Forbidden Deeper

by SaltyJustice

Chapter 16

My child, awake. It is time.

I awoke, for the first time in over one-thousand years. My body, ageless, perfect, powerful, clothed in the blue armor my master had fashioned for me. My coat, black as the night itself, a fitting tribute for what I would soon wreak upon the helpless denizens so far below me.

What is your command, master?

Prepare for my coming.

That was all. I had my orders, but how I was to execute them remained unspecified. I stepped out of my prison and onto the dead, barren white dust that was the moon.

Far, far above me, or below, if you will, lay the planet that bore my most hated sisters. They had sent me here, they had dared to defy my master, they were no doubt preparing to celebrate the height of their strength. I would crush them, flay them, carry them prostrated before their own citizens, and scour the earth of the pathetic resistance that would dare oppose my master. I would prepare the way for it, by bringing about the everlasting night it craved. All a part of its perfect plan, and I, its perfect instrument.

The rebuilding of my body had given me new powers, and I could dissolve myself into my own essence and reassemble later. I did this, and, with no body, floated easily up to the unsuspecting world, lit by the reflecting glow of the sun that I could now see. It was nearly time for it to rise, on the longest day of the thousandth year. Oh those ponies, they would get a surprise.

Ponyville. A village that had not existed before, it stood close to my master's prison. She had elected to hold her triumphant festival about a pyrrhic victory in this, the soon to be seat of its power. Fitting. I could see easily that the villagers were congregating around the town hall, the largest building in the town, and I glided down around it until I found her, in her dressing room, alone.

She was facing away, gazing into a mirror in front of an assortment of gems. She was considering which ones to socket into her wear for that evening, idly wondering which would make her look prettiest, no doubt. I reformed myself on the balcony behind her, hidden by a thin veil of a curtain that tugged with the wind. My body restored, I stepped into the room, pushing aside the curtain.

She did not speak, nor did she move as I entered. I could see her eyes in her reflection, following me as I approached. There was no fear. Yet.

"Sister," she said.

"Sister," I said.

"So you've come at last. I was worried you might be late," she said.

"Expecting me?" I asked.

"Of course. It's almost time to lower the moon, you can't miss you cue. Oh what a chore it would be if I were to do it," she said.

"Don't play your silly games with me. You've relished it for the last thousand years, every amateurish tug you make, every idiotic misplaced push you botch, well no more. I have returned," I said.

"I saved you a seat, so to speak," she said. She turned around, to show herself to me, though one of her eyes lay hidden behind her mane. Regal, tall, weak, vulnerable. Celestia. My hated sister.

"Have you told them? Told the pathetic whelps out there that this was their last day? Have you told them that all their lives are to be for naught, soon? Have you told them?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"Have you no plan? No scheme? No way to thwart me?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"What do you have? What is the game? Where is your cleverness now, or does it fail you?" I asked.

"I have nothing," she said.

"You will die, then. What good are you, if you have nothing?" I said.

"Luna - " she started.

I charged forward, faster than an eye can blink, and slammed her body with my own, careening her backwards into her mirror and cracking it with the impact. The crack propagated all around, up and down, but the glass did not shatter. I held her there, pinned against the wall, and bared my teeth as I spoke.

"Never call me that," I spat, though she did nothing but return her cold, hard look. No fear.

My point proven, I relaxed and let her slump onto the ground.

"How does it feel to be so powerless?" I asked. She stood up but did not answer.

I looked at her again, and still she had that alien coldness about her. Did she not care? Did she not realize her life was forfeit?

"You can beg, if you feel it will help," I said.

"I will do no such thing. Please, just listen to me," she said.

"Worthless prattle from a bygone Princess. I have no need for words, I have power," I said.

This time I would not be merely making a point. My magic leaped up from all around her, forming a force field from the floor that quickly wrapped around her legs and body, paralyzing her completely, save for her head. She did not resist, and I decided to maybe tighten the field around her neck until I heard her gasp.

There was no gasp, just that stare.

I released the force field, and she slumped over again. It took her longer to stand up this time, but she did, and she never took her eyes off me.

"Please, just listen," she said. Her voice was hoarse, weak.

"A favor you never returned to me," I spat. I rushed forth again, this time I spun and bucked her in her filthy, lie-spewing mouth. She staggered backwards and crashed against the mirror, knocking some of the shards out. Blood poured from her mouth, yet she did not stop that stare.

A knock came at the door.

"Princess? Is something the matter?" came a light, high-pitched voice from the other side.

"Nothing, I just stumbled over something," Celestia said.

"All right. You're on in ten," the voice said.

I waited a moment for the interloper to leave the door before I continued. This was personal, and those ponies outside would get theirs soon enough.

"Why don't you resist? Do you see the futility of it?" I asked. I arched back my head, cocking it in the most mocking pose I could muster, but that damned stare continued. It looked past me, into me, through me. Damn her, damn that stare!

"I will not fight you," she said. She spat, blood hitting the carpet on the floor and scattering about.

"Why not?!" I roared. A hint of lightning cracked from my eyes. Lost my composure, for only a moment.

"You are my sister. I love you," she said.

"I love you too," I said.

I shook my head. Love? What good was love? All that mattered was power, and I had all of it. Tia could not fight because she would lose, and had accepted the futility of it. That was all that mattered, I told myself. That was all that mattered.

"Now is the time for you to face your makers, if they still exist. I have had enough of you, and I think the world here has too. Goodbye," I said.

I began to gather my power, the air itself flowing and billowing around me until magical energy practically crackled in the air. Celestia only kept that stare, she did nothing but gaze at me as I did so. Helpless, that's what she was.

From deep within me, I heard a little voice speaking. It was unfamiliar, certainly not my own voice. Was it? It had the same tone, same pitch, same bearing. It shouted, "No! Don't kill her!".

I had to kill her!

Don't! You love her more than anything!

Of course it was right, but the master must be obeyed. Of course, I could torture her first, couldn't I?
No! Stop, wake up! Wake up!

That – that was my voice, I was certain of it. I was speaking, wasn't I? Could Celestia not hear it?

"Well? Aren't you going to kill me?" she asked. That stare had softened. Become concerned.

"No. No! I'm – "I said.

Wake up!

"I'll - I'll do what I want to, nopony can tell me what to do!" I shouted.

Just a little more!

"You have to kill me, it's the master's plan!" Celestia shouted. She strode forward and sat before me, lifting her head to expose her neck, inches from me.

"Quickly! Do it!" she shouted.

"No!" I said, reeling backwards.

You are your own pony!

I looked down at myself, no longer a creature of nightmares. I was back to my old navy blue self, clad in my familiar armor with my bow held around my chest by its string. The Night Mare was gone, no more, and would never have hold over me.

Devious. I stared at the illusion of my sister, the questions answering themselves in my mind before I could think them all the way through. All except one.

"You brought me here, warped my form, warped my mind, but you have not trapped me. You have had chances here, but you wished for me to kill you instead. Why? What would that have accomplished?" I asked the false Celestia before me.

"The master had such hopes for you, and you let them all go to waste. Why not redeem yourself by carrying through what you had started? You could be ours once again," she said.

"I am not interested. No pony, no thing, will hold such sway over me, now or ever. I have learned this lesson at great cost, I will not forget it from some cheap parlor trick of illusions. Show me your true form," I said.

The creature that had disguised itself as Celestia warped, twisted, and undid its illusion, revealing itself as one of the many thousands of Faceless that had fallen at the edge of my spear in ages past. This whole environment was likewise a facade, an image pulled from my memories and placed here for me to live in. My companions no doubt were facing their own such monstrosities, but this one had failed.

The time for words had ended, the creature made one last desperate attempt to attack me but it failed, as they always have. No sooner had it reformed itself and made a blunt weapon had I lopped it off with the edge of my spear and blown the creature into a thousand pieces with a magical burst. These things have never been a match for me.

Now I had to find a way out of this illusion, and the illusion was quickly decaying into something more monstrous, and certainly less subtle. The door was locked, though that alone did not mean much. It had not been necessary for there to be a hallway outside for the ruse to work, I would not have tried the door until after dealing with Celestia. Things were not going according to plan, so the rules had to change.

These places have rules, an unspoken, unwritten set of strict instructions hashed out between psyches. I have seen it many times in the world of dreams, as a pony sleeps. To share perceptions between us, our minds must agree on things. Doors must open to go places, or not open at all. Walls must hold up ceilings. Things must be cut when an edge pierces them, and so on. These rules can be bent, but never broken, and the great game is to force the other side to break the rules, thus breaking the power of the illusion.

I have much experience dealing with this. The key was the symbolism, and this room had had plenty for me to spend ages working out. But now, the facade crumbled, and I could see the limits of the psyche I had been up against.

I walked to the balcony, and looked up at the night sky. There were no stars out, now, and the empty vacuum of space beyond was similarly a detail it had forgotten to include. As I watched, the horizon lit up a brilliant blue, as a great blue fire rose up at the edges of the world, all the way across the horizon and into the sky. The flames rose higher and higher until they seemed to arc towards me, and then they stopped, burning that same height as I turned around.

Now the room had given way to a masonry that underlay it. Gray granite stone, interlocking brick, but no mortar, girded the room, greeting me as I turned inside to face it. The doorway remained as a crude outline carved from the rock, indented slightly but otherwise indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. The room had nothing else in it, save the broken mirror at one end. Thus, its significance was revealed.

I checked over it, the mirror having cracked when I had slammed the creature into it. It had broken into exactly six shards, of roughly equal size, all of which had a very sharp edge on one side. Two of the shards had fallen out of the frame, and the other four hung from the edges, scrambled.

I put the other two shards back in and rearranged the pieces until all six fit into what was roughly the shape of the original mirror. Some minor shards had broken off, less than a centimeter in size, and had scattered across the floor. I recovered those as well, and placed them over the broken edges. There were five, but four of them did not fit. It was strange, as I could see five spots in the mirror where chips had broken off, but only one fit into its slot properly. Still, whatever symbolism I had discovered had worked, and as I placed the only fitting piece into the mirror, the wall behind me creaked and opened up where the door had been earlier.

Whatever mind I was opposing was improvising now, the hallway beyond nearly featureless grey stone. The hallway extended into the darkness, not in the layout of the Ponyville town hall. I followed this corridor for a time, it was totally straight with no bends or curves, and at the end was another door, stone, and of the same make as the one from the dressing room.

This one opened, and before me lay an empty, vertical shaft. I looked up at the smooth stone ceiling, and down, off into the darkness. Deep, very deep. It went down a long way, and my magic light did not cast a reflection back from the bottom.

I leaped out into the empty air, and flew around the edges of the room to confirm there was nothing of note along the roof. So I went down, into the hole, trying to keep a decent, controlled descent.

I heard a metallic creaking above me, and I turned to look up at the roof. A row of serrated spikes had revealed itself from behind the rock, and another chunk of rock slid backwards and away, into the wall, to reveal another row of spikes. Soon more slid back, until the entirety of the roof was spiked, and then the roof disconnected and began to fall.

I shot downwards in a full speed dive, hearing the roof spikes collide with the wall as I did. They did not fit perfectly, their edges touched the wall and scattered sparks as they fell towards me, screeching in incredible volume. All around me the screaming of the spikes continued as I dove, faster and faster, until suddenly I could not heard the spikes anymore at all.

I looked up quickly to see they were still there, but they made no sound, nor did they cast any more sparks. As I tried to turn myself to angle down more, I realized why: the room had no more air, and had become a vacuum. I could not angle my wings, and now I was free falling down from the spikes.

Finally I saw a reflection of the bottom of the room from the light of my horn, and I spied that, in the dead center of the cylinder's floor, was a small, square hole. It was almost exactly the size of my body, but I could not steer myself or slow my descent.

I thought as quickly as I could before deciding to pivot myself with my own telekinesis. I waited, calculated the arc, estimated the timing, saw the size and position of the opening. I would need to arc myself, twenty-nine point five miniscule pushes with an interval of twelve milliseconds between each push, in three, two, one.

I fired the push, then again, then again. Expert timing, perfectly calculated and performed with my magic as I angled myself in a vacuum towards a narrow hole exactly wide enough. I had been doing just that for thousands of years, this was no different. The last push was a half-strength push right before I reached the hole, and I fit neatly into it as the spiked ceiling crashed above me.

I kept falling.

Falling.

Into the void.

Something was below me now, I could see it rushing up at me, slowing as I got closer. I was slowing. I exited the tunnel.