5 - One Sided Reunion
Lyra Heartstrings - 19th of Megan, 29 EoH
The Bismuth Spire - Crystal Empire
“What the hay was that!?” I demanded, my voice joining Vinyl’s and Sherbert’s as our confused, frightened cries echoed through the library.
“Um, me talking?” The Darkness asked, sounding just a bit confused.
Me talking? ME TALKING?! What kind of-
“NO! Not you talking!” I snapped, pointing a hoof at the thing angrily. “The battlefield you just threw us into! You wisk us all away into a weird nether realm, summon a brute squad, give an overly dramatic introduction to them, and then just POOF! Toss it all away when Vi freaks out?!
“You don’t want us dead, if you did, we would be. You have the power. Why are you toying with us? If you want us to fight you, why are we here again and not wherever that arena was!?”
Sherbert stared at me in pure horror. “What are YOU doing!? Don’t piss him off.”
I rolled my eyes, wishing she could see the gesture through my visor. “If he wanted us dead, we so would be. He could just teleport us into a black hole! Or just make us stop being! You saw what he did, that was Discord level reality bending. He’s NOT going to kill us.”
The Darkness cleared its throat. Not that it had one.
“Actually,” he said, his voice dripping with embarrassment. “I didn’t do anything of the sort.”
“Horseapples!” Sherbert, Vi and I cried together.
“You absolutely did put us into some kind of battle arena and summoned people to fight us,” Vi pointed out with an insistent stomp of her hoof.
“I did not,” The Darkness countered. “I hardly have the power to do that. I’ve been sitting here unable to eat for ages, running on reserves, and while that wizard was alive she was draining me to use as a power supply and also poking at me all arcane-science like. I’m bone dry, down to just my core essence.”
“Lies!” I shouted, shaking my head. “You won't convince me that didn’t happen! We all saw it.”
“Oh no! I DID do something, but I didn’t warp reality or gate in entities from another universe,” The Darkness corrected. “I- I thought you could tell what I was doing. You all have those little conical energy sensing organs on your heads.”
I blinked once. “It’s called a horn,” I said slowly. “And no, I didn’t sense any thaumaturgic current. You weren't casting spells, that wasn’t an illusion.”
“I didn’t detect anything either,” Sherbert agreed, nodding firmly.
The Darkness sighed. “Annnd I’m guessing you didn’t either, sis?”
VI shook her head once.
“Okay,” The… Overly long-named guy said.
Screw it. Calling you Dark.
“Here’s what I did,” he said like he was starting a lecture.
The second he said did, a pony’s brain, spine, and dozens of little strings I guessed were nerves poofed into existence, accompanied by a cartoon puff of smoke.
“Ew,” I said by reflex.
Sherbert squeaked and took a step back.
“It’s not real,” Vi sighed, giving Sherbert a look which said ‘come on’.
“This,” Dark began. “Is your nervous system. Not literally. It’s a diagram. I didn’t snatch one of your body’s components to show you this.”
I had a lot of questions, but Dark just rolled right along at full speed. A bunch of big yellow dots appeared around the ‘diagram’, each one about the size of a pencil eraser. The kind that’s at the end of a pencil.
“These, are electrons,” Dark stated. “They are NOT to scale. Hopefully, this is very obvious.”
“It is,” the three of us said together.
“We’re not dumb,” I added indignantly.
“Good!” Dark said with a sigh of relief. “That means I don't have to oversimplify this explanation. I didn’t warp reality. I just moved things about.”
The yellow lights began to move in simplistic patterns along very specific parts of the nerves hanging off the illustration. Nothing touched the brain, or the spine, just the little fibers.
“I took some electrons, and made them move like this, right along here. That’s your optic nerve,” he continued. “And also here and here, which are your Vestibular nerve and Cochlear nerve. Then lastly here, here, and here, and those are y-”
“Y-you just, moved electrons around our nervous systems to make us see an hear what you wanted us too?” Vinyl stammered in disbelief.
I nodded. “What she said!”
Holy bucking Celestia's Cake Fetish, that’s just- The sheer amount of mental coordination required for a spell like that is- This is exactly WHY illusion spells exist! It’s so much easier to just make a picture and put it in front of someone!
“Yeah!” Dark said cheerfully as he floated in his bubble. “Way less power intensive than making things, or images of things, heck it’s even a little less stressful on the old noggin. I figured you could see me doing it, since I wasn’t messing with your ‘horns’.
“I guess to you and your senses, my telekinesis is invisible. Or just not magic in this universe. Which it could be! Most places have different physical laws.”
“All of that, was like, a overly elaborate impossibly coordinated juggling act?” Sherbert asked slowly, sounding like her jaw was hanging open in disbelief.
“Nah, more like jacking into open ports and sending a CPU new information,” Dark disagreed. “I basically improvised the effect of a Deep Dive VR rig. Oh, um, do those exist here? I can’t see much in this bubble.”
“They do,” VI said with a sharp nod. “I’ve played with them. And now that you mention it… Yeah, that did feel like VR. Especially because there wasn’t any smells.”
“Huh, yeah. Now that you mentioned it, all I could smell was the library,” I agreed before narrowing my eyes. “But that doesn't answer my original question! Why do all of this? If you can just move electrons at will, you could wave a hoof and pull all the electrons of the atoms making up our bodies and kill us as we just fall apart into goop!”
“Nope, I can’t,” The Darkness said, shaking his mask firmly. “Not only is pulling electrons off atoms too much work for me right now, but I also sort of can’t actually hurt you. Even if I really really wanted to. Which I don’t. I’m Darkness, not Evil.
“All I wanted to do was play a game. I’m bored, and you mortals love fighting! You do it all the time, and in so many different ways. With words, weapons, laws, economics. Everything's a battle for you. I like to play, and that’s the game you guys play.
“I’m a fan of Adventure, Real-Time Strategy, and Four-X games. So that’s what I play with you.”
Vi reared up and waved her forehooves disbelievingly. “Woah, woah waoh, HOLD the PHONE!” She demanded. “Are you telling me, that you and your sister, went from universe to universe, setting up an evil empire, causing untold pain and suffering for centuries or whatever, only for you to fade into obscurity, just so you could then a thousand years later come back all mustache twirling, and then your sister would gather people from that universe to fight you, and you called that a GAME?!”
“Yeah, so did you,” Dark said with a simple nod. “But we didn’t actually make an evil empire. We just spread stories of one across multiple generations repeating the same story until it became legend, and then waited a little bit before I got to have my real fun. The object of our game was to gain food. You don’t eat nine burgers to make one burger.”
I winced. “Yeah… There’s another thing. You said you would either feed on dispair or joy based on who won your ‘game’...” I pointed out, still trying to figure out what the hay this thing was playing at. “So you hurt us to live. Why and what are you doing with us?”
“Agreed!” Vinyl said taking a step forward. “What do you want with us? And why exactly do you consider me your sister? I was just made from her remains.”
“I’m bored,” The Darkness stated dryly. “I want to play with someone. Because I’m lonely, bored, and now there are other minds present who can do things which I don’t dictate.
“Sure, I could conjure up a bunch of phantasms, like I did for you a moment ago to see if sis recognised famous people from the universe we were in before this one… But they are just more mes. I’d be playing against myself.
“That got REALLY old, really fast. I’m tired of playing with myself. It’s not satisfying.”
Sherbert snickered once, then eeped and covered her mouth with both hooves.
“Hahaha! Made you laugh!” Dark giggled, one corner of his cloak pointing at Sherbert. “Seriously, what’s your deal? I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
“You’re still a cosmic entity that flew around devouring people’s essences or whatever!” I protested. “That sounds like ‘I’ll hurt you if I’m hungry’ to me, and hey, you said you hadn't eaten in ages mere minutes ago!”
HA! Got him. He’d admit he was evil and then Vi would snap out of her funk and we could improvise a plan to deal with this monster or escape.
“What? No!” Dark sighed, the corners of his cloak coming up to rub at the masks’ temples. “We would feed on the psychic energies we’d created through our actions, bleeding the energy off from all the mortals of that world’s zeitgeist. All that happens is most of them would forget about the events over the course of their lives and the adventure would fade into obscurity.
“The only people we ever hurt were members of Light’s party. And even then it’s because they were on the adventure, other players. NPCs never got hurt! Not for real. I made all the hurt people and corpses from scratch to decorate the tabletop. They vanished back into the nothing from whence they came at the end. It was a GAME! Not a real attack. I’m dark, not evil.
“I’m also a very minor Voidborn Entity. So was sis. If we actually ever did more than just nibble at replenishing resources, a bigger fish would have spotted us and snapped us up. The best food for one of us is another one of us.”
Oh. Um… Well shit. He’s harmless.
UNLESS HE’S LYING!! A voice in the back of my mind screamed loudly.
“How do we know you’re not lying to us?” Sherbert asked, taking the words right out of my mouth.
Vi nodded in agreement. “If what you said is true, then frankly, we’re ethically bound to let you go. Because you’re a harmless person who simply does what they need to do to get the food they need to survive. Food which does not harm any sentient life to obtain. Well… I mean, you’d cause some chaos but-”
“Sure did! But that’s a good thing,” Darkness interrupted. “You guys love to fight, and that’s okay. Fighting is fun! But you always fight each other. You don’t really fight external threats to yourselves. So all your fighting just hurts yourselves.
“That’s why I think our old game was a good thing. We would come in, and either the mortals learned how to band together, overcoming their eons of barriers to cooperation to face me and stop my ‘threat’, or they failed and the people realized just how doomed their foolishness made them only for the threat to be stopped by a group of united mortals who took the shame they felt and turned it into the strength to carry on.
“Well not really. Light would just spawn some NPCs and we’d make a big show of my ‘death’. Well, that’s what we did the two times I ever won. And I do think you let me win, sis. Didn’t feel real… Soooo Rematch!? Please?”
Sherbert cleared her throat. “You’re avoiding two questions,” she said firmly. “How can we know we can trust you, and why do you call Vinyl your sister?”
“Oh, sorry,” he apologized, his nothing-from dipping down slightly as if ashamed. “I forgot you asked those. Please remember that I’m slowly starving to death in here.
“A good deal of my mind is occupied with certain existential questions, and then another chunk is hoping I can get you girls to play with me so I can have a little fun before I go incase you don’t let me out. I’m not saying that to invoke pitty. I’m just trying to explain.”
“Then answer the questions,” Vinyl commanded. “How can we trust you, and why do you call me your sister?”
“You are,” Dark replied instantly. “Think about it. What is a soul? Do you know?”
“Um, well you. It’s all the information that makes you who you are in one metaphysical package. Every thought, you’ve ever had, every memory, ever-” Vi started saying only to slowly trail off. “Oh…”
“Right,” Dark said oddly kindly. “Your soul is what remained of The Light after she was given to Doctor Pony Mengele here,” he said nodding towards the skeleton on the floor. “If she hadn’t tortured you to death, the memories would be intact, and you wouldn’t be using a mortal shell as a life support system. Your soul would be able to survive just on its own. Like me.
“Sure, you’re a different person now because you have different memories. But you use the same words she did when speaking, you sound like her, and if you’re a fan of games, music, and you seem to be an adventurer aligned with goodness and the like. So some of your subconscious memories must remain.”
“I do like games, tabletop, computer, some sports. Anything challenging really. But isn’t that common?” Vinyl asked skeptically. “Like, MOST people enjoy that sort of thing.”
“Sure. Still, in my eyes, you’re my crippled amnesiac big sis. The one person in the entirety of the Void, guaranteed never to eat me for my power. You’re all I ever had. As such, I care about you even now and always will no matter what happens to you. Even though you very well may have nothing of her left in there, I don’t care. You’re my big sis,” Dark said simply.
Vi paused for a few moments, then nodded. “Alright, that answers one of the two big questions. But what about the other one?”
“Yeah!” I exclaimed in agreement.
Dark’s mask recoiled as if in surprise. “What? But I said- I answered both! Pay- What are you paying attention too? Word choice is important!” He grumbled irritably.
Sherbert cleared her throat. “I um, I think he did actually answer that. He said that Vinyl is the only person he can trust among his own kind. So, lying to her would be unthinkable,” she said semi skeptically.
“Exactly!” Dark proclaimed.
“But how do we know that’s true?” I countered. “You’re an eldritch abomination who can force AR onto people and likes to make a game out of causing terror and panic, even if you don't physically hurt anyone, you enjoy traumatizing people!”
“I don’t enjoy that, but it’s necessary,” Dark objected indignantly. “Do you understand the point of darkness? I dare say that I do. Light and Dark are NOT the same as good and evil. Very very evil things can be done by those in service of the Light, and very good things can be done by the forces of Darkness.
“It’s what you do, not who you are. Yes, I enjoy combat and creating elaborate apocalypses, but not just to fight or kill. I don't do it to inflict misery on others, or exclusively for my own personal gain. I do it for mutual benefit.
“Think for a moment. What happens when a people who have never known conflict, war, or real danger encounter actual evil? They are crushed like an ant beneath a boot as they have no experience in these sorts of emergencies. Nations very well may tear eachother apart instead of working together against their mutual threat. That’s just sad.
“Enter darkness. I come in and inject a little bit of grim reality into a world. My game spawns a world with legends of heroes which are passed down through generations and inspire others to rise to the occasion and face threats which actually mean to harm them.
“Yes, while no real person is truly harmed or killed when my sis and I were playing, mortals were traumatized. But that’s actually good. People need to learn how to overcome traumatic experiences. No universe is totally peaceful forever. Even those with super long goldenages have those ages end, and end HARD eventually. Good versus Evil is a struggle more powerful and older than even I know.
“A struggle which sees me firmly on the good side, just in a shady corner. I leave worlds with living legends, heros ready to defend it, ones who are experienced and can teach others. I leave them with parents who experienced great loss and tragedy and can empathise with their children, and any others who suffer in the future, and I also leave them with legends of greatness for future generations to draw upon. And probably an ancient artifact of power or two. I’m not a
bad guy.
“I am the terror that vanishes at dawn. I am the purchase that overdraws your account. I am The Darkness!”
The three of us just stood there, staring at the imprisoned creature for several long moments.
“S-so uh…” I stammered slowly, not afraid, no I was dumbfounded. “The thing outside had a huge list of titles. Are um, are those-”
The Darkness raised a corner of its cloak and rested it over his mask. What was that- Ah. That’s a facehoof. But why?
“No! Those are comic metaphors which illustrate my point,” Dark groaned. “I am a minor nuisance you overblow, and in the end, teaches you an important lesson. Ultimately, I help you.”
“Well how the heck were we supposed to get that out of a COMIC metaphor?” Sherbert asked raising her left hoof incredulously.
“I CAN'T HELP IT!” Dark snapped, pointing to the skeletal remains with a cloak corner. “This asshole fucked with my essence and tried to cram a shitload of- Ugh! Look, your virtue based magic system is- I was NOT prepared to be injected with forty CCs of Laughter, okay?”
Now THAT made me pause. If I hadn’t been seriously studying theoretical magic for the last few decades, that would have meant nothing to me. But I had been doing exactly that. The Virtues were no joke. Almost every pony carried a certain amount of each of the Virtuous Energies with them as a part of their aura.
These energies greatly influenced behaviors, not overtly in a mind control way, but in a simple ‘part of who you are’ way. They also were what allowed certain ponies to say, bear an Element of Harmony. They had enough of one VIrtue to in essence act as an avatar of that Virtue.
If what Dark said was true, then Mage Meadowbrook had found a way to transfer Virtuous Energy between individuals, and had injected him with a bunch. Which would, well, vastly alter who he was.
I turned to Vinyl and really, really wished my helmet wasn’t in the way of expressions. She needed to know how serious I was.
“Vinyl, he won't lie to you. Ask him if he was actually infused with Virtues, and which ones,” I ordered, putting every ounce of urgency I could into my words.
Vi nodded, understanding my tone, if not my request. “Um, alright. Well, were you?” She asked for me.
“Ask the ENTIRE question, so we have to get a completely honest answer,” I said with equal force.
“The answer is yes,” Dark said irritably.
“Were you infused with virtues, and if so which ones?” Vinyl asked for me.
“For starters, Honesty,” Dark said dryly. “You don’t imprison a Voidborn and let it lie to you. Sure I can lie, but it’s hard to bring myself to do that. Unless I’m in character for a bit, or roleplaying. ‘Telling a story’ doesn't seem to count.
“I’m bringing that up because of how paranoid you are about me telling you the truth. I can put on a costume and laugh, saying I’ll rip your heart out with a spoon so it will hurt more, because it’s pretend. I wouldn’t really. I’d just use my VR powers to make you think I did.
“But me? Like this, as I am now? Real, actual normal me? Nothing doing.”
I nodded once, somewhat satisfied. After all, I would definitely ensure that a creature I’d summoned and bound to gain information couldn’t lie to me. Or to anyone, just so it couldn’t trick an apprentice into letting it go. And if a Virtue infusion didn’t do it, then that’s likely one of the functions of the glowing magic circle which-
Which I should REALLY examine more closely.
“What other elements?” I asked while letting my eyes flick over the complex circle, trying to pick it apart.
“Laughter, as I mentioned. I really took to that one. I’ve always been about fun. The others didn’t stick, but apparently I’m already so loyal that TR-8R would shed a tear, so no improving that,” Dark said with a chuckle.
“You know, it would probably help if you told jokes that made sense,” Sherbert sighed irritably.
“It makes perfect sense!” Dark objecteted. “You just lack context because you’re limited to living in a single universe whereas I have lived in countless different worlds across more universes than you can possibly imagine.”
I shook my head once. “Um, no. Your joke doesn't make sense because there was an evil wizard a few decades ago who made a clone army, which now serves Princess Twilight. They all have a letter-number label starting with TR. The clone designated TR-8R is famous for being a crybaby. She’ll sob over anything, so yeah. It’s not funny.”
“Ah,” Dark said with a giggle. “Well, that’s unfortunate. I can’t see much of your world from in here. I’ve tried to scry places to find something interesting to watch over the years. All I know is that you’ve got an absurd number of heros who look like they would be fun to play with.”
I raised an eyebrow suspiciously. I didn’t even need to ask anything. Vinyl asked for me.
“Okay, so,” she said slowly, thoughtfully. “If we let you out of-”
“We're NOT letting him out!” Sherbert insisted. “Discord made it very clear that these things are dangerous!”
“We really are,” Dark agreed with a little nod. “My sister and I are a massive exception to the norm. If you’re not very aggressive and self serving you’ll be devoured by the first thing that’s bigger than you you bump into.
“We only survived because the spark of potential which created us split into two by happenstance. Two heads are better than one. Hence our whole ‘Hide inside universes to not be eaten by the big scary monsters’ plan.
“I understand your fears, young lady who has very rudely not introduced herself yet, but I wouldn’t hurt anyone if I’m let free.”
“Yeah, maybe. What WOULD you do?” VI asked insistently.
“I’d look out for my crippled amnesiac sister just like how she always looked out for me since I’m a dork and used to bite off more than I could chew when we needed to protect ourselves, and also try to figure out a way to let her and any carbon based friends she’s made survive the heat death of this universe because a googol years really isn’t that long, and YES that is actually a real number and not just some pretend value,” Dark answered.
Vi took a slight step forward, and then stopped. I could tell what she was thinking. She’d almost made up her mind. The odds we were going to release this thing were, well, it was almost certain.
Sherbert seemed dead set against it, and of the three of us she was the only one who had spoken to Discord. I was mostly certain that Dark was telling us the truth, but there was a lot we didn’t know. Maybe Voidborn naturally corrupted the world around them. Perhaps merely looking at him would drive people insane.
Because the way he described himself, he was basically an extra powerful changeling wizard. I mean, changelings didn’t really hurt anyone by feeding on their metaphysical energy either. But… He did have an absurd amount of power. He had completely sucked us into that ‘illusion’ with his VR trick. He could do a lot of damage if he really wanted to.
I was on the fence. I needed more information.
“Vi?” I asked loudly, just to make sure she’d hear me if she was debating internally herself.
“Yeah?” She asked, her helmeted head turning my way after a heartbeat.
Yep. She’d been in thought.
“Call Discord. We need to ask him what the dangers involved with a Voidborn creature being free are. For all we know, he could rip holes in spacetime just by existing, or something,” I said with a slow sigh.
“Hey!” Dark said, sounding genuinely hurt. “I’m not fat!”
“F-fat Voidborn rip apart spacetime?” Sherbert squeaked in terror.
“Pfff! No,” Dark giggled. “But bigger ones can if they want. Look, yes. Most people who saw me in this form would go mad from staring at the raw potential that is my essence. Right now you are protected by the bubble I’m in. But that’s not a problem. I can fashion a body for myself to house my essence in which will shield everyone from that effect.
“I may be on minimum power, but I can still do that.”
“What CAN you do?” VInyl asked.
Now there was a critical question I forgot to ask! Thanks VI.
“I can currently make void stuff constructs, such as a body for myself,” he answered. “I’m able to manipulate the pathways of free electrons in a three hundred meter radius. Aside from basic senses, the ability to move objects by force of will, and the locomotion capabilities of your typical dataform, that’s it.”
“Dataform?” I asked raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah. You’re a lifeform. A being made of living tissue. I’m a dataform. A being of living information. Not the official term, because there isn’t one, but I like it,” Dark replied, his cloak shrugging slightly.
“Sure, he’s at that power now, but if we free him, he can eat. Which means he’d gain more power, and be able to do more things,” Sherbert said cautiously. “We don't know if he could end the world within a week.”
Dark coughed, his mask’s features warping into an embarrassed grin. “At the height of my power, a single pony archmage kicked my ass and stuffed me into a bubble. The height of my power which I had obtained over a number of years so large you are incapable of understanding the concept of anything that numerous due to your very biology. I think you’re being a bit of a worrywart,” Dark said with a friendly sarcasm that made me grin like a dork behind my helmet.
Managing to keep myself from laughing, I turned to look at Sherbert. “You know, Sherb, he has you there.”
“Okay, yeah, but his whole game!” She protested. “Even without his old power he could do that and lots of people would panic! There’d be chaos. Sure, Ponyville is used to that, but the rest of the world ISN’T Ponyville.”
“Sherbert has a good point,” Vi said with a shallow nod. “You wouldn’t be hanging out with me all the time. You will gain power as time goes on. What WOULD you do for fun?”
Dark’s mask warped again, the awkward grin turning into the expression of a king, one who was deadly serious about a particular subject.
“Of the few things I have seen in your world, one was a giant robot fighting a giant worm in the middle of a lightning storm in a sandy desert,” Dark said matter of factly. “I saw the robot’s pilot. I know his face. I would seek him out.”
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
“Because he built his robot to look like Big-O,” Dark answered, his mask changing once more, this time into a dorky grin. “I’d gather enough power to create a large construct and make Big Fau then slowly walk it towards his place to see what he’d do, and then have a giant robot fight. Because that’s a simple law of physics. If two giant robots exist, they must fight.
“Then, I’d ask him how he knows about Megadeus, and with any luck it’s because he’s been to other universes too, and then I’d have a friend to chat with about places I miss. Maybe.”
Sherbert cleared her throat. “Um… Uncle Sky would definitely panic if you did that.”
“Huh,” Dark mused, looking at Sherbert critically. “Small world. Well, I’m sure he’d have fun after the initial scare!”
“Well… It’s just the badlands,” VI mused to herself. “And Sky probably would wind up having a blast with that. But the thing is, if you KEPT doing things like that, it would cause trouble. You can’t just go around creating conflicts.”
“I know,” Dark replied with a short nod. “I wouldn’t do that. I’d find a few people to play with as an outlet and ensure that you’re safe, comfortable, and happy. You’re my sister, you’re hurt, and I want to support you and help with recovery, if possible, which it’s not, but I’m pretending it is for my own happiness, okay? Okay.”
The three of us stared at him for a while. Eventually the eldritch thing coughed into a corner of his cloak. “L-look, it may sound strange, but I’ve always liked the mortal idea of family. I took a lover every time we set up shop for a round of Overlord.
“If I do that, I should care for my siblings too, right? She’s my big sis, she’s hurt. All but dead. I need to care for her. That’s how it works.”
Sherbert sighed. “Okay… I can see that you two are going to let him go. But PLEASE, can we call Discord first?” She pleaded.
“That really is a good idea,” I agreed with a nod. “Just to double check-”
The circle!
It finally clicked! The circle he was in! It was the ritual circle I needed to use.
“-BUCK!” I swore, stomping the floor with a hoof angrily.
“What’s wrong?” VI asked, wheeling around.
“We HAVE to let him go,” I insisted. “That circle is in use, and it’s the one I need to use.”
“Oooo, yeah. Bad luck. These things only do one spell at a time,” Dark apologised. “What are you after?”
I hesitated for a moment, should I tell this thing about my curse? No. No I should not. But I could say a little…
“I need to forge an Aether Crystal to help me capture and kill a Nightmare,” I replied.
“Oh!” Dark said worriedly. “You have Nightmares here too? A Moon Lord is bad enough… I hope that guy managed to kill it. Gave him a ton of my power. Hold on a sec.”
“What even IS a Moon Lord?” Vinyl asked curiously.
“Moon Lords are the Payday Loan Companies of Voidborn,” Dark answered. “Literally nothing you do in your life will ever be worse than dealing with one. They are motherfuckers. That’s right. Fuckers of mothers.”
“Well… I never heard of it, and Luna’s been to the moon soooo she’d likely have attracted it since you guys eat powerful things,” Vi mused. “I guess King Sombra did kill it.”
“Maybe. Hopefully. He said he almost beat it before and just needed a bit of an edge. Weirdo kept calling me a Goblin King though…” Dark muttered half heartedly as if concentrating. “There we go! Pone in the middle, behind your head, one Aether Crystal. Enjoy!”
I turned around suspiciously, my too good to be true alarm going off at max volume. But, sure enough, there it was. A large pale green rod shaped crystal with blue flecks scattered randomly throughout the crystal’s core, which glowed with a soft white light. Exactly as described in the book!
“Horseapples!” I exclaimed, shaking my head. “You’re trying to trick me somehow! Make me like you.”
“Um, yes. I am trying to make friends. Because lonely,” Dark reminded. “It’s real. Why do you think a wizard would make this sort of ritual circle if they weren't going to make these crystals? Did you see her god-body downstairs? It uses these things as well, lots of different parts.
“She was mass producing them, there’s a bunch all over the place. I took this one out of a box behind that bookshelf over your right shoulder. It’s from the last batch she made before moving me from the dungeons back up here, to well… I’m not sure what her plan was. She died just after securing me here. Heart failure.”
“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense,” I was forced to admit. I reached out and gently grabbed the crystal with a hoof, letting it rest on my hoof for a moment. It felt real…
I slipped the crystal into my bag. It fell into place amongst my other stuff just like I expected a real thing to do… You know what, I’d trust him on this. It was real.
“There. Now you can leave me here if you so choose,” Dark said with a sad sigh. “I hope that shows I’m not trying to trick you into letting me go.”
“Discord!” Sherbert yelled. “Call! Please!”
“Um, you’d have to leave the tower to do that,” Dark pointed out. “There’s a big sigil downstairs dedicated to a Voidborn whose name I will NOT mention because you idiots would say it aloud and summon him here. Long story short, the entities you refer to as gods can’t see the things going on in this tower, nor can they come here.
“That’s why Yog was asked to guard this place. You can’t keep him out of a universe, he’s truly omnipresent. But harmless. Old dude just wants to nap and read.”
Sherbert squeaked fearfully. “B-but-but I can’t see him everywhere, and I can see voidstuff!”
“I don't feel like taking the several days necessary to explain the physics to you. Just accept the fact that he’s omnipresent, but took the bits of himself in your world and put them all here, along with what I think is most of his bulk, so he can safely nap without others constantly nibbling infinite tiny bits off him all the time.
“But he can still instantly appear where he wants because he’s also still everywhere… The physics dont really work if you only understand Three-D space and- Oh forget it. Too complex to explain,” Dark sighed. “Now, if you choose to free me, the thing you need to do is to press the funky backwards lambda symbol on the circle, and slide it to the left.
“Oh! Um, everyone but sis should look away while I make a body so I don't hurt you. I can’t help being composed of the stuff I’m composed of, nor can I help your reaction to seeing it without a filter.”
Sherbert growled angrily, and yet also worriedly. “Fine! We let him go. But the FIRST thing we do is take him directly to Discord. If we dont tell him about this, we’d be in just as much trouble as we would be if we went outside to call him because that would DEFINITELY wake the thing outside back up.”
Okay… Here goes nothing. “Alright, Vi, do it,” I said as I turned around.
Sherbert turned with me, the two of us staring at the bookshelf behind us nervously. This could all go south so fast. If any part of the story were untrue-
Something made a sound like crystal shattering. I immediately turned and opened up my left saddleback, my eyes desperately searching for the Aether Crystal. Which was fine. Still sitting there atop my books.
“Huh, didn’t expect that bubble to crumble like that,” Vi remake.
“Me either,” Dark agreed. “Sorry everyone. Hope that wasn’t painful to listen to. It was for me. Okay… Here goes.”
Something liquidy squelched in exactly the way anything that ever existed should NOT sound.
“EW!” The three of us said reflexively.
I felt my stomach turn in disgust, making me immediately force myself to keep hold of the lunch I’d had earlier just to enjoy some normal food. That had been a mistake.
“Sorry!” Dark apologised. “I’m rusty. Alright, sis. I’m a pretty thin, smaller male pony. That way we can say that I was sick most of my life, and I was away for special care which just finished curing me, and that’s why no one’s seen me around before. I’ll look the part, as a clearly underdeveloped stallion. Sound good?”
“Um, yeah that is a good story,” Vi agreed. “But you need a cutiemark. Also a name.”
“A what?” Dark asked.
“A cutiemark,” I answered. “That’s what the marks on our flanks are called. Um, I mean, I figure that you can see through our suits.”
“I can. I thought those were just tattoo equivalents. Those are things everyone has?” He asked.
“Yeah… Well, almost everyone,” Sherbert mumbled. “I can’t believe we're doing this! This is a VERY bad idea.”
Not really. He was out of the thing, if it had been a lie, we’d all be dead now.
“Whatever the picture is, it hints at your special talent, a thing you’re uniquely good at,” Vi informed. “Also, I’m white, dad’s white, and mom’s white. You’re charcoal gray. We could be related based on face shapes, but the color is… I mean it’s possible, just unlikely.”
“I’m not gonna be white. I’m dark. It’s my thing. White is your thing,” he said firmly. “Okay so, since I can manipulate electrons, that’s a pretty good thing to call a talent? Right?”
“Yeah. If you’re a unicorn you could call it a unique spell you created,” I said casually. “Can I turn around yet?”
“Not quite yet, I need to make edits. I went with a winged pone body,” Dark sighed.
The squelch echoed through the library again.
“AAA! Don’t do that!” Sherbert whimpered.
“Be glad you don’t have to see what happens when he does that,” Vinyl said softly.
“Heh, now you see why I like feeding people VR constructs. I SUCK at this… Matter based stuff,” Dark admitted feebly, his voice definitely masculine, but with a slight higher pitch to it than average.
Much better than the creepy, haunting, evil entity voice he’d been using before.
“I decided that being in a hospital for most of my life, that being an alchemist and chemist would be a believable background. Does this ghostly, chemical burny, flame look like a proper cutiemark?” He asked hopefully.
“Yeah,” Vi agreed, her voice sounding approving. “So, you do chemistry… Most ponies names relate to what we do. It’s tradition to take an adult name after you find your talent so they match… I mean not everyone does but-”
“Given how pony names work, and my personality, let’s go with Chemical Fire,” Dark suggested. “It sounds appropriate based on what I’ve heard, it’s related to chemistry, matches the picture on my butt, and since my talent is based around making electrons dance, well, I could easily start a chemical fire.”
“D-do you like to burn things?” Sherbert asked worriedly. “Is that why it matches your personality?”
“No. I’m a dork and such. Sis called me cute all the time. Chemical would be shortened to Chem, which easily makes for a cute nickname of Chemy. See?” ‘Chem’ pointed out.
“Point tanken. It’s a good name,” I was forced to admit. “Can I turned around now? I’m getting anxious here… Kinda suspect an ambush.”
“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t think you might feel in danger,” he apologised. “Yes, you can turn around now. I’m done changing. This will work. Right, sis?”
“Yeah, it should. If Discord okays you existing here, you do look like a normalish unicorn. Just, well, having been ill would explain everything,” Vi said.
I turned around. She was absolutely correct.
The Darkness had become a short, thin, somewhat androgynous looking, but still definitely male stallion. He looked okay, but you could tell that something had been seriously wrong with him while growing up. He had light gray, nearly white, hair which was cut in a longer style, it had a sort of O&O novel feel to it. His tail matched the mane, naturally, and the light gray went well with his coat’s dark charcoal color.
He’d given himself red vampiric eyes that matched Vi’s in hue. He also took care to make his facial features match her to the point where he really DID look like he was related to her. The color difference was NOTHING. I’d seen red mares with blue sisters. It happens. But that shape? Unmistakable, everypony would agree they were related.
He also further sold the ‘sickly’ part by keeping his green cloak. While he had the hood down, the cloak was wrapped around him tightly, as if he were bundling up against the cold.
The newly transformed eldritch creature held out a hoof and gave me a polite smile. “Hi! I’m Chemy, nice to meet you Sis’s Friend Number One!” He joked.
Despite my fears based around how good he was at creating a ‘character’, I couldn’t help but decide to at least try to be friendly, if weary, towards him. After all… It did seem like he just wanted to be with his family.
I took his hoof and shook it. “I’m Lyra Heartstrings,” I introduced. “She’s Sherbert. Nice to meet you, Vi’s little bro. Now, let’s get out of here and hope that we didn’t just piss off the God of Chaos by letting you go.”
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Interesting very interesting.. Well I'm not worried about Discord at first but rather the guardian at the gates then I'd be worried about Discord lets take our dangers one at a time
8473482
If Yog were a problem that universe would be no more. We're talking about a Top Tier Big Fish in the pond of the entire multiverse and not-verses. Things that punch on Discord's weight or even heavier. Few Great Old Ones could claim to be bigger.
So, Darkness is a dork and a nerd. Expected. Meadowbrook didn't use the Become a God spell in time. Ironic. And Darkness not being able to face an archmage even after untold universes shows how even beings of pure potential aren't unbound like mortals are. Curious.
I so wanna see Discord's reaction now. It's going to be hilarious, I know it
Silly Lyra, why don't you just explain your problem to him? He could advance your understanding significantly.
The conversation with Discord is going to be interesting. "Hey, meet my brother. If you look past him being voidborn, you two will get along famously. Or infamously. Or romantically?"
The conversation with Vinyl's parents is going to be even more interesting.
8473523 There are various levels to problems in the current context we are hoping Yog isn't annoyed for what ever reason to the point he kills them. Then we get to deal with Discord and any potential issues releasing Dark might of caused.
Yog full out is one of those problems if you have time to kiss your rear goodbye you are doing good
8473523
Nah, she just took the "Become as Gods" route
And now we have another person going around making references to long-forgotten/extradimensional entertainment. I feel sorry for whoever has the job of holding this universe together.
Virtue Infusion sounds painful for all parties involved...
So, they found the one gamer dork voidborn. Could be worse.
Man, if they could acquire this guy as an actual ally of Equestria, or at least friend, that would be quite a success.
orig00.deviantart.net/0af2/f/2016/085/0/0/moon_lord_by_enrique381-d9wl9zz.png
Anyway...
He seems nice.
I wonder if Saitama, in some form, exists here? Wondering because I'd love to see the concept of OP given life.
Actually, I wonder if Yog-Sogoth exists, somewhere.
8475599
Miss that part of the chapter? Yes, he very much exists here. He's the ancient one hanging around outside that was grumbling about being awakened twice in the same century.
8474352
It's a full time job, that's for certain...
8475599 He does. Dark/Chemy just didn't say his full name. Nor will he EVER say any Voidborn's full name, not even his own. Names have power.
This was gold. 'Nuff said.
I do feel that Sherb is starting to fall back into the irritating OC category for me; not sure if intentional or not, but it feels like all of Twilight's common sense and logic courses she took just up and flew out the window after she talked with Discord. I mean, I suppose it makes sense given the situation, but she really needs to start thinking a little more. I mean, sure, she's still a rookie Knight, but its like all of her Shenobi training randomly went away after becoming a Knight. I dunno. Not even sure if this rambling comment even makes sense, but something about the way she's acting is just rubbing me the wrong way. Sorry.
Here's to hoping the next talk with Discord manages to set things straight.
8476807
So Yog is a voidborn? Huh..
Yeah, yog suddenly showing up on earth would probably make it crash into him and he would feel like if someone threw a lego at you.
8475905
But...that's not yog. Do you even know who Yog-Sogoth is?
Hint: Lovecraftian God in the outer reaches of space who created the universe by accident
8477932
Oh, I'm aware. Dark never said that that's Yog's true form, merely that he's got a good chunk of his bulk close by to try to avoid being nibbled while he naps.
8478161
But is that YOG?
I mean the elder god. Not some other voidborn. This is probably not Yog.
8478263
This is Meeps. She's not going to use that name without it meaning that being.
8478310
Can you quote when it was stated that the void born in the cave was Yog Sogoth?
8478346
She basically stated it directly to you.
8478450
OOh, I thought he was referring to Yog as a seperate being then himself. Whoops lol.
Also, don't be an ass.
8477366 Don't apologize, that's a very valid point. Perhaps I leaned a bit too hard on the "Discord scared the crap out of her" button. I'll see what can be done.
8479070
I don't like sothoth that much :P