//------------------------------// // XXIII - As With Time All Things are Made New // Story: Empty Horizons: Sea of Stars // by Insipidious //------------------------------// Tirek was furious that none of the ponies who tried to stop him had any magic to speak of. They brandished rifles and blades—nothing to his masterful bubble shield. They fell like rats with a snap of his fingers. Even the structure of Sanctaphrax itself did nothing to stop him. Glass was pathetic, and airships, for all their powerful weapons, did not have the gall to fire upon their own city.  Tirek was not foolish—the mood of the airships could change at any moment as soon as a stray ship captain got scared—but for now, he was safe from their ire. He did not wish to chance much… though something in the back of his mind encouraged him to shoot them out of the sky.  He ignored it. They would be better if they served his whims, not if they were destroyed.  Which meant he needed to talk to the mare in charge of this city.  Channeling magic into his hooves, he jumped to the tallest tower and punched through the wall. He didn’t know exactly where Iota’s office was, but he knew it was somewhere near the top of this tower.  He grabbed a random mare’s neck in his hand. “Where is Iota?” he demanded.  Shakily, the mare held up a hoof to the stairs behind her. “F-four floors down.” Fighting a momentary urge to flatten the mare’s skull, Tirek tossed her to the side and marched down the stairs. To his surprise, he wasn’t too large for it, and he suspected that was because sometimes large objects had to be hauled up here. It took an annoying amount of time to find the proper floor, making him wish he knew the layout of the tower so he could teleport wherever he wanted. But no, he had to walk; smashing through walls might kill a pony he needed alive. When he entered the floor’s hallway, he discovered that he was slightly too tall for it. Clearly this part of the tower wasn’t designed for large cargo. He didn’t let the size stop him. The ceiling was shredded as his horns passed through and the walls buckled as his fists swung.  Soon, he came to a large set of oak doors. He bashed them down without a second thought, coming into an office space large enough for him to stand. It was most certainly the space of High Academe Iota, for not a thing was wasted on decoration. Everything was schedules, charts, budgets, and reference sheets. There was a map of Sanctaphrax, a fully detailed globe that looked very new, and a desk with a typewriter and a few other mechanical devices Tirek couldn't identify on it.  Iota was currently sitting behind her desk, talking to a pale blue unicorn stallion. She glanced at Tirek without emotion with her face.  “It appears I have pressing business to attend to,” Iota deadpanned, turning to the stallion. “While your talk of unity is intriguing, I fear it has to end. I suggest taking the back stairway for your escape since I cannot guarantee the elevator will be safe in a few minutes. Enjoy the rest of your day.” The stallion glanced at Tirek with a curious eye before leaving through the back door Iota had indicated. “Tirek,” Iota said once he had left. “What is the meaning of this rampage?” “You have failed t—” Iota whipped a device cobbled together from at least twelve different magic artifacts out from under her desk and pointed it at Tirek. It unleashed a beam stitched together from numerous different magic sources, both dark and light, with enough combined energy to vaporize a hole through an airship.  Tirek was fast enough to raise a shield. It didn’t take all of his power, but it was a significant task to push back against the High Academe’s personal defenses. He held fast, though, and the weapon couldn’t shoot for very long. It gave out, smoking in several places.  Iota set it on her desk without so much as a grimace. “You have earned your audience, Lord Tirek.”  “I would think so…” “What is your complaint?” Tirek couldn’t believe this mare, but he needed her. “You have failed to protect me. Dean Vespid, who you approved to see me, attempted to inject the magic aptitude testing solution into my brain!” He pointed at his bloodied eye. “It will take some time for me to muster the proper magic to heal this!” “She was not part of any conspiracy. While her actions surprise me, thinking back I should not be so shocked. She was a doctor. You were ambitious. She acted rashly. It is unacceptable and she will be removed from her position if I have my way. My power is not absolute.” “It does not need to be…” Tirek said. “I just need you to convince enough of them to follow me.” “Why would I do that? You would be detrimental to the progress of this city.” “I will absorb the magic from this rock you’re standing on and plunge it into the sea if you don’t.” Iota nodded. “I see. A threat.” “I already attempted to play the game your way. It did not go as anticipated.” “Clearly.” “Will you bow to me?” “I do not bow to anything. But I will listen to your terms.” Iota adjusted her glasses. “It will not be easy to convince them of your control.” “You do not need to.” Tirek pointed at the cobbled. “Tell them you defeated me. Turned me to dust. I will retreat to the core of this rock and tell you what I need from there. You will do everything in your power to provide what I ask, or I drop this city into the ocean. They will never need to know I am in control.” “Leyline would sense your magic.” “Leyline is dead. And Sparkler no longer has her talent. I do.” Iota nodded slowly. “Very well. We can determine the finer details later. For now, we must hide you. It is imp—” She glanced out the window. “We have visitors.”  Outside, the “mythril” airship was hovering. Tirek could see a shadowy form looking at them through a window.  He shot a laser through the window, taking out the back half of the mythril airship. It flew back, hitting one of the towers of Medicine before crashing to the glass tubes below.  “We need to move you. They will have seen that.” Iota gestured with her hoof. “I do not wish to enter a firefight where my city crumbles.” “A wise choice. I shall teleport u—” The back wall of their tower exploded. For one moment, the metal cylinder of a rocket revealed itself. The next, the fuel within ignited in a massive fireball that consumed the tower’s entire roof, sending a shockwave and disorganized shockwave right into Tirek.  However, it was completely non-magical in nature. Without any unusual thaumic energy, a simple adjustment to his shield cancelled out any and all flames within his sphere of influence. That said, it took him about half a second to raise this shield, during which time the flames sent burns across several parts of his body and several pieces of shrapnel cut through his skin.  When the flames cleared, he was the only thing standing at the top of the tower, a few floors lower than he’d been previously. All else was ash Like that, his easy way to the top was crushed. There was currently no High Academe for him to exploit. She was nothing more than ash in the wind.  But Tirek wasn’t done yet. He scanned the surrounding area, finding the launchpad. He teleported himself there, slamming his hooves into the ground so hard the pad cracked. “You will pay for what you’ve done!”  Fog, the Admiral, and Sparkler were the only ones standing there. He imagined all of them exploding in showers of blood.  “You know, I don’t think we will,” Fog commented.  “Have fun!” Sparkler waved with her hoof.  The Admiral took off her hat… removing a silver eye artifact with a purple crack in it.  Whatever it was, Tirek knew he wanted nothing to do with it. He charged his magic.  DISTRACTION! Rook’s voice came into his mind loud enough to make him grunt.  We learned this trick from a little FILLY and her RADIO! Eat our words! EAT THEM! A sting of confused, angry pain ran through his thoughts, heightened by the force of Rook and Cozy.  Tirek tried to force the spell to come out. Something, anything… but he couldn’t do it in time. Not with the traitors shouting at him.  The silver eye latched onto the corruption within him, recognizing him as a wyrd. A burst of white light hit him in the forehead, creating the beginnings of a silver eye.  No! He shrieked, feeling his brain lose cohesion. Unlike Rook’s encounter with the eye, he wasn’t able to get away. There was nowhere to go—he was in plain sight. It drove needles of magic into his mind, particularly burning the part of his face where his eye gushed blood.  He was becoming part of its game. Already he felt his mind gelling like some kind of puppet… there was no hope to destroy the eye now.  He could only take its power and make it his own.  Opening his mouth, he tried desperately to drain the eye of its magic. There was no way he had enough time. The Admiral’s plan had made sure of that. The eye had too much magic to go all at once.  But, by sheer luck, Tirek’s spell grabbed ahold of the corrupted part of the eye before the eye itself. The purple crack running down the eye was removed, returning it to its fully functional state.  A state that didn’t involve any connection to corruption at all. The eye stopped forming in Tirek’s skull, no longer receiving any corrupted instruction.  Tirek heard a scream in his mind as the eye artifact’s wyrd died.  He let out a laugh. “You failed!” The Admiral frantically shook the silver eye, trying to get it to work again.  Tirek prepared to give a big speech about his power and how he would take control. But… well, this place had already proven to be too much of a hassle, right? Why not just burn it to the ground and start somewhere else? He was free. He didn’t need control right away.  So he turned away from the three helpless ponies and focused his magic on the rock of Sanctaphrax. “Say goodbye to your city. If any of you survive… remember, you could have served me! I could have restored your magic...” He pointed to Sparkler. “I could have given you power to control your fate…” He pointed to Fog. “I could have turned you into a prodigal spellcaster. And you…” He sneered at the Admiral. “I could have given you that talent you desire so much.”  And with that, he fixed his senses on the spell keeping Sanctaphrax rock afloat.  Fog and Sparkler tackled him, but they were uselessly tossed away. Somepony shot a harpoon, but the shield spell found its force pathetic. There would be no more rockets or magical artifact guns. They’d used all those up.  And he stole the very life of their island for it.  The spell didn’t disengage immediately. It started to fall slowly as the rock lost the energy to continue fighting gravity. Tirek felt his stomach jump into his throat, a feeling that made him smile. “Your end has come…” He noticed the Admiral was staring intently at the silver eye. It stared back, doing nothing.  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, mockingly. A distant mare screamed.  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, mockingly. A distant mare screamed.  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, mockingly. A distant mare screamed.  ~~~ “What do you think you’re doing?” Tirek asked, mockingly. A distant mare screamed.  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, mockingly. A distant mare screamed.  The Admiral looked up from the silver eye, confused beyond belief. “What in th—” “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, mockingly. A distant mare screamed. A second later, he was saying the same thing again… he spoke, the scream. He spoke, the scream. Over and over.  In fact, everything was stuck like that. Fog was struggling to stand up, but she was always pulled back to the ground. Sparkler was biting nervously at her hair, cutting off a strand that always replaced itself.  The Admiral glanced back at the silver eye. The clock face within its iris was spinning… the hands making a full revolution every loop of time.  The pegasus and that dog were stuck in a cycle, weren’t they? Always hunting each other… She looked up at Tirek’s smug, arrogant face. And he just stopped you from doing that. Would you have really coated him in silver? Or…  She shook her head—no use theorizing. She had an advantage now. She could take him out.  She picked up a harpoon off the ground and stabbed at his neck. Even though he only had a few seconds in the loop, his shield spell had already been active. It wasn’t anything impressive, but it was more than enough to block a mare hurling a harpoon at him, even if he only had a split second to see it coming. Instead, the Admiral waited for the instant he reset… and she jumped forward, skewering him through the adam’s apple. For a moment, she saw the magic release from his horn. But he was reset back. The harpoon vanished, though the past version of it was still on the ground.  “What do you think you’re doing?” Tirek asked, mockingly. A distant mare screamed.  “There’s got to be a way to take advantage of this…” the Admiral hissed. She had all the time in the world… but every time she did something, it was reset. She needed to kill him and then turn the silver eye off.  The question was… how? She’d wasn’t even entirely sure how she’d turned it on. She’d just… stared at it intently. And if she turned it off she might not be able to turn it back on.  But she could try every time she killed Tirek…  Picking up the harpoon, she tried again. It took her a few swings to get past Tirek’s shield perfectly, but the moment she did, she smashed the eye into the ground.  It didn’t even crack.  She tried again, killing Tirek while staring intently into the eye. It didn’t shut off.  What else could have turned you on? The Admiral wondered. ...Tirek. Tirek’s unusual. His magic, maybe? Holding it in front of his mouth did nothing, but one of the loops she saw him take some of its magic. Almost none… but some.  Perhaps… if all of its magic were stolen, it would turn off. It would have to. Right? Assuming this was right, there was still a problem. Tirek had to be alive to steal magic, but she had to end the loop after he was dead. So she couldn’t use him to drain it.  But… he wasn’t the only one who could drain magic, was he?  The Admiral galloped off the launchpad as the world looped around her. She jumped behind a large crate that had been set up near one of the glass tubes. Breathing heavily, she landed on the other side, stumbling. The air was thin with the glass broken as it was. Not enough to concern her, but it made every action that much harder.  Rising to her hooves, she glanced at what was hiding behind the crate. Rook’s tank, with her in it, out of sight so the eye wouldn’t grab her. In her loop, she was currently staring at the Admiral with a shocked horror at seeing the eye.  You’re going to be looping like that for a while, I need to be able to communicate to you what to do…  The Admiral took a page out of Rook’s book and bit herself, using her blood to write a message with her wingtip. Rook couldn’t read, so the Admiral had to put images on the shard of metal to get her point across.  I hope she can figure this out.  The Admiral jumped to Rook, placing the metal message and the eye into her hooves, giving the eye a new master. “It’s up to you!”  ~~~ “It’s up to you!” the Admiral said.  “Where is she?” Tirek called.  A distant mare screamed.  “It’s up to you!” “Where is she?” A distant mare screamed.  “It’s up to you!” “Where is she?” A distant mare screamed.  What in the actual oceanic demon-shills is going on? Rook glanced at the perfectly healed silver eye. Something eye-related. I figured that out, Captain Obvious.  Yes, well, we have no idea how long this is going to last, so… She looked at the blood on the metal. How kind, she left us instructions. The fact that you’re able to just accept this as a thing that is happening without so much as a moment’s pause is highly concerning.  Golly, I thought you were supposed to be the heartless monster? And just like that, the feeling of helpless bafflement is gone and replaced with exasperation. You have a real talent.  Rook giggled. Welcome back. You’re welcome, by the way.  Message. Made of blood. Focus.  She’s put us in a time loop, we have all the time in the world. We don’t know that for sure.  Right… They took a moment to examine the metal. The first image was of a clock with an arrow around it. Time loop, they’d figured that out. The next was of Tirek. Some of the images had an arrow stabbed through him, some had an arrow blocked by a curve. Uh… She could only kill him on some loops. I bet it’s never permanent. He always resets.  So she couldn’t do it. And thinks we can… why? Next image, genius.  It showed the eye… and a toothy mouth around it.  I find it hard to believe she wants us to eat it.  She wants us to absorb it’s magic to shut it off, Rook realized. If we kill him and deactivate it… it’ll stick. And all the magic will go back to where it belongs.  She’s overestimating us. We don’t have enough magic power in us to perform a drain of that magnitude that quickly.  Not yet, we don’t! She looked over the crate at Tirek, looping as he looked frantically for the Admiral. But he does. And he can’t stop us from taking it bit by bit…  Brilliant. All that power he stole… it is ours! And time will reset so we get to keep it after we’re done! ...If I’m understanding how this works, right. You’re probably not.  A mare can dream.  She used her pegasus magic to churn up a burst of wind, carting her tank over to Tirek. He looked terrible—an eye missing and festering with concentrated corruption, and a silver eye half-formed in his forehead that was oozing the unnatural silver liquid.  Rook smirked.  ...We really doing this? Aren’t we? We took their side.  But we don’t have to. We have all the time… we could stake out another claim. Find a way to abuse his powers… lock all these looped ponies away… take control. She tapped a hoof to the edge of the tank. Very tempting.  We decided not to be him. We do not take control through raw power.  Raw power is nice, though.  No doubt. And we will have some if all works as planned. But it is better for us if we end him without any backups.  It is.  It is.  They both chose not to deliberate on it any further. Together, they spread their fins wide, focusing on the magic Tirek had taught them. It was weak, almost pathetic, but it was enough to drain some magic into them. Usually any living magic source worth its salt would run away from such a slow drain, or retaliate with some feedback… but Tirek was stuck. Eternally living the same moment, resetting, replenishing his magic stores.  The dual-minded seapony grinned malevolently as the magic within her grew ten times, a hundred, a thousand. She could feel the magic of Tirek, Fog, Sparkler, Leyline, and so many magic artifacts it was a little ridiculous. This only ended when Rook and Cozy started to feel like this much power might be a tax on her body.  Rook had so much magic in her it was pathetically easy to lift a harpoon with a whirlwind. She angled the weapon right at Tirek’s neck, savoring for a moment the shocked expression that crossed his face every loop.  In a hoof, she held the silver eye.  Focusing, she narrowed her eyes.  The loop reset.  She shoved the harpoon forward, skewering Tirek in the neck. In a second, she sucked the silver eye dry of all its magic.  The loop didn’t reset.  In an instant, all the magic she had stored up from Tirek vanished, only the silver eye’s power itself remaining in her. The magic could not be duplicated without the eye itself managing it. Disappointing. Tirek stared at her in shock as his horns started to glow with the magic they could no longer contain. “Wh… Gh…”  Rook and Cozy said nothing. She just grinned and waved.  Tirek’s horns exploded, releasing his stored magic back to the world.  ~~~ Tirek was, as much as he tried not to be, a remnant of the Old Equestria. As such, his evil came with a curious mitigation modern ponies might find “overly-convenient.” When defeated, his stored magic would immediately return to where it was supposed to be.  Sparkler and Fog? Restored in an instant.  The artifacts he had devoured? Back to full operation.  That crystal crab in Tartarus? It may not have been able to live without magic, but upon receiving it back it was resurrected.  The spell keeping Sanctaphrax afloat? Restored in full. All in all, Sanctaphrax hadn’t even been without its spell long enough to experience the full effect of gravity. For what had happened, there was surprisingly little damage.  Not everything could truly be returned, however. Leyline and a few others were dead, so when the magic returned, it came to a corpse no longer able to use it.  Tirek, however, was not in Old Equestria. He did not get to survive. The wound to his neck remained, though through pure hatred he managed to hold on a little longer.  Rook was staring at him from her tank… but it was the Admiral who held Tirek’s attention. She pointed a harpoon at his face. “I tried to help you. I gave you the benefit of the doubt.” Even in his death, Tirek could still laugh. “That was your first mistake…” She stabbed him through the silver eye, just to make sure. Then she threw the harpoon away, breathing heavily.  “We… we did it!” Hailing Fog shouted, too happy to care that her mouth was still torn down one side. “WE DID IT!” she shouted, using every radio she could get her magic on, including the one in the Admiral’s ear.  The Admiral glared at her.  “Not sorry,” Fog giggled.  Sparkler smiled despite her proximity to Fog. “Yeah. We did do it. Granted, we were part of the problem, but…” “But Sanctaphrax is still around,” the Admiral said. “And we solved a crisis with rockets too. Both thanks to Rook and Cozy here.” She trotted up to the tank, smiling. “I never thought I’d see the day when a seapony became the hero of the day.” Rook winked and did a backflip. “I do need you to do something else.” Rook stopped mid-backflup.  The Admiral picked up the dead eye. “I do need to give this back to Silver with it’s magic, or he’s going to go berserk. I don’t know what it is like when he goes berserk. I do not want to find out.” With a sigh, Rook returned the magic she had taken from the eye. The Admiral suspected the seapony didn’t return all of it, but she wasn’t going to press. Carefully, she set the eye into a bag and sealed it shut. She didn’t want to start another time loop by accident.  “Well…” Meteor said, coming out from his hiding spot behind another storage crate. “What now?” “We go somewhere there’s proper air,” the Admiral said, trying not to look out of breath. “And then we are going to discuss the deal with the rockets. And then I’m washing my hooves of you.” “Admira—” “You were one of my closest friends, Meteor. I trusted you. It’s not the fact that you turned them into weapons, though that hurts somewhere else. It’s the fact that you didn’t tell me. We’re done after this.” “...If that’s what you want.” “And…” the Admiral turned to look at Sanctaphrax. All things considered, it didn’t look that terrible. Most of the towers were still standing and somepony had gotten the fires under control. A large portion of the glass tubes were damaged, though, and that was going to wreak havoc on the air systems.  The Admiral sighed. “This is going to be a long cleanup…”