Humans in Equestria

Humans in Equestria

Chapter 7

Order of Justice

Zeo teleported as fast as he could, but it was an enormous strain on his new body to do so. As a human, he had known the theory of this spell, but had never actually been able to do it. Now that he could, he understood why Celestia had stressed the point that he should not overexert himself while he did it. Even so, he did not dare to teleport more then ten feet at a time....

As he finally reached the door, that led into the main room of his study, his blood froze in his veins. There, leaning on a half destroyed shelf, was another Zeomak! This other him looked like he had used quite a lot of spells over a short period of time. It reminded him of that one time that Platinum had captured him, because he had used too many spells in rapid succession. His other self was unable to hold his fascination for long however. In front of him, lay Celestia. She lay in a puddle of her own blood, her body twitched uncontrollably, while the eyes of her severed head roamed around the room in disbelief. There was no time to loose. He knew what that woman, that was now looming over his sister in law, was about to do.

A quick teleportation spell later, and he stood directly in front of her. He extended his wings protectively, as to shield Celestia from view. He had no idea if eye contact was necessary for what she had done to him, but he thought it likely. Not ALL hope was lost for her. If he could just....

Something flowed into him from behind, struggling with his fragmented soul for control over his Pony body. In the last moment, Zeo cast a shield spell. Not a second to late, as several magical strands and bullets began to rain down on it from both sides. It was hard for him to channel the next spell that had to be done, but he managed it with a last effort of will. A soft pale blue shimmer began to encase Celestias fallen form. As soon as the spell was done, the something that had flowed into him, made his knees give out and forced him into his minds fragmented library. Zeo just hoped that his body would keep pouring magical energy into both spells. If it didn't, then he was done for... again.

“Who are ….”, came Celestias voice from a secluded corner of his fragmented self, but he cut her off. He was the inventor of the mind-link spell, and he was NOT happy that it had been used on him in such a crucial situation.

“Shut the hay up Celestia! Do you even have the slightest idea that you yourself are endangering your chances of survival? Had I not erected a suspension spell around your body, there would have been no chance for you. And then your so STUPID and invade my mind.... Good for you that I cut that transfer of with the suspension spell. Otherwise you would have been BRAINDEAD!”, he raged at the radiant presence  of his sister in law.

Just now that he actually walked the halls of his minds library, he saw how serious the damage was. Most shelfs were intact, but some of them were damaged or missing. Amongst them, hovered a glowing sphere of golden light. As he drew closer, he could feel how Celestias magic tried to hinder him from advancing any further. There was no time for this. If he wanted to get himself and her out of this, then he had no other choice.

The light threatened to burn his eyes out but he didn't care. Slowly the figure of a stunned Celestia came into view. She did not resist when he grabbed her by her horn and pulled her into a tight embrace. The only reaction from her was a surprised gasp at being pulled forward.....

The dark blue Alicorn stallion opened his eyes again, standing up as if it was as unconscious as breathing. His eyes were glowing in different colors. While his right one emanated a brilliant golden light, the left one glowed pale blue. His black mane and tail started to grow considerably, and began to flow in a nonexistent breeze. As he spoke, his voice sounded like a mix of Zeos and Celestias voices. They were in perfect harmony with each other, which made the fake Zeo and Jane stop in their tracks. The fake Zeo understood instantly what had happened and turned to run.

“You will pay for what you have done.”, he stated flatly.

Jane on the other hand, started to grin. Her minigun vanished from her hands, and was replaced by a rocketlauncher that was shaped like a shark, that had it's jaws wide open. The fraction of a second later, a rocket emerged from it, hitting the shield had erected earlier. It had no effect whatsoever.

“Looks like I lost ONE new puppet and get an even better one! Oh this is so exciting!”, Jane giggled, never ceasing to shoot her rockets at the shield. Two magical strands erupted from the horn of the stallion. They were pale blue, but sheathed in golden flames. One of them shot towards Jane, who dodged it with practiced ease. Her weapon was not so lucky. She threw it away, because it had turned into a mess of melting metal. The second strand shot towards the fake Zeo, who had almost reached the door that led into the archives.  It wrapped itself around his ankle, and pulled him back into the fight. He was kicking and screaming, but had no chance of breaking the strand that was holding him. Before the puppet hit the shield, the stallion raised him into the air and threw him into Jane who had just resummoned her minigun.

“You have no chance.”, the stallion spoke without emotion. “I have the combined power of Celestia and Zeo, combined with Zeos knowledge of combat spells. Make it easy on yourself, and give up.”, he added.

Janes grin grew even wider. Her Zeo puppet struggled to his feet, pale blue magical strands already erupting from his fingers. It seemed that, now that his escape route was cut off, he was determined to put up a fight. The stallion showed his first sign of emotion. His lips curled upwards in an amused smile.

The door to the technology section burst open, and as if this had been the starting pistol the three threw themselves into the fight. Luna, Discord, Silk Light and Petra could only watch in awe as the three of them went at it. Silk wanted to interfere when she saw the suspended body of her aunt, but Discord stopped her with his paw.

“What are you doing Discord?”, she screamed at the Draconeques.

“Don't worry. Her head an neck may have parted company, but the spell has stopped time around her. The body is still alive and I imagine that there are things that can be done to safe her. But can't you feel it? If we were to interfere in the fight now, we would only get in the way. I don't know who that stallion is, but he could have a chance against Jane..... It's amazing....”, Discord said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Just as the spirit of chaos finished his sentence, the Zeo puppet charged at Luna and Silk, but was hurled back by one of the magical strands. The impact it's body made in one of the walls, made the entirety of the archives shake. Even Janes smile had faded, as she jumped around to dodge the increasing number of flaming magical strands that tried to get her.

She failed to evade one of them entirely, and the strand grazed her chin. It's intense heat was enough to burn that half of her face, leaving behind a mess of raw flesh and charred skin. Jane dropped her minigun as she clutched that portion of her face, and screamed in unbelievable agony. Something white dribbled forth from in between her fingers, and the stallion realized that one of the bitches eyeballs had popped.

The Zeo pupped lay in the rubble of the wall it had smashed in, a bleeding wound on it's forehead. The stallion withdrew most of his strands, keeping only a few of them in place to keep Jane and the puppet in check.

“Will you give up, now that you see that I can overcome your protection spells without even touching you directly?”, he asked softly, unable to keep a victorious grin from his face.

“I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”, Jane screamed in between gasps of pain. She had been injured before, but never this severely. This damn HORSE was going to pay for spoiling her fun and hurting her this badly. She just wanted to have some fun, what right did IT have to interfere with that?

“But maybe you are in the wrong...”, a meek and scared voice inside of herself spoke up. Jane snorted. This always happened when she got overexcited or used too much of her magic.... As much as she hated to admit it, but right now she was at a disadvantage. It would be suicidal to fight that horse now, not to mention that she saw her father and several others at the entrance to this room. She was outnumbered, outclassed and she was hurt. Gritting her teeth, Jane jumped over to her puppet, teleporting to safety with it.

“Oh now you don't!”, the stallion shouted, trying to stop her, but he was too late. She had already disappeared.

“DAMN IT!”, the stallion growled, stomping the ground so hard that it shook violently. That was when somepony tapped his shoulder with a hoof. He turned around, to find himself muzzle to muzzle with Silk Light, who was staring at him intently.

“I would appreciate it, if you would not trash my late fathers archives any more then necessary. Oh, and by the way, WHO THE HAY ARE YOU?”, she asked furiously. A quick glance around herself showed her that the damage to this particular section of the archives was immense. Without her father the knowledge he had recorded here was most likely lost forever.

“I would like to know as well.”, Luna added, as she stepped next to her daughter. The stallion sighed, and Discord broke out in uncontrollable laughter while Petra just stood there, dumbfounded.

“You really don't recognize them, do you?”, the spirit of chaos laughed, slapping his knee with his paw.

“What do you mean? Should we know this stallion?”, Luna inquired, not taking her eyes off of the intruder. Silk tilted her head in confusion, and recoiled visibly as the realization struck her.

“I think Discord is right.... Lulu.”, the stallion said amused. Hearing the harmonic voice of the stallion up close, Luna stiffened, and so did Petra. Like they had planned this together, both of them fainted, while Silks jaw hung wide open.

“Oh my... I guess that was too much for those two.”, he giggled, picking up Celestias body, that was still frozen in time, with his magic and walking towards Zeo study. “If you would be so kind as to bring your aunt and mother Silk, I will explain everything on the way.”, he added.

Silk Light did as she was told, levitating her aunt and mother behind herself and following her fathers Pony body. She had a spring in her step that she didn't have that morning.

“Figures.... He's such a Drama Queen.”, she thought to herself and giggled. She hadn't known her father for long, but had soon learned that almost nothing was impossible when it came to magic. Aloud she asked what was on her mind.

“Say... It's really you dad, isn't it? I mean the part of you that didn't get abducted by that woman.”

“Basically yes. Zeo is in here, but so is Celestia. This form does not have a name, and I don't think it is worth of naming it. It will soon cease to exist.”, the stallion answered, and a cold feeling began to run down Silks spine.

“Cease to exist? You don't mean to say that you are going to die, are you?”

“Well... This form.... Yes, it will die as soon as Celestias soul leaves this body. But don't worry young one. Your fathers soul will remain. This body will change back to it's original form however. I apologize if I frightened you.”

“What is that body anyway? Did you just have a Pony body laying around, or what?”, Silk asked, unable to keep the irritation that welled up in her out of her voice. Almost as an afterthought she added, “And why didn't you come back sooner?”

“It's not so easy. Zeomak studied the fragmenting of the soul when he was looking for a way to cure you. He soon abandoned that line of research however, since it did not bring the results he wanted. During that research he read ancient texts that had been written by Griffon shamans. Shamanism had been outlawed centuries before he came here, so it had been hard to get any written documentation of their practices. He managed to find some, however, but they were not very useful. Next he looked into recreating your body from a strand of hair he had taken from your original body. To do that he combined the bloodmagic of the Griffons, the mana based magic of Ponies and rituals from the Zebras. The result was, due to an unlucky accident in which a drop of his blood fell into the summoning circle, this body. He stored it away in a vault, afraid of what he had created. The second experiment was a great success. He actually succeeded in recreating your body without a soul. All he needed now, was to find a way to extract you from your mothers body, and jam your soul into this new body. As you know, he failed at that attempt.”, The stallion explained, as they climbed several flights of stairs. Silk had placed her mother and aunt on the sofa downstairs, since the stairwell was to narrow to levitate them by her side all the time.

“Ok, but.... What happened to that... body he created?”

“It is still there. It's floating in a nutrient fluid that keeps it alive, while the cylinder in which it is floating is preserved by a spell.”

“No I meant the one that is talking to me right now.”

“Oh... That is not so easy to explain. Zeo hates to waste something, which is why he eventually got this body out of the vault to experiment on it. He even infected it with Deathroot, to study it's effects, but that proved to be a mistake. Even though it had no will to make it act, the twisted magic of the Deathroot somehow took control of this body. Zeo ended up killing it, but he only barely escaped that battle with his life. To his eternal surprise, the body did not stay dead however. The wounds and the cracked skull he had inflicted, healed in a matter of minutes. At the time he had no explanation for this, but now he knows. Each and every cell in this body is in a permanent state of using the Regeneration spell which is your specialty. Zeo got rid of the Deathroot he had infected this body with, and locked it in the vault again. Since he did not know if it would form a soul of it's own over time, he installed certain safety mechanisms to knock it out, should it awaken. The reason it took him so long to return is pretty simple. After his soul got fragmented, he wandered around for a while, until he remembered this body. His soul inhabited it, and started to settle in. That process takes time, and because his soul was fragmented, he didn't remember who he was at first, until somepony interfered... I don't know who she was, but I suppose your mother might know, and Zeomak has every intend on asking her about it when she wakes up.”, the stallion concluded his explanation, as they entered a room that looked like it's door had been blasted apart from the inside.

“And... what do you intend to do now? I don't know if I can heal aunt Celestias injuries with my spell.... They seem pretty severe.”, Silk said doubtfully.

“Oh don't worry. Once we get her into one of these cylinders...”, he gestured to the ceiling, where several glass-cylinders hang, ”... I will reconnect her bones and muscles. All you need to do is to reconnect her nerves and veins.”, he explained, floating one of the cylinders down and placing Celestias still suspended body inside the goo. As soon as the suspending spell fizzled away, the two Alicorns got to work.

Silk had been a little surprised, since the stallion had not warned her before starting the procedure, but she did her part in her aunts recovery. It took both of them about an hour before Celestias body was breating normally. Her heart-rate was stable and all that remained to do happened so suddenly that Silk didn't realize it at first.

A golden mist shot from the stallions body, and into Celestias. As soon as all of it was gone, the stallions eyes lost their glow an became the same brown as hers. No the same brown that her fathers eyes had always been. His mane and tail shrank quite a bit and hang limply on his sides, as he fell on his side, breathing heavily.

“DAMIT CELESTIA!”, he growled when he hit the ground. Silk was immediately at his side, but was unable to help his to his hooves. Despite that, she almost crushed him in a tight hug.

“Ugh! Easy girl, I'm hurting all over.”, Zeo laughed, stroking his daughter with his free wing.

“I thought I had lost you!”, she wailed, while burying her face in his mane.

“And you will.”, came a cold male voice from the shadows.

Silks head snapped upwards in time to see a spell come from the darkness. She tried to prepare a counterspell, but was not quick enough. The force of the spell that hit her face knocked her away from Zeo, who snapped his head around.

“You bastard! Who are you? How did you....?”, Zeo screamed, taking a quick look at his unconscious daughter. A thin trickle of blood ran down her face, but she seemed to be alright. That quick look however was all the time his adversary needed to close in on him. Zeo had used almost all of his magic to help and heal Celestia, so he could not defend himself with magic. He could not even run away, since he had no idea how to use his Pony body. It had been Celestia that had controlled it's movements... The last thing he saw, before that Pony pressed a brown Crystal to his horn, was a Pony that had covered itself with a black cloak. On it's face was a mask that was emblazoned with Equestrias flag. After that.... everything went black.

Three hours later

Silk sat on the sofa in her fathers study. She used her magic to levitate an icebag to her forehead, where she had been hit by that knockout spell. Her head felt like she had drunk too much cider, and her mothers yelling didn't help either. For about twenty minutes now, Luna had been screaming at her Nightguards to find out who the Pony was that had abducted her husband, and how they had gotten into the archives. As for Zeos doppelganger, she was pretty sure the protection spells here could not tell them apart. The woman had most likely been too powerful for those spells to throw her out, but the Pony they were looking for was most likely a Unicorn....

“Your highness? We may have found out how the intruder got in here.”, a Batpony stallion approached Luna, holding a sheet of paper in his mouth.

“So? Don't make me extract every word from you!”, Luna bellowed at the stallion in her royal Canterlot voice.

“Your highness... We have found Night Trotter, or better what was left of him. Night Trotter had been assigned to some secret task by the Prince, and had been given a permanent permit to the archives. We were able to confirm that said permit is gone, together with the journal that held the results of his investigation...”, the stallions voice cracked.

“What's the matter?”, Luna inquired.

“I.... I am sorry your highness. Night Trotter... was my brother, and his body is... in very bad shape. Whoever did this, they.... they beat him to death.”, the stallion continued, but Luna waved a hoof to stop him.

“It's OK. You are relieved for the time being, and, if it means anything, my condolences.”, the Princess of the night said, ready to start her investigation at Night Trotters death, when the stallion refused to budge.

“There is more your highness.... We already know who took the Princes soul, but it is highly unlikely that we will find them.”

“WHAT? How so? Who was it, and how do you know?”

“Princess... There is... a secret organization that is around since you were banished to the moon. They call themselves “The order of justice”. They hunt down Ponies that the law doesn't punish, and we only know that they are highly organized. Only once did we manage to imprison somepony that belonged to that order. Princess Celestia imprisoned him for treason, because he congratulated her for banishing you. He even went so far as to claim that they would have executed you, had you gone unpunished. Every time they get another victim, a file is placed on the desk of the guard captain. Tonight, when I went to my office to get my armor, I found this....”, he extracted a folder from his harness and hoofed it over to Luna, who opened it with a sense of dread.

Name: Zeomak Seline Salchar

Race: Human

Crimes:

Support of political infighting

Murder of 3742 Ponies

Ordering the killing of 7529 Ponies

Murder of Princess Platinum

Verdict: Soul-shattering

Attached to this were witness reports that were over a thousand years old. This order of justice seemed well organized indeed....

At the same time in a cave at the base of Mt. Unicornia

Two masked stallions carried a few crates and books through the tunnels that they knew since their foalhood. At their destination someone waited for them.

“We got everything you asked for. All the research material, machines and parts you have requested. When do you think you can finish what you promised us?”

“If you really got everything on the list, I think we can go into a testing phase in about two months.”, their newest member responded.

“That is too late. We may need a finished product sooner, and there may be no time for testing either.”

“Have it your way, but don't blame me if the device blows up in your faces!”