A RIFTS ODYSSEY
Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story.
Note: It was surprisingly difficult to start this story.
I have plenty of ideas and a whole notebook of references and yet...
Chapter 1: Apocalypse Now.
Day One: December 22, 2098
A dream is something out of the reality.
During a single night, the average dreamer could live an entire life.
Trapped by the power of Science, the one known as Silver Dawn dreamed... Dreamed of the present as it happened.
Ironically, despite humankind's predisposition toward self-destruction, Earth's people played a tiny role in the coming Apocalypse. Most of the events leading up to the Great Cataclysm were pure coincidence and unfortunate timing.
Unknown to human science, there has always existed a sublime energy source that courses throughout the planet and indeed through the infinite Megaverse. Since ancient times, this primordial energy was known as "magic". On Earth, this energy had faded over the eons but was still flowing through what is called ley lines, the equivalent for the planet of blood vessels. Only the most sensible and those spiritually or psychically attuned could sense it in modern times and generally only at a Nexus where two or more ley lines crossed like Stonehenge.
In South America, two small nations reeling from economic hardship and civil unrest clashed repeatedly. One was supported by the USA (who has the uncanny knack for backing the wrong horse). Under protest, NEMA (Northern Eagle Military Alliance), armed extension of the NAAP (North American Alliance Pact), was ordered to provide this South American ally with a dozen of USA-G10 Power Armor (aka Glitter Boys). The G10s should have only be used for "defense under extreme duress" but were deployed against a raiding party and followed it across the border. Fueled by a blood lust born from generations of hate twelve USA-G10 slaughtered 12,000 soldiers, 24,000 townspeople and obliterated the town of Gauda Marta. With the defensive capacity of their Mega-Damage reflective super alloy coupled with their shoulder mounted rail-guns, the twelve power armors could have destroyed a conventional force three times as large... without a single loss...
The invading nation withdrew but refused to apologize or make any overture to their enemy claiming "self-defense" and the need to "neutralize the potential threat". The injured nation appealed to the world, condemning NEMA and the USA, calling for worldwide sanctions and vowing bloody revenge. They were ignored, worse the invading nation threatened them to do it again and tensions rose to a fever pitch.
On December 22, 2098, the two South American nations struck at each other with a very limited exchange of outdated nuclear weapons. Millions of lives perished in a heartbeat. The brutal event in and of itself would have been horrible but an isolated incident with minimal direct impact on the rest of the world. This was where the ley line network and magic entered the picture.
Ley lines are channels of "magic". Psychic researchers had come to label this energy as Potential Psychic Energy or PPE for short. The PPE inside a living creature is unleashed at double its normal magnitude at the moment of death. Likewise the energy level at ley lines ebbs and flows, increasing during certain times of the day or year, often coinciding with the position of the sun and the planets.
As Fate would have it, the planets were aligned, causing the ley line energy to surge at its highest possible levels to begin with. The hour was midnight, a peak time when ley line energy spikes and the first city nuked was built on a pair of intersecting lines with other ley lines nearby. When the bombs went off, a million lives perished in a flash, their magnified PPE energy, doubled at the moment of death, poured into the already active and magnified energy of the ley lines, causing them to burst with energy like a dam that could no longer contain the waters it held. This had a ripple effect on the neighboring ley lines causing them to surge and flare with energy not seen in 150 millions years! A moment later came the retaliatory strike that sent the life's energy of a million more lives into the lines of mystic energy causing them to erupt with power starting an unstoppable chain reaction.
The surge of ley line energy raced across the globe under three minutes, igniting ALL the other ley lines. The uncontrollable magical energy touched off massive natural, unnatural and dimensional disturbances causing sudden freak storms of immense power, maximum strength earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, huge tidal waves, flooding and all manner of disasters, killing hundreds of thousands more every time. The succession of mass deaths of humans and animals fed the ley lines, making them more powerful with every passing second, which in turn, created greater disasters and death by the millions. This fed the ley lines even more causing them to erupt and run wild, tearing open the very fabric of reality, unleashing more destruction and death joined by supernatural horrors from hellish dimensions.
In a matter of minutes, half of all life on the Earth was destroyed... The ley lines radiated with such power that the Earth was being realigned on a cosmic scale becoming a trans-dimensional nexus spanning the entire Megaverse. Rifts opened at a hundred locations over the world, linking the Earth to alien worlds and the realms of the supernatural.
And Silver Dawn saw and sensed all of it...
The earthquake had surprised the old man as he was leaving the bio-tube chamber. It is a terrifying experience to feel the ground trembling and being able to do nothing except crawling under something solid and waiting an eternity for it to pass.
Unfortunately, while the lab was solid, it was still underground and Atlanta, while not being near an earthquake epicenter, was severely damaged despite his mega-damage structure. A support beam, supposedly unbreakable, fell on the old man, breaking his hips and legs and trapping him in a burning lab as short-circuits in the machinery ignited multiple fires.
So near the final goal and he was going to die from fire if the smoke didn't asphyxiate him first or the volatile and toxic chemicals he used didn't explode. This time he was crying tears of sorrow and bitterness as he looked where the tube should be and could only see broken debris and puddles of life-support fluid.
Light... A silvery light diffused through cracks in the crumbled room. Under his awed eyes, debris began to float aside in the air as she emerged from her broken high-tech cocoon.
His Silver Dawn, her coat, mane and tail still damp, softly illuminated by her glowing horn and with emerald eyes focused on the retreating debris as she piled them to open a path. Such a magnificent vision... And he was dying, broken. Oh, may Celestia give him enough strength to finish his Masterwork.
"Silver Dawn..." His voice was hoarse and so weak with his impeding death. Her ears lifted up and pivoted in his direction before her head and eyes followed. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks as she looked at his broken form under the fallen beam. She walked to him her mouth opened in dismay as she examined him. Yep, he was boned.
"Not... enough time... Please listen..." She leaned to him and the creator looked into the magnificent emerald eyes of his creation. "I created you from the dreams of all bronies on Earth... Please go forth and bring Harmony to my Earth. You are... a princess of Equestria... Here, the only... magical item... I managed to found..." Oh Celestia, it hurt so much to speak. Trembling, he extracted from his lab coat the ONE object he never let go so far. Finding this unique and true magical item had been an epic adventure in his younger days.
It was an elegant, light, delicate and beautifully shaped circle of gold with silver filigree. A round and polished ruby stand in the center and the circle itself was set with faceted emeralds. He reached for her head and felt her shivering under his touch. He smiled. His creation understood the sheer scale of this dramatic moment.
The crown took its place behind her horn as if it has always been here. His eyes blurred as he silently wept. "The stone sleeps..."
She blinked, looked up at the circlet on her head and he finally heard her angelic voice. "Sleeps..?"
"Yes... When worn by one with a courageous heart... the stone... glows... and becomes a blinding radiance, igniting Hope in everyone seeing it... Courage of the heart is very rare... the crown has a power when it's there..." He felt himself going... somewhere. With his last strength he touched her hoof. "Please... Promise... me... Please..."
Silver Dawn didn't break her gaze. "I promise... I will do everything in my power to bring Harmony around me as long as I breath."
Darkness crept along his perception and he breathed his last. "Thank... you... Thank youuu..."
As he went into the Great Beyond, he heard her one final time. "I forgive you..."
The young Alicorn contemplated the cooling broken body at her hooves. Tears began to leak from her sorrowful emerald eyes. She collapsed on the ground and lowered her head.
"I... I forgave... you..." Her breath hitched. "But I will never... forget..." She closed her eyes, sobbing. "You... You were a... monster..! You took a young girl and remade... No... TWISTED her into your vision of an Equestrian Alicorn..!" She looked back at the dead with wrath. "The Silver Dawn you created could only have looked at you with horror and righteous anger!" She ragingly shook her head. "You heard the lessons of Friendship, but you certainly DIDN'T listen to them..!" She trembled with scorn and loathing. "She... I would have destroyed you..." She stopped and her pupils shrunk with deep fear. "I... I don't... I'm not even sure... of who... I was..."
Her mind was a swirling and roaring storm. She awoke SURE that the End of the World was happening. She remembered her panic when she found herself immersed in a bio-tube and her horror when she discovered she wasn't human in appearance anymore. Then there was the sheer terror when the lab crumbled on her and her incredulity when she found herself safely inside a psionic force-field. Testing her memories reignited her terror as she could only remember... ALL of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" with many scenes and episodes remade into high-quality CG movies. And her identity... Her identity was... simply gone. She knew she was human, a fil... GIRL and about twelve or thirteen years old, but now...
Silver Dawn. Alicorn. Filly. Born from the purified remnants of Nightmare Moon. Raised by Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Mane Six. Anointed Princess of Equestria by Celestia and Luna. Bystander and actor in most of the adventures of the Mane Six...
...no... No... No..! NO!
IT WASN'T REAL! It wasn't real..! It wasn't real... it... wasn't... real...
She could remember movies she saw, musics she likes, places she went, knowledge and skills available only to a girl on Earth circa 2098, but... no memories of people... Nopony... She KNEW she had a mother, a father, a whole family! But where did she live? Where did she go for schooling? Who were her friends?
She could name all the USA presidents since the foundation of the country. She could point any capitals on a globe. Hay, she could remember the last forum war on the internet about the latest change in Cola composition..!
Sweet Celestia..!? Nopony? Hay? She even had the so particular way of speaking from Equestria. WHAT did he do with her brain!?
"Buck it..!" She clapped her hoof over her muzzle. By Luna's mane, she couldn't even swear except with Equestrian idiomatic.
The replica of the earthquake cut off her spiraling falling mood. Once again she instinctively generated a psionic force-field around her. Right, first escape from the destroyed and doomed lab and climbed up to the surface.
It was a long and harrowing path, but Silver Dawn managed to reach a still intact access door. Curiously, her force-field had handled everything thrown at her. Fires, explosions, falling debris,... Nothing had been able to pierce her protection and yet her implanted memories shown that psionics weren't that powerful when the Argentinean Project Achilles tested its feline psionic mutants.
In fact, she was surprised by how well she was using her body right now. It seemed that the geneticist made sure for her to have muscle memories for moving along with everything about what he "gifted" her. She shook her head. A madman... An insane and obsessed senile man. She used her glowing horn to find the emergency release lever and pulled with her telekinesis.
The exit door was built on the rooftop of a low and non-descriptive building that was the public face of the genetic lab. How to best hide a secret genetic lab? Put it on the phone-book as an ACTUAL genetic facility.
The Apocalypse greeted her.
Her eyes widened before shrinking as the Alicorn gazed upon the destruction around her.
The whole city of Atlanta was burning, turning the night into a nightmarish day. Many of the tallest building had shattered and lied in broken rubble.
On her left was a literal wall of glowing blue energy that was stretching for miles and was shooting three miles! into the sky. Her five primary senses and perhaps another one were on the fritz from the sheer presence of energy radiating from the blue line. Ley line, a channel of magic, something whispered in her mind.
In the streets, people were running without directions, like headless chickens. There was only panic and instinctive reactions. Some were pillaging stores and she watched with incredulity people stealing TV sets..! What was the utility of a TV in such circumstances. Her gaze, powerful like eagle eyes saw people trying to escape crumbling buildings. Mothers with children searching for a safe place where none was. Family members digging into the ruins of their homes for their loved ones. Many were trying to use their cells and portables for information, any kind of information... In vain. People were trampled to death by the crowd. She saw a man kicking away a young girl before falling into the sinkhole in the ground where she was running. A little girl was crying and staying immobile on a bench in a flaming park.
And the sounds... The sounds! A cacophony of sounds... Shouts, cries, sirens, screams, pleas for help, begs, swears, death rattles, breaking masonry from the tumbling buildings, the crackling of fire, explosions, gunshots, prayers to God, the screech of twisting steel, the sounds of digging, running footsteps, the bellows of hate, the moans of agony, the whimpers of fear... her sensitive ears were picking anything and everything.
The smells... The scents of burning brick and wood, bone and flesh, oil and rubber, sweat and blood, death and tears mixed with the stench of sulfur, ozone and a thousand other odors... Her nose was assailed and hammered, her stomach wretched, she felt she was suffocating.
She wobbled as the sensations continued to attack her: A constant rush of light and motion. The sting of smoke carried by winds, the fist in her stomach, the throbbing at her temples, the desert-like dryness of her mouth and the unending rivulets of obscuring tears.
Hell on Earth. Pandemonium. Bedlam. Chaos. Armageddon. Apocalypse. Madness.
Words... Words with right now too much meaning for the young Alicorn.
She should have abandoned, gave up. She should have lied down there and waited for death. The combination of her traumatic rebirth coupled with the Great Cataclysm she not only sensed lately, but was now seeing before her own very eyes should have shattered her psyche leaving a breathing corpse that didn't realize she was dead.
And yet...
Her trembling limbs firmed. Her out-of-control breathing slowed to only a rapid rhythm. Her pupils regained their normal size and focused. Her erratic heart regained a normal beating.
She pushed aside her psychological issues for now. She would crash in the future when she could afford it. For now, survival was the word.
She didn't know if she was Silver Dawn or simply a beleaguered girl into a world crisis, but people were in dire need and by helping them she could help herself.
She was still terrified but acting was preferable to waiting for death. Her wings deployed as she reached the edge of the roof.
Silver Dawn, artificial Alicorn, took a leap of faith and glided into the Apocalypse's maw.
On her head, a spark shone in the depth of a red stone.
Notes: Very heavy chapter. Like all RPGs about post-apocalypse settings, "Chaos Earth" is not a very good place.
Our media constantly show us images and videos of catastrophes around the world, but only the survivors could truly make us understand it... barely.
For once, I will not write the sheet of my Alicorn OC. Feel free to ask questions however.
This is Silver Dawn writing. In the setting of Chaos Earth, the genetic manipulations that made me are possible. Access to psionics is also canon.
The existence of magic came from another RPG from Palladium: "Beyond the Supernatural" which is about a secret shadow war of psychics and sorcerers against monsters from beyond. Yes, magic existed before the Coming of the Rifts. But it was hidden and not that spectacular.
The Rifts will change everything by boosting by two whole magnitudes Psionics and introducing high levels of Magic back. I am able to affect Mega-Damage structures.
The crown is currently a plot device of my author. He stole it from "the secret of Nimh".
Yes, I don't remember who I was as a human. My identity was replaced by the imaginary Silver Dawn of Equestria.
Feel free to ask questions since I'm sure I'll be able to answer them... Not like my author.
Feel also free to write Omake with me since my author certainly indulged himself in quite a few forums.