Part 7 (Founders) - Chapter 1
Adrian was alone in a world of pain. The spirit called Odium pressed down upon his mind, trapping him in his worst moment, stretching into forever.
Thousands and thousands of times Adrian watched that memory replay. The pain of the crash was bad, but it wasn’t even close to the worst part. He saw the mare on the roof of the hotel. He heard her over and over, a hopelessness crushed by the weight of an uncaring universe. Nothing he could say made a difference. Eventually, when she thought he wasn’t paying attention, she jumped. It was ten stories to the ground. Enough time to try and catch her.
Maybe it would’ve been if he had been a proper pegasus, with Cloudy Skies's flying ability. Instead, he had been a pony just a few days. He could barely open his wings, let alone fly with them. He jumped anyway, tried to catch her.
He didn’t. She died. Over and over she died, and he lived. He lived his broken wing over and over again, though that wasn’t the worst part either. The worst part was the sound her body made when she hit the ground. Pegasi landed soft. Unicorns didn’t. He had scrubbed the blood off his body till it bled, but never felt clean after that. “You failed to live on your own,” the voice told him, over and over. “Those around you suffered. With me, you will not fail again. You would have caught her if I was guiding you then.” He had not believed the voice the first time, or even the hundredth. In the end though, everyone would bow before the might of Odium. His rulership of Earth would be absolute, nothing could defy him.
And Adrian believed that, too. He saw Oliver captured, watched his brave struggle against the voice of hatred. Watched his medical detachment and the will to fight death in his own way crumble. Oliver had bowed before the might of Odium, and his will too was now subject. All humanity would serve, and there was nothing any of them could do about it. It was as inevitable as the tide.
With no contrary evidence, Adrian stopped fighting. Odium gave him more and more freedom the more he was willing to believe. After all, a servant was more useful when he wanted to obey. Obedience meant he could act again, and so he obeyed. It was simply the way of things. When Alex came, he fought with everypony else. Something struck him in the chest, something that felt like being hit with a baseball bat. Nothing broke, though it was a near thing. He was stunned with pain, unable to act for nearly a minute.
Then there was silence. Odium’s voice vanished from his mind, and he was left alone. Alone with the agony of a gunshot. Adrian hurt too badly to do anything other than wish it would kill him. Maybe it would, maybe that was why Odium had abandoned him. He was no longer useful.
The instant the red started to fade, Odium was back. He demanded that Adrian rise, and so he rose. The pain burned at him, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop him. The spirit demanded service, and so service was what he received. Adrian hardly noticed as his influence began to fade. Enough of it remained to remind him that resistance would not help. Enough to bring the crushing weight of inevitability down on him. He heard voices from within the library, but those voices were not for him. Odium demanded nothing more of him but stillness, so stillness was what he gave.
Then True Sight was there, standing in front of him and looking worried. She said something, but Adrian didn’t hear it through the haze. The conversation was not for him, and so Odium had taken sound from him. It wasn’t as though his ears were gone, or they had ceased to be sensitive. Just that whenever he tried to listen, whatever he heard suddenly became unimportant.
Then she was gone, replaced with someone far more precious to him. Riley. He wanted to scream, wanted to warn her to turn and run as fast as she could. Odium knew his thoughts, he would know she was here. If he ordered Adrian to fight, he would fight. If he ordered him to kill the girl with his bare hooves, he would. He wouldn’t have a choice.
He felt the cool touch of the changeling’s chitinous horn against his chest, then the sharp pain of her teeth. He ignored it. Ignored it with all the force he had. Odium was spread among many ponies, and not focusing on him. If he didn’t seem interested, if he made himself as bored and focused on the pain in his chest, maybe he wouldn’t be forced to do anything.
The mist on his mind began to clear. The gray around his heart began to fade, as passion boiled it away. He loved Riley, he loved the ponies of Alexandria and the world they had come from. He loved clear skies and watching hockey games and action movies. He might love Cloudy Skies, he wasn’t sure about that one. Yet most of all, he loved being able to make a difference. Being able to try. What do I do?
“Whatever you want,” Riley whispered. “You’re free.”
He was.
“It’s going to try and take Alex! You can’t let it!”
They needn't have worried about fighting the other ponies on their way in. Like him, they had been frozen on their hooves. Like him, even a major threat didn’t seem to register. Odium’s attention was elsewhere.
He noticed something else on his way in, though. A squawking radio, resting on the ground beside the largest piece of the APC. Evidently Ryan hadn’t noticed it, or else hadn’t cared. Adrian scooped up the earpiece.
“Damnit I need to know what to do, pony! You shouldn’t have-”
Adrian recognized the speaker’s voice even through her anger. He cut her off. “Taylor, this is Adrian.”
The other end went abruptly quiet for several seconds. “Hello, Adrian,” she eventually said, voice thick with suspicion. “What have you done to Alex?”
She knows they got to me, he thought, frustrated. He cast his mind about for a solution, but he didn’t have to come up with one. Riley was there. She tugged him down by the shoulder with surprising strength, taking the headset off his ear. “Taylor, Adrian’s good for the moment. I got the parasite out of his head.”
Adrian could only hear the other side of the conversation because Riley kept her head purposefully close to his. “Riley? Alex told me you’d got away. What are you doing there?”
“Getting my friends!” She sounded exasperated. “Look, Alex is still in there. I know you’ve got drones watching us. Use them and look at us. Adrian’s not stiff like the others, see? He’s one of us. I’ll get our other ponies too, gimme a minute. They haven’t been captured as long, so I th-think it’ll be easier. I… I think I’ve got a little juice left…” She passed the headset back to him in her flowing magic, and he took it.
“What the hell is going on over there, Adrian? Something tore my APC to pieces, and it was running a CPNFG. Granted, it was a little bitch compared to the ones we use for aircraft, but the alternative would be making an APC large enough for a nuc-” she cut herself off. “Question stands. What’s going on?”
“Odium is riding around in the pony named Night Speaker,” he explained. “He’s got way more powerful magic than a unicorn should because of it. I think he broke your APC. Alex had already left, though. She’s inside.”
Little Riley was curled up into a limp ball in front of Joseph. As he approached, he heard her mutter. “Didn’t h-have enough for Moriah… s-sorry… later…”
“You did fine, Riley.” He reached her side and bent down to stroke it once. “You’ve done enough. Rest.” He helped her into a corner, even as he watched the intelligence return to Joseph’s eyes. His recovery was far swifter than his own had been. Yet even as he touched her, some energy seemed to flow back into the little pony. The fog cleared from her eyes, and as she rose, he watched her change.
Horrifying wasn't quite the right word, particularly after all that he had seen. Unnatural? Yes. Disquieting? Sure. But it was no stranger than her appearance. It took her only seconds, and she'd grown and grown and grown, returning to the body of True Sight.
“Where is Alex?” Adrian asked, just as Taylor asked it in his ear. He scanned the room, but didn’t see Alex or Ryan or Abrams for that matter. There might be other ponies missing too: he hadn’t yet learned the faces of all the newcomers that had been hiding themselves away. Just a ruined library floor, wrecked furniture, and the stairwell leading down. Down those stairs Adrian’s eyes could not pierce the darkness.
Joseph gestured. “Down there. We need light.” His horn lit up with a faint glow, and he started forward.
“Not yet. The ponies up here are stunned. Get their guns away and follow me.” There was a fight going on down there, but he wouldn’t leap in blindly this time. He had done that in Niagra, and it had only ended with death and a broken wing. This time he would be prepared. “Did you ponies have a plan?”
Joseph spoke as he worked, levitating each firearm or knife he could see out into a growing, glowing cloud in front of him. “Alex was supposed to draw everypony here while Moriah and I destroyed whatever thing Odium was hiding in. Turns out it was hiding in a pony. Moriah attacked him, even though Alex told us not to. You… saw what happened.”
“Yeah.” Adrian gestured at the empty space behind a return-desk, out of sight unless you walked right up to the desk and looked behind it. He took a lantern from the desk even as Joseph piled the weapons of the cult ponies behind it.
“I don’t know why it’s just letting us do this.” He sounded nervous. “Odium is vast. It could control thousands of ponies at once if it wanted to. Even if it doesn’t need them for whatever it’s doing, shouldn’t it be using them to stop Riley from getting us free? The only-” He froze. A gunshot rang out then, and Adrian turned to race towards the stairs.
Taylor broke the silence. “I’m en route with Alex’s backup plan. It’s about two minutes away. Ask Joseph if he thinks it’ll work!”
He did, and Joseph frowned. “Not if we let it get away.” He darted down the stairs, lighting up his horn as he went. There was only one living pony at the bottom of the stairs. It was like Niagra all over again, and the proximity to his torturous memories nearly made Adrian lose control of his stomach. He held it in, but only just. There were two bodies, and standing only a few feet from them was Alex. Darkness boiled about her, burning from her eyes and out her ears and her mouth, as though a cloud of malevolent smoke was trying to choke her. He supposed that was exactly what was happening.
“It needs a new host!” Joseph exclaimed from beside him, seeming detached from the carnage at the base of the stairs. “It wouldn’t need this much to take one of us. For some reason it looks like it's pulled in almost all of itself.”
“Why?” Adrian frowned down at the cloud, puzzled. “She’s just a teenage earth pony. There isn’t anything we can do, is there? She’s going to lose.” Adrian had felt what Alex was feeling, though even then it had only been a small fraction. When Odium had taken his will, it hadn’t had to freeze its other followers to take more of its power away. If it had… he shuddered to think of the agony Alex must be experiencing. Within her mind, it would be seizing onto every reason she hated herself, every failing, and twisted until she bled. Would there even be any of the real Alex left when she emerged on the other side? Could Riley save her too?
To his surprise, it was Riley’s voice that spoke from the stairs. She barely stood, her limbs shaking with the effort, but she fought on anyway. “She won’t lose, but we still need to help. When she kicks Odium out, we need to make sure he can’t go anywhere. Do either of you know how?” She no longer sounded like a fearful child. She sounded like a confident ruler, without the slightest hesitation about being obeyed. She sounded very like Alex might sound, if she had been a freaky bug with a freaky voice.
“We have to let the light in! Somepony get a mirror!”
“There are big ones in the bathrooms.” Adrian turned, happy to be helping while simultaneously getting as far away from the carnage at the base of the stairs as he could. Joseph joined him as he kicked the locked bathroom doors open. Together they unscrewed the mirrors from the wall, using scrap metal and unicorn magic. Adrian opened all the blinds, working out the best angle to reflect the most light downstairs. With three mirrors and a little cleverness, they could get some serious light down there. He could only hope it would be enough.
“Plan B: inbound. Twenty seconds!”
“What is that?” Adrian held one of the mirrors, while Riley propped up another and Joseph levitated the last one at the necessary angle. It was very strange: Adrian had never seen sunlight so bright. The sun blasted past him like the blazing heat of midsummer noon, though it was November. He had to look away, lest he go blind in the brilliance. Through his peripheral vision, he could see the brilliance flood down the stairs, lighting up the basement like a star. He felt strength in his limbs that was not his own. Good, he thought, though he wasn’t sure the thought was his. Brighter.
In the light of the sun, Alex’s body was all that remained. Only thin wisps of shadow radiated from around her, cowering behind her and away from the light like a snake. Was he only imagining it, or was the light stretching to fill the space, reflecting off stone and concrete as though it were polished steel. There was nowhere to hide.
He heard Taylor’s answer right as engines roared from overhead. “Your Hummingbird! Field ain’t running, but it’s about to be!”
Alex opened her mouth to scream. “GET OUT!” Adrian knew resisting Odium was futile. He had experienced what it was like to have only a fraction of its mighty will pressing on him. Alex had faced all of it. Yet out it came, darkness pouring from her mouth and her eyes and everywhere else, pooling like tar at her hooves. Much of it burned away as the light touched it, save for a pool of the deepest, thickest filth, which started to snake away behind her into the basement.
“Closed range, engaging projector!”
Adrian felt the chill of the HPI’s thaumic field neutralizer, the same one that let them survive in a world now hostile to human life. He had felt it before, but never like this. It was as though gravity was suddenly pressing on him, crushing him to the earth with a relentlessness he had never experienced. The strength that had filled his limbs vanished abruptly, leaving him entirely on his own. If he dropped his mirror, half the light that flooded into the basement would be gone. He didn’t drop it. Joseph did, glass falling to shatter from levitation that suddenly no longer worked. Thank god for Riley's quick thinking, or else they would've lost the light entirely.
Ponies all over the room began to quake and tremble. Some screamed, some whimpered, one tried to run out the door, only to stumble and trip over herself before she could. Of course, the greatest change came from below. Alex’s strength waned at last, and she collapsed into unconsciousness. Behind her, the serpent made from darkness spasmed and convulsed. He heard screaming, screaming that burned his ears even though he didn’t speak the language it used. The creature began to boil away like dry ice on a sidewalk, popping and sizzling and radiating a fine mist. It took only seconds before it was gone completely.
Odium was dead.
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Loved this arc
Now lemme leave my hiding place where nopony can find me
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Unfortunately for him, it's "Odium forgives", not "Odium lives".
Something tells me that the clean-up is going to be a difficult and generally challenging time for everypony.
Know Odium was a gender-less spirit, but still, seemed fitting.
Foul little thing, and I'm not talking small in terms of power. Been quite a while since I read a story and was so glad to see the antagonist turned into a smear on the floor.
Ding dong the witch is dead.
Seeing Odium dying was greatly satisfying. Props to you Starscribe for making a villain who you want to see dead.
Because why not.
6381181
Well, that was pretty awesome. The way it might have been able to escape even after getting kicked out by Alex if they hadn't been ready for it doesn't speak well for how easy it'll be to get rid of any future Umbrums though.
Hopefully the folks that were mind-controlled will all be able to recover now.
Archive sure knows how to setup a plan.
Stopped, dropped, and anti-magic'd to fine mist. As he/it deserved.
Also, Riley still leading in the Best Character race.
BUCK YEAH THOSE LAST WORDS WERE SATISFYING.
Adrian under Odium's thrall was magnificently creepy. The worst part for me is the sheer patience. It just keeps going, eroding the wall through sheer bloody-minded repetition, crushing and suffocating with the weight of inevitability. Ugh. I'm glad to see it gone. Hopefully. I wouldn't put it past the thing to yet linger in one way or another.
Of course, now the founders must face a very important question: What now? The books are burnt and there are a bunch of hollowed-out mind slaves to deal with. And winter never stopped being a thing. This could get complicated...
Good fucking riddance. Burn that thing until there's nothing left.
YES. That will be all, thank you.
Ha-HA! Take that, Odium! You're dead!
Well, rest in pieces. This was satisfying enough to repeat that.
Just had a thought about why a changeling cannot be mind controlled. Their minds parallel process as we have seen (drones need that capability too to follow orders while ecstatically feeding). You can only mind control something which isn't fluid. Try to control Riley and she simply puts that part of her consciousness on standby and ignores it in favour of the parts that are free. And she can just switch to or create new paths for thought processing. The controlling entity will always be a step behind.
Blacklight is best queen. And is growing into the role as well.
You WILL love me!
Usually guys like this have a 1up lying somewhere around. Just remember, if he says something about "This isn't even my final form" remember to die your manes blonde before continuing.
6381423 and spend 80 chapters monologuing
I am extremely happy at this turn of events. Odium is one of the most disturbing antagonists I've seen, and his mental mutilations will have lasting effects that will take some time, perhaps years to heal.
-Soos, Gravity Falls
I just...hated this villain so much. He's just a terrible vile abomination. One whose blight I am glad is gone from this world!!
Great job making him, and finally putting an end to his rein of horror!!
Riley, surprise best changeling.
It's interesting how this is shaping up even prior to Alex's little mental combat with Odium down in the library basement.
No wait, it's during? Didn't it play out a little differently from Alex's POV?
Gonna try a large scale, properly nuclear powered anti thaumic field, finally?
Huh. Extra bright sunlight? If this was Equestria I'd just blame Celestia, but she should be a dimension away and fully unavailable.
*fist-pump*
I suppose the next question is whether this was a solo act by Odium or if any of his kind are stirring up trouble elsewhere on earth, and what other sorts of troublemakers snuck through the portals.
6381316 I don't think the books in the bag were burned, as it wouldn't open unless her soul willed it open. Also, the books that were burned had copies in the HPI databases. Alex had contingency plans for this very situation.
Aaand I've catched up, just in time too! Damn, this story is so good.
Wait, how did Riley know what Taylor said when the radio was plugged into Adrian's ear?
Also, I'm glad Odium is finally dead. I'm just disappointed it didn't involve more ironic fire.
You know, 'cause he burned the books.
Rip in pepperoni Odium
6381904 Probably because she heard what Adrian said, so she knew it was Taylor, and saw on him that she didn't believe him.
6381177
I have to disagree with this. Odium was, to me, a very uninteresting villain. It had little to no personality beyond enslaving everyone and serving it's own interests, it seemed almost to only be there purely as a Hate Sink and to give the cast some force to fight against. I don't like villains that are there merely for us to hate. They, quite frankly, take away from a story in my opinion and are just boring and irritating to read. There should have been something more to Odium to make it even slightly more interesting, to have any kind more depth to it. Perhaps a very twisted code of honor, or may be all it's hosts were addicted to Pierogis. Something, anything to make it more enjoyable to read parts involving it. INstead it's just a dark nebulous threat there for us to hate and the cast to fight against. While the story and universe as a whole are awesome, Odium itself is a let down.
I would rather have seen a villain like Loki or Magneto from the recent marvel films. They're the bad guys. You don't want them to succeed, but they're very interesting and deep characters too.
If you want a completely evil, irredeemable villain, you can still have that and give them a personality. The Joker from The Dark Knight is a good example. Dark, evil villain but with a hell of a lot of personality and a joy to see from the audience's perspective.
My two cents on the subject.
6381316
Odium certainly had patience... so long as everything was going his way.
Riley seems to be the only party member with the power to heal Odium's damage, and her love IS finite.
So Alexandra is going to play babysitter to a bunch of empty shells till she get the energy to "fix" them.
Alex certainly wouldn't have the stomach to just let them wither and die... and Riley will do what Alex asks.
Winter is a problem, but the books are safe. The damage, while bad, was not irreplaceable.
Alex knew the books were a prime target, and planned for it.
She is likely going to be looking into a print shop once winter is prepared for.
Adios Odium
But before I start dancing on the grave, I will wait to see the next chapter just to make sure it is actually dead. I don't know how many chapters are left in this part.
Aziz light!
Odium pretty much is that all devouring darkness after all.
Dear Odium:
6381181 I'm glad I'm not the only one who was reminded of that.
6378182
In her way, perhaps.
6378197
It seems his fears were well-placed.
6378222
The apocalypse is not kind to children.
6378253
Things were solved, but only in one aspect. More was left to do. Now we've seen it.
6378400
I'd totally join!
6378406
I say number two. She's much too useful to let go. Not to mention she is just a little kid... or she was. Obviously she's grown and changed a great deal since then. Lots of people have written changelings, but I wanted mine to feel alien. She is not human, she is not a pony, and I wouldn't want to pretend otherwise. Capturing a mindset that's understandable to a human audience but also otherworldly was first priority.
6378626
Hah! That story! X.x
6378657
Once Odium is destroyed, then the rest of the story! Whatever it ends up being...
6378692
Well it's almost over, but... you've got a few chapters left! Once they're... posted, I mean.
6378799
I'd line up for that.
6379041
Yeah, I dunno if it was meant to be secret. Well to the bad guys it was...
6379159
That might be! >.>
6379696
When writing Riley, not making her seem like "just another pony character" was foremost on my mind. Changelings might be similar to ponies, but I wouldn't really see the point in writing about them if they were exactly the same.
6379794
I didn't, that was just how Riley saw him in her mind. He isn't really Anthro.
6379834
I intend to treat this issue with the care it deserves.
6381086
You made it out alive! See, I knew everybody would! Well... maybe not everpony, but...
6381106
Yeah mang
6381147
I guess that means I did my job. My goal for each of the character chapters was for people to leave each one at least sympathizing with the character, if not liking them. For odium, I wanted genuine emotions of disgust, hatred, anger... the comments seem to indicate that worked.
6381177
^^. I'm glad that seems to be the near-unanimous opinion. I measure the success of a villain based on how much people hate them.
6381316
That is the question. The mastermind is gone, but its handiwork remains. The quest isn't over just because you've killed the big bad; now you have to pick up all the pieces of the world he left.
6381416
Like trying to erase a computer virus. Easier said than done. Often times the only recourse is to just wipe the whole thing and reinstall from scratch. Not an option with a mind, so... Riley 1, Odium 0.
6381506
Hah, no! Maybe if this was a JRPG...
6381595
Thanks! The fact that people hate him, I think, means that I at least did something right with him.
6381738
I think Alex just wasn't very conscious of what was going on upstairs. She barely noticed any of it, except to see Carol there at one point. She had bigger problems in her time, I think.
6381864
Just one more part to go, too! Granted, that's like five more chapters, but...
6382148
This part is going to have 5-6 chapters, one from the perspective of each still living character.
... Well... that was something.
Now the final arc, a run through of all the POV's before, awesome.
6382713 The fact that he is so well hated and people cheer for his defeat so feverously, means that you did a great job!! Otherwise people wouldn't care so much. He's exactly as written: A character so vile and terrible, that you want him dead, brought back to life, only to be killed again. Much like Hitler in Epic Rap Battles of History
It was interesting to see Adrian's past. His refusal to get his wing treated seems less manly stubbornness and more self loathing now. Same with the painkillers. His latching onto Riley makes a lot more sense too.
I've been thinking about the destruction of the books recently. With a lot of missing information what kind of magic will the ponies of Earth create? Would they come up with something completely new or will they use their magic to emulate old technology. (would IT fall under conjuration or transmutation or a hybrid of both?) Imagine using illusions instead of a TV or even a phone.
6382713
Well, that's kind of ominous...
6383838 S/he meant MLP does't exist as a franchise (i.e. there's no MLP TV shows, toys, etc.) in this setting.
6384434 Weren't most (if not all) destroyed books already digitalized by the HPI? Alex can still get backups for those.
Also most books were still inside Alex's magical saddlebags, outside Odium's reach and thus not burnt. There was a reason he tried to force Alex into opening them.
6383838 The show, not the universe. Equestria exists, the show doesn't.
6382713
There's a difference between hating them because they're a fantastic villain (aka The Dark Knight's Joker), and hating them because they were poorly executed and detracted from the story. Odium was the latter case for me.
6385761
Sometimes people just like a bad villain?
I felt the same way about Kefka.