//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 // Story: The Stranger With a Big Iron on Her Hip // by Omega_code //------------------------------// Thanks to PiquoPie for proofreading. After a fruitless search in Appleloosa for Rarity, the five mares and Braeburn waited in Braeburn’s living room for Celestia, who was preparing a tracing spell. Rainbow Dash was pacing back and forth in the air with a sour look on her face. “I can’t believe we couldn’t find her,” she exclaim. “I mean how hard is it to spot a white pony with her ridicules mane style.” She stopped her pacing when she noticed the looks she was getting from everypony. “What? It’s not that hard to miss.” “Still, that wasn’t nice to say Dash,” Twilight said. “However, you are right about no pony seeing her. There’s no reasonable way she could’ve disappear like that.” Twilight started to paced back and forth as she began to list out reasons. “She couldn’t have teleported herself out because she doesn’t have the magical skill to do something like that. She’s not the stealthiest pony out there since, like you said, isn’t hard to miss. She also isn’t the fastest pony so there’s no way she could just have walked out of town, plus she doesn’t even like walking long distances. And even if she could get to the train station, the next train isn’t due to arrive till another nine hours.” “Then where could she be?” Fluttershy asked. “Hopefully we’ll be able to answer that with this spell,” Celestia’s voice spoke out from behind the group. Twilight stopped her pacing and looked up to see her mentor standing in the doorway carrying a spherical stone object and Rarity’s piece of the Element of Harmony in her magical grip. A smile formed on Twilight lips, but after doing a double take at the stone object her face quickly turn to shock and awe as she recognized the magical artifact. “That’s a scrying stone! I thought all of those were destroyed?” Celestia let out an amused chuckle as she gave a small nod of her head. “You are right my thoughtful student, they were all destroyed. This one, however, is a copy I made out of memory nearly 300 hundreds years ago. It’s not as powerful as it was only going to be used to seek out corrupt magic and the radiation it spreads; however, I modified it to act like a fully functional scrying stone so we can find Rarity.” “Um, can somepony please explain what y’all are talking about?” Applejack asked. “Scrying stones were artifacts used by powerful unicorns back during the ancient time of Eqeustria. They could locate almost anything in the land and show the user exactly where it was. However some ponies started to use them improperly for wicked deeds and Celestia ordered Starswirl the Bearded to find and destroyed them along with the blueprints for making them. I only read about them, and the books that talked about them were very vague on how they work.” “That’s because I didn’t want the incident that they caused to happen again. Now,” she moved the Element of Generosity on top on the scrying stone, “let’s see where Miss. Rarity is hiding.” The yellow glow on Celestia’s horn intensified and bright beam was shot out hitting the scrying stone. The stone brightly glowed by itself and started to emit a 3-D picture of Equestria on the floor. Everypony was ‘oohing’ and ‘awing’ while Celestia shared a stern look as she study the map. Her eyes scanned the map carefully as it was drawn to one point. “How can that be?” She mumbled disbelievingly. Everypony stopped glorifying the map and looked over to see what Celestia was looking at. There on the map was a small bright blue point inside Macintosh Hill near the river that ran by Appleloosa. “Wait, she’s all the way over there, but how is that possible!?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I don’t know, but I don’t like this.” Celestia looked at Rainbow dash and ordered, “I would like you to fly over to Scarlet and try to get her to come back.” Rainbow Dash eyes widened both in surprised and fear. “Wait, why me? Why can’t you do it?” “I need to make sure I configured the scrying stone properly, to know whether the location it is giving us is real or not. You are the one who can reach Scarlet quickly. Don’t worry; she said she won’t harm anyone she has already met.” “But Princess, why do we need her. I thought you said we need to give each other some space.” Fluttershy nervously asked. “Things are not adding up right. I have reason to believe all this might be Cadbury’s doing.” “Doing? Doing of what?” Twilight unsettling asked. Celestia let out a heavy sigh. “That the Rarity that was with us was not the real Rarity.” Expressions of shock and horror formed on everyponies face. “But…but how is that possible,” Fluttershy asked with much sorrow. “She acted the same at the spa, in her shop, on the train, at-at…,” she broke into tears and Pinkie Pie went over to comfort her. Celestia’s heart ache at hearing one of her subjects cry in pain. “I don’t know, all I know is that she is still alive, otherwise the stone wouldn’t have found her. Now, Rainbow Dash, please go and fetch Scarlet from her camp.” Rainbow Dash slowly nodded her head and made her way to the door. She opened it and prepared to take off. Three green fireballs erupted from the sky. Two slammed into buildings across the street and the last one on top of Braeburn’s house. The house shook and the sound of crackling wood could be heard. Ponies, both from inside the house and outside, were shouting out cries of alarm. Celestia dropped her work on the stone and rushed over to the door. She looked up to the sky to see griffons flying around throwing more fireballs towards the ground. “Princess, what’s going on!?” Twilight asked with much panic in her voice. “We are under attack,” she answered in an enraged tone, a tone Twilight rarely heard from her mentor. Celestia started to make her way out of the door. “I need you and the others to get to safety. I will handle the griffons.” Before her student could say anything to object, Celestia’s horn glowed and she took off with a single strong flap from her wings. Celestia flew at high speeds toward the nearest griffon in the sky. The griffon had a dull surprised look as Celestia zoomed by him. A yellow glow formed around the griffon and he was yanked out of the spot that he was hovering in. Celestia held the griffon in a firm magical grip and she moved him high in the air before flinging him toward the ground. The griffon flared his wings, trying to stop his fall, but with little success. He slammed into the ground causing dust to spew everywhere. As the dust settle, the bruised griffon tried to get out of the small crater he made, but didn’t get the chance. In the blink of an eye, a ball of light slammed square onto the griffon’s forehead with great force. The griffon black out and fell into unconsciousness. Celestia hovered in the air while griffons started to surround her, all of them wearing pissed off looks. Celestia closed her eyes and her horn brightly glowed. She opened her eyes and casted her spell causing two objects to materialize in front of her, a large circler shield with a golden sun painted on the front of it and a spear with its metal tip looking cherry red hot. She firmly grasped them with her magic and brought the shield to her side and the spear up next to her face, getting into a battle stance. With fierce determination she yelled out, “I WILL NOT LET YOU HARM MY SUBJECTS!” ************************ “It seemed Celestia has thrown herself into the battle.” Alpha stated. Scarlet squinted both of her eyes towards Appleloosa. Sure enough she could barely see Celestia in the air along with several griffons. She then thought she heard something then a bright streak red line flashed through the air. “Wow, she’s actually fighting them.” Her Pip-Boy started to click and Alpha’s voice spoke right from under her. “Yes, contrary to many beliefs, she is not a pacifist. She must have strong reasons why she brought forth her Corona Shield and Flare Spear out for this battle.” Scarlet looked down to see Alpha standing over the Changeling with one of his hoofs glowing green. Scarlet took a couple of steps backwards which made her Pip-Boy stop clicking. “Watch it with the magic, and what in the heck are you doing?” “Making sure he won’t die.” Scarlet looked at the Changeling and noticed that his wounds wear sealing up. “Like I said, we need him alive. It’s hard to get information from a dead pony.” After the final wound was closed up, Alpha brought his hoof closer to him and concentrated on another spell. He then thrust his hoofs and green braces formed around each the Changeling’s hoof and pinned them to the earth. Alpha then looked up to Scarlet. “I’m going to help Celestia defeat the griffons. I need you to stay here; we can’t let you get in harm’s way.” Scarlet just looked at Alpha as if he had just insulted her. Paying no attention to the look he was getting from Scarlet, Alpha walked up to Strongheart, who was looking with concern out towards Appleloosa. “I know you want to help defending the town, but there’s nothing you can do to help.” Strongheart looked at Alpha full of outrage. “That can’t be true; there must be something I can do to help.” Alpha shook his head. “You will be killed in a heartbeat, or come under a worse fate. But if you do want to help, watch over the little filly.” Strongheart looked over to the side to see the filly peering over a rock, towards the town with a worried expression on her face. She heard the flap of wings and looked back to see Alpha flying at high speed towards Appleloosa. “Hump, it’s not like he alone will be able to save the town,” Strongheart heard Scarlet muttering quietly to herself, not quite hearing what she was saying. Strongheart looked behind her again to see Scarlet standing aloof with her arms crisscrossing each other. Scarlet unfolded her arms and walked to where one of her weapons lay on the ground. She bent down to pick it up and then walked to where her bag and other things were lying. She knelt down next to the bag and began messing with it. Strongheart thought she was about to pack up and leave. “You’re going to leave us!? You can’t do that! Appleloosa is under attack and they need your help. If you call yourself a defender of your homeland then you should start acting like that!” She said with much irritation in her voice. Scarlet looked away from her bag and at Strongheart. She then pointed at her neck and Strongheart noticed the necklace that was used to translate their languages was missing, making Strongheart realize what she said didn’t make it across to Scarlet. However, Strongheart noticed something else. Scarlet had two of her weapons laid out in front of her, the one with the large black circle attached to it and the other the sleek greenish rectangular. Scarlet also had two more large black circles along with several small rectangular black boxes. Scarlet equipped her two guns, one on her back and the other on a strap that went across her shoulder making the gun rest next to her hip. She placed the rest either on her belt or in pockets. She grabbed something else, stuffing it under her left arm, before standing up. She looked towards Appleloosa to see that the more pillars of smoke were rising up from the town. “I’m going to get some new scars aren’t I? And I was having such great luck not getting any for the last month.” Scarlet looked at Strongheart, and then took a quick glance at the filly. The filly now had her face buried in her hoofs crying, probably thinking that she just lost everything she know and love. Scarlet looked back at Strongheart and pointed her right free arm at the filly. In a slow and orderly voice she spoke, “Watch over her.” She then walked towards the edge of the cliff and quickly (but carefully) made her way down. Fallout New Vegas is copyrighted Obsidian Entertainment and Bethesda Softworks. MLP: Friendship is Magic is copyright to Hasbro. All characters that belong to their companies are rightfully theirs. This writing is for fun and nothing else.