Darkening Void
“Nightmare Night, what a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!”
The clamoring chant of foals everywhere was heard all over Ponyville as they ran from house to house in an endless quest to claim candy.
Ponies of all ages danced, chatted, and played games; all of them wearing their favorite costumes in the spirits of such a delightful and fun night.
That included the resident Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle, her friends; the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and her surrogate little brother; Spike Solaris.
“I say, this year’s Nightmare Night is better than last year’s!” Rarity exclaimed wearing her Mane-Iac costume.
“Darn tooting!” Applejack in her tin-mare costume agreed, doing a short prance. “All the games are being taken care of and everything was triple checked fer safety!”
“T-This y-year doesn’t look as s-scary as other times,” Fluttershy said in between trembles. Her ‘costume’ had been a gift from Discord: a snap of his fingers and she was transformed into Flutterbat, though only in appearance.
Pinkie Pie giggled. “Silly Filly! You didn’t go to the maze or the zombie house!” The pink mare wearing a shark costume said causing the shy mare to squeak in fright and hide behind the assassin costume-wearing Rainbow Dash.
“We were lucky enough to convince ‘Shy to come out this year as it is, Pinkie! Don’t scare her off back to her cottage!” Rainbow reprimanded but Pinkie merely giggled in response.
Twilight giggled too in good nature wearing a witch costume. After everything that had happened during the last two years, she was glad to finally have one day of relaxation and fun together with her friends. Looking at her right, she saw many of Ponyville’s inhabitants wearing their own costumes, enjoying the night. To her left, she saw Lyra and Bon Bon talking, her preferred students hanging out, foals running around, and creatures playing games.
She even spotted Princess Luna and Princess Celestia wearing their own costumes: Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker, respectively. Near them, she saw her parents, big brother, Cadance, and her favorite niece all wearing themed witch and wizard costumes.
Luna was busy playing around with the colts and fillies swarming her; generally screaming in terror, offering candy, or huddling together for protection. Celestia was mostly watching, though she was been kept company by Sunburst, Starlight, and Trixie chatting about this or that.
“Have I told you that I loooove Nightmare Night?” Spike said at her side using his wings to hover wearing a Godzilla costume. He was carrying a bag of candy, casually eating some every now and then, and some he threw around for sugar-hungry foals.
Twilight giggled. “Only twenty-seven times since this morning, Spike,” she leaned to nuzzle her number one assistant and little brother, making him chortle and blush. “It’s okay, I love Nightmare Night, too. And I love spending time with my friends and family.”
“You said it, partner!” Applejack agreed before pulling Twilight into a hug that quickly became a seven-way embrace between the group of friends.
“Hey, look! Mayor Mare is about to start her speech!” Pinkie said stretching her neck up and pointing at a nearby stage.
“‘Bout time, I’m itching to start my pranking spree!” Rainbow Dash said, clasping her hooves in anticipation.
“Then let’s go, everypony!” Rarity called.
The group walked up to the stage that was rapidly being crowded and Mayor Mare, wearing a Tooth Breezie costume, awaited in the podium. After a few more moments of waiting, and with a huge crowd of creatures in front of the stage, she began her speech.
“Welcome, everycreature, to this year’s Nightmare Night Festival. Muahahahaha!” Mayor Mare laughed evilly while the crowd cheered.
“Seriously, Mayor Mare’s costumes get worse each year,” Spike lamented seeing the mare trying to look intimidating.
“Says mister ‘I’m going to wear a dragon-themed costume every year’,” Twilight replied with a teasing smile.
Spike shrugged. “Hey, at least my costumes fit me.”
“Tonight, the darkest night of the year is a time for celebration. Monsters crawl freely and evil spirits fly around us! Be afraid! But most of all, beware Nightmare Moon! The night is her domain, and tonight is the time of her return. Candy or foals, she doesn’t care what she eats; any will fill her belly for a whole year! Dark Magic lurks in the night, her creatures of evil and fright, which shall find you to bring forth your blight!” Mayor Mare exclaimed looking at the gathered crowd while Zecora, Starlight, and Trixie used their magic tricks to create ghostly figures, monsters, mist, and echoing sounds as her speech went on.
“Amazing!” Rarity said looking at the tricks being displayed around the excited crowd.
“No kidding, they really went all out this year!” Rainbow Dash said grinning at the display.
“Pretty darn amazing what those three can do working together, have to admit,” Applejack said before whistling.
“Huh… twitchy tail?” Pinkie Pie murmured looking at the sky for a few moments.
“She comes from the Moon and dwells in the shadows. You are never safe, but not unhooved! She searches for ponies and candy to gobble up; so wear a costume tonight, to stay out of sight. Offer your candy, those sweet little delights, up in the statue that lays under the moonshine. Follow the path, follow it now, to the Everfree Forest, her domain in the shadow!” Mayor Mare finished doing a maniacal laugh.
Suddenly, two magic projectiles and a cloud of green dust met in mid-air above the crowd. They merged for a moment, and the next they exploded creating a gigantic laughing Nightmare Moon face.
“Oooooooohhhhh! Aaaaaaaahhhh!” The crowd exclaimed in unison, amazed at the quickly dissipating display.
As the face vanished and the dust fell, behind it, up in the sky, small tendrils of intense purple light began to appear. While ponies stared in awe, Twilight tilted her head.
“I don’t remember that being in the program,” she said staring at the growing tendrils of purple light, quickly morphing to resemble a devastating lightning storm. She shot a glance at the two unicorns and the zebra up in the stage. Starlight was the one who returned her gaze, confused at what was happening.
“Wow, Princess Luna is outdoing herself tonight!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed seeing the tendrils grow in size. All nearby eyes fell upon the Princess of the Moon.
“I… I’m not doing that…,” Luna replied tentatively.
Slowly, fear and uncertainty started to push aside the wonder and amazement of Ponyville’s residents.
Suddenly, the tendrils exploded in a bright ball of sickly purple shaded light. While intense, it was not blinding and everycreature present could barely notice something emerging from the center of the explosion. A misty cloud of purple energy remained for a few seconds until, impossibly, it imploded. Vanishing entirely.
Then, it happened.
Every unicorn, alicorn, or direct magic-caster present screamed in pain. Many falling to the ground whilst others held their heads tightly.
Twilight herself could barely think through the massive, painful, and sudden headache she and almost everyone around her felt at the exact same moment. She could see and hear foals crying, including Flurry Heart, from the pain. Non-unicorns seemed to have suffered a minor impact and were currently helping those that had either fallen or passed out from the shock.
“What in landbaskets was that!?” Applejack yelled, confused.
“Wooohiieeee!” Pinkie mumbled, her eyes dazy.
“That felt… Twilight?” Rarity said rubbing her aching head.
“Yeah…,” Twilight shook her head. “I’m okay. I think you’re right, Rarity. That felt like a Magic-Drain,” she explained shaking her head again while Spike had landed and rubbed his head.
“Magic-Drain?” Rainbow Dash asked tilting her head.
“It’s when a unicorn or any magic-caster uses too much magic too quickly and gets a backlash from the exertion,” Celestia answered landing next to the group alongside Luna, the Sparkles, Sunburst, Starlight, and Trixie. Around the crowd, Royal Guards of all kinds were creating a safety perimeter, just in case something attacked. Everyone was busy checking each other, calming down, or discussing what had just happened.
“Uhmmm… guys?” Spike called out, looking and pointing at the sky. “W-What is that?”
Around the little dragon, all heads turned to the sky once again. A series of gasps were heard when they saw… something large falling from the sky. It wasn’t a meteor or an asteroid, thankfully, since the object wasn’t set ablaze from the atmospheric friction, nor was its speed sufficient to do so. Still, while the eventual impact wasn’t going to bring catastrophic results, the ensuing shockwave would still be massive.
Seemingly moving in slow motion, the object began to get bigger and bigger, until everycreature present got a good look at the falling behemoth.
“What in Celestia’s flank is that!?” Rarity screamed, horrified, as the object, easily dwarfing the entirety of Ponyville in length alone, approached leaving a gentle smoking trail behind it. Pieces of the structure were ripped apart, flying off or being consumed by their own weight and force of friction.
Without hesitation, the four adult alicorns, Shining Armor, and Starlight ignited their horns, pushing past the lingering pain they felt to shot six streams of intense and powerful magic up to the sky. The streams collided creating a vast explosion of light. A moment later a dome of pure, raw magic surrounded the entirety of Ponyville; including the surrounding countryside.
And not a moment too late as surviving debris of the falling construct impacted the shield, shattering or ricocheting away upon making contact with its surface.
Everycreature saw the monstrosity pass, from their earthbound perspective, mere meters away from the protective shield. The rumbling noise and the cry of twisting, pained, rupturing metal too loud to hear anything else; many opted to cover their ear in a vain attempt to dimish it.
After moments that felt like hours to the onlookers, the vast construct passed Ponyville without any further incident, aside from extra debris falling and causing a few fires outside the dome.
Finally, the monstrosity landed away from Ponyville but still close enough to be easily seen. A moment later they felt the ground itself shake. A few seconds later the powerful shockwave of the impact made itself present, thankfully being just as or even weaker than what the Solar Princess had feared. Several minutes of fearful silent later, small chunks of rock and dirt from the zone of the landfall began to rain down the land for a few seconds, and then, it was over.
“Everycreature, return to your homes!” Cadance called handing the tearful Flurry Heart to her grandmother.
“You heard the Princess!” Shining Armor roared. “Royal Guards, with me!” He ordered before darting off to lead the guards around Ponyville. The population easily complied, leaving behind just a handle of ponies and a dragon.
“Twilight…,” Sunburst said walking next to the lavender mare. “Please, tell me if I’m wrong, but didn’t that look like a giant boat?”
“I… I don’t know, Sunburst,” Twilight replied, turning entirely to face the smoking wreckage. “It should be impossible for something that big to exist, let alone fly,” she said looking at the rising clouds of smoke. A moment later her eyes went wide. “S-Someone made it. Someone constructed it.”
“...Oh by Starswirl’s beard. Aliens… actual aliens!” Luna exclaimed, realizing what Twilight meant. “Sister!” She called looking at the taller alabaster alicorn.
Celestia nodded. “If there are living out worldly creatures inside such a vessel, then this might very well be a turning point in the history of Equis itself. However, we cannot advance blind,” charging her horn, Celestia created a small golden portal showcasing a gruff and serious-looking pegasus.
“Yes, Princess Celestia?” The pegasus asked as he saluted.
“Captain, I require seven platoons to come to Ponyville as soon as you can depart. Also, send your fastest messenger to Cloudsdale bearing my seal and with the following order: depart three full teams of weather-ponies equipped with rain clouds and another team equipped with frost. Tell them to report to Ponyville quickly. Ponyville’s weather patrol shall take care of the minor fires.”
“It shall be done, Princess. May I presume this is about the object that fell from the sky?” The pegasus asked. Celestia merely nodded in response. “Then I shall depart in no less than three minutes and be there in Ponyville in less than ten.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Celestia bowed briefly before ending the portal.
“What are we going to do, yer majesty?” Applejack asked a moment after.
“I believe you should head home and get rid of your costumes. Then meet in Twilight’s castle so we can decide on what to do next. We may need the Elements of Harmony, after all,” Luna said gaining a round of nods.
“There is no need to separate, Princess Luna,” Twilight said. “Everypony can change in the castle. The faster we can act, the better,” she said staring at the crashed structure. “There may be survivors inside that thing.”
****************************************************
“Look at the size of that monstrosity,” Shining Armor said staring at the crashed object from a hill. At his side stood all four alicorns, the Element Bearers, Sunburst, Starlight, and several Royal Guards.
“Have the preliminary measures being completed?” Celestia asked as she too watched the wreck.
“Not all, Princess, but what we have so far seems to indicate the… object is safe,” the Captain replied.
Celestia hummed in response. An hour had passed since the vessel crashed on the outskirts of Ponyville. The perimeter had been secured, the weather-ponies had arrived swiftly to put out the bigger fires the Ponyville’s Weather Team couldn’t handle on their own, and to cool down the vessel via a regulated ice-storm over it. She had already received messages, urgent, desperate ones at that, from every nation across the entirety of Equis. That magic-drain event the sudden appearance of the vessel had managed to be felt around the entire planet… at the same time.
“Any luck contacting Discord?” Twilight asked the yellow-coated pegasus of the group.
Fluttershy shook her head. “I think he’s busy with something or he’d already be here. I hope he’s alright, Twilight,” she said, worried for her closest friend.
“Me too, Fluttershy. Me too,” Twilight breathed out to calm herself, her eyes never leaving the stranded vessel. She was both excited and afraid of it in equal proportion.
Who wouldn’t? If that is indeed some kind of space boat… then who built it? What kind of species could be so technologically advanced to create such a thing? Are they friendly? Are they hostile? Why are they here in the first place? Was it an accident? Were they fleeing? If there are any survivors inside, will we be able to help them out?
Twilight asked herself question after question. So many unknowns, and who knows how many more would emerge as time went by.
“Princesses,” a pegasus called landing in front of the group. He did a quick bow before continuing. “The weather teams report the last fire has been extinguished and that the vessel’s temperature is dropping steadily fast. We also finished scouting the exterior of the object and what we found… it is worrying.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Luna asked, urging the guard to continue.
“The object’s length is rather impressive, for starters. It is just under half a kilometer in width, same for height, and barely over three kilometers in length. It looks heavily damaged in many parts, not only from its fall and crash. Something else tore several holes across the structure. However, do you see that?” He said pointing at the object’s stern. “We can’t fully confirm it, but Admiral Roaring Sea believes those are weapons…”
“Sweet Haysacks… those things… weapons? Of that size?” Cadance murmured, involuntarily taking a step back.
“That’s not all. The material coating the vessel? We don’t know what it is. And the damage I talked about before? That damage looks… ancient,” the pegasus finished with a nervous gulp.
Silence fell in between the group until Twilight spoke.
“Is it safe to enter it?” She asked, her expression serious as can be.
“As far as we can tell… yes, Princess Twilight. The object appears to be a dead husk,” the pegasus replied.
“Then I shall go inside to investigate what we are dealing with,” Twilight said solemnly.
“Not alone you won’t!” Rainbow Dash yelped jumping to the air. The rest of the Mane 7 were content with nodding and standing strong.
“I know,” Twilight smiled at her friends.
“Then we’ll be going to,” Sunburst said as he cleaned his glasses. At his side, Starlight, Shining and Cadance nodded.
“We’ll go too. No way I am missing the chance to meet some aliens!” Luna exclaimed clapping her hooves.
“And help them if we can,” Celestia said smiling at her sister.
“Yeah, that too,” Luna replied sheepishly.
“Let’s go then,” Twilight said as the group, flanked by a few dozen Royal Guards as they began their descent towards the vessel.
****************************************************
Echoing hoofsteps was all that could be heard as the large group of ponies made their tentatively traverse in the empty huge corridors of the crash-landed ship. It was obvious that the mysterious vessel, already sharing a frightening degree of similarity with their own water and air-based counterparts, was indeed some sort of ship that could travel in the empty void between the stars.
Finding an entrance point hadn’t been particularly hard. As the pegasus guard had stated, the ship was blasted with holes of varying sizes tarnishing its superstructure. The first thing they noticed upon entering was how… cold, unwelcoming, and vast it all seemed to be. Not to mention the overabundance of decorations carved into the walls of the hallways: pillars, statues, lamps, chandeliers, symbols, banners, glyphs, and many more strange things they didn’t understand their meaning or purpose. Still, Twilight had noticed a certain theme, especially when it came to two symbols in particular.
One was some sort of two-headed eagle. Always placed in high positions where they could not be missed and forced the looker to look up to them.
The second one on the other hoof…
“Jeez, whoever built this ship sure likes skulls,” Starlight commented with understandable uneasiness as they passed yet another pillar adorned to the absolute brim with skulls of some sort. Not real bone or organic skulls, but rather carved into the pillar itself.
“Do you think these skulls represent whatever species made this ship?” Rarity asked out loud. “If so, they desperately need my help rearranging their decorative senses. So ghastly,” she ended with a shudder.
“Maybe that’s what they like?” Fluttershy asked. “They are aliens, after all. We can’t be sure that what we like are the same things they like, after all.”
“I suppose that’s true, Fluttershy. But still, skulls? At least they had the decency to tinge them with a silvery color,” Rarity replied rolling her eyes at yet more skull decorations.
*Twing*
“Halt,” Shining Armor ordered. “Did anypony else hear that?”
“I did,” Spike replied straining an ear-fin. “It came that way,” he pointed down the hallway up to where the path divided itself into two opposing directions. “From the left.”
“Guards, upfront! Everypony else, behind us!” Shining ordered. A moment later the forty-strong guard contingent formed a defensive line in front of the Princesses, the Bearers, Sunburst, and Starlight. Shining Armor, standing front and center, did a series of hoof movements. Almost instantly the guards began to advance as one in ordered, ranked, disciplined fashion.
Once they made it to where the path split in two, seven guards rushed forward taking defensive positions from different angles. Five seconds later the group moved and once more the guards returned to their previous formation. It took a few more minutes of walking until they reached the end of the hallway and found a mostly destroyed thick, wide door baring what looked to be the eagle symbol.
*Twing*
The sound echoed again, this time everypony was able to hear it. The guards were the first to enter the room only to find it empty and the source of the sound. In the middle of the room sat an odd-looking table displaying some sort of green illusion in the form of a bubble. It was distorted, confusing, and malfunctioning. Suddenly, the image fizzled out for a few seconds creating the sound that had drawn them to it, then it came back.
“It’s working!?” Sunburst yelled in amazement. Forgetting any sort of danger, the stallion ruched to the table to inspect it. “I--I Can’t believe it! Alien working technology! And after that crash and who knows how long without maintenance!? This could bring in a technological revolution for Equestria! How does it work!? What’s its power source!? Can it be reverse-engineered? Does it run on magic or on something else!? I must knooooooow!”
“Sunburst, calm down!” Starlight urged trying to pull her friend away from the machine as the stallion was practically drooling and sniffing at the contraption. “We don’t know what that is! For all we know that could be a trap or a weapon!”
“I don’t think so,” Celestia said looking around the room. “It looks like… a command bridge.”
Shining hummed. “I believe you’re right, Princess Celestia. Look at that throne over there. I believe that’s where the captain of this ship commanded it.”
“If this is a command bridge and that’s the captain seat, then what the hay is that?” Rainbow Dash asked pointing at the table Sunburst was nuzzling.
“Some sort of map, I believe,” Cadance offered with a frown. “Though I’m not certain about it.”
“If this is the bridge, shouldn’t be some sort of captain’s diary somewhere?” Pinkie offered before scratching her chin.
“Great idea, Pinkie!” Sunburst cried out. “If this species is as advanced as it looks to be, then logic dictates any sort of captain’s record should be here in this room!”
“Uhhhh, question. How ya’ll going to understand it if it is written in an alien tongue?” Applejack asked.
“Universal Translation and Understanding Spell. That should do the trick,” Sunburst fixed his glasses. “It won’t be of any use in helping us operate the machinery unless there’s a manual laying around. But if it is written or better yet, spoken, then I’ll be able to understand it!”
“Brilliant! How long do you think this investigation will take?” Luna asked stepping forward.
“I’m not sure. But even if I don’t find some form of logs or archives, I should be able to run some other tests! Oh, this is so exciting! I bet I’ll be able to write an entire series of books on this ship by the end of the year!”
“You do that, Sunburst. We’ll continue exploring the vessel,” Luna said already turning to leave.
“Wait a moment, Auntie,” Cadance raised a hoof. “I wouldn’t like to leave Sunburst alone, Shining. Could the guards stay with him and protect him just in case?”
“True. Guards, hold perimeter here and protect Sunburst while we continue exploring the vessel. We shall remain within shouting distance,” the guards saluted and the remaining group left the room. Once they returned to the intersection, Shining Armor spoke again. “There’s something that’s worrying me since we entered the vessel.”
Celestia and Applejack nodded.
“If yer thinkin’ what I’m thinkin… it’s mighty strange…”
“Indeed. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Errm, hello, a little lost here. What are you talking about?” Rainbow interjected.
“Isn’t it strange we haven’t seen any bodies or any sort of bodily remains?” Shining asked out of the blue.
“Maybe a long time has passed? Or maybe they all burned when the ship crashed?” Cadance offered.
“No. In space, you can’t rot. There’s nothing there. It’s like the moon, but much worse and unforgiving. As for the entry and the crash? We should’ve seen something, anything by now,” Luna replied, understanding Shining’s words.
“And more than that, if the statues we’ve seen are anything to go by… where are their clothing? Where are their weapons? We haven’t encountered any sort of individual remains yet,” Twilight contributed with methodical reasoning.
Everypony shuddered at the terrible idea and the multitude of possible explanations that train of thought lead to.
The group remained silent for several minutes as they walked down the hallway--
"̶͔̱̓̚-̷̛͔̋̾ò̸̜͕̰͝u̶͔̓̓̈́ȑ̵̯̬́ ̴̻͍̰̈p̴̱̪̮̈́̓e̴̩̯̒̍t̶̺̕t̵̨̰͎̾̿̓y̸̥̅͆̎ ̴̲̲͔̓̄͘s̴̋̔͜͝p̸͇̔ḛ̴͌͂̈́-̸̧͔̐̔͝-̴̦͊̽"̴̠͈̌̔̉
--until Spike shot up to the sky in front of the group forcing them to halt.
“I can hear something coming from down there! Some kind of voice,” the small dragon stated as he shivered.
“Then we shall continue with caution,” Celestia ignited her horn creating a barrier around the group without dispelling the orb of light at the tip of her horn.
As they advanced, it didn’t take long for everypony present to hear the voice Spike had mentioned hearing.
"̴̗̠̮̐̾̏-̸̼̅͛m̸̥̯̮͐̈́̈́o̵͕͆̓͠u̴̥̜̽̎̅ṣ̷̝̍̃̃ ̵̥̹͇̂͗í̵̯̗̱̅͠n̵̰̫̿̍t̸͎̿́͝ͅę̵͛͐ǹ̶͉̚t̷͖͈̥͛͂̈́ ̴̬̏m̴̄͜͝o̴̺͑ả̴̳̊n̵̨̾i̵͖̅͝ṋ̸͖͖͛͗g̷̫͓͌-̶̳̘̙̓̀͛-̵̨̛̬̹"̴͕̊̈́͂ͅ
At first, it was but a whisper, but as they approached another set of half-destroyed doors the voice increased in volume. Using her magic, Luna pushed the doors aside and for the first time, they were able to hear the alien voice clearly. It’s guttural, near-barking, yet at the same time, delicate and complex tone making them quiver.
"̵̞͙̀̈A̴̼͑͌l̸̜͓̐ḻ̸̗͉́̚ ̴̧̈́t̵͍̲̿h̴̩͗̌͜ä̶͎̳̠́̅͝t̴̮̿̏ ̴̠͉͗͌̚ị̷̈́̾͠s̴̻͔̐ ̵̮͖̮̒̏̅m̵̹̥̺̾ā̶͈̾̀ỷ̶̲͝ ̵͕͊s̷̳̰̈́́ĩ̴̙͊n̴̰̂k̶̨̼̜̄,̴͔͙͊ ̴̞͛d̷̩̀̽e̷͎̿̀̕e̴̠͙̓p̶̬̅ ̷̛͕͚́̆ĩ̶͎͔̙͘n̴̗̒̚ṫ̶̘͛̀ȯ̵͈̞̠ ̵̻̖̽t̸̪̹̽h̵̨̬̥͝͝ẹ̶̰͖̍ ̶̪̋r̸͉̳̉̚ơ̴̟̙̠̈́̔t̷͕͝ ̴͉̄̌ͅã̵̤̮̺̋n̶̩̬̮̆̾d̷̬͎͆̕ ̷̪̫̤̃̽d̴̹͍̹̎̓e̶̡̥͗̽͠c̸͍̪̥͗̚ạ̷̲̠̔y̵̮̠̅̅ ̴͇̜̈́̓̾t̷͍̉̈́h̶̖͖͉͊̌å̴̭̣̈́̉͜t̶̥̮́̋͑ ̸̠̇d̵̻̿͊͊ͅe̸͈̱̿͌̃v̴̧̯̓̑ọ̴͆̿u̵̡̬̮͛́̌r̷͈̕s̴̻̬̑̎̉ ̸͖̗̀t̷̩͆̋h̸̭̬̆̽e̷̞͂ ̸̣̾͆̚f̵̻̺̞̊͊͘o̵͙͙̟͋̊̅u̴̦̦̹͛n̸̝͌̓ḋ̵̢͓a̴̡͙͆ṫ̵̨̜ị̶͕́͒̄ö̵̬́n̶̢̖̂̉͝s̴̭̑ ̷̼̰̺̃̃o̸̢͍͆f̴̥̈́ ̴͍̜̍͒͠u̸̲͚̽̾̓͜s̸̟̺̉͜͝ ̷̳̏̇̚a̴̤̯͉̽̒l̶̝̗̎̑̆l̶̡̞͘!̷̦̘̈́͌ ̴̛͚̟̾T̴͖̫̤̾ȟ̶͕̹̆i̸̜̱͉͋͛ŝ̵͍͍̅͜ ̵̢͚͒̓̀͜p̷͖̪̲͐͗ḷ̴́̏̀á̴̬̭̄n̵͔̩͎͑ȩ̵͔̀̾́ ̴̨̹͋́͠ó̷͕f̶̠͌͠ ̴͕͇͌̃o̷̭͂̕ͅu̴͉̓͊̔r̵̳̝̬̉͝s̸̠̾̄ ̷̼̞͊i̵͓̱̹͝s̵̩̝͗͘͜ ̵̧͓͆̂͝b̴̨̳͇̿̈́́r̷̹̲̾̋̕ͅĭ̷͎̊t̷͉͖͝t̷̺̋͠l̵̜͙̆e̷͇̊͠ ̵̺͚̈́̀̋a̵̛̗ṇ̶̝͚̑̐̈́d̴̬̉̿ ̷̧̛̙̑b̶̥̫̘̄͒e̷̻͂̊y̶̗̺̐ͅo̶̜͎̬̒̈n̵̨͎̫̊̽̄d̵͚͔́̍̆ ̶͓̆̈́l̴̺̎į̵͆̚͠e̷̘̬͗́ ̵̻̉̋̆t̶̰͑͌h̵̞̿̄̑ḙ̴͂ ̵̝͌̒̇ť̷̢̬̚e̴̖̊̾m̴͙͓͖̚p̸̮͕̥̾̑l̶̡͆̈́͠é̵̹̯s̵̗̍̍ ̵̢̮̀͊̓ó̵͍̄f̴̘̻̒̌͑ ̸̝̂t̷̲̉̇̏h̸̙̱͒̏͌ē̸̹͘ ̶̡̫̾ņ̸̺̇i̸͙͑̈́ǧ̴̨͇̂h̷͙͌͐̄ṯ̶̓̈́m̸̨̠̂̊â̷͙̫͖r̸̡̞̊e̷̝̫͋̉̋ ̷͖̾ḧ̵̤̌͝o̶̫̓̀͠s̴̥̑ẗ̷̤ṣ̴̈̆!̷̛͉̹̰ ̷̱̄̕͠N̸̥̺͙̉͆͋a̴͈͝m̵̫͛͝e̵̡̪̒̓͘l̶̩̔ẽ̶̦͇s̸̢̔̋s̵̛̳͠ ̷̯̲̖̋͊n̸̩̫̈̉͜o̷͔̲̤͑̃̐ţ̴͠h̵͈̮̏̊͜͝i̶͓̠̺̚͝n̷̡̤͈̕ǧ̵̻̳̆s̴̯̝͖̑ ̵͕̈́c̷̢͇͘ͅä̶̪̻̙̉̚v̴̯̹̟̒̍o̴̘̐r̸̈́͒̀͜t̷̬̱̑̊i̷̡̗̊̃̅ñ̵̨̕g̴̥̈́͝ ̵͍̫̣͑̽á̴̮̪̯̑g̸̱͙͐̓̐a̶͙̔͛̕í̵͚͓n̵̘̥̮͋̌̕s̶̝̄̄̎t̷̻̱͐͒̋ ̷̲̦͈̍t̴̯͙͑̍͘h̸͚̤͐ê̴̦̒͂͜ ̵̘͓̯͛̔̀ẗ̷̲̖́̋ĩ̶͙͚͒̋d̵͓͙͙̽̅é̸̹̂s̸̰̜̪̑ ̸͚̰̈́ǒ̷̘͋f̶̛͓̟̍ ̶̢́S̶̖͔̯̃̚ị̵̎̋͗n̵̰̍̏ ̷̪͈̆̚á̵̼̭ͅn̴̦̾d̸͚͠ ̴̑͛͋ͅF̷̢̛̬̦͒u̴̘͊r̴̭͔͌̈́y̴̝̞͛͠ ̴͇̎͘͜a̴̡̋͘ǹ̴͎̋̅d̴̟̜͆̆͝ ̸͕̩̱̓̀͗R̷̘̠̓ǒ̷̩͈͐͊t̷̠͔̎ ̷͍̅̌͊ȧ̷̼ṉ̸̓̍̉d̴̩̯̜͐ ̵̮͖̄͛V̴̛̩͈́̑i̷̜̼͓̅͑͒c̷͙̮̍̅̊ė̸̜̦͠!̵̛̤̼̑"̸̨̮͈͆͗
“What do you think it’s saying?” Rainbow Dash asked out loud as the group entered the ample albeit heavily damaged room. As the voice resonated, it’s volume just a bit above normal talking intensity, they approached a fairly large screen showcasing a lonesome symbol that resembled some sort of pillar and a skull lodged in the center of it.
“I don’t know… but it sounds sad and fearful,” Fluttershy replied looking up to the screen with pitty.
"̶͓͍͍̊͒T̷͎͖́ȟ̶͚̭̈́͜ê̶̗̋ ̴̱̲̊́͝c̶̢͕̃͛̔ȏ̵̘͓̭r̷̡̫͐̀p̶̹̟͘s̸̗͛e̸̮̘͊͌̏s̷͍͛ ̸̡̗̾̇o̷̧̩͝f̴̦̀͒̇ ̵̯̏d̸̹̪͓̆ȩ̵̳̮̊̊͘a̶̱̾̏d̶̼̪͂͂̔ ̴̜̜̇͊͗w̶̯̮͐͂͝ͅo̷̞̫̱͆̊͒r̷̞̙͝l̶̙̰̱̈́d̴̟̲̟͐͋̌ş̴̹͖̋̍̍ ̴̨̻͜͝b̷̦̯̂ļ̴̲̹̆o̷͓̙̊͐w̴̼̭͗͊͠n̷̪̿̒,̸̪̎͝ ̵͚̄o̵̟̣̝͂n̴͇̻̓l̷̳̀ỵ̴̰͊ ̸̢̤̪̀͗b̶̦̈͌̈́ŷ̶̭̈̀ ̸̨̗́͐t̴̰̬̓͊h̵̺͌̕ĕ̴̜̊ͅ ̷̨̚c̶͈͖̱̀͌͊ạ̶̀̒r̷̟͒͜n̸̞̓ả̸̫͔͙͋̃l̵̨͋̌ ̸͖̎̓p̴͙͉̓̋i̵̛͙̝̪̔̃t̸̢͛̊ş̸̬̌̿ ̷̲̣̭̀̓ò̵͉̤̎̎f̴̺͕̠͊͘ ̸̢̟̆̈́b̵̯̾ḹ̸̨̅́ą̴́c̵̝̳̟͊̒k̸̭̀͑͊ê̴͕͔̳̐̔s̷̯̞̅͗ţ̸̀̏̐ ̸̦̈́d̸̮̾͒͠a̴̛̜͜m̵̋̓͜ṋ̸̩͐̈͘a̸̮̝̬̚t̴͍̦̖̓̅͠i̸̠̜̐͌͠ǒ̵͎̜n̷͔͗͗!̸̼̈́̔"̶̳̮͙͗̈́
“Whatever it’s saying, it could probably help us understand what happened here and who they are,” Cadance pointed out.
“Hold on a moment, I’ll use the Universal Translation and Understanding Spell,” Twilight said as her horn began to glow. “Just imagine what we will be able to learn from a void-fairing species! Ohhhh, I can’t wait!”
"̶̨͛Ć̷̞̣͕r̴͉͙̋e̷͙͗͑͑ả̴̫̜͒̀t̵̰̀͘͝i̴̪̅͠͝o̶͉̹͕͒͘͝n̶͎̎ ̵̦̼̿R̶̠͗̌͘ó̸̜̹t̴͎̎͊͌ş̴̓̋!̶̙̲͑̄̌ͅ ̷̼͔̝̈́̐R̸̗͙̋e̸̢͔͓̅á̸̫̽ͅl̴̦̭̔͠i̵̱̍͑͐t̷͙̟́ỹ̵͎̂̍ ̷͇̐͐s̸̰̩̎͂p̸̜̺̪̊ľ̸̠̟͕̽͒i̵̮̥̺͘͝n̷̟̤̓̊t̵̲͎̱̄̈̏e̸̗̪͊̓r̸̢̪̝̆̈́͝s̸̼̳̔͋͘!̷̱͂"̴̼̈́͝
Twilight’s horn erupted in a shower of light that enveloped the entirety of the chamber in a fraction of a second. The next instant the voice was heard, it was perfectly intelligible.”
“The Emperor Protects! The Emperor Protects!! He must. He MUST! Oh, Throne! The Emperor Protects!”
“Whoa…” Luna managed to say as she and her companions flinched in response. The voice was not only understandable but given its tone, they deduced it belonged to a male. But more than that, the sheer emotion, distress, panic, terror, desperation, and hopelessness that could be felt from those words had nearly forced her to kneel.
“T-That wasn’t nice,” Pinkie managed to say as her mane deflated a little bit.
“I have to agree with you, Pinkie dear. That poor stallion… I have… I have never heard such desperation and terror in anypony else before,” Rarity said as she tried to calm her racing heart.
“A-At least we know whoever he is… or was had an Emperor… with that, we can deduce their form of government at the very least…,” Shining Armor said with trembling legs. He had seen action in the past; several times, in fact. But the sheer terror reflected in the voice of the alien was something new to him. Not even facing Sombra could compare to the fear now coursing through his veins.
Suddenly, the screen went black for a second, then the symbol returned alongside garbled, static-torn words emerging from the screen’s sides. This new voice wasn’t like the mellow, almost melodic one they had heard before. This one was rough, heavy, gruff, and authoritarian.
“-quisiton. The Ordo--- Requested--- On all fronts!--- rp from everywhere!--- Cadia Stands. By the Emperor, victory--- Despoiler must not---”
The group remained silent as the random, incomprehensible words they managed to make out from the heavily distorted voice went silent for several seconds.
“Endurance-Class Escort Light Cruiser, ‘Historia Veritas’ of the God-Emperor’s most Holy Inquisition reporting for Warp-Jump. The vessel is heavily damaged… Gellar Field unstable… we carry--- Chronicler of the Ordo His-- Beacon on loop. All available ships shall rally on--- Oh, Eternal God-Emperor, preserve us, from the dangers of the void. The Emperor Protects!”
“ ‘Light Cruiser’? My gosh, if this is a light ship then what are their heavy ones like?” Starlight asked herself.
“Again with that line: ‘The Emperor Protects’. It sounds like a prayer, don’t you think, sister?” Luna asked eyeing the screen.
“I’m more intrigued by that stallion referring to their ruler as a God-Emperor. Perhaps he’s an immortal like us? Do you remember when ponies used to call us Goddesses, Luna?” Celestia asked with some humor in her voice.
“Indeed I do, sister. Perhaps it is the burden of immortal beings to be seen as Gods,” Luna sighed tiredly.
“I have question,” Pinkie said as she raised a hoof. “I hear the alien talking the same way, I thought the spell was going to change that?”
“Common misconception, Pinkie,” Twilight started pushing her chest forward. “The spell doesn’t change the actual language, it simply allows those affected by it to understand written and spoken wor--”
Suddenly, everypony flinched in pain as the machine in front of them produced a short-lived, high-pitch screech of pure static. A moment later the first mellow, refined, melodic voice was heard again.
“--Host. Given my unprecedented access to information considered too hazardous for mortal minds such as mine, I’m privy to sequestred knowledges of that which threatens our very existence and which certainly imperils my own sanity.”
The group of eleven ponies and one dragon stood still, ears poised and raised in full attention.
“This being said, the danger inherent in these records is in and on itself their actual importance. For how can our Blessed Imperium endure what may come; what lurks out there in the Darkening Void without what scraps of learning and wisdom we may yet piece together after these many millennia of grinding decay, puritanical redactionism, and wanton ignorance?”
“What?” Twilight whispered as everypony else gasped in shock. “W-What?” She repeated, appalled. “Grinding decay? Redactionism? Wanton Ignorance?” Twilight whimpered. “What?”
“Sister…,” Luna whispered giving her sister a glance.
“So their nation was in decline and losing what they’d achieved…,” Celestia lamented. The Fall of a Nation was always a sad thing to see and one very few creatures had the strength to survive, let alone rise from the ashes like a phoenix. The Fall of the dragons that happened when she was but a mere filly had been particularly terrible; a brutal fall from grace that reduced them to the brutes they were known as today.
“The Blessed Regent, our God-Emperor’s avenging son himself, has tasked my Order and thus… I, your humblest servant, with the compilation of Chronicle stacks and macro archives on all that we can recover; all of which once was learned then forgotten, with what may now yet be turned upon our foes as the blade may be.”
“For, by the Throne, we are in sorely need of every weapon that may be wielded in these most perilous of times.”
“So they lost their way? They forgot their knowledge…,” Twilight breathed out. What could be worse than losing the knowledge your ancestors worked so hard and suffered so much to gain? To have it lost and forgotten, unable to find it, unable to understand it. Forced to scrap for whatever breadcrumbs could still be found? She knew it too well. She could relate to the lament of the alien speaking. Despite Equestria’s exceptional information and history handling system, some books and scrolls were missed and lost to history or manipulated to be obscured if necessary.
Like the Elements of Harmony…, Twilight thought looking at Celestia for a moment.
“It sounds like they were desperate to find anything to fight their enemies,” Cadance said as she leaned against her husband who merely nodded.
“But while my duty is clear, and my resolve as inviolate as ever… my hand trembles, as I pen this particular record. To even simply unseal the records from whence my study is drawn, I required the aid of memetics operatives from the Holy Ordos to ward against potentially corruptive Cognito phages that may have lurked within them.”
“The cell from whence I did my work was Nine-Times sanctified by the blessed sisters of the Adeptus Ministorum. And the scripts themselves penned upon consecrated vellum.”
“Though my retinas burned as the blasphemous texts swirled before me; the words thundering through the passages of my mind long after they have been read… the work is mercifully complete and can be imparted here.”
At this point, everycreature was sitting, enraptured by the voice of an alien speaking to them. Yet one question lurked inside the minds of all of them. What could possibly be so dangerous to warrant what they could only guess to be severe security measures?
“Mayhap audio will prove to be a less in infectious medium. But the secrets I have born witness to I would wish upon no soul. And should you find their study a requirement, or worse, a necessity, I implore you not to expose yourself to such unthinkable blasphemy for long, lest you find drawn into its depth... never to surface.”
“I truly wish, for the first time, to be free of such a burden. Though it goes against my every instinct as a Historitor I pray for nothing more than to have what I have read scourged from my memory regardless of pain, regardless of damage!”
Everycreature flinched at the supplication of the alien. Whatever he had been studying and ordered to record was, at least to him, something truly awful.
But to wish to forget what he worked upon so hard no matter the method and consequence? To everyone present, more so to Twilight, it was an inconceivable notion.
“This is the curse of knowledge: the damnation that comes from peering too deep and too greedily beyond the veil. My duty is clear. My path? Perhaps less so. Yet I walk it still. Increasingly I… I dread its conclusion.”
“Know then, that this is a record of the nature of the Arch-Enemy. The Primordial Annihilator. The Never-Born powers from the depths of the Immaterium.”
“A record of… C-Chaos.”
“Chaos?” Fluttershy whispered. “B-but Chaos can be such fun. Why would he fear Chaos?”
“So Discord is involved in all this?” Applejack asked waving a hoof to the entire room. “That no-good vermin, why would he do such a thing!”
“That we cannot know, Applejack. Maybe it’s another spirit of Chaos? I wouldn’t put it past Discord to do terrible pranks, but this is something different. I doubt even he would be capable of such evil,” Rarity pointed out.
“Chaos, rendered as simple as it is possible to without rupturing once’s mind, is a universal force and at the same instance a force anathema to the universe as we know it.”
“It, by the humblest name it could be granted, is the antithesis of order, or physics, of the panconcepts that form the foundations of reality. It is a force of nature: an energy that is the negative image of the real world, opposed in almost every way and yet at the same time part of that broader universal structure.”
“This energy comes from outside our reality plane, from the extra-dimensional space of the Warp; the Immaterium, the Empyrean. This No-Space has gone by many names throughout human history; remaining ever both unchanged and in a constant state of flux, all at the same time.”
“...Or maybe it has nothing to do with Discord,” Rainbow Dash shuddered as did everypony else minus Fluttershy who ‘eeped’ in fright. “Because that sure as hay doesn’t sound like what he does.”
“Did he say ‘human’? Those fantasy creatures Lyra is obsessed with?” Spike asked scratching his head.
“Looks like Lyra wasn’t as crazy as we thought her to be,” Twilight commented, eyes fixated on the screen as the voice continued to speak.
“Imagine it akin to, as the Fifteen Legion Thousand Sons once termed it: ‘A Great Ocean’. In much the same manner as a sea, this realm has tides, storms, and squalls. But all formed from an incomprehensively vast, indeed infinite well of pure psychic power.”
“It is a sea whose water is unfathomable emotion and spiritual energy. The Warp, Chaos, they are one and the same: for the Warp is pure Chaos and Chaos itself springs from the Warp.”
“Should these words I’m forced to employ ring e-ephemeral it is because Chaos is just that -- Ephemera. It is by its nature impossible to render properly into the crude mundanity of Imperial Gothic, but one must, nevertheless, endeavor to try given its absolute importance and sheer existential threat.”
“Definitely not related to Discord,” Applejack muttered.
Everycreature present straighten up as the alien, this human stallion, went on. His soft, mellow voice doing little to ease their racing hearts but at the same time capturing their full attention.
“It has been theorized, amongst those privy to the knowledges arcane, and oft heretical, that the Warp is a direct result of the universal plane we inhabit possessing sentient life, and it is, in fact, far more acutely tied to humanity in this regard.”
“The tides of the immaterial plane respond to the emotions and passions of creatures possessing sentient thought; effectively being a dimensional psychic mirror: a realm where one’s hopes and dreams, fears and rage, become actualized as roiling phantasmagoric energy.”
“T-That can’t be right…,” Celestia muttered.
“Indeed, sister. It has to be wrong,” Luna agreed gulping nervously.
“But… but they are much, much more advanced than us… who knows what kind of discoveries they have made… and they seem to have magic like us,” Twilight gulped.
“What is to be born in mind, however, is that the plane appears to react far more viscerally to negative emotions. Pain. Rage. Sorrow. Hatred. Jealousy. Disgust. Vanity. Obsession. All our vices, our sins, are magnified within the Warp’s cacophony. Every petty thought, every fleeting violent fantasy, every serial indulgence; all resonate and add fuel to the conflagration.”
“Sentient life feeds the ocean’s tides and oh do we feed it well.”
“That’s no party I would want to be…,” Pinkie whispered, more of her mane and tail had gone flat losing its puffiness.
“And here I thought Tartarus was bad,” Spike commented, shuddering as he moved closer to Twilight.
“H-How could such a place exist? It can’t… can it?” Cadance asked as she trembled.
“Since the dawn of time and the later dawn of intelligent life, our dimension has nourished the Warp. Thundering waves of our thoughts clashing together; churning, combining, and dividing until out of life very psychic essences were formed that plane’s own… entities. In much the same way the combining gases of nebule form the natal cores of the stars themselves… so too did the emotions of the Material flow like eddies into vast psychic whirlpools to give birth to the unspeakable intelligences of Chaos.”
“See then, how it is impossible to separate the Immaterium from the concept of Chaos. They are inextricably bound; they are one and the same. To separate them is essentially beyond semantics, for the forces of the Warp have being malign for as long as it has mattered. It is possible that before the development of sentient life in large quantities, it may have been a calm sea, but that was so long ago as to be effectively pointless to discuss.”
“Is he saying that we… that… that Wap thing is the way it is because of what we feel and think?” Fluttershy asked as tears began to form in her eyes.
“If what the human is saying is true… then I think every sentient living being in the galaxy, maybe even the universe, contributes to that,” Luna began. “Think about it. How many millions of worlds are out there? There must be countless civilizations beyond the veil… these humans are just one of them. And who knows if they value the same things we value in the same regard.”
“Still, the implications that our emotions can affect this ‘Warp’ are… troublesome,” Shining added as he nuzzled his wife. “But what did he meant by ‘Intelligences of Chaos?’”
“I don’t know, Shining Armor,” Celestia replied.
“Indeed time itself has no say within the depths of the Warp; linear chronology does not exist. What exists within has always existed, will always exist... and yet has never existed, or not existed yet. It is best not to consider time where possible when discussing such things. Down that road, only the throngs of creeping lunacy lie.”
“Suffice it to say, as the entities within the Warp unfolded their incomprehensible minds into impossible space and discovered their new realm, they no doubt realized their connection to the material plane and the minds that were feeding their existences there.”
“They were sentient nightmares, effectively; intelligences born from hideous amalgamations of storms of psychic energy that had simply become too deep, too concentrated, too dense. So that they were able to break free of their tatters to the physical realm and become independent of it.”
“At first there were... three… blasphemous consciousnesses.
One of Blood and Battle.
One of Change and Transformation.
One of Rot and Decay.”
The ponies and one dragon were stunned. To hear that their thoughts created entities in that increasingly nightmarish realm, that so-called Warp, as the human termed it, was bad enough. But to learn that some grew so much to the point of breaking free from that realm…
Were these beings the enemy the humans were desperately fighting against?
“But the Fall of the arrogant, hedonistic, narcissistic Aeldari, brought by their own hand several millennia ago, stirred the depths of the Warp itself to such a degree that the Immaterium itself shook from their Empire-Wide indulgence of the flesh and perverse search of ever-higher emotional hights.”
“Warp-Storms covered the galaxy, rendering our own growing civilization incapable of faster than light travel and isolating countless worlds for many millennia to come… the start of the Age of Strife. However, the blow dealt by the Aeldari themselves was far more monstrous than anything they, in their infinite arrogance and self-indulgence, could ever imagine.”
“Three were the Greater Intelligences of Chaos… after the destruction and fall of Aeldari Ascendancy, with millions upon millions of their people killed in but a moment, their souls consumed by the very entity they had given birth to… now there are Four. The birth of this entity and its addition to the Chaos Pantheon tore reality apart, creating the Oculus Terribles… the Eye of Terror, and bringing forth the intelligence of Excess and Depravation.”
Pinkie’s mane had gone completely flat at this point. Rarity was horrified. And Fluttershy near-paralyzed by sheer terror.
“So another alien species… created another one of those beings by accident?” Starlight questioned while her mind was a flurry of thoughts and ideas, trying to imagine what these ‘Aeldari’ had done to warrant such a terrible fate.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Cadance said fanning herself.
“While each embodied fundamentally invilest and immoral universal concepts. Such as Survival, Evolution, Entropy, and Curiosity, the excesses of reality twisted and tainted them into wholly destructive forms of Wanton Bloodshed, Twisting Trickery, Horrific Corruption, and Vilest Depravity.
“These intelligences became onto Gods, or so they wish to consider themselves. And their control over the formless realms within the depths of the Warp’s tides grew in tandem to the burgeoning sentient species of the galaxy; seeing how they clamoring in brief lives of mortal men fed them; the dread entities of the Immaterium inveigled their way into this material realm… for reality can be… porous, and their regent capabilities grew only stronger.”
“They… ‘whispered’ and coaxed the minds of any that could be made listen; ensnaring with promises those with urges and desires too strong to resist.
Luna’s mouth went agape. “T-That’s what happened to me… what the Nightmare did to me…”
“...You know that phrase? ‘Everypony has its own inner demons’? I think this is very much so a literal take on that…,” Applejack said as her haunches trembled.
“Chaos promises power. The price? Well, that is never clear. But in exchange for what may initially seem like a poultry token, those within the Warp bestow upon their mortal servants’ gifts of wealth, material power or physical prowess.”
“An adherent to the Many Changing God may see their life elevated by good fortune above their fellows. While a servant of the Bloody Handed Beast may see their body grow muscular and unnaturally strong under his patronage.”
“But, once the tendrils of these intelligences have sunk into one’s soul, they are impossible to excise. It only ever begins with one decision; one moment of perfectly human weakness. A whisper of surrender and the soul is forever lost.”
Twilight was at a loss for words. If what the human was saying was indeed true, then everypony she knew, everycreature on the planet, she herself was in danger of falling to the temptations of these entities. Luna has fallen to such temptation and had spent a thousand years locked in the moon.
If that was the case, then was Sombra the same? Was the Pony of Shadows a creature from the Warp? How about the Limbo? Tirek’s power? Tartarus itself? Too many questions, too many doubts, too many possibilities to consider and answer at that moment.
“When a mortal has come into the thrall of the Primordial Annihilator, their thoughts and emotions resound and magnify in dread concord with Chaos itself. Through a lens distorted they see the world, refracted by the power they are now beholden to, altering their perception, and leading them further down and down the path of wicked damnation.”
“Release can seemingly be only found by descending deeper into these depths; driven by the arrogant and misguided belief that this remains somehow their choice! And they are not ensnared by a consciousness greater and more terrible than they could possibly comprehend; that they now dance on invisible puppet strings pulled by an Outer-Thing beyond understanding.”
“It matters not to the Gods if their servants are aware of their path, not even their patron.”
“I am quite glad to not be an actual Goddess,” Cadance said trying to contain her mounting nausea.
“Who in their right mind would ever pray or worship such vile entities?” Rarity spat. “They sound like parasites more than Gods.”
Everypony silently agreed with Rarity’s notion.
“We of the Imperium like to consider the mortal devotees of these blasphemous nightmares as demagogic fanatics; mouths foaming as they spit forth cursed dedications to the unliving Warp.”
“Maybe it is easier for us to cast them as so. But their Gods care not. Chaos is not so overt.”
“A mortal could accept the gifts of these sentient Terror-Things as simply as a ‘good luck blessing’, and in doing so tread the first steps of blinkered ignorance into the pits of deepest corruption.”
“They do not need to chant the name of their patron, only act in accordance with the emotions that sustain and grow them.”
“Great, so what he is saying is that we don’t know if luck is actually luck or the doing of those monsters? No! He… he has to be wrong. It can’t be right! I refuse to believe my awesomeness is thanks to those creatures!” Rainbow called stomping her hoof on the metallic ground several times.
“I really, really hope the humans and their Emperor are able to withstand and defeat such creatures. If they are indeed real… then what chance do we have if such an advanced species cannot defeat those parasites?” Luna said softly, her tone betrayed by the venom lacing her words.
“We can only hope their fight is going to their favor… and keep listening to honor them, sister,” Celestia said in a mournful yet hopeful tone.
“Chaos has no vanity: it is an elemental power fueled by all negative thought, all malevolent passion regardless from whence these feelings were even formed.”
“The God-Things of the Warp are intelligent, yes, but not in the way we in the material realm could possibly comprehend. They are more akin, the writers of several millennia have postulated, to their end, to the disasters of nature.”
“Imagine a self-aware hurricane or a perceptive earthquake; one made entirely of psychana, emotion, and wicked intent. A hurricane feels no remorse for the devastation or loss of life it causes, nor even the manner in which it does. It simply IS, it knows no other way of existing. Thus it is so with these so-called Gods: they are how they are because that’s all they have ever been. They act in accordance with their natures as self-aware concepts; ideas and metaphors brought into existence by the simple vagueries of universal systems.”
“So now he’s defending them!? What the hay!?” Applejack yelled, outraged.
“I don’t think that’s the case, Applejack. The human seems to say that what they do, they do because that’s why they must and can do to fulfill their survival and goals,” Starlight reasoned.
“Yeah, by causing so much evil and harm onto others? Would you forgive everything, for example, Chrysalis has done just because she needed to drain love to survive and grow stronger?” Shining Armor snorted. “No. Those creatures are evil, even if the human says they do it because it is their nature. The changelings were able to turn a new leaf, but Chrysalis turned worse. There’s always an option to do better.”
The rest of the group remained silent.
“Why, then, ascribe malice to their acts? Because Chaos, the Gods, the Warp; they are the antithesis to reality. The sinister hunger of the Ruinous Powers seeks to usurp reality itself and drag it forever down into the No-Space of the Immaterium until all existence is at their whim; all matter clay to be sculpted by their vile desires.”
“They cannot become manifest in our plane so they must usurp it, knawing upon the foundations of reality like a canker, and usurping the minds of mortals with poisonous promises and honey words.”
“Domination over us is their goal. In as much as it is possible to ascribe ‘motive’, ergo it is malign.”
“Calling them parasites, in retrospect, seems to be a mercy to describe those things. They sound more like… like a disease, a terrible illness... rather than something living,” Rarity said with utmost disgust.
“Wait… if they are, if not truly evil, then absolutely malign being driven by their instincts… wouldn’t that make them self-defeating? I mean… as far as I understand, if sentient life, like us, feds them and then end up ‘eating’ everything… wouldn’t that kill them in the end?” Starlight reasoned before the voice continued.
“I have heard it questioned, spat from the mouths of madmen, that such an end is ultimately self-defeating; that if the Primordial Annihilator fuels itself and wacks as strong upon the back of human emotions; that should the Warp break all barriers and subsume our petty reality into its tides, Chaos would effectively destroy its only means of sustenance.”
“To such thoughts I say: do you really attempt to determine ‘logic’ from the actions of these entities? Do you genuinely wish to stand before a living storm formed of all humanity’s darkest and most terrible passions, and put questions to its reason?”
The group noticed something odd in the tone of the human. So far he had delivered all his narration with professionalism and a fair degree of consistency. Sure, his voice had broken here and there with fear, anger, or disdain. But now his tone had turned more aggressive, condescending even. It lacked patience as if he had answered that same question thousands of times with decreasing tact.
And then the human let out a disgruntled chuckle.
“Rank idiocy. Base vanity.”
“The Ruinous Powers care not for your vaunted logic. They owe you no reason to base, no emotionless discourse! We know what it is they seek!”
“‘Tis a rampant fool who believes that as the last of our material plane is swallowed into the Empyrean, as uncounted BILLIONS of sentient lives are snuffed out; their souls torn asunder by gluttonous extra-dimensional horrors… That they may stand back, smile, and take stupid comfort in some damn thought exercise.”
“B-Billions…?” Fluttershy muttered, tears flowing from her eyes.
“I… I don’t want to keep listening anymore,” Cadance swallowed on the verge of tears, her lips quivering but her body, as was the case with everyone else, refusing to obey.
“Just what sort of monsters have they been fighting all this time?” Shining Armor whispered to himself, shaking as he did.
“The difficulty inherent in recording the nature of the Ruinous Powers should by now be obvious. Even being aware of its existence is corrosive. For human curiosity, a facet of our being that has seen us shock the bonds of our Birthworld and conquer the galaxy itself, is usurped, and turn upon us as a tool of our own damnation.”
“Blissful, sweet ignorance appears to be the only answer. And certainly has been the policy of our Imperium, grasped with such fanatical certainty that the vilest atrocities of the Arch-Enemy rival that which we have inflicted upon ourselves… in the name of maintaining that universal secret too terrible for the masses to even glimpse.”
Again, the tone of the human had changed. Now it had a feeling of sadness, sorrow, and tiredness mixed into one.
“Were they that desperate to fight off those creatures that they hurt themselves just as bad?” Luna muttered with eyes wide in horror.
“If this kind of knowledge is what they protected their citizens from knowing… I think I would do the same,” Spike said hugging Twilight’s right foreleg.
“Maybe I would do, too, Spike,” Twilight replied in a frightful tone.
“But i-*sigh*-is this macroredactionism even possible when attempting to combat self-aware ideas themselves?”
“We speak of these Outer-Things in such a way because that is what they are: Sentient concepts, metaphors come alive if ‘alive’ can even be used in this context.”
“How does one fight allegory? How does one resist a malignant story? The presence of the Arch-Enemy is endemic in the galaxy, the stain of these darkest Gods, polluting myths and legends and religions across the gulfs of time and space. Through means subtle, they have inveigled their way into human consciousness to such a level as to usurp us on a scale of mythic concepts.”
“Monsters, fiends, demons, Hell; cathonic underworlds, universal evil. All may replicate themselves in the hindbrain of base human superstition.”
“But can it be really be called superstition when there ARE eldritch claws piercing the veil from beyond our universe itself to pluck at its strings?”
No one in the group moved. None said anything. How could they when the words of the human rang so much… sense? Out of all of them, Celestia and Luna were the ones who knew from experience that one could smite down a foe and be done with it. But ideas? Beliefs? Myths and legends? Those never died. With any luck, the dangerous ones would be forgotten over time, but most endured in one way or another.
The human spoke the truth. How can you win against an enemy that is essentially a product of your own mind?
“H-Hey, does anypony else hear that sound?” Applejack asked.
“Ancient stories of such evils; fables ones thought the primitive gruntings of the less evolved. Are they… are they, in fact, the Gods? Archetypes that dwell within us? Concepts rendered eternal in the un-time of their hellscape dimension?”
“I think… I think I can hear it too…,” Pinkie responded.
“Me too,” Fluttershy replied. “It sounds… like screams?”
“How else could the recitation of tales of horror, stories of predatory demonic things and evil witches, of that which we know by our truest senses to be patently false, how could that come to unman us at all?”
“Why is the terror of the unknown… of the dark of the night so universal and primal? An instinctive fear of predators… but perchance… not predators of the mundane. Mayhap these terror be of much older standing. They date beyond embodiment; they’ve never been truly enfleshed. They stalk our minds, our myths, our ideas; hunter-things of foulest intent.”
The voice of the human, as he spoke, slowly turned from questioning, to inquisitive, to fearful, as if a steady but terrible realization formed in his mind. In tandem with his voice, a noise that came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time slowly increased matching the volume of the human’s voice, but never blocking it out in the slightest.
Even so, the group of ponies dare not to move aside from involuntarily tremble to each word spoken by the alien, human voice.
“I… I hear moaning….,” replied Starlight, her voice barely a whisper.
“I hear… horrible… horrible cheerings…,” Pinkie replied.
“I hear thousands of voices singing,” Fluttershy whimpered.
“Is our ingrained human fear a truly spiritual thing? A genetic racial terror that this terraqueous realm we inhabit is ever perched upon the precipice of a thirsting maw of inchoate madness that would devour us in an instant!?”
“Please, make it stop,” Rarity begged as she also heard moaning and cries of pain.
“What is this horror?” Shining asked hugging his wife close as he heard distant battle cries while Cadance cried in his embrace, unable to stop hearing the cries of tortured souls.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash were hugging each other, trying to desperately shut the cries of bloodshed and horrific moaning they were hearing.
“I must cease these musings. For I fear even now myself being pulled ever closer to that void… Curses. Curses upon this knowledge! Damn the Gods! Damn them to their darkest pits!”
Everypony flinched, their hearts beating so fast they threatened to burst out their chests from the panic alone. But try as they may, they couldn’t stand up to run away. They were rooted in fear; more so with the now very tangible fear, horror, desperation, and hopelessness laced in the voice of the human speaker.
“I feel the itch, the scratching at the corners of my vision. A cacophony of hideous amorphousness alien beyond words. The corrupted angles of cryptic poisonous idea-forms! Boiling. Questing. Bubbling. Straining.”
“Humanity, our petty species, we are cast adrift upon a rock of blinkered ignorance in a formless sea of purest evil?”
“This… this isn’t right… This isn’t what it was supposed to be like meeting aliens,” Luna whispered as she cried trying to ignore the whispering voices around her.
“...” Celestia said nothing. All she could do was wait, listen, cry, and ignore the same whispering voices Luna was hearing.
“Stop it…”, Twilight whispered as tears fell freely across her cheeks whilst Spike cowered gripping her leg.
“I hear the chorus of blasphemous intent moaning the hymns of purest malignancy from the chambers beyond time! I see the hordes of never-born cast out of the pit: teeth and claws and blades and spines and eyes! So many eyes…”
“Stop it,” the young alicorn repeated, this time more firmly as she gritted her teeth.
“All that is may sink, deep into the rot and decay that devours the foundations of us all! This plane of ours is brittle and beyond lie the temples of the Nightmare-Hosts! Nameless nothing cavorting against the tides of Sin and Fury and Rot and Vice!”
“T-That sounds like what he said when we entered the room!” Spike cried out, unable to un-hear the crying and the laments of countless voices.
“Stop it!” Twilight cried out scowling as she did.
“The corpses of dead worlds blown, only by the carnal pits of blackest damnation!”
“Creation Rots! Reality Splinters!”
“The Emperor Protects! The Emperor Protects!! He must. He must! Oh, Throne, the Emperor Protects!”
And in the same manner, as when they entered the room minutes earlier, the voice went silent along with the darkening screen. The remained silent, now understanding, at least to an extent, the distressing emotions of the human narrator.
All ponies and dragon present couldn’t stop crying or clutching their heads in pain. Even though the recording had ended, the dark noises around them didn’t stop. All of them were withstanding the pain or begging the noises to stop to no avail.
Suddenly, the sound of screeching static was heard followed by distorted voices.
“-quisiton. The Ordo--- Requested--- On all fronts!--- rp from everywhere!--- Cadia Stands. By the Emperor, victory--- Despoiler---”
The vice came to a violent end as Twilight shot a beam of pure magical energy at the machinery, frying it and destroying it wholesale. With it, the noises faded, but not before an evil, deep, sinful, corrupted laughter was heard across the room.
The laughter of Dark Gods.
“Let’s leave this place,” Twilight said before turning toward the exist, not knowing when she had stood back up.
Everypony else followed suit silently.
*********************************************
“Hey, you’re back already? Did you-- what happened?” Sunburst asked, losing all cheer in his voice as he saw the state the returning group was in.
“We found something we shouldn’t have,” Starlight replied with the most convincing normal tone she could muster.
“Everypony, we’re leaving this forsaken place,” Shining ordered. Immediately, the guards obeyed.
“W-What!? Leave, just like that?” Sunburst objected.
“We have no right staying here, Sunburst. Let’s just leave,” Twilight sighed tiredly.
“...If… if you say so…,” Sunburst wanted to protest further, but the expressions and melancholic mood of the group in front of him prevented him from doing so. As he picked up his saddlebag, he remembered something. “Twilight, a moment, please?” The young alicorn nodded. “After you left, I fan some minor information, nothing important, aside from this ship belonging to a group called ‘The Inquisition’, and to an empire called ‘The Imperium of Man’. The real important thing I found it after I did some experiments on the throne, the map, and the panels. They all gave me the same result, which is completely impossible.”
“Whatever do you mean, Sunburst?” Twilight asked with a slow rising dread forming at the bottom of her stomach.
“This ship is old. Incredibly, impossibly, illogically old,” Sunburst waved a hoof around the room. “According to their background radiation… the ship is a little over 13.8 billion years old…”
Twilight’s eyes, as well as the majority of the group’s, went wide as they began to tremble.
“Why would that be impossible? It just means its an old ship… right?” Rainbow asked fearfully.
“Because that means this ship is older than the Universe itself,” Sunburst laughed. “Which is impossible! The Universe is, to our best estimate, a little under 8.9 billion years old.”
Twilight screamed.
**********************************************
“Are you suuuuuure you want me to do it?” Discord asked at the four gathered alicorns standing on the hill that gave them a clear view of the crashed ship.
“You have no idea. Our little po… no. No. We aren’t ready to face what lurks out there. We may never be ready to do so,” Celestia replied as solemnly as possible.
“Riiiiiight… but I’m only doing this because my dear and best friend Fluttershy asked me to,” Discord huffed before he snapped his fingers. A moment later, the ship was gone from sight, leaving only the outlining crater where it had rested for two days.
All alicorns sighed in relief before thanking Discord for his aid. Then, they left leaving the draconequus alone. Discord turned to gaze at the crater… and smiled.
“All. As. Planned.” He said as his eyes glowed blue for a brief moment. He then snapped his fingers and vanished from sight.
End.
Author's Note
Special thanks to anyone that read this!
The audio/video used for this crossover is titled On the Nature and Origins of Chaos by Oculus Imperia: Here be a link to his channel
It was used under his permission. The mention of Slaanesh was taken and edited from his other video called Fall of the Aeldari.
His 40K channel is pretty amazing and incredibly detailed, you should check it out!
This would be the video in proper: On the Nature and Origins of Chaos
*If anyone is confused with the ending, in this take, Discord is one of the many, many forms of the one, the only, the greatest asshole among the Chaos Gods, Tzeentch.
