//------------------------------// // New Developments // Story: [Forlorn Ascension]|[Rites of Dominion] // by Desrium //------------------------------// "Damn it, NO!" Phineas yelled as he shot upright on his bed, panting, teary eyed. More nightmares. His heart pounded and his breathing was loud and uneven. Fire. He dreamt of fire and blood. He was in the fire writhing, his expression that of pure terror, his fur blackening and floating away in the smoke, the air making his lungs sizzle and shrivel away inside of him. Blood coated his body, hardening into a vile, dark casing in the flames of torment, covering up the welts where his flesh began to boil away. Was it even his blood, or the blood of others? The blood of the innumerable victims of the Hoof-Talons? The blood of the ponies who died aboard the Iopteryx? The blood of all those he had slain himself? He wanted to cry out but his voice was robbed from him. His attempts to voice his pain and despair only made the fire growl and burn more intensely. He reached out with a hoof into the black nothingness where he burned alive, alone in anguish. Alone to be scorched by the weight of his sins. "I just wanted to do good!" The embers rushed past his face along with his ashes. "Why then, must I burn!?" His eyelids shut tightly and he lowered his head, feeling the inferno blister his face. When he opened them again, his body had become blue, points of light dotting his body, glowing brightly, looking like extra eyes. Tendrils extended from his body, moving on their own in a serpentine manner. Ethereal wings wrapped around him, spreading out majestically. Phineas would have found them beautiful if he didn't associate them with the hallmarks of a monster. A monster that he had become. The fire was gone abruptly, and Phineas found himself soaring at the starship, closing in on it, four gigantic claws held at attention, pincers splayed. He dwarfed the vessel and the claws ripped into its aft without resistance. The thrusters ballooned into a blue and pink eruption, the heat spreading out around him and into the vastness. He peered into the shredded section of the Iopteryx and saw himself staring back with the panicked Unicorn mare close by. An instant later, the Iopteryx had become several ships, a whole Hoof-Talon fleet. He had become impossibly enormous, each tendril wrapping around many ships, constricting them, crushing them, killing so many with the greatest of ease and littlest of care. He spun an occult web of power which left the most heavily armed warship at his bidding and broke them all like a careless foal playing roughly with their toys. And that was when he woke up. *** He sat on his bed with his back braced against the wall of the room, hugging his bent knees. His glistening eyes were set in a blank stare at the stasis pod, the rest of his body trembling. He was afraid. Afraid of sleeping, afraid of what was outside of his ship's walls and afraid of what he was turning into. "I'm not a monster. I'm not," Phineas muttered to himself. "I don't kill innocents without rhyme or reason. I don't rape and pillage and... experiment on people." He spat the word hatefully, thinking of Tsubar and what had happened to him to make him mostly machine. His blood boiled and he felt the fire again -the fire which burned within him. The one which started his personal war in the first place. "But I don't want to keep killing... I don't want to shed blood just so I can keep my own life and I don't want to shed blood just because others are killed unjustly..." He buried his face into this forelegs. It was an unending cycle of murder and strife. How could one claim to be good when their hooves were stained with blood? They don't, Phineas decided as he overcame his stupor. "I am not Equestria. I am not virtuous. I would never represent an element of harmony. And there is nothing more to this 'war' other than kill or be killed. The Hoof-Talons won't stop, so I can't either." He got off of the cot and kicked it back into the wall. He put on his armor and returned to his place at the helm of his ship. As he charged the Spell-core and prepped for interstellar jump, he thought grimly: "No wonder the elements of harmony don't work anymore. If it isn't the Hoof-Talons, it's something else causing havoc among the stars." *** A spectral collection of energy swirled into a bubble that distorted the space and time around it. The coalescence cascaded in all directions, marking the arrival of the shuttle in a system in orbit of a celestial mammoth of a star. It was red and active, geysers of plasma shooting off from its surface.This region of space had nebulous clouds of many shades of color drifting amidst the planets, some of the gas clouds forming rings around them, partially obscuring the moons and other small bodies caught in orbit. The clouds -in spite of their beauty- were more than likely to be toxic, meaning it was not very probable that Phineas was going to find a habitable world in this system. He activated the shuttle's thrusters and was off, paying close attention to his scanners for threats or any other points of interest. After a long time of scouting, Phineas came across something worthy of notice: a space station. It was in orbit around one of the rocky giants that was devoured by the gas cloud, its energy signal scrambled as a result. It made finding it difficult... "A rebel base?" Phineas thought aloud. Brilliant! This sector was a territory contended for, but the Hoof-Talons were not as infallible as they appeared to be. Be it on harsh planets or in barren systems, rebel forces were establishing their hold. The station was a large hemisphere of hull plating with a thin spire extending out from underneath it. Connected to the spire via struts were a series of rings that had small windows lining their circumferences. Circling the base were heavy laser arrays, tethered by some invisible force. *** "Halt. Identify yourself," Phineas heard a gruff voice say over his communication system as he directed his craft toward the station with caution. "Phineas Startrot, no affiliation," he replied, wondering just how far his reputation extended in this sector. "That is a strange name for a spacecraft." "Righto," Phineas commented mentally. "Not very far at all..." "It's not the name of the ship. It's the name of its pilot," he explained. "Your craft is Federation in origin, is it not?" "I was under the impression the Federation wasn't around anymore," Phineas replied flatly. Did everyone and their mother know about Equestria's antiquated spaceships? "Precisely. Which is why the appearance of a new model of ship bearing the Federation symbol is strange indeed." "It isn't a new model. In fact it is quite old. Almost four centuries," Phineas said. There was a brief moment of silence where the person at the other end of the transmission realized the implications of Phineas' words. "You are from the before time?" they asked. "Before Earth fell? Yeah," Phineas answered. "Then you have my condolences, Federation-pony. The journey which brought you here and now must have been difficult." "Understatement of the... millennium." "Requesting permission to dock. I've been through a lot recently. I need a place to stay for a short while." "Permission granted, Phineas Startrot." The shuttle flew around the dome and aligned itself with one of the four available docking bays, a huge opening in the side of the structure that was protected by shielding to keep the surrounding gas cloud out of it. Phineas found a port to enter and brought the ship in, pulling up over the platform and then landing on it. Magnetic clamps came up on either side of the shuttle and locked it in place. *** Like on Gallopso, the station's dock tended to many other ships, a variety of alien races interacting. They were all in spacesuits that varied greatly, but they worked as one repairing battle scarred vessels and installing new parts to others. Mostly weaponry. Phineas embarked from the shuttle and walked along the length of the platform, taking in the sights around him. The dock was just as busy as any other spaceport. The size of vessels present ranged from massive capital ships to the smaller craft the stallion was used to seeing, such as dreadnaughts and cruisers with crews of no more than ten or so. Entering the station proper, Phineas found a terminal and was pleasantly surprised when he was able to download a directory from it onto his PDA. He traversed the halls with tens of others, the majority being races he hadn't even seen before. Bizarre aliens: big, small, scaly, furry; wearing full body suits, wearing more conventional armor, some wearing no armor; some being made of their armor... "It's been some time since I've seen one of your kind here!" the silver stallion heard someone hiss. Phineas looked up from his PDA to the burly being standing in front of him. They were easily more than eight feet tall, possessed reptilian features in their face -including a short snout where two fangs on either side gave them an under bite- and were more buff than Amadeus, with long muscular arms that ended in three clawed fingers. Their legs were shorter and their stance was somewhat hunched, almost like a gorilla. The alien was a light gray in color with speckles of black and a dark green shell on their upper back. "Pardon?" Phineas replied, assuming from the tone the alien was being aggressive toward him. "Not much ponies on this station at any given time," the alien explained with a raspy voice that made everything they said sound like they were in an irritable mood. "I see..." Phineas replied, taken aback by the randomness of the encounter. The burly alien did not reply, nor did it continue on its way. Was it waiting for him to say something else? "... Well I'll be seeing you... maybe," he said somewhat uncomfortably, wondering if he had insulted the alien. Did they come from a race with some custom to ending a conversation that he was ignorant to? The alien only continued to look down at him. "... Goodbye?" Phineas said with uncertainty. "Goodbye!" the alien hissed with lips curved into a small smile. They then proceeded to thud along the hallway past the silver stallion, who was trying to make heads and tails out of what happened. Shrugging, he raised his PDA and went on his own way down the corridor. *** Some time later, Phineas found himself at a cafeteria. Dispensers mounted on the far wall provided food to the rebels who lined up to use them. Rows and rows of tables took up most of the space in the large room. Since Phineas hadn't eaten in days -weeks counting the time he spent in stasis- he welcomed the opportunity to nourish himself. It was only when he came across the cafeteria and saw everyone eating and conversing amongst themselves did he realize how hungry he really was. Hungry and lonely. All of a sudden he wanted to go find the shelled alien and have a long winded discussion with them about anything he could think of. With a sigh, Phineas took off his helmet and rested it on his utility pack. At least he could tend to one of his problems immediately. After getting on line, taking a tray and being given gelatinous foodstuffs, Phineas found a fairly vacant table to sit at. He retrieved his Harmonizer from his tool kit and started using its magical field as a spoon, like he had done on the Desolus. If Gaali had been talking to him now, he would have paid her more attention for sure. Hindsight was only a slap in the face. "So uh... I see you've got an interesting way to... eat." a deep rumbling voice said to him. Phineas rolled his eyes up to look at the speaker across the table from him. A dragon! One that was even bigger than the shelled alien Phineas met in the hallway. His scales were midnight blue, two large crests ran on top of his head and his eyes were icy in color. He didn't have wings, but that appeared natural for them as there weren't signs of amputations or anything of the sort. "Better than using my hoof, right?" Phineas responded. The dragon raised a scaly brow and started eating his goop without another word. He was using an actual spoon.