Chapter 17:

The Only One He Fears

Pain.

Pain is what we live for. Pain is what we die for. We live to experience new things, to feel the pains of making a serious mistake, so we can learn from it. We die when we can't handle the pain any longer, and wish to have that eternal rest take it away.

Immortal beings, however, are the most tolerant of pain. They live without an end, and thus experience endless amounts of pain.

Pain is what makes us human. Pain is what gives us reason. Too much of it, however, can drive you to the brink of despair. It can drive you to put too much pain on someone else.

Pain isn't a bad thing.

It's just something we have to deal with.

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"Princess, what are you doing?" Twilight asked, watching Omnius carefully, as he started trying to attack Rainbow Dash. Her speed was letting her avoid the worst of the attacks, but she already had a series of long, shallow cuts on her belly, and it looked as if she were quickly tiring.

"Calling a friend," Celestia said, her horn's light intensifying.

Omnius lunged forth, finally landing a solid hit on Dash's wings, sending her spinning through the air. She slammed into the cavern wall, and slumped to the ground, unconscious.

"No! Rainbow!" Fluttershy screamed, throwing herself between Dash and Omnius. She gazed fearfully at what was once one of her closest friends, and she trembled, horrified at the look in his eyes.

"P-please," she spoke, tears cascading down her face. He stopped, and tilted his head, as if trying to remember something. Seizing her chance, Fluttershy continued. "T-this isn't like you! You'd never want to hurt anypony!"

Omnius' eyes narrowed, and he crouched down, his muscles visible tensing for what was unmistakably a hunter's pounce. Fluttershy's eyes widened, but her fear kept her rooted to where she was standing.

And then, a blinding light filled the entire cavern, causing Omnius to flinch, and instinctively cover his eyes. Fluttershy took the opportunity to grab Dash and pull her to safety, glancing over her shoulders at Omnius as she went-

And stopped mid-flight, her jaw dropping in shock. There, bathed in a soft pink glow, was a shining, translucent figure. Clothed in white robes with red trimming, and clutching a worn, wooden staff, Fluttershy realized that she had seen the figure before…

She had seen her in Omnius' memories…

In a picture on his mantle…

It was Jenna.

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"Hello, Nathan," Jenna said softly, smiling sadly. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" She lifted a ghostly hand to my cheek, and the light from it caused the shadows around my face to disappear.

"Jen…" I murmured, the pain temporarily gone. I reached my hand up to hers, and grasped it tightly, not believing what I was seeing. "Are…I thought…but-"

She shook her head, and came closer to me, her robes shifting slightly. "No, Nathan. I am not alive…"

Shaking my head, I felt tears start to fall down my face rapidly, and my eyesight blurred. "Then how are you here?"

"Princess Celestia awoke me from my rest," She said simply. "She told me that you were in trouble, and that you were in pain…I did not imagine that you were in this much pain though…"

"It hurts," I mumbled, as the shadows crept back onto me, each one sending fresh waves of pain throughout my body.

Jenna hushed me, and wrapped her arms around me in a hug. I tried to hug her back, but stopped when I saw that my claws were still there, shining evilly in Jenna's warm glow.

"Omnius…" She pulled back, and looked at me with her emerald eyes.

"I can't hold it back much longer…please," I whispered, clasping my hands against my head. "Get everyone out of here! I don't want to hurt them!"

"…No. Omnius, listen to me: you have one shot." I looked at her, surprised. "I know that Torrentican did this to you. But now, you can turn this against him! You can find him, and make sure that he never does this to anyone again!"

"How?" I asked. "I don't know where he is…"

Jenna closed her mouth, her brow furrowed in worry. My head started to hurt again, and thoughts of spreading my pain to others slowly replaced any rational thought I had regained while being near Jenna.

"I don't know," She finally answered. She turned to look at the ponies, who were watching us in a mixture of fear and sadness. "There has to be a way to find him."

A low whistle rang through the cavern, tearing me away from my slowly darkening thoughts. Looking around, I spotted a grey-cloaked figure that was standing next to one of the holes I had blasted in the walls earlier. Slowly, she lifted an earth-brown hand, and beckoned to me, urging me to come over to her.

Walking over to her, as if in a trance, I dimly heard the others ask me what I was doing. Wait…don't they see her? They can see Jenna, why can't they see…no, it can't be.

The figure traced a large circle on the wall, and stepped aside, silently pointing at the spot on the cavern wall. In a low, musical voice, she whispered, "You can find your enemy through there...May you tip the scales back into their proper place, Traveler."

"Neutra?"

Suddenly, she pushed me through the wall, and I heard the girls scream.

The Aura took full control then, and I raced through the tunnel I found myself in, sensing that the source of my pain was near.

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"Where did he go?" Applejack asked fearfully, rapidly pressing against the wall he had fallen through. The others were doing the same, minus Celestia, and Jenna, who were watching calmly.

"You saw her too?" Jenna asked the Princess.

"Indeed. I'm surprised she didn't reveal herself earlier."

"She works in mysterious ways."

Celestia nodded, and then spotted movement out of the corner of her vision. Turning, she saw that a large section of the wall had been replaced by a large pane of shining mirror, sending back the Sun Princess' surprised gaze at her.

"Girls, it's no use," she finally said, stopping the girls from their frantic search. "Omnius will have to deal with Torrentican on his own now."

"But he's not in control of himself!" Twilight said, looking from her mentor back to the wall. "What if he doesn't-"

"Twilight Sparkle?" Jenna interrupted. "I think there is something that you should hear."

Reluctantly, the girls all stopped searching, and made their way to where Jenna stood. Smiling, she said, "I know that I have never met you, but you all know me from Omnius, I assume?"

They all nodded, Pinkie saying, "You were his special somepony! Or, someone in this case!"

Jenna laughed, and sat down on her knees. "Has Omnius ever told you which Traveler is the most powerful?"

"He said that he always thought that Neutra was the strongest," Rarity remembered, recalling a story he had told her once.

She shook her head. "That is only what he thinks. But in reality, the truth is much different."

"What do ya mean?" Applejack asked, confused.

"Look at it like this: Neutra has the powers of good and evil…but she only will go far enough to make sure that the balance is intact. After that, she will disappear. Torrentican holds limitless power, but will only learn more to further his own strength, and only to meet his goals.

"Omnius, however, is entirely different. He has his friends. He won't stop when he sees that you are safe…he'll do his best to make sure that you stay safe. He will see everything through to the bitter end." Jenna looked at all of them, and added, "Whenever I tried to tell that to Omnius, he'd always laugh, and say something about how if that were true, he wouldn't have been defeated nearly as much as he had."

"That does sound like him," Fluttershy giggled.

Jenna laughed with her, and nodded. "Yes. But now you can understand why…"

The mirrored wall flickered suddenly, and showed an image of Omnius racing down a long corridor on all fours, like a wild beast.

"He is the only one Torrentican truly fears."

All of them turned to watch the mirror, each silently praying for Omnius' victory.

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I shot down the tunnel, letting the aura take full control, with only one goal in mind:

Kill Torrentican.

Feeling the air get warmer, I found myself outside of the caves, and in the quarry where we had entered originally. Standing in the middle of it, with a look of shock on his face, was Torrentican.

"What!" He shouted, taking a few steps back. "That's impossible! There is no conceivable way for you to have found the exit that quickly! Unless…" He paused, and frowned as he considered something that had eluded his original plans. "Neutra. I should have known she would interfere…"

I stood there, and took in his appearance…

His slick, black hair, was askew, as if he had been running from something (gee, wonder what that could be…), and his normally impeccable, grey tail-coat was stained with dust and dirt. His pale, grey face was peppered with drops of sweat, and his normally soulless eyes held something in them, something that I rarely saw in them.

Fear.

"Hm…Well, I guess the only thing to do now is deal with you…but what bit of magic shall I use to destroy you?"

While he was thinking, I jumped at him, slashing my claws across his chest in a triple lined "X". He staggered back, and then snapped his fingers. A pillar of stone erupted from below me, and caught me in the stomach, throwing me away from him.

[Okay, right now, I'd HIGHLY suggest you listen to "Rage Awakened-Orchestral Remix" by Bak. R]

Quickly, I flipped in the air, righting myself, as Torrentican shot a blazing beam of fire at me, and I spun to avoid it. Placing my arms at my sides, I sped up my fall, wanting to get as close to him as possible, so I could tear him apart.

"Oh no you don't!" Torrentican spat, flicking his wrist and sending a bolt of lightning at me. I hit the ground, and rolled away, barely avoiding the deadly bolt. In the blink of an eye, I was right next to him again, slashing at his arms rapidly, cutting his sleeves to ribbons.

He jumped back, and put his hand to his mouth, bathing me in a rush of scorching flames, burning me to my very soul. I was pushed back, and tossed against the hard wall of a mountain, sending small cracks up the side of it.

Shaking my head, I did a back flip, and planted my feet against the stone. Pushing forward, I shot at Torrentican like a bullet, and I hacked at his face, barely missing it as he stepped to the side. As it was, he now had a set of long, thin crimson lines on his cheek, and he hissed in pain.

He turned towards me, and clapped his hands together, summoning a massive gust of wind that pushed me off of the ground, and he quickly called forth another blast of wind to lift himself up as well, rushing out to meet me as I spun uncontrollably. His fists glowed an angry scarlet color, and he sent a flurry of punches at me, sending me higher into the air.

Recovering as quickly as I could, and ignoring the pain, I swiped at him in a berserker's fury, matching every move he landed on me with another of my own. Acting purely on my Aura's instinct, I thrust both of my hands forward, and the crystal claw-tips shot forward, leaving a dark contrail of reality-bending energy, nearly shattering the barriers between dimensions themselves.

All ten crystals tore through Torrentican, shredding his coat to pieces, and leaving him with a myriad of wounds, some deep, some shallow. He cursed at me, and hit me with a massive backhand, sending me crashing into the ground.

Dazed, I picked myself up, only to narrowly avoid getting incinerated by a blazing fire ball. As it was, I was thrown forward by the explosion of heat, and had to roll again to avoid another one. Glancing at the sky, I saw that Torrentican was sending hundreds of flaming orbs at me, knowing that I couldn't dodge them all.

Well, at least he thought that.

Standing up, I leaped forward, my claws returning to me, and I slashed at a fireball mid-flight, sending it crashing into the side of the quarry. Torrentican snarled in anger, and kept hurling fireballs at me, desperately wanting me to die.

For what felt like hours, I jumped around the quarry, avoiding fireballs, or smacking them away from me. My Aura's defense was failing, however, and I started to feel more heat as I hit the fireballs away. I had to either start dodging them, or stop him from making more. Finally, I nimbly jumped behind the pillar that Torrie had summoned before, and instead of hiding behind there, I hacked at the base of the pillar with my claws, detaching it from the ground.

Wrapping my arms around it, I slowly picked it up, and then spun around, picking up more and more momentum, until I let go of it, and sent it hurtling towards Torrentican. He was hit in the upper chest, and sent crashing to the ground.

Rushing at him, I swung my claws at him in a vicious, double-handed uppercut, flinging him upwards, and where I proceeded to claw, kick, and punch at him in a blur of lightning-fast attacks. After a few seconds, Torrentican blocked one of my clawed swipes, and pushed out with an open hand, blasting me away with a pulse of kinetic energy. Before I could recover, he punched the ground, launching a shockwave at me that forced me to jump into the air-

-and right into his next spell. A massive bolt of lightning shot out and hit me, catching me in the back, and completely scrambling my senses. I fell to the ground, twitching sporadically, as I attempted to gather my thoughts.

Laughing uncontrollably, Torrentican spun his hands in a circle, and sent rows of pure white thorn-vines at me, entombing me within a prison cage made out of them. While I frantically clawed my way out, he soared into the sky, and lifted his arms up, screaming, "GODS OF EVIL! HELP ME FINISH MY ACCURSED FOE, AND SEND HIM INTO THE ABYSS WHERE HE BELONGS!"

Soon, the air started to crackle with untamed energy, and dark, charcoal colored storm clouds gathered in the sky, fueling Torrentican's next spell. As I finally broke through the cage, Torrentican's hands lit up in a corrupted, orange glow.

"RAGNAROK!" He bellowed, before sending an enormous beam of energy at me. It was roughly the size of a booster rocket, and it carved a path of destruction towards me, sending up massive chunks of rock into the air, some of them even reaching Torrentican.

Not wanting to be hit by that thing, I did the only thing that seemed logical at the time: I jumped onto one of the rocks that had been tossed into the air, and quickly leaped onto another rock that was higher up than the one I was on.

Naruto can suck it.

Acting fast, I kept leaping from rock to rock, using my claws as an improvised grip to prevent myself from falling. Torrentican watched in horror, as I clasped my hands together in front of me, and spun like a drill, tunneling through one of the more massive rocks in front of me. Breaking through it, I found myself directly above him, and I smiled maniacally.

I grabbed him by his long hair, and flung him into the air, breaking his concentration, and getting rid of the deadly beam. Sending my claws at him again, this time I mentally willed them to stay in him, and used my connection to them to pull myself closer to him.

"DEATH TO ALL WHO OPPOSE ME!" I howled. I punched him in the gut, and tore my claws into his arm, completely shredding the muscles inside of it. Never pausing for an instant, I spun around with him in my grasp, and together, we plummeted to the ground at breakneck speeds.

At the last moment, I kicked away from him, and landed on all fours on the ground, while Torrentican made a small crater in the ground. I heard all of his bones snap in some way, a few of them breaking entirely, and nodded.

Making my way to the edge of the crater, I eyed the broken figure inside of it, and snarled. Torrentican glared at me, and said, "You…you haven't won…I'll return! And you…you will finally see my true, master pl-"

I didn't let him finish. Instead, I fell into the crater, and stabbed one set of claws into his jaw, and the other into his eyes.

"Get the hell away from my home." And then, before he could try and say anything else, I tore his head clean in half, his jaw still attached to his neck, while his upper head was dangling from my hand...before it disappeared, like the rest of his body.

"It's…good…to be The Traveler…" I mumbled, the Aura finally disappearing. I sagged against the wall, and tried to fight off the weariness that I felt.

Holy shit…that felt…intense, to say the least. It was like someone took the Hulk, made him beyond pissed, gave him an adrenaline shot, and then put him into Godzilla's body.

I almost liked it. Hell, I could probably almost get used to it…

Almost.

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I don't remember falling asleep. So why was I dreaming that Jenna was right in front of me, or at least her ghost was?

"You're not dreaming, love," Jenna said, sitting down next to me, and taking my hand in hers.

"Good," I wearily stated. "That means this won't turn into a nightmare…"

She sighed, and then leaned her head onto my shoulders. "Omnius."

"Jenna."

I saw with her for a few moments, my thoughts tiredly trying to form something that resembled a smart question.

"I don't have enough time to tell you all that I want to tell you," Jenna said quietly, her voice shaking a little.

"Same," I mumbled. "How about we skip the obvious 'I miss you' speeches, and get straight to the part where I say how awesome you are?"

Jenna giggled, and wrapped her arms around me. I managed to wrap one arm around her, and I sighed in content.

"So…how long before you go this time?"

"Not very long…Omnius, your friends on this world…you really found some truly wonderful souls."

"Don't I know it. It's not every day that you meet a cowpony with a love of apples, a fashionista with a heart of gold, a loyal daredevil, a physics-defying hyperactive bundle of joy, an adorkable bookworm, and a kindhearted timid animal lover," I laughed, looking at them all warmly.

"Yes…maybe…no, never mind."

"Hm?"

"It's nothing." Jenna's hug seemed to loosen slightly, and she added, "I think It's time for me to go now…"

"Already? But you just got here! I didn't even get to bust out the coke and cookies," I joked, tears brimming in my eyes.

"You always want people to laugh, don't you?"

"It's what you love about me."

She laughed once more, and then started to fade. I looked at her with sad eyes, already accepting the inevitable, and she said, "I must return to my rest now…I am very tired…"

"Sleep, Jenna. I'll never forget about you. Ever."

"Goodnight, Omnius…"

"Goodnight, Jenna."

With that, she was gone once again, but this time I was smiling when she left. I looked up to see that Celestia was standing over me, her horn glowing softly.

"My magic is fully recovered," She said, sitting down next to me. "Thank you, Omnius."

"For what? Nearly losing control of myself and nearly killing some of my closest friends?" I said a little bitterly.

"No. For rescuing me, and defeating Torrentican," She smiled. I felt my eyelids grow heavy, and she lifted me with her magic, and set me gently onto her back.

"Hey," I protested weakly.

"Sleep, Omnius. You have earned it. When you awaken, we shall talk then."

Well, when a Goddess of Good tells you to sleep, who are you to say no?

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Setting Omnius down in his bed at his home, Princess Celestia smiled, and thought of how strange it was…he was created by all of the Gods and Goddesses of Good, and he carried part of their essence inside of him…which meant that he was, in some ways, her son.

It was sort of funny. The son of the Princess of the Sun. She'd have to remember to tell Omnius that joke when he woke up. He'd find it quite enjoyable.

Still laughing quietly at her own joke, she made her way down the stairs, where the rest of his friends were waiting.

"Is he gon' be alright?" Applejack asked, her eyes filled with concern for her friend.

"He will be fine, he just needs some rest…Girls, I have a very important task for you," She said seriously, looking at each of them in turn.

"Omnius has been through a serious ordeal these past few days. His arm was cut off, replaced by a robotic replica, and then subsequently replaced when he was forcibly transformed into his…Aura." Shaking herself free of the dark thoughts, she continued. "I want you to all stay by his side, and help him recover."

"I'm meaning no disrespect, your highness," Rarity said. "But we were all planning that from the start."

Celestia smiled again, and nodded her head. "I wouldn't expect anything less out of you girls."

"I bet the first thing he'll want when he wakes up is a glass of coke," Pinkie said, already getting out a massive bottle that she had found in the fridge. "I wonder what would happen if we mixed it with his ice-cream stash?"

"Pinkie, you're not seriously planning on making him some sort of complicated desert, are you?" Rainbow asked.

"No! I'm just gonna mix together a bunch of candy, soda, and ice-cream! Ooh, maybe a muffin!"

Meanwhile, Omnius rolled over in his bed, a small bit of drool appearing suddenly.

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HOOOOOOOLLLLLYYYYYY CRAP. That was probably my favorite fight scene to write, and I hope you all enjoy it. Anyways, that's the end of the first major arc! What did you all think?

Anyways, I'll try and get chapter 14 (The episode voted chapter) out A.S.A.P. I'll try to start it tomorrow, if my homework and attempts at running for student council will allow it. So, blah, blah, blah, tell me what'cha thought in the comments/reviews!

Traveler out!