Artemis Fowl: The Equine Dominion

by _No_One_Remains_

"Novissima hora est"

Author's Note:

Translation: "The Final Hour" or "The End Draws Near"

Two gunshots.

The loud booms echoed around the emptiness of the corrupted Equestrian capital.

They were greeted by the unmistakably demented laughs of the beast that had twisted the world, a monster so powerful that even the laws of the world couldn’t hold him back. Discord flew whimsically around the large metal box that rested untouched by his chaotic magic at the center of Canterlot.

It was there outside that box that Butler had emptied his pistol’s clip, cursing his misfortune in losing his spares over the course of their adventure in the pony world. Beside him stood the two fairy captains, their Neutrinos firing blast after blast of potent nuclear energy. Even when a projectile landed, the beast simply flinched before continuing his routine.

Immunity was the key to surviving the monster’s game, as they had realized mere moments prior to the assault. The foreign creatures from earth had all the immunity in the world, so long as they could keep the monster’s lies out of their heads. So while they fought with all they had, the battle was stalemate.

Artemis had been very clear when he explained their situation.

***

Hours prior to Discord’s interruption the group of earthlings and their pony companions had reached Foaly’s workstation; the end of their journey stared them in the face like a teasing pot of gold. Artemis was quick to crack Foaly’s passcode and begin scouring the office for any and every piece of tech he could find that might help him send Discord back to his sealed away state. The Butler siblings followed close behind, and the ponies and Root brought up the rear. It was Foaly and Holly that entered late, carrying Mulch with moderate difficulty.

When the door closed behind the stragglers, Artemis had already started fiddling with Foaly’s machines.

“Do you even know what half this stuff does?!” the centaur snapped as his precious inventions were carelessly manhandled by the human. “Have some respect!”

Artemis sighed, “Do you prefer speed or delicacy, Mr. Foaly? We’ve been lucky to avoid Discord’s attention thus far.” He lifted a small circular panel from underneath one of the computer terminals, cautiously disconnecting the wire that ran through some gel-like substance on the floor.

As he left Mulch to Holly’s care, Foaly rushed to the main terminal and powered down all unnecessary systems. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Indeed,” the boy replied, “To function even in this world is an amazing feat.”

“So what’s the plan, Mud Boy?” Root snarled, crushing the cherry of his cigar in a gloved hand. “What was so important about this electrical deathtrap?” He stared at his feet as he moved toward a nearby chair.

Artemis was silent for the longest time as he enigmatically pieced together parts of never before seen technology. He had no clue what anything he touched was, and yet it all felt natural to him; it was as if he’d done this before. It wasn’t until Foaly yanked a particularly complicated-looking device from his hands that he realized he wasn’t actually alone in the box.

All eyes were on him as he explained, “This was the plan, Commander. This box was my plan; I was certain, given Foaly’s occupation, that there would be machines here. Now I simply have to make them work for us.” He scanned the table in the center of the room, now cluttered with all of the devices he had picked apart. He had batteries and wires and conduits and circuit boards, all waiting to be used to set the world right. “As for how I go about doing that, I’m not quite certain yet.”

Twilight Sparkle’s eyes scanned the walls of metallic creations, each more marvelous than anything Equestrian science could compare to. “What exactly does this thing do, Mr. Foaly?” she asked, her hoof mere inches away from a small spherical ornament in the corner of the station.

“That old thing?” Foaly scoffed, “It was a prototype black hole generator. The only thing it actually did was make things black and white.”

“It…drained the color from stuff?” the curious unicorn couldn’t help but be disappointed.

Shaking his head in equal disappointment, the centaur groaned, “Yep. The black hole it created wasn’t dense enough to devour matter, only certain wavelengths of light.”

Captain Short chuckled, “You never mentioned that failure!” She stood up from Mulch’s side, the poor dwarf’s stomach finally settling.

“And that one?” Twilight turned to face another, significantly larger spherical object in the opposite corner.

Princess Celestia tittered, “Perhaps we had best not bother the poor technician.” She turned toward the half-horse in question and groaned, “Is there any way you can help Artemis with his plan?”

Artemis interjected, “Do tell us about that other machine.”

Annoyance flooded the room as every non-scientific creature decided they’d rather have results than lectures on failed machines.

But Foaly, being a renowned technophile, was more than happy to oblige, the machine in his hands now resting gently on the table. “That was an almost fully functional energy converter! In theory, if you fed energy into it, it could be converted into any other type of energy it had previously registered. For example, if you started a fire inside of it, it could convert that directly to electrical currents.” His enthusiasm quickly faded as he finished, “The only problem was getting it to register new energy types.”

“How do you mean?” Artemis asked as his curiosity piqued.

“The only energy types it recognized were fairy magic and electricity. I tried to get it to register heat energy, but it just kept overheating entirely.”

Taking a few focused steps toward the machine, Artemis droned, “May I have a look? Perhaps I can help fix the issue.” Without waiting for a response, he had the orb of metal resting on the computer in front of him.

Off to the side Juliet whispered excitedly to her brother, “He has that look!”

Butler nodded in response, curious as to how it would play out. The glimmer in Artemis’s eyes was a trademark of his inventing mind.

And then Artemis smiled a warm, cocky smile. He chuckled, “I assume you applied the heat to the outside of the container, correct?”

“Of course!” Foaly stamped his hooves indignantly.

“Are these the receptors?” the boy held the device forward, a large matrix of black panels shining in the artificial light. After receiving a confirming nod, his grin grew wider. “Are they double-sided by any chance? Perhaps like certain solar panels?”

The centaur cocked an eyebrow, thinking back to when he pieced the machine together. “No, I don’t think so. Why does it matter?”

Artemis placed it gently on the table and pushed a small green button on the top, a large series of panels folding outward to reveal the inside. It was coated in panels identical to the receptors. With a light wave of his arm, he asked, “Twilight, would you be a dear and fill this device with your magic?”

Foaly snapped, “If you want this room to flood with electricity, go right ahead!” He attempted to push the red button near the green, but ended up slapping the table as Artemis removed the device.

“Trust me on this, Foaly. If I’m correct, there’s no reason your machine won’t be able to register energy types from the inside. These panels on the outside seem geared more toward output than anything else.” He set it back on the table and nodded toward the unicorn who stared at it with awe. When Foaly neglected to protest again, she unleashed a beam of magic similar to the one she had used on the wing packs. “Besides, this is pony magic, just like the wing packs!”

Pressing the red button quickly, Artemis trapped the magical energy inside the device; it shook violently as the magic rebounded around, trying to find purchase against the reflective sensors. A small green light blinked to life as the shaking settled, purple light pouring from the panels on the outside. The green light blinked out and the machine opened automatically, signifying that its job was done.

Foaly was awestruck and outraged, recognizing the green light’s meaning and thinking back to the many red lights he’d encountered. Artemis’s giant cocky grin needed no explanation.

And it was in that moment that everything came together in a nice, almost too convenient bow. The machines on the table, the energy conversion machine, and the failed black hole generator all melded together in the genius’s mind to create a fail proof, anti-chaos plan that would set Equestria back to the way it was supposed to be.

In theory.

***

When Discord finally decided he was tired of waiting for a resistance that would never arrive, he took his game to them. Outside the box he set the landscape twisting and churning, his magic unable to touch the box from the outside. He called to them, taunting them with threats and jokes and nightmares. He teased the ponies for being powerless and toyed with the fairies for being at the mercy of a human’s ideals.

When the three most capable combatants exited the box, the beast knew the fun was really about to begin.

As the energy-filled blasts from the fairy weapons grazed his skin, he chuckled and continued his demented flying. He continued to tease the ‘cowards inside the box’ who refused to face his magic. Appealing to Artemis’s desire for gold merited no response. Cryptically teasing Foaly with the fate of his commander gave him no joy. Whatever was happening inside that workstation was much more important than the three violent earthlings standing in front of it.

So when he heard a loud explosion, some pained screams, and saw smoke come pouring from the apparently now-open door, he found it only appropriate that he intrude on the fun. After all, what could those weak little bags of flesh do to him without the Elements of Harmony?

***

“You can’t be serious, Arty. This is your master plan?” The mocking tone on the chaotic beast echoed around the small room as the door sealed shut behind him.

The smoke thinned slowly as the failed attempt at a black hole generator whirred violently. All color seemed to be pulled into the device, warping the figures of the creatures still standing within the workstation.

“I’m quite disappointed! What, are you going to kill me with death by monochrome?” He kicked back in the air, staring at his claws as if deciding whether or not to clean them. He had a frown on his face as his yellow eyes stretched toward the machine.

The paler than usual genius grinned a cocky grin as he reached toward another spherical object. The generator was barely a third of the size of the energy converter. When Artemis shoved the active device into the dormant one, Foaly flinched away. The rest of the residents of the box fell to the ground in fear, the outcome of the following being unpredictable.

Pressing the green button on the converter with confidence, Artemis braced against the table. “It will convert any input energy into the most recently scanned output energy,” Foaly had explained the device further in depth as Butler unleashed his final two bullets.

With an ear-wrenching screech, the converter trembled on the table, a sound unlike any other echoing against the machinery and shattering the glass on the monitors. As shards rained down, they were suspended in air by the powerful waves of sound and light that poured from the device. Even Discord struggled to block the sound as he felt the room fill with an intense and familiar energy.

Foaly and Artemis pulled one another to ground just in time for the larger device to explode. The screeching stopped as shards of metal ripped through the thick steel of the workstation. Waves of purple energy coalesced where the device had been, following in its footsteps by launching from the box in all directions. The color remained missing as the entirety of the box melted around them, a thick purple haze swallowing it into the spot where the converter once sat.

When it was all said and done, no one could begin to describe what had happened.

But what was left was a black and white landscape that resembled neither Equestria nor Discord’s version of the same land. It was a colorless landscape of barely formed buildings and natural creations. Blurry and mostly transparent, it was as if the world itself had been swallowed by Foaly’s machines.

Discord lay on the ground, unable to lift himself without physical force. Celestia and Twilight were standing, though with significantly more effort than they once required. They were colorless and dazed. Artemis stood up with minimal effort, taking in the surreal optical input with so many questions.

“Could it be?” he mumbled to himself.

“Is…” Twilight began, “something wrong?”

The fairy captains surrounded the still-grounded Discord, their weapons drawn. A combat knife in his hand, Butler stood just above the monster with a steady aim. Foaly helped Juliet to her feet as Artemis continued to scan their surroundings.

“What has happened to our beautiful world…?” Celestia gasped with heavy breath.

“I may be mistaken,” Artemis turned toward Foaly with a sour expression, “but I believe your black hole generator did much more than absorb color.”

The centaur groaned, his ears still ringing from the machine’s sporadic actions, “There’s no way it did all this!”

“No, it had to have been the generator. This world…” The boy couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was almost like a whole other dimension. Everything seemed to be there, but not there. “I think it must have absorbed the magic from the Equestrians, Foaly.”

Twilight snapped, “What?”

“And if it absorbed Discord’s magic, then this all makes a little sense!” Artemis perked up, staring at the barely-moving serpentine creature. “If this world’s color comes from magic like its light does, then it makes sense that the generator would take magic with it! It absorbed Discord’s Chaos and when I placed it in the converter, it created a chain reaction!”

“Chaos turned into Twilight’s magic, which overloaded the device…” Foaly thought for a moment about just what kind of place they could have been in at that very moment. “If the black hole generator and energy converter powered one another, a chain reaction could have effectively compressed space, pulling us into this weird bizarro-Equestria!” It wasn’t likely, and it didn’t make that much sense, but it explained the situation.

“It’s not impossible,” Artemis stated bluntly. “After all, Discord’s magic compressed our space enough to send me here.”

Commander Root snarled, “This is all fine and dandy, but how the hell do we get back to Equestria, let alone Earth!?” His Neutrino swayed angrily in his arms, pointed directly at the chaotic beast that started the whole ordeal.

Artemis shook his head in contemplation. He stared at the spot where the device should have been on the table. “Our entry point, Foaly’s box, must have been left behind in the non-compressed space.” He scanned the area, looking at each living creature in the void as if they could all be the key to solving the problem.

A bright white speck at Twilight’s side caught his eye. As he approached it, the speck continued to shine, warmth radiating from it. Twilight released her saddlebags as the heat intensified and struggled to move away as the white light poured from the bag on the ground. The others began to panic as the heat spread further from its source, but Artemis advanced knowingly. Reaching into the near-burning bag, he pulled a small watch into the void.

It shined with a golden light, blinding in the presence of the lightless black and white. When he pushed the small button on its side, the light twisted into a rope that swirled around the area with majestic golden waves. It wrapped each of the living creatures with its warmth, and in a moment of blind faith, they were ripped from that bizarre world and released right where they had been.

Inside Foaly’s box, the two spherical machines whirred gently on top of the table, color being pulled into them. Foaly quickly pressed the red button on the energy converter, the generator silencing with it. There they all stood, humans and fairies and ponies and draconequus alike, all around the box of marvelous technology.

Artemis’s device lost its golden glow but retained the heat from the energy it seemed to have conjured.

As color returned, the weight on the ponies lifted, their horns bursting with magical light. From outside Holly called, “Come quick! You have to see this!”

Opening the door remotely, Foaly stood at his computer while virtually everyone else darted from the box. Artemis stood beside the still-colorless Discord, who sat limp and silent on the floor. Through the door he could see what was so exciting:

Everything looked average! The colors were normal; trees stood tall in the center of the town. He could hear running water from the waterfalls at the top of the city, and he caught the golden shine from the roof of a particularly nice building. Equestria had, by some miracle, been returned to normal.

Foaly stomped his hooves and whinnied, “How?” The monitors flickered to life with the colors of Canterlot, ponies gathering near the workstation to greet their princess. It was as if Discord had never broken free at all. “This isn’t possible, is it Artemis?”

“Impossibility, I find, no longer exists in this world…” the boy mumbled half in relief and half in confusion. “This device of mine has caused us nothing but trouble, only to become our savior.”

The heat from his device slowly faded, returning to its normal, seemingly useless state. What had caused it to react the way it did was a mystery, and one that Artemis couldn’t care to solve. The world was fixed, and that was enough for him.

Until the device’s temperature skyrocketed in an instant, singeing the flesh of his hand and dropping to the floor like lead. With a grunt of pain, the boy staggered back toward Foaly, the device’s unwarranted reaction instantly drumming up memories of the manor incident. It flashed a bright golden as it continued to heat up, melting the floor of the box with concentrated energy. Unlike before, when the heat radiated around them, this heat focused solely on the device.

And then it exploded, the same golden ropes winding their ways around Discord and digging into him with ethereal gentleness. Color spread from the energy waves’ entry points, returning the chaotic monster back to his former self. As he lifted from the ground, he let out a long and genuine yawn.

Stretching as far as his limbs would allow, Discord sighed, “That was quite a turn, don’t you think?” A single tear ran from his eye, swallowed up by the light and returned right back to him. He hovered lazily above the ground, kicked back as he had been before the machines interrupted.

Confusion flooded the two earth geniuses, nothing making sense anymore. Before their cavalcade of impossible ideas, they had recognized some semblance of law in the land of ponies. But now, in the face of this chaotic beast and the otherworldly reaction of the machines, they were left speechless. Nothing made sense!

“I simply hate tales that end with deus ex machina victories! They’re so boring and anti-climactic!” He grinned widely, the last bit of golden light joining him. “Now stories where heroes lose—those I like!”

With a snap of his claws, the box vanished around them, leaving them standing dumbfounded in the center of Canterlot. Ponies all around broke into panicked trots away from the familiar chaotic monster, the foreigners left pondering just what had happened to the once-was-immune workstation.

Discord chuckled darkly, “That was clever, wasn’t it? Pretending to let your little machines work?” Pulling the failed energy converter from out of thin air, he roared, “I had to let you think you were winning, after all! It’s not fun when there’s no hope!”

Artemis stood stock-still, Discord’s words digging deep into his head. He didn’t want to believe that it had been a hopeless endeavor, but somehow he felt it was the truth. Something in the beast’s tone threatened to convince him he had always been destined to lose this game.

“It was always rigged from the start, Arty boy! But of course you didn’t know that. How could you? You’re just a helpless toy!”

The silent words echoed in the human’s head, his companions all staring in confusion and fear. The scattered screams of ponies faded fast as they wasted no time fleeing. Even Celestia’s face was flooded with fear as the realization set in.

There was an unspoken connection between them all, standing there in the presence of the embodiment of chaos. They had been playing a game they couldn’t hope to win.

Comments

[_No_One_Remains_]

Hope you're all ready for a wild ride! Try to keep up, will you?

[Battle154]

5297641 I will. I hope things will turn on Discord. He hasn't won yet!

[ibeachu]

OOOO! FINALY! An Artemis Fowl story!
Thank you...
Time to read.

[catfire13]

*facedesk*

[_No_One_Remains_]

5298347 Issue?

[SweetCaptain77]

Keep up? When did you think we were holding on?