//------------------------------// // 350 - Green-Eyed Monster // Story: Lateral Movement // by Alzrius //------------------------------// “Once I’ve finished conferring with Celestia and Luna,” intoned Lex darkly once he’d gotten far enough away from the foals and their creatures that they couldn’t overhear him, glaring at Severance as he spoke, “you’re going to kill those animals and break whatever connection those children have forged with the Night Mare.” Unsurprisingly, the scythe objected to that, pointing out that such a course of action would run directly counter to the Night Mare’s interests. But Lex only sneered; that had been Severance’s answer when he asked it why it had facilitated a link between those foals and the goddess: that it was what the Night Mare wanted. “I don’t care about the Night Mare’s interests,” replied Lex without a second’s hesitation. “Her wants and desires don’t matter to me in the slightest.” The barbed wire around his left foreleg reacted immediately to the statement, tightening sharply enough to draw blood. Similarly, Severance immediately came to a stop. Lex had been carrying it out in front of him in his telekinetic aura, wanting to look at the weapon as he spoke to it, but now it refused to be moved. Instead, it turned so the point of its blade was facing toward him, pointing out that he’d sworn to bring followers into the goddess’s fold. “Do not remind me of my promises,” hissed Lex softly, stepping to within a foot the weapon’s sharp point. “I’ll give the Night Mare the worshipers I said I would, but in the time and manner of my choosing. Mine. Not hers and not yours. And those worshipers will not include children who lack the ability to appreciate what they’re getting involved with!” He could feel his anger starting to flare up then, upset by how Severance had taken advantage of the naiveté of Fruit Crunch and his friends, and he desperately tried to fan his displeasure into a familiar rage. But the towering fury and righteous indignation he wanted to feel wouldn’t come, and his burgeoning anger faded into bitterness a moment later. That was sufficient to send a pang of worry through Lex. He knew himself well enough to know that bitterness was the forerunner of despair, and despair was the gateway to giving up. That was something that had to be avoided at all costs; the absolute nature of his convictions, the convictions that he’d spent his life rigorously formulating and examining and refining, was what allowed Lex to keep going in the face of a world – or rather, a world full of other people – that steadfastly refused to make sense, no matter how often he tried to understand them. If a bout of hopelessness ever caused him to abandon his principles, to stop striving to live up to the ideals that he knew were right, then it would be the end of everything. No matter that there were stories, both testimonial and fictitious, of people succumbing to despair only to shake it off later (usually because of some maudlin display of friendship or something similarly trite). If something failed once then it could conceivably fail again, and Lex refused to entertain that level of uncertainty about his ability to conduct himself correctly; that he had to do so with regards to how everyone else conducted themselves already bordered on unbearable. And yet that level of confidence in himself was becoming harder and harder to sustain. Bad enough that he’d had to struggle so much to accomplish so little since coming to Vanhoover; at least progress had been made. No matter how incremental they might have been, and how immensely he’d had to struggle to achieve them, things had been advancing. But now…now it was all threatening to come apart. His relationships with Aria, Nosey, and worst of all Sonata were all fraying, if not already in tatters. The princesses had shown up with the apparent intent of throwing even more obstacles in his way. And now some of the most vulnerable members of the population he was ostensibly protecting – a group of innocent children who had already put themselves in situations of unacceptable danger – were trafficking with powers that they couldn’t possibly comprehend. It was like he couldn’t complete one task without some new problem cropping up, hindering his ability to build on what successes he’d had and lay the foundations for more. Even now, Severance was still daring to try and justify what it had done, pointing out how those children had come to it of their own accord and asked for instructions on finding favor with the Night Mare. “Then you should have refused them,” retorted Lex. “Only adults of sound mind have the cognitive maturity to fully fathom what it means to enter into an agreement of such significance, and even then the matter is alien enough that the ponies here would still need the particulars explained to them by someone experienced in such things. That’s why I conferred with Cloudbank privately before instructing her on how to petition the Night Mare for spells.” The weapon’s rejoinder made Lex frown. “Of course I needed no such instruction,” he scoffed. “I’ve spent time on Everglow, and was able to observe and analyze such arrangements directly. Nopony here can…say…the same…” Lex hadn’t planned on ending his counterarguments there, but found himself unable to continue speaking, his attention captured by what was happening a short distance away. Aria was exiting one of the outpatient tents…with a stallion. The sight sent Lex's thoughts whirling, but he clamped down on them immediately. There was absolutely no reason to presume anything about why the two of them had been in there together. For all he knew, that stallion was an acquaintance of hers who was ill and she’d simply been checking on him. Or perhaps they’d simply been discussing something and wanted to get out of the sun. There was no reason to think that anything untoward had happened between them. But Aria is spiteful and untrustworthy by nature, Lex told himself as he turned and started toward the two of them, barely noticing that Severance was letting him telekinetically pull it along again. She tried to kill me when I first met her, and later attempted to flee to the Crystal Empire with Comfy Cozy and Produce Aisle. There’s no basis to assume good conduct on her part. It wasn’t implausible that Aria had enchanted that stallion for some reason, particularly with how acrimonious she’d been when she’d stormed out of the train station before. Really, checking on the two of them was imperative, for everypony’s safety. The pair were speaking animatedly, and as he got closer Lex could make out snatches of their conversation. “-again later?” asked the stallion, a green pegasus that Lex vaguely remembered as one of the ponies who’d protested their initial arrival at the camp, thinking that they’d spread the ghoul plague. His question, whatever it was, made Aria roll her eyes. “Look, let’s just go see Princess Whatsherface, and then maybe-” She abruptly stopped talking as she caught sight of Lex. For a second she scowled, but then a vicious smile crossed her lips. “Aria?” The pegasus stallion cocked his head. “What are you looking aAAAHHH!” Leaping almost a foot in the air at the sight of Lex Legis heading toward them, stony-faced and scythe drawn, the stallion immediately spread his wings, but didn’t have a chance to flap them as Aria’s foreleg shot out and wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him back down and pulling him against her. “Well well well,” drawled Aria. “Look who’s here. Lex, meet Disc Jockey. My new boyfriend.” The last three words were accompanied by a self-satisfied grin, her voice dripping with smugness. “H-hi,” squeaked Disc Jockey, his ears folding back and his face pale. Lex barely glanced at the shivering stallion, his eyes trained squarely on Aria. “What are you doing, Aria?” he growled. The anger that he’d wanted so badly a minute ago was coming easily to him now, but he didn’t notice. Aria, however, did, and the sight made her grin wider. “Oh, I’ve been doing this guy right here,” she purred, nuzzling Disc Jockey even as his eyes widened. “He just got done popping my cherry, and I have to tell you, it was incredible.” She almost moaned the last word, eyes fluttering closed as if still enraptured by the memory. “Uh…” Disc Jockey’s eyes flitted between the beautiful mare complimenting his masculinity and the frigid-faced stallion holding the magic scythe in front of him. “We, uh…w-we should really get go-” “I meant,” hissed Lex, and there was no mistaking the menace in his voice now, “why are you intent on seeing Princess Celestia?” “Hm?” Slowly opening her eyes, Aria smirked at him. “Oh, DJ here said he’d take me to meet her. But now I’m thinking we might just to spend the day in bed together.” Stretching languidly, she kept her foreleg wrapped tightly around Disc Jockey, defeating the stallion’s attempt to back away slowly. “I mean, he was on me like a panther just now, so long and strong and…thick.” She ran her tongue over her lips then, leaving no doubt what she meant. His jaw clenched, Lex turned his gaze to the stallion by Aria’s side, calling on his circlet so that he could examine the stallion and make sure that he hadn’t been enchanted. But Disc Jockey had no way of knowing that, seeing only that Lex was glaring at him silently, and the sight made his shaking grow worse. “N-no…” he whimpered. “It’s not…not like that…” “Aw, no need to be so modest,” smirked Aria, her eyes still firmly planted on Lex. “I’m just happy I found a real stallion here, who’ll take what he wants instead of chickening out at the last minute.” Leaning over, she planted a kiss on the side of Disc Jockey’s head. Lex’s eyes turned green, purple contrails erupting from the outer corners as he turned his gaze back to Aria then. There hadn’t been any magic on Disc Jockey, but that was the last thing on his mind now. “I’ve heard enough-” But he wasn’t able to finish as Disc Jockey – unable to take the rising tension any longer – doubled over and threw up noisily. Barely avoiding the frothy deluge, Aria flung herself away from him, shrieking in disgust. It was only after he’d completely emptied his stomach that Disc Jockey looked up at Lex, tears in his eyes as he coughed and sniffled. “Nothing happened!” he gasped fearfully. “I swear!” “Hey!” yelled Aria, all pretense of affection gone now. “Shut up!” But Disc Jockey kept going. “She said she wasn’t your girlfriend! I just asked if she wanted to go see Princess Celestia, but she said we should go into one of those tents and d-d-do it! But on my mother’s life, we didn’t!” “Only because you finished before we even got started,” jeered Aria, her voice mocking and cruel. “Honestly, what kind of guy blows his load just from a little tongue-kissing? You should change your name to Quick Shot so that girls know what to expect from you.” She might have said more, but Lex – his eyes now back to the normal color – spoke up before she could. “Leave us,” he ordered Disc Jockey. “Now.” The pegasus stallion didn’t need to be told twice. Still sniffling, he flapped his wings and unsteadily lifted off, heading south toward the river. “Yeah, go ahead and run away, loser!” taunted Aria as he fled. “And by the way! It’s small! Really, really small!” “And you’re pathetic,” snapped Lex. “I’m not surprised that you tried to engineer some sort of petty revenge, but even for you this was feeble.” Sneering, Aria sauntered over to him. “Right, because that’s why you looked like your head was about to explode when you thought I slept with that guy. But you know what? You’re right. That was feeble. I think instead I’ll just go have a nice long chat with that princess instead. I bet we'll be able to find all sorts of things to talk abou-” She stopped suddenly, giving a frustrated cry of surprise as she looked behind Lex. Turning his head, he easily spotted what had gotten that reaction from her. Princess Celestia had taken flight, leaving a crowd of waving ponies behind as she headed back towards River's mansion.