I who was supposed to be above life and death was dying. Heller was consuming me. I felt myself being pounded and liquidified as I was slowly consumed part by part. No matter, Heller would continue my quest once he saw humanity for real; the stagnant dying humanity whose days are numbered. As I was fading fast, I felt myself disconnect from Heller's grip.
Slowly and slowly the biomass reconstructed itself. One by one my senses came back to me. Touch was the first, allowing me to feel the steel around me. Sight was the second, allowing me to see the container. Hearing was the third, which allowed me to hear a feminine voice in a frenzy.
I clearly was in a bad shape; I was like a hollow shell due to my lack of biomass. With my normal strength, the steel chest would be like styrofoam but my current state was nothing but puny. Pain spread over my body as I moved what little biomass I had into the form of what should have been a very fine blade. The blade was less hard and sharp than usual making it hard for me to cut through the chest. Curse that Heller.
I finally peeked through the gash I made in the chest. The thing I saw was neither a blackwatch nor gentek personnel. It was a lavender pony with highlights in its mane and a tattoo in the form of a star. I was pondering over what test subject this would be. A closer look revealed small wings and a horn which was too stubby and short for any capabilities. It was clearly a failure to create a chimera. The chest made a slight thump as I tried to look closer at it.
The lavender pony seemed to hear the slight thumping. It approached as its horn was enveloped in soft light. The click of a lock was heard and soon afterwards the lid of the chest opened as well. I decided that failure or not it was a danger. I quickly thrust my fist out of the box only to see the pony far beyond the range of my fists. I leaped out of the box and leaped in midair to deliver a kick to the pony. The pegicorn, as I decided to name it, withstood the damage.
A slight pain was gathering at my legs as I saw an overgrown reptile of some sort spewing out greenish flames or possibly acid. I decided to grab it by the neck and throw it to the ceiling. A scream overhead gave me the satisfaction of a job well done. The pegicorn's horn seemed to glow in an eerie light which also enveloped the reptile who was about to fall on top of the Pegicorn.
I wanted it. I wanted the power of telekinesis, pyrogenesis and pyrokinesis. Unity would be so much easier if I could only implement this into my arsenal. I changed to whipfist and the long, sinewy appendage snaked towards the two interesting samples. The tendril than was deflected by a field of light. As my body was still reeling back from the recoil, several blackboards crashed into me. I heard the sound of hooves and the closing of a door.
I broke the blackboards than looked at the thick metal doors. The hammerfist left me a bit wobbly as my fatigued and broken body lacked my former strength. I punched the door several times until it was bent out of shape. I felt relief as the quite large fists decreased in size. I switched my eyes to thermal vision to see anything around me. I then quickly crept the corridor than another until I found six ponies around what seemed to be thrones. I crept up to a pink pony with the unholy mass of curls from behind. It was seconds away from being consumed.
A slight shiver passed through its entire body as its backhooves sent me flying backwards. I was recovering in midair when
the pony hit my stomach with both her forehooves. She followed with a kick to my side than spun to deliver another hit across my face. The stained glass behind me shattered and I was in the air.
The pony followed me through the broken window to land a devastating kick that sent me sprawling in the dirt while managing to recover and safely landed with a graceful roll. It truly possessed a martial prowess that even James Heller or the late Captain Robert Cross possessed.
"Nopony treats Twilight like that!" she shoved her face into mine.
It was a perfect moment for consumption. I turned to grab her but she had escaped again. I growled a bit as she continued to elude my attacks. I would say that she was a pink blur fueled by manic energy and hate. Seeing that I would not be able to beat her in my current condition, I jumped as high as my body would allow than glided from that height. The pink pony was following me at an extraordinary speed. I smiled as the pink pony was unable to get at me.
A blue blur crashed into my behind and I felt myself falling. The blue blur flew back at me and to my immense surprise, created a large explosion with electricity along its edges. The electricity coursed through my body and afterwards, I felt myself losing control of the body. My vision blurred as I saw the ground moving up to me. Then the impact came and nothing was there.
The knife gleamed in the soft candlelight. All the candles suddenly blew out leaving the room shrouded in darkness. An electric light flickered on above and the knife cut through slowly with precision. The white outer layer broke than the red filling stained the knife. I was cutting a cake for Dana's eight birthday. It was the only day my mother was not a broken wreck on the bed with a couple of cheap Jack Daniels bottles next to her side.
The memories of this day was always seen as if from the bottom of a bottle. The figures were warped and distorted and the sounds were amplified and distorted. Dana always ended up crying after she blew out the candles and said "I want my brother back." I am helpless in these dreams under the trappings of my psyche. The dream was always the same ending with me killing my mother who by now started to be covered by several tendrils of writhing black biomass. After I stabbed her with the kitchen knife, she always said " The waiting's over." This happened again today but surprisingly the dream changed. The room slowly disintegrated as
blackness filled where the room once was.
" Thou are a monster." it says matter of factly, without any malice or fear.
" True, but I am a monster in need." The dream had changed for the first time " Now who are you."
" We are Luna, the princess of the night." The pony, or Luna seemed out of place with my dreams. " We have come to speak to thou." The pony, now known as Luna, gazed at me with eyes as dark as the night sky with the clouds blocking the moonlight. " We understand what thou has gone through," I looked in bewilderment. " We have much in common with thee." Luna looked as if she was in deep thought.
" Mercer, what thou did was wrong." I waited for the hate and malice to come, none came. The pony now tried to crush my ribs. After a long time of silence, I realized that it was embracing me. " We know what thou suffered." The pony was now silently crying. Luna's eyes now shimmered with with the soft moonlight from the advent of evening. A silence filled the empty dark void I was standing on.
" What I did is not wrong. What I did was lawnmowing. The weeds need to die before the plants can grow and only in that order could the world find peace. Human beings are not so worthy to deserve life. I shall bring peace to the world by joining everything into one. Unity is what I crave for." I said with true conviction.
" Once, we made a decision not so different from yours. The anger turned into hate and that hate is what consumed me to do evil. We beg you to choose the other path. Unity is not something that comes from one body. Unity comes from all of us acting together under friendship."
"Friendship is not something that is real. It is a foolish ideal which human beings use to cheat each other. Mankind is and always will only be following their selfishness. All I have seen is darkness, how could I believe that friendship exists outside the realm of fiction." I spoke with venom in my voice.
" Once, we tried to force our subjects to love us. We see that love cannot be forced. It is something that can only be given. What thou seeks and what we seeked are not so different in nature. If all thou has seen is the darkness, let us show you the light." I found the dark void collapsing abruptly as my eyes opened to see a white mare with a multicolored mane and a set of full gold regalia adorned with jewels. Her stare was like a beam of harsh sunlight in the days of summer.
"I am one of the soverigns of Equestria and I shall treat you with Equestrian hospitality until you have proven yourself a menace to Equestria. You have two choices. One is to live in Equestria peacefully under the watch of my royal guards and the other option is to be sent to the deepest pits of Tartarus if you misbehave." the white mare fixed me with a glare that equaled Heller's in strength and hostility.
" Sister, donot be so harsh with him." Luna said in a pleading tone. " He may have hurt Twilight but he did so because he felt he was endangered.
"Sister, even if that was the case I cannot simply allow a menace to walk around Equestria." Celestia's features remained firm.
I considered my choices. I could possibly take them on since I felt a bit rested but I still had no idea of their powers or how developed their technology and military force are. Seeing as how I was beaten by a couple of ponies, I was still too weak. A peaceful resolution would be a smarter move for me at least until I recovered enough. It is a fool's game to attack opponents with unknown powers and technology. My stay here would reveal what Equestria has in terms of military might. It was obvious that I am already conceived as a threat here and if I did try to attack the two royal princesses than it might not end well for me. No, it would be much smarter to see what I have here.
" Alright, I shall accept, Princess Celestia." I bow to her while using thermal vision to check of nearby guards and find that Celestia is hotter than any other creature I have ever encountered.
" Good, now the guards shall see you to your chamber." Celestia than walked out of the now open door.
Two guards with golden armor that shimmered with an unnatural aura walked through the door to escort me out. I followed them out into a hallway which was entirely too byzantine. I followed the guards until I reached an ornate green door with a gemstone on the top. The door fell down with a loud thud as my hands pulled on the handle. It was obvious that the door was supposed ot be pushed not pulled. The two guards were looking a bit too nonplussed by this as if they expected some accident to happen. The door was enveloped by a soft cinnamon light and soon it was back to its prior condition. The door opened as the light in the room flickered on to reveal a room with modest furnishings.
The door clicked shut and I was left alone in the room with the two guards stationed outside visible with my thermal vision. The alabester wall felt cool to my touch as I strained to see the internal structure of the palace. I could see that this particular room was actually colder than the other rooms. It seemed that the walls were sucking the heat in its vicinity. My thermal vision was obstructed by the walls, the floor and the ceiling as well.
I turned my eyes on the interior of the room. There was a single beatiful maple oak table and next to it a chair that seemed to be built for something larger than human. I picked a single strand of biomass from my arm than dropped it on the floor. The viral mass took the form of a tendril which failed to penetrate through the vulnerable parts of the floor. The tendril than creeped slowly across the door to latch onto one of the guards.
I sat down on the chair to look at the book on the table. The book was a paperback with the title " A guide to Equestria" in plain black letters on the front and written by one Twilight Sparkle. I started to read in my quest for knowledge. Ignorance is one thing I should avoid after all.
