[Untitled.Uncertainty]

by GMBlackjack

VII - The Temple - VoidTemplar2000

The Temple of the End Times had seen better days since its inception and construction. Once, it had been the home to a movement hundreds of thousands strong with the size of sanctums to match, now it stood in the middle of the desert crumbling to the test of time. Fact was, it would have been buried in the sands had civilization not come knocking just a short few moons ago. A city was being built around it, and the temple was to be the new nexus of a borough. And it would probably have been that way, had something not happened one fateful evening.

Two beams of light shot up from the three towers placed on the temple grounds, one a fluorescent yellow, another a deep dark blue. And yet, there was one tower still darkened by the absence of a strange light. Crowds gathered around the temple, could it really be that this was happening? After all, it seemed that some store had done some kind of twisted PR-stunt to gather attention. Probably for marked down lemons and sprinkler fluid for the next week or something like that. And yet, no advertising came, no loudspeakers, no nothing. Police arrived to cordon off the area before experts could move in and figure out just what had transpired in that temple.

Later, three nondescript gray vans drew up to the makeshift fencing set up around the temple. They were led through the checkpoint and stopped just outside the entrance to the temple itself. Five figures in hazmat suits exited the vans. From the viewpoint of the crowd around the fence, they could see at least three ponies and a griffon. They entered the temple with nothing but their saddlebags and hazmat suits, leaving the crowd only half as puzzled as they had been when the lights shot into the sky.

Inside the entryway to the temple, the four “archaeologists” took off their hazmat suits and changed into something more comfortable. A welcome break from the grating rubber. Around all of their necks hang a necklace in silver with a gem of either orange, violet or green. All three glimmered stronger than they ever had outside

“Think they fell for it?” One of the ponies, a pegasus asked.

“Definitively. They think that this place is deadly, and won’t dare to go in here,” the griffon answered. The other two figures, a unicorn and an earth pony both nodded in agreement. Nevertheless, they began to venture deeper into the sanctum of the temple, moving the occasional fallen column out of the way, when called for.

The Temple, they could see, was still sturdily built, despite the teeth of time having their go on it. Prophecies, telling of a splitting star were still legible as was some, not all, but some of the frescoes that showed the colors of the End could be seen and understood. A shame that one of the colors was missing, though. As the small party reached the nexus of the temple, from which corridors to the three towers ran they saw three altars, each corresponding to a tower, by the virtue of canals running from the altar into the corridor

“Master Hoof! I think something’s wrong here!” The unicorn pointed to one of the altars. It was turned over, and parts of it had broken off. The earth pony walked over to take a closer look, could this be the thing they had been looking for all along?

“Let me see” He leant over and started to carefully look at the altar, looking especially thoroughly at a valley on the altar that looked like it would fit a carefully crafted cube within it. In that moment, a beam of light went from his medallion and into the altar, before zooming down the hallway to the third tower

~~~

In another world, in another Equestria, Twilight Sparkle woke up. She looked around to see not her castle and the ruined Hall of Friendship, but rather a hospital room. Bandaged were laced around her hooves and wings. Being an alicorn meant she was able to tank things that would kill normal ponies as well a faster healing process, but she was still a pony. And that meant hospital time. To her right was an IV pump with a catheter going into her forehoof, and to the left a table with a clipboard with some medical lingo that she recognized as being a report from an operation on her skeletal structure. Apparently the injuries from earlier were more severe than she had thought. She looked over to the other side of the room, where Rarity lay, sleeping with her left foreleg in a thick bandage.

The door to the room opened. In walked Doctor Horse with a clipboard and a pen, writing on said clipboard with his magic. He looked towards Twilight.

“I see you’re awake. It seems that explosion really did a number on both you and your friend.” He said, moving towards Rarity to look to her. “Nurse Redheart said that alicorns have an unusually volatile anatomy and physiology. Though I can’t really see how that is. Performing the operation was just as easy as on a normal pony”

“And Rarity?” Twilight asked concerned.

“Shaken, injured but she will recover. The healing that your friends did inside your castle may have saved her leg,” Doc answered.

Twilight slumped back into the hospital bed. Perhaps there was a happy ending to this before anything even more tragic could happen.

~~~

Back at the temple, a third light shot out from the last tower. A deep dark red this time, the appearance of a third beam reactivated the other two. The pieces of a plan set in motion began to come together. Inside the temple, some of the old inscriptions began to light up, and beams of light converged at the three altars. Something big was about to happen.

Three points of light.

Two fragments in the balance.

One shared fate.

Author's Note:

Written by VoidTemplar2000