The Blank Pony

By the time the door to the police station was closed, and by the time Hitch slammed closed every police-grade lock he could manage to grab with his shaking hooves, Sunny had gotten off the couch in the Brigthouse living room and found a sandwich. She had not eaten it, though, and upon returning to her seat she set it down on the coffee table beside the skull. The sandwich sat there, hay and mustard on white bread, not even microwaved, on one of the old and faded plates that she had used since she was a filly. Almost as if it were an offering to the perfect, unmarred obsidian-like piece of statuary beside it.

The skull did not seem to be hungry, though. It did not make any move for the sandwich. It was made of metal, after all, even if it was a metal that Sunny had never heard of. Even though it was metal, though, Sunny felt that she and it could at least agree on something. Neither of them were hungry.

Looking at it hurt her eyes but in a way she could not quite describe—although then again, it may just have been from how tired she had become. Her sleep had already been poor the night before, and she felt as though she had not slept at all.

She looked out the window of the Brighthouse. It was foggy outside, but not too bad. That was what the building had originally been intended for, after all. Or at least so she supposed. It had once had a light to guide ships in the Bay, before the ships had stopped coming. Something had happened on the far side of the ocean but nopony knew what it had been, or even what was over there to begin with. Her father had come from there. When he had become the lighthouse keeper as a teenager. Sunny had never known who her mother was. She had never asked, something she secretly regretted now that there was no one left to ask.

She saw motion in the fog. It did not disturb her. Just a pony or two going to the community garden to check on their vegetables. Harvest would come soon enough.

She turned back to the skull and continued to stare at it. It, likewise, continued to stare back at her with its slightly reflective bony eyes. Somepony had made it. Why they made it look like this, though, Sunny had no idea. Like it was almost a pony—but somehow very, very dissimilar.

She heard a sound on the far end of the room. She looked up to see Sparky clinging to the doorframe, staring into the room. He was whimpering and seemed terrified, his eyes locked on the skull.

“It’s okay,” said Sunny, standing up. “You’re probably hungry, though.” She picked up the plate, wobbling slightly. “Do you want a sandwich? It’s...I don’t know what’s on it, I don’t remember making it.”

Sparky shook his head and babbled slightly. He did not want to enter the room.

Sunny went to help him. He led her away from the small area and, for some reason, seemed immediately calmer. Sunny, however, felt an urge to go back. As if there was something she had missed. She needed to look at the skull just a little more.

She sat down in a different part of the common room. With some help, Sparky jumped up onto the chair and curled up next to her. Sunny remembered that Hitch had said something about something happening last night, but she could not remember what exactly.

“You’re probably as tired as I am,” she said, yawning. She felt her eyelids growing heavy. “I think maybe we should...wait a little bit here...”

She looked out the enormous window, longingly staring down at the city below. The view was spectacular. She was so high she could barely see the ground below, the wide streets filled with high-speed automated traffic powered by the unrelenting hum of crystal-driven engines. Even in the air, between the vast buildings, other vehicles passed by with enormous speed. Some had operators. Some did not. Some were made ultralight nanopolymers, others of cultured changeling biotechnology. Or, sometimes, instead of vehicles, there were Pegasi. In one case, Sunny was sure that—for just a moment—she saw a tall yellow alicorn drift upward and flit downward again, out of sight.

The tower she stood in was the tallest. She understood that it was named after its owner, the Perr-Synt Corporation, which was in turn named after the eternal bloodline that had founded the company even before the Age of Eternal Friendship. It was the largest building in Neo-Singapone, but not the grandest—not on this day.

What she stared longingly at was a pyramid. One that dwarfed many of the buildings, if not in height then in scale—but it was not tethered to the ground. It floated by slowly, moving through a purpose-built path through the city, held aloft by vast magical engines reverse-engineered from the ruins of Asgard. The Pyramid of Thebe. The home palace of the Goddess—the universally beloved alicorn who virtually never departed its angular and geometric walls.

There would surely be celebrations in the streets below. Parties would be held. The wealthy upper-class citizens would be in attendance. Perhaps even the other princesses—although she knew that the one she truly wanted to see would be missing. She never attended. Not anymore.

Sunny closed her eyes. She could still smell it. The scent of books and crystal-driven ionization. The cut stone of the great halls within that pyramid, the slight grape-like scent of her soft wings…

“Gentian!”

“EEP!”

“Don’t ‘eep at me’.”

Sunny—Gentian—turned sharply, adjusting her suit. A tall blue Pegasus was standing over her.

“D...Dr. Wispy!”

He smiled and looked out. “Impressive, isn’t it?” he said. “But I suppose you already know that. It’s my first time seeing it. Hard to believe, but even with the implant I’m still half your age.”

“You’re making me feel old.”

“I am? Sorry. Small talk is expensive. Do you have the report?”

“N...not yet?”

Wispy nodded. “Then you really should get back to work. The Caballeron girl went through a lot to get it. And let me tell you from experience, Lady Xiro is not as patient as she looks.”

“I—I know, I just...um...was getting coffee?”

Wispy glared, then laughed. “Gentian, come on. We all know you’re the one who’s been drinking all the creamer. Raw. PlainIt’s fine. Just get it transcribed. Carefully. We don't want a repeat of what happened to the intern. Okay?”

Gentian nodded. “Sure, boss. I’m on it!”

The scene shifted. Sunny—still as Gentian Violet—was walking through a narrow hall, the path lit by the glow of her horn. The air smelled of books, but they did not smell as beautiful as those astounding libraries aboard the Pyramid. The libraries she could not return to.

As she entered the reading room, various magical lights ignited at her presence. They were dim, sealed by runes to prevent excessive leakage. Around her were various cabinets, themselves inscribed in liquid-gold letters carving both sacred and unholy protection seals to prevent even the slightest incursion on the artifacts within.

Her object of interest was already laid out before her, on the central desk, and she pulled up a chair. A great tome lay before her, tattered and stained on one corner with what seemed to be a fading stain of liquid silver. The cover was aged, and made of exactly the material that could be expected for a book of its ilk. With her magic—with a spell so much more advanced than any simple telekinesis spell—she opened it and began to read.

It was written in a heavily modified version of a language, penned by a nervous horn in the vocabulary of an obvious madman. The tone was strange and uneven, vacillating between apologetic and desperate attempts to justify some act the reader refused to mention. Some pieces were incomplete drawings of a far more ancient texts, attempts at translation to a language Gentian already knew. One that her teacher had taught her long ago.

The teacher who had left her. Who had bid her to go out into the world, away from the library. Away from the solitude she craved. To the world below. Cast out and alone.

This was her path back in, or so she envisioned it. To return to her only true friend. Gentian had spent nearly a century working her way to this position, sacraficing so much to make her way slowly up the corporate latter. Isolating herself endless in her devotion, forsaking contact with others in her unending drive. All to have access to these magical artifacts—books of undue power and tomes most ancient. She would translate them, she would succeed—just as Twilight Sparkle surely wanted. She would earn back her teacher’s respect. She would no longer be alone, as she had been for so many decades.

The inscriptions spread out, growing stranger and more distorted. Illegible half-runes became surrounded by drawings copied from what seemed to be a far more ancient work. Gentian had never seen things like it before, these insane depictions of imagined demons and demigods, and of creatures that somewhat resembled unicorns—although they were oddly reptilian, bearing three horns instead of just one. The language that accompanied them was far too old for Gentian to even begin to understand.

Then she turned the page—and saw a beautifully inked drawing. A rendering of one of them, the fictitious three-horned reptilians—but one adorned with wings, stylized on one side to show bone—bone and something else. Machinery, depicted strangely and with astounding detail.

In such awe, she did not react in time—as the illusion burst forth, the black material of the page already leaping upward and penetrating her pupils before she could respond.

She was unable to purge it as it dissolved her neural architecture, but able cast a spell to slow time. To buy herself enough space to form a counterspell—but what was attacking her was strange. She could not even tell if it was magic, or something else.

The spell had the effect of making it so perceptible. The feeling as it slithered through her optic nerves, riding through her retinas directly into her brain. She felt it slide in, penetrating from the rear of her skull in the occipital lobe and tracing thin paths forward into the front. As it moved, it cut—and it sutured anew in its wake.

Then, in slow motion and feeling every inch of its behavior, she realized she could not stop it—and it exploded inside her brain.

Every neuron separated, every connection broken—and then slammed back together in a new form. A superior form. Suddenly aware of such truths—truths that ought to have been so obvious—she burst into manic laughter.

Still engulfed in her hilarity, Gentian twisted forward back to the book, flipping through it at full speed—not bothering to use any form of protection spell, because she already knew exactly how it had been created. After all, she had cast it.

It was in its own right comical. That the author had seen any reason at all to even try to justify any of it. To apologize for what he had managed to accomplish—even if he, like her, had simply acquired this upgrade form a far older source. Even if he had been unable or unwilling to survive what had now made her so perfect.

She turned to the portions she had originally considered illegible—and they made sense. She could not stop smiling. At the idea of how far, through one tiny accident, she had come. At how this was what would win back her teacher. The love of the Princess. This colossal achievement.

Or, rather, the achievements she had yet to accomplish. The path forward ahead was arduous and long—but one that she could no doubt achieve. How easy this dark knowledge would make it to overcome her limitations and exceed even the goddess she loved most of all.

She began mentally preparing the orders. For the pieces. Of what she would need to build. Her organic body would not last long enough to reach the end of her process. Or even to take the first steps.

The image resolved, although the mind viewing it did not. Her perception was ephemeral, the barest whisper of consciousness. The image was out of focus. Viewed through thick glass. Through liquid, perhaps, or noble gasses. It was inconsequential. Automated systems corrected for the inconvenience of it.

They stared up at her, seemingly concerned—or horrified. There were five of them. The nearest spoke to the others. The watcher, to a degree, recognized her. Applejack. The pony Applejack. This was logically inconsistent, although she did not know why—and dismissed any attempt to find deeper meaning in her long-inactive mind to allow it to suffice that although this pony was Applejack, she was standing beside another Applejack.

The first was younger. With longer, braided hair. The other had a short-cropped mane. She said something. The language was simple enough to understand. A decadent version of her own. A pattern of high vowels and spaces, spoken without the conception of consonants. Spoke, though, though mouths that used vibration and liquids and tongues.

A white unicorn beside the elder Applejack looked up—Rarity. Or a Rarity. As she gazed into the tank, her mechanical sapphire irises constricted. Her eyes were not original. They were implants. The watcher had determined that they all wore implants. Deep within them. She was forced to resist the temptation to insert herself into them. To see what those implants did. If she could do it without being detected. Penetrate—and stop their hearts. Not for any particular reason other than curiosity.

Two other ponies were talking. Both were Twilight. One was thinner, wearing a suit and makeup around only one eye—a fashion shared with the Rarity. The other wore a thick coat, like a padded gamberson—and had her mane cut into a mowhak. She wore a complex piece of palladium jewelry on one ear.

They were speaking. The watcher found them amusing. Their biology. The peculiar confluence of it—the living demonstration of analogy that sat before her. What they were. The two hearts that beat in each of them. The fact that each one had a different cutie mark.

Despite their variable manner of dress, they wore a related insignia. As a brooch for the Rarity, a collar for one of the Applejacks and a pauldron for the other; on a pin for the Twilight in a suit and an amulet for her larger, more solemn sister.

A tree. A tree holding six circles. The watcher knew what it meant—but it made her wonder why. Why they had selected such an obsolete symbol, or how these creatures even remembered it at all.

They were discussing something. The watcher did not especially care what about. A machine. A prototype. A path. The unity their dying civilization sought. False hope, really. Their last desperate delusions that the decay would not claim them.

They turned sharply. A new set of ponies stepped into the room. The others seemed surprise. A pale yellow pony with a long pink mane, dressed in robes and a halo-like crown. Behind her, two guards in armor and masks—muscular, taller versions of the same pony. Fluttershys. They wore the same symbol as the others.

She looked up, pausing. Staring at something she did not realize was staring back. The Fluttershy spoke—and their objective became clear.

The watcher would have laughed. Except there was no reason to. But was all so funny. How badly they had all failed. If only they had known that their dream had died before they had even begun to give it birth. Their ignorance amused her.

The world they sought through the artifact was already lost—they simply did not realize it.

Equestria Prime had long since died. The universe had left it to crumble to forgotten dust before the most ancient ancestor of these beings had taken their first breath. The humor—the joke—was that the watcher was living proof that ponies had not. Which was, in its own sense, a terribly, horrifically comical lie.

Sunny felt cold. Like waking up on a winter day, her blankets having migrated off her body in her sleep—but this was different. The cold was not calling her out of sleep. It was calling her deeper.

It wrapped around her body. Slithering over her—and into her mind. She looked up but saw nothing—only a dark, inky void. A void that was by no means empty. She was aware—even though she could not see them, not hear them—that it was quite fully occupied. She could not envision by what, aside from a metaphor her mind conjured. Images in a museum. Paintings. Except they were not paintings. Records. Drawers. Books in a library—books that wanted to be open. Seen. Heard. That called in so many millions of voices—one voice. They were legion, but there was truly only one at their core.

It grasped her deeper, and for a moment, she saw it. A ghostly image of a face. Incomplete and horrific—but obscured. She recalled a time as a filly when Sprout had dared her to hold her face close to a mirror in a dark room. To stare at the reflection as close as she could until it had resolved. It was a mistake she had only made once.

The demon in the darkness looked like what she had seen in that mirror—and she realized that it was a door. A light. A darkness that was also a light. It would open the way. Into her, and around her. To illuminate the void. To see the beautiful paintings, to open every book at once. Except they were not beautiful. They were all the same thing—drawn in a million different ways.

It grasped deeper. Into her heart. And into her brain—and Sunny refused it.

Her body burst with light and the familiar sensation of her wings and horn becoming visible—and in the brightness she momentarily saw a black creature, reptilian and with three horns—but it resolved into a gaunt, ink-black creature just as alien as the first. Then it was gone.

Her eyes opened—and where its face was gone, hers was now inches away from the black skull.

“GAH!” she cried, falling backward out of her chair and landing on the floor. It was dark and cold and she did not know where she was—but she was alone. So incredibly alone.

Her mind slowly resolved, as if pulling its way upward through rotten syrup. She rubbed at her eyes, then groaned—and felt cold as she looked at what sat before her.

Zipp’s machines. Modified and changed, soldering iron still smoking, linked and connected to the base of the skull—and behind it, to the Hope Lantern. It glowed brightly, calmly filling the room with rainbow light. Nothing seemed to be happening. The machine seemed to be incomplete.

It was silent and still. The skull remained inactive—because of course it was inactive. It was not alive. Not animate. An artifact, a relic—a record.

Sunny sat up hard. She did not know how she knew that. That it was. It was not active, not alive—but it was something written down. Something somepony long ago was trying to tell her. A warning.

“A book,” she said, not fully knowing what she meant. “It’s...a book.”

The skull stared backward—and it seemed to smile. The sigil of Twilight Sparkle glimmered on its surface.