One Soul, Two Worlds

by Sparkleman

Aftermath

Previously in One Soul, Two Worlds

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You know what, just read the damn chapter.

Five miles from the arena

*Boof*

"Ok, we should be safe here," said Twilight.

"Safe from what?" asked Andy.

"Yea, I wanted to see what Dylan had up his sleeve," commented Rainbow Dash.

"Trust me you don't want to be in the area when that spell finishes," replied Twilight.

"Well why the hay not sugercube?" Asked Applejack.

"Dylan said that the resulting explosion has the power of ten or so, what did he call them, oh yea nuclear bombs from your world," said Twilight.

"Wait, he casting a spell at a creature not even a one hundred yards away with the power of ten nukes?" asked Andy fearfully.

"Uh, yea that's what she dear," said Rarirty, "is that such a bad thing?"

The five guys looked at each other and nodded before turning back to the ponies. Will took a step forward and began, "yes, that's a really bad thing. In our world we have constant fighting and wars, though one in particular took the cake.

"This war," continued Trevor, "was called World War II. It encompassed pretty much the entire civilized world."

"Near the end of the war the nations began a scrambled called the nuclear arms race," said Luke, "from this the country we come from, the United States of America, developed the nuclear bomb first."

"And we dropped two of them on the apposing nation of Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Lets just say those cities weren't around for a few years," Andy said ending it.

There was a few seconds of silence before Twilight spoke up.

"You mean your world has weapons that can take down entire cities at once?" She asked.

Andy nodded in agreement. "Yes, now you see why we have to stop Dylan from..."

Before Andy could finish his sentence a white flash of light and explosion came from the arena nearly blinding the party.

"That was the end of the spell," yelled Twilight covering her eyes, "We're too late."

As Twilight finished her sentence the shock wave hit the party sending them flying and hitting the ground, knocking them unconscious.

*A few minutes later*

"Ugh, is everyone alright," asked Andy getting up. As he looked around the others were getting there feet/hooves under them.

"Yea, everyone seems fine," said Luke. Fluttershy nodded in agreement.

"Good, now lets go find our crazy friend," said Andy as he start to run toward the mostly destroyed arena. "And hopes he's not dead," Andy muttered under his breath.

*One teleport later*

"My word," said Rarity, "Dylan did all this destruction by himself?"

Where the area stood was now a seventy-two meter crater that was about fifty meters deep. Rubble and debris was scattered everywhere. The party split up looking for their lost companion.

"No one could withstand this blast, not even a dragon," said Trevor after a few minutes of searching.

Just to prove him wrong a badly beat up Coldfire rose from a pile of rubble. One of his wings was broken and the thin skin was torn to shreds on both. He was missing his left eye and the right foreleg was bleeding profoundly. He eyed the party of ponies and humans and limped over to them.

"Where is the human called Dylan that did this to me?" Asked Coldfire calmly.

"W-w-we don't know," said Twilight near tears, "we ha-haven't f-f-found him."

Coldfire's face showed that of sadness. "He was a great warrior. To damage a dragon this much is no easy feat. If not for my above dragon like diamond hard scales and natural resistance to magic, that blast would of easily killed another dragon."

"Hey!" shouted Andy, "I think I found him!"

Everyone, excluding Coldfire, rushed to were Andy was standing. Sure enough there was a human hand sticking out of the ground.

"Dylan!" Screamed everyone.

"Something's wrong," thought Andy, "I don't see the air of death around here. Nor the sign of someone near death."

The group started to dig out the rubble. After ten seconds Rarity and Fluttershy let out a scream before passing out. What laid under the rubble was not the body of their friend Dylan, but that of his left arm up to the shoulder.

"Why, you son of a bitch, why you have to do it," said a now crying Will as Trevor and Rainbow comforted each other.

"I told him the spell was too much," said Twilight, "I should of convinced him to use another spell. Now he's dead, and it's all my fault."

"Who's dead?" I said.

"You are!" Yelled Twilight now balling her eyes out, "and all we have left is your stupid left arm."

I think Twilight thought I was some form of her imagination and didn't seem to catch that I was really standing there, but everyone else did. I signaled to them to them to stay quiet and see how long I could pull this off. Most shook there head in agreement except Rarity and Fluttershy who were still passed out.

"Hey hey, at least you have the arm to bury me," I said patting Twilight on the back of the neck.

"But I don't want to bury him," said Twilight, "I want him to come back. We need you back, I need back. I think I, like you, but more than a friend like."

OK that last part took about everyone by surprise, including myself. I didn't know she felt hat way. Now I just feel bad for seeming like an apparition. I got on one knee, eye level with Twilight. She looked up making eye contact for the first time. I put my head against hers keeping that eye contact.

"Hi there," I said with a grin.

After a moment with our heads together and wearing a stupid grin on my face, Twilight broke our head contact and her crying was replaced with a deep red blush on her cheeks.

"Wha-what, Dylan," she said flustered, "that was really you? The whole time?"

"Yea," I replied getting back on my feet still smiling, "I'm sorry that I made you feel terrible. I promise I won't do anything that reckless again unless I have too. Oh, thanks for finding my arm."

I walked over and picked up my arm. I turned to Andy and Luke before asking, "can either of you two help get my arm back on, I have a fight to finish."

The only reply I got was everyone's dumbstruck faces by what I just said. Luke nodded though and walked over to me beginning the process of reattaching my arm to my shoulder.

"This might hurt a little and while leave a scar," said Luke.

"That's fine," I replied shrugging, "it's not my first scar."

"Are yah sure yah want to continue the fight partner?" Asked Applejack with a look of concern on her face, "I don't mean to offend yah or anything like that, but we almost lost yah there."

"Don't worry, that was just a miss calculation on my part. I still got some magic to spare," I said the last part patting the amulet that Twilight gave me. I turned my head toward Coldfire who finally figured out that I was alive, "Hey Coldfire, old buddy, up for another round," I yelled in draconic with high spirits.

"Well young human," he replied in draconic limping over to our group, "the battle rules do state that the fight does not end unless one of us dies or surrenders." Coldfire took a quick look over his body before continueing, "but I am in no condition to fight, and you have proven to be my better, so I ask that you accept my surrender."

"I accept your surrender," I replied with a grin, "but don't forget our extra wager."

"I have not, nor shall I," Coldfire said bowing, "I am now ever under your command and you are free to take form my loot whatever you please."

"There," said Luke, "that should do it. Try moving your arm Dylan."

I put my right hand on my left shoulder and began to stretch my left arm by rotating it in windmills from the shoulder. After a few rotations I pumped by arm in and out with elbow, still keeping my hand on my shoulder. I wiggled my fingers a little bit and gave a few left jabs to finish it off.

"Good as new," I said smiling, "thanks Luke, your a real life saver. Or should I say arm saver?" I nudged him with my reattached arm. His response was simply a facepalm and shaking his head.

The other dragons, seeing that the battle was over with soared back down from wherever they when for safety. All the dragons but Bloodfighter and Harbringer looked shocked that a human could best a dragon, none less one bred for battle. Harbringer walked up to our party and those awake turned to face him out of respect.

"Good job little ones," spoke Harbringer in English/Equestrian, "you have proven worthy. We dragons will help once more in the fight against Prometheus."

"Thank you," I replied nodding my head once, "Can you provide us a decent sized ship to travel downriver once more."

"I can provide something better," spoke Coldfire signaling us to follow him.

Thirty minutes later in Coldifire's cave/home

"Wow," said Rarity," look at all of these gems!"

"Rarity, we're here for a ship, not for gems," Twilight said.

"But TWILIGHT," whined Rarity, "can't I take some of them?"

"You may take all that you want," said Coldfire overhearing the conversation. Rarity squealed with delight before dashing off to gather gems. Some of the others followed Rarity to scavage through Coldfire's loot, though with less enthusiasm than her. Twilight facehoofed from Rarity's actions before facing Coldfire.

"So where is this ship you told us about?" She asked.

"Here," replied Coldfire pointing to a strange ship.

"What in tarnation kind of ship is that," said Applejack.

"I looks like it would just sink in the water," added in Will, "the design is all wrong."

"It's not for the water human," said Coldfire.

"Than what is it for," said Twilight.

"It's an airship," replied Coldfire.

"That. Is. Awesome!" Said Trevor and Rainbow Dash together.

"How does a thing that big work, much less fly?" I asked looking over the ship that was about three of Coldfire or Bloddfighter put together.

"It is an old pony design," said Coldfire, "I don't have any idea how it works."

"Wait," said Twilight as her horn began to glow, "I think I read about these in a book." A small hole appeared next to Twilight as she continued her concentration to find the book. Suddenly an old looking book appeared from the void. It was bound in an old leather cover that seemed ready to fall apart. When Twilight opened the pages they had a hint of yellow in their coloring. As Twilight skimmed the book she stopped on a page near the end.

"Here we go," said Twilight, "this airship is called a Timoria Airship, it apparently was used in the Griffin Wars was a flying dreadnaught able to rain death and destruction from above. Apparently it is based off Griffon airship and is powered by magic. It has a reserve crystal to store enough magical power to fuel the ship for up to three months."

"That's good," said Andy, "at least we know we won't plumment to our deaths."

"It take two days to charge up with the magic of four unicorns though," Twilight read.

"Dang,' said Will, "so we're stuck here for two more days?"

"I don't think so," I said," it says four unicorns take two days, but it doesn't say anything about humans. We also have the the unicorn that symbolizes the element of magic itself so this might only take a day or even less."

"Dylan's right," agreed Twilight, "four normal unicorns take two days to charge this, but we don't have any normal unicorns here."

"So lets get this thing outside and powered up," I said, "Coldfire, Bloodfight, mind helping us get his ship outside?"

"No problem human, I mean Dylan," replied Coldfire. The dragons walked over to the ship, lifted and walked it outside before setting the dreadnaught down again.

"Hey everyone," I yelled so the rest of the group in the cave could hear me, "we're heading outside, I think you all should come too."

"I'll be there in a moment darling," replied Rarity, "I just need to gather these gems."

The group walked out of the cave and gave further examination of the flying dreadnaught. There were some wood panels one the outside, ok maybe a lot, but it didn't seem like that much work had to be done to get the hull in good shape. When we entered the ship though, the whole story changed. The first deck was in decent shape but a lot of he supports were rotting away and need to be replaced. Luckily the ceiling was about six and a half feet tall, meaning the humans in out party didn't have to duck while walking around. What seemed like the main sleeping area was the under the top deck. It was quiet roomy, but almost all of the beds needed to be replaced. The kitchen had also seen better days as well. It needed to be fully refurbished along with the sleeping quarters. Along the outer edge of the floor was littered with slits that were probably used by the unicorns to shoot out magic. When we ventured into the final bottom deck we were surprised at what we found. The whole floor was in amazing shape. By now Rarity was with us again and clearly disgusted with what she saw Very few supports were rotting, and the sleeping area on this floor didn't need to be refurbished at all. The power crystal room was at the front of the floor with the other two rooms behind it. The last room was rather large and had a few dummies and tables in it. We decided that this was probably the training/rec room of the ship. Overall, the ship needed to be fixed up, and fast too. We exited the ship before discussing our next plan of action.

"Well, Andy, Applejack, Rarity and I can work on fixing up the ship," started Will, "but it might take longer than the time needed to charge up the power core, so you and Twilight can take a little longer and rest between the charges."

"But first we have to do something about those awful sleeping quarter," said Rarity, "a proper mare can't sleep in those kind of conditions."

"Yea, we need somewhere to sleep for the next few days anyways so the quarters would be top priority," agreed Will.

"So we have a ship, and we have the dragons support," said Alex, "now what do we do?"

All heads turned to me for an answer. Man, sometimes I hate the whole "you're the leader" thing. I sighed before answering Alex's question.

"Well," I began, "now that we have the support of the dragons and a way to get to Prometheus with less risk than before, we're going to have to recruit more allies."

"Who did you have in mind?" Ask Twilight.

"The buffalos and the griffins," I said, "and I know who needs to go to each. Alex, Fluttershy and Pinkie will go seek help from the buffalos. I believe there were some near Appleloosa. Trevor, Dash, and Luke will go to the Griffin king and ask for assistance. They helped the last heroes and they might help us again, even if they might still be a little sour from the Griffin Wars."

"Both those trips could take few days to complete," said Twilight, "and we have a deadline."

"Yea, I know," I replied, "but we don't know if that deadline is tomorrow, which means nothing will matter, or a year from now, which mean we have all the time in the world. Also, we're sending our fastest to the griffins, and we can meet the ones going to the buffalo halfway on their way back in the ship."

"That would still mean almost a week will be wasted doing this," argued Twilight.

"It won't be wasted if we get two more nations to ally with us," I argued back, "trust me on this, it will work."

"Fine," said Twilight storming off, "do what you want, you're the leader who almost died from his last bright idea."

"I will," I yelled to her now frustrated. I calmed myself down before turning to the others seeing that they were holding back snickers. "What?"

"You two are acting like a married couple," said Andy. Blood rushed to my face after the comment.

"No we're not," I said defensively. My reaction caused Trevor, Pinkie and Dash to break out laughing at my embarrassment. "Ok, this meeting is over," I said quickly, "everyone know hat they have to do, so lets get it done."

"Can it wait until tomorrow?" asked Hawk Eye.

"Why?" I asked back. "I forgot he was still with us," I thought.

"It's almost sundown, that's why," he answered.

I looked up and saw he was right. Going over what happened today I wasn't really surprised it was this late. "Sure, everyone rest up, but we have to get to work first thing in the morning," I said, "everyone have a good nights rest, we're all going to need it."

With that the group meeting disbanded. My first thought was to find Twilight an apologize to her. After looking around the ship for a while a noticed a lavender glow coming from Coldfire's cave. I entered the cave and sure enough there was Twilight reading some old book she probably found in the head of treasure.

"Hey Twilight," I said as I entered the cave. She looked up, saw me and without any response went right back to reading her book. "Oh come on Twilight," I said siting next to her, " I'm sorry I yelled at you. I guess I was just a little stressed about what's gone on today."

"You don't seem like with all that smiling and jokes you've been doing," replied Twilight sternly.

I sighed before continuing, "Twilight, I almost died today, not once but three times in the battle, once because of my own spell. Hell, I thought when I first woke that I had lost my arm. I consider myself extremely lucky that I came out with only a scar around my left arm."

"Then why were you all smiles and laughs?" Twilight asked finally getting her head out of her book.

"Because that's how I diffuse situations like that. Imagine if I didn't stay calm, what do you think the others would have reacted?"

Twilight thought what I said over for a minute before replying, "yea, I think that Fluttershy and Rarity would have stopped this quest right then and there. I suppose that logically, you made the right choice by using humor."

"See, what I tell you," I said grinning now that Twilight didn't seem angry anymore. I lost my grin very quickly as I continued though, "but really, I've been exhausted since the fight ended. In all I've just wanted to fall asleep but I knew I couldn't because I still had some roles as Leader to fulfill." I continued to tell Twilight what the next plans of action were and she agreed with everyone I was sending away.

"You really are amazing you know," said Twilight after I finished, "to think like that with all the stress you had."

"Is that why you fell for me, my mental power?" I asked turning the heat onto her for now.

Twilight face became a bright rosy red before answering with a simple, "maybe."

I laughed at her respond, which just made her blush go away and a stern look appear on her face. Seeing that I had pushed a little to far I stopped laughing and shrugged a 'sorry didn't mean to' shrug. Twilight just shook her head and went back to reading her book.

"So, we good again?" I finally asked after a minute or two.

"Does this answer our question?" Twilight then proceeded to hug me, which I reacted by hugging her back.

"Yea that does," I replied. I began to yawn in turn breaking our hug, "guess the battle finally caught up to me. I need to get to bed. You coming?"

"In a bit," Twilight replied with a yawn, "have a few more things about the ship to read up on."

I finally noticed that the book she was reading was the book she was reading earlier. "Ok," I said getting up and walking out of the cave, "don't stay up to late, we have a big day tomorrow."

"I won't goodnight Dylan."

"Night Twilight," I replied as I exited the cave. I stopped and yawned again before noticing that Andy was leaning against a rock next to me. "How long you been there?" I asked him.

"Long enough to know your not stressed anymore, also that you and Twilight are good again," he replied, "maybe a little better than that."

"He, so a while then," I replied scratching the back of my head.

"Yea, I'm not gonna pry to much."

"Good, cause there's nothing to tell."

We both started laughing at our little exchange that meant more than what we said. I think only life long friends could have conversations like this.

"Come on, I found some decent beds on the second under-deck of the ship," Andy said, "Lets get some sleep."

"Yea, that sounds good right now. Lead the way oh non prying friend of mine."

We both laughed again as we made our way to the ship and our new beds.

Comments

[Sparkleman]

Told you all I get it out quickly. I'll try to get two more chapters done before I head back to school on the 11th of September.

If anyone has anything to say, about this chapter either it be negative or positive, please leave something in the comments.

[Sparkleman]

1195682 Well, actually my real class starts on the 18, i'm going to a Week of Welcome ceremony the week before. So it starts even later then the 11th.
Yea for Cal Poly schools.