Chapter 6
Twilight Sparkle was uncertain if any words of encouragement or motivation could make her traverse the nightmarish passage. The hallway made of meat was a blackened, charred mess. It wriggled, quivered, it writhed with squishy, though mostly silent pain. Stepping on it would only cause it further pain—not to mention it would be incredibly gross. Plus, the hallway was cramped, tight, confined, and she feared that she might develop claustrophobia if she even took one step.
How real was the hallway?
Why did her brain have to perceive this section of this manufactured reality in such a way? What was wrong with her brain anyhow? How could it possibly have the knowledge, the imagery to construct this so that her eyes would have something to look at? The hallway reflected the worlds it connected to—worlds made of meat. When she thought of Princess Meatlestia, Ruler of Meatquestria, Twilight Sparkle almost blew chunks.
What a world.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Twilight spat out her aborted laughter, but not before it left an awful taste in her mouth. Though she had giggled—or at least made an effort—the ghostie did not go away. The hallway continued to be made of meat and Twilight balked at the very idea of trodding upon it. Some of it was already scabbing over and she knew that if she stepped on it, the scabs would crack and ooze.
What dreadful ickiness would come gushing forth.
“I can’t do it.” She regretted the words as soon as she said them.
“Twily, do you need me to carry you?”
“Shining Armor! I am not a foal!”
“Twily, no you’re not. But you’re having a tough time right now and being your Big Brother, I just wanted to help you. I would never think of treating you like a foal, not at a time like this. What sort of Big Brother doesn’t offer to help his Little Sister?”
Thinking about her brother’s words, Twilight stood chewing upon her lip, thoughtful.
“Dim,” Celestia said to the little grey vizard, “I’ll be carrying you through here. No, don’t you dare… not one word. You have bare hooves.”
“There goes my dreams of walking on a red carpet… made of meat.”
Horrified, disgusted, Twilight was startled by her own bleats of laughter. She tried to shake it, she tried to make it stop, but it would not go away, nor could it be contained. It felt good to laugh, even if the joke was the distilled essence of nightmares. After the abortive laugher from just mere moments ago, this was like a soothing balm that made everything better—but what a disgusting, revolting balm it was, what abysmal, abhorrent application it had.
“Help me, Shiny. Please?”
There was no need to ask twice, or beg. Shining Armor, dutiful soldier, Big Brother, Best Friend Forever, kneeled down. Right away, Twilight saw the challenge; she was no longer a filly and both she and he were wearing full articulated plate. The armor—a marvel of engineering—did a lot to restrict movement. Twilight felt her teeth go on edge when she both felt and heard metal scraping against metal. Somehow, she clambered up onto her brother’s back, and got her forelegs around his neck.
She knew she looked ridiculous, but at least they looked ridiculous together.
The first step was the worst step. Twilight could feel her brother sinking, sinking into the meat, and it made a grotesque sound that defied all efforts of description. Meat dangled from the ceiling, and she could not help but think about how the roof of her mouth sometimes felt after she burned it. Every nerve, every muscle, every thaumaturgical organ was at the ready, as she expected a wall-sphincter to open at any second.
She had no desire to witness the miracle of birth a second time.
Just as she was about to close her eyes for a moment, just a brief second to allow the horror to pass, she heard her mentor’s voice. It was a soft sound, a gentle sound, filled with the warmth and comfort that she craved right now. Hearing her name spoken was like listening to a sunrise, and having warmth and light restored to the world after a long and chilly night.
“Twilight…”
She found herself basking in the sound and the glow it created within her mind.
“I am sorry. When you were younger, before you became a princess, I would watch you and your friends. You know the means and the methods by now…” Her voice trailed off just as Twilight opened up her eyes once more. “But, I would watch you, and I would daydream of being there with you. Having adventures. Doing exciting things again. At some point, a threshold was crossed, and there were times when the loneliness was too much, and the fantasy of being part of your group would be very real to me.”
Hearing this confession, Twilight did not know what to say.
“I was, perhaps, a bit too eager to have this happen,” Celestia said to Twilight.
Twilight nodded, while also avoiding dangling flaps of meat. “This just wasn’t a good first adventure for the two of us,” she said to her beloved mentor as her brother’s hooves went squishy-squish in the meat below. “This is high stress stuff. I don’t have any of my friends with me. No offense meant to present company. I am not myself in these situations, not without my friends. I do my best adventuring on trains, or airships, on trips where travel is required, but not insanity and violence. Celestia, you and I have very different ideas of what a fun adventure happens to be.”
“‘Tis true,” replied Celestia whilst she carried Dim through the throaty hallway, progressing to whatever gullet awaited. “Such is the danger of fantasy, I suppose. I believed that you would be your usual plucky self here. I was so hoping for the two of us to have a grand adventure together. Slay an old god or two. Delve deep into danger and madness, relying upon our skill and wit to preserve us.”
“Yeah.” Twilight almost squeaked the word as she said it. “You know, if I could offer a bit of friendship advice, it sounds as though Dim is your ideal adventuring companion when the mood strikes to do those sorts of things. I think I’d do better on adventures where diplomacy is involved.”
“Twilight, my dear, devoted friend, I am here, in this place, doing this right now because I find that sort of adventuring to be quite boring. A real snorefest. One-thousand years of diplomatic soirees and well-bred galas. No thanks! Twilight, you know exactly why I invited you and your friends to the Grand Galloping Gala. I had to sabotage that detestable event.”
“We both crave very different things,” Twilight responded. “When your letter arrived, I was quite bored. Nothing exciting had happened in a while and it was getting to me. To be honest, I was ready for mayhem… but nothing could have prepared me for this.”
There was an odd, but pleasant feeling as whatever was torn between her and her mentor mended. Twilight felt her spirits lifted, some great weight was lifted from her soul, and things didn’t feel so bleak. Sure, she was getting a pony-back ride from her brother through a hallway made of meat, with wall-sphincters that led to dungeon worlds made of meat, but this wasn’t so bad. It was actually rewarding, in its own special way, and once she had a year or so of spa trips, she might actually feel good about it.
Or perhaps that was too optimistic.
“I’m flattered that you wanted my company and that you wanted to slay old gods with me. With all my heart and soul, I mean that. But this isn’t my idea of a good time. Perhaps at some point in the future, we can have a discussion and find something that we both enjoy together.” Feeling a hopeful warmth blossom in her soul, Twilight tried to hug her brother, but all the armor in the way made it impossible to achieve some sort of meaningful embrace.
Twilight, thoughtful, found that she had more to say.
“You speak of slaying old gods… what makes for a god, anyhow? You have immense power, and publicly at least, you reject the title ‘Goddess.’ Why do you feel that you are not a goddess?”
“Because,” Dim replied in a creaky, wheezy, raspy voice, “she has failed to kill them all.”
Confused, Twilight did not understand a word that Dim had said. Celestia was chortling now, almost laughing, and much to her dismay, Twilight found that she wanted to know what was so funny, no matter how bleak or how horrible it might be. She had to know. Why, it might help her understand Celestia, and be a better friend.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“It is a matter of progression,” Celestia replied.
Dim coughed, a horrible hack, and picked up where Celestia left off. “Progression, Twilight… progression. I have achieved the rank of ‘Conqueror.’ It has stained and shredded my soul.” His words transmuted into violent coughing, and Celestia clucked her tongue with worry.
When Dim spoke again, his lips glistened with blood and his voice was ghoulish. “Take a life or two, and you’re a murderer. Take fifty lives, and you’re a mass-murderer. Take many lives, an incalculable number of lives, and you’re a conqueror. To become a god—”
“Yes?” Twilight, her muscles bunched, clung to her brother.
“You must kill them all.”
“Dim, I swear, your sense of melodrama will be your undoing.” Celestia took a moment to clear her throat, she touched Dim with her wing, and then turned to look at Twilight. “I have chosen to be a benevolent sort. I much prefer to think of it in terms of the lives I can save. I’ve made mistakes, Twilight. I am fallible. My mistakes have cost the lives of many. While there is some truth to what Dim says, it is a truth I reject. Absolute power is a curse, Twilight… a terrible curse, and one I hope that you are never branded with. I have made a conscious choice to be a pony… a pony that moves the sun, the stars, and the planets in some meaningful way, but still a pony. I suppose I could be something more, but I reject that. Should you ever become something greater than what you are now, Twilight Sparkle… I do hope that you will look back and remember these words. It would do you good.”
“Princess, would you trust me with absolute power?” asked Shining Armor.
“I already have,” Celestia was quick to reply. “You married Cadance. With my blessing, I might add.”
“Hey, I’m trusted.” Shining Armor tried and failed to hold his head up higher, as Twilight was in the way. “Feels good. That’s all the power I need, thanks. I suppose you trust Twilight with absolute power… I mean, you made her an alicorn. An alicorn bound to magic itself.”
“She is trustworthy,” replied Celestia.
“What about Dim?” Shining Armor’s question was punctuated by a rude squelch as he stepped on something unmentionable.
“Dim has an active, working, functioning doomsday device stashed in his hat. For now, that is all the trust I am giving him. Which is quite a lot. More than that might be folly.” Celestia snorted, which blasted and rebounded through her helmet. “I might trust him more once he is a father. We shall see.”
“‘Tis folly to trust me at all,” Dim wheezed. “I should be destroyed—”
“Shut up, Dim, or I’ll tell Cadance.”
“You don’t fight fair,” he said, almost coughing out the words.
“Hey!” Twilight shouted, looking down. “The meat has ended! There is stone just up ahead. Look!” A clever pony, Twilight lifted her head and gave her mentor a shrewd stare. “Say… you distracted me. You distracted me so I wouldn’t be completely horrified.”
It was impossible to see Celestia’s reaction.
“Both of you,” she said to Celestia and Dim. “Both of you kept up your act to get me through this awful place of meat. But you toned it down a bit so it was a lot more pleasant. Thanks… I mean that. Thanks. Both of you are great.”
She heaved a sigh of relief when she heard her brother’s armor-clad hooves clattering against the stone floor. No more meat. It felt great to be on solid, non-living ground once more. With a joyful cry, she lept from her brother’s back, and with a cacophony of clattering, she landed in the center of the pentagonal room.
“She’s close,” Celestia said to the others as she put Dim down. “We’re so very close. Yet so far away. She’s gone through a door, I can sense it. I’m going to try and touch her mind to let her know that we are coming. Defend me, I’ll be vulnerable in this state.”
Shining Armor snapped to attention. Twilight tuned in to everything around her, and cast a wary eye on the hallway of meat, fearing that danger might come from there. Celestia was stretching her wings, which were soiled, dirty, less than white. Dim began brushing off burnt wads of meat from his cloak and hat.
“Twilight, you are in charge while I am away. I trust your judgment, wholly and completely.” Then, quite suddenly, Celestia went still and ceased moving. Her hammer floated in an odd orbit around her head, drifting through her billowing, flowing mane.
With nothing left to do, Twilight waited.
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So . . how much of this story do you already have completed?
9454249
The scripting, some bare bones, a bit of framework. Just needs filler and description. I've posted links to early drafts before.
I'm reminded of how Mewtwo wields the hammer in Smash.
Edit: And then that reminds me of this, because it uses the hammer theme as the basis of the BGM.
9454250
And yet you still crank out one chapter a day basically, very impressive.
9454264
I usually work on three to six chapters in a day. Sometimes, one or two make it to public view.
Right now, I am preparing a big batch of Skyreach, Spring Broke, and Soul Thief as I write this.
9453060
I've been waiting to steal that joke for TEN YEARS
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Nerdcore/4815287/
I have to say, I enjoy the sense of camraderie and friendship in these interactions more than the darker and cynical interactions between Celly and Dim. Not to say that Dim's humour is unappreciated.
Thia is some really enjoyavle character dynamic.
Also, Celestia's words are amusing, considering Ink.
Sisters always get in the way.
Celestia is the best sun.