Twilight sighed and spent a moment thinking over everything that had happened through her journey here. All the challenges, all the roadblocks along the way... all for want of a simple answer behind an image on her flank.
And what have I learned? I learned what these Marks really mean. We're branded, like property, all to be subservient to a higher power that no one sees. Even if I took over the Trident and abolished the unbranded, ponies still wouldn't be truly free. Mark Maker even said that some marks have to be modified to better control the people... is that really what I want?
She looked up to see the seal of the Trident on the wall, and her brow furrowed as she continued her train of thought, expression pensive and serious.
And if I supported Mark Maker's plan, which seems to promise freedom, there's no guarentee that someone else won't find a way to take control of it. Besides, would I really be willing to stoop to Reach's level, murderer, in order to stop him? No, going after Reach is a temporary solution to a much more serious problem. Gravel was right, this place has to be destroyed, and the truth will need to be told to the masses. There may be initial chaos... but ponies would finally be truly free.
She narrowed her gaze and looked to the door on the left, and after taking out Gravel's multi-pick, she dashed down the hall, looking for whatever powered the facility.
She ran and ran passing a few doors here and there, passing by the small library door, until she saw what she was looking for: "Central Generators." Plain text on an otherwise blank door, identical to most of the others in the hall she had past. It had a small keyhole on it, and Twilight figured this would be a good time to try out the pick. She gently placed it into the keyhole, feeling it shift and then click into place. She gave it a testing turn, and it surprisingly acted like a perfectly matching key.
Great to know it works, she thought, travelling down a long, dark staircase, hearing a faint hum as she progressed. The sound slowly got louder, the intensity picking up slightly with each step she took. As she made it to the base of the staircase, she found herself in a much darker hallway, with a few doors, some labeled "Mage Quarters", but others with names like "Replacement Crystals," and a new-looking door that said "Maintainance Room."
However, her primary goal appeared to be a very large, circular door made up of three huge stone rings at the end of the hallway, sporting a complicated lock system that seemed to resemble what she detected in the cave entrance. Time to see what this thing can really do... she thought to herself, carefully placing the multi-pick into the central hole, and waiting for the click.
After a few moments of shifting then silence, it did indeed click, and with a cautious turn, the outer ring of the door began to twist to the side, then the inner ring, then finally the center, until all three rings pushed inward and began to slide into the floor with a dull scraping sound. The loud humming from earlier increased in volume as the door opened, revealing that this was in fact the source. With the door clear, Twilight carefully put away the multi-pick, charging her horn just in case as she stepped inside, expecting some kind of security detail.
Much to her surprise, there were no guards around, and as she walked inside, she found herself in an enormous room, easily 40 cubic feet, which contained a lot of modern hoses and wires, slowly getting more primative as she walked in. Eventually, she made it to the very center of the room, standing in awe at the construct found there, casting an eerie pinkish light throughout the whole chamber.
What she saw appeared to be an assortment of hundreds of pink crystals, each glowing with energy, surrounded on the ground by twelve circles with hoof prints carved into each. Ponies were clearly supposed to stand here... but for what purpose? she found herself wondering, only to have the question answered moments later. With a sharp zap, one of two very large generators fired a multicolored stream into the construct's center, causing it to glow with a much higher intensity. It became evident to Twilight that Trident mages must have stood here and periodically injected more power into this thing, until of course they were replaced by these machines. Guess that explains the high renovation costs that I saw back at the Trident HQ... and with these, nobody would every need to be here when Far Reach arrived. Whatever he's trying to do up there, he wanted nobody around but him.
With a faint look of recognition, she approached one of the two generators, looking it over slowly. She recognized it from somewhere... ah! It's the reactor from the R&D display! The "Unicorn Energy Reactor; by Manehattan Energy!" Looks like it either makes or stores unicorn energy for use in projects like this. This unnerved the princess, as it indicated that, whatever Reach was doing, was likely in the works years prior, given the application of a proven Trident technology like this.
She shook her head and refocused on the problem at hoof, casting a thoughtful glance to the construct. Above it was a series of stone tubes, and shots of the crystal energy were occasionally fired upward, at regular intervals. Less often, one of the two generators would inject the construct with short bursts of power themselves, then stop before it glowed too intensely. She had a theory, but needed to give it a quick test.
Twilight fired a straight, pure energy beam into the heart of the rector, and watched it glow brightly, some excess power arching along the sides of the thing, and causing the rotating portions to spin up a bit more. A warning beep chimed in from one of the more modern consoles in the room, indicating irregular activity. She stopped, and calmly trotted over to it to examine what it said, cocking her head to the side as she read the screen.
"Power surge detected. Adjust generators," she muttered aloud to herself, looking over some of the gauges shown on the console. Many gauges had needles that were just barely in a yellow portion of their dials, but there were red portions, indicating that the crystal construct COULD be overloaded. She had a way to do exactly what Gray Gravel wanted, to destroy the whole system... but she had to step back a moment and think: Is it really worth it?
Gray Gravel, Straight Arrow, the Crystal Empire... all were victims of the unbranded verses the branded. Even allowing the people to choose to have Marks would still leave people on unequal grounds... Starlight Glimmer knew that, but couldn't tell the whole story. Now, the princess understood. This is something I have to do. The point of the Brander was to unite the tribes, but that probem is long gone. It's time to give back the freedoms that should have been returned a long time ago.
Those thoughts in mind, she dashed over to one of the power generators and looked for some way to adjust the output. It didn't take her long to find the dials and switches, set to a specific time interval and intensity. After taking a deep breath, and after using Cadence's breathing technique, she turned up the intensity to max, then set the time interval to zero.
A constant stream of iridescent energy began to stream from the generator, slowly increasing the glow of the crystals. She looked over and teleported to the other generator turning its knobs just the same, resulting in two fully powered beams being fired into the center of the structure. It began to spin up a bit more, and the faint beeping from the console drew her there to look at the gauges.
Levels were slowly moving into the yellow zone... and climbing at a steady rate. She decided to help out by firing her own constant stream of energy in, waiting until most of the needles were just red before halting. As they reached the red zone, they strained, but slowly continued creeping on, abeit at a slower rate. Red lights in the ceiling began to flash, as klaxxons blared loudly through the facility. That was her cue to leave.
Running quickly, she dashed up the stairs, looking at the doors and seeing the library door still wide open. She didn't want Mark Maker dying needlessly, so she paused to look in, only to be met by the stallion sitting in a chair, head down, in a sad, yet not broken state.
"Mark Maker! This place is going to blow, you need to get out of here!" she exclaimed, walking in. He looked up at her with a blank, neutral expression, eyes seeming to reflect some kind of bittersweet feeling. She glanced beside him and noticed an orange stain on the room's floor, in front of his empty serum vial. What...?
"I'm not going, Twilight," he said simply, lying back in the chair. A distant rumble traveled through the building, prompting Twilight to speak up.
"Please! You don't have to die here!" the princess pleaded, trotting in place a bit as she spoke.
Mark Maker leaned forward and coughed a few times before clearing his throat and speaking up. "Twilight, without the Brander I have no reason to stick around. It would be pointless for me to stay in this world any longer. I may have hoped to help others once again, but it was but a thought." His voice showed no faltering, no real sadness, yet she felt guilty.
"But... all those years..." she began, but stopped as he held up a hoof.
"I have lived for over two and a half millineums, Twilight, a few decades is nothing. Besides, I have overstayed my time in this life as it is."
"Mark Maker..." she started sadly, only to be met with a serious expression from him, drawing all of her attention.
"Twilight, you have made your choice, and I have made mine. I am staying here, princess, and that's my personal prerogative. If there's one thing I can't let you do, it's to leave here with regrets. My decision to stay is mine and mine alone." Then, he cracked a bittersweet smile, speaking in a more humorous tone. "It's about time I retire anyways!"
She thought for a moment, then nodded sadly, walking up and giving him a silent hug. He returned it, and they embraced for a while, until another large rumble shook the facility. "Go, Twilight. If you must remember anything, remember this... in a way, you have finally freed me," he stated, smiling to her as she walked out the door.
Her walk turned to a sprint, and she actually had to sidestep a few times, as debris had begun to fall from the ceiling and walls. As she made it to the grand entrance hall, she found the upper wall crumbling, and some of the light structures missing from the wall... including the one that had been holding Flak. She considered looking for him, but as rubble began to fall down around her, she knew she needed to run out the door as fast as she could.
As soon as she made it into the cold mountain air, she spied Cadence nearby. She gestured to follow her and began to fly away. She would explain the whole thing later, but right now, they had an engine-balloon to catch up with.
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Mark Maker sighed as he relaxed in his chair, looking around at all the books that surrounded him, and at the empty vial on the floor. Hmph. Such an odd feeling, this, he thought to himself, a curious expression on his face. A few books fell from the shelves around him, but he paid them no mind.
I had almost been convinced this day would never come... and yet I almost hoped it would. Now that it's here... I'm not sure what to do. I suppose it's like waiting for an appointment with a new collegue... or, maybe like reuniting with an old friend... His face seemed to brighten a bit as one of the wall shelves collapsed in on itself.
Yes, an old friend... I wonder what she's been up to on the other side... Princess Twilight reminded me so much of her. They're both inquizitive and brilliant mares... I'll have to tell her all about it.
Suddenly, a bright flash erupted as the room exploded, the walls splintered and cracked, the floor broke open with a thunderous sound, Mark Maker was thrown up into the air...!
...Then time seemed to freeze. He looked around from his spot, hovering above his now splintered chair, seeing the books stuck in place, some burning, some not. He was completely tranquil as he floated there, weightless. He looked up at some unseen thing, and then began to smile a genuine, warm, happy smile, his worries suddenly lifted from his chest.
"Clover," he began, speaking as he closed his eyes for the last time. "It's been a very long time, hasn't it? I've missed you..."
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Far Reach, sporting a complicated exosuit, complete with mechanical wings and horn, flapped to keep himself afloat above the master broadcast crystal. As the klaxxons blared, he defiantly lit up the suit's horn, and struck the crystal with a solid white energy beam.
"I have come too far to be stopped by some meltdown!" he yelled to the empty room, ignoring the cracks travelling up the walls and across the floor. "I will control the Brander!" he cried, sending energy pulses into the crystal beneath him.
Then, with a thunderous sound, the floor began to shatter, and cracks began to form in the broadcast crystal. The energy overload was building, here, in this place, with only Reach standing in its way. He was confident that his exosuit, giving him untold power, built from years of research, would allow him to save this facility, if only he could reverse the massive amount of energy mounting inside the crystal below.
"Come... on!" he grunted, his suit beeping at him to warn of excessive exertion. He poured everything he could into stopping the energy buildup, but as the crystal absorbed more power than he could hope to contain, it changed to a lavender hue, to a deeper coloration, slowly beginning to fracture.
"NO! NO! I CAN'T LOSE NOW! I AM FAR REACH! I AM THE TRIDENT!" he screamed, the entire chamber beginning to fall apart. Then, suddenly, with a deafening boom, the top of the crystal, the path of least resistance, cracked and blew off, sending a beam of pure energy with a diameter of nearly ten feet firing upward.
Reach did everything he could to protect himself, but as his defensive shield began to break down, he refused to try to escape, instead shouting and trying in vain to push back.
"NO! I AM REACH! N-NOTHING CAN STOP... Me... I'm omnipotent... I'm-m... I-Invincible..." The beam engulfed the pony, leaving not a single trace left as it vaporized him, then struck the top of the broadcast room, sparking an enormous explosion.
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Twilight, Cadence, Gravel and Ruby all looked back towards the peak from their balloon, far away now, at the sound of the massive explosion. "YEAH-HE-HE-HEA!" Gray exclaimed, slapping Twilight on the back. She didn't even flinch as she looked at the mushroom cloud above the former peak, now more resembling a billowing volcano.
"We'll have to tell them all the truth, you know. About the Trident, about everything," Twilight said solumnly, earning a very concerned glance from Cadence. Ruby and Gravel, meanwhile, both wrapped a hoof around her back.
"And we will, highness, we will," Gravel said confidently, looking beyond the smoke and rubble, at the sunrise in the distance. A new day had begun.
"Finally, princess. Finally, everyone is free."