Chapter Seven: Downhill Descent
Chapter Seven: Downhill Descent
The last train to Canterlot from Ponyville always left at seven o’clock in the evening, on the dot. The conductor always saw to that, much to the relief of anyone who needed overnight transportation to the Equestrian Capitol.
Apparently, this did not exclude my possessed being as it boarded the vessel.
After I had stormed out of Twilight’s library home (no pun intended), my body had immediately made for the local train station I had caught a glimpse of as I was given the tour of town. Fortunately, Ed activated a low-level perception filter over my body. He hadn’t said a word since the Manipulator-based device took effect. I still wasn’t entirely sure if it was because he had nothing to say to me, or no words were getting through the barrier.
The filter didn’t make me invisible; just unnoticed. Ponies knew I was there, but their minds immediately forgot about me as the perception filter forced them to look away. Oddly enough, only passing Unicorns seemed to sense that something was amiss when I strode purposefully past them, before the filter reapplied itself.
I made a mental note to look into the matter at a later date, assuming I stuck around in this world long enough to be bothered to do so. But after the bloodlust guiding my physical form dealt with their ruler, I wasn’t so sure I would be willing to stay once I regained control.
’If I ever regained it...’ I muttered to myself dejectedly. The events were passing by in a blur, but one thing was definitely certain as I stared through my physical eyes I couldn’t even control: whoever set up the Lock had to of set up the device that was piloting me.
Which meant someone planned my arrival from the very beginning. But who had the cunning to even conceive such a trap? And why designate it to go after some pissant ruler? It had to be about Princess Celestia; the spikes in my anger upon even thinking of her name were self-evident of that fact.
Was it truly him? Some Manipulators and Editors independently started projects to learn how to initiate Locks on Universes, but I never got any kind of lead on whether they succeeded or not. Perhaps this wasn’t his work; it couldn’t have been. The son of a bitch died way before those signatures could even arise. Regardless, at that moment, there was nothing I could do.
Any further efforts to break the wave were crushed. There was nothing that would be able to cease the rampage that was about to occur, it seemed. The only hope I had at that time was that I would have a solution to disable the device and diminish the wave before it was too late.
As far as I could tell from the train schedule I nicked off of some passerby, the train ride to Canterlot would take two and a half hours. There was plenty of time for the darkness of night to fall over the land, providing me the perfect cover to move without being seen. No doubt precisely what my deranged barbarism wanted.
There was also no doubt in my mind at that point in time, that by the time Twilight Sparkle was free, she would find some way to contact Celestia and inform her of my impending arrival. Which meant that Canterlot would probably be crawling with Royal Guardsponies by the time the train pulled into the station.
That thought brought a sadistic smile to my face. ‘Good.’ I said silently. ‘I need a warm-up before I take on a goddess.’ My psyche immediately reeled back at that. Even in the sanctum of my mind, the device was implanting false thoughts. My rationality was kept where my soul was, and as such my experience was much more horrifying.
Mostly because every wrong act I committed, I knew full well at the moment it happened, that it would be wrong. There was no opportunity for remorse, or regret. It seemed almost hopeless. In the back of my mind, though, a brief glimmer of hope arose; I heard Ed give an audible sigh.
“Are you ready to talk to me now?” He inquired, with a major hint of exasperation lacing his tone. I wasn’t happier than that moment to hear his voice. I guessed at the time that because my rage-propelled body had nothing better to do than to sit and stew in the feelings for the next few hours as the train pulled out of the station, Ed thought it an appropriate moment to begin lecturing me.
For once, I was glad he was going to. I attempted to speak my mind, before I had begun to feel a tremendous pressure on my head. Figuring it to be a safeguard against me rebelling against the Manipulator-born device, I pressed on. To no avail, because in the end it merely exhausted me further. Vocal thoughts began ringing in my subconscious, though once again they were not my words.
‘Fire away,’ I grunted, pulling my backpack off of my shoulders and rifling through it for a snack. The recognition that the Manipulator-based tech had the ability to send fake communications to my A.I. was not lost on me at that moment.
“What do you hope to accomplish, Storm?” No beating around the bush with Ed in serious situations. Always straight to the point. “What the hell happened back there?”
‘You’re inside my mind; why don’t you tell me?’ I replied as I pulled a bag of salt-water taffy from my bag and immediately set myself on devouring it. I didn’t realize at the time how ironic that device-influenced thought was; my true self and Ed were both inside of my body’s mind. Yet neither could commune with the other, with one being utterly oblivious to the other.
“I’d rather hear you tell me,” Ed answered plainly. There was a flash of blue light in front of me, and a holographic avatar of Ed appeared standing on my left knee. Ed was dressed in his average attire of an upper-class Englishman from back in the seventeen-hundreds on Earth. His hair was hidden beneath the small top hat he wore, and occasionally a flash of electric currents moving across his body could be seen. Good ‘ole classic Ed.
Ed stared up at me with a surprising lack of emotion on his face. “I could easily take the thoughts from your mind,” I was desperately hoping he would. I needed his support to break free of the mental binds now more than ever. “but if there’s anything I’ve learned about problem solving after all of these years with you, is that sometimes... we have to hear our own opinions for ourselves to fully understand what we are thinking.”
I scowled down at the AI. Everything felt so creepy, and unusual. Having a lack of motor control over my body, but fully recognizing and feeling what was happening sucked. “So now I don’t understand my own thoughts?” My body snapped at him. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“Of course not,” Ed replied coolly. “What I’m saying is that your anger is completely out of character for you, Storm. You’ve only ever gotten this angry three times. When the Bentarius Systems burned, the destruction of Xyliion, and when Aurora-”
“I had every right to be angry!” I growled at the AI, tossing my taffy onto the seat beside me. “That bastard betrayed me. He betrayed us! Did you forget?” Wait. My mind processed that wording. ‘How did the device... Oh no.’
It had access to my Memory Database. At any given moment, it could access literally anything I had ever learned, experienced, or imagined in an instant.
“I never forget, Storm. I’m an Advanced Augmented Artificial Intelligence,” he reminded me. “I have a constantly evolving memory space. I even have every second I’ve been linked with you documented and filed away.”
“That’s a tiny bit creepy,” I noted, the anger in my voice faltering slightly in surprise, but ceasing to fade. My inner self nearly roared in frustration; the bastard device was copying my mannerisms. Ed was none the bloody wiser!
“My point,” Ed continued, “is that you don’t usually get this angry over something as trivial as what’s happened today. Certainly not angry enough to decide to go kill the ruler of a planet.” I had a retort ready, but I couldn’t bring myself to vocalize it.
Because, you know, my motor functions were gone.
Though I hated to admit it, Ed had a decent point. Even if the device hadn’t activated, I would’ve still been pissed (thought to a far lesser extent). Would I have been angry at any of them specifically? All that Twilight and Lyra had done were follow orders from their ruler.
Hell, that Princess Celestia pony hadn’t even specifically told them to torture or interrogate me according to Lyra. All she had done was tell them to get me to open up. So would I have been upset with her, and not at the Ponies who interpreted the orders as ‘interrogate the alien’?
I found my answer quickly. Even if the device hadn’t dominated my mind, I still would’ve gone after their Princess (if only to give a verbal piece of my mind). When I asked myself why, another answer was found just as swiftly.
It was because Celestia hadn’t been specific.
She had to have known that interrogation would be a possibility based on the vagueness of her orders. Celestia followed the reasoning of ‘Restrain first, ask questions later’ when I had done nothing to deserve such hostility. She had forced Twilight and Lyra no doubt, to betray the trust that they had already begun to give me and that I was close to begin giving to them when those orders went out.
And ever since he betrayed my trust all those years ago, I hadn’t taken any betrayal lightly.
“You’re wrong about one thing, Ed,” I said, after the two of us had sat in silence for several long minutes. I paused my thinking to listen in; maybe through some error, information could be gained from a slip-up in the device’s communication algorithm.
“And that would be?”
“I don’t intend to kill this Celestia pony,” I grinned at him sadistically. “I intend to get answers first, and then I’ll decide if I’m going to kill her or not.” I blinked rapidly internally at the statement. Was the device playing Ed, or was it really meant to just put me in a bad light and not kill the Princess?
“Answers?” Ed repeated, giving me a curious look. “Answers about what, exactly?”
In response, my body reached a hand back into my bag and produced the scrap of paper Lyra had shown me the day before; the one that had the description of ‘Earthlings’. For a moment, I nearly forgotten I snatched that article up. “I want to know who wrote this,” I said simply. “For starters, at least. Whoever they were, they were GREATLY misinformed by whatever encounters or sightings were reported.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” Ed said, crossing his arms. “That ‘document’ describes the Deaoran race of Yeras to a ‘T’.”
“My point exactly,” I muttered as I stuffed the document back into the bag and began angrily filling my stomach with taffy. Normally, I would’ve enjoyed it. But I had to focus on figuring out how to stop myself before I did anything rash.
Ed watched me sadly for a few moments before letting out an exasperated sigh. “I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?”
“No,” I replied. “I’ve made up my mind.”
‘No, I did not! You little fucker, if your Master isn’t somehow miraculously dead, I will gut him myself!’ My soul pulsed with energy. Out of frustration, I threw some of it at the wall of feral emotions. Nothing happened.
“And you might assassinate the leader of this peaceful world over your anger?”
“That’s up to her, now isn’t it?” I fixed Ed with a sidelong glance. “If her answers give me cause, then I will. I must.” A small thought had occurred to me, and my body brought my head back around to look at my AI’s projection. “Do you intend to stop me?”
’You better, Ed. Because I can’t do shit right now.’
“It’s your life, Storm. I can’t control you,” Ed said plainly. I swore under my spiritual breath; Ed appreciated my respect too much to go and try to forcibly stop me from acting. At that point, I didn’t know whether I would hug Ed next chance I had or punch him. “I can try to guide you down the necessary paths to keep the Scales in balance, but it’s ultimately up to you. So I’ll stand by your side, no matter what may happen.”
“Thanks, Ed.” I said, offering a forced smile in his direction. With no happiness a factor in the hostile takeover, no genuine smile could be had during the device’s ruse.
“I’m going to enter Hibernation for the next few hours,” Ed announced as his projection faded away. “Wake me when it’s over.” I had shouted after Ed, but of course my words never reached him. They merely rebounded off the wall of emotions back at me.
“Will do,” my body muttered, reaching into my bag to produce one of my Projectors. I had no clue what my body was planning to do with it, however.
“And Storm?”
‘Yes?’
“I just wanted to warn you, this world maintains the Scales here on its own, one way or the other,” Ed explained. “You’re about to tip the Scales in favor of Chaos, and you know how that attracts unwanted attention.”
‘Thanks for the heads up, Ed.’ I grimaced. My survival would definitely hang on whether I would be able to break the curse. And on that note, I felt Ed’s presence fade away, even in my imprisonment. Whenever Ed went into Hibernation Mode, I could never feel him in my mind like I did most of the time. It’s the strangest and most horrifying feeling I could’ve experienced at that moment.
I was now truly alone in stopping myself.
My anger was still boiling white-hot beneath my skin. My body flipped open the Projector it was holding and funneled Editor Energy into the machine. Immediately, the Projector displayed my Armory. My eyes widened.
All of my weapons. Ready to be grabbed and used at a moment’s notice. Ready to be brought down upon mortal lives. Ready to start genocides, and wars, and endless bouts of suffering and anguish to my foes.
Ready to kill.
Thankfully, before Ed went into Hibernation, it appears he had locked me out of a vast majority of my Armory. With my body unable to bypass the security systems, the Manipulator-driven device was forced to search through my ‘special’ non-harmful weapons. And by that, I mean my enchanted arsenal of NERF weaponry. Eventually, my body decided on a NERF bat that had been enchanted to paralyze foes for a full twelve hours when they are hit hard enough by it.
I couldn’t help but laugh on the inside. Fighting what was most likely a group of highly trained soldiers with a foam bat? Ridiculous. The only other person I could think of that would do that was… I stopped myself in my train of thought. I didn’t need to think about that backstabber. It would only make me angrier. He was dead now. I made sure of that. And that was all that mattered.
Closing the Projector and putting it away, the NERF bat was summoned across Universes from a storage pocket dimension into my hand. It was nothing special to look at; just a regular foam bat with glowing green sigils on it.
’At least no one would die, hopefully...’ I thought as my body reclined back to wait. The opportunity was present, and it would not be wasted. Ever-so-carefully, I conserved my mental strength, and began searching for a weak-point in the wave of emotion.
Location: Golden Oaks Library. Ponyville, CPE (Center Province of Equestria)
Time: 7:09 PM, Friday August Second. Year Unknown.
Lyra let out a shriek as the door to the library was kicked open, terrified that the Earthling had decided to come back and finish off Twilight and her. To Lyra’s relief, a cyan blur creating a rainbow trail flew speedily into the room. Rainbow Dash, unsurprisingly, had been the first pony to arrive at the library after the thunderous cracks of the Earthling breaking free of Lyra and Twilight’s magic had echoed across town. The prismatic-maned Pegasus twisted her head back and forth as she flew into the center of the main room, looking for any sign of trouble.
But to her surprise, she couldn’t find any.
Confusion was prominent on her face as she turned to face Lyra. “Lyra? What were those loud cracking sounds? I could hear them all the way from my house!” She asked, still looking around and trying to find the source of the noises.
“Twilight and I were trying to hold the Earthling down so we could inject him with Truthful Whisper,” Lyra explained, still under the effects of said truth serum which forced her to speak annoyingly fast. “But he somehow broke free of our magic fields, injected me with the Whisper, and paralyzed Twilight with some kind of syringe!” Rainbow Dash’s confusion melted away in an instant, replaced by worry for her friend, and rage at the escaped being.
“Where’s Twilight?” She demanded, leaping into the air once more as she began to search the library anew. “Where’s the Earthling?! I’ll show that punk what happens when you attack my friends!” She mimed punching an invisible foe repeatedly with her fore-hooves.
“Twilight’s below you,” Lyra said, pointing at the still paralyzed Unicorn mare lying below Rainbow Dash. The Pegasus let out a startled cry and immediately dropped onto her hooves to stand by her helpless friend’s side.
“Twilight! Are you okay?” She demanded, poking and prodding at Twilight’s unmoving form. “Did that jerk hurt you?”
Despite the effects of the paralysis drug in her system, Twilight attempted to open her mouth to assure the worried Pegasus that she was alright. However, the serum proved to be more than effective and all she could manage was moving her eyes back and forth to indicate that she was shaking her head.
Fortunately, Rainbow Dash seemed to have gotten the message. She stepped back from Twilight and flared her wings, preparing to take off once again. “Just hang tight, Twi’,” she said in an entirely unnecessary heroic tone, “I’ll go get the others and be back here in a jiff. We’ll get you back to normal in no time!”
“The Earthling said it would only take around ten minutes to wear off,” Lyra pointed out, causing Rainbow Dash to comically fall flat on her face before she could even flap her wings twice. The thud almost sounded painful.
“Seriously?” She inquired, rising to her hooves and shaking her head a little. “So I don’t have to rush to get everypony back here?”
“No need for that, Sugarcube. We’re all already here.” At the sound of Applejack’s voice, Rainbow Dash and Lyra turned toward the entrance to the library, where the farm-pony, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie could all be seen rushing in.
“What in the name of Equestria happened here?” Rarity asked, looking disdainfully around at the books that had been knocked from their shelves when the Earthling broke free of the Holding spells. “This place looks like Rainbow Dash decided to take her practices indoors.” Rainbow Dash shot Rarity a mildly irritated look.
Twilight however, managed to let out a groan of annoyance, finally attracting the attention of the new arrivals, all of whom cried out in shock and began fussing over her. The paralysis serum was starting to wear off enough for the Unicorn to move her jaw around and turn her head slightly, but anything more than that was beyond her capabilities at that moment. Her friends, though their concern was greatly appreciated, were being less than helpful at the moment by distracting Twilight with a myriad of questions.
“One at a time!” She finally managed to snap, succeeding in causing all of the assembled Ponies to fall silent for a moment. The five standing above her exchanged awkward looks, as if silently trying to decide who should speak first.
“Why are you lying on the floor like that?” Pinkie Pie said, breaking the silence. “Is this some kind of new game? Did you invent a new game without telling me? But, who cares about that?! Is it the kind of game you play at parties? Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Are you gonna teach me? Let me do what you’re doing!” And just like that, Pinkie imitated Twilight’s pose perfectly to a ‘T’ before allowing herself to fall over onto her side, still in the same pose, so that her head was next to Twilight’s. “Now what do we do?”
“I don’t think she’s playing a game, Pinkie,” Fluttershy said softly. “You aren’t, are you, Twilight?”
The lavender coated Unicorn shook her head slowly, her neck feeling slightly stiff from the after effects of the serum leaving her body. “Of course not,” she replied, her tone hinting at her irritation with the situation. Pinkie Pie let out a slightly dejected sigh as she stood back up. “The Earthling injected me with a paralysis serum after he broke free of the Binding spells Lyra and I were casting on him.” This drew several blank looks from her friends.
“Why exactly would you be so rude as to cast a Binding spell on a guest?” Rarity asked hesitantly. “Surely he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Yeah, he seemed like a perfectly nice feller’ to me,” Applejack added. “Ya know, not countin’ the fact that he didn’t talk much. ‘Least nothing we could understand.”
“We had to make sure he wouldn’t escape when we injected him with the Truthful Whisper,” Lyra explained. “We knew that he could understand us, which meant he could speak our language, but what we didn’t understand is why he blatantly refused to communicate properly.”
Twilight nodded in agreement. “And Princess Celestia did say in her letter to get him to talk somehow,” she reminded the others. “This was our last resort. Next to torture, that is, but that’s been outlawed since before Nightmare Moon was banished. Not to mention, that was no way to treat anypony. Even a total, alien stranger from who-knows-where.”
“But, forcibly holding him down with magic and planning to physically inject Truthful Whisper is a way to treat a guest?” Twilight was ready to voice a rebuttal against Rarity’s comment, when she realized she had none. The full weight of what she and Lyra had been about to do were starting to become recognized.
“So you bound him with your magic, then what?” Rainbow Dash asked, watching as Twilight forced her forelegs to move as feeling began to return to them.
“He broke free,” Lyra explained. “Which is next to impossible. But he did it like it was nothing. Then he used some weird form of telekinesis to take the Truthful Whisper and inject me with it before he paralyzed Twilight.”
“And then he spoke to us,” Twilight continued as the last of the paralysis serum began to work its way out of her body, allowing her to shakily sit up on her haunches. When no response was made, she clarified. “In Equestrian.” Surprised sounds erupted from the surrounding Element Bearers. “He made Lyra tell him about the letter. Despite the logical steps that Princess Celestia was taking in asking us to do this, he stressed frequently that he wasn’t a threat and that what she did was wrong.”
“’Not a threat?’” Rarity repeated incredulously. “Darling, he fought off a Manticore without a weapon, fell from the sky with only minor injuries, and to top it all off, broke not one, but two Binding spells! I’ve made dresses for Archmage Winter Song at the Magic University, and she’s admitted that even she can barely break a single Binding spell. How is he not a threat?”
“Any creature can choose to be a threat if they want,” Fluttershy said meekly. All eyes swiveled to stare at the demure mare. “I see it all the time with the animals I take care of. Most of the time, they’re just sweet little angels, but they can just as easily become vicious and mean if they feel like they have to be.”
Twilight nodded in agreement. “As I was saying, he said that he wasn’t a threat. But now, he said he is because Lyra and I were going to interrogate him.”
“Was it really necessary to use something like Truthful Whisper on him in the first place, Twi?” Applejack asked, shaking her head slightly. “Sure, he was a mite stubborn, but Ah’m sure he would’ve opened up sooner or later.”
Twilight’s ears flattened against her head in shame as she wobbled toward the table in the center of the room, where a roll of parchment, several quills and a bottle of ink were laid out. A magenta aura surrounded the mare’s horn as she approached, and an identical aura covered the objects on the table. The parchment unfurled itself, the stopper to the ink bottle unscrewed itself and the quill dipped daintily into the ink before hovering over the parchment as Twilight prepared to dictate a letter.
“Dear Princess Celestia…”
“Uh, Twilight? What are you doing?” Rainbow Dash asked, giving the lavender Unicorn a curious look.
“I’m writing to the Princess to let her know what happened when Lyra and I tried to make the Earthling talk,” Twilight explained. “I have to warn her that he’s probably on his way to Canterlot right now.”
“Why do you think he’d go to Canterlot?” Rarity asked. “Wouldn’t it be more sensible for him to leave however it is he came to arrive?”
“You didn’t see what he looked like after I told him that the Princess was the one who told us to get him to talk,” Lyra chimed in. “He looked like he was going to rip somepony’s head off.” She paused for a second as the others blanched at her word choice. “Wait, you don’t think he would, do you guys?”
Before any of the others could answer, a bright flash of blue light on the table next to the letter Twilight was writing drew their attention. Standing on top of the letter, was a small, semi-transparent, blue Earth Pony stallion. The stallion’s body gave off a soft glow and was decorated by a series of numbers that ran along his body like veins. On top of his head, nestled comfortably between his ears was a small top hat.
“Miss Sparkle would be correct in her assumption,” the glowing pony announced, his accent similar to that of the Ponies who lived in the Trottingham region of Equestria. “The... Earthling is heading towards Canterlot to confront Princess Celestia on what he learned here today from you two.” He glanced at Twilight and then at Lyra. Lyra managed to look ashamed, but Twilight was simply too fascinated with the glowing pony on her table to even be phased by what she had just been rightfully, and subtly, accused of.
“Who are you?” The lavender mare asked staring inquisitively at the pony. “Or, what are you? I suppose that would be the better question.”
“I am an Advanced Augmented Artificial Intelligence,” the pony said, bowing slightly to the mares present. The words merely caused confused expressions to appear on their faces. “You may call me Ed, and I suggest you listen very carefully to what I am about to say.”
My eyes snapped open as I felt the train begin to slow down. A quick glance out of the car’s side window confirmed that we were pulling into what I assumed was Canterlot Station. My body cracked my neck from side to side in anticipation. Rising to my feet, I took hold of the ‘NERF Bat of Stop’ in my left hand and rested it against my shoulder.
‘Show time...’ I thought nervously to myself. I had been pouring over the torrent of feelings for anything I could exploit, but to no avail. It was now impenetrable. There was literally nothing I could do at that moment except watch how everything would play out.
As the train came to a stop, I began to move toward the door leading out to the platform. Much to my internal surprise however, the door slid open before I was even halfway to it. A dull gray Unicorn dressed from head to hoof in golden armor stepped inside, his horn aglow with a lime-green light as he searched the car for something. If I had to venture a guess, it seemed as though the Princess did receive correspondence from Twilight.
I hoped she was ready for what the Manipulator-based device was about to unleash.
The Unicorn’s gaze fell onto me and he froze in place. I waved back at him. He opened his mouth in response, no doubt to call for reinforcements. So, with a flick of my wrist, I used telekinesis to shut his mouth, preventing him for calling out to his comrades, which were probably either out on the platform or searching the remainder of the train.
I wagged a finger at him in mock disappointment. The Unicorn’s eyes had narrowed into a battle ready glare and his horn lit up with a bright light before a blast of magic collided with my chest. Aside from causing me to stumble back slightly, the spell did virtually nothing to me. Though, at least then I could see it for myself what Ed was talking about earlier when he said Twilight’s magic communed with the Editor, rather than the bulky magic of other Unicorns.
The Unicorn guard looked stunned. Clearly he had expected his spell to do significantly more to me than it did. I grinned back at him, subconsciously causing the points of my sharper canines to glint in the dim lighting.
“Nice try,” I said, before swinging the NBoS between his eyes. The Unicorn winced and then became still as a statue as the enchantments in the bat paralyzed him. The guard teetered on his hooves for a second before falling over onto his side with a muffled thump, still in the same position he had been standing in.
Satisfied, my body dragged the poor soul over to a small storage compartment I had vaguely noticed earlier and stuffed him inside. Thankfully, the compartment was large enough to fit him. Actually, it could probably fit at least two more stallions about his size, even with that armor.
Dusting my hands off, I turned to leave, only to find two more guards waiting for me. Unlike their comrade now stuffed in storage, these two didn’t waste any time before they began firing spells at me. Lime-green light flooded the compartment as spell after spell attempted to take hold of me, only to be deflected by the invisible, magic resistant barrier the Editor was producing in the Equestrian Magical Perimeter.
I stood there and took what they dealt for several long seconds, before they both finally halted their assault to see if their attacks had had any effect on me. Their curiosity was rewarded by the NBoS being thrown at the closest one. The bat bounced off of the face of the guard, paralyzing him, before falling on the back of the other.
The second guard grunted in frustration as he tried to shove his partner off of him. I let out a snort of laughter at the sight. The guard glared up at me and lowered his horn again. Then the NBoS fell back down and struck him on the tip of his horn. The oncoming attack was immediately halted as the poor fool was paralyzed from horn to hoof before falling over.
Talk about anticlimactic.
Apparently satisfied that those guards would not impede me any further, my possessed form stepped off of the train and into Canterlot Station. From my position in my subconscious, I was fully expecting a battalion of Ponies to begin an epic assault on my person as I dispatched them with the NBoS.
However, I was surprised to find that my only opposition was a bench that had been placed directly in my path. For the most part, the station was empty, save for a janitor stallion that was in the process of waxing the floors. The stallion gave me a stern look as I stepped onto the platform and pointed the business end of a broom at me.
“Hey! You!”
My body immediately froze out of an automatic reflex. I turned to look at the stallion who in return glared back. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told those guardsfolk. I’m in the middle of waxing these floors. I don’t want your dirty hoof-foot-claw prints all over ‘em. So walk around the edges to get out, you hear me?” He growled in a scruffy tone.
From analyzing the reaction of the swirling emotions in my mind, they were half-tempted to tell him what they thought of his waxed floors, and give him several suggestions as to what he could do with that broom of his and where he could do it at. But it seemed the device’s quarrel wasn’t with this pony. It wasn’t like he was really in the way or trying to stop my shell of a former self.
The result was a stiff nod. “Understood, Mister…”
“Scruffy,” the janitor grunted, wiggling his thick, bushy white mustache at me. “The janitor.”
“Scruffy. Got it,” my body mumbled. The name sounded extremely familiar to me, but at that moment I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I had heard it before. Suddenly, my voice started speaking once more. “How do I get to the castle from here?”
“Just head for the big building with the towers and the walls with a bunch of guards on ‘em,” Scruffy replied. His gruff tone matched his name perfectly, from my point of view then. “It’s not that hard to miss.”
“Right…” For a moment, I thought the barbaric sensations coursing through my veins would be taken out on Scruffy. But eventually, my body just began making its’ way toward the exit. “Have fun waxing.”
“Have fun asking pointless questions,” Scruffy called back.
(Some time later...)
Finding the Castle was apparently harder than what I or the Manipulator-device had been expecting. As it turned out, Scruffy’s description of ‘the big building with the towers and the walls with a bunch of guards on ‘em’ described half of the city at that point.
Everywhere I looked I saw large ivory buildings, adorned with golden accents. Towers and parapets were a common architectural design to where the entire city looked like it could be part of the Castle. High-rising walls divided the city’s districts, with numerous guards patrolling on top of them.
Fortunately for that damnable device, there was a fair amount of cloud cover and the streets were dimly lit. Avoiding the rooftop guards was easy enough as long as I kept close to the buildings. And the frequent patrols consisting of one Pegasus and one Unicorn weren’t exactly quiet as they came within range of my senses, which allowed my form more than enough time to duck out of sight.
Though it would have been a whole hell of a lot simpler, and possibly quicker, to rampage through the city until I found the Castle; it seemed as if the device didn’t really feel like announcing my presence in such an obvious fashion. I didn’t have any doubts then that Princess Celestia knew I was coming. The guards searching the train I had been on had been a bit of a giveaway.
And if I was expected, then apparently there was no real point to hurrying, according to the logic algorithm of the device.
By now, the guards sent to search my train would’ve had to check in. Since the NERF Bat of Stop leaves its victims paralyzed for twelve hours, they wouldn’t have reported in. And if they were supposed to be the vanguard in the search for me, then someone must have sent in another group of guards to find out why the others hadn’t reported back yet.
‘Which means they know I’m running free in the city.’ I deduced as my body rounded another corner and, unsurprisingly, found myself down yet another alley. I pondered idly how many alleys could one city have?
Half an hour later, I stepped out from the maze of alleys that seemed to make up much of Canterlot and onto the main road. The Castle finally came into sight.
Canterlot Castle sat just beyond the outskirts of the city and slightly around the side of the mountain. A small path led from the edge of the city to a less than impressive gate and drawbridge, lined with some decorative foliage.
I had barely taken a step when half a dozen floodlights blazed to life and focused on me. The cobblestone street shook violently as numerous guards came charging out from their hiding places in the nearby buildings. Guards poured briefly out of the main gate and across the drawbridge before the gates were sealed tight and the bridge rose, leading to a very sharp drop down the side of the mountain.
Unicorns were the closest archetype of guards to me, their horns ablaze with various magic auras. High above, pegasi guards circled with what appeared to be weighted iron nets. Actually, I was more concerned about the nets than the prospect of dozens of magic wielding Ponies. If one of those nets hit me at just the right angle, I’d be out like a light.
Maybe that would be for the best. If I was incapacitated, then perhaps the rampage could be halted after all. For the first time in a long while, I prayed to the Fates that I would get hit by something hard enough to lose consciousness.
One of the guards, whom I assumed was higher ranking than the rest by the way he was shouting the various rights I had, wore silver armour instead of the common gold. Funnily enough, my rights didn’t extend far beyond ‘peaceful forgiveness begging session with the princess’. They didn’t even try to offer me my one phone call, or claim that anything I said could and would be used against me in a court of law.
I had to try and find some humour in the situation. Otherwise I was really going to start freaking out.
I stood there, putting on the most bored expression I could muster, yawning periodically and drumming my fingers against the NBoS. Needless to say, the stallion in charge continued to grow red in the face as he shouted on and on about how ‘escape is futile’, ‘give up now’, ‘come peacefully’, and all kinds of other stereotypes.
Strange. Usually it’s the henchman of a mad scientist or a dictator with an inappropriate Russian accent that use these kinds of clichés. Actually, it was kind of funny watching it come from a golden-armored, marshmallow-colored horse.
“Are you laughing at me?!” The stallion roared in disbelief. It took me a second to realize that apparently the device also thought that the stallion was amusing. As much as I hated the Manipulator-based technology, and I was planning on hunting it down and destroying it first opportunity I had, the fact that he found humor in something intrigued me. Was it governed by its own A.I.?
My laughter came to a sudden halt as the stallion blasted me with a burst of raw magic. I’m not sure if it was an actual spell, or some sort of defensive reflex Unicorns might have possessed. What I do know, is that the impact knocked me off balance and staggering for a few steps. The stallion looked stunned as I brushed myself off and stood straight.
“I don’t think that spell did what it was supposed to do,” I said cheekily. All around me, I could feel a wave of nervousness pass through the guards. They clearly didn’t think I could speak their language. “Care to try again?”
The second attack struck the ground at my feet as my body leapt into the air to avoid it. Conveniently, the force of the blast gave me an extra boost in momentum, allowing me to rise higher into the air. Twisting around mid-flight, I threw the NBoS like a javelin back at my attacker. The stallion either had terrible reflexes, or was too dumbstruck by my reflexes to move in time before the NBoS ‘bopped’ him on the snout, paralyzing him from head to hoof.
With a flick of my wrist, the NBoS flew back to my hand. I caught it and spun to face an onslaught of Pegasi guards.
The flying regiment came at me with deep-throated shouts and battle-cries, hurling their nets at me en masse as they did so. From my perspective, I saw a massive wall of steel wires and heavy weights headed straight for me. The device wanted to keep a sharp eye and dodge the aerial projectiles; I was silently hoping it would take me down before I reached the Princess.
Subconsciously, I tapped into the local magical parameter and drew forth an excessive amount of energy. The power flowed through the leylines in my body, coalescing in the palm of my free hand and taking form of a swirling ocean-blue ball of light.
“That armor looks like it can get pretty hot!” I called out. “Maybe you guys should cool off!” I drew my arm back and flung the orb at the nets. Magic met steel in a flash of bright blue light. Harnessing the confusing power of Chaos energy, the device changed the atomic configuration of the nets, transforming them into net-shaped piles of snow. The Ponies below and around me all stared in shock as I passed through the clouds of snow and crashed headlong into one of the Pegasi.
The two of us tumbled through the air before he managed to right himself and take off into the sky once more, this time with me on his back.
“Thanks for the lift buddy,” I patted my ride on the back of his head. “Here’s my stop.” I smacked him across the face with the NBoS and proceeded to use him as a springboard. I sailed up into the air once more, giving me a slight advantage as I viewed all of the obstacles before me.
On the ground below, the earthbound Ponies kept the circle formation they had surrounded me with before, only now they moved so that if I fell, I’d be ‘trapped’ again. ‘Captain Tomato McVeinthrob’ (the name I personally had given to the easily offended guard officer) was as red as his name now as he shouted orders and what I assumed were obscenities.
I glanced at my destination. From this height, I had a halfway decent view of the courtyard beyond the wall and gates. Near as I could tell, it was abandoned all the way up to the large, double doors that led inside what I assumed was an entrance hall. The doors were left wide open as well.
Even more conveniently, the majority of the Pegasi regiment seemed to be charging at me form the direction of the castle in an evenly spaced and relatively linear pattern.
And even ensnared in my mind, it was fairly obvious what was going to happen.
-WTIN-
I dusted myself as I landed gracefully on the other side of the gate. Behind me and the gate were the fruits of my labor. More specifically: twenty-seven pegasi all paralyzed by my ever faithful NERF Bat of Stop. They had all had the honor of serving as my mid-air stepping stones/springboards, which allowed me to easily bypass most of the guards with minimal effort on my part.
The courtyard was, as I had suspected, mostly abandoned. Only a pair of guards remained, both standing over the lever controls that most likely raised and lowered the gates. Both of them must have been new recruits or something, judging by the fact that they stood frozen in shock by my appearance rather than attempting to restrain me or raising the gates to let the other guards back in. Neither of which I wanted to deal with anymore.
One blink of the eye later, and both Ponies were on their sides, paralyzed and the controls to the gates were covered in a thick layer of ice that would take at least two to three days to weaken enough to open the gates.
Whistling a happy tune to myself (a tune that I didn’t even know, but at that time was singly it flawlessly), I strode toward the grand double doors on the castle’s exterior.
But of course, that’s when good old Murphy decided to rear his ugly head and throw his Law at me with the force of a cannonball. And by that, I mean that I was literally blown off my feet as a blast of magical energy hit me square in my stomach with the force of a cannonball. The impact lifted me off of my feet and threw me back toward the main gate. I bounced off of the ground four times in quick succession before landing on my feet and sliding to a stop.
My head snapped up, my vision zeroing in on my assailant. A lone Unicorn guard barred my path to the castle entrance. Unlike the other Unicorn guards I had seen, this one had a pure white coat. His hooves were deep cobalt in color, rather than matching his coat.
His armor was polished silver in color as well, signifying a high ranking. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, allowing his multi-toned, sapphire-blue mane to fall freely around his neck. A light rose-colored aura surrounded his horn as he fixated me with a glare. Despite the circumstances I was faced with, I couldn’t help but respect him; here was a guard that understood what it meant to be a soldier. He didn’t issue any orders. He didn’t give any options. He knew full well that he would have to fight and he had accepted that. I could see it in his eyes.
No words were shared between us as we charged at one another. The space between us rapidly shrank, my longer legs making up the distance his speed advantage gave him. Within seconds of us initially locking eyes, we were on top of one another. As I swung the NBoS down on his head, he cast a solid shield of rose-colored light between us.
To my surprise from my viewpoint, the shield actually deflected my attack. Having been unprepared for that, the blow caused me to stumble back and lose my footing. The Unicorn quickly took advantage of the opening he created and sent the shield crashing into me. The force of the blow lifted me into the air and sent me flying headfirst into the stone wall surrounding the castle grounds.
I felt the stone crack and shatter beneath my impact and could even feel the cracks appearing in a couple of my ribs. I fell from the wall and onto the ground, barely managing to land on my feet. A faint trickle of blood flowed down from somewhere under my hair, forcing me to blink rapidly to keep my vision clear.
The Unicorn was standing where he had hit me from, using his magic to maintain a pair of rotating light-shields around him as he kept a watchful eye on me. My internal eyebrows arched in surprise; thankfully I was numb to whatever sensations were happening, because my body was probably hurting like a motherfucker. ‘I guess this guard actually knows what he’s doing.’
I drew back the NBoS and threw it as hard as I could at the Unicorn. This is to say, I tapped into the Editor’s power reserves and threw it with the force of a speeding freight train. The Unicorn reacted swiftly. He conjured up four additional shields, each one thicker than the last, and placed all six between himself and the NBoS.
My weapon struck the first of the shields and shattered it instantly. The second through fourth shields also fell with almost no resistance. However, the fifth shield barely managed to break and the final shield held fast. All my attack had accomplished was driving the Unicorn several yards back, leaving deep gouges in the earth from where he tried to hold his ground.
Space bent before my will as I teleported to the NBoS, clutching it tightly and startling the guard. Victoriously, I brought my weapon down on his head, only for it to pass through a sparkling after-image. A flash of rose light behind me drew my attention.
The Unicorn had warped himself across the courtyard and already had three more shields circling him. He flashed me a smug grin and raised his right foreleg, making the universal gesture of ‘bring it on’ with his hoof.
I crouched low and sprang across the open ground in pursuit, appearing only as a faint blur as the distance between us vanished in the blink of an eye. I was feet from him when all three of his shields shifted from hovering vertically, to hovering horizontally. The Unicorn flashed me a grin, and his horn flared with light. The three shields all slammed into me, knocking me backwards.
A growl escaped my lips as I tumbled through the air, and in my anger, I threw the NBoS once more. This time, the Unicorn hadn’t been expecting the attack, and had no shields up. My weapon struck him on his horn and was split in half as the last of the paralyzing magic inside it stunned the guard.
I cracked my neck from side to side as I stood up from where the guard’s attack had left me and began to make my way over to him. I hadn’t actually expected any of the Guard to put up that much of a fight. That guy however; he sure had a lot more bite than I was expecting. And his shielding spells were above par as well. It had completely drained the enchantments on the NBoS just to paralyze him.
On the plus side, I couldn’t see any more red dots on my HUD’s radar, signifying that there were no one within a hundred yards that was hostile toward me. Well, except for the sea of red in one corner of the radar, but those were the guards trapped outside the gates. I didn’t have to worry about them in the near future. Combined with the guy’s shields covering the courtyard, I also didn’t even have to worry about the Pegasi launching an aerial attack on me.
“Thanks for the warm-up,” I muttered, casting aside the now broken and damaged NBoS, watching half-interestedly as it vanished in a puff of glittering blue smoke. “If you’ll excuse me, I have an unscheduled appointment with your princess.”
I turned to face the doors leading into the castle, and immediately found my way blocked by yet another pony. A mare this time, to be exact.
This mare stood out from all the others in a rather simple fashion. Firstly, her coat was the darkest shade I had seen on a pony thus far, being a deep sapphire-blue. Her mane and tail both were a moderate shade of cobalt, and had an ethereal quality to them. They even moved like there was a light breeze blowing through the night. And, for the record, there was no breeze. She stood taller than other Ponies I had seen, but what really caught my attention was that she wore an obsidian colored tiara, and had both wings and a horn.
Well, if the tiara wasn’t a dead giveaway, the wings and horn were.
My eyes, both physically and mentally, squinted at the individual before me. ’So, the Princess is done wasting pawns and has entered the game herself.’
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I had actually stopped reading this since the last chapter ended with the setup for a slasher fic. After giving it another chance, I find myself liking the war campaign with a Nerf bat
From prototype powers to a foam bat with a stun spell, not sure what ones better.
must have more
MMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111
MOAR
GIIIVVEEEE MEEE MOAAAARRRRR NAOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!
Moar?
and then a saucy rule 63 Barney saved the day.
This is good. Can't wait to have him back in control of his body again.
3864699
Indeed I did. The story is now all patched up, and ready to be released to the public eye. Took a while, but better late than never, I guess.
So OP, damnit! Them there powers are awesome, though!
I wish I had his powers! Hahah! 
aww man what a fu--- g cliffhanger hahahahaha. cant wait for more.
Yes... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The return of the editor!
(No he isn't god)
Or is he...
give us more, i beg of you to not leave this cliffhanger hanging too long
I came back to read this... I still feel it's missing something.
3867793
Really? Would you mind explaining to me (either here or in PM) on what feels missing?
3867801
Dumb Fish.
Magic Karpe to be precise.
Remember King? He was OP.
.
3867801
... Cyborg pirates?
I lost my mind when I read "NERF, Bat of Stop"
Great chapter :P
Well, this sure is a far cry from the original. It's good, but I'll miss the gore.
...
Unless you're planning on bringing it back latter on. Hmm...
student.st.ac.th/imwatchingu/1475584429_1369867738.jpg
pretty good
you have NO idea how hard i laughed. i gotta say, man. im liking the reboot of the story. i thought it was dead for a while, but you proved me wrong. and really? thats your profile pic? i always listened to indestructible while reading this on it s first run so i find that very hilarious. i love it, keep up the good work, and MOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRR!!!!!!!!!
