//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: The Resurrectionists // by Captain_Hairball //------------------------------// Smooth Operator lay squeezed into his narrow dorm room bed next to Wild Oats’ sleeping body, staring at the drop tile ceiling. Strange thoughts were in his mind. They weren’t his thoughts. He was pretty sure they weren’t his, anyway. It felt like another pony was in his head with him. A pony who had many ideas about how the world ought to be. And they were compelling ideas. Smooth Operator had to admit that they were sketchy, even by his very limited sense of right and wrong. But maybe they were worth a try anyway. He poked Wild Oats in the butt his hoof. “Oats. Wake up.” “Buh?” said Oats. “You wanna do some crimes?” Oats rolled herself over and flopped on top of Smooth. “You can always wake me up in the middle of the night to do crimes, Smoothie.” “Okay. This one’s a little radical. But hear me out,” said Smooth. “I’m listening.” Smooth took a deep breath. “How do you feel about starting a death cult?” ✭☆✭☆✭☆✭ Skanky hadn’t asked Celestia about Eternal. Why hadn’t she done that? She thought about his smug calm as he’d revived and debriefed them. She’d felt scared and hurried and obsessed with Firmament and now she wouldn’t know something important until it was too late. It was starting to look like she might have to be a hero, like Rarity or Twilight Sparkle. If she did, the world was doomed, because Skanky Biscuits, daughter of Studly Biscuits, was not hero material. Firmament had left with Ether while they were still drinking their coffee. Skanky felt frustrated — she needed to talk to her. But she couldn’t really do it with Eternal around anyway. She’d have to corner her later. “Let me do the talking,” Skanky had hissed to Hearth, while Eternal was busy with his clipboard. “Why?” said Hearth, genuinely incensed. “Because reasons. It’s starting to look like I’m some sort of death chosen one or something. I need to take the lead on this,” said Skanky, wishing it were any other way. “If anyone were going to be a death chosen one it would be you, Skanky, “ said Heath. “I’m as surprised as anyone, really.” Hearth kissed Skanky on top of the head. “Knock him dead. No pun intended.” So she’d skipped the stuff about Firmament, and she’s skipped the crack in the… firmament? And she glossed over talking to Celestia, just saying she was incoherent. Which was true. What was left was kind of a pointless story, but as a documentary filmmaker she was wise to the tricks of deceptive editing, had made what she could out of the gore and the chase scene and hoped for the best. Eternal had remained unreadable throughout the interview. Skanky and Hearth hurried back to her apartment after they’d wrapped up. They stopped at Hearth’s on the way to get some of her things. Skanky had insisted she’d be fine on her own, but Hearth wasn’t having it. “I’m your sidekick, ‘chosen one’. Suck it up,” Hearth had said. Skanky growled. “Stop calling me chose one. We don’t know if it’s true, and it’s a stupid trope anyway.” “Nope. You said it first. Chosen one, Mistress of Death. That’s your nickname for the rest of your life,” said Hearth with a smirk. “Bitch,” grumbled Skanky. When they got to Skanky’s place, they locked all the doors and windows, broke out the beer and hard liquor, and stuffed their noses into their laptops. Skanky abused her administrative privileges as a teacher’s assistant to get a look at Firmament’s schedule, then opened up her interview videos and started scouring them for anything useful, starting with Eternal’s. She had her headphones on, so when Hearth found something, she had to thump Skanky on the shoulder to get her attention. “Look what I found!” She said, waving her laptop at Skanky. “You have a computer. Very nice.” “No, look, there’s a reporting page on the PEMA web page for potential end of world scenarios!” bubbled Hearth. “Maybe we can get through to Twilight!” “Wow,” said Skanky. “I bet that one gets pranked a lot.” “Still, we can write a letter.” “Is there a contact number?” “I can’t find one. They really ought to take this type of thing more seriously.” Hearth sighed. “What should we write?” Skanky grinned. “Start it with, ‘Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle…’” ✭☆✭☆✭☆✭ They caught Firmament coming out of her Issues in Mortality lecture, and closed in on either side of her, steering her out the doors of Final Sleep Hall and towards the Cob Busier building. “Please don’t be alarmed,” said Hearth. “We just need to talk to you.” “Um, okay,” stammered Firmament. “Are you kidnapping me?” “Only a little bit, Firmy. This is about the project. We need to talk.” “Okay. You could have just asked.” ✭☆✭☆✭☆✭ The Cob Busier building had a cafe in the basement that was open all night for architecture students pulling all-nighters. It was closed during the morning, so it was a good place to talk privately. The sat in a corner booth, letting Firmament sit on the outside edge of the table so that she could leave if she needed to. “What do I dream about?” said Firmament, leaning back away from them. “This is getting a little personal.” “We found some things in the death world that we didn’t tell Eternal about,” said Skanky. “Some things that relate to…”. “Well, we don’t want to introduce a bias, here,” said Hearth, cutting Skanky off. “But if there’s anything you can offer us?” Firmament tapped her hoof against the table. “I don’t really dream.” “Everypony dreams,” said Skanky. Firmament glared at her. “Everypony’s different, okay? Some ponies dream in color, some ponies dream in black and white, but I don’t dream at all. I’m not saying I never enter REM sleep. I’ve never been tested. But if I do, I don’t remember anything about it, okay?” Skanky slid back against the hard vinyl seat and pressed her hooves against her eyes. “So we’re at a dead end.” Hearth shrugged. “We don’t know how much of what we see in the world of the dead is real. It could all be a hallucination.” “One we both had?” sneered Skanky. Hearth raised her hooves. “Search me. Science is hard. Ponies can just say, ‘well, it was magic’, and they’re not wrong.” Firmament stared at them suspiciously. “So what did you see?” Skanky suddenly had an idea. “Firmy, have you ever undergone Eternal’s near-death procedure yourself?” “It’s not really a good idea for researchers to experiment on themselves,” said Firmament. “Scientifically or ethically.” “So you don’t know where you go when you die,” said Hearth. “So far we’ve only had two ponies go in twice — you and Skanky. Not enough data to generalize from. There’s no indication that most ponies have a predetermined destination when they die.” Firmament leaned on the table towards them. “So what are you hiding from Eternal?” Hearth and Skanky looked at each other. “Tell her?” said Hearth. “Will you tell tales to Eternal?” Skanky asked Firmament? “Eternal Enigma is a great researcher,” huffed Firmament. “I will tell him anything you tell me. And I’ll tell him you’ve been keeping data from him.” Skanky felt her chances of ever getting Firmament into her bed again withering. Undeterred, she launched into a detailed description of what Hearth and her had seen yesterday. Firmament tapped her hoof on the table edge with increasing impatience as Skanky’s story progressed. When Skanky got to the bit about wanting the moon and stars, Firmament lost it. “What? That’s it? You’re wasting my time because pretend Celestia said something similar to what I said falling asleep? I was having a hypnagogic hallucination. It’s not important.” “I thought you said you didn’t dream,” said Hearth. Firmament pushed her chair back from the table, the legs squeaking across the linoleum tile floor. “I don’t have to listen to this.” Skanky reached out a hoof, eyes desperate. “Firmy. Please. We just want to see if taking you to see Celestia…” “Pretend Celestia. I doubt it’s really her,” said Firmament, staring at Skanky’s hoof, butt halfway off her chair. Skanky nodded. “That’s fine. You can believe whatever you want. But maybe this will help us stop the gray pony.” Skanky laid her hoof on top of Firmament’s agonizingly slowly, like she was trying to catch a spider. “We can ask Eternal,” said Firmament, cautiously. “Eternal’s gonna say no, and then his ears are gonna be up,” said Heath. “Listen, I like to walk the straight and narrow, but there’s something fishy going on here, and he’s in the middle of it. Sure, this Gray Pony’s been causing trouble in the realm of the dead for a long time — decades, maybe longer than that. But there wasn’t any sign of him in the real world until now. Eternal might be a bad pony, Firmament.” “No!” Firmament snatched her hoof away from Skanky. She hopped down from the chair and galloped out of the cafe and into the hall. “Firmy!” Skanky’s voice cracked as she bolted off after her. “Skanky!” yelped Hearth. “Let her go!” Skanky ignored Hearth and followed Firmament out onto the quad. Firmament had stopped there, staring at a crowd that had gathered there while they had been talking. Smooth Operator was at the center of it, standing on a park bench. Her first thought was that Smooth had finally crossed a line and the other ponies wanted to lynch him. But no. He was talking, and they were listening. That alone was enough to chill Skanky to the marrow, but what he was saying was actually worse than what she would normally expect from Smooth. Which was saying something. “But the Gray Mother loves us. She wants to enfold us in her light. She wants us to abandon our chains and our struggles. Twilight Sparkle had led us astray with teachings of friendship, kindness, and consequences. Our own Will is paramount. It is Will that will usher in the coming of the Gray Mother!” Heath stepped up beside Skanky. “Smooth’s gone insane. Should we help him?” A mare in the crowd spoke up. “But Smooth Operator. I have so many responsibilities. So many things I have to do. How can I come to the Gray Mother like this?” Smooth smiled a smarmy smile. “But you don’t. You totally don’t. You’ve been taught to think that you do, but you don’t. Come away with us. If we worship the Gray Mother together, she’ll be here before we have to deal with any of that bullshit!” He changed the pitch of his voice, addressing the crowd as a whole. “So. Are you sick of life?” “Yeah!” shouted the crowd as one. “You wanna have some fun?” “Yeah!” “You wanna watch the world burn?” “Hell yeah!” Ponies in the crowd started leaping and waving their forehooves. “Who’s up for a ritualistic orgy in the student center?” “YEAH!!!!” Smooth pointed a hoof at a random stallion in the crowd. “You. You’re the pony sacrifice. C’mon!” The sacrificial stallion’s confused protests were drowned out by the cheering of the crown as they scooped him up and headed for the student center. “Leave it to undergrads to be easy marks for nihilism,” said Skanky. “We’d better call campus security,” said Hearth. Firmament turned around to face them. “It’s real, isn’t it?” “It is,” said Skanky. “Will you come to the lab with us? Right now?”