The Kindness of Strangers

by Wheller

Chapter 8 & Epilogue

Chapter 8
Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes. She was lying in the High Street. Her head was pounding; it felt like someone had taken a hammer and bashed her over the head with it. She reached up and clutched her forehead, but quickly retracted her hoof when she felt something warm and sticky. She looked at it; her hoof was covered in blood.

Twilight attempted to place where she was in town. But for some reason, she could not. It did not take long to figure out why.

Twilight was in front of where Sugarcube corner was supposed to be. Supposed to be as in because it was no longer there. Instead, a large blast crater had taken its place. It was coming back to her; she remembered Sugarcube Corner exploding, and being flung into the wall. She must have hit her head.

Twilight heard several groans from around her; she perked her head up and looked. Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were lying on the ground as well, each of them with various injuries from being thrown in the blast. Applejack's leg was clearly broken. Rainbow Dash's wings were torn; Fluttershy's flank had a number of deep cuts and gashes. Rarity was clutching her head, blood running down from it; both she and Pinkie Pie had several pieces of debris jaunting out of their side at odd angles.

In comparison to her friends, Twilight had gotten off easy. Her head was spinning, and she heard ringing in her ears, she probably had a concussion, but there was no way for her to be sure of that herself.

She looked over at what was left of Sugarcube Corner. Surprisingly little, but she did see something important, a grey hoof appeared over the edge of the crater. Twilight panicked, Overdrive had survived and was coming to kill them. She looked around for anything she could use to defend herself and her friends.

But when the hooves pulled their owner up, Twilight was surprised by what she saw. A grey earth pony with an orange mane pulled himself up from the crater. He grunted in pain as he made his way up.

"Floppy?" Twilight called out to him.

The earth pony opened his eyes. The irises were blood red instead of Floppy's normal orange ones. Twilight was frightened, they were Overdrive's eyes.

"Not quite." He said with a smile. "How about we just stick with Monty?"

"What happened?" Twilight asked.

Monty merely smiled at her. "I killed it."

Twilight's eyes grew heavy, she struggled to keep them open, it was a futile attempt, and she quickly lost consciousness.

--

Twilight awoke in a hospital bed. She looked around and saw several unicorn doctors tending to her friends in the other beds beside her, and to the far left end of the room she saw Derpy Hooves lying back with a tube down her throat. They were at the Royal Hospital in Canterlot.

Twilight's head had been bandaged, her head was killing her but she no longer heard the ringing in her ears.

Princess Celestia was sitting in the room, and she quickly noticed Twilight was awake. The Princess crossed the room in her regal step, approaching the bedside of her prized pupil. Twilight looked into the Princess' eyes, they were the happiest Twilight had ever seen. She smiled at her mentor and tried to speak, but the Princess raised a hoof to shush her. Her smiled communicated everything it needed to. Twilight drifted back off to sleep.

--

Montana Ulhan was lying in a hospital bed in a private room, thinking over what had happened to him. This shouldn't have happened, he shouldn't be here. It was unnatural. Worse still, he was remembering things, not only from his own life, but he was remembering things that did not happen to him. He remembered everything his ancestors had experienced as if he had done them himself, but the one thing that was worse, he had Overdrives memories too.

There was no worse fate. He remembered destroying the dragon, giving the magical explosive to Derpy Hooves to destroy the post office. He remembered sending Twilight into the Mohoofie Desert alone and unprepared, hoping for her to die. He remembered ripping apart Princess Luna's mind and driving her to attempt suicide, and worst of all, he remembered the horrors that had been planted into Twilight's mind. Unspeakable things that he wanted to forget, but he couldn't. Twilight was lucky; her mind would be able to repress these memories. His could not.

It was his punishment. He had destroyed Overdrive, and taken what was left of his body for his own, and he had to deal with the consequences of that. The memories were painful, sure. But what really bothered Montana Ulhan were his eyes. They were not his; they were not the kind, gentile orange eyes that he had been born with. They were Overdrive's harsh, imposing, blood red monstrosities. Every time he looked in the mirror, he would be reminded of what had happened to him.

He could never forget.

--

Princess Celestia walked down a long, bleak, white hallway through the Royal Hospital's psychiatric ward; an Earth Pony guard was outside her sister's room. He nodded to her and opened the door, allowing the Princess to enter the padded room in which Luna resided in.

Luna was lying on the floor, still clad in straight jacket; she looked towards the door and smiled. "Hello big sister!" she said cheerfully.

"Hello little sister!" Princess Celestia said with a smile. "You're looking a lot better today!"

"I'm feeling a lot better!" Princess Luna said, a bright smile forming on her face. "My sessions with Doctor Nightcaller and the medication have really been helping. He says I can be released at any time!"

"I heard!" Princess Luna said cheerfully. "He told me that you didn't want to go yet."

"No," Luna said shaking her head. "Not yet. I'm not ready to go out there yet. Doctor Nightcaller and I have been talking about my exile on the moon more than what happened recently... I still have a lot of things to work through before I'm ready to go back home."

"Take all the time you need," Celestia said. "I will take care of the moon while you're gone."

Luna smiled at her, "I love you big sister."

"I love you too."

--

Nearly a month had passed. Twilight Sparkle had noted, a month since they were all cleared to go back home. Everyone was recovering well. Applejack's leg had been set in a cast, and she was due to get it off next week.

Rainbow's wings had healed, but she was still undergoing physical therapy to get full use of them back.

Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie's scars were barely visible anymore.

Twilight, ironically being the least injured of all her friends, had recovered the quickest, and was back at one hundred per cent.

She was trotting along the High street towards the apartment where Floppy Disk/Montana Ulhan was living, as she normally did. The earth pony had been hit the hardest psychologically, and she made it a point to stop by for a few minutes every day to make sure he was all right.

Monty Ulhan was a rare sight in Ponyville these days. He almost never left his flat; he never wanted to talk about what was bothering him. Twilight had been trying to get him to open up to her, but so far to no avail.

Maybe today, she thought to herself.

She arrived at his flat, and gave the door a polite knock. No answer.

"Monty! It's Twilight Sparkle, may I come in?" Twilight added, along with another knock on the door. Still no answer. "Come on Monty, I know you're in there, you don't go outside," still no answer.

Twilight was a little worried by this; Monty's flat only had one room in it. There was no way he couldn't hear her. She pressed her head up against the door, complete silence, Twilight gently tried the door handle, it was unlocked, and she gingerly pushed the door open and went inside.

"Monty?" She asked as she opened the door, and went inside. She looked into the centre of the room, her eyes became very small and she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Dangling from the ceiling in the centre of the room, with a rope wrapped around his neck was Monty Ulhan, he was suspended half a metre off the ground, swinging back and forth ever so slightly.

Twilight looked at her friend in horror, and she felt tears forming in her eyes. She dropped to the ground, burying her eyes in her hooves, and she let the tears flow, this was the second pony to hang themselves on her watch. Only this time, she'd been too late to stop it.

Twilight looked up at the end table, noticing that there was a slip of paper on it. She used her magic to bring it over to her, and she read it silently to herself.

Dear Twilight Sparkle

If you are reading this note, than you'll have likely found me. Nopony else comes to visit, so I can't imagine anyone else ever reading this. I know you wanted to help me; you tried to get me to open up to you about what happened. I always said I didn't want to talk about it. This was a lie. I desperately wanted to talk about it. I wanted to trust in you so badly, but I couldn't, I have all of Overdrive's memories. I know what he did to you, and if I talked to you about it, those memories would have come rushing back to you, and it would have driven you to insanity. You're lucky, your mind was able to lock those memories Overdrive tortured you with away. I wasn't so lucky.

I've decided that this is the only way. I'm freeing you from the burden of me. You don't have to care about my well being any more. You don't have to take time out of your day to see me. I don't matter. I tried to tell you that you didn't have to visit me so many times, but you insisted on coming anyway. You really did care, and I am so thankful for that.

I had to free myself of the guilt of being your burden. This way, I don't need to be anyponies problem any more. Don't be sad. Don't dwell on my choice to die. It's counterproductive, live life and be happy. Have them burn my body and dump the ashes where ever, it doesn't matter to me, and don't worry about feeling the need to tell anypony from back home. They already think I'm dead. Now they're just telling the truth.

-Monty

Twilight read the letter several times. She dropped the letter on the ground, looking at the dangling body; tears were rolling off her muzzle and falling on the letter.

She stood up and exited the flat, closing the door behind her.

She was leaving far more than Monty Ulhan's letter behind.

Epilogue

Derpy Hooves awoke from her deep sleep in the Royal Hospital in Canterlot, she was groggy from the medicine, and her vision blurred more so than usual thanks to the condition of her eyes.

She looked up to find that a brown earth pony with a spiky mane, and an hourglass cutie mark looking down at her.

"Hello!" The earth pony said cheerfully. "How are you doing this morning?"

Derpy tried to talk, but wasn't able to find the words. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

"That's ok," the earth pony said. "You don't have to talk."

Derpy smiled at him, and he returned the smile, she looked into his eyes, they were a deep blue, kind, and looked far older than the rest of his face.

"You're going to be just fine. Trust me, I'm a Doctor."

Comments

[Br2nd66]

lol you had to put in doctor who love it

It isn't all that strange that Twi tended to focus on the rest of the Mane Six when toting up the ponies recovering from all of this; that's because she tends to not notice Derpy except when she does something silly. My guess is that in a follow-on, the others are going to make a habit of asking Ms Hooves when she got out of hospital.

[Wheller]

1771

Hell mate I cried when I wrote this. You wouldn't be the only.

[Rudolf]

Wonderful story. I enjoyed reading it.

[Hopless_el_gato]

Really good story i hope still wrote more storys like this.

[Starcat5]

Monty died TWICE?!? Now that's just GrimDark for the sake of being GrimDark!

*Glances at story ticker at top* ...and you've just posted ANOTHER new arc in this series? I'm going to have trouble getting caught up at this rate...

[Mother3Forever]

YAY DR.WHOOVES!

[unph]

I remember reading this earlier off fanfiction before I even found out about fimfiction. I'm much farther in the series you have going right now.

This was a great read, and this part of your series works as a good standalone fic in itself. It's perfect. It really invoked the emotion of fear and ramped up the suspense when Overdrive started to gain more control of the situation. Additionally, there was a lot of sadness to be found throughout the whole thing with how badly the odds were stacked against the Elements of Harmony. And the ending was amazing.

So kudos to you for writing this. Definitely one of my favorite fics.

I agree... Dying twice... Although it doesn't seem sad to me some reason...

Anyway great fic...

[Wheller]

278787

Do keep in mind that this was written in late June of 2011. Long before Season 2 even premiered.

[Wyvern1998]

278819
Oh well, that changes everything. Then i have no criticism for you.

[Csquared08]

This was a very interesting story. I enjoyed all the way through, though parts of it leave me wondering and a little confused. Well, confused might be the wrong word. I guess wanting to know more about the history of Overdrive and the Ulhans is a better way to put it. Also, I hope we see more of Monty. I guess I'll have to just read and find out, won't I?

[CuriousCurse]

Well... It wasn't horrible. You need to work on being a little less obvious all the time. There are occasions where you want people to know "This happened because of this" but it doesn't hurt to make things a little vague and set events in motion then keep quite about them until they come out of no where later on. The few things I did miss is because I wasn't expecting you to be so obvious like Luna's mind break being so instantaneous. Twilight's little "walk about" was pretty plain on what was going to happen though I had no way of knowing who was going to find her. that's the thing about new OC characters, they literally come out of no where story wise. Celestia's little journey with twilight to give her that dream was unexpected because I honestly wouldn't have thought she would have gone about it in such an indirect way. Twilight practically worships her and a little advice from her mentor would have reassured her right away. That and it's commonly accepted that Celestia is less of a direct manipulator though she might tell her student flat out to do something and then let her figure out the reasons as things are happening.

I also hate how useless you made Luna. It's not that I dislike not see her as all powerful or anything, it's just that she didn't even try to intervene with most the events that happened. She's an alicorn princess. her issues were not fear of danger, her issues were fear of rejection and being the object of others hate. A cannon Luna would have had a high probability of using her somewhat considerable power to help in Ponyville's defense, or at least the evacuation efforts. Actually, probably the defense as evacuation effort would have meant dealing with other ponies that she is afraid of being judged by.

Also dislike how freely you just offed your OC. never really liked pointless deaths...

[Wheller]

1150606

This fic was written pre-Series 2, before the introduction of any real personality for canon Luna, she is also not at full power yet after returning from exile.

Monty Ulan's death is most certainly not pointless, it ties back later in the other fics in the series.

[CuriousCurse]

... I suppose this is an adequate reason for the outdated canon. I still hope things get a little less obvious in the foreshadowing department. The moment that alicorn told derpy he wanted to send a package, I knew it was a bomb. After he told derpy to be careful, I pretty much wrote derpy off as soon to be grievously injured via IED.

Easy to spot things like that are the problems I had with this fic. Thankfully, not much else got to me

[grahahaha]

doctor who?
es muy bueno.

also,
twas a good read.

[Lucky424]

Wow. This WAS dark and tragic!!!

[thatonenigga]

Well am re-reading this master piece of a series. It sucks that it was never finished. They're still so many questions left to answer.

BTW have you ever thought having some one finishing for you?

[FaleYur]

What.

[superfun]

While this story was interesting, and objectively speaking it was well written, there's something about it that stops me from either favoriting it or reading the rest of the series.
I think it's because the story, despite its bittersweet ending, just felt way too dark and sad for my tastes.
However, I WILL give it a like due to finding it interesting enough to read all the way through.

[Wheller]

7599773 Definitely not my best. Of course, as my first, it's objectively kind of bad with terrible pacing.

That said, it did start a legend, so I got that going for me. Which is nice.

[Ice Berry]

7600293
I come back to read this series again, because me and my friends were talking about the first stories we ever read on the site, and this was mine, and at the time I thought it was a fantastic introduction to the site, Just don't be fooled by the age of my account, It's not my original