Scattered Pages - Ponyville Ciderfest App Stories by volrathxp

by volrathxp

#WildWasteland - Welcome to the Wasteland

Welcome to the Wasteland

Code Word: #WildWasteland

As you study the photograph of Twilight, something seems off about her. This isn’t the Twilight Sparkle you know. Suddenly, Twilight’s eyes flash a deep purple and a portal opens up, pulling you inside.

You arise to find yourself in a ruined city that you don’t immediately recognize. The sky is a deep rumbling gray of clouds. The sun can’t seem to peek through the cover. A sense of unease washes over you. This is Equestria… but different. Something bad happened here.

A growling sound rouses you from your thoughts. You turn and jump away just as a creature with glowing red eyes hits the ground next to you. A zombie pony! It pulls itself off the ground and starts to lunge at you again. A blast of purple magic hits the zombie straight in its face, knocking it away into a nearby pile of refuse.

“Are you alright?” a voice says from behind you.

You turn to see a large alicorn figure, your eyes widening as you recognize her. It’s Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship! Maybe things aren’t as bad here as you initially thought!

“Princess! Thank you so much for saving me from that… thing,” you say.

The alicorn lifts a hoof to her face. “Not this again. For the last time, I’m not Twilight Sparkle,” she says with a groan. “Ponies have been dropping in all day out of nowhere calling me that.”

“If you’re not Twilight, who are you?” you ask.

“They call me Radiant Star. I’m looking for the rest of my friends. Things are sort of crazy lately and nopony can tell me why,” the alicorn replies, sighing. “Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m [USERNAME]!” you chirp happily. “And I think I know what’s going on here. We’ve been trying to find Fizzy Glitch. She opened something called the Book of All Stories and it’s wreaking havoc across Equestria.”

Radiant Star puts a hoof to her chin and grimaces before motioning to you. “You know… I did see what looked like a pony with a strange horn run through here about an hour ago. Maybe that’s your friend Fizzy?”

“That sounds like her, where did she go?” you ask.

Radiant Star thinks for a moment and points off at a large ruined building. “I think she went in there, but we have to be careful. There could be more ghouls lurking about. I’ll protect you as best as I can. Maybe this Fizzy Glitch knows where my friends went.”

You walk beside the strange alicorn mare as you enter the ruined building, keeping an eye out for more zombie ponies. In the center of the building you find a set of tracks leading down stairs going deeper into the darkened building. In addition, you find what appears to be a page. It’s withered and aged, and the words on it are in a language you can’t figure out, but you can feel the power in it as soon as you pick it up. You recognize it instantly as one of the pages you need to connect together to save Fizzy.

“It’s one of the pages from the Book,” you say. “Fizzy must have been here… but where did she go?”

Radiant Star walks to the edge of the stairs. “She’s gotta be down here. Come on,” she says.

You nod cautiously, following the alicorn down into the darkness. The stairs end in a dark tunnel. Star’s horn alights as you go, providing a soft purple shadowing over the tunnel.

“So these pages, they’re like powerful magical artifacts?” Star says softly as you walk.

“They’re a part of the Book,” you say. “It’s supposed to be incredibly powerful.”

Star nods as the tunnel ends abruptly in front of a large steel door. You can see the numbers 145 emblazoned on it. The door itself is slightly ajar enough to allow entrance by a pony.

“This is really bad,” Star says. “Your friend has gone into a Stable. They’re sort of these big underground shelters. Very dangerous. Stick close to me. My magic will protect us.”

“I wonder why Fizzy came down here if it’s so dangerous,” you say.

“I’m not sure. When I saw that weird pony earlier they seemed to be in a real hurry, bouncing from place to place,” Radiant Star replies softly. “Regardless, if she’s down there we need to get her out of there before something bad happens.”

“I’m right behind you,” you say. “Besides, maybe she will know what happened to your friends, right?”

Star nods solemnly. She appears to steel herself, her eyes becoming focused and determined. “Let’s go.”

You follow behind Star, shoving yourself through the opening in the large steel door. Immediately you can sense that this place is… off. A pungent smell fills the air around you. The slate gray walls seem to close in on you as you make your way down the entrance hall and towards whatever is coming next. Star seems to have an idea of where to go, so you follow her lead. The large underground shelter is something of a maze, with twists and turns everywhere. Every hallway is gray and dank, making it hard to tell which way is which.

After what feels like hours you find yourself in a vast open room that appears to be some sort of common room. In fact, it appears to have been set up for some sort of grand party. Streamers hang lopsidedly from the railings and confetti litters several of the tables. A poster of Pinkie Pie rests on the far wall, her eyes seemingly following you as you walk down the main stairway to the bottom level.

In the center of the bottom level is what looks like Fizzy Glitch! She’s rooting around on the ground for something. She hasn’t immediately noticed you yet.

“Fizzy! Are you alright?” you shout as you push past Star and towards the Kirin.

“I’m great! Isn’t this place awesome?! Wait… who are you?” Fizzy says, lifting her head to look at you.

“Don’t you remember me, silly? It’s [USERNAME]! Everypony has been looking for you! Radiant Star here helped me find you,” you say.

Fizzy looks over at Star, her eyes widening. “Princess Twilight?!”

“For the last time… you know what? Nevermind,” Radiant Star says with a wry grin. “I’m looking for my friends. Don’t suppose you’ve seen them? One of them is a little green unicorn alongside a pair of earth ponies. One of them has an eyepatch.”

“I haven’t seen much of anypony around here,” Fizzy says before noticing the page you’re holding. “Oh! You found the page I had with me! I must have dropped it when I was running away from that crazy zombie pony.”

Star takes a step forward to both you and Fizzy Glitch before stopping cold in her tracks. The lights attached to the walls around you begin to darken. You can feel the page in your hooves beckoning to something. A magical aura appears in the air, coalescing into a spectral version of Twilight Sparkle, the real Twilight Sparkle.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you,” the spectral Twilight says. “And you found a page out of the Book! Excellent. I need you to give it to me so we can safeguard it!”

“Princess!” you say.

“No… that’s not your Twilight,” Radiant Star interjects, a slight growl in her voice. “That’s this Equestria’s Twilight… and she’s not all there. The Twilight of this world became a crazy alicorn Goddess alongside Trixie. She’s the reason I look the way I do.”

“This doppelganger is a bad pony,” the image of Twilight says. “Give me the page, it’s the only way to keep it safe.”

“[USERNAME], don’t trust her. I promise I’ll keep the page safe,” Radiant Star says. “Don’t listen to her. You have to trust me. If I was going to hurt you, I wouldn’t have saved you from that ghoul.”

“This is getting quite tedious, Radiant Star. I’ll deal with you properly in a moment,” the image of Twilight says, rolling her eyes before settling on you. “You there, give me the page. I command you as the Goddess of Equestria.”

From beside you Fizzy Glitch bounces away in a flash from the two alicorns and a glowing portal opens back up in front of her as she gleefully bounds through. On the other side you can see Ponyville. A way out! Before you can do anything though, the Twilight image’s horn lights up and you feel a tingling sensation in the back of your brain, urging you to give the page to the Princess… or was it Goddess? The details in your mind are suddenly fuzzy.

[CHOICE]
What do you do?
> Give the page to Radiant Star to protect. (Hero)
> Give in to the Twilight Sparkle image’s spell and give it to her. (Villain)

[ENDING A: HERO]
You shrug off the effects of the tingling in the back of your head, glaring at Twilight. She was trying to magically compel you! What kind of Princess would do that?

You nod at Radiant Star, pushing the page into her hooves. You know instantly that the page is going to be safe and that Star will protect it with her very life. The alicorn mare nods in return, lowering the page quickly into her saddlebag.

“No!” the image of Twilight shouts, its horn igniting.

Radiant Star turns, her own horn alight as a blast of magic erupts from it. It strikes the image of Twilight, dissipating it into the aether.

“She’ll be back at some point, I’m sure, but she won’t get the page from me. You have my word,” the alicorn says. “You had better go find your friend. I still need to find my friends too.”

You nod and turn back to the portal left by Fizzy Glitch. You run through and land back in the familiar world of Ponyville, having survived the Wasteland. The portal closes behind you.

(+1 pages for Heroes)

[ENDING B: VILLAIN]
“Of course, Goddess!” you say, lifting the page so that the spectral alicorn can take it from you. You get a feeling that you absolutely 100% trust this alicorn, as the tingling sensation takes over fully, but in the back of your head you aren’t sure why. “You’ll know what to do with it!”

“What are you doing?” Radiant Star says. “She’s the evil one!”

“Oh… they’re just doing what I’ve commanded them to do,” the spectral alicorn says with a deep grin, the page floating in the air next to her. “Now… run along my little pony. I have things to do with this.”

You find yourself walking to the portal left behind by Fizzy. Before you go through, you manage to look back at the scene behind you.

“I won’t let you use that magic!” Radiant Star says, lunging at the spectral alicorn with a magical blast of energy.

The image of Twilight yawns as a shield of magical energy appears, knocking it back right into Star’s face. The alicorn flies backwards into a set of chairs, groaning.

“Ta ta for now, little Star. You’ll be seeing me soon enough,” Twilight says, before disappearing, page and all.

You turn back and float through the portal. On the other side your brain begins to clear and you wonder what just happened to you? You remember you were following Fizzy. Perhaps she ran off somewhere else?

(+1 pages for Villains)

Author's Note:

I saw an opportunity to include my main character Radiant Star from FoE: Starlight into this, as it was indeed the Book of All Stories.

I had fun with this one, as it was the first one I wrote for the project.