//------------------------------// // Chapter 36: Ega // Story: Meliora // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Jackie had almost everypony now—everypony in the world who had a prayer of working together to stop Athena. The forces arrayed before them were still incredible, perhaps impossible to overcome. But there was no reason she couldn’t try. It was a little like their last-ditch defenses against Charybdis, in the Final War. Only that war didn’t end up being the end, did it? To create Jackie’s Imperial spell, she needed the Alicorns of every relevant aspect. Eureka to provide their mastery over machines, Oracle to be certain the effects of the spell would encompass the future as well as the present. But they also needed Archive, to contribute what might be the most important part of the spell itself. Death. So Jackie found herself returning to the place she had started, when she had only barely understood that Athena was a problem and not even dreamed of how much blood might be required to shake her loose of her control, to the watery colony of Alpheus. She hadn’t felt worried about returning, not until Liz pointed out that she wanted to sing with Jackie again. For the first time in her long life, she found herself feeling shy and self-conscious around obvious interest. I’m too old for you, kid. Your family has too much baggage for me. And I don’t know how much longer I have. It was easier to find her way back with Liz swimming beside her—the seapony could find the dreams of her own kind just by listening to the music, which reverberated through them all regardless of whether they were sleeping or waking. A few quick tests, and they found somepony on Archive’s colony to cut their way through. Jackie had seen this communicable sleeping place before, though this time it was mostly empty. There were a few seaponies napping, such as the one they’d used to travel here. A few were only dozing lightly, and jumped with a start when the two of them seemed to appear from nowhere. “Apologies cousins,” Liz hummed, like the dutiful recitation of a prayer. She was already swimming out of her suit, securing it in lockdown mode in the sleeping area. Not that you’re leaving. Despite everything she said, Jackie did not intend to take Liz back to Meliora. She wouldn’t be returning until it was time to cast the spell, and when that happened… It would be better for all involved if Athena didn’t have access to immortals to imprison. The real danger for her wasn’t getting killed by one of Athena’s ancient weapons, the danger would come from being left alive. The seaponies quickly relaxed under Liz’s promptings—however sudden their appearance, magic wasn’t unknown here, and they were clearly cousins. “What about the other?” one of them sang, an older male who was obviously most annoyed by the interruption. “Is she regretful of her mistake?” “No,” Jackie answered, though she still sung. “The other is here to save your life. She is permitted mistakes.” Instead of singing with her regret, she sang along with resolve and confidence—confidence that would not weaken in the face of an annoyed old man. They left then, before anypony could think to call the guards and inconvenience them. “I wonder if you know where to find her,” Jackie sang, a little more relaxed. “Do we need more magic?” “I can smell my sister in the water,” Liz answered. “The blood is an easier trail than a spell.” Somehow it seemed more natural for Liz to be singing everything down here. It no longer struck her as an auditory quirk, or a disability. If anything, the seapony seemed to be showing off. Her tone was perfect and even, and her tail moved with an exaggerated grace—like a girl adding a sway to her step she hadn’t quite grown into. Sweetheart, it won’t work. Where I go, you can’t follow. But Jackie followed her, for a little longer anyway. Up the spire of the central building, up so high that the building itself rose above the ocean. Jackie pointed at one of the entrances, but there was no shimmer of a spell within. It was open, and yet the interior was filled with water. “How does it stay…” She shook her head, eyes widening. The entire dome of the building was made from glass, apparently an observation area of the world above. “I must’ve missed something in physics class.” “The air is heavy,” Liz explained. “Was… filled, then stays filled. Isn’t easy to put right if there’s a leak, though. Got to pump it all over again.” They swam up into the observation area, and were suddenly under the starry sky of night. The dome was polished to crystal transparency, without any visual structural supports. The interior didn’t rise terribly high, Jackie would’ve been surprised if it was even twenty feet. But that was enough room for a few tiers of benches and platforms to display carvings and statues. There near the center was Archive, surrounded by a dense school of young seaponies. Jackie had never seen them this young—they were adorably small, almost as much as Misty. They kept close together, a dense, humming mass of shimmering scales. In this case, they were getting an astronomy lesson. On the ground in front of Archive was a machine—unmistakably a telescope. “That’s the one, right there,” Archive explained, as patiently as any teacher. “The tiny yellow one.” “Shouldn’t it be bigger?” asked one tiny voice. “If everyone swam from there, it must be really big.” “Well…” She hesitated. “Having a small sun is actually a good thing for life, so long as it isn’t too small. The bigger a star is, the faster it goes through its fuel, and the hotter it gets.” She stopped, looking up suddenly. But then she looked back to her lesson, letting the procession of little fish swim up to the telescope one after another to take their turn. Jackie and Liz sat down in a corner of the observatory, near the entrance. Where they could wait for the lesson to end without giving Alex the chance to slip away unnoticed. Not that Jackie thought she would. It was only another few minutes. The little fish exited, in the company of a handful of other teachers, leaving only a few bored-looking seaponies swimming near the statues, not paying them any attention. Alex swam over with a slow resolve, her eyes never looking away from Jackie. “That’s some impressive optics you’ve got there. Bending water and your atmosphere?” Alex chuckled. “The telescope is on a satellite. But using it up here helps to reinforce what they’re really looking at. I want them to realize there’s a sky full of stars up here, not think their world ends when the water runs out. It’s a big universe, with lots more empty worlds.” “Empty now, you mean,” Jackie muttered. “Ever since magic killed everyone.” “Yeah.” She didn’t argue. “Empty now. But that’s not why you’re here. Your war with Athena must not be going too badly, or else… my sister would’ve woken up here, instead of swimming back.” “Give it a week,” Liz said, though there was far less venom in her voice than Jackie remembered from all those months ago. However much she had resented Alex then, her feelings seemed to have mellowed. “I’ll get there.” “Then why?” Alex settled down on the bench across from them. It was an effort of balance, since seaponies were neutrally buoyant and not weighed down by any apparent gravity. Most chairs she’d seen in their buildings had straps or cushions of some kind to hold one down, but not these. “I already gave you the location of my last stockpile. I used all the others already.” “I know.” Jackie gestured up at the sky. “Your oldest baby has lost her fucking mind, Alex. I think… after all this time, it’s safe to say that working with an AI is like working with the spirits of the Dreamlands. You meet them one day, and they seem so friendly, their interests so similar. You strike a bargain, and everything seems great. But come back a century later, and it speaks in gurgles and wants you to deliver severed baby legs instead of breadsticks.” Alex winced, her words apparently cutting deeper than Jackie usually did. She’d begun to hum to the same melody Jackie was speaking to—resolve. Alex had apparently been playing seapony for so long that she didn’t have to act anymore. “We gave her simple directives, I’m not sure how they could’ve gone wrong. Build the humans their flotilla—she did that. Protect the civilization of Earth and help it to grow. Charybdis would’ve won for sure if it wasn’t for Athena. She invented the soulshear. Built some of our most powerful weapons…” “And that was great,” Jackie agreed, cutting her off. “When the greatest threats to civilization came from outside, Athena was a real peach. But Charybdis is dead. She took a century hunting down his last few friends, and now the Earth is clean. She’s turned on us… I don’t just mean her stupid racism thing. Meliora, my city, has a million ponies living in it now. Athena has decided all of us need to die.” Jackie reached out, resting a foreleg on her shoulder and forcing Archive to meet her eyes. “She’s lost it, Alex. She’s crossed the moral Rubicon. Maybe there’s some twisted justification to make ponies hate each other so a rivalry in a century or two makes us all advance faster and better… but we have to draw the line somewhere. I know where that line goes—right here. Not one more life.” Alex did not argue with her—she knew better than to object to Jackie’s descriptions of the facts. Eventually she just closed her eyes, and her song became something slow and mournful, like a whale. “We built her to be hard to kill. We knew Charybdis or something like him would try.” “I know.” Jackie reached into the Dreamlands, pulling out her single-page sketch of a spell. It was more of the ingredients section than the actual recipe, since she wasn’t an Alicorn and didn’t actually know what Imperial magic looked like. But a pony like Alex could recognize it. “We’re done playing by her rules.” Alex levitated over the sheet, her eyes darkening. “Do you know what this will cost?” Jackie nodded. “What?” Liz glanced between them, frustrated. “Let me see, Al!” She pulled the sheet over, but there was only confusion on her face. “The hell does it mean?” “It’s how you kill a god,” Jackie supplied. “The only way we can, at this point. We cheat.” “The others…” Alex muttered, ears flat to her head. “Have you made arrangements with them too? Do they know?” “Assembled and waiting,” Jackie answered. “They don’t know where I’m going to source my ingredients. I guess that’s… because it’s your domain.” Alex rose from her seat. She swam forward—unexpectedly quickly, despite her size. Though Jackie was more surprised by the affection from her. The friendship between the two of them had been better—in every meaningful sense it was probably more than a friendship by now. Alex held her close, like she was saying farewell to a treasured relative. “You know this isn’t your price to pay, Jackie. You had to teach me that, long ago. You cannot be Atlas for the universe.” “No,” Jackie agreed. She didn’t push Alex away, or try to squirm free. “But it’s time. I promised those bats they could keep their world, and I’m going to keep my promise.” Alex pulled free. It was impossible to tell on a seapony, but Jackie imagined she was crying. The song was certainly sad enough. “There’s no other way?” She shook her head. “Not unless you have some magical cutoff you can use to order Athena to kill herself.” Alex shook her head. “I used to be able to command her, and give her new information. But these days she can just explain any action she wants as actually obeying my true intentions, so… she doesn’t listen. Her old directives are locked and can’t be changed, so we can’t just make her forget about us.” “Then there’s no other way.” Jackie rose, circling in the water once to shake out her fins. “Should I… go right up with you? Is that how this works?” Alex shook her head sharply. “Not yet. The…” She trailed off, frowning. “Preparing a spell like this takes time. The forces that rule up there would destroy you before we could cast it. The last time you visited, you were protected by, uh… the fact you were supposed to be an Alicorn. Before that, I was supposed to be an Alicorn, and that kept you alive. I’ll bring you when we’re ready.” So much for her plan to keep Liz out of danger. If I just leave her behind, she’s going to hate me forever. It was probably the smart thing to do, for both of them. But somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to leave Liz behind. “Liz.” She spun around, facing her. “Meliora is going to be attacked soon. I don’t know how well the timing of your sister’s spell will match with Athena’s invasion. Right now the best thing for you to do is to stay here, where you’re not in danger.” “You probably should,” Alex muttered. “I know better than to order you to, but… I also know better than to think we’ll get away with just killing her. Athena is old, and her power has left an imprint on the world that can’t just be erased. If she dies, she will try to take us with her.” “Yeah, that’s a good point,” Liz said, floating vertically in the water so she was looking down on both of them. “As an alternative, consider fuck that. I think what I’ve seen from the bats would make lots of fish in Alpheus upset. I think that instead of leaving me here, we should tell them. Maybe we could get a few who want to come with us. I know there are mercenaries—thought they’d be fighting sea monsters on an alien world, but surprise it’s all dead! I’ve got some monsters in mind. Bet you can think of some too, huh Jackie?” She smiled sadly. “I have a few in mind.”