Chapters „Where is it?!“ Celestia shouted while searching through her saddle-bags at an amazing speed. Swords, daggers, and every kind of magical item flew out of it. The mountain of weapons beside her was already full three meter high. “I can’t find it!” She screamed in panic and threw her saddle-bags at the wall with black stone.
Celestia really changed in the last 1,500 years. Her body-form was still the same, but not its features. She had one long scar, halving her sun-cutie-mark on her right hip, and also one that went from her chest, up to her right cheek, going over her right neck. The scar on her neck wasn’t really visible without parting the fur, but it could be felt. The scar on her cutie-mark could be seen pretty clearly.
The scar parted the skin, and the hairs grew into different directions there, showing it to everyone. But the scar still couldn’t be seen by anyone, since she wore armor all the time. She wore a silver body armor that fitted her equine shape perfectly. It fully engulfed her body to the neck, except for the tail. On her head, she wore some kind of silver crown, which was fixed there. It looked a little like her old crown in Equestria, but instead of one big spike with a jewel and two small ones, she had five equally high one, every spike being higher than the big spike on her old crown.
Her horn was also protected by a terrifically hard type of glass. She once wanted to let her horn get removed by a professional since she didn’t need it anymore. She could control the multiversal magic, and the only purpose of her horn was to perform unicorn magic, which was not as advanced, but Aren told her that he liked her horn and that they couldn’t do certain stuff anymore, which they liked to do while being in private quarters. Sighing, she dismissed her idea of removing it. It’s funny that the puppy-dog eyes work on Celestia, even though Aren was approximately 50 times older than her.
Celestia also had six different mane colors now. The black one came to her some months before the fight with Oran, but about some weeks ago, she got another one. Her natural mane color was actually white. When she was a little filly, she learned to manipulate the four elements. Each giving her one mane color.
Green for earth. Light blue for air. Dark blue for water. Pink for fire. When she killed the black dragon, she got black as symbolism that she learned of death. That she killed something willingly. The newest one came to her some weeks ago. When she finally learned the travel-spell, which a traveler needed to learn. The streak was a dark purple.
The travel-spell allows beings of the multiverse, to navigate the worlds without the help of gates, and without needing any world coordinations. They can see the multiverse as it is, and can take a peek into a world. If they decide, they can then teleport to there without any outside help. This spell took her exactly 1,486 years to learn.
It is a spell that is, in itself, easy to perform. The hard part is building a connection with the different dimensions, and also being able to manipulate this connection in order to get access to the worlds. A normal traveler needs around 1,000 years to feel the connection of the dimensions. It would take another 1,000 to learn to manipulate it, and another 500 to manipulate it to this degree that teleportation was possible.
Celestia was exceptionally talented, and was able to learn it in only 1,500. Maybe it was her desire to finally go home, which gave her this motivation? This was finally the day. The day in which she got the permission of her master, to travel back to Equestria. 1,500 years. It’s been that long. She wondered what would have changed on Equestria.
She thought nearly every day about her sister, about her former student, about Equestria. She always had to sigh when she also remembered that her student wouldn’t be alive anymore. It always created such unpleasant pain, to know that she missed Twilight’s whole life. She wondered how far Twilight has gotten. Had she revolutionized magical theory? Did she have children? Who was her husband? Did Twilight hate Celestia for her selfish ways?
She didn’t know, and she would probably never know, but there were more urgent problems right now. “Where is it?!” Celestia shouted again and dove into the mountain of weapons. The room, in which she currently was, looked mostly black. The walls were black; The floors were black; The ceiling was black. Everything was made out of black volcano stone.
The red chandelier in the middle of the room had fiercely burning fires on it, and there was also a large black bed for two, and a fireplace with a blue fire in it. Aren put soul-fire in their rooms because it creates a warm and peaceful feeling. The life it radiated calmed the body and soul. It didn’t help Celestia one bit to calm down right now.
The doors to her room opened, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy burying herself in her own weapons in order to find the thing she searched for. Silent steps came closer to Celestia, but she didn’t notice. The steps were drowned in the sounds of her rummaging through the mountain of weapons. Suddenly, a hand went into the pile of weapons and shortly after, a yelp was heard from the alicorn.
Not many seconds later, Celestia got lifted out of the pile of weapons by the hand, which grabbed her by the horn. “So, are we opening up some kind of scrap business or why are all your weapons just laying here in our room?” Aren asked her with a joking tone to his voice. It is easy to summarize how Aren looked now.
Exactly the same. Same old spiky black hair; Same old black jeans and black jeans vest; Same old 1.80 meter height; Same old black and red sword. Celestia looked at him with a blush, being embarrassed for her panic earlier. Laughing a little awkwardly, she stepped out of the pile. “Heh, sorry Ary. I kinda lost myself there, a little.” She explained while scratching the armor on her neck with one hoof.
Aren only raised an eyebrow. “What were you even looking for?” He asked with a curious voice while looking through some of the weapons. Celestia only sighed.
“I am looking for the star Luna gave me, before I left. I promised to give it back to her, and I can’t find it anywhere.” She explained with a worried tone. She couldn’t forgive herself if she lost it. Not after how they parted.
“I feared that this day would come, but it came faster than I thought.” Luna said with a sad voice. It was the day, the day in which her sister would go on her long journey through the multiverse. The day that marked the beginning of over 2 millennia of separation. Aren told them that Celestia would probably need around 2,000 years to learn the spell, and that was a long time for the two sisters.
They wouldn’t be able to see each other for 2,000 years, so it was understandable that the goodbye was hard. Celestia only sighed, and her sister was in tears already. She already made her farewells with all the other ponies, and now only Luna remained. Her eternal sister. “Luna, you know that it isn’t forever. It’s only for 2,000 years. What are 2,000 years in comparison to an eternity?” She asked her with a forced warm smile.
Luna looked to the floor. “I know, but 2,000 years is still a long time.” She walked forward and embraced her sister in one last hug. “I will miss you, big sister.” Celestia gladly answered with her own hug. She also needed this last moment with her sister.
“I know, little sister. I will miss you too.” They stood like this for a long time. Celestia took in all the tears and sadness that her sister let out while standing intertwined with her. After several long moments, they slowly parted, and Luna opened up her pocket dimension. Using her alicorn-magic, she levitated out a shining little star. Where common stars were made out of huge amounts of gas and fire, this particular star, was made out of a little ball that shined brightly.
Celestia looked at it. It was the special star, she made her sister when they were in their first millennia. Luna treasured it like her own foal, and always had it in her room. “Here, I want you to take it.” Celestia looked hesitant.
“Luna, this is yours. I wouldn’t-“
“I’m not giving it to you forever!” Luna interrupted Celestia. “I want you to give it back to me when you are here again.” After a short time, Celestia smiled at her sister and put the star in her saddle-bag.
“Alright, little sister. I will do that.” Celestia slowly took some steps back. “Until we meet again, farewell, Lulu.” Celestia told her sister with a tear in her right eye. Luna also was back to tears.
“Farewell, Tia.” With this, Celestia vanished, and they haven’t seen each other since.
Aren put a hand on his chin. “Hmm. Haven’t you said anything about a star in your secret section in your pocket dimension?” He exclaimed with a voice as if he tried to remember something. Celestia’s eyes instantly widened, and she conjured her pocket dimension. Opening up the secret part, only she and Aren knew about, she found it. Not a long time later, she levitated the star out to her. It looked exactly like she remembered it.
“Oh, thank you, Ary. I wouldn’t know what I would do without you.” She told him with relief and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. Aren only waved a dismissive hand.
“No problem, Celly.” He turned around and walked out of the room again. “Wish you fun on your holiday.” He said while walking to the door, waving her with one hand.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” She asked while looking at her star. Aren turned around with a crooked eyebrow.
“And get chewed out by Luna, because I disturb you both on your alone-time? No, thank you. I bet that even after 1,500 years, she still hates my guts. Maybe some other time. If they are still alive, say hello to Ravien and Chrysalis for me.” He suddenly began smirking. “That’s one of your quests.” Celestia instantly turned to him and sighed.
“Alright. Whatever you want.” Now she needed to talk to both of them and tell them hi from Aren. He made it a quest. Whenever he gave her quests, he expected them to be fulfilled perfectly. Once, she didn’t fulfill one of her quests, and she got punished. He rode on her for a full week, and told everyone she was his mount. This was so degrading that she never dared to refuse a quest again. He was her master after all.
“See ya” He shouted while he already was around the corner.
“Bye.” Celestia shouted back. She looked through her saddle-bags once more, checking if she had everything. Well, she didn’t need to take much since she was visiting Equestria, and not some dimension with assailants and thieves around every tree and corner. Luckily, she had everything. Finally, it was time. Finally, she could go and see her sister again.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the auras of the dimensions. After several minutes, she was able to feel the aura of her current world. Domania. The dimension of The Bearer. She currently was in her room in his castle. With a push, her body and her soul vanished from this dimension. Opening her eyes, she saw the blackness around her, with groups of shining stars all shining from everywhere.
Looking down, she saw some kind of chess-board with different dimensions everywhere. This was the A-Cluster, the cluster she was traveling in. Equestria wasn’t in this, so she closed her eyes again and concentrated on the unique feel of Equestria. The trees, the wild-life, the ponies, Canterlot, Luna, everything she knew about Equestria, she conjured and harnessed the feelings she had for. After a short while, all the feelings fused together to create the unique feel of Equestria.
Absorbing this feeling, she saw one star suddenly shining in a warm pink. Smiling, she flew to it, bending space around her. Not two seconds later, she stood before a single world. A world without any cluster or any group whatsoever. The typical look of a raw world. Equestria. Still smiling, she concentrated her essence on the world. Shortly after, her mind and her body vanished again. They were on their way to Equestria.
It was night-time in Equestria. The green planes of one particular clearing in the Everfree Forest were peacefully dancing in the night-breeze. The round clearing was surrounded by countless trees in different shapes.
But the peaceful environment got disturbed by the appearance of a certain white alicorn. Celestia appeared in the middle of the clearing, without any kind of sound and light. This was the advantage of multiversal magic. It has no color, so it can’t be seen without aura-vision. One wouldn’t even notice her appearing on the clearing if they wouldn’t directly look at the position.
Celestia opened her eyes, and when she looked around, she couldn’t suppress a smile. She knew this clearing. This was the clearing where they fought against the timberwolves and Oran. Oran, the fight with him seemed to have ended just yesterday, even though it was 1,500 years ago. She still shuddered when she remembered his ungodly power. The feelings she had when she fought alone against him in that lava arena.
She attacked him mercilessly, but that only betrayed her real feelings. Deep down, she was in pure panic. If she hadn’t the magical reaction shield activated, she would have been killed countless times. Even without using his magic, he was able to battle against her when she had absorbed three kinds of different magic.
Shaking her head, she forced the depressive thoughts out of her mind. She was finally back at Equestria. She could finally see her sister again. Only thinking about this made her happy to an endless degree. She jumped on the spot while squealing a little fan girl squeal. It was just like a dream come true. Nearly every night, she dreamed of finally going home, and now it was time. She was home.
Seeing that it was night, she looked to the sky at Luna’s moon. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she gasped. There was only a half-moon. But this cannot be. Equestria had regulated cycles of moon and sun. The moon was always full, and if she wouldn’t have visited the other dimensions she wouldn’t even know what a half moon is.
There were only three options to why there could be a half moon in Equestria. First, the Equestrians somehow managed to manipulate the solar system into moving itself, which is possible. Second, Luna wanted to make a half moon, for whatever reason. Third, over half of the moon was destroyed, but that was nonsense.
Deciding that she shouldn’t worry about this, she spread her wings and started into the night-sky. It was a one-hour-flight to Canterlot from here, but she didn’t mind. She was happy to finally see her homeworld again. Looking at the low clouds, the high mountains, the green trees, it was like she was on a memory lane.
Celestia was bored. The feeling of nostalgia held up for 20 minutes, but after this it all looked the same again. Trees under her, clouds over her, mountains here and there. Deciding that she wanted to get to Canterlot faster, she used her magic to create two flames on her hind legs. She made them burn with ferocity, and the opposing forces made her push forward. This was a trick she learned a long time ago. Aren called her one full month “Jetlestia”.
Always when she was close to breaking the sound barrier, she slowed down a little to let the mach cone disperse. She didn’t want to wake up the whole forest with a show of lights and booms. Also, she didn’t want to make herself visible to the town of Ponyville on the horizon. She wanted to surprise Luna, after all.
Flying to the horizon, she stopped when she was over Ponyville. Ponyville had changed, a lot. The town was over ten times the size, and the houses looked strange. The houses were made out of some kind of bending goo material. They looked like puddings that were carved out from the inside. The streets also were different. Instead of dirt, wood, or stone, they were made out of some kind of black sludge. The sludge looked similar to the one in the changeling’s hives.
Celestia visited many dimensions in her journey, and she saw how they made progress in science and magic. There were worlds with crazy ways of expansion. Some invented magical homes. Some used oil to fuel the power of their cities. Some lived forever in the old wooden buildings, even though they were way too advanced for this.
But black sludge and bending goo was new. How could equestrians possibly even think about building their houses with goo and sludge? Only insectoids and sludge-people were drawn to use mud, goo, and sludge to build their homes. It was absolutely illogical that the ponies would use this. It doesn’t even look good, and on top of that, sludge and goo heated itself way too much. Celestia knew this from personal experience, when she stayed a week in a hotel on the dimension Slarkbar.
The dimension was inhabited by sludge-people, and they built similar to Equestria here. The room’s temperatures were on a backing 40°C. After one night, she and Aren decided to sleep outside in Aren’s pocket castle. This was really strange.
First, the moon is a half moon. Second, the moon didn’t move one bit, even though she was already over an hour on this world. Third, sludge and goo everywhere. Fourth, she didn’t see any ponies yet, even though the city of Ponyville was this humongous. Something definitely was not right here.
Flying away from the center of Ponyville, back to the entrance from the Everfree Forest, she landed. “Better be careful.” She told herself, and made herself invisible. The invisibility spell is an intermediate spell, meaning that it needs between 100 – 500 years to be learnt. It basically creates a barrier around the caster that absorbs the light that lands on it and releases it on the other side, making her look like there wasn’t anything that interfered with the light.
Next was the sound hiding spell. This spell is also intermediate and creates a smaller barrier around the body that dissipates sound waves that come from inside of it. Outer sound waves pass through it without interference. On top of that, she used another spell. The smell-suppression-spell. This creates another barrier around her that filters the air that passes through it.
Three passive spells were her limit to control subconsciously. Her total limit were five, but then she would need to concentrate on the later two, but to be sure she also used the warmth illusion spell. This spell creates another barrier around the caster that shows an illusion that this spot of air had the same temperature than the air around it.
There were still a lot of ways to detect her. Sonar, aura-vision, touch, X-rays, but the major ones were blocked. Being happy with her ability to hide from other beings, she walked into town. On the way to the town, she found a sign that showed the town’s name.
“Welcome to Blocknarg.”
This was not equestrian. Equestria would never call a city Blocknarg. Something obviously was wrong here. She decided to continue her walk into town, not knowing what would await her. Walking through the empty streets, she wasn’t sure why there were no ponies. They had to be somewhere.
After several minutes of walking invisible through the streets of Ponyville or Blocknarg, as it is called now, she had enough of the lonely alleys and looked around for a house. Seeing a small house made out of red goo, she walked to it. There were no windows. The house just looked like some kind of red gooey papaya. There was only one hole in the middle of it.
Flying up to it, she went through the hole. Inside the house, it was dark. Really dark. She couldn’t see a thing. Activating a passive night vision spell, she could finally see again. This was the fifth passive spell, and she wouldn’t be able to use any more , since this took up all her concentration. But it was worth it. She could see the room, but it couldn’t be called a room.
It was just a round room with nothing in it, except some outgrowths of the house itself. One could be a table if one had very much fantasy. On one side was a little round outgrowth that looked like a basket in which Spike always slept. Celestia chuckled a little. She totally forgot about Spike. There was a good chance that he was still alive, and also that he was as large as a castle now.
Shaking her head, she banished the thought out of her mind. There were more serious things going on right now. Seeing another one in another wall, Celestia walked over to it and went through it. She found herself in some kind of thin hallway. The hallway was only two meters wide and abruptly went down into a slide.
Seeing no other hole in the hallway, she reluctantly walked over to the steep slide. She looked down and didn’t see an end to it because it made a curve not five meters away. With a huge gulp, she went on it and began to slide down. The slide soon went into the curve, but it was not just a simple curve. It was a spiral.
The exceedingly flat surface allowed nearly no friction, and Celestia sped up to an unreal speed. Due to the centrifugal forces that were created by her speedy slide, she constantly leaned against the right side of the slide, happy that there was no friction, or else she would have a nasty graze.
She was already sliding for three minutes, and the thrill of speed stopped a long time ago. Now she only wondered how far this slide went. Suddenly, the slide went into a straight line again, and she could see the entrance to a bigger hall. Happy that she finally was on the end, she let out a sigh and closed her eyes for a second.
In this second, something walked into her path. When Celestia opened her eyes again, she saw something that was not even three meters in front of her, and she instantly had a shocked face. Bracing herself for the impact, she put her hooves to her body and turned to the side. Not a fraction of a second later, she slammed into the thing that stood in her path.
It felt like something terribly hard and heavy, and if it wouldn’t be for her high quality armor, she would surely have some broken bones. The heavy thing got thrown back, and they both stopped in some kind of bulky hall. Celestia groaned and rubbed herself on the head. Opening her eyes, she saw that she couldn’t see anything.
She lost her concentration when she smashed into the thing, and her warmth illusion spell and the night vision spell weren’t active anymore. Using her night vision again, she could finally look around. It was some kind of big gooey hall. It kind of reminded her of cathedrals that the arcadians built. In comparison to the dull house she went through, this one was much bigger, and it also had furniture.
All kinds of strange chairs, beds, and apparatuses were standing all around it. There also were shining colorful windows. Windows underground? This seemed to be nonsensical. All the furniture seemed to be made out of normal material. Wood, iron, and so on. Suddenly, she remembered that she crashed into something, and searched for the thing.
At the opposing wall of the entrance of the slide, something moved. It had a chitin shell, and it slowly got up. It had two extremely pronounced muscular legs. They looked a little like human feet, but instead of a long foot and five toes, they had some kind of stump with three long things coming out of it. They looked a little like bird talons.
Out of its torso grew four arms. If one would compare the anatomy of those things with humans, then one pair of arms came out of the same place where human arms came out, and one pair would come out of the side, a little below the rip-cage. It would be hard to find the rip-cage on this thing since it probably didn’t have any ribs.
She instantly knew that it was an insectoid by nature and that it wouldn’t have bones. Insectoids had exoskeletons and wouldn’t need any form of solid material inside of them. On its back were four insect like wings, reminding one of dragonflies. When the creature stood up, it rubbed on its head and turned around to Celestia. It was around the height of Aren.
“What hit me?” It asked itself with a deep voice that sounded like something buzzed in its throat. When it turned to Celestia, she let out a gasp, which was blocked by her sound barrier. Its mouth had an oval form, but in comparison to most beings, the oval stood. On top of its head, it had three long black horns. Two at the side like a bull, and one coming out of its forehead. Its eyes were a deep red, and they looked like they would belong to some kind of crazy machine.
Like out of reflex, Celestia instantly shot a highly concentrated beam of fire at the thing. The thing didn’t know what hit it until it was too late. It died in nearly no time. Celestia stopped the beam and breathed in a heavy and fast pattern. This was bad. This was really really bad. She knew those creatures. She fought against them countless times.
They are called nargians. If one of them was on Equestria, then Celestia and the whole of Equestria had tremendous problems. Really big problems. When a nargian queen gets born, she will leave the hive when she is fully grown. She takes an army of nargians with her and searchs for a new home. Nargians travel through the multiverse, searching for planets without any big allies.
When they find a suitable planet without any sorts of defense, they attack it. If they win, they enslave the entirety of the planet and begin living there. They build an empire and loot the whole planet of its resources. When she heard of them for the first time, she asked Aren why no one battled them.
“Nargians are a huge species with over 70 planets under their control. They never attack dimensions that are allied with a major cluster, and since they don’t do that, our cluster doesn’t do anything. As long as they don’t disturb us, we don’t disturb them. Well, I gladly level a planet with nargians on it, but officially, we can’t do a thing.” That’s what he told her.
But how could they be here? Nargians need dimensional gates to travel. They don’t have the travel-spell of the travelers. It would be impossible for them to attack a raw world, so how could they be here? This was just too strange, but if this planet actually got taken over by the nargians, then it would be exceedingly difficult to get it back.
Nargians are extraordinarily strong, and well trained. Trained mortals of their race were devilishly difficult to defeat. If they want, they can get immune to nearly every element. Celestia was lucky that she could surprise the nargian before because Celestia still hasn’t learned even one spell, to which nargians can’t get immune to. Her record was winning against 13 mortal nargians at once, and she only won due to a fatal mistake they did. If she would get spotted here, there would be nearly no chance to escape. Oh, if only Aren was here. He would clean this planet of every nargian in one day, but there was no way for her to contact him, and Celestia told him that she would take at least two weeks of vacation. Aren promised that he wouldn’t come in that time, fearing that he would anger Luna again into summoning an ancient hate spirit.
She also cursed that nargians were able to use aura-vision and sonar if they wanted to. She didn’t have enough concentration to hold up all the spells, she would need to block out everything. Walking through a hole, she was “outside”. She was still underground, but the insanely gargantuan cavern didn’t feel like a cavern. The cavern was large, being two kilometers high, over ten kilometers long, and about four kilometers wide.
She currently stood at a pretty high building that went into the ceiling. Many other buildings also went into the ceiling. On the bottom of the cave were many houses built with this strange goo, but this time they were decorated with different kinds of stuff. Different colors, different kinds of windows, different forms, different sizes. The whole cavern was dipped in darkness, and if it weren’t for Celestia’s night vision spell, she wouldn’t see a thing.
This was typical nargian. Building entrances on top of the world without any decorations, and building their whole city underground. The temperature was around 40°C again, and Celestia was already sweating like a human in an oven. Looking around, she saw many nargians running around the streets. They were busy working. Apparently, they wanted to expand the cave and nearly every nargian of the worker class had the task to dig and carry debris.
She continued looking around, but she never found it. There were no ponies. The main species of the planet were normally enslaved by the nargians. They don’t kill the old inhabitants, so why were there no ponies? For that matter, where were the ponies? Celestia spread her wings and flew into the air.
She had to find the ponies. In order to do anything against the nargians, she would need them. While flying through the air, she looked down and observed the city closer. There were no real outstanding buildings, except for one. It wasn’t really a building. It was more of a giant gate. Celestia remembered that the nargians separated their cities into three different parts, every part being located in a different cave. The parts are connected with gates.
There is always one colossal cave for the workers. Then there is a smaller cave for companies and state institutes, like prisons. At last, there is the smallest cave, which is the military basis. Celestia was in the workers cave, and if the ponies weren’t here, then they had to be in another one, or at a totally different city. She only hoped that she could find at least some ponies in the other caves.
After about two minutes of flight, she came to the gate. It was gigantic at a 300 meter height. There were smaller doors, but they also were heavily guarded. Anti-spell-barriers hindered anyone in teleporting or phasing through the gate. She had to open the gate somehow and slip through it. On top of that, there also were two guards at each gate, making it impossible to open it without anyone noticing.
If Celestia would open a gate or fight them, she would find herself surrounded by hundreds of soldiers. She wouldn’t even stand a little chance. If she would get found out, it would all be over. They had the powers to suppress multiversal magic, and material to keep her confined. This was risky. If she would even make a little uproar, they would activate their aura visions or their sonar and would instantly find her.
Celestia didn’t see any solution. How could she go through there? She would go to Aren and tell him what happened, but it needed at least two weeks for her to get the feel of the dimension again. She was stranded here. In a new Equestria without ponies. An Equestria ruled by evil insectoids. No, this was no time to give up. She needed to find the ponies, then they maybe would stand a chance.
Suddenly, one of the smaller gates opened. Some kind of powerful looking 2.20 big nargian came through it from the other side. He was clothed in a red shining armor and carried two red shining spears with his two right hands. The guards instantly saluted him. The seemingly high ranking officer looked around the cavern, his gaze passing over the invisible form of Celestia. After a while, he stepped out of the gate and began walking into the town.
Celestia saw that the gate was still open, and took that chance. She ran straight at the gate. She was nearly there, when her body suddenly told her to jump to the right. Celestia learned the hard way that she should listen to her body when it tells her to do something. With the jump to the right, she evaded a spear by a hair’s width. Landing on the floor, she turned her head to the direction the spear came from.
She looked into the eyes of the high ranking nargian. They watched deeply into each other’s eyes, and only one thought ran through Celestia’s mind. “He sees me!” The officer took his spear and pointed at Celestia, not a second later some kind of shrill and high screeching was heard from him. Instantly, every guard used their sonar to pick up the threat that their captain found. They all felt that something was beside the captain. Something that was not part of their military.
Celestia instantly put an insane amount of magic into her hooves and pushed herself of the floor, creating a little crater where she was before. Using everything she had, she boosted herself through the cavern. Her goal was one of the exits. She had to get out there, now! Every guard knew she was here and while using their sonars they could also see her.
She saw one exit and instantly bolted to it. Sadly, she was too late and already 20 guards covered that one. Every guard in the whole cavern suddenly started flying and searching for Celestia. Hundreds, if not thousands were buzzing through the air. Many of them came right at her, and Celestia didn’t know what to do now.
She was in total panic. This wasn’t one of Aren’s missions or quests, where she had a real chance to succeed or survive. Before the combined power of thousands of nargians, she was powerless, but she hasn’t given up yet. Charging at another exit, she evaded several thrown spears. She was nearly at the exit, but this also suddenly got blocked by many guards.
Cursing under her breath, she looked around again. Soldiers everywhere. There was absolutely no way to escape. She instantly bolted to the floor and impacted with it. She ran through some alleys in order to outrun the nargians. Sadly, she got caught off at every potential escape route. After a short while, she was surrounded by hundreds of guards.
She couldn’t move. It didn’t matter in what direction she looked. There was no escape. While Celestia looked for an escape route, the nargians stood around her, not allowing her to escape. Some seconds later, the same high ranking officers touched down beside her. He slowly walked up to the on the floor shivering concealed pile.
Taking his spear and enchanting it, he poked at the spells that Celestia used to hide herself. All the spells broke, and everyone could see the shivering pony that was on the floor, hiding herself with her hooves over her head.
Author's Note
Finally, I started writing the sequel. Nothing much to say, except that if you are new, you should read the prequel to this.
I am still not sure if I should write a subplot, and if I do, what subplot. Currently, I am hanging between writing a subplot for Aren or giving flash-backs to Celestia's training.
Tell me what you think of this sequel and what I should do with the subplot.
Hope you enjoyed it.
The soldiers and the captain were silent as they looked down at the shivering pile of a pony. She was a small light blue unicorn with a purple mane. Her horn was glowing in a pink light, and she had some kind of butterfly wings on her back. The captain looked down on the unicorn and poked her horn with the back side of his spear.
The glow around her horn suddenly stopped, and the butterfly wings on her back vanished. This was the little thing that made every soldier in the cave run around like a madman. Celestia was happy to have thought of that plan. Changing your own body is a hard spell, but with enough practice, anyone can cast it.
Changelings and emotion-eaters in general can perform this spell out of instinct, but it is also possible to learn this spell. Celestia saw how useful the spell was in fights, and learned it over the past 1,000 years. While she was still invisible, she changed her form into a normal unicorn. On top of that, she casted the butterfly-wing-spell on herself to give her enemies the illusion that those were the wings she was flying with.
The captain buzzed some commands to his soldiers, and most of them went back to what they were doing before they got interrupted by the intruder. Some of them stayed and waited for the captain’s orders. The captain slowly bent down and looked at the shivering pony on the floor. The unicorn was only clutching her head with her hooves and looked shivering at the floor.
“Pony, what is your name?” He asked with a buzzy but deep voice. Celestia had to play this role perfectly. If she seemed too confident or too afraid, they might suspect something. Slowly she answered.
“Je-Jetty. Jetty Estia,” she lied to him. Not daring to look up, she waited for his answer. What will he do? Will he execute her? Will he put her in prison? Will he enslave her?
“From now on, your new name is Slave-6256. What is your name?” He asked her again with a serious voice. Jetty slowly looked up at him, and one single tear came to her eyes. Her eyes began to tear slowly, and she started sobbing. Suddenly, the captain stomped on the ground with his spear. “What is your name, slave?” He bellowed.
Jetty flinched at the sudden outburst, and quickly answered. “S-Slave 62-6256.” The captain took hold of her mane and turned his claw, so Jetty was pulled up by her mane. Jetty screamed a lot of ow’s and closed her eyes, holding her hooves sprawled in front of her face in a gesture that showed that she didn’t want to get hit.
“Good.” He told her slowly. Making one clap with both of his left arms, one of the soldiers walked to Jetty and took out a ring. The ring was black, and it looked like it was made out of chitin. He pushed the ring over Jetty’s horn and slid it down. Suddenly, there was a burning pain in Jetty’s horn.
She started screaming like a leg would get slowly cut off. Some kind of blue juice slowly flowed down her horn and over her face. With tears in her eyes, Jetty flailed around in a useless attempt to make the pain stop, but it didn’t help anything. The captain let go of her mane, and Jetty fell to the ground.
She instantly put her hooves to her horn, and realized that the ring carved itself into her horn, making it impossible to remove, except by ridiculously damaging it. On top of that, it perfectly blocked the moon-flow that normally flowed through her horn.
Unicorn magic works different than normal magic. A normal pony would think that multiversal magic and unicorn magic were the same thing, but the opposite is true. Unicorn magic is an organ that creates something similar to true magic. When the moon goes over the world, the moonshine of it drops on top of the earth, the air, and the plants and so on. In order to perform unicorn magic, a unicorn needs to use the reserves in their body.
Controversially to the belief of unicorn scientists, the inner reserves of magic of unicorns can only be refilled by absorbing moonshine. The concentration of moonshine on the planet is ridiculously high, so no scientist noticed it till today. In order to clear one square inch of grass off moonshine, one would need ten unicorns that cast spells for ten minutes and refill only on that grass patch. Since the ring blocks the flow of moonshine, no unicorn was able to refill their magical resources anymore.
The captain put his hand on the horn of Jetty, and she tried to push him off, but his grip was firm. After a while, Celestia felt a pulling sensation and all her unicorn magic was sucked out of her being. When Jetty felt utterly drained, the captain let go of her, and she slumped to the floor. He sucked every last bit of unicornal magic out of her. Before Celestia drifted into unconsciousness, she had a little smirk inwards.
“Too bad, I don’t use unicornal magic.” That thought, she lost consciousness.
Aren ran towards his enemy. Holding his sword up, he used his free hand to shoot different kinds of blue lightning and blue fire at his enemy. His enemy easily sidestepped every attack and waited for Aren to be close enough. He lifted his white glowing sword up, in order to block the swing of Aren.
Dispelling the fifteen debuffs that wanted to go over the sword to his body, he pushed Aren’s sword away and used his palm to create a furious white vortex. Aren barely evaded the attack and answered with his own attack. Exploding into a giant column of blue fire, he forced his opponent to jump back. Looking up, Aren saw that his opponent was still healthy while Aren already had multiple cuts and injuries of any kind.
They already fought for 30 minutes, and he wasn’t even able to scratch his opponent even once. Even if Aren was now being considered the third strongest fighter in the multiverse, the levels between him and his opponent were still not even on the same planet. He was probably the only being that was able to fight with Oran on nearly equal terms.
The fights between those two were legendary. It is said that one of them took over four days to finish. He looked like some kind of deity with a human shape, but nothing human like could be seen. His whole body was covered with whitely glowing armor of unknown material. He was nearly 2.50 meters big and had two pairs of white feathery wings on his back. His sword was large enough to be considered a two-handed sword, even for someone of his stature.
The sword had a silvery hilt while the whole blade had a look like it was made of eternally white dragon scales. The most fascinating part about his appearance was his head. There was a helmet hovering over the place where his head should be, but instead of a normal head, there was something that could not be seen due to the exceedingly white shine.
The white shine itself was this strong that one would think that this was the head itself. It was impossible to see any kind of facial expression on this being. Aren looked at him and breathed hastily. His power was at an end while his opponent hasn’t actually begun taping into his own. Aren was able to get Oran to use everything of his magical power because he was able to surprise him with his new Element. Sadly, this opponent knew of it long beforehand.
It took his opponent merely 300 years to learn how to absorb soul-fire and soul-lightning. “Don’t you think, you had enough already?” The white being asked Aren, but instead of answering, Aren only charged at his opponent again. “So you want to end it. So it shall be.” The white deity bellowed.
Aren stormed at his opponent, but before he could make any kind of attack, his opponent moved to his side at an unreal speed and simply cut Aren in two. “Next time, kid.” He said, and the two halves of Aren fell to the ground. With a last “damn” on his mind, he died.
Suddenly, Aren woke up. Putting his hand at his head, he shook it. Looking at the white being standing in front of him, he sighed. “Seems like I lose again. Best out of 13?” Aren asked sheepishly. The being only crossed his arms and tapped his foot.
“You know, I really like fighting with you, since you are one of the few who can fight without dying in the first five seconds, but I can’t do this the whole day.” He stated in an annoyed tone. “I have work to do, you know?”
Aren only scratched the backside of his head while grinning sheepishly. “Oh come on Beary. One more!” He put his hand together to gesture a pleading pose. “Please!” He added like a child. The white man turned around and started walking to his castle, but not before answering.
“Tomorrow, OK? I can’t let my cluster rule itself.” With that said, The Bearer walked back into his castle, being followed by his 50 councilors. Aren sighed in annoyance. Now what? This planet’s rotation is so slow that one day on this planet equals 67 equestrian days. Aren had a lot of time to kill. Out of boredom, he looked around the training area.
It couldn’t be considered a training area, since it only was a simple plane of grass. A vast meadow two kilometers away of the castle of The Bearer. There were a lot of healthy trees around, and animals and plants were living in harmony with each other. The life is so harmonious, due to the whole planet absorbing magical power and acting according to the kinds of power it absorbs.
Since The Bearer lives here the whole time, the planet absorbs mostly his power, and since he is a peaceful, yet powerful being, the planet acts in total harmony. There are no predators and the herbivores only eat small parts of the plants so that they don’t die. The sky was a comforting cyan with some stray pure white clouds. An ocean could be seen on one horizon, and on the other ones were mountains with heights of over 30 kilometer.
The castle of The Bearer could only be described as gigantic. Its height rivaled the highest mountains of the planet with 50 kilometer. 500,000 workers from every spot in the multiverse had worked for over 100 years to build this insane structure. It had to look impressive in order to have the impression of the capital of multiple thousand dimensions, and its perfectly white look made it seem majestic.
This was the place where Aren trained Celestia the most of the time in the last 1,500 years. The sole nature of the planet gives all the beings on it a power increase and makes wounds heal at an incredible rate. Extremely rich families in the multiverse can buy a ticket for one ill person. The person would live for two days in a spa on this planet and not even once did someone leave with an illness.
Of course, it was still possible to die from injury, but the word “illness” alone was a foreign word here. Aren snickered a little to himself. “It’s incredible how this dimension can heal itself. It looks like we never fought at all.” He exclaimed while looking at the perfectly healthy plane of grass.
The Bearer and Aren didn’t hold back and destroyed a lot of things, but the planet somehow always managed to heal itself. Slowly, Aren walked into the enormous castle of The Bearer, and sighed to himself.
“I bet Celestia has the best time of her life right now.”
Celestia felt something soft beneath her. Well, it couldn’t actually be called soft since it felt more like hay. Hay… a material that the ponies of Equestria often used for multiple reason, yet a material Celestia hadn’t seen for several centuries. Every dimension she traveled to in the last 1,500 years was an included dimension. Included dimensions are dimensions that already are able to travel the multiverse.
Those dimensions all have ridiculously advanced societies where they don’t need something like hay anymore. Their animals get a synthetic mix of food and the farms are constructed with unique materials. Hay was never needed. Yet, Celestia still knew the feeling of hay. She knew it from her old memories, which never vanish. Once you have slept for multiple years on hay, you never forget the feeling of it.
Slowly, she also regained her sense of smell, but she instantly wished this didn’t happen. The air around her smelled dirty and filthy. Like somepony crapped in the corner and died over it, several days ago. If she wouldn’t have had her fair share of brutal sceneries and smells, she would puke right now.
All her other senses returned one after another, and finally she was able to open her eyes. She was in a dimly lit cell. Some black chitin like bars blocked the only exit of the prison, and the round walls were made of the same stuff, black chitin. She frowned when she realized where she was.
This was one of the standard cells of the Nargians. These were the cells where they would put their prisoners, which are incapable of escape. The chitin was an incredibly hard and durable material. It was nearly impossible to break it with only one element. One would usually need to switch between two or three elements every second to counter the automatic immunity creation system.
Celestia, or Jetty how she is called right now due to her disguise, sighed once when she realized that she could get out of this cell without any problems.
“Oh, you’re awake.” Jetty heard from her left and turned her head quickly to the voice. At one of the round walls sat a purple pegasus with a black and blue mane. Celestia was shocked. For some seconds she thought that her old general Purple Edge sat there at the walls, the soldier that ultimately brought Oran down.
His looks were nearly identical with some slight differences. The wings and the tail weren’t as long as Purple Edge’s, and the body and the look in his eyes spoke of a young age and inexperience. Jetty wanted to answer, but she noticed something else. Beside the purple pegasus sat a green unicorn mare.
She had a grass-green coat and a light blue mane. There was a red and a dark blue streak going through it. Her tail and horn looked normally sized, and she looked careful and reluctant at Jetty. Jetty shook her head to get it clear again, and she couldn’t suppress a happy smile on her face. Ponies. She finally found some ponies. Well she found them while being unconscious, but that still counted.
She wanted to introduce herself, but she caught herself before she did it. Some nargians were able to transform into different shapes. It was not a rarity for them to send one of their soldiers to the prisoners to spy on them for possible escape plans. On top of that, she didn’t know what else happened in the last 1,500 years. The ponies could have waged a war against immortals and she wouldn’t know it happened. It would be foolish to reveal her true self to them, right now. She decided to play the nothing-knowing foreign pony.
She moved her legs with panic and backed up to the opposite wall, in order to look like she was in panic. “Wh-Who are you?!” She asked this pretty loudly. The others looked a little startled by the sudden action, and the purple pegasus stood protecting before the green unicorn behind him. After a short while, he slowly walked to Jetty.
Celestia deciding to play the victim covered under her hooves and didn’t look up at him. After a while where nothing seemed to happen from Jetty’s perspective, she looked out of her hooves again and saw how the purple pegasus lowered himself before her, to be on her height.
“Calm down. We are not going to hurt you.” He slowly and warmly told her. Even if, Celestia was multiple thousand years old, the pegasus was able to pronounce those words that good that he would have been able to calm her down, even if she was in a fit of rage in her true body. This was a remarkable talent to have.
Slowly, she lowered her hooves and looked at him more closely. “You are not?” She asked with a hesitant voice. The pegasus slowly shook his head.
“Would you care to give us your name?” He asked with a soothing tone, and Celestia decided to answer him.
“Slave-6256.” She answered slowly, and the pegasus shook his head disapprovingly.
“I mean your real name.” He told her. Celestia was happy to see that ponies still talked to each other with their real names while being imprisoned by the nargians. This was a sign that hope wasn’t utterly lost. If the captured species started calling each other with the assigned numbers, they would have given up and starting a revolution or something alike would get nearly impossible.
“My name is Jetty Estia.” The pegasus crooked an eyebrow.
“That is a strange name, missy.” He told her in a tone someone would use while having pointless small-talk. Celestia quickly made up a lie.
“I’m from germaneigh.” Suddenly, she heard a gasp from the green unicorn.
“That’s terrible. How did you survive the blast?” She asked with a shocked voice. Blast? What blast? She had no time to ask herself this.
“I was fishing in the ocean when the blast hit us. I was extremely lucky.” Celestia hoped that this lie was fool-proof. Apparently, the two ponies sighed in relief, and they also accepted the lie.
“That’s good. It seemed like you had a lot of luck there.” Suddenly, the green unicorn coughed. “Oh, excuse me for my rude manners. My name is Twinky Green. I’m from Metro Ponyville.” Metro Ponyville? She never heard of that location.
“Ehm, sorry if this question sounds strange, but where is Metro Ponyville. I never heard of that city.” Jetty asked while scratching the backside of her head with one hoof. Both of the other ponies raised an eyebrow. The purple pegasus asked her a question.
“You never heard of our capital?” He asked, and Celestia gulped inwards. She had to invent another lie, quickly.
“After the blast, I lived in a cave on a vacant island. I didn’t really hear anything from outside until I decided to explore the world a little.” The two ponies looked at each other with a confused look. The green unicorn shrugged, and they turned their gazes back to Jetty.
“Metro Ponyville was the capitol city of the ponies since ten years. Five years after the blast. It’s the biggest city that still stands with over 700 inhabitants.” Celestia couldn’t suppress a gasp coming out of her. 700? What happened to her ponies? Canterlot alone had over 5,000 inhabitants, and that still was nothing compared to Trottingham and Manehatten. She noticed that the two ponies were surprised at her gasp.
“Eh, 700? That many?” She asked sheepishly, and the purple pegasus only shook his head.
“Yeah, I know. We are not numerous, but we still stand. You will see, one day we will get up again, and we will win against the insect-people.” He told Jetty with emotion, and she was a little impressed by the motivation that this obvious guard still had, even in this seemingly impossible scenario.
“I hope so, ehm mister?” The purple pegasus stopped his heroic pose and coughed in his hoof.
“It seems like I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Purple Tip, 67th descent of Purple Edge.” So he was related to Purple Edge. No wonder he looked strangely similar to him.
“Excuse me, but who is Purple Edge?” Jetty asked with an innocent voice, and Purple Tip gasped. He turned to her and looked in her face with a frown.
“You don’t know Purple Edge? Have you ever been in school? He was the hero that played an essential role in the Disaster That Shall Not Be Named.” He told her with enthusiasm. Yes, he may look like Purple Edge, but he definitely didn’t act like him. Celestia needed to know more.
“Disaster That Shall Not Be Named?” She asked with a curious voice. Purple Tip only facehooved. He stayed in this position for multiple seconds until the green unicorn placed a comforting hoof on his shoulder. He looked at her, and only sighed.
“There once was a danger that attacked Equestria. Everypony knows of this, but nopony ever knew what the danger was and what actually happened there. The involving parties swore secrecy and nopony ever knew what happened to this day, except for the goddess and the princess. Hence, the Disaster That Shall Not Be Named.” He explained to Celestia, and among the lines her temper picked up. Princess? Was this Luna?
“With Princess, do you mean Princess Luna?” The purple pegasus nodded.
“Of course, who else? There is no other princess.” He told her like she just asked if water was wet. Celestia felt huge relief wash over her. Her sister was alive. At least one piece of positive news. Now she had the chance to ask something she wanted to know.
“Oh, right. In my time in the cave, I seem to have lost much of my previous knowledge. Tell me, were there other princesses except for Princess Luna?” The purple pegasus crooked one eyebrow.
“No, I would know of any other princess.” He simply explained, and Celestia felt a lump in her stomach. No, it was impossible for them to have forgotten her.
“Well, it was just that I remember a pony’s tale my mother used to tell me. It was a story about a vanished princess called Celestia.” Purple Tip only raised one of his eyebrows.
„Who?“ Purple Tip asked with a confused voice. Celestia felt a sting in her heart. Her ponies didn’t remember her anymore. It was obvious for her that they won’t remember the details, but even her name? Celestia was crestfallen, but she didn’t show it outwards.
“Could you tell us this pony’s tale? It sounds really intriguing.” Jetty turned her head to the green unicorn, who just talked. Celestia was good in making up lies on the spot, but a whole story that seems like she wouldn’t know everything yet would still have a certain amount of truth, was something hard to come up with.
“Well, I don’t remember it exactly, and I don’t know if I should waste your time.” Jetty exclaimed while rubbing the back of her neck with a hoof.
“Pff. It’s not like we have anything urgent to do right now,” Purple Tip explained with an ironic voice. “A short story would kill some time.” After walking towards one wall, the Pegasus let himself slump down, and lay in a comfortable manner. Jetty sighed. Let’s hope this goes well.
Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, two alicorns ruled over the land. Princess Luna controlled the night and day while her daughter Princess Celestia ruled over plants and animals. The ponies were happy under the guidance of their immortal rulers and lived in harmony. Yet, they didn’t know of the evil that lurked in the shadows.
One fateful day, the younger princess played in the Gardens of Eden while her mother was busy ruling the kingdom. Due to the inexperience of the young Princess Celestia, the forces of evil were able to corrupt her.
Possessed by the powers of evil, she went to her mother and betrayed her. Her mother tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young ones hard was just too strong. With one swipe of her holy and powerful magic, she was able to free the young princess of the evil curse, but the evil demons wouldn’t leave without one last fiendish act.
Using the last remains of their power, they took the young Princess Celestia with them to someplace unknown. Princess Luna searched for her daughter for multiple millennia but never found her. Princess Celestia has not been seen since.
Celestia was not comfortable with that lie. She took the old pony’s tale about Luna’s banishment and mixed it with their first fight with Oran. With a little fantasy added, this strange kind of lie/legend was born. As she silently gulped, she only hoped that they fell for it.
The two ponies looked at her with different expressions. An expression of disbelief and amusement was plastered on Purple Tip’s face while the green unicorn had an expression like she was investigating a case where Jetty would be the main suspect. In short, she looked investigative and distrusting towards Jetty.
Jetty only grinned nervously in the hope that they believed it. Suddenly, Purple Tip began to chuckle. With a slowly shaking head, he addressed Jetty. “Well, this certainly is some kind of story, but I think I would know of a daughter of Princess Luna. This Celestia would have needed to be the elder sister of Prince Arias if your story would hold truth.”
Celestia remembered that name. Arias was the name, they gave Oran after they defeated him and he transformed himself into a foal. So he was still alive. She wondered how strong he has gotten over the past 1,500 years. The green unicorn slowly stepped forward. As she came closer, Jetty slowly backpedaled a little. After a while, she couldn’t back up any longer due to the wall, and the green unicorn looked sternly into Jetty’s eyes.
“You know,” she slowly exclaimed. “Your story in itself sounds ridiculous, but it had strange familiarities with some ancient legends no one knows anymore, except for the princess, the goddess, and their librarians. As one of the princess’ librarians, I would know of them.” Jetty slowly started sweating in nervousness. “The question is why does your pony’s tail sound so similar to the legends?”
“Eeehh, ancient books?” This sounded more like a question than a statement. The unicorn continued looking into her eyes, and she gulped, but after a certain amount of time, she let up and walked back to her old spot.
“Well coincidences happen, but if we ever get out of here, I want to hear more about this legend,” the green mare “ordered” Jetty. It actually sounded like an order, but for the time being, Celestia was happy that her identity was safe. The purple pegasus only seemed to have watched this from afar. He obviously didn’t want to get involved. Suddenly, Celestia realized what the unicorn just said.
“Getting out of here? Do you mean you have a way to escape?” She asked with a hopeful voice. Celestia could easily escape alone since her multiversal magic wasn’t blocked, but if they had an escape plan for multiple ponies, then she would gladly help. Who knows, maybe she could even help them in escaping.
The two ponies looked at each other with an unsure gaze, and some kind of silent conversation happened between the two. After some time, Purple Tip walked over to Jetty. “Yes, but you must promise us to tell nopony about this. We want to help the other ponies, but in order to do that, we first need to get out ourselves, understood?”
Celestia heard that line terribly often in her journey. Those were the lines that those prisoners said, who wanted to escape just to save their own flanks. Yet, this pegasus looked strangely honest. Also, he was a descent of Purple Edge. If he was so proud of being a descent of one of the greatest soldiers ever, then he would probably be loyal to the ponydom. She decided to trust them for now.
“I promise.” She stated, but the pegasus wasn’t satisfied.
“Do you Pinkie Promise?” He asked seriously, and Celestia was baffled that they still knew the Pinkie Promise. They forgot their immortal leader that ruled over the country for 3,000 years, but they remember the silly promise of a pink mare? Even long after her death, Pinkie still seemed to surprise Celestia.
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” She recited and made the appropriate motions to this. She was happy that she saw the group of six friends perform this ridiculous act multiple times in her castle while they were training, else she wouldn’t be able to remember that. The reactions of the two ponies were way different from what she thought.
The purple pegasus only looked in disbelief and confusion. “Well, that’s no Pinkie Promise, but I think that’s enough for now,” he slowly exclaimed while going back to the green mare with a shaking head, but this reaction wasn’t the one she was worried about.
On the other side of the cell, the green unicorn looked at Jetty with wide eyes. She had an expression like Jetty just transformed into a kurmiar. Celestia shuddered when she remembered those things. She still had nightmares from the 24 hours, she had to spend in those impossibly dark caves, with all of those things. The green unicorn slowly began to speak, her shocked expression not changing.
“How do you know the Holy Sacrificially Oath?“ The green unicorn asked, and this time, Jetty wasn’t able to hide her gulp.
Author's Note
Celestia -> Jetlestia -> Jet Lestia -> Jetty Estia
Jetty wasn’t sure how she could get out of that, this time. Stupid! Why did she even think that they remembered some silly kind of promise that a random pink mare invented over a thousand years ago? Twinky Green was waiting for an answer, her face still showing the shocked expression. Jetty only smiled in nervousness.
Purple Tip only raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure what either of them just said. Sacrificially oath? Cupcakes in eyes? Shaking his head, he walked to the front and moved one of his hooves in a strange manner. “Wow wow wow. What are we talking about?” He turned to Twinky. “I thought she just said some random stuff. Does what she said, actually make sense?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.
The green unicorn sighed once, her expression being one of uncertainty. “Yes, she recited a part of a secret oath. Sadly, I can’t tell you more about it. It’s secret,” Twinky told him with dropped ears and a look to the ground. Sighing, the purple guard dismissed this. Suddenly, Twinky’s expression changed to seriousness, and she turned to Jetty. Again, she couldn’t contain a gulp.
“This oath is secret and only the most trusted ponies of the princess and the goddess know of it,” she explained, and her face came near Jetty’s. “Now comes the question, how do you know of it?” She narrowed her eyes. Jetty continued smiling in nervousness. She had to come up with some kind of explanation for this, but what could she say? There had to be a way to get out of this.
“Eh, ancient books?” Jetty ‘asked’ with a nervous smile. The glare of the green pony intensified. If this continues, she will get found out.
“That doesn’t work this time. How did you know about this?” Twinky bellowed with an aggressive voice. Celestia couldn’t find a way to dodge anymore. She had to make this with a different approach. With a sigh, she finally answered.
“Sorry, but… I can’t tell you.” The head of Twinky went back with a skeptical expression.
“What do you mean, you can’t tell us?” Her tone was beyond annoyed and bordered now on angry. “You can’t just say ‘I can’t tell you’.” Jetty sighed again.
“But I still do. Sorry, but I can’t tell you.” After a short break, she added one last thing. “Right now.” While the green unicorn still looked skeptical and somewhat angry at Jetty, Purple Tip also wanted to partake in the discussion.
“So, you say that you can tell us, but not right now?” Jetty looked him into the eyes and slowly nodded in defeat. “When?” Jetty looked around the room, and then sighed again.
“When we are out of this prison and in safety.” Her voice sounded defeated, well Celestia planned to tell them anyway at some point, but right now, she can’t afford to get found out. If they would know that Celestia was capable of different kinds of magic, and they would slip up, the nargians would subdue her and imprison her in a cell, which could suppress her power.
The two ponies continued looking at her with unconvinced stares. Looking into each other’s eyes, it seemed like they had a silent conversation. After a short while, Purple Tip looked back to Jetty. “Alright.” He held out a hoof for Jetty to grab since she moved back that much that she lay on the floor. Slowly, she took the hoof and pulled herself up. “But you will answer us when we are in safety!” He told her with a dangerous voice and narrowed eyes. Jetty only nodded.
Celestia was not afraid of them since they are only mortals, but her conscience felt kind of hurt after telling them off like that. Suddenly, Jetty perked up. “So, you had an escape plan?” She asked, hoping for an answer. The two ponies looked at each other and nodded once. Purple Tip walked over to her, and just when he wanted to explain their escape plan, something knocked at the chitin door. All the ponies looked over to the door, and shortly after, it opened.
Out of the door, came three nargian guards. They looked like every other nargian, except for their weapons. The weapons looked like some kind of dog-catcher device, but instead for ponies. One of the guards stepped forward and addressed the ponies with his buzzy voice. “Time for work, slaves.”
Jetty looked to the other ponies, and they only nodded to her once, telling her that they will talk later. Then, they slowly walked to the door, the guard making space for them. Celestia wasn’t sure where she should go, so she simply followed Twinky. The guards came at a wrong time, but it also was good that they came. She still needed to look at the surroundings in order to find potential escape routes, if the plan of her “friends” sucked.
They walked through a hallway, which was made out of the typical red goo and black chitin. The black chitin floor felt cold, even more than stone or rock. The red walls looked somewhat warm, and if Rarity would still be alive, she would probably gag at the sight of goo, sliming down a wall. After some minutes of walking, they stepped “outside”. It was still hard to call the interior of a cave outside.
Celestia recognized the structure of this part of the cave as the second cave. It was the cave with the facilities and the prisons. In comparison to the worker-caves, this one was way smaller. What surprised her, were the vast amounts of ponies walking around the street. Every kind of pony was present, and all of them were working. Some had easier tasks while others had harder ones.
The pegasi were allowed to fly, in order for them to be able to “coat” the cave walls. The walls of the cave were also covered with that red sludge, and this red sludge needed maintenance. It would hold for a long time without, but then it wouldn’t be as slimy and warm as the nargians want it to be. Also, they wouldn’t know what to do with the amounts of slaves they got in this city. The unicorns and earth ponies had to work on the ground.
Some were ordered to clean the streets or buildings while other ones were made to personal slaves of some nargians, carrying luggage and some even had to get ridden by them. To say that Celestia’s heart broke, when she saw the demise of her little ponies, would be an understatement. How could they have so much bad luck?
Jetty got poked in the back because she stopped moving. “Move it!” The guard yelled, and Celestia turned around. She looked angrily in his eyes. In her stay in the multiverse, she changed. Anger wasn’t an emotion that should be avoided at any point. Anger was ok, as long as it was appropriate, and her anger right now seemed to be more appropriate than ever before. How dare they treat her ponies like this?
The guard didn’t know what happened. He thought he was looking into the eyes of a helpless pony slave, but somehow he felt afraid of this one. It felt like someone would hold a blade to his throat the entire time. He felt like this slave had his life in her hoof. Out of fear, he didn’t move at all, hoping that this creepy feeling would subside.
Celestia seriously considered ending this guard’s life just to calm her anger, but she knew that she would get found out by the other guards. She wouldn’t have any chance if the whole cave would be on her tail. Sighing, she walked forward and complied with the guard’s earlier command. The guard followed her, hoping that this feeling hasn’t been produced by this slave.
“Psst!” Jetty heard from her right, and without moving her head, she looked to her left. Purple Tip wanted to gain her attention, and Jetty slowly tilted her head, indicating that he had it. While no guard was looking, he indicated with his right front hoof to some part of the cave. “You see that hole near the ceiling of the cave?” He asked her with a whisper.
Jetty looked over and saw an exit at the height of around 100 meters at a wall of the cave. Nargians always built their exits on that height, since they all could fly. “This is the exit we will take.” Jetty tilted an eyebrow. Purple Tip saw this and rolled his eyes. “Our plan is to somehow escape the prison, and fly up there.” He looked around to see if someone was spying on them. He happily noted that no one should be able to hear him.
“When we get back into prison, the guards place flying restrictions on us pegasi, but that won’t work on me. I’ve got an abnormal wing strength, meaning I’ve got enough power to strengthen my wings to fake that the bindings are tight. Then I simply loosen up my wings, and I am able to slip out of the bindings. I would be able to carry both of you up there, but first we need to find a way to get out of the cells.” He explained to her, and Celestia was bewildered by the ingenious and the stupidity of the plan, at the same time.
The plan “We escape and fly out there” just sounded, simply put, stupid, but the idea of escaping the wing-restraints seemed truly original. Jetty nodded to him, indicating that she understood what he told her. The walk continued without further conversation until the guards and the slaves split up. Celestia was being navigated to a plaza while Tip was released from his restraints, and was ordered to smear the cave walls.
Twinky was ordered to get to her “personal master”. Apparently, one particular nargian saw her one day and decided to make her his mount, saying that her green coat reminded him of those filthy plants on the surface of the planet. He liked dirtying the filthy plants, so he also liked dirtying Twinky. Whenever she fell down into some kind of puddle of red goo that fell down from the ceiling, he would laugh at her and would whip her to stand up. She probably had it the worst out of the slaves.
Suddenly, a bucket with dirty water and a broom where thrown to Jetty. “Clean.” He simply ordered with a neutral voice. Jetty looked around, not seeing a floorcloth.
“Where is the floorcloth?” She asked with an annoyed voice. The anger inside her was too strong to play the helpless victim. If the guard had an eyebrow he would crook it, but instead his chitin made a movement that indicated that one of his muscles over his eyes were strengthened. One could see that he “raised an eyebrow”.
“You got hooves. Use them!” He ordered her again, and Celestia gritted her teeth. Hooves are exceptionally strong and can endure hours of walking, but with rubbing movements, they could get damaged. If a hoof gets rubbed at the floor, it’s possible to chafe it. The hoof could get irritated and could also get infected. There were a lot of staying illnesses that could come from that.
She looked around the other scrubbing slaves and noted that they all washed the chitin with their hooves. Using a sight enhancing spell, she investigated their hooves closer and saw that many of them were red and some of them even yellow with bacteria. They had to be in immense pain. Ending her spell again, she made one deep sigh. She couldn’t lose control now. There was still a chance to rescue her ponies, but for that to succeed, she needed to remain calm.
Being irritated by the slave’s tardiness, the guard walked over to her and put one of his chitin-claws on her back. Celestia’s anger flamed up again, and she couldn’t control herself this time. Feeling her back being touched, she did something to the guard. The guard shoved Jetty to the front. “Get to work!” He ordered, and Jetty slowly stood up. Walking to the bucket, she picked it up in her mouth and put the broom on the back.
When she walked away from the guard, she had a smile on her face. Back when the guard touched her, he didn’t close his magical receptors, meaning that Celestia had free reign over all the magical energy in his body. When Aren explained this concept to her, back when he battled Nifret, she got enthralled by it and was able to learn it not even five days later. It certainly was an easy concept.
What she did to the guard was nothing that can be overlooked. She transformed a large part of his magic into pure fire but surrounded it with a time spell. The time spell would vanish in about three days and would release the fire in him. The disgusting bug would blow up into an explosion, and the explosion wouldn’t be small. If he was on the right spot, it was possible for him to take 10 more guards to, whatever it is where they think their souls go after death.
Yes, Celestia changed. After she visited the most brutal and disgusting of worlds, she slowly began to accept Aren’s way of thinking. He was her master, and she knew that she had to learn from him. After 500 years of nearly constant battling against the most foul and disgusting of villains, she was used to killing something. After this time, she seemed to totally forget that every action she took would sniff out a life. Maybe even a life of someone that had to be like this because of desperate reasons.
Yet, she justified such actions with the reasoning that it didn’t matter why they did what they did. As long as they endangered the lives of innocent, they needed to be dealt with. This kind of thinking pattern enabled a lot of dimensions to live with exceedingly little crime and war, but it also scared the innocent. They were scared of doing something against the law, even though they didn’t want to.
But Celestia wasn’t heartless. This whole thinking pattern only applied to people that would continue doing dirty deeds. If someone was obviously forced into something or had some kind of psychological illness, she would still forgive them, as long as they promise to never do it again/to get treatment against it. Celestia could be cold and heartless, but she only was it when it was needed. She learned that when she tried to save one bandit that screamed for help.
He was falling down a cliff, and she flew under him to save him. He thanked her, but when he saw her saddle-bags full of coins, he tried to stab her. Celestia only survived this encounter due to Aren not being as reckless as her to that time. He already knew how wretched some beings could be. Celestia asked herself this question a long time. How could someone be this squalidly? She still knew what Aren told her at this day.
“Be friendly and compassionate, but be also careful. Being friendly can create a warm atmosphere between two beings, but there are a lot of people who abuse this. In order to not get reckless, you need to look at everyone as if they tried to backstab you. If they never make any indications of betrayal, you can let your guard slowly down but never fully. Always be ready for some kind of explosion or attack, and never turn your back on someone you don’t know.”
Celestia always remembered this speech. It saved her life a lot of times before. “Stop scrubbing and get back to your cell!” She heard from her left. Jetty’s eyes widened. How long was she scrubbing already? Depending on her inner clock, she saw that she already scrubbed for ten hours. It didn’t feel like that at all. Looking around the plaza, she saw that the other ponies slowly hobbled back to their cells.
Every step of them resonated in Celestia, and she wished nothing more than to just free all of them right now, but she sadly didn’t have the power. Slowly, she followed the way the guard indicated for her to go. After several minutes, she was back at her cell, and she still was angry beyond belief. The two other inmates in her cell saw her with the bad temper and looked worriedly at each other. Purple Tip knew how she felt right now. He didn’t feel any different the first time he saw the plaza.
“Jetty, are you-“
“Can you slip out of your restraints right now?” She interrupted Purple Tip with an impatient voice. The two other ponies were a little taken aback by the new behavior of the new pony. What happened to the shy mare from before? Tip only sighed once.
“I know how you feel, but there is no use in-“
“Can you slip out?!” She asked with anger in her voice, and the purple pegasus only moved a step back, being surprised by the sudden outburst. After he calmed down, he shook his head.
“No, I didn’t want to risk the trick being found out.” He explained. Jetty’s eyes narrowed, and some kind of lightning shot out from her body to his wing restraints. Another bolt shot out and flew at Twinky’s horn restraint. The two ponies gasped and protected their eyes from the light. When they didn’t feel any pain, they opened their eyes. Twinky’s eyes widened in shock.
“What- How- Why- What did you do?” She asked with a panicked voice, and Jetty only turned around to the door.
“I destroyed your restraints, and now step back.” The two ponies instantly looked at their restraints, and saw that they vanished. Nothing black could be seen anymore on Twinky’s horn and Tip’s wings. They both looked at each other, hoping that the other one had an answer for this. Sadly, the other one didn’t have one. Suddenly, they heard a boom from the door, and when they looked over to Jetty, they saw how the door was utterly obliterated.
Both looked at Jetty with horror in their eyes, their jaws hitting the floor. Jetty turned around.
“Are you coming or not?” She asked with an angry tone.
