Chapter I: Bad Memories & Failing Strengths
Act I: Chapter I
Bad Memories & Failing Strengths
~&~
She was having another of those moments. The ones where haunts from your memory slip through your mental blockades and remind you of all the terrible things you've ever done. The ones where you watch yourself pave the road to Tartarus with your good intentions. The ones that brought tears to Twilight Sparkle's eyes as she watched the sky's violet and pink hues herald the sun's setting.
The sun. Celestia. More tears. She knew she couldn't return; she didn't want to see another friend hurt by the demons she chose. Her tears turned to sobs.
Rainbow Dash gave a furtive look to the silently sobbing pony, feebly wrapping a shivering wing around the lavender mare, who dejectedly rested her head in the crook of Rainbow's neck.
"I'm so sorry." Twilight sobbed, hardly containing the resurfacing memories. Why couldn't she have resisted? Kept caution close when it was most important? She failed, not herself, but everypony around her. That was her sin, that was her demon.
"Shhh... it's gonna be okay Twi'. We'll fix this." She breathed, soothing voice calming the torrents of Twilight's mind. "If it'll help you feel better, you can have a sip if you want."
"But, y-you need your strength." She objected, worry etched upon her dulled features. At least it was better than the absolute depression she normally felt. She knew there had to be a way to make it right. There was always a way. She just needed to remember, to dive through her mistakes and pierce the shadow she wove behind her.
"So do you." Twilight retorted. She knew the cause, it was the same one that haunted her before her life was lost. Recklessness. She couldn't afford that. Not any more.
"Pfft, I'll be fine." Rainbow said, rolling her eyes and gently flicking her tail. Dash's gestures had been a pale shadow of her usual flamboyant nature, the nature she had drained with so many drops of velvet heaven.
Twilight couldn't say no. She desperately needed a drink after their last encounter. Sighing, she tilted her head, lips brushing the fur of Rainbow's neck, sending shivers down the mare's spine. Tracing the fresh scabs hidden by fur, she steeled her will for the plunge. As gently as she could, Twilight pierced Rainbow's skin with her fangs, allowing small pools of blood to well up from beneath. Tentatively she sipped on the crimson nectar.
It wasn't lying to say that Twilight had improved her self control since her first experiences with the liquid, one could hardly make out the flash of red behind the purple mare's irises as she asserted control over herself. Reluctantly, she withdrew from the neck, lapping up the last drops and helping the blood to clot anew. Rainbow sighed.
"Feeling better?" She inquired, fighting waves of dizziness brought on by Twilight's feedings, even as small as she kept them.
"Much. Thank you Rainbow... I-I wouldn't have survived this long without you." It was true, their expedition had been slow and fruitless, the frozen wastelands offering little to the unfortunate explorers.
"I wouldn't be much of an element of loyalty if I didn't come with you. Besides, this is kinda like a Daring Doo story." Rainbow quipped, no small feat from the self labelled invincible mare.
"Except one of the protagonists is a monster." A tear streaked down the well worn path of her cheek, matting violet fur and melting the local sheen of ice.
"Don't say that." Rainbow asserted. Features hardened in determination. "You're still my best friend, and no monster could ever say that."
"Regardless, you should get some rest, the cold's coming in." Nights in the wastelands would have been infamous if anypony ever lived to speak of their drastic temperature drops. Thankfully only one of the two were negatively affected by the cold, and being a pegasus meant Rainbow was conditioned to sub-zero temperatures, having often soared where the Equestrian air grew thin.
Twilight watched as Rainbow Dash nodded and curled up, removing her wing from her cold form. Twilight missed being able to curl up with Rainbow, but knew that she would only make Rainbow's life harder. Her unbeating heart would've panged as she watched the colourful mare begin to snore, blissfully content with dreams of home.
She sighed. Standing on all fours, she dragged the nearby blanket over Rainbow's sleeping form and made for the exit of their temporary shelter. Having no need for sleep, Twilight decided to take a walk.
-&-
Gentle flurries of snow danced and weaved around Twilight, sometimes landing on her form and sticking to the befrosted mare. She paid them little heed though, as she navigated through the night, punching deep holes in the permafrost. The cold would not halt her; she held Rainbow's needs above any of her own. That need was sustenance, especially fresh water, which was surprisingly scarce in the ice covered plains. Rainbow needed fluids if she were to survive Twilight's nightly feedings.
She had made a habit to scavenge resources from the dead land, hunting out the few plants which dared grow in the eternal winter, and capturing the few sources of pure water the drowned continent could offer. Tonight she was having no such luck, the roaring blizzard shrouded the world beyond a few hoofsteps.
No mercy was provided by the wastelands.
Twilight felt like she deserved it, the little pain she felt from the frozen daggers aiding her atonement for the sins she committed. She knew it would not be enough, it would never be enough to replace the life lost, but it helped anyway. Without Celestia as her moral compass, Twilight felt lost, floating aimlessly through the void of infinite choices, and as of late making many of the wrong ones.
She shouldn't have fed off Rainbow tonight; the mare was hardly clinging to consciousness, despite her objections. Twilight could've waited another night, held off the burning thirst those few twenty four hours more.
The blizzard picked up, unnatural weather building itself as the temperature plummeted. The usually blazing glory of Luna's night feebly filtered down upon the formerly living unicorn, reminding her of the few good deeds she did. Her mentor had been so happy to see her sister again, Twilight couldn't imagine what it was like to be without your loved ones for so long. She probably would find out though, her body showed no signs of decay, and without the usual biological processes degrading its genetic information, she could theoretically live forever.
Live forever as a monster. Twilight corrected herself. There was no mercy with her curse, no beauty to the parasitic nature it enforced upon her. She was a leech, a pony pony who stole the life of others, something so evil that it even burned in Celestia's day.
No. There was no beauty in the curse. Only regret for all the wrongs she committed. If it wasn't for Rainbow Dash, she would've disposed of herself a month ago. Made good riddence of an abomination of a forgotten era. No, she stopped herself, she pinkie promised she'd never have thoughts like those again. Breaking Rainbow Dash's trust would be the fastest way to lose her remaining friend. The howling winds carried no cry of "FOREEEVERRR!" on their screaming lips, only the pervasive feel of death permeated the wastelands.
Twilight looked down through the meagre parting in the blizzard to watch as the aperture of miasma revealed the bone white ribs of ancient pillars, jutting from the corpse of civilisation. This was probably another settlement, the marble architecture putting shame to even modern Equestrian building, a far cry from the rehearsed tales told at Hearth's Warming Eve.
There would probably be some non-perishables to scavenge, made doubly so by the crippling temperatures. After eating food older than the nation of Equestria for a month, one gets accustomed to such meals. Besides, it was hard to taste anything with the oppressive cold, at least, that was what Rainbow had told her.
Sighing, the frozen mare trekked towards the ruins, calmly fighting the howling shards of fury that attacked her. Glacially crumbling architecture engulfed the mare as she navigated the winding cobblestone streets. Here and there, one could make out a fairy light, still shining with the power of countless thaums of magical radiation. Not that Twilight cared, most of it was harmless, she just had to watch out for when her horn started glowing without her permission. That, that was bad.
Fortunately, Twilight found her horn to be quite dormant. All clear, she picked a marble structure at random and approached it. The building gave an impression of regality with its intricate carvings and geometric design, most likely a home of some noble. One of many in the previously prosperous province. The door was a faded oak, ancient designs beckoning her to open it.
Twilight steeled herself. Lighting her horn with violet fire, she punched a leyline through the aether, linking her magic to the door. Carefully trading small amounts of mana for momentum, she opened the door, all the while ready to weave a spell matrix without a second's notice. The door revealed a grand foyer devoid of any ice, apart from the snow that had accumulated beneath the shattered window's gaze. Lazy motes of dust, born from long dead aristocrats, hovered in the air, gracefully twirling about in the sparse rays of moonlight.
The moth eaten purple carpet beneath her hooves lead to a small circle, only to branch off in a multitude of directions. Now, if I were a kitchen, where would I be? She asked herself, smirking at the childish question. However, there was a sense of solid logic to the question. Many of the ancient homes were laid out in a similar fashion, with dining rooms being large and easy to find, usually by windows, and kitchens hidden away, below ground to remain out of sight and warm.
The first step was finding the dining room. The arch to her right looked ever so slightly more elegant than the others, a nod to more public areas of an aristocrat's dwelling. Slowly she plodded along, all the while ensuring her horn remained fluid with energy, ready to neutralise anything threatening.
The dining room was oddly lacklustre, far removed from many of the other he had encountered. Perhaps this was intentional? With great prosperity came great deviation for deviation's sake, much like many modern Equestrian artists worked passionately to build statements, the ponies of the past too worked towards such goals. Regardless, the almost hidden door in the corner of the room was all the that unicorn cared about.
True to the hypothesis, the experiment revealed the same results. An ancient fireplace slowly crackled with blue sparks as random waves of thaum struck it, mocking the warmth of a regular fireplace. A wooden and granite island floated in the middle of the room, surrounded by cabinets and other assorted clutter. All of it wasn't edible, at least to Dash.
However, a small portal of a door suggested the pantry was not far. Upon closer inspection, the hole in the wall revealed little but darkness, even to Twilight's hypersensitive eyes. To the side, evidence of some form of wooden staircase revealed that descending to the floor would involve falling.
Twilight sighed; without a visual reference, she couldn't calculate the correct rune for safely traversing the aether with a regular teleport. She wished she was at the library, she could probably cobble together a quick runic positioning matrix to a mana projectile, but without her books she couldn't guarantee a safe passage through the aether.
She had to jump.
So she did.
*Crack*! Kneeling to recover from her descent she lit her horn, channelling mana into visible light. The room was lined with cobwebbed shelves, stacked to the brim with random consumables. Water tanks, wine carafes, wooden beer barrels, glowing red eyes, bread loaves, honey jars, -her mind was sent reeling as a blast of concussive force threw her into the wall. Before her, the red eyes approached the light, squinting at the brightness. Then stopped. Twilight's heart would've thundered if it still beat; her magic was blocked.
"Who are you, she who would approach our resting place?" It asked, voice reverberating across the small room, deep voice rumbling through her bones like waves upon a shore.
"What is it to you?"
It roared laughter. It once again approached the suspended mare, revealing sickly blue flesh weakly clinging to shattered bones. "We are Harmony. We are interested in learning about this interloper before she joins us."
It was an amalgamation, drifting scraps of consciousness and corpse, given life through the pervading thaumic radiation. It was obviously an old one; its voice reverberated at least 4 times, and its speech capability was surprising to the mare. Still, it was a monster. A threat. She had to see to it before it saw to Rainbow Dash like it inevitably would.
"I'm sorry then, because I have no interest in joining... you." Using her lower body as a fulcrum, she peeled herself out of the simple binding spell, subsequently allowing her horn to rekindle. Without pause she formed a basic concussive matrix, weaving her magic into its form and slinging it from her font. The blast struck true, knocking the creature over, preventing it from retaliating. Smirking she began weaving a dispel matrix, it took longer than a concussive one, but would hopefully break the creature's animation enchantment, effectively killing it until one randomly formed again.
It was not to be, however, as it began to suck the room's ambient heat through its appendage, spreading frost like crystalline mould across the floor. Aiming an appendage, the creature sent daggers of ice hurtling towards the pony. Forcing her to shift and bring up her pink shield. A second too late, the ice tore through her sides, splitting dead skin like tissue paper.
Blood seeped from her wounds, sap like in its reluctance to leave. Already the blood was restoring her, mending together dead flesh with the life she had taken from Rainbow Dash. Twilight grimaced, she didn't like wasting Rainbow's blood on her foolish recklessness. From her pink barrier, she charged her horn for a second attempt, warily examining her opponent as it attempted to flee the deconstructive matrix.
It failed miserably. A pulse of energy signalled the release of the spell, rushing towards the creature, its shrieks failing to save it from a painful death.
Twilight's business was done.
Calmly, she collected what she could. Extra water for the anemic mare, some bread that had kept, honey and a small flask of beer. It would be sufficient for her friend.
With a flash of power, Twilight disappeared.
Act I: Chapter II
Advancement
~&~
For the one million, four hundred and sixty thousand, three hundred and sixty fifth time in recorded history, the sun had begun its ascent. Curious rays peeked from the row of mountains in the distance, sending lines of illumination sweeping across the frozen ground. The faint warmth failing to melt the snow, and successfully making Twilight's skin crawl beneath her coat.
Twilight missed being able to enjoy the sun, but even in the Frozen North she felt uncomfortably warm in its presence, like an unwelcome blemish beneath Celestia's charge, warranting a blazing glare of suspicion. She knew it wasn't true, Celestia didn't know about this. She couldn't. Twilight couldn't have bore the thought of Celestia's ancient heart breaking another time. No, she'd never know.
Twilight sighed, today was going to be a long day. Looking over her shoulder, she carefully watched the peacefully sleeping pegasus breath in the smells of the meal Twilight had cooked.
"Y'know it's kinda creepy, watching ponies sleep." Rainbow had subtly opened her eye, examining the impassive, yet eternally sombre face of Twilight. Looking around, she spotted a small fire, happily crackling with very real flames, and boiling some soup that smelled distinctly like honey.
"Honey? Really Twilight?" She asked, the substance had become a staple food for the sole living member of the duo.
"Yes, really. Honey is surprisingly good at staying preserved. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard of it going off." Twilight easily slipped into her egghead mode, throwing away the heavy hood of old memories.
Rainbow chuckled at this, finding herself slightly better from a good night's sleep. "But in a soup? This might even be worse than the time you burned that ice!" Twilight still didn't know how she had done it, and had spent the entire night trying to replicate it.
"You need your strength Rainbow, I shouldn't have had any last night; you can't keep this up forever." Twilight's concern was probably the only other expression she wore. Probably because she couldn't blush, and something about 'lack of hormones' or something like that.
"Like I said, I'll be fine. In fact, how about you say sorry by trying the soup? I know you can still taste food, Twi." Rainbow's weak smile betrayed her well being to Twilight. Who promptly gave in; if it'd make Dash happy, then she'd do it.
"Fine. I still don't like the idea of wasting your food." Rainbow's smile lit up like a hearth's warming eve tree. Motioning the mare forwards, Twilight resolutely pulled a small globule of liquid into the air. Hesitantly Twilight moved it into her mouth, allowing the warmth to reignite forgotten neurons.
Taste was an interesting thing for Twilight, after the curse. She could taste things as normally as anypony else, but it didn't tug at her appetite. It was a paradox of perfect clarity in sense, but numbness to appeal. Not even chocolate could pull her interest any more. Only that terribly wonderful liquid.
Twilight made a face. It wasn't bad per-say, it just didn't seem all that appealing. "It's fine Rainbow, just a little bland." In truth it was nothing compared to her normal food.
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Twilight, you're drooling again." The mentioned mare's eyes lit up in shock, and Twilight promptly shook her head in a feeble attempt to escape the terrible thoughts.
"Seriously, am I really that tasty?" Dash asked, curiously peering over her soup towards the other mare, whose ears folded back.
"Like you couldn't imagine." Twilight responded, desperately attempting to avoid thoughts of doing terrible things to her friend. Terrible things that she knew she'd enjoy.
Rainbow harrumphed, turning back to her soup. The meal passed in silence, neither party saying much as the sun continued its ascent, causing Twilight to shift uncomfortably. With a clatter of ancient pottery, Rainbow stood up, daring smirk signalling her readiness to start a new day. How could she do it?
"Ok, let's go!" She declared, moving towards the mouth of the cave they had used to shelter her from the blizzard. Twilight nodded, moving to follow her rainbow maned companion.
-&-
Another town. This one was slightly more impressive than the last, proud spires piercing the sky, their crumbling state revealing hidden mechanisms of snow covered brass. Sparse, presumably decorative, cables hung freely from building to building, icy daggers softly swaying in the weak morning breeze. Softly chanting jingling threats to passersby, waiting to impale the two travellers.
Rainbow, of course, was innocent to the threat quite literally hanging above their heads as she gawked at the decorations, entranced like a foal in a candy store. Of course this candy store would be '20% cooler' than the other 'lame' ones. Ears upright, and eyes wide, she turned to Twilight.
"I wonder, who was more advanced, us or them?" Rainbow asked, tone searching for answers from her purple friend. The answer was obvious. Equestria, right? Under the princess' rule, things like trains and electricity were beginning to become common, even the magic of computers were emerging slowly into the market.
"That's silly Rainbow, we're more advanced." Rainbow gave an odd look.
"Is it silly Twilight? What about those gears over there, or the moving wall thing?" She asked, throwing away her ruse of stupidity to implore Twilight to reexamine the way she thought. Twilight was having none of it.
"The gears are decorative, and I still say you imagined the whole moving wall thing; there was hardly any radiation there." She scathed, somehow managing to let her bodily cold slip into her tone.
"How could you know that? They could be part of some machine we don't understand!"
"Okay then, how about we put your hypothesis to the test?" Twilight quipped, visibly annoyed with her companion.
"Great!" Rainbow chirped in response, undeterred by the ice in her friend's tone. Shaking her head, Twilight turned towards the closest of the towers with gears showing, a surprisingly sturdy construction sporting a plethora of open windows and decorations, barely visible at this distance, allowing snow to gently fall onto the partially hidden staircase beyond. The trek would be treacherous due to the snow, however the duo had learned to adapt to the icy biome.
Twilight shot Dash a glare, who simply rolled her eyes and unfurled her wings. With a strong flap, and a small jump, Rainbow Dash was airborne once again. Normally Rainbow loved to fly, preferring it to the "boring" walking ponies normally partook in, however Twilight's increasingly non-recently acquired diet kept her too lethargic to comfortably fly as she used to. Much to Dash's chagrin.
Twilight's safety, of course, was irrelevant. Her condition seemed to be highly conductive to not dying an embarrassing death on a set of stairs. Cautiously they entered the marble structure, intricate designs forming elegant yet sturdy pillars, each pillar joining with two others to form an ascending row of arches, seemingly windowless by design, with small mounds of snow piling through them onto the icy stairs. Facing inwards, the arches revealed mosaics depicting dulled scenes of various mythological creatures and ancient figures. And on occasion, an aperture to often sparse circular rooms.
Within the hour, both travellers found themselves at a barrier where the stairs ended, with an open arch leading inwards to another circular room. However, rising out of the centre, a small spiral staircase leading upwards into a hidden room.
Climbing it revealed a scene that made Twilight's blood run even colder.
The room was about twenty-seven yards in diameter, white marble theme still remaining indoors. Random devices and diagrams adorned the walls, pausing around a large, slanted cylinder attached to a system of cogs, peering out through a narrow slit in the domed ceiling.
It was an observatory.
For Twilight, the scene was too familiar. Shaking herself free of her own ghosts, she cautiously made her way around the room, inspecting the assorted artifacts.
Surprisingly, not a single boast was heard from Rainbow, the lack of sound was deafening to her ears. Which she found had plastered themselves to her head.
"Twilight, you ok?" She asked.
"No but I'll liv-, I'll be fine." She stated, feebly attempting to mask her gnawing anxiety.
"Well, this is obviously an obser-, observer-"
"Observatory." Twilight amended.
"Observatory, so maybe we can learn more about their history? Who knows, it could be like one of those Daring Doo novels, and there's a clue hidden away right beneath our noses!"
"It wouldn't hurt to try..." Twilight admitted, eager to let her scientific curiosity chase away the lingering haunts of her past.
Walking towards the telescope, Twilight saw a series of levers, six in total, forming a dull brass plus shape, gleaming in the reflected snow-light. Shrugging, Twilight pulled the leftmost lever with her magic.
A mechanical groan echoed through the building, shaking the floor beneath their hooves, freeing ancient snow from it's resting places, allowing a sole ray of intense light to skim Twilight's coat and illuminate the floor. Twilight ignored the minor burning pain, and turned to Rainbow.
Dash was clearly alarmed, wings raised in the instinctive urge to appear both more intimidating, and ready her to take to the air at a second's notice.
"What the hay was that!?"
"I think, I think the levers control the telescope."
"Hmm, that's odd, if they do why're there six?" Dash said. Twilight gave Rainbow an odd look, the latter rolled her eyes and explained.
"Every junior weatherpony learns that there are three angles a pegasus can use: their pitch, yaw and roll. I get the telescope using pitch and yaw, but what's the point of having roll? Unless it does something else..." She had a point, tentatively Twilight used her hoof to move the leftmost deviant lever. Nothing happened. However, the lack of burning on her side revealed the previously searing beam of light had expanded into a pale circle of illumination.
"It controls a focussing lense." Twilight's mouth opened slightly in bewilderment. What's the point of having an adjustable lense? Let alone one this powerful? It didn't make sense. Casting her glance around, Twilight studied the room with renewed interest. Eyes ever widening in growing shock.
"They were studying the stars... but why? Why in so much detail? You don't need a lense that big to see them. Erg! This doesn't make sense!" There was nothing to the stars. They were pale spots of magical light Cel-Luna decorated her night sky with. Nothing more, nothing less, regardless of their haunting beauty.
"Maybe there's more to it than you thought. Ya know I've already proven you're wrong." She had a point. It seemed Twilight had rubbed off on her.
"Assuming you're right, then what could it be?"
"I dunno, read some of those notes, they probably know. I'll go see if I can make those panels show moving pictures again." Twilight suppressed a groan at her intellectually bipolar friend. Looking around, she grabbed and studied a sheet with what appeared to be a diagram of a constellation. Her knowledge of ancient Equestrian had improved with her stay in the Frozen North, however the scientific sheet proved a worthy adversary to her growing vocabulary.
"Hmm... planets... satellites... grr, what does it mean!?" Stars having planets? She must've misread the papers, and what the hay were satellites?
"Hey Twilight, I got the pictures to move again."
Lightning fast, Twilight turned to face Rainbow Dash. The panel in front of her was glowing softly, projecting the words she roughly translated at as:
"Project Celestis: 74.2%? What?" Before she could finish, the number jumped to one hundred.
Metallic clangs attacked their ears as the arches closed themselves with metal covers, and the grinding of cogs heralding the staircase's descent out of the room, plugging the last vestige of light from them. A low hum followed the air as a pair of cool blue lights, one on the ceiling and one directly below, lit.
With a flash a cool blue sphere hovered between them, slowly rotating on its axis.
"Is... is that the world?" It was irrelevant who ask the question as they both stared into the hauntingly familiar image of their map.
"This doesn't make sense; the round Equus theory hasn't been proven, there's simply no evidence!" Twilight shouted, anger rising in her throat.
"Whoever they were, these ponies thought different. Hey, maybe it's a map, to the cure!"
A cool voice that, if it had a color, would be blue, calmly resonated through them in ancient Equestrian. Twilight quickly began translating. "User: 'Unknown', state your business."
"Uhh, we're here to find a cure for her curse; the one princess Luna had." Rainbow asked. Surprisingly, the spirit was able to understand. What else did it know?
"User recognised, welcome 'Project: Ascendant'. The project you have mentioned is not recognised. Inferred project is 'Project: Eternal', is this correct?" The voice asked, it's words bearing more questions than one for the purple mare.
"Uh, I guess."
Wordlessly, the image of Equus began to deform into a flat image, resembling a table. Upon the table lay a detailed map of the Frozen North, with evenly spaced lines creating a precise grid. The lines for some reason were ever so slightly curved.
A blue dot hovered above a random point on the map, to then slowly drift across the map and disappear over another location. "Error: Satellite data unavailable, projected route and topography has been estimated."
"Thanks. So, Twi, d'ya think this is it?"
"Seems so..." Before Twilight could continue, the voice returned, an almost panicked quality within it's speech.
"Warning: Core destabilisation imminent. Estimated time to decimation: -Error: Sensory receptors are returning null -Error: Null-" The voice's speech hastened with each utterance of error. A low rumble punctuating its implicated fear.
"Error: Motor controls returning null, resetting available motors." Knifelike, the metal panels slid away whilst the staircase rose angrily from the floor. The duo wordlessly descended it, sensing the encroaching danger.
"Error: System clock is returning null-"
Hurriedly they descended the outer stairs, racing to escape whatever death may befall them.
"Warning: Connections to projects one through one hundred fo-"
The tower began to shake as they left, elegant columns unable to hold the building under such duress. The voice hauntingly echoing throughout the town.
"Alert: Sleeper cells activated, await further as-"
Further and further they ran, the town's whole structure rumbling like a child's toy.
"Warning: System preservation subroutine activa-"
There was a moment of stillness, a sound like a large bass drum had been beat, or the bass in one of Vinyl's raves had dropped. The air raced past them, rushing towards the town. A thundering boom echoed across the landscape. A flash of light, a wave of heat, nothingness.
