2 - Levity
Jumping between times is, and always has been, a strange affair. The few times I had experimented with time travel magic had made the trip seem instantaneous, but moving across vast gulfs in space-time powered by Discord’s chaos was wholly different. I didn’t quite sleep, but I wasn’t awake either for the journey. Instead, I existed in a little pocket of the universe that wrapped me in a cocoon while I sped off to parts unknown.
Though I didn’t sleep, dreams still came to me. Sometimes they were of alien planets far outside any realm I had ever visited, with strange landscapes and life in a myriad of shapes and forms. Other times, they were about simple things, like flying on the wings I forced myself to hide, or tossing mountains around with magic. Lately, though, I hadn’t been so lucky to get any of those. Instead, what came to me were all too clear memories that I wished I could run away from like everything else.
I was back in Ponyville, the last time I had seen it. The skies were covered in clouds that were red as blood. The air felt hot, and I could taste Ozone on my tongue. It may have been a dream, but it felt real. I knew it was right after my fusion with Discord, from the way everypony else looked at me. All of my friends were there with the Elements of Harmony. It hadn’t been enough, and they knew it.
Their eyes upon me was almost too painful to bear, even hundreds of years later. It was all a mixture of anger and sadness, with a tinge of regret mixed in. Applejack was backing away while Pinkie had to be held by Rarity and Rainbow Dash lest she rush forward toward me. I wanted to speak to them, to tell them it was alright, that I wasn’t bad, but in my dream I couldn’t. I had to watch as they stopped looking at me as their friend, but suddenly as a monster. Discord had betrayed them, sure, but it was worse with me.
Then, inevitably, came the worst part of the dream: Princess Celestia’s arrival. I could see how she looked at me with bitterness and regret, and how she tried to lash out at Discord, the monster who had taken her prize student from her. I was too much for her by then, though. All the magic she could throw at me was nothing more than a pinprick that I brushed off. That was when I saw it. The fear in her eyes.
It hit me harder than the magic ever could, seeing my teacher and friend terrified of me. I might have broken down right then had the magic not kicked in. Just as it had all those years ago, in my dream white light wrapped around me and suddenly I wasn’t in Ponyville anymore, but halfway across the galaxy.
Alone, as always.
I emerged from my journey in a flash of white light about five feet off the ground, and didn’t have time to yell out before I fell on my tailbone hard enough that my teeth rattled, and if my tongue had been in the way I’m sure I would have bit it off. I rubbed my flank with one hoof while I stood up on the other three.
The ground below me was covered in grass, but it wasn’t the soft kind. It was some sort of peat grass that was as hard and tightly-packed as dirt, and spread off in miles in every direction like an endless ocean. There were no clouds in the sky above me, just a pale blue expanse. I had thought I was alone before, but it had never been as much as I was at that moment.
“Well, I suppose I spoke too soon about the exciting thing,” Discord said. “Where exactly are we? This doesn’t look like any part of Equestria I’ve ever seen.”
“Equestria isn’t the entire world, you know,” I said.
“Yes, but all the interesting things seem to happen there, yes?”
I rolled my eyes and looked around. All there was in every direction was more peat grass, and not a single hill in sight. It was like Celestia herself had taken a rolling pin to the land. I looked up to the sky, and saw two moons, half-visible in the light of day.
“Well, I can safely say we’re on a different planet,” I said. “The problem is, which one?”
Discord slithered his way off my skin and looked around for himself. “Does it matter? We’ve managed to find ourself on Planet of the Boring, and now have to wait until that time jump magic kicks in again to leave.” He sighed. “Why oh why couldn’t I have installed a way to control that?”
I ignored him and looked around for a way to go. The only problem was, though, that I had too many choices. When there was no difference at all in north, east, south, and west—and I couldn’t tell which was which—deciding wasn’t easy.
I started to take a few steps toward what I hoped was north when, almost out of the blue, I heard a loud rumble behind me. Discord stopped his ranting about regretting teaming up with me long enough for us both to see a thin trail of smoke rising out on the horizon. From the sound of it, some sort of explosion had happened.
“Ah, nothing blows up like civilization,” Discord said. “I propose we head that way.”
“For once, I agree,” I said.
The smoke was too far away for me to gallop there and arrive before sundown, so I rolled up my cloak and focused my magic on my back. Violet light consumed it, and I began to feel a tickling sensation. It spread and grew stronger as I watched feathers and bones emerge out of my back until, after a minute, two full wings emerged whole from my spine. I flapped them a couple times to test them, and like always they felt as if they had been there all along.
Discord whistled. “You sure it’s a good idea to take those out?”
“We’re the only ones out here, nopony’s going to see. Besides, I wanted to use them again after hiding for so long.”
Without anything to block it, the wind that swept over the plains was strong and swift, just the way my wings liked it. After flapping a couple times, I was aloft, and began flying toward the source of the smoke as quickly as I could.
Despite the imminent danger that lay with the explosion, it felt wonderful to be in the air again. I had learned fast that ponies didn’t react well to seeing an alicorn, and it was easier to hide my wings than my horn, so I had spent far too long keeping them hidden. Now that they were out again, I didn’t want to put them back.
I banked and swooped through the air as the plume of smoke grew larger on the horizon. As I drew closer, I saw a cluster of buildings that rose sharply out of the flat ground. Most of them reminded me of large greenhouses, but with some sort of metal instead of wood. They were placed around a farmhouse that might was well have come from Sweet Apple Acres. The smoke itself was coming from a smaller building away from all the others.
The air was acrid and tasted like charcoal. I sped toward the ground and came in for a rough landing—I had never really gotten the hang of them. As soon as my hooves touched the ground, I performed the spell that hid my wings once again, in case anypony could see.
I galloped over to the building, which had mostly collapsed on top of itself. There was rubble and sheets of steel everywhere. I was going to go see if I could find somepony to help when I heard a voice from inside yell: “Help, I’m stuck!”
From the sound of it, the voice was coming from the center of the wreckage. I had to move slow due to stepping over wreckage and fallen live wires, but I pressed myself to go as fast as I could anyway. The yelling grew weaker with each passing moment, and my heart beat faster. I would not lose another pony, not so soon after the last one.
I reached where I had heard the voice, which was under a particularly large amount of rubble. I dug at the steel with my hooves, but it was far too heavy for me. He started yelling for help again and, well, that just did it for me. Something clicked inside and I let out a loud scream.
My horn blazed to life, wrapping the entirety of the rubble on top of the unknown pony in a cocoon of magic that began to rise off the ground. I dug my hooves into the ground and strained to hold it up, but it kept rising. First one foot off the ground, then two, then three. I saw a small colt under it, looking battered and bruised but very much alive. He kept staring at me and at the rubble overhead.
“Go! Run!” I said through gritted teeth.
To the colt’s credit, he didn’t have to be told twice. He took one last look at me and sprinted out from underneath the rubble and off toward the farmhouse.
With him gone, I began to relax and lower the rubble to the ground. The only problem was, with the adrenaline subsiding my magic wasn’t as strong anymore. I began to strain to hold it in the air, and then I just lost it. It was only too late that I saw some of the rubble had gotten too close to me, including a large steel beam.
I felt a sharp blow to my head before the world turned black.
When I came to, I was lying in the first real bed I had felt in months. My eyes opened to see that I was in some sort of rustic bedroom. The walls were wood like the bed itself, and paintings of cornfields and rural houses hung on the walls from nails. There were a few signs that I wasn’t exactly back in Ponyville, though. A bladeless electric fan buzzed on top of a bright blue dresser, and a clock on a bedside table was nothing more than a glass plate that projected a hologram of a clock into the air.
I noticed that, at the foot of the bed, was the colt from earlier. He peered over the covers at me, but didn’t make a sound. I was about to ask what he was doing when the door opened and a larger pony walked in. From the looks of him, he had been a farmer for some time. His azure coat was rough and pale from the sun, and his inky black mane had streaks of gray running through it. There were bags around his eyes, but otherwise he looked happy to see me.
“Ah, I see you’re awake,” he said. “Good thing, too. I called the hospital but they won’t be here for another hour. We were getting worried about you, especially Bean.”
I tried to speak, but my head screamed in pain. I had to rub a hoof against the base of my horn before I could talk. “What happened, exactly?”
“You got a pretty nasty bump on the head,” the stallion said. “A steel beam fell on you after you rescued little Bean Stalk over here. He ran and got me, and we were able to pull you out of there.”
“Well, thanks for the help, Mr.—”
“Maze. Maize Maze is the name, a joke from my parents.” Maize smiled. “And while I appreciate the thanks, it’s really you who should get all the credit, miss. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have found Bean until it was too late.”
I remembered the rubble that had surrounded the little building, and burnt the entire place had been. “What happened, anyway? I could see the smoke for miles and hear the explosion all the way out on the plains.”
“To tell you the truth, I have no idea,” Maize said. “It might have been a faulty gas line or something wrong with the generator. All I know is that Bean is safe and we’re happy. I can’t thank you enough for that.” He nodded to Bean. “Go get her an icepack. Her head is starting to swell up again.”
Bean scampered out of the room. For a colt that had just been trapped under rubble, he seemed remarkably fine. I supposed that it was the vitality of youth, and gave it no other thought. Instead, I turned my attention back to Maize, who looked like he might cry.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just . . . Bean’s all I got, since his mother passed. We work this farm by ourselves and I know I put too much on the boy, so if this accident had taken him, I don’t what I would have done.”
I smiled in a way I hoped was reassuring. I earnestly didn’t want him to cry. “I’m happy to help. Really. I’m just glad nopony got hurt. What was that building, anyway? It seemed very small to make an explosion so large.”
“Oh, that.” Maize rubbed the back of his head. “That building was, unfortunately, a pretty important one around here. It’s where we control the razor hail shields for the house.”
“Razor hail?”
He looked at me like I had said something wrong, but continued. “Yeah, nasty little bit of weather out here on the plains. It doesn’t come down in little balls of ice, but in shards sharp enough to cut a pony in half. So, we have to use metal shields every time a storm passes through. That building was the control room.”
“So what happens if there’s a storm anytime soon?”
“Well, we’re out of season, so I won’t worry about that. All that matters now is that Bean is safe.”
As if he had been summoned by his name, the little colt returned to the room with a strange little bag held in his mouth. He gave it to Maize, who pressed it against my head. It felt like a pouch of warm goo, but once it touched my bruised head it solidified into a pack of ice. With the rustic farmhouse, I had almost forgotten that I must have been sometime far in the future.
“If you don’t mind me asking, miss,” Maize said, “what exactly were you doing so far out on the plains? The nearest town is in the opposite direction, and I know everypony who lives there. Not to mention I’ve never met anypony on-world who didn’t know what razor hail was.”
“Just a traveler,” I said. “I stop through in a lot of places.”
“I could tell from your scars.”
I shrugged. “It’s a dangerous universe. I’ve seen things that I don’t exactly want to remember, and I’m glad to be somewhere that’s at least normal.”
“Normal, huh?” Maize snorted. “Trust me, it gets boring after long enough. Farming is good, steady work, but it’s the most boring thing you could ever do.”
“You sound like you haven’t always been a farmer.”
“You’re quick, I see. To tell the truth, I used to be a kind of traveler myself. Was a mechanic on a welding ship that went all over the quadrant. That was before Bean, of course.”
“Well, yes, I don’t imagine that would be a good place for a foal.”
“You got that right.” He looked me over. “Is that how you got all those scars? Being a traveler? Bean was out of his mind that he thought you were dead by looking at you.”
I ran a hoof tenderly over a long scar on my face, right close to my eye. “Traveling, yeah. Like I said, it’s a dangerous universe. Sometimes I don’t make the best decisions.”
Maize opened his mouth to say something, but the wail of sirens approached the farmhouse from outside, which I assumed meant that my ride to the hospital had arrived. He helped me out of the bed, but I found I was too weak to move much, and really wondered if he was right about the scars. I had felt fine back out on the plain, but I started to feel like I may have just been holding all the pain in. Then again, Discord was quiet, so maybe it had something to do with him.
Two mares in white tunics arrived at the door and helped me into a hovering stretcher that glided down the stairs and outside the farmhouse. I was staring up at the sky, and it seemed to be darker outside than it had been before. I didn’t have much time to think about it, though, because they shoved me into the back of an ambulance and closed the doors, with one of them getting in with me. I wanted to ask her where we were going or if she knew what was wrong with me, but she stuck a needle into me instead.
The last thing that came to my mind as I drifted off to a cold sleep was Maize and his kid, and why I felt like I should help them more. Just before I lost consciousness, I wanted to know what it felt like to be needed again.
When I came to once again, I felt a pressure on my head, like somepony was sitting on top of me. I saw stars for a moment, and I was afraid I would fall back to sleep if I didn’t catch myself. I forced my eyes open and sat up, rubbing my forehead.
I was in a small, cramped hospital room, sitting on a bed with starched white sheets that felt as soft as cardboard. The walls were bright blue like you might expect to find in a foal’s room, and the only other thing besides me was a machine hooked up next to me that displayed holographic screens of all my vitals. It was eerie to look at, like staring at it too long might make one of them start to fail.
I felt a buzzing in my head, then Discord’s voice loud and clear: WELL IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU WOKE UP. I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR HOURS, AND YOU KNOW HOW I AM WITH PATIENCE.
What happened to you? You sound like you’re drowsy. Did the accident do something to you?
IT KNOCKED ME OUT UNTIL WE GOT TO THIS HOSPITAL, AND THEN THEY PUT YOU ON ENOUGH PAINKILLERS TO KNOCK OVER AN ELEPHANT. IT HASN’T BEEN THE MOST FUN WE’VE HAD.
Now that I thought about it, my entire body did feel funny, like I was wearing my own body as a suit. My hooves were so numb I couldn’t feel anything with them, and when I prodded my stomach it was like I was touching somepony else.
Okay, that’s weird. Any idea why they’d knock me up on so much?
YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE, PRINCESS.
I didn’t get a chance to ask him anything else, because the door to my room opened and shut me up. I had a hard time trying to talk to Discord in my head with anypony else around, so I usually just let it go. The pony that walked into the room was a stallion with a red-and-white color scheme that about half the doctors I had met seemed to have. His eyes, unlike the rest, however, were a piercing shade of yellow.
He smiled at me. “Ah, good to see you are awake, Miss—”
“Night,” I said. “Starry Night.”
“Right, Miss Night. I’m afraid you didn’t seem to have any form of identification, so we had to work on you without it.” His jaw hardened. “I must say, Miss Night, you are very lucky to be alive.”
“How’s that?” I asked. “All I got was a bump on the head. Did it come close to smashing my brain in?”
The doctor shook his head. “No, no, the head injury was fairly minor. You were unconscious for a worryingly long time, but you don’t appear to have any brain damage. What I was talking about are the multiple lacerations and fractures you have all over your body. Were you not up and walking, I would have already called the coroner. You are a very lucky mare, Miss Night.”
I swallowed. I suppose I had grown content with the idea of immortality over the years that, when my injuries began to catch up to me, it caught me by surprise. I was still mostly sure I wouldn’t be able to die, but being paralyzed for eternity seemed to be a worse fate. The only question that stuck at the back of my mind was: Why now?
“Doctor,” I said, “was there anything . . . unusual about all the injuries? Besides that I have them?”
“Not anything of note,” he said. “Several of the injuries did seem to be flaring up more than normal, but an hour ride in an ambulance over rough ground, even with the hover on, can do that to you. As it stands, we’re flying out a specialist from the colonial capital to see you. He’ll want to run more tests on you, to find out what we can do.”
“And until then?”
“I would advise you not to strain yourself.” He reached over and pressed a button, and a holo-screen flickered to life, projected onto the wall. “Just watch something to take your mind off any pain and we’ll keep your medicine flowing. Just hang in there, Miss Night, we’ll get you better as soon as we can.”
He meant for his voice to sound reassuring, but all it did was worry me more. I saw the look in his eyes when he was talking about my injuries, the fear and worry that could only mean that he knew he was in over his head and didn’t think I had a chance. He was at least nice enough to carry out his word on the medicine, as I felt a very cold spike of pain in one of my hooves as medicine slid through a needle and into my body.
I didn’t fall asleep, but Discord was out of the fight for the moment. I could hear him muttering to himself on his side of our consciousness, and from the sound of it the medicine was having a greater effect on him than myself. It would have been funny, had it not been for the fact that his hogging up the medicine meant that I didn’t have the full effect.
I grit my teeth and tried to focus on whatever insipid show was playing on the screen to keep from crying out. It was, of course, some bland drama show that ponies seemed to enjoy no matter what age I was in. To them, watching somepony else going through trauma was entertaining. To me, it was like reliving my life over and over again. Suffice to say, I was not a fan.
So, I started to tune out the show and look out the window at the far side of my room. It was narrow and smudged from not having been cleaned in some time, but it was something. We must have been at the edge of whatever town this part of the planet had, because out the window was only more endless plains. I wondered how ponies could stand to live in a place like that.
Then again, I knew, I would jump at the chance to live there, if only to stay somewhere for long. Saving Bean back on that farm had given me the first purposeful feeling I had felt in a hundred years, and I would do anything to feel it more often. I thought back to AJ and her farm, about how content she was bucking apples all day, everyday.
I believe that, if I could have, I would have stayed on Maize’s farm forever, more than hapy to let the rest of the universe fly by while I planted and harvested, year after year, not having to think about a thing that I didn’t want to.
My attention was snapped away from the window when a siren blaired from the holoscreen. The drama show disappeared and was replaced with a picture of a stallion pointing to a map of what I presumed to be the surrounding area. I could hardly make out the map, however, due to the massive amount of warning signs all over it. My heart sank to my stomach as I read what they all said: Razor hail.
By the size of the storm, I knew that it would be large enough to hit Maize’s farm. His now very unprotected farm. I didn’t know if he watched the news, or if it would even matter. Without those shields, his house would fall apart.
The worst part of it was that I knew exactly one pony who could help. One pony who knew a spell that would be enough to protect the farmhouse and even all their crops, and she was the same pony who had just been told she was supposed to be dead from her injuries.
I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.
Discord? Discord, are you there?
No answer.
Discord! Wake up, I need your help!
Still nothing. I sighed, and hung my head. It would have been nice to know how he felt about it, if I should stay or go. I was always rushing into things, and doing so this time might kill me if I wasn’t careful, or at least paralyze me, but everytime I tried to ignore the anchorpony, a part of my mind told me it was wrong.
I decided that I would wait to summon the doctor and ask him how bad I was, but a voice came over the hospital intercom: “Attention all patients and staff! The Our Lady of Summer Hospital will be engaging its razor hail shields in five minutes! Everypony outside the building risks serious injury or death! All ponies are encouraged to make their way inside and to the nearest help station!”
The intercom clicked off, and I knew I had no choice. It was a choice I didn’t want, that I dreaded. Part of me wanted to laugh at myself then, for having gotten one taste of being a hero only to learn how much I would have to sacrifice if I had to keep it up. Five minutes was too long to wait for the doctor, or to talk to Discord. I could either leave Maize and Bean to die, or risk myself.
My hoof hurt from where I slid the needle out, but I managed to walk to the window without much difficulty. The painkillers gave me an extra boost to my strength, so I was able to open the window and climb out without feeling too much pain.
Luckily, my room was on the first floor, so all I had to do was step down onto the grass outside. I was at the south side of the building, and apparently the one facing Maize’s farm, if the thin trail of leftover smoke on the horizon was anything to go by.
The effort to get my wings out made my horn ache, but I ignored it. I would have time to hurt later, because if I wasn’t in the air soon I would have more than a headache to worry about. Storm clouds were gathering all around me, and I took off into the air before they could close in on me.
Flying with all the new pain wasn’t pleasant, but my flight muscles at least seemed to be undamaged. I could keep myself in the air, and even speed up to make it toward the farm. I had to, because I wasn’t going to let me flying out to Maize mean nothing.
I kept wondering why I was hurting so badly now of all times, and with every mile I got closer to the farm, I hurt worse. I figured it must have been fatigue, however, and kept going.
WHOA! WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?
Apparently, my little trip had woken up Discord. I couldn’t help but smile. What’s it look like? We’re flying!
Discord stretched himself out on my skin and looked behind me, toward the hospital. “Any particular reason we’re doing the exact opposite of what the doctor said? You know, the thing that might trap us in a broken and useless body?”
“A razor hail storm is about to hit Maize’s farm,” I said. “I couldn’t let them be stranded out there with their house and crops exposed. I had to do something.”
“No, you wanted to do something, like you always do, but now this hero business had made you foolish enough to actually go through with it. What happens if we fail, Twilight?.”
I gulped. “Let’s not think about it, alright? I’m going to need to concentrate if we want to make it through this.”
“Things were better when I was trapped in stone,” he said, muttering in a low voice and returning to his tatoo state. I wasn’t going to lie, I wanted him to keep talking as the farmhouse got closer and my confidence grew weaker.
I dove toward the farm, and saw Maize standing outside, near the ruins of the control building. He looked up at me in surprise just as I touched down, and came galloping over to me.
“What in the world are you doing here?” he said in a booming voice. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? You’re supposed to be in the hospital!”
The wind had picked up, and was blowing both our manes across our faces. I realized that my cloak must have been back at the hospital still, and suddenly felt very naked without it. I ignored that for the moment. “I came here because of the storm!” I said. “Razor hail is on its way, and if I don’t help it’s going to tear your farm apart!”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to fix the controls for half an hour, but it’s no good. The manual controls aren’t responding, and by the time I managed to fix those, the hail would already be here.”
I bit my lip and looked at the incoming clouds. “But you can fix the manual controls if you have enough time, right?”
“Theoretically, yes.”
“I can give you that time,” I said.
He cocked his head. “How?”
“Just trust me. We don’t have much time, and I flew all the way out here to do this. I’ll keep you safe, alright? Just get to the controls and get to work.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but a peal of thunder echoed across the vast plains so hard it felt like a shockwave. His face went white and he ran toward a large box built onto the one intact wall of the control building.
I took a moment to calm myself. That whole day had seemed like one rush to the next, but right then I needed to concentrate. I had learned the spell long ago from my brother, but trying to recall it was harder than I had expected.
It was a simple spell, but a powerful one. I just had to think of where I wanted to put the giant shield dome, and it would appear. Keeping it up, however, was another matter. In the state I was in, I didn’t know how long I could. When I looked out toward the looming clouds and saw hail already coming down, however, I forced myself to stop thinking about how hard it was and do the spell.
I closed my eyes and focused. I told my mind where I wanted the shield, and told it to build it. There was a flash and my head felt woozy, but when I opened my eyes a giant, violet shield covered the entire farm. My horn was still glowing, and every second it did, it zapped some of my energy.
“How long do you have?” I asked Maize, having to yell over the sounds of the storm.
He waved to me from the other side of the building. “Just a few minutes! Keep it up!”
I nodded, but then almost fell to my knees. The hail had arrived and was smashing into the shield. It sounded like raindrops from so far below the surface, but in my head it felt like knives stabbing my brain. I could feel the pain in my bones, and I started to cry out with every hit.
Maize kept looking over at me, but he had enough sense to keep working. I didn’t see Bean anywhere, but I hoped he was inside the farmhouse. if worst came to worse, I could try a smaller shield around the farmhouse to keep them safe, even if they would probably lose the farm afterwards from damages.
The storm fell on us like one massive wave crashing and rolling itself upon an unprotected beach. Rain and hail smashed all over the shield until we were trapped in a formless vortex of weather. I couldn’t see anything beyond the shield, and the only light came from my magic, casting the entire farm in a purple hue.
My hooves ached, and every part of my body told me to take down the shield, but I dug in and held my ground. I managed to stay upright, and even began to fight against it. Then a lightning bolt struck the shield.
I let out a cry and fell to the ground. I writhed in pain, as it felt like every cut, scrape, and bruise I had was on fire. I could barely hear Discord yelling at me and asking if I was okay.
“Maize!” I managed to cry out. “Now or never!”
Above me, cracks began to appear in the shield. At first they were small, but soon grew into a giant spiderweb shape over the whole surface.
“Almost got it . . . done!” Maize shouted with a whoop of joy. I saw the metal shields begin to deploy over all the greenhouses. We both realized at the same time that it was deploying over the farmhouse as well, with us outside.
Maize ran over to me and helped me to my hooves. “We have to get inside! Now!”
He ran, and I galloped after him. As I did, I heard the cracks in the shield grow wider, but it was like I was in a dream. A fog surrounded my vision, and I could no longer feel my muscles. I was only vaguely aware that I was even using my hooves, only that I was getting closer to the farmhouse.
The steel shield was built like an insect’s carapace, with many overlapping plates sliding down from a hub on top.They were almost to the door when we reached the front steps. Maize got inside, but I stumbled on the top stair, and fell on the porch.
I looked up, and could only watch helplessly as the metal shield descended upon me, where it would split me in two. I didn’t know if I would even survive that, and I certainly didn’t want to find out.
Before I could let out a scream of terror or helplessness, I felt myself being yanked inside, just as the shield slammed shut. It scraped the bottom of my hooves, but I was okay. I found that my whole body was shaking, laying on the carpet of Maize’s living room and realizing, for the first time, that I was safe.
I looked up, expecting to see Maize, but instead it was Bean who was still holding onto me. “You almost got hurt!” he shouted.
His father came over a second later and tousled his mane. “You did good, son,” he said. “Miss Traveler here just saved our lives, and you returned the favor. I’m grateful for the both of you.” He laughed, and wiped sweat from his forehead as the sound of hail echoed on the steel shell around us. “I’m going to go get us all something to eat, how about that? I think we could use some relaxing right now.”
He walked off, and I just lay back, laughing and enjoying being alive. For the moment, the painkillers were still in effect, though I didn’t want to think of what would happen once they wore off. I would need to get back to the hospital soon. For the moment, though, I could at least enjoy having done the right thing.
I turned to Bean. “I can’t thank you enough for saving me,” I said. “That was very brave of you, to do that.”
He smiled at me with all his teeth showing, in the cute way that colts and fillies can. “Don’t mention it.” As he said it, though, my heart almost stopped. For a second, just one second, his eyes turned pitch black like I was looking into a deep, dark pit. They were not the eyes of any colt I had ever known.
Like it had never happened, though, his eyes returned back to normal, and he scampered off. I was left on the living room floor, wondering exactly what I had stumbled upon on Maize’s farm.
Outside, the storm continued on.
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Why is it always the children that are scary as hell?
3557586
because it's easier to break expectations with them?
There's a lot of interesting stuff on ''tv tropes" on this kind of subject, y'know.
3557599
I'm sure there is. But once you go to tv tropes, you never leave.
3557620
Pshhaw, you say that like it's a bad thing!
Sorry Twilight, evidently you still have work to do before returning to Equestria ... apparently work like saving a child from possession ...
Twilight i understand you girl.. but take it easy
Woo, I just finished reading the earlier story and then re-reading the first chapter of this a couple of hours ago, and an update appears like magic!
Unless you have something in mind for this story that drastically contradicts or heavily repeats your previous story, I think you should reconsider considering it a reboot and think of it as a prequel instead. It was a good, strong story with an engaging OC, and just as stories where the Doctor has companions don't invalidate stories where he's on his own, I think a story about Twilight with a companion (well, a companion that isn't Discord) and a story about Twilight and Discord on their own could coexist very well in the same continuity.
I am *very* curious as to how Twilight got fused with Discord now. Which is probably exactly what that flashback was intended to accomplish. :-) Others have pointed out the analogies between Twilight and the Doctor, and I think it's clear you're deliberately riffing on that, but at the same time the fact that Twilight's "TARDIS" is a sentient being who *talks* (and rarely shuts up), who was a foe of hers at one point and who we knew as an independent entity, produces a very, very different relationship between Twilight and her being who powers time-travel than the Doctor and the TARDIS. It's one of the things I love about fanfic, that when you do mashups or remixes or crossovers you can create stories that couldn't otherwise have existed, because the relationships and the interactions are different.
I also think it's interesting that Discord was hit worse by the drugs than Twilight was. In stories where the main character has a symbiote, usually the symbiote is *more* resistant to whatever it is that knocks out the main character, and we saw a bit of this in the previous story where Discord, being already crazy and also pretty impervious to mind control, was more resistant to the Captain's madness than Tinker or Twilight were. It's a nice variation to establish that things that knock Twilight out can and do take out Discord as well.
OMG what the hell happened to fuse them together like that? Oh, I am gonna be plagued with theories until you actually tell us... :-)
I can tell that you know exactly what you want to accomplish with this story. I can't wait to see what happens next.
Wow, uh, this setting is new. Quite like the concept of razor hail and everything else. Built a nice distrust of the hospital setting, too.
3557586 Their usual vulnerability shunts them past your threat detector and allows them to get VERY close before you realize something's wrong.
3557705
Oh wow, it's always nice to see a large post about anything I write! I can't answer all of it since I don't want to give spoilers, but I would like to say something about the reboot. The reason this is a reboot and not a prequel is because I plan for this fic to have its own ending that is separate from Out of Touch.
3557624 Isn't it? I spend way too much time on that site for it to be healthy.
Why are the controls outside of the shield? That sounds like a really, really, really bad design to me. Not only would it force whoever uses the controls to immediately run for cover or get trapped outside and die, but it also exposes the controls to damage from the hail. And how do you bring the shield down afterwards?
3557861
It was stated that the controls were in their own fairly-large building, enough that it would have its own shield as well, so after deploying the shields for the other buildings you'd just have to sit and read a magazine or whatever until the storm's over. The only reason they had to be outside was because the building kind of blew up.
A razor hail, wow, been a good while since i read anything with that in it. Hmm, as for the kind, well, should be very interesting to see what he brought back from the stars, and likely how vampiric/parasitic it is to exacerbate old wounds like this.
3557896
Okay, that makes sense. But then why couldn't they have put up the shield for that building and stayed there? Unless the shield got destroyed along with the building, but that sounds a bit unlikely.
And it doesn't explain how they're going to bring the shield back down. Sure, Twilight could teleport them out of the shield to take it down, but what if Maize had been able to fix the controls and get it up without her? Then they'd be trapped in there. And there's still the very real possibility of the hail destroying the controls again.
3557917
The shield for the building got blown up along with the control building. As for the rest, well, let's just say Twilight's adventures at Maize's farm aren't over yet, so you'll just have to wait and see.
3557996
Alright, fair enough.
I hope I'm not being too much of a bother by complaining about details, but it's what I do.
3558006
Oh, no, not at all. I'm happy to answer questions and all. I just wanted to make sure you know that I've got plans for what you were talking about.
Ho boy, dis gonna be good!
I wonder what let Twilight to fuse with Discord
Still epic though!
Nice chapter. Really enjoyable.
I have one question. As i understand it twilight fused with Discord and now has the tattoo on her body as a result. But she also has discords magic right? Discord could rechape his body at will even take parts completly off, has twilight absolutly no control over this? I just wonder that there so worryd about her injuries when discord seemed completly disconnected from the state of his body.
so how many bad things try to use twilight for there own gain?
3560448
The thing is, they don't have full control over what they can do. It's like how they can't really control the time travel, when they got stuck together they didn't get full control over their old powers, including transformation.
I have a feeling that maybe Bean was replaced by something (or was never a pony in the first place) and he actually caused the explosion in the control building.
3560639 Allow me to quote something I hope somebody gets:
My god, I need to read the previous story. I am absolutely in love with everything.
Just one thing. I have a reputation to maintain, after all.
Sield.
Just..........
Sield.
3562306
Not to worry, it is now fixed! And I am stoked that you are enjoying the fic!
The idea of this story reminds me of the movie Looper.
Quite a few things that are very similar.
3562306 He also used hapy earlier in the fic.
Ooooo, fascinating flashback. Hmn, spec spec spec.
3562324
Cotton candy and chocolate milk seemed like the best solution for the storm. I presume Discord was drugged up too much to poof a thunderhead?
3573574
More like, due to his unique situation, Discord's powers are considerably nerfed compared to what we've seen in the show. Which, naturally, makes him resort back to his old powers: snark and sarcasm.
3494895
I'd recommend it though!! It was an amazing read!
I've found this to be one of the better stories around.
Added to Twilight's Library!
24.media.tumblr.com/a257ad5165644b1f79354634dfdee284/tumblr_mqo61uYbwk1rj6vd5o1_400.png
~Skeeter The Lurker
3602951
No, not really. Besides the basic premise, they're not alike in any way and the plots diverge quickly.
razorhail you say? Is that a Gears of War reference I see?
3619989
Surprised nobody caught it before you, but yes.
3561251
Catbug!
You know, considering that Twilight was just a unicorn in the old story, this could just be a sequel. Maybe it's been hundreds of years, and Tinker died of old age long ago.
It seems, one way or another, she won't be in this. Poop.
3621984
Well, I may do something with Tinker later as well, who knows?
The irony that people complained about Tinker getting in Twilight's way in the old story, but then in the new story everyone misses her.
3622015
Yaaaaaay!
On a totally unrelated note, the acronyms of these stories spell what sounds vaguely like a skyrim shout. OOT, BWAW!
3622015 That's just how people are, don't ya know?
And meh, guess I'm reading this now anyways. It's good stuff.