//------------------------------// // 6 - Subversion // Story: Stargate - Rise of the Sun God // by Arvaus //------------------------------// Celestia woke before sunrise the next morning, dragged herself out of bed and walked over to her dresser. For a long while she just stood there, staring at herself in the mirror. She'd barely managed to get any sleep that night, and it showed; her eyes were red and sore, and she was having trouble even keeping them open. I hope this ends soon, she thought. The strain of trying to comprehend everything that was happening was draining her of all her energy, to the point that she no longer looked forward to raising the sun in the morning. It took so much effort for her to do so now, and she knew that the sunrise would just be followed by a long day of keeping secrets from her subjects. She was honestly amazed that she'd managed to keep her tiredness hidden for so long. After slowly getting dressed, she turned, took a deep breath, and made her way out onto the balcony. She gazed idly down into the city, toward the hospital where the mysterious creature lay unconscious, and wondered if today would finally bring any answers about it. She also remembered her promised appointment, and hoped that Starburst had had a better night than she had. The streets of Canterlot were already busy with early risers heading to work, their presence a reminder that she couldn't wait forever; even a small delay in the sunrise would attract questions before long. She turned to face the distant eastern horizon and closed her eyes, took some deep breaths as she warmed up her magic, then reached out to the heavens. She opened her eyes again, scanning the horizon in confusion. Something was wrong. Closing her eyes, she tried again. She reached out, calling to the sun with her magic, but for the first time in her long life she got no response. She pushed harder and harder, trying to find the sun, but the emptiness she felt was absolute. She couldn't feel the sun anywhere. She opened her eyes, staring in bewilderment at the sky, and it finally registered just how dark it was. She stumbled back into her bedroom and looked up at the clock to make sure she hadn't woken up early, but the time was exactly what it was supposed to be. "Sister!" Celestia turned at the voice and saw Luna landing on the balcony, her eyes filled with worry. "You too?" she asked, walking out into the open air again. "Yes," Luna said. "I tried to lower the moon, but…" "But it's gone." "No, it is still there," Luna said, pointing into the sky. Celestia looked where she was pointing and saw the moon still sitting in the sky, about an hour's travel above the western horizon. The two of them stared in silence at the moon as the situation sank in. There was no chance now of hiding this and hoping it blew over; with the sky dark and the moon plainly visible, the population below would start noticing the problem very soon. Celestia's mind raced, her imagination filling with worst-case scenarios. The loss of the daily cycle could mean nothing good for the planet. "What do we do?" she said. "I… I don't know," Luna said. "We are powerless. If we cannot find a way to repair this, then…" "I know," Celestia said, sitting and staring down at the busy streets below. "The time for secrecy is gone. Maybe, with help, we can figure this out. But we must look to the safety of our subjects first. How long can they survive like this?" There was a knock at the door. "Princess Celestia!" came a voice from the other side. The two sisters looked at each other in confusion, then Celestia went over to the door and opened it. A guard pegasus was waiting on the other side, her helmet under her foreleg and her back rising and falling rapidly as she took deep breaths. "Sorry to disturb you, your Highness… er, Highnesses," she said when she saw them both there, "but there's a problem at the hospital, which—" "Oh no," Celestia said, turning and looking at her sister. The coincidences were becoming impossible to ignore now. Had they been wrong? Was the creature behind this after all? The look on Luna's face showed that she was thinking the same. The two of them turned and galloped out onto the balcony, leaping out into the night air and swooping down to the hospital. Ten minutes earlier. "You're here early," a doctor said as he walked past. Starburst looked round, nodding vaguely in response. "I've got an appointment with the princesses," he said. "I wanted to make sure I didn't miss it." "Right you are," the doctor said, continuing on and going back to reading from the clipboard he was carrying. "I'd hate to keep those two waiting. Dark morning today," he commented as he disappeared round the corner. Starburst nodded, turning back to the window he had been staring out of for the past hour. He hadn't had a moment's sleep last night; he was too preoccupied worrying over what he'd heard the princesses talking about the previous evening. And now, as the sky outside remained stubbornly dark, his fear only grew. After overhearing their conversation, he'd gone straight home and looked up some observational data for the sun and moon from Space Command's public archives. Sure enough, the motion of the heavens had been noticeably off for over four months now. Erratic orbital speeds, above average variance in sunrise times: all of it pointed to a very serious problem with the magic tied to their motion, and the princesses had been hiding it for ages! He looked over his shoulder at the door at the end of the corridor, where two guards were still standing. Was the creature behind that door responsible for what was happening? And if so, why was it doing this? Starburst knew that if this was the creature's doing, then he had played a part as well by convincing the princesses not to destroy it when it landed. He wanted to help fix this if he could, but first he needed answers, and that meant he needed to get through that door. He couldn't just wait for the princesses, though; it was clear now that they were keeping things from him. They probably thought they were protecting him, or something stupid like that, but he didn't need protecting. He just needed to know, and if they weren't going to tell him then he'd have to find his own way. Fortunately, he had such a way. It was a ridiculous plan and he knew it, thought up while lying awake at four in the morning, but it was incredibly simple. All he had to do was talk to some ponies in the street, then wait and hope that luck was on his side. A few minutes later, both to his relief and surprise, a security guard ran past behind him. "What is it, Sergeant?" one of guards on the door asked as he passed. "There's a huge crowd outside the hospital!" the guard answered, stopping in front of them and saluting. "Seems word got out about the patient, and they're all trying to get in and have a look." "Oh great," the other guard said. "How much do they know?" "Don't know, sir. I'm on my way to help secure the entrance now." "Good luck," the first guard said. "We'll stay here and watch the door. Oh, and make sure the princesses know about this." So close, Starburst thought, as the runner went on his way. This would get ugly fast if the princesses came now, but he knew this was too important to give up on. He continued to wait, the seconds passing like hours, until a second stroke of luck came. There was a loud crash at the end of the corridor, and a young pegasus and gryphon skidded round the corner, the contents of the trolley they'd just knocked over scattering across the floor in front of them. "Told you there'd be an open window!" the pegasus said. "Look! Guards!" the gryphon shouted, pointing at the door at the far end. "Bet 'e's in there!" "Get out of here, you two!" one of the guards shouted as they approached. "You can't stop us," the pegasus sneered. "It's a free country!" "Right, that's it," the guard said. The two intruders reached the door, but the guards tackled them to the floor with ease and dragged them off, kicking and screaming, back the way they came by the scruffs of their necks. The gryphon's shrieks echoed along the hallway and all eyes turned to watch them as they were escorted away, so nopony noticed the door slowly swinging shut behind Starburst. Starburst locked the door quietly behind him. He paused, listening, making sure nopony was coming, then he turned and saw the creature for the first time. It was hideous. That was the only way he could think to describe it. It looked like something out of a horror story. He had no trouble imagining that this creature was to blame for what was happening, and couldn't understand why the princesses were so willing to trust it. "How are you doing this?" he said, leaning forward and staring at the creature's unconscious face. "And why?" He stood again, pacing back and forth across the room. "Did you come to destroy us? Is that it? You come down, drive us to extinction, loot the planet, and then leave?" He walked round the to other side of the bed and went over to the ward's window, pulling the curtains open. The sun still wasn't rising, and he knew enough to see that if it never did, that would be the end of Equestria as he knew it. Crops would die, animals would die, and then soon after, so would everypony else. "What I don't get, is why you came down here at all. Why not just watch silently from orbit as we all die and then come to claim your prize?" He turned and faced the creature, lying still on its bed, and tried to perceive what its motives could be. Maybe the plan had gone wrong. Maybe the crash was an accident, and it had never even meant to come down here. It'd probably never intended to reveal itself to them. There was a strange humour to it; the creature had come here to kill them, but now it was the one dying, lying helpless in a hospital, vulnerable… Starburst felt a rush to his head, and suddenly things started to become clear. He felt a sense of purpose well up inside himself as he realised the opportunity in front of him. He laughed unsteadily. "I wanted to do something to help," he said. "It didn't occur to me that it would be this simple." He walked round to the front of the bed again. "It's funny when you think about it; you came all this way, went to so much effort, and now it'll be ridiculously easy for me to kill you." He pulled the IV drip out from under the creature's scales, then picked up the drip's stand with his magic and started turning it over and over in the air, looking for its sharpest point. "It's a shame," he said as he examined his improvised weapon. "I genuinely was excited to get to study you. But you've made your intentions clear now, even if I'm the only one who sees it. I guess we'll just have to study your corpse instead." He lifted the stand into the air and looked down at the creature, wondering how best to get it through the armour plating. He looked at the creature's legs, where they had managed to get the IV through before; he looked at the soft underbelly, and at the neck, where he guessed he was most likely to hit the nervous system; he looked at the head... His heart stopped. The creature's eyes were open. It was staring at him, and it was smiling. "You're... you're awake," Starburst stammered, the stand clattering to the floor. The creature leapt up, all sign of injury gone. It reached out with a hoof and grabbed Starburst by the neck, throwing him across the room at the far wall. His back hit plaster, and he fell to the floor, but an instant later the creature was on him again, lifting him up and pining him to the wall. It butted him once in the head, and the room started spinning, shifting in and out of focus. "You're no princess," it said in a deep, rumbling voice, looking him over, "but you will do nicely." "You... you can understand us?" Starburst gasped. "I know more about this planet than you realise," it said, its voice sickeningly smooth. "This is a remarkable world, and your kind are truly unique. So advanced, yet so primitive. So..." It leaned in, staring Starburst down with its narrow black eyes and took a long, deep breath through its nose. "So… versatile." Starburst tried to force himself loose, but the creature pushed down even harder on his neck. He could feel its armoured skin digging into his throat. "They'll know," he gasped. "If you kill me, they'll know you did it." "Why would I kill you?" the creature said. "This isn't how I planned to do this exactly, but I'm not going to waste the opportunity now you've so helpfully walked right into my grasp." "What are you planning?" Starburst said. "What do you want from us?" The creature laughed. "I have no need to explain myself to you," it said. "You'll understand everything soon enough, when you join with me." "I'll never help you!" Starburst wheezed. The creature grinned. "Oh, I assure you that you will." Celestia and Luna glided down the street to the front entrance of the hospital. A crowd, a few hundred strong, had gathered at the door, and more were arriving by the minute, drawn in by the commotion. A line of security and city guards had formed at the base of the stairs leading up to the front entrance, and they were doing their best to keep the crowd under control. The princesses landed behind the line, and a guard ran up to them. "We don't know how," he said, "but they know. They're demanding that we allow them in. What should we do?" "It's it secure?" Luna asked. "Should be," the guard said. "Last I heard, there were still two guards on the door to its ward." Celestia stared through the glass doors into the hospital, where she could see doctors and nurses staring in confusion at the crowds. She wondered if one of them had accidentally let slip what was going on, although she had other suspicions. Given his state of mind, Starburst could so easily have given the game away without realising what he was doing. But placing blame was futile. They had to focus on the current situation now. "We need to hold the crowd back," she said, "and hope they lose interest." "What's going on in there?" somepony shouted from the crowd. "Everypony please return home!" Luna said, addressing the gathering throng. "Your presence is impeding the function of the hospital, and putting patients' health at risk!" "We know you're hiding something in there!" another shouted. "We have a right to know!" the first one added. "That wasn't a meteor last month, was it?" There was a murmur of assent from the rest of the crowd. "I don't think that's going to work, sister," Celestia said. "You try then," Luna replied. Celestia frowned, but stepped forward to face the crowd. "Please do not worry," she said, raising her voice so all could hear but trying to keep it as relaxed as possible. "None of you are in any danger. We only ask that—" "If nothing bad's happening, then where's the sun?" somepony shouted. "Hey, yeah!" another said. "What gives?" The chatter in the crowd increased and turned uneasy, as more and more of them became aware of the dark sky. The crowd was still growing, a thousand strong already, as more and more came out into the street and sought answers from those already there. Most had no idea what was going on, but the few at the front – likely the first to hear about the alien – were pushing the news around as fast as they could. The princesses were losing control and they knew it. Celestia wanted to explain everything to them, but she needed time to prepare if it was ever going to make sense. She only wished they'd calm down and give her a chance, but the fire of rumour and paranoia was already spreading through the crowd, and it was going to take a miracle to get them to wait. The door swung open behind them, and Celestia turned to see one of the door guards run out and stop in front of them. "Princesses," he panted. "The creature... it's dead." "What?" Luna shouted. "How?" "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, your Highnesses, it was our fault. We left the door for two minutes, and..." He turned, looking back into the hospital. "He was in there, too," he said, pointing to Starburst, who was being escorted out by the other guard, his head bowed. Celestia stared at him in disbelief. He had wanted so much to see the alien; why would he kill it? "Starburst, what happened?" she said as he emerged. The astronomer lifted his head and the two looked into each other's eyes, and immediately Celestia could tell that something was wrong. He looked exactly the same, but his entire manner seemed to have changed. He no longer carried himself like the pony she had been talking to the night before, and he looked at her like they had never met. "What's going on?" she said. For a moment, his eyes glowed bright white. The guards took a step back from him in surprise. "Princesses, I beg understanding," he said, his voice deep and echoing. "My former body was dying. The one you call Starburst Nova came to me, seeking help, and he offered his form to me that I may convey a message. Time is of the essence, as I am sure you know." "Where is Starburst?" Luna said. "I am sorry," he said, shaking his head. "He needs time to adapt to the blending. Perhaps soon." He turned his head to the sky, and then to the gathered crowd, some of whom were watching them in confusion. "But what I have to say cannot wait." There were two stone plinths flanking the staircase. Before the guards could stop him he leapt up on one of them and turned to address the crowd. "Citizens of Equestria, hear me!" he, shouted, his voice carrying out over the noise of the crowd. One by one, their eyes turned to him. "I bring a message of grave importance," he continued as the chattering petered out. "Your planet is in danger. The magic which sustains this world is weakening, and without it Equestria will wither and die within a generation. That is, unless action is taken immediately!" Confused murmurs spread through the crowd. "Who are you?" somepony shouted. "What've you done?" "I have not done anything," he said, holding a hoof to his heart, "and nor is anypony else to blame. Your princesses have kept this from you until now because they hoped they could solve this problem themselves and continue to protect you as they have done for so long. I commend them for their efforts, but I regret to inform you that this is now beyond even their capacity to heal. This is clear for all to see." He pointed up at the black sky, and all eyes looked up, frightened whispers filling the air again. "But you need not worry!" he shouted, and his audience feel silent. Celestia noticed yet more emerging from their houses, coming over to see who the mysterious voice was. "I sensed your world's distress," he said, "and I have come to reawaken the magic of Equestria and ensure this great nation's continuing future! I have come to promise that from now on this world will always be under my protection!" "Who are you?" somepony shouted again. "What can you do? You're just one pony!" "Who am I?" he said with a smile. "I will show you who I am." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and a small point of light formed at the tip of his horn. It slowly expanded until its light was filling the street, and Celestia had to shield her eyes from the glare. Then he threw his head back, and the magic erupted from his horn, streaking away into the sky until it was lost among the stars. Everypony watched the sky in anticipation. The crowd had fallen silent, and even Celestia found herself holding her breath, awaiting whatever was coming. Then the ground shook, a low rumble filling her ears. A layer of dust rained down from the hospital wall behind them, and birds scattered from the trees lining the road. Celestia had to stick a leg out to stop herself losing her balance, and she looked down at her hooves, where small stones were shaking free from the cracks in the pavement. "Sister," Luna said, placing a hoof under Celestia's chin and lifting her head up toward the sky. The two of them watched as, slowly, the stars began to rotate past overhead. The crowd, eyes still fixed on the heavens, turned to look to the east, at the far end of the street, where the stars were rising from. Excited murmurs turned to shouts of amazement as the sky began to brighten. "I am the one who has come to save your world from darkness!" the being inhabiting Starburst's body shouted, his booming voice carrying even over the noise of the crowd. "I am the one who will open the heavens to you and bring you to glory! I am Equestria's redemption! I am Ra, and I give you light!" The sun burst above the rooftops, its light and warmth flooding the street. A loud roar of applause broke out across the crowd and they surged forward, the guards forgetting their role and becoming lost in the throng. They surrounded Ra, pushing the stunned princesses back away from him, and he climbed down into their midst and led them away to shouts of thanks and joy. Slowly the crowd began to disperse, running and flying away in all directions to spread the news. When the street went quiet again Ra was nowhere to be seen, and the princesses were left staring, dumbstruck, at the sky. "What just happened?" Luna asked. Celestia sank to the ground, overwhelmed. "I… don't know," she said.