World Collision Chapter 1
~ Chapter 1 ~
Welcome to the Wasteland
The groan of the TARDIS filled my ears as the Doctor pulled another switch. Lunar was in a corner, grumbling as he wrapped a burned hoof in a bandage.
“Well, I don’t know about you but after defeating a dragon I think our next universe should be a little fun.”
The Doctor nodded, flipping another switch. “Can’t argue with you there Lunar. Well then, off we go!”
Pulling a large lever the Doctor set the TARDIS in motion. The mighty machine let out a massive groan as the universe split, letting the time machine slip through. Turning to the holographic jump controls the Doctor started punching in data. As the screen began displaying info on their surroundings the Timelord frowned.
“Well this universe isn’t right. In fact I think this atmosphere is slightly radioactive! Didn’t know Equestria could get this bad, shame.” Turning to me he perked up, “Oh well, lets try again.”
As he reached for the starting lever an explosion rocked the craft. The room tilted violently knocking the three occupants to the floor. The Doctor flung out a hoof, hitting the lever, the TARDIS shaking ominously as it attempted to make the jump again. I skidded across the floor smashing open the door with my plot. Squeaking I tried to cling on to the lip of the police box.
“Luan! Hang on!” the Doctor shouted, trying his best to follow his own directions.
The sky was a sick orange color, the sun blocked behind a ceiling of clouds. The ground was very far away. Gulping I tried again to scrape my way back into the bucking TARDIS. It let out another pitiful creaking groan as a corner of the great ship sunk into a fold in space.
I knew what had to be done. The only way to get back in the thrashing craft would be flying. I let go, unfurling my wings and trying to catch my fall. I hadn’t been an alicorn very long and was still rather new to flying. I thrashed, trying to catch the wind. Slowing my fall I managed to flip, aiming towards the TARDIS, crying out in dismay.
Freed from its pony burden the mighty machine was able to pass through the gap it had started. With a great grinding noise it vanished, leaving a very panicked alicorn in its wake.
I was only able to enjoy my panic for a few seconds before another missile shot by. Looking down I saw a strange pony in full body power armor. Smoke poured out of his side, suggesting that he had launched the missiles. Then another projectile flew by making me gape. Why in Equestria was he still shooting? The TARDIS was gone!
Dodging and weaving I flew down to the strange stallion. “hey! What’s the big idea? Stop with the missiles already!”
The armored pony backed up making a sound like a growl. With a hiss another panel opened up, revealing what looked suspiciously like a grenade launcher. “Back away alicorn scum.”
I scoffed. Scum? I felt my temper growing as I gave the stallion a dangerous smile. Time to pull rank on this foal. “Do you know who I am? I’m the daughter of princess Luna’s private student Lunar.”
The armored pony was silent for a moment before stating flatly, “The princess died over two hundred years ago. Didn’t your goddess tell you?”
Before I could process this he fired. Without thinking I caught the grenade in my magic, holding it a minute before the ‘this is an active explosive’ thought got me to finally hurl it back. The following explosion seemed to do nothing but anger the pony. With another hiss some form of rifle rose from the armor causing me to yelp as a bullet dug into my hind leg. Hot pain shot through the limb as it began to bleed.
I shot up, feverishly dodging more bullets. Well that was talking out the window. What the hay was with this pony? As more bullets flew by I decided it was best to leave.
Just before I flew out of earshot I heard him mutter, “dumb unity freak.”
I sighed, scanning the horizon for anywhere to rest. I had been flying a good hour, the TARDIS having appeared many miles from any form of settlement. Finally I spotted a ruined shack, diving down to land it what must have once been a bed room. My hind leg gave out from under me as I gave a little ‘eep’. I was still bleeding where the pony had shot me and I feared he might have damaged muscle.
I had grown worried when it hadn’t healed, my natural healing factor more then a match for such a wound. I groaned. It seemed I had gotten myself trapped in a universe where that magic didn’t work. Brilliant.
I was about to lay on the bed when I noticed a half decayed earth pony still inhabiting it. It was gray, with a ragged purple mane and the barest remains of a tail. With disgust I realized that the white shirt it was wearing was fused to her as if it were part of her skin. With a slight squeamish feeling I pushed the body aside saying “scues me ma’am”
I practically died of shock when the ‘corps’ bolted up with a surprised expression. It looked me up and down before relaxing. “oh sorry, didn’t hear you enter. Your rather quiet on them wings of your.”
I backed up a few stepped unable to find my voice. Finally I stammered, “s-s-sorry for waking you. I, uh, sort of, well”
The zombie like pony sighed, giving me a slightly sad smile. “you thought I was died, right? Don’t worry, I get that a lot being a ghoul and all. And no you didn’t wake me. I can’t exactly sleep. I just like to pretend sometimes, give my brain some time to relax.”
She noticed my leg and made a tut tut sound like a worried mother. “Looks like your in more need of the bed than me though. Come here, I got something for that.”
She reached behind the bed with her mouth and pulled out an old saddle bag. When I hesitated she made a ‘come here’ motion, patting the bed next to her. Reluctantly I obliged, watching as the ‘ghoul’ pulled a potion and some wrappings out of the bag. As she wrapped the bandaging on as I let out a sigh, feeling the skin on my wound close up.
“Your not out of the woods yet hun, those bandages are only really good for exterior wounds. Drink this for the inside.” She waited for me to gulp down the potion before commenting, “Names Daisy Blossom. Now who’d ya piss off to get yourself shot at?”
I sighed, “some pony in steel armor. Kept blabbing something about some goddess and ‘unity’. Know clue what that was about. And my names Luna by the way”
The ghoul looked surprised. I assumed it was due to me sharing a name with the princess but was confused when the other pony asked, “so your not with the goddess? I thought all alicorns were.” She looked at my horn. Instead of a spiral of bone it was a tall pyramid of crystal. “then again, of all the alicorns I’ve seen I’ve never met one like you.”
“wait, there are more alicorns?” I asked blinking back surprise.
“course. Most work with that darn slaver Redeye, but there’s always the few the goddess sends out for no reason other than to spread her word.” The roll of her eyes suggested what she thought of this.
I was distracted a moment as I noticed how milky the ghouls eyes were. “forgive me for being rude what exactly is a ghoul?”
She smiled , “Ah you must be from a stable. Didn’t know there were alicorns in stables but then again with how many were made that’s not surprising. I’m a product of the war. Magic got in me and mad me immortal. Course as you can see it didn’t keep my body working.”
I frowned. “wait, what war? What’s a stable?”
It was Daisy’s turn to look confused, “you ain’t from a stable? Goodness girl, have you been under a rock the last 200 years or so? How could you not know of the war?”
I hesitated but soon realized that if I wanted help in this bleak land I would have to divulge some secrets. “I’m… not from this dimension. I’m an agent from an organization that works kind of like multiverse police. I was traveling with some friends when our ship got hit and I fell out. They vanished and I ended up here.”
Daisy looked taken aback at this. After a moment though she nodded, “I guess that makes sense.”
I gaped, “It does?! Wow, I think you’re the first person to not think I was crazy for saying that!”
She gave me a quizzical smile, “Well it sure explains all that’s weird about you. Plus I trust you.” She sigh,” Though I guess that means you know even less than a stable pony. If I’m to explain stuff to you I’ll have to start from the beginning.
200 years ago Equestria was at peace, a peace that had lasted over a thousand years. But that all changed when we began fighting with our neighbors the zebras over rocks of all things. We needed coal to power our land and they needed gem stones to power their defensive weapons.
Having never been in a true fight we foolishly thought we could settle things through violence quickly and efficiently. What followed was a long and bloody conflict. New inventions flew out of the factories as both sides created anything they thought would win them the war.
In the end everyone lost. Megaspells rained down, destroying everything. The air became thick with radiation. Rad snow blanketed the land. Some ponies managed to survive, but that megere number paled in comparison to the thousands killed. The only ponies to truly survive were those lucky enough to get into a fallout stable in time. Over many decades the radiation decreased. Some stables opened up while others remained secluded, untrusting of the outside world. This wasteland is all that’s left of the once great Equestria.” She made a smile that felt far more like a sad grimace, “And us ghouls got to see it all.”
I was at a lost for words. Immense sadness rolled through me as I remembered all the wonders I had seen in Equestria. Now all gone, Blown to pieces by ponies long dead. How could such a terrible thing happen?
“your 200 years old?” I asked, my brain latching onto the least depressing part of her speech.
She gave that grimace smile again, “224 and counting actually. I’m a product of the pink cloud megaspell over canterlot.” she shivered, “Nasty stuff, make sure to stay clear of that place. Though I do get certain perks for being a canterlot ghoul.”
Before I could react she drew a gun and shot herself clean through the head. My eyes grew wide as a strange purple light surrounded her crumpled body and a sickening sound filled the air. A moment later she blinked and gave me a crooked smile. “I’m VERY hard to kill.”
I stammered for a moment before stating faintly, “You could have just told me you know.”
She gave me an innocent frown. “But what would be the fun in that?”
At Daisy’s insistence I laid down on the rotting mattress to rest. As she had said she didn’t need any rest and busied herself sorting her supplies. She had been fascinated by my bottomless pouch (pretty much the only thing I had on me when I fell) and I had been puzzled by her collection of four identical guns. Why a pony needed that many was beyond me.
Sleep was quite impossible however. To many thoughts were buzzing around in my head. What was I going to do now? How could I leave this dimension without the TARDIS? Where my friends worried about me? How was I going to survive in this world? One thing was for sure, I was stuck here for a while and I had a bad feeling I was in for a wild ride.
I jerked up, not realizing I had fallen asleep. I frowned, my brain taking a minute to process the soft beeping that had woken me. Frowning deeper I reach into my pouch with my magic, pulling out a small device, pulsing with flashes of electric blue light in time with the beeping.
“What’s that?” Daisy asked, making me jump a mile. I had forgotten her non need for sleep.
“It’s a tech radar. Its suppose to indicate where high level tech is.” My eyes shot open wide, my mind fully awake now, “No way!”
“what?” the ghoul asked, startled by my sudden mood shift.
“The last time I lost track of the TARDIS I set this thing to track TARDIS tech!” pressing a hoof to the little disc I popped open a holo display of equestrian. “There! Up in the top left corner! It’s the TARDIS! Oh I KNEW the Doctor would find a way back!”
Daisy frowned at the map, “That looks like stable 42 near vanhoover. We’re all the way down here in the saltlick city ruins” she said, pointing to a dot near the bottom left corner. “How the hay do you recon you can travel half way cross the wasteland without getting yourself killed?”
I gave her a sheepish grin, “dumb luck?”
She sighed, shaking her head, “well we better get going then. No point in hanging round here.”
I cocked my head. “your coming with me?”
“course you silly filly! Your probably the most interesting pony I’ve met out here. Ain’t about to let some hellhound or the like gobble you up. Specialy since your map just broke.”
Startled I turned to the tech radar only to find the hologram gone and the device dead. “Oh come on! What happened?”
Daisy snickered, “Let me guess, there’s no gem stones involved in its power source?” When I shook my head she continued. “in Equestria the only way to keep an object magically charged is with gem stones. Since that disc thing doesn’t have one its arcane power must have been completely drained with that one use. My guess is that gem on your bag is the only thing keeping it’s magic running.”
Magic items require gems, great! So even if I had my gear it would have all been useless. Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.
Seeing my sad look she thumped me on the back. “don’t worry, with a guide like me you’ll be just fine! Oh! That reminds me!” She reached into her saddle bags and pulled out a pistol and several magazines. Handing them to me she said, “Can’t travel the wasteland without a weapon less you want to end up a corpse. And not the fun kind like me.”
Daisy was a non stop source of information as we trudged across the sandy dunes of the equestrian dessert. There seemed no bounds to her knowledge of everything form Equestrian history to fire arms to medicinal plants.
She had strapped all four of her pistols to her saddle bags, two to each side. I now noticed each had a different color grip. Blue, orange, green, and black. When I asked about them she gave me a wry smile. “Each color represents an ammo type. Blue for electric shock, orange for explosive, green for acid, and black for normal old buckshots. Most ponies use one gun and swap out ammo types during battle, not me. I find its quicker and easier to have a gun for each type I use.”
I had to admit it was clever. “acid ammo?”
She grimaced, “Don’t use Venom very often. Those shots can be nasty.”
I stared, “You name your guns?”
“well course. All them heroes of old always had signature weapons. Figure if I ever make a name for myself I might as well have the weapons to match. She pointed at each in turn. This here’s Bolt, Boomer, Venom, and Biter.”
I smiled, “AH I can see it now! The great Daisy Blossom, quad weilder of doom!”
She laughed.
We traveled another hour before coming across the remains of some settlement. Not big enough to really be called a town but still a welcome break from the endless sand. It wasn’t until we passed the first couple of building that we realized something was wrong.
‘FUCKING IS MAGIC’ was written across one building we passed. The next had a crude picture of male genitalia painted in the same red paint. Paint I realized to my horror was blood. As we rounded a corner we ran smack into a spear lodged in the ground with a ponies head impaled on it.
“Dear Celestia’s flaming loins!” Daisy swore.
I looked at her with an incredulous look. Where in Equestria had she learned to swear like THAT?
She blushed, “sorry, I tend to forget myself when the wasteland decides I’m having to easy a time. This town is raider turf. We need to leave. NOW.”
Just as she said that a bullet shattered the rock next to the ghoul prompting us to dive for cover. Slamming a magazine into my gun I glanced around the barrel I was hiding behind firing two shots at an attacker, and discovered just how bad a shot I was when magically holding a weapon. To be fair it was my first time and I DID nick his hat!
The buck smirked raising his own firearm in his teeth, his eyes clearly saying ‘your boned scum’. Just then a round from biter found its way into the raider’s eye, exiting his head with a horrid squelching noise. Daisy landed in front of my, eyes on fire as she swapped to boomer. She turned to me, a little of the fire replaced with worry. “first time trying to fire using magic ey?”
When I nodded she sighed, “Just fire it as if you were holding it in your hooves. Just cause you can hold it far away from you doesn’t mean you should.” A bullet whizzed through her back leg. She showed no signs of pain but whipped around her fire blasting a massive hole where the raider’s cover had been.
“Just use the sight on that thing!” she barked as she galloped after the fleeing mare.
I followed, feeling rather foolish. I had always been an incredible shot, but that was with claws back in my own dimension. I had barreled in here thinking I would be just as good with hooves, not remembering just how different that was. Boy did I miss fingers!
Bam, down went another raider. Sniper fire swept down on us as we took cover. In vain I tried to project a psychic shield, confirming yet again that none of my magic was working. Of course I could only use pony magic hear, why in equestria would I be allowed the easy way? I had never done any training with my alicorn magic and was determined that when I found the Doctor I would travel back in time and kick myself silly for that.
While not large looking from outside the settlement was a maze of streets and buildings giving the raiders a strong advantage. We had been here over an hour and were little closer to the other side as when we started!
Daisy was a one pony killing machine! I still wasn’t sure what the deal was with these raiders but I did my best to assist her. If a pony like her could get this mad at somepony then they must be bad.
It wasn’t until I saw the cages that I finally had a good idea just how bad they were.
Dozens of cages sat around what was once a main plaza, each holding at least 3 ponies. No. At closer inspection I realized not all those I say still drew breath. Those ‘lucky’ enough to be alive were covered in blood and their own waste, ribs clearly visible from starvation. Many were injured, their exposed raw flesh green with disease.
One raised her head weakly, a filly not even old enough to have a cutie mark “Please, no more. It hurts”. The area between her hind legs was a raw bloody mess. I snapped.
A Raider chose that moment to rush into the plaza, raising a fire axe. My vision was tinged with a poisonous green as I wrapped him in my telekinetic magic. HE yelped as I began to squeeze.
“You sick fuck.” I bellowed, my voice tinged with a dark echoing force. I didn’t care about the green creeping across my vision or the horror in Daisies eyes as my magic turned from forest green to toxic purple. “How dare you call yourself a pony! What sick part of your head thought this was ok?!”
He was gasping for air now. Good, let him suffer. I saw two more raiders out of the corner of my eye. They to fell victim to my poisonous magic. I new I was using dark magic but I didn’t care. I was so angry.
“I have seen more versions of this world than you could possible imagine!” I bellowed at the limp raiders. Oh yes they were still alive, my magic made sure they didn’t get the pleasure of death. “But you sick fucks have shown me a whole new level of how bad this world can get. What you have done can’t be forgiven.”
Daisy, her eyes wide as plates hesitantly approached me. “L-Luna? Calm down. Your going to f-“
I rounded on her, “You would defend them? Doesn’t that make you just as bad?” I reached my magic out, attempting to grab her as she scampered away.
“Luna stop!”
Suddenly I became aware that I wasn’t in control. I had been so blind with rage I had failed to notice the other presence slip in, guiding my actions. What was I doing?!
‘what you were made for Luna’ a scarily familiar voice hissed in my head.
“NO” I yelled out. My magic went wild as I fought the mare in my head, the one that couldn’t be real, not now! She couldn’t be! With a corous of cracks my wild magic snapped the necks of most of my captives. I silently praised princess Luna that Daisy was not one of them. My magic imploded, the freed raiders running as fast as they could out of town. Running from the Most evil pony they had ever seen.
I didn’t even notice as I feel to the ground, writhing as I fought for control. I couldn’t let her win! Not now, not ever! My head pounded as my psyche became a warzone. My vision flickered. The last thing I saw before darkness took me was Daisy racing over to me, her mouth moving but seeming to make no sound.
I woke to a headache that would cripple an elephant. I groaned, putting a decidedly shaky hoof to my head. A damp cloth was placed on my forehead.
“Easy now, you’ve been through a rather large amount of mental stress. I would advise against sitting up.”
At the sound of Daisy’s voice I opened my eyes, and immediately regretted it. Sweet Luna, was this how a hang over felt? I definitely didn’t have plans on taking up drinking anytime soon.
We were still in the plaza, and from the fearful whispers around us I assumed the cages still contained ponies. “you didn’t free them?” I asked, doing my best to ignore the horrid pain in my skull.
Daisy raised an eyebrow or, well, what was left of one. “do I look like a lock pick to you? Plus if I try using Boomer on these cages I’ll probably kill the ponies inside.”
“Let me give it a go,” I mumbled, trying to get to my hooves, “I’ve picked my share of locks.” My head swam. Oh, hi Mr. ground, nice to see you again!
“Your not doing anything until your head clears a bit. The best way to do that is tell a story, does a great job at lining everything back up nice and right.” She hesitated, “And, if you don’t mind, I would love it if that story explained what the hay you just did. It looked like a demon possessed you or something.”
I chuckled. Well it came out as more of a whimper, “Your not that far off really.” I looked at her. Should I really tell her? Wouldn’t she just run like the raiders?
As if reading my mind she put a comforting hoof on my shoulder. “I promise, I won’t think any differently of you. I can tell you’re a good pony, you just have a few problems same as anypony else.”
I sighed taking a deep breath. I could do this. So, I began.
“By now I guess you’ve realized I wasn’t always a pony. In fact if I wasn’t in equestria I would look a lot more like an anthro wolf. I told you that I’m an Eclipse agent but that’s the short version, the one free of pain.
I am what’s called a paradoxix. We are creatures created when someone takes aspects of people from all over the multiverse and mashes them together into one new being. Its far more complex than that but you get the Idea.”
I gave a shuddering sigh. “the mage who created me had one goal in mind, kill every person who she felt was a threat to her plans. Thus she combined their aspects and created me, the perfect match for them all. But Even at that young age she could tell I didn’t have the heart of a killer. So she implanted in me a seed of darkness, a new personality she new would get the job done.
I took a year to mature and by then I was not only deadly but as evil as the one who made me. I set out to kill all those I had been made from.”
I shook my head, “I won’t go into details about the fighting, its to shameful. My evil persona was ruthless, and I do my best to not count how many I must have harmed.
Somehow they beat me. I was certain they would kill me, put an end to a great threat. But they took pity on me. They forced the evil in me out, allowing me to be my true self for the first time since birth. The Eclipse Network let me become an agent, claiming my power was great enough to deserve the special agent rank.
I had lost all my knowledge when they freed me so I’ve been spending the past few years relearning it from the very people I had once tried to kill. And they accepted me.”
I could feel the fearful tears on my cheeks as I choked out, “And I kidded myself into thinking it was over. I thought Anool was gone but she’s not! That was her just now! I almost killed you because I let her out!”
Daisy held me as I shook. Softly she questioned, “Anool?”
I nodded, suddenly very aware of just how large my audience had been. Nearly every prisoner had turned to listen to my sob story. “Anool is what I was named back when I was being trained to kill. After I was free I changed my name to prove to myself I was a different person. Luna is nothing more than Anool backwards with a different spelling.” I shivered, ”They told me she was gone, that the spell they used had ripped her out of me. But that magic! I haven’t been capable of raw dark magic since I became Luna! And she spoke to me Daisy! In my head!”
Daisy pulled back, but not with disgust as I had thought she would. She gave me a sweet but determined smile. “Did she just give up then? She doesn’t sound like the kind of pony to give you back control.”
I sniffed, “well no, I fought her back but-“
Daisy put a hoof to my mouth, “but nothing. You let your anger get the better of you when you saw these poor ponies, just as any half decent pony would if they saw this for the first time. It just so happens you’re a bit more dangerous angry than most. The important thing is you can control it-her.” She gave me a wicked grin, “And to tell you the truth, those raiders deserved the scare. I recon they’ll be looking for a new life style after that display.”
I laughed. It was a sad laugh but a real one. “You seem to know just what to say to get me out of a hole.”
She winked “over 200 years of practice my dear!”
It didn’t take long to find some bobbing pins and a small screwdriver in the heaps of raider junk. I fumbled at the locks at first, having to get use to doing the job with magic, but had all the cages open within the hour.
Many of the freed ponies gave me fearful looks as they ran off but a small few stopped to say thank you first. It was more than I could hope for after the scare I had put them through.
The settlement was clear of raiders. No doubt the ones I had let go had warned the others of the monster pony that had attacked them. I knew I should be glad of the fact but it just made me feel worse.
We walked for a few more hours before stopping for the night. The cool sand felt great on all my aches and pains.
“So” Daisy cut the silence a while later. “I’ve been thinking about your whole magic problem, what with your normal magic not working and all? I think you might want to try your hoof at light manipulation magic!”
I looked up at her, both surprised and confused, “Why?”
“well,” she began looking for all the world like some form of professor, “You have a very unique horn. Unicorns and alicorns alike normally have horns made of bone but since yours is crystal the magic inside isn’t isolated like normal. With the prism like shape off it you should be able to direct the light that shines through it and change it with the magic it comes into contact with!”
I gaped at her. I considered myself a smart pony, but what she had just said sounded like something even Twilight Sparkle would have had to think over for a while. “Ok how the hay does an earth pony know so much about arcane principals?”
She started, almost like she had let something slip, before muttering “I do a lot of reading is all.”
It was a dodge, and a very obvious one at that. Still, She was accepting of me and I wouldn’t pry if she was keeping secrets. “So, you play cards then?” she asked, doing her best to change the subject.
“Hu?” I asked, a bit confused by the question. She pointed at my flank.
“You got a card for a cutie mark. Thought you were good at some card game or the like.”
I looked back at my mark, A playing card with two curved arrows surrounding it, pointing at a circle and a triangle. “It’s a jack. Its suppose to mean that I’m a ‘jack of all trades’. That’s my talent.”
Now it was Daisy’s turn to look confused. “What kind of talent is that for?”
I gave her a sheepish smile, “well my unique skill is being able to copy other people’s skills and appearance.”
She looked at me skeptically. “Sure ya can.”
I gave her a cocky smile “I’ll prove it”. Before she could react I darted forward, putting a hoof to her side. At once my white coat began darkening, becoming the same shade of gray as Daisy’s coat. The blue tip of my mane turned dark purple and began to consume the white that was the rest of my mane. My insides turned as they adjusted to that of my ghoul friend.
In a matter of seconds Daisy was staring at a perfect copy of herself. As much as I enjoyed her shock I didn’t have any desire to stay like this for long. I hadn’t really realized how uncomfortable being a living corpse would be. I wasn’t breathing, my heart wasn’t beating and my sense of touch felt muted. My brain was screaming at the wrongness of it all.
“Wow” was all Daisy said as I began shifting back. Ah, I never realized I would miss my own heartbeat. I couldn’t help feeling bad for the ghoul. I couldn’t stand a few minutes in that body. She had been like that for 200 years. I decided not to bring it up.
“I’m just glad that still works. I would have looked quite foolish otherwise.”
That seemed to break her from her shock. “Oh I recon I would have probably unloaded biter into you for that little flank grab if you had failed.” She looked at my back, “Can you do anything about those wings? Not that they aren’t great or nothing but I think we would be able to get around a lot easier if you looked like a unicorn.”
I remembered the ‘Steel Ranger’ as Daisy had called my attacker. Ya, less of that would be great. I looked at my feathered appendages. “Maybe I could try that light magic you were talking about?” I concentrated, imagining the light being bent around my wings. They vanished.
I gave a little whoop, then realized I had released my magic. The wings were there again, plain as day. I frowned. How could I make it last longer?
“Here” Daisy said, pulling a ruby on a chain from her bag. “try casting the spell on this then wearing it. The gem should sustain the spell.”
I gaped at the necklace, “You just HAPPENED to have this?”
She shook her head, “No but I doubt the raiders will be needing it ether. They had quite a sizable amount of loot in their camp.”
“Wha- when did you find time to loot the town?” I sputtered.
“you were out for a good hour Luna, what was I suppose to do?”
I just sighed, taking the necklace and casting the spell as she had instructed. I sighed as my wings vanished and stayed that way. As long as I didn’t remove the pendant I would appear to be just a strange horned unicorn. They where still there of course and I would have to work around them when putting on armor and the like, but I could manage.
Daisy was looking at a fold out map in her guide book. “At this rate we should hit Los Pegasus with a few more hours of walking.”
I groaned, smacking a hoof to my head. “At this rate the Doctor will be gone before we’re even half way there!”
My ghoul friend frowned at the map. “There seems to still be a dock in Pegasus, we might be able to hire a ship if we have enough bottlecaps.”
I cocked my head, “What do bottlecaps have to do with anything?”
She looked at me in surprise, “Well you need money to get things in life. What is it different where your from?”
I gaped, waiting for her to show some sign that she was kidding. None came. “You ponies honestly use bottlecaps as MONEY?”
She laughed, “I know, its rather dumb. To be honest I have no clue why we don’t just use pre war money, its more durable. But ya, bottlecaps are money in the waste land.”
I shook my head. This was a strange land. Speaking of which, “Is there something wrong with the weather? Its been nothing but cloudy since I got here!”
Daisy sighed, any joy from my over the top reaction lost. “It’s been nothin’ but clouds since the bombs fell. Them no good Pegasus fled to their homes in the sky and closed them selves off from the world bellow. Bunch of lowly cowards if you ask me!” She spat into the sand.
“I’m guessing that’s why you told me to hide my wings rather than my horn?”
She nodded glumly, “as much as that horn makes you stand out there just aren’t enough pegasi left for it to be a good disguise choice.”
I sighed, ears drooping, “This is just to much. I’ve seen Equestria at its height, how could such a peaceful and wonderful land become so twisted? Only a few days ago I was eating lunch with Twilight and her friends.”
This perked Daisy’s interest. “Hold on. I thought you said you where a dimension jumper, not a time traveler.”
I gave a sad little laugh. “Actually I do that to but that’s not how I managed to jump forward 200 years.” At her look of confusion I continued.
“Listen I’m not going to try and explain all of multiverse travel to you or we’ll be here forever but if you must know its like this. Every dimension has something that makes it different from every other. Sometimes its as small as a car turning right instead of left or as big as there being no physics at all. In some cases whatever sparked the world into being is the difference. In the case of the dimension I came here from and this dimension it’s a matter of it’s timing.”
Daisy nodded, seeming to understand, “so what your saying is whatever created this world happened 200 or so years before it happened where you just came from?”
I nodded, happy that she understood the concept, “Yep, no time travel needed.”
She shook her head slowly, “I get what yer saying but its still a lot to take in. I might have been alive back then but I’ve had 200 years to forget the details, for you it was only the other day. I don’t think I could take that. Even after all these years I’m still in a shock from what has become of this land.”
She put a hoof on my shoulder, “I’m sorry you had to experience it the short way round.” I leaned into the hoof. She was right, as usual. I had been holding it back but now that all was still I couldn’t escape the feeling of loss. I new it was foolish, I would only be here a few more days anyway, but it still hurt to see Equestria in such a state. I had held on to the idea that Equestria was the purest of the worlds I had seen, that friendship would always triumph. But that notion had shattered the moment I had fallen out of the TARDIS.
“get some sleep” Daisy said, shaking me from my dark thoughts. “Your still recovering after that light show and you’ll need your strength if we want to get out of this dessert by noon.”
When I tried to protest she gave me a ‘No buts’ look any mother would be proud to have. I lay down on the cool sand, surprised at how heavy my eyelids felt. I yawned, magically wrapping my blanket around myself. “Well in that case goodnight Daisy”
“Night Luna”
“hey Daisy? Thanks for everything. I don’t think I could do this without you.”
She gave me a cocky grin, “What are friends for?”