Part I: Precursors

by Auryx Saturnius

3:1- Desolation

A dark a lowly prison cell. The sound of water dripping slowly from the roof and of the occasional rat scurrying across a no-man’s land. The only light came from a slit window in the door, only large enough so a hand could just barely slip through, and from the dull violet glow of magic.
Twyla had discovered early on that she could unleash her magic on these walls and door and still not do a single thing to come closer to freedom. The Inferi made these cells for magicians like her; impervious to any spell she would ever be able to imagine.
In that back, sitting on the edge of one of the beaten and worn beds of the cell, was Crescent Star. It was well into the night, she presumed, and she had volunteered to keep watch for anything outside while he got some rest. Twyla couldn’t blame him for not though. The mattress was old and stiff, giving no comfort. They were provided no blankets or pillows, so the two of them were left to the cold chill of the metal cell.
It was miserable.
From what she could hear, Twyla assumed that it wasn’t any better for anyone else in their cells either. Across from her, Celestia and Jovian had remained relatively recluse over the past three days. Twyla understood that they were mourning; mourning over the loss of their eldest brother. What pained them the most was that he died a pointless death: one that held no greater meaning of honor, or glory, or even sorrow and grief. Sirius Luxio Galaxia died only because Chrysalis wanted to make an example of them, and for no other reason.
Next to her, Rainbow Dash and Luna were also quiet, but their occasional voice reassured her of their existence. King Horizon and Vulcan were next to her on the opposite side, but, like Celestia and Jovian, were emotionally quarantining themselves from the rest. Only the seldom cough, or the episode of fury on the metal walls, hinted to her that they were still there.
The rest of her friends, the rest Elements of Harmony, were in cells beyond her listening and limited sight. The Didact, the only person who had previous experience with the Inferi, was nowhere to be found. After their capture, he was taken to a separate part of the ship than them. He was completely cut off from them, and they were completely lost without him.
This was their life now; three days of solid misery; three days of hopelessness; three days of captivity. Twyla seemed like the only one who was active in her cell. Even Crescent Star; the awkward adept of magic who barely had the courage to confess his love for her; who loved history and who had a thirst for adventure that could rival even Daring Do herself; was beaten. He was contempt to sit on his mattress and to stare off at the wall; the fight inside of him completely lost.
Twyla found his hopeless attitude nearly contagious.

Activity stirred outside of Twyla’s cell. The distinct sound of the heavy boots of the Inferi echoed through the halls. The jingle of a ring of keys; the sound of the lock on her cell clanking through the heavy metal; the smell of starch and an expensive cologne. An officer appeared as the door was opened for him, the glowing hall light silhouetting his form. He wasted no time or words.
“You two are to come with me to the Diagnostic Room on deck 12 immediately.” He swiveled around and exited the cell, saying nothing more, both Twyla and Crescent Star being dragged behind him with three non com. guards at their sides. They didn’t bother to handcuff the two of them. It was an Inferi warship anyways; neither of them would be able to go far if they bothered to try and escape.
Twyla couldn’t help herself from staring at the various hallways and gizmos that lined them. When she put aside the fact they were xenocidal, she saw that the Inferi were leaps and bounds ahead of Equestria. More starling, as her knowledge of Erde-Tyrene and the galaxy magically seeped into her mind over time, she realized that they were also noticeable ahead of the galaxy as a whole. The ancient culture of Unitology and the Inferi were evident in the swirling designs on the walls and the curved nature of the halls and passageways themselves. As they walked, they never truly moved in a straight passage, the hall always bending and curving. Some adjacent hallways would appear, and their swirl would continue on in another direction. The shape and layout didn’t deter the Inferi personnel in the slightest. It was as if their brains were hardwired to see circular patterns over perpendicular ones. It would certainly make an interesting study; that is, when she isn’t being imprisoned and hunted down by them.
Twyla stumbled a bit as they stopped short in front of a closed door. Luckily, both Crescent Star and the Inferi officer were able to help catch her before she completely tumbled to the hard metal floor. The officer seemed more relaxed around them; not constantly babbling to them about how worthless and pitiful they were, like the cleric with a green sash that has been coming into their cell twice a day.
He stared straight ahead at the door, as if willing it to open. “We need to wait here a bit.”
Twyla looked up at the letters above it and read that it was a lift. Elevators were not an alien concept in Equestria; several buildings in Manehattan and Fillydelphia had at least one. When the officer meant “a bit,” it was more along the lines of two seconds, faster than any elevator she had previously ridden in or seen before. The door opened in front of them with a hiss, muffled by the metal walls, and the group crammed inside.
“Deck 12,” the officer said, and the door promptly closed and the ephemeral feeling of weightlessness washed over Twyla as the elevator descended. The silence was only broken by the various breaths of the party. No one talked, and it seemed no one wanted to.
It was Twyla who relented first. “You don’t seem like a xenocidal maniac, officer. Are you here because you want to be, or because you were forced to?”
“I am neither inclined nor at liberty to discuss that with you Ms. Spark.” His tone was even and clear, as if he had been saying that particular line to numerous people for numerous years. “All I can tell you is that my orders are to take you to the Diagnostic Room in the Science Lab on deck 12.”
Twyla didn’t press any further. As she stared and examined the officer, she thought she saw him flicker his eyes downward after he finished speaking. It was almost unnoticeable; one of those things that one wouldn’t give a second thought to. The elevator reached its destination too quickly, and he looked forward again and erased the emotion in his face as the door opened. Any further gestures to his opinion were gone.
They walked out into the hallways of the Science Labs and continued on. Here, the soldiers were primarily in a different uniform than anything she had seen previously. The clerics had their robes and sashes, while the “Hunters” had their utilities and dress uniforms; these soldiers had white lab coats and the occasional gown. The whites were all mixed with another color that made the flap to the said coat or gown worn. There were greens, yellows, reds and even blues: each one no doubt signifying to one’s role in the sciences.
The officer made a gesture to one of the scientists: a female with a red front. She was as tall as Twyla, and of a similar build. She even had a similar shade of violet hair, but it was cut shorter and only barely touched her neck.
“Dr. Aurel, please take Ms. Spark and Mr. Star here to your ocular retrieval machine in the Diagnostics Room.”
The doctor glanced over to Twyla and Crescent Star. “So they are the special keys,” she retorted. She had a firm alto of a voice; steady and rhetorical. “It shouldn’t be a problem Minor, you are dismissed, or relieved, or whatever.”
Twyla cleared her throat. “I know you’re supposed to be the bad guys and everything... but would you care to explain to me what an ‘ocular retrieval machine’ is and why we are ‘special keys’...”
The Minor looked back at Twyla, as did a slightly bemused Dr. Aurel. “I see why...”
The doctor moved with quick bursts, “Hello Madam Spark, I am Dr. Alektra Aurel; Chairman of the Psychophysical Studies at the Anacreonian Institute. As for your questions, they will be answered momentarily in the Diagnostics Rooms. Come, come...”
She talked excitedly, with a hyperactive and passionate rigor that almost made Twyla exhausted from listening. Dr. Aurel was keen to lecture the two of them on how the Inferi Coalition had given her research such a generous and prolific funding to her research. For months, church and government officials had been breathing down her neck, which she was adamant to remind the two of them a thousand times, reviewing and watching the progress of her experiments.
Dr. Alektra Aurel was kind, boisterous and a true scientist, but Twyla had to remember that she was the enemy. Dr. Aurel, who had a perfect manicure on her nails and complained in the slightest when a lock of hair moved out of place, would kill her in a moment’s notice if her superiors ordered so. Twyla forced herself to realize that they were not friends; not friends of science; not friends of magic.
Crescent Star was less reserved. Where Twyla shied and only listened, Crescent Star was able to pull himself from his state of melancholy to talk to the doctor. They conversed only slightly; the complicated scientific words and phrases only gliding across the emotions held deep inside. It took several minutes for the group to reach their destination. In bold letters, “Diagnostics” were painted across the door itself. When they approached, the metal entryway slid into the wall with a mechanical whirl and hiss.
At the sound, the Didact lifted his head and stared at the two of them from inside the room.
“Didact!” Twyla and Crescent both rushed towards the magician. He was hanging a couple inches from the floor. His hands were bound by a suspension field, created by a machine that whirled and hummed around him. To prevent suffocation, he was angled slightly downward and his feet were held in the same field.
It was clear that he had been beaten and tortured. His clothes were tattered; his face scarred and covered with dark marks of black liquid; he sagged and hung from his binds, not bothering to try and keep himself straight.
At the sound of Twyla’s voice, he smiled weakly. “Twyla... I was getting bored with this present company... I’m glad... that they let you... come visit.”
His breaths were short and he could only wheeze his words in small bursts. Twyla tried to come closer, but was pushed back by the two non. coms. that were assigned to guard her.
“Didact, what did they do to you?”
“Nothing I’ll be doing to you, if that is what you are worried about.” Twyla glanced to the side, where a scientist with a yellow front stood next to a cylindrical machine. He was alien beyond the alien Inferi: a shield of flesh-covered bone extended across his head. His skin was a rocky grey; his body built with armor; his fingers and hands were long and thick. The black lens of two eyes reflected back at her, a crest of bone bumping out in between where the nose would be.
“Forgive me,” he said. His tone was educated, even posh to an extent. “I am Master Engineer Soong; Chief Engineer of the ISC Ioseph Kaleir. Dr. Aurel, my assistant in this current endeavour you already know, so I’ll cut right to the chase. First off, I would like to apologize for the brutality done to Lord Didact by our resident Non-Commissioned Officers; the military, as you know, isn’t so kind to enemies. However, Mr. Kalek, if you would be so kind as to let our superior go...”
One of the guards broke away to move to a control panel that was connected to the suspension field machine. At the click of a button, the Didact was released and tumbled down to the metal floor with a heavy thud, where the guard then quickly bound him in a pair of cuffs. The Master Engineer continued his statement. “Next I would like to show you this machine I am standing next to. This, is an ocular retrieval machine.”
It was about the size of a human being. The cylindrical shape was connected to an uncountable number of wires and controls. The inside was hollow; padding and machinery glowing dully on the inside. Crescent Star stared at it suspiciously. “What does it do?”
The Master Engineer pat his hand against the metal. “Invented and created by our lovely Dr. Aurel here, it accesses the lateral geniculate by inserting a needle through the ocular cavity. Once there, the needle reads and records the neural signature of what the subject’s brain has been seeing. Memories, emotions, hallucinations, thoughts; the machine reads it, and projects it on the screen above me.”
Crescent Star wasn’t pleased. “Why would you need a machine like that?”
Soong was more hesitant with his words. “Um... there is no easy way to say it, so I’ll just say it. We need it for you two. In your case Mr. Star, we need to extract the information you had seen during your travels to the Forgotten City and to Dust. Yes, Mr. Star, we know of your travels. We also know that those cities were Precursor/Forerunner monuments that were used to pinpoint the location of the Leviathan all those eons ago.
“As for you, Ms. Spark, we need you for the Marker Codex that is imprinting itself in your brain. With it, we can actually access the Marker itself and unlock its potential for the galaxy.”
“First off, what made you think I would willingly let you poke a needle into my own eye to help you people? Second, what are you going on about this apparent ‘Marker Codex’?”
The Master Engineer looked at her with shock. “While the Marker may be divine to Unitologists, to the galaxy, it is so much more. The Markers possess the ability to supply a limitless energy to those who know how to harness it. We want to access that energy so that we can lead the galaxy into a new age. I am not here for salvation, or for Convergence, or for their petty beliefs, I am here for the improvement of omni-kind...”
“You really don’t know who you’re working for,” Twyla mouthed, careful that the Master Engineer didn’t hear her.
“As for the Marker Codex in your brain, it’s been imprinting on you since this event started. Surely, you have been noticing voices in your head; small minute details of things you’ve never thought of...”
He had a point. She had been thinking differently. First, she instinctively knew to duck when the soldiers attacked her, Jovian, Aria and Vulcan in the great hall of Arcem Solis. Then she realized she had noticed when Kamendando Abernathey had visited her in the night near the infirmary to deliver his message. She originally thought it was the sound of rats, but then knew it was something else.
Zero said the same thing to her during her dream. He said that it was imprinting its magic and codex into her mind. She thought nothing of it at the time, because Zero was clearly insane and thus, she didn’t trust him in any way. Master Engineer Soong’s and Dr. Alektra Aurel’s presence and statements seemed to validate the schizophrenic dream spectre’s point.
“So what if I am?” Soong’s head tilted up a degree, as if he was raising an eyebrow.
“He’s right about you, y’know?” Twyla glanced back to the Didact, who had managed to get back onto his feet. His tone had returned to its previous steady bass.
Twyla was confused. “You’re agreeing with him?”
“Twyla,” Crescent Star had walked up to her, and placed his hand on her shoulder. He gazed at her with a worried look. “Twyla, how do you know what they are saying?”
Everybody looked at her, Soong being the first to speak. “I had explained to you the effects of the Marker Codex in Inferi; our friend the Lord Didact also speaking in the Unitologist tongue as well. This is another effect of the Marker; you can understand its language...”
Twyla looked at the Master Engineer, still standing next to the machine and still expecting her to go in. “This is why we need you Ms. Spark; the future of the galaxy can be determined by what happens now, in this room...”
The Didact spoke next. “I’m sorry, but perhaps we should go along with Dr. Aurel’s and Master Engineer Soong’s work for the time being...” She was about to protest, but the Didact shushed her. “Trust me, apprentice...”
Crescent Star went first. A cushioned platform extended out from the cylinder, which Dr. Aurel gestured for him to lie back on. As he did, she gave him an anesthetic through injection, the platform retracted, the machine whirred to life and Soong started to fiddle with the controls. Crescent Star was silent as the occasional whirl of an unseen mechanism rang in Twyla’s head. After a few seconds, the screen flared to life behind Soong, and the images of Crescent Star’s memories appeared. The flashing lights slowed, and the scene of Crescent’s Star’s travels to the Forgotten City played out in the most minute details of his memories. The screen was focused on the part of his travels where he found the map; the light that reflected and focused on the four points that were highlighted by the setting sun.
Soong flung his hand across his control panel, and the image froze and shrank into a corner of the screen. The majority resumed its rapid pace of moving through his memories, then slowed and stopped again as it approached his trek through the jungle. At Dust, it played through his sight of what he found. He was in a room, and he was looking straight at the wall. The stone was imprinted with an image of two curves, swirled around each other into a single point at the base, and two spikes at the top.
“The Marker,” the Didact retorted. “Crescent Star found the Settlement that was charged with protecting the chamber itself.”
Around the carving were numerous glyphs in an unknown language. Calculations; directions; it could be anything related to the Marker depicted, or it could be something to stop it.
Soong swiped at his controls, the image shrank and the screen went blank. “Ms. Spark,” he said, “We are ready for you.”
The platform extended out and Crescent Star leaned on his elbows to get up. His left eye was closed tightly, a line of blood traced across his cheek. Dr. Aurel helped him to his feet, and he walked over to stand next to the Didact. Twyla was hesitant. She walked to the machine slowly, try to pass as much time as possible. Dr. Aurel gestured for her to sit and she did. The platform was cushioned, soft to the touch, and supporting. The doctor pulled her arm, rolled up Twyla’s sleeve and injected her with the anesthetic she gave Crescent Star. Her body went numb almost instantly. It didn’t make her delirious, but only numbed the feeling in her. Her mind worked automatically.
Step one: crawl inside...
She laid down, and the platform retracted into the cylinder. The inside was bright with the glow of plugs and lights. Above her, the mechanism that whirled with Crescent Star hovered. It was a large needle, attached to a belt that moved it around for the eye, no doubt...
Step two: the screws go tight all around...
She felt the top of her head press against the top, the twist of the head clamps moving down and held her forehead. The needle whirled to life, and moved with her eyes. She could feel it coming closer, the sharp point making its way to her eye...
Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye...
Without pain, she could feel the sharp needle pierce into the film of her eye, tugging as it continued to lower down into her brain. For the first time, she began to question why all these thoughts were crossing her mind. Why was she so adamant to take the vow of her new name? Why did she instantly trust Kotec, who she had every right to rebuke? How did Zero connect himself to her through her dream? Why did those particular thoughts cross her while she was in the machine?
All of this she began to question in the span of a couple seconds. Images flashed across her eyes; blurry and undetailed fractals that she assumed were her memories and thoughts. They were more ambiguous that what she saw on the screen with Crescent Star, something that might be in part to the machine. Indecipherable alien letters and glyphs flashed with an orange and red tint. The images stopped, and she could feel the needle tugging at her again; the infinitesimal sound of resistance ringing loudest in her head. It pulled all the way out, and her vision filled with a dark red before she shut her eye tightly.
The platform extended out again and she was back in the open. Twyla struggled to get up, and was surprised to find that Dr. Aurel wasn’t helping her up. Her impaired vision made it hard to see, Twyla having to move her head more to scan the room. Her left eye was the one that the needle had entered, and everyone else was to her left. Swiveling her head, she glanced over at them, and at the Inferi officer who had brought them here. Twyla remembered that Dr. Aurel had called him a Minor.
“If you are done here,” he said authoritatively, “I am to take you all to the bridge to meet with the Shipmaster. The Didact-” He growled slightly at his name. “-and Dr. Aurel are to come along as well.”
The two guards understood and began to herd the four of them together so their could go. Before she could be pushed out the door, Twyla called back to Master Engineer Soong. “You’re here to turn it into a power source, and you know that the Unitologists want to use it for their own agenda... so what if they decide to double cross you, and leave you to dry when they’re done using you?”
Soong tilted his head, having obviously never thought of that. Even so, he did not need to take time to think about his answer. “The Lord is my shepherd; and in him, do I trust... he will protect me from harm.”
The guard pushed her out before she could comment. As they walked away, she looked back to see the two soldiers walking into the lab.

Her eye never got better. Where Crescent Star had already managed to see again out of his, without pain, she couldn’t open it to the slightest of disturbances. Even the anesthetics she was give offered no source of comfort. Dr. Aurel had used some of her magic to stop the profuse bleeding, but she couldn’t do anything more to help. Twyla could only keep her eye as tightly shut as she could, while covering it with her palm.
With her depth perception impaired for the time being, the Didact helped her in any way he could to keep her from running into things in the curved hallways. The march to the bridge was relatively uneventful. None of the crew talked to them; neither the Minor or the guards spoke to them; they weren’t allowed to talk. Silence; that was what they were allowed.
e The bridge was a large room. Consoles lines every inch of the wall; Everywhere, officers stood in front of their stations, never looking away from their work. Dominating in the center was a giant holographic sphere of the planet: Astra. The great orb of water and land was far beyond what any Equestrian knew- far beyond anyone they knew, could know. What many ponies have thought to be the center of the world would be indistinguishable to Twyla, had it not a mark above the sphere, indicating where the ship was and has been. They had traveled well beyond the known world; beyond the reaches of Event Horizon, Celestia and Luna, and their influences.
The group was lead to a ramp that lead to a platform overlooking the entire hologram. As they approached, the silhouettes of five beings came into view. A woman stood at the far end, her head tilted as she focused on the massive viewing window and the scenery below. It was clearly Chrysalis. To her left were two men; easily identifiable as the Shipmaster and his second. Behind them, much to the surprise of the Didact and Twyla, was Event Horizon and Celestia.
They broke free from the company of their guards and rushed over to the two. Celestia and her father were just as surprised to see the two of them as they were. The princess wrapped the Didact in as tight of a hug as she could muster, her eyes watering, but not quite in tears.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“They were smart enough to keep me occupied,” was all he said, with a humorous smile. Celestia was unable to say anything else, the Shipmaster speaking up.
“Are you impressed, Lord Didact?” he boasted, “Only a couple months of planning and look at all our nation and church has accomplished! We are about to enter a new age, Lord Didact; the age of peace and prosperity envisioned by the great First Prophets of Old!”
The Didact was calm. “Then we’ve interpreted the Canon of Moroni very differently from each other Shipmaster...”
“It does not matter whether you understand the truth of the First Prophet of Strife, what matters is that I believe, and now have the keys to fulfill my belief and obligation. Were you so foolish, Dr. Aurel, that we would let you take part in this magnificent Great Journey and use our sacred Marker as an energy source? Blasphemy!”
Dr. Aurel was perturbed. “Shipmaster, the Prophet of Truth and the Anacreonian Institute as an agreement in place; if you break that-”
“The agreement is off! He has been lying to you all along!” The shipmaster turned back to the window, Chrysalis cackling like a madwoman. “Now,” he continued, “You all may be wondering why I asked you to join us up here on the bridge...”
“Because you’re incompetent?” the Didact retorted.
“Because I want you to see this!” he snapped back. “Ahead of us are what our dear royalty here call the Astral Mountains. Very soon, the Ioseph Kaleir and the Abinadi Ckes will pass and reach our destination.”
In the window, the massive shape of a mountain range dominates the view. Clouds stick to the peaks and darken the sky, snow perpetually falling onto the rock.
“Why?” the Didact asked, “What are the Astral Mountains?”
“Why don’t our king, explain to you himself...”
The Didact turned to Event Horizon, who looked back with solemn and wizen eyes. The king needed no question. “For a millennia and three centuries, the alicorn family Galaxia has been in Equestrian history. We’ve served as rulers of Equestria, Crystalia, Arcadia and the Coltstantine Empire for almost as long, and no pony questioned whether we were capable; we were. Very few, almost none, recognize a time where we weren’t there to lead and protect them. We challenged and defeated Discord, Sombra the Terrible, even others that are only spoken as rumors.
“Nopony understands that we never hailed from Equestria. While Equestria was only just forming; and the ancient empires of Crystalia and Arcadia stagnated; and the Empire of Roan was collapsing at the seams, the alicorn family Galaxia was one of many alicorn families that lived. While we were certainly of prestige, we were no kings or queens. Alicornia was a thriving empire that the world had never known. In their prime; Roan, Crystalia and Arcadia combined could never compare. Then, over two millennia ago, tragedy struck; we found what you call the Marker. Like Dr. Aurel here apparently wanted to do, we used the Marker as a power and beacon to our might. With it, we reached our absolute strongest, but we were weak to its influence. Alicorns soon began to worship it as a god, a god of Death and Destruction. They called themselves the Nightmare, and thought of all alicorns as impure and as cretin.
“Ultimately, there was a civil war. Brothers and sisters who were once friends and allies turned on one another. There were mass slaughters in the streets. Everything was destroyed and lost. My wife and I were able to escape, and, as far as we know, are the only ones to; the last Alicorns. Sirius was only 13 hundred years and Jovian was 7. Celestia, you were too young to remember it; only an infant...”
As he spoke, the mountains had grown and were now completely filling the window. The harsh winds struck against the ship in a losing battle of science, while the ice of the clouds attempted to freeze all it could. The view went dark as they entered the clouds and continued barreling through to their unforeseen destination. Event Horizon could only continue.
“The Astral Mountains served as the border of our once magnificent nation, but now it serves only as a curtain to hide the shame. Past the mountains, withered by over two millennium of wind, rain and time, isn’t the remains of a powerful empire that serves as a beacon of hope. It is the remains of our greatest sin; the sin of millions murdered and molested by the power of the Marker.”
The clouds began to part, and a vast, dark plain opened up to them.
“It is the Astral Desolation.”
Not a thing lived; not a thing moved; not a thing stood. It was a land covered in a layer of ash. All around were ruins of what could have been once magnificent buildings. Now, the wear of 2’000 years have withered them down to nothing more than stumps of stone and steel. It was easy to imagine, buried under the rubble and the ash, were possibly millions of bones and remains; and under all of that was the Marker.
A sound beeped far below on the bridge, and an officer spoke up. “Shipmaster! We’ve located the Marker’s signal deep underground!”
“Excellent work, Ensign!” The Shipmaster turned to the group. “Commander, go to the Abinadi Ckes and take Dr. Aurel and the magi with you. MPs, take the other three to the cargo hold; don’t worry Lord Didact, the rest will join you soon enough to die...”
The Didact growled, as if he was a dog threatened. Eventually, he was pulled along with Event Horizon and Celestia. Twyla and Dr. Aurel were dragged behind them, but were subsequently pulled off in another direction. Dr. Aurel cursed at the Shipmaster and at Unitology, while Chrysalis cackled madly from her position.