I awake to find myself still in the rocket and that the rocket is still climbing. From I could tell I only blacked out for a minute or less. I heard a mares voice on the intercom speaker inside the capsule. "Ascension...Ascension...." As the second ascension is said I finally break through the cloud layer. As I do Celestia's sun shines brightly in my face forcing me to look away for a moment until the light becomes less bright. "Hallelujah" The mare's voice said as I broke through.
When I looked out the window again I couldn't believe my eyes. A whole city not MADE of clouds but resting ABOVE the clouds. I looked on in awe before the rocket jolted to a stop. As soon as the rocket stopped, old classical music started playing inside the capsule. The music felt soothing and fitting for what I was seeing. Soon the rocket started to descend via (I assumed) a parachute. Then my view was obstructed by the sudden appearance of a wall in front of the capsule. Soon I landed and the capsule wall in front of me slid down, and the clamps on my forelegs released allowing me to rub them due to the awful discomfort of the clamps. I trotted out of the capsule and as I did the capsule sealed itself and was lowered through the floor. As I took one last look back at the rocket I sighed and continued on down the hallway ahead of me. As I entered an almost completely marble room I saw in front of me a giant mural with Celestia standing on a hill with dozens of unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi around having very menacing looks on their faces and dirt covered muzzles.
Above Celestia, inscribed in marble was a sentence that said,"Behold, our Prophet and Savior! Celestia!"
"Well, these ponies seem to worship our beloved Sun Goddess.", I said as I gave it one last look and walked to hallway to my left.
I continued until I saw a pegasus stallion in an archway bowing down to a statue of Celestia.
"Eh..Excuse me? Uh where am I?", I ask the bowing stallion.
He stopped bowing and praying and stood to look at me.
"Heaven, or as close as we'll be till judgment day.", He said as I walked up to him.
"Th..Thank you then.", I said as I gave him a wave off and trotted down the corridor in front of me.
I continued on until I came into a very large room with at least 20 granite pillars lining the inside of the room. Between each pillar was a long shallow pool of water lined with floating candles. I walked down the steps to the pool in front of me. I continued on until I came another set of small stairs. I trotted up them until I came into a smaller room with a group of robbed mares and stallions listening to an important looking robbed stallion preaching something I could care less about. I pushed my through the group until I came up to the front of the group.
"Ah! I see we have a newcomer!", The priest said as he motioned me over to him.
"Look I just want to get into the city.", I said in a firm tone.
The unicorn priest looked at me with a confused look on his face then turned to the crowd. "Well brothers and sisters? Do we permit this colt to enter our fair city?"
The whole crowd nodded their heads in almost perfect unison.
"Well then, IN THE NAME OF OUR GODDESS's CELESTIA AND LUNA! WE BAPTIZE YOU INTO THE CITY!"
As soon as he finished his sentence I was under the water gasping for air. He pulled me up out of the water and dunked me back in. This time however the priest never let me back up. I took one last try for air then blacked out
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I awoke to find myself in my old office in Manehatten. All color seemed to be gone from the room. I stood up from my chair, but when I did I heard somepony knocking on my door.
"Mr. Dewitt! Mr. Dewitt!", The stallion said as he knocked.
"I already told you I'm not doing it! Now go AWAY!", I said angrily as I approached the door.
After a few seconds of silence the knocking continued. I frustratingly opened the door and was greeted by a sight I had not expected. Where the rest of the building was supposed to be was the Manehatten skyline...in ruins. Columns of smoke and fire on almost every building. And in the sky, Columbia was slowly descending from the clouds, looking very menacing. Airships flew about the sky raining fire on the city below them. One airship shot its canon in my direction. I braced myself for the pain but it never came.
________________________________________________________________________________________
I awoke again to find myself alive and breathing. I stood up and coughed a bit before I cursed the priest.
"That damn priest needs to learn the difference between baptizing a colt and drowning one.", I said as I walked out of the water and onto dry land. I shook my coat dry and fixed my mane a little. "Now gotta find the girl.", I said as I walked past some other religious nut jobs.
I came to a very large set of doors. "Come on Dewitt, still got a girl to find.", I said as I opened the doors to reveal more of the floating city.
The apparent platform I was on was slowly descending towards another floating part of the city. As the two parts connected I trotted to a large marble statue of what I could assume was princess Twilight. I gave the statue a quick look and walked to the left hoof side of the statue onto an incline road. As I came to a roadblock some parade floats floated by. After they passed I made my way around until I came upon a sign saying "Columbia Raffle and Fair".
"Huh.", I said as I walked past it towards what I could assume was the Fairgrounds.
After passing a singing quartet I continued on toward the fair. Eventually I walked out from under a tall archway to a view of a giant golden statue.
"Huh, so that must be Monument Island.", I said but as I was about to walk towards its direction I was stopped by a young colt in a newsponys outfit.
"Telegram mister Dewitt!", He said as I took the card. He saluted me and ran off.
The message on the telegram was, "Dewitt, STOP. Do not alert Comstock to your presence. STOP. Whatever you do do not pick number seventy-seven. STOP. ~Lutece"
After trotting around some more thinking about what the telegram said, I came upon a roadblock.
Two stallions in police uniform stopped me."Sir this area is off limits due to the parade. If you want to get to monument Island than you'll have to go around.", One stallion said in a demanding tone.
"Damn it. I got to get to Monument Island.", I muttered to myself as I walked away from the policestallions.
Eventually I got to the fairgrounds. I looked around at all the Vendors either offering a prize in a game or selling something called a Vigor. I Passed a particular Stage with what I thought at the time was harmless. A 'HandyColt' they called it. At the time it looked scared and afraid. It kept covering its eyes with its mechanical hooves. I gave it a saddned look and continued on.
After passing the 'HandyColt' stage I came upon an earth pony mare selling a Vigor. I looked at the basket full of green bottled liquid and took one.
"How much for this?", I asked.
The mare looked at me with a grin. "Its a free sample.", She said.
"Good enough for me.", I said as I took a drink of the strange liquid.
As soon as I finished it my vision started to go green and black at the same time. The mare in front of me made a heart shape in the air. When she did a smokey green heart trail appeared where she had moved her hooves. Then she blew me kiss and my vision returned to normal.
I looked around and said,"What did that do?"
The mare smiled at me and said in a sweet voice,"That Vigor you drank is called Possession. It allows you to possess pretty much any living thing you want. It also works on them vending machines too."
I looked at the vending machine standing in front of a locked gate. I nodded to myself and gave the vigor a try. I stuck my hoof out at the Machine and a ghostly looking pegasus mare came out of my hoof and shot towards the machine. Soon the machines' eye lights changed from yellow to green.
Then the gate behind it opened. I walked over to the gate and passed through. I turned and shut the gate behind me. When I turned back around there were two ponies standing there in front of me. Both were earth ponies. One was a Stallion, the other a Mare.
"Can I help you?", I said as they l both looked at each other.
The stallion spoke first,"Heads?", "or Tails?", The mare said finishing the stallions sentence. The mare hoofed me a coin, I grabbed the coin with my hoof and called it, "Tails.", I said as I flipped it onto the plate they had next to them. Heads.
The stallion spoke first,"Not as satisfying as I hoped." He said in a slightly sad tone. "Chin up there is always next time.", The mare said as she marked a tally on the chalkboard next to the coin plate. They both walked into a building and closed the door.
I continued on until I came upon the Raffle portion of the Fair. I walked up some steps to the small area which a fairly sized crowd of ponies gathered. The announcer started to speak.
"MARES AND GENTLECOLTS! I WELCOME YOU ALL TO THE FIFTH ANNUAL COLUMBIA RAFFLE!", He shouted loud enough for the crowd to hear. The crowd started to cheer and clop their hooves on the stone ground. I went up to the stage and saw a unicorn mare with a basket of baseballs. All the baseballs had numbers on them. I picked out a ball at random. Whether luck or fate I picked ball number seventy-seven. As soon as I picked up the ball the announcer started to speak again.
"Now! Let's see who the lucky winner is!", He reached his hoof into the bowl that was hoofed to him by the same mare that gave me the baseball. "And the winner is...NUMBER SEVENTY-SEVEN!"
"Well whadda ya know?", I muttred to myself as the announcer looked at me.
"You my dear stallion are very lucky! And here's your prize! First Throw!", As he said that the curtain he was standing in front of lifted to reveal two ponies...no a pony and a zebra, tied up on wooden posts. They both looked beaten and battered, as soon as the curtain finished lifting they both started to panic, calling out "NO! Please no!" and other sentences like that.
I lifted my hoof with the ball in it, about to throw at the announcer when suddenly a stallion in a police uniform grabbed my hoof twisting it to reveal a brand I had given myself. I had completely forgotten I had it. The officer gave me a menacing look and turned to the announcer, "It's HIM! It's the False Shepard!"
Something told me I was in for a long day.