(Present Chapter 40) The Friends of Their Friends
"Alright, you're free to go," one of the guards says, backing away from Tempest Shadow after unlocking the manacles.
She rubs her wrists with a frown, and awkwardly lopes over to the rest of her crew. She hadn't technically been arrested, but the Equestrian Government made it very clear that she and her crew were going to be detained until Weiss's lamp was reclaimed.
'Can't really blame them. I do work for the guy,' she thinks distainfully, leaning up against the wall of the Halberd for stability. Ever since she got blasted by the Staff of Sacanas, she had been saturated with Storm Magic. It was annoying, considering how long she managed to live in Storm Country without being hit by the stuff.
Hands were a strange trait of creatures living there, something about the magic of the Storm Country just demanded that your limbs branch out into little spindly things, and bipedalism was an equally annoying consequence, throwing off her balance as the storm magic left her like the hedgehogs under her command, upright and more resistant to electricity with the added height to better harness it.
Hooves aren't meant to deal with either change, and it showed in her difficult adjustment to the altered form. She could hardly wait for it to wear off, but, knowing how long it took for sympathetic metamorphosis to wear off, it would likely be months or longer.
It wasn't nearly as much of a problem as her boss blowing himself up, only for an insane cultist to literally steal him.
"So, what happened?" she asks coldly, glaring at one of the nearby Royal Guards for more information on why exactly she and her crew were being let go now of all times. She could only assume that they had recaptured the sage. If he were free, then they would probably try to keep her longer so she couldn't rush to his aid.
The Royal Guard was stalwart in the face of her glare, and answered curtly. "The situation has been resolved," they answered uselessly. It was clear that the guards, several of which she distinctly remembers beating up with fireworks, were not going to be forthcoming with her.
She sighs with frustration, pointing at her crew. "Grubber, get everyone aboard. We're out of here," she orders, stalking after the scrambling band of hedgehogs.
'At least now I don't have to worry about that idiot for a while,' Tempest thinks, grimacing at some of the more unfortunate things she did to try and steer Weiss Noir away from what he had been planning.
All of it rendered moot, if his lamp had been reclaimed. He'd just sleep through the whole Sombra mess, and then the princesses could deal with putting his crazed psyche back together afterwards.
"What now, Captain?" Grubber asks as she makes her way to the top deck of the airship, watching as the wings flare and the Hellfire Engines open to full bore.
"I guess we figure out what's going on. See if anyone can tell us what happened with the Weiss situation. Then we do what he told me to do if his plans got ruined."
She answers Grubber's confused look with a shrug, something admittedly made easier now that two of her legs were off the ground.
"We go looking for a new job."
Sunset closes her journal, the magic in it allowed her to communicate with Princess Celestia, and what she had read was stunning. In all honesty, it was impossible. Most importantly, it demonstrated just how... Bafflingly unintelligent, or perhaps how crippled with despair Weiss must have been.
"He had a time machine. A Time Machine! And he never bothered to... to even check?!"
Trixie frowns, turning away from her hay-shake. She and Gilda had been in an entirely different city when all of this had happened doing one of their shows, leaving Sunset as the only member of their little group to run off with the Elements when Malusi started causing problems.
"To check what?" she asked, as Gilda returned with a drink of her own.
"To check if they actually died! They didn't! I just got a message from the princess saying that the Shadow Realm has returned! It just popped up out of nowhere a few minutes after he was freed!" she shouts, throwing her hooves up.
"He's an imbecile! He had time travel for centuries, and apparently, he had never bothered to check the one thing that made the most sense to check, namely, if the Vanishing Curse had actually failed to vanish them! He had access to Sombra's journals, his notes, he had to have thought that the slimmest chance existed, right? He couldn't have been that stupid, right?! But he was!" she shouts, petering out with a groan.
"If I ever see that idiot again, I swear, I'll uhh," Sunset frowns, exhausted from trying to imagine the mental gymnastics that that lame-brained dark lord had to have gone through to just assume for hundreds of years that they were without a doubt dead and gone.
Gilda waggles her talon, summoning the Master Sword in a flash of light. "I could poke him with this. He's definitely got it coming," she offers.
Sunset laughs, taking the joke for what it is. "Ok, maybe I won't have you stab him. I just... Look, I read the history books, to think that everything, from the war machines all the way to the Weapons of Light themselves was all a consequence of him making one faulty assumption... It makes my intellectual mind ache at just the revelation. Entire history books worth of his swan dive into the deep end of insanity, all because he made an assumption."
Trixie raises an eyebrow. "Trixie seems to remember you telling us that you fled to another dimension and swore revenge on the princess because of some assumptions of your own."
"Wh- That was different! I was right, for one, as a student of Celestia, my job was to learn magic, not to prance around and waste time with friendship!" she pouts.
"Personally, I don't get why you're torn up over this. You know he tricked me into drinking hate poison and probably would have kidnapped me if Rainbow and her friends didn't come through for me, right? If he did a bunch of messed up stuff, at some point you gotta ask if he's even right enough in the head to think of what you thought about." Gilda asks with a raised eyebrow of her own.
Sunset sighs. "I guess you're right. He absolutely hates time travel. Maybe I'm just overly invested, I mean... He saved my life with time travel. It's hard to get over the fact that he did that for me, but not for this."
"Perhaps he knew," Trixie muses.
"What?" Sunset responds with confusion.
She shakes her head. "Not on the surface of course, but maybe he did think it was a possibility deep down. Maybe he was afraid to find out the truth. You know, Trixie isn't totally ignorant of that history. She learned her juggling through dark magic invented by him. Prestidigitation is a mainstay of any magic user, after all, and you can hardly deal with Chapter Black's stooges without hearing a lot of melodrama like that," she muses.
"If you thought you lost everything, truly lost everything... Couldn't it be even more frightening and painful to know that for sure?"
Gilda frowns. The mood had grown tense beyond what mere milkshakes could remedy, no matter how much extra hay was in Trixie's. "Alright, enough of that mushy stuff. We gotta lighten the mood here. I heard Twilight snagged some kind of Rainbow Dash Robot from that moron. Want to go check it out, egghead?" she asks, smirking at Sunset.
Sunset scoffs. "I guess. Who knows how badly Celestia's 'Most Faithful Student' will bungle up tampering with one of his projects."
Metal Dash OS 1.58
>Drawing System Specs... Nope.
>Attempt 2. Drawing System Specs... Nope.
>Skip.
>Drawing Miltek Specs... Nope.
>Attempt 2. Drawing Miltek Specs... Nope.
>Skip.
//Two bits got skipped. Fair warning, continuing startup will cause problems.
>Sensory Suite Online.
>Emotional Suite Online.
>Regulatory Suite Offline.
//Fair warning, the golem will be aware of overrides without this, if they work at all.
//You want a crazed golem, that's your business.
>Autocamo Disabled
>Collating Miracle Matter Data... Good.
>Collating Life Data... Good.
>Collating Memory Data...
>...
>Sort of? (Succeeded with Errors)
Shadowcorp Dual Golem Core, Shadow Realm Year 262.
"You don't understand, Spike, this is... If I wasn't looking at the readings right this minute, I'd think it was impossible. I still think it might be impossible!" she says, rifling through a long paper scroll covered in small dots and symbols.
'What? Twilight? Where am I?' Dash thought to herself, trying to open her eyes. Something felt wrong, like her eyelids just weren't responding. Her body ached all over, where it didn't feel numb, and for some reason she felt as if something horrible had happened, but it was fuzzy and indistinct, like it hadn't really happened to her.
"The things packed into this golem look like they belong in the next millennia, not the previous one, and that's what little I can understand from this thing!" Twilight throws her hooves up.
Dash tries to move, but a horrible pain shoots through her joints when she tries, and she hears an ominous squeak that Twilight doesn't seem to notice. She still can't see.
"Most of it, he seems to have cobbled together from spare parts. A lot of these enchantments are Earth Pony ones, so he couldn't have done all this work himself. It's more likely that he had commissioned the original parts from various Longma with narrow special talents in crystal enchanting and metalworking, and he only provided the general outline, and possibly assembled it. He must have had the Againte Core in storage, and built around it. That's the only irreplaceable part," Twilight mutters, the sound of her hooves clip clopping around as she paces.
"Uhh, Twilight, what are you going to do when she wakes up?" Spike asks nervously, but Twilight seems to be totally engrossed in whatever it is she's talking about.
"The only question is, where could he have possibly gotten the power? Celestia, it's insane to contemplate, Againte is capable of it, yes, but to expose two pieces to that much of Rainbow Dash's magic at once..!" she continues pacing as she speaks.
With a phenomenal force of will, Dash forces her mouth to move, a disturbing grinding sensation making her almost immediately regret it.
"Twilight... I can't see," she mutters fearfully and as she does, she notices something about her voice sounds wrong. Not all there, and whistle-like, almost.
The unicorn gasps. "Oh my gosh, uhh, hold on!"
More scrambling, bits of metal and piles of paper rustling, and then a faint spark followed by blinding light.
Dash tries to close her eyes shut, but it doesn't work, and she has no choice but to withstand the brightness until her vision adjusts.
When she sees the mechanisms and machinery strewn about on the table in front of her, she looks around frantically to figure out what's going on. She can't move her head, but she sees glowing wires everywhere, weird bits of machinery she doesn't know the purpose of, large cyan chunks of metal covered in a grey goop, and a jar, filled with more of the same goop.
In the middle of the table, a gigantic pair of gemstones, like an interlocking yin-yang, flicker and glow brightly with a shimmering rainbow light, wired into everything else.
"W-where am I? Twilight?!" she demands, looking to the nervous unicorn.
"What is the last thing you remember?" Twilight responds in lieu of an answer, sitting down in front of her with a look of concern on her face.
"I... I was at the Cloudsdale Colosseum, doing a stunt for the Best Young Flier's competition! D-did I crash? I did the Sonic Rainboom, and then-"
Suddenly, at the ragged edge of where her recollection of events ended, she was frozen as sights and sounds rushed through her mind, and one of the crystals on the table began to glow brightly.
The crude enchanted recordings run through her, forcing events into her short-term memory as if she had re-experienced them, but even as they do, they begin to slip away as they move chronologically forwards, lacking any outlet to assimilate into her thoughts properly. One scene slipping away as the new one comes to the forefront.
Eventually, some part of her outside of her control settles on the scene with the most utility, as judged by subtle parts of herself, and she feels as though what happened... days ago? Moments ago? However long ago, it feels as if she's part of that moment, the transition from past to present seamless from her perspective.
She tried to use the element of Loyalty, but it messed everything up. That jerk manipulated her, and now he's out running around terrorizing everypony!
Then he...
He...
"I'm not real," Metal Dash says quietly, realizing that the scattered mechanical parts on the table are her. They're it.
She lets out a low keening noise that makes Spike back away.
Twilight suddenly wraps a hoof around her head, and hugs tightly.
"That's not true. Look, see that?" the unicorn says insistently, jabbing a hoof at the rainbow gems on the table.
"Robot parts," the golem mutters.
Twilight sighs. "Firstly, none of these parts are robotic. I would know. Secondly, this is you. I don't know what exactly you are, but it's you, and it's real. Those are real emotions, not fake ones. Everything that makes you who you are is in that reactor, and only real things went into it."
Dash grits her teeth, staring at the core and watching the mesmerizing lights trapped inside. "I'm not Rainbow Dash. I'm just a hunk of junk," she says stubbornly.
Twilight growls with frustration. "That isn't how magic works. You might not be her, but you're a part of her. For Celestia's sake, I don't know how, but you're almost all of her, as impossible as it sounds-!"
She lets out a long-suffering sigh, forcing herself to get back on track. "Look, the point is, I'm going to help you. Maybe you're not Rainbow Dash, or even a pony, maybe you can't remember five minutes ago, but you can feel, and you can hurt, so you deserve sympathy,"
She gives the golem one last tight hug, before lighting her horn and starting to cast a variety of spells.
As she moves parts around and mutters to herself, Spike approaches meekly. "So, uhh, is it weird?"
Metal Dash frowns. "Is what weird?"
Spike waves at her, disassembled and spread out over the table. "Being uhh, you know."
Metal Dash froze, recording crystal flashing as it stitched together a hodgepodge of recordings and ran her through them to mimic recollection. Spike looked unnerved at her suddenly blank expression before her eyes blinked back on.
"It's weird. I think there's something putting stuff in my head. I can tell it isn't true, but it feels like one minute, I'm doing the Sonic Rainboom, and the next, you're asking me if it's weird being a robot," she explains, swallowing heavily.
"Golem," Twilight corrects.
She rolls her eyes, distracted by Twilight's interruption. Noticing Spike's inquisitive look, she again pauses briefly, a different set of recordings trying to let her mimic continuity.
"I think it'd be scary if I thought about it too much. It feels like everything's happening all at once, like one minute, I'm doing the Sonic Rainboom, and the next, you're asking me if it's weird being a robot."
She swallows heavily.
"You can fix my head, right? You're like, the smartest egghead I know!" she asks as Twilight manages to repair and reconnect two of the joints, casting a lubricating charm on it.
"I can try, but... The fact that you can even hold a conversation, it's mindnumbing, enchanted items don't do that," she explains, wheeling over a whiteboard and uncapping a marker.
"It's like this, ok? When a pony makes an enchanted item, they're pouring their magic into it, basically casting a spell, but one that lasts forever. The spell is able to feel whatever emotions are needed to cast the spell, and thus, most enchantments are self-sustaining," she explains as she begins covering the board in complex diagrams, only to notice Spike and Metal Dash's blank stares.
With a slightly sheepish smile, she erases the complex notation, and replaces it with a simple picture of a pony and a necklace, and inside the necklace, there's a tiny pony that looks identical to the larger one.
"But it's a snapshot, the spell is like a copy of the pony at that exact moment, maybe a tiny second before or after as well. Even the strongest magical items, if put in the exact same situation will react the exact same way. Most don't even truly remember what their creator remembers, even if they act on ingrained habits or information at their disposal," she continues, drawing out another little scene.
In this one, the pony is shooting a basketball through a hoop, and there's a little thought bubble of them remembering practicing it. Next to that, there's a robotic-looking pony doing the same shot, but without the thought-bubble.
"There's an exception of course, with magical computers, but those are like a Chineighs Box, the owner's snapshot and the processes done by that snapshot are isolated informationally from one another. If you write out a math problem that describes a smile, you don't necessarily know what it means."
She throws her hooves out animatedly.
"But somehow, you're nothing like that! You remember Rainbow Dash's entire life, beginning to end, and you even have short-term memory comparable to a real pony! Better, even, I'd argue. Based on my readings, you could remember events as far back as forty seconds or longer!"
Metal Dash frowns. "Thanks..?"
She nods, hooking together more components with her telekinesis, before lifting up Metal Dash's core.
"And it's all thanks to this, this is, as far as my tests show, a pair of gemstones made of pure Againte. Againte is a magical agate found all over Equestria, whenever magic touches this stone, it copies it, and radiates it out. It's actually illegal to mine the stuff, because of how important it is to the natural order of Equestria. Without it, magic wouldn't be able to seep into the land, and Earth Ponies would have to change the seasons completely manually. With these gems in the land, however, magic can spread beyond where it starts!"
She scratches her chin. "It makes sense that he would have access to so much information on it, honestly, The Crystal Empire was built on one of the single largest veins of Againte in the entire world, that's how it was able to spread Love, and later on, Hatred, all over Equestria, or so the legends go."
She shakes her head. "Anyway, it also makes sense that the Rainboom was the last thing you remember. It's one of the most magically potent things I've ever seen. Weiss must have used it to activate your core. Right now, your core is radiating magic as strong as the Sonic Rainboom, constantly sending it back and forth between two pieces of Againte, and it's incredible!"
With her exposition exposited upon, Twilight finishes putting together Metal Dash's body, all except for her head and core, which trail glowing wires to the structure.
Metal Dash grimaces at the sight of the mangled machine. The cyan plates are ragged and wrenched with dents, four sockets around her barrel look as if they were meant to have something plugged into them, and the structure doesn't even have wings. Exposed parts of the metallic endoskeleton can be seen underneath it, reminding Spike of the "Exterminator" from his comic books.
"Don't worry, you should look pretty much normal once I put this on," Twilight says, holding up a jar of grey liquid.
"I have no clue what it is, but this gunk is what made you look and feel like an ordinary pony. I had to remove it to get at your components."
With a lavender glow, Twilight uses her horn to uncap the jar as she reattaches Metal Dash's head to the body, and inserts the Againte reactor into the battered chest of the machine.
Dash shudders as the grey liquid is poured over her, and in moments, begins to bond to her frame, shifting in both shape and properties until she looks exactly like Rainbow Dash again.
She shudders even more, several seconds after it ends. What makes terror shoot through her is just how imperceptible it is. She can just tell, if she doesn't keep it in her mind, if she isn't focusing on it, how easy it would be for her artificial status to just slip her mind.
A recording runs through her at the thought, filling her with a quick recap of what happened right after she found Zecora. She didn't perceive anything wrong, she just felt confused.
She freezes again, recalling Weiss manipulating her to fight in the Dark Tournament. She didn't remember what he said, outside of a vague sense of what needed to be done, and in the moment, all she thought about was fighting the "faker".
Even after Twilight helped her off the table, and ushered her out of the lab and onto one of the couches in the library, she tried her hardest to not forget that she wasn't just a confused pegasus who was just about to win the Best Young Flier's Competition. Trying to somehow force it through her head.
"Twilight? Are you there?" she hears a meek voice announce as they enter.
She snaps out of her half-meditative stubbornness as she realizes who it is.
"Oh, hey Fluttershy!" she waves to the pegasus, who looks at her curiously.
"Rainbow Dash? Have you seen Twilight?" the butter-yellow mare asks. Spike looks like he's about to interrupt, only for Dash to squint in confusion.
She blinks. "Uhh... I don't remember. Maybe down there?" she points to the basement, which seemed important for some reason.
Fluttershy and Spike give her a strange look as Twilight trots down the stairs, carrying a variety of books in her telekinetic grip.
"Are you alright?" Fluttershy asks Dash.
She freezes again, and Spike belches up a letter as Sunset and her friends enter.
When Weiss leaves, Priss and Eclipse both turn to each other immediately.
"So did you get a seriously creepy vibe off him, or was it just me?" Priss says nervously.
Eclipse nods. "He said we were gone for a thousand years. Do you think..."
Priss shakes her head. "Think nothing, something definitely happened. Did you see the way he acted around Princess Luna? He looked genuinely angry, like, he just turned the crazy on and off like it was nothing."
Eclipse nods nervously. "I felt it, his emotions were all over the place, and then when he threatened her, it was like he was ready to do it. Everything else was smothered for a split second, except for bitterness and greed. I could tell he wasn't using Dark Magic to force the emotions, either," she attempts to explain.
They both tense up as Luna herself approaches them.
"Please, be gentle with Weiss. He lived for a very long time trying to avenge you all. It did warp him, but I do not think it broke him. He will need you all now more than ever before," she says quietly.
"Your highness, did- He said you were our ruler. What happened?" Eclipse asks, but from her tone, the question is merely the closest average between all her other questions. Questions which were legion in their quantity.
"Near the end, he was not fit to rule. He gave us control over the Realm for a time after that. Yes, perhaps technically, the Shadow Realm is still a part of Equestria, but..."
She shakes her head. "I will not bend the truth, but I also do not wish to speak of this further. It is still somewhat painful to remember," Luna answers quietly.
The two mares share a look, before bowing. "I understand, your highness," Eclipse responds respectfully. She was intelligent. Intelligent enough, at minimum, to realize that there was nothing surrounding them where they reappeared, much less a thriving society.
'If I want the truth, I'm going to have to get it myself,' she thinks before the two of them rise, spotting Cadence walking back from where she followed Weiss out of the city limits.
Off to the side, Padparascha, Ruby and Sapphire crowd around the returned Cadence.
"Did Lord Uncle tell you where he was going?" Sapphire asks calmly.
She shakes her head. "No. He didn't say."
"W-well, what did he say?" Padparadscha asks, peeking out from behind Dr. Real, who looks somewhat flummoxed by the size of the princess.
Cadence doesn't immediately answer. "Listen... Weiss is probably going to explain some things to you eventually. Knowing him, it'll take him a really long time, but when he does, you should listen, alright? I told you all how I became the Alicorn of Love, right?"
"You put an evil pony in a chokehold!" Ruby shouts
"And yelled about how love really worked until she became friends..!?" Ruby poses in slight confusion.
Cadence's shoulders slump, and she sighs. "That is not what I said happened," she can't help but chuckle.
She shakes her head. "Look, the point is... Weiss spent a lot of time pushing away love. Seeing him now, though, I'm beginning to think I didn't do my due diligence. It's his story to tell, but if and when he tells it, just keep in mind it's going to be rough," she explains.
Ruby goes silent and still for a moment, before sweeping the slightly smaller princess up in a big beefy hug.
"You got it cuz!" he shouts.
She smiles. "I really did miss you guys... Cuz," she says as the other dragons join in.
After a moment, she pulls away, and turns to her first adoptive parents. Both Longma, a mare named Emerald Eight and a stallion, Sliver.
"Sorry for the delay. Mom. Dad," she nods to them both, feeling as much love for them as she did for all of her gigantic, incredibly odd family.
Today seemed to be the kind of day where she had a lot of catching up to do before she could meet back with Shiny.
"What's got you so tense? We won, didn't we?" Drop Kick asks the little pokemon on her back. That little pokemon was the callous Queen Cold, the Elder Windego, and their ruler.
"Something is wrong. Deeply wrong. I know you didn't sense it, but I did," she muses in her usual high pitched gravely tone.
"It's fading fast, but I can taste old emotions on the air. It's like a book where all the pages are written in powder instead of ink. Whatever was here today, it was..."
She frowns, trying to find the words.
"Immense."
Drop Kick sits down, her brow furrowing in confusion. "I don't get what you mean. Like, a big monster?"
"Maybe. Or maybe just big on the inside," Queen Cold muses.
"How exactly did Lord Weiss Noir defeat Sombra? That's what I'm wondering. It's clear that Weiss did it, I can sense King Sombra having a mental breakdown merely a few miles below us at that fact," she explains.
"I know Weiss, he's always been crafty, enough that many mistook him as being strong, but Sombra got to him. Every time, he always was on the backfoot, even when he was winning."
Drop Kick shrugs at the little eggshell-shaped queen. "I mean, they said we've been gone a thousand years, maybe he had time to get jacked."
To Windego, a pony is much like a flame. As they hate, the flame grows, and as they love, the air around them becomes toxic.
Weiss, to her kind, was more akin to a tank under pressure. Deadly silent, save the occasional lance that erupted from the seams, or the rare few explosions that ripped their way free.
Now, however, he was utterly invisible to Queen Cold's senses. Something in the pattern of his emotions was different. When he grew stressed, he did not radiate stress. The air around her, and the roots of her teeth did instead.
He had become something. Or perhaps, considering he wasn't sporting a pair of wings, he had almost become something.
She just couldn't perceive what it was.
I return mere moments before Celestia shows up out of nowhere, a big fat chariot befitting her in tow.
"Ha, got here first," I say, smirking at the princess, who shoots me a look that promises pain in my future. Ha, as if I give a shit about physical pain anymore.
"Yes, well, the second mouse gets the cheese, Weiss," she says, levitating two familiar hole-filled figures out of the chariot.
My eyes widen in delight. "Oh it really must be my birthday! Two! For the price of one!" I shout with glee, hopping in place.
Chrysalis looks disturbed at my joyous expression, while the changeling tagalong looks like he's scared shitless.
Celestia turns to address the crowd, and I settle in for a good old fashioned Celestia-brand speech.
"Greetings, everypony. I hold before you Queen Chrysalis. In a time long since past, but so close to you all, she attacked your home unprovoked, and was cast out by your ruler..." she begins.
'Oh, this is going to be so good! She sounds like she's going to go ballistic! And for once, it won't be on me!'
"...She is here today, to explain the events of that day in her own words, and to apologize for the grievous harm she has caused. It will not undo the tragedy, nor the harm, but I would have her do it, as she has turned herself into Equestrian custody, and has accepted our terms therin."
What.
She sets the queen down, while Cadence casts some kind of spell that surrounds her and her little companion in a bubble of protective love.
Chrysalis glares heatlessly at Cadence. A gut reaction to the princess's assistance.
After a moment, she begins to speak, and her first two words surprise me, somewhat.
"She's right."
Chrysalis makes a point of looking in the eyes of all the Longma in the crowd around her.
"There came a time, after Sombra conquered your kingdom, when love grew scarce in the land. As we live by consuming love, I knew it would be a hard life, but I believed Changelings could prevail. Then came Weiss Noir. The Anathema. The antithesis of my people. He came, and he taught you all how to hate. King Sombra had taught you all how to fear, where you once loved. Then, Lord Weiss Noir came, and he taught you how to hate, where you once feared," she begins.
"The hatred of the Kingdom Heart represented the end of our way of life. Where once, your kingdom's treasure enriched the love of Equestria, and gave it nuance and depth, where it turned schoolyard crushes and puppy love into adoration, into bonds deeper than they could ever be without it, the cold iron tool you had wielded against your dreaded foe did the opposite," Chrysalis explained.
"As the Crystal Empire was filled with hatred, so too was Equestria. Feuds which once meant two ponies would never assist one another out of spite bloomed into grudges of great complexity and care, with rules and lines that would not be crossed between them. Rivalries were born that pushed ponies to grow beyond what they could have ever done alone. Groups came together and bonded, not over such paltry things as friendship and empathy, but to prove their superiority, and through mutual respect of their boundaries, come closer together," she continued.
She watches as the Longma first grow incensed, and slowly, confused as she continues explaining things that seem to have no relevance.
"That hatred poisoned Equestria for all Changeling kind. Perhaps we could have survived it, given time, perhaps there was another way, given thought. It was a slow poison, and what little love we gathered had to be stored with care, to prevent it being poisoned as well by the miasma of dark emotion that fogged the land. It was at our direst hour that King Sombra came to my hive. He gave us the Crystal Heart. He told me he knew how to extinguish your Kingdom Heart, and how to erase your Lord from this world."
She shrugs as best she can.
"So I said yes. The rest, as you might say, is history. With the heart, my changelings were safe from your hatred. With Sombra, we could extinguish the Kingdom Heart. And through his treachery, he tricked me into bringing the Crystal Heart to the seat of the former Crystal Empire, and through it, erasing your country from the world."
By now, most of the crowd is openly scowling at her, and she can see as the flames replacing their mane and tail grow and whip around wildly, as the scales around their legs spread in response.
'Well, I have to give her props, if she's trying to get herself killed before I can get my hands on her, she picked a fine way to do it,' I acknowledge lazily.
"It was the greatest mistake I had ever made in my long life."
This gives the crowd pause.
"I'm sorry. I never meant for things to turn out this way. I wanted to conquer your kingdom. I didn't want to erase it. For that mistake, I paid not only with my own body, ruined through the flames of hate, but with my precious changelings. Your Lord ensured that for every one of you caught in Sombra's curse, one of my own suffered equally, if not greater."
"So do what you will. You've won, all of you. I could not, and cannot defeat you. I will no longer fight ponies, if this is the consequence. I am sorry I ever tried to," she finishes.
I reflect on her words quietly. I could probably kill her. Cadence or no, she's on her last legs, or lack therof.
My eyes are drawn to the others, however, and I can see that they are unsure. Longma, born from the passion to fight bitterly to the end, weren't quite equipped to face this meek, blank-faced creature, who seemed prepared to quietly and pitifully accept whatever torment, just or unjust, that came next.
Perhaps it was a bit too familiar to the ponies of the Shadow Realm. All of the Longma here remembered Sombra's rule keenly. They remembered what that felt like.
"Ooh! I have an idea," I exclaim, holding up three fingers.
"The three curses! Remember that, Luna? If we aren't going to execute her, we could do that instead. I'm sure I still know how it's done," I muse with fond memories welling up. Everyone looks confused.
She shakes her head. "Not now, Weiss. Put that behind you, please."
Surprisingly, it's Queen Cold who speaks next.
"Everypony, I think she deserves mercy," the famously cold and calculating ruler says, and I suddenly find myself stepping back in abject shock, especially when I see the others, who seem to be listening to her.
"I still remember when I and my own came to your land. We wanted to feed endlessly on your hatred, and we had no intention of heeding your wishes as we did so. To turn this realm back to ice and snow as we gorged ourselves on what you had built," she says, causing many of the other Windego to perk up and pay closer attention.
"Do you know what the difference is, between we Windego, who you accepted as your own, who you took in, and cared for as if we were your brothers and sisters?" she asks.
"We failed. Perhaps that is the only difference between then and now, in my eyes. Here sits before you a creature that preys on ponykind. One who, rather than by force, but by surrender is given to your judgement. Did my clan do something different? Was our invasion poised to be any less callous? No. If anything, the key difference is that we were unrepentant when you brought us in. Even after we were allowed to stay, I showed Lord Weiss nothing but suspicion and treachery. We were together by force, and yet here we stand, together," Queen Cold states as firmly as her adorable little vocal chords can manage.
Cool Spot, one of the youngest and smallest Windego, is weeping, his own little biomechanical body shivering with emotion near several others. Ponies like Oil Slick, and Cabal Counter, who were among the first to welcome the Windigo into their circle.
"I am old, and perhaps even cured of restlessness, I do not get as much sleep as I need to think clearly on such matters. If that is the case, then do as you should, and ignore my words. But if you ponies have the strength, the strength to accept the predator that did not ask forgiveness, then perhaps I believe you have the strength to accept the parasite that did."
I don't understand. Their hate, the hatred that the crowd was feeling, I can sense it diminishing. Fading away.
I see Priss and Eclipse Flash, and the others, who seem to be looking at Chrysalis's shocked, uncomprehending face with contemplation instead of resentment.
I can see the queen's expression grow even more shocked as Cadence removes the barrier protecting her from the crowd's emotions, and nothing seems to happen to her.
I frown. Don't I hate Chrysalis? I could have sworn I did. I don't understand. I can't understand.
I just can't understand.
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This was such a good chapter. Just, all it it fit together really well.
While I’m sure it would be interesting to see him as an alicorn of hate, perhaps it’s best that this ascension did not occur.
And Rainbow Dash! Ah, that poor golem. Undoubtedly alive, yet with such a disability. There have been documentaries about people in real life who have that same condition. Hopefully they can do something about it.
Ooh, did Weiss somehow kill or dampen his emotions? Or did reducing his capacity for things other than hate also reduce that? Because it seems like you’ve been building up to that powerful hatred has to have things behind it - srrow at loss, happiness/love to protect, etc. Without those, it'd just be unthinking and purposeless.
10867058
The important thing is, whatever is happening, it's beyond his ability to comprehend right now.
Oh, this has me concerned
Ooh thought occurred: "Weiss is starting to transform into a resident of this world and can therefore not properly understand his own emotions"
Could he have really have become an Alicorn just through sheer hatred alone?
If simply being a complete embodiment of something, regardless of what it is is enough to become an Alicorn then it's horrifying to think about what he could've done combining his skill, talent, and trickery with sheer Alicorn power, he'd be quite literally completely unstoppable if he wanted to be.
I got a question, but I probably got it wrong... Did Weiss nearly become an Embodiment, in his relentless pursuit of revenge?
Because now that I think about it, multiple arms, intense hatred and anger; reminds me a lot of Asura.
10867189
perhaps he is missing something and that is why he is thought to be on the verge
Oh sweet lord weiss is truly broken. I also love the fact that the side characters are getting more of a spotlight and affecting the story heavily again. Never thought the wendigo would defend anyone. What will the incarnation of wrath and revenge now do that all that is left is peace.
It’s almost robotic… Hmm… He really doesn’t know how to react, does he?