Antipodes- Chapter 22
Antipodes
Chapter 22
By PK
Incendia stared at Jigsaw, eyes wide, her mouth moving soundlessly as she struggled to find words strong enough to express her disbelief. Finally, she found her voice.
“Are you crazy?” she shouted. “Do you understand how long it took the Resistance to find one of those? We didn’t make it! The only one who ever did was Rubidium himself and the top scientific minds of the city! It took us months to steal one, and even longer to reverse-engineer it to work in the teleporter! That was the only device we ever managed to make, and even then it never worked quite right. Ours was always rougher than the real thing.”
Tiptoe reflected uncomfortably on the sensation of Incendia’s shoulder-mounted teleporter. It felt as though they were being peeled apart every time they had used it.
“I don’t actually intend on fixing the teleporter,” Jigsaw said, “I intend on modifying it to operate under a new spell.”
Incendia’s incredulity shifted to curiosity. “What kind of spell? I didn’t even know you could put other spells in there.”
“We may not have advanced as far as you Stalliongrad ponies did, but we did make some new discoveries. We got pretty good at enchanting things and wringing every last bit of power out of what we had on hoof.”
“The next fragment is located halfway around the world. On the sunny side. We’re going to need a vehicle to get there.”
~~~
“Foolish!”
Tantalus’ roar shook the piles of gems loose, sending them cascading down to the stone floor, many of them smashing into pieces on impact. The cracked blue gem stayed firmly on the pedestal, however. It was still issuing beams of golden light and vibrating slightly.
Tantalus bent down to examine it, though he was careful not to let any of that light strike his face. The gem was covered in a spiderweb of cracks, several of which ran almost to its center. Tantalus took a deep breath and blew out softly. A noxious green cloud seeped out from between his lips and squirmed into the cracks on the shiny blue surface. The golden light slowly diminished in brilliance, until after an agonizing few seconds, a dull emerald glimmer began to shine from deep within the gem. Tantalus let out a sigh of relief and put his face into the beams of green light. His skin started to sizzle and burn under the baleful radiance but he didn’t move. He was lost in thought.
Worry gripped him- genuine worry, the likes of which he had not experienced in ten millenia. The meddlesome ponies now had two fragments, one from each goddess. But even worse than that...
He had been tricked! Forced to retreat, and by a denizen of Stalliongrad, no less! He could barely stand the insult.
He turned his face away from the gem and looked out towards the mouth of the cave, a small smile begin to tug at the ends of his reptilian lips. He had, at least, managed to kill one of them, even if it had allowed for that wretched unicorn to pull her trick.
He also knew their location. If he acted quickly, he could strike while they were weakened.
He made his way back, deeper into the cave, kicking aside the loose gemstones, sending them skittering across the stone floor. Soon, he came to a small alcove. The room was lined with tall, cluttered bookshelves, most of their contents moldy or damaged beyond recognition. Nevertheless, many were still standing proudly. In the center of the room was a small desk- one far too small for him to use- but it was stacked high with parchment.
It was time to write a letter.
~~~
A warm wind was blowing from the west, helping to take the edge off the chill. They had been walking steadily westward for the better part of the day, and the terrain had begun to reflect their efforts. A green carpet was laid out under their hooves and small shrubs with bright red berries were becoming increasingly common, along with rolling hills. Tiptoe was regularly forced to fly up to the tops of them to scout ahead.
“Jigsaw, what exactly are you hoping to find?” Incendia said. She was limping again, the gash on her flank still obviously painful.
“We’re bound to run into something if we keep this up long enough, I’m sure. Besides, we needed to get to somewhere with food. I didn’t really expect us to find ruins and build it in a day,” Jigsaw replied, rolling his eyes.
“Shhh!” came a hiss from the top of the nearest hill. Tiptoe had flown ahead and was now staring at something out of sight, her ears flat against her head. She began to make her way back down the face of the hill slowly and silently, not turning her back to the hill till she had reached Jigsaw and Incendia.
“There are three other ponies just over that hill collecting berries from one of the bushes,” Tiptoe said in a whisper, her voice tense with apprehension. “What should we do?”
Jigsaw’s eyes widened with excitement. “Other ponies? They might lead us back to civilization! We have to talk to them!”
“Are you sure about this?” Tiptoe said, her ears still flat against her head.
“Don’t worry, Tiptoe,” Incendia said, a note of pride evident in her voice, “if they start trouble, they’ll have to go through me first. I killed a dragon, remember?”
Tiptoe chuckled, and an uneasy smile replaced her worried frown. “Alright, I suppose. They can’t be any worse than Tantalus, anyway.”
Jigsaw nodded and began to climb up the hill, followed closely behind by Incendia.
At the foot of the hill were three earth ponies, picking berries out of the bushes with their mouths and putting them into small baskets around their necks.
“Hello!” Jigsaw called out. The three ponies looked up in alarm, dropping their mouth-fulls of berries onto the ground.
“We don’t mean you any harm!” Jigsaw shouted down at them. “We’re... peaceful explorers. May we come down?”
The three earth ponies shared a glance, then one of them stepped forward. His fur was emerald green, with a cutie mark that resembled a sapling, and his face was creased with concern. When he spoke, the words tumbled out of his mouth, as though he was reciting something from memory. “Halt in the name of mighty Luna! We are citizens of Totemhoof, endowed with all the rights and privileges that come with that post. If you show any signs of aggression, we will be forced to react accordingly.”
Jigsaw glanced over his shoulder at Incendia and Tiptoe before repeating his previous statement. The three unknown ponies took a step backwards, their eyes darting wildly back and forth, clearly unsure of what to do.
The same one with the sapling cutie mark advanced again and continued, his voice sounding marginally more firm, though his brow was glistening with nervous sweat. “Follow us. The elder must be informed of new visitors.”
“But we just want to talk,” Jigsaw insisted.
“We can’t. Y-you have to follow us.”
Jigsaw couldn’t understand why the mysterious group of ponies looked so nervous to be leading them, but he quickly shrugged it off and signaled for the other two to follow him. They crested the hill and fell into line behind the green earth pony. He kept glancing back at them and whispering things to the other two earth ponies, whose eyes were locked resolutely forward.
“Are you sure we should be following them?” Tiptoe whispered from beside Jigsaw. The sudden sound made him jump. Fortunately, the three mysterious earth ponies did not seem to have noticed.
“I’m not very happy about it either, but I don’t think we really have much of a choice. They said they were citizens of somewhere! That means they may have vehicles!”
“If they have vehicles, why are these ponies on hoof? We can’t count on this place being as advanced as Stalliongrad, and if you remember, Stalliongrad had certain trade-offs too!” Tiptoe hissed.
“I know, I know. But, honestly, what could we find there that would be worse than Stalliongrad?”
“I’m not really anxious to find out,” Tiptoe grumbled.
They walked for about an hour in silence after that. As they moved deeper west, the hills became steeper and more numerous, but they didn’t have to climb them. The earth ponies led them on a winding track through the valleys formed in between the hills, their baskets rattling around their necks, until finally, the leading earth pony stopped and turned to face them.
“We’re about to enter the village. If you speak the truth about your intentions, you will have nothing to fear.”
Jigsaw was surprised- his voice sounded much stronger and more confident. He brushed aside a branch from one of the ubiquitous bushes to reveal a small horn, seemingly carved out of bone. The earth pony took it in his mouth and gave two short blasts, the sound echoing off the steep hills.
Two much higher-pitched blasts came a moment later, and the earth pony nodded resolutely and jerked his head towards the bend in the path. “Through here.”
Rounding the bend, Totemhoof was clearly visible. Nestled between two great hills, the village was almost entirely isolated from the surrounding countryside. What looked like the remnants of a radio tower was sticking out of one of the hills, the top of which was obscured by a thick blanket of cloud, which extended over the rest of the village. The buildings themselves were small and looked as though they had been assembled out of scrap metal, wood, and bits of other buildings. Though there were small silver light posts every few dozen yards, Jigsaw’s heart sank- there were clearly no advanced technology here. The village was certainly no metropolis- Jigsaw couldn’t imagine more than five hundred or so ponies living in it.
What drew his eye most, however, was a building that was easily twice the size of any other in the village. It was located about halfway up the steep hill to the radio tower and appeared to have been constructed with much more care than any other in the village. It was a massive cathedral, with a giant sun-and-moon in front of it, easily the largest they had seen thus far. This one, however, was subtly different- the crescent moon was glowing intensely, while the sun seemed dull and unlit. Something about it made Jigsaw’s stomach squirm, but he couldn’t dwell on it, because a group of menacing-looking unicorns and pegasi were coming up the path towards them. They were dressed very peculiarly- each one wore robes of dark blue or purple and hoods which shrouded their faces, though the bladed staffs held in the mouths of the pegasi couldn’t be mistaken.
One unicorn stepped forward. Jigsaw assumed he must be the leader due to his fine robes- intricately inlaid with stars and moons, and the purple fabric seemed to shimmer with an internal silvery light. He stood there for a moment before his horn began to shimmer a deep purple- the same color as his robes- and his hood fell.
His face was weathered and aged and his dark coat mottled with grey, but his eyes were bright and alert. When he spoke, his voice was strong and clear.
“I am the high priest of the Church of the Moon. Who are you?”
“My name is Jigsaw, and this is Tiptoe-” he gestured his head to his left, “-and Incendia.”
“Where did you come from, and why?”
Jigsaw hesitated for a moment, unsure of how truthful he should be.“From the west. We’re sort of... wandering. We ran into your group of berry pickers outside, and they led us here.”
“Ah. Are you from Stalliongrad?” The priest asked casually.
Jigsaw opened his mouth to respond, but Incendia cut him off.
“You know about Stalliongrad?” she asked.
“Oh, my, yes. We’ve had several refugee groups trickle in over the last day or so, ever since Tantalus’ latest attack. Are you refugees, too?” the priest asked. With a flash of white light, a scroll of parchment and a narrow, brilliant cobalt-blue quill materialized out of the air near the elderly pony.
“Well, yes,” Incendia responded, not entirely untruthfully. “But we can’t stay long, we have to-”
“Nonsense!” the priest said. “Our doors are open to any Stalliongrad refugees. Any enemy of Tantalus’ are friends of ours.”
The elderly pony smiled at them, and the guards that flanked either side of the narrow passageway began to disperse. Jigsaw couldn’t help but notice that the priest’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
The priest began to walk down the winding path that led to the village, leaving it empty of ponies. Jigsaw took that as his cue to begin making his way down the passage. He glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see that the group that had led them into the village was nowhere in sight. He could have sworn that they hadn’t walked ahead of them. Perhaps they had turned back?
It wasn’t worth dwelling on. He set off down the path, Tiptoe and Incendia on either side.
The pathway widened considerably as they cantered into the village, and it wasn’t long before the heavily trodden earth was replaced with a wide cobblestone street. Buildings were carved directly into the side of the hill, windows lit up from within. A creamy yellow stallion with a quill and inkwell cutie mark met them a small ways into the village, introducing himself as Quill Dipper, and led them away from the group of guards down a winding road which led deeper into the center of the village. The streets were packed with ponies of all kinds, and many of them nodded or called greetings as they passed. Before too long, however, their guide led them down a a relatively empty and narrow footpath.
Quill Dipper began to talk as the noise of the streets died down.
“Welcome to Totemhoof! I hope you’ll forgive our general state of disorganization, we’re really not used to getting new ponies, let alone hundreds.”
“Hundreds of other ponies survived Stalliongrad?” Incendia asked, her ears darting up in surprise.
“Yeah, we’re about a day’s journey west of Stalliongrad, as the pegasus flies. We’ve been having groups of those refugees showing up since yesterday, and we’ve been settling them in some of the empty buildings,” he said. He repeated the next line so softly that Jigsaw could barely hear him. “We have a lot of those.”
“Why is the cloud cover so heavy here? It was pretty clear before we got into the valley,” Tiptoe said.
“Ah, that’s due to our team of expert weather pegasi! Unlike the rest of modern Equestria, we keep a firm control of the weather. We believe the only way to the future is to recapture the ways of the past and to give glory to the great moon goddess. That’s one of the most important things you should know about life here- we are almost all members of the Church of the Moon, dedicated to the worship of Luna. The moon has provided for all our needs and we lend it our devotion in thanks.”
The passed by a small garden. A small, blue earth pony filly and her mother were digging in the dirt, dropping seeds into the holes and pouring water on the mounds of dirt behind them. Jigsaw took a deep breath through his nose, the sent of the fruit growing on the vines filling his lungs. Vividly, memories of his limited time in the Arboretum came flooding back to him. With the heavy layer of cloud above, he could almost pretend the valley had a ceiling. It felt more like home than anything else had.
He looked over his shoulder at Tiptoe, and she smiled back at him.
The continued to make their way up the path until they arrived at a small metal building with a pointed roof.
“Sorry, but this is the only building we had available for you. It’s a little small for three of you, and we haven’t hooked up electric lights yet, but you won’t have to share it with anypony else.”
“Thank you for doing this, honestly, but I can’t imagine we’ll stay long. We can’t afford to linger too much.”
Quill Dipper smiled wryly. “That’s what they all say. Don’t worry, you’re safe from Tantalus here. We have our defenses.”
Jigsaw suppressed a doubtful snicker. Quill Dipper led them into the house, showing them around the four-room interior. He wasn’t exaggerating when he said it was small- they barely had enough room for them to walk around without bumping into each other. There was only one bedroom, but after only a few minutes inside the house, two pegasi came swooping down from the clouds, clutching a mattress with a pillow on it in between their teeth.
“It’s just temporary, until we get more supplies,” Quill Dipper assured them. “Until then, two of you are going to have to share a bed. I hope that won’t be an issue.”
“I don’t think it will be,” Jigsaw said, glancing at Tiptoe, who was standing behind Quill Dipper. She blushed intensely and mouthed “Jigsaw!” indignantly, though her small smile betrayed her true feelings.
Incendia simply swallowed hard and looked at the bare mattress lying unceremoniously on the floor of the small building.
Quill Dipper did a sweeping survey of the room. “Well, I suppose that will just about do it for you tonight. You’ll hear the morning announcement when the work day officially starts, and from then on, the turn of the hour will be announced until the night cycle. It’s how we keep time here. Right now it’s early night. I’ll be back at noon tomorrow to show you ponies around more.”
He paused for a moment, and when he resumed, his voice was soft. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you, having your home destroyed like that. If I ever lost Totemhoof, I don’t think I would have the strength to carry on. I just hope we can help heal your wounds. Welcome to Totemhoof. You really are welcome here.”
Jigsaw nodded respectfully, a knot forming in his stomach over the lies of omission he had made to get here.
Quill Dipper turned to leave, and almost made it outside the door before Incendia blurted out “Wait!”
Quill Dipper turned, “Yes?”
“Why are you doing this? Helping the refugees, I mean? What do you get out of it?”
Quill Dipper smiled. “I told you, we worship Luna and the night. We would be remiss if we didn’t offer a place to rest.”
He left and closed the door behind him. The torches on the wall flickered, their smoke drawn towards small triangular vents cut into the ceiling.
Jigsaw yawned. “This was certainly an unexpected development, but the concept of sleeping on an actual bed is too attractive for me to dwell on it now. We’ll regroup in the morning.”
“Sounds good to me,” Incendia said, curling up on her mattress near the doorway.
Jigsaw and Tiptoe went into the bedroom, closing the simple wooden door behind them.
Incendia’s mind raced. She was ecstatic that some of Stalliongrad’s inhabitants had survived. She couldn’t imagine how they escaped, but it didn’t matter to her. She was so relieved, in fact, that she was almost unaffected by the giggling and creaking sounds coming from behind the closed door at the other end of the room.
Almost.
Incendia lit her horn and snuffed out the flames of the torch and pulled her pillow up over her ears.
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In need of an Incendia audition for the Antipodes audiobook project! Check the ponychan thread for the details: http://www.ponychan.net/chan/collab/res/16543.html
In other news, I’m so sorry it took me this long to write the chapter. I’ve been so busy with life stuff.
Poor, love-starved Incendia!
It's pretty obvious to me that a bit of envy is building up in her heart, and I wouldn't be surprised if that became a problem later on. Tiptoe and Jigsaw are still cute together, not much to say on that point but watch out for keeping this story in its designated genre, which is Adventure. You still have a lot of wiggle room, and I'm not saying there's really anything bad about this, but as a writer it's just so fun to write those scenes that...
Y'know what? Forget it. Awesome chapter, PK, keep it up and update soon.
Very, very nice. I just love the characters and characterization in the story.
Too bad the update took out your banner
maybe you'll get another one for the new layout. Anyway, keep up the good work 
I'm definitely putting this on my "to-read" list. Oh, and, watch out because I like to give out very lengthy reviews...but only to "Complete" stories (so perhaps you'll be immune for a while longer). In fact, come to think of it, I rarely like to start incomplete stories at all, otherwise I just end up with a big long list of cliff-hangers floating around. I might make an exception for this one, though.
I'm assuming you've planned the whole thing out? How far into the story are you at this point?
i look forward to what you write in the future
5519 Yeah, I've got it pretty much planned out.We're about maybe 55-60% done? Ish? There's a good ways yet to go.
Someone's going to write a clopfic. I know of this.
Incendia is hot. I like that character very much, but she wouldn't like me cause I'm a planet sized robot
Loving the story so far, on chapter 13 right now and can't wait to finish what you have so far
God this story is good!
This is honestly my favorite fanfiction ever. I am truly jealous of your writing abilities.
Giggling? Creaking? Was that truly necessary?
Not that I'm offended, I just tend to avoid pony sexings unless it's completely and utterly necessary. She better get pregnant...
I am being wracked on the inside with the manly weeping for the Incendia.
(And are they really... I mean, they wouldn't, would they?)
5588
Hi there, love your fic. How long is the fic going to be ?
Oh... This is going to turn out being an fanatic cult village, isn't it?
5374
You got it.
Incendia, I feel bad for you.
7172 Why dont you just put your memory card in a pony robot?
I don't trust them. Just saying it now, I really don't. There seems to be a distinct lack of other refugees, unless they're being hidden somewhere... for whatever purposes...
Commence cute-cute tiemz.
Poor Incendia. They aren't making it easy for her.
I'm actually pretty sure Tipsaw are just making out or something. We've only seen their relationship progress so far and neither seems like the type to rush into more than that, at least not "giggling" (a few months farther on, then maybe). (Still noisy because it's an old bed.)
Hmm I smell an illusion. It seems a bit too weird the first pony that talked seemed a bit off, then to just have ponies dissappear and for it to seem pike home for jigsaw, and a reason for incendia to stay now? It all seems a bit too good.