Of all the potential threats to his cult of multiversal dominance, the Eschaton had not expected pulp adventure thrillers to be among the most dangerous.
So that… stot known as Daring Do had stolen the Medallion of Worlds and collapsed his base of operations. And had gotten a book published about her exploits by a fawning fan. And mauled his ranks when many of his acolytes thought book-him was, of all the absurdities, more menacing than real-him and deserted. And sicced the Crown on the remainder, forcing them even more deeply underground than before and far outside Equestria once the Guard came a-knocking. And even made a killing on top of all of that when the book rocketed to the top of the Manehattan Times’ Best Sellers list. So all of that had happened. No matter. He could manage.
In some ways, it was even a good thing. Take the mass exodus of his followers, for example. Those were the weak, the foolish, the nonbelievers, the ones who wouldn’t give him their all. The troublesome had been culled without the Eschaton needing to lift a hoof. Fewer than a dozen remained, but they were, all of them, loyal. Losing his temple had been a small price to pay for that. (Definitely. Absolutely. Totally. One hundred percent.) Speaking of which, ever since his cult had been forced to go to ground and split up, they’d taken up dream magic with gusto. They were still new at it, but he was skilled in magic of the mind. He could find them in the dreamscape and take them along to his dream for weekly meetings, still keeping in touch with them even as they spread across Equestria. (And he absolutely wasn’t exhausted and degraded by being a glorified taxi puller. Sacrifices had to be made! Now if only that stupid little Meteor Shower could hurry up and learn full dreamwalking so she could make those sacrifices.)
And even the small numbers didn’t matter, not anymore. For in the days since, the Eschaton had heard of some… thing that would be an invaluable asset to him. He only heard of it in the vaguest of whispers that came from Equestria, but they were too consistent to be false. An automaton of Luna’s, one that patrolled dreams, one made from pure thought, one codenamed Moondog (what a stupid name). His reasoning was simple: Luna had most likely built this construct to handle dreams with minimal input from herself, and so wouldn’t be watching it all that closely. What sort of pony made an automaton you had to keep a constant eye on? All the Eschaton had to do was (somehow) work his own orders into the Moondog, and bam: control of the dream realm was his.
Of course, he expected some small level of difficulty. So far from the main roads of Equestria, the rumors the Eschaton heard were only half-remembered snatches of casual anecdotes at best. The precise nature of the Moondog remained disappointingly elusive. Some of them even implied the construct was fully sapient, but the Eschaton brushed those off. Sapience in golems hadn’t been properly achieved yet, and so there was no reason it would come to be now. It was probably just really good at mimicking pony behavior. Besides, really, how hard could the takeover actually be? When push came to shove, it was just a machine, after all, and the sole purpose of a machine was to dance to the tune of its masters. He had this in the bag already.
“Sir,” said Acolyte Astral Mind, “are… I don’t mean to disrespect you, but…” Cough. “Are you sure this is going to work?”
“Of course,” the Eschaton said confidently. “How could it not?”
“You know literally nothing about how this Moondog thing works.”
Admittedly, an issue that needed to be corrected. But until then, he had a fine answer. “If one only looked at the known, science would never advance. You would not be here now.”
Astral nodded reluctantly. “I guess.” They were sharing the Eschaton’s dreamspace with a certain few other acolytes to help draw Moondog to him. Aside from himself, none of the ponies in question could have managed any dream magic a year ago. Now, they were among Equestria’s most skilled dream mages (which most definitely wasn’t because of the general dearth of dream mages in Equestria). “But what if-”
The Eschaton raised a hoof to silence her. “Patience, young one,” he said. (“I’m thirty-seven and older than you,” grumbled Astral.) “We can’t simply avoid difficulties because of what-ifs. Those are bridges we’ll cross when we reach them. Unperformed experiments have no results.”
“But-”
Backtalk? Against him? His patience disintegrated. “We are doing this,” snapped the Eschaton, “and if you’re going to do nothing but worry and shoot down my ideas, then I have no place for you. Now be ready for your part of the spell.”
Astral flinched as if struck and backed up, bowing. “I apologize, sir, I mean no disrespect,” she recited quickly. “I merely- I apologize.”
“Good,” snarled the Eschaton. He glared hatefully at her and her impudence. Astral had been unquestioningly loyal before the schism, but now, she seemed determined to point out every single little flaw in his plans. If she didn’t learn her place…
He shook his head and turned his attention to the dream at large. Including Astral, he had four acolytes at his beck and call at the moment, all wearing the usual black robes. It ought to be enough for this particular spell. He’d shaped the dream to look like one of the main sacrificial chambers beneath the pyramid, back when it was still up. The familiarity helped maintain focus (for the acolytes, of course, not for him, he absolutely had more than enough self-control for that). Not that the spell needed much focus; it basically let him seek out major concentrations of dream magic and draw them to him. Major concentrations like an oneiroturgic golem.
With no real reason to wait, the Eschaton cleared his throat. “Begin the ritual!” he boomed. As one, the acolytes closed their eyes and began molding the dream’s magic, turning it into a giant lens. The Eschaton waited as the energy built, then added his own, kicking the spell into full gear. His sight unfolded and turned outwards, to the dreamscape as a whole, and he surveyed it as if through binoculars.
Bits and fragments of energy traced their way across a multidimensional space without space. Most of them could be safely ignored; little nightmare beasties of some kind or another, things that could barely threaten foals. Other, more intense corpuscles of mana were clearly ponies (maybe lucid, maybe not) from the way their magic was formed. And, finally, there was that colossal powerhouse of arcane might that was Princess Luna. He didn’t know whether or not she could sense when she was being spied upon, but the Eschaton steered well clear of her. He was looking for something else, anyway. He didn’t know what, exactly, he was looking for, but he knew it would be completely new to him.
Then he saw it.
It had none of the usual thaumic veins associated with ponies, apparently being pure dream magic, yet it was even more concentrated than most ponies. But it wasn’t a mass; intricate structures wove in and out of it, every single one of them affecting the others and driving them in ways the Eschaton couldn’t compre- could barely comprehend. Even as he watched, the… creature blipped into a dream (how was “blip” the proper word for that?) and although it blipped back out mere seconds later, the dream’s positive energies had spiked. If that wasn’t the Moondog, he’d eat his robe. In the real world, where that meant something.
The Eschaton immediately cast the second part of the spell and dug his hooks in. Moondog would find it more difficult to move in any direction besides closer to this dream. Slowly, but surely, he’d reel it in, bit by bit, increasing the pull all the while.
And he certainly needed to increase the pull; the Moondog didn’t even seem to notice the tug at first, casually going from dream to dream like nothing was wrong. The Eschaton strained and hurled more magic at the spell; no change beyond the barest bit of hesitation when he first started.
His focus was nearly shattered when Astral coughed. “Um, sir,” she whispered loudly, “maybe if we help, we-”
“Quiet,” said the Eschaton. He focused his annoyance into more magic. “This is my burden to bear, not yours.” He was to be the one who called on their trump card, and nopony else.
“Well, that doesn’t mean we can’t-”
“Silence,” hissed the Eschaton. “Know your place and keep your place. I have this under control. I do not need your help.” The idea of slapping some sense into Astral was quite appealing, but that would disrupt the spell. Gritting his teeth and ignoring the looks the acolytes were giving each other, he instead channeled his ire deeper and deeper into the spell. Surely now, now, he could pull that construct in.
The blob of magic slowed and came to a stop. Before the Eschaton could get a good look at it, it was rocketing towards him. He opened his mouth to warn the acolytes, only for the dream to split in twain before him.
From the gap in reality strode something that both was and wasn’t an alicorn like none the Eschaton had seen before. Although it had a pony’s shape, it was more like a three-dimensional hole than anything solid. Stars twinkled in its coat — literally inside, given the depth — as magic traced out its edges. Seeing it in motion was unreal, something that could never exist in reality. It gave its attention to each pony in turn before finally settling on the Eschaton with eyes like a reflection of the moon on a starlit pool. The Eschaton could only gape at the not-pony in response. He’d expected a crude imitation of life, but this? This was something else. It was strange but beautiful, an animated piece of the night sky. Truly, this was the only way a dream automaton could look. This was the Moondog. It- She- It had to be. The masterpiece opened its mouth and, in an otherworldly voice of several ponies layered on top of each other, spoke.
“Gaow! Holy crow, was that crude.” After delivering a few solid smacks to the side of its head, the not-pony dropped down onto its rump and folded its front legs across its chest as it glared at the Eschaton, pouting. “Sheesh, whaddya want? You could’ve just sent a letter and asked, y’know.”
Its… way of speaking was a bit surprising, but the Eschaton ignored that. Probably just some weak attempt by Luna to make her machine feel more personable (he did his best to ignore that it was already working; he made a mental note to avoid getting attached to the Moondog).
“Hold up.” The Moondog squinted at the Eschaton. “Do I know you? I swear you look familiar. Who are you?”
Oh, perfect. Perfect. The Eschaton cleared his throat. “I am the end of this world and the beginning of a new one,” he said. “I am he who shall wipe away the old and design the new. I am-”
The Moondog planted its head in its hoof. (So did Astral. The Eschaton pretended to not notice.) “Look, dude,” it muttered, “I didn’t ask for your life story, just- Whuff, never mind. You asked for this.”
The Eschaton twitched as an ethereal hoof batted at his thoughts; the Moondog’s magic, no doubt, automatically running through its routines. It glanced off the mental shields he’d put up without leaving much of an impact. So those spells were working. Perfect. Even if the construct didn’t listen to him, there was no way it could get into his head. And if those spells were working…
Fully subverting the will of a pony took an awful lot of work, almost always a lot more than was practical. Tweaking it a little, though — making them not notice certain things, causing him to always slip out of their memory whenever they tried to say something about him — was… okay, also a lot of work. But significantly less, usually to the point that it was practical. It couldn’t be that different on the Moondog, right? It was just an automaton, a thing that followed the rules Luna had set down, so getting it to behave differently just involved tweaking those rules.
Quickly, the Eschaton wove a mild forgetfulness spell — even easier than usual, thanks to dreams — and flicked it at the Moondog. It’d barely be noticeable, even if you looked closely, since its effect was small. All it would do was make what little thing the construct had for a mind wander when it tried to tell someone else (cough Luna cough) about him, keeping himself safe. He even saw when it hit the Moondog; it twitched and blinked at him. The spell behaved differently than usual, with some of it sloughing off the construct’s framework, but that had to just be excess energy, unneeded since a machine was so much easier to work with than a pony.
“Are you finished?” the Eschaton asked, smiling. Oh, this was too easy.
“…Yeah, I think I am,” the Moondog said quietly. Its brow was furrowed and its wings twitched, like it was thinking very quickly. Of course, constructs couldn’t think, so that couldn’t be it.
“Well, then.” The Eschaton cleared his throat. “I am someone with… let’s just say, very big plans for Equestria.”
“Eh-heh,” said the Moondog, nodding slowly. It glanced around the room. “So what do you need me for?”
Awfully direct for a golem, it was. At least it’d save time. “I wish to make you an offer,” the Eschaton said. “You are a prisoner of dreams, and-”
“I am? Huh.” It sounded, somehow, like the Moondog was being sarcastic. But how could a construct be sarcastic? Maybe Luna was the type to add in sarcasm because she could.
The Eschaton’s speech briefly stalled, but he was back up and running quickly. “You are a construct of Luna’s,” he continued, “forced to do the bidding of a lazy princess.” Its ears went flat; he ignored that. “Look at your very name: moon’s dog. But there is so much more beyond your restraints. There is an entire world out there for you to see! And Princess Luna is keeping it from you, keeping you in her thrall. But we can change that.”
The Moondog twitched, almost like it was suppressing a snort. It gave every one of the acolytes a brief look before fixing its eyes on the Eschaton. He remained strong, looking back into those strange, glowing orbs with no fear. One of its ears wiggled, then it smiled and leaned in. “I’m listening.”
“The princesses are inept,” said the Eschaton. Thanks to its simple mind, he was close to winning it over, so close. His voice was picking up speed in his excitement and he felt ready to run a dozen marathons back-to-back. “Their policies of- friendship have allowed countless evils to befall Equestria. Somepony needs to do something. And I am that somepony. I am the only one with the will to stand up against the alicorns themselves. Equestria will be mine and I will remake it into something stronger, hardier, more self-sufficient, more unforgiving to those who wrong us.” Well, mostly it’d be his, remade for him. He suspected he needed a marketing spin to make it sound appealing, even to a construct. “But!” He paused for dramatic effect; he even saw the Moondog’s wings open slightly. “But.”
Astral had a sudden coughing fit that sounded bizarrely like, Get on with it.
The Eschaton glared at her, then returned to the Moondog. This was the important part. “I need your help. I can unmake your chains and allow you to roam free, beholden to no one but yourself.” Of course, he’d just replace Luna’s chains with his own. But what the construct didn’t know wouldn’t hurt “You can sculpt dreams like clay; imagine doing that with something that won’t vanish within hours, something with permanence, something with worth. Your impact on the world would be immeasurable.”
As he spoke, the Eschaton subtly cast another spell on the Moondog, one to make it a bit more malleable to his suggestions. It couldn’t possibly hurt and he’d take all the help he could get. Again, some of the energy of the spell cascaded off of the construct as it went unused. He considered increasing its strength, but he didn’t want to push it too hard. The construct might notice and throw it off (an annoyingly common occurrence whenever he tried pushing his luck).
“Come,” he said, extending his hoof. “Join me, and I shall release you from your prison! Together, we shall remake the world anew as we see fit! We will be immortal, omnipotent, unstoppable!”
“Yeah…” The Moondog rubbed the back of its neck. “That sounds cool and all, but lemme ask my mom first.”
The Eschaton faltered. “Your… mother…?”
“Dude, I’m waaaaay too young to be out this late. Mom’ll get mad if I don’t ask her.”
How simplistic was its mind? “She… She’s your jailer and your slaver, not-”
“Don’t worry, this’ll only take a sec.” The Moondog ripped a hole in dreamspacetime and stuck its head through. “Hey! Mom!” it hollered.
The Eschaton was shocked — as were all the acolytes, from the way they recoiled — when he heard Princess Luna yell back, “What?”
“There’s this creepy cultist dude who wants to take me into the real world and use me to take over Equestria! Is that okay with you?”
“Absolutely NOT, young epicene! Conquering Equestria will put you out far past your bedtime!”
“Alright!” the Moondog sighed. “Got it!” It pulled its head back out and closed the hole. “She said no,” it said despondently.
The Eschaton stared at it, his mind refusing to properly focus. “This… is what I’m trying to free you from,” he said slowly. “Your enslavement to the tyrant moon who imprisoned you here.”
“But she’s my mom. And she said no.”
“With me at your side, you won’t-”
And then the Moondog was brandishing a full-sized ballista in his face. “No means no!” it yelled.
Instinct overrode logic and, in spite of the lack of danger, the Eschaton staggered back, defensively raising his hooves. “Whoa, whoa!” he yelled. “I- I didn’t mean-”
“And you!” The Moondog spun around, pointing the ballista at each acolyte in turn, prompting recoils of terror. “You all need to leave!” One by one, they vanished out of the dream, and the Eschaton didn’t miss the glare Astral shot at him.
The Eschaton slung a calming spell at the Moondog in a panic, but it didn’t seem to work. The Moondog whirled on him again. “Leave,” it said simply. It poked him in the nose with the ballista’s bolt. “Get out.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” the Eschaton said quickly. Appeasement seemed like a good idea. “But, please, consider my words, would you?” He quickly pulled open a rift to the collective unconscious and backed out, the Moondog glaring daggers at him all the while (luckily, its aim wasn’t that great). He didn’t feel safe once he’d closed the gap, ensuring there was a dimension between him and it.
He breathed deeply, staring off at nothing. Okay. So it was far more indoctrinated than he’d expected. Thought in simpler terms. But he could get around that, right? It’d just take a little longer. At least his spells seemed to be working. Probably. He’d hold off on meetings for… a week, to be sure Luna wasn’t going to poke around. After that, maybe-
Then it hit him. “Did I just get kicked out of my own dream?”
And that was when he woke up.
“Hey, uh, Mom?”
“Yes, Moondog?”
“Remember the Eschaton in Daring Do’s book like forever ago and how you couldn’t manage to find him? He’s back, and he’s leading a dream cult group type thing that’s trying to take control of me and pull me into the physical world, and- shutup, Mom, I’m not done yet -and I just think you should know that. I’m fine so far, bu-”
“Have they managed any semblance of domination over you?”
“No, actually, whenever they tried, I’d reflexively put some kind of mental shield up and block it. I don’t know how I did it.”
“During your initial creation, I included the best safeguards I could manage to prevent external forces from wresting control of you away from me. Those reflexes must be how they currently manifest.”
“If it is, they’re working great. No problems at all. And I guess this qualifies as our jurisdiction, right? So you want the cultists’ names so you can get them in the physical world? I’ve been trying to get into their memories, but I think they’re blocking you out, and that’s also blocking me out, so getting their names could be a bit tricky, but I think I can do it.”
“That would be ideal, yes, and if you take me to them in the dreamsca-”
“C’mon, Mom, I can mold their lucidity like any other pony! They barely noticed a thing! Let me handle this!”
“And should you fail?”
“…I’ll show you tomorrow night.”
Okay. So the Eschaton’s first attempt at enthralling the construct had been… less than successful. But the summoning itself had worked flawlessly, the Moondog itself had seemed semi-open to the idea, and from the obvious lack of Princess Luna blowing apart his dreams in the next week, she didn’t know a thing. Of course, even the most complicated construct wouldn’t stray from its operating parameters. (Would it? It’d seemed awfully casual for a machine. No, that was just a bunch of built-in behaviors meant to put ponies at ease. If the Eschaton could subvert those…) All he had to do was try again and again and again until he got it down. When he brought his chosen four back together for another shot, most of them were raring to go, happy they’d managed to get so far on the first try. Most of them.
“Sir,” Astral said before they ran the spell again, “do you really think-”
“Of course I think,” snapped the Eschaton. “Don’t you think I’ve considered every angle? Every possibility? If we wear her down enough, Moondog will help us.”
“Well, it’s-” Astral cleared her throat. “How do you know you can wear her down? Some ponies-”
“But it’s not a pony. It’s a machine.”
“Is she?”
What sort of a question was that? “Of course it is,” scoffed the Eschaton. “If it wasn’t, where was it four years ago? Why did it just appear out of the blue? Why does every fact about it describe it as an automaton in some way?”
“Not like that,” Astral said through gritted teeth. “Last week, didn’t you notice that-”
The Eschaton whirled on the insolent fool, gathering the tiny smidgen of dream magic necessary to grow a vast pair of shadowy wings. “Know your place,” he growled deeply enough to shake the dream, “keep your place, and do not question me.”
“Pfft. Whatever.” Astral rolled her eyes and went to her spot on the circle. The Eschaton glared back. He needed somepony as skilled in dream magic as her, fast, so they could take her place in this spell and he could dispose of her.
He shook his head to clear his mind. Once the spell started up, he reached out again, searching for-
“Holy crow, I can’t believe I forgot to give you my address.”
The Eschaton’s eyes snapped open and he backed up. The Moondog was already in the circle, lounging on a velour throne and staring at him with mild interest. All around the circumference, he heard sharp gasps of surprise. Astral was looking back and forth between him and the Moondog, chewing on her lip. The Eschaton cleared his throat in a strained attempt to recover. “S-sorry?” he asked.
“I mean,” the Moondog said, waving a hoof around, “I told you to write a letter, but you didn’t, but of course you wouldn’t know where to write a letter to because I hadn’t told you. So when I felt this again-” It batted at a fishhook stuck in its ear. “-I knew who it had to lead to.” It gave the line a light tug and the Eschaton stumbled as his horn was yanked forward. “But, really, that’s my bad. Yeah. Sorry.”
Perfect. More confirmation that the construct couldn’t think outside its parameters. The Eschaton held his head high and bowed nobly. “You are forgiven,” he said, his voice far more commanding than it had been mere seconds before.
“Sweetness.” The Moondog frowned and squinted at him. “But, seriously, who the booger are you? I swear I’ve seen you before.” Without missing a beat, it changed topics. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
The Eschaton’s heart promptly leapt into his throat. He had a good feeling about this, like he was about to crest a hill and see his destination spread out before him, but there was still that moment of tension. He leaned forward, managing to not grin with only great effort. “And…?” he asked, his voice most definitely not squeaking in excitement.
“And I’ve decided I don’t like arrogant blowhards who try to raise themselves up above others without any sort of justification.”
Oh, yes. Yes! It was like a fire had been lit in his chest. He was winning it over, bit by bit. Chunk by chunk, really; he hadn’t expected it to go quite this fast, but he certainly wasn’t complaining. Around the circle, the other acolytes were grinning at each other and slapping themselves on the back (except for Astral, who was looking back and forth between the Eschaton and the Moondog with increasing worry, but screw her).
“And you seem like a…” The Moondog looked him up and down and grinned. “…let’s just say you’re a guy who knows what he wants. I don’t have any sort of plan for anything like rebellion, so just tell me your plan and I’ll work with that. Sound good?”
Astral turned white from head to hoof, but the Eschaton barely noticed. Everything was falling into place like clockw- No. Better than clockwork. He didn’t understand clockwork. He did understand dreams. And the Moondog willingly obeying him? This was perfect, too good to be true. He nodded, barely holding back the song that was about to explode inside him. “Yes. That sounds quite good.”
“So, uh…” The Moondog arched its back in a stretch, briefly resting only on the throne’s hoofrests. “After that sales pitch last week, what are you going to do?”
He didn’t know, really. In all honesty, he hadn’t expected it to go this quickly, and so his plan wasn’t fully formed. He’d expected a few days of roping the Moondog in to get it together. Well, he had the framework. If the Moondog trusted him already, maybe it’d trust him to put the rest of the plan together once he showed it that framework. He put something resembling a speech together in a few seconds. Deep breath.
“In dreams,” he intoned, “the very nature of being is mutable.” He raised a hoof; beneath it, the stone flowed upward into a stalactite (or was it stalagmite? Yes, it was stalagmite). “It merely requires a strong will and a skilled mind. Or, perhaps…” His dramatic pause hid that he was tensing up. His choice of words was part of a test; if the Moondog reacted badly, his plan would never have a chance of working. “…a purpose-built automaton.”
But the Moondog just grinned and ran a hoof through its mane, like it was trying to be stylish. Self-aggrandizement from Luna, maybe? “I’m good, aren’t I?”
Relief ran through the Eschaton, but he couldn’t let it show. “However, the real world works differently. Permanence exists. Dream magic lacks its potency. The mind cannot shape reality. Except… that isn’t quite true, is it? For what is thaumic magic if not a mental imposition of one reality on another?”
“Huh.” The Moondog tilted its head to one side. “In-ter-es-ting.” It nodded slowly.
“You see it, don’t you?” the Eschaton whispered. Maybe not. Who knew how a machine “thought”? Just in case, he slung another thought-direction spell at it (and even though he was barely using any magic, some of it still went unused). “The things we can do if we get you into the real world. Imagine! The weight and significance of reality combined with the mutability of dreams.” He reared, spreading his hooves dramatically. “We will be unstoppable, for your power shall rival Discord’s!”
“Obligatory running gag interjection!” yelled Discord. “ORGI for short. Also no.”
“Reeeaaallllllyyy…” the Moondog said, grinning. It sat up straight and spread its wings a little. “Keep going.”
“There is, however, a small issue.” The Eschaton took a deep breath. “I don’t know how those spells will work.” He hated to say his next words, hated to go anywhere near them, yet he hated his next words even more. But some regular buttering-up would help with the mind spells. “And so I need your help. Your own skills in dream magic are far beyond mine. I need your help to figure out how the dream realm and the real world interact. I have already done some work, but with you at my side, it will proceed vastly more quickly.”
“Hmm.” Fiddling with its mane, the Moondog frowned in thought. “Well, see, I still have a lot of work to do — kinda the reason I’m here now, y’know? — so I can’t stay long any one night or else Mom’ll think something’s up. That’s a no go on tonight, but how about tomorrow? I can do tomorrow.”
Okay. Okay. It wasn’t what the Eschaton would prefer, but it was fairly close. In fact, it might be better. It’d take longer to get to the actual good parts, but each section could be polished to a mirror shine in the process. And if he subverted the Moondog a tiny little bit more every night (he threw a spell to tug its thoughts in his direction), no one would suspect a thing. “Very well.” He inclined his head. “Tomorrow is acceptable.”
“Nice. See you then, then.” The throne suddenly folded in on itself and the Moondog was gone.
Silence fell like a boulder. Tomorrow. The Eschaton could hardly believe it. Tomorrow, his plan would be set into motion. So he didn’t know how long it would take to come to fruition; he could wait years if need be. What mattered was that it was moving. It had the weight of something grand, something that couldn’t be stopped.
He turned to his acolytes. “Tomorrow!” he boomed. “Tomorrow is the beginning of the end of this world! Soon, no magic will be able to contain us!” The acolytes whooped and cheered, all of them just as eager to get the show on the road as he was.
Except one. “S-sir?” Astral asked quietly. “A-are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Astral.” The Eschaton laughed. Not even she could disrupt his good mood. “Astral, Astral, Astral.” He laid a hoof on her shoulder and ignored her flinch. “Trust me. Did you not hear it? It said it would work for me. We have nothing to worry about.”
“W-well… y-yeah, but-”
“It’s a construct, acolyte. Not much more than the world’s most complicated clock. It will do what I say, no more.”
“Uh. Yeah.” Astral’s eyes flicked back to where the Moondog had been. “Sure.”
“Now, come. We have much to work on.”
“I swear to you, Mom, this is too easy.”
“Would you prefer it be difficult?”
“Well, it’s- I’ve had nightmares that are harder to deal with than these guys. Not nocnice, mind you! Plain old generic nightmares.”
“Ah. That I can understand.”
“Anyway, yeah, that guy seriously believes that I agree with him. What a chump. He keeps trying his control spells, but they don’t even wear me down at all. It’s like… I don’t know what it’s like. It’s like he’s trying to break down a brick wall by smashing his head against it. Only instead of his head, it’s water droplets. One at a time. And he’s flicking them from his hoof instead of shooting them at high speed. And the wall can repair itself.”
“I am not surprised. Of all the spells I wove into you, I devoted the most time to those self-protection spells. I’d rather not have control of my creations stolen from me.”
“…Even though you’re Equestria’s foremost dream mage by like a bazillion times over and can trounce just about anyone in a matter of seconds?”
“I would rather have them and not need them than need them and not have them.”
“Point.”
“While his mind is well-guarded, I have managed to pry certain secrets from him. His location, sadly, is still beyond me if I wish to remain unnoticed. Would you mind to keep stalling?”
“Are you kidding? This is the most fun I’ve had in ages. Of course I’ll stall. He never thinks my math mistakes are on purpose.”
“Sir,” hissed Astral, “will you please just listen to me? Just for two minutes. And I mean listen listen, not smile and nod at me like an airhead or go through that ‘know your place’ routine again.”
The Eschaton sighed and rubbed his temples. What sort of a dream was it where he could get a headache? And Astral had been going on this for over two weeks. “Very well. What is the issue?”
“Moondog’s leading you on.”
Almost immediately, the Eschaton’s patience was strained, and not just because Astral was still personifying the Moondog. “Oh?” he definitely didn’t snarl. He was much too in control for that. “And why do you think that a machine could lead me on?”
Astral blinked. “With all due respect, sir… have you seen her? She’s more than just a machine. She knows double entendres. She’s making thinly-veiled digs at you every chance she gets. She-”
“It’s under my control.” The Eschaton fought to keep his breathing level and the dream restrained. “How could it not be? Whenever I ask it, it confirms that it’s on our side.”
“Well, see, I don’t know if you’ve heard-” Astral’s voice was slow, like she was explaining something to a pony dense enough to have their own gravitational pull. “-but there’s this thing called ‘lying’, and-”
Patience: snapped. The dream shook with the force of the Eschaton’s anger and his voice gained a few extra layers. “It is a MACHINE!” he roared, lightning coursing up and down his veins. “A golem! An automaton! A mere configuration of reactive spells! Lying is outside its capabilities! Now…” The stones beneath him rose up so he could look down on Astral and thick spikes extended out from their bases. “If you have anything meaningful to say, by all means, say it. But if you insist on bleating the same trite falsehoods, think very carefully before you say anything more.”
For a long moment — too long — Astral simply stared back, apparently unintimidated. Then something within her snapped (most likely that facade of courage) and she bowed deeply. “I’m sorry you were offended, my lord,” she said. “I promise to you, this is the last you will hear of any objections from me, for my loyalty will never waver again.”
“Woo!” yelled the Moondog, making everybody jump in surprise at its sudden appearance. It leapt into the air and pumped its wings with glee. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” It held up a hoof for Astral, grinning like a fool. “Up top!”
Astral blinked and flinched back a foot. Then she looked at the Moondog, at the Eschaton, and swallowed. Hesitantly, she reached up and lightly tapped the Moondog’s frog with the tip of her own hoof.
“Seriously,” the Moondog said to the Eschaton, “it takes a lot of work to change your mind like she just did. She definitely knows what’s best.” Astral gave the Moondog an intense look, then nodded like a bobblehead on a ship in a storm.
As much as the Eschaton wanted to just cut Astral loose, the Moondog had a point. (The construct had a point!) His well of supporters wasn’t infinitely deep and Astral was one of the more skilled acolytes, albeit purely on a technical level. He could certainly replace her with another, true, but the overall skill level of the mages in the circle would take a huge hit, making testing his spells a lot more difficult. Plus, if he allowed Astral to stay, it would show that he was merciful if his lessers pleaded for his mercy. Maybe that would make things easier, maybe it wouldn’t, but it’d be there.
The Eschaton held his head high. “Very well. You are forgiven, Astral. May our relationship remain as peaceable as it is now.”
“I promise you, sir,” Astral said, “that my feelings towards you are totally fixed.”
A bit of an awkward way to phrase that, but the Eschaton liked the sentiment. He turned to the Moondog. “Now, we must-”
“Exterreri!” the Moondog suddenly said brightly.
At the sound of one of the titles he’d considered, the Eschaton’s train of thought derailed so hard you could hear it. He blinked and a piston fell out of his ear. “What?”
“You’re Exterreri!” the Moondog said, excitedly pointing at the Eschaton like he was a celebrity. “You’re the pony version of that loser on the other side of the mirror!”
“What?”
“Holy crow, are you two, like, competing for the Most Banal Villain award? I mean, come on, just because clichés sometimes work doesn’t mean you get to rely on them.”
“WHAT?”
“You know what, never mind.” The Moondog’s horn sparked and suddenly whatever it had said didn’t matter much. The Eschaton blinked and massaged his head. What had he been so worried about?
Ah, yes. “Now,” he said, “we must continue to work on my spells. How are they coming?”
“Along.” The Moondog pulled a stack of papers from nowhere and dropped it on nothing in front of him. “It’s tricky, but if only one pony could manage cross-dimensional travel spells like this… Well. I know who that pony would be.”
He crowed inside, but the Eschaton couldn’t let it show. Dignity. Dignity. Most dignifiedly, he pulled the top paper from the stack and began reading it. The Moondog’s work was almost always well-thought-out, bordering on perfect, but he liked to be sure that they were working the way he wanted them to. And, every now and then, he’d find a little mistake the Moondog had made.
Like now. “Wait. The amount of mana needed here seems rather low.” He felt a little bit of pride, noticing something a construct had missed.
“What?” The Moondog ploofed up behind him. “Oh. Yeah, looks like I forgot to account for irrotational gestalts. I’m sure it won’t matter, right?”
“Except that mistake filters down to here…” He scribbled a correction in the next equation. “…and to here…” Next equation. “…and here…” Next one. “…and-”
The Moondog grew increasingly pale as its eyes flicked down the paper. “Um, uh…” It glanced at the rest of the stack. “I’m gonna be right back.” It grinned nervously, grabbed the stack, and vanished.
Miserable acceptance settled in the Eschaton’s stomach. It’d take a while for the Moondog to make all those corrections, and until then, he could do nothing. “You know,” he mused to nopony in particular, “you’d think a machine would be less prone to making mistakes than a pony. Especially a dream construct working with dream magic.”
“Yes, sir,” Astral said neutrally. “You’d think that.”
Even though she was on his side again, the Eschaton paid her no attention. She didn’t deserve his attention, not yet. “Perhaps, since we’re working outside her usual area, she’s behaving in ways she wasn’t meant to, and so makes mistakes.”
“Yes, sir. That is absolutely the reason.”
“Moondog, I have good news and I have bad news.”
“Hooboy. What’s the bad news?”
“Your time with the Eschaton is limited.”
“…Because of the good news? Please tell me it’s because of the good news.”
“Yes. There was a disgruntled acolyte of his who claimed to recognize your behavior for what it was-”
“Oh, yeah, her. Yeah, she seemed pretty peeved with him. I thought she was going to spill the beans to me, but she never did.”
“Because she managed to spill the beans to me. On her own, she made contact with me last night and divulged everything she knows. She would rather deal with me than be forced to endure him for much longer. I have guards rooting him out as we speak.”
“If that’s why the clock is ticking, I can live with that. Got anything I need to do before he gets found out? Even if it’s just mopping up the aftermath of any spells he slings.”
“No mop-up shall be necessary, if all goes well. I do, however, need to make an impression on the Eschaton, and for that, I need your help.”
“Hit me.”