Raven’s Last Flight

by Chemtest

Evolution

“Evolution, the one constant of everything to live, without it, nothing could exist. Evolution is change, evolution is the process in which things improve or otherwise change, not always for the better. It is evolution that brought down Romau, as we evolved beyond the ancient empire, it was evolution which fought off the beasts of nature, for ponies evolved to work together, it was evolution that carved every modern kingdom, even our very ways of living. Without Zap Apple evolving technology, we wouldn’t have trains. Without Starkiller evolving magical spells, we wouldn’t have the very magelights that we use to stare at in the middle of class, Mister Coltbalt.”

In the middle of a lecture hall stands a Blue changeling in a nice shirt, a professor, the bones of many animals in front of him, his words causing a student, who was spacing out, to jump a little, clearing his throat, “Sorry, Professor.” Outside of Pegasus Research Institute of Cognition and Kinetics, PRICK for short, birds would tweet happily as they fly around the university’s campus, one of the only places where animals can live happily in Las Pegasus. None of them would notice a small green glow surrounding the bones, as the professor goes on speaking.

“Thank you for not drifting off, Mister Coltbalt. Now, as I was saying, evolution is what defines us, and all living things. And an important part of evolution in ponies is the evolution of how we think. Why is the pony brain able to understand more complex concepts as time goes on, yet is less able to pick up new languages? Evolution. A pony who’s thinking doesn’t change through their life is barely a pony at all.” In the middle of his speaking, the bones would begin to fly out of the nearby window, causing him to stumble back, “Great galloping stallions, my bones!”

The bones would fly outside of the window, along with dozens of others, torn from under the ground, joining giant hands and pillars that raise from the ground, supporting four foals, with the one in the lead wearing a wide grin, Raven speaking in a joyful voice, “Do you feel the wind rushing past you? I had almost forgotten the pleasure of travel!”

Scootaloo grins widely as well, nodding along, “Giant hands carrying us? This is so cool! It feels like flying, except not!”

Apple Bloom, meanwhile, looks sick, her face slightly green, “I don’t like it…”

Sweetie Belle looks at the bones with a small amount of fascination, only to look up at Raven, “Where are we going?”

He looks back at her with a smaller grin, “You’re going back home, to your family. After that? No idea!” He looks ahead, speaking a bit softer, “I didn’t plan this out ahead of time.”

She trots on the moving bone hands with surprising ease, coming up to his side, the wind causing her mane to billow behind her, “Really? What about Chrysalis? Why the change?”

He smirks softly, “I am a scholar and a scientist at heart, Sweetie Belle, observation, hypothesis, experiment, note, theorize. Observation! Chrysalis locked me in a cage and only treated me, and you all, with dignity because she wants my power. Observation two! Even when I was to betray your country, your leader, and everything you love, you stood beside me, you don’t respect me because of what I am, but because of who I am. Observation three! You ponies have done more in your seventeen years than she has in a thousand, you made me crack a smile, you reminded me of things from long ago. Observation four! I have been feared and reviled for all my life because of my power, and yet you don’t fear me, because here you are next to me. Observation five! A Griffon was happy and an alicorn was respected, they seemed so familiar, I admired them. Hypothesis! Living the way you live shall be much better than the way I lived before, and it shall be better than helping someone who only respects me out of fear!”

Scootaloo grins slightly and raises an eyebrow, “So we actually convinced you to change everything? Through friendship?”

Sweetie Belle smiles, “And what’s the experiment?”

Apple Bloom trots over, still looking a bit sick, “And… ain’t you old? Shouldn’t you be stubborn as a mule?” She looks over the side of the bones, shouting down to a mule stood in the middle of a field as they pass it, “No offense!”

He grins slightly more, “Though your voice might not be the most pleasant, Scootaloo, your companionship has been, I quite like having someone to poke fun at, it’s a new experience, so fascinating! And you, Sweetie Belle, you are my experiment, involved in it right now, and we’re all the experimental group! The results shall be quite fascinating, won’t they?” He then looks at Apple Bloom, “And you, Apple Bloom, are correct, I was stubborn! A thousand years, if not more, spent on my own in a forest, do you know how much of it I remember? It’s all a blur, the only things I can see clearly are when someone came by, be it an experiment or a scholar like Flamel. But ever since I’ve woken up on this world, even the most boring moments spent working in my laboratory, I can remember them all clearly, because I remember what you said, how you reacted, what you’ve done. There’s a point where, no matter how stubborn someone is, they will break, and you broke me in the best ways possible. Also, I think I might be a bit insane!”

The others all giggle at what he says last, only for Sweetie Belle to pause first, looking at him, “Wait, you mentioned a Griffon and an alicorn, right? When did we ever see one of them?”

He looks off into the distance, his grin fading away, “I saw them in a dream, along with a mare, who seemed familiar, but I didn’t know her. The Griffon, he stood with a Thestral, a bat pony, living a happy life, he seemed so familiar, like a brother I’ve never seen before. The alicorn, she was blue, she had just won a fight and was leading a bunch of centaurs into combat. Something about her seemed inspiring. There was something else in that dream. Me, stood over a defeated Celestia, Chrysalis behind me, but before we could win, the world, and I, were torn apart by the Beast from Beyond.”

Scootaloo blinks, “Beast from Beyond?”

Apple Bloom tilts her head, looking at Sweetie Belle, “Didn’t our book mention something about that?”

Sweetie Belle nods, “The Beyond gave Death and Pestilence their powers.” She then pauses, “Oh no, our book report! We:re gonna be given a zero!” The others all look at her, including Raven, with him being the first to chuckle, everyone else beginning to giggle along, leaving Sweetie Belle to pout, “What? I care about my grade!”

Apple Bloom grins slightly, “Sweetie Belle, I don’t think we gotta worry about the book report, we got the legend right next to us!”

Scootaloo grins more, “Plus Miss Cheerilee will probably excuse us from having to do it.”

Raven recovers from his chuckles, shaking his head slightly, “You three have very, very unique priorities. It’s so strange and I love it.” He keeps a small smile, “But… yes, the Beast from Beyond gave us our powers. Others call him other names, Entropy, Die Leer, Destruction, The Great Ender, I prefer the Beast from Beyond. It is a… terrible beast, much, much older than the universe itself. The legends say that it is what brings the end to every world in existence, ripping them apart into nothing, so a new world can grow in its place.”

The three fillies slowly lose their smiles, looking at each other, with Apple Bloom looking down, “That reminds me of something my sis and I do sometimes. If there’s an old tree, or an area of orchard that has too much bush, we use controlled fires to burn them. Apparently it makes the soil more fertile, so it can grow trees better.”

Raven nods, “Many have theorized that that’s what the Beast does. He’s the fire, destroying all that he comes across, making it ‘ash’ so that other worlds may grow in its place.”

Scootaloo frowns, “But we’re not apple trees, we’re living ponies! No offense, Apple Bloom, but this isn’t anything like that. Trees don’t feel fire, they don’t, you know, talk and do stuff like that, but we do.”

Apple Bloom frowns softly, “Scoots, I wasn’t saying it was a good thing, I was just saying it reminded me of that, that’s all. I know I don’t wanna be burned, no matter how fertile it makes the soil.”

Sweetie speaks last, her face a bit pale, “But… the Beast made you Death, didn’t he? What if you’re here in order to… to destroy us?”

He looks at her, and then at the other Crusaders, his bright green eyes studying them, before he looks ahead, a village and a city upon a mountain approaching closer by the second, “He gave me power so I could have revenge, I destroyed the Romans because… because they posed a threat to him. That changeling guard, reading outside of our cell, he said that Romulus, Remus, Ramble, and Romau would be able to defeat the apocalypse, the Beast. What if…” He trails off, thinking, “But then why make me destroy the empire if he’d already split the worlds?”

Sweetie Belle looks away, only to then speak, “What if… what if it wasn’t them, but what they created that would stop the apocalypse? Not the griffons, but the empires. That journal I read, it said that Luna was sold by Emperor Romau Ascendant…his legacy, still alive. You said you saw a blue alicorn in your dream, Raven, what if-“

She’s cut off by Scootaloo, “She’s Princess Luna. That guard also read a newspaper about how Princess Luna went to travel in Centauria, and your dream had a blue alicorn leading centaurs into combat!”

He nods along, “She’s the legacy of Romau, and I’m the legacy of Rome. Both of us were… shaped by them. And I was going to work with Chrysalis to conquer her kingdom. But then, what’s the Griffon supposed to be?”

Apple Bloom smiles softly, after a minute of thinking, “A bridge.” She looks down as they pass by a river, south of Ponyville and Canterlot, dividing a grassland in two, “Y’all might be the legacy of those two, but that still leaves two more. The ones who died fighting their brothers, right? What if he’s the legacy of them two, and exists to create a connection between you and Luna? He’s the Harmony between you two.”

He nods, “He’s the Harmony… the bridge between Chaos and Order. I’m a scientist, regimented, logical, in a way, and she seemed violent… Apple Bloom, you are brilliant. All of you, you’re brilliant! How are you just seventeen and this brilliant!”

Behind him, something would begin to rapidly approach from the city on the mountain, a distant white spot, which begins to grow closer, and closer, until something much quicker comes, a beam of golden energy.

The first thing Raven feels is the heat, like the very sun itself, seeing a look of shock slowly appear on his friend’s faces, time slowing to a crawl. Calculations run through his head, a thousand per millisecond, the air slowly getting hotter and hotter. He shuts his eyes, capsules of bone and exoskeleton rising from the hand, completely surrounding the fillies, moving them at near sonic speeds to the ground, slowing down enough that they will arrive safely.

He can feel it impact into his back, the very heat of the sun, his fur becoming ash upon contact, his skin boiling and charring like an over cooked steak in just the first second, the pain being the first he’s felt in a long, long time of any serious note. His magic is interrupted, the bone hand becoming nothing but loose bone, letting gravity pull it down to the ground once more while the fire encapsulates his whole body. The pain is indescribable, like he’s been tossed into the core of the sun, every second being an eternity of agony, but even as it reaches his head, boiling his brain within his skull, he has a small grin on his face. The bones of his body turn to ash upon contact, including the sensitive bones in his ears, only able to pick up the roaring sound of magic, and the sound of somebody calling his name. Then, Death knows no more.

Comments

[DingoAte]

I’m assuming death is a Lich so he’ll probably just re-materialize next to them.

Then, let’s see how many times he will die in this story :D

Current count: 1-(deaths by Celestia)

[zElemental115]

Sadge