//------------------------------//
// Chapter 61 
// Story: Voyage of the Equinox 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//



 Twilight uses the Perseverance of Insight 57% 



“Anything I should know before I try this thing, Node?” Twilight said, hesitating on the edge of the chair. But after considering her options, there was really no way around it. Node’s loyalties were still questionable, and Rainbow Dash just didn’t have the mental fortitude to withstand the effects of an alien device. That left her.

Node shrugged one plastic shoulder. It was a convincing imitation of something Twilight might’ve done. “You will have seen more of my creators once you use that machine. It is likely they anticipated similar mental patterns, or else there would have been no reason to construct it. I do not know how correct they were in their estimates. But I am certain they were wise.”

“How do you know that?” Rainbow spun her rifle around on her shoulder, but didn’t draw it. It was a twitch, something she did when she was uncomfortable but didn’t have any way of fixing things. “I don’t mean to be a jerk, but it seems like they’re all gone. How wise is that?”

Twilight ignored them both. It was clear she wouldn’t be getting any “wisdom” of her own from Node. It was time to use this thing, before she second-guessed herself and changed her mind. Twilight hopped up the uneven steps, then settled her back against the cold metal seat.

It responded instantly as it had the last time, opening in several mechanical sections. Clasps reached out for her on all sides, holding her still. They ended in firm rubber grippers, strong enough to keep her from moving but not actually cause harm.

Rainbow Dash jolted, raising her gun at once and pointing it at the back of the huge chair. “Say you want me to get you out of there, captain, and I’ll do it!”

Something metallic was lifting towards the back of her head, something that sparked and clicked. Twilight twitched and squirmed, and very nearly asked Rainbow Dash to let her go. But no, she’d made up her mind. She was going to go through with this. The Signalers would share their truths with her.

“No,” she said, her voice tense. “Stay back, Rainbow, no matter what. If you pull me out before it… finishes. It might kill me. We have to trust them.”

“If you say so,” Rainbow sat back on her haunches, though the gun was still within reach. “If I see anything even remotely fishy, I call Fluttershy. And node will help me, won’t she?”

“Uh… I will help you,” Node repeated. “She? I’m not organic.”

But Twilight missed out on whatever explanation Rainbow decided to give to that particular question. Something pressed against her skull, and there was a surge of pain. Her whole body twitched and spasmed, from every muscle. Her vision went foggy, and she was falling, even though she never left her chair.



Is Twilight’s mind swallowed forever by the Conflux? Critical no. 





Does Twilight retain her memories of what she sees? Yes. 



Twilight drifted forever through a sightless void. She had no body, no breath, yet somehow she could feel herself moving. She moved back until she floated high above a world.

Words whispered in her ears, their volume deafening in her sensory deprivation. They spoke alien tongues, confusing her so much that she couldn’t think. They were trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t understand what it was.

She didn’t recognize the place, or the creatures living there. But she didn’t have to know what they were to know they were intelligent. Time blurred past, and she saw wooden huts turn into stone cities, launching little rockets into orbit before filling the sky with satellites. Her vision expanded, and she saw the alien creatures do exactly what Equestria had done, filling their home system with stations and domes and orbiting habitats. They sent out ships, grew wiser and more powerful, and she found herself seeing pony existence in the aliens. Their bodies were strange, but what she saw them do was not.

Then she saw something come, a ripple through space that crossed the system in a single moment. It left only dead matter behind—stations floating empty, lights slowly going out.

But something was moving ahead of the darkness—a ship that began to accelerate in the void. As it traveled it grew, swallowing asteroids and capturing the interstellar debris along its path until it was a fleet of billions. It grew faster as it advanced, approaching that invisible threshold that would distort its perception of time.

But that was not what she was being shown. The Genesis fleet passed from one system to another, capturing what matter it could and often leaving little pieces of itself behind. On each world they reached something grew, passing rapidly from tribal primitives to a civilization of their own.

But every time, the hunger eventually came. Systems full of life went silent and dead, brown husks. Some had whole fleets of ships ready for the hungering darkness. Others sheltered in deep ravines. All died.

But while some images made sense to her, the vision passed in front of her so quickly that so much else she saw was lost on her. The Genesis Fleet wasn’t just trying to create, it was searching for something. It had a destination in mind, why couldn’t she understand it?

The voices were still screaming at her, they hadn’t stopped after all that time. It seemed like she’d finally been there long enough for their shouts to resolve into words. “Be the ending,” said the voice. “Or if you aren’t, reach us. Before the void finds you.”

Twilight sat suddenly upright, hacking and coughing. The fur on her head was steaming, and her whole body felt like it might catch fire at any moment. But she wasn’t dead, that was the important thing. “I’m gonna…” she leaned forward, and the chair released her. She dropped to the ground at Rainbow’s hooves a second later. 

This time, the blackness that found her was a welcome relief.