A gentle breeze stroked across the land, surfing the waves of grass and slithering between the hills which dotted the terrain. Celestia stood thoughtfully upon the largest of these hills, looking over the pastel green field as yellow flowers danced breezily in the wind, easily spotted against the otherwise uniform background. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes as the cooling wind ran over her face and into her ever-flowing mane. Blinking her eyes open, she exhaled just as slowly, looking out once again at the pristine landscape.
All was as should be, she noted with the slightest hint of pride. The sun stood before her at precisely the right angle above the horizon, unobstructed by any clouds as it shone warmly onto the grassland below. In fact, it was exactly as she’d pictured it when first planning this party: the weather, the wind, even the heavens themselves planned and executed to the same degree as the delegates’ seating. It wasn’t that she cared particularly much about the order of such things; it was merely a habit she’d grown practiced at over her years.
Perhaps a bit too practiced, however, she noted, recollecting that the last delegate meeting on Equestrian soil, when there had been a “mishap” with the weather schedule, was probably the most joyous one in recent memory. She remembered the warmth of the occasion as soaked—though laughing—delegates from every nation helped one another to evade the rain and shelter the food. Gryphons helping pegasi to clear the weather, zebra shamen casting a bubble of water warding across the hill, the dragon representative wondering what all the fuss was about... That was an exciting little adventure, though it seems she’d been a bit too discreet when sabotaging the party, having later to go calm an exasperated “party planner” who was already filling out her unemployment forms. Still, it all worked out well enough: the party was fun, the planner got a thrill, in any case, and Celestia had secured her new planner's adoration. Those were such simpler times. She smiled wistfully at the memory before returning to the present at hand.
Yes, everything was just as it should be. Except...it wasn’t. For the first time, the hilltop she stood upon was nothing like she’d planned, not where it mattered. Where the cheerful chattering of her little ponies should have flooded the air, conspiratorial whispering hid in isolated pockets. Instead of frolicking foals, armed guards and mercenaries stood at every station, and, worst of all, the entire party, meant to celebrate harmony and cooperation among the nations, was now a disjointed gathering of nervous glances and hateful glares as each group divided themselves into camps and alliances, all of them as nervous and steady-minded as they would have been on a battlefield.
She turned away from the sight, looking once again over the peaceful landscape, this time without any peace of mind to accompany it. She took in the harmony of the vista with an agitated jealousy, as even the train tracks seemed to blend into the background as a feature of the land. It grated at her that the peace she saw, just out of reach, before her could have been hers to lay in the hearts of her little ponies. WAS hers...
“Damn you, Vulcan,” she whispered through gritted teeth.
And then, as if summoned, it appeared. A glimmering flash hopped over the horizon, rushing forward far too quickly in a furious blaze. Already, it was halfway to the hill, leaving in its wake a blackened scar across the land that stretched to the horizon as grass shriveled away from the tracks with its passing. A hush fell over the hill as every camp and alliance now huddled just a bit closer together, facing the object as a united front with grim faces all around.
Focusing her eyes, Celestia observed the train, as she now recognized, though it was unlike any train she’d ever seen. A dark, harshly textured metal enshrouded the chassis, clashing with the stark white bones that clung to its body as rows of giant ribs, glowing inwardly with the magic that suffused them, ran along the body of the train from one end to another. Mounted at the head was an unmistakably draconic skull, its empty eye sockets glowing a hellish red as they stared imposingly out into the world. Strangest of all, however, was how the train lacked any wheels to ride upon. Instead, empty air, textured heavily with waves of heat, seemed to support the train as it howled along the track, gaining incredible speed. An occasional crackle of blue lightning connected train and track for an instant as the wind screamed past and the red eyes brightened.
Celestia could almost feel the kinetic energy of the train from where she stood as a strange, maddening howl screamed across the landscape, like the ghostly remnants of a dragon's roar. She felt her hackles rising, unable to look away from the angry glare of the mounted skull. The supernatural feeling only intensified as enormous gouts of flame burst up from the sides of the train, reaching hundreds of feet in height and flickering violently in the wind as their orange light reflected in eerie patterns across the white skull that adorned the vessel.
The train continued forward, not slowing in the slightest as it approached a sharp curve in the tracks. In fact, it was gaining speed, and Celestia was starting to grow worried.
CRACKABOOM!
A shock wave rolled across the plain, bowling over the hill in the blink of an eye and sending picnic accessories flying into the air like confetti. A cone of vapor capped the fore of the train as a slowly expanding half-circle of red-purple-green light arced over the tracks.
“Oh, come on!” Celestia heard Rainbow Dash shout from behind her among the frightened cries of the other guests.
Finally, the train hit the curve, falling off the tracks. Panicked sounds came from the party behind as the train, rather than derailing in a showy explosion, continued to ride across open ground, the grass parting before it as it tore a path straight to their hill.
Celestia stared the unreal sight for several moments, eyes flickering to attend to every detail when something glinted in her vision. A bright light shone from the roof of the train, flashing briefly before a green dot jittered across the front incline of the hill below her. With a camera flash and a high pitched whirr, Chrysalis stood suddenly before her where the dot used to be, a malicious smirk playing at her features as a stone-faced Black Fang, a grinning Artful Dodger, and a nervously glaring Pumpkin Patch stood in formation about her legs.
“Celestia,” Chrysalis greeted as if they were old friends, waving her hand to dispel the remnants of steam that still billowed about her form.
Celestia only glared down at her, quickly looking back to see the train continuing its path towards their hill. She looked on, confused, as it refused to slow.
“I suggest you brace yourself,” Chrysalis smirked, raising her arm and forming a small, translucent green bubble about herself and her group.
Celestia’s eyes widened as her horn lit up, forming a bubble to engulf the top of hill, making sure to leave Chrysalis on the outside. A blue energy moved to strengthen and support her own with a reassuring warmth.
The train, a flaming, howling monstrosity, bore down upon the hill as the shield finished forming, taking just that moment to explode…
Celestia heard the muffled roar of noise as the growing fireball engulfed the grassland beyond. Even from this distance, the golden-pink bubble surrounding them rippled violently from the force.
A dark blur launched forward in a shallow arc from the fiery border of the explosion, crashing down on the bare edge of her barrier and sending tufts of dirt and grass flying high into the air to patter down onto the shield. The rising dust after a moment, settled, revealing, in the smoke-filled crater, Darth Vulcan.
Darth Vulcan knelt in the center of the crater with a predatory crouch, barely an inch away from the shield, silent. A dark mist billowed about and obscured his form, leaving only the red glow of his helmet lenses visible as they stared out into the world, cold judgement were behind them. Celestia’s nose almost wrinkled as a strange hint of something wafted into the air. Soon, she recognized the source as, surrounding Vulcan, the tendrils of darkness licked out into the world like a flame, killing plants with the slightest caress and touch of their flickering forms.
Vulcan scarcely made a move, staying in the crater as the malevolent cloud continued to hover about his form. With a hunter’s patience, he stayed, frozen in that position for what felt like ages as Celestia felt a sense of unease about the whole situation. She heard the brandishing of weapons and retreating steps behind her as she stared down at him, her anger stoked by his continual silence until, finally, she spoke.
“I hope you did not come all this way to stare, Vulcan,” Celestia said.
Darth Vulcan responded after a time, his voice discordant and hollow as it spoke past his helmet, despite the basso undercurrent which underlined it.
“I hope you did not expect…” he paused a moment “…this”—his hand poked beyond the cloud to gesture at the hilltop—“to do anything more than insult me. Really, I was hoping you’d learned something when you first invited me.”
“Your presence here is not supported by myself or Equestria in any manner, creature,” Celestia said in something close to a sneer. “And if a meeting of cooperation, friendship and harmony, ‘insults you’, let me be the first to say I am not surprised.”
“No,” he growled in a metallic voice, pausing once more as if that one word held the truth of the world. “Harmony...cooperation...the only things that disgust me about that, about this entire world you’ve constructed around yourself, Celestia, is how blind you are to how false it is.”
“There is nothing false about the power of friendship, villain,” Celestia replied in a controlled voice.
“I wasn’t talking about ‘friendship’ or ‘harmony’, Celestia. I was talking about your delusion that you’ve been championing it.”
“Why are you here?” Celestia asked, ignoring the accusations as she had with many hecklers in her early life.
“To save this world,” he growled out simply.
“Like you saved Hilltop and Cirrus?” Celestia asked, blithe.
“Yes,” he said, a sudden ferocity to his form. He stood up in the crater after a momentary pause. Celestia felt the entire party behind her take a collective step back. “Like I saved the world from Sombra at the Tree of Harmony—” he lifted a foot out of the crater, stepping onto the blackened and dead grass that surrounded it “—and I saved the world from Tirek in my own lair—” he stepped fully out of the crater “—I’ll save the world from you, Celestia. That’s a promise.”
He stood on the hill, fully visible now as the dark spell dissipated in the wind, seeming to large for life as he, with his very presence, seemed to defy everything about the world: a darkness which stood where others had fallen to the light.
Celestia kept an impassive glare pointed at the creature and lowered the shield; soon after, she discreetly prepared a defensive spell, a new habit of hers. The blue energy followed suit after a hesitant moment and the armored figure stomped forward, his gaze somehow all encompassing and focused at the same time as a growing grass fire spread across the formerly peaceful terrain behind him and the bits of dragon bone and steel shrapnel which littered the landscape around slowly dissolved away, becoming a black mist in the wind.
Have you ever thought of what it would be like to drive a locomotive? You know, put on your stripey conductor’s hat, sit on your dad’s shoulder, and move the train along the track?
If you were born any time after the 1955 I’m gonna guess the number of times that thought has crossed your mind wasn’t accepted as a number until the middle ages.
But, take it from someone sitting in the pilot’s seat of a supersonic, magic train, it’s the biggest, howlingest, most intense flat roller coaster ride you’ll ever get. The exhilarating speed, the straining engine, the howling wind; the indomitable momentum as we sat on a hundred tons of impossibly fast metal was addicting…is what I would be saying if I weren’t the engine.
As it was, I was barely keeping my guts as I sat in a violently shaking, overheated, sealed, metal compartment at the front of the train, constantly fiddling with the control panel in front of me and directing the energies that pumped into the room, trying to shunt them out as quickly as possible before the cooling spells on my armor fully shorted out. I wiped the sweat from my eyes every five seconds, attempting, badly, I might add, to balance the amount of my magic that went to keeping the train from crashing and keeping me alive... I was starting to regret rushing the completion of this project just to make a scene at the delegate conference. The Alicorn Amulet was warming greatly with every passing second, projecting it’s impression onto my skin as I pushed its limits.
“Stupid piece of shit engine, with its stupid piece of shit cooling system,” I muttered to myself as I accelerated the train and felt myself pressed back into the driver’s couch. Yes, couch—at least one thing had to go right with this thing. I continued to speed up as the screen ahead showed the hilltop party poke over the horizon. At the sight, I directed more and more energy into the train, fully in a “let’s-just-get-this-over-with” mood.
Huffing in exhaustion, I zoomed in to see Celestia gawking—yes, gawking—at the sight of the train. I genuinely smiled at the sight. Guess she did have settings other than “Hold me, Jack!”.
You know, considering everything, this trip might actually have been worth it.
CRRRREEAAKKK
I admit, I might have pushed the thing a bit hard in my rush. Because, do you remember that broken cooling system? It just got a little bit more broken.
BOOOFFFFFF
With a burst of air, steam flooded into the inside of the train as an annoying howl rung about, resonating within the drivers room and again inside my helmet as I got to enjoy the full IMAX experience of Nails On a Chalkboard. I grit my teeth, not wasting the energy on maintaining a sound proofing spell as I sped the train forward, consoling myself with the fact that this would all be over soon.
“Vulcan! The stupid steam pipe is broken!” Chrysalis yelled through the metal wall behind me as I continued to ignore her.
“Huhh,” I sighed; I really needed to get better help. I relaxed back into my couch and felt the stress from the past couple of hours begin to melt away. We were almost at our destination, not like anything else was likely to go wrong on this train ride from hell.
WFOOOOOOOO!
A roar of sound blasted against the metal wall behind me, the heat containment enchantments glowing even brighter and filling the cab with a ghostly, blue light as it did so.
“VULCAN! The stupid thing is on fire again!” I heard Chrysalis’s shrill voice yell from the other side of the wall as the ponies rushed to combat the fire.
“Deal with it!” I roared back in annoyance, leaning forward again as I tried to keep this train wreck on the rails.
Increasingly, I felt the train shake and rattle every which way as the distinct roar of a sonic boom sounded outside.
Bracing myself for the increase in heat, I sparked my magic and flicked a switch, lighting the console as the train barreled over the sharply curving track and began running over open land. It made a pretty imposing picture, if I do say so myself. Hell, take an aerial shot of this thing transitioning over to “all terrain” mode with its glowing dragon skull, and it was fit to go on any heavy metal album. As cool as it looked, however, it was highly impractical. Dirt ground was a lot harder to magnetize than steel rails, obviously, so this six mile trek over flat ground would take as much energy as the last thousand miles over rail, making this the least efficient train service since Amtrak. Thankfully, we’d stored up a special fuel for this very leg of the trip, having done tests that showed this train going three times the distance we’d have to travel...or so I thought.
I looked down in shock, sweat dripping off my nose as the cab continued to heat up and the leather adorning the control panel began to warp and discolor in real time. I wasn’t paying attention to that, however; my heart was too busy wrenching itself down my throat as I stared at the fuel gauge.
Flipping my helmet down and slamming the comm button, I looked up to see a pair of tired ponies projected onto the screen ahead.
“FLIM, FLAM! Why are we running out of fuel this soon?” I ordered in something of a half growl as I let my visor shine a dangerous red.
“Ah, yes, from what we’ve observed, you’ve been expending fuel at a slightly accelerated rate since you crossed the Badlands, Your Ghastliness,” one of them replied.
“Possibly due to the lower iron content in the soil, I would gather. It seems the effect has intensified once you left the rail.”
“Magnetism is a tricky subject, my lord, and we hadn’t conducted enough tests to-”
“Are you telling me this AFTER I spent three hours replacing the busted engine?” I seethed.
“T-to be fair, your lordship, you gave specific instructions that you were not to be disturbed,” one of them said, holding his front hooves up in a calming gesture that never failed to enrage me.
“And, it’s not a complete loss; you still have enough power to make it over the stretch of untracked land to the meeting site,” the one I’d been deciding to call Flim in my head consoled.
“It’s just that the train won’t have the fuel to make it BACK to the tracks afterwards,” Flam delivered sheepishly.
“If you can just manage to tow it back to the tracks, however,” Flim continued.
“Your own power should suffice to bring it back to base,” Flam finished with a smile.
“Though, at a greatly reduced speed,” the other interjected.
I closed my eyes and sighed privately inside my helmet, unable to hear myself with the incessant screech of the cooling system as the heat inside of the cab began to actually hurt.
“Your lordship...?” Flim asked softly.
“Prepare the assembly line,” I ordered, cutting off the commlink. “Everybody out!” I yelled, turning to bang at the metal wall behind me as I activated the Inertial Teleportation Device, aiming it at the hill ahead. A “fuck off” alarm blared, barely heard over the cooling system. At the same time, multicolored lights flashed dimly through the atmosphere of noise and steam as the teleportation device readied and people were kindly advised to get into the device chamber, into a safe zone, or start editing their wills.
There was a ruckus of yelling and struggling behind me as everyone rushed to position. I slammed the activation key in as soon as the light indicating that everyone was in place lit up with an accompanying "ding!". After looking at the screen to ensure that everyone made it out, I looked back down at the control panel and I began the self-destruct procedure.
Yeah...
Do you remember that guy in your highschool that would start a fight if someone made fun of his truck? Or that cheerleader who cried if someone wore a matching dress to prom? They’d fallen victim to an old human trait that screamed “I can’t show weakness! I can’t be lame! I’ll LITERALLY die if I don’t have friends.” Yeah, I call it the popularity trait. It used to be important in the olden times, back before forensic science and court systems that heavily relied on evidence, back when that “LITERALLY” in the previous sentence meant “literally.”
Now, what does this have to do with me?
Basically, being an Evil Warlock takes you back to those good old days. Except now, you also have the popularity of a rattlesnake, you’re meeting up with people that hate your guts like you’re at a highschool reunion, and you’re also somewhat of a public figure, with enough gossip trash printed about you to deforest the Amazon. Essentially, you’re a politician with a bit more magic and a lot less evil.
Now, then. The secret to being a Good Evil Warlock was using that last bit to your advantage. Win battles in the spotlight, minimize losses, and NEVER SHOW WEAKNESS. Do those and you build an aura of invincibility; the most ruthless people, who would otherwise never hesitate to attack, suddenly pull a Ned Flanders routine at the sight of you. Thwart enough attacks, and your enemies become too frozen to move, convinced that anything they do would be futile. Capture enough spies and traitors, and the most duplicitous individuals won’t even say your name without looking over their shoulders. Bring home enough bacon, and you become a guaranteed way of life for your minions, a retirement plan that has them sticking with you during the harshest of times.
Of course, it goes without saying that if you mess up, things go very, very bad. The first time you’re seen dragging your broken-down train to the tracks like you’re in an uninspired plot for a comedy, you’re a powerless fool in every newspaper, just begging to get mugged in whatever hidey hole you’re set up in. The first time the hard and criminal, people you deal with on a regular basis, see your sorry ass hauling your locomotive back to the tracks on a beanie like you’re a hobo begging on the street side for spare magic, they panic and start looking for alternatives to whatever it is that you’re providing. The first time your minions hear the story about how your brilliant train design, one which you’d rushed to completion just to show it off at a party, failed spectacularly at the very party you rushed to meet, they might start questioning the guy who made the plans their very lives depended upon.
With a weary sigh, I moved my (suddenly very heavy) arm and pulled the lever which stuck out of the control panel, activating the dark matter into its non offensive configuration around the bomb. No, not the kind you’re thinking of; the Dark Matter here was an alchemical concoction I’d discovered while fiddling around in the lab. It had taken me a while to get a handle of its properties because this stuff destroyed everything, completely. A single drop would turn dragon bone and metal into smoke, drifting away in the wind, which of course was great when you wanted to leave nothing behind, so it made sense to integrate it into the self-destruct mechanism. The thing about a material that could destroy everything, however, was that it was a bitch and a half to contain. One of the containment units failed somewhat at the beginning of the journey and we’d been leaking enough of that stuff off the sides to give the EPA a heart attack.
I finished arming the Dark Matter and looked down at the glowing, ruby red, fist sized button labelled “Self Destruct.” I looked ahead and saw them making a bubble shield to cover the hill. I had a bit of time to make sure I wanted to do this, which begged the question: did I really want to do this? Did I really want to destroy this planet’s most advanced train, which I’d spent an age and a fortune building, just to keep from losing the awe of a world of preschoolers: ones who’d be clamoring, wide eyed, at the next scandal or shiny thing within an hour of my controversy hitting the grocery store magazine shelves? Really, if I could engineer some other controversy—I don’t know, make a rouge rainstorm or say a bad word or whatever—I was sure I could walk away from this with minimal loss of face and one train richer.
Then, a flash of humiliation ran through my mind as I thought about dragging my train back to the tracks like some suburban loser struggling to push his hobbling, overpacked shopping cart to his mercury tracer as the cheerleaders giggled at him from the back of the sports bus.
I shuddered as a hot chill ran over my sweat-slicked skin, thinking over how that rainbow haired one would be there to witness the event just after I’d outdone her gay (heh...get it?) party trick.
I looked intensely at the red button once more. “Nah, fuck it,” I said, skipping over the red button, unlatching a button case on the underside of the control panel, and flicking the penny sized switch hidden there before I could change my mind.
The internal warning system inside my helmet rung aloud and the self-destruct countdown clock lit up on the screen in bright, red numbers.
The clock started counting down from two minutes, meaning I had exactly five seconds before this thing blew.
I reflexively jumped out of my couch, ripping open the emergency hatch with my ethereal hands before leaping onto the roof, just in time.
BOOOOOOOM!
My legs went jello; the piece of metal I’d been standing on blasted off like it’d been capped onto the barrel of a gun. I sent out my pegasus magic, finally learned how to use that, and curved my trajectory through the air. Tumbling my body about, I shot out of the growing fireball like a bat out of hell, slamming, feet first, into the hill ahead and skidding to a stop, an inch short of playing "pelican" to the bubble shield's "window".
I knelt in the crater, the self destruct warning still blaring silently in my helmet as I screamed internally at the loss, feeling the fires burning in my metaphorical horde. Five seconds and I was already regretting destroying that piece of shit. The dust began to settle around me, revealing a displeased-looking Celestia on the other side of the shield just as I activated Death’s Bane, a smoky, slow moving, slow acting, and very easily spotted necromancer’s spell that sapped the life from whatever it came into contact with; furthermore, it also had the unintended side effect of intensifying the smell of whatever you’d killed. It was not a popular spell, as you can imagine, but it was useful for my purposes because here, I was only killing grass, so, essentially, I’d come out smelling like something in between a mowed lawn and a Christmas tree car air freshener—not ideal, but I’d spent the past couple of hours sweating like a pig into my insulated suit and, right now, “The Smell of Death™” was a more appealing option than “smelly-kid-in-class”.
The smoke from the spell also helped to hide the bright streams of magic the amulet was sending to my legs to get the feeling back into them. For now, I knelt down in the crater, giving the gathering ahead the full “Evil Overlord Glare” treatment while focusing on keeping myself steady and generally trying not to look like a five-year-old girl could kick my ass with a folding, plastic doll-house to the back of the head.
It certainly seemed to have the intended effect. Every delegation huddled just a bit closer together at the sight of me. Gryphonic knights hefted up halberds threateningly as they moved to stand in front of their lords, zebra shamen hid behind their mercenaries, and the ring of blades filled the air as every other delegation, armed to the teeth, moved to point some weapon or other on my position. Hell, I think I saw a cannon in there, somewhere. Really, I was flattered.
So, I crouched low in the crater, gathering strength. And I kept crouching, and crouching, and crouching and crouching and crouching. Thing was, my legs weren’t getting back into the game fast enough, and I couldn’t afford to get up until I was sure I wouldn’t so much as stumble out there.
Man, this was gonna get awkward soon. I wracked my brain for ways to stall and avoid looking like that guy jacking off into his trench coat in the corner of the room when Celestia, the b!@#$, graciously provided an opportunity for small talk.
“I hope you did not come all this way to stare, Vulcan,” Celestia said, looking stupid, and dumb, as always.
“I hope you did not expect…” I froze. Oh God, I had to think of something, especially since I started by copying the first part of her sentence like I had a witty comeback!
“…this,” I floundered, gesturing to the party behind her, just thankful that I was able to get a direct object into my statement.
“to do anything more than insult me. Really, I was hoping you’d learned something by now when you first invited me.” I finished, hoping that it sounded as mysterious as it did in my head. Not my best work; vague enough to be useful, though.
“Your presence here is not supported by myself or Equestria in any manner, creature. And if a meeting of cooperation, friendship and harmony, ‘insults you’, let me be the first to say I am not surprised,” Celestia said, somehow looking even dumber with that dollar store majesty her waving hair bought her.
Huhhh...
Ok, I admit it, she was just better at this banter thing. I’m no slouch myself, of course, but Celestia had spent the past thousand years dealing with a carousel of idiots rotating in and out of her courtroom, perfect fodder for practicing this kind of stuff.
“No,” I growled out, kicking myself for stooping to kindergarten level comebacks like that. Thankfully, the Gargoyles–Darth Vader mashup the amulet made my voice into could make anything sound badass. I could still salvage this.
“Harmony...cooperation...the only thing that disgusts me about that, about this entire world you’ve created, Celestia, is how blind you are to how false it is.” Seriously, how was it that, just yesterday, I was coming up with the instant comebacks like they were TV dinners, when the only witnesses were my minions: who all fell on the range of “not bright enough to get it,” and “too cool to laugh”; yet now, when it actually counted, I was throwing out lines an amature author would jot down for a first draft!
“There is nothing false about the power of friendship, villain,” Celestia said as I struggled not to snort. Man, that never failed to sound lame.
“I wasn’t talking about ‘friendship’ or ‘harmony’, Celestia. I was talking about your delusion that you’ve been championing it.” There, now we were getting someplace.
“Then why are you here?” Celestia said.
I desperately grasped for a quick answer.
“To save this world,” I said without really thinking. Though, the sudden attention that gathered from the audience ahead was nice. Whatever, I’ll roll with it.
“Like you saved Hilltop and Cirrus?” Celestia said with a smug expression and I felt rage boil up inside of me at the mention of that. ‘Did she still not get it, was she really that stupid?’ I thought, building fury for the first time since we’d started this conversation, and getting madder at the thought of it all.
Oooooohhhh, I could feel an epic speech coming on.
“Yes,” I said, standing up to test my legs. Everyone else took a step back. I was such a badass.
“Like I saved the world from Sombra at the Tree of Harmony—” I said, stepping a foot out of the crater “—and I saved the world from Tirek in my own lair—” I stepped fully out of the crater now “—I’ll save the world from you, Celestia. That’s a promise.”
Ok, even I felt a bit of a shiver at that conclusion. I mentally pat myself on the back for that high note as I entered the amulet’s interface and checked off the “Throw into question who is actually the bad guy” achievement I’d created. All I’d have to do now was give the whole “We’re not so different, you and I” spiel to one of the elements or royals and I’d have the Evil Overlord Speech trinity unlocked.
Hey, If I was here, might as well have some fun.
I smiled, feeling the heat of the growing grass-fire grew behind me.
Celestia decided to ignore me, lowering the shield as Cadence, who looked ready to throw down, followed soon after.
I stepped forward, looking about. 'Come on, walk it off walk it off,’ I thought with gritted teeth as all the knots and stiffness in my lower body were forcibly undone with movement and magic, and deep cracks traveled up my body with every step.
Taking careful note of where everyone was, I felt Chrysalis and company step behind me as I crossed onto the top of the hill, watching everyone pretend to get back to partying while keeping a very close eye on me. The thestral guard from Equestria, in particular, had unpleasant looks directed at Pumpkin Patch, which she threw back in equal measure. Cadence was following me, not even attempting to be discreet as she waltzed on the other other side of the hill with her horn always pointed in my general direction. Hell, she didn’t even look away when there were other people in between us—guess she really was serious this time.
From what I’d read, this was more of an “informal” party, and it showed. Filtering through the conversation with a fly-on-the-wall spell as the amulet's power returned, I discovered that...it was about what I expected. Delegates met with each other and invaded each other's personal space as they played cutesy party games and chattered about friendship and junk.
No one was inviting me to hackeysac.
Not that I minded; I was only really here to rub it in Celestia’s horsey face. And, would you look at that, here she came.
Celestia, chose a more direct route than her niece, flapping her wings once and gliding across the hill before coming to a graceful stop in front of me.
“Leave us,” I said, and the rest of the group scattered to different parts of the hill. Maybe they’d be able to find out something interesting, who knows? Though, I was more interested in the excuse Celestia gave me to stop walking—my legs were still cramped and trembling after that three hour nightmare followed by an explosion. Turned out I wouldn't be walking it off.
With a rumble, I raised a stone and dirt patch out of the ground, compressing it into a makeshift throne that I soon slumped into.
“Why are you here, Vulcan?” she asked. The rest of the party formed an empty section around us as everyone suddenly discovered that a straight line actually wasn't the shortest path between two points.
“Oh, are we on a last name basis already?” I quipped.
“It’s obvious you’d rather be anywhere else, and you have nothing to gain from participating,” Celestia barreled on, all business.
“Because I can be here, because you didn’t want me to come, because I wanted to check up on how you were doing. S’thaat good enough for you?” I said trying to look bored and totally not-about-to-pass-out as I rested my head on a palm and leaned heavily over to one side of the throne. Yeah, I was gonna need an excuse to stay in this chair forever.
My free hand glowed as I held it out, palm up, before raising it up to face level. At the same time, a square block of stone rose from the ground between us with a rumble. A checkerboard pattern carved onto its top surface, the block stood between us as stone chess pieces sat facing each other on opposite sides of the board.
“Care for a game?” I asked, moving a center pawn two pieces forward.
“If that will grant you the ability to answer simple questions,” Celestia said, countering with her own pawn as she sat, sejant.
“I’m answering your questions—” I moved another pawn "—you need only to ask better ones.”
“Very well, I’ll ask more directly,” she said moving her head to look up at me. “How did you come into possession of your own nation?”
I smirked through my mask. “Ding ding ding!" I said, "Now you’re asking the right questions.”