//------------------------------// // Nine // Story: Flight to Dreadlands // by Prince of Cavia //------------------------------// Alicorn Dreams - Alicorn Future - Alicorn Mistake - Alicorn Closure Luna flew through the dreamworld. Spheres flung past her. She saw lots of nightmares. All of them had one source. Finally, she reached her destination. Large ball of golden aura. Despite the millenia since she saw it last, she recognized it instantly. It was her grandniece’s dream. Luna felt the sheer power of the nightmare inside it. She drew a breath, prepared her magic, and phased inside. She arrived in a desolate wasteland. Grass was black and dead. Leafless trees dotted the landscape. The smell of decay, rot and unwashed bodies was almost  overwhelming. Luna looked around for Flurry. She found her easily. Yet, it was not her she was looking at, for they were not alone in this dream. Luna stared at the… thing that floated over the dead land. It was so gruesome, grotesque and just plain wrong, it took all of her magic to keep herself sane. She was sure that if she were a mortal, the mere sight of this being would result in her eyes melting down in bloody tears, her insidies rushing out of her body to escape the horror, and her psyche shattered in million pieces, capable only to feel unimaginable agony for the few seconds that would seem to be stretched to infinity. Yet the appearance wasn’t the worst thing about this creature. It radiated psionic energy, filling the dreamland with its thoughts. Luna hoped her body back in the waking world didn’t expel her stomach after hearing them. These thoughts were of Flurry, and of every other creature in the world. They redefined the word improper. Luna came face to face with a being that had a single goal. It was hungry. It wanted. It wanted the thing that made a stallion content with his family starving to death as long as he had a bottle of alcohol in his hoof. It wanted the thing that made a mare smother her foal because it was preventing her from parting. It wanted the thing that made a filly with a beautiful voice choosing to whore herself out to every stallion in the village. It wanted the thing that made a bright colt toss his books into the fireplace in order to listen to short, fictional stories instead. In its crazed rush to fill its hunger, it set its sights on the mortal world. It wouldn’t stop, it wouldn’t listen to reason, it wasn’t even capable of that. Only the hunger mattered, and mortals were to fulfill it. Luna managed to get herself in enough order to be able to tear off her gaze from the sheer force of degeneracy given physical form. She looked at Flurry. Her grandniece was running just below the disgusting form of the creature. Flurry was blasting off tentacles that attempted to catch her. Around her, there were countless cardboards with poorly reflected shapes that vaguely resemble real people. She saw herself, her sister, Twilight and many others. The cardboards were moving, doing things, the more degenerate the closer to the creature they were. The cardboard wannabe Luna moved closer. “Flurry!” Luna shouted. Flurry looked at her grandaunt. Her eyes went wide. There was a look of mare who saw far too much, and was barely managing to not have her psyche shattered. Her mane was unkempt, her coat mated with sweat. “Auntie?” “What happened?” Luna shouted, attempting to drown out the disgusting and degenerate sounds the creature was making. “Make it stop. Please. Make it stop!” Flurry shouted, her voice breaking. Luna attempted to run towards her grandniece. Then, tentacles surrounded her and the creature’s focus was on her. It looked at her, as if weighing if Luna might have been a better special interest. It was too much even for the Princess of Dreams with millennia of experience in facing nightmares. She screamed in terror, escaping the dreamworld. In the waking world, Luna promply emptied her stomach and broke down in tears, mourning her grandniece, who was on the spearhead of torture that this being was preparing for them all. “I am so happy that you visited me. I guess Celestia asked you to steal Unity Crystals and the Crystal Heart from my niece, right?” “I did… wait. Celestia? Your niece? How do you know it?” “I guess Celestia changed her name. Makes sense, Alicorns stuck out. And yes, Crystal Empire is currently ruled by my niece, Flurry Heart. As for how I know about it, why would an ambitious pirate visit the ruins of Equestria if not to steal artifacts?” “So, you and Sunrise, or Celestia, worked together to get me to steal them?” “Yes. See, I plan for a great future…” “Princess, may I say something?” asked one of the pony scientists. “Oh, right. Sorry, I’ve got excited and forgot about introducing you. Darien Frey, these three ponies are the best scientists of Underequestria. This is Notched Pickaxe, our chief geologist, head of our mining operations,” she pointed at the grumpy-looking earth pony. “This is Jebediah Red, our chief arcanoengineer, head of the Blockwork Development Program,” she pointed at the red unicorn with a long beard. “This is Dinner Bone, our chief bioengineer, head of our underground colonization program,” she pointed at the white pegasus. “Nice to meet you all.” “Princess, why is this foreigner speaking to us right now? What happened to going to the surface will kill us all?” “Professor Pickaxe, I understand that bringing mister Frey here is a severe breach of our safety protocols, but if all goes smoothly, we won’t need to be in hiding anymore.” “You should have asked the council for advice. I could think of at least twenty different reasons why this is a terrible idea.” “Professor, do I need to remind you that one, I am the Director of the Obsidian Council, and my decisions are final and two, that I told you all my plans and that they will be completed soon?” “With all due respect, we are nowhere near ready to proceed. Red, tell her about it.” “We have barely finished the Survival Test. Not even started the Infinite Development yet. Proceeding with getting Blockwork to work at 100 percent capability would most certainly result in severe errors that could potentially be fatal.” “Wait, wait, wait. Could you just explain to me in simple, uneducated terms why I am so important to you?” “Right, mister Frey,” said Twilight. “So, as you can see, we are working hard on getting automatons working. You know what an automaton is, right?” “Yes, meet some in a Dwemer city. They are your servants, right?” “No, not exactly. See, thanks to many years of research and the combination of pony high magic, psionics, robotics, bioengineering, necromancy…” “I lost it at pony.” “We developed a psionic network that we called the Blockwork. We can use the Blockwork to host a creature’s soul independently of a physical body. Blockwork has a great amount of uses, for example you can teleport, communicate over extreme distances, or command an automaton as if it was your own body.” “So, you mean you put souls into machines? I heard of this and know it is a terrible idea,” Frey said, remembering the sad story of Crake. “You heard about this? It seems civilization developed faster than I expected. We don’t exactly put souls into machines, just make it possible for souls to control them. Due to Blockwork’s non-physical form, souls bound to it are not in danger of slipping off this plane of existence. In other words, connecting to Blockwork makes you immortal.” “So, you want to make yourself immortal through some magical net?” “As an Alicorn Princess, I am immortal already. But yes, I want to give the gift of immortality to my ponies. But this is not all. This is only one half of my plan. The other half is even more exciting, and as an explorer, you would want to hear it.” “I’m listening.” “As you know, the Panthalassic Ocean is infinite, and there are an uncountable number of islands and continents. Actually, the ocean is not really infinite due to the quantum integer limit and the Irregularity of Neight…” “Uncountable number of islands…” “The point is, the universe is infinite only in two spatial dimensions, as water and air pressure create a height limit. But what would happen if the universe was infinite in seven spatial dimensions?” “I’m not good at math but that’s not how dimensions work.” "There are twenty one spacetime dimensions. Forty two if you count the negative ones. But working on seven is enough for me. See, I found a way to change the settings in order to turn the infinite ocean into a seven-dimensional bubble. Imagine, instead of islands separated by vast, empty ocean, there could be entire worlds separated by high-dimensional membranes.” “Okay…” “Imagine if your home continent was actually a three-dimensional ball, a planet if you want.” “Yes. Won’t the people fall off it?” “Imagine then that there are thousands of those balls, each with its own magic, its own rules, etc. Imagine then, that you could travel between them. The possibilities would be infinite.” “So instead of islands on the ocean, there would be those planets on some kind of… membrane? And there will be magic?” “Lots and lots and lots of magic. It would be interesting to see what magic that wasn’t dulled by the absorbing power of the Panthalassic Ocean would be capable of doing.” “Would I grow wings?” “Yes, if you played your cards right.” “Yes, this sounds fun. What would you get out of this?” “This is the best part, due to the far larger amount of probabilities thanks to the change of setting, it might be possible for me to find another Equus!” “Equus?” “Dreadlands, before they became Dreadlands. I cannot go back in time, it is impossible. But if I go forward and use an all-encompassing psionic network for search, I will find another Equus! Pony civilization could begin again!” “To do this, you need Crystal Heart and the Unity Crystals?” “Making changes on such a fundamental level would require an immense amount of magic. There are only three artifacts that are strong enough. Crystal Heart is basically a magic generator, it provides magical energy to the world. Unity Crystals are actually my creation, after I broke down and reassembled Elements of Harmony. They allow you to control an enormous quantity of magic, I talk about deity-levels. The third artifact I need is something you already have, the Blade of Ages.” “Jackal Sword?” “Blade of Ages is basically a key that could allow you to fine-tune the universe itself to your will. If a creature strong enough to use Blade of Ages would channel the magic generated by Crystal Heart through the use of Unity Crystals, the resulting spells would be powerful enough to reshape the universe.” “Well, it sounds good. How should I go about it then?” The next night in Sun Tower, Abbess Sunrise was able to sleep well. She dreamed about a young lavender unicorn filly smiling at her. She was lying on a carpet, surrounded by books. She picked up one of them. “Magical Theory for Beginners”, she read the title. “Yes, Princess. Let’s read it together!” the eager filly shouted. Sunrise was disrupted by knocking at the door. She frowned, what could be so important as to disrupt the lesson with her Faithful Student? Newtherless, she stood up and went to the door. She opened it. Midnight blue alicorn stood there. Her expression was serious. “Sister, we have to talk. Your plan has an enormous flaw and needs to be canceled as soon as possible.” “Canceling my plan? You mean canceling the only chance I could somehow repent from letting Equus fall into ruin?!” Celestia shouted. “I visited Flurry’s dream. She’s not corrupted by a Nightmare as you thought. It’s far worse.” “What do you mean worse?” “She’s not insane at all. She knows exactly what she wants to do. She wants to stop a gruesome monster from invading the mortal world.” “What monster?” “It is… It is something beyond the worst nightmares. As if all of the sins and degeneracy that mortal creatures are capable of jumbled together into one abhorrent form. And it wants to devour us!” “That sounds insane.” “Celestia, I know you want to bring Equestria back, but think about it. Flurry is attempting to starve this creature to death. She is still in control, but what if we open the higher dimensions? I tell you what, Flurry will lose control, and the monster will get out. Our souls will end up as a part of a macabre feast.” Celestia looked at her sister. They loved each other very much, and always wanted to help. Yet, sometimes, they just couldn’t get into an agreement. “I tell you what the real truth is. You just went and came muzzle to muzzle with the Nightmare that came to you at your darkest hour. It attempted to mess with your brain as it did with Cadance, Flurry and basically everypony in Crystal Empire at this point. Now it is you who tries to get it out, because deep down, you know this creature very well!” Something inside Celestia’s heart hurt when she saw Luna’s shocked and angered expression. Yet, Celestia will not back down. Too much was at stake. “You accuse me of treason? I want to be back in Equestria as much as you do, but I know as well as you do that there is no such thing as turning back time! Look at the world now, Ponies survived. They founded several new states. Many of them still remember and venerate us. They cherish the time when we led their ancestors, but they make their own path now. Let them continue.” “Ponies survived, but they lost Harmony, the very thing that makes a Pony a Pony. Who are they now? Yet another species of creatures, nothing special. We always wanted for Ponies to be more. To be a shining example of Harmony and Friendship for all the universe to see.” “That was always an utopia, and you know it. If you actually want to bring it, you will fail catastrophically, and the world will end up a monster's feeding ground.” Celestia always was a level-headed pony, but hearing Luna openly mock Harmony in front of her was too much. “GET OUT OF MY DREAM!” she shouted in an outrage. Luna flashed a teleportation spell and disappeared. Celestia went back to the reading room. Little Twilight was looking at her, worried. “Princess, what happened?” Celestia hugged Twilight to her chest. “Nothing, dear. I believe in you. You are the smartest of us all. You will fix this. You will.” Flurry watched the Crystal City from her balcony. Despite the late night, there was activity. The lights were on. A few cars were driving the streets. There was still activity. Five million ponies. Crystal City was indeed a world metropolis. Her mother’s industrialization effort and her own effort to stockpile everything the city would need to survive turned Crystal City into a powerhouse. She had a port now. She could order to build a navy, and then send it to search for survivors in the Panthalassic Ocean. She could recolonize Equus step by step, claiming the empty lands for the Crystal Empire. She could… She stopped. It was tempting her again. No, she won’t give up. Blade of Ages. This was her goal. She will find, then it will all be over. She will make it stop, forever. Let the creatures live their own life. Not be puppets to a monstrosity’s whims, like her mother was. Like she was. Flurry took another look over the city. She loved it, she loved its ponies. What could she do to them? Give them a chance to live in safety, that was the least she could do. Don't throw them away, don't use them as toys. They were living creatures. Maybe if she repeated this enough times, she would finally start believing it. Focus, Flurry, she thought to herself. Just wait until Blade of Ages gets to Crystal City. She will cut the monster away. It will never play again. It will never make ponies into its toys. It will leave them. Forever.