//------------------------------// // 73 Last Hope // Story: Errant Finale // by Doug Graves //------------------------------// Doug convulses briefly as magic courses through him, his battered chest knitting itself back together. The splotchy bruise fades, and he lets out a loud groan as he pushes himself to a seated position. He looks around, taking in the scene, especially the mare next to him.  Twilight feels the magic within her slipping away, like a cold rain whisking away heat. She watches it with detached bemusement, like a clinical observer. It feels good at first, like she was burning up and relief has finally arrived. But it doesn’t stop there, stripping away first Celestia’s magic, then Luna’s. After they are gone the Sun and the Moon feel the same as they would to anypony: sources of light and heat, and little else.  The pain starts as Cadance’s magic begins to fade away, though even the sharp throb of a migraine induced from too many late nights fueled only by coffee and willpower fades to a dull void. Love’s magic takes longer to fade from her mind, and much like a dip in a cold lake it leaves her shivering long after Cadance's magic has left her body. Her own magic goes last, her body fighting every step of the way. But it is like trying to stopper not a dam but an entire river with only your hooves, and Twilight finds her strength sapped by the inexorable flow. Even so she never gives up hope, confident her choice is the right one.  Twilight finds herself staring at Doug’s feet, giggling as the last of her own magic siphons away. “I can’t feel my toes,” she says, her words slurring. Now left clinging to survival just like her herdmates, and every other creature in Equestria, she slumps over, leaving Doug holding her life - quite literally - in his hands. Long seconds pass. “What am I going to do,” Doug asks of nopony in particular, his voice raw. The cool night wind is his only reply, and it somehow seems even more ephemeral than normal. Left with nothing but his thoughts, Doug first turns to the past. How good his life has been the last eight years. The trials and tribulations, certainly, of being seen as an outsider, the stresses of the farm, the rigors of his job. Watching the mares become the ‘Elements of Harmony, Defenders of Equestria!’, and knowing they might face something that ultimately defeats them. But also the joys! Meeting each of the mares. Falling, if not in love, then to a mutually satisfactory arrangement that could then blossom into something more. Raising eight foals, a wonderful challenge all its own. But best of all: seeing the foals succeed despite the hardships they were born with, and going off to live on their own. No grandfoals yet, but that could wait. His thoughts gloss over the present, skipping to the future. Or what it would have been. Of doing it again with the next crop! Three this year, maybe three more the year after that. Depending on what happens with Starlight Glimmer, there could be ten little ones in two years! And that’s not even counting the four alicorn foals! His mind can barely process what it would be like with potentially having six unicorns and two pegasi, though Apple Bloom and Applebaum certainly got into their share of trouble. With alicorns? They’ll probably need to move into a big open field, since Applejack won’t appreciate having her home destroyed by lasers or earthquakes or hurricanes, or especially all of the above. Even living in a cave in a mountain sounds like a bad idea! A faint scraping sound that slowly gets closer rouses Doug from his ruminations. He turns, watching Discord pull his long body closer with just his stubby forelegs. Either his back legs aren’t working or he’s playing the sympathy card pretty hard. Doug turns his attention back upwards, staring at the sky, starting to count the stars despite instantly knowing their number and name. “You wouldn’t believe how tedious it was to crawl here, much less walk,” Discord says in a weak, raspy voice as he approaches Doug. “All the other ponies were just, laying down on the job.” “Hello, Discord,” Doug says, feeling his anger rise. If Discord hadn’t betrayed them, they wouldn’t be in this mess. Well, Tirek might still be out there, but still. “What do you want?” “You know what one divided by zero is?” Discord asks, flopping down next to Doug. “Undefined?” Doug replies, a brief rise in his voice conveying his complete lack of interest in the conversation, his eyes never leaving the stars. They stare back, unblinking. “Infinite,” Discord returns smartly. “Just like what you could be.” “Impossible.” Doug shakes his head, one hand coming up to push the hair on the side of his head up. It flops right back into place. He frowns as he glances at Discord and his smirk. “What makes you so certain?” “See for yourself.” Discord spreads an arm to the motionless land around them. “All you have to is wind it up-” he roughly pokes Doug in the side “-and let it go.” Let it go Doug takes a deep breath, a large part of him that grows bigger with every moment wanting to punch the draconequus right in his wise-ass mouth. In fact, if Discord has his power, he’s sure he would be looking at a donkey’s head instead of a horse’s. As he counts to ten, he feels his consciousness, for lack of a better word, expand. It’s like he’s sensing each thread of magic being drawn to him, from the far corners of Equestria and everywhere in between. Soon it’s like he’s looking down from the stars, bright concentrations of light coming from several spots. But there are still tiny pinpricks, scattered everywhere, that make the entire landscape glow. And the light continues to grow, spreading farther and farther away. When he traces them back, the individual threads, he can feel them swirling deep inside of him. Just like Discord said: infinite possibilities, or near enough, with more lifetimes than even Celestia has gone through. And all he has to do is pluck one out to assume its power, like he did with Discord’s and making minerals appear. But he can’t do that! He can’t let even one out, he can’t use this power! It will just hurt them even more! He has to keep them in, can’t let them go-o-o! But with all this woe? Wait. Doug looks around, his face scrunching up in confusion. Discord is laying on the ground, eyes closed and mouth opened comically wide. That last part didn’t sound quite right. But he’s tried that, right? He’s tried not using this power, of not exploring what it would be like to become everything he could be. He could pick one, or two, or two hundred! Perhaps he should start small. He pictures a trio of red apples, and a small black seed appears in his hand. He focuses intently on it, as if he is an apple farmer doing her duty, fulfilling her destiny. Let it grow! Before his eyes the seed sprouts, a green shoot coming out. Branches and leaves form into a miniature tree that fits in his palm before morphing into a normal sized apple blossom. A fist sized red apple consumes the blossom from the inside, looking every bit the picturesque Sweet Apple Acre apple. He inhales the captivating scent, evoking an image of him lying in the orchard with Applejack, just inspecting each other’s toes and hooves. He bites into it, and the delicious snack disappears quicker than he might have liked. Leaving him with five black seeds in his palm. Maybe I can try for something bigger. Doug concentrates first on the Moon, then the Sun. He frowns as the celestial dynamics come directly to his mind, the power required to move them. It’s like they slog through a vast morass, slowing down without a constant force applied to them. Equus itself is positioned directly between them, such that the planet barely moves towards one or the other. And while he can move them such that both Sun and Moon are in the sky, things just seem harmonious when they are on opposite sides and spinning around. As to the how or why? Chaos magic makes it all guano! Calling upon Celestia and Luna’s cutie marks is as simple as calling their names. But actually using their abilities? By no stretch would he call it trivial or easy, but the power required comes to him without resistance. He worriedly looks over at the diarchs, expecting to see them withering to nothing.  Instead, as the moon dips below the horizon and dawn approaches on the other side (he has to compensate for Twilight’s earlier attempt, apparently she only moved the Moon and didn’t counterbalance the Sun). Actually, it’s way too early for that, but they’ll just have to deal with it. Maybe Celestia and Luna can fix it in the future. What more could he do with this power? Doug stands up, then starts walking. But his steps don’t take him along the ground, instead climbing a staircase of dew and wind higher and higher until he stands directly above Ponyville. Suspended hundreds of feet in the air, supported by nothing more than a light breeze, he scans the town, stopping on Twilight’s destroyed library. He looks at one hand, then the other. Let it flow!  Magic pours out of Doug like a waterfall. He loses himself in the building: not focusing on any one thing, or even anything at all, just a frenzy of construction. In one spot just outside town crystals coalesce, rapidly gathering together. There is no sense of style or floor plan, just room after room lumping together like a foal’s idea of a house built with blocks. It spirals higher and higher, pieces adding just as quickly as Doug can imagine; with seemingly no thought given to physical restraints or logistical ramifications.  The lower walls take on a crystal tree motif, four separate towers spring up from the middle, complete with landing areas for a pegasus or alicorn to land. To top it off is a truly gigantic, overly sparkly eleven pointed star. And then he stops, gazing over his work. It is, without a doubt, truly hideous. Garish beyond belief, ostentatious past what even a griffon might consider acceptable, and incredibly unwieldy even for a being capable of teleporting. He probably didn’t even include doors for every room. Oh, and it sparkles something fierce in the dawn's light. So Doug, as casually as if he was tossing a wadded up piece of paper in the trash, lifts the entire monstrosity, flips it upside down, and rams it into the ground. While he might have intended to shatter it to pieces and start anew, his construction is apparently sturdier than he thought. Sparkle Castle, for lack of a better name, sinks down into the earth until only the flat base is visible. Or would that be the top? A massive hole, like an empty moat, rings the entirety, at least where the towers pushed aside the ground. Whichever it is, top or bottom, he fills the hole in with dirt, then compacts it. Again and again until his anger at himself for building such a terrible castle is gone. Oh, and so sinkholes won’t randomly spawn around it. Yes, that’s why. He looks down at the ‘roof’ of what is now the entrance to Sparkle Castle. He adds a door, and it swings open to reveal a thirty foot drop. With a thought he adds transparent crystal stairs spiraling down the side, and a guardrail. That’s enough for now. Doug looks again at his hands, and the ‘wonder’ that he made. Was it worth it?  He walks down the staircase, coming to rest at the bottom of the massive room. He molds a flat, circular disk, crafting a picture of Equestria, an exact likeness of the map in his mind. He even puts every pony on it, smaller than the smallest speck of dust. He can feel their connections, every one. He could do great things with their power. He could be anything. But he wouldn’t, not knowing the cost to them. He would let it go. All the power the ponies had given him, all the power he had stolen, he gathers every last iota up, and forces it into the map. It drains out of him, eager to escape the void, and he slumps over in exhaustion. Some time later, the door above opens with a loud scrape. A single square of sunshine shines down, directly onto Doug’s still body. He briefly stirs as a poofy maned silhouette appears. “You know what this calls for?!” Pinkie Pie shouts with overzealous eyes. Doug groans, a hand coming up to block the sun. “A PARTY!!!”