//------------------------------// // Chapter 17 // Story: Millennium Wake: Part 1 // by Chaotic Dreams //------------------------------// Chapter 17 Rarity had never experienced something slicing into her flesh until her experience with the ‘perfection’ vine. Later she would think it ironic that she should experience the same thing such a short time later, only in reverse. Her tailbone flared with a white-hot, tearing, ripping pain, like thousands of superheated needles burning her skin and muscle away cell by cell. Every muscle clenched involuntarily in a futile attempt to lessen the overwhelming agony, and the only thing she could hear over the blood rushing in her ears was somepony screaming. Wait... it was her. Then, all at once, a spike as long as the thorn tipping the end of the ‘perfection’ vine ripped its way out from where her old tail used to be, followed by multiple bulging segments as it arced up and around behind her. The new appendage curled back, covered in a glistening dark liquid almost indiscernible from its shining black shell. The pain left her all at once. Whether the changes were done or her overloaded nervous system had simply somehow managed to get a handle on her mutating form, Rarity was at last plucked from the waking world and thrust into well-deserved and long-overdue unconsciousness. Her friend’s shouts faded into silence as she collapsed on the life raft, her eyes steadily drifting shut.  The last thing she saw was a single drop of something falling from the tip of her newest appendage. Something that sparkled in the sunlight. Just like a diamond. . . . “R…” “Ra…” “Rarity…” “Rarity!” “RARITY!!” The white unicorn awoke with a gasp, her eyes darting frantically around in search of danger. Her brow furrowed as, for the first time since waking up in this frightening new era, she couldn’t see any. “Surprise?” Rarity inquired to the frizzy-maned pegasus hovering upside-down over her. “What’s going on?” “For somepony who has already slept for a thousand years, you sure do spend a lot of time unconscious!” Surprise giggled. “I should think you’ve had more than enough shut-eye!” “That doesn’t answer my question,” Rarity grumbled, finding herself agreeing with the insane pony, much to her chagrin. Then again, though, she couldn’t really find it in herself to feel angry. There didn’t appear to be any danger at the moment, and that created more of a mix of mind-boggling confusion and utter peace that Rarity hadn’t felt since, well… ever. She looked around one last time, just to be sure there weren’t any shifty red eyes lurking in the shadows. Not a single monster’s claw, slime-dripping thorny vine, or gleaming metal hide of android could be seen. There was truly nothing in the forest clearing other than the small campfire Megan and Firefly were using to roast… something… on sticks. Oh, boy. “Ah, sleeping beauty awakes at last!” Megan chuckled. “Took you long enough, though thankfully not as long as last time. How do you feel?” The blood drained from Rarity’ already stark-white face as she realized she felt fine, save for the missing sensation of one limb in particular. She leaped to her hooves from the leafy floor of the forest, and whipped her head around to ogle at what had recently found its home on her backside. The long, segmented, and spiked tail of shining black stretched out behind her, lying flat and lifeless on the green grass. It looked like a scorpion’s tail, although large enough to befit a pony. Not quite as large as a manticore’s, however. She couldn’t feel anything from it, despite it being attached to her rump... Was that good or bad? After a tense moment of all eyes watching her, Rarity spoke. “I feel fine… But as far as the… tail… goes, I don’t feel anything at all.” A glimmer of hope sparked in Rarity’s eyes, which quickly faded into a look of horror. “Well… since I can’t feel it…” the white unicorn mused as she stared at her tail, both dreading and desperately clinging to the words escaping her lips almost of their own will. “Maybe… it could be… removed?” “I don’t think that would be the best idea,” Megan answered. She tapped her digits together. “I know you’ll hate hearing this, but who knows how much that tree-thing changed you in ways we can’t see? If we cut off the tail, we might be removing something vital to your new physiology.” Rarity’s face fell. A jolt suddenly raced down her spine, causing her gaze to snap back to her new appendage when the jolt didn’t end at the base of her tailbone. Alien sensations flooded her mind as the spiked monstrosity connected to her twitched, before falling lifeless again. She hoped that the sudden sensation of connection to this... thing... had just been a passing fluke rather than a portent of things to come. Dragging her new tail everywhere was hardly ideal, but actually being able to FEEL it was just... revolting! Eager to get her mind off of the subject, Rarity turned to her friends. “What is that you’re cooking?” “Beats me,” Firefly answered. “Right after we landed in The Forests as far away from that tree as I could take us, our stomachs rumbled and... Well, the next thing we knew, every tree around us started growing fruit that fell down at our hooves. They’re great raw, so we decided to see what they taste like when cooked.” “And you trusted wild fruit?” Rarity questioned incredulously. “Especially in THIS forest?!” “Actually, the trees of The Fluttershy Forests are all genetically engineered to actively try and provide the perfect possible habitat for all life-forms within them.” Firefly’s voice was strained, her teeth grit, almost as if she was trying to hold something back. “I surmise that it must have been one of the real Fluttershy’s machinations. That’s why we’ve been safe here, even from the factory.” “How did Fluttershy get into changing living things in the first place?” Rarity wondered as Megan handed her one of the fried fruits on a stick. Her horn glowed as she reluctantly took it. If it really was her real friend’s idea, then it must be safe. She only hoped that her real friend’s idea hadn’t been tainted by that monster in the centuries following her death. “I know she always wanted to help animals, but when did that turn into altering them?” “It all started out simply enough,” Firefly explained with tears in her eyes and a rasp in her voice as she struggled to keep the building coughs at bay. “The real Fluttershy was trying to discover a methodology beneficial to the restoration of damaged tissue. Magic spells only went so far, so she eventually formulated the idea to synthesize new tissue that would then be grafted onto the damaged biomass. Over time, regeneration led from replacing faulty tissue and birth defects with healthy organs, to genetically implanting or altering the tissue altogether. Finally the company was able to manufacture whole organisms crafted from the genetic blueprints of all kinds of creatures. She only ever wanted to help life by… making it as safe and self-sufficient as physically possible, but she never… forced anypony to… adopt her… strategies. That… c-came… la-… late-...” Firefly couldn’t hold out any longer. The wracking coughs burst forth, causing her to collapse, gasping for air. Rarity wanted to do something to comfort her, but she knew that after such a spasm it would not be Firefly she would be comforting. There had to be a way to save her. There just had to be. Disks or no Disks, Rarity mentally promised to scour the next place of magical knowledge she came across for something that could counteract such a vile enchantment. “Whoa, sorry about that, everypony.” Firefly rose with a cocky smile, wiping at her mouth. “Did I miss anything?” Rarity only stared at the pegasus, slightly revolted by the faint smears of red on her friend’s chin. And not because it was blood. “Speaking of how the real Fluttershy got her start,” she ventured, uncertain, as she turned to Megan. “I was beginning to wonder how the humans got their start. As well as, well… as well as that thing that little monster mentioned in The Hall of Life.” “You want to know how and why my species destroyed an entire universe?” Megan replied, a solemn look on her face. Rarity hesitated, and then nodded. “I knew this was coming... I guess if I’m going to be travelling with you, you might as well know. I’d leave afterwards if you wanted me to, but seeing as how you seem to want to keep Firefly around, I guess you’re stuck with me as well. “Humans have never been the most peaceful of races,” Megan explained. “Our history is splattered with bloodshed. That isn’t to say that we used war to solve all our problems, but sometimes things did spiral out of control. Despite this, we were always happy to point out to ourselves that despite our destructive nature, we never destroyed ourselves completely. There was a time in our history known as The Cold War, when we developed weapons that could wipe out our entire species. But we didn’t use them. We refused to destroy ourselves, no matter how much one side of the conflict may have opposed the other.” Rarity nodded, listening with rapt attention. Regardless of what Megan’s people did in the past, it didn’t necessarily reflect her. However, it didn’t necessarily mean that their motives wouldn’t be present in at least some degree in her either. Megan had been right when she said that Rarity wasn’t going to abandon Firefly, and that did indeed force Megan to tag along. But, if there was even the slightest chance that Megan could be dangerous to them or anypony else, then Rarity wanted to know about it. “However, not destroying ourselves only became half the battle when we developed the technology to travel to other planes of existence…er, other places,” the human went on. “That concept is complicated enough in itself. But when we first discovered these other places, we also discovered other peoples. Sentient beings who were definitely not human. We didn’t know what to think about them at first, but the humans in charge of the operation at the time decided that a peaceful relationship would be best. So we set up a trading agreement with the other race, and both sides prospered. “Eventually, though, we encountered the other half of the battle,” Megan continued. “We sure didn’t want to destroy ourselves, but these other beings were different from us. And, when those differences sparked hostility between our species that neither side fully understood, war broke out. They refused to give up the war no matter how much we pleaded with them for peace. We were more advanced than they were, meaning we could better defend ourselves from anything they threw at us, but no defense is impregnable. Sooner or later they began sneaking through the cracks and causing some real casualties and damages. “When that happened, we made it clear we’d fight back if necessary. We did some minor things as a warning to them, but nothing that actually created much harm. But still they persisted, and innocent humans who had no ties to the trading agreement were dying. Closing the portals wouldn’t solve anything , as that technology was one of the first things we traded with them. They could just open up a new portal and keep on attacking us. So we ended the problem the only way we could think of, which was by ending them. Every last one of them, and their universe to boot.” Rarity sat silently for a moment, unsure of what to think. She was relieved to hear that the destruction had only been in self-defense, but the fact that that destruction meant the death of an entire species filled her with horror. If they could do something so horrific so easily, what could they do to The ULE? She had no doubt that Megan’s words were true. She’d witnessed firsthoof what a single human was capable of, so who knew what the entirety of them could do? Speaking of which, if they had the technology to destroy so much, wouldn’t they have also had the technology to stop the war in some other way? It just didn’t make sense that such a horror was really all they could have thought of. “But in a way, all clouds have a silver lining, even the darkest of thunderheads,” Megan added. “We hadn’t known if we wanted to include every living sentience as equal to us or count them all as simply different and thus not as important. The death of so many at our own hands, though, woke us up to the reality of the situation. Every sentient species is equal, and thus worthy to live out their own lives by their own choices. We continued to explore other places than our home and trade with those who were willing, but we always made it clear to the new species we met what we had done in the past. We always gave them the option to be left alone. Ever since, those who trade with humanity have done nothing but prosper. We’ve even saved a few universes that would have ended without our intervention.” That settled it, then. Sure, they had done something horrible beyond words in the past. But, since then, they’d done nothing but be a help to those they met, just as Megan had done nothing but help Rarity and her new friends. If Megan was really as bad as the universe-destroying species that Applebloom’s impostor had made her out to be, then the human could have easily killed them all save Firefly and gone on her merry way, especially seeing how Rarity had forever altered her life in the first place. But she hadn’t. She’d stuck by them and helped them as much as she could. “Then again, maybe I should warn you about what would happen if your nation did open trade with us,” Megan spoke up again after a moment. Rarity’s ears perked up, the dread-forest in her stomach rustling. She prayed there wasn’t some catch that would ruin the positive light that had just been shed on such a dark revelation. “We don’t trade weapons or anything, so don’t worry about us empowering you with the means to destroy yourselves. But every species that trades with us eventually adapts our technological lifestyle. You see, there was more to my escaping the human compound than just wanting to see this world. How can I explain this? Well… humans can be boring.” Rarity quizzically raised an eyebrow. That was the last thing she had been expecting to hear. “Human technology has advanced to the point that machines run almost everything. Your whole life is planned out from the moment you’re born and your DNA is analyzed. If you have the genetic material for artistic talent, then you’re trained to be an artist from then on out. It’s the same with every other job, be it doctor or quantum physicist. Everyone gets a job based on their talents and interests.” “That sounds an awful lot like Equestria. I mean, The ULE, except we get our futures set after we discover our cutie marks,” Rarity interjected. “How is that boring?” “Because that’s not the end of it,” Megan continued. “Sure, everyone is doing what they want. We even have the technology to prevent any diseases, to match you with your ideal mate, to make sure that the bathwater is never too hot or too cold… Everything’s planned out, and everything’s perfect!” Megan’s voice was starting to lose its usual placidity. “It’s horrible! There’s no instance of chance, no possibility of something unexpected happening. Sure, that means that nothing bad will happen, but it also means that nothing unexpectedly good will happen either. There’s no excitement, no need to push or challenge oneself. You’re not really living, you’re just a meat puppet operated by a machine that is programmed to smile even if isn’t even alive!” Megan blinked a few times, before horrible realization dawned on her face, and her head whipped to Firefly. “Oh… wait, no, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…” Rarity turned her gaze on Firefly, seeing the pegasus staring at the ground. “It’s alright…” Firefly, the real one, muttered. Despite her quivering, forced smile, Rarity could see tears in her eyes. “I just wish I could be more like you, then. I wish that I too could cut my strings.” Rarity instantly knew that she HAD to find a cure, and fast. Because of this, Rarity was beyond surprised when something resembling one fell on top of her head. The white unicorn shrieked in surprise and sprang up, the fruit bouncing off her head and coming to rest on the forest floor. Instantly dozens of the things began sprouting from the trees and cascading down from prehensile branches. She tried to dodge as many as she could before finally ducking and holding her hooves over her head, thinking that the monster with Fluttershy’s voice really had poisoned the rest of The Forests after all. That is, until she opened her eyes and saw that the fruits weren’t being aimed at her, or any of the group, other than a certain pegasus. As the last fruit landed at Firefly’s hooves, she looked up in surprised confusion. “What in The ULE?” she murmured, turning her attention back to the round, plump balls of juice and sweet plant flesh. Almost instantly, her eyes lit up, and she dropped down to bury her face in the things.   “What in The ULE indeed,” Rarity agreed, wondering why in the world Firefly was suddenly so ravenously eating this new fruit. Hadn’t she just said she’d already eaten several of the other kind? What was so special about these? A blue glow enveloped one of the juicy lumps as it was moved to hover in front of Rarity. These fruits certainly looked different than the ones Firefly and Megan (and presumably Surprise) had been roasting, but what was so special about them? She turned the fruit around in the air as she observed it. It was roughly pear-shaped, golden in hue with— Rarity gasped as she caught sight of something most unexpected. In raised, darkly-pigmented font were words growing out of the side of the fruit. “Temporarily releases from magical parasites,” the white unicorn read. “They’re charged with magic themselves!” Firefly called between mouthfuls, golden juice dribbling down her chin. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before! I guess I thought it was impossible, but The Fluttershy Forests are engineered to provide the perfect possible habitat for life-forms. And when I wished I could cut my puppeteer’s strings, The Forests tried to grant that wish by…” The pegasus shook, before twitching violently. “NO! STOP IT! STOP EATING THAT STUFF! I’M IN CONTROL HERE, AND I’M—” “GONE!” Firefly interrupted, cutting her other self off with a firm stomp of her hoof. She was smiling from ear to ear, tears of happiness brimming in her eyes. “At least, until the fruit wears off. I wonder how long it lasts…” There was a moment of silence, uninterrupted by even the slightest of coughs from the pegasus. “It works…!” Rarity breathed. “I… I don’t believe it! I knew I was searching for a cure for you, but to be given one so suddenly… I’m so happy for you, Firefly!” “You were looking for a cure for me?” the temporarily un-split pony questioned. The tears couldn’t be held back any longer. Firefly got up from where she’d been feasting on the fruit, trotted over to Rarity, and tugged her into a tight embrace. The white unicorn was happy to return it. “Thank you. Nopony’s ever tried to save me. To my knowledge, not even my own parents.” “Not even your own…?!” Rarity tried to echo as Firefly pulled away and sat down next to her, looking into the fire. “But… but why?!”  “I don’t know,” Firefly admitted. Rarity was eager to hear this conversation with the real pegasus continue, but as each blessed moment wore on, the fear of when the fruit’s effects would wear off only increased. Rarity promised herself to pack as many of these fruits as possible. The key to saving Firefly permanently might just be in these large golden pear-things. Maybe if she could find some expert on magic who could amplify the fruit’s effects… “Any number of possibilities have plagued me. “Maybe they swallowed the lies that my life really would be better with President Rainbow then it would have been with them,” Firefly continued. “Maybe Rainbow Industries paid them to keep quiet, or had them… taken care of, through some other means. All I know is that back when I was a filly, one night I went to sleep in my house, and when I woke up, I was in President Rainbow’s office with the imprint herself and Shocking Results. I never saw my parents again. Several years later, when I was feeling more myself than usual, I managed to sneak away long enough to visit my old home… but there was a new family living there. I looked around for my parents further, but our old neighbors said they hadn’t seen my parents since the night their daughter went missing. I looked a lot different at that point, but before I had the chance to tell them that I was the missing daughter, the Rainbow Industries ponies found me.” “I’m… I’m so sorry…” Rarity whispered. “Once we find a permanent cure, we’ll have to go looking for your parents as well.” “You’d do that for me?” Firefly almost whispered. “But why? Why are you helping me so much when you have nothing to gain from it?” “Why would I need a reason to gain from it if you’d gain from it?” Rarity said with a smile. “You need help, and that’s all the reason I need.” “You really do represent The Element of Generosity,” Firefly said. “Everypony in The ULE hears the stories of the company founders, but I guess I could never really envision a pony that ideal. I thought most of those tales were just myths. Now, I’m happy to say I was mistaken.” “Based on what you’ve seen of my friends’ legacies, I’m not surprised,” Rarity commented wryly, her dragon eyes shining. “Though rest assured, they’d be outraged if they learned what had become of their companies. At least, all but Pinkie Pie would, and I don’t know about Applejack. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard anything about her company since I woke up. Where is it based, and what does it produce?” “It’s out on The Sands behind The Walls,” Firefly responded. “And, um… I don’t think you’ll like hearing this, but… Applejack doesn’t really have a company anymore.” “What?!” Rarity gasped. “Applejack’s Antis went under—literally—around the time of the expansion of The Solar Empire,” the currently undivided pegasus explained. “Princess Celestia had begun to use the sun itself as a weapon. She would bring it down close to the world over whatever country Equestria was currently fighting and scorch them into submission. The pony soldiers were protected by special cooling spells, but the other peoples weren’t so fortunate. One of the peoples to hold out the longest were the wandering buffalo tribes. They had magic of their own, using their shamans to protect them from the heat with previously forbidden spells brought out in this desperate time of need. They summoned icy spirits, and though the buffalo tribes had another name for them, you may know them as windigos. “The war was fought, ironically, out of love rather than hate,” Firefly went on. “This stopped the windigos from gaining too much power as they had before the founding of Equestria, but the shamanic magic kept them strong enough to prevent solar oppression. Celestia refused to give up, though, scorching the desert and surrounding lands where the buffalo tribes made their home. The buffalo themselves were safe, but they could not protect the entirety of their lands, and so the heat of the sun turned everything not under windigo protection into ash and dust. The desert expanded, overflowing into other nations, including Equestria. Applejack’s Antis could only produce their wares in their headquarters in Appleoosa, so when the desert buried the city it ended the company.” “What about Applejack’s imprint?” Rarity inquired, not sure what to make of all this. On the one hoof, it may have meant the end of a warped imprint’s company. On the other, it may have only ended the company of an imprint who was only slightly different than the original. “What happened to it?” “Nopony knows,” Firefly answered. “Just like the other imprints, it couldn’t leave its factory. It was buried in sand with the company headquarters.” “And that’s what The Walls are for? To keep ‘The Sands’ of that desert from expanding into The ULE?” “Indeed,” the multicolored pegasus affirmed. “Though nopony understands why, The Sands didn’t stop expanding even after The Sun was put back in its proper place. The Sands would have overwhelmed all of The ULE by now if The Walls hadn’t been constructed.” “Do you know anything about the way the imprint itself was?” Rarity inquired. “I’m afraid not,” Firefly negated. “As you may well have already assumed, the imprints don’t get much exposure other than their advertisements.” Rarity nodded. She had indeed assumed as much, but it was good to make sure.  “So I suppose you’re all expecting me to open up next about my tragic past?” Surprise spoke up before Rarity could ask what Applejack’s Antis had produced. The group turned to face the snowy pegasus, who was still hovering upside-down. How she did that without all the blood rushing to her head and causing her to black out—just like all the impossible things Surprise did—was anypony’s guess. “Not really?” Rarity replied. “Do you have—” “Good!” Surprise announced with finality, her eyes shifting from side to side. “Because I don’t have a tragic past to bring up! My life is awesome!” Rarity said nothing, taken aback. She had been sure that Surprise, of all ponies, wouldn’t have had any less-than-pleasant memories… at least, not before going on this search with Rarity. So why was she suddenly defensive about something that hadn’t even been brought up? Was that just Surprise being Surprise, or was something deeper at work here? Rarity certainly hoped not. Surprise’s eyes darting nervously from one member of the group to the next, she suddenly whipped out a magical message-player from behind her back. Just like everything else Surprise carried, the phonograph look-alike couldn’t have possibly fit behind her and still remain hidden. “Why don’t we play that latest Disk and take the focus off of me?” Surprise blurted quickly, pushing the message-player forward. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner that you had one of these?!” Rarity demanded, her eyes lighting up. “I haven’t seen any other message-players this whole time, and I thought I would have to go back to Pinkie Pie’s Party Supplies before I could play another Disk!” “You didn’t ask,” the white pegasus replied, still acting miffed about a conversation that had never happened. ‘Don’t think this is over yet, Surprise,” Rarity thought to herself. ‘First the Disk, and then I’m adding ‘finding out what Surprise is hiding’ to my list of things to do in this crazy era.’ ‘Something tells me what you find on this Disk will thankfully make you so happy you forget about that,’ Surprise thought back, her mental voice almost a growl. ‘As well as figure out how you’re able to use telepathy without being a unicorn,’ Rarity thought with a scold, shooting the snowy flier an annoyed look. ‘That you shall never find out,’ Surprise’s thought-voice retaliated, her earlier anger having evaporated. ‘Unless you end up having to save the world… or unless you want to destroy it…’ . . .