//------------------------------//
// A Hopeful Twist 
// Story: War Pony 
// by CreeperZone 
//------------------------------//

“W-what do you mean? You're about to give birth?! Like, right now?!” Hopeful questioned the downed and pain-stricken mare.

“Y-yes... I... I... t-think so...” Aurora wasn't quite sure of herself, never having felt the sensation before, but every instinct in her body was telling her it was time; she was close and there was no stopping it now.

“Holy shit! Holy shit... Okay, we've got to get to the base fast. There’s a medical ward where you can give birth there. We'll be fine. Come on!” Hopeful went to reach for her, trying to bring her up to walk. He was highly confused when she held up a hoof to stop him.

“Will... there be... a... a d-doctor?” she asked him while keeping him at bay.

“Y-yes! Of course!” Hopeful answered as if that was a good thing.

“E-earth... Pony?” she continued, doing nothing but increasing his confusion as he failed to grasp her problem.

“Y-yeah?” he blundered out, watching her frail movements closely.

Aurora reached deep into herself to pull out a sparkle of magic that sparked off of her horn, drawing Hopeful's attention to it.

“Oh...” She broke through to him. For a second, he was frozen to the spot and devoid of movement or life, his brain clogging up with an overload of realization and emotion. “I... I... I'm so sorry! I fucking forgot!” He stuck a hoof up to rub against his head, feeling a migraine begin to swell and tears burn up from beneath his eyes. “I so fucking stupid I'm sorry!” He began his apology, sitting down in front of her and holding onto her hoof. “I forgot they'd kill you! I'm so fucking dumb. I'm sorry... FUCK!” He slammed both of his hooves into his eyes, rubbing them intensely. “What do we do!?” He kicked his way up to a raging pace, hitting a nearby tree and yelling, his face smeared from crying.

“Hopeful...” Aurora called out as he ran off to work out his emotion.

“AGHH! We're fucked! We can't... AGHH!” He kicked and bucked the tree once more before his legs gave in and he slid down against the tree to sit opposite of Aurora, finding her eye's begging for his attention.

“Hopeful...” she whispered again.

“What?!” he nearly lashed out on her with pure tone, anger and disappointment strongly projecting through the single word.

“Do... y-you h... have a... kn-knife?” The snow that had melted against her skin hid the tears that were trickling down her cheeks.

“W-what..?” Hopeful snapped out of his tormenting trance, the question really worrying him.

“D-do you..?” she repeated, a scary determination in the way she said it.

“Yes... Why? What do you...” He stopped as he saw her head fall and her horn promptly stick out toward him. “No... I... You... You can't be serious.”

“J-j... just do it-t... q-quickly...” She barely got out through the wail she found herself in, sharply gasping and quickly releasing a shuddering cry after.

“Holy shit...” Hopeful stumbled up. There was no time to argue. If he had to do this, he wasn't going to fuck up their situation even harder by stalling the inevitable.

He ran over and chucked his bags into the snow beside her, throwing the contents out wildly in search of his blade, finding it tucked in deep, wrapped in a cloth. He pulled it out and revealed the crystal clean blade from it's cloth sheath, grabbing it the handle tightly into his jaw. Hastily passing the cloth over to Aurora in order for her to have something to bite down on, this was going to hurt.

Like, really fucking hurt.

Hopeful pulled Aurora from the tree to lie straight down onto the snow, her back sitting in a crust of icy snow. She had already sealed her eyes shut, and felt the thin, crisp blade press against the very base of her horn, waiting still for her approval to remove the appendage which used to hold all of her pride.

She nodded with the little room she had to do so, awaiting Hopeful to act.

With a sharp, unforgettable, visceral instant, all pain in her body had vanished, the molten, simmering inferno of melting nerves that bled out of the chip in her horn had overshadowed it completely. The knife dug into the nearly two-inch thick bone with a bloody grit. Like a muscle being torn by its ends, a feeling of a thick ligament being brutally sliced open as the knife went back and forth its first of many times. The blade barely even indented into her horn, but the nerve it gutted didn't seem to care any less.

It hurt Hopeful to hear Aurora weep and squeal helplessly, he couldn't keep his eyes open as he held her down by the shoulders and went to dig deeper through her horn with his standard issue Earth Pony combat knife.

Hopeful jutted his head to the side and down, feeling the knife in his jaw progress further into the horn. Aurora kicked at him erratically as she lost control of the pain. The cloth gag in her mouth turned her pain-filled screams into miserable, muffled groans.

Hopeful felt the bone begin giving in, the serrated edge finding an ease to its work as it passed the hard outer shell and burrowed itself into the softer marrow.

At about the halfway point, Aurora felt a new sensation that devilishly amplified her misery. Her energy, the magic inside of her that she had spent her life becoming familiar with, began pouring out of her leaking skull. Violently sparks struck out and singed Hopeful's face. He had to back away quickly to avoid having his eyes scorched out.

In a chaotic flurry of arcane lightning, Aurora's magic fled out of her like passengers from a sinking ship.

Hopeful jumped and grabbed the knife now lodged half way through her horn, and found it shockingly easy to slam it the rest of the way through. Her horn fell into the snow, dead as a nail.

Hopeful fell down and dropped his knife, just watching Auri, making sure she was still fighting. She was panting, the pain still obvious, but unexpressed. Her wobbling hoof rose up to pat down on her forehead. It was the strangest feeling, as she found nothing there, despite the phantom of her horn remaining imprinted in her psyche.

All of a sudden, she once again jolted to her stomach, and while it did still hurt, contractions felt like pin pricks compared to what had just happened to her.

Hopeful sat up and began hoisting Aurora to her hooves and trotted with her with as much speed as they could muster in their combined efforts to move forward. Time was still of the essence, now more than ever.

They didn't even bother to pick up the detached horn before they dashed off to find the whereabouts of Hopeful's old training base.





Hopeful screamed out in joyful relief as he found the snow-topped hatch hidden in the dirt just where he had remembered it.

Aurora also rejoiced in whatever small way a grievously pregnant, barely conscious mare could as she was carried to it.

Hopeful kicked against its surface with a back leg, the dusty snow being disturbed and hopping up with the force. “HEY! LET US IN, PLEASE!” he yelled down at the hatch, hoping there was somepony to hear him.

A surprised and muffled voice came from inside, quickly followed by hooves pacing up the stairs before the hatch was flung open, a distressed, rifle-wielding Earth Pony soldier being revealed from beneath.

He aimed up his rifle at the two of them, “Who are you two?”

“She's about to give birth! We need a doctor! Right now!” Hopeful demanded, keeping Aurora propped up with his hooves.

The soldier turned to Aurora and examined her quickly, she was definitely pregnant and sick, that was clear, and a glance to her exposed sides and forehead confirmed she was an Earth Pony. The soldier dropped his rifle, it falling around to his side, hanging by its sling. He then ran up to hold Aurora by her other side. “Come on, you'll be alright!” he assured them. Aurora was effortlessly dragged down the staircase and into the dull bunker by Hopeful and the soldier.

Hopeful was overcome with an immense sense of déjà vu as he trotted into such familiar halls after so long, he would reminisce if he wasn't extraordinarily occupied with Aurora right now.

He sprinted past confused soldiers down a thin corridor, having to shove them just to squeeze past. The hall barely supported the three of them being side-by-side inside of it. He blitzed past the barracks he slept in for all of his training and several other doors before arriving at the infirmary.

“Doc, we've got a situation here!” the soldier called out and banged against the infirmary door.

It flew open to reveal a shockingly familiar face wrapped in a doctor's robes.

“SPRING?!?” Hopeful exclaimed, seeing Spring Step for the first time in nearly a year.

“Hopeful? What's happening?!?” he begged.

Hopeful shook his head. “Look, she's pregnant and her water just broke. Can you help?”

“Y-yeah, of course! Bring her in!” He stepped out of the way. A nurse came to help the soldier in bringing Aurora to a bed. Hopeful was left empty-hoofed as Aurora was taken from him. He went to step in the room, but Spring stopped him. “We'll talk after. Right now, you'd just distract me and I need to concentrate. Stay outside!” He didn't even wait for Hopeful to respond before slamming the door shut in his face.

It all happened so fast he couldn't keep up. Hopeful backed against the wall and took a moment to process the events that had just occurred.

His thoughts remaining frazzled for quite some time as he sat out there, listening to the nurses and Spring Step scream and sprint around the infirmary, along with Aurora's pitiful moans of pain underlying each tone.

Hopeful lost sense of time. He couldn't tell if he sat there for a few dozen minutes or a few dozen hours. The sounds coming from the infirmary too gargled behind the thick stone walls to make distinctions, and nopony dared to disturb the stallion that just trotted in with a pregnant mare, so he was alone in his trance, drifting across the endless horizon of his mind like a lost wanderer with the only tool guiding them being Hope itself.

Eventually, Aurora had stopped screaming. It was an event that passed so unceremoniously Hopeful didn't even react, nearly failing to realize what was occurring as a foal's first cries came muffled from inside, a sound which Hopeful had not so long forgotten, yet deeply missed.

It could have been an hour, as far as Hopeful could tell, that he continued to sit out there, not willing to screw up by busting in through the door unwanted, and with great denial neither was he prepared to see the foal, he wasn't ready for that, let alone any of this. He was honestly terrified.

And all of a sudden, as if time had been frozen up until that point and it all came crashing back into itself, Hopeful watched a tired, mentally exhausted Spring Step softly ease the door open and exit to the hall, looking down into Hopeful's eyes with great concern.

“Hopeful...” he began.

“Is the baby okay? Is Aurora alright?!” He promptly rose up to Springs eye level, his serious tone worrying him.

“I have good news, bad news, and something I can't understand...” He struggled to decide which to tell first, but Hopeful was willing to eagerly wait for him to make his decision. “Bad news... Your friend, she...” He sighed, as if he held some disappointment in himself. “She didn't make it...”

“Auri..?” Hopeful immediately felt his eyes water. In an unspoken manner, he almost expected this. He had worried about her health for the greater part of a year now, but hearing it aloud felt as if it broke bones.

“Good news... The babies are healthy... Which brings me to the other good news: it was... twins.” He trailed off into a tone of reserved confession at the end, having one last important note he hadn't her told his old friend.

“Twins?” Hopeful let out a dimming smile.

“And well... I think you need to see the last thing for yourself, because you probably wouldn't believe me if I just told you...”

Spring led a flustered and deprived Hopeful through the infirmary's seal. Once he had entered, he could see everything. An empty, stained medical bed covered in loose equipment sat in the center of the room, a dark zipped up body bag laying on a morgue stone off to the side, his lost friend presumably inside. His heart was pulled towards her, his hooves being led by Spring in the opposite way, his soul tearing in two.

But whatever Spring wished to show him was apparently incredible enough to have drawn a crowd of several nurses to observe.

Once Spring arrived with Hopeful, he shooed the others off with a short expression of mumbles and gestures, leaving whatever was so amazing alone for the two of them. Hopeful approached, emotionally unstable. He was utterly confused and scared. He couldn't survive any more heartbreak.

He stood against the polished countertop Spring brought him to, where a large, fresh, white cloth acted as a mattress to the two tiny filly foals curled up on top, newly washed and wrapped up in a blanket each.

One was a pristine, white-coated baby with the beginning nubs of a pink mane sprouting from their head, her horn slightly longer than usual for Unicorns of this age. She looked tired, as if she had just spent the last hour crying herself out.

The other bore a coat of a midnight-navy hue, a deep, dark, beautiful blue that contrasted against the lighter blue mane only beginning to sprout from the top of her head. The set of dark, navy wings poking out from beneath the towel looked powerful. Surely, she'd grow to be a proud and powerful flyer of a Pegasus. She looked snug, as if she didn't make a sound before effortlessly falling asleep after being born.

“I didn't think it was possible... For an Earth Pony to give birth to a Pegasus and Unicorn... But here we are,” Spring expressed to an infatuated Hopeful, who was probably too busy crying his eyes out to hear him.

Hopeful grabbed Spring and squeezed him into a tight hug, “T-thank you...”

Spring felt fairly taken back, but he was quick to adjust. “No worries, dude...” He hugged back, making Hopeful feel slightly better. “I'm sorry about your friend. I assume you two were close...” he added, getting a nod of agreement from Hopeful, who dug his crying eyes into his friend’s shoulder. “If you need some time alone...” Spring selflessly offered.

“No... It's okay...” Hopeful reassured him, building up the courage to let go of the hug.

They both found themselves glancing towards Aurora's covered body in the same moment, Spring speaking on it first. “Were you two... close?”

“Yeah... You can say that...” He wiped away at his face. It was soaked completely from tears. He sniffed and swallowed, trying to retain some composure. 

“I'm really sorry we couldn't do much... She was already too far gone. She really fought though.” Spring began to feel queasy, staring at the corpse, swaying his head off to the side. “Where have you been? It's been... a while.”

“I was traveling for a while... I, uh... I stumbled onto these two ponies. Aurora and her fiancé... Shit went down and, well... We ended up here.” Hopeful's eyes stayed tightly fixed onto Aurora's wrapped up body, he felt a lot of emotions right now. “What about you..? How did you end up back here?”

“We had a good few battles, the old crew. Basalt got a bomb dropped on her. That was pretty fucking terrible. She didn't even get the decency of dying quickly... Fury saved my fucking life, jumping in front of a unicorn shot... We were split up pretty soon after that. I was put over here to train combat medics and I think Glisten got posted in some town north-east of here...”

They shared a respectful minute of silence for all of their fallen allies, hearts hanging low.

Behind them, a baby began to cry. They both glanced over to find that the pale-coated one had awoken and began unleashing a low-level tantrum. Hopeful found a solitude of joy in hearing her voice; at least it wasn't all for nothing. 

“That one's ten minutes older,” Spring mentioned. “Just in case you wanted to know.”

Hopeful nodded, a brief chuckle at remembering how anti-dramatic Spring's personality could be. His tears being warmed. “They're beautiful, aren't they?”

“I didn't think I'd say this about foals of other races, but yeah, they are pretty precious... What do you want to do about them? I can't keep them. I'm still too young to be a father.” He couldn't help but joke.

“I don't know... I'll need to bring them somewhere safe and secluded... Keep them away from other ponies... Cause, you know.” Hopeful trotted toward the table that held the two gorgeous little fillies wrapped up in warm, clean blankets.

He saw the pale one softly cry in the innocent way only a baby can, and feeling his fatherly instincts kick in, he began cooing her back to sleep, brushing her lightly with his hoof, making a gentle shushing with his mouth. In a few moments, she was soothed, giving Hopeful the chance to give the other some attention, stroking the frail feather's of the darker filly. “Aurora told me if it was a girl she wanted to name her Luna... Good name for her, don't you think?” His voice was still hoarse and cracked, the pride of a grieving warrior shining through his sadness.

“Yeah, pretty fitting... Did Aurora by any chance have a second idea for a name? Or like a runner up or something?” he smiled at him.

Hopeful looked away from the dark-blue, small filly, Luna, and raised his eyebrow to the pale-white, still to be named filly. An idea popping into his mind. “Spring?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember the name of that filly that Quick killed..?” His tone dropped to a somber echo in remembrance of the pain of that moment.

“I think it was like, sun something...” he pondered.

“Wasn't it like... Celestia?” Hopeful's ear's perked up a the sound of that. It sounded right.

“I think so, yeah,” Spring agreed.

“Celestia... Yeah... I feel like she deserves a second chance...” He scratched the newly named filly behind her ear. She seemed to enjoy it as her newborn fear, which tensed up her entire body, eased.

Spring patted Hopeful on the back. “Everypony does.”

Hopeful playfully rolled his damp eyes at the corny truth Spring spoke. He redirected his smile onto the two newborns. “Celestia and Luna... Welcome to the world, girls... Let's hope you kick its ass...” He felt a warm goodness inside of his body. He wouldn't let Aurora down; he would raise these two as if they were his own.

“Oh!” Spring hopped up as an idea came to him. “I think I know what you can do... There is this expedition Chancellor Puddinghead is funding. She's gathering a small portion of our army to travel up north and see if there is good land there to grow crops, the chancellor is going herself too. A train's coming in a few days to pick up volunteers, I'm sure if you hide Luna and Cel... Cet... gimme a second I'm trying to think of how to shorten Celestia... Cel... Es... Tia, Tia! Yeah, I'm sure you can hide Luna and Tia and go up there. If there's good land, you'll get a farmhouse and all built and you three can be, practically, completely alone.”

“R-really?” Hopeful couldn't believe what he was hearing, it sounded too perfect.

“Yeah! You can hide them in my quarters until it comes around...” Spring turned to the rest of his staff expectantly. “And I'm sure nopony is going to tell, right?”

He received a dazed nod from everypony in the room. They were still too far in disbelief to be able to tell anypony.

Hopeful jumped up onto Spring and wrapped his two grateful hooves around him. “Thank you so much...” A large smile was imprinted onto his face.

“You're welcome dude... I'm just glad you're alive.” Spring smiled back.

“You know what? So am I.”





Aurora was buried later that day, outside in the forest, Hopeful got the chance to pay his respects to the best Unicorn he ever knew.

Spring and Hopeful caught up with much greater detail over the next few days, Hopeful telling him every part of his journey, and vice versa. The two of them both realized how much they had missed each other. They could chat for hours on end and at no point would they tire.

Hopeful quickly found it to be a joy to be taking care of a child again, the love for his two new nieces growing to be unbreakable within minutes. And while he was forced into secrecy while having a baby Unicorn and Pegasus inside of a military base, once he hopped onto the northbound train with a basket of blankets hiding his the two fillies he was smuggling, everything proceeded smoothly. The foals, even if little Celestia was a bit rambunctious at times, were very compromising and gave very little hassle to Hopeful in any of this. They made it out without another single pony knowing about Celestia and Luna than there already was.

Hopeful said goodbye to Spring Step, hoping to see him in the ''new world'', as they were calling it, one day. He was promised in return that Spring would get there and visit the first thing once the war had ended.

He was finally brought into the beautiful, snowless paradise he dreamed of for the last year. He cried as he trotted into clear plains of glossy grass that reached out to hug the horizon.

He was given a small plot of land by the government near the Earth Ponies’ first settlement, known as "Appleloosa", named after the native apple trees found there. He farmed once more in his life, one of the many now supplying the masses with fresh fruit and hay. The farm supported him and his two girls quite well. They didn't starve or go cold for another day since. It was more than he could have ever asked for.

Hopeful Twist, the stallion who lost more loved ones than he could forget, and his two gorgeous little girls, Luna M. Eclipse and Celestia A. Sunshine, were finally safe and happy, together. And ever since, Hopeful had not another single nightmare. Instead, he had sweet dreams of holding Wicker in his hooves every night, and she was proud of him.

The war ended shortly after, as the events of Hearth's Warming took place. The three tribal leaders, Chancellor Puddinghead, Princess Platinum, Commander Hurricane, and their respective servants found themselves confronting each other atop the most grand mountain in the new world, freezing themselves with their hate and discovering the warmth of friendship, deciding to end the war outright. It was, in fact, a new world. A world ran by all three Pony races equally and with care and respect for one another.

They called it "Equestria."