BARRIER

by OnyxMeow

Chapter 4: Acclimation

What a turn of events.

Looks like my worries were right, my anxieties were true. The core replacement would be botched and everything would go to shit. I never in a million moons wanted this to be the case but I just had the sneaking suspicion it would go awry.

Everything was going well, too!

Literally, everything was going just fine, and we were done with our part in the process by the time everything happened. Did the core itself have faulty wiring? Maybe the casing's plugs? What caused it to overheat so fast, anyway? The cooling log yesterday was above the boiling point, but by ever so slight amounts. I doubt that's what caused it... or maybe it was. Either way, I can't fix up a rational explanation. My brain was as grey as the overcast above.

I rested (I guess) my bruised, beaten body on some metal debris - even my own ass was painful to sit on. I panted and faintly groaned from all the pain, my breaths inconsistent and strained. I just stared at the ground, blank and unthinking, the banging ache I had all around my head keeping me from passing out. I looked up and observed some more: piles of creatures losing their lives. A disgusting aroma of death polluted the air. The demolished, exploded facility far away in front of me. Any signs of wildlife were completely dead - I could only hear the grass and trees flowing with the wind. At the very least, it was pleasantly warm out.

If I wanted to kill myself, it'd be now. Even in these conditions, though, I could never bring myself to actually commit the act.

---

I've just been walking - no, more limping - around the facility ruins. Solar. Jargon. The only goal I had on my mind is to, well, find them, and they better be alive. Considering just how many workers died in the catastrophe, though, I'm betting the worst.

I struggled through the bodies of the dead, and uncovered what rubble I could to find something - anything. I don't know what I was looking for, maybe some bits, a book, a sandwich. I suppose it's my survival instincts kicking in, in oblivion of how useless all of those things would be to me right now.

While trudging through, I dwelled on how long I'd been unconscious - possibly only a few hours, as the sun was still up. I wasn't absolutely starving either, so I settled on that conclusion.

My thought train, however, was interrupted as soon as I spotted a familiar mare within the graveyard. I limp-ran over to her, with the last bits of my hope glowing inside me. I took a closer look at her... she was a pegasus, burned and cut in several areas. Her coat was a faint red, with... are those dark spots?

Holy Celestia!

This was Solar!

With my hopes verified, I put a hoof on her body - not cold. I also tested her pulse, and sure enough, it was there. My own ran with panic on making her wake up. She was alive!

I shook her gently with my hoof. "Solar," I called out. "Solar! Wake up, please!"

She wasn't responding.

"Cmon, please! Please, wake up! It's Flash!"

Then, by a grace of Fate itself, Solar's eyes tiredly opened. A wave of relief I have never felt before washed over me when I saw her look at me.

"H-huh... Flash? wh-" She muttered. "wh-what happened...?"

I lifted her gently back onto her hooves, grunts of pain coming from her too. "Core... uh... it, uh, exploded." I replied. It's really all I could muster for conversation.

"R-really..? What- no, nonono..." Solar took in her surroundings, her head snapping back and forth. I instantly recognized her look; horror. Pure terror and disbelief. She was so damn naive, and I fucking wish she was the right one. "This- this can't be, e-everybody's dead!" She cried out. I could hear the tears welling up in her eyes. "You were right."

I just stood there, totally silent. But I was damn sure to be listening. And by doing that, I knew Solar needed some form of comfort.

"Just come here." I said, sitting down and holding a wing.

Solar did so, her bubbly personality now replaced with a much more somber, depressed side of her that I've never witnessed. She crawled into me, wrapping her hooves around my aching body gently. I inhaled sharply at the discomfort, but that didn't stop the both of us. I managed to hug her back, hoof and wing, and next thing I know she's sobbing all over my shoulder. I've seen her cry before, yeah, but never this much.

Involuntarily, I drooped my head onto her shoulder, and let it out. The despair, the pain, the mental anguish. It hurts. Seeing all of your colleagues, once living, now completely dead... it's horrible. The consequences this could have for Equestria and the world, too. It's just too much.

It's too damn much.

---

Our eyes were red from our hugging session, cheeks streaked with tear paths. The smell of death had become accustomed to our nostrils.

Dear Luna... It just sticks with you. Not just mentally, but physically. I wanted to puke at times, but I held it in. No, I forced it in. Hunger had started to arrive in my stomach, though I had absolutely no appetite... so many needs, so many contradictions. I'm hungry, I don't want to eat. I'm hurt, I don't have anything to treat myself. I want to sleep, I don't have a bed. Ugh...

Anyway, Jargon was our next goal.

"Where do you think he could be...?" Solar asked weakly.

"I dunno," I replied, staying silent for a minute. "I hope he's alive."

"I mean, he probably survived, right...? He knows his way through hard times." She reasoned. I could tell she was downplaying the situation's severity to cope with it.

"Yeah..." I then said, falling into an awkward silence soon after.

We kept walking through the destruction. It must've been around an hour since I woke up. My legs were screaming in pain with each step I took on them. My wings, as well, were tattered, and I doubt I can fly on them for long. Getting home would probably be the most I could use them for the whole day.

While I had been inspecting a corpse for anything useful (and training my nose to the stench), Solar called my name from afar. She pointed over to somewhere, and I dropped my fruitless scavenging attempt to go up to her. Her tone was a sort of distorted happiness; In my surprise, she claimed to have found Jargon.

Without hesitation, we took to the location of her findings, and sure enough, we found the dragon.

I gasped upon seeing him lay there, appearing half-awake and out of it. His injuries were similar to mine: deep cuts on his body, wings hurt, discolored lesions all over him. Solar and I woke him up with ease, thankfully.

He mumbled incoherently. "Th-the fuck...?" he said when he fully came to. "Did-"

"Yeah... it exploded."

"No, what..." Jargon was completely flabbergasted, standing up observing the desolate world. He opened his mouth, but only half-formed syllables came out.

Solar looked down at the ground. "We failed," she replied weakly, and without eye contact. "And now the shield's going to shrink, not... expand."

She was right. We all knew it.

"And shrink to the point of nothin'," Jargon added. "Well, you two seem just as beat up as I am."

What an observation, Jargon. I sat there for a moment, pondering what to say next as the wind blew into our manes. The howl was faint, but stuck to my ears akin to a tick sucking on my eardrums.

Jargon grimaced, placing his palm on a cut in the back of his neck. "...should we try and see if any others are alive? Go find shelter? Go home... or... find Dash?"

Rainbow Dash! I forgot about her all this time...

Wait.

A horrible feeling built up through my body. For some reason, anxiety had blossomed inside me. I was one of the few creatures putting in the core, and, it exploded. I took part in jeopardizing the survival of Equestria. It took me this long to realize this... I just couldn't bring myself to find Dash all of a sudden. My mind was a mess to begin with, so could that be why?

"Find Dash..." I mumbled to myself, observing the scarred dirt and flattened grass of the ground. My heart began to speed up a little. "She'd hate to see us. I-I was one of the ones who botched the replacement attempt."

Solar chimed in. "Woah, hold on... what if she just wants to see survivors? I think she'd be atleast somewhat happy knowing we're alive... she's the element of loyalty."

She wasn't exactly wrong, yeah, but I was one of the few putting that damned core inside of the case! It wouldn't make sense she'd be happy to see me or otherwise indifferent!

I looked over at her, suddenly nastily coughing quite a few times. I had gulped and some spit went down the wrong tube. "N-no, she wouldn't.. want to see me- us..."

I couldn't articulate sentences properly somehow.

"Hey, cmon. I'm sure it was something with the internal electronics that went wrong. Probably was nothin' to do with you or anyone else there..." Jargon consoled me. "If we can find her, she'd probably know more than anybody about the situation, right?"

"I guess..." I whispered quietly. Jargon appeared to pick it up.

"Don't be scared, Flash, it aint like you. Let's go, okay? We got your back like always."

He and Solar began walking along, and after a second of letting thoughts marinate, I followed. In the distance, Cloudsdale sat high, its glorious rainbows and bright blue hues mockingly contrasting the situation.

---

...how much time has passed?

A thought that never really crossed any of our minds until just this moment. Considering we all wake up pretty early to get to work, the time it took to replace the core, the explosion, being knocked out... It was definitely sometime in the afternoon. I think it's been... an hour or two since I woke up? Well, I'm going to take a very random guess of 3 PM. 3:35 PM. Yeah.

My stomach growled. I needed some kind of food, even if it was just the grass we were treading on. I don't think I wanted to eat grass tainted with blood and guts, though. On top of that, I was parched. My throat and mouth were dry. Man, if only I had prepared for an apocalyptic scenario last night, eh?

While trudging through the masses, I spotted some movement in the distance. Alerting the others, we advanced towards the figure, who slowly came into clarity. A mare with a light blue coat, wings, mane and tail full of vibrant colors unevenly scurrying around the wastes. Well.

That’s gotta be her. I'm glad she's alive and terrified of the worst talking to I'm ever gonna get...

All of us trotted up to the mare, who was indeed Rainbow Dash, looking over at our injured, bruised, and beaten figures. She gasped and flew straight at us, eyes open wide, stopping just in front of me then worriedly checking me, Solar, and Jargon out. Her eyes were moist and peach-colored... was that even possible? I couldn't believe my sight for just a second. Dash never seemed like the kinda pony to cry or show weakness.

Dash was nearly as injured as we were. Her flank was burned black, her tail scorched along with it - it looked as if half of it was converted to ash earlier. Cuts streaked on her body and back hooves, wings tattered and beat. In terms of physical health, she was the luckiest one.

"Oh my.. Celestia, you three are ALIVE??" She cried out in strained amazement. She...

...hugged me?

"Y-yeah-" I replied, my sentence cutting off at Dash's apparent affection. I returned the gesture, but only briefly as she went to inspect the other two. I looked behind and just watched, mouth shut.

"I can't believe it... how did you three even..."

Solar attempted at finishing Dash's sentence. "...pure-"

"...Luck?" Jargon cut in. "It's gotta be."

Dash stood on her hooves, wiping her eyes. "...Look, I'm, I'm sorry. I never wanted anycreature to get hurt!"

Guess I better say something. "What even happened?" I managed to get out.

"It was... something with the core, okay? I don't exactly know... Just- look, you and everyone else didn't do anything wrong," She walked up to me. "We had the wrong core, I think... there was a shipping issue, I-I think the one we got was supposed to go to Ponyville's facility!"

Huh?? we all gasped.

"Who in the world could've given us the wrong core...?" Solar asked, faintly.

"I got no idea, Solar. Maybe somepony wrote the addresses wrong, or... it was manufactured improperly... or, I just don't know." Rainbow shook her head and looked at the ground.

Jargon stepped - or more, wobbled with a grunt - over. "How do you know it was supposed to go to Ponyville, Dash..?"

"Best I can remember? When the shipping package came, I, y'know, signed papers and all that..." Dash sighed. "...I saw in the fine print that it was Ponyville's core."

We all reacted to that with a not-so-happy sound of shock.

I half-trotted a tad closer to Dash. "What the... you didn't tell them...?"

"I couldn't. First off, they wouldn't listen, and, I just figured i-it was too late. Having to move the delivery parties from Ponyville to Cloudsdale would've taken too much time... the backup power for the generators would've probably run out! That stuff doesn't last long..." she explained with hurry.

"Good ol' classic behind-the-scenes fuckery, eh?" Jargon added on with noticeable anger.

Now that most of my anxiety regarding Dash had been quelled, I thought about some possibilities. I tried to keep a straight line of thought with the searing pain of my injuries. It couldn't have been the princesses doing something, why would it have been? It wouldn't make any sense, their job is to protect Equestria... unless there's a foul player involved. I know there's been many of those in Equestrian history. Who could it be-

Agh!

The aforementioned suffering clamped at my forehooves again. I winced and tensed up.

Deciding to share my thoughts, I limped a bit closer to the group. "You're thinkin' there's someone else messing with things that we don't know?" I added.

Dash looked at me, her eyes clearer from before. "Fits the history of Equestria, huh?" She replied.

Heh. Yeah, it does.

"But... who? Why would there suddenly be a villain? Wouldn't we have, like... known about them?" Solar asked.

"Maybe they just came up in the past few days. Not enough time for everyone to know. Then again, I feel creatin' a panic throughout this whole kingdom wouldn't be best for our productivity, now would it?" Jargon sat down on a piece of rubble that seated him quite well.

"You got a point there, yeah." Dash said.

Well, we can't do much by standing around, can we? Plus we're all probably starving, thirsty, exhausted, we need to go to a damn hospital...

"...think we should go back home before we think more?" I suggested, everyone putting their eyes on me.

Wait, I forgot the most important part about that. Ho-

"How are we goin' to do that, Flash? We can barely fly right now," Jargon reminded me. "Unfortunately, there aren't any trains or magical carriages going to Cloudsdale."

Bruh.

I sat there in silence wincing in pain. The problems with living in a mid-air city.

"But there are the hot air balloons that could carry us there," Solar nodded over behind me and pointed towards a basket with a huge deflated envelope laying next to it. "See?"

Wait, wait, she was right! I completely forgot about those during all of this... that seems like basically the only idea that might work. In our current state, flying to Cloudsdale would be excruciatingly painful, and there aren't any towns nearby for us to take refuge in.

"She's right, if that's the only way out, we're going there," Dash said, moving towards the balloon some. Her wings opened and she looked back. "Cmon!"

She began flying to our exit, with the three of us all following along. Thankfully, Jargon didn't seem too disapproving about the whole idea.

Reaching the basket, it was rather claustrophobic and uncomfortable, but, it’s the best we could do. With aching pains, I watched Dash turn a valve to activate the burner and rise the balloon, and off we went.

---

Up in the air, the situation looked even more grim and depressing. While the other three conversated on the other side, I just rested my hoof on the rim of the basket and sat my head upon it and observed the carnage. So many burnt bodies, mutilated corpses, destroyed crops, and a discolored environment all mixed up into one. What I couldn’t keep my eyes off of, though, was that giant, spaghetti-like, torn and bent mess of metal that was the facility. A broken monolith of death.

Without one element of harmony, it all falls into discord. That’s what I learned back in that small schoolhouse so many years ago. Without one facility powering the barrier, the rest will follow soon after. We have no idea what’s out there besides unlivable, ash-ridden and freezing cold conditions. A parasite could be waiting to infect us. Maybe some mythical being that we’ve never heard of before. Or, perhaps, it’s dark magic sent from another planet to envelop our world and we are the only survivors. I mean, it came from outer-Celestia-damn-space, so it’s anycreature’s guess. And now, to make the situation even better, there could be a foul player involved that purposefully fucked this whole operation up. But… why? Why would they want to cause all of us, seemingly the only other living species on Equus, to go extinct?

My head’s spinning. I just watched the land of death slowly get covered by clouds in silence.

Later on, I saw a red figure come up to my side. Sure enough, it was Solar. My face met hers, and I wasn’t a very happy sight. A broken, heavily injured, expressionless stallion with a skewered will to live, wearing a grossly bloodied and tattered lab coat. Who knows, maybe I looked hot to somepony.
...was it Solar?

“You okay, Flash?” She asked, her tone a soft and caring voice.

I just looked at her with the most empty face I could muster. “I just want to go home. I just want to go to sleep and let this all be a nightmare.” I mumbled under my breath, and somehow, Solar caught it perfectly.

“Won’t have to wait much longer, we’re going home now.” She consoled.

“I know, but, Cloudsdale’s gonna be a complete mess. Imagine how it’s gonna be. I’m sure the news has spread Equestria-wide, why wouldn’t it?”

Solar put a hoof on my back, rubbed it softly, and extended her wing to hug me close to her. Her fluff was soft, contrasting her firm body underneath. At this point, I was getting used to the pain I was feeling.

“It’s gonna be okay. The landing docks for the Balloons are usually pretty inactive, and I don’t see anybody else flying to Cloudsdale. Plus, our apartment isn’t too far from the docks, remember?”

“I guess. Good day, you say, huh?"

Despite my admittedly mocking tone in saying that, Solar didn't budge. "It will be, even if it's a 48 hour day, it will be."

I just laid on Solar's side silently after that. She's being naive... again.

The dazzling oranges of the sunset among the destruction below was a sight I won't forget.

---

And out of the basket we go. The balloon slowly deflated behind us.

Cloudsdale was, as I expected, a total disaster. There was screaming, yelling, fighting, creatures in anger and despair everywhere. As we squeezed past the crowds, braving the horrible pains of walking, I was lucky to not be pushed around and knocked over. My breathing was heavy, irritated, and I only focused on remembering the path to my apartment.

I looked behind me, and the other three were following. Oh Celestia, I was leading them! I heard their yells of my name in the background, but they were so muddled and incomprehensible, I genuinely thought I was partly going insane.

Better yet, Rainbow Dash was still with us. Reactions to seeing her had mixed up into madness, most of it cries of why this happened, how this could be, and what we are going to possibly do. In my blurred vision, I saw ponies, dragons, and griffons follow Dash, I think some even tried to grab her. I don't know what came over these crowds. I honestly think the vast majority of them were more scared rather than mad at us.

The cloud sidewalks were soft, which allowed me to quickly run and trot across more comfortably.

A left here... turn right... go straight, keep going straight... turn left...

This apartment block seems familiar, wait - we made it, but just barely.

Reaching the double doors, I slammed them open with my good side, turning and bashing into them. No damage done, at least I think. I ran past the reception and reached the elevator, the two mares sitting behind the desk taking a quick and startled look at me.

"Come on!" I yelled at the other three, who swiftly filled the space in the building's elevator. I hit the fourth floor button and up we went. I simply stood still, breathing like hell and trying to collect my thoughts, my brain equivalent to that of static. My hearing was fuzzy. I think that was Dash calling my name, no, that's Jargon... Solar...?

When the elevator finished, I just walked forward and entered the hall, going to my door with the group. Time to rela-

...

DID I LOSE THE KEY.

Yes, yes I did. Of course I did, why wouldn't I? I was blown to high hell earlier via a huge explosion, went unconscious for hours, and barely lived through today. I'm starving, dehydrated, and going to a hospital right now would be a death sentence.

I'm going to end my Celestia-damn lif-

BAM!

All of us stared in mute silence as Dash yeeted through the door, opening the gates to heaven so I could finally get some food and rest. I don't even care that she technically caused a crime and committed property damage by breaking the lock. I know Solar doesn't either.

I just limped right into the entrance of me and Solar's abode, and aimed directly for the couch that sat in front of the TV. I flopped onto it, not able to think or do basically anything anymore.

I was finally home. No, we were finally home.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

11668313
Still, I would assume he wouldn’t want to see Equestria (or worse, the entire planet) decimated. Or would this version of Discord just decide to cut his losses and find some other creatures to play with?

[OnyxMeow]

11876802
it's something I never really thought about when it came to this story.
if he was a part of the story, I would say he wouldn't just leave Equestria to die, he'd probably toy around with the planet and meteor but wouldn't let everyone die off because that'd be boring I'd guess.