//------------------------------// // A World Apart // Story: A World Apart (Old Version) // by Star Scraper //------------------------------// "I am thankful for all the challenges I've had. Times of war, times of struggle, times of hardship. Those are the times I grew from being an arrogant foal into who I have become. Those are the times for heroes to shine, as they can in no other. Peace is much sweeter when won through valiant effort."  - General Ivory Flame from the preface of "The Longest Night"  * * * Rarity glared at Twilight. "Go on, go on!" Rarity urged her friend. "Go on, what?" "Find a spell that will get us wingless ponies into Cloudsdale. Didn't you see how nervous she was?" Rarity said, her voice full of worry. The two were standing in a sea of books scattered across the floor in Twilight's library, the result of Rainbow Dash's latest failed attempt to pull a sonic rainboom for her upcoming competition in Cloudsdale. "Nervous!?" Applejack interjected, "Have you spit your bit or something? She was tootin' her own horn louder than the brass section of a marching band!" "Oh, puh-lease! I've put on enough fashion shows to recognize stage fright when I see it!" Concrete determination seized her voice; "We've got to find a way to be there for her!" "Now go on!" She shoved Twilight forward. She stumbled back up and glared at her. "How am I supposed to find a flight spell in this mess?!" Pinkie Pie piped in, "A flight spell? One sec!" She shot over to a book, and zipped back to her friends with it in her mouth as she tossed it to Twilight with a flick of the chin. "Page twenty-seven." "How'd you do that?" Applejack shot. "It landed on my face when Rainbow Dash knocked me into the bookcase." Pinkie replied matter-of-factly. "Here it is," Twilight started, "a spell that will allow Earth Ponies to fly for three days. Oooooh, it looks really difficult. I'm not sure I can do it safely..." "You've got to try!" Rarity pleaded. "Okay, but who's gonna volunteer to be the test subject?" Everypony looked around the room indecisively. "I will! For Rainbow Dash, I will go first!" Rarity asserted. "Here goes..." Twilight pointed her horn at Rarity and closed her eyes. Like an artist sitting down to a blank canvas and focusing with their eyes, she focused on the world of magic around her using her horn. Through its magic, she could feel the room, its occupants, and everything in it. She focused on Rarity. She felt for the sea of leylines, strings which composed reality like notes in a melody, every thing and idea a wave or ripple upon its surface, and she reached deep toward their deepest foundations. To merely take wings from the sea of leylines would be to deprive some poor creature of its own; to make them from air would be unsafe and unreliable for her friend to fly upon, so she reached for the Deep Foundation of the Leyline Sea to create the wings. She imagined a butterfly's wings, soft as gossamer and as beautiful as sparkling morning dew, the perfect match for the elegant unicorn. As she focused on her friend and the idea, she felt a bundle of lines that led from the Deep Foundation to many worlds, and began to pull them together, carefully feeling out the ones that had exactly what she wanted and pulling on them, uprooting more line from the endless Foundation. Blue light began to wrap around Rarity as a breeze came in the room. Twilight was unaware, lost in the elegant dance of metaphysical strings, pulling along with them a torrent of ideas she had to reject. Unusually colorful and strange-looking ponies were closest to the wings she imagined, so she carefully pulled the idea of them off, while holding to her mind the beautiful, gossamer wing. The string seemed to snap to a world of snow, darkness and metal. She pulled the string off of the concept more forcefully, careful to stay away from the dark and cold sphere of existence. Rarity began to float in the air, detached from the gravity of their world. She looked around worriedly as the blue tendrils of light wrapped around her and encased her in a cocoon of light, sealing her inside a world of depthless ivory. The magician tried to hold on to the idea of the wings. The idea began to bring itself to her mind, forming into exactly what she wanted. She no longer had to work to think of it, now the idea came to her, flowing from the lines she'd singled out. But slowly it dawned on her that the idea she had pulled together was too weak, it was nothing more solid than a mist – horrified at what it might do upon combining with her dear friend, she panicked back to the strings of the other world of metal, hurriedly trying to pull out the concept of hard metal to give Rarity and her wings the strength they needed to stay together and alive. The breeze grew stronger over the room, flipping the pages of the book, hiding its violated warning to not meddle with enchanted objects. When Twilight guided the bundle of strings back, it snapped back into the cold, dark, metal like a powerful magnet. All at once, every leyline that flowed through Rarity was torn from Equestria and fused into the world of dark, cold and metal. Sparks shot from Twilight's horn, and met the tendrils of plasma around Rarity, and she was shot back across the room in an explosion of light as a thunderous crack shook the room. "Rarity!" Pinkie and AJ yelled. "Wha-?" Twilight groggily got back up, only to see charred books and a singed wall, but no Rarity. "Oh, no!" Twilight yelled. "Nonononono!" She frantically returned to the page, pouring over it. "RARITY EXPLODED! AAAAHHH!" Pinkie Pie screamed. "Ohhh no! She didn't explode!" Twilight replied. "Wha-what'd y'all do to her, then!?" Applejack demanded, her voice shaking with worry. Twilight scoured page twenty-six of the book. "I – I don't know for sure! I think maybe she -  It felt like - just let me make sure-" she flipped the page "–NO!" "WHAT?!" Pinkie asked. "We're going to have to go after her!" Twilight declared. "Go after her!?" they asked. "She was sucked right into something – another possibility – something that could've happened but it didn't! Something outside the Elements of Harmony!" she answered in a panicked frenzy. "What in tarnation are ya goin' on about!? What did ya do to her!?" Applejack demanded from Twilight, glaring at her. "Things happen the way they do because of the Elements – and she got pulled somewhere where things happened differently! That's how that spell works! But it went wrong, and she's somewhere else, but I don't know if-" She paused as she was reading the page. Applejack and Pinkie exchanged confused looks. "Follow me!" Twilight snapped. She darted out the door, carrying the book next to her with telekinesis. Pinkie and Applejack glanced at eachother again, then followed after. "Oh, Rarity, hang in there!" Twilight pleaded as she galloped out of town.  * * * In a flash of light, Rarity found herself lying on cobblestone, somewhere dark. "What – am I – how did I?..." She looked up to see a street overhung by streetlights that gave off an incandescent golden glow, which seemed to be the only source of light. The sky was solid, dark, with a faint metallic glean. She shivered as an icy breeze hit her. Earth ponies and pegasi surrounded her. Only a few wearing uniforms looked well off, though the rest didn't look too awful, they looked... poor. Poor and unhygienic. It was hardly as crowded as any city she knew of. The ponies all stared at her with wide eyes and dropped jaws, some of their faces twisting with hate, most with fear. "Twilight? Pinkie Pie? Applejack? Where are you?" she said in a small, feeble voice. Seeing no motion among the gawking ponies, her patience quickly ran out. "What, haven't you ever seen a unicorn before?" she said rhetorically, offended at their hostile stares. But as she said it, she noticed there wasn't a single unicorn in sight. Two pegasi with uniforms darted towards her. "You're under arrest!" "Well, excuse me! But-" They tackled her. She yelled and threw them back with her magic. The crowd instantly exploded into panic as ponies ran in every direction. She got back up and froze for a moment, astounded at her own strength and the crowd's response. The soldiers began to clamber up again. "Just shoot it! Just shoot it!" an old stallion yelled. "Me!? I am a 'her'! And what ever-" BANG She felt a powerful kick to her hoof that knocked her into the ground. Panicking, she shot back up and galloped into a nearby alleyway. Just as another bang rang down the alley, she felt a lighter punch to her scalp and horn. She didn't know what they were doing, but she couldn't think to do anything except keep sprinting away. However they were attacking her, it was obviously lethal. An excruciating pain shot through her hoof with every step, but she was too terrified to stop and look. She ran through winding streets and crowded alleyways as city bells began to ring. She had no idea how long she'd been running when the street in front of her ended in an enormous, gleaming, silvery metallic wall. She looked up and realized that it curved back towards the center of the city, before fading into darkness far above the reach of the city's lights. Distant armored pegasi flew towards her. Far down the street she could see more sitting down, pointing more of the metal rods at her with their forehooves. She realized what they were. Flintlock rifles from the Interregnum of the Princesses were kept by the Canterlot elite for high-class sporting game, shooting clay pigeons and targets. Though they looked different from the ones she knew of, they were rifles, and at the end of the street, no less than a dozen were being prepared to shoot Rarity. She galloped in-between the last building and the wall as shots rang, hitting the wall with terribly loud donging noises. The soldiers began shouting something indecipherable over the noise of her gallop as she scoured the walls for an exit from the deathtrap of an alleyway. She saw an enormous, rusty, steel hatch-like door on the wall. She used her magic to turn the the heavy wheel. With her telekinesis she felt the bars slide out, but it refused to open. She telekinetically grabbed the entire door and yanked with her might, but it refused to budge. She heaved again, and felt the door strain under her pull, but it refused to budge. The soldiers were lined up at the end of the alleyway, once again, setting down, lifting their hooves with the mounted rifles, and reaching for the trigger with their other forehooves. The row of more than a dozen rifles pointed at her made her freeze for only a moment. She yelled with effort as she yanked a last time, blowing the door open with the sound of tearing metal, and leaping towards it as a volley of bullets shot by behind her. She landed in deep snow. She was immediately blasted with the coldest air she'd ever felt. Ahead of her was a narrow concrete-walled alley, beyond which, was a blizzardy frozen landscape lit by floodlights that fell away into darkness beyond the light's reach. The snow was bitter, icy cold. The icy air tore at her throat and lungs with each breath. As she left the concrete alley, she failed to notice the concrete walls were walls of two large, wide concrete towers, on which sat machinegun nests. Her first steps out of the protection of the concrete alley led her into the blizzard of half-melted hail. It sounded like a terrible, heavy rainstorm, but with every drop was a small, hard crack, where it almost sounded like rushing sand, and every splash of water and ice that hit her body felt like a small jab of hard, sharp, icy wet cold. The guards, clothed in thick winter gear, eyed her down as she ran out the alley, swung the mounted machineguns around and put her in the sights as she ran into the open. "Wait, wait" the chief of the watch said. "Chief, she's gotta be a crook of some kind! She blew the door open!" "We have strict orders to guard the doors from the outside. We don't have authority to guard them from the inside..." She was lost in the distant, blizzard-obscured darkness before the pegasi burst out the now-open hatch, flew up to the nests, and yelled at the unfortunate guards; "Shoot, you dimwits! Shoot! She's a unicorn! Shoot! Shoot!" She galloped, plowing through the snow, her hooves becoming numb as they landed on permafrost with every step. The thick snow almost reached her shoulders as she ran through it. Her body was freezing under a constant barrage of slushy, icy hail. She stopped to catch her breath and look back. The biting cold only grew worse. The icy pain reached into her bones, and she began shivering intensely. She looked back at the cold, but much warmer city she had come from, when a thought struck her. Where am I!? The only reply was the howling, icy wind. She turned to look at where she came from, struggling to open her eyes against the freezing barrage. The blizzard obscured the view of the awful place she'd just run out of. She gasped both in fear and horror as she realized the path she'd left in the snow was mottled red with her own blood. Then, the pain in her hoof struck her again, vengefully making up for the time it had spent numb. She looked to find the nail of her hoof blown apart, with a large crack that reached up to her foot, where a gaping wound bled enough to soak her hoof and the snow. She clenched her teeth and groaned as the pain overwhelmed her. Tears came to her eyes, partly from the pain, partly from the nightmarish, chaotic destruction inflicted on her finely pedicured hoof. It sent her mind spinning into confusion, just as she was trying to make sense of this frozen, cruel world. As she struggled to pull her mind together, she was suddenly aware of a sharp pain on her horn, and the biting cold all over her. The cold tore at her ears, nose, sides and cheeks, all at once. She felt herself shivering violently as the icy water poured over her, soaking her. The wind stopped and she looked up to see where she'd come from as a clearing from the haze opened in the storm. For a moment, as she looked, a spell of surreal feeling fell over her, as though she were in a strange dream. She forgot her pain as her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. She didn't even realize she was backing up, but she did as if she had encountered a large, vicious monster. She faced where she had come from. It was an enormous, gleaming, perfectly smooth, glossy metal dome the size of a mountain, with titanic concrete walls surrounding its base. That's... The city?...  As she stared for moments, she saw distant lights moving out of it, and heard, over the wind, a distant train horn. The wind picked up again, and the blizzard obscured the scene from her sight. Icy cold bit at her mouth before she realized her jaw had dropped open. I'm not in Equestria anymore... She was still frozen as it began to sink in, as she looked into the dark, snowy mist. Tears welled in her eyes again as it hit her, tears that quickly bit her face with cold. She started sobbing, the deep breaths scratching her throat and lungs with cold air. There was nothing she could have imagined more distant from her humble, beautiful, decorated boutique set on the warm, sunny hill in Ponyville, than the terrifying, imposing, metallic, spartan dome of impossible size in this frozen wasteland. "T-Twilight?... Applejack?... P-Pinkie Pie?..." she could only weakly stammer into the wind around her sobs, praying somehow it was some dream or illusion, that in reality, she was lying on the floor of Twilight's warm treehouse library, unconscious, and somehow they would be there and save her, or wake her up from this awful, lonely nightmare. Out of the blizzard, she saw flashes of light. Suddenly her hopes flared to life, a grin spread across her face, immediately followed by the sound of rapid gunfire and bullets whizzing by, missing her by a wide margin. She shrieked and galloped away from the terrible flashing lights. Behind the machineguns' muzzle flares, "She's a gonner," the chief of the watch said to his crew. "No point in wastin' ammo at this range." The firing stopped as he turned to one of the pegasi police that were uniformed especially well, and asked: "Sir? Are we going to pursue? It is a unicorn."  * * * At the dark edge of the city, on a public square and behind a gallow, a large, stocky, red stallion in well-decorated military uniform walked towards an orange-colored Earth pony that had a blond mane. "Gold Will, my own sister..." he said with a deep, strong but gentle voice. She was shackled with rope and surrounded by guards. Both their green eyes met. "Crimson Fire! It doesn't have to be this way! My own big brother! You're one of the elite! You can stop this! You can set things right!" He shook his head. "You're the only one who can fix things, Gold Will..." He ran his hoof over her mane, to her cheek. "I love you, sister... Please, just please take back the things you've said." His heart pounded painfully in his chest. "I will do anything in the world to save you," he finished. "Then renounce The Order!" she yelled. The guards looked away, ashamed to be in the presence of such words. "Then we would all die, and there would be no more world, I wouldn't even be saving you. Why didn't you ever believe it?" "Because it's not true, big brother. I can't, and I won't ever renounce what I've said, because what I've taught and what I've said - it's true!" "You do have a gold will, a beautiful dream, but it simply can't come true in this world, or you, me, and everypony else would all die. Even if you're somehow right, would you really take that risk? What if we did what you said, and half the population died? It would be your fault, and that's a fate worse than death, to be responsible for that... I swore an oath to The Order, Gold Will, and I'm willing to die for it-" "An' you're willing to watch me die for it!?" she sobbed. "Please... You would die, too, if I tried to stop this, you, me, and lots of other ponies would die. But even if we won, if The Order fell, you would die. And you will die if you don't renounce what you've said. So you have to renounce it! Please, Gold Will, it's the only way! There's no reason to not renounce it. Just walk out there, and say it, and we-" He paused and hugged her. She felt enveloped in his large, warm, strong body, and he wrapped his hooves around her. "-we could be family again... Just take back those silly, pointless words..." "I'h can't, I just can't... I would rather die for The Ceruleans, then live under The Order." There was nothing left to do, to say, to urge. She had always been stubborn, and he knew she meant it. "I'm going to miss you, Applejack..." he addressed her by her private name. "I already miss you, Crimson... You're not being yourself. You're bein' somepony else... You would'a never done this to me when we were younger..." They were still in an embrace. "I'm just the same..." he fought back tears. "...as ever... It's you who's become obsessed with those anarchists and their false ideas..." She laughed twice amid sobs, old memories coming back, memories of petty squabbles as children. Neither of them wanted it to end with an argument. "Looks like we'll have to agree to disagree again, Big Mac." she said, invoking dozens of memories all at once, using his private name. "Eeyup..." "I don't want to die... Please... You have to, Big Mac, it's the only way..." He squeezed her, and whispered in her ear. "I would do anything to trade places with you, Applejack... But you're the one who's going to The Azure Sky..." They smiled again at the memories, and the powerful, heartfelt faith they had. "I'll be waitin' for you there, Mac... I know it..." "I know it..." "At least there's one thing we can agree on... Heheh" she managed around her tears. "Even if you're a Cerulean, and I a general of The Order, don't forget we believe much of the same thing, sister..." "Sir..." one of the guards addressed him. "Take good care of the family, Big Mac..." she whispered to him. "As always. I love you so, so much, Applejack, I'm so, so, sorry..." "You're great, Big Mac... I love you, too." He nuzzled her one last time. "Until we meet again, Applejack, in a different world..." "Under a cerulean sky..." she finished. He nodded, and she was led out to the platform and the small audience in front, holding a supernatural courage as the noose was placed over her neck, and as the lever was pulled. The large, hardened general found a private corner, sat down, and wept.  * * * Under a blue sky and warm sun, on a grassy hill next to the red barn of Sweet Apple Acres, Big Mac walked towards Applejack in his usual slow manner, and dropped a saddlebag full of apples and supplies on her back. "Here you go, AJ. But what do ya'll need this for again?" "Helping Twilight rescue Rarity! Thank'ya Big Mac! G'bye!" She galloped off. He was shocked into silence for a moment, then raised an eyebrow. She was too far gone before he could articulate his curiosity with the words, "Rescue Rarity?..." he said, far too quietly for her to hear. Looks like those ponies are off on another adventure. He used to worry about Applejack with those five. But he'd gained confidence in them over the few months they'd been friends. Something magical seemed to protect them. They were the avatars of the Elements of Harmony, after all, and moved much too quickly for him to keep up. Rescue Rarity... just another one of their adventures... "Eeyup" he said aloud, and returned to his chores on the farm. Without warning, a strange wave of worry and fear came over him about Applejack's well-being. He paused for a moment, and looked around. The world seemed normal enough. The sky was blue, the warm, yellow sun shone over the green hills of Equestria, and the distant mountains held their place on the horizon. He shrugged it off, and kept working. I'm sure it'll come dinner time and she'll be just fine, and we'll eat together just like always. "Eeyup," he sealed his thought. He was partially right.  * * * "Alright, I got the stuff ya asked for. How long do you think it'll take tah find Rarity?" Applejack asked, trotting into an area surrounded by low, rocky hills and devoid of grass, where Pinkie Pie and Twilight stood. It was the usual place where Rarity used to mine gems. "Not long at all, if Rarity hasn't gone too far. I think I've got the exact same place again... But we can't be overprepared." Twilight replied. The magician bowed her head to the ground, her horn glowed, a bowl of underground gems glowed through the ground and began to shake. She stopped. "Oh, I don't know about this, girls... I didn't even know it was possible for ponies to travel to other timespaces..." Applejack responded with a quizzical look: Not that I understand what that means, but... "Twilight, we don' got a choice with Rarity in there." "Of course..." she replied without hesitation. "This should create a field to send all of us through at once. Get in close everypony, just in case..." Applejack shot to her side. Pinkie Pie stood still, fear on her face. "Pinkie, Rarity needs us!" Twilight called. Pinkie shot to Twi's other side. "Big'ol meanie spacelices thingie can't keep Rarity!" "So, Twilight, do you know where we're goin'? Like, what it's gonna be like or anythin'?" Applejack asked, worry spreading on her face. "I don't know, Applejack, all I can tell is it's dark and cold, wherever it is, and whatever is different about it, started hundreds of years ago, right before the time of the Great Winter, where the Earth Ponies, Pegasi, and Unicorns came together." "So... This is back when there was hate and selfishiness all o'er Equestria?" Twilight didn't answer. "Here goes..." She bowed her head, her horn glowed with magic, the gems shone and the ground shook. "We're coming for you, Rarity!" Pinkie Pie yelled. All at once there was a flash of light, a bang, and nothing left but charred ground as the bang echoed off the hills like thunder.