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The
800 Year
Promise
A Story From The Conversion Bureau Universe
By Chatoyance
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9. The Tile Of Overly Low Coefficiency
The use of locations from The Ambassador's Son by Midnight Shadow is done with permission.
"Ralph! Please!" Perspicacity was trying to be as calm as she could under the circumstances. "Let me use my magic - just to strengthen Wild's knees! He can't stand that way all day, on only two legs! I'll only create a field to hold his knees and..."
"Nothin' doin' sister!" Ralph maintained his cold stare, square on Perspicacity's horn, searching for even a hint of glow. "I'm standing on my forelegs and look at me! If your brave-ass Firepony can't keep up with a fat, slovenly little pig like me, then he deserves to take a dive!" Ralph may have looked blubbery, but he was clearly all muscle under that fat, and his mocking tone let Perspicacity know what he thought of her opinions.
"Now, Wild, my best bud, you blew your first answer, you have two chances remaining." Somehow the tiny Ralph was maintaining the awkward position of holding Wildfire by the hocks, just over the edge of the terrifying salt cliff, and the pudgy pony was not even breaking a sweat. Wildfire on the other hand was beginning to shake slightly from the strain of standing on his forelegs with his tail dangling down to his withers. "So, Wildfire, the precious little pony, what am I trying to show you here, what is the special lesson?"
So far, Wildfire had replied that Ralph was clearly in charge. That was the wrong answer, or rather, it was not the answer that Ralph was seeking. There was no doubt that Ralph was in charge; if he let go, Wildfire would join the Great Herd in a rather spectacular splat, far, far below on the jagged edges of gargantuan, broken crystals of salt.
"Well? How about an answer, there, pally?" Wildfire felt like his foreknees could buckle at any moment.
"I'm thinking!" Wildfire gasped.
"I got all day, Wild my boy, but you, I'm thinking, not so much." Ralph sounded smug. Even standing balanced in such a difficult position, he still managed to sound smug.
"You..." It was really hard to stand this way, and the view, straight down, was not helping. "You... are better than me in every way! I should have treated you with more respect! I'm sorry and I sincerely apologize!" Wildfire was trying to think of anything that might appease such a cruel and violent human mind in a pony body. But he realized he was having a hard time trying to figure out what he was supposed to say. He really was a pony now; the way Ralph thought, what he wanted, was just impossible to even guess.
"BZZZT! Wrong again. Man, are you doing badly today." Ralph shifted his weight slightly, to maintain balance. Perspicacity finally saw a bead of sweat run down the plump stallion's muzzle; the strain of standing like that was finally beginning to show. "Listen, because you are my favorite little pony in the whole world, I've decided to give you a hint. So pay attention, alright?"
"Alright." Wildfire grunted the response; his legs were starting to shake slightly, sweat was dripping into his eyes and making them sting.
"Here we are, you hanging over a cliff, me just barely keeping you from falling to your doom. I'm such a nice guy to do that, no need to thank me. But... and this is the big hint to the big lesson here: at any moment I could easily send you tumbling. I wouldn't even lose a night's sleep over it. How about you?" Ralph swallowed, the struggle to keep the larger stallion from falling was definitely getting to him. "Think about what if our positions were reversed - that would never happen, I'm smarter than you. But - if it did happen, which it wouldn't, what is the special lesson for today? Last, chance bucko."
"You can kill me at any time, but I can't kill you!" Wildfire spat the words with what little remained of his strength.
"Hey! Pers!" Ralph shouted at the white unicorn "Little help here?"
Perspicacity did not hesitate. In an instant her horn was glowing, and with the full force of her telekinetic field, Wildfire was pulled away from the edge of the cliff and onto the flat surface of the lookout point. She dragged her husband across the salt surface, all the way to the salt wall behind, before she finally released her thaumatic grip and ran to him.
Wildfire gasped, his breathing ragged and fast. His forelegs hurt more than they ever had in his entire life, his foreknees throbbed as if they were on fire. He couldn't help himself, and began to softly cry. He had dashed through burning, collapsing barns in his work as a Firepony, but he had never been so terrified as he had been just a few seconds ago.
Perspicacity licked and kissed her husbands eyes, and held him tight with her forelegs. He had been so brave, and she was so proud of him, but above all, she was just glad that he was still alive.
"So, kids, quite an adventure today, huh?" Ralph stood over them, as if nothing at all had happened. The only sign that anything had occurred were the beads of sweat on his nose, cheeks and poll.
Perspicacity glared up at him with angry eyes and her horn began to glow fiercely. She wanted to... to... hold Ralph down, to press him into the wall of salt so she could... yell and scream and...
"Ah, ah, ah! I wouldn't do that, Persy-pants." Ralph waved a hoof slowly back and forth. Something in his cold eyes made Perspicacity dim her horn. "That's better. You're the smart one, aren't ya? I have associates, just like me. If anything untoward were to happen, anything I didn't like, you know I'd have to tell them, and I assure you, they are not as nice and friendly as I am."
Ralph sat down on the salt floor. "Your boy got it right, Persy-pants. Unlike you ponies, I and my associates don't have that little governor, that little limiter you freaks have inside your heads. We may look like you barnyard rejects, but inside, I'm all man, baby, and by that, I mean I'm as human as the day I was born, which was on Earth, by the way, a wonderful planet that YOU FUCKERS COMPLETELY DESTROYED!"
Ralph was breathing hard now, and his eyes were no longer cold, but hot, burning with anger. Perspicacity was terrified by what she saw in those alien, predatory, enraged eyes. It took a few moments for Ralph to regain his calm demeanor.
"I told you I would tell you what was what, and ol' Ralphy always keeps his promises. I don't think it should take very much of that pudding inside your pony skull to figure out that I, and those like me, are not exactly on the best of terms with your precious little pony-poop princess. The one that murdered my planet, the little bitch."
Perspicacity shuddered at his words: the very idea of speaking of Celestia that way genuinely shocked her.
"We, meaning me and my associates, need the end of the Eslaforde Manuscript, and nothing, and I do mean no pony, like you, or your husband, or your sweet little auntie, is going to get in our way. Wild's little lesson today should make that really clear to you both. If so, gold stars all around." Ralph rubbed his left foreleg with his right hoof. "Damn, I think I may've strained something back there."
"You can have the manuscript! Just leave us all alone!" Perspicacity helped Wildfire to sit up. "Just leave us all alone!"
Ralph chuckled. "Your little metal box? Already seen the manuscript. It was interesting to see the real thing, all baby dragon skin and hide. Quite a museum piece, there. But we don't need what you got." The doubt on Perspicacity's face made Ralph laugh again. "What? You don't think an eight-hundred year old manuscript wouldn't have been copied a few times over the centuries? How do you think we even know about ol' Willelmus and his unfortunate encounter with that bitch Celestia in the first place? From the report I told you about what was found on Earth? That only told us how she killed the old boy - what we need is in the missing part of the Eslaforde Manuscript, the complete end of the story."
"Princess Celestia would never have killed that man! That's a lie, like everything you say!" Perspicacity was in tears now. The full impact of what had nearly happened to Wildfire was finally hitting her.
"Oh, it's true all right. They found the body of Willelmus Learmount, Pers - and get this, it was buried in a lead coffin, because they found that his remains burned their skin. When they dug the old pony-fucker up, his bones were still dangerous, you know why? I'll tell you why. They were practically burning with thaumatic radiation. Nearly took the skin off the team that found his corpse. Of course, lead doesn't stop magic, nothing does. His grave was considered haunted. That's what made it possible to find it - all the stories of weird things happening around where he was buried." Ralph licked his dry lips and quickly glanced around.
"Here's the deal, now that you know the score." Ralph cocked an ear at the path leading up to the lookout. "You keep out of this from now on, go home and make your little telescopes - not that there's anything up there to see, your bitch Celestia took the entire galaxy away from us too - and live your little, petty lives. And don't even think of going to Celestia herself, because we have Frontsmen right up close in her court, and we'll know, and then you'll get a little visit, and your auntie will get a little visit, and so will everypony either of you know, and in the end, well, there won't be anypony sayin' nothing to nopony else ever again, capiche?"
"All we wanted was to hear the end of the story! Why is it so important?" Perspicacity couldn't help herself; even now the drive to know what had come next nagged at her.
"Jesus!" Ralph was taken aback. "I can't believe you! You got some solid iron eggs in your crack, I have got to say. The end of the story is 'They all lived happily ever after' - except for ol' Willelmus, of course, he got snuffed. And as for why it's so important, I mean, cinnamon swirls and sugar drops, Persy-Pants! What? Like I'd just up and tell you something like that?" Ralph tapped his head with his hoof. "HEL-LO! Human mind here! Not a pony upstairs? Remember? Same reason you can't do shit to me, even though you've got that horn of yours and all your precious little unicorn magic at your disposal. Now just run on home and don't bother me anymore, alright? It ain't worth it, Pers, really it isn't. Live your pony life while you can. I learned ten years ago that you never know when your world can just suddenly end for no damn reason. Go home, and be good little ponies."
Ralph stood up and began to walk away. He stopped and looked back, briefly. "You've been fun, kids, really. Thanks for the laughs. I'll tell Aunt Aspherica that you had to head home because of a big telescope order, OK? You're sweet kids. Take care."
And with that, Ralph Vitoni the definitely-not-a-pony adjusted his stained saddlebags with a shake of his blubbery body, and ambled on down the mountain of salt.
Perspicacity and Wildfire watched Ralph go.
Inside himself, Wildfire wanted to get up and run and tackle Ralph, and hold him down and... and... No! He wanted to run up and buck that fat pile of humanish dung right square in the muzzle and... then, when he was down on the ground, reeling from the soreness, Wild would just... tell him how bucking mean he... was....
Wildfire slumped, and began stomping at the ground in impotent rage. He didn't have it. He just didn't have that old... killer instinct, that apex predator, meat-eating, primal ape viciousness anymore. He could be angry. He could even hate, at least he thought he could hate. If he really tried, he was sure he could hate, couldn't he? He had to be able to hate to be capable of...
But he wasn't. Ralph's lesson was true. Ralph could kill him. Ralph could kill Perspicacity, and aunt Aspherica, and anypony he wanted to. He wouldn't feel bad about it. Ralph... could murder an innocent pony, because it suited his purpose, or for revenge, or for any reason at all.
And neither Wildfire nor Perspicacity, nor any other Equestrian could. Inside himself, Wildfire knew he couldn't even bring himself to permanently cripple Ralph. The very idea made him feel sick.
They were ponies. Kind, gentle, loving ponies, and there were wolves, dressed in pony skin, stalking among them.
"Pers... what do we do? What can we do?" Wildfire couldn't stop the tears running down his frustrated, frightened muzzle. "Oh, sweet Celestia, I am so ashamed, Pers, I am not that, I am not like Ralph, and I never was like Ralph, not even before, but I am absolutely not like that now, oh Pers, Perspicacity..."
"Shhh.... Shhh... it's all right, it's all right. We're safe, and you're safe and..." Perspicacity lifted up Wildfire's head and brought him muzzle to muzzle with her. "I know you, Wildfire. I know who you are. You don't need to ever, ever doubt yourself again. I've seen what a human is like, and you are NOT one of those. I don't think you could EVER have been one of those. So you remember that, alright? Don't ever even imagine you are the least bit... human... ever, ever again." Perspicacity stared with compassion and absolute resolve deep into Wildfire's eyes.
Wildfire sniffed and tried to smile. "Yes, my love. I promise."
"Alright now. Where do we go from here, then?" Perspicacity let the rhetorical question sit for a moment, while she thought. "We need to leave, that's first. There's going to be another docent tour, and I don't think it would be good to be found here, and have a lot of questions asked of us. Agreed?"
"T-That sounds smart to me. Where do we go?" The sounds of an approaching group dimly could be heard, below the lookout point.
"Down, the other way, just like Ralph. We'll decide more as we go." Perspicacity and Wildfire stood up, Wildfire still shaken from his experience, and left as quietly and quickly as their hooves could take them.
On the way down the other side of the Great Salt Lick, Perspicacity scanned for any sign of Ralph. He wasn't visible, but it was a sure bet where he was headed - straight to her aunt's, to complete whatever deal had been on the table down there.
"He's going to head for my aunt Aspherica's house, we know that." Perspicacity wanted to run, but Wildfire was still wobbly in the knees. Thinking about it more clearly, perhaps bolting down a winding path on a gargantuan block of salt crystal was not the smartest idea. "My worry is what will he do if she doesn't agree to whatever deal he's offered her. That... monster... is capable of anything. We need to follow him and try to... do something, anything to protect my aunt."
"I wish there were Merc police, dammit." Wildfire was trying to keep up with his wife.
"Merg Poleese? What are Merg Poleese?" Perspicacity waited for Wild to catch up; she had been hurrying a bit much.
"Merc Police. Mercenary Police. They're... kind of like Celestia's royal guards, only they actually can do stuff besides keeping the looky-loos from bothering her. They solve crimes and arrest... they used to have them all over the Earth. You could pay them to protect you or to enforce the law, if you had the credits. Sometimes they'd even do it anyway, if the order came from the corporate government...." Wildfire was losing her. "They were big and tough and would take care of ponies like Ralph and protect ponies like us!"
"Then I too, wish for 'Merc Police'. But you know there are no such things in Equestria." Perspicacity sidled close to Wild as they descended the mountain. "I wish we could just go straight to the Princesses and tell them all about this. But if Ralph was telling the truth..." Wildfire could see his wife shudder. "Also, let's face it; Ralph exists. If he can run free like that, and do things like he just did, then it must be true that Celestia cannot know everything. That means that she can't find all of the bad ponies like Ralph, and that means that his threat if we tell her is real."
Wildfire swallowed as they walked. "Later, if we tell on Ralph to Celestia, we would get a visit... Pers, you understand what he meant by that, right?"
"I've just seen what he is capable of, love. And I feel scarred by it. I feel injured from just having had to see it. And I am angry about that. Nopony should have to see the stallion they love dangled over a... a..." Perspicacity became silent for a long while. Her eyes shone with wetness.
Wildfire felt terrible sorrow at the knowledge that his wife, his beautiful, wonderful Perspicacity, had been touched by Earthly cruelty. Such a thing... she would never be quite as perfectly innocent again, and that broke his pony heart.
At the base of the vast mountain of salt, Wildfire hailed a carriage. He had no interest in chatting, as he had before, with the draft ponies pulling it. Swiftness was called for now.
As they sat in the back of the carriage, Wildfire thought about what had actually been said, up on the mountain. Ralph had revealed more than he had intended. Wildfire tried to remember what Ralph had said.
"Pers! I think we know a lot more now. I think Ralph let some things slip, that he may not have wanted to."
"Like what, Wildfire? What kind of things?"
"Remember, when he mentioned how he had his 'associates' or whatever in the court of Celestia? What did he call them?" Wildfire had huddled close to Perspicacity, and they were speaking in soft tones with each other.
"Um... let's see... front... men. Frontsmen. That was it. Frontsmen. Or foremen, like foreleg. One of the two. Does that mean anything?" Perspicacity hoped she had recalled the foreign word correctly.
"Frontsmen! That was what the HLF used to call their basic goons, Pers. The Human Liberation Front had a cadre of Frontsmen.... who were the front line against Equestria, see? If Ralph said 'Frontsmen', then that means that..." Wildfire looked stunned. "Pers... Ralph isn't some crazy PER pony. He's a former human from the Human Liberation Front! The HLF! But... how? How could that even be? They were fanatically crazy about staying human, and protecting humanity from ponies and ponification!"
"How fanatical, Wildfire? How crazy?" Perspicacity was quickly adding up everything she had learned so far. "You told me that the PER, the Ponification for Earth's Re... something..."
"Rebirth. Ponification for Earth's Rebirth"
"Yes, that group. You said that they had been altered, so that their brains would stay human, but that this didn't work entirely, right? That they ended up with some twisted notion of serving the princesses with their power of human violence." Perspicacity felt like she was onto something important.
"Yes. Genegineering. They were genetically altered, only the procedure wasn't perfect, apparently."
"What if the other group, the H-L-F, what if they got some of that genii-gen-jeering magic themselves, and reworked the spell. What if they managed to succeed where the PER failed?"
Wildfire considered the notion, while looking around to see how close they were to Nacle street. "No, no, the HLF were totally fanatical about staying human! They'd never willingly be ponified, not even to infiltrate the court and assassinate the princesses. At least, I don't think they would."
"But didn't you tell me that the PER would just enter buildings and hose humans down with ponification serum? What would happen if that had occured to a member of the HLF?"
"Well, Pers, I guess they would just wake up a pony, and realize how silly they had been, and just leave all of that HLF stuff behind. They'd probably try to contact Celestia and tell her everything they knew in order to stop the... oh." Suddenly it made sense. Wildfire could see it clearly now. "Pers! You're a genius! The HLF would want to alter their own agents precisely because they might be forcibly ponified! And they'd want to do it right, so that the same mistake that created the PER wouldn't happen to them!"
"And any human that ended up that way would be bitter and angry, rather than happy and glad about their transformation! They'd end up a..."
Perspicacity and Wildfire smiled at each other as they spoke in unison. "...a pony like Ralph!"
That had to be the answer. Ralph was a former member of the Human Liberation Front, and he wasn't happy about being a pony, and he, and others like him, were waging a war of vengeance for the loss of their entire planet and their entire species.
"Wow... I mean, wow, Perspicacity. This is big. And scary, and dangerous, and not just to us! This could be a problem for the crown itself. Those HLF types, they were not nice at all. Compared to them, the PER were as cuddly as bunnies. Pers, the HLF killed newfoals for sport. They killed native Equestrians on sight." Wildfire shuddered. He just realized that he, a pony, had been assaulted by the most pony-hating type of human there ever was. Here in Equestria.
"Wildfire. We have a duty to the crown. It is more important than our lives, or the lives of those we love. If the monsters you call H-L-F are here in our world, then we must tell the princesses immediately, whatever the risk. We may be the only ponies in all of Equestria to have figured this out." Perspicacity sat rigid, a tear trickled down her cheek, but she was resolute. "My... aunt....Aspherica... tell our draftponies to take us to the train, instead. We need to go to Canterlot, right now."
"Wait, Pers." Wildfire had noticed that they had just turned onto Nacle street. "We're nearly at your aunt's house. We can take her with us. If she's with us, nopony can hurt her, we can protect her. And once we get to Canterlot, maybe we can beg the princesses for protection! That way your aunt will be completely safe. The princesses may not be able to know everything, but they can DO anything. Their protection would be absolute, wouldn't it?"
Perspicacity brightened immediately. She kissed Wildfire with passion. "You're the genius, Wild! You're absolutely right! We'll just take Aspherica with us to Canterlot to meet the princesses! She can even help by telling what she saw and heard about Ralph! And she'll be safer with us, than out here, all alone!"
Wildfire beamed. Perspicacity thought about how, in this way, she might be able to make up for not having shown her aunt any support in the past, especially after Star Diagonal had died. Maybe she hadn't been very good family back then, but in the here and the now, she could show love to her aunt by protecting her from these evil not-ponies.
The carriage rounded the last bend, and pulled up in front of the sprawling house that belonged to Aspherica Starshine. Wildfire asked the draftponies to wait. He explained that they needed to collect another passenger, and then go to the train station. He begged their patience, while this was done. It might be a little while. Finally, he offered them a bonus for waiting. They happily agreed.
The door was closed and everything looked normal. Perspicacity and Wildfire approached the house warily. They knew what Ralph was, now, and they wanted to be prepared. They might not be able to do... what Ralph could do... but they were far from helpless. Not being able to kill was not the same thing as not being able to defend themselves, and since they intended to go straight to the princesses, they weren't worried about long term retribution anymore. The princesses would protect them, of that they had no doubt.
Perspicacity's horn began to glow; she was ready to grab a certain fat pony in her telekinetic grip at a moment's notice.
Wildfire gave his forehooves a quick stomp. He was ready and willing to buck that little son-of-a-human right in the face if he had to, and he felt like he'd be able to sleep peacefully enough even after that. Maybe because of that.
Perspicacity shifted her magical focus to the door, and opened it without knocking. This was not a time for courtesy. This was a time for surprise and action!
The door opened to a quiet house. There was no sign of Ralph so far.
Wildfire entered first, with Perspicacity right behind him, ready to act at any provocation. Her horn glowed with a fierce silvery light.
Nothing in the entrance hall. They moved on to the kitchen. They both startled as the whistle on the teakettle began to shrill. There was one invention common to both the human and pony worlds. Ignoring the kettle, Wildfire signaled with his ears, and face, as best he could, for Perspicacity to stay. She seemed to get the idea, and hung back in a ready stance, her horn glowing brightly.
Wildfire carefully, quietly entered the main room, with its two overstuffed chairs and the big overstuffed couch where Ralph had eaten sweet buns.
The room was quiet, and appeared empty. Wildfire carefully circled the big couch from a distance; Ralph might be anywhere, even hiding down close to the floor.
Wildfire's hoof slid suddenly on the tile floor.
That was when he realized he had slipped on a slick of equine blood.
Oh... Ralph...
Does he even know he's signed his own worse-than-death warrant?
So much rage I have at the non-pony Ralph
The excitement and intensity of the story is killing me, just... so many... feelings it gives me!
Just can't wait for the next part, excellent work Chatoyance.
Oh Ralph, you're such a silly stallion... I'm past bucking him where the sun don't shine... I'd lock him in a room with Tick-Tock.
Oh... oh that hurts... you know the worst thing about Ralph? The very, very worst thing? I mean it's... beyond awful that he and his disgusting associates have done in Pers' aunt, but there's something even worse.
How many times did they try to get their potion right? How many times did they test it?
It dawns on me that in their attempts, they can't have allowed their guinea pigs to talk when it didn't work - especially not if they ended up with PER ponies, and even not when they ended up with normal Equestrians. Each and every one of them, former humans who thought they were sacrificing themselves for the betterment of the human race, who 'saw the light' after being transformed - every single one had to have died.
The death of a traitor is never, ever, pretty. These were HLF members who, in giving their ultimate sacrifice, were probably very, very abused before they finally died, because if the potion failed, they could never agree with the way things had been, and would be everything that the HLF would stand against, in the middle of a top-secret HLF stronghold, surrounded by the most fanatical HLF members.
Poor... ex-humans. Even knowing what they did to get there.
177873
yeowch... but you may be right.
Whelp Ralph has a bullet with his name on if from me so please keep on writing you have me on the edge of my seat.
I like that you give Ralph believable motivation in the story. He might be an awful person and he might be a murderer, but when he says that he's angry about the human race being wiped out and the earth destroyed, he has a point. He's not angry without reason, and his reasons are not poor justification for that anger, even if they don't justify his actions. The fact that ponies are so hard-line judgmental about stamping out all remnants of human culture and that newfoals seem to be instinctively ashamed of their pasts is another thing that makes me able to really understand and even sympathize with Ralph. Even if he's a complete monster, there are probably others in his situation that aren't, and who mostly just with that they could be open about who they were without having to worry about being ostracized or hunted down.
Having a villain with some depth that a reader can connect to just a little bit adds a lot to your stories, Chatoyance. It makes them much more interesting than the standard fare.
Read the last line..... winced. Not gonna be fun.
I choose to focus on the physics pun in the title, dark though it may be. That goon Ralph is a wonderful villain - he has a powerful entity behind him, represents a threat that won't vanish even if he were stopped, and has a grim ability our protagonists can't match. His comeuppance will be glorious and cathartic! For all that, though, I just want to think about the friction joke and move on with my day or else I'll be a bit down thinking about poor Pers' innocence-destroying intro to human psychology.
178026
Yes, I winced when I realised the joke in the chapter title.
I'm liking the change of venue - the gritty elements of old Earth within Equestria, versus the shiny elements of Equestria superimposed on a bleak Human existence.
This is quite good.
And yes, the chapter title aligning with the last two lines is quite good as well.
Oh, goody.......these idiots again? I know that they think that they're in the right but, well, they're going to end up keeping company with Wingfeather. Failing that, Celestia just might unleash a secret weapon she's got lying around.....
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It's called a chisel
178284
My knees just slammed shut........
I hope that the missing pages of the Manuscript reveal something that will shake Ralph's belief to it's very core. Something that proves everything that he thought was right was really oh so wrong.
We did find out something more about the book though. It's made of baby dragon skins and hides which means it had to be made in Equestria. This means it's very likely that Willelmus Learmount made it to Equestria before writing the Manuscript. Although that does make me wonder what the body in the lead coffin is. I wonder if it could be that Celestia couldn't take the body back with her and just took his soul and gave him a new body once they arrived. A ponification before ponification serums?
HLF, totally called it. Was possibly wrong about why he's a pony though. Got a feeling that Celestia didn't kill Willemus, and that it'll be revealed that she had wanted to take him back with her...and then they found out about the magic is deadly to humans thing the hard way...
Unfortunately it seems Ralph and co are definitely not playing around...poor aunt Aspherica. You know, there might be a way for our heroes to bypass the possible goon squad keeping an eye on Celestia, assuming they think of it, and assuming Twilight still has Spike as a direct line to the Princess.
Oh no...
178342
Oh if that were just the remains of "ponification, pre-alpha version 0.0.1...code name 'Hey, Y'all, Watch This! '"....I'm figuring she found a way to give him a soul, but it meant literally shedding his humanity and leaving it behind like a butterfly from the chrysalis. He became a vastly different being (though, as evidenced by the existence of the book with his memories and tale, not a new being).
178884
Eep, I've also realized something else - or rather, this will have to be either plainly proven or disproven later, but actually killing a pony was a really, really bad idea. Way to telegraph your position, Ralphy-boy. Maybe they're just that dumb, maybe Aspherica put up a fight... or maybe she's not actually dead.
The suspense!
180374
Hope its the latter. And the HLF has never been usually portrayed as all that bright. However this branch is probably very different considering they've A: Managed to fix something the WORLD GOVERNMENT apparently couldn't. B: Has actually survived Earth's 'death' and C: May have infiltrated either the government or the royal guard.
Ooo, 'nother thought...what if they try to pin this on Pers and Wildfire...?
BAM, BOOM straight to the moon! cya ralph
Obviously Celestia killed Willelmus in the process of trying to save him (and maybe succeeding). It's the only thing I can think of that lines up with his body being drenched in magic almost a thousand years later and his manuscript being written on Equestrian material.
Ralph has made a miscalculation. He expected them not to check on their aunt. Now that they know she's dead, they have nothing to fear in going straight to Celestia. Cold and cruel, but also very foolish of him.
I wonder when it will occur to Perspicacity and WildFire that if Willelmus died back on Earth, he could not have written the book. In some manner or another, he survived.
You're back! I'm slightly sad that you didn't reply to my comments, but the important thing is that you're reading and (I hope still) enjoying them. Now I can continue on here without fear of overloading.
(I think that I may also stop checking Recombinant 63 and The Ice Cream Pony Summer for replies and just hope that, if you do say something there, the automatic notification system works.)
...And look at that, it just so happens that I have an appropriate bit of time for reading right now! I'm a bit tired, but sometimes that's made my commentary better, if not as coherent. :)
Right! Well, as I recall, we left off on quite the literal cliffhanger last time, with the rascal Ralph and his precipice plot.
Ah, whew. Still not a good situation to be in, but the immediate danger has passed.
"Perspicacity licked and kissed her husbands eyes"
Question: Is that closed eyes and/or the area around them, or is this a strange horse behavior I've not heard of?
Hm. Does Ralph have associates? It seems unlikely, but... he did know about the book someone.
On the bright(ish) side, if HLF "ponies" made it through undetected, PER combat-enabled ponies quite possibly did as well, and I doubt that they're too pleased about HLF remnants trying to continue the fight in what was supposed to be the peaceful paradise for which the war was fought. And while I've not directly encountered the PER CEPs in my reading yet, I'd surmise that, based on Ralph's example, they're much more dangerous. The HLF "ponies" are pretty much just humans in pony form, lacking magic and uncomfortable in their own skins. From what I've heard, the CEPs are basically full ponies except for having some human violence wiring remaining.
What on Earth (which I nearly changed to "in Equestria" before realizing that the old home fit here) do they want with this book, then?
Interesting if somewhat worrying bit about the grave. Of course, the is the curious matter that dead people, even magically killed ones, are not known for their prolific posthumous literary output. And this does seem like something he scribbled out with his last breaths. Too long, for a start, even if you don't count the seemingly-substantial missing bit. Has Ralph not realized this (odd but possible, given how much he claims his group has studied it), or is he hiding something?
Okay, yeah, Ralph, you might have a little group. But agents right up in the court? Surrounded by the powerful and knowledgeable, and near to the Princesses? Without anyone noticing? Not buying it. Particularly since it would only have taken a single slip, in all this time, for your group's presence to be revealed. Maybe you used a really clever cell structure to keep your agents in court from knowing anything they'd be forced to reveal, but they'd still be able to reveal that there was a cell structure.
At least Ralph, while he might be able to kill them, can't kill them casually, however much he might want to. Far too dangerous; simple self-preservation, something he has plenty of even as a human, is enough to make him try to scare them off as Plan A.
...Oh dear. I don't think Wildfire is right here, but...
I mean, we know that not's how Ralph was created, but it might mean that his allies are more numerous than I'd been thinking...
...Aaaaand another cliffhanger. An even worse one. Oh dear. And I need to be getting to bed, and I expect to be busy in the coming days... Well. I got one more chapter read at last at least, and it was, unsurprisingly, a good one. :)
Welp, no aunt to worry about anymore!
But no seriously, what the heck is Ralph even doing? "I need the end of the manuscript that proves Celestia's a murderer, so I can make her feel guilty, so I'll go stalk some people who only have the part I've already read, and have no leads into finding the end of it. They're literally just going to visit their aunt out in nowhereville, having given up on finding more of the manuscript. I can tell all this, because I'm telepathic or something, since they certainly never said a word about that manuscript to anyone. Then, I'll scare them to death for some reason, putting my whole organization at risk should they run for Celestia. And while I'm at it, I'll go murder my only bargaining chip."
Has he been hitting the salt or something?
No.
That's it. He's done.
If by some unlikely quirk of chance Ralph survives this novel, I am going to hunt him down. I am going to find him. And I am going to use whatever abilities I possess to make him experience every bit of terror, pain, and anguish suffered by his victims.
Then I'm going to ask Luna's help to seal him away in a pocket universe, alone, alive and conscious, so he can experience everything he ever did to anyone or anypony, over and over again, forever.
And then I'll start on his so-called friends.
He doesn't have a soul. He doesn't deserve to join the Great Herd. Killing him would be a mercy and for him I have none.
Celestia didn't destroy the Earth. Humanity did. If he had loved the place that much he would have died with it. But he doesn't want anyone to survive. I honestly think that his group's ultimate goal is the total destruction of Equestria.
So he doesn't get to die. He must suffer. If that makes me human, in this case so be it.