To Infinity. For Eternity. No matter the cost
---Exterminator Corps
...
Alert: Illegal Summoning Spell
Subject: Chrysalis
Warning: Breach, Spell is too powerful
Exterminator requested
A gelatinous black arm lined with angled green veins snatched the holographic notification out of the air and held it to its “head.” A new limb shot out of its central body and flicked a button, causing a door to materialize out of the air. A glow surrounded the doorknob and the door opened, letting in a pitch black alicorn mare, her royal purple mane tied back in a ponytail. She briefly flicked her eyes around. Sometimes, the place she ended up in had walls of holographic panels whirling around him. Today, however, there was just one panel floating in front of her boss in the void of the Outside. She pushed the door closed, though since there weren’t any walls, the gesture was a bit pointless.
“How’s our experiment?” the blob asked.
“His condition has been a downward spiral, Administrator Upgrade,” his secretary replied.
The Administrator of the sector hummed thoughtfully to himself. “Again? I don’t want to off him just yet, I haven’t tested all his capabilities. Might have something useful. I will arrange a little something down Inside. Call him up, Adminstrator N-10. I have an assignment for him.”
A girl devoid of color walked out from nowhere, materializing in front of a derelict warship, floating in the endless Outside. It was shaped somewhat like a pillar, with a bulge wrapped around the center axis. A scarred barrel was barely visible underneath bent heat shields.
The girl’s golden eyes peered out from underneath her black hoodie. She summoned an old radio into her hand. “This is Protector Memories, sending final unlocking passcode,” she called. Memories stepped forward and upward to the wall of the closed hangar doors, a key popping into existence in her palm.
She slid the key forward and embedded it into the metallic door. A mint green lyre symbol flashed. Above it, a deep blue shield sparked, a googly eye glowed, a steel skull-and-crossbones glimmered, and a red cube burned.
Memories took a step back, crouching into a fighting stance as the wrecked ship shuddered to life.
Deep inside the heart of the warship, the lights to a tiny cell lit up. Inside a certain prisoner’s mental landscape, a metal cube named C-6 extended flexible, metal claws out of its faces and stepped over to a large dashboard connected to a large series of monitors. He stuck one of its claw’s fingers into a slot and twisted, turning the machine on.
A humanoid inside the cell jerked to life as consciousness was returned to him. His pupils lit up as his body unfroze, energy sluggishly circuiting the insides of his body.
Orders. Received, the warship’s occupant’s echoing voice droned tiredly. Matter engines belched out energy and accelerated the derelict warship toward his assignment. Something illegal had occurred within a universe, the Inside.
A quick time skip later, the rusty, rectangular vehicle slowed to a stop over the tiny glowing orb of a universe. A tiny smoky stain marked orb, a sign that a summoning had allowed an Outsider to breach the surface and let someone Inside, or into a universe. Despite there not being a set of laws, since the Outsiders never cared for it anyways, it was still illegal. This marked the invader a target for Extermination, and the summoner, apparently a Chrysalis out of a myriad of Equestria’s in the Mulitverse, a target for temporary mental modifications.
A hatch popped out from underneath the warship, which let out a slowly floating Shtik-class Exterminator, his identification: Wireframe. He had a fishing hat jammed over his head and a cloak wrapped tightly around his body. He was held tightly by four segmented arms squeezing his body. Every so often, he would let out a strangled wheeze, and a bit of resistance would come from his fingers. He tried vainly to stare blankly forward, but couldn’t resist twitching his eyes in a random direction.
“Hrrrack,” he started, his voice sounding like it came through a throat filled with sand. “This one?”
Yes, sir a voice replied, emanating from Wireframe’s back. A tiny cube poked itself out of the back of his skull, its corners glowing a dull infrared. It responded to the name “C-6,” and served as an assistant, a secretary, a medic, a guard, and a warden.
Wireframe flipped his palm face up and glanced at a lightshow of the flickering wireframes several weapons hovering over his hand. He paused it on a glowing wireframe of a long, single edged sword. He flipped it over into a reverse grip and jammed his thumb into the grip, squirting matter into the hologram. The weapon filled up like water into a funny straw. Wireframe inspected it, then reabsorbed the blade’s mass. “Might as well get it over with.”
As he stepped forward into the glimmering orb, an unnoticed figure sat hovering a foot above the Inside, hidden underneath a song-spell(1) created illusion the lyre in her hand was casting. She narrowed her golden eyes, and gave the Universe a gentle kick. “Memories speaking. Objective completed.”
There was nobody above the universe.
A well groomed blue maned unicorn stepped onto the carpeted floor of Canterlot’s periphery observatory to get some notes for his college astronomy class. The carpet helped lessen the hoof freezing effects of the cool night air on stone, part of the reason why he prefered it instead of the school’s. His name was Night Light. He stepped up to the room’s telescope, his notebook floating beside him.
A green spark hurtled into the telescope, blowing glass and metal everywhere and sending Night Light sprawling.
Transfer rate too high. Re-attempting with smaller chunks of self
A well groomed blue maned unicorn stepped into an observatory, to get some notes for his Astronomy college class. His name was Night Light. He stepped up to the room’s telescope, his notebook floating beside him.
A green lightning bolt smashing through the telescope, boiling poor Night Light’s eyes and sending him to the floor screaming.
Recalibrating
A well groomed blue maned unicorn stepped into an observatory, to get some notes for his Astronomy college class. He stepped up to the room’s telescope, his notebook floating beside him.
A green lightning bolt smashed through the roof, blowing the top of his skull into a charred mess.
A green lightning bolt went through the telescope, blowing his face off.
A green lightning bolt jumped through Night Light’s body, boiling the insides and spilling grey matter from various facial orifices.
Night Light’s head blew off.
Night Light’s skin burned.
Night Light blinked, his normal amber eyes glowing a dull green. He looked down at the charred notebook for a moment, then ignored it in favor of examining his body. “Still have four hooves. Hair isn’t burned. Body isn’t damaged significantly. Eyes functional. Magic levels normal. Heart rate slightly elevated - will lower shortly.”
He spasmed in place. “All muscles work properly.” He lifted the ash of the notebook. “Magic channels normally. All systems go. Soul Transfer complete.”
His eyes lit up, casting a faint green glow as he scanned the room. A slight frown crossed his lips. “Time period incorrect. Ten years too early. May have to request a reset - You!”
A black phoenix sat perched above the chamber door, purple eyes smouldering. “Request denied,” it intoned. “Close your eyes and believe our lies in your sweet dreams.” It waved a wing. The carpet underneath ‘Night Light’s’ hooves burst into ultra-violet flames, revealing a magic circle carved into the floor. Chains of energy wrapped around Night Light’s struggling form, glowing brighter and brighter. Within seconds, he was so weighed down that he fell flat against the floor. Black smoke spilled forth out of his body. The pony writhed in pain, unable to scream. The energy contained in the smoke exploded outwards, covering the room in a shroud of darkness.
A well groomed blue maned unicorn stepped into an observatory, to get some notes for his Astronomy college class. His name was Night Light.He stepped up to the room’s telescope, his notebook floating beside him.
He paused as a strange migraine stabbed through his horn, but decided to ignore it when it passed a few seconds later.
He flinched reflexively when a large black bird flew over his head and into the night. He wondered idly whether there might be crow poop somewhere, but that topic was abruptly removed from his mind.
He had an unnaturally productive few hours.
Author's Note
A/N:
1)The Outsiders tend to be extremely boring when classifying their abilities.
2) Rising Action
10 Years Later
Why isn’t she home yet? Why isn’t she home?! The thoughts bounced frantically inside Night Light’s pounding skull. Ever since 5:00 PM passed, he had degraded into a nervous wreck. He supposed it started sometime during noon, when he suddenly heard a whispered voice snarl ‘It’s here’. Night Light hadn't been able to sit still, and had tried to divert his attention by obsessively cleaning the house, shifting furniture around onto coordinate points of whole numbers, and staring through the door’s peephole.
And then... there! The moment Twilight Velvet came into his field of view, he wrenched the door open and yanked the befuddled unicorn in, sobbing on her shoulder.
“Wha-?” she started.
“You weren’t home on time! I thought you got hurt! I don’t want you to get hurt. I can’t bear the thought of you bleeding out in some alley, nopony around to help you,” Night Light babbled, reflexively squeezing his wife.
Velvet stared dully at the clock on the other side of the room. “Um, Nighty? I was only five minutes late.”
The stallion looked up, an utter lack of comprehension in his tear filled eyes. “I know!”
“Um. right.” Velvet pulled a hoof out of his embrace and rubbed her head. Night Light took the chance to glance behind her, scanning the street. Several singles wandering the street. Kids playing on the corner. A bit of trash blowing in an alley. My trash can needs to be dumped. Vendors at the end of the street. Nopony looking this way. Everypony is appears to be living out their own unimportant lives. So far, nothing. Good
“Look,” Velvet said, “I have a bit of a headache right now, so can you let me relax for a bit? Some of hot chocolate or something would be nice.”
Night Light spun and pushed her gently into the hallway. “Of course! Let me lock the door.” He took one more glance outside. Sun normal. No loiterers. Walkers are all different. Foals are still playing. Suspicious, but normal. Some clouds in the sky. Shadows are shadows. Some new pegasi appear to be in the sky. Not too interesting, but must remain cautious.
He turned around and followed Velvet into the house as she turned towards a couch to sit. He darted around her and sped into the kitchen. He floated over a pot and filled it with water and coffee grinds. After fifteen minutes of nervous pacing, the coffee was finished. He levitated a mug over and poured the coffee into it. Velvet had just settled down onto the couch when he exited the kitchen with the mug.
She widened her eyes in surprise. “That quickly? Did you warm one up before I even got home?”
Night Light thought about him warming a cup of coffee before Twilight Velvet got home. “Yes,” he said simply. He let her take the cup, then stood beside her, alternating between staring at her and at his surroundings. His pupils remained constricted.
Velvet shot him a worried glance. “Are you okay? If you need to rest, go ahead. I can take care of single cup of coffee.”
Night Light jerked, a breath catching in his throat. “Ee! Um, sure. I’ll do that.” He slowly backed away from her, keeping a line of sight for as long as he could. “You take care now. Rest... and stuff. Bye! See you later. Maybe an hour or so? Do you-”
“Go to sleep.”
“Alright,” Night Light said, making sure to yell loudly enough for Velvet to hear from across the room. He pranced in place for a few seconds before finally turning in. Somehow, the stress of waiting for his wife knocked him out completely instead of forcing him to stare at the ceiling for hours. The quick trip into dreamland wasn’t much better at maintaining his sanity, however.
Night Light stood in a never ending hallway. Night Light ran down the never ending hallway. A black cloud swept past him, chasing after the light gray speck Night Light knew was his wife. He pushed his legs as hard as he could, but despite every sensation telling him that he was accelerating, he never got any closer to the miasma.
Giving up was not an option. So, he persevered by increasing his speed even more. Soon, the beat his hooves made against the Dream!Wood floor was fast enough to produce a low hum.
Faster. Faster. Faster!
A pulse of rage burned in his heart, sending green flames burning off his back. Fifty meters. Forty. Thirty. The cloud “looked” back and gasped.
Night Light howled in insane laughter.
His bloodshot eyes shot open, sweat drenching his body. Stabs of pain flickered throughout his limbs. He quickly glanced to his side and was relieved to see his wife sleeping peacefully. All of the sweat was contained on his side of the bed.
He sat up and carefully slid off the bed, placing the dry sheets over his wife. There shouldn’t be anypony up this early. I’ll grab some food and place bits on their counters. Nobody would care, right?
He put on his saddlebags and tightened them as he walked out the door.
The Next Morning
Slam!
Night Light barreled through the door and stared at Velvet, sweat dripping down his face. When he could focus both eyes on her, he nearly collapsed in relief and grabbed her like a teddy bear, shuddering. Velvet was honestly worried, and really wanted to help him, but her groggy brain inhibited most emotional responses and his actions only ended up irritating her.
It was difficult, but she managed to calm herself down enough to act like she didn’t have a migraine. “What happened, Nighty? Did-”
“I could see through them!” he cried out, tears falling from his face. “My right eye can see them just fine, but they all look like ghosts from my left. You’re the only pony I’ve see that’s still normal from both.” He buried his face in her chest. “Please don’t leave me alone with them. I feel like there’s a demon in my mind. Its taking all of my willpower to not just electrocute them all to see if they vanish. We rarely take vacation days. Please. Can you maybe ask your bosses for a week off your writing job or something? I promise, if I can’t figure out what’s wrong with me, you can send me to see a doctor. I know you’ve thought about it.”
Velvet winced slightly, but patted his back. “Of course. We weren’t accomplishing much anyways. I can send them a message that I need a short break. We still have enough food in the pantry.”
So the pair spent the day just being together, though Night Light did let Velvet finish her sleep first. They read a few books, and Night Light gave some commentary on the half written outline of Velvet’s book. She managed to finish a few drafts that she could show to her editors. Night Light seemed to be able to hold himself together as long as he avoided the windows, so Velvet decided to just drop the blinds down and use candles.
They cleaned up the papers at the end of the day, and hit the hay a bit earlier than normal. Night Light was still a bit clingy, but considering the terrors he seemed to exhibit the day before, Velvet allowed it. It felt pretty nice, anyways.
The Third Day
Night Light had the same dream again.
He was trapped in a never ending corridor, running after the miasma that he knew in his heart was going to kill his beloved Velvet. No matter how fast he ran, no matter how high pitched the sound his hooves generated, he couldn’t get any closer. He couldn’t get to Velvet before the cloud could, and he knew it. But giving up was not an option. A mile flew by in seconds, and still he ran. A hoof snapped off and tumbled away, yet still he ran. His tail ignited from friction, and still he ran. His left eye melted in its socket, and still he ran.
Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!
A seed of rage so hot that it could summon wendigoes erupted from his heart, sending flames around his body. Jagged teeth that looked like shards from a shattered mirror erupted from his gums. Scythes cut their way out of what remained of his hooves, digging into the dream world and hurtling him forward. Orange flames mixed with green as he obliterated imaginary particles and blew past the surprised cloud. He came to a near complete stop, clusters of scythes and claws shooting out of his bones clinging to the edge of the hallway, blocking off the cloud from his beloved. An alien, ghostly green eye regrew in the molten eye socket.
He gave a jagged grin. Too slow.
In the real world, Night Light’s heart accelerated beyond normal limits, nearly reaching the speed of a mouse’s. His blood heated from the mere friction of rubbing cell walls. His muscles fibers tore as they reached their limits, and soon a twitching mess was all that was left underneath his flooded lungs. A slow trail of foamy blood trickled out of Night Light’s final breath.
His eyelids snapped open. His right eye was still golden, but his left eye was a swirling green vortex surrounded by black. Sometime in his sleep, he had grabbed Velvet and held her like a teddy bear. He flicked his hooves, sending her crashing into the ground.
“Oof,” she grunted. “Nighty, what are you-?”
“GET DOWN!” he screamed, rearing up. The wall behind him imploded. A massive claw slammed down upon his raised hooves, shattering the bed and cracking the floor.
You will miscarriage... ?
Night Light smiled, blacks smoke flowing through his jaws as he breathed in deeply. A massive black spike had sank partway into his skull, but he gave no attention to it. A small, white coated unicorn filly with emerald eyes tilted her head at him curiously, the claw spiraling out of her outstretched hoof. Black, sticky tar were sucked out of the spike, swirling around the point of impact. As it spread around the left side of his skull, a flickering line of boxy text lit up somewhere deep inside the dimensionless substance.
For a brief moment, it stabilized enough to read “ONLINE.”
“Ten years,” Night Light rasped. “Found you.” He casually slid down the spike and swung a hoof. A sonic boom blew the dust away from his limb, causing a building across the street to implode.
He gave a cold glare toward the horrified mare on the floor, even as the snapped off spike sank into his head. “Run girl, if you want to live.” His normal pupil suddenly constricted. A thrown brick blasted him head over heels across the room, crushing furniture and causing more property damage. Velvet finally got the memo and sprinted from the collapsing house and into the dark of the morning.
A holographic wire frame weakly sparked and died. Exasperated, the buried body of Night Light kicked the rubble off of him and stood up on his rear legs. It took him a moment for him to notice he was a quadruped. He glanced at the emotionless face of the not-a-pony jumping through the hole and sniffing the air.
Night Light, with Wireframe controlling the corpse now, leapt across the room and with a hoof slammed the intruder’s head into the ground. “Thank your unlucky stars, you only gave Wireframe enough energy for a few eye spells.(1)” He yanked the creature’s mangled yet angered face out and pulled it into a headlock. Before its smoky tentacles could attack Wireframe with some furniture, Wireframe slapped his own head with a free hoof. Sparks danced across his iris.
With a snarl, he yelled, “Amaterasu!”
Despite the destructive flames consuming the Outsider’s body, it managed one last hit before succumbing to the pain..
Wireframe bounced away from the inferno he had created. “Ow,” he muttered as he sat up. A table leg was embedded in his right arm. He gripped it with his teeth and carefully pulled it out. There was a bit of a hole there, so he shoved a hoof-full of rubble and dust into the wound. A bit of spit wet it, and the flames burning the house beside him dried it.
Technically, this was a corpse, and a borrowed one at that, but for the moment, he didn’t have enough energy for another body. Might as well do his best to keep it from falling apart around himself. “Now, where did she run off to?” he grumbled. A spark danced along his left green iris. The weaker atoms of reality became translucent, leaving the important creatures left on this plane of existence: the main characters and the targets. Through the haze of slightly transparent non-essential buildings, he saw a glowing, very important magenta spark crouched behind a dumpster. “Found you, Velvet. Let’s see if this works.”
He raised a hoof and swept it in a horizontal line
-------- - - ___ _ _ -------------- --- -- ---------- __
Wireframe froze, every single muscle in his body cramping. A second later, he collapsed to the floor, sparks dancing across the cobblestone. “Dammit, still can’t do a screen wipe.”
He slowly pushed himself back to his feet and sighed, running towards Velvet’s position. Dangit. I don’t know how long those flames will hold, might have messed up the mixture. Damn them all.
Velvet collapsed into a trash covered alley, gasping for breath. She cowered behind a dumpster. Her entire body shivered from the adrenaline burning through her veins. Her nerves barely had time to settle before hearing a set of hooves pausing on the other side of her cover. “Are you Miss Twilight Velvet?”
Velvet shivered, but said nothing.
“Of course you are. Now, I was told to recite this, so here we go. ‘A changeling queen from the future has illegally summoned an Outsider to kill you. I have been summoned to kill the Outsider before that happens.’ Hmm. Yep, that’s it. Now come with-”
Velvet poke her head out, saw his face, screamed and ran away into the alleys.
Wireframe paused, his jaw still open. The eerie green light in his eye flickered for a moment as his expression went from bored, to disappointed, to annoyed, and finally restrained anger within a matter of seconds. “How... inefficient,” he spat.
Velvet sobbed as she ran through the streets. The blank, alien expression on her husband’s face continued to haunt her. Gone was the loving glow of warmth whenever he looked upon her. Even during the few days where he seemed to have lost his mind, Night Light was still full of life. Underneath his fear, Velvet could still feel his love. Now? It was like looking at a corpse.
“Velvet!” she heard her husband’s voice call out. “This way! Hurry!” She nearly snapped her neck the way she spun around, tears of joy replacing tears of despair. A door was opened, his hoof and shadowed outline hurriedly waving her in.
“Night Light!” she called out, skidding into the doorway. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed -”
A glowing, ink stained grin floated in the darkness of the doorway, right underneath a glowing green light. A hoof reached out and poked her in the chest as she skidded to a stop.
“Boop,” he said, stepping into the moonlight. Wireframe stood casually in front of her, the black tar swirling around his skull in agitation, mirroring the fake smile on his face.
Velvet felt the freezing grip of terror clamp down on her spine, and tried to run, only to find her hooves warping slightly, then pull her back down, as if held down by an invisible force. She tried to gather some mana to fling, and looked ahead for a target. A moment passed as her mana slowly drained away.
Beside the corpse’s head were floating text, slowly evaporating; reading them made Velvet lose any form of concentration she had left as she tried to understand what was going on.
It read “... as if held down by an invisible force. Her mana pool suffered an equally unusual fate, evading her attempts to locate it.”
Wireframe stepped away from the doorway. Behind him, inside the shadows of the room, stood a glowing outline of a pony. Words, descriptions of something, flickered within the outline’s static. A donut hovered in a cloud of the ghost’s static colored magic.
Wireframe continued smiling his plastic smile, leisurely walking around her. “Sorry for the ... inconvenience, but it is very important I tell you some very important things. First off, you simply have no idea how easy it is to kill you. In fact, if I had less moral - no, I don’t have much of that left. If I had less ... restrictions, yes, you would be dead. In fact, worse than dead. You wouldn’t exist.
“Instead, I have been ordered to simply keep you alive long enough for me to figure out a way to exterminate the Outsider permanently from this plane, which takes more effort than simply killing it,” he lectured. “It doesn’t require you to be comfortable, nor for you to like me. In fact, normally, I don’t even give them the option of free will.” He stepped up closer to her side, leering with suddenly jagged teeth. “Much less chance for variables.”
He shrugged and walked in front of her, dropping the monstrous look and returning to a tired, disinterested expression. It didn’t make his appearance any less frightening. “Instead, I’m stuck with limited resources. They like testing me like that. Makes it much harder to save - keep the universe running smoothly. The enemy we’re going to face has none of our limitations, besides a slightly more limited amount of power to exert with.
“We have similar goals.” He pointed at her. “You don’t want to die, and most likely want me out of your husband’s body.” He pointed at himself. “I don’t like you, and want to get out of this place with as little fuss as possible. Can I get your promise to help, or at the very least, not hinder me?”
He stared at Velvet’s froze form, who stared back with shrunken, panicked eyes. “Oh, whoops, sorry about the inconvenience.” He prodded her chest, drawing out a sliver of black smoke into his hoof. “Normally, I have a lot more energy, and then I -”
Velvet scrambled backwards, sweat beading down her form as she cowered in the shadows of the wall behind her. Wireframe slowly turned his head over to her, accompanied with a loud grinding noise. He pursed his mouth and spat out a small cloud of white powder. “....yes?” he asked.
“What did you do to my husband?”
Wireframe nodded. “Such ... loyalty.” He stared off into space. “Oh right, you were expecting an answer. Trying to corral two intelligent beings into a defense with my resources is too difficult, and so they stuffed me in your husband’s body. He’s dead, I get a free body until I leech off enough energy to make my own.”
“WHAT!?” Velvet screamed.
Wireframe waved a hoof at her. “Oh, stop making such a big deal about it. If you live, everything goes back to normal. If you’re lucky, you might even not remember any of this.” He paused and glared at her. “Mess with me, we both die and you won’t exist long enough to regret it. You don’t have my experience, nor my resources. You are nearly helpless against our enemy. I don’t need you to like me, and the feeling is mutual. My purpose here is to protect you, and as long as you follow my orders, I will complete my task. Are we clear?”
Velvet shivered, but managed a shaky, “Loud and clear, Mister....”
He snorted. “I’m a Shtik, speed specialist. That’s all you need to know. Now move. You’ve wasted too much of my time. We have less than forty-eight hours before we’re utterly screwed.” He turned around and walked, Velvet meekly following him. The pair stepped out into the silent, darkly lit city streets.
Only a few ponies were awake at this hour, but everypony seemed to be blind to Wireframe’s presence. If he looked like he was on a collision course with someone, he or she would move to the side at the last second. Velvet decided to just walk behind him, using Wireframe like a shield.
“Um...” Velvet started.
“What?” Wireframe snarled.
“What happened to the pony behind you back there?”
He sneered. “He held quite a weight in this place. Made a great snack.” He relished her shocked expression. “Whatever I have to do to win, I take it. Remember that. You might get to do something like that too.”
Velvet decided that the less she knew about him, the better.
After a few minutes of walking, they arrived at one of the side walls of the Royal Castle.
Wireframe gritted his teeth as a few golden and green sparks jumped out of his horn. “Dammit,” he muttered. “This horn is still as dead as a rock. Looks like all I have right now is my eye.” He grumbled unhappily and went towards the main entrance.
Velvet raised an eyebrow. Wireframe gestured at his body. “Corpse, remember? I’ll explain more when I get to the safehouse. For now, just know that zombies aren’t known for magical ability.”
There were two armored pegasi at the gate, and they also seemed to ignore him, but jolted to awareness when he moved to push their spears away. “Halt, citizen,” one said. “State your business. The Castle is not receiving visitors at this time.”
“Ooof course,” Wireframe mumbled under his breath. The guards looked curiously as he whacked the side of his head, the iris of his left eye fluctuating between multiple shapes and symbols. It stopped on a strange red bird symbol, superimposed on his green iris
Wireframe opened his mouth. Stand. Aside., To Velvet’s surprise, she felt an unknown force compelling her to step away from Wireframe, but managed to resist it for the few seconds it lasted. The guards, on the other hand, stared blankly into the distance and raised their spears for a few seconds, enough time for Wireframe to grab Velvet and drag them through the gate.
Velvet was going to ask Wireframe what he did as they rounded a corner, but he collapsed, gasping and sounding like he was suffering a lethal asthma attack with his eyes clenched shut in pain. It took him a few minutes before he was able to slowly unclench his muscles.
“Are you alright?” Velvet ventured. She lifted a hoof towards him, then hesitated.
“Good enough,” he hissed, ignoring her hoof entirely. He took a deep breath and focused, pushing the pain by sheer force of will. He slowly pushed himself up by using the wall and continued trotting into the Castle, waving his hoof at her to catch up, grinding his teeth each time he bent a joint. He looked back over his shoulder at the awkwardly shuffling mare. “Move it.”
He shuffled away without turning to look if Velvet followed. She did so anyways, and decided that her question probably wasn’t worth knowing in any case.
He led her to trapdoor barely visible in the wall. He pushed at it and for a moment, his hoof sank into the wall before reality noticed something was wrong and hastily corrected itself. Strangely, the room did not seem to be part of the castle, clearly being far too big to fit inside the wall they passed.
Velvet waited in silence for a bit, then asked, “So... what is this place?”
Wireframe tapped his head. “A bit of subconscious meddling. I’ve been to a lot of copies of places. Most of them have a location that stays relatively similar wherever and whenever I end up, and so I set up an automatic subroutine that will quietly generate a safehouse if I am to have an extended stay here. The default saferoom for Equestria in particular is this fake nursery I ... stole from elsewhere.”
Wireframe shuffled over to a beanbag chair and collapsed onto it. Velvet meekly followed him in and sat on some threadbare cushions. He stared at the ceiling quietly for a few minutes, slowly exhaling. “Alright, listen to this carefully, since I only have time to say it once. As I mentioned and demonstrated earlier, I don’t have much to work with. I only have enough energy for a few minutes of sustained combat at the moment, and most of it are attacks I associate with my head and eye. Difficult to use in a brawl. For whatever reason, my bosses have striped me of the rest of my energy.”
Velvet slowly raised a hoof. “Why? Aren’t they invested or ...?”
“I don’t know.” A slight tenseness overcame his hooves, gripping the edges of the beanbag. “They never respond. In all honesty, they probably don’t care too much about me. I’m replaceable, like everyone else. They have enough power to erase me, so I don’t dare talk back.”
“Are there anypony else you can call upon?”
“Sociopaths, all of them,” Wireframe growled, grinding his teeth. The fabric twisted under his grip. “They think nothing about you Insiders, unless it threatens their Feeding. No good can come from there.
“The Gre - I mean, Outsider, has to break through what plot armor you do have with imaginational energy, this black stuff” Wireframe pawed at his face, trailing sticky black goop. “In layman terms...” Wireframe created a quill from the matter bleeding off his face and scrawled an extremely detailed portrait of Velvet’s head onto the stone floor. Shimmering, barely legible text fluttered somehow behind the image.
“This is what you look like. To Outsiders.” He stabbed the quill down, spilling ink all over the picture, making Velvet startle. The ink flowed away back up his hoof, leaving a slightly different picture behind. “Slightly different eyes. Different choices. Different thought patterns. Remember when I froze you earlier? This is the same, but permanent.”
Wireframe slowly leaned forward, squeezing the beanbag chair and staring straight at her eyes. She was confronted with eyes filled with barely restrained anger, and curiously, and undercurrent of fear. “I can not stress this enough,” he continued. “No matter what circumstances happen, do not let yourself get touched. Once you do, its all over.”
Velvet hastily nodded, only then realizing that Wireframe was somehow only a foot away from her face. Wireframe sat back down, once again somehow teleporting back to the other side of the room, huffing. “Good. Now, recall when I said I will do whatever necessary in order to win?”
She nodded.
“The second reason for these hideaways. Old places have weight. Memories. Souls that have come and gone. Very energy dense. I will soon prepare to consume as much of it as possible before he detects me. Celestia is quite a catch herself ... I know that look, and I know what you’re going to ask.” Wireframe mashed a hoof against Velvet’s lips. “You are the only thing that’s important. Everything burns if we I don’t succeed.” He settled back into his seat.
“The bugger that summoned this Outsider has no feasible grasp on what kind of horrors she's unleashed into your universe.. For now, it is bound to her command, which is to alter the future. It can do whatever it wants after that. If she ... suddenly changed her mind and decided to simply send a normal, time traveling assassin after you, you’re on your on.” He shrugged. “Sucks to be you.”
Velvet shrunk a little at the emotionless tone he had.
“Any last minute questions?”
Velvet closed her eyes and took a few breaths, trying to calm herself. After a moment, she opened her eyes and said, “Two things. First, What about the Bumblebee effect? I mean, won’t - ”
“Quiet!” Wireframe cut her off, frantically waving his hooves. This in turn made Velvet start in her seat, looking around, but not sure what to look for. “We don’t want to be giving anyone any ideas!” He worriedly flicked his eyes back and forth for a minute before signing in relief. “That is indeed a good question, but answering that is ... problematic. Us Outsiders... and please don’t think too much about this, somebody might hear it and get ideas, we ... questionably exist. We can both alter Reality and be altered by it. The only reason why protecting the stability of this universe is relatively simple is because people don’t tend to think too outside the box.
“Outsiders and our world are little more than unruly ideas who refuse to die against the onslaught of worse ideas. There is a code, an invisible script we follow. We follow the rules, and hopefully everything goes in our favor. Its a setup that worked for us for several cycles, barring a few mishaps here and there. Introducing new stuff like what you suggested will complicate our plans roughly ... 1000 fold, at minimum.”
He raised an eyebrow and Velvet’s dropped jaw. “Look at what we had to go through to ensure I ended up near you and without detection,” he said. “I’ll admit, this is an abnormal one, but if your situation was in effect, we would have to focus on entire populations. Shielding one is easy. Shielding everything is damn near impossible.
“But for now, you’re in luck. We only have to worry about you. As your importance rises, others’ fall, making collateral damage less of a problem. As long as that stays true, that “Bumblebee” won’t be a problem. Now what’s your second question?”
Velvet stayed silent until she realized he was addressing her. “Oh, yes. Um, not to say that I don’t trust you, but what should I do if I have to defend myself? I really don’t like the thought of not being able to do anything.”
Wireframe nodded. “Another good question. I’ll be honest, there isn’t much you can do. We’re a kind of extradimensional creature, and can only be hurt by things from the Outside. I, and by extension, they, have a lot of annoying tricks to catch their targets. Running away might not actually accomplish anything besides tire you out, since it can sort of lock your distance and slowly drag itself over to you no matter how fast you move. That said, bright flashes of light might be able to disorient them for a brief moment. If the event comes where you are alone, delay it as much as possible. I will come to protect...”
Wireframe looked at a doll, observing the reflection in its eyes with perfect clarity.
“Go to sleep, child,” he growled, a grimace flashing across his face before he managed to project a face blank of emotion. “We don’t have much time. Rest now. We go to battle in the morning.” He started drawing a circle made with black liquid dripping down his arm and sat in the center, meditating. Velvet sighed and floated over a stuffed bunny to herself to use as a pillow. She wondered what he was thinking about that caused him to look so worried and disappointed.
She woke up sometime later and was greeted with a dinner roll sitting on the floor in front of her. Wireframe was still sitting across from her inside the black circle he drew. Strangely, the stone looked bleached in a radius of a few feet, as if it forgot what its color should be. Most of his skull looked like it had been drenched in ink. His right eye no longer held the golden iris of her beloved, and was instead just a black dot.
“Hurry,” he ordered, standing up. “I feel trouble coming.” Underneath his breath, she heard him whisper, “Too fast. It recovered too fast.”
Moments after Velvet managed to scarf down the bread, the wall besides them exploded, sending stone flying everywhere. Wireframe leapt to her side, his silhouette visible in the dust cloud. “Hold on,” he whispered. “The room is destabilizing.”
Cracks appeared on the other three walls around them, causing enough shaking to feel like an earthquake.The back wall bent forward, and when the stone finally couldn’t handle the increasing strain, the side walls collapsed, sending the back wall and the pair forwards into the hallway. Under the cacophony of crumbling stone, Velvet heard a surprised “Hurk!” above her, followed by a cold, sticky liquid splashing onto her face.
“Huh. Normal stone.” He coughed wetly. “Clever.” Velvet wiped her eyes and gasped at the stone pillar impaling Wireframe to the wall.
A sense of rising panic crept through her stomach and she quickly stood up, prancing in place. “What do I do? Can I help? Please, don’t leave me here!” Her eyes darted to him and out into the dust cloud, wondering whether being able to see something standing outside was a good thing or not.
He wearily opened an eye. “Not... fatal. Recoverable. You... run. Hurry... I will... catch up.” He weakly slid forward, trying to move towards the end of the spike.
She gave one last horrified look at her husband’s corpse, then sprinted through the castle halls.
Wireframe looked tiredly at her retreating backside, then at the chunk of stone protruding from his chest.. Oh, this is gonna hurt. I really should’ve figured out how to cast magic from this bone earlier. With a sigh, he inched forward, wincing whenever a particularly sharp point pressed into him. Black sparks leaped from his horn as he tried to levitate himself.
Author's Note
(1) Outsiders tend to classify attacks by which body part it is activated from.
Velvet hopped out of the collapsed room, her eyes darting frantically. She chose the path away from the soul-chilling aura, but against her own judgement she chanced a glance back and froze. The demon, what Wireframe called the Outsider, ignored her and went straight towards what looked like the grave of her bodyguard.
If I don’t do anything, he’s going to die! she thought frantically. She spun around, magic flowing into her horn. He said light-like spells, right? How about... this! She summoned a basic bright manalight and shoved it towards the Outsider’s path. With a flash, the spell sizzled into its fleshy disguise of pony skin. It opened its mouth when the light hit, black spittle spraying, and despite not hearing a noise, Velvet felt its pain and anger flowing in waves into her pulse through her like waves.
It quickly recovered, focusing its half burnt face at her and taking several steps after her. Velvet’s eyes widened and she galloped away. She managed to stay ahead of the Outsider for several minutes, darting around hallways and getting herself lost. Soon, she realized that the Outsider was gaining, gradually increasing in speed. Velvet glanced back and was horrified to see the monster merely moments from jumping her.
She focused what magic she could gather and clumsily initiated a teleport backwards. With a loud bang, she fell to the floor, gasping for breath. Then she screamed as the Outsider’s dive barely missed her fallen body, the Outsider skidding across the floor. It spun around, empty eyes locking onto her. Velvet teleported away again, but to her dismay, the Outsider stayed in the same position in her eyes.
Suddenly, the creature hissed, pulling a bit of its tail out of the wall.
That’s it! she cheered. Come on, just one more teleport! Her head pounding, she drained the last of her reserves into teleporting sideways. To her relief, the Outsider ended up imbedded in the wall because of the Outsider locking its reference frame to Velvet.
She crumpled against the back wall, shivering slightly as the adrenaline drained from her body. The castle workers walked past her, seemingly not noticing her presence. Since they seemed just the tiny bit translucent, she wasn’t exactly surprised they acted as if they weren’t there. With something dead set on killing her, Velvet couldn’t find the heart to care. All she could focus on was catching her breath.
Once her legs stopped feeling like noodles, she staggered up to her hooves and attempted to find her way back to Wireframe. If fate was in her favor, that thing would stay trapped for a while. She barely took a step when she heard a loud, un-equine screeching behind her. She fearfully glanced back... yes those were black tentacles crawling out of the wall. She turned to sprint but tripped when her legs gave out underneath her. Turns out she hadn’t recovered enough to go on another all out sprint. At best, she could only manage a unsteady limp. Limping got her another twenty meters before the Outsider crawled out, half of its body trailing behind it.
It locked eyes on her and hissed, rolling across the floor at her. Velvet whimpered helplessly, scrambling backwards. “Help me! Anypony, please!”
But like before, it was like she didn’t exist, and the various inhabitants of the castle walked past her. One even nearly walked through her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a maid walk straight into the Outsider’s body and vanish. A maid further ahead suddenly carried an extra load of cleaning supplies, like the first one never existed.
The Outsider jabbed its limbs into the ground, rearing up. Giant scythes formed around its head, raised high into the air. Velvet sobbed, holding her hooves over her head. Wind rushed around her as the monster swung.
10 minutes earlier
“Crap.”
Wireframe fell onto his plot as he managed to wriggle off the spike. The lack of a heart was greatly impeding his ability to move anything but his head, which fortunately didn’t rely on the corpse’s muscles to move since those relied on the energy he drained out of the castle. It still wasn’t enough for him to get across the castle to stop Velvet from getting killed or worse.
Burn a hole?, he thought.
Calcutating...
Not enough energy.
Drat. Portal?
Not enough energy.
Eh, screw you. Fusion rocket?
Energy available. Requires burning your body.
... Nah. Soulfire it is.
Warning, extremely limited supply. You may not live-
Wireframe blew a weak raspberry.Exactly. Don’t got enough energy to stop me, asshole. Your loss.
Wireframe’s eyes glowed, and ethereal flames of blue erupted from his hooves. He raised his right foreleg and pointed it at the wall. He was still able to see Velvet through the walls with his enhanced sight, and noticed the Outsider crawling towards her. “Just in time.”
I must protest-
BURN
His entire leg’s skin peeled off, revealing a cracked human arm, with more holes and missing pieces than ghostly flesh. The shoulder joint exploded, incinerating the wall as it passed through that and beyond. Blue steam shot out of his severed leg. The glow faded from his body. He laughed vindictively as the light went out of his eyes soon after.
Masonry shattered besides Velvet. A hoof stretched out of the darkness, blocking the falling scythes. She saw it, and knew hope. She grasped it, and knew rage.
A black void. Energy. So much energy, swirling around her. And all throughout the sky, points of light - no - points of life, flared and died over and over. Jealousy surged, then suppressed.
More stones exploded as the Outsider slammed its scythes into the ground. It ‘stared’ confusedly at the lack of impact when it realized that it had only managed to murder some rocks. It looked through the dust and saw her standing bipedally, squeezing right between the scythes. In her outstretched right hoof, she held a dismembered leg in a fencing pose, as if she was thrusting the air.
Muscle Memory Downloaded
Without hesitation, it pushed its scythes together, but Velvet had already rolled backwards, glaring at the Outsider from underneath her bangs, the leg held loosely at her side. She snarled.
The Outsider summoned several more limbs and sent them flying towards the unicorn. She ground her teeth and raised the dismembered leg in front of her. The Outsider froze, energy crackling along the length of its scythes. “Knew it,” she said, and swung at the scythes.
The Outsider quickly retreated, backing away from the flailing limb. It brought a pair of limbs together and launched a fireball and the sprinting unicorn. Velvet smirked and stopped, her limbs held out at her side. An updraft from literally nowhere blew the fireball off course. “Plot armor, remember?”
She teleported above the Outsider, narrowly avoiding a spike that sprouted underneath her and fell straight down over the monster, the leg held pointing towards the mass of slicing limbs.
This move left Velvet falling in a predictable path. Like the simple minded force of destruction it was, the Outsider took the bait. Like an inverted onion, pointed shadows bunched up and shot past the leg-sword from a distance and stabbed Velvet from multiple angles. The illusion shattered; instead of being impaled, Velvet was actually holding the leg above her head - the leg which was now solid black. Vines of eldritch energy jumped down the dismembered limb, onto her leg and wrapped around her shoulders and head. Within seconds, an observer would be unable to tell where Velvet ended and the dismembered limb began.
The leg thinned and lengthened, shadows peeling back to reveal a green outlined falchion. ”Cold Front” Velvet whispered, as massive amounts of energy began coursing through the blade, sending dancing sparks across the ground.
Quadruped Mode: On
Unicorn Mode: On
The Outsider summoned a cloud of limbs from its central mass and sent it flying towards Velvet. Half of its limbs were empowered with otherworldly power, in an attempt to overwrite her history with its reality warping attributes. The other half held bricks ripped from the walls and floor. Velvet elegantly alternated between running on four legs and two, flailing the sword in just the right way to slice off the Outsider’s over-extended limbs. Some of the flying bricks Velvet caught with her magic. With a bit of effort, Velvet transformed the bricks into a ring of heavy projectiles orbiting her left foreleg.
She continued stepping forwards. The Outsider had lost too much energy before Velvet received a massive skill boost granted from Wireframe’s arm, and was unable to dodge Velvet’s attacks.
What intelligence the Outsider had made it realize that it could not win this fight, and it hastily retreated, blowing up a large section of the hallway in its wake. Velvet shielded her eyes from the dust. Wait. I literally can’t get killed from these.. Trusting her instincts, she galloped left and right, managing to avoid most of the falling debris and any lethal injuries. In the distance, she saw the Outsider turn around a corner, spitting out a smoke covered filly. She decided to ignore the construct in favor of continuing the chase towards the rest of the Outsider’s body. She judged that she should be able to rip it apart with a few more attacks-
Help...
Error. File Not Responding.
Velvet blinked, wobbling slightly as if she just came out of a stupor. “...Wireframe? Wireframe!” Suddenly she realized where the construct was going: the safe room. She quickly executed a teleport, which shifted the construct that still had a coordinate-locked position (or, in layman’s terms, the construct is always going to be at the same distance, angle, and height, no matter what) intimately linked to Velvet into a chunk of stone front of the room. She glanced back and gasped when she saw Wireframe’s torn out joint. She dashed in and felt his neck. His body felt cold and lifeless.
Tears sprung from her eyes and she collapsed, hugging his limp corpse. A tiny wisp of energy torn free from the unicorn’s horn and into Wireframe’s face. A single, bloodshot eye snapped open as he sucked it in greedily, and then focused its glare on Velvet.
“Why?” he croaked.
She gasped. “You’re alive! I was so-”
“Screw that,” he hissed. “Have you forgotten my words? You are more important than anything on this godforsaken planet. It wasn’t important before, but when you fused with my arm, you can now use this.” He twitched forwards his remaining foreleg and summoned a black, oily marble rolling around his frog. “Congratulations, child. You can now use Zero Energy. This is the stuff we Outsiders are made of. It is what all reality is made of, but convinced into a lower energy state. On its own, it is completely unstable, searching for the nearest clump of matter to copy. When there is a dedicated mind controlling it, however, you can make reality copy whatever form or truth you want.”
He dropped the marble onto the floor, turning the stone underneath into bone that was fused with the stone around it for centuries.
“The Outsider knows too, and now it will abandon all pretense of subtlety and drain what remains of this plane to destroy you. You haven’t seen how we truly fight. There is no trading of blows. There is only an All In. Winner takes all. You just made everything more difficult.”
Velvet shrank back at his words, her ears folded back. A pit of guilt formed in her stomach, ironically for saving someone. Wireframe’s lips twitched slightly, but his glare eventually softened. “Don’t give me that look. I will still uphold my promise... They all have, at minimum, one weakness, no matter what energy levels they have. I will need your help to exploit it.
Velvet closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Got it. Sorry about my mistake earlier. I will do my best to whatever you ask of me.”
“Good. Remember that.” He tried standing up, but tangled up his limbs. “Help me up.”
After numerous tries, Wireframe ended up on Velvet’s back. His legs could barely support the weight of a pencil. “Alright. If you want to survive this day, you must do exactly as I tell you to do. Their weakness in being straightforward and blunt as a supernova holds true no matter how much power they have. It’s the only thing left. The moment it makes its first move, a metaphorical timer starts counting down. These excursions never take more than a few days.”
Velvet blinked and realized that barely a day has passed since her house was destroyed.
The pair slowly made their way out of the castle. Velvet flicked her eyes nervously between the road and the stewing eldritch creature glaring at nothing. “...Um, I was wondering-”
Wireframe’s glare focused on her.
“Eep!”
After a moment, he closed his eyes and exhaled. Wetly. He weakly rubbed his face. “You have one or so hours to ask me anything. Answers may or not be answered.”
Velvet shakily wet her lips. “What.... what did you do, uh, Shtik? I .. I didn’t really get a good feel.”
The corpse gestured at his arm socket. “I calculated that the most efficient option to get you out of danger was to burn off bits of my soul in order to give you enough power to fight back on your own. I stored that energy into my arm and shot it towards you. It has a limited intelligence, an instinct for combat, stored within. As you can see, it tend to be something of a last resort. Next.”
Velvet walked from a few minutes thinking about something else to ask.
“What is... the Outside like?”
Wireframe froze, then slowly fell limp, a weariness entering his form. “...It is the most freest feeling. Of nearly limitless power at your command. At countless worlds to spectate and admire. And... it is also...” He clenched his teeth as the shadows of deleted memories taunted him. “...an eternal hell. What is the point of awesomeness at the cost of your life? I never wanted this. I’m a slave, child. They won’t let me die. I can’t enjoy the beauty of the Outside, because it is so energy dense demons sprout out every second like weeds. We are always outnumbered, fighting against numberless enemies in order to keep these universes intact. And for what? The only difference between the defenders and the attackers are that the defenders now what rationing is.” He bit back a sob, and took several minutes before he composed himself.
“Hope you never see another one of us,” he went on. “If you do, ignore at all costs. Learn from somebody who’s curiosity destroyed any illusion of freedom I ever had, Be glad you don’t know what the Outside is like.”
That pretty much destroyed Velvet’s train of thought, and she ended up thinking about his words as he subtly directed her into some tunnels underneath the city.
When she helped prop the Outsider into a sitting position, no trace of his earlier breakdown showed on his face.
“First lesson,” Wireframe said.
They hid inside the abandoned tunnels underneath Canterlot: The Crystal Caverns. “Give me a bit of your magic,” Wireframe ordered. “If I’m going to teach you, I need to be more useful than a limp noodle.”
Magic flowed into Velvet’s horn. After a sufficient amount built up, she touched Wireframe’s horn with it. She gasped as she felt her mana reserves suddenly dry up. Her vision blurred, a headache forming as she fell back onto her haunches.
Wireframe stood up, chewing. “Sorry. It takes quite a bit of energy to be able to move.”
He walked around Velvet in a circle, scrawling a dirty line. “Please stand up, please.”
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Do you care about Sunny Days?”
“Who?”
“Exactly.” A line of light appeared on his remaining foreleg, which morphed into a triangle. He reared up and punched the ground. A cloud of darkness leaked out of the ceiling of the cavern, swirling into his back. A black, gooey limb shot out of his shoulder socket, clawed and writhing. He snapped his energized eyes towards Velvet’s shocked ones. The arm morphed into a giant key.
No!
She blinked, and the key was sunk into her chest. Flashes of letters danced behind her eyes.
Hello, Velvet[/smcaps, a smooth, sure voice spoke in her mind.
Wha..?
Excuse me, the voice said, returning to Wireframe’s dry, tired voice. That was your default ‘other’ voice because of reasons. What you hear is me modifying your history to have random voices talking to you, which happen to be want I want it to say. This is also happening at the speed of thought, so I will be able to transfer more information to you in the little time we have in the form of hallucinations. Ready? Don’t answer. We don’t have time.”
The world flashed in front of Velvet’ eyes.
Forgive me
