When The World Bets Against You

by Tie RoamingHooves

Echos Of Ancestry

Silence, darkness, and calm. Those were the conditions of wherever Ashley ended up. Had she died? Was this the afterlife; just some endless expanse of empty darkness? She looked down to see two things. One, purple hooves. Two, those hooves weren’t touching any sort of solid ground.

Whatever this was, it sucked.

Out of habit, she went over everything she could gather from this unfamiliar environment.

She was surrounded by seemingly endless blackness.

She was still a pony.

She was helplessly floating.

She could be dead.

In an attempt to try to make something happen, she started to flail her limbs. Nothing happened. The human turned pony tried flailing harder. Again, nothing happened. She then put everything that she had into her random body movements. This time something happened.

There was a deep and loud rumble that reverberated and echoed in the void which caused Ashley to freeze. The purple unicorn looked around in confusion of what just happened. She sat there for about a minute doing nor saying anything in wait of something else to happen.

When nothing came, she sighed in frustration while simultaneously flinging her right hoof out one last time. As soon as she completed the motion gravity kicked in and she fell onto her ass.

Ashley groaned because of her, now sore, hindquarters. Upon looking down the mage discovered that there was no actual “ground” and she shot to her hooves and instinctively backpedaled a few steps. Then came curiosity.

Cautiously, she gave an experimental stomp. Finding out nothing broke she began jumping up and down, still finding no real structural fault to the invisible flooring.

As she scampered about a small light flickered into existence in the distance behind her. This light went unnoticed for a time but it grew from a speck of dim and dull light to a long and brought horizon line of white and intense light.

Ashley Sebelius noticed finally while recovering from a recent jump, meaning her head was low to the “ground” in order for her to keep her balance in this equine for which was still somewhat alien to her. She slowly lifted her head up and turned it to face the light in wonder of what it was.

While this light had no real defining features besides it being stretched across the distance and being unnaturally bright, the ex-human’s mind interpreted it to be something else...

The unicorns jaw hung open slightly as she tried to find words she was able to use but the only thing that came out was the only thought she currently had in her head.

“... Mom?”

She noticed she had been slowly walking forward for a little while now but gave it no thought. She continued to stare into the light that lit up the side of the void it occupied to some degree before it eventually faded back to its uniform black as the distance away from its source increased.

“Mom?” she asked a little louder this time.

There was sweat on her brow now. She looked to see that she had been running without her mind telling her body to do so. She didn’t care. She did take time to notice that she could only feel moisture on certain parts of her body, the most of which was located on her forehead. She wasn’t nearly sweating enough for her forehead to feel soaked.

At this time Ashley was in a full fledged gallop towards the light her mind unknowingly misinterpreted.

“Mom?!” she called out to the light.

She kept up her speed until a sudden jolt of intense pain consumed her senses and sent her to tumbling to the ground. The jolt was accompanied by the void becoming momentarily brighter and another deep rumble. But the pain was just as brief as the increased light and rumble so she quickly brought her self back to her hooves.

“Mom?!”

She managed to run for another five seconds before a similar occurrence took place and sent her to the ground once more.

Once again, she dragged herself up but was struck with another jolt of pain, this one lasting longer. She tried to get up but found the strength absent. She held out hoof to the light.

The light this time, took shape. It swiftly came from the horizon and stopped infront of her in a misty fog-like form. The tendrils of the luminous mist converged at a single point and took the form of a biped. A human. A woman...

Mom.

While the light was still bright against the darkness, it somehow looked to be skin, although it was as white as copy paper.

Ashley felt the ghostly echo of a hand gently taking hold of her outstretched hoof. Whether she was in the body of a unicorn or back in her own bipedal form, she really didn’t care. Nothing mattered.

Not the world nor anything else.

Only this.

A small smile formed on Ashley face as she looked at the face of what was most certainly her mother. It was as if she was made of pure light but it didn’t matter. Her eyesight could suffer for all she cared.

The luminous entity slowly helped the unicorn to her hooves.The void around them seemed to reverberate rhythmically.

Thump-Thump.

Thump-Thump.

Thump-Thump.

Ashley sat on her hind legs, as per her equine form allowed, and looked longingly at the ghostly form. She smiled lightly, but somberly. A single tear escaped from one of her eyes only to be wiped away by the figure. The finger used to halt Ashley lone tear was repurposed to boop her nose which got a larger smile out of her. The figure smiled lovingly and its face began to create more defining features. While everything remained stark white, Ashley could make out luscious hair but a slightly wrinkled face to show growing age.

“Mo-”began the mage.

A finger placed against her lips had halted her words. She looked into the eyes of her mother. They were the only thing with real color. they were the most gentle hazel which leaned to a more blue-ish hue. The biped smiled lovingly and brought an arm back. Ashley looked at this not knowing what she was doing but didn’t put much thought into why.

Slowly, the woman brought her index finger squarely to the middle of Ashley’s chest. In order for the unicorn to keep sight of her hand, she was forced to crane her neck backwards slightly. In doing so, her chest was perpendicular to her mother’s finger.

The appendage moved forward slowly the pony/human looked back up. Once again, her mother smiled which in itself displayed every bit of love she had for her daughter. Her finger, slowly but surely, made contact.

Pain once again consumed Ashley’s senses and she let out a scream as the light grew far brighter than the sun ever could hope to be.

She heard a steady beeping and a muffled wiring while feeling as if everything was vibrating softly. A flashlight was moved out of her eyes and and paddles were place on a hook on the wall. She could make out legs of someone but not much more than that besides the small enclosed space she was in. Her forehead still felt unnecessarily moist and she couldn’t move.

Of every feeling her body interpreted, the one that stuck out the most was that she was cold. Very, very cold. However, would be smiling right now if she could. An image of her mother’s smiling face was burned into her sight much like when you stare at light to long and close you eyes. Consciousness started to fade and so did the cold that gripped her body.

Ashley Sebelius gave way to darkness, while staring at the remnants of the image of her mothers face as it too, faded to darkness.

Author's Note:

For the record, Ashley's mother's death was mentioned once before so this like other things, don't just come from nowhere.

Start paying attention to small details because some will become important or play certain roles. If you've just skimmed the story for the most part, I'd recommend going back and re-reading it from the beginning.

ANYWAYS, I'm going to start getting into what make the person who stole Twilight's body who she is. I'm kind of afraid of creating a Mary Sue for some odd reason recently so I'm trying to cram in as much crap about her as I can. I really haven't done to much with her so Ashley deserves to be explored a bit.

I'm also gonna give a rough estimate to how many chapters this story will have by the time its complete. I'd say somewhere in the neighboorhood of forty to fifty. So ya. Stuff

As always. Encouraging feedback and shiz.

Posting this chapter from a laptop while in the bathroom (cause you all totally needed to know),

--RoamingHooves--

Comments

[Shpoople96]

from a laptop while in the bathroom

Been there, done that

[thewookie1]

2195318

Yes, but a nuke won't make it come any faster anymore; so throw everything you have at it and maybe we'll get lucky and break it up enough not to completely kill everyone.

[thewookie1]

Earth's theme song

[Tie RoamingHooves]

2195404 Ok. Let's say that nuking it somehow managed to solve the problem. Everyone lives happily ever after. The end.

That's bad story telling. It would make humanity ever stepping foot in Equestria irrelevant and would make the "invasion" of it invalid. So ya.

Your move, buddy.

[thewookie1]

2201541 I never said they would be saved I just said that they should for future purposes; I doubt very much they arn't in anyway wanting to return to Earth at some point. Therefore damage cntrol is all they would be doing. Think of a huge iceball being thrown at a window, if you could make it smaller or less damaging, wouldn't you? At the moment the asteroid will destroy all life, and likely cause the Earth to require 1000's of years to ever be habitable again due to the planet's structural damage (might tear off some of the planet) or the complete decimation of everything on earth, including underground. What I'm sayng, is that enough damage or breaking up of the asteroid may at the very least allow some highly fortified bunkers to survive the blast, and with the right amount of technology, at least set up contact with the Equestrian based humans. A foothold or a few for recolonization in the distant future. Plus it would be human nature not to just surrender; proven by the fact they invaded Equestria but I doubt those not there are just going to sit and wait until their demise.