//------------------------------// // The Origin: On the road // Story: Corrupted Lands // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// Day two of our trip passed by without a hitch with us following the ancient train tracks leading away from Ponyville. Snow, high vegetation, and eventually a forest slowed our progress, but Twilight said we were on schedule so we didn't need to rush too much. I got the feeling that the power my Corrupted have inside my territory sort of drove the wild, roaming packs further away. For that, or possibly completely unrelated reason, we've spent over half a day by walking through what felt like a demilitarized zone. The mental marks of Corrupted started appearing in the late afternoon, but were either solitary or in such small packs they posed no possible threat and knew it. Still, when we broke camp for the second night, I made some... security arrangements. "-and the first watch will be Cromach and Nightshade. Desert Shade and I will take the second one. Lyam and Knowledge will be next. Bucket and Bastion take the morning watch since they don't really mind taking the worst one. Chilly and Bound Tome can have a rest tonight. We'll rotate the schedule each night," Twilight finishes her plans for today. "Thank you, your Highness," Bound Tome, nearly passing out, stumbles to his tent and I hear a body drop like a sack of potatoes. The city unicorn is not used to marching whole day like this in the slightest. Strange pairings, but at least everypony will get to know everypony. The trip should take over a week, so I'll have a chance to talk to the guys I don't know. As the others disperse to their tents, I lie down by the heating unit working on the lowest setting and perk up my ears. I hear snow crunching under paws and talons, so Cromach must be joining me. He starts walking around with his back turned to the heater not to ruin his night vision. I let minutes pass in silence, watching him. Alright, time for a little experiment. "Hmm?" I hear him hum and walk a little distance away into the forest. So, his senses are just a little above average, nothing special. Good to know. Am I paranoid? Nah, can't be. I just want to know who I'm working with, that's all. Riiiight. Hmm, a Hunter is coming our way, curious about... ...no, two, three, four Hunters. Skinny, starving runts, like most wild Corrupted. Should I let the griffon deal with them and observe? No, even a small injury could pose trouble later. "Come back!" I hiss loud enough for him to hear. Thanks to my obervations I now know perfectly well what 'loud enough' means in his case. He walks backwards, not turning his behind towards the forest. Good, I get an eyeful of his big, muscular flank. Damn that guy's hot. Too bad he's impossible to seduce, he would make for a good night and maybe even better addition to my hive. Thinking Corrupted like Mana Burn are always a great asset, pun intended. "What?" he jumps backwards when a shadow leaps at the prowling Hunter closing to our campsite and ends the Corrupted with a loud crunch. "Calm down, we're not alone," I chuckle. "Well yeah, that's the problem," he stands on his hind legs and grabs the battleaxe on his back. The rustling in the darkness goes wilder, accompanied by muffled growling and yelps. Three Hunters, two, one... ...pfff, they let the last one get away. The forest quietens down again, but I can hear Cromach's heart racing and his feathers rustling as he watches the circling shadows much more intently. So his sight IS good, he just had no idea what to look for before. "You didn't think I would go on this expedition alone, did you?" I give him a smug grin. His brows furrow, and then realization grows in his eyes. "You did this in Manehattan as well, didn't you?" "Yep," I wink at him. Three of my very well-fed Hunters accompanied by a Protector walk out of the shadows and noiselessly pass between tents. His breathing calms down as he lowers his axe. "You could have said." "Do YOU trust me? Or are you just bearing with me because I'm here in the position of power, because you have no choice?" "I see," he sits down with his back to the heater and spreads his wings, "To be honest, I don't know you enough to get a clear picture, but Twilight and the others trust you which is good for me." "Do you want to know me better?" I purr and stretch on the ground, showing off my body. "Actually, yes," Cromach isn't worried by my display in the slightest, "How was the life in Ponyville before you got transformed? Twilight told me you were sort of Ponyville's saviour, but not the whole story. Who were you before?" "Wo, wu, what?" I blink, sitting up. "I've had chicks, mares, and stallions throw themselves at me both due to my status and, well, looks. Granted, you can remake your body for raw pleasure from what I heard, but... I want to know YOU if I'm to trust you." "I, um, well... I'm nopony special-" I realize what sort of dumb statement I made and facehoof. Cromach hides his beak to his talons, grunting. It takes me a moment to gather myself. "-I mean, nopony has asked me about myself since... since the last time I was in the club. Well, you know... when Ponyville was still just a bunch of holes in the ground. We had this little club where they traded some of the rations we got for homemade mushroom moonshine. They even had an old disk player and some music. I loved the place. I was half-wasted most of the time from chemicals I worked with as a Hex Guard alchemist anyway, but with the moonshine, flashing lights, and bunch of ponies unwinding after work I enjoyed every second there. There was this Nightguard guy I tried to drink under the table once. I had a crush on him and wanted to make him realize how cool I was, after few shots the drink went the wrong way and-" I'm crying. Not like a blubbering, sobbing wreck, just with tears streaming from my eyes at the memory of something forever lost. I love Chilly, but I wish I could be a simple mare, sitting in a dark, loud room and trying to look seductive... just for a while. A pair of arms and wings wrap around me while I stare, paralyzed, into the darkness. "-and now that's never going to happen because I'm a monster, a monster they can't even touch without the fear of turning into one themselves," I whisper. I like what I've become, but that doesn't change the fact that what I've become is so detached from everything normal that how I feel about myself is... secondary. "But you're changing all that," Cromach whispers in my ear, "Manehattan learned in a mere week. Yes, they were forced to deal with Corrupted. Yes, they don't like it. But they will learn, and it's up to you to make sure they learn the right thing." "You know your way with ladies," I wipe my eyes, "I just wish words could make me less afraid." "I am an old griffon, Nightshade. No matter what you've been through, I have faced death, bowels-emptying fear, and loss of... well, everyone. My parents were executed in front of me for my mistakes while cursing my name, my lover died because I wasn't strong enough. I was targeted by assassins, necromancers, alicorns and gods themselves. I have been through enough things to be sympathetic to your plight. Damn, I've spent last century trying to keep ponies from becoming griffon livestock and I believe you have the burden of the future of ponies and Corrupted on your back. And since we're here, and the change is starting to roll on its own due to all you've done until now, I believe you can do it." "Okay, okay, jeez," I curl into a small ball in his embrace, "Stop that, I just had a little... mental hiccup. It's not like I'm going to stop doing what I'm doing." "Good to know. So, about the Nightguard you had a crush on..." "Oh yeah, he was-" Twilight chose the right ponies for this job. With ears perked up and senses split between my Corrupted patrolling the perimeter and conversation with Cromach, our watch just flies by. Two days go by with nothing major happening. We bring the attention of many Corrupted packs to ourselves, but just my mental presence is enough to make them turn tails and run. Unless we find a hive led by a Queen, I can just play with their heads and prevent them from suicide by us if need be. According to Twilight's maps, we should be reaching the point where the rusty and broken train tracks are turning towards the north. It's strange, old Equestria wasn't too covered with railroads despite Twilight saying it was home to millions of ponies. The majority of goods which didn't need to be transported quickly were moved via caravans, and the ponies who needed to use the train had to take rather long detours. Still, it was probably faster, otherwise it wouldn't have caught on. I had no idea about any of that, but Twilight loves talking about history just to pass time. Her, Cromach's, Bucket's, and Desert Shade's reminiscing accompanied by Bound Tome's attempts to join in with knowledge gained by years of sitting among dusty books made the days far less dull. I was fairly surprised when Chilly couldn't contribute, having been a member of princess Celestia's legion, but he said he remembered only flashes with little to no continuity. The travel is easier than before, since after we left the woodlands of central Equestria we entered an easy to traverse flatland. The snow is still an issue, though, and despite us making good time Twilight changed her prediction from a week's long trip to somewhere around possibly two weeks. We've got enough supplies because we found two corrupted berries on the way, so it's fine. Then why do I feel twitchy? "-and that celebration was called the Grand Galloping Gala. My friends and I attended every other year, mostly because princess Celestia asked us to. She was so bored with the usual plotkissing of nobles that she needed a distraction, and we always managed to turn the Gala into a near-disaster. Celestia loved that," Twilight chuckles, surfacing from her memories. "The ground is shaking," Chilly announces. And here was I thinking my blood was rushing to my head from the fast-paced march. Scanning the area for minds approaching us, even my Queen powers stop after hitting a wall of pure rage and hatred. It feels like a mass of minds so tightly woven together into one big entity that I can't find a crack where to insert myself in. I know quickly enough that trying to force myself inside would only get me crushed. "Some sort of a Corrupted entity, or many entities. I've never felt anything like that before. Maybe something tunneling underground and causing an earthquake?" I quicken my pace and all the others match it. "No," Bucket looks in the distance, the blue circles in his black eyes turning as he corrects the focus, "Multiple quadrupeds with clear marks of Corruption approaching faster than we can run." "Ponies? They don't feel like it." "My database returns only one entry - the buffalo." "It's a stampede!" Twilight catches on, "Corrupted buffalo stampede. We have to get out of the way." "We can take on few buffalos, can't we?" I look at her skeptically. "From what I can see the herd closing in consists of several hundred members. Even after seeing you in action, Queen, and with my limited database entries about Corrupted, I believe their bodymass will just roll over us." Turning south, we run. "Bastion, I-" Bound Tome lags behind and is immediately swiped by the Protector's tentacles and put on his back. That, in itself, is a clue that the situation is dire. The other clue is the rumbling black wall getting closer and closer. I can now see individual shapes, but they are in such sync that none of them trips or falls. No. When they get closer I have to correct myself. They trip, they fall, individual bulky buffalo shapes get crushed by the mass of the herd, immediately absorbed, and recreated as new ones. "We can't get out of the way in time," Chilly yells, "Nightshade, I need you to control my body while I focus on magic." "On it," I split my mind and gain four more legs. This close to him, I can control such a strong will, although barely even without it resisting. In the back of my mind, I feel Chilly working powers I've never held. His white horn shimmers with icy blue hue. The snow behind us hardens, turning into slick ice and spreading towards the approaching stampede. "It works. Wohoo!" I grow an eyeball on my tail so I don't have to look behind, "Wait..." The buffalo slow down as more and more slipping ones get obliterated by the ones behind them, but the sheer weight and speed of the herd making the earth tremble in fear keeps going over the mashed and reabsorbed corpses. Chilly keeps using his magic, though. Every second he can buy us is vital. And as they get close enough for those with normal sight to see clearly, I know it won't be as much as we need. A red beam of light cleaves the front lines clean through. The crystalline spirals on Bucket's horn go brighter and brighter as he fires several more shots. He cuts through the enemies like butter and I have no doubt his attacks will be more powerful as they get closer, but it's not enough. The regeneration of the entity, not any single buffalo but the herd, is too much. They are only about a hundred pony lengths away now. I can see Twilight weaving a spell while galloping, but she needs Knowledge's help staying steady on the unstable ground. "Bastion, if I collapse, catch me, please," Bound Tome grits his teeth, and stabs his shiny, black horn into his front leg. He groans, "Kill some of them, King. Now!" Chilly reacts instantly, and a glacial stalagmite impales a buffalo in the front line. The body blows up. Shower of acidic gore melts a giant hole in the herd. Those closest to the explosion melt, and some turn unstable as well. The ensuing chain reaction of exploding corpses rips out a clean chunk of the herd. He actually killed them. The wimpy little unicorn actually killed them without a chance of regeneration. Scary... The buffalo ranks smash together into a diminished, but still overwhelming mass. Through growing panic, their growling, grunting and fuming, I can barely focus. We can't run anymore. We won't get out of the way. We won't... but they might. "CHILLY!" I scream and leave the white King's mind, "You've been with me since the beginning. Will you be by my side in the end?" "Always," I feel a whisper inside my head followed by him nodding. "Good," I take a deep breath, "KEEP RUNNING, TWILIGHT!" and... ...turn around. The twenty strongest Corrupted I could bring with me sprout from the ground, forming a line against the herd. We are the best! We are the powerful! We are- The wall of black flesh is almost on us. -so tiny. Spikes of ice form a barricade in front of us, and we reinforce our armor as much as we can. Alright, if we survive the crash we might somehow slow them down and make them focus on us. If they slow down and actually fight, we can win... ...if they don't just stomp us. Seeing into their eyes, I realize they won't fight. We aren't their enemy. To them, we aren't even there. They will keep stampeding through their ancient grounds over and over. They are a pure destructive instinct given form. There is no mind left to discern between friend and foe. These are the buffalo, and we are just grass, waiting to be crushed. The icy barricades shatter, doing nothing. "Fu-" I brace for impact. A bloop in physics happens. I have no better words to describe it. Is it warm? Why isn't there any wind? More importantly, why aren't I a smear on the ground? I open my eyes. A... library? One by one, I reabsorb my Corrupted. We are standing inside a library, or sitting, or collapsed on the floor in some cases. To each their own, I guess. "An alicorn pocket dimension?" I hear Cromach gasp in awe, "Good job, your Highness. I had no idea you could use this power," the griffon chuckles, "Hmmm, looks like the hourglass tower in Canterlot." "Heh, heheh," Twilight mumbles, apparently on the verge of collapse. Her horn is glowing such pure purple that it looks more like a hole into some reality of raw amethyst, "This... this used to be my... my old quarters when I lived in Canterlot... as a student." "I remember Blaze saying he used to clean the place. He always said it was a library away from the main library." "I used to... borrow... a lot... of books." "How long?" "A minute... two at most..." Twilight's legs give out and Knowledge catches her, "I've never... brought so many... with me." Cromach takes charge. "Alright, everypony, I'll give you the short version because we might appear in the middle of the buffalo herd soon. Alicorns can create their personal pocket dimensions either via magic or their divine power. It's natural to them and takes the form their unconscious wants. My old friend's world looked like the ruins of Manehattan, because he grew up there and he wasn't right in the head. Any quick questions?" "This is so cool..." mumbles Bound Tome, lying on the tiled floor and bleeding out happily. Bastion licks his impaled leg and the wound closes, "Blrrbrl..." Aaaand the mage is out. "Not a question, but I agree," Cromach tries unsuccessfully to lighten the mood. "I thought these things were stable parts of the world," Desert Shade looks up from Lyam panting heavily on the floor, "and needed a real entrance." "These pockets need a connection to the real world, the Manehattan one I was talking about was connected via an old carpet rug," he rummages through his large bag and pulls out something ancient and so worn it looks like a grey cloth with barely visible symbol of the moon, "It, of course, doesn't work anymore, but it's a memento to me. I'm pretty sure the princess has a thing like that as well." Twilight pats her bag weakly. The reality wobbles. "Time to go?" I ask. "Yeah," Cromach nods, "Prepare for the worst." Everything fades, and the bloop in existence happens again. I'm dropped on the quaking ground one more time, and move even before the others recover from the teleportation or whatever it is that happened. There is nothing outside of the black mass rapidly getting away and leaving a wide trail of crushed... everything. Twilight collapses. Knowledge tries to pick the bigger alicorn up, but even a well-grown unicorn like him can't prevent Twilight's hooves from dragging on the ground when on his back. Cromach waves at him, gives him his battleaxe, and takes Twilight himself where his greater size allows for her comfort. "Hey, at least we don't have to trudge through the snow now," I grin, looking at the clear path leading in about the direction we wanted to go anyway. "That's a really optimistic way of saying we almost died despite our predicted 'overpoweredness'," Desert Shade chuckles, and then bursts out into open laughter. Lyam joins her, and soon all of us are laughing aside from the unconscious ones. It's the adrenaline telling us we are still alive. I thought my hive was the pinnacle of the new world, but this showed me how little I know, how unknown the surface really is. What happened to minotaurs? What happened to the yaks? What effect did the corruption have on, well, everything living? Who cares, I'm alive! "WOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" They look at me jumping around like a maniac as if I was crazy. Screw them, I'm the best Queen! "So, welcome to the White Tail Woods," Twilight waves her hoof around. "Very... distinct from every other forest," Desert Shade gives her a raised eyebrow. I must agree with her. Considering how ominous this place was supposed to be, it looks exactly the same as every bloody patch of trees we've passed through. "Fine," Twilight rolls her eyes in defeat, "According to my map it's the place. If we hurry, we should get within the sight of the barrier today." "Umm," Lyam raises his talons, "Do we want to? I mean, some of us don't see well at night or don't have magic. Rushing into what's supposed to be the birthplace of Corrupted seems like a bad idea. Even breaking camp so close sounds... unsafe." "I'm not planning on entering, if it's even possible to enter freely, tonight. We have to get closer, though, so we don't end up tomorrow with too little daylight anyway." Heh, I was wondering when something would show up. "We're being stalked," I announce, "Fifteen to twenty Corrupted led by a Queen. I don't sense any real power behind them, which makes no sense. If we are really getting closer to the right place then we should meet the powerful ones, right?" Everypony tenses up, and weapons slide out of their resting places. "Not necessarily," Twilight shakes her head, "I have been taking samples of tainted soil ever since we left Ponyville, and I haven't seen any abnormal amounts. Ponyville was still the most transformed place we've gone through." "I'll take it as a compliment," I smile. Searching through the Corrupted still keeping their distance, I find the other Queen's mind, "Hmmm, give me a moment, everypony. I'll call them to us." "With all due respect, why?" Lyam raises an eyebrow, "All packs and groups have been avoiding us like the plague until now. Why bring their attention to us now?" "This is the first HIVE we're seeing, and it's much better to call them here when we're awake and ready rather than waiting for them to possibly gain some sort of advantage at night while all but two of us are asleep," I look around at everypony getting ready to fight, "Plus, I'm really curious what sort of wild hive we're dealing with here." Come here, don't be shy... I sense the chaos inside the other Queen's mind as my request cuts clean through her defenses. She is woefully weak. Mentally... ...and physically. Two dozen skinny, visibly starving Hunters surround us. They are led by a Queen barely bigger than they are, prowling and salivating at the sight of us. Ribs poke through paper-thin skin of their chests, and some of them stumble as Cromach takes a shocked step forward to see these, no other words, poor wrecks up close. "This is silly," I gasp as the Queen comes up to me and sniffs my neck, "We must be going to the wrong place. A trained squad of Hex Guards could take these on." "Sooo, what now?" Twilight asks, watching the docile Corrupted poised to either jump or flee. "Got some of the fake berries from Ponyville, or did we eat all of them?" "We've got enough supplies, even if we have to feed the Corrupted you brought with you." "Give me one. This Queen can't speak, so we'll extend a little... helping hoof first." "Sure," she slowly opens her bag not to alert the watchers, and levitates a single grey berry to me. I, in turn, offer it to the scrawny creature before me. Her eyes light up as she devours the little sphere. She turns her head to Twilight, her bag, to me... ...and screeches. The Corrupted attack as one. A jaw snaps an inch away from my neck, but that's about it. The Queen's limp body, impaled by barbed tentacles coming from my chest, is ripped in half even before I realize what I did on pure instinct. Oh well, waste not, want not. "Should we, I don't know, try to spare them, Nightshade?" Twilight asks, hidden behind a purple barrier being scratched against by the Hunters. "Huh?" I rip the Queen's leg off her body, and with it still dripping in my mouth mumble, "Nah," and resume chewing. With the assistance of my Corrupted, the cleanup takes less than two minutes. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry," I say to the patch of mushed black grass where what I didn't manage to eat in time melted into the ground, "but you know what? If I return from this road trip I'll do all I can to make sure we are not animals anymore. Not just around Ponyville, but everywhere." "Anypony hurt?" Twilight asks, dropping her barrier. A quick succession of headshaking and hasty checking of various extremities reveals nothing major, although some of our less-durable members are exhausted. Nopony complains, however, as Twilight resumes her walking through the snowy forest. As we walk, darkness falls, but not before we get a clear glimpse of completely black, humming and shimmering surface in the distance, less and less covered by the thinning woods. With the ground sloping down, we break camp on the highest point. As Cromach said, the site he was looking for is supposed to be in some sort of a sacrificial valley, and this fits the bill. So... tomorrow. Tomorrow we will see what stopped an alicorn princess and her best soldiers, what eliminated most of civilization of old Equestria, and what made me into what I am now. Should I curse it, or thank it?