//------------------------------// // Chapter 17 - Necesse est omnia finiantur. // Story: Golden Grace, Headless Headaches // by Thadius0 //------------------------------// I growled at the stallion before me. "So you're the one who is responsible for...well, everything I've had to deal with." The damn smile never left his face. "Indeed. And seeing as how my plan is very nearly complete, I'm feeling generous and kind. Go ahead, ask your questions." My scowl only increased as he mentioned two aspects of the Elements of Harmony. "Why the crystals?" Omega's smile fell a bit. "Normal Adepts could not be controlled by any means, their Psynergy fought it off. So my underlings knocked out non-Adepts, inserted the crystal, and then we infused them with the extract taken from Djinn and Adepts. Thus making controllable Adepts." I actually nodded at that. "Makes a semblance of sense." Omega looked shocked. "Wait, you're agreeing with me?" I glared at him. "Oh, don't get me wrong, I loathe your very existence, but I can understand what little logic there was behind your actions. Speaking of, why did you do any of this?" The unicorn in front of me frowned. "I was a colt in the school for gifted unicorns, and I was reading in the Archives one day when I noticed a door to a room of artifacts. A small violet spirit flew in and landed atop a case covering a sword. And when I levitated the case off and touched the sword, my mind..." He trailed off, and I filled in. "You saw the Multiverse and all its glory. The Void Eternal and That Which Fills It. Everything, from the smallest speck to stars in the sky." The stallion slowly nodded. "The blade showed me all things, but most importantly, it revealed to me that I was an Adept. That I could command the elements. And it showed me how they worked. How combinations worked." Here he looked to the flames emitting from his hooves and smiled. "And it showed me that when all were combined, the powers of Alchemy would be unlocked. It took me a while, but I created a golden sphere and absorbed it. Those that believed in me were given smaller doses, of not all four combined." I growled at him. "Why? What was your endgame?" He chuckled. "True immortality. With the power of the Princesses, some Flames of Alchemy, and some Water of Hermes, the water of life would become the Water of Eternity. I would need them both under my control and imbued with sympathetic Elements, but it could be done. Ponies would be able to live forever. Ponies that believed in me, anyways." I held a hand to my chin. "So you created a False Sun, and would have used Psynergy and magic to bring immortality to your chosen. You murdered so many Djinn, were responsible for the deaths of changelings, ponies, and even a griffon." He snorted at me. "A false sun? The power it granted me is as real as the one that shone over Canterlot." I smiled. "Oh, you may wield the Flames, the same as me. But I can feel your strength from here. You wield them, but you do not Understand them. Your power is so much less than mine. You didn't even notice that the crystal is in my control now, did you?" Omega jolted and looked to the crystal, just as it turned to dust. He yelped and jumped back to the canisters, but was encased in a golden glow. My golden glow. The stallion squealed as I pushed him against the wall. Luna jumped up as the power holding her down faded and shattered. "We thank thee, Auric, for your efforts. We shall bring this pony before our sister-" "No." Luna turned towards me with an expression of shock. "Thou canst be meaning to say you wish for us to set this monster free?" "Oh I'll set him free," I snarled. "I'll set him free in the truest expression of the word. You won't want to be here for this, Luna. It might trigger some...unpleasant memories." Luna slowly left the room, clearly curious but also taking my warning to heart. Once the door closed I set my sidebag down and took off my gauntlets. "For your crimes, Omega, I sentence you to the worst punishment I can devise." He actually laughed. "Do as you will, you pretentious biped. I will not be cowed. I will not fear you or what you stand for." The Genji Gauntlets dissolved into a storm of golden motes, which hovered between us. "The first of seven, the Gauntlets of the Warrior of Greatness." The sidebag opened, and each of my Tokens floated out. I named them as I broke them apart into their component particles. "The Medallion of the Demon King. The Card of the Lady of Madness. The Key of the King of Power. The Clasp of the Twins of Space and Time. The Soapstone of the Knight of the Sun. The Coin of the Heir of Breath." Each one dissolved into a storm of golden dust, and as each connection broke, I felt a pang in my heart. The air between us was ringed with gold...and something else. Something we could not focus on, for when we tried, our eyes could not see anything. Void-energy. The absence of any and every thing that could be classified as something that existed in a reality. I only knew it was there because I could feel its presence. "Each one of these Tokens were touched by the Void Eternal. And now I use its essence against you." "You think your adherence to your petty lies will save you, colt, but it will not! You too will die one day!" I cocked my head at him. "Petty lies? Oh, you must mean Justice, Balance, Mercy. Those things." The stallion snorted in rage. "Grind up the entire universe and show me one speck of Justice, one atom of Mercy, one iota of Balance! Then I will listen to you! The blade showed me that all things must end, that all things will end! If Justice, Mercy, or Balance were capable of saving ponykind, then there would be a way out! But there never is or will be!" I merely shook my head at him. "For last words, those are pretty terrible. I hereby sentence you to be exiled to the Void Eternal, never again to darken any of That Which Fills It. You will wander the infinite nothing forevermore, home to the Eldritch things beyond all realities. Pray that they will have mercy on your soul, for this is as much as I will grant you." I made a motion with my hands, moving the motes that ringed the Void-energy, thus moving the energy itself. Just before the Void-energy impacted him, he smiled at me. "You never did find that guard, did you?" My blood ran cold as Omega vanished. My mind was filled with one thought. Measured! I focused on Ponyville and vanished again. ----- I appeared in Ponyville Market in a rush of golden flames to a scene I had hoped not to see. A pegasus Guard had Measured hostage with a spear to her throat. The Bearers were nearby, all of them shocked into silence that one of the Guard would do this to Measured. I noticed the slight glaze on his eyes and realized that this was the one who was being controlled. I slowly walked over to Twilight. "Do you know this one?" She gulped and nodded, never taking her eyes off the scene before her. "That's Flash, Flash Sentry. Why is he doing this?" "He's not. It's the last commands of a madman to a control crystal embedded within him that's making him do this. Why aren't you dragging him, his spear, or Measured away from there?" "His armor, something about it counters magic on him and anything he's touching. And he reacts when any of us get close, even when he shouldn't be able to see us." Omega must have done something to his armor, I would have to handle this directly. I walked into Flash's field of view, and he jerked his entire head to follow me. "You! Come any closer, and I will..." He trailed off and shuddered, then one of his eyes lost the glazed look. "Who...what..." I smiled then. It would appear that it was possible for this one to fight the control. Perhaps he was an unawakened Adept, or maybe the crystal required its master? I'd have to look into it. "Flash? Flash, you need to keep fighting. Don't let the crystal control you." He looked up at me with his clear eye. "I'm...I'm trying. But it's so hard. It wants me to...kill this mare...if you don't surrender." I sighed. "That's going to be very hard for me to do, Flash." "Why?" I looked him dead in the eyes. "Omega's gone. Banished, forever, from all realities. There's no one to surrender to." That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. His eye glazed over again, and the spear was thrust into Measured's neck. A spurt of blood, a gasp. I bumrushed Flash and tore the crystal out of him before it could make him do anything else, then crouched near Measured. I could see and feel her life slipping away from me with every second that passed. I poured what healing powers I could into her, and it did nothing. She still grew weaker. My eyes narrowed. "I have moved mountains, dealt with mad gods, crossed realities, and ended threats against this world. I will not be bested by this!" I felt something snap, deep inside, and felt a rush of power in my very being. I kept up my rant. "No price is too great, no debt too steep! I will not let this mare die! I forbid her to die!" I could hear something that sounded like fabric tearing all around me as I poured golden fire into Measured Thought. I saw the wound close, her breathing stabilize. ...And then everything went white. ----- I came to and looked around. Everything was very...white. A blankness, a void, an empty canvas in all directions. And then I heard a voice. A very familiar voice. "Oh right. I'd forgotten about this. Hmm, means I might get some things wrong...screw it, life's more fun with mistakes." I turned around to see... Me. "What the fuck?" The other me nodded. "Yeah, that was my reaction too. And you're probably wondering how, where, why, all that good stuff." "The thoughts had crossed my mind," I dryly replied. "Put simply, when you saved Measured Thought, you sorta, kinda, broke the fabric of reality." I blinked a few times at that. "Okay, that raises more questions than it answered." My mirror laughed. "Yes, I figured that. Okay, when you called up the power to save her with the intent that no cost was too high, you ended up reaching deep inside yourself for the power that kept you immortal." I nodded, recalling the feeling. "And then you broke it." My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. "Well. That would do it." My dopple nodded sagely. "Most of it was used on her to save her, though enough was left behind in you to keep you ageless. And the stuff left over in her once she was safe pooled together to form a similar agelessness in her as well, mimicking what was left in you" I then waved a hand around at the blankness around. "And this is?" My image blinked a few times. "Oh! Right, the best analogy is, think of the pages in a book. You can only read the pages, you can't cut open the covers and read what happened before there were pages or after they finished telling their story. But this place is like that. It is beyond and yet before space-time was a thing that was happening." I turned my head around slowly. "Looks sort of empty here. And how did you end up here?" My other self shrugged. "It's sorta the point: all other things are gone. And all the immortal end up here eventually. In time, your power, along with the power in Measured, will grow back into true immortality again. This place is Beyond the Oblivion that awaits all worlds, yet Before their Origin. Here, all things can be possible. Those that make it here have an infinity of choices, but their first priority is to close any open time loops from their world of origin, so as to keep their world, and thus their own existence, stable. Dissy, Lulu, and Cel are going over that now, Twi's busy cataloging this whole phenomenon, while Cadence and Measured are talking." He then shuddered. "I do not trust those two together, but I wandered off because I thought I was forgetting something, and lo and behold, it was me." I nodded slowly, so far it made sense. "So...what happens now? I mean, I have to go back at some point, assuming that you are in fact a future version of me." My other self nodded. "True enough. The power you unleashed when you broke reality and your immortality will wane soon enough, snapping you back to your proper place in the time-stream." And here my other self gained a wolfish smile. "I could help you, you know. Seeing as how this is all technically my fault." I did not like the smile I was giving me. "No no, that's fine, we can wait." The other me smiled even more and raised his right hand back, palm facing out. "No no, I insist." And with that, I became the first recipient of a bitch slap into Reality from myself. What really sucks is that I'm going to have to do it again.