Werewolves of Knicknik

by Atuhor Name

CH. 22 Kana

Kana

The First Administrator showed up early the next morning, along with the same doctor again, they got checked up from top to bottom. Twilight’s leg was working to the point where she could almost forget it was there.

“Today I am going to show you my hometown, come meet a lot of people I know.” The First Administrator said in a dead tone that lacked any of his usual personality. “See the sights, you know.”

“That sounds… fun?” Twilight said, because she read that was what you were supposed to say to that.

“It won’t be.” He said in that same voice.

The First Administrator seemed deflated, slow, lost. It made Twilight wonder if this was just some bad impersonator.

Until he raised his hand and Twilight could feel a taste of that same power as yesterday. She felt something behind her, and realized that she had backed into the wall.

To say that the portal was wrong didn’t go far enough. In Twilight’s opinion the word “aberration” didn’t go far enough. Naudia who hadn’t had a direct exposure to the shard thought the word quite apt.

The portal sat there, flowing, dark as liquid death.

That was when Twilight realized two things, it was blocking the door, and there were no windows.

“Well.” The First Administrator said. “Heroes, are you ready to face your great trial?”

“No.” Twilight said.

“Don’t worry.” The First Administrator said. “It can come to you.”

The portal split in half and faster than they could react, it enveloped Twilight and Naudia.

-------------------

The air was dead.

They walked.

No false sliver of hope could pierce them here.

The air was dead.

They could feel the eyes of the dead gods above, like stars, cutting into them with little more than pity to give.

They walked.

They could not even think of the others around them, to do so would be to let their thoughts consume them, and then they could not walk.

The air was dead.

The ash stirred up floated serenely down again as if there was nothing there. That was a comforting fancy, that there could be nothing there, that they were alone.

They walked.

And as they walked they could feel something coming closer, like a warming light, hatred walked among them.

The air was dead.

The air was deader than could be imagined, bereft of warmth or cold, bereft of taste, smell or weight.

They walked.

As they walked they could feel the warmth of hatred coming closer to them, they began to stir from their stupor.

The air was dead.

They walked.

Finally they could see hatred coming towards them radiating like a sun, they could see Camna, the one down below. He held out a hand for them.

They took it.

-------------------

It was like waking from a nightmare, into a nightmare.

They were still there, in Kana.

The eyes of dead gods crowded the sky, glaring down at them like stars. The sand and air were dead, unpleasant to touch and feel.

And those were the only two things that could distract them from the camkut.

They walked. From here to the horizon. An endless tide of spent souls, every imaginable shape and size from rats to unrecognizable monsters.

Twilight knew of no possible word to describe them.

“Is there a way to make them stop?” Twilight asked aloud.

“Stop what?” The First Administrator asked.

“Existing.”

Camna laughed at that.

“You have no idea.”

“Why do they walk?” Naudia asked.

“Because that is all they remember how to do.” Camna said. “So I send them on a pilgrimage. I don’t think they understand but...”

“Does it help?” Naudia asked.

“I have no idea, but I’d like to think that it does.”

Camna stopped walking suddenly.

“I just realized, I haven’t properly shown you around,” He said with a tone of fake joviality. “Welcome, to Kana, my home, this is where I ‘grew up’ as somebody like you would say.”

Twilight and Naudia stared at him.

“Oh be careful, don’t step there.” He pointed at a place in the ground with two footprints that the camkut avoided.

“What’s there?”

“That’s where they found me standing, some people consider it consecrated ground. It’s nonsense in my opinion, but it’s easy enough just to step around it.”

They were beginning to approach something in the distance, it was easy to see because it was the only landmark as far as the eye could see.

“When you say all that, you don’t mean you were born then.” Twilight said.

“No,” The First Administrator pointed at an obelisk that they could just barely make out. “The souls see that, and they pour their hopes and dreams into it, dedicate their entire being to it, hold that in their minds to the exclusion of all else. That is how I was created.

“And then the people who found this place, found me standing there, and I delivered them from here, and delivered them from the nerteln. And they have served under me ever since. Those were the first of the yunguaq.”

“Why are you showing us all of this.” Naudia demanded.

“Haven’t you put it together yet? I Camna, am the god of entropy, god of the camkut, the drained remnant souls who thirst for the end of all things.

“And the total extermination of the nerteln who discarded them here.”

As they finally came to the obelisk, the procession of camkut stopped for a moment and looked up at the obelisk. And there, just for that instant they almost seemed like people, before they turned away to start the cycle of their pilgrimage again.

Twilight and Naudia’s gaze was naturally drawn to where they were looking, to the corpse crumpled up at the base of the obelisk.

It was wearing a stupid looking black duster, an edgy felt fedora, there were a pair of mirrored sunglasses lying nearby, the hat was tilted so you couldn’t see one eye, but the other one, the visible one looked like it had been burned out. The corpse looked, untouched, as if somebody had just set it down there.

Twilight and Naudia instantly turned to Camna.

“We don’t know who that is, we just call him ‘the cast’.”

“Really.” Naudia said.

“Similar holy object situation, nobody wants to touch it.”

“Then why does it look so… fresh.”

“Things don’t rot here, nor do they age. Scientists say it’s because of the camkut, I’ve always thought it was a punishment for them.”

Twilight and Naudia began to feel this place gnawing at their minds even with the influence of Camna. They began to feel the compulsion to walk with the camkut, having seen the obelisk it was now time to walk back to the end of the line, however far that might be.

“Can you feel it? That feeling like you want to go home now. But I am home now.”

Twilight looked at Camna but it felt like sinking into a pit, so she looked away.

“I think. That is enough.” Camna.

-------------------

Twilight fell onto the floor, desperately gasping for air, eyes wild as she touched back down to normal ground and normal air once again. Scrabbling with her hooves she huddled herself into a corner, only to find it was already occupied, not caring who or what it was she clung to them desperately.

It took a long time for the world to reorient itself to her. To grow a distance between her and what she had just experienced. It would never be reconciled in her head, only pushed away.

It was only at this distance that she realized that she was hugging Naudia in a corner of the hospital room, and Naudia was doing the same, there were tears on her face. Twilight realized she had been tensing up, her slime skin going diamond hard to try and protect her from the camkut, she tried to relax.

She would never forget the camkut, those abandoned ones down below. Not the way they were, not the way they walked, and not the way they looked at that corpse.

The First Administrator sat down in a chair across from them.

“I take it you understand more about the peril Equestria is in, and also why we have spent so much effort showing you that.” He said.

“Why?”

“Without knowing why you might fall for the lies of a nerteln. A scientific mindset like yours could seek to tame that power. Saying to others ‘more research needs to be done, the safe amount of nerteln magic has not been tested enough. Think of all the benefits to all ponykind.’ With this magic you could fix the sun in the sky, fix the wrongs of the world, fix the errors of your creation, fix the problems of others, fix the others, of their problems.”

Twilight and Naudia were huddled even farther into the corner.

“Under your rule with this magic there would be no war, no hatred, people would, want,” There was something in the way he emphasized that word. “Nothing at all.”

The First Administrator, no Camna reached out a hand to them. They could push themselves no further away from that hand, away from that other self they saw reflected in those glasses.

“And all it would cost, for this total freedom, would be to expand the ranks of the camkut.”

Twilight stared at that hand, inviting her into a pit for which there could be no bottom, she could only see the camkut in front of her, staring up at her from the bottom of that pit.

“No.” She and Naudia said in unison.

The First Administrator sat back into his chair.

“Good. That was the answer I was expecting, but it never hurts to be sure.”

“W-, Why did you have to ask?” Naudia spoke up.

“There are people out there who, even knowing all of that, see nothing in their future. They have said yes. And even monsters as they are cannot be rid of the camkut. You know what must be done to them now.”

Twilight, clinging to a last bit of hope managed to croak out.

“Can’t we talk with them about this? Help them out?”

The First Administrator centered himself, taking a deep breath as if to calm some kind of inner anger.

“These aren’t addicts Twilight, they can’t go cold turkey, the parts of their brains that deal with interpersonal relationships are physically necrotizing. They need soul magic to understand why they can’t use soul magic and once they have soul magic the re-healed neurons get weaker and weaker inside their brains. You would need to create camkut to even keep them where they’re at.”

“There really is no other way Twilight.” Naudia said.

“The best way to stop nerteln is to prevent nerteln.”

After a moment the First Administrator slapped his knees and stood up. “Well, I think after that and your exemplary grade on this test, you two deserve a break. I’ve set something up with Gwynn that I think you’d like and can act as a contrast to… all of this.”

Once they had collected themselves, which was a long, unknown amount of time for them, Twilight and Naudia got up and followed him out the door. They never strayed away from touching distance to one another.

-------------------

The inside of the limo back was filled with spiders. Gwynn had brought them along for “emotional support”. Twilight and Naudia were too harrowed and numb to be scared of beach ball sized spiders.

Twilight found herself leaning up against Naudia while hugging a giant fuzzy spider. To their credit the spiders seemed to pick up on their state and were acting like any pet does when you’re in emotional distress.

In the kengun spider’s case it was to make Naudia and Twilight little things out of spider thread, like hair scrunchies and in the case of five of them working together a scarf for two. The accessories were all colored and the design of the scarf was set up that it could seamlessly split up or attach back together.

Twilight lay there on Naudia and across from Gwynn, recovering, soaking the warmth of the atmosphere up into her spirit. The past seemed to be farther and farther away. She could never forget what she had seen today, it was stamped onto her in a deeper level than mere memories.

“It’s important for you two to keep perspective of the First Administrator in your heads. Some people say he’s incorruptible but that isn’t wholly the case, the only thing he cares about is exterminating both the nerteln, and the camkut. That isn’t the same thing as being incorruptible.” Gwynn said to them.

“What is the difference?” Naudia asked.

“It means his sense of morals is exclusively grounded in that. He’s got a little earbud talking away in his ear, telling him what would a ‘normal’ person think of this situation, that’s the only way he’s as… human seeming, as he is.”

There was a pause in the conversation as skyscraper tall trees passed by outside the window and cars and trucks made out of wood and watermelon traveled like flocks of sheep floating through the air. Down below them was a layer made up of mostly of little flying moped bicycle things before you reached street level and the canals. It was strange but there were a lot more little bicycle things than there were cars, most of the cars were either buses or delivery trucks. And even strange looking moths flying along carrying boxes every which way, all labeled with the logos of stores she could see passing by.

Everything was so dense here, buildings, well trees that were buildings, many many stories tall. It felt like an alien world built up around vaguely familiar things. That over there, looked like a Manehatten skyscraper, but it was a tree, and there were lines going down the building that people would routinely clip onto and zip straight down to the street below. She even saw somebody jump, not down from the building, but up from the sidewalk to a balcony tens of stories up.

The cars were like carriages but they were likewise alien, driverless, designed around alien needs to be made out of entirely organic materials and to fly around on dissipating lines of glowing magic they left in the sky.

“Have you gone there Gwynn?” Twilight asked.

“Yes.”

“Is it always this bad?”

“I don’t think somebody would be allowed to work under the First Administration who didn’t feel something going into that place.”

“Is it…” Twilight hesitated, but she had to know, it was a terrible thing to think about but it was not optional. “Real?”

“Yes, Kana is real, nobody wants it to be, but it is.”

Twilight hugged the kengun closer to her chest. The spider like any good pet merely let it happen, acting as a living hug toy for Twilight.

“Good news is I’ve got a bit of a surprise for you two when we get back to my house, nothing big, but when I’m feeling really down I like to watch something uplifting and I think I might have found just the thing for you two!” Gwynn said trying to sound upbeat in the face of Twilight and Naudia’s current state. “And then after that it’s a psych evaluation and counseling for you two.”

“Oh.” Twilight said.

The conversation died after that.

-------------------

Getting back to Gwynn’s house, tree, mangrove thing, there was a projector out front with some lawn chairs lined up. It felt weird, like this was some normal neighborhood gathering and not staged by an organization with enough manpower to move planets.

“Move and operate with thrift and efficiency.” Gwynn said.

“What?”

“That’s what the First Administrator keeps saying, that’s why we’re using lawn chairs I already had rather than say, hiring a bunch of people to get a one use outdoor seating setup. Same reason why the first time we came in to pick you up it was in a decommissioned planetary touring vessel.”

“But the giant concert to play one song, those original hospital rooms we woke up in.” Twilight said.

“The concert played once and it’s entire purpose was to impress on you how important the First Administrator is, those hospital rooms were entirely modular, they’ve since been taken apart and the borrowed beds have been put back where they came from.”

Twilight realized that was also the reason they had been bunking at Gwynn’s house, practicing with wooden targets made on site, and had gone to some random burger place. Twilight wasn’t sure if she should be insulted by how cheap the First Administrator was overall or not.

As they sat down on their lawn chairs, Twilight and Naudia got a double wide one so they could sit together, Twilight tried to forget about what happened today. The kengun(Twilight had stopped thinking about them as spiders) had followed them here and had piled on with Naudia and Twilight, trying to sneak bites of their popcorn away with hairy spider paws.

That was the thing about Kengun, Twilight thought, they’re like cats, they even have little paws with claws and even paw pads, that you could easily mistake for a cat paw.

The show they were watching was strange to Twilight. She wondered if it was intentionally made so as to bridge a gap between Equestria and these yunguaq.

It was about a filly, well girl, who, by learning about friendship utilized her powers as a werewolf to fight and reform evil monsters called “nuna tarneq” that tried to take over normal places like parks and buildings. Parts of it reminded her a lot of what she and her, other friends, did on the other side of the mirror. It was hard to think about what the show actually thought of the First Administration itself, on the one hand the girl’s primary contact was somebody inside that organization, but on the other hand it was explicitly shown that these evil “nuna tarneq” were showing up because of mismanagement from lazy people also inside the First Administration.

She got into it a lot and about halfway through she realized that two of the girls were using the same werewolf powers that Naudia and she used. It was just hard to recognize because they were prettied up, the blue one that used Twilight’s version of a werewolf had a much nicer looking water shield and her werewolf form moved almost delicately, but effectively.

Naudia’s equivalent in red, which was sorta the leader, looked completely different, they shimmered with beautiful color as opposed to Naudia’s more pedestrian bacteria look, they even had designs of red delicate looking spines in places giving the appearance of a skirt.

Naudia noticed that the fighting there was real fighting, no choreographed pretty fighting that used movement to trick the eye like on the other side of the mirror. They were fighting like they genuinely wanted to kill each other and had been trained to it.

Once again Naudia and Twilight’s minds were flowing with new possibilities for magic after watching that. And they liked it a lot, despite it feeling strangely familiar to what they’ve already done. They went to bed with that swirling in their heads, chasing away the dreams of things that walked in a desert under the pitying eyes of dead gods.