//------------------------------// // Heartfelt Moments // Story: The Outsiders // by Arania //------------------------------// “How in the name of Celestia’s luminescent off-pink backside did you survive?” Lyra’s question hung in the air, unanswered, for the better part of an hour, unceremoniously shoved aside in favor of helping the arriving army of emergency response ponies tend to the injured and distressed. Or, more accurately, outright forgotten as medical teams press-ganged the team of evidently-uninjured Outsiders into patient transport and stabilisation. By the time doctors and nurses had stopped barking orders at her and she remembered that she had, in fact, been asked a question, she found herself surrounded by unknown ponies in a hospital, with the rest of her team, yet again, nowhere in sight. It took another fifteen minutes for her to track them down and either bribe or threaten their impromptu supervisors to release them for ‘more important’ work. All except for Lyra, who stubbornly refused to be found. Uncharacteristically, Rainboom gave up after just north of five minutes extra searching, not wanting to spend any further unnecessary time within the hospital and reasoning that whenever she was ready, Lyra would come find them. Twilight, the only Canterlot native among the remaining four, directed them to a nearby cafe, ordered a set of hay-shakes, sat down, and fixed Rainboom with a penetrating gaze. “Well?” Twilight demanded. “What?” “You’re supposed to be dead. I saw you die.” “Nice to see you too, by the way,” Rainboom quipped, sipping the shake. “We all saw you die,” Twilight reiterated, gesturing to the others. “Was I dead when that Sparkle threw me into the Void?” “No… but…” “Then you didn’t see me die, did you?” “If somepony got thrown into a river of lava, being alive before they hit doesn’t change the fact that they are going to be dead, very quickly.” “Entirely true.” “Oh, for Celestia’s sake,” Walleye interrupted, abruptly sitting up and nearly spilling her untouched hay-shake. “Rain, stop dodging the question. We all thought you were dead! How did you survive?” “Did you mourn me?” Rainboom asked, only barely managing to maintain a straight face. “Yes,” Pinkie replied, visibly torn between sadness and outright elation. “Awesome!” Rainboom grinned. “For all of five minutes until our little Insider Sparkle here broke reality,” Walleye added. “And then we fought a mountain. The mourning was mostly in the background while we tried not to follow your lead.” “Okay, now I know you’re yanking my tail. A mountain? You need to learn to bluff better, boss.” “She’s not joking, Dashie,” Pinkie said, somber. “Dashie? I… What?” “She… We’re not joking, Rainboom,” Twilight interrupted, pre-empting the impending derailing questions. “There was a mountain that tried to kill us, we thought you were dead. You’re obviously not. How?” “I… snagged a branch and pulled myself to the surface.” Pinkie, Walleye, and Twilight all stared at her, at a loss for words. “What?” they asked, simultaneously. “That’s pretty much it, really,” Rainboom reiterated. “I couldn’t see a Celestia-damned thing once I flew out that hole, so I couldn’t tell you what it was, but I grabbed it and dragged myself along it until I pulled myself into open air and passed out. Woke up staring up at myself.” “On the Shard?” Twilight asked. “Yeah. Evidently this is a bit of a thing for them, they’ve got entire teams for it. Figures I’d be on it, wouldn’t be surprised if the entire rescue team was me…” “I can’t help but consider the irony here considering that you turned up quite literally carrying yourself,” Twilight observed. “Your ego truly is boundless, Rainboom.” “Yeah, yeah. Wouldn’t have been carrying me if the whole world hadn’t fallen out from under my hooves, what’s up with that?” Walleye smirked, fixing Twilight with a smug glare. “I…” Twilight began, sheepishly. “May, may, mind you, have lost control, slightly.” “Understatement of the year, right there,” Walleye said, turning back to Rainboom. “She went nuts interrogating the Sparkle that threw you out into the Void, everything broke, and we ended up in Tartarus.” “I told you before,” Twilight corrected. “It wasn’t Tartarus. It was… some Other place, like a graveyard where all the flotsam and jetsam that isn’t blasted clean into the Void washes up.” “And what about the Sparkle?” Rainboom asked. “The one that ambushed her. Did she ‘wash up’ with you?” “No, she…” Twilight trailed off as she tried to recall when she awoke in the ‘graveyard,’ a cold chill running down her spine as she pieced together the conclusion based on her own position and the orientation of the debris around her. “She’s dead. Most likely. Hopefully.” “Dead?” “As close as one gets from being superimposed with a block of solid rock,” Twilight replied. “Though considering our current track record of living-things-embedded-inside-rock-that-ought-to-be-dead, it’s entirely possible she survived. Personally, I hope she’s dead, it would be a mercy compared to the alternative.” “Either way,” she continued, clearly trying to avoid thinking about the reality of her doppelganger being encased in rock. “She isn’t coming after us.” “Is that a ‘I hope,’ or a definite there?” Rainboom asked. “The last thing we need is more evil Outsiders coming after us.” “It’s a definite,” Twilight confirmed. “She’s either dead, or trapped in solid rock, or even if she’s not, she’s trapped on that world like we were without the tools I used to escape us. She is now irrelevant, and I would very much like us to stop talking about it.” “...Why?” “Because I have killed myself twice now, and I would very much like to stop.” Everypony fell silent, digesting Twilight’s statement, trying to unravel the inadequate chain of pronouns into something comprehensible. Pinkie was the first to break the silence, distracted by something completely unrelated. “Lyra!” she cried, sitting up and waving. “Over here!” Everypony perked up, thankful for something, anything to distract them from Twilight’s focus on recent morbid events. Lyra on the other hand looked anything but thankful, clearly debating if she could get away with ‘not hearing’ Pinkie’s beckons and heading in the other direction. It was only at the apparent insistence of her companion, who Twilight recognised as an Outsider Rarity, that she acquiesced and approached. Pinkie, evidently even more eager than the others to have cheerful company, or perhaps simply just being her usual welcoming self, wasted no time pulling extra chairs for the newcomers to the steadily-crowding table. Surprisingly, though, it was Rarity who broke the silence first. “So,” she opened, surveying the table. “This is who you’ve been saddled with, Yankee. A Pie and a Sparkle. I suppose you could have done worse.” “Sorry, do I know you?” Walleye replied, raising an eyebrow. “No, but I know you from reputation,” Rarity replied, grabbing a menu from a nearby unoccupied table with her magic and perusing it. “I was the pony that was sent to retrieve Lyra after your bungle retrieving Theta.” “That wasn’t a bungle, I’ll have you know,” Walleye growled back, eyes narrowing. “Somepony tipped her off. It was a trap.” “My oh my, such a temper!” Rarity chuckled. “Do calm down, dear. I meant nothing of it, only repeating what I had heard. Rumors and hearsay, nothing more.” Walleye backed off slightly, still fixing Rarity with a malevolent glare. “Though such rumors have increased of late,” she continued, ignoring Walleye. “Even disregarding the obvious mystery of the piece of Exterior that has fallen from the sky, there’s the fact that nopony’s beacons seem to work anymore. It’s been… a week? There’s been a few scattered Outsiders who managed to find their way here, but nopony knows what’s going on.” “I’ll bet my coiffure that one of you ponies knows what’s going on, though. Lyra here has been somewhat tight-lipped, which I suppose is understandable considering her friend’s injury, but I expect some answers from at least one of you four. Spill.” “What are you talking about?” Rainboom blurted. “None of us are injured.” “Up in the hospital,” Rarity replied. “There was a Sparkle that Lyra here was fawning ovmmph?” Rarity scowled, struggling as Lyra shoved her hoof over Rarity’s mouth. “...I’m not injured…” Twilight stated, confused. “Not you,” Rainboom cut in. “Some other Sparkle...” Pinkie Pie almost audibly inflated, grin splitting her face from ear to ear. “Mate!” she squeed, pointing at Lyra. Everypony looked at her, entirely confused. “Mate!” she repeated, gesturing between Lyra and the hospital building. The looks of confusion intensified, mixed with mild irritation. “Ugh, seriously?” Pinkie whined, exasperated. “Am I the only one who picks up on this sort of stuff?” Everypony continued to stare, clearly waiting for her to get to the point. “When she said she crashed with a ‘mate’ on Harmony’s Shard, it wasn’t some expression, it’s what they do togemmmpfh?” Pinkie glared at Lyra as it became her turn to have her mouth filled with hoof, her triumphant explanation cut abruptly short. Though judging by the dawning expressions of revelation on everypony’s faces (or in Twilight’s case, mild disgust), it has been too little, too late. “Oh, Celestia above,” Rainboom cackled, gaze snapping back and forth between Twilight and Lyra, tears pooling in her eyes as she struggled to contain her laughter. “This… this explains so much. This is why you’ve been so soft on her, even though she’s an Insider!” Lyra glared at her, rosy embarrassment easily showing through her aqua fur as she gestured at Walleye to control her out-of-control subordinate, only for the grey pegasus to waggle her eyebrows and tilt her head suggestively towards Twilight. “Can you two take nothing seriously?” Lyra barked. “How is this relevant?” “Oh, that’s rich,” Walleye chuckled. “Coming from you. You couldn’t be serious a day in your life!” “Fair call there, but this isn’t grouse, Walleye. It’s not even relevant. So what if-” “-you have a Sparkle that you roll in the hay with?” Rainboom interrupted, only able to hold her composure until the end of the sentence before she rolled backwards off her chair and onto the sidewalk, cackling mercilessly. “Root-minded dipsticks, the both of you,” Lyra muttered, sitting back in her chair and pouting. “She’s right, I think,” Twilight added, almost having to shout to be heard over Rainboom’s mirthful cacophony. “This isn’t relevant or constructive in the slightest.” “Indeed,” Rarity chipped in. “Discussion of one’s bedroom arrangements is hardly something to be done in polite company, and that’s ignoring the fact that I asked you a question.” “Sorry,” Walleye apologised, giving Rainboom a stiff kick to the barrel to get her back on-task. “Forgot it during the amusement. Repeat for me?” “Why are our beacons not working any more?” Rarity repeated. “And ‘it’s classified’ isn’t an acceptable answer.” For a moment, it appeared as though Walleye was seriously considering giving that answer, if only to infuriate Rarity further. “Evil Outsiders attacked the Exterior and now we can’t get back.” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “You know this how?” “Celestia-Alpha sent her,” she gestured at Twilight, “a memory crystal or something with a recording of what happened.” “Do you have this with you?” Rarity asked, eyebrow raised. “Can I watch the recording? Or do I have to take your word on this?” “No, not my word, her word,” Walleye gestured as Twilight again. “Crystal only works for her.” Rarity paused, eyes narrowed in thought. “Okay, slight side-track to clear something up. You’re asking me to trust the word of an Insider, which isn’t as confusing as the fact that you’re asking me to trust an Insider, as though you trust her word yourself. I might not know you that well, but I know enough to call horseapples on that. You hate Insiders. Tartarus, you’d probably wipe out an entire city of Insiders without a second thought.” “You can drop the ‘probably’ on that one,” Twilight corrected. “Sorry, what?” Rarity exclaimed, eyes darting between Walleye and Twilight. “Explain.” “I helped…” Twilight began, before correcting herself. “Walleye manipulated me into helping her steal a thaumonuclear device so she could destroy a city on EF.” Rarity’s eyes went wide with shock, quickly giving way to abject horror. “I… You nuked a city? WHY?” “They mutilated Lunatic,” Walleye replied matter-of-factly. “It was better than they deserved.” Half-formed syllables echoed over the table as Rarity repeatedly tried and failed to enunciate a response, before giving up and turning to Lyra. “And you went along with this?” “Honestly?” Lyra replied. “I couldn’t see a reason to try and stop it. EF is a Tartarus-hole anyway, and I’ve seen better worlds than that tumble into the Void before.” “And EF is marked as a high detachment hazard in the records!” Pinkie chipped in. “Only a matter of time before it falls into the Void.” “Be that as it may,” Rarity said, slowly. “That is excessive. Even by Outsider standards.” “Oh come on, Rarity,” Walleye countered. “You might think it’s all noble and principled when you live down here all the time, but the fact of the matter is that Operations has nuked cities, no, detached entire worlds before when it’s advantageous to them. One city? A Falls city? In the grand scheme of things? Not even a drop in the ocean.” “This is absolute lunacy,” Rarity lamented. “You’ve all gone mad.” “No, it’d be lunacy if Lunatic was involved,” Pinkie grinned. “This is no time for jokes,” Rarity growled. “Not even going into what you’ve done, if the Insider’s claims are true, the Exterior is under attack by… evil Outsiders? What makes them evil?” “In the recording I got, they butchered everypony in Operations,” Twilight explained. “Based on what the one we captured said, they’re probably going to kill everypony they can find on the Exterior that represents a threat to them, or who isn’t demonstrably on their side, so basically everypony on the Exterior, period.” “I’m going to assume based on your track record this captive you mentioned is dead now,” Rarity surmised. “You’d be correct,” Walleye confirmed. “In any case,” Twilight continued. “This event bodes well for nopony. Apart from the fact that they’ve demonstrated a willingness to murder without even considering negotiation, consider the wider impact of this attack. Take Walleye’s willingness to casually erase entire cities and imagine an Exterior exclusively inhabited by ponies at least that equicidal or more so. And… wait…” “Well, I don’t see what we’re supposed to do about this,” Rarity concluded. “Our beacons aren’t working, so we’ve got no way to get onto the Exterior to fight them.” “Beacons aren’t the only way to get onto the Exterior,” Lyra corrected. “There are other routes.” “Everypony shut up for a second,” Twilight commanded. “Rarity, you said that Outsiders were congregating here in the wake of their beacons not working?” “Well, yes. Bastion is a commonly-known and commonly-used meeting place for Outsiders across the Interior.” “How well-known?” “Practically every Outsider who does work in the Interior knows about Bastion, rookie,” Walleye said. “I even know about Bastion. Please get to the point.” “We’re a threat to them.” The two facts connected themselves in Walleye’s mind a split-second too late for her to react in time. On the opposite side of the street, a building shattered, the shockwave slamming all six of them unceremoniously through the cafe shop front, closely followed by fragments of masonry and table.