Imbalanced: New Age

by Nameless Narrator

Love and Hatred: Acceptance

[Blazing’s Entry]

According to Mana Burn, we should be approaching Barrier (the Corrupted city, not the phenomenon destroyed thirty years ago by Twilight’s expedition) tomorrow, and I must admit I’m actually looking forward to it. There is a good chance of my adventure ending on the horizon, unless I destroy Harmony’s chosen and the god’s real power is hidden elsewhere. Considering her abilities, though, she must be the host to majority of Harmony’s direct influence, at least until the part I locked out of this reality last time returns.

Funny, that’s the outcome I’m dreading the most, not the one which leaves me occupying only a thin smear on the ground.

Well, no reason to think about it too much at this point. So, the trip up until now wasn’t bad, aside from my sore throat. No, we didn’t do anything unseemly with Mana Burn, you perverted book. He just had questions, enough of them to last the week and a half of travel. What I didn’t know was that aside from the content of Canterlot Royal Library and some volumes kept in Ponyville enclave, almost no written records survived the era of corruption untouched, and the fact that some did was mostly Twilight’s doing. She was the one responsible for teaching history when Ponyville enclave was still underground, and on top of that she made copies of books from Canterlot for ponies to use. It’s kind of admirable, I must admit, that she’s proven herself to be an avid guardian of knowledge rather than the Celestia-worshipping fanatic I remember her being. Time definitely does change ponies. Well, drastic circumstances do.

So I kept talking. Everything from what I learned at school, the culture, music, fantasy adventure books, my own journey, the gods interested Mana Burn. It seems that life in the old enclave was mostly crushing boredom, barely sustainable hunger, and hope beyond hope that such state of affairs would continue rather than be cut short by a focused Corrupted invasion. Mana Burn himself was a good company as well. In addition to knowing the few accessible paths through untamed vegetation, he has some of the abilities I lost with my explosion in the desert, such as sensing Corrupted and having enhanced senses including the good old wind flow tentacling and recognizing small tremors in the tainted ground.

I miss those somewhat.

Anyway, thanks to him we avoided packs of wild Corrupted and some stranger phenomena like a mass of living Corruption forming a tribe of buffalo repeatedly stomping through vast stretches of demolished plains. We did have a single encounter with six Corrupted led by a big-ass Hunter, in which I quickly realized that taking Mana Burn with me was one of my brighter ideas. Yes, I can wound Corrupted as if I was attacking an unarmored pony, but I don’t make them lose strength, speed, or claws and teeth. I probably could have killed all six of them on my own, but not without sustaining some major injuries. With Mana Burn, the encounter was quick and easy. We butchered three of the attackers before the rest fled in blind panic.

A Corrupted still doing Royal Guard… wait now, what are Twilight’s guys called now? Hex Guards, right. A Corrupted Hex Guard with his knowledge of weapons, decades of experience, and the ability to regenerate mid-combat is damn terrifying. I sure wish I could still do that. Oh yeah, Mana Burn is over sixty, looks fresh thirty, and how he’s kept his interest in the world is completely beyond me.

I just wish he stopped thinking about me as of some sort of hero. Accidentally saving the world while trying to save only myself and few others I loved isn’t heroism. Heroes scream loud and proud that they are going to save the world, then they do it, and then get all the mares and a noble status.

Even now, I’m just trying to either kill the one who robbed me of everything or die trying so that I don’t have to worry about anything anymore. Does that sound heroic? To him, it apparently does.

Oh well, time to go to sleep. Tomorrow is the big day after all.

[End Entry]

“-ing. Blazing!” I hear a hushed, but forceful whisper.

He didn’t have to shake me so hard.

“Mhmmm… yes?” I unglue my eyes. Seeing the toothy muzzle of a confused Corrupted so close to mine right after waking up can’t be healthy for one’s heart, “Hah?!”

He shoves his hoof into my mouth. Earthy, slightly oily and alien, squishy. Three out of five, I’d say.

“Something is moving to the north of us.”

I’ve never seen him this weirded out before.

“What’s the problem, some big Corrupted?” I whisper, pushing his hoof away.

He shakes his head.

“That’s the-” he lowers his voice, “That’s the thing, no. I have no idea who or what it is. The best I can say is that it’s a quadruped. It’s touching the soil in a weird way which doesn’t feel like hooves. I feel it’s… warm and cold at the same time. I’ve never felt anything like that.”

“Alright, alright, I’m getting up,” I shove myself out of my sleeping bag as quietly as I can, still trying to make sense of everything. It must be early morning, because sun isn’t up yet, but it’s fairly light even here under the forest canopy.

“And I didn’t want to alarm you straight up, but it’s moving towards us. Slowly, but moving,” Mana Burn adds.

“Thank you for so thoughtfully not ruining my morning,” I mutter, packing my sleeping bag onto my back.

“There it is again!” he points in a direction which I guess is north, although to me is ‘somewhere tree-y’.

I see a flash of dim, flickering orange light move between the trees.

“Fire?” I shake my head. No, Mana Burn said it was a four-legged creature, and I doubt the soggy tainted vegetation is too prone to spontaneous combustion, “Aaah buck me backwards...”

Is it really him? He could have caught my trace at some point. I thought he was tracking me through my divine power, but clearly not.

On the other hoof, this saves me the time spent looking for him.

“You know what it is?” asks Mana Burn.

“Let’s say I’ve got a hunch.”

“Alright, what do we do?”

“We? You stay out of the way and let me deal with this.”

“Come on, I can-”

“You can’t touch him and he can cause damage Corrupted can’t heal. I stopped Nightshade’s regeneration temporarily. He can cause wounds no magic or natural ability can heal aside from the divinity of Life itself. Stay out of the way if you want to survive, and if my power is enough to weaken or disable his, ONLY THEN you can even THINK about joining in.”

“Alright, alright. Are you going to ambush whoever that is or… what?”

“No, no reason. He’s ‘locked’ onto me. Just stay out of danger and watch. This might turn to be the divine power fight you wanted to see, and you can be sure Harmony will be thousand times worse.”

After a quick thought, I toss my saddlebags and non-combat equipment to him, and walk straight towards the slowly approaching pony flame.

“I don’t know who you were, but you didn’t deserve this,” I say quietly, seeing the burning pony’s head snap towards me when a twig breaks under my hoof. Up this close and for once not being near death, I can finally make out Insanity’s features.

Behind the thin veiling armor of phoenix flames, the earthpony’s coat, mane, and tail are charred to coal black. His eyes are brown, barely recognizable with the bright reflections of his flames.

“...we found you...”

“...we know you...”

“...you’re ours...”

“...you must die...”

“...trash, waste of oxygen, worthless existence...”

“Funny, you’re just repeating what I used to say to myself every d-” I stop.

I completely misunderstood what Insanity was. I thought it was a pony compatible with my old powers who went insane because he couldn’t bear the duality. I thought he wanted revenge on me for that.

I never guessed that Insanity could be a normal pony taken over by my power, by my ‘imprint’ on my divinity. A pony taken over to such extent, that my own preserved self-hatred and loathing would come after me to finally finish the job. If this pony kills me, it won’t be revenge.

It will be suicide.

“I’m an idiot,” I chuckle, “but even more - I’m sorry.”

In response, Insanity grows one phoenix wing and one blackfrost one.

I wonder if I’m powerful enough to block my own old twin powers. Well, no time like the present to find out. I’m getting used to the ‘fresh air’ nature of my new divinity, and it answers with only a little focus, wrapping around Insanity.

There is no resistance, no fight, nothing.

All traces of divine power surrounding my enemy disappear like a blown out candle, leaving only the earthpony.

Expecting a furious charge, I spread my hind legs so that I can move in any direction as fast as possible.

Insanity tilts his head, gives me a completely blank, confused stare…

...plops down on his rump…

...and waves at me.

“H- hello?” his voice is nervous. The poor guy can’t be too much over twenty, “The voices… it’s so quiet,” he closes his eyes, a relieved smile growing on his muzzle, “So quiet.”

I honestly have no idea what to say. Fortunately, he looks up at me, still with the dizzy smile.

“Who are you?”

“Uhh, you don’t know who I am?”

After all, you’ve travelled over continents to kill me.

“I HATE YOU!” he screams, I recoil, ready to fight once again, “Wait, no no no… who are you?”

“You just asked that.”

“Did I? Sorry. I… everything is a blur. I can’t focus on anything. Who are y- wait, I just said that, right?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry about that.”

“Okay, okay,” he takes a deep breath, “The voices hate you so much. It was like a fire inside me, burning, eating everything else. I… before the voices… I was...” he furrows his brows, “Ehm… who am I?”

A living divine torch, a pony who got hijacked by divine power which eventually destroyed everything that made you yourself. On the other hoof, what would such explanation mean to the hollow shell of a pony you are?

“I don’t know,” I shake my head, “Do you remember anything at all? A place maybe where I could take you?”

He looks behind me, his head sinking low. A quick pulse of my tracing spell reveals Mana Burn approaching from his cover.

“I… I really don’t know. I was all over the place. Forests, sand… lots of sand. I hurt those lion-eagle ponies-”

“Griffons.”

“-right, right. I didn’t mean to, they just tried to stop the voices. The squiggly black ones like he is too,” he points at Mana Burn who is just watching quietly, “They were just in the way. I didn’t mean to, I promise.”

“I believe you,” I say, in slight shock at Insanity looking as if a heavy weight dropped from his back, “but think, do you have a place to return to?”

“I don’t r- I remember something… a circle of houses, fires in barrels, alleys blocked off by barricades, ponies chatting and looking at things in wooden stands with more ponies.”

“That sounds like market square in Vanhoover. Huh, kinda makes sense you’d be from there… somewhat. Or not. If there’s something I’ve learned in my life is that sense is where you find it. We can take you there if you want.”

“No, I don’t think that’ll work. I mean, you’re a nice pony. You stopped the voices, but I think they’ll be back,” his smile fades away and he looks at the grass, “I don’t want them to come back.”

Well, my divine power is now taking the characteristics of my old special talent. I wonder if I can still steal and absorb unnatural energy without my cutie mark.

No. I know I can. It’s who I am.

“I can help you. I can stop the voices.”

“Heheh,” he chuckles nervously, “You’re not going to stop them by stopping me, are you? I mean… it’ll probably be better either way, but… I don’t want to die.”

“No, though I don’t know what will remain of you. Mentally, I mean. You feel like a wooden pony burned through from the inside. There might not be enough left of the real you.”

“I like the silence. I… I don’t have a choice anyway, do I? The voices will hunt you if you don’t do it.”

Oh… yeah, that was an empty gesture.

“You’re braver than I am.”

He just smiles.

I put my hoof on his forehead, and concentrate. My power to unravel, absorb, and steal divinity or magic wakes up. Hi, it’s been a while.

Insanity’s fiery armor reappears, but the pony simply keeps sitting and breathing deeply, eyes closed while the flames dance all over his body, gradually moving towards my hoof and draining into it.

My old twin powers feel like I imagine them feeling to an outsider, as if I was touching something warm, but freezing ice was flowing through my veins. Hope and Despair.

Then the world disappears.

When I open my eyes, I’m standing in a circular clearing featuring a campsite somewhere in the ruins of shattered Manehattan. Sun is peeking through the veil of grey clouds, the air is fresh and crisp, and there’s a campfire comfortably burning in front of a brown tent.

It’s been a while since I saw my mindscape too.

Should I bother about the unicorn made of pure phoenix fire snarling at me first, or the one made of black ice? Neither of the two standing on the other side of the clearing looks friendly.

“Alright, the fire one first,” I say, surprising myself with how calm I am about all this.

“They are perfect,” he growls, “How could you hurt them so much? Chokey is the best, she gave trash like you a chance when nopony else would and look what you did! Cromach trusted you, loved you unconditionally. You stumbled upon two most amazing, perfect individuals and all you did was hurt them, you piece of-”

“Indeed,” I just say, shutting the burning unicorn up. Then I turn my head to the frozen one, “Next.”

“There is nopony worse and more useless than you. You screw up everything you touch, you bring pain and destruction. Corruption was your fault, Flora’s death was your fault, Joy’s insanity was your fault-”

“To a certain degree, yes.”

He shuts up too.

Is that all? I know I’m not a mentally stable pony, but was I really this… young?

I guess I was. I guess I’ve grown up at least a little. Now it’s time to admit some things to myself and deal with the fallout.

“Choking Darkness was a selfish slut prone to choosing the easiest path out of trouble. The fact that I couldn’t see it was out of how grateful I was for her giving me a chance. She broke down and gave in to insanity when I wasn’t around. Our relationship wasn’t that of a perfect pony and a parasitic trash, but of two broken individuals needing each other. What I didn’t see for the longest time despite others telling me was that while I couldn’t be sure if I was worth her, she definitely shouldn’t have been so sure she was worth me. I know it sounds selfish even to myself right now, but Chokey was far from perfect, and the ease with which she broke down when I was gone showed that. Cromach survived, waited for over two hundred years, and only my own hesitation caused things to go wrong the way they did.”

“NEVER, THEY ARE BOTH PERFECT, YOU SELFISH ASS-” screams the burning unicorn.

“Crom’s first idea about me was that he wanted to blackmail me into being his sex slave. While the blackmail part definitely wouldn’t be necessary, he was by far not the ideal griffon I used to believe he was. I had… a lot of time alone to think about that.”

“HOW DARE YOU THROW THEM AWAY LIKE THAT! TO BADMOUTH THEM, TO BETRAY THEIR MEMORY!”

“You know, it’s easy to love a perfect pony or a perfect memory. It’s much harder to love a failure, and despite all their flaws, I loved both of them. Even now that they are out of reach, I love both of them, and I will for as long as I remember. Neither of them were even remotely as amazing as I used to think they were, but they were more than great enough to love with all my heart. Had I not hated myself so much, I might have realized it in time to prevent some of what happened,” I look at the blackfrost unicorn, “Which I suppose brings us to you.”

“Failure… murderer… garbage!” he snarls.

“I am much of that, yes. I was mostly forced to do majority of things I regret.”

“You’re a mistake, you should be dead!”

“Let’s stop right there. What should and shouldn’t be is irrelevant. I am here-”

“Then you should make things right and end it so that the world is a lot better place.”

“I’m kinda glad I traded this amount of self-hatred for exhaustion. Such waste of energy. I’m going to die anyway at some point. I might as well do so while trying to do some good.”

“You CAN’T do good! You will fail again and hurt those who support you.”

“That’s at least partially their fault for putting their hopes in me instead of trying to fulfill them on their own.”

“Shifting the blame on others, that’s just like you.”

“Actually, no. I used to think that, I certainly did. I failed my parents, I wasn’t good enough for anypony, all the bad things happened because of me. Funny. Where was the part about parents trying to live through their foal being an utter failure? Where is it written that I SHOULD be what they wanted me to be? If I was what my father wanted I would be a hateful, angry, narrow-minded sod spitting at everypony around when things don’t go my way. If I was like him I probably would have kicked Heavy out of the guard the first second I saw him for being ‘unnatural’. If I was what my mother wanted I would be a spineless, lying, cheating, and fearful pony who would do anything, give up anything to avoid conflict. Yes, I am a failure, but I am MY OWN failure. If I DID disappoint somepony, it was because I didn’t do or become what THEY wanted me to be. My family, my lovers, my friends, they all had an image of me they wanted me to fit into, and that was their fault. In the end, I am me. I am my own merciless judge. And right now, even I refuse to blame myself for mistakes of others. After all, I have enough of my own screw-ups to deal with.”

“You will fail.”

I nod.

“Yes, I will. I will fail a lot, but I will keep trying as long as it is my own choice based on what I believe is right, not anypony else’s. Maybe one day I will succeed at something important, maybe I won’t. I’m far past the point where result matters.”

The two just stand there, growling.

“I accept my own responsibility, but only MY OWN. I will not bear everypony else’s problems just because they refuse to face them themselves.”

“That’s not exactly heroic,” objects the fire one.

“I’m no hero.”

The two unicorns turn into beams of light which entwine, and like a pair of snakes rush off into the streets.

I have to shield my eyes as a newly torn hole in the clouds lets out far too much sunlight for my liking.

“Yes yes, stop the metaphors, head. Where did the two go?”

Of course nopony answers, so I follow the street the two went through, thinking hard about them. My mindscape should guide me in accordance to my wish. Several streets later, I end up opening a barred gate into overgrown gardens, and follow the gravel trail leading…

I smile.

...to a reflection of Ponyville asylum.

“Oooh boy, I gotta say I missed you. It’s going to be nice to have a voice in my head to talk to again, no matter for how long since, you know, Harmony.”

I enter the main lobby and look at the corridors and stairs leading up.

“Now where did you use to be?”

Trudging upstairs, I wander the top floor corridors filled with locked offices until I find one the door of which is hanging from its hinges, broken and half open. Inside, there’s a blue-maned unicorn with dark grey coat lying on the carpet. His ears twitch when he hears me approach.

“Oh come on, you idiot,” I mutter, smiling softly, and levitate him onto the soft and sinfully comfy psychiatrist’s couch.

Mistake mirrors my smile, opening his bright, pink eyes.

“...you’ve grown up...”

Everything goes dark.

I blink.

Insanity is looking at me with wonder.

“Wooow… you’re… the big guy… alicorn. I mean, still the same size, but… you know.”

Experimentally, I work my chest muscles and feel weak flopping of feathers on my back. I guess I finally earned my totally not metaphorical wings.

“Hey, I know that cutie mark!” adds Mana Burn circling around me.

And that, apparently.

Alright, I get it. Finally accepted myself, became whole, and coincidentally right as I need to face a horrible, ancient evil. If I start seeing screens with flashing scenes from my life and hear Celestia singing I’ll throw up.

I don’t really feel any more powerful, just more… in peace.

Maybe it’s just a peparation for the ‘in pieces’ part later.

Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

Now, time for an executive decision.

“Mana Burn!”

“Yes?”

“How long can you stay away from Nightshade and how far can you go?”

“I think a bit over a month. Distance is irrelevant. Why?”

“Take some of my supplies, and lead this guy to Vanhoover,” I nod to Insanity, “I think he got possessed some time after my resurrection. Somepony might recognize him.”

“Vanhoover...” mumbles Insanity, “Is that a city?”

“One matching your description.”

“Blazing, what about you and Harmony?”

Stop making this difficult, damn it!

“I told you before, you won’t be of any use in case I fail. Besides, you’re not going to let this pony die in the wilderness. If you were that sort, you wouldn’t be here with me in the first place.”

Mana Burn laughs.

“That’s a pretty heroic decision.”

“I’m not a hero.”

I toss him one of my bags with long-lasting supplies and start walking away immediately.

“Yes, you are,” he calls out.

“No!”

“Yes!”

“...I’m not, I’m not, I’m not...” I whisper, unable to see the two anymore through the trees..

“YES, YOU ARE!” I hear Mana Burn yell.

Damn Corrupted ears.

Comments

[Lex4art]

A very good final self-gathering after the mother of unfair happened...

*And I feel trolled XD*

[Nameless Narrator]

8416886

*And I feel trolled XD*

Not sure why, but I'll take it as a compliment. I like screwing with my readers.

But yeah. Insanity is gone, Mistake is back, Harmony's avatar within reach. Onwards to death glory!

Only, there's something still missing.

[Two_Madmans]

Now I'm curious, if we put a lot of power of Discord on someone, how it will affect on them? Since Discord worked different ways, I don't think we will see his avatar, but still...

Alright, I get it. Finally accepted myself, became whole, and coincidentally right as I need to face a horrible, ancient evil. If I start seeing screens with flashing scenes from my life and hear Celestia singing I’ll throw up.

“YES, YOU ARE!” I hear Mana Burn yell.

Damn Corrupted ears.

*imagine here a mirrored smile with RD*