• Published 8th May 2012
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Millennium Wake: Part 1 - Chaotic Dreams



What happens after a certain pony awakes from a magical slumber after a thousand years?

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Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“What really weird, scary stuff?” Rarity questioned.

“First off, let me give you a little background information.” The not-Pinkie stopped Rarity short. “As you’ve already seen, the world has changed a lot in a thousand years. I don’t want you to get lost in it, and I’m sure the real Pinkie Pie and all her friends would feel the same way.”

“You really aren’t Pinkie Pie, are you?” Rarity asked, at long last. She had been hoping that this shadow of her friend could at least be a reminder of the happiness Pinkie had spread during her life, but the mannerisms were all off. Gone was the mischievous gleam in her eye. This version of the pink party pony certainly seemed to be a lot more down-to-Equestria than her friend had been. “You just… You don’t sound like her.”

“I’m the closest magic could muster,” the Pinkie’s imprint agreed. “I truly am sorry to disappoint you.”

“It’s not fault of your own, darling,” Rarity assured, seeing the downcast look on the living hologram’s fake face. “It’s just… Well, everything is so different now. It’s like Equestria isn’t even recognizable anymore.”

“That I understand. I was there when you were still kept in Ponyville for study, back when it was still called Ponyville. I watched the world grow and change, thanks in large part to your friends. But you probably shouldn’t call this Land ‘Equestria’ any more, unless you want to keep getting odd looks.”

“Equestria has fallen?!” Rarity gasped. “But, how—”

“Not fallen, just changed,” the not-Pinkie Pie stated. “It’s now The United Lands of Equestria, or simply The ULE for short. For a time it was The Solar Empire, and then The New Lunar Republic, but now things have settled on The ULE. Though, most ponies just refer to their location as whatever Land they’re currently in. This Land, for instance, is The Pinkamena Province.”

“How did any of that happen?” Rarity wondered. What had happened to her dear Equestria?

“I don’t have time to tell you much,” the pink doppelganger said. “Though I’d be happy to lend you a copy of the latest edition of ‘Equine History.’ I kept it here just in case you ever woke up, as per the real Pinkie’s orders. The same goes for several other supplies you’ll need for your journey.”

“Journey?” the white unicorn echoed.

“You see,” Pinkie’s imprint took a deep breath, as if preparing to say something rather difficult. Rarity found herself briefly wondering if a magical imprint even needed to breathe. Was it just for show, to make her seem more lifelike, or was it an unconscious act built into her psyche from when she’d been copied from the real Pinkie’s mind? Rarity didn’t want to dwell on it. “Your friends spent much of their lives trying to figure out how to wake you from your enchanted slumber, as well as what caused you to sleep for so long in the first place.”

Rarity nodded, not seeing how this was relevant. She knew all of this from Twilight’s recording back in The Everfree Forest. Where Spike’s bones were… No! There would be time for mourning later. Until this was all sorted out, she had to stay focused.

“And, after much investigation, they found something,” the not-Pinkie uttered. “They discovered something much larger than they expected, and then only a small piece of the bigger picture.”

“What did they discover?” Rarity asked, wishing this imprint would just get to the point, as well as dreading what would happen when she did.

“I don’t know,” the not-Pinkie admitted. “As far as my involvement in this whole ordeal goes, I was just supposed to be the one who delivered the message. Your friends recorded what they found out about this mess in holographic recording devices, similar to the one Twilight left for you in the Forest.”

“Could I see them, please?” Rarity inquired, hoping that she would finally be able to hear her friends speak to her again, even if only artificially. Though she was stuck out of her own time, the small hope that some of her old world had been left behind for her was like a long overdue spring to an endless winter.

“I would if I could, but during the wars between The New Lunar Republic and The Solar Empire—”

“Wars?” Rarity interrupted, taken aback. “There were wars in Equestria? And, the names of those countries... Please tell me they don’t mean what I think they do…”

“I wish I could tell you that they didn’t.” Pinkie’s ghostly clone shook her head sadly. “But they mean exactly what you think they mean. About five-hundred years ago, Princess Luna went to war with Princess Celestia.”

“WHAT?!” Rarity shrieked. “But, no! We cured her of Nightmare Moon! Luna wouldn’t, she couldn’t—”

“She didn’t.” the Not-Pinkie stopped Rarity before she went into hyperventilation. “Luna was in the right this time, but there’s no time to explain about that now. Now I need to show you what your friends left behind for you. This will explain why I don’t have time to elaborate on anything, as well as why you have to get going on that journey I mentioned as soon as possible.”

“Alright,” Rarity conceded, her head still full to bursting with questions, but the eagerness to hear her friends’ voices again drowned them out. Although, the white unicorn didn’t really see how five lifetimes’ worth of recordings would take up any less time than Pinkie’s imprint answering her questions would.

Pinkie’s shade waved a hoof, and Rarity watched as a drawer in the ebony desk unlocked with a click and slid open. A phonograph record with a pink diamond inset in the center rose out of the drawer and into the air, hovering in front of a dumbfounded Rarity before she took it in her telekinetic grasp.

“This is what my friends left behind for me?” she asked in a quiet voice. “A single record? I thought you said they all left holographic recordings!”

“They did,” the Pinkie’s mental shadow said quickly. “Unfortunately, as I was about to say, during the wars between The Solar Empire and The New Lunar Republic, this company was raided and the other Disks were stolen. All of the recordings were stored here at Pinkie’s factory because it would be closest to you when you woke up. When the armies tore through here, they took every last Disk. Every one but this one, that is.”

“But it’s just a record.” Rarity pouted. “I thought I would actually get to SEE my friends again, not just hear them on thousand-year-old technology. Does this thing even still work after a millennium?”

“Oh, I see what’s troubling you. I’m sorry I didn’t explain this earlier. Holographic recordings, like the one you saw when you woke up, are subject to their location. Recordings stored in Disks like these can be moved anywhere, though they require a hologram projector to play. And it’s not a record for a phonograph. I remember what those were like, and trust me, we’ve come a LONG way since then. Let me show you—but first, let me warn you. The Disks are enchanted so that only you can play them, but the real Pinkie told me that she wouldn’t blame you if you decided not to listen to what she had to say. If I remember correctly, this is the last Disk any of your friends ever recorded, so it might not make much sense without the others to precede it. But on top of that, these were Pinkie Pie’s last words.”

Rarity bit her lip. She had been overjoyed to hear that a piece of her past lived on for her in the startling present. But could she bear to witness it if it was nothing more than a reminder that that past was truly gone forever?

With determination in her eyes, Rarity finally spoke. “Show me. I’m not going to pass up a chance to see one of my friends again, especially if this is all I’ll ever see of them.”

The not-Pinkie smiled and waved her hoof again. A section of the desk popped out to the side, revealing what appeared to be an old-fashioned phonograph. Its collapsible playing horn magically lifted itself and straightened out, its needle raised. Rarity, still plagued by the warring fears that this really was nothing more than an old record-player and that she actually might regret hearing her friend’s last words for the rest of her life, telekinetically set the Disk onto the turntable. As soon as the diamond in the middle connected with the rest of the player, the Disk began to spin, slowly at first but rapidly quickening its pace to something far faster than any phonograph had been able to produce back in Rarity’s time. The sides of the record sliced through the air with an angry whirr.

That was where any similarities with an old phonograph ended. The diamond in the Disk burst into light, and an off-color hologram of the real Pinkie Pie leapt out of the air towards Rarity. The white unicorn jumped backwards in surprise as the giant face of her friend leered at her, yammering something soundlessly. A split-second later the words cut in, the needle spinning scratchily against the Disks’ grooves.

“…have much time,” the real Pinkie Pie, or at least a recording of the real party pony, was saying. Er, had said, centuries ago. As the grainy hologram uttered this, Rarity was able to pick out the key features in her friend’s face, reinforcing yet again how eerily real this whole unbelievable experience actually was. Like Twilight, Pinkie Pie was wrinkled and her coat had faded in color, even if the only way Rarity could see this was by the slightly lighter shade of green composing Pinkie’s form. On top of that, streaks of light-green in her poof of mane spiraled wildly out of control to show the white unicorn where her friend had gone grey.

But the thing that shocked Rarity the most was not the age, as she had expected it from seeing Twilight. The thing that shocked Rarity the most was Pinkie Pie’s expression. Gone was the carefree twinkle in her eyes and look of being blissfully oblivious to reality. Instead, a hard determination dominated her countenance, showing a focus the white unicorn had never seen her peppy friend use. Rarity hadn’t even thought it was POSSIBLE for Pinkie Pie to look that focused. Or that… grim…

Suddenly, and without warning, Pinkie’s looming face was yanked back from sight and slung to the right, leaving the hologram completely devoid of anything but a dull green glow. Well, not completely void. If Rarity squinted, she could make out the details of… Was that the same desk that was sitting before her even now? Were those the tapestries? Pinkie Pie had recorded this in the same office Rarity was now standing in!

Suddenly a dark blur raced across the hologram, supposedly where something had flown in front of it during recording. A split-second after the thing had vanished from the recorder’s view, a bloodcurdling scream of pain burst its way through the speaker.

Was that… Pinkie’s voice?

Thump.

Thump!

THUMP!

Rarity shrieked in surprise as a massive clawed paw stomped down into view, light gleaming off its serrated bony spikes. The claw was gone just as quickly, its owner having trudged out of view of the recorder’s eye.

Muffled shouting could be heard in the background now, followed shortly by a roar, before a hulking dark shape flew past the view, followed by a blast of light that seemed to be hurtling it along through the air. For a moment the hologram flared, too bright to look at.

“What’s going on?” Rarity whispered to herself, finding her voice at last, if only just barely.

“We found it!” Pinkie Pie’s face filled the view all over again, though Rarity’s face went whiter than usual as it drained of all blood… for that very same liquid was now streaming down her friend’s face from numerous gashes. “We discovered everything, but they’re trying to stop us before we can use it to put an end to them. I won’t make it through this—I knew that from the start—but I had to get to this recorder in my office to leave this message. Rarity, you have to use it! I know how bad it looks, but you have no idea how bad it’ll be if they aren’t stopped before it’s too late! You were just the start of their plan. Putting you to sleep was phase one. Getting us out of the way is phase two. If they get to phase three…Well, let’s just say that we don’t want them to get to phase three. But you can do it, Rarity! You can stop them, you can—”

Pinkie’s face abruptly cut out, replaced only by a hulking, clawed foot. The recording winked out, and the record stopped spinning instantly, its diamond dark and dead.

Rarity said nothing for several moments. She simply stood there, frozen.

“Wha…what…” Rarity tried to say something, anything.

But she couldn’t.

The last few scenes of the recording danced behind her eyes, refusing to stop replaying the last thing in the world she had been prepared to see. She had been expecting to see Pinkie Pie’s death, but thought that she would be old and have lived a full, long life full of parties and friends and fun. But what Rarity had just seen indicated none of that. No, what Rarity had just witnessed indicated quite the opposite.

Rarity had already resigned herself to watching Pinkie’s death, as it had happened centuries ago.

But she had NOT been prepared to see Pinkie Pie’s MURDER.

The white unicorn stood stock-still, unable to move, unable to think of anything other than what she’d just witnessed.

At long last, Rarity finally managed to speak “What…was that? What happened?”

But there was nopony there to answer her. Rarity looked around the massive office, seeing that she was alone. Turning, Rarity saw that even the portrait of Pinkie Pie was dark and dead.

Why had she been left alone? But more importantly than that, what had happened to Pinkie Pie? What had happened to her friend?!

Some ponies would cry under these circumstances, the tears bursting forth. Others would hunker into tiny little balls and try to ignore reality. But Rarity had already done both of those things. She’d even promised herself that she would make time to do more of them in the future the first time she learned that her friends were dead. This time, though, a cold, burning flame flickered in the white unicorn’s heart, threatening to burn her alive—and the whole world with her.

Rarity, despite everything she thought of herself, despite being lady she was, was not about to take her friend’s murder sitting down. Even if it had happened almost a thousand years ago. She needed to know why Pinkie had been killed and she needed to know what had happened to the rest of her friends. She had to find what they had left for her. She wouldn’t let Pinkie’s death be in vain. One of her friends, possibly all of them, had spent their lives trying to find out how to undo the causes of her slumber. It seemed that they had stumbled upon something much larger than that. And Rarity wasn’t about to let even one of her friends die in vain.

“Finished, I see?”

The white unicorn whirled around to see the portrait at the end of the grand hall-like office. Once again, it was alive with Pinkie’s imprint, smiling sadly. Rarity looked like she was about to say something for a moment, hesitated, and then simply nodded.

“Like I said, I don’t know what’s on there, but I believed Pinkie Pie when she told me it was going to be unpleasant,” the not-Pinkie sighed. “After all, she told me that right before she went into this office to her death. To this day I don’t know what killed her. Nopony else had gone in and nopony else had gone out. No security alarms had sounded. But none of that seemed to matter in the end.”

Rarity said nothing.

“I don’t want to keep you locked up in this office any longer, now that you know what happened here,” the not-Pinkie went on, understanding the white unicorn’s silence. “And, though I know it’s unpleasant, I’ll have to eat you again to get you to where you’re going next.”

Rarity nodded, still not saying anything. She was struggling very hard not to let emotion overwhelm her like it had back in The Everfree Forest. Only this time, instead of weeping for her fate and what she had expected to be the fate of her friends, the white unicorn was fighting a losing battle against the blue flame in her heart. A flame that wanted to hurt, destroy, and yes, even kill those things, whatever ‘they’ were. They had taken everything from her, and she intended to do the same to them.

But then Rarity paused. Did she really want revenge to be the only thing fueling her right now? What would her friends think if she was driven by nothing but hate at their loss? From both Pinkie and Pinkie’s imprint, Rarity had gathered that there was something bigger going on here. Something bigger than one little pony a thousand years out of time, and even the dearly departed friends who had tried everything they could to undo whatever had caused that to happen in the first place.

Rarity didn’t extinguish the cold fire at this, but she did cover it. She would find whatever it was her friends had wanted her to find, but not because she wanted to inflict the pain she had felt on those who had caused it. They deserved it, to be sure, but the white unicorn refused to let her thirst for vengeance consume her. She would not let it use her; instead, she would use it. The blue flame would only serve to fuel Rarity’s real drive: doing what her friends had asked her to do, because they had done so much for her. No, not even because of that; simply because they were friends. Rarity would right what wrongs they had wanted to right, but not by causing more wrong in the process.

The white unicorn thought all of this in a split second of eureka-like realization, and it brought a sad smile to her face and a tear to her eye. She would not be sad because her friends had died, she would be joyful that they had lived. And she would live for them just as they had lived for her.

By this time Portrait Pie’s tongue was already snaking towards the white unicorn from across the room. In one fell swoop, it slunk down and gobbled her up before retracting like a whip into the enchanted painting.

Rarity was deposited, a little more gently this time but no less wet, into a space that was even bigger than Pinkie Pie’s office. After shaking herself off and giving the sentient picture a mild glare, as it was still a rather undignified way to travel, Rarity took a moment to take in her surroundings.

The room was truly cavernous, and lining the entirety of it were rows upon rows of what looked like giant moving belts. Towering machines spewed all manner of odd items out onto them, where other, smaller machines reached down and applied some new part to the product before moving on to the next one to perform the exact same action all over again.

“What is this place?” Rarity inquired, trying to carefully balance between the cold fire in her heart and the will to simply finish what her friends had started, for whatever good she knew it would accomplish even if they were all long since dead.

“Factory floor 311-B,” the not-Pinkie replied, this time having to stay in her portrait. “This is where we make some of the gimmicks.”

“What exactly IS a gimmick, anyway?” Rarity ventured, truly curious. “My companion from earlier tried to explain them, but I didn’t quite grasp the meaning of what he said.”

“You know how Pinkie Pie always used to seem like she was oblivious to reality?” the pink doppelganger asked. “Even to the point of being able to defy the laws of physics?”

“I always had wondered about that,” Rarity admitted. “I always assumed that she must have had a unicorn somewhere in her bloodline and through that ancestor inherited latent magical abilities.”

“Nopony really knows where she got that gift,” the imprint informed her. “So that explanation is as good as any, even though nowadays they’ve discovered that some of the things she was able to do aren’t even possible with unicorn magic. Whatever the case, Pinkie figured out how to imbue abilities similar to her own within products she called gimmicks. Pinkie always use to use them to spice up parties, but everypony quickly discovered they could do much more than provide a good time. The demand for them exploded, no pun intended, ever since Pinkie’s first ‘pop rocks’ proved to be more explosive than dynamite.”

“And we’re in a room full of explosive candy?!” Rarity gulped.

“Oh, no,” the pink shade chuckled. “Those are made in another section of the factory. I just brought you here because this room is right next to the product testing labs.”

“Why didn’t we just go to the product testing labs, then?” Rarity raised an eyebrow.

“Because that’s where they do use ‘pop rocks,’” the not-Pinkie explained. “It’s also the workplace of somepony I want you to meet. Their shift should be ending any second now.”

As if on cue, a loud whistle blew from somewhere in the factory.

Rarity turned in the direction of a hissing noise to see steam erupting from two large steel doors. The great gateways were opening slowly on long hydraulic arms, revealing just how thick the metal was as the doors swung open. Rarity felt the same sense of unease she’d felt at learning of Pinkie’s ‘pop rocks’ when she saw the blast marks on the inside of the doorways, coupled with splatters of slime and even what appeared to be spiked candy canes.

“So who are we meeting?” Rarity asked as dark silhouettes materialized into ponies stepping out of the fog of the room beyond the doors. The white unicorn was anxious to be on her way, and so wasn’t too keen on sticking around Pinkieville any longer than she had too.

“Here she comes now,” the painting of Pinkie noted, pointing with a two-dimensional hoof out of her portrait as a blur rushed out of the testing labs and ran smack into Rarity. The two ponies tumbled over and under each other until Rarity was was on her back underneath a tangled mess of golden mane and white feathers. “Though I probably should’ve warned you beforehoof about her being… different.”

Rarity was unable to say anything, as her mouth was currently buried under the ‘different’ pony’s rump. The white unicorn angrily scrunched up her legs and then delivered a furious push to the interloper. The pony, being a pegasus, was lighter than Rarity had anticipated and flew a good distance before crashing back to the floor.

“Watch where you’re going, you ruffian!” Rarity called after the pegasus, picking herself up off the floor and attempting to dust herself off. “My mane’s had quite enough harassment today from chocolate milk and the fact that I overslept by a thousand years. I don’t need errant pegasi adding to its distress!”

Instantly, the white pegasus burst upright, launching into the air before spiraling back down again in a slow twirl. The pony zoomed up to Rarity as soon as she touched down, her face inches away from the white unicorn’s, large lavender eyes studying her intently.

Rarity tried to back up, but the pegasus followed forward each time she did so.

“Oh, this is ridiculous!” the white unicorn exasperated after she’d been backed up to the wall. “Personal space, please!”

Rarity moved to shove the intrusive pegasus away, but right before her hooves made contact, the other pony finally spoke.

“Your name is Rarity. Your height is approximately six point seven three hands. You are one-thousand and nineteen years old. Your IQ is Slightly Above Average. Your blood type is O. Your intentions are benevolent, though you have a predisposition to putting on a display of regality even when you don’t have to or want to. You are far more gifted with magic than you let on, with a rating of seven out of ten on the Standard Unicorn Magic Scale. Your weight is—”

“Stop right there!” the white unicorn belted, pushing the pegasus away. “Who are you? And how did you know all that? Has my plight become such common knowledge that everypony knows it?!”

“Quite the opposite,” Pinkie’s mental shadow cut in from where she’d been watching the scene unfold with amusement. “Nopony knows about your plight except the other imprints and I. Your tale has been forgotten by history.”

“Well somepony obviously told her!” Rarity huffed. “And I must say that I don’t appreciate my medical records and whatnot being made public knowledge!”

“They aren’t.” The the artificial ghost smiled. “In fact, even I didn’t know most of that stuff.”

“Then how did she?!” Rarity fumed.

“We haven’t the slightest idea,” the not-Pinkie replied. “It seems the real Pinkie Pie’s gift was passed on through the ages. It appeared in varying degrees in different ponies throughout her bloodline. Not one pony with the gift had it in quite the same way as Pinkie Pie herself did; they were all unique anomalies. Surprise here, the latest and last descendant of Pinkie Pie, seems to be able to size a pony up just by looking at them, among other things. But I’m sure you’ll find out about those later on.”

“Why would I stick around to find out about this crazy pegasus, even if she is Pinkie’s distant descendant?” Rarity asked. She had places to go, Disks to find, and friends to honor. She couldn’t waste her time being introduced to a pony whose relation to one of her friends was nearly drowned by a millennium of mixed genes.

“Oh, you won’t,” the not-Pinkie corrected. “As per the real Pinkie Pie’s orders, you’re to be given an escort to Sparkle Technologies in New Canterlot by the eldest and last descendant of Pinkie’s bloodline. And that pony is Surprise.”

. . .