85. Ancient Origins
“Um...I don't think you can fit in here,” I remark, looking up at the vent that I'd bolted through to avoid getting torn to shreds by the Oppressed. I couldn't see it last time because it was so dark, but now, I notice just how small it is. I'll have to find another way to get both Celestia and I to the main laboratory.
“I beg your pardon?” Celestia responds, and I swear she sounds indignant. She joins me in the prison cell. “I'm sure it's not too small. I should be able to...oh, I see what you mean.”
“Yeah, they weren't designed for people or ponies to go through. But I'm sure you already know what a ventilation shaft is,” I mention, snorting a little at her response. That's just funny. Is it a universal rule that all women have weight buttons? Rainbow has one, and she's the farthest thing from feminine that I can imagine. Now it looks like Celestia has one. I wonder if I should see if Twilight has one? That would be funny. “My point is, I cut through here to escape my pursuers. Wandering around on the other end is how I found the lab.”
“Hm. Let's try to find an easier way to our destination,” Celestia reasons, turning away from me. "Do you remember how far the the ducts run, and in which direction?”
I take a moment to think, stepping back out into the dungeon. Using my finger, I trace the path as I remember it in the air. It went straight back towards the hallway, and then towards the right, back along the way I came. It also descended a floor at least once, until finally I dropped out into a barracks, filled with those creepy unmoving skeletons.
“Okay, I'm confused. I know I went down somewhere, but I don't remember seeing another staircase apart from the one we used to get down here,” I emit in frustration, dropping my hand back to my side.
“That gives us only one choice, as tedious as it may be. We need to search each of the rooms on this level. There may be a path that we missed, or perhaps the entrance is hidden,” Celestia suggests. Ugh, what a pain in the ass.
Silence fills the hallways as we exit the dungeon. I don't have any reason to go back in there. After finishing that conversation with Celestia, I'd gone immediately to Frozen's computer and woke it up, navigating back to his secure files and looking through them. Unfortunately, what was on there is nothing that I want to see. There's mostly just data files that mean nothing to me, or video files where he states the procedures and results of his heinous experiments. Celestia agreed with me wholeheartedly that what Frozen did here under Vanta's supervision was horrid.
Making our way back into the hallway, Celestia and I painstakingly search through each and every hallway and room until we're finally forced to go back the way we came. “Hold on a minute,” I say with a start, noticing the closed door just next to the staircase that leads upwards. This was the door that slammed in my face the last time I was down here, thanks to either Vanta or Holly.
Pushing open the door reveals a small storage room, with rusted metal shelves linging the walls. Some of the shelves have boxes on them, while others have collapsed and were never repaired. The most important feature of the room is the spiral staircase made of the same metal fencing as the laboratory and the hydroelectric chamber.
“There we go. Now we're on the right track,” I declare, pointing out the staircase to Celestia. Together, the two of us descend downwards into a hallway suspended over the underground river. Here, I start to see evidence of the cave in. The water level appears to be substantially higher than I remember it, due to debris partially clogging the river's path ahead. The hallway itself is tilted downwards, creaking ominously with every step we take.
“I believe it would be safer to fly,” Celestia observes, unfurling her wings. With a short hop, she starts to hover just above the floor.
“Yeah, agreed. I don't want this thing to collapse beneath me too,” I mutter, following suit with my own magic. “But we're getting close. The lab should be around here somewhere. It also had a floor like this.”
“This type of structure seems rather flimsy. I question why your kind built something like this,” Celestia comments, as we hover towards the door on the other end of the hallway.
“We didn't. All of this-” I take a moment to indicate the whole hallway with a wave of my hand. “-wasn't built by humans. There's no reason why there'd be a fucking mad scientist's lab in the basement levels of my school, when we have plenty of chemistry labs upstairs. No, I think Vanta and his minions built this place with whatever they managed to glean from human technology.”
“Interesting. It is quite fortuitous that you dealt with Vanta yourself. Dealing with an opponent with knowledge of such technology would be a tremendous threat,” Celestia asserts with a troubled expression. Heh. Not like anything could be a threat to Celestia anyway. I doubt even a tank would harm her.
“Yeah, well...” I reply, not really having much a response. Instead, I reach the door at the end of the hallway and open it up. Behind it is the hallway just near the main lab. I think I remember passing this door at some point the last time I was here, but I think it had been closed and locked at the time. “We're here. It's just through this...”
In the middle of my statement, I hear the sound of claws screeching along the metal fencing, coming from both ahead and behind us. “We have company,” Celestia notes grimly as she releases her magic, wreathing her body in liquid light. “Watch my flank. It would be troublesome if I became surrounded.”
“You mean you'd have to blow the place up. I got it,” I return wryly, turning my back to her. Seriously, with her power, she'd just flare her aura and murder them all. Of course, that would take the building with them. I guess that's what she means by “troublesome.”
Coming from back the way we came, a stream of Oppressed surge from the doors on the far side of the hallway, flowing down the hallway like some kind of twisted river. “Holy shit, there's a ton of them!” I exclaim, summoning the scythe. A quick look behind me shows me that Celestia is dealing with a similar amount. “Celestia, I might get overwhelmed!”
“Understood. I'll try to clear the way. Hold them off for as long as you can,” Celestia returns, just before the horde crashes against us all at once.
Grunting, I heft the scythe and ward off several Oppressed with the shaft and then I cut one to ribbons with the blade before it can recover. They're quickly on top of me seconds later, biting down on my limbs and leaping for my face. I grunt in pain as their jaws clamp down on me. I manage to keep their teeth from piercing my skin, but the sheer pressure exerted by their jaws is enough to hurt like a bitch. It makes me wonder if their jaws could pierce metal, if even I can feel the pressure.
I shout and hurl the Oppressed hanging onto my arm into the one leaping at my face. The former still doesn't let go of my arm, chewing down painfully. “Fucking...” I growl, slicing its head off with my scythe awkwardly. Even with that minor victory, the Oppressed press down on me from all sides. I flare my aura to try and push them away, but it does absolutely nothing to them, due to their confounded resistance to magic. All I can do is flail at them with my scythe, cutting and slicing any Oppressed it comes into contact with, but I barely have any room to swing.
“Dammit! Celestia!” I call, feeling more Oppressed latch on to me. They can't pierce me, but I'm using a large amount of magic just trying to defend. Celestia turns her head to see me, and then her eyes narrow.
“Brace yourself! Get ready to leap clear!” Celestia calls back. Golden light envelops her and fills the room with its splendor. With a whinny, she rears up and kicks her front legs up in the air for a short moment, and then she brings them down onto the fencing with a thunderous crash. The resulting explosion of light is so great, the entire hallway fucking explodes, the fencing shattering and even partially melting.
I mouth a curse word and immediately dash towards the ceiling with a current, passing through it just before the whole hallway collapses into the river, taking the Oppressed with it. Speaking of which...
“Get the fuck off!” I growl, slamming the Oppressed on my arm into the cavern wall repeatedly until it lets go and falls into the river. I then force another Oppressed clamped on me right onto a metal shard formed from the wreckage of the hallway, impaling it. “God! Fucking Oppressed...”
Below me, Celestia emerges from the wreckage, unharmed, just as I shake off another Oppressed. As it passes her, Celestia obliterates it with a vicious kick, its body rupturing and bursting. Christ, she hits hard. “Seth, are you all right?”
“Yeah. I'm not hurt, but I can't fight back if my arms are pinned,” I pant. I'm partially lying. Those Oppressed bite hard, so every spot that I've been bitten aches with a dull pain. “Yeah, my race stood no chance. Not if they grouped up like that. It was like trying to fight the tide.”
“Indeed,” Celestia agrees. Right, like you needed help. I look down at the door in the side of the cavern wall, on the side nearest the lab. There are dead Oppressed littering the entrance, in various states of dismemberment from Celestia's overwhelming strength. I shake my head, not for the first time wishing that I had power like that. “Let's get inside. For the Oppressed to attack us in such force, they must feel threatened.”
I follow Celestia into the main hall near where the lab is, raising an eyebrow. “They're dead. Can they even feel threatened? I doubt anything is driving them now,” I question, my feet touching the floor. In front of us is the main lab, the door lying crumpled on the floor from where that giant Oppressed beat it down.
“That can't be true. The dead cannot roam on their own. The life given to them must come from somewhere. Necromancy has to be fueled by something living,” Celestia points out ominously.
“'Something living?' Does that mean something else is alive down here?” I exclaim disbelievingly. Vanta was controlling the Oppressed. He had to be. Every time they showed up, I heard the whispering of his magic. “No, there's nothing left here. Come here, I'll show you.”
Celestia, perplexed, follows me to the computer console in the main lab. While we walk, she looks around at the Oppressed suspended in the tanks around us. When I reach the console, I sit down on the chair and log back into it with Vanta's ID card. The first thing I do is pull up the camera control and start flipping through the different views. “If there was anything else alive here, I would have seen it on these cameras.”
“Is this some kind of device that allows remote viewing? A surveillance crystal, perhaps?” Celestia asks curiously, viewing the computer screen with great interest. “And this machine itself...what a marvel of technology.”
“Close enough. But the point is that there's nothing here in this complex that I haven't seen,” I reiterate...though I pointedly leave out the fact that I hadn't seen Holly on the cameras. While I did see the hospital like room that she was in, her body was off screen.
“There must be something. Is there another laboratory, deeper in?” Celestia insists, nosing my hand away from the mouse, causing me to scoff and look at her indignantly. Hilariously enough, she starts controlling the mouse with her magic, scrolling through the camera views herself. “What happened in this room?”
Displayed on the screen is the waterfall room viewed from the cavern wall high above the crevice that I'd escaped through. The remains of the platform as well as the hydroelectric generator that had been there is now piled up down in the river, which is now a lake that's gradually rising now that it's only exit has been clogged. I guess this place will all be underwater eventually if that shit keeps rising.
“That's where Vanta managed to separate me from Rainbow. He destroyed an entire fucking room in an attempt to kill us,” I retell, remembering with a shudder how distressed Rainbow had sounded when she thought I was lost. “It was some kind of power generating chamber, using the water to create mechanical energy. It's like what you do in lumber mills, only on a larger scale.”
“I see...interesting. Human technology, even if constructed by ponies, never ceases to be a wonder,” Celestia marvels. She lifts a hoof and points at the screen. “What about there? That tunnel back there seems to be lit well enough. If the generator is destroyed, where is that power coming from?”
“What tunnel? I don't remember seeing a...” I start to say, but then I see the tunnel in question on the camera screen. It's dug into the wall high above the river, on the opposite side from the camera. Okay, that wasn't there before, when Rainbow and I were there. If I remember right, there was a large machine there instead...that must have been covering up the tunnel entrance. “Shit, I didn't even notice that last time. I was too busy running for my life. But you're right...it shouldn't be getting power now that the generator is down.”
“The better question is, why is this room still getting power, if the generator was destroyed?” Celestia points out. That gets me to pause, and I realize that she's right. How am I still using this computer? This fucker probably needs a shit ton of power, since it was made by somepony who only just knew how computers worked. So where the hell is all this power coming from? “I believe that tunnel may hold the answer. Additionally, if we discover the source of power, we may discover the source of the necromantic magic sustaining the Oppressed.”
“It's a start. Goddamn, where were you when I was trapped down here?” I admit with an impressed sigh. I keep getting reminded why Celestia rules this country. Not only is she powerful as fuck, but also intelligent, bested only by Chrysalis as far as I know.
“Dealing with Day Court. Believe it or not, sensing your battle gave me quite the perfect excuse to leave it to my secretary,” Celestia giggles, looking like a filly that just got away with stealing a candy bar.
“Oh, give me a break,” I grumble, getting up from the chair. A quick jab to the monitor button turns off the screen, and then I'm ready to go. “Actually, before we go, I'd like to...get rid of these test subjects.”
“Test subjects?” Celestia questions. Then it dawns on her, and she looks up at the tanks carrying the inert Oppressed. “You mean these?”
“Yes. I don't know if they're alive or not, but...the spirits of these humans that these Oppressed used to be won't be able to rest until they're free from undeath,” I tell her, my tone gaining a melancholic flavor. I hold out my hand and summon my scythe once more, knowing that it's the only way that I can kill them. “That much I experienced myself.”
Celestia regards me for a long time, probably reading right through me like she always does. Thankfully, she doesn't say anything else about it, choosing to nod simply instead. “Okay. Let's do it. Be careful. If they're still alive, they might attempt to fight back,” Celestia warns me. Yeah well, I knew that already. But if you're here, I really have nothing to worry about.
Grasping a current in the air, I dash upwards and appear right in front of one of the tanks. With a grunt, I use both hands to bring the scythe straight through the tank, cutting into the hanging Oppressed and slicing it in two easily, as only its back legs had been mutated. Breaking the tank sent shards of glass raining down to the floor, accompanied by a cascade of a strange viscous liquid that smells vaguely of antiseptic. The Oppressed roars suddenly as its released from the liquid, but it doesn't last long before I cut it into pieces with a flourish of whirling black crystal.
The moment the Oppressed falls to the ground, dead, the atmosphere in the room seems to change. Something like a chill breeze sweeps through the room, and I swear I hear a faint sigh, though it could have just been the breeze. The breeze that came from a room with no exit to the outside.
On the other side of the room, Celestia blasts each tank with incredibly powerful magic, melting the glass and causing the liquid to steam and bubble. The Oppressed inside withstand her magic with significant damage thanks to their innate resistance...but not the subsequent kicks that render their bodies to dust.
Neither of us say a word as we methodically execute each Oppressed without much difficulty, putting a stop to the last of Vanta's twisted experiments once and for all. I let myself sink to the floor, which is now coated with shards of glass and a slick layer of preservative fluid, along with the body parts that resulted from the carnage.
The room is completely dead silent after we're finished, broken only by the sound of the river flowing beneath us. I'm about to say something when the lights in the room start to flicker and die. Wait, what the hell?
“Seth?” Celestia alerts me, sounding uncharacteristically unsettled. Hearing that tone in her voice is so unusual, it makes me turn around in an instant...only to see exactly what it is that's making her sound like that.
Standing grouped together at the far side of the room from us are several humans, gazing at us with reddened, sunken eyes. There are men and women, both young and old, and all of them are in similar states. Their skin is gray and sagging, pockmarked with injection marks. Their hair is tangled and greasy, and all of them are dressed in the same hospital robes like the one Holly had been wearing.
“I...” is my only response. Goosebumps are forming on my skin, because I know there's no humans left, telling me that these must be... “Celestia...”
Suddenly, I notice something about them. There's eight of them...one for each of the tanks that Celestia and I destroyed. As soon as I realize that, their bodies start to dissipate, dissolving into particles of golden light that stream into the air and fade away.
“Right...so it's like I said before,” I say to Celestia calmly, letting myself relax now that I know they're not a threat. Celestia looks at me, confused. “Killing these Oppressed was a good idea. I knew there couldn't have only been one spirit trapped here.”
“You mean...yes, I see. I must say...I've never seen anything quite like that,” Celestia admits once the apparitions have all faded away. “Your fellow humans...I can't imagine what they went through.”
“Neither can I. But there's no point dwelling on it now. We've done what we could for them,” I respond, letting my scythe dissipate. “Let's keep moving. The sooner we find out what the hell is keeping this place and the Oppressed powered, the sooner we can leave.”
“You're right, of course. You must forgive me; I don't have much experience with the supernatural,” Celestia confesses. Well, I'll be damned. There is something out there that can scare her.
“This coming from the pony princess who finds controlling magic as easy as breathing,” I retort. I turn around and head the other direction, towards the exit of the lab. “Come on.”
Now I know the way, so it's easy going from here down to the lower levels. There's a comical moment where I have to help Celestia get through the gap in the elevator shaft that's barely large enough for her. I have to choke back all of my fat jokes, because I don't want to get smitten into the next century.
Passing through the elevator leads us to the cavern that Vanta had destroyed. As I can see, there's only a few feet of fencing left before the hall opens out into the cavern, which is steadily filling up with water. “Here we are. Let's find that tunnel,” I declare, hopping off of the walkway and hovering in midair.
Celsetia joins me and we navigate ourselves to the uncovered tunnel through the air. The moment we touch down in the tunnel, a strange noise becomes audible to us. “What is that?” I question. It's like a faint rhythmic thumping, echoing through the tunnel in consecutive beats of two. “Am I the only one hearing that?”
“No, I hear it as well. I'm not sure what it is, but I have a bad feeling,” Celestia says, frowning. She takes the lead, stepping carefully across the rocky floor. “I sense a sinister magic from up ahead.”
The hallway curves downward, deeper and deeper into the rock. The thumping grows louder and more defined with every step we take. It starts to sound suspiciously like...a heartbeat. That thought chills me, making me wonder what in the hell could produce a heartbeat like this in the first place, if that's even what this is.
The two of us turn a corner, and then we see something strange. The tunnel up ahead seems to be coated in some kind of beige fleshy substance. When I step onto the substance, it depresses beneath my feet with a grotesque squelch. That alone makes me a little naseuous, but when I see the veins shooting through the substance, bile rises in my throat and I almost throw up.
“Jesus...Celestia, are you seeing this? What the hell...it's like we're walking into something alive down here,” I gasp, hesitantly moving forward.
“I am. This is most unsettling,” Celestia agrees with me, walking right by my side. “It appears we've found the source, as I'd expected.”
“Do you know what the fuck this is?”
“I'm not certain. It appears to be necromantic in nature, yet more advanced than anything I've seen,” Celestia deduces. The heartbeat, if that's what it is, is much louder than before, to the point where it's difficult to hear what Celestia is saying. “Whatever this is, it must be destroyed.”
“Yeah, no kidding. It makes me sick just...” I start to say, but then the two of us step into a larger room...and we see exactly what it is we're dealing with. “Dear god...what in all that's holy is that?”
The room itself is completely covered in that same flesh like substance in the hallway, only now there's sagging pods of darker colored flesh on the walls. There's a large metal archway in the center of the room, with tendrils of flesh snaking up the metal. Suspended by several thick red cords of translucent flesh in the center of the archway is a massive heart like structure. Every second, it would pulsate and shift, beating like an actual heart. Each beat sends a dark fluid shooting through the cords and into the archway.
“This must be the source. Let us destroy this abomination together, Seth,” Celestia orders me. Narrowing her eyes, the princess powers herself up, her crushing magical ambiance washing over me. She's taking this very seriously, as she's raising her magic to levels more akin to what she used to fight me on the mountaintop.
The moment she starts powering up, the giant heart reacts. With a particularly loud thump, it releases a pulse of dark magic throughout the room. When it reaches me, it knocks me clear off of my feet and into the wall painfully. Celestia skids back a few inches, but is otherwise unfazed.
As I'm rising, I hear the sound of claws scraping along rock outside in the tunnel, telling me that the heart likely called for help, and now the Oppressed that it presumably controls are coming. “Celestia, they're coming!” I alert her, getting to my feet and powering up.
“No matter. All we have to do is destroy the heart, and they will fall!” Celestia assures me. I nod and aim my hand at the heart as well. As I'm powering up, I push myself to the limit, causing green lightning to spark from my body. I push out as much magic as I can until I reach that mental barrier in my mind. It feels much more malleable than before, so I press upon it...which causes a streak of pain to shoot through the right side of my face. Right, I can feel it there. But, I don't need to go that far, so I back off and use just this amount of power.
Celestia lowers her head and fires a searing beam of light from her horn, targeting the heart directly. At the same time, my rifle forms in my hand in its standard form, and I pull the trigger, blasting the heart with a destructive beam of darkness.
The combination of our magics blows a hole right through the heart, showering the floor around it with black ichor and ribbons of flesh. However, we don't stop there. Celestia and I blast each and everything else in the room that looks important, such as either side of the metal archway, the fleshy pods on the wall, and the root like structures connecting the heart to the ceiling. Soon, there's nothing left of the heart except for blackened strings of flesh and a puddle of ichor on the floor.
Behind us, the horde of Oppressed charge into the room...and then abruptly pause just before reaching us. Celestia and I turn to face them, preparing to fight them if necessary, but it's ultimately unnecessary, as they're standing completely still, not even making any sound.
“I think that did it,” I express with a sigh, pushing on one of the Oppressed tentatively. The creature falls over like a ragdoll. “Yeah, seems like whatever the fuck that heart was, it was controlling them.”
Suddenly, the Oppressed start to move once more, shocking me. “Wait, it's not over! There's something else in the ruins...I can sense necromancy!” Celestia exclaims with alarm. I curse and heft my scythe, but to my shock, the Oppressed turn and run back down the tunnel where they came from.
“Where the fuck are they going?!” I demand, and then I chase the creatures down the hallway as well, with Celestia right behind me. “Why are they running!?”
“Something intelligent has begun sustaining them...and it knows we are not to be trifled with,” Celestia hypothesizes. Great, just as we destroyed their source, something else decided to take them over. Seriously? What else is down here with necromancy? Did Vanta not die after all? “Wait...this magic...”
Just as we reach the end of the tunnel, we see that the Oppressed have been throwing themselves into the water...that's currently draining into a newly opened tunnel. The tunnel that I'd used to escape the collapsing room before is open once more, a jagged hole blown right through the debris. The Oppressed are charging through it and into the caverns beyond...but that's not what concerns me. There's something else in the tunnel.
A shadowy cloud of darkness hangs suspended in midair, just above the rushing water and the torrent of Oppressed passing through the tunnel. Just by looking at it, I can feel an outflow of raw emotion coming from it. It hates me...more than anyone else has ever hated me before. My breath catches in my throat, caught completely unprepared. What in the hell could hate me so much that I can feel it in the very magic surrounding it?
The moment we see it, it streaks down the tunnel and disappears, along with all the Oppressed with it. Snapping back to reality, I leap off the floor and zoom through the air after them.
“Seth, stop!” Celestia orders me, causing me to pause in midair and look back at her. “Do not follow it.”
“What are you talking about? Whatever that was, it's controlling the Oppressed, and we came down here to destroy them!” I shout back at her. I'm shaking slightly. I never cared if people hated me before, but to feel it like that? It's unsettling.
“They're gone. Those caverns likely go deep inside of the earth. It's far more likely that instead of finding it, or any of the Oppressed, we would end up lost and vulnerable,” Celestia explains grimly, flying over to me. “Let it keep its Oppressed for now. We shall have to find another way of tracking them down.”
“But who knows where those Oppressed will show up next? If they get away, what's stopping them from surfacing somewhere else and attacking?” I demand.
“I promise you, if they surface anywhere in Equestria, I will know about it,” Celestia assures me, flying close enough so that we're face to face. “The moment the entity seized control of those monsters, I sensed it. Even now, I can feel it fleeing as quickly as possible.”
“Then why don't we chase it!?”
“Seth! It is gone. Even if we were to chase it, we do not know those tunnels as well as it does,” Celestia tells me firmly. “Do you believe that the entity showed itself carelessly? I will not walk into another trap, and neither will you.”
“You...think it's a trap?” I ask, calming down a little now that I hear the sense in Celestia's words. Celestia nods solemnly, earning a heavy sigh from me. That makes sense. If Celestia gets trapped again like what happened with Chrysalis, we're both fucked. “So what now?”
“We've done what we came to do. From what I was able to deduce, that heart was some sort of conversion device,” Celestia responds. When I look confused, she continues. “Do you remember what happened when we burst those pods on the walls? There were Oppressed inside. I believe that the heart was not only used to sustain the Oppressed, but also to create them.”
“You think that's the type of thing Sombra used to make the Oppressed?” I gasp. I never did question how Sombra made the Oppressed. I always just assumed that he used some necromancy or another. Then again...if he was the only one that knew how to make them, how did Vanta make Oppressed after he left? If this heart thing created them...then that makes a little more sense.
“It's possible. I am merely using circumstantial evidence to make assumptions,” Celestia tells me. “Nevertheless, the entity will no longer be able to use this location as a base of operations. Let us return to the surface. I must share all that we've learned with my sister.”
“All right,” I agree. With one last glare directed at the hole where the Oppressed had left, Celestia and I leave the way we came, because the elevator shaft down where Vanta was is now buried. “Do you know what the hell that thing was?”
“I'm not certain as to its identity. However, I could tell that it was using dark magic, like yours,” Celestia reveals. That gets me to look at her in shock.
“I thought I was the only one who used this kind of magic other than Sombra...does that mean...?” I say with dread entering my voice.
“No. King Sombra is gone, Seth. While this entity felt very similar to you and Sombra, it was not him,” Celestia assures me, such that I release a sigh. I can't tell if her telling me that is relieving or disappointing. “Nevertheless, this is troubling, that somepony else may have overcome the limits of dark magic. I will have to look into it.”
“I want to know everything you find out. If it's using dark magic and can control the Oppressed, it has some connection to Sombra,” I respond. “Maybe he was another of Sombra's generals.”
“Perhaps...but I don't recall any general learning dark magic. It's not an easy magic to learn, as it requires converting your magic core to darkness, such that it produces only dark mana,” Celestia explains. “But speculation is pointless. We simply don't have enough information at present.”
“I suppose. And here I was, thinking I'd be able to relax in peace after this was over. I guess fucking not,” I grumble. Will I ever get to live a peaceful life? I fucking miss the days when I'd have nothing else to do except work with Applejack and chill with Rainbow. Now, with Chrysalis out there, and now this dark magic using fucker...just...goddammit.
“No, Seth, you will be able to relax. Dealing with this is not your prerogative, after all,” Celestia says, surprisingly. I shoot her a questioning look. “I appreciate the help you've given me, but ultimately, protecting Equestria is my responsibility. After we discuss things with my sister, you may go back to Ponyville, if you so desire it.”
“Really? Even though it's my goddamn fault there's even Oppressed in the first place?” I retort, stopping in place and turning to face her. As much as I love the idea of living peacefully back in Ponyville, I can't accept this.
Celestia stops as well and gazes at me seriously. “Seth. None of this is your fault. While you are heavily involved in the situation at present, you are ultimately collateral damage in King Sombra's main plan,” she informs me firmly. “There was no way you could have stopped Sombra from going back to your time, or sending you here to us.”
“But...”
“In the end, Sombra and his allies are my responsibility. That is why I said you can return home to Ponyville: because you can trust me to deal with the Oppressed, and free you of your burden,” Celestia finishes. I clamp my mouth shut, my protest dying in my throat. Celestia suddenly smiles. “Besides, I believe you have a relationship to explore. Far be it from me to take you away from that.”
“What the...oh, goddammit, Celestia!” My response causes Celestia to giggle and look at me fondly. “Fine. Yeah, I don't really want to stick around. If you can crush them for me, I'd be grateful. I'm tired of having to fight all the time. I really do just want to go home and chill with Rainbow.”
“Of course. Let's make our report to my sister, and then we'll handle the rest from there,” Celestia promises. With that, the two of us start moving once more, ascending the floors back to the surface.
You know, I probably shouldn't have forgotten that Celestia has kept this country safe for over a millennium, without my help. So what if the threat now is a little more dangerous than before? It's still less dangerous than Chrysalis, so Celestia can handle it easily, especially if Luna's helping her.
Yeah, I think I'm done fighting. I'm going back to Rainbow, and I'm not leaving again.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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So is there going to be a party for a Seth and Rainbow Dash relationship when Pinkie finds out?
You used the same song twice. What's up with that? (please PM me your response)
So whatever it is hates Seth and has similar power to him.
I see where this is going and I approve wholeheartedly.
Ok, this has been bugging me..
Scythes are terrible personal melee weapons, particularly in their usually tool 'form' and especially in areas of limited space. You're more likely to hurt yourself and anyone on your side than the enemy.
For your average peasant rebellion, scythes would have the blade both reshaped and reset parallel to the snaif and used as a polearm. Furthermore they're at their most effective in massed ranks.
Seth needs to mug Thor for his hammer.
5572893
Are you guessing Amaryllis, too? Sombie had plenty of opportunity to follow up on his plans there.
Self explanatory error.
I think you forgot a word here.
5573038
5573041
Fixed. Welp, this is what happens when you lose your editor
5572947 FINALLY! someone else sees that!
anyway, great chapter and enlightening for the future. *prepares the fiesta gear and maracas*
does this mean we can chill out now?
5573255
I have to agree. Seth would be much better with a Black Mjolnir-lookalike than with a Scythe.
Good chapter. Not a lot happened, but what did was very important for future events.
Seth and Celestia continue to clear out the ruins of the Oppressed (and repress fat jokes. Dear god if Seth were to ever learn about Celestia and bananas
). However we now learn that while Vanta was certainly controlling the Oppressed and his necromantic pony skeletons, something else was maintaining them. Once they reach the room where the Mega Oppressed showed up, we get another hoard of Oppressed trying to kill them. I'm glad Seth finally has a melee weapon. A Scythe might be a little unwieldy but it certainly cleaves through Oppressed easily, and if he channels his magic through it like he did with his rifle, he can likely turn it into any form of melee weapon he wants (I wonder if he could make a lightsaber? That would be an interesting sight).
After that the two kill the mutated Oppressed in the tanks, freeing the human souls bonded to them. It was actually kind of cool seeing Celestia stunned by something. Being that she's so powerful and due to her age, has seen just about everything there is, having her get shocked by something is really interesting (and also kind of terrifying). This also shows that for all her power, Celestia still only has the barest level of knowledge of dark magic and necromancy. She knows to be cautious of it and to fear it, but her lack of study of it is likely going to come and bite her in the ass later when the Empire makes a come back.
After this the two find one freaking weird chamber with a dark magic living heart spreading its influence around the complex and sustaining the Oppressed. Man, if it wasn't for Celestia down there with him, I reckon Seth would likely be shitting himself at seeing something like this. Its just so far beyond human scope compared to just about anything else he's seen. Before the Oppressed can return to defend the chamber, Celestia and Seth destroy the thing and break the connection. However the Oppressed are then taken over and evacuated by a malevolent cloud of dark magic that hates Seth. Yeah, I could be wrong here, but I'm fairly certain most of us are thinking the exact same thing about the clouds description.
He's back...
Seth is very right to be frightened right now, but Celestia assures him that she will take care of the situation and he no longer has to continuing fighting these dark magic abominations (...because that's likely to happen) and return to his life in Ponyville where he can settle down and explore is new relationship with Rainbow.
I think the next few chapters are going to be pretty nice. An explanation chapter with Luna and the others, then another explanation with Rainbow about Janna. After that, likely a few slice of life chapters to settle down the pace of the story before the final arc rears its head and starts nailing them all with its epicness.
Greta job as always.
5572975 You know, Sombra is such a dick in this story, I wouldn't be surprised if it was. It'd be like one last giant middle finger to Seth.
5573438
That was quick
Epic comment as always, but there's something you may have misinterpreted.
That black cloud was not Sombra. Celestia would have sensed him in an instant. Nope, you get to stew in suspense a little bit longer.
5572975
There are three plausible possibilities: Sombra, Amaryllis, or some sort of asspull from the author.
The first is too obvious, and I don't think our lovely author would drag this story out for this long just to do the last one.
The middle seems most likely due to how well it would throw off literally everything and everyone; this story needs one last good plot twist, and that is the most fitting way. ...And, also because of all dat foreshadowing.
Edit: Could also be Janna, although that is approaching asspull territory. It could be plausible purely because of the fact that just as he's about to tell someone about her, something always happens. Could be Mr. Author trying to foreshadow, but if it is, he's doing it poorly. Terran has shown to be fairly competent when it comes to plot, so I think he's beyond that. I'm fairly sure the conclusion you and I came to is right.
5573452
Obviously, it was Seth from the future. I know exactly how this goes!
-Sombra implanted his egg into Seth.
-Seth goes to the future, deals with Sombra's left overs.
-Sombra returns in a new body, Nega-Amaryllis. Seth defeats him/her, and absorbs his/her power.
-This turns Seth into Ultimate Sombra, driven mad due to from the corrupt power and the necessity of killing one of his best friends! Possibly two because Nega-Amaryllis would totally use Rainbow as a pony shield.
- Ultimate Sombra time travels in an effort to change the past and save his/her two ladies, and to hell with the universe destroying paradox. Eventually, he's fried by Rainbow Canon.
-Of course, he escapes through time, reforming as Wussy Sombra! That rainbow really fried his bologna. Eventually he decides to conquer Equestria through time travel. Of course, he'll need a champion!
-Having forgot how this all started by now due to Rainbow Induced Brain Damage, he sticks his egg in himself, kidnaps Amaryllis and the cycle continues endlessly!
IT ALL MAKES PERFECT SENSE!
5573050
You lost an editor?
5573821
Yup. We had a bit of a falling out, so now I have to edit my own stuff. As you can see, I miss stuff.
The situation reminds me of The Flood from Halo. What with the fleshy walls, squishy Heart construct and hivemind and all...
It's really similar to that level in Halo 3.
No comment.
5573452
Yeah it was a weekend for me, so I was able to comment the instant I saw the update rather then after work.
Ooh, interesting. Hmm, this gives me a few ideas but I've got nothing to confirm it yet. You have once again left me in a state of being on the edge of a discovery without actually knowing everything. You are annoyingly good at that. I eagerly await for you to blow my mind
5573673
No no no, that's far to complicated.
It's clearly aliens
is the big heart something like This?
I know he had to go back down into the ruins, but I really hope his and Rainbow's relationship gets to develop before things start to get crazy again. At least for a couple of chapters :)
I swear, it has to be Amaryllis or Janna, I mean, come on! I can just see amaryllis saying
*ahem* "look at you seth, you've gone soft, and fallen for a pony. What happened to the seth I knew?" Blah blah blah "join me" blah blah blah " we can rule this world" blah blah blah "come to the dark side" blah blah blah "we have cookies."
Or something like that.
5584329
Could I have some clarification on what exactly the problem is? Just for curiosity's sake.
Nooo, not another villain.I needed some relaxation time. It needs some decent length of slice of life. Seth learning how to relationship. Him learning to piano again, maybe Octavia showing interest. Theirs so much that can be done in this story that doesn't involve ponyball z.
5587145
Relax. You're getting some downtime. Like Celestia said, it's not his responsibility.
5587148
This makes me happy :)
Ok. I'm 25 chapters in and I seriously have to ask.
At any point does anyone just tell him to shut the fuck up with his terrible attitude? I get this Janna did something terrible and he's all mad about loss of race but its tiring that hes seriously mouthing off to everyone when they really dont deserve it and everyone just sits there as his emotional punching bags.
I'm not asking for him to be a nice guy, I just want someone to stop taking his shit and tell him off without it coming back to "oh thats right you lost a lot so I'm sorry for telling you off even though you've been a complete asshat".
I'm not continuing on at this point.
5589318
Of course. That's the point of the story, after all. Though, to be honest, you can't just tell someone that they're wrong. In this case, telling Seth that he's wrong about everything is going to do little more than piss him off. He has to believe he's wrong to change, and that's been happening, little by little, ever since chapter 12.
Ugh...I don't even read comments but anyone with half a brain who hasn't read farther than this can tell you, and only because of the ludicrous amounts of foreshadowing, subtle foreshadowing, cause it took me till that last comment,
add in the previous conversation about Sombra's true target and it clicks into place. Which confuses me, cause i managed to get here purely through dialogue. I know our boy's been having a rough time of it lately, but still, he's a fairly smart chap. If it can occur to a punch drunk fool at 5 A.M. it should be able to occur to him. Or is this just a moment of plot convenient amnesia. cause sadly i can undestand that.
Anyway. It's fuckin Amaryllis.
Amarillys sounds like yellow in spanish, yellow is a shade of amber
Amber are fosils with something dead inside
Illuminati confirmed
6552883
Amber is fossilized tree sap.
5589804 5 bucks says that the shadowy figure is Amarillys.
5575835
i see it as this