//------------------------------// // Just a Pawn // Story: Remember the Moon // by Leviathan //------------------------------// “You need not speak. I only wished to give you some bit of pride in your final moments, but I see you are more inclined towards uttering obscenities. Now be silent, whelp!!!” Paradise sat down on its haunches and brushed its hoof through the air in a sweeping motion. There was no point in verbal retaliation. There were no words left between our parties. In the end, when all is reduced to a basis of instinct and insanity, what is left to be said? When good and evil come to a head, there are no words left to depict the scene, no thoughts to be expressed. No, the only thing applicable at that point is a bitter enmity. One that only obliteration can solve. Paradise fired a chain of bolts at me, not relenting in its onslaught for even a moment. The bolts were an unflawed white, with smaller bolts of energy being discharged from each larger one. They curved in high arches before pointing downwards and forming a narrow slope towards me. I jerked to the side as the first barrage landed in the position I had occupied. The initial vault to my right sent shockwaves through my body, my shoulder specifically, causing me no small amount of anguish. Had it not been for the adrenaline and my tolerance I would been writhing around in pain. The ground where the bolts hit was charred and ripped apart by the raw energy. I could see another volley directly behind the previous one, already tracing out a path towards me. I jumped forward, careful to avoid the haphazard forms of goop that covered the grounds (in rather unorganized splotches), but also focused on reaching the ethereal fires of the mangled bodies. If I could access my magic and wings I could easily dispel the bolts and retaliate. The bolts themselves were simplistic. They weren’t unique, nor were they particularly powerful. True the rate and power at which Paradise unleashed the bolts was impressive, but the simplicity present in the spell itself was strange. A creature of this nature should be able to perform much higher level spells that deal vast amounts of damage. Spells that would deal an indescribable amount of damage to me. I should have been easily subdued...was this thing holding back? No, I couldn’t question things. Paradise was a demented, twisted phantom that spread itself similar to a virus. This was just a game to it. Not even that, a distraction. All I could do was survive. That, and shove the fact that I survived down that abomination’s gullet. I leapt over each strike of bolts. Some landed behind me, others landed ahead of me, anticipating where I would be. I had to move my hooves into some more awkward positions while running to avoid the slime that covered the thickets of grass, charred earth, and silica. As I came closer and closer to the center of the clearing the bolts started coming down at a faster rate and with much more force. They had less space to account for before reaching me. The bolts themselves were even beginning to strategize. One set came down a circular formation in order to surround me. I managed to duck under it by a very thin margin as another line came rushing into the middle of the circle, demolishing the area I had occupied previously. The ooze was in a much more concentrated state around the center of the clearing. There were some points in which I was forced to hop over the puddles of gunk. There seemed to be no real pattern to the spreading of the substance. Perhaps it emulated the capricious nature of its master. I was edging quite close to the flames. If I kept up my current speed of travel and did not diverge in my route then I would likely reach them within a few seconds. The reality that salvation sat just a few yards away kept me from thinking straight, from questioning why it was so simple. Instead it pushed me to another process of thought within myself. I leapt over another batch of the foul sludge when some of the arching bolts caught me off guard. The landed a few inches from my left flank, leaving residential energy to shock me. I stumbled for a moment and ended up tripping over my own hooves. For a moment I fell, tucking my shoulder into a roll, and praying that I did not land in anything or get hit by another deluge of energized bullets. I failed in my attempt to save myself from the fall. I hit the ground with a resounding thud, sending a shockwave to blast against my injured shoulder. I flinched with the pain, but stood anyways. I was so close to my targets now. So very close. None of the slime was within a yard of the skeletal remains themselves, reinforcing my theory that the flames they emitted repelled the sludge. Perhaps I should not have placed my entire existence upon a theory, but this situation was precarious and losing ‘grace points,’ was not my gravest concern. Coming closer I noticed that the thralls had lost their sheen. They seemed much less...ethereal in nature. The flames they bore were still the same color, and still fire, but the ghostly glow they had contained was gone. The bolts had stopped their assault upon me. I suppose Paradise had no intentions of destroying its prized thralls, and it just wanted to salvage what it could from their wreckage. Or, and this was much more likely, it was preparing another spell to launch at me. Something more powerful than the bolt chain I had faced previously. I had to act fast. I leapt to the familiar spectrum of light emanating from the pegasus I had fought earlier. I gripped the wing in between my jaw, ignoring the burning sensation I felt shoot through my mouth. I drug the pointed pinion across the solidified substance that pinned my wings down (and my magic). Slowly I watched as...nothing happened. The tip had not pierced the slime as I had expected. I drug the pinion against it again. Absolutely nothing happened. Again and again I drug the pointed tip across the slime, my hope dwindling upon each touch. finally I released the wing as the futility of the action, and pain of touching fire, dawned on me. A dry laugh echoed behind me. I swiveled around to face Paradise. “What is this deceitfulness? Why was I not released upon my wielding of the flames?” It stared at me for a moment, small creases formed alongside the sides of its mouth. It was not so much a smile as it was a grim smirk. The expression that crossed the face of the creature could almost be called supercilious. Otherwise, it was quite void of emotion or any real trait. “You have given me no reason to do so, but I shall grace you with a reply.” It put emphasis upon the sentence as if I should feel a hint of shame. “You have stumbled upon my detailed and utterly ingenous trap. I mean inenious. I mean igenious. Ingenious. I ingenious- meant...dammit. Moving on, I used your comprehension abilities and intelligence against you. I have made you your own enemy. As I stated, you have fallen into a trap.” The beast sat still while it spoke, no emotion bleeding through its speech. It could have been delivering an oration at a lecture on the growth rate of grass for all that it mattered. I backed up a bit, unsure of what would happen next. Paradise’s voice broke out again. “My dear, I am not going to let you simply walk away.” A thick barrier formed behind me. I was being herded into the center for some reason. I was distraught to say the least. Moments ago I had so much confidence in my wit, now, I had nothing. Nothing but dirts and burning bones. Useless burning bones. At least I had dirt, right? How had it even trapped me anyways? What had I done wrong? Seeing as this was probably my final chance to find out, I posed the question to my adversary. “What trap would that be, exactly? I am quite curious as to why these flames did not purge this filth from my wings.” I had to take a moment to regain my composure. Something about this...stuff...was beyond repellent. Paradise sat there unmoving, gaze unfaltering. It was an image of pure terror next to the still frosted left side of its face. A gruesome visage of passionate insanity upon indifferent insanity. “You will experience the effects of my trap soon enough, and as for the flames, I would expect you would be able to solve that conundrum. Or if you can’t I’ve been overestimating you.” Apparently along with losing its sense of humor the monster lost its courtesy. I ignored the response, finding it beyond unhelpful. Instead I turned my attention to the ground that lay ahead of me. The ground Paradise had not barred off from me. This was the area of the clearing the slime inhabited. That did not bode well for me in the slightest. With a loud noise, not so different from that of a flowing stream, the misshapen globs started to all come forward, thinning out in some areas and spreading in others in order to cover the entire space. In one slow, but continuous, wave it edged towards my position. Moments ago it had been so still, so calm. I backed further against the barrier, desperately trying to find a weak point. Nothing gave way. So that had been Paradise’s trap. It had lured me out of my cave with a false lead on how to gain my magic back. From there it had made sure that I would be stuck between a barrier and its slime. However, that creates two new questions that had to be answered. First, how had that streak of muck been removed from my wing, if not by means of fire? Second, why was Paradise using the muck then? It was obvious it had me at its mercy, so why would it possibly need the slime to destroy me? The globular sweeper ahead of me pressed onwards, engulfing everything under it. I calmed myself and searched around for some kind of solution. All routes of escape were closed off to me. All I had left was dirt and my wits. Or just dirt if my wit failed once again. Another problem to consider, what about the fire? If not it, then what other force could have removed the substance that plagued me? What had left that bare patch? What other force was at work within those ancient bones? What else had I seen within those remains that were gone now? It could not be the bones themselves, or the calcium contained within them, as they were still present. The only thing that I could think was missing was the ethereal glow. That strange ghost effect that had touched the flames. Wait... What if it was rift energy? Yes, yes that would account for it all. Partial parts of the energy would have been shooting through those flames, it’s probably what kept the skeletons enthralled! Small pockets might have opened that allowed for minimal discharge of rift energy. That small discharge shaved away at the slime on my wingspan. The chances of it somehow attaching on the pinion of that pegasus’s wing were very slim. Too slim in fact. Perhaps that was the trap Paradise had intended. That was the conclusion that Paradise had wanted me to reach. That was what it had been waiting for. It probably formulated the plan once it realized only one of its thralls was still capable for combat. It manipulated a bit of its realm’s energy in order to dupe me. Paradise had intended for me to notice the missing piece of slime in a hope that I would deduce exactly what I had; the fire had removed the ooze. It was a crafty and rather brilliant plan that worked without a flaw. Perhaps one that began even before I entered the cave! It had neither overestimated my ability nor had it underestimated my ability. This was an impossibly astute observation made in a game in which, I, a brilliant strategist and master-planner, was just a pawn. Even now the creature knew that I would be able to piece together the plot in hindsight. This creature, Paradise, a phantom born into the Ether, was smart, and it was powerful. If it was not stopped here and now, by me, it would escape into Equestria. That would threaten everything I held dear. That would threaten those who I was born to protect. No, I could not fail, there had to be a form of escape. An extremely difficult form of escape, but a way. There always was one in the past. Never had a situation seemed so desperate or so...despondent. Never have I been pushed into a confrontation with death in which there was not an alternate route. Yet, it was still exhilarating. I had my back pushed against the barrier Paradise had set. I was on both my back legs with my front hooves splayed awkwardly ahead of me. The slime I had so desperately avoided was at my heels now. It pooled into the entire area around me, closing off all escape. The only place left untouched by the disgusting ooze was the glowing remains of the thralls. I felt the peculiar sensation of the ooze as it clamped onto my hoof and moved upward. I was locked into place now. Locked into the thick of all of it. There were no physical means by which I could escape, at least, not without super-strength. The slime progressed slowly up my body, but it appeared as if all of it was trying to engulf me. As it passed over me I could feel it matting my fur against my body, holding me with an intense pressure. All I could do was study it. Study and learn how to fight it. If I could access the energies of the rift removing it would be foal’s play. There was no way to use the rift if one did not already have a connection to it, though. If you were not a being of the Ether then access to the rift energies there were not attainable(Tartarus knows how many times I tried, though). There wasn’t any rift energy left residing on the pinion of the pegasus, unfortunately. It was about midway up my flank before I noticed a spot. A single spot that, in all sense of the words, was nothing. Yet it was probably the most important piece of nothing in Equestria at this point. There was a spot on my flank that the slime avoided completely. A spot that did not look special upon a first glance. No, a pony either had to focus on it or already know about that spot. There was just a dot of a translucent mist touching my flank. A spot that had attached to my flank long ago when I first came into contact with Paradise. Something that had burst forth at the same time as its arrival. What was left on my flank was a bit of residential rift energy. Not enough to cause any type of reaction, such as with the ethereal fires surrounding the bones, but enough to form a connection. A connection that would not require the use of magic. The slime was reaching my shoulder now, about the height of wounded shoulder. Surprisingly it was not painful in the least. In fact the warm slime had a soothing feeling on the wound. I lifted my head higher as it progressed towards my neck and up the length of my legs. I could not help but grit my teeth and shut my eyes against the sight. I reached out to the minuscule, imperceptible speck of rift energy that had decided to cling to my coat. I imagined a growth in the connection, an expansion. Something that allowed easy transportation of energy from another world. Perhaps now that I had a base I could reach the Ether. I created a moment, an instant, one large explosion to disable the ooze all around me. I imagined that instant, ballooning into thousands more, linking me to the rifts potential. And for a moment I glimpsed it. The Ether, I mean. I was able to see another worldly plane through the eyes of an insignificant microbe. The sight shall forever be engraved upon my retinas. Purple clouds billowed across the sky, merging strangely with the subtle tones of red that painted the sky. And I indeed mean ‘painted.’ The sky itself appeared to have been made in brush strokes, globular forms swaying in the atmosphere (I didn’t even know if there was an atmosphere). The ground itself was made of lines of color. Bright shades of pink and yellow stretched outwards crossing each others paths and forming intricate shapes, some of which could only be seen from an aerial perspective. They created slopes and hills, even plateaus! Large shapes of different height and colors billowed from the ground forming an Ether version of a mountain. Strands of deep purple, vibrant green, passionate red, and harmonious blue twine coursed through the air. They flew in gusts of visible wind that pushed them in every direction. Sometimes they formed interesting patterns in the air that boggled the mind. Some of the strange clouds were thunderous and black. The raincloud was quite unusual though. It poured a deluge of some orange liquid that I could only assume was the ‘water’ of this world. Then the connection broke. I could feel a sharp snap as my form (whatever it was) was pulled into reality. I breathed in only to find myself incapable of such an action. My eyes snapped open to be met with darkness. My night-vision kicked in within a moment and I saw the color of the slime pressed against my eyelids. So the ooze had taken over my form. I had not achieved anything. I would suffocate in a shell. An empty, hollow shell of a prison that left me near asphyxiation. The slime had solidified. Wait...no it had not. It had hardened. The slime itself no longer looked as alive. There was no pulse within it, no visible life. Instead it appeared dead, my blast of the rift seeming to have killed it. So maybe that meant... A spark flew by as the shell covering me ripped apart.