Part 4 (Lainey) - Chapter 4
Sky blinked, trying to settle in her mind which sensations came from within and which did not. “Why did you pick this house to investigate in particular? There are so many others. Have you been watching us? Do the others know?”
Answer his questions, said the voice into her mind.
She shook her head, gritting her teeth together and closing her eyes. “I won’t…”
You will obey me — the voice changed. It was someone else. I’m your father, Lainey. You’re going to obey, or I’m going to punish you again. She felt the stings of his blows all over again. Heard her mother’s tears, felt the impotent rage as the will bent down on her. Lainey was a broken pony; she had no chance of resisting a force like this.
“We were.” She covered her face with her forelegs, expecting a belt to come down on her despite her obedience. She could smell his sweat again, and the earthy smell of the barn. Some of that smell was blood. Some of it was hers.
No blow fell, however. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” She felt a gentle hoof against the side of her head. “I’m sorry about this, Cloudy Skies. This is all very premature. It’s nothing against you personally, little pony. Now tell me, how many of the other ponies know you’re here.”
Again she felt the presence in her mind, the nightmare hatred deep as an ocean. Was it her father? Even the end of the world couldn’t protect her. He had always said she would never get away. She opened her mouth to answer-
And something else pushed back. She couldn’t say where it came from. There were no other ponies nearby (though if she waited much longer, there would be). It felt like herself, but also like someone else. It wasn’t a word, wasn’t an invader, or even a presence exactly. It was an emotion, one she seldom felt. Rage. The rage of a tribe who watched its members freeze to death in the cold, a tribe with numerous predators and no natural weapons. A tribe without magic, without friends, and without hope. It was the defiance of humanity.
But she wanted to be a pony! The nightmare voice was suddenly soothing, her father’s memory gone. She remembered Alex instead, remembered the kindness Sunset Shimmer had showed her and the acceptance she had felt. It was a tempting prospect, and not one she had rejected. But the pony was not the part of herself she needed. The part that Lainey needed was Lainey.
Lainey Park let her pony instincts go, at least for now. She embraced the defiance and the rage, and at once she surged forward. Ryan the unicorn looked utterly stunned, and Sky sent him into a tumble. Once he had been shoved out of the way, Sky kept going, colliding with the door with all the force she could muster and slamming the thin wood into splinters.
“Up!” she screamed, pounding away down the steps and spreading her wings. Ryan’s shouts followed at her heels, along with something much worse. The nightmare was not trapped inside, as she might’ve hoped. Could she fly that fast?
Sky spread her wings, beating with all her strength. She let the breeze embrace her, filling her wings and her soul and blowing what remained of the nightmare from her mind. It only took her a few strides before her forehooves left the ground this time and she soared up and away over Alexandria’s empty buildings. As the distance between her and the ground continued to grow, so did the strength the wind gave her.
The wind couldn’t be captured or compelled; it blew where it listed. Sky didn’t know if the unicorn attempted any other spells to try and hold her; they failed.
But the nightmare was still following her.
Lainey drew on all her strength, breaking with her wings as though she was riding ahead of a fleet of invisible aircraft. The clouds seemed impossibly far away, yet she knew safety waited there. There was magic waiting in those clouds, waiting for her. “Up!” she shouted, willing the winds obey her. They did, twisting into a spiraling updraft that carried her away from the roaring Odium tugging at her soul.
It would not steal her today. Borne on the rushing of a gale that hadn’t been there, Sky reached the clouds for the first time in her life. She would be safe in there! Sky had read about weather magic, and she knew there was a technique to pass through the clouds without getting stuck. Other ponies would fall through without resistance, but not her.
A pegasus had to want to pass through, or else clouds were semisolid to them. Smacking up against the underside and plummeting back down would hardly serve her escape.
She concentrated the wind into a point in front of her, driving it into the clouds above her. She began boring through it like a drill, swirling them into a thin fog. It was suddenly as though she was swimming instead of flying. Yet she’d been prepared for that, already braced herself for the impact. She only had to make it through the clouds, a few hundred more feet.
Her momentum and strength were both almost gone by the time she made it out, breaching the overcast sky into bright sunlight. She dropped back a few feet, and despite what she had read she expected to start falling again.
Instead, the clouds wrapped themselves around her like a huge, damp towel. She sank a few inches, but the clouds held firm. She didn’t fall, even without the use of her wings.
The nightmare was gone. Rage echoed impotently below her, but the invisible being could not follow. The warmth of the sun cascaded through her, banishing the contagious nightmare like dew.
It was magic, a magic she had never realized existed until then. The sun controlled much of Earth’s climate; its heat made life possible. It warmed the water that rose to make clouds and heated the winds that carried them. It warmed the currents that Earth’s rotation twisted. Eight light-minutes away, the ancient might of primordial hydrogen gave up its nuclear brilliance and lit up the vastness of space.
The sun always banished dreams. It could banish nightmares too.
It was cold up here, and the wind blew furiously. Yet she wasn’t so uncomfortable as she had expected. Pegasi, it seemed, were well-adapted to the conditions where they spent their time. She took that moment to catch her breath, working through what she knew.
Ryan could use advanced magic. There was something in the house, something she suspected Ryan had probably invited there. She had lost her earpiece in the house, which meant she hadn’t heard anything her friends had said since she had confronted the angry unicorn.
How many of the new ponies belonged to Ryan’s group? Three, that she knew of, all from the same place. Carol the batpony, Ryan himself, and an Earth Pony named Ed. Would she be seeing bat wings up here in the sky with her at any moment? She hoped not, yet something she had done alerted the whole group, and all of them had left the library! Were they less separate than they had seemed? Or had Dean, and Kirk, and Abrams and the rest all tried and failed to resist the same nightmare of hatred that nearly swallowed her?
There was no time to rest, not when her friends were still down in Alexandria, still in danger. She might be safe, but they weren’t.
She lifted the radio carefully out of her sealed satchel, knowing full well the clouds wouldn’t be able to hold its weight. Resting it in her forelegs, she removed the wireless headset receiver from the audio port and twisted the volume all the way up.
“Hello? Wanderlust, are you there?”
Was she even close enough to the ground for her message to reach him?
Static buzzed over the rushing wind for several seconds. It transformed into a voice. It wasn’t Wanderlust at all, but the harsh, strangely reverberating tones of the changeling.
Yet as haunting as the voice was, she also sounded terrified. “Sky, I’m in trouble!” She whimpered. “They saw me watching! I tried to stay hidden, but they saw me!”
“Where is Wanderlust? Is he on this frequency still?”
The insect whimpered. “N-No! I’m not sure what happened to him! B-But Sky, they’re… they’re breaking down the door! I’ve never felt hatred like this before... not even from you. I think… I think they might be trying to kill me!” Her voice was full of tears, making her hard to understand over the rush of the wind. Only the strange, reverberating quality of her tone gave Sky even a hint at what she might be saying.
A dark voice somewhere deep in Sky’s soul whispered that Alexandria’s bug problem could be solved, and she wouldn’t have to do a thing about it. She wouldn’t have to be guilty of anything, nor would anypony else she cared about. It would be an outrage, an accident nopony could’ve prevented! She could be as outraged as the rest of them, when they found out. Besides, there was a more pressing issue! Wanderlust had been waiting for her, and when he had heard her in danger had probably gone straight for the place she had been last. If he hadn’t been captured, he would be.
Riley. The insect, the girl, she had a name. Sky saw the picture of a child, gray eyes and dirty blonde hair and a goofy smile. Instinct screamed disgust at the frightening predator with holes in her legs and a wickedly pointed horn. Cloudy Skies the pony could keep running away, and leave the insect to her fate.
How many times had she pleaded in vain for someone to come and rescue her? How many years had she suffered? Since she had been younger than the eleven-year-old Riley. No one had come for her, and the result had been a life of agony. She knew nothing of what the mob would actually do, didn’t know if Riley’s intuition about their intentions was right, but it didn’t matter. Cloudy Skies might leave the girl to her fate, but Lainey Park never could. Humanity had no magic, after all, no semi-divine princess. All they’d ever had was each other.
She had to help. “Get to the roof! You can do that, right?” Sky stood up, holding the radio in her mouth as she started to run, searching for an edge of the cloud. It was gigantic, one of an ocean of them that had turned this entire day to gray, but she remembered seeing several openings. She would have to find one. Her hooves sank a little into the fluffy substance, and in her frustration she started to beat her wings again.
Up here, it took only seconds to get airborne, no long running start. The clouds seemed to dance and swirl about her, and suddenly she knew the quickest way down, banking sideways towards the place she knew the clouds parted. She barely heard Riley’s terrified voice over the rushing wind. “Y-Yeah! I t-think I can. I c-can’t fly, though!”
“Jsmmm gmtmmm thmmmm!” she yelled, before twisting the radio into her satchel and cinching it closed. Only once it was secure did she speed up, twisting along the pattern she had only glanced at in the “Basics of Weathercraft.”
Would it be enough? She was about to find out.
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Oh those bastards.
Go Cloudy! Fly!
Crap, this is escalating in every possible bad way.
Cipher 2 from Moriah - part 3 solved (with small mistakes, but the meaning's there).
So: pigpen, zodiac signs and a vigenère cipher.
Used tul=U; kum=A; min=I and vri=full stop. The other two I didn't quite get, obviously, don't know why. Hence mistakes. On edit: fixed, thanks to doppler effect.
Keyword is "Odium", incidentally what it says on the Dragon as well.
"My children, the deceived have known these pones. Gather that we may destroy their mark."
Well, that's one way to learn to cloudwalk.
Cloudy skies. Supermare extrodinaire.
something tells me Cloudy's gonna be awsome next chapter... hopefully
Whatever that idiot has allowed into the world (probably something from one of the nastier parts of Tartarus) it's very obviously not able to act without a mortal channel of some sort. It sort of reminds me of The First from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Now...? Now, I suspect that we are going to learn just why the Pegasi were the most powerful warrior nation on Equestria before the Unification.
Go Sky!
But something nibbles that me that Carol and Ed shouldn't be working together. After all, Ed beat Carol all the time, right? Oh wait, wrong universe.
6307068
First message:
triumph-in-philadelphia-shadow-speaker-directs-us-to-gather-in-alexandria-.-make- .[couldn't decipher the last word, probably haste]
later edit: the corrected message reads: triumph-in-philadelphia-shadow-speaker-directs-us-to-gather-in-alexandria-make-haste-a
Woohoo! I knew you could do it Sky!
Now for a dive run and evac.
Who would have thought that that schizophrenic personality would be exactly what was needed to save the day?
This chapter was fantastic once more.
Ouch... but maybe we can work on that now?
6307119 Thanks! What was the key? And yeah, the missing word is most likely 'haste'.
6307134
Ah, sorry, the key is still Odium. It just still looks like gibberish unless you guess the other replacement three-letter words correctly (I tried several versions of it last night using Odium as a keyword, and only continued when I saw you had got it to work.). I closed the thing I was working on without saving, so I'd have to work through it again to see what replacements I actually put in.
Cooperation is key, both between individuals and between the dual legacies of body and mind. I doubt this will be a flawless victory, but I have confidence in Lainey.
For Riley!
NO CAROL DONT BE EVIL YOU WERE THE CHOSEN BAT
Whew and so here we see how messed up Cloudy/Lainey is, and also why. I'm not that great at psycology or anything but thinking of yourself as two different people wouldn't that be sort of like split personialty? She wants to be "Cloud" but she needs "Lainey". Wonder if she'll lay off the others on becoming ponies.
Can't wait to see Cloudy start being nice to Riley.
Also Ryan summoning ancient evils is bad mmm K.
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20150310192855/disney/images/6/60/Riley_Anderson.png
6307317 In split personality disorder, the personalities won't know about each other except by other people and when they start ending up in weird places. Also, split personalities have very little depth to them. I think Lainey/Cloudy Skies is accepting that she can't just bury the past and pretend it never happened. She thinks of her human self as a different person, and this is her accepting this other half of her life back.
So somehow the essence of Nightmare Moon has come to Earth.
6307201 I like how Sky is calling herself both Lainey Park and Cloudy Skies in the same sentence, hopefully starting to accept both past human and present pony as parts of herself.
So, we finally find out a bit of Sky's backstory, not that it wasn't hinted at before. I hope that maybe Ryan is the only really bad pony there and that the others are just being mind controlled. Or maybe this story is taking the comics version of the nightmare entity as canon and it somehow slipped through the portal and is now possessing these ponies to do its bidding. Sky does mention the feeling of another presence in the house. Maybe ponies did not come through, but maybe the Nightmare did.
Good to have some confirmation of the behavior against Riley is based on a instinctual reaction.
I think we are finally seeing a display of Cloudy Skies' special talent. Nice.
6307149 Allllright. Didn't think of using different three letter word replacements for that one.
Probably spent too much time on the other one and used all the brain capacity :)
Ima go try that now.
Odium forgives, huh? So Odium must be the name of the nightmare thingy.
I'm glad to see Sky finally sees the humanity in Riley. Also, Ryan needs to die. I don't care if his intentions were actually well-meaning or some crap like that.
Admit it Starscribe. You wrote the entire story so far as a lead-up to THIS sentence. It's Sky's entire reason for existence.
A single chapter isn't enough to contain this kind of epicness.
Cloudy Sky, hero of Alexandria!
6307520
Sorry, was in a rush earlier and didn't explain properly. I used your code for tul, kum, min, (not vri). kar is 'o', mak is 's', vri is 'e', mes is '.', and with that code the end of the first message is indeed "make haste".
FINA-FUCKING-ILLY!
Rather literal considering we ourselves already guessed at her pony nature being the main problem here, it seems that Equestrian mind control magic only works on the Equestrian instinct or mindset, what a fatal flaw, you'd think they would at least make a more general spell for Diamond Dogs and other species.
And so, the ponies here aren't Equestrian, but are ACTUAL satanists? Or, at least the magical equivalent in this dimension.
Well, it seems that we have a possible arc for the future, after the excitement has died down, Miss Cloudy Skies, you have surrendered to purely the instincts instilled within you by miss Sunset, you became a pony, one that is timid to the idea of open aggression, one that wants everything to fit within it's perfect and happy world, one covers their eyes and ears to try and ignore ignorance, hypocrisy and the tragedy that happens from them and around them, you stuck to your ideals stubbornly, even when everyone else was in disagreement.
... Lainey Park however, you are a broken soul, you hated yourself, from the words of your parents before you, you had began to believe that in fact they were right, YOU were a waste of space, YOU were a freak, YOU were weak... you began to believe all of that and when the choice came? You threw away that 'ugly' personality and took another one, embracing your persona you felt stronger... for that you were fufilling the expectations of your parents, leaving your old self to only be remembered by ponies that wouldn't exist for several hundred years...
... But, today, who was it that broke from the control of devil worshiping unicorn? Not Cloudy Skies NO, she submitted, she ratted out her friends and she was turned into a slave at the hoofs of these dark ponies, her free will stripped away from the several ruins that worked it's effect on her Equestrian mind, weak in willpower and protection. It's was Lainey Park that raged against that fate, RAGED until she broke free and escaped. Who was it that flew faster and higher to escape that threat? Not Sky, she was still running to catch the drafts she feebly tried to maneuver through, attempting to scurry in fear and worry. Park rode and controlled the very winds to aid in her flight, breaking restrictions and boundaries she had set upon herself.
... Who was it that let go of her unease and self inflicted persona to rescue a helpless girl at the hands of murderous ponies knocking down her door? Sky fled and didn't look back, spiteful thoughts through her head as she left the one obstacle to her perfect life to her death, silencing the screams over the radio connecting the two together.
Park... she did that, she broke her self made restraints, she is come with a vengeance, forgetting ANY and ALL of her previous doubts and soaring ahead to rescue that little girl from her fate! She is harnessing the very weather to aid in her victory, SHE is the hero of this story, NOT Cloudy Skies the pegasus that swamped herself in an unrealistic ideal and prejudice, this is the story of Lainey Park! The human that stuck to her heart and morals in a pegasus body!
... You are strong, and you have proven your parents wrong, here you are a hero, Lainey Park.
This chapter is easily my favorite of the new story. Backstory for Sky, some action, dat flying!
6307290
M-maybe they're possessed by the Nightmare!
We can still have our batponies! It can still happen!
Oh, how I wish I could give this more than one thumbs-up.
...ya done good, Cloudy. Ya done good.
Starscribe, did you suddenly go super saiyan? I've been reading every chapter from both this story and the previous. All have been anywhere from good to wonderful. Then suddenly last chapter you bump it up to outstanding, and this chapter you break clear through to poetic beauty.
And that was just the background to Sky's amazing escape, and her breakthrough in regards to her feelings about Riley.
Jeez Star, are you channeling the Ghost of Heinlein?
That's it, jumping off the fence. Fav and Follow. you've gained a new minion. {Bows deeply}
I remember someone else came up with a theory that the Riley in this story and the Riley from "Inside Out" are the same person.
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/pixar/images/d/d5/Inside-Out-Riley-DMA-PP-crop.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140827025848
there might be more credence to that then I thought.
Also, Sky finally starts treating Riley like a human being (as she should). I know neither of them are technically human now but the two were human once. And regardless of their physical shape now, their still the same people deep down. It's about f***ing time Sky.
Why is everyone assuming that the dark presence or whatever is the Nightmare Forces?
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/3/27/280946__safe_idw_moon_spoiler-colon-comic_nightmare+forces_nightmare+dreamscape.jpg
I didn't see anything directly pointing at that.
6307068 What do you mean by "incidentally what it says on the Dragon as well."?
I'm trying to translate the dragon text by using the normal pigpen cipher, and the zodiac key provided earlier. The Ciphertext I get then is "x h u a qyzy o y u". Unless the V-Cipher solver I am using is bugged, which I doubt since it translated the first two messages fine.
6309002 Good question... seems I did something different yesterday. Note to self: keep notes.
6309864 Yeah really. Too bad that This came too late to provide helpful information, outside of the fact that there is a bit of Paternalistic leadership here.
6308061
Actually, the character who achieved all this is a fusion of pony and human, not one or the other.
Nor, if we look at it another way, is "Cloudy Skies" a separate person from Lainey Park. "Cloudy Skies" is not a real pony, nor are all real Equestrian ponies like her.
I don't know what facts you're trying to spin here in order to make the idea of ponies look bad.
6307449
Humans have the same "instinctual reactions" to giant insects.
6310378
I'm not specifically saying that the ponies ideas are bad, but you have to admit a lot of them treat situations rather bad, blame the writers or whatever but their attitude seems to swing from 'Putting your Hoof Down' to 'Pinkie's Pride' too quickly.
Basically, I hate the personality and what she views being a pony is, which in turn turns into the Cloudy Skies personality.
And also, that bug comment, while I might agree with it personally...
There are people that get into the Guinness World Records book for things like bug beards, they might disagree on that assessment.
6309881 Well... at least we still were better than Joseph
6310398
You should call it what it is - a fake pony.
Most bad fanfic writers of MLP FiM end up writing just that - fake ponies.
This includes some issues of IDW Comics.
And then there are ponies like Fluttershy.
6310412
Well sorry I had to spell it out for some people.
Fluttershy as frightened as she is of other things, when it comes down to moments of dire need and importance, and when it comes to most animals she can talk to, it dispels most and all the unease she COULD have felt, special talent remember? She would go out of her way too save them, from telling off that dragon in Dragonshy to combating her fears on flying in Hurricane Fluttershy... to stage fright... in-
Eh, that was kind of a minor issue, the point is Fluttershy is hardly the best example of total cowardice or absolute bravery, she's changed as of her Season one personality, but still.
6310400 I always thought the "Neural Network" he uses was a reference to everybody in the comments that spent their time and effort solving these codes.
6310400
I think I'd bet on him cracking it not long after seeing the picture Cloudy took though, same as we did.
6310467
6310453
Well, yeah, there's that. I concede that Joseph didn't have that advantage... but he's the data wizard, not me! I like the 'neural network'... somehow missed that. Anyway, I think we should stop spamming the comments now ;)
See you next code!
6307026
Well I should be skipping around much less in the chapters ahead. You can see if toning that down improves things or not.
6307075
Best way to learn is practically! Or... battlign for your life and fighting to keep a little filly safe. Whichever. They're pretty similar.
6307120
Maybe they can! ^^
6307201
I have confidence Lainey is about to try! As to whether she'll succeed, well... doesn't seem likely.
6307290
She's not the only bat in the world, even if she was evil (not saying she is)!
6307376
Arguably, those are blue eyes >.>
6307389
All it takes is a little crack. Little gap. Little hole.
6307439
6307565
Seems a stretch that they would've been well meaning. Based on what we've seen, I mean.
6307566
Actually, I didn't think of that sentence until four in the morning a week or so ago, so... probably not. Still, I was pretty thrilled when I figured out what was going to happen to Sky. Way more epic than my first idea for the ending to her chapter.
6308107
I'm pretty surprised so many people liked it. It totally wasn't planned. One of those spontaneous chapters that just sorta comes out of nowhere where the characters do something you really don't see coming. Did not expect Sky to resist the spell. Did not expect her to even stand a chance of saving the day. Yet here we are.
6308617
Hah, not sure if I've earned anything like that, but... I do think the chapter turned out pretty good. Guess we'll see if I can keep it going. Well, maybe not as intense as this chapter, but...
6308631
Better late than never!
6310611
Gotta give Joseph some credit! He doesn't have the image yet, we'll see what he makes of the code once he gets it from Cloudy Skies. Assuming she isn't about to get herself killed.
6310442
I should clarify that I'm kind of a SJW for ponies, because there's just such an irritating strain of anti-pony prejudice on this site, which is quite strange seeing as how it's a MLP fanfic site but there you have it. I think the full history involves The Conversion Bureau stories (I've never read them) ironically turning ppl against the very beings they originally came here to read about, and now those ppl can't get enough of humans curbstomping/ schooling/ lording ponies or whatever.
It rubs me wrong in all sorts of ways. Not just because ponies (or any First Contact species) don't deserve it, but also because war IS NOT the epitomy of human achievement. It may or may not be your camp, but I'm pretty sensitive to it.
As for Fluttershy, I meant that here's a pony who overcame her "instinctual reaction" to predator animals, when you mentioned not all humans are averse to insects. Meaning, I don't think ponies are controlled by their "instincts" any more/less than humans are. Lainey may have been, but it was more because she was a fake and broken person, not because "pony influence" somehow led her wrong.
6310662
Because stuff was shown rather than told, and a character grew while onscreen. The spontaneity wasn't just in your writing process, but also evident in the events.
Imagine if you cut away from the last chapter, and this chapter is a journal by Lonely Day a month later, talking about the events of Sky escaping etc. I would've reached into the screen to strangle you.
6307387
That's not necessarily true. The Host is sometimes in contact with other alters, and certain alter archetypes are often in touch with one or more other alters.
I am not a psychiatrist, but Lainey's condition seems closer to depersonalization disorder than dissociative identity disorder. Most DID patients have more than 3 alters, with the average number being around 16. Apparently, cases with as many as 4000 alters have been recorded.
Ryan. How dare you. I may be a mad at Cloudy right now, but this is not acceptable. Might they burn, those dyed in hatred for Riley~
Stupid invading a$$ holes. MURDERING YOU IS GOING TO FEEL SO RIGHT!!
Why is there so much hate against Changelings. I don't get it