They had taken him, just like before. Broken, battered and barely alive. But his time it was his heart that was broken. In a fit of irony, they threw Dr. Aaron Patterson into the very same damnable prison cell that he had inhabited over two thousand years before. It looked like they had kept it swept and ready, just for him.
His things had been taken away, and he despaired, all of his treasured memories had been torn from him, Luna had won their ancient feud. Now he could never complete his mission, never return to either Stronghold or Ponyville. Screaming at the world, he began to hurl his fists at the stone walls until his knuckles bled. Leaning against the wall, he slid to his knees and gave up hope.
But he was not alone, he felt a presence in the room, something that did not feel harmful or threatening.
Do not despair child.
It was a voice with no source, neither man or woman or even human. But when it spoke it spoke through emotion, emotions and images that translated to words. "Who are you? Where are you?" he asked to the empty room, hoping to draw out his invisible watcher.
Images filled his head, laughter, kindness, generosity, loyalty, honesty and magic.
"The Elements of Harmony? What do you even mean by that? The Elements are just some pony fairy tale!"
This time anger entered his head, then quickly subsided followed by the same set of images, but this time with a feeling of need and importance behind them. The faces of human beings, people he had known and never could know, all of them looking to him to do something came with the images of the Elements.
"Alright, I'm sorry for saying they aren't real, but what do you mean?!"
The next one was confusing, it was him holding Lucifer with the Elements surrounding him.
"What? Lucifer and the Elements? If anything those two are polar opposites!"
Harmony has no equal.
The presence receded from the room, leaving Aaron with more questions than answers. "Wait! What am I supposed to do with Lucifer and the Elements?"
"Quiet in there, prisoner!" his guard shouted from the other side of the door.
Aaron obliged, resting his head on a pile of straw he slept knowing that something in this twisted world was on his side and watching out for him.
***********************************************************************
A hoofed prod to the back woke the troubled human. "Alright prisoner, Princess Celestia has requested that you take an audience with her."
"Go to hell." then he rolled back over. A swift kick had him moaning in pain and slowly getting up. Once again he was shackled by his captors and marched to the throne room. He noticed that the castle was complete, and the windows looked pretty solid, no way out this time. With his head bowed he walked shamefully to the steps of the royal throne, dropping to his knees before somepony had the pleasure off kicking him down this time.
"Aaron Patterson? It really is you." He looked up to see Princess Celestia looking down upon him from her throne.
"Long time no see Princess Celestia."
"How did you survive for two thousand years?"
"I might ask you the same question, but if I answered it would put the rest of my species in jeopardy."
"I understand, how many of your kind are there left?"
"Not many, no thanks to you."
"I did what I could to save them Aaron, Luna and I both did."
"Why do I think you are lying to me? I heard those soldiers talking about continuing the war, two millenia ago, pushing to exterminate everything that walked on two legs!"
"What you did to Luna has the most to do with that."
"I shoot her, she lives, big deal! How emotionally scarring can that be?"
Celestia looked downcast, her eyes ready to gush with tears. "You have no idea how badly the evil infected her mind. She went mad with dark power and I had to banish her myself."
"She deserved it! After what the two of you did to my friends, my family, my people!"
"We did not kill them, we tried to save them Aaron." Celestia began to lean close to the human, her horn threatening to touch his head.
"What are you doing? Stay away from me!"
"You need to see, or else you will live the rest of your life in the agony that you now suffer from. See what time held from your sight while you slept the centuries away." Her horn glowed white, then touched his mind.
***********************************************************************
He stood in a field of green, a farmhouse not too far away, two little girls played in the yard while a father repaired some damage to a chicken coop. Amber fields of grain swept in the wind and the smells of cooking wafted on the breeze from the kitchen.
A trio of ponies came running up the dirt road to the farm, in his mind Aaron screamed for the humans to run. But the ponies carried no weapons, only satchels and saddlebags. A woman came out of the farmhouse, waving to the ponies.
They stopped to chat with her for a while, he could not hear what they said, but the woman said something and the ponies all laughed, handing her a bag as she gave them some food. Turning to trot away one of the ponies stopped to say hello and hug one of the little girls, nuzzling her like his own child. He reached into a saddlebag and brought her out a pony doll as a gift. She squealed with joy and hugged the earth pony even harder.
"What is this?"
"Peace, love, coexistence; it is harmony Aaron. What was and what was meant to be. Something that humanity alone would never have accomplished. Look at them, they are happy, content with life and overjoyed to simply be with one another." Celestia stood next to him in the field of memory.
"Then what happened? This is not the world I knew now or then!"
"You shall see, this was fifty years after you fled this world."
The ponies left, the mother called in her daughters and husband in for dinner. But something evil came, a chilling shadow passed over Aaron's very soul. He looked up to the sky to see a hideous monster twisting and turning amongst the clouds. He looked into the window to see the family joined in prayer.
"No, don't waste time, RUN!"
"They cannot hear you."
The monster dropped low, from his hands went tentacles of pure darkness, each one raking through a human mind. The family stopped, the father stood and clutched his head, twisting and writhing in his torment, tearing off strips of his own skin to remove the things that crawled underneath. The children started to scream, but not at the horrible sight they witnessed. The wife flipped the table over, wrenching off a table leg she swung mercilessly at her maddened husband, pounding his skull until it resembled a pile of jelly. Scooping a large knife from the floor, she began to carve open his chest, still warm blood pouring across the once tranquil room. She wrenched the knife from his heart and started to cut her own throat.
"No, please no more!"
"You must see."
The children fought like wild dogs, kicking, screaming and biting one another until only one stood. She took a lantern and threw the burning oil at her dying sister, catching the entire room on fire. With the sight of Celestia, he witnessed a mist floating from the corpses of the parents, only to be captured and consumed by the monster. The little girl simply stood as the flames consumed her body and the monster consumed her soul. His demented work done, the creature piercingly laughed at the chaos and death, flying away to harvest more.
Time sped hours forward to dusk, the house still burned savagely, but the little girl had left and now stood staring at it with empty, soulless eyes. Two shapes dropped from the sky, flaring their wings as they landed. Luna and Celestia looked upon the chaos, and approached the girl. Luna touched the girl with a hoof, the girl snarled like a savage animal and leapt into the flames. Luna reached for the inferno, struggling against her sister's hold to try and rescue the lost innocent soul, but Celestia held her back and urged her to continue their hunt. She hesistated as Celestia flew off, reaching down to the ground she picked up the cast aside pony doll that the girl had dropped in her madness, Luna placed it in her saddlebags as a memory of the harmony that had been.
"It was the same way, all over the world. Discord turned their love against them, he consumed their souls like ambrosia, growing stronger with every human he turned to chaos."
*************************************************************************
The vision ended, Aaron was once again kneeling on the steps of the royal throne. He fell on to his hands and knees, gasping for breath and holding back the weeping.
He killed them with their love for each other. He used their trust and their love to kill them.
He wept on the inside for the lost souls of his race, for every human brutally murdered by those they loved most, but he stood once again, attempting dignity.
"I did not know. I'm...I'm sorry Celestia."
"You are forgiven for your prejudice. We dealt with the monster Discord, but he had triumphed in his goal of annihilating your kind."
"Why us? Why humans?"
"The magic does not flow as strongly in your veins, your defenses were weak enough for Discord to harvest your kind with little effort. Our closer ties to the magic made us more resilient against him."
"But, we had peace," he desperately said.
Celestia nodded. "Yes, though for a short time only, our races had achieved harmonious coexistence."
"But why did we have to die in the first place? We could have talked through our differences. We could have avoided the whole war! Where do you get off passing judgement on us?"
Celestia shook her head. "Your kind would never listen to us, they were too arrogant in their ways to bother speaking to something they considered inferior."
The human's head dropped as he conceded to the alicorn's words. "Why did all of this happen? What did we do to deserve such a fate?"
"For that I will have to show you more, but I warn you, what Discord did is only a taste of what your kind has done to each other. For this you will have to see the memories of the Earth herself." The alicorn once again lowered her glowing horn to the human's head. Though he dreaded what was to come, he submitted to the magic.
***************************************************************************
He began to see once again, but this time not as an observer, but as a participant to history. Through the eyes of those who had returned to Mother before they were ready. Those who were victimized by their brethren and made to suffer. But also through the eyes of those who murdered them and caused chaos.
The lights of magic flickered, each flicker bringing another story of man's folly to his sight.
The hot sun beat on his back as he futilely tried to drive his hoe into the hard desert soil, the man Aaron inhabited was a slave, desperate for freedom and dying of thirst. His master rode past on a chariot, drinking water from a skin. The man he saw through begged for water, but only received the lash.
Flicker
He stood with his family, but it was not Aaron's family. They were being herded through an iron gate by men with harsh voices and guns. The gate had an inscription, an inscription in another language that he understood perfectly. The words "Work Will Make You Free" lied to him as the ashes of his people fell like snow from the sky.
Flicker
His vision was obscured by a hood, the torchlight burned brightly in front of him. The man he saw through had a wicked smile on his face. He laid the torch to light the great cross in front of him as his brothers chanted their message of hate.
Flicker
He was a soldier for the Empire, and his Emperor had ordered them to take the city. Each thunderous flash of his rifle downed an enemy, whether hostile or not. As he raped a defenseless woman he praised the honor of his ancestors, after he finished, he drew sword that marked his dominance and took off her head.
Flicker
A voice came from deep within him, yelling at the human in a familiar voice. "Look at them Aaron! These are the monsters you called brother! Your holy book says that Cain was the first murderer, and he murdered his brother! How many innocent souls were damned by the sons of Cain!"
Flicker
Shots ring as he and his homies take revenge for the killing of one of their brothers. A stray bullet from their drive by shooting passes through a window and buries itself in a young girl's beautiful face.
Flicker
The order is given, and the pilot shouts the order back to his bombardier, the man who Aaron sees through now. He flips the switch to drop the ultimate weapon on the homes of those who do not fight. A great cloud like a mushroom erupts as they fly away, no regrets as victory is assured.
Flicker
Names and faces began to flash through his tortured mind of the inhuman monsters that defined human history. Manson, Ghaddafi, Pot, Hitler, Gacy, Zedong, Stalin, Himmler, Mariam, Sung, Kony, Tojo, Brezhnev, Hussein, Amin, Min, Alexander, Forrest, Dahmer and millions more who fed on the suffering of others.
"Make it stop! Please, no more!" He wanted to tear out his own eyes, but sight or none he would still see the horror.
"What's wrong Aaron? Does seeing the sins of your brothers hurt you? What about the ones these monsters killed? Did they deserve their fates?"
Flicker
He stood in a trench, the stench of the dead surrounding him. The whistle blew, he clambered over the top screaming for liberty and freedom for all men, only to have a bullet seek out his skull.
Flicker
A seething mass of armored men and horses stood at his command, the walls of Jerusalem shimmering in the desert heat. He himself gave the order to let none survive the onslaught. Swinging his sword he slew a man whom he had never met in the name of God and the holy land.
Flicker
Plague riddles the corpses of what were once men, he and his fellows could have helped. But these sniveling creatures were not worth the effort. One reaches out with a pustule covered hand, begging for the medicine to help him survive, he raises a boot and kicks the creature in the face.
"Your kind are despicable, you spent your entire history seeking ways to better annihilate each other. Never once stopping to think that peace and harmony were even options! You and your ilk were the worst, it was always the newest weapon instead of the latest cure! You chose to damn one another and forsake your fellow man. It was all your choice, not your nature!" Aaron began to realize that it was not Princess Celestia speaking, but his own soul, plagued with guilt for his race.
Flicker
He begs for death, a prisoner for a crime he could never have committed. Daily they torture him for a confession that he has given a thousand times, all so they will do him the favor of ending his suffering. Instead they leave him to rot in his shackles.
Flicker
He walks into his school wearing a long coat. Looking over to his comrade he nods, both of them throw open their coats to pull out guns, people he has known from grade school are nothing but targets now.
Flicker
Children starve around him, his children, the loving children he has raised since the day of their joyous birth. But they must lay whimpering and starving because a man with more guns than everyone else says they must.
Flicker
Thousands of corpses lay heaped at the base of a great stone pyramid, their suffering and death acting as an offering to a god that will never acknowledge such a bloody sacrifice. The man Aaron sees through begs for mercy as the ax stroke cleaves through his throat.
Flicker
"Please, no more. Let me wake up from this nightmare; please, God, please just let me die." he begged the voice inside of him.
"You don't deserve the sweet release of death, demon."
Flicker
His mind is that of a child, weak and feeble, but still in the body of a man. He whimpers in fear as a white coated doctor slips a needle under his skin, pushing down the plunger to end his pitiful existence. In the name of purity his defect must be removed from society, a death to insure the health of future generations.
Flicker
Bids are entered by wealthy men as they each vie to violate the flesh and innocence of the young woman he sees through. She is not a person anymore, she is property, a slab of meat to be sold to the highest bidder. Stolen from her family whom she will never see again she weeps a single tear.
Flicker
Spraying liquid fire he burns through forest land. The natives who lived here held this forest sacred and gave it the reverence it deserved. But those savages needed to be taught a real lesson in what was holy, profit. With their land stolen from them, the superior people could use it for cheap farming.
Flicker
Aaron's soul seemed to chuckle for a second. "You know, this is all nothing. All of this is relative." More images of fear, hatred and pain flashed through his mind, "What the truly disturbing part is, you were all aware of it. Blissfully, painfully aware. Your kind stood back and did nothing, NOTHING, to try and stop it. You let this happen."
Flicker
His voice reaches tens of thousands, screaming his message of purity through ethnic purge. The symbol on his arm, once a holy sign of fire and eternity, will forever more be the symbol of all that is evil in Man. Thrusting an arm towards the crowd he is met by thousands who praise his name and worship his cause of genocide.
Flicker
An infant girl lays abandoned by the only face she has ever seen and trusted, her cries go unanswered, a child weeping for the touch of her mother. A mother that had abandoned her to live amongst the filth and garbage of society. Doomed to die, cold, scared and alone simply because her mother didn't care enough to raise her own baby, who now weeps in a garbage dumpster for the compassion that only a mother can give, but has been forsaken.
Flicker
Aaron stood apart from the memories, all of their pain, all of their suffering coming down to his level. Every crack of the whip, every bullet ever shot, every fist curled in anger was witnessed and felt by the man. Their deaths did not matter, their suffering, the hatred against them, the sorrow caused by the madness of the demons known as Man felt like a burning brand on his soul. The Earth felt their suffering, not their deaths. One final memory nearly destroyed his mind with guilt.
He saw through the eyes of Princess Luna herself. She looked down at a bloody thing laying in the wreckage of a helicopter. The dying wretch weakly raised a weapon to kill her beloved sister Celestia. She cried out and dove in front of the shot. As it touched her she felt the darkness permeating throughout her mind, sending its tendrils to touch her every fiber of being, consuming them with hate and evil. Her mind screamed in agony as the evil corrupted her soul and infected her mind with whispers of madness.
Something seemed to be with him, silencing the screams of his own soul and shielding him from the barrage of memories.
Don't you dare give up. If you've ever loved anything, if you've believed in humanity don't you dare quit! Don't let her win! Don't let her make humanity into monsters.
"No...no we aren't monsters!" Aaron began to fight back, sending his own memories across the link to show that humanity did not deserve their fate. Memories of love and hope, joy and pride. He sent his own memories of overcoming adversity and his race's triumphs over their own evils. Memories of brotherhood and love for their mother the Earth. But others were sent as well, memories from the war. But he was not alone in sending these memories, something else was helping him.
Flicker
Young men and women stand together, waving signs to protest the war in Vietnam, their message of love and harmony resounding across the world.
Flicker
Two men in suits shake hands while the rest of the world watches, they sign a document swearing their friendship and the world rejoices as one.
Flicker
Stepping a single foot onto a new landscape, a man lifts his golden visor, taking in the splendor of his beloved Earth. His race has reached the Moon itself, and together, humanity comes closer to touch the stars.
Flicker
Cameras flash as a suited man in a hard hat uses a ceremonial shovel to break ground on a hospital for children.
Flicker
Two proud parents hold beautiful new life in their arms, smiles on their faces as they look upon their completed family and welcome another loving soul to this wonderful Earth.
Flicker
A million men march on Washington, proclaiming that all men are equal, no matter who they are. They have chosen to end their inequality without taking up arms, but by appealing to the brotherhood of all human beings.
Flicker
A smiling young woman gratefully serves soup to men and women who have no home.
Flicker
People dance to the music of life, the rhythm inspired by love. The girl in his arms twirls to the beat of life, and there is nowhere else where she would rather be.
Flicker
A woman takes time from her busy schedule to volunteer at a shelter, giving lost animals a new home.
Flicker
Scientists and engineers work late into the night dismantling the ultimate weapon. The cores are then used for energy to give power and light to those who need it.
Flicker
Dedicating his life to his work, a man creates new breeds of grain to feed the impoverished and malnourished millions that face starvation.
Flicker
Men of all nations come together under one roof to discuss ways to help their mother the Earth. Agreeing they set forth on making their dreams possible.
Flicker
An emaciated old man leads millions in peaceful protest; his smile, kindness and wisdom bringing freedom to those who despaired under their old masters.
Flicker
Dropping to one knee, a young man brings his family ring to bear upon the love of his life's finger, asking her the four simple words that will bring their hearts together and bring them happiness.
Flicker
Crowds swing picks and hammers, tearing at the concrete wall that has separated them from their kin and their countrymen for decades. Breaking through the barrier, two men who have never met clasp hands through the breach as they welcome one another to a brighter world.
Flicker
Hundreds of ships dot the horizon, ships built for war. Soldiers jump from landing craft, but they do not come to conquer or destroy, they come to offer a hand to those suffering from a natural disaster. Instead of guns, their hands hold food and medicine, but also hope.
Flicker
An elderly man places flowers upon the grave of his beloved. Though she has left him for the next life, he will love her until the end of time itself.
Flicker
"Don't give yourselves to brutes! Men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives! Tell you what to do, what to think or what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men! Machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You do not hate, only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural."
Flicker
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Flicker
Are we not but one race? Human?
Flicker
The faces of the angels that rose from the ashes of man's suffering began to flow through. Not those people who stood on high as revered leaders, but they who strove to make a better world for their kind. Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Joan of Arc, Da Vinci, Einstein, Newton, Buddha, Confucius, the Dahli Lama, these kind souls who did not seek personal gain, but only the happiness of their fellow human beings.
He was actually doing it, across the bond he could feel Celestia paying attention to the memories he forced back across, questioning herself. Now he sent his personal memories, memories from the War.
*****
"You actually consider me a friend Cloud Hoof? These days I don't know who is friend or foe."
"You are different from your kinsmen, you care for life and cherish it with every breath. Where your brethren would slaughter for petty reasons, you stood for peace and mercy. When they bicker without reason, you seek to know every angle and reconcile any differences. I would be proud to consider such an upstanding person my friend."
******
"You want me to do what!?!?"
"You do not have a choice here Dr. Patterson. Washington knows we have the capability to harness The Surge energy as a weapon. And you have the best knowledge of the energy of any person left alive on the planet."
"I won't do it. General you have to listen to me, the more we fight this thing the stronger it will get. Harnessing it will only make it angry."
"You talk like the energy is alive Doctor."
"IT IS ALIVE!"
*****
"Well, it turns out you aren't a little traitorous shit after all. I like the design, but I had hoped for something a bit bigger."
"You have your weapon, now I get out of this."
"And go where? If you hadn't noticed, everything that isn't human out there would carve out your eyes for their own amusement. I think I have a better use for you, you will oversee the use of the weapon tomorrow. Operation Hammerstrike will depend on you."
"No."
"No? Aaron my boy, you don't have a choice."
*****
Something was wrong, the tip of the mountain glowed green with visible Surge energy, but the barriers were at full strength! Patterson sat next to his creation in the back of a transport helicopter, hoping that his plan of corruption would fail. The general had called about the lost tower, and Patterson gave him a plan that he knew would not work, the towers were already running at full capacity, increasing the power load would completely fry their internal components.
*********************************
The magical tie broke between the human and the alicorn. Celestia lay back on her throne, panting and convulsing at the memories Aaron had forced back at her.
Celestia felt blood trickling from her nose, a new feeling of vulnerability that set her to anger against the man,"You foal, you could have killed us both!"
Aaron lay on his back, twitching until he came to his senses. Shakily reaching to his face, he felt streaks of blood coming from his nose, ears and eyes.
"I had to make you see Celestia."
Still panting, the alicorn realized the significance of the memories. "You...you fought for us. You defied your own kind trying to save us. You only made The Defiler...because your life depended on it."
The doors to the throne room creaked open, signalling the entry of Luna.
"Celestia! What has he done to you?! I'll kill him if he hurt you!" Her horn flared to life with her blue-black magic, threatening to tear him limb from limb for hurting her sister.
"Luna, no! He has shown me the truth! He is not a monster, if anything we should thank him for showing us mercy."
"Mercy!? Where was this mercy when he dared to lay his demon touch upon my soul! Where was his mercy when he held a weapon to your head and held you prisoner! Where was his mercy when he hid away from the world like a coward!"
"Luna, calm yourself! He is not a monster or a demon, he is a good man who fought for us in the War. Without him we would have lost, Mother's very heart corrupted and killed!"
Luna's anger began to soften, the magic sheathe on her horn fading, she looked at the human. "How can this be true? You haunted my nightmares for two thousand years, violating my mind with your touch."
Coughing some of his own blood after the near fatal memory reversal, "I had the nightmare of you torturing me and murdering everyone I ever cared about. How can you be afraid of me?"
"You are afraid of me, human?" The very thought seemed to violate the deepest fiber of her being, something that had done so much damage shivering like a child in her presence, completely vulnerable and terrified.
He retched again, a clotted stream of deep red blood pouring down his chin, "Yes, more than anything."
Luna looked unsure of herself, here lay her personal demon helpless and on the edge of death. This was not the monster of her nightmares, this creature could barely harm a fly.
"Guards! Bring in some of the unicorn healers for this man, and afterwards take him back to his cell, make sure he is comfortable." The black alicorn went to her sister, still looking unsure of herself. "Are you alright Celestia? Is there any damage?"
"No, I believe more wounds were healed today than were given. I see it in your eyes that you do not know what to think of the human now."
"He corrupted me Celestia, and I felt so helpless all of the years as Nightmare Moon, I blamed him for all of it. But if it were not for him, we would not even be here. I do not know what to think anymore."
Celestia gave a weak smile, "The healing has begun for you, dear sister."
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Rough stuff, looking into humanities dark past. Once again all thanks to SovietBacon who graciously pre-reads for me. This chapter really had to be done, it is explanatory of Aaron's guilt and the ultimate guilt of all of us. Are we really any better than the people that we condemn? Are we not all evil in some way, guilty of an unforgivable crime? All of these 'memories' are based on true events; The Holocaust, The Rape of Nanking, Columbine, The Inquisitions, The Crusades, inner city violence, various pestilences, the World Wars, and countless others. But then again, we are capable of good. The potential for both good and evil rests in every second of our lives, it is how one uses his actions and words that changes the world. The Cain line is based on the movie "Tales From the Hood" check it out sometime if you ever want to be personally disturbed. Once again, questions, comments, etc. below.