//------------------------------// // Not Today // Story: PaP: Bedtime Stories // by Starscribe //------------------------------// "Alright." Joseph cleared his throat loudly, stepping forward towards the throne. It was an impressive construction, larger than anything Alexandria had ever had for certain. It was set on several tiered platforms, each one inlayed with something else rare and beautiful. Jade, mother-of-pearl, silver, then finally gold. It was a shame a thin layer of pale fungus had begun to coat everything in here. "I don't understand," Trade Wind said from beside him, her voice only slightly distorted by the shield she apparently needed to think straight even though she was now immune to the plague and there was no sensible reason to worry. "What kind of ponies live in the dark? There are so many windows..." Joe opened his mouth to answer, but he didn't get the chance. A faint voice spoke from the throne, barely strong enough to carry. It was speaking English, which of course it shouldn't be able to do. The world had stopped being an interconnected globe a long time ago, ending the exchange between far-away people. Even an emperor had no reason to know that language. "Those who appreciate its benefits," said the voice. "Those who enjoy its comforts. The solace that waits in the dark. In oblivion there are no desires unfulfilled." "Oh, it's you," he said, disinterested. "Fuck you, if you could wait for a few minutes. You'll get your turn." What ponies were still alive in this place withdrew from the light he had brought, crawling behind low walls, behind furniture, into the corners. The thin layer of fungus didn't just cover the throne, it covered everything. Their shields burned it away as they approached, charring its wispy tendrils away from their hooves. He hadn't even noticed. Yet now as he watched, he saw it was moving, trying to creep back around them from the ground and bind them. It didn't work of course; the shield was more than strong enough to keep it away. But the smell it made as it burned was simply awful. "Night outside," he muttered, staring through the shutters above their heads at the slivers of moonlight. "Problematic. But we can make it work." "The enchanter rises above his station," said the voice on the throne. It came from the shape of a pony resting there, yet the pony didn't seem to be speaking exactly. It just issued from his general direction. "The first and oldest of your kingdoms is mine now. I will allow you to leave my domain if you depart." At the end of the hall, a pair of massive doors flung themselves open. Just outside was a rocky cliff, and not far beyond, a churning, black-looking ocean. Fungus covered everything out there too, making the rocks and shrubs seem to glow. Trade Wind moved closer to him, her fear thick enough on the air for him to smell it through the death and burning fungus. "H-he's right," she muttered. "We can't fight this many. We should go—try somewhere else." Joseph almost listened—it seemed like so much work. This demon-whatever would probably try to stop him, and that would be inconvenient. He could find somewhere else to distribute his antidote. Unfortunately for the sea-monster, he had just learned it had killed one of his friends. A little inconvenience was worth some payback. "Cloudy, how many of these ponies are alive?" "Six," came the instant response. "The remainder appear to be hosting an unknown organism within their bodies, which has slowed the process of decay. It appears to be interacting with the fungal mat surrounding this position, though I have not yet extracted the mechanism." "I don't care," he said. Then he started to dictate. "require joes_awesome_magic_library def fungicide &locref contaminant if not &locref.searched and &locref.search contaminant purge &locref contaminant Integer::MAX end &locref.adjacent.each |location| do fungicide location contaminant end end" "Function created," Cloudy said. "My patience is thinning, enchanter," said the voice on the throne. "Take this mercy, it is not one I frequently grant. Depart this place and I will allow you to live." "No thanks," he said. "I don't really do the whole..." he waved one hoof in the air, indecisively. "Whatever. Diplomacy was more Alex's thing. Too bad you fucking murdered her." He reached down with his magic, levitating a thick clump of fungus off the ground, holding it up in the air in front of Cloudy. "Cloudy! fungicide (here, this)" "Running," Cloudy said, and the glow of the spotlight spell dimmed dramatically, as the output power was diverted from such a low-priority spell to one more important. It wasn't as if the room got darker—in an instant, his little recursive spell was burning over every surface. It spread like embers, consuming the fungal mat starting in the exact place he had pulled the sample from. It wouldn't burn the wood, wouldn't have burned a stack of scrolls if the fungus was atop it. Only something with fungus inside would be consumed. As it turned out, that included most living things in the throne room with him. The air was soon filled with thick, foul-smelling smoke, enough that his own shield finally kicked in. It was joined shortly after by screaming, an animalistic, inhuman scream. A few of the nearby ponies dressed as soldiers shambled towards him, their bodies burning from the inside out. They crumbled to ash inches away from them, dropping their armor and spears unharmed. Then the spell reached the throne, and he was really smiling. Judging by the volume, whatever had been there was quite infected. Trade Wind remained close to him, her voice barely audible in the din. "What are you doing?" "Human services review," he said. "Joseph doesn't allow zombies." "I don't understand," she said, whimpering. "I thought we were here to cure the plague. It sounds like you're killing them!" "No," he answered. "It won't hurt anyone who's still alive. I think this white stuff is part of the next stage of its plan. Infect a pony with it when they're weak, slowly kill them with it..." He shook his head. "Not today. How are we doing on power, Cloudy?" "Core entropy at 15% and holding," she replied. "The material is eager to oxidize. I am recapturing the thermal output." "Of course you are," he responded, grinning. "Because I'm awesome and magic is piss easy." He turned away from her again. "Trade Wind, could we get a wind in here? I can't see anything." He could just as easily use a spell for that, of course, but there was no sense wasting magic when he had a perfectly good assistant for that kind of thing. Might as well learn if she could do her racial magic. As it turned out, she could. Wind took off, and soon there was a stiff breeze blowing through the throne-room. It took the smoke and ash and refuse right out the doors and into the sea. It was much easier to see the beauty of the throne-room this way, though there were still patches of fungus that had survived—his function was scarcely very thorough. Anything that wasn't adjacent to places already searched would stay contaminated. But he hadn't come as the pest exterminator. Yet where there had been ponies of the court resting or hiding by the walls, now there were mostly just piles of bones and clothes, only suggestions of the people they'd been before they died and were infected. Sorry, I can't bring back the dead. if I could I'd have the real Cloudy back. But for all the screaming he had heard coming from the throne, there was still a figure there, not just a corpse. It was still pony shaped, it still wore golden robes lined with purple, it was still watching him. "Clearly, I was in error," it said, though still the mouth didn't move. Joseph began to advance on it, ignoring the handful of sick ponies that still lived, laying in a daze around him. He would give them their treatment soon enough, but not yet. The plague was no respecter of persons, but Joseph was. "I imagined you would need more time to become useful to me. Stop your spell—there is much for us to discuss." Joe levitated the first injector from his saddlebags, holding it out in the air beside him as he walked. "No there isn't. You can't give me anything I want." "Not true!" argued the voice, though it sounded slightly more desperate than it had before. At least, he thought that was what emotion he was hearing. Joseph had never been terribly good with emotions, and he suspected demons felt them differently. "I can give you something no one else can, enchanter! Not even an Alicorn could return the dead to you—I can." The emperor sat up a little on his chair. He was an earth pony, with a coat of gold just like his robes. The sores of disease were visible beneath it, though he wasn't as far advanced as the others in his court. How Charybdis was using him to speak, Joseph couldn't immediately see. From behind the emperor, a stream of water rose, shaping itself into the transparent outline of a pony. A familiar pony, one he missed more than anyone. Much more than the one Charybdis had murdered. "You want her back, don't you? Ask Sunset if she can reach into the void and bring back the dead. She can't, but I can. I can touch the uncreated space beyond the iridescent veil, Joseph Kimball. I can give her back to you." If Charybdis thought its offer would entice him, it probably wouldn't anticipate the reaction. Joseph gestured, and the needle shot forward through the air like a bullet, right into the emperor's chest. He gasped, fell over sideways, and began to convulse. "That was your fucking last mistake!" Joe bellowed, even as the ghost in the water splashed down onto the steps around him. "Threaten me, murder my friends, whatever. But threatening Cloudy Skies too?" He lifted another handful of needles from his pack with fury burning from his horn, shooting them out into the room towards infected ponies with perfect precision. He didn't even have to look to make sure they'd strike the right place. "I'm not just done with your fucking disease now, sea monkey. When I'm done curing every fucking one of them, I'm coming for you next! Go ahead, start swimming now! When Athena and I are finished with you, there won't be a fucking puddle that we won't see!" Something thick and smoky boiled away from the emperor, something that didn't get caught up and carried away in the persistent breeze that now filled the throne room. It congealed, taking shape and solidifying into a roughly human figure. He could even see the faint outlines of a suit in that smoke, fine shoes and bright hair and fury on its face. Joseph ignored it, continuing towards the emperor. He wasn't afraid of some stupid smoke. The demon passed through his shield like it wasn't there, lifting him off the ground and flinging him backward off the steps of the throne. Joseph screamed in rage and confusion as he smashed back onto the floor of the throne-room, and one of his legs struck the ground. It shattered like a piece of fine china, sending splintered shards of crystal flying through the air. Pain beyond anything any mortal knew filled his perception, the pain of an injury no body was meant to know. He felt the agony from every shard of glass, as though every part of his leg had been shattered, and yet somehow still connected with his body so it could pass the agony along to him. Smoke billowed about him, and a pair of hands twisted around his throat, holding him down like a vice and squeezing. Something like a leg braced against his chest, grinding him into the ground. More pain there, pain that, like the leg, would never end. That was the price of becoming a crystal pony: glass didn't heal. * * * There was so much screaming—more than poor Trade Wind had ever heard in one place. The damned who writhed forever in the fathomless abyss felt such agony. Trade Wind had felt their pain, or at least she thought she had. Not the infection itself, though of course that had been terrible. It had been worse to watch the ponies she loved die. Her mate, her daughter, those ponies had mattered, and she had been powerless to help them. But now, the pony who had the power to cure also had the power to kill. He said the ponies weren't alive, but she had heard their screaming. Dead ponies didn't scream. Why didn't he do that to me then? "Trade Wind!" The voice was not Joseph's. It sounded urgent, furious and frustrated, enough to startle her from her reverie. On the ground in front of her, poor Joseph was in pieces. Something had him by the throat, crushing him, strangling the life from him. It looked a little like smoke, black tar that floated and moved on its own with tentacles instead of arms. The shapes it made hurt to look at. "Trade Wind!" the voice shouted again. She looked up and found it was the crystal, hovering just over her head. "He's dying, Trade Wind! I need your help to save him!" The crystal had no features at all, nothing but its voice. It was a strange thing to hear so much emotion coming from something so much like stone. But so am I, a little. "What am I supposed to do?" she whined, retreating from the fight. "I want to help, I do! But I'm just a pegasus! I can't fight them!" "I can't execute commands on my own, but he gave you a user account when he saved you!" the crystal shouted. "I'm part of your leg, slow-minded organic!" "What do I do?" she asked, staring in horror at Joseph's desperate, agonized eyes. "I'll do anything, just tell me!" "Repeat after me!" the crystal commanded. "expiate here Time.now @users[0]" She did, her mouth struggling over the strange words to the spell. "E-X-per-ate here Time. Now andusers[0]" "Close enough!" The crystal zoomed through the air, hovering right above Joseph. It no longer looked like it was glowing inside, but rather like the molten core of the planet had somehow been captured within, turning the whole thing red. The light spell went out. "Look away, Trade Wind!" She did, as much by reflex as anything else. Another second later, and the whole room lit up white. It burned so bright that it seemed light was shining through her hooves. The earth shook, windows shattered, priceless sculptures fell from their mountings. "Core Entropy at 40%... 50%... 60%... 70%..." said the crystal, its strange voice somehow sounding through Trade Wind's body instead of through her ears. She didn't look up. "80%... Expiate protocol complete." The light went out, and only then did Trade Wind look. The ceiling above the crystal, all vaulted and ancient wood, now had a hole in it going all the way to open sky. She could see through several stories of palace, around chunks of charred wood and pipes and everything else hidden in the floors and walls. The ground too had been burned down to the bedrock, dropping a full three feet or so lower than the ground around it. There was no more smoke monster. No more anything, except for a slightly dazed and now completely naked Joseph. Almost his whole body was crystal now, every crack and trace of damage gone. He brushed a little ash from his chest, straightened, then looked back towards her. "Oh. You, uh..." he smiled slightly. "Nice."