//------------------------------// // Reality Hits // Story: You're Wanted: I'll Always Protect You // by SciWriter //------------------------------// (***) I slowly rose to my hooves. I heard the laughing of Pyromance as I steadied myself and looked around. I was standing in a huge sandy waste land. There appeared to be nothing around me for miles. Well nothing save for Lightning Strike and Vinyl who stood with me in the dust. “Where the hell is this?” I asked. I noticed two small figures coming towards us, looking like some kind of bipedal creatures. They were dressed in excessive clothing from head to hoof, so I couldn’t tell what they looked like. They stopped walking and seemed to look at us. I looked up, seeing Pyromance flying overhead. “Ha ha! Didn’t you listen? This is earth. Home to billions of creatures, none of them possessing magic.” A ring of fire surrounded us. “And as the followers of Gray descend upon this world, no one will be around to warn them. Hm… when Gray heard of my plan to come here, he thought we would need to negotiate with these creatures. Ha! They will serve us as slaves. I will burn you to a cinder here so no one will warn-“ several bolts of electricity barely grazed Pyromance, the flames around us disappearing. Those bolts did NOT comes from Lightning Strike. I looked back at the creatures that I saw earlier. They had both thrown off the bulk of their clothes. Beside us were now two creatures that looked like what Lyra often described as “humans”. One looked like a young “boy”. He was dressed in blue pants of some kind, a red shirt and an open vest. The other human looked like a girl, herself dressed in a bright red shirt and bright green pants. Both of them had pale skin and raven black hair. The girl pointed a small sword at the flying pony. “Okay, I’ve heard enough,” she shouted. “What the heck are you?” “Your soon to be conqueror.” He flew down and landed in front of her. He then looked over at my group. “Watch as I dispatch these creatures with a power such as your feeble minds have never known.” “Pyrokinesis?” the girl asked. She looked over her shoulder at her partner. “What do you say Kyle, been a good month since we last saw that?” the boy shrugged. “Give or take?” he nodded. “Are you… mocking me?” Pyromance said. “No,” she looked over at me. “I’m sorry but can you hold on for a minute? Just a minute I promise.” “um…” “Thanks,” she pointed at my mane. “Is that hair naturally that color?” I looked at her bewildered. “I’m sorry, I just have to know.” “DO NOT IGNORE ME!” Pyromance shouted. Fire surrounded the entire group. “You and your friend will now die along with all of them for your ignorance-“ the girl balled up her hands and slammed them together, a massive amount of lightning and electric energy surrounding her and shooting into the air. The girl had dropped her sword, but electricity appeared to catch it in the air and a second was drawn out of a sheath on her left hip. The girl closed her eyes, both swords floating on either side of her head. “Die,” said the girl. The swords flew forward, slamming into Pyromance and skewering him. He dropped down, his fires disappearing. My jaw dropped. “Um… didn’t he say there was no magic in this world?” I asked. “Magic?” asked the girl. She took her swords in her hands, her electric energy disappearing. “I mean- hang on, can you fly?” she asked. I flew into the air above the group. “Kyle… it’s a flying rainbow maned pony that talks- can I keep it?” “Umm…” said the boy. “I’m still getting passed the idea of talking ponies here, Jessica.” “They’re multicolored ponies that talk, what’s to explain?” Jessica asked. “The yellow one is really cute, I think she’s a baby.” “I’m not a baby!” shouted Lightning Strike. "That was-ADORABLE!" the girl shouted. I shook my head. “I have no idea what you just did there, but it’s good to see this world isn’t without defenders. I suspect a lot more ponies like that guy will be coming here soon. They'll be coming to conquer you all.” Jessica appeared to stifle a laugh. “Um… that thing was supposed to be a big deal?” she asked. “Um… yea,” I said. “How many?” asked the boy. “Hundreds… maybe thousands I don’t know.” I said. Jessica looked at her friend. “Was that guy important?” she asked, not even looking at us. “Their leader now.” I looked over at the corpse. “Okay so maybe he was… by the way who are you? Champion warriors of this world or…” I waved a hoof for them to explain themselves. “Um… Kyle and Jessica, we’re the Finders. We um… find lost kids.” I blinked at her. “We’re um… okay at it.” “Are you even a big deal here?” I asked. “To the kids we bring home I think we are,” Jessica answered. She scratched her head. “But to be honest, that thing wanted to invade THIS world with forces weaker than himself right?” “Kinda the same powers I guess,” I said. “That’s gonna be… probably the most hilariously anticlimactic invasion in history.” “What are you?” I asked. The girl smiled. “Ya know, maybe sometime in the future we’ll meet again and I can explain,” she looked up. “But that blue portal thing you came through is um… I think it’s closing. Unless you have a plan to open it again, I would just go.” “You guys can handle this?” “An army of a few hundred is gonna try to conquer a world of billions?” Jessica asked. She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if to say that was the stupidest thing she had ever heard. “Kid, just go. We got this. I would make an analogy about a bug meeting a windshield, but I’m not sure you would get it. Just go.” I picked up Vinyl and flew back into the portal, Lightning following. (***) So yea, Gray died. He died by the hoof of a local musician and his armies were going to be defeated in a world where their powers wouldn’t even be considered important. (To tell the truth I was envisioning them going to that world Twilight visited a while ago, but I’m pretty sure that was a different “earth”. How many of those are there anyway? Mystery for another day I guess.) There I stood with AJ on her farm, watching the Cutie Mark Crusaders scuffling in the reeds. I cheered for Scootaloo, whose injuries had started letting up a while ago, so she could keep up a little with her friends now. A week had gone by. Twilight wasn’t completely out of the woods, but the doctors believed she would survive what happened to her. It would probably be a year before she was totally on her hooves again though. Most of my friends were physically on the mend by this point, all save for AJ, who we had all accepted was now how she would always be. “So that’s all that happened on the other side?” asked AJ. “Not what ah would expect. But ah guess it’s a happy enough ending right?” I shrugged. “So what happened to Lightning’s cutie mark?” she asked. “I… don’t know,” I replied. “I think it disappeared in that other world. I have no idea why though. Mine is still around so… hm… Well it doesn’t seem to really bother Lightning too much so maybe we shouldn’t worry about it.” “Ah hope so. That filly’s been through enough ya know?” she asked. “Haven’t we all?” I asked. “Ya know, ah kinda doubt ALL of Gray forces are gonna follow that foolhardy plan of Pyro’s,” AJ pointed out. “I kinda wonder if that was really Gray’s only plan in case of his death.” I nodded. “Really, doesn’t strike me as Gray’s kind of material. More like something that moron Pyromance thought up himself.” “Ah wonder if Gray really is dead this time.” She shook her head. “So many questions. Think we’ll ever know the answers?” “I think I’d like to try to just forget all of this even happened, like Celestia said. “Ah will never ferget RD,” she said. I closed my eyes. “Don’t mean ah’m gonna stop you.” “I said I would try…” “What happened to Pip’s body?” AJ asked. “Buried… by even more ponies who I’m sure want to forget this even happened… but I don’t think they’ll be able to either.” I couldn’t stop myself. I broke down and cried, laying in the dirt. The crusaders stopped play fighting and surrounded me almost in a heartbeat. “Rainbow Dash?” asked Scootaloo. “You okay?” I hugged her quickly. She seemed confused at first, but soon hugged me back. “I’ll be okay Scoots. I don’t know what’s coming. But I have you. I have what counts. I have you.” Through teary eyes I watched Lightning flying overhead. A white unicorn walked up to our group. She smiled down at me. She didn’t have to say anything. I knew she understood. We had what really mattered. The end… at least… I hope so.