I Blame You

by Whitestrake

Fanta was Invented in Nazi Germany due to the Difficulty Importing Coca Cola Syrup

For the longest time, I just lied awake, staring at the ceiling. Chrysalis slept next to me, pressed against my side to absorb as much warmth as possible. The future Grand Matron was actually rather captivating while she slumbered, with the strands of her mane that were plastered against her cheek and snout making her seem all the more real. In a few hours, a few, mere swipes of the pendulum, I would face what would likely be my doom. At the very least, I would die in a way that would bring pride to my ancestors, though I would be fighting an immortal rather than Romans or Ottoman Turks. I brushed a lock of green gossamer from Chrysalis's face; it actually brought a smile to my face to see the queen shudder a bit under my light touch.

The Deceiver was still prodding at my mind, the fleeting images and blurry meanings lost in the translation and vast chasm that separated our ages. Compared to the godlike being, I was the faintest spark against a roaring inferno, and both of us knew it. For each inquiry I made, I received and answer pertaining to the past, present, and future. However subjective they may have been, the visions instilled a primal fear in my chest. Some of them showed me growing old in Equestria, Chrysalis by my side to provide comfort in my final days. One in particular revealed a world where Jay and I returned to Earth, bringing no small amount of Equus with us. There were no survivors.

I only once made the mistake of asking the Deceiver what he looked like. Again, I received three answers, but they seemed to be exclusively in the past. The first was of a young man, perhaps twenty-five, with a few metal bolts in his head with a few wires running into a power supply on his back. The next picture was on the statue from my dream, half of the ivory faceplate removed to reveal the man beneath the armored shell. This time, the immortal seemed in his sixties, with extremely evident cybernetics. The final, and truly horrifying vision was much the same as the second, though the old man was replaced by a figure common to museums. The face was desiccated to the point of mummification, its lips pulled over its teeth, eyes entirely replaced by ghostly green lights.

As much as it pained me to just let things lie, I needed to actually sleep before the ascension tomorrow. Maybe nightmares wouldn't find me.

$%$%$%$%$%$%

Snap!

Snap!

Snap!

Thin wires gave way as their owner forcibly stood. Time was racing forward for him; his eons of life rapidly neared their end. In but a single decade, a few mere swipes of the pendulum, the Deceiver had set the dominoes in such a way that even the lowliest of fools would be able to send them falling. In a few hours, death would greet the ancient man, and his legacy would begin to fade into history, but not before he left a mark infinitely more permanent than his chapel. The first Grand Matron, the changeling female he had appointed and uplifted millennia ago, had deified the psychic, ensuring a constant guard during the Deceiver's increasingly frequent periods of dormancy.

Men often complained of aching bones as they aged, but, after so long, even the nerves that supplied the most precious of signal had faded to just a distant memory. Emotions still remained, and only pride and joy were permeating the man's hyper-advanced brain. After his death, and maybe a fake little fight to make Taylor feel important, his armor would find a new owner in the teenager that went about making waves even when he first arrived on Equus. What the boy did with nigh immortality and the mutations the planet's ambient energy were causing were his own choices, but the Deceiver felt such was in the hands of a decent human being.

Insane and partly sadistic, yes, but also lawful and unprejudiced in his thoughts and actions. The invasion of Canterlot was meant merely to stir an anthill, to get the ponies on their metaphorical toes and spread dissent through the continent. A war would quickly erupt, and the instability would force humans onto the front, and unearth many of the curios and relics buried around the planet. If only in terms of maximizing efficiency, Taylor and Jay had possessed perfect timing. The pyromaniac was unsuitable for succeeding the ancient, so his borderline-psychopath of a friend had to suffice. Given the tales of what happened in the Borderlands, any war at all seemed like a massive stretch; the main obstacle would be encouraging nations to attack Equestria.

With the faintest flicker of mental energy, a seam appeared in one of the granite walls. Upon waking, the hive's denizens would fine a door within the arena used earlier that day. A handful of messages popped up on the Deceiver's HUD, barely telling him anything he didn't already know.

Estimated life expectancy: ten minutes and nineteen seconds.

Support power: eighty-five percent... eighty-six percent... eighty-seven percent...

Synapse range: thirty-eight kilometers.

Armor capacity: one hundred percent.

Chance of survival: insufficient data.

The Deceiver already knew he would not live to see another of his home's beautiful sunsets, having made peace with that when he first arrived on what had been an uncivilized land with oddly bountiful resources. Fighting ponies, griffons, gaia wolves, dragons, and even Discord himself had made it abundantly clear he would never return home, not that anyone there would want him anymore. An accident had forced him from a utopian society, a life where his scientific pursuits were unbound by the petty constraints of morality, and forced onto a primordial rock because of a failed experiment in teleportation.

But, for all his genius, every biological creature has a limit before it simply gives up the ghost; Celestia, Luna, even Discord would meet an end, if he ever found a way from his stone prison. The problem of mortality could be solved by simply becoming a machine in full, or staying enthroned until the metals corroded beneath him. Passing his mantle to another human was the only way he could ensure stability after his demise, and the odds were still pretty iffy even then. There simply wasn't enough data to predict what Taylor would do, or if he would even take the armor at all. After all, he was from a new generation from a distant universe, and quite possibly feeling the same worry and dread as any human living so far from their old stomping grounds.

$%$%$%$%$%$%

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jay asked me as we walked to the arena. Chrysalis and the others were already there, letting me sleep in after my previous battle. My friend had also stayed behind, though it was more to ready himself for a fight than anything else. It was by the slimmest of chances that we actually ran into each other when I started down the hall.

“Fuck no, but it's all I can do.” He knew I wouldn't run, that looking before I leap was not in my book of tricks. Still, this was a wonderful chance for anyone roaming the halls to the see the Burned Man and Pyromaniac side-by-side, guns and flamer at the ready. “Tell you what, man; I know you're looking for a fight right now, trust when I say I feel it too, but you can't just go running into dangerous shit all the time. You and I both know that's my job.”

“Yeah, and what if I get the feeling your getting killed in there? Want me to save you ass then?” Jay shot a fierce grin. Bonds forged in fire are stronger than any other, but our was born in the river of peace, tempered in the fires of uncertainty, and hammered on the anvil of war. Andrew Carnegie wished his steel was as strong as ours, and we didn't give off any molten slag when making it. We left a lot of bodies, but no British sluts were anywhere to be found. Or maybe there were, we didn't exactly look.

“How about if I don't come back in an hour, you can take Luna and Cadence and unleash hell?” That drew a nod from the burn-happy pyro, and I wasn't sure that was a good thing. I didn't pay much mind as we walked into the arena, an uneasy silence ad actually taken hold over us as we marched. I gave a happy wave to the queens and Karapass as they came into view. This occasion actually wasn't so cheerful, given the somber looks plastered across the twenty-one changeling faces.

“Taylor, you are to accompany my daughter, Queen Chrysalis, into the Deceiver's Hall.” Karapass's voice was commanding, even threatening. If she had sounded anything like this when we first met I wouldn't have hesitated in calling Leviathan and leveling the fucking house. “Are you prepared as best you can be?”

“Yes, your majesty.” If Karapass wanted to be official, I would afford all of my own voice for this. I could easily sound like a murderer if needed, but this called for a more... practiced voice, shall we say. I gave my best impression of Caesar crossing the Rubicon; there was even a die to be cast. “Nothing in this or any world will stop me.”

“Chrysalis, you stand at the precipice of ascension, to take my place as the leader of our kind.” Chrissy looked as determined as me, probably more so. If this Deceiver wanted a fight, he would get one, and there was doubt in my mind that my lover would stand by my side as we slew a god. “Are you ready to accept the mantle of Grand Matron?”

“Yes, Mother, and my guard stands to shield me in this life and the next.” A light gleamed within Karapass's eyes as Chrysalis gave her consent and vote of confidence. While the Grand Matron could not smile, her facial plates having fused together due to age, there was a happy air about her. A glance my way told me everything I needed to know, and I faintly nodded as she held my gaze. Her daughter and successor was in capable hands as long as I drew breath, and that much would be a comfort.

“Then enter the Hall, and accept your intertwined destinies.”

Comments

[redblue293]

Man vs. Half man God thing should be interesting.

[Blue Streak]

The next chapter will be a short but epic fight.

[Rhodesm96]

Curse you cliffhangers

[Azure Steel]

God, you and your damn numbers.

[Chuck Baleigh]

Next act: final boss.
Now loading...

[werebrony]

Cliff Hanger strikes again

[Poducken]

The Deceiver is needed to maintain the Hive Mind, so I assume he'll want Taylor to take up the armor as quickly as possible. But will Taylor have a chance to clean the armor out first? Because it sounds like the Deceiver's body has rotted into a meaty sludge at this point.

[Whitestrake]

2140978 Correction:
Act One: Hard Landing
Act Two: Infiltrate
Act Three: Deception
Act Four: Blood in the Streets
Act Five: The Borderlands
Act Six: The Belly of the Beast
> Act Seven: Turning to God
LEVEL LOCKED

[Whitestrake]

2142767 Not meaty sludge, he dried up, so some canned air and Lysol will have everything right as rain

[Poducken]

2142786 Oh. I was going by Taylor's dream where the Deceiver took off his mask and there was all this black slime. I assumed that the slime was his flesh half-way through the process of becoming petroleum.

[Whitestrake]

2143010 Purely the interpretation being given, symbolism and all that

[Hi]

Final boss showdown: fighting a bieng more powerful than anything in an universe other than one of the religous gods. Outcome: suprising outcome, taylor is now in the suit. Outcome of chapter: suprising, no little bonus scene.

[Alondro]

The true face of the Deceiver...

4.bp.blogspot.com/_2OuPdR8VBHs/TNZMS7Gmp7I/AAAAAAAAArc/jtJl2XCOAgA/s1600/P-dornkirk02.JPG

ERMAHGERD!! It's Isaac Newton!

[Jahoosaphat]

The deceiver's face is probably like shy-guy taking off his mask.

[Razzy]

No pressure, Taylor.