Chapter 1: By Zervziel
Pain ripped across the restrained pony’s body. Her tear-stained eyes stared into the face of her assailant. The smile on the other pony’s face would’ve sent shivers through her tortured body if the pegasus hadn’t been so exhausted.
As the pony started to pass out from the pain, she spied something in the corner. An odd distortion in the air that made her believe her eyes were playing tricks on her. She prayed it wasn’t a figment of her imagination as she continued to lose consciousness.
A savage jab from the earth pony’s knife prevented her from falling asleep. No, they weren’t lying to her. In the corner of the darkened room the disturbance swirling in the air continued to get stronger.
The pegasus felt sure it was the doorway to the afterlife and the Eternal Herd lay just beyond.
“I’m coming, Mum,” She mumbled, head tilting down towards her ribcage.
“What’s that, Dashie?” Her insane friend bent over to catch the pegasus’ last words. Instead she heard something else entirely.
“Now! Drop the net! Hit her with sticks!” A voice bellowed from behind her.
As the earth pony jumped into the air in fright, her ascent was halted and with a jerk, she was quickly pulled to the ground as a heavy net settled over her body. The pony’s frantic attempts to escape only served to entangle her more. As she continued to battle the net, biting at the heavy strands, two swift blows came down upon her head.
Above the unconscious earth pony stood two mysterious ponies levitating two large gnarled pieces of wood. After the smaller of the two checked to see that both ponies were unconscious, she turned to her comrade.
“Sticks and a net? Really? We have the technology and magic to create and destroy entire star systems as well as cross into other dimensions. We can rip apart the veil of space and observe the primal forces that make the multiverse tick, and we resort to hitting a bad pony with sticks after dropping a net on her?”
Her companion merely favored her friend with a smile. “Ah but magic and machines can fail in some dimensions. It’s good to keep to the basics at times. Now set up the dummy while I get our newest recruit to the infirmary.”
With that, the pony levitated the pathetic remains of the pegasus into the air before walking into the twisting distortion that had reemerged behind her.
A short time later, the earth pony awoke. Pulling herself to her hooves she looked at her victim who was surprisingly whole.
“Wha-what?! I could have sworn I took care of you!” Her pout quickly turned into a hideous smile devoid of any compassion. “Oh well, it looks like I get to do it alllll over again! This’ll be so much fun!” A bounce in her step, she set to work.
Rainbow Dash felt herself rising from the depths of unconsciousness. Dreading what she would see, the chromatic pegasus kept her eyes shut. Moments passed. Nothing happened. With nothing to distract her from it, Rainbow Dash slowly became more aware of her body. The pain was gone!
Daring to take a look, she cautiously opened one magenta eye. Gone was that horrid room with its macabre decorations adorning the wall. There was no sign of that pink abomination she’d once called a friend either. In their place was a realm of stark white light. No walls, no ceiling, nothing. Just an empty white void stood before her.
“Where in Celestia’s beard am I?” She wondered aloud, turning this way and that to get her bearings. Eventually her eyes fell across a tall figure shrouded in a brilliant light, bright enough to hide the details of its body.
Slowly, she walked towards the figure, her hoof falls echoing in the emptiness; the figure extended a foreleg to her. Hesitantly, Rainbow Dash returned the gesture. As its fingers curled around her hoof, the being stepped out of the light revealing a frighteningly familiar face. The jaundiced eyes, the dragon-like tail, the mismatched limbs.
“Welcome to the afterlife, Rainbow Dash,” greeted the draconequus, speaking in an oddly quiet voice. “You’re dead.”
Rainbow Dash’s mind chose that moment to shut off in an act of self-preservation. It took a few moments of Discord randomly poking her to snap her out of it.
“Discord! What’s going on here?!” The pony was immediately on her guard, dropping into an attack stance even though she knew instinctively this was a foe she could not hope to tackle on her own.
“I told you,” murmured Discord. “You’re dead, this is the afterlife, and I’m God!”
The cyan mare was in shock. “Wha-what?! I’m dead?! No! No! Nononono! I can’t be dead! I can’t!” She was sobbing by the end.
So stunned by Discord’s words, she almost missed the white void suddenly disappearing. Instead she was in what now looked like a fairly large and high-tech medical examination room. The door on the opposite end opened to admit a pony whose presence immediately cut through to the stunned pegasus’ mind.
“Princess Celestia!” She cried out. Forgetting herself completely, Rainbow Dash bolted away from a strangely despondent Discord to hug the alicorn. Surprised to have the still sobbing Rainbow grab her around the neck for a fierce hug, the startled princess froze for a moment before returning the gesture. Hearing somepony clearing their throat, she looked up at Discord. A mischievous grin spread across the Solar Princess’s face and she spoke.
“Discord, you are not God. The universe isn’t that badly designed.”
Pumping his leonine fist in the air, the draconequus hissed out an excited “Yes!” before disappearing with a snap of his fingers and flash of white light. Chuckling, the princess turned her attention to the pegasus who was currently attached to her with a death grip.
“Calm yourself, my little pony.” She said in a soothing voice, stroking the rainbow mane with a hoof. “You must be strong for what waits ahead of you.”
Rainbow Dash was about to tell the owner of the voice to buck off when she remembered whom exactly she was about to talk back to and whom she was currently giving a bear hug.
Jerking away from the alicorn’s comforting hug suddenly, Rainbow practically fell on her flank as she backed up to a respectful distance, stammering as she tried to explain.
“Princess! I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to- Uh-Agh!” Pausing for a moment to regain control, she tried again. “I’ve…um…had a bad day,” she finished lamely. The flustered pegasus quickly found a whole new level of fascination in the exam room’s gray tile floors.
Fortunately, the Princess merely laughed. “I can understand completely, Rainbow Dash. It’s not every day my niece and my pupil drag in a disemboweled, wingless pegasus and beg our talented physician to put her back together.”
“My wings!” Rainbow’s attention flew to her precious wings, severed by the sadistic pony that had hacked them off while mumbling about hacksaws. True to the princess’s word, her wings, her beautiful wings were there! “Oh, I‘m never letting these two babies out my sight again!”
Princess Celestia was treated to the very odd sight of a pegasus trying to hug her own wings. “That may make flying a tad hard, my dear, though I’d imagine you would find a way.”
Rainbow gave snort of laughter as she imagined herself running into clouds repeatedly because she kept staring at her wings. “Heh. You have a point, Your Majesty. Where’s the doc who did this? I want to shake his hoof…and I might pull a Rarity and give him a kiss!”
She hadn’t long to wait before a familiar flash of light strobed through the room. A cup of coffee gripped in his right hand, and a donut with a bite out of it in the other, the long serpentine body of Discord loomed over her.
“Gah! Princess Celestia! What do we do about Discord?! Where are the Elements of Harmony?! We need the others to….”
Again Rainbow Dash’s mind seized up. This time it was due to the realization that the Elements of Harmony only worked when they were brought together. Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness, Generosity, Magic, and Laughter. The Element of Laughter, Pinkie Pie. Dash shuddered as she realized she’d have to work with Pinkie Pie to defeat Discord. The insane earth pony’s gleeful laughter echoed through the dark recesses of her mind. Such a happy sound for somepony to make while murdering a friend.
Misinterpreting the source of her distress, Princess Celestia intervened. “Calm yourself, Rainbow Dash, and I shall explain,” she urged. “You are in no danger at the moment. In fact it was Discord here who restored you.”
Rainbow Dash gawked at the chimera in shock. There was no way what the Princess said was true! Discord leaned in close to her face.
“I do believe a kiss is in order, Ms. Dash.” he declared with a smirk, puckering up his lips.
“Ugh! No thanks!”
The cyan pegasus’ face scrunched in disgust as she backed away from the snickering Discord. As she did so, she looked to the Princess.
“Princess Celestia, what the hay is going on? First Pinkie Pie who attacks me, cutting off my wings, then she starts taking out my organs and then the next thing I know I wake up here instead of that dingy basement and Discord tells me I’m dead.”
Rainbow Dash’s voice almost cracked as she spoke. She felt unbelievably tired. Discord was a terror when she had been fully awake and had her friends. Here she was drained and was alone aside from Celestia and Discord himself.
The Princess favored her with a look Rainbow couldn’t quite read though she could have sworn the Princess almost seemed sad, before Celestia stood up and walked over to her. “Rainbow Dash, my dear, this is not going to be easy to explain, but in many ways, what Discord said is true.”
“What?!” Dash shouted, fear and disbelief in her eyes. “No! I can’t be dead! I mean I’m right here! Right as rain! You’re such a kidder, Princess. Heh, heh,” her weak laughter died as her monarch gave her a melancholy look.
An uncomfortable silence fell upon the room, as all the occupants were deep in thought. Rainbow Dash dreading what she was going to hear next, Princess Celestia trying to think of a less traumatic way to tell the pony the unbelievable truth, and Discord considering creating a living pony made entirely out of sausages and cheese. The silence was broken when the freshly born creation wandered over to give a Rainbow Dash a hug. With a yell, she took flight to get away from the construct.
“Discord, keep your sausage pony in line, please!” Celesta ordered, wondering just what had led her immortal life to ever having to utter that sentence. The alicorn felt nauseous just looking at the parody of life Discord had created. “Why did you make that….thing anyway? I know you can create living, breathing ponies that have at least a few semblances of having a brain.”
“For the same reason I do most things, my dear Celestia…because I can and because it’s funny….at least to me.”
As they spoke, the sausage pony had taken to chasing Rainbow Dash around the room.
“Hey! A little help here!”
Both Discord and Celestia turned to see that the sausage pony had leapt up and grabbed Dash’s tail in its mouth. The sausages that comprised its face clenched tight as it was towed through the room, growling all the way.
Laughing at the two’s antics, Discord whistled. “Oscar! Here, boy!”
The sausage pony promptly released Rainbow, who from her own panicked flapping, careened out of control. She would have crashed into some rather expensive looking machines if a warm golden glow hadn’t enveloped her body.
“Heh, thanks for the save, Princess.” Rainbow wouldn’t have it said she was an ungrateful pony. The glow deposited her softly on the floor before dissipating.
“Now, Rainbow Dash, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you something that will change the way you look at Equestria and it’s inhabitants forever.”
With that, Celestia walked up to the door and with a quick poke of her horn deactivated the lock allowing the door to slide open. Rainbow Dash would never admit she was ever afraid of anything, but the events of the day had effectively killed that familiar cocksure feeling she normally possessed.
With no small hint of trepidation, the pegasus gingerly walked over to the door and was bracing herself prior to jumping through when a familiar growl sounded behind her. On reflex Rainbow leapt though the door, which promptly slid shut on the sausage pony that had been in hot pursuit. Discord’s laughter echoed behind them.
Outside the pegasus felt herself get hit by a brisk cold breeze. Closing her eyes, she breathed deep. The wind carried with it the scent of grass, trees and metal for some reason. A lot of metal. Opening her eyes, she was greeted by an amazing sight. She was standing in a field of grass, the metal hulk of the medical facility behind her.
It wasn’t the field that caught her attention however; it was the sky.
The sky was bathed in sunlight, but an impossible sight greeted her. An immense object pierced through the heavens above her. Looking to her left and her right it dominated the sky. It seemed endless! The sun and the moon had nothing on this monstrous structure. It appeared spiral in nature, the grooves on its outer surface visible from the ground. The rest was smooth, almost organic. The whole thing was a deep dark blue in color.
“What in Equestria?” She breathed, her mind struggling to grasp what she was seeing.
“Ah, that’s the key, Rainbow. We’re no longer on Equestria.”
“Gah!” Later on the pegasus was surprised how high she jumped when the Princess’s voice startled her.
“P-princess! You scared me to death!”
Before Celestia could respond, a new voice butted in.
“The famous Rainbow Dash scared? Now I’ve heard everything.”
The pony in question whipped around towards the voice. Standing a short ways away on a paved path to the medical building, a familiar violet unicorn waved a fore hoof in greeting.
“Twilight!” Rainbow shouted, before launching herself at her friend, knocking her to the ground while hugging her.
“Oof! Nice to see you too, Dash!” Twilight Sparkle gasped. “Could you please stop trying to crush my ribs?”
Laughing a bit guiltily, the mare complied while asking question after question. “Twilight, where the heck are we? Why is Discord free and why is the Princess so chill about that and most of all, WHERE THE HECK ARE WE?!”
By the end of her rant, Dash had been shouting. The looks the other ponies gave her didn’t bother her in the least. She had just experienced the worst day that could possibly ever happen to a pony. Attacked and mutilated by a friend, waking up to being told she was dead by one of her worst enemies who was free for some reason, and to top it off having the first friendly face being one of the Royal Sisters didn’t help with the stress levels either. Rainbow Dash felt as if she had competed in the Iron Pony competition again.
Twilight simply waited for Rainbow Dash to cool down before switching into lecture mode.
“In answer to your first and last questions, we are on an immense megastructure based around the horn of the primal aspect of darkness, Tenebris Ultra. This facility has a diameter larger than the Sun’s orbit around Equestria or Equestria’s orbit around the Sun, depending on which of the many universes we are linked too. It’s height is even larger by far and the whole structure is based in an interdimensional noponies land. Furthermore-” her spout of words was abruptly cut-off by a cyan hoof in her mouth. The pegasus gave her flat look and said, “In simpler terms, please.”
The unicorn heaved a heartfelt sigh of long-suffering, eliciting a faint laugh from Princess Celestia. “In simple terms, Dash, you’re on an immense space station anchored around the horn of an immense goddess. This space station is linked to a multitude of separate alternate realities that all follow Equestria. Any other questions?” Twilight finished in a cheery voice.
“Um, maybe.”
“It doesn’t get any simpler than that, Rainbow. Sorry.”
“Darn.” Dash simply looked down. “Sooooo...now what happens? I mean, I’m still not sure what’s going on, but even I know that somepony wouldn’t go through all of this just to say hi. Why am I here?”
At this Twilight shot a nervous look at Princess Celestia, who simply nodded her head and trotted towards the pegasus.
“Rainbow, my dear, you remember when Discord said you were dead and this is the after life, correct?” The rainbow-maned head nodded. “And you remember when I said in many ways it was true, right?” Another more tentative nod, Rainbow’s fears about being dead rising again. Things were certainly weird enough; she’d believe anything now.
Princess Celestia took a breath and with the air of one issuing a dire edict, spoke. “Rainbow Dash, I’m sorry, but while you are alive and whole, thanks mainly to Twilight here, in your home universe, you are considered dead. In fact, according to what we know of your universe, Pinkie Pie was apprehended for her crimes not long ago. Her last victim was you.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t know what to think. For once in her life, she felt as if everything was moving too fast.
“So why can I not go back? I mean I’m not dead yet and if Pinkie Pie is in jail, I should be safe. What’s wrong?”
The last part of her statement was directed at Twilight who had begun shaking her head. “Dash, everyone thinks you’re dead! They have a corpse and everything! You go back now and you’ll be attacked by pones thinking you’re a changeling who’s trying to soak up their feelings of love towards you.”
Rainbow cocked an eyebrow in utter confusion. “A what now?”
“A changeling. Nasty little creatures that steal the forms of ponies and eat the love others have for that pony! They wrecked my brother’s wedding, don’t you remember?!” Twilight exclaimed in exasperation. She knew she should have more patience for a pony in Dash’s position, but the pegasus wasn’t making it easy.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Dash blurted out. “Since when do you even have a brother?!”
Princess Celestia’s ears perked up at the mention of that rather embarrassing wedding. “Oh my. I believe I know what the problem is here, Twilight. This Rainbow Dash is from a universe whose timeline hasn’t reached that point yet. Most likely her universe’s Twilight Sparkle hasn’t informed them of Shining Armor.”
“Timelines? Multidimensional copies of friends with family I have never even heard of before? Augh! This place makes no sense!”
Rainbow Dash wanted to bang her head against a wall in the hopes it would cause everything to fall into place. Instead she opted to flop bonelessly onto the cool grass. Gazing up at the massive structure this crazy version of Twilight had called a horn. Looking at the faint grooves along its side, she could see why it would look like a horn. Still she couldn’t see far enough to be able to make out the base or the tip.
Nearby Celestia and Twilight conversed in low tones.
“Princess, are you sure she’s ready for this? I mean she’s quite obviously in denial about the whole thing. The Order wants the new team to be coherent and efficient. Everypony needs to be their best.”
The Princess listened with a faint smile on her face. “Indeed, my pupil. However I believe she has the strength to be just the pony you need. She just needs a few reminders of who she is.”
The unicorn arched an eyebrow at that. “I…guess. Are we going to tell her now or wait until the others get back from their mission?”
With a shout of “Ok, I’m bored now!” Rainbow dash leapt off the grass and zoomed off into the sky.
Flexing her wings in preparation to retrieve the pegasus, Princess Celestia turned to her pupil. “I guess that answers that question. It may be for the best however. That way it needs only to be said once and quite frankly the Order’s orientation for new agents is much more thorough. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must retrieve Rainbow Dash before she gets lost.”
With a powerful downward sweep of her wings and kicking off with her hind legs, the alicorn took off in pursuit, leaving a faint rainbow contrail of her own. Summoning a book on magic, Twilight settled in for the wait. “They won’t be too long,” she reasoned.
“Any final words you worthless whore of a foal?” grated the blood red pegasus to the younger mare.
The younger mare simply looked into her tormentor’s magenta eyes. “You have beautiful eyes,” the younger pegasus giggled. Before the red pegasus could make her final move to end the younger a loud accented voice butted in.
“Howdy! mind if we cut in?”
The red pony looked up, intense rage and insanity warring in her eyes. Standing not too far away was a light gold earth pony. A Stetson hat perched atop his head.
Completely un-phased by her hateful grimace, the earth pony trotted up between her and her victim and started talking to the battered mare she had just been menacing. “You ok? No? Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of here.”
A red hoof smashed into the cloud floor between them, almost dispersing the material.
“You aren’t going anywhere! How’d a lame earth pony like you get up here anyway?” Putting herself between the earth pony and her prey, she called out to her black suited minions throughout the large room.
“Grab this foal and toss him into the machine as well. He’s seen too much already.”
As one, a large group of the suited ponies flew up to the three. As they closed with the stallion, he grinned. “Sorry to disappoint, but I can’t fight y’all right now. Got a filly to save.”
The Suits drew closer and several were positioning themselves to jump on the cheeky stallion when a war-cry rang out.
“For the Princesses! Come at me you foals! I’ll show you how a REAL pony fights!”
The semicircle of pegasi looked around for the speaker, confused as to who would dare challenge them on their own turf. Seconds later a large gray mass smashed into the group, leaving some ponies knocked out from the force while others were instead knocked into the air, where they recovered clumsily. Looking back down at the stallion with the gold fur, they noted he now had a companion, a large dark gray earth pony.
“Get them, you idiots!” Screeched the red pegasus from before as she dragged the smaller mare towards a rather ominous machine. Seeing this, the gray earth pony nodded towards his friend before launching himself back towards the suited ponies. Taking the unspoken challenge the few remaining suited ponies started diving towards him.
With them thoroughly preoccupied, the other stallion raced after the two pegasi. Not trusting that she wouldn’t just throw the young pony into the machine from where she was, he launched himself at the red mare. As he tackled her, she dropped her victim in surprise, the small orange pony yelping in shock and pain as she hit the floor.
Shaking her head, she looked up and saw the stallion with the vest and the hat was currently pinning the other pegasus to the ground, the red mare flailing her hooves about, trying to strike her foe hard enough to dislodge him. Looking up from his struggling victim, the stallion brought one hoof up to his ear and pressed something.
“Ok, we’ve got everything in place, ma’am. Now we could use the help.”
No sooner had the stallion stopped talking than a shimmer appeared in the air. It looked for all the world like somepony had thrown a stone into a still pond. The disturbance got more and more energetic before a new pony stepped through the portal. The moment she stepped through the room froze. The red pony underneath the cowpony ceased struggling, gawking instead at the newcomer.
Even the free-for-all between the large gray earth pony and the three suited ponies that retained consciousness froze in a bizarre tableau. One pony trapped under his forehoof, another in his mouth and the third who was currently wrestling his left back leg and gnawing on it. With a half-hearted kick the gray stallion dislodged his foe and promptly sat on him. Turning his full attention to the new pony he greeted her. “Murminm, mam.”
Cadance gave him an odd look before levitating his pony-sized chew toy out of his mouth.
“Could you say that again, Slate? Also don’t talk with your mouth full,” the mischievous smirk on her face taking the barb from the statement.
His mouth now free, Slate Bulwark threw a salute to her. “I was simply saying good morning ma’am.”
“It’s afternoon.” Groaned the suited pony underneath his hoof. A sharp rap on his skull from Slate’s hoof silenced him.
“Silence, you. I didn’t ask,” the earth pony growled.
The alicorn looked around and spotted the familiar hat she’d come to associate with her other teammate. “Braeburn, did you have any trouble?” She asked, concerned for his wellbeing.
The ever-cheerful response of “Right as rain, Princess!” eased her heart. Recruitment missions rarely went off without a hitch. Ponies acted in many different ways and to make it even worse, the same pony from a different universe will act in different ways as well.
Looking to the still-pinned pony underneath Braeburn, Cadance snorted with disgust. Just earlier that day she and Twilight had rescued a considerably different version of this very same pony and here this one was, trying to do something truly dreadful to a pony that thought the universe of her.
“Hold her, Braeburn, but don’t be a gentlecolt about it. We will have to erase their memories after setting up the dummy body, but until then Miss Rainbow Dash could use a little pain for what she’s done to these ponies.”
Braeburn winced but nodded his head. Cadance was one of the most loving ponies he’d met, but even she had hardened over the years he’d worked with her. Every now and then, a different Cadance would emerge. The Cadance who’d pulled her unconscious husband and his sister through a portal to the Headquarters as her home universe was torn asunder behind her. At those times, she was about as loving as desert cactus. Still, she made for a good impromptu group commander at times.
Since Braeburn’s job was basically to sit on Rainbow Dash, he let his attention wander a bit. His eyes traveled from the sobbing mare pinned beneath him to Slate.
The large pony had once been a guard in this Cadance’s home universe. This pony was weird though. Unlike himself, Cadance, and even the young mare Scootaloo, the eggheads at HQ called Slate Bulwark a Singularity. A pony that only showed up in his home universe and nowhere else in all the expanded multiverse that made up Tenebris Ultra.
The earth pony in question had taken Cadance’s conversation with Braeburn to knockout the remaining suited ponies. Afterwards, he simply dragged them into a heap, to make it easier for when the Princess was ready to heal them, though given her current attitude, he wondered if she’d extend that to this group. Slate knew he wouldn’t.
The pink alicorn walked up to the orange mare on the floor.
“I’m sorry about this, but officially I need to give you a choice, young Scootaloo. It’s a bit of an Ogre’s Choice, unfortunately. Do you understand?”
A numb looking Scootaloo nodded her head.
“Ok, you can either stay here with this murderous version of Rainbow Dash or you can come with us to a whole new world of endless possibilities.”
When she saw the fear and confusion in the young mare’s eyes, the alicorn would have mentally bucked herself, if her words hadn’t been true. She’d never heard from any of the other teams of a recruit taking the option that meant certain death. Anypony would leap at the chance for life and this time was no different.
“I’m in!” Scootaloo shouted.
She literally had nothing left for her here. Her two friends were already gone and now her lifelong idol, a pony she’d practically envisioned as the pinnacle of coolness as well as been her unofficial big sister had betrayed her in a way Scootaloo hadn’t thought possible for ponies to do.
Cadance looked at her thoughtfully before nodding. “Ok. In that case please follow Slate and Braeburn while I finish things up here.”
Scootaloo felt a hoof on her shoulder and turn to look at the stallion who’d first appear. He gave her a friendly smile before nodding his head towards the rippling disturbance the alicorn had entered through. Gulping she stepped through, not knowing what to expect.
A chilling sensation like jumping into ice-cold water shot through her body. It was intense enough to elicit a gasp from her.
“C-Cold!” she stuttered out as she emerged into a gray metal room devoid of almost any features. The only things unusual about the room were twin metal arcs that encircled the portal.
“From what I hear, it’s not so much as cold as complete sensory deprivation,” Braeburn offered helpfully, turning to face the portal. Mere seconds after they arrived, a pink rump appeared in the portal.
Scootaloo stared at the bizarre apparitions before asking “What is she doing?”
The other earth pony, Slate, cast his eyes over to the portal. “Probably casting a spell to put Rainbow Dash to sleep.”
“Wait, what?!” Scootaloo yelled in surprise. “Aren’t you going to have her arrested for what she’s done to those ponies?!”
By this time, Cadance had backed up into the room in time to hear the pegasus’ protests.
“The authorities in your home continuity already suspect something is wrong considering so many pegasi have gone missing. My aunt Luna from your universe has been covertly looking into it while Celestia plays the part of the blissfully unaware ruler. They will pay for their crimes soon enough.”
The alicorn looked as if she would have said more, but was cut off when she yawned loudly. “Ah, pardon me. It’s been a busy day. Slate, Braeburn, since Scootaloo isn’t as badly injured as our previous recruit, could you take her to the nearest teleportation station so we can get to Central Core? The Orientation speech starts pretty soon and you know how Lady Shard feels about the speech.”
The two earth ponies chuckled. It was common knowledge that the pony that held the position of Chief Administrator of Headquarters practically lived for those speeches. It wasn’t known if it was because she loved writing speeches or if it was that her job kept her so busy most of the time, but the speeches where her way of seeing new faces.
With a short farewell to Cadance who trotted off take a nap, Scootaloo and her two guardians exited the building to head to the nearest ‘teleportation station’ as the absent Princess had called it. Scootaloo was surprised to find herself in a city similar Manehattan in size and scale. Skyscrapers reached towards the sky and the streets were crowded with ponies of all colors and types.
Scootaloo followed Slate and Braeburn into a large squat building. It consisted of a few security stations and a massive open area in the center. A large circle of metal with lights here and there covered the entirety of the floor.
“Ok, Central Core, please,” Braeburn called to the teleportation attendant. With a nod, the unicorn tapped something on his desk a few time before the large disk they stood on hummed to life.
Scootaloo stared in shock as several beams of light stabbed down from the ceiling and disintegrated the two earth ponies. She opened her mouth to scream when a burst of energy hit her as well. The next thing the pegasus knew she was on the floor, feeling like somepony had scooped out her stomach.
“What the hay was that?” She asked weakly. A cheery face popped into her view, Braeburn’s face mere inches from her own. Normally she would have reacted by jerking away in surprise while perhaps batting at him with her hooves. Now, she was too weak to even lift a hoof.
“Come on, Missy. Walk it off,” Slate ordered, levering the mare off the ground with his head. “Everyone’s first teleportation is their worst. You get used to it eventually.”
Allowing herself to be pushed towards the door, Scootaloo groaned.
“I feel like I left my stomach back….wherever we just were.”
The two stallions merely laughed as they continued towards their goal. Only now did Scootaloo take note of where she was. Ahead of her was a structure at least the size of Canterlot. Only instead of protruding from a mountainside like the former, this place protruded down from a vast metal ceiling. She looked around and noticed the walkway she stood on and several others she saw in different locations around the building protruded from it like spokes on a wagon wheel.
“So what’s all this about?” Scootaloo asked, half out of curiously and half out of a desire to break the silence.
“You’ll see when you get there, miss. Twilight and the other recruit are already inside, so we’ll catch up to them afterwards.”
The pegasus studied her chaperone’s faces a they walked. Slate Bulwark, having been a Royal Guard at one point n his life, offered nothing more than a stern, unmoving façade. Braeburn, who Scootaloo dimly remembered Applebloom mentioning once as family, was considerably easier to read. His face was cheerful yet relaxed. In turn Scootaloo relaxed as they reached their destination. After all, what more could possibly be worse than what she’d have experienced so far?
Lady Shard paced back and forth outside the large auditorium reserved for the many, many ponies that got offered a chance to join the Order of Destiny. Mentally the dark, steel-blue alicorn went over her memorized notes, making sure she had every last detail right.
As much as she fretted over the details, she loved getting to see the new faces. Sure there were sometimes copies of ponies every now and then but in many ways, that made it even more fun.
Briefly, Shard indulged herself with a bit of nostalgia, quietly laughing at a memory of about five Twilight Sparkles all comparing notes about their home universes after one of her speeches. Another time she’d been forced to put her hoof down when a Nightmare Moon had almost come to blows with a fiery version of Celestia.
Watching the new ponies interact with each other was a source of endless entertainment for her, a brief look at what made them tick as an individual as well as what made each version a unique entity unto herself.
Pulling herself from her reverie, Shard rolled her shoulders forward while flexing her wings in turn. Cracking a few kinks out of her neck with a few loud pops. “Well, no use putting it off any longer. Might as well give these ponies a show.”
With that she pushed open the doors with a shove from her magic and approached the stage, catching everypony’s attention as she did so. Doing a quick scan of her audience and noting which ponies were present, she began.
“To be standing here today means that all of you have faced hardship,” Lady Shard announced to those assembled. None could tell if her voice was pitying their condition or implying that they should suck it up. “Hardship that would break most ponies, and often has. Some of you have had to witness the destruction of entire universes. Some of you have had to face unspeakable horrors that made death look merciful by comparison. And now that you know of the infinite number of other universes out there, you know that countless other ponies are suffering similar fates, or even ends that are much, much worse.
“But what if I told you that you could change all that?”
The ponies watching the Lady blinked in confusion. How could anypony alter the course of countless realities? Most of them, before everything that had happened, hadn’t even considered that there might be more than one. Now they knew that the sum of all known universes was a number so large a pony’s head would explode before they could wrap their mind around it all. And then there was the part where all the known universes were just a fraction of what was really out there… It boggled the mind just to think about thinking about it.
The most mind-boggling thing of all though…was how pointless it all seemed. Sure, there were a possibly infinite number of universes in which all possibilities could be explored. But Lady Shard was right. Seeing how many of those universes ended without warning every nanosecond, how so many of them were ridden with the grimmest darkness of torture and death and despair to begin with…wasn’t that just the way things were? Chaotic and entropic and full of misery and loss? How could that possibly change?
“I know what you all are thinking,” Lady Shard informed them, and not a single pony there doubted that she did. Many of them shuddered to know that even their thoughts weren’t free of this pony. “But the answer is simple. No, endless entropy and death and bloodshed is not the natural order of Tenebris Ultra. All of that is what happens when order is lost. What we here at the Order of Destiny do, every second of every day, is preserve order where it is and spread it to where it is not. And order is destiny. Just like a single pony, a universe has a destiny that it must follow. If it does not do so, reality crumbles and all slides into mindless oblivion. We are not drops of water helplessly carried by the tides of an endless ocean; we are the moon that guides the ocean. We are the very agents of existence, and we guide realities to their destinies.”
Lady Shard trotted forward, and before they realized what they were doing or why the other ponies nervously and instinctively stepped back. Shard seemed to smile at this, in an ‘if only you knew, then you’d REALLY be terrified’ kind of way. Then again, she could have been frowning at their fear, or showcasing some expression they had never even experienced before. With this alicorn, you could never tell.
“I do have to warn you, though,” the Lady said soothingly, or threateningly, or in an intonation altogether different. “Being an agent of the Order of Destiny is not for the faint of heart. If you choose to join our ranks, you will indeed be performing the highest duty any being in existence can be called on to perform. But you will also be performing the deadliest of tasks any being in existence will ever face.”
The group was silent, though not out of fear this time. No, now they were deep in thought. It wasn’t as if Lady Shard simply spoke, it was as if her words were the very essence of truth. The ponies had no doubt that she meant every word of what she said, and that if they did embark on this new adventure they might regret it for the rest of their lives, however short they may be. But all also came to the conclusion that they would regret it more if they backed down. They had all witnessed firsthoof the horrors of the multiple realities that made up existence. They had all resolved deep in their hearts that nopony should ever have to face such horrors. But, if they could shoulder the brunt of these dark patches of reality to save those with less strength than they, then they knew there was no occupation better suited to their needs. If reality needed saving, then they would step up to the challenge. Nay, they would crush the challenge under their hooves and wipe it into the dust of forgotten history.
“Well that was an interesting speech,” Twilight quipped as she left Central Core alongside Rainbow Dash and surprisingly Princess Celestia, who’d decided to join them. The other two ponies nodded in agreement. Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to speak when a sharp crack ripped through the air.
With a small puff of smoke, a missive appeared in front of Celestia’s face. Though surprised at the sudden message, she caught it with her magic before it fell. With practiced ease, she broke the seal and unrolled it one smooth action. After reading through the message, the Princess’s face fell. Reading through the short message a few more times, she finally rolled it back up and incinerated it with a burst of magic.
Seeing the distraught look on the Princess’ face, Twilight spoke up. “What’s wrong, Princess Celestia? What did that message say? Who was it from?”
The solar princess locked eyes with Rainbow Dash, yet directed her answers towards her student.
“It was from Cadance. It seems just moments ago, the Red Queen appeared in miss Dash’s former home universe.”
The pegasus didn’t know what that meant, but from Celestia’s tone, it sounded like something dire.
“So? What does that mean?” she pressed. “So some queen paid my home a visit. Who cares?”
Twilight simply gave her a sad look. “It means that you no longer have a home universe, Dash. It’s gone.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.023 seconds
Total duration
1,015 users online
1,432,231 hits today, 2,073,628 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
The audience demands moar.
Any story that undoes cupcakes in the opening gets a follow.
Brilliant! Absolutely brilliantly done. I'm honestly excited to hear who writes the next chapter. Oh and by the way the story picture is awesome.
pones - ponies
“Well, no use putting t off any longer. - “Well, no use putting it off any longer.
Thats all the grammar mistakes I noticed. Nice job Chaotic Dreams! Scoot and RD are pleased with you!
Looks pretty interesting, I'll be following this
“Well, no use putting t off any longer. Might as well give these ponies a show.”
Gah! Curse my stupid 'i' key!
Anyway, I'm glad to see this up on FiMfiction. Awesome choice of story pic and nice description, Chaotic.
Anyway, one thing I noticed is there are a few places where a horizontal rule needs to be to signify page breaks. I know FiM tends to ignore them when the fic is first uploaded so I think it needs to be done manually.
“For the Princesses! Come at me you foals! I’ll show you how a REAL pony fights!”
More than a few of you thought of this when reading it, but in truth you have NO idea how close Slate Bulwark came to just saying img38.imageshack.us/img38/2706/comeatmeg.jpg
OOOO! The possibilities! Just think about it! The multi-verse is where my imagination draws its energy and gets me so many ideas
! Now I'm wondering how they would react if they saw one of my characters, namely a favorite, The Psychopath. Ohoho. Discord would love to meet him.
Oh Celestia! How do I even start to compare?! Curse you 585809, curse you and your great writing!!
Now I need to practice my prose before I can even hope to write for this...
591272 Thanks for the compliment, but in truth following should be rather easy. It is a collab after all, so we can all help out. Plus it's not like we roped in some of the insanely popular authors like Device Heretic, shortskirtsandexplosions, and determamfidd. They'd overshadow everyone just by being on board.
591481 At least I can ask and share samples when I want to.
Thanks for the confidence.
Hmm...
Doctor Who meets Mission Impossible meets Star Trek
I like what we have so far. We're pulling a team together, like some sort of Avengers squad.
Tracking.
602697 Kinda. Only with more ponies and interdimensional travel.
A savage jab from the earth pony’s knife prevented her from going into that final sleep. No, they weren’t lying to her. In the corner of the darkened room the disturbance swirling in the air continued to get stronger.
I must remember to never make corrections so soon after waking up I can't see straight. That is some pretty awkward wording. Could you change it to "Prevented her from falling asleep." or something similar, Chaotic?
Wow, took me awhile to finally getting around to reading this. So glad I did, this story is awesome so far. Love the idea of alternate universes actually being real and an entire story centered around that is awesome. Really looking forward to seeing more. Very great start to the story!
610975
Sorry, just got around to working on this comment. Sure, I'll switch it up.
nobrony else has noticed this. SITHIS. OMG THE DREAD FATHER HIMSELF IS AMONG OUR RANKS!
Interesting concept. There are a lot of grammar points I want to jump on, but my biggest complaint by far is that the transition from one POV to another is not broken up very well. I had to go back a few times to see where things went from Rainbow's POV to Scootaloo's to Shard.
Even an asterisk between graphs would be something.
I read the beginning.
I HAD THIS EXACT SAME BLOODY CONCEPT IN MY HEAD.
I LOVE YOU FOR MAKING THIS. I BLOODY LOVE YOU.
I wonder what would happen if multiple Doctors were held in the space station. Because there has to be quite a few instances where a pony(s) like that would die in the infinite scism of the multiverse, and I bet they would be useful as hell to the Order of Destiny.
Oh my my.
This looks fun...
I do believe you have my interest with this one...
~Skeeter The Lurker
You undid Cupcakes. Love it. I dread to know what fanfic wrote Rainbow Dash as a murderer of Scootaloo? Anyway, am I the only one who was reminded of Picard and Q in the scene between Discord and Rainbow Dash? The words are almost identical!
Oh my! The start is so funny. You totally stole the scene from TNG between Picard and Q in the Tapestry episode.
Hmm... You have my attention...
4006897
that Fic where Rainbow Dash kills Scootaloo is called "Rainbow Factory".