"All our life written by random. It's beginning, ending and everything beetween. So, do we even control ourselves, our desteny or our choices, is it really written by random, or it written by us?"
Pain, one of the primary feeling of our body. Many would say that it's useless, but yet, it helps us to understand what is wrong with our body and fix that issue or it helps us understand what is bad or what is good.
*POV Cold Space*
“Ugh, my head… Landing surely was rough, at least all my limbs was with me,” I hoped.
I got up on my legs, it was hard because they were hurting very bad like the rest of my body.
I looked around and saw Kiter who was trying to stood up, but he couldn’t his leg was broken. At first I wanted to run to him, but then I saw Twilight who was still laying. I suggested that she might be hurt very bad or even dead.
“Hey, Hey, are you okay!? Wake up!” I was screaming at her with scare and was shaking her.
Luckily, she coughed.
“Huh, I guess I’m okay, I am tougher than I seem. You should help your friend,” I helped her to get up and we both walked to Kiter.
“So, what are you think had happened?” I asked them while we were helping Kiter to get up.
“My leg got broken,” he said immediately. Then he saw my face and said. “Okay, okay, I’ll try to stop with my jokes.”
“I don’t know surely, but it looked like some kind of portal, but I would like to research it closer if I will ever find it!” said Twilight.
“It was neither blue nor orange, so I don’t know about portal, but it looks like we in different place,” suggested Kiter while was limping around.
“Hmm, ok. I guess that portal teleported us to... Everfree Forest!?” Twilight screamed in fright when she looked around.
“And why we should be scared? It’s not very dangerous place as I remember,” I said with confusion.
“Well, it was in my time, but even now it’s dangerous because it’s Timberwolves breeding season! Forest is full of them!” explained Twilight.
“Are… are you sure? I can’t hear anything,” I said with a scare in my voice.
Suddenly a weird howl sounded near us.
“Hey, look there!” said Kiter and pointed to some kind of tower.
We all started walking fast towards that Tower.
Twilight was walking ahead of us, while we were slowly hobbling.
“Hey, there is something wrong”-Twilight pointed at the castle-“there is only one castle at the Everfree Forest and it’s isn’t it.”
“But then where are we?” I asked.
Twilight shrugged.
Now we all walked nearby. I didn’t know why, but Twilight was looking too good for someone her age. Kiter on the other side was looking bad. His leg wasn’t looking good and I think it weren’t supposed to bend like this.
Finally we were near castle. It was big and made of stone. Someone on the wall saw us and screamed to someone else. The giant wooden gate began to open and guardians came out of them.
“How did you survived there!? Sorry, there is no time for that, come with us,” said one of them who looked like a leader.
They led us in It was bigger inside.. It wasn’t a castle, it was a town! It was just surrounded by giant walls.
“What is this place?” I asked guardian with confusion.
“Welcome to the Sall, the only safe place in this world. Sooner or later everyone who live in the forest come here like you. We should led you to town hall,” said the guardian.
This town looked… nice. But there was too few place and too much citizens, most of them were unicorns.
I looked back to my friends. Kiter was alright and was following us, but Twilight seem wrong. I approached her and wanted to ask what was wrong, but when I was near her she fell on the ground.
“Hey!? HEY!? Twilight!? ARE YOU ALRIGHT!?” I screamed in her face while was shaking her.
She didn’t answered, but I caught weird looks from citizens of town.
“Did she said Twilight!?” citizens were whispering.
“Do you have some kind of hospital here?! She need help!” I screamed at guardians with fear.
“Yeah, but how did you…” guardian wanted to say something but was interrupted by bright light.
I turned around and saw Twilight who was covered in sphere of light and who was levitating up. Shortly after, sphere exploded with even brighter light. After I blinked I saw that there wasn’t an old mare but there was an pretty purple alicorn.
“What the fuck was that!?” sweared Kiter.
“Don’t move! You’ll be arrested right now! Witchcraft is forbidden and punished horribly in Sall!” screamed the guardian.
After that guardians formed strange figure and started moving in our direction.
“If you want to live run after me RIGHT NOW!” said little unicorn in a mantle who just jumped out from crowd
Without any thinking I supported Kiter and we all run to her. Luckily for us guardians were slow and we broke away from them. She led us to a side street and then walked right through the wall. I was shocked. I looked to my friend and saw that they were shocked too.
“FOLLOW ME!” she looked out from the wall and then hid in it again.
Casting aside all doubts I sped up and run in the wall. Instead of hitting the wall I ran through it and… fell in the hole after it. As I saw after landing my friends and mysterious saver used a ladder.
“Follow me!” she said again and then pushed a button.
“HEY! Maybe you’ll explain anything!? Who are you and where are we!?” I asked her.
“Oh, pardon my manners, but can you wait a bit longer? I have to show you to someone,” she answered with excitement.
“Twilight, are you alright?” I asked her with a lot of confusion.
I still couldn’t understand what have happened back there. And still I wasn’t sure was it Twilight or not.
“I… I guess so-” she disappeared and reappeared in a different place. “- I am better than alright! My magic have returned!-” she flapped her wings and flew on place. “- I am young again! I’m not an old mare anymore!”
Then she created a mustache on Kiter’s face. She was happy like a little foal, no, she was happier than a little foal.
“Thanks you, thanks you, thanks you!” she came up to us and thanked us both.
“Thanks for what?” Kiter asked her with confusion.
“Well, I guess that portal opened thanks to you!” she answered, “Oh, sorry, I’m a princess after all, I should match it.” Then she smiled and we followed our mysterious saver.
We came out of tunnel. Ahead of us were small underground town, even smaller than town above, but there also were fewer citizens.
“It’s place where I’m live. It isn’t so comfy as Sall, but we have fewer rules and at least we doing something for this world,” said our mysterious savior.
Unlike Sall, everyone who we met greeted us. This town felt more comfortable.
She led us to a importantly looking building, I assumed that it was town-hall. There were guardians, but when they saw our savior they let us in.
Twilight was in front of us, Kiter and I were behind.
“Hi! I thought you would be interesting in who I have found,” said our savior.
A dark figure stood up and came out of shadow… It was Spike! That dragon who sent a letter to us! But he looked different. He had a cape and a strange staff.
He looked at us and then looked at our savior.
“IT’S SHE… IT’S REALLY SHE!” said spike and hugged our saviour and her mantle fell off.
Only now I could see her… she looked exactly like me! The same cyan-colored body and blue-salad mane! “She is like a mirror,” I thought. I saw that she looked at me and her expression was exactly like mine.
I walked closer to her, she walked closer to me. We both moved closer.
“What the fuck is going on!” we both said in the same time.
“I am… no, you...” we both said again.
I was freaked out. I looked back as she did. My friends as Spike were surprised.
“Okay… That is very strange… Why don’t you go first,” said Spike and pointed at me.
“Ahh, I’m Cold Space, ESAT scientist. I… we have no idea where are we and we don’t know how did we get here…” I said with confusion.
“I am Cold Night, defenders of this town, fighter for freedom and truth and best friend of Spike. Nice to meet you Cold Space. And now… can anybody explain me what the fuck is going on here!? Firstly there are strange earthquakes, then our main group got lost, and now there appeared Twilight by herself with copy of me!” she said.
“It is really strange. The second most weird thing in my life” I thought. I didn’t know what can explain this. “Coincidence? Clone? Magic? Some kind of metamorphosis creature?” were my thoughts. That was stupid, but nothing could explain this, at least nothing I knew.
“I don’t know what is going on, but, maybe we should put off this stuff about you too, and maybe we can talk together about everything else? We don’t know where are we, and I could use some information,” said Twilight.
“Oh, yes, sorry me, you must be tired. We can talk tomorrow, now Cold… Cold Night will show you place where you can stay. And Night, show Twilight where is our library,” he said with smile.
“HAVE YOU JUST SAID LIBRARY?!” happily screamed Twilight.
“Yes, now, Follow me!” Night said again, but a bit irritatedly.
“Ahh… sorry to bother you, but do you have anyone who can help me and my broken leg?” asked Kiter.
“Ohh, sorry, can someone find Joy?-” after this words one of the guardians went out of the building,”- stay here until Joy can look at your leg,
Night led us across the town and showed us “our” room, they wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. There were only beds, but they looked comfy.
Then she waved her hoof and showed Twilight to follow, I decided to follow them and spend some time in a library.
That library could compare to Golden Oak Library in amount of books. But sadly, there was a little space.
I saw Twilight who immediately ran and grabbed a lot of books in her telekinetic field. But when I wanted to join her, I felt taps on my back.
“Hey, come with me,” said Night.
We left the library and we went behind the building.
“Now listen very carefully! I don’t know who are you or what are you doing here, but I feel like I can trust you, so listen up: be very careful! There is something strange is happening and you aren’t save, I’ll help you get back to HQ tomorrow, but now try not to stay alone!” she whispered to my ear and run away after.
I was very shocked and surprised. She gave me a lot of unusual information to process, but I understood that think that she wasn’t from here either. Instead of fortune telling I decided to join Twilight and ask her for a little service.
When I entered library I saw Twilight reading four books at once! All 4 books were levitating in telekinesis field. The she saw me.
“Hey, you’re finally back! You’ve got to look at that!” she levitated a book to me and it just fall on the floor. “Oh, sorry, I forgot.”
“Nah, that’s okay. But to be honest, I was thinking… Maybe you can teach me magic? It’s like my dream and I was hoping if~”
“You want me to teach you magic!?” screamed Twilight.
“Oh, sorry, I knew it was a bad~”
“I’ll do it with big pleasure! You know, I was teaching magic many ponies before and I'll be happy to do this again!” happily said Twilight.
“Really!? Thank you! So... how do we get started?” I asked her happily and confused.
She turned around and approached the bookshelf and took few books. She cleared space on the one and only table, and opened one of the books.
“Firstly read this,” said Twilight.
Book was open on telekinesis spell page, the easiest spell known to ponies. The spell created that long ago that no one know who created it. Despite it was the easiest spell, I always was surprised by it, the power that allowed you resist gravity and manipulate things on a great distance, it’s fascinating.
“So, now what you want to do is concentrate on a object, imagine it in your head and imagine how it fly in any direction you want,” she said and put a stone on table.
I tried to do as Twilight said and stone lit up with white glowing. I felt its weight on my body. I was so surprised by it, I knew how it worked, but never could do something like it. .
I stained myself and stone flew up. It was shaking. I strained a little bit more and stone struck in the wall in high speed.
“It was good! Not perfect, but the first step is always the hardest, isn’t it?” Twilight praised me.
“Yeah, it wasn’t easy, but I felt so damn good. What else you can teach me?” I asked Twilight with hope for more.
“I think it should be enough for today, but now, you should practice! Practice, practice and a bit of reading!,” said Twilight and put 3 big books on the table.
“Hmm, ok, it was… good, but next time be careful and don’t throw them without aiming,” said Twilight while she was putting fallen bookshelf back on its place.
I helped her with putting books on places with telekinesis, it was hard, but I was doing it myself.
Twilight approached table and put some books in front of her.
“You can stay and read with me,” suggested Twilight.
“I’d like to!-” I said while was taking books from shelf,”-hmm, I guess we broke bookshelf.”
I tried to put broken piece on its place, it fell again and when I tried to pick it up again I saw that there was a book in hollow space inside of the bookshelf. “SOMEONE HID THE BOOK INSIDE OF THE BOOKSHELF?!” I thought.
“Hey, I think you~”
“Shhh, I am reading!” Twilight shut me up.
“But~” I tried to get her attention but she shut me up again.
“This pony sure love reading” I thought.
I took that odd book and a few other books and left Twilight alone in the library. I went to our little room to see if Kiter is okay and to read some books, but on my way I saw something strange light that flew out from one wall into another. Again, I just decided that it was because of my lack of sleep.
When I entered our room I saw Kiter lying on the bed and looking something in his holo-hoof. His leg was bandaged and it has medical splint.
“Oh, finally some company, I am so bored. There is no signal, and everytime I ask anypony about it they can’t understand me. Maybe we’re in the past?” asked me Kiter with some kind of exhaustion.
“Unlikely, as I know time travel that far it’s scientifically impossible,” I answered, but suddenly a thought came into my head, “But… I think, that could do something with magic, I think should ask Twilight about it.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about magic-“ he smiled, “- but anyways, what do we do now?”
“Well, I consider reading books, perfect way to spend the time and a way to learn about this place,” I suggested and levitated some books to Kiter.
He looked shocked. Firstly he looked at the books, then at me. After it he looked at the titles of the books. He took one at laid it in front of him.
“Hey! I thought you knew that I don’t like love stories!” he sweared.
“Seriously?” I said with irritated face.
“What? Yeah, you learned magic and what? I knew you’re very talented, so It was the matter of time before you’ll do it. But really, do you have anything else to read?” said Kiter.
“Oh, ok, thank for faith in me. Yeah, there should be something about old flying vehicles and a comics about someone called ‘Silver’ etc,” answered I with a smirk, because I knew it would be dilemma about what to read to him.
“Comics you say? Very strange,” said Kiter and immediately began reading it.
I wanted follow his example and read a book about ‘Great Gusty’, but strange filling changed my decision and I took Black Book that I found inside of bookshelf. It had strange but nice cover, there was no title. I opened it and there was text written in unknown to me language, it was similar to zebrian, but somehow different. I decided to look through the book and found out that that book fully written in that language. There were some pictures, but I couldn't understand what they contained. Finally I opened the last page, there was text written in Equestrian: “You are not the only one, but you are the lucky one. Find me if you can.”
I decided to put off this weird book and later return it to the library. But suddenly I felt that room become warmer. I decided that it was nothing and took the book about ‘Gusty’ and started to enjoy it.
It was story book about ‘Gusty the great’ full story in 14 tomes.
After a while of reading I felt so tired that I couldn’t continue and I decided to sleep.
Before sleeping I looked at the Kiter. He was still reading that Comic book and looked like he was captured by it’s story.
*Elsewhere*
“Na-na-na, na-na-na...Hmm, where the hell am I?” I tried to walk forward but I couldn’t move my hooves.
I thought it was conscious dream that I never had before and tried to imagine something, but nothing happened.
“Hello?! Who are you!? Where am I?” said voice that I could hear from everywhere, like it was in my head.
“Umm hello? I… I am Co… I am Space, who are you… where are you?” I answered to this voice.
“Hello I suppose? What are you doing here…” it said but then it added, ”Here, in my dream?”
“Your dream? I thought it was my dream!?” I said with mistrust.
“I...I don’t know, are you even real? Maybe you are projection of my consciousness that tries to calm me down? It was a eventful day, I still don’t know was it all real,” it complained.
“Don’t you say. It was unusual day. Huh, I still don't know your name, how was it?” I asked again, but I didn’t get the answer.
I stood on one place for 5 minutes, but it felt like eternity. There were only mist around me. But suddenly mist was scattered by strange black symbols. I walked at their direction but I heard strange voice. It was different.
“Hey! Come on! We have to get out!” she said.
And I woke up.
*Back*
“Wha? Who?” I asked while I was opening my stuck eyes.
“Shhh, it’s me! Let’s go and be quiet,” said Night after waking me up.
I forgot about everything and followed her, she led me through sleeping city and we left it. I completely woke up and remembered my friends. I stopped.
“Hey! What about my friends?!” exclaimed I.
She wasn’t looked happy and instantly shut my mouth with her hoof.
“Shhh! If anyone will woke up we will be doomed! Your friends will be ok,” she whispered.
I nodded and followed her. Finally she stopped and exhaled.
“Now, we are safe. I think I have to explain you what is going on, but, if you stand by my side, here, it will be easier,” she said in full voice.
I followed her instructions silently. She raised her hoof closer to her face and cast unknown to me spell. Some kind of bracelet similar to mine appeared on her hoof.
“Kit, pull me out!” she said in her bracelet.
We waited for a minute. I wanted to ask what is going on but something strange happened and we got sucked into different place. It wasn’t forest anymore, but it was some kind of laboratory with a lot of fancy devices that I never heard of.
“Why are you back!? And who the fuck is this?” said strange pony.
“You know why I’m here, but she, you really should look at her closer,” she said and then she stepped aside so he could see me.
He looked at me for a minute or more constantly making ‘hmm’ sounds.
“How did you clone yourself!?” he asked in surprise.
“Hey, I’m not a clone!” I outraged.
“Yeah, yeah of course, so, really, how!?” he asked again.
I was so angry at him that I almost punched him, but Night stopped me.
“No, she really isn’t! Well, at least I didn’t do it, she and her friends just came to city and that’s all.”
“So, you say, it’s not unique, I need to run some test with you DNAs, and you can show her city to spend some time. But really, Night, you should really drop this thing and help that world,” he said and approached us.
He took a shred of my hair and a sample of my skin which hurt me a lot. Then he did the same to Night.
I turned red from anger, but Night led me out of the room before I could do anything.
“I hate this guy,” I said with anger.
“You shouldn’t, he is a good guy, but too direct. So anyway, let me show our city and talk about what is going on and why are you here,” she said with happiness and run to the nearest door.
I followed her inside. It was balcony that granted us a bit of a view of the city, but that was enough, what I saw shocked me. The city were dying, quite literally. Ponies seemed hopeless and lifeless, I even saw some corpses that were just lying on the streets, the sound of shooting were hearing from all over the town and I saw fires that were only flaring up. But most shocking of all was the sky, it’s was pitch black, there was nothing, not a single star and only light this world had was artificial.
I looked at Night and she looked horrified as I did. She kept looking in the town, but I couldn’t stand it. Later she walked away too and we headed on the roof. She looked even more terrified than before.
“I...I was here before, but it wasn’t that bad, I swear. But it just became so worse than before” -she said and become sobbing,-”I, I… I just can’t believe that the main city of friendship and the last bastion of this world could fall that low.”
And now I understand where we were, it was Ponyville, Equestrian science and technology center, town looked different from the roof, but it was easily recognizable from there. I fell on my knees. It was almost my hometown, the town that I grew in, the town I loved. I knew it wasn’t my Ponyville, but it didn’t helped. Tears formed on my eyes.
“Hey, hey! Sorry for making you cry, but I didn’t expected that, but if it will make you feel good, there is a chance to save them,” she tried to reassure me.
“I can’t believe that Ponyville can be so horrible,” my words shocked
She stopped for a minute trying to understand what that meant. I understood that it was unexpected, we are like clones, and we even from the same city! But I decided to calm her and bring some clarity into my words.
“Well, I think that I came from different Ponyville.. I don’t know how it works.... Listen, it’s not the correct time, you said there is a chance to save them, what is it!?”
“Oh, yeah, main things first! Okay, you saw here everything. We still don’t know why, but every single star died instantly and now planets are dying too, luckily we had something left after war and we were able to create our ‘New Sun’ It have enough fuel to work for decades, but it wasn’t the main problem-” she explained and pointed high above,”- everything started to dying far away from us in billions of light years, you can say it very far away and it was happening long time ago, but NO! To find out what happened with stars, we created special, observatory. It took us few month, but we found out that everything were dying from one side with fast acceleration.”
She looked at me and saw my frozen confused face and then tried to explain how they did that, but I interrupted her with relieving for her words.
“No, I understand something of this, but I never imagined that magic could do that, to be honest, I learned telekinesis only today. Please continue.”
“Oh, well ok. Everyone went desperate, but hope lighted again! We were experimenting with an idea to create force field that would save us, sadly it didn’t worked, but something different have happened. After giant explosion that killed few ponies we found this device-” she pointed at her bracelet-” in the epicenter of the explosion”.
I felt myself bad after hearing about death of ponies, but I decided to hide my surprise as I didn’t wanted to interrupt her story.
“We did few test with it but found nothing. At one of the test, one volunteer tried to use it. It exploded and few ponies including me got into shock-wave. And it transported us to a place unknown to me. Sadly, I don’t remember anything after this. but I somehow managed to get back. I still don’t know why it happened. Time passed and we created bigger version of this bracelet and transported first half of the science center to a safer place, you saw it, we still don’t know why it place was different from the place I got transported to. Only then we discovered that only unicorns can be transported and somehow everyone who get transported loses almost of they memories except me. Well, except you too as we know it now.”
“Wait… So you just hoped that I wouldn’t lose my memories!?”
“Well, I assumed that you came from here, so yes, I did, but now I see that you aren’t from here, sorry,” she excused herself
Lucky for her guy from lab called Night with excitement in his voice. He said that we should return to the lab and met us with excitement look.
“Listen Night, maybe you were right, maybe there is a chance, I did some test with your and some other samples found interesting thing, my samples got changed. DNA slightly rewritten. But your samples didn’t changed at all, I don’t know what does it mean, but it could be dangerous to everyone who used that device. I need some more time and I need samples of those other ponies, but theoretically DNA changes are very dangerous and I hope that I can find a way to fix it, but you still need to find a way to transport pegasi and earth ponies.”
“So, everything is going to be fine?” I asked them.
“Well, I hope it will, but now, we should return to your friends. Kit, send me a message if you will find the breakthrough. And I’ll try to find out how the hell this thing is working,” Night assured me.
We got back to the same place we left from and headed into town.
As we were almost at the ‘secret’ entrance to the town I saw a giant worm jumped from the underground and hit the gate with its body. Small amount of wood slivers got scattered around and guards run out through formed wall in the gate.
I wanted to go and help them but Night stopped me.
“Stop! It’s no use! We can’t defeat it. It’s Tatzlwurm… At least I think it is. They can’t defeat so can’t do we!”
I followed her into the city.
“So, listen now! I am going to warn everyone, they will start evacuation, you, go to your friends and take samples in those test tubes. Tell them to join everyone else and go to place where we were teleported, understood!?” strictly ordered Night like some kind of PE teacher and gave me test tubes that Kit gave her earlier.
I shook my head and run to our room. And before entering it, I again saw strange floating light. I decided that it wasn’t because my lack of sleep at all and that I should ask someone about it later.
I gently took they samples and then woke them up, lucky, when I came, they were sleeping. After a bit of explaining about evacuation I left our room and then the town.
Night were already waiting for me there.
“Ok, everyone gonna stay at one of our research-expeditionary points until this wurm there,” she explained.
She pushed some buttons on her bracelet and we got sucked into it again. As she later explained she can use it by herself if she has ‘connection’ with that place, but last time Kit turned it off.
As expected we got transported… but it wasn’t the place I expected.
“Where are we? Did you wanted to show me something else?” I asked her surprised by that place.
“N-no… It shouldn’t teleport to other places, it’s was teleporting only to~”
Unknown pink-purple unicorn appeared in front of us and interrupted Night.
“You’re under arrest because of the crimes against the multiverse, crossing your own timeline and many other crimes! You will spend the rest of eternity in the prison of StarUnity”.