The Voices of Nobody

by BowtiesandFedoras

Chapter 22

And with that, two more guards fled in terror, while the rest stayed clutching there swords, but still trembling with fear.

I backed away in... in... I don't know what emotions were running through my head. It felt like fear, hate, anger, sadness, worry- all of those and more were flying rampant in my head.

I heard a ringing in my ears that just grew louder the longer I looked at him.

The ringing escalated into a continuous, high-pitched whine in my ears that just drowned out all other sounds.

I saw the guards attack Vesania in a hopeless effort. He just swatted them like flies buzzing around him.

When he... defeated them all, he stared at me with a toothy grin on his face.

He charged at me, crawling at me on all fours, jaws agape. I fell backwards and started crawling away myself, still looking at him, still hearing the whine.

He was incredibly close, and when I thought that that was it, a beam of light struck him in the side of his head, sending him flying into the wall, making a massive crater in it, and firing debris and dust into the air. I saw huge chunks of marble and plaster collapse on him, burying him in a pile of sediment.

Luna and Celestia cautiously approached the pile and the mildly irritated Vesania. In unison, they fired blasts of light and energy from their horns into him, not letting up for an instant.

I couldn't hear it, but Celestia shouted something to Luna, causing her to cease fire for a second.

The whining in my ears stopped as Vesania disappeared behind the bright, multi-colored wall of energy. I heard Luna shout something to Celestia -no- to her.

"No! I won't go!"

They both ceased fire on him, and we watched for movement in the cloud of smoke and dust and rubble.

Silence rang out in the ballroom.

Then, a rumbling sound caused vibrations all around us, and Vesania burst out of the pile of debris and let out a roar of frustration.

Normally a regular roar would do no more than irritate my eardrums. But his roar, his scream, with all of those horrible voices in it, was enough to drive someone mad.

It reverberated in my skull and sent shivers all throughout my body.

My vision became blurred, and I felt light-headed, and I couldn't stop hearing his scream.

I collapsed on my side and clutched the sides of my head.

Everything was just blobs of color now. I saw a multi-colored blob converse with a dark blue blob, and then fire a white shape at a giant black shadow.

The blue blob rushed over to me, and I felt hands grab me. I saw a brilliant flash, and then everything went black.

---

I felt weightless. It felt like I was hovering in an endless nothing. I still had all of my senses, but there was absolutely nothing to sense. There was only a void. Was this death? It's not all it's cracked up to be. No tunnel; no light; nothing. I tried to roll my eyes around under their lids, and found that I was still in control of my physical body. I made small, undetectable movements with my muscles; there was something. I could feel something solid, something underneath me. It was soft, but solid. I heard a distant, vague sound. Crying. Someone was crying. I felt something grab my hand, and hold it tightly for a long time. It let go, and I felt a sharp sting on my cheek, and winced a little. I clenched my fingers, and felt something in my hand again. It clutched me again, and I felt compelled to open my eyes. It took three attempts, but on the third, a slit of light hit my retnas. I opened them further, and looked upon several figures.

The sudden exposure to light was too quick, and I had to squint to get a better look at things. I was in a room with lit candles on the walls, and I was laying on a bed, with Luna kneeling at my side, sobbing into the bedsheets. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Big Macintosh, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy were also in the room, with either expressions of shock, sorrow, or solemnity.

"L-Luna?" I managed to peep out.

She instantly gasped and looked up at me. She forced me up slightly so she could embrace me and let out another good sob. The others in the room also reacted with a sudden start.

"W-What's... going on?" I said. "Where's Vesania?!" I said as I shot straight up in the bed.

Luna released another sob at the mention of his name. I looked over at the others, who were in just as much of a state as I was if not more. Big Mac being there was unexpected for me. Where were Applejack and Celestia? I looked out the window of the room, and saw Canterlot in the distance.

I gently pushed Luna away from me as I got up and out of the bed and moved toward the window. The castle still had the protective barrier up from what I could tell, and I could vaguely see people being evacuated from the entire mountainside.

"Oh, God..." I muttered. "What's... What happened?"

She looked at me and tried to regain her composure as best she could, which wasn't very much at all.

"After you... passed out, I- Celestia told me to get everyone out, so I got you first while she... she held him off. I took us all to the other castle... I tried to grab all of you as fast as I could, but..." she hesitated for a long time. "I couldn't get Applejack! He grabbed her and... and..." she burst into tears again.

I looked at the other six in the room and noticed that Big Mac was clenching his fists so tightly that bruising was visible on the inside of his palms. When she said Applejack's name, the others cringed a little. I put a hand up to my mouth. She found me. She let me stay with her in her home. She let me borrow Big Mac's clothes. She introduced me to all these wonderful people. And now she was... gone.

I felt a pit in my stomach and almost doubled over. I fought back this feeling as I asked her another question. "What- What about Celestia?"

I dreaded the answer.

In a feeble voice that was almost hidden under her sobs and muffled by the bedsheets she was crying into, she told me, "He... killed her, too..."

It felt like getting kicked in the stomach a thousand times over. I gasped, and my eyes teared up. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was when Luna kept going.

"He... He picked her up. I-I tried to stop him, but he... he put her horn in his mouth and... drank her. He drank her! He sucked her dry, like a straw! Like a damn straw!"

There was disgust. I felt genuine disgust in my gut. The nurse, those six others that I never knew, all those guards, Applejack, and now Celestia. They were all dead now, and it was all my fault. Most of them never even knew who I was, and I had been the cause of their doom. If I just hadn't come here... none of this madness would be happening.

My face took on the appearance of anger, and I clenched my fists as I looked at my feet.

"This is all my fault..." I muttered angrily under my breath.

The others looked at me curiously.

"If I hadn't come here... none of this would've happened."

Twilight erected herself and addressed me. "It is not your fault. You had no idea that any of this would happen. You can't blame yourself for what's happening here-"

"Yes I can," I nearly shouted. "If I had just left well enough alone, just let the voi- Vesania stay quiet in my head, and hadn't bothered with that stupid ritual, I wouldn't be here, and no one would have-"

Luna slapped me. Hard. I stood there, silent and still, shocked by her action.

"No! You can't just accept the blame for all of this. You didn't kill your family; he did. You didn't kill Nurse Redheart, Applejack, or... my sister; he did. You didn't even mean to come here; that part was all fate's fault. You are not to blame. He is; the bastard monster that sits in the castle right now. I don't want to hear you mope about how you're just a victim of circumstance anymore!"

She stared me in the eye, and she stared deeply. I saw that she wasn't sad anymore; she was tired. She was tired of pain; tired of sadness; tired of all this moping; and tired of dealing with him and everything he's stirred up since he got here. I was too, and she probably knew that.

We kept looking at each other, and the room was silent. It was silent for the longest time, and then I saw the corner of her mouth turn upwards, then the other corner, and then her mouth was a full-fledged smile. She chuckled, and then we both found ourselves laughing at absolutely nothing. We were still sad, we were still injured, but we were not broken. We stood there, laughing at and with each other, while the others looked at us puzzledly. I'm sure they understood eventually, considering the entire mood in the room lifted.

When we'd let the laughter run its course, the mood, sadly, became morbid and solemn again. Hours passed, and sirens were heard from the distant city hanging off of the mountainside. I sat in the library of the small castle; it wasn't as large as the one in Canterlot, but that didn't matter. I sat in front of the unlit fireplace in a wingback chair and thought. I looked out the window again and saw that the castle still had the protective bubble around it, though this time, I saw beams of energy being directed at it from the surrounding area, rather than coming inside the castle, leading me to believe that the bubble was now being sustained from the outside now. He must have gotten to the magic beings holding it up from the inside by now. I silently grieved for anyone that couldn't get out of the castle in time.

I leaned back in the chair, and felt something on my chest. I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket from the tuxedo and felt around. My hand grabbed hold of something solid, small, and rectangular. I pulled out the pocket Necromancy book that I'd forgotten I'd taken as I was changing. I lazily flipped through the pages, scanning the words on the old paper. I flipped and flipped and flipped, but as I passed a page, some random words stuck out that caught my attention. I turned back to it and read out of curiosity. My face lit up as I discovered what this page was about. My heart leapt and I frantically read through.

It was a ritual that would return any stray demons back to the Underworld. This made me ecstatic. All it took was a spell, and a mystic symbol drawn on the ground... in blood. This part made me uneasy, but I kept reading. For it to take affect, the target demon had to be led over the symbol and it would automatically activate, hurling the said demon back to its rightful place in the Underworld.

I was almost overjoyed at this discovery! I took the next few minutes to memorize the words that would set the trap, and the design of the symbol. It was very similar to the one I drew that landed me in this world, but larger and less complex. Where I could get the blood proved a challenge for me, though; but I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

I was just about to exit the library to tell the others when Luna came in. She opened the door carefully thinking she shouldn't disturb me too much.

"Nobody?" she asked.

"Oh, Luna... I think I've just come across something that can solve... everything!" I told her giddily.

"What?" her face beamed.

"Yes! It's right here in my pocket spellbook! I forgot I put it in my suit when I was changing. I think I can get rid of Vesania for good!"

She put her hands to her mouth and her eyes watered as she smiled. "R-Really?" She seemed happier to hear this than I was, but then her expression became solemn again. "But..."

"But what?" I asked, not sure what she was thinking.

"But... it won't bring her back. It won't bring them back... will it?"

I became solemn as well. I realized that it wouldn't actually solve anything, just prevent more terrible things from happening. It wouldn't return Celestia, Applejack, Nurse Redheart, or anyone else for that matter.

"No, I... I can't say that it will," I told her seriously. "But, it will still stop more people from dying because of him. It's gotta be worth a try."

She looked down at the floor and rubbed her upper arm, no doubt mourning the loss of her sister again. She looked at me bashfully. "How does the spell work?"

"It says that the target demon, Vesania, has to step on the symbol that sends him back to the Underworld..."

She looked at me with worry as she asked me a question she feared the answer to. "But, doesn't that mean that... that you..."

"I have to go into the castle and... confront him..."

Author commentary:

Hey, there! I'm sorry I had to make you wait so long for this chapter, I just had other stuff to do, what with school being back in and all that jazz. Next chapter: Big Mac in an epic fight scene! Can our hero successfully defeat the one who killed everything he'd ever loved?

Comments

[SpikeDark]

Dame!!!!! boy you got beyatch slapped

[Perception Filter]

I....I fucking LOVE YOU! YOU, are not afraid to kill of any of the main characters and I fucking love that.

[Fireeaters]

Finally! The premise of him being a necromancer is being used instead of mentioned once or twice at the begining!

[BowtiesandFedoras]

Yeah, it's about time.