//------------------------------// // 80 – "That's Not Answering My Terms, Buddy." // Story: Spike Quits His Job and Goes on Numerous Quests // by B_25 //------------------------------// ~ 80 ~ “That's Not Answering My Terms, Buddy." Rainbow Dash threw her back against the coolness of the railing, releasing a heavy sigh amplified by the endless night, before feeling her head drop in distress about her current situation. She was still on the platform, surrounded by the Royal Guards, the ruling sisters, and most important of all to her beating heart: her friends. All of these ponies shared one thing in common, despite the numerous differences that made them different. They were all sitting on the platform. “And still staring into that stupid night sky,” she finished the thought to her own accord, keeping her head low to bask in the uncomfortable silence that stretched over the air. The sounds of rolling bandages and the clicks of pins had ceased not long ago, when the paramedic had finished her work and gazed into the sky. She had murmured a thing or two, before falling into a trance with the stars and becoming silent like the rest. “Gah!” Rainbow pushed her chin upward with a hoof, deciding to ‘face’ the problem before her. “Screw this. I’m not just going to stand around and shake ponies all night.” Just as she was about to feel the coolness of the steel leave her back, Rainbow Dash heard a distorted chuckle resonate far above her head. So she leaned her head back and over the railing, the strands of her multicolored mane falling backward. “Huh?” Only the emptiness of space greeted her ruby eyes, causing her head to tilt in confusion. “Weird. I swore I heard somepony laughing just now.” Then, the stars twinkled, and the space convulsed in tandem with the distorted chuckles. Thou art awake.” “Wuhaa!” Dash somersaulted forward onto the platform and away from the outer space, coming to flip on her back and crawl backward using her hooves. Her eyes climbed upward into space. “Who...who said that? Show yourself!” “Thou speaketh impossibility.” The voice spoke in a gurgle, its every word spilling out from the concerns of a non-existent mouth. “Thy’s eyes hath settled upon our sky, but thy mind seemeth in peace.” To Rainbow, it was like conversing with a disgusting god, but a god no less. So, she proposed a question that conveyed her confusion and reverence for the God in one neatly packed word. “Huh?” It was if the voice in the sky gave a mighty sigh. “Question not us, but of the stars in thine eyes.” The glint of moonlight reflected off her pools of ruby, but Rainbow Dash saw no the twinkling stars scattered throughout the sky. What she saw instead made her gasp with wonder, making her rise to her hooves just to see the picture with greater clarity. The black canvas was no longer filled with the stars, banished to oblivion when their purpose wasn’t fulfilled, and was replaced by semi-transparent photos and memories that obscured the sky. A look of wonderment washed across the cyan pegasus face as the faint, buzzing glow shone across her face. Rainbow Dash watched the sky and felt her mouth open slightly, rising from the ground and returning to her hooves, before walking forward. Those memories were beautiful, touching her heart far greater than any measly star could. “Ponville…” the words left her mouth on their own accord as she approached the same cool railing. A breeze began to blow through the platform, caressing her soft cyan fur. “All these were taken during the fun back at Ponyville...but how…” “Silence, little pony.” The black space around the transparencies began to ripple like water in an ocean, causing a slight disruption to the images of her memoirs. The dark waters soon calmed. “Continued thy’s inspection. Fall into mediation like your brothers and sisters, and see I in thy’s reflection.” Rainbow Dash was unable to process the unreality of the scene nor the voice, like the sky itself had cast her in this strange sense of uncaring that she was only vaguely aware of, as her eyes were set upon moments of the past. There were images of her friends, standing together on top of ice and of snow, all still smiling all the while. She felt their past happiness surged through her system in an influx of endorphins. There were images of her friends all fallen on top of the ice, each limb sprawled out in a different direction, though their mouth held not pain but pleasure; laughter spewing from of their lips. The same of giggles of the past came out of her now. Then there were images the day before everything went wrong. When Spike and Twilight had a fight, and he just upped and left. Those same faces knew not of the changes that would come, but yet, they all kept looking forward, together. “And that’s what I love about them most of all,” Dash whispered to herself while giving the shake of a head, trying to remove the tiny voices pestering her mind ever since she began her gaze. She turned away from the sky. “Alright, you evil sounding voice. I did as you asked me to do, now show yourself like how you promise.” If Rainbow Dash didn’t know any better, she would’ve assumed that gods sighed as much as mortals did. The voice spoke again, though not quite as composed as before. “Impossible! No mortal has ever before escaped the urge to think, especially when arousing the love for one’s friends.” “I enjoyed all the times I got to hang out with my buddies,” Dash said into the night sky, the words themselves dispelling the illusions of her past, until nothing remained in the realm of her world. She was bathed in utter darkness, but did not stop speaking. “But I love actually actually hanging out with them even more. So why don’t ya hurry up and expose yourself so I can get back to enjoying the good times.” Endless darkness surrounded her, depriving her of her sense of body, as well as of the world around her. But like before, the odd scene had placed a spell on her that made it impossible for her to care, instead feeling a smirk widen across her lips. But when she felt the bolts of lightning coursing painfully through her veins, the smirk was wiped away. She felt both devoid of a body and having its inner workings torn asunder, the pain within her soul being lifted up into the nothingness. Dash tried to struggle, but felt nothing. “Thou art a fool!” The voice was all around her and nowhere at all. “Thy’s friends and strangers stare into the sky. They impose upon it their grandest beauty, and fall to the mulling of their dreams and private fantasies.” Rainbow felt her body hurl forward in the darkness, feeling a surge of distance power wash over her coat. “Argh!” “Even thy’s Princesses have lost themselves to the repression of their royalties and cannot breaketh the spell.” Dash felt her body come to a complete stop as the voice roared in her face. “Everypony hath something on their mind. Always. They think of the voices both outside and inside of them, of events both future and the past, and of hopes not yet attained or achievable." Rainbow felt her body drop to a never ending steepness, though it were like her soul kept in place. “But thou…” the voice shook the nothingness that kept still all the while. “...thou art indeed empty! Not due to work or stupidity, but another element entirely!” “Wait.” Rainbow felt herself came to a halt in her descent, pointing her eyes wherever she thought the voice originated from. “Is that your gimmick? You show ponies a beautiful sky and get them to think about the stuff that worries em?” “...” “Well?” “In the gist of it.’ Dash smiled. “Then that’s where you’ve gone horribly wrong, my non-friend.” “Explain to me thou’s emptiness!” “There’s a lot that I can chalk that up too.” In the absence of light came a white streak of the latter, falling gracefully onto her ruby eyes and illuminating her cyan body. Dash gave herself a glance over, making sure that all of her was still theirs, as if any part of her could be lost to the nothingness of the darkness. “But if you tell who you are, then I’ll let you in on my secret.” The voice kept silent for a while, before gurgling into the night, and giving its response. “Thou art not usual, even in your group’s screwed terms. Something deep within you lies differently – you art meant for something else in the world.” “That’s not answering my terms, buddy.” “...thou hath stricken a deal…” Dash stepped further into the light, letting her tail in all its rainbow glory sway over the nothingness at her hooves. Her every step was calm, her destination somewhere in the distance, and kept moving toward it with stagger. “I don’t sweat the small stuff, pure and simple, but I doubt that you’ll be anything of the like.” “Quite the contrary, little pony,” the voice talked from the outlines of the light, pushing in on the confines that kept Dash safe. The mare herself looked up, from the trail of light made by the beam to the beam itself, where she saw a body fall. It was not a body she had ever seen before. It stretched out its arm, gave a grin far more wicked than anything she could pull off, and spoke in a voice just as disgusting as before. “I am despair itself.”