• Published 11th Nov 2018
  • 17,648 Views, 513 Comments

1000 Years - DekaSkittalz



How does one spend 1000 years trapped in stone?

  • ...
38
 513
 17,648

Day 115340

Man… things have gone to hell recently. Right now I’m watching entire military squads praying to me for a safe return. Return from what you ask? Well, Equestria is at war apparently. What’s that? With who you ask? Why the hell you got so many questions! What are you, a private investigator? Heheh… you should have seen the look on your face. They’re at war with the new up and coming ‘Crystal Empire’.

Well, new wouldn’t exactly be a 100% accurate term. They announced their presence about… 20… 30 years ago? Time is a blur for me. Oh, speaking of which; it’s day 115340. That’s 316 years for those of you who didn’t know.

Back on topic though. The Crystal Empire showed up some time ago, and about 3 years ago, they made an unofficial declaration of war against Equestria by launching a full on assault on the nation’s capital. They all fought right to the death; It seemed like their intent was to just wreak as much havoc as possible, as none of them ever showed any signs of retreating.

It was… disturbing to say the least. Corpses of innocent ponies strewn about. Destruction and chaos everywhere. Fires. It was surreal to look at. Even looking at the yet to be repaired damage that remains, it still doesn’t feel like it’s actually there. At first, hellfire rained down, looking like the heavens had decided to pass judgement on equestria; and found it lacking. The first struck the castle directly; dead center. The others touched down in town or the courtyard, with a few more actually hitting the castle. One even hit the gardens and completely destroyed any sign of life within. Thankfully I was either far enough away, impervious to fire or just extremely lucky as I came out unharmed. Next, a devastatingly giant beam of magic blasted the gates to hell and carved a path of sheer ruination all the way to the castle, carving its way through the castle in the process, completely eradicating anything that got caught in its path. Ash rained from the sky as it took on a fiery orange hue, dulled black by the smoke from burning buildings and the surrounding vegetation.

It was new for me however, as my eye picked up on a lot of things. The hellfire? It was magical in origin. Whether from a scroll imbued with magic over time, or a really strong unicorn, I don’t know. Same goes for that giant beam of magic that left the trail of destruction in its wake. The enemy…? Not moving of their own will. They had enchanted armour that forced them to fight. The implications of that are frightful. Forced to fight something you don’t want to until your death must be terrifying. It also implies that someone forced them into it as well.

About 50ish years ago, Celestia and Luna finally agreed to implement magic into their military, but not to that much an extent. It was mostly a utility; with very few learning offensive magic, even fewer who learned it legally. But this assault showed them that magic had already been taken to such an extreme; that they had no choice but to ramp up research into the arcane. Made entire companies of battle mages. Magic has really advanced in the past three years, especially with Starswirl spearheading it.

Speaking of Starswirl, he’s still alive as well. How the hell this happened, I don’t know. The old bastard just like… refuses to die or something. Not that I want him to die! He’s the one trying to find out how to get me free. Though I kinda fell on the back burner right now; you know, war and all. If I ever do get free, that’s the first thing I’m asking him.

Speaking of trying to free me, there has been very little actual progress. He’s trying his best, but the element of harmony are difficult for him to figure out. Intricate as hell, and unknown in origin, unlocking their secrets is very time consuming. Luna has been understanding and as patient as she can be, even if it is weighing on her.

Celestia also caught wind of what Starswirl was trying to do for Luna however. And boy, did they have a heated debate about it. Long story short, it ended with Celestia telling Luna that she would be 100% responsible for the outcome. It was something akin to a parent telling their child that a pet is a lot of responsibility. And that no matter what has happened to skew the perception of me over the years, the reason they imprisoned me in the first place remains the same, that i could still be evil; even more so now as I would be vengeful, as she said. Luna said quite a few things that really struck Celestia hard as well though. How I was wrongly imprisoned, suffered enough, and am revered by the subjects. It touched me but I found it odd. Basically played me up as a victim that still helps the bully.

Bah! I ramble too much. Hard to stay on topic, let alone follow one train of thought. Back to the war.

The cause of this war? Sombra. That fuckwit who defected from Equestria a hundred something years ago. How is he even still alive and well enough to run a nation? Fuck if I know. He was at least an adult when he left. Maybe he learned it from one of Starswirl’s journals. Apparently he wasn’t quite the edgy manchild I thought he was. Word is, he alone created the entire Crystal Empire in the span of a few days. Do I believe this? … Maybe. Magic is something I still don’t quite fully understand. Hard to understand when you can’t ask questions.

He apparently created a whole new subspecies of ponies as well: Crystal Ponies. Kinda mundane, but apt. It's a bit disturbing to be honest. To do something of that scale would require a lot of magic, time for population growth, and resources to sustain said population. Sombra managed all this somehow. So for as ruthless a leader he is, he damn well can run a nation. Even if it is doomed to collapse just because of its form of government.

Through my ramblings, failed to notice Luna and Celestia walk up to the groups of soldiers currently praying. Celestia clears her throat to gain the attention of the soldiers, to which they all notice and quickly stand at attention.

“I hope all of your preparations are in order. We’re leaving soon.” she states. At this, some of the soldiers show clear signs of unease; something she clearly picks up on. “I know what is asked of you is not easy.” she lets out a sigh. “But I would not ask it of you all had we any other choice. Sombra started this war and has no desire for a peaceful resolution. As such, we have to fight back.” she casts a glance around the destroyed gardens. “Take a look around you. This is the state of our home after a single assault. And not just here; All across the land, places have been left devastated just like our great capital.” After this, she looks at one of the younger looking soldiers. “Not just for us here and now. But for our children. Our future generation of ponies. Do you want them to live a life under King Sombra’s rule?”

At this the soldiers are in an uproar of protest at the very idea of their young living under Sombra. Celestia smiles as her little speech had its desired effect of riling them up. “Then I ask of you. Fight. Not just for yourself, not for your country, but for those who live in it. For those who cannot. For those who stand beside you. For the future of everyone! Sombra will not stop here! Should we fall, he will continue on to other nations! We must stop him at all costs.”

Again my perception fails me as I was so engrossed in her speech that I didn’t notice all the other soldiers who happened to gather around as it went on. A bunch of soldiers now stand around, cheering and all clearly amped for the coming battle. They all went off to finish preparing, morale clearly improved, leaving Celestia and Luna alone in what's left of the gardens.

Luna lets out a sigh, to which Celestia looks at her curiously. “Are you alright, Luna?”

Luna looks back at her sister with a sad look in her eyes. “You know we are practically sending them off to their deaths? An assault on the Crystal Empire itself will never work.”

“You know as well as I do that we need Sombra’s forces to be kept busy if we want any hope of defeating him.” Celestia states.

Luna looks her in the eyes. “But are we sure this is the only course of action? Surely there must be other options we could consider?”

Celestia looks down at the ground. “Had there been any others, we would have taken that choice over this one. But this war has gone on for far too long; and the longer it goes, the more casualties there will be. We have to end this as soon as possible.”

Luna just remains silent and walks off. Celestia lets out a sigh, and to my surprise, actually looks at me. Like, actually looks at me; not just her usual glance as she walks by. “She speaks very highly of you. Vouches for you. Claims you are a good… being.” She walks up to me and looks at me.

‘She’s actually talking to me? Fucking hell, has she finally gone off the deep end? I thought I’d be the first.’

“I want to believe my sisters words, but I would be lying if I said I did. I just cannot. There is too much risk and mystery surrounding you.”

‘Yep, heard this all before. Can’t trust me, yada yada, what’s your point? Or are you just trying to annoy me?’

“However… “

‘… What?’

“I would like to thank you. Whether intentional or not, things can only be called coincidence so much. Times have changed, and things have happened that normally would not. All after you arrive.”

‘Thank me? The fuck? The hell is wrong with you! You hate me, remember?!’

She’s perfectly within my line of sight, and after a fierce staring contest between us two, we both wince in pain; her more than me as she can actually move. She brings a hoof to her left eye, and holds it there for a minute. Meanwhile, I’m hearing snippets of indiscernible whispers, screams, and conversations; all while images are flashing in my vision.

This calms down after another minute, and she looks at me almost fearfully. What catches me off guard though, is not only am I looking at her, but I’m looking at myself. It’s hard to describe, but its like I have a second layer of vision laid over mine.

‘What the hell is this… did...did I do this? How did I… was it my eye? But I’m trapped in stone! How could I have done anything!? I thought I had this thing figured out, but apparently not. Is it intention based? So many questions.... So little answers…’

Celestia starts talking, which draws my attention away from the second layer of vision I now have, which bobs up and down a little as she speaks. “W-what did you do…”

‘Hell if I know lady! You’re guess is as good as mine! Though probably not as you’d probably assume it was a bad thing that just happened.’

She turns her head and the layered vision turns to look where she’s looking. This honestly terrifies me, as I haven’t have any significant vision movement in forever. Like, imagine sitting in your room and your parents walk in on you. You’re not doing anything wrong or anything, but the fact that someone just suddenly rips your attention from whatever it is you were doing nearly gives you a mini heart attack.

‘Honestly, if I’m stuck with this, it is a bad thing. I don’t need to see you getting fucked! Assuming you survive this fight you’re about to go have.’

“I don’t know what you just did… but please. I can only hope it's nothing of malicious intent…”

‘Malicious inten-.... Mother fucker! You think I’m doin this on purpose!? What, do you know!? Do you know that I’m in here!?’ I let out a sigh of frustration. Internally you fuckwit! Of course I can’t actually sigh. ‘I know it’s not right of me to be mad at you because you have no way of knowing… but… fuck! Being forced to be an observer is a pain in the fucking ass, especially when start doing things that aren’t just with my own two eyes!’

I’m thrown for a loop when she starts to walk away, as for once, I’m not just stuck here ONLY watching someone walk away. It’s disorienting… it's like being on a roller coaster, without being able to see the tracks. You can kinda guess which way it’s gonna go based on where it’s currently going, but there's still a huge chance you are completely wrong.

As I watch her walk towards the courtyard where a small division awaits from her own perspective, I’m startled when I hear her voice clear as day as if she was right in front of me. “Is everypony ready?”

‘I can hear everything she does too? God this is so fucking trippy… I wanna hurl… but I can't.’ I try focusing my vision between hers and my own, and to some extent, it works. But no matter what I do, there's still always a little bit of the other vision. I give up and just watch to see what happens, as I really don’t have a choice.

I am after all, The Auspicious Observer.

Celestia gets a series of nods and shouts of confirmation from her small army. Luna comes into view from Celestia’s left side, and the two start preparing a spell. In a minute, the two alicorns, and the entire group of soldiers are gone. I can see from Celestia’s viewpoint that they are now in a frozen tundra like area, with a giant crystal looking castle with a crystal town in the distance.

This thing is massive; certainly larger than Celestia and Luna’s castle. The crystals seem to be assorted shades of black and grey, and there are soldiers milling about, ushering along what looks like crystal ponies who are all wearing shackles.

All around Celestia, I hear shouts from soldiers and commanders barking orders, preparing for the assault that is to come. Some seemingly random pony walks up to Celestia, gaining her attention and making her look down.

‘Finally, a view I’m somewhat familiar with…’

“I am ready to assume control of the operation, princess.” she states with a salute.

“We’ll leave it to you then, Major General.” she says, to which the apparent Major General walks off and continues to bark orders.

Celestia then looks at Luna, who nods knowingly. The two then take off into the sky and fly directly to the top of the castle. Luckily, nobody seemed to notice them, and they land on a balcony with no trouble. Upon entering the door after a quick spell to unlock it, they notice a group of guards patrolling the halls they are are in. Celestia turns her head to defer to her sister, but she’s already one step ahead of her as she is already rushing the group of twenty something soldiers. She conjures a blueish phantom looking blade and hops up into the air before slamming down into the ground just in front of the patrol, who at this point is already taking up a position against them. Unfortunately for them, they stood no chance, as Luna drove her blade diagonally into the ground, a wave of spikes that look like they are made of pure moonlight encased in darkness rise up from the ground and impale them all, killing them all instantly.

I personally try to examine the spikes with my eye, but nothing comes up. ‘Huh… guess it doesn’t translate over through… whatever this is.’

Luna stands there for a moment before pulling her blade out of the ground with a quick tug and with it, the spikes fade from existence. Celestia looks shell shocked, clearly not expecting Luna to make such a bold move right off the rip. Luna looks at her and tilts her head. “What is it?”

“I just… wasn’t expecting you to do that. To actually kill them, that is.” she says a little shakily.

Luna merely scoffs. “We are at war, sister. They have killed many of our subjects, why should we not be allowed to do the same to their soldiers? Besides, the deaths I gave them were a mercy. Instantaneous and relatively painless. That’s more courtesy than they gave our citizens.”

Celestia nods a bit, then asks. “This is true but… where did you even learn to do that? I don’t remember learning that from Starswirl.”

Luna actually has it in her to blush a bit, despite having just killed twenty or so soldiers. “I may have experimented a bit. And trained. Drawing power from the moon is… exhilarating.” she trails off.

Celestia regains her composure, and clears her throat after a moment of silence. “We need to move. Somepony will notice this group has gone missing, and there are too many bodies to try to hide.”

Luna adopts her serious look again and nods. Together, they move swiftly and silently through the halls, trying to find their way to what I would assume to be the throne room. Why the throne room? I just assume that’s where Sombra will be. He is ‘king’ after all.

Meanwhile, I’m freaking the fuck out trying to contain myself. I’m actually seeing things. Wait, I worded that poorly… you know what I mean! I’m not stuck staring at the same thing for creator knows how long! I say creator because I gave up on god. If there is one out there, he either hates me, or his power doesn’t reach here. Either way, he’s useless to me.

The two sisters are caught off guard when a barrage of various elemental spells are sent flying at them from a hall to their right. Celestia reacts upon instinct and erects a barrier, which each consecutive spell crashes against and reacts different than the last. By the end of the barrage, there is a cloud of smoke hazing their vision, but I can see clear as day that her barrier splintered a bit.

The sound of hoofsteps approaching gets louder and louder. “Team one, standby at the ready until kills have been confirmed.”

She’s breathing heavily, and glances to her sister. Luna gives a knowing nod and Celestia redirects her attention towards her fractured shield. Her shield suddenly splinters way more, but in a pattern that forms a bunch of little triangles. These triangles quickly fly out in a buckshot like spray, and a chorus of screams ring out as a result.

“Team one scatter! Team one fucking scatter!” the apparent leader calls out with a grunt of pain. Looks like Celestia’s scattershot wasn’t enough to kill them all. Thankfully, Luna doesn’t hesitant like Celestia did after her one attack, and sends the cloud of smoke that was just now starting to settle flying at the enemies, which starts to get darker and darker until it gets to be a solid black color, and we hear the group start to choke; coughing, hacking and wheezing until they are done in by what I assume to be suffocation. Hell of a way to go…

After the noises die down, the black smoke fades away in a similar fashion the spikes did, and Celestia is staring at the spot where the group of soldiers now lay dead. To her credit though, she shakes her and gathers herself quicker than she did last time. “Somepony would have heard that little exchange…” she states.

“All the more reason to hurry.” almost as if the creator had planned it himself, we start to hear screams and explosions going off outside the castle proper. Immediately after, the sound of battle cries, clashing blades, and various pained screams can all be heard coming from below.

The two sisters glance out a window, observing the battle for a moment before turning towards each other and nodding. They run around the castle for a hot minute, trying to find the throne room. Up and down the halls they run, seemingly going nowhere. ‘Damn this place is huge…’ eventually though, they come upon a door that is way bigger than others, and seems a bit more extravagant than others. ‘My money’s on this door being the one to the throne room. Either of you wanna take me up on it?’

In this little moment of actually seeing things move around, I forget that I’m not actually there with them, nor can they hear me. ‘Man… this is just gonna make me depressed if I can’t find a way to undo this.’

The sisters had a brief exchange of words, but I missed it due to my small fit of sadness. Something about an entry plan I think it was. Irrelevant now, as I’ll never know. They blast the door open with a spell of some sort, sending both doors flying, one gaining a bit more air than the other, knocking a group of pegasai out of the air; the other crashing into some unicorns on the ground. Those left standing in the massive throne room are immediately up in arms, rushing Celestia and Luna.

The throne room itself is massive, about two thirds the size of a football field -assuming I even remember correctly what football is-, and in front of the throne appears to be this massive hole in the ground that has a staircase spiraling downwards.

Back to the immediate threat, I hear Luna call out to Celestia as she rushes the oncoming hoard with three phantom swords surrounding her. “Try and keep up Celestia!”

Celestia lets out a confused sound. I guess she’s surprised her sister can be so calm about this, playful even. A bright yellow runic looking circle appears in front of her, and out of it comes a golden halberd with a few intricate designs on it, and a small trinket hanging off the end of it in the shape of a crescent moon. She snatches it out of the air with her magic, and bounds up to the hoard.

This all happened so fast that she had time to reach the oncoming wave of enemies before even Luna did, and crashed into them with a wide sweeping triple spin slash, with the final spin swinging harder than the first two and coming to a dead stop mid air. She recovers from her own attack, reorienting herself and diving headlong into the fray.

The small skirmish lasts a little while, as there was A LOT of soldiers within the throne room. Lots of blood spatters the floor, walls, there's even some on the ceiling. Corpses strewn about. Various body parts as well. Celestia regains her composure soon after, doing her best to even out her breathing. Even Luna appears a little winded.

Together they walk towards the inverted spire and look down it. Pitch black as far as the eye can see. “Sombra is probably down there… are you ready sister?” Luna questions.

Celestia appears to be a bit hesitant, but nods her head anyways. “Let’s end this.”

Luna doesn’t seem to pick up on this, as she dives into the hole. Celestia soon follows behind her, and together they are in a dead freefall. However, it doesn’t remain a calm one for long, as fireballs shoot up at them from the bottom. They both spread out their wings to dodge out of the way of the incoming projectiles, continuously dodging effectively for a couple of minutes, the patterns getting more and more difficult to keep up with as they get closer and closer to the bottom. The fireballs finally die down, and we can finally see the bottom as well. And there he stands… King Sombra. He looks a lot different; he actually has a cape and armour on. It… surprisingly looks pretty good.

Luna glares at Sombra, and I can only assume Celestia has a similar scowl on her face. Sombra however, has a smug grin on his face.

I notice there is also a black spinning crystalline heart in the middle of the room.

“Champions of the day and night. Such an honour to be on equal standing instead of beneath you… like all those years ago.” he starts.

“However, I’m afraid our meeting will have to be cut short. The heart is almost ready. And when it is, you, and your entire army outside will be annihilated. Reduced to ash. If that.”

‘Fucking hell. This guy is cliche as fuck… and here I was thinking he was a badass.’

Luna finally cuts in with a black spike like from before, but this time it’s just one big one. It impales Sombra, lifting him up into the air a few feet. I notice through Celestia’s vision that Luna wears a cocky grin on her face. “That won’t be happening anytime soon.” with that, Luna starts walking towards the heart. However, before she can get close to it, the spike she conjured spikes up even more and nearly stabs her; she’s lucky enough to hop back in time.

Looking up, we see Sombra is still on the spike, but somehow still very much alive. The spike he is impaled on is absorbed into his body and he is slowly lowered to the ground as he absorbs more and more of it.

Licking his lips, he lets out a dark chuckle. “You are not the only one who has dabbled in dark magic, Luna.” he is lifted up into the air a bit by a pillar of crystal forming under him. Calling forth a pair of swords that appear to be made of crystal as well.

His eyes become pure black with a white outline as he adopts a menacing grin.“Come…” he taunts.

‘Holy fucking hell… pretty badass… wait a minute, the fuck am I thinking! Luna could die!’

I’m caught off guard by this thought. Why the fuck do I care? Hold up a tick… why the fuck WOULDN’t I care… she’s the only one who actually fucking cares about me in any capacity. She’s kept me from going insane all these years… how is a complete mystery to me, but the point is she did! Admittedly I’m no longer COMPLETELY sane, but the fact that I’m still coherent is something in and of itself.

So yeah, I do care… can’t let myself forget that.. No matter how much time passes, I still care. Can’t let go of my sense of humanity like that.

Celestia and Luna cast a spell and are now clad in an armour that matches their magic colors. Afterwards, Celestia is the first up to charge Sombra with a heavy thrust of her halberd, probably angered that he nearly injured her sister. Luna soon follows up with an attack of her own, two of her three swords clashing with sombra’s blades after he hopped back from Celestia, leaving him open to her third sword. He bounces his focus between keeping her two swords at bay, and dodging around her third, that he fails to avoid Celestia taking a wide swing at him that manages to connect with his neckpiece; denting it but surely with enough force to choke him up for a moment.

They don’t let up either, never giving him a moment to breath; continuously keeping him under pressure. Sombra leaves a couple of what look like glyph mines around, forcing Luna and Celestia to change up their movement a bit to avoid them. Regardless of this though, they seem to be in almost perfect harmony, switching off and coming in to immediately allow the other to recover, allowing for big hard hitting openings as well.

The entire thing is so surreal to me as well. There’s no prompt, no alternate angles to give the best view of the action, no music to create an atmosphere. Only the sounds of weapons clashing, hoofsteps, wingbeats, grunts and screams of battle. Eventually Sombra slips up a bit more than he usually does, the attrition of having kept up a defense this long finally catching up to him. Both Celestia and Luna capitalize on this big time, and both go in for a full on attack. Both impale him on their weapons, and Sombra’s crystal blades clatter to the ground.

“Its over, Sombra.” Celestia states, emphasising her point by shoving her halberd in deeper and twisting it a little.

He grunts in pain, but manages a chuckle. “I told you… our meeting would have to be cut short. The heart is ready… and now, all of your ponies out there will die.”

They both gasp as they glance at the heart, which is now spinning in place at terminal velocity. They give each other a glance as well, and a small nod. Celestia pulls away from Sombra, and Luna impales him with 3 more swords to keep him down.

The heart is glowing with a soft blow light, one that seems to get brighter and brighter as Celestia approaches it. For WHATEVER REASON, she decided to try magic on the damn thing. I don’t know what the hell she’s doin but honestly, anything is better than nothing at this point.

She must have gotten lucky or something, because the heart itself starts to change from black and grey to a soft light blue. Sombra lets out a shrill cry of anger, and fires off a beam of magic at the crystal heart in a fit of desperation. Whatever the intent was, it clearly had some sort of effect, as the heart started glowing more and more brightly. At this point, Celestia grew a fucking brain cell and decided to teleport herself and Luna out of there, as it would appear the heart is about to explode with raw uncontrolled and unknown magic.

They reappear on a mountain cliffside, and watch as the empire is surrounded by a giant hemisphere that encases the entire empire in a brilliant white light. The light fades after about 30 seconds, and anything that was once there has now disappeared. As in, like, gone. Completely. Entirely. I dunno how else I can convey this to you. The damn thing isn’t there anymore! Not only that, but about half of the fucking army they came with is now gone as well! And half of the ones left are dead! The fuck just happened...

“The empire... “

At this, Celestia’s vision cuts out, and I no longer see anything from her vision. This actually fucking scared me as I wasn’t expecting it to cut off as suddenly as it did, bringing me back to my destroyed garden. Alone…

What the hell did I just witness...

Author's Note:

HOOOOOLY SHITBALLS. this one was way longer than the others. betcha weren't expecting this huh? few things i wanna address though. this new power he's got. notice how he don't know how he did it? and notice how he STILL couldnt interact with the real world around him? yeah. dont expect him to be able to. this is merely to give me a way to change things up. as some have pointed out, having it just be him sitting there the entire time can only go so far. will he get any other abilities? i honestly dont know at this point, but on things for sure, if he does, they wont be anything op or anything. he's not gonna start raining down fireballs on canterlot or anything like that.

uh... what else... the assault itself! i drew inspiration from a few sources, and tried to not straight up copy. i think it worked out well.

hope you all like it, and please, remember to post a comment! they help out the most!

also yo... pudding... i see you over there.... you know who you are.