//------------------------------// // Antipodes- Chapter 14 // Story: Antipodes // by PK //------------------------------// Antipodes Chapter 14 By PK Jigsaw’s eyes opened. He blinked almost at once at the harsh, fluorescent light that was illuminating the room. He rolled off the cot and stood up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. The door to the bathroom opened and Tiptoe cantered out. Upon seeing Jigsaw standing at the foot of his cot, she smiled. “Oh, you’re finally awake!” she said.” You stayed up so late with the terminal that I thought it would be better to let you sleep. I’ve been up for a few hours already. I left you your breakfast on my cot.” She gestured towards the cot with her head where a small meal was sitting on a metal tray. “Oh, thank Celestia,” Jigsaw said, “I’m starving.” He walked over to the tray and sat on the bed. His horn began to glow with a faint blue aura as the food floated to his mouth. Tiptoe trotted over and sat next to him. “So,” Jigsaw asked in between bites of salad, “what’s on the agenda for today? Did you get any news from Incendia?” “Yeah, she told me to bring you back to the main chamber once you’d woken up and finished eating.” “Did she say what for?” Jigsaw asked. “No,” Tiptoe said, “she said we should both be there.” Jigsaw finished off the salad and stood up. “Well, I suppose we ought to go, then.” Together, they set off down the hallway. Jigsaw wondered for a moment how they would find their way to the main chamber after all the twists and turns it had taken to get to their room, but at the first fork in the hallway Jigsaw noticed a small strip of lights along the ceiling had been illuminated. He assumed that they lead to the main chamber and followed them. He was right. After several minutes of following the twisting corridor, they entered back into the large, domed chamber. Incendia was seated at one side of a large table in the center of the room. Above her, a large holographic image of the familiar sun-and-moon insignia blazed, illuminating the room with a warm glow. Incendia looked up as they crossed the threshold and smiled. “I’m glad you’re up. We have a lot of work to do.” she said. She got up from the table and walked around it. Jigsaw was shocked to see that her leg was unbandaged and appeared to support her weight. Incendia noticed Jigsaw’s stare. “Medical technology has come pretty far in the last few thousand years. A broken leg won’t put you out of commission for long, if you have the supplies.” Jigsaw nodded appreciatively. “That’s good to know.” Incendia smiled and said “Now, we do have some business to attend to. We have to use the teleporter, so brace yourselves. We’re going to take a little tour of the city near the outskirts so you can see just how bad things are.” Jigsaw and Tiptoe nodded in acknowledgement. They gritted their teeth as Incendia hit the button on the teleporter. They began the now-familiar process of being tossed from side to side, though it seemed less intense than it had before. With a jarring jolt, the world solidified, and they were standing in a very small, very rundown shack that seemed to be made out of plastic sheets. It was barely large enough for the three of them to fit in. “Just follow me and don’t say anything,” Incendia instructed. She led them out of the shack and onto a rough dirt street. Jigsaw and Tiptoe almost gasped in shock at what they saw. Stretching out before them were row after row of the same shabby buildings they had just come out of. Extremely downtrodden and emaciated ponies wandered around on the narrow dirt street. None of the sleek, shiny vehicles could be seen here. Tall smokestacks in the distance belched black smoke, most of which blew mercifully out of the shimmering dome, but what didn’t settled near ground level and made the air smell sooty and thick. Far off, Rubidium’s tower could be seen rising ominously out of the center of the city, surrounded by the much smaller peaks of the other towers. Incendia began walking directly away from the tower. They reluctantly followed her. Tiptoe couldn’t help but notice the other ponies’ reactions to Incendia. They would glance up and see the teleporter embedded in her shoulder and their eyes would grow wide. Some wore expressions of joy, others of fear, on most it was a mix of both. They would retreat into shacks or side streets on her approach. Within moments, the entire street was clear. Incendia didn’t walk like the other ponies, either. She held her head high and walked quickly. She didn’t show any signs of the limp from the previous day. They were rapidly approaching the edge of the city. After only a few minutes of walking, they reached it. The shimmering blue barrier terminated just ahead of them. The blue light that shone off of it seemed to drown out all the other colors of the city. Even Incendia’s fiery mane seemed to lose its luster under the blue light. Incendia’s horn glowed a bright reddish-orange hue and a small rock lifted off the ground. She tossed it through the shield. As soon as it made contact, there was a flash of light and a concussive burst of air that nearly destabilized Tiptoe. On the other side of the glittering wall of light was a small pile of ash. Incendia began to speak. “You’ve already seen the inner city, where those with the money live. The rest of the ponies are forced out here, to the slums. The barrier protects, yes, but anything that comes into contact with it will be instantly destroyed. They ponies living here have to deal with the constant possibility of death because of something as simple as a misstep. Not to mention this is Rubidium’s prime feeding grounds. Nopony will notice if a pony goes missing in the dead of night from here. It’s awful and it’s wrong, and it’s what we’re sworn to fight for.” As she spoke, smoke began to coil off of her coat and into the air around her. Jigsaw and Tiptoe subconsciously backed away from both her and the barrier a few feet. When Incendia finished, Tiptoe spoke up. “That is awful. I can’t imagine having to live like that.” she said quietly. The smoke rising from Incendia’s coat stopped and she seemed to slacken a little. “Come on. I have something else to show you.” It was then that the lights of the city flickered out and the glittering shield disappeared. ~ Rubidium wiped the blood off his horn, leaving trails of red on the white walls of the Attenuator’s chamber. The attenuator’s body lay slumped on the table, still strapped onto it. The wound in her chest was still fresh. There was a flash of green lightning on the horizon and the ground rumbled and shook. Rubidium smiled. “Won’t be long now.” ~ Incendia’s eyes grew wide. For the first time, Jigsaw saw actual fear in them. When the green light flashed, she turned to Jigsaw and Tiptoe and smashed the button on the teleporter on her shoulder. After another jarring transition, they were back in the underground atrium with the holographic projector, though it was now only projecting a single, weakly lit red bar. Cerulean was already present, but the two unidentified ponies were gone. Incendia glanced at Cerulean who said, “Gone. No idea where they could have gone.” Incendia nodded. “What are we going to do?” she said. Panic was seeping into her voice, and it was clear to Jigsaw and Tiptoe that she had no idea what to do next. Cerulean didn’t answer. She didn’t look as frightened, but she was extremely tense. Suddenly, as image burst into being above the table. Rubidium’s head was floating above the table, as large as a small building. Tiptoe gasped and Jigsaw let out a shout. Incendia cantered up to the table and stood in front the projection. Rubidium chuckled. “Incendia! Glad to see you’re still kicking, so to speak! I heard about your leg. I suppose you’ve notice our little situation with the shield,” he said. “What have you done?” Incendia demanded. Rubidium let out a cold, humorless laugh and his head moved out of the image. Behind it could be seen the Attenuator’s body with what appeared to be a stab wound in her chest. Incdendia stared in shocked disbelief until Rubidium stepped back into the image. She took a deep breath, and spoke in a voice that sounded uncharacteristically weak and shaky. “You’ve signed your own death warrant.” “Have I?” said Rubidium. “If only there were some replacement for the Attenuator handy!” His eyes turned to Jigsaw. “I’m not going to mince words. You have about fifteen minutes before Tantalus gets here. You can either get here before that happens and restart the shield, or you can die along with the rest of the city. I’ll be waiting.” His horn began to glow red, and he let out another cruel laugh. The image went dark. Jigsaw spoke first. “I have to go. I don’t have any other choice. Staying means that this entire city would die, and I can’t allow that.” Tiptoe spoke next. “You can’t go! You’d be stuck there for hundreds of years or more, just like that other pony! It would be a fate worse than death! And all the other ponies would still be living in fear and oppression! I say we focus on fighting Tantalus.” “Impossible,” Incendia interjected, “He’s much too powerful. There’s a reason we needed the power of a goddess to stop him from attacking.” “I think I might have a plan,” Cerulean said, “but it’s dangerous, and might not end well for eve-” They never got to find out the rest of Cerulean’s plan, because at that moment, the entire room shook. The metal groaned and creaked.”Oh... oh no. He miscalculated.” “What do you mean?” Jigsaw said in alarm. “Miscalculated what?” “Tantalus,” Incendia said quietly. “He’s already here.” This time, Cerulean pressed her teleporter button. The world melted away, only to reform itself a moment later. They were standing in another slum, though in a completely different position. The sun was eclipsed behind the tower, and as such, the light from the moon was the only thing that illuminated the buildings. They stood still in the street in silence for a few moments until a massive roar shook the buildings. “Run!” shouted Incendia. The group took off towards the edge of the city, along with what seemed like most of the ponies in the city. Soon, a huge crowd was galloping towards the border. But after only a few minutes of this, Jigsaw stopped and let out a cry of anguish. A splitting pain had suddenly begun in his horn- pain so intense it froze him in his tracks. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Tiptoe said. Her answer came in the form of green flames that suddenly burst into life around the border of the city. Several ponies that had been galloping towards the border couldn’t stop in time and ran right into the flames. The flames flashed in intensity for a brief moment before returning to their jade green color, leaving no trace of the ponies behind. The group stared in horror at the scene unfolding before them. Ponies began running in every direction, and before long, the streets were mostly clear. “What do we do now?” Tiptoe said. “I still have one idea,” Cerulean said. “The portal in Rubidium’s throne room might be able to get us out of here. I have no idea where it would send us, but you two managed to make it work before, so who knows?” Jigsaw and Tiptoe weren’t afforded the opportunity to think it over. An enormously loud roar echoed out from somewhere on their left, and a glance revealed that Tantalus had taken off and was now flying toward the tower. A green corona surrounded him as he flew, leaving swirls and whorls of green mist in his wake. Underneath him, the scene was grisly. The green fire that was blazing at the city edges seemed to follow in his wake, setting alight the shabby shacks and buildings beneath it. As he flew on, the fire lost its green lighting and became orange. Screaming could be heard coming from the burning sections of the city. “We have to help them!” shouted Incendia. She began galloping towards the blazing fires to the east. “Wait! Don’t run towards him!” Jigsaw shouted. Incendia didn’t stop to respond. Jigsaw and Tiptoe shared a glance and made a snap decision—they took after her, Cerulean hot on their heels. They ran through the rubble of what had once been row after row of shabby huts, now reduced to flaming wreckage. As they were running, Tiptoe dodged around a metal beam and lost her footing. She tumbled to the ground. She recovered quickly, though, sitting up and shaking her head. She looked back to see what she had tripped over and screamed in horror. The body of a bright green earth pony was strewn over a small sheet of plastic. Hearing the scream, Jigsaw looked back at Tiptoe only to see her staring in horror at the body of the earth pony. “Stop!” he shouted. His voice held such authority that even Incendia stopped. When she turned to see the scene behind her, her face fell. Jigsaw galloped over to the now sobbing Tiptoe. “Tiptoe,” he began, “I know it’s awful. I know it’s sad. I’ve seen my fair share of dead ponies in the caves back home, but we can’t stop now.” He lifted Tiptoe’s up from the ground and towards him. “Look around. If we don’t move now, we’ll end up just like that. We may still have a chance to save them if we leave now.” Tiptoe looked up and nodded slowly. She got to her feet and joined the main group. “Are you alright, Tiptoe?” Incendia asked. “I think so. I’ve just... I’ve never seen a dead pony before. Not in real life, and not like that. Seeing the Attenuator run through was awful, but this... this is something else.” Her expression slowly hardened, and she looked up into Incendia’s face. “They’re going to pay for this. Both of them.” “That’s the spirit,” Incendia said, though she didn’t look entirely sure of herself. “Now, we have work to do.” They galloped for a few more minutes through the rubble until they had reached the spot where Tantalus had taken off. The destruction was almost unimaginable. Ponies were running madly through the streets, many on fire. The sound of explosions and screaming drowned out the crackling of the fires that still raged all around them. Incendia’s horn began to glow, and suddenly Jigsaw understood why she had taken off towards the fire- she was extinguishing it! As her horn glowed more intensely, the flames around her grew smaller until they went out completely. It was costing her a great effort, however, as she could only extinguish a small area at once. Jigsaw glanced nervously at Tantalus, who by this point was nearly at the tower. “Uh, Incendia?” he said, “Noble as this is, if we don’t leave now, he’s going to destroy the tower.” “I know,” Incendia replied through gritted teeth. “That’s why you have to go on without me. Cerulean, you know what to do.” “We’re not leaving you!” Jigsaw shouted over the roar of sound. “We’re all getting out o–” He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Cerulean had pressed on her shoulder teleporter, and the three ponies had vanished, leaving Incendia behind. The familiar lights and colors surrounded Jigsaw for a moment, but just before the normal moment of departure came, Jigsaw felt the familiar splitting pain in his horn, and the colored lights began to fly past with increasing speed and ferocity. The pressure on all sides of Jigsaw increased, far past the point of Incendia’s teleporter. Jigsaw was gasping for breath and unable to fill his lungs. The colors flying past began to slowly turn into the same bright green shade as Tantalus’ fires. Then, with one final, nearly unbearable compression, the world righted itself. Jigsaw has just enough time to see Cerulean and Tiptoe fall to the ground before he too slumped over, unconscious. ~ Rubidium paced around the Attenuator’s room. He was fuming with rage—the leftover protection from the fragment should have slowed Tantalus more than it had! His only option now was to fight. His horn glowed blood red as the latches on the Attenuator’s table undid themselves. The Attenuator’s body slid off the table and fell to the floor in a heap. Rubidium stood on the platform and his horn glowed even brighter. The attenuation rods in the ceiling rotated in their sockets and once again the white beams of energy shot from them. Rubidium was flung backwards by the force of the energy flowing into him. He tumbled off the table and was forced into the far wall, the attenuation rods faithfully adjusting their angle to continue their stream uninterrupted. Rubidium writhed in pain on the ground of the chamber. Then, as quickly as it had began, the flow of energy ceased. Rubidium lay on the floor of a chamber, curled into a ball for a few moments, smoke rising off his horn. Then, with a moan of pain, he stood up and opened his eyes. His horn began to glow, and his eyes soon followed suit. He bellowed out a laugh, and a ring of red energy rippled out from his horn, shattering the windows of the chamber. ~ Jigsaw woke to Tiptoe’s shouts. He opened his eyes to see her standing above him, saying “Thank Celestia you’re awake! We have to run!” The scene around them was hellish. They were clearly in the upper areas of the city, with its tall, sleek buildings, but it looked as though they had been hit just as hard as the outer areas. The spires were almost all missing their points. Fires raged out of control. Buildings were crumbling from all sides, raining flaming wreckage down on the street, which now had massive cracks and leaked a prismatic fluid that shone with all the colors of the rainbow. “How long was I out? What happened?” Jigsaw asked. “Tantalus interfered with the teleportation,” Cerulean said. “We’re very close to the tower, however. When we get inside, we should be able to take the teleporters up. Those will be much harder to interfere with.” “He knows we’re here?” Jigsaw asked, aghast. “It would appear so, but I think he’s more worried about Rubidium at the moment.” Cerulean responded. “What do you mean, ‘worried’? What does he have to be worried about?” Jigsaw asked. His answer came in the form of a sudden blast of heat and light. The pain in his horn returned in full strength and it took everything he had to keep standing. “What in Equestria was that?” he asked. “Look behind you.” Tiptoe said. Jigsaw whipped his head around in time to see Tantalus bring down his massive fist on a ball of red light that was standing on a street less than 300 yards away. With the strike, another blast of light and heat hit, refreshing the pain in his horn. He didn’t need any further convincing. Without another word, the three ponies took off in the opposite direction of the battling forces, towards the tower. The tower was in bad shape. Large chunks of it were missing, and small waves of energy were pulsing from cords hanging from the severed rooms, causing them to twitch unsettlingly like tentacles. The wind began to pick up behind them, and Tiptoe looked over her shoulder at the battle between Rubidium and Tantalus. Behind Tantalus, one of the taller buildings had been uprooted and was floating in a hazy green field over Rubidium. Tantalus raised his claws upward, then brought them down in a sweeping motion. The tower plowed into the ball of red light surrounding Rubidium and the familiar blast of energy was released, though it seemed to be magnified tenfold with the force of the impact. “Get behind a building!” Tiptoe shouted in horror as a wave of fiery debris flew through the air towards them. Jigsaw and Tiptoe dived into a side alley, but Cerulean wasn’t as fast on her hooves. A flying shard of metal struck her in the side as she turned to jump into the alleyway, and she landed inside in a heap and let out a cry of pain. Tiptoe gasped and ran over to her. The shard of metal was embedded so deep in her midsection that it was protruding from the other side. Blood was gouting from both sides of the wound, and Cerulean was giving horrific gasping sobs. The color was rapidly draining away from her blue coat. The battlefield seemed to have grown calm, for the time being. The only sounds that could be heard were the crumbling of far-off buildings and the crackling of burning fires. “Don’t worry about this!” Tiptoe said through her tears. “It’s all going to be alright. We can make it through this! Just don’t die! For the love of Luna, don’t die!” Tiptoe was crying now too. Blood was beginning to pool under Cerulean, matting her fur. Cerulean looked up at Tiptoe and took a deep, wheezing breath to control her gasping. “At the lobby teleporter... enter ‘six two four four two’ and select the green setting. It will take you where you need to go.” She coughed, and bright crimson blood spattered out of her mouth and onto the wall next to her. With what was supreme effort on her part, she looked up and whispered two words to Tiptoe. “Good... luck.” With that, her head fell to the ground. The blood stopped spurting out of the wound and slowed to a trickle. Tiptoe’s sobbing grew more intense and she threw her front legs around Cerulean’s body. Jigsaw approached and placed his head on Tiptoe’s. His horn glowed with a soft blue light, and Cerulean’s eyelids slid shut. “We have to go now, or her sacrifice will have been in vain.” Jigsaw said, barely audible over the sounds of collapsing rubble outside. Tiptoe stood up and nodded, though her eyes didn’t dry. Jigsaw peered around the corner of the alleyway and, seeing it was clear, signed for Tiptoe to keep following him. Together, they galloped out into the street and headed towards the tower. However, the calm didn’t last long. They were only a few yards out form the entrance when the sharp pain in Jigsaw’s horn returned and a beam of red light shot out from behind them. Jigsaw chose to ignore it. They were rapidly approaching the doors to the tower now. With one final sprint, they barrelled through the remains of the ornate doors and into the lobby. Once inside, Jigsaw didn’t waste any time. His horn began to glow with a blue light and the holographic display burst into life above the teleporter. He entered in the code Cerulean had said and soon a green light was blazing above the platform. “Get on!” Jigsaw called, stepping onto the platform. Tiptoe complied, and the two vanished with a flash of light. A moment later, they appeared in a dark, stone hallway that was shaking as though it was in an earthquake. Dust was crumbling from the walls with every tremor. “Where are we?” Tiptoe shouted over the muffled sounds of explosions and the rumbling of the walls. Jigsaw looked around and saw something familiar- A large, ornately carved stone doorway, symbols glowing almost blindingly white. “It’s the doorway to the fragment of Celestia!” Jigsaw shouted to Tiptoe. “Why would Cerulean send us here?” “She said it would take us where we needed to be... What if we’re supposed to take the fragment with us? To stop Tantalus from getting his claws on it?” “Are you insane?” Tiptoe shouted. “How would we even take it with us?” “I don’t know!” replied Jigsaw. “But we have to try something! Why else would she have sent us here?” Jigsaw approached the door, and the symbols on it began to flow and transform themselves into new orientations. The sun and moon insignia on the door blazed golden, and the door slid open. Jigsaw entered cautiously, his eyes trained on the object in the center of the room. The fragment of Celestia in the center of the room seemed to have swollen to twice the size it was when Jigsaw had seen it before. It still had the appearance of a miniature sun, but it was now cycling through colors. The golden-yellow glow it normally had was being interrupted by flashes of green and red. Jigsaw’s horn began to buzz with the raw power of the fragment. He approached it slowly and cautiously, trying to think how he could transport it off the platform it was on. He attempted to lift it with magic, but the buzzing in his horn simply got more intense, and the miniature sun got more agitated, flashing red and green at an even greater speed. Experimentally, Jigsaw reached out a hoof and lightly tapped the surface of the sphere. To his surprise, there was no pain. It felt soft and pleasantly warm. Jigsaw then lowered his horn and touched the point of it to the sphere. A high-pitched whining began to to emanate from the center of the room and the buzzing in Jigsaw’s horn grew in intensity until he could barely stand it. He attempted to wrench his horn away from the sphere, but it was impossible. “Jigsaw!” Tiptoe shouted. She ran towards him, but when she got to the doorway, some invisible barrier stopped her from entering. The air in front of her seemed to ripple like the surface of a pool. She threw herself into it nonetheless, attempting to break through to Jigsaw, who was now screaming. The sphere was growing brighter and brighter. Then, with a sudden whoosh of air and final flash of golden light, the fragment disappeared. The barrier in front of the door vanished and Tiptoe tumbled in. Jigsaw, miraculously, was still standing. His horn had taken on the appearance of the sphere- swirling pools of golden light flowed along it’s length. “Jigsaw! Are you okay? What happened to the fragment?” Tiptoe said. “I’m... I’m fine, Tiptoe. I’m not sure what happened. I think... I think the fragment’s entered into me, somehow.” “What?” Tiptoe said in shock. “How do you know?” “I can feel it. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s like a buzzing sensation in my horn.” As he spoke, the golden light faded from his horn, and darkness returned to the room. Jigsaw instinctively lit his horn, flooding the room with cool, blue light. “Does this mean you have the powers of the sphere now?” Tiptoe said. “Can you use them to beat Tantalus?” Jigsaw cocked his head to one side. “No, Tiptoe, it’s not like that. It’s not something I can draw upon. It’s just... there. I think this is what the ability to Attenuate is for. I think it’s for transporting the fragments... to bring them back together.” The end of his sentence was punctuated with a massive blast that nearly shook them off their hooves. “We need to get out of here, at any rate,” Jigsaw said. “Get to the elevator!” They quickly galloped through the hallway to the glass elevator. The platform was resting slightly off-level at the bottom of the tube. Jigsaw stepped on and pressed one of the smooth buttons on the side of the platform. Nothing happened. “Okay, hold on,” Jigsaw said as he lit his horn. The platform was surrounded by a blue aura and began to shoot up the tube. Fortunately, the tube appeared to be intact, and after a few minutes of rising rapidly, they reached the throne room. The view from the windows were obscured by the smoke that was billowing up from the ruins of the city below. Jigsaw and Tiptoe quickly crossed the room and stood on the platform where their Stalliongrad journey had begun. With the familiar golden light, the grey rock melted into crystal and opened like a gaping mouth and swallowed up the two ponies. ~ The red glow had almost completely vacated Rubidium and Tantalus raised his claw and brought it smashing down on top of him again. His coat was turning darker and lines and creases had begun appearing on his face. It was only a matter of time now. Tantalus gathered as much energy as he could and let out a torrent of green flames from his reptillian snout. He felt the protection of the shield give way and in a final burst of red light, it was over. Tantalus looked down at the smoldering pile of ashes on the ground in front of him and spoke in a voice that shook the rubble at his feet. “That was for Rarity.”