Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
After a long period of the Excelsior rattling about, they finally burst out of the far end of the portal into the Hesturland system with everyone letting out breaths of relief.
“I thought you said this ship was jumpgate-worthy,” Spliced said as she looked around. “That’s one of the roughest rides I’ve had in a long time.” She then tilted her head to the side. “I don’t believe I have died enough times to a faulty jumpgate exit to be immune to it.”
“Opposed to a normal ship explosion?” Zaat cracked. “Seriously, wouldn’t that kind of thing have disintegrated you?”
“Who says it didn’t?” Spliced retorted. “Took me almost a year for my body to finish growing back from that incident. On the upside, the timing was very convenient - the false identity I was using then had gotten old, so it was time for me to fake her death and then pretend to be her daughter and take over the bar from her. Like I’d done more times than I can count before.” She sighed. “It was almost pleasant, being able to take that time off.”
“That’s disturbing,” Aerostorm muttered nearby. “But your ridiculously strong immortality aside, we’re here and we’ve got a delivery to make.”
“Wait, I got readings here,” Scratched said with a frown as she looked at her monitor. “Big readings.” She let a curse. “It’s the Terakian war fleet!”
“How far out are they?” Aerostorm asked as she spun her chair to look at her screen.
“An hour, at most,” the pegasus said, tapping one side of her screen before her eyes darted to the other side. “And that’s the Hesturlandian fleet mustering. Shining Tomorrow or Final Order or whatever they call themselves must have kicked off their war. Are we too late?”
“No,” Spliced said, shaking her head. “We still have a chance to stop this. We just need to get to the homeworld to tell them the truth.”
“Wait, there is something here,” Scratched suddenly said. “A faint signal.”
Looking over her shoulder, Spliced looked at it. “It’s embedded in the background radiation from the jumpgate… fuck,” she hissed. “It’s a tracer signal. They know where we are.”
“Do we know where it is coming from?” Aerostorm asked as she began to power the ship up and move them closer to the homeworld of all life in the galaxy.
“Give me a moment,” Spliced said as her eyes darted across the screen before her face fell.
“What, where is it?” Zaat asked, turning his head to her. “You do know where it is, don’t you?”
It took her some time before she found her voice. “It’s on the moon,” she said shakily, peering at the screen. “From what I can tell, it is from the old industrial complex near the Gateway to Equuis.”
“That’s good,” Scratched said, causing everyone to turn to her. “We go meet with some officials from Hesturland and tell them everything so no war.”
“No, we need to stop Clear Vision at his place,” Spliced said as Aerostorm continue to fly them towards the home world.
“How do you-” Zaat began to ask her only to be cut off.
“I’ve seen his kind before; he would want a front row seat,” Spliced answered. “Get us close to the moon and I will deal with that.”
“What? No,” Scratched said, shaking her head. “We need you to talk to Hesturland so we can stop this war from happening!”
“You have enough evidence to convince them; we need someone down there to distract them,” Spliced said with the moon quickly appearing in the distance. “That is me.” she said as she made her way out of the cockpit.
“Spliced, wait!” Scratched followed her down to the airlock. “I’m coming with you.”
“Absolutely not!” Spliced snapped, wheeling on her with a furious look on her face. “This is something only I can do; you can-”
“I can actually do something!” Scratched shouted back. “During all of this, I have done nothing! My parents were killed and I was unable to do anything; the love of my life was shot and I was helpless to help her! Even on the damn jumpgate, all I did was bump a button by accident! Please Spliced,” there were tears on Scratched’s face. “My friends have done so much for this, please let me do something equally as important.”
The alicorn looked at her and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “There is one thing you can do,” the mare said softly. “Live a long and happy life with Aerostorm, Scratched Wrench.” With that the mare took a step backwards into the airlock, and using her magic, she locked the door and vented herself into space.
Scratched through glass on top of the door, watching the mare fly towards the moon before she turned around as she heard Zaat calling her back. Racing into the cockpit, she saw Aerostorm talking to an alicorn in the military uniform of the Hesturland navy.
“Civilian craft, restate your identity and purpose here,” the stallion barked sharply.
“Excelsior,” Aerostorm said to him. “We have important information regarding the Terakian fleet. Sir, you cannot attack them, this entire thing is a massive set up.”
The stallion narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”
“We have several storage units of collected information from the Shining Tomorrow company,” Aerostorm said as Zaat began to transfer the information over.
“We also had Spliced Genome here with us before-”
“Spliced Genome was with you?” the stallion’s harsh voice dropped, with a look of shock and concern on his face. “Wh-where is she? We’ve been trying to find her for ages now and-” He turned his head as someone offscreen began to speak to him. “Wait what do you mean there is a second fleet approaching?”
“Whoa Nelly, he wasn’t joking!” Aerostorm shouted as a massive fleet appeared near the moon, spreading out in an attack pattern.
“There’s another one coming!” Scratched called out as the long range radar picked up another fleet showing up behind the Terakians.
“Sir, according to this information Shining Tomorrow has some sort of super weapon on the moon!” a voice shouted from the deck of the Hesturlandian’s ship.
“Contact the Terakians, we need to pull together our strength!” the captain order to an unseen bridge officer before he turned his attention back to them. “Excelsior, get behind our fleet now. You are not equipped for this.”
“You don’t need to tell us tw-” Aerostorm said as she began to turn the ship around before Scratched yelled out.
“Incoming fire!” the pegasus leapt over and pushed the controls to the side in a desperate roll to the right, with a loud bang and waves of the entire ship trying to shake itself apart followed.
“Thanks for the save love,” Aerostorm said as she retook the controls and pushed their ship to its limits, taking a few more shots as they raced for safety behind the Hesturland fleet. “But I got it from here!
Scratched nodded her head, taking her seat and began to monitor the engines as they fled, taking a fleeting look back at the moon where Spliced was.
In any other situation, Spliced would have never even thought about returning to this place but given what she had found out at her bar, there was no way she would leave Scratched or her friends to deal with this on their own. The thought of them allowed her to overcome the voices in her head, screaming at her to run away and give up.
It wasn’t long to make her way down to the moon in any case, using her talents to push her closer to the moon and Clear Vision’s base. It was laughably easy to spot, the site clearly lit up with some sort of massive hanger several klicks away. How he managed this, Spliced didn’t know or care and simply forced herself through the forcefield creating an artificial atmosphere and landing before the armed guards dressed in black uniforms.
They were staring at her, their body posture showing they were completely uncertain of what to do but they quickly aimed their rifles at her and began to order her to follow. That was fine with her as it allowed her deeper into the base, straight to the control room with a score of people working at terminals. Ignoring her captors’ threats, Spliced found herself facing the stallion responsible for all of this.
He was sitting on an elaborate chair, facing a massive screen showing the aerial battle above. She noted that the Excelsior had managed to get behind the protection of the Hesturland ships before she turned her attention to the grinning stallion.
“So we meet at las-” he began only for Spliced to snort and shake her head.
“You are really trying to pull that line?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “How average and typical.” She turned her attention from him to stare at the room and shook her head. “Red and black; can you would-be-conquerors pick any other colour besides those two? I mean, while it does stand out and does bring out strong symbolism to blood and finality but it has been done countless times to the point it is a joke.”
“Listen here you, I hold the power here,” Clear snapped, stepping down to face her personally. “Those two juggernuts will smash each other to pieces and my soldiers will swoop in to finish off the stragglers.”
“And then what,” Spliced snarked, glaring at Clear Vision. “After you destroyed Hesturland and anyone else who stood in your way, what next?”
Spliced watched the alicorn’s face shift slowly from smugness to genuine confusion with him taking a step backwards. “I,” he stuttered, looking around as if seeing things clearly for the first time. “I don’t know.”
At that moment, countless turrets extended from hidden panels and in a moment of pure stillness everyone in the room realized what was about to happen at the same time before it was shattered by gunfire killing everyone in the room save for Clear Vision. Standing up from the headshot, Spliced saw the utter terror in his eyes before another gunshot went off and his eyes rolled backwards before Clear Vision fell to the ground, his brains leaking out onto the floor.
“No matter how many times I have to deal with him, that little moment where that fool realizes everything he worked for was based on a lie and the face he makes always makes it worth it in the end,” said a voice that managed to chill Spliced’s bones as she knew that voice. Stepping out of the shadows, a pink earth pony mare gave her an unnerving grin while pointing a gun at her. “Hello Spliced, I trust you recognize me after all the time we’ve spent together.”
“Ye-yes, but it’s impossible,” Spliced said with panic slipping into her voice as she tried to remember where and when she had seen this mare.
“Trust me, you know very little to what is possible or impossible Spliced,” the mare said with a chuckle as she reached the terminal stand, pausing only to give a kick to the corpse of the stallion she’d shot. “Though I have to ask, when do you remember me first? Was it when you were a little filly and I brought you away from the other kids playing to focus on your studying and never develop those important social skills? Was it when you were a young student and I gave you guidance to further your biological chemistry talents and the need for direct results? Or perhaps when you were studying for that ethical exam that had just been instituted in the education system that year and you failed so horribly according to my fellow judges?”
Each of those moments caused Spliced’s eyes to widen as she could recall this mare at each point of her life and took a step backwards in shock. “How?” she asked, shaking her head. “Who are you?”
“Ah, the how is a gift from the one I follow, and to who I am,” the mare laughed while rolling her eyes but keeping her gun pointed straight at her. “My name is Subtle Dancer, Spliced Genome, and you have yet to answer my question. When do you remember me? Was it at your cottage after that war I started broke out, or-”
“Your war?” Spliced asked, her heart freezing and contracting so tightly in her chest that she thought it would break.
“Oh yes,” Subtle said nonchalantly. “It was part of my plan and remarkably easy to start up a civil war, and getting you on the path of making your creations was even simpler; I just needed to play to your ego. As I did to suggest that you make them more lethal after creating so many cures as you recall, and you did so with such aplomb.”
“All those people I killed, the countless millions,” Spliced shook her head before pointing her hoof at the mare. “All of it was because of you!”
“No, Spliced, that was you,” Subtle said sharply, her face darkening. “I guided you to that point, but it was still your decision to make those viruses and kill all those people, not mine.”
“You sanctimonious hypocritical lying bitch, give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now‽” Spliced snarled at her with her horn glowing with all the spells she had discovered and mastered over the years in hopes that one of them would finally kill her and ready to unleash against this thing.
“You kill me, and this mega gravitational weapon will turn this system’s sun into a black hole, killing everyone within the star system, including Scratched Wrench and her friends,” the mare grinned with a hoof resting on the control panel. “I know her secret, the one you haven’t told her yet.” Spliced stared with all the self hatred she had for herself at the earth pony before she slowly dimmed her horn. “That’s a good girl; I was right to choose you for this point.”
“You’re the one that made me immortal, aren’t you?” Spliced spat with venom in her voice. “So I would live this long.”
“My, you are half as clever as you think you are, my dear friend,” Subtle giggled at her before nodding her head. “You are correct, of course. Why would I go through all that trouble of guiding you to become the mare you are now if you were just going to die in sixty years?”
“You are a complete and utter monster,” Spliced snarled at her.
“One that has kept a close eye on you, especially when you went over to Equestria.” Subtle said with Spliced studying the mare.
“You were there when we were at the Canterlot library, weren’t you?” she asked.
“Nice try but it was the Crystal Empire private library with you and the Bearers and that little dragon, plus that changeling, windigo and the royal consort,” Subtle grinned at her with Spliced’s heart dropping. “I was there as the maid-”
“Dusting the shelves and you stayed there while we all left,” Spliced said in horror.
“And oh the things that Twilight told her friends,” she laughed before flashing Spliced another grin. “Do you want to know what the Valley of the Alicorns is and why she thought you didn’t count?”
“I want to know how this is possible,” Spliced replied. “There is no way you could have planned all of this out this perfectly.”
“Oh there is a saying about making omelettes, Spliced. You should know it by being the former owner of a bar, after all,” Subtle’s reply made Spliced’s blood run even colder than before. “If you want to get a mare like you to this exact point of time, you need to break a couple thousand universes or so.” She began to laugh and Spliced was absolutely convinced that this mare was not lying in the slightest.
“Legal Preview and Steady Cut, were they part of your plan?” she asked.
“Of course they were, how else to further you along by dangling a mare that was genuinely doing her best to help you and Steady Cut, well, we know all about him, right dear?” Subtle laughed again. “The best part is, they had no idea about any of it. I didn’t have to do a thing to make them feel like they did about you - I just put them into a place where they would develop those feelings all on their own.” She sneered. “More recently, getting Scratched to find you wasn’t hard either. Playing these dimwitted fools along was child's play… Ray Blaster, Vector Gaze and Clear Vision were all too easy to manipulate into doing what I needed them to do.” She then tilted her head to the side. “And giving Aerostorm cancer is always good insurance as well. Too bad you cured it.”
Spliced started at this mare in shock, still reeling from what she’d said. “You are a soulless monster, hiding in the shape of a mare,” she said in disgust.
“You already said that.” Subtle tilted her head. “So unless you’ve got something original to say, you might want to sit down and shut up while I explain why you’re here.”
Spliced glared at her, choosing to remain upright. “Speak,” she spat out, doing her best to refrain from harming the mare as she knew Subtle would easily follow out on her threats if pushed. “Tell me why you did all of this.”
“Very well,” the mare said before pushing open a hatch in the floor that Spliced was only now aware of as existing, leading the theory that this mare’s special talent was subtle manipulation of existence. “I need you to go retrieve something that another dimension’s Death hid here from the one I follow... companion’s orders to make the game they play a bit more interesting.” She frowned a bit before that sick smile reappeared on her face. “That’s all I request of you; once you get it I will never bother anyone from this dimension ever again. In fact, I will even give you a gift, Spliced.”
“I don’t want whatever you are planning to give me, you monster,” Spliced said as she walked towards the hatch where tremendous power was flowing out of. Peering down it, she asked, “So that is why you did all this? You did all of this to me for this one task‽”
“Yes,” the mare said happily enough that it made Spliced’s skin crawl and then even more so when she followed it up with “I mean, I could have raised some brat to do it and be done so much quicker but if you are going to do something, might as well as enjoy yourself.” She laughed before tapping Spliced’s side with the gun barrel. “Now get along; while I’ve waited to this point patiently enough, you are on a timetable now. Go get the item, come back and everyone will live.”
Frowning, Spliced began to climb into the tunnel and died. Gritting her teeth as she came back to life, she forced her way down the tunnel, dying every five seconds as the room’s energies scraped over every last nerve she had. Even though she had become mostly accustomed to pain, what this tunnel was doing to her was altogether different from anything she had felt in the past. It transcended biological and targeted on what she only could feel was a spiritual level, something scraping against her soul. Eventually, she reached the end of the blinding white tunnel and found herself on a small platform that seemed to be spherical in nature. On it stood a podium that appeared to be directly in front of her no matter which way she turned her head and on that was a black pole with a point at the end of it. Reaching out with her hoof, she grabbed it and began to make her way back out of the tunnel, the pain and deaths getting worse as she got closer to the exit as if something did not want her to do this and Spliced could believe that this was exactly the case.
With a grunt, she pulled herself out of the tunnel and back into normal reality, leaning against the door hatch.
“Good girl,” the mare smirked, pointing the gun square at her head with one hoof the control panel of this station’s mega weapon. “Now give it to me and everyone will live.”
Spliced glared at her and reluctantly handed the item over to her, with the mare smiling widely now as she examined the item. “Good,” she said flicking her eyes over to Spliced. “Now to prove I am a mare of my word, Spliced, I will give you my gift.” She pulled the trigger, saying “Goodbye.”
Spliced felt a wave of shock and pain course through her body, her ears ringing. Looking down, she saw that there was a smoking hole in her chest and blood spilling out from the hole. Shaking, she looked up at the mare.
“You won’t be coming back from this one,” Subtle said as she began to walk away. “Look at it this way, Spliced Genome, I’ve given you what you always wanted, the ability to die and stay dead.” She turned her head back around to taunt Spliced one last time. “By the way, if you had wanted to die all this time, all you needed to do was piss off another Power like yourself enough that they’d kill you or find someone like me to do it, as you almost did with Celestia all those years ago. I’d say it’s been a pleasure but that’s a l-” Subtle Dancer suddenly spluttered, spitting blood out of her mouth. Shaking, she looked down at Spliced Genome who pulled her horn from the hole the alicorn had created by shoving it through the other mare’s chin and into her brain. With the horn removed, Subtle Dancer fell over onto the ground, body still twitching as she died with the object rolling away into a corner.
Spliced stared at the body before snorting, the wound in her chest painful beyond imagining but it wasn’t actually hurting her. Her ears flicked as she heard the base announcing self destruct protocols had been activated.
For some reason, even though it didn’t matter, Spliced drew her power to herself for one last teleportation spell, uncertain and uncaring where she would end up and placing her faith that she would end up where she was meant to be. Opening her eyes after the spell had been cast, she saw a door in front of her that she had not seen for over five thousand years. But at the same moment, she knew without a doubt that this was meant to be, that this would be where it all would end.
Feeling the tremors in the ground from the explosion of the station racing outwards, Spliced Genome ignored them and pushed open the ancient station’s door as if Death itself had foreseen her end and bid time to halt for her.
And Death had bid Time to halt for her.
Walking through the station, she saw it as she once had all those years ago, barren and empty. The stations and workplaces that been installed when they had been creating cures for the horrors she had made were long since gone. The tickers were also absent but the glass roof was still there and, looking up, she could see the same coastline she had once observed, the protective forcefield keeping in the toxic gases that had ruined it long gone and the landscape now vibrant and alive. Turning her eyes away from the ceiling, she moved down the hallway with the doors opening up for her without issue and put one hoof in front another, leaving a trail of blood behind her from the still gushing gunshot wound in her chest.
She stepped into the community room, her eyes moving from the terminal desk to the main table and over to the pantry. She wondered if there was any dehydrated spaghetti still in there but it was unimportant. Her eyes focused on the only other doorway and walked towards it with the doors opening for her once again. As she walked down the hallway, she stumbled into the wall and for a moment, everything began to swim before her eyes.
But she was not finished and forced herself upright, walking to the doors at the end of the hallway and into the one on the right.
In front of her was a bed.
She stared at the bed for an impossibly long moment before the mare from the moon let out a chuckle with an honest smile appearing on her face. “Finally,” she spoke her final words. “The name is true.”
She then climbed into the bed, pulled the blanket over herself, closed her eyes and knew no more.
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Well... damn
9755365
Is that a good damn or a bad damn?
... That's weird. You're weird.
Oooh that's bad.
That's the problem with so many of you would be conquerors. You never think past conquest. You have no answer for And Then What?
WHY?!
How's about you explain what the hell the point of all this is first?
Thank you.
Ah. I get it.
What the fuck is this?...
That was the most shittiest, most awfull plot twist i have ever seen.
There is no explanations, no resolutions, no fucking sense.
I'm not even going to explain anything further. It's the worst disappointment i had in months, spluttered with great dose of depression.
Incredible waste of potential.