//------------------------------// // 7. Dwellers on the Threshold // Story: Planet Hell: The Redemption of Harmony // by solocitizen //------------------------------// Planet Hell Solocitizen 7. Dwellers on the Threshold 13th of Planting Season, 10,056 AC Present Day “Dad, is that really you?” Thunder Gale pushed open the door and the light of the sun cascaded in.          Basking in the heat stood a pegasus. His coat was the same blue his father had and his mane was just as purple, but his eyes were wrong. They were wild and yellow and red and—while his posture was very cool and collected—they were thrashed against the composure. Thunder Gale lowered his ears and he shook his head and gaped at the pony in front of him. He looked so much like his father but he wasn’t. “No, I’m not.” The pegasus in the doorway spoke in a voice just as wrong as his eyes. “How many times does it have to hit you over the head before you learn: just because something appears one way, doesn’t mean it is. Now, come with me.” Thunder Gale dropped into a combat stance—hooves spread apart for balance and wings raised, ready to strike. The muscles woven into his suit flexed and tensed. “I don’t know who you are.” Thunder Gale ran his eyes up and down him but stopped at his face; his features were just like his father’s but the brooding fixed in them wasn’t. “But you’ve got a lot of nerve coming here masquerading as my father. Give me one good reason why I’d go anywhere with you.” The pegasus dug his head in his wing and started preening. He took his head out and yawned. Thunder Gale snorted. “Listen, don’t pretend that you don’t want to be here,” the pegasus said. “You abandoned your mission the second I came strolling by, and I suspect that you would’ve abandoned much more than that just to get what you came for. Fortunately for you, I can help. There are things you want and I’m in a unique position to provide them, if you’ll assist me with the things I want. Right now that involves coming with me.” “And just how would you know what I want?” Thunder Gale asked. “Would it surprise you if I said that I could read your mind?” Thunder Gale broke into a cackling laughter that strained the insides of his suit, but he never took his eyes away from the pegasus in the doorway. Sweat dripped off his mane and coat despite the coolant flowing between him and his armor. The pegasus was so completely unmoved by Thunder Gale’s laughter that he didn’t even flinch as the slightest drop of spit splattered on his cheek. Instead, he fastened his eyes on Thunder Gale until his laughing stopped. “You almost had me convinced.” Thunder Gale tried not to look him in the eye. “If you really could read my mind, then you’d know that what I want you can never give me.” “Au contraire, you want your father back just as you remember him when you were a foal,” the pegasus in the doorway said. “And let me assure you, I can make that happen.” “It wouldn’t take more than a glance at an encyclopedia to know that my father and I had a falling out.” Thunder Gale flicked his tail. “Of course I’d like things to go back to the way they were, but I’m here in response to a distress signal.” “Let’s stop beating around the bush. This foalhood friend you’re scouring this planet for is as dead as everything else, but he was never who you were truly searching for. I’m offering you a chance to end your quest and that longing in your soul, but my price is your help. Now, what’s it going to be? Are you coming with me, or not?” Thunder Gale closed his mouth, and swallowed. How did he know about Hill Born? he thought to himself. The pegasus in the doorway grinned. That got Thunder Gale to shuffle on his hooves and straighten up. “You’re not like Chain Gleaming, are you?” he asked. “How observant,” he said. “I’m glad to see you know how to think. Now, are you going to keep standing there or are you going to come outside so we can get on with it? We have a lot of ground to cover and time is short.” The controls on Thunder Gale’s forehoof showed no new communications or activity from the Spitfire. He was sure of they were trying to reach him, but there was still too much EM interference. He was virtually alone, save for the pegasus who looked like his father. “Okay, I’ll bite,” Thunder Gale said. “Let’s go take a walk.” Outside the sun had reached its zenith and the city rippled under it. The towers broke the wind, and so the constant wailing that haunted the desert above didn’t reach them. But they didn’t spare Thunder Gale and his companion from the sun. The towers boxed them in from both sides in a concrete canyon and there was no shade. The pegasus wearing his father’s face also wore his golden cuirass, and it shined in spite of the dust. They trotted along down the middle of the street until Thunder Gale spotted a flash of green in the window of an abandoned storefront. He stopped and touched a button on his console to switch the rifle on his shoulder to analogue targeting. He grabbed the firing bit tucked in the collar of his armor, and guided his rifle up to the window. “Chain Gleaming and his entourage are back,” Thunder Gale said. “We’re out here in the open, and those buildings make great places for sharpshooters to set up shop. Why aren’t they attacking? I thought they wanted us dead.” “Isn’t it obvious? They’re scared, and rightfully so. This isn’t an ambush; this is reconnaissance. The changelings are cunning and overconfident, but they are not suicidal. They know where attacking me would get them.” The other day Chain Gleaming overpowered Thunder Gale and Breeze Heart and nearly killed them both all on his own, and not even an hour ago he surrounded his team with an army that outnumbered the whole of his ship’s crew. But just the mere presence of the pegasus guised as his father kept them all at bay.   “You’re the thing that the changelings—or whatever they’re called—are trying to get away from, aren’t you?” Thunder Gale was now taking him very seriously. “You’re the reason they broke out and why they’re after my ship?” “You’re just figuring that out?” Thunder Gale let the firing bit slip out of his mouth, and he put a foot or two between himself and the pegasus in gold. “What are you?” Thunder Gale asked. “I’m not a what, I’m a person.” He patted himself on his chest-plate as he spoke. “I may not be a pony but I’m very much alive. I have needs and desires, just as you do. I’ve experienced loss, just as you have. I’m stuck on this sand trap, just the same as you are. I have loved ones whom I miss dearly, just as you do. I have a home I want nothing more to return to, just as you do. But unlike you, I’ve had the last eleven thousand years to contemplate their loss. One way or another, I’m going home, so I suggest you stay close to me.” At the mention of “loved ones,” the space between Thunder Gale’s heart and his stomach twisted. A light gust rolled down the street and swirled dust up against his armor. He could picture Breeze Heart clear in his head, sitting in her sickbay alone, save for the injured marine he sent back. Everypony returned to the ship except for him. She was a kind soul, and she didn’t deserve to get left in the dark. As Thunder Gale stood in the street and in the heat, as he glanced between the windows and the pegasus, his tongue fiddled with the beacon in his tooth. He wanted to go back to her. “Speaking of loved ones, there’s an entire ship full of ponies wondering where I am,” Thunder Gale said. “I really need to get back there before they send out another search team. I don’t want them risking their lives on another search and rescue operation.” “If you’re so concerned about their well-being, why didn’t you lit out with the rest of your troops? No, you’re thinking of somepony in particular. Give me a hint, what’s she like?” “What’s it matter to you?” Thunder Gale took a step back. “I’m curious.” The pegasus in golden leaned closer. “If we’re going to be working together, I want to get to know you better. She cares for you enough to follow you to this dust-ball from hell, but is the feeling mutual?” "Okay, that’s it, I’m done.” Thunder Gale shook any thought of Breeze Heart out of his head as best he could and leaned away on his back hoof ready to gallop off. "Do you want your daddy back, or not?” The pegasus flung out his wings and leaned forward. “If you don’t, then by all means scurry back to your ship and crawl under your bed.” Thunder Gale huffed, and ran his eyes over the buildings ahead of them. After a moment of deliberation and fiddling at the notches in his back molar, he answered him. “Okay, I’ll come with you, but I ask the questions from now on, alright?” The pegasus flashed his teeth and continued down the street at a brisk trot, and Thunder Gale cantered after him. Soldiers avoid open areas such as wide city streets when travelling through enemy territory, and when they did they travelled in overwatch. There wasn’t even enough cover to provide shade from the sun and every window around them was an opening for them to exploit. Thunder Gale didn’t know what disturbed him more: the fact that the pegasus ahead of him strolled right down the main roads without concern, or the fact that he was aware of Breeze Heart. Thunder Gale shook the thought of her from his head; he couldn’t swallow what the pegasus said about being able to read his mind, but he didn’t exactly doubt him either. He needed to keep his mind away from Breeze Heart, so as he stepped over a chunk of façade he asked a question. “So why did you pick my father?” “What you’re seeing now is simply an emanation of what I truly am.” The pegasus wearing his father’s face unfolded a wing and dusted a patch of dust off his cuirass. “The only reason you can see me now is because you don’t see with your eyes, you perceive with your mind. My whole self isn’t something your organs of perception can relate to you in all their lies. I needed to pick a shape so I picked this one.” “But why that one?” Thunder Gale caught up to him in a single bound. “What’s so special about my father?” “Nothing.” The pegasus kicked aside a rock, and Thunder Gale stepped over it. “I’m not the least bit interested in him except for what he means to you. It may shock you to hear, but I’m actually quite curious about you. I wanted to make sure I got your attention, so I picked the dad you remember dearly.” “Well, you got my attention, so change into something else, please.” “I can’t. At least, not yet.” Seven blocks later the streets opened to a gravel expanse. It reminded him of a clearing in a forest, the way that the trees suddenly parted and revealed a field and the sun. But there was no grass or other green things, just more of the brown dust that got in his coat and clung to the roof of his mouth, and gravel. In the center of the clearing stood a slab of concrete. Thunder remembered seeing it on the map; they were now in the middle of the city and only several hundred yards away from where all his troops compass needles pointed. “Okay, we’re here,” Thunder Gale said. “So what did you need me for?” “The changelings and myself are no more native to this hellhole than yourself.” The pegasus who looked like Thunder Gale’s father stepped toward onto the gravel and trotted toward the slab. “In fact, we all share the same homeworld: Equus. I was brought here because this planet’s orbit just so happens to lie at the intersection of several important galactic energy centers, and this city is where it all converges.” “Energy?” Thunder Gale cantered after him. His armored hooves crunched on the gravel beneath them. “Magic, chi, some even call it electromagnetic fields and non-baryonic particles—try to keep up, Thunder Gale. It doesn’t matter what name you give it. All that matters is that it’s there, and it’s curbing my abilities. This place is a prison, remember? There’s a machine under there that’s painting the energy a toxic color. I need your help to shut it down. Once you do, I’ll have the power to uphold my end of the deal.” “And change into something that doesn’t look like my dad?” “Why, of course. Now be quiet. I need to concentrate.” The pegasus stopped a short distance before the slab and spread his hooves far apart, as if he were shouldering a heavy load, and groaned against it. A tingling like pins and needles rolled through Thunder Gale’s spine and out his skin. The last time he got those prickling sensations a coffee table blew up, so he took a few steps back and shielded his face behind his armor-plated wing. White light flashed from the pegasus and a quick snap followed. Inside a blink the concrete slab burst into a cloud of pink vapor. A metal seal sat in the gravel where the slab stood. “How in the name of Celestia did you do that?” Thunder Gale flung his wings and eyes wide open. “I’m magic, that’s how. Come along, we have work to do.” A spiral staircase curved around the edge of the seal, burrowing into the ground. The pegasus led Thunder Gale down and around its coiling path until the light of the sun disappeared, and along with it the desert heat. Ponies have long bodies and walk on four legs, and so they need some space to turn around. Just like those in Lt. Cloud Twist’s holdout, the stairs cork-screwing their way beneath the plate wasn’t designed with ponies in mind. The walls were too narrow for Thunder Gale to turn, and he couldn’t walk backwards up stairs, so he was trapped, with nowhere else to go except forward at whatever pace the pegasus guised as his father dictated. A low vibration hummed up his spine. His armor plated hooves clattered on stairs. He took a moment to switch on his suit-mounted lights, and all around him long shadows stretched out over carvings in the walls. Winged creatures soared through clouds turned green by rust, but to his shock, none of them were pegasi or ponies of any kind. They were two-legged ape creatures of the same variety that the statue in the desert depicted. There was something so equine about them. Not in their shapes, but in the way they pointed to one another and the expressions on their faces. The strangest parts of all, at least to Thunder Gale, were their wings and what he thought was a third eye carved in their foreheads. It was right on the spot where the horn sprouts from a unicorn. To his left, the sculpture showed a warrior tumbling from the sky on burning wings. He ran his hoof over the tarnished metal, and a shiver ran down his spine. He felt as if he had just stepped over his own grave. “They called it the story of Icarus.” The pegasus slowed to a stop. His hoof pointed and guide Thunder Gale’s LEDs to a sculpture of the falling warrior. “It was about an inventor and his son, and a set of wax wings they put together. They took them for a flight, and when his father turned back, Icarus kept flying in some vain attempt to out-do his old man and ascend to the heavens. As he got closer, his wings melted and he fell from the sky.” “That doesn’t surprise me,” Thunder Gale said. “Sons do crazy things trying to live up to their fathers.” Another sculpture was embedded in the wall to his right, and it depicted a battle between the winged-apes and a legion of beasts. “So what do these guys have to do with all this?” “The humans came here seeking enlightenment.” The pegasus craned his head at Thunder Gale and, in doing so, brought a pair of horns that had sprouted from his forehead into the light of the LEDs; they weren’t like a unicorn’s, but like a beast’s. “They believed that this world is a border between this realm and the next, and they weren’t the first to believe such lies. Many species have come here since this planet’s birth seeking power, your own included, and they all paid for their ambition with their lives.” At that point, Thunder Gale wanted nothing more than to get out of there and away from the thing parading as his father, but he wasn’t about to tell him that. When the pegasus continued down, he followed and kept him in the light. If he can give me my father back, then it will be worth it, he told himself. Again. “I know what you think of me.” The pegasus boomed and his voice carried off the walls so far that his words returned as echoes. “But there’s no reason why we can’t be friends. Give me a break and cheer up a little! Doesn’t this remind you of old times? You, me, and a labyrinth. I know it’s not a hedge maze, but there are plenty of twists and turns along our path.” "I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Thunder Gale flinched and reached for his mouth. The low vibration humming up the stairs ramped up in frequency, and right then Thunder Gale’s transponder ached in his jaw. “I just want to do what we came here to do, and then I want my father back. We don’t need to talk.” “Come on! You can at least show a little bit of gratitude. My only concern is for the well-being of my friends, and I count you as one of them. Be thankful! I do hope that you and The Good Doctor Heart will at least consider giving me a chance after I prove myself to you.” Thunder Gale stopped. The pegasus took a few steps more before stopping as well. All was silent, except for the low humming travelling up the walls. “What do you want with Breeze Heart?” Thunder Gale asked. “Nothing. I’m simply making chit-chat.” “Then how come you keep bringing her up?” “If you must know, I’ve been acquainted with her almost as long as you have.” The pegasus turned his head at him sidelong, but the shadow of his brow and his horns concealed his expression. “I have big plans for all of us.” “Are you going to tell me what those are?” "I haven’t been happy in a long time, and now that I’m free, I want to reunite with my loved ones and rebuild that life we once had. To that end, I want to put an end to the suffering that’s been inflicted upon ponykind and create an Order that will last the next eleven thousand years. You still don’t remember who I am, do you?” “Why do you keep acting like I should?” Thunder Gale tried to back up but the stairs behind him kept him right where he stood. “I’ve never met you before in my life.” “Not in this one, no, but you have every reason to remember your old friend’s name,” the pegasus in his father’s clothes and likeness said to him. “As a show of good faith, allow me to enlighten you: my name is Discord, The Spirit of Order, and I suggest you remember that in the future. It’s rude to forget about your old pals.” “I’m starting to think this was a mistake.” Thunder Gale put his jaw down off center and pried the cap off the beacon in his tooth. “I knew I should’ve transmatted back with the others.” A strong electromagnetic field can prevent a transmat from keeping a lock on a pony long enough to teleport him out, but a powerful enough beacon could cut through it. The implant in Thunder Gale’s tooth was a single-use one-time-only non-refundable deal, but he’d give anything to be back on his ship and to see Breeze Heart safe again, instead of down there in the dark and stale with a monster disguised as his father. “What happened to all your enthusiasm?” The pegasus’s teeth glistened in the light of the LEDs. “Put all those second guesses aside like you did when you abandoned your crew and come with me. You’re so close to getting your father back. What does anything else matter now?” “My crew matters, and so does Breeze! My father wouldn’t have left them like I did—and I’ll admit that was a mistake, and I can’t change what I that, but I can still do right by them now. I don’t know what you want with her, but you’re not getting near her!” “My, my, aren’t you protective.” The pegasus named Discord looked straight ahead into the darkness in front of him, and in doing so withdrew his face from the light. “Yet so eager to leave her and everypony else to fend for themselves when it suits you. You’re no better than me, so quit trying to delude yourself by taking the moral high ground. I want to pick up exactly where we left off—all three of us.” Thunder Gale didn’t say anything more. He brought his teeth down on the transponder and the beacon activated. “I can see I’m not going to make any more progress with you.”  Discord sighed and peeked over his shoulder at Thunder Gale. “I thought there was hope for you, but I guess I was wrong. I’ll let that chip in your mouth do its thing so you can get out of here, but only for old time’s sake. I’m not going to give up and I have no problem taking what I want either. I’ve waited too long to let this opportunity pass me by. Let that be a warning to you: next time we meet, don’t get in my way.” The transmitter in Thunder Gale’s tooth buzzed twice; the Spitfire’s crew had locked on to him and had initiated transmaterialization. While he waited for the transmat beam to whisk him away, he glared Discord ahead of him down as if to say: ‘I’ll see you in hell!’ It was a front for his fear and Discord knew it. He only stared back and laughed. And laughed. Yellow light washed over Thunder Gale and flooded the stairwell. The hairs of his coat stood on edge and his armor soaked up a searing heat and his fur and mane stood up, and his ears rang. Then transmat light flashed and it was all over. He was standing in the well-lit, utilitarian, steel walls of the Spitfire’s transmat chamber. Vents near the ceiling pumped in cool air that smelled nothing but fresh and clean into the wide and open room. A mare in a black and red officer’s cuirass stood propped up on a control panel flipping switches. "Lightning Fire, ma’am, we’ve got him,” she said into a microphone on her control panel and then turned to Thunder Gale. “Are you okay, Major? Do you need anything?” He desperately wanted to say, “No, no I’m not,” but the officer in him wouldn't let that out. Instead, he told her: “I’m fine, as you were.” Then, he trotted out the door and bolted the second she looked away.