Dead Space: Purpose

All that ran through Cadance’s mind in that instant was the regret for letting the guards go back on the train, the safety of everypony in the room, and the magic blast which she fired at the monster.

Her light blue magic aura formed around the tip of her horn as she fired a high energy bolt right at its center of its exposed head, throwing it against the wall with a slightly sickening crunch, leaving a stunned Fluttershy and Spike, as well as a rather shocked Twilight staring at the creature. Cadance charged her magic again and jumped into the air to stare it down before its execution by fire. Before she could do this, however, Twilight jumped in between the two and charged a purple bubble shield around herself and the monster.

“Twilight!? Get out of the way! Now! I’m trying to save you!”

Twilight kept the bubble shield up as she responded, “Cadacne! Please, listen! He wasn’t going to harm anypony at all! He was lost and confused, so we’re trying to help him out!”

Cadance dead-locked on her sister-in-law and looked back at the creature. The back of its head was spilling blood against the wall while a massively sobbing Fluttershy tried to apply first-aid to stop the gush of red substance with the help of an equally terrified Spike at her side. She turned to the girls to see them all just as stunned as, if not more so than, Twilight. Once she realized that they showed genuine compassion towards the creature. She retracted her magic and slowly floated down to the ground and approached Twilight, who had now lowered the shield.

“I-I’m so sorry Twilight. I had no idea that-“

Twilight raised her hoof to stop Cadance’s sentence and pointed to the creature. “HIS NAME IS ISAAC. And I think that you should be apologizing to HIM when HE wakes up.”

Cadance looked over Twilight to see a now bandaged Isaac being wrapped by a weeping Fluttershy, and a stare of insecurity from Spike. She refocused on Twilight and slowly nodded to her.

“Alright. I suppose I should apologize to the cre- I mean, Isaac, when he wakes up.”

Twilight relaxed her muscles and let out a breath that even she didn’t know she was holding in. Twilight nodded in agreement and began to levitate Isaac to the center couch, where his armor tore quite a bit of fabric from the cushions. Rarity could not help but gasp at the horror, but was quickly stopped by the continuing of Twilight’s conversation.

“I’m sorry to drop all of this on you at once, but I never really got a chance to send you a letter, or tell you about it at all before now. Actually, we only knew about him a few hours ago.”

Cadance and the rest of the group sat down around Isaac, taking up the remaining seating, as Cadance continued the talk.

“Have you told Aunts Celestia and Luna? They should probably know that we’ve been visited by an alien before anypony else does.”

“Actually, Cadance, the thing is that-“

Rainbow Dash spoke up, “We needed you to look into his heart or mind or whatever to see if we could use any mushy-dushy-love stuff against him if he tries to hurt anypony.”

Applejack interjected, “Rainbow! Ya’ll know that’s not the truth. Princess, we were hopin’ that you could try an’ see if he’s a good pers’n or not, before we get the other princesses involved in this… situation.”

Cadance nodded to the two mares and looked back at Isaac.

“So, you want me to look into him and try to find any form of love or compassion to see if he has a good soul?”

The mares all looked at each other and nodded in agreement.

“Alright then. Since he’s unconscious, this should be easier than trying to get him to agree with me. Now,”

Cadance charged her horn and began to focus on Isaac’s mind, heart, and memories.

“Let’s see who you hold dear, who they are, and how you remember them.”

And with that, Cadance’s consciousness melded with Isaac’s memories, collapsing her body in a blue aura.

As she was about to finish, there was a mysterious red flash across her body, as well as Isaac’s, and then Cadance felt a massive migrane hit her, bringing her in further to the depths of his mind, and, unknown to her, the depths of Hell itself.

\\\//////

Cadance found herself watching Isaac’s memories from an ominous stand-point, almost as if she were watching this like a painting that moved in front of her. She felt a strong sense of love from Isaac’s later memories, near the end of his mind, where new memories would be stored. Cadance flew over to see a blonde and slightly different version of what Isaac was, assuming it to be the female form of his species. She was calling for Isaac, and almost on cue, a dis-armored Isaac on his side appeared on the top right corner of her vision, realizing that this was from his point of view, on some kind of futuristic tele-communications screen. The girl began to talk about something called an “Ishimura,” planet-cracking, and being on a medical team. She noticed Isaac smiling intently at her, and felt the power of his love through the memory. She then heard Isaac call her “Nicole,” and assumed this to be her name. She smiled on as she watched Nicole thank Isaac for the opportunity to serve aboard a ship, saying that she deserved the chance to work on its last voyage through the stars. Cadance perked up at the notice of them being able to transcend their own world and began to wonder how they could travel to other worlds as well. Her thoughts were cut short when a burst of static came into the memory, and thought that her spell was collapsing, or Isaac was dying, bu then noticed that it was only with this memory. She listened to a panicked Isaac calling out for Nicole, and was given the reply of the range of a “communications beacon.” Cadance took this to be the end of the memory and moved on.

She could not help but shut her eyes so she did not have to see two lovers being torn apart with such speed, let alone at such a distance. As she moved on, she noticed another memory that looked almost exactly like the previous one: Nicole in a blue field of sorts, but this time, Isaac was standing in his suit holding something… metal. She came close to the memory and started it.

There was a woman outside of Isaac’s glass room, looking in at him, and listened intently as a video in front of Isaac began to play. Nicole was again on the screen, but his time, she wore a white uniform, and sat in a dark metal room.

“Isaac, it’s me… I wish I could talk to you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything. I wish I could just… talk to someone. It’s all falling apart here, I can’t believe what’s happening.”

Cadance looked around to see other memories around here to be seemingly locked by Isaac’s mind, and shuddered at the ones that were locked that had Nicole in them. If she was still there, then why wasn’t she talking to Isaac as though he were there? She peeked back into the memory.

“It’s strange… It’s such a little thing.”

Nicole lifted her arm to show that she was holding an injection needle, which made Isaac almost jump back in disbelief, and made Cadance begin to cry. It was a recording.

“In the end, it all comes down to one little thing. I didn’t want it to end like this. I really wanted to see you. Just once. I loved you. I always loved you.”

Cadance jumped back in shock when Nicole injected herself, and fell dead on her own needle. Isaac shook his head in denial to the event, and began to sob himself. Cadance could only stare in horror as Isaac’s love began to be thrown around the memory, along side anger, torment, sorrow, and hatred. So much hatred. Towards this “Marker”, towards the Ishimura, to the girl outside- to himself. And then the guilt. So much guilt, Cadance almost felt like taking her own life after feeling only a few seconds of this. She realized that this was years ago in his memory. To have to live with this for even seconds was unbearable for even the alicorn princess of love, and to remember seeing him so calm and collected before she zapped him… She left the memory immediately and went on to another memory.

She looked around Isaac’s mind, hopping from one lock to another, occasionally seeing something that looked like-

Her train of thought was interrupted when a glowing figure that resembled a blood-soaked, empty-eyed Nicole appeared before her and dragged her into one of the locked memories, beginning a sequence that would change her view of Isaac forever.

\\\//////

The girls all watched Cadance as she was tearing up and crying on the floor, saying something about a “Nicole” and Isaac.

“Do you think she’ll be alright?” asked a curious Rainbow Dash.

“I know for a fact, Rainbow, that Cadance wil be-“

There was a massive knock at the front door that shook the entire house. Twilight and her friends looked to each other and decided to see what the commotion was.

Twilight stepped up and opened the door. Standing there was Princess Celestia and six of her Solar Guards. Her expression had a hint of seriousness but relieved when Twilight opened the door.

“Hello my most faithful student.” She spoke.

“P-Princess Celestia!” she almost shouted.

The girls all bowed respectively as Celestia motioned for her guards to remain at the door. She trotted in and tapped to Twilight.

“Forgive the intrusion,” she started, “But I felt a massive disturbance in the Celestial Plane, just as Luna had began to talk about a nightmare that had to do with creatures that were not of this world. I assumed this had to do with the alien that you and your friends encountered.”

Twilight stood up and began to ask her mentor a few questions.

“What kind of disturbance?”

Celestia looked out grimly as the door shut with her magic. She trotted over to where Isaac was seated and looked into his face with a pale expression, full of fear and confusion.

“Something horribly evil.” She answered with a deadpanning voice.

“What does this have to do with Isaac?”

“There was a faint signal of incredibly powerful Dark Energy that remained quite low for the past thousand years. A signal that just used to be as faint as a breeze on the wind. But that wind turned to a violent hurricane almost instantly, and it quickly honed in on Isaac’s presence, which bounced back an almost identical signal.”

They all stood and looked in horror at both Celestia and Isaac. How could something so calm and alive be evil? What kind of signal could this be?

What is Cadance seeing in there right now?

\\\//////

Cadance found herself watching horrific moments of Isaac’s life flash by as he fought what appeared to be unarmored versions of himself. Only they were far more horrific. They had bones jutting out, limbs missing, and often times, she saw them tear innocent ones that closely resembled Isaac apart with no mercy. If she could vomit in his mind, it would need to be emptied out three times now.

The most vivid ones, however, were when the flashes focused on a monstrous version of Nicole that haunted Isaac. She listened in as he constantly denied her existence, trying to push her into the recesses of his mind.

Until the memories began to solidify around her as one of the most important moments began to play out.

Isaac stood in front of a metal door that creaked open. On the other side, was Nicole.

She rushed forward faster that anything thought possible and began to thrash him about, shouting at him.

“Moment of truth, Isaac! Who am I? Am I your friend? Your lover? The one shred; one light; one bright, shining star you clung to in this Universe? Or am I your guilt? Crushing the life out of you because you can't get over the fact that I'm dead? That you feel responsible? Who... am... I?!? Why do you keep fighting me? Why can't you let go?”

Cadance felt all of the love and hate mix together horrifically inside Isaac as he spoke.

“Because you were my everything. And if I let you go… I have nothing.”

As these words touched Cadance closely, Nicole reverted to a far more pleasing appearance and voice.

“Step Four: Acceptance” she said as Isaac began to bawl out on the ground.

Just then, the memory began to fade again, and energy began to swirl around her, forming a massive spire that reached into the air, two massive prongs at the top.

\\\//////

The girls all watched as Cadance began to thrash about as Isaac began to tear through his eyes. As this happened, Celestia felt the energy surge through his mind, the same way it assaulted him before.

Before Celestia could think about this further, Cadance shout out in pain as large amounts of her stomach contents emptied onto the floor. The girls retreated at this, but Celestia went up to her. She went to release the spell by touching their horns, and reached down to meet her head… only to be blasted by a red surge of magical lightning. As the pain began to intensify to impossible heights, her world began to fade.

\\\//////

As Celestia’s vision cleared up, she noticed that Cadance was in front of her now, along with Isaac and another human in white. Isaac slumped into the other one’s arms, and began to sigh. Then the white one spoke.

“Thank you Isaac. Now… Time to die.”

“What!?”

The other one began to shoot out a violent torrent of evil energy that consumed Celestia’s mind with a massive bolt of pain, along with Cadance. When they emerged, there was another spire in front of them, the white one standing close to it as it spoke again to Isaac.

“Yours is the last body we need to absorb! The makers must be made whole!”

“The makers? You mean ME!? But Stross said we could destroy the marker.”

“Not if we consume you first!”

Being attached to Cadance’s magic in this world, she felt the massive war of emotions that overcame Isaac, filling with both immense rage and sadness as he raised a small metallic device with his arms.

“God dammit I trusted you! Fuck You!”

He fired a shot of something at the other, her form flickering out as the spire erupted into a yellow light. The white one spoke in a soft and sobbing tone.

“Isaac, you’re hurting me.”

He raised the device to the light in the spire and shouted again.

“AND FUCK YOUR MARKER!!!!!”

Another shot rang out from the device and exploded in the center of the spire. A massive explosion of pain and symbols shot out in all directions, and destroyed the spell keeping both of the Princesses in the dream.

\\\//////

A massive blast of red energy swept across the room, sending books and furniture flying outwards in a massive carnage of paper and wood, along with the screams of the six ponies watching the sleeping three figures. As the dust settled, the Solar Guards barged into the house and went to the Princesses.

“Princesses, are you- MONSTER!” one of them shouted as they all pointed their spears at Isaac.

Celestia stood up as pain shot through her skull, almost stopping her from speaking to them.

“Guards, stand down!” she bellowed, pain obvious in her tone.

Twilight ran over to Cadance as the rest of her friends followed, two guards rushing to Celestia as they lowered their weapons.

Cadance began to turn over on the floor when Twilight came up to her, tears in her eyes.

“Cadance, what happened? What did you see?” she asked.

Cadance looked like she had seen the pits of Tartarus at their worst and shook as she stood.

“I saw Isaac’s love life. And how he lost so many. Along with terrible…” she barfed onto the floor again before embracing her sister-in-law, sobbing massively. Celestia began to gather her guards and demanded that they stand down, imitating the Royal Canterlot Voice. After the guards were calmed she addressed the girls.

“Girls, I want you to come with me to Canterlot, along with Isaac and Cadance. We need to address him on what he knows and…” she trailed off as she began to stare at Isaac’s unconscious form, pain shooting through her skull again at the reminder of the scene prior. “…what I saw in there. Twilight, if you would be so kind as to teleport us, I would be grateful.”

Twilight nodded nervously and began to concentrate her magic for the spell. In a flash, they were all gone from the Library, leaving a massive mess of a books, and a lingering feel of death and despair.