Project: Underground

The world slowly returned to a visually acceptable landscape as I found my eyes opening once again. I was still in the castle, and still in front of Luna's dead body. Although it still creeped me out, this time it wasn't as worse, knowing that I was technically the one who killed her.

Following an impromptu order made by a semi-insane voice in my head, I set out to find Luna's quarters and eventually Pick. Quickly making the first movement I had in what felt like days, I found myself still in a standing position. Losing my sub-conscious concentration by realizing this, I soon felt the oddly slow sensation of falling. Before I knew it, I had hit the ground with a 'clunk'.

I stayed laying down for several seconds, trying to wrap my head around the concept of having to kill myself. Several small questions started jetting around my head.

What would it feel like?

What would Violet do afterwards?

What would happen to me afterwards?

Trying to ignore the questions for now, I forced myself up off of the cold floor to see if I could find Pick... Or Violet... Or answers.

I quickly found myself bumbling towards the left end of the hallway so that I would end back up in the main hallway of the castle. Tripping over scraped rugs, ripped drywall and pulverized wood, I managed to barely make it to the end of the hallway. As I stood at the end of the hallway, I slowly peered over the edge of the dimly lit ballroom balcony. It looked completely untouched, but that didn't stop it from striking me as creepy, dark and depressing. The scattered splotches of moonlight gave the room an eerie blue tint that made the entire room look like it was underwater.

I heard a voice. My heart raced. It was unmistakable. It was Pick's. "HEY!! Starnote! You're fuckin' alive!! Hahahaaa!"

I tried to respond with my real voice. "Pick?! Where the hell are you?"

"Down here!!" I walked closer to the balcony and looked down to see an oddly happy face for the circumstances. Quickly locating the main staircase to my right, I ran down as fast as possible to greet him.

"Oh man. You have no idea of how fuckin' happy I am to see you right now. Problem is, I need answers. Badly. What did Violet tell you?"

He seemed shocked at the way that I got straight to the point. "Um, well, most importantly, she said to find you and then kill Luna."

I paused for a moment with a dumb look plastered on my face before speaking again. "I hate to say this, but Luna is already dead."

He laughed. "Oh, come on. You make it sound like that's bad news."

"It is."

"How in Equestria could it be bad?"

I unwillingly let out another string of silence. Just when his look went from victorious to fearful, I spoke. "I'm guessing Violet told you why Luna needed to die, right?"

"Yes... Why?"

"Well, as it turns out, Luna was the host of the Nightmare. So it kind of acts like a parasite. That is, until we both got knocked out. You lost your horn and I could guess some of your sanity-"

"Hey!"

"Seriously. I lost my wings, but then gained something afterwards. I'm the host of the Nightmare now."

"What?"

"Luna somehow completely took it out of her and put it into me. Apparently it wasn't part of her plan until recently. Also, the shock of the removal was too much for her, and she started dying. So, being the crazy bitch that she was, ordered the Nightmare, AKA me, to kill her and make it look like Violet did it. I was possessed at the time, so I had absolutely no say in it whatsoever."

"Holy shit. So you killed Luna? Wow. What's it like being possessed?"

"Like you're floating by someone else's eyes, but you know it's your body. Really weird, and it's almost like a dream in the sense that you remember everything after waking up. So, like a whole new level of sleepwalking, I guess."

"Wow. So what now?"

I almost didn't want to tell him. "Since I'm the carrier of the Nightmare, there's two options. One being I magically extract the Nightmare as Luna did to herself, and two being I flat-out kill myself."

He nearly jumped back in shock. "W-what? Seriously?"

"Sadly, yes. And option one is out of the question because I don't know an alicorn or a unicorn who isn't incapacitated, insane, possessed, or dead."

"So you're killing yourself."

"I have to, but I can't bring myself to it."

I paused. Not in sadness like it should have been, but in fear. More unseen peices of this twisted puzzle appeared, then locked in perfect place. The voice in my head telling me to 'Find Pick' was trying to get Pick killed...

"PICK!!! GET OUT OF HERE!!!" I started franticly running away, desperately trying to get out of the room.

Just as he was about to say "Huh?", a splintering crash was heard from behind us. We looked up to see somepony bucking their way through the main set of doors, creaming a neat, splintery hole through the old hardwood. The deafeningly loud sound of pure destruction rang throughout the large room. After the shower of splinters following the destruction died down, we could clearly see who it was.

It was Violet.

I panicked.

She charged.

I ran.

I saw Pick skittering along the ground in shock and pain. Without warning, she made her first move on us. I looked backwards just in time to see her heave herself into the air using her single good wing, sending her into an intense barrel roll to the right and next to Pick. Thinking fast, Pick drove his hooves into the ground at a sharp angle, gumming up his speed, turning him around, and sending Violet smashing into the opposite wall with a crunch.

I knew Pick couldn't keep this up for very long, so I tried to think of something fast that would buy us both time. I still couldn't bring myself to killing myself, though...

Still on my hooves and running fast, I leaned left, sending me into a controlled drift turn along the smooth tile until I ended up in front of the main staircase. From there, I continued moving, this time in an upward direction. Legs sore and aching from the running already, my body soon found a hard time keeping up with my mind as I saw steps fly beneath me by the dozen. Before I knew it, I was on top of the nearby balcony and ready for anything. Problem was, I didn't have a plan.

Following Pick after recovering from a small crash, Violet started quickly nearing him once again. As I watched them for a split-second thinking of what to do next, I came to another sudden thought. They were both directly in the middle of the room when I realized that I still couldn't bring myself to suicide. Instead, I knew that I wanted Pick to live, so I would have to incapacitate Violet similar to the way I did last night near the mountainside.

Once again doing without thinking, I suddenly found myself heaving my entire body forward, soaring over the railing of the staircase with ease. The weird thing about this time, was that I didn't really feel possessed anymore. Like it was instinctive...

More of the situation made sense all of a sudden. They were all pegasus instincts. All of those bizarre 'slow-motion' and 'bounding' moments of my life all happened after I got my wings back.

Sudden realization out of the way, I tried to focus on the present: Jumping straight over the staircase railing without any thought. All of a sudden, I could see the slightly curved stairs slowly come to a crawl in time in midair. Now with the ground slowly moving below my flying body, I barely had enough time to think of what to do next. Seeing Violet running away from me gave me an idea: Ambush her, and buy all of us time.

Well, that was the plan.

The staircase was long behind me, and the ground was nearing me faster and faster. Almost without thinking, I curled and threw down my shoulders, sending me into a painful roll along the unforgiving tile. I could almost hear the pain in my arms, regardless of my yelling.

The follow-through of my impromptu acrobatic stunt sent me locked in a sprinting chase against time and towards Violet. She was only about ten feet away from me, and I was still gaining on her. The slow motion effect wore off at that very moment.

I almost had her. I was sure I did... Until I realized what was ahead. The door. Well, more importantly, outside. I heavily feared what was behind those wooden behemoths.

With Pick in the lead and Violet trailing, something unexpected happened in our last seconds of being inside. Without warning, Violet made a move that made me cringe and made Pick panic. She heaved herself into the air using her back legs and started soaring over Pick. Throwing out her hooves with a vengeance, they instantly wrapped themselves around Pick's body and started to crush as Violet flipped forward, viciously bucking a hole straight through the door. Splinters soared through the room as several made their way into me, burning a hole of pain right through my body.

I continued to push forward with speed and determination as Violet, still clutching Pick, followed through with her flip and tumbled in the nearby grass.

As I suddenly found myself following them outside, time bent its way around me once again and slowed the intense action to a crawl. I slowly pounded my back hooves into the tile one more time, throwing me in the air, through the door, and towards Violet. As the doorframe drifted past me with grace, I looked up slightly to see the outside world once again. I was shocked at what I saw. The grassy area around the front of the castle was still fenced in, but it was the thing just outside the fence that scared me.

Just outside of the front gate, in a heaping pile of red, were several dead bodies. All of them had ripped flesh, torn limbs, or severed bones. It made me want to throw up.

As I thought about it more, I realized: It made me want to do more than that. Equestria has suffered enough. I've suffered enough, and so have Violet and Pick. I was going to kill myself.

Still in midair going at a snail's pace, I realized that I still had my gun. In one slow, epic motion, I shot my hoof back, brought back a gun, loaded it, and with great determination, aimed it towards my own head. I paused for a split second to let the ring of the metal die down in my ears. In that very moment, I watched Violet rear her own leg up to deliver one final blow to Pick, and to end his life. I had made my decision. Pick wasn't going to die today.

I was going to.

With one final thought on my part, I crammed my hoof down on the trigger as hard as possible. For one hideous split-second, I could hear the raging explosion of a gunshot in my ear. I closed my eyes. Then everything was silent. Perfectly silent.

Mindless questions went ravaging throughout me.

'Where am I?'

'Am I alive?'

'What happened?'

'Is everything okay?'

'How am I still thinking?'

I had no answers, but I felt like I knew them. I felt defeated and victorious at the same time.

I tried to look around, but I could see nothing. Not even black. Not even white. Just... Nothing. Nothing at all.

I tried to feel. I couldn't even tell if whatever around me was hot or cold.

I tried to smell. Not even the crisp air of Canterlot made its way into my nose.

I tried to move. I soon felt as though I had no body.

I tried to hear. There was nothing to listen to.

I couldn't do hardly anything. I could only think. Taking advantage of the one thing I could do, I tried recalling what had happened. I could remember everything: Right from the moment of the earthquake to the moment I killed myself.

Then what had happened? Why was I in this state? I tried searching for an explanation, pulling up nothing.

It felt as though hours had passed. Then again, I had no way of telling that... It could have been seconds, or maybe even years. I had been in what felt like hell. Nothing happened, nothing changed, I was alone, and I was in pain. Not the physical kind, but the mental kind.

Hell suddenly changed for me in the moment that I realized that. It wasn't that something had changed, but it was as if something was going to change. Something was going to change. I could feel it.

Without any warning, my entire sensory array came rushing back to me at once. In one violent moment, the entire scene of my death came back to my eyes with a burstof color, nearly blinding me. Only this time, nothing was moving. As if time was completely frozen.

I could see it all in front of me. Violet was about to kill Pick with a slashing attack of her hoof to his face. Pick had a look of pure terror frozen on his face. Violet had a look of pure hatred gleaming from her lizard-like eyes. The heaping pile of mangled bodies was placed just outside of the fence that lined the entrance to the castle. I was in a diving position, headed for Violet. More importantly, I had a gun pointed at my head. Everything was exactly the same from the moment I died. Except everything was perfectly still.

On the grass below, I saw a small figure materialize. It was small, shapeless, and purple. It looked as though somepony was using magic on air... And it moved.

Even worse. It spoke. It had no mouth, no lungs, absolutely nothing to be able to do so. Yet for some odd reason, it spoke. To me. I realized then what it truly was. It was the Nightmare.

"I'm very surprised at what you just did. I'm sure that nopony you or I know would do what you just did. You laid down your life for your friends." Its deep, dark voice sounded not female or male, and the voice echoed throughout my head. It was the first sound I had heard in a long time.

I tried to respond, only to find that my vocal chords were locked in time.

"I could give you credit for being both brave and foolish, but that's not what I was going to tell you."

I thought back to myself. Just what the hell did he mean?

"Well, you managed to bring yourself to suicide, even against my wills and actions. You are one strong stallion. As you could have guessed, this meant that I was left with one last choice. Be killed along with you, or save you and myself. You can probably guess which one I chose."

I flashed a look to my right, revealing to me a gun with no ammo in my hoof. I did a victory fist in my head. I was fucking alive.

"And because it seems as though you now know how to rid the world of me, I am giving you this final message to tell you that I am leaving, and taking all of me with me."

As it said that, a smooth, flowing stream of indigo magic started seeping out of Violet's head. When it cleared shortly after, Violet's eyes were back to their normal, purple state.

"One last thing before I go. That period of time you spent in pure darkness a while ago was the result of me leaving you. It usually makes ponies insane, but you seemed to handle it without resorting to insanity."

So that's what happened to Luna... It makes sense now...

"That is all. Goodbye, Starnote."

With those final words on his part, the Nightmare completely disappeared and time started to take shape once again. I started moving forward again slowly, filled with an immeasurably high amount of joy. Out of pure happiness, I completely dropped the gun and midair and went straight in for a hug instead of an ambush. The look on Violet's face when she regained control over her body was priceless, as was Pick's when he saw that Violet's eyes were back to normal.

They collapsed. I hugged. And for once in three hellish days, we were reminded that everything was going to be alright.

Epilogue

An entire month has passed since that helltrip that completely changed Equestria forever. Neither Pick or Violet completely believed my story until today, and I can safely say that now that they do, I can finally relax a bit.

There were very few survivors from the earthquake and Violet's rampage, making the following couple of weeks after the incident seem desolated and depressing. And after contacting the rest of the cities in Equestria and telling them the entire story, we put it to a hasty vote, and apparently Violet Rose is the new leader of Equestria. Canterlot is currently undergoing major repairs, especially on the massive crack in the middle of the city. As for the survivors, we've moved to nearby towns such as Ponyville and Fillydelphia.

But as far as Pick and I go, we've still been trying to uncover the bizarre secrets of our past lives, slowly uncovering bits of it as we rebuild Canterlot. I got my wings and Pick got his horn back, so I guess everything is fine with us as of now.

But now that I think of it, we never quite figured out what was in that giant fault crack...