//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 - Celestial Boundaries // Story: Death's Bargain // by Haseo //------------------------------// Chapter 5 Celestial Boundaries Applejack paled when the shadow crossed her field of view. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle crawled down from his back and playfully bounced to the pale farmer. Cheerfully, Applebloom skipped back and forth in front of her sister with a bright smile on her lips. “Howdy, sister! We ran through the forest and ended up at the graveyard. It was so scary but then we saw him standin' on top of the statue that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had brought here.” Sweetie Belle looked into Applejack's glassy eyes. They shrank together until only small dots were left. “Applejack? Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost or something.” Applejack slowly raised her hoof and straightened it towards the stallion between her and the creature of Twilight's insanity. “Ah think Ah see a ghost … he can't be real.” Shadow bowed down to his admired Captain in servitude. “Welcome back, Captain Soul Tearer.” Soul smiled by hearing Applejack's and Shadow's voice for the first time since two long years. Without turning his head, the stallion of the stars tried to get an overview about the situation in Ponyville. In his inner, Soul could feel that the lives of many ponies were fading. It felt odd, the bodies on the ground still showed traces that they contained life force, but the birds and bats only carried the energy of different ponies around. Their own was gone. He pointed his gaze towards Big Macintosh, Lyra, Scootaloo and Spike. The feeling wasn't different, only Spike contained the life force of the beheaded mare on the ground. The rest of them were just completely empty shells. Applejack was paralysed by the appearance of the impossible stallion. “Ya left us two years ago. How can ya return just like that? This isn't possible, this just can't be...” Tears formed in the eyes of the usually so strong farmer. Soul closed his eyes and weakly smiled towards the creatures. “You are right, I didn't simply return. There is more, but that can wait until later. First I have to get rid of these annoying creatures.” The very tip of Soul's horn ignited briefly and sent out a dark pulse of magic that rushed spherically through Ponyville. The sphere hit Applejack and the others, but passed them without effect. Some of the little birds got caught and were vaporized by the magical force. Fluttershy covered her mouth in fright. “What have you done to them? I know that I've said that they are soulless shells. But that doesn't mean that you had to kill them.” The intended shout could barely express itself as a faint whisper. Only ponies with an excellent hearing could’ve been able to hear her. “Don't worry, Fluttershy. I didn't kill them. I've sent them into the Zero Zone. It is a pocket dimension where nothing exists. Pretty similar to the void in between time. The only difference is that creatures that are entering and aren't able to manipulate space, are falling into an eternal slumber until they are released.” Shadow grinned, he hadn’t raised from his bow until now. “A thousand years have passed, but I still don't understand a single word, my Captain.” Fluttershy sighed in relief while the old stallion turned around to his former subordinate. Shadow's eyes widened, and he tilted his head down and looked bashfully at the ground. “I'm sorry, my Captain. Please accept my apology for such rudeness.” Soul laughed playfully, his deep voice boomed softly in their ears. “You don't have to treat me like your Captain. I gave my last orders at Demon's Run two years ago and I will stick to my words. I'm no longer the Captain of the Nightmare Legion, the soldiers were given freedom to do whatever their hearts desired. And so I gave you, but you decided to go into battle again under the banner of the night. I respect your decision in its full extent and I'm proud that you're serving Princess Luna, but you should treat me as any other pony. So if you bow down again, I will cut you.” Shadow couldn't decide if he should actually smile at the honour his former Captain was giving him or be afraid of that serious threat. “Thank you, Capt-” Soul cocked on eye. “Hm?” The subordinate smiled, realizing his mistake. “Thank you, Soul” Soon Applejack wasn't the only pale Apple around. Applebloom shivered violently, the reflection of the wretched form of her brother mirrored in her innocent eyes. “Applejack? This is a dream right? Ah mean Soul returned just like that, and Big Mac' was turned into this. This can't be the truth... please Applejack, tell meh!” The little filly slowly turned her gaze upon her older sister. But she didn't return the gaze, she still just stared at the black stallion in front. “Ah'm sorry Applebloom, but Ah doubt that this is a dream or a nightmare. Ah don't know how Soul returned, but Ah certainly know that Twilight has done something horrible” Applebloom tried her best, but the tears pressed passed her little eyelids and sobs escaped her mouth. She clung herself to Applejack's front-leg and almost silently wept into her coat. Applejack raised her other hoof and carefully stroked the head of her little sister. “Everythin' will be fine, Ah promise.” Sweetie Belle quickly joined in and hid her tears and face behind Applejack. Soul could hear their weeping very well. It broke his heart to hear two cute little fillies cry. “Don't worry, I will take care of them.” Soul raised his heavy hoof and stepped forward. The creatures began to hiss and snarl again. Ponies all over the town, freed from the plague of the reaping aviators through Soul's magic, were watching the encounter of the impossible stallion and Twilight's violation of the Creator's law. Applejack could feel the suspense in the air. She learned two years ago what this suspense meant. “Soul, please don't hurt him. Ya have to find a way to save them. Ya are the only one that can do it, Ah trust ya.” He licked his lips and turned his head slightly around, only enough to see the mare from the corner of his eyes. “Don't worry, Applejack.” The pounding sound of Big Mac's hooves let Shadow rouse. “Soul! Watch out! Don't let them bite you, their spit is like acid!” Soul focused on Big Mac's approaching form. He clearly saw him coming, but obviously decided not to move at all. He only raised his front leg and let Big Mac bury his teeth into his flesh. The acid began to devour his coat and flesh. It must have been a terrible pain that flashed through his body. At least a normal pony would think so. He waved his hoof and shook the massive stallion off his leg. The acid was still burning deep inside the wound and dissolved more and more of his flesh. “I see.” Big Mac' was getting ready for another approach run, but this time Soul wasn't willing to play nice again. His horn ignited and summoned seventeen little, spherical dots of his magical energy. With the speed of light, the dots raced towards Big Mac' and surrounded him in the blink of an eye. Rays of light extended from every single of them and moved to contact to each other. The tendrils of light shot through Big Mac's flesh and immobilized him immediately. Even his mouth was firmly shut by the celestial power of his restriction spell. The blood-soaked stallion struggled inside the prison of stars, his muscle movements were clearly visible to everypony around. But his legs wouldn’t move at all. The light didn’t allow him any freedom to move. Applejack gasped in shock, it was the very same spell that restrained Rainbow Dash over two years ago. It was a relief at the same time, she knew that it wasn't even deadly. “Is there any way to save him? Please tell meh the truth.” The remaining creatures continued their hissing and snarling. Slowly they took formation and formed a half circle in front of Soul. He smiled weakly by the desperate attempt of taking advantage of their majority in numbers. “If there is any way to save them, I will find it. I promise.” The creatures leaped at the confident stallion in a high bow. The trail of acid that drooled out of their mouths melted a deep fissure into the ground. The clinging sound of fifty-four little stars sounded all at once through their ears. Seventeen for each of them, they built a exact replica of the jail Big Mac' was imprisoned in, only adjusted to the difference in their size. The creatures stopped in mid-air and stared down at Soul. Applejack looked her brother in the eyes. “What will ya do with them?” The gust brew up and flew through their manes, it was the only sound audible until it calmed down. “It is simple, I will store them in the Zero Zone until I have found a way to cure them.” His horn shone in his gentle sapphire-blue magical aura. It was like hundreds of fireflies swirled around it. The little dots levitated towards the caged creatures and merged with the little stars that kept them restrained and protected everypony from their lower cravings. The pure light of the tendrils slowly changed until it became coloured in the same light blue shade. The intensity of the light dipped the whole environment into the same hue of light. All the silent spectators around were fascinated from the beauty of Soul's magic. Their eyes grew wide in astonishment and their jaws hung low. Something was odd about the creatures. Their eyes didn't show any anger or aggressiveness anymore. It turned into an expression of regret and pain, somepony could easily think that they were sorry for their deeds. The regret in Big Mac's eyes, the pain inside Lyra's eye, the fear in Spike's eyes and finally the sorrow of Scootaloo's eyes made his heart ache. Many ponies knew them, but only a few really get to know them. Nevertheless, many tears were dropping around them. The creatures finally began to dissolve into the air. Tiny bits of their coat and flesh began to crumble and levitate into the air until they scattered into even smaller pieces until they faded completely. Applejack and Applebloom watched their brother turn into thin air. The little filly squeezed the leg of her sister firmly. The coat of her bigger sister was already soaked with her tears. Applejack watched the last remains of her brother fade and weakly bit her lips. “This won't be our last farewell, mah brother. We will see each other again. Please be patient.” Sweetie Belle caught a glimpse of the scene through Applejack's hind-legs. “Why are all the ponies laying on the ground disappearing as well?” Her high pitched voice found the ears of the old stallion between the countless fireflies of magic. “Don't worry, little one. They are only resting in a peaceful slumber. I will take care of them as well and bring them back, together with Applejack's brother and your other friends.” Despite the tears, Sweetie Belle could manage to smile again. “So everything will be fine with Scootaloo, too?” Soul turned to the little filly and smiled like only a father would do. His eyes were gently underlined from the still glowing magical essence around him. The blue shine and his sapphire blue eyes harmonized perfectly. “Of course, my dear. Everything will be just fine.” “Ya are making a lot of promises recently. Do ya inten' to keep ‘em?” Applejack was staring at him, the frown on her face showed him her uncertainty. Soul puzzled her for mere seconds before he raised his deep voice. “Why do you think I have returned? I've made various promises during my stay in your time, and I intend to keep every single one of them.” Pinkie Pie carefully stood up and began to move towards the blueish light. “Soul? Is that really you? Did you come to dance with me again?” Her mane instantly regained its puffiness and a wide smile burned itself into her face. Soul laughed from the bottom of his heart at the naïve party mare. “So you still remember? The promise towards you was one of the reasons I've returned; yes. But not the only one.” The blue magical essence began to fade into the natural light and the gathered ponies dared to come closer to the stallion. Mayor Mare stepped out of the crowd and towards their saviour. “I'm more than happy to welcome you to Ponyville. I can't express how grateful I am for the great honour of your very presence. Please tell us if your heart is desiring something that we could be able to obtain for you. We will be glad to fulfil every single wish that the saviour of time and space has.” The Mayor proceed to bow down and every other pony was following her lead. Every single attending citizen of Ponyville bowed down in front of Soul. Shadow could do nothing different than smile at the sight. “Looks like you can't turn down the respect everypony is showing you down.” Soul looked around himself and found every pony bowing to him. Even Shadow, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie shared him the same respect as the others. Only Applejack remained unchanged. “From all of these ponies I would expect you the least to bow down, and it seems like I was right.” Her eyes were already watery, there was only a tiny pinch missing before tears began to roll down her orange cheeks. “Tell meh the truth. Ya can't possibly return only because ya want to keep your promise towards us. If it were that easy, ya wouldn’t have gone in the first place.” He was taken aback at the ingenuity of the farmer. “Why so distrustful, Applejack? Two years ago you would give your life for me, and now you are questioning the validation of my return from the fallen?” The tears were pressing harder and harder against her will. Her lips already began to twitch, she just wanted to cry so badly. “Just tell meh what exactly happened when ya went away with Harmony.” Soul's eyes widened in shock, he couldn't believe what Applejack just had asked him. “You could see her? How is that even possible? Only a bearer of the Elements could be able to see them and I possessed every single one of them.” Applejack hid the joy of Soul's return very well behind her anger, her stare was strong enough to kill. “It seems like ya can't take the Elements completely from us, but that doesn't answer mah question.” Soul closed his eyes and concentrated upon his horn, the brightness at the tip of his horn was enough to blind a pony. The still bowing ponies looked upwards from their lowered position and watched the stallion prepare another powerful spell. “Citizens of Ponyville, please begin with the reconstruction of Ponyville as long as I'm gone. I have to meet some certain ponies in order to deal with Twilight Sparkle.” The magical aura enveloped the stallion fully and lifted him to the air. “NO! Ya won't get away just like that!” Applejack raced forward and dashed into the light, she clung herself as hard at the stallion as she could. The light vanished and took Soul and Applejack along. No trace of them was left. Shadow blinked distraughtly at the spot where his former Captain had stood only seconds before. “This spell is new...” In confusion the ponies raised from the ground and waited for a sign of any kind. Mayor Mare looked around herself and found ponies that were as clueless as she was. “You heard him! Start rebuilding Ponyville!” The ponies in the crowd looked at each other, hesitating. One of them, a stallion with a light brown coat and brown mane stepped forward and showed himself rather concerned. “I see your point, but what exactly are we supposed to rebuilt? These things mostly attacked ponies directly.” Mayor Mare raised one of her eyebrows and stared at the stallion with the hourglass cutie mark for over a minute until the stallion surrendered in annoyance. “Fine, we will find something that we can rebuilt. Derpy! Come on! We will go for another adventure!” A cross-eyed pegasus mare with blonde hair hovered over to the stallion and flashed him a rather goofy smile. “Yay! Are there muffins? I want muffins!” The crowd began to fade, the ponies were looking around the town to find someplace they could offer a helping hoof. Only our friends remained at the scene of Twilight's madness. From far above them a rainbow coloured blur made its round. Quickly the blur formed back into a pony and slowed down until she softly landed in front of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. “Hey, what's up? I heard something awesome was going down here? So what happened? Am I late?” Fluttershy and Pinkie looked at each other, both were unsure how to tell. Through the leaving crowd of ponies, even Rarity found her way to the library. “Hello, girls. I've heard some rumours about Big Mac'. He should be somewhere around here. Has anypony seen him? I finally have to get my stuff carried around.” Shadow stepped in for the unsure mares. He presented his chest as much as possible to make some impression towards Rarity and Rainbow. “I think there’s no sense in withholding anything from you. The truth is that we found Big Mac' indeed, but Twilight had changed him, she turned him into some kind of soulless monster to practice her resurrection spell. I know it is hard to believe, but Twilight killed him, Lyra, Scootaloo, and Spike. Afterwards, she resurrected them and made them her soulless slaves. She left them here to kill us and went away to care about other things.” Rainbow Dash's breath stopped, she couldn't believe what they claimed about Twilight. The pegasus flapped with her wings and hovered angrily in the air. “How dare you talk about our friend, Twilight! Stop lying! I don't see any soulless monsters around, and who are you anyway? You with your ridiculous black skin-tight suit.” The stallion's pulse raised, he grabbed one of Rainbow's hooves and dragged her to the ground. Shadow pressed his forehead against Rainbow's and stared directly into her eyes. “I'm Shadow! A loyal agent under the prideful regime of Princess Luna and former member of the special unit; Nightcrawler, under direct control of Captain Soul Tearer. I fought alongside him at Demon's Run two years ago. Before we got locked in time, I even had the honour to fight together with him in the war against the dragons and even in the war against the Sun.” Rarity stormed at the stallion and quit her approach slightly in front of them. Rainbow and Shadow still pushed their heads against each other. “Even if you were the Princess herself, why should we believe any word that comes out of your mouth?” The shadow over his eyes grew, it was like the darkness was surrounding him. Calm and cold, the stallion responded to the enraged fashioner. “Because Captain Soul Tearer has returned.” Rainbow and Rarity gasped, Rainbow was even thrown back by the force of Shadow's forehead and stumbled to the ground. Rarity looked expectantly at Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, but they didn’t deny any of Shadow's words. Both of them weakly nodded in her direction. Rarity struggled with her own mind, she was turning her eyes from one side to another trying to focus on something familiar. Sweat ran down her pure white coat. “How? I thought he died at Demon's Run. The teachers back in magic kindergarten always told me that not even magic can bring a pony back to life.” Shadow nodded carefully, his eyes wandered to the ground. Bashfully, he circled his hoof through the dirt on the ground. “I don't know how, but he somehow managed. Seemingly even without help of others.” The multi-coloured pegasus recovered from the sudden shock. She got up and faced the stallion again. She pressed her hoof against Shadow's chest. “Yeah sure. Stop pulling my leg! Soul couldn’t have returned. How should use a dead body magic? The Princesses even held a funeral ceremony for him. Maybe we should just check Twilight's home to see who is right and who is wrong.” The tiny hooves of the cream-coloured filly made its way to the fighting ponies and weakly raised her voice. “Sorry… Ah don't know if this is important, but the last two days Ah've heard a weird voice tryin' to tell meh somethin', but Ah couldn't understand it fully. When Ah think carefully about it, the voice sounded kinda like Soul.” Their jaws stood fully agape. The mares didn't even move. Only Shadow closed the distance to Applebloom and lowered himself on her eye level. “Is this true? You heard the Captain before? Please tell me what he told you.” The little Apple curled up to a tiny ball while she thought about the frightening whispers in the dark. “Ah don't really remember. Somethin' about Ponyville and Twilight maybe even somethin' about Luna and that somepony was waiting at a statue.” Pinkie Pie turned around without any more words. She headed straight for Twilight's home. A single step away from the doorstep she paused and looked back at her friends. “Who will follow me? I want to know what she has done.” Fluttershy and the others looked worried at each other, but one after another they followed Pinkie Pie inside Twilight's library. The room was dark and filled with an weird smell. Dust covered everything, the books, the furniture, even the air dried dishes next to the sink. Pony by pony, they gathered around the dark spot where the basement door was once attached. A stair led down into the endless darkness of Twilight's basement. Shadow stepped through the mares and stopped at the first stair-step. “Maybe we should really check what was going on down there.”