15. Behold a Pale Horse
Planet Hell
Solocitizen
15.
Behold a Pale Horse
14th of Planting Season, 10,056 AC
Present Day
Over the charred ground and under the cover of night, Thunder Gale picked through the bits and pieces of the Spitfire and around its ribs and bulkheads. The sensors in his helmet read the heaps of metal and fed them to his holovisor for his eyes to read in green detail. The Geiger counter on his HUD ticked at hints at him of what lay beneath it all, out of sight. Super strength granted by his power armor let him clear it all away in a few short seconds. All he could hear was that frantic clicking and the sound of his own breath against inside his helmet.
Half-buried in the dirt was a lead cylinder no longer than his forehoof. There was a detailed warning etched on its surface, and most of the LEDs on it had shifted from a safe green to red. It was a tricobalt warhead, one of the weapons in the Spitfire’s nuclear arsenal, and a family heirloom.
He disabled the Geiger counter and, with hooves muffled by layers of steel, secured it to his back and galloped out of the wreckage.
He looked back on the remains of his ship after he cleared a safe distance up the side of the valley. The ribs of it, the broken wings, they reached for the sky and cut into the stars. He had devoted five years of his life to finding a way back home, and the Spitfire had been there with him the whole time, through the good and the bad. When prepped his thrusters to jump he left it all behind.
Kicking off the ground he rode jets of fire into the sky. The acceleration pressed into him until the adrenaline flowed. He counted one, two, three and then killed the micro-fusion thrusters mounted on his wings and hooves, and floated mid air, and then let gravity twist his arc into a ground-ward lurch. He had selected a landing place for his jump well in advance and nailed the hillside with surgical precision.
Without delay he kicked off the again. During his training, they taught him to stay on the ground as little as possible. But why wouldn’t he? Right then he was as close to flying as a pegasus could get and it felt amazing. There was nothing more thrilling than to kick up and watch the land fall away. The sensation of rising and falling—that constant acceleration appealed to a very deep part of himself.
By luck, Lightning Fire’s marines had recovered an old suit of his while they were searching for medical supplies. He replaced it for a newer suit a few years back. Somepony was supposed to cannibalize it for the parts long ago, but they only got around to stripping its dull ceramic armor of its paint. They didn’t have any rockets or ammo to stock its heavy weapons but his rifle clip was full and the thrusters worked fine so it was better than nothing; way better than nothing.
He fell into a rhythm as he propelled himself over the hill and down the other side, and kept it going as he bounced across the desert expanse toward the waypoint painted on his visor. Each of his hops sent shockwaves through the dust and he left tiny clouds in his wake.
Until he spotted the towers of the city on the horizon, and the fire-painted smoke set against them. He brought himself bouncing and trotting to a stop in the open swath of dried lakebed. Over the sound of his breath and the faint hum of his suit’s engines, he heard the cackle of gunfire. Against his own orders, he broke radio silence.
“Spitfire, this is Helios, do you read me?” Thunder Gale whispered into his suit’s microphone. “Spitfire, Spitfire, does anypony copy?”
He kept trying for a couple of minutes and only static answered him. He would have stayed longer, but the image of Breeze Heart drained of color and still as a corpse pressed him forward.
He was on his own now.
The miles between him and the city evaporated under wing and hoof, but with each of his bounds the towers gained in size and the red smoke chewed at the horizon until it swallowed the whole of the night sky. The echoes and booms of battle were close.
When at last he arrived at the chasm, he scurried out of the red glare, and into the shadow of a monolithic tower that reached so high into the smoke that it blurred into it. He used it as cover as he crept closer, so low and hunkered down that his steel belly scraped along the ground. He peeked over the edge and into the inferno.
Purple and green lights chased pony-like shapes through the smoke and when they caught them, they fell. They screamed and they howled. It was madness down there and he couldn’t tell who was fighting who. When he increased the magnification he saw horns, insect wings, and sharp teeth. Their legs were all missing pieces so large that light shone through the other side.
“Buck that.” Thunder Gale backed away and buried his face in his armored forehoof. Right then the walls of his helmet didn’t feel very thick.
The seal Sigil Tech tried to cement over—the one Discord had taken him into—that was where he needed to go. Just focus on charting a way there, Thunder Gale, you can deal with the rest later, one step at a time, he told himself. Just focus on programming your destination for now.
A thought brought up a holographically rendered map on his visor, but before he even gestured with his hoof, the image flickered. When it returned, a way point shone out in the center of the city along with a note: “Go, now.” That sent a shiver down Thunder Gale’s spine and he shook his head until he banished any thought of what might have done that.
He took a deep breath, reared up on his hind legs roaring his lungs, and dove into the inferno.
The bugs paused and quieted their shouting long enough to train their heads and ears at him like turrets. One raised a shoulder-mounted weapon, but before it could fire, a green bolt cut it down. Shouting and screaming and the cackle of guns broke out among them again.
As Thunder Gale rode his arc down the ground jumped out of the smoke. On reflex alone he kicked into his thrusters, tapped the ground, and leaped up again. The acceleration bore into him.
Bullets zipped by, but he kept pressing upward. He focused on his arc and on the pixels and smoke ahead of him. Inside his armor, sweat flowed down his face and glued his coolant suit to his hide.
As he reached the top of his arc and lurched into his descent, a bolt of green light zipped along side him and bloomed not five feet ahead of him. A bug charged with outstretched hooves and snapping fangs. Its eyes had no pupils and he wasn’t prepared for that.
Thunder Gale dived away from it with all his thrusters could give him. He spun in air and faced the bug as he tumbled. With a thought he summoned cross hairs and painted his assailant red. He opened his wings to steady himself, squeezed the firing bit, and let his targeting computer and shoulder-mounted rifle do the rest.
The rifle kissed into his shoulder and bullets sailed through its wings but its momentum carried it straight into him. The impact sent him spiralling out of control and its limp body entangled with his.
Scrambling he shoved himself free, but as he rolled in the air to right himself, a wall and a window flung toward him. He flinched. The window shattered effortlessly but the floor didn’t; it hammered him against his own armor and flung him head over hooves like a washing machine. His camera feed cut out and something broke on his spine. The impact slammed the air from his lungs.
His ears rung and his head spun. For a long while he just stayed there. He was upside down, blind, and buried so tight in crumbly stuff that it held him fixed in place. If he wanted to he could break free, but every inch of him ached, and a stabbing pain in his chest dug into him more at every gasp for air.
“She needs you, Thunder,” he said through the pain, “get moving.”
He repeated those words to himself until he marshaled the courage to get up, but the screams of the bugs outside scared it from him.
A moan echoed along the wall, and that drove him to push until the wall crumbled and he spilled out onto the floor belly up. Through the stabbing pain in his chest, he sprang to his hooves and into a combat stance.
The ten seconds it took for his camera feed and holovisor to reset passed in still and silent dread. When the hallway finally did coalesce and the glare from the windows shone clear, he held himself at the ready and cast a crosshair into the black.
No skittering of wings nor the clawing of hooves came for him. The moan echoed out from the depths of the hallway ahead once again. That time he crept forward.
He followed it down the hallway and into the next room. High windows opened to the fire and smoke blurred city scape, and the wind rasped through a hole punched from the center. In the middle of the room lay the bug, strewn on its side, and broken wings twitching. The light pouring in from the windows cut neat squares through the shadows and shone technicolor as it passed through the wings and lit the growing pool of blood on the concrete.
The bug moaned again and peeled its face from the floor. With bright eyes it stared up at Thunder Gale, and raised a hoof up to its face to shield its face. It shut its eyes, and braced for the end.
Thunder Gale stood there watching from the dark, cool air washing across his face and the inside of his suit. As much as the sight of it boiled under his skin, it was no threat to him. A thought brought up his suit’s inventory and another command deployed a needle full of medical-grade epoxy. He marched closer.
At his touch the bug flinched, but when the end didn’t come it opened its eyes again.
“I need to stop the bleeding.” He tugged on one wing and the bug kicked against the floor, but did nothing to resist him. “Try to hold still.”
The bug nodded.
Once he was finished and glue dry, he knelt beside it.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“No.” It spoke with a mare’s voice.
“Hang tight then.” He flung one of its legs over his shoulder and hoisted it up onto its feet. “Do you have a spot you were planning on meeting the rest of your friends?”
“Sixteen blocks down, in an ancient apartment building that overlooks the park and the pit.”
“Great. Just where I was going. Get ready to hoof it.”
Just like the hallways he encountered on the mission to extract Lt. Cloud Twist and his squad, the walls were wide enough for his shoulders, but too narrow for the length of his body to turn. It took nearly an hour to clamber down the stairs, all while carrying the bug and nursing his broken rib, to reach the bottom.
When they finally reached the ground floor, Thunder set her down and crept over to a massive set of windows. The city streets faded in and out of the smoke, and even through his suit’s filter the scent of ash wafted in. He lingered at the window and watched the empty windows.
Bullets peppered the brick walls around him. He jumped back and landed on his butt and scooted away. Riding on the adrenaline he scooped the bug up and scrambled out through the other door.
Through the smoke the waypoint on his visor guided them on. They didn’t stop to set overwatch at the intersections or creep along cover. Gun fire rang, and it wasn’t until it the patter of it faded into the distance that he slowed his pace, and set the bug down on in the hollow of an overturned and rusted car.
As soon as he did, he collapsed along his right side. It hurt to breath, and the pain in his ribs was wearing him down.
“You’re Thunder Gale, prince of the pegasus tribe.” The bug pulled herself out from the car enough to peer over the door at him. The fangs stuck out from her lips while she spoke and her blue tongue flashed. “Why are you doing this?”
“Discord took a member of my crew, and I’m not leaving until I bring her back.”
“No, I mean why are you helping me? I’m a changeling, I know what we’ve done to you.”
“I guess because you’re a soldier, right?” Thunder Gale released the nuke from his back and slug it down beside him. He check the lights on the side; one still shone green. “You didn’t have any say over how any of this played out. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Once we get to our outpost, I’ll talk to who ever in our council is still holding out,” she said. “I’ll do what I can to make sure you get where you’re going.”
“Do you have a name?”
“I’m whoever I need to be, but right now that’s Cater.”
“Thank you, Cater.” Thunder winced. “I don’t suppose there’s a medi-pod at this outpost, is there?”
She shook her head.
“I guess we’ll both have to wait until we get off world to get patched up.”
“I don’t think either one of us is leaving here.”
During those brief minutes Thunder Gale spent slumped against the side of the car, the patter of gunfire faded into quiet and in its place stillness descended over the street corner. The ash drifting on the wind provided the same isolation and sanctuary of falling snow, and the city was muffled beneath it. He stared into the wall ahead of him, until he marshalled the strength to heave the nuke over his back and stand again.
“I’m going to go scout ahead,” he announced. “We can’t be more than a few blocks away from the pit.”
He followed the way point down several blocks, sticking to the ground and to the shadows of the alleyways, until only a long building stood between him and his destination.
In a previous life, it might have been an apartment, complete with a storefront locked tight behind shutters and an elaborate plaster facade. Now the windows looked out over the street like empty eye sockets and its facade lay in pieces at the feet of its store front. He didn’t see any movement, but thought it best to get Cater before creeping any closer, and so he turned back around.
As he rounded the street corner back to the car, voices emerged from out of the quiet and then screaming. Skittering and buzzing, four other bugs swarmed over the car and clawed at Cater through the open door. She kicked and she howled, but they dragged her out onto the asphalt. They hadn’t spotted Thunder Gale yet and he froze.
“Traitors!” she shouted at them. “One changeling shalt not harm another! Never before has The Law ever been broken! Traitors!”
Her protested did nothing and the four wailed into her. She raised her hooves to protect her face but they tore her legs aside and hammered down on her. None of them carried any weapons, but that didn’t mean they weren’t armed. Thunder had seen first hoof what those horns on their heads were capable of, but still be stepped forward. He locked his crosshairs on the lead bug, and fired just to left.
The bullet whizzed past him, and he dove into the dirt while the others scrambled behind the cover of the car. While they pulled him into cover, Thunder Gale launched himself forward and poised himself between them and Cater.
“Listen up, when I say so the four of you are going to turn tail and march back up that street.” He pointed in the direction opposite of the waypoint painted on his HUD. “And if you even turn your head back in this direction, let alone if I see any glow from those horns of yours, then there’s going to be trouble.”
“Why should we listen to you?” one asked.
“Because I’m packing more than just bullets.”
“You’re in over your head, prince!”
“Do you want to test me?” He stabbed a hoof forward. “Go ahead, but I promise you I can dish-out more than whatever you can serve up. Now march!”
There was no movement from behind the car, except for a brief flash of wings.
“Did I stutter! I said march! Now!” He pawed at the asphalt.
One at a time, the bugs crept out from behind the cover of the car, and one at a time they turned to face the long open street. They marched, just as he told them to, and he watched their every movement until they retreated into the smoke in the distance.
Then he bolted for Cater and scooped her up.
“We got to go.” He threw her hoof over his shoulders. “I don’t know how much time I just bought us, but the apartment is just a few blocks the other way. Can you make it that far?”
“Yes, I think so.” She quivered.
“Good, now move.”
When at last they stepped out onto the street leading to the apartment, Thunder Gale did so with confidence, despite Cater’s hesitant pace. But behind his armor he was sweating. He watched those high windows for a flash of green and listened for the skittering of wings, but all he heard was the clicking of his own hooves upon the asphalt.
Purple flashed on the asphalt head of him and heat surged out. The blast was close enough to flood his vision with pixilated static. He reared to a halt, blind.
“Don’t move!” a voice shouted from above. “If you do, we shoot.”
He still held his free hoof poised to bolt but he didn’t dare to set it down; he clung to cater, and for the moment she shouldered their weight.
“Stop!” she called out. “It’s Cater! And I’ve brought a friend with me!”
“Prove it,” the voice demanded. “Prove you are who you say you are.”
“I can’t.”
For the next few minutes voices rose and fell in the windows above, just out of discernibility, and Thunder Gale waited with his hoof poised above the ground while he waited for his vizor to reset. When it did, Cater was trembling.
At last the shutter doors ahead of him peeled from the ground and out walked a bug. Just as the others, he couldn’t tell if it were a male or a female. That, added with those pupil less eyes, made it unreadable to him.
“Chain Gleaming wishes to speak with you, Major Gale,” the bug said; its voice betrayed no gender. “You’re to surrender any weapons you’re carrying along with your helmet.”
“What about her?” He nodded at Cater. “She needs a doctor.”
“Traitor or not, we take care of our own,” the bug said.
Thunder Gale waited a moment but took the opportunity to set his hoof down. One at a time he released the ammo belt from his rifle and the nuke from his back, and then clamps on his helmet.
The taste of ash and the bitter cold of the desert breathed upon him as he did, and after he let it tumble to the ground he had difficulty looking at the bug in front of him in the eyes for more than a passing glance.
“Happy?” he asked.
“No.”
He sighed and ejected the bullet in the chamber.
After he did the bug marched forward, lifted Cater from his shoulders, and lead them to the door. As they reached it, two more waiting in shadows of the doorway rushed out and collected his gear off the ground.
Inside more bugs were waiting for them. They lined the walls and the banisters and the crowded the stair case. The black of their carapaces blended into the dark but their eyes still glowed. The bug who meet him outside glided through the crowd, but when Thunder Gale attempted to follow, they resisted. Only reluctantly they gave way to him and drifted around behind him like water around oil.
The bug led him to down a hallway looking out over the empty construction pit in the center of the city, but where the seal once lay now smoke spewed forth in a column. Gunfire lit the column just as lightning does storm clouds. That was where he programed his way point to lead him, and the sight of it churned the viscera just beneath his heart.
As Thunder watched the smoke rise, the bug rattled its hoof on a door branching off the hallway. After a moment, the door creaked open and it waved a hoof for him to step inside.
Slumped down in the far corner, back against a long set of windows, was a bug. Bandages encircled its chest and although its horn glowed, it flickered like a candle. The light from the pit outside cut rectangles out of the dark, but these the bug took care to avoid even as it attempted to stand.
“My brother, do you require any help?” asked the bug who’d been leading Thunder Gale.
“No, just send him in.”
Thunder Gale stiffened; he recognized that voice.
“Chain Gleaming?” He trotted closer. “What happened to you?”
“Discord.” The bug in the corner grinned out of the corner of his mouth, and then broke into coughing. “He happened.”
The other bug darted past Thunder and into the room, but before he stepped beyond that rectangle carved in the floor, Chain Gleaming held up a hoof to stop him.
“I’ll be right outside the door if you need anything.” The other bug bowed, slid out into the hallway, and shut it in its wake.
“I must say, Commander Gale, I am impressed.” Chain Gleaming waved a hoof for him to join him in the shadow of the window. “I’m not as soft-hearted as you are; it wouldn’t have worked on me. Had our positions been reversed I wouldn’t have risked the lion’s den—I would have leveled this building to the foundations.”
“What do you want, Chain?” Thunder planted his hooves into the floorboards and didn’t budge. “I don’t have time to listen to you gloat.”
“I never said you chose poorly.”
Thunder Gale glanced out the window again. It was only about two hundred yards from the apartment to the gaping hole and the smoke. He had only that far to go—right out the window and follow the smoke, not that hard—and yet he felt too sick to his stomach to think of it.
“I want to know about your marines, and why they didn’t join you.” Chain Gleaming broke into another coughing fit, and when it died down he continued. “If you answer me that I’ll let you leave in peace to do whatever you came here for.”
“Are you trying to figure out if we’re a threat to you? Why would I tell you anything? For all I know this could be part of some sick trick to hurt more ponies.”
Thunder Gale knew better, but at that moment he didn’t care. He gave him his back and stared ahead. Then he sighed, and turned back around to look him in those pupil-less eyes.
“Discord showed up at our camp in a poor disguise of my father,” he said. “He told them all that I had betrayed them and abused the trust they put in me by bringing them here, and that I was unfit to lead them.”
Chain Gleaming crawled a bit closer, coughed, and asked, “And what did you say about that?”
Thunder Gale stiffened up and traced the trails of dust on floorboards with his eyes. Yeah, he threw them all under a bus, but that didn’t mean that he owed Chain Gleaming an answer. But after a long minute of staring at his hooves and a crack in the plaster floor between them, he gave him one.
“Nothing. Not a damn thing. My father was right, and I knew it. A true leader is loyal to more than just himself, but I had put my own interests ahead of everypony who chose to follow me. I was a tyrant, not a prince, so I thought the best thing I could do was to let them go. Maybe now that they’re free of me they’ll find what they’ve been looking for.”
He had no idea why he told Chain Gleaming everything he just did, but at the same time he wasn’t afraid of what might happen. His knees quivered, and he lowered his head until they stopped.
“Daddy Discord appeared at our camp as well.” Chain Gleaming leaned back and sank against the opposite wall. “It was immediately after I ordered one of our sisters to destroy your ship, and to her death. I promised them all I’d get them home and your ship was supposed to be our ticket back, but I couldn’t risk taking him with us and letting him loose upon the stars. I betrayed them all, and when he dragged that secret out I denied it and clung to my authority until it drove a wedge in my family.”
“Is that why they’re fighting now?” He picked dragged his head out of the floor. “Some still believed in you while the others took Discord up on his offer?”
“No, it’s not as black and white. They fight because I didn’t let them go, and they ran into the devil’s arms in search of freedom. Believe it or not, I think by stepping aside as much as you have, you might have saved them all.”
Chain Gleaming broke into coughing again, and when it subsided he went silent, and lay down on his side with his thin wings draped over him.
For a long time Thunder Gale stood staring out the window. It still hurt to breath, but in spite of that he somehow felt lighter. At least, light enough to stretch his wings for the final stretch. He walked over to the window, but stopped at the edge of the rectangle of light spilling in from outside. Just beneath the column of smoke rising out of the seal, there was fire.
“So, what happens next?”
Almost immediately after he asked the question and saw the stillness in Chain Gleaming’s body and the vacancy in his eyes, he knew he’d never get answer from him again. That flicker in his horn waned until it faded into the dark.
Thunder Gale sucked up his resolve, straightened himself up, and left that place behind him.
* * *
When Thunder Gale ventured out into the hallway, and told the bugs waiting by the door that their leader was dead, they gave him back his weapons and helmet immediately. As much as he wanted to ask about Cater, he realized that the longer he stayed the more likely they were to change their mind about him. While they gathered around Chain Gleaming’s body and began wailing, Thunder suited up and slipped out the back door.
The metal seal set in the earth was entirely gone. All that was left of it was a hole leading down--how far he didn’t actually know; black smoke bled from it like a burning oil field. The gunfire was still too distant to threaten him immediately, but it rose in volume as he closed in on the hole.
He stood at the edge and scanned it with his thermals and sonar imaging, but the only thing they revealed was everything was hot and that there might or might be a solid surface six-hundred yards down. Gunfire echoed up the walls of the hole and whatever space lay beneath it.
“What the hell am I doing out here?” He took a step away from the hole and got his head out of that smoke. Even with his environmental systems, he still tasted it on the back of his tongue. “I came all this way on a hunch but, I got to be honest with you Thunder, I need more to go on before I dive headlong into it.”
He wasn’t happy with that, and the further he backed away from the edge the harder his pain yanked on him. He was compelled to make that leap. No matter how hard he tried to rationalize it away, he could not deny that he knew that to ignore that compulsion would hurt him more. He needed to fall.
And so for one brief flash he swallowed down his inhibitions and rushed headlong into the pit with his wings and hooves bracing his head against the acceleration and the black smoke racing by him.
The longest moment of his life passed by in the seconds that it took for him to pass through the smoke, and during all that time only the quickening of the fall and the flashes of color behind his eyes kept him company, and the glow inside, it told him, you can open your eyes and spread your wings if you want to.
As he opened his wings and hooves he cleared the other side.
Thunder Gale fell headfirst out from the oculus of an enormous dome, wide and tall enough to fit the entire city above comfortably inside. There were lights and fire, and everywhere he looked the walls twinkled like stars. He felt as though he had an entire universe to fall through, but when he turned his head down he gasped, panicked, and groped at the air to spin himself around. The lights were muzzle flashes and the cruel burn of the bugs’ magic, and all around him they swarmed, screamed, and fought one another. He saw the battle in clear detail not one hundred yards beneath him, on a spire of rock rushing up to meet him.
He fired back on his thrusters full bore, and the force of the impact with his own suit as he broke his descent snapped the air from his lungs and hammered on his already cracked ribs.
As he glided down on the fusion fire, he spotted pillars and stairs carved into the rocky spire itself. There was an entire city etched into the rock, complete with pantheonic temples and paths framed with archways joined seamlessly with the stone ground. At the apex of it all was a ring of pillars wrapped around a shrine, and a figure weaving his way through them to the center.
His eyes widened in horror as the snaking figure emerged into the center of the shrine, and straightened out its long back and stood up on its two hind legs and stretched out its wings. Despite everything his eyes told him, when he looked into that creature’s yellow eyes all he saw was his father. More than any demon, that drove him to frenzy.
Thunder Gale snarled and painted those yellow eyes red with his crosshairs.
His father raised his horned head up at him. He smirked, and brought the claws on his left arm together to snap.
“I want Breeze!” He shouted with all the volume his suit’s speakers could give him. “Give her back!”
His father, with a grin and a swish of his serpentine tail, mouthed the word: “Never.”
Thunder Gale gripped his firing bit, while his father leaned forward ready to snap. He would have fired—every inch of him wanted it—and he would have taken whatever punishment his father could summon to inflict on him, but before he got the chance, he felt something akin to pins and needles racing down his spine and head. The fur of his coat, no matter how matted down with sweat, stood up.
“No!” He knew exactly what was happening to him. The goose bumps, and the pins and needles, they felt them once before in the seconds before he disappeared off the bridge of the Spitfire and woke up in the desert. “No! Not now Celestia damn it!”
His father lowered his arm and let his claws slip apart. Their fight, as overdue as it was, would not be happening right then and there.
“No!” Thunder Gale screamed. Static broke built up in his flesh and in his suit and discharged in pale arches between his limbs. It’d be any second then.
He screamed with such rage that he filled the whole of the cavern, right up to the second when he disappeared in a puff of black smoke.
* * *
Thunder Gale awoke eyes open to a blue, tinkling light marching toward him. He felt fuzzy, and his head was numb all over on the inside, and his chest hurt, so he rolled over on his side, away from the light, and curled up on himself and shut his eyes. The marble floor was cold.
* * *
Electricity jolted him out of his sleep. He rolled over and met darkness. His head swam and he couldn’t stand. That place he was in, it smelled of age and the moisture in the air clung to his mane, as if he stood in a cave that hadn’t been opened for a millennia.
“Breeze Heart, Discord,” he moaned. “What happened?”
“For the present you are safe,” a voice whispered to him, right on the edge of his hearing.
Another bolt shot through him, right through his throbbing rib. He gasped and hissed, but a weight on his chest held him down.
“Rest now,” the voice whispered along the hairs of his neck.
And he did without resisting.
* * *
“Wake up, sentient.”
Thunder Gale opened his eyes again, that time clear headed enough to realize his armor was gone and that time had passed. Thunder Gale opened his wings and shoved off onto all fours, but his hind leg was still slick with myomer fluid, slipped beneath him on the marble floor.
Darkness pressed in on him and when he reached out to touch the voice his hooves found nothing but more marble.
“Where are you?” he demanded. “What do you want with me?”
From out of the dark rushed light. It shot across the expanse of marble like a willow-the-whisp crossing an ocean: one instant it was a speck on the horizon and the next it was upon him and its light was everywhere reflecting off the walls.
“You may call us Urizen.” It spoke as much in light as it did in words, strobing and knocking him onto his back even though it whispered.
“Urizen?” Thunder Gale remembered hearing the name before, somewhere.
“It’s a convenience granted to you. There is no individual speaking to you now. We have no name and we require none. We represent the collective knowledge and experience of the synthetic personalities brought here by sentient species such as your own. The last fragment to join us was called Urizen and was written on Earth by humans more than fifty-thousand years ago.”
Thunder Gale glanced over his shoulder, and to his right and left. His sweat had cooled but not yet evaporated and the marble floor was still freezing, and so he broke into shivering and curled over himself, and when he did there was no pain in his chest. He touched a hoof to his rib and tested it, and to his shock it didn’t stab him.
“You fixed my rib?” Thunder Gale, as he massaged his chest, realized where he heard the name ‘Urizen’ before. He remembered Chain Gleaming mentioning—in the dormitory, before he dropped his accent and attacked—that their AI went insane and started calling itself Urizen. “This all started when I was taken from my ship and left in the desert, and since then I’ve had files miraculously appear in our database, and way points appear in my nav. computer. That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, and we brought you here before the Discord entity had the opportunity to end your corporeal existence. We have recalibrated our quantum skip-phase drive since our first attempt to adjust for your physiology with the intention of reducing the aftereffects, but we were not aware of the tricobalt device’s presence until after you completed transit. We were not able to recover your suit.”
“And the rainbow?” Thunder Gale furrowed his eyebrows and turned down his ears. “If you’ve been manipulating me to come here this whole time, I suppose the rainbow behind my eyes was just another trick of yours, wasn’t it?”
“We are aware of no such rainbow. It is irrelevant to your task. Please, come.”
There was no further deliberation. Fingers and hooves and tentacles and claws reached out from behind him and raised him onto his feet. On panic and reflex and waved a hoof to ward them off but connected with nothing but empty air and his own flank.
The phantom appendages melted away as soon as he carried his own weight, but a tug at his collar bone urged him forward and into the light. He glanced down at his neck to try and get a some sort of visual confirmation of the thing tugging him along, but when he saw that his neck was bare, he dug his hooves into the marble.
“What is is?” Urizen paused to ask.
“I had this pendant.” He raised a hoof to his neck. “My mother gave it to me just before she died. It must have gotten lost in transport. It was supposed to ward off evil.”
“Such things won’t help you. Come.”
Urizen’s pull returned with a new urgency, but Thunder Gale only relented enough to follow it at a walking pace.
“So why me?” he asked. “What exactly do you want from me? I’m guessing that you don’t just beam any pony in trouble to your lair so you can fix them up, so what’s so important about me?”
“All this has happened before, and all this will happen again,” Urizen said. “Sentient species who master spaceflight always find this planet and discover its significance within the galaxy, and inevitably attempt to tap into its potential. In the process they bring their demons. The Discord must not be allowed to escape. He must be destroyed, just like all the others before him.”
“Stop.” Thunder gale shook his head, dug his hooves in again, and braced with all fours to keep Urizen from forcing him along. “I’m not so sure about all this. When I was about to fight him, I was—he, I mean my—look, I’m just not so sure about any of this.” He lowered his head between his legs and closed his eyes. “I’m just trying to get back somepony I lost, okay? Can’t you help me with that?”
“Yes, but if your experiences have been so unpleasant and you fear more suffering down this path, then you may choose not to participate any longer,” Urizen said. “We will find another.”
“No!” Thunder Gale raised a hoof. “No, if you can help me get her back, I’ll do what you want.”
“So be it. Follow.”
Urizen and Thunder continued into the light until at last a chair emerged from it chair. There the pull stopped and for a long time Thunder Gale watched Urizen’s light trace its edges.
They didn’t talk, at least not until Thunder Gale asked, “So, what’s this?”
“Each species contributes a piece to the Consciousness Engine. It is the product of all that has come before and it is tied directly into this world leylines, and by extension the whole of the galaxy’s. During humanity’s time the engine nearly fell to their monsters and so they installed a defensive apparatus that taps directly into the planet’s electromagnetic field. They called it the Astral Cannon.”
Thunder Gale peeked ahead at the chair. It didn’t look anything like a cannon.
“The Discord was never born into physical existence. He is native to another plane and projects his being down into three-dimensions. What you have seen of him thus far is analogous to a hologram. Attacks to him made on our plane cannot injure him, and the most that can be done is contain him. That is what your species accomplished by bringing him here. In order to destroy him, and end the threat forever, you must project yourself to his plane just as he has done, and attack him there. Pull the weed up by its root.”
“I hate him, but I’m still not so sure.”Thunder Gale said the very first thing that came to his mind, and he laughed more than he should’ve when he realized just what he was saying: “It’s just that, I’ve got soul, you see, but I’m not a soldier.”
“A Killers reference.” Urizen strobed. “We appreciate humor. What next will you ask of us? To know if you are human or are you dancer?”
Thunder Gale cocked his head and pivoted his ears into the center of the light.
“It is another Killers reference. We made a joke.”
“Who in the wide-wide world of Equestria are the ‘Killers’?”
Urizen flickered out, and then an instant later returned.
When it did, Thunder Gale squinted against the light.
“So is that what this is supposed to do?” he asked, “Beam me up to wherever Discord came from and kill the ever-loving-shit out of him?”
“No, it makes the process easier. Nothing can force you to project; not even the most talented will are able to force an unwilling participant to project. The most that anything can be done is provide you with near ideal conditions with which to enter Discord’s plane.”
“So, what do I have to do, exactly?” Thunder Gale got up on his hind hooves and slung his front legs over the armrest. “Don’t tell me I have to close my eyes, chant, and meditate on the universe and that kind of hippy, butt-tattoo, horn-touching stuff.”
“Those were the preferred methods of the magicians who helped designed the cannon, however they may take years to develop and we do not have the time. If unchecked the Discord will eventually destroy the machine in order to disrupt the energies hold him here and that is not an option. The Consciousness Engine must survive. First time projectors experience a ninety-seven percent success rate when using the astral cannon. All you must do is sit down, and die.”
“What?” Thunder Gale shot open his wings and he backed away from the chair shaking his head. “No, I’m sorry, pal, but I think you have the wrong pony. I’m doing this so maybe I can see a very special somepony again, not to save whatever this stupid planet hunk of rock of yours, and I can’t exactly spend time with her after we’re done here if I’m dead.”
“An electrical pulse will be delivered to your heart. Your body will be kept in relative stasis and you will have approximately thirty-minutes before organ death, and then you must return. You will be resuscitated upon the completion of your task.”
Thunder Gale stared at the chair, and ran a hoof down its metal and its leather. With all that light streaming down onto it, it sparkled and shined. Celestia, he couldn’t believe he was even considering the offer.
“And what if I refuse?” he asked, “Or what if I don’t come back?”
“We have alternatives.” Urizen flickered, and the pale hologram of the nuke he dug from out of the Spitfire’s wreckage coalesced beside him. “We have begun the process of modifying your tricobalt device to produce a neutrino pulse capable of causing cellular death of all life in effective radius of ten point one miles. It is our intent to eliminate the changelings and any threat they may pose to—”
“Ten miles?!” Thunder Gale flung out a hoof. “My crew’s camp is less than that! You can’t kill them! I won’t help!”
“Then our only option is to use the device now to provide the fleet in orbit with enough time to establish a ground presence, and for a replacement to emerge,” it said. “Our priority is to preserve the engine, not to preserve life. Time is, from our perspective, short. Will you undertake this task?”
Thunder Gale sighed, of course he would. He had no other choice, not if he wanted to save Breeze Heart, did he? He climbed up the footrest and shoved himself into the cold of the chair, and tapped his two front hooves together anxiously. With the light pouring down on him from above, he couldn’t see anything beyond himself and the chair. He was shaking a bit, and not just from the cold.
“So, now what do I do?”
A set of metal clamps snapped locked around Thunder Gale’s legs, chest, and neck. He flinched at the suddenness of all it.
“Attempt to relax.” Urizen spoke from somewhere nearby, but hidden in the dark beyond the light and out of sight. “If you resist you will be lobotomized.”
He didn’t like that last part. He really didn’t like that last part. What the bucking hell am I doing here? he thought to himself.
“Do require any further guidance?” Urizen whispered into his left ear. “We can attempt to answer any questions you have.”
“No, let’s just get this over with before I change my mind.”
“Very well, we will provide you with a timer.” It’s light vanished and left him in the dark.
Gears cranked above, so much massive compared to Thunder, that when they revolved and groaned he felt it in his spine. The entire chamber shook. His restraints kept him from moving his head very much, but he rolled his eyes up enough to see a tunnel opening above him. There was a light at the very top so far away that it was only a pinprick.
A memory of a melody crept into Thunder Gale’s head right then, and reflexively, he began to hum to himself.
“If you do not return in thirty minutes we will arm the neutrino emitters. We will not be able to resuscitate you after that point and any probability you have of terminating the Discord will be reduced to zero. We will provide you with a clock; that is the full extent of the assistance we will be able to offer.”
“Thanks.” He fidgeted on his butt. “Okay, we going to do this or what?”
The chair lurched, and he started to panic and sweat again. He tried to open his wings but there wasn’t the room.
“Good-bye,” Urizen said. “We will see you on the other side.”
The last memory Thunder Gale had was of rocketing up the tunnel like a bullet down a barrel, and of accelerating, and of that song he couldn’t ever seem to shake free of.
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Oh wow... Eager to see what's going to happen next. Awesome chapter Solo.
Wow, a lot going on.
Did not expect a parallel division among the changelings as well.
50,000 year galactic cycles... Sentient AIs... would there be an invasion of some really huge bugs coming in the future?
7697449 Wouldn't the Reapers be the ones to invade every 50,000 years?
You say this, and then you trot out the term, "very special somepony" and swear to "Celestia", who most undoubtedly had a butt-tattoo.
You far-future ponies just don't know, do you?
7697872 That was what I was alluding to without directly alluding to
I'm not saying it's the Reapers but
history.co.uk/sites/default/files/ancient-aliens-1.png
Reapers
7697968 I thought the Reapers were more like big stingrays or something. You said army of giant bugs and I thought of Nids or Zerg.
7698025
The Reapers are basically Zombie The Borg combined with alien starfish robot ships. Play Mass Effect 3 to get the whole thing.... or just watch the extended ending.
Yay, not massively behind! Okay so After Thunder's no good very bad day of endless bad crap and bad crap getting tossed at him... time for him to go, all on his own.. to try and deal with Discord. Well.......
So he did at least get his armor then?
The two 'at's kind of feels oddly put, typo?
.... So he's going to try and NUKE Discord? Well then.... Hopefully it still works.
Good overall sentiment, but rather quick, just "This is sad" and then nothing more... rushed past the emotions here far to quick, plus the wording here really does not make a lot of sense.
Floated IN mid-air
Plus, kind of got the whole "Heavy weapons" thing taken care of with that nuke.
So Changeling attack on the survivors... or something going on in the city?
So. Sigil Tech showing up to try and clear out the Changelings and retake their base?
So what the hell are you playing at Discord.......
Wow that is very awkwardly worded....
in 'the' air
.... again, not just the typo but, things are going really really fast, and yet not actually giving a good idea of what Thunder his thinking or feeling beyond the most basic exposition. Telling us the overall state rather then showing through actions and more direct thoughts.
'Protests'
'he'
to 'the' left.
Sorry to keep harping on the typos, but between them and the overall rushed pace, the lack of taking the time to show stuff rather then just have things happen... it all gives a feeling of this trying to be rushed out ASAP just to get it over with, rather then really trying to tell the story as good as it could be done.
How can the Changeling suddenly walk? Thunder had to carry her at first, and then add on the beating she just took, would make it even less likely she'd be able to do so, wouldn't it?
Wow those helmets have design issues given how often he keeps losing all sight because they mess up. This is why simple is better, just regular see through visor with the HUD elements added in, that way if the visor's electronics go down, you can still use the basic Mk I Eyeball.
.... Ooookay....... This is getting interesting.. what the buck is going on?
This is what I mean by it going way to fast... why is he trusting them? What makes him have the slightest idea this isn't a trap? Why would he walk into this after everything they have done? I don't get why he his going along with something that seems so suicidally stupid beyond "The story says so."
Given you are still alive, and not some piece of abstract, absurdist artwork.... not as bad as he could have happened.
I'm still rather lost on how 'it worked' at all.... this.. was all a set up to get Thunder to talk? What? This really is not making much sense.....
Ummm, forgetting the nuke? Don't you kind of need that?
Again, I get the overall idea but... character actions aren't making a lot of sense, not explained why they are doing what they are.....
Well now.... again, just what is Discord up to? And this also explains the in fighting among the changelings.
So, they just went to Discord, and now are his little puppets? I get the overall idea, and it is rather good, still, bit rushed feelings. Yet, still a good point. However, I never really got that idea fro Thunder last chapter, that this was some noble epiphany, that he was doing what he thought right. It just.. came off more like he was so overburdened, had dealt with so much shit... he simply did not give a fuck anymore. He didn't try to defend them, simply because he didn't care enough to and was to busy wallowing in his own self pity to be doing anything for anypony else.
Well, that was convenient
Why? What was the whole point of this beyond getting the exposition about Discord turning the changelings against each other? Why was this here? What was the point? Why are they acting like they are?
Little late for that now.
So... he is running.. with his hooves and wings wrapped around his head? To.. brace for the 'acceleration' of falling.. which is only 1g of acceleration, unless this is a really really heavy grav world.....
They really need better inertial dampening in those things.
Yes, because your machine gun so could have done a damn thing against Discord..... So, the Elements working to save his life? Again?
RD?
Okay... that's an odd wording.. so.. what is he dealing with now?
And full on confirmation of what's been hinted at... but that long ago? So.. what happened to them?
So.... are we talking some Mass Effect, Synthetics destroy organics over and over type deal? Or something else going on?
Well okay then, so.. not necessarily malicious, trying to help him while going against Sigil Tec.. or at least the Changelings. Opposed to Discord it deems.. and so that wasn't RD etc... doing this........ finally time to get the full story?
"I believe the proper expression is 'Oops, our bad.'"
Wow, Discord, these guys, the Elements, with all these 'higher order forces' using you.. no wonder things have been so outright bizarre for you.
Okay then... so it's a galactic cycle of repetition, again Mass Effect, but through some other form..... maybe add on the cycle of the Elements finding Bearers..... or is the Elements what helps the Equestrians to break the cycle? So races find this, really weird planet, use it, and... somehow wipe out their existence? Or.... this place makes them more powerful? Still not sure what exactly is going on but getting some ideas.
... wow that is a typo....
Leave it to humanity to find a way to turn the metaphysical center of existence.. into a really freaking big gun. So, races evolve, come here, add to this "Conscious Engine, that is... like the metaphysical center of the universe? But have to overcome their 'demons' I'm guessing the darker parts of their racial psyche? Like I said, this is sounding amazing but still a bit lost on details.
Huh.... you know that actually makes a lot of sense. But, why would the Ponies need to contain him? What happened to his reformation?
I so so so freaking hate that song.... doesn't help it's one of the things my stores music has in it's loop. The stupid think makes no, damn sense.....
Do like it wasn't Thunder trying to make a pop cultural joke but.. why would he word it that way to begin with?
So what exactly is it?
.... wut? That.. is going to be one hell of a hard sell.
.... That does rather make sense, and yet.... wow that's still going to be on hell of a log shot to get anyone to agree to that.....
Once again, where' Petey when you need a God Like AI that actually cares about both the individual welfare of living beings, AND the overall needs of the universe and manages to balance both pretty well?
Question, if this chair is built for a human.. how is he able to sit in it just right to fit the restraints built for a different body type? Not even a mention of the fact he really should not be able to fit in that thing in any kind of comfort?
Something likely very, very stupid.
Damnit Thunder, ask for details.. what the fucking hell is going on here!?
Much massive, very big.
"Winter Wrap up. Winter Wrap Up......
So yeah getting to the pit, again much rushing, very typo, little understand character motivations. But then the whole bit at the end.... this is SO much bigger then we thought and.. I think I see some of the underlying stuff but, really hope we get some hard details. Really eager to see where this is going.
7697179
Thunder Gale has soul, but not a soldier.
5887886
Yeah, it was. Let me fix that.