Five minutes before Darkness
"Do you regret it?" Foresight asked the mare.
The mare looked into the barrel of his gun with her milky, blind eyes, and frowned. "That depends, I guess," she said. "Are you going to shoot me?"
"That depends," Foresight replies. "Do you regret what you did?"
"Oh. Well. That's a bit of a paradox, then. If all of this was just to end up dead, then yes, I certainly do regret it. I hoped to find some sort of... revelation. Something new. Something unpredictable. But if it just ends with my death? No, that's just stupid. I just followed the path, you see. The path to the Darkness. I'm sure you know what I mean."
Foresight nodded. "I... suppose I do. You gave me quite the workout. It's been a long time since I had to resort to old-fashioned detective work."
"So... now what? If you don't kill me, I'm not sorry, since I got exactly what I wanted out of this. I'd do it all over again. If you do kill me, I am sorry, since it would all be for nothing. And you'll only kill me if I'm unrepentant, is that it?"
"Well. To be fair, the client just wants you dead."
"We wouldn't be talking if that's what you wanted."
"All right. Let's do this differently then. If I don't kill you, will you do it again?"
"You know I can't. That's the whole point. That's why we arrived here; so I would no longer be able to." She smiled. "As long as you're with me."
"So. Just curious. What do you see right now?" Foresight asked.
"Darkness. Well, no. I see the path up to the point where I convince you to use your ability. After that... darkness. I expect I'll see something else once you actually use it."
* * *
One week before Darkness
Foresight sat down on the chair that was offered to him and looked as the slightly sleazy-looking casino boss fiddled with the terminal on his desk. Jangle, he'd said his name was. Foresight didn't really care; he wasn't good with names. But a job for a casino boss promised to have a lot of potential cash, and he had used his ability in advance to make sure it wasn't any kind of trap.
Finally, Jangle turned the monitor towards Foresight. "That's the target," the stallion said, nodding at the video frame frozen on the monitor. Said target seemed to be a rather fair-looking mare, about twenty years old, with oddly white eyes. "Strangest con artist I ever saw, but I know she cheated. Check this."
He pressed a button on the terminal to let the video feed play. It switched to different cameras as it followed the mare around the casino grounds. To say she was acting peculiar was putting it lightly; she galloped towards one specific slot machine right after a previous casino-goer was done with it, and with incredibly precise movements she put a single chip into it and pulled the lever. Then the bout of mania just ended, and the mare just sat there with a slightly bored look on her face, seemingly looking around the casino. She wasn't the least bit surprised, and in fact didn't even bother to turn around right away, when the machine behind her started spitting out chips, loudly declaring she'd won the jackpot. The same scenario repeated with a couple of completely different machines before Jangle stopped the video.
"And then," he said, "just as me and the boys were about to confront her, she was gone. Boom. Slipped out, collected her winnings, off into the night. She knew exactly when to stop. Nopony can possibly plan something like that."
Foresight nodded. "All right. Yeah. That does sound like it could be like my... specialty." He turned to Jangle. "Except, y'know... she's not a unicorn."
"You think you're the first hitman we sent after her?" Jangle grumbled. "Hell no. Last guy was a sniper. Could shoot a gopher through the head from two miles away. There was no way she coulda seen him coming... and yet she did. He told me she'd stepped out of the way exactly as he bit the trigger." He shook his head, exasperated. "He was so baffled he immediately looked through his scope again, and he fricking saw the bullet impact right next to her. And then she looked back, straight at him, and waved. Waved, dammit! Ponies can't do that shit. She's some kind of psychic. Like, not like you, pal. She's the real deal. No frickin' magic tricks. All psychic, all the damn time!"
"Huh," Foresight said. "So how am I supposed to do anything against that?"
"Well, see, me 'n' the boys got thinking. Two psychics can't possibly predict each other. You'd get too many possibilities; it'd be madness. So if you use your power on her..."
"...my head might explode," Foresight said dryly.
"Oh, come on. That's just a worst case scenario."
"Yeah, see, I've never met anypony with anything even slightly like my ability. So that did get me thinking... what if headsplodiness is exactly the reason for that?"
"How'd you ever become a bounty hunter with a shitty weak mindset like that? This is about pride, Foresight, not about money. I got loadsa money, and I'll give you plenty more than you'd even get away with by using your ability in there." He nodded at the terminal still showing a still image of the mare in the casino. "Ten thou, up front, if you just try it."
Foresight frowned. "All right. You got my attention." He looked around the room, then back at Jangle. "So... here, now?"
Jangle nodded. "Here, now."
"All righty, then." Foresight's horn lit up, casting a blue glow into the dimly lit office. The glow intensified until it released in a flash. He blinked, with a surprised look on his face.
"Well?" Jangle asked.
Foresight nodded. "Yeah, guess you were on to something." He nodded at the monitor. "I concentrated on her, tried to see her future, and... nothing. Just darkness."
"And, it works, from just an image like that?" Jangle asked.
"It should. Clearly didn't work now. So, since you had her tracked before... seems I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way. What information do you have?"
* * *
One day before Darkness
Foresight looked out the window of the shabby hotel room he'd booked. His target was right there, in the room right across the street from him. The past week he'd managed to track her down, and so far nothing seemed to indicate she knew he was there. He'd used his ability frequently, despite it showing him nothing but darkness; he knew he had to be blocking her permanent ability with it, somehow. So far, it seemed to have been working, anyway.
He wasn't the kind to just shoot from here, though. Nothing he'd seen had given any indication she was ever armed. She relied on her clairvoyance to keep her safe. Strangely, as he'd been observing her, this hadn't changed one bit. Not only had she never given any indication she knew he was there, but she'd actually been awfully chipper lately. He wondered whether his ability just caused a blind spot in her ability, rather than a noticeable black veil. In some dark corner of his mind he also couldn't help wonder if, given her vastly more powerful ability, she simply knew all along, and he was just being played by her.
He pushed that thought back into the dark corner where it belonged and looked at the papers spread out on the desk. "All right. So what do we have, then?"
The first thing he got was a photo of his target. To his surprise, the white sheen he'd seen in her eyes on the casino cameras turned out to be a sign of obvious blindness. Ponies around her had quickly noticed she barely bothered to keep her eyes open, and when she did, she never focused on anything. Given her apparently complete clairvoyance this was probably an utterly moot point, but for identification purposes it was still useful information.
Next were the interviews he'd penned down. He wasn't really used to running cases like this; usually, his ability was enough to track down any target. But that didn't mean he'd give up; after all, he was probably the only pony in the world who could pull it off. That made him feel strangely conflicted; to hunt down the only person in the world who could possibly relate to him...
He pushed that thought into another dark corner of his mind and focused back on the papers. They'd given him a name: Yellow Road. Not too surprising, given that her cutie mark was a yellow brick road, but still, even if he couldn't give a flying fart about the names of clients, those of targets were a whole different deal. He glanced out the window again, to the inn across the street where she was staying. It wouldn't even matter if she looked out the window; besides her ability, she was blind.
As he'd done several times every day now, he charged up his horn, and let the Darkness engulf him... and, hopefully, her too.
* * *
Ten minutes before Darkness
Foresight concentrated his magic, and his horn flared up one last time. There. Now he was sure she wouldn't see him coming.
He levitated his revolver out of his holster and kicked down the door. He couldn't help but feel relieved when he saw Yellow Road sitting on her bed; she hadn't slipped out.
"You got nowhere to run, Yellow Road. I was sent by, uh, that casino boss guy. Name escapes me."
"Jangle," Yellow Road supplied helpfully. "You're taller than I imagined!"
Foresight raised an eyebrow. "You're blind."
"Wow. Takes a psychic to see that, huh?" Yellow Road said sarcastically. "Still, I couldn't see you before. Just... a blur. Something there, but not quite there. Inevitably coming closer and closer. And just as I thought I'd see you, there was this burst of... blurriness again, and it was gone."
"Huh. I did wonder what it'd do to you. Anyway. Name's Foresight, and I've been sent here to kill you."
"That's one way of looking at it. From my point of view, you were led here to meet me. And, as you see, I was waiting."
"You still stole from the casino."
Yellow Road nodded. "Yeah. I guess I did."
* * *
* * *
* * *
Darkness
Foresight chuckled, and looked at the mare in his sights. "Implying you'll convince me to use my ability. The ability to see the future, used on someone who sees all possible futures. Our two abilities literally interacting." He shook his head. "Chances are that'll really make my head explode."
"Yeah, but I doubt it," Yellow Road answered. "You should see what I have to deal with all the time. Hasn't exploded me so far."
Foresight put the gun away. "Well. You know exactly which choices to make right now to convince me to use my power, don't you? And since you're telling me that that's your goal, it means we're already on that path."
She smiled. "Sorry."
He sighed. "All right, then. Let's get this over with."
He closed his eyes and his horn lit up with the blue sheen of his magic. Suddenly they both gasped in unison and their eyes went wide, shining out a white light. Foresight convulsed and collapsed. Yellow Road just stood there, dazed.
Yellow Road blinked and shook her head, then smiled broadly. "Wow!" she said, sounding almost giddy. "That was just... Oh, wow! Foresight, did you see that?!"
"Ugh," came the refined and intelligent reply from the prone stallion.
She walked towards him, sat down and gently put his head on her foreleg. "That was amazing! Do it again!"
"Hey, give a fellow a chance to recover," he mumbled. "That was insane."
"What did you see?" she asked eagerly.
"Is... is that what you see?" he asked. "All the paths, all the possibilities?"
"Right up until the end of my life. Every minute, every second, for any choice I could possibly imagine. Why do you think I chased after the Darkness?"
Foresight shuddered as he grasped the full scope of what this mare's life must've been like. "That's awful."
"Was that what you saw? Just what I see? The end of your life?" She sounded disappointed. "I see that all the time. What I saw now was so much more interesting."
"I didn't see the end of my life," Foresight said. "Never got that far. At every point where I might choose to use my ability, and you were with me, it exploded into a million different pathways. All the choices I could possibly make, all the choices you could possibly make..."
She grinned. "...all the results, and even the paradoxes of these choices cancelling each other out," she eagerly continued. "Yes! That's what I saw, too!"
"But, the further it went, the more... blurry it got."
She shook her mane. "I suppose the pony mind isn't really fit to handle those amounts of information," she said. "What a shame!" she added with a gleefully sarcastic voice.
"That's what you were after, huh? Too many possibilities to comprehend. Uncertainty about the future. Just like any normal person." He smiled. "I do remember some specific... flashes. Potential. Possibilities."
She smiled. "You saw those nice flashes too, didn't you?" She turned away, a mellow expression on her face. "You and me, together?"
He chuckled. "I guess I did." He took a deep breath, and finally got up. "I'd have to do this a whole lot to keep you happy, though, wouldn't I?" he asked.
"Well, a couple times a week," she said, matter-of-factly. "I think that's about average, as far as satisfying a mare goes."
He rolled his eyes, but couldn't help smiling. "You just had to go there. So, how far ahead can you see now?"
"Just to the next point where you may or may not use your power. After that... darkness!" she said happily. "Lovely, lovely darkness."
Foresight blinked. "Wait. You lied to me. You can still cheat in casinos, even with me around, as long as I don't actually use my ability while you're doing it."
"I guess. But we're here; I have no reason to do that anymore." She gave him an awkward grin. "Would your boss settle for a heartfelt apology?"
"He's not my boss. Just a client." He shook his head. "Well. He said it was a matter of pride, so, you never know." He glared at her. "But that better be one really damn genuine apology."
She looked at the ground. "I'm not sorry for what I did, since it got me here. I am sorry I had to do that to get here. But, you know, I never knew I was going towards you. I just saw the blackness, and the path towards it. I never even saw you; even when you were tracking me you hid behind that blurriness. I had no idea what you looked like until you kicked down the door." She frowned. "Well. Slightly before you kicked down the door. Y'know, in the corridor."
"Right. Between then and confronting you, nothing was blocked. Obviously." He frowned. "Next time I use my ability we'll go through this whole damn infinity headache mess again, you know." He shook his head. "I know I'll get used to it... if I decide to follow that path."
She tilted her head to the side. "Aw, come on," she said, teasingly. "They were really nice flashes."
He gave her a mock-glare. "They're only possibilities, you know. Potential futures. All based on choices you can't predict anymore. It might not work out at all."
She nuzzled his neck. "Sure, but you're forgetting I can still see ahead until the next time you'll choose whether to use your ability. And given the fact you're still recovering from this time, that'll take you a few days, at least. I already know how to get you to the choice I want you to make."
"Hah. That's just a game of bluff poker, though," he threw back. "If you can convince me you'll manage to convince me in the future, you already won. Don't you think I'll fall for that again."
"Hey, I never tried to convince you that first time. You came to that conclusion all by yourself," she pointed out. "Besides, if it convinces you, then the result is still the same. It's a valid tactic!"
"Until I figure it out, that is," he said with a smirk. "Still. Convince me."
"All right," she said with a sly look on her face. She slowly brought her mouth to his ear and whispered, "Some of our potential children looked really cute."
Foresight's head sagged down as a blush spread over his face. "You win this round, lady..."
Author's Note
Yet another idea based on Dune. Bless the genius that is Frank Herbert, and his crazy psychic sandworm riders!
