Down down down down
Down down down down
Down
The lift doors open… Heh. The room beyond looks like the place SHADE were keeping Lynne. In place of the machinery they were using is a series of coloured rings. Inner, mid and outer, one layer of each colour of the emotional spectrum, red at the top and violet at the bottom. And inside them a ball of… Grey. And I
know it should be white. Several of the inner rings are afflicted too, dulled and.. slightly melted. I step out of the lift and cautiously start walking a circle of the room.
I find myself glancing at the place I killed Esak, and for a moment his body flickers into view.
Hm.
"What is it?"
Luna has taken a few steps closer, though thankfully she's got more sense than to actually
touch the thing.
"The bands are formed from my emotions. Red, for hate and anger. Orange, for avarice. Yellow, for fear. Green, for will. Blue, for hope. Indigo, for compassion. Violet for love. A pearl of universal life force contains a fragment of the Anti-Life Equation."
"And what is that?"
"Nobody's completely certain, praise the Source. There are certain… Forms of
suffering, which can… Take on a pseudo-life of their own. I suppose it's a little like how the abstract concept of 'loyalty' can, in the hooves of a profoundly loyal pony, become part of a harmonious Rainbow of Fixing. This is… A fragment, one my father chose to bestow upon me as… What I'm forced to assume was a gesture of respect and affirmation."
"What is it?"
"Have you ever wanted something, striven for something with all your might, and
failed, failed completely and known a misery of a depth that you could not have known if you had never made that effort?"
She
shivers, then nods.
"Imagine feeling that misery for
everything. Imagine.. being convinced that even the successes were failures. Imagine being made incapable of thinking that things were otherwise, that they had ever been otherwise, that they
could ever be otherwise. That is what this fragment does."
"And… The whole?"
"Father believes that it will cause the entire universe to become an extension of his being; that it will make him not a New God but simply
God. Having known this.. piece, I shudder to imagine what he'd have to
become to make that happen."
"And you believe that the Elements of Harmony could remove it."
"I hope that the Elements of Harmony will
destroy it. But I'd take removing it. See how the cage is failing?"
"We see it." She takes a small step closer. "How long will it take?"
"Don't know. I actually
used the blasted thing a little while ago and I think
that's where the decay of the inner ring came from. But it's increasing and I don't know how to stop it. Because it's not just a matter of recreating the rings. It's
literally eating the emotion I put into them. Making them part of it. Adapting, so that I'll come to see those emotional bonds as harmful to myself."
I stomp towards her.
"And this is just a
fragment. Do you understand!? Your country may have a way to unmake the
entire Anti-Life! Your entire species could devote their existences into doing nothing but fulfilling that goal and their lives would have been more worthy than they would had they devoted themselves to
any other goal. And they don't
need to.
Six members of your species have to give me
five bucking minutes. And then I'm out of their hair."
"That… Is a sound argument. And Sister's former apprentice?"
"Sunset wants to turn herself into an alicorn using a technique she discovered for herself while Celestia watches. She believes that doing so will conclusively prove Celestia
wrong, and then Celestia will either admit it or prove herself unworthy of Sunset's devotion."
"She did not seem devout."
"On my world, Sunset has access to any arcane text she wants. Any arcane device she wants. She has a mentor who is delighted by her scholarship, students of her own, and tasks from me to keep her on her toes. She has everything she ever wanted from Celestia,
and she bothered coming back. Why?"
"Because she is not as angry as she appears."
"No, her anger is genuine. But as much as she hates Celestia, she loves her too. In her mind, Celestia's rejection is an aber…" I look past Luna to… There's a small… Ball, like a hole to a starry sky, floating just behind her. "Aberration. What's.. that?"
The ball floats towards the cage, a pale blue aura-. She's bypassing my locks? Okay, yes, she's rather good at dream magic, that's expected. But I'm looking at it and I still can't feel it.
"
No!
Stop!" Luna's staring at it in fear. "We did not make you to torment
others!"
"Luna, is that yours?"
It's getting closer to the emotional bindings, floating up past hope and will, slowing at fear and stopping at avarice.
The pearl within the bindings
undulates.
"
Luna."
"It is called the
Tantabus. We made it that We might never forget Our misdeeds and failings."
"What does it do?"
"It makes Us relive them each night. We do not-."
I turn my head towards her. "
Why would you make something like that?"
"It is what We deserve. We desired Our ponies' reverence so much that We were driven mad by its lack."
Oh shit.
"Your desire for something was strong, and you were hurt for it."
"We were driven
mad for it. We became a monster-."
The Tantabus darts
in, the outer orange ring
shattering and
failing! The greying pearl stretches out to meet it, the inner ring evaporating at its approach.
"Luna,
run." Here I-.
I blink. Here I-.
My God Speech. I can't do it.
Without that-.
"What horror is occurring?"
"You've felt it, the form of suffering this fragment relates to. And you invested that feeling in this Tantabus thing. The barrier's about to fail and there's nothing we can do to stop it. I'm no longer blocking your magic. Can you escape?"
She tilts her head slightly. "Neigh, We cannot."
The orange hoop fails first, the Tantabus floating through the gap and touching the misshapen grey mass inside. It.. flows over the shape's outer surface, giving it new definition and substance.
The other rings
shatter in a blast that knocks us both into the wall behind us!
And a vaguely horse-shaped
thing steps forth.
"Life = Pain."
