Arc 4 – Desert Summit Chapter 3 – We meet again, part III

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Receiving no verbal reply to his portentous words—only looks ranging from confused to discontent—the Prophet fished out a small spherical object from the folds of his tattered cloak. He turned his back to the remaining equines and with a sound of dry cloth being ripped a ragged tear in reality appeared before him instead of the dark desert, the view beyond that crude portal distorted.

When the doorway to some unknown place swallowed the stallion, the heavy silence continued to hold reign—till Rainbow Dash shook herself, returning the sand sneaked into her suit’s creases to its source. Her rosy eyes expressed nothing as she studied the muzzles of those who stayed, lingering the most on Heterocera’s dismayed expression and the warlock’s perpetually smug visage.

“I might help you with liberating the Crystal Empire,” she addressed both of them at once, then faced the Machine Goddess. “But count me out from the rest of your stupid idea.”

The pegasus glanced around as if searching for something, peering into the shadows encircling the now almost empty island of the soft artificial light. She then shrugged, rolled her eyes and took off into the starry sky.

The changeling glared at King Sombra, her eyes boring into his with a silent challenge—she dared him to leave, too. The stallion’s lips stretched into a grin that could be interpreted as both mocking and reassuring at the same time. Heterocera barely detected the Kirin uneasily shifting her weight from one hoof to the other—where Nightmare’s influence had dwindled, the Windigo picked up the torch of upgrading the desert from a barren wasteland to a frozen desolation. At last, the tide of green fire in her gaze crashed against the serene bulwark of the arcanium mask.

“What now?” she demanded, not bothering to hide her contempt.

“They will come around,” the arcanium mare answered without a hitch.

Heterocera narrowed her eyes. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe this is one of your tricks.”

The harsh insinuation failed to bring any difference to the Machine Goddess’ expression; when she spoke, her tone conveyed that Heterocera’s answer could change nothing in the deity’s plan.

“Does that mean you are leaving?”

She received a long hard stare from the changeling queen.

“I’m staying,” Heterocera replied, her voice as cold as the sand. “But on one condition—within a week I’m getting full access to the library at the Crystal Empire.”

The Machine Goddess directed her attention at the self-proclaimed king. “Can that be arranged?”

“Not only I’ll personally make sure that happens, but I might also share my own knowledge.” The sweet inflexion of his words violently clashed with the predatory gleam in his eyes; it fell into its place, when he added, “However, I, too, have certain goals to achieve.”

The queen’s muzzle became a battlefield of many emotions, dominated by hope and apprehension.

“What are they?” she ultimately asked; her question, though polite enough, laden with suspicion.

Smoky shadows thickened around Sombra in an eldritch display too similar to Luna’s plight; though, not the same as the darkness abided him inviolately, forming a gateway to a dilapidated megalopolis overgrown with crystals glittering beneath the Moon.

He didn’t hurry there, instead pointing invitingly at the portal with his hoof.

“Why don’t we discuss them?”

Heterocera hesitated, her gaze searching the Machine Goddess’ muzzle for either endorsement or warning; she might have expected a statue to give her advice. She then glanced into the desert, at the spot where her adviser had returned to Hope. Averting her eyes with a scowl, the changeling approached the dark portal to wordlessly follow the warlock into the distant city.

Left alone with the Machine Goddess, Night Wind stared at her, expectant and slightly confused; the deity’s focus belonged to something else—a spot right behind the Kirin.

The mare turned back to squint into the night, but with the clouds denying the desert the Moon’s silvery glow, the dark dunes revealed nothing. Despite the goddess still watching the blackness, Night carefully began, “I’m sorry, it is quite clear to me now that I shouldn’t have come here. I promise to not tell anyone anything—”

Her excuse abruptly turned into a shriek when a mass of arcanium barely visible in the shadows invaded her vision.

A dragon-shaped armour slithered over the sand without as much as a rustle and leaving no trace. As it passed the wide-eyed and stared to faintly fume Kirin, a brilliant fire kindled inside the metal ribcage, putting the miniature moon created by the Machine Goddess to shame.

“You’re more important than you think, commissioner,” the divine equinoid acknowledged Night’s words. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you will have to excuse us—there are things you aren’t quite meant to hear.”

“Of course.”

As the Kirin bowed her head the air rippled with a passage opening onto Hope’s streets. However, Night hesitated to step through, earning a raised eyebrow from the goddess and an unnerving look from the arcanium dragon.

“Thank you,” she finally uttered.

The Machine Goddess tilted her head. “What for?”

“For trying.”

The arcane threads that knit together two different places dissipated, but Spike continued to observe the desert. The echoes of the great blizzard stirred the air, no louder than the whisper of midnight breeze playing with the sand. Dust whirled playfully around the two figures, bouncing off their arcanium bodies and limbs only to rush at them again and again.

The Machine Goddess’ horn briefly flared and as its glow died, so did the orb of light created by her faded away; yet the darkness failed to creep even a step closer to the dragon and the equine. The fire that pulsed inside Spike’s body cast long and jittering shadows upon the shifting ground—none of them dared to approach the strange twain.

Spike’s sharp muzzle swivelled, his burning gaze sliding across the expanse of barchans.

Amidst those sandhills a tiny flame flickered like a candle where the new demigoddess of the Sun found herself too exhausted to battle the treacherous paths any longer; further to the horizon a spot of as if spilt ink marked the presence of the fading lunar sovereign struggling with the consequences of her mistake.

Beyond the cliffs, denizens of Hope had a momentary respite from their ceaseless survival against all odds; salty waves slammed into the crystallised banks of Vanhoover, the ancient city where the shadows gathered the thickest; the Windigo roared in despair above the ruins of Canterlot, whilst their brethren lusted for oblivion at the eternal husk of Crystal Empire.

Somewhere in the sky, a lone pegasus soared, heading north, fast and loyal as ever.

The world seemed to be no different, its gears turning like those of a precise clock.

Who had winded it?

“Was it always your plan?” he asked, without turning his head.

“Which one do you mean?”

“The one where you gave a semi-feral beast access to power he still can’t fully comprehend.”

From the corner of his eye, Spike carefully watched the expression of the metal mask, but it betrayed nothing. In her trademark tranquil manner, the Machine Goddess replied, “The situation has always been under my control.”

At first, pieces of arcanium sunk in the sand softly, then clanged against each other as Spike’s body fell apart. A dragon of pure starfire towered over the equinoid, uncontained flame of all colours reflecting on her metal features.

“Do you still believe that?”

His voice carried none of the power he radiated; though, it possessed a subtle undertone of defiance. The imposing display did achieve a reaction from the divine—she observed his new form with avid interest, even if mutely.

He lowered himself onto the ground, losing a definite dragon form by letting the lower half of his body turn into a mist as if lit up the morning Sun, whilst his head and torso solidified into a resemblance of incandescent molten metal outlining a vague silhouette.

The Machine Goddess nodded in an almost approving fashion.

“What will you do now?”

“I still haven’t decided.”

“You don’t have to.”

Spike snorted a plume of fire into the night. “You wouldn’t have started this conversation if you didn’t want me to do something.”

An enigmatic silence answered his words.

Once more Spike set his sights on faraway places, their dwellers and visitors—all in constant motion.

What did beget the pieces to cross the grand checkerboard?

He stood amongst those who knew how they moved and could see the squares; he stood bound by those very rules… yet. His blazing gaze rose to the stars, where none of that mattered—where he could be more than just a part of someone’s elaborate game or mechanism.

“I don’t have to,” Spike echoed the Machine Goddess’ words.

She was beneath him now—was it part of her plan?

The collective consciousness of the Unity and its artificial flesh could calculate… but not predict. Oracle blindly stumbled through the maze of possibilities, relying on nothing but the touch of her short filly hooves. The only prophecy the Prophet knew concerned him only; no matter how many deals he struck or how much he salvaged, he would never bind the entire world to his fate. King Sombra, Nameless, Discord… not even the ancient ‘gods’ could foresee his coming.

Nightmare? Its influence couldn’t spread far enough from its host to be meaningful, nor was it ought to be comprehended by the minds of this world.

Each of those who rose above the masses, one way or another, acted like they could change the future; but they weren’t even able to see it—none could.

Not even Spike, with all the power he carried.

So, why did he stand there, in the middle of the desert, with the Machine Goddess patiently waiting for something from him?

The Moon’s journey across the sky neared its conclusion, and so the horizon began to almost imperceptibly gain a distinct hue, not so different from Spike’s lifeblood in its colour and source. The celestial bodies travelled by themselves—they just needed a little nudge in the right direction to follow their foreordained path.

“I think I see what you are going for,” he rumbled in sudden realisation.

“Are you sure?”

“No. More importantly—are you sure?”

The Machine Goddess glanced where the unceasing wandering of the desert had almost finished effacing Night’s hoofsteps.

“I have to try.”

Spike nodded his agreement.

“Then you know what to do—the thing only you can,” the deity instructed him. “But make sure the timing is right.”

Constellations leered at the semi-corporeal corpses circling the crumbled stump of the Sky Palace. None remembered who the Windigo used to be before they got their name—the equines who in pursuit of power had lost all but the memory of their hubris. And now, for each moment of their wretched existence, that regret seared their minds shattered by the boundless vastness of the cosmos.

What a star would be for those undying accursed reborn in the abyssal void of the firmament? Would they covet its warmth or cower before the radiance of their arrogance’s reminder?

Since the first time Spike heard of the Windigo and their sorrowful tale countless moons ago, he couldn’t stop ruminating about one more lesson derived from its second, more well-known part—the one dutifully repeated at the Hearth’s Warming Eve.

Only foals would believe that the power of love and friendship could strike down those true yet stillborn gods. So, was that legend just wishful thinking or there existed the means to vanquish the Windigo?

Now, with his nature realised, he might be able to find the answer.

Unburdened by the metal shell abandoned in the desert for the arcanium-weaving goddess to salvage, the dragon plummeted into the torrent of flesh-tearing icicles that whirled in the howling gale of Canterlot’s sky.

The streak of focused sunlight that he had become pierced through the snow with the ease of white-hot knife slicing into butter. The ancient spirits sizzled into nought in his wake, sighing with relief as their tormenting quest bore fruit. The entire blizzard shuddered, drawing closer to what could finally bring them absolution.

The star winked out; the winds quieted, benumbed, for a heartbeat, then slowly resumed their dazed raking of the violence-blighted ruins, sniffing out hatred burning murderously enough to kill even that was dead already.

No longer haunted by the perdition-craving manifestation of winter, Spike, no more than an ashen shadow, soared above the sordid remains of the once majestic city—relatively, as he still clearly recalled it being a nightmare… and how he had contributed to that. None could say that the worn out and half-buried in frost skeletal buildings teemed with life, yet his eyes saw past the ruination, witnessing the signs of stubborn survival; he veered away from those, heading for a dim ember huddling close to the vestige of a grand wall.

The piling snow consumed the slums, yet they weren’t buried under an impenetrable mass of white; humongous burrows in drifts marked a maze chiselled with purpose from permafrost. Casting flecks of effulgence on walls of melted ice, Spike navigated those tunnels till he came upon a light that wasn’t his.

Though he emerged into a cavern silent as a snowflake landing, a claw pressed to lips met his entrance.

“Shhh!” the draconequus sitting by a fire warned him. “Don’t wake her up.”

Behind Discord a massive beast of many warped limbs slumbered on the bed of ice and stone, snoring surprisingly delicately for its sheer size and abhorrent physique. The Lord of Chaos motioned with his eagle claws for Spike to share the warmth of the modest bonfire that struggled in the pit in the middle of the arching den. After a moment of hesitation, the dragon obliged, and Discord instantly offered him a marshmallow on a stick; his lion paw held one already, letting it be roasted on the weak flames.

Spike sat motionless across him, commenting instead, “I remember you differently.”

Discord’s eyes, already harbouring shadows due to the spare lighting, became two wells of pitch-black darkness that, like tears, flooded the wrinkles crisscrossing his timeless muzzle. Turning preternaturally normally old and sombre, he uttered, “The Deep Tunnels change not only their topography.”

“Wasn’t their evershifthing nature your work?” the dragon dryly noted.

“My influence turned that place safer… sometimes.”

“And sometimes the chaos made it worse.”

“All that can be applied to you, too.” The draconequus gave Spike an unreadable look. “But not anymore.”

“I was stopped,” Spike admitted, neither his voice nor expression wavering.

Discord smirked. “Why not start again?”

Massive head turned to regard him with a hard stare of eyes blazing figuratively and literally “Do you want me to?”

Blowing on his claws, the Lord of Chaos picked the smocking marshmallow from the stick, he then plunged his paw into the fire of Spike’s body to produce a pair of crackers; the chocolate came from the nearest snow pile.

“No, you‘re more fun this way,” Discord replied; tossing the s’more in his mouth, he continued, gracelessly raining crumbs, “But I still wonder.”

The dragon watched the embers crackle as they, following Discord’s whim, defied the winter. The tongues of flame flickered just like his memories—of chase and blood, of crippling loneliness and the thrill of the hunt. Of endless, all-consuming mute darkness and how he had almost become one of the many terrors it hid.

He turned away.

“Living as a feral beast was simple and… satisfying. It let me almost forget that everyone dear to me was dead and their memories were defiled. Then I was given a chance to start anew.”

The draconequus slurped cocoa in the most obnoxious fashion possible; Spike glanced at the peaceful form of the rotted half-dragon.

“Is it working out this time?” Discord asked nonchalantly, ignoring Sunset Shimmer stirring behind his back.

Spike, however, warily watched her eyes open—too many of them, all focused on Discord, narrowed with lethal intent.

“Not in the way I thought it would.”

The moment he uttered those words, the abomination of pony and dragon flesh exploded into motion, scraping the floor with hooked claws. A limb flashed from the cloud of glittering dust and Discord’s upper half fell on the floor. Giggling, it slithered away whilst the remaining lower half blindly stumbled around. A twisted leg covered in distorted red scales with tufts of orange fur poking betwixt them shot out to kick the draconequus’ posterior into a snowdrift, but it turned into a cloud of tiny Discord-like butterflies and they fluttered away, following the boisterous laugh receding into the icy burrows.

Only then Sunset noticed one more visitor to her den and her rumbling voice bounced off the walls a few moments of wrecking her mind later.

“The Souleater.”

The dragon shot her a sharp look, yet answered the call calmly, “Forgive me, but I haven’t bothered to remember under which name you used to slaughter ponies.”

The air in the cavern grew tense; Spike met Sunset’s measuring stare imperturbably.

Having no other reasonable choice but to admit the force imbalance betwixt them, she grumbled, returning to her nest, “Came to gloat?”

“I came to wait.”

“For what?”

Suddenly consumed by a thought, Spike left her without an answer. Sunset snorted and, after giving him another glare, lowered herself into the depression of the floor; she covered her muzzle with her split tail and closed her eyes, shuddering.

But she wasn’t let drift into sleep.

“It just occurred to me how much we have in common.”

A single blighted with black cyan eye opened to glower at the sunlight dragon.

“And what am I supposed to make out of that?”

“We decided to stop being the monsters we had chosen to be.” Seeing doubt all but dripping from her muzzle, Spike hastily added, “And it doesn’t matter that we needed some help to come to that decision.”

Sunset turned so her tattered wings would face him; yet she huffed over her shoulder, “If only that can undo the wrongs we committed.”

“We can only try to make up for that, even if we will never come closer.”

Annoyed that her gesture earned her no peace, she raised her head, to continue to glare at Spike, barking, “Don’t preach to me—I had been doing that for centuries and my only wish is to go back to that…”

As her bitter words trailed off, Spike gave her a long thoughtful look.

Author's Note

English isn't my native language; though I try my best and use various tools to aid myself, I'm aware that a result is far from perfect. That said, if you notice anything that you think should be fixed—please let me know.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this story so far.
Stay awesome.