An Empty World

by The_Unnamed_Pawn

Chapter 14

The empress sighed in relief as she stared at the garden. The city was gone now, and so was that unbearable base noise. The garden was nice. It certainly wasn’t as quiet as the empress might have liked, but it was far better than the alternative.

“You can’t be noisy now can you?” she mocked the petrified creature in front of her. Discord could do no more now that he was once again stone sitting in moss. Now that she’d taken time to think of it, it made sense that she would be unable to get rid of him like everything else. But she could keep him stoned in the garden just like before.

The empress sighed and floated around her new garden. It was a bit brightly colored, but it was quiet. She would be content to live here if she had to. She was fairly certain she could fall asleep watching this. Unfortunately, Discord wasn’t the only problem she had to deal with.

The other ponies were still here with her. She thought they would have poofed away now that Discord was quiet, but they were still there. She couldn’t even get rid of the noisy piece of machinery they were using to get closer to her.

With a sigh, the empress floated over to the gate of the nearby castle. She couldn’t get rid of this place either for some reason. It wasn’t because of Discord either. This place had its own noise. The empress recognized it as she floated through. I was a very light sound, so she couldn’t hear it very clearly over the other noises in the world, but it was there. It was the same sound every other piece of the world that was leftover had made before she’d gotten rid of them.

Of course, annoying as it was it didn’t even hold a candle to the other noise she was hearing right now. The ponies on the train were arguing again. It was making her angry. “At least they’re close now,” the empress sighed as she floated onward. Their train had stopped, and now they were moving onto the narrow pathway towards the castle.

The empress grew a touch angrier when she heard the ponies start arguing again. Still, she managed to keep herself calm. The characters were yelling over nothing anyway. For the most part they were fighting about how they should approach the castle. Most were arguing for a flanking maneuver, but a few were zealously arguing for a straightforward charge.

Either way the fighting was pointless. Not only was the empress not hostile, she had no intention of being in the throne room that they planned to attack. The noise was quite grating though. So much so in fact that the empress had to pause for a moment to calm herself down while she watched the proceedings.

“I’m telling ya’ that splittin’ up wouldn’t do us any good.” That one was the brown stallion. His name was Aces Low, and he was one of the empress’s ‘siblings,’ as Discord had put it. “Even if it did surprise the enemy half of us would still be stranded on this walkway.”

The next pony to speak was another of the empress’s siblings. This one’s name was Lightning Flash, and he was being particularly loud. “We don’t need everypony to make it out of this,” he shouted, “We just need to win the battle.”

“We don’t even know what’s really going on yet,” another pony said with a raised voice. This one was not one of the empress’s siblings. His name was Caesar. “We don’t even know if we need to start fighting yet. For all we know one of the princesses is still in there.”

The empress took a deep breath and resumed her trot to meet the noisy group. Caesar had silenced that particular argument, but their noise still continued. It was just that now they were arguing about what they would find inside.

While they argued the empress took her chance to quiet things down just a little more. Now that those strange ponies were off of it, it took little more than a thought for her to get rid of the train that they had rode in on.

“It looks like this is the point of no return,” another of the empress’s siblings commented cheerfully. This one’s name was Bee Bee. Her comment brought down a brief but pleasant silence as the gathered ponies stared at the now empty space where their noisy transport had once been.

“I guess so,” a white unicorn responded. The empress remembered her as Twinkleshine.

The empress nodded and pushed her way through the palace’s double doors. Then she waited. She’d originally planned to go meet the troublemakers after leaving the castle, but somehow this seemed more appropriate. A meeting on neutral ground made sense after all.

The empress waited impatiently for the group to reach her. The arguments had stopped now for the most part, but the ponies did not walk along in silence. She wasn’t happy that she had to listen to such inane banter, but it was better than before. Relatively chaotic though it was, it was hardly the chaos she was used to watching.

One of the conversations did catch her curiosity though. Two of the empress’s siblings, Dew Drop and Bee Bee she believed, were busy talking about how they would look when they approached her. This made the empress realize that she could see herself once more along with the rest of the world, and she didn’t particularly like what she saw.

Her bright pink coat and her strange white and purple mane upset her the least. However her peculiar purple eyes and the idiotic screw and baseball mark on her flank came close to enraging her. Both were a painful reminder of her father and the ‘gift’ he’d given her. Then there was the tiara she was sure she hadn’t been wearing when she’d gone to sleep; a polished golden thing with a bright pink gem shaped like a star embedded inside of it.

With a wave of her hoof the empress was able to rid herself of the offending items. The cutie mark vanished outright the eyes dimmed to a far less outrageous gray color. She had intended to poof away the tiara as well, but all she could manage to do was get rid of the gemstone and the gilding; leaving an empty iron crown on her head. Her pink fur and purple mane were left as they were though; primarily because it was difficult for her to concentrate when she was this angry.

The other ponies were being noisy again, and they were doing it right in front of her too. She couldn’t make much of it out since everypony was talking at once. It reminded her of the time before she stopped everypony from talking. Combined with the more painful reminders she had just gotten rid of, the empress couldn’t stop the rage from coming back.

“Shut up!” she screamed at the gathered crowd. Just like before it didn’t work. Sure everypony was quiet for a second, but not much longer.

“I’m sorry,” Dew Drop was the first to speak. At least she tried to speak quietly though. The next pony certainly didn’t.

“What’s your problem?” Bee Bee complained.

At the same time at least three other ponies interrupted her with, “Is something wrong?” The empress wasn’t sure who it was that spoke, and she was too mad to try and figure it out.

“I said shut up!” she screamed again. This time the ponies were silent for a few more seconds. The only exception was Bee Bee. She was making a quiet buzzing noise the whole time. It didn’t get to the empress much though. It wasn’t more annoying than the noise the castle made.

“Thank you,” she continued more calmly then before. The anger was still there, but she was keeping it down. She needed to be diplomatic with these ponies in order to get what she wanted after all. “Now only I can talk. Everypony else stay quiet.”

“And how exactly do you plan to make us?” Lightning Bolt asked angrily. He was cut off, thankfully, by Caesar covering his mouth.

“Don’t be so rude. We don’t know what she’s capable of,” Caesar whispered.

“You be quiet too, Caesar,” the empress demanded. Caesar nodded politely before quieting down again. The empress smiled again and felt a calm come over her. Everything was nice and orderly now. She could tell because when she closed her eyes, all she saw was the castle.

That was until Airheart spoke up. “So do you mind if I ask what you’re doing here miss..?”

“Nopony,” the empress responded venomously. After a deep breath she calmed down again. “I’m nopony,” she said calmly, “And I’m only here because you’re here.”

“Does that mean ya’ can help us?” Aces Low asked.

“Or are you our enemy?” That came courtesy of Lightning Flash, who had already ‘covertly’ drawn his weapon.

The empress sighed and closed her eyes again. They were all there again. She’d lost control completely. “Listen,” she said as calmly as she could manage, “Would all of you just go away? I’m not going to help you.”

“There’s nowhere else for us to go.” Two ponies said that at once, but only Twinkleshine continued, “Since you can’t help us, is there anypony else around?” The rest of the group nodded in agreement and mumbled their confirmation.

The empress shook her head. “Nopony’s here. Now can you please go away?” She was asking as politely as she could. Maybe they just didn’t understand. Well most of them anyway. “Just trot back a little and leave me alone okay? I’m pretty sure that will do it.”

The crowd was upset. The empress could hardly say she was surprised though. “So you are our enemy then?” Lightning shouted as he aimed his crossbow. The empress gritted her teeth and floated back into the castle. She wasn’t sure what it was that made her think they’d listen. She’d just hoped at least her siblings would see it her way.

The empress slammed the doors behind her while she stormed off. Lightning Flash chose to make his shot at that moment. It had no effect. After that the group went into planning. Aces Low took the initiative. Their plan was to flank the throne room now.

The empress was mad again. Not only were they being loud again, but they were going to start attacking now. Abandoning all reason, the empress decided to try wiping the world again. Even if they wouldn’t go peacefully, she could still make them go quietly.