Pain. That’s all I felt when I came to. It felt like the force of a thousand suns had just slammed me into next week.
The pain, however, didn’t last as I thought it would’ve. It was as if the pain was only a figment of my imagination, but I still felt it. Yet… it’s gone. Just like that. Strange, but it’s a welcome surprise. But something still felt off, I felt the grass and the heat of the afternoon sun beating down on my body.
As I opened my eyes, I was starting to wonder how I had ended up outside of the convention hall. I suddenly remembered what had happened before I reached the exit of the hall. A voice, pleading for help. I sat up in a panic, looking around for the said voice. I was shocked to see that I was in a forest. A pretty dense one at that. As I tried to get to my feet, I felt weighed down by about 30 pounds. I put a hand to my chest as if it was supposed to help me breathe easier. It did the exact opposite. Metal, my once EVA foam chest piece was metal! My helmet didn’t feel like it has changed much, as it was already metal because a US WW2 helmet was used as a base for it. Same went for my left arm, it also felt weighed down. I went to look, and to my shock and amazement, my once replica Pip-Boy was now a fully functioning version. Just like New Vegas in fact.
Speaking of oddities, I could see clearly out of my helmet, even though there were turquoise lenses in it. I remembered only being able to see blue, but now I can see clearly. As if nothing was ever there in the first place.
I look to the ground to see my .357 revolver, which was just a prop, along with my belt that I had bought for it. I picked it up and it felt heavier than normal. While I was inspecting it I accidentally flicked open the cartridge gate and out fell a shell. I picked it up to inspect it and realized that it looked real and felt real. I took another glance at my ammo belt to find that it was now filled with .357 bullets. I didn’t mind the change with the helmet and chest piece, But this was just baffling to me. But, I digress.
“What the…” I whispered, nearly speechless. I did a quick check of my inventory and found that everything had been replaced with the real thing. But then there's the Alicorn Amulet.
“It must’ve come off at some point. Wait, that can’t be right. It was secured around my neck and hidden beneath the chest piece.” I said out loud to myself in a confused manner as I put it back on. I didn’t notice it at the time, but the shadows of dark magic seeped out of the corners of my helmet’s lenses. Dissipating when they reached the back of my head.
“Might as well have a look around. See if I can find any civilization.” With that said, I headed on my way.
“Man, it’s freaking hot! I thought that it was the middle of the fall? Not in the middle of summer!” I spoke out loud to myself while wandering the woods.
“I wish something exciting would hap- oh, what’s this?” Ahead of me was a structure, well, more like a ruin. It was covered in moss, it was overgrown, and overall it was just a mess. Now that I look at it though, it wasn’t just one small structure, it was one huge one. Like a castle.
It seemed to be thousands of years old. I could only tell due to the moss, ivy, and other overgrowth around the place. That and my helmet told me. I was just trying to sound smart, who knew it could do that?
“Well, I suppose there is no harm in looking around. Who knows what I might find!” I said as I walked through the main entrance.
Honestly… it was, if not more magnificent than I could have imagined. Paintings, statues, shields, swords, and banners lined the walls with a faded and torn red carpet placed on the floor leading to what looked like a throne room. Even with the place being so ruined and old, it still looked in pristine condition.
“This is… amazing. Who knew that after so long, this place still hadn’t been ransacked by the locals or absolutely demolished by the wildlife.” I said out loud looking at the room.
While going on about how beautiful this place was, I took the time to observe the paintings, statues, and banners of the castle. What I saw gave me a decent jump. They weren’t depicting humans like I was expecting. No Leaders from history and no figureheads from history were there among the items. Well, that was partly a lie. All of those factors were present, they just weren’t from our history. Every one of the statues showed a bust of what looked to be ponies, griffins, and dragons. Same goes for the banners, but they only showed two ponies that were different from the others. One was white while the other was black, and they both had wings and a horn.
It was at this moment I realized something, I ain’t in the wasteland anymore.
‘Now that I think about it, this all feels very familiar. But in what way? I feel like I should know, but I don’t.’ I was starting to feel very unwelcome in this place. But something was keeping me here, and I couldn’t figure out what. I feel as though everything is falling apart in my mind, I can’t think straight!
I growled in frustration as I thought about it more and more, but the answer always slipped away last second. Something, no, someone was keeping it from me. Before I could notice, the shadows of dark magic coming from the corners of my eyes became fiercer than ever before. Causing the building to shake, and rubble to fall.
“Where am I?” Was the last thing I could get out before I heard a growl at the door. I look over to the set of doors, my heart was suddenly beating in my throat and adrenaline flooding my brain. Many pairs of large green stared at me through the entranceway. Millions of things, horrible things suddenly flooded my mind at once. I felt the need to destroy cloud my vision. I felt like I was going insane. I could however, still think rationally.
‘Oh hell! If only I could freeze time to get out of this mess!’ Then suddenly, BAM. Time froze, just like I wanted it to. However, I couldn’t really look around to find an escape route out of the current mess I was in. My vision, not being clouded anymore with the need to destroy everything in my path, was tinted blue. I could barely make out hundreds of tiny squares that dotted my vision, almost like an old computer monitor or screen. My eyes were locked onto one of the beasts, that was made of wood and had the features of a wolf, with a percentage below the head. The head was illuminated in a shade of blue that was slightly brighter than the blue my vision was currently trapped in.
“95% chance? What does that me-” A textbox that appeared out of nowhere cut me off. It read,”Welcome to V.A.T.S.! The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System! Want free aimbot? But don’t want to be found out? Then use V.A.T.S.!”
“You have got to be joking, right?” I said, as if talking to someone in the current vicinity. I should have recognized that it was V.A.T.S. in the first place. Would this even work? If this all is actually real, with my luck with any percent chance be as bad as always?
`How do I confirm my target, do I just blink?’ I blinked, and to confirm my suspicions, a faint mechanical sound emanated and targeted the... Hey look at that, the names of my targets are displayed just like the games!
“A Timberwolf, huh? Nice firewood is what it should be called.”
“Now then, how do I move onto the next target? Let me guess, move my eyes?” My next target was selected. “Yup.”
All of the Timberwolves were now targeted. I took the time to count how many there were in the room with me. There were 7, one more than my .357 can handle. Screw it. Time to see if this works. “Confirm Targets?” Another textbox asked.
“Um… yeah.” The box went away just as it had appeared. Then suddenly without my own input, my hand went down to my right side and pulled my .357 out of the holster. The hammer was pulled back, and I let loose. In quick succession, the rounds from my revolver flew out of the barrel with a crack. The ferocity at which they hit their targets was so much, the heads were thrown back as if hit with a bat at full force. Even if the bullets didn’t kill them, the force and shockwave certainly did. All of that took place within 5 seconds.
I waited for a moment to make sure they were truly dead, or at least down for the count. Without even bothering to reload my .357, I turned my attention to the last wolf. This wolf was looking a lot less confident than it did a few seconds ago. Without it’s friends to help it out, it started to realize how much shit it was currently in.
Brandishing my machete, I approached it slowly and calmly. It whimpered in terror, not only because of my machete as I had originally thought. But because the corners of my eyes were spewing out the shadows of dark magic. I didn’t know what I was going to do with the pathetic thing.
Just next to it now, I looked it in the eyes er…. Orb things. I brought my arm back that held the machete and forced it down. It connected and lodged into the leg of the wolf with a solid THUNK. Immediately, the terrified look in its eyes grew to horror. It whimpered in pain as I jerked my machete from it’s leg and brought it up for another strike. I took one last look at it’s eyes, which had tears forming under them. I stopped mid swing.
“Wait, what am I doing?!” I dropped my blade to the broken stone floor and backed up slowly. I looked at the wolf trying to get up to run away. It couldn’t. There was what looked like tree sap leaking from the leg wound, and it was coming out fast. It eventually collapsed on the ground in pain, whimpering. I approached it once more, this time without my machete in hand. I looked it in the eyes once again, and saw the emotions they held. There was pain, anger, terror, and shock. I glanced down at it’s leg wound, hoping I could help it.
“Ah shit… what have I done? There’s gotta be a way to fix this.” I crouched down next to it and held a gloved hand on it’s wound.
“How in the hell do I treat something like this?” As I looked around the room to see if I could spot anything to help treat the ‘bleeding’ hole in the wolves leg, I spotted what looked to be a torn piece of cloth.
“Hah! That’ll do!” Feeling as though I had just accomplished something great, I grabbed the cloth, turned back to the wolf, and was about to tie the piece of cloth to it’s leg when I spotted a decently sized leaf. I decided to grab that and wrap the cloth around the leg first, then apply the leaf around the cloth. I don’t know jack shit when it comes to medical or first aid, but I think this should do just fine.
Without warning, the wolf tried to get up to run away. Keyword being ’tried’. It fell on it’s side hitting the stone with a hollow ‘clunk’. It did get relatively far, though. About 12 feet before it fell. I once again walked up to it and picked it up with relative ease. This is going to go on for a long ass while, isn’t it?
I was right. It took about 2 hours to get it to move again. As soon as it could run, it blasted off like a freaking rocket. It threw me to the ground. But thank whoever is watching that actually took a lot less time than I thought it would.
“What now? Explore the rest of the castle?” Actually, that’s not a bad Idea. I haven’t found the main chamber yet. Might as well, right?
The walk throughout the castle was interesting to say the least. There was a lot of dust, cobwebs, and confusing as fuck passage ways. I found one room with a ton of rusted out swords and shields. Must’ve been the armory. I did find one shield in decent condition, but it was uncomfortable as hell to hold. I have no idea why.
The rest of the rooms are no different than the last. More dust, cobwebs, and confusing as fuck passage ways. I thought I was almost out of one hallway, then as I turn a corner, another 2 hallways. Holy Fuck, whoever designed this place sucks at architecture and needs to go back to school. At least this hallway is leading to an open room. Scratch that, a BIG ASS ROOM.
Said room was similar to the one the ‘fight’ took place in. But only banners and the torn-up red carpet were present. At the end of the room was a weird looking statue. Approaching it, I felt a sudden rush of Deja Vu. Like I had seen this statue somewhere before.
The statue held 5 stone orbs, each with a unique design. One had a diamond, one had a lightning bolt, one had a balloon, another had an apple, and the last one had a butterfly. Oddly familiar.
“But why is this place so familiar? I don’t get it, it’s almost like my memories are gone relating to this certain subject.” My voice containing slight static as if speaking through a microphone.
Then suddenly, like a freight train that was carrying 100 tons of bricks hit me in the head, I remembered. This castle isn’t like any other castle, It’s the Castle of the Two Sisters. Those paintings of two Alicorns weren’t just there for show. Same goes for the banners and busts. Those depicted Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Those wolves I fought were from the Everfree forest in the show, where else could they have come from?
So that means… the stone spheres in front of me aren’t just stone spheres, well they are, but that’s not my point. If all of my observations correspond with each other correctly must mean that…
These stones are the Elements of Harmony.