//------------------------------// // Chapter 22: A Change of Pace Part 4 // Story: Fallout: Equestria – The Hogwarts Chronicles // by Fanficwriter1994 //------------------------------// ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ 1st Pony POV – Rose Evans ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ The second week of the school year went by fairly easily. Lessons were still staying relatively basic and Hermione was ripping her mane out trying to figure out how I was attending two classes at the same time. It was amusing. I did keep my sleep schedule reasonable by using the Time Turner on occasion to take a nap where others wouldn’t find me easily, and I had run more than once into a professor doing the same. Hell, I had slept next to Severus Snape on Wednesday. No, not that way, like a foal next to an older pony, normal ass sleeping. God I’m spending too much time around older teens I think. Anyway, the highlight of the week come on Friday afternoon, when a purple Alicorn and a power armored Ghoul Pegasus with bushels of her multi-colored mane, come to visit Hogwarts. At the time I had been volunteering for overhead watch for the South gate and while neither Ghouls nor Alicorns were exactly a rarity, the pair who had gotten the first Artificial Alicorn pregnancy at Hogwarts for example had settled down in the town, these two were distinctive due to the Alicorn having a lighter than usual coat AND a Cutie Mark, while the Ghoul Mare was, on top of what appeared to be a rainbow mane, blue in color. “Halt, please identify yourselves.” I halted them, having flown over after raising a barrier. This was procedure these days to make it easier to keep track of new and unknown arrivals. I had for that purpose a talisman linked to my Pipbuck that controlled the closest gate. “Hoo you must be one of the Alicorn students, right? Geez is that how princess Celestia looked as a filly?” Asked the Ghoul, whose identity I was suspecting but wanted confirmation. “Yes, I’m Rose Evans-Heartstrings, now would you two mind iden- why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, the two had gotten shocked expressions on mention of my second family name, admittedly the Ghoul may have known Lyra. More than likely in fact. “Wait, Heartstrings? Like Lyra Heartstrings? I thought all the students here were from another world, not related to anypony from before the war?” Asked the Alicorn, sounding very much shocked by this revelation. “I’m not related by blood, Lyra and Bon Bon have adopted me after we found them when they got tawed in Stable 111.” I answered, wondering when I got an ID from those two. “Wait they’re still alive? Sweet Celestia how did the Cutie Mark Crusaders manage to keep those two alive?” Asked the Ghoul and it took me a solid five seconds to remember who she was talking about, the Stable-Tec founders who had been part of a group of fillies whose goal it was to earn their Cutie Marks. “Everyone who entered Stable 111 was cryogenically frozen, so they didn’t actually age over the course of 200 years. Sadly, around 16 years ago the Stable’s maintenance and security personnel, who would wake up periodically to perform maintenance, received codes from the Arcane Institute of Research and Education and were slaughtered, with Lyra and Bon Bon’s adopted daughter, Snowy Dreams, being taken. We think the culprits are the “Institute”, a faction around here who apparently replaces people with Synthetic creations. No idea what that means.” I explained and sighed before standing up to get a bit more height, surprising the two with my bipedal standing. “Now, identify yourselves will you? I’m currently on guard duty for this gate and I can’t let some Ghoul and an unidentified Alicorn waltz in. We had Raider Alicorns before.” I stated and both looked at me, then turned to one another bewildered before the Ghoul mare shrugged. “Alright, fair enough I guess. I’m Rainbow Dash, formerly of the Ministry of Awesome, and next to me is Twilight Sparkle, mind and soul and all that transferred into that body.” Stated the Ghoul, Rainbow Dash. “Well, I was suspecting that.” I admitted, then used a tap on my Pipbuck to open the gate. “Sorry about the suspicion, we’re one of the largest communities around these parts by now and we’ve had members of Gunner’s Talons scouting out the school from outside the barrier and given someone tried abducting me...” I explained, shrugging. “No sweat, I understand why you were so insistent about security with how the Wasteland has been. So, can you point us to where Fluttershy is around here? And maybe Lyra and Bon Bon? Would be nice to see some old friends.” Responded Rainbow Dash and I chuckled at that. “Sure, Professor Fluttershy lives down in the town, and not far from my moms house either.” I responded and gave them some more directions to go, but I didn’t go along with them as I had my guard duty here. I’d be a pretty bad guard if I abandoned my post like this because of some VIPs coming through. And I didn’t have an excuse since this shift was my assignment alone since I had the firepower and magic for most situations. ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ 3rd Pony POV – Rainbow Dash ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ Rainbow Dash had seen a lot, she knew the same couldn’t be said for Twilight due to her being stuck in one place for two centuries, but it was fairly clear that the Alicorn filly had her somewhat distracted as they made their way to the town. “So, Twilight, what’s on your mind?” Asked Rainbow Dash, looking to her friend who was startled from her obvious contemplations. She missed those kinds of moments, Twilight being a nerd who overthinks things, Applejack overworking herself, Pinkie being… well, Pinkie. You get the idea. “Ah, sorry it’s nothing, it just felt like she had a familiar magical signature, not her core magic mind you, more like something has attached itself to her.” Explained Twilight, her voice still a bit odd to Rainbow Dash as it sounded much closer to the voice of Princess Celestia or Luna than her friend. But then she herself was a Ghoul and had a voice more gravelly, than just about any old Stallion from before the war. “Who did it remind you of?” Asked Rainbow Dash, looking at her friend in curiosity as they passed by some Caravan Traders who looked at them curiously but neither paid them much mind. “Well… It felt, just a bit, like I was standing across from Princess Luna on opposite sides of the Throne Room of Canterlot. Like she was incredibly far away but I could feel it coming just from miss Evans.” Explained Twilight and Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow, or what was left of that area of skin anyway. “Interesting, I wonder if that means anything.” Mused Rainbow, smiling a bit knowing it would take Twilight’s mind off of the troubles of their world for a little bit longer. A mystery to contemplate was a good mystery in her books. After asking around, the ponies here were a lot more accepting of them surprisingly with a few Alicorns sprinkled here and there, including families who had been such before being absorbed into Unity. However, they eventually found the houses they were looking for, with one of them having a lot of animals around it who turned to them, including a large animal resembling a pony, a horn on it’s head but far too large and not the right shapes for being a native unicorn. “Huh, wonder what that is.” Mused Rainbow Dash, watching the pure white creature as it grazed off to the side of the house, it’s sideways oriented eyes not missing them both. “That would be a Unicorn from Earth.” Spoke up a voice and turning around they found a tiny Alicorn filly trotting over. Her mane and tail were individually gifted with twice the volume of her own size. “Hi, name’s Ruby Hagrid, formerly Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts, now student. Can I help you two?” Asked the filly, smiling at them with a bright smile that felt just too bright. “Uh, yeah. We wanted to visit Fluttershy, I’m Rainbow Dash by the way, this is Twilight Sparkle.” Explained Rainbow Dash, deciding to cut to the chase as she watched the tiny Alicorn who looked way younger than the first they had met. “Wait, like the Ministry Mares? Miss Fluttershy’s old friends?” Asked Ruby, quite surprised to hear that. “Formerly, Ministry Mares yeah, these are her house and the house of Lyra and Bon Bon right?” Asked Rainbow Dash and Ruby nodded, smiling. “Yeah, I bet they’ll be glad to see you two, miss Ditzy too.” Stated Ruby, before running to the doors, leaving the two mares stumped for a moment. “Did she say, Ditzy? Like, Ditzy Doo?” Asked Twilight as she blinked. “Yeah, I- I thought someone had taken her name, I didn’t know she was alive. Or, well, a Ghoul if she’s still around.” Spoke up Rainbow Dash before Ruby come back out the door and waved for them to come in. Inside they found, indeed, both of the mares from Canterlot, Fluttershy, and a gray Pegasus Ghoul with strands of yellow mane and a lazy eye. “I- it’s really you?” Asked Fluttershy after seeing the two of them. “Sure is, geez this has turned into a huge reunion huh?” Asked Rainbow, smiling as the two walked to the group as Ruby left the house, Fluttershy’s house. After all, she wasn’t going to spoil the sweet moment. ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ “So you’re a teacher now Fluttershy? Man I always thought Twilight would be the first one to go into teaching among us.” Stated Rainbow, chuckling at the thought of this development. “Mind you, I can’t think of anypony more suited for a job like teaching “Care for Magical Beings” than you Flutter, remember that time you won a staring contest against a Cockatrice?” Fluttershy immediately flushed at the teasing, which just filled the room with more laughter. Well, aside from Ditzy, who had to use a small blackboard and marker to write down what she wanted to say. [I’m just glad you two are alive, I thought for sure you were dead Twilight, after me and Littlepip met that Alicorn you were possessing and when your Cutie Mark faded from her.] Stated Ditzy, her writing pretty crisp given she had years of experience writing with her mouth now. “Yeah, I was lucky that this body had been vacated because the horn was damaged by a Star Metal round. The damage has since healed due to the radiation but I’m not entirely sure if I want to test it yet.” Explained Twilight, lying on the ground as to make her on relative eyelevel with the others who sat on chairs and sofas around the room. “Man whoever did that had to be pretty lucky, Purple Alicorns aren’t exactly known for staying in one place.” Stated Lyra and Twilight nodded. “Yeah, it was odd. I remember hazily a dark pony but I can’t quite remember the details of the situation. I think Trixie had set up an observer or something.” Stated Twilight, rubbing her head with a sigh as she felt a headache coming up. It was odd, something seemed to have happened when she was ejected from the hivemind to block out certain memories. “Well, I hope that Alicorn’s fine then, not shot up to hell by whoever shot your current body up.” Stated Rainbow, patting her friend on the shoulder as to reassure her. I mean, it wasn’t like that pony would be much of a threat. ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ 3rd Pony POV – Nightmare Caesar/Voldemort ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ “For fuck’s sake, those “Children of Necro” can’t possibly be that well entrenched.” Growled Nightmare as she poored over the reports on the campaign on the island of Far Harbor. They had been doing quite well until they found that a Hive of “Changelings” had vacated their base of Arcadia and moved in with a group known as the “Children of Atom”. It seemed that these Changelings were escaped Synths or something from the group called the “Institute” in Ponston. That wasn’t the main issue though, even though Changeling spies were a headache as they were able to infiltrate her ranks and wreck havoc. The main problem were the Children of Necro, a religious cult worshiping the Balefire Radiation and Necromancy. They were somehow resistant or immune to it and occupied an old Equestrian base on the island. It was well fortified, well supplied and it was iradiated. Heavily Iradiated. To make matters worse, a lot of Far Harbor residents had fled to a former Stable in a nearby Hotel, holing up with the Robobrains there who apparently chose to give the Asylum in exchange for assistance in fending off the Raiders. On the rest of the island, things weren’t going much better. The Fauna on the damn place was vicious to a truly ridiculous degree, a “Mirelurk Overlord” for example occupied a large farmstead, there was a Mirelurk Queen in a nearby lake, and however those “Gulpers” bred, it seemed that for every Gulper killed another 20 took it’s place. So yeah, things weren’t going to plan. Far Harbor, the Settlement, was well under Nightmare’s control, but there was the issue that her forces weren’t all that well equipped and now running low on ammo, with much of it stolen. Worse yet, the new slaves weren’t cooperating, quite vehemently refusing to work by stating that it was “better to be dead than working for Raiders”. “Thy frustration we can understand, we cannot do much with our limited forces however.” Stated Marine and Nightmare sighed, her adviser was right there. They only had around 300 Raiders at the moment, and most of them were Earth Ponies with only a handful of Unicorns. Weapons were mostly melee weapons which wasn’t great against energy weapons and armor was… pathetic to be honest. “Well, we’ll just have to raid somewhere nearby then. We cannot allow these Reprobates to continue resisting. Send Vulpes to the coast, he is the round up any Raiders or mercenaries he can. We have enough of those stupid bottlecaps for it I’m sure.” Ordered Nightmare and Marine bowed her head before heading out. “I will not allow myself to be defeated here, this island will be mine with nobody denying my rule or I will burn it all down.” She growled under her breath as she glared out at sea. Her rule was destiny itself, she was sure of that. ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ 3rd Pony POV – Sunset Shimmer ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ Sunset sighed as she and her friends finally got off of the Portkey, an international model that had taken four days to get alongside their passports for Britain. They got some odd looks, especially Sunset herself who was naturally gifted with her colorful hair and yellow skin. The others only had the hair of their pony counterparts as far as anyone other than Sunset saw, but naturally non-magical people had a habit of dying their hair so… yeah. “Hello there, here for a trip to the Wasteland?” Asked the Bartender, raising an eyebrow as he put down a glass he had been cleaning. “Erm, yes? Does that happen a lot?” Asked Sunset, looking around at the weirdly run-down looking pub. //Why is this place like this?// She wondered in her thoughts. “Well, the mirror’s over there. I take it ya girls are helping some native from over there get back after getting lost here?” Asked the bartender and… well he certainly had ideas. “Actually, we’re from Canterlot Highschool, while Sunset is from Equestria she come from a mirror at our school which disconnected a few years ago and seems to have reconnected recently.” Explained Twilight, adjusting her glasses as she did so. “Huh, didn’t know they had more mirrors leading here, you from Ponston, New Appleloosa or something? We’ve had some caravans come through for trade you see?” Asked the man and Sunset made note of these new names, Ponston she remembered as a city which had started construction around the time she left. “Actually, for some reason time passed much faster on the other side before Hogwarts was transported there. I left Equestria long before that war we heard about.” Answered Sunset and the response was quite a surprised look from the man. “You serious lass? Geez, sorry to hear that. I… the place is pretty messed up, just be prepared, alright?” He requested and Sunset swallowed, then nodded. “Here, put these on when you get through, don’t know much about ya time but ponies started wearing clothes and these are enchanted like the Hogwarts uniforms.” Explained the man, getting out a set of seven piles of clothes which Sunset realized were cut for ponies. “Thanks, I hope there are some more stylish models though.” Admitted Rarity, looking at the fairly bland piece of clothing. “Sure, just gotta pay up for that one.” Answered the man and they left for the mirror which hung from a wall. “So, how does walking on all fours work?” Asked Rainbow Dash, turning to her friend who was the only one who had been to Equestria. “As far as I know the transition helps, I didn’t have trouble walking on two legs when I got to Earth remember?” Responded Sunset Shimmer and, with nods, they all walked to the mirror before passing through one after another. On the other side of the mirror they found themselves in a large townsquare, lush grass growing beneath their hooves and the small township looked fairly reminescend of wizard architecture. However, walking around them were various ponies, including Anthropomorphic Muggle-born, Halfbloods standing on their hindlegs along with normal ponies. “Huh, we didn’t turn into those Anthro ponies, is it because we’re the counterparts of normal ponies?” Asked Twilight curiously, looking at her purple hoof until her glasses fell off. “Wait, I can see without my glasses? How does that work?” She asked surprised but Sunset chuckled, helping her pick up her glasses and putting them in her hair. “Magic, Twilight, it’s magic. Now, we should get changed, I don’t think any of us want to walk around like this.” Stated Sunset, waving her hoof at their current situation with them slipping through over-sized human clothes. “Yeah, no offense but being naked isn’t on my to-do list.” Stated Rainbow Dash and after a bit of asking, they were directed to some booths for changing into pony bardings. Apparently they were set up for visitors like them. The bardings they now wore consisted of a basic bodysuit, not too different from what Sunset had been told to be the ones used in Stables, though with their crotches covered. Their flanks were, notably, revealed, likely for their Cutie Marks though the only one of them who had one was Sunset Shimmer herself, the others were human originally after all. There was also some more cloth above it, namely a small robe of sorts which was worn over the the bodysuit and was noted to be RAD repelling. “So, where are we supposed to go anyway? To the big castle?” Asked Twilight as they walked through the town, looking around at the buildings, there was a cross of roads running through all the way and it was quite obvious that it was only growing as there were a handful of unfinished buildings visible on the edge of the town from the town center. “Professor Fluttershy? What are you doing here?” This voice interrupted them and as they turned, they found a small filly with white fur to a red mane with blue strips in it. At first glance Sunset had thought her to be a unicorn, as she had a horn on her forehead, but a pair of wings on her sides contradicted it. “P- professor? Su- Sunset?” Asked Fluttershy, not sure what to do at this point as the Alicorn Filly raised an eyebrow at the strange occurrence. “Err, right, sorry but this isn’t the Fluttershy from here, we’re a Music Band from Earth, the Rainbooms. And my friend here is the counterpart to… er it was Minstry of Peace, right?” She asked, not sure what to think at this point but the filly nodded. “Yes, Professor Fluttershy was the Ministry of Peace Mare, so does that mean those others are all… basically the Ministry Mares but from Earth? How does that work?” Asked the filly, eyeing them suspiciously and Sunset flinched a bit. “Listen, it’s complicated okay? I’m from Equestria but the portal mirror I went through was disabled almost 3 years ago and it seems time passed almost a hundred times faster here while we were disconnected. We’re just here to see how the Fluttershy from here is doing and to make contact for MACUSA, which is the American counterpart to the Ministry of Magic.” Explained Sunset, trying to keep the likely well armed filly from turning hostile. “Seriously? That… Well I guess it’s not the weirdest thing. I’m Rose Evans-Heartstrings by the way, Gryffindor Second Year student and Quidditch Seeker on the House Team. If you want to see Professor Fluttershy, she lives right next to my moms so I can lead you there.” Explained the Filly and Sunset let out a sigh of relief at that. “Please do, we don’t know our way around here sadly.” Stated Sunset and Rose nodded before heading in one direction which they followed. “So, how was it transitioning like this?” Asked Twilight, trying to get some info from the filly. “Transition to what? Being a pony? A girl? Making my Nimbus 2000 a bit obsolete while having a replacement for a my wand stapled to my forehead?” Asked Rose, and while the words would’ve been somewhat snarky normally, she had said them in a casual way which implied that she wasn’t angry about the question. “Uh, generally? Coming here?” Asked Twilight, not sure how to take that. Rose? Rose shrugged. “It’s been alright, I think my body got most of the instincts done. Though the whole moving into the girl’s dormroom was quite a lot stranger. I mean, not as strange as the Headmaster becoming pregnant from our Charms professor, or the deputy headmistress who is also the Transfiguration Professor and head of Gryffindor house, becoming pregnant with the foal of the potions professor who is the head of Slytherin House. And less said about the ghost impregnating the ghost the better.” Explained Rose and the six Highschool students looked at one another, then decided they may need to ask a whole lot more questions later on. ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ 1st Pony POV – Rose Evans ~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~ The group of Ministry Mare Look-alikes was… odd. Particularly since I had seen the various posters of their pony counterparts in Ponston. Especially Pinkie Pie. Most Especially Pinkie Pie. Wonder why? “Wait, WHOA! There is a huge billboard with my face on it!” Yeah, that. If you’re wondering, there was a huge billboard from the Ministry of Morale overlooking the area, up on the hill of Stable 111. It was probably the most disconcerting poster around, the typical “Pinkie Pie is Watching You, FOREVER” poster. We would’ve taken the thing down months ago but there was a forcefield we couldn’t bypass, protecting it. “Ministry of Morale, basically the Counter-Espeionage ministry, not to mention a secret police. From what I heard the Pinkie Pie who lived 200 years ago was a addict, addicted to Party-Time Mint-Als which she had made from the Zebra DrugMint-Als. Some “Pinkie Sense” got supercharged by it to let her see the future or something.” I explained and noted how Earth-Pinkie’s ears flattened at that, looking horrified. “Well, that’s not good. Say what happened to our other counterparts? We know Fluttershy’s counterpart is still alive, something about a magic plant? What about the rest of us?” Asked the Rainbow Dash counterpart and I looked to her for a moment. “Hoo boy, that’s gotta be a long story.” I muttered, getting raised eyebrows for it. “I don’t think I want to tell the tale, leave it to the adults I say, it’s the better option.” I stated and noted the blue Pegasus pout at that. “Though I will tell you this: There are three Ministry Mares still with us and here at Hogwarts. Two of them showed up Wednesday from what I have heard.” I added and that got their attention. Hey, if I was going to leave them hanging, may as well give them something to think about, am I right?