//------------------------------// // Chasing a Dream: Rekindled // Story: Imbalanced: New Age // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// [Blazing's Entry] I remember, although barely, the good old days when I was just a unicorn. Freshly kicked out of Manehattan University of Economics, all I had to deal with after running away from home out of shame was getting shelter, food, and a dead-end job to rot in. How that led to me fighting an insane god to ensure the survival of all living races is still beyond me, and I lived it. However, I am not the same pony, and neither the world around me is what I used to live in. I'm back where I started, just with a pair of broken and useless wings on a pony with crippling fear of heights. The long time spent dead left me in abysmal shape. My hoof-to-hoof combat reflexes are rusty, my control over magical energy is still fine, although I don't remember that many spell patterns anymore, and my divine power is gone. Mostly, that is. I feel something there, bubbling and boiling deep down inside me, something new and different. The problem is that it doesn't feel familiar at all. I used to be the alicorn of Hope and Despair, and my power was fueled by those around me. The ones who loved me or were my friends gave me hope that one day I might find peace with them. All of them are gone, though, and my power fades quickly along with my belief that there is a reason to remain in this world, to try again one more time. I... I've never been a pony easy to be around, and me finding friendship, not to mention eventual love, was too much luck to happen again. In this situation, the dark power of Despair should be at my disposal in way greater amount that would be comfortable, but it isn't there. My power, my special talent as represented by a butt mark of two interlocking circles, one black and one white, is balancing power. Hoof-to-hoof combat, martial arts, using the power of my enemies against them with having almost none of my own, divine or magical. Locked by my talent and destiny, without hope inside me, I think I won't be able to use the darker side of my aspect as well. But who would bother to light a spark inside me once again? [End Entry] The captured unicorn cult leader or whatever he is gulps in horror once more, and speaks: "You've got to trust me. I had no idea the potion would... kill any of them-" Desert Shade's punch sends him on the ground again. As he dizzily shakes his head, Strong Back puts a weird cubical device into the prepared firepit which starts humming. In just a few seconds, the thing begins emitting a dim glow and surprising amount of heat. "One more time, this time without the lying. We've been watching the entire ritual and Rolled Scroll is sure you knew something because you switched your potion with water. Try this on me again, and you're being roasted without warning." "I DIDN'T KNOW!" he screams at her, flinching back instantly and covering his muzzle. When she doesn't move, he adds quickly, "We were told the potion would just increase our concentration and expand our view of the world to allow our chant to summon him. I wanted to be fully aware in case that happened," he points at me accusingly. "Told by whom?" asks Shade quietly. "It was her... she... umm... uhh..." he hits his head with his hoof few times, and then gives Desert Shade a blank stare, "I don't know. I can't remember. I know it was a mare. I know she joined our sessions. I don't even remember who brought her to us for the first time..." his voice trails off. "Lyam," Desert Shade rolles her eyes, "Refresh his memory." "Hmmm, I don't think so," the griffon gives the confused unicorn staring into nowhere a curious look, "He does sound and look genuine. Maybe somepony just used their entire group and protected themselves from being discovered by magic?" I focus on the distraught unicorn to 'see' or feel any lingering traces of mental enchantment on him. There is nothing. Either I am completely out of it, or somepony scrambled his brain without him noticing and it came up just now. Or he's a fantastic liar, that would also work. "Scroll, can you scan him?" Des turns to her bandaged magician who nods and her horn flickers with blue sparks. "No memory blocking spell or anything," Rolled Scroll shrugs, "If you want my opinion, though, I've seen the face he was making on a bunch of ponies afflicted by mental magic a ton of times before. I think he's for real." "Fine, no unicorn stew for Lyam right now," Desert Shade visibly winds down, "If you can't tell us who put you up to this, then maybe at least you can recall why you did it, hmm?" "All we wanted was leverage, I swear!" the unicorn puts his forelegs up defensively, "Princesses Luna and Twilight Sparkle have gone too far in letting Corrupted into the society. What use are they anyway? They are just animals, they shouldn't have pony rights. We stood up for usurped ponies terrified of the menace prowling in the streets and negotiated with the royals a set of restrictions to Corrupted movement in pony cities. They swept our requests off the table, saying we were just paranoid. PARANOID! Everypony knows Corrupted exist to devour and transform ponies into more of them. It must have had something to do with the new princess Celestia spending so much time among them. They must have gotten to her and through her to other royals. We needed a way to counterbalance the alicorns ruling us-" "So you somehow managed to summon one for yourself. How?" "She... she... the one I can't remember provided us with the ritual and all we needed for it. She said we had to get the right catalyst, though, otherwise it wouldn't work. She said it would summon a powerful alicorn who has fought the princesses before and bested them, forcing them to listen to him." He looks at me, visibly much less sure about the 'powerful' part as I lie there, wings and leg broken by a common earthpony. Granted, before I got purified and died with little to no divinity left, I sort of, if one ignores the details, did do what he said. Marginally. Although the thing I said to them was 'Die, you scum!'. I must admit I'm pretty glad I failed that time. I wasn't thinking straight. They listened, though, they certainly did. Just remembering it makes me grit my teeth in returning anger. Damn Twilight screwed everything up, caused the death of both my marefriend and coltfriend. We had a nice love triangle going. Good times, good times. "Yep..." I croak, "Sounds... about right... with... caveats." "I'll get to you in a minute," Desert Shade frowns at me and smacks the unicorn's horn to get his attention, "First of all, you idiot, have you ever actually seen, heard, had a report of a pony being attacked by a Corrupted within a pony city after the liberation of Manehattan?" "Well, everypony knows-" "Yeah, yeah, everypony has a friend of a friend whose relative got lost in the woods or in a dark alley, but they can never recall who was supposed to be the transformed or eaten one. So no, you've got nothing. Do you know WHY you've got nothing, you dumbass, small-minded noble?" He just stares at her with a defiant scowl. She huffs and continues: "Because city Corrupted literally can't do any of that unless in self-defense. Queens Nightshade, Spring, and king Chilly made it extremely clear that whoever does that will be hunted down and killed. Plus, the hivemind influence they spread through pony cities affects even wild Corrupted and, sort of, injects the rules into them. Yes, ponies get killed in frontier towns by Corrupted quite often. Idiots who are out there in the wilderness like us also usually don't return unless they're well prepared. The only reason YOU and your stupid group of barely armed nobility even got this far from civilization was ridiculous dumb luck and the fact that WE were tracking you and scaring most Corrupted off." Desert Shade cools down, and leans to the unicorn, her muzzle almost touching his. "The biggest reason you are a complete moron is that only because of Queen Nightshade you actually have any pony cities left. Her hive protects you damn idiots from the wild ones, and her reason for mixing Corrupted and ponies is to make her kind more than the crazy animals you make them out to be." "You can't believe that! She turned both princess Twilight's sons into Corrupted, how can you advocate her?" "BECAUSE I WAS THERE! I was there thirty years ago when Twilight's son Knowledge nearly died under a horde of insane Corrupted and only Nightshade tainting him kept him alive, you brainless piece of shit! Lyam was fucking there! We almost didn't get out, almost, but we succeeded. We found out the Corrupted driven by raw hatred were being controlled, and we stopped it. We WON you the peace you were trying to destroy by your smallminded xenophobia by summoning this guy." Thirty years ago? The hippogriff doesn't look much over over thirty and she's in excellent shape. Maybe the faint trace of divine power I feel from her is lengthening her lifespan. Just a guess, though. Is she lying? Nah, I've seen the faces of ponies who have seen far too much to stay sane. Mostly in the mirror, heh. She did go through something mind-shattering, the mere memory of which still makes her return back there. Oh great, everypony is looking at me and I can barely speak. It's high school all over again. "So, 'you guy', let's start with the simple questions. Who are you?" asks Desert Shade while tying the captured unicorn's legs up and putting a metal ring on his horn, magic suppressor undoubtedly. "Heh," I chuckle. Is she going to threaten me as well if I don't talk? Oh no, will she kill me? Booo, freaking, hoooo, "Before I... before I decide whether to bother answering anything you want... just tell me when I am." "When?" Strong Back walks over, undoubtedly to beat the answers out of me on the hippogriff's orders. "What is your point of reference?" Desert Shade asks without flinching. Strange. She must have really lived a very long life to consider such question normal. Hmm, what big event might be in the history books? "Either princess Luna's return from her banishment to the moon or Twilight Sparkle ascending to alicornhood." Desert Shade scratches her chin, her mouth moving as she counts quietly to herself. "Two hundred and thirty years, give or take." That... is a long time to be dead. It's one thing to believe everything and everypony important to me are gone, but knowing it is much worse. It's definite. I sit up, hissing as I put my weight on the almost broken leg. All ponies and even the griffon suddenly become much more alert. I shake my head and allow myself a bitter smile. "Do what you want with me, I couldn't care less. I have no desire or reason to stay in this world. I understood nearly nothing you were just talking about. I don't know why anypony would trick you to summoning me or how they would do it. You wanna break more of my bones? Be my guest. Just do your job properly so that I don't come back ever again. There is nothing here for me anymore." And here it is, the absolute truth. The freezing lack of hope that anything good can come to me or that I can make it happen settles down inside my chest like a rock, and my blood runs cold. "And by the way," I lower my head, "I know griffons don't eat pony meat unless they are starving. It tastes like chewy blubber someone pissed on." The griffon coughs. "That is... extremely accurate, now that I think about it. Did you know a griffon well? We don't share that kind of insight too often." "Yes, I did." "How about a name?" Desert Shade asks again. "It really doesn't matter, but if you really must know it is Blazing Light," I shrug. It's not as if the name would mean anything to them. Desert Shade bites her lip and nudges Lyam who just gives her a questioning glance. "You, idiot?" she kicks the bound unicorn, "You said something about a catalyst for the summoning ritual." "She said we needed something somehow bound to the alicorn to summon him. She didn't have it, but she told us who did. It's still down in the cave, on the stone serving as the altar. It's an old carpet, more like a rug." The hippogriff points at Strong Back and at the entrance to the burial mound. The earthpony rushes inside. "And who had your catalyst?" "It was some griffon noble. She said he always carried it with him so we paid several groups of mercenaries to find him and take it from him. Big guy, all white, green eyes, pretty high status in the griffon society even among nobility. The mercs wanted triple the money when they returned with it. He killed most of them, but apparently they eventually knocked him out and stole it." No... My ears perk up and my mouth drops. "When...?" I whisper. "What?" the unicorn looks at me. "When did that happen?" I stand up, prowling like a panther towards him. My wings unfurling with every crunching step. "Aaaah," he whimpers. I hear hurried movements and clanking of steel around. It's just a background noise to me, though. They hurt him... On the other hoof, he is still alive... maybe. They hurt him. It might be just a family member, Crom's great-great-grandson or something like that. They hurt him! No need to go all murder-y without any information. THEY HURT HIM! My wings grow and swat the ponies away from me and the unicorn. Stalagmites of black crystal grow from the ground, forming a circle around me and the unicorn. "When. Did. It. Happen?" I growl, dark ice crystallizing on my frozen breath. It takes every tiny bit of my remaining self-control not to rip the noble's head off. "Just about a month ago!" he cowers on the grass, covering his face. "Hey, found it!" I hear Strong Back return, trotting on three legs and waving a rug in her fourth. She stops and her eyes go wide when she sees me. Dropping the piece of thick cloth, she grits her teeth and assumes a charger stance. I have only a second to look at what she brought, but it is enough. It really is just a rug, but in my black, blind world I saw white line depicting the crest of the moon belonging to princess Luna's Nightguard. The rug used to be a memento of the first and only mare who ever found me worth loving. She was a Nightguard, and when I first came to Canterlot only with a saddlebag containing few bits and a sandwich, she gave me the rug to keep me warm in the room I got along with my first coal-carrier job at Canterlot castle. After I got a cheap apartment, I still kept the thing. Cromach must have carried it with him... until now. Almost two and a half centuries. Too long, but he might still be alive, right? I remember, he was killed, but he existed as a spirit for several days, refusing to move on and haunting Canterlot castle. Some ponies... damn, I can't remember the names... or faces... or anything much... they asked other alicorns for help in bringing Cromach back. They said- "This body is made of raw divine power shaped by your mind. As long as your willpower holds, it will hold," I hear Void's deep voice from my memories. No, once again, his memories. Memories I should not have. Divine power doesn't simply fade away, it just transforms. Crom is alive, and he is still waiting. Relief rushes over me like a torrent of warm water. The black ice crystals cutting me and the unicorn off of the others shatter and disappear. I finally realize I somehow walked over here with one leg nearly broken and knocked a hippogriff and a large griffon away with my definitely broken wings. My hurt leg is encased in a dark glacial glove ending in talons, and my wings look the same. My manifestation of the power of Despair is still the same it seems, it just needed a little push. Both protective icy transformation shatter, my now normal wings flap against my sides, I put weight on my fractured leg... ...and scream like a butchered pig as all the agony hits me at once. Nopony is rushing to help me so I have all the time in the slowed down world of my mind to live through every painful fraction of a second. "-steady," a distorted voice says. Talons are shoved into my mouth along with a drink. For some reason I'm worth one more calming potion apparently. "You might be the worst alicorn in history," I squint at Desert Shade's muzzle opening close to mine, "Blazing Light." "No one's disputing that," I groan. "I knew you looked familiar," she continues, "Cromach's Silver Sun office in Manehattan was full of pictures of you, him, and some other mare. He even had a damn statuette of you he toyed with whenever he was thinking." "THAT'S where I knew him from!" Lyam slaps his head, "It kept nagging me ever since Strong Back rolled over him." "Great," the hippogriff grabs my neck, carefully but firmly, "Now that we've sorted that out. The griffon you know, or at least one all circumstances are pointing at, was still alive when I did a job in Manehattan some two years ago. If what the murderer says is true, he was alive a month ago. I know Cromach is a straight and fair guy so I can trust his judgement about the company he used to keep. In light of that, I would like to avoid any further divine berserks you can bring. If you are who you claim you are then I am not your enemy, and same goes for the rest of us." Heh, Cromach... straight. "I HATE HIM!" nearly mummified Rolled Scroll sulks. "And no more frying my mage alive, understood?" Des pokes her talon at my chest. I can barely focus on what she's saying, but I get the gist that everything might not be as bad as I made it until now. "Mhmm." Crom is alive. "Suddenly the future isn't so dark, is it?" Shut up, head! "Guys," Strong Back's voice is much less steady than ever before, "I wouldn't be celebrating just yet." The others jump up, trying to regain their night vision by facing away from the firepit and the strange glowing heater in it. My tracing spell is not bothered by any of it, and with just a quick headache I recieve the images of big, some even griffon-sized, ponies surrounding the hill we're camping on even while looking straight up at the night sky. The ponies have tentacles coming out of their backs, some boast claws or talons, and all shimmer with divine power I've grown to fear and despise. They are all touched by Harmony somehow, but I though we stopped the god? Did I fail? Did I die in the sacrificial valley for nothing? So many questions, so many tentacles. "Corrupted, ten to fifteen of them," Strong Back hisses. "Alright, everypony," Desert Shade's alert whisper is loud enough for everyone to hear, "Don't move, don't touch them, don't let them get into your head. They aren't hunting us outright, but they are sort of organized. Let's hope they are just curious." "What are they?" I whisper. "Long story short," Des gives me an evil grin, "Your job two centuries ago - you, Cromach, Silver Sun, Harmony? You fucked up."