Ungrounded

by Lucien Chance

Chapter 34: Necessities

Lucien

---

A hot sun hung overhead, directly in the middle of the sky. The heat buffeted Lucien and Twilight as they exited the Labyrinth, this time through a secret door in a statue that sat in the center of an open plaza. They had arrived at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Lucien's eyes took a moment to adjust to the new surroundings, taking in the almost grayed-out plaza and surrounding nature, if you would even call it that. The area looked almost like it had suffered from a nuclear blast, or a raging fire. The trees were bare and the texture of charcoal, and the grass was like frozen ash, it still held its shape but seemed like it would collapse under the slightest breeze. The blue sky above contrasted starkly with the colorless area.

Lucien's eyes narrowed. He could still feel lingering energy in the area. He didn't know what caused the destruction, but he knew it was recent. Something or someone had taken the life out of the surrounding nature in a massive radius. You don't create that kind of power vacuum without leaving some kind of trace.

"What happened here?" Twilight's soft voice came from behind him. She was sitting at the edge of the laid-brick pathway they had emerged on, her hoof poking at a blade of the ashen grass. Lucien watched as the fragile substance crumbled beneath Twilight's light touch. She must be affected by this more than him, he supposed. Given ponies' natural affinity towards, well, nature, it would make sense if this was more damning in her eyes.

"Someone absorbed everything. And that someone has to still be around here. We're gonna have to be careful though, that sort of power has to be released again somehow, and the amount taken in might be more than I can contend with." It would be best if they just booked it out of the campus and found the next entrance in the city immediately, but if he were to be honest with himself, he needed to break something or someone. He was still hurting on the inside from their meeting with Discord, and holding rage back was unhealthy for a mage. Similarly, fighting angry is as well, but that had never stopped him in the past. Besides, nobody would use a massive life drain spell like that unless they had a good reason for it. It's also not every day that you meet someone that can handle that amount of energy in one go.

"Come on, Twilight, we're going to school." Nobody could say that a bad mood ever stopped him from making a bad joke.

"School?" she asked flatly. And just when he thought that she'd appreciate that joke. Even just a little bit.

"Whoever did this has to still be around, and we need to find them and shut them down." He wasn't lying, technically. Whoever or whatever did that must be a powerful force to be reckoned with, and a threat to anyone else in the area, should the release of the collected energy misfire. He felt a little bad misleading Twilight just so he could vent, but he needed it.

With a brief gesture, he beckoned Twilight to walk with him along the path towards a grand building a short ways away. The air was silent along the way, until a sharp crack! split the quiet, causing Lucien and Twilight to flinch. A cacophony of noise closely followed the initial sound, almost like the crack introduced it. It took only seconds for Lucien to place it in his mind. "Gunfire! It's coming from the big building, over there!" he pointed in the direction they were heading.

"Let's go!" Twilight galloped forward, taking the initiative.

The pair ran across the ashen landscape, covering the ground quickly. Even so, it still took several minutes to cross the area and reach the grand building that seemed to be the origin of the gunfire. Despite the bleak surroundings, the building was as vibrant and grandiose as the old structures of Greece, elegant pillars lining the entrance and shrouding the glass doors in shade.

Lucien made it first, shoulder-checking the doors open and ushering Twilight inside. The two were in a large open lobby, two staircases leading off to the left and right, and a desk sitting between two closed doors. The sounds of gunfire echoed in the empty building. "Come on!" Lucien banked left and charged up the stairs, Twilight close at his heels.

Hallways ran to the left and right, but directly ahead of them was a balcony with a broken stone banister. Lucien and Twilight ran up to it and stopped, looking forward. The building must have just been a check-in or front entrance to a larger facility, because there was a lounge area below them and great glass windows looking out on a large courtyard that the building wrapped around.

Taking a closer look out into the courtyard, Lucien could make out parts of several people, all in partial or full cover, shooting at each other. Judging by their positioning, it seemed as if it were going three ways at once. Two were paired up and pinned behind the large statue in the center of the area, three were taking turns firing from an open doorway and poking their heads up from behind the patio's sturdy bricks, and a single gunman was on the ground behind a planter between the two groups, making the entire shootout a triangle.

Lucien removed his backpack swiftly, dug around in it for a moment, then withdrew his handgun. He checked his ammunition, made sure a bullet was loaded, then looked at the floor below. This was unnecessary endangerment. He knew it and it bothered him. If it were just him like it normally was he wouldn't think twice before jumping into combat. But this time he had someone else to look out for.

His eyes drifted over to Twilight, standing beside him. He had expected to see some sort of apprehension or nervousness on her face, but he only saw his own determination reflected back at him. It was clear she had also made the connection that one of the people down there had been the perpetrator of the destruction that they had witnessed outside. She looked ready for a fight, despite the reasons for it being less than pure. She wouldn't like what he had to say next, but it needed to be said regardless.

"Twilight, I need you to stay here," he said quietly, anxiously playing with the safety on his pistol.

"No." Her reply was curt.

"This isn't our fight and I can't drag you into it without warning you beforehand that we have quite literally no idea what we're about to walk into." It was bad enough he was putting himself in danger with this idea; it would be even worse if Twilight came as well.

"I know. But one of them did that," she said, nodding her head back towards where they came from. "There needs to be some sort of justice." Her voice was stone cold, the glint of the sun in her eyes giving a hard appearance. It seems she had changed more than he initially had thought in her time on Earth.

"Alright. Promise me you'll stay back in the building and prioritize yourself with shielding, though, you can make do at long range. I don't need you getting hurt because of my own actions." He voice came out harsher than he had intended. He was itching for a fight, and he could feel it clouding over his better judgement like a storm blocks the sun.

"Fine. But keep in mind I'm not going to abandon you out there," she said simply.

"Let's go then."

He vaulted over the ledge.

---

Twilight

Things weren't looking good. Lucien and Twilight were pinned behind their improvised cover, taking fire from three different directions simultaneously. To their great misfortune, one of the parties, the solo individual, was a Hunter, and he had his magic-neutralizing jar with him. Looking back, it should've been obvious. Nobody but a mage would be in the wasteland that was the university campus, and the lack of spellcasting should've occurred to them immediately.

"This was probably a bad idea." Twilight's back was pressed up against the brick; she was hunched over and keeping her horn out of view. She turned her head to look at Lucien after he spoke.

"We just need to wait for an opportunity! They'll have to reload eventually! Or maybe they'll go back to focusing each other!" Unlikely. She was well aware of the situation they were stuck in, and didn't see an outcome that left the two of them not riddled with holes. While she wasn't overly familiar with the structure of a gunfight, Lucien had taken the time back in Equestria to give her a crash course in human firearms and how they function.

It wasn't long after that that the sounds of gunfire stopped. An eerie silence settled over the area; Twilight could hear only the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. "Why did they stop?" she asked in a tense whisper.

"You wouldn't happen to be Lucien Chance, would you?" one of the voices, somewhere on her left, called out.

She felt Lucien stiffen beside her.

"Who wants to know?" he called out.

A quiet chuckle echoed across the courtyard. Several, actually. It seems that the man's friends found the response funny.

"Someone who used to look up to you." Crack! Another bullet crashed into their already bullet-riddled cover.

With that, the shootout resumed, neither side making any more moves or attempting to push any sort of advantage. It was an unsolvable stalemate. After several more seconds of sustained fire, all sound stopped once again.

Twilight looked over to Lucien. He face was marred by panic. Several beads of sweat gathered on his forehead and he swallowed hesitantly. "Who are you?" he called out.

Another moment of silence. The sound of a gun being reloaded rang out loudly. "A member of the Company."

Lucien paled.

"I wasn't--"

"You don't have to make excuses, we already know about everything. There's few out there that don't at this point," a new voice called out, this one from the right.

"You don't know anything about what hap--"

"We know everything that happened, you traitor!" a third voice pitched in, this one younger than the rest.

"Look, I've been gone for a while, I don't know what--"

"Stop talking! You've been gone for four years, of course we found your house! Your research! Your mistakes!" the first voice roared. "I don't know what plane you fucked off to in the meantime or where the hell you found that horse, but we learned about your betrayal! We've all been informed about who and what you are now, and you're not getting away from us again!"

"The Trireme Council has been spreading nothing but lies! Don't listen to anything those old idiots say!" Lucien called back, a note of anger seeping into his voice.

"The Trireme Council has been keeping the world safe! You've seen what's happened since you disappeared! Your actions invited more monsters onto the planet!"

"What?!" Lucien called out, angry and confused.

"Your basement!" the man continued viciously, "we saw everything in your basement. All that time on the frontlines fighting for humanity, all that for what! So you can summon a demon to Earth and destroy everything!"

Lucien's face was red with rage at this point. "You don't know anything except for the bullshit the Council and the Company has been feeding you! I was trying to save everyone!"

"Shut up, traitor!" called the second voice.

"You can't run from your mistakes any more!" chimed the third.

"You're dead here and now!" the first voice shouted out with a war cry. Twilight heard the sound of one of the men exiting his cover, then she flinched as Lucien quickly popped up and fired a single shot from his pistol. One second later heralded the sound of a dead man hitting the grass.

With that, the gunfight resumed once again. Bullets rained over their heads, some getting dangerously close to Lucien, who was still dangerously close to leaning back out over their cover. His teeth were gritted and squeezing out breath after hurried breath. Twilight had never seen anyone so angry before.

And it was in that moment that something happened. It was no more than a single instant, but Twilight was able to see it almost in slow motion.

It began with a misplaced sound in the encounter. The shattering of something made of ceramic. By the time she actually had processed what the sound meant the fight had ended.

As the ceramic shattered Twilight felt a sudden influx of power. Her magic had returned, suddenly and inexplicably. But Lucien's, it seemed, had returned faster.

The very moment the ceramic shattered, Lucien's hands erupted into violent green flame, nearly searing Twilight by proximity. It was unlikely that the shards of pottery had even hit the ground yet.

Lucien's palms touched the earth, and the earth headed his call. Twilight felt the intense burst of energy as it exited the man and transferred to the ground, the dirt and rock itself bending to his will.

It was at this point that the gunfire stopped and the earthquake began. A quick and violent shake accompanied by the sound of stone grinding together. A wordless, primal cry of rage echoed across the battlefield. Then silence.

Somewhere nearby, the shards of ceramic hit the ground.

Twilight, shaking furiously, lifted her head over their cover. What she saw became burned into her mind forever afterward.

Lucien stood before her, his back to her. He was hunched slightly, out of breath. She could feel the raw power and rage still dripping off him. Before him lie the decimated remains of those who had been shooting at them. Each one hung suspended several feet in the air, gaping holes ripped through their chests by the spires of earth that had impaled them so suddenly. Blood dripped slowly down each, and for a moment Twilight saw Lucien covered in it, the evidence of his grisly murder staining his appearance.

She barely suppressed the urge to vomit. This had to happen eventually, a part of her mind echoed softly. He told her about his world, and the kind of place it was. It was only by some miracle that she hadn't witnessed this sort of brutality first-hoof yet.

“Dude what the fuck man?!” Twilight's gaze snapped to the right as she heard another voice, one she didn't recognize.

"And you! Don't think I don't recognize you for who you are!" Twilight watched as Lucien rounded on the man, his bloodlust not fading in the slightest. "I caught a whiff of you and your magic when you first showed up in Equestria, and you just reek of Discord; someone I'm not on the best terms with right now!" He marched up to him and aggressively got into his face. "I'm not gonna pretend to know why you decided it would be a good idea to give a complete stranger a chaos-infused chunk of adamantium, not to mention why you were there that day anyway, but I do know one thing!" He leaned further, inches from the newcomer's face. "That was the day I met him. And if you have any connection to that pony at all, I suggest you hold still and make my job easy."

There was an eerie quiet after Lucien finished speaking, the only sound breaking it was Twilight's stifled gasps for air. The air was dead, no breeze to cool down the heated confrontation. Lucien's menacing stance was highlighted by the silhouettes of the men impaled on spears of earth just in the background.

“Look man, I ain’t that guy. I know him. I had beef with him. I dealt with it. That doesn’t mean you should be taking it out on me.”

It didn’t look like that was the answer Lucien was looking for though.

“I’m not ‘taking it out on you’, I’m trying to erase him and any trace of his actions in my life. So I’ll ask you now, what do you mean that you know him?”

“It’s… complicated, but ultimately irrelevant to what you’re after and what I’m needing to do here. Most likely anyway.”

Lucien took a moment to narrow his stare even further.

“Then what do you need to do here? Because I need to go, and I don’t want you in my way. You need to learn not to meddle in the affairs of others.”

“Well, I might end up in your way because there is something I have to do here that most likely requires me to follow you for who knows how long until I figure it out. Though just seeing you casually kill random people isn’t giving me the best vote of confidence in your state of mind right now.”

Who was this man that so suddenly intruded? He wasn't someone that Twilight recognized, though Twilight definitely did feel the chaotic swirl of magic around his person. Didn't he just see Lucien kill all those people? Why was he trying to egg him on?

“I’d call that a justification if I ever heard one,” Lucien said definitively as he reached a hand up and grasped his sword. In one swift movement, he drew it and slashed it towards the newcomer. In a flash, he teleported backward, evading the attack.

“I thought you were gonna make this easy!” he shouted as Balance morphed into Harmony, his chakrams. Not missing a beat, he hurled them through the air.

The man brought his hand up and formed a blue half-dome shield to intercept, but seemed surprised as they sheared right through it, causing him to duck them instead.

In a flash of blue, the weapons appeared back in his hands. They morphed back into Balance, then Chaos, the hammer. He charged at the man, readying a strike.

He simply motioned to the side and watched as Chaos went spiraling away. Since he still had a grip for a second he followed a bit with it, hitting the ground on his side.

“Not the best idea since I helped you make that sucker. You calming down yet?” He helped make Chaos? But Lucien was in Equestria when he forged his new weapons. How could this man have helped?

Lucien looked up with rage. He rolled to his feet quickly, fiery energy coalescing on his hands. After a moment, flaming green magic claws formed from in between the knuckles on his fist. In the blink of an eye, he lunged once again, claws thrusting towards the man's midsection.

The man simply teleported again. This time off to the left and behind him. After a moment, he turned invisible. Twilight activated her horn and looked again, the man's aura flaring brightly, giving off his presence.

Lucien looked around for a moment, his face twisted into a snarl of anger. After a few seconds of searching, he relaxed his pose slightly.

“Don’t think you’re gonna be able to hide from me,” he said. Almost immediately, he snapped his head to look directly at the aura Twilight was watching, despite his closed eyes. With a quick shout, he leapt at again, this time aiming for the man's head.

In response he started to back up. With a quick snap he formed a couple of illusionary copies of himself that charged from the sides. Lucien reformed Harmony and threw them in a tight circle around him, dealing with them effortlessly. In the short meantime, the man teleported away again to an even farther distance. With another snap, he formed a multitude of copies scattered all over the area.

“I still see you!” Lucien slammed his palm against the earth, cracking the ground around him. In an instant, all the clones were impaled by chunks of rock, just like those before. The man teleported again to an area already affected by the spires as it seemed to wash over the area like a wave breaking against the shoreline.

The magic claws over Lucien's fists faded out, and he ran over to one of the spires of rock. His foot lashed out against it, separating the earth cleanly at the base with a flash of energy. The now-separated earth lit up in a green flame. He made a throwing motion with his arms, and the chunk followed suit, rocketing at the stranger.

Again, he teleported out of the way; it seemed to be the only effective means of dodging at his disposal. This man didn't seem to be versed in mage to mage combat, unlike Lucien, who was handling himself with a deadly efficiency. A short distance away, the stranger snapped his fingers again.

In a strange response, all manner of creatures suddenly popped into existence around the courtyard. Strange, large-toothed red-and-white spotted plants, what appeared to be walking mushrooms and turtles, and all sorts of strange things in-between. They all had a cartoonish quality to them, like they didn't fit in with reality.

Lucien sighed, looking calmer for the first time. “Chaos magic is such bullshit,” he muttered.

“You’re goddamned right,” the stranger replied.

Twilight watched on as the summoned mob started to rush him, causing him to go into an impromptu gauntlet of hammers, mushrooms, and fireballs. He improvised platforms made of earth to jump and climb his way through the mess of creatures, but it was clear that it was gonna take him some time.

Twilight felt trapped. Memories of what had just occurred swirled in her head and left her sick to her stomach, but she couldn't let this man attack Lucien while she just sat by and watched. Even if he played mostly on the defensive and utilized strange methods that Lucien could clearly handle, she had to act before it got too late. If his magic was like Discord's then maybe--

A short cry of pain interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see the stranger teleport away once again. She noticed that Lucien's Balance had a new bloodstain on it.

Lucien charged him once again, his movement charged magically.

Another teleport away was the only response he received from the man, followed by an additional snap of his fingers. One wipe of chaos magic later and Lucien was suddenly surrounded by an absurd-looking horde of giant rabbits.

“Can you not?” was all Lucien had to say before switching into his hammer and going to town on them.

Just as Twilight had begun to formulate her plan to help Lucien defeat the stranger newcomer, something changed across the battlefield. The man's presence, which she had been tracking across every teleport, had suddenly vanished.

Lucien realized it immediately. His posture changed while fighting, his back and shoulders stiffening up suddenly. He finished off the rabbit he was hammering, then teleported away suddenly. He reappeared on a nearby roof, looking around the area. It didn't seem to make sense to him either. There was no sign of a large-scale spell, such as one to teleport a great distance, yet the man had vanished entirely. Lucien seemed to give up quickly, jumping back into the middle of what was left of the giant rabbit horde to finish them off.

"I think you’re the only one who can take care of him at this juncture."

Twilight jumped slightly at the sudden sound of the man's voice. Her heart leapt into her throat; it sounded like he was right in front of her. She charged up magic in her horn instinctively.

"Whatever he’s going through you’re the only one around with any hold on him I bet so I guess it’s up to you." She felt something touch her horn, a gentle prod. She felt a small spark of power enter her, foreign in nature until her magic assimilated it. "In case you need it."

"Who are you?" she asked the empty air. A moment of silence hung suspended, and she pushed a hoof out in front of her. It passed through slowly, encountering nothing. It bothered her to think that he was there so suddenly and gone just as quickly.

"It's time to go, Twilight."

Twilight yelped, spinning around and falling to her back. Lucien stood above her, a defeated and exhausted look on his face. All the rage and fury that had twisted his features before was now gone, leaving him with an empty expression and slouched posture. She, on the other hoof, still had her nerves on edge.

"Why?" she attempted to ask. Her vocal cords failed her, only a puff of strangled air escaping her throat.

Lucien seemed to understand the point regardless. He winced slightly, recognizing the fear and confusion in her posture. "I'll explain as we go. We just need to leave now. We're still in danger. None of them had the power of whatever destroyed everything outside, so it must still be around somewhere. Come on, I know the way to the next entrance."

---

Lucien

It was a slow walk to the next location. It wasn't even across the campus: just a few buildings away in the library's basement. But it was clear that their relationship would come to an end if he chose to not divulge any answers, and there was nothing in the world that meant more to him than their relationship.

So it was with little reluctance that Lucien began to explain. Everything. Everything from the collapse of the Company, which apparently had recovered since that time, to Charlotte's tragic disappearance, to his abrupt retreat to the forests of New York, and the research he conducted there.

He had always lived life close to death. There were times when death itself had come to visit, to take a friend or loved one, or maybe to come to try to claim him. There was one occasion where a brush with death became much, much more literal.

It had been during his later years working with the Company. He was a legend amongst the ranks by this point, known as the formidable fighter who tackles the front lines of their war for humanity all by himself. It was around this time that he was assigned a contract to hunt down an individual who was suspected of having ties not only to the Hunters, but also had forbidden knowledge of how to contact and invite monsters from the various planes they had been intruding from.

It didn't take Lucien long to find him. A rat-faced man with a hunched posture and nervous eyes. His time spent experimenting with the demons had changed him, their magic corrupting his mind and appearance until they were barely what they used to be before. He no longer looked anything like the picture of the smiling, pale-faced young man that Lucien had received with the contract to find him.

Dispatching of him took significantly less time than finding him. But he still had enough time to babble about the promises of the demons and the power they held. The man had a strange corruption to his magic, rendering it unreadable to the experienced mage; but he was still able to feel its raw power.

A quick tracing spell led Lucien back to his hideout, a smelly basement illuminated by a single flickering florescent light. It was there that Lucien made the acquaintance of death. For the first time in his life he felt himself dominated by a power incomprehensible to even his experienced mind. A strange compulsion overtook him to take his dagger to his throat and ram it straight through. Though whatever the compulsion was, it faded before he was able to puncture his flesh beyond half an inch.

It was then that Lucien knew the true feeling of despair and death, the way it loomed above him in that moment and he was helpless but to face it and try in vain to stop it.

He gathered the man's notes and books and took them away. Far, far away. A place that only he knew about, a place that he could be safe as he studied. However powerful the force was, it was still just a force. It was something he could overcome, something he could control. He knew as he gasped for breath and returned his dagger to its sheath in that bizarre and nearly fatal moment that whatever force that had compelled him held the power that would save humanity.

It was the strength that he had always searched for.

It wasn't long after that he retreated to his home in the forest. Tensions in the Company erupted after his suspicions of Charlotte's manipulative nature came to be proven true, and he left not long after, just like she had.

"That is what set this entire chain of events in motion. A brush with death that got far too close, and the end of a dear friendship. I left everything behind to study and discover anything I could about the source of the monsters that had intruded and laid waste to Earth. Everything to try to discover and control the power that would save the world, and return it back to its original state. That was all I ever wanted. To see everything back to normal again. No more monsters, no more danger, no more death. Just humanity as it was supposed to be.

"I'm sure you understand now why Discord's explanation left me so... enraged. To learn that the state this world has fallen to was the reaction to his action... It was a lot to take in. After having dedicated my life to the defense of my species, and then hear that not only was it caused by something so simple, but also fixed by a being with so much more power than me..."

A strange mixture of emotions filled Lucien, swirling and churning. But, at the center of it all, an intense burn kept everything in check. It was in this moment of confusion, anger, and sadness that he realized that the only thing that would push him beyond his breaking point was the one walking beside him. And just as he realized that she was the only one that could push him away, he also realized that she was the only one that could bring him back.

"We're here."

The tone of her voice caused him to wince, but he listened and turned his head forward. Together, they made their final exit from the darkness of the Labyrinth and emerged back into the forest where his journey had begun. Back in New York.

Author's Note:

3

Comments

[LostArchivist]

I have so many questions.

[Coltsguy]

Nice. Finally made it to the chapter we both worked on years ago. Pretty interesting to see it written out on your end here.