Imbalanced: Legacy of Light

by Nameless Narrator

28-2: Northern front

Despite the ship’s gentle swaying back and forth, Harriet’s head suddenly shot upwards, startling Magpie who had been reading a Canterlot newspaper previously brought to Zebrica by one of Celestia’s staff.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, immediately reaching for a mace under his pillow.

“Eh- Ehq-” Harriet pouted, took a deep breath, and said with careful pronounciation, “Equestria. I can feel corruption,” she smiled at the successfully achieved sentence. Prominence had been spending time with her while the three ‘normal’ members of their group were recovering both in Zebrica and on the ship back to Equestria. She had to speak slowly and focus, but her three tongues were finally laying dormant in her thickened neck instead of messing up all attempts at talking.

“How does it feel?” Magpie lowered his mace, and returned back to the newspaper. It was over a week old, but to him it was still news. Even his question was more to let Harriet practice than out of his interest, “All good on the self-control side of things?”

Harriet pressed her muzzle against the small window of their cabin, watching the coastline rolling into the distance.

“It feels… familiar,” she breathed out, “but a lot less scary than before. I think I can handle myself now.”

There was something she deliberately left out, Magpie knew, but he wasn’t one to pry even though it clearly bothered the easy to read girl a lot.

“Good to know,” said Magpie in the most comforting tone he could muster, “And if you feel yourself slipping, Prominence and Gem are still around to help you. Speaking of which, you must be happy that you can finally go home. I’m pretty sure you’ll get some reward for surviving all the nonsense we’ve been through, enough for all expenses paid trip through Equestria as well as the Empire.”

The ship jerked as it docked at the pier, signalling that their time to relax was over. Harriet didn’t answer, walking out of their cabin instead. With a shrug to himself, the griffon packed his things, and left as well.

He certainly wasn’t expecting the welcome committee of four Nightguard batponies and princess Luna herself glaring at visibly hesitant Starry Night walking towards her on the pier with the expression of someone captured by pirates and having to walk the plank.

With a pop, Luna teleported straight to Starry, and wordlessly wrapped both him and her own head with her wings. As Magpie walked past them, he was sure he could hear quiet sobbing belonging to the princess.

“Ahhh...” he breathed out when he was back on the dark Equestrian ground, “Never expected that I’d miss the good old tainted moss.”

He was the last one to join the group standing around with Gem and Prominence talking to princess Celestia.

“I know you want to keep this secret and all, but if you want to get technical, that area belongs to my dad’s hive,” Gem stared Celestia down, “It’s past the shield and the farmlands of the Crystal Empire, and too far from Rift. We can either call it a no-pony’s land or you have to negotiate with my dad.”

“I would assume that a direct threat to the world would remove any need for territory negotiations,” Celestia frowned, “And if you want to get really technical, it’s still Equestria.”

Gem rolled her eyes.

“I was hoping it was clear that I didn’t want to get any kind of technical, just that I wanted to come with you and possibly enlist my hive’s help in stopping all this, top secret operation or not.”

“Look,” Celestia wasn’t still persuaded, “I will be taking the best of the best of the Hex Guard, Nightguard, Royal Guard, Paladins, Crystal Guards, the EIS, anyone I can reach. Plus, Luna, Cadance, Chrysalis, and Twilight will be there most of the time as well as Queen Spring’s Corrupted.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, but the top ten of my hive could wipe the floor with your entire entourage with their eyes closed. Plus, mom is much stronger than when she kicked your and Luna’s asses all those years ago.”

Celestia could have argued further, but Gem was right in saying that her hive would massively bolster the defensive capabilities of the forces guarding the gate.

“Fine, you can come. We’ll stop in Canterlot for a day or two to sort out any leftover details, and then we’ll head off to the Crystal Empire. Are you going to argue about your companions as well while we’re at it?” Celestia nodded towards the rest of the group.

“I don’t think she needs to argue about my presence,” Prominence smirked.

“Hired goon,” said Magpie matter-of-factly, “If Gem wants me to, I’m coming.”

“I’m her backpack,” Pack Rat smiled at the princess who gave him somewhat confused glance.

“What they mean is that they’re coming too,” explained Gem, “What about you, Harriet? This is the perfect opportunity for you to finally go home. No Soulstealer in your backpack, and the guy who killed your mom is gone.”

To Gem’s surprise, Harriet sighed before saying:

“I think I want to see this through to the end, if you don’t mind me tagging along.”

“It’s settled then. We’re off to stop the baddies!”

“Do I have to repeat that Flow is lost in a different dimension, and that we’re just setting up fortifications and a camp there for who knows how long?” Celestia had to set things straight, “We have no indication that Flow has the mirror world seals or even all of this world’s ones.”

“Then we’d better bring some reading material,” chuckled Gem.

***

“Sir Bucket, a message for you marked urgent,” a Silver Sun recruit walked over to the robot sitting on the public balcony at the end of the mansion’s third floor hallway.

“Thank you,” the robot took the small envelope unmarked by anything other than the post office’s ‘urgent’ stamp in red ink.

A fake stamp, although no one geared up with less than his kind of scanning equipment would figure that out without a long examination.

When the recruit trotted off, Bucket scanned the envelope again for any threats, and discovered only a torn piece of paper inside. With growing curiosity, he opened it and read a rather long but seemingly nonsensical string of numbers and letters on the paper. However, the string did call out something in his mind, and that was a subroutine of the same name. Having nothing else to do, he executed the code.

“Switch to your main body and meet me at these coordinates in the next two days at exactly five o’clock.”

It was in the Manehattan dead zone, but not in the center as one would expect from a suspicious message like this one, rather in, according to his maps, some random house about halfway from the edge. What the message did unlock as well, though, was the feeling of familiarity as if this had happened before. Many times, actually.

He transferred his, for lack of a better word, consciousness to the istrium body in the cellar, and set up a reserve archive into which he would copy this encounter. Times were difficult enough for him to take precautions against someone who seemed able to control him on the deepest level, especially with the knowledge of the Silver Sun resources going missing. Suiting up, the only thing left to do was wait until the required time.

The long robe with a hood was suspicious, but still significantly less than if an alicorn-like robot was walking through late afternoon Manehattan, and while he drew curious looks, the attention was short-lived.

The dead zone was empty like always, but the deserted house in which the meeting was to supposed to take place did, to someone like him, show the faintest signs of recent use, namely microscopic scratches in the floor caused by horseshoes. Even more specifically, the specific kind of horseshoes only found on his main body.

With that in mind, he waited and listened until he heard a solitary set of hoofsteps approach and eventually enter the house.

“Desert Shade,” he looked up at the entering hippogriff mare, “I would say long time no see, but I get the feeling that it was longer for me than for you.”

“Spare me,” Des looked straight at him, her mouth a straight, firm line of determination, “Password - once upon a time in a bad dream.”

Memories flooded Bucket’s brain, and in an instant he knew what he had to do. First, he deleted the archive into which he was recording this meeting. Second, he got ready for his orders.

“What’s the next step?” he asked.

She pulled out an electronic mapping disc fitting in her talons, and a holographic map appeared floating above it, through which Des scrolled with her other foreleg until she found a red circle.

“Move the seal keys to these coordinates, and do it in secret. The Brauheim teleporter should be safe enough. You will have to scour the whole area for marks where to put specific keys, because our friend is still setting those up.”

Bucket nodded. It would take time to gather all the keys and for the teleporter to recharge after each use, but-

“Week and a half,” he said.

Desert Shade nodded.

“Be careful, Celestia is moving everyone she can to prevent the gate from opening.”

“Say, Des,” for the first time in maybe centuries, Bucket hesitated, “What happens after the gate opens?”

“As far as I know, the Dark Traveller called a Herald will be released, and open a rift that will swallow all existence.”

“Aaaand we’re helping that happen...” commented Bucket.

“This is too big for us, Bucket,” Des stored the map device in her saddlebag again, “The best we can do is to control where the final battle happens and who joins. That’s our job. We’re irrelevant to the outcome of the battle itself,” she turned around and headed for the door, “Dismissed, Bucket.”

“Understood, Des. Good luck.”

“I’m doing everything I can so that luck doesn’t get a say in this,” she growled and left.

Bucket waited, pondering the situation as well as his temporary access to the memories of their previous meetings. It was clear why he had to come here, and why his non-istrium bodies had to stay in the dark about these meetings and the plan. So, in the end, he locked his knowledge away like many times before, and left himself remembering only Des’ orders.

Back home at the mansion, he was just planning out how to gather the seal keys and then transport them to the northern tundra when he heard knocking on his door he didn’t recognize.

“May I have a word?” said the voice of Blazing Light.

“Come in!” replied Bucket, and the unicorn let himself in, “Is anything wrong?”

“Other than being ripped out of my reality and then consistently molested by a perverted draconequus thinking I’m somepony else?” replied Blazing with a heavy sigh, “Nevermind that, I want to leave.”

“I can’t bring you back home, if that wasn’t clear before.”

Blazing shook his head.

“I want to go to Canterlot and rejoin the Paladins. They’ve been my family for over half of my life, and even though I’m a stranger here, I doubt the bonds between paladins will be too different from how it was back home.”

“That will break Cromach’s heart.”

“If I was a less caring pony, I would say that it wasn’t my business, but after our last… disagreement, I think he finally understood that I’m not the pony he thinks I am.”

Bucket stood up from his chair, walked over to Blazing, and offered a hoof to shake, which the unicorn accepted.

“Then there isn’t much more to say, is there?” Bucket nodded, “Have you got enough bits for the trip?”

“I think so. Running your basic recruits through war exercises we did with my Paladins pays more than I could spend.”

“I hope you find home in this new world, both for your sake and for Cromach’s. Even though you’re not his Blazing, I don’t doubt for a second he would take it hard if anything happened to you.”

“Thank you, Bucket, and goodbye.”

Bucket let out a distorted chuckle after the unicorn left. This version of Blazing Light would have to explain himself to some alicorns who would be very angry at… well, technically not him. It was his mostly innocent revenge for Blazing not taking Cromach’s situation with a little more tact.

***

Maniacal laughter rang through the tower at the edge of reality. Come to think of it, it was a duet of laughter which contained exhaustion, hope, and victorious celebration.

“We did it! WE DID IT!” Twilight exclaimed, her wings hanging limply from her sides, and eyes with bags underneath in which one could carry a week’s worth of groceries for the whole family.

“One more shot for scientific accuracy?” Magnus blinked sweat away from his eyes, grinning from ear to ear, “Or to make sure we can focus when push comes to shove?”

“Right, right,” Twilight beamed back at the white unicorn, “We’ve managed to simplify this down to a spell, we need to make sure a unicorn without our kind of power can use it. I think that as exhausted as we are, we’re in the best shape to simulate a unicorn wizard’s level of power,” Twilight was about to fall asleep, but the discovery was revitalizing her so much she wouldn’t pass up the ability to perfect the spell for anything, “Okay, you open the rift, I close it this time.”

Magnus’s horn flashed, and something akin to black line appeared in the air. In response, Twilight’s horn flared purple, the spreading of the line stopped, and a fraction of a second later the line faded.

Twilight gasped for breath, and stumbled. Silence spread through Magnus’ library slash laboratory as the alicorn and the ex-alicorn of Magic just stood there and looked into each other’s eyes.

“...we did it...” Twilight breathed out again, “...we know how to fight him...”

Magnus was too proud to stumble towards the nearest armchair, so he slumped there after somewhat dignified shuffling.

“Knowing and being able to are two different issues, Twilight,” he moaned, leaning back and closing his eyes, “Although scaling reality repair magic to a level where a normal unicorn would be able to use it reflexively and on their own is one miracle of an achievement.”

“You said you used to do this often in the old days,” Twilight unceremoniously collapsed on a table, although she still took care to telekinetically catch the books falling off of it, and put them on the floor.

“Well yeah, as three alicorns,” Magnus chuckled, “But now, every marginally skilled unicorn will be able to repair reality. On a tiny scale, but even so.”

“All we need to do now is teach the spell to the unicorns Celestia is gathering before Flow comes back,” Twilight’s head was hanging from the table and she was beginning to slur her words, “We may have lost the battle for the seal keys, but we’re ready. We won’t have to run anymore as soon as Flow appears.”

“Let’s not let it go to our heads, Twilight...” Magnus’ voice lost only part of its cheer despite his message, “We haven’t tackled anything on Flow’s scale yet. In theory, the spell should work with the absolute minimum amount of energy to close void rifts, so small that ambient magic should be enough, but Flow can still open and close rifts faster than we can. But hey, at least we’ve avoided the old way, which was mass blood sacrifices.”

“How is that possible if even we can’t do it?”

“Like I said before… I think… I’m too tired to remember what I said over the past weeks… no one knows how Dark Travellers do it,” Magnus shrugged, “I wish I had one safely contained for study, but alas, that’s impossible.”

“Wait, take a step back. Did you say mass blood sacrifices to close the rifts?” something in the back of Twilight’s weary mind was screaming at her.

“You can use blood magic and necromancy to do whatever, really...” Magnus’ head slid to the side as the alicorn went silent, “...souls and lifeforce are just raw power...”

Twilight didn’t hear him, having passed out a second ago.

Author's Note:

The final battle is approaching

Comments

[Two_Madmans]

Maniacal laughter rang through the tower at the edge of reality. Come to think of it, it was a duet of laughter which contained exhaustion, hope, and victorious celebration.

Twilight and Magnus.
Ok, now that is the worst threat to universe than that thing Flow trying to freed.

“Like I said before… I think… I’m too tired to remember what I said over the past weeks… no one knows how Dark Travellers do it,” Magnus shrugged, “I wish I had one safely contained for study, but alas, that’s impossible.”

“Wait, take a step back. Did you say mass blood sacrifices to close the rifts?” something in the back of Twilight’s weary mind was screaming at her.

“You can use blood magic and necromancy to do whatever, really...” Magnus’ head slid to the side as the alicorn went silent, “...souls and lifeforce are just raw power...”

Twilight didn’t hear him, having passed out a second ago.

10101992
Nameless, Nameless... You want to make me to believe in opposite thing? But, this is your fanfic, And I will not be surprised if you're meaning what you are saying because you planning to write it.
This site definitely need other type of spoilers too...

[Nameless Narrator]

10102007

Twilight and Magnus.
Ok, now that is the worst threat to universe than that thing Flow trying to freed.

Nooooo, just two big-brained nerds.

Nameless, Nameless... You want to make me to believe in opposite thing? But, this is your fanfic, And I will not be surprised if you're meaning what you are saying because you planning to write it.

It's a mystery! Mwahahahahahaaaaa!