Mending Darkness

My eyes flicked from the image of Princess Celestia, to Little Pip, to Artemis and back. Frost was looking over what looked like blue prints, but I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. Equestria betrayed to its destruction. Zebras snuck in by a secretive organization bent on destroying Equestria. It sounded like something out of a bad movie or TV show. The villain was always stopped at the last second by a hero or heroine who, at the last moment, found what they needed to save the day. But it wasn’t a TV show. It was real life.

Ponies lives had ended, changed, and been twisted by the bombs that fell at the end of our golden age. The knowledge dropped me to my rear, hard. It jarred me a little, but it was a good kind of jarring. It rattled my brain in my head and made me think. As they hashed out details, my brain zipped a million miles an hour. They wanted me to find evidence that Twilight Sparkle, the Mare of the Ministry of Arcane Science, and all of her friends, had been murdered before the bombs fell. Before the war officially started.

If what Princess Celestia said was true, that meant that if they had been murdered even before the bombs fell. And it could be reversed. The war itself could be reversed. Time could be altered to make it appear as if nothing had ever happened. That’s when my mind clicked on an idea. One that could derail the entire thing. Stepping up, I listened as they argued and griped. Clearing my throat softly, so as not to appear rude, I didn’t manage to catch their attention. Frost stared at me, a small smirk on her face. But she didn’t say anything to get their attention. Looking up at her, I sighed and sucked in a breath.

“Ahem!” I shouted and all three heads turned to me, immediately giving me their utmost attention. I shrank back a little. “I… I have something to say…”

“I’m sorry Ruby. Please, say your peace.” Celestia said and I looked up at her, feeling for a moment that I was looking at my mom. The way she’d been before she’d been made Overmare. Kind, loving, caring, adoring… she’d looked at me as a daughter, not just some inconvenience. Celestia shared that look with her, but hers felt more natural, as if she looked at all of the little ponies under her charge that way.

“What happens to all of us? I mean… I know you said time will have gone on as it already did, without the war and death and misery… but… the war is what brought us all together… If it goes away, as if it didn’t happen… what happens to us?” I asked and Celestia adopted a thoughtful look. Artemis stared at me from next to Pip, who hung her head. She’d figured it out. “If history is reset, the war erased, none of us will have met. We won’t know each other.”

“Which means Pip won’t know Homage, or Calamity. Maybe not even Velvet, or Steelhooves, or Xenith. None of us will know our friends. We won’t have made the connections we have now.” Celestia said and I nodded.

“And Blackjack never would have met any of her friends.” Pip said and I nodded again. “Do we really want to risk that?”

“I don’t suppose we do, but do we want to continue to live in this wasteland? We don’t have real homes, or real food that isn’t radiated. We don’t have naturally irradiated water. We don’t even not have weapons that cause death of ponies on a massive scale.” Celestia said and Artemis glanced over.

“I’m willing to risk it Celestia. Of all of us here, besides you Celestia, I lost the most. I lost my mother, my sister, my father, and my love. As well as all of my friends.” He said and Celestia looked at him and sighed. I glanced over at him and blinked. He’d lost everyone. Celestia had too, but she’d lost more than he had. Even still, after what he’d revealed, I was somewhat heartbroken for him. Celestia had lost her entire people, but Artemis had lost, not just that, but his mother, father, and his friends and loved ones. He didn’t seem heartbroken. He seemed angry. As if it had been avoidable. Pip noticed me looking at him and turned.

“Artemis?” He blinked then looked up at her and smiled.

“It’s nothing Pip.” He said, smiling wide at her before turning and walking towards a wall of white before vanishing. Apparently through the door. Hearing Pip sigh, I turned and looked at her.

“Ever since I met him he’s been like that.” She said and Celestia smiled sadly and shook her head, her mane swaying in the un-natural breeze brought on by her magic.

“He became this way when the bombs fell, Pip. Before the bombs dropped, he was one of the happiest wolves under my rule. His mother and father were kind and caring, both very powerful. Twilight Sparkle was my own personal student, and her husband, Artemis’ father, proclaimed himself her personal guard when she became a princess. They didn’t officially get together until Twilight had taken her own personal student. It was thanks to Starlight Glimmer that Twilight was able to finally tell him how she felt.” Celestia said and I looked at the wall Artemis had disappeared through.

“So… Starlight Glimmer? Was she a match maker of sorts?” I asked and Celestia smiled again.

“Well, not really. Starlight Glimmer very nearly ended Equestria before the war. But Twilight befriended her and, thanks to Starlight, Twilight was able to tell Artemis’ father how she felt about him, resulting in the two of them wedding and having two children. Artemis and his sister. When the bombs fell and he lost his mother and father, Artemis used his Authority as the head of Stable-Tec’s research department to develop not just the weapons we use today, as well as the Pip-Bucks, but several special projects keyed to ending the war and saving Equestria. But he knew something like this may happen, so he made contingency plans.

“One such plan is called Operation Rebirth. If it is set off, all Radiation, all Taint, everything that makes the Wasteland a Wasteland will be purified and removed, taking Equestria back to what it was before.”

“You mean… it could undo everything?”

“Well, not exactly.” Pip looked up at Celestia, her eyebrow quirked.

“And how come Spike didn’t know about these ‘contingency plans’? I thought he was Watcher. Twilight had to know something about them.” Pip said and Celestia shook her head.

“They were Artemis’ personal projects. He didn’t tell Twilight or Spike anything. The only other ones who knew were Artemis’ assistants. Who were all murdered when Stable Tec headquarters was attacked.” The princess said and I looked up at her.

“Wait… plans? More than one?” She nodded sadly and looked up at the screen which switched to a layout of a large facility. The problem with this facility was it wasn’t a Stable or anything like that and it held one item. From the rad-meter on the side of the screen, that item had enough radiation pulsing off of it to all but vaporize the planet if it was set off. “What… what is that?” I asked and Frost’s eyes widened and she pointed at the name. “Project Desolation?”

“Yes. A last resort, of sorts. It has eight keys. Artemis holds two of them, and the other six are gone.” She said and I looked up at her.

“So… it’s inactive? Not usable, right?” She shook her head and I swallowed. It was still active and could be set off.

“It doesn’t need all eight keys. With the other six keys lost, the two Artemis holds are all that is needed to set off Desolation now.” At the most recent mention of his name, Artemis walked back into the room. I looked over at him and noticed, finally, that his Pip-Buck was different. Besides being black, it looked entirely too technological. As if it hadn’t really come from Equestria. It gleamed black, even the screen was a different color. Of course, I’d heard that you could get custom Pip-Bucks with different color screens and different casing. But his didn’t look like it had been painted. It looked like the metal was naturally black. And the screen was bright, vibrant red.

“It’s technically a beta model of the Pip-Buck you’re wearing. You think the technology for these things was just designed by ponies? This is the first one. It came to us from the stars. We aren’t sure how or why, but when it landed, I studied it for weeks before putting it on. It didn’t seem to have any adverse effects.” He said and Celestia nodded. When he flipped his coat back and pulled out a pistol I’d seen before, I flinched. Something about it rubbed me the wrong way.

It was the same color black as his Pip-Buck, but it glowed with white lights along the barrel and clip. It also looked a little more technologically advanced. I couldn’t see screws, or any seams. It looked, for all the world, like it was one solid piece of metal. “And… and that?” I asked and he looked at me, the pistol levitating in magic that appeared to come from his eyes.

“It doesn’t have a name, really. Not one that we can translate easily. Hakai no Owari is what it’s called. It’s loosely translated to Destruction of the End. We aren’t sure what kind of weapon it is.”

“And I’ve never had to use it.”

“But we are sure its power is… relatively greater than a Mega Spell.” Celestia said and I stared at the gun.

“How much greater…?” I asked, swallowing a little as Artemis levitated it into a holster under his wing.

“Let’s just say that when I point it at something, it’s gone. The weapon I gave you was built based on Hakai’s model and power.” He said and I lifted my foreleg, looking at the thing around my leg, behind my Pip-Buck. He nodded and I used my connection with it to form the weapon. “That… in my claws, is a pistol called Harbinger. The most powerful weapon in the wasteland.” He said and Frost looked at it.

“So… what’s to keep a raider from killing her, tearing it off of her leg and using it themselves?” She asked and suddenly I didn’t want this thing on my leg. It had saved our lives from a Death Claw, but if it put me in danger, I really didn’t want to risk having it.

“The fact that it’s keyed to her genetic signature means that even if she did somehow lose it, it’d be useless to anyone besides myself and her.” He said and I looked up at him then looked back at the weapon on my leg. “Not to mention there’s a camera built into it with a direct feed to my Pip-Buck. If she’s threatened, I’ll know. Or, I suppose I should say if she’s at risk of losing Harbinger, I’ll know about it. And I’ll be there to assist.” He said and I smiled up at him. “Just don’t tell Blackjack.” He said and Pip sighed and shook her head, a smile on her face.

I blinked then looked over as I heard a small whimper from the bed nearest Pip. Aqua had been having fits since we’d arrived here. Artemis had helped a little. Freaky wolf knowledge of medicinal herbs, I called it. He never argued, but he gave me a small smile when I said it out loud. As if it wasn’t wolf knowledge at all. “So, what next?” I asked and Artemis shrugged. “What are the other keys? You said there were eight. What did the other six look like?”

“Key cards. Desolation is, in effect, a gigantic mega-spell. A deadly mega-spell. In the wrong hooves, those key cards could set it off, if Harbinger and his Pip-Buck were to be used against Equestria, our planet would be destroyed.” Celestia said and I swallowed, hard, and stared at Artemis. He held the fate of Equestria, quite literally, in his grasp. A Pip-Buck on his leg, a super gun on my leg. His super gun on my leg. Two keys to the most devastating Mega-Spell Equestria had ever seen.

“And you just… let him keep them?” Frost asked, staring at him. He just stared back, his face impassive.

“As the son of my most faithful student, her guard, and the lover of the former head of Stable Tec, he is the safest one to trust with holding the keys.” Celestia said and Frost picked up a mug he’d taken her and sipped at it.

“I trust him.” I said, even though the words sounded sort of hollow. Coughing, I snagged Frost’s mug and downed the rest of the hard cider in it, earning a small glare from her. Coughing, I looked up at Celestia. “I trust him. He… he gave me Harbinger to protect. If he didn’t trust me, he wouldn’t have given it to me.” My voice sounded stronger that time and she smiled.

“You might not after I send you on your next task.” He said and Celestia glanced over at him and sighed. I followed her eyes and froze. In his magical grip was a Rad-Suit. One my size. “One of the keys was in Appleoosa. Which, at this moment, is a heavily irradiated pit with a small town built around it. The ponies that live there call themselves the Redeemed. They worship the remains of the Megaspell in the middle of the pit. All of them are ghouls. They’re… mostly… in control of their facilities. But they aren’t exactly going to part with their sacred relic. The key. Which looks like a Mini-spell.”

Swallowing, I looked at Frost. She didn’t have a rad suit, and her Enclave armor had to be repaired, the radiation shields in the visor replaced, as well as the Spark batteries allowing it to move needed a recharge. The visor had been a quick fix, Artemis and his Twilight Sparkle tier magic (he was definitely her son) had repaired it easily enough. As well as the Spark Battery getting a super charge. I’d be amazed if that thing ever died now. The armor itself needed parts that we could only get in an Enclave base. Something that was on our to-do list. And Artemis’. I was convinced he was planning to race us for how quickly we could get the parts to fix the armor.

I’d have to go get the Mini-spell alone. Looking at Harbinger, I swallowed. I’d be carrying the most devastating weapon the Wasteland had ever seen into the most radiated region in the Wasteland. What fun.

Perks Received

All Day Sucker: Good and Bad I guess. You get +2 to Strength but -5 to Luck when successfully completing a task.

Small Frame: Rad Suits made for smaller mares fit you much easier than a normal sized mare. You also get +4 to Stealth when in buildings or in brush.

Bonus Perk: Partner of the Queen: Raid Queen Frost Wing seems smitten with you, though she won’t say it. +20% chance to talk your way out of encounters with Raiders.

Author's Note

Please let me know if, anywhere at all, you see something repeated from a previous chapter. I'll do my best to go back and fix it.