Infinity's Edge (Beta)

by Caldoric

14: Rescued, But Not Recovered

Luna stood in the clearing, looking at the small, unassuming wooden construction that was Caldoric's home. Alongside her stood several concerned figures, each of whom had practically stormed Canterlot Castle in their haste to beg for her assistance. Foremost among them were a rather strange Ta-Matoran, an unfamiliar purple Toa who seemed perpetually out of place, a diminutive bipedal skeleton who -- despite the direness of their claim -- continued to crack the occasional joke, and a female Spherus Magnan who called herself "Shelau" and self-identified as a "Vakhi", whatever that was...

A contingent of Lunar guards stood to attention around the area, though the nocturnal Diarch could tell through minute details they let slip that there was confusion amongst their rank. Her guard could not see what she could at this moment, and she doubted they ever would.

Motion caught her eye, and she turned her attention back to the "house". The door had opened, and the procession that came through it would most likely become one of the strangest sights she had seen in a good time. At the head of the ill-matched crew was an almost bestial Toa-like figure, leaning heavily upon an abnormally large and feral-looking Changeling. Behind them came many other Changelings of the more normal variety, several giant four-legged spiders with oversized mandibles, a few bestially-disfigured entities of widely varying description, and a small crowd of beings who bore striking resemblance to Shelau.

Shelau, for her part, rushed forward with outstretched arms and cries of joy to meet several of her apparent kin, who had all done the same. Meanwhile, the spiders and most of the Changelings began wandering out to the clearing's edge, possibly setting up some form of perimeter as the rest attempted to usher the pair of strangers who were formerly at the parade's head off to one side; however, neither of the odd duo would be turned from their unsteady walk towards Luna.

When they got within fifty feet, the hunched being dropped to its knees, looking at Luna with its strange, bi-colored eyes, and spoke.

"Par... Parrrrrrrrliament?" It paused, looking confused. "Parse? No, no; parrrrticulate, perrrrrsnickety...?"

"Parley?" Luna suggested, at the same time as the strange Changeling that'd been attending the speaker.

The speaker looked up sharply, snapped with the clawed fingers of his left -- and seemingly only -- hand, and then pointed at Luna with a smile. "Aye, that." He affirmed, his voice gruff, but still somehow familiar. "Knew you'd remember, Lulu. 's not every night a guy accidentally crashes the royal tea party, eh? And once again, I'm in a spot of bother, so I throw myself at your mercy."

"C-Caldoric?" Luna asked, shocked. The figure nodded and, before she could continue, he turned to his companion and spoke.

"Midge, you know your my second in command, yeah?" He asked the tall Changeling, his words beginning to slur drastically as he swayed drunkenly. "I gotta crashhshsshh here in a bit, so take the helm...! You c'n trus' 'er, arait?" He moved to gesture at Luna, only to pitch forward and nearly land flat on his face. The only things that stopped him from achieving a full faceplant were Luna and "Midge" seizing him in their magic. As they hoisted him upright again, they could hear him snoring softly as his head tilted forward.

After a second of this, Luna and the Changeling looked at one another. "Well... Midge, was it?" Luna asked, raising an eyebrow. "Mind explaining what happened here?"

Midge gulped nervously, and did his best to tell her everything he could about the situation.

~~~~
(Later, inside the "house"...)

Luna massaged her temples thoroughly. She then lifted her gaze, locking unamused eyes with Midge, who sat opposite her at what had most likely been a sort of island-counter in Caldoric's crudely-furnished "kitchen". Luna took another deep breath and screwed her eyes closed for a mere moment before speaking to the Changeling before her.

"So, thou art telling us that Chrysalis and Roodaka have joined forces, pooling their resources to create an as-yet unknown breed of Changeling-Visorak hybrid, armed with the best of both its progenitors' races. They also had been tunneling towards the Capital with intent to enact a strike against Equestrian high society, focused particularly upon myself, Celestia, and anypony else capable of maintaining order in the country. Thoughts art also asking us to believe that the two aforementioned just so happened to run across Caldoric's admittedly expansive network of tunnels, then decided to use it as a breach point to the surface hidden away in the Everfree Forest. Afterwards, Caldoric and his friends arrived unexpectedly, and we're attacked by Roodaka and Chrysalis' joint forces, whom Caldoric and several of his party were subsequently ensnared by, after which several of the captives -- including Caldoric himself -- were experimented upon and mutated by the venom of the previously mentioned new Visorak."

"Uh, yes, but--"

"After that," Luna continued, holding up a hoof to forestall Midge's words, "Caldoric then led an aggressive escape attempt, with no training, no plan, and seemingly little skill...? And that, subsequently, those of you who had followed him out severed ties with the Hive and formed a new one with Caldoric at its center?"

There was silence for a moment, and then Midge spoke.

"Yes. That's... That's pretty much what I just told you, though a bit simplified."

"And why did he fall unconscious?"

"Er..." Midge rubbed at the back of his head. "I'm not sure, to be perfectly honest, ma'am. My best guess is that the transformative effect of the venom may have called upon the energy stored in his body's cells as it worked, leaving him drained afterwards. I'd recommend he get a good meal of... Uh. Food; food and rest. That's my recommendation, at least. I don't exactly know what his biology was like before the transformation, though he looked half-draconic. As for now?" He did his best to shrug, which seemed awkward with his new, second set of wings getting in the way. "I don't even know what I am anymore. Who am I to judge?"

Luna turned her gaze towards the presently semi-monstrous form of Caldoric, which presently was curled almost restlessly on his makeshift bed in the adjacent room. His eyes were screwed shut, his brows knit together, and he occasionally muttered things like "no, don't" or "please, stop it...!"

"We must need look deep into his subconscious." Luna stated, though there was a tone to her voice that hinted she would probably rather not at the moment. "In this case, unusual as it is, We shall be needing permission. From you, specifically, young Midge. He seems to trust you implicitly with his well-being, so I leave the decision up to you."

"A valid point," Midge said as he gratefully gestured to the lunar princess. "However, it would be much appreciated if you would be willing to send a few of your forces down with ours to round up as many of Chrysalis and Roodaka's forces as--"

A faint rumbling and shaking of the cavern around them brought the conversation to a halt. Luna's gaze moved this way and that as she sought an unknown danger. Meanwhile, Midge's gaze shot to the tunnel leading to the lower levels of Caldoric's former exploratory mining efforts.

After a few seconds of Midge supposedly staring off into space with a vaguely growing look of concern, Luna was about to ask what had happened, only for Midge to finally speak up once again.

"They've just collapsed the tunnels... Shit!" The harsh word took Luna by surprise: it had been a while since she'd heard any pony swear, let alone with such a vehement tone. "If there's one thing we Changelings know better than burrowing in secret, it's how to collapse our tunnels and confuse those who would wish to follow us . It's only a last resort option, however... I doubt there's anything we can do now to track them down. You have full permission to access his mind, as long as you leave it intact: we'll keep things secure here in the real world alongside your guards, in case any sort of suicide squad was sent up to cause us some last minute trouble." He then nodded and walked off without another word, his face a mask of concern and uncertainty.

Luna discreetly gnawed the inside of one cheek, considering her options as she glanced at Caldoric. As if sensing her gaze, the stricken figure fidgeted momentarily. Luna knew this wasn't going to be an easy task, but it had to be done. With skill born of many years' worth of practice, she closed her eyes, settled herself into a comfortable sitting position that could be maintained for hours on end, and cast her spell.

The still, motionless underground air began to stir, swirling around her faster and faster with every second as she built up power. When she had enough set aside, she let it flow through her horn. As it moved, it drew a line of pale, silvery-white light along the groove that curled along the horn's entire length, until it reached the tip. Once there, it pooled in a small marble of power, and then a small tendril of energy journeyed forth from it, seeking its way across the chamber towards Caldoric's sleeping body. Luna discreetly cracked one eye open to ensure her aim was correct, and was just in time to notice something unusual transpiring.

Normally, when she cast the spell, the tendril would make contact with the subject's forehead, and a connection would be established between their mind and her own. This time, however, the tendril had its own ideas; just as it was about to touch Caldoric's forehead, it suddenly jinked upwards, shot forth over the top of his head, and split in two. Before Luna had time to so much as gasp, each of the new sub-tendrils had wrapped themselves around the smoall hornlike protrusions sticking out of the back of Caldoric's head, and then buried their probing tips into the material at the horns' base.

Thus, the connection was established, and Luna's awareness of the world around her faded as a pulse of energy made its way along the cord of light between their minds.

~~~~
Luna's eyes shot open as she came to consciousness in unfamiliar surroundings. Scrambling upright from her formerly prone position. The motion had been somewhat undignified for someone of her status, but she did not see anyone else around to take notice of the incident, so she wasn't concerned. Her momentary comfort, however, was short-lived as she finally took real notice of her new environment. Everything she saw was blurred and unfocused, almost as if she was looking at it all through her peripheral vision. Her head felt strangely foggy as well, and she had no idea why. The scenery itself was chronically inconsistent: there were trees, and there were not. There were hills, and there also were not. There was a cabin, of sorts, and there also was not.

The colors of everything were somewhat faded, slightly more greyish than she was used to seeing things, with the sky itself being the largest offender; it looked vaguely overcast, but not in a dark and gloomy way. In fact, if she hadn't seen the actual, vaguely amorphous clouds hanging in the distance, (which were also not there,) she would've been convinced the sky was overcast. Of course, as she quickly discovered, she was hard-pressed to focus her attention on anything for very long, perhaps because of the unfocused nature of everything around her.

During this first impression of the place in which she currently found herself, Luna reflected on the fact that it had been quite some time since a dreamscape had altered her perception of things so dramatically. She also couldn't help but wonder if Caldoric's dreams were always so drab, or if this was a unique circumstance. The lunar princess was shaken from her musings by the sight of Caldoric wandering aimlessly around. He, at least, was fully colored, though his form was as inconsistent as the surroundings, and he did not look the same as Luna remembered him; he currently appeared to be human, though clothed in a mix of casual cloth and metal armor that shifted almost constantly. As she watched, he was suddenly an anthropomorphic dragon, then a Toa, and then a hybrid of all three.

Luna briefly looked down at herself, to see if she was also as colored as Caldoric was, though she couldn't tell for sure. Turning her attention back to her surroundings, she was surprised to find Caldoric was now standing incredibly close to her, looking almost exactly as he currently did in the real world, save that his eyes were both silver-grey instead of heterochromic orange-green. His gaze shifted all over the place, almost as if he was looking at her for the first time.

"Cold Winter fast approaches as we fearfully wait," he said, absentmindedly, as Luna reeled from shock. "The simplest of simple creatures, bound by the laws of fate; yet as we shivered in the forest -- worlds away from home -- we lost our last vestige of hope, freezing and alone. Now, a shadow comes to us in our dreams, with tales of better times; is the royal princess of the night to save us in our time?"

Luna was thrown momentarily off-balance by his words and unusual use of rhyme in the situation: even in the dreams of her subjects, unusual though they may be, things always made a certain degree of sense, even if only to her.

Perhaps her confusion had shown through to her face, or perhaps it was because she chose that moment to shake her head in a vain attempt to clear the fog from her mind; whatever the reason, Caldoric's expectant face fell, and he shook his head in turn as he looked away. "Nay, the surface world did overlook us as a monster we became; our flesh made shell and armor, nigh extinguished was our flame."

Luna had had about enough of Caldoric's brief spell of speaking in verse: it was bad enough that, in the time she had been banished from Equestria, the Zebrican ponies had apparently picked up the habit of communicating only in poorly-constructed rhyming couplets to show how "wise" they were. And now, this human was not only addressing her in a very similar fashion, he was practically accusing her kingdom of -- what, exactly?

"Lo, Lunarabelle," Caldoric said, one hand stretched dramatically towards the sky above as he gazed into the heavens. "Behold, and heed well my words."

Luna was so shocked at this relative stranger -- who apparently knew her true first name (which only Celestia was supposed to know) -- that she almost didn't look up at the sky as he had requested. When she did, though, all other concerns were forgotten in a heartbeat; Clearly visible in the uncertain sky was an array of several planets.

While none of the overlarge planetoids were native to either Earth or Terra's solar systems, they were quite obviously bigger than they ever should appear in any sky without the aid of a serious telescope. This meant that each of the planets had to be impossibly close, both to one another and to whichever world they were on now. Of course, it was only after this revelation that Luna realized Caldoric had been speaking.

He was doing so in some tongue that she couldn't place at first, though by the time she did, she had also come to realize that she might as well not bother listening to Caldoric's words. It was an old, old tongue called Eldrantz Equii, and given the particular "speaking forward and backward simultaneously with a mouthful of peanut butter" inflection he was giving it, she had to guess that it was an Inactive form of the language's Lesser Invocative recension. This being a dialect with no real delineation between past, present, and future (among other things,) it meant that if you accidentally checked out of a sentence for even a second, you could render entire swathes of conversation untranslatable.

In short, because she had missed Caldoric's first couple of statements, he may as well have been speaking Klingon for all the good it would do her. Yes, she had occasionally taken to watching a series of human television broadcasts known collectively as "Star Trek" in her spare time; however, she sometimes had trouble understanding some of their cultural cues, let alone being able to separate human science fiction from "real" human science (as they understood the concept, that is.)

When Caldoric finally came to a stop, dramatically dropping the raised hand to his side, she finally spoke. "Caldoric, what is the meaning of all this...?" She demanded of him, and the reaction was immediate.

Caldoric tensed, almost as if startled, then looked frantically around for a moment before his gaze settled upon her once more. His eyes, Luna idly noted, had gone back to there previous heterochromic state: his right eye glowed an unusually vibrant spring green once more, while his left glowed pumpkin-orange. Once again, his form had changed once again, leaving him in the guise of his "Hordika" form. Caldoric also did not appear pleased to see her.

"Th-the blood... moon!" He exclaimed softly, his voice brimming with panic and his eyes filled with fear as he leveled a shaky finger at her. "She rises...!" He then glanced about for a moment, before suddenly booking it in a random direction.

"Wh-- get back here!" Luna demanded, and made to follow him. She soon discovered that nothing seemed to work properly anymore, now that she desired to run; first her hooves seemed to stick to the ground, and then, once she'd tried flying to get out of the predicament, her motions felt impossibly slow, like trying to run through molasses. It was a disturbing sensation, one she'd not known personally for eons, though she had encountered it often enough in some of her subjects' less savory dreams.

To have it affect her, personally, -- and now, of all times -- it was a disturbing omen. Perhaps Human minds were more different from those of Ponykind than she had previously thought? After all, given Humanity's overall lack of obvious offensive or defensive physical attributes -- especially their lack of magic -- it made sense that they'd evolved to operate differently in the realm of dreams as well as that of the physical.

Eventually, she found herself atop a gravel hill that'd taken far too long to crest, looking down at a landscape that was even more grey than before. In fact, it seemed almost metallic, like polished steel: there were slightly darker lines curving and weaving their way across the otherwise nearly-featureless ground, with no discernable pattern. What caught her attention most of all, however, were two biomechanical figures apparently locked in a slightly animated disagreement next to a large, crater-like hole in the landscape. Others like it -- each different in size -- occasionally dotted the landscape, though at a fair distance from one another. She couldn't see very far into this closest one, though she felt uneasy considering where it could possibly lead if one of the two figures were to fall in somehow.

Abruptly, the ground came loose beneath her hooves, sending her scrabbling and skidding down the gravel slope towards the two strangers. When Luna finally came to rest, she found herself staring up at the two figures, who were looking at her in return, and she was able to notice several details about them that had gone unobserved from atop the hill.

One of them, who was nearly cowering, appeared almost malformed; his back was hunched unnaturally, there was almost no symmetry to his physical form, and his right forelimb ended in a strange crystalline contraption that looked almost akin to a crudely-designed sword. His left forelimb, by comparison, was shriveled and practically vestigial, his tail was bent and crooked in places, and he was covered in old, deep scars that stretched across both flesh and metal.

In short, he looked to be an almost pitiful creature, save for his beautiful emerald eyes. Behind the ever-present fear, there was a sort of defiant quality to his gaze that appeared at complete odds with everything else about him. They spoke of intelligence, weary but determined, and they almost seem to indicate he was used to the situation.

The other entity, however was the complete opposite of his companion. His form was sleek, and his armor spoke of lean, toned muscles set to pounce on anything that gave it half a chance. "Predatory" would be a good way to describe him: just looking at him forcibly put Luna in mind of the most elegant hunters of the animal kingdom: large jungle cats, ancient dire-wolves, snakes, sharks. However, far more prominent than the feral characteristics were the anthropomorphic ones, which reminded her all too well of Rahkshi and the Sangheilian "Elites". Speed, elegance, and fatal grace this one had, all wrapped into something Luna could easily believe would not stop hunting a target until he had caught it, no matter the cost.

He, too, had a blade sprouting from his forelimb, though it made that of his companion look like a club by comparison. It was comprised of a single large crystal, meticulously ground down and sharpened to a razor-fine edge all around. It was an elegant instrument that promised a most sublime destruction to those unfortunate enough to be on the wrong end of it. It almost seemed to hunger for blood and carnage just by existing, moreso than the being of whom it was part. His eyes brilliant orange eyes, however, were wild and unfocused, indicative of a mind unhinged, though nearly as sharp as the blade he wielded.

Of course, for all their differences, the duo also had many similarities between them. For one, their color scheme matched that of Caldoric's armor near perfectly, though with strange splotches of what appeared to be rust scattered unevenly across their forms. They both also had chains running from just below where their respective blades met their wrists, though where each chain led differed. The hunchback's chain trailed off into the hole and vanished from sight, while that of the hunter drooped briefly before rising into the sky, terminating abruptly and illogically a few feet above his head.

"E-excuse me..." Luna said, getting to her hooves once more, "but could you please tell--"

"Ihr hat vielen Gelt!" The predatory one screeched, taking advantage of the momentary break in conversation to whirl on his companion, shoving him sharply towards the hole in the ground. The shabbier figure stumbled backwards a few steps, though he mercifully came to a stop while he was still several yards from the edge. At this point, the more feral of the duo suddenly grabbed hold of his chain and gave it a mighty heave, causing a greater length of it to be pulled from the midair vanishing point. Simultaneously, the chain attached to the weaker-looking one was suddenly pulled further into the hole by some unknown force, almost causing him to be dragged closer once more before he stood his ground against it.

They're... connected? Luna wondered. But what happens if one is pulled to the extreme?

"Ehess, du weißt es anderes," the struggling figure stated, "das wir nicht sehr viel Gelt haben."

"Ihr hat Gelt, Eickh. Geben sie mir...!" The other figure -- "Ehess," Luna supposed -- said to the one he'd addressed as "Eickh". It sounded like they were speaking Germane, but her knowledge of the language was quite rusty: she was more familiar with what was now an antiquated dialect, but from what she was picking up, it seemed they were arguing over... Gold? Money? Luna couldn't exactly tell; she was definitely missing something.

"Intruder."

Luna jumped and spun around at the word, which had come from almost directly behind her. She had hardly completed the motion before a metal, gauntleted hand snapped closed around her neck and lifted her bodily into the air. As her hooves scrabbled fruitlessly against the armored forearm before her, Luna came face to visor'd face with the entity that held her. It wore an old, medieval-style set of plate armor, of the type that Paladins of old would be proud to wear. It, too, bore the same color scheme as Caldoric, though the distribution of colors and detail were more refined, suggestive of a high-ranking entity within whatever organization of which they were part.

"So, it would appear that the would-be Usurper has come into our domain." The stranger declared, the seemingly empty eye-sockets of their helmet suddenly blazing with white flames as they locked gazes with Luna. "But to what end? Did you think you could just enter uninvited, without consequences...?"

"U-usurper...?" Luna choked out, confused and concerned. "What are you...?"

"Do you know what your sins are...?" The Paladin asked, ignoring her question. "I do. I see everything about you. Would you like me to tell you what I see? Pride, do I see. Envy, too, do I see, and Greed, and Wrath, and Sloth. And yet, no sign of Lust, nor -- unlike your sister -- Gluttony."

With each conceptual sin the figure accused her of, images flashed through Luna's mind. For Pride, she saw Equestria from her balcony in Canterlot, the entire vista shaded in the blues, whites, and greys typical of her carefully-crafted nighttime displays. It was true that she took satisfaction in a night well done, and with the advancements in society that had been made during her banishment, her work had gone far more appreciated than it ever had before. And yet, the land she saw before her now, blanketed in darkness, was not modern Equestria: it was the one she had known before her banishment, before the very castle whose balcony she was now standing on had come into existence. But why?

For Envy, everything shifted. She still saw Equestria as it was more than a millennia ago, but bathed in golden sunlight this time, and full of ponies frolicking and playing, which it had not possessed during the night. And those who moved in this light gave praise to naught but her sister for this light, never giving thought to herself or her nocturnal works.

For Greed, she saw fragments of moments scattered across the many months before she had succumbed to the entity known as Nightmare Moon. Each moment was accompanied by excerpts of thoughts -- innocent enough at first, though they quickly grew dark in nature -- as to how great it would be if the residents of their kingdom would only appreciate her Nights as well as her sister's Days... or if they would appreciate only her Nights, forevermore!

For Wrath, she caught snatches of the moments across history when she had let her temper's leash out just that little bit too much. Prominent among them was the evening after the foiling of a particularly dangerous attack against her sister: for the first time in anyone's memory, she had raised a rust-red moon, and it was so brilliant the night sky was tinged with echoes of its overtones. But, more importantly, she saw her final transformation into Nightmare Moon, and the subsequent battle with her elder sister and best friend; it had left their home of the time in ruins, with Luna entombed within the Moon, Celestia drowning in grief, and their kingdom in turmoil.

For Sloth, she saw the day of Cadence and Shining Armor's wedding, the attendance of which she had foregone in favor of maintaining a "functional" sleep schedule, subsequently leaving the defense of their kingdom up to her sister, the then-fledgeling Princess of Love, and the unprepared Elements of Harmony. She had slept through the entire invasion, while several guards had been injured and even put into critical condition. This was followed with every time her sister had chosen to send Twilight's little circle of friends off to save Equestria from whatever new threat faced the nation, and Luna had done little or nothing to show objection to the thought: Discord, Sombra, Tirek, and more had come knocking at their doors, and she had sat idly beside her inactive sister. It was only due to the timely intervention of Autum Skies and the first Human to have ever arrived on their world that the country was saved in that last instance. Various other, lesser incidents made their presence known to her once again as well, particularly the matter of Prince Blueblood; then again, none of the royal court wanted to hoof the bill on the ancestry of that hot mess, especially herself. Luna shook her head, clearing the haunting mental images from her sight.

"As you can see," said the stranger who still held her by the throat, "you possess an inordinate score of red within your ledger. Though the history books may have forgotten, your soul will always remember; see, it betrays your past even now..." The stranger reached forward, pinching at a patch of Luna's coat, and coming away with a small clump of the same rustlike substance that coated portions of Ehess and Eickh's metallic hides. The armored stranger then crumbled it between his finger, and flicked away the resulting dust. Of course, it was only then that Luna realized that it wasn't rust; the smell was wrong for rust, though there was a definite metallic undertone to it.

What she had seen crumbling between the armored digits of her captor was blood. Dried blood.

She looked down at her body, dangling loosely from his hand as her hindlegs kicked feebly, uselessly, at the unresistant air. Her coat was matted with various large splotches of dried blood, so much so that barely any of her natural color showed through. Luna took a long and shuddering breath, her nostrils filling with the unfavorable scent as she did, and her mind reeled. What could this possibly mean? Who, or what, had such power to affect her on such a level while she was dream-walking?

"Uhlbreickh, stop tormenting her...!" Eickh called, from outside Luna's field of vision. "We've all made mistakes, as you're fond of reminding us every five seconds. But for every mistake made, we grow a little. And she's done a lot of it, faster at some points than others. You're in this thing just as much as we are."

"Not as much as you presume, Eickh," Uhlbreickh countered, dropping Luna to the ground and drawing an impressive-looking sword of knightly design. You make mistakes, I don't; I merely experience momentary lapses in oversight."

"Oh, yeah? Then what do you call letting us get blasted by the Visorak after we landed outside the base? Admit it: you fucked up, and fucked us over...!"

Something clicked in Luna's mind then, as the pair of unusual beings squabbled. Eickh and Ehess hadn't been saying "Gelt" during their brief exchange in Germane: they had been saying "guilt".

Another realization came hot on the tail of the first, like a pair of dominoes being toppled as part of a chain. The dried "blood", the talk of guilt, the strange trio's individual behaviors, the use of Germane... In fact, even their names; Ehess, Eickh, and Uhlbreickh. It was all part of an old psychological theory that had long since been disproven -- or, so the residents of the waking world believed.

Es, Ich, und Über-Ich...! Luna mentally remarked. The carnal Id, the self-important Superego, and the arbitrative Ego! And yet, the Ego is overmatched here by both the Id and Superego together; I must do something to resolve this! But what?

"Oh, I'm sorry, we'd just spent the last several hours crossing two entire continents, give or take, so I was off the clock...!" Uhlbreickh replied with a superior-sounding tone of voice. Meanwhile, Ehess jumped Eickh, and began trying to throw him into the pit.

"Enough...!" Luna shouted, getting to her hooves and firing off a spell in desperation. Tendrils of brilliant white energy lanced forth from her horn and wrapped around Ehess and Uhlbreickh's necks, dragging them both away from Eickh. She then tenderly picked Eickh up and set him on his unsteady feet several extra yards from the pit's edge. This had the side effect of leaving Ehess hanging from the chain on his wrist in midair. "The three of you, stop this madness at once! Thou shouldst be operating in peaceful cooperation, allowing Caldoric to live a normal, stable life. But here you are, bickering like foals over a toy. What have you to say for yourselves?"

All three of them turned to look at her in surprise, then at each other.

"Er, Luna..." Eickh began awkwardly, "perhaps it would be best if--"

"Scram, bitch!" Ehess shouted, looking terrified out of his mind at her presence.

"Er, sorry, 'bout that," Eickh apologized, glaring briefly at Ehess, before continuing. "You might want to vacate the area shortly: this place is less welcoming to folks of your kind than you're used to." He then looked up, grimacing nervously at the sky.

"Indeed, Princess; you be best served to wake up very shortly." Then he, too, looked up at the sky, pointing a finger upwards as well. "Like, now...!"

Luna, curious, looked up too, and saw something she would have deemed impossible if she weren't looking at it just then: there, in the sky, was a strange and artificial-looking moonlike object of some kind, though larger than Terra's moon and very very far off. Around the edges of a great dish-shaped crater in one hemisphere, several green lights twinkled ominously before sending forth beams of energy to collide and focus above the crater's center point.

"That's no moon, is it...?" Luna asked herself, knowing full well that it couldn't possibly be a naturally-occuring satellite. As she watched, the orb of condensed power that had created atop the intersecting beams seemed to busrt, sending forth an even larger beam of deadly energy on a trajectory that seemed eerily spot-on with her current location.

"Luna, WAKE UP!!" Uhlbreickh shouted, and as she looked down from the spectacle in the sky, she caught a glimpse of the Paladin's fist just before it connected with her jaw, and everything went white.

~~~~
The real world, Caldoric's base.

Luna was knocked to one side as a hoof collided frantically with her chin, and quickly went over sideways. She briefly noticed the web of discolored magic that tore itself from her face and discorporated, before her field of vision was flooded with the extremely concerned expressions of several Changelings, Vakhi, Lunar Guards, and one Ta-Matoran. She shook her head and sat back up as best she could, then turned her attention to Caldoric's prone form through the quickly parting crowd. There, she saw something that concerned her greatly.

Caldoric's hands were holding themselves in the air above his face, a veritable cat's cradle of magical energy strung between his splayed fingers, like some arcane dreamcatcher. The line she'd previously used to connect herself to him had somehow been snarled in the construct's center, where it had blackened disconcertingly. Between the thaumic net and Caldoric's head, the line had turned a sickly green. As she watched, the whole thing fell apart, and Caldoric's arms dropped limply to the bed, and he mumbled incoherently.

Luna absently rubbed her chin, noting that she was probably going to develop a bruise where she has been struck. "Pray tell," she said to the crowd at large, "who struck me...?" Her tone was not one of anger. Instead, it held notes of sincere and benign curiosity. After a few seconds of awkward shuffling, a single figure stepped forward nervously: it was Midge. He took a shaky breath, and then -- without warning -- dropped himself to the floor, prostrating himself before her, apologizing profusely whilst shamelessly bowing and scraping as if his life depended upon it. Luna held up a hoof, and his verbal activity came to a swift halt.

"Thy actions were most fortuitous, Midge," Luna said, and the members of the crowd looked about at one another in confusion. "Events in the dream realm were proceeding most unfavorably. If it were not for thy most timely intervention, then I fear both Caldoric and myself might have been irretrievably lost. And so I say... Thank you."

"R-right..." Midge said, awkwardly, as he returned to his hooves. "Is, uh... What should we do next?"

Luna raised an eyebrow. "We would recommend that he be moved to the Royal Canterlot Hospital, so we may better keep an eye on his condition. Of course, we leave the decision to you, Midge, since Caldoric left you in charge."

Midge blinked, then glanced around at the crowd for a moment. "Uh, yeah, let's do that. I'll be coming with of course, for, uh, security reasons, and... and we'll have a group of Changelings stay behind to make sure Chrysalis and Roodaka's forces don't try sneaking back through. I mean, I'm pretty sure they're not gonna be back anytime soon, but just in case. Also... any victims of the experimental stuff Roodaka was doing, you're welcome to stick around if you want, or if you wanna go try and find a way to have whatever she did to you undone, you're free to do that; I'm not gonna stop you. Same goes for the Vakhi Caldoric brought with him when he landed; you can stick around, or go ahead and make a life of your own in the outside world, whichever. I'll have to ask those who do choose to leave to not tell anyone about us being here; I get the feeling Caldoric wants this place kept secret."

"We will speak with our sister," Luna added, "and we shall see if aid cannot be offered by the crowns to those who wish to return to the public, especially the Vakhi; the world is a strange and unusual place if you're not prepared for it; much has changed whilst you were living in Metru Nui."

There was some murmuring in the crowds, but decisions were eventually reached, and everything was set into motion as Midge had decided.

Author's Note:

I have been sitting on the idea for this chapter's dream sequence thing for a couple years now... I have actually had a couple dreams that were sort of like the setting of the first portion, with large planets showing up in the sky, and my first thought was of something about a "blood moon" the second time the dream came around. As for the coloration... I don't remember what the background really looked like, so I improvised.

Now for some news.
Nova, who wrote the original work for the Convergence Multiverse, is rewriting it all from scratch. While he and I have been in discussion on the matter of worldbuilding, I've realized that several of the changes he will be making are going to require some major changes to a number of scenes in this story, assuming I wanted to keep it compliant with his new canon. As such, I've decided that I'm going to put this story on ice once I've finished chapter 15.

But worry not!

I will be starting from scratch myself, essentially rebooting this story as a whole. This will also allow me to have Caldoric jump into the timeline of the Convergence much earlier. Also, I will be doing my best to salvage as much of this as possible for the new "Infinity's Edge". Unfortunately, a few characters will be cut on my end, for my own reasons. I'll post a link to the new version of this story once I've finished the first chapter of it.

Thanks for sticking with me this far, and sorry for not getting back to it for the last two years...!