Chapter 24: Midnight Hunger
Hayden followed the ancient human into his workshop, her mind buzzing with questions. She wanted to know how he had come to Equestria—more importantly, how he had been able to bring all this. The machinery she saw all around her bore the same look as that outside, more like the interior of a starship than a bunker. There were airlocks at regular junctions, and emergency respirators in marked cases along the walls.
The workshop itself was massive, stretching away from them. Only the area nearest where they had entered seemed used, all sorts of unidentifiable equipment surrounding something like an aquarium tank. Hayden could feel the energy in the air around it, not unlike a pegasus’s weather magic. A low electrical hum filled the room, and occasionally energy arced from one coil of wire to another.
There was something in the tank, watching them. Hayden couldn’t see inside it—the glass was polarized, reflective. But she could feel it.
Star Swirl stopped at the top of the stairs, gasping. His horn immediately began to glow, his eyes narrowing as he saw the shape there. “Avalon! Get down!”
Avalon stopped, turning. Instead of obeying, he stepped between Star Swirl and the tank, raising the hand with the walking stick. “Stop!” At his command, half a dozen robots emerged from the space all around them. Some of them carried rifles in their mechanical arms. All of them pointed at Star Swirl. “You will not come into my lab and destroy my work.”
Star Swirl’s face seemed to tighten, but his horn stopped glowing. “Avalon,” he said, stepping past one of the robots. Apparently unconcerned with the weapon it was carrying. “You do not understand what you have captured here. We must destroy it!”
“I know exactly what I have captured here.” He smacked his walking stick against one of the desks, and the robots retreated a few steps, letting them through. “You would not share Equestrian knowledge, but I don’t need it. My kind knew them too.”
“What’s going on?” Hayden asked, following Star Swirl, but staying away from him. She didn’t want to be standing next to him if he did something stupid. These robots looked like they knew how to aim. “You said you wanted to save Equestria, Avalon. Is this connected somehow?”
“It is an Unmade,” Star Swirl whispered, his voice low as he reached the bottom of the steps. “They are… demons. Beings never meant to inhabit physical space—abominations that twist the sanity of ponies and corrupt anything they touch.”
“This one is weak,” Avalon said. “But you may be interested in where I found it, Star Swirl.” He pointed his cane at Hayden. At once, every robot in the room focused on her. Two shoved in from behind, pressing rifles into her back.
“Do not move,” they said, with simple synthesized voices. “Or we will fire.”
Hayden froze completely, as though a dangerous animal had landed on her.
“It was in a bat… like you, Hayden.” He reached behind him, pressing a bright orange button on the glowing control console. The glass container abruptly went transparent.
Hayden felt her whole body shudder involuntarily as she saw what was inside. A creature that seemed to be made from thick tar, its substance bubbling and oozing as it thrashed against the glass. Every time it did, the coils around the perimeter would flash, and it would be drawn back into the center.
She saw it look at her—dark red pits that glowed faintly with light that was somehow darker than the liquid flesh all around it.
A mouth formed, dark black teeth appearing within. “Mother,” it said, facing her. It stopped struggling.
Hayden looked away, and nearly vomited. Only fear of the weapons pressed into her back stopped her.
To her shock, neither of the other two ponies reacted to what it had said. She blinked, shook her head… and the face she had seen in the darkness was gone.
They were still speaking.
“A class nine aberration,” Avalon was saying. “My species evidently knew these creatures well. They can be… contained. But destroying them is pointless. You only release it to return again. At least if it is trapped here, we know it can do no more harm.”
Star Swirl nodded uneasily. “And Hayden?”
“I have brought three ponies like her to my laboratory. All three were… infected. What you see in that containment cell is what I extracted from them.”
Star Swirl’s eyes widened. “Celestia was right? But why… why couldn’t I sense it? There are spells for detecting this, Avalon! Hayden was not touched by the Outside. At least… not more than her travel from within a soul might imply…” He trailed off, suddenly retreating from her, horn glowing. “It is… it is possible I missed the obvious signs. There was fraying of her pattern I thought was natural to her creation. It is possible that concealed something… that Princess Celestia was right.”
“I don’t understand!” Hayden felt the tears streaming down her face, but she did her best to keep her voice calm, to stop from breaking down. “I’m like you! I’m not… whatever that is.” She nodded towards the tank.
“We’ll… see,” Avalon said. “Maybe you are. Or maybe you’re some stronger abomination the void puked out to deceive me. You knew I had discovered your plot, and now here you are, determined to stop me before I send all your monsters locked away.”
But that wasn’t why she was here! Hayden closed her eyes, trying desperately to think of anything that might suggest what Avalon was saying. She couldn’t find any of it. She had come to beg for help against the griffons. To beg for weapons. She had the design and the prototype in her saddlebags right now.
“I’m not here for that,” she said, opening her eyes again. “I need help making weapons to stop innocent ponies from being enslaved. You know me, Star Swirl! You’ve seen what I’ve done!”
The unicorn’s horn still glowed. “I think I do,” he said. “But if Avalon has some… machine… that might find what I missed, you can’t object to him using it, can you?”
“Fine,” she sighed. “Just… could you take the prototype from my saddlebags here and hold onto it? I don’t want it to be damaged.”
Star Swirl levitated them off her back easily, undoing the straps and stepping away.
“We’ll see if you are what you claim to be,” Avalon said, fixing her with a furious glare. “From the world of my fathers, I was so eager to believe you… but we’ll soon see.”
The robots led her to a glass outline on the far side of the room, with an entrance like an airlock. A massive crystal spire rose in the center of the container. Hayden couldn’t help see the whole thing as a giant centrifuge.
The door hissed, and one of the robots gestured forward with its rifle. “Enter the machine. You will not be permanently harmed.”
Hayden stepped inside, her wings twitching uneasily on her back. She could no longer hear voices from outside, though she could see that Avalon and Star Swirl were speaking to one another. The old man stood at a console, his hands resting on the controls.
His voice echoed suddenly from a hidden speaker above her. “If you are what you claim to be, then this will not harm you,” he said. “If you are infected like the others, then… this will hurt, but you’ll live. If you tried to deceive me… then get used to looking at the inside of containment cells. You’ll be in this one for eternity.”
The coils wrapping around the room began to glow, energy arcing between them. Somehow, there was magic coming from them, enough to penetrate her whole body. In a way, this seemed like those images she’d seen of incredibly powerful magnets used to levitate frogs using the water in their bodies.
It’s okay, he just said it won’t do anything. There won’t be any pain.
Something reached into her chest and ripped out her heart. She felt a few seconds of agony, her throat tearing as she screamed. Then she collapsed, legs twitching beneath her.
Hayden stood surrounded by gloom in a vast round space. She turned, looking for the edges of the glass containment cell—looking for anything familiar. She could find nothing, except for a crystal pillar as big as a skyscraper, projecting the only light into her world.
She felt wrong, her body stretched and distorted. She was standing on two hooves, not four. She looked down, and was horrified by what she saw. Like someone had taken her old human body, and put it into a blender with the pony body she had always known in Equestria.
She had a roughly humanoid outline, but fur covering her whole body, with stumpy hooves instead of legs. Her face felt wrong, like there was a muzzle there, and she could feel breasts against her chest her human form had never had.
She had two shadows, and neither one pointed the right way. One seemed to angle towards the tower, looking much like her. Like her if she had no wings, straight legs, and her old shape. A tall, confident human. The second shadow looked like a pony, almost. It was taller, stretched a little like an alicorn, with faint glowing spots where its eyes would’ve been.
“The rotting one imagines it can keep us here,” the pony shape said, seeming to rise up to stand beside her, though it was still a shadow. “It will fail. I have grown strong, Hayden. I will give that strength to you now. We will kill it and take the power of this place for ourselves.”
Hayden retreated a step, but of course she had no idea how to control this body, and she fell backward. Her tail fell through the air behind her, and she winced as she came down.
“I don’t want to kill anyone,” she pleaded.
The bat-shaped figure seemed to grow. “You can lie to others, Hayden, but do not lie to me. I have shared your soul with you—I know what you have done. I know the lives you have taken.”
“Only to protect,” Hayden argued, scrambling onto her hooves. She swayed, glancing down at the other shadow for support. But there was nothing there—no glowing eyes, no voice. Only herself. Her old self, straight backed and defiant even when she fell. “Avalon only wants to keep Equestria safe. He has never hurt me.”
“He murdered our children,” said the voice. “He told you, didn’t you listen? He put them in this machine, and murdered them. He trapped their souls inside a cell, where he intends to keep them trapped for all time. Does that sound like a good man to you?” The shadow seemed to tower over her, leaning close. Its voice demanded her attention. “You can feel my hunger, Hayden. I know you do. Listen to the voice of the eclipse. We can both benefit. You owe nothing to this world—it stole your life, stole your future, your body, your confidence, your sex… what did you get in return?”
Hayden considered that for several long moments. What had she received in exchange for her time in Equestria? One failed relationship—which had died through no fault of her own, though the pain was still hers. The pain of having to watch a planet constantly suffering.
She had seen the state of the ponies in Defiance. She saw what Celestia planned on doing to the bats. Who else do they have?
“No,” she said, retreating a few steps towards the crystal monolith. “Not today, not ever. I don’t have to owe Equestria anything.”
The shadow grew longer, blackening the world all around her. It had called itself an eclipse, and now she saw the darkness. Only a faint glow remained behind her, fog twisted and writhed, thickening into something like tar. Tentacles reached for her, barbed with spines.
“There is another reason to serve with me, Hayden. The void is cold, its mystery is endless. If I take you there, you will never know an end to your agony.”
A massive maw opened in front of her, barbed with dozens of teeth dripping with black venom. It lunged for her like a snake.
Hayden screamed, extending her hands before her. There was a flash of brilliant light, brighter than the crystal, brighter than a baseball stadium’s spotlights from feet away.
The snake lunged for her, down upon a sword she hadn’t been carrying before.She recognized the blade, thin and sweeping, far longer than the weapons ponies wore. It was like something a human duelist might’ve carried, and it was the perfect size for her.
Haden bore down against the enemy, holding the sword before her like she intended to part the tide. Somehow, she did.
The serpent smashed down, yet somehow its wicked fangs couldn’t reach her. A body melted into slime, pooling around her, boiling away to smoke.
She heard the voice in her head, the same one she thought she’d heard when she stood in Luna’s temple. It sounded like a satisfied sigh, someone settling down after a hard day of work for some well-deserved relaxation. “She suffers no more,” said the voice, pleased. “We must find more pain to end.”
Hayden felt another moment of pain, short and sharp. She heard something clatter to the ground beside her, something made of a strange silvery metal. It angled blade-down, and slipped through the metal floor like it was cardboard instead of iron.
She could see her muzzle in front of her face again. She twitched, rose, and found she was back on four hooves. The strange echo of her human form was gone, save for one thing. Her shadow was still wrong, bending towards the crystal. Was she imagining things, or did it look pleased?
“Hayden!” The containment doors started to open, but they took a long time. Star Swirl appeared in front of her with a flash, not quite so bright as the one that brought the sword. “Ancient stars above… I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Hayden struggled into a proper standing position. Her eyes were having difficulty focusing, but she turned towards the lump she took for Avalon. “Told… you… so…” She dropped, unconscious.
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Dammit Star Swirl, you fucked up big
Luna? I think your angst sprang a leak. That or I'm reversing cause and effect.
Fascinating twist. I have a few hypotheses, but I'll need more data for anything concrete. Eagerly looking forward to more.
Okay now THAT was AWESOME!! <3 <3 <3
She'll become a pegasus?
Am I... supposed to know what just happened?
I... think that was a Nightmare Fragment that just got destroyed...
right, yes, of course, what?
I always like talking swords.
So... if that thing was inside Hayden, and Hayden and Luna are linked, does Luna already have one too?
Or will removing this one from Hayden just allow it easier access to Luna later? So many ways for things to go wrong...
8644696
I can see exactly what you mean. I've tried with the way this story ends up working to keep the magic, but I can't really explain how or know if it worked until you see. I'll just have to cross my fingers--because I saw that exact fear when I started writing this. Whether or not I managed to prevent the story from wandering off, we'll have to wait and see.
Woah, so four out of four thestrals so far have been partially possessed by the Unmade?
Hmn. Luna's Nightmare Moon problem might already be underway, and it spread to Hayden when he was pulled away from his campsite through Luna into Equestria? That might explain the unexpected way in which her form was contagious.
Also, Celestia was clearly some degree of correct in cutting off the North to contain the invasion. I feel vindicated for not losing faith in her.
Wizards lie.
Suddenly anthro
Oooo, interesting sword. The one we saw on display previously, by any chance?
I wonder if Luna already has a demon inside her? like mlp legends of magic shown some voice talked about turning on her sister freaky stuff but it be so cool if this had some elements from the comics by chance
8647428
Is Celestia like Denethor? An oncetime great, powerful, just and wise ruler who, because her continuous fight against a powerful and corruptive supernatural enemy, begins to display some signs of insanity like extreme arrogance, paranoia and even cruelty?
8648335
I do think the story will answer that question before it ends. I don't want to spoil it, though.
Now this is getting interesting.
The beginning I wasn't a fan of -for the dehumanization and his treatment by Luna, Starswirl, Celestia, etc; the kidnapping; or the forced species and sex change- While all are fairly standard in an HiE, their treatment of him afterwards; when it was obvious he was a sapient being torn from its home solely through their own fault, regardless whether he actually was from within Luna or not, was deplorable.
But now Hayden is gaining confidence and power and not just being completely dependent on Luna, striking out on his own and changing things for the better with his human knowledge.
Now he's his own person, not just a manifestation of the most hated parts of Luna's psyche, less than a pony and "not a real person." He has power, agency, knowledge, people, actual concrete enemies who he can fight, and his backs against the wall.
This chapter does throw a wrench in the whole "Low-tech vs. Massively outnumbered medium-tech/extremely scarce high-tech" rumble that was building. But the new developments do promise to be quite interesting as well. (Plus more power for Hayden so he can forge his thestrals into an accepted sub-race of pony and/or secede and form a thestral nation in the frozen north with superior technology, and either get payback or just rub her nose in their success.)
I had forgotten of that sword, at least, I believe it's the same sword of before...
Yeah, sorry. As interesting as this is, it's too much of an out-of-the-blue change for this to be eligible for my list unless it manages to stay consistent and excellent for several hundred thousand words to dilute this away.
There's a very important difference between a plot twist and "On second though, this is cooler. Who cares how many chapters I spent building expectations"-style bad writing.
In Message in a Bottle, so far, your shifts so far have managed to stay within acceptable bounds for remaining sufficiently relevant to the tone and focus of what came before.
8699456
Not every story is for everyone. I don't take it personally if readers don't enjoy the choices I make in every story. Maybe this one just isn't for you.
Sooo. Monstrosities from the Void and visions of enormous crystal pillars? There is a reason you don't play around with Todash-Space. This story took a very Lovecraftian turn. :D
Well, there's your problem. Looks like you've got a Tytha infestation.