//------------------------------// // Chapter Three // Story: Era of Grogar // by Pulsar Wave //------------------------------// "I have been looking forward to this." The figure the scrappy crew of unicorns were gazing at looked down at them. His fur had a tincture of cornflower blue; his crest of a mane, dense eyebrows and short tail were light bluish grey like cobalt. He wore a red breast collar. The harness was decorated with four gold plates, between them a golden orb, from which a bell was hanging. Atop his vertex, two majestic, twisted horns with dark azure shade glamorously boasted in magnificent splendor. An elegant goatee ornamented his broad chin, with his canine-decked grim smirk crowning his otherwise rigid mug, and that were all topped off by two glittering irides, bathing in red glow in a pool of pale green eyeballs, which penetrated the would-be opponents' souls like two sharpened needles. "What do you want from us?" shouted Astral in a demanding tone. "You? I have no business with you. My only interests pertain to her." Grogar slowly turned his head to face Gusty. Astral let out a growl with set teeth. "If you want her, you'll just have to walk through my disintegr-" He got choked on his words as his disavowed emperor embraced him in a tight telekinetic grip by his neck. The next thing he knew they were all floating in the air yards above the ground and suffocating. All of them, save Gusty. "Release them!" she ordered, succeeding in procuring a burst of chuckle from the ram. In an unexpected move, he let them go, however. When they hit the ground, they were unconscious. Gusty stared at them to see if they were indeed alive. "Forget about them, Gusty, daughter of Sunbeam; they are of no value," Grogar said. Gusty looked at him resolutely. "His point stands. One does not simply run into the Father of Monsters on a cool autumn night." Grogar chuckled again, before starting to talk. "I have watched you, and in all my years, only you have merited my full attention. You leave traces of your greatness in your wake. Wherever you go, you... contaminate. Just as I do. We are two flip sides of the same coin. You are a coruscating beacon in my fear-soaked night, one who has the nerve to challenge it in utter and perfect defiance." "Well... thank you for the flattery, I guess, but you overvalue me," the unicorn said to him. "I only do what is right, whereas you only do what is evil." "Yes, by your standards I am evil," Grogar responded in a slightly annoyed tone. "But ask yourself this. If the mountain cannot contain its own weight, and begets a rockslide, which abrades the nearby village, is the mountain evil? Or if another village at the coast is erased by the tidal wave, does it happen because the sea was evil? No, it is nature working. To discard, and to elevate. Mounting new challenges, making sure its children are not spoiled. When one competes in conflict, one is empowered in strength, obtaining new determination, longing for new trials; whilst when one vegetates in stagnation and isolation, one is eroded in feebleness, losing capability, and dying in turn, when the next trial ascends." "The difference is, Grogar, that nature can't help doing the things it does, for it is not conscious. You have a chance to not do these kinds of things, to not act like you are a messed-up deity, and yet you choose to carry on. And the why? I can't imagine how this activity can be perceived as anything but evil." "You make a fair point. But I watched in disgust as nature lost itself, as it became dysfunctional, so I vindicated the resolve to transcend it and take its place as the prime challenger." "Why would you say that nature is dysfunctional? How could nature of all things possibly be dysfunctional?" "It is functioning all right, but in a bad way. If you recall your race's history, and specifically early history, you will find that at the time, nature was the greatest evil. It is what gave them birth, and it is what tried to kill them repeatedly. In time, the unicorns had to band together, to face the trials united. After every success, a new crisis arose. And in the meantime, after every success, your people became more and more persistent and confident in themselves. It was a beautiful, perfectly balanced state of flawless order. New anguish bred new vigor. You obtained new capacities to resist, and that only made you better... But something changed, something cracked this blissful harmony. Eventually, nature failed to give an answer to your development and left you alone. Accordingly, your people have become fragile, slothful and shiftless. A repulsive, dreadful infection that plagues you still. If only you had the resourcefulness of your predecessors, you would not be suffering so much under me. Nature allowed you to hide in your homes, and thus avoid the conflict in the wild, when it should have been brought down upon you in your homes!" "So you're saying that because we live protected from the disasters out there, we are weak? What about you then? Do you seek the catastrophes out? Or are you weak like us?" Gusty asked, enduring the ram's hard stare. "I do not need to be tested by an inferior entity. And you are as inferior as whatever nature has become, and If it does not put you to the test, then some other force to be reckoned with ought to exist, to fill the tremendous void that such reservation calls for." "And why does that force have to be you?" "Because only I am in possession of power beyond comprehension. Power to claim the supremacy, supremacy to rule over this magical land as Emperor!" "No one asked you to be our ruler. We do not want you as our emperor," hissed Gusty with her anger throttled down. "It is all the same. Let me explain it to you. As you well know, when something does not function properly, it has to be fixed. When something in nature does not function properly, nature will fix it. And when an artificial creation does not function the way it should, then it is up to its creators to fix it. Nature will only intervene to correct its own direct creation. So what happens if nature itself becomes flawed? We cannot wait for it to fix itself. And we cannot wait for its creator to fix it, for nature is the creator. In that case, the one to repair it should be the one who is able to. And I was able to succeed, where nature had failed. You, however, cannot break free of your limited state. And what is worse: you do not even strive to. You had the raw potential that would have made it possible to rise above everything. But you threw it away for your own short-sighted needs. I have seen it before. A race succumbed to selfishness is a race on its way to oblivion." "And what do you think we should do in order to ascend? Be like you?" Gusty spat her words. "You would have to rule nature. Not influence it but master it. Healing shrunk flowers will not get you to greatness. But there is greatness in you, Gusty. The wind does your bidding, that is a start. You are the key to the future of your race, if you do not embrace your authority, you will all die." "I will never abuse my powers like that!" "Than you will turn out to be a grave disappointment and I will have misplaced my reliance on a savior to your people in you," Grogar said resignedly. "You lie! You don't care what happens to us! You gloat over our misery!" Gusty burst into tears as all the memories of their affliction from the being standing before her suddenly overwhelmed her. Her horn lit up with silverish glow, and she shot a powerful bolt at the ram. Naturally, it was ineffective; the bolt barged into a magical shield. "You're not only the Father of Monsters; you are the greatest monster of them all." "So be it. Let me show you what this monster is capable of," Gorgar said while igniting his own coronet with golden blaze. "Bring it on!" Gusty exclaimed, likewise preparing for the fight.