Diary of the Dead

by AppleTank

Rating: teen
Tags: Science Fiction, Suicide / Self Harm, Griffons, Violence, Gore, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Berry Punch, Dark, Death, Original Character
Length: 75079

Sometimes, you want to live just a little bit longer. And longer. And longer

When confronted by certain mortality, when you realize that your lifetime is measured in days,
When Destiny itself foretells your impending death ...

You tell to the world that your death is not the same as your end.

And Never. Stop. Moving.

Notes: Story starts roughly 1129 years before the show, and somewhat anachronistic in the beginning. Other characters may be added in when required.
Inspired by "Lord of Dorkness" and his vision of a trans-humanist future.
Inspired by my annoyance at how 90% of all Liches appear to be assholes.
HIATUS: My first criticism inspired me to fix the utterly jumbled mess that is the first arc, because it was written with no effort to continuity, and the assumption that nobody would read it. There's a lot of new stuff that needs to be added to bridge the gaping holes everywhere, but it ain't dead. Not until I die, anyways.

Arc 1: The Gathering of the Dead (1 - 25)
Arc 2: The March of the Dead (26 - 34)

Tags: Necromancy, Transhumanism, Lich, Cyborgs

Published 2014-12-25 05:00:05 UTC
Last updated 2022-03-04 06:27:02 UTC

1: A Walking Dead (v2)

ARC 1: THE GATHERING OF THE DEAD

1170 years before

A week’s walk north east of here is a small town called Appleton. They kept to themselves, and was hidden from most due to its own podunk nature. It was fairly close to the southern border of Griffonia, the Griffons’ homeland. You may recognize this town, Twilight. Your friend Applejack will be bound to know plenty about this subject.

But for now, they are not important.

My hometown so many years ago is still Sunny Pines, this place in which we have met.

Like many towns of this era, it was fairly isolated. It did provide a fabulous view of the sunset through the sparse pine tree forest, which gave the town its name.

I’ve had a decent enough childhood there, I don’t regret it much. Never knew my father, but my mother did what she could to fill in the gap. Found my Mark here. Unfortunately, in my tenth season, tragedy befell my home. I was still young. I didn’t realize what it had become besides vague notions of sadness. There were ponies sick. I wasn’t, so I was happy. Worrying was for my mother. I did what I could to keep her smiling, I don’t think she ever realized I knew when her smile was fake.

I didn’t have much time to think about it too much, I was still young. Yet even if I were older, I doubt it would’ve helped much. Two days after my mother’s smile fell I woke up to a silent house. The moment the sun streamed into my window, I knew something was wrong. I enjoyed getting up early with my mother, to see the sunrise and help her prepare for the morning. I could never wake up in time before the sun rose, though. She only let me sleep in if she had an urgent business, and she would usually tell me before-hoof...

I dashed off my bed, and ran downstairs.

Nothing.

Upstairs again, and knock on her door.

Nothing.

With trepidation, I pushed it open. I saw a lump lying in bed. “Mommy?”

Nothing.

I trotted closer and reared onto her bed. Her eyes were half-open, glassy. Her breaths were near non-existent. I touched her hoof, and gasped at the cold, clammy feel. A shock of cold fear raced down my spine, and suddenly, I felt weak.

I had few friends; acquaintances, really. Ponies to meet up for a bit of playing, but never really spent time together. The one best friend I had moved out with his father for a business trip. That may have been the only thing that kept him alive.

I wasn’t well informed about the trade routes to anywhere, really, but I had the vague idea that ponies went along them to meet other ponies. I rushed back to my room, grabbed my bag, filled it with what food I could fit into it, and ran for the well worn paths.

Even if by some miracle I chose the right one, even if I lasted the distance with my flagging stamina, even if I remembered to grab a map and understood it’s scribbles, it wouldn’t have mattered in the end.

I tried to run, but my legs gave out before me. I tried to crawl, then my lungs started failing, each breath being worth less than the last. Within a minute, I was left nothing, being only able to stare out of glazed eyes as my body temperature sank like a rock.

I will never be able to forget the numbing cold that kept me like that for hours, for some reason my mind being left for last. I laid there long enough for a curious manticore to poke its head out of the treeline. Normally, there would have been travelers at the ready with spears and torches to keep predators and bandits back.

Now, there was just a cold tiny body lying in the middle of a dusty road. Of course it was curious. What creature would deny a free meal? It walked over, cautiously of course. It had plenty of experience with the ponies here in the past, and wanted to make sure it wasn’t a trap.

The creature stood over my body, sniffing. There was still the hint of warmth, and with its great hearing, it could still hear the tiny gasps my dying lungs gave out.

It looked around, and seeing nothing, reached down and closed its jaws over my head.

Have I told you what my Mark means, Twilight? Four arrows chasing each other in a circle. I got it when I was out playing in the Autumn leaves. They were being prepared for compost, and I felt a little guilty about destroying all their hard work year after year. So I decided to push them into neat piles near the farms.

No, it wasn’t the same year.

I did the same thing again next time, actively participating. I saw ponies tending the compost pile, and went to check it out after I was finished cleaning up my side. They were gone by the time I got there, and I ... didn’t exactly realize it was something that took time to complete.

I thought it the detritus needed to look like dirt. So I reached into myself, pushed what basic magic my mother had taught me into the compost to compare, then pulled.

I knocked myself out the first time, but when I woke up to my mom shaking me worriedly, I pointed blearily at the pile and said, “All done.” And that was when my mark appeared.

Why am I telling you this?

Something my friend and I found, that so few others have looked into. There is a far smaller limit to cutie marks than most have realized, one only needs to be ... creative in their interpretation, and willing to reach for it.

I can recycle far more things than one would expect.

My mind didn’t stop even as the manticore stepped over me, even as my limbs went beyond cold to nothingness. I screamed, and battered against the walls of my mind, but even I could still feel the beat of my heart, at a steady once per minute, and knew that there was nothing left to try.

I could barely see out of my own eyes, but then the manticore was close enough that it didn’t matter. Its teeth loomed over me, as I tried to do something, anything to grab at to survive.

Its teeth touched my jaw, and I felt a burning warmth somewhere above me.

My Mark flared.

I pulled.

Ba.......thump.

Ba .....thump.

Ba thump. Ba thump. Ba thump.

I blearily opened foggy eyes. Where .... where am I? Why ...

My eyes shot open and I leapt up to my hooves. Mom! She and ... everypony and ...no!

Then I blinked again at the curtain of red cascading down my face. I looked down, and saw the half-rotten lower torso of a massive manticore lying in front of me. The upper torso was just ... evaporated. Bits and pieces of a skull, spine, and forelimbs were all that was left. The rest of the blood had pooled on and around me. My eyes flicked to the side, watching globules of decayed flesh and gore slowly sliding off my coat and bag in bloody chunks.

I swiveled my head, seeing a vulture missing a head half floating in the manticore’s blood. Off to its side, the empty eyes of a timberwolf head stared back at me.

My mind felt blank, woozy still from the near-death experience until it locked onto my last waking memory. Find help. Save mom. Find help. Save-

Ba ............. thump

I took a step. My heart throbbed, and I face planted into the blood. Whatever energy that had awoken me wasn’t enough. I could almost feel my blood pressure crashing, my vision tunneling in an instant.

Sorry mom. I .... failed ....

A hoof weakly reached forwards, lifted weakly, then fell. My eyes dilated as I struggled to see out of the tunnel of darkness, but soon, that too fell still.

Ba................................thump.

Ba...........

A tiny weight rolled out of my mane and splattered into the cooling red. It was a black, bloated insectoid thing, its legs barely long enough to cope with its feast. It had a dopey, content look on its face, patting its distended belly. It gave a small burp, letting a cloud of pinkish ether float across the air and into Cycle’s final breath.

The cloud billowed, then shot into his mouth.

For a moment, nothing happened. The parasite slowly got itself into a proper standing position and fluttered its blood stained wings, drying them off. Behind it, a bit of moisture condensed into Cycle’s fur. Ice crystals formed in the pool of blood around the back of his head, slowly creeping up his face.

give

The moisture that condensed beneath him froze as even more veins of ice crept up his limbs.

Ggive them back

Wisps of dust blew away from the ground as it cracked and hardened in seconds, looking like it had gone through an eternity of drought, leaving behind a dry, black bloodstain etched into the earth..

give them all back

The fresh corpses, the vibrant greens around his body withered, mummified. A frozen coat of armor wrapped around the pony’s legs and face. They snapped and creaked as a hoof shifted underneath him.

“...give ...cough back, monster.”

Another hoof shifted, slowly pushing his body up. The parasite paused, confused, then looked up.

Cycle’s face was covered in a web of frozen tear tracts, his head haloed by a frosty, blood stained cloud. His mane was dusted by frost. The rest of his body, too, was crisscrossed by veins of ice, creaking with his every trembling movement. Ghosts of green flames danced over him, as his magic surged with his growing anger.

“YOU DON’T DESERVE THEIR LIVES!” he roared, slamming his hooves down mercilessly into the parasite, and throwing frozen fur and blood off his body. Clouds of glowing life burst out and billowed past him, caressed him with their warmth, mixing with the dead tears flooding his frozen cheeks, and escaped him, forever.

He raised his hooves and slammed down again, grinding its shattered carapace into the blood-etched dust. And again.

And again.

“DIE!”

SLAM

It took Cycle a quarter of an hour before he was satisfied withe black paste he had reduced the parasite to, leaving him exhausted and shaking with anger and sorrow. “I’ll show you,” he hissed, bits of his internals dripping through his teeth. “You tried to prey on my family? I will erase your species from this world. From here to forever, so thoroughly that nopony will remember your existence.”

Top-soil blew away as Cycle struggled to his hooves, the corpses crumbling into a large bloody slushie. He angrily stuffed the flattened mess that was once was a creature into his saddlebags. “I won’t let Sunny Pines be forgotten.”

He stomped down the street away from ghost town, plants and other life weakening in his wake. His eyes glowed malevolently in the darkness, and each of his breaths was tainted by a cloud of blood stained steam.

“And I. Will. Survive.”

I don’t remember much after my first death. Most of my higher brain functions were fried. Quite literally. I actually had a bit of grey matter come out of my nose a few weeks later. My phylactery was pretty much was the only thing left that could restore me at that point.

Of course, I needed to get one in the first place if I were to survive. My sense of direction was fried too, and I got lost walking down a straight road. I was burning through magic at a ridiculous pace, but with my Mark going on overdrive, I simply ate anything and everything I crashed through. Vegetation, wildlife, even the heat from the air itself.

It gave me time, but just time wasn’t enough. I would eventually have burned out in less than a week if I just kept on walking, and I wouldn’t be talking to you. For all of my boasting, I would have ran out of magic and died somewhere in a forest, got eaten, and disappear forever. The town we are sitting in would wear away from winds and weather, until even the foundations were scraped away. Another town might have been built and settled, but this place, its name, its ponies, gone forever.

I think Celestia would have prefered it this way.

What I have recorded here was mostly from a third party perspective. Pretty nice to have a sSeer going about who wanted to keep this strange wraith for study, eh?

Author's Note

I'm sure G-man won't mind me quoting him.

Oh dear, I'm running out of pre-written chapters.
Not like anyone's complaining, at any rate.

Re-edited by Pickleless v2 (10 APR 2017)

2: An Angry Dead (v2)

1170 years before

Appleton lies a little over four hundred kilometers north east east of Sunny Pines. I didn’t know that, of course. I didn’t remember much of anything then, besides the minimal understanding that if I stood still, I would have lost.

In truth, a majority of this section of my life was actually told by the resident Seer, Ach--oh right, she went by a different name back then. The griffons had a bounty on her head for the longest time. Heh, managed to get away from it when she found out how to ... change. But that’s for another time.

The half conscious wraith stumbled aimlessly forwards, uncaring of what he ran through. Trees crumbled, half their trunks missing from just a touch. Tiny circles formed under his hoofsteps, pieces of land that would never bear life again for centuries to come. Curious predators and confused prey littered behind him as torn-apart decomposing chunks, victims of those who chanced too close.

There was a destination. Somewhere. Then there was a light, and he followed it.

A few hours ago

A grey-crested barn owl griffon jerked in her bed and fell off and onto the floor. She merely twisted in place, her purple eyes glowing as she glared into the distance. A trapdoor flipped open, golden eyes searching for the noise.

“Agatha? You okay?”

“Oh, dear Gladas. I’m not the one who you should be asking that.”

“What?”

“Change, dear. A branch of time is reaching out, filled with sorrow, despair, and rage...”

“Is ... that a bad thing?”

“All in due time, chick” The old griffoness stood up properly, stretching old joints. “But for now, I need to go do some gardening.”

“Can you please stop being all cryptic and vague?”

“No. It gives me an out in case I’m wrong.”

“But...! Oh. Um. I think that’s kinda reasonable?”

Agatha laughed. “Don’t worry too much. I’ll be back in a few days. The threads of time seem to expect nothing, yet fear my touch. I wish to check it out personally, and if it interests me, under my watch. If my senses have not led me astray, then it will cause change. The world would then harbon an extra, chick. And the wrong being in the right place will make all the difference.”

Shadows. Light. Shadow. Get rid of blockage. Light. Light moved. Light means clear path... right? Don’t stop moving. Forwards. Onwards. Moon. Sun. Light.

Pillar. Destroy. Follow the light. Something sticks on. Consume. Forwards. Moon. Sun. Light

Step. Push. Consume. Don’t stop moving. Light? Town. Town! Help. Light back. What do you want? Come back.

Light?

Oh. Door.

Knock? No, no more. Impolite to destroy door. Wait. Patience, mom says. I can hear her clear as the Light. Wait. Wait some more. Is the world shaking?

Why is it getting dark?

I feel so ... tired.

Oh. the door is open.

Hello .... Angel.

A snow-white dove-griffon opened her loft window at the sound of pebbles. She poked her head out only to get a paper bird to the face. She blinked dazedly at it before she unfolded it.

He’s here.
--Agatha

Her golden eyes shot open and she leapt out of her room, tumbling down the stairs. There was a heavy knock on the door when she sat up. Grimacing, she quickly padded over and pulled open the door.

Agatha, a weathered, grey horned-owl griffon, raised an eyebrow, shaking her head. “Back door”.

A few seconds later, she opened the correct door, looked around and ... oh. She was somewhat expecting this visitor to be a lot taller.

There was a bloody smear on the wall, the colt was covered in what looked like half the forest, corpses included, annnnd he collapsed. Great.

Pass me the tags. No, the one on the right. There’s a lot more damage here than I expected. I need to .....Alright, he should be anchored now, at the very ....... just a little bit .....

Voices echoed in the dim darkness that made up my mind. I recognized abstractly that they were voices, but incapable of reasoning, of getting anything out of that information.

”Don’t know if ..... there .... should be enough .......... survive. Memories...? Testing .....Now.

I felt a tingle, then some sort of powerful vacuum pull me down from where I was drifting, dead to the world, My forelegs were pulled out and chained by weight. A familiar weight, of flesh and bone. With it, came a return of searing pain from burns covering the revived limbs, and the scar in my heart from seeing my mother’s empty eyes.

My memories came last, along with the endless loop of my mission ringing in my head.

“ARRGGGHH!” I screamed, pushing upwards.

“Ah, no.” A glowing claw slammed into my muzzle and pushed me back onto the hard surface I laid on. “You came to me, wraith, and I spent a lot of work pulling what remains of the mess you’ve made back together. I woke you up to make sure everything is working, and to try and slow down your mental degradation. It would be all too easy for me to leave your unfinished business unfinished forever. Do we have an understanding?”

Wincing through the jolts of static shock, I hastily nodded, unable to pry her iron grip off her face.

“Good.” The griffoness stepped back. Her crest was white, though flecked with blood. Her beak was dark, almost black, which only let the glow of her golden eyes shine brighter. Scurrying around her, across the tabletops, and over her back, were two cats and a mouse, though from first glance they clearly weren’t normal.

I saw an overgrown mane, and leather wings. Inky smoke trailed in the corners. Piercing red orbs looked as if they were locked into my eyes.

The moment of reprieve gave me time to look around-- woah there!

“There’s a hole in my chest!” From what I could see, since everything from my waist down felt paralyzed, my chest cavity was pried wide open, my ribs raised to the air like the teeth of some giant-boned flytrap. A lung and part of my intestines were quite distinctly disconnected from the rest of me, the fleshy hole gaping off to the side. If I could move my head further, I figured I could probably see my spine.

The griffoness rolled her eyes. “Nice to meet you too. I’m Gladas, your choice of doctor for the evening. Your only doctor.” She held up a talon.

My eyes darted from my chest cavity to her several times, before my bewildered and scattered mind made the connections. “O-oh! Uh, Cycle.” I reached out and hesitantly shook her claw. “What ... .what happened?”

Gladas stuck her arms back inside my chest cavity, rolling in a spool of ultra fine wire. After a moment, she leaned back, wiped her forehead, and said, “You showed up at the door of my store, and fell dead at my feet. I was told that reviving you would be a good idea.” She stuck her head in close, eyes flaring with piercing yellow light. “Don’t make me regret it/.”

I nodded immediately, my mind starting to feel woozy and the room seeming to spin above me. Every once in a while, she jabbed a spot with her talon, and asked me if I could feel it. I did, but often times it felt numb, and far away. While I waited for her to finish setting my insides, my eyes wandered about the room. It was clean, and seemed to be covered in white tiles. There wasn’t much I could see besides the operating table I was on, and some bags filled with equipment scattered about. My roving eyes then caught a bit of movement.

A pair of glowing red eyeballs stared back.

“Eerk!”

“Don’t mind them,” Gladas muttered. “They’re just curious about the new arrival.”

I managed to stop tunnel-visioning in order to observe the inquisitive onlookers I had passed over earlier. There was a rat, a housecat, and what looked like a miniature manticore.

“The rat is Stuart-5,” Gladas explained. “The other two are adopted sisters, Wildcat-6 and Hellcat-18. Wildcat is the one with the grafted manticore parts.”

‘Stuart’ and “Hellcat’ both seemed to made of more smoke than flesh, though under light one could glimpse scarred and stitched skin underneath. ‘Wildcat’ would have looked almost normal if it didn’t have miniature manticore parts quite plainly stitched on.

“Huh.”

After another few minutes or so, Gladas stepped back, tying the last stitch on my chest cavity. “Alright, I’m pretty much done. This is going to feel ... strange.” She cut a bit of her talon with her beak, and slapped the floor. A circular barrier of light lit up around us, and shrank in on me.

My eyes bulged, as the full force of my memories slammed into me. My muted emotions became a hurricane, as every single reminder of death nearly sent me catatonic.

Gladas hastily grabbed me as I started to curl into a ball. “Woah there! Calm down. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“All dead,” I gasped out through choking sobs. The despair flashed into rage. “The rotten parasite.”

Gladas flashed a look behind her, at a shadowed row of shining teeth. “Well ... I like to believe you ended up here for a reason. Maybe we have something you want.”

It took me a moment before I realized what she was offering. “Wait ... where am I?”

“Appleton. You’ve heard of it?”

I weakly tapped my chin. “I think I heard some p-ponies mention coming over to here for trade.”

“Really? Where are you from?”

I scowled. “S-sunny Pines. No point now. No p-ponies there anymore. All dead.” I saw my bag settled against the wall, and gestured at it. “Some parasite-” I spat, “-came and killed them all.”

Gladas nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Well, this building isn’t actually in Appleton proper. Its a few minutes walk north of it. This building specifically is called Plan P. You found me and Option P, its a small herb shop I spend most of my time in. My granddad built it since he found out I was taking up medicine.

“Plan P here is our headquarters. Here-” she gestured around us, “-is our ritual-slash-operating room. Its underground, with a few floors dug even deeper for secrecy’s sake. Right now, there are a total of five members, including me. Our goal is to research and understand the nuances of Dark and Death magics; and make them suitable for general use, on top of getting around all the negative connotations it seemed to have picked up over the years.

“We believe that despite its history, there are good and bad sides to every tool. We’re haven’t done this for very long, but, well, we can afford to take it slowly. What do you think?”

I sat in thought for a few minutes. “Can you teach me to exterminate their entire species?”

“Revenge, then.” Gladas wiggled her talon. “We likely have the resources for that. Probably several options depending on how much control you want. We'll open some of the materials for you, but your project will likely be more or less self study.”

My eyes shot up in confusion.

Glad as sat back and crossed her arms. “You aren't the only person here with things to accomplish. Experiments to run, ponies to befriend, enemies to be scouted, resources to secure. Also, you’re not a member. We can’t afford any bad publicity without fear of extreme reprisal from forces beyond our own. Sorry if it sounds callous, but if you screw up, you’re on your own. Grandfather’s policy. We'll help you keep them out, but that's it”

I snarled, barely holding back my desire to lash out “Fine. I’ll stay out of your way. When can I start?”

“Well, I have to make sure all your limbs and senses work properly. That will take us an hour at if all goes well, more if I have to reset a few things,” she said, gesturing at the small pulse of heat inside my chest. “Your bag is just outside, I’ll give it back and lead you to our library when we’re done here. Was going to mention it earlier, but in order to save you, we had to anchor your soul to this Emerald.” Gladas tapped the faintly pulsing green glow underneath my chest. “It is your Phylactery. It is, for all intents and purposes, you now. Protect it at all costs, because while you control your body through it, so can others. Most of us are on the same system.”

I listened with detached interest, my hooves twitching irritably.“Fine,” I spat. “Get it over with.”

I sat back as she began poking my joints, testing for pain response, leaving my mind to swirling my boiling anger and the voices of home. I’ll save all of you, I told the howling ghosts surrounding me. All forty-nine of you.

Agatha glanced up when Gladas stepped in, the young bird’s golden yellow eyes glaring down at her. She raised an eyebrow and met her stare with her own violet orbs.

Gladas groaned. “Agatha, just what did you bring here?”

Agatha tilted her head. “Elaborate.”

“That colt,” Gladas said, gesturing behind her, is just sitting at a table giggling and chatting with the air. He is clearly unstable, and is a massive security risk. What do we do if those ghosts start convincing him to--”

“Ah. That.” Agatha looked down at her project held in her claws, a piece of partially cut wood board with a piece of sandpaper on it. She gave it a few more rubs before replying. “Well, if you want to know the exact details of why our guest is in such a state, I wouldn’t know for sure.” Gladas rolled her eyes. “However, from my three days of following him-” Gladas looked back sharply, “-I can tell he is extremely driven, and once has laid sight on a goal, it would take a miracle for him to give up.”

“I... I didn’t know he lasted that long. I thought he was merely a few hours away...”

“No, worse. He was the last survivor, as I’m sure he has told you. If you go outside, you will find a trail of hoofprints that will likely never bear life again. Reach the end, and you will see a quaint little town turned ghost in a matter of days, with the bodies still there. That is why he survived for three days inside a falling apart corpse, besides sheer determination. He is a survivor, Gladas. Harmony wanted him dead, worse than even me.”

“Why?”

Agatha grinned, beak full of teeth. “I wanted to see what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object. It would’ve taken an entire week of constant circles for Harmony to put that pony down. Trust me, with that colt here, we will live to see interesting times.”

Gladas palmed her face. “No no, why does Harmony want him dead?”

“Ah, that.” Agatha face seemed to age a bit, more resembling her actual age. She distractedly polished the sheets of wood she started earlier on her desk, before taking a deep breath. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’ve been exercising my talents for the past decade, meditating for patterns.” Agatha leaned forwards, beak cupped. “I think I’ve figured it out. Harmony’s plan.”

Gladas’s gasped. “Does this mean you will be able to work around it?”

Agatha shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, it does wish to unite the world; I don’t want to just flip the sky. It just really, really rather I not exist. I do have a penchant for being a disruptive force, it’s hard for me to resist, as evidenced by me pulling your grandfather out of the grand mess he’s made of his own life. Meanwhile, Harmony has already began to choose who will be the stars who shine through history. To my ... well, I don’t really know how to feel about it, but it has chosen the ponies to carry its Plan. Those Marks of theirs helps, BUT! It makes it predictable. A pony acting against their talent is a rare, significant sight, and it would be even harder to hide the pulses of certainty all the ponies will have of their lives.

“As for the colt’s role in all this, I know it is hard to see it right now, but he does not have a bad heart if not for his grief spiral we are currently witnessing. I can feel a strong sense of loyalty underneath all that anger. In a better place and time, he might have become one of those pony exemplars.

“Instead,” Agatha spared a glance to the younger, “he has the ‘fortune’ to be our keystone. By giving the ponies a Destiny, it has risked the creation of its own enemy. There’s also one other thing. After I brought him here, I spent a few hours meditating. I wanted to find out why it was so afraid of me keeping him alive. No specifics yet, but one thing held true in almost every situation: we will not survive past three centuries past the colt’s death.” Agatha looked up from polishing her project, and fixed Gladas with a glare. “When the time comes for it, prioritize him. I will sacrifice myself if it means he lives, because with a little bit of prodding, he will dedicate the rest of his existence into preserving our work.”

Gladas nodded a bit shakily. “U-understood.”

“Try to minimize who you tell this to. Just keep the colt alive to the best of your ability.” The elder griffon waved Gladas away. “Now shoo. My manipulations require peace and quiet.”

Gladas soon left on quiet pads, while Agatha set aside her carving project, reached underneath her bed and dragged out a large case. Within a few minutes, she set up her self-built cello and leaned it against her shoulder, gently tapping the strings to check its tune. Her purple eyes glared at the distant advancing clouds, her mind flashing with plans set for the centuries ahead.

“Well?” she rasped. “I’m waiting.”

Author's Note

This chapter was supposed to go up right after Travelogue 2 to sort of go with the theme of leaving home I started. Then I ran into a block, and wasn't sure how to go past the opening scene. Fortunately, since I don't have to go in a straight line, I wrote something else instead until I could figure out what to write.

I’m iffy on whether or not souls exist, but for the purpose of the story, some form of it is required for the phylactery to work. Zombies don’t have phylacteries, and can be called actually dead. Cycle, however, is just delusional.

Blog Post: References (In case it wasn't obvious)

v2 (10 APR 2017)

4: Second Life

1153 years ago

“And .... nothing.”

I kept tabs on the first. The zero. Almost like a familiar, if I didn’t leave it to rot once I was done with it. I sat and meditated as I zealously followed through Zero’s eyes for the entire year, making sure there was absolutely nothing left of my most hated enemy.

Finally, after nearly seventeen years of my new life buried in work, my heart is free, my demons vanquished. I basked in the dim, winter sun that had become the new normal for the past decade, revelling.

And smiling.

And joyously.

And ... and... and...

Now what?

The smile on my face slowly fell over the course of an hour, as I stared blankly out at the quiet snow. I had spent more time engineering the extinction of a species than growing up. Despite technically being twenty-seven years old, I knew about as much about life as the ten year old I still resembled.

I never consciously noticed it, beyond always needing a stool to reach the higher shelves, but it only hit me after I stopped focusing on revenge that I could see how I had barely aged a day.

Also for the first time in seventeen years, I had no unreachable goal to reach eternally for. I sat by the window for the rest of the day, lost to the world, oblivious to the beings moving by me.

I still had my bag. It was a bit ratty and worn, but it was the only thing I had left of home that wouldn't give the waking nightmares a voice. The cloak was given to me by Gladas for the cold, and not exactly worth much anyhow. I glanced back at my bag now, at the small bundle of brochures I never opened.

There was a short description of Appleton, along with a basic map of locations and history. Nothing about the lich. However, there was a brochure seemingly designed for a low security access of Plan P. It included a small, detailed map.

I folded them up, placed them back into my bag, and went in search of the bar.

The bar was in a small secluded corner of the building. It gave a nice, cozy feel. According to the guide, a griffon named Dimi Haneken.

I poked my head in, and saw said griffon placing bottles into crates. She was the second shortest in this place, only barely taller than me. Her crest was a green one would find on a duck, though starting to grey, and had a tired look to her. According to the brochure, she was a HummingBird Griffon. She was also one of the first to join this group, the other being Agatha the ‘Seer’, and Wally Falcowolf. Wally was apparently Gladas’s grandfather, and the technical founder of the place.

The brochure had nothing on Dimi’s job.

Eh.

Whatever.

I shuffled over to the bar situated in the corner. It wasn’t really a bar, to be honest. It was more like a wine rack with table stuck in front of it. It could barely fit more than two persons standing there.

I gazed over the racks, wondering if I was able to understand any of them when Dimi skidded to a stop in front of me. “Wait-wait-wait, no. Are you looking for something?”

I gazed blankly at her. “One of them,” I said, pointing at the racks.

“Not a problem.” She led me to one of the seats on the other side of the mini-table and deftly grabbed a bottle from the rack, a mug from underneath the table, and slid it into my hooves. She casually flipped her talon onto the cork of the bottle, and let gravity drag it off into her waiting talon. Said talon then filled my mug.

I gave a half-hearted shrug at the performance and took a sip.

I glanced at the mug. “This isn’t alcoholic.”

“That is correct,” Dimi agreed with a nod.

“I thought this was a bar.”

“It is. We still carry a few bottles of non-alcoholic drinks for colts.”

I grinded my hooves against the table. “I. Am not. A colt.”

She shrugged. “You look about ten, eleven to me.”

“Excuse me? I’ve been here for seventeen years. How have you not seen me?”

“Bar rules. Your biologics are less than sixteen, no drink.”

I glowered at her. “And what’s stopping me from taking it.”

“I am the third oldest griffon alive. You sat in a room for seventeen years.” She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t use it, but I actually took some combat training.”

“Grrrr...” I nursed my ... drink unhappily.

Dimi leaned on the table, resting her arms beside me. “Also according to the rules, as your current barkeep I am obligated to ask you about your problems. So, what brought you here?”

I flinched and looked away, quickly accepting the juice and sipping. Dimi leaned in closer with a wide grin. “Weelllll?”

“Not thinking about it.” I replied tersely.

“Perfectly valid, but you’re only going to be able to go so long without accidentally thinking about it again. You won’t lose anything if you air it to someone like, hmmm?” Her pointed talon wiggled in the air, as if choosing an invisible person, before it landed on herself “Oh right! Me! How ‘bout it?”

My ears folded back, teeth grinding. I tried to focus on my drink, but it was hard when I could almost feel Dimi’s gaze burning into my neck, and her quiet “Hmm?”s droning over and over.

I sighed. “I killed the ones that took my family from me. But they’re still dead.” Siiiip. Groan. “And if I tried to revive them, either your leader is going to kill me, or whatever abomination I summon will eat me. I can’t do anything but watch them all just ... rot away.”

Dimi nodded. “Indeed. You are the only one from, what was it?”

“Sunny Pines.”

“Yeah, the only one from Sunny Pines that got out. You’re probably the only being on the planet who still knows it exists, where it sits on a map, the ponies that lived there.”

“...yeah.”

“Heck, we could raze it, and nobody would notice--”

“NO!” I glared into her eyes, breathing heavily.

She smiled gently back. “Well, it looks like somebody needs to make sure Sunny Pines will be remembered.”

“What?”

“Oh, you know, a historian. Someone who writes about the history of a place or event, and records it for future generations. Someone like ...” she poked my chest. “You, perhaps?”

“...me?” My mind’s eye brought up pictures of my home, rebuilt, restored, and with me in the center of it all, its guardian. “Yes ... yes, I would very much like it.” I stood up. “I can do that, right? Yeah.”

I stood up, forgetting about my drink entirely. They wouldn’t be a frostbitten afterthought. They would live again. I wouldn’t be able to revive them, the library has warnings everywhere about it, but this would be the next best thing. Even if nopony else could touch them, I could bring them to life the best way I knew how. And they wouldn’t be forgotten.

Not on my watch.

“Say...”

I looked over my shoulder, confused. “Huh?”

Dimi scratched her chin. “You up for being a group historian?”

“Group ... historian?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “This entire mess was a hack job. We barely have enough ... bodies to handle everything. We would appreciate if you spent some time helping us organize our records. Knowledge is important. Too much blood has already been lost trying to protect what we have. You saw the results of that yourself. You in?”

To Dimi’s surprise, my coat seemed to brighten just by the barest of shades, with my Mark pulsing faintly, or so she told me. For the first time in over a decade, I felt a purpose slotting into my soul. Not despair driven revenge. I was creating again, and able to give back to those who had saved me.

Dimi watched my face and nodded. “Go talk to Gladas about it. She’ll probably be willing to start your training. Check Option P on that map of yours. If she isn’t there, just wait a bit. Oh, and Cycle?”

I paused, a hoof raised. “Hmm?”

She raised a new bottle. “When you’re done, I’ll save a bottle for ya. There ain’t no rules against drinking for a twenty-seven year old.”

“What?” I tilted my head to the side, confused by this sudden change in response.

“Welcome to the Honeycomb Club, brother.”

My eyes widened, and teared up a little. I tapped my hoof against my chest. “I won’t let y’all down,” and dashed off.

Dimi stared at the retreating colt's form, waiting for the sound of the door to slam, before slumping. Her smile turned frosty and tired. Agatha’s pepper’d crest rose from behind the counter and rested on the surface, a large grin on her face.

Dimi grabbed her own face. “Don’t tell me to do that again, I don’t like acting.”

“Oh, but you were perfect!” Agatha gushed. “You made him live again. Couldn’t have done better myself.”

“And why weren’t you doing it?”

“I use strings, my dear. Plus, you were trained a barkeep. I know you are wanting for something.” Agatha patted her co-patriot’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I got something in the works. Think of it as training!.”

Agatha pushed out from the wine rack and limped away, leaving Dimi alone.

“Screw it,” she muttered, and popped off a cork.

Dear Diary,

And, well, any reader who looks back at this in the future. Hopefully that includes me too. Hi me.

Well, I did it. Took me seventeen years to finally join them. And finally figure out what they were called. “Honeycomb Club”. Yeah, I was confused too. Apparently, it was part joke, part misdirection. The last group apparently had a far more ... “pretentious” name. Didn’t help them when they got exterminated to the last after less than a century.

My role is basically to act as a historian. Not sure what Dimi was doing, but eh, I enjoy it. It lets me bring Sunny Pines back in some way.

I talked to Gladas today, to let her know that I wish to join. She’s going to help start planning my schedule tomorrow; haven’t been this excited in a while. I’m getting a front row seat to magic the planet has forgotten. And getting the chance to wield it. Who wouldn’t be excited?

As for my duties, whenever I’m not training, I’m going to be working on writing down my Home. Probably start setting dates to interview the rest of the Honeycomb Club. This place has been here for more than half a century, something has got to have happened to get them all together.

What were they doing? Why does Dimi look a lot healthier than Boss, Wally Falcowolf? Who the heck is Agatha? What was Appleton like.

No history book is good without their origin story, after all. In a few hundred years or whatever, this will be the best account left. And I get to write it!

Oh, so many ideas; my friends just keep on hopping around yelling my ears. Gotta try to calm them down, see you next time.

-Cycle Garand Springfield.

Agatha poked her head around the corner of a hallway to stare at the back of the eager colt’s head. She observed him quietly for a few minutes, sighed quietly, and left him to his own devices.

How to stay being immortal.

Don’t piss off the populace. Never overestimate your ability to kill numerous individuals hellbent on killing you. It only takes one mistake on your part to end your life.

Don’t piss off the country. This comes from the first rule. The only thing worse than numerous individuals trying to kill you is numerous trained soldiers trying to kill you. In fact, you should only impress them if you are absolutely sure they aren’t pretending to be nice and just waiting to cut your head off when you aren’t paying attention.

Don’t present a target. People can’t hate what they can’t see. Act normal. Average. Hide everything. Trust no one you can’t control. Don’t make yourself a center of attention. Popularity breeds curiosity. Death magic was never a popular subject. Don’t let people know you know it.

-Wally Falcowolf

Author's Note

I really hope I didn't accidentally double something

5: Nekrogarten

1152 years ago

The first thing I found out after my almost seventeen year mental exile was that some sort of eternal snowstorm had started a few weeks after I left Sunny Pines. I was essentially holed up underground for the entire time, and only found out once I poked my head out and asked people. Agatha was suspicious when the first snow fell, and hastily began construction of underground farms that were insulated from the cold. Most of the residents of Appleton still stayed above ground.

After finally getting a grip on how much I’ve missed, I went to work on figuring out how I was going to live the rest of my unlife. Dimi’s words were still ringing in my head.

First of all, I didn’t go straight into interviewing. The results of that would have been embarrassing, to say the least. Instead, after considering who I knew and what I knew about them, I sought out Gladas to get an education on the basics. I found out earlier she was the only one who finished higher education. My reading was passable after I brute forced learning it after over half a decade of doing nothing but reading, but I haven’t really had a chance to practice writing besides what could be generously called notes I scrawled down. Most of it was kept in my memory, which felt like it got a significant upgrade after my death.

Gladas stacked a pile of books in front of me. “Flip through them. When they start getting confusing, we can start there.”

“What’s with all the griffons?”

“I bought them from a griffon bookstore.”

My memories were almost as clear as crystal, and if prompted I could easily recite the pages I’ve read over the past seventeen years. If I focused hard enough, and went slowly enough, I could even redraw memories onto canvas. It certainly made the period of writing leaf-litter shorter, especially since I was technically mentally in my late twenties now. I could pretend to be still ten, but that left me with nothing better to do.

Reading and writing wasn’t the only thing I did. With numbers as small as we had right now, we could be easily overwhelmed if any force tried to attack us. If any experiments went awry, we also had to be strong enough to clean up whatever natural disaster that had been cooked up, since it was unlikely that anyone else would be able to deal with it. It was our responsibility anyways.

It started as basic stretching exercises, since Gladas wanted to determine the range of my limbs. And then help me with subsurface modification of joints so that I could jump and twist everywhere. Her own demonstration looked more like a dance one would enact on limbless dolls.

My hoof soared a hair’s-breath over Gladas’s head, while my legs kicked back to avoid a bandaged wing from striking my stomach. I hit the ground and rolled, legs spread to let her form soar above me. I rolled and swung upwards, brushing past her tail.

We spun, spinning to face each other, hoof and fist shooting towards heads. We froze, a bit of sweat dripping off our frames and plinking on the hardwood. I could feel her light breaths on my hoof, and her clenched talon was close enough to my eye I could touch it with my eyelashes.

“One centimeter distance,” Gladas observed. “Good job.” We relaxed or limbs, a bit of out of breath and a little sweaty.

I looked at my own limbs. “I know you started off simple, but I’m not really feeling as tired as I think I should be.”

“Ah right,” Gladas said, “I need to teach you that before you collapse without notice. A lot of your bodily functions have to be manually activated now, like sweating, like the nerves that send pain signals when your muscles are running out of available energy. You can alter their sensitivity though, so they don’t adversely hurt you. Come back to the lab, I’ll help you locate them...”

Once my flexibility was ramped up the same way everyone else was apparently, they started teaching me fighting techniques and whether or not I was able to learn any of their combat spells.

The third part of my training was public relations; it was why Plan P was built fairly close to the pony town Appleton, and why Gladas had a simple herbs store named Option P she operated in the town. If we couldn’t get along with our next street neighbors, then we might as well hole up inside a mountain for the rest of eternity.

Considering how the vast majority of ponies in this time period still had issues with their own subspecies, this was to be our longest, slowest, and final project to finish.

I wandered over to the backyard, staring disappointedly as the morning sun barely lightened the snow-filled clouds. It had been an exhausting few months as I transitioned from squatting in a basement for a decade to rejoining society. Sure, I didn’t have to weight lift as much, but instead I meditated for a few hours to trigger muscle growth, then I spent most of my time catching up on the education I should have gotten had I not died, and the rest was specialized training so I could get used to my new undead body and the responsibilities it entailed from joining the Honeycomb Club.

There was a pile of compost I had gathered late last night, and pushed some of my magic into it and let it shimmer. Now, there was a lightly steaming pile of mush. I gathered them in bags, loaded them into a cart, and started hauling the fertilizers into the basement farm.

I trotted through the underground micro-forest, appreciating the sounds of summer coming alive despite winter pounding at our doors. It kept me grounded, and reminded me that life still existed, could be fought for. Quieted the shouts of rage and helplessness from being unable to do anything about the corpses littering my old town.

I avoided thinking about it when possible. My new crystal brain was pretty good at that.

I stepped out of the dark, downwards ramp and out into the light of the backlit clouds. The clouds were bright enough to gradually warm up the greenhouse, at least, though regular shoveling was still a must. I could see the silhouette of ponies doing so above us. Fields of crops were spread out in front of me, and a more controlled forest of apple trees further still. This is what fed Appleton now.

According to Gladas, the town was barely only settled a little over a century ago. When Agatha and Gladas’s grandfather, Wally, moved here, there was only a single row of buildings, and they were still relying on food stores while they waited for their harvest to ripen.

I walked down the well worn path towards the closest group of ponies. The farmers waved when they saw me. “Fertilizer,” I called, head nodding towards the bags carted behind me.

Most ponies would’ve been frightened at first sight. We were foals with barely an understanding what we were playing with, and our crude flails have left an aura that is hard to hide, even today. Just as your magic constantly flow throughs you, so does ours. Our magic is not a giving one. It is consuming, and controlling, desperately clinging to life.

The Appleton ponies simply increased their own flows of magic to their skin before approaching me and pulling down a few bags for distribution.

It was a far cry from when the old generation hid from Wally and Agatha just sitting at the edge of town, taking months before someone gathered up their nerve long enough to ask what they were there for.

It took me a few hours to make all my deliveries, and then I was back to Plan P. As I was adjusting the cart’s position in our storage shed, I heard the sound of sliced trees, falling leaves, and exploding bark.

I closed the door to the storage shed, then trotted off to investigate.

In the backyard of Plan P, I found a walking corpse of a griffon. Most of his coat miraculously retained its tannish color, but it hung on his frame in tatters, with enough tears that one could see through in places. Places with noticeably missing organs. Black smoke trailed behind red eye-pits as he danced through the forest, with glowing, buzzing blades spinning around all his limbs. Chips of bark misted the air as his blades grazed the trees, with a tint of green as low hanging leaves were sliced into ribbons. His wings were held out straight, giving his jumps extra distance, and leaving cuts into more trees as crackling magic arced through them.

So this was Wally Falcowolf in his element.

I didn’t interact much with the residents of Plan P, especially after spending over a decade holed up in the basement library, but I needed to get some first-hoof accounts eventually. I delayed enough with the excuse of weeks of training with Gladas.

I cleared my throat. “Mr. Falcowolf?”

The elder griffon glided in a circle and slid to stop, facing me, showing me a body ravaged by time. The left side of his skull was exposed with friction scars still visible on his cheekbones and brow. The other half of his face was barely better, with dried, stretched skin and balding feathers. That was the only side to still have an eyeball, covered in cataracts. The other socket was empty, save for a flickering, angry red spark. The rest of his body was in a similar shape, with torn skin tied down to bones to prevent them from just flapping about, stretched tendons exposed like guitar strings, and enough holes everywhere else for one to tell that he hadn’t been able to rely on a proper circulatory system for a long, long time. Instead, there were what appeared to be tiny coils of his red magic circling throughout and around his bones as some sort of magical replacement.

A whisper of mist escaped his beak. “What do you need from me,” he said, with a strange, metallic timber.

I gaped at his voice. “How do you talk like that?”

He snorted, and folded back a bit of skin around his throat. “Lost my vocal cords long ago. Replaced them with cello string. Now, I repeat, what do you need from me, and I better not need to repeat a third time.”

I shook my head and took a deep breath. “I have been accepted as the Club’s historian, and would like to interview you.” I pushed my cloak off to the side and showed him the writing pad poking out of my bag.

He hissed through his beak, brow furrowing. “There are better creatures who can tell that tale.”

“But none of them are you.”

Falcowolf grumbled, his head bowed. Eventually, he pushed his cloak and settled down onto the snow. “The preservation of knowledge is so delicate, yet its bounty is priceless. I would be a hypocrite if I were to purposely take this to my grave. Alright, colt. If you want the truth, then--” he glanced at the snow falling on my pad. “--we should go inside first.”

6: Bloodlust

1152 years ago

Its hard to tell at a glance, with me missing most of my internal body mass now, but I was a weakling back then. It was quite disappointing to my parents, who came from a well respected line of guards.

I tried academics for a time. Guess I was hoping to earn their approval by trying to be a strategist. It stopped the outright glares, but they wanted brawn and brains. A warrior scholar. I couldn't win a fight against a particularly angry rabbit. After two decades of this with no improvement, I gave up trying to be legal. In the depths of my despair, I heard rumors of a group calling themselves the “Enlightened.”

They were terrorists, and boasted about it whenever they could. But for once in my life, I had the power that gave me self-worth for the first time in twenty years. Real, genuine, wall shattering power, and a family that loved me. All I had to do to gain full membership and get access to a good portion of their resources was to become a lich. I thought life couldn’t get any worse, so I gave it a shot.

For nearly a decade, I was amongst a group who ... accepted me. It made me blind to their faults. I was in full blown hero worship, and anything that made them happy made me elated. Anything that made them angry made me furious. I reveled in their self destructive path. They became the family I never had, and my real family was all but forgotten. I threw myself into their studies to become their perfect monster.

I sometimes wondered what would have become of me if I stayed one year longer in that state. But that never came to pass, because of one chance encounter one night ...

1261 years ago.

Wally Falcowolf, aged 29

City: Dirchland, hometown, and near one of the Enlightened base of operations.

Dimitri’s Food and Pub

This place was a small, quiet place I often like visiting when relaxing after my “work”. I knew Dimitri from my childhood, from when I actually enjoyed schooling for a short time, and the insults weren’t as hurtful. We were both on the small side, especially since she was from the Hummingbird family and I from the Potoo family. Her crest was a nice shade of light green with light grey feathers, making her look a bit like a duck from a distance. Despite our small statures, she didn’t have the “parents” that I had. She ended her childhood with a much better head space than I did, and though I never actually revealed to her my clandestine activities back then, I still enjoyed her company.

Today was a free weekend for me, after yet another week praising the glory of the Enlightened (as usual). I shared a few words with Dimitri when she wasn’t serving drinks or sandwiches, mostly small talk. There wasn’t much activity, being near midnight and all. I was listening in on what few customers Dimitri had, eavesdropping like no tomorrow when I noticed a small scuffle right outside the door.

I reflexively hissed, ingrained mantras of the superior peacekeeping abilities of the Enlightened flashing through my mind. My family said that we were the protectors, the revolutionaries, the heroes. My family couldn’t be wrong. Talons scraped against the tabletop as trained fury rose within me.

I paid for my drinks, and stalked over to the door. “Scum,” I whispered, peering through the cracks. An example of the current government’s incompetence.

I waited until they moved around the corner, then snuck out the door, quietly trailing them. Dimitri gave a worried look at the swinging door, but did nothing.

The trio of bastards, who I offhandedly noticed looked vaguely similar, and were all wearing some sort of facemask, forcedly shoved the middle-aged lady that was limping slightly into a dead end, one of them hovering above her with claws bared to dissuade any hope of flying away. I was a bit too far away to hear what they were saying, but the lecherous grins and the way she was trying to protect her bag told me enough. She seemed to have a bit of a fierceness in her eyes, though even she knew there wasn’t much she could do against three griffons, one of which was wielding a short sword that would be extremely difficult to fight against unarmed.

Unconsciously, I started licking my beak in bloodlust.

I sauntered in haphazardly, humming an off key tune, looking like a ditzy, situationally blind idiot.. Bastard #1 on the ground noticed me immediately, and quickly hid in the shadows, away from the lamp Bastard #2 was holding.

An attempt near useless considering I was nocturnal, even if I didn’t acquire the ability to see their life pulsing like embers. These bugged out eyes aren’t for show. Of course, I pretended to not see them.

“Hi there!” I said naively. “Is something the matter?”

Aww. They even tried to hide their weapons from me. The death glare they shot at their ... ‘guest’ wasn’t exactly subtle, though.

I gave a fake gasp, deliberately missing the point. “Oh no! Is the missus hurt?” I scrambled forwards, deliberately leaving my back wide open to the one hiding in the shadows.

“Um, yeah, she hurt her leg, and my brothers--brother and I wanted to see if it was bad enough to require a hospital trip.”

A covered my beak. “That’s terrible! Look at her tears.” There weren’t actually any. “It must be hurting horribly. I’ll go ask for help just in case. It can’t make it worse.”

The griffoness’s eyes widened, focusing on something behind me. There was a tiny glint of light reflecting off her cornea. Terror overcame her face. I made a big show of raising an eyebrow, and slowly turned around, peering over my right shoulder. A whistling pipe flew towards my face.

Ba-thump

I blinked, as shards of rock and cobblestone shredded my bleeding cheek. I appeared to have spun a full circle before twirling into the ground. I went down pretty darn quickly, considering I barely remember time passing between bouncing off his weapon and bouncing off the floor.

WHI-CRACK

He had a good swing, I’ll give him that. Broke my wing into multiple pieces in one blow. I think the bones in my left talon shattered from how hard I hit the ground. My face was smashed in even worse, and I tasted dirt through my fractured beak. Vision in my left eye went out as a shard of stone shot into its socket.

Even now, decades later, I believe that hit would still be enough to daze me. Impressed me, momentarily.

SMACK

And then he went for my spine. It would leave a limp in my gait, if the feeling of all those shards floating about in my back is to be believed. Never got around to fully repair it even now.

I stayed quiet for a few moments, letting the veins of magic that connected every cell to my actual heart, my phylactery, recollect itself, and slowly pull the broken bits that weren’t powderized back into a rough approximation of where they should be.

I started assessing my injuries after the griffon behind me wiped my blood off his borrowed pipe with my feathers, and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of damage I found. You see, many younger members were rather ... enraptured with the gruesome scars the seniors had collected over the years. Each one told a story of victory of the ‘evils’ over the world, and a constant confirmation of our superiority over those ‘squishy mortals’.

And now? I was bleeding from holes all over the place. For the cult-drunk fool I was, I thought I was ... perfect.

Griffon #1 gave a once-over of my battered body, looted my bags of coin, then rejoined his buddies in the torment of their captive.

However, this? I will never regret what I did next.

With an effort of will, I pulled most of my shattered bones back into place, not bothering to hide the glowing cords of mana covering my open wounds.

I slowly pushed myself up, uncaring of the loud grinding of bones, leering at my ... victims. With a wet plop, my ruined eye rolled out of its left socket and fell to the ground. A burning red ember replaced it, and I laughed coldly.

“That wasn’t very nice,” I hissed. I sat up and cracked/ground the bone fragments in my knuckles, and gave a cold smile. “Bad boys need to be punished.”

1 with the pipe made a valiant effort to take another swing. I took a single step to the side and thrust my glowing talons through his chest. Fleshy bodies are so fragile. Why is everyone is so fond of them?

The other two bolted for safety. I cackled. “Oh no no. We can’t be having that.”

Bastard #3, who had a head start in the altitude department, screamed when he saw my magic boosted leap sent me right above him. I yanked my broken wing out of its socket and stabbed the griffon into his back. Then, using a somersault to build momentum, I flung the paralyzed griffon into the back of Bastard #2 as he tried to fly away from us.

I smashed into the ground hard. Due to equal and opposite forces, Bastards #2 and #3 hit the ground equally as hard. #2 hit #3 so hard that my wing pierced right through the pair.

I pulled myself out of my crater, stretching and cracking my spine as I pulled together even more fractured bones. My ever-present leer shown blood red in the flickering lamp light, my face stained crimson from the entire left side of my face being shredded to the bone. I stalked towards the struggling pair, who were slowly bleeding their lifeblood away. I stood over them and grabbed the base of my wing. “Sit tight boys. I’ll take care of you very, very soon.” I ripped the bloodied and broken wing out of their bodies and carefully slotted it back onto my stump. Bloody muscles reached out and secured them into place.

A burst of pattering footsteps behind me renewed the surge of vision-hazing bloodlust. I screeched in fury, spinning and catching the talons reaching for me, swinging my flaming talons towards--!

I stared speechlessly, the hate-charged mana slowly ebbing away as I stood in a standstill, my talons blocked by her raised arm. Her eyes stared back, straining in disbelief to pierce through the shadows across my face.

“...W...Wally?” a tiny voice squeaked out.

My heart thudded painfully against the rib puncturing it.

Her outstretched talon shuddered, then weakened as she curled up from a series of harsh coughs.

Gasping, I made to dart forwards, attempting to catch her and hold her as she rode out the tremors. I never made it past the first step, once I saw the state my talons were in: caked in so many bits of flesh and blood I couldn’t tell which jagged piece of bone-shrapnel was mine.

I stumbled back, a ragged whine escaping my throat.

The griffoness’s eyes shot towards me in alarm, shakily reaching for me. “N...o, W-wally, *cough*, wait!”

I shook my head, eyes wide with fear and guilt as I backed away. “N-no, keep away,” I croaked. “I ... I’m not w-worth ... associating.”

Before my self-control could break, I made myself turn around and sprint away. With a flap of my one good wing, I shot onto the rooftops and disappeared into the night.

I roof-hopped silently through the city’s shadows and stopped at the edge of the forest, my dislocated wing still on the mend. I selected a nearby tree and collapsed against its side. I stared at the moon for what felt like an hour or more, then raised my broken talon and stared at it. Fragments of bone poked through my coarse skin, with a muscle strands lying limp wherever they weren’t successfully reconnected the first time around. My entire talon was off-center from the ligaments in my wrist tearing and collapsing from the impact of punching clean through a chest.

On top of all that, the pool of blood below me stopped growing any larger, stopped staying warm. I tiredly removed the rib that had punctured my heart. Until I repaired my heart, I would be pulseless, lifeless.

For the first time in a long, long time, I felt as dead as the body I inhabited. No point in trying to repair that heart anymore.

I stared blankly into the sleeping town. What am I doing?

The Enlightened gave me respect, power, and control over my own destiny.

All I had to do was become the monsters my family fought.

Did I really expect to impress Mother? We attack public buildings and harass griffons we don’t like. With brute force that few could ever hope to match. Vigilante justice at best, and slaughter at its worst.

And ... I joined them without a second thought. Am I really that desperate? How long before I start seeing my family as scum?

Deep in my chest began the cold, pounding drumbeat of fury. In that instant, I knew what I wanted to dedicate the rest of my miserable life towards.

“They will pay.”

I was quite lucky. If I hadn’t saw my mother, I would be dead by now. And I would’ve deserved it.

Five minutes prior

The griffoness wiped the spittle from her beak and stared forlornly at the shadows the fallen lamp casted. She slowly swept her eyes across the unmoving silhouettes around her, her expression blank and tired.

Moments later, she heard a set of flapping wings. Two officers landed in front of her, and gave a short salute. “We got the signal, Captain Falcowolf. Are you alright?”

She sighed, shaking her head. “I’m not on duty, Eva will do. And I’m fine. A ... samaritan helped me ... well, that.”

The second guard was picking through the corpses with his own lamp, and raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Samaritan? Really?”

Eva looked stonily into the distance. “Yes.”

“You do know we have to file this, right?”

“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t able to get a good look at his face. I ... can confirm that he was likely a member of the ... the ‘Enlightened.’”

“Alright... but since you’re the only, well, living witness, we still have to bring you in for some questioning.”

“I understand,” she replied flatly. What have I done to you, little Wally?

Two days later

Dear Mother,

I’ve disappointed you for too long. I’m sorry. But I’m part of the Enlightened now. They trust me. They don’t suspect me.

I can wipe us all from the earth, so no one will find their deeds ever again. If you want to bury me, keep the rib. I doubt there’ll be more than ashes left. Goodbye. This will be the last time I will act like this. I can’t afford to blow my cover. If I have to kill again, so be it.

-- Wally ~~Falcowolf~~

With a magnifying glass and the tip of her talon, Eva carefully scratched the ink of the line crossing out her son’s name. Then she went to file a retirement form. She didn’t think she would be able to concentrate properly for a long time.

From then on, I watched and waited. I pretended to be the most loyalest and faithful of acolytes. I developed my own unique fighting style, fashioned to take full advantage of the corpses these undead paraded so proudly. Flies I collected from traps and lunch were stored in my rapidly drying out body, hiding in my circulatory system. They were marked by portions of my own magic; when needed, I could pull them out to form the backbones of razor sharp force fields.

With my new abilities and singled-minded battle-fury, I drenched myself in the blood of innocents and killed without remorse, all in order to glean the tiniest of details of the daily routines from every single other sociopathic monster just like me. Every single day, I spent my free time with meticulous record keeping of their personal habits, and personality quirks.

All of that to allow me to slip under their notice as some over-enthusiastic kid, and let me interview them. For however long it takes, I told myself.

I hoped that I would be able to last long enough to convince them to show off, and most importantly, give me a hint as to where their phylactery was stored.

I hoped that I could at least stand a decade or two.

I barely lasted a year.

Being only able to talk to myself without fear wore down on my already fragile sanity, but I didn’t dare go anywhere near my family out of guilt. Very few days passed by when I didn’t re-break my wrist, to remind myself which personality was the mask, and which was “real.”

When the the Enlightened came seeking volunteers to go attempt to seek recruits, I took it. Weeks earlier, out of boredom, I checked out the scouting records.

Out of all of them, one contact crossed out in red caught my eye. Scribbled over it was “AVOID AT ALL COSTS” in even more red ink, along with lots of underlining. I took a quick glance at the contents, and what scattered notes previous trips have recovered. Oh well, I was already borderline suicidal anyways. That’s as a good as any reason to ignore that warning. This was one of the few operations they were fairly forgiving of.

I snapped the book shut on an Agatha [???, Affiliation unknown]- The Seer.

Cycle’s notes

Wally told me that that was the event that derailed his spiraling life into the path he now walked today. He still hasn’t forgiven himself for the blood he spilled, and would spend the rest of his existence creating repairing the damage his talons wrought.

There was more to this story, however. He wasn’t alone for the downfall of the Enlightened. He found help from a powerful ally, the would-be cofounder of the Honeycomb Club.

He decided to seek out the exiled Seer, Agatha.

She was also the one who saved me. I wonder what stories she can tell?

7: Farsight

1152 years ago

Wally sent me to Agatha’s room, and a brief explanation of her schedule. Which was that she wandered around and tended to FutureSight her way into getting to meetings on time. I went to check out her room anyways to familiarize myself with where the place was located: attic.

There was a small note pinned to the wall. It read “I will be back in a short while. Watch the hourglass.”

I cautiously pushed the door to her room open, and saw a hourglass hissing away. I watched it for a moment to judge how fast it drained, then went off to make a simple snack.

A few moments later, I returned to her room. I stepped in, glancing at the hourglass, drained. Huh. Still not here?.

The door behind me creaked open. A glowing purple iris stared back. “Yer late.”

The fur on my neck started to stand up as I froze in surprise and trepidation. She laughed, stepping the rest of the way into the room with me. The old Barn Owl seemed to have gotten slightly more grayer, and though her voice was still full of energy, there was a noticeable gingerness in her movements, a slight twitch of reflexive pain.

“Just kidding,” she said, grinning widely. “I waited an extra minute for you to get back. Agatha, team Seer, at your service.”

I took a moment to shake myself out of my stupor. “Uh. Right.” I pulled a clipboard out of my saddlebag and a sheet of parchment. A quill and ink was placed besides me. “So, Mr. Falcowolf told me to ask you about your relation with the Honeycomb Club and how you got involved. I want to record our story for future generations, you see.”

“Of course, of course.” Agatha stepped over to her bed and sat down on the edge, loosening up. “A bit of background first. I was known as Agatha over one-hundred and ninety-five years ago. Obviously, griffons don’t normally live that long, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

“When I was young, a long long time ago, a ... another caught wind of my talents. They invited me to their institution, to learn from them, to train, to grow. They strengthened the meager flashes of insight I had as a child, into something that let me read the ebb and flow of possibilities, and dance in between.

“The stronger I became though, the more frustrated I was at my enforced limitations. Say, imagine a tree. Like the myriad of possibilities in the timeline of the future, they both start out with a main trunk. Current events. Not much happens unless you do something drastic. Very few branches are here. The higher you go though, the more branches there are. To me, though? I can still see that tree, obviously, but with nearly all blacked out. The better you get, the more you realize how blind, how helpless you truly are.

“It was a good few decades, but we started to clash the more and more I brought up my issues. I found out in the end that ...my teacher knew. They sit and philosophize while the world spins away ever further with each passing day of uselessness. I wanted more out of life. We had the power to live out in the wild and unexplored, but they squandered it!

“I quit. They put up a token effort to search for me, but I was already long gone. I hated Destiny, being forced along some other’s whims, and wanted to carve my own path. I traveled for a lengthy period. Saw new sights, Learned new tricks. Was on the run from that day, but I enjoyed it. However, it still wasn’t enough. I was just one ... griffon. Anything I did would soon be lost to the passage of centuries. I was only a Seer, and one that needed direct contact to affect anyone other than myself.

“I ran for a long time. Found adventure. Travelers. More enemies than I should have. They made an attempt to punish me through disorientation ... but I managed to avoid madness.

“I ended up settling in Hearthstone for awhile. The capital of the Griffon Kingdom up north. Still wasn’t able to find anyone at a crossroads of fate for a significant number of others. I offered my services to the military out of boredom, and a hope to see new faces. Had to run after six years of service. The then current warlords of that period were ... displeased with my cautionary advice, and declared me a traitor. In the end, I’m alive, and they were killed by their own greed. I couldn’t care less about those hot-headed idiots.

“I left the capital entirely, not willing to deal with their soldiers on a constant lookout for me, and still frustratingly empty-handed. Found a cave system I could hole up in, and exercise my trade to those brave enough to find me. I was over ninety-two years old when I found a dark-aura’d interloper landing outside my residence...”

1255 years ago
Agatha, “the Seer”, aged 92

Outskirts of town, inside the Ender’s Hills.

A foreboding aura landed outside my residence, an unused cave.

This was not a surprise. Every morning, after I got up, I meditated for a few hours, to check for threats against my life. This occurred more often than one would think. They think I’m old, feeble, and absent minded.

Those arrogant ones, flaunting their dark magics like they were immortal? They stopped coming after I reminded them they weren’t invulnerable.

That morning, I foresaw a lost soul, his steps weighed down by despair, seeking revenge, destruction, annihilation. He was desperate for anything that gave him an edge, no matter the danger to his own life. He found a file about me.and, with nothing left to lose, decided to test his luck by visiting me.

There were multiple warning signs nailed or hung in various places around my entrance. The largest read “Those with Ill Intent Beware: Death Traps.” the implication being if that if I thought you safe, I would leave the traps off.

I had already made plans to perform maintenance on the traps that day, and due to the delicate nature of the task, his arrival slipped from my mind when he spent so long flitting outside the entrance trying to find it. Though when he found it, he slipped in almost immediately, with only a half hearted glance at the warnings.

I had an entire hallway wired up with traps ranging from trip wires and spring loaded darts all the way to boulders and recessed guillotines. Almost all over them were held in place by heavy rope, prevented from activation. Safety catches diverted the triggers sprinkled liberally along the path to abode.

I had spent all morning dissembling one of the safety catches. The clutches that held the traps from activating kept slipping, causing the trap to activate whether I wanted it to or not. Then I caught notice of the ropes further away from me shuddering as the safety catches activated. Those traps were all safe. Except for the one I was still oiling.,which was missing the safety clutch altogether. I dashed out of the basement, scooping up a slingshot along the way and a fist-sized sandbag lying in a pile of spares. There was no time to reassemble the safety by talon, nor physically hold it back without tearing my shoulders out. My wings spread slightly, flapping where I could to get me to the exit faster.

I punched the trapdoor off with a clenched fist, my wings slapping me out of the square hole, sending a brown rug bouncing off the ceiling. As my upward velocity slowed, I pulled the slingshot’s band back, sandbag loaded. My eyes locked onto the red eye-pits of the surprised griffon with my own glowing violet irises. My magic blinded me with hallucinations, branching possibilities and blurry trails. I started a countdown I hissed under my breath.

Milliseconds whirled past.

I fired the bag, knocking him flat on his back. The bag bounced, and landed straight onto the pressure plate he narrowly avoided. We shared a moment of heart-pounding silence at the massive guillotine pressed into the floor.

I hissed in pain, having to catch myself with my wings. But he was alive. Damn fine line, I thought to myself as I heaved myself out to observe the visitor.

Obviously, it was Wally Falcowolf. He was marginally less decayed than he is now. The massive gash across his face was already there, but he could still mostly pass as possessing a heartbeat that day, if one could look past the multitude of scars he had already accumulated.

He was right outside the main entrance-hallway, which led to the hub of my cave system. The hub held the trapdoor to the Trap Maintenance hallway, a small table for receiving guests, and a few sorted piles of simple tools, like pebbles, explosive slingshot ammunition, some knives, and ink bottles. Two other hallways led away from the hub. One was my nesting area, though it only consisted of a thick carpet where I meditated on, a spare slingshot, and an emergency spear. The other room led to a kitchen of sorts, with an icebox and bookshelves filled with assorted equipment, from shovels and hoes to cutlery and washcloths. And a few books, for reading and writing. A few wall-mounted mana globes kept the chambers and the rest of my abode lit a soft orange.

Wally had just managed to sit up, but his eyes were still boring a hole through the blade in front of him, staring at black stains from victims not perfectly cleaned off. I went to the small side table and picked up my mask. It was a bone white skull design, something I bought off a vendor for some festival long ago. I generally wore it around visitors, to decrease the chances of people remembering my face. It also gave me an otherworldly vibe, which suited me just fine.

“Hey chick,” I called out, “that's the last of them. Go around the ropes and out of the tunnel. It's warmer here. I’ll leave them deployed, fix them later so you won’t accidentally stumble on them again.” I watched impassively as Wally shook himself out of his stupor, and timidly shuffled around the blades.

“You’re ... Agatha?” he whispered.

I tilted my head. “Of course,” I said my eyes glowing violet.

With Wally still twitching at every move I made, I fired up my magic, to investigate the clouded figure I had foreseen earlier this morning. My eyebrow raised.”You’re a lot different from those earlier ones,” I murmured.

A few years back, I was met with a similar oppressive aura that Wally extruded visited my doorstep, and I ended up having to chase them off with a spear, which led to me being blacklisted by the Enlightened forever. But instead of being tossed and flared about in pride, Wally’s aura was suppressed, held tightly in control. It was a soul that had seen the abyss, and was terrified that it looked like himself.

All the power, yet suffocating restraint that desperately sought for answers. It was the answer to my quest for excitement. I needed to keep him alive for as long as I could, and this didn’t just mean a century or so. He had become a lich merely a year prior, and that instantly granted him with a greatly extended lifespan. Might even have something to keep myself alive, as well. More time to supervise. His future was clouded too, and it felt unnatural. Almost as if someone or something wanted to lower my chances of finding him.

I dug deeper, wanting to know exactly how he ticked, and how he could be ... convinced to follow my lead.

“Thirty years old,” I murmured, my mouth going on autopilot as I pushed my magic to its limits, grasping at the flickers of paths set in shadow. It's strange, how I seem to be able to look forwards in time with ease, yet barely backwards. I can see the flicker of possibilities changing with each breath I take, but the days long past set into unchanging darkness.

“Intensely driven, flycakes...” A heart that can be switched off on a beat, both literally and metaphorically. “A nightmare of a warrior, surrounded by praise but forever lost.”

He was my ticket to getting out of my stalemate. I needed him under my guidance--

“What do you want?!” he squeaked out, interrupting my thoughts.

I looked at the cowering Potoo, and felt a momentary stab of guilt. It was quickly buried by the determination that kept me going for all these years. I will survive, and they won’t be able to do a thing about it. But... no reason to be a dick about it. I called, “You have a mission I hear you want some assistance with, yes? I’ve been cooped up for too long. I am very willing to listen.”

Wally slowly stepped into the mage-light, tail between his legs and trying to make himself seem smaller. “Right. My mission.” He took a deep breath and held his head high. “I would like to request assistance in taking down the Enlightened, and ensure their legacy be ground to ashes. They are a corrupting force, selfish, and have no-”

I nodded, my eyes pulsing briefly with magic. “Yeah, I figured. Dealt with them before, if you haven’t heard. Don’t really care that much about your motives. Even if you did nothing, they will fall by the end of the decade. Bloodier, too. But that’s what you wish to do, isn’t it? Direct their anger all on yourself until its too late.” I tapped my chin. “Alright, if you wish to guarantee success, ignore the first congregation you see in five years and ten months. Two months later, an extremely well-connected individual will arrive. I am willing to help you prepare for a perfect run, along with a momentary dip in security that will let me get in to assist you more directly. For this, I ask ... a favor.”

“What ... what do you need,” he droned out despondently. “Do you need me to retrieve something? Kill? Torture--”

I rolled my eyes and cut him off, placing my talons on his shoulders. His dead, blank eyes slowly looked up towards mine, surprising me, sending me searching for words. Looking directly into his shivering eye-flames, I said, “Just ... I mean, don’t worry. I am near certain that you, I mean we can end the blight that is the Enlightened from these lands.”

He exhaled softly, slumping under my grip. He looked up, apprehensive. “Then, what about that ...”

“Oh, the favor.” I stepped back and chuckled. “That’s what you’re worried of?”

He seemed to find some sort of resolve within him, straightening up his posture. “I’ve already spilled oceans of blood. I am willing to do anything to guarantee your assistance.”

“So dramatic.” I smirked at him. “I want to help you. I haven’t been able to get in myself, they keep a very, very tight watch. You, however, can saunter right in. I merely want to ask you to ... try to stay alive, yeah?”

Wally paled. “....why? I am a monster. I don’t deserve existence! I want to die!”

I scoffed, sitting on the edge of the low table. “How selfish of you. You claim seeking redemption, but just stop here?” Wally froze, and shrank in on himself, his eyes blank. “All you’ve done is kill, kill, kill. There are lives you can save outside of your petty dreams of honor. Lives that will be lost if you continue seeking your ‘glorious’ death.” I spat. “Nothing’s glorious about death. No one will care.

“However, if you would let me guide you, I will ... ensure that your talents can be used to save lives. Change the course of history. That is worth fighting for.”

Wally slowly stood up, his eyes facing the ground. “... I understand your simple request, and I am able to carry it out. Tell me what to do, Seer” he said, bowing down.

I smiled wide, teeth flashing. “Good, good. Now, you remember the layout of your hideout, correct?”

A week later, Wally quietly returned to his residence, the den of Enlightened hiding away inside his hometown of Dirchland. Every once in a long, long while, when a hallway or room is quiet for longer than twenty minutes, he hides away, leaving later with a faint coating of sawdust.

On any other day, he attended his duties as required, further staining his soul. Only regular visits to Agatha and her assurances of the mission’s path kept him from breaking and starting the slaughter early.

It was a long, long five and a half years.

Wally sat in his bed, listening to the hustle and bustle outside. There was a big event happening, but Wally had stopped paying attention long ago, merely going through the motions. The only thing he knew was that today was the day. The Founder was going to be here today. He won’t leave, not if the plan played out correctly.

He slid a ratty diary from underneath his cot, and flipped to the early pages. His punctured heart echoed reflexively, despite being filled with dust for years. He read a few entries before he close his eyes and snapped it shut. No matter how hard he tried, he could scarcely remember the joy and optimism he felt when he felt like he was home.

Perhaps it was fitting, in a way. The old Wally Falcowolf had died. Only a walking corpse was left.

He slipped the worn papers back underneath his bed, right next to a softly pulsing orb, and stepped out of his room. In exchange, Agatha had given him a gift. It was a mask similar to the pale white one she owned, but with faded grey markings on the top, a talon reaching down to hunt the mountains they owned. The crest of the Griffon Royal Army. The one he was never able to get in.

Agatha told him it was an older one of hers, and might help distract those he encountered. He additionally marked it with a thin red line through the left eye socket, a reminder of the day that saved him.

The hallways were near empty now. No one would dream of missing this event if they could help it.

The only ones left were those who dealt with maintenance and guarding locations of importance. Already accounted for.

Nothing left to do but wait. He squatted near his room’s door, and peeled back a sliver of wall to reveal a glowing wire. He touched the tip of his talon to the end, sending a brief pulse of mana through it. A second later, it pulsed back.

They were ready.

Wally stared at it, unblinkingly. Then it pulsed again, twice. He slapped his mask on, then wrenched his room’s door open, and sprinted out, wings flapping to boost his speed. A startled cultist nearly dropped a small pile of papers in surprise, almost running into Wally’s tail.

He didn’t stay startled for much longer, seeing as the wall next to him instantly detonated.

5 minutes previously
I sat outside the hideout, hidden behind trees. Seeing as these griffons weren’t stupid, I was forced to wait quite far away due to the utter lack of cover. Wally was still able to subtly lay a line through the grass into the hideout, one end of which I was holding. Griffons, all trailing that oppressive aura, buzzed right beneath its surface, sending uncomfortable tingles through my senses.

In my bags I carried a slingshot, and four large talon-fuls of smaller versions of the mana-orb bombs I directed Wally to plant all throughout the hideout. My mask rested on top of my head.

Finally, after a few hours of waiting, I felt the tingle of magic tickle my talons. “Right on time.” I whispered, smiling. My heart began to dance in eager anticipation. My free talon started tapping the ground to a private beat, in time with the aura of magic dancing around my closed eyes.

I sent the signal through the wire.

My eyes snapped open, purple flames trailing eyelashes. I pulled my mask over my face, letting only the purple glow of leaking mana escape its shadows. “Let’s dance.”

A shockwave blew through the cultists home, sending the guards to their knees. They recovered quickly, and calmly pulled open the door to figure out the situation. They flew out an instant later in a tangle of limbs and aerosolized blood.

I darted out of the trees. Slingshot gripped between my beak. I spread my wings and pushed to unearth a embedded spear flung from the entrance as I closed in. There was a bloodied head, struggling to stand up.

I landed on top of him, purple flames dancing off my mask as I leered down into his horrified eyes. I stabbed downwards onto the nexus of dark energy, and shattered his Soul, his Phylactery[1], and he was no more.

I glanced at the gaping doorway, smoke trailing from the shattered doors and screams of surprise and pain echoing through its corridors. I laughed. “All according to plan,” and ran in, slingshot readied.

I paused briefly at an intersection, at the flicker of light underneath a closed door. Ha! Found you, I thought, before moving on.

I jumped onto a corpse, sliding on blood with my slingshot stretched. I skidded to a stop at a T-section hallway, and locked eyes with a dazed griffon trying to wake a fellow.

Twang

I looked ahead, hearing sounds of fighting. Seems like Wally found some survivors. He had a tendency to slow down to stabilize himself. I merely had to deal with stragglers, easily incapacitated with a explosion through their torso. Seconds after the bombs went off, I managed to catch a sight of his tail turning around a corridor, pink-tinted smoke in his wake.

I half-spread my wings and loped after him. Eighteen ... Nineteen ... Twenty.

As if seeing an invisible wall, Wally froze right before an intersection. A heartbeat later, the hallway in front of him exploded into a shower of splinters and ash. A corpse smoldered in the clouds of burning mana, her phylactery shattered from the directional shockwaves. Good, I thought. He remembered the timings. Then again, there wasn’t that much to keep track of.

Wally stepped forwards calmly, sparing a brief glance at the pitter patter of furious talons sprinting up behind him, then ignored him completely.

Twenty-four, twenty-five, six.

Another blast sent the Enlightened’s body sliding across the red floor, splinters the size of pencils embedded everywhere. He might have survived if he took no more injuries. I hopped on top of him and stabbed a borrowed spear through his skull, piercing his soul. Blue mist quietly dissipated.

And now, thirty seconds left. Wally began to speed up, blades of red buzzing by his wings as he sent piercing blows against any confused and terrified soul unlucky enough to still be alive in his path.

One minute

Wally pushed through the doors to the hideout’s auditorium, and had to pull back a bit to let past an escaping cloud of embers and shrapnel. My bombs had done their job, but it couldn’t cover everything. Those standing on stage were at best badly dazed and at worst turning red with fury. The boards of the stage were too thick, too well constructed. Our targets were too experienced, too paranoid. Any attempts at modification would take too long, and be too obvious.

I trailed silently, watching Wally launch himself off the back and plow the giant griffon in the middle into the backstage. The rest of the Enlightened stare in shock before gathering their wits and raise swords and crossbows.

Wally snapped his head at them, a red glow glaring out through his mask, and leapt into action. He ducked underneath a bolt, and slapped the head of the crossbow away from him before stabbing a needle through his stomach

crack

Purple smoke.

He grabbed the crossbow from the griffon’s limp claws and quickly finished the reload. He saw the glint of steel from the corner of his eye, and quickly made a rolling jump, flipping over the griffoness’s stab. I watched a memory overlaid over her body, and Wally tracked it with the crossbow, as if he had future-sight, not me. The trigger was pulled.

The bolt embedded itself underneath her shoulder

crack

Emerald mist.

Wally crouched and gathered two pillars of flies to his sides, and shot them up. Two corpses flew overhead, their battle cries cut off.

Wally slowly exhaled, his limbs falling. He gave the cold corpses a tired glance, the crossbow slipping from bloodied talons.

“The age of Ganada is over! This is our world now!” And then a giant bloodied griffon stepped out of the splinter’d mist, grabbed Wally’s head, and flung him face-first into the auditorium wall, sending a spray of wood-dust; Wally’s head ricocheted violently. His mask crumbled to pieces, leaving his face bare as he clutched a near sheared beak, and his neck lolling violently from what was sure to be a broken neck.

The massive griffon roared in anger. It wasn’t hard to miss the empty-socketed eye. “TRAITOR! What made you turn from the true path!?”

Wally hissed wordlessly, unsteadily standing on all fours and flexing his claws.

The griffon I never bothered to learn the name of sneered. “Then you will die with the rest of them.” He lifted a claw and gathered a point of boiling heat.

That was my cue. I grabbed a mana-sphere and glided down on quiet wings. Wally blinked at the glowing explosive in my palm, and gathered a meager buzzing shield.

“You think that is enough?” The griffon asked, incredulous.

“If shielded by your body,” Wally rasped back.

I let the orb release.

A moment later, I landed on the dusty stage. There was still a red glow deep within the shredded flesh that was once the coordinator for the entirety of the Enlightened, and to my surprise it was still wriggling. “No. None of that now,” I muttered. I grabbed a dropped crossbow, its bolt never fired, and fired it at the pulsing shine within.

clink

I tossed the weapon aside, grumbling at the blood staining my talons. “So uncivilized,” I muttered. I walked around the cooling/cooled corpses towards the crater in the wall. “Wally, you still there?”

Two points of ghostly flame lit up, accompanied by a scratchy groan. A talon grabbed at his skull, and forced it back onto his spine with a loud snap. I grabbed his outstretched talon and helped pull him out, brushing off a few of the splinters embedded in his back, while he worked on making sure half of his shattered bones could hold until he could work on fusing them solid again. Wings looked like a lost cause for now, seems like they took the brunt of the impact.

“Time?” Wally said, a faint mist of blood wafting out of his beak.

“About five minutes or so before we need to book it,” I said, “plenty of time.”

He sighed, and took off for the last place left untouched. When he had passed through the doors of the shattered auditorium, I laughed.

Back in her room in Plan P, Agatha laughed harshly. “And that’s how the Falcowolf was made.”

Author's Note

To be continued in Flashback 3.2: The Lord of Flies, The Manipulator, and The Dragon

So, I'll keep on sitting here whacking away on my keyboard. Alone. Is my writing really so bland to have nothing to talk about?

Link to "Post Writing thoughts"

In case it wasn't obvious, half of Wally's base raid scene was ripped from DX: Mankind Divided.

8: Auxiliary

I looked over my notes. From what I could tell upon having an actual extended conversation with Agatha for the first time, she carried herself on an air of arrogance around her. I suppose its somewhat deserved, seeing as she tended to plan her entire day days or more in advance. Though her few twitches and side glances she sent gave me the impression that she was either barely keeping her own path straight, or the world’s best actor.

Afterwards I went searching for Dimitri on Agatha’s recommendation. I left my room and wandered down the stairs and through the halls. The small Bar the Club stocked was dark. The kitchen and main room was quiet too.

I eventually found Dimitri sitting alone in the Fireplace Room. We didn’t really have central heating back then, a massive fireplace was all we had for cooking and boiling.

She looked up from a bottle she was gently swirling. “I’m next, huh?”

I blinked in surprise. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Nah,” she said, dismissively waving me off. “This is honestly what I spend a lot of my time doing once I’ve delivered whatever Agatha wants me to deliver.”

“But ... bwaahh?”

“Thinking about the time we first met? Yeah, sorry about that.” Dimitri propped her elbow on the table and slumped her face into her talon. “Agatha needed a way to quickly get you onboard. I’m the only one who can keep a straight face when selling some story I didn’t really believe in.” sigh “This wasn’t what I expected when I tried to go into journalism.”

I followed her example and collapsed onto a chair, staring blankly into the flames. “So ... you guys don’t ... need ... me?”

“Eh, it was probably something that needed to be done eventually.” She shrugged. “Personally, I’m just here because I vowed to keep an eye on Wally’s back, among other nebulous things Agatha told me to ‘wait’ for. Apparently, she has a job for me ... in a few centuries, if things go well.”

“Oh. And me?”

She gestured at the writing implements in my bag. “Well, you’re doing good work, and you have a goal, as the result of Agatha’s machinations. She’s the only one who really has a long term idea of what she wants to do, so we just ... follow her lead. It’s worked for you, hasn’t it?”

I picked my scrolls and quills out of my bag with my lips, dropped them into my hooves, and stared at them. “...yeah, I guess it has.”

“Most of us here are like that,” Dimitri said, taking a sip. “We’re wanted criminals in our homelands, and we got nowhere to go. How much is it was caused by her hand is anyone’s guess, but there’s really no point speculating now, other than to make the best of it. You get?”

I took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. “If she has need of me ... alright, fine, I’ll do the same.” I flipped open the scrolls. “And her lead leads me here. What did Agatha drag you here for?”

Dimitri lifted her drink and chugged half the bottle. She blindly dropped the bottle back onto the table and wiped her beak with the back of her talon. “Yeah, I wasn’t planning on joining the Honeycomb Club, but well, you know how Agatha is. If she has her sights on you, and she gives you a choice? Reject her. Live a boring life and fade away. Otherwise, she grabs hold of you and never lets go.” Dimi laughed humorlessly. ”Yet even then, she didn’t really give me a choice. Just like your rejection at that moment was unfathomable to you.” She looked into my eyes, just the slightest bit unfocused and hollow. “This is how Dimitri Heneken made her last mistake.”

As you know, I was born Dimitri, of the Heneken vineyards family, roughly hundred and fifty years ago. I knew Wally when we were kids, both of us ending up together due to our ... relatively frailty. We stuck together, originally out of necessity to make it harder for bullies to go after us. Wally was the one who went trying to ‘guard’ me, probably from real or imagined pressure from his family.

Eventually, we grew up. I went to help my family's wine business, while Wally ... had a mental break.

I even went looking for his family, but they too had no idea where he disappeared to. After a year or so, he showed up at the bar I worked at. He walked in with little fanfare, greeting me like an old friend despite that tang of dried blood cloaking him and clean open wounds dotting his figure. The red glow I could only barely see under his breast told me enough, however.

As I know Wally had already told you, a cult of dark magic users was recruiting, and Wally had been one of them to answer the call. He already had the skills, but he was always too frail to execute them.

Now he was finally be able to apply them, and made a name for himself in the cult’s ranks for almost casually tearing through their training courses. I could see that confidence in the way he held himself. I was happy that he had found his purpose ... but I feared that the companion I once knew would soon be lost.

I started investigating. I’m not sure what I wanted to achieve, but at the very least I wanted to know what my friend was looking for, and maybe ... maybe if I knew what he wanted, I would also know what I could do to save him.

I asked around, I observed, I recorded. I stubbornly clung to whatever scraps of information I could find on the cult. Where they went, what they did, what they wanted. I ran dangerously close to their attacks, so I could glean their rhetoric. What they believed in, what they strove towards.

Eventually, I figured I learned enough to pretend to be an eager learner. I would work to get them to take me in, and maybe I could get ahold of Wally in a private place.

Whether by cursed luck, or by design, the day I chose was the day the Seer burned it all to the ground. I’m not sure if death would be a mercy. Maybe that’s why she knew I had no choice to begin with.

“Here, laddie,” the large, old, and weathered looking griffon said as he handed me a glowing magenta crystal. “Keep it safe at all costs, as this is you from now on.”

I carefully clutched it between my claws. If I squeezed it, I could almost feel an ethereal pressure pushing on me from all directions. I gulped. I couldn’t back away now.

I shook talons with the doctor, thinking about what to say to Wally when I tracked him down, when the facility shook violently. I nearly fell to the floor, and winced when the crystal, my soul, bounced off the floor. I grabbed a bracelet from a rack on the wall and fastened my soul onto it. I put it on as the doctor poked his head out the door.

He hastily pulled his head back and slammed the door shut, a few slivers of splinters and smoke escaping anyways. “I think it be best if we stay inside,” he said, wiping sweat off his brow.

“W-what’s happening?”

“I don’t know how, but someone has invaded our home.” He sent a worried look at the door. “And winning.”

Fear fell like lead into my stomach. Some rotten luck I had, where the one day I entered into something illegal was the day I died for it. I didn’t even get to find where my friend went.

I collapsed into a corner of the room as the doctor barred the door with chairs and tables. Then even he ran out of things to prepare for. Instead, he paced back and forth, sending worried glances at the sounds of silenced screams and muffled explosions.

Time passed. Bits of blood leaked through the doorframe.

I wondered if it was a gang war or a Royally mandated raid, and who would be more likely to spare me.

Then a buzzing red blade pierced the door. Three more pushed through, and with quick swipes carved the obstructions into wood scrap.

The doctor could barely take a step forward before a blood-soaked griffon leapt through the gap and plunged his blade into the doctor’s stomach. Orange shards flew out of the doctor’s back, and then he dropped like a sack of rocks.

Flame lit eyesockets turned towards me as the bloody griffon summoned the buzzing blade out of the corpse. His next step took him over me, one talon wrapped around my neck and the other wrapped around my soul.

Despite the blood, despite missing half his face, despite wood embedded in the other half, I saw Wally’s eyes staring blankly into me. “W-wally?” I wheezed.

The stabbing motion Wally’s blade made jerked off to the side. The flames in his eyesockets flashed once. He slowly backed away, limbs shaking, before his eyes went dark and fell down onto his haunches, head bowed.

Suddenly, there was silence. The explosions seems to have ended after a continuous fifteen minutes of chaos. There were no groans or shouts of pain outside, only a heavy, fatal silence. The only things I could hear were my own raspy breath and the drip of blood falling off Wally’s head.

Then ... there was the soft taps of wrapped paws on wood. A talon waved away some of the smoke from the door, and I got my first glimpse of Agatha as she pushed up her mask. She looked much the same as she did now, but a century younger in mind. She doesn’t use a phylactery, claimed that the energies blinded her personal magic. Time and a flawed rejuvenation spell stole her effortless grace in the present day, but here, she seemed to always move exactly where she wanted. She barely looked as if she just wandered through a bloodbath.

She tossed a bloodied sword to the ground; the only sign Wally heard was the tiniest of twitches.

“This is one heck of a mess here, chick,” she snarked, leaning against a broken door frame, casually missing every single jagged plank. She turned her piercing purple gaze onto me. “And what are you here for?”

“I-I-I was l-looking for Wallace,” I managed.

She rolled her eyes. “Congratulations, you found him.Hello. Goodbye.” She straightened, turning away. “Come, chick, we have places to raid, guards to evade.”

Wally shifted to his feet, quietly stepping after her.

“Wait, no!” I cried. I quickly stood up, and nearly fell over from vertigo. “Wally, what happened to you.”

“There is no Wally here,” he rasped. "There's only a monster left wearing his skin."

“That monster let me live, despite everything,” I shot back. “That same ‘monster’ befriended a nobody. You’re not a killer--”

“But I am!” Wally said, his teeth gritted. “This is what I’m good at. What I’m only good at.”

“Yet here you are, despite everything,” I pleaded. “You’re still you.”

“Wally is dead! What do you see in this?” he asked, pointing at his ... utter mess of a face.

“I see someone in regret. If you can’t see it in yourself, then let me help you,” I pleaded. “If Wally really is dead, then let me honor his memory, and watch over his grave.”

"Oh?" The Seer looked up frow her casual looting.

Wally tensed as Agatha turned to peer over her shoulder straight into Wally’s eyes, a smirk dancing over her beak. “Oh! Well, guess you better hurry. The guards are coming soon after all.” She stepped away. “Now come along now. The library needs raiding, and there’s some scrolls I want to collect before we leave.”

I look worriedly at Wally, who was digging his claws into the floor. I stumbled unsteadily towards him, almost falling before his arm shot out and caught my shoulder. “You alright?” I asked.

He didn’t turn to look at me, he just lifted my bracelet, my soul, glittering in the gloom. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Cold fingers wrapped around me, and my mind went blank.

Agatha glanced back as Wally loped in. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

Wally glared. “Retrieving the cart.”

“She knows where it is?”

Wally raised the glittering gem. “Its within 100 meters.”

“Ah, of course.” Agatha walked through the smoky ruins of the library, plucking scrolls out of fallen bookshelves and broken talons. With a clatter, Dimitri glided down through a tear in the ceiling, the cart behind her, and her eyes blank and unfocused. Wally stepped besides Agatha and helped stack all the scrolls into the covered cart.

“Right, we’re nearing the wire,” Agatha said, looking up. “Let’s go, there’s one more place I want to investigate before we leave the city.”

I gasped and fell to the floor, scrambling back. “What was that!?”

Wally tossed my bracelet to my feet. “Secure it at all costs. Sacrifice limbs if you must, for losing it means your life is forfeit.” He peeled back a bit of skin on his chest, letting the dark red light of Wally’s own soul to spill into the snow.

“Didn’t seem to inhibit either of you too much,” I snarked, tying the gem back onto my wrist. I’d need to get suggestions on where to hide it after this.

“Indeed,” Wally sighed, his head drooping again. “Not much you can do when The Seer sets her eyes upon you.”

I looked around. “Where are we? And where’s ... uh, what’s her name? Its not just ‘Seer,’ is it?”

“Agatha,” Wally grumbled. “Told me that she was tracking Lich movement last year. Followed individuals leaving secret bases with hidden equipment. One of them is an underground lab...”

[1 year before]

Agatha chatted with a seller in the marketplace, quietly watching the convoy out of the corner of her eye under the shadow of her traveling cloak. Every so often, she briefly ducked her head as a her eyes flashed with magic to check her emotional state in the next five minutes.

Nothing. Normal parameters.

She exhaled quietly. As useful as getting a phylactery would be, the blinding of her best skills was completely not worth it. It also made tracking them a hell of a lot more dangerous, since it still started affecting her even from a distance. The convoy went wide around the town, and towards the less populated areas of the town. Which wasn’t surprising really. The past few wars had left a few coastal cities abandoned, to be rebuilt when the economy improved. This left several warehouses uninhabited.

Once they left the city, she was forced to rely on pure stealth and distance, to her displeasure. Though it had been a long time since, but the lessons from a life long past stuck despite herself.

A few hours of traveling led her to climb onto a rooftop and sneak in through the rafters, tying a scarf over her face to keep the dust on the beams from getting into her nostrils. She watched the group she was trailing walk among abandoned shipments and then ... paused. They tapped the ground, and waited as a trapdoor slowly opened.

She hummed quietly, watching them disappear. She snacked on smoked meat waiting, and a few hours later the ponies left again. She waited a little longer before dropping to the floor and investigating the trapdoor, but was almost immediately beset by invisible spears of hate and pain lancing behind her eyelids.

Agatha growled, stepping back and blinking her stinging eyes. Intentional or not, whatever research they were doing here made it near impossible for her own magic to see anything of use.

With a frustrated sigh, she focused on whether she saw herself running out.

Nothing.

Well, either everything would be fine, or she got captured. Might as well hurry, before they came back from their lunch break and complete confidence in not needing a guard.

Agatha slipped pins out of her bag, and quickly lockpicked it. They didn’t bother with a serious lock either, not that it would it stop her, though she admitted to herself that whatever they hid in here did a lot to limit her options.

She carefully lifted the trapdoor and slid down the dark stairwell, her skin crawling. There was no natural light, no windows, forcing her to unwrap a small lantern to light it. She barely suppressed a flinch.

Rows and rows of cages, labeled and sorted for a library of unconsenting biological experimentation. She stepped through a walkway surrounded by chimeras, hissing and clawing and prowling mindlessly.

Ahead lay burning eyes from sparking fur. “Elementals,” she muttered. “How did they amass such power and do nothing with it? What are they waiting for?”

She reached the end of the room, and saw another locked door, this time actually heavily protected. She groaned, knowing that this time she would have to figure out how to open it manually, while dodging magical traps and against a time limit. Apparently there were something so secret the grunts weren’t allowed to see.

Before she could even begin planning a plan of action, she felt a piercing pressure smashing between her eyes. Garbled voices and noises briefly blasted into her brain without passing through eardrums. “You ... are not ... like the others,” a halting, telepathic voice forced into her mind.

Agatha wheezed, dagger in paling talon. “What? Who?”

”You are not ... one of them. Yet still, heartless”

Agatha dramatically clutched at her chest, forcing an unsteady grin onto her face through the pounding adrenaline. “Oh, you wound me.” She shrugged, and nodded, “Though I will ... admit I have some ... serious personality problems I need to fix before it gets me killed. Apologies. ”

She glanced at her white-knuckled grip on her dagger. “So ...”

You have need of something within the ... vault?. I do believe we have a common interest. Turn right, and walk.

Agatha nodded, carefully stepping through the dark corridors. Labels loomed in her lamplight, marking off a row’s research focus. Elements, Anti-dragon, Infiltration--.

Anti-Seer.

Agatha froze at the entrance.

Stop. This way. And keep. Going.

The mental pressure intensified, pushing her ever heeper through the aisle. It was quite obvious when she got to her mental voice's abode. Amidst countless prisons of deteriorating sanity and mindless rage, one cage sat quietly, waiting patiently for its prey.

Agatha’s smile came out as more of a grimace. “Hello there. May I ... have the honor of knowing the name of my host?”

The red eyes tilted its head. ”No name ... but my experiment designation was Stuart. Fifth variation. My host, like many of the others here, were hunted down or stolen for testing.

Agatha nodded, “So that’s how this arrangement works. Well, I’m Agatha--”

The Seer, yes. We know. The one the Dead would very dearly hope to eliminate from this plane. The one we were designed to kill.

“Ahh...” Agatha twitched under its gaze. “I assume from my current living status, that that mission is postponed?”

For now, though not necessarily indefinitely.

Agatha gulped. “So .... can I leave now?”

”I’d like to know WHY I shouldn’t kill you. From here, you seem poised to be just as dangerous to ME

"Ooh, yeah, my manipulation streak," Agatha said with a wince. "If its that obvious, I clearly haven't learned my lesson the first time around. Ok, let me start over."

Agatha closed her eyes and breathed in. When she opened them again, her eyes briefly flashed poison-yellow. "Look, right now the walking corpses are pissing the both of us off. Would they fall without me? Probably. But they've been a thorn in my side long enough that I want to piss on their ashes rob 'em blind. Plagiarize their legacy.” She shrugged. “Plus, I have a personal affinity for preserving any sort of knowledge.”

The shade considered her for a moment. “Why now?” it asked.

“Ah, my associate ...” Agatha paused as Stuart’s glare intensified. “Ah, see! I’m learning! Sorry. I found a turncoat and got him to feed me information to get through the blackout they created to counter me.”

“... The Vault. If you can free the geas on our minds through them, we will be in your debt.”

“Just make sure I don’t go off the deep end. If we can go a century without me trying to eat an energy field bigger than my head, we’re even. Also, we?”

”I am not the only one with their minds intact.”

“... I see. I’ll see what I can do, assuming I survive long enough to understand it”

The spirit sagged, suddenly tired. Alright. What will you do now?

“Finish up my preparations,” Agatha said, sitting on her haunches. “They’re gonna have a big meetup soon. Get ‘em all in one spot.”

”Good,” Stuart said, claws digging into the detritus inside his cage.

Agatha perked an eyebrow as she got up to leave. “Say ... you want revenge?”

“This lab in particular is specialized in animal experimentation. Most of them have, unfortunately, completely lost their sanity. Three managed to avoid that fate. Stuart-5, Anti-Seer, Weapon Fusion Experiment. Hellcat-18, Anti-Seer, Lightning Element mixing. Wildcat-36, Manticore fusion experimental, close air support. They really don't like their captors," Wally finished blandly.

"Uh." I glanced at the bracelet symbolizing my affiliation.

"They have been told of our arrival. Now come, the Seer should have finished toying with them."

I followed Wally into the warehouse, and through the hidden trapdoor. I was greeted by what he had described: a dimly lit bunker-library, if it contained screaming pet cages.

"G-get off me!" a voice screamed. A griffon backed into view, frantically trying to pry a miniature manticore off his wing. His efforts stumbled as a smoke-trailing pitch-black cat clamped onto a forearm, leaving him stumbling. A flash of steel heralded the arrival of a heavily stitched up rat, its tail more resembling a scorpian’s with its long, segmented joints, and a gleaming blade on the end. It bursted onto the panicking lich’s face and slammed its tail blade through the griffon’s neck. Yellow shards of crystal burst out the griffon’s back an instant before he bonelessly collapsed to his side.

Almost in unison, the three wraiths locked their eyes upon me and Wally. ”I recognize the red eyed one, even if he lost both eyes,” the rat hissed haltingly, its voice seeming to have no echo, ”but the little one ...” In a blur, the rat had smashed into my chest and knocked me flat on my back, its scorpion tail-blade pointed right in my eyes. I faintly noticed felt jaws clamp around my wrist. ”You. Aren’t. Familiar.

I gulped.

“Hmm?” Agatha strolled over the lich corpse, brushing flakes of crystal dust off her fur. “Oh her. Wrong place, wrong time. Got stuck in the same place as us while we were blowing the liches back to their grave. Terrible luck, honestly.”

”Luck?” the rat asked, staring at Agatha.

Said griffon blinked, but after a moment she winced and held up a talon. “Woah, I didn’t even know who she was until I met them. She volunteered to join us, since, well, anyone bearing a soul gem is probably going to be hunted down by the end of the week, especially if they have no idea what they’re doing.”

Frankly, it made me question my life choices all over again, but I nodded frantically since I really had no idea what to do with my giant weakness literally hanging off my wrist.

The rat thought in silence before mutely acknowledging Agatha’s reasoning. “Now what?”

“Now I loot everything I can carry, and bury the rest for later retrieval. Come on you two. Chop chop.”

I blinked as the animals stepped off me. “What?”

Agatha sighed. “You young chicks.”

The next thirty minutes was a scramble as Agatha broke into the vault with the three’s, tentatively nicknamed the Antibodies, help, and hauled out anything that looked important back to the cart left outside. Pretty soon the authorities would start a city wide comb for necromantic aligned safehouses. We couldn’t be found here, and we couldn’t let this place be found until we plundered everything.

“This place is the only one I hit personally,” Agatha explained when I asked if the Enlightened had made others. "Made a deal with the little guys."

I glanced at cages we passed as we crawled out the trapdoor. "And those guys?"

Agatha looked at where I was pointing. "What about them?"

"Can't we save them, or, or do anything about it?"

Agatha shook her head. “They’re gone, chick.” She pulled a tarp over the scrolls. “That’s what Wally is staying behind for.”

“What?”

She sighed. “They’re already dead. He’s making sure they’re reminded of that.”

Wally stood in the middle of the room. “Anyone else?” he asked, his shout barely able to carry over the few thousand screaming micro-monsters. Said creatures continued screaming. He sighed, his head bowed and his talons clasped together. “Forgive me. May you find peace.”

After a moment of (personal) silence, he raised his head, his glowing eyes buzzing with power. Motes of light fan out from his form, buzzing inaudible over the noise. Within seconds, they filled the whole room, sparks of energy arcing between them in a barely visible grid. They formed a mental observatory of stars, each point in the grid known to him. He focused, and grasped them as a whole, then twisted his body in a spiral. The grid followed suit.

A moment later, a thousand cages sheared into pieces, spraying a wave of poisoned blood covering Wally’s feet. The room’s supports cracked, creaked, and crumbled.

Wally turned and ran.

I jumped back slightly when Wally jumped out of the trapdoor, barely overtaking a cloud of dust. “The deed is done,” he rasped.

“Excellent!” Agatha cheered. She grabbed a few scrolls from her side and flipped it into the shallow sinkhole the trapdoor now led to. “That’ll make it seem like a hiding spot rather than a bunker. With hope they won’t dig any deeper. Now come on, let’s get out of here.”

.....

...

..

“And now we’re here,” Dimitri explains. “Plan P. Obfuscation over obfuscation, because all of us were wanted, and we have nowhere near the power required to defend ourselves.”

“How’s it been?” I asked.

“Thankfully, quiet.” She takes a swig. “Honeycomb keeps itself quiet, we really only have relations with the town a few minutes away. Appleton, its a place I knew from my brewery training. Agatha was pretty impressed I could locate an escape route so quickly.” She pauses. “Agatha does find time for me to visit my home though.”

I blinked. “Is it safe?”

“It was months after we left. My parents were thinking of retirement soon, Agatha helped arrange a disguise and a new identity so my parents could ‘hire’ me in order to take over the business. There’s a few guys there who manages the on site details, I work management and transport to reduce the time I stay there.” She shrugged. “I buried my parents by now, so, not really anything keeping me there.”

I placed a hoof over her talon. Dimitri gave me a tired grin.

“Anything else?” she asked.

I glance at the notes strewn all over the table. “I think I’m good. If I need to clarify something, I’ll go ask for you.”

“Alright,” Dimitri stood up and patted my shoulder as she left. “Good luck. I’m going to check the mail, if you need me.”

“Thanks!” I called.

I had just stumbled out of cross-referencing history books and comparing them to the interviews when Gladas found me. I entered the main room, grimacing at the plate of water-boiled greens I had set out for myself. Hours earlier.

I sighed at my inability to keep track of time, instead I smashed a hoof into the middle of the pile. Motes of green light bounced off my hoof and into the food. They hissed as they melted the leaves, turning it all into a mushy brown sludge. I picked up the plate and drank it with a slight wince. It tasted kinda muddy, with weird overlapping flavors and texture of wet powder. Needed more water, I thought, if I wanted to do that again.

I turned to go back to the basement library, but instead ate a faceful of down. I jerked back, blinking away feathers.

“How did you do that?” Gladas hissed.

I paused in the brushing of feathers off my tongue. “The whaf?”

“That plate,” Gladas repeated, with a strange intensity to her voice. “What did you do?”

I looked back to the table. “I ... reduced it.”

“I thought you were limited to compost.”

“Nooo? At least, I don’t think so.”

“Then figure it out.” Gladas motioned to her rear with a wing. “Honeycomb has cordial relations with Appleton, but without Marks of our own, our knowledge of them is limited. Until now. Understand it. Maybe you can fix something. Someone.”

I stared at my hoof. “O... kay.”

Gladas turned away, and set forth for the basement trapdoor. “If you find anything interesting, or need my help, you know where to find me.”

A moment passed.

“What secrets do you hide?” I mused.

Cutie Marks?

Yes. It is such an ingrained fact of our lives, that we never questioned what’s given to us beyond its immediate. Never broadened our horizons. You came with a horizon that’s already unimaginably broad.

I ... I see. What did you find?

For myself? The manipulation of entropy itself.

Author's Note

Yes, that was an overly extended homage to Bullets.

And I still suck at dialogue. Anyone willing to help edit for future chapters? Chat? Ah well. Is sad day when my troll fic gets the same amount of comments with 75% less people.

9: Diary 1/Jouney

Dear Diary

Its been a little over a decade since the Eternal Blizzard started. Missed the start of it while buried deep in my revenge project. Both Gladas and Dimi have scouted the skies above and confirmed that it stretches across most of the continent. Curiously, it seems to have the largest concentration around the capital cities of the Three Tribes, so it is unlikely to be some revenge plot by the unicorns.

What little information that gets out says that they’re going to try to move the greener pastures. If it follows them, we will make a note of it.

The parasites that killed my family have been finished off, though Gladas is planning a short trip to check for stragglers. She is very concerned about creatures that can bypass our natural durability so easily and drain the life straight out of our phylacteries.

As for me, I’m doing my best to integrate with the rest of the Honeycomb Club. Gladas is helping me catch up to, well, everything. I barely got in two years of schooling before I died the first time around.

They also started teaching me basic combat training, since bad weather is really only a minor annoyance to us, outside a slight increase in food intake to keep our joints from locking up. Might come in handy if I get injured during a blizzard and need to patch myself up through frozen solid flesh. I was quite curious about it when it first came up, especially when we are so focused on forming better relations with our neighbors.

Unfortunately, I learned that the fear from our predecessors are far ranging, and almost ingrained into every culture within a year’s travel, maybe even more. Despite our efforts, all indications point that we will find enemies no matter how well we present ourselves, and will need to fight hard in defense or preemptive retaliation.

Regarding our unique magics, Gladas has me focusing on soul control. Having the seat of your consciousness physically separated from your body has its advantages and disadvantages, and she wants to make sure I can minimize our natural weaknesses, especially the whole “get controlled the moment someone grabs hold of your soul” thing. Apparently we actually have some movement options even as a sentient gem? Who knew?

On the other hoof, my emotional problems ... have not gone so well. Gladas has been a great help, but the shadow of my home still haunts me. This isn’t helped by the emotive rigidity caused by the complete lockdown of bodily chemicals, leaving us stuck on our last thoughts.

In other news, my mentor has started on a new project. When she first heard about Honeycomb, she decided that, despite our undeath, we still needed a healer. Someone has to put us back together if we are blown apart somehow. And not in the creepy puppet way Mr. Falcowolf learned. She has made headway into repairs that make our injuries look less grotesque, but has hit a roadblock if the injury has gone as far as complete limb destruction. Multiple options are still being tried out. We may have to look into the incomplete chrono-repair spell for hints at the truth.

Agatha isn’t getting any younger, importantly. She’s stuck using that chrono-repair spell, except as mentioned, it doesn’t really work on living creatures, at least not the way she’s been using it. Us Phylactery users already create a bit of a blindspot, it would likely blind herself completely if she had to use it herself. But the spell is missing something. Errors are made, bits missing in the repair, even without restricting it to leave her brain mostly alone to prevent memory disruption.

I wish them luck. I have no idea where to even start. I can only make sure they don’t have to worry about me, though Gladas has expressed interest in whether my talent can provide insight. I will wait for her to give me things to try. For now, The Antibodies are next, I think. See you then.

--Cycle Garand Springfield

Present day

I gave a small snort at Twilight’s coo of amazement. As her horn’s glow lit up floating rune circles around a splintered wooden block reversed its damage, becoming a perfect cube.

Almost.

“This is amazing!” Twilight Sparkle said, eyes wide as she floated the cube in her magic. “How come I haven’t heard of it?”

I raised an eyebrow. “How long did it take you to learn this?” Twilight opened her mouth “-And take into account how your own skills compare to the average pony.”

“Ah ...”

“And on top of that, think about how much mana it used to fix something broken thirty seconds ago.” I tapped the cube, and a small layer of wood dust flaked off. “The ramp up in cost scales horribly, and even then, no matter how much mana you push into it, it never truly returns it into its original form.”

Twilight’s brow scrunched in concentration. “So, if applied to living tissue, you’ll be left with small cuts?”

I shook his head. “Worse. I assume you have taken at least a course in the biological sciences?”

“Of course!”

“Then tell me, what do you think happens when one’s body experiences full-body genetic data corruption?”

Author's Note

Edit (2020/5/8) Changed slightly due to slightly increased competence at story planning.

10: Anti body

They weren’t much for conversation. It seemed as if they were even quieter than flesh and blood creatures, ghosting through hallways on invisible paw steps, their eternally glowing sockets following you no matter how much they felt like pretending to be alive.

I felt the best option would be to observe, and ask the opinions of the rest of the members of Honeycomb. First, descriptions. The eldest was, ironically, the smallest, contained within the rat named Stuart-5. If your vision was truly horrendous, he may appear to be no more than a simple lab rat. However, on closer inspection, you would not be wrong for wondering how he isn’t dead.

Stitches seem to cover more of his body than not, with massively oversized claws and a mechanical-imitation of a scorpion's tail screwed on somehow. When angry, the skin on his face burns off like a bad memory, and you better hope his ire not be pointed at you. And you have to do something exceptionally dumb to put him in that state, in which there would be little option for you to defend yourself. Any physical contact with him will soon have you missing that bit of flesh, and more.

When not angry at someone’s foolishness, which so far, is most of the time, he ghosts through doorways to peer in quiet observation. Agatha is tailed by them most often by far, a constant reminder of the blade they hold at her neck.

The next is Hellcat, test eighteen. He used to be a black cat in life, now he’s the center of a constantly flickering torch. Stuart assumes they were trying to figure out how to transfer dragon traits. Hellcat has inherited a bit of the dragon’s trademark flaming breath, but not much of a dragon’s natural fire-resistant flesh, leading to his constant glowing-coal look.

Contrary to Stuart, Hellcat is a lot more placid, almost a stereotypical lapcat if it wasn’t from his quiet meekness to strangers. It takes months for him to place trust in anyone. Those he trusts however, will find a fierce protector. His straight line speed outmatches Stuart’s, and he will set himself aflame to get at his attackers, sometimes burrowing a hole straight through.

Finally, there is Wildcat, thirty-six. The lich wanted to try out manticore crossbreeds, thinking that both having feline characteristics would make the combination easier to take. Maybe that would have been true had they tried their experiment 100,000 years earlier. Unlike Stuart’s smoldering hate, Wildcat is far more spirited, in happiness and anger. She fiercely defends her little family, assisted by her ability to fly short distances and perch in places far above where one would expect a heavily clawed cat to be.

I watched them from a distance for a few weeks. Though they visited all of the Honeycomb members equally, they definitely spent the most time hovering in the Seer’s shadow.

“Bother me?” Agatha asked, pointing at herself. She laughed. "You couldn't be further from the truth! It's amazing, I'm learning something every day. I've never experienced having a moral code forced on me. How the heck do y’all function with self-doubt holding you back all the time?”

“By .... naturally not being an asshole?”

She tapped her chin. “Sounds difficult. Anyways, usually they come hovering in my shadow to remind me about the blade they’re holding over my head. It’s great! I can’t do anything about it. Though ... I will admit it is slightly frustrating in that they start glaring at me if I do anything more than practice with a slingshot, or exercise. My ability to wield a blade was already poor compared to even you, who started training less than a few months ago, out of decades of neglect. And my body is still near fully unaltered, so I’d have even more difficulty catching up.

“Then again,” she laughed, “it does mean that y’all get the knowledge that any resistance I put up will be utterly dismantled by any single one of you, so I don’t really have to worry about, say, Dimitri getting worried enough to perform an assasination.

“Otherwise? They just watch me.” She jerked a thumb behind her, through the window at a pair of red eyes I hadn’t noticed. “There’s a tiny black cloud sitting outside, that’s been sitting there for the past thirty minutes. They don’t approach me like they do with the others, they don’t rest near me (even if its near optional for them), they don’t make sounds near me. The only interaction I have with them is a deepening of their aura whenever they start getting suspicious of my actions, and I have to either explain myself or stop.”

I think most of Honeycomb realized that there was something really wrong with Agatha’s head, but with the Antibodies watching her, and the fact she’s arguably the least combat capable of us as the years goes on, we let her do her thing. She knows that she would swiftly run out of allies without the buffer the rest of the Club provides, and in turn the Club is sure she wouldn’t willingly backstab.

Yet.

The one the Antibodies hung around the most after Agatha is Gladas Falcowolf. I barely remember the smoky figures hanging around the corners during my own operation. Unlike Agatha, who revels in their barely veiled threats, Gladas is fairly fond of them.

“Yeah, they’re fairly nice to me,” Gladas said, brushing Hellcat’s head as it snaked by her side. “They helped me with my pet, well, friend, Blackbird. He’s a crow.”

I blinked. “I don’t think I’ve met him before?”

“He comes and goes. Right now I think he’s watching over a small group of corvids in the forest. Anyways, Stuart helped me split off a bit of my Phylactery to place within Blackbird. Now, I can help keep him alive through our bond. He’s almost ninety years old now.”

“Huh. I’d like to meet him sometime.”

“Sure. I’ll call for you whenever he comes to visit.”

“Anything else?”

Gladas tapped her chin. “I'll admit I’m kinda interested in how their bodies are coping with their mental passengers. Honeycomb is planning a few expeditions to recover data lost in the labs. Several of them, Agatha buried them so they wouldn’t get found.”

She shrugged. “Fortunately, we have time.”

The Antibodies act far more like the creatures they take the form of around the others, but they seem to be fond of Gladas the most.

I squatted in the grass, watching the three Antibodies. Their ability to stalk had gone to superequine levels; anything I could do would be infinitely more noisy than what they were doing now. Instead, I sat as still as I could with my piece of parchment, and a quill on my lips.

The three spread out, heads turning to keep their target in sight. Once in position, they burst into motion, with Stuart and Hellcat racing across the ground, while Wildcat spiraled into the sky.

In the middle of the clearing, Wally breathed out, and shifted his paws. A short hop to the side, and a curling of his limbs, left the two ground bound Antibodies catch nothing but air. A stripped branch, cut into a staff, shot into his grip, slapping Wildcat-- he hissed, tossing the staff into the air as Wildcat looped around and dove for his head.

I scribbled furiously into my parchment, watching as Wally shifted as little as he could to dodge or push away the speeding Antibodies. He slipped under and over their dangerous claws and teeth, what fur remaining on him rippling from their passage. His every carefully chosen sidestep moved him millimeters away from instant capture. His staff waved erratically to avoid Wildcat from swinging into his face. He flowed like water around the river sharp blurs weaving through his feet.

With each pass, Wally had to move more and more to avoid their grasping maws, their range and reach suddenly increasing, until Wally had no choice but to leap and roll forwards. In the brief moment where his eyes were obscured by the spray of snow, the Antibodies swerved like starving hummingbirds. Hellcat rushed his rear legs, knocking Wally off balance. Wildcat divebombed his free hand, forcing Wally to drop his staff against the floor to brace himself. Stuart landed nimbly on Wally’s chest, snapping his bladed tail over his back to tap Wally’s beak.

Wally sighed and dropped into the snow. “Your reach. Impressive,” he breathed.

Stuart tilted his head. “Anything less would be to let Agatha get away.”

The four of them did this pretty regularly. They choose a scenario and limitations, and see how long one could last. As far as I could tell, these four were likely the best powerhouses we had. I was still in training, Gladas field specialized in precisons, and Dimitri was ‘merely’ a decent melee fighter good enough to get away. Then there was Agatha, who barely did more than keep in shape.

Wally cared little about what the Anitibodies were, only what they wanted to do, and I think the Antibodies appreciated his straightforwardness. With each other, they don’t have to care about their appearances, nor the costs of the life they now lead. Together, they were monsters, and content.

I breathed a cloud of steam, stepping away as they discussed their session and storing my notes. I headed back to Plan P, kicking off the snow that clung to me on the doormat.

“This young?” a new voice asked.

I turned to see what appeared to be a heavy set dog standing on his rear paws. “It was an unfortunate accident that sent me here years ago,” I said, an eyebrow raised, “and now I am merely paying them back. Who are you?”

Several decades earlier

Wally’s talon squeezed Barnabee’s throat, slamming his head into the dirt. Wally’s other arm raised, a glowing blade hovering over his head.

“Hello there,” the Dog croaked.

“I know what you are, flesh golem,” Wally hissed. “For what reason did your masters send you here?” The blade drooped, repositioning its point to a spot on its neck that made the Dog’s blood freeze. “Speak, or forever hold no breath.”

He gave a short bow. “Barnabee Spirit, my fellow trainee.”

Author's Note

yes its kinda a pun. formed creatures specialized for anti-Agatha work

11: Artificial

Two beings walked into the Heneken family bar. The bartender looked up to find a tall, bipedal one in a cloak, and a positively tiny colt under a cloak.

“Miss Delia Heneken?” the tall one asked.

“Yes?” She narrowed her eyes slightly. She didn’t recall giving her name ... unless someone else--?

“My son and I have come a long way, and are hoping to find a place to rest.” He slipped a handful of coins onto the table.

“Oh, sorry, we don’t have--” as she moved to push the coins back, she saw a small folded piece of parchment. It was signed ‘From Dimitri’. Her eyes widened slightly, but she managed to hide how her spine briefly locked up.

She looked at them again through clearer, moist eyes. The Dog was familiar, standing a head taller than her on short, stocky feet. A listless face and large, limp arms gave out a feeling of unintelligent brute that made most ignore him. His face unsteadily looked her way, and slowly raised an eyebrow, his sharp focus suddenly becoming visible in the lamp light. “...we may have an opening. Please wait a moment.”

“Of course.” The dog moved to turn away, but paused. “Oh, and do remember to burn it when you’re done.”

“Ah, yes. I understand,” Delia nodded, with wide eyes, before quickly retreating to the backrooms.

The pair waited at a table, the room quiet. This early, no one had woken up yet. "How big is this place?" the colt, Cycle, asked.

"Enough to be funding most of our operations," the dog, Barnabee, replied. "A decent network of distributors. A false position of management in Appleton, keeps tails from sniffing too deep."

The bar door opened up again. "This way, please," Delia called.

The pair followed her down the stairs, muttering their thanks. A quiet sigh of relief at reaching their safe house in decidedly enemy territory.

"They're still searching?" Cycle asked, sliding his saddlebags onto the ground.

“The one in charge still remembers how Agatha had manipulated his predecessor, he is taking no chances,” Barnabee explained. “Whether this paranoia will last a generation is another question. Now rest. We move at moonrise.”

The moon shone brightly over the leafless trees. The Honeycomb pair loped over a series of abandoned buildings, many crumbling from a decade of neglect. There were no more guards here. Many wanted to forget the bloody battles digging out the remnants of the Enlightened. The encroaching unnatural winter from their south was only further motivation to consolidate their resources.

Cycle and Barnabee landed quietly in front of a collapsed warehouse, one that used to be a trade storage post, one that used to be a hidden laboratory of dark magic.

Barnabee crouched down, placing an oversized palm onto the dirt. Sparks of red electricity jumped out of his forearm and into the earth, seeking out ten pebbles of foreign origin. “Place your hoof next to mine,” he said.

Cycle tilted his head curiously, but did so. “What for?”

“The others, they all prefer wind and water," he paused, thinking. "And a dash of lightning. You. You can touch and know the Earth, Terrasire."

A spark of green magic joins the jittering fingers of red. He feels the shape of stone pegs, hidden blocks of limestone in exact chaos. With a clench of Barnabee’s fist, ten gears of dirt solidify around the pebbles. They turn, blocks of dirt and slabs of stone shifting and sliding away, a rotating aperture opening an uneven dirt stairway onto darkness.

Cycle blinked. “Wait, you’re giving me the key to this place?”

Barnabee stood up, rolling his shoulders. “If they didn’t trust you, they wouldn’t have sent you with me. Now let’s go. Vault’s waiting.”

The “Vault” the little group of undead hid was one of the last remnants of the undead revolutionaries (read: terrorists) decades before. Biologics and the magical manipulations of it were its specialties, especially considering the thousands of animal and animal hybrid skeletons in crushed cages. Perfectly sliced masonry decades past collapsed on cut cages before its inhabitants could realize their escape. Twisted steel mesh littered the floor, stained rust red. Every surface was covered in a thick layer of dark dust, swirling around the newcomers’ feet as they entered.

Yet, despite the destruction, precisely placed chunks of stone kept enough dirt off the forgotten paths to be just barely navigable to the back of the buried tomb. Enchanted dirt slabs kept enough of the earth still above the room to prevent a sinkhole from ruining their efforts.At the rear of the half-sunken chamber, the last repository of necromantic studies lay hidden. Barnabee slipped a scroll out of a pocket and began checking for the documents listed on the note.

As they flipped through dusty shelves, Cycle looked up, taking a breath, and asked. “Where did you learn that?”

Barnabee tossed another scroll into the growing pile behind them. “Hmm?”

“None of our other teammates cast the way you do,” Cycle continued. “It is alien to them, and nothing I’ve seen before either, from pony-watching Appleton.”

“It is indeed a style of magic from beyond your shores.” He stood up, grumbling. “Led by those who will surely lead them to ruin.”

Cycle leaned back slightly. “That seems like a harsh criticism. I thought you were from there?”

“No. Made there.” He paused, considering, then pulled back the side of his vest. There was a tattoo of a snake eating its tail. “They claimed a calamity destroyed their former home. Forced everyone to migrate for a new place. Indeed, there was a calamity. The Impact event was used to create me and my siblings.”

“That seems ... bad.”

“Indeed. It was a difficult task for your superiors to drill that into me. We were created to serve their interests.”

Cycle frowned. “Wait, so, how did that lead you all the way here?”

“Oh, I never mentioned that?” Barnabee tapped his chin. “You are here to uphold the legacy of your home, yes?”

Cycle nodded.

“I’ve spent more time around the outer cities of my home, and I admit I would be disappointed if it was all turned to smoke. In the end, I agreed with Agatha to work with her to ensure its continued survival. It would be my hope if my siblings would agree, but I rather face their betrayal than Sir Falcowolf’s blade a second time. Notwithstanding how likely it would be that the rest of the continent would gear up to eliminate us before my home becomes a threat.”

Barnabee sighed, standing up and gnawing a piece of steel mesh. “Let’s get this packed soon. We’ll need to be leaving by dawn.”

A few decades earlier, when Barnabee Spirit first found himself upon Plan P.

The Dog growled as he tested the enchanted chains tying his body to the chair. Wally sat on a table, tapping a quill against his beak as he mapped out the Dog’s travel path. Agatha paced in front of the prisoner, claws mussing up her crest.

“‘How to further the growth of your Empire’, oh Wind guide me,” Agatha seethed. “How blind have you been for you to -- right, your damn family.” She turned and slammed her talons onto the armrests. “Boy, let's get something straight. First--” Red sparks danced around Barnabee’s arms. Agatha snapped her claws.

Barnabee howled as Wally wordlessly fired a buzzing blade into the Dog’s shoulder without even looking up from his map.

“First, I was being nice in not giving you a lesson with you limbless,” she seethed, leaning into his face. “Second, your Empire’s goals are in direct conflict with mine, notwithstanding the amount of wannabe heroes y’all are gonna kick up. I’m barely able to keep my own people alive as is.”

"Muttress is powerful!" Barnabee shouted back. "We will achieve perfection."

“Oh my god there’s another one,” Agatha said, leaning back and a talon dragging down my face. She gave the prisoner an annoyed glance. “Kid, the last time a group chased perfection the entire country got together to blow them up.”

“You were there?” Barnabee interrupted, ears alert. “I’ve heard about them ...”

Agatha gave him a suspicious look. “Yes, and they were an abject failure. Let they be a lesson: there’s no point in achieving immortality if your first step involves pissing off everyone on the continent. Your enemies will bleed, your enemies will choke, but your enemies only need to get lucky once. You come here, asking how to get closer to it? You'll find nothing but flames ... or pretty lies.” She rapped Barnabee’s forehead. “Use that perfect brain they gave you, and think for yourself for once in your life. What do you want? No, not what your masters trained you to repeat. Actually go into the Empire you claim you want to uplift, and see for yourself. If you find an answer, or, even if you don’t, come back. We’ll talk.”

With a pulse of magic (and a multi-pronged key), the chains fell to the floor.

“I had hoped word of those mongrels had stayed dead and buried, but clearly I was wrong.”

“...Will you? Let him back?”

“Do you think me a fool? Of course I want him back if he proves incapable of learning.”

“... I see. What should I prepare for?”

“Let’s see. First, get up any information we have on anti-magic. If he proves unwilling to reconsider, I don’t want to give him a second longer. If he even returns. Next prepare for infiltration. We won’t have a guide if this falls through.”

“And after that?”

“... Hope we don’t have to cause total annihilation, because I am not in the game for another kingdom to look over. Either would bring way too much publicity. At the scale his masters seem to be operating, I doubt we’d have a chance to loot the remains for centuries. We’d need to find sympathetic elements, in any form. Or this would be the biggest pain in my rump for the next century. And I hate complications.”

Author's Note

Edit (2020/5/8): In case it wasn't obvious, "Muttress" is a combination FMA and EVA. Whatever that means.

12: Diary 2/Phylactery Mk1

Dear Diary,

When one says the word “lich,” what comes to mind?

Few societies ever put in research into dark arts, so the few who did, only do so against the will of their peers, drawn by the allure for something no other art can give them. They dig in isolation, seeking more and more power so no one could stop them. One of the earliest recorded groups wielded their knowledge like a hammer, opening practicing necromancy and self-importance.

They didn’t care for the fear and hate they garnered. Rather, they revelled in their dominance over “lesser” beings.

However, they did end up advancing the knowledge base of the craft of blood magic and soul manipulation. Their methods were abohorent, but there was nothing to be done after the fact.

When Wally Falcowolf left after their destruction, plans were drawn up to rob their abandoned labs before official research groups could seal them away forever. Mr. Falcowolf formed a group, the Honeycomb Club, to preserve any and all knowledge for future generations. The name was chosen to confuse or misdirect any who happen upon word of our existence.

One of the research the Honeycomb Club most sought out was the Phylactery creation techniques, for with time, one can get anything. The first version was incomplete, flaws the original creators never found due to their own self-destructive tendencies. This was what we started off with, and built off of, and why perfecting it was one of Honeycomb’s highest priorities

Phylactery Mk1

This type of Phylactery is the original spell that most legends come from, where the term “soul in a jar” comes to mind. The stories and myths of skeletal beings with embers for eyes and a star for a heart wandering the desolate were likely those who used the first iterations of Phylactery creation.

That glowing gem is where the creature’s soul is anchored, and the only weak point on their entire body. That makes it easily defensible, but extremely dangerous if the defenses are breached. By gaining control of their soul, you control their existence. A cornered lich will fight to the bitter end to prevent the theft of their Phylactery, because anything else is survivable.

Loss of one’s Phylactery is a path few can be saved from.

Now, the oft reported glowing appearance of Mk1 Phylactery users is partially true, and more a symptom of wear and tear. The first decades of implantation, assuming an ordinary life, would show almost no visible alterations to their appearance.

However, build up of severe damage would start to expose the currents of magic reaching out of the Phylactery that brings life to the body. The eyes, already common exit points of overflowing magic, are susceptible to mana leakage if damaged or lost, especially since a magical replacement of some kind is required in the event of ocular misplacement.

The process is relatively simple, the preparation and error-checking take up most of the time. It can be painful for some, as the body has to suddenly adapt to running most of its biological mechanics with the brain almost dead due to one’s entire mental load being transferred into the Phylactery crystal.

For those with healthy brains, the strange, disconnected feeling eventually fades, since the brain is another organ that one can relearn to use. For those with damaged brains, it would feel like your nerves are aflame as you feel the return of phantom limbs you forgot you’ve even lost. With the help of the Restoration Spell (sec2), partial organ rejuvenation can be done, including brains.

Some may encounter a slight issue with response delay, resulting in what appears to be a second voice in their minds. Fortunately, this can be reduced with training and treatment.

Experienced Phylactery users can somewhat reverse the process in an emergency, for example, if the Phylactery gets damaged. One’s ability to utilize this feature falls in proportion to how much of the user’s body is damaged. Very little can be done if the user’s body is already mostly sustained by the spell.

Though the previously mentioned attributes were what its previous developers most relied on, the Phylactery’s actual primary usage is for life extension. We have found nothing that can bring one back from death, that doesn’t result in mindless corpses or an alien spirit inhabiting the resurrected body. If one knows a fatal situation is approaching soon, one better choose quickly.

A side effect is the removal of certain biological limitations, though this only comes into play if the user puts in effort into exceeding them.

However, the Mk1’s fatal flaw is that it is not really all that good at life extension. Its creators were more focused on the power aspect, and didn’t last long enough to fully utilize, or rather, find out the failings of the longevity aspect. All the Mk1 is capable of doing is slow aging. Past three centuries or so, the user’s body starts truly entering a state of undeath as the crystal matrix used to keep the user alive starts requiring more power, more mass to operate, resulting in the oft heard legends of skeletal lich.

The problem originates from the Mk1’s inability to properly grow with its user, slowly getting more and more inefficient at storing the mind and memories and magic, resulting in the Mk1 leaching from its user to continue its primary function while slowly turning into a misshapen lump. Trying to start off with a larger crystal results in the logical conclusion of lugging a small boulder around to get anywhere.

Not to mention how this results in the Lich’s everything being a larger, harder to defend object.

On the plus side, within the first century after the user’s natural lifespan, there are mostly only positives. Normal fatal injuries become far more survivable, and non-fatal maladies become mere annoyances. A side effect of the slowed aging is more problematic for the young, so it is not as recommended unless the user is willing to spend multiple decades looking like a foal. Trying to manually age up afterwards is extremely unpleasant, and not recommended.

A bonus ability the Mk1 is capable of, is that the rawness of the spell itself allows the Mk1 to act as a temporary soul jar for others in the event of an emergency, until the second person’s body has been healed to a stable state. The pair should ideally trust each other due to the very, very close proximity they are to one another.

On a final note, users of any Phylactery tend to gain several notable oddities, even if their body is perfectly healthy. The aura of casted magic becomes slightly off, something a trained mage is able to catch. The slight perturbations of an organic mage become even, orderly, something that requires intense training to hide.

The rogues who abuse this gift don’t tend to have the resources or patience to fully hide themselves into regular society.

Which makes it easier to hunt them down.

Author's Note

Most of the “other pages” are pretty much jargon and magi-babble, and not really useful for much besides those wanting a language, and maybe cosplay. I'm not that famous.
Plus, I suck at languages. Just know that there are fancy runes and rituals that do stuff, and that is sufficient for the purposes of this story.

13: The Last Falcowolf

“How did they recruit me? That’s ... not wholly correct. Our first meeting was chance, our second meeting was almost inconceivable, and our third meeting was solely due to effort on my part.”

“...?”

“I was the first to join willingly, now that you brought it up. It was a surprise reunion, and a somewhat overzealous chick cornering her confused uncle. Of a determined chick wanting to lend a talon to someone who looked so lost. So, the story of how Gladas Falcowolf all started? Wally practically fell on my lap.”

Night had fallen on the Falcowolf mansion. The clan was still fairly well regarded, with several guards and outposts regularly watching the ground, even this late at night. Semi-random patterns deterred the casual trespasser from being able to easily slip by.

Unfortunately, this did little against someone who once lived within those walls, and watched said patterns for years on end. A glance at the date and the current pattern told the Lich all he needed to know.

He knew from experience which shadows were the blackest, not even able to be penetrated from the sharpest night vision without concentrating. He remembered the brief moments where no eyes covered the moonlight paths, decades of soft pads and modified flight feathers carrying him silently through the air.

Still, what would be a twenty second stroll now took him over an hour to traverse, a mark for the excellent patrol patterns.

And then, he reached the walls, and shot up onto a worn patch of shingles.

Night had fallen on the Falcowolf mansion. I, Gladas, daughter of House Falcowolf, shut the door to my room behind mr. Then, my coat had a grey-white luster, inherited from my grandmother. I stepped to the wall spanning birdcage, where a crow perched, glancing at mr quizzically. “Sorry, Blackbird,” I said, scratching the bird’s head. “Mom had relatives to entertain. I’ll find time for you tomorrow, alright--?”

I paused, tasting something metallic buzzing through my beak. An invisible weight, a whisper of feathers, a creaking of roof tiles. Gladas turned around and poked her head out her room and into the hallway. There were a few maids making the rounds, but none of them led to the strange mental pressure. I jerked, looking up. Stars spread out above me, then curving gently, like the sparks from a popping torch, or the descent of hundreds of fireflies.

I blinked, and the lights disappeared, but I could still feel their distant pinpricks of heat tickling my skin in all directions. But the weight. That weight sunk into a spot, my spot, on the roof, like a sandbag.

I went back into my room and stepped over to the window, and seeing nothing, pushed it open. The mental pressure made me turn and look up.

A misshapen lump flopped on the mansion roof, two points of red light staring off into the distance. It shifted down to focus on me, posture straightening.

I tilted my head. “... Do I know you?”

“Didn’t your parents teach you not to talk to dustballs?” He grumbled. “Or whatever that phrase was.”

“Preeee-ty sure you’re one of the dustballs that merely rolled out from an old cabinet, if we’re going with this analogy,” I said brightly. “You are sitting in the most well worn perching spots on this mansion after all.”

The griffon glanced down at his perch, and made to move.

"No no, its fine," I said, waving my talons. "It was yours first."

He settled awkwardly. "...Yeah--"

"So you do know this place!” I interrupted, brightening. “Did you forget the time of the reunion? I can help you tomorrow--"

"First moon after the Solar Solstice, lasting a week and ending today," the griffon cut in flatly. "Once every two years..." He palmed his face. "What am I doing? How did you even find me, chick? This building is still well built, and sealed," he asked, glaring through his claws.

“Well, it wasn’t sound,” I placated, fluffing her wings. “You were very quiet. Great job with that!”

“...Thanks?”

“It was more of a ...” I tapped my chin. “A taste? No, a buzz? Whatever it was, it felt like a ticklish wind blowing down on my beak from above.”

His arms slowly dropped, staring at my wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

I snapped my claws, pointing a claw at the griffon. “Oh, I know!”

There was a pounding of feet below them. The window was pushed wide open, and a grey feathered griffoness nearly flew out. “Glady!? Where are you?” She looked up. “Gla--”

“Uncle Wallace!” I said, smiling.

With shaking limbs, Wally Falcowolf asked, “W-Windlass?”

I was finally able to see my storied uncle when he was led into my room’s lamp light. Beneath his cloak, he wore worn armor, covered in scrapes and patches of rust. His fur and feathers were thin, and he seemed to be perpetually carrying a heavy weight. Red, partially open wounds seemed to peek out from the sides of his armor, whenever he forgot to shrink inside it.

“Come on,” Windlass said, Gladas’s mother having to pull the lich away from the window.

Standing side by side, the two siblings could almost be seen as separate strangers from how different they ended up.

One aged like ale, dancing forwards into the lamplight. Her fur and feathers had greyed, but it did nothing to hide her blinding grin on her large, potoo derived beak.

The other had rotted away. The color and vibrancy of his coat were unable to hide a chronic lack of spoons reserved for personal hygiene. Something he dearly remembered as he desperately tried to hide from the revealing light.

I followed behind, too curious to care about bedtime now. The pair ahead were too distracted to care about me following along, so I decided it wasn't my fault.

They passed by several house maids making the rounds. The older ones gasped when they saw the one beneath the cloak. Windlass waved one down, calling, “Get my mother alerted! She’s going to want to see him.”

Wally cringed. “Really, Windy? I’m still wanted by the state.”

“Yeah, and Mom quit the day after.” Windlass bonked her brother on his head.”So did the rest of us. She’s been waiting for you to return home ever since.”

“....oh. I’m sorr--”

“Shut up,” Windlass said, sharply, glaring down at her brother. “It was our decision. Not your responsibility.” In a quieter voice, she added, “And our apology.”

Wally looked down and said nothing.

In short order they reached the door of Evangeles Falcowolf’s door.

“...”

“Wally? Is it really you?”

I ran my beak into the back of Wally’s legs with a bonk. Wally had seemed to have practically deflated, shuffling backwards in mild panic.

“Oh no you don’t,” Windlass grumbled, grabbing Wally’s arm and hauling him over, me vaguely contributing by shoving at Wally’s leg. “I waited too long for you to come back, I’m not letting you go without a good talk.”

The elder matriarch shuffled over to cup Wally’s face, even as he tried to shrink back. “Why ...”

“Sorry!” he squeaked. “I know they still have a bounty on me, its standard to keep one active for a century after last sighting. I’m sorry for endangering your family, I just can’t stop--”

“You WILL stop denigrating my son!”

Wally’s beak clamped shut.

“You are, and always will be a Falcowolf. You will always have a place in this home,” she said firmly. “I have already spent four decades spouting your death and dearly hoping they were lies. Do not make them come true.”

“Yeah!” I said, happily hugging his leg. “You seem cool.”

“Tell that to my victims,” he grumbled.

Windlass put a talon on Wally’s shoulder. “Brother, please stop hurting yourself. We want you back, of ... any form that’s left. You are worth more to us than that.”

Eva settled back into her bed. “Please, sit with us. Tell us what you’ve been up to?”

“... So, remember that Seer that got exiled half a century ago?”

And so, Wally’s dry, halting voice slowly returned to haunt the Falcowolf mansion, tension slowly bleeding off him and sinking through the floors.

And I, little Gladas? Well, I only became more enamored with this mythical figure returned to my life.

Wally was still on the roof when I woke up the next morning. I noticed the ticklish weight and his constellation of magic as I polished my beak, so I climbed out the window to join him.

“So ...” I began. “You staying long?”

“Sorry,” Wally said. “I came here on a mission. It would be ... unwise for me to stay in these territories for too long, no matter what my mother wishes.”

“Awww.” I pouted. A few moments of silence followed. “...What if I visited you?”

Wally made a noise that sounded like a dry bag deflating. “You what?”

“Well, from the sounds of things, your place is way away from the King’s reach, so,” I shrugged.

Wally gaped helplessly. “Why?”

I shrugged again. “Seems cool? Wanted to be a medic, but being a magic doctor seems like a fascinating research field.”

Wally opened his beak to protest, but paused in thought. “... You may have a talent for it,” he admittedly sourly. “Your sense of magic is far greater than what I had at my age before being forced open through necromancy.”

“See! I can help.”

“Nrgggh. Fine,” He shot a glare at me. “Live at least a good, normal looking life here. I will not have any more stress put on my mother.”

“Sure!” I chirped. “An apprenticeship is probably going to take forever anyways.”

“Good,” he muttered. “Go back inside, my sister is going to be looking for you soon.” He tipped off the edge of the roof and soared below the trees. In seconds he vanished into the shadows.

“Coool,” I said, giggling as I slipped back into my room.

And so it went. As far as I could tell, Uncle Wally ran missions on information retrieval, for both the buried scrolls and on neighboring settlements, until his body started deteriorating too badly to hide from casual glances. From then on, it was Barnabee or Dimi, then you.

Meanwhile, I went to a medical apprenticeship. I spent the ten years after as well-regarded, both positively and with suspicion.

When I was just past my fortieth year, I was caught in an avalanche while on the way to send supplies to an outpost. Most of the party managed to get out of the way, but one little griffon, desperate to keep the supplies, was swept away. Her body was never recovered.

Windlass never had another child, and a cousin was signed to inherit the mansion. In a few decades, the Falcowolf line would be no more .... unless.

A few weeks later, Dimi escorted in a bedraggled dove griffon into Plan P, beaming. “Uncle!” I shouted.

Said Wally coughed out a tongue. “Pwahh!?”

I dropped my slightly waterlogged bags to the floor. “I, Gladas Falcowolf, have arrived, as promised!”

The Falcowolfs disappeared from the world, but you and I, we know the truth.

Author's Note

Gladas: 29 years of age. Wally: 90 years of age

14: Cold Days

Barely a month had passed before blizzards began biting. By the time Cycle had decided upon joining the Lich full time, the unnatural winter had spread across a vast swath of the continent, reaching fingers into the latitudes where swamps used to grow.

Fortunately for the Honeycomb Club and Appleton, they had a cheating cheater.

Several of them, actually.

Cycle sat deep within the partially carved tunnels, concentrating over a pile of the week’s trash. Not only were there broken tools, there were also rotting food, torn clothes, soiled wraps, defecate, frozen moss, uneven stone. Cycle drew his gaze across the pile, uncaring of the rising stink filling the tunnel by simply not breathing.

He cataloged every item under his breath, repeating them over and over until he had memorized them. Satisfied, he drew a neat circle around the pile into the dirt. He tapped his hooves together once, twice, and punched through the refuse pile.

“Redox!”

Green lightning arced through the mound, each tendril seeking and constricting each individual part within. Smoke hissed out as the pile ripped, rusted, and rotted. Embers started and died as energy was rapidly drawn out, tearing apart and reconstructing bonds until only a discolored mush was left.

Cycle lifted his hooves, the sparks causing what little mud was stuck to his coat sloughed off. He gently placed his hooves over the top of the pile, inspecting it with his more generic magical senses. Finding everything to his expectations, he punched the water out, shaping it until it resembled a chest high dirt ball, and started rolling it out of the tunnels.

A rattling hiss of air escaped Wally’s beak, the closest thing to a sigh through his battered lung. He folded his limbs on the corner of the relocated subterranean field. He raised his arms, letting rails of buzzing light fly out of his arms and line up behind rows and rows of pre-tilled dirt. With a gesture of will, they darted forwards, clusters punching down to a steady beat.

Another cluster dragged out a seed bag, cut it open, then chased after the holes with seeds clutched within.

Plop, plop, plop, went the seeds.

“Carefully!” went a distant pony.

Wally raised his head slightly. One side of the field was reserved for replanted trees. He could see a row of ponies shuffling down the ramp with a tree unsteadily balanced on their backs. They seemed to be well in hand, so after sealing the seed bagswith a tied knot, he shuffled a bit in his seat to get a better line of sight on the fertilizer bucket.

Thonk went a giant ball of smelly brown mush. “Refill’s done,” Cycle called, poking his head from around the compost pile.

Wally nodded. “With the rest of them,” he said, pointing at the shrinking pile of bags and growing mound of large mud balls.

“.... hold, hold, HOLD!”

The two undead jerked, snapping their gaze across the field. The transported tree was tilting, the roots not holding--

Wally thrust his arm out, his flaming eye sockets blazing. Flies burst out of the field surrounding the tree with snake-like ferocity. The branches wave, shaking leaves and a few apples, and the flies dig a furrow into the bark, but the roots only bend, and don't break.

With the other ponies quickly moving to make sure the hole was deeper and better reinforced, the tree was quickly stabilized. Wally slowly let his flies uncoil, a few dropped to the dirt from a crushed body.

“Tch,” he muttered. Flies were hard to dig out when almost every insect had fallen into some sort of hibernation, or simply just froze to death. He sighed, and returned his focus on the planting.

An hour later, he dusted off the flies streaming in underneath his skin, and shifted creaking bones upright. A tiny filly stood next to him, grinning. Wally’s eye lights flickered in confusion.

“Thanks!” she said, completely at ease with the griffon with hollow, empty holes going through his chest.

“You’re ... welcome?” Wally replied uncertainly, awkwardly shifting his body weight away from her.

The filly raised a clutched hoof to hand him an apple, one with a snapped stem and dusted skin he recognized from the nearly fallen tree. Wally cautiously took it in his talons, and seeing the filly wasn’t moving, took a slow bite.

Wally chewed thoughtfully. “... It’s good. Thank you for ... the gift.”

“No problem, mister!” she said cheerfully, and turned to walk away.

Wally held up an arm. “Wait ... what’s your name?”

She smiled, backing away with a wave. “I’m Winter Apple, mister.” Seeing he was satisfied, she turned and trotted back to her family.

Wally stared down at the apple in his talon for a long, long time.

”Wanna go outside for an expedition?”

”... Sure.”

Barnabee considered the blizzard he was asked to trek through. “... I know I was feeling a bit cooped up, but I would appreciate knowing why I’m out here.”

Agatha looked at him from over his shoulder “I didn’t?”

“No.”

Agatha scratched her beak. “Huh.” Bradley continued his light jog, adjusting his grip on Agatha’s legs as she clung to his back. Both wore heavy wool coats, Agatha because she was still mostly biological, and Bradley because frozen joints would be a bad time. “There are several reasons behind this decision, but what’s important here is that I’m trying to be less lethal.”

Bradley squinted at her, jaw hanging. He pointed his elbow at the multitude of knives he could see hanging from a belt, not even covering all the hidden weapons she also kept.

Agatha rolled her eyes. “Yes, I don’t train with them much, but they’re one of the weapons I’m most comfortable with. And very good at stabbing things with. Considering what we’re doing, I really need to work on toning down how easily I can stab people without just making me a blind rabbit.”

“Riiight,” Bradley said, mildly skeptically. “So how does this trip solve that problem?”

“There was a weapon I used to train with.” Agatha eyes unfocused slightly. “I lost it when I moved here, but I remember how to build it.” She made a grasping motion at nothing. “A more civilized weapon for self defense.”

“I ... think I see.”

“You will,” she reassured. “In a few years, anyways. Just knowing how to build isn’t going to help figuring out what tools I’m missing, which is going to take a while.”

“Right. Next question: what am I for?” Bradley asked, pointing at his face.

“Outside of my joint pain problems?”

Bradley gave Agatha a flat glare, but didn’t stop walking.

“Right, right. The primary reason is that the item I seek is likely going to be somewhat ... obscured by layers of earth. I, obviously, won’t be able to exert much effort on frozen ground.”

Bradley curved slightly as Agatha put pressure on his right shoulder.

“Second, I’m pretty sure someone’s trying to kill me, and I can’t dig and defend myself at the same time.”

“... You sure?”

“This country has forces in play that really prefer I not be here, but like hell am I going to just up and leave. All my toys are here.”

“That is slightly disturbing.”

“I was disturbing from day one, you should really pay more attention.” Agatha leaned back, pulling Bradley to a stop near the foot of a small hill. “And, we’re here.”

Agatha slipped off Bradley’s back, limping over and swiping chunks of snow off the surface. She placed the palm of her talons over it, frowning slightly as she swept across the snow. “Ah.” she slashed her claws across the snow. “Dig straight through. Crystal cluster down there.”

“How the heck?” Bradley asked, though he still unsheathed his digging claws.

Agatha slipped a knife through her sleeve. “I found this place sixty years ago while I was searching around, before the snow hit, and when I could actually dig for myself. Got driven out within minutes.” Pinpricks of acid green eye-lights pierced through the whirling ice. She gave a maniac grin. “I see they’ve still kept tabs on me. Fantastic.”

Eyespots continued to pop up around them, quickly surrounding them.

“Geez,” Bradley muttered, paws whirling. “What the heck did you do to anger them so much?”

“Mostly? I refused to die.” She shrugged, adjusting her stance. “Not something for you to worry too much about. They’re only here for me.”

“Pretty sure there’s at least two I can think of that would be pissed if I let you die,” Bradley grumbled as he sank below eye level.

The eye spots moved forwards, out of the cover of the trees. Wooden wolves growled at her, boiling sap dripping from their jaws.

“Well?” Agatha taunted. A spark danced between her claws. “I’m waiting.”

A massive wolf broke out of their ranks, charging straight for her. It hit a snow bank and lept, jaws wide.

Agatha sneered.

She ducked between its paws and thrust upwards, a burst of electricity burning through its wooden body. Its howl became a silent scream as the sticks that made up its body glowed in the heat. Agatha held it there for a moment, tilting her head slightly as it spasmed in her grip, before tossing it to her side. The wolf hissed and popped as sap boiled away.

Black smoke spiraled in the air coalescing into a small black rat, its tail twirling its prosthetic blade. Agatha rolled her eyes. “It ain’t dead, don’t worry about it.”

The rat stared at the twitching body, then shrugged. It turned around and hopped away.

“... Neat.” She turned at the advancing wolves. “Looks like y’all are going to need to try a little-- Eep!” The wolves charged as one, claws swiping and jaws snapping the moment they were able to get close. Others leapt at her from multiple angles and heights.

Agatha hissed, shuffling backwards closer and closer to the pit behind her. Minimal swipes with her blade and talon pushed the wolves into each other’s attacks, but not without blood dripping out of deep cuts on her arms.

Suddenly, Agatha raised her head, leering through eyes of acid yellow. A moment passed, where jaws fell, paws slipped on snow.

Her own paws dug into the bloody snow, and surged forwards, shoulder checking a startled wolf out of formation. She spun as she slid to a stop, a spread of three white hot blades tunneling through its face. She forced her magic through her legs, muscles screaming once more, snow bursting in an arc as she charged on all fours in a half circle.

The wolves were barely able to turn and track her before she reared up at their sides, knife between her claws.

Her foot pierced the snowbacks.

Lighting blazed over her arm, her feathers charring, the blade glowing with heat.

Thousand Birds! She thrust her hand forwards.

She yelped, hastily pulling her talon out of the two chests she punctured. She glared dispassionately at the mangled tendons sticking out of her arm, eyes flicking over crackling wood at the wolf with blood(ier) jaws. “Fast little bugger.” It spat her dagger onto the snow, quickly obscured by a burst of steam and hiss of boiling water.

The wolf leapt for her once more, veering towards her injured side before she could draw another blade into her offhand. Agatha simply crouched slightly, then with a sound of snapping wrist ligaments, punched through its head with the corner of her ulna and slammed it into the ground.

Before more wolves could jump her again, Bradley burst out of the ground, headbutting a cluster of wolves off their feet.

She noticed ice flecking his chin as he spat globs of water at the wolves. The winds quickly froze them solid, trapping the wolves. He alternated between breaking them apart and freezing them in place.

Meanwhile, she shook the shattered wolf head off her bloodied arm and inspected the damage. Her wrist was bent far beyond its natural range of motion, and she could see cut tendons hanging out. A steady stream of blood formed frozen teardrops beneath her. She snorted in annoyance. With a force of will, the talon slowly rotated back within normal ranges.

Bradley slid to a stop in front of her. She idly noticed one of his paws clenched tight. “Come on, let’s get out of here before they figure out how to break the ice, and the rest gang in on us.” He stared at her torn flesh, and the barely contained rage in her eyes.. “I thought you said you could barely stand?”

Agatha chanced a glance at her elbow, peering beneath her fur. “I am proud to announce I have sustained massive internal bruising and bleeding. If I relax for even a second all of my joints are going to lock up in horrible pain.”

Bradley stared. "Ah. Let's get you back before the wolves figure out how to melt the ice."

Bradley slipped Agatha onto his back once more, and quickly began trotting back. “Say, how did you learn to fight like that?”

“Hmm?”

“I thought griffons were quadrupedal.”

“Oh. Yes. I was bipedal once.”

“....what.”

Then Agatha locked up into a pained grimace and stopped moving.

Author's Note

A breather chapter, of life within the ice storm.

15: Cold Cycle

I heaved a tired sigh after my long day as I shuffled into the kitchen. I was somewhat surprised that we were able to transplant enough crops underground before the winter stores and freezing farm fields ran out.

I bumped my hip against a table as I passed it, sliding an old tome onto it as I made my way to the icebox. Rations were still in effect, so I could only fish out a few bundles of greens. Fortunately, by this point I wasn’t all that concerned with taste anymore.

I tossed the rations onto a clean plate and went back to studying the pilfered tome. I frowned thoughtfully at the small trail of dust I left. I had clearly made more of a mess doing my chores than I expected. I will require a wash soon.

After returning from washing my hooves, I opened the tome to my old bookmark and began reading. An idle hoof dragged the plate to my side, then slapped the center of the plate. Green lightning arced out of my fur and danced across the leaves.

A whiff of smoke escaped the pile before the greens started breaking apart as if they were all turned into grains. The pile of green dust instantly became soggy as all the stored water inside clumped together into one giant greenish-grey goo blob.

I flipped a page as I slowly licked the goo off my hoof.

So focused on the pages, I didn’t notice Gladas’s presence until she was nearly upon me, her gloved talons slapping the table and smearing red streaks across the surface.

“How!?” she shouted, making me stumble away from the table.

“W-what?” I stammered, incomprehensibly.

She pointed a bloody claw at my plate. “You told me you cause decomposition. That is not decomposition, its something else.”

“I’m just--” I protested, then stopped, comparing it to all the other times I exercised my talent. There was no heat, no deconstruction to base components. All I did was something that can be replicated with a mortar and pestle. “... Kinda?”

“How many ‘kindas’ does that cover?” Gladas snorted, calming down slightly. “You’re the only one with that Mark, but do you know exactly what that does?”

I looked back at my rump. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“Figure it,” Gladas said, stepping away from the table. “We need whatever advantage we can get. Maybe ... “ she sighed. “Maybe I’d be able to help stop my Uncle from falling apart.”

She shook her head. “Anyways, you do that. I need to make sure Agatha’s blood vessels aren’t crumbling away any further.”

I didn’t say anything as Gladas left, staring vaguely into space as my mind whirled.

Author's Note

Spoiler: He gets very good at recycling.
v2 Notes: Touched up to follow new characterization.

16: Wasteland Soul

The path I walked was one of few that was burned into memory. I could navigate this road despite the near blinding weather, for it was the one salted by my walk on the edge of death.

Once I got close enough, the light of a second soul, my own, shined in my augmented senses. Before the meters of snow had buried all but the most traveled trade routes, I had implanted a piece of my magic, my soul, in the tree near my backyard, a lighthouse only I could see.

I walked until I could sense a mirror image of my burning light beneath my hooves, and began to dig with my little hoof-shovel. Down and down I went. Every few shovel swings, I swiped my hoof across the walls of my hole. Green sparks spread out, then flew back into my hoof.

A hiss of steam, then the crack of solidifying ice, then a near glassy surface a hoof thick all around me.

Another few meters, then finally, the fierce greens of the pines my home was famous for was revealed to me. I stopped for a moment, placing a hoof against the leaves. Green sparks danced across the fur of my entire body, then rushed through more foreleg and into the pine. My vision briefly whited out, returning me slumped slightly against the wall of the hole.

I slowly relaxed my muscles, glancing up at the storm above. Tiny flakes that didn’t freeze against the walls bounced off and floated gently down. My breath gave off no vapors.

After a moment, I stood back up and resumed digging.

A few hours later, using the path and the tree as a measure of orientation, I knocked down the front door to my childhood home, wincing slightly at the loose snow that piled in.

I only managed a few steps in before I froze. A window was opened, letting the snowdrifts pile in. A body lay within it, near perfectly preserved, if slightly dehydrated.

Before my conscious thoughts could scramble into some semblance of order, I was already standing besides it. No, her. My mother had collapsed, presumably trying to get fresh air into a body no longer properly responding.

After a moment, I carefully folded my legs and settled besides her. “... Hey mom,” I whispered. “I ... It’s been a while since I visited, haven’t I?” My ears folded back slightly. “S-sorry. I’ve been busy. I was ... too angry at being helpless.

“But I’m over that now!” I said with false cheer. “Gladas, my teacher, she’s teaching a lot of things about my new life. I have very good practice at keeping control of myself now, and watching my own mental state, seeing as all of me is stuck inside this gem of mine. We especially don’t want someone bringing our group a bad name; we already had to shoo away a few desperate ponies wanting revenge or something. I ... ha, I certainly had that issue for far too long until I burned myself out and was able to actually listen to reason. They did agree with me that the parasite was something worth destroying, and let me do as I willed against them. Hopefully, we will be the last to suffer from them.

“Now, most of us are working on better understanding the magics around the spell that ties us to the world. We can take hits that would be fatal to anyone else, except we still carry a single weak-point, one that we hope we can learn to counter even that.

“Except ... except I doubt we will ever learn how to counter your death.” I lowered my head onto my hooves, my ears folded back. “That was the one thing they forbade me from researching, especially since we have no way of determining whether I’d be able to contact you. Whether there’s anything left to contact.

“I ... I ... “ I shrank down, curling tighter into myself. “Wherever you are ... I hope you’re proud of me.”

There was only the creaking of wood straining against meters of snow.

A surge of rage re-lit the boiling heat in my heart and eyes. “I will not let Sunny Pines be forgotten.”

Present Day

Twilight flinched back as Cycle suddenly dug his hooves into the table. The few waiters and service ponies Twilight could see froze, their faces either stricken with despair or grinding their teeth in anger.

Cycle himself was blank faced, but it took a long moment before his hooves finally started letting up. Twilight cautiously put her hoof over his. “Are ... are you alright?” she asked.

Cycle said nothing for a long moment, the only sound a faint rattle deep in his chest. Twilight was hit with a small feeling of unease when she realized Cycle had become unnaturally still, like a corpse that forgot to pretend to breathe.

Sven too, had froze, but he had lifted his eyes from the book between his claws, and stared into the back of Cycle’s head. He seemed tense, but not overtly worried. Twilight hoped this meant good things.

He only spoke again after the frozen ponies around them, Cycle’s zombies, she realized, resumed their tasks. “I apologize,” he croaked. “There’s something we left out of the Mk-1 Phylactery I believe would be important to let you know, considering my state.”

“Wait, you chose to hide information?” Twilight wrinkled her nose, affronted.

Cycle nodded, his eye lights yet to return focus to her. “It was something we had hoped would be irrelevant, since the Mk-1 will prove to be essentially inferior to all future developments. But I, and most of the founders, are still running off of the bones of the Mk-1, and this ... this is a weakness that will likely appear often. Especially since I am ... unable to move on from the Mk-1.”

Finally, Cycle looked up at Twilight. “The Mk-1 was later found to preserve the mental state of its user upon its creation. Preserved it perhaps, a little too well. Consider my circumstances, if you would please, Twilight?”

Twilight looked down at her notes, tapping her chin. “You were ... ah, very angry at your town’s ... ah.”

“Indeed,” Cycle agreed tiredly. “Rage and grief was what my life became. I teetered on a blade’s edge or risked losing my emotional stability. A problem that wasn’t helped by the situations the Club ran into in its early days.

“I apologize for worrying you. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but you have our word that you will leave this town as healthy as you entered, in all interpretations.”

“I would be a poor handler if I wasn’t able to keep him from lashing out,” Sven snarked before returning to his book.

“Indeed, I will sooner be dismembered than risk injuring you.”

Twilight nodded, then paused. “...ah?”

There was little left in my old home, though what did was remarkably well preserved, if slightly damp. I bundled up some old cups and plates, they inevitably got banged into something, and plus it would be nice to have a personal cup. I picked up a stack of slates. Paper was getting harder to come by, reusable writing surfaces would help the next generation.

Magic pooled in my eyes as I looked around. This deep in, the light could barely penetrate the layers of snow. Residue magic pooling off my in waves gave my enhanced senses just enough range to not run into walls or splinters. Finding nothing more of interest, I moved on, stopping momentarily in silence besides the door before burrowing through.

“I’ll be back,” I whispered.

My next stop was the mail house. It seemed like the place most likely to store parchments, though I worried its small size made it more vulnerable to being crushed. I spent a silent few hours as I dug through the snow, guided almost entirely by memory alone, and the slight illumination of the exposed dirt beneath me.

I wondered how many letters were meant to be sent out, and how many were never delivered to the owners now long buried behind me. I pushed that moment of guilt away. It had been decades. Anyone looking to hear from the denizens of Sunny Pines, if they were smart, will have given up hope years ago. Anyone wanting to send a message here, well, there’s essentially none left.

Before long, my hooves hit desiccated wood. I pushed more snow away from the door, squinting at the wrinkled surface creating dancing shadows through my sight. I pierced my hoof through the door jam and wrenched the door open, spilling the contents of a moldy bag across my hooves.

I stepped over the mailpony’s body, picking up and bag that didn’t look completely moth bitten and started shoveling old envelopes in. As I tipped out the inbox, rummaging for scratch paper, a familiar line of text caught my eye. My head jerked, staring at the surface of the letter, but the pulse of magic left its surface.

I stared hard, sending out another pulse. My name flashed over the small piece of paper. My eye darted to the return address scrawled in the corner.

A heartbeat passed.

I shoved the letter into my bag, and galloped out of the mailroom.

17: Reminiscence

“What!?”

I looked up desperately at the black crow angrily ruffling its feathers. Blackbird had followed Gladas through most of her young adult life, almost constantly by her side. In the chaos of Gladas’s “accident”, everyone all but forgot about keeping track of him. By the time they thought to check up on Gladas’s remaining possessions, his cage was cracked open, and the bird never to be seen again.

Of course, the truth was he still remained by her side. He was getting fairly old by the time Gladas disappeared from griffon society, frankly it was a bit of a miracle he could still fly as well as he did then.

Gladas almost immediately delayed her Phylactery bonding to work out a ritual to bring Blackbird with her. The modification was fairly simple, and now Blackbird was directly connected to Gladas’s soul. As long as the griffon lived, so would he.

“You’re our best navigator,” I pleaded. “I don’t know who else would be able to find the town my friend’s in.”

“And how would I do?”

I grinned and pulled out a soggy brochure. “I got his place marked down right here. The cold doesn’t bother me anyways.”

“Yes, yes,” the bird rolled his eyes. “But fly-ing? Nooo. Ice crystals. Slow wing. Slow thrust. No flight speed. Keep me out.”

“Uh. Um.” I furiously wracked my brain. “I could ... carry you in my cloak?”

Blackbird squinted down at me dubiously. “Tied down, barely sight? Wonderful.”

I felt phantom sweat crawl over my back. “Please. If there’s anything you need, I’ll do it for you, no questions. He’s all I have left."

Blackbird stared at me for a long time. "I ... consider." He spread his wings and disappeared down the halls.

I followed his flight, then groaned, clutching my head. "Please. Don’t die. Just a little longer. Please..."

Blackbird gave Agatha the stinkeye. "Well, it happened, like you said. Why interest?”

Stuart-5’s tail waved menacingly besides Agatha’s paw, one that the griffon happily ignored. “Oh, if his friend turns out to be dead, Cycle will still be operational. Might~ be a bit unstable.”

“Would be better to hide friend,” Blackbird groaned.

Agatha tapped her chin. “Not necessarily. An unfortunate result of his haphazard phylactery installation is that his emotional balance is permanently altered. In a bad direction. All hiding would do is delay it.”

Blackbird cawed unhappily. “Will think,” he muttered.

“Teach him navigation himself, perhaps?” Agatha suggested. “Take the load off you, pass on some skills, and you don’t need to leave.”

Blackbird paused in his turn, then nodded.

“Oh,” Agatha added, raising a claw. “Recall when I mentioned the stability of our ... little operation is quite linked to Cycle’s?”

Blackbird took off, looped around, and landed on Agatha’s cheeks, his talons digging into her face. “She is right. You are not to be trusted.” He flipped off her face and flew away.

Blood dripped down Agatha's face as her grin faded into a grimace. Crawling out of her room to intercept Gladas's pet was necessary, but her body was in full out revolt.

Gladas's surgery could only do so much against a body that was falling apart.

Maybe... one more life? she asked the empty corridors. She slumped onto the wall, sliding down. Stuart had already vanished. "Brat," she muttered.

Look at you, genius. Queen of a single house, and now barely able to move. Dammit! I escaped from the royals grasp, but even now time threatens to claim me. Agatha gripped her brow in frustration. But ... Harmony. You're hiding something, you piece of compost. I will not take the easy way out and just install a Phylactery. As long as you fear me I refuse to lie down and die! I will give Honeycomb the best chance they've got with what time I have.

Agatha forced through pin and daggers to get to her feet, shuffling back to her quarters. Just you wait.

Author's Note

1) Some of you may have noticed the Berry Punch tag there. No, that is not an accident. She's coming. Eventually. Just not in the way you might think.
2) So... It's kinda quiet down there. Comments? Something? Anything? Really, only 2 people so far have actually said an opinion on the story itself.
3) I don't have editors. I don't know if I'm screwing anything up, besides my own abilities. I'm also bad at long term planning, and I may or may not secretly reorganize the timeline. Sorry.

...Halp.

18: Grave Digger

Unfortunately for me, my troubles didn't stop the rest of the world from existing. Appleton was still snowed in, and the Eternal Winter made the idea of a Harvest Season not exactly viable anymore.

In-between field work, I set about procuring maps. Appleton was barely a generation old at this point, with our location vague. Appleton only existed on maps from towns nearby that once directly traded with them, and Appleton the same. Now, Appleton was almost the only town out of what once was a dozen towns in a few days' walk still standing.

Time for grave digging.

I walked blind over old roads, pushing my senses deep beneath the snow to find frosted trees of yesteryear transition to frostbitten homes of a lost generation. I stopped to dig, methodically carving out circles until I could map out forgotten streets, blindly bouncing from rotten house to rotten house until I happened upon some variation of town centers, and dug out local information, news, and most importantly, updated maps of towns further away.

Blackbird only accompanied me on the first few trips, each spaced a week apart. The winds were so bad that any kind of controlled flight was a fool’s errand.

Once Blackbird was certain of my ability to navigate with a magnet stuck under my tongue, combined with my sense of the crumpled grasses long buried, he left me to trudge through the wastes on my own.

A few weeks in, Gladas pulled me aside to inquire about procuring as many maps as I could get my hooves on. Appleton's own maps dreadfully needed updating, where even maps from dead towns would be better considering how isolated we were now.

Thereafter each time I dug my way through the snow, I grabbed every unique map still safe from rot. This was a surprisingly high amount due to the cold sending every moth and most fungi into hibernation.

The small, short distance maps gave us detailed knowledge of local topography, landmarks that were mostly half-buried most of the time, and some height data. The larger maps gave us directions to other towns, and helped me prepare for future trips.

To my dismay, few towns were close enough to record the location of Sunny Pines. It was barely a generation old before this mess, similar to the situation in Appleton, but Sunny Pines was in a valley, further obscuring his location. With the snow shifting towards lower elevations, it was all but impossible for travelers to find my home.

I grit my teeth and left the ruined town center, climbing out of the tunnel I dug and began the long trek back to Plan P.

There were, surprisingly, a few settlements that still stubbornly clung on. Many have left in search of trade hubs, safety in numbers. There was no way anyone would believe a normal colt barely in his teens would be able to just walk miles without a large caravan train besides him. If I found said place during “day” hours, I had to dig a hole and wait for the gloomy clouds above to fade to darkness.

I couldn’t stay long. Even if I wasn’t on a bit of a time limit, the few lights that remained lit for a few extra hours was a painful reminder of what little tattered remains of hope I had left. I grabbed what maps that were left out of the open and ran.

Despite my efforts, the deepening cold forced me back to Appleton for increasingly longer stretches of time. The need for expanded food production was taking up much of my time, constantly refreshing the spent fields of the rotated underground farms. On top of that, I still had training with Gladas, and magic research in the Archives, though I doubt I got much of the latter done with my frayed concentration.

It took me two years before I walked through the gates of Haycenda Heights. “‘A city of trade and commerce,’” I quoted off the half buried sign. “Well, maybe once upon a time.” The rest of the city looked trapped in a bowl, where the residents had fought to keep the buildings from being completely buried.

Those efforts seem to have been carried out less and less, with only a few streets in the very center still with their cobblestone streets exposed. It was also in the city center where one might still find flickering lamp light.

As the storm-obscured sun began to set, what few ponies still braving the streets retreated to the flickering warmth of their homes. I pawed at the snow, snorting. I’m sorry, Mother, but I can’t stop now.

The moment the streets cleared, I strode down the snow banks and through the alleys. I drew a massive spiral, running by windows and glancing at the residence lit by their hearths.

Three loops in, I chanced upon a two story building with only a weak light inside an upper room.

Curious, I bounced off an opposing building to land beneath the sill. I winced at the thump my body made impacting the wall, but after a few seconds, heard no hoofsteps moving in my direction. I carefully hauled my head over the edge.

The moment I laid my eyes on the form beneath the sheets. A small smile cracked the ice sheets that formed over my face. Hey there, Evans. Its been a long, long time.

....

... You don’t look so good.

Author's Note

Once again, point out anything wrong you guys catch.
Sorry for the somewhat heavy exposition. Nothing really interesting happened in that segment, in my mind, and most of this is set up to meet the next character: Even Balance Fairday.

20: Diary 3/ Lich and Life Extension [2]-Regeneration

Regeneration was not commonly used. Various groups have done research on it, and nearly all had gone to the same conclusion. The “Enlightened” themselves have tried to figure out whether the components of this spell could be used for something else.

Regeneration used several spells of scanning, binding, and restoration. The only useful bit they couldn’t manage to get out of it was restoration. It was helpful in record making and stabilizing spells, but trying to keep anything around long term using the spell itself caused ... defects.

Delicate components become weaker, fragile, prone to random failures. Melted water could be returned to ice, but there were far more efficient spells to do so, such as freezing spells, and often times there was more water left behind after each use unless you used increasingly large amounts of mana. Heavy, simple objects were less affected, but they tended to survive through time easily enough, and so there wasn’t really much point in doing so in the first place.

Using it on a living creature to extend life was tested thoroughly with live subjects, something Stuart will be happy to rant at you for an over an hour. What the Enlightened found can be summarized as thus:

For two or three uses, it worked ... mostly. Yes, life was extended past what the creature’s normal life span would be, but problems could already be seen after the first casting of the spell. When comparing photos of various stages of the creature’s life, it becomes apparent that aging increases.

Test subjects who have undergone a full Regeneration cycle over ten times had lives that were cut to thirds, requiring more and more frequent castings to avoid death. The subjects’ forms could not be replicated into their previous states perfectly without an extreme amount of magic, and that risks breaking through some of the failsafes in order to keep the subjects memories intact.

Interestingly enough, it is somewhat usable as a general healing spell. As long as the time period is relatively short, you won’t suffer too much of the problems caused by decay, though it is still not very recommended unless you’re desperate, the damage is great, and/or near impossible to heal in any other way, say if your leg got burned to a crisp. The amount of mana that is required for the spell is proportional to the time you’re trying to go back to, not the extent of the damage.

If its just something like a broken bone, or a bad cut, specialized healing mages can do nearly the same at far less mana costs, and with far simpler casting requirements.

If you ignore the complexities and the rather limited uses it has, however, it does offer a few unique advantages. It is debatable whether it is worth the cost, but in hopes of future advancement, I will record these just in case.

As mentioned, it can cure nearly anything, even terminal injuries and diseases if you go back far enough. Well, cure is a bit of a strong word. It delays; the amount of years you get back from the ravages of a terminal illness depends on how many times you have delayed it already.

Your memory seems to fare decently well, something that the spell seems to excel at. Further investigation is required to see whether this component can be separated from the rest of the spell circle without errors.

Unlike the classic phylactery system, this form of life extension is nearly invisible to even well trained mages looking for it, its aftereffects looking nearly identical to merely that of a powerful Sorcerer.

The Regeneration spell is not well suited if you prefer combat situations. There aren’t many options for body modifications. You are pretty much stuck with whatever you’re born with. Good for hiding amongst the populace, if that’s your goal.

These are the class of spells Agatha wanted information on, and later the Club recovered more details upon their runic ingredients from the destroyed lab. Dark magic tended to cloud her talents the way the creatures we rescued from the lab did, and Agatha was content in having only two or three uses out of the spell instead of losing most of her talent caused by the phylactery.

However, on Agatha’s second reset, and the beginning of her third and supposedly final life, she happened upon a loophole.

Author's Note

This should be obvious.
Or at least, it will be as soon as the next chapter is finished.

21: Defiance

Agatha sat in the dining room, huddled underneath layers of blankets, and seethed. Her week had started off so well.

Every morning, before she went for breakfast, she entered her routine meditations, peering hours into the future for any possible threats. Normally, this was a peaceful hour spent peering through the flickering shadows of possibility. This time, all she saw was a distant flash of orange light a day away, before a brain-splitting strobe light pulsed through the threads of time.

She was knocked breathless for minutes, joints protesting at her shaking muscle’s treatment. Shocked, then angered, she pushed through again, forcing herself to bathe in the twisting currents for a few moments longer before she lost her grip again, returning to reality with a bloody nose and red tears.

She still couldn’t see the branches of fate, but she saw something else that both chilled and excited her. Surrounding the painful distractions were thousands of indistinct paths that all led to an impossibly vast dome of permanent shadow. But a single path, in the same direction as that magic flash, was still illuminated, something the distracting magics desperately tried to keep hidden.

The magic flash illuminated a single shadow of her, waiting by the dinner table for her ticking fate.

Agatha knew she was dying. Her first life she managed over a century, aided by predicting which lifestyle choices kept her cells alive. Then she took her first dose of the Regeneration. Once, she kept up her cello hobby, but she was soon frustrated by stiffening joints. Barely half a century had passed before her feathers started to fall out. And now, her entire body was collapsing, after barely reaching half of her previous life time.

Now at the end of this second life, a new complication. The shadows cast by the prophecy blinding light continued to frustrate her, but also illuminated what paths she had left to her to great distances. Almost all of them were dead ends. The end of her own future. Except for one.

Agatha clutched the blankets tighter, her lungs burning with every breath. She had called in all primary combat members of the Club to watch the grounds. Wally Falcowolf and Barnabee perched in trees and right underneath the surface, respectively, watching the forest around them. Gladas and the Antibodies walked the halls of Plan P. She even strapped on her bags carrying her slingshot and ammunition, just in case. Her wings clenched around the bags, reassuring her of its weight.

She couldn’t watch for threats herself anymore, after all. Something was important enough for Harmony to take a direct action against her magical talent.

In the meantime, she ordered Cycle to collect the charged mana crystals and set them up in the spell circle to power her Regeneration. He was let go back to the library for his own business.

Agatha's heart thudded painfully. She could easily imagine swaths of heart cells dying as her literal deadline approached. Normally, she would have already thrown in the towel and gotten this over with so she could get one more decade or two of life. Ironically, the attempt at blinding her had told her how close she was at making a fatal choice, how close she was to the one choice that would actually let her life go further than she could have ever dreamed.

Before this, she had briefly considered giving up and asking Gladas to install a Phylactery into her. But then her greatest asset would be lost to her permanently. Something she couldn’t afford to lose when Destiny itself strived to end her.

So she waited, head throbbing as she routinely tried to figure out what Harmony was trying so hard to hide from her.

Her heart jerked. She pushed her magic once more; the orange light flashed behind her eyes.

Agatha’s eyes shot open, bloody tears trailing down her cheeks from her magic forced to its limit. “You worthless sapling, you were stalling!” She leapt out of her seat and ran towards the prepared spell room. She barely made it a few steps before her vision blurred, the floor swaying beneath her feet.

Her glowing eyes shot a glance down at her chest. Her heart spasmed once, twice, thrice ... Shit, my heart! Right before her strength gave out, she fell, face first. She angled her forearm, and let her body weight force her talon through the bottom of her ribcage. Instinct barely threaded her claws between major blood vessels, nudged her lungs to the side, and grasped her heart as it beat its last.

She slid against the wall, blood smearing behind her. She pointed her bleary eyes forwards once more, manually pumping her own heart in defiance. She clawed forwards another few steps, another few meters, before the muscles in her arms started burning. Rage could only substitute for glucose and oxygen for so long, and there was nothing she could do about her plummeting blood pressure.

She stared in desperation at the door only steps away. No! I won’t make it like this! She looked around herself in a panic, and caught sight of her weapon pouch. She slit the strap, and the bottom of the bag, extracting a single glass projectile as she let the pouch fall to the floor.

With the last dregs of her strength, she primed it, and collapsed on top of it. “Shrrk ...” she wheezed through clenched teeth, as her breath and foam left her lungs. Her vision tunneled, and blacked out as her brain starved. Blood pooled underneath her, soaking her fur.

........

Her explosive charge went off, throwing her half broken form through the door. The room was barely larger than a closet, a small closed off area to keep Agatha’s materials protected and prepared at all times. It was just big enough to have a cabinet to store charged mana-crystals, and floor space for the spell circle. Cleanliness was a must to prevent excess matter from stealing the precious drops needed to pull Youth from the jaws of Death.

Agatha’s near-corpse rolled to a stop in the center of the circle, her lower torso nearly torn off from her impromptu self surgery and explosive jump. One of her wings folded at an awkward angle, the bone snapping from the rough impact. Blood splattered the crystals, and activated.

All six mana crystals ignited, forcing magic into the catalyst dictated by the spell circle, surrounding the cooling body in its center.

Tendrils of magic grasped every loose particulate, drawing their broken components together. Splinters tore free of Agatha’s flesh, forming a half door that flopped to the side. Blood flowed backwards, diving back into her blood vessels. Torn muscles reached out for each other, skin sealed. Finally, the magic stabbed deep into every cell, partially reconstructing her damaged genetic code.

Agatha’s eyelids fluttered. “... Did I make it?” she asked, wearily waiting as her wing snapped back into place, her amputated talon pushing out of her stomach and back into her arm. “Wait, is that it?”

Then the floor beneath her exploded, coating her in blue mana-flame.

Cycle and Evens poked their heads out from behind the slightly scorched lab table, shattered crystals smoking around them. “Well, that didn’t work,” Evens commented, rubbing his sore horn.

Cycle scratched his chin. “A different circulation pattern, perhaps?”

Any further observations were cut off as a blue flame elemental dropped down from the hole in the ceiling. Cycle squawked as he was kicked across the room. The elemental grabbed Evens by the neck and slammed him against the wall. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME-- ACK!”

Evens squeaked when Agatha dropped him and flipped away. He squeaked a second time when a spread of scalpels made an outline around him. He threw his hooves into the air. “This is my first week, Cycle! You’ll give me a heart attack!” He paused. He patted his chest, punched it a few times. “I did get a heart attack.”

Gladas blurred past, her wing snatching the scalpels out of the wall, three flaming shadows by her paws.

Agatha skidded across the lab floor, claws digging smoking trails. Her brain was filled with piercing pain, flashing lights. It hurt so much. Evens was the cause. She roared in fury. How dare he. How dare he!

She started a new charge-- No! Blades seconds in the future intersected her path, forcing her to abort. She screeched to a halt, silver flashing by her chest with millimeters to spare.

Distraction past, she advanced once more -- DANGER made her snap her head to the side, dodging a triple bladed swipe. Each step was now in reverse, a web of future dismemberment blocking her way.

Her focus skipped, and locked onto the new threat. A Dove with burning golden eyes looming over her, claws swinging, sent her tripping over her own feet and onto her back.

The Dove raised a talon with a pair of scalpels between her claws. A flick, four. She tossed both hands up, surrounding them with dozens of steel handles sticking out of the ground. Agatha barely twitched towards a scalpel before her DANGER sense shrieked, pulling back in time to miss a thrown blade.

Agatha turned, only to find the Dove lunging for her, blade in talon. Agatha rolled, only to be forced into a desperate stumble as scalpels slammed in grip first in her path. She barely managed to get to her feet just in time to leap in another direction, squeezing in between a pattern of blades and a shrieking mass of shadow swooping in from above.

She snapped her head back, sliding underneath another cluster of scalpels.

She bounced off a wall, somersaulting over the Dove’s low thrust.

She backpedaled desperately, each step jerking in random directions as the Dove ran at her, tossing scalpels at her feet and scalpels in each wing jabbing for her neck. Black storm clouds darted around her feet, teeth wet, claws sharp.

A swipe at her arm. A stumble to the left.

DANGER

A spike trap to her left. A half roll to the right

DANGER

Her cheek being split. A twirl too late.

DANGER

Blades surround her. Nowhere to go.

DANGER

Her jugular torn to pieces.

DANGER

Leap Left --

DANGER

Right --

DEATH

Her senses screamed in terror. FREEZE!

Her breaths came out in ragged breaths, her lungs locked, her skin scalding.

As her vision came back into focus, she was forced to stare cross-eyed at Stuart-5 perched on her beak, his prosthetic tail hovering over her right eyeball. She was backed up against the lab wall, contorted into a painfully awkward one legged stance to fit between the forest of hilt-first scalpels around her. A scalpel was gently touching her neck, held in the reverse grip of Gladas, placidly watching her reaction. Wildcat-6 hovered over her, smoke billowing from her jaws. Hellcat-18 was frozen below her, jaw opened against her leg.

“... I’m back,” she gasped out into the awkward silence.

Gladas tilted her head.

“No, this wheeze this isn’t me trying to gasp trick you into letting me run.” She coughed a few more times. “I know you want to, but please don’t slit my throat.”

After a moment, Gladas sighed, rubbing her eyes as she stepped back.

“Thanks,” Agatha managed. “My leg was starting to hurt.” She slowly moved to place all four limbs back against the ground. Stuart-5 stared at her distrustfully for a few more seconds before pulling his tail back, joining the rest of the AntiBodies in a loose circle around them. “How did you figure out a way to counter my Sight?”

"Well, the first thing I realized was that if it was planned in any form, you'd catch it in your routine meditations." Gladas moved to pick up the scalpels littering the floor. "Therefore, it must be spontaneous. You’ve said it yourself that concentrated fields of dark magic plays hell on your precision tracking. Then, assuming I got the drop on you, I must keep an erratic, chaotic tempo to prevent you from getting a stable footing to ever counter-attack, while still leaving obvious gaps in my strikes to give you a predictable escape. I do not directly finish you off, because frankly you look like someone who will happily resort to a double suicide out of spite. Instead, giving you the hope of escape will allow me to direct you as I please until I can set up a situation where even a desperate attack would prove instantly fatal.” Gladas turned away to move up the stairs, prodding the dazed Cycle to collect Evens, and recall Wally and Barnabee to reconvene in the kitchen. “Evens, wait for me upstairs, I’ll get your heart back working. I’ll teach you how to do it yourself tomorrow.”

Agatha blinked as she followed behind her. “... Wow, you’ve thought about this a lot.”

Gladas shrugged, standing up. “Only for a few decades,” she said. “If dark magic ever ceased to be a problem, you’d have long taken up a Phylactery, so I wasn’t too worried.”

Agatha quirked her beak. “I probably should’ve expected that.”

The entire Honeycomb Club stared at the new “Agatha.” She still vaguely had owl-like features, except tendrils of magical blue flames trailed the edges of her wings, eyes, tail, and plumage. She was also rather twitchy.

“So, recap for the one’s outside?” Gladas prompted.

“Right. Yes.” Agatha palmed her eye. “This is the present now. Got it. Anyways, as you all know, I held back on Regenerating because my sight was actively targeted. I believed there was something ... my enemies wanted to hide from me. I managed to figure out that there was a moment in time that increased the likelihood of my Regeneration increased my life expectancy, but prevented me from figuring out what that process was until I was literally seconds away.

“Turns out it was stalling; I almost didn’t make it if I didn’t decide to shove an arm up my own rib cage and pump my heart.”

“So, what’s new now? How'd you get the whole, blue flame thing?” Cycle asked.

"As you know, the main issue with the Regeneration spell was that it was unable to reach full rewind, especially if you didn't want to disable the safeties on memory retention. Resulted in side effects akin to mild radiation damage. Over everything. Unfortunately, the Enlightened quickly gave up pursuit of this research, we have little data on the effects of foreign material previously implanted.

“The second time I went through this spell made the problems exponentially worse. I kept at it because Phylacteries tended to cloud my Sight. ” She chuckled deliriously. “The third time, I appear to have absorbed some of Even’s magic to shore up the genetic damage. That’s probably fixable.”

Even blinked. “Neat! I helped.” He turned to hi-hoof Cycle next to him. “Pretty good for just a week.”

“Indeed,” Agatha continued. “I think I can get much use of this knowledge. However, the personality scrambling is going to take a bit to get used to. This body won’t last, but it has given me an avenue of research: figuring out an elegant way to integrate fresh code. After all, there is probably a cell in your gametes that have continually divided across generations with the simple addition of genetics from your parents.

“Right now, I need to work on making it easier to manage the mana, and figure out how to properly rewrite the spell circle to fit this new addition properly.” She hissed, sinking into her seat and clutching her head. “Getting real difficult trying to tell what’s present and future right now.”

“Ok, that’s enough.” Gladas pulled Agatha off her seat and slid her onto her back, balancing the woozy griffon between her wings. “We’re getting that mana problem of yours figured out.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Agatha let her limbs flop about. As Gladas started moving, Agatha glanced over at her reflection in the ice box. “You know ... considering how differently I look?”

“Hrm?” Gladas grunted vaguely.

“I might be able to dodge the bounties on my head.” She grinned. “A new face needs a new name. How about ... Trestine?”

Author's Note

Right, hello to anyone who reads the rewrite. I figured out how to make it interesting. Took out the scavenger hunt thing because it is stupid and noone is going to look for it anyways.

If it wasn't obvious, Gladas's fighting style is heavily inspired by Mifune's Infinite One-Sword style, of Soul Eater. Tossing swords everywhere and using them as projectiles, nearby weapons, traps, jumping, etc.

April Omake: Bloody Revolution

Author's Note:
The below is mostly non-Canon, just for fun.

I never asked for this.

I opened my bleary eyes at the white ceiling above me. With a heavy sigh, I pulled myself up into a sitting position, rubbing at my eyes. Bits of dried blood flaked off, to my annoyance. Need to ask Gladas to check for leaks again.

I glanced to my side, zeroing in onto the bedside table.

The Darkest Night

Miss Cher worriedly herded the foals into the safe room below the school-room. She glanced worriedly at the darkened sky, screams and fires dotting the spires of Canterlot

I took a sip of beer, tiredly feeling the stinging liquid burn in the furnace installed in me. It wasn’t comfortable, despite assurances that it was reasonably safe. Grass is greener, perhaps, if the other option was to rely completely on blood. I looked out the window of my old apartment, swirling the fractured glass as the sun slowly sank.

Cher gasped as the massive, reinforced door (both magically and physically) just crumbled. Though, on reflection, it was more like it shattered.

“Come on, boys,” a haughty voice called. “Fresh meat. Bats, too. Nopony is gonna care after this night.

Cher snarled, stepping protectively over her charges.

If you want to make enemies, try to change the world.

Cher stamped her hooves, causing a bookcase hidden near a side wall to fall over. The back piece exploded, spilling countless blades between the her and the intruders. The pale stallion looked down, his red mane briefly obscuring his eyes. Cher labeled him Red in her mind. After a moment. He looked up.

“Really?” Red reached for one of the axes. With a snort, Cher’s hooves briefly pulsed with light. The stone floor rumbled, and a polearm jumped into the air, slicing into the stallion’s ribs. “Gah!”

He snapped furious red irises back at her, but she was already moving. Her tail snatched up a dagger as she sprinted by. Red gasped, and managed to block most of Cher’s furious buck, but couldn’t stop the dagger from scraping his skull, nicking an ear.

“Look, filly, you don’t need to die,” he pleaded. “Too many questions if a pony mare got killed.”

“I didn’t spend eight years of my life trying to help these poor foals just so you numbskulls can trample all over them again!” Cher shouted, leaping forwards once more. Red tried to sidestep, but winced when he realized a few swords had jumped into the back of his forelegs. They didn’t do much, but it distracted him long enough for Cher to deliver a jaw cracking uppercut.

With a quick step and a spear in hoof, she impaled the falling Red with a reverse thrust.

There was a moment of silence, and then the sarosian foals behind her cheered. With a heavy sigh, she dropped the spear, and looked with annoyance towards the destroyed door. How did he break down ...!

Her vision was suddenly filled with stars. Dimly, she heard screaming. Trying to peer through the tunnel that was her vision, she caught the glimpse of a hard eyed mare, a leaf green mane framing her sky blue coat. Cher struggled weakly, but Green had pinned her hooves down.

To her shock, she heard a wet cough, followed by a wet voice growling, “That cost me a lot of blood, ya mudhoof.”

A sea of red mane moved fuzzily into her vision. “I was going to play nice with you, but you just had to be feisty,” he continued. Behind him, a stallion with a grey coat and a mass of spiky blue mane snapped the pole arm in half, and carefully pulled the ends out of him. As her vision slowly cleared, she gasped at the sight of his wounds sealing shut. “Thank you for your ... donation, miss.”

Then his jaw leaned down, biting into her neck. Her vision turned red with pain.

”NOOOO!”

And then Cher heard no more.

I never had a choice. The mare I was then, and the mare I was now. I still can’t.

Fire. Blood. Hunger.

The urge to Feed dominated her thoughts, but her body was too weak. Nothing responded to her will. Her fluid-filled lungs gargled quietly, yet strangely, she never felt the urge to breathe. Then again, it probably wouldn’t matter soon, anyways.

A feeling of peace slowly crept through her brain as bits of her body started crumbling into dust, the hunger dying with it. In an hour or two, she wouldn’t have to feel anymore. She slowly closed her eyes ...

... then snapped them open when a plum purple earth pony mare barely burdened by heavy armor and weapons walked over to her, glancing down at her through cold, grape colored eyes.

“Lot of blood here,” she said quietly, her eyes slowly roving across the ruined room. “You have anything to do with it?”

A surge of familiar anger brought flames to her numb limbs. “Never!” Cher screamed. “I spent half of my life trying to bring those poor foals out of the darkness, I wouldn’t repay them like -- hrk!”

A cloud of red stained dust billowed out of her chapped mouth. Cher collapsed, spent. “H--help them. Please.”

The strange mare sat next to her, looking around blankly. After a moment of flicking her purple, stringy tail, she whispered, “How about I make you a counteroffer?” She turned and looked into Cher’s eyes. “Do you wish to avenge your fallen?”

I sighed as the communicator on the table started buzzing. I set the glass besides it, and clipped the communicator to my neck. I tapped a hidden button, dimming the blue glow. “Is it? ... Yeah, I’m ready. Give me a moment.”

I picked up a placard that was sitting on the bed, silently mouthing the name that would be set in front of the school-foals. I never lost the joy of teaching. Countess Lily de la Cher died that day, but in her place was born Cheerilee. I walked out of the apartment, past small piles of papers to grade. I had a week before Winter Break ended, plenty of time to finish preparing for the next semester.

I slid into the coat I hung near the doorway, and stepped outside.

A heart and a bundle of nerves floated in a blood-plasma bath. Besides it, the empty body of Lily Cher floated in its own tank, its chest a gaping hole. The plum coated mare, Berry Punch, Cher later learned, leaned against the tank with the heart. “You sure you want to go with this? This is still a prototype, to be honest a rush job. The body may heal, but the curse may object. I do not know if your mind will hold.”

I stood in the light, but freezing breeze. Flakes of snow floated gently around me. None of them melted upon contact with my coat; I didn’t produce any body heat unless I wanted to, and whatever dark sorcery that had reanimated me seems to not care for rigor mortis nor ruptured frozen cells, able to “heal” away those minor issues nearly instantaneously.

A unicorn stallion nervously squinted at the back of books through the flickering light of a dusty lamp. His ears flicked at the slightest whisper of wind.

He spun frantically, catching a mulberry mare wearing a black jacket step out of the shadows. “Save me,” he whimpered, a glint of a geas flashing in his eye. The lamp tumbles from his grip and shatters, setting the dead-eyed pony aflame.

“No!” Cheerilee shouted, darting forwards framed in a wave of blood.

“Miss Cheerilee?”

“Hmm?” The mare in question looked up from sorting out the graded assignments she was going to hand out at the beginning of class.

The filly pointed at the teacher’s cheek. “What’s with that black mark on your cheek?”

Cheerilee blinked, then rubbed at it. “Oh right, sorry. Mishap with some eyeshadow my friend bought. Forgot to wash it off, thanks for reminding me. I’ll be right back.” Smiling at the filly, careful not to show her teeth, she walked out and into a bathroom. With a bit of water, the charred blood disappeared into the drain.

“Hrrrk!” The guardspony coughed up blood as he slid off Cheerilee’s sudden blade. His blood mixed with the blade, becoming part of the blood formed weapon.

“AAHH!” A unicorn charged her, swinging a baton. Cheerilee raised the blade, and sliced it cleanly in half. Her blade retracted into her arm as Cheerilee turned and calmly stepped forward. The guard stared dumbly at his baton, then looked up at a flying hoof. It wrapped around the pony’s neck, connected to Cheerilee’s torso by ropes of blood.

“AHHHGGGH!” With a swing, his body smashed into the hallway around then. With a shake, Cheerilee dropped the broken neck onto the floor.

“Hmph.”

“Who’s been breaking into the meeting area?” A heavy set stallion strolled into view, teeth and fangs bared.

“Simply looking for my lost foals, I’m sure you can understand,” Cheerilee replied with a grin.

The stallion burst into Cheerilee’s face, punching her across the room. He squinted curiously as Cheerilee stood up, somehow reacting in time to pull off a imprecise block. She licked up some of the blood that dribbled from her mouth, eyes flashing red. “Don’t mistake me for a pushover, Red Bloods.” With a click from her hoof, blood rushed out and solidified into a blade.

The two vampires roared, and blurred into a destructive, red-tinted duel between monsters.

“I’m a dead mare walking anyways. If I must become a weapon to save them, then so be it.”

“You do realize this will take years, and it is unlikely many of them will have survived.”

A cloud front rolled in in front of me, throwing snow and blistering cold winds across its path. It vaguely resembled a horizontal tornado. It was soon followed by a thundering chug-chug-chug, rattling my bones as it rumbled pass. The chugs slowed briefly, bringing along a candle-like blur of speeding windows.

”Then I’ll never stop looking.

crrk-”Hop on, Red Wine. Welcome aboard.

I nodded, sprinting along and leaping into the whirling snow. A series of ports opened up along the bottom edge of my hoof. I channeled my blood through, forming claws that clung to the edge of a train carriage. With a flip, I dropped into the railing, and stepped inside.

Within a matter of seconds, the storm was gone, and the city was quiet again. A long valley dotted with the path of treads would be buried soon by the falling snow.

”This is Hydra Oh-Oh-Four. Leaving Trottingham at oh-fifteen. Weapons free in fifty.

I would have accepted a peaceful life eagerly, but they have angered this furious swarm of bees. They will soon come to fear the anger of those who have let go, and embraced the monsters we’ve become.

Shattered spirit, forged anew,
Body broken, cursed askew,
Magic tendrils chain my heart so cold...

Valkyrie to the new Red Gold
There’s no heartbeat under my skin,

Search my vampiric soul
For the drowning mare within.

Author's Note

I lied.
Only the last half is 100% non-canon, the rest is partial canon.

23: Rise of Harmony / Winter’s End

Thunk

Draaaag

The Apple stallion heaved the plow across the underground farm of Plan P. The Apple family was, almost fittingly, the last holdouts of the once bustling town of Appleton. 90% of the rest of the population moved out for cities that were slightly further away from the cold. The Apples decided to dig in like the stubborn foals they were, and seemed to not actually mind the creepy undead folks living in their backyard.

Now, an entire generation had passed. Foals grew up knowing the strange undead folk their entire lives, becoming more akin to family, uncles and aunts, than the dark-magic-stained unknowns of two generations past. The Eternal Winter forced the residents to work ever closer to their undead neighbors to survive the frozen farms and lost trade.

With Evens found, I put all of my focus on working with the residents of Appleton and experimenting with my Mark’s magic. I was finishing my last rounds, carting around and distributing a small mound of fertilizer, and digging up tired soil to be refreshed.

I nodded to the stallion as I passed, scraping fertilizer into the trenches he dug. With that done, I returned the cart to the communal shed, and covered the fertilizer with a tarp. I grabbed another bag to fill in the soil, I’ll be working on that later on the week.

I went back to my corner of the lab, stacked with notebooks and loose parchment. The centerpiece was dominated by a half-drawn spell circle, the unifying catalyst incomplete. If I just pushed my magic out mindlessly, the spell almost completes on its own. But if I tried to focus on the shape, I seemed to lose my concentration, everytime. I only got so far through trying to activate different components of the spell, remembering different chunks before they slipped through my hooves.

There was very little access to knowledge of pony specific magic from where and when I was, Twilight. No one here could remotely claim to be an expert, let alone an amateur. I had to rediscover everything almost entirely on my own. The fact that there were probably several schools carrying this knowledge, but were impossible for us to access at the moment, irked me, since it was likely I would miss more things than not.

All I had to base my foundations on were the necromantic studies from necromantic cults and basic weather manipulations from beginner griffon scrolls.

I grumbled at the sound of gongs echoing across the building. Might as well, I doubted much progress would be made tonight. I listened to the pattern. No urgency, but it would definitely be good to investigate.

I was met with other ponies leaving through the stairs. Dimitri had no answers. “Aga-- Trestine had something she wanted to show us all. She only told me to set the announcement call, I am as much in the dark as you are.”

In half an hour, the entirety of the tiny population congregated in a field just outside the town borders. Trestine herself perched on a tree stump, grinning widely at an hourglass at her feet. She wore a steel collar on her neck, and black bands on her forearms. The mists of evaporating magic was greatly reduced, though she did seem to more a bit more sluggishly.

“Hey, Cycle!”

I turned to see Evens trotting up from behind me, Gladas close behind. They were working together more often, a project Gladas had started on and requested his assistance. “What’s happening?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think anyone knows except Trestine, something to do after the sand flowing in the timer stops.”

Everyone’s attention was diverted when Trestine started clapping her talons. “Welcome fillies, gentlecolts, and you foggy lot back there. Welcome to a once in a lifetime event! Well, for most of you, anyways. First off, a reminder to all to stop using the name Agatha, and use Trestine instead. I got a new face to use now, finally, and would like to keep this one off the bounty papers back where I came from. Considering the reputation I left behind, I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept it active for another century more.

“Now, the show! As you all can see, I have a sand timer running, timed to end at the start of the event. For most of you, this signals the end of a generational nightmare, and the beginning of recovery. For those of you who so graciously continue to welcome me into their group, I thank you for trusting me to lead us this far, despite my own inexperienced and personal foibles.” Trestine bowed towards us at the back. “This event will instead serve as a milestone to our little quest of survival.”

This started confused chatter amongst the ponies. The Honeycombers looked at each other for a moment, before a dawn of understanding passed through us.

Gladas sighed. “A bit over dramatic of her, though considering the new excitability quirks of her, I shouldn’t be too surprised.”

“I see you got it.” Evens leaned over to me. “I’m still a bit lost.”

I huffed in slight amusement at Trestine’s theatrics. “Oh, its just something that you haven’t seen since your teens, I think.”

Evens frowned, then his eyes widened, and snapped his gaze to the last few grains falling in the hourglass.

Trestine reared up, wings spread, eagerly pointing at the clouds. A pulse of magic rippled through the clouds, fluttering coats and knocking snow to the ground. Ripples spread out from miles away. Faint rings, then gaps formed in the clouds.

The first rays of sunlight hit the ground for the first time in over half a century.

The entire town was lit with streamers and lanterns, and gripped in the fire of celebration that had lasted all the way into the night. Gladas smiled slightly as a filly came over to hug her forearm, and handed her a candied apple slice. “Off you go, Winter Apple. Have fun with your friends.”

Trestine sauntered over, passing by the trotting filly with a bucket on her head and a mug of fizzy ale in talon. “Why aren’t ya joining in the festivities?”

Gladas gestured to a flower crown on her head. “I did. I don’t exactly have that boundless energy your new body has.”

“I know, isn’t it great?” Trestine took a deep draw from the mug, moving to lean by the building next to Gladas. “Personal opinion? Living is pretty great. Arthritis super sucks, don’t get it.”

Gladas snorted. “Indeed.”

A moment of silence passed between them, as they watched the celebrations. Gladas sighed. “Well, you got us this far. I’ll still work with you, as promised. Doesn’t mean I trust you though.”

“Obviously,” Trestine said, waving her mug. “I’d be concerned if you weren’t. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s an instrument over there calling my name.”

Gladas watched the Seer step onto the stage, pulling out cello from some storage behind the curtains to a roaring cloud. She lazily twirled a dagger between her claws, then holstered it.

Author's Note

The next, substantially longer chapter will come as soon as I figure out how to start the third in this interlude section. Not so much a pause, but a shift in powers.

Also, Winter Apple is Lord of Dorkness's character. No, I'm not telling you which story though the similar subject matter might give you hints.

24: Rise of Harmony / Intermission Decommission

A month had passed since the skies had been cleared. Old travel routes were being cautiously reopened, towns reconnecting after an entire generation of isolation. Appleton had led the charge, passing out copies of the maps the Honeycomb had studiously hoarded.

Trade and travelers slowly became a more common sight, information and gossip steadily ramping up.

Trestine stopped partway after leaving the post office to sit on a bench and frown at the nagging feeling crawling up the inside of her skull. After her rebirth, there seemed to be a sigh in the currents of magic around Appleton, her Sight gradually clearing. Except, what she saw made no sense.

Past a certain point, every path became an incomprehensible mess. There should be no way such minimal divergences would result in such massive changes in days. Worse, they seemed to change with every blink of an eye.

There was something she was missing, something that tied all this mess together. This uncertainty was getting ridiculous, she was going to get to the bottom of this now before whatever it will be bites them in the ass.

She carefully loosened the mana suppression collar she wore around her neck and the gauntlets on her arms. Instantly, she felt the nigh-invisible flames exhaust out of the side of her eyes, crackling energy shooting down her nerves. She closed her eyes and dove deep into the half-shadows casted from the future, cycling through the hundreds of threads ahead of her, noticeably getting increasingly tangled.

Yet through it all, whispering through ripples in space time, there was a consistent, echoing laugh. A cruel, mocking, delighted laugh.

Trestine toppled out of her seat half an hour later, drenched in sweat. She rolled onto her back, shoving a talon into her side bag and withdrawing her slingshot. Moments later, an orange flare detonated over the skies of Appleton.

Gladas skidded to a stop in front of Trestine just as the elder griffon was pulling herself back onto her feet. "What is it?" Gladas asked, brows furrowed.

"Out of the fire, into the pan," Trestine grumbled under her breath. Turning to Gladas, "We've got two days, three max. Took me days to puzzle through the interference; stupid unsealed spirit wrecking havoc on everything.”

Both turned and started jogging towards Plan P, ignoring the worried murmurs around them. They too, knew the color codes by heart after all. “Defensive measures?” Gladas asked.

Trestine shook her head. “Can’t fight this. We’re going have to do what we do best. Disappear so thoroughly that there would be nothing left interesting enough to look deeper. Back to the base. We need to prepare the town for this.”

“I’ll make an announcement later today,” Gladas agreed.

A vein of yellow crept along Trestine’s violet irises. “It’d be good to practice my hypnosis skills.”

“Ponies of Appleton, I wish to repeat the immense gratitude we hold for your kindness in allowing my family into your fold all those decades ago. We were a lost people, exiled from our homeland, and hunted at every corner. We are in your debt, and we will never forget your generosity. Ask us any problem that comes to mind, and we will do our best to assist if it is within our capabilities.

“However, today I must be the bearer of bad news. A new calamity, one with directed purpose and not a random, creeping malice, will be soon upon us. It is one that adores in mental horrors, for the one silver lining that it prefers its prey alive to play with.

“As you can imagine, I would prefer if we could hide all of us as we did from the Eternal Winter. But we only have days. There isn’t enough time to get far enough to hide our tracks. All we can do is hide in plain sight long enough for the true heroes to confront the Calamity. Despite our efforts, we cannot be those heroes yet.

“What we can do instead, is offer hope for the safety of our children. We can hide their minds from this, Calamity’s cruel magicks until this new storm is over with our blood, but few more. We must ask again for you all to entrust their lives to us, while some must stay behind, blinded, to maintain the illusion.

“I deeply apologize for not being able to do more.”

A taloned paw picks up a dessicated black creature, its wings buzzing weakly.

Its voice snarls in irritation, charging his paw in chaotic magic and flinging it into the heart of the cluster of life fearfully running from him.

Screams of fear echo through the darkness, then warp in screams of horror.

It grins. “No one messes with my toys.”

A few days pass, and the tiny, sparsely populated frontier town of Appleton hunkered down, warily watching the skies.

There were no children, there never were children in Appleton.

They have never heard of rotting corpses in the forest.

They were simple farmers, barely recovered from the life-taking winter, now alone again in the face of a terror they could do nothing about.

In the forest, there sat a house, years forgotten. Life had bled out of once sturdy walls, now rotting timber flowed out of doorways and sagging ceilings. Insects roamed the walls, nature steadily reclaiming its territory.

Glass shards littered the scorch-marked floor. A skin-tight corpse, dried from the cool air, lay on its back behind the door, its face mauled beyond all recognition. Ashes coated the kitchen, remnants of an uncontrolled blast of flames. Corpses litter the floor, surrounding a charred skeleton with tiny blades spilling out of her wrists, plated in the black of vaporized blood. Her wings were fused to the cupboards, the outlines of feathers slowly fading into ash. Even in death, she rested in defiance, claws tightly wrapped around daggers, a forever sentinel.

The rest were no better.

A skeleton tied in chains to a pyre.

A spear pinning a small colt to the wall.

An old stallion laying at the feet of the stairs with his neck broken.

A shriveled body locked inside a room full of soot, ash, and shattered wine bottles.

A worn dog half buried beneath an abandoned overgrown field, curled protectively over partially shredded scrolls.

The rainbow light arced throughout the ravaged land, even as the cruel voice bellowed with mocking laughter. Within an hour, the entire land was healed of chaos’s careless scars.

In a dark, dusty forest, that same Harmonic magic clashed against the oily stain coating the derelict wreck of Plan P, grinding out multi-colored sparks as they fought one another. Unlike the chaos slapped haphazardly across the continent, this magic pushed back the comparatively weaker pulse.

The moment passed, and the building creaked in victory, splinters raining from strained timbers.

For now.

The celebration was quick, but fierce. The ponies of Appleton were able to haul out kegs of Heneken beer and string up paper decorations and lanterns in the hours before sunset, rapidly transitioning to heart-pounding dances beneath the stars.

Not everyone came out of Discord’s reign unscathed. Time lost all meaning as the sun and moon danced at random. Discord roamed the land, invading houses and flinging ponies across borders on a whim, played with their perceptions and minds.

But ... it was over now. Some of their numbers were lost, and awkward newcomers were trapped in a land they knew little of, but that was something that could be solved in time. For now, it was a time of unleashed emotion, and the joy in knowing that a bright day would soon follow.

Hours into the night, Harvest Apple looked around for his son. It was getting much too late for the foals ...

He froze in the middle of the street, his wife and a transplanted guardsmare bumping into him. "Crystal Light?" he asked, pitch steadily rising. A mental fog blurred his memories as he struggled to remember. Discord's reign didn't help clear up what he, or anyone was truly doing. "Where did Winter go?"

His wife twitched, her brow furrowed in concentration and growing worry. The bat-winged guardsmare, Wind Cutter, looked on in concern. “Were they taken by Discord?” she asked.

Crystal moved closer to them, head on a swivel. “That can’t be, we hid them with ... “

Harvest and Crystal stared at each other, then ran off. Confused, Wind Cutter trailed behind. Their panic led them to a darkened general store, the door hanging slightly ajar. A thick layer of dust coated everything. A potted plant in the corner was now dry, and shriveled. A few shelves had shifted, leaving shattered ceramic jars on the floor.

Both of the residents’ subconscious memories were screaming about something, someone, that should be there, but the evidence was clear that this spot had been untouched in ages. They pushed through regardless, instinctual memory pulling their hooves to the loft partially hidden above the store.

This too, was empty, yet somehow even worse because of it. There were no personal embellishments one made to make it a home, just a worn bed and a broken desk shoved in a corner. Its bookshelves were bare, no outlines to indicate the presence of something once there.

Despite this, Harvest found himself not entirely surprised.

“Shouldn’t this place look more lived in?” Wind Cutter asked, prodding the walls looking for a secret button.

“Of course not, she spends most of her time at--” Harvest hunched over and coughed, rainbow colored sparks mixed in with his spittel. Crystal mirrored him, a queasy expression on her face as she leaned against the wall with a hoof over her mouth. “... The forest house.”

“The what.”

The trio moved back downstairs, but before Crystal could explain, they were stopped at the door. Turned out, they weren’t the only ones who started to realize that something was wrong.

Wind Cutter looked around at all the near identically worried faces. “Alright, you’re going to have to explain this to me. There are ponies willingly living in the middle of that forest?”

“Nooot exactly.”

In the end, five ponies gathered up their torches and stood at the almost invisible path into the forest home. Nopony was willing to wait any longer, eager to rejoin their family, and start the search for their other lost ones. Harvest Apple and Crystal Light, the ones who first awoke their memories and best remembered the rarely used path. His new friend, the somewhat confused guardsmare Wind Cutter. River Red, a unicorn magic researcher, he was very intrigued by the rumors that there existed those who evaded Discord’s sight. Cherry Blossom, the town’s nurse who often met with Gladas for lunch.

Torches and lamps lit up the trees and the regrown path, unnaturally still. No birdsong, insect buzzes, rustling bushes. But their foals were waiting, so they moved on, Harvest trusting his instincts to guide his hooves across memory blurred paths.

“So, what happened?” Wind Cutter asked. “You still haven’t told us what this place is.”

Harvest grimaced, while Crystal and Cherry shared an awkward glance. “It’s ... somewhat of an open secret around here, but it’s also something they rather not advertise out loud. Especially as we’re pretty sure a few of them still have bounties in the Griffon empire up north.”

“That ... ‘still’ has a lot of weight attached to it,” Wind Cutter commented.

Harvest hummed as he pushed a branch out of the way. “This house was built several years before the Eternal Winter ... and its builders are still there.”

River Red twitched. “Impossible! No griffon has ever been recorded to live over a century.”

Cherry Blossom shook her head. “They’re no ordinary creatures that’s for sure.”

Harvest held up a hoof as they entered a clearing, his lamp light shining upon a dilapidated house. “Welcome everypony ... to Plan P.”

“That is an awful name,” Wind Cutter commented.

“We know. They wanted a way to make it seem like there’s more, but none of them were really good at the names part. Most of us just call it the Lich House.”

River Red seemed to almost jump out of his skin, eyes boring into the back of Harvest’s head.

The apple pony sighed. “You’ll see soon enough.”

Their first impression upon getting close enough was that it looked old. The type of old a place gets after spending decades abandoned, not the probably year or so of Discord’s reign of chaos. Every window was shattered. Multiple rotting holes pierced the walls, webbing, moss, and small plants digging their way into the crumbling pieces.

The front door was the worst, being completely torn off its hinges and tossed to the side, half buried by mud. On top of that, there was a pony’s corpse laying on its back, its face charred beyond recognition.

“Is that one of them?” River Red asked, cautiously inching forwards.

The natives looked at each other. “We ... don’t recall that one being part of the House,” Cherry Blossom replied. “Strange.”

Harvest pushed forwards, carefully stepping around the body as a muffled instruction rippled through his memories. “Doesn’t matter. Nothing we see here matters. We need to get to the heart of the house.”

Only a few moments after they all pressed the threshold, they heard a creaking noise behind them. Wind Cutter and River Red turned, and gasped as the corpse stood up, a single eyeball rolling out of its crushed skull to stare at them. Cherry Blossom twitched, but didn’t look back, as did Harvest and Crystal. Crystal shook her head. “Leave if you want.”

The five advanced, the newcomers quickly stepping up to stay close to the townsponies’ sides. The corpse wobbled, and slowly started shuffling after them. The charred skeleton in the pyre twitched, the bones easily slipping free of the chains. Its talons dug into the floorboards and started dragging itself forwards.

They soon reached the ruined kitchen, clouds of ash trailing their hoof steps. Harvest and Crystal muttered to themselves as they dug into the caved-in cabinets while the rest stood back, maintaining a wary distance to the body pinned against the icebox.

“Ah ha,” Harvest said, as he pulled out a cutting board. River Red gasped when Harvest flipped it over, revealing a polished surface, and precisely cut grooves beneath the dust. The circle spoke of locations, control, amplification. Two mirrored signatures, one for identifier, and one for user.

Harvest held up a hoof, and Cherry, who already had a small knife in her hoof, quickly made a small cut. The blood dripped onto the identifier, and flashed.

The corpse and the skeleton froze. To their surprise, the charred body in front of them straightened out of her crouch, yanking the knives pinning its wings off. The ash jittered and surged, the grime flaking off and revealing the hidden blood. With a twitch of its claws, blood splashed onto the spell circle. ”Contact: Harvest, accepted.”, the talon slapping the center of the spell circle.

Blood tendrils shot out, jumping through cracks and seals, diving beneath the floorboards around them. Dust fell from the ceiling as the building shook, its foundation creaking as the soil below churned. Crystalline shards burst out of the ground, pulling tiny skeletons behind them, as flesh regrew.

The body looked up, yellow flames igniting in its, her, sockets. “Welcome back.”

Gladas pulled her blood out of the cool body of Trestine resting in the middle of the Regeneration spell circle, moments before the six charged crystals fired. Trestine’s body spazzed as donated and preserved blood was pulled through the holes in her limbs and torso before they started shrinking, sealing. She gasped, jerking up into a sitting position before leaning on an elbow and dry heaving. Bile barely made it past her tongue, being pulled back in reverse as the spell continued to dig into her cells. There was a brief burst of magical flames around her eyes, before they began being sucked back beneath her skin, a burst of feathers covering the broken mana coils.

She wiped the side of her mouth with the back of a talon glancing up at Gladas. “Update?” she ground out through clenched, twitching teeth.

“Time passed is uncertain,” Gladas reported. “The changing days and rampant magic radiation made time keeping all but impossible. Perceptions were heavily distorted too, at best guess it was roughly two years before the Calamity was made no more.”

The sparks of energy around Trestine’s body began dying down, tying down tightly down into her rear half.

“While any permanent damage has been mostly avoided,” Gladas continued, moving to pick up the drained crystals, “there are still complications. Ponies across the continent have been displaced, including ours.”

Trestine clutched her chest as she slowly moved onto her feet, wobbling at the feeling of her strange new limbs. “We’ll need to send out search parties soon. This ... intermission has been an annoyance, but solving it is simple, if time consuming.”

Gladas nodded, holding out an arm to Trestine’s shoulder to steady her. “Cherry Blossom is currently checking the foals, it will be well within her capabilities.” She raised an eyebrow. “How are you feeling?”

Trestine patted her face, her beak. “Well, I still have this, that’s good.” The feathers on her front half had turned completely pale outside of a few black specks, so bright it almost glowed in the dim light. Her rear half was completely different, a pony's rear with a light grey coat and the mark of a bare-branched tree. She tapped the mark with a claw. “This is new.”

Gladas moved the crystals to the side of the room, to be recharged later. “Do you feel any different?”

Trestine squinted. “Not sure. I will require experimentation later.” She waved a claw. "Enough about me. I assume the rest of the Club are reconstituted?"

A nod. “Though, what are we going to do with the outsiders? We never really had rules or a plan on what to do if we get revealed.”

The Seer hissed. “Nothing to it now, we never told the Apples to keep them out. All we can do is impart the importance of keeping us out of their breaths. We absolutely cannot harm them, or imply harm, or we’ll lose all progress.” She shook her head. "Assist in clearing out the foals as soon as possible. Call a meeting afterwards; get a census of the town, a count of who's here, who's new, who's missing, figure out a safe introduction to the outsiders. But before all that ..." The Seer plucked the dusty cloak she was wrapped, buried, in and flicked off the dirt. "Let's introduce them to Quartave."

Author's Note

Sidenote: They are very pissed at Discord messing with their shit.

25: Rise of Harmony / Ice Breakers

Present Day, Sunny Pines

Sven had left for errands at the train station, leaving Twilight and Cycle alone in the Sunny Pines Hearth Motel. When Cycle treated Twilight Sparkle to the motel's small cafeteria, she was somewhat disappointed that the food was merely an ordinary, if slightly bland, affair.

He gave her a flat look. "Its the off season right now, but I do actually have to feed regular ponies here when they visit. Giving them nausea for my own amusement would not go over well."

She squeaked, her cheeks slightly pinking as she dug her face into the stir fried rice.

"However ..." he glanced away from her. "If you're up for it tomorrow, I can give you a sample of a concoction you may find interesting?"

She barely managed to restrain herself from shouting the food in her mouth out, barely chewing to swallow it down as fast as possible. "Yes!" She coughed. "I mean, I would be delighted to try it out."

The rest of the meal passed in comfortable silence. As she was finishing up, Cycle found a befuddled look coming across Twilight’s face.

“You know,” Twilight began, wiping her mouth. “Something that confused me about your, uh, townsponies. You said that Sunny Pines was still pretty small when it ... fell the first time, but right now its pretty big. Where did all those ponies --?”

Her voice died when she glanced at Cycle’s face, twisted in a grimace. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice that, but I guess that was a lost cause.” He sighed. “And since we don’t want you running into this on your own and starting a conflict outside of our influence, we’re going to visit one of the Club’s dirty secrets.”

Twilight shrank back into her seat. “If it’s that bad, I’m ok with not knowing ...”

Cycle shook his head with a weary smile. “Don’t hold yourself back on our accounts, it’ll be something you’ll have to deal with eventually if we’re going to be working together for any length of time. Come on.”

He stood up and began walking away. To Twilight’s surprise, all of the other ponies in the building stopped what they were doing, silently looking at them. They weren’t even breathing. She shot out of her seat and hurried to catch up.

Cycle led the alicorn past more frozen service ponies, something Twilight soon realized was every single pony in the building. In a closet, there was a hidden door to an elevator.

With a click of a button, it started to descend. The brick outside the grated door quickly gave way to steel reinforcement beams, soon interspersed with small windows. Groups of blank eyed ponies glanced at them as they moved down, wisps of cold fog drifting through the grated door.

“This place used to just be a basement, a large freezer,” Cycle began. “I wanted to keep what bodies of Sunny Pines I could get my hooves on intact, as a memento if nothing else.” The elevator slowed to a stop, pneumatics hissing as the door retracted. He still didn’t move, staring into the long hallway, even more ponies standing silently, watching. He gestured at a small glowing Exit sign to the side. “You can even see the old path that this place once used.”

Silence.

“As you can clearly see,” Cycle said, voice now weary, “there are far more ponies here than what a small town should contain. I promised I wouldn’t lie to you. In fact, we are far more terrified of you and yours, so if you leak this secret of mine, we won’t do anything. If you can’t find hope in us, then no one can. But if you can find something of ours worth keeping, please, look for it. In the coming years, we’re going to need allies. We can hide no longer.

“First off, when Sven called me a Wraith, he was not that far off.”

“Wraith?” Twilight asked. “You look-”

Cycle turned his face towards her wordlessly, a frightening familiar wisp of smoke billowing out of his now empty eye-sockets. “Do I look like a hero to you?”

Twilight hopped back in fright. “Those eyes, Sombra--?”

“Long ago, when we were young and overconfident, we made a mistake. We thought we could pretend to be a secret school for those who were really dedicated, but the bastard abused our generosity. Made us close our doors for multiple centuries until we could absolve our sins. Made us realize that we needed to put an active effort in our defenses, as our anonymity will soon fail to protect us.” Cycle gave a weary sigh. “Let me tell you about how we inadvertently caused your sister-in-law so much trouble with Sombra, and yes, how I came to be like him.”

“Wait, the Crystal Empire incident,” Twilight’s eyes widened. “Those ponies were you and your friends?!”

Cycle gave a sharp-toothed laugh, the flattened tongue hanging out of his mouth more befitting that of a carnivore. “Not me personally, but yes. Celestia must have been so conflicted ... “

1099 years ago

Two long years under Discord’s reign. Two long years of being completely helpless, and only being able to stare fearfully as a cruel god danced with his power, before two heroes from across the land discovered (or, according to idle gossip from the undead, possibly rediscovered) ancient magic that managed to defeat him, and for the most part reset the damage Discord had caused.

Pairs of the Club were sent out on regular runs to all nearby settlements, most commonly the griffons. One, for their speed. Two, Griffons in this era were still isolationist, and it made their larger size, curved beaks, all the more distinctive. Gladas in her case tended to travel with her pet crow. They all wore partial masks still, no need to advertise their undeath anymore than they already did, and Wally’s body didn’t look good underneath the bandages he now regularly wore.

They stayed for several days in each town, roaming the streets with no particular destination, letting rumors spread like wildfire. If a pony from Appleton was in the area, they soon realized who were visiting and went to reconnect.

Few remembered the tall, silent strangers that passed through their towns. They interacted with no one, visited no buildings, slept nowhere. Sometimes, a pony ran out to meet them, and all disappeared from the town within a few days.

The encounter was so uneventful that stories about them faded in a generation. But traveling families remembered. They ran into too many accounts of those mysterious strangers in multiple towns to not be wary. Record keepers, too, left behind a paper trail for only the most dedicated.

After that, a decade and a half had passed, thankfully, without major incident. What passed for normalcy within the town of Appleton went on as usual, with the population noticeably growing. This also brought in traders, and due to the general secrecy the Honeycomb Club preferred to conduct themselves with, they tended to conceal their near-immortal status.

Gladas went back to managing her shop in town. She also managed the public library, and helped procure textbooks for the local school.

Cycle and Evens dug out a map of old Enlightened and restarted the regular trips to the remains of the abandoned cult bases in search of the rest of the buried scrolls. Bradley resumed his part in helping out digging tunnels that connected to the underground sites. This time around, he was a lot faster because of the much softer ground and tending to only start tunneling out of sight of populated areas, giving the two adventurers plenty of space for mana-boosted sprints before being forced to slow down.

Trestine, now Quartave, increased her efforts in forming an information network, now that there were regular visits from outsiders. In the early days, they were more like gossip networks, but they at least gave her a direction to investigate. When international newspapers and journals started cropping up, she made an effort to subscribe to every single one she could get her claws on. Daily meditation sessions helped her pinpoint the best avenues for investigation. Outside of that, she managed paperwork, resource allocation, and research progress.

Wally didn’t do much nowadays. He spent most of the time inside Plan P. Frankly, he didn’t look all that pleasant to the eye, either. Noticeable portions of his face were sloughing off, and more of his focus was dedicated to keeping his body from falling apart. Inside, he tended to either be reading or doing stretching exercises. Sometimes, he might move into the backyard to practice his fighting skills. Quartave sometimes sparred with him, being one of the very, very few that could keep up, though with a lot of cheating on her part.

Interestingly enough, once Winter Apple finished her schooling, Gladas found her standing in her store, asking if she could learn from her. To become her apprentice. It took a lot of agreements and written contracts between the two to keep quiet about the nature of her training, and promise to hold herself to still be a pony Appleton would be proud to remember.

One sunny day, amidst Gladas and Winter doing an early morning clearing of Plan P, Gladas found herself answering the door due to a series of heavy, pounding knocks. She pulled the door open, leaning against the doorframe and glaring at the gray coated crystal colt huffing on the doormat.

She raised an eyebrow. “And what are you here for...?”

The colt met her with bold, red irises through a shaggy pitch-black mane. “My home, the Crystal Empire, was ravaged by Discord. None of us could do anything. The strongest were instantly struck down. All of my knowledge I worked for was useless in the face of his onslaught. My mother lost her mind to his insanity. I refuse to ever be that helpless again.”

She tapped her chin. “Appropriate response. I must warn you, if you’re going to be that far away, we won’t be able to keep tabs on you. In turn, I am not allowed to give you anymore than the basics.”

“That’s no problem, I can work it out on my own. I’ll be out of your ... mane? Once you’re done with me.”

“If that’s what you wish. Come along then,” Gladas said, waving a wing into the building, “let me introduce you to Winter, my apprentice. Your name is ...?”

The colt snorted, stepping in with heavy hoofsteps.

“Call me Sombra.”

Author's Note

End of Arc 1, The Gathering of the Dead.

We'll meet again in Arc 2, The Rise of the Dead, whenever the hell I get around to writing it.
Which should be soon, because finally I will be able to write a fight scene again.
Also, The Seer's naming pattern should be obvious now, and where it will lead to.

Edit: Also, this chapter is brought to you by Dorky, who gave me an idea of how to end this arc.

Omake of questionable canonity: Soul Silver

A small family of three sit alone in the single ancient train car. It ran on non-standard track gauge, and none of the locals were even sure who operated it. It simply pointed off into a unpopulated forest, and nopony was willing to venture out to explore it without reason. Even being able to get a ticket involved mailing a request to some obscure location. Turns out it was a mailbox in an empty lot, according to the post office.

”I’m sorry, ma’am. Equestria has no known cure for this. It is fatal.”

The train car itself looked to be pretty high class, if it didn’t appear to be over a hundred years old and only partially maintained. The seats were still comfortable, if faded. Most of the interior decoration was threadbare, discolored, or some combination of the two. It kept the snow and chill out though, as the engine plowed incessantly through a frozen wilderness. The train wheezed and coughed to a stop at the station.

Like the engine, there was nobody waiting for them at the stop. It too was worn and cracked from the harsh weather so far north, with warped planks and weathered paint. It looked like the front half chopped off an ancient train station, and left to rot. There was only a cleared path leading away from the exit. It never really was a choice.

Took any favor they could get, every bit they could scrounge, and yet six months had went by with little hope. If anyone had a cure, they weren’t telling.

Two horns glowed, cautiously pushing away at a mass of trees. The cleared path was easy to traverse despite the snowfall. Five minutes in, and still the path kept going. For a moment, they considered going back Then the two looked back at their precious cargo, and pushed on.

The darkness of their despair was pierced with terrified, desperate hope when a voice said, “I see you two are looking for a miracle.” Was it truth? Or was it a bargain from Tartarus?

The path was straight for half an hour, before terminating in a small cottage in the clearing. Judging by how long it took to get here, and how far it was from any settlement of Equestria, the structure was basically in the middle of nowhere. They weren’t able to do anything about their suspicions, and went on until they reached the door and its rather out-of-place Welcome Mat.

With a slight creak, the door opened before them, letting a ray of light enter the darkness. There was a loud clacking sound inside, like a bag of wooden cubes. The two ponies gulped, and hesitantly entered.

The door slammed shut. Or tried to, as it got jammed on the pair’s cart. There was an awkward silence as the guests moved the cart to the side so the door could properly close.

The guests looked at each other under their horns’ glow, then back into the shadows. “Are you ... Doctor Grey?”

“Indeed. I was told to expect you. Sweetie Belle, is it?”

The female shook her head. “No, my daughter, she’s on the cart.” Her horn glowed and brought the drowsy bundle over in front of her, before cradling the tiny form in her hoof. “We’re her parents. I’m Cookie Crumbles.”

Her husband nodded. “Hondo Flanks.”

“Nice to meet you both.” With a loud thunk, a dim lamp turned on in front of them, revealing a plain desk. Behind it was the mare herself, Dr. Grey. She had a tan coat and what seemed like a grayscale mane. Most of her body and expression was hidden by the heavy shadows from the lamp’s angle. Dr. Grey stretched out a hoof, which Hondo reached out to shake.

He stepped back with his wife and glanced at his hoof awkwardly. “Uh, is your hoof...?”

Grey chuckled. “Indeed, it is wood. This body you see here is also constructed of wood. I have a ... condition, where I would prefer to minimize contact with other living things. Enough about me. What is the issue with your daughter?”

Cookie stepped forwards, carefully placing her youngest daughter on the desk. “All the doctors we’ve asked have told us that our Sweetie has an incurable heart condition, and that any drug or magic would only be able to delay the inevitable.” A waver entered her voice. “We have considered it a last resort. We are willing to give her the best childhood we can before ... you know.”

Dr Grey nodded absently, moving her head closer to the filly’s body, her eyes clacking like pins as she blinked.

After a moment, she pulled back. “Yes, I do believe I have the resources to deal with this affliction. However ... are you willing to pay the price?”

“Name it.”

“No no, it isn’t going to be monetary. First of all, you must understand, my associates are-” she twirled a hoof, “-not on the best of terms with the ruler of the land.”

“Wait, you mean the Princess?”

“She doesn’t approve of our ‘methods’. We understand, we can’t keep everyone happy. We do our best to stay out of her business. You three, however, should be fine.” The puppet steepled its hooves. “However, we would rather prefer not pinging Celestia’s senses. Since whatever we do to save her is a risk on my organization’s part, in return I wish to use your daughter as a testbed for a modified virus I’ve created. Its a more ... controlled variant of my condition.”

Hondo squinted at the doctor. “What ... exactly is your condition?”

Grey grinned. “I’m glad you asked. If you want a preview of what may happen if everything goes wrong, follow me.” Her body settled into a comfortable sitting position, then went slack, her eye-sockets dark and empty.

With a clunk, a light and door activated, showing the way to a flight of stairs down.

The couple looked at each other. “Well, we’ve come this far...”

A moment later, they were treated to a dimly lit basement, that was only a few seconds trot wide. In the middle of the basement, there was a circular pit filled with a green, hissing fluid, with a hundreds of metal wires leading out of it and into the walls and ceiling. The fluid started vibrating, bubbles splashing. A corroded metal hoof grasped the edge of the pit and hauled itself out.

A pair of dully glowing pits came up with them, surrounded by skull of acid-bitten metal plates and grinding gears. Below it was a long, corded torso, sinking into the depths of the sizzling pit.

She leaned on the edge and smiled casually, or as best her oxidized frame could, as red started to drip out from between her joints. “Welcome to my private room, where I rest. Glad we can finally meet face to face.”

The parents stared, horrified. “W-w-what?”

“Yeah, I know. Long story short, bad encounter while tomb raiding, not an occupation I recommend without heavy backup. This pool is industrial acid by the way, try not to touch it. It keeps me sane.” She pointed at her chest. “I’ve been assigned to create a more stable version of this, see whether its possible or not, and how well it compares with ... well, you two don’t have the clearance for it, and you’ll be safer not knowing.”

A claw came down the ceiling, bearing a tiny square of metal and plastic. “This thing,” Grey said, pointing at the chip, “is what I’ll implant, if you two will let me.”

“And then Sweetie will look like .... that?” Cookie asked, pointing at Grey’s ...everything.

Grey shook her head. “If all goes right, no. I was consumed entirely. This little piece of magic should only replace what is needed. Currently, its her circulatory system.” She shrugged. “In the future, if she gets hurt, like say, scraped her leg, this will speed up the healing, and maybe reinforce part of the skin.”

She neglected to mention how dying cells will eventually catch the chip’s attention.

“Then, how likely is this procedure going to work?” Cookie asked.

“Well,” Grey chuckled. “She is the first. However,” Grey’s face hardened. “I will do everything in my power to restrain its growth.”

“Then ... alright. Do it.”

A table was cobbled together by an arch of metal coils. It still flexed a bit under weight, so it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it looked. Sweetie Belle sagged into the wires, her pink and lavender mane tangled and matted with sweat. Her breathing was ragged and her eyelids fluttered weakly. “...?”

Grey brushed a tangle of regrown mane out of her face, and angled her hoof so only the reconstituted fur brushed some of the filly’s sweat off. “Shh, don’t worry. There will be only a tiny prick.”

“Oh? Oh! .... ah.” her eyes closed, and her breathing calmed, if only slightly.

“Is that it?” Cookie asked, fretting after nothing happened for several minutes, her hooves starting to fidget in place.

Grey dropped a syringe, shaking her head. “That was an anesthetic, because if she were awake, this will likely-” a short blade clattered out of her hoof with a clatter of grinding gears, “-hurt quite a bit.” She promptly slid the steel below her patient’s jaw.

“AHHH!” both parents screamed, jaws gaping.

“It’ is fine, I didn’t nick anything important,” Grey said, waving them off. I just need to reach her spine.” She gently widened the wound, and with her other hoof slipped in the little chunk of silver and gold between a nicked vertebrae. She quickly pulled her blade out, but kept close, watching the chip intensely.

The moment blood began soaking the chip, it was sucked in with ferocity. Hair-thin wires snapped out and crawled along the edges of the wound and began delicately stitching it shut. To her relief, it didn’t begin crawling out of her skin. However, it did begin spreading tendrils over and around her nervous system, which will hopefully allow the filly to gain some measure of control over her parasite.

So far, so good.

Soon after, the spindles reached her laboring heart, and began its work. Damaged cells were identified and repaired. Decaying valves and cell walls were outright replaced. Wires curled around an axle, a screw growing out of it, then began spinning. Electrically reactive wires pumped to the beat of the filly’s pacemaker, still organic... for now.

Discovering nothing else to be of note, besides a slight iron deficiency only partially caused by itself, the chip powered down after a full fifteen minutes of quiet buzzing.

Grey let out a breath, more electronic than biological. “The chip appears stable. For now, I recommend plenty of bed rest and a diet heavy in protein. It ate through some of her blood supply to enact the necessary repairs, and will suffer symptoms synonymous with low blood pressure. She should recover within a few days.” Grey carefully picked up the dozing filly and brought her back into the anxious hooves of her parents. “If anything, and I do mean anything abnormal in diet or stamina occurs, contact me by the same address, I can send someone to check in shortly.”

“Oh thank you, so much!” Cookie exclaimed, cradling her daughter. “Is there anything-”

Grey cut her off with a raise of her hoof. “Live. That’s the most we can ask for. Don’t burden her with our issues.” She retreated, her coil-table unraveling as she sank back to the edge of her acid-pool. “There are enemies and shadows you three should never have to worry about. Please, try to forget me. Its harder to get around the more ponies know who we are.” There was a slight boom from above. “There should be enough bits for three tickets back to your home. May the winds be fair and ever homeward. Good luck, and good night.”

The last pleasantries shared, Grey was left alone once more. She waited for the distant call of the train’s whistle to recede, sinking a little in her vat of acid, and paying little attention to the sizzling of flesh.

A pair of glowing blue eyes opened behind her.

“Connect to number ‘533122’,” Grey stated. The eyes walked forward until it stood besides the mare under the light. It was a small-ish changeling, with glowing blue spots along its hooves and a pair of blue stripes going over its back. Its jaw hung limply for a moment, before suddenly turning into an eager grin. Its eyes flickered for a bit before turning into a gentle shade of violet.

“Was the implantation successful?” a mare’s voice asked.

Grey sighed. “The operation, Seer, went without incident, besides a higher than expected blood consumption, and a delay before shutdown. If our sources are correct-”

“Which they are.”

“...then they should reach home within the day, and make contact with the family’s other daughter.”

“Any idea of when we will have visual and audio?”

“In a few years. A foal’s rambunctiousness will be hard to deny, and she get a few nicks soon enough.” Grey slowly began sinking back into the vat, her flesh boiling away. “The Mechano-Virus will seek to protect her from her adventures, including her eyes and ears, and no, it is one way only, if I have my way.”

“Good, good.” Its teeth glowed in the dark. “Element secured.”

Author's Note

I was bored, and instead of working on the rewrite, I wrote Sweetie Bot. Because the world could use more Sweetie Bot.

How canon is this? I dunno. Location might change. I might flesh out the room better. I might write better in general. There's definitely going to be Sweetie Bot though. In about 7 years when I actually get to it.

Also, if anyone is bored enough to trawl through the character creation thread in the group forum for "The Sound of Thunder", you may find what Grey is. I certainly don't remember where I put it.

P.S. Pickleless, you're too slow.

26: Shadows of the Gilded Age

ARC 2: THE MARCH OF THE DEAD

Various points between 1078 - 1060 years ago

I stood outside the doorway to my family home, a hammer dropped, forgotten at my hooves. There was a certain smell ... a stench burned into my memories from never-healed trauma. The first time I sensed it, I thought it was a nightmare. By the time I recovered, the scent was gone.

I’m not letting you get away this time, I thought angrily, padding with every stealth skill I knew, on top of flaring a miniscule amount of magic to absorb the energy in vibrating air molecules.

I sniffed the air, growling near silently as I followed the darting presence.

flick-flick

My ears snapped towards the sound, recognizing the flutter of short, buzzing wings that were forever etched into my memories.

I broke into a sprint and pounced --!

I stared blankly at the colorful, somewhat squishy ... creature in my hoof. It was glaringly orange, with large, blank eyes and a tiny mouth on its spheroid body. It seemed like an insect, yet didn’t really have an exoskeleton, nor segmented body parts. It looked like a vampire-sprite turned kid-friendly. Didn’t even have the fangs that were on the ... other ones. Instead there was a giant clump of leaves in its mouth. On top of how it didn’t seem to have much of a survival instinct, it seemed as dangerous as a particularly strange fly.

“Damned magic creatures” I grumbled under my breath, mashing the pest into the floor before going back to my previous task before he got interrupted, the remodeling of Sunny Pines.

Unbeknownst to me, a pair of blue-green eyes peeked through the underbrush, glowing faintly, before slinking away into the shadows.

Evens had shifted to being a full time assistant for Gladas’s work on improving the Phylactery via the scant notes left behind by the undead cult. It weighed especially heavily on Gladas’s mind, because Wally Falcowolf was a blaring warning bell on what fate befell them all if this project failed. All of them have already long surpassed the short decade the Cult was active, but they had none of the resources.

Their minds lived, but their bodies still decayed. At over two centuries, Wally was way outside his species’s natural lifespan. Within a few years, it was likely Wally would be little more than an animated skeleton, though there was still a fate worse after that. The gems that served as their anchors to this world grew in size, if slowly. Too slowly. Too inefficiently. Mis-shapen lumps like pustules grew in random directions, running into each other and forming fault lines. The energy drain to keep moving, to keep living, ticked steadily upwards. Soon, there may be nothing left except a pile of sentient dust.

Dimi too, was far past her prime. The only thing that kept her looking as well as she did was her much lesser contributions to brutal combat situations that Wally met in his youth, and strangely the regular consumption of alcohol she tested during the cider shipments she ran. Still, she too had taken up wearing more bandages as time went on to preserve what flesh she still had left.

Gladas herself had reached a decade over her species’s maximum recorded lifespan, and looked to have barely aged from the time she joined the Club. But now, she was noticing her own decay. Feathers lost from molting were not getting replaced. Paper cuts more time, more energy to heal. All public missions were set on hold. They couldn't blend in like this.

Gladas herself had managed to invent a stopgap technique that could bring back the shine of healthy flesh, but like The Seer's own rejuvenation spells, these were only temporary. Skin could be grown externally in a process labeled as version 1.6 from sampled flesh, but the body they were applied to were incapable of feeding them. The cells soon starved and died. Wally Falcowolf only really went through the time consuming process of reapplication if he was scheduled for a public appearance.

A new design needed to be found.

She grit her teeth and pulled her focus back to the present. She set down the jar of experimental Arranite solution and gripped a soaked string. "Evens," Gladas called out towards the unicorn on the other side of her lab table, a thin needle pierced into his hoof, "tell me if you feel a spark."

Quartave settled into her morning routine. Preen her wings, groom her feathers, clean her face. Obtain her bags, inspect the string of her slingshot, ensure the load of flares, brass bearings, and explosive orbs.

She stood in front of her mirror and frowned. An echoing creak, a phantom pain in her breast. She went back to her closet and loaded up on more explosives, and strapped on a holster for two daggers and a tied set of throwing knives.

Quartave inspected herself in front of the mirror and inspected herself again. Satisfied, she grinned and set out. Today will prove to be an interesting one.

She moved downstairs, noting the lack of activity. Cycle was still out, and Dimi was out back undercover to her family vineyards. Oh well. She dragged out some pots and set them on the wood stove, watching the porridge slowly boil. By her estimates, Gladas and Evens would be up within a few minutes, so she set a timer and left the building.

First item on her list was to purchase a newspaper and an apple. After decades of integrating herself with the local population, she was able to strike short conversations and greetings to most of the ponies she met along the way.

Quartave still easily made it to the newly constructed theater on time. Technically, it was open for the public, but shows had yet to be scheduled. She stuck the apple into her beak as she shuffled into the lobby, flipping through the newspaper. “Looks like the capital is taking hold. Advertising, advertising, reviews, trading posts, map making ...”

She stopped as she pushed past the lobby doors, sticking the newspaper into her bag and retrieving a pocket watch. She closed her eyes, feeling her heartbeat synchronize with the quiet ticks. She opened her eyes, the world tinged red.

Quartave dropped the watch back into her bags and sauntered down the stairs until she reached the base of the stage, then hauled herself up. She fumbled behind the curtains until she found the right cable, and opened the windows and mirrors that sent some light onto the center stage. The lamps weren’t fueled yet, it seemed.

She moved into the center stage, tail flicking and wings spread. “One, two, three.” She reared up, grinning. “Welcome to my corner of the world! What can I do for you--?” The theater door moved, and stopped.

Quartave dropped the watch back into her bags and moved down the steps. Lamps weren’t fueled and lit yet, leaving the seats only lightly lit by the half drawn windows upon the walls. She froze, the apple core spinning out of her mouth as she slipped a tagger in talon. “What the hell was that--!?”

The theater door moved, but stopped.

Quartave fell onto her knees, the world swimming before her eyes. A shot of cold adrenaline flew through her veins, forcing her wings to flap once to spin her around, smoothly drawing her slingshot and a red flare crystal, a second metal bearing between her claws, and a dagger clenched between her teeth. Her half eaten apple rolled down the seats, disappearing into the shadows.

“So that’s how it feels to have my timeline messed with right before my eyes,” she snarled, a cold sweat dripping down her face. “I hate it.”

The heavy presence on the other side of the doors ignored her. “You appear to be just as perceptive as your reputation says you are,” he said.

“And you are pretending to be much weaker than what you can actually do,” Quartave shot back. “Who are you, and what do you want.”

There was a pause, as if the speaker was surprised Quartave didn’t know already. “You ... do realize that your actions will have consequences on this world, right?”

Quartave groaned, rolling her eyes despite herself. “Oh please. Don’t tell me that the planet itself sent a hit on me.”

The silence that followed dragged on her nerves more than she wanted to.

“... Not exactly,” the speaker continued. “But you are causing ripples. Destructive ripples.”

“Seriously? Just by keeping old Falcowolf alive?”

“That, and more. You think your ambition will not lead you further? Have you not looked at today’s paper? Look at the reports of the Crystal Empire, and actually think about yourself, for once in your life.”

“Not with you over my shoulder,” Quartave said, sling still aimed at the theater doors.

“... Fine. This isn’t the last you’ll see of me.” With that, she heard retreating hoofsteps, then,, for lack of a better word, a brief grinding noise followed by a pop of displaced air.

Quartave’s arms trembled as she gasped, sucking in vast gulps of air. She stowed her slingshot and held the dagger as she shuffled over to the door. A moment, then she nudged it open with a wing.

Nothing, except for faint imprints in the carpet and the scent of ozone. “Dammit,” she snarled. “Didn’t expect competition so soon ...” She stared at her reflection on a piece of glass advertising, the rictus of hate and anger. Heat burned in her chest, and she ducked back inside the theater and yanked out the paper, flipping through to the back.

Branches of hypothetical goals, motivations, available knowledge, ambitions, weaknesses, danced through her mind as she read the article.

She squeezed her eyes shut and slid down the wall. “You arrogant fool,” she spat, clutching her face, breathing heavily. A moment later, she wiped her face clean and clamped down on her emotions. There was no time for regret, she needed a plan of action, now. She shoved her blades back into their holsters and stomped out of the theater.

Barnabee held out a paw, letting Stuard and Hellcat hop off and dart into the crawl spaces nobody ever expected spies to roam. They had entered the Everfree city from far beyond the city limits, burrowed deep through the ground via Barnabee’s monstrous claws. Considering Appleton was likely going to be visited by diplomats from Equestria, it might be prudent to collect information on how they were going to present themselves to the rulers of the land.

From the first stakeouts, they had found that the two sister alicorns had garnered quite a reputation for feats of magical strength. Via sneaking into the closed library at night, Barnabee was able to confirm that they were instrumental in ending the damned mess of chaos magic, and supposedly now personally in control of both sun and moon.

This made Barnabee rather nervous, considering he was tasked with infiltrating their stronghold. He hoped he could get by via being completely unknown. This was how Barnabee and co found himself digging through the bedrock beneath the Everfree Castle, carefully moving bricks around to open crawl spaces big enough for either of the Antibodies to slip through. Vents were the best, since there were no structural risks at all.

It had taken them days of night time maneuvering to reach the throne room, leaving the infiltrators a few hours to wait for the morning court.

Ponies filed in, greeted by the brilliance that was the solar alicorn. She stood on top of a dias, wings half spread with a neutral expression. Then court began, with an assistant calling out the petitions for the day, the current events, the progress of their expanding borders.

A few hours passed, Barnabee was about to doze off when he heard: “Presenting, representatives from the Crystal Empire.”

A luminous pony fell to her knees, trembling. “A dark mage has taken over the kingdom. He has enslaved over 30% of the population for labor camps, and mana batteries. Please, you’re our only hope!”

Ah, Barnabee thought. This is a problem.

Gladas placed the quill down, stating loudly, “Now testing the second prototype of Project Lamprey.” She looked over at Evens with an exasperated sigh. “Are you sure about this? Once we cut it off, you’re not getting it back until the prototype is perfected.”

“Yes, I am very sure,” Evens said, eyes almost bugging out as he stared at the floppy griffon’s talon. Quartave had donated a bit of flesh for this, since she was the only griffon with blood still undamaged by time. The flesh had then been the focus of several heavily modified healing spells, and now rested bubbling quietly in a nutrient-oxygen bath.

"Even though we only need to remove the skin and muscles for the proof of concept?"

"Claws."

Gladas sighed, pulling over a clay pot to her front. It contained a wooden talon embedded in soil. "I wired all the joints for this thing Cycle made for you. Better thank him after this. So, I will warn you that this amputation will result in quite a unique pain.”

Evens nodded as Gladas hefted a cleaver checking once more, then ...

THUNK

Evens winced, but frowned at the slowly bleeding stump. “Ok, that hurt, but not especially-- HURK.”

Gladas was peering into the stump of Evens’s dismembered hoof, tapping around with a scalpel, before suddenly slamming it through. There was the crackling, popping noise of shattering crystals.

The unicorn groaned as he sat up. "Felt like my leg exploded."

"Indeed. Just as the arcanite resonance allows you to sense and manipulate a dismembered limb, so can others," Gladas explained. "It is not as fatal as losing possession of your Phylactery, but most would prefer to shatter the connection than risk it." Gladas reached over and lifted Evens's stump. She batted away small sharp points off the fractured vein of arcanite poking out.

Next, she plucked the talon out of its pot and pushed it tight against his exposed bone. The stored magic alit, roots growing around and into the bone. The fleshy talon was pulled out of the nutrient soup and carefully shuffled onto the wooden talon. The two arcanite stubs were held together, tied together with copper wires.

Evens jolted as he felt an icy pulse shoot through his blood, before an alien weight became apparent to his perceptions. He carefully lifted his foreleg, mindful of the still fragile attachment, marveling the grafted limb. “... This is amazing. Talons of my own!”

“Can you move them?” Gladas asked, prodding the claws with a glass rod.

Evens looked at Gladas’s talon, then his own. The talon turned to face him, then slowly closed into a fist. “I ... can’t seem to get them to move individually.”

“Right,” Gladas said, lifting the talon to her face and placing a scalpel down. “I’m going to try to rewire this thing so you have a better sense of the different muscle groups.”

Evens stared at her, then at his foreleg. “... Hey, you cut my stump!”

“I warned you that you’d have a missing leg for a while,” Gladas said, rolling her eyes. “Be patient, will you? You’ll have more talons to play with later.”

“Ah, I see,” the unicorn nodded in contemplation, then lit his horn to pick up a bone saw.

Gladas reached over and slapped his horn. “No.”

Author's Note

Anyone want to guess at who the mysterious visitor is?
If it matters, the character is also a recycle of an abandoned plot idea from my "mega-crossover everything list at least once". If anyone can find it. I basically refused to just slap characters from another universe, and tried to mold Equestria into a version that could fit said character.

27: Liches Make War

Wally rested, floating in a pool of grey translucent goo. The tank had multiple pipes leading inside, a gravity powered pump pulsing air bubbles into the biological soup. Every thirty minutes, a clockwork mechanism dumped recycled nutrients into the soup.

His eye lights were dim, his body half curled into a fetal position. Though he seemed completely motionless, his inner heat burned. The strands of magic that was his existence twisted around his bones. His own personal army of reanimated flies buzzed in circuits as he exercised his control.

A few hours passed in near silence, muffled footsteps from beyond his confined walls.

Then, he heard a trio of knocks against the wood of the barrel he resided in. “Come on Gramps, it’s time to move out,” said the voice of his granddaughter.

He hissed, faint bubbles coming out of his beak as he stretched his talons and hauled himself over the edge, cloned cells dripping off his partially regrown feathers in clumps. Old wounds bubbled and fizzled, the squirming masses jamming themselves deep and copying the protein signals of the neighboring cells.

He rolled onto the ground with a wet splat, glancing at the label on the barrel. “Phylactery Mk1 v6.” He rolled his shoulders, crackles of magic glowing between the joints, pinpricks of light dancing over his tongue, as he walked over to the exit.

He paused along the door. On a hook held a mask, one he once wore with pride, then self-loathing, then resignation.

He stared at it silently for a few moments. Few would remember his face, especially in the state it was in now. However ... “The presentation calls.”

The bone white mask slipped over his eyes, a single red line going over his left eye socket.

Quartave sat at her own workbench, a hilt, a crystal, metal tubes, and a collection of wires before her. For a moment, her talons hovered over the parts, hesitation gripping her. Then, she closed her eyes and took a breath, feeling the waves of magic flowing through her, and let long buried instincts guide her, as it once did a lifetime ago.

When she opened her eyes again, only a metal handle was left, the rest of the components assembled inside, with a small coil of exposed wire poking out of a tiny slot. A series of flat braided cloth wrapped around it, giving her a comfortable grip to hold onto.

"Don't want too much output coming out of this thing," she mused, holding it to her eyes and testing the weight. "Balance is probably going to be shot, for now...."

She reached across the table and screwed on a small water pipe, then waved it around. “Not going to be the hardest hitter, but that was never what I was going for.”

Preparations mostly complete, she put on a few pieces of armor she had bought or traded for a few months ago. The weapon, now finished, she carefully leaned it against the table. She stretched her talon through leather gloves, clenching into a fist to test their flexibility.

“Perfect,” she whispered.

Quartave made for the exit, pausing to slip on a cloak over her ensemble. Hanging on a hook was a scratched, worn mask, the one she first wore on the raid of the cult. It had been repolished and cleaned, and marked with a small eye in the center of the forehead area and with expensive purple ink, along with a thin ring of purple around both eyes..

She held it in front of her, brushing a claw over the tiny pock marks and scars, whenever she felt an urge to be overdramatic. Can't afford to do that, now, she thought with a grimace. Need a good impression out there. Focus, focus!

She twisted her wrist and glanced at the gauntlet on her arm, glaring at the reflection of yellow veins in her eyes. She closed her eyes, counted to ten, then stared, closed her eyes for another count of ten, then finally stared again until the acid yellow fury sank beneath her natural purple irises.

“And stay that way,” she hissed through gritted teeth, grabbing her blade and pushing it into her belt. As she moved towards the door to the workshop, she paused at the entryway, glancing back down to the weapon hanging loosely at her side. There was no sheath, as there was no sharp point after all.

“This creation ... needs a name. One of few that will exist on this plane.” She slowly pulled the hilt up towards her slightly, glancing at the torchlight reflecting off its surface. “... You are ‘Monster’s Bite’. Get ready for the war front, little one.”

She let it go, the blade sliding back down to rest on its hilt, and pulled the mask over her face. Quartave took a deep breath, then moved out. Her cloak was pulled from a hook, and the hood cast her eyes and mask into shadow.

Dimi sat in her office, slowly rolling a bottle of grape wine in her palm. A map was laid out in front of her, dotted with rough patches of previous moisture. She had made several trips to the Crystal Empire in the past month, flying around the magical barrier that kept the snow out, and stealthy stake outs at the eight towers that bracketed the Empire.

She was disturbed by how far Sombra had gone with the meager pickings the Club had given him. He was a true genius, but unbound by morality or the sense of cooperation. A perfectionist, one who’s will dominated both ponies and magic itself.

“That’s not what this was supposed to be about,” Dimi griped, claws digging into her head. Now, she had to find weak spots the Lich could best exploit.

The Crystal Empire was indeed massive, a small city within its dome. While this may make it harder to watch every border, Sombra seemed to have procured an absurd number of armored guards watching everything. The towers were also of some concern, but unlike the Empire itself, they seemed near abandoned. In the weeks she spent spotting the castle, she saw nobody ever go visit the towers. The only notable thing she could detect from the towers was magic chained beneath heavy wards.

If they were watch towers, they would need to see if there was a way to bypass or subvert them. If not, they were probably going to rip out anything not nailed down, and then the bricks the nails sat on. A meeting where they discussed the towers had ended up on an unanimous conclusion: Whatever Sombra had made, discovered, summoned, it was best it stayed forgotten. What they didn’t agree on was how to dispose of them.

Quartave was very interested in collecting everything. Gladas was adamant that everything Sombra touched was tainted, and that his legacy should be burnt to the ground. Eventually Wally cut in and told them that they’ll investigate on a case by case basis, which mollified Quartave a bit, though Gladas was left still seething.

With a sigh, Dimi packed several rolls of parchment into her bags. There was going to be a lot of cataloging ahead no matter what.

She grabbed her mask,

Gladas and Evens were together in the lab making their final adjustments.

Custom sockets were fitted to the stump of Evens’s stump. Sinew sutures held the connections tight. Evens’s bones were also carefully carved to socket onto the new limb. Leather straps held the entire contraption in place.

“All connections in place,” Gladas said, pulling the sutures tight. “Structure secure. Internal temperature is still nominal. Blood vessels cauterized, pressure stable.” There was a faint smell of burnt flesh in the air. “Ready for activation?”

Evens nodded. “Do it.”

Gladas pushed a small cylinder of glowing crystal into a slot on the limb, and pushed the skin over it. Evens flinched as a surge of tingling shot up his foreleg. His hoof, no, claw, twitched. He slowly turned his wrist until his new palm faced him, and clenched his fingers into a fist.

Gladas leaned over his shoulder. “How does it feel?”

“A bit tingly,” Evens replied with an eager grin, fingers wiggling. “But ha ha! Look at them go! We can iron out the fluctuations later. Let’s get going, I want to play with these.”

“Sure, but blast anything the moment anything goes wrong with that claw,” Gladas said, moving towards a shelf. “Don’t want anything getting the chance to get the drop on you.” She picked up an old mask, covered in dust. She blew it off. Like most of the others, it was shaped in the rough outline of the upper half of a griffon's head, with a personalized touch of a black ring surrounding the gold trim around the eye-sockets.

Evens picked up his own freshly carved one with his new hand, also that of a griffon’s head, with a blue ring around the eyes. “This should be fun,” he said with a giggle.

I was sitting in my room, my head bowed. I gently shook the varnish brush against the bottle before I capped it. My shiny, polished mask sat in front of me, the paint just dried.

When I had first received my mask, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to represent myself, something that stood for my hopes and dreams.

In the end, it was pretty simple. Though the Honeycomb Club took me in, and taught me to be who I was today, it was always in service in keeping my heart, my home, alive.

A yellow-orange ring around one eye, paired with a green stripe over the other. Sunny Pines. I reverently picked it up and hooked it over my face.

Yeah. That’d do.

There were several knocks against the door. Evens. “Hey kid, you ready?”

“Almost! Go ahead, I’ll meet you at the front.”

It was a bit of a rush job, but we pulled a few favors to speed it up. I strapped a set of enchanted armor over my torso. The plan we’d settled on hinged on my ability to stand and fight.

Right. Let’s do this. I finished writing down my thoughts in a notebook, then closed it. I gave a small smirk at my reflection. “Be seeing you.”

Author's Note

surprise

28: The Black Towers / The Earthen Hermits

Five days passed as the Dead marched across the northern forests and into the northern tundra. They marched through day and night, mana smoke trailing their path. As the temperature dropped, their pace held, a shell of crackling ice around pairs of glowing lighthouses piercing the frosty fog.

At the end of their march, they were greeted by a massive ring of towers, surrounding the glittering jewel that was the Crystal Empire. Quartave flicked the edge of her hood up, the only one of the group still needing a proper body temperature. “Alright, Evens, Dimi, you're the infiltration team. Get set up to break into the towers. The combat team, Gladas, Wallace, Barnabee, Antibodies: get into position near the back side of the Empire. Blackbird, set up an overwatch. Keep an eye on anomalous movement.

"As for you, Cycle, you’re with me.

“We have visitors."

The tower team set into a relaxed lope away from Quartave. There was still a bit of time before the operation truly started. As they crested a snowdrift, they spotted glittering golden light marching closer.

Dimi slowed, squinting at the army. She could see the silhouette of Quartave and Cycle below them, walking towards the army. Figuring that she had everything under control, she turned to catch up to Evens, who had could no longer hide his excitement and started vibrating in anticipation.

“You’re pretty dang excited about this.” Dimi noted, keeping pace by his side.

“I always wanted to fly,” Evens said, “And I always admired the beauty of birds. Their graceful arcs, their lustrous wing-feathers—”

“I’m going to stop you there before I get too weirded out,” Dimi interrupted, a sour expression crossing her beak.

“Yeah, yeah,” Evens ignored her discomfort with casual ease. “Anyways, this will be the first true field test of this arm. I would be able to figure out the forces it must endure, any control issues that may pop up, its responsiveness. Once Gladas figures out how to revise it, we can start working on even more attachments.”

“I see.”

As Dimi glanced at his legs’ cadence, she noticed that it was just the slightest bit off, its steady beat rougher, more uneven than it should be. She wasn’t sure if it were an issue of acclimation, uneven weight, or a fault. Something to bring up with Gladas and Evens when they got back, she figured.

They soon reached their targeted destination, one of several towers guarding the Dark King’s realm. They squinted from behind a snow pile. There were a row of guards standing around its base. Hrmm.

She slipped a mirror out of her bag, then carefully estimating the position of the sun, wiggles the light towards the sky. A few moments later, a blast of air precedes Blackbird backwinging before them, flickering shadows around his wings fading away as he folds them. “Blackbird,” Dimi asked. “Can you check the other towers and compare the amount of guards each have?”

The crow nodded, and took off with a blast of air, golden sparks trailing his wings. By now, the army had met the two forms of Quartave and Cycle. Evens’s nervous energy settled slightly at the sight. “I hope they’re doing fine.”

“If there were any physical danger, the Seer would have called this entire operation off and run for the hills.”

“But psychological dangers?”

Dimi frowned, unsure and unable to bring any assurances.
Blackbird came sweeping back, sliding to a slippery landing behind them. “The front most, least guards. The rear, the most. Dimi and Evens looked at each other. “We’re going to the back,” they said simultaneously.

Dimi squinted in suspicion. “I figured that the King would want to protect his most valued secrets with increased security. Why are you so eager?”

Evens pawed at the ground, chuckling nervously. “I wanted to claw more things.”

Dimi rolled her eyes. "Just keep it under control, will you?" She turned to scan the landscape around her. "Let's go that way. It'll keep us out of their sight."

"Wait," Evens asked, "wouldn't they have already seen Blackbird?"

In response, the crow's feathers flicker, a glittering sheath of prismatic ice flowing around his wings.

"Or he can do that. Sure."

Said bird takes off once more, the half of its body facing the enthralled guards during smokey white. The pair dash off into the snow, zig zagging to keep their profiles as low to the ground as possible.

In short order, the Iniltration pair end up waiting a distance away from another tower. As Blackbird said, there were indeed more bodies surrounding this one. Worryingly, however, were the number of guards facing inwards.

Snow accumulated on their backs as they waited. Dimi had sat down, eyes closed, breaths steady. Evens fidgeted slightly, his new claws kneading the snow.

Then, finally, an Indigo firework shot into the sky, sparks twirling away behind its path.

Dimi raised her head, her eyes sparkling with surging magic. "Showtime."

Half an hour earlier

Wally gently bumped Gladas’s shoulder as they ran. Gladas’s eyes were blank, unfocused, as she soul drifted with her pet watching from high above. “The Equestrian group is moving in. It seems that Sombra is preparing his own delegation to meet them,” she reported. “It will allow us to prepare an overwhelming first strike.”

Barnabee nodded. “Would we be going in as a group to break one line, or cause as much chaos through directional strikes?”

Gladas hummed. "We will need to occupy attention, paralyze their decision making. I would go with multiple directions."

"Understood."

Wally hummed in thought. "Gladas and I will control the air. Barnabee, you help the Antibodies prepare the ground against them. Give them nothing to stand safely on."

The Dog grunted in agreement. Stuart-5 squeaked in understanding from his perch on Barnabee's shoulder, his legs too short for the speed and distance they needed to cover.

Several minutes later, they approached the shimmering border of the Empire. "Blend into the shadows," Wally reminded as they began to slow down. "Suppress yourself until there's nothing left. Sombra must not realize our intrusion. And remember your training. No fatalities."

With that, Wally snapped his wings open and leapt into the air, Gladas following shortly after. Barnabee nodded and, flexing his claws, started plowing through the snow and frozen dirt. The Antibodies hopped down and followed behind him.

Wally and Gladas crept over rooftops, under rafters, through shadowed alleyways. There was little hoof traffic; it seemed the King had called a city-wide congregation order. Perhaps as a show of force or demonstration of strength to the Equestrian Crown. Wally frowned, tapping the side of his mask in thought. This would make it causing distractions aplenty easy, though also taking away his ability to control the situation. Well, nothing to it, then. He wiped a bit of blood off the side of his beak and leapt for the next balcony.

As predicted, much of the populace were crowding the main center street leading out of the Empire, arranged in rows to allow a clear path down the middle. Near the entrance of the castle, he spotted an ornate carriage slowly rolling towards him. There you are, he thought. Glancing around, he saw the barest hint of a bump hanging down the side of a building. Fetching a pocket mirror from one of his pouches, he flickered reflected sunlight towards her. North. Keep watch.

A few moments later, the shadow replied with her own light. Acknowledged.

After that, it was waiting. The carriage moved up the street. The golden armor of the Equestrian delegation moved towards the border. The sun moved towards its apex.

The delegations met. The neutral, almost desperately hopeful faces on the Princesses turned into a scowl.

An indigo flare burned through the sky.

Wally let a blood flecked breath escape his beak as his wings slowly unfolded. A high pitched hoot bounced through the alleyways as he entered the wind on silent feathers. The hunt begins.

Author's Note

Whups ignore that old mask description

29: The Princesses Eclipse / The Cursed Magician

“Alright, Evens, Dimi, you're the infiltration team. Get set up to break into the towers. The combat team, Gladas, Wallace, Barnabee, Antibodies: get into position near the back side of the Empire. Blackbird, set up an overwatch. Keep an eye on anomalous movement.

"As for you, Cycle, you’re with me.

“We have visitors."

In moments, Quartave and I stood alone. I glanced at her. “So, who’s coming?”

“Sombra has disrupted local relations enough to alert Equestria,” she explained. “Enough to provoke them to investigate.” A wide grin split her face. “It will not end well.”

I leaned slightly away from her. "Right ... What am I here for then? I thought I was joining the combat team?"

"You will," Quartave said. "But for now, I need you by my side for a bit. Insurance, I would say."

"Against what?" I asked, adjusting my mask.

"I think the Equestrians would be a bit more receptive to my presence with a pony like them." The grin on her face almost turned into a leer before she managed to force it back down into a more neutral expression. "I don't exactly give off a comforting energy."

Mollified, I sat down, kneading the snow. Quartave stared off into the distance, one talon reaching over her shoulder to tap her weapon's grip with her fingers.

We first saw the tips of their banners over the snowdrifts. Then, the two sovereigns crested the hill, and locked eyes with us. There was a moment of shocked silence, then her horn ignited.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had already positioned myself in front of Quartave, my teeth bared. The blue alicorn slapped a hoof to the chest of the other princess, whispering words of warning. The white alicorn frowned, but let the magic in her horn dissipate.

They moved again, now with the many guarded eyes of the pony soldiers behind them, spear tips twitching. The delegation stopped a few steps before me, Quartave's expression half hidden by the shadow of her hood, still quietly tapping her weapon's hilt.

The blue alicorn broke the silence first. "We are Princess Luna of Equestria, and this is my sister."

"We are Princess Celestia of Equestria," the white alicorn spoke up. "Who are you? Why is there a colt with you?" Her glare and subtle frown were still in place.

"My, my," Quartave said with casual ease. "So tense today?" She pushed the tip of her hood slightly back, revealing her blank, placid grin. "I'm the leader of a little ... let's call it a cultivation club, Club Honeycomb. You can call me Quartave. This little one besides me is Cycle Springfield. He's been apprenticing under one of my members after we took him after a ... family tragedy. We're here due to business with the--"

"You would steal a child!?" Princess Celestia cut in.

"Celestia!" Princess Luna hissed.

Quartave's placid grin fell into a vague, confused frown. "A child? Cycle is an adult of decades."

Princess Celestia's eyes narrowed. "I don't believe you."

I straightened out of my stance, raising a hoof. "Discord's meddling made counting time rather difficult, but I'm nearing a hundred winters now, ma'am. I have a condition that has kept my height short."

"Celestia, please," Princess Luna said, placing a hoof to her sister's shoulder as she was locked into a cycle of dumbstruck bafflement. "Let me handle this." She stepped forwards, giving me a nod. "Miss Quartave was it? We heard about the new ruler for the Crystal Empire, and wanted to meet him ourselves."

Quartave nodded. "Understandable. And I guarantee it will be a resoundingly poor idea."

At Princess Luna's shocked look, the Seer continued, "My club trained him when he came to us, aimless, devoid of hope after Discord broke his home. We didn't monitor him as carefully as we should have, and so he left us twisted, lost in the thirst for power and control. You will meet him, and you will hate everything he stands for."

"...Then why are you here?"

Quartave's beak fell into a grim line. "To correct our mistake."

Luna frowned. "How?"

"Any means necessary." Quartave sighed, breath misting into the air. "How about this? Equestria moves to make diplomatic ventures. If against all odds, the King responds reasonably, I'll call my people to return to me. If not, we'll move in. How does that sound?"

The Diarchs held a silent conversation between them. The Solar Princess seemed to still be highly dubious, but acquiesced, for now.

Luna turned to the both of us and nodded. “We accept.”

Quartave sat back and clasped her talons. "Excellent! Now, let us agree on a signal, yes?”

Quartave stood alone, crouched upon a small hill, peering into the Empire ahead.

The Equestrian Delegation reached the Empire with only a minor delay to their arranged timetable. The King was in front, awaiting them. The meeting, almost predictably, went horribly.

Quartave tittered at the rhythmic adjustment of wings. “Oh, what a shame! What. A. Shame.” She drew Monster’s Bite out of her belt and flicked a switch. The end of the hilt split open, ejecting a spring-loaded sling. An indigo flare was fitted to the woven pad, spun, and released the flaming indigo orb into the sky. Acid yellow hate flickered beneath her irises. “All forces. Execute your orders.”

30: Hidden Strength

The crumbling diplomatic event was startled out of their frustrations when they were interrupted by a flaming star arcing overhead. In the next instant, a heavy fog seeped down from rooftops, blinding all for a crucial instant.

None were able to react to the ground around the King erupting, pulling thralled soldiers away from their charge’s side.

The Dark King rose from his seat. “Equestrians,” he snarled, horn flaring and releasing a dark flame.

To his surprise, it was deflected by a glowing red barrier, followed by a pair of griffons landing in front of him. “I am not allowed to let you do that,” the male muttered.

Jumbled memories flowed deep within the King’s subconscious, relit by flames of instinctual hate, instantly sending him into a teeth-clenched rage. “Traitors!”

“Really?” the female griffon asked, an eyebrow raised beneath her yellow ringed mask. “You’re further gone than I thought.”

Ignoring them, his horn relit anew, this time with the purple tint of dark magic fueling it. “Soldiers! Slaves! Execute them!”

The griffons rolled out of the way of the blast, shooting through empty air. To the King’s frustration, there were only a handful of crystal ponies rushing out of the fog to meet the griffons in battle. The female griffon glanced over her shoulder, easily fending her assailants off with a talon full of small blades and quick blocks of her gauntlet. “Don’t worry. We’re not here to fight you. We’re just here to stall.”

The King stared. The pounding of hooves echoed through the plaza. A tiny, colt sized missile shoulder checked him through several walls into several walls.

An indigo flare arced over the cold, noon sky.

Dimi opened her eyes. “Showtime.”

Evens cackled in delight, the pair of them bursting through the snow as the guards turned, looking towards the Empire, and therefore completely blindsided when the pair of Lich slammed into them like wrecking balls. The tip of Dimi’s dagger sheared through the side-plate of the enthralled pony, causing it to collapse like a puppet with its strings cut. Evens simply slammed his metal tipped claws of his prosthetic talon into the helmets and tore through them with a powerful swipe.

A few takedowns passed before Dimi paused and spun in place, watching one of her downed targets. Upon reflection, she realized none of them wore any protection from the elements. The unpadded steel had probably made it worse.

She swung a dagger behind her as she pondered, then drew it out of the throat of a pony that tried to swing a spear behind her.

“Bwah!” Evens shouted in surprise, momentarily pausing his gleeful rampage. “I didn’t know we were allowed to kill them?”

“I didn’t,” Dimi said quietly, lifting the dagger for the unicorn to see. A chunk of congealed, half frozen blood slid off the blade and clanged off a chest plate. “They’ve already died of hypothermia long ago.”

Evens blinked at the enthralled soldier he was choking, at how the soldier was entirely unconcerned that she hadn’t been breathing for over a minute and was still trying to kick at his face. “Dang, that’s cruel.” He slammed her into the snow and crushed her neck, frowning at the frosty skin clinging to his talon. “This doesn’t feel fun anymore.”

“Unfortunately, we still have a job to do.” Dimi didn’t bother keeping her measure precise and punched her blade straight through the next corpse’s helmet. The pair quietly and methodically cut down the ranks, now noticing how stiffly the bodies moved. Even without their interference, Dimi figured that the guards would have probably fallen apart within a decade or two, longer if they kept stationary, simply from wind erosion. Assuming, of course, the King didn’t regularly replenish their ranks.

Hopefully, that would not come to pass.

Once they reached the entrance, Evens tore out the hinges and bucked the door down. Dimi soared over him, rolling to a stop with daggers drawn. They were met with laboratory, library, storage space. Dimi frowned at the lack of further security, carefully stalking around the walls, glancing at the scant light from slits high above. Evens followed in shortly after her and elected to scout up the spiraling staircase up the tower, and found a bare bones living quarter. Possibly, it was where the King stayed when taking break from whatever research he was conducting.

Circuits made, they mentally logged the items they encountered, then went to pull the obvious rug off the ground, revealing the trapdoor hidden underneath.

The open hatch gave both infiltrators pause. It was a smell they only really encountered around the elder Falcowolf, on the days where his rot was the worst before the experimental treatments. They spared a glance to each other, then ran down.

I stood on a side street, with no one around me as far as the eye could see, mind racing with the task before me. It was a bit ironic, I supposed. The two most lost of the Honeycomb Club, now destined to a deadly dance. One set out to one day keep the memories of his home alive, the other set out to conquer his memories so they would never leave his grasp ever again.

Then the Seer’s flare arced over me; the time for musing was over. I broke out into a walk, then trot, then full gallop. I bared my teeth as frost started coating my cheeks, despite the Empire’s controlled atmosphere. In fact, it was the perfect temperature for me.

“First Gate!” I hissed, and started sucking in energy from all around me, the air fogging behind me and the crystal floor frosting over with ice. My speed doubled; my gaze locked to the swirling fog that blossomed ahead of me. With a blink, I switched to Mage’s Sight; for a moment, I was distracted the golden and silver light pulling back, almost blinding in its strength. I shook it off and focused on the dark maelstrom that was Sombra.

I kept my head low as I entered the fog, my speed barely wavering as I plowed through a wall and chunk of debris. Then I jumped, and body-checked the dark pony at over 70 mph.

Seconds passed while airborne, my gaze locked onto Sombra’s shocked, wheezing face.

Then we hit the outskirts, carving a furrow through dry grass and crystalline trees. I managed to stop on my hooves; Sombra merely exploded into smoke and reformed, almost shaking apart in his rage.

“Hello,” I said, giving a small bow. “Would you mind stopping the conquering thing and giving my new family a bad name?”

Sombra squinted in suspicion. “An usurper!?”

I rolled my eyes. “Guess that’s a no. I’m going to have to stop you by force then.”

“An Interloper …” Sombra hissed, seemingly satisfied that I now slotted into an acceptable category. “Foolish mud-borne, thinking that he could challenge me?”

“You were Terrasire just like me when you came to Appleton. Are you for real?”

“That pony is dead!” Sombra screamed, magic flaring. “And for that insolence, you will die with the rest!” The purple green magic burst out, blowing chunks of lawn into the sky and setting stone aflame.

The debris rained down, Sombra glaring at the spot I stood as smoke billowed off the wreckage. With a huff, he adjusted his torn robes and stomped back towards his empire. He ran into an obstruction.

He looked down, then slowly, turned his head to my masked face as I held a hoof across his chest. “Nah.” I pushed forwards, the contact exploding into a cloud of superheated steam as I released a portion of my stored energy. A fog of black smoke spread around me, before rushing together, depositing a much more wary Sombra in front of me.

“You dare fight a god?” he asked, almost in disbelief.

“I mean, yeah?” I said, shrugging. “We already spit on nature’s design, might as well go all the way. And really, you haven’t scared me yet.”

Sombra twitched, then the deep purple tint of dark magic flowed around his head. His posture changed, his demeanor turning almost haughty. “Congratulations then, for I am the god of Fear.” The purple aura pulsed out, sending a wave of dark fog spreading out around him.

I tensed, falling into a crouch, but frowned when nothing happened. I pulsed my magic, shifting it to Mage’s Sight when—

Useless!

I flinched, my magic slipping out of my grasp. The fog began to solidify, forming familiar streets, homesick homes, nostalgic vistas.

And they were filled with smoke.

My eyes widened in panic, running and punching a door, only to be pushed back by a wall of flame. Windows and shutters shattered, sending pillars of fire clawing towards the storm clouds. In seconds, the forest too, was set ablaze. I stared and stared, paralyzed, watching my hope burn down around me.

”Cycle…” came a voice.

I spun, seeing a skull, Mom’s skull staring back at me from a flaming doorway.

“Why couldn’t you save me?”

The flames disappeared, and I was a colt again, cradling my mother’s cooling body. She turned to look at me, frowning in disappointment. “You couldn’t save anything at all.”

My pulse thundered, screamed, stopped.

My world became a nexus of terror.

My Soul exploded with hate.

“Second Gate.”

Sombra sneered as the usurper froze like everything else, his eyes glassy and unfocused. He walked up to the colt, looking down at the colt. “Your strength is considerable,” he mused. “Though not as strong as me, you would be a valuable asset if controlled properly. Now, to deal with those intruders,” he said the last words with a growling hiss.

He started walking back towards the Empire, only to pause when he realized nobody was following him. He turned around to find the colt aflame in magic, pupils in pinpricks and giving him a death glare.

“You destroyed my everything,” a distorted voice came out of the colt’s clenched teeth. “I will eat you. SECOND GATE!”

Quartave perched upon a crystalline branch. Her eyes were closed as she waved Monster’s Bite like a conductor’s baton, humming quietly to herself. “Infiltration team, progressing smoothly. Request experience for data. Combat team, objectives fulfilled. Equestrian group safely out of the danger zone. Assassination objective, progressing as …” There was an unexpected fuzziness washing over her Sight, spreading out in a wave around the city. It seemed as if the timeline split in two. One, the mission, as planned. The other, a ghostly afterimage, the eye of the distortion originating from the—

Quartave pulled a red flare out of her bag.

Sombra blinked as a wall of exploding mud exploded around him.

Then he was blown apart into smoke when my hoof kicked through the back of his head.

Sombra reformed, then almost fell over, gasping. I landed on my hooves, steam billowing off of me as the ice that armored me instantly sublimated from the heat. Frost coated a ring of churned up dirt and grass, while the ground I stood directly upon wilted and crumbled into dust.

The moment I found my balance I sprinted forwards again, grass dying with each step until I slammed into Sombra’s hasty shield. Finding no purchase, I opened my jaw and pulled. The shield wobbled, then shrank, being sucked into my mouth.

Sombra blasted me in the face, sending me flying head over hooves.

As I rolled back upright, Sombra summoned a dome shield around himself. “Submit yourself!” he demanded. “Unicorn magic will always be superior to a Terrasi’s.”

I glared back, and simply ran at him again. At the edge of his shield, I suddenly froze in place. Sombra’s magic, already charged, fired off anyways.

I buried my hooves into the dirt, and Held.

The ground exploded around me, magic forcedly channeled into the earth. I reared up and slammed some of the captured energy back through the ground, sending Sombra’s tumbling as his shield and a chunk of rock flew into the air.

I was on him in an instant, mouth open, and bit down.

Sombra howled, sending an omni-directional wave of force in reflex. When he reformed, his form was somewhat indistinct. I swallowed, and the chunk of burned flesh on my face started fading away.

He stared at me in disbelief for a long moment. He turned to half smoke and began flying hellbent for the Empire.

“No!” I roared, churning up dirt as I galloped after him.

He pointed his horn after me, explosive spells slamming into the soil, forcing me to dodge and weave.

“Two can play at that game!” I shouted, hopping into the air, then punching the ground. Green light shot through the earth, then blasted a chunk of stones in front of Sombra and stalling his momentum.

I jumped at him once more, slamming into another shield, and smashing it to pieces. I pushed him against the earthen wall, chunks of frost around my hooves in contact with his form holding him in place.

A red flare sent deep shadows around us.

“Demon’s Gate.” I kicked off him and ran sprinting for the border, flames erupting from gaps in my armor.

An instant later, a burst of Rainbow light shot into the sky behind me.

Quartave stood, sweating, on a snowy hill a run’s away from the edge of the Crystal Empire.

“Oh no.” She stared at the dome of Harmonic magic rising over the Empire outskirts. “What have you done?”

Author's Note

References:

Holding Firm from Dangerous Business
Tarot cards
Slight FMA, ATLA
Maxwell's Demon

31: Absolute Justice

The Siege of the Crystal Empire ended swiftly, measured, but in failure.

The red flare arced gracefully over the glimmering fields.

A dome of Harmonic Light burst to life, overtaking, smothering, consuming the flare.

The Empire’s shield darkened from a surge of dark magic, twisting the Empire out of reality.

The Seer stared at her missing target, then screamed in fury.

“Don’t take another step closer.” Quartave said through gritted teeth, the outstretched sword-pipe shaking slightly in her grip. The clouds of snow blasted out from her arrival slowly disappeared into the harsh wind. “You’ve done enough damage.”

Both Princesses froze, watching the hooded griffoness with a measure of concern and confusion. And for Celestia, suspicion. “What are you talking about?” the Solar Alicorn demanded. “The Elements are a force for good!”

“Did you not listen to a single word we said?” Quartave demanded. “Did you think he was joking about being nearly a century old? I found him, dying, alone in the middle of nowhere. But I saw potential in him, brought him back from the brink of death.” Her talons flexed, piercing through snow to tear up the frosted soil beneath. A vein of yellow crept up the side of her eye before she closed it, hissing frustration into the snow before her sword dropped from exhaustion.

“Was it the dark magic that kept his growth artificially neutered? Likely. But have you considered how it is likely the only thing that kept him alive through that damnable winter? I have put in a lot of effort into making sure my assets are in good condition, so please stop threatening to destroy them all.”

“Wait, you’re different…” Celestia began, her eyes squinting.

Luna interrupted her, holding a hoof against her chest, “Sister please, not now.” Turning back, she asked, “If what you say is true, then is the colt—”

A patch of snow behind the griffon shuddered, then slowly sat up. The flesh on half of Cycle’s face was gone, sloughed off, leaving bleached bone behind. There were further patches scattered across his back and legs, holes that you could see right through to the dim green gem within.

“Yes,” Quartave said, “The Elements are fatal to us. Cycle. He wasn’t supposed to live. None of us are. But me?” She raised her head, glaring. “I have things I still want to do in this realm. I’ve gotten a taste of life, and I’m grabbing anything I can to keep it going.”

“You dare play with Destiny so casually?” Celestia demanded.

“I and Fate do not see eye to eye, so yes,” Quartave replied. “Does the average person care about whether they’re following their destiny? Whether their actions will change others? I saw potential in this colt, and in the rest of my allies, but they were all going to die before realizing it.” She laughed. “So I plucked them out of the world and into mine. Harmony has never forgiven me. Now, if you may excuse me?”

She flipped the blade around and jammed it into the snow. With a twist, the hilt split open, ejecting a braided sling. A yellow flare was retrieved, loaded, fired behind her. A blink later, a massive shadow of wings swooped over. A black bird, wings sparkling with magic, dove down behind the griffon, clamped its talons into the colt’s neck, and hauled him into the storm.

“You’ve done enough damage,” Quartave said. “I’d prefer if we never meet again.”

“You are not using the same magic as the others,” Celestia said, her horn glowing slightly.

Luna winced. “Sister, we have lost this. We can only hope for a graceful exit and promise of better understanding. Please, let this go”

“Indeed,” Quartave said. “I am not obligated to reveal anything, nor do I like either of you enough to consider dropping a hint. It is better this way. Goodbye.” She turned, stowing the sling back into the hilt, and moving to walk away.

“Wait, we’re not done!” Celestia’s horn flashed out.

Quartave spun with impossible speed. Her sword-pipe screamed, blue blades of electricity twisting up its length. A shockwave blew up the snow, tearing through permafrost.

When the winds settled once more, Quartave was gone, and Celestia was left frustrated, clutching only a ball of snow. Luna stared silently off into the frozen wasteland, her heart in doubt and turmoil.

In the minutes it took to collect Cycle, the rest of Honeycomb had congregated at the fallback point. Quartave joined them soon after, and they left the frozen lands in a sprint. Quartave’s blinding rage burst forth, and it was sustained for over an hour before subsiding to merely impairing. “Why,” she demanded, “do we have a tagalong?”

Dimi decelerated slightly to keep pace besides the Seer. “I was waiting for you to get your temper under control to explain. Evens and I investigated Sombra’s most heavily guarded tower. It was his laboratory, library, and … a prison. Living, sapient specimens. Experimenting with ... biological prosthetics.” They glanced at the mare keeping pace with them. “I … I think he was close to succeeding.”

“Hrm. Concerning. We will need to investigate this further.”

“Evens and I grabbed what we could when your signal hit. Hope there’s something left to go back to when the Equestrians leave.”

“They better not destroy anything.” Quartave nodded quietly, then moved over to the mare, who cautiously slid away a body length. “Who are you, foal?”

The mare looked around, hesitantly, but seeing as she had chosen these to run with now … she sighed, and raised her head high. “I am Stalci Coda, former ruler of the Crystal Empire.”

“Why.”

Quartave looked up from where she was observing the physical checkup being performed on the exiled Princess. “You heard them, then. The Elements. I made no illusions about the nature of our work. I’ve been hunted by agents of Harmony for several of my lives. It happens.” She shrugged, then turned back to the operation room.

I thought back to the escape, when the Seer’s terror induced warning flew over the skies.

But then, as I blurred through the snow, a warmth began following me. The smell of pines and the tingle of a morning sunrise. The light of a tight knit community. The weighted comfort of a home forever lost to me when I ran past a frozen tree reflecting red flares still burning above.

I burned all the stored magic I brought to this mission into my legs, magical discharge singeing the tips of my coat and my armor into a dark glow. For a moment, it seemed that I had returned to the winter chill surrounding the Empire. But then that bubble popped, its last gasp sending a cluster of sparks over me. I lost all feeling in my legs, and plowed face first into the ground.

I thought back to the memory of fulfillment burned into my psyche, and wept.

Gladas looked over me next. “We're going to need to speed up development on Project Lamprey," she noted. "I don't trust those ligaments from not ossifying and shattering within a few months. Keep the bandages on, tight, at all times. I do not want to deal with picking up after you."

I looked down at the mass of bandages literally holding me together, and sighed. I had a permanent stain reminding me of how much Harmony wanted my death. I was baffled how no one else seemed to be so blase about how they too were cursed this way, and was left with little help but neutral words of acknowledgement.

The thoughts of my home pained me now. How much could I really do with the magic of the lands might very well try to wipe it off the map once more? I sank back into the only thing I knew at this point, and volunteered to help pick out our haul from the Towers. I would either find a great distraction, or a revelation.

Gladas looked over the table to Quartave’s seated form, Quartave’s talons clasped in front of her. “What is the state of our little Empress?” Quartave asked.

“It was as we suspected,” Gladas reported. “Sombra was interested in what it would take to become an alicorn. He already had attached a unicorn’s horn to himself, a borne Terrasire. He is worryingly close to getting his wings.”

“The Empress?”

“Yes. She’s ... growing into them. Those wings are not hers, yet they are bonding to her anyways. The horn she has only contains half the nerve endings required to channel magic. I suspect Sombra only wanted to make sure his technique was reproducible. Yet, that is healing too.”

“Concerning.”

Quartave stared at the table in thought. Gladas waited silently, impatiently, until she slammed both talons onto the table. “How did you miss that!?” Gladas demanded.

Quartave merely raised an eyebrow. “Did I not mention I was happily playing with Destinies for my own designs? What do you think would have happened to this little group if I didn’t convince Wallace to not murder-suicide his former allegiances? Greater Forces on this realm have been rather cross about it ever since.”

“Well that’s great,” Gladas snorted. “Nothing we say gets to him. He’s falling into a mental void, and he’s completely falling apart both physically and mentally. His body is deteriorating at the seams. I am seriously worried about a fatal ‘accident’ in his future. Are you blinded by this too?”

“I am ... unsure,” Quartave admitted. “I feel like I can still see him, but I am unsure if I’m seeing a distortion. This isn’t adding up.”

Gladas groaned. “I’ll ... have someone watching him all the time, then. Its the only thing we can do.” She turned and stomped out of the room. Quartave could only stare at the piles of documents on her desk in frustration.

Actually, she could do something else. Maybe she could choke some trees.

Author's Note

References:
Absolute Justice: One Piece's Marines

32: The Empress of Crystal

Fortunately, Plan P still had spare rooms, though Quartave considered adding expansion efforts to a future project. It would probably be unlikely for people like them for their numbers to go down, after all. Stalci Coda was housed in one of these rooms; Gladas and Quartave decided that they should figure out if Coda had any information on Sombra she could share.

Plus, she likely had several questions of her own. Best not to have an angry alicorn in their base, no matter how inexperienced, with her wards and chains broken.

Quiet paws walked up the stairs and carefully pushed open the guest room. Gladas opened her beak, but paused. Stalci was standing in front of a floor-length mirror. Unlike the time she was just pulled out of the tower, the Crystallian mare was clean. Grime, dried blood, tangled mane, all washed away like a distant memory.

But the scars, the sunken eyes, the hollow cheeks, they were not something that can be so easily washed away in a bath. Her eyes slowly drifted along her new wings and horn, neither of which matched in color to her own.

“How are you feeling?” Gladas asked, head slightly bowed. Quartave stepped back into the shadows of the hallway instead.

“I had endured years locked within that wretch’s tower,” Stalci said, still staring in the mirror. “Yet now that I’m free, I find myself lonelier than before.” A brittle smile tried and failed to make it onto her face.

Gladas stepped in, and laid a cautious talon on the pony’s shoulder. “You will not be lacking sympathetic ears here,” she said. “Many of us are outcasts too, whether by choice or without. If you would like to meet with them, I can help arrange that.”

Stalci blinks, eyes finally moving off herself and onto the griffoness towering over her, yet with her head slightly tucked in. She closed her eyes and sighed, moving in to tap her neck against Gladas’s. “I think I would like that.”

There was a moment of somewhat tense silence. “I admit to a secondary reason for us being here,” Gladas said, shooting Quartave a glance. “We’ve been … trying to investigate Sombra for some time. We’d like to think ourselves wardens of this type of magical research. Can you give us an overview of what happened in the Crystal Empire to help us understand the sequence of events? I’d like to hope-“ Gladas’s talons tense slightly, “-it will prevent further occurrences.”

Stalci glanced between the two griffons, and gave a small shrug, her wings bobbing uncoordinatedly. “I’m not sure how much I could tell, but I’ll do what I can.” Her eyes glazed, her posture pulled in slightly, as she dived into a past and still present hurts. “Maybe Sombra believed his own promises, for the first few years. Or perhaps we were too cynical. The scars of Discord’s rampage were still so fresh, Sombra’s conviction was hypnotic. We wanted to believe him too.

She unconsciously rubbed the side of her ribs. “Every few months, he had new ideas to strengthen us, if he just had more resources. Too late did we realize he only wanted strength for himself. I was one of the first to suspect his interests were self-serving.

“I tried confronting him over it. He gave up all pretenses of subtlety. His protective gifts to my Guard were poisoned, and left them helpless when the trap was activated. I was overthrown in hours. We were already diverting resources towards our crystal mines for some sort of defensive array Sombra was promoting. Now, he was forcing us. Any who disagreed with his propositions were chained and sent to the mines. Any who didn’t display full-hearted assent were sent to the mines.

“The enchanted armor was not to protect the pony wearing it, but Sombra himself. They dug into the pony’s psyche, compelling them to defend the new King. We were perhaps fortunate that production was bottlenecked by the mine’s output, and fighting for resources with Sombra’s other projects, or he would have put the damn helmets on us all.

“But I was a special case. I and a few others were instead forced to construct our own prisons, one of the towers ringing the Empire. Sombra needed ponies for his experiments, and selected those that angered him the most. The enchantments Sombra wanted to try were getting increasingly dangerous, which meant of course he was going to have somepony else take the risk for him. He separated the stages across us, so there would be no chance of us happening upon a fighting chance. The unlucky ones, were … harvested, if Sombra had no further use. Though I wonder how fortunate I really am. Did … did you find anyone else?”

“In your tower? No,” Gladas replied. “I am unsure what secrets lie within the rest, for my people feared we would alert Sombra if we went in too early. We wanted to give him no chance of expecting us. When the winds calm, we will send another team to investigate.”

Stalci sighed and inclined her head. “That’s probably all I can hope for. Thank you. I’m not sure where I’d be without you.”

Quartave hissed, grimacing, stepping into the room for the first time. “Perhaps in not so catastrophic a mess. I’d like to apologize.”

Stalci blinked at Quartave in surprise, before shaking it off. “What? How come?”

“You might want to sit down,” Quartave advised. “This may not be pleasant.”

After Stalci was seated, Quartave grumbled and said, “I was careless, naïve, and drunk on my own cleverness. I thought myself the master of this land, and blind to anything outside it. When a gray, angry colt came up to our doorstep, I ignored him. He didn’t figure into my plans, and therefore, inconsequential. But he was intelligent, too intelligent. I gave him little, yet he was able to figure everything out from first principles anyways. If I didn’t know any better, it was his talent. And he used it to dominate your home. If I realized what kind of pony he would become, I could have him tracked, monitored for concerning behavior. He walked straight over my talons and I let him go. And for that, I am sorry.”

Stalci stared at her, eyes wide and jaw hanging. “He … he just appeared from nowhere, filled with new, strange, exotic ideas, and took over before we even realized it. We were powerless … and he came from you. He came from you!” She leapt off the bed and crashed into Quartave, hooves wrapped around the elder griffoness’s neck as both slammed into the wall behind them. Quartave winced, but made no moves as Stalci shook, tears streaming down her face. The Empress raised a hoof; Quartave’s eyes glanced towards it, then closed them. Before Stalci could punch down, Gladas caught her arm.

“I bear responsibility too,” Gladas snorted, glaring at Quartave. “I should have watched what he was researching more closely.”

“And you went to me with your suspicions; I dismissed you,” Quartave countered from the floor. “Maybe if we had locked him out, he would have still found his knowledge elsewhere. But his behavior should have set off enough warning flags to put him under some cursory surveillance. I forgot the entire point of our little enterprise was to leave no trails leading to us so we could be forgotten by history, and now Sombra just brought it back into public consciousness. We must track down the buzz the colt’s display had kicked up and rewrite its history. We must become a lost relic of time.”

Gladas let go of Stalci’s foreleg as the mare started wriggling. “That’s all fine for you,” the pseudo alicorn said, taking a few steps away from them. “But my ponies are still gone.”

Quartave wiggled a talon. “Perhaps not.”

“What?”

“Sombra is too egotistical to try for scorched earth. That was almost definitely a delaying tactic. He will return eventually. And of course …” Quartave gestured at her wings and horn. “Whether or not those attachments of yours work like those Equestrian’s, we can ensure you live long enough to get your revenge. What do you think about joining forces, hmm?”

Stalci stared at the downed griffoness for a moment, chewing on her lip. “I … hold on.” She took even more steps away. “Was that a recruitment scheme? What is wrong with you!?”

“Can you blame me?” Quartave said, sitting up and shrugging. “I was just told what a massive mistake it was to give Sombra as much free reign as I did. Either we work together or pretend to have never existed. It’s alright if you have your own priorities, only a third of the members here are actually onboard the founding objectives, but I need to be sure whatever resources I spread out will be unlikely to be turned against me and mine.”

“And the townsponies? Are all of them in your club too?” Stalci demanded.

A cold grin spread over Quartave’s face. “We’ve been established in Appleton for over two generations. Their great-grandparents may have been wary of us, and rightly so, but their children, and their children’s children have known us all their lives. We are a permanent fixture now. They will trust me more than you. If you wish to strike out on your own, that’s fine, but it will be the last time we make contact, and you better hope you can explain Sombra’s permanent stain upon you. If you wish to work with us, trust me, we know a little bit about long grudges.”

“That does not fill me with confidence,” Stalci said in a deadpan.

Quartave shrugged. “Unlike the locals, if you accept you’d be joining us for the long haul. I want to make sure you, and any who wish to hitch their boat to ours, including the townsponies who wish to train with us, know exactly who they’ll be dealing with. I fully admit to being a paranoid, selfish, vengeful piece of shit. Gladas over there has been concocting plans to assassinate me since the first time we’ve met. But our goals align for the most part, and I’ve been keeping within her boundaries to avoid further antagonizing her, so we’re still working together. I do not wish to surprise you. Even if you accepted immediately, I would have laid out these warnings first before finalizing.

“We deal almost exclusively with forbidden magic: necromancy, necrokinesis, blood magic, body modification, soul manipulation, control of dark spirits, though most of us are also decent casters of more standard fare. In fact, with the exception of—” Quartave’s face briefly twisted, “—Sombra’s leak, we are likely the sole living repository of such research.”

“And how can you ensure that now? Especially since Sombra’s own work is out there.”

“For the first, we had personally ensured that the original sources were burned down from the inside and out; Falcowolf, no, the other one, helped me set it up in that regard. As for the rest, we’ll deal with them the same way we dealt with Sombra. Anyone that steps out of line, anyone who may lead back to us, we’ll make sure they don’t. Now, I ask again, do you find this acceptable?”

Stalci side, wings slumping. “It sounds like I don’t have much of a choice.”

“Oh there’s always a choice. I just like making mine the best one.”

Gladas rolled her eyes and moved to Stalci’s side. “You don’t have to deal with her constantly if you don’t want to. There are others here you can shadow, including myself.”

“Ok, alright.” Stalci closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She exhaled, then touched a hoof over her chest. “I, Stalci Coda, accept your invitation to join your group.”

Quartave stood up and bowed her head. “I, Quartave, welcome you to the Honeycomb Club.”

“I, Gladas Falcowolf, also welcome you.” Said griffon stuck a talon out and shook hooves with the pseudo-alicorn mare. “Come with me. I’ll introduce you to the rest.”

33: Red Supergiant Star

I didn’t sleep much anymore. Nor did I often eat my fill, barely able to stomach more than a few bites before the taste of ashes overwhelms me. There was a never-ending loop in my mind, buzzing my nerves and keeping my jaw tense in a way that prevented true rest.

I, like many other ponies, had spent at least a little thought about where our destinies lie, considering how much of our culture is tied around our Marks. Never could I have imagined that not only was I destined to die, not unlike several of the Club, but that Harmony itself would spend so much energy trying to consume me.

A month after the Shadow Siege, I felt my heart shudder, starve, stop. The only surprising thing was how long it lasted with a quarter of my body refusing any type of healing, and me only barely regaining the strength to magically control my cursed limbs. I made a note to acquire more bandages, and refocused upon the study, organization, and documentation of the research we had acquired from Sombra’s towers.

My memories of the fight flashed behind my eyes. Damn the stallion, but he had something I wanted.

Meanwhile, Stalci Coda, former Empress of Crystal, had decided upon an alliance with the Honeycomb Club. She was somewhat surprised at how ambivalent the townsponies were, though I guess anything starts feeling rather ordinary when you had Lich and their pet ghost animals situated in the nearby forest for several generations. She spent a few times getting used to the town via working with Gladas for a few months, in the pharmacy and the new hospital.

The scans of Stalci’s horn and wings were of special importance to Gladas, seeing as they were attached with no care for blood compatibility, and the constant worry that if they forgot about it, her systems would immediately try attacking them until the mare fell apart.

Yet, despite all logic, Stalci’s health remained near perfect, her blood work clean, her scarring fading away. Her flight musculature was completely lacking, and the only things she could do with her horn was to either poke someone with it or the weakest glow imaginable, but these were all things that could be improved on with time. Especially since it seemed her implanted horn seemed to be healing too.

Stalci’s time was also interspersed with magical training, to her great surprise. The basics were, in fact, one of the few things we offered to the entire town without requiring sign up, though admittedly the Club had an intense debate about which programs should be more restricted in the face of Sombra’s treachery, and whether there was a point considering over half of the town were well versed in them.

The retrieval missions to the griffon lands were finally winding down, as we cleared out the last few hidden bases. Wally’s old hometown of Dirchland still had their warnings about Agatha, but she no longer wore that face and name anymore. Instead, it had shifted more towards courier and information gathering. Dimi’s family and the Wally’s cousins still kept in occasional contact, keeping us updated in regard to the movements of their new rulers and armies.

I am ashamed to have lost the motivation to continue the upkeep of my own home. Evens had taken up the task in my stead, while I buried myself in sorting the haul from the brief Siege.

And then, months later, I found what I was looking for. Sombra’s notes on the path taken to his own transformation. I got Barnabee’s help to construct an external testing lab, I went to work on modifying it for my own uses. Nobody questioned me much, I think they were just happy I was showing a bit of enthusiasm after all this time.

This was it. This was how I could still fulfill my dreams, and also remove the threat of my destiny clawing behind my hooves from hurting my adopted family.

I pray they will forgive me.

Evens only got the note days after it was put out, after installing new walls for a house in Sunny Pines. It told him that there was something Cycle wanted to show him and him alone in the shack outside Plan P.

Evens was the only one who was somewhat suspicious about the source of my enthusiasm, considering he spent the most time helping me with the document sorting and storage. But weeks had passed, and nothing negative seemed to have happened, and with the number of duties he had, he didn’t think to dig too deep.

This was proven immediately wrong when he entered the shack, being trapped inside a bubble shield the moment the door closed behind him. Cycle stood facing away from him within another bubble, twice as large to contain an intricate spell circle beneath his hooves.

“What are you doing?” Evens demanded, pushing against the wall of his bubble.

Cycle slowly turned to look over his shoulder, looking satisfied despite the deep shadows underneath his eyes, his coat fading from the lack of nutrition. “Did you know Agatha, well, now Quartave, considered my skills crucial for the future of the Club? I was so worried when I found out I would be hounded with a peaceful death for the rest of my short future; how could Sunny Pines live if I let Honeycomb die?

“But you’re here, my friend. You can continue my work. As long as this body still stands, Honeycomb can survive.”

Evens felt his blood freeze. “What are you saying?” he asked.

Cycle held up an emerald crystal, his phylactery. The edges had started cracking, flaking away. “This was the only thing Harmony was aiming for. Everything else was secondary. Sombra was a singular goal given magic, and I can be that too. If I can transform this body the way Sombra did to his, then I won’t need a soul. Honeycomb won’t need it either. I can still protect my dreams after death. This … this will satisfy them. If I must end, then I will do so by my own design, and ensure my power lasts after despite it. I’m sorry I didn’t ask earlier, but you are the only one I trusted to devote themselves to Sunny Pines and Honeycomb both. I place control of my future to you, my friend.”

“No. No no NO! WAIT!” Evens cried. To his horror, a sigil burned itself onto his prosthetic talon, of Cycle’s Mark caged within a swirling triangle.

Too late, Cycle dropped his phylactery into the center of the spell circle, and it activated in a burst of red lightning. The emerald crystal was surrounded by a corona of red lightning, the transmutation of a priceless artifact igniting an immense storm of magic. The tendrils of lightning burst out and rebounded off the shield, and coincidentally powering up the shield bubble in the same motion, compressing the ball of magic until it lost all color, leaving a roiling black void in front of Cycle. The edges of the stallion warped, stretched, and squeezed as it was drawn in, leaving only a skeleton behind. The shield, too, shrank, the bottom edges stretching as it fought valiantly to remain sealed.

Then, finally, all the energy was drawn in, and the shield’s interior turned pitch black as light too, was consumed.

A moment passed.

The shield shattered.

Evens yelped as his own shield was drawn in, tripping over his hooves as the rear of the shield slammed into his back. On instinct, he lifted his forelegs. ”Stop!”

Silence slammed into Evens’s ears. He cautiously opened his eyes. His talon, where the sigil was glowing fiercely, was inches away from the skull’s snout, the black void hovering over the ribcage. Then the void expanded, coating the skeleton until Cycle reformed, staring blankly back. The green ring of arrows on his flank was gone.

“You said you’d sacrifice yourself to save him!”

Quartave turned her eyes away from the knife embedded in the wall, then raised a placating gesture towards the furious Gladas. “I did say that when I was living on borrowed time and didn’t expect to live much longer in my third body, and was willing to do whatever I could to spite the world. I am … somewhat surprised that I’m still here, and now that I am, I find myself with a lot more things to live for.”

Gladas already had another knife drawn in her talons. “How about we give you more reasons to die for instead?”

“Ok, I know you liked Cycle a lot more than me. But on average, I believe this was the best result we could hope for.”

“How!? Cycle is gone!”

“Technically, no.” Quartave raised a claw. “First, as unhappy as I am to say it, we were, are still, faced with forces that far exceeded our own capabilities, with the exception that we couldn’t just hide away and wait, like we did with Discord. Worse, we were on a timer. Cycle’s deteriorating mental state was directly connected to his disintegrating soul. We were lucky that his ingrained stubbornness kept him as focused as he was. The best I could do was sacrifice myself for no gain, which would be a net loss, don’t you deny that.”

“I’m not so sure,” Gladas hissed. “You said it yourself that Cycle’s life was more important than yours.”

“And Cycle can still contribute, through Evens,” Quartave pointed out. “Cycle’s actions have also cleared out my Sight, I had been wondering what’s been blinding me for months. Now that we know what kind of forces we’re facing, we can plan around them.”

Quartave blinked as splinters sprayed out from the wood crushed beneath Gladas’s fist buried behind Quartave’s head. “And how am I supposed to trust that you wouldn’t engineer a situation to core us?”

“I did say we were left with a lot of bad options,” Quartave said, tilting her head slightly as Gladas pulled her talons out, knife blade barely missing her neck. “It seems like Cycle will now be permanently stuck by Evens’s side, reducing my options.” She frowned. “I don’t take that kindly.”

Gladas held the glare for a few more moments before roughly sheathing her knives. “I find it difficult to keep up my anger whenever I’m reminded about the kind of person you are. I’m not going to be able to change anything like this.”

Quartave shrugged. “I’m callous, not suicidal. You know my priorities. The stronger my allies are, the better my chances are of surviving. Cycle’s … situation reduced my flexibility somewhat, but I can still work around it. We must be more cautious of unknown elements, for one. I can’t afford to lose any of you; those with the right skills and mindsets are extremely rare to come by. Truth be told, right now I’m more concerned about dealing with the knockback effects from Sombra’s little tantrum. No way that cleaned up nice and tidy. Also, someone needs to put these scrolls away.”

“Fine.” Gladas glared in disgust at said stacked scrolls laid open in front of her. Scraps of parchment nearby were scribbled with helpful notes about which category and floor storage to put them in. Finally, she spat out, “I’ll bring Dimi around to check the Empire’s old location, see what’s there.” She turned away.

“Two thousand years.”

Gladas paused.

“I’ll do my damndest to keep everyone in as healthy of a state as possible for at least two thousand.”

Gladas didn’t say anything for a long breath. Then, she snorted, shrugged her wings, and stalked out.

“Hmm.” Once alone, Quartave looked around the little shack. It would probably be torn down within a few weeks. A few days of rain would leave the untreated wood to mold. She took a few steps to stand over the intricate script and glyphs in the spell circle.

She crouched down to lay a talon over the center, Seeing the shadows left behind in time. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get you what you needed,” she said. “But healing is something I will never be able to do.” She closed her eyes in silence for a minute, then stood up. She had some scrolls to organize.

...

...

Wally dropped off the roof and flew away.

Author's Note

Supernova

34: Shell World

To Evens’s surprise, Cycle’s wraith was simple to control. He let his magic flow while thinking about what he wanted done, and Cycle would go do it. But it couldn’t replicate a personality. When asked questions, opinions, while the answers were close enough to what Cycle might say, they were delivered in a monotone, and stopped moving afterwards. If Evens didn’t tell it to fake breathing, it would resemble a statue.

He couldn’t help but feel as if he was puppeteering his friend’s corpse. But eventually, his scheduled visit to Sunny Pines came up, and if nothing else, this was probably what Cycle had wanted. Even his corpse said so.

The road between Appleton and Sunny Pines was still almost completely unused. But the regular treks Evens and Cycle had made had pounded the dirt flat, with Cycle’s talent drying out the earth to ensure it remained clear. Evens felt many complicated feelings when Cycle was asked to cast his signature spell and still showed the capability to do it.

A few hours along the road, Evens found time for even more concerned feelings when Cycle abruptly stopped, Evens being jerked sideways when the momentum from the cart behind them jolted sideways. When Evens untangled his limbs, he looked up to see what should have been impossible: anger.

Cycle’s eyes were locked onto something off into the forest, his teeth bared and foaming. And turning his body. In a panic, Evens pointed a finger at Cycle and shouted, “Stop!”

This only made said pony freeze for a few seconds before it continued moving, legs tensing.

Evens tried again. “Hold still.” Another few seconds. Evens groaned and palmed his face. “At least take off the harness first?” To his surprise, Cycle quickly unlatched the straps. Then started marching, trotting, running. “Oh no.”

Evens lit his horn, quickly pulling off his own straps and sprinted after Cycle’s tail. The dying leaves and bushes made it quite easy to figure out where he was going. Despite the straight path Cycle carved through the forest, Evens still had to command him to slow down multiple times to make sure he was still within sight. “I really hope he isn’t going to find some new problems,” Evens groaned after the fifth branch he ran into, still not used to running with the new limb.

To Evens’s disappointment, it was a new problem from an older time. He quickly ran through several commands through his head. “Cycle, restrain!” Said pony slightly altered his stance to tackle the silhouette to the ground. To Evens’s relief, Cycle didn’t start tearing out throats or other nonsense, though from his bared, foaming teeth, it certainly seemed he wanted to.

Evens took a few moments to shake the tiredness out of his limbs before focusing on what Cycle had taken down, and to his surprise it was something he had never seen before.

It was a mare, pony-shaped but not really. Her body was coated in a black, almost reflective shell, with iridescent blue bands around her barrel. Her wings were not flesh or skin, but glittering, insectoid ones. Most alarming of all was the crooked horn upon her head.

Evens gaped in shock as the mare turned slitted, red-rimmed eyes still wet with tears towards him. After a moment, she went back to dully staring off into the sky as Cycle snarled over her.

“… This is going to suck,” Evens finally managed.

Dimi packed simply. Cloak, camouflage netting, goggles, rope, gloves, lockpicks, extra bags. The trip back to the Empire’s former location was uneventful for Dimi. The heavy cloak and winter protection she carried about her obscured most of her identity, even if someone somehow recognized her face. The most interesting thing she picked up were the gossip, or rather, lack of it.

The towns she passed by weren’t that far from her destination in her opinion, yet there didn’t seem to be many that concerned about an entire city vanishing. Sombra’s decade of isolationism certainly didn’t help keep them in public consciousness, she mused. The Equestrian Crown certainly isn’t all that interested in spreading stories about the failed mission. In that, at least, we are in agreement with.

It took a week at her much more casual pace, traversing known trading routes instead of plowing through underbrush and pitch-black forests with brute force. Soon enough, she crested a snow dune and saw the grey peaks of Sombra’s towers.

She pulled out knitted netting dyed the color of storm clouds and took to the air, making a wide circuit around the former Empire. Almost nothing of the siege remained. The undead guards had been cleaned away. The stone pillars and craters from Cycle’s fight with Sombra were buried beneath layers of formless snow. No guard posts were left behind.

She altered her path slightly to glance back to look at her entry point. It had required memory to navigate, as the last hundred kilometers had become heavily overgrown, the former trading path deteriorating at a speed that couldn’t be explained with age. It seemed that Equestria was content to bury the memories of its former ally, old secrets hidden behind lock and key in forbidden vaults.

Dimi pursed her lips, and angled down for a landing.

Wally stood besides Quartave as Evens carefully peeled Cycle off the blank-eyed not-a-pony. “Right, so, you two can deal with this, right? I’m basically constantly distracting Cycle here from going feral.”

Quartave nodded. “Yes, go on. We will investigate this matter.”

Permission received, Evens initiated a hasty retreat, dragging the struggling Wraith behind him every step of the way.

Quartave frowned under her cloak as it fluttered in the breeze. The “mare” in front of her was certainly equine shaped, but chitin covered instead of skin and fur. It was also somewhat concerning that she was both equipped with a horn, if extremely jagged and crooked, and wings, if flimsy and see-through— alright, you all know what that's describing.

“Changeling ...?” Quartave muttered under her breath.

“You know what she is?” Wally asked, raising an eyebrow.

Quartave opened her beak, but paused, jaw working in the air. “Rumors and gossip, I didn’t believe them myself,” she finally managed. “Well, until now. Equine creatures fused with insectoid characteristics. Parasitic in nature.”

The changeling queen slowly raised her head. “You ... know what I am?”

“Something like that. What I’m curious about is why you don’t seem all that concerned about being confronted with a ... a pony trying to kill you.”

The changeling stared blankly back. “Well, you just said it. Parasite. You think I want to live like this, draining the life out of others to save my own?”

“What.” Quartave choked on her own spit. Her beak worked the air as she struggled to get her thoughts back in order. “Okay, hold up. That statement just implied that this was a recent development. Go back, all the way to the start. Tell me how this all began.”

The second try at reaching Sunny Pines went much smoother, once Evens was able to wrestle Cycle into turning his head around. Fortunately, the path was still so devoid of travelers that the only visitor was a curious bird that flew away when the pair drew near.

Once the construction materials were checked, and both were strapped in, they continued their journey without incident.

However, it was a different story once they reached the molding gates.

Evens winced when he noticed Cycle’s head twitch at an unseen target, eyes and ears locking onto something in the distance. The unicorn held his breath for a long moment, but unlike before, Cycle didn’t break into a murderous rage.

Evens quickly guided themselves into the porch of one of the houses before unstrapping them. “Alright, Springfield, what are you seeing?”

Cycle remained silent and started walking instead. Evens casted his eyes around the pair, and upon seeing nothing, flexed his prosthetic claw and loped behind, watching the rear.

The trek didn’t take long, as Sunny Pines wasn’t the biggest, and would never grow either. Soon, they reached one of the first houses repaired, Cycle’s old home. The old pine on the front yard was the largest for kilometers. Cycle’s tending during the Eternal Winter kept it alive when many other forests had withered, and now it was towering over the town as crystalline shards poked through its bark at irregular intervals, glittering from an inner green glow.

“You know, I probably should’ve questioned what was going on with that tree,” Evens muttered. “Not as many leaves as it should have, yet it looks fine.”

Cycle, as usual, remained silent. Instead, he advanced until he could place a hoof on the trunk of the tree. The crystals flashed a blinding white, pulling a startled squeak out of Evens. Evens groaned, his talon covering his eyes as he blinked furiously. “The heck was that?” he asked no one.

Cycle blinked. He looked down, a faint green aura coating his body. “Huh. I’m still here.”

Evens choked on his tongue.

“Discord again … “ Quartave whispered through clenched beak. It was quite annoying to keep running into problems caused by the spirit’s chaotic romp through the continent. The changeling mare used to be a flutterpony named Elma, until the spirit found some carcass lying about and fused them to the local flutterpony population for kicks. And she had a growing suspicion what carcass was used as a base for Elma’s concerning transformation.

At least one of Elma’s sisters had gone mad from the fusion, and had set off to prepare for “a harvest”. Elma had wandered off when she found herself unable to stop her sisters, and went looking for the most lifeless void she could find to die. Coincidentally, Cycle’s wild magic during his first “death” resulted in a wide swath of earth that would be dearth of life for centuries to come, and found herself walking towards the dead village at the same time Cycle and Evens were doing the same.

On the other hand, since she doesn’t appear to have anything to live for—

Quartave noticed Wally glaring at her from the corner of her vision. “Oh, come on,” she complained, waving an arm. “This isn’t any worse than how I recruited you.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Wally rumbled. “You target the one’s who have nothing left to live for, and take them for yourself.”

“What, am I supposed to sing at beings that I know will reject me?”

“You can at least try letting them come to you.”

“Did you forget about our ‘pretend we’re dead’ policy?”

“That’s not going to be forever.”

Quartave rolled her eyes. “Well, y’all got real uncomfortable when I considered practicing my sword dances. As long as that policy is in place, I’m going to want more talons to hold weapons and walls that I’m forbidden from. Mighty hard to feel safe in my own home when you’re breathing down my neck.”

Wally spat. “As if you aren’t constantly doing the same.”

“Exactly!” Quartave smiled widely. “It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. You make me question my every waking moment, I make you reconsider your life choices. The moment I start risking Honeycomb for no beneficial long-term goal is the day I’m doomed to failure anyways. So trust me in that my every action is geared towards our general survival. Besides, I’m looking out for those who would’ve died prematurely. Isn’t that what doctors do? I’m the best doctor.”

“Should I be here for this?” Elma asked. Both death-siders snapped her gaze towards the changeling queen.

Quartave shrugged. “Well, no, but its an argument that can be put off for later.” Wally rolled his eye-lights. “Now Elma, you seem to be suffering a conundrum of personal failure, and a loss of purpose. I have a proposal I’d like for you to try, one of mutual agreement! Your sisters seem like they’d be a future thorn in our sides, and with your help, we can pool our resources to … address that. What do you think?”

“Come on, we got to deliver the good news,” Evens cried as he ran down the old road. “Why’d you stop?”

Cycle stood at the town’s border, hoof frozen in the air. “If I take one more step,” I whispered. “I will reach the furthest distance I am allowed to exist.”

“… What?”

“I will cease to be, friend.” He turned blank eyes to Evens’s shocked ones. “It was … fortunate that I had left bits of myself here before, but now, this is the only place I can be.” He looked back at his old home. “Despite everything, it looks like I have ended up becoming Sunny Pines after all.”

Evens slowly moved closer. “So you’re stuck here? Forever?”

“As I am, yes. My soul is bound to Sunny Pines. If I leave, I will return to being a shell without a ghost.” He gave a soft pat on Evens’s shoulder. “You should go back. I’ll work on the repairs. Thank you for being here for me.”

Cycle turned around and walked back into the old town, leaving his friend behind. Tendrils of smoke curled off his flesh and grabbed the cart and forgotten planks as he passed by. More magic broke free off his bones, burrowing through the earth and cradling every house he walked past.

He reached the center, little more than a misty skeleton. “I’m sorry, Evens,” he said, looking into the sky. “I still don’t feel myself. Still hollow, empty, as if nothing is real until I say it out loud. But I have already put too much on your shoulders. I must bear this myself. I will bear it myself” Planks, nails, broken branches, dried mud, bones, and glass shards swirled around him. “It’s good to be home.”

“Absolutely not.” Gladas glared at the pale green mare over the counter of Option P.

“Why?” Winter Apple demanded. “I waited until I was an adult, just like you said. I took all the classes, apprenticed under both you and Cherry Blossom. I want to protect my home too. What am I missing?”

“Did you not get the message that working with the Seer is a bad idea all around?” Gladas gritted out.

“Its not as if all of you are really allied with her,” Winter said. “I can choose to spend my time working with you instead.”

“For what?” Gladas asked. “There is no honor here. You will become repulsive to everything outside our borders, forever marked an outcast, forever feared, forever forgotten. What could you possibly see of value here?”

“The same reason you joined. The same reason Cycle joined. To become strong enough to protect my home, my family. This is what I want to devote my life towards.”

“And look what happened to him—” There was a burst of light from Winter’s flank. Gladas put her talons over her face and groaned.

END OF ARC 2: The March of the Dead

Prologue: Days of Past’s Future (V2.2)

I trotted through the sunny, yet lightly snowing streets of Sunny Pines. Every few steps, I shook myself, shaking accumulated snow off my dark wide brimmed hat and cloak. They used to look rather eye-catching back when I first bought it. The hat used to be a dark green piece that matched my mane, with golden trim. The cloak used to be light enough to be packed easily, yet still thick enough to, along its tiny bit of heat warding, keep the chill at bay. Used to. Unfortunately, that was over a thousand years ago. Now, it just looked like a tenth hoof ratty piece that should’ve met the trash bin centuries ago, and looked just as not-useful as it was.

I didn’t really care. Yes, there was snow, and the light wind didn’t help matters, but I hadn’t bothered with temperature for centuries. The cloak and hat kept ice crystals from getting onto my back, and that was enough.

I took a moment to peer out from underneath my hat’s brim. The late afternoon sun cast large shadows across the street, but I still couldn’t help but admire the amount of activity it had nowadays. In just merely nine hundred years, this place went from a ghost town and a solitary tree to a national park and famous vacation spot.

Before I rebuilt the place, more than 80% of the buildings were had been utterly destroyed by the crushing weight of the ice age before the ponies finally got their heads together and stopped trying to strangle each other. The rest were waterlogged wrecks that needed to be near completely rebuilt.

I unearthed my hometown a century before the melt could do too much damage. It took me longer still before I could stand to walk its empty streets without suffering a memory overload and a nervous breakdown long enough to interfere with my construction efforts. It took another century after that for the rumors about Sunny Pines to fade away, and become just another piece of fertile land.

It wasn’t too difficult to attract new residents once I was prepared. And with that, Sunny Pines was reborn.

Every time I took the time to watch the bustling streets, it made my chest swell in pride---!

Small.

Young.

Happy.

I looked up into the smiling face of a small, orange coated mare with a bright, green mane. On her back there rested two bulging saddlebags full of food from the market. Around me, long dead ponies walked through the streets, all walking to some unknown destination.

The trees that Sunny Pines was named for towered in the back, the bright noonday sun colorfully lighting up the streets of my beloved home. Birds chirped happily in the spring-time breeze.

I smiled back, as I loved Mommy. Though she always seemed sad whenever somepony asked about Daddy, she always did her best to raise me. I don’t like it when Mommy is sad. I stretched my neck forward to nuzzle--

I wrenched myself back into this century, shuddering. My vision landed onto the mare in front of me. A small, orange mare with a bright sun bleached green mane, staring blankly back at me. She had a empty smile made by someone who has long forgotten what a smile feels like, and gave a short nod, before trotting away back towards “The Hearth,” my rebuilt home/motel. I watched her distinctive tail sway into the crowd, until I couldn’t see the walking corpse anymore.

Huh. I wasn’t tasting snow and dirt. I looked to my side, and blinked at the wing tightly gripping my barrel and holding me up. I looked over to my right, and into the worried visage of my friend, his face partially shaded from his white hooded jacket. He clacked his beak worriedly, calming slightly when he saw me twitching slightly at the sound.

“Are you over it now?” he asked.

I tested my hooves, and found that they could hold my weight. I gave him a short, grateful nod. “Thanks, Sven.”

He slowly lifted his wing off my sides and re-folded them. “What was it this time?” he asked.

“Just remembering the times when my mother was still alive,” I told the griffon. “I’m fine now,” I added, stretching reflexively.

“....Ok.” A grin split his beak. “Come on, the train is going to be entering the station soon. We don’t want our little detective to catch us now, do we?” he said as he hefted a thick, worn tome from his bags and shook it. It was a long term project of ours, where we collected everything we managed to learn about the ... darker side of magic. Carefully preened of any specifics so that anyone who wanted to actually learn instead of just knowing would have to come and visit me. Considering how off the beaten path Sunny Pines was, it served as a very good filter.

It was also the culmination of one thousand years of planning for my revenge, though perhaps it was more bitterness turned sour. I remembered giddiness, no matter how brief it was. It was really the only overt move I have made, and I was eager to find out her reaction. I have paid a heavy price for this immortality, but when the every other option foretold a quick, lonely death, well, defying destiny doesn’t seem so bad in comparison anymore.

A tiny grin split my lips. “Let’s see how far we can make that jaw drop.” As one, we turned for the bookstore we stopped in front of and trotted through the aisles. We silently weaved between the few browsing customers and towards the back of the establishment.

My friend pulled out a near completely rusted through pocketwatch (powered by sheer stubbornness) as I fished the tome out of his bags. “We got five more minutes until the train pulls into the station,” he reported.

“Just in time.” I slipped the tome between the books on the last bookshelf. “Let’s go, in case our little detective decided to fly from the station.”

We went back to the front of the bookstore, pulling a few newly published novels from the shelves along the way. Always nice to settle down with some fun fantasies without actually having to go do it yourself, fewer maimed limbs.

We reached the front desk, and I pulled out a few bits and started counting. My griffon friend sat behind me, his head stuck in a book to hide how his eyes weren’t actually open. I admired the book covers as I put them into my take out bags, and thanked the clerk for his time. I watched my friend’s feathers as they ruffled in a certain beat. It was the code for when he sensed the same magic running towards the bookstore that we felt several times over as we left books across Equestria.

I pretended to be shaking the books into place as I watched the form of a blurred purple mare rush through the front door from the reflection of the polished wood of the desk. We casually left the store and back into the snow as she screeched to a halt in the back of the room, frantically flipping through the shelves. I had to stifle a small chuckle at the gasp of discovery coming from the door, but I managed to hold back my mirth until we hid into the alleyway beside the bookstore.

“Tree?” my friend asked.

“Well, considering that she was willing to make four separate trips all across the continent in order to track down these elusive books of knowledge, she is likely going to be willing to follow the hints in the book to my tree. And I have feeling she is going to be very curious indeed.” I looked up at the roof.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded as magical flames swirled around us, the glowing embers melting the snow in a small circle around us. We joined claw to hoof as my friend began glowing. “Ready? GO!”

Hello Celestia.

Do you remember that scrawny, bony little colt about 1060 years ago? The one who helped you take down Sombra? The one who held him off until you were able to regroup with your forces?

The one you almost killed in the crossfire?

I’m still here. I did not die quietly in some far flung land. I died once already, paragon, and that was plenty enough for me.

I still remember, goddess, that horrified look on your face you gave. To your ally.

When you found out I was still standing.

I don’t forget, Celestia. I remember nearly everything, and even made copies of those memories, ensuring that neither my family nor I will ever forget your actions.

You have made a dangerous enemy, pony. I am not something that bows at what “destiny” has set out for me. In fact, I managed to find out what I was supposed to become several decades later.

I was supposed to be a corpse.

My destiny was to die over a hundred years before we even met, and to be another statistic as the plague crept across the country. A tiny, insignificant death in the crisis that would’ve united ponykind under one banner.

What plague, you may ask? Unfortunately, I rather live, so I got help in causing the extinction of the parasite that almost ended me. In the long run, I think ponykind managed to do pretty well, don’t you think? Equestria is quite a magnificent accomplishment to look at.

Don’t think me as an enemy of Equestria when you read this. In fact, I am the opposite. I want our country, no, everyone to thrive. To reach their full potential, then surpass it. Go into the world and conquer existence. Who knows what we can accomplish with that kind of cooperation? We might even reach the stars.

My anger is only directed at you, avatar of the sun. I have a code of honor as a Lich, due to the alienness of the magic, some of which is to keep out of everyone else’s business, and to never subvert anyone’s freedom of choice. But ... I decided it was worth making an exception just for you. I had to be very careful, you see. I didn’t want to let you know I was still alive while I was mucking about in your Harmony until I have made irreversible changes into your little ponies.

By the time you have read this, Celestia, I will have already won.

Look up the history of Sunny Pines, Celestia. I believe you will find some very interesting things there.

Do you remember me, Celestia? Do you remember Cycle Garand Springfield?

I’m still here, and you’re never going to be able to get rid of me.

P.S. This is the second printing. Your move.

I hung from a massive, leafless tree in front of an out-of-the-way motel. It was probably one of the oldest trees in the area, and definitely one of the oldest in this stretch of land.

I know this because I used to sleep under it while I was a foal, and still alive.

A dirty-gold colored rope wrapped itself around my hoof and torso, and the other end terminated in a large claw clinging to the middle of the tree trunk. I was about fifty hooves above the ground, though I was stepping gently on one of the branches. I wasn’t exactly sure it would hold my weight, thus the claw hook. In my other hoof, I was flipping through one of the new books I’d bought. The rest were hanging in a bag at my elbow. While I waited, I sent a ping to some of my “family”. They will be en route shortly. Better to have and not need, than need and not have.

I felt her unique magical signature far before I saw her. I sent a few tendrils of sickly looking magic from the hoof supporting my book and flipped a page.

I decided to remain silent, and instead used my magical senses to watch her mill uncertainly at the gate to my humble appearing motel. She looked back and forth between a card floating in her magic and the address number, befuddled at the juxtaposition her imagination had created and what reality turned out to be.

I was pretty proud of that; those thoughts had guided my construction plans. It served as the perfect cover, and any outsider would be unable to discern anything strange about it. Heck, there were even vacationers entering and leaving the front door, completely oblivious to its second purpose. Made a nice income from it, too.

She hesitantly stepped into the courtyard, walking down the front, currently snow covered, lawn. I watched her enter the lobby, oblivious to my silent form watching her from up above. I waited some more.

A moment later, the receptionist sent the purple alicorn back towards to tree. She looked at the tree, and seeing nothing, chose a root with the least snow on it to sit on. It seemed that even after gaining wings, she was still rather unused to thinking in three dimensions.

She floated out the old tome I left for her and looked around, unable to decide whether she should be on the lookout for mysterious persons or check out the tome. A small group of earth ponies filed in through the front gate and milled around in the courtyard, walking with purpose but with no actual destination.

I took the moment to examine the alicorn with my eyes instead, quietly putting my book into my bag. She wasn’t carrying much, just a pair of saddlebags bulging with warm clothing and foodstuffs. Some of them were wrapped around her body, neck, and head. If I had ever gone through puberty, I might have found her cute. In the end, she decided to open the book with her magic and started reading it.

I let her get through the introduction before interrupting her. “Who are you waiting for, Miss?”

“I was told that a pony named Cycle would meet me here.” It was a testament to how distracted she was when she simply replied to the air.

Heh. “At your service,” I called down.

She gasped, finally looking up at the smirking pony hanging above her head. The grappling hook glowed and spiraled up my back, forming a pair of large griffon wings. I floated down quickly, bouncing between the empty branches and hitting the ground with enough speed to kick up a small cloud of dirty snow. I paid no mind to her glowing horn, taking off my big hat and giving her a short bow. The crowd of aimlessly wandering ponies were suddenly in a circle around us. I gave her a toothy grin, my glowing eye sockets smouldering. “Hello, Princess. Cycle Garand Springfield, in the flesh,” I said, putting my hat back on. “I believe you haven’t met my secretary yet. Say hello, Sven.”

I threw my hoof to the side as the wings turned into glowing energy. They snaked around my arm and leapt off, coagulating into a solid mass. The energy then dispelled, leaving a smirking griffon leaning against the tree. He raised a claw in a mock salute. “Sven Fairday. I keep our mutual acquaintance from going cuckoo.”

My grin got even wider. “And those lovely ladies behind you-” I said, gesturing behind the alicorn as her face slowly grew horrified. “- are my... ‘extended family’. They merely want to make sure you don’t do anything rash, like ... try to arrest me, hmm?” I pointed at her still glowing horn.

Realizing she was outnumbered, she slowly dimmed it, though her eyes hadn’t stopped darting between those who surrounded her.

“Thank you,” I said, donning my hat. “Now, Miss Twilight-- ”

She gasped. “How did you-- ?”

I sighed. “National hero, ascended unicorn, magical prodigy. News gets out no matter how much your Princess suppresses it. You’ve even met some of my friends on your travels” I added as an afterthought. “And no, they were not spying on you, any more than any other person going about their day would. Three of them had actually moved to Ponyville a few years before you did.”

She choked slightly as her retort was cut off, wincing slightly at the thought of paparazzi chomping at the bit trying to follow her.

“As I was saying,” I began, pointing at the tome that had fallen to the grass, “I assume that you were ... intrigued enough at what little I mentioned that you put all that effort into tracking me down, hmm?”

She carefully nodded.

I felt a rush through my form. Centuries of patience, and finally, someone with more curiosity than blind loyalty ... or is it? Besides me, the ancient tree began to pulse with power. Veins of green light glowed from between the bumps of bark, pulsing in tandem with the glowing dots in my eye sockets. Tiny sparks of magic jumped between the hairs on my coat as my internal reserves became agitated, excited. My lips pulled back wide, giving my audience a grin that showed the bones in my jaw. I had no need for gums for a very long time. “One last chance to back out. This is a door you can’t ever close again, no matter what. Do you think you are-- !”

“Down, boy. Restriction: Civilian.” Sven drawled, runes on the back of his talon glowing.

I froze, then fell down as my legs gave out, all of my strength seeming to have vanished like smoke. As I shook dirt off my face, I was finally able to notice that Twilight was starting to cower. Her ears were pressed tightly to her head. Her eyes were glowing slightly, and she was most definitely not liking what she was seeing.

I pushed off weakly, rolling onto the roots of the weakly glowing tree. Sven flicked his eyes down at me for a moment, but didn’t move.

She slowly released her magic from her eyes, her mouth gaping at us. “Who ... who are you?”

I was still mildly incoherent as I was trying to stabilize from the shock of losing most of my mana. This was, unfortunately, a recurring problem. It would take me a few minutes to recover my mental processes, so Sven decided to speak up.

He said, “We’ve been called many things. Monsters, Unnatural, Walking Corpses, Defilers. I prefer ‘Alive.’”

“Roaming ... over a thousand years,” I rasped. “Sorry for -wheeze- the display, but living this long ... well, paranoia.”

I groaned, slowly settling back into a natural sitting position. “Sometimes, we forget that there are times where trust must be offered before it is received."

With a wave of my hoof (mostly for familiarity sake), my m--family split up and went back to whatever they were doing before I called them. I pushed myself up and nodded at Twilight to follow. “Come come, ‘The Hearth’ is much more comfortable for such talks,” I said, gesturing at my home/motel. Sven padded over to my side, leading the alicorn into building and to a secluded corner with a table. I only served breakfast here. Seeing how it was a couple of hours past noon, it was devoid of life, perfect for a private talk.

I called for some refreshments, and turned off the phonograph while we waited. Sven asked for wine. I had a glass of glowing, greenish goo. Twilight decided that she was better off not knowing what that was and simply got a cup of warm water.

I took a sip, relaxing at the comforting flames dancing across my metaphorical spine. Literal flames could be seen at the back of my throat, bubbling and smoking. I put the glass down and clapped my hooves together, a small smile adorning my lips. “Alright, enough about my own self-made issues. Trust me when I say that there is nothing you can do at the moment, and I have others helping me already. I know that you’ve been dying to know more than what I’ve hinted in those tomes.” Hook, line...

I reveled slightly at how Twilight visibly perked up at the dark sparks dancing around my hooves. A scroll and quill popped into the air, floating in front of her. Sven flexed his claws underneath the table, then took another sip of his drink.

“So, let’s talk about magic. Let’s talk about the days of future’s past.”

... and sinker.

Author's Note

Yes, we're going to go backwards 1129 years into the past, before "Equestria" was even a thought. Cycle and co. are ancient.
Note: I mentioned that I was annoyed that most lich are assholes. My lich aren't the world conquering types, but they aren't exactly heroes, either.
Also, Rewritten to be less pretentious. Extended scenes, slowed pacing, more descriptions of the world, redone characterization. This was originally written with a different tone, but was scrapped later on.

Thanks to Pickleless for some editing of this stupid rewrite v2.2 (31 MAY 2017)

3: Necromancer’s Fury (v2)

Things died down fairly quickly. The weeks passed as the weather cooled and the Harvest finished. I buried himself into finding a suitable way to get revenge on his mortal enemy, my mental fragmentation lending me single-minded focus, only wandering out of the basement library to grab a bit of food once a week or to test a hypothesis.

Gladas returned to her Appleton-side shop, waiting for the generations to become used to, accepting of the presence of the Lich Next Door. Agatha brooded, staring out the window and occasionally practicing on her instrument. I barely noticed the rest, all but ignoring their existence as they did mine, no matter how outlandish their appearances were. I sometimes noticed a half-rotted skeleton boring its glowing red sockets into my head. The only reaction I gave was to send him my maniacal green gaze back until he got bored.

It was one year after my arrival before something began changing. Nobody noticed much besides cooler average temperatures. Even summer was a bit breezier than the last. Nobody until Agatha tracked Gladas down and ordered her to start buying or making as many cold weather clothing as possible, and then dropped a giant bag of gold bits in front of her.

It took several months and several confused ponies, but by the end of the year, everyone, including the residents of Appleton, had at least one fairly insulated cloth covering. Clothing research wasn’t all that good, Twilight, but we got by with what we had. That was when I got my cloak. My first one.

I question why you think I would manage to keep a piece of cloth presentable for over 1000 years without the thing becoming a pile of colorful dust.

It was the color of burlap, like most things were in the day if you were going for cheap. Stuffed with wool, they were a bit better than the rest. I spent most of my time in the basement anyways. The only thing that changed was that Gladas popped by one day to warn me when heavy snowfall was coming, so I could avoid freezing solid by accident, and when it was warm enough to go out without preparation.

It only took five years before Gladas never returned to tell me the outside was warm again. At 1165 years from today, the Eternal Winter began.

Yes, it indeed the same one you’ve heard about for the Heartswarming Tale. Our community was at the far edge of that squabble. All that happened was that contact with neighboring towns and cities soon became cut off as travel routes were buried in an ever thickening layer of snow.

I didn’t notice, of course. Normal brains wouldn’t be able to use “100%” of their capabilities. All that resulted in was seizure. What I did have was in-equine focus and stamina, and the ability to ignore more than half of my bodily needs.

And so, after sixteen straight years of theories, almost the entire accessible library to me consumed, countless experiments, combined with indomitable stubbornness, my dream was realized.

1154 years before

A small black ball sits on a windowsill. Once every six hours, a small bubble of pink wafts out of the ball, and fades away into the snow-bearing winds. Two weeks pass by, without notice. Later, in the shadows of the night, a small, nearly identical buzzing ball bobs in from the slightly warmer forest, swaying to and fro, mesmerized into the cold by the enticing scent.

The second creature creeps silently through the snow-covered field and peeks at the curiously tasty-smelling object sitting on the windowsill. When the first ball shows no response, the buzzing parasite hovers next to it, sniffing. At that exact moment, another small bubble of pink smoke drifts out, and into the open jaw of the insect like creature. The creature buzzes loudly and shudders at the hypnotizing scent. It opened its surprisingly massive jaws and clamps it over the black ball.

BZZZT!

The second’s beady eyes bug open in terror as electrical energy surging out from the first’s zap its muscles, freezing it into place. It struggles, but to no avail. After only a moment, its wings stop shuddering, and relax.

The second sits motionless for another hour, before its eyes snap open once more, glowing with ethereal blue. Its jaws slacken, and buzzes backwards. It sends its gaze downwards, into the open, equally blue eyes of the first black ball. The black ball shudders, and raises its tattered wings, kicking away swirls of snowflakes as they begin buzzing.

The pair fly off towards the forest, their eyes naked with hunger. As the pair entered the protected canopy, the meager warmth within its shade was enough to melt the frozen grit and blood that had clung onto the first’s shattered shell. The two then split up, the second quickly darting backwards towards a hidden tree that pulses strangely in its memory. Upon reaching the tree, it finds a tiny, green egg. Its own fractured memory was not enough to recognize the tiny egg it had left behind merely a day previous before being captured and drained by patient zero.

Its new instincts, however, was enough to tell it that this was what should be renamed as “food.” And so it did, slamming its fangs into the egg, draining it until turned grey and lifeless. But the parasite was still hungry, and darted off into the forest to feed its neverending hunger, leaving the drained egg behind

Despite the egg’s corpse-like state, its growth accelerated, soon ripping its desiccated shell open to reveal a pockmarked, ball shaped parasite, similar in decay to the first carriers of the plague. It too, was hungry.

Within a few days, the wobbling, buzzing horde spread across the forest and killed with the callousness of carbon monoxide.

After merely a year, the eradication was complete. Without food, the zombies were unable to go on, and fell to the forest floor, struggling silently as the forest reclaimed their bodies. With the threat eliminated before it could even begin, unification was delayed by twenty years.

What few civilizations that remained huddled quietly together to prepare for decades of freezing snow, with no end in sight.

Author's Note

Revised v2(10 APR 2017)

19: The Birdwatcher

I stared in disbelief at my long lost friend’s rattling breaths, and fell to the snowy floor below. He barely looked like the image in my fuzzy memories. His once blue coat and sky blue mane was greyed, flat, and soaked with sweat. His horn seemed rough, uncleaned in days. And his body! I could see all the bones in his shoulder and chest. “...what happened to you?” I ran around to the front of the building, and skidded to a stop at its locked door.

I briefly glanced around at the streets around me. “Blast. No time for niceties.” I pushed my hoof against the wood, magic dancing over my coat. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, it started to warp and crack. Black veins crept across the wood grain. I lifted my hoof and punched forwards, snapping the rust-infected lock.

I skidded into the side of the well crafted dinner table. And a near bare kitchen. The icebox had nothing but a small slice of bread and a stale cookie. My heart started pounding in my ears as I ran to another room. Beds were left unmade. Closet open and empty of all but sheer, fancy dresses and suits.

Where did Even Balance’s family go?

Heavy hooves unwillingly pulled me to the room I saw just minutes before I was so eager to find. This door was unlocked, and I carefully pushed it open, only to be greeted by the sounds of water filled lungs valiantly trying to empty.

Even’s eyes flickered open part way as the door creaked to a stop. His foggy eyes stared somewhere over my shoulder, and smiled drunkenly. “Didn’t expect to see little Garand in my hallucinations,” he croaked.

“It’s ... it’s Cycle, now,” I reflexively answered.

Even blinked slowly. “Well, congratulations, Cycle. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there. Won’t be able to see you one more time.”

“But, but, I’m here!” I stammered out, putting more hooves on the foot of his bed. “I survived! I’m ... I’m right here.”

“I ... I hope so,” Even wheezed out quietly, his eyes fluttering shut. “Maybe, I can see you again on the other side ...” His lungs struggled to take in one more breath, then collapsed with a rattling sound that sent knots through my gut.

I blinked. Even’s chest remained flat, unmoving. “... Even?” Even’s half-open lips seemed to pale before my eyes. “No. No no no no!”

I rushed over to the side of my increasingly colder friend. “Not again!” I shouted, whipping the covers off of him. I quickly bundled him up on the bed sheets, then found a few towels to tie him to my back. “Just stay with me! I ... I can’t lose another.”

The wood boards beneath my hooves cracked and withered as I rushed towards the window. A single punch shattered the glass, and I leapt through, not noticing the bed crash into the floor below as the floor completely rotted away.

I hit the ground at a scramble as I sought for grip, before slamming the edge of a hoof a crack in the cobblestone and launching forwards. Snow exploded into the sky in my wake as I accelerated out of Haycenda.

As I ran, frost extended its gleaming claws over my face, forming a glittering helm as I drained the air dry of kinetic motion with every breath. Chunks of ice resembling hail bounced away from my hooves.

Muffled by the sound of the howling winds, Even’s lungs rattled, blood sloshed, oxygen flowed, for just a bit longer.

Three Hours Later

Gladas was deep in thought as she prodded the muscles of a severed frog leg when Blackbird fluttered into her lab, lightly dusted with snow. Gladas paused, sitting back on the floor cushion and rubbing her eyes. “Friend, what brings you?” she asked, brushing puffs of snow off her friend’s wings.

Blackbird briefly dug his head into the warmth of her palm. “Cycle is back. With passenger.”

Gladas continued scratching Blackbird’s wings for a moment before sighing. “Right, I’ll ready the operations room. This better be worth it, Agatha.”

Cleaned tools were picked out of closed toolboxes, and the operating table re-cleaned. With a shaped gem clasped in her wing, she walked to Plan P’s entrance and opened the door to wait. She didn’t have to wait long. In moments, she could see a bouncing dot through the snowfall. My form quickly became more distinct, a large, boat-like V-shaped wake of snow behind me as I plowed through every obstacle in my way.

I skidded to a stop in front of Gladas, melted frost dripping out of my mouth. “Hey! I need your help.”

Gladas stared at the still form on my back. “... Cycle, I can’t save a corpse.”

“He’s not dead!” I said reflexively. Even gave one quiet, very wet wheeze. “Uh. Not yet, anyways.” I perked up. “And I’m magically keeping his blood oxygenated. Even is in a far better state than the mana inhaling overdose I was running on when I got here, so ... progress!”

Gladas groaned, and waved an arm into the air. “Fine! Whatever. Agatha really wants me to do this, so I’ll allow it.”

I heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you--”

“But I’m not going to trust him,” Gladas cut in, poking me in the cheek. “Agatha disappeared one day only to come back hours later hauling you in, and this time she’s all but demanded us allow your search. I barely trust her on the best of days.” She spun around, waving me in. “But if he acts up, I will not look favorably on either of you,” she said, glaring at me over her shoulder.

I followed her, head held high. “I promise you, I won’t disappoint you. I can bring Even around, don’t worry.”

“I better not have to,” Gladas grumbled.

Even Balance’s return to consciousness was a surprise, because he was pretty sure he felt his heart seize before blacking out. The invisible grip on his neck slowly lifted, and he took in a surprised breath, his limbs tingling

His eyelids fluttered against his numb nerves, squinting against the light. Was he alive? It was said that Death was painless, and all he could feel was a cold weight somewhere in his chest cavity, and a very distinct lack of a heartbeat.

“Can you hear me? Open your eyes and look at my claws,” a voice said.

Evens forced himself to squint through the prickling sensation in his eyes as the world around him settled into some semblance of focus.

... There’s a bird waving at me? Even’s train of thought was derailed when a tan-coated colt poked his head over from the side.

“Even’s, its me, Cycle!” he said.

Even’s wheezed in surprise. “You’re here? Alive?”

Cycle shrugged. “Debatably alive.”

“.... Where am I?”

“In my operating room,” a new (familiar?) voice cut in.

Even’s brain screeched to a halt. “... Now I know that I am dead, for the mortal realm cannot hope to contain such a beauty,” he said, in a dreamy smile.

The white-feathered griffoness stared down at him for a moment, then turned a glare at Cycle. “I am not taking any responsibility for whatever brain damage you caused.”

“Hey hey, don’t worry, I’ll take care of him,” Cycle stammered, holding up his hooves.

“Rii--ght.” Gladas glanced down. “And he seems to be even more out of it now. Ugh. Let’s just get this over with. He’s your mess after this, Cycle.”

“Got it.”

“Also ... get Barnabee and prepare a new room,” Gladas said over her shoulder. “This work will be easier if there’s no extraneous energy sources.”

Gladas quietly weaved artificial conduits inside Even’s chest for a few moments after Cycle had left, then groaned, clutching her face.

“Something wrong, m’am?” Even asked unevenly.

“...No. None of that.” Gladas loomed over the unicorn, her face blocking the hanging lamp and casting her face into shadow, her golden irises piercing the darkness. “Shut up and listen. I was doubtful of Agatha picking up Cycle’s half-dead corpse from the forest. But, he has exceeded my expectations. He’s proven himself reliable and dedicated to the cause, and is probably will be one of the better magically gifted persons here. I would be deeply in his debt if he can help find a way to reverse my grandfather’s degradation.

“The only problem is that our mental states are tied closely to the state during the creation of our phylacteries.” Gladas leaned in closer, her beak poking Even in the snout. “And Cycle was one atomic bond from snapping completely. The memory of Sunny Pines is the only thing that’s keeping him stable on the mortal plane. You are part of that memory now. Stay alive, keep him sane, or you both die. Understand?”

REGRET

Evens winced. “... Yeah. I hear you.”

“Glad that’s sorted.” Gladas pulled back. “Now, since you’re still here, mind if you lift your rib-cage slightly?”

Evens leaned on me for support as they left the operating room. Gladas stayed behind to clean up the bloodied room.

“So, what is this place?” Evens asked as we limped out of the facility.

I smirked, and led him to the main entrance. Along the way, I motioned to the walls. “This is, heh, Plan P. The Boss was never really good at names, and if anyone ever catches the name of the place, it has the added benefit of making them wonder whether there are other bases like this. The same with our little team name, the Honeycomb Club. Completely non-sequitur, and our private secret.” I opened the door and gestured at a map. “The place we’re located in right now is Appleton. Its about a day’s walk away from Haycenda, quite a bit harder now with the weather the way it is.”

“Wow. So I spent a day technically dead?”

“Actually, three hours. I charred my tail from the amount of mana I was burning to keep up that speed.”

“Oh. That’s ... thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. You’re the last person I know from my old life. Everypony else is ... is....”

“What happened, Cycle?”

“I ... I wasn’t strong enough. Fast enough. Smart enough. They all died, while I still live. I am the last of Sunny Pines. They will not be lost, while I still breathe.”

I paused, staring at nothing. With a subtle jerk, I continued, “Now, come on, let me show you the rest of this town before we get back. There’s not much to see with all the snow, so it won’t be long.”

Indeed, there wasn’t much of Appleton to see. Appleton was, at its heart, a farming settlement, and much of that land was buried and frozen. Some of the original residents have left for better weather, but those who stubbornly stayed now worked in the underground farms. After a quick walk along what few streets that were visible and populated, I led Evens towards the underground farms the Lich of the Honeycomb had helped make.

They walked past Gladas’s building, Option P. It was, I explained, our public face to the town, where if somepony wanted to meet with one of them, or just purchase items, they could find them here instead of trekking into their actual base hidden in the nearby forest. There wasn’t much to it, just living quarters above a simple pharmacy/general store.

Plan P, however, was a lot bigger than what its humble appearance showed to visitors. It too, was two storied, though the upper floors were used more for overwatch and storage.

The ground floor had a small greeting room, and an operating room directly off to the side. The operating room also doubled as an armoury. There was an often unused kitchen that was expanded enough to double as a dining/living room. Most of the time, it was the residents of Appleton who used the kitchen, or to go past it into a fake pantry which hid a staircase to an underground farm. Those who didn’t trust the Honeycomb Club, and vice versa, had long left the town in hope of better food and shelter. Filtered tubes led up to the sky, either chimneys for air or for sunlight, disguised as dead trees.

The real meat of the facility, though, was hidden underground. A fake broom closet led to a spiral staircase into one of several complexes. The library was the furthest from the top. It held the Club’s most valuable treasure: knowledge. Only those who were full members of the Honeycomb Club knew of its existence. For now, most of the books in the library came from copies from the Griffon Kingdom’s libraries, recovered manuscripts from the sunken Enlightened bases, and what documents Agatha managed to memorize from Falcowolf’s old outpost.

There was a pony capital somewhere, but considering the number of ponies-of-questionable-friendliness to a group of undead that were most likely going to be there, the group’s relative inexperience, and lack of numbers, they didn’t dare infiltrate their libraries. The winter might give them an advantage, but the chance of disaster was still too great. Until they were stronger, survival was the number one priority.

Besides, they were immortal, and can afford to wait a little longer for safety.

After that, there were several labs that took up the majority of the underground: three levels of it. They were kept clean, but only a few carried enough equipment for every possible experiment. They still haven’t had time to go on supply runs, and considering the weather it was doubtful anyone would be manufacturing anything complex enough to go copy or steal from now.

That last level, the one directly below the ground floor was for living quarters: rooms for personal use. They were rarely used for actual sleep. Most of the time, the residents just meditated in the main building, and did maintenance on their internal magics. If one had some keepsakes or other personal equipment, however, this was where he or she would keep them.

The short tour complete, they returned to the facility to grab a bit of food.

“Hey ...” Cycle began. Evens looked up, a few stalks dangling from his mouth. “I’m sorry, when I saw you stop breathing, I panicked, and just grabbed you. Did I disrupt any prior plans ...?”

Evens looked down. “Actually ... my family has already moved on.”

“What!?” Cycle exclaimed, jerking in his seat.

“No, no, not like that,” Evens said, waving a hoof. “But I was dying, Cycle. I convinced the rest to leave me behind, there was no way I would survive long enough to get my lung infection checked out.” Evens made a gesture at his still sunken ribs.

Evens continued, “I lasted as long as I did out of spite, to be honest. So,” Evens gave a small smile. “Thanks.

“In any case, since I never expected to last this long, I have nothing planned. Might as well take this chance to make up for lost time, yeah?” Even said, leaning over to place a hoof on Cycle’s shoulder. “I hear you have some interesting experiments in the labs, might as well take a look there.”

Cycle brightened. “Of course. I’ll be happy to bring you up to speed.”

REGRET

Present Day

“Wait. Wait wait wait.” Twilight Sparkle flipped through her notepad. “Earlier, you said that the Mk 1 heavily affects your mental state based on the emotional state at the time of Phylactery creation.”

Cycle nodded. “Indeed.”

“Then ... then what was Gladas doing during the operation with Evens?”

“Obviously, she knew exactly what she was doing,” Cycle said placidly to Twilight’s shocked expression. “She carried the love of her grandfather for decades by then, and was not bothered by it. When I brought in Evens to the Club in such a state, she feared for my continual stability. So she made sure I was on Evens’s mind when completing the ritual for his Phylactery.”

“That! ... That’s ...!”

“All of us have our own obsessions. She wanted to be sure his was pointed towards the betterment of the Club. Despite her misgivings of Agatha, Gladas is probably the second most devoted to the idea of the Honeycomb Club itself, and will sink her claws into anything that may be ... important. Absolute control towards ones that benefit her, and surgical destruction to those that threaten it.”

Twilight’s ears drooped a little. “She ... doesn’t seem like someone nice to be with.”

“On the contrary, if she likes you, she’s probably the kindest one you’ll find in those depths. But her obsessions do rule her. It is a quirk simple enough to work around.” Cycle shrugged. “Be a friend. I believe it is something you’re quite good at.”

She chuckled. “I ... I hope so.”

“She believes so too. Its part of why I’m here.” Cycle gave her a tired smile, one Twilight cautiously returned..

“That reminds me ... you haven’t told me what everyone’s, uh, tic, was?” Twilight shrank back slightly. “If its something you want to keep private, its alright.”

“No no, if we’re telling you this much, might as well go all the way.” Cycle cleared his throat. “As you know, this,” he said, waving his hooves at the general area of the town, “was my own focus. Wally’s was supposed to be to further the goals of the Enlightened, but he couldn’t bury his desperation to make his mother proud. Something that may have been what saved him, what drove him today to give his all.

“Dimitri Hanaken was driven by the search for the truth of her friend’s fate. Gladas was driven to support her grandfather, and to temper Agatha’s vices. Barnabee to learn about the magic we live and breathe. Evens ... to keep me happy.”

Twilight looked at her notes, squinting. “... five, six ... Agatha never got a Phylactery, right?”

“Correct. Is something wrong?”

“I ... its probably nothing. Were there more?”

“Later on, but yes, these seven were the core group that were the most influential on the Club decisions in general. Shall we continue?”

Author's Note

And here's Even "Evens" Balance.
Hint: He appeared in the first chapter.

22: Diary 4/ Lich and Life Extension [2] Regeneration: Addendum

Thanks to Agatha, or rather, Trestine at the moment of writing this, a pseudo loophole has been found to the Restoration process. As one may recall, trying to Regenerate an object causes defects to slowly appear upon each successive casting, like entropy. Casting this on melted ice would require more energy than the amount needed to melt it to refreeze it, and result in a chunk of ice alarmingly brittle. Casting this spell on a weathered box would only remove most of the damage, and also leave micro-imperfections that weaken the structure as a whole.

Casting this spell on living beings causes minor damage to the target’s cells, which accumulates rapidly upon successive castings due to the larger amount of stress a living creature endures.

However, it appears that substitutes can subvert the failing/defective bits. In Trestine’s case, raw magic from a laboratory accident mixed with the spell while the spell was just about to finish, somehow binding it with her form. She is currently about 5% magic by volume, which is apparently enough to substitute for genetic damage, at least temporarily. A few weeks after the incident, Gladas estimated that Trestine should be able to have an at least a few decades before the magic burns out, time that can me done to find more reliable substitutes.

Some modifications have been done to the rune circle to take in this development, and to make it less on random chance. Gladas had speculated that the issue may be similar to those from inbreeding: that trying to copy the same thing over and over again and expecting perfection just wasn’t feasible. However, adding a little bit of something unique reduces the need for perfect accuracy.

This data point reveals a possibility we had never considered before, and may give us options in improving the spell’s efficiency. Combinations may boost, or change the composition of an object. This may allow more unique alloys, and a fairly simple way in forging them.

Though doing it improperly would also create a very simple spell to kill, therefore much testing and time would be required before we can even begin to test how this can affect the Phylactery systems.

If it improves, or even perfects the Phylactery, then I will be able to raise my home from its grave, and protect my new family. Forever.

Author's Note

I can't decide whether Cycle is the narrator for these things or not.