//------------------------------// // Not Always For Better // Story: Odrsjot // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Josho and Seclorum weren’t alone. A contingent of heavily armed enforcers escorted them as they trotted east down a winding path that scaled down from the craggy face of the jutting plateau. The air whistled with falling shells as the old friends and their fellow equines trotted into the depths before the trenches. “We’re a bit exposed out here, don’t you think?” Josho remarked. “Not so long as we keep tight to the walls,” Seclorum said. He pointed at the winding trench ahead of them, leading the ponies deeper and deeper into the muddied earth. “Besides, the Xonans won’t shell this spot directly. They know there’s something of value here. We just gotta make them think it’s worth preserving and they won’t cash in all their chips.” “Not yet, you mean,” Josho said. “Lasairfion’s just a sneeze away from wiping you clean from the plateau.” “She’d be a foolish monarch.” “And you aren’t?” Josho frowned as the two came upon a straightway past an embankment. “This may be a well-fortified position, Secchy, but it isn’t exactly impervious.” “Most of it is,” Seclorum said. “You’ll see.” He stumbled briefly, but picked himself up with help of his grinding braces. Josho blinked. “Just what in the hay happened to you?” “Meh…” “Seriously, pal. You look like you made love with a water heater.” “I was caught in the crossfire while personally overseeing the dispensing of enemy rangers,” Seclorum said in a droning tone. “I had third degree burns across most of my body. It damaged a lot of the nerves in my legs.” “Seems like it did a number on your horn too, bud.” “I’ve lost direct control of my leylines,” Seclorum muttered. “Without this device suppressing my magic…” He pointed at the aluminum cap on his horn. “I’ll literally rip my own body to pieces with telekinesis.” “Yeesh, that sucks.” “You don’t know the half of it.” “Guess gone are the days of frisking the mare enforcers at uniformed drills,” Josho said with a smirk. Seclorum was silent. Josho raised an eyebrow. “What? Not even a titter? That sort of crap used to have you in stitches. Literally.” “A lot has happened to me since the last time we met, Josho.” “Yeah. No crap.” Josho trotted closer, craning his neck to catch the old enforcer’s expression. “But your battered body aside, what’s gotten you so obsessed with this place? There’s just so much I don’t understand.” “I’m hoping to show you.” “What? Did you dig up a bunch of dragon bones or something?” “It’s a great deal more complicated than that.” Josho glanced up at the flashing gray sky. “We’ve trotted a long distance. How close are we to the actual front?” An explosion rocked no more than twenty meters away. Mud and chunks of rock fell loosely over the trench. The enforcers shuddered in fright. Seclorum didn’t twitch one single muscle. “We’re close,” he muttered. Josho trotted in silent contemplation for a while. Not long after, the party reached their destination. The trench opened up to a sharp cliff hanging over an inexplicable hole in the earth. Walking to the edge, Josho peered down, and he could see layers upon layers of multicolored rock. Beneath the sedimentary slivers, a different landscape entirely caught Josho’s eyes with an otherwordly sheen. The breath left his lungs, for with each flicker and flare of the falling shells, entire swaths of light reflected off a veritable sea of metal. He saw conveyor belts, pendulums, and dozens upon hundreds of golden platforms. The metal looked very old, but also incredibly immaculate. “Sonuvagarbagecan.” Josho gulped. “It’s friggin’ real after all…” “So you know of it, then?” Seclorum pivoted to face him. “You know of the machine world?” “I… uh…” Josho turned to look at Seclorum. It was hard to wrench his eyes away from the sight below. “I know a thing or two that a certain bird told me.” He blinked. “A bird with hooves and a rainbow colored mane.” “We’re battling over the carcass of an old, old fossil, Josho,” Seclorum said. “This battlefield… this landscape… this world--it’s all bigger and grander than this war and all the wars that have happened before it and all that will happen after.” “Your point?” “Years ago, a Xonan transport ship powered by skystone plowed into this part of the earth at full speed after it was blasted to bits by Ledomaritan shells.” The prime enforcer spoke above the bedlam of landing explosives. “It exposed this secret world--something built by ponies older and wiser than any civilization known to ponydom--including the Confederacy. It was Madame Nightshade who personally inspected the brilliant flame located on a pedestal contained within. She had arrived to collect her brother, who had been terribly injured at the time of the Xonan crash. Only her company’s technology was capable of extending the poor soldier’s life. As it turned out, only her expertise could relocate the magical flame.” “Yeah?” Josho leaned in, peering into the metallic abyss below. “Lemme guess, Nightshade’s brilliance gave you an excuse to cling to this thing like it was fool’s gold?” “The flame isn’t mere magic! It’s part of this world beneath worlds!” Seclorum replied. “If we can harness it, we can control the power that runs the landscape itself! The battlefield itself will be ours to dictate in every dimension possible! We can turn back the tide of the Xonan Incursion and restore this continent! Hell! We can even invent new continents! Reshape the very fabric of this plane!” “You realize how nutty that sounds?!” “Josho, if we retreat or advance, we give up the most important discovery in the history of civilization!” Seclorum pointed over the cliff. “The war will go on and on, unceasingly, unless we do something dramatic to turn the tide!” “And we’re all sitting ducks if we stay here!” Josho exclaimed. “The Xonans are onto you, Seclorum! They had spies infiltrating the Ledomaritan armada! That’s how they got ahold of the Lightning Bearer! Soon, they’ll get ahold of this place too!” “Then what am I supposed to do?!” Seclorum shouted. “Give it up? If they get this, then we are all finished!” “You know, this is how it started with Shell too!” Josho said. “He thought he had his hooves on a ‘final solution!’ But it turns out he was biting more than he could ever hope to chew! Soon, his task turned into an obsession and his obsession tore his life and his legacy apart!” “I am in full control of my faculties!” Seclorum hissed. “Like hell you are!” Josho pointed. “Look at you! You’re part refrigerator! I’ve never seen anypony like this before--much less my old friend!” “Clearly you haven’t grasped what it means to truly sacrifice what’s necessary for the salvation of the greater good!” “Don’t start with that bullcrap!” Josho growled. “It doesn’t fit you, Secchy! And, for your information, I sure as heck gave up a lot to bring my fat flank down here and try and talk some sense into you! So don’t screw it up!” “Josho…” Seclorum folded his braced forelimbs. “I am not leaving this position.” He gulped, then dryly voiced, “And neither are you.” “Huh?” Josho recoiled, only to feel a set of hooves slapping something cold and metal over his horn. He looked up, gasping to seen an aluminum supressor cap canceling out his leylines. “Oh Hell no-!” He tried bucking away, but four young stallions were holding his body firmly to the ground. “Nnngh! Get off me, ya beefcake vomit buckets!” “The battlefield may surround us, old friend,” Seclorum said. “But the graveyard of all our past mistakes is here.” He nodded towards the enforcers, and they dragged Josho to the very brink. “You know, I always figured I would be the one to bury you. Looks like I’ll be the one to outlive you as well.” “Dammit, Secchy! Don’t do this!” Josho began panting. “Nightshade! She has the book! If we can stop the Lasairfion and the Lightning-Bearer in its tracks, then we can still bring the damn thing here!” “It’s too late for that, old friend,” Seclorum said coldly. “It’s too late for everything, flame or no flame. It is time for a new era. The ponies of this plane need a change.” “What?! What are you babbling about?!” Josho’s hooves scuffed against the edge of the cliff. He struggled to fling one last, panicked glance over his shoulder. “None of this makes any sense!” Seclorum opened his mouth to talk, but hesitated. A pale expression wafted over him, and his eyes dilated, moistened, like twin orbs bobbing at the surface of a deep lake. A blink, and they descended once again, dragging the rest of him away with a melancholic expression. “I don’t understand it myself, Josho. But I’ve… changed.” He swallowed dryly, gazing at the braces around him. “And it’s time that the rest of the world change too. All I know is that I’m waiting…” “For what?!” Josho gritted his teeth. “A swift kick in the plot?!” “Something like that.” Seclorum looked up, and this time his expression was blank, glazed. “But one thing’s for certain. You are not the pony to bring that change.” For a brief moment, Josho thought he spotted a flicker across the stallion’s eye, but then he saw nothing, for he was being flung full-force into the metal abyss below. “Awwwwwwww shhhhhhhh--”