//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 // Story: The Stranger With a Big Iron on Her Hip // by Omega_code //------------------------------// Thanks to ProtheanBrony for proofreading. _____________________________________________________________________ The news of Celestia coming to Appleloosa quickly spread like a wildfire in a forest. The town folks didn’t know specifically why she was coming, but that didn’t stop them from trying to make the desert settlement look its best for its first royal visit. “It’s Ponyville all over again,” Applejack mumbled out loud to herself. Several ponies were cleaning up parts of the town, putting up banners and other things to make the town look its best. “If only if it was under better terms.” “Hey Applejack, any sign of Princes Celestia?” Braeburn and Strongheart came from the apple field, and trotted up next to AJ, also overlooking the town with her. “Nope, any sign of Scarlet?” “Nope, I think she said she’ll be back when the sun is setting." “I think its best that your ruler doesn’t meet with Scarlet right away,” Strongheart said. “We should inform her how dangerous Scarlet really is.” “Princess Celestia already knows what Scarlet has done in my letter Strongheart, but I think she knows more than that,” Applejack answered. “What do you mean?” “Remember Scarlet told us how her species are called humans this morning?” Both Braeburn and Strongheart nodded their heads. “Well, Princess Celestia knew that Scarlet was a human even though I didn’t say so when I wrote my letter. I did give a description of Scarlet, the best I could, and it was enough for Celestia to know Scarlet was human. So that means either Scarlet is native to our world, or…well, I haven’t thought that far yet.” “SHE’S HERE!” a mare’s voice yelled in the sky. Everypony looked up and saw a brownish-red pegasus point a hoof to the south side of town. As everypony craned their heads expecting to see Celestia to come in riding one of her royal chariots, they just saw her flying in by herself, which was a bit strange. She landed in the middle of town and slowly trotted towards Applejack. The town folks were bowing as she warmly passed by them, shooting off greetings. Before Applejack bowed down she noticed that even though the princess was walking in a nice pace, she was breathing very heavily. “Applejack, it’s nice to see you again, and these two must be Braeburn and Little Strongheart.” She smiled at the two and started to look around the town’s square. “Where’s Scarlet?” “She made her way up the river before your letter arrived your highness,” Applejack answered as she got up from her bow. “Alone?” Applejack nodded her head. “Well then…I must get her before she gets herself into trouble.” “But your highness, shouldn’t you rest from such a long trip,” Braeburn suggested. “I appreciate your concurred Braeburn, but if what Applejack told me is true about your apple field, then I need to stop Scarlet before it’s too late.” Celestia opened her wings and took off, heading towards the river. As everypony watched the princess leave, Applejack had a worried look on her face. “Something's wrong.” Braeburn said. “Yeah…I think we got our hooves in a situation deeper than we thought. And I hope Scarlet didn’t find any trouble.” ************** “Alright, one…two…three.” Scarlet moved her right arm slowly away from her chest with her elbow bent at a 90 degree angle. Pain screamed in her mind as she tried to reattach her shoulder joint with this simple method. Shortly she felt her shoulder pop back in, but the pain only sky rocketed. Taking in deep breaths she rasped out, “Okay… that should do…for now.” Her arm still hurt, but was more bearable to ignore along with her other injures. When she accessed the medical section on her Pip-Boy it told her she had several bruises, her legs were slightly damaged from the fall and she had gained nearly 170 rads of radiation. She didn’t want to waste a hydra to fix such minor crippled limbs, so a dose of one stimpak, rad-away, and Med-x would have to do for now. As the pain was starting to numb, she began to gather her gear that was scattered around the area. Note to self, the next time any creature flies in from the sky, shoot first ask question later. She picked up the magazine full of the regular rounds of .50. In fact any griffon you see, just shoot. Likely save me the trouble of a long fight. The last item she picked up was her battered beret that fell off after she was dragged across the ground like a ragdoll. Since Scarlet’s hair was in a mess she just shoved the beret in her bag. Better get cleaned up before heading back to town. She walked up to the river, taking another glance at Beta’s body to make sure it stayed down. “Wow…I’m a mess,” she remarked after looking at her reflection in the water. Her face was distorted but she could make out her face. There were some small cuts on her lips, probably caused by biting herself, and dust and dirt mixed with Beta’s blood was all over her. Shouldn’t have gotten so wild when cutting up Beta. Almost felt like fighting a Ghost…a superpowered Ghost, but a Ghost none the less. She knelt down and started splashing water on her face. I can just imagine the earful of complaints when I walk into Appleloosa with new blood stains. She knelt back up, shaking her wet hands. “Better make my way back to town.” “Good, I’m glad you came to that decision.” A female voice spoke out of nowhere and Scarlet reactively turned around with Lucky drawn out. Expect, Scarlet didn’t see anyone or anything. “Is that how all humans react? Shoot first, ask question later?” Scarlet looked around the desert, looking for any invisible figure. “Depends on the situation, mine right now is on the shoot first basis.” “I can understand that. Facing a griffon who was skill with tainted magic is hard to do alone, let alone to win.” “I take that as a compliment.” Scarlet was now doing a trick she learned with her Pip-Boy, and it was looking at an area an activating V.A.T.S. to do a scan. Even if a person or creature was invisible, V.A.T.S. could still see them (somehow). She would have a zero percent in hitting though, but she’ll have an idea of where to aim in real time. Soon she found the owner of the voice standing far away downstream of the river. She trained Lucky at the creature, “So who are you and what do you want?” The female chuckle for a bit, “You must have good eyes to spot me, not many of my subjects could ever do that.” There was a bright flash of light and a large white pony with wings and a horn came into view. Her man and tail were multi-color and was waving in a non-existenting breeze. “To answer your question, I’m Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria and I came here to make sure nothing bad would happen to you.” She looked over at the remains of Beta’s body, “It seems I’m a bit late.” “If you’re going talk about how it’s bad to take a life, I just want to say I did give him a chance to walk away.” “You don’t have to explain. While I don’t like it, I can understand your reason, your world is violent. It’s tough to live a peaceful life in a world that’s been devastated by war. Fighting is probably the only thing you know.” Scarlet chuckled a bit as she holstered Lucky, since Celestia didn’t seem to pose a threat. “I know a bit more than fighting for my life. You make it sound like you’ve been to my world.” “Actually, yes I have.” Scarlet’s eyes open widen in shock and looked at Celestia in disbelief. “Oh, course that was a long time ago, and I bet many years have pass in your world since then. Tell me, what year is it on your world.” Scarlet was puzzled at such a question but answered, “2282.” “I see, almost 75 years.” Celestia looked away for moment as if she was thinking of something. Scarlet, seeing the bit of sorrow in Celestia’s eyes, said, “It seemed you did more than visit my world. Made a friend maybe?” Celestia closed her eyes and smiled in amusement. “You really are perceptive aren’t you? Yes, I met an old man who was wandering in the Wasteland. He helped me not to get myself killed along with a few other things.” “He must have been a tough old goat to wander the Wasteland alone at such an age. Now that 75 years has pass, he’s probably long dead.” “Actually it has been nearly 300 years in Equestrian years since I came back, and yes he was a tough old goat so to speak.” Dumbfounded Scarlet fumbled out, “I…what…300 years?” “Apparently time moves faster here than on Earth due to dimensional time difference between our worlds. I don’t know why, but that’s magic for you.” “Wow…you ponies must live for a long time then.” “No, I’m just immortal. Everypony aged the same way as a human.” “Immortal? Really? Well I'll keep that in mind.” This place just keeps on getting weirder. “Now, princess you seemed to know what is going on. Care to explain.” “Yes, but not here. We should head back to Appleloosa and get you cleaned up. I can answer some of your questions along the way.” _____________________________________________________________________ Fallout New Vegas is copyrighted Obsidian Entertainment and Bethesda Softworks. MLP: Friendship is Magic is copyright to Hasbro. All characters that belong to their companies are rightfully theirs. This writing is for fun and nothing else.