//------------------------------// // Chapter 11: New World // Story: Stopping the Future That the past Creates // by Yoshi1990 //------------------------------// Lightwing was cruising through a blue tunnel of magic energy with no control over where she was going. A weird screeching sound could be heard as she floated through the blue portal. After sixty seconds of floating through this weird portal, Lightwing saw the the sky through an opening in the portal. It was evening wherever she was going. She passed through the opening of the portal and she watched the portal close below her. She saw that the ground was made of dirt. Lightwing heard some creatures whispering to each other in a language she did not know. She looked up from the ground and saw a large crowd of plants watching her from a distance. Their beady eyes staring at her with fear. I have now gone crazy. She thought to herself as she slowly looked around at the large crowd surrounding her. I’m surrounded by a variety of plants and they are terrified of me. If I was a plant, I would be terrified of a pony too. These plants are larger than the ones back home. Lightwing's stomach made a sound that told every creature she was hungry. The crowd of plants gasped and took a few steps back. Now they’re even more terrified of me. She thought as she looked at there faces. They all seem to recognize the sound of a hungry pony. Lightwing closed her eyes and slammed her face into the dirt. I’m going to die from starvation. The crowd of plants took a few more steps back as her stomach made more noise, reminding all that she wanted food. With her head still in the dirt, she continued her thinking. I’m a carnivore in this world. I don’t want to kill any of these plants. They are too cute to want to kill. So...unless I can magically find a plant that does not have eyes, a mouth, leaf-hand-things and roots for feet...I’m going to die from lack of food. Die from starvation...I travel through time with little trouble. I fight off an evil dragon and live. I get possessed by said dragon and almost kill an alicorn but do I die?...no. I just get teleported to a new world and die from hunger. Lightwing heard a sweet voice greet her. “Hi.” Lightwing looked up from the dirt and saw a purple tulip standing over her. The first thought that came to her mind was, This flower is a little taller than me. Lightwing stared at the purple tulip in disbelief. “You can speak my language?” “Yes we can. You're not the first pony to come here. My name is Tracy.” “Can I know who were the other ponies to come here?” Tracy sat down next to Lightwing. “The first and only other pony to come here was an evil unicorn that chose to enslave the whole planet. He wanted us to help him take over another world, but we never had the chance.” Lightwing’s stomach begged for food again. Tracy smiled. “I hear a hungry pony. I can get you some food that you won’t feel guilty about eating. Follow me.” Tracy began walking toward her right followed by Lightwing. The two of them reached a piece of the huge crowd and Tracy signaled the other plants to move. All the plants continued staring as Tracy and Lightwing walked through the new opening in the crowd. The two of them walked over to a group of what appeared to be normal trees. Tracy stood next to a tree and lots of leaves began to fall from it, slowly making their trip to the ground. Tracy smiled. You can eat these leaves. It does not hurt the tree when the leaves fall off. And now that the leaves are not part of the tree, you can eat them with no worry.” “Why did so many leaves suddenly fall?” “It’s simple,” replied Tracy. “I connected to the tree roots and told the tree to give them to you.” Lightwing looked down and saw that tracy’s roots were buried into the dirt. “I guess that makes sense. Please continue with the other pony story, while I eat these leaves.” Tracy sat down. “Our world is a pure world. One of hope, light, peace, and life. As such, we have no need for weapons. This planet is held together by the purity of life itself. Our world has never had any evil on it. Our protector and goddess keeps all evil away from our planet. Our planet radiates a powerful energy and, throughout history, many evil forces from the stars have tried to approach our planet in order to have this energy. These evil forces have always been defeated before they could touch our world. Most don’t even make it closer to our world than our own star. A few have made it to our planet. We have seen a few great battles in the sky as the forces of evil battled against the power of our goddess but no evil force has ever gotten to the surface. So when an evil force came directly onto our planet, we were defenseless against its dark magic. The evil unicorn could not kill our protector or our whole planet would begin to break apart. The corrupt magic of the evil unicorn would not be able to save our world, but our guardian could not attack the evil unicorn without killing some other life on the planet, and that is something our goddess would never do. Because of this, our world fell to the powers of darkness.” Lightwing swallowed another bite of leaves. “This sounds like the evil unicorn from another story I heard. Is there any water around here to drink?” Tracy smiled, and a small sinkhole appeared next to Lightwing. A geyser of water shot up and the sinkhole filled up. Lightwing shook her head in disbelief. “Not even going to ask how. Please continue the story.” “After two hundred and forty years of evil trying to control us and the enslavement of our entire species, our goddess had found a way to save our world without killing any living creature on our world. Using her powers and that of our star, she created five magical leaves. They are called the Emerald Leaves They are connected directly to our goddess and, if our goddess chooses, they can channel her powers into the one who has these leaves. These items were used to send the evil unicorn back to his world, and the power of our goddess stops him from ever returning.” Lightwing jumped into the small pond to relax. “So where are these emerald leaves now?” “I don’t know,” replied Tracy. “They were hidden away to stop any thoughts of evil from entering our minds. Great power can easily corrupt.” “That makes sense. Do you think this goddess of yours can help me get home?” “I do,” Tracy said with a smile. “Tracy, why did you chose to help me?” “It’s my job. My goddess told me to help you.” “Oh...wow. That makes it very important. What does this goddess look like?” Tracy pointed behind Lightwing. “If you look over there, you will see our goddess towering over the whole planet. She can be seen from almost any spot on our world.” Lightwing turned around and looked off into the horizon. She saw a nice mountain range and behind it was a huge tree that practically went into space. The mountain range paled in height when compared to his huge tree. The mountains were just a tiny bug in the shadow of this tree. Lightwing looked back at Tracy with a confused face and pointed a hoof at the tree in the distance. Tracy nodded her purple head. “That’s the Tree of Life.” "It’s a tree..." replied a confused Lightwing. Tracy looked annoyed. "What’s wrong with our goddess being a tree?" "Nothing...I guess. It is just not what I was expecting...deja vu." “What?” Lightwing laughed. “I’m having a deja vu moment. Its when something happens and you feel like it has already happened before.” Oh, I see,” replied Tracy. “It’s getting late. We should go to my home and get some rest. It gets really dark out here after the star fades behind the horizon. Too dark to be out here safely.” “If you say so.” Lightwing got out of the pond and followed Tracy towards a small town. “Does your world not have a moon to light up the night?” “What’s a moon?” asked Tracy. “A moon is an object that orbits around the planet and reflects light to brighten up the night. Just like the sun. As you call it, a star.” “Oh! You're talking about a satellite. Thats what we call them. And no, our planet does not have one. Also...the star does not orbit around the planet. That's physically impossible. Planets orbit stars and satellites orbit planets. Even the smallest star is larger than the biggest planet. So its gravity wins. I guess your pony species has a little more learning to do than I had thought.” Lightwing noticed they were entering a town, but It was hard to see in the dark. “You're wrong Our sun does orbit our planet. We created it and we move it around the planet. Same with the moon. We have to make sure they stay on opposite sides of the planet.” Tracy turned around. “Are you serious? Thats crazy. How big is this star?” “It’s about a half the size of the planet. The same as our moon. I assume it helps with balancing out the gravity. Our world is a lonely one in the emptiness of space.” Tracy opened a door to a house. “This is my home.” The two creatures entered the dark home. Lightwing could feel the solid rock under her hooves. Tracy turned to face her house guest. “That explains why you don’t know that planets orbit stars. You have no stars around to observe. Your night room is to your left. I’ll be in the room to your right. There is a small pond and a small tree in your room with leaves for you to eat. Just tap the tree lightly and they will fall off. There are lights in here. Just tell them to turn on and they will. At full power, they will only stay on for five hours and it stays dark for nine hours. So use them on low power or normal power.” “Where do I sleep when I’m in my room?” asked Lightwing. “On the bed I made for you. It’s not anything you are familiar with, but it will have to do. It gets very very cold at night. I would not be surprised if it was cold enough to damage your internal system. So turn on the heater in your room. It works the same as the lights. There is a floor heater too. That should be everything. Come wake me up if you have any questions.” Tracy entered her room and Lightwing went to her own. Lightwing stood in her dimly lit room. The only light came from a window made from a hole in the wall. Lightwing discovered that it was actually an invisible stone. “Low power lights on.” Eight dimly lit lights appeared on the ceiling. Lightwing saw a pond in the upper left corner and a medium sized tree in the upper right corner. “Normal heaters on” A small red light next to her door turned on. In the bottom left corner of her room was a flat pile of dirt. “Sleeping on a pile of dirt is better than hard stone. To bad it’s not grass. I have not seen any grass at all. Just dirt and rocks. I wish I had a blanket...guess thats why there are heaters.” Lightwing laid down on the soft dirt. “This is not as bad as I thought it would be.” Lightwing took off her necklace and set it down next to her. She closed her eyes and rested for about an hour before telling the lights to turn off and going to sleep. ========== The next morning ========== Lightwing opened her eyes to see a purple tulip sitting next to her reading a holographic book. “I guess yesterday was not a dream. I wonder what Rainbow Dash would think if she were here.” Tracy looked over at her guest. “Nice of you to wake up. What’s a dream?” Lightwing closed her eyes. “A dream is when our brain shows us stuff as we sleep. It’s almost like you're awake, but you’re not. If you're good enough, you can control what happens in your dream.” “Sounds interesting. We plants don’t have the thing you call a brain.” Lighting let out a yawn. “Do I need to get up? I’m so comfy. This heated bed is really nice. Even if it’s just a pile of smooth dirt.” “You have to get up at some point if you want to talk to our goddess.” “Fine,” replied Lightwing. “But first answer this. Is that a book made from magic?” Tracy giggled. “No, it’s not made from magic. It’s just a hologram.” “How is that possible without magic?” asked Lightwing. “When your technology gets this advanced, you will know. Have you ever seem space from up close?” Lightwing put a hoof on her chin. “Technology that is like magic. That’s cool. No I have never seen space from up close. Only from the planet’s surface.” Do you want to see it up close? It’s really beautiful and the planet looks amazing from in space.” Lightwing stood up. Her face showing happiness and a hint of disbelief. “Did you just offer to take me to space? Like the space where the planets and stars sit in.” “Yes.” “That sounds amazing. I want to go now. How long till we can get there? I’m guessing you have some sort of technology to get us there.” Tracy opened the door to Lightwing’s room. “We can leave right now. We just need to walk to the spaceship docking building and rent a ship.” Tracy and Lightwing left the house. Lightwing could now see the small town at its best. Every building was made from stone, but the architect was very different from her world. Canterlot looks better than this place and yet this place has better technology. Other plant life forms were still staring at Lightwing as she walked by, but she paid no attention. It took six minutes to reach their target building. Lightwing looked around the inside of the building, observing everything. “Every space ship is made from vines and stone. Nothing here looks like it could fly...let alone make it off the ground.” “O ye of little faith,” Tracy said with a smile. “Just because it looks like it can't fly does not mean it won’t fly. Now follow me onto a ship and we will fly.” Lightwing followed Tracy onto a small ship that was made for four passengers. They both sat down, and Tracy connected her roots into some vines on the floor and grabbed the steering wheel with her leaf-hands. Tracy smiled as the spaceship began to shake. “Time for take off.” Lightwing could hear the engines turning on. The ship began to hover in the air. Tracy turned toward Lightwing. “Pony-girl, You should sit against the back wall.” Lightwing scooted back a little and sat against the back wall. The small spaceship turned so that the front was facing the ceiling of the building. Lightwing would have fallen onto the back wall if she were not already there. Lightwing watched as the stone ceiling of the building the ship was in slowly opened up. The engines began to make some more noise. Tracy grabbed the steering wheel tightly. “Hold onto your wings, pony-girl!” The ship zoomed out of the building, flying straight up at amazing speed. Lightwing could feel the force of gravity pulling her against the back wall. She could barely move. “How long will this last?” She asked. “About one hundred seconds. I just realised that I never found out what your name is.” “It’s Lightwing.” It feels like I’m getting heavier every second. She thought to herself. As they were passing through the atmosphere of the planet, Lightwing could see a few stars coming into view. The blackness of space was coming more into view too as they continued their journey. To Lightwing’s amazement, there were no clouds in the sky for the whole trip. The blueness of the sky had completely vanished and the blackness of space and stars now took up all of their view. “Ten seconds left,” said Tracy. At the end of the ten seconds, the spaceship’s engines turned off and Lightwing began to float in the air. Tracy disconnected her roots from the vine and floated toward her friend. “So what do you think?” she asked. ‘“Well...I’m use to flying but not like this. It’s more like I’m swimming. The stars are so clear in the sky. I can see stuff that I could never see from on a planet. Although...the stars don’t twinkle from up here but that does not matter.” Tracy floated back toward the steering wheel. “You need to see the planet now.” The engines hummed lightly and the ship slowly turned to its right. Lightwing stared out the front window. She assumed it was made of invisible stone, just like the window in the room she spent the night in. A faint blue glow appeared on the right side of the window. The blue light got brighter as the ship turned more until the planet started coming into view. A large ocean could be seen as more of the planet came into their range of sight. The ocean had a few visible islands on it, but it was mostly just water. A large piece of land bigger than the ocean was coming into view. The land had a brown tint to it. Lightwing assumed it was from all the dirt that covered the planet. The land was mostly flat but it did have a few mountain ranges, valleys and forests that stood out with the bright green color they had. A large forest came into view. At the edge of the forest a mountain range was becoming visible. This was the largest forest and mountain range on the planet. The forest surrounded the mountains, almost like it was protecting them. The mountain range seemed to be curving around something too. Lightwing was eager to see what was at the center of them. Lightwing raised an eyebrow as she saw leaves come into view. They were above the sky and clouds. “I should not be able to see leaves from this high up.” Tracy shook her head as more and more leaves came into view. Lightwing was amazed as she saw a tree trunk in the center of the mountain range. The tree shined with a magic glow. “That tree is thicker than the whole mountain range surrounding it, and it reaches into space. That has to be the biggest tree on the planet…” Realisation hit Lightwing. “That’s the tree I saw on the horizon. That’s the protector of the planet, the goddess of their world.” The huge tree took up most of their window as the mountains and forest took up what was left at bottom. “Isn’t the Tree of Life beautiful?” asked Tracy. “Yes,” replied Lightwing. Lightwing watched as the tree, mountains, and forest slowly left her range of sight. A large shadow was being cast by the huge tree but the shadow was hard to see because the planet was getting darker. Darkness was taking over the window fast. Soon the planet appeared to be a dark spot in space. The only light coming from it was from large cities. Tracy turned and smiled. “That’s pretty much the whole planet. You saw the Great Ocean, the Tree of Life, the land of our world, the day side and the night side. The ocean takes up about thirty percent of the planet and the land takes up the rest. There are rivers and lakes, but most of the water is in the ocean.” Lightwing continued staring at the dark circle with little blobs of lights on it. “I wonder what my world looks like from space.” Lightwing saw a different spaceship flying away from the planet. “Where are they going?” “Probably to the Space Observation Platform,” answered Tracy. “Its a large structure we built in space. We use it for observation. They would never let a pony on it, so don’t ask to go there. I think it’s time for us to go back to the planet. I hope you liked the small tour around the planet.” Tracy began flying the ship back toward the day side of the planet. Lightwing fell to the floor with a bang as gravity returned. The trip back to the surface was a lot smoother and a little longer then the trip into space.