...flatly across the balcony of the lofty Verdestone Palace. She wheezed and curled up, coughing and sputtering. A soft blanket fell over her figure, only it wasn't a blanket.
With eyes tearing, Rainbow Dash nervously, foalishly peaked at the feathers engulfing her in a motherly hug. A gasp burst out of her mouth, and she sat up in a jolt.
A gentle hoof rested on her shoulder, followed by a smile and pearl blue eyes. “Be at ease, child. This only means that you are making progress...”
“Wh-Whitemane...” Rainbow Dash stammered. She stared off into the canopy of Emeraldine night. A cool wind wafted through her braided mane as she stared, dumbfounded, at the purple hues of the milky way lingering high above the wispy evening clouds. “The P-Palace?! But how?!” She twitched, biting her lip. “Did I ever leave...?”
“But of course you did, child,” the alicorn murmured with a loving chuckle. “You are always on the move, after all. Would any superheroine settle for less?”
“Superheroine?” Rainbow Dash made a face. “I don't get it. Why are you here?”
“Dear child,” Queen Whitemane hummed, her horn glowing with a gentle platinum aura. “Did you think our conversation ever truly ended?”
Rainbow Dash looked at Whitemane's horn. She raised a hoof to her own forehead, then glanced at the silken robe hanging over her own figure. After a few blinks, she smirked up at the alicorn figure. “Just what does all this mean?”
“Only that my suspicions of you have been correct all along.” Whitemane paced slowly towards the edge of the balcony, her majestic wings stretching. “For the only reason that we would be communicating again is because you've found the flame of my forbears.”
“You mean that red stuff dancing above the pedestal when I finally made my way into the mechanical temple?”
“It's not a temple,” Whitemane said.
“Huh?”
“It's something truer than all the forest, seas, and deserts of this world combined. If anything, the pony civilization established above the chambers is the true temple.” Whitemane stared off into the constellations, as if seeking a home amidst the millions of twinkling stars. “What lies beneath is older than recorded time, and just as sacred.”
“I don't get it...” Rainbow Dash weakly got up and trotted towards her. “I've been in these underground halls of metal before. I saw nothing but a bunch of alicorn architecture.”
“Hmmm... That's just it, child,” Whitemane cooed. “It's not alicorn architecture. Truth is, nopony knows who built it.”
“But I thought Astral said—” Rainbow Dash winced, groaned, and spoke, “I ran into this unicorn expert once, and he said that the place was likely built by alicorns well before recorded history.”
“Indeed, and as all things before recorded history, such a statement was the fault of misconception.”
“Then just what is the big deal about these places and the flames? If it isn't alicorn technology...” Rainbow Dash suddenly froze, her ruby eyes lighting up with a burst of truth.
Whitemane must have seen it, for the Queen was turning around to smile proudly upon the petite pegasus. “Did I not tell you that the world was discovered and not created?”
Rainbow Dash numbly nodded.
“Dear child,” The alicorn knelt down and stared intently into Rainbow Dash. “The Mare in the Moon has been redeemed. The bringer of Chaos has returned and was subsequently banished. And yet these events—as amazing as they are—do not serve as much importance to our day and age as what is about to happen. The control chambers of the world remain to be rediscovered, and within them the flames of destiny lie in wait. You must understand, when my ancestors discovered this flat world floating in chaotic space, they realized it was not a landscape...”
Answer one question only to have many more spring up in its place. You're my favourite kind of writer for that alone.
Title Obtained: "The Superheroine"
-Minty
A ship.
Not a landscape...?
That's no landscape... That's a space station!!
... it was a RING.
*Halo music plays*
Alicorns: enigmatic to the end.
Its a weapon!!!!?!!!??!!!
It's no landscape... that's a space station.
Urgh, mysterious Galadrial pony is mysterious. Onward!
Hmm... Story or homework? Story... or homework? Story.... or story? I'll go with story!
-THEpandaman007
IIIIIt's Dashie's Fifth Marathon Evaluation Time!
...
This is why I love Austraeoh.
It gives you a huge chunk of plot as well as a legitimate objective to work towards, but manages to simultaneously throw ten more questions at the reader for them to answer.
Alright, here goes.
The world was found and not created.
Iron Factories beneath the earth potentially hundreds of miles long comprise the skeleton for the world.
Each one contains a flame that the Elements favor but that chaos also favors.
The Factories aren't factories.
They're engines.
They housed the Elements, the source of power.
Six incredible, hyper strong forces of nature that contained enough energy to move not only a massive spaceship potentially the size of a planet through the cosmos, but an entire landmass built above the ship to conceal it.
But there weren't just the Elements.
I've heard in my travels that chaos isn't fun without some order to let it make sense...
And total order isn't fun without a little chaos thrown in to keep things interesting.
Chaos also powered the ship.
The draconequii came before the alicorn and piloted the ship, potentially with the help of another harmonious race of beings.
Regardless of the crew's intent, the draconequii went rogue.
They lost sight of the harmony between chaos and order.
Genocide ensued.
A planet sized spaceship was torn apart.
The harmony lost.
But not until they managed to force the draconequii out.
Until they trapped chaos on the opposite side.
Until they sealed away the Engines.
So that the draconequii, twisted by evil, would never again fly the ship.
Little by little, Dash activates the engines by combining her Elements with chaos.
Enough exposure to this will make her like the ancient pilots...
Not fully chaotic...
Nor fully orderly...
The most powerful beings of time...
The gods of time.
Dash would become...
A Time God.
...
These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
P.S. This chapter blew my mind. Four left, and you bet your fur I'm going to finish all ten.
Trippy, man. Listening to "Wish You Were Here". No regrets.
1246424
It has a freaking laser! It blew up my homeworld.
OH DAMN THIS IS JUICY!!
An artifical world?
Silver out!
welcome to the machine
Damn this is getting all biblical and shit.
1662389 I that you love Floyd.
Headcanon: humans did it
3681244
Naw, it was the Forerunners.
A miracle of divine intervention.
This story just gets deeper and deeper! Dashie, I love that explanation
2387830
Welcome my sooooon!
Welcome toooo the machiiiiine!
(pink floyd)
3904932 Both wrong, it was the Protheans
It's a ship! A ship shipping shipping shipping ships!
More and more intriguing. The flames cant be engines, elsewise they'd produce heat, so what are they? Obviously magic. Though I will say first thoughts were definitely a space station or ship.
A truly massive spaceship in the greatest traditions of science fiction.
Great Giant Machine Worlds, a staple to any sci fi worth its salt.
Huh. I guess I was closer to the mark than I thought when I compared this to Halo! Though it's more similar to Forerunner stuff like the rings than Precursor stuff (which doesn't even show up in the games)
I think I would compare Equis to the Arc, or maybe Requiem.
Primary quest acquired: The Flames of Destiny.
6378564
Going out on a limb here but I haven't read anything past this chapter yet, but I'm going to assume these chambers are like massive perpetual motion engines that turn on once the Flames are absorbed and these flames are actually the run off waste products that have built up from when the alicorns turned them on the last time to the point that they started leaking void energy AKA chaos auras
This seems an important quote.
I'm excited to be picking up the pieces like this, even if I miss a few along the way.
Wow.
That's no moon. It's a spacestation!
Holy hell
Oh wow. Everything that follows is the result of what you see here.
I think Whitemane is wrong about the first part, as one cannot have a future without a past, and as we will later discover, the events mentioned are very much intertwined
07/22/2019
23:21 UTC