to the setting that they were in now was a welcome change to a pleasant forest setting. This was Whitetail Wood. In the times before the Fall of Canterlot, Whitetail Wood was a well-lit, and lightly forested area with evenly spaced trees. Everything in this forest was, well ordered, and harmonious.

It was not this way in the modern world. In modern times, Whitetail was a suburb of Ponyville, this part of the city was an underground heavy industry plant surrounded by homes, shops, restaurants, all stuck together in a seemingly highly disorganised, chaotic fashion.

Kelso and Company were standing in front of a collapsed cave, and they were not the only ones.

‘Darling, I thought you said that we weren’t meant to have what was behind these rocks?’ asked a grand, fancy sounding voice from behind them. Kelso and company turned around to discover that there was a group of ponies behind them. Vinyl Scratch and her friends were standing looking at the collapsed pile of rocks, and they discovered that the person who spoke had been Rarity.

‘Maybe we’re not’, Vinyl Scratch said with a shrug. ‘Well if the universe put down rocks to keep us out, the universe can tough it out’.

Standing with her, was Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and the white coated pegasus mare from the previous memory. Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack were oddly absent.

Kelso took the opportunity to take a good look at this mysterious pegasus mare. This was the first opportunity that they had to get a good look at her. The things that they already knew were that she had a white coat and a straw yellow mane, but the details were now clear. Her cutie mark was of three purple balloons, but was most interesting about this mare was her eyes.

The mare’s eyes were unfocused, and blank. It was as if she was barely aware of what was going on around her, and maybe most importantly, her eyes were an odd colour, blood red. It was as if someone had taken an eyedropper filled with somebody’s blood and held her eyes open and dropped a single drop into each of them, permanently staining the irises for the rest of her life.

‘Sparky?’ Kelso asked, turning to the unicorn mare. ‘Are you sure you don’t know who this is?’

‘Quite’, Sparky said. She nodded her head in affirmation as she examined the pegasus mare.

‘And what was it that you called this thing... a spritebot?’ Rarity asked as she levitated a large metal object out in front of her face. Kelso and company had almost forgotten that Vinyl Scratch and her friends were even here, and were having a conversation. Sparky perked up at the mention of the metal object. She approached the memory of Rarity and took a closer look at it. She had seen one of these before.

‘Sparky?’ Dizzy asked, raising an eyebrow at her friend in confusion.

‘I’ve seen one of these before...’ Sparky repeated this time out loud instead of to herself. The metal object was a grey sphere, surrounded on all sides by four mechanical wings. It had a face, with two camera eyes behind green tinted glass. One of the eyes had been smashed open, and there was a gaping hole in the middle of its hull, looking inside, there were all sorts of crisscrossing wires and ancient thermionic valves screwed every which way. Ancient tech! ‘I had a dream... while we were on the Madame La Salle four months ago headed for Hispaña... and these were in it!’ Sparky said with excitement in her voice. ‘These are robots!’

‘Yeah... I’ve seen one before’, Vinyl said with a nod as she turned towards the pegasus mare. The mysterious pegasus mare was not paying attention, and was staring off blankly into space, and even Rainbow Dash waving a hoof in front of her face did not seem to get her attention.

‘Is she okay?’ Rainbow Dash asked.

Vinyl merely shrugged. ‘Dunno, she’s been acting strange since before we left Trotterdam... well, stranger than normal, at least’.

Twilight glanced over to the pegasus mare, and then back to Vinyl. She waved her over, and Vinyl got up and trotted over, as did Kelso and Company, glad that they were passive observers, because they sure as hell wouldn't have been privy to this information if they were actually there.

‘About Surprise... are we sure it’s a good idea to be taking her down there?’ Twilight asked.

Surprise! Now they had a name to go along with the face.

‘It’ll be fine’, Vinyl said, casually dismissing Twilight Sparkle’s worries. ‘She was around when all this stuff was brand new, if anypony is going to know about it, it’ll be her. Besides, have you been paying attention to her lately?’

'Wait... what!?' Sparky cried out. ‘“When all this stuff was brand new?”’ she repeated

Twilight cocked her head slightly as if she was not entirely sure what Vinyl Scratch was getting at.

‘I have’, Vinyl said. ‘It’s really noticeable with Pinkie Pie, Surprise starts mimicking whoever she’s with. She’s with Pinkie Pie, she’s going to skip merrily down the street, she’s with me, she’ll go around grinning like an idiot, I bet if you let her follow you around she’d become a real know it all’, Vinyl said adding a grin.

‘I am not a know it all’, Twilight said with an air of annoyance in her voice.

‘Baaaa-lonie!’ Vinyl said grinning widely. ‘But anyway, then she gets with a group like this, she shuts down, doesn’t know what to do, and then, nothing’.

‘She wasn’t like that in the old world’, Twilight said. ‘She was hateful, spiteful, malicious... dangerous’.

‘She had direction in the old world’, Vinyl said simply. ‘She doesn’t have that anymore; she doesn’t know where she fits in... she’s just sort of... there. It’s kind of tragic really’.

'What do they mean by the Old World?!' Dizzy cried out. 'They don't mean... they don't mean the time before the Old Monarchy, do they?'

'I don't know... if they do though... that makes this Surprise really really old...' Sparky said with a frown, her voice trailing off into thought. It was not as if there wasn’t a precedent to all this. If this Surprise was as old to have come from before the Old Monarchy, it was something that they could believe. One of their other friends, Señora Amarilla de la Manzana y de la Sidra had something of a similar fate.

Twilight glanced over to Surprise who was continuing to stare blankly into space. She grimaced and shook her head madly. ‘No! I am not about to start feeling sorry for Surprise, not after what she did to me’, Twilight said adamantly.

‘Technically speaking, she didn’t actually do it’, Vinyl said simply.

‘Do not get metaphysical on me’, Twilight snapped.

Vinyl could only grin.

Hopely frowned as she watched the events unfold. 'Does anyone wish we could travel back in time and actually get involved in these events? Rather than just watching these bits and pieces from a far? I don't know about the rest of you, but if I had the opportunity, I'd like to go back and start from the beginning'.

Kelso and company could only nod their heads in agreement. Knowing the full events of the past would have been some nice context.

‘Hey everypony!’ Pinkie Pie said cheerfully as she returned, walking toward them from along the road, carrying a saddlebag on her flanks.

‘You’re in a good mood’, Twilight said with a smile. ‘That the dynamite over there in that bag?’ Twilight asked, point a hoof at it.

'Did she say dynamite!?' Sparky cried out in surprise.

Kelso grimaced, and remembered something that Pinkie Pie... or rather, the changeling that had thought she was Pinkie Pie had said. Upon their first meeting, she had mentioned making explosives as a hobby. Kelso had done a double take upon hearing this, but having been distracted by her need to fill her own stomach, she had forgotten about it until just now. 'There is no way that stuff is stable!' Kelso said, instinctively taking a few steps back, despite the fact that this was a memory, and they weren't actually here and couldn't be hurt.

‘Ha! No! Are you kidding me? I’m way too jittery to have carried dynamite all this way!’ Pinkie Pie said with a grin. Causing Kelso to frown, this could not end well.

Twilight raised an eyebrow in response. ‘But if not you then... who...’ Twilight’s mouth stopped in its tracks as they all glanced over to Fluttershy, who was too coming down the road, trotting softly along and humming a pleasant tune.

‘Pinkie Pie...’ Twilight began, looking at the insane pink pony with worry.

‘Don’t worry Twilight! Fluttershy’s grace makes her the perfect pony to carry dynamite!’ Pinkie Pie said, quiet enough so that Fluttershy couldn’t hear her.

‘Pinkie Pie... does Fluttershy know what she’s carrying?’ Twilight asked.

‘Of course!’ Pinkie Pie said.

Twilight merely stared at her.

‘Well... see... I implied...’ Pinkie Pie said.

Twilight continued to stare. Pinkie Pie began to look nervous.

‘OKAY! No she doesn’t!’ Pinkie Pie said, she leaned in close, and began to speak softly through gritted teeth. ‘And I wouldn’t tell her either... not unless you want her to start panicking and explode EVERYWHERE!’

‘Yeah, I think I’m going to take a few more steps back here’, Kelso said as she stepped back a few metres.

‘What’s everywhere?’ Fluttershy asked as she approached Vinyl Scratch, gently pulling the saddlebags off her. Everyone started to tense up. Fluttershy set the bags gently on the ground against the large pile of rocks and walked closer to her friends.

Everyone, including the passive observers, let out a sigh of relief. Twilight looked to Pinkie Pie, and gave her a very angry look. ‘Pinkie Pie... when this is done, you and I need to sit down and have a good long talk about... things’, she said in a low growl.

Pinkie Pie chuckled nervously, she swallowed hard, they all moved back to a standing position about a dozen metres back from the collapsed entrance.

‘Okay Everypony!’ Pinkie Pie announced. ‘From now on nopony goes near the pile of rocks except me! Dynamite is really sensitive, if you even so much as TALK too loudly near it, it can go off! I don’t want one of you getting hurt from it!’

‘Yeah, she clearly had no idea what she was doing when she made it’, Sparky said with a frown. ‘Dynamite is supposed to be fairly stable!’

All of Vinyl Scratch’s party nodded their heads in agreement, but were otherwise not paying attention to what was going on around them, except for Rarity, who ducked her head around Pinkie Pie to get a look. ‘Pray tell, what is Surprise doing?’ she asked, pointing the pegasus mare out to them.

Everyone, passive observers especially, turned to look at what Rarity had just pointed out, to their horror; Surprise had approached the bag of dynamite lying on the ground and had reached out with a hoof to touch it.

'Just going to step back a few more metres now!' Kelso cried out as she hurried back another couple of metres. The rest of the passive observers did the same.

‘SURPRISE! NO!’ Vinyl Scratch called out.

Too late, Surprise touched it and the bag full of dynamite exploded.

Comments

[StatusQo]

*touche* BOOM! And thus ends the story of Suprise, atleast she went out with a bang.

[kooarbiter]

>>BronyBlob

Ha! that was funny

Wheller I have no idea how you do it, perhaps you go into the future and rip-off somepony's work

Either way, this and all other chapters do not disappoint, keep teh momentum up or else...

[Kentle Colt]

When Pinkie was talking about how unstable dynamite is, I was thinking to myself "Now, that isn't right at all!"

Thanks to Sparky for giving me support on my observation, I was nervous that you, (Wheller) were mistaken. Noope!

[Fulgor Ignis]

Ow...

Now Kelso and the rest have questions about the 'Old World'. History lesson, here we come. Even though we're in a history lesson.

Lessonception.

[Ravenmoon05]

OH COME ON !!!!!!!

[ColdGoldLazarus]

I really need to get around to reading Parliment. At least summer is finally here...

[PieisGood4U]

HAH.

I felt we had to come here since pinkie said she liked making plastic explosives.

[KMCA]

‘Judging by the trees? Southern Kanata, we’re probably some hundred or so kilometres from the Hoofson Bay’, Hopely said as she glanced around the trench and up towards the sky. ‘But what could we possibly be doing here?’

You NUKED CANADA? You sick sick bastard

[kladdos]

I think it's starting to get a bit confusing... We really need some more background I think. Go back in time again
anyway, awesome chapter and keep up the good work!

[Zervziel]

Huh I was surprised at the end...and now I need a towel.

[Zhent]

You can figure out who is new to wheller's series by the comments. because me and other ones who read this are just like "recap".

Also Surprise is best pony.

[Lord Lussean]

So much nostalgia. Oh Surprise...

[Shader]

Through out this series, I've never been able to piece together 'Tyrant Celestia'. The characters keep saying "She's terrible", even Twilight somehow stood against her, but I've never seen anything that actually shows her being evil, or not having the very best in mind for everyone.

Hell, in chapter 12 I'm 100% in agreence of Celestia. She's cottoned on to a dangerous weapon, in the hands of complete monsters (Her sister and Emerald), and puts a stop to it.
When this is the sort of person who was in charge of making them -

‘Welara, the coltic civilisations are faltering, they’d be ripe for the picking, we could found a new Equestria, a better Equestria, you and me’

‘No that wouldn’t work, Celestia may be a technophobic luddite, but she’s not stupid, she’ll have left the early warning systems in place... a launch would be detected and intercepted...’

She has no moral problem with conquering a civilization for her own ends using a WMD, and her only problem with using a WMD on the capitol city is that it wouldn't reach the target, and she's going to mass produce super soldiers who would know nothing but war.

I can see why she would be technophobic. She saw the newest and latest tech -
Kill her Mother.
Mutate her Father into a horrific monster.
Her Sister wanted to use it without warning on innocent people.
Her friend who designed it is a moral-less monster.

[Wheller]

672121

It wasn't Emerald who suggested conquering Welara. That was Oberlander Cromwell's idea, as for using nuclear weapons on the Welarans, they wouldn't have been able to do that. The weapons are relatively short range. 1100 years ago, Equestria was the technological equivalent of 1945.

As for using Nuclear weapons on Canterlot, Emerald was merely pointing out a flaw in Cromwell's suggestion of using nuclear weapons on the city, it wasn't something that she would have actually done. I think you might be taking the words a little out of context.

[Apocalypse Pony]

Ohhh man, the flashbacks of key points brings back memories

[SuperPinkBrony12]

670156 (Cue Laugh Track)