Chapter 289 - Trial 3: The Billion Piece Jigsaw
The next elevator ride.
It was mostly dark and silent this time. You found yourself in deep thought. These trials were much more difficult than Tirek indicated. Hell, they were so difficult that you believed you were getting by with Deus Ex Machina yourself as the quick thinking of some of the young six have managed to get you and your group through thus far.
However, the question was why were they so difficult? Tirek had inferred they’d be easy for all of you so he’d be able to take advantage of the turn around that was Deus Ex Machina, but it seems it was all a lie. He seemed so enamored with the idea before, so why the tricks?
Or maybe, you should be looking at what the trick can be in reverse? These trials, so far, have been proving his theory inversely. Now, you don't truly know if Deux Ex Machina actually existed in this world, despite it really seeming like it. But, when it comes to Tirek, he may have dropped the idea altogether. Not to try to trick you all, but because he got scared and became doubtful. He mentioned seeing how he truly got defeated, maybe that was it. Maybe he was telling the truth on his realization of how he’s ‘destined to lose’. These trials could have originally started easy, but in his panic, he used the staff’s power to make them difficult.
If that was the case, and the staff was in a critical state, then this was it. All you and your team had to do was pass the trials and kick his ass with zero resistance. Tirek is too weak to deal with the group on his own and Cozy is in that sleeping pod.
Good lord, he made things too easy.
“Tirek, I know you can hear me. What happened to your little plan? Hm?” You said while looking around the elevator. There was no answer. “...Not gonna say anything, huh? I figured it out, you know? And I know you used whatever magic you had left to change your trials. I also know that you don’t have any for yourself. Give up, Tirek. We’re gonna rip you to shreds when we get to you. Give up now and I’ll make sure Chrysalis doesn’t rip you apart.”
“Hmph, don’t lie to him, Anon. If what you say is true, then I want him quivering with fear. I want to taste it.” Chrysalis said, baring a malicious grin.
“What are you doing, Anon?” Ocellus asked, confused why you were acting so foreboding and arrogant.
“Easy, I figured him out. The way he got angry, the way he tried to misdirect Gallus. He screwed up for sure.” You say as you begin to look around again. “Isn’t that right, Tirek? I know how Deus Ex Machina works, dude. It’s over for you, we’re gonna crush every trial you got with ease. Give up, or else!”
“...You shouldn’t talk like that, outworlder. You haven’t won yet. And you have no idea what I have in store for you, for all of you.” Said Tirek through the speaker. His voice was low, and angry.
“Get bent! You were right when you said destiny had it out for you. You have no chance! Hell, maybe if you stuck to your plan you would have had some power from the staff to pull your own Deus Ex, but you screwed up! I guess not having Cozy around gave you cold hooves. You’re not buff enough to take us all on by yourself. So last chance, give it up!” You said with an evil cackle. “Do it, because there is no future for you after this!”
“Silence! I won’t hear any of this! Trust me, outworlder. No, Anon! I won’t destroy you next time. No, I’ll make sure you get to see me drain the magic of all those you hold dear. I’ll destroy each and every one of them! Their destruction will be on YOUR hooves, and I’ll make sure you live many a moon to contemplate on that!” Tirek said with a rageful growl.
Chrysalis made an audible yawn. “Yes, we’re oh so terrified of your empty threat. Just tell us what the next trial is so we can hurry this up. I have a car to clean, ponies have been sleeping in it.”
“Oh, I’ll tell you. Oh yes, I’ve been waiting for you all to reach this particular one. Tell me, how do you all feel about jigsaw puzzles?” Tirek said, in a dark and slimy tone as he calmed his anger.
“Ha! I totally got this! Me and my siblings have crushed every puzzle we can get our hooves on! Bring it on!” Sandbar said, feeling confident he can complete the trial.
“Oh, then this will be very fun to watch. So then, let me lay out the details for you all. The next chamber will have a wall. Don’t worry, you’ll know what I mean by that when you see it. Beside it will be a very large and rather deep pit filled with jigsaw pieces.” Tirek said, his voice becoming even darker.
“A-a pit full of jigsaw pieces? W-what does that mean?” Sandbar asked, as he began to relent.
“Oh, I’m glad you asked. The task is simple, use the jigsaw pieces to make sure every tiny little inch of that wall is covered. Simple, right? Although, I should mention that the pit contains one billion pieces, half of them being fakes. And perhaps I should also mention that when those elevator doors open, you’ll only have ten minutes to complete the puzzle.” Tirek let out a boisterous laugh. “There is no way you fools will be able to get out of this one. Deus Ex Machina or no, there is nothing in this world that can make this easy for you. Now then, the timer starts once the elevator doors open, so I'd suggest you be quick. Goodbye, Anon, I shall enjoy watching you squirm most of all.” And with that, Tirek went silent as the elevator doors began to open.
“That fiend! I thought the challenge couldn’t be made impossible!” Neighsay said as he turned towards Discord with a scowl.
“Ahrm, well…” Discord said with a gulp as he tugged at his neck like a collar. “Technically, it can be done, it’s just that the chances are very slim. Perhaps it isn’t as bad as he made it sound.”
When the doors fully opened, you all found Discord’s words to be twisted by the irony of the situation. Oh god, there was a wall to the left side, marked with creases in the shape of jigsaw pieces. In front of it, on its right side, was the gigantic pit of jigsaw pieces. Towards the next elevator was a screen with a timer on it, and it was already going down. “...Shit.”
“Arrrrrgh! How is this even fair!?” Starlight said with a growl as she dashed towards the pit, pulling out pieces and just throwing them at the wall as they stuck into place. “Come on! Come on! All we gotta do is throw them all on at once!”
Neighsay just observed the wall, his ears folding as he finally began to show signs of discouragement. “Surely there must be a way to beat this. We can’t just lose here, Equestria itself is counting on us.”
“This is way beyond me. Tempest, you got something?” Grubber asked as he just stared at the desperate Starlight throwing pieces onto the board.
“No. Ten minutes isn’t even enough time to solve the puzzle, we don’t even have any idea what the solution looks like. We have no clues.” Tempest said as she looked back at the clock.
“Yona afraid to admit, but yaks not so great at jigsaw puzzles.” Yona said with a fearful gulp. “S-sandbar? D-do you have plan?”
“I don’t even know where to start! There’s just no way we can do this, even if we all tried to figure it out together. There’s too many pieces, and half of them are fake! Augh!” Sandbar suddenly broke down, falling to his ass as he began to feel hopeless. “I totally realize why everypony told me not to ‘pull an Anon!’”
Wut? “There’s a thi-what? What does that even mean?”
Sandbar sank to the floor, shaking in panic. “I-it’s when you act like you totally got it, but you actually totally don’t!”
…Goddammit.
“There’s gotta be some sort of trick to it!” Smolder said as she stared at the wall. “We can’t give up now!” She then looked back at the timer, her fist shaking in a hard grip. “Darn it, Isn’t there a way? Yo, Anon’s dad, can’t you use your magic to just solve it instantly?”
“Trust me, I’d love to for the obvious reasons. But as Tirek said, only basic abilities can be used for these trials. Chaos magic isn’t basic in any way, shape, or form. Even magic that mimics the basic abilities of a unicorn are quite advanced. Just ask Anon, he was hilariously inept in his early days of spellcasting.” Discord said as he walked over to the jigsaw pieces and picked one up, staring at it. “Hm, well, if it helps any, I can tell you the picture we’re trying to assemble is Tirek’s face.” Discord shrugged as he tossed the piece away. “Even in our eventual demise, he simply can’t be original. Disgusting.”
“Sandbar, you okay?” Yona asked, as others began to either panic, get angry, or lose hope.
“No! I feel like this is my fault. This is the kind of stuff that happens in comics! Except we’re not winning in the end! I haven’t even done anything for anypony since we got here. All I’ve done is screw things up!” Sandbar said as he held his legs over his head, shaking and languishing at the thought of it being over.
“But it not your fault! Yona know it just Tirek being great big jerk. Anon right about changes to Trial, but Yona know there always some way to beat them. Yona know all wall have to be covered. Maybe there way to do that?” Yona asked, hoping to come up with something with Sandbar, as the timer was already reaching the halfway mark.
“I mean, you’d think it’d be easy. He said we gotta cover up the entire wall, right? We don’t have anything other than these stupid puzzle pieces! It's not like we can just transform into a big board to cover it up! Only Ocellus can do that and she can’t do that because… Wait.” Sandbar’s eyes suddenly widened when he came to realize a certain something. He turned his head towards Ocellus and waved his hoof to catch her attention. “Ocellus! You can turn into a giant board, right?”
Ocellus became timid, more worried about the declining time over anything else. “W-well, technically, yes. But why are you asking that?”
“Because! You’re a changeling! Isn’t, like, natural for a changeling to, well, change into stuff?” Sandbar asked.
“Well, yes, of course. But I still don’t understand.” Ocellus said, confused by what Sandbar was getting at.
“That jerk, Tirek said we can only use basic things to help us in the trials. I think you can transform! I think if you turn into a giant board, you can cover up that wall and it might work! What do you think?” Sandbar asked, as his hope began to return to him. “I know it’s totally cheating, but it’s the only thing I can think of!”
“But he said we weren’t allowed to use magic!” Ocellus said, worrisome of Sandbar’s suggestion.
“No, he said like, spells and stuff! We’re running out of time! If we don’t try something, we’re doomed!” Sandbar exclaimed as he pleaded with Ocellus. “You gotta try, Ocellus. It’s literally the only chance we got!”
“B-but…” Ocellus froze as a million things flew through her head. Was it a good plan? Could she do it? Would she be the one to doom everyone? Was there a better way? She had no idea. She looked at the wall, then back at Sandbar, then towards the every dwindling clock. “Two minutes left… Nocreature else has come up with anything yet. I-I’m gonna try it. Even if we lose, at least I can say I tried.” Ocellus walked towards the wall, and began to concentrate as hard as she could. “I-I really hope this works. Ngh!” With a flash of green light, Ocellus changes herself into a giant board as she jumped towards the wall. Her eyes were in the center, closed. “Please don’t be doomed, please don’t be doomed, please don’t be doomed.”
“What’s this? She used magic, and yet, nothing has happened to us. What is going on? What is she doing?” Neighsay asked, confused as to why they were not destroyed, as well as confused about Ocellus’s actions.
“It worked!” Sandbar said with a cheer. “Her changing didn’t make us lose! And… Oh no, Ocellus, is that all you can cover?”
Ocellus gulped. “Y-yes. I thought I’d be able to get the whole wall. B-b-but, it wasn’t even half.” Indeed, even with Ocellus’s best efforts, it wasn’t enough to cover the wall.
Wait… “Were you guys trying to use Ocellus to cover the wall?” You asked.
Sandbar nodded. “Yeah. B-but, ngh! We have less than two minutes! I thought we had it! What else can we do?!”
…It wasn’t hard to figure out, actually. Clearly Sandbar was more thinking within his own friend group rather than the whole group altogether. You look over at Chrysalis. “Hey, Chrysalis, do you think you can cover the other half?”
“Of course I can. Unless my dear little Ocellus has a problem with that. You don’t, do you?” Chrysalis asked, staring at her dead in the eye.
“W-what?!” Ocellus said, extremely nervous from the prospect.
“We only have a minute and you want to play your mind games now?!” Neighsay said, baffled as he stared at the clock, becoming angry that she would delay a possible win with so little time left. “You’re going to doom us all with your lowly pettiness!”
“Chrysalis, he’s right. Look, you know I’m usually with you on stuff like this, b-” But as you tried to talk some sense into her, Ocellus spoke up on her own.
“Please, help me. I don’t have a problem with it! A-and, I really am sorry that we all just… Left you. I didn’t know you were suffering because of us. I didn’t know we could hurt you like that at all. We didn’t believe you could feel hurt. Please, I don’t want to be afraid of you anymore. But I know you still despise some of us. And I understand why too. I can let go of my fear of you, but y-” But then, in turn, Chrysalis cuts off Ocellus as she approaches her and changes into the bigger board to cover the rest of the wall.
“Fine, alright! I just wanted you to admit you needed me. That ‘King’ really has ruined all of you. We’ll need to have an actual discussion, on my terms, when this is all over.” Chrysalis said as the room began to darken.
Sandbar was fixated on the clock, all of you were. But a moment after the jigsaw wall was covered, the screen with the clock shut off, and the elevator doors began to open. Sandbar fell to his back, exhaling harshly in relief. “OOoooogh, ooooh… It totally worked.”
“Sandbar and Ocellus did it! Sandbar smartest pony! Ocellus best Changeling! I must dance the dance of cheer!” Yona exclaimed as she began to dance and stomp around, causing everyone but Discord to fumble over, and for Ocellus and Chrysalis to fall away from the wall as they reverted back to their original selves. Thankfully, it seemed, the celebration wasn’t too early as them coming off the wall didn’t reinstate the timer.
Another trial down. You looked back at Ocellus and Chrysalis before entering the elevator to the next trial. You were hoping for something to happen, you waited, wanting. But Chrysalis said nothing, she didn’t look upon Ocellus, and just walked towards the elevator like everyone else.
But then, as you sighed and went to join them, Ocellus came up to your side. “Anon.”
Hm? “Oh, hey! Good job, Ocellus! That was really brave of you. Considering, you know, it could have counted as cheating and obliterated us all.”
“Thanks, Anon. And, you know, I didn’t really get to finish what I wanted to say to Chrysalis before. But, um, I thought about it a bit more. And, erm, can I tell you what I’d want to say to her right now?” Ocellus asked, looking at you with shimmering eyes.
“Sure, I’m pretty curious about that. What did you want to tell her?” Damn, you were really curious. There were so few words shared that you had to wonder if some emotional bond was made of some sort.
“I just wanted to tell her that, I like how strong she is. I always felt it was just her evilness, and maybe before, it was. But she’s so brave, and nothing seems to hold her back. I.. I really respect that, and, I…” Ocellus sighed. “I do feel bad, I really do, about how everything went all that time ago. I really wish things went differently.”
“I don’t” You say with certainty.
“Y-you don’t?” Ocellus asked in confusion.
“I don’t. If it hadn't happened, Chrysalis wouldn’t be the changeling she is now. Deep down, she’s become loving, kind, and sweet. And I’m going to ask you to never tell her I said that, for obvious reasons.” You say with a nervous little chuckle.
“I won’t, and I understand. D-do you think we’re almost there?” Ocellus asked.
“I don’t know, but we have to stay alert. Every one of these trials are dangerous. If we can’t continue to figure them out, we’ll be sunk.” You tell her.
“Well… Don’t worry. I’m sure with every single one of us here, one of us will always figure it out.” Ocellus said, giving you a reassuring smile.
Huh, that was a sudden burst of confidence from her. It actually made you feel calm and confident. “Yeah, you’re right.”
And with that, you both entered the elevator.
The next trial was at hand.
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How could they believe that she couldn't feel hurt. That's a stupid idea. If you can be happy you can be sad. Just because you have never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.. queenie has always been proud and doesn't like to show her nicer side but she does care.
11677014
Because changeling be very ignorant and sort of dumb if the show is anything to go by, then again, that would be Chrysalis's fault if she never taught them anything but conquest
11677195
If they could feel things then it seems like discord logic to decide she can't.
11677198
You also have to consider character personalities, canonicity, and taking liberties with the property. It isn't perfect, considering I had to dump the rest of my plans to just end the book before my health or life ends up in a way that prevents me from finishing. I'm doing my best, but it is understandable that there are issues. For that, I apologize
11677534
Okay but can you at least get neighsay his just desserts and get some apologies to our star for listening to rumors and ending friendships over them before the official end happens because he deserves it.
11677540
Neighsay doesn't really need his just desserts at this point, he isn't that important a character and some characters never get what they deserve. As for the rumors thing, I'll find a way to naturally get it in.
11677540
Neighsay will get something though, I already have had cliffnotes of the finale ready for months now. Not a full comeuppance, but he's gonna get something
11677604
Well considering the star is getting blamed for his actions I think some just desserts are appropriate. It doesn't have to be much a public apology would be enough for me as long as the truth is out and he doesn't get off totally Scott free.
These trials are interesting, but we get introduced to them and solved in the same chapter. It's too late now to change that, but imagine if you introduced us to the trial in one chapter and finishing it in another along with introduction to the next one. Then, there might've been more discussion on the solutions.
11677673
I'm not worried about that. the whole point of the trials are not to have difficulty to them despite the dire consequences of failure. Trial 4 will be done so hilariously easily, that the true danger will be revealed within the same chapter. Trust me, the trials are just the appetizer. The main course is in the throne room.
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Now for potential errors:
turn-around (?)
not (?)
Uppercase ‘i’ should be lowercase.
Uppercase ‘t’ should be lowercase. (?)
"Isn't it, like, (...)"
ever-dwindling
Uppercase ‘y’ should be lowercase. (?)
Missing dot in the ellipsis.
Missing comma or period.
Uppercase ‘y’ should be lowercase. (?)
is (?)
I might be wrong about some of the above.
CHRYSALIS!