The Desperation of a Man
He ran, ran as fast as he could. Dodging obstacles like tree branches, rocks, and roots that might hinder his dash. His heart was pounding as he tried to push himself to run faster, in the distance, the sound of armor and hooves could be heard; it was approaching faster with each moment. It was the late afternoon, fast approaching evening, by nightfall, he would likely be gone, the opportunity to vanish of a lifetime… that is, if he could make it out alive this time around.
Panic started to set in, desperation to escape this utopian land. For so long had he lied, he wanted nothing more than to just get away from it all, to have his freedom at long last, not to be dragged back into a world he didn’t even belong to.
He did his job, he did what was necessary, he did what any other human would have done to find a way back home! That is if he even had a home to come back to, but that wasn’t a thought he was willing to ponder on. He had done so much and had gone off for such a long time just to reach this point in time, by gods will he would be an idiot to just turn back now.
Then, a familiar sound could be heard amidst all the running, a low whirling that only meant one thing in his mind: magic, in specific, teleportation magic. He knew he was running out of time, with nowhere to hide and with little room to keep running, it was a miracle how they’d managed to keep up with him. He just needed to be fast enough to keep out of their grasp until nightfall.
‘How the fuck do they even keep doing that!?’ he thought, ‘they said the Everfree was my safest bet at escaping them! The books said this place was a maze, how on earth are they still on my trail!?’ With each breath and heartbeat, it became much harder to keep a good steady pace, still, he tried to keep a good distance away from his captors.
Dizziness from exhaustion started to set in, he needed a bit of rest, so he decided to slow down a bit. He would risk getting caught if he slowed down too much, but he knew he was so close to what he has been working on for so long that it was better to be consistent with his pacing than risk a long pause.
Unfortunately, a purple-like hue started to glow just outside his peripheral vision which accompanied the earlier whirling sound, which now grew louder by the moment. And he knew only one pony who had such a glow and could be this precise at a teleportation spell.
“SHIT! DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE, TWILIGHT!!” He shouted out to the endless woodlands of trees and bushes, his voice being echoed by the Everfree as if it didn’t lose its power. He prepared himself, knowing his warning would be ignored, drawing out a pistol, he disengaged its safety as he ran with it in one hand. Preparing himself to swing around and shoot whatever and wherever his sight would point towards.
Unfortunately, his worst fear did come to light, as out of nowhere, the purple hue soon burst into a bright light. Having to cover his eyes with his other hand, he raised his pistol and fired two shots at random as he covered his eyes from the light.
In his dazed state, he was suddenly knocked down from his feet. Miraculously, he still kept hold of his gun, and he fired another shot for good measures. And when he opened his eyes, he saw the purple alicorn in a fighting stance, a shield bubble encapsulating her, her head was looking down, so he couldn’t see her expression. The most shocking part that he figured out while he began to stand up from his position was her physically, with her magic, stopping the bullets from his gun in midair, but he should have honestly expected that, maybe it was the adrenaline coursing through his blood.
“Don’t do this…” he said, more out of desperation than anything else. “I did what I was told… I DID EVERYTHING YOU ASKED FOR! Don’t you think I deserve my reward?”
“AND WHAT? LET YOU GO UNPUNISHED!? A MURDERER THE LIKES OF YOU!” She shouted, shooting her head up, revealing a tear-ridden Twilight, but he was unaffected, more tired to feel any shame than to show any sympathy. “You killed them, right in front of everyone… you didn’t even hesitate. They already surrendered to us, and they were scared… AND YOU KILLED THEM ALL, INCLUDING COZY GLOW! A LITERAL CHILD!”
“AND YOU BETRAYED YOUR WORD! Hunting me down as if I was in the wrong. Do you really think leniency will get you anywhere? Do you think you’ll gain anything from keeping me down? Think again.” He retorted, raising his gun as he fired a third shot.
The shot did nothing against the shield of the alicorn. “THAT’S BECAUSE YOU ARE IN THE WRONG!” She exclaimed, the sound of hoof steps getting louder and louder. “You didn’t show them mercy, and you killed them without any remorse, have you no shame!?”
“I DON’T HAVE SHAME! Because I don’t feel any guilt, I did what I was told, kept silent when I had to.”
“And you LIED to everyone, outright lies and omissions everywhere. The ponies, the dragons, the good, the bad… you said you were the last of your kind! That you cared about us and was inspired, that you’d help us win no matter what, that you enjoyed life in Equestria and found love… or was that just another lie?” She asked, heartbroken at this betrayal of trust. “Is the name you’ve given us really your name, Pilate Iscariot?”
He breathed in, holding himself from telling her the things that lingered in the back of his mind, holstering the pistol that he held as he reached for another weapon, a prototype handheld rail gun. This didn’t go unnoticed by the princess, but she assumed something different.
“Give me the bell, Pilate. It won’t do you good, you can’t even use magic!” She said, confidence evident despite the strong emotions that overflowed from her words.
“I know…” he admitted, “But I don’t need to kill you, I just need to buy myself a bit more time to use it.” And in one quick motion, he raised the rail gun and fired.
A whirling sound and miniature boom accompany the initial boom when fired. This caught Twilight off-guard, as she now had to suddenly pour an unexpected amount of magic into her shield just to prevent it from outright breaking, cracks forming from the shot taken. And to both their shock, it had enough force to push Twilight a reasonable distance back, despite the clear ludicrous amount of force she had to hold together to maintain her shield’s integrity.
Immediately seeing an opportunity to make another daring dash, he stopped himself as he could somehow physically feel his heart sink, hearing something that he dreaded… he heard another voice shout close by, no further than a hundred meters or so from him.
“THERE! OVER THERE!!”
Again, desperation started to set in, but he knew couldn’t gain the same distance to separate himself and his would-be captors, not with the remaining time and distance he had to spare. So with adrenaline pumping in his blood, he decided to do something drastic.
‘Fuck it,’ he thought, the voice that said his thought being of partial defeat and acceptance as he reached for and raised his two weapons, dual-wielding them in some attempt to make himself look more intimidating, intending to buy himself more time if possible, and on the unlikely scenario, escape.
“KEEP YOUR SHIELDS UP! He could be lurking anywhere.” Another voice rang out.
Failing to notice the purple alicorn, he started to shoot blindly in the general direction of where he thought the voices came.
By the end of his volley, he stood silently, his breathing heavier than ever.
Then suddenly, a bolt of magic directly hit him center mass, knocking him down and sending him tumbling for a few moments. Unluckily for him, he didn’t manage to hold onto his weapons, and when he started to recover, the purple alicorn had her horn at the ready, his weapons out of arm reach in her magic.
“So this is the end?” he asked, his tone unwavering despite the pain and exhaustion.
“Go on, kill me.” He said, taunting her while also gloating at her inability to break her moral compass.
A sly grin, as he relished each moment she hesitated to kill him, knowing he was right, it empowered him. But, to his surprise, just as the guards started to come into view, her horn sparked to life into a bright light.
The next thing he knew, he was at the edge of a cliff, and looking over it, he could see he was just outside of the Everfree’s vicinity. Turning to his back, there stood Twilight, the events of earlier still being prominent in the way she stood.
He looked around, it was only him and Twilight. Nothing stopped her from charging onto him and pushing him to his death, so he waited for her to take the final push. Having lost all of his hope of escaping the moment he realized he was likely surrounded, that there was no escape, no more time to buy, and not enough margin for error to make his plan work.
Even if the bell provided him answers, answers could only get you so far in life
“I need answers, Pilate, so why did you kill them?” she asked with a low voice, approaching him slowly.
He looked at her, standing up straight as possible with one arm to his back to make himself look more dignified. “Didn’t I already give you an answer?”
“WE TRUSTED YOU! You were trusted with good reason, both as a civil servant and friend!” she cried out, holding on some vain to excuses for his morality. “… I don’t want to kill you, Pilate! Equestria, the entire world, we had faith in you to do the right thing.”
‘Ironic,’ he internally thought, because if memories of an old-world serve right; Pilate was a “reasonable” judge who bowed to the will of the people, refusing to take responsibility for actions taken, and Iscariot was the man who succumbed to temptation; subsequently becoming a traitor. He was named after such people yet at the moment, he stood with indifference and with seeming dignity, his head held up high as his height standing up permitted him to look down at the purple alicorn.
“And you repay my word and works with denounces?” he asked, his tone shifting as he did so. “Listen, ‘princess’, I didn’t land on this world for nothing, and you are correct, ‘Pilate Iscariot’ isn’t my name. I lied because it was necessary to keep a good relationship with those that I could use, I would have remained silent and content if you didn’t start asking questions, but then you decided to have me become a bit more ‘proactive’ and you became subsequently became a bit more ‘concerned’, and a bit too touch for that matter…”
“T-then what about your works? What about your time here? Did it mean nothing to you?” She asked him indicatively.
‘I’d have loved it if such shit didn’t start to pop up… humph, change of plans then.’ He thought, his expression souring in the process.
He didn’t want to, but he felt like he owed this pony a little of something. “Listen… you know, when you and the princesses sent me to ‘subdue’ the ‘Legion of Doom’, I was honestly disappointed. I thought it would be a challenge, but honestly just a simple trick of gore and splatter then BOOM! I simply led them into a classic bait and switch and captured them. Killing them was just a matter of animosity between the four of us. Wouldn’t have mattered in trial anyway, after all, you know my track record as a judge, being part of the jury, and as an attorney.”
“So you killed them because of… apathy? Is that it…” she asked, trying to wrap her head as to his reasoning.
“No, because as I said,” he reached for Grogar’s bell that he had strapped to a chain, “it’s because of this.”
Immediately, Twilight’s eyes grew at the mere sight of the bell, and although she didn’t fully understand his reasoning, her instincts told her to just dash for it, but she wasn’t fast enough as Pilate leaned over as he dangled the bell over the cliff edge.
“Ah, ah,” he said in a mocking tone. “Don’t test me, Twilight. Although I don’t know the full extent of magic, I’m still fairly certain that the fragile exterior of the bell would still break with enough force. This is my ticket out of this world!” By the end, he had a whole sly grin as he neared the edge.
The bell, having the combined magic of Discord and likely the magic of other ancient beings, was to Twilight, simply too risky to let anything happen to it. So she relented, standing down and unwilling to take risks.
“You see, that’s the problem with you and this entire world,” he said once more, now hiding the bell back into his safe pockets that miraculously fit the entire thing. “And so the problem with the Legion of Doom is that…”
“Is that what?”
“...Is that they were villains that were a bit too persistent, and they posed a bit of a problem because eventually, they’d figure out something was amiss with me, so they’d likely find something sooner than what the combined effort of the five major nations could hope to unravel about my secrets. So, I did the next best thing, I took them out of the picture, Equestria was too lenient of this kind of endeavor, Celestia wouldn’t try to understand it, Luna would underestimate it, Cadance couldn’t relate to it, and you…” he paused, seemingly becoming hesitant for a moment before he made up his mind.
“You would have been dealt with in a different manner, probably dead long ago if Discord just stuck to the plan with capturing Tirek. That said… the risk I took was worth it all, all the lies I’ve told, only to forward my interest, and the bell was the crème de la crème of it all. What should be bygone, I will allow being bygones, but I still need to stick with my initial intentions after all this time.”
For a moment, both stared intently at the other, trying to figure out the next move to be made.
“They were scared, you know…” she said, beginning to raise her magic a bit. “They begged for helped, asked for mercy…”
“And you would have frozen them in time, because you ponies, the dominant nation in this world just. Can’t. Kill.”
And as if she finally broke, and by pure chance, she managed to pull the pistol’s trigger, firing a shot directed at Pilate, with the bullet hitting its mark, the center mass of his chest. He churned a bit, coughing up some blood, but was mostly fine with taking a single round to his lungs. Although the unfortunate matter is that he would drown from his blood, sooner or later if he lets it swell.
“Why are you so apathetic?” she asked, failing to realize what she had done, blinded by her own strong emotions. “FOR CELESTIA’S SAKE! Why can’t you just be content!?”
“BECAUSE I WANTED IT TO END!” He screamed, finally breaking his well-crafted composure. “EVERY FUCKING NIGHT! EVERY GOD-FORSAKEN MOMENT! I SEE MEMORIES! MEMORIES OF TWO MEN AND NOT OF MY OWN! SHAMED AFTER DEATH, A LIFE DEFINED BY THE PERSECUTION OF ONE. MAN! ONE BLOODY ADVOCATE!”
He was breathing heavily now, his angered expression doing no justice to the amount of rage he had felt and let loose. Then, he spoke, in a low, defeated tone. “Such a utopian world… I want to go back… face the consequences of my actions, to pay for my sins… not wallow in this soulless paradise, a paradise I don’t deserve… this is hell… I don’t want to remember, I want these memories to stop, to end, I WANT TO PROVE MYSELF! That I am capable of facing the consequences of my actions, that I’ll get what I deserve…”
Slowly, a realization dawned upon the alicorn. “You were once trusted, weren’t you? Once a just and caring being… so what changed?” She asked, slowly approaching him as she realized this wasn’t something normal, that this human was beyond the scope of what Equis is prepared for.
“‘Those who are heartless once cared too much…’” he said, now looking at Twilight directly eye-to-eye to emphasize his next words. “I saw the Father and the gods atop the mountain temple, all of their faces disapproving of my actions…”
As he continued, his face began to pale as memories seemed to resurface. “I bowed to the will of the people despite good judgment not too, so I washed my hands to remove the guilt… I was told that I needed to send a false prophet to justice despite being a personal friend of His, and they paid for my service in thirty silver coins…”
His expression now shifted into one of desperation, trying to convince himself more than anyone else. “I WAS TRICKED! PRESSURED INTO! LIED TOO! I-I w-wasn’t responsible for His death… then, I am constantly reminded by Him… He told me their names… Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate… their memories… their failures, their sins.”
“T-then the dark, hopeless pits… the fallen, the neglected, the devil himself… they taunted me… gave me f-forbidden knowledge, gave me gifts I don’t want nor deserve as they fuel the nightmares…”
“P-Pilate? I-I’m sure you’re just over exaggerating things… Princess Luna would have tended to your dreams as well, right?” Twilight hesitantly said. If this was any other pony, she’d already had them by her magic and teleported them to a therapist, but considering it was a human, she had to be careful, if not for the implications and actions she might indirectly cause or provoke.
“H-hey, don’t do anything brash now,” she said trying to convince him to calm down, slowly approaching in the process. “W-we could talk this out! Yeah, just don’t-”
“Do you have any idea of just how painful it is?” He asked, finally calming down, at least that’s how Twilight saw it. “To know that there are others of your kind that surpassed you? That their views of you as nothing more than a testament to a mistake? A being whose entire life is defined by one decision…”
“P-Pilate, don’t…” She said, this time a bit more sternly as she took one step at a time to draw closer to him. “W-we could change! Equestria is kind, they’d surely find a reason to let you back in! Trust me.”
Her call of words, however, did not serve to bring any hope to the man’s situation. “I’m done with the visions.” He said with a low voice.
“Equestria has shown me its true colors, so don’t lie to me Twilight,” he said sternly, “I tried to live a new life, yes, and I must give my thanks at the opportunity, but one must pay the price of consequences, I would like to end this cycle of fear and constant nightmares.”
“But, what if it’s not even your life!” She exclaimed, trying her damndest to convince this ever stubborn man from doing anything drastic. “Please, Equestria could be your new home, I-I’d even give you a pony body, wipe off some of those memories you keep on seeing! I’ll do it just to prove a point! Just give me a chance, just like how we gave you a chance.”
For a moment, Pilate considered it but chuckled as he began to realize something. “You know, if there was one thing that carried over from those two that I inherited, it would be their selfishness. And it is through my selfishness that I would like to test God and gods, to see if they are strident and true, to end my suffering or to just give me a different hell, and the bell as my ace.”
“Oh! And one more thing, I’m sure everything will work itself out, so don’t worry.” He said, his final words of assurance doing nothing more than keeping the sole alicorn at the ready.
And with a maniacal grin suddenly adorning his face, Twilight knew something was up, and she instinctively dashed forwards to try and stop him from doing anything remotely stupid and dangerous.
What she didn’t expect him to do was suddenly jump off the ledge on his own accord, the bell stretching out as if he presented it to the sky for lightning to strike him down.
And as if his taunting taunts were answered by the open sky.
With a sudden spark, a bolt of lightning dashed down and struck the only human, a loud crack of thunder followed suit. Right there smack middle of Grogar’s bell, a large shockwave followed suit as if nature and magic battled, then… silence.
Twilight, who had to close her eyes from the sudden flash of light, instinctively winced when the thunder followed. And slowly, as she opened her eyes to survey the scene, she was left baffled.
“W-what..?” Twilight asked aloud, dumbfounded by what she saw. The loss of another life before her very eyes.
Now forced to contemplate on that, as she looked around and below the cliff, there was no sight of the human nor the bell that took the brunt of nature’s force.
Quickly, with the use of her magic, she made a beacon to signal where she was, and soon enough, Royal Guards swarmed her vicinity left and right; yet nothing captivated her attention more than what the human’s final words were.
“‘I’m sure everything will work itself out,’” she repeated aloud, “w-what the hay?”
And just like that, as the adrenaline finally wore off, she began to feel tired as exhaustion started to settle in, and finally, she collapsed with an unceremonious thud. A whole day's worth of exhaustion from all running, searching, and even emotions spent, it all came back to her in full force, her last thoughts before the darkness of unconsciousness being confusion, as she tried to make sense of the desperation of a man…
Author's Note
Felt like the ending was rushed, I think I MIGHT make an epilogue to flush out the contexts or something similar.
But, it is how I wanted it to end; with a confused, sudden, and unceremonious conclusion, one that is deserving of that of a sinner who wishes repentance.
(Do please note that this isn't meant to spark anything... Alas, I'll fix this up on a later date.)
