His bronze legs clanking slightly with every step, Orion sprints through the sanitized marble-white hallways of Pæx's sanctum, not seeing any sign of security or intruder deterrence anywhere.
"Where are you!?" He demands, significant anger in his voice as it echoes through the empty halls.
The soft clicks of formal shoes alert Orion to the presence of the one he had been hunting for. Turning around to meet the Stallion that had eluded him for so long, he's surprised to learn that Pæx looked much different than what he had been expecting. Instead of the hardened armor-clad warrior he had expected to face, instead what stood before him was a greying stallion who seemed to be in his late fifties dressed in a tan business casual suit and matching dress pants. The stallion's face however, did match his prediction; littered with scars of varying depth, sizes, and shapes, His coat just a tone or two lighter than Orion himself, and his right eye's pupil was cloudy white, keying Orion into the fact that Pæx may actually be blind.
“Don't try and fight me Orion. We can be civil ponies, this doesn't have to be a violent confrontation.” The elder of the two warns, no hint of aggression in his voice.
Orion's mouth finds the handle of his sword and swiftly draws the four foot long steel blade from its scabbard, his mechanical legs letting out pneumatic hisses as he tenses his muscles and prepares to strike. "Say whatever you want, I know you're just trying to dissuade me with your silver tongue!" He declares with furious confidence.
Pæx breaks eye contact with Orion for a moment, looks at the polished floor and tiredly sighs. “Please, allow me to level with you for a moment:” He shrugs his shoulders slightly. “I honestly don't want to fight you. Don't get me wrong, I'll surely eliminate Twilight and her friends with ease. Celestia, Luna, and Cadence too actually. But I really don't want to kill you. Mostly because you're me from the past, and I'm not sure about the existance of self inflicted existential paradoxes. But also because you're still young, and deserve a chance. I got one, and you're me, so why should I stop you from living a long and relatively happy life like I have?” Pæx counters.
Orion stifles a growl. "You think you're so much more wise and powerful than everyone, but you're really nothing but an old horse in a suit. I've seen the future where I don't stop you, and I'm going to kill you where you stand before it comes to fruition."
The suit-clad stallion shrugs again and reaches into his pocket, producing a silver device and two wires. Pæx unenthusiastically puts an earbud in each ear and looks at Orion with a bored expression. “If we're going to fight I'm not moving. You're gonna have to come to me."
"Damn straight!" The young and angry colt yells as he dashes towards Pæx with his sword readied for a fatal strike.
Almost instantaneously Pæx's right front hoof moves, and a blur of tan flashes to where the point of the sword was three feet in front of his chest, impacting it and causing it to fly out of the grip of its wielder and clatter uselessly to the marble floor directly to the let of Pæx.
"Fuck you!" Orion shouts in his face as he begins throwing blow after blow with both his metal right front leg and organic left, only growing angrier as Pæx effortlessly deflects his assault.
"SAY SOMETHING DAMN YOU!" Screams the attacking colt just before Pæx steps forward, grabs his hindlegs and throws him across the hall to a pillar; cracking but not breaking it.
Pæx removes the earbuds and looks at Orion with a questioning look. “My dear Orion, I am ashamed to admit that I haven't been paying attention to you whatsoever. Don't get me wrong, you're important, but I just love the work of Octavia. Such beautiful and unique music has proven to be among the warmest fires in the cold December of my days.” He chuckles softly, throws the music player to the floor, and stomps on it with a hind hoof; meeting Orion's gaze with emotionless eyes as the small machine crackles and sparks in a fit of electrical stress. “But.....I suppose I do have some chores to tend to,”
Orion dives for his sword and, to his surprise is not prevented from doing so by Pæx. "Fuck you and everything you stand for." He challenged his well dressed opponent.
“So I suppose I'll start with taking out the garbage.” Concludes Pæx a moment before rushing forth at a nigh-supersonic speed, stopping abruptly in front of Orion to transfer the momentum into a punch to the stomach followed by a swift kick to the head, sending Orion sprawling across the now blood speckled white floor.
“You see,” He begins as he walks slowly towards the younger version of his former self, hooves clicking on the simple flooring.“When you put off taking out the trash, it just sits there and grows ever more disgusting.” Pæx grabs Orion by the mane and hauls him off the ground. “After a while it can get to be a real problem, but you don't want to touch it and risk ripping the garbage bag and spilling it's vile contents everywhere. So you lazily opt to ignore it.” He continues, throwing Orion into another marble column. “But I digress,” Pæx focuses briefly and from the tip of his horn, a slight cyan shimmer begins forming. “All trash must eventually be dealt with.”
Orion struggles to stand up, hacking and coughing crimson red onto polished white. "I'm pretty sure garbage doesn't actively resist being purged." Orion spits at the older stallion, falling to the floor as he tries and fails to stand up once more.
Pæx furrows his brow and points his horn towards the injured colt, the cyan shimmer growing brighter and more powerful at its peak. “You are an exception.” He concludes grimly as a monstrous beam of cyan light cascades outward from the grey spire.
In a flash, Orion is gone.
