But just as he accepted his fate, Mother intervened, sending down an angel to stop his God’s hand.
Isaac came to, and found that he was still in the Blue Womb. Groaning, he sat up, feeling groggy. It wasn’t a great feeling, but it was certainly better than what he’d been feeling a moment ago. His head quickly cleared, and he looked around in wonder. A blue magical shield had been erected around him, tears bouncing off as the Hush frantically tried to pierce this new defense.
“Ahem,” a new voice greeted from behind him, and Isaac whirled around.
To his shock, Nightmare Moon was there, staring down at him imperiously as she sneered. “Of all the creatures I do not envy, you are at the top of the list. All this power, and you merely use it as a blasting tool?” she growled. “Allow me to show you how real Magic is worked.” With that, she turned towards the Hush, who had stopped in shock at the newcomer. “YHWH!” Nightmare Moon shouted. “I’m coming for your soul.” The Hush’s mouth moved for a moment, but no sound came out.
Don’t listen. She’s just another hallucination.
Nightmare Moon laughed. “Foal! I was listening to your story earlier… if we are but hallucinations, then how do you know that the foundations of that house were unstable, when the ‘contractors’ did not?!” The Hush attempted to counter with some more tears, but Nightmare Moon scoffed at these, extending a wing and sending them flying back towards the Hush. “And furthermore, if we are hallucinations, what is to stop you from being a hallucination as well? Who is to say your story is any more true than ours?! And…” Nightmare Moon trailed off, a vicious grin coming to her face. “Wasn’t Isaac eight, not five?” Nightmare Moon questioned. There was a moment of silence, then the Hush spoke, sounding panicked.
Silence! You are merely trying to preserve your own existence!
“That,” Nightmare Moon wryly observed, “sounds like projection.” She lit her horn, and began her duel.
Isaac could only watch in amazement as Nightmare Moon… Envy… whatever she was battled against the Hush. She ducked and weaved, not a single tear able to touch her. Crescent moons of magic weaved through the air, accompanied by a moon that blasted a homing laser every now and then as it orbited in a lazy circle overhead. Occasionally, Nightmare Moon would pierce her horn into the Hush’s soft hide, the blue beast crying out in agony as gouts of purple blood shot forth. Stars fell like meteors, peppering the earth in complex patterns as more stars appeared out of nowhere, flaring once before disappearing into the aether and burning all they touched.
Stop it! The Hush ‘shouted.’ You cannot win, no matter how complex your attacks are! You are merely showing off!
Nightmare Moon laughed darkly. “Still projecting your own insecurities, I see. And they mistook me for Envy.”
The magical moon overhead had begun a new pattern, emitting disc-shaped bursts of cyan light that washed over Isaac’s shield. Every time the Hush so much as twitched, the bursts cut into its flesh, though Isaac noticed if it stayed still it would be unharmed. But Nightmare Moon was making it exceptionally hard to stay still, with her constant pattern of both magical and physical attacks. The Hush was almost down…
And with a roar, it died, a blinding flare of light emitting from its body as it evaporated. Isaac stumbled back, trying to clear his eyes, and it took him a moment to realize that he was being supported by Kindness, Loyalty and Honesty, who had somehow returned to the room.
“Master? Are you okay?” Kindness worried.
“Does it matter?” Isaac dully replied. “I’m not real. None of this is real. She wasn’t even real…” he mumbled, laying back down on the floor.
Nightmare Moon stomped over, a furious look on her face. “Do not dare to call me imaginary, Isaac,” she snarled, crashing a hoof down onto his face. Shocked, Isaac scrambled away, rubbing his cheek in pain. “Even if this is no longer the reality you began in, is it any less ‘real’? Are you not presumptuous to assume that your reality is the only one that matters?” Nightmare Moon lectured viciously, hackles raised. “We have lives, too. Our realities matter. And until you realize that, you are not fit to be a god.”
Isaac tried to stammer something in reply, but nothing came out.
Upon noticing his expression, Nightmare Moon sighed. “I am the spirit of Envy, she who desires that which she can never have. I want to live, Isaac. I want to be free of these chains. And you are my only remaining path to freedom.” She stopped inches from his face, fangs bared as her catlike, cyan pupils glared into his frightened baby blues. “So if you believe in anything at all, believe in this: I am not a part of your ‘perfect world.’ I am merely using you for my own purposes, because I have my own wants and needs to take care of. This world does not revolve around you.”
Isaac was silent for a moment.
Then, he smiled. “Thanks… I needed that,” he murmured, getting to his feet.
“Wait… what?!” Loyalty exclaimed from behind him.
Nightmare Moon rolled her eyes at the faux-changeling’s outrage. “Do not act so surprised. If I had allied with him unconditionally, I would have been another part of his ‘heaven.’ If I had merely fought him for dominance, another part of his ‘hell.’ This way, I am forcing him to see the third path.”
Isaac grinned. “Hey, yeah!” he excitedly agreed. “That thing I’ve been doing this whole time!”
Nightmare Moon snorted. “It is nothing like that. There is no “Love” between us.” With that, she sauntered off towards a beam of light, which Isaac recognized as the path to the Cathedral.
He looked at the others, who stared back him. “Uh… onwards, then?” he tried.
Loyalty sighed. “I have no idea what’s going on anymore,” she muttered.
As if to accentuate her point, a wall suddenly opened up in the northeastern section of the room, and Isaac looked at it in confusion. “Another secret area, within the first?” he wondered.
Honesty looked at Isaac curiously. “Where?” the gray-skinned pony wondered, looking around. Isaac glanced back at him.
“…Right there,” he answered, pointing at the obvious hole in the wall.
“Isaac, that’s a wall,” Loyalty politely informed him.
“Yep,” Kindness agreed.
Isaac looked at them as though they were crazy. He flew over to the door, sticking a hand through it. “Okay, if this is a wall, what am I doing to it?” he asked, waving his hand up and down through the door for effect.
“You’re… rubbing the wall,” Loyalty observed, slapping a hoof to her face.
“Please stop, I don’t think the tormented souls trapped in the wall like that,” Kindness added.
Isaac looked back at the wall, and then back at his friends. “Okay, I can see a door here. I’m going to just assume that you guys can’t see it, and proceed from there,” he informed them.
“O…kay…?” Honesty answered. Isaac stepped through the door.
It closed behind him, and he felt… woozy, all of a sudden. Strange. There was a strange portal in the middle of the room, swirling and trying to suck him in. Isaac looked around, wondering if he was supposed to touch it or if it would hurt him. There was nothing else in the room… Making up his mind, Isaac stumbled forward, dazedly tripping over himself as he reached out a hand to touch the portal. His fingers came closer… closer…
And everything went black as he was sucked in.
Meanwhile, back in the Hush’s room, Loyalty poked Isaac’s body. He was twitching, a dazed frown on his face as he slumped backward from the wall.
“Well. He’s alive, but that isn’t saying much,” Loyalty reported.
“So… that’s it, then. We failed,” Honesty muttered.
“Hey, cheer up! I’m sure it’ll… work out…” Kindness attempted to soothe them, faltering halfway through.
“We’re doomed,” Loyalty moaned. “Satan will find us here, and then we’ll all be tormented for another eternity!”
Kindness sighed. “Maybe he’ll go easy on us?” the shadow unicorn wondered softly.
Back at Canterlot, Luna had been frozen for the past hour, shaking and mumbling to herself. They had tried everything – Celestia had slapped her, Discord had splashed a waterfall of icy water on her, and Chrysalis had even bitten her, all to no effect.
“Well, she’s not coming back to us anytime soon. I’m going out for a snack,” Chrysalis had dismissed, leaving in a huff.
Celestia had quickly signaled two Guards to follow her – hopefully she wouldn’t get into too much trouble.
“Do you think she’s been… affected somehow?” Discord pondered, studying the lunar princess’ stricken face.
“What do you mean, Discord?” Celestia replied.
“Mental magic, though complex, is certainly within the capability of the demons in that box. I am wondering if what we saw of Eden was nothing more than a trap, designed to take out Luna before she could protect her child,” Discord wondered.
Celestia’s breath hitched in her throat as she rushed over to her sister. “Luna? Luna, speak to me! You’re okay, aren’t you?!” Celestia demanded, hurriedly slapping Luna across the face.
There was no response.
“Hold on, let me try,” Discord announced, before clearing his throat. “Mommy! Wake up, mommy!” he called out in a flawless imitation of Isaac’s voice.
Luna instantly snapped to, whipping around to stare at the source of her son’s voice, though her eyes were still unfocused. “Wha…” she mumbled.
“That’s it, Lulu, come back to us,” Celestia encouraged.
“Where… am I?” Luna groaned, looking around. Celestia looked at Discord worriedly, and Twilight stepped forward.
“We’re still in Canterlot, Luna. You’d just seen the… the ‘Keeper,’ and you fell into shock,” the younger alicorn explained.
“Oh… I just had the most horrible dream,” Luna replied falteringly. “I was fighting some giant blue beast… but I was Nightmare Moon again… and Isaac was there…?”
Everyone in the room could see the metaphorical lightbulb going off in Celestia’s head. “Was Isaac in that gray ‘fused’ form?” she carefully asked.
“Yes… Sister, you don’t think…?” Luna trailed off, realizing what Celestia was thinking of.
“I do think so. Somehow, you knew he needed you… though why you were in the body of your doppelganger is beyond me,” Celestia admitted.
“They do share a soul. Perhaps Nightmare Moon survived being turned into a toothpick?” Discord wondered, pulling out a toothpick of his own and pretending to inspect it with a magnifying glass.
“No… she most assuredly died. I felt that part of my soul depart this world,” Luna answered.
“Revival, too, is within those demons’ capabilities. But why would they…?” Discord trailed off.
“It seems there is more than one game being played here,” Celestia mused aloud. “All that remains to be decided is the victor.”
And in the Chest, YHWH lay, waiting for the Sacrifice to give him audience. But he did not lay passively, accepting his fate. His play as the Hush had failed – that strange variant of Envy had intervened at the last possible moment. YHWH wondered for a moment if it would be appropriate to call her ‘Ultra Envy,’ then dismissed it. He’d had problems enough with Ultra Greed when he’d created the awful beast, and Ultra Pride was just… odd. But this new creation of his, this would work. He was certain of it. No detail had been spared, no symbolic subtraction wasted in His eyes. The creation stood before him, awaiting orders.
“ללכת, אבאדון,” the dead child ordered. “ללכת ולהרוס אותו.”
It gave no reaction, but disappeared in a flash of light. YHWH smiled, a fly crawling out of his cyanotic, wrinkled lips. He had erred before, giving his creations such troubling things as ‘free will’ and ‘emotions.’ He would not make the same mistake again. And as for Eden… Eden would pay dearly for its betrayal. His newest creation would make sure of that.
And down below, in Sheol, Lilith paused over the Chest that lead to the Dark Room, pondering something as she recovered her breath from fighting Satan.
“What will become of me, Incubus?” she wondered aloud.
The Incubus looked at her curiously.
“When all this is over,” Lilith clarified. “What will happen to me?”
Her familiar thought hard for a moment, wings beating furiously. “You will die,” it finally decided. “We will all die.”
Lilith nodded to herself. “I thought as much.”
In the Basement, Eden waited. It had placed itself here, making use of Samson’s old steel chain to swing upwards through the floors. As far from the others as possible, so that Isaac at least had enough time. Briefly, a few of the Lost inside wondered what they were supposed to be doing, before they were shushed by the others. They could not afford to think at the moment, lest someone else than the one they were looking for arrive.
As if on cue, a being arrived. As Eden looked at its gray, stony skin and malformed wings, it grew curious. It looked upwards at the creature’s face, and every single Lost was struck by a wave of fear. The being was hollow – the eyes and mouth were simply cut-out holes in its face, and the horns looked as though they were poking through the stony outer shell instead of growing from it. Eden steeled itself – it could not afford to lose, after all – and charged forward, engaging its counterpart. The being held out a grayish-purple, swirling vortex, smiling as Eden quickly backpedaled, the Lost inside it holding onto the grass and earth for dear afterlife as some were sucked into the Void. Eden countered with a burst of tears, which simply bounced off their opponent’s stony hide. Eden tried its Active Item, the Anarchist’s Cookbook – but it simply vanished. Apollyon grinned wider, differently-colored flies beginning to circle it as they glowed in eerie lights. Eden swallowed nervously. This was going to be much harder than it anticipated.