//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: All My Failures // by gmoyes //------------------------------// Tempest felt sick as she stared at her hooves, still picturing the blood of a newfound... friend on them. Still feeling the dragonfire burning through her body. Still experiencing the pride she felt when she won. “Did I really… Applejack? Why did I…” “You got lost in your memory,” Oracle replied looking calmly at her. Tempest shuddered as thoughts of Princess Twilight’s friends surfaced. “I didn’t even recognize any of them, I didn’t care if I hurt or… tortured them.” She slowly shook her head in the shock. “I thought I had changed.”   The older mare nodded. “You have. As I said, you got lost in the memory.” She gave a faint smile and continued, almost to herself, “Those who continue to dwell on old memories have a hard time moving on from them.” Tempest snarled at Oracle. “What is that supposed to mean, you old hag?!” Oracle gave a sharp glare in response. “Calm down and I’ll explain. And do mind your manners, I think I’ve well established that this ‘old hag’ has more power than it seems. I am doing this to help you.” “Fine,” Tempest said with a roll of her eyes. She took a breath and picked up her tea cup to take a sip. It tasted more bitter than the last cup. “Okay then,” Oracle started. “Let me put it this way. When you dream, are you typically aware that you are in a dream or do you not question it and go along with it?” Tempest frowned as she put her cup back down. “I try not to think about my dreams.” There were too many nightmares and broken dreams. “Then you probably aren’t a lucid dreamer. Which is a good thing in this case.” “How so?” Tempest asked, curious. She never heard much about the meanings of dreams besides a few old fairy tales. “My ability to relive memories is much like how dreams work. If you were aware that it was just a memory, it would defeat the purpose. To understand the consequences of the changes that I’m making, it’s best that you stay in the same frame of mind that you were in at that moment.” She gave a bit of a frown. “I was worried at the beginning when it looked like you were just going through the motions, but once the fighting started you really got into it.” Tempest raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t that mean that now that you’ve told me about it, that I might come to my senses next time?” “Oh no,” Oracle responded with a wave of her hoof and a smile. “It take a lot of dedicated time, months even, to notice the tells that show that you are in a dream and even more so for you not wake up when you realize it.” “This all seems rather complicated.” The older mare gave a shrug. “Perhaps, but this isn’t meant to be easy. It is hard to look back on one’s own life and think about what went wrong. To confront our past and wish things could have gone a different way.” The mare got a distant look in her eyes, as if speaking from experience. Both ponies sat in silence for a moment to think, each taking the time to take a sip of their tea. All that happened in the warped memory was a bit overwhelming to Tempest. “Is that really what would have happened if I got Princess Twilight there in Canterlot? I beat Applejack half to death, get to savour my victory for a minute and then get torched by Spike?” Oracle nodded. “It’s hard to guess the specific motivations of Twilight’s friends and whether or not they would contribute to the fight, but I chose the most likely to happen. With some help from your soldiers, you would have won regardless. As for Spike, he just singed your hair a bit and sent you to the other end of the plaza, to Celestia’s hooves.” Tempest breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought the fire would turn me to ash. Though if it didn’t, why stop the memory there?” “A few reasons really,” the older mare responded. “We have limited time together and while time in the mind doesn’t flow quite the same, it would take too long for the memories to play out and skipping ahead would be disruptive. There is also the matter that the longer a memory goes on, the harder it gets to predict. I’m trying to piece together things from your memory, reports that I’ve read and other sources. There are too many variables to predict long term, besides in broad strokes.” “You’ve seen all of my memories?” Tempest asked with grimace, thinking back to some lonely and not-so-lonely nights she’s had. About other mistakes she’s made, other crimes she had committed. “Just your most important ones, your privacy will be respected.” She held a hoof to her heart. “I swear it on the Sun and Moon that nothing shall leave this space.” Tempest sighed. “You may have wanted to be more up front about that.” She shook her head. “I suppose that it’s too late for that now. So now what?” “Now, we take a look at some of those longer term consequences.” She walked over to where the old map hung and picked up a small pointer stick. She tapped the image of Canterlot, a castle on a mountainside on the dead center of the map. “With all four princesses captured, the Elements of Harmony no longer a factor and Canterlot held by the Storm King’s forces, most of Equestria surrendered rather quickly. There were a few pockets of resistance of course, a few heroes working behind the scenes. But they couldn’t to anything major or it would risk the lives of the princesses and their fellow ponies.” Tempest nodded. “Just as we planned.” Oracle returned the nod and turned back to the map. “And once the Storm King arrived and took the power of the princesses for himself, there would be little that anyone in the world would do. Especially when he would discover how much more he could do with such power. Still, even after playing with the Sun and Moon, I believe he would stick with creating tornadoes and hurricanes because they are ‘on brand’.” Tempest smirked. “Sounds about right. He’d probably be lazy and forgetful at times raising the Sun and Moon, but besides for some leverage I don’t think he would abuse them much. He would suffer just as much as anyone else if the Sun and Moon weren’t where they were supposed to be.” Oracle chuckled and tapped to the north of Equestria to an image depicting the spire of the castle of the Crystal Empire. “Thanks to the Crystal Heart, the Crystal Empire could weather any storm thrown at them by the Storm King, but with his wife held hostage there would be nothing Shining Armour could do besides bend the knee. Perhaps given a couple of decades of hiding and training, their daughter Flurry Heart might’ve had a chance to take back Equestria. She is after all, the fifth alicorn princess. However that would be a longshot.” Tempest blinked in surprise, she didn’t know Princess Cadence had a child who was an alicorn. It might have been good to know for a plan B instead of trying to catch Princess Twilight, but fear for his daughter’s safety might outstrip Prince Shining Armour’s reluctance to let his wife come to harm. It would be risky. “We, like most of the world, weren’t really familiar with the Crystal Empire. We figured that with their ruler captured they would be irrelevant.” “Flurry may become a great princess on her own, but not under those conditions.” Oracle continued by tapping on the land across the eastern sea with the figure of a Griffon on it. “The griffons of Griffonia would make for a fierce army that the Storm King’s forces would have a hard time with, but between their economic ruin and lack of leadership, they won’t be able to do much. There would a few individuals who volunteer to help the resistance, but most Griffons would be easily bought off.” Tempest nodded. “We even thought that by using Equestria’s royal treasury, we might have been able to buy out most of Griffonia’s Griffon mercenaries to supplement our own forces.” The old mare gave a slight chuckle. “You may be overestimating how much money the royal treasury has.” She shook her head and continued, this time tapping to an island off the south-east coast with a dragon coiled over it. “The Dragons were probably your most overt threat. A single full-grown Dragon would be able to take out any airship in an instant and can fly through powerful storms. However, Equestria only had the loyalty of its inexperienced Dragonlord. While she might be able to order the other dragons into attacking the Storm King, they won’t take it kindly and would either try to overthrow such an abuse of power or follow the letter of the order and cause as much collateral damage as they could. Given a few years for her to get respect from the other Dragons, they could wipe the Storm King out with some difficulty.” Tempest nodded. “Another race we were thinking of bribing. Equestria already exports a lot of gems to the Dragonlands. Maybe cause some internal conflict by increasing tariffs.” “Indeed.” Oracle nodded, then pointed to a familiar Mount Eris to the south of Equestria. “You had already managed to subdue the threat of the Hippogriffs. They had managed to flee their home, but still had most of their forces and the Pearl. However, Queen Novo is much like Celestia, looking after her own ponies before looking at troubles abroad. They would be content to hide away, protected from whatever else the Storm King can throw at them. Still, they probably had the most fit army and motivation to attack back at the time. Probably why Celestia thought it would be a good thing to got to them for help.” “And Princess Twilight succeeded in getting it.” “...It was a bit more complicated than that,” Oracle stated. When Tempest raised an eyebrow, the old mare just shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll get around to that.” She continued with them map, tapping a dark twisting spire in a middle of a wasteland. “The Changelings… are honestly a bit of a wild card. A few years ago they made an attempt of their own to conquer Canterlot and take down the princesses. Their Queen did succeed with Celestia, but Cadence and Shining Armour’s combined magic were enough to forcibly remove her. They are under a new King, Thorax, so they are now an ally of Equestria, but have renounced most of their warlike ways. They wouldn’t be able to rally much of a military force, but they still have their old infiltration tactics available. It would certainly be a major boon to any sort of resistance movement.” “True,” Tempest agreed with a grimace, “but the Storm King doesn’t trust anyone anyways. It would be difficult for a Changeling to get close to him. And their situation is fragile enough that being blasted by storms would cripple them.” Oracle nodded and pointed to one last spot even further north than the Crystal Empire, represented by a wooden gate. “And then the Yaks…” She trailed off, then gave a shrug. “Live as they always had, isolated and shrugging off whatever weather ends up heading their way.” “We honestly didn’t even take the Yaks into consideration,” Tempest said sheepishly. “I’ve hardly even heard of them.” “It’s just as well, I’ve never really seen them do much of anything,” the old mare said with a smirk. She took one more look at the old map. “Any other nations out there are, in some combination, too weak, too far away or don’t have close ties with Equestria.” “So to sum up, there would be a serious resistance movement that couldn’t afford to make a major move at the risk of the princesses, any sort of organized counterattack wouldn’t come for years and there is no other hope for Equestria.” “Well, not quite,” Oracle said with a grimace as she laid her pointer stick on a nearby shelf. “Oh?” Tempest asked in surprise. “What else does Equestria have?” The other mare’s eyes darted around the room, the first thing resembling fear that Tempest had seen on her. Oracle took a deep breath and uttered a single word, “Discord.” Tempest swore she heard the word echo around the room and her stomach clenched. “Discord?” “Pray to the Sun and Moon that you’ve never met him,” Oracle said shakily. “He’s an extremely powerful spirit of Chaos who can warp reality with the snap of his… talon. The Storm King, even with the power of the princesses and his army, would be powerless to stop him.” Tempest’s mouth gaped. “H-he’s really that strong?” “If he decides that you’re his enemy, he would find unending ways to torment you, reality be damned. Turn you into a balloon and set you free in a cactus field, clap his hands and the Storm King’s biggest tornado would find its new home in a bottle, mess with your troops’ minds so that they fight each other, and Sun and Moon knows what else. Nothing short of the Elements of Harmony or being talked down by some of his closest friends would stop him.” Tempest stared into space. Would their attack on Canterlot be ultimately pointless of someone with that much power was in Equestria’s corner? Was it always doomed to fail from the start? “Everything we did would be for nothing...” Then she paused as she realized something. “Why didn’t we see him when we attacked Canterlot?” “He’s Equestria’s ace in the hole against anything that might overpower the princesses, but he’s notoriously unreliable. Who knows why he didn’t show up in Canterlot that day? Perhaps he didn’t know about the attack until after it was over. Perhaps he did know about it, but figured that Twilight had it well in hoof and didn’t bother. He could’ve just sat around with a bag of popcorn and watched the Chaos unfold. Though if you hurt his closest friend, he would come after you personally.” She paused to think for a moment. “Or maybe he just wanted to milk the duration of the princesses being trapped in stone for as long as he could. That sounds like something he would do.” Tempest sat in silence as she thought about the spirit of Chaos. “So the most likely thing that would happen if we won at Canterlot would be that Discord would come by, wipe us out and rescue the princesses.” “Maybe,” Oracle said with a grimace. “It would depend on if he felt like ruling Equestria himself with the princesses still indisposed and if his closest friend could talk him out of it or not. If he did take over, it would make the threats of the Storm King sound like a breeze through the trees. It’s probably for the best that he didn’t get involved.” “Agreed,” Tempest said with a nod. “I’d fight him if I had to, but that doesn’t sound like a good ending.” “Yes, but from what I can guess, you wouldn’t likely be around to experience it.” Tempest frowned. “What do you mean by that? Am I just leading some troops to stop some resistance in an outlying town or…” She trailed off thinking about some ways her story would be finished. None of them were good. “The Storm King was always going to betray you, Tempest,” Oracle stated looking her dead in the eye. “You gave him the power he desired, so he had no use for you anymore. Whether that means he dismissed you from his service so you could run off and hide on your own, or you tried to take what you desired by force and were punished accordingly, I’m not sure. But it should suffice to say, you wouldn’t be employed by the Storm King for long, even though you would always be affiliated with such by your fellow ponies.” Her eyes flicked up to Tempest’s forehead. “Whatever the case, you wouldn’t get you horn back.” Another stretch of silence settled over the two of them and Tempest’s thoughts tumbled through her head. If things played out perfectly in Canterlot, her ultimate goal would still end up in failure. She’d be powerless once again. “...and that will always happen if I get Princess Twilight when we take Canterlot.” “It would happen regardless of when you got Twilight, be it then or whenever you caught her during her travels.” “So if we were more thorough with that mercenary ship or got to that cat’s house before that crime lord did…” “Or afterward and you conduct a ‘business transaction’,” they both knew that the exchange would involve more violence than money, “with him to secure Twilight and her friends. Regardless, the Storm King would always betray you eventually, capturing Twilight later would just delay the inevitable. As it actually did.” “So I would always end up betrayed and powerless ever since I decided to work for the Storm King.” “Well…” Oracle hesitated. “There is one scenario where the Storm King doesn’t betray you and you gain power.” “Oh?” Tempest sat up expectantly. “What happens?” Oracle paused for a moment to think. “I think this requires another visit to a memory as the set-up is rather unique. If you wouldn’t mind of course.” Tempest snorted. “I don’t think I have much of a choice.” Still, some hope stirred inside her. There was a chance to see herself with real power, not as somepony to be pitied. “I understand that is how you often see things, Tempest, that things happened to you that you had no choice in. But I am giving you a choice here. You are free to go if you want to.” Tempest shook her head. “No, I need to see this.” She wanted to feel what having real power felt like. “Very well,” Oracle said. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them as her horn flared with magic. “Are you sure?” Tempest gave a firm nod. “Absolutely.” “Alright then,” the other mare said with a nod of her own head. When Oracle touched her horn to Tempest’s forehead, her world faded away as it had before.