Reversal: Gentillesse, Saralataa, et Ohuetzcayah
In the Ambiguity
“All I ever wanted...” intoned King Sombra, fallen lord and master of the Crystal Empire, forgotten scourge of the ancient North, and last of the line of Cassandar, first Warden of the Heart. “...was the truth.”
“Remember those words as you hear my tale,” He sighed. “I never set out to topple my father’s kingdom of lies and ignorance from a sense of misplaced pride. I never wanted to bleed my people to their marrow, robbing them even of their equinity in a bitter crusade for a hollow throne. I never desired any of it, though I knew the reasons for which it needed to be done. All I ever wanted was truth.”
Sombra then began to pace around the platform. “For almost my entire childhood, I was alone, as is natural for the middle child in the royal family. Some in my situation have never been able to stomach that, to be born for the sole purpose of second place. Some spend their entire lives attempting to be something they’re not, slowly destroying themselves to attain an empty position denied to them even before they took their first breath. But not I. I always thought the throne felt very cold, very uncomfortable to sit on. It was an ugly chair to my childlike naivete, and I almost thought it a punishment to be forced to sit on such a wretched thing all day and listen to so many at court drone on and on over such trivial matters. No, I was content as the second son, almost thought it a blessing because in every minute my elder brother was forced to sit at my father’s side and learn the nebulous art of how to rule, I was free to bury myself in the library.”
A low murmur suddenly picked up at Sombra’s side. He listened intently, then scowled. “Liked implies it to be a passing hobby, something meant only to wile away the hours when nothing more pressing was at hand. No, I did not like to read, I revered it.” He gave a whimsical smile as the memories returned, however rose-tinted they might have been. “Literature subsumed the majority of my formative years, to the point where I sometimes lost myself in the palace library for such extended lengths of time that they would need to hire trained assassins to find me again. Can you imagine it, Umbral Tide, my father’s top agent, he who earned his place at the king’s side by collecting the heads of seven gryphon thanes and laying them at my father’s throne, forced to collect a small bookish foal?” Sombra briefly chuckled at the absurdity of the thought, as if he himself could not comprehend such an innocent time in his life.
The murmur sounded off again, although this time it resembled something like an unbelievably quiet titter, as if a soft wind had developed a sense of humor.
“I didn’t use reading as an escape mind you, as I said I was perfectly content with my lot in life. Rather, reading was a form of discovery that enraptured my naturally inquisitive mind. It allowed me to discover new worlds, thoughts, perspectives, and experiences that in absorbing, only left me with more questions. Books became better teachers than any tutor hired by my parents, the journey to discovery being far more rewarding to me when walking down it alone as opposed to guided by the hoof to conclusions drawn up a hundred times before. No, I began small of course, but over time forced myself to reach to higher and higher literary works. Reading foal’s books, like The Ballad of Sir Gallopsby, soon gave way to epic poems such as the Lied der Gefrorenen Steine.”
“ I read on every subject, ranging from theoretical physics by ancient pegasi, to dialectical similarities between Equine and Gryphonic that suggested both languages to share a common linguistic parentage, to even spellbooks written by mad Lunar sorcerers. I read everything I could in an effort to understand as much of the physical universe around me, and I simply couldn’t stop. Reading became akin to scaling an infinitely high ladder, rung by agonizing rung, reaching upwards to a kind of scholastic Elysium capable of providing the academic enlightenment necessary to sate my endless appetite for knowledge. I would reach that heaven even if I had to elevate myself to omnipotence, uncovering secrets even Celestia herself could not know.”
“Eventually, as I reached adolescence, my literary obsession inevitably gave way to certain duties expected of me. Although I was merely the second son, barely worthy of notice in the eyes of the many noble families of the Crystalline Court, one day my father insisted I sit beside him and his elder brother through a day of ruling the kingdom. I initially thought little of it. I had already read every political treatise I could, as well as almost any other topic that might well have fallen under the umbrella of governance. Although there would was a certain appeal in seeing that knowledge in practice, by and large I expected to stand stoically and nod to every inane question asked of me, all the while counting down the seconds until I could return to Rene Descoltes’ Meditations.”
“It was, without a doubt...” Sombra trailed off and briefly glanced downward, only to immediately look back up to stare into the void. It was impossible to hide weakness here, but all the same, his ego demanded it. “...the most important day of my life. I learned more in that single day than in the tens of thousands of hours I spent buried in all my books.”
“While I never much cared for how the country was run, I had always expected my father and his Court to be at least somewhat competent.” Sombra’s expression quickly turned venomous. “But no! All I saw that day was an indolent old stallion sprawled upon his throne while a nest of sycophants and outright parasites suckled at the teat! When the topic of agriculture arose, I reminded the Court that the western hay fields of Translucia had recently fallen under drought, and that a good half of our kingdom was under the very real threat of famine. I then presented a plan to redistribute surplus food across the nation to serve as a buttress, taken from the nobles’ private stores. I loved my nation, I loved my people, should I and my government not have done everything in our power to alleviate their suffering?”
Sombra raised his voice, anger now beginning to overtake his composure. “But no! I was silenced as soon as I mentioned that the parasites should share their spoils, and I was then told not to speak out of turn. The topic was not raised again, and they all pretended I had never even raised the issue. The nobles then returned to their petty bickering, content to squabble and smile and play their deluded little political games.”
“I would sit in several more times after that, and each time it only seemed to grow worse.” The unicorn was now almost shaking with rage. “Everything I said was dismissed as youthful naivete, everything I so painstakingly learned over the years regarded as little more than inane trivia with no practical application in the real world. I would attempt to bring the full force of my mental strength in attempting to compromise between my side and theirs, but knowledge and reason and discourse, it seemed, were all inimical to the system. The Court didn’t want ideas, they wanted acquiescence, and they would not hesitate to crush anyone who dared rock the proverbial boat in the worst possible way: by refusing to acknowledge them. I had, in almost record time, ostracized myself from anypony in Translucia with a modicum of power, all for daring to instigate change.”
“After several long months in which I performed the political equivalent of beating my head against a brick wall, I stopped trying to get through their impossible obstinance.” Sombra lowered his voice again, his face once more adopting that impassive mask. “I did not surrender though, I could no longer flee back into my library and try to forget my time with the Court anymore than I could unread a book. I had taught myself that every problem had a solution, this was no different. I vowed not to let such a nest of worms triumph over me. I would be heard.”
“But this time, I set out to combat the problem at its source. I stopped asking How do I convince the Court? and started asking myself How did the Court come to be this way? What caused the nobles to become so deplorable as to outright ignore their starving subjects pounding on the castle gates for scraps of bread?”
“I had no doubt that in fighting against the corruption of the Court, I was merely treating the symptoms of a deeper cause, and only in cutting out the heart of the disease could my kingdom finally be cured.”
“It was in pursuing that line of inquiry that I remembered a passage of Marechiavelli’s: The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the ponies he has around him. It led me to an epiphany. The fault did not lie with the Court, but with its master who failed to keep it in line. Is a rat at fault for the plague, or is the town mayor, who allowed the rat population to grow unchecked? Is the drought at fault for the famine, or is the duke, who failed to take precautions even as he watched the crops die in front of his very eyes? No, it was only natural that the Crystalline Court become the way it did, it is sadly equine nature to abuse undeserved power. The fault instead lied with the king, my father, who preened himself on the hollow praises of so many wretched creatures and believed himself a good ruler only because he never bothered to step outside the castle door.
“He allowed things to become the way they were through the sin of apathy, he allowed both himself and Translucia to atrophy, and worst of all, he was training my elder brother to do the same! I could see now that Corypheus, once a stallion I admired wholeheartedly for shouldering the weight of the firstborn, had become little more than a facsimile of our father. Any unique beliefs or ideas had long since been hammered out, until all that remained was an amorphous mass of guarded neutrality, afraid to take a side for fear actually taking a stand. I could see know that my brother, Corypheus the Seventh, had been raised for the sole purpose of serving as a stepping stone between Corypheus the Sixth and Corypheus the Eighth, and to finally realize that was sobering indeed. Was this what the descendants of Cassander had become, effigies content only to sit and watch while Translucia and its people suffered a slow extinction?”
“But everything in the universe is an effect to a prior event, and this was no different. A king is no more than the reflection of his kingdom, so I ventured into the outside world to better understand how far Translucia had fallen after centuries of abject neglect. I dug deeper into the inner workings of Translucian society and after many long months of observing the populace, I discovered a horrifying truth: my hunger for knowledge seemed to be an impossibly rare anomaly. As I ventured out of the castle for the first time in my life, I began to notice just how archaic my kingdom had become.”
“Professions were still restricted by tribe, earth ponies could only be farmers, pegasi could only tend the weather, unicorns could only devote themselves to scholarly pursuits. It was an abhorrent holdover from the days of pony enslavement under the draconequui, and had been phased out hundreds of years ago by almost every other civilized nation of Equestria. Yet here was Translucia, decrepit relic of a forgotten age, still clinging to tribalist customs and thus wasting more potential in its people than I could even fathom. Why? And no equine may reject the caste of his birth. The Seventh Command of Thirty, written by Cassander’s apostles upon the end of His stewardship over the Crystal Heart.”
“But that was the least of it. All upper education held itself only to the most basic standard of academia, so while the rest of Equestria was undergoing a magitechnical revolution and cultural renaissance Translucia was still festering in the dirt. I saw beggars lining the streets with unwashed feces pooling around them. I saw my city as it truly was, a shining palace surrounding on all sides by thatched roofs. Worst of all, I saw that all these things were deliberate.”
“And no equine may rise above what nature hath granted them. Industry creates only the smoke that obscures the path to a righteous life.” A murmur of incredulity, to which Sombra slowly nodded in response. “The Third Command of Thirty, written by Cassander’s apostles upon the end of His stewardship over the Crystal Heart. The pursuit of the mind must only be in the manipulation of mana and the higher mysteries, for a mind without purpose shall stride in darkened halls. The Eleventh Command of Thirty, written by Cassander’s apostles upon the end of His stewardship over the Crystal Heart. You see the pattern here, of course. Our incessant worship of that blasted stone still kept us wallowing in the mud. We could never rise above our station, we would never allow ourselves to progress, so long as the Heart held sway. All of it, the Court and the king, the famine, the poverty, the misery, could all be traced back in some way or another to the one object that had solidified itself as the center of our universe.”
“You must understand, that shiny rock was indeed the center of our existence, the fulcrum on which the wheel of Translucia was able to turn. The Heart granted us a healing warmth in the frozen north, both literally and metaphorically. It radiated and amplified tangible emotion to all four corners of Equestria. It was only natural that we turned to worship it. I was no different in my youth. I attended the sermons, I read the Thirty Commands of Cassander and took each of them to heart, if you’ll pardon the pun. I looked up every night to the mountain summit, and saw the Heart shining outward like an inviolate ray of sunlight piercing through the darkness.”
“But as I learned the price for that subservience, my faith came at odds with the only thing I placed higher in my life: knowledge. To praise a stone, no matter how powerful, to the point of societal decay was patently absurd. Yes, the Heart might have provided warmth and life and emotion, but we could provide that ourselves. The only reason our lives were so bleak and short was because naturally, we were miserable. And we were miserable because the world around us was always so unbelievably cold. If Translucia could have improved its standard of living through education and technology, I thought, we would be able to sever our crippling reliance on the Crystal Heart and at last build a kingdom without restraints. Faith is meaningless when you have the power to build a better world without relying on the generosity of some nebulous external force.”
“And so at last, I had discovered my purpose, akin to receiving a second mark upon my flank. I knew what I need to do: before I died, I would do everything in my power to make my kingdom a better place than the ignorant cesspool into which I had been born, percolating in its own self-righteous stagnation. I would end this decay slowly strangling Translucia, and replace it with a new age of glorious enlightenment. I was prepared to do all of this, even if it took the rest of my life...”
“But then...” Sombra looked sadly to his subdued companion, who only stared back on with a mixture of pity and something he couldn't yet identify. She appeared to have grown more assertive since their last encounter, however brief it was, but it was comforting to know she had not lost sight of that innate empathy for all living creatures. That empathy had become the only thing giving him solid form in this place of concepts and potentials.
This pony, once thought so weak, had weathered the storms of Paradox and come out with her core self unchanged. Sombra wasn’t sure if that was an insult to his strength of will, or a testament to her own. She had seen how it might have been, and perhaps now stood a chance for succeeding. Not something he would have expected from a pony with butterflies on her flank.
“Translucia went to war.”
In the Mundane
The bar was empty at such a late hour, and the lone pegasus was allowed to stay past closing time only because the owner owes him a long-forgotten favor. If someone were to glance in the stallion’s direction, they might mistake the loosening grip of his tie, the sleeves crawling up his forelegs, for signs of exhaustion. They might mistake the the empty glasses scattered around him for surrender. They would be wrong, of course, but not entirely.
The scent of cheap liquor and abject despair have clung to his person for so long it has almost become his kind of personal aura, the outward projection of his broken soul in the form of bad whiskey and unpaid bills. His cutie mark, a red shield, stands out against his black coat like a wine stain, and what talent it represented he has long since forgotten. He know’s it cannot be something as simple protection, especially of the innocent. He learned the hard way that was not his forte.
It was a beautiful wedding, regardless of the fact that he doesn’t approve in the least of the groom. His daughter deserved better than some timid little buck who was unlikely to ever. He should have kept his mouth shut, he should have followed the one piece of advice that actually stood a chance of improving his lot in life. But alas, liquid confidence was pulsing through his veins, and once more the sickness took hold. Once more, his eternal nemesis Absolution had gotten the upper hand, and Straight Face committed the worst sin a parent could ever inflict on their child: He spoke his mind.
So understandably, his daughter and her new husband would now probably put as much emotional and physical distance between him and them as possible.
So understandably, Straight Face reacted the only way he knew how: by embracing the agent responsible and embracing it like an old friend. Had he thought of it in a more cognizant moment, the metaphor would have made him laugh, if only because Straight Face had no friends. The job and its baggage took care of that.
The door opened and closed, and the sound of rain could briefly be heard pattered on the filthy streets outside. Two walked in, a unicorn mare and behind her, a fire golem. Her teal coat went well with her forest-green mane, even if both contrasted with the brown jacket. While the trench coat hid the details, Straight could still tell at a glance that she was easy on the eyes. The golem was strange, it took a special kind of stones to parade a construct in a district comprised mostly of veterans and refugees, but Straight didn’t pay it much mind. He was no Absolutionist, if a dumb mare got conned by some two-bit mage and now dragged a walking lava lamp everywhere in an attempt to justify the purchase, that was her business.
The barkeep might have normally encouraged the company of the former in his establishment, pretty mares brought naturally brought in buisness, but not so much the latter.
“Hey, didn’t ya read ta’ sign ou’side? No shoes, no soul, no ser’ice!” the barkeep shouted. “His kind ain’t welcome here! Take yar bekkin stone man an’ git outta mah bar a’fore I bring out mah boomstick and blow your pretty lil’ head off!”
It was only natural he would have a vehement hate for the automatons currently replacing the working class, the northern bastard had lost a leg fighting in the Periphery after all. It might have even been the same model of fire golem that took the limb.
Straight Face responded to the situation in the best way he knew how, by returning to his drink and pretending the world around him was little more than a fever dream. Let the senile buckhead blow off the cocky mare’s pretty little face, it might inject some much needed excitement into the dreary establishment.
The mare pulled off her shades (her whole get up screamed SPOOK like two alicorns ploughing in a bell tower) and gave the barkeep a warm smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her voice was smooth, yet contained an undercurrent of ice. “So sorry to intrude sir,” she said. “if you would permit us, my companion and I will only take a moment.”
The barkeep grew angrier. Straight wondered if that was his special talent. “I dun care if you’re here an’ gon’ afor’ I can let off a warnin’ shot. I wan’ that thing outta mah bar! Nosouls are not permitted here!”
If the golem was offended by any of this, it didn’t show it. The mare, meanwhile gave a look back that was almost glacial. She then adopted a look of foalish shame, as if she were caught stealing from the cookie jar. “Oh, but it seems you’re right. Unfortunately,” she turned around and scandalously raised a hind leg, displaying a bare hoof to the barkeep, “I forgot my shoes. So, by your logic, neither of us are welcome here.”
“Then ya can both get the hell out.”
“Ah, but the problem there...” the mare grinned to the point that she showed teeth. “...is that you could not possibly be stupid enough to kick us out, and by extension possibly hinder an ongoing investigation.” She then casually reached into her coat and pulled out a golden badge in the shape of a stylized I, marking her as an appointed agent of the Office of Mortal Intercession.
Straight Face gave it a brief glance, then turned back to nurse his whiskey.
The barkeep saw the badge, then a half second later turned a shade of deathly white as the implied threat settled in. His heavy accent fell away as the barkeep tried to become as articulate as possible. “Oh-oh of course n-not Intercessor,” he stammered, “Any officer of the Seven is welcome he-”
She cut the idiot off with a dismissive shake of her hoof. “I don’t care. Leave us.”
Teleportation couldn’t taken the barkeep out of there fast enough.
A low rumble could be heard emanating from the golem, the first sound Straight heard coming from the construct. Maybe it was the booze talking, but Straight had the distinct impression that the golem sounded like it was laughing.
With the barkeep gone, that just left the Intercessor, appointed extension of the Seven’s will and a pony with the power to make one’s life the most miserable existence physically possible, and him.
Aw shit, he knew what this was about.
“Detective Face?” Of course.
Wearily looking up from the diminished contents of his drink, Straight Face lethargically answered. “Haven’t been called that in a long time. Who’s asking?”
The mare looked pleased with herself, as if finding a drunk at his regular divehole was some impossible deductive accomplishment. “I am Intercessor Cognitiva, and I need your help with an ongoing investigation.”
“I got that, yeah.”
“Failure to comply will merit a crime of association,” she said. “which is punishable by upwards of-”
Now it was Straight’s turn to interrupt, his patience at last at an end. This Cognitiva was obviously new to the game. “Look, save me the whole fire and brimstone routine,” he dryly remarked. “What do you want?”
I like him. rumbled the golem. So it could speak organically too, that implied a level of sentience that not even the most die-hard Equilibrist would be comfortable with. He cuts through the bullshit.
The Intercessor gave her companion an angry glare, the faced Straight Face. “You were assigned to the Boulder bombings, about seven months ago?”
Seventeen dead foals and one insane father. What a fun weekend that had turned out to be. “Yeah. Case was closed, in case you didn’t hear. Buck fessed up to everything, and it was validated by mental probe.”
“True,” Cognitiva replied. “But you later submitted a report to your superiors with the implication that the culprit did not act alone. There was additional evidence to believe he had ties to the Preachers of Ponum.”
“Made sense at the time,” answered Straight Face, “There were several ingredients he couldn't have bought on his own. He had attended separatist rallies in the past. But like I said, the case was closed.” He took a draw from his drink. “Probe woulda picked up anything he was holding back from us.”
The golem piped up again. We've read the report. That’s why we've come to you. The department is well known for sweeping things under the rug when the facts inconvenience them. My associate here believes certain details were omitted that you might be able to shed some light on. Details that might lead us back to this bomber’s associates.
“Is that it then, Intercessor? Just you and your talking lava flow trying to catch more separatists?”
“No Detective,” Cognitiva gave a smug smile. “We’re trying to catch the separatist.”
She pulled a paper out of her coat and placed it on the bar counter. It was a wanted poster depicted an orange mare wearing a worn stetson, a wide smile on her face. Straight recognized it easily enough, that face had been plastered on every billboard and broadcaster in the city.
Applejack, leader of the Blackened Hoof.
In the End.
A city upon a hill. Crystal spires reaching up from the verdant earth, connected by roads and canals like blown glass and spun sugar. A river bisected paradise, flowing with the clearest azure reflected in the glittering sun.
Blink.
The remains of a great battle, as far as the eye can see. Broken swords and splintered shields litter the blood-stained fields, with no one left alive to collect them. Thousands upon thousands of bodies rot in the rising red sun, and the carrion swarm circles overhead in anticipation for the coming feast. Seven shadowed figures walk across the wastes, endlessly hissing a her praises through dry, rasping tongues.
Blink.
The void, because there was never a planet here to begin with.
Blink
Pinkamena Diane Pie saw all of reality at once. She skimmed through every variation of every instant at all points in time. She saw beauties and horrors and everything in between. She laughed at some, cried at others, and at some so alien that it required more than her mundane senses of sight, sound, and touch to perceive, she merely laughed some more.
Pinkamena Diane Pie stared out across the desert sands, three suns shining overhead. She briefly thought to herself that three was such an ugly number to settle on, and that it would be much more pleasant to round it off to a much tastier amount. Like twenty.
Blink.
Pinkamena Diane Pie briefly looked at one such world, roasted to a cinder by twenty orbiting stars. It was a world of colorful gases and massive clouds all made of funny chemicals she could not hope to name, a planet so hot it could not coalesce into a solid shape. For centuries she stood admiring the impossible atmosphere, watching as the colossal cloud banks rolled and tumbled by in a truly endless dance. She breathed in sulfuric acid, and declared it to have a notably nutty aftertaste.
Blink.
Finally bored, Pinkie returned to the present with a wide smile. That had been a new kind of fun.
She looked upon the sphere, several orders of magnitude larger than her own sun, and began to dance like a madpony. The explorers who had accompanied her could only stare in total bafflement as she stripped off her breathing apparatus. They could only wonder just how she was able to hop and skip and dance in the frozen void.
They could only scream as the ground melted and they were consumed by the liquid metal.
Pinkamena Diane Pie no longer cared, because everything was going to turn out all right. She knew it in her heart of hearts, even if it was never hers to begin with. And as the sphere awoke, as pillars of green plasma shot outward into the stars beyond to spread their message, she could only dance between the continent-sized blossoms of light, the great columns composed of solid information, and laugh as the fleets around her turned to ash and dust.
Pinkamena Diane Pie, satisfied, ceased her imitation of the boiling world with twenty suns. And as she stopped, she felt vast tectonic movement beneath her. Then, like mercury crawling up a thermometer, the silver surface began to encircle her hooves, then her shins, then her knees. Just before the silver surface covered her entirely, she breathed acid, and declared it to have a notably nutty aftertaste.
The liquid metal receded, leaving not a single trace of Pinkamena Diane Pie behind. It had not consumed her like the others, there had simply never been a Pinkamena Diane Pie to begin with.
Shortly after, an emerald light began to shine from great fissures running across the sphere's smooth skin.
Blink.
The grand sphere was awake. And it was laughing.
Forward: Fidelitas und Gennaiodo̱ría
In the Arena
A red dawn signaled the start of a new day.
Hovering above the arena sat the Omenatica, that floating blasphemy dedicated only to the godless and the perverse. Forged by a people long since fallen into ruin, the great bronze bowl was once meant to honor the bountiful harvest and their many suns looking down upon them, and every inch of the floating citadel was once engraved with righteous prayer. But the script had been scoured clean long ago by hateful hooves, and the bronze had now turned brown from so many years of unwashed blood caked on the perimeter like layers of strata of dirt atop a grave.
The Omentica was not always called such, but its true name along with that of its builders had long since been lost to memory. Now it bore a title bestowed out of mocking contempt, that in the forgotten tongue of that forgotten people, was the closest approximation to "heresy". Once, it was meant to serve as a final epitaph for for that forgotten people who revered song and dance and laughter and all the warm things in life. Now it marked the opening ceremonies of the Ascendancy, the most revered event in all the fell city.
Seven hundred condemned soldiers, still faithful to their delusions, line the perimeter. With silver swords grasped in their teeth, and bedecked in silver war plate polished to a mirror finish, they were every part the Honor Guard to the tomb of their beloved ruler. The seven hundred sacrifices shined like impossible beacons of light in such a dark place, but only to make the irony all the sweeter. No feast could compare to the delicacy of false hope.
Seven priests, garbed in robes the color of entrails, stood in the center with hoods drawn tight and wearing masks glowing with an inner baleful red light. Perhaps more than anyone, they were eager, if not anxious, to see how events unfolded.
All of them, both hero and heretic, waited for the signal.
The black dragon hovers above even them, miles above his blasphemous kingdoms, for it is decreed that nothing else can be placed higher than the Lord Baal the Stygian, Despoiler of the Seven Exemplars, the Bloodied Claw of Kas'Kasr, the End of Empires, Master of the Last Free City of Vel'el'sessuloth. The dragon was the fulcrum upon which all of Vel turned, and he would let none forget it. Let every petty warlord smile as their hidden schemes and shadowed plots unraveled before their very eyes, at the end of every day none of them would ever reach so high, yet all of them still hoped to depose the mad king. And hope was a delicacy without compare.
Lord Baal turned his gaze upward to the poisoned red skies, before staring downward at his perversions. Satisfied with the infinite heresies, the wyrm opens his colossal jaws and roars out a long stream of black fire.
It began. Seven hundred soldiers, the last survivors to a kingdom long since shattered and broken, fell on their swords in unison. Not a one made a sound as the steel pierced their hearts and they slid down the length of the blade. To show pain was to show disloyalty to their forsaken faiths, and worse, a show of fealty to Lord Baal above. That would not do at all, for only traitors may anoint the perverted rituals of the Godless.
The blood ran down from the rim and into the center below, crimson rivers pooling around the feet of the priests. The unholy ponies spread out to skein the potential glories and the candidacy of the day. Some tentatively licked the life fluid from their reddened hooves, others tracked invisible patterns and prophecies in the swirling gore, one even noted the angles at which the soldiers died and the contortions of agony etched on their faces. This continued for some time before the priests reconvened again at the center. Satisfied, the seven ponies huddled together and shared their thoughts, despite the fact that their tongues had been cut out. They exchanged whispers and whimpers and perhaps even misgivings, while one still idly licked blood off a rusted blade as he pondered the higher mysteries of prophecy.
At last, the seven priests came to a decision, and a pegasus, a pitiful thing garbed only in the bones of his murdered family, flies up to relay it back to Lord Baal. This day was outside the Plan, the priests said, and no god would ever dare to bless this it. To dare the heresy of holding games would invite damnation from every deity above, below, and even in the spaces between.
Lord Baal smiled as he swallowed the messenger pegasus whole. It was a good day indeed. More blood had been promised than ever before, and he and his city intended to collect.
The massive dragon swooped back down past the Omenatica to the arena below. The crowd cheered for their lord, but not out of adoration. The thousands cheered because they hope to see the wyrm die, for this was the one day he would be made vulnerable, and the ponies of Vel so dearly hoped to feast on dragon flesh tonight.
Lord Baal would have it no other way. Worship is for the weak and the deluded, and respect is merely its larval form. What could be better than this, to be the most hated thing in existence? Hatred is the primal driving force of Vel, the energy that animates the blasphemous city and the paradoxical cycle of survival perpetuated by a collective self-destruction that allowed it to grow and thrive like a festering cancer spreading out into the world. In Vel'el'sessuloth, hatred was tangible power, and none are more hated than he.
That pleased Lord Baal to no calculable end.
The one true master of the fell city swoops down to upon his throne, carved from the skull of a fallen colossus from a forgotten chapter in Vel's blighted history. To the dragon's right sat the Vermillion Knight, clad in frozen blood, paired chimeblades sheathed on his back. To the dragon's left sat the amalgamation of fused spines and skulls that was his chief adviser, Shyrrd. And filling the stands were the innumerable masses of Vel, roaring and stomping in the discordant sound that was the unbearable anticipation. Quietly, Lord Baal shared in their excitement. With the champions arrayed today, and with the signs foretold tomorrow, these games promised to be very interesting indeed.
Far below the red skies and carnal debaucheries of the arena wait the slaves, the fodder meant only to serve as minor distractions for greater warriors. Above, the hundreds of slaves could hear the thousands of deranged and depraved cry for murder. The subdued roar seemed to drown out any sound, stifle any thought, even sap the energy from their limbs and their souls. Each wears tattered rags that might have once resembled the uniform of the Hauthorn Seventh Armored, and now the frayed cloth is their only tenuous connection to sanity. Moved between arenas, brutalized and murdered, the former soldiers had been whittled down to the hard-bitten survivors that the Lord Baal needed for his games. Although the rusted armor provided to all slaves would provide better protection, each still wore only the uniform. They do so to remind them that they were once in fact ponies, not animals, and so might still yet be saved.
In one particular cage sat either the greatest of them or the absolute worst, depending on your point of view. She is one of the greatest warriors to ever come to Vel, and any who disputed that now lay bleeding in the dirt. Millions admired her and the glorious death she brought, and they marveled at how one deemed so pure could fall so far. The Hundred Agonies, they call her, after her duel with the Dagger Twins. Azarec the Fell-Hooved, after she strangled the hated sorcerer and took his scalp and name as a trophy. The Hundred Agonies, for atrocities she cannot even recall, nor would she wish too. And perhaps the worst of all, the diseased hordes of Vel mockingly chant her name as the Betrayed, for the crowd knew it reminded her of what she once was, and they knew it drove fresh barbs into her soul.
She was all of these things and none of them. Once pure, then lost, now caught somewhere between, unable to return to either extreme.
The ponies of the Seventh Armored once admired her. Incorruptible, unassailable, she was the bastion they believed could weather such surroundings and endure. But after she returned from Lord Ebon's chastisement, after she charged out into the blood-soaked arenas and laughed as she tore them apart with all the glee of a foal finally discovering her cutie mark, the survivors of the Seventh Armored finally learned that Vel and its horrors broke everyone in the end.
With the champion are what few allies she had gathered during her time fighting for the lords of Vel. On one side, sharpening his blades and preparing for the coming slaughter, sat the deranged killer Gear Head. A bloodied skull carved in place of a cutie mark, his coat slathered in crude war paint, and with collection of rusty knives and broken swords hung about his waist, Gear Head appeared every part the scum of the arena. Deranged even to the eyes of an outsider, she would never consider trusting a creature like him, who had forsaken his equinity for the blessed release of bloody murder, but she knew his allegiance was assured. She knew that deep down the psychopath was a coward, and no matter how much he loved to kill he would do whatever it took to survive.
Pacing the pen was the pegasus Nocturne, with a coat the color of absolute darkness and vacant eye sockets staring blankly ahead. They took his eyes, but that triviality would not blind him. A useful trait in a place containing so many shadows. He could have escaped at any time, regardless of his injuries, yet supposedly all he ever needed was a reason. She was still skeptical, but for now his skill-set would be invaluable.
Two more rounded out this ragged committee. One is the impromptu medic Saw Bones, who has seen so many bleed out beneath his hooves that the fact that the old stallion still possessed a modicum of sanity is in itself a miracle, and sitting back observing them all Corporal Fast Track, the highest ranking officer of the Seventh Armored still left alive. Bones appeared apprehensive, while the corporal was in all likelihood contemplating if he should try to kill the monster that had so wantonly slaughtered his comrades.
She had already spoken her piece. Now she only awaited their response.
“It's insane,” said Saw Bones, always the first to call her out. He was the only that knew what she had become, and was no longer afraid of what potential horrors she might unleash upon them. Although he brought no forces or skills to bear, that alone is why he sat on this impromptu war council. And now, in the deep breath before the plunge, Saw Bones was attempted to dissuade her one last time. Before they told the corporal what he needed to know.
After a long silence, Gear Head looked up from sharpening his knives, stared back at her with a vacant expression, and gave a feral grin. “I like it,” he finally said, as if hearing of a new and ingenious way to prank the mean teacher.
The corporal gave the murderer a look of absolute contempt. Saw Bones ignored both of them. She supposed her insane scheme has confirmed his fears, and that all of this is merely an elaborate mass suicide.
“That just proves my point!” said Bones, perhaps the closest thing she has to a friend in this wretched place. “What you're suggesting isn't just impossible. It's downright absurd! Even if everything goes according to plan, Karkull-”
He was interrupted by the low whisper of Nocturne, who spoke like a rolling mist. “I will handle the chainmaster, and anything else standing in the way of my objective.”
Silence. It was time to fill the corporal in.
“You killed us,” said Fast Track, "a lot of us, back at Skalliri."
"I did," she said, "They attempted to take control of me using sorcery. I almost fell, but I did not fall all the way, so I was brought back."
"Some of us finally lost the way when we saw a Bearer had turned to the enemy. First you abandon the line at Pale Ridge, and then you were the executioner in the arena." Fast Track's voice was level, but there was so much hate in him that he was almost quivering with it."
"You can hate me corporal, and refuse to have anything to do with me. Or you can put that aside for a few hours and cooperate with us. If you do the latter you might actually have a chance of seeing the next day."
Fast Track leaned back against the cell wall and looked at the other ponies gathered in the chamber. A psychopath as bad as the city they were trying to survive, a surgeon who had probably served as Lord Baal's spy in the pens for most of his time here, a blind and wingless pegasus of the Invisible Will, and lastly her, a Bearer turned Butcher.
"What are our chances?" asked Fast Track, sounding unimpressed.
"I would not have smuggled you in here,” said Nocturne, "if there was no point in doing so."
"You're lucky I didn't kill you the moment you put your filthy hooves on me," said Fast Track to the exiled assassin.
"Then you understand why I had to use uncultured methods," said Nocturne smoothly. She only trusted Nocturne to make it out of the slave pens and back without detection, and at her order, the pegasus had brought the unconscious Fast Track from his punishment in isolation and back to his former company.
"Then what's the plan?" asked Fast Track.
“Kill 'em all.” said Gear Head with a smirk.
Fast Track dismissively snorted. "That's it?"
“It's a bit more subtle that that,” she said, "but essentially, yes. If we can force an uprising among the slaves, a riot in the arena is sure to follow. Should that happen, Lord Baal is sure to bring his Wyrmguard to quell it, giving us a suitable distraction for our escape. Believe me, the crowd can be a weapon for us if we know how to use it."
"So I hear," said Fast Track. "They say a white mare was behind the mess at Gorgon. I'm guessing it was you, because there aren't too many mares around. Except even if you're right, there are a few here who remember how that revolt turned out. Every single one of the runners died. Even if we break out, we're still stuck on this plane, and we can't hold out long against the Wyrmguard."
"Golden Girl here says she's got a plan for that," said Gear Head. "She isn't being too open with it though."
"The fear of any revolt being crushed is what truly keeps us here," she said, "us and every other slave of Vel. If we overcome that, if we show these creatures that we still believe in something, then we shall become unstoppable. Faith will carry us through better than these shows of savagery they so idolize."
"I don't need fancy speeches," said Fast Track, "I get enough of those from Light and his cult down below. What I need is something this city can never seem to give me. I need a guarantee that for once, I won't have to fight tooth and hoof just to live another day."
"I can't give you that corporal," she said, "whether we were in Vel or Pale Ridge or even back home with your family. If there is one thing my time here has taught me, it is that every moment of our lives carries that chance of oblivion, however small it may seem. Yet we still carry on, we still endure even when the world does all it can to smother us. I offer you a chance to leave this place. I offer you a chance, perhaps for the first time in your life, to fight back."
Fast Track pondered that for a good minute. He weighed all he had to lose against all he had to gain, and at last reached a decision. Although skeptical, he offered a hoof in agreement. “Deal.”
Nodding, she accepted and gave it a firm shake. It is then that the odd assortment began to set their plans in motion.
Eventually, the pit masters came to gather them. Feral beasts born and bred by Lord Baal for the express reason to torture, the bloated dog creatures were the terror of the prisons. They charged in roaring obscenities and heresies, goading each slave out of their overcrowded pen with bladed whips and barbed spears. Some slaves died of course, ponies were such bloated and fragile things, some were already dead and left rotting in their cells from crude suicides, but eventually the enslaved horde moved down the aisles to the iron gates marking the final fight of their lives.
They mass at the great iron gate, and she is at the forefront. Clad in segmented armor forged with hellfire by a damned blacksmith, with a massive broadsword hovering at her side, she truly did look the part of the favored champion of Vel. This is what the crowd has come to expect, this is what they demand, and to see her in nothing less than all the tainted glory that was the Betrayed would be akin to heresy.
The dogs moved up into the scaffolding above, ready to pry the gate open and begin the main event. They were led by Kruhkull, a giant among giants with his dog face smashed in from decades of abuse. He had become almost mythological for the slaves, the godless god of the pits who existed only to make their brief existence as horrible as possible.
Great chains can be heard grinding as the gates began to part. “Rejoice, my little ponies!” Krukull roared, ponies cringing at the mere sound of his guttural voice. They have been conditioned to learn that when he spoke, the bladed whips were not far behind. “For today is the day you die!”
Loping like a great ape, the behemoth stood above the colossal arena entrance as the pit masters below slowly hauled the doors open. Pain and rage and madness and HATE!, brayed the slavemasters in an unholy mantra. Four aspects that had subsumed the entirety of their existence.
Pain and rage and madness and HATE!
“Can you not smell it? Can you not smell the coming tide of blood and battle? Are you not eager to die so gloriously?" Kruhkull bellowed with maddened glee, Pain and rage and madness and HATE! "Death is your servant! Welcome him, you lucky ones! Death is your lord! Accept him into your heart, lose yourselves in sweet annihilation!”
Pain and rage and madness and HATE!.
He heaved his massive hooks above, the dogs around him howling their assent. “Your gods curse your name and the worms shall feast on your bloated corpse! Is it not beautiful? Are you not blessed to meet such a bitter and violent end?”
PAIN!
The gates opened with an unholy moan, the dogs devolving into a screaming cacophany. The roar of the crowds beyond is almost deafening. Beyond, she can see the sands, and the black dragon looming overhead The people of Vel wanted death more than anything, and they wanted it now. Soon so many would die for the enjoyment of so many more. She wondered just how many skulls had been wagered between warlords, just how many fortunes would be won and lost based on how many would die before her blade.
RAGE!
By Celestia, she hated this place.
MADNESS
“Justify what remains of your pathetic little lives. Earn what little glory you can by the point of your sword and the strength of your hooves! Lord Baal smells the blood you let! DIE FOR HIM!” With that last unholy assurance by Krukull, she stepped out into the arena. The crowd saw the Betrayed and impossibly became even louder. They cursed her and praised her in every way possible. For a brief moment, she felt like a Goddess. It was a horrible feeling
HATE!
HATE!
HATE!
Ahead of her stood every horror Vel could conjure, every monster and every devil, every killer and every sinner and every thing too perverse even to name. They all stood before the small unicorn and all of them are prey.
Rarity smiled a bitter smile. They had come to see the Betrayed, and now, at last, they could watch her die.
In the Endless
“Go left!” said Dash.
“Go right!” said Rainbow.
“Shut up," said the one, but not the only, Rainbow Dash, "and let me drive!”
Speeding across the waters, Rainbow Dash flew for her life. And not just for her life, but for every other Rainbow and Dash caught between the convenient spaces of what was real and what was maybe. It was only a few miles more distance, she could make it, all she had to do was fly straight and try to avoid the big nasty currently behind her. Unfortunately, flying straight was a problem, as each wing literally had a mind of its own, and were competing to go separate ways. Luckily she still had higher control, else the pegasus would be torn in half, but it was still beyond frustrating to have to actually convince her wings that dying might not be the optimal choice here.
“We need to warn Fisher and the others!," roared Raindash Bow over the miasma of the storm and seaspray, "This thing'll flatten em!” Luckily, Raindash Bow really didn't know what the buck she was talking about and should shut up and let the professionals handle it.
“Oh, buck you," replied Raindash Bow, "I know exactly what I'm talking about! I can hear your thoughts, in case we forgot!” Sweet Celestia's crooked crown, there was nothing more annoying than an argument with yourself.
“They won't have time to evacuate!" Bowrain Dash spoke up, hopefully willing to compromise. "We need to draw it away from Cilia and back to the Mote!”
The storm worsened. Rain poured down almost like solid walls, thunder crashed and lightning flashed as the spell began to take hold. Wouldn't be long now...
“Are you crazy?" yelled Dashbow Rain. "How can we possibly stop that thing!”
“Aw, we can take it!” replied Rainrain Rain.
Now they/she/I/me (ARGH) were talking. Honestly, despite having chosen such an incredibly stupid nickname, Rainrain Rain always seemed like the smartest one of the lot.
The composite could not effectively function with so much discordant noise crashing about her multispacial head, so she (they) was/were forced to come up with a series of increasingly stopgap solutions in a desperate attempt to preserve the original sanity.
Solution One: Settling on a singular tense. Past had been decided would be most convenient for brevity's sake, present always did make her seem either like a little foal learning her letters or some artsy-fartsy college professor writing some super artsy-fartsy story, and thinking in future when only one of the twenty-three had glimpsed through the rim would probably drive each facet into some inter-dimensional equivalent of cross-eyed bafflement.
Solution Two: Deciding who should lead. It was agreed that a total democracy was downright impossible, with so many warring personalities vying for an independent course of action, and a dictatorship seemed kind of hypocritical at this point. After all, hadn't this entire situation arisen from the many minds forced into submission?
Rainbow Dash knew what she had to do. Forcing an override of central motor control, she spun around and rocketed forward. Rainbow Dash could hear the others scream protests, or assertions, or sometimes a mixture of both as twenty-four (Twenty-six? Did those other two even count?) of the same person instinctively knew this was the right thing to do. The storm worsened as reality began to slowly fracture, and a swirling vortex almost two hundred yards wide loomed ahead of her. From the gaping maw sprouted a ring of colossal bone shards, each at least four or five Rainbow Dashes tall.
All the same, Rainbow Dash flew towards it with all the force of a falling star. Forget all this was and will crud that was starting to make her head (heads?) hurt, all that mattered was the now. All that mattered was the speed, the sensation, and the knowledge that no matter what she might or might no have done, or even who she really was, Rainbow would still Dash.
Slowly, it began to rise. A head came first, then a body, then more body, then the entirety as the leviathan awoke and began to slowly heave itself from the depths. Eyes the size of Ursa Minors. Teeth the size of Sugarcube Corner. A thousand tentacles that each redefined the definition of titanic flailing about and churning the waters for miles around. Tidal waves were formed that would later become tsunamis, themselves caused by seismic events powerful enough to send the entire continental shelf dancing. For the first time in many an age, the unseen land beneath the Endless Expanse was shaken out of its rigor mortis and into some modicum of motion.
Twilight would know what this thing was called. Probably something really wordy like Giant Giaganticus. Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash remained Rainbow Dash and as she stared at the rising titan all twenty-four of herself found themselves at a loss for words. As she closed the distance between her and what she and the other hers had colloquially labeled as the BIG FREAKY THING, she knew she should be afraid. Any sane pony would be.
Luckily, Rainbow Dash and sanity were not on speaking terms at the moment.
Meramon the Bringer roared, a call so loud it transcended the sound barrier and struck the world almost as a physical assault, the first blow in a renewed battle between the exiled architect and his wayward creation. Soon, the seaponies of the Endless and all their aquatic allies would learn that even the oceans could, and would, burn with fire stolen from the forges at the end of all existence.
Those were the rules, anyway. But the game had changed, pieces were in play on different boards, and in some cases certain players had already been ejected from the room.
Let the jerkhead gods delude themselves. They could never stop the Dash.
She accelerated beyond the definition of accelerate. Rainbow Dash, fueled by so many subsequent versions that all believed they were the epitome of what it meant to be a pegasus, flew faster than perhaps any of her kind had before or ever will. Out of self preservation twenty-four minds united behind one for the singular action of forward, and not even the supposedly inviolate laws of reality could slow her down.
Rainbow Dash broke the sound barrier almost as an afterthought, moving so quickly that not even her signature rainbow trail could catch up. Speed overtook every sense and washed away every sin until all that was left was the purity of motion, a sense of nirvana so profound it eliminated higher thought.
So it was with a state of mind she could only describe as awesome, and a speed that she could only describe as woah, that every version of Rainbow Dash impacted the singular Bringer.
The result was, to say the very least, spectacular.
