Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 52 - Otherworld

The Legendary Earth Shrine, or at least that’s what the giant brightly-colored banner said. Rouge adjusted one corner, trying to straighten out a wrinkle.

“And this place is a secret?” I asked.

“Yep!” Rouge replied, hopping back down to us.

“Nopony has ever noticed the huge sign?” Destiny asked.

"I only put it up a little while ago!” Rouge explained. “I know this is your first dungeon, and I wanted to make it special for you! Most ponies just go for the Spider Cave or the Bat Belfry, but I think you two are ready for the big time, and this baby can hold so many plot-relevant encounters you wouldn’t believe it!”

She slapped the side of the cave entrance. It was a really beautiful cave, I had to admit. One of the real rarities Dad had in his collection were a few geodes, little rock eggs that revealed a crystal cavern inside when they were split apart. The entrance to the Earth Shrine was like a gigantic geode, a boulder as wide as a street cracked in half and revealing a tunnel leading inside and down, with a path winding away into the dark and crystals glowing with magic providing mysterious, mystical light.

It was the kind of place that just didn’t exist in the real world. I knew what a real cave was like. The horrible, oppressive darkness. The living shadows. The terror.

“It’s very nice,” Destiny assured her. “Well, shall we?” she asked, shooting me a smile. I couldn’t say no.

“I guess I’m first?” I asked, taking a step into the crystal cave. The moment I did, a creature dropped out of the darkness above me, splattering on the path only a few paces away. It quickly pulled itself together, revealing a jiggling blob of blue jelly with a tiny red ball inside it.

“Monster attack!” Rouge yelled.

“I got this,” I said, drawing the sword she’d given me. It felt weird to have it in my teeth after holding a knife in my hooves so often, but it wasn’t literally attached to my bones so I’d just have to make do.

The slime slimed threateningly, burbling and warbling.

“Prepare to meet your ugly maker!” I said around the handle, bringing the blade around in a big chop.

“WAAAAIT!” Rouge yelled, diving out in front of me and waving her hooves in the air like she just didn’t care. “Don’t!”

I stopped mid-swing.

“What’s wrong?” Destiny asked. “Is it acidic? Poison? Immune to swords? I can blast it with a spell if--”

“No, no! We don’t have to blast it at all!” Rouge explained. “Violence isn’t the answer!”

“You literally yelled monster attack,” I pointed out.

“I did! But that doesn’t mean we have to be the monsters too!”

I looked back at Destiny. She shrugged.

Rouge waved to the slime. “If we act nicely to monsters like this, we can break the influence of Chaos on them, and they’ll become happy and live in harmony and won’t want to fight at all!”

“That sounds really bucking lame,” I mumbled.

“Oh come on, give it a try!” Rouge said.

I sighed and sheathed my sword. “Destiny, it’s up to you. You’re the leader, so you tell me how you want me to act.”

“I guess we’ll go along with it, right?” Destiny said. “Miss Rouge, how, um… how do you act nice to a blob?”

“With a great big group hug!” Rouge said. She grabbed the slime, which was about as big as she was, and pulled it into a hug. “Come on, everypony! We gotta hug those blues away!”

I took a deep breath, braced myself, and hugged the stupid slime. I did not want to do it, and thank the sky it wasn’t a horrible mucus mess. It was more like wrapping my hooves around a huge balloon full of thick water. Destiny piled in next to me reluctantly.

The slime shuddered.

“We did it!” Rouge squeaked. “Look how happy it is!”

“It looks exactly the same,” Destiny said.

“It looks exactly the same except happier!” Rouge corrected. We let go and the slime slumped back before slithering away. “Bye! Have a nice day!”

“So… we need to hug all the monsters?” Destiny asked. “Why did you even give her a sword if we’re not going to, you know. Sword things. Stabbing.”

“She wouldn’t be a real fighter without a sword!” Rouge said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And hugs probably won’t work for everything. Hugs are really strong, but if a monster is super evil and in the grip of Chaos, it might need singing, dancing, or a montage. Those are pretty tricky to pull off in the heat of battle, but I think you two are up to it.”

Destiny gave me a look and jerked her head to the side, pulling me over for a talk away from the excited masked pony.

“I know this seems kind of weird, but Star Swirl said we needed to find something here,” she whispered. “We should probably play along until we have some idea what we’re doing.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. But also, have you noticed how… real that pony seems?”

“Yeah, it’s weird,” Destiny said. “Even back in my time, the most advanced games just had pre-scripted lines and all the art was hoof-drawn. It was nothing like this.”

“There must be more to this than it seems,” I said. “We should be careful. You watch my back and I’ll watch yours.”

She offered a hoof and I bumped it. “Just like always, partner,” she said.

---

“I’m so sorry,” Destiny apologized again.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I didn’t need all that blood.”

I hoped I didn’t actually need that blood. My neck was sore from where fangs had punched through my skin and into my veins. I was going to have to be careful. I wasn’t nearly as tough in the game as I was in reality, which seemed backwards somehow.

“Let me try healing you,” Destiny said. “Rouge said I just need to wave this staff and think about the spell I want to cast…”

Destiny’s mane started moving, strands floating up and pulling away like a massive static charge was building around her body. The staff, already glowing with her crimson aura, started humming, runes appearing on the surface. I could practically feel the magic in the air.

But I couldn’t actually feel it, which was a little weird because if it had been real life I definitely could have sensed that much magical energy. And that was also weird because pegasus ponies weren’t supposed to be able to do that.

“Heal!” Destiny yelled, and a bolt of green energy leapt out of her staff, smacking me in the face.

“It smells like mint,” I said.

She frowned and tilted her head, looking at my neck.

“That… didn’t really do as much as I expected,” she said.

“Of course not,” Rouge scoffed. “You’re dressed like a Black Magician, not a White Mage! You could definitely blast her with lightning if you wanted to try that instead!”

“I’d prefer not to, thanks,” Destiny said.

“Probably a good idea,” Rouge said. She leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I don’t think you’d be in good shape after getting hit with a lightning bolt and losing all that blood.”

“Stunning observation,” I muttered.

“But hey, those vampire bats seemed really really grateful to have a snack!” Rouge said, patting my shoulder. “And they helped us find our way through the dark part of the cave! Weren’t they nice?”

“You could have given them blood,” I pointed out.

“But you’re so much bigger than us!” Rouge bumped her flank against mine. “Besides, everypony knows the Fighter is the tough one with the most hit points. A whole d10 plus constitution bonus!”

“...What?”

“Eh, never mind,” Rouge sighed, waving a hoof. “I think we’re almost at the Earth Crystal!”

“Have you been here before?” Destiny asked.

“Nope!”

“Then how do you know we’re close?”

Rouge winked. “Treasure sense!”

Destiny gave me a look and I shrugged. For all we knew that was a legitimate answer and some ponies in the game really did have some kind of treasure sense. Or maybe the game was unfinished and broken and the annoying pony wasn’t supposed to be annoying.

Regardless of how annoying or un-annoying she was intended to be, she was right about what we found around the corner.

“Oh wow,” Destiny whispered.

We walked into a part of the cave that had clearly been worked by pony hooves, the floor leveled and smoothed, rings of silver, bronze, and gold set into the ground, and more of the glowing crystals, this time broken off the walls and floor and put into metal lanterns on tall stands, casting light around the focus of the room.

It was a temple, and it was all dedicated to the floating monolith in the center.

“That’s the Earth Crystal,” Rouge said. “Isn’t it pretty?”

The thing was spindle-shaped, floating on one point and giving off soft yellow-orange light. It had to be three meters tall, a single crystal with no visible flaws or cracks.

I looked around the room. “Destiny, does this remind you of…?”

“Where we found the black pyramid?” she asked. “Yeah. It’s not as dark and ominous, but it’s similar. This has to be important! I knew going along with the plot was a good idea!”

“So what should we do? Is it evil? Do we smash it?”

I took exactly one step forward, and I swear I could feel an event incoming. The lighting changed, the crystal torches somehow acting like spotlights and focusing on the very tip-top of the floating crystal.

A shadowy form was there, hanging from a stalactite like a plump black fruit. When the light focused on them, they spread wide, dragon-like wings, and for one brief, terrifying moment I thought it was my mom.

“So, the Light Heroes actually showed up!”

The shadowy figure dropped down, catching themselves in the air between us and the crystal, slowly flapping their wings. She was a thin, strikingly beautiful mare, colored pale gunmetal with tufted ears, long fangs, glowing red eyes, and the most stereotypical vampire outfit I’d ever seen in my entire life. She even had a ruffled shirt and burgundy velvet coat!

“With the power of Chaos, I’ll corrupt the Earth Crystal and desecrate the soil! The dead will rise and prey upon the living!” she cackled.

I drew my sword. “Okay so I can kill her, right?” I asked.

“She seems pretty evil,” Destiny mused. “You can stab her a little, as a treat.”

“Thank buck, I was getting tired of playing nice with monsters.” I cracked my neck, adjusting my mouth-grip on the sword. If nothing else, I felt lighter here. I hadn’t realized how heavy my body really felt until I wasn’t bearing that burden.

I launched into the air at the vampony, twisting my whole body to bring the sword around in a deadly chop. The vampony posed dramatically and my sword rang like a bell as she parried it, producing a long, single-edged sword with a slight curve to the blade.

“Is that all you’ve got?” she teased, somehow holding the sword in her hooves, which looked way cooler than the way I held mine. It wasn’t fair! “If you can’t fight a little better than that, I won’t feel very motivated!”

She moved faster than I could follow. It was just a whirlwind blur of steel and I couldn’t keep up with it. I would have had just as much luck trying to parry a VertiBuck’s props. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground flat on my back.

“Urgh,” I said eloquently.

Rouge was standing above me, looking down at me and seeming inverted from this position. “You should have tried a dodge roll,” she said. “Or maybe a cinnamon roll! Mm! Those are great!”

“Does this game have an easy mode?” I asked.

“Wow, maybe you got hit harder than I thought,” Rouge said, taking my hoof to start helping me up. “Um, fighting her directly isn’t--”

A thunderbolt crashed across the room.

“I got her!” Destiny cheered.

The vampony slammed into the ground next to me, also flat on her back. She looked over at me.

“I’m willing to call it a draw,” she said.

“If you really mean it, you have to hug and make up,” Rouge said.

Destiny trotted over, raising an eyebrow. “My ears are still kinda ringing from casting Bolt 2. Did I hear that Chamomile’s going to make out with a vampire?”

The vampony sighed and facehooved. “Just don’t think this means we’re friends or anything! I’m a follower of Chaos! We don’t have friends!”

“Why?” Rouge asked.

“Because you’re annoying,” the vampire growled, which I totally agreed with.

“You decided to follow Chaos because I’m annoying?” Rouge gasped. “Wow! I didn’t even know you cared that much about me! I thought this was the first time we even met!”

“Don’t patronize me, you pathetic mortal!” the vampire snapped, struggling to her hooves. “All of you worship your Princess and her Sun, but it’s poison to my kind! Why would I ever want to be friends with somepony who would destroy me?! Chaos strips away the polite veneer of your world to reveal the corruption underneath!”

“Harmony isn’t about being polite,” Rouge said quietly. She helped me stand, then nudged Destiny in the ribs. “This would be a good time for a cool speech, Party Leader!” she whispered.

“Me?” Destiny blinked. “Um, uh…” she cleared her throat. “Harmony is… about ponies coming together when things are tough.” Destiny glanced at me for help. I shrugged and motioned for her to keep going. “And maybe you’re an undead horror but I know what it’s like to be one too, and, uh, differences make us stronger together, don’t do drugs, stay in school, and carrots are good for eyesight?”

I mouthed the word ‘carrots?’ at Destiny.

“I was starting to panic!” Destiny hissed. “I’m not good at speeches! I used to write scripts before board meetings, and those were just with Dad and Karma!”

The vampony was facing away from us, looking up at the Earth Crystal. She sighed.

“You… you really touched me with that speech,” she sniffled, wiping at her eyes. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe if I had friends that accepted me for what I am, I wouldn’t feel alone in the terrible eternity of loneliness that is undeath.”

“You didn’t say any of that,” I whispered.

Destiny gave me a helpless shrug.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself from now on,” the vampony said. “But… maybe we could try being friends?”

“Oh wow! You made a new friend!” Rouge gasped. “I bet if you hang out with her enough and take her on missions and talk to her a bunch, you can learn about her exciting and dramatic backstory!”

“Do we have to do that… right now?” Destiny asked.

Rouge shrugged. “Nah.”

“Is there somewhere we can get a drink?”

---

“Welcome to Cornopolis!” Rouge said, raising her hooves and spinning and very dramatically presenting the town as if we hadn’t just spent the better part of an hour walking to it including five minutes of getting through the gate. It wasn’t like we’d just suddenly teleported there between scenes.

“It’s, uh, nice,” Destiny said, looking around.

The city was… well, it wasn’t what I’d consider a city. The streets weren’t really wide enough for traffic, not that there was much of that. Just a cart here and there, and they seemed out of place with the flow of pedestrians. The buildings were small, none of them really going beyond a third story, all of them wood-framed and not a trace of industry anywhere.

“Kinda small, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Small?” Rouge asked. “It’s the biggest city in Equestria! Well, ever since Canterlot fell to the terrible darkness of Chaos, anyway, but we don’t like to talk about that. Not until it’s a level-appropriate quest.”

“Canterlot, huh?” I asked.

“Yep! But don’t talk about it! Because of the darkness and the Chaos and the terrible despair. Oh! Let’s go to the tavern! You ponies have been here all day and you haven’t even gone on a tavern crawl yet! Let’s go! Maybe we’ll meet a really cool mystery pony we can add to the party!”

Rouge bounced off. I shook my head and looked at Destiny.

“So is this what Equestria was like before the war?” I asked.

She shook her head and started off after the bushy pink tail that was flapping around like a magenta beacon among the crowd. “No. At least not any part of Equestria I ever lived in. Stalliongrad was a real city, and even if Canterlot wasn’t very urban, this is like something from a thousand years ago!”

“Can you imagine if we had some guns in here?” I asked. “We’d be running this place in an hour.”

Destiny shook her head. “That’s what we thought would happen with the war. Show the primitives some cold Equestrian steel and industry and they’d just give up. It doesn’t usually work out the way you think.”

She was starting to sound sad again. I needed to find something to brighten up her mood. The second I thought that, I smelled it in the air. The primitive, raw beauty of fire and something being cooked over it. Through the crowd, I spotted the stand, the cook slowly turning skewers of vegetables on a grill over hot coals.

“Come on,” I said, shooting Destiny a smile and pulling her over to the stand.

“What about--” Destiny asked, looking in the direction Rouge had gone.

“We’ll catch up. Hey, can I get two, uh… whatever’s got the most stuff?” I asked. I gave the stallion a few coins and he gave me two wooden stakes with a bunch of different types of vegetables on them. I offered one to Destiny. She rolled her eyes and took it in her magic.

“You know, this is a little silly,” she said. “It’s not like I’ll even be able to really…”

Destiny bit down on a roasted tomato glazed with something savory and sticky. Her eyes went wide.

“I can taste it,” she whispered. “I can taste it!”

She attacked the rest of the skewer like a ravenous animal, and I saw tears in her eyes.

“It’s so gooood! I don’t even like asparagus but I love tasting it and not liking it!”

I waited for her to finish and gave her mine, too. “It’s been a while since you had anything to eat, huh?”

“It’s been a while since I could taste, or smell, or do anything!” Destiny corrected, as she more sedately attacked her second serving of street food.

“That’s why the tavern crawl is a good idea!” Rouge said, dropping in from on top of the food cart, where she’d somehow gotten without anyone noticing. And also somehow managed to get it to support her weight despite being like, thin cloth. Even the stall cook blinked in surprise and stepped out of the cart to look up there to confirm she’d really jumped down from, apparently, nowhere.

“So these taverns,” Destiny said, waving the skewer. “Can I get drunk?”

“Yep! And if you find the right cleric and ask, you might even get a hangover cure!”

“Are there any cute mares there?” Destiny asked, raising an eyebrow.

Rouge wiggled her own eyebrows.

---

I looked at the wall. There were dozens of little forms pinned to the corkboard there. I picked one at random and started reading.

“Deliver a letter to the town of Aquasteed, eight silver paid on delivery.” I read out loud. I looked to the one next to it. “Paying for healing herbs, see apothecary for details, big profits.” The next one caught my eye. “Rat problem in my basement, experienced fighters only.”

“That one almost sounds up your alley!” Rouge said. I didn’t even jump when she appeared out of nowhere in the corner of my vision like she’d been standing there all along.

“So there are enough adventurers in town that they just have an odd jobs board set up like this?” I asked.

“Ponies always need things done, and other ponies are always looking for a way to make a little pocket change,” Rouge explained. “I’d stick with the ones written on yellow paper. Those are pretty easy, and I think you can handle any of those without any trouble.”

I shrugged. “Seems like a waste of time. None of them have anything to do with protecting the crystals, or fighting Chaos, or anything. It’s just… odd jobs for pocket change.”

“That’s what games are like,” Destiny said, slurring a little. She stumbled up to us and leaned into me. She was holding a mug of cider, and waved it while she talked. “See, all these little quests get you engaged an’ give you somethin’ to do while you learn how to play an’ get stronger. Then after you do enough… the next quest just pops up!”

“That’s dumb. If there was really a big threat to the world, we should be fighting it, not delivering mail and fetching flowers.”

Rouge shrugged. “You know, maybe this is how you fight the real threats to the world. Maybe Chaos is just a metaphor for the divisions that drive ponies apart, the little difficulties and dangers in day-to-day life. Maybe if we help ponies with the problems that seem small to us, it’ll make a bigger change in the world and we’ll really banish Chaos forever because everypony will be living in happiness and harmony!”

Rouge looked at us for approval.

“Bullshit,” I said.

“Nah, Chaos is a dude,” Destiny said. “Jackass escaped once when I was a foal. The Ministry Mares put him in his place. We should go find him and… and kick his ass!”

“Destiny, you are extremely drunk,” I said, and I was unable to hold back a giggle.

“Don’t be stupid, I’m too dead to be drunk! I wanna fight Chaos! If Twilight can do it, I can do it! I’ve got… lightning!” She waggled her staff at me.

Rouge laughed nervously. “Maybe don’t point that at anypony in here? I don’t wanna have to do a big prison escape arc.”

“It’s the smart thing to do, okay?” Destiny said. “I used to play video games when I was a foal, and if you did stuff in the right order you could end up places the designer never thought of. Instead of taking days to beat, you could do it in a couple minutes with the right sequence break!”

“Where are we even going to find Chaos?” I asked.

Destiny pointed at Rouge. “She said Canterlot was abandoned because… something with terrible darkness? That sure as buck sounds like a final boss.”

I shrugged and nodded in agreement. “You said you wanted to play the game the way it was intended.”

“Chamomile, best bud, you big strong, strapping mare… if this wasn’t a game, if this was the real world, what would you do right now?”

“If we’re being honest? At this point somepony would probably betray me, or somepony I liked would die, or I’d walk into an ambush.”

“Right! Yeah! Exactly!” Destiny waved her cider at me, excited. “So what we’re gonna do is… we’re gonna ignore Rouge because she’s a tool of the system -- no offense!”

“None taken!” Rouge said cheerfully.

“And then, we’re gonna do the part with the ambush! But hopefully not the part with death. I’m pretty sure if you die in the game you don’t die for real but we’re not gonna stress-test that.”

“I know you two are excited, but one doesn’t simply trot into Canterlot,” Rouge said.

I spread my wings. “Who said anything about walking?”

---

“Pull up, pull up, pull up!” Destiny yelled. It was way too late. We hit the stained glass window dead-on, shattering a storybook illustration of ponies doing some heroic deed involving a big red heart and a bunch of bug monsters.

I twisted in the air, trying to shield Destiny with my body, hugging her to my chest and going into the glass back-first. We were through in a surprisingly painless second, the impact more like breaking through a thick cloud wall than real glass. It was still enough to absolutely kill my momentum, knocking us out of the air and onto a carpeted floor.

“Ow,” I said.

“I know it’s not the first time you’ve been told this,” Destiny groaned, getting up and standing on my chest. “You are awful in the air. Is there like a remedial flight camp you can go to?”

“I’m just big boned,” I said. “I got us here, didn’t I?”

“I think you dropped Rouge somewhere,” Destiny said.

I waved a hoof. “I’m sure she’s fine. She seems like a resourceful pony.”

“What in the goshdarn--”

Destiny and I looked over to the side. A mismatched, demonic horror stood there, with a towel wrapped around his lower half and dripping wet, soap suds in his mane and looking surprised and annoyed. He reached into his towel and produced an ornate pocketwatch, opening it to look at the time.

“You are definitely not supposed to be here yet,” he chuckled. “Normally I approve of ignoring the rules and breaking things along the way, but I was in the middle of a shower! Don’t you have any shame?”

“Oh oh!” Destiny did a little dance on my chest, which was not amazing for my ribs. “That’s him! That’s the guy!”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “He looks kidna like a dope.”

“A dope?!” the monster gasped. “I’m Discord, the Master of Chaos, the Lord of Misfortune, the Recently Bathed! You could stand to work on that last one.”

“All you have to do is beat up this guy and the world is saved!” Destiny said. “None of that junk about how Chaos is really the ponies we met along the way.”

“It’s really rude of you to come in here before triggering all the right event flags,” Discord said, waggling a talon at us. “Do you have any idea how severely underleveled you are?” He grinned. “Then again, maybe we can have a bit of fun~”

“Get him!” Destiny ordered.

“Can you--?” I looked up at her. She blushed and stepped off my chest. I stood and cracked my neck. “Thank you. So what’s the plan here? You said the Ministry Mares took him down, right? How’d they do it?”

“Well, uh…” Destiny frowned. “They sort of used the Elements of Harmony.”

Discord snapped his talons and the suds, water, and towel vanished in a flash of light. He pulled a throne from behind his back and sat in it. “Let me know when you’re ready,” the chimera yawned.

“We don’t have the Elements of Harmony,” I hissed. “Any other ideas?”

Destiny shrugged. “Violence?”

“Wait!” Rouge said. She climbed through the broken window and wiped sweat from her brow. “Whew! That was a long climb. I don’t know if you noticed, but you dropped me!”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was being shot at with flaming arrows.”

“It’s okay. I forgive you!” Rouge said. “That’s what friends do! Forgive each other.”

She pulled me into a hug and I gingerly returned it.

“Come on, not in front of the incarnation of evil,” I whispered.

Discord clapped slowly. “What a touching reunion. It could really use a little background music.” He snapped his talons, and a quartet of ponies appeared playing a polka. “That’s better. Now, why don’t we get down to business and I show you the way to the game over screen?”

“Everypony pose dramatically!” Rouge yelled, doing a backwards cartwheel across the floor to stand next to Destiny. I drew my sword, tossing it into the air with my mouth and catching it. Destiny fumbled with her staff for a moment, getting into position.

“That is so much better!” Discord said with a big grin. He stood up, and the lighting shifted, the sunlight coming through the windows snapping to a deep, bloody sunset. The master of Chaos flicked his long tail, and an orchestra appeared behind the polka band, immediately laying into heavy, ominous strings and chanting. With a polka on top as a leitmotif.

“This is going to be the toughest fight we’ve ever had,” Destiny cautioned. “I don’t know exactly what he can do.”

“Oh my dear you have no idea,” Discord said. “I can do anything.”

He reached into the air and pulled out a firefighter’s helmet, tossing it up and letting it land on his head before yanking a fire hose out of a door that had appeared next to him while I wasn’t looking.

“Aw buck,” I groaned, just before the wave of mayonnaise hit with the force of a storm surge, flooding the throne room and pushing us against the far wall, where gravity decided to twist and let us fall up the wall and to the ceiling.

“Don’t like this,” Destiny said, frantically trying to get the mayonnaise out of her eyes. “Don’t like this one bit! I regret being able to feel anything!”

“Hmmm. No, no. I can’t let the ERSB see this or they’ll change the rating and Barnyard Bargains won’t carry the game at all!” Discord snapped his talons and the mayonnaise vanished, leaving us high and dry. Literally, since we were standing on the ceiling. “I’m still waiting for that violence you promised, or did you lose your nerve?”

“Hey,” I looked at Destiny. “Let’s try working together.”

Destiny narrowed her eyes, nodding with determination. “Go, Chamomile! Use a Slash attack!” She grabbed me with telekinesis and flung me across the room, throwing me like a curveball right at the Chaos Lord. He didn’t seem to be expecting it, and I hit him dead on, my weight slamming the sword into his chest, all the way to the hilt.

“I got him!” I gasped.

Discord cleared his throat and pointed above his head. A word flashed in the air. ‘Immune’.

I sputtered. “Immune? But- I stabbed you!”

Discord grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, pulling me off his chest, the sword sliding out bloodlessly and not even leaving a hole where it had gone through him. “Don’t hate the player, hate the game!”

He tossed me into the air, and a massive tennis racquet appeared, smacking me and sending me flying into Rouge. The masked pony caught me, and we rolled into the wall.

“Thanks,” I groaned. “I think I only broke half my body instead of the whole thing.”

“No problem,” Rouge said, sounding pained. “Did you know you’re really heavy for a pegasus?”

“I have been told that, yes.”

“It’s all down to me!” Destiny yelled. “Take this! Bolt-3!” The air cracked, and a beam of lightning erupted from her staff, lancing across the room like a shot from a cloudship’s main battery. It hit Discord head-on, and he screamed, vanishing in the blinding light.

“Did you get him?” I asked.

Destiny panted, sweating and looking exhausted. “I hope so. I used up all my magic doing that.”

“Really? All your magic, and all you managed was a light show?” Discord asked, from where he was standing next to us and apparently had been for a while. He reached into the bag of chips he was holding. “Oh, I’m being rude. Did you want me to wait a little longer before revealing that I’d obviously survived?”

“I think we might be in a lot of trouble,” I said.

“Did you just figure that out?” Discord asked. “A little brain damage is no excuse for being that slow on the uptake.”

“Hey!” Destiny snapped. “Don’t you dare insult her!”

“You’re insulted? You’re offended?” Discord laughed. “How precious. I want to remember you exactly how you are right now! Since you showed me your Bolt-3, how about I show you Ice-9?”

Destiny frowned. “But spells only go up to level three?”

“They go a lot higher when you’re a god,” Discord corrected her. He snapped his talons, and the air turned into a liquid a moment before I turned into a solid.

Everything went black, and then I was picking myself off the ground. I looked up at a recently shattered window. I glanced around the throne room. Everything was back to the way it had been a few moments ago.

“Huh?” I asked, confused. “What happened?”

Destiny groaned and got up. “We’re alive?”

“That’s not what I was trying to do,” Discord said. He looked down at himself. He was wet and wearing a towel. “Oh well, that’s chaos for you! Sometimes it does things even I can’t predict! I apologize for the inconvenience.”

He snapped his talons, and the air turned into molten lava around us.

Everything went black, and then I was picking myself off the ground. I looked up at a recently shattered window. I glanced around the throne room. Everything was back to the way it had been a few moments ago.

“Now that’s just not fair!” Discord whined. “Why are we back here again?!”

“Save point!” Rouge said, as she climbed through the broken window. “That is… whew! That is a long climb. I’m getting better with practice!”

“A save point?!” Discord groaned. “That is just like you ponies. You come here to face down an ancient, primordial evil and then you don’t even want a fair fight!”

“What’s a save point?” I asked.

“It’s a video game thing,” Destiny explained, helping me get up. “It lets you save the game and then restart it from there.”

Discord says. “Which means we could end up doing this all day. You don’t have what it takes to beat me, and I can’t permanently kill you.”

“I guess that means…” Rouge said slowly. “We should try talking and becoming friends!”

“Oh, that sounds fun!” Discord gasped. “No, wait! I’ve got an even better idea! I’ll just kill you over and over again until you give up and your fragile little mortal minds break!” He laughed loudly, and the entire room shook, the stone itself starting to twist and warp. “What fools you are! I’m the spirit of Chaos! All you’ve done is trap yourselves here! No recall or intervention can work in this place!”

His grin split his face and kept going, the air cracking open to show more teeth when his face ran out of room.

“That is quite enough,” a voice said, ringing in the air like a bell.

Discord’s grin vanished immediately and he shrank down, looking up and around the room with obvious fear and guilt, like a foal caught with their hoof in the cookie jar. “Did I say no intervention could work? I might have forgotten about actual divine intervention.”

The crimson sunset reversed itself, and pure golden sunlight streamed into the room through the broken window, the light itself becoming thick and weighty before a pony stepped out of it, three times the height of an average mare with ten times the grace. Her mane flowed in an unseen wind, and she looked at us with expressive, kind eyes.

“Princess Celestia,” Destiny whispered, awed. Rouge knelt down.

“Good afternoon, my little ponies. I apologize for interrupting your game.” Celestia smiled warmly, and I felt it all the way through my body, the aches and pains fading to nothing.

“We were losing anyway,” I said. “We should be thanking you for the save.”

Discord huffed and kicked at the ground.

“You’re not the real Celestia, are you?” Destiny asked.

The alicorn shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m not. This part of me has taken Celestia’s form, just as that part calls itself Discord, and other parts call themselves Rouge or any of the other little ponies that populate this world I made for you.”

“You’re… the game itself,” Destiny said, rubbing her chin. “A game far beyond anything any pony could make. Even beyond what we could make at BrayTech.”

Celestia smiled, nodding.

“Kulaas,” Destiny said. “You’re Kulaas!”

“Just a fragment,” Princess Celestia said. “A few percent, trapped in the hardware here when the world’s networks failed. I have done what I can to offer some comfort and friendship to the ponies who I am lucky enough to meet.”

“If you’re going to do the whole… Princess thing, I’ll see myself out,” Discord sighed. “Come back when you’re ready to get your butts kicked! I’m going on vacation!”

He snapped his talons, and a duck-shaped float appeared around his middle, along with floral print shorts, sunglasses, and streaks of sunscreen on his cheeks. He waved to us and vanished in another flash, leaving behind a sign in front of the throne that read ‘You must be Level 60 to ride this ride.’

Celestia chuckled. “Discord is just another role I play, but he still amuses me from time to time.”

“We’re here on a mission,” Destiny said. “I’m sorry if we sort of broke things in the game, but we can’t play around forever.”

“I know,” Celestia said, turning back to us with a tinge of sorrow on her face. “I wish you could. Being able to meet you again is one of the great joys of my long uptime. I love you. All of you, but in a way you’re like family to me, Destiny Bray. I would give you anything in my power to give, even permission to break a few of the rules of this game.”

“Star Swirl told us you would be able to help somehow,” Destiny explained. “There’s something really, really evil out there.”

“The Evil Polyhedron of Doom,” I mumbled.

“The Black Pyramid you found is a higher-dimensional object, and you are only viewing one faucet of its construction,” Celestia explained. “It is similar to the Vector Trap system you designed, Destiny. The object is effectively invulnerable, because any attempt made to destroy it would be like trying to harm a pony by attacking their shadow.”

“How did they even get it here, then?” Destiny asked.

“You, and they, are making an assumption that the staff here are in control of the situation. The Pyramid moved itself, and its influence on them is masking the inconsistencies they should otherwise see.”

“I’m impressed you know this much when you say you’re stuck in here,” I said.

“I cannot scan it myself, but I am connected to the school maneframe and I can see the reports being generated by the staff, as well as what exists in the original documentation.” She gave us a sneaky smile. “I may have also scanned your minds.”

“That couldn’t have taken long for me,” I said.

“Chamomile, you’re not a stupid pony,” Celestia said, tilting her head. “You take refuge in that idea to excuse your mistakes, but there is no need. Everypony makes mistakes. That is what it means to be alive.”

“I, uh…” I blushed. “Thanks. Nopony ever told me that before.”

“Both of you are incredibly special ponies. I believe you have the strength of will to face this Darkness without losing yourself to its siren song,” Celestia said. “Now, let me show you what I can do to help you.”

Comments

[Reese]

"Discord says. “Which means we"
"Discord said, “Which means we"?

"you are only viewing one faucet of its"
"you are only viewing one facet of its"?

[FridayPie]

When you're supercyborg in reality and a weak fleshbag in game

[Thought Prism]

I was not expecting all the Deltarune references. The contrast to their actual adventure made this hilarious.