The Animation Bureau

by Chaotic Dreams

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“…So that’s why we need to know of any ‘maddening secrets’ you may have learned after you died,” Lauren finished. “If we don’t find these First Ones, then all of reality may cease to exist. The problem is we don’t even have any clues as to where to look for them beyond ‘at the End of Time.’”

Goku sat silently for a moment, deep in thought. For one of the first times since Lauren had met the sayin warrior, he looked genuinely frightened.

“I wish I could help you,” Goku sighed at last. “But I’m afraid the only secrets I learned after death were fighting techniques.”

“I feared that might be the case,” Lauren sighed as well. “After all, this is one of the few Animated worlds to have a definitively known afterlife. Not many secrets in the definitive.”

“But, that doesn’t necessarily mean there AREN’T any maddening secrets up there,” Goku smiled, brightening up. “King Kai might have all kinds of other secrets he didn’t tell me—we were kind of pressed for time during my training so that I could get back to help defend the Earth from Vegeta. Why don’t we ask King Kai?”

“Great!” Lauren exclaimed, happy to finally get what might be a lead on these elusive First Ones. “How do we get to him?”

“We don’t,” Goku informed her. “The only way I know of to physically get to King Kai’s planet is to, well, die. But King Kai and I can communicate telepathically. I’ll see if he’s available—I’m certain that once he hears the situation, he’ll be more than happy to help.”

“Are you two going to get on with torturing or killing me or whatever already?!” yelled an indignant voice, breaking into Lauren and Goku’s conversation. “I’ve already been humiliated enough today by being defeated—and by a low-class wretch and his animal friends! Don’t damage my dignity any further by just leaving me here to rot! I refuse to be ignored! I’m the prince, after all!”

Lauren sighed, and then called over her shoulder “Can’t you keep quiet for five minutes?! Why do you want us to torture you or kill you whatever anyway?!”

“According to the rules of galactic battle, the victor chooses how to dispose of the loser,” Vegeta spat. “And, though I don’t know how, you’re the victors here. Don’t deny me the basic rights of dying honorably at the hands—er, paws…hooves?—of my defeaters!”

“Things must really be messed up out there in ‘galactic’ space,” Lauren commented, Goku agreeing with a nod. “Anyway, we’d really appreciate you asking this King Kai about the First Ones. We need any clues we can get.”

“Sure thing,” Goku nodded, then closed his eyes and seemed to be in deep concentration. While the sayin warrior established his telepathic communication link with King Kai in the afterlife, Lauren trotted over to where Vegeta was still thrashing violently—and uselessly—in a tangled heap of the chains attached to Kratos’ blades. Applejack smirked smugly, and the rest of the team simply giggled at the sayin prince’s rage.

“How’s the prisoner?” Lauren inquired, unable to hold back a smile herself.

“He’s just fine!” Pinkie Pie informed her.

“I know we’re not actually gonna kill him or anything,” Applejack noted. “But what are we gonna do with him, anyway?”

“Good question,” Lauren mused. “And, in a way, it actually seems crueler to leave him alive.”

“Of course it’s crueler to leave me alive, you overgrown horse!” Vegeta shouted. “It’s barbaric to ignore galactic battle rules!”

“More barbaric than following them?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“There’s no reasoning with you people, is there?!” Vegeta sighed exasperatedly. “Not even Freeza would deny a warrior his most basic rights!”

“Well, in the meantime, at least it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere while we decide,” Lauren commented. “And I’d stop struggling if I were you, Vegeta. Those chains helped slay gods before—I’m more than certain they can hold you for as long as we want.”

“Lies!” Vegeta spat. “Only Freeza has that kind of power!”

“Who is this ‘Freezer’ guy anyway?” Pinkie asked.

“Not ‘Freezer,’” Vegeta roared. “It’s ‘Freeza!’ He’s—”

“Hey Lauren!” Goku called. “I’ve made connection! But, unfortunately, I also have some bad news…”

“What is it, Goku?” Lauren inquired, trotting back over to her sayin friend.

“Well, King Kai tells me that he definitely has the secrets you’re looking for,” Goku explained, looking nervous. “But he says that the only way to really tell you about them is to show you—you’ll have to go to his planet in the afterlife.”

“But you said—” Lauren started, then cut herself off. “But that defeats the purpose! How are we supposed to make use of the secrets of the First Ones if we’re stuck in this world’s afterlife? How can we save reality if the only way to learn these secrets is to die?”

“That’s the thing,” Goku went on. “In this universe, death is fickle. If we wish on the Dragon Balls, then we can bring whoever we send to King Kai’s planet back to life after they’ve learned the secrets.”

“Is that…really the only way?” asked a small voice. Lauran and Goku turned to see Fluttershy, who had spoken, and the other ponies crowded around them. Apparently they had been listening the whole time. “We have to die?”

“Well, uh…” Goku stammered. Then, realizing there was no other way around it, “Yeah. But with the Dragon Balls we can wish the dead back to life! There’s one other thing, though. Since Piccolo was killed in our fight, the Dragon Balls on Earth will have stopped working. That means we’ll have to go to Piccolo’s home planet and use their Dragon Balls to perform the wish.”

Lauren paused for a moment, deep in thought. Then, finally, she said “If dying, even for a little while, is the only way to save reality, then it sounds like we’ll have to do it.”

“I wish there was another way,” Goku apologized profusely. “But King Kai insisted…”

Lauren, and the rest of the team, gulped. Fluttershy looked like she was about to cry, and even Rainbow Dash looked highly unnerved.

“So…” Twilight broke the silence at last. “How do we go about it?”

Lauren turned to face Vegeta, still struggling in the chains out of earshot.

“We can’t kill ourselves, or get a friend to do it,” Lauren surmised. “I doubt any of us could manage that. But I think I know who could.”

The rest of the team turned to face Vegeta.

“Kind of ironic,” Rainbow laughed humorlessly. “Even though we beat him, he still gets to kill us anyway.”

“Not all of us,” Lauren interjected. “We only need to send one representative—”

“Just one?!” Applejack snorted. “No way!”

“Yeah, we’re not going to force only one of to go through with this!” Rainbow Dash added.

“We stick together,” Twilight affirmed. “Even in death.”

The other ponies and Bugs all added confirmations of their own. Lauren, smiling despite the tears brimming in her eyes at the horrors the team would have to face—even if they were facing them together—nodded silently.

“Oh, uh, one last thing,” Goku stepped in. “You can’t make the same wish twice, and I’ve already been brought back once. I’m afraid I’ll have to sit this one out. But, if there’s anything in the land of the living I could do to help you guys, I’d be more than happy to.”

“Thank you, Goku,” Lauren said. “We will need somepony to go up to Piccolo’s home planet and use those Dragon Balls to bring us back. Could you do that for us?”

“Sure thing,” Goku nodded.

“Girls?” Lauren inquired, then turning to face her team. “Prepare yourselves. This isn’t going to be a pleasant experience.”

Lauren trotted back over to Vegeta, who stopped struggling when he saw her come over, her sharp horn glinting in the sunlight.

“So, finally decided to kill me, eh?” Vegeta laughed darkly, eyeing the new alicorn’s horn. “It’s good to see you’ve come to your senses at last. I must admit, I never expected to go out at the hands—er, hooves—of a creature such as yourself, but I suppose that you and your team must truly be a force to be messed with if you defeated me so quickly.”

“Not quite,” Lauren stated. “It’s actually kind of the other way around. I want to make a deal with you. If you promise to bring Goku to the home planet of Piccolo—the green guy you killed—then we’ll let you kill us.”

Vegeta stopped stock still.

“What?” the sayin prince asked flatly.

“We’ll let you kill all of us besides Goku if you promise to take him to the planet where the other Dragon Balls are,” Lauren repeated. “Will you do it?”

“Do you release me from the bonds of battle?” Vegeta asked, sounding formal, like he was reciting something.

“We do, if you agree to our terms,” Lauren answered.

“Then by all means, untie me!” Vegeta laughed, actually mirthful this time. “I can’t believe this! I get to kill you all after all! Wait—why DO you want me to kill you, anyway?”

“No questions,” Lauren commanded. “Just make with the murder.”

“Suit yourself,” Vegeta laughed again. Lauren bent down and picked up the chains binding the sayin prince in her mouth, gave them a tug, and spun Vegeta out of his tangle. The sayin prince dusted himself off and clenched his fists, turning to face Lauren, Bugs, and the ponies who had rushed up beside her. “Now, prepare to die!”

Vegeta rose into the air, his hands beginning to glow as spheres of energy formed around them. The sayin prince raised his hands over his head, combining the two orbs of light into one burning fireball of pure energy, laughing maniacally all the while.

Lauren and the ponies bunched up together, each putting their forelegs around one another in what they hoped wouldn’t be a final hug goodbye. Fluttershy was openly crying now, and Rainbow Dash shivered with fear. Goku stood by, unsure of whether to watch, but unable to tear his eyes away.

“Don’t worry, Bugs,” Lauren whispered. “Don’t worry, my little ponies. We’ll see each other on the other side.”

“We better,” Rarity sniffed. “I couldn’t bear to wake up on the other side without you all!”

The rest of the team nodded their agreement.

Vegeta had fully charged his attack now, his orb of energy gigantic and blotting out the sun in brightness. Still laughing like a child at Christmas, the sayin prince tilted his arms back and threw the ball of burning energy with all his might at the team. Time seemed to slow down as the raging energy crashed into their all-too-mortal forms, cascading around them, jabbing through their weak flesh, like a star engulfing paper dolls. Blood was vaporized, flesh was turned to dust that blew away on the wind, and the cries of the dying were lost to the resounding explosion that echoed throughout the battleground as Vegeta’s attack slammed through the other side of the team and into the earth, scorching a crater into it that sent cracks slithering across the ground for miles around.

At first, there was darkness. Then, there was light. Lauren tentatively opened her eyes, squinted at first, and then fully through her lids open to see—

“WHAT?!” Lauren whinnied. “What the—but—”

There, before her, was an astonished looking Vegeta and an even more astonished looking Goku. Lauren jerked her head around, looking wildly at the crater the sayin prince had inflicted on the battlefield, unbelieving that she could still be there and not…somewhere else.

Then, Lauren realized, the others were gone. There wasn’t so much as a speck of ash left of her pony friends—they had all been exterminated.

But she had not been. There wasn’t a scratch on the new alicorn.

“I was afraid that might happen,” said a voice Lauren hadn’t been expecting to hear—not in this life, anyway. The new alicorn turned abruptly to see Bugs, still completely intact and none the worse for wear, pick himself off the crater’s floor and dust the dirt off his unharmed business suit. “I thought that since this Animated world had very specific rules about death, unlike most Animated worlds, that we might be able to die here. But it seems that our ties to the Animation schemes of our original Animated worlds are too strong to allow that. We’re just as immortal here as we are anywhere else.”

“You mean, they died but we didn’t?!” Lauren gasped. Then, smacking her face with her hoof, Lauren choked back a sob. “Our friends—they’re up there, all alone, and we can’t even go with them?! I knew I was immortal now, but I didn’t think I was THAT immortal!”

“Immortality isn’t always fun,” Bugs said sadly. “In fact, unless you surround yourself with other immortals, it’s downright lonely. Thankfully, most Animated beings are immortal anyway, but when you make friends with the few that aren’t… let’s just say that it seldom ends well.”

“Wait! We can still die—we can use thinner—” Lauren tried to suggest, before realizing that that too wouldn’t work. Not that thinner couldn’t kill the Animated, but that a relatively self-sufficient and independent-minded universe such as this one wouldn’t allow for thinner within it unless an Agent brought the stuff along for an absolutely necessary mission. And, seeing as this world was so self-sufficient, Agents seldom had to come here—this was only Lauren’s second time here, in fact—and all Agents would be cut off from this world when the portals connected to the Bureau’s main system were fried.

Bugs placed a consoling arm around Lauren’s shoulders.

“Don’t worry,” Bugs told her. “I’ve heard about this Goku fella—from you and from my own connections—and he’s a good guy who can get what needs to be done, done. I’m sure he’ll deliver for us.”

“You’re right,” Lauren sniffed, wiping her eyes. “You’re right, Bugs. Goku will help us find the Dragon Balls on Piccolo’s home world, and everything will be alright.”

Lauren hoped. It had to be alright. Otherwise…well, there wouldn’t be an otherwise.

“Alright, Vegeta,” Goku called up to the still-hovering sayin prince overhead. “We fulfilled our part of the deal—now it’s your turn.”

“I suppose it is, isn’t it?” Vegeta smirked. “But now I’m having second thoughts. In fact, I don’t think I’ll take you to Namek—you’re dearly departed green friend’s home planet—after all.”

“We had a deal!” Lauren shouted angrily, surprising everyone present. Her eyes were red, and the air seemed to shimmer around the alicorn as she spoke.

“We did indeed, my little pony,” Vegeta continued to smirk after he had gotten over and tried to hide his sudden fear at Lauren’s outburst. “But, now that over half of your team is dead, there’s no real way for you to enforce my partaking in our little agreement. And so, I bid you adieu!”

With a flash of light, Vegeta skyrocketed and blasted off to the horizon.

“Why that dirty, no good—” Lauren murmured, the shimmers in the air around her beginning to grow in intensity. “Lying, cheating, and backstabbing MOTHERBUCKER!”

Lauren spread her wings, galloped forward, and launched herself into the sky in hot pursuit—only to fall flat on her stomach. Lauren snorted angrily and tried again, only to face the same result, her wings flapping furiously but finding no purchase. She may have been a young adult alicorn, but she was as adept at flight as a newborn pegasus.

“Lauren, we can’t go after him,” Goku tried to calm his friend down. “There’s no telling where he is by now.”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, mortal!” Lauren snapped, pounding the ground with her front hoof, causing the earth to rumble in response. Tears burst from Lauren’s eyes as she broke down at last, her will defeated, her spirit broken. The alicorn fell to the ground, weeping, powerless to save her friends, powerless to even avenge them. Then, in a fit of blind yet muted anger, just to get something out of her system, the alicorn traced Vegeta’s name in the dirt in front of her and then proceeded to angrily cross it out, scribbling the word into an incomprehensible jumble of lines. But that wasn’t enough. Lauren began to stamp on the name with her front hooves, then, with a final blow, slammed a hoof into the center of the scribble. This single act sent out a wave of power the likes of which nobody present—not even Goku—had ever felt before. The ground shook once more, only this time cracks shot out in a spider-web from the point of impact, racing across the ground.

Lauren had released all the anger she could, but it didn’t help. Not one bit. All the rage in the world couldn’t bring her friends back. Lauren’s face fell into her hooves and she wept.

BOOM.

A bright flash lit up the sky, like a fireworks display doing a rather impressive imitation of a supernova. The lights shot out across from the far horizon, flinging miniature bits and pieces of flaming debris like comets falling to Earth. The comets began impacting all around the battlefield, smashing into mountains and punching new craters into the earth. Goku tried to dodge as many as he could, but there were many, littering down from the sky like a hailstorm on fire. Bugs expertly sidestepped quite a few as well, simply because though he may be immortal he could still feel pain and certainly didn’t wish to feel a falling star crashing his face in. Lauren did nothing, didn’t so much as flinch, even as sparks singed her fur and mane and poked holes in the ground all around her.

Lauren didn’t so much as feel a thing. She couldn’t die. She couldn’t even feel pain. So what was the point in dodging the inevitably harmless?

Lauren did look up, however, when a mechanical pinging sound assaulted her ears. It was among the things Lauren expected least to hear—the sound of Vegeta’s scouter reading somepony’s power level. And if Vegeta’s scouter was back, then that meant the sayin prince was as well, and that meant she could introduce her horn to his inner entrails.

Lauren lifted her head, eyes glowing red, but they simmered back to normal in shocked surprise when the saw, instead of Vegeta, a small piece of him. His head, in fact—severed at the neck and looking like it had been through the heart of the Sun, though somehow the scouter was still intact on the sayin prince’s head, pointing straight at Lauren.

“What the…” Lauren uttered, unsure of what she was seeing. Then, looking around, Lauren saw that Vegeta’s head wasn’t the only body part that had made it to the party. In fact, all of the shooting stars appeared to be smoldering remains of the sayin prince’s dismembered and exploded form.

Lauren’s eyes swept the landscape, taking in all the destruction the remains of a single person had caused. If just pieces of Vegeta had done this to the environment, then what had possibly been powerful enough to take out the sayin prince himself?

As Lauren’s eyes moved over the burning, pockmarked wasteland, though, her eyes caught sight of a scribbled mass in the dirt—where she had viciously erased Vegeta’s name.

And the puzzle piece fell into place.

“No…” Lauren announced. “No, it can’t be—that’s not possible—”

“Lauren!” Bugs shouted, rushing over. “I saw—I saw what you just did—”

“I killed him,” Lauren whispered to herself, before a smile nearly split her muzzle in two and the alicorn began laughing. “I killed him! TAKE THAT, YOU HEARTLESS MOTHERBUCKER!”

“You mean…YOU did this?!” Goku asked, incredulous, as he flew over to the group. “But…how?!”

“It must have been my cutie mark!” Lauren realized.

“Your what?” Goku questioned, thoroughly confused.

Lauren pointed a wingtip to the inkwell and quill emblazoned on her flank.

“According to my friends, a cutie mark reflects a pony’s special talent,” Lauren explained. “I thought this meant I was supposed to be a writer, which didn’t make sense, because I never was much one for writing—I was always a mare of action. But that’s not what my cutie mark meant at all. It didn’t mean ‘writer.’ It meant ‘reality writer.’”

“Huh?” Goku uttered, still not understanding.

Lauren didn’t blame him—she could hardly believe it herself.

Lauren pointed with her horn to the scribbled mass in the dirt.

“I was so mad at Vegeta, but I couldn’t do anything to stop him,” Lauren went on. “So I wrote his name in the dirt and then crossed it out—a lot. I didn’t even know why I was doing it, it must have just been some kind of coping mechanism for getting my anger out, but when I crossed out Vegeta’s name and then proceeded to do all kinds of angry things to it, they must have happened to the real person as well!”

“You mean, what you wrote…became true?!” Goku gasped.

“I think so,” Lauren confirmed.

“And I think I know why,” Bugs cut in, picking up the scouter off Vegeta’s head, careful not to actually touch the flayed flesh of the smoldering skull. “This thing is supposed to tell how powerful somebody is, right? Well, this thing has an image of Lauren on it, so she must have been the last person it scanned. According to Vegeta, it usually gave out numbers to tell how strong somebody was—and you’ll never believe the number Lauren’s been assigned.”

“What is it?” Goku inquired.

“Let’s just say that, Lauren, you have truly become the Animated goddess you were turned into,” Bugs announced, flipping the scouter to show a sideways eight—the symbol for infinity.

Goku’s jaw simply dropped, and he was silent.

“I…inf…infinity…” Lauren mouthed, but said nothing. Then, finally, realizing what the full implications of that number meant, the alicorn—not the ‘new’ alicorn anymore, just THE alicorn—shouted “But I don’t want to be a goddess!”

“I know, Lauren,” Bugs told her. “But it doesn’t look like you have much of a choice in the matter. You’re still you, but you’re already starting to act like an Animated goddess as well.”

“What…but, no I’m not!” Lauren insisted. Then, remembering what she had said to Goku, the alicorn turned to her sayin friend and “Goku! I’m so sorry—I don’t know what came over me—”

“It’s alright, Lauren ,” Goku said slowly, seeming to be coming out of his daze at last. “I know that was the anger talking, not you.”

“Nevertheless,” Bugs went on. “That ‘anger’ is just going to get worse. And, personally, I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Being Animated is a great gift, Lauren.”

“I don’t WANT this ‘gift!’” Lauren spat. “I’m a friend to Animation; I don’t want to actually BE Animated! I want to be human—I want to be with Craig!”

“So that’s what this is about,” Bugs realized. “Well, there are probably ways to turn him Animated too, you know. In fact, while we’re at it, we could turn the whole human race Animated!”

Lauren stopped cold.

“No,” she said firmly to her godfather. “No, that is not going to happen. They all deserve a choice, and even if I’m not human anymore, I deserve one too. And I choose to be human.”

“But, Lauren—” Bugs began again.

“No!” Lauren cut him off angrily, just as much to shut out her own fears of actually starting to want to agree with Bugs as to enforce her already-made-up mind. At least, she HOPED that it was made up. Then, Lauren brightened up as she realized something. Something important. “Hey—if I can kill with this ‘rewriting reality’ thing, then maybe I can bring people back to life with it too!”

Before any of her friends could say anything, Lauren launched herself at the dirt and began tracing the names of her friends, followed by the phrase ‘ARE ALIVE.’

Lauren closed her eyes, biting her lip, hoping—no, praying—that it would work.

After a moment, the alicorn squinted her eyes open, but saw nothing but Goku and Bugs looking sorrowfully back at her.

“Sometimes even gods can have trouble bringing back the dead,” Bugs said apologetically. “I guess that the only way for us to get them back really would have been those Dragon Balls.”

“But without Vegeta, we’ll never get there,” Goku sighed.

Lauren suddenly brightened up instantly.

“No, wait!” the alicorn realized, laughing. “We can still find them!”

Lauren put her hoof in the dirt once more, tracing her own name as well as the names of her living friends, followed by the phrase ‘ARE ON NAMEK.’

There was a flash, and then a cold wind blew across the empty battlefield. Some forty-three million light years away, some very surprised Namekians discovered a tall rabbit in a business suit, a shocked sayin warrior, and a laughing alicorn in their melon patch.

. . .

Comments

[SkyStream]

lol..... Infinity symbol.... that was so obvious.... and Lauren finally knows of her true powers

[joseph2435]

Goku needs to ask Lauren for a muffin button...

[Venatus75]

its over.NINE THOU- wait WHAT? FUCKING INFINITE? Im out bros.
Aweso
e chapter, meep it up man

[Xenotype]

406318

I totally just read that as "mutton buffin"
Also go Lauren! I'm waiting for her to use the ROYAL CANTERLOT VOICE instinctively, Then weaponize it Ala Skyrim.

[Alphaetus_Prime]

Which infinity is it? Countable or uncountable?

[avatoa]

Uh, am I the only person worried about what is going to happen with Freeza coming to Namek and Vegeta being dead all without Goku training during the trip through space in order to be strong enough to take on Freeza and the Ginyu Force? I mean continuity is pretty much screwed, isn't it?

[EvilEnchantress]

407038 that occured twice in the story I started one was because my oc did so the second was because the oc gave the cmc special royal canterlot voice amulets

[Blaze Song]

Soooo.... She's has.. Death Note like powers? ... write it down thend cross it out.. kaboom?... AWESOME!