//------------------------------// // The Celestia Way // Story: The Stone Chisel Way // by King Genesis //------------------------------// Arc IV - Chapter I - The Celestia Way Her voice sounds too childish. She opens her eyes and finds nothing around her. She is alone. She tries to look out for her younger sister. "Luna?" Her voice sounds like a young filly's. She begins to slowly trot around and finds out she can see herself on the ground. The weird floor where she is standing looks like a mirror that reveals her new form... she's not Princess Celestia anymore. Her hair does not have the same color. She's now her young self. A filly with short pink hair, wings, and a horn. "What?" she whispers. "What happened?" she looks around her, desperately. "Luna? Twilight?" Silence. "Rainbow Dash? Pinkie Pie? Fluttershy?" Silence. Nobody answers. Then she hears something, far away from her. It sounds like... something slowly trotting over water. She fastly turns her head in that direction and takes a step. "Luna? Is that you?" "I killed your sister." The frightening shadow of a ram appears far away, stuck into a white, empty horizon. "You are the last one." Her fur gets spiky when she hears that. There it is. Him. He must be lying... that has to be impossible. He can't have done that to her beloved sister. The frightening ram is now visible to her eyes... and something happened to him. His soulmate Rushkwa is not there with him, nor his young relatives. He's alone, and his eyes reflect something else. Not only pain but also loneliness. His dark blue fur has now faded into a clear grey and he seems to be much thinner than before. Last but not least, the lower part of his jaw has neither skin nor fur. It's fleshless. Just a bone. "Luna?" He squints his eyes, looking around. He doesn't understand what is happening. "A filly. What is happening?" "Where is my sister?" the little princess snorts at him. Tenebris tries to do something to her... but he can't. He clenches his teeth before the two of them break into pieces. He's weak. He's trembling. Something has drained him. "If you did something to her..." "Tell me," he affirms, with a sad smile. "It's not necessary for me to answer your question. You can do it for yourself, little princess. Do you feel her? Somewhere?" No. She doesn't feel her. She doesn't feel her sister near... but she got used to feeling the distance when she was on the moon. This can't help her. "And you? Do you feel any one of your relatives? Somewhere?" "Don't you dare to mention their names." Tenebris tries to attack her... but surprisingly, he's feeling deadweight. Literal deadweight. "That... kind of non-consensual... soul union... that explosion, that fog. What in the world was that object?" She doesn't want to deviate from the situation right now."That doesn't matter right now. Where's my sister?" "No. I do matter about that object." Tenebris' hooves start trembling. "That weird fog... it felt like fire burning me alive. I saw Rushkwa being disintegrated into ashes..." He squints his eyes. "What was it?" She approaches him. "If my sister appears, I'll tell you." Tenebris growls. "What was it, you disgusting creature?" "Where's Luna?" "WHAT? WAS? IT?" He shouts in a low tone but can't do it loudly. It looks like his throat is about to pass out. "I had the power of chaos flowing through my veins. Rushkwa had it. Risu. Maior. Mors. Sanguis. All of them had it... and I don't feel them anymore." His loin begins to tremble while part of his fur starts falling to the ground. "My Rushkwa... I haven't felt her since... and I don't feel this... strength anymore." Celestia wants to keep speaking, but something bubbling is making sounds behind her. Both the ram and the princess find out there is a small pond filled with a white liquid right there, and a bony hoof raises from it, soon revealed to be somepony else. It doesn't have any skin, muscles, or fur. All of his bones can be seen. His eyes are empty holes that observe both creatures. "I... I hated Shadow Star..." his voice is barely heard by both. Tenebris tries to maintain his position but his hooves are slowly losing strength. "I hated the wizards of chaos... but something... he said... actually had a point..." Celestia is slowly realizing who is the skeleton. "LaCrowley," she says. "What is going on? Why am I a filly? Why are you...?" she bites her lips. "What did you do to me?" Celestia looks at both of them and looks around again, trying to find her sister and her friends. "Shadow Star once said chaos... was an unstoppable force that could be... stabbed in the back... by..." The skeleton opens his jaw while drowning in the strange white liquid. Tenebris can't hold anymore and falls to the wet blank ground. One of his hooves breaks in half. He almost lost all his fur, which is under his weak body on the ground, now revealing his bare, white skin. "...destiny." "I had destiny on my hands!" shouts the ram while sticking his head to the floor. "I had chaos on my hands! I could control destiny itself!" "Destiny is in nobody's hands." Celestia looks at LaCrowley's skeleton getting into the white liquid again. "Not even Discord touched it... no... nobody did it." "I had it on my hands..." The ram clenches his teeth looking at the filly. "I told myself I was going to kill you... as I did with your sister... I had it on my hands, the story cannot end right here... I can do it... I can do it..." The filly gets scared. "You didn't kill Luna." And the ram, a weakened creature on the floor, chuckles, and smiles, trying to gain the strength to get up. "I did. Yes, I did." She frowns. "Where is she?" "I... I turned my hoof into a knife and stabbed her neck... several times. I saw her bleeding." Celestia's pupils shrink and she clenches her teeth. "That's not true. I didn't see it." "You never turned around to look at me." "Cel... Celestia..." "It surprised me that her blood was actually dark blue instead of red." The ram makes a bigger smile, but can't get up from his position. His hooves are not responding to him. "She looked at me with tears in her eyes." She feels goosebumps. "Celestia..." "You're lying!" "Celestia!" the skeleton tries to shout, but he can be barely heard. "Why would I lie right now? About your sister?" "Celestia!!" "What?!" she shouts while her eyes start getting watered. "What is going on?" The skeleton gets in the pond. "Get... in the pond..." She looks at the weak Tenebris still smiling at her on the floor. "Why?" she asks. "The pond... is calling... for you... It's calling for your... name..." She raises her eyebrows, calming herself down. This has to be a dream. "What?" "The pond... has your sister's voice... she's calling your name... Celestia... Celestia..." Her sister's voice? Is what he is saying real? The truth? Is Luna there? "Luna?" She approaches the white pond and finds out it's the only part of the ground where she can't see her own reflection, being, ironically, a liquid surface. What is this liquid? "No!" Tenebris wants to get up but his legs don't even move. "We can't end like this.. Don't you dare to leave! I must... I must kill you! As I did with your sister! I stabbed her in her neck!" Celestia sheds a tear while her hooves start touching the pond. She doesn't want to have that mental image again. LaCrowley may be right now underwater. "If you did something to her... I swear I'm going to take charge of you. I swear." The ram raises an eyebrow, surprised. He didn't expect that. "What? Take charge of me? What are you going to do, filly?" He chuckles. "Kill me?" "I can be the joyful and worshipped princess of the sun, but only a few creatures of Equestria know my menacing warrior side." She snorts. "And is one of the worst things that a creature can see." Eyes squinted. "You will see it, Tenebris. I assure you." Tenebris laughs. "I understand, little princess. Let it go through your dirty veins. Through your blood. You are feeling the same pain as I felt when you trapped me in that stone statue in Tartarus. Don't you remember?" "Believe me in what I say, Tenebris," she sheds a tear. "I assure you will see it. For everything you did. For everything you are." He is still chuckling. "And what are you waiting for?" A cold hoof touches Celestia and she fastly gets attached to it without her magic, getting in the water. Has he trapped her? "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" "COWARD!" Celestia can't see anything at first under the white liquid from the pond. Everything is actually the same. There is white everywhere, but this time the bottom of the pond is grey. The skeleton of LaCrowley is near it. Celestia... Celestia... Celestia... That voice. It's not Luna's... but sounds like something else. Where does it come from? "I may have an idea about what happened." LaCrowley's voice is now understandable and hearable under the strange water. Looks like he needed the liquid to talk. "The crimson flower is... or was a destiny tool." Celestia already knows that. It's what the legend says. "The last time its magic was called... was yesterday morning when the zebra prayed on it. Once it touched the lava, the crimson crystal melted and the object's power broke in." Seconds of silence. Celestia doesn't say anything. "Maybe all of its power went outside, to the light... and everything exploded." He looks at her with his skull's empty holes. "And the world may have been erased." Celestia... Celestia... Celestia... Celestia... Celestia... "I had it on my hands! I HAD IT ON MY HANDS!" He slowly moves from its position. Celestia tries to approach him but gets distracted by the voice who is calling her. "I don't know if you get the same feeling... but my bones are getting... attracted to a certain aura. I've tried to use my magic but... look at me. Looks like the power of destiny in the flower had... eradicated chaos itself. That's why all of them are gone except for Tenebris. The ram may have resisted it because he had the crown of Discord, and he is almost dead... but me? I have no idea why I am alive." He shakes his skull. "I should have died." Celestia... "I froze my pupils. I shut the mouths of each one of them. Stone Chisel may have freed Tenebris from its hell, but... everything was caused by me. Everything it's my fault... I am guilty." He looks at his bones. "Galloway, Light Eater, Cheesecake, Stone Chisel... dead. Grapefruit Slice... may be dead too. They should have survived instead of me." "Uh..." She can speak fluidly, even with the liquid around her. "I can speak." "This is not water. I don't know what it is... but it makes me feel... attracted to something." "I want to ask you a question." He nods his skull, expecting it. "Which one?" "Where are my sister and my friends? I don't feel Luna near me. I haven't seen Twilight Sparkle and her friends... my friends, any one of them since I went to your place to look for the Crimson Flower with your assistant. Twilight Sparkle and her friends. Spike the baby dragon. Flurry Hea---." Something makes the skeleton shiver. "Don't." He shuts her up. "Don't mention that... I..." Her eyebrows rise and her pupils shrink. "What happened?" "I don't know what happened to your sister but... your friends, the dragon, the... I didn't want to freeze them. I had to because I... I couldn't stand the fact that... No. No. I can't..." Celestia doesn't want to reply to him and wants to change the course of the conversation, trying not to explode into something else. "Stone Chisel confessed..." she takes a breath, trying to calm down. "He confessed everything to me. He told me he robbed an amulet that belonged to someone called Shadow Star, who you mentioned... a minute or two ago." LaCrowley also calms down and tries to close his nonexistent eyes. "That amulet had Rushkwa's soul in it. That woke Tenebris up and gave him a new power. I knew Stone Chisel stole it from me... but I never cared. I had it for a long time but I hated it so much... I hated that amulet with every part of my fur... The fur I had." She doesn't understand. "But... Didn't you ever think that he could make something wrong with it?" LaCrowley shakes his skull. "I never thought he could do something wrong with it." "He?" "COWARD!" Celestia... Celestia... "I thought he didn't know how to use it and would eventually throw it away... that's what I told myself, because... because I don't know. I don't know what to tell you, Celestia. I wanted to get rid of that amulet but... I kept it in my place just in case... and at the same time, Stone Chisel. I trusted him... even when he left..." "And he caused this." "No. I caused this. Don't blame him for what I didn't do. I took Equestria to its end." A white light appears at the bottom of the pond. Both of them look at it. The voice gets louder. Celestia... Celestia... Celestia... The princess' horn starts glowing. She still has her magic, unlike LaCrowley and Tenebris. "It's calling you." "Is it a portal?" He shakes his skull. "I don't know." "I think it is..." The magic of her horn is getting attracted to the white light, which is getting bigger and bigger. The voice gets much louder. "Do me a favor before you do this, Celestia." Celestia... Celestia. "If that light actually changes destiny... I want you to look for me. At the Urushiol Forest. You and your sister need to stop me and take me to Tartarus." She looks at him with resentment. She knows what to do. "You don't have to ask me for that. I made the decision... even before we got here." Silence between them. "I'm proud to hear that." "I WILL KILL YOU!" The voice gets louder. Her horn is trying to go through the light. Celestia! Something cold surrounds her after the horn touches the bottom of the pond. She closes his eyes... a fog is surrounding her... a light blinds her... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Arc I - Chapter I - The Trial