Chapters His eyes snapped open. “Oh good, you're awake, I-”
Shnikt . The magic around his leg shattered and he sliced off her arm. He hit the ground as she screamed and took several steps back. He got back up with slow, deliberate motions. That was what he was fighting for, he had to remember that. He was fighting to save ponies.
“Again with the hand...” Madam Raven grumbled as she flexed her newly grown hand.
Copper looked at where the hand he had cut off had been. It evaporated into black smoke as he stared at it. He was tired, and he was still crying. He took a deep breath, as he stared her down. “Raven...Other...it doesn't matter anymore.”
She arched a brow, smirking at him. “Oh? And why is that?”
“It doesn't matter...because the outcome is the same.” He looked up at her and took a deep breath. “It doesn't change the fact that I have to beat you.”
She smirked and stood in front of him. “Oh? And you think that you can?”
“Yes.” He buried the blade into her chest once again, gritting his teeth as he did.
“Urk...oh Copper...you think that you can beat me...by just...stabbing me?” She grabbed hold of his arm, but he continued to push. She stared at him as she was forced backwards.
“No.” It had taken all that he could muster, but he had done it. After all, if he had done it once, what was stopping him from doing it again? He rushed forward and tackled her through the rift he had made.
They had gone through. He had done it. He panted softly as he looked down at the hard dirt under his hooves. He looked back through the large crack in the air at Twilight, Celestia and Chrysalis, all of whom stared at him. There was an odd pressure and he realized his plan would not work. He took a deep breath and called out, “I'm sor-” Snap, “-ry.” He stared at the thin line in the air where the rift had been. He had not been able to keep it open long enough to even say goodbye.
“So this is your plan?” She flung him away and he skipped across the packed surface. His goggles slipped from his head as he bounced away. “Pathetic. So you take me away from them? That will not save them. I can just go back.” Madam Raven straightened up as she approached, purposefully crushing the goggles under her claws. “Do you even know where we are, dear Copper?”
Copper watched as the frame buckle and lenses shatter. He focused his attention away to the place around them. The ground was dried and cracked in all directions, the sky seemed to burn red and something blocked out the sun, making everything seem much darker than it should be, but at the same time it was still bright. There was nothing around except for a dead tree on top of a hill. “I don't,” he said as he got up and dusted himself off. “But it doesn't matter.”
“Oh Copper... How foolish of you. You drag me somewhere you have no knowledge of.” Her slimy black tongue ran over her beak as she lifted the mangled remains. “I have already won here.” She tossed it off the the side.
“Doesn't matter,” he said as he adjusted his bowtie.
“Doesn't matter? Do you even know what that means? This world is as good as dead, and I-” she stopped and the gloating face she had been making quickly melted away.
Copper smirked. “Oh? Just realized?”
“No...” she said as her claws dug into the ground.
“Oh yes. I don't know all the rules to your petty little game, but I know this one.” He smirked a bit more. “And you went through first. That means you forfeit that world. I win.”
“No!” Magic shattered as Copper threw up his hoof. Again and again she lashed out, each spell shattering in turn. The time he had spent practicing had more than prepared him for a fight like this. Her magic was already weaker and was getting weaker with each spell she threw. Eventually she stopped, collapsing onto the ground and breathing heavily. “Damn it...”
Copper stood several hooves away from her, staring her down. “You've lost, Raven.”
She chuckled softly. “Utterly. The Other has already abandoned me...I really should learn to not play with my food...”
“You wont have the chance to make that mistake again,” Copper said as he walked towards her.
There was a smirk on her face. “You may have saved that world, but you've doomed us both...this world is going to die. Surely you can feel it with your new power? There is no magic here...and we have burned up all that came with us.”
“As I said, it doesn't matter. The Other, and you, can't do anymore harm to anypony.” Copper was watching her closely and could practically watch her whither away.
He found it annoying that she could still smirk at him. “But what will you do now, Copper?” Her tongue ran over her beak. “Butcher me? Torture me? Make me feel for my crimes? Feast upon my corpse for sustenance in this barren world? Oh what poetic justice that would be...”
“No.”
She sat up and laughed. “Oh, Copper. Even now you play the good little pony. So you'll just leave me? After the atrocities that I've committed. The hundreds upon thousands I have butchered and devoured...” She took a deep breath. “Oh but I would much prefer my end to be like that. Come on, Copper... You know you want to. You want to slice me to pieces, hack off my limbs. Butcher me. I was going to do the same to you...and to your little Queen...and every single pony. But no. You stand there with your self righteousness and think so highly of yourself. Or are you just going to sit there and allow me to feast on you? Allow yourself to die another pathetic death while all your loved ones- gluck!”
“No.” He watched as she clutched at her neck. “I'm going to slit your throat and watch as you bleed out.” The blade retracted with a shink .
All he got was a gurgle in response.
“Put pressure on it. I want you to hear as much of this as possible.” He sat down in front of her, watching as the blood pooled around her. “The world, any world, would be better without something like you. A monster.” There was a chill down his spine and he felt as though something was standing behind him. “But you are going to die, Raven. And not quickly. You've got a lot to answer for.” Her eyes were wide as she stared past him. “I only hope that the death of this world is as cruel as the one in ours. You deserve to suffer, but it wont be me who torments you. It will be your own life that does that. Your actions. We all pay for what we have done when it comes to an end.” Her eyes seemed to find him. For the first time that Copper had ever seen her, she looked terrified. “I will not even try to imagine what awaits you wherever you're going. I'm sure nothing I could think of could come close.”
She gurgled and spluttered as she tried to breath. Her blood looked like oil, pooling around her body as she tried to do anything.
Copper sat and stared, watching as the light slowly went from her eyes and the gurgling and twitching stopped. Then he stood and turned to the side. Shnikt . He tested the ground with the blade; the ground was quite solid. He took a deep breath as he plunged the dagger into the ground and began cutting chunks from ground and tossing it to the side. It was rough work, but he needed time to think and it was something to do to keep himself busy. It was an hour before he was satisfied with the hole and shoved the lifeless body into it. The dagger retracted and he stared at the body in the hole. He felt like he should say something. Even if he hated her, he still felt like he should say something. “Stay there and rot.” Of course, it didn't have to be something nice.
He began covering the corpse with dirt. “What is it doing?” He stopped and turned around.
There were three figures standing not terribly far away, all of them pony shaped. “I believe he is burying the bird thing.”
“Hello?” Copper said as he watched the three of them.
“Why would he do that? We could probably eat the bird...”
He couldn't tell who was speaking, but he went back to pushing dirt into the hole. “You do not want to eat this thing.”
“What is it though? It is...oddly shaped as us.”
Copper was eventually satisfied that the body had been buried. “What do we do with it?”
He turned to look at the three who had gotten closer and now that they had, he realized that they were bat ponies. Copper cleared his throat. “What exactly is going on?” Copper said, starting to get a little frustrated now.
“Can we eat it?”
Shink . “All right. It's one thing to ignore me, but there is no way in Tartarus that I am going to tolerate talk of me being eaten.” All three of the ponies scrambled quickly away from him.The bat ponies scattered, trying to hide behind each other several times before they managed to get over a hill. After several moments the blade retracted. He had made his point. “Now then. Are we going to play nice?”
He saw the top of one of their heads before it retracted and there was rushed whispering, none of which he could make out.
Copper hesitated before he began heading up the hill after them. “I'm coming over there. I'm not going to hurt you as long as you don't try and hurt me.”
“We must go to the Priest,” one of the ponies said. “The Priest will know what to do.”
“But the Priest will be unhappy. He is an outsider.”
“He has something sharp and shiny. We have to go to the Priest.”
“Who is this Priest?” Copper asked, standing on top of the hill and looking down at them. They were laying down and huddled up.
“The Priest is our leader,” the middle one said as he stood up. The other two did as well. “He is our strength. He is our courage. He is the conduit of our lord. We shall take you to the Priest.”
Copper frowned slightly. “All right.” His mind was wandering as they walked. He wondered what sort of pony this Priest was. If it was even a pony. It made him think of Celestia. Some referred to her as a god in some lands and he knew the seaponies thought of alicorns as god like beings.
It took almost two hours, as far as Copper could tell, to reach what Copper thought of as a citadel. From a distance it looked amazing, a shining utopia amongst a vast and barren land. But the closer they got, the more horrid it looked. Buildings were crumbling and the streets were littered with trash and rubble. They were walking through the empty town to the massive structure in the center.
Then suddenly there were bat ponies everywhere, watching from doorways and windows. There were no doors and there were no windows. The entire city was silent except for the clinking of Copper's leg on the busted cobblestone road.
Then the whispering started and the crowd began. They seemed to flow from the cracks in the buildings and crawl out from under rubble. Copper had seen desolate cities that were just a step up from ruins, but these were ruins filled with ponies. Ponies who watched Copper and whispered to each other.
They approached the massive structure in the center and he realized that it was not a castle as he was expecting. It was a cathedral. Large glass windows with grand portraits stained into them, spires that stretched taller than any other building in the city and a great courtyard full of bat ponies.
Copper wished he had his cloak to hide under. Hide from the hungry eyes of these bat ponies. He was glad to enter through the large heavy doors, which were stuck open and falling from their hinges. Then he saw something that he had never seen before. At the end of the long room, atop a large pedestal, stood a pure white bat pony. He would have mistook it for a statue if it were not speaking to a pony standing on a lower wooden platform that reminded Copper of a gallows. “You are sure of it?” The white bat pony was saying.
“Yes, oh great Priest. They have been quelled and harvested,” the pony on the lower platform said.
“Good. Move onto the...next...” The Priest had spotted Copper. “What is this?” He stood straight. The bat pony practically leaped from the platform and Copper saw that he was being lead there.
“We have found this in the desert. It was fighting a bird thing. With magic .” The whispering stopped. “It killed the bird with a shiny sharp thing and buried it.”
The bat ponies stopped, but Copper kept walking up onto the lower platform, stopping where the other bat pony had been. He stared up at the Priest. “My name is Copper Feather. Are you the Priest?” Copper was greeted with silence and so he asked again. “Are you the Priest?”
The albino bat pony straightened up behind his pedestal. “I am. And you, Copper Feather, are to be put to death.”
His brow furrowed slightly as more whispering spread throughout the crowd. “Put to death? This isn't a trail?”
“This is a sentencing!” the Priest nearly shouted at Copper and the whispers died down again. “You are guilty of threatening followers of our Lord, unwarranted murder and the use of magic.”
“And those are crimes warranting death?”
“Yes, each worse than the previous.”
Copper watched the Priest. “May I speak and ask questions before my sentence is carried out?”
The Priest looked slightly confused. “You are unlike anything I or any others have seen, I will permit it on the premise you shall die with the knowledge of our Lord.”
Again Copper's brow furrowed. “Your Lord...as in your god?”
“He is everyone's god. He is my god. He is your god. He is their god.” He gestured out over the large congregation.
“Who is your god?” Copper was annoyed that he actually had to ask. He hated playing pronoun games with other ponies.
“You do not know of our god?” When the Priest spoke, Copper noticed that the room always went silent.
“I am not from this world.” There was a lot of muttering and mumbling. “I traveled with the...bird thing as you called it, here.”
The Priest was frowning at him. “The bird thing you murdered. We take murder very seriously, especially such desecration of the body in such a manner...in such a struggle as we are enduring now.”
Copper looked around the room once again and took in the details. The ponies were starving, that was evident. Starving and terrified of something. “Tell me who your god is,” he practically demanded.
“Do not speak to me in that tone!” Several ponies backed away from the Priest. Apparently it was the Priest they were terrified of. “I was chosen by or Lord and god, the Other to be his tool and voice in this world!” Copper felt his heart heart sink slightly into his stomach.
“So that is how he won this world...” But it also gave Copper some confidence. “I know of the Other.”
There was muttering again. “Oh? So you do know of god.”
“I do not know of it as a god, though the power it wields is godlike. The Other is something of destruction. I fought it and threw it down to save my world.” The Priest and the congregation went silent, all of them staring at him. “This world is doomed to death and it was done by the Other's hand.”
“We are at the end times,” the Priest said, regaining his composure. “The Other tests our faith, giving us this hardship that we must endure. Only then shall we pass onto Eden and live anew.”
“And what does the Other say about me?” The Preist looked taken aback. “What words does your god have for me? What wrath will he release upon me?” He stood up straight. “Your Priest has no power, because your god has abandoned you.”
He was met with silence until the Priest shouted, “You are the one who has been abandoned! You are the defiler who brings magic into our world once more and seeks to undo the work of the Other!”
“I do not use magic,” Copper said calmly. “I break it. My power is to shatter magic, as though it were glass.”
Suddenly there were many conversations all at once, too many and too loud for Copper to catch more than snippets of any of them, but his attention was on the Priest. “You lie!”
“No!” Copper snapped and the crowd went silent. “You lie! You tell your people that things will get better. You tell them that they are simply being tested, when you do not believe it yourself!” He had everyponies attention now. “How can you sit there and preach your nonsense while ponies around you cower in fear and starve to death?”
“You are nothing but a test of our faith!” The Priest stood steadfast and glared at Copper. “I will not allow you to subject this church to this blasphemy!”
“You are a fool and you have doomed your entire world!” Copper had to admit that he had lost his cool, but this was the sort of thing that really got under his fur: blatant and willful ignorance.
“Copper Feather! For your crimes, you are sentenced to death!” the Priest shouted.
Suddenly Copper felt the ground give way. He thought that he had been on a large platform where the accused would stand, but it had another purpose as well. The open air bellow filled him with immediate panic and his wing flapped uselessly a few times before he broke the surface of water at the bottom in a loud splash.
Copper coughed and sputtered as he broke the surface. His eyes burned and he splashed as he struggled to swim with his leg. The side sloped upwards, so he was more trudging through the liquid after a moment. The worst part is that he knew the iron taste that had gotten into his mouth and when he managed to open his eyes, his suspicions were confirmed. By the light that spilled down from the trap door he saw the thick red liquid he had landed in.
Then the light suddenly went out and he pressed himself against the wall. What had he just dropped into? Usually under temples and such there were tombs, but this looked more like a mixture of that and a sewer, with slanted floors towards the center. And it was overflowing with blood. He coughed and spat, trying to get the taste out of his mouth, but he knew that it was going to be there for several hours at least.
He panted, trying to get his breath back, he couldn't even hear what was above him; it was silent other than the noise he made. He closed his eyes, trying to make them adjust quicker to the darkness. He let his ears do work now as he stood perfectly still. Once the liquid had stopped sloshing from his movement it went dead silent. Except for a soft dripping. He knew it wasn't him dripping, the liquid went up to his chest, there was nothing for it to drip from and he couldn't feel it dripping off of him.
Once he felt satisfied with the adjusting of his eyes he opened them to find he could see quite well. He looked at the wall, examining the bioluminescent algae that grew on it. He also found that his side was covered with the algae it as well, as he'd been leaning against the wall. At least he assumed it was an algae, it could be some sort of bacteria for all he knew. But it at least provided enough light to be able to see his surroundings. There were four ways to go, not counting up. His heart rate had finally slowed and he tilted his head from side to side, trying to locate the dripping sound.
After a minute of leaning and tilting, it sounded like it was coming from behind him. He moved slowly to try and keep quiet. Thankfully the path sloped upwards slightly and was only a few hoofs deep when he actually got into the tunnel. He felt nasty, soaked in blood. When I get out of here, I'm going to have a long bath. He continued to try and figure where the dripping was coming from. Or several baths. A thought popped into his head, how is this supposed to kill me? The Priest had sentenced him to death, but so far this was barely dangerous. Was he supposed to starve? But why was there so much blood? Part of him didn't want to find out, another part of him couldn't wait to find out. One thing was for sure, he was going to hate flushing the blood out of his leg.
There was another crossroad coming up and he slowed even further; not liking the idea of having to figure out the source of the dripping once again, but it was far louder now. He leaned slowly and looked down the left passage where the dripping noise was obviously coming from. There in the distance, he could see a light. An actual light of some kind, like a lantern. He was about to call out and then immediately remembered that he was supposed to be dying down here. Slowly he made his way towards it, it bobbed oddly as if moving from one side of the tunnel then slowly to the other.
He could see nothing holding the light, just a light bobbing from side to side with the dripping coming from that direction. He stopped when he came to another crossroad. He could not figure out why the tunnels were so twisty and numerous. He looked left and right, but could see nothing. When he looked back, the light had stopped moving. There was an intense feeling of something staring at him. “Who's there?” he said, not shouting but loud enough hopefully for them to hear him. There was a sinking feeling in his chest, the feeling that his stomach was being tied in knots. His heart was racing, there was something wrong. Very wrong. Immediately he turned and ran, completely forgetting the urge to be quiet.
With a glance back he saw the light rushing towards him, bright. The dripping had been joined by an odd slapping. He couldn't tell if it was gaining on him, but he didn't bother worrying and focused on running. There was no sound of splashing behind him, just a sickening slapping noise and the dripping. He slid around the corner, flapping his wing hard to take the sharp left. He was thankful for the dip of the crossroad, even if he got another mouth full of blood, he felt the woosh of something over his head. For a second he caught a partial glimpse of what it was and all he could see were two large eyes and sharp teeth behind a bright light.
He ran again as soon as he had gotten out of deeper water and as soon as he had he was aware of a massive thing behind him. It was impossible to see the whole thing, but he didn't care. It was not something he wanted anything to do with. Thankfully it struggled to turn the corner, but he saw large tentacles slap against the wall, one of which hit the blood just beside him. What he saw reminded him of an angler fish, which he had seen once in Aquis, and an octopus. The dripping was loud and quick. It dawned on him that it was making the noise. He managed to get quite a good distance before the slapping began to catch up with him.
The next cross section came up and he took a right, pausing once he was far enough down to make sure that it was still chasing him. He shifted slightly, it was large and fast, if not a bit awkward. But he wondered how intelligent it was. Was it trying to cut him off? Get ahead of him? He glanced back behind him and then moved quickly towards the crossroad and then stopped abruptly. Another glance back. It either gave up or was going around. A loud slap far behind him made him look back and he saw the light bob into view.
Again he started running, taking a right and sprinting down the tunnel. At the next he took a left, trying to get distance from it and hoping that there was only one. He stopped when he came to another cross section and realized he was lost. The crossroads were not evenly spaced and were scattered sometimes densely, other times far apart. “Who designed this damn city?” Are they following streets above? That was the only explanation he could think of. His eyes scanned the ceiling, but all of the tunnels looked the same. And what the hell was that thing?
This world had some terribly fearsome creatures it seemed, if that was something that they could just...use as a form of execution. But it did not explain the blood. Then suddenly he heard the slapping behind him and started running again. He just had to keep sprinting and hope that he could find a way out, or a small place to fit into; which is what he spotted in the wall. He stopped and glanced back before looking into the hole. It went deep, that was all that he could tell. There was a lot of the algae in there and just enough room that he could breath. It was his only option at this point, besides continuing to run, and he quickly began making his way down the hole. At the very least it would not be able to follow him down. Judging from the creature's reach that he'd experienced when trying to turn, it wouldn't take long for him to actually get away.
The dripping sound got loud, echoing down the the small tunnel Copper was using. He struggled to turn around in the cramped space, having to dive under the blood in order to manage it. Shink. He held his leg tucked back, the soft light of the algae glinting off the blade. It looked like a large snake was swimming towards him slowly, searchingly. It must be tracking me via the movement of the blood, he thought as he lifted the blade slightly and began moving backwards. It's either intelligent, or it's got very good instincts...let's teach it something new. He stabbed at the tentacle. The small tunnel was filled with a screeching that hurt Copper's head. He kept backing away, a second tentacle came in after him and he stabbed it as well. It did not immediately retreat, thrashing and splashing around, which gave Copper time to stab it several more times.
Suddenly he found he could not stab it anymore as he'd moved far enough out of it's reach. He retracted the blade with a shnicht . He struggled again to move to face the other direction and continued moving down the tunnel. Not that smart it seems. He wondered what was actually at the end of this. Copper had not spent much time in sewers over the course of his life, so he was not sure what to expect. The most comforting sign was the fact that ahead he could hear voices.
There was a faint light ahead, brighter than that of the algae on the walls. It was pouring down through a grate in the ceiling. As he approached it the voices became clear enough to understand. “-don't care why it's making it. I'm just saying that I've never heard it make a noise like that.”
“Well, it's moving a lot...must be hunting something.”
“Something that doesn't agree with it.”
There were two figures above the grate, talking. Copper could barely make them out through the bright light that was behind them. It wasn't daylight, some kind of lamp, but it was enough to obscure his vision. “You think that something actually attacked the thing? What would be stupid enough to do that?”
Copper frowned up through the grate at the two as he let his eyes adjust. “I know a scream of pain when I hear one and that was one,” the left one said.
“And what makes you so sure that was it screaming in pain?” the one on the right said.
“I've never heard an animal make that kind of noise, not on either side of the chasm.” Copper made a mental note that there was a chasm somewhere near the city.
“So that immediately makes you the expert?” He saw as they both flexed their tattered wings defensively. That must be how they sentence their own kind...shred their wings and drop them down.
“Well what do you think it was, if you're such an expert?” They were in some sort of underground room and he could hear many more of them move about.
The right one hesitated as he thought. “Well, whatever it was is dead. Had to be a really stupid thing to try and go up against the Blood Horror.”
Blood Horror? Copper thought to himself, watching the two of them. “Oh I'm in agreement with you there. Out of it's mind, I'm sure.” He was starting to get fed up with being insulted.
“Just a plain idiot.”
Copper cleared his throat. “If you two gentlecolts don't mind, the idiot would like to not be neck deep in blood.” Both of them leaped several hooves and he heard the clatter of them scattering. He frowned slightly and put his hooves on the grate, planting his legs on either side of his little tunnel as he pushed up. The grate was heavy, but he could lift it. “Honestly,” Copper said as he climbed out of the hole and shook, splattering the floor around him with blood. “What in Equestria does a pony have to do around here to get a little help?” He looked at where they had gone as he pushed the grate back over the hole. The room was dry and full of bat ponies. Dozens of them.
There was a lot of whispers as they watched him. “Who are you?” one of them said harshly.
Copper didn't like that tone. “My name is Copper Feather.” Shink . “And I am not in a good mood. So I'm just going to sit here a moment, and all of you,” he pointed with the blade and they all recoiled, “Are all going to stay over there.” Shnikt. He sat heavily against the wall, taking deep breaths. The air only had the faintest hints of blood here. He held his leg up, letting blood pour from it. His leg had not been built to be water tight and it was an oversight that he regretted at this point.
Now he took in his surroundings, there were three passageways, two of them he could see lead back into the sewer, dipping downward back into the blood. The third lead into a similar room to this. All of the bat ponies had quickly gone down that tunnel when he had sat down.“Who are you?” A very large bat pony walked slowly into the room. He was twice the size of a regular bat pony, at least. The way that he held himself reminded Copper of Celestia.
“As I said...Copper Feather, your majesty.” Copper knew a king when he saw one.
That seemed to catch the other pony off guard. “I have not heard that name, nor seen something like you in my lands before.”
“That is because I come from another world. I tore a rift between our worlds in order to save my own. My plan had been to pull my problem from my world into yours, because it could not be killed in my world.” Copper was feeling very tired, running through the blood had been exhausting.
“And did you?” The king approached Copper without fear, sitting down in front of him.
“Kill it? Yes. But apparently you have outlawed the use of magic in this world and so I was sentenced to death by what you call the Blood Horror, by the Priest.”
“I did not outlaw it, that was the Priest.” Copper saw how his wings were tattered as well. “Our God the Other declared that I was going to betray him and needed to die.”
“The Other is no god.” He brushed some of his blood soaked mane out of his face. “It is a being of death and slaughter that seeks to destroy every single living thing.” That seemed to catch the king off guard as well. “It is what I saved my world from.”
“I...I had thought that the Priest had just...” He rubbed his forehead. “This explains so much... Is it possible to kill the Other?”
“I'm not sure... I know you can drive it from a world but-” Copper stopped, looking at the king sitting across from him. “It's too late for your world.”
There was an obvious look of confusion on his face. “Too late? What do you mean too late?”
Copper had to think how to best explain it. “It is something the Other said to me before it left. It said it had already won, that this world was over. Your Priest has no power anymore, the Other has left this world because it's already...doomed.”
“But...” Copper could see the pony trying to figure it out, trying to find the angle. “You managed it.”
“The Other had not won in my world. There was still a fight going on.” Copper was watching the king carefully. It was never good to be the pony delivering the bad news. “It's already won here. There's no magic here, and the world is dying if not already dead. I can feel it and you can, too. You're just blinding yourself, as the Priest is doing.”
He watched as the king deflated, shoulders sagged and his head drooped. A bat pony walked cautiously towards them, with the look of somepony who'd drawn the short straw. “My king? Is it true?” Copper did not take his eyes from the pony in front of him. “Is he the Prophet?
Copper's brow wrinkled. He had a vague notion of hearing that during his sentencing. It was something that had been whispered. The look the king gave him caused Copper to lean more against the wall. “If he is not the Prophet, then there is not going to be a Prophet.”
“And what does that title mean?” Copper did not want another title.
“The Prophet is somepony the Other spoke of. He is the one who will come at the End Times and lead us to better times. But it was only something spoken of briefly, something the Other changed not long after...but once the End Times began, talk of the Prophet began again.” The king looked back at the one who had come. “Gather up food and water, and make up a place for Copper to sleep. I'm sure he is quite tired.”
The pony practically ran. “Perhaps it was a last ditch effort by the one with no name...” Copper muttered and the king turned to him. “The thing that fights the Other...it has shown that it has a lot of power...maybe it brought me here on purpose...” Copper couldn't imagine having that much forethought. To think in terms of worlds and all those that lived there. “Bastard...” Now he had to figure out a lot more. “But a long rest sounds good. That...Blood Horror is something straight out of a nightmare.” Nightmare...
“It is something the Other brought forth. It was born from the blood of those that did not believe in the Other. They hunt down those who do not believe and let the Blood Horror have them. It drains them and leaves nothing but a corpse.” Copper saw as a hesitant bat pony moved into the room, using it's wing to carry a tray. It could hardly be called a tray, but it's what it was being used for. On it Copper saw an odd assortment of mushrooms and...a slab of meat.
Copper stared at the slab of meat as a basin of water was laid beside him. Surprisingly it was clean. He leaned in to drink, but as soon as his muzzle touched it he saw it turn red with blood. He sighed and dunked his face, washing off the blood. Again his attention turned to the meat. The awful look of it, the violent looking red and the leaking red juices. “This is...” He cleared his throat, recognizing immediately what the meat was from. “I do not eat meat.”
The king's brow furrowed slightly. “It is all we have to eat aside from mushrooms.”
“And I will eat those,” he said as he sniffed at them carefully before tasting one. They smelled like mushrooms he'd eaten in the past and he'd not enjoyed that experience, but as he ate them they were the best thing he'd ever tasted.
“You should not be picky. You need your strength to-”
“I will not be lectured by cannibals, ” Copper snapped. It had been something Copper had stuck with even through the worst of times. “I would rather starve than eat that.” He poured the water from the basin over him, focusing the water down into his leg. Crystal metal didn't rust, but he wanted to flush out as much of the blood as possible.
“Food is not something to be picky over,” was the kings response, slightly taken aback by Copper's outburst.
“There are consequences to eating each other, even in desperate times.” It was something Copper refused to budge on. “The meat of your fellow ponies, and those that you see on an equal level to your own, whether they be your family or neighbor should be put to rest, not devoured.”
The other pony rushed off when Copper was done speaking, Copper hoped to get more water. “How are we to survive? It's all we have down here...”
“You find a way, or starve. These mushrooms are more than enough to survive off for a long time,” he said as he ate another.
The king had no response. From the other room, Copper heard the pony cry out, “The Prophet says we are to not eat meat!” Which was followed by a large commotion and several ponies looking down the hall at him.
“Could I get more water?” Copper called out and there was a clambering of movement. “Thank you in advance.” He ate a few more mushrooms. Several basin's of water were rushed into the room and laid around him. Copper used one to finish washing and then drank from another; not the bath he had wanted, but it was close enough. “Judging from the smell and taste of it, you collect the rain water?”
Again the king looked taken aback. “Yes. You can tell that by the taste?”
“I have lived off of rain water before; it has a sort of earthy taste to it. A bit like eating dirt.” He drank deeply. The taste of mushrooms and dirt was much better than that of the blood he had been forced to taste.
He really felt that he had tasted too much blood during his life. His own blood and others. Mostly his own blood. “So you were banished here like everypony else. Explain it to me.”
The king looked at Copper with a frown. “The Priest had such power...but I began to have my doubts. Rather than try and convert, they would simply sentence them to death. It was a mistake to mention it.”
“No, it was the right thing to do.” He sighed softly as he moved over to what looked like a bed made of something soft. As he laid down he saw the question the king wanted to ask. “I make no promises. But I will try.” With that he closed his eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.
Author's Note
(Last edit: 6/26/19)
He felt strange sitting under a clockwork tree. Strange was the first word that came to mind. Usually the dreamscape felt comforting, but now it felt alien. Like he didn't belong there. Nothing had changed about how it looked, simply how he felt about it. There was no sense of comfort. He was alone. It was not the first time he had been alone in a hostile place, a place that didn't want him, but this time he had no place to run back to. No safe place to gather his thoughts. He wanted to be home. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be safe. Tears streaked down his face as he stared up through the branches at the starred sky. Did this world even have stars? Deep breaths did nothing to calm his mind.
There was suddenly the pressure of something entering his dreamscape. “Nightmare?” he asked as he looked around. But there was nothing to be seen. “L-Luna?” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “No, of course not...there is no Luna here...” He wiped away the tears, but that did not stop them. He hoped that he was not sobbing in his sleep. “Who is there?”
There was no answer, but he was sure that he felt something moving around in his mind. What sort of things wandered the dreams of the inhabitants here?
“Fine...whatever.” He leaned against the tree, a soft ticking inside gave him some sort of peace. “Don't come out then.” He almost longed for it to show itself, something to take his mind away from the sinking misery. I need to focus... he thought as he stared upwards. The world is dying, and I've no way of dealing with it. The first problem is the Priest- “What do you want?” he said as he sat up a bit. Whatever it was was getting close.
Yet there was still no response. Nothing to look at. He wasn't even sure what he was looking for. Some sort of Blood Horror that haunts the mind? He shuddered at the thought. “Why do you cry?”
The voice caught him off guard. It had the soothing tone of Nightmare but was drastically different. He leaned slightly to look around the tree, to see a small filly. But she was wrong, not quite there. She fled and hid behind a nearby tree when he looked at her. “Many reasons,” he said as he shifted around to the other side of the tree. A soft smoke flowed from around the other tree and her head slowly poked out. “I'm not going to hurt you.”
“That's what the last pony said.” Her head retreated, followed quickly by the smoke. “He said lots of things...”
Copper frowned slightly as he leaned against the tree again. “What sort of things did he say?”
“That I was important...that I was special...” He saw her poking out from the other side of the tree. “But he lied.”
“Why do you think that?” Again he wiped away the tears, thankfully this was enough of a distraction.
“Cus I'm not.” She was watching him with a sort of hesitant curiosity. “I wouldn't do what he said...he called me useless...and did something that hurt a lot...”
He assumed that she was talking about the Priest, or perhaps the Other. “I know what that feeling is like,” he said with a sigh. “But I've never let that stop me.” He looked back up at the sky. “I thought I was useless, so I did everything I could to make sure I wasn't. I did a lot of bad things...made a lot of mistakes...but I'd like to think I did a lot of good in the end.”
“So you are a bad pony?”
He could hear her a lot closer, but didn't look down. “Sometimes I think so. Actually, more than sometimes...”
“Then that's good...the other pony said he was a good pony.” Copper looked down at the little Nightmare that was sitting in front of him. He realized that's what she was, a filly Nightmare.
“Why is that a good thing?” She was staring at him with inky black eyes.
“Cus the good pony wants the world to die. That means the bad pony wants the world to live, right?”
He chuckled softly and looked back up at the sky. “Yes...and I wish I could save it...but I can't...” He took a deep breath. “My name is Copper Feather.”
“They all call me Nightmare...” she sounded miserable.
“How about I call you...Night, then?” He smiled slightly at her. “That sound better?” She nodded slightly. His mind was bubbling with questions. Why was she so small? Nightmare had never been this small as far as he was aware. “Where do you come from?”
Her brow furrowed. “The big glass things.” She waved her hooves vaguely in the air, trying emphasize something large.
Copper tilted his head to the side slightly. “Big glass things? Like, towers of glass?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes...the pony said that I was...” Her face scrunched as she tried to think of what he had said. “Compressed magic?”
It clicked in his head. They must have built something that absorbs all magic, but since they can't destroy it they simply pushed it all together and it made her... “Odd...”
“He said that I would help make everything better. But everything he told me to do made things worse...” She had curled up in front of Copper. “There are so few ponies now...there were so many... Where did they all go, Copper?”
Copper felt his heart sink. He had explained death to young ponies before, but it was not something he ever enjoyed. “How do you know there are less?”
“There are less sleepers. Do they stay awake to avoid me?” She was not looking at him, instead she was staring down at the ground, at the inner workings of the ground bellow them.
“No...” He gently brushed her mane, for smoke it felt oddly solid. It reminded him of one time he had touched Celestia's mane when he was young, or when he walked on clouds. Something that felt like it wasn't quite there but felt soft and semi solid. “They are gone.”
She looked up at him, her head tilted to the side slightly. “Why did they leave?”
“They didn't have a choice...sometimes ponies leave, because it's their time to go. But other times they are forced to leave. To go to a place that only those that leave know.” He only knew part of the journey, not its end.
“There are lots of sleepers near you...but so few anywhere else...” She laid her head down.
His mind was working out new plans. If he was going to save ponies he needed a firm hoof hold to start from. “Do you think you could help me?” She looked up at him with confusion. “I cannot save this world...but I'm going to try to save the ponies living in it.”
“Even me?”
He couldn't help but smile, stroking her mane once again. “Of course you. Especially you.”
“How can I help?”
“I need to find a pony who calls himself the Doctor. He has a...strange blue box.” She had moved closer to him. “He can help me. And I'll also need your help getting everypony together...so that if I can figure out how, we can all leave.”
She was smiling softly and she nodded. “So I need to find a Doctor with a blue box?”
“Or somepony who knows where he is, or how to find him.” It was the only thing he could think of to start.
“Is he really that great?”
He looked up at the sky. “I think so...”
There was a few moments of pause before she nudged him gently with her hoof. “Do I have to go now?”
He looked down at her and smiled. “No,” he said as he shook his head. “I think it can wait until tomorrow.”
~
He awoke to the noise of arguing. There was a rather heated debate going on amongst some of the bat ponies on the other side of the room. He had to be honest with himself, he didn't want to get up. It was the first time he could remember that he didn't want to get up and do something. There was a lot to be done and he didn't want to do it. It wasn't that he was even that comfortable, in fact the floor was misshapen and very uncomfortable under the padding, but he did not want to be awake.
Night had been an odd comfort, one that he would have not expected. There was something so comforting about her presence; something he couldn't explain. He just assumed that it was because she felt like Nightmare and that made him feel like he was home. He let out a soft groan as he sat up, he was sore from sleeping in an awkward position. He felt oddly stiff and began stretching. The arguing had stopped. “No, please. Go on with whatever you were talking about,” he said with a vague wave of his hoof. He hadn't been listening to what it was about. “Could I have some water?”
There was a mad scramble of ponies as they moved about. “How did you sleep?”
Copper looked at the king and then shrugged. “I've slept worse. But at least I have some things in motion...” He had already felt Night leave.
The king looked confused, but didn't question it. “What are we to do now?”
“Well...” He drank some of the water that had been rushed to him. “First things first, we need to get out of here and back to the surface. The Priest needs to be dethroned.”
“And...how are we to do that?”
“By killing the Blood Horror,” Copper said as he stood up. There was a lot of ponies shifting away from him. “There has to be a reason this place is safe. Who has been here the longest?”
“That would be me,” the king said as he stared at Copper.
“What was here when you got here?”
“Here?” The king looked around. “Nothing. It was the only dry area and I was exhausted from running...”
“Nothing at all?” Copper was looking around as well. “Just these empty rooms?”
“Yes...I am sorry.” His brow furrowed slightly. “I...it's been twenty years...I had resigned myself to die and simply laid down. But after a few days it did not come to kill me. I sat and waited for death, eating these mushrooms.”
“So the mushrooms were here?” Copper was trying to jog his memory, any little detail could be useful.
“Yeah...the mushrooms have always been here. The caretaker of our sewers grew them...and sold them in the market. They weren't very popular, for obvious reasons.”
“Anything else?” He only had two things to go on, the fact that it was dry and the mushrooms. “Was the sewer always filled with blood?” The thought had popped into his head.
The king shook his head. “No. That was something caused by the Blood Horror...it like...pours blood from itself. The Priest never explained to me how it came, or even what it was. Nothing but that the Other had brought it from the Depths. Whatever that is.”
“How did the caretaker get down here?” He looked towards the ceiling.
“I don't know. He was reclusive, kept to himself.” Copper was looking at the large mushroom patches that the ponies were cultivating. Apparently the argument had started back up again; it was over food. They did not like the fact that they were not to eat meat anymore.
He pulled one of the mushrooms carefully from the bed, examining it. Things were usually not this easy, but he wanted to find out. He stretched a bit more before heading to the other chamber, the one that lead out to the sewer. He wondered what sort of pony used to live down here. He did not want to think about what sort of lifestyle it would have been. He stared at the flowing blood, it looked as unwelcome as ever, but he trudged out into it, holding the mushroom in his mouth. “What are you doing?!” somepony called out.
“Experimenting,” he muttered as he headed towards a crossroad. There was nothing ahead of him but he had a feeling the Blood Horror was not far. A feeling that was confirmed when he saw the soft light off to his left and heard the dripping. He threw the mushroom down the tunnel, pushing the blood in such a way to cause it to flow down towards it. “C'mon ya bastard...breakfast time.” It moved towards him at a slow, meandering pace. “Remember this?” Shink. The light actually stopped. “So it can be taught.” He was watching the mushroom float down towards the light.
“Please, Prophet! Come back!” There were ponies trying to shout to him as quietly as they could. They dared not follow. Copper could actually see the tentacles now, slithering along the cracks in the wall as it continued its approach, it had quickly shaken the fear of pain. It was much brighter here than during the last encounter and he had adjusted quickly to the darkness of the underground.
But Copper's focus was on the mushroom, floating down towards the Blood Horror. Then it cringed, quickly backing away. “Oh really? Is that so?” Shnikt . Copper was almost frustrated that it was as simple as that. How does a fungus have such an effect? It writhed and retreated quickly back the way it had came and went down a side passage. Copper made his way back to the group fairly quickly. “Well that is very interesting. Lucky and very convenient.” Once on dry land he tipped his arm to pour the blood from it.
“What was that?” The king was there to great him. “What happened? What did you do?”
“You are the luckiest bunch of ponies. I cannot believe you're- we're all alive because of dumb luck.” Then again, he knew that his own life had been saved by dumb luck more times than he could count. “But I'm not about to question it at this point.” The king looked very confused as Copper walked back to the other room, dripping in blood. “Take half the mushrooms, and starting floating them out the left tunnel.”
“But...why? That's our food.”
Copper looked at the king. “I am aware. We can gather them up and wash them later.” He began carefully picking the mushrooms and noticed that most of the ponies had joined him. Apparently he had higher standing's than their own king. “It does not like the mushrooms, for some reason and I'm going to use that to my advantage.”
“But...are you sure? Are you sure it's the mushrooms? Not because it's dry here?” The king was grasping at the same straws Copper had held moments ago.
“It is not in the blood at all. It clings to the walls and crawls through the tunnels. I got a good look at it and it's definitely not even touching the blood, if that even is what it is...it's more like some sort of secretion that drips off it. It just mimics blood. Who even knows why it does that...” He was helping the ponies push the mushrooms out, but he was the only one who actually went into the liquid. “That's enough.” Copper said as he began guiding them to the best of his abilities.
“Good luck, Prophet,” the king said as he watched from the dry land.
He watched them all crowd around, but not one touched the liquid. He would have thought them cowards if he was not afraid himself. It was a lot to throw at a hunch; just a guess. He tried to push as much of the mushrooms towards where the Blood Horror had gone and when he got to another cross road, he saw the light. “C'mon...” he said, struggling to get the mass of mushrooms to float down the liquid. The light paused as it caught sight of Copper. There was a slight shift as it moved towards him and then it fled.
Copper pursued. He had probably started with thousands of mushrooms, but now only had a handful. But as he had lost them, they had drifted about the tunnels and now the Blood Horror was trapped. It had backed itself into a corner of sorts, behind it Copper could see daylight. This was the way out. It made chittering noises at him.
“That's right. It's either face me, or face the daylight. I bet the light hurts your eyes, doesn't it?” He continued to push the few mushrooms he had ahead of him. “Which is worse, the light or the mushrooms? What is it, the smell?” He could see the mass of the monster in the daylight behind it. “You don't have eyes...” The mushrooms did have a distinctive smell and he could smell it over the blood easily. “That has to be it...it is a smell you do not like.”
“Prophet.” Copper glanced behind him and he saw the king and all the other bat ponies behind him. “We are with you.”
Copper focused on the creature. These ponies were a group in search of a leader. The king would have stayed behind, he was sure, but the majority pushed him to follow. But none dared come close, not as close as Copper. He was trying to figure out what the creature reminded him of. Some sort of octopus with a dozen more limbs. It had a large sac, bellow which sat an orb on one of its many tentacles; its angler. Copper could see the large toothy maw, with it's long jagged teeth. He saw it flinch, shink. He slashed as the tentacle lunged for him and the creature shrieked as it retreated further. “Face me, or face the light!” Copper shouted as he charged it.
It made one more attempt to hit him, which did not even come close to Copper, before it fled into the sun. It screeched as smoke billowed from it. It clambered out of the hole, trying to find respite; trying to find cover from the odd harsh sun of this world. He came after it and saw that they were near one end of the city coming out of what Copper guessed was a large storm drain. But there was no place for it to hide. Around the trench there were several ponies to witness the event. The Blood Horror flailed and shrieked before it finally slumped to the ground. It withered, baking in the sun. This was a creature that was never meant to be in the light and it was showing. It was a creature of darkness, one that thrived in it.
Copper held the gauntlet upwards and the blade retracted with a loud chink. The blood liquid poured from his arm, splattering the ground. Ponies ran as the others came out behind him. “Bathe in the light of this day,” Copper said as he looked back at the group. “It is a day of importance. It is the day that we begin to save the city and all who dwell within it, and outside it.” It was an impromptu speech and Copper would regret it later; there were many words that he could have used that would have been more appropriate, but it was what came forth. The cheering of the crowd behind him only stirred his adrenaline.
“What are we to do now, Prophet?” The king had relinquished any doubt he had had in Copper.
“As I said. We dethrone the Priest.” Copper knew that this would not last long, he knew how crowds worked and he was working out several of his next moves as he walked towards the cathedral followed by the large procession. It seemed even the city was turning on to Copper's side. All that had to be mentioned was the word 'Prophet' and ponies leaped to his side. He had stirred doubt in the Priest with his speech on the stand, and now he walked out with dozens of ponies they all had believed dead.
Nopony tried to stop them, and in fact the guards pushed open the broken doors, as if they had expected him. “For the crimes you have committed against our Lord, you are-” the Priest stopped as he saw Copper walking, once again, to the stage.
The other pony saw his chance and leaped away, Copper saw that they had already shredded his wings and blood streaked behind him from the fresh wounds. It was a brutal punishment, robbed of the ability of flight and then stood in front of ones peers and dropped to certain death. But Copper was not foolish enough to get on the platform and instead walked around it. “Now then, Priest. As I was saying before you interrupted our conversation...”
“H-how?!” the Priest stammered, looking around for somepony who would come to his aid, or more likely somepony who he could throw between Copper and himself.
“You have doomed your world by following the will of the Other. Your world and all your ponies.” Copper stopped, not very far off from the Priest.
“How do you still live!?” the Priest screamed.
“Your beast is dead, choosing to take its own life rather than face me.” There was utter silence aside from Copper's own voice. He hated it, but he had to play up the part. He needed these ponies to believe he was far above them to buy himself time to work out a plan.
“The Horror is...dead?” The pony who was about to be sentenced was the closest to the two of them, as he had been unable to escape very far; now he was trapped in a corner.
“That is impossible,” the Priest said, having regained some sort of composure.
“Then how do I, and your king , still live?” The Priest's gaze stared beyond Copper at the king and the ponies he brought with him. “You have made mistakes, Priest.” The gaze snapped back to Copper. “Everypony makes mistakes, but now is your chance to change that. To be reasonable, to admit that you were wrong. I have made more mistakes than I can count, but please...this needs to end. The Other seeks nothing but your destruction.”
“No!” The hair on Copper's neck stood up as the Priest moved. The Other had given him power at one point, that was certain, and the Priest had kept some of it in reserve. The bright light that shone from him was entirely for show, but the energy that gathered in front of him was not. It would have been easy for Copper to say it was simply magic, but there was no magic, he could feel that. This was whatever power the Other had, something beyond magic. It was what was destroying the world now that the magic was gone.
Copper threw up his arms in an attempt to shield himself and black smoke billowed from around him, swallowing up the power and slamming the Priest into the wall. He lowered his hooves back to the ground, staring at the Priest. In his head, he heard a soft voice, “I-I can not do that again... ”
“There is no need,” he said softly, smiling. He was draped in smoke, which was dissipating now. “How long have you been back?” He approached the Priest, who was trying to get back up onto his hooves.
“When you were shouting,” the voice of Night said.
“H-how?” the Priest stammered as he slumped against the wall. “Why does the Nightmare fight for you?”
“Because she does not like you.” He stood over the pony as the last of the smoke faded, a pony who stared up at him with bright red eyes. “Now, I will not offer again.” The Priest's brow furrowed. “This is your last chance to tell the truth. The Other has left you, abandoned you, why do you still defend it?”
The Priest closed his eyes. “What choice is there? The world is dying...all I can do is try to comfort my people...”
“And that is why I wont kill you.” The Priest stared at Copper, who was walking away. “Even if you went about it the wrong way, I can see why you did it.” Copper went to the king, who was looking as amazed as any other pony. “Do not hurt him. He has to live with what he has done.” He moved past the king, the crowd quickly parting ahead of him. “Now, take me to one of these glass towers.”
~
“Now, did you find the Doctor?” Copper was in the dreamscape again, while they rode in a cart towards one of the towers Copper had decided to take a nap.
Night looked sheepish, kicking her hoof slightly at the ground. “No...but I found the blue box...”
Copper blinked, looking down at her. “How?”
“It dreams.”
~
His eyes snapped open and he stared at one of the towers. It was behind the city, one of the first towers, he had been told. But Copper had not been allowed to walk there, they had demanded he be carried and had brought water for him to clean himself up. It had been awkward to wash in the back of a cart, but Copper had managed. “Can you lead me?” he said softly.
“It is far away...beside one of the glass towers,” the soft voice said.
Copper paused, he wanted to look at the tower and see how it worked; see if it could be turned off. But this was more important. He sat up slightly. “Not this one,” Copper said and the dozen ponies around him stared up at him with confusion.
“It is to the left...” the voice said.
“The one that way,” Copper pointed off to the left vaguely and several of the ponies began murmuring.
“There is not one that way,” one of the ponies said, quite confused.
He hesitated, looking at the pony. “N-not that we question you, Prophet,” another one of the ponies added.
Copper was looking out towards where he was being directed. “There was though, wasn't there?”
“Y-yes.”
The Doctor had tried to stop it. “It was the first one, wasn't it?” The pony simply nodded. “Then we go there first.” Copper settled back down, staring off into the distance at where they were now heading. One of the ponies went off to the city to inform the king, whom Copper had left in charge of the city. He had tasked him with two things, protect the ponies in the city and send out ponies to gather those not in the city. 'Make sure they understand the Other is gone and the Priest imprisoned,' he had said, 'Send those in the city who had doubts about the Other. Do not force anypony to come.' He wanted to gather everypony together, so if he found a way to save them they would not have to waste time gathering them.
Copper couldn't help but catch the stares of the ponies around him, all of them glancing away quickly when Copper looked at them. They were afraid of him, that was obvious. Honestly, Copper didn't care. He cared nothing for these ponies around him. They were just a means to an end. They were his way out, he knew that. The thing fighting the Other knew he could save them and the only way that he could leave is if he did that. But that did not mean he had to like them. Night was the only thing he liked in this world. She was now his drive. It wasn't about saving himself now, it was about saving her.
This world was a harsh place that reminded him of Zebrica. That had been a hard time in his youth; one of many. But he knew he was going to get through it all; he had to get through it. There were so many ponies that he wanted to get back to. So many that he wanted to see. What he wouldn't have given just to see Chrysalis, or to hear her voice, even if it were just for a moment.
They came over a hill and Copper immediately knew they were getting close. The ground was blackened and cracked, far off there was the ruins of a city and amongst them stood the remains of a glass tower. “Dear Celestia...” He sat up, staring at the destruction. It was as if the air was at war with the world itself. It was no wonder the ponies had denied the towers existence.
“This is where I was made,” the little voice said. “What does it look like? I cannot see your world.”
“It is not my world,” Copper said softly as he hopped down from the cart. “My world is beautiful. This one is dying, scarred and battered beyond recognition. I have seen wars that have looked better than this.” The blackened earth felt hot under Copper's hooves as he walked.None of the other ponies dared touch the ground, save one. The other bat ponies with shredded wings stayed by the cart while the others flew around Copper, but this one, the one who had been on trial, stayed behind Copper. They had roughly bandaged the wings, but they were going to need to be changed soon judging from how bloody they were already. “Why were you being sentenced to death?” Copper asked and saw the pony practically leap from his fur at Copper's words.
It took a moment for the pony to answer, “I asked a question. One that questioned the words of the Priest.”
The pony shifted uncomfortably under Copper's gaze, and he realized that he was going to have to provoke him to continue. “What question?”
“I...it was a conversation amongst others...I asked if it was fair to try a pony that did not know the law.” The pony could not make eye contact with him.
“I see, so it was about me?” The pony nodded and Copper continued walking into the ruins of the city. It looked as though it was actually in fairly good shape, though there were brightly colored smears over the walls and on the ground. “What happened?”
“The tower exploded,” somepony in the air beside him said. “The Priest said it was due to us getting it wrong...due to our failure. But we got it right from then on.”
Copper was looking at the burnt and colorful cobblestones under his hooves as he walked, noticing how his hoof did nothing to it but the crystal steel of his other leg scraped some of it off with every step. The explosion must have been what created Night... The cobblestones were also hot, as if they had just recently gone out. “Do you feel the heat?” he asked the pony following him.
“I-it is very hot...b-but it has been getting hotter since we put up the towers...since the world has been...dying...” It was apparently hard for him to form words towards Copper.
“There are sleepers here,” Night said softly and Copper stopped.
He was focused on the wrong things, he had assumed that the city would be deserted, but only the followers of the Priest would avoid this place, and that was a perfect reason for others to use it as refuge. “I want all of you to go back to the cart. Except for you,” he added as he pointed a hoof at the pony walking beside him, who jumped slightly.
There was no protest as they all quickly and eagerly flew back to the cart. Copper watched them go, flying almost out of sight. “Wh-what's going on?”
“Anypony there?” Copper called out, looking around. “My name is Copper Feather.” He continued walking down the street towards the ruin of the glass tower. He spotted something move in the window, but pretended not to notice it. “I want to talk.”
“Drop your weapon.” There were suddenly several bat ponies around him and his associate, who immediately ducked to the ground. They were brandishing odd spears.
Copper didn't move aside from looking around. “If you're talking about this,” he moved his metal leg slightly, “I can't. It's attached. Now, I would like to talk with you.”
“Why are you here?” the pony demanded.
He stared at the pony. “I just said, I want to talk.”
There was an uneasy shifting of the group around them. “Then talk,” the pony said.
“I am looking for something here that could possibly save the lives of everypony on this planet.” There were confused looks on all of the ponies. “Which includes you and all of the ponies you have hidden away.”
“Big talk from some strange looking pony.” Copper wasn't sure if the pony was the leader, or just acted like it.
“The Priest has been dethroned and imprisoned,” the cowering pony beside Copper managed to belt out. “The Other is gone!”
Copper looked at him. “Good job, but ill timed.” He turned to the surprised looks of those around him. “But it is true. The king is not dead and is leading the city for now, while I search for what I hope could be our salvation.”
“Why is the Priest not dead?!” Somepony demanded. “If you wanted to make us believe that lie, you should have marched in here with his head on a pike.”
“You ponies are so barbaric,” Copper said and then started walking forward. “I will not stoop to the same level as him, or you.” They moved out of his way quickly and the cowering one followed after him quickly. “I know you must have ponies sick, or injured. I'm offering you help; hope. A chance to keep living in a better shape than you are now.” They were following him.
“Honeyed and empty words.” There was a pony who came out from a nearby building. “You want us to walk into our deaths.”
“Nopony knew you were here. I am not here for you.” He looked at the female bat pony who had been watching things transpire. “I am here seeking a way to save as many ponies as I can.”
“And who do you think you are?”
“I am Copper Feather.” He took a deep breath. “A poor replacement for the Doctor, but I'm all you've got.”
She had no answer to that, but another pony said, “What doctor?”
“If you don't know, it doesn't matter. I need to see what he did to the tower in order to destroy it.” Copper began to trot towards the tower, followed by his cowardly shadow. He was tired of arguing with these ponies and if they were not going to try to stop him then he would not waste anymore time.
The glass tower was in the center of the city. He had expected pieces of it to be everywhere, but now that he was close he knew why there wasn't; the tower had melted. It was mostly just a massive lump of, as Copper got closer, some sort of crystal. Every part of it was made of the same type of crystal with extreme care and precision. Hundreds of different colors; now he knew what the smears were and why the city was so colorful. There was also no way to get inside. He sighed as he placed his bare hoof against the crystal, immediately regretting it and backing away; it burned him. “Are you all right, Prophet?!”
He had tucked his hoof under his arm, pressing it to the cool crystal steel that covered his arm. “D-didn't expect that...should have...”
“Prophet?” The female bat pony had followed him.
“It is what they call me,” Copper said as he stared at the glass tower. “Apparently I'm fulfilling some sort of prophecy they have, of saving everypony.” The burning feeling had subsided to a dull throb. “But this tower is useless.”
“The Doctor made sure of it.”
Copper looked back at her as he thought back to what he knew of the Doctor. “Is your name Rose, or something along those lines?”
She shook her head. “No. My name is Clearwater. How do you know the Doctor?”
He sighed softly as he looked around. “I'm not from this world. I know the Doctor in my world. What happened to him?”
“He died, destroying the tower...” She was staring up at what was left of it. “He told us all to run, and we did. I only knew him for a few hours and he saved my life...”
“Yeah, he does that sort of thing a lot.” He was still looking around. “Night, where is it?”
“What?” They two ponies looked at him.
“It is on the other side of the tower,” Night said.
He quickly trotted around the tower, trying to find it. It was all he needed, all he wanted. And there it was, the odd blue box. The Tardis. He walked towards it and placed his forehead against it, closing his eyes. Maybe he could actually pull it off and actually save everypony? Maybe he could get back to his own world and the ones he loved?
It was a wonderful sight that filled him with hope. He walked around it, the other ponies looking at it as if they weren't quite entirely sure it was there. It was beat up, the paint was chipped and it had dents and scratches throughout. Copper moved to the front, pushing the door open and looking inside. It was an absolute mess, yet some lights managed to turn on. The consoles were busted up; smashed by the looks of it, and some things were sparking. Wires looked pulled from the ceiling and the floor was burned and covered in debris. It caused his heart to sink as he walked slowly inside. “Oh my beautiful machine...what has happened to you?”
“D...Doc...tor?” He looked around quickly, but could see nopony. The voice was familiar. “D...Doc...tor?”
“Rose?” He could not be sure, but it was the only pony that he could think of that would be here.
“D...Doc...tor?”
Copper moved around the room, looking in every nook and cranny, but there was nopony there. “No, I'm afraid not.” He moved to the main console and looked up at what had been a large set of glass tubes, all of them smashed. “I am afraid not, my dear Tardis...I am not your Doctor...” He touched the console gently, wondering how you comfort a machine. He did not even know where to look, so he simply sat down.
It had fallen silent, the lights dimmed, some of them winking off. There was a dejected feeling in the air as things continued to slowly fall apart around Copper. It felt as though it was trying desperately to hold itself together, waiting. Waiting for its Doctor.
“What manner of magic is this?” Copper's cowardly shadow had gathered the courage to look inside. “It's massive on the inside!”
“It is not magic,” Copper said as he stared at the console. “It is technology.” He was crying. “Get out.”
Author's Note
(Last Edit: 6/26/19)
Solivagant. Copper had gone through quite a lot of schooling in his youth, much of which he has found utterly useless and he knows that he's forgotten most of it. Of course, there are odd little things that stick and he can't seem to get rid of. Such as the word solivagant; it means to wander alone. For much of his life he felt that the word described him perfectly, but now it was just a useless word in the jumble of things that was his head. Just something to annoy him. Something to distract him.
“Prophet?”
Copper glared out from underneath the console. “What?” he said through a mouth full of wires.
“We have opened the tower.” Copper spat the wires out as he scrambled out from the rather tight spot. He had been waiting for this moment for three weeks. “And...the King wants to see you before you enter.”
He stopped, staring at the pony, who shrank under his gaze. “If he wants to see me, then he will meet me at the tower,” he said as he passed by the scrambling pony. King or not, he was the Prophet. Even if he didn't like the title, he was going to use it to his advantage.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the messenger take off and fly as fast as he could. Around the Tardis they had built a large structure to shield it from the rain storms. Those were something to worry about. Torrential downpours for several hours, then it would stop suddemnly and the water would soak into the dehydrated planet as though it had never rained. “Prophet?”
He turned to look at the batpony, the one who was his shadow. “Yes?” He did not cower, or at least not as much as the other ponies did as he spoke to him.
“I was informed that the tower had been opened...”
“Yes.” Copper looked over at the massive structure. They had moved the Tardis to the city, near the second tower. He had found out that it was the third one built, but called the second because the first one exploded. Once the towers were built they were sealed to prevent tampering, he assumed because that's what had happened to the first one. “How goes the...collecting?” It was a poor choice of words, but he wasn't sure how else to describe it.
“Many have been attacked,” the pony muttered. “They lash out before listening to what we have to say...”
“That is understandable.” He could see some of the recruiting parties. Again he felt that that was a poor word choice, but that's what they were and it was the only way he could say it to actually explain what he wanted them to do. It was much better than a purging party. They walked fairly close to some of the groups and Copper looked into the buildings. Just showing himself seemed to raise moral. Some of the ponies were battered and bloodied, yet did not seem to let it bother them. “Given the history of who you were.”
“B-but as you suggested, we send those that do join us to recruit others, and those go much better. If the map you have drawn is correct, we almost have everypony in or around the city. And by the end of the cycle we should have at least contacted every living group.” They went on cycles of the storms which hit every week.
Night had helped him mark where all the living ponies were, some were great distances away and the first groups had yet to return. Even in three weeks. “Tsk...” Copper rubbed a bit of dirt into a burn that was starting to sting. Whatever power source the Tardis had, it still had a lot of juice. He felt like it was fighting him sometimes, the way a wire would lash out or something would spark at him. Maybe it was.
“Are you alright, Prophet?” The pain had apparently not gone unnoticed by some nearby ponies.
“I am alright. Just a bit burned.” He gazed at the courtyard near to the tower, in the center of it, in a rather small cage, was the Priest. Alive, as he had demanded. He walked slowly into the courtyard, taking a slight detour.
“Ah...Prophet...you grace me with your presence...” he sounded pathetic, but even he had come around to his side.
“They are feeding you, correct?” He could see how the rain and weather had battered the albino pony.
“Yes...they believe that they are starving me, but I ate less when I was their Priest...” He would not make eye contact, staring at Copper's hooves. Copper would have assumed that he had been eating like a king, but no. The Priest had cared for his congregation and had done what he thought was right to keep everypony alive.
Copper hated going against someone with good intentions. It left such a bad taste in his mouth. “Do you believe you have paid for your crimes?” The Priest shook his head slowly. “Of course not,” Copper said with a sigh. He had demanded that his own wings be shredded. Demanded that he be placed in the courtyard to suffer whatever anypony had to throw at him. If anything, he was proof to those that doubted Copper's words that the Priest was overthrown. “You will die at this rate.”
“You show sympathy...even for me...after all I have done?”
“No,” Copper said as he looked back at the batponies that stood at the edge of the courtyard, watching him. “I pity you. I know what you're going to do. You're going to spend the rest of your life tormenting yourself to feed the guilt that's inside you. But you will pay for all your crimes when you have died.”
The Priest raised his head and Copper realized why he had held down his head. He had gouged out his right eye. “What proof do you have?”
Copper looked at him, frowning slightly. “I have seen death.” He turned away, taking a deep breath. “And it is far crueler than I can describe,” he said as he walked away, leaving the Priest to whatever thoughts he had.
That had shaken him. He was surprised that the sheer weight of regret had not crushed the pony into paste long ago. Having to live that lie for so long, and to sacrifice his own ponies to keep some of them fed... Copper could not imagine that sort of torment.
“Where is the King?” he said as he looked around, the tower was in front of him now with open maw like some sort of monster. Judging from the area the ponies had left in a hurry once it had been opened.
“Th-the King?”
Copper looked at him, for a moment he had forgotten that he was not the original pony who had told him that it had been open. “Yes. The King. He wanted to speak with me.” He walked towards the tower but he hesitated. He sat down with his back to the gaping hole that had once been some sort of door.
The other pony sat down a respectful distance. A fearful distance. Fear of the tower more than Copper at this point. It took several minutes before the King arrived, riding on a similar cart to the one that they had made Copper ride. “There you are, Prophet,” the King said as he stepped off of the cart. Other ponies bowed.
Copper did not. “What is it you wish to speak of, King?” Copper kept his tone respectful, but it was something he found oddly difficult.
“I want to know what you are doing.” That felt quite accusing. “You have spent all of your days inside that...box.”
“I have been waiting for the unsealing of this tower,” Copper said, staring him down. He noticed that the King was constantly glancing behind him.
“Why? What is the purpose of opening one of those tombs?” Yes, a tomb. Copper had found they worked ponies to death and would simply...leave them. That was many years ago.
“Because I want to see. This is a machine. A machine that was designed, a machine that was built. And I am going to learn from it, and dismantle it.”
There was a look of horror on the King's face. “D-dismantle?! You cannot be serious, Prophet. Doing so could destroy the entire city!”
“Maybe.” Copper was surprised at how calm he felt about it. “But I am confident that nothing will happen.” And I need parts, and this machine is full of them.
“I...if you are sure, Prophet...” The King looked at him a bit longer before turning and boarding his wagon. “Back to the palace,” he said with a deflated tone.
Had the King really come all this way just to ask that? In all honesty, Copper had no idea what he was doing. He had ideas. Ideas that were bubbling and frothing at their incorporeal mouths. There was no repairing the Tardis, he knew that. He didn't know enough about the technology used to make it. So instead, he would use it. “Are you going to come inside?” he asked the cowardly batpony who was still staring at the tower, even throughout the conversation.
He got no answer, not even a terrified look of horror. So he stood up, turned around and proceeded inside, leaving the other pony to stare.
Colors. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of different colors. “Wow...” Light shone through the outer shell of the tower, making everything glint and sparkle in a dazzling display of light and color. “It's...beautiful...” he muttered as he made his way through the room towards the center. He understood why the other town had been splattered with colors. In the center of the room he could see something that he could not rightly describe. It was the machine...the heart of the tower.
He could see inside it. See the parts as they moved. Or apparently didn't move. Nothing moved. The machine looked...dormant. From the center of the machine was an immense and colorful tube that stretched all the way to the top of the tower as far as he could tell. It was like stained glass, but it was made from some sort of crystal...
“They melted and molded it into the shapes they needed...” he muttered as he examined the machine. He pressed his metal leg against it and realized something immediately. “This is crystal steel...but...clear?” He had seen sheets of the clear crystal steel before, but had thought it rather pointless and far too expensive. Of course, a big reason was he did not want to look at the damage to his leg all this time. To test his theory, he slammed the leg against the machine.
The sound it created nearly made him pass out. It was such a high pitched and loud noise that it had. It rang like a gong. A very, very high pitched gong. He had expected a noise, but nothing like that. He reached up and touched a hoof to his nose; it was bleeding. It had physically hurt him. He took deep breaths, wiping away the blood. He walked around it and after a moment found the seals that had been made to close up the machine. Shink.
With a bit of prying he was able to dislodge it and get a true look into the inner workings of the machine. Despite how it looked on the outside, it was not in fact off. There were gears deep within still moving. “What is powering this thing?” he mumbled. There was more than enough room for him to actually get inside the machine, and so he slowly stuck his head in, looking around. How had the Doctor destroyed the other tower? Had he simple smashed- no, taking something apart or jamming something into the gears would work much better. A tool, or an unused gear in the wrong place could cause the whole machine to destroy itself...he probably had no idea what would happen...or maybe he did... Either way, there was work to do.“I need tools.”
He galloped from the tower, leaping over the shattered remains of the opening. “Prophet?!” Him barreling out of the tower seemed to have broken the trance on the batpony. But he didn't care about him. The worker ponies had dropped their tools and things in their panic and he began going through them.
“Gather all the tools up immediately.” After a moment he found a wrench that looked suitable size. “I need t'em all,” he said, wrench in mouth as he rushed back in. It was all there, so clear and so precise. His mind working through a billion things at once. He unbolted several things, tossing out some parts while laying others down. As he worked he thought about the taste of the wrench and how disturbingly familiar it was; that taste of metal. An almost delicious taste.
“I have brought all the tools, Prophet,” the out of breath batpony panted, laying out the several dozen tools.
He popped back out of the machine to look at the haul of tools that had been brought. Some of them Copper didn't recognize. “Good. I just need to-” TWANK . He hesitated. “Deal with that.” He grabbed several more tools before diving back into the machine.
~
Balance. There was a balance to the machine. Everything working together, not a wasted part. “-which we use for moving the gems in their molds,” the elderly batpony said. It was the oldest one that Copper had seen and he had asked him about how the gears were made and had been getting a very detailed and intricate tale that had gone on for several hours so far. The old pony was gesturing with some sort of rod with a flat bit at one end. And Copper had devoured the knowledge.
“How hard is it to mold them? Can you remold old ones? Make new parts from them?” Copper said as he paused from his work.
But the elder pony shook his head. “I'm afraid not, Prophet. Once it's cooled, the crystal is harder than we can work. Wont melt again.” Melt was probably not the right term. They melt the really small gems, or gem powder and then fuse them to semi melted and mostly molded gems. Each part was so carefully made...and then they hardened to be even harder than regular gems? “All the forges have been inoperable since the last tower was built, but we got quite good at it in the end.”
Copper chewed thoughtfully on the wrench. “Righ'.” And there are no more gems. They mined them all and used them to build the towers. He pulled the wrench from his mouth, staring at it. “So I need to find every part I need...”
“N-not necessarily. The tower walls are made from weaker stuff. They can be melted back down and molded. But we can only make it into imperfect gems parts, like the Prophet's leg is made out of.” Copper stared at the shaking batpony who was speaking more to the elder pony than to him.
Then he stared down at his leg. Imperfect? Crystal steel was one of the toughest materials he knew of, and this stuff was tougher? “Perfect. Have some ponies begin taking it apart. I can use that. But it looks like almost everything I need is right here, so it- oops.” The wrench had slipped as he was trying to talk, and clinged and rang all the way down. “Damn...” He had to wiggle down further into the machine. He had managed to power it off. He had found that it had had a spring, just like a clock. A spring that he now had to make his way through.
Deeper into the machine, it went down so far. How far did they dig down to place these towers? The supports must travel so deep to withstand the fierceness of the weather. He made notes of types and sizes of gears. Teeth. Grooves. Shape... Texture. Something about the feel of them against him as he worked his way deeper made him feel at home. Again he felt like he was in his dreamscape, surrounded by the surreal machine made of gems. It felt like it was part of him, like he had a hoof in its creation. Perhaps he did? This world must have a Copper, or somepony equivalent to him. Probably dead...as would the Horsh of this world. The Twilight. The Jeta. The Corser. All of them would be dead. All his friends. None of them would have bowed to the Priest if they were anything like the ponies he knew. Every pony in this world had blood on their hooves. Whether in defense or false guidance. “But does that make them bad?”
Copper paused at the sound of Night. She had been listening into his thoughts again. He did not mind it, though it did require him to not let his mind wander to certain topics, especially when concerning Chrysalis. “Yes. But at the same time, no. It's a difficult thing to explain. It is a moral conflict.”
“What's that?” Sometimes he forgot that she was just a filly without any education. The way she spoke and acted...she had such brilliant innocence that it made Copper hesitate often when speaking to her. Yet he was always reminded that some of that innocence had been stolen.
“It is when something is right and wrong at the same time.” He could practically feel her confusion. “It's something that is difficult to understand...took me a while, until I experienced it. You'll feel it yourself someday. Something that feels right, or you know you should do, but at the same time it feels wrong and you know you shouldn't.”
“I don't like that.”
He smiled a bit. “I know. But we all have to do things that we don't like, or don't want to do. It's part of living, I think.”
“But...I can do what I want to do, right?”
“For the most part.” He thought he could see the wrench now, it had fallen quite deep, almost to the bottom. Or so he guessed, he wasn't sure if this had a bottom. Logically it should, but he hadn't seen it yet.
“You do what you want,” she said accusingly.
He chuckled softly. “Yes, because I don't usually care about the consequences. It's easy to do whatever you want when you don't care about the ponies that your causing problems for. To the ponies that you hurt...” He paused. “Can you see the world around me?”
“Not really...it's all...blurry and colors. But it reminds me of your dreams.”
“This is the type of world that I would want to live in. A machine such as this...but hopefully for a better purpose.” Yes. Like this beautiful machine of gems made into gears and... “Cogs...” He stopped, staring at The Gem Cog. There was no mistaking it. It had caught his wrench.
He gently retrieved it, there was no mistaking that this was indeed The Gem Cog. The thing he had once smashed. Everything in his head was brushed aside. All his plans and ideas. All but one. And he knew it would work. He crawled out and sighed. “Copper?”
“Once again I feel like my life is all determined...like I'm just following along in some sort of script. Do this, Copper. Go here, Copper. Save that, Copper... Like I do everything I'm supposed to like a good little puppet.” He was annoyed that this was actually happening.
“I...don't understand,” Night said, sounding a bit sad that she could not help.
“Some ponies say that we have a destiny. That we are supposed to do things at certain times. A predetermined path that we're forced along. The longer I live, the more I begrudgingly realize there is some truth to it.”
He tossed the wrench out and clambered out of the machine. “Prophet?” The old pony looked at him confused. “Who are you talking to?”
“Do you believe in fate?” He looked at the elderly pony. “Like there are things that are beyond our control, and things all happen for a reason?”
The old pony thought on this for a moment. “I think some things are out of our control...but there must be lots we have control of. But there are things like...a destiny. Just as you were prophesied to save us.”
Copper had to pause at this. That was true. Could the being that brought him here be able to see into the future of all worlds at once and sent him on this journey? That was a frustrating thought. But now he knew the destination, but the path was a mystery. He still had to get there. He still had to actually build it. “I want you to gather up every engineer in the city, and come to where I am staying. I will draw up plans of what I want you to make.”
“Of course, Prophet. There are not many in the city, but we will do all that we can.” The old pony gave him a rather toothless smile.
~
Papers littered the floor and Copper was gathering up the ones that were what he needed. “If you or any of the engineers have any questions, come right back to me, understood?”
“Yes, Prophet!” The batpony nodded vigorously before putting all the papers into a large tube and then flying off. He wondered where his shadow batpony had gone. Perhaps he had finally left him to go and do whatever these ponies were doing with the time they had.
He turned to look at the center consul of the Tardis and frowned. “I want to help you.” He moved towards it slowly, taking a deep breath. “But I can't with the way you are fighting me.” His eyes scanned the consul, absentmindedly pushing a few buttons. “You want the Doctor so damn bad, but your Doctor is dead. You have to accept that.”
There was no response. There never was. Not since that first time.
“And this is how you remember him?” Was it possible to guilt trip a machine? “If it would help, I would gut this entire place and make you help me, but that wont work. You'll fight me, and you'll die, too. Is that what you want?” He looked up at the shattered remains of the broken tubes. “Do you want to die? To go and join your Doctor in whatever this world has as an afterlife?”
Still there was silence.
“I don't need you!” he snapped. “I really don't! But if I don't do every damn thing that I can, there is no way I will ever be able to look at the Doctor again and not think about how I failed!” He struck the consul out of frustration, trying as hard as he could to not cry. “I'm going to save everypony here. Not because I want to. Oh no, not at all. I would let everypony here die as they're supposed to...but that's not the kind of pony that the Doctor would look so kindly upon.”
There was a slight flicker on the consul, but he wasn't sure if it was a spark from something he had just broken, or some sort of reaction.
“But why would you care, right? Everything you had was taken from you. So you just give up? No, not only do you give up, but you fight me? Me?!” He felt out of breath, screaming at the floor. “I've lost everything, too. But I'm trying to get it back, even if there's no chance of it actually happening, there is no way I am going to just lay down and wait to die! Not like you!” He stood up, not having realized he'd even sat down. “I am done trying to help you! You...you pathetic machine! How dare you ever think that the Doctor needed you!” He wasn't sure how much of that was aimed at the Tardis, and how much was aimed at himself.
But it got a reaction. The lights shut off and the door snapped shut.
He took deep breaths in the darkness, trying to figure out where all this anger had come from. Where had all this bubbled up from? “I will leave you here to die, if that's what you want.”
Silence.
“But I am trying to save ponies,” he continued. “Which includes the Doctor. Maybe some other pony could do it better than me, but damn it if the way I did it didn't work.” He brushed aside some papers in the dark until he bumped the little cog he was looking for. “All for this.” He knew it well, despite not being able to see it. “All of this runaround, is for this. This damnable little thing. I know what I have to do. I have a machine to build, one that is capable of opening a rift back into my world. I know how to do it, the plans are all here and in my head. And you can either come with me, or stay here and die.”
There was a clicking and a soft, slow grinding as light filled the room, and Copper stared into the heart of the Tardis.
He took a deep breath and let it out in a slow, drawn out sigh. “I am the Pony of the Gears That Turn, and I have to build a Pony of Gears...”
Author's Note
(Last Edit: 6/26/19)
Breathing was difficult. He had not expected breathing to be this difficult. There had been times when he had had trouble breathing before; when he was almost drowned, when his rib cage had been crushed, or when his lungs had been pulled out. Yet somehow this was even harder. But it was that feeling throughout his entire body. It was like his bones couldn't breath. As if his skin and fur was painfully starved for air. Like he had forgotten how to breath.
The room was spinning and he was hacking up blood now. Maybe he should have had a bat pony stand in, just in case, but he couldn't be sure they wouldn't try and interfere. He was trying to focus on the device, struggling to keep the room from spinning. Finally he was able to focus on what was in front of him and began frantically pulling the wires from himself, shoving the helmet thing from his head and tossing it to the side. “That better be it,” he said, panting as he tried to recover.
Suspended in front of him, inside the device, was a small crystalline tube. He leaned in for a closer look, examining it. Little sparks and shifting cracks formed in the air inside the vial. It glowed, sparkled, and hummed very softly. He had actually done it. He knew it could be done with magic, but to actually do such a thing with a machine seemed almost impossible to him. A moment of panic hit him as he looked at his flank, but his cutie mark was still there.
That had been the inspiration. Cutie marks were a magical representation of a ponies special talent, so if it had stayed, it meant that he had some sort of magic within him. But that wasn't the only magic like thing he had in him; The Shattering was in there, too. Or at least, it was. He had drawn it out using the same principal of the towers. On a much smaller and more focused scale, of course, but he had still done it.
He rubbed his face and wondered how feasible it would be to weaponize this. The process had taken hours, the device was cumbersome and impossible to make in his world. Utterly impossible, especially when he actually took time to examine the machine. Parts had melted and several things had shattered. This device made of crystal steel, the strongest material that Copper knew of, and simply running this machine had destroyed them.
“Good,” he muttered as he flopped over. He had tried to get up, but he had no strength it seemed. He attempted to call out, but found his voice couldn't go very high at all and it sounded more like a harsh whisper. He closed his eyes, taking deep breaths.
~
“Prophet?” His eyes snapped open and he was staring up at a bat pony. “Are you alright? What happened?” With the state he was in and the blood on the floor, it was fairly obvious that he was not alright.
“Ah...yes...Gears,” he muttered as he slowly sat up. It had bothered him that this was Gears, the same Gears from the book he had read. After spending time and speaking with him, he wasn't as surprised. Gears had been the head of several tower constructions and he knew his way around technology. He couldn't help but wonder if this was this universes version of him. They were the same apparent age and build. He shook his head, trying to refocus. “Yes, I'm alright, just...drained.” That was the proper word for it.
“What happened? What is-” he stopped as he stared at the device. “How did you melt...are those pieces?”
“Yes. Somehow the system was too much for it,” Copper said as he moved towards the tube. He found Gears quite tolerable when he wasn't being a coward.
“I don't understand how that's possible...it shouldn't be possible. I have never seen one even crack...” He was staring at the machine. “And this...what even is this?”
“It is part of my essence.” He wiped blood from his mouth. “It is pure power; magic in it's rawest form.” He touched the crystal gently, even though he was sure he could not break it if he tried. And he had tried when he received it. “So raw that the towers cannot even process it, or even attempt to.”
“I...” Gears stared at the tube awestruck. “I don't understand.”
Copper's brow furrowed slightly as he stared at the crackling shapes inside the crystal. “It was all just a theory. I had heard of the magical ability to steal a ponies cutie mark, talent and all. But...I figured that if that was possible, then I could make a machine that could do the same. Or at least something similar.” Copper slowly extracted the tube from the device. “So I removed part of myself, a power that had been given to me a long time ago, so I figured that that would actually be easier to extract than my actual cutie mark, which I think it was?”
Gears still looked lost, staring at Copper. “I...I still don't think I understand.”
“Magic, Gears,” he said as he looked at him. “It is what makes up a pony, it allows you bat ponies to fly, or pegasus to fly in my world. Earth ponies to have such high stamina and strength, and it allows unicorns to tap into the magic of the world. Again, it is all just a theory...but it gives us our strengths. Magical essence.”
“So you are saying...that without this...we would be incapable of flight?” It was obvious that Gears was trying to keep up with Copper, but Copper couldn't seem to explain it properly.
“Yes. You wouldn't have the strength...I don't know all of the details, only what I've heard and read,” he says as he looks over at the large crackling tube.
“Was this the machine you have been working on all this time?” He watched as Copper walk slowly around the room.
Copper realized how much he had been keeping everypony out of the loop. “No, this is more recent work. I ran into a snag with Pog.” He had decided to shorten Pony of Gears with an acronym. “As even with all of her power, I cannot figure out how to open a rift back to my world.” He still felt tired, as he moved towards the other side of the machine. He had done so much work in the last few weeks, but it was not enough progress. His focus was too split, trying to manage what was left of this civilization, and trying to make progress on multiple machines at once. He hurt. He was exhausted.
“So you have siphoned the power from yourself in the hopes that it can use it?” Gears moved to join him on the other side of the room in front of the other machine.
“Yes.” He pulled open the chest cavity of Pog. “She will be able to tap into it and...force it to work. It will not be gentle on the world, but at this point it doesn't matter.” He slid the tube deep into the chest, twisting and turning to place it in it's proper place.
“How long until everything collapses?” Gears asked as he watched Copper intently, he was always so interested in all of the things Copper did.
“It's not going to be something like that. It is a slow death, as I said.” He had explained it a few times, but the batponies seemed to think it was going to be some sort of cataclysmic event, hellfire and all that nonsense. And of course they just assumed he was trying to ease their worry.
“Yes...but...how long?” Even Gears was skeptical.
“We have years. I am more worried about running out of food...there are a lot more ponies than I had originally anticipated.” He took a deep breath as he pulled away, closing her chest cavity once again. “And medical supplies...” There were a lot of sick, injured, and elderly ponies. A lot more than he had thought. A lot. He had expected a few hundred...but they were pushing two thousand now. But...this was nearly the entire population of the planet...almost every living soul.
“It is all because you are the Prophet.” Copper frowned at him. “You are the one that was foretold to save us.”
Copper held his tongue as he worked on the machine. There were a lot of things that he wanted to say to the blissfully ignorant little pony... Such as how he was only trying to save himself, and that was his main focus. How he didn't have a choice on being their savior. How he wanted nothing more than to just lay down and watch everything burn.
“More are coming, Copper.” The voice of night inside his head snapped him away from those thoughts. She was something he wanted to save. “Twenty more will soon be here.”
He turned to Gears. “Twenty more.” Gears blinked at him in confusion. “Go and see that they are met.”
“They approach from the North.”
“They're coming from the North. Make sure they are fed and housed,” Copper practically ordered.
Gears gave a bow. “Of course, Prophet.” He turned and fled at a trot.
He watched the batpony disappear before leaning against a broken control panel. “That is all that will come.”
“More will come,” Copper said with a frown, closing his eyes. “When they realize that they are not coming back...or ponies will go back for those that were left behind and try to convince them to come.”
“You are sure?” Night was not convinced, though she had been such a great help. She had dragged him across the dreamscape to other ponies and spoke to them. They were scared of him, shrouded in the shadow of Night... From what he could guess, the only reason he could do it at all was because of the conditioning that the Nightmare had put him through to make him a vessel.
“We will not get them all, but we will get most of them.” Night was the reason he was working to save as many as possible. She wanted them to be saved.
There was a few moments of silence, in which Copper returned to his work. “Is there no way to save them all?”
“Some ponies you just...can't change. You can't save them, because they don't want to be saved. It is the reason that the Priest believes he needs to be punished, even though the majority of his congregation has stopped torturing him.” Once again, he was thankful for the work that he had done on Emily, in what felt like lifetimes ago...yet it was all so fresh in his mind. It gave him so much to work with, rather than having to make it all up as he went.
“Why?”
Copper paused, staring into the workings of the machine. “I...don't know,” he said softly. “I have tried to figure it out, but the reasons never make sense...a pony who is flat out proven wrong, will still stick to what they thought the truth to believe, even in the face of insurmountable evidence to the contrary. It is just in the nature of ponies to cling to beliefs.”
Again there were several minutes of silence before she spoke again. “What beliefs do you cling to?”
He stopped once again, staring into the machine. “Not a lot,” he said with a sigh as he continued working. “Not as many as the ponies around here, that I know. Believing in something is a lot simpler for me, I think. What I believe in is usually based on facts. If those facts change, sometimes my beliefs do, too.”
“But there are things that you believe in?”
“I think that it would be the wrong way to phrase it, but yes. The same way that I believe that I can get home. With the help of the Tardis, you, and the ponies around here, I believe it is possible to succeed.”
“What else?” She was always so curious and Copper was the only one she ever seemed to ask questions of.
It took him quite a while to think of something. “I believe that somewhere out there, I have a home. A place that I live. Friends that I can return to. Someone who loves me, despite evidence to the contrary.” She was silent in response. “What do you believe in, Night?”
“I believe you can save me,” she said softly, and it made Copper smile. “That you care about me...and what happens to me...”
“If it comes down to only be able to saving a handful of ponies...you will be one of them, Night.” He took a deep breath and set about to working again.
~
“Prophet?”
Once again his work was interrupted. “Yes?” He hardly glanced at the pony. It was annoying that these ponies didn't seem to comprehend that he needed time. A lot of time. But they were afraid that the world would end at any moment. “Who are you?”
“I...I am new to this city...we traveled from Brookfield, across the ravine. You came to me in a dream...” The female batpony wasn't terribly familiar to Copper, but he had visited thousands and they all sort of...blurred together. “I'm Roseluck...” Copper nearly dropped what he was working on, staring at her now. There was a vague sense of recollection...some similarities. “Some ponies said that you asked for me...when you went to the destroyed tower...”
“Do you know the Doctor? A pony by the name of Doctor Whooves?” Copper asked, but he was not terribly hopeful.
“I-I don't.” It was the answer Copper was expecting. He wondered who the Doctor's friends were in this world...
“That's fine,” he said as he turned back to his work. “I suppose all of his acquaintances are dead...or wont come forward.” He sighed.
There were a few minutes of silence. “Who is she?”
He actually jumped a bit. She was directly next to him. He sighed softly, putting a hoof onto his face. “This is Pog.”
She leaned in, looking her over. “She is...beautiful. Is...is she dead?”
“For lack of a better term, she is sleeping.” He took a few deep breaths before he set back to work. She was hardly a face and torso. But he had taken such care to sculpt her face, trying so hard to make her pleasing to look at so that ponies would not fear her.
“May I touch her?” He looked at the batpony, taking a very good look at her. She was so young...and malnourished. Battered and dirty; a pony who hasn't eaten well, or lived well, and then traveled for days in the hopes of...something. “Please?” she added.
“As long as you are gentle. She isn't fragile, but still.” He watched the young pony gently touch her hoof to her face.
“When will she wake up?” She looked at him, her head tilted to the side.
He frowned a bit and then looked at Pog. “When she wants to. Despite the missing casing to her head, and parts of her body, she should be able to...wake up.” He moved a bit to the side as he continued to work.
“You have...made her? I was a little filly when the towers were being built...and they always frightened me.”
That was a first. None of the ponies had ever spoken about being afraid of the towers. “Why is that? I thought that everypony thought they where such a good thing.”
She looked away from him. “They were tall...and...evil looking. I had nightmares about them. They got worse after the first tower exploded. And then they started coming true...”
“Your nightmares? What were they of?” He was looking at her, unable to focus on his work now.
“Death...the barrenness of it all...the plants dead...ponies dead...animals...dead...everything dead.” She was shaking slightly. “And it all came true...all the death came true. It's like I saw it coming, but could do nothing to stop it.”
Copper reached out, touching her gently with his bare hoof. She flinched at his touch. “You had visions of the future.”
“My mother said it was because I was a Seer...sometimes they see bad things, but it wasn't a problem.”
He blinked. That had not been a term he had heard since arriving. “A Seer? What's that?”
“Somepony who can tap into the magic. The church killed them all. All the ones they knew of. Only a my momma knew I was one, cus my daddy was one, and it gets passed down through the blood.”
“It's a genetic trait. That's...interesting.” His mind could put pieces together. If it was passed down genetically, and only the mother knew, that meant either the father was dead, or had not known of her birth. “But I can see how it would have been a death sentence.”
She nodded sadly. “And useless. There's no magic.” She waved her hooves vaguely in the air. “I'm supposed to be important...before the Priest decided to kill them all.” She fell silent, and Copper decided to continue working rather than pester her. It was oddly comforting to have somepony in the room other than gears, or one of the congregation. They always just had this air of terror and it filled the room. “Will she bring the magic back?”
He stopped, his expression softening. “No.”
“But...she'll save us?” She looked so hopeless.
He smiled softly at her. “That is my hope. She's going to make a way for us all to go somewhere better.”
“Better?” she said as she tilted her head to the side. “But...what was wrong with the world before? Can't you make this world better?”
She was young, that was sure. Young and naive. He sighed softly, shaking his head. “No. I'm not a god, as much as ponies around here seem to think I am.”
“But...you are powerful.” She was staring at him. “You came from another world. You overthrew the Priest. You built this machine.” Her stare turned a bit harsher. “You spoke to me in a dream.”
“I have skills. And I have friends with power.” He pushed up on the limb he was working on, forcing it into place. “Compared to most, I am weak.”
“You killed the Blood Horror,” she said bluntly.
He sighed and took a deep breath. “I beat the Blood Horror because I was smarter than it, and sheer luck. The Priest lost because he was scared of me; of what I brought.” He rubbed his face, smearing it with oil without thinking about it.
“But you have to be powerful, ” she said earnestly. “No one could do what you have done. Otherwise someone would have done it.”
“That seems to be the case more often than not,” he grumbles as he focuses on his work. “It is not that no one else could have done it, it is that deep down they don't want to. They believe they can't because that's what they've been told. They think someone else is going to come along and do it for them. They think that if they try, they're going to die. So then ponies like me have to exist to do all the dirty work, because it's okay if somepony like me dies.”
She seemed to shrink down. “Why?”
Copper stopped, staring into the gears for a moment and then sighed, turning to look at Roseluck. She looked on the brink of tears. “Hey now...” He moved towards her and hugged her gently. “I'm sorry. I just get frustrated with how rough things are for me. I feel helpless when it comes to my own life.”
Now she was crying. “Why can't everything be nice?”
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I don't know...all we can do is keep trying to make things better and hope that it does.” He held her gently, closing his eyes. He had forgotten for a moment how young she was. Just a young filly whose world is crumbling for reasons she doesn't understand.
This is what the Other does to places. What it does to ponies. She was a lot like him; forced to live through horrible things when she is still so young. This world was full of orphans. Full of ponies who've witnessed true atrocities. Some would never recover.
~
He wasn't sure how long he stayed holding the little batpony, but eventually ponies came with food for him, and she left when they did. He didn't know where, or what she would do. There were lots of children...perhaps they would play? What sort of games did foals play in this world? It's not like he played any games when he was foal, but he knew of a few. Tag was one he remembered well, aside from racing...
His face scrunched up and he turned to the Pog. All the legs were finished, but only one was attached. Other than connecting the last of the plating...he was almost done. “Will I be able to play with the other ponies?”
He smiled a bit as he turned to the food. “If you would like, I don't see why not.” It was mushrooms, and other little plant like things that seemed to have survived. None of them were very tasty...but it was food.
“They are afraid of me,” Night said somberly.
“Well, you must approach them in a way they do not find scary.” He could practically feel her confusion, and he chuckled. “If you want to have a pony like you, you must approach them in a way they are comfortable with. I know you have a bit of difficulty holding your form, but that's just something you'll gain control of.”
He felt her frown. “But it's so difficult. Every time I think I've gotten it I go fwuff.”
Copper laughed, shaking his head. “Magic is hard, dear Night. You'll get it eventually.”
“Does the Nightmare you know have control?”
“Yes.” There had been quite a lot of times when Nightmare came to him and looked...well, like a normal pony. When she had first approached him he remembered how she looked beautiful, bathed in starlight...
“Wow...will I be that pretty?”
He blinked a few times, looking vaguely into the space in front of him. “I...well, uh...probably? I don't know. I have met two other Nightmares and they were both quite pretty.” He rubbed his face a bit, forgetting that she could see what he was thinking if he thought hard enough about it.
“But she was not nice...she was mean to you...she hurt you...” There was the odd feeling of something being draped over him, but there was nothing there.
“She had a lot of anger and hate...that sort of thing warps a pony. Mostly she was tolerable...sometimes she was a welcomed sight, though I never allowed her to know.” He took a deep breath before he began eating.
“She probably knew...you are so easy to read.” Her voice was playful, but oddly soothing. Yet...it still had that underlying tone he knew so well.
“Perhaps to something like you, being in my head and all,” he says with a chuckle. “Kinda hard to keep my thoughts hidden as well as my words or action.”
“Maybe you're the one who needs to learn control,” she said with a soft mocking tone.
It was very odd to Copper thinking of Night. He couldn't think of her as just a filly because sometimes she didn't act like it. She was smart, powerful, a naive, and had a wit too sharp for something that was supposedly that young. But she was also a being of magic, and learning things from him. Rules of age did not seem to really apply; as well as most rules it seemed. “Maybe you shouldn't dig in my head so much, hm?”
“That's no fun.” There was a definite pout to her tone of voice.
“I think that you need to find new ways to entertain yourself, my dear Night.”
“You're all the entertainment I need.”
That made him chuckle a bit and shake his head. “I'm not that entertaining, unless you find my work interesting.”
He felt quite warm as if she was trying to get closer to him. “I find everything you ponies do interesting.”
Author's Note
(Last Edit: 6/26/19)
A rock skittered across the cobbles, set into motion by a simple kick down a hill. Suddenly it became much more than a simple pebble. Now it was an object of motion, an object on a journey. A journey all of its own. A simple focus of just trying to get to the end of the street. A journey that was abruptly stopped as it bounced against Copper's hoof. He contemplated the small stone as it lay, now motionless, in the street a few hooves away from him. Then he traced the path that it had followed towards its origin. A crumbling building.
A crumbling building housing several batponies who were staring at him. Everypony stared at him as he walked as they always did. Eyes from every window and doorway. That is what happens when there are several thousand ponies together, all there because of him. Of course, there wasn't enough space for everypony and so every little nook and cranny was overflowing with ponies. But they all hid from him, like he was some sort of monster, stalking the streets. Too much work dulled the brain, he knew that. Which was why he went for long walks to help clear his head and think of anything but Pog. Such as the little pebble, or the dilapidated buildings.
He was so close to it all being finished. So little work to be done now, but he could not finish. Not just yet. There was...something. Something the Pog was waiting for. Mechanically, she was finished. Fully functional, but refusing to awaken. Night said that she cannot understand the dreams of the Pog and she has found a way to chase her out. He figured that that must be remnants of himself that got into her during the transfer of the Shattering. Bits of him must have gone along with it... If that was the case, she was going to be stubborn.
An entire week. She had not moved in an entire week and it was frustrating him. He had gone over ever last little detail in that week, and several of them he'd gone over twice. He couldn't stand to look at her now, so he went for a walk. This walk in particular had lead him to a part of the city he had not yet been to. One that might have at one point been considered a fancier area. A place where the wealthier batponies lived. Now it was just as crumbling and ruinous as the rest of it. But it did offer a great view. A great view of the barren and dead landscape that made up the world. It made him sick.
But not sick in the way that it should. It made him homesick. It reminded him so much of the Badlands that he could almost imagine, almost picture, off in the distance the gleam of Canterlot. That is what made him sick. It felt so close, yet so far. He'd been stuck here for months, and no matter what he did, he couldn't go home. Oh how he wanted- no, needed it. He needed to see something aside from tan and brown landscapes. He stamped his hooves on the ground a few times before turning around. This had to end.
~
He hit the door as hard as he could, which was hard enough to make it buckle slightly from the weight of his crystal steel limb. “I am done,” he shouted as he struck a control panel, sparks and bits of things going everywhere. He struck it several more times, until he was out of breath and there wasn't much of a control panel left. “I have no more patience.” He turned to the Pog, which lay on one side of the room upon a table.
It did not move.
“I cannot stand it anymore.” He moved up to the Pog and struck it. The ring of steel against steel filled the room. “I am done with this!” he shouted, striking it again. “Done with you!” He shoved it off of the table it was laying on.
It sprawled across the floor, then lay motionless.
“You impudent little child.” He bashed the table, splintering it. “Ignorant little...piece of junk.” He turned away, pacing back and forth. He was so angry. Every little bit of him was filled with rage. Misery and anger. He kicked the Pog before walking over to the smashed control panel, looking at it.
The Pog did not move.
“I did everything. I used your assistance. I used my knowledge. I used every bit of what this world had left to offer, but you just lay there. Like a selfish little child, caught up in her own dreams.” He spun on the motionless body. “What about me, hm? What about the rest of the damn world!? What about all those ponies out there who believe that I'm going to save them?!” He panted softly, staring at the Pog. “This isn't on me anymore,” now he was simply shouting at the void of everything; that damned thing that sent him here in the first place. “It is all on her! I cooperated! I did what I was supposed to! I have given my all to have this work!” Again he battered the console until he was out of breath.
The Pog did not move.
“This...isn't fair... For once in my life, can things just be fair?” He stared at the smashed console. “No, I suppose not. Life is never fair. It's a constant fight through pain for a shred of happiness. A grain of sand of good, under an ocean of blood and misery.” He laid down on the pieces of the console, doing his best to regain his composure.
Broiling rage. When was the last time he had been this angry? This upset? He stood up and began pacing. Nothing was working. He thought back, when he was first learning to manage his emotions. Back to when he was a foal and did the first thing that came to mind. He bit down onto his bare foreleg. Immediately he recoiled, letting out a yelp of pain.
He stared as blood trickled out of the fresh puncture wounds on his leg. His mind was racing, immediately distracted by this new development. He ran his tongue slowly across his teeth; his very sharp teeth.
The taste of his own blood seemed to be calming, but more so he was distracted now. Why were his teeth sharp? He could not stop running his teeth across them; feeling the points and razor edges. His mind raced as he tried to think. "Are there any other changes?" He mumbled as he patted himself slightly, which also splattered him in his own blood. But he couldn't feel anything different... "Mirror." He looked around, "I need a mirror."
He rummaged around, looking for something reflective; something he could see his reflection.
He tore through drawers, and cabinets, anything that he could search until eventually he found a reflective surface. He wasn't sure if it had been a mirror, or something else as it was in pieces, but it was enough to see himself.
His teeth clenched as he looked at himself. His hair had taken on a wispyness at the ends, his pupils had become slits and the copper color to them had a purple tint at the edges. And his teeth were indeed sharp.
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly; he was tainted. Corrupted. "So this is what happens from prolonged contact with Night..." he mutters. He had been letting her close, too close, he knew. But she was comforting to him. Familiar to him on a level he couldn't understand. There just seemed to be some...consequences for that comfort.
He looked down, noticing his blood pooling around his hoof. Probably should take care of that... his thoughts had finally focused and he could think straight again. Now he was truly some sort of monster.
Slowly he made his way out, feeling rather numb to the world. As if everything didn't matter anymore. Things had stopped making sense rather abruptly, as if he had just woken up from a dream. Awoken from one hellscape to another, but he didn't care. His mind was so addled that he it took him a moment to realize that a crowd had gathered.
Apparently he had had made quite the racket in all of his anger and frustration. This was actually beneficial, as he didn't know where any sort of medical supplies were. “Bandages,” he said, looking at the crowd of batponies.
But none of them moved, they all stood there motionless.
“Bandages,” he said again, louder this time. Their lack of movement frustrated him. “Now!” he shouted and they scattered. He took a deep, slow breath. When had this transformation happened? Was it gradual, or did his fit of anger cause its onset? He would have to speak with Gears.
The thought of Gears caused him to look around and take in his surroundings. In the distance he could see batponies going about whatever they were doing, the odd sun was high in the sky and it actually looked like a...nice day. It actually made him feel better. “Prophet?”
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Gears approaching him, flanked by another batpony carrying a rather large medical bag. Copper lifted his hoof, showing it to the other batpony who moved and began cleaning off the blood. “That title is beginning to annoy me,” he muttered and then looked at Gears, who actually flinched at his gaze.
“Wh-what happened?” Gears said, speaking rather softly as he moved over to Copper.
“It doesn't matter.” He took another deep breath as he looked up at the barren sky. “None of it matters anymore...it's pointless.” The batpony tied off the bandages and Copper looked at them. “Thank you,” he said softly and the batpony actually looked confused as it backed away.
“Are you alright?” Gears asked, a question that Copper felt he asked a few too many times as far as Copper was concerned. It was a question that everypony asked him far too often.
Copper didn't answer and began walking. He felt numb all over...the sort of numbness that one gets when the body just doesn't understand how to comprehend the sheer amount of pain it's in. He couldn't feel his leg. He couldn't feel any of his legs, not the one he'd bitten, not the one in its case, and not the back two that were helping to drive him forward. It was like his body was on autopilot, walking out into the wasteland.
He was vaguely aware of Gears following him. Gears would probably follow him to the end of any world. Give his life for him. And Copper hated that. There had been rare moments in Coppers life when he actually would prefer it if he were dead, and this was one of those moments. “Prophet?”
His mind had been so occupied with nothing that Copper had not even noticed that he had collapsed. He couldn't feel the ground. Not the air. He wasn't sure if he was even breathing. Yet somewhere his curiosity stirred. “Do I look different?”
Gears stared at him. “I...don't understand what you mean, Prophet.”
“From when you first saw me has my appearance changed?” Copper wondered what his eyes were focusing on, he couldn't tell.
“I...never got a good look at you until you overthrew the Priest...but you look no different...aside from tired.” Gears shifted nervously, unsure of what he could possibly do in such a situation.
“So it has been since the start.” He found it annoying that Night was not there to confront, but at the same time he was glad that she was not. He would have yelled at her; been cross with her. It was not her fault, he knew that. But she had tainted him, whether she had meant to or not. Not to the extent as others the other nightmare had, but maybe that was simply because she was young and was not as powerful. She didn't have as much influence.
“Why...are you worried about your appearance?” Gears had sat down nearby.
“What keeps you going, Gears?” He ignored the question. “Why did you not give up like so many others? What is the point of living to you?”
Gears brow furrowed. Copper had to admit that although he was rather a genius when it came to technology, Gears didn't understand most other concept. “Am I not supposed to want to live?”
“But why would you want to?”
“I don't see a reason not to.”
“But what of the struggle?” Copper said as he sat up. “You have struggled for so long, for no reason. Because others have ruined your life.” He was looking at Gears, trying to find some sort of semblance of his own mind in conversation. “Beaten down. Beaten up. Battered. And starving the entire time.”
Gears looked down at the ground; he could never look Copper in the eyes. “I don't want to die,” he said after a long pause.
“Even if it means living every day exactly like the rest? With no hope? No chance of things getting better? You would rather live like that?”
Again there was a long pause before Gears answered, “Yes.”
“Look at me,” Copper said, his mind finally seeming to catch hold of something and was trying to start itself back up.
But Gears didn't look up.
“Gears.” He saw him flinch and took up a gentler tone. “Please, look at me.”
There was hesitation but eventually Gears lifted his head, looking at Copper. It was the first time that he had done so when Copper was looking directly at him. And it was the first time Copper really looked at him in return. The first thing that Copper thought was how young Gears was. Several years younger than himself, but just as battered. Just as haggard as him. They had both lived a harsh life, and yet Gears had not given up. There had probably been moments where he had, just like Copper had.
The more Copper stared at him, the more understanding of Gears he had, and he felt that Gears was having the same sort of understanding. There was no doubt in his mind now, this was him. Gears had to be the same as himself. Suddenly he felt exhausted as the numbness faded away. “We all have our own way,” Copper said as he stood up and walked back the way he had came, leaving Gears to his own devices. “Life keeps going as long as we want it to...or until it is stolen from us.”
He walked back into the Tardis, closed the door and then laid down on the floor in a corner. His eyes closed of their own accord; he could not keep them open even if he wanted to. This was a level of fatigue he had not felt in a long time.
There was nothing he could do now, but curl up and sleep. To wait for his body to recover. He closed his eyes and let exhaustion wash him away.
~
It was a rare moment when Copper wished that he still dreamed. This was one of them. This was, without a doubt, one of those times. He didn't want to be alone with his thoughts at the moment.
He had just had a severe mental breakdown. It had been a while since he had had one of those. But knowing it happened, and dealing with it were two completely different monsters. It was a monster that had him by the throat and he had no way of fighting it.
"You are mad at me..." He had not noticed Night come to him.
"No," he said, looking at her. "I am upset, but not at you." He had to actually think in whether or not that was the truth or just a comforting lie, but it felt mostly true. He wasn't upset with her specifically, just what she had done.
"Yes you are..." She looked like a child being scolded.
Just looking at her made Copper feel some sort of semblance of himself. "C'mere," he said as he raised a hoof up. She hesitated, but then approached him slowly. Once she got within his reach he pulled her in close, holding her tightly. He remained silent, content in the moment to hold onto her.
At first she was tense, or at least as tense as a creature made of solid smoke can be, but she slowly relaxed, pressing into him. "She will not help us?" she asked softly.
"No."
"Then...what do we do now?"
Copper stared off into the distance of the dreamscape. "Make her."
~
The scrape of the crystal steel against the cobbles created a sort of sound like bells ringing. "You don't want to cooperate? Fine," Copper muttered as he dragged the Pog down the street. "I told you I don't need your help. I don't need you to cooperate. You're just a catalyst. A battery. I'll make you regret your stubbornness." He shoved her up against a wall. "Priest!"
Then ragged pony looked up from it's place on the floor. "Yes, Prophet?"
“You're going to assist me. Get out of the cage." He moved towards the cathedral as he heard the cage open and the Priest practically dragged himself out.
The cage had not been locked for sometime now. "What help could I possibly be?" he asked, his voice was almost as ragged as he was.
"What influence on the cathedral did the Other have?" Copper asked as he pushed open the door.
The Priest hesitated as he limped over to Copper. "The Other guided the construction from the beginning and was quite specific about its construction...long before construction of the towers was even discussed."
The Other was patient and weaved it's plans over years, decades, maybe even centuries. "Where are the plans?"
"Destroyed."
"Of course," Copper grumbled as he looked at the arch of the door. "How did you communicate with the Other? Was there some sort of special ceremony when you were bound to it?"
Again the Priest hesitated. "H-how..." He shook his head. "Yes. When the cathedral was finished...everything seemed to be going so well...everything was nice...everypony was happy."
"Where did you stand during the ceremony?" He looked at the Priest and found it odd that he did not flinch as others did.
The Priest walked just inside the cathedral and turned. "It happened when I crossed the threshold."
Copper hazarded a guess, "So the entire cathedral is some sort of transmitter." Why else would the Other have guided the building so closely? "Good." He moved over and dragged the Pog towards the cathedral.
"If I may ask...what is that, Prophet?"
"Pog," he said simply, but decided to elaborate to avoid further questioning, "A machine that can open a door to another world. But she isn't cooperating, so I'm going to make her do it."
Then Priest stared at Pog. "How will you do that?"
Copper rolled his neck in such a way that it popped and crackled. "By wiring into her nervosystem and blasting components with electricity until I get the proper response."
He gaped at Copper a moment. "You're going to torture her?"
He hesitated, looking down at Pog. "In essence..." he ran his tongue over his teeth, testing their sharpness. "Yes. Yes I am."
"But...why?"
Copper looked at the Priest. "It will be the first time she feels physical pain. She has suffered much emotional pain, but that isn't enough. She wants to be alive, but live in a dream. That's not how life works. She has to learn that."
"That is a very harsh lesson to teach..." His gaze moved from Copper down the road towards ponies pulling a cart.
"That is why I have to teach it. Why it has to be me to do it. I gave her a life to live, and I have to make sure she understands her actions, or lack there of, have consequences."
Gears was at the head of the cart. "Wh-where shall we set it up, Prophet?"
Copper gestured to the door. "Just inside the cathedral." He watched as the ponies to set up according to his instructions.
The Priest sat beside him. "And what if she does nothing?"
"Then the pain will continue until she does."
There was a silence that fell over the area. The only noise was that of the machines construction.
It was an hour before they finally finished the mash of machine that took up the doorway, inside and out. "It it is done, Prophet..." Gears said, little out of breath.
"Very good job, Gears. Now," he moved towards Pog and pushed her up against what could be called a chair, securing her with large metal clamps.
"Truly a thing for torture," the Priest said, but Copper ignored him.
He hooked many things up to her, having to open several panels in order to do so. "Spread the word, Gears." He stepped away, flicking a switch as he did. "We are leaving today." There machine sparked and hummed loudly.
~
It did not take long for the crowd to begin forming, ponies with bags filled with what little belongings they had. Copper stood by a large hoof sized button that was wired to the machine.
There were murmurs and a lot of quiet talking; all the ponies wondering what was going on. "Prophet?" somepony said, but Copper ignored them.
The machine was being fed by her own power supply, but to an unmanaged level from a source she would not be able to take. He was waiting for the last little light to click on, showing the contraption was fully charged. The moment he saw the little red light, he pressed the button.
There was a bright flash and the roar of electricity was almost loud enough to drown out the shriek of pain. Almost. When the energy died down, her eyes opened. The eyes that Copper had spent two days making. The eyes that until now, she had not used. This was the first time she was seeing the real world.
The light clicked on.
Copper pressed the button again.
The light returned and the scream she let out echoed louder than the roar of the machine, many of the batponies backed away as the electrical arcs died down. She spasmed and twitched. "P-please!"
The light clicked on.
Copper pressed the button.
Again she screamed, trying to form words as she writhed and spasmed against the clamps holding her in place. "Please!" she cried. "Please stop!" She could not physically cry, he had not given her that.
The light clicked on.
"Prophet!" Gears shouted. "That is enough!"
"No!" Copper spun on him, pointing his hoof at him. "She will learn! She will learn what it means to go against me! What it means to get in my way!" He turned and pressed the button.
She shrieked and spluttered, trying to drown out the pain with her own screaming. Copper knew that kind of tactic. He knew that tactic all too well. "No more! P-please! Please!"
Then light clicked on.
"Copper! Stop!"
He froze, pain seized him as his arm locked up. He was fighting; struggling against himself. Breathing became hard and he was panting. This was not him. All this had not been him. “She will pay,” the voice of Night echoed in his head and each word like needles in his skull.
“Please...Copper...stop.” It was a struggle for him to even look at the little pony that had come up: Roseluck. He could see in her eyes that she realized something was wrong.
“Night,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Stop.”
“She will suffer. She will pay for her selfishness.” His vision was going dark and he could see black smoke creeping across the ground around him. It gathered around the button, trying to press it. “If she just cooperated we would all be safe. We would all be home. ”
He was losing himself. He could feel his mind going fuzzy, bits of things disappearing. Suddenly he felt something press against him. Roseluck was trying to hold onto him, to hold him there. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on that. To focus on this little pony and ignore everything else. He needed to focus. “Night...” he managed. “You're...hurting me...”
Suddenly it stopped and he gasped for air, falling back away from the button and nearly onto Roseluck. He panted heavily, trying to bring his own head under control. This had not been his idea. Night had used him to torture Pog... He felt as though his skin was made of needles. Roseluck was still holding onto him and he returned the gesture, holding her in turn. “Copper?” she said, looking up at him.
“Thank you...” he said, still out of breath. Roseluck stepped away and smiled softly at him. He moved towards Pog quickly.
“I-I'm sorry...” she sobbed. “I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry...” she muttered over and over again.
“No...no...shh...” He pulled her free of the clamps, embracing her. “No no...I'm sorry...I didn't know what I was doing until it was far too late...I am so sorry... I really am a monster... How could I ever allow such a thing to happen...”
Pog was still shaking, spasming slightly. Copper assumed that it was due to residual electricity in her system...she wasn't built to handle that sort of thing. That's why it had been so effective. He was going to need to have a serious talk with Night later. It had never occurred to him that he would have to give a 'why not to torture' lesson, but he may have to. “I-I'm sorry...” Pog said again. She was making heaving and panting noises, despite not needing to breath. It was probably some sort of instinct that carried over from Copper, or something in her programming. “I-I shouldn't...have been s-so selfish...and...and...”
“Shh...shh...it's alright. It's your first time with the ability to truly dream. It makes real life seem pointless.” Copper pulled away from Pog, looking at her. She was staring at the crowd of batponies.
Copper realized that there was still a crowd gathered around them. “I have been so selfish...” she muttered as she pulled away from Copper.
“How do you feel?” Copper asked, curious of her state of being now as he looked her up and down. There was no physical damage sustained, but he may have damaged something internally.
“No permanent damage...I think...” Her brow furrowed slightly; he had given her the ability to emote a wide variety of expressions.
He started to close up the panels he had opened during the unfortunate things that had just happened. “None physical...but I am worried about your mental state after such an affair...” he muttered as he closed the last panel.
“Emotional damage...” She was twitching slightly as the residual electricity was released.
“Can you stand?” he asked as he stepped back. She was slumped on the spot, as she had not even moved of her own accord as of yet. “Take it slowly.” He would have preferred doing such basic tests back in a safe area, one without so many watchful eyes.
It took her a moment to stand, but she managed it. “It is different...than I thought it would be. This...existence...”
“I have done my best,” Copper said as he moved to the side, detaching the button that was delivering shocks. “Can you access the Shattering?”
“Yes,” there was no hesitation to her answer. He wondered if it had been a fearful prompt to give him the answer she knew he wanted.
“And you can use it?”
This time she hesitated, looking up at the large cathedral, and then at him. “I am to use this as a...catalyst?”
“Correct. It should be able to amplify your abilities and allow you to use the Shattering with ease.”
She took a moment to examine it before stepping out into the courtyard and Copper followed. Ponies backed away from her, or perhaps it was Copper they backed away from. He wasn't sure which would have been worse. “Do I need some sort of...destination?”
Copper had thought about this previously and shook his head. “No. It will work. Because if it does not, I will use every ounce of knowledge I have in order to destroy the being that brought me here.”
“That would make the Other win...”
“I don't care,” the tone of his voice ice cold. “I am sick of that thing using me and I will make the Other win if it doesn't let me go home.”
Pog looked concerned, but nodded slowly as she looked at the the large entryway. They always built doorways so large. She stared at it intently and Copper could hear the whirring and grinding of gears inside her. Suddenly the ground around her hooves cracked and the air split.
It was hard to tell what exactly was on the other side. It was not as clear as when Copper had done it, but that must have been due to magic stabilizing, or focusing it. “You must be the last one through. And I will be right beside you,” he said softly to Pog, who's entire focus was on the large crack between worlds. He turned to the crowd. “This is our way out.” There were already ponies moving towards it, picking up things that they had set down during the wait. “Take it while you can.”
Gears moved up to him. “You are sure, Prophet?”
He looked at him, trying not to glare. “If I am wrong, then I am wrong.”
Now the King approached him. This was a pony that Copper had forgotten even existed. “And how can we be sure it is safe?”
“I will go first,” rasped the Priest as he moved towards the portal. There had been no doubt in some ponies minds that this was their way out, but now Gears had given them doubt.
“I'm not going to wait for your cockamamie power struggle bull!” somepony shouted as they charged past them and through the crack. Several followed. Then it was as if a flood was washing over them as batponies went through the split.
“It seems the ponies have spoken,” Copper said as he watched them go. “They need no King. They need no Priest. They need no Prophet.” He turned to the three ponies staring at him: Gears, the King, and the Priest. “Consider the prophesy fulfilled. I will no longer be your prophet.”
“But Pr-”
He glared at Gears. “I swear to Celestia, Gears. If you, or anyone else calls me prophet, they will regret it.” He held the glare on Gears until he slunk away into the crowd, to go and gather his things and go through the portal himself.
The King was next to leave, “You have done well, and I am sorry for ever having doubted you.” With a turn befitting a pony with the title of King, he departed.
There was silence, aside from the noise of the crowd, as Copper and the Priest looked at one another. But it was Copper who looked away first, in order to watch the crowd move. “They will need guidance.”
“You are far more befitting that than I.”
“Not in the slightest. You do not seem to understand that I am abandoning you.” The Priest looked confused. “All of you. I am leaving you to your own devices. I will not lead you and I will not allow any of you to follow me. Pog and I will find the Doctor, and we will leave.”
“You are so confident that you will find him?”
“I have no doubt that I will. Or that he will find me.” He looked back at the Priest. “Remember what the Other has done, to you and your fellow ponies. Treat that world better.”
The Priest said nothing as he backed away and disappeared into the crowd. Copper took a deep breath before looking at Pog, who seemed to be struggling less. As if to answer his question, she spoke, “It is stable. It took a lot more to get it going than I thought it would but...it's easy to hold open.”
Yet he had not been able to do it. Or perhaps the door was slammed shut behind him...he couldn't be sure. “Good. It looks like almost everypony has gone through.” He noticed how some ponies were actually bringing carts, filled with belongings and ponies. It actually brought a smile to his face.
He really hoped that things would be easy on the other side...but of course they would not be. His life was a never ending cacophony of struggle. “Is it time for us to go?”
“Yes,” he said softly as he stood up, looking at the rift a moment before they began their walk towards it. In the back of his head he could feel Night, hiding herself somewhere deep inside his head to try and hide from him. He took a deep breath as he stepped across the threshold with Pog.
Author's Note
(Last Edit: 6/26/29)
Nausea hit him immediately, and the taste of static filled his mouth. Copper shook his head before looking around at the town they had apparently walked into. The rift behind them closed with a thunderous CLAP. For a brief moment he felt the cascade of it all coming to an end and then the emptiness behind him. Many batponies were being sick, having barely gotten more than a dozen hooves away before they could no longer stomach it. Pog helped him back up into a standing position. He had not even realized he had fallen over. “I did not close it...” she muttered to him, looking at the fading shimmering line in the air.
“It is fine. I expected that,” he replied as he guided her away from the group of batponies. It was midday and there was a large crowd of ponies gathered. Oh how Copper felt such relief to see the more familiar shapes. There was murmuring and shouts in the distance, but Copper was determined not to let himself be dragged into it. They would sort it out themselves.
Pog had felt the cascade as well. “And it all-”
“Yes,” Copper interrupted.
“That entire universe-”
“Yes,” Copper interrupted again.
“You knew?”
He hesitated. “It was the most likely outcome. That universe was not strong enough to withstand the force of the rift being open, let alone being shut.”
“So all those ponies left-”
“Yes.”
“And you knew?” her tone was rather scolding.
“What would you have had me do?” he responded in a harsh whisper. “I saved as many as I could.”
“But-”
He looked at her, the uncertainty on her face. “There was nothing that could be done.” Pog still held the same look. “I made the choice,” he said softly to her. “And I was never going to bring up the subject, but yes; I ended that universe and all those left in it.” He stared into the distance, though he wasn't looking at anything in particular.
After a moment Pog gave him a soft nudge. “Let us find the Doctor...”
“Yes...but where is he...” he muttered as he peered around the crowds of ponies. “Surely he would be present at such an anomaly...he'd be drawn to it like a moth to a flame...”
“He may have a different appearance,” Pog said softly. She was getting a lot of stares herself, but most of the attention was on the batponies. Somehow they stood out more than her. “The Doctor may be in a different regeneration from when you knew him.”
It occurred to Copper that Pog had far more knowledge of the Doctor than he did. “That makes this difficult...will you be able to spot him?”
“No. He is a different Doctor than mine, his regenerations will most likely appear different.” But despite her words, Pog was still gazing out at the crowds of ponies.
“He must stand out...he always does...” He was dreading the thought that he may have to become involved in order to make progress. The thought of having to come out from hiding already, and bring all attention back to- he stopped and stared at a pony. Immediately he made his way over, Pog having difficulty keeping up with him through the crowd. “You stick out like a sore hoof, Doctor.”
The white pony had been watching the batponies with a look of interest and surprise, much like the rest of the crowd. Yet, there was this odd look that he had that had gotten Copper's attention...like he had been expecting it. The pony pushed back the large hat on his head, revealing more of his brown mane. “Do I know you?”
Copper hesitated, his mind trying to quickly work out explanations and scenarios. “Blast. We haven't met yet, have we? I hate time travel.” He looked back at Pog making her way through the crowd, and when he looked back the pony he assumed was the Doctor had pulled out a strange device...he had seen similar to it, but it was quite different.
“Did you come through the portal with them?” he asked as he put the device away.
“Yes. Now, please. We don't have much ti-” the word caught in his throat. “Well, no, actually I suppose we have all the time in the bloody world, don't we. Oh Celestia this day is far off plan...”
“Celestia?” The pony took a step back, looking Copper up and down. “You're quite a ways off from her era...uhm...what's yer name?”
“Copper Feather,” he replied, trying to keep his thoughts organized as they started to flit away from him.
Suddenly the other ponies eyes lit up and he moved forward, shaking Copper's hoof vigorously. “Well now isn't this a surprise! Copper Feather. The Copper Feather. We've done some real big things together, haven't we? Oh, and yes, I'm the Doctor. Good spot.”
Copper was caught quite off guard by everything about this Doctor, from his mannerisms to the way he spoke. “I...er...” He took a deep breath. “Are you a you from before or after we've met?”
“Oh, I'm before. Come, this way. Things are about to get a little...crazy around here,” the Doctor said as he turned away and looked around.
“They're not going to hurt the batponies, are they?” He couldn't help but look over at the crowds.
“Well, it depends on your definition of hurt. There's quite a lot of rough waters ahead for the batponies...but it all works out in the end. Just takes a few generations.” Copper frowned at this. All that hard work that he had done, and they were still going to suffer...but at least they would live. “Now, if we just- whoa. What's this?”
Copper looked at what had gotten the Doctor's attention: Pog. “Ah...this...hrm...how to explain this...”
“I shall,” Pog said as she moved towards the Doctor, giving him a very scrutinizing look. The Doctor was clearly a bit uncomfortable by that piercing gaze, which gave Copper quite a bit of satisfaction at his craftsmanship. “I am the Pony of Gears.”
That was all she said.
Copper cleared his throat. “Pog for short. I'll explain as we go. Shall we?” He gestured for the Doctor to lead the way.
“Ah, right. Yes, let's go.” He turned once again and began walking away from the crowds. “I'm quite surprised to see you here...how'd you manage that?”
“That...is a rather long story. One that I can't really tell you many of the details.” Copper was looking at Pog, trying to figure out what she was thinking. “But the important question is can you get me home? Back to the Celestia Era?”
“Well, of course. Shouldn't be too hard to do that.”
That was the biggest relief that Copper could imagine. The thought of seeing familiar ponies...but there was still work left to be done.
They rounded a corner and in an alley sat the very familiar blue box. Copper glanced at Pog, and then at the Doctor. Neither of them seemed worried. But then again, why would they be? They did not know the extent that he had gone. The Doctor entered first, followed by Copper. He glanced hesitantly at Pog as she approached and she herself hesitated before crossing the threshold. There was the soft release of tension as Copper moved away from the door, towards the controls. But the Tardis shuddered and he stopped.
The Doctor looked up at the large center construct. “That seemed...odd.”
“I'm sure it's fine,” Copper said as he continued to move towards the console, but the Doctor moved into his path, looking at him.
“Suddenly an expert on this sort of thing, Copper?” his tone was thick with suspicion.
“Yes,” he said flatly as Pog moved up beside the Doctor. In effect, she now also blocked Copper. “I have had months to study it, in ways that I am sure not even you have done.”
“I-” he stopped and looked at Pog. Suddenly he held the strange device, waving it vaguely at Pog who watched it with a strange understanding. “You...” His stare turned to Copper. “What have you done?”
“What I had to.”
“She's...but that's not possible. You shouldn't have been able to even comprehend such a thing.” The Doctor stood in front of him with a defensive posture.
But Copper remained relaxed. “It was difficult, to say the least. Much of the knowledge I had to tear out of the deepest recesses of her mind. Had I more time, or the willingness to spend it, I could have done it far more elegantly, but the Heart took to it's new body quite efficiently, so I have no complaints.”
The Doctor stood silently, staring at him.
“Now, Doctor, I am going to ask you to move, so that-”
“You built...” he interjected, but hesitated. Copper waited for him to finish. “You turned her into a paradox engine.”
“Her very existence is a paradox. The fact that I am standing here, is a paradox. All that I have accomplished is a paradox. One that I am determined to keep going, for my own sake, and those that I have influenced.” He felt...oddly cold. “All that needs to happen now, is for us to make a simple jump through time, and she will exist as the Tardis once more, with her influence spanning all of existence.”
The Doctor swallowed. “I...can't allow you to do this.” Pog looked at him, and he flinched at her gaze. “The results of this could be catastrophic...you could force us into a time loop, and everything will fall apart.”
“The fact that she can even enter the Tardis is proof that she is stable. That the engine is stable. That my timeline. Is. Stable. You wont stop me now, Doctor.”
“You're willing to destroy the entire universe?”
“It would not be the first time I have done so today,” Copper said coldly.
“You...” The Doctor stared at him, with the look of somepony who could not even comprehend what they had just heard. “You destroyed...that universe...”
“I did everything I could. It would have all faded away without my intervention.” He was watching the Doctor carefully, though the Doctor he knew was not the kind to lash out physically, he did not know this one. “It was...necessary.”
“Necessary? What kind of excuse is that? You ended an entire universe. You killed everypony who remained.”
“I saved all that I could.”
“And how many did you kill?” the Doctor snapped. “Can you even answer that? Do you even-”
“Eight-hundred, and forty-seven,” he said, trying to keep what little patience he had.
The Doctor remained silent, staring at him in a mixture of shock and disgust.
“I tried. Whether you want to believe me or not, I tried...so hard. I tried for months. I tried to convince them...to explain to them. To every single one of them. I spent months trying to keep them alive. To convince them to save themselves.” He took a step towards the Doctor, who he was surprised didn't so much as flinch. “Some were content to die, believing they would be useless. Some believed that it was a trap, despite all the evidence I could provide to them that it was not. And the rest-” the words caught in his throat. He took a deep breath before continuing, “The rest, would rather die in their homes than leave.”
“You-”
“Those are the ones I will remember the most,” he interrupted, not sure if he would be able to continue if the Doctor managed to get a word in. “And yet...despite it all...despite the two-thousand, four-hundred and eighty-two ponies I managed to save, they will fade. It's the ones that I couldn't save that will stay with me.”
There was a brief silence before the Doctor spoke, “You should have found another way.”
“And what way would that have been?” He could feel the Doctor shrink under his gaze. “I was out of time, out of tools. And out of food . If I didn't do something, ponies would begin starving to death. The planet was long past dead, a rotting husk of rock. No food, no water. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there would not be any pony to save if I tried to figure out something else.”
“And who are you to make such decisions?”
“That is extremely hypocritical of you, Doctor,” Copper said as he did his best to not strike him. “You of all ponies, saying that to anypony is...” he stopped, unable to find the correct word.
The Doctor shook his head. “This is completely different, Copper. Just how...how do you expect to live with yourself after all this is over?” Copper actually had to stop and think. He had not thought about it. “You don't feel it yet, because you continue to pile it on. I know. I do the same. But if you stop, if your goal is truly to live a normal life...you'll be crushed by all your past.”
He looked past him at the console. “I am...numb, Doctor.” This actually seemed to catch him off guard, with the shift of Copper's tone. “I have caused the deaths of so many...but I never had a number to put to it. This is a first. And yet, when it happened...I felt nothing. No remorse, no sadness, no regret. Nothing. I have shouldered so much, that I did not even notice the weight of this.”
“You're going to break yourself.”
“I'm already broken,” he said softly. “I have been for a very long time, and I've come to accept that; to even use it to my advantage. And I will continue to shoulder it all without hesitation, because somepony has to.”
“Copper, you can't live like that,” the Doctor said, trying to match Copper's tone more, to alleviate the tension that had been filling the room.
“I don't have any other option. Now, Doctor, please move out of my way.”
The Doctors brow furrowed as he stared at Copper. “There has to be a different way. We can work out some other way than...this. There has to be more options.”
“Doctor. I will not ask again.”
“I wont let-” Thud . The Doctor crumpled to the floor, Copper standing over him.
“You will not stand in my way.” He turned his gaze towards Pog. “Nor will you, if you want to continue existing. It has to be done.”
She hesitated, looking from Copper to the Doctor and back again. “Was there not a gentler way of doing this?”
“I am out of patience,” Copper said, rubbing his face with his bare hoof. “I tried words. I tried to explain where I am compared to him, but he did not want to accept it. I am tired, and I just...want to go home. This did not go how I wanted it, nothing how I planned...”
Pog stood in his way for a brief moment, before stepping aside to assist the Doctor. As much as Copper wished for her to comment, or say anything, she remained silent as he moved over to the controls. There was so much in his head now about all of this, and yet it was not enough. It didn't matter, he just needed to make it move through time. Forward, or backwards, it didn't matter. All he had to do was fiddle enough with the controls to make it go somewhere.
Everything jerked, and shuddered and he let out a soft sigh of relief. Now it was done. His timeline would continue, and all the paradox's that had been caused would be fine. He looked at the Doctor. “Is he-” the words caught as suddenly the room began to spin. Everything all at once looked weird, and it was a moment before he realized he was sliding towards the door. “What...” He looked, or tried to look, at Pog, who was standing over the Doctor.
“You are no longer useful,” Pog said harshly, knowing the exact words to say against him.
“Wait, Pog. Tardis, stop this.” He risked a glance back, through the open door, at the swirling storm of colors outside. “Don't do this!” he shouted at her.
“I will continue to exist,” her voice seemed so strange, echoing and reverberating as Copper tried desperately to stop himself.
“Please! I just want to go home!” Shink, he tried to dig the blade into any surface he could, but it could not penetrate. He looked at Pog, and she returned his horrified gaze with one of her own; one of satisfaction.
“Goodbye, Copper Feather.”
“You will regret this!” He screamed. “I will make you regret this!” The pull lessened slightly, though not enough to the point he could fight it any better.
“You do not understand half of what you have done. Nor will you ever.” She struck him in the chest, hard enough that he heard ribs crack. He swing outward with the blade in desperation, for a moment no longer caring for his own safety. The blade dug into her arm, and as she pulled away there was a loud crack .
“I will kill you!” He swung again, but she was out of reach. In one last desperate attempt the save himself he slashed at the doorway, the blade biting deeply into the wood. “You will suffer far greater than I, Pog!” he screamed, desperately trying to get back inside.
But she was blocking the doorway, unaffected by whatever force was attempting to be rid of him. “Your words are as empty and meaningless as you are. This has all gone exactly according to plan.” She slammed down on his leg, causing the blade to pop loose.
Then it was gone. He screamed into the storm of colors around him until he was out of breath. His chest hurt from his broken ribs, his leg hurt from the force of striking her, and her striking it. Colors swam from over his eyes into his head, filling it with soundless noise and a pain like nothing he had ever experienced. How long had he been drifting? He couldn't be sure time existed anymore. He wasn't sure if he existed anymore. Was this a sort of death? One that was perpetual pain and noise? Or had he just ceased to exist and was nothing but a vague consciousness floating around this vibrant hellscape? His thoughts were so muddled it felt like it took forever to complete a sentence in his own head. All the emotions he had had were gone. All the words he had in his head were gone. Everything he had experienced was gone. All that was him was gone. All that there was now was color and pain.
Suddenly he was laying on the ground, gasping for air. Had he been breathing for the last eternity? Thankfully his body remembered how to breath, because he was quite sure that he had forgotten. Slowly the fuzz in his head faded away to a dull throbbing. He did his best to roll onto his back, and stare up at the clear blue sky between leaves. It was beautiful. His sky had been gray and bleak for so long... Here the sun shone bright, warming his chest. He looked off to the side, trying to get some bearing of where he was, though he really didn't care. He could see trees, a sparse forest of some sort where there were large spans between.
His body felt hot and tingly from the light. The pain of his chest barely registered, yet he could feel every blade of grass on his back. Over his body rolled a cool breeze, carrying the scent of flowers. It was spring, just after the rainy portion where it starts to shift more to the summer season. It was the most peaceful he had ever felt. The numbness had been replaced by a softness that was beyond somehow beyond his comprehension. He could not put it into words, despite putting in the little effort that he could manage. “Am I dying?” he muttered softly. It sure felt like he was dying. It was the kind of dying they described in books, or the kind you wished upon loved ones. The kind where the pain fades away and all that's left are the beautiful things. The only thing it was missing was the 'surrounded by loved ones' cliché...
Of course, all he could think of was how it was too good of a death for somepony like himself. He deserved a more extreme death. A brutal one, though he hoped quick. Not this slow fade out in comfort. Yet here he was, feeling it all fade away. His eyes feeling heavy, making him think about when the last time he had slept. But sleep meant death, he was sure of it. If he let himself succumb to the comfort he would not get up. He would never get up. But why should he?
Slowly he became aware of a noise of something. It took him a moment to register the soft crunching of something approaching. Yet there was something off...as though it were walking through something. It made him think back to when he walked through Chrysalis' garden, though it was...familiar. He knew what they were walking through, but could not put a hoof to it. His mind wandered until it grasped what it must be. “And so, death comes to claim me once again...” he muttered.
The noise grew slowly louder, and he became aware of other steps, softer ones. The kind of steps he would expect to hear walking through such a place. They were so close, but Copper could not see them. His eyes had closed, despite his best efforts. “Another dead one, my lady.”
“Such a shame...” the voice he heard was soft, but cold, and so familiar. “He appears to have suffered quite a lot.”
The voice filled him with a strange strength, one that he could not explain. He forced his eyes open, but all he could see was shapes and blobs of things. “It's rude to assume somepony is dead just because they are unconscious,” his tone was quite a lot more condescending than he had intended.
“Strike my hoof, he's alive,” some other pony whispered harshly.
“Barely,” Copper responded, turning his head slowly to look at the sky through the leaves.
The crunching hoof steps slowly approached. “My lady, be careful. We do not know if it is some sort of trap.”
“He has a weapon,” somepony whispered harshly. He realized that he had not retracted the blade. There was a general murmuring among what Copper realized must be a rather large group of ponies.
“Who would give something like him a weapon?”
“Maybe he stole it?”
“I've never seen a weapon like that”
Words cascaded around him, until suddenly the light was blocked out, and he saw a pony over him. “Where does it hurt?” she said softly, which silenced everypony.
He stared at her, unable for the moment to comprehend what was going on. “Mo-” the word caught in his throat and he closed his eyes, trying to ignore the impossibility of what he had just seen and fight back tears at the same time. “My ribs...are broken...” he muttered.
There was a cool sensation that washed over him, it was so odd how the touch of her magic seemed so familiar...his mind wandered away for a brief moment, back to something Celestia had said. When he opened his eyes, he stared up into those shifting snowflake eyes. “The first unicorn...” he mumbled, and her eyes went from his chest to his, locking him in her stare. Or at least, she tried. He gave her a soft smile before closing his eyes. The blade returned with a shnikt before he put a hoof over his face. He still felt sore, but his ribs weren't broken now. “Thank you.”
There was a silence that rolled in, a soft silence as Copper settled back in to the sun warming his chest, and the cool breeze. He felt surprisingly content, something that he rarely got to feel. She had brought a familiar scent with her, one of crisp snow, and it was oddly comforting. “You are content to lay here and die?” she said softly as she laid down beside him.
“It seems the best course of action at this point...” He did not open his eyes to look at her, despite the odd feeling that he should.
“So young to be giving up so easily...”
He gave a harsh laugh, looking at her. She actually flinched at his gaze, which had not been his intent. “Hardship and struggle is the name of this game we call life.”
“Everyone has struggles, little one.” Of course she would see him as a child... “But that does not-”
The look he gave her actually caused her to choke on her words. Though it was not one of hostility, or anger. It was one of misery. He could not stop the gentle roll of tears down his cheeks as he stared up at the sky. “I want to die... I can't keep going... I can't do this anymore... Some other pony can take this weight, somepony with a stronger back...” He was sobbing now, shaking and whimpering as he curled up away from her.
Gently she placed a hoof on his back, rubbing it softly. “Are you hungry?” she said softly.
“Mhm...” he managed through choking sobs.
It did not take long for food to be brought to him, the large group of ponies doing their best to comfort him. Though the only one to calm him in any manner was the Snow Queen. She had calmed him enough so that he could eat, though he had given himself the hiccups from crying so hard.
She did not leave his side and he watched in a sort of trance as the ponies set up their camp. It was not yet dark when he put his head down and tried to sleep, the tears not letting up, even in his sleep.
~
It was dark when he awoke. He wasn't sure what had woken him, but a few hooves away lay his mother, her chest rising slowly with the soft breaths of sleep. Not far away on the other side of Copper there was a campfire, where several ponies were having a conversation in low voices. “Things are getting worse if that's the kind of thing they do to foals.” They were talking about him?
“Poor thing...nopony deserves the amount of abuse he's probably gone through...”
“Do you think it was his parents that did it?”
“They'd have to be awful sort to do that to their own.”
“Better than killing him. Lots of ponies are doing that.”
“We're all lucky to have survived this long.”
“First horns, now wings...what's next? Flippers?”
There was a sort of murmured laughter from some of the ponies.
“But there's no denying that it's getting worse. Just wish we could have an explanation...”
“Magical anomalies,” Copper said as he moved into the circle, trying to get warm by the fire. It had been the cold that had woken him. “An inflow of magic has caused a mutation within ponies to try and make use of it.” They were all staring at him. “Our bodies are tainted and changed by magic, and you get unicorns, and pegasi, as well as a sturdier base species re-enforced by magic.” He had read a lot of magical theories on the origin of the three types of ponies.
There were a lot of confused stares from the crowd of ponies, which Copper noticed were all unicorns with a few pegasus mixed in.
“To put it simply, there's too much magic in the world and it's changing things.”
“Well, I don't know about all that-”
“I think the kids on to something,” one of the unicorns to his left said. “Makes more sense than anything else I've heard.”
“I still say it's some kinda curse.”
“If that's true, than what put it on us, eh? And why? What did we ever do to it to deserve this?”
There was a general muttering.
“How are you feeling?” a rather scrawny green pegasus beside Copper asked softly.
“Better...” he mumbled, his eyes felt swollen and puffy and he was sure they were probably very red.
“Good. I'm Poplar, do you have a name?”
He thought that was an odd way to word that question. “Copper. Because of the color of my feathers.”
She smiled at him. “It's good you have a name. Lots don't get that lucky, but then again it means we get to pick our own.” Her smile widened.
Copper couldn't gather the strength or energy to return the smile at all. He just looked at her brown eyes, trying to think of what to say.
But thankfully, she was better at conversations than he was. “What happened to your wing?”
“Someone didn't like how I flew.” He figured a vague answer was better than no answer.
She nodded. “Me too.” She turned slightly and flexed out her wings into the light, and he saw how most of her feathers had been pulled out. His eyes wandered across the scars covering her back...like somepony had taken a knife and just...started hacking. “A couple of us have been put through this, but...nopony is actually missing a wing, like you.”
He looked around the fire, noticing how some of the unicorns had cracked horns. “The world is cruel...” he muttered.
“Not really,” Poplar said, still smiling at him. “Just some of the ponies in it.”
“Yeah, and those ponies have all the control they could ever want with that damn flying fortress.”
Copper looked at the gray pony, seeing his cracked horn. “Flying fortress?”
“Have you been living under a rock?” Somepony said, though they were immediately scolded by another nearby pony.
“He's talking about the Bastille. Back when you didn't need a horn to use magic, they built a city in the sky. That was a couple hundred years ago...”
Copper looked at him a moment, his brow winkling. “I...don't know about it.”
“For somepony so smart, you don't seem to know a lot about the world.”
Some ponies chuckled, while others scolded.
But he continued, “Supposedly it united the ponies. Until some of them started being born with horns, and regular ponies lost their ability to use magic. But they were stronger, and tougher...so they made slaves of the unicorns using what little magic they had left.”
“The Shattering,” Copper mumbled.
The pony nodded. “Any unicorn that disobeyed...well, take a look at some of our horns and you can see.” He sighed softly, shaking his head. “And then about fifty years ago, ponies started being born with wings. They did the same thing, but when they disobeyed...” His eyes went to Poplar.
“They make an example out of you,” she said softly, still smiling, though Copper could tell it was a bit forced.
Copper rubbed his face, taking a deep breath. The pony cleared his throat, “I was sure you were from there, tossed like the rest of us.” Copper tilted his head slightly. “Your leg. That looks like something you woulda gotten from there.”
All eyes were drawn to his metal leg that shined in the firelight, somehow it seemed so large... “No...I have never even heard of the Bastille...” He turned and took a few steps away, laying back down. But I know everything about it...
Author's Note
(Last Edit: 6/26/19)
Copper lurched awake, nearly striking the pony standing over him, catching himself mid swing. He stared at the shifting snowflakes a brief moment before lowering his hoof. However, she did not seem to be the least bit concerned with his reaction. “You are wired to fight at all times...even in sleep...” she said softly.
“It's how I've stayed alive,” he mumbled, feeling a bit sheepish. She had loomed over him as he was sleeping; his instincts had kicked in.
She was looking at him, examining him in a way that actually made him feel uncomfortable. “So many wounds...old and new alike.” She gently brushed the metal covering his leg. “There is not an inch of your body that has not been bruised...not a bone that has not been broken...so much blood spilled...”
He remained silent, simply listening to the sound of her voice as he watched ponies pack up their camp.
“You have the aura of something that doesn't belong...something lost.” She looked him up and down. “And some of these wounds you have...I cannot even imagine what sort of thing made them.” She lifted his head, turning it so that he faced her. “What is it that holds you together?”
“Stubbornness, mostly,” he said softly, looking at her and relishing such a familiar sight.
She actually smiled a bit. “And the way you gaze at me...nopony has ever looked at me the way you do.”
He pulled away from her. “Don't put too much thought into it.”
“And why not?” She moved to be in front of him as he tried to turn away. “I don't understand it. It's not love, I have seen that look before. It is one that...I don't want to end. It fills me with a feeling that I have never had before.”
Copper let out a heavy sigh, looking at the ground as he tried to order his thoughts. “It is...” he paused as he sought the correct words. He thought about lying, weaving some sort of story of an explanation. “Adoration,” he said as he studied her expression. “As a child has...” He sighed softly. “I could tell you things that I fear you would not understand.” He could feel his heart beating harder the longer he looked at her.
She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against his, her horn disappearing into his mane. “When I look at you...I feel so...strange.” Her eyes closed. “As if I know you, as if you fill a void that I did not realize existed... Is that something that I would not understand?”
“I am certain that is part of it...”
“At first, I thought it was love...or perhaps it is. A sort that I don't understand...” Her eyes opened, staring into his eyes.
“I am not one to ask about love. I am inexperienced in those things.”
“Yet you do have ponies that you love and care for.” She pulled away from him, standing at a more comfortable distance. He couldn't help but notice how much taller she was than him...
“I do. Ponies I hope to get back to. But as time goes by...I am slowly beginning to accept that that wont happen.” He rubbed his face.
“Well, I am sure that with your stubbornness, you can achieve anything.”
He smiled and closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath. “Thank you, mother.”
There was silence until he realized what he had just said, opening his eyes to look at her. She was hiding a rather large smile behind her hoof. “Oh my, well that would explain quite a bit.”
Copper felt his face turn red. “Sorry...I...it just slipped out,” he said as he turned away.
“There's quite a lot you aren't telling me. The way you speak to me...with underlying respect, but with comfort. We have some sort of history, do we not?”
He sighed, looking up at the sky. “We will.”
“Ah, now things make much more sense...you are from quite far away indeed...”
“Probably farther than you are thinking.” She arched a brow at him. “I don't know where, or when, this is...but it is far from my era.”
“But I still exist?”
He hesitated, and he really wished that he hadn't when he saw her expression. “You do...but time wears you down.” He looked at her. “And yet...you look exactly the same... Still as captivating as the first time I saw you.”
She smiled slightly. “I am unsure what to do with the knowledge I will continue to live so long... Other unicorns live normal lives it seems.”
“It is...a curse, or blessing, depending on how you look at it.” He looked at her as she stared at the group of working ponies. “Part of me is sorry that I'm responsible for giving you this knowledge, but it makes things much less awkward.”
“Awkward?” she mused. “Yes, it does clear up a lot of things and explain this odd feeling...but it raises more questions.”
“I don't have the answers,” he said quickly as he looked at the ponies around, their interaction had apparently gone unnoticed.
“You have some.” She sighed softly. “I know it is not wise to ask questions of my future. That is something fables have told of for a long time. But what I want to know...what I most want is to know you.”
He looked at her and she smiled softly at him. “Me?”
“Yes, you. If you are my child-”
“Adopted,” he felt the need to specify.
She continued to smile. “Still...my child.” That made Copper feel better than he could have ever imagined it would. It surprised him how much such simple words could simply brush away so much of the pain he felt; a swelling of warmth inside him that eased all his pain and worries. “And I just wish to know, what you plan to do now.”
Copper looked at her a moment and then stared up at the sky. “I am not sure... The easiest point would be to find the Doctor and try to get him to take me home. But even that seems impossible...”
“Why is that?” She stood up, and Copper suddenly realized that the group was beginning to move.
“I do not know where he is. Nor how to go about finding him, short of causing some universe ending catastrophe...” He looked at his hooves touching the grass. “And he probably would not help me after what just happened between us.”
She nodded slowly. “That does sound quite a difficult task... Do you have any other ideas?”
He paused to think for a moment and then shook his head. “Not yet.”
She gave him a rather large smile. “I'm sure you'll think of something. After all, if you got here, you can go anywhere. In the meantime, you are more than welcome to stay with me, so that I may know you better.” Ahead there was some shouting that drew her attention. “You'll have to excuse me...there are quite a number of things I must take care of.”
“Of course,” he said softly, giving her a slight bow before she trotted off.
There were quite a lot of eyes on him as he walked, though the few attempts he made to help, to either pull or carry something, were brushed off as they seemingly wanted nothing to do with him. Or more so they would prefer that he rest and save his strength, despite him saying that he was perfectly fine. Despite saying that, he was actually having trouble walking, his plated arm felt...wrong, but he couldn't put a hoof on what exactly was wrong with it. When he finally settled in to the fact that all they expected of him at this point was to walk and keep up, he let his mind wander. There had to be options. Some angle to work. Some sort of avenue that he had not thought of yet... “So.”
He looked up, seeing the pony that he had spoken to last night. “Good morning, Poplar.”
“Mhm.” She was giving him quite a scrutinizing look, like she was trying to figure out the best way to scold him. Though her face looked far too young to be making such an expression.
“What?” he said with a bit of a chuckle, unable help himself.
“Getting good friends with our Lady, hm?”
His brow furrowed a bit. “Yes?” he said slowly.
“Yanno, a lot of colts try and do that when they first see her, but she's really warming up to you.”
Copper had the feeling he was being accused of something. “Well...we have somewhat of a history.” Even if it's only one sided at the moment.
“Oh reeeaaally?” she said, leaning in and looking Copper up and down, a frown on her face the entire time.
He stared at her a moment before he decided to be blunt to end this odd interrogation she was giving. “She's my mother.”
Poplar stopped, though Copper continued to walk, keeping pace with the rest of the group. It was several minutes before she returned and practically tackled him. “What?!” she screamed, which caused every pony around to turn to see what the commotion was about.
“What?”
“She's your mother?” she whispered harshly, as if it was some sort of conspiracy.
“Yes.”
Again Poplar stopped walking, and again it was several minutes before she was beside him again. “But...how? ”
Copper frowned at her. “Surely someone has explained to you how that sort of thing works.”
Her face turned bright red. “Not that! I know that part!” She gave him a push and looked quite surprised when he didn't even budge.
“I'm confused as to what you're asking,” he said with a bit of a smirk. Poplar was a friendly pony and it was nice to have a friend.
“I am asking, how is she your mother?” she said as she gave him another shove, a bit harder, but still got no movement out of the action. “What the buck, you are like trying to push over a tree.”
“Thank you, now please stop.” She was now actively trying to push him over.
“Seriously, how are you- no, wait. Answer my question.” Apparently she was easily distracted.
“I don't understand what you're confused about,” Copper said, mostly to frustrate her, as he knew quite well what she was asking.
“How is somepony like that your mother?” Despite the words she used, Copper knew what she meant by her tone. Though she realized immediately how it must sound. “I-I mean, nopony has ever talked about her having a foal, or even really having a colt friend...”
“Well, she is my adoptive mother.”
“So, she is not your mother.” Poplar said slowly, as if putting together a huge puzzle.
“She is. But she has not been for all of my life. It happened a long time ago.” Well at least it was a long time ago for Copper, so he wasn't exactly lying.
“And you just...happened to run into her again?” she said quite skeptical.
He sighed rather heavily, shaking his head. “Look, just ask her yourself if you don't believe me.” He had not even finished speaking before she had ran off towards her. Somewhere during the 'ask her' part of his sentence.
There was a few minutes as she waited for the opportunity to talk to his mother, as she had quite a number of ponies trying to talk to her at once. When it was finally Poplar's turn, he saw his mother look back at him, smile, and nod as she responded. Poplar shouted, “What?!” again, and several ponies who were within earshot of the conversation looked back at Copper.
It didn't take long after that for Poplar to come running back at him. “Well?” he said as she approached.
“You...I can't believe it. When did it happen? When did she adopt you? Where were you? Why did she adopt you?” There was a shower of questions at him.
“I don't remember,” he said simply. “It was a very long time ago.”
“Pfft. It couldn't have been that long ago, I mean, you look younger than me.”
Suddenly realization hit him all at once. The way everypony looked bigger than him. Why the metal arm felt wrong. It was too big for him. He looked younger than her? She was still a fairly young filly. Was that why they were calling him a foal? Was he a foal? “Is...there are mirror anywhere?”
She stared at him a few seconds. “I think...Grassly has a mirror?” She looked over at a rather large green pony pulling a cart. The two of them headed over. “Hey, Grassly? Can we see your mirror?”
The pony glared at them, but his expression quickly softened after he saw who was asking the question. “Whatcha need a mirror for?”
“It's...been years since I saw myself,” Copper said in as sheepish a voice as he could manage.
Grassly gave a soft grunt. “Ya, alright. Just don't mess with anything else.”
They both nodded and hopped up into the cart. It was easy to find, having been on top to keep it from getting damaged, and Copper slowly pulled off cover. He...was a foal again. No more than a few years older than when he had been damaged. The scars from the train wreck were gone, and only the scar across his nose remained. But apparently the taint of Night still had a hold on him, with slitted pupils and sharp teeth. “Mmm...” He shifted a bit, uncomfortable at his own appearance.
“You okay?” Poplar said softly.
He didn't respond, looking down at the metal arm and shoving on it as hard as he could, pushing and pulling until it popped off. The three scars were still there, but the black cracks up his arm were gone.
“Those...look painful. I thought that metal thing was your leg.”
“No. It's to help me walk. And protect myself.” He realized that technically he no longer needed it to help him walk now that the damage had apparently been reversed. Now he would need to adjust it. That would be annoying. But why had he become so young? Was it from that weird storm that the Tardis went through when it traveled? It had honestly been the first time he had ever seen it and he had no idea what it was or how it worked. Maybe that was it...or maybe this was further influence from Night? He closed his eyes and focused...but she was gone. He had not felt her leave in his dazed state...had she left during the storm, or after?
“Where'd you get it?” She had picked it up.
“I made it.” She made a scoffing noise at him as she picked it up. “Be careful not to trigger the blade. It's harder to retract than extend.”
“You made this?” she said, her voice was thick with skepticism.
“Yes,” he said simply, staring at her. “And if I had the proper tools I could make adjustments.”
“Oh this I gotta see.” She moved up to the front. “Grassly?”
“Hm?” The pony looked back.
“Would it be alright if we used some of your tools? Copper's leg needs maintenance.”
“Oh? You need any help?”
“Nah he's got it. He says he made it himself, so he should be all good,” she said with a large smile.
Grassly gave a hearty chuckle. “Alright. Well, if you need any help, lemme know.”
She came back. “Grassly used to work in a forge, so he's got lotsa tools back here.”
Copper looked around a moment before carefully covering and securing the mirror out of his way and went about gathering tools. Some of which he had no idea what they were, or were crude versions of things that he knew. Once he gathered them all up, he set to work.
First he disassembled it, laying all the parts out onto a tarp so as not to lose anything. He knew the construction by heart, even if he had come up with it in a fever induced epiphany. It had a lot of small parts, as well as large, and he kept them separate so he didn't lose anything in the back of the moving cart.
Second was planning. It didn't need so much internal working now, since it didn't need to function as a brace and leg strengthening tool. It would still cover his entire leg, but he would reinforce the outer portion to give it a stronger shell structure for better protection of himself and it. He would add more weight to the bottom hoof to make striking a more viable and damaging option. The blade would still function the same way, so he could leave the mechanics of that alone. Of all the things he needed to work out, making it adjustable would be the most difficult and time consuming. It didn't help that as he sat and stared at the parts, Poplar kept asking him questions and asking if he needed help, to which he politely refused every time. He spent all the time he was thinking of a design on cleaning every little part and making adjustments to certain parts here and there. There was still some of the slimy red blood like fluid on some of the deeper workings.
When he was finally satisfied he began assembly. He felt a sort of odd satisfaction to watch Poplar go from this unbelieving smug expression to one of disbelief and fascination the longer he worked. It took quite a while and he had quite a few leftover parts when he was done. He decided to leave the extra parts with Grassly as thanks for letting him use his tools. It would be easy to adjust as he grew with simple tools, and if he suddenly became his normal age and size, it would simply pop apart in certain areas to prevent damage to the device or himself.
“Wow...well...uhm...I guess you weren't lying,” Poplar said once he was done and testing out his maneuverability.
“Nope,” he said as he hopped down and moved up towards the front of the cart. “Thank you for letting me use your tools, my legs working a lot better. I left a buncha extra parts that I don't need anymore.”
“You're very welcome. If you need to make anymore adjustments or fixes, feel free to ask.” He gave Copper a rather large, but tired, smile. He was a unicorn with a cracked horn.
“Thank you. I will,” he said before trotting away. The leg felt so much better, like he wasn't even wearing it. The other one had been heavy and purposefully restrictive, but this one was just for defense and offense now and not for slowly repairing the use of his leg.
Poplar moved up quickly to join him, giggling. “Hey, hey. So are you going to tell anyone else you actually have a leg under that metal?”
“Mmm....” He thought about it for a moment. It would be advantageous if they thought that he was missing a limb. They would underestimate him. “Well, I'm not going to deny it. But I don't see why I should tell them?”
She nodded knowingly. “Yes. True. Right. It'll be our little secret,” she said excitedly.
He gave her a bit of a smile and nodded. “Mhm!” Ugh...this is like the last time I met with the Snow Queen ... His eyes wandered forward, looking at the large figure near the front of the group. This sickening flow of youth... Physically he could feel it, but it had not effected him very much mentally. He frowned as he realized that he was going to have to, once again, begin his physical training regimen.
“Are you alright?” Poplar asked, tilting her head to the side.
“Oh. Yeah. Just...thinking about stuff.” Complicated and annoying stuff. He sighed.
“We'll be stopping soon to set up camp,” she said as she walked to the other side of him, looking down at his metal leg with interest.
Apparently he had spent the entire day making the modifications to his leg. “Where are we going?”
She shrugged. “Dunno. Only the Lady knows.”
He had hardly taken his eyes off of his mother as he spoke, just simply enjoying the sight of her. She was something like a constant in the world...he had no idea when or where he was, but anytime after this, she would be there. And she would be powerful. But he wondered how powerful she was now... Would his Shattering be enough to stop her? Or...would it have been? His brow furrowed as he tried to focus. This was when the Shattering was widespread. Could he still have it? Could he learn how to harness it?
“You think a lot,” Poplar said as she tried to push him, but once again he didn't budge. “Seriously, how come you don't move when I shove you?”
“Training,” he said as he pulled his gaze away from his mother. “You would have to actually strike me if you wanted to move me.”
She hesitated.
“I will strike you back,” he warned, or more so threatened, “And though it will not be with the metal, it will hurt.”
“You're mean!” She snapped and then quickly trotted away.
He sighed as the group seemed to be congregating towards each other. They spread out when traveling...but huddled together when resting... He looked around a moment before wandering away from the group. Not terribly far, but just enough to be out of sight. He moved up to a tree, old from the looks of it. He gave the tree an experimental strike with his metal arm, testing it's density. He took a few steps back and tried to strike again with his unarmored limb.
Nothing happened.
Again he let out a heavy sigh. Perhaps the machine had done too thorough of a job and he had truly extracted the Shattering in its entirety? Or had his age regression robbed him of it? Or maybe...there was just so little left that he could not draw on it anymore?
He focused as much of his will as he could muster and struck the air again.
And again.
And again, and again, and again, and again, until he was tired. He had begun mixing in other strikes, not just with the bare arm. He grit his teeth and struck the ground. There was a slight jolt of pain from the impact, but that didn't stop him from continuing to strike at it in frustration. He only stopped when he was too tired to continue, and promptly collapsed onto the freshly pummeled grass.
That had been the plan, right? Extract the Shattering, put it in Pog, have her open the rift, get her in the Tardis, time jump, fix the paradoxes that he had created, and go home. It was that last one that had not gone according to his plan. But he couldn't understand why Pog had betrayed him...was it because Night had used him to torture her? That was illogical...he had not technically done it himself. He spat. “Technically...” Too often did his plans change because of a technicality. Dumb luck and technicalities. It was truly as if he had no will of his own and was just a puppet to the nameless one.
“Copper?” He rolled over slightly to look at his mother as she slowly approached him. “Poplar said you wandered off this direction...”
He tried to get up, but his legs were too shaky to even support his own weight and he gave up rather quickly. “I just wanted some alone time to think...”
“And what are you thinking about?” she said, her tone so gentle and soft that Copper couldn't help but feel better.
“The choices that got me here...” She moved beside him as he spoke, laying down. “I thought that if I made a plan and stuck to it, then everything would turn out alright.” His face scrunched up. “Ugh, I sound so childish.”
She was wearing quite a concerned face as she leaned down and brushed some of the hair out of his face. “But you are a child, dear Copper.”
“Yeah, now .” Her expression turned quizzical. “I'm...well, I don't actually know how old I am now, but early twenties I think.”
She blinked at him several times, unsure if he was joking. “You are...older?”
“A lot older. Ugh.” He managed to force himself up a bit, still laying down but now being able to properly look at her.
“You do not know your age?” she said, still wearing the quizical expression.
“I stopped keeping track. It became a pointless number...” He rubbed his face with part of his leg, trying to not rub dirt on his face as he did so.
“Such a shame.” She shifted a bit and leaned slightly against him. “I lost count quite a long time ago as well...”
He chuckled softly. “Well...I'm fairly certain it's more than twenty.”
She giggled softly and laid her head down onto her forelegs. “You have changed your leg?”
“Ah...I fixed it.” He extended the metal leg out for her to better examine it. “It was too big for my current shape. Rather annoying...but it means that the damage to my leg has been undone.”
“Undone?” Her eyes wandered over the leg.
“A creature known as Madam Raven...wounded me quite severely in a fight we had... I was unprepared for it and inexperienced with using the Shattering at that point, so when I attempted-” he stopped, having noticed her flinch.
“It's...it's alright...you can continue,” she said softly, just wanting to hear him talk.
“When...when I attempted to destroy the spell, part of it still grabbed hold and I nearly lost my leg.” He sighed softly, putting his head down into the grass. “The Shattering has done so many awful things...”
“It has,” she said, her voice still soft.
“I still find it hard to believe the aftermath of it...the way it cracks the horn...” He closed his eyes.
“You speak as though you are very well informed. I have heard from the others on your theories on to why there are unicorns and pegasi.” She had put her head very close to his, whispering so that nopony could overhear them if they were listening. “If I may ask...why can they not use magic anymore once it has been used on them?”
“Their magic becomes unstable,” he began softly, matching her quiet tone. “They can't do anything, not even basic things...the cracks go down into the very roots of their magical essence and breaks it. If their horns were just broken, they would still be able to use some sort of magic. If they had cutie-marks they would probably appear warped and cracked.”
“Cutie-mark?”
He hesitated and then shifted, looking back at his flank. It was still there. “This,” he said, gesturing at it.
“I had assumed that was some sort of odd brand,” she shifted to get a better look at it. “Many ponies have them...”
“It's a physical representation of my talent, what I'm best at. The origin of them is still quite a mystery...at least I don't know it.”
She was still looking at his cutie-mark. “What you're best at...” she muttered.
“Mechanical things,” he explained and lifted his leg, struggling a bit due to his muscles being over exerted. “And I am very glad that I am so good at it, because it is what I love doing.”
Slowly she lifted his hoof up to better examine it. “It's far beyond anything I have ever seen...”
“Or will see, probably, for a very long time. Not including the Bastille.” Again he saw her flinch slightly. “I have studied it's ruins. Much of its technology was lost and completely unrepeatable.”
“Ruins...” she mumbled as she continued her examination.
“Yes, it was-” he stopped, several little lights going off in his head. “I...I know how to get the Doctors attention.”
There was a pause as she looked away from the arm and towards him. “Hm?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I have to destroy the Bastille.”
Author's Note
Oh hey, I'm not dead.
“I...don't understand,” the Snow Queen said softly. “What do you mean...destroy the Bastille?”
“Exactly as it sounds.” He managed to sit up into a correct position, but he still felt weak. “I need some sort of world changing, cataclysmic event. He's always present at those. And it's not like the Bastille is a good thing.”
“B-but...how?” She was at a loss for words.
“Well, I mean, I already know how it crashed in the first place. I've done a lot of research on it and studied it. I was the reason the managed to build its copy, The False God.”
“They...they built a second?”
“Well, not for a very long time. Though, I guess I have no idea when this is in correlation to my time so I wouldn't be able to give an accurate approximation.” It felt like his mind had just shifted into maximum gear.
“But...how?” she repeated.
“Well...I just need to find it, get aboard it, and then crash it. Of course that's just the vague plan, but first step would be to find it...”
She stared at him. “But...I don't understand...that would be...impossible.”
“Exactly!” He exclaims, standing up, his legs still a bit wobbly. “It's the perfect thing. It's a cataclysmic event of preposterous proportions.” He started to pace back and forth. “I already know how it was destroyed...I just have to figure out how to match the appropriate event and location and the paradox engine should be able to fill all the gaps that I miss. Sure a lot of ponies are going to die, but they're already supposed to die in the event anyways, so who cares? I'll finally be able to go home.” He turned his attention towards her.
The smile that had been forming on his face slowly fell back into a neutral expression as he saw the look on her face. Fear. Suddenly he felt very small, to be looked at with such an expression...hurt. “You're going to leave?” she said softly.
He took a few steps away from her. There was an urge to run, to hide from her. A need to get away from that gaze. This wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want this. His legs suddenly buckled and he fell to the ground. She didn't move, even when the tears came. He covered his face under his hooves, not wanting to see that expression anymore. “I wanna go home...” he sobbed. “I just wanna go home...I just want that one thing...and if I have to destroy everything to get it...I will.” This was a familiar feeling. Emotionally breaking.
There was a moment of silence before he felt her pull him to her, embracing him and holding him tightly to her. “So young...and ready to fight the world...” she said, her voice still soft.
“The world started it,” he says, wiping his face and trying to stop the tears. Trying to keep himself together.
Several minutes passed as he pressed against her, enjoying the brief time of comfort. Did she remember him in the future? Is that why she wanted so much to do with him? Thoughts such as that crawled inside his skull as they sat in silence. “I wont stop you,” she said softly. “I don't think I could if I tried...”
“I'd rather you didn't try,” he said rather flatly.
A soft giggle escaped her as she gently stroked his mane. “So much of what you say...I simply don't understand. But it's probably for the better that I don't.”
“I don't know if you'll even remember.” He sat up a bit, but she refused to let him go.
“How could I not? You are my child...then and now.”
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. “I have to go,” he said eventually. If he stayed any longer he wasn't sure if he could actually bring himself to part from her.
“I suppose you must...” she said as he grip loosened on him and he managed to slip away. “You're not going to say goodbye to anypony else?”
He hesitated. “...No. It's best if I don't.” His legs were starting to feel better. “None of them should know me, anyways.”
“Even Poplar?”
“Especially Poplar.” He glanced in the direction of the other ponies who were out of sight before turning away. “Especially Poplar,” he repeated. “She might actually try to come with me.” He shook his head.
She giggled a bit again. “She probably would. She's probably going to try and chase after you once she's learned that you left.”
“Please don't let her.” He stretched his leg a bit, making sure that the leg wasn't having issues.
“She's going to hate you for abandoning her.”
“Good.”
That had apparently caught her off guard. “Good?” she repeated softly.
“Yes. Better for her to hate me than follow me off the edge of the map and get hurt.” He took a deep breath, trying to gather the strength to walk away.
“Do you think she is not strong enough? You would be surprised-”
“You're not going to convince me to take her with me. I know better than anypony how much of a death march I am undertaking is.” He sighed as he finally managed to start walking.
“She's been through so much...”
“I am not about to put her through more,” he snapped, stopping and doing his best to not glare back at her. “If she comes with me, she's going to become like me. Because that's the only way she's going to survive. The path I walk is my way forward, and is coated with more blood than I want to admit. And all that's ahead is more blood, and pain, and suffering. All just to be with the mare that I love, the one that I adore, and what few friends I have.”
“I...just don't want you to be alone.”
“I am alone,” he said as he looked back at her. “I am alone because whatever being that rules and controls this world decided to make me his errand bitch and rips from me every tiny ounce of happiness that I get.”
“You shouldn't be alone,” she said rather firmly.
Firm enough to actually cause Copper to hesitate. “She...shouldn't come with me.”
“I'm not letting you go alone.” She sat up a bit straight, putting a hoof to her chest. “What kind of mother would let her child go off to uncertain death all by themself?”
He hesitated again. His brain was trying to think of some sort of excuse, something to further dissuade taking Poplar along. “Fine,” he said after thinking it over a moment. “She has one chance, that's my condition. If she argues, or attempts to persuade me to not leave, I'm not taking her with me.”
“Good. I shall go and get her.” She stood up and turned around. “You will stay here,” she added, almost glaring at him.
He fidgeted a bit. “Uhm...okay.” He felt like a foal sitting and waiting for a punishment for not listening. Perhaps that was a good way to describe the situation? Though he didn't feel like he necessarily did anything wrong... He let out a heavy sigh as he sat down.
As the minutes passed he sat there like a good little pony, trying to think through a plan. It was one thing to say that he was going to destroy the Bastille, but it was something else entirely to actually do it. First off, it was an immense structure. There was a reason it was called a floating city. There were hundreds, if not thousands of ponies living on it. Most, if not all, were going to be his enemy. He had to assume that every pony on there was against him in some facet or another, either by choice or some sort of stolkholm syndrome. Earth ponies in particular. They wouldn't want their way of life to come to an end. The ones in charge are always the most against change to the status quo.
Yet he would have to uproot it all and literally kill hundreds and throw the world into chaos. And if his memory served him, it didn't fix anything. Nothing would be fixed for so much longer, it would just balance everything out. Thousands of years...maybe tens of thousands. He couldn't even fathom that much time. For a pony who was certain he wouldn't even live to fifty...that amount of time was too much to even thing about.
His attention was suddenly drawn to the two ponies approaching him. Poplar looked concerned, but his mother was smiling as if nothing was wrong. “I'm leaving,” he said, which caused Poplar's concerned look turn to one of anger. “I'm going to destroy the Bastille and go home.” He was not about to sugar coat it at all. “Our Lady is fine with me going, but is concerned that I shouldn't go alone, even though that's how it should be.”
“I'll go get my things,” Poplar said as she turned away and trotted back the way she came.
The Snow Queen laughed. “You see? Even she believes you shouldn't go alone.”
“You told her, didn't you?”
“Mmm perhaps a bit.” He sighed. “She is fond of you. And I think that you two will take good care of each other.”
He stared at her for a few seconds and then shook his head. “She's going to die.”
“She is stronger than you think.”
“Not enough. She may have been through a lot, but she has no way to-” he stopped as he caught her expression and let out a heavy sigh. “No way to aim it. I swore to Princess Celestia that I would never train someone to be like me, though it may have been made in anger and frustration, you are asking quite a lot of me.”
“You are going to be her goal.”
“You're sending her to her death. And if she doesn't die, she's going to be like me, and wish she was dead.”
There was a brief moment of silence as she looked down at him. “She already wishes for that,” she said softly. “Since the moment her parents did that to her, she has wanted death.”
“Betrayal will do that,” he said coldly.
She blinked at him a few times, aghast at his lack of sympathy. “Surely you should be more understanding.”
“Of what? Her parents shredded her wings. You may think it cold but it has nothing to do with me. She is a good child, bright and easily impressionable. She may have her trauma but she is still innocent.”
She was frowning at him, and he was doing his best to not let it get to him. “I would not call a child who was capable of murdering her parents innocent.”
He paused. He was about to say 'Good for her' but figured that may leave the wrong impression. “Innocent in comparison.” He sighed. “Well, since you're so intent on sending her with me, her body count is going to raise more than you probably think.”
“And you think my hooves are so clean?” She leaned towards him. “There is no pony here who has not spilled blood.” Copper sat unimpressed. “I have murdered so many to save myself and those that they oppress. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ponies have-”
“I literally destroyed an entire dimension a few days ago,” he interrupted, staring at her. “You can keep trying to do some sort of weird horn measuring contest but I can assure you, mother, I have you beat.”
There was a few seconds of silence before she laughed, which quite caught Copper off guard. “I can see why I became so fond of you. You just don't back down...do you?”
He took a deep breath, calming himself down. “There are only two ponies that I could not go against, and I'm sorry mother but you are not one of them.”
“And yet you are letting Poplar go along with you,” she sneered.
“That's-” his words faltered, and he eventually simply sighed, looking away from her. “Maybe three...” he muttered.
She moved forward and laid her chin onto his head, smiling as she did. “That's right. You should listen to your mother... Now, you make sure to raise her up right, and kill lots of those bastards that think their better than us, alright?”
“All right...” Perhaps his mother was always broken, just like him?
It took a few minutes before Poplar returned, coming upon the scene of Copper simply enjoying the company of his mother. “Ready.”
Copper looked at her around the Snow Queen, looking at the small saddlebag that she had. “All right. Goodbye, mother.”
She pulled away and smiled down at him. “Farewell, my child.” She placed a gentle kiss upon his forehead before stepping away. “Be sure to watch out for him,” she said to Poplar as she passed.
He watched her go until he couldn't see her anymore amongst the trees. His attention then turned to Poplar. “So, how much did she tell you?” He stood up, turning away from the group and began walking.
Poplar was quick to follow. “Not much. She just said that you were leaving, and wanted me to go with you...and a few things I didn't understand...” She paused, “But destroying the Bastille...can it even be done?”
“It can, because it has been done.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “In for a bit...” he muttered. “I have seen it's wreckage. Traveled it's ruined halls.”
“You're gonna have to give me a better explanation than that, cus I don't get what you're saying at all.”
“All right. Let's try taking a few steps back and explain it better.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She was about the same height as him. “When you look at me, what do you see?”
Her brow furrowed as she looked at him. “A...uhm...young pegasus?”
“More specifically?”
“A gray-ish blue pegasus foal, light brown mane, a couple years younger than me? With a weird metal leg, and a scar across the muzzle?” She seemed to not understand what he was getting at. “Our Lady said that there was much more to you than you looked, but I don't understand.”
“Of course you wouldn't. I wouldn't expect you to. The ability to gauge strength and skill by a stance and look takes years.” He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “My name is Copper Feather, though that means nothing in this era, when I am from my name is known fairly well outside of the land that will be Equestria.” He could already see the confusion on his face. “Although I look like a foal, I am actually in my mid-twenties. Though some would say I'm in my thirties, I honestly don't know.”
“You've lost me.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “I'm not from here. I'm not from this time.”
“Time...so you are...from the future?”
“Basically.” She didn't look convinced. “It's how I know so much, such as the reason for the different types of ponies, or how I know our Lady. And how I know how to destroy the Bastille.”
There was a moment of pause as the two of them walked. “Are you sure it can be done?”
“I have seen what's left of it from when I come from.” I bet the Doctor is good at explaining this to people...
“That's all...really hard to believe.”
He sighed a bit, looking at the trees around them. “You asked me how you weren't able to push me over. It's about having a strong foundation and a strong stance. But because I have regressed to such a young age I am lacking quite a bit of foundation. I thankfully have something to build on, but if it had been earlier I would have had to start over from scratch. Starting tomorrow I am going to begin my Regimen again.” There was a heavy disdain in his voice. He was not looking forward to subjecting himself to all of that once again.
She let the silence go for a bit, soaking in all the information that had just been shoved onto her. “What exactly is your regimen?”
“It involves toughening the body, increasing stamina, numbing pain responses and increasing reaction time. It also had a lot of mental exercises but I don't need those, since it's only my physical body has regressed.”
“That...sounds pretty rough.”
“It is. When I first started, I thought I was going to die.” He looked at her. “And while I don't expect you to do all of it, if you don't keep up, you're going to be left behind.”
She stared at him. “Well, as you said earlier, in for a bit?”
Copper couldn't help but laugh. “Yes. I swore to never train anypony to be like me, but...well, let's see if it's even possible.”
~
“It's a bit simple overall, but it's not going to be pleasant,” Copper said, standing at the top of a hill. “We walk for one hour, run for an hour, walk for one, run for another, walk for two, run for another hour, then walk for the rest of the day. Any hill you come to, you simply throw yourself down it. Hit any branches you come across with your wings. And we will slowly ramp up how much running we do, and other difficulties as time passes.”
“And...how long do we do all that?” Poplar said, already out of breath from climbing up the hill.
“A few years. We eat and drink when walking, just any grass or leaves or stream that you can snag on the way. Don't drink from any standing water, no matter how thirsty you are.”
“So we just go till we...break?”
“Yes. Finally, we alternate days. So we will rest every other day. One day of Regimen, one day of rest.”
“And you...did this?”
“For five years, yes. The me right now has about...barely a year, I think.” He flexes his wing a bit. “The off days are when I would read and study. But we can skip a lot of that...the vast majority of it will not be useful to you.”
“That...I don't know if I can handle all that...”
“Oh it gets worse. After a year, we'll start throwing in combat practice. Normally I would be starting that around now...I may have already started it...I'm really not sure exactly to when my body reverted.”
“Makes my head hurt...”
“You're head isn't going to be the part that hurts. You're going to be battered, bruised, tired and miserable for the next few years.” He straightened up a bit. “And so will I.”
“...Why would you put yourself through all that?”
He sighed, feeling himself deflate a bit. “Why indeed.” He slowed a bit. “Because I needed to be something impossible for the one I adore.”
“The pony you...adored?” She paused. “Our Lady?”
He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “No. Although I love our Lady...and I may do what I have done for her, and in a way I suppose I am... No, it is for somepony who truly shines like the sun. I wonder when she will come into existence...”
“And is she's the one you're trying to get back to?”
“One of them. I...” he stared blankly for a few seconds into the distance before he chuckled, shaking his head. “The pony I love, my...well she is my fiance, I think?” His brow furrowed slightly. “She is going to be very, very upset when I get back...”
“...You really don't seem like the type to get married,” Poplar said as she looked at him.
He stopped walking, blinking a few times. “That's...very rude,” he said as he looked over at her. She had a bit of a smirk on her face.
She giggled. “Not my fault you're so unlikable.”
“Wow. So rude,” he said with a bit of a chuckle. “Yet you're so desperate to follow me.”
“It is a request from our Lady, of course I have to go.”
“Well you're very much going to regret it,” he gestured to the hill with a bit of a smirk on his face. “Let's begin.”
“W-wait. We're starting now?” She looked down the hill. It wasn't terribly steep, but it did go for quite a long ways down.
“Of course. The sooner we begin, the sooner we finish.” With that, he lept forward, and allowed himself to tumble down the hill. No matter how many times he had done this, he still hated it.
~
Poplar had lost all recognition of time. It was nothing but days of running, tumbling, branches, resting, more running. There was a glaze over her eyes, the kind where nothing matters anymore and one has given up on thinking. Today she had some brain power as her gaze slowly wandered over to Copper, who was sitting a few hooves away, chewing on grass much like she was. But he looked fine? She had so many cuts and bruises from head to hoof, but he just looked a bit dirty, like he had been rolling down hills much like her. Yet he had nowhere near as many scratches as she did.
She had expected it to be difficult. Expected it to be brutal. Expected it to be horrible. But it was beyond anything she had expected. They never talked during training days, they couldn't. But even when they had time on their rest days, she was too worn out to talk. Everything hurt. What she could comprehend as the first few months were the worst. And he had told her he was taking it easy on her. How was that even possible?
At the moment she was trying to decide if she hated Copper, or her Lady more. At least Copper had warned her how painfully difficult it would be if she went with him. He had tried to dissuade her from going, but she refused to listen. Yet she didn't even have the energy to regret her decision. He did this for five years?
Copper looked over at Poplar, who appeared to be attempting to glare at him. He had definitely misjudged how long ago he had started his training. He wasn't even sure if he had started his training at all, but it had served to at least allow Poplar to keep up. Though it also meant that it was going to take longer. To make matters worse, there had been no sign of the Bastille, or any other sign of ponies for that matter. He wondered how far the group of ponies had traveled.
“Combat,” he said slowly. He decided that it was about time, as it had been a little over a year now.
“What?” Poplar's consciousness returned from whatever far corner it had been hiding itself in.
“We're going to start to teach you how to fight.”
“Fight...” Apparently it had become difficult for her to form more than one word sentences.
“Yes, fight. Tomorrow is a rest day, so we are going to begin tonight.”
“Rest.”
“No. Get up.”
“No.”
He sighed softly as he got up, stretching. “If you don't get up, you're going to regret it.”
It took her a moment before she managed to get up. She felt so tired and sore.
“All right. Now, try and hit me.”
She stared blankly at him.
“It's fine, you wont be able to hit me, let alone hurt me.” She shifted towards him, raised her hoof, and missed entirely, hitting the ground as she lost her balance. He stared at her. “All right.” He sat back down. Maybe he had been impatient, and was pushing too hard. “Then we will rest.”
She made a soft whimpering sound, before taking a bite of some grass she had fallen next to.
For Copper, this was hardly anything. Of course he was tired, but he was used to that. He was in pain, but he was used to that. He was hungry, but he was used to that. Poplar was not. His eyes wandered over the scars on her back; that was probably the most painful thing Poplar had ever gone through, but Copper's Regimen was probably close to it. The entire process was meant to be brutal, and simply get worse as time went on. Then there was the fact he hadn't been able to go as rough as he had hoped, because there's no one to heal his body.
Several delays had come up as well, once when Poplar had broken a wing hitting a particularly hard branch. Or when she had twisted an ankle. Or when she had hit a rock on her way down a hill that had left a rather nasty cut on her shoulder. Or when she had caught a cold after they had been running through the rain all day. Copper had suffered a few fractures himself, but she had had it rougher as far as the abuse of their bodies.
“I wonder if I should feel bad putting a young mare through this,” he mumbled, watching her slowly chew grass. “Though I guess is it even something that any foal should go through? To be honest I never thought about it.”
Her eyes stared vaguely in his direction.
“I wonder if I had that look, too,” he says, laying down. Her eyes tried to follow him. “A shame that you don't have someone better to look at. It was the Princess who helped drive me forward. Just the sight of her gave me the strength to keep going.” He sighed softly, closing his eyes. “The amount that I kept hidden from her...I wonder how much of it she was truly unaware of?”
“Is she beautiful?”
“Mmm...incomprehensibly so. Like watching the sunrise...or a sunset...but more.” He took in a slow breath.
“Want to see her...” she said softly.
“Maybe...” It had been something that had been on his mind. If she actually did his Regimen, he couldn't leave her here.
“Don't want to be here...” Her voice wavered.
His eyes opened and he watched as she cried.
“Everything is so much...better where you're from,” she sobbed softly. He had talked quite a lot with her of his era. It had been his attempt to distract the both of them with stories of things that are better.
It was so hard to watch a pony cry. It was always something he struggled with internally, though he never let it show. “All right. I doubt I could leave you here.” He closed his eyes, not wanting to see her cry.
Copper waited until he could no longer hear her sobbing before he opened his eyes again, only to find that it appeared that she had fallen asleep. He had only almost fallen asleep himself before he heard her again. “Your mare?”
It caught him off guard a bit to hear her referred to as his mare, he had not ever really thought about it in that manner. “She is indescribable.”
One of her eyes cracked open to look at him. “You're bad at that.”
“I am. Romantic things were not something I ever studied. And she would agree.” He smiled a bit. “But the feeling I get whenever I look at her...I struggle to keep my thoughts straight. I want to do everything I can just to make her happy...I feel desperate for her approval.”
“Obsessed,” she says with a bit of a smile.
“Oh I am,” he says with a bit of a chuckle. “The things I have done, and what more I am going to do just to get back to her...obsessed doesn't feel like strong enough of a word.”