Friendly Fire

by Starscribe

Chapter 47

They didn’t have far to go to reach the portal. A little crawling for the humans, and they found themselves in a much smaller cavern, quite warm and comfortable despite the chill of the temple behind them. There was a great deal more cuneiform writing on the walls they couldn’t read. Eric still had his working tablet and took pictures of each one. He didn’t really want to—nothing seemed to matter right now, but he forced himself to move. Danni wouldn’t want me to give up. She’d want us to be safe.

Jackie and Harley lingered in back, setting more explosives around the ruined entrance so they wouldn’t be followed. No one in their party seemed eager to speak. This temple had become sacred ground.

At the end of the brief hallway was a shaft about fifty feet around, empty as far below as he could see. Empty except for the island floating in the middle, twenty feet out. Lush grass grew atop it, along with a sturdy oak tree that concealed the roof of the cave. Just past it was a doorway, an arch of stone that met a curving branch. It was easily tall enough for a human to pass through without stooping, though he couldn’t make out many details from this far away. There were lots of little white flowers growing on the platform, oblivious to the dark and the isolation.

Eric found the gap not near the discouragement it had been. Heights still bothered him, but even a bottomless fall couldn’t scare him when he had a mission on his mind. He forced his fingers around the stem of the biggest flower he could find, then took off to fly back across the gap. A few quick beats of his wings and he had landed. “Excuse me.” He nudged Harley’s back. “I need to get past you.”

“Why?” Harley turned, looking up. “We already liberated everything useful from back there.” Then she saw the flower.

Eric crawled through the opening, not caring if he scuffed his arms so long as the flower made it. It didn’t make much difference. Almost the instant he stood up a layer of frost formed on the petals, and a little brown appeared near the stem. He ignored his shivering, and walked to the little pile of rocks and rubble they had used to “bury” Danni.

He cried some more. The others had mourned with him already. Danni’s death had crushed everyone, but none of the others could feel the pain that he did. Eric watched the flower die, and saw the face of his best friend.

He set the flower down on the top of the rock pile. “Thanks for saving us.” Months and months ago, Jacob had showed up to save him from the ECU. Together they had saved Danni, and formed the bond that carried them through losing everything. Their lives, their species, the whole world. When Eric was afraid, Danni had always been there. When Danni forgot why they fought, Eric had always been there to remind her.

“Someday soon,” Danni had said. “You’ll be a pony too, and we can be together. If we’re going to have everything taken, at least we can enjoy our new world together.”

Something flashed, and the dirt at his feet scattered in a burst of wind. Eric turned, and sure enough Jacob was standing a few feet away, expression solemn. “You come to remind me we need to go?” Eric couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. He had calmed down since the battle—on an intellectual level, he understood that there was nothing Jacob could’ve done. The magic Nightmare Moon had used killed her before anypony could’ve prevented it. Even so, he couldn’t help but feel resentment towards his friend.

“No.” Jacob kept his eyes on the stones. “I just…” he gestured behind him with one hand. “Portal is working. We might not come back. I wanted to say goodbye.” He looked down at the rocks. “Danni always helped keep us together, didn’t she? When Unity fell… I think I would’ve lost my mind without her.”

“Yeah.” Some fraction of Eric’s resentment evaporated as he pictured Danni then, standing beside the rocks and glaring at him. I kept you alive for almost a whole damn year, she might’ve said. We stuck it together this whole time, don’t give up on our friendship now.

Instead of curse at Jacob, Eric nearly started to cry. He sniffed, then cleared his throat. “Do you think ponies have souls?”

Jacob didn’t look at him, didn’t answer for a long time. “Danni was the religious one,” he croaked. “She never doubted it.”

“Y-yeah.” The words weren’t coming easy. “She prayed every night, out loud and everything. You’d think learning our whole world was a lie would’ve made her question her beliefs, but…” He shook his head. “It all made more sense to her. She seemed thrilled by the idea that Samson had been an earth pony, just like her.”

Another long silence. The wind was starting to blow above them, and almost at once Jacob started shivering. Most of them had lost cold-weather gear in the fight, but Eric’s pegasus blood made him more resistant to the cold. Unicorns had no such advantage.

“Whenever I heal someone…” Jacob’s voice was barely a whisper. “I feel something. It’s hard to describe, kinda like a… breath. Or a wind. Something trapped inside them. If they’re hurt, it might be real faint, just a spark… and when a pony’s healthy, it’s a bonfire. Maybe that’s what a soul is? We’re going to Equestria, you could always ask the princesses. Apparently plenty of ponies worship them.”

“Not me.” He smiled weakly, wiping at his face with one arm. “Danni wouldn’t like it.”

They left, hurrying back to join the others. Eric passed explosives in the cramped tunnel opening, and only Harley remained on the other side of the gap. Harley looked up to reprimand him, but though her mouth opened, no words came out. She blinked, then wiped her eyes with a sleeve. “Every time I think there’s no hope for your species… every time I think ponies are cruel and selfish and not good for anything but a meal…” She mussed his hair. “Where does that love come from?”

He shrugged. “I miss her.”

“Me too.” Harley hugged him. “She was a good kid. Equestria won’t be the same without her.”

“No, it won’t.”

“This portal doesn’t look like the one back in Unity,” Jacob called, as soon as they had landed back on the floating island. All his friends were there, and the weight had apparently driven the floating island down by several feet.

Eric watched Jacob hurry up to his sister. She smiled down at him, then reached down to fix his hair. They were obviously close, close enough that just being near each other made them stronger. Danni and I were that close, he thought. Closer.

He could almost hear her reprimand him again, but it was just his imagination. If souls did exist, hers apparently wasn’t in a hurry to visit.

“That’s because it’s nothing like that one.” Harley approached the edge of the portal. It had an event horizon, a darkness which swallowed their flashlight beams and the light from Jacob’s horn with equal ease. Yet they could lean around behind it. It had no volume, no depth. Only a sense of powerful, constant magic.

Michelle looked sick, and she seemed to be staring at the tree. The only thing that wasn’t hard on her.

“If it works, we should get going,” Jacob called. “Michelle isn’t doing so hot.”

“Speak for yourself, pipsqueak,” she whimpered.

“Right. Jackie, Katie, you’re first. Same thing as the Gatecrasher trip, but worse. This teleport has to cross five dimensions instead of four, so expect it to be that much stronger. Land and get out of the way, and keep watch. Equestria is safer than here, but I don’t know where this portal lets out. Probably another hidden temple.”

Jackie hugged Katie briefly, then raised her weapon and vanished through the portal. The instant they crossed the blackness they vanished completely, gone without a trace.

“Jacob, have you explained the whole magic deal to your sister?” Harley asked.

She answered before Jacob could. “I might end up one of you little horse-creatures if I go. But if I don’t, I get picked up by those military guys when they come looking for their last team. Or I freeze. Both of those suck, so a diet of grass and hay it is.”

“You probably won’t have to eat grass.” Harley smiled reassuringly. “Only ponies in poverty do that. After what we did, Celestia probably has a mountain of gold waiting for us. It’s pastries and champagne from now on, baby.”

Michelle blushed, but Jacob just glared. He shoved, and she vanished into the portal in front of him. “Don’t you get any ideas about my sister,” he warned. “You already have one girlfriend.”

“I suspect you have misconceptions about changeling relationships, kid. If you think we’re monogamous, well… would you eat just one kind of food? Even your favorite can get bland, if you don’t mix it up.” She waved the detonator at him. “Go on through, and don’t come back. Only living things can take stuff through a portal, but you wouldn’t want to come back out right as a bomb goes off.”

Harley lifted the bright orange piece of metal and plastic in one hand, and flipped a plastic trigger-guard out of her way. “You two are last, I’ll be right behind you.”

Elise met Eric’s eyes then, her eyes distant and pained. She nodded. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” Eric had no hatred left for Elise. The attack she had caused on Unity had not killed the one he loved. Not only that, but she had fought, been willing to put herself in danger, and even saved Danni’s life at one point during the fight. It hadn’t made a difference in the end, but… the attempt was noble.

He stepped through.

* * *

Jacob had felt nothing as he crossed inside the portal. There had been no strange chills, and no spaghettification as differing tidal forces stretched his body an atom wide. Rather, the world had gone instantly silent as he was yanked inside, as well as utterly dark. No stars, no sunlight, not even the light of his horn pierced the void. He didn’t suffocate, didn’t freeze, nor indeed could he feel his own body.

There was nothing, and it went on forever. Jacob tried to shout, but nothing happened. Tried to cast a few spells, but the magic wouldn’t come. No healing, no communication, nothing. He tried to get the radio from his pocket, but he had neither hands nor pockets.

Michelle is here somewhere. Katie is in here, and Eric, Elise, Harley and Jackie too. Is this what it’s like to be dead? All dead because I insisted we had to do something to stop Sunset. He couldn’t cry, or feel any of them nearby. We should’ve just told Sunset about the code and left well enough alone. She might not have investigated, but at least we’d still be safe in Imperium. Danni would still be alive. This sure felt like death, no warmth in his body and no heartbeat in his veins.

What would the only pony city be saying about its heroes now that they had run away? At least he wouldn’t have to be there to find out.

You don’t belong here. The thought felt foreign, yet it came from within, not the endless nothingness. He had heard it before.

We didn’t want to come. We were trying to find Twilight. We weren’t trying to run away to Equestria, but we ended up in a fight and didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t speak without a voice, but he could think. The strange speaker had always managed to hear his thoughts before.

It heard him now. You cannot accomplish your purpose in the void. You don’t belong here where nothing is made and nothing is unmade.

Shouldn’t I be suffocating? Or freezing to death, or baking from radiation, or something just as awful? Why am I still alive?

There was a long silence. Jacob worried that perhaps he had frightened away the voice. He would’ve been thrilled to have it gone before, and indeed it had always left him alone eventually. Now, though, with literally nothing to keep him company, he longed for it to remain. There was, after all, the distant hope it might help him. He had no reference to know how long it took. He felt no pain, no hunger or thirst, or tiredness. It was as though time itself was merely a hallucination, or perhaps a memory.

Space implies place, time, entropy. None of these exist in the void. All is circumscribed upon itself, without end or beginning.

If that’s true, who am I talking to?

Another long silence, this one punctuated by a few bubbles of alien emotion. Amusement. You lack the vocabulary to describe me. I am inside you—I am a force, a god, an inevitability. I am none of these things. I am the projection of your imagination within the void. I am the expression of inevitability. I spin the webs, I make the heroes, I tell the stories. I am Anake.

Am I in one of your stories?

Ever since the most ancient ponies dedicated themselves to me, you have been mine. Competence, magic, and purpose I gave. A mark for each and a place in my story. Your planet had forgotten this, but it is starting to remember. The old magic wakes, and I make of you a draught of the old wine.

You’re the slaver we came to Earth to escape, aren’t you? The one who puppets ponies around on strings. You steal their free will, the most fundamental part of being human.

The voice didn’t sound angry in its response. If I were a slaver, would I have allowed my slaves to cast off their shackles? If I took away their freedom, how could they have succeeded? How could your whole planet, billions strong, have ever come into being? Your misunderstand my gifts.

The speaker gave him no chance to interrupt. Ponies gave me all their dead-ends, their failures and false starts. In exchange, I showed them where they were strong, or created strength from weakness. Each one another hero for my story, threads joined together in success and triumph. Just look at your world. Your bodies may have changed, but your nature has not. Deep down under that hairless skin are ponies longing for the purpose I would give them. You invent yourselves religions, mythologies, and superstitions, but you would need none of that if you remembered me.

I gave you purpose, Lifeline. I gave you a rare trust—to spin a few of the threads yourself. I knew I had good stock in you, and in the ones you brought. When you wove together, the three of you made for the weft in a beautiful tapestry.

Why couldn’t I save Danielle? I’m part of your stories, like you said. I’ve got the damn Cutie Mark for saving people, don’t I?

Why do you assume the decision would be yours? Broken Chain chose to strike when the demon parasite was at its most vulnerable, knowing she might become a target herself. In some ways, you might say she chose her fate. In the hall of the martyr there are few cowards.

She didn’t choose to die! She would’ve let me save her! Danni had practically her whole life left! We would’ve been in Equestria soon, safe from the damn war!

If she had not acted, you would all be dead. My Broken Chain broke many chains in my service. It is a fitting end that she would die breaking the back of the one who would enslave my friends.

If Jacob could’ve spit on the voice, he would have. We’re not your friends.

If he expected his words to wound, he was sorely mistaken. The voice only seemed pitying. You will see the truth before your story is told, Lifeline. You have my word.

Jacob liked the sound of that even less than he felt like this being’s friend. He now had some idea why his own ancestors might’ve wanted to flee to Earth, and to let their children be born human for a chance at freedom. He could even see why Harley’s kind might want to take on their curse in exchange for freedom. Are you ever going to let us out?

Never. Always. Now.

Jacob was alive again. Sensation came with such speed that he was completely disoriented—deafened by a wave of noise, in agony at the pressure of his clothing on skin and the cool air outside. Revolted by the smell of damp air and his own unwashed body. He tripped, convulsed, and couldn’t get his legs to respond correctly. Something grabbed him, holding him down, but he only felt more trapped, and struggled harder.

Harley hadn’t been lying, that had been much worse than the Gatecrasher teleport. It took some time more for him to sort out his senses—sound first. “Jacob! Jacob stop struggling.” He did. He thought he had gone blind, until he realized his face was actually covered with fabric. The voice was Harley, complete with a slightly strange reverberation that hadn’t been there when she was on Earth. “You’re on four legs, Jacob.”

That explained why he couldn’t see his hands. He fought, and stretched, and eventually could see an opening just above his head. Where his neck had been. Something ripped, and a strange limb appeared above him, dark and reflective and with a few holes. “You okay? Seems like the less pony someone was, the more screwed up their brains are.”

Jacob took the hoof, and struggled to an upright position. Sort of. His back felt strange, like he should feel himself bent over, but didn’t. His spine didn’t protest, nor did it feel like he was hunched.

Harley watched him for another few seconds, appraising. She was a very strange sight—pony sized and shaped, but with obvious insect qualities. She had a frill instead of a mane, and lots of holes in her limbs. “You gonna fall over on me, pansy?”

“No.” He wasn’t sure he meant it. “Where are we?”

“The other side of the portal.” Elise spoke from beside him, her voice low. She hardly seemed to see him, and was instead staring off into the distance. “Guess the portal really did go somewhere.”

“Obviously,” he muttered. Harley’s prediction had come true: they stood on a floating island not unlike the one they had just left. The same single tree grew here, the same species of white flower. The portal seemed to have doubled in size from where he looked at it, but… that was just a matter of perspective. Pity he didn’t have a mirror. Though Eric had fallen not far away…

The screen to his tablet was off, and in its polished surface he could make out a fully pony face. Brown coat covered with paler blotches, just like his lower body had been. Somehow, his body no longer looked unnatural, and he didn’t feel the desire to wince when he moved.

Where was his sister? A human ought to be easy to spot with her obvious difference in size, but he couldn’t see her. Only several piles of too-big clothes and abandoned possessions lying where they fell.

“Welcome to Equestria. This isn’t what I expected, but… we’re still breathing. That’s something.”

Jacob nudged a furry shoulder poking out of Eric’s clothes. It felt alive, but didn’t stir at his touch. “Eric’s frozen, I can’t wake him up.”

“Probably shock from… whatever just happened.” She lifted up into the air, dropping her duffel. Her wings buzzed, and seemed to fit her insect-like body far better. Jacob didn’t even feel afraid. “I’ll get help. Do what you can to help them wake up.” She flew off into the dark, leaving them alone.

Comments

[Doppler Effect]

Am I in one of your stories?

A-ha! Starscribe was the villain all along!

[The Commandant]

7599882 That makes the other 4th wall break make much more sense.

[Streamline]

Anake seems very much to be trying to paint herself in a good light. Somehow, I don't trust her one bit.

[AATC Fanboy]

What do I have to say about this? Not much. Only Jacob and it would get on about as well with each other as Sweeney and Joanna, as Charlie Bucket and Wonka. They'd have some common goals and methods, but ultimately totally different end goals. Adversaries who start off as comrades in arms.

I hope whatever Mich is, it's not Pegasus or thestral. If anything else, she could come back to earth when it cools down, and the only substantial differences would be possessing telekinesis or being extremely durable with superior stamina. And maybe having an outlandish hair and eye color, which she could easily place a wig or contacts over. If she grows wings, she's stuck with them no matter what shape she takes. Is it a mere coincidence the thestral in this story has the same name as the one in LOPE?

[Noble Cause]

I get the feeling Anake subscribed to the 'road to hell paved with good intentions' turn of phrase... and I kinda like... him? her? it? either way...

[Iamaprettypony]

The voice didn’t sound angry in its response. If I were a slaver, would I have allowed my slaves to cast off their shackles?

I think the real question is could it have stopped them if it had wanted too? It IS there now. It IS actively turning humans into ponies now.

Are you ever going to let us out?

Never. Always. Now.

And there it is. Straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. It said it will never allow them to be free even after saying it will not take their freedom.

Entity, you are a liar. And a bad one at that.

[Star ShaDe]

Well things just got taken to a whole new level. Jacob getting a one on one with the supposed creator of pony kind.

[PestilentHail00]

7599937 Who would trust a being of otherworldly power trying to do the "right thing." Weaving "tales and stories" but binding them to a specific fate. Putting themselves in a good light just makes them even more untrustworthy.

[Snow]

"We have no freedom if there is fate! Choice is meaningless!" My that's a prideful assumption... That one wholly understands the way of the world, and the way it works, shearly through logic gained from a single perspective.

Consider this instead: What if 'Fate' or 'Destiny' isn't the only path you can take... but is instead the path you will take because of who you are, of what you believe, of the choices you make? What if 'fate' is merely the pattern of the world that we will create as long as we are ignorant of the pattern itself?

[unknowncape7377]

My philosophy is that there may be a god, there may be none, or many. I may be wrong, but I might be right. There may be heaven or it may just be eternal darkness. Only time can tell, and I shall know when my time comes.

[Helium]

only 3 chapters left, yet it feels like things are really only just beginning. Something tells me i will not like the end.

[Zanec]

Space implies place, time, entropy.

Space does not imply entropy, humans decided that, because that is all they have ever known.