The Voices of Nobody

by BowtiesandFedoras

Chapter 14

When I awoke, I was in a different hospital room. This one wasn't as white and didn't smell so sterile. The walls were of elegant purple and white and the floor looked like marble. At the door there were two men, air beings, with golden armor on and swords at their sides. I coughed, and they looked at me before one left the room and went off into the hallway. In the distance, I heard him talking to someone.

"Your highness, he's awake now."

And followed by that was a woman's voice saying, "Wonderful; take me to him."

"Yes, ma'am."

The guard re-entered the room, and he was followed by a rather tall woman. She had on a long, white dress with gold around the edges and the image of a sun on her upper arms. She had on a golden tiara with diamonds on the front. She had a very long horn of pure white on her forehead, and her hair nearly came down to her knees; it had pink, green, and blue flowing through it, and all of it waved in the nonexistent wind inside the room. But I also saw on her back a set of large, white wings. She was an Omni Being.

"Hello. Are you feeling well?" she asked me. I felt fine physically, but emotionally and mentally, I was a wreck.

"Who are you?" I asked. The guards both raised an eyebrow at the question. Even the woman looked a little surprised.

"I am Princess Celestia. Surely you've heard of me."

I have. Twilight told me all about her when had the heart to heart talk about each other's worlds.

"Oh, yeah. Twilight told me about you."

She walked over and sat at the foot of the bed and asked the guards to wait outside the room.

"I guess you're wondering why you're in the Canterlot infirmary..."

I looked out the window, and indeed I was no longer in the Ponyville hospital.

Canterlot was an elegant city built on the side of a mountain near Ponyville. It was where all the high-class entrepeneurs lived and had all of the best restaurants and stores. And within Canterlot was the Canterlot Royal Castle, where I was now. It was the dwelling place of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, and it also doubled as a magic school for young Magic Beings.

"A little. Would you mind explaining that?"

"It's about what happened at the hospital. It's about... what happened to Nurse Redheart. The authorities wanted to arrest you right there, but from what Twilight has written to me, I wanted to know more about you, so I ordered that you be transferred here so that I could speak with you."

And so we sat there for about half an hour, and I discussed what Vesania was and my relationship with him. I got an occasional gesture of sympathy; her hand on my knee, an "Oh, I'm so sorry," and things of that nature.

After a while, she asked if I was alright enough to walk around, and I said yes.

---

I was still in my hospital gown because I had no other clothes to wear. The princess led me down several long corridors before arriving in a room where Twilight and her friends were waiting. The Princess cleared her throat to get their attention. Before I could even greet them, Pinkie Pie rushed me and locked me in a hug/death grip.

"Ohmygoshweweresoworriedaboutyouafterweheardwhathappenedatthehospitalareyouokay?how'syourtemperature?HowmanyfingersamIholdingup?" Her near-incoherent babbling almost went in one ear and out the other, although I could pick out a few words here and there.

"Oof! What? Yeah, I'm fine. Get off of me..."

I pried her off me, and the look on her face was actually one of genuine worry. Even her hair had lost some of its bouncy curliness. But after she was at least semi-sure that I was okay, she put a little smile on her face. In fact, they all looked worried, not that they had any reason not to be.

A breeze passed between my legs and I shivered. I looked down at my ensemble and felt a little embarrassed to be wearing just a hospital gown in front of all these women. The Princess seemed to notice my discomfort, for she spoke up.

"I'm told you don't have much clothing, other than your robe, so I retrieved some from the nearest store," She gestured for a servant that I didn't notice until now to come forward, holding some folded shirts and pants and the sort, "You can change in one of those rooms, and then we can discuss the matter at hand."

I took the clothes and proceeded to the nearest room to change.

I came back wearing a button-up shirt and khakis with suspenders (the pants were a tad big on me).

I explained to them the whole story. Twilight already knew the first half, and Celestia the other, but as far as everyone else knew, they were clueless.

I told them what Vesania told me, and what he did to the nurse, and both of my families. Each of them were mortified and saddened by my tale of woe in their own way. Pinkie bit her nails; Fluttershy looked at the floor most of the time; Rarity held her hand to her mouth, and so on.

When all was said, we all just sat quietly for a few seconds before Rarity asked, "W-Well, how do we stop it? We can stop it, can't we?"

"I say I should do a Sonic Rainboom in his face!" Rainbow Dash said angrily.

I didn't know what a Sonic Rainboom was, but the way Rainbow Dash said it made it sound dangerous and fierce.

"No, that would probably go right through him, "Twilight said.

"Well, we've gotta do something!"

"Hold on," Celestia interjected, "Does this 'Vesania' have any link to Necromancy?"

I hadn't thought about it much after he told me, but she was on to something.

"Actually, yes; does," I said, "He told me so in the hospital. He said it affected him somehow."

"Well, is there any way we can use that to stop him?" Twilight asked.

I delved deep into my memories of when I was in the cult.

"Well, I thought nothing of it at the time, but in one of the books we used in the cult, there was a section about an evil, soul-consuming creature that abandoned the Underworld. He was some kind of demonic overseer who was under Mephisto's rule. At least until the legendary day when Faust called upon Mephisto. While He was granting Faust endless knowledge, he discovered a way out of the Underworld and into the mortal realm. I guess he made his way to me and then into this world. I brought him here..."

"It's not your fault," Celestia said, "Now, do you remember anything about how to stop him?"

I delved deeper into my memories but found nothing on that subject.

"Uh, I don't know... I don't remember any sort of spell or ritual about him. Maybe there's something in my pocket Necromancy book." I remembered that in my old robes there was a tiny notebook with various items in it about Necromancy.

"Great!" Pinkie Pie said, "Where is it?"

"It's in my old robes in Sweet Apple Acres."

"I'll send someone to go get them," Celestia said, "In the meantime, I'll go check to see if there's anything about it in the Royal Library."

"I'll look too," Rarity offered.

"I'll check in my library," said Twilight.

"Um, I have to, uh, actually get back home and feed Angel," Fluttershy said. Angel was the name of her disgruntled pet bunny, "He gets cranky when I don't feed him on time..."

"And Ah have to chaperone Apple Bloom's sleepover so they don't get outta hand."

In the end, it was just me, Celestia, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash browsing through the dark arts section of the Royal Library. The next twenty minutes consisted mostly of the others finding books and presenting them to me asking if they would help. The approved ones were placed in a pile on one of the tables in the library.

It was a fantastic place. Books on any subject you could think of, perfect alphabetization, and everything was beautiful. The shelves were at least thirteen feet long, and the cases almost reached the ceiling.

"How about this one?" Pinkie asked me, holding up a blue hardcover by "Star Swirl the Bearded."

I looked through the table of contents, "Uh, yeah. This is good. Set it with the others."

"Yay! Hey, where's Rainbow Dash? She took a bathroom break, like, ten minutes ago?"

"Oh, don't worry, darling," Rarity said, "Maybe she just got lost. This castle is quite confusing."

Mere seconds later, Rainbow Dash threw open the doors, panting and sweaty, and exclaimed, "Oh, sweet Celestia! I found it!" She then collapsed on the floor, tired and breathless.

"Goodness, Rainbow Dash! What happened?" Rarity asked as she put down a book to go help her up.

Rainbow replied between deep breaths, "Bathroom... castle... big... lost... panic..."

Apparently, Rarity hit the nail on the head with her assumption. The hallways of the castle were like an elaborate maze of marble and stained-glass windows with velvet curtains.

We hauled Rainbow onto one of the chairs to let her catch her breath.

"Phew, I looked everywhere for you guys. Celestia! Why'd you have to make this place so huge?"

The Princess just gave a shrug and a "sorry" smile.

"Oh, Nobody, I bumped into a messenger on the way here. Here's your book"

She reached into her back pocket and handed me my small notebook.

"Thanks. Uh, well this seems like enough," I said, glancing at the books on the table, "I guess you all can go home now."

They all gathered their things, and Celestia offered to have a guard escort them to the exit. At this, Rainbow Dash shook her head.

"Oh, no. I've had enough of this castle," She unlatched one of the large windows and flew out, hitting us with a powerful blast of wind.