//------------------------------//
// The Lost One- part 6 
// Story: The Changed One 
// by peacevic 
//------------------------------//

The Lost One- part six

"Wait, what?"
Her face was set, it was probably the gravest I'd ever seen her. In person or otherwise. "Show me what happened to us."
I shook my head. "Absolutely not."
"You showed Derpy." She took a step forward.
"That's different." I explained. "She needed to see what she was capable of."
Another step. "I need to see what happened so I can stop it in my time. I have to save my friends."
This time, I took the step. We were now face to face. "Damn it, Twilight! They aren't your friends! This isn't your Equestria! It won't ever be."
"Please." She pleaded. "I have to know. Wouldn't you?"
I could see she wasn't going to relent, so I reluctantly did. "Fine." I growled. "I'll play the Ghost of Christmas Future for you."
"Thank you." She said as we walked back to the main area of the Tardis.
I narrowed my eyes. "Don't thank me. And remember that you asked for this."
"Is the spat over?" The Doctor asked as we entered the room. We must have gotten a little loud.
"We could hear shouting, but not what you were shouting about."
"Just debating what direction we should go, Derpy." I told her. "Doctor, could you hook me back up? We have a few more stops to make."
He nodded and set to work. As he adjusted the helmet, I turned to Twilight. "Three things before we get started."
"What?" She asked.
"These things are not negotiable."
She sighed. "I get it. What are they?"
"One: I will not show you where you ended."
"Ended?" The Doctor muttered.
Twilight didn't catch it. "That's reasonable. What else?"
"Two: I will only show you your friends. Not Celestia, not your mom. Just your friends." I saw Twilight's eyes widen as she realized she had forgotten about them. "No." I insisted.
"Fine. What's the third?"
The Doctor finished his adjustments and nodded again. "All set."
"Thanks." I said, then turned back to Twilight. "Third: I don't know what happened to Rainbow Dash. No one does, and the only ones who could possibly know died over a century ago."
Twilight's eyes went to the floor. "Ok..."
"That said, who's first?"
She didn't look up. "I don't know. You decide, I can't."
The Tardis whooshed, then we arrived. I took the helmet off. Now that the Doctor had messed with it, slipping it on and off was much easier. I led the others outside.
We had landed in an overgrown apple orchard. A short distance away, I could see a squad of Rangers.
"Is this... Sweet Apple Acres?" Twilight asked. "Did Applejack die here?"
"Below us is a Stable." Was my answer. "Coincidentally, the same one Littlepip comes from."
"What are those ponies doing?" Derpy pointed at the armored Rangers.
"Never-mind them. Let's just get back in the Tardis before anyone notices us." We did, and I put the helmet back on. "Before the bombs fell, Applejack managed to reach the Stable. She had a kid and died, peacefully, a few decades later."
Twilight almost smiled. "I'm glad she wasn't hurt."
"This is the happiest ending your friends get." I told her. She nodded, as if she understood. I knew there was no way she could. "Who now?"
"Fluttershy." Was the eventual response.
We whooshed again. I stopped everyone before they left the Tardis.
"Twilight, before we go outside, we need a shield. As strong as you can make and move around."
She surrounded us in purple and we exited. The second we did, the vines attacked. "What are these things?" The Doctor asked, half curious and half mildly afraid.
"A mutation of Poison Joke." I replied. "The wastelanders call it Killing Joke, which I always took as a reference on the author's part. Come on." The shield parted the vines as we moved.
"This..." I said as we reached the tree. "This is Fluttershy."
Twilight laid a hoof on the bark. "The Joke turned her into a tree?"
"Yep."
She touched her forehead to Fluttershy. "Did it- did it hurt?"
"Probably extremely." I told her. "But don't worry, she didn't die."
Twilight's eyes brightened. "She's alive?"
"She is. She's spent the last 200 years watching as the Joke killed ponies in front of her."
"Wh-" Twilight choked.
"Verdant Spark!" Derpy practically shouted at me in shock.
"We have to help her." The Doctor insisted.
I shook my head. "No we don't. Soon the Wasteland Savior's friends will save her."
"How soon?" Twilight's eyes had begun to mist slightly.
"Relatively, very soon. Let's go."
Everyone followed me back to the Tardis, reluctantly. "Twilight, I don't think we should keep doing this." Derpy cautioned.
"I have to. Thanks, but I have to." She gave the pegasus a hug, then turned to me. "Rarity next."
A third whoosh. After the vines last time, no one rushed to the doors. Of course, Fluttertree wasn't much of a motivator to continue. I took the lead. "Come on. The room we're in should be safe."
We filed out, the Tardis making the office we'd landed in slightly cramped.
"Oh... no!" Derpy was the first to see the skeleton by the window.
The three of them approached it (or her, rather), as if in a funeral procession. When they got close, the Doctor and Derpy held off, letting Twilight be as alone with her friend as possible. She sat next to the former dressmaker, her gaze never leaving the remains. "Rarity?"
"Yes." Was the simple answer.
"We have to bury her."
"We can't."
She jerked around. "We have to-"
I shut her down. "We can't." She deflated a little and I continued. "You can't recognize it, but this is Canterlot. The site of the worst attack of the entire war."
"So that's what this pink stuff is." The Doctor said, examining the windows. "Residue from whatever weapon the Zebras used."
"Not residue." I corrected. "This is the weapon. The attack never stopped. For the last couple centuries, Canterlot and the surrounding area has been rotting under a cloud of revolting, cheerfully pink pure necromantic death. This room is one of the few places that aren't covered in it, either due to luck or sacrifice."
The Doctor was dumbfounded. "The attack is still going on? What kind of weapon could do this?"
"The kind the Zebras were confident could kill gods."
Derpy gasped. "Celestia, Luna..."
"Did they...?"
"Only your friends, Twilight." I reminded her. "Not Celestia, not your mom. You agreed."
She looked back at Rarity. "You said 'sacrifice'. You meant this room, her sacrifice."
"I did."
Twilight touched the skeleton, clearly wanting to cradle it, but she didn't dare move it from the hole it was plugging. The tears started flowing. "Why didn't she just run? What would make her stay? Would make her..."
"What would make you?" I asked, laying a hoof on her shoulder. "Who would make you?"
"My friends." She breathed.
"Your friends felt the same way."
She squeaked. "Me?"
I could understand what she meant, so I shook my head. "No, you were nowhere near Canterlot during the attack."
The knowledge that she wasn't the cause was almost kind of a relief. What I said next wasn't. "It was Fluttershy. Rarity died teleporting Angel and Fluttershy to safety."
"To safety?" She was almost inaudible.
Derpy tugged on Twilight. "Come on, let's get out of here. Let's leave, Twilight, and go find a way out of this horrible world."
"Yes. Leave." Twilight mumbled. "Pinkie Pie."
"Twilight, no." Derpy insisted. "Forget about it."
"Pinkie Pie."
"Please, Twilight, let's just-"
"Pinkie Pie!" Twilight roared in her face.
Derpy shrank back and Twilight stomped to the Tardis. Derpy followed, but the Doctor held me back.
"Are you enjoying this?" He hissed.
"Absolutely not."
He scoffed. "Really? 'Cause you certainly relished telling her that her friend died in vain."
"Relish? Is that what you saw? Well, let me tell you something. I teared up when all this was just a story! Before I met you, or Derpy, or Twilight, or any of the ponies of this world! So let go of me or I'll tell Twilight you're refusing to let me take her to her friend." We locked eyes. "The state she's in, what do you think she'll do to you? A sleeping spell, if you're lucky?"
He let go, and we joined the others. Out of respect for the sensibilities of my fellow travelers, I tried what I knew would fail. "Twilight... I told you that Applejack had the only happy ending. Are you sure you want to keep going?"
"Pinkie Pie." She responded, as if it was the only thing she knew how to say.
"Fine." I said softly, as we whooshed to the last stop on our tour. Twilight was the first out the door, no longer caring about danger.
Outside was a burned-out office, its windows blasted inwards. Twilight rounded the desk in the center of the room and noticed the statuette lying in a pile of bones. The statuette of her. "What is this?" She asked, pointing at it.
"That is one of forty or so statuettes of you and your friends. Rarity had them made, using pieces of her own soul, so that no matter how far apart the war took you, you would always be together."
"Oh, Rarity." Twilight mourned yet another sacrifice by her friend.
"It didn't work." I informed her. "As the head of the Ministry of Morale, it was Pinkie Pie's job to capture dissidents and saboteurs. To help her do that, she took mind-enhancing drugs that boosted her Pinkie Sense. Boosted it so much that she was somehow able to communicate with Littlepip, here in the future. But you didn't see how they helped her, you only saw the addiction they caused. She wouldn't stop taking them, so you cut her off. Completely. You avoided going to the same places as her and you refused to take her calls. To the very end, though, she kept trying. Her last act, apart from ordering an assault that was only minutes from saving this city, was to call you and beg that you come with her to a rehab appointment. You never got the message."
"Is that why the doll's here?"
I could tell she already knew what I was going to say, but I answered anyway. She wanted to hear it. "Yes. She was holding it when the blast hit her."
"Can I take it with me?" She started to reach for it.
"No." She stopped and look at me, confused. I grimaced slightly. "I'm sorry, but Littlepip needs that doll way more than you do. She'll fail without it."
Twilight looked back at the doll.
"You have to leave that thing here. I'm serious." I warned her. "Littlepip needs-"
"I don't care what Littlepip needs." She went for it again.
"I said NO!" I grabbed her foreleg and started dragging her back to the Tardis.
The doors closed behind Derpy and the Doctor, and Twilight collapsed against the console, sobbing. "Why would you show me that? Why..." She trailed off as another wave of tears came. Derpy knelt and hugged her tight.
"Because you asked me to. I'm going to take a nap now, wake me when the Tardis finds something important." I started walking away.
The Doctor didn't let me get too far. "That was cruel and you know it."
"Oh, of course. But it was necessary."
He spun me by the shoulder. "How could something like that possibly be necessary?"
I pushed his hoof off of me. "Because now, instead of wondering and worrying about what happened to this version of her friends, Twilight can focus on helping us all get home."
He stepped back and looked at me as if I'd slapped him. "I expected better from you." He chuckled and looked down at his hooves, smiling like he was the biggest joke in the world. "I don't know why, I don't even know you, but still..."
I'd had enough. "Guess what, Doctor? I don't care. I AM NOT YOUR COMPANION!" I gestured vaguely away from us. "And I'm not her subject, either."
"What are you, then?"
My voice caught as I turned to answer Derpy's gently asked question. They were both there, Twilight practically being carried by the pegasus. "We couldn't help but overhear." Derpy explained. Be 'we', however, she clearly meant just her, as Twilight was more or less catatonic. "So? What are you?"
"I..." The anger had run out of steam, so now I was just sad. "I'm lost. I want to go home." Then my voice became steel. "And I will do anything it takes to make that happen."
"You're a monster." Twilight whispered.
"You have no idea what a real monster even is." I snapped at her. "Consider yourself lucky that Equestia's never seen one."
Everyone was quiet after that, and a little while later we all went our separate ways.

There were no clues for the Tardis to pick up, so the silence lasted for a few days. Finally, I cornered Derpy and broke it. "How is she?"
"She's sad, Verdant." Derpy said. "You really hurt her with your little tour."
"But this isn't her world! For God's sake, we met this world's version of you, doesn't she get-?" I stopped, realizing I was just justifying. I sank into a slump against a wall. "I really am a monster, aren't I?"
She sat beside me. "No, Verdant, you're not a monster. You're just... You're hurting, too. Maybe not as deeply or openly as Twilight is right now, but it's still there." When I looked at her quizzically, she smiled and continued. "This world, it's terrible. It's awful. It's the worst thing I've ever seen, and I've seen more bad things than most ponies. But it's still recognizably Equestria. I know these places. They're a little different, but still." She took my hoof in hers. "And Twilight and I are still ponies. The Doctor' gotten used to his pony form and he's used to changing his body. You aren't. What's worse, you can't even remember who you are. You're missing a big chunk of yourself, and it's making you lash out. Making you a little mean. Does that make you a monster? No. It just means you're vulnerable, like everypony else."
I thought about that for a minute, then made a decision. "Derpy, can you go ask the others to meet me in the control room?"
She gave my hoof a pat and left.
When the three of them entered the main area of the Tardis, only one of them seemed happy to see me. Twilight's glare was generally venomous, whereas the the Doctor's eyes were narrow because he saw that I was holding the helmet.
"What are you doing, Verdant?" He demanded.
I nervously fiddled with the helmet. "I have one final thing to show you. Think of it as an apology. Or, at least, an explanation."
Before anything else could be said, I slipped the helmet on and we whooshed. No one moved when we landed.
"Come on." I said wearily. This wasn't going to be easy.
The area outside the Tardis was covered in smoke. Through the haze we could just barely make out the forms of Littlepip and her friends, collected around a giant pyre. None of them were in any shape to notice us.
"Where are we?" Twilight asked, covering her nose to block out the smell. She looked from the pyre to the bullet-ridden buildings, and then back to Littlepip and the fire. "What is this place?"
"This is, or was, the town of Arbu. And this is the morning after Littlepip massacred every adult who lived here."
Their response came as a shocked chorus. "What?"
"They were cannibals." I weakly explained.
The Doctor was furious. I had left this bit out when I spoke to him earlier. "This is your Savior? This is your hero?"
"This is the Wasteland." I reminded him. "There are no heroes. But she can still be a savior. Her actions, good, bad, or worse, can change this place into a country where there can be heroes. Where ponies can be good to each other."
They quieted and I dropped to my haunches, looking at the dirt. "But that's only if we don't screw everything up." I looked at Twilight. "That's why I was so adamant about that damn doll. We take one domino out and that's it, Littlepip fails. This place stays a hellhole."
"That's not everything, is it Verdant?" Derpy pushed.
"No, no it's not." I kicked at the dirt. "I'm sorry, all of you. You're only in this world because I was selfish, and scared, and desperate. I could've figured this out on my own, but I was in a rush. Please forgive me."
Twilight looked to the others, then back to me. "None of us hate you, Verdant. Not really. But it's too soon for forgiveness." She grinned a little, to soften the blow. "You'll just have to earn it by helping us all go home."
"That, Twilight, sounds like a challenge."