//------------------------------// // Indignation // Story: Binding of Isaac: Beyond // by IAmNotSmartest //------------------------------// Luna’s night was not going well, not by any sensible standard. She’d just recently been informed of the attack on the Crystal Empire, learned Sombra’s return, reported innocence, and penance, and there was currently a warning put out to all of Canterlot to keep an eye on the foals. There’d been numerous unexplained disappearances of children, as well as several adults, and damn if she wasn’t going to get to the bottom of this. She had to do something. Anything to mitigate the encroaching idea of her irrelevance and uselessness. She was currently soaring over her city, rather than engaging in the tedious - and frankly, fastidious - night court. She was keeping an eye out for any disturbance or incongruity, trying to discern the cause of her missing subjects. In some small sense, she wanted to imagine this protective act as a form of apology, though she knew it was nothing to the child she had wronged. At the very least, she would be protecting innocent, as opposed to accusing them. The notion of creating a statistic to monitor her moral compass's ups and downs crossed her mind. She realized she would probably not like the results, and scrapped the idea, violently shaking her head, trying to focus on her task. Had she been doing so mere moments earlier, she may have seen and avoided what appeared to be a hole in the sky before her. As it were, Luna flew right into it, the sudden darkness startling her out of her flight pattern. She heard an echoing, almost childlike laugh, and suddenly found herself thrown against a rough wooden floor. The princess bolted upright, utterly baffled. If her shell-shocked senses were telling her the truth she was right where she’d promised never to venture only days ago. Luna was within the Basement she’d seen in Isaac’s dreams. Floating gently above a gap in the floor before her was a small, black-skinned demon with a single tooth, smiling with the  gape-mouthed innocence of an infant. Eyes, appearing more as crimson pearls, perked with delight when she acknowledged the creature, as it bounced in the air before diving in it’s hole. Before she could even consider looking after, it closed. And she was left there. “What has just happened?!” She interrogated the stale air. Confused, alone, and more frustrated than many of her subjects become in their entire lives, Luna desperately called out in her Canterlot Voice, “Is anypony here?” She heard a rapid succession of steps. Somepony heard her? Was it one of her subjects, heeding her call? A beast, rising to a challenge? The princess turned to the source, on the other side of a door shrouded in darkness. She nearly let off a blast of energy when a figure ran in. “You,” said a masculine voice, followed by a long groan. “For the love of…” He grunted with annoyance. “Why are you here?” Luna recognized it. She recognized him, though she did not know his name. It was one of the children she’d met in Isaac’s dreams. The bandanna-bearer, coated in what appeared to be his own blood, a belt wrapped tightly around his body, with his eyes congealed with some form of white, resinous substance which was quite clearly not meant to be applied to the face. Her immediate reaction was to flinch at both his appearance, his looks, and his tone. The child grimaced. “Oh come on, you’ve seen worse.” She shook her head, more so to clear her mind than to deny the fact. “M-my apologies. I am not aware as to why I am here, so much as I am as to what brought me here.” The child slapped his face, dragging the palm down exasperatedly. “Little chubby demon? Inter-dimensional holes?” The alicorn nodded, slightly surprised by the immediate answer. The child muttered under his breath, “Nine in one run, what the hell…” He took a deep breath, and sighed. “Listen. Get. Out. I’m sick of babysitting all your stupid subjects.” Luna, affronted, snapped back, “They are not stupid. It is not their fault your world is so jarringly harsh.” He snickered, his eyes never closing. “You’re serious? You think they’re all just spooked?” His brow folded into a scowl of disdain. “Those lemmings have been here for hours. They’re still to scared to leave the rooms I had to leave them in. Half of them are still sobbing, and I’m pretty sure the big one pissed himself. You still think they’re just spooked?” The alicorn was silent. He scoffed, and whispered harshly, “Useless. The smallest thing and they snap. I’m done, goddammit, done.” The child turned, starting toward the door… but he paused.  “... Hope you’re made of stronger stuff, lady. Because otherwise? They’re all gonna die.” In a flash, he was pulled up to her, his face pressed against her muzzle. Luna’s eyes blazed furiously with starlight, as if trying to burn their way through the greasy reflection that his own returned. “I will not let a single pony die. I will protect every last one of them. And you are going to help me get them all out SAFELY. Understood?”  The child feigned gagged. “Your breath is disgusting. Did something die in there? Was it your self esteem?” Luna’s face lost all intensity. She grimaced, and dropping him bodily to the floor. “You do know the way out of here?” The boy, further annoyed, replied sarcastically, “No, I just live here.” She glared at him. He looked back at her impassively. “... Yes. I do.” The Princess granted him a curt nod. “Take me to them.” The child scowled at her, and gestured for her to follow him. As they walked, she could see dozens of places spattered with gore and viscera, much as her palace had looked after the invasion. Scenes of battle? She wondered. Is he truly so accomplished? Looking him over, she noticed several things she had not seen before. Beneath large swathes of bloodied and bruised skin, scars criss-crossed over his shoulders. Wounds long healed, leaving only knotted flesh beneath. Fists clenched with such anger that blood crusted around them. He was obviously hurt, but he did not even seem to regard his own wounds. Luna, hesitantly, asked him, “What is your name?” She found it hard to believe she had taken so long to consider it. “My name,” His response came out low, almost unintelligible. She could almost taste the acidity his words dripped so venomously with. “is Samson.”