A terrible sound returned her to wakefulness. It sounded like metal hitting rock, its vibration ricocheting endlessly in a cavernous underground. Not something she was unfamiliar with; resentment and bitterness had led her to far worse places and led to even worse actions.
Her eyes refused to see the light. Her mind called to let them shut in fear of a thing it had made her forget about.
Starlight heard someone speak in a tongue similar to dark incantations, sending her body shuddering. It was mumbling to itself; like complaining about its unfortunate fate or repeating an argument it had.
She heard it approach. A long, slick, slither rather than the ponderous walk she expected.
‘Unclean,’ he hissed disdainfully, wishing dearly he could spit poison.
She opened her eyes. The mare met the gaze of a skull frozen in a metallic shriek; plastered on an elongated face.
‘Wh-where am I?’ tentatively asked Starlight.
‘You are speaking well.’
She raised her head, feeling dizzy and lost.
‘It appears I have perfectly adjusted the black stone’s effects.’ His voice lacked an interest she will hear soon enough. ‘As a start, of course; you creatures' cursed arts are tremendously unreliable to predict.’
Orikan circled Starlight, showing the four lychguards and the canoptek wraith he had brought along. Risk was not a luxury he could take while present in that forsaken world.
They were tall bipedal things, equipped with blades buzzing in bizarre harmony. Immobile things, staying impossibly still. She anxiously amused herself by comparing them to statues. Well crafted, perfectly homogenous bunch staying at almost the exact distance from one another. Immaculate art pieces, ready to slaughter her at their serpentine master’s notice.
He paused in front of her, his staff ready to slay the creature at any sign of magic being utilized. He hated her, she understood that much from his still expression.
‘Explain to me, Unclean,’ his voice clearer but infested with great entitlement, ‘how did you lay control over the strings of space-time with your childish, inexperienced will?’
Her lower jaw moved shyly. The answer was simple. Should she answer? Her instincts blared it was the best option.
She refused to obey the primordial call. Her jaw froze, her expression was stoic.
No answer will be delivered.
The wraith moved to wrap around her, letting the heavy klink of its necrodermis resonate freely and intensely in the cavernous underground. The lychguards ignited their blades in unison. She had experienced some odd stuff while questing to avenge her loss to Twilight. She had witnessed the countless timelines where everything Starlight now holds dear and precious had been ruined, and she had to drudge through Trixie’s endless waffling. But that was simply surreal.
She wanted to unleash herself upon her captures; to run and smite them with her powers.
She could not move.
Her magic was gone. The thing that had defined her life was gone. Her dizziness turned into a gnawing hollowness. It was almost nauseating; breathing had turned into a shore; keeping a head up was tasking. Yet she had taken on worst. Vengeance – as the saying goes – is a meal best eaten without sauce. And she quite liked sauce indeed, it turned out.
Death could come to her at any moment – she cannot deny the potential inevitability of her predicament.
She has to keep composure; she has to show she was not a creature to be trifled with.
‘H-how did you know of-’
‘I’ve noticed it,’ he came close to a shout.
Starlight closed her eyes, cursing her voice’s tremors and dimness.
‘Monitoring the slight shifts to your reality’s dimensions has told me. I also followed you, briefly – you and that mongrel thing.’
‘Her name is Twilight Sparkles, Orikan. A Princess of Equestria, we have to honor such a being – even how much demented they can be.’
She saw another one of those things enter. His full height was betrayed by a hunch; his walk was heavy but elegant, using a top-heavy staff glowing in intense emerald light. It, too, could end her, she sensed. She gritted her teeth to the point she felt them dig deeper into her jaw.
‘I care not for names, Trazyn.’
‘My precious colleague, the mongrel can be of use. The potentialities,’ he transmitted a smile for Orikan but still leaned forward to show amusement, ‘are there.’
‘If the scarab will take her knowledge. No need to interact directly with their kind.’
‘The experiments are still unfruitful?’ he casually asked.
‘What experiments?!’ exclaimed Starlight.
Orikan ignored her with a callous wave.
‘Their minds are difficult to unravel. The damn energies of their coursing psychic powers. However,’ a scarab scurried from underneath the canoptek; Starlight squeaked at the sight of a gigantic cockroach-like thing rapidly approaching, ‘this will if my rework of its programs and engines prove able to withhold the effects of their psykana.’
‘Good,’ said Trazyn, relieved. ‘The visit to the Galleries was not particularly enjoyable.’
‘It had started with a bang, though,’ mocked the Diviner. Trazyn felt insulted. ‘I remember the damages to the strings of time you have brought upon, however.’
Orikan left the scarab on the ground, ordering it to connect itself to Starlight’s neck.
‘Of course, you did.’
The scarab crawled up her body, sending the mare into a quiet panic. ‘Excuse me, you two, but I have better things to do than hear two idiots ramble around!’ she unintentionally let out.
Orikan seized her collar bone, pinching it slightly, but enough for Starlight to feel that a simple wrong action would break it.
She shuttered, holding down the pain of a hundred needles piercing the back of her neck. She was barely below breaking point.
‘Messing with the strands of time is not a thing that should be readily happening, girl.’
Starlight painfully straightened her head, fixating the Diviner with a scornful gaze before her head snapped back upward as the pain turned more unbearable. The scarab's metallic body seethed; the low pulse clouded her senses. A smirk appeared, then vanished.
‘You are in no place to point that out,’ mockingly accused Trazyn. She wanted to cry at the utter lack of care for her condition.
‘The Reawakened Co-’
‘The body was dissolved,’ opposed Orikan. ‘It is the past, now.’
Trazyn agreed with a metallic laugh, somehow natural and unnatural at the same time.
‘Hey, you two!’ excruciatingly shouted Starlight, biting every word with the determination that tilted the interest of both Necrons. ‘I hate to interrupt your O so precious exchange, but I don’t give two damn about the rubbish you are spewing or whatever your skull-faces are using!’ Something, many things stung inside her skull, biting on her brain like syringes. ‘If you want to extract information from me, make it quick! I have no time to be used as a simple sponge pressed by whatever passes as claws for you! Plus, let me tell you that as interrogators, I’ve known Griffons generous enough to give me a commission.’
She swallowed her spit, eyeing aggressively both Necron lords. Trazyn leaned closer, examining her with the curiosity of a scientist; letting her perceive every feature of his faceplate; running down his fingers over her face. She was trembling and the more he closed the distance between them, the more he sensed her fear emerging. It spiked further as the canoptek calmly slithered on the ground and the scarab spiking deeper. Tears ran down her face, amusing him.
Abruptly, Trazyn straightened up his pose, too swift for Starlight’s dulling mind to put straight the rapid blur of movement.
He made a low cackle. ‘She reminds me of a Phaerakh. The Phaerakh of the Asherah Dynasty – Araris, the All-Conquering Star Ever-lasting.’
‘Never heard of her.’
‘Such no culture is unsurprising, but I have to admit that the name is deceiving. While she managed to reconquer some of her dynasty’s old holdings in the western regions; she finally fell to the destroyer madness. Not surprising, I think – she had a bad character. I know not of who is the head of the dynasty currently; from what I gathered, the successors I know of, all were befallen by the same fate or with the flayer curse.’
‘An unfortunate fate, truly. I hope for the dynasty’s continuous future.’
The Diviner turned toward Starlight. She saw his singular eye eying her expectedly. At that point, she wasn’t sure what he would inflict more upon her. Her inability to study his facial expression and deconstruct the imperious manner he was addressing her, infuriated Starlight.
What are those curses they spoke of? Could she be inflected by them? Would she… destroy? Would she… flay?
How can machines be cursed? Do they possess a biological half?
She wearily smiled, seeping on the absurdity of it all.
Thinking hurt. Facial expression hurt. Her movements were restrained by the insect grabbing hold. Yet, she felt relaxed. Her limbs did not ache her; they were perfectly warm. It was almost pleasant. She could… get used to it. Enjoy it.
All things considered, she was alone.
No one was coming to save her.
‘Have any we can use as a demonstration?’ mused Orikan, exploring if he should cease this interrogation.
‘Are you mad? The decades I will lose in my quarantine will mean a great loss.’
‘L-losing on copturing random Ponaeeys,’ Starlight’s stress spoke in her stead, barely words anymore, closer to an incomprehensible spit-full mélange.
‘Random,’ rasped Orikan. ‘Your Princess managed to permanently kill a lychguard and somehow greatly disturb the others’ reconstruction.’
‘Indeed,’ nodded Trazyn, not wanting to add more to the discussion.
Orikan raised a hand to signal a definitive pause for Trazyn, preemptively readying means to shut him completely.
For a brief moment, silence fell.
Then, a loud scream, howled with immense force filled the cavern; before suddenly and abruptly shutting down completely.