Twisting the Knife
The entity was unfolding more and more of its bulk over the dig site - chaoplasm churning as it sprouted fractal chelicerae, tearing open reality piece by piece. Most of the ponies in the nearby villages were already hopelessly insane, minds consumed the moment they tried to comprehend the shape eating into their world. It spread like a cancer in reality, metastasising across the sky as its claws worked the rift wider and wider.
"Sister? What is it? Has it escaped from Tartarus?"
The two alicorns were already armed for battle, as they dived towards the creature, the scream of air past their wings not enough to drown out the endless shrieking song of Nyarlathotep.
"We do not know, little sister. But we know this - it is nothing that belongs in our reality. Prepare yourself - with the Elements of Harmony we shall seal it away or banish it, just as we did with Discord."
They ended their rush and their wings beat heavily, as they turned their attention inward to wake the six gemstones they wore. The physical manifestations of the powers they had used to save their little ponies from the spirit of Chaos. They could feel the currents building, energy blazing out of their eyes and from the gems as they assessed the wound in reality, and the creature creating it, and chose their way to restore balance. The power rose towards its peak - and Luna was snatched out of the sky by the branching, rugose claws of the thing.
"SISTER!" cried the elder alicorn, as her connection with the Elements was broken and the creature bit and nipped and peeled away the layers of her sister's magical protection. Luna's eyes rolled in panic, as she was subsumed into the mass of the thing, and as she slashed left and right with the blue-black blade of magic that sprang from her horn. Her wing was twisted, nearly broken, by one of the entity's claws, and she screamed and bucked out, hooves blasting the thing's substance into shattered ice.
"Luna! Flee! Go as far as you can!" called the Sun Princess, as she fended off more of the thing's limbs with blades of fire. But there were more of the jointed limbs every moment, and she could glimpse the shapes waiting beyond the rift, waiting to ooze in and feed. Luna looked up, trusting her sister utterly, but loathe to leave her alone against the invader, without the combined Elements to fight it.
"GO!"
Luna fled, teleporting away in a flare of magic, and reappeared high over the plains, crying out at the agony of her injured wing. Even from here she could see the size of the thing, looming higher and higher into the dawn sky, and the blinding flashes of magic as Celestia tried to drive it back.
It wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough. The thing would tear open the world, and feast on the ponies in her care. Celestia wept, knowing what she would have to do, if she was to save anything. She closed her eyes, as the wall of claws and jaws and ravenous fissures closed in, and she reached into the heart of her talent, and willed it to obey.
Celestia called down the Sun.
***
Magic flared into existence around the thing that called itself Herald – twin layers of the alicorns' magic, folded against each other, reinforcing each other, tempering each other to contain the horror within. Their horns blazed with the effort. The entity didn’t seem to care.
“How many of your little pets died in the fireball, your Solar Highness, as you boiled the valley down to bedrock? I’m afraid I wasn’t paying much attention. Of course, a mere thermonuclear explosion couldn’t kill me – nothing can – but it was rather inconvenient. I had to retreat and find another way into your domain. But it could have been worse...”
“How, monster?” hissed Luna. “My sister wept for every pony that died that day. Do you have any idea how badly you hurt her? It was a mercy that you manifested in a region so remote.”
Nyarlathotep nodded his agreement. “Indeed. I have a very good idea. Imagine if Ivory Tower had returned to Canterlot before he summoned me? How many of your subjects would have survived? A few hundred? A thousand, at best? I'm confident you will not react that way again, Celestia. Even if you could keep the fireball controlled, you would vaporise the mountain. Cloudsdale and Ponyville would be utterly obliterated by the heat flash alone. Every pony for hundreds of miles would be killed. Small wonder you are so reluctant to use your talents to their full extent - you don’t want to kill your little ponies.”
“Prin.. Princess? What’s he talking about?” Applejack looked sickened, her friends horrified beyond speech at ‘Herald’s’ words, and worse, Celestia’s frozen reaction. Spike stood protectively between Twilight and the monster, claws flexing with his rage, as the unicorn stared and mumbled, stared and mumbled.
Celestia stared as well, pupils shrunk to pinpoints. Her memories of the day perfectly preserved, perfectly horrible. Stumbling through the burnt and blasted villages, screaming her grief at the sky as the ponies she had failed to protect lay black and smoking around her. It was a wonder she had ever regained her sanity. Without Luna's care, she might never have.
"I'm talking about what happened last time I entered your realm, Miss Applejack. You should be grateful I did not attempt the same... flamboyant... entrance. If I did, your Princess might retaliate, and having all of central Equestria reduced to radioactive slag is a nuisance for everypony."
Fluttershy's eyes, still red from her distress, narrowed in loathing. "We still have the Elements of Harmony - they worked on Luna when she was Nightmare Moon. And they worked on Discord. They'll work on you! Won't they, girls?"
The black god spared her a condescending glance. "You know, it might even be amusing to see what results. Six broken ponies versus ME? But I am not an idiot, and I will kill you out of hand if you try."
"ENOUGH!" Celestia's eyes were shining white with power and anger, and her horn glowed with a furious incandescence. "We have you bound now, and you cannot hurt our little ponies further."
Nyarlathotep chuckled, sceptically. "Really, your Highness? You know I'll just have to test such a claim." He turned to the six ponies. "So, how are the fillies?"
Applejack spat. "Still alive, no thanks to you.... you ... swaybacked varmint."
"Still alive? That IS interesting. Would you like them to stay that way?"
Shining Armor and six other guard ponies held Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Spike down, before they could fling themselves at him.
Nyarlathotep turned back to the alicorns. "One point to me, I think." He reached into his robes, and withdrew a small glass jar. "But before any of you do anything rash... I was quite serious. Do you want them to stay alive?" He held the jar up. The dancing lights inside swirled away from his hoof, bright enough against it in the deepening eclipselight. "Can you guess what these are, Celestia? Luna?"
Luna looked, and for a moment her entire aspect changed, as she fought to contain her rage. "You... you would do that... to a child?" The inner barrier wavered, ice crystals blossoming across the lawn around the black stallion's hooves.
"Luna! Control yourself! He is attempting to break your concentration!"
"And doing a good job of it, too. But don't think I'd limit myself to children, your Lunar majesty. Pony souls are quite pretty, aren't they? Perhaps I'll keep them as a paperweight. Much more interesting than some boring old moths, anyway."
The barriers quivered. The Bearers and those guards and Hussars still left in the garden looked on in horror as the implications sank in. Applejack and her friends turned to the wounded Trixie with venom in their eyes. “You... you’re lucky I don’t want to kill you anymore, showmare. Hurting little fillies.”
Trixie looked confused, despite her injuries. “What are you talking about...” she mumbled through clinical shock and sedation. “Trixie saw no foals...”
"Indeed she did not, little ponies – but it was simple enough to make you think she was involved.” The stallion’s voice changed to a very different one. “’Look at me, I’m an obnoxious showmare whose ego can barely fit through the palace gates’.” He laughed at the expressions of the ponies’ faces. “So - your move, Celestia. Would you care to drop the barrier and retrieve the souls of those adorable fillies? Or shall I take them with me when you cast me out of your world? There’s only three of them – surely that is an acceptable price?"
Celestia balked, again. The pony-thing balanced the jam-jar on a hoof, and started to juggle. On the fourth circuit he missed the catch.
"NO!" screamed half the ponies present.
Herald caught the jar with magic, an inch above the frozen ground. "Oops, butterfingers." He chuckled at the distraught onlookers. "Stalemate, I think."
Pinkie shrieked. “What is wrong with you? How can anypony be that cruel?”
"You think I'm cruel, Miss Pie? I'm insulted! You and I have so much in common, after all - we are both very fond of practical jokes. Invisible ink, party buzzers, nuclear technology, monkey's paws, religion... is there really that much difference? And I'm the very soul of laughter! I take one look at the universe, where the Great Powers are utterly mindless, where the allegedly sentient races - even those less fortunate than your own - are tragically, fatally naive, and where every single living thing squirms desperately into the future, staving off oblivion by devouring all around them ... and I find that hilarious. So tell me, Pinkamena Diane Pie - Why. Aren't. You. Laughing?"
Celestia's chest heaved. "Shining... Shining Armor. Take the Bearers and... that book... to the Archives. Have whoever you can spare search it for magick that might cast out this.... monster."
They turned back, at a noise from the barriers. Herald was leaning on a hoof against the wards, enjoying the rising shriek of boiling ice. In seconds his hoof burst into flame, and he regarded the fire with interest for a few moments before shaking it out. He looked up at the nauseated onlookers.
“The book, little ponies? You're welcome to it. Poor Ivory Tower. He was a gifted scholar, and he honestly thought he was helping ponykind. A magic that any pony could use, whether they were unicorn, pegasus or earth pony? That would indeed be a great boon to pony unity. No doubt you thought the same, Princess Celestia, when you encouraged him in his pursuit. A few hints here and there, scraps of knowledge, and expeditions to forgotten cities half buried in time... he truly believed he was on the verge of a great thaumaturgical breakthrough - verbal magic that would work for anyone. Alas, instead, he got me.
"I took his notes with me, of course – why would I let such a masterpiece go to waste? And bound it in his skin – it’s the way he would have wanted to go. Admittedly, he was completely insane by then.”
He turned back to the alicorns. “So, Celestia, how have you been since I saw you last? I must congratulate you on your social engineering skills – in all of Equestria, I could not find a single pony sociopathic enough to be a good cultist.” Herald chuckled, slightly. “But there are always other ways into a world. All I required was a pony talented enough in magic – and Trixie here is talented -” The blue unicorn basked in the praise, even as she was carted away on her stretcher. “But one so self-centred, so conceited, that despite her professional understanding of misdirection, sleight-of-hand, and illusion, she’d still ignore her own instincts of self-preservation if suitably flattered.”
“Wait, are we still talking about the Great and Powerful Trixie?”
Shining Armor pushed the six ponies and their dragon friend towards the gates – his own expression was twisted. Behind them, the few guards remaining to stand watch over the Dark Young were gazing at Nyarlathotep with murderous hate. Any one of them would have tried to kill him, given the chance. The false stallion was an unspeakable abomination in pony form, and there was nothing they would have liked better than to destroy him. But they held their place – they were the Royal Guard, and they would die to protect Equestria and their kin, but their monarchs’ orders were clear.
Celestia glared at the bound entity. Above, half the Sun was obscured, as the Moon slowly overtook Celestia’s orb. “I know what you are, creature. I know what you were attempting that terrible day. I know what you are and I will cast you from my world regardless of what it costs me.”
"I fear, your majesty, that I will not cooperate. Were you and your sister the only gods, I would obey, and gladly, but there are other gods. And it is their desire to return."
Luna exchanged a glance with her sister. “What do you want, monster? What do you demand from us in return for your freedom?”
“What do I want? What I want is immaterial – my masters’ whim is to feed, and I am moved to obey. Your world is rich in bright and shining souls for the infovores, and plentiful biomass for those who prefer their meals less rarefied.”
Celestia’s gaze might have incinerated a lesser being on the spot. “Then we are glad we apprehended you before you could harm the Bearers further. Whatever your plan was, we have captured you and your beasts, and the book.”
Nyarlathotep’s masked head dipped. “So it would appear. But I wouldn’t have had any chance of success, if your little pets weren’t so tragically naive. You’ve certainly done a good job at insulating your ponies from reality. Or from inconvenient truths. How many centuries did it take you to bury the facts about your sister's treachery, until she became little more than a story for foals? Small wonder the Elements of Harmony rejected you, after such dishonesty. And your sister's disloyalty. But do you really think she deserved a thousand years of solitary confinement on the Moon, just because she was lonely?”
The barrier wavered again, until the alicorns regained self-control. “You.... cannot provoke me that way, monster. I did everything I could to bring my sister back from her madness.”
"Oh, I entirely agree, your highness. Your grooming of Twilight Sparkle was a work of sheer artistry! Tell me, did it take long to craft her into a tool to free your sister? Generations at least - establishing Ponyville so close to the Everfree and the castle ruins, assigning Sun Celebration duties to the very ponies that would become Bearers. Even ensuring that one obscure book was available in her library! Encouraging her love of the night sky was a master stroke - how else to ensure Nightmare Moon didn't simply obliterate her. I imagine you even suggested the name to the lucky parents - what else but Twilight joins Night to Day?"
“FILTH! LIAR!” snarled Luna, eyes flashing. “Twilight Sparkle and her friends SAVED me, and I am glad to share the world with my sister once again!”
Nyarlathotep looked at the elder alicorn. “The only difference between you and I, Princess, is that I don’t expect my victims to be grateful.”
***
The ponies moved into the Palace. Bayo checked on Trixie, wondering whether he should risk renewing her sedation. The Bearers stared at each other – every one of Herald’s claims had been like a knife to the gut, placed with an assassin’s precision. “What are we going to do? What if he was right about us... about us not being able to use the Elements?”
Pinkie’s hair was dead flat. Her mind was completely failing to parse the horror of the fillies being soulbound. Her consciousness fled from the very concept. Rarity had to steer her along, and Rarity herself was near to collapse. If ponies prayed, she would be praying to the Princesses that they could save her sister’s hostage essence.
“I dunno Flutters... there better be something in this book or I’m going to make that stallion eat it.” Rainbow looked across to Spike and Armor. “How’s Twi? We might need her soon. For the Elements.”
Spike mopped Twilight’s brow. “I dunno, Rainbow... I think she’s trying to say something.” He leaned in close. “What’s that, Twilight?”
“... stars... stars are right... “
Rarity exchanged a sorrowful glance with her friends, and touched Twilight’s arm. “I know dear... I’m sorry that stallion ruined the eclipse too.”
“... no.. dununnerstan... stars are right...”
The ponies and the dragon exchanged a confused look. “Anypony know what she’s talking about? It must be important to her if she’s making this much sense.” asked Shining Armor.
Twilight tried to grab her brother’s hoof, her eyes rolling with her madness. “Stars. Symbols. All symbols. It’s all symbols.”
Pinkies hair stood on end, and she started to shake, trembling violently from head to tail. “Whoa! Whoawhoawhoa! Doozy coming! A really big doozy!”
“Oh, what the hay could be happening now, to make this day any worse? Pinkie, if you’re wrong about this..”
“Symbols! Syzygy!”
“It’s really big, A.J.! And it’s back in the garden!”
***
Nyarlathotep looked up at the sky, as the last few glimpses of sun were vanishing. “I do have two questions for you, your majesties. One about my creatures, and one about your precious ponies...”
***
Rainbow stared out the window. “But what else can happen? The Princesses are both there and they’ve got everything under control, don’t they?” It was getting very dark, and a chill wind was blowing across the lake as the eclipse approached its climax. Already the Sun was down to a razor-thin crescent
***
“Did you know that Dark Young can cast spells?”
***
“... all symbols! Sun blotted out, Moon at her ebb...”
“I dunno Dashie but it feels really really bad!”
***
“And why why why... did you assume I was after them?
***
Twilight sat straight up, and screamed “The Princesses will be WEAKEST!”
***
Celestia and Luna turned in horrorstruck realisation to their captive...
The last brilliant point of sunlight vanished...
The Herald’s mask stretched into a ghastly grin of triumph, and spoke a Word of Power..
.
TOTALITY.
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Oh shit
Looks like the old ones are coning back! On the flip side at least Twilight getting better.
I'm surprised this story hasn't gotten more attention. Good read.
Hmm...I wonder why the Princesses don't try and use Herald's psychological warfare against him. I mean, sure, he was defeated at a great cost, but he was defeated--and with his ego, I imagine that being reminded of that might annoy him a little as it proves he is fallible.
And I wonder if he, in addition to his cronies, are susceptible to the ancient power of Voodoo. Now I want to see a showdown between Herald and Baron Samedi.
1211465 Indeed - I'm very pleased with the number of Oh Crap moments I'm working into the plot :)
1211734 Nobody has submitted it to EqD, I suppose
1211875 Would you really want to annoy the Soul of the Outer Gods? Besides, the Baron may very well be one of Nyarlathotep's many masks.
I now have a new theory about how this will end:
The CMC will still die, but only because Herald kept their souls separated from the bodies too long. Knowing this The mane 6 will try to use the Elements of Harmony on him knowing full well that he will follow on his promise to kill them. They succeed in banishing him but at the cost of their own souls. Herald/Nyarlarthotep will return in a few centuries or so, but this time He will corrupt the souls of the mane 6 and the CMC of have the elder gods do so to serve as apprentices to Herald. Celestia and Luna will carry this loss on their shoulder and try to protect what's left of the ponies from future harm losing themselves in the process. Oh and Herald will take the jewellery associated with the Elements for corruption as well. This is just speculation but i feel that Herald would do something like that.
On a side note: when's the next update?
1218948 as soon as I've finished writing it :) It's another fairly involved chapter.
I nearly applauded Nyarlathotep for that genius! I fuckin love this story in all its unending horror and despair!
A bit more Laundry Files than Lovecraft. That actually kind of ruins it a bit. The Outer Gods have no interest in anything that lives. Anything less massive than a star, or indeed as ephemeral as a "soul," matters nothing to them whatsoever. That's what's special about Nyarlathotep in the first place - he's actually even aware that lesser creatures exist and takes an interest in them, if only to torment them. The Outer Gods and Great Old Ones feed on nothing. They have no need to and really don't even care.
The scary fact is that Nyarlathotep is considered the most human of the Outer Gods.
Talk about really getting into a book.
Dat-Dat-Ching!