//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Halo: Celestium // by Regis-Th3-Lesser //------------------------------// Remorse and Recollection A comforting silence hung over the pathways of Ponyville. None knew the source of the explosion that ripped across the land a week since. Murmurs of it being another attack from a far away malevolent being of ungodly magic circulated through the tight-knit community. They replaced windows and swept up shards of glass while conversing with pride at how their extraordinary mares defeated another threat to their livelihoods. Some would debate on which strategy they used whether it be another giant rainbow cascading down like rain to wash away foes. Others would speculate over which of them dealt the final blow with it falling on Rainbow Dash more often than not. Applejack would be right behind her in popular opinion based on her strength alone, while Fluttershy sat at the bottom with Rarity taking the runner-up spot. As the adults debated and conversed about the elements victory, the fillies and colts ran around reenacting the elements most fierce battles. They’d pretend to fight hordes of enemies and blasting magic from their horns powerful enough to level mountains. Whines of “no fair” and boasts of “The power of friendship cannot be broken” filled their play as they weaved through town screaming and cheering. Unbeknownst to all, the elements had lost more than just a vital member, but a piece of themselves. Twilight lay on her bed, reading. Endless reading for hours on end much like she did when she was a student in her childhood. Old history texts, novels, scientific journals, and even fanfictions were pulled from the walls of her library for her eyes to scan through, but none of this could help. She could still feel the musty murky walls of the overrun hive coating her fur in a slick foul smelling slime, and hear the flood chittering and scuttling around. Sleep wasn’t an option as they even invaded her dreams far more fiercely than what Luna could counteract. Then… Thorax and Rainbow… It happened so suddenly, yet she still cursed herself for not being fast enough to teleport them to safety. “Why Rainbow? Why…?” She would moan in her sleep, rousing Spike from his slumber, though. He couldn’t rest much easier than her. While Twilight read, Spike cleaned, cooked and did whatever odd chore he could to keep busy. He’d even use his newfound ability of flight to clean the roots hanging over the map room or he would be gone for most of the day, running himself ragged with taking up odd jobs around town. Most didn’t pay a dime, but he would still do it immaculately. Spike left Twilight back in the castle to read while he went to find more things to do. Just about everypony in town was fine. Every task he asked to help with was met with “That’s okay,” or “You did enough yesterday little guy,” and a condescending pat on the head. So as he shuffled on, he went over who could he bother to help out. He thought of Rarity, but her Fluttershy and Pinkie are still in the clinic. Once they heard the news, Pinkie started talking to a ball she painted to look like Rainbow. Fluttershy… well… she won’t speak at all. Honestly, she didn’t even cry. Once Celestia told her upon their return, she just… went mute. They’ve been trying to get her to eat, speak, or even move but she refuses. Rarity was the most broken out of all of them. Days of endless tears is the best way to explain her grief. How did Spike feel? He was definitely saddened, and even moreso upset that he couldn’t save or at least stop his friends from giving up their lives. He remembered the first day he met both of them, bringing tears to his eyes, knowing that they’d soon fade into memory. The times they laughed, kicked butt together, and did dumb stuff.. He knew he was sad and it frustrated him that he had no idea how to release it all. He stopped, realizing one pony who has been missing ever since they returned. With a smile on his face, he made a b-line for Sweet Apple Acres. As he came past the gate, he was a bit taken aback to find no one out in the fields. Actually, it looked like nothing had been touched for a while. The grass had started getting longer than what Mac would normally allow and farming equipment was scattered about here and there and looked as if they’d been out in the rain that came a few days before. He continued to inspect his surroundings as the door neared closer. He knocked and called out, “Applejack! Big Mac!” but there was no answer. Not even a clopping of hooves on the other side of the door. He knocked again, this time a bit harder. “Guys! It’s me, Spike!” From the other side there were hollow steps crescendoing until they reached the door. The old plywood door creaked open revealing a weary Applebloom, eyes red and heavy while missing her bow. “H-Howdy Spike…” She yawned and smacked her lips. “Hey… uh. Is Applejack home?” “Oh…” Applebloom looked away, a bit upset. “She’s in her room… hasn’t left in days. She won’t tell anyone why. And I gotta makeup for her housework!” Applebloom huffed with a scowl. Spike deflated a bit hoping Applejack wouldn't be as devastated as the others were. Then again, losing Rainbow Dash was the biggest blow they’ve ever suffered. “Do you mind if I talk to her?” “Not…” She yawned. “At all…” She stepped aside and let the dragon in. He fiddled and played with his claws wondering how he was going to approach a depressed Applejack. The others were simple, but with how much she usually kept her emotions locked away, and that poor tree she killed, this would be a daunting task. One he hoped to emerge from unscathed. He shuffled up to her room, took a gulp and knocked on the door. Dead silence came from inside until a slow creak gave way to hoofsteps as it swung open revealing a strong scented Applejack. Her hair was more akin to a birds nest after a storm, and her fur was sticky, matted and clumped along with her eyes being bloodshot and low. There were also bottles of cider stacked neatly next to her bed along with a funk of must and alcohol. “Heya Spike…” She lethargically nodded, her voice tired and cracked. “Hey… uh… how are you holding up?” Spike glanced past her to the bottles knowing she was either drunk or hungover. “I’m… fine… I guess,” She shrugged with several blinks. “What brings ya over, s-sugarcube…?” she belched a bit sending a cloud of rotten alcohol in his direction. “I… well…” he sighed. “I was hoping to kinda… not mope so much, but…” He looked up at Applejack who was swaying as is she were at sea. “Eh… it’s not important. What about you? You look awful?” Applejack shrugged and wiped her nose. “I’m doin’ alright I guess… been sleepin,” She had a hiccup stuck in her throat and beat her chest to get it out. “Been sleepin’ a lot…” She raised her hoof revealing blood stained medical wrappings. “This darn thing’s been botherin’ me somethin’ fierce!” She waved it around a bit and smacked her lips before focusing back on Spike. She blinked a bit before shaking her head and wiping her nose. “Sorry… I zoned out a bit…” “It’s okay,” Spike smiled painfully. Seeing Applejack in this state was uncomfortable and distressing. She was miserable and in pain, but being the stubborn mare she was, Applejack wouldn’t give any verbal indication that she was hurting. “Uh… wanna get some fresh air?” “Nah…” Applejack yawned and rubbed her puffy eyes. “Imma rest my eyes for a bit,” She moved to close the door but Spike stopped it with his foot and gave her a concerned frown. She looked him up and down with a sniffle and looked back to her bed with every last bottle of cider she downed within the last few days. “A-Actually… that might do me some good…” She limped out and closed the door behind her. Spike watched in pain as she hobbled down the hallway, already unsteady from the injury with the added daze of booze. She stopped at the stairs, her vision doubling as she looked down the ever increasing single flight. Bending like a tree in the wind she took a step forward her hoof finding the first step, but gravity, being the cruel bastard it was, had plans of malicious intent. She couldn’t stop from falling forwards and was about to accept her fate with most likely another disabled limb and possibly a broken neck when she suddenly stopped, feeling tiny hands pressed into her chest. Her doubled vision came back into focus finding a row of green spines atop a small purple bulb. “Whew! Thank ya Spike!” She smiled with a small burp. “I’d’ve looked akin to a bloody tumbleweed if it weren’t for y’all!” Spike was straining under her weight, huffing as his tiny arms were about to give. “L-Let me help y-you!” He carefully guided her down the steps, fighting his own fatigue and her drunken sway until they reached the bottom safely. He helped her limp outside, the bright sun burning holes in her tired retinas. Spike took her hoof carefully and led her over to her favorite tree. The one that overlooked the farm and the hills rolling out towards the west. She stumbled a bit and lost her balance more than once, but the dragon held string to her being her guide as she spun endlessly. She was delirious and out of her mind as the baked clay beneath her hooves stung like needles being riven into them and the sun cooked her back sizzling her skin and making her gasp and huff like winona after a good day of play. “S-Spike… I ain’t…” She haved while starting to fall over. “I…” She fell on top of him, her vision doubling as he carried her on to the tree to get her out of the sun. Foot over foot he dragged her to the base where he lay her gently against the tree. Applejack felt like she was dying. Spike had said something to her but she couldn’t understand what came from his mouth it was so muffled and fuzzy. Then, he ran off and she called after him. “Spike!” She whined while trying to roll over on her belly. “Spike! Come back! Please!” She cried while trying to crawl after him before she heard a familiar voice from behind her. “First one to that tree and back wins!” Applejack whipped her head around wondering who could have said that, darting her eyes around her surroundings as it Spoke again. “I can take one more mug, AJ! Geez!” That was definitely her! She knew it with every fiber in her being that was Rainbow Dash. “R-Rainbow! Where are ya?” She shuddered while feeling a glimmer of hope that her friend had made it back safe. “Woo yeah! Who is one hundred and ten percent awesome!” “You are Rainbow!” Applejack desperately called out to the fields below. “Now where are y’all! Stop hidin’ from me!” She was starting to tear up hoping that the next time she turned she’d see that stupid smug smile just floating above the ground. She wanted to hear the air passing over Rainbow’s wings as she declared victory over Applejack. That annoying little bragging brat that she loved so much. Then, she heard footsteps and turned around seeing an ill formed sky blue blob running towards her. “Rainbow! Yer alive! I knew it-” She was cut shirt by a bottle of water being pressed against her neck. She blinked a couple of time, too wasted to react as the blob came into focus revealing two green slitted eyes peering at her. “Here…” he huffed while undoing the cap on the bottle. “Drink up.” Applejack looked at the bottle then around the farm. Rainbow’s voice faded into the usual background noise of the farm. animals calling, wind rustling the leaves. She looked back at Spike, breathing heavily. “She’s really gone… isn’t she…?” Spike’s expression softened as he set the bottle down with a heavy sigh. “Yeah… she is…” Applejack started crying again, though at this point nothing more could have came. She’d been crying through days again and again refusing to believe that this was a reality. She cursed herself for letting this defeat her as much as she did. But then again… maybe she still hadn’t fully accepted losing ponies who were near to her heart. Spike sat down and placed her head in his lap as she cried out what pain she did have left. She sniffled, slobbered and cursed while trying to get it to stop, but it kept coming like a tidal wave breaking the worn levies of her heart. “Spike…” She whined with a slight cough that stung like fire in her throat. “Yes…?” He rubbed her ears gently. “Tell me that we gonna win... “ She coughed again and again as she tried to reach for the water. Spike held it to her lips as she nearly inhaled it, finishing with an exasperated groan. “W-We are gonna win… right?” Her breathing had calmed a bit and the tears began to slow. “We will..,” Spike said with a forced smile as he let her rest there under the old oak tree. Twenty books in a span of four days meaning she read five books a day… but she was too tired to run the calculation for how many words per-minute that was so she closed the last one with a yawn and a stretch as she climbed out of bed. She hadn’t moved or done anything in hours, determined to finish the almost one hundred thousand word fantasy story as fast as she possibly could. It was the late evening, around seven, as she crawled out of bed to stretch her stiff joints. She stepped out of her room looking to the right before the left. It had been quiet for some time now, and usually that’s how she liked it when she was crunching through the written word as a breakneck pace, but she knew she must have been reading for no less that two maybe three hours. “Spike? Starlight?” She called out but her echo was the only thing to respond. Stepping out, curious as to where they had gone she heard a bit of chattering coming from down the hall, right where the map room was. Stepping out in the hallway she yawned and started off towards the kitchen to see what could sooth her grumbling belly, but it was quiet. Not that she minded some peace while she was reading but that book took her three hours at the most. No one has ever given her three hours of alone time. “Spike?” She called out but again the only response was her echo. Once it subsided the silence came again. Not a normal silence where ambience can better be heard, but a clogging silence that amplified her heartbeat. “Starlight…?” She called and still her voice echoed, but it came back in a distorted pitch. Rhythmic rumbling echoes through the halls as if her castle came to life with its own heartbeat. Amid the noise she heard chattering that sounded like voices. She didn’t think much of it other than her mind playing tricks on her so she went to see who it was. She expected Starlight and Trixie to be sitting at the map table talking over some new spells when suddenly the air grew thick so the point that she could taste the sour scent of decay. Everything changed from the vibrant crystal walls to puss lined oozing flesh. “G-Guys…? Anyone?” She choked out hoping her echo would comfort her… but someone did respond. “Twilight Sparkle…” The deep gurgling voice resonated through the halls, staying her hooves and making her heart beat like a war drum. “Do not be afraid. You’ve always been one of rationale,” It spoke in an eerily calm voice, trying to comfort her. “See through the fog of emotions clouding your mind. I know your curiosity will remove the shackles of fear from your hooves. Come… come witness…” She cautiously stepped forward fighting to keep whatever was left in her stomach down as she walked towards whoever or whatever this was beckoning to her. As she drew nearer she could see pony like imprints in the wall as if they’d been vacuum sealed into the flesh. “This is not the end, child. All who were created will join our legion… No fear… No anger… No dread… only unity…” His voice was louder, clearer and definitely did not sound like a pony, or that it was alive for any matter. Once she entered the map room she saw Rainbow standing with her back to Twilight. “Rainbow! You’re alive!” She ran to throw her arms around her friend and weep out days of grief and sorrow when Rainbow turned revealing a mass of tentacles undulating from her chest as her eyes stared at Twilight lifeless and dead. Her once bright blue fur was tainted by splotches of sickly yellow green and brown, and her jaw was… it was gone revealing her tongue hanging with saliva dripping from the tip. “NO!” She cried out and stumbled backwards as all of her friends, her family, everypony descended upon her all infected by the flood. From the map, the flesh squished and squelched upwards into a towering worm-like form with no eyes or ears. “Witness our legion!” It bellowed as an infection form latched onto her throat, the last thing she could hear was her skin ripping and her bones snapping as her pleas for help died within her throat. She looked to her teacher, now infected watching her die as her vision faded to black. “AAAAAAAH!” She screamed jolting up in her bed, her heart beating at a million miles a second and her breathing not too far behind. Her eyes fearfully darted around the room while she tried her best to calm her breathing. She kept asking herself over and over again just what on tartarus was that thing. She knew it was nothing more than a post traumatic stress induced dream brought on by fear and anxiety due to a recent traumatic experience, but that felt… real. Almost prophetic.Her ponderings were cut sort by Starlight sliding into her room breathing like she too had the same nightmare. “Twilight! The…” She gasped. “The princesses are here!” “Thank you…” Twilight frowned while looking at her sheets a bit disgruntled that she drooled on her book. “Are you okay?” “Yeah,” Starlight chuckled with a bit of a huff. “Still getting used to how big this place is… Why is your room so far?” “You didn’t have to run,” Twilight giggled as she slunk out of bed, her sore joints cracking under her weight. “They said it was urgent.’ “It’s best not to keep them waiting then,” Twilight sighed while leaving her room with that dream still heavy on her mind. Luna and Celestia wanted to convene in the map room as Lucky had some important information to share on how they could counteract and even possibly defeat the flood. Twilight took her seat with Spike missing and the others absent as well. “Where are your friends?” Celestia asked with a confused tilt of her head. “Oh… I didn’t call them here. I didn’t think it was necessary to,” Twilight answered with a confused tilt of her own. Luna stayed silent and looked away to the door while Celestia cycled through several expressions before speaking. “We need them to hear this. We could possibly quarantine the flood long enough to come up with a solution to the plague.” “Princess… with all due respect… We just lost Rainbow,” Twilight frowned at her slightly angered. “They need time to grieve…” Celestia saw the spark of anger in her eye and looked away to Luna with a sigh. “I apologize…” She said with a weak smile while walking over to Twilight. She sat on her haunches and looked her in the eye. “It would seem that you need time as well…” “I’m fine…” Twilight tried to return a smile, but the lie washed it away. “I know you haven’t been sleeping. Luna is my sister,” She giggled while taking Twilight’s hoof in hers. Twilight started to think of a rebuttal, but then something sparked in her mind. That dream from earlier. She knew Luna must have seen it. There was no way she couldn’t. She pursed her lips to form the question as the princess of the night cut her off before she could. “I do not know what that creature was, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna sighed with a shake of her head. “But… we will make sure that dream does not come to fruition.” Twilight relaxed a bit, sinking into the hard crystal seat as far as she could while Celestia rubbed her hoof. “I’ll try and get to bed early tonight… but I want to hear Lucky’s plan.” “Finally!” Lucky flashed while orbiting the map. “Even when I was a man I didn’t mess around when important information needed to be said.” “You were barely a man…” Luna shot from under her breath making Celestia snicker. He turned to her in a presumed glare but with no flesh or muscle it was hard to tell. “Anyway… Thankfully the sentinel units aren’t broken. But their startup sequence has been interrupted.” He pulled up a map of the crystal empire and zoomed in on the palace enlarging the heart. “This device was intended to be used to detect of the flood was present. But the indigenous use it for… I don’t even know what.” “We can’t mess with that!” Twilight shot up with a gasp. “The Crystal empire would be buried under the storm!” “This is the only device I was able to locate on the planet that has enough energy to give the sentinels a theoretical “jump start”,” He explained while Twilight looked around in disbelief. “We can’t do that!” She spelled it out growing more irritate from the plan and lack of good sleep. She hopped out of her chair and walked up to the table. “What if the elements could give the Sentinels the jump they need?” “That could work…” Luna said while tapping her chin and looking to Celestia. “But we didn’t make the elements. They just… happened. The sentinels need forerunner tech to activate.” “How do you know that?” Lucky asked with a curious sparkle while floating near her. “I… I don’t really…” Celestia puffed out her cheeks and looked at the ground with a mumble. “No, you are right. I wanted to know how you knew that was correct,” He flashed blue for a second while pulling up a map that was a mess of corridors beneath the palace. Twilight had been through their before when sombra returned but never to the extent that was shown here before highlighting a red pulsing dot. “We will need to take the device there in order to reactivate the sentinels.” “That’s really deep…” Twilight gulped while looking at Luna and Celestia. “What about the storm? When Flurry broke the heart you two couldn’t hold it back.” “Then it is a time sensitive mission,” Luna came up to the map, eyeing it before looking to Lucky with a stern frown. “You are absolutely certain that this is the only way to activate the sentinels?” “Not unless you’ve been keeping your husband in stasis for hundreds of millennia,” He said with a slight shrug like bob. Luna turned her about up at this while glaring fury at the monitor. “So this is the only way to quarantine the infection,” He reaffirmed with a nod of his carapace while pulling the projection and returning the map to normal. “We’d have to embark immediately if we want to stop the flood’s advance,” Luna spoke with authority over the room. “If you cannon join us, then we understand,” “No…” Twilight croaked out, trying to match her authority. “Rainbow wouldn’t want me to sit around while these things are out there. I’ll go with you.” “Are you certain, Twilight…?” Celestia asked with a soft comforting frown of worry. Twilight nodded and hopped out of her chair. “Then rest… We’ll take the final train there tonight.” Twilight nodded and was about to turn and leave when she spotted a hint of light purple out of her periphery. “Yes, Starlight?” “I was just… Uh…” Starlight looked around as of an excuse were hidden in the walls. “We know you heard us,” Celestia smiled with a shake of her head. She approached Starlight and bowed her head to her level. “You would like to help as well?” “Yes!” Starlight beamed with little hesitation. “I-If Twilight allows it…” She cleared her throat and looked at her teacher with a big smile. “...yes,” Twilight sighed a tired sigh. “With the others the way they are… we’re gonna need all the help we can get.” She approached them with a yawn. “Can you find Spike?” Starlight nodded as Twilight dragged her hooves on her way back to her bed. She thought more on the nightmare, pondering what exactly would prompt the appearance of such a foul thing. Was it a premonition? Something born of her trauma? She didn’t know. But, as she lay her head down, all she could think of was “Rest in Peace Rainbow… we’ll get them for you”.