1 - Camouflage
Twilight Sparkle - 23rd of Megan, 17 EoH
The Void - Interdimensional Space
Is it ironic that the stupidest decision of my life was made after I had dispelled an evil pony’s grip on my mind? A person goes back in time again and again with the express purpose of trying to make me less and less intelligent each time, more foolish, more naive. I discover my mind has been tampered with and reverse as much of the damage as possible, and then I let them trick me into getting banished into this…
This nothing. This darkness. Darkness devoid of even that darkest of color. A darkness which pulled me ever downwards into a starry void.
Yes, that statement is paradoxical. It’s also true. And I’d been falling through the dark nothing full of stars long enough to not only stop screaming but also to come to terms and accept the paradoxical place I was now inside.
Why, oh for the love of Celestia, WHY, did I think touching anything Dawn handed me was a good idea? A person you know made getting you permanently out of their way their driving mission in life tells you to touch something, that it will lead you to your parents, and you just pick it up.
Of course it was trapped. Of course he would use his last breath to hurt you. Think about who you were talking to...
You’d think the stars would have provided light, but no. They illuminated themselves and nothing more. I couldn’t even see my own forelegs in front of my face, despite the stars white glow.
Which meant they couldn’t really be stars. Though, what else do you call an infinite number of small pinpricks of light hanging within an also infinite inky black expanse which seems completely devoid of an atmosphere?
Also how was I breathing here? Was it the effects of the banishment spell? It had to be. But then again, since I had spent perhaps an hour falling down through nothingness whoever had created this spell was a compleate amature. It was taking TIME for me to move through a portal.
How do you mess that up? That’s a first year-
Ah, yes… You couldn’t possibly mess it up. Not when to create the portal you had to spell each part of the spell out. Literally. Within the pages of a book.
This couldn’t be a portal. It simply couldn’t be.
I was dead. This was oblivion. The portal had backfired, exploding, killing me in the process and now I was here.
I’d asked Dusk what dying was like when I met her years ago. After all, that’s the first thing anyone would ask when meeting the reaper. She’d described it just like this. Black void. Full of stars. Lots of nothingness despite those somethings.
Wasn’t there supposed to be an afterlife? Yes, I remembered her saying something about that. I should be in one now, right? There’s no way there’s a full hour long wait to get into the afterlife.
Unless… Maybe the myths about needing to be at peace to move through are true?
I’d just come from a warzone. I could still feel the stress pushing at my mind. It was the only thing keeping me from falling into a pit of despair.
Flash had died in front of me, really horrifically too. Again. But this time nopony would have been able to put him back together.
Rarity had died alone in the middle of nowhere because I mindlessly agreed with Celestia that we should all split up. That was on my head. We would have all been fine if we’d all gone together. That’s how it always turned out when we did.
Ponyville had been destroyed… While the town could be rebuilt, I didn’t have time to ask about the people there. And Canterlot too. It had been evacuated, but the soldiers defending it-
NO! No, we are not dwelling on that!
If I am dead, then I have to come to terms with all of that instead of falling into an inwards spiral of despair. I’ll just float here, close my eyes, and calmly focus on the reality of my husband’s death.
And the fact that my parents were not my biological parents. Because my entire life had been largely fabricated by the very person who tried to drive ponykind to extinction… Going so far as to use many instances of time travel to constantly try and prevent me from helping one person at one point in time which led to the entire invasion happening.
Not because Dawn didn’t want to launch his attack of course. But because I’d somehow forced him to attack before he was ready.
Soooo… Yeah. We can add ‘My entire life was a lie and while I do love the people who raised me and Shining will always be my big brother, I grew up a thousand years later than I was supposed to because almost every decision I’ve ever made was manipulated by a monster, and that includes marrying Flash because alternate dimention me married her universe's Rainbow, and Trixie,’ to the list of things I had to come to terms with.
Or in short: Every single one of my thoughts, opinions, and past actions could have been, and likely was, the result of manipulation, mind control, or arranged circumstances. Now that I was free from a lifelong influence, who am I?
That was one heck of a list to work through… Even for me. And I love checklists.
… Do I love checklists?
I brought a forehoof to my chin and thought about it for a few moments. Yes, I did like checklists. They made things nice and efficient, and also accurate. Alright, that’s one thing ‘she’ liked that I do. Good.
Let’s work through this checklist! We seem to have plenty of time. An eternity, in fact. Of falling through black nothing.
Did I really have to confront all of those things, though? Well, yes. I did. Or I’d be trapped here for-
My eyes widened as I realized something which should have been blatantly obvious.
If this was a really messed up portal, instead of oblivion (however unlikely that might be), it was taking me time to move through this portal. Which meant it must still be open at either end!
While there was no way for me to change my direction, no air for my wings to push against, nor ground to step on, nor did my magic function at all here, if the way back was open I could do one very important thing. Something critical to not just myself, but for everypony back home.
“Hello?” I called as loudly as I could manage. “Anypony? This is Twilight. The void isn’t just a mental construct used as a term for ‘the space universes exist within. It’s an actual location!
“Yep! Just like Aura Chime hypothesized. You need to get the Royal Academy of Science to seriously pursue her findings. Because they are definitely at least partially correct.”
There! If I was going to be thrown out of my universe, at least I would have helped advance exo-cosmology.
Wait a minute! Secondary realization!
“Also, if you lower a rope into wherever my voice is coming from, I might be able to climb back out of this-”
The blackness suddenly became pure blinding whiteness, washing away what little there had been to existence in this place.
Central Operations Facility - The Observatory
Epoch 19005183932
Deep within the belly of a sterile building, an all alarm screeched a unique warning. Its long warbling cry shattered the library-like silence which had previously extended across the entire facility, alerting its occupants of the dire news that the very last thing they wanted to happen again was occurring once more.
The alarm screeched four times before being silenced with a crackle of static from an intercom set within the facility’s central hub and lobby.
“Gentlemen, we have another alien transport signal within the system,” an older wizened male’s voice announced wearily, disrupting somewhat as the sound echoed off the lobby’s dome.
Another intercom crackled to life. “I also detected it,” a rather bland female voice confirmed.
“Yes, that is what that alarm means,” a younger male voice chuckled as a third intercom switched on. “Where are they emerging? Do we have the number of aliens arriving?”
“Please follow protocol, Red,” the older voice requested. “Blue, confirm the signal.”
“S-seriously?” Red scoffed incredulously. “We have three minutes tops before they arrive and we need to take care of like, nine different th-”
“Signal confirmed,” Blue announced. “The signature matches the previous two signals exactly. The extraterrestrials are arriving within the system. As they have before.”
“We could try to close this side of the anomaly. You know, so we don’t trap another person here in a cage of bureaucracy,” Red grumbled, knowing full well that the other two would ignore his suggestion.
“I can confirm one biosignature within the transport signal,” the older man continued, ignoring Red just as predicted. “Red, can you confirm the signal’s location on our end?”
“Cluster One, The Island, within the Footpaw at coordinates seventy-nine point five, thirty point six,” Red replied instantly. “We all share the same data feed. You know this! We need to get them integrated into the system. You know damn well these guys breathe radon, Green!”
“We are getting to that, Red,” Green grumbled. “We MUST follow protocol. Especially in the first instance of something we developed a protocol for. Blue, can you confirm the data of the inbound lifeform?”
“The subject is a female of an unknown subspecies of ‘pony-folk’,” Blue reported. “Designating Subject as Xeno Subject Delta. Delta is quadrupedal like Xeno Subject Beta and Xeno Subject Gamma. Delta most closely resembles Beta, but possesses a horn as well as wings. This includes the production of high levels of dark energy… The dampening fields should prove effective at limiting Delta’s anomalous abilities without any modification. We will not have to worry about Delta damaging the System.”
Green remained silent for several seconds, forcing Red to sigh and play along with his superior’s ideals.
“She’s materializing, much more slowly than the others though,” Red reported. “The System is incorporating her. We have very little time to adapt her for survival here. I vote we use Contingency Three.”
“Out of the question,” Green dismissed venomously. “We are not adapting the engram system to work for non-human creatures. You know exactly what happened last time!”
“I agree with Red, in so far as adapting the oxygen tank and mask Engrams to function for non-humans would have the least impact on the System,” Blue said emotionlessly. “We can not afford much more strain on the System. The board is already upset at what little useful data we can provide them.”
“Exactly,” Green snapped. “Last time we allowed non-humans to utilize the Engram System we nearly lost all the Subjects. There is no way to program the System to accept another single species in addition to Humans in less than fifty years. We can only open it to everything, or limit it to Humans. There are no other configurations.
“If we do open everything up again, with the chaos that will cause we won't be able to give the board anything at all this quarter and the project will be terminated. That’s unacceptable. The project succeeding is our Primary Directive. We can NOT allow the ARK System to fail. We will NOT be using Contingency Three. We will be choosing between number one or number two.”
“Alright, fine. Then we have to alter this woman’s body against her will so she can use the System,” Red said, just to remind everyone else as to exactly what they were going to do.
“Yes,” Blue agreed. “I can’t find an ethical objection to temporary modification for the sake of her survival. We can easily return her to normal before she departs.”
“Yeah. But we totally could just be giving her a breath mask and a tank of radon every day. Except that idea’s been shot down,” Red sighed. “I won't let a person die because ultimately, I’m the only one of us who has the ability to perform the modification.
“I will have no part in choosing how to modify her, and I will be filing a formal complaint with the board. But I won't let her die.”
“Objection noted, Red,” Green said casually. “Blue, option one, option two?”
Blue paused to consider for a moment before replying. “Option one allows Delta to continue walking on four legs, while allowing her limited use of the Engram System due to the human upper body. However the ‘Taur’ body pattern may induce significant mental stress due to going from four to six limbs as well as difficulty in controlling the body. Furthermore, it significantly handicaps Delta with an inability to utilize many items.
“While we can assume Delta will have difficulty walking on two legs, these factors make option two better over all.”
“I agree. Since Red has abstained from voting for ethical reasons we will go with option two,” Green decided. “Red, reconfigure Xeno Subject Delta’s body into a configuration appropriate for a human female.”
“I’ve already sent the nanos their instructions,” Red informed.
Green and Blue paused, checking the data feeds they had been ignoring.
“Red, that is not a human,” Blue said, her motionless voice almost sounding surprised. “That is something the Net informs me is called an anthropomorphic animal.”
“It’s human enough,” Red countered. “She can use Engrams and not die from the different atmosphere. That’s all she needed.”
“The System will register it as human, and it is humanoid. The System will probably work for something like this, but this is in violation of your direct orders!” Green fumed.
“Mhm,” Red countered. “Sucks when your will is violated, doesn't it? I’m not forcing her to completely change species. We did that to Nyota, and it took them decades to be okay again. This woman is keeping her fur and equine features. Period.”
“I am reporting your insubordination!” Green shouted, pronouncing the word.
“Yeah, and that report is going out on the heels of my formal ethics complaint,” Red spat back.
“Subject Delta is not fully integrated… And has now fully materialized,” Blue reported urgently.
“Come again?” Green asked worriedly.
“Delta has been given a working nanite hive, and has been adapted into a humanoid form, but the hive did not activate Delta’s specimen implant. Likely due to Red’s sloppy genome coding... Delta has no way to interface with the system,” Blue elaborated. “If it’s harmed without the implant operational, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Damn it all!” Green swore. “It’s bad enough we couldn’t integrate Beta and Gamma into the system. We can NOT afford to have one of the aliens die while in our care! Whenever the Republic manages to sort out the legal issues with this whole unorthodox first contact I imagine they will want to return the alien’s citizens unharmed.”
“Yeah. They will. Which is why it’s incredibly stupid that we legally can’t get innocent people out of a literal prison full of psychopaths simply because no agency has the authority to authorize their release... Look. It’s fine, I’ll get her fully online and do what I can to keep her safe,” Red said urgently. “You guys can return to whatever you were doing.”
“Interacting with the Subjects is a violation of the federal penal code,” Green protested.
“Um. Yeah. It is. But she’s not a prisoner. She wasn’t sentenced to be here by any recognised court of law. Which is why no one can authorize her release. And why I can totally interact with her or any of the other three all I want,” Red grumbled.
“That’s true but recherche personnel are prohibited from entering a Habitat under any circumstances other than to escape an ARK’s immediate destruction,” Green shot back. “You communicating with your little friend via instant messages is probably also forbidden, and if I can ever prove it is I will have you f-”
“Apologies for a second interruption, but while we were debating I was able to finally trace the teleport signal,” Blue said quickly, hoping to prevent her colleagues from fighting. “We should be able to send a message to a point within three hundred meters of the alien's departure point. Protocol states we must provide the aliens with the location of their missing citizens.”
“Red, you’re the only one who can write their language. You’ll be in charge of sending the message, take care of it after you’ve gotten Delta’s implant working. I’ll inform the board we have a means of contacting the aliens now,” Green sighed. “Because dealing with corporate task managers is exactly what I wanted to do with my time today.”
Twilight Sparkle - Epoch 19005183932
The Footpaw - The Island
You know, I’d really thought that the entire universe suddenly turning eye-stabbing white would have meant something. Nope! Just more falling straight down. But through white now.
Oh no! Did I get banished to a universe containing nothing but perplexing at first, yet ultimately boring, random events?
That would literally be the worst possible fate anypony could suf-
“AAAAHHHHHH!”
Who the in the hay was screaming!? And why?
Oh. I was. Because my everything hurt.
I shouldn’t be able to feel every single individual muscle fiber, but I could. And they all burned like I’d just ran a billion kilometer marathon, and only embellished the distance by a factor of two.
The pain lasted for only the briefest of moments, and despite the impossible intensity, I forgot about it as the whiteness engulfing me somehow flared even brighter! Gravity came back to the world, I could feel myself being pulled downwards. There was a place to be again, I could feel myself laying on my belly in sand.
Sand of a beach someplace. The gentle lapping of waves and the low hissing skittering sound of seafoam being sucked back into the water reached my ears as the single most pleasant possible contrast to the absolute nothingness I’d just been through.
I opened my eyes, shutting them immediately as a far too bright sun reflecting off the sea blinded me. Turning my head the other way, I opened them again.
I was indeed on a beach. A rather nice tropical beach of soft yellow sand, with a gentle rolling beach moving inland to a tropical jungle full of palm trees, and an odd thick trunk that splits into a dozen thinner trunks of a bushy-but-huge oak-like tree which I had never seen before in my life.
It looked really tropical. That’s all I could say about it. Me. A mare who once read a fifteen book series on horticulture for fun.
That put the odds of the ‘died vs bad portal’ debate a bit closer to bad portal. Not to say that I know every tree on Equis. Now that I had a minute to peer into the bamboo filled jung-
Wait… Bamboo? Bamboo doesn't grow alongside coconut palms anywhere I’m familiar with!
Frowning at the odd sight I pushed myself up to go and take a closer look at the plants in the hopes of finding a clue to my location, and immediately froze.
I hadn’t pushed myself upright with a hoof. I’d pushed myself upright with a hand. While I’d had hands before, they had been covered in smooth skin. Not lavender colored short silky fur.
“Okay… What am I?” I asked as I turned my head to look down at myself.
A quick look showed me that I still looked like myself, in terms of colors, face shape, and having a horn. But the rest of my body wasn’t the same. I looked like I had been turned halfway into the human shape I’d had when visiting the Mirror World, and then the transformation stopped.
A furred humanoid creature with a unicorn’s attributes, but no pegasi attributes to be seen. No wings… That wasn’t good. What else was I missing?
Giving my body a second look, in terms of human features, I had the general body shape, a pair their permanently engorged teats at a size which looked and felt a bit too large, and fortunately a rather athletically toned body.
I’d always liked the way their muscles developed. Not in an aesthetics way, in a performance way. Humans may not be exceptionally strong animals, but they had a lot of endurance. If the muscle shapes were any indication, I could run for exceptionally long times.
It would be really cool if the earth pony strength given to me by my ascension was now backed by human running for ridiculous lengths of time. I’d always wanted to be more athletic, but there had just been so much to read and-
Catching sight of my reflection in the water I noticed I didn’t have have a mane. Or a tail. Not that I was missing skin, or lacked a tail, but rather, the hair making up my mane and my tail was gone. As if I’d cut it all off down to fur length.
I had a buzz cut. And a total tail trim. WHY!? That looks SO BAD! It’s going to take a YEAR for me to look ven remotely good...
On the bright side, at least I had an earth pony’s long prehensile tail! I hadn’t even gotten that when I’d become an Alicorn. Time to see if it’s just the looks or actually prehensile.
I held my left arm out, and tried to curl my tail’s end around my wrist. My tail moved exactly how I wanted it to, but wrapped around something cold and metallic in addition to warm fur.
“Huh?” I said to myself rather unintelligently, moving my tail aside and looking at my wrist.
Or more specifically at the small diamond shaped implant attached to my wrist on the inside of my arm, which was almost but not quite flush with my skin.
I traced a finger over the implant, pursing my lips in confusion. There was a second diamond shaped section in the center of the implant, bordered by what looked like some form of light strip, but it was dark. Inactive.
Was I supposed to push the center bit? It looked like a button…
I gave the ‘button’ a push. Nothing happened.
I tried to get a grip on the implant to see how well it was attached, and then pulled. My arm moved with the implant, giving me the unmistakable sensation of pulling on, well, my arm. Whatever this thing was, it was fused to my skeleton.
I sighed and looked out over the sea for a moment. There was an island which seemed like one big tree covered hill to my right, and nothing but ocean to my left.
“I’m naked,” I realized.
That wasn’t really a problem for me. But I had been wearing Sunset’s mask and my saddlebags in that dark void of nothing. Which means something had separated me from my belongings. Because they were not anywhere on the beach near me.
A portal would have brought everything through. More evidence to the ‘I died’ theroy.
Naked, alone, stranded on a beach in a place I was pretty sure couldn’t be on my planet, without any friends or family to help me, all while living in a brand new body after going through what could possibly have been me dying.
Wasn’t reincarnation a thing? Yeah, yeah Dusk said she did that for people sometimes. But she never put them back into the same universe. For paperwork reasons.
Maybe I’d died and been given a fresh chance at life, but still remembered my old one for some reason. Or maybe I did fall through a portal which was made by the least competent apprentice mage to ever exist. In ether case, the result was the same.
I had a clean slate.
No friends. No reputation. No belongings. No family. Nothing at all but emotional baggage I really didn’t want to think about right now.
I could take this chance. Hay, I should take it. No, I WOULD take this chance. I was going to use this opportunity to be my own person.
Yes. That was the plan. We’d tackle that last item on the list first. Who am I without Dawn’s meddling. That’s both scary and fun, and everything else is scary beyond reason. So we’ll just push that all to one side for now, figure out who I am and then when I have a basis to understand how to feel about everything else, THEN I’ll confront those problems.
My general course of action decided, all I had left to do was work out what I should, well, immediately do. About my situation.
Presumably everyone here was a humanoid pony, so I would blend in. All I had to do was find civilization!
I squinted at the island just across the bay from me. I wasn’t exactly sure, but some of the shapes hidden within the trees might have been buildings… Maybe I could get a better view from higher up? After all swimming over there would be silly, and waste a lot of energy.
It wasn’t like I’d be flying… A fact which rather angered me.
No! Bad Twilight. We’re not going to think about the past. You had wings, you don’t now. Deal with it.
I turned around, deciding to climb a tree to get a better view. Mirror Rainbow had shown me how to climb trees. It was pretty easy to do when you had hands.
The first thing I noticed when I turned around was a small cliff began just behind where I’d arrived on the beach and ran along for the rest of the beach as far as I could see, forming a good twenty meter high cliff, as if something had just pushed the ground upwards. Not in a geological sense, the rock looked freshly cut. It looked like something mechanical has forced the earth to rise within the last hundred years.
Interested by this oddity, I walked up the beach into the jungle, making my way up to the top of the cliff. From the top, maybe I could both see the island, and also get a clue about the local landscape.
The trip was short, but looking back out towards the island I couldn’t see any more detail. Those odd shapes within the trees were still there, but I couldn’t be certain they weren't just the outlines of tree species I didn’t know, or some kind of struct-
Oh hey! I still had a pegasi’s eyes! I was picking out a good ammount of detail from, what, a kilometer? Nice. Good to know I still had improved eyesight. That would be very handy in a survival situation.
Which this was likely going to be. Good thing I’d read the Filly Scout Hoofbook and other guides to surviving in the wilderness. A warmth charm can only do so much against the cold.
Though it would be far nicer to find some sign of ci-
A bank of clouds shifted. The sun punched through them as if Celestia were angry at the fluffy things. The glare lasted for just a heartbeat, revealing a colossal black iron tower, floating on a beam of brilliant red light a few kilometers down the beach atop a peninsula.
“-vil… i… za...tion…” I whispered slowly.
The tower was angular, with a rectangular base that had a cone sitting atop it, or perhaps a pyramid. The structure was so massive that the top section wasn’t really at an angle you could easily see. A huge diamond symbol decorated the side facing me, the same symbol present on the implant in my arm, except the tower’s version had a band of red glowing light around it.
So uh, yeah… Implant’s probably broken…
Also that’s where the people are. In the huge floating pretty evil looking tower. Maybe that’s where the architect Sombra hired lives. L-lets not go that way.
I turned back to face the jungle, the tower making the fur on the back of my neck rise. The big diamond… It just looked too much like an open eye.
Maybe there would be some people further inland. People who didn’t live in a floating iron tower appropriate for a dark wizard.
Giving the tower one last look over my shoulder I walked into the jungle, quickly being enveloped by the sounds of chirping insects and singing birds. To my surprise, there was a path of sorts through the jungle, perhaps a game trail, where the thick brush-like bamboo patches didn’t grow.
I’d hoped it had been pony made, but if it had been, it hadn’t been used in some time because the ground was covered in fairly tall grass. There wasn’t any trampled path, just a clear line through the bamboo which went inland. It made moving through the jungle easy. Too easy…
There was nothing to help keep me from sinking into my thoughts…
Five minutes of walking later, and I saw a flash of gray through the green. Not the gray of tree bark, rather the dull gray of stone. While plenty of boulders jutted up from the ground, I could have sworn that stone looked to be flat.
Squinting to peer through the dense bamboo, I saw a small patch of flat worked stone just ten meters away!
“Yes!” I said to myself happily, turning to push through the bamboo and move towards the worked stone.
A moment later I emerged from the jungle into a clearing. A clearing occupied by a very tall stone wall, one fit for a castle, but lacking battlements or ramparts that I could see. The stone I had seen from the jungle was part of an enormous gate, which was just as high as the wall. It had to be a good fifteen meters high, maybe taller.
Why would anyone need a gate that big? Was this a land of giants?
That would be cool! I liked giants.
I could smell the very faint ashy scent of a fire somewhere in the distance, a campfire, or a wood stove, not a wildfire. I could tell by the scent of fish cooking, along with something citrusy. Someone was cooking! Probably inside the village sized space behind this wall.
“Hello?” I called cupping my hands around my short muzzle. “Can anypony here me? I’m lost!”
Nothing…
Oh. Derp. You just yelled for help in Equish, and this isn’t Equestria. Honestly, they probably think some weird animal just called for a mate or something.
I closed my eyes, focusing on my magic to cast a translation spell. While I could just work my way through a list of languages until they understood that a person was, well, working through languages and came to look-
Wait…
Why is it really hard to gather thaumaturgic current?
I paused, frowning as I realized how much effort the simple spell was taking to cast. Was there somehow less magic here? That wouldn’t make any sort of logical sense. Less magical energy would mean less energy for mundane physics to operate which would prohibit-
My spell cast, despite me having willed it to cancel. The spell’s aura sparking slightly around me for a few seconds as it took effect. The tell tell sign of a dampening field reducing the flow of thaumaturgic current accessible to mages, but not wholly eliminating it.
Someone was limiting access to magic. Likely a defense of the town. Which mean that big floating tower was most certainly the home of an evil wizard.
“At least they can’t fully block magic,” I mumbled before calling out again. “Hello? Is anyone there? I’m lost!”
Something moved atop the wall. I caught a glimpse of ropy-orange dreadlocks somehow coming out from beneath a bleached reptilian skull before a bright ball of yellow light shot into the sky with a loud bang, followed by a pop as the ball burst into a bright flare, which cast a hideous yellow glow over the jungle.
“BEAST-FOLK! SOUTH GATE! UNICORN!” A loud voice roared.
Oh crap baskets...
A heartbeat later the skull-helmeted person appeared back atop the wall. A crossbow twanged. A bolt thudded into the earth behind me to the left. I spun on one heel, thankful for the time spent with Dash on the track at Canterlot High as I took off into the jungle at a full sprint.
Okay, note to self. The people in that village are hostile!
A bolt whistled past my head, burying itself into a tree in front of me. Despite the panicked thumping of my heart, I couldn’t help but notice that the angle was all wrong for having come from the walltop, and turned my head to look.
Ah. Skull-helmet guy. WIth the orange dreads. He was down here now. Now the angle made-
HE’D JUMPED OFF THE WALL! AND WAS SPRINTING AFTER ME! WHILE WORKING A HEAVY CROSSBOW!
What kind of creature can take a fifteen meter drop and come out of it sprinting? He was too close! Way to close!
“Which part of you do I eat to gain your magic?” Skull-hat demanded with a jeering below.
I ducked out of pure instinct, a bolt flying over me almost right as I ducked, vanishing into the underbrush ahead.
Oh sweet Celestia, what do I do!? It’s too hard to work magic here to just blast him with a spellbolt! I have to outrun him, but how? He’s super fast! And can drop massive distances like it was nothing!
I had to run faster!
I pumped my legs for all they were worth, laughing through the dense jungle brush at a speed which should have been very tiring, but thankfully wasn’t. I’d gotten human endurance after all! And maybe it could save my butt!
The crossbow metallic twang smashed aside my hope as another bolt flew past my left arm. I wasn’t faster than those…
A meaty thud came from ahead of me. Something big hissed in pain. Then it roared. Angrily.
“Oh, SHIT!” My attacker yelped.
The bamboo ahead of me seemed to explode into a cloud of shrapnel as a mysteriously large reptilian creature easily a pony taller than me, thundered by almost exactly like a timberwolf leaping out of the Everfree. I caught only a flash of blood red scales, a blue feathery crest, and a bolt stuck in a muscular thy as the creature pounced on my attacker, hind legs raised to hit him massive hooked claws first.
I discovered in that moment that I had not been running as fast as I could. In fact, I was MUCH faster than I had known.
Unfortunately I only made it another twenty meters before I stepped on something sharp, shooting pain lept all through my right foot, and I fell over, rolling down a hill the brush had hidden and landing between two large boulders with my back to a large bush.
Hissing in pain I bent my foot up to see what had happened. Oh. I’d stepped on a sharp piece of flint, which rammed itself about a centimeter into the sole of my foot.
“You don’t have hooves, that’s what happened,” I moaned to myself as I picked the shard of flint out of my foot.
It still hurt really bad but I would need to keep running. Those people definitely hated the kind of people I was. Or at least, used them for food, and they were very close by. I couldn’t just sit here till my foot stopped-
Three loud gunshots cracked a short distance away in the jungle. Deep, gut-punchy cracks. Like the guns griffons used, not like what I’d heard in the Mirror World’s movies.
“Damnit, Zeke! Of all the times to let yourself get mauled!” A female voice screamed. “Which way did it go? Mmm, he’s gone… Jake, go back to his cabin and ask. Everyone else fan out. It didn't go far. NO HEADSHOTS! I haven’t tried the brain yet.”
NOOOOPE! ALL OF MY NOPE! Foot pain didn’t matter, it was time to go!
What were those things? Diamond dogs? That would make sense. Humanoid. Fast, don’t care about falling a long ways, like to eat ponies, use firearms to compensate for a lack of magic.
The jungle was suddenly filled with war whoops and hateful taunts. None of which I could clearly make out. Because there were at least twenty people screaming them.
My ears drooped in terror. That is a lot of things trying to eat me...
I pulled myself into the crack between the rocks, hiding away from the jeering cries of my pursuers. I couldn't just hide forever, they were coming closer... I had to run again! But what if they saw me leave the rocks?
I twisted to look around the rock in front of me. There was a kind of swampy area where jungle trees had grown into the sea not too far away. While it was closer to the floating tower maybe if I could make it to that swamp I could-
A twig snapped behind me. I squeaked in fear, scrambling to run, but only managing to scrunch myself up into the side of one of the boulders. No! CAN'T MOVE! HAVE TO MOVE!
"Wait," a voice commanded.
I turned around, my field of view immediately filled by a bush with a pair of blue eyes!
No! No it was a person. A human if I was remembering the general scent correctly. It was impossible to tell for certain under his ‘clothing’. He had on an outfit made from leaves, bits of ferns, and some sticks, which when hunched over like he was made him look exactly like a bush.
He reached down, the motion allowing me to see the arm I couldn’t before, and took a rather crude looking, weathered, and beat up black revolver out from a fold in his leaf-outfit, and then held the weapon out to me pearl-handle first.
“If Charlie’s Boys want to tango, now they're two for the dance,” he said his other hand producing a large knife, completely with scabbard and belt.
What?
OH! Oh thank goodness! He was HELPING me!
“T-thanks!” I stammered quickly taking the offered weapons.
“What’s this?” The bush-man exclaimed as I reached out. “Your implant is off. Did they hit you with a stun rod? That trips these things up sometimes. Let me just fix that for you…”
With unnatural speed, the man grabbed my wrist in a surprisingly gentle grip, and pressed down on the implants button with his thumb for several seconds. When he removed it, the light strip around the central diamond was glowing red.
“Thank you. I um, I don’t know what that’s for,” I stammered nervously, more than a little shaken from falling out of one war into another.
“It’s for a lot of things, you’re new here aren't you? Why don’t we get you out of cannibal territory?” The man suggested, taking a large black colored crudely made lever rifle out from his outfit.
“Please! Oh, um, what’s your name?” I asked, ears perking hopefully.
The man pointed towards the jungle I’d run from. “The Boys just call me Camoflauge,” he introduced. “What’s your name?”
“Twilight,” I replied. “Um, but, if Camouflage is a nickname, what’s your real name?”
“A fitting name for a woman with your coloration,” Camouflage applied while completely ignoring my question. “Your foot should have healed by now. We’ll break for the beach behind us and then-”
I raised an eyebrow. “Um… A bleeding puncture a centimeter deep can’t heal this fast,” I protested.
“Does your foot hurt?” he asked almost playfully.
Come to think of it, no, I didn't. I twisted to look at my foot. Aside from a bit of blood covering the sole, it was fine. The wound had just… Vanished.
“What?” I asked of reality.
“Your implant will take care of minor injuries quickly even at rank one. It’s got many other uses besides accelerated healing. You’ll be very hungry soon, but I know where we can get you room and board. Come,” Camouflage called as he moved to walk backwards and leave.
“B-but what if I step on something sharp again!” I exclaimed worriedly. “Do you have a spare pair of shoes, or even just some cloth I can wrap around my feet?”
Camouflage shook his head. “Nope,” he said sorrowfully before his head tipped up slightly. “Wait, no, maybe.”
Maybe? How can it be a maybe?
A loud pop I recognised as one of the ‘Boys’ flares bursting made me jump and smack my head into the overhanging boulder.
“OVER HERE! IT’S OVER HERE!” A male voice called loudly. “THE LEANING ROCKS!”
Camouflage raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The weapon’s report made my ears ring, and the flash of fire at the end of the muzzle almost singed my nose. A gurgling cry came from the direction of the jungle, followed by a thud.
“Yep, I have some boots for you,” Camoflauge announced. “Just found my spares.”
“Y-you killed him,” I stammered stupidly as Camouflage rushed out from cover, disappearing from my sight.
Get it together Twilight! You were just in a battle yourself…
“Mhm,” Camouflage agreed. “Not that it means too much. Not here at least. He’ll be back soon. This place isn’t like anywhere you’ve known.”
My ears raised in alarm at his words. “A-are they all liches?” I asked worriedly.
That would explain the dampening field ward!
“No. I’ll explain in full later,” Camouflage promised returning to view. “Give me your left arm please.”
I held out my arm, and he held his over mine so our left forearms overlapped. A pale blue light flashed between our arms, and to my surprise text flashed in my vision.
Added: 1x Hide Boots
Added: 20x Simple Pistol Ammo
Added: 1x Flak Chestpiece
“Before you ask, I just gave you equipment he was carrying. Your implant can store items as data, and reconstitute them at will. The text is a notification that the items have been added to your ‘account’,” Camouflage explained quickly. “Remember, it does, A LOT. To use items, flex your arm so the implant faces up, look at the implant, and flex your wrist.
“That activates the neural interface and you can then give it instructions mentally. In this case, just instruct it to equip the boots and chest piece.”
I had many questions, but the sound of brush cracking to my left pushed them aside. Flexing my arm as instructed, I made the implant glow blue again. This time though, I could sense it like a body part. It DID do a lot.
Notably, it let me make tools. It was a device which basically worked as a unicorn’s horn, but expressly for conjuration spells. Taking matter from the environment to store and use as you needed.
I almost got lost in the sheer wonder the little metal diamond in my wrist suddenly held, but then a rifle cracked, the stone just beside my head exploded in a shower of stone shards, and Camouflage yanked me down flat to the ground.
“BOOTS! ARMOR! NOW!” He roared, standing up and firing three quick shots into the jungle.
“Right!” I yelped, issuing the mental command.
My feet and caves along with my entire chest suddenly itched like mad! I felt myself be pushed up slightly as in the span of a second my upper body was encased in a green and mud colored crude leather and steel currice. Amazingly it fit me perfectly.
But on the other hoof…
I knew I was under attack. My body knew I was under attack. But it didn’t care. It had an even more pressing need than safety!
“ITCHY!” I squeaked out of pure reflex, rolling over to try and scrape my back against the ground and force it to calm down.
“Yeah, my nanites make me itch when I equip gear directly onto me, too,” Camouflage laughed, firing another two shots, his gunshots lost in the sudden volley of shots which came our way. “Ooop! There’s more of them than I have bullets. Leg it!”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I sat up, gathered my legs under me, and ran away from the boulders, heading further down the hill to where Camouflage had pointed before. I expected the armor to weigh me down, but surprisingly it didn’t. I honestly felt like i wasn’t wearing anything at all, except my chest felt warmer, and my teats weren’t bouncing irritatingly with each step. Which meant I had something on, but it was impossibly lightweight for what it was.
I really needed a primer on this world. It’s physics had to be different or something. Because I’d detect magic if it were in use.
Oh. Right. Dampening field.
Something smashed a tree down. The loud thud and distinct sound of woods splintering couldn’t be anything else. The sound of the tree smashing down came hoof in hoof with a loud bellowing roar like something between a muffled trumpet and a dying circular saw.
“LEG IT FASTER!” Camouflage called from behind me. “They have a rex!”
The hay was a rex? Something really really big, obviously, but what exactly was it?
I turned my head to look over my left shoulder. A rex was apparently a huge, bipedal but not upright standing, brown pebbly scaled bird-like reptile easily twice my height with a big square head full of dragon-like teeth set in a mouth that I could probably lay down in.
“I thought they wanted to eat me!” I sobbed as I sprinted down the hill towards the beach.
“They probably do. Most Tribes think they can gain your species magic by eating or otherwise using your remains,” Camouflage shouted as he began to move past me. “They are probably using the rex to try and block us from getting to the swamp.”
I could see the swamp ahead. Well, the delta-swamp hybrid thingie. Whatever you call swampland that grows right up to the ocean.
We had maybe fifty meters of running to make it there. The rex was fast, but also big, and lumbering. We could outrun it. Probably. With the lead we had on it. But as with before, we couldn’t outrun bullets.
The sand seemed to fly upwards in time to their gunshots. Little puffs of sand, like tiny little compressed air cylinders had been buried. You could probably make art like this.
My panicked mind wanderings came to a dead stop as something punched me in the shoulder, a loud metallic ping making my ears hurt as I lurched forwards with the impact. I’d been shot! Thank Celestia I had the armor! Oh my gosh that was so close!
I wished I had more speed I could put into my sprint, but I simply didn’t. Nor did Camouflage, even though he was way faster than me. He’d almost reached the swamp’s tree line.
While I watched, I saw five bullets hit the sand in front of him and I also saw a faint smoke trail each round made. Now that was interesting on it’s own, if I remembered right it meant that their guns weren't burning all of the powder they used. But the more interesting thing was where the trail went.
They’d gone right through Camouflage. As if he hadn’t been there.
No, no they couldn’t have. I was panicked and that had been a trick of the angles. If he’d been shot he would have stumbled, or fallen over.
A moment after the odd bullet trick he vanished into the swamp’s trees. I’d been watching him and he’d just disappeared, as if he’d teleported. That was special talent level stealth. No wonder the cannibals on our heals called him Camouflage!
I’d still like to know his real name.
I made it into the trees a moment later, running past the first tree I felt something grab the neck of my armor and pull me backwards!
“AHHH!” I yelped.
“Shh!” Camouflage said from behind me, revealing the hand to have been his. “You almost stepped on a sleeping titan!”
I looked down, a snake as thick as my waist was lying coiled up around a tree. I’d nearly stepped on the middle of its back. Because it looked like a moss covered rock until you were told it was a snake.
“The swamp is exceptionally dangerous. They won't take the rex in here. But they might come after us on foot. Follow me exactly. I used to live in here,” Camouflage whispered. “And be quiet. We need to make it to the other side quietly.”
I nodded, buttoning my lip immediately.
“Oh, and if we don’t make it, remember: South Three is Safe,” he added.
What was that? Like, if we didn’t make it across the swamp? Some kind of place we could rendezvous?
I shook my head, deciding to add that to my growing list of questions before Cam let go and jogged forwards into the swamp.
Closer to the iron tower…
But further away from the people who wanted to eat me and were starting to fire like mad into the swamp. Trees began to explode, bits of bark and wood blasting outwards as the two of us continued to jog, not run.
I’d wondered why, but then we hit the water. It was icy cold, and almost immediately became hip deep, and the entire bottom was a sticky mud. If we’d run, we would have tripped, fallen forwards, gotten stuck face first, and drowned.
Or eaten by the cragadile sized crocodile which was swimming a dozen meters or so to our left!
“C-cam!” I whispered. “There’s a-”
“A sarcosuchus, yeah,” he replied quietly. “It won't see me and they don’t eat you pony-folk. It won't bother us. Watch out for the leeches though…”
I nervously watched the giant crocodile as we jogged by. It watched back, but lazily. Like it didn’t care.
Well, good to know one thing here wasn’t going to eat me.
On an impulse, I waved at it. The croc just kept floating there until the trees blocked it from my view.
At about the same time, the sounds of gunfire stopped. Whether we had just run too far away to hear the shots, or they had stopped firing was beyond me. But the rest of the run was quiet. And short.
The little patch of swamp on the beach was maybe only two or three hundred meters across, given how we made it through in about ten minutes. A pretty good time given how hard it was to move through the mud.
The final stretch of swamp was completely tree free. Only a few meters of scum covered water stood between us and dry ground… Along with more jungle. Great…
At least there was a relatively clear looking hill a short ways away from us. Wait a minute, cleared space…
“Are we going to another village?” I asked, ears drooping worriedly.
“No. I’m taking you near a friend’s home. Charlie’s Boys are too afraid of her to go near it. Most of my people are. Well, more like they’re afraid of her minefield,” Camouflage answered. “Odd… It’s normally more active than that. I guess the old swamp wanted to be polite the first time it met you. Heh, heh.”
I just set foot onto the shore when a gunshot rang out, dirt near my foot blasting upwards as the bullet nearly clipped the toe of my boot.
“Petra!” Cam warned. “It’s in the air, fire at will!”
I looked up, immediately seeing the bright white and red weird kite shaped, bat-like lizard creature which was circling above us, as well as the rider on its back.
I was pretty sure that they were a female, but the lizard skull-helmet and big flapping royal purple cloak made it hard to tell exactly what they looked like. Especially since my attention was on the gleaming silver gun held in the rider’s left hand. Which was pointed at me.
“Come on!” The rider called down, voice revealing themselves to be female. “You know you can get magic out of those things. I’ve seen the way you vanish! You know how to do it. Share and I’ll let you go.”
My life was on the line. I had to act.
I raised the gun Cam had given me, aimed it as best I could, and fired. The petra screeched, jerking as my bullet hit it somewhere. The rider slipped as their mount bucked, hanging on via the for a heartbeat before losing her grip and falling, but almost immediately pulling the cord of a parachute which had to have been hidden under her cloak.
As the parachute snapped taught, despite her not seeming to fall far enough for a parachute to open, the rider managed to turn towards me, lined up a shot, and fired.
Time forze. I hadn’t expected that. How could I have? There was no way to dodge. The gun was leveled at my head. I had nothing to protect my head. This was it.
I’d helped fight an evil god, and survived. But I was going to die from a bullet. A normal, mundane, unchanged bull-
Camouflage’s impossible speed returned, his hand blurring as he literally slapped the bullet out of the air, snapped his rifle up with one arm and fired, his shot passing through the rider and shredding her parachute, sending her crashing to the ground in a heap.
“I-um… S-so how do you… Um, get magic… From us?” I asked nervously, taking a few steps backwards.
There was NO WAY Camoflauge did that without magic…
“It’s pretty easy,” he answered. “You become friends with one.”
I blinked, Cam reached up and pulled his mask down, flashing me a grin before returning his suit’s mask to its position.
Huh. Well, that’s a new addition to the arcane laws surrounding the bonds of friendship!
“I’m not joking. That’s it. These assholes refused to believe me when I told them. Heh,” he chuckled. “Come on, let’s grab everything off her body so she can’t get it back.”
“Oh, no! I believe you. Friendship is important to magic. Enough where we often say that friendship IS magic. But- uh, h-how do they come back? Necromancy?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, instead he stopped beside the dead rider, and leaned down slightly.
“Maybe if you weren't a slaver who likes to eat people over and over again, Charlie, I’d think about showing you any sort of respect. You’ve been doing this for seventy years now and you haven't changed one bit. Not even in terms of improving at doing what you do, it’s pathetic,” Cam mocked. “When you get back up, let your Boys know that if I see them over here, I won't kill them. I’ll put them into the same sort of cages you like to use, and see how they like spending a year fully immobilized, on display for anyone passing by to use. Later.”
“Uh, isn’t she dead?” I asked uncertainly, feeling a bit bad about hurting the poor flying lizard thingie which was now flying off towards the swamp’s center.
“Yeah, but her consciousness and soul are stored in the implant while a new body is made for her, so she can hear us,” Cam explained. “While it still hurts like hell, dying isn’t the end here. You’ll get back up. Whether that’s in your bed or at a random point across the Island, depends on how much you’ve made for yourself.”
“Woah, woah, waoh, wait… Are you saying you're all functionally immortal?! Why are you even fighting!” I demanded incredulously.
“Well for one,” he replied, waving his implant over the corpse. “Your life isn’t valuable to you anymore, but your time still is. Say you make a cabin, and a nice soft bed, and store away food. You’ve put a lot of time into making that and getting that food together.
“How would you feel if someone came along, put a bullet through your head, broke your bed so you couldn’t just appear back in your home, and took all of your hard work?”
“Ah… Okay, I think i get it, but-”
“Some people just don’t want to put in hard work, and it’s sometimes easier to raid others for what you want,” Camoflauge interrupted. “Besides, almost all of the people here are criminals. This is a prison. One which forces you to live out however many life sentences you received while trying to reform you by forcing you to cooperate with others to not be miserable and in pain all the time, therefore showing the benefits of civilization while also forcing you to see why the rule of law is important.”
“Okay, I can see that. Ponies are big on reforming wrongdoers too… But this seems just a bit cruel,” I protested.
“It’s mostly intended for psychopaths and repeat offenders,” he sighed. “The truly deranged. If I hadn't helped you out, Charlie’s Boys would have likely penned you up and hunted you for months if not years forcing you to die and respawn over and over again, then once they got bored would just keep you as a slave of some kind or another till Charlie got bored of you and left your defenseless and weekend self tied to a pole to attract some big predator she wants to tame.
“That’s the kind of people who come here. Barbarians. Savages. Throwbacks to primal ages. Most of them are civilized by their third of fourth decade. But some… Some remain monsters forever.”
Oh… Oh…. Okay. Now things were making a bit more sense…
“Uh, so, what did you do then?” I asked with a small frown.
Whatever had had done, Camouflage’s helping me and kind nature seemed to indicate that he’d reformed. I was just curious as to what kind of crime would get his people to sentence someone to this place.
“I said ‘almost all’,” he reminded. “Some people are here by accident, like you, my friend Nyota, and a small number of others.”
“Um, in that case, is there any way for me to talk to the wardens? And get released?” I asked hopefully.
“Nope. You’re not a human, so no government agency has the authority to request your release. Or some shit like that. It’s a bureaucratic hellscape of fail… Don’t worry, I heard a rumor that the warden's finally found a way to contact your planet. If I remember the laws right, your nation’s government can authorize your release.”
Ah. Okay, their people were super bureaucratic. There went that idea. But at least they had a portal to Equestria!
“Sooo… In other words, ‘I have to wait here until my friends can pick me up’,” I said to myself. “Okay, I can do that. Can I get help of any other kind? Supplies, transport to a safe location?”
“Also no,” Cam sighed. “It’s not JUST a prison, it’s also a facility for testing out artificial lifeforms and nano-cybernetic systems. This is a corporate run prison. They don’t help out because that would ruin their data… Despite it being ruined since your people started accidentally beaming people here.
“Right, here, take this stuff. There’s enough rounds here for you to learn to shoot properly. No offense but that shot looked lucky.”
It probably had been. I’d never shot a gun before…
I held out my hand, expecting him to pass me a bundle of things. Instead he waved his implant over mine.
Added: Custom revolver
Added: 300 Advanced Pistol Bullets
Added: 12 Cooked Meat
Added: Custom Hide Pants
Added: 3 Standing Torches
“Um… How do I use these? Is it just like the armor?” I asked.
Cam nodded. “Yep, I’ll show you more tricks later. There’s a small hut nearby you can have. It will get dark soon, and if you think the last half hour was bad, well…”
Cam’s tone of voice left no doubt in my mind that I wanted to have shelter before nightfall.
“How quickly can we get there?” I asked, standing up to follow him, doing my best to ignore the now naked body laying a few meters away.
Especially since the person wasn’t dead, apparently. Just the body. That was somehow even more creepy…
“Ten minutes if you let me carry you, fifteen if you run yourself,” he answered simply.
“Yeah, you are faster than me… But I’d rather un on my own,” I admitted with a light blush.
I wasn’t THAT helpless…
“If you stay here long enough to earn any improvements, I reccomend speed first,” Camoflauge said cryptically before taking off towards the distant hill at a brisk run.
I followed along behind him, running as fast as I could the entire way. The sun was already starting to set when we left the swamp and by the time we’d crossed the grassy field to reach the small lake at the bottom of the hill, the last slivers of white daylight were washing over the land, casting sharp shadows incredible distances.
And also reflecting off a fairly decently large metal structure built atop the hill. The glare made the details impossible to make out, but it looked to be about the size of a large house. One with two or three floors. Was that where we were going?
Camouflage turned left at the base of the hill, then stopped and pointed. I stopped as well, squinting through the shade to the place he pointed to. About twenty meters away was a very, very small wooden hut with a thatch roof, built at the base of a tall tree, one of the oak-like ones.
“That's yours now. I don't have any supplies in it, but that’s fine. I’m going to get a friend of mine to help you. I’d do it but I have… Duties to attend to,” Camouflage promised, and apologised. “Their house is atop the hill. DO NOT go near it, they are in the process of moving homes, so they are not home, but their auto turrets are locked and loaded, and your implant isn’t registered with them as friendly.
“Furthermore, the entire hillside is one big minefield. If you die outright, that would be bad as you’d likely be lost when you come back. But the odds are better that you’d spend a week regenerating the leg you lost and be in a LOT of pain the whole time. So don’t climb the hill. Stick close by, learn how to use your implant’s Engram functions, and get a bed built inside your new hut.
“Hopefully you’ll have help soon. But I have to go now. Farewell!”
He was just going to leave me!?
I spun around, ears laid back in alarm. “Wait! What if I -”
The blue eyed man was nowhere to be found.
“- ponyfeathers…” I finished, lips tremmering worriedly.
The night was super dangerous, right? But it was almost night. And he was just gone… And I didn’t even know the names of the animals which lived here, much less the monsters!
What would I do?
I’d hide in that hut until morning, that’s what. It had survived here, and Cam had implied he used to live in it. Which meant that the monsters had left it alone for a while, and would leave it alone for tonight. Probably.
I ran to the hut, pulled open the door, and slammed it shut behind me, immediately collapsing to the rough wooden floor in the completely empty hut which was pretty much the size of a small walk-in closet.
I didn’t get up. There had been far too much to deal with today to get up. So I just lay there, ignoring the ocean of growls, hisses, and roars in the distance as best I could until I fell asleep.
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Welp, here we go again...
68.media.tumblr.com/f8d306007614d5c2bdddd86fdfbc94e0/tumblr_nna5xeJO681t9sksvo1_400.gif
Ohh Meep! Your spoiling us with the speed and quality of these!!!
Let Cromagna Twilight commence!
Why does the bureaucracy make some ironic sense. By the same sense they can't release TWilight alot of places would argue since she 'broke in' she should be sentenced as a criminal or immediately released since she isn't a criminal
So, Ark. Didn't expect that, even with you talking about it on you blogs. Is Twilight going to tame the unicorn?
By the way, I'm sorely disappointed with you not taking option one with her. Just because the what the apple'ry would be epic. Also, being like Tirek would certainly leave a mark. But it would be rather unique. And interesting.
Oh, and I just thought about something. Are her parents imprisoned there for a thousand years, because of corporate oversight and bureaucracy? That's NOT going to end well for that corporation, when equestria gets there. I don't think the princesses will take well for having family and friends effectively kidnapped for bureaucracy' sake. Not one bit.
8070747 I'm not sure how this will play out Celestia is probably far more familiar with the bureaucratic hell governments can create unintentionally The torture might be harder to accept after all they can die or be killed but are still brought back to finish non existent sentences
Oooo, I'm the PotW.
At least checklists still remain to be loved.
Ahhh, so we're doing ARK but with ponies, I suppose that isn't a surprise. Good thing Twilight fell in with Cam as opposed to being captured by Charlie.
8070591 I prefer to think of it as me getting to do what I love and tell silly stories that you can still take seriously and enjoy.
8070679 Exactly. That argument is going up against "IT"S OUR FIRST CONTACT, ASSHOLES!" so you have "rule of law and order" fighting it out with "dont piss off a species of actual wizards! DO YOU WANT A WAR AGAINST MAGIC SPACE WIZARDS!?" Because the government ahs no idea that ponies are not simply from a planet in their universe.
8070747
You need to go where your muse takes you, and because ARK has ABSOLUTELY NO CANNON LORE, my must has been there as of late. There's little else to ponder while manning a lookout tower for 4 RL hours... So I started to think up lore. ANd then I wanted to write a story. SO I am.
But I cant count this as a crossover, not really. All I am doing is using the basic idea of a setting. All the features of which are public domain...
Dont blame me, blame the dice. I randomly rolled the outcome.
It's less time on their end than Equestria's, but there will still be anger.
8070818 Yeah, Tia WILL understand how a compleatly unexpected situation can cause a compleate failure of operation. But just because you understand dosn't mean you approve... Sometimes to do the right thing, you must work around or over the law as written.
8070837 Yeah, kinda. There isn't much lore for ARK (there's litteraly just for names with very little characterization at all... And they are subjects who know nothing about the ARK itself). So it's more like "Ponies in Jurassic park full of survivors and scifi stuff."
I had to go where my muse went, which was filling in the gaping hole that is "What the hell is this palce?" while playing ARK. Don't worry! It will be a fun read like always :D
8070872 meeps, you can't leave such choice to dice! They'll take the less amusing route just too spite you!!!
You still didn't say anything about the unicorn. Twily should SO tame her! Yes, it will be a girl. I'm sure of it
Just thought about something, Twilight believes she died and this is a new life. She has no reason not to seek love or explore who she always was deep inside. Kinda curious about how will that go with the fight for survival part of it
And I still say you should have gone centaur
Uhhh.... She's a Princess of Equestria, she IS her nations government. Or, at least part of it. Can't she just authorize her own release? Then again, as far as he would know she could just be saying that......
8070887
You ma'am/sir, have never seen one of my random roll tables have you? There were 12 different options for the outcome of those three choices... I liked them all too much to choose myself. (A geneticist uses nanomachines to alter an alicorn, a creature that's half biology half magic, to fuze human DNA into her. What could possibly go wrong?)
That's because I didn't think of that untill now and am debating...
Chapter two will shed some light on this. Though to be fair, she's not certain if she died, but she's leaning towards the idea that she did. What she decided was that either way she needed to treat this like she did die for the sake of her sanity.
FiM pones do make adorable Taurs...
NSFW: Artful Nudity (topless)
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But the die spoke. And it had to speak because my friends didn't give me any real advice on where to go.
8070891 Yeah. Since she couldn't possibly verify that claim, it wouldn't count.
8070918 Yeah, kinda thought of that as I typed it out. Still surprises me that she didn't even try it.
8070923 To be fair, she's had one HELL of a day. Little things like that tend to slip the mind when you're not even sure if you just died and were reborn or not. Let alone you just left a warzone where you watched a loved one die...
8070933 That's true I suppose.... is her mind still all in a kerfuffle from Dawn screwing with her, or did moving dimensions fix it like when she went through the mirror?
8070936 With Dawn dead his curse ended. She's freeminded. It's just that her mind is at present a sea of stress and emotion soup. She'll be better in the morning after a night's sleep. (Which is totally safe. Red asked the local Troodon's to watch over her.)
Huh. ARK.
. . .
Nobody has horribly unrealistic and terrifying bodily proportions this is inaccurate -99999999/10.
It's called a salt marsh, and it taps for blue or black mana. Either that or a polluted delta.
Also, damn it. This story is going to make me want to play Ark
I suppose there are worse fates
8070944 +100 internets for the Magic joke
8070944 If you get a copy, you're welcome to pop onto my private server ^^ Zallycat's on there.
8070948
Yay Internets! I've been saving those up.
Wanted to go with just polluted delta, but sac lands don't translate well.
8070891 They have no way of knowing that one way or the other. It would be like me claiming to be the President of the United States in a country without contact to the rest of the world.
8070872 Well they do have the excuse the aliens are radiating toxic levels of radon.
8070944 we call it 'mangue'. No idea about the English name, though.
8070916
1- Twily would make for a totes adorbs centaur.
2- you need better friends, then
3- obviously NOTHING can go wrong, silly!!!
So does being forcibly changed hurt her specifically can her alicorness be restored.
8071014
I was making a Magic: The Gathering reference
I think the English word would be a mangrove or some sort of estuary.
8071095 oh, I knew about the joke, yours was only the last post about that. I do like my dual lands without pain, though.
8071081 They seem to believe so now whether or not that's true is another matter
Ah an Ark Survival cross over, I highly approve!
Anyone wanna start taking bets on how long Twilight is going to be here, how many of her friends get stuck in with her trying to rescue her, and that Star and Clover live in the house on the hill.
8072008 Hey, could I get in on that?
8071081 It can be restored, and it's not even gone realy :P Alicornhood is more magical than biological.
8072193 Ty for the explanation
Don't know why but this has been in my head since I read this chapter:
Twilight in ARK.
She's fucked.
8075126 It's cool though. After 10 or so deaths everyone starts to work out how to get ahoof on a case of not-die.
Huh. Twilight trapped in ARK. This is gonna be real entertaining.
8075163
I meant that being trapped in ARK is going to do terrible things to her mental health.
She's trapped in a hell of endless monsters of various kinds where even death is no escape.
After a few weeks she's going to be in a state where she will never be able to fully recover and adjust back to life at home. This is because she is NEVER truly safe.
8076827 I know, I was being nieve in jest :P
Twilight will change from this experiance, yes. But it wont all be negative. Cuz Friendship is Magic.
What a great opening chapter! Wooo kind of just breezed through this one to start out so not a huge comment to say (just so much to take in!) but wow. Excited to see where this goes.
If only I could get a pistol right off the bat when I joined a server...
I'm so confused...
This is a very vivid and distinct piece of description, Meep. Kudos.
Dramatic irony at work here. Rarity’s just fine-she even got some upgrades...but Twilight doesn’t know that :(
breaks into fits of extreme laughter
wipes away tears of mirth
Fellas, good luck with that. I’ve argued with your world’s creator that this Alicorn is overpowered. So...good luck.
breaks into laughter again
Pretty sure you intended “even” there.
I just imagined a cut to Twilight drunk and trying to grope a bemused Sunset Shimmer after one can of beer.
Not much to say here except it’s a funny couple lines.
You like them in theory, Twilight. I suspect you’d like a giant trying to smash you or eat you-say a T Rex-a whole lot less.
Then again what do I know. Two of my favorite characters from Dark Souls was a giant black smith. and a giant archer.
Cute.
Overall, I regret not reading this sooner. This is a very promising opening chapter, and it’s nice to see you focusing on Twilight again.