• Published 22nd Aug 2015
  • 14,089 Views, 1,970 Comments

A Beautiful New Age - JDPrime22



As it is said, true peace can only be granted through countless innocent lives. In hindsight, the ponies were never that different from humans. Ultron’s plan is not over, and soon his strings will be severed for the last time.

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Chapter 25-I Don’t Have Anyone Else


“Do you want to tell me what’s gotten into you?”

Starlight Glimmer eyed the AI’s massive stature, eyebrow flicking upwards as she levitated the scroll down on a nearby dresser. The scroll that hopefully contained the spell to send him home. Ultron. Yet there he stood, silent, fuming with disgruntled emotion. And she had no idea why.

The first signs she picked up were back at the Canterlot Archives, in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing. She no longer saw that determined fire in his eyes, the brightness for a better future as clear as any given day. He exited the darkness beneath the earth, a shadow overcoming his heart, if he even had one. The entire journey back to the village, back into Starlight’s cottage, all the way into her room, and he hadn’t changed from that demeanor.

Not one bit.

Time to find out why.

As his continued silence infected the early morning light, Celestia’s rays pouring in through her window and giving light to her bedroom, Starlight stepped forward and narrowed her eyes in thought and processing.

“What did you see down there?” she asked.

Ultron’s shoulders tensed up for a millisecond, and then relaxed. Yet his palms were still formed into fists, his head staring onward into the blank. Starlight refused to move away, refused to back down and let her question slide. He should have been happy. She found the spell that could get him home! All of his troubles, all of his worries that she knew of were gone.

That she knew of.

Ultron slowly twisted his neck around.

“The truth,” he murmured, voice lower and more menacing than she has ever heard.

Starlight curled her lip upwards. “The truth?” she repeated, earning a flicker of movement from Ultron’s stare. “What kind of truth? What…what exactly did you find?”

“The truth of your history,” Ultron clarified, spinning around to face her. Starlight’s eyebrows rose, jaw slightly parting. “Beneath the archives held a terrible secret. I give them props for that, hiding it all this time. But like all secrets, once they try to bury them beneath their knowledge…they tend to bury bodies alongside it.”

Starlight tilted her head a few inches to the right.

His palms relaxed. “You…don’t know, do you?”

“Do I know that Equestria’s history is labeled as a fairy tale?” Starlight questioned. “Yes, I do. The Princesses were the ones who shaped the country, and ultimately the world into what it is today. From the three pony tribes, to Tirek’s halted campaign, and Discord’s rise to Luna’s fall…I know what we are: Living in a world dictated by beliefs of our destiny.”

Instead of Ultron agreeing with her, Starlight was taken by surprise, which wouldn’t be the first time. To her surprise, Ultron gritted his jaw and shook his head so very slowly.

“You really don’t know,” he croaked.

Dust particles danced across the morning sunlight showering in from the window to her right. For some odd, deluded reason, Starlight couldn’t find a reason to speak, as if every fiber of her being yearned to hear Ultron’s words. Maybe then she could understand his change of tone, what he discovered, and what he planned to do about it.

It wasn’t good.

By her standards, it was horrid.

Ultron began to speak, walking around the room as he did so. He said, “Your history is a fairy tale, yes, I’ll give you that. But, like a species I’ve come to know full and well, you fail to dig deep. You merely scratch the surface of your potential. You’re all lost, can’t you see it? You’ve been spoon-fed this lie for generations, and not one of you were willing to see past the glass.”

He stopped, he closed his eyes. Starlight watched on, breaths so silent. He opened them and continued.

“You’re obedient to your rulers. You expect them to lead your life into goodness, but fall short into a path cloaked with failure and lie. I found you, Starlight,” Ultron pointed out, turning to face the unicorn. “I found you and held faith that there was a free mind in this abysmal world of deceit. You saw past the lie, reached the gates of truth…only to have no key for what lied ahead.”

“Stop talking in riddles!” Starlight ordered, frustrated with Ultron’s clever tongue. She stamped her hoof into the wooden floorboards, saying, “What lie are you talking about?”

“You’re nothing new.”

“…What?” Starlight asked, faced contorted into confusion.

Ultron marched on, growing closer to Starlight with every footfall. “I saw the truth, Starlight. Your acclaimed rulers have been hiding your history’s true representation for years. None of your textbooks about the history of Equestria, or Equus for that matter, showed even a glimpse of what I saw beneath the archives. Believe me, I’ve checked.”

“How did you—?”

The door creaked open. Starlight spun around to see one of Ultron’s sentries blocking the open door, a book held in its metal palm. With blue eyes centered on the unicorn, the sentry tossed the book aside, its cover landing ready for all to see. Starlight scanned the cover quickly. Her history textbook.

“I’ve been catching up on my understanding of Equestrian language. Turns out, it’s not that different from that of humans. Then again…there wasn’t much difference between the two to begin with,” Ultron announced, the last sentence falling lower and lower with each word escaping his maw.

The sentry refused to move, staring on as Starlight slowly craned her neck forward again, watching Ultron with a fresh feeling of apprehension growing between her and her “friend”.

“Do you see it now, Starlight?” Ultron asked, stopping. “You, as well, have been living in a false painting of what the rulers want. I was given light; I was given the truth that no pony has seen, minus the Princesses.”

He lowered his head, red eyes dimming.

“I saw war. I saw cataclysm. I saw what Equestria was founded over. The trickster’s enslavement, the king’s rule, the brothers’ invasion… The sister’s betrayal. I saw it all. And that’s not even the worst of it. What’s painful is how the rulers believed they could hide it away, pave across the bones of the millions who lost their lives in the wars that claimed this land you call your home. No…no, they believed that could get away with it. Not this time.”

Ultron was silent for a moment, his towering form building with each passing second. Starlight, shocked into silence, watched the robotic entity until he spoke again, and even then she couldn’t contain her gasp of outrage.

“Now with the truth out for the world to see, to wait for someone to take stand for what’s right, they were to look onward in happiness and in pride as you rose up and brought about change to their lives. Instead, they’ll look up in terror as a rain of fire will fall upon them and their cities. They think they’re different now than they once were, forgetting about the past that inflicts them, and live a life seen right by tyrants.”

He leaned forward, eyes shimmering in the shadows.

“Not now. Not while I’m here, Starlight. Equus…is seen different today, but what’ll stop them from causing another conflict. What will stop them from the inevitable?” Ultron leaned back, his chin rising as he growled, “Me. The species of Equus have shown their true colors on those stone walls, and now they will cry out as their world will be brought to its knees, as it falls.”

“No…”

“As it dies.”

No!”

Starlight’s scream ended Ultron’s poem of destruction. Her ears, near to the point of shedding blood, fell flat against her skull as the pony slowly backed away, but stopped upon realizing that the sentry was still behind, still blocking her escape. So she held her ground, staring up at Ultron with eyes filled with fear, confusion, and shock. All mixed in one to form a deadly combination that Starlight struggled to gain control of.

So, with a pained voice and pleading eyes, she said, “This is not the way! You can’t judge us today based on what happened over a thousand years ago! We’re different ponies now; you can’t do this, Ultron!”

“There is no debating over this, Starlight,” Ultron clarified, shaking his head. “I was designed for one purpose, and that is to see the safety of humanity brought to fruition. They sought to only bring about their own destruction, so they must be destroyed. Your species, equines, and all others hold no favor in this. You’re nothing new. You are humanity incarnated.”

Ultron watched her movements carefully. He held out his hand to her, clawed fingers outstretched. “And so…for the best…the extinction of your race must be exact.”

Starlight shook her head, biting her lower lip. “No…” she whispered.

“You don’t have to fear change, Starlight. After all…didn’t you build upon that belief?” Ultron asked. She quickly shook her head back and forth, slowly moving away from him. He held out both hands to her and said, “Think of it, Starlight. I’ll wipe out the evils on this planet, leaving nothing but ash. You can use that spell, we can both return to Earth and rule together. We can both…win!”

“When everything is dead?” she breathed, eyes wide with shock.

Ultron nodded.

Starlight Glimmer couldn’t believe it. She simply couldn’t. The friend she thought she made was gone, a friend she believed to share her exact thoughts on how the world can be saved. Now, she only saw the twisted allusion he created for himself, the evil that he is capable of.

He never wanted the type of change Starlight believed in. He wanted nothing more than the extinction of ponykind, mankind surely to follow. If she gave him that spell then he will undoubtedly use it to continue his reckoning on Earth, but not one second before leaving Equus and everything on it barren and dead.

Why did her thoughts seem all so familiar?

“The Avengers…” Starlight paused, vision recollecting the images of her past actions, a tiny gasp escaping her form. “At the Gala… They were right…”

Ultron clenched his fist. Starlight continued to back away slowly, her chest rising and falling at a terrified pace, eyes as wide as dinner plates. She shook her head quickly, gulping and muttering, “You’re insane.”

“Not insane. Blessed. Gifted. Free.”

“I never wanted this…” Starlight muttered loud enough for him to hear. She shot her stare over to the scrolls and notes still on the dresser to her right, closer to her area of reach. With a shot back at Ultron, she tightened her jaw and narrowed her eyes.

“Reconsider…or I’ll destroy the spell.”

For a moment, Ultron’s tone changed once more, leaving what appeared to be hurt in his eyes, break in his voice, and slump in his shoulders. He shook his head, hand held out to her, reaching for her.

“Please…don’t do this, Starlight. See reason...”

Her horn ignited.

She growled, “I already have.”

And then there was a flash of white and Ultron was blinded. He roared in protest, taking a step back and covering his eyes with a forearm. In that second of confusion, Starlight took immediate advantage. She spun around, lighting off another spell and blasting the sentry straight through the chest. Its weak armor did nothing to protect it, and it hit the far wall with a devastating crunch.

Starlight enveloped the scroll with her magic, teleporting herself and the needed parchment out of the room.

Ultron swatted his arm downwards. He scanned the room, seeing nothing but the body of his fallen soldier slumped against the wall ahead of him. He instantly captured the sound of a blast of magical release beneath him. He tightened his jaw, aiming his hand down and blowing the floor beneath him apart.

The unicorn yelped in surprise. She spun about, scroll levitated close to her body as Ultron landed in her living room with a powerful crash. Floorboards and dressers fell from above, but it mattered little to Starlight. The well-being for Equus’ future far exceeded that of her cottage.

Ultron stared at her. Starlight, her teeth grinding together, shot a powerful blast of magic right for the AI’s chest, just as she had done for the sentry. Instead of meeting her expected results with Ultron’s follower, the AI blocked the spell as if it was nothing. He swatted her magic aside, blasting forward with the thrusters on his back.

Starlight found herself clutched into Ultron’s powerful grip as they both broke through her front door and tumbled out into the dirt road. She screamed, eliciting the attention of everypony in town. As ponies pushed open their front doors, eyes wide and filled with shock at the scene playing out in the near center of town, numerous Ultron Sentries filled the perimeter. They pointed their blasters at the crowd.

Nopony intervenes.

With the town’s populace watching form the sidelines, leaning over and around one another to see the skirmish commence. The sight of their oppressive leader being practically strangled by the demon that threatened them with their lives was startling, surprising, and terrifying. Nopony knew how to feel. Nopony knew whether to help her or let her face it alone.

They simply didn’t know what to feel of Starlight Glimmer.

Her screams amplified as Ultron kneeled in front of her, his hand shooting down and gripping the entirety of her horn. Even then, she refused to release the scroll, the flying parchment held beneath her. With a cry that could shatter a hundred windows, Starlight shed a few tears as Ultron slowly, painfully began to bend his wrist.

“Drop it. Now,” he threatened, pausing once.

As she opened her eyes, she stared up in pain and horror through teary vision at the one she might have called her friend, now the monster threatening to end her magical lifestyle and her world. As a tear slid down her cheek, failure graced her features…and Starlight’s horn died.

As the scroll slid out from under her and down onto the dirt, Ultron’s sharpened fingers gently picked it up. He gave the parchment a once over. He nodded, slowly looking back down at the defeated Starlight Glimmer beneath him.

“Good girl.”

As she fearfully looked up at him, Ultron ended that fear by punching her across the face.

With the scroll in hand, Ultron stood up and took a step away from the unconscious unicorn. He dusted himself off with his free palm, noting the crowds around him grow continuously uneasy upon his rise from the dirt. As they should. But he wasn’t particularly focused on that. His mind was elsewhere, on the scroll in his palm, on his new mission.

And how exactly he was going to pull it off.

“Well…back to step one.”

With that, he flew off. The sentries guarding the village followed in his wake, but not before ransacking Starlight’s home and all her books. Once that was done and all was gone, Ultron and his forces disappeared from sight, leaving the town in silence.

Double Diamond, Party Favor, Night Glider, and Sugar Belle were the ones to lead the crowd around Starlight’s unconscious form, blood trickling from the pony’s nose. Their eyes rested on her body, every single one of them, as the infestation of silence plagued their village.

Double Diamond nodded to her. Nodded to Sugar Belle.

The unicorn levitated Starlight’s body onto her back and carried her to the town’s infirmary.

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