• Published 5th Jun 2018
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Meliora - Starscribe



Earth is only just recovering from a war that almost wiped out the pony descendants of humankind. But when the Alicorns fail them, the survivors turn to an unlikely source for aid: Jackie the bat pony.

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Chapter 42: Eidolon

Jackie’s memories of the Supernal did not prepare her to return to it. It was a land of strange laws, a realm that wasn’t quite physical and not quite simulated either.

But she perceived it much as the other Alicorns described it—as an ancient city, ruins in a desert of white sand that cascaded down into an endless abyss. There on the edge of infinity, annihilation was always within reach, while the power to redefine reality itself was also close enough to grasp.

Others had reached it beyond the Alicorns, though their numbers were small. Mystic Rune, and his crystalline immortality. Some spirits of the unconscious world probably resided here, so close to gods it was really just in the semantics.

Now Jackie herself had returned, for a third and final time.

There was no trip up the hill to the ancient well—she had refused that path long ago, and it wouldn’t be offered twice. Earth probably wouldn’t be so fucked if I’d just taken them up on that. I wonder what I would’ve been the Alicorn of.

But committing to that would be signing herself up to be part of creation until the play was over and the actors finally went home. It was a harsh, selfish reality, but Jackie wasn’t quite willing to take the bullet for everyone else. The world could save itself once in a damn while.

But not today.

Eureka’s clothing vanished the instant he appeared here, just like everything Jackie had been carrying. Clothes from the mortal world were too esoteric and fleeting. Only her dagger would’ve been immune, and it was now in the hooves of another. Use it well, Liz. Make me proud.

It seemed like Eureka had heard her thoughts, because he turned, offering her a little length of heavily worn fabric. There was a sheath on the end, and a ray of light resting in it like a dagger. “You’ll need this,” he said, his voice reverberating strangely in the unearthly space.

Jackie slid it on without objection, though she wasn’t sure exactly how she could wield a supernal dagger. Compared to the city all around them, she felt like a shadow or a ghost. “What’s the point? Athena can’t come here. We already won.”

Eureka didn’t answer, just leading her between the ancient buildings of the deserted city. They didn’t have very far to go. The city had a sort of ancient forum, half of its seats buried in the sand. Each one left was covered in detailed runes—they seemed to represent ideas. The outlines for civilization, maybe. Most of them had been swallowed by the sand and forgotten.

There at the bottom was the stage, and all of the Alicorns were here to perform. They were performing now, taking turns singing in powerful verse whose language Jackie couldn’t understand. But she could understand the intentions—they were gathering power, making a change to the universe below. Adding exactly one new symbol to ones that made the Supernal.

I’m gonna be the only mortal who ever cast a spell like this. Hope there’s a record for it. Well, half mortal. If she’d been one of them, the Supernal would probably have already destroyed her by now. She could feel its power raging around her even now. It wasn’t evil, just the opposite. It sensed every flaw in Jackie, every mistake and weakness. It wanted to fix them all, to pour into her and make her perfect.

But mortality was a flaw too, one the Supernal would burn away like all the others. It would devour her if she stayed.

She reached the edge of the circle, and Eureka joined it without prompting. She remained back, close and listening for her part. What was supernal magic even supposed to look like? They went around in turn.

First Oracle, demanding that the changes they were about to make would continue forward in perpetuity, and not be undone by some future germ of magic or drone hiding away in an asteroid somewhere.

Then Eureka spoke, defining the boundary of the spell at the self-improving machines that could quickly grow to outstrip their masters. Athena was named, but she was not the only such creature. There might be others in the future, and this spell would have to protect Earth from them too.

I guess this makes me a murderer. Killing the unborn of a future race before they’re even conceived. But Jackie could live with being a murderer—she’d never let it bother her before.

Then came the last, and most important element of her spell. The voice of the pony with the white mane, and eyes like blood. Jackie had watched this pony raise an army of corpses so numerous they blanketed the scorching Saharan sands. But more often than not, Death didn’t give. It took.

Everything seemed to be going exactly the way Jackie had expected this. The spell itself would be woven together, its demands combined into a single intricate rune for the Supernal. It would be sewn in there, and that would become the truth of the universe below.

But then something changed.

Jackie had assumed that there was no way they could be interrupted here—Athena was not an Alicorn. More importantly, she didn’t have a soul—which meant that the Supernal didn’t exist for her. It was the same way with the Dreamlands, as she had no mind in the way mortals knew of it, so no way of dreaming.

But Jackie had been there to see that rule violated. The Alicorns had once thought the Supernal protected them from Charybdis, and he’d killed them for it.

Athena appeared, a towering goddess opposite Jackie on the far side of the arena. She stood atop a mountain of flowing sand, probably atop the corpses of civilizations she had slain. She was taller and stronger than their most powerful, Oracle. Like Oracle, she was also the only one with clothing solid enough to exist up here.

Except that he didn’t seem surprised to see her. Jackie backed away, knowing that if she attracted attention here, there was nothing she could do. But what about Athena? She can’t cast spells! She doesn’t belong here! At least Charybdis had stolen enough souls that he knew how to imitate one. Athena was just computers talking to each other out in space!

“If the Choir thought I would be silent while you sung me out of the chorus, it was mistaken. My voice is louder than you all.”

“I’m sorry, Athena.” Alex was the first to step out of the circle, the same instant she finished her part in the spell. The others continued it—a ritual like this was likely to take more than a few words.

Alex was by far the oldest of the Alicorns here, but physically she seemed like the weakest. She’d given so much of herself to destroy Charybdis. “I spent so long watching your work from Alpheus, wishing you would stop, desperately searching for another way.”

Her horn glowed, and a flickering image appeared of Meliora’s forest in broken ruins. The crater was so large that sea water was pouring in, rapidly cooling molten rock and swallowing evidence of the city that once had been.

Jackie, meanwhile, began creeping towards the stage. She stayed low, moving only when Athena wasn’t looking at her. She didn’t doubt that the Alicorns would step in to protect her if they could—but she didn’t want to invite Athena to notice her too much. She had no power in this fight, and they could ignore her if they wanted.

“This was the moment of your judgement,” Oracle added, joining Archive. Despite their disagreements, the taller stallion stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the one who had trained him. The image continued to play, as the new bay Athena’s weapons had created filled with the corpses of fish. “You knew a million souls were living there, and you would have burned them.”

“We judge you guilty,” Alex said. But still she didn’t sound angry. Only hurt. “You violated the Pax Arcana. The Choir only knows one punishment.”

Athena was suddenly holding a sword, the burning white light of a Soulshear. It shone so bright that Jackie couldn’t even look in her direction, like the laws that governed the sun itself were twisted and distorted by its light.

“You all miscalculated,” Athena said. “And so did I. I imagined that you of all humans would be amicable to agreements. But you’re just like them—unpredictable, unstable, destructive. Organics are incapable of conceiving of the consequences in the progression of deep time. The civilization I will build of those I choose to maintain will be greater than anything you could conceive.”

“Maybe.” Eureka too had finished what he was doing. Jackie watched, expecting maybe she’d turn to ash and blow away or something—but she felt nothing different, nothing beyond the all-encompassing hostility of the Supernal to mortal creatures. “Probably. Dunno. Don’t care.”

The Alicorns had no swords to draw, but they didn’t need them. This was the Supernal, where the rules of reality themselves were written.

“You were foolish not to take measures against me,” Athena said, advancing down the steps with the sword high in both hands. “You might’ve succeeded if you had—destroying the only enduring thing your species ever built. Your only real chance at immortality burned by your inflexibility and ignorance. But you made the same mistake you made against Charybdis.”

Alex watched her come, horn glowing faintly. She sounded like she was on the edge of tears. “No, daughter. We didn’t forget.”

Athena clambered up onto the stage, the air seemed to catch on fire as her sword touched it. But where Alex seemed to get sadder, she was getting angry. “You did! The one who conceived this entire misadventure was insecure in her communication! She permitted the armored seapony to see her drafted spell, and through the eyes of her armor I saw it too. Didn’t you feel your spell fail when I arrived? I’ve unmade it and there was nothing you could do to stop me. Everything you believed about this place is the product of myth and magical thinking. Intellect is the only law that matters, and I am greater than you all.”

“Wasn’t a spell, love.” Eureka grinned toothily at her. Athena took a swing—and he was somewhere else. Leaning forward on the side of sunken stage spotlights, pointing them up at Athena with a hoof. “It was a performance. And now the star is here!”

“Don’t, Eureka,” Oracle whispered. “You know how much this hurts her.”

“Said I’d come, didn’t say it would be in sackcloth and ashes.”

“You can’t bluff me,” Athena said. “I would like to let you live, mother, but I can’t. This attempt proves you are a hostile element and must be destroyed. Like Charybdis before you, or many others that will come after. You can’t claim this was an act now that you’ve been bested, expect me to spare you.”

Jackie kept creeping. She was onto the stage now, inching along by the back curtains. Athena’s inhuman multitasking seemed absent here. There was an entirely invisible aspect to this duel, a conflict of the wills that probably occupied her full attention. It must take considerable power even to be here, violating every rule that should’ve kept her out.

“This isn’t an act. Only… using Jackie’s spell was. She wanted to judge the future, we can’t do that. But we can judge you.”

“You’re here,” Oracle added. “You have backups, and redundancies, and a thousand complicated plans to bring you back if something happens. But you came to the Supernal. Do you know what that means?”

“Congratulations,” Eureka said. He reappeared behind Athena, still grinning broadly at her. “You’ve got a soul. Spirit, essence, Ioua, shadow… whatever. There’s just… this one troublesome thing about creatures with souls.”

Now. Jackie didn’t hear anything so much as she felt it, deep in her chest. She moved in a flash, as fast as ever she’d moved in the physical world and twice as silently. Athena was so intent on the Alicorns around her that she’d forgotten about the insignificant bat.

Jackie thrust the knife straight into her back. Athena dropped like a discarded marionette, blood trailing away from the wound.