Imbalanced: Legacy of Light

by Nameless Narrator

21: Trouble on all fronts.

Like most of the time these days, Bucket was busy reading reports from all over the world brought in by his operatives. He was still using his most advanced body, if only to calibrate all the tiny settings he might need in case of trouble. Bucket wasn’t exactly powerful even in his best chassis, but if there was someone able to eke an opportunity by thinking thousands of times faster than anyone else, it was him. Now, he was trying to figure out something, anything new, any connection he might have missed between the facts regarding the zebra army currently about to siege the united armies of the Northern Coalition - the states on the northern coast of Zebrica.

All his thought processes ceased, however, as he heard knocking on the door.

One, he hadn’t received any message about a visitor. Two, he hadn’t heard any hoofsteps from outside. Three, he actually recognized the knock, and it was one he hadn’t heard in four years.

Focusing energy into his horn, he called out:

“It’s open, come in.”

The door didn’t open with any ominous creak. It didn’t open slowly as if somepony was unsure what’s inside. It was opened by someone who had the certainty of doing it hundreds of times ago.

A pure white draconequus floated into the office, and smirked when he saw Bucket, adding an impressed raised eyebrow to the overall expression.

“With look like that, I’m dying to know what gym you’ve been going to, Bucket,” said Cromach. When the robot simply stared, horn glowing, Cromach stretched out his foreleg, snapped his talons, and grabbed the war axe appearing out of nowhere accompanied by green lightning coursing through it, “I know you’ve learned to identify divine signatures. Yes, it’s me. It’s been a while. I would love to say I’m glad to see you again, but I would be lying.”

“Cromach...” Bucket approached the draconequus, pointing his horn at him, “No one has seen you since you left Manehattan after Blazing Light’s death.”

“Quite a lot of ponies, griffons, zebras, minotaurs, and everyone really have seen me, I just didn’t look like the good old me. It’s a pain in the ass to stay in any other shape than this on,” Cromach waved it off as if nothing unusual was going on, “Now, I know I gave you complete control over Silver Sun, but I need help. Things… happened.”

“I’m listening,” the robot turned his back to Cromach, focusing on levitating a chair to him. When he looked back, Cromach was already sitting on a barstool he’d gotten from who knows where, and the robot returned his floating guest chair back into the corner, “Although I’d like to know why you look like that.”

“Nightmare did this,” the amused smile on Cromach’s face disappeared, “I’m not going to lie, Bucket. After Nightmare killed Blaze, I wanted to be gone too. I waited over two centuries for him, unsure whether he might come back. The only thing that kept me going was what Heavy told me when I nearly died and my soul got into Final Sanctuary where I found out Void was gone. Void knew Scream chose Choking Darkness as her successor. Void did the same to Blaze in hope it would be enough, and he used Heavy’s soul to be the steward of Final Sanctuary. When we failed last time… it was too much for me. I walked among wild Corrupted, hoping either that insanity would wipe out my memories and personality, or that they would kill me outright,” with a flash, some black, fizzy drink appeared in Cromach’s grasp, “There’s not much to say, really. Nightmare appeared, did the whole ‘POWER OVERWHELMING!’ thing on me, and when my nipples and anus stopped bleeding, I woke up with the worst headache in history and a whole new level of divine power. Apparently, Discord’s, although you know I’ve gained the power of all three in my life. Maybe that’s what’s making controlling this so brutal.”

“Why would Nightmare do that?” asked Bucket. Cromach’s openness was a point for him, but his story certainly made it likely that this wasn’t Cromach at all, rather some Nightmare’s pawn. Of course, it could be both.

Cromach gave Bucket a stare so deadpan it could belong to a chineighese zombie cook.

“Don’t you think I’ve been pondering that for four years?”

“And, have you figured something out?” Bucket wasn’t bothered by Cromach’s sarcastic tone whatsoever. If something, that frustration only made it more likely that it was really him.

“Yes, actually, or at least I think so,” Cromach sighed, ”All I had to do was think like Blaze. For him, immortality and eternity were a horrifying prospect. I used to not see it. I had a family, I had several wives between his death and his return, I had the Silver Sun to take care of even though I knew how insignificant we all were. Blaze saw way ahead, though. What would I be doing in a millennium? Ten millennia? A million years? As far as I knew, I was immortal, or ageless at least. Boredom, insanity, morals… nothing would be relevant forever. What would I do after I tried everything?”

“Is something like that even possible?” Bucket was intrigued with that idea. For him, the unending flow of information meant that there would always be a new frontier to analyze, categorize, and predict. Was running out of things to understand even an option?

“I assume so, if nothing then from what Nightmare said,” Cromach smirked when he saw Bucket’s curious stare, “No, I can’t recall the exact wording, but it was something about her finally understanding Discord. Something about us mortals being the only entertaining thing left. I put two and two together with what Blaze told me about what Void was fighting for most of the known history. He wanted mortals to be rulers of their own destiny, not just toys for gods to play with.”

“So you think Nightmare hasn’t destroyed us because she would… have nothing to do afterwards?”

“That’s about as good a guess as any,” Cromach shrugged.

“Can we use it?”

“You tell me. Though I doubt that we’d get a second chance if we somehow found a way to fight her and lost. I think she attacked our old base because… because Blaze knew something he didn’t tell us, or maybe something he didn’t understand himself. Or maybe she just wanted to see us cry. I don’t know, really...”

Bucket broke the following silence:

“What brings you here then?”

“To be honest, a little bit of personal selfishness,” Cromach smiled to himself, and clapped his forelegs, arms, front appendages.

In another flash of white light tainted with green, a hospital bed appeared about halfway to the ceiling, and crashed on the floor. A second later, Blazing Light rolled down from it, his horn glowing with whatever magic he was about to unleash. He calmed down a little when he noticed Cromach, but straight up jumped away from Bucket staring at him.

“Wha- what the- Cromach?!” with his head lowered as if ready to pounce, Blazing stuttered out.

“Calm down, calm down. I was trying to summon only you, not the bed,” Cromach snapped his talons, and the bed disappeared, “Much bett-” he winced as said bed dropped behind the window of Bucket’s office, crashing three stories down. When no panicked screaming followed, Cromach breathed out a sigh of relief that it didn’t it anyone, “Damn it. You really can’t stop focusing for even a moment with this.”

“I really wouldn’t mind some explaining...” Blazing clutched the bandaged wound he sustained during his ‘fight’ against Flow, “Especially since everyone around looks like something I would have been sent to eradicate during my time with the paladins.”

“Then your Celestia must have been even dumber than ours-” Cromach sneered. Blazing’s head snapped towards him, his angry glare shutting Cromach up, “Nevermind, that’s not important anyway,” he pointed at the robot, “Blazing, that’s Bucket, a mechanical pony originally built by Twilight Sparkle as a clopbot. Now he leads an order set on fighting the gods’ influence over the world. Bucket, this is Blazing Light.”

“He certainly is not. In any respect, I can add freely,” Bucket commented, “Although this adds weight to Harriet’s eyewitness testimony.”

“Blazing Light, a proud member of princess Celestia’s paladins!” Blazing saluted, “Veteran of Unified Equestrian Army.”

“Some other apocalyptic dimension. It turns out our Blaze must have done almost everything right for us to stand here. Nightmare brought this guy here to toy with me and my feelings for our Blaze,” Cromach explained with a sigh, “So far, it’s working. I almost shat myself when Flow sliced his chest open.”

“I assume you want to recruit him, right?” Bucket tilted his head.

“He could use some of our training. War experience or not, we know how insufficient paladin training is.”

“A-hem!” Blazing cleared his throat. Cromach flashed in front of him, and looked into his eyes from his height.

“I know this must be new for you, but trust me. I’m not saying any of this to dismiss your achievements in your world. You saw only the tiniest glimpse of what we’re against. And no, I’m not going to ask you if you are in. If you decline to join us, your usefulness to Nightmare will end, and she will simply get rid of you. But hey, at least we have a chance to get reacquainted,” he ended with a hopeful smirk.

“Just acquainted,” Blazing cooled him down instantly.

“If Cromach believes you aren’t Nightmare’s agent, I have no problem with getting you ready to join our fight,” said Bucket, one hundred percent certain that Cromach’s decision wasn’t coming from his head but from his heart, “Although now that I have a survivor of an attack from Flow… I think it might be more beneficial to examine you rather than push you through evaluation exercises.”

“I didn’t have anything planned for today anyway,” Blazing smirked.

“That’s what I’ve always like about you. You work hard,” Cromach patted Blazing’s neck, and then his arm got locked in the unicorn’s telekinetic grip, “...you play hard?” his voice faded.

“Stop,” said the unicorn firmly.

***

“Don’t step there!” Starry Night almost choked when Bladedancer got carried away and tried to walk over to the black wall of the ancient changeling hive. Thanks to her honed reflexes, the unicorn mare stopped instantly. With utmost care, she levitated a pebble out one of her saddlebags, and threw it in front of her. The stone ignited instantly and turned to ash.

“Oookay,” she did her best to move backwards in the same way she went ahead, and judging by her hoof not exploding, she did it well enough. As she found herself side by side with Starry, she breathed out, “Sorry. After two days of this, I just want to be out of here.”

The information Starry had about the magic deactivation property of the area hadn’t proven completely true. Supposedly, the whole Badlands area used to nullify magic, which Starry’s quick audience with dreamling queen Guiding Light confirmed with one correction - that’s how it used to be before the anomalies appeared. However, judging by her very closely tracking the progress of groups attempting to map the area, the null-magic zone reached only barely outside the walls of the ancient changeling hive these days.

Thankfully, their visit to Pine Hills yielded results, as some of the adventurers around had seen a Corrupted resembling Heavy Hoof’s description headed towards the Badlands multiple times over past week. That gave Starry the excuse to go on with his plan of lying to Bladedancer in order to destroy his mother’s protection spells cast upon him. After spending two days, and a LOT of royal money, by buying information and instructions from experienced guides as well as some basic devices capable of scanning the surrounding area, the two had had a rough idea about the temporary configuration of the anomalies which would last at least a day or two. That, of course, meant that he and Bladedancer hadn’t slept the past two nights, having relied on Bladedancer’s magic to keep them refreshed. In an area where a single mistake could mean a painful and gruesome death, that wasn’t a smart idea.

Of course, they would have to rest properly to allow Bladedancer to use her magic to teleport them back to a temporary binding circle she’d prepared in Pine Hills, but that was a question for later.

“How far is it anyway?” Bladedancer asked, a hint of frustration in her voice.

Starry rubbed his temples, watching a blue image made of light float over a map disc fastened around his neck like a necklace.

“We should be there,” Starry frowned, staring at the wall of the hive ahead, “The problem is that there’s no way to get inside,” he walked a winded path led by his beeping device, with Bladedancer in tow, and stopped by the hive wall. Something Bladedancer had tried to do as well, only using much straighter and more lethal course, “I… kind of thought that the route would lead to the main entrance,” he sighed.

Bladedancer looked around.

“Are you sure there’s no anomaly between me and the wall?”

Instead of answering, Starry simply knocked on the black rock.

“Good,” the paladin put her own hoof on the wall, and focused. Short while later, a pony-sized oval hole appeared in the wall with a squelch. He could see faintly lit corridor through it, “Get in, this is making my head hurt.”

Starry didn’t wait for anything, and darted through. Bladedancer followed. As both of them entered the insides of the hive, the hole closed behind them with one more meaty plop.

“How did you do that?” whispered Starry, as the two crept ahead.

“I’ve been inside Chrysalis’ quarters several times. Changelings can change the properties of their goo in some really amazing ways, one of which is surface tension. They can simply do it with a thought, I need to use magic, and it’s like trying to stop a carousel by throwing your brain at it.”

The short corridor ended in a room that made both of them gasp.

They had expected caves, possibly hatching caverns filled with goo, and maybe some wild critters who had learned to live in this prison surrounded by invisible death. They hadn’t expected live, humming electronics.

Judging by the baskets of clothes, and the three big, grey washing machines lining the far wall, this was a laundry room. Long cables stretched from a breaker box above the washing machines to the tunnel leading outside, making Starry notice a detail he hadn’t properly realize before - there were no doors.

Who lived here?

Bladedancer shoved Starry against the wall, out of sight of anyone possibly passing by the laundry room entrance.

“The machines are running,” the paladin hissed, “Someone will be coming to check up on them eventually, and the longer we stay here the bigger chance they’ll see us here.”

“Wait!” Starry pushed her away, and shimmied by the wall to the nearest laundry basket. There were various articles of clothing inside that could belong to anypony, but he recognized few pieces, mostly the oversized g-strings, skirts, and the occasional leg warmers the amazons in Pine Hills wore. He pulled one piece of underwear out, and presented it to Bladedancer with a smirk, “Wanna try this one on?”

“If I had that kind of ass on this kind of body, I wouldn’t be a paladin. I’d be the richest pole dancer all over the world,” she rolled her eyes, “Why don’t you pick a pair for when we’re back in Canterlot, and get moving? My mane is standing on edge. We need to start looking for a real exit, because I sure as hay can’t make one with magic in here anymore.”

Starry pulled out another piece of clothing, one of several in the basket, which made him let out a sigh.

“A standard issue Silver Sun robe,” he presented it to Bladedancer.

“It is a common design,” she shrugged.

“So you really don’t think this place is connected to the Silver Sun?”

“I never said that,” she smirked, “This whole situation reeks, I just can’t tell what with yet.”

They heard a careful set of hoofsteps outside, and Starry, being the darker of the two, peeked from behind a corner to the tunnel. His seeing the amazon-sized clothing made him ready for the sight of one of the huge mares walking past. What did almost make him swallow his tongue was the much smaller figure walking by the amazon’s side.

“There are dreamlings here too!” Starry hid again, sat down, and looked up at Blade, “It’s like in Pine Hills, only with added Silver Sun.”

“The Mayor of Pine Hills is a Silver Sun member, you know? Plus, Guiding Light is connected to them as well. I just don’t know if only through Crimson Heart or if there’s another link.”

One thing the paladin had said finally caught up with Starry. She couldn’t use her magic here, which meant that his stasis spell was gone too. Step one of the mission was over, now all they needed was to find Flow. The thing is that no matter how suspicious this place was, there was no reason to think Flow would be here. This could simply be a secret Silver Sun base Bucket didn’t tell them about. Luckily, if that’s the case, there was the possibility of them not being in too much danger if they got caught. However, if Bucket really didn’t have any idea about this place, and if somepony was using Silver Sun resources to set this place up, the information they could gain by scouting was invaluable.

Starry tapped Bladedancer’s leg.

“I’m going first. You follow me when I give you a signal that the area is clear. That pally armor isn’t great for sneaking.”

***

Much, much deeper south, in the marble-decorated halls of Marekesh, a city on the northwest of Zebrica which the Northern Coalition declared the command center of their defensive forces, the double door leading to the war room opened, letting in one exhausted zebra stallion. It had taken some fine zebra alchemy as well as unicorn magic to restore his ripped out tongue, but now, finally, he was able to speak.

Zach looked around as he descended the short stairs to the wide room with a circular table above which floated a see-through map of Zebrica with red dots and lines symbolizing the movement and position of Stern’s army. He was anxious to finally be allowed to give his testimony about the army and, most of all, about the unicorn behind Stern’s success.

There weren’t only zebras around the table, but several unicorns as well along with a pair of griffons. Everyone looked vaguely military-ish, other than a single unicorn wearing a white robe. Of course, the two zebra guards behind Zach were there as well.

With a deep breath to jog his memory and courage after the insane march through the deserts with little to no resources, Zach took his place at the table under the scrutinizing eyes of everyone.

“Tell us your name, will you?” a elderly zebra mare with a pleasant voice wearing a see-through veil opened the hearing.

“Zach, ma’am,” he replied, “I’m from-” her raised foreleg stopped him.

“For now, please stick to answering only the posed question. We have a lie detection spell set up so that we didn’t have to use truth potions to cloud your possible recognition in the later part of the hearing.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded, and the mare gave him a soft smile.

“Where do you come from, Zach?”

“Southern Zebrican Republic, ma’am. The city of Rastaan.”

“That means you’ve been with the army since the start, have you?”

“Almost, ma’am,” Zach nodded, “The SZR was the first country to fall to warlord Stern’s army, which at the time was still limited in manpower.”

“Tell us what happened, please.”

“There isn’t much to say, ma’am. I don’t even know how the standing militia got butchered in the first place. All I knew was that suddenly there were armed soldiers knocking on the door of my family’s house. My father tried to fight, so they just shot him and my mother and set fire to the building. I knew it was either join or die as well. They led me off, gave me my mark, and I was assigned to the front line infantry.”

“Mark?” asked the mare.

“There are magical alarms all over the army’s camp which trigger when someone tries to flee or get where they shouldn’t be. These are based on marks, or brands you get when you first ‘join’. They can be triggered by higher ranked members to cause pain as punishment as well, or to slow down deserters as they leave the camp.”

“That is rather advanced magic,” said one of the unicorns, a scarred grey one with solar insignia on his armor. An equestrian paladin, clearly, “Don’t take this personally, but zebra alchemy or technology doesn’t allow for that. At least I haven’t encountered anything even remotely similar here.”

“That’s what I thought my testimony would be about, sir,” Zach spoke up, “If you don’t mind my interruption,” he glanced at the zebra mare who nodded after a second of thought, “I mean, I was cannon fodder at first, and later I got promoted to a fully-fledged member of the army, which meant that I had free movement around the camp. I really don’t know anything about strategy or overall goal of warlord Stern. The important part of what I wanted to say was that there’s a unicorn wizard behind Stern and his victories,” he nodded at the paladin, “As mister unicorn here said, Stern’s victories stand on magic, at least most of them. I tried to kill the wizard, but I failed… which led to them trying to execute me and deactivating my mark so that I could be crucified outside of the camp.”

“Alright,” said the mare, nodding to the paladin, “We will get back to the general questions later. I believe unicorn magic is your area of expertise, sir.”

The paladin nodded.

“Alright, what can you tell us about the wizard?”

“It’s a unicorn stallion, dark blue with brighter blue mane and pink eyes which kinda… glowed. I don’t know if it means anything.”

“Did you see his cutie mark?”

“No, I didn’t, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Anything else?” the paladin didn’t seem concerned.

“As I said, I tried to kill him. I nearly cut his head off in his sleep, but he just regenerated somehow from a completely slit throat as if it was nothing. He gloated at me when my attempt failed, though. He said that you would talk and try to negotiate until it was too late, and that the only thing that could stop the army would be some… tactical spell strike?”

The paladin frowned, exchanging glances with others around the table.

“Sadly, such thing will require negotiations between the northern states, no matter what,” he admits, “It seems that Stern’s wizard knows that.”

“At this point, with most of Zebrica gone, I believe I’d be able to work out a deal between the countries… if the princesses agree to the tactical strike.”

“They will,” the paladin nodded, “if you ensure the targeting and empty the area of civilians.”

“If we empty a, let’s say, city, then Stern’s army won’t go there. They have already proven to possess the knowledge of the state of each country they demolished,” objected the zebra, “We’re going to need a bait.”

“Our rulers will not agree to a tac strike on civilians. The spells will already render the area uninhabitable possibly for centuries.”

Zach cleared his throat, the paladin nodded, and changed the subject.

“This isn’t a discussion that involves Zach here. He already said that the enemy wizard knows we’d be arguing about this, possibly indefinitely. We should see what we can learn here. Namely, the question of recruiting more members for the army. Zach?”

“How does the army recruit?” Zach let out a mirthless laugh, “They barge into your city, tell you to join, and if you as much as think about saying no, they kill you. Sooner or later, the survivors join.”

“That’s not what my friend here meant,” the zebra mare corrected Zach, “We’ve received reports of entire cities simply packing up and leaving for a long trek through the country to join the army hundreds of kilometers away.”

“What?!” Zach blinked, “Of their own free will?”

“We were hoping you’d enlighten us on that, because we doubt so. All we know is that the victims presented marks of equestrian corruption.”

“Corruption? Wait, like coughing up black stuff? Black veins in their coats and more?” Zach’s mind worked overtime to recall anything useful about the situation. He’d always thought that the new recruits constantly arriving even between sieges had been the results of raiding parties, but it was true that there had always been too many of those in comparison to the size of the raider groups, “I thought the fresh arrivals were just sick. We quarantined them for several days, and then all marks disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” a different pony, this one light grey clad in amethyst armor with strange, completely black eyes with violet pupils, “Did you use any special treatment?”

“No, sir,” Zach shook his head, “Just quarantine and leaving them alone. They slept most of the time, and then were okay.”

“Does it remind you of anything, Knowledge?” asked the paladin.

“Corruptor possession maybe,” Knowledge rubbed his chin, “Although the Corruptor would have to be unbelievably powerful to take control of hundreds of zebras at once.”

“Thousands, sir,” Zach interrupted, “Sorry, sir.”

Knowledge sighed and shrugged.

“I’ll have to consult this with… everyone really, though I doubt anyone has ever seen this before. Let’s leave this as a working theory.”

“Anything else?” asked the zebra speaker.

“No, ma’am,” replied Zach after some thought, “I was hoping the news about the wizard would be somewhat helpful.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Knowledge gave him a friendly smile, “We’ll discuss things afterwards, and maybe we’ll come up with something to ask you in that regard. Now, though, miss speaker, it’s your turn.”

“Good. Let’s get to the more mundane questions, Zach. What’s the army equipment?”

Now that was something Zach was intimately familiar with.

“The main mode of transport are the RV-13 buggies, T-13 tanks, and that tread variant of ZIR transports… what’s it called...”

“ZIR-DM,” corrected a zebra stallion sitting by the speaker’s side, “The desert model.”

“Yes, those,” Zach nodded, “However, most of the troops travel on hoof-”

Zach spent the rest of the day explaining the minute details of army life, details about equipment, processes, strategies, and anything he could recall as well as many things he had no idea he’d ever seen. Unfortunately, his head kept wandering to the reality of the situation, and to the growing certainty that Stern’s unicorn wizard was right. They would keep talking while the army marched north, minute after minute, hoofstep by hoofstep.

Author's Note:

It's all a conspiracyyyy!

Comments

[Nameless Narrator]

9758494
- nope
- everything's going to be fiiiiine

[Two_Madmans]

9758847
So, Blaze is alive and teaching ponies to hunt, tame and force corruptors to become a living clothes...

[Nameless Narrator]

9766319
Interesting theory, although I fail to see how anything ties to Blaze in this.

[Two_Madmans]

9766358
Suitie McSuitface is connection!

[Nameless Narrator]

9766404
Iiiinteresting