//------------------------------// // When Nothing's Left // Story: Innavedr // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Belle burst out onto the deck of the zeppelin's gondola. Panting, she glanced left and right. An array of startled crew ponies turned to look at her. Hissing through her teeth, she darted immediately to her left and bolted up a wooden flight of stairs towards the upper deck. "The suspect is loose!" somepony's voice shouted. It could have been Shell; it could have been the wind. Belle ran before the thoughts could drag her down. She saw a wide-eyed stallion disentangling himself from a support rope to swing a hoof at her. Empowered by speed and fright, she slammed her shoulder hard into him, knocking the grunting crew pony onto his flank. Bodies bounded towards her in her peripheral vision. She darted past the ship's steering, hopped over a line of supply crates, and slipped past two meaty enforcers lunging at her shaved tail. A bright flash of light entreated the mare like a soft sunrise. Without hesitation, she bounded towards it, only to find nothing but air. With a shriek, Bellesmith found herself plunging over the railing of the ship's deck. She slid down the sloped hull of the swaying gondola, bounced over a cannon latch or two, before plummeted towards a wooden support beam. Beyond the frame, an emerald patchwork of farmland loomed hundreds of feet below, pock-marked with glittering lakes and streams. Bellesmith stifled a shriek as she flattened her body back and spread her rear legs. Her hooves came to a stop against the wooden seam of the gondola's frame. It was all that was keeping her from plunging into the merciless winds. She clung to the hull, hyperventilating, her golden face pelted constantly by the cold air currents. Above and behind her, bodies scurried through the ship. She tilted her head up, and she saw several stallions gazing down, some frowning, others shocked. The entire crew of the zeppelin gawked at her predicament, and it wasn't until Shell's frazzled face appeared that any of them dared to say anything. "Doctor Bellesmith!" Shell shouted. "Do not make this difficult! If you simply comply with the wishes of the Council, then I still have it within my power to grant you clemency!" His horn glowed as he extended a field of telekinesis. Belle didn't budge. He hissed in frustration before muttering a few words towards the soldiers on either side of him. The stallions nodded, then galloped down towards the lower decks. Belle could hear them rumbling through the hull directly behind her. "Do you understand me?!" Shell exclaimed. "The target's failed is sealed! It was before your life ever got complicated by being associated with her! I can still restore your future! Don't allow loyalty to a pitiful fugitive be the sole reason for destroying your reputation!" Belle kept panting heavily through chapped lips. Her ears twitched. She looked left and right to see that the nearest cannon latches were opening. Stallions' heads poked out, their horns aimed at her as they started to glow. "Make the wise choice, doctor! You're a scientist! Look at this objectively!" Belle seethed and seethed. Then, her trembles ended. She closed her eyes, blinding herself to the chaos and lights like a certain beloved once did. "It's too late for that now," she murmured. A tear appeared on her lashes, blown immediately to mist by the winds. "All I care for is gone. It's too late for anything..." Shell's voice was already snarling. "Don't you do it—" Belle did. With hooves spread and her head tilted up, she tipped forward and allowed gravity to take its course. All grace ended right then. When the mare fell, it was in rapid, twirling motions, sending her flailing and flopping like a branch falling from the world's tallest tree. She tried calming her mind, but no snapshots of her previous life came to her. Instead, she saw shadows, like photo negatives that had been exposed too long, and they all tickled her nose with the smell of sterile electricity and mana steam. And then, all breath left her. Belle's lungs heaved and buckled, as if she was sailing like a torpedo somewhere underwater. Gravity shifted, and she was certain she was no longer falling—but instead rising, propelled to the zenith of all existence at the speed of light. It was at that moment that Belle opened her eyes. The world was gone, only it wasn't. The elements that constituted reality had shattered apart, so that they flew about in whiter-than-white circles, pale spheres that rolled and thundered around her. Belle tried to scream into the madness, but she found herself whispering like a doormouse instead. "Somepony... tell me what's going on! Blessed Sp-Spark! I'm dying!" The world ripped apart even more, rippling in the shape and sound of a gentle voice, made bellicose by the sundering dimensions. "You are not dying, Bellesmith. You've accessed a random sphere. Belle panted and panted. She looked to her left and saw the stars melting into the nether, being swallowed up in utter blackness. There was one last flicker of lavender, like a dying sob, and then it was all emptiness. "Just relax, Bellesmith." "I'm going someplace! I don't know where!" Belle tried to shriek. As the blackness overtook her, she felt her head splitting from the top down, as though an axe made out of pure sound was slicing through the top of her skull. "The singing! It's deafening!" "We're pulling you out. Just stay calm, darling!" Out of the blackness, a single spark pulsed, all-powerful and all-encompassing. Belle rose and fell into it all at once, until the spark consumed her. "Just stay calm!" "Nnnnngh..." Belle flinched against the brightness, outright sobbing the words out. "Twists and t-turns are my master plan. Nnnngh... f-find the elements back where you b-began—" "Blessed Spark... Bellesmith! Listen to my voice! You must stay focused! You must stay—"