Chapter 23- Alpha and Omega

Clouds had blotted out the stars as I came pelting up out of Night Industries and onto the street. I wasn't breathing hard yet, runes that augmented my strength and stamina had flared to life moments after I began my mad dash. Behind me I heard something impact the sidewalk, it sounded like a combination of a sack of wet meat and copper pots, but I didn't waste time turning to look.

I needed two things if I had any hope of surviving this night. Distance and time. Time so that my kinetic runes could recharge, and distance so that I could formulate some sort of strategy for dealing with the monsters that were already in pursuit. So far, although the former were charging up just fine, I had yet to come up with any ideas on the latter.

It's true I could probably teleport far enough away to lose them, or go invisible and let them run past me, but either one of those options would mean letting them all run wild throughout the city. Ponies would almost certainly be hurt or killed. Right now they had only one target, and that was me. I had to figure out a way to take them out. But there were just too many of them.

I felt something wet on my muzzle. Rain had come once more to the city. Sweet cleansing rain to wash away the city's sins. Heh, how I wish that was the case. I don't know if it was the rain, or the adrenaline, but a strange calm suddenly washed over me as I galloped through the night. As my eyes scanned the street before me, plotting out ways past steam buses and pedestrians, I flashed back seemingly randomly, to scenes from my past. Past assignments, memories of my former friends, memories of Twilight. So many years. So many brushes with death. And I still, even now, consider all the good I've done worthwhile. I've made some terrible decisions. I've done some terrible things. But I've never doubted that because of my actions, ponies were saved. That, even if it was only by a little bit, that I've made the world a better place. Oh Celestia, has it come to this? Am I REALLY flashing my life before my eyes? How cliché. What I should be focusing on is- 'SWEET ZACHARLE'!

I mentally scream, as one of the horrors that had been pursuing me suddenly appears in front of me. I act without thinking pushing off the asphalt sideways, then landing with my back two hooves on a nearby bench, then pushing off of that onto the horror’s right shoulder, kicking the back of his head as I leap off of him, continuing my sprint.

“Barkour!” I yell, as his skull bounces off the pavement.

Thank Celestia we had training in the Prench Diamond Dog art of Barkour. The military training program used to get from one point to another in a complex environment, without assistive equipment and in the fastest and most efficient way possible. Barkour involves seeing one's environment in a new way, and imagining the potentialities for navigating it by movement around, across, through, over and under its features. Add that to the runes that augment my speed and agility, and it gives me an incredible advantage in situations of pursuit.

Of course my trainers never ran scenarios involving mutant pony horrors that can teleport, I think to myself, as another one of them shows up right in front of me, causing me to swerve into a nearby alley. I can hear ponies scream up ahead and then suddenly a pony shaped silhouette descends from the sky, back lit by the street lamps behind him.

I leap upwards snagging the lower rung of a nearby fire escape ladder, narrowly avoiding the winged shaped that passes below me only to crash into the side of the dumpster in front of him. I land on my hooves and sprint out of the alley, only to be confronted by yet another monstrosity. They must be closing in en masse. I swerve past him, and make it half a block before a pony with a spiked mohawk steps out in front of me. It takes me a moment to realize that it isn't a mohawk he's sporting, its a vertical row of unicorn horns, and they all start glowing, blocking off the entire road in front of me, forcing me to sprint down yet another alley. As I clear the alley, I suddenly realize where I am. Before me stretches the beginning of Victor's Memorial Park. Acres and acres of trees, flowerbeds, and memorials, dedicated to the brave ponies that fought in the last changeling war. I veered hard to the left, angling to get back into the city, not wanting to be caught out into a mostly open area.

Or at least that was what I intended to do, before yet another monster barred my way throwing up another shield. I turned around and began to sprint the other way, only to find yet another one blocking my path, also with a sickly purple shield in place.

I was out of options, they had me almost boxed in. I fired up my horn to teleport me back into the city, only for nothing to happen. I looked around frantically, my jaw dropping open in shock. There were dozens of monster ponies all around me. On the fire escapes of the alley, emerging from the shadows, all of them working in tandem creating a shield around the whole area keeping me from teleporting away.

With no other choice before me I galloped as fast as I could into the park. It was only when I noticed a lack of pursuit that I realized what had happened. I had been herded. Driven here. They were just playing with me this whole time, like a cat with a mouse. They could have taken me down at any point, but deep in their twisted psyche they wanted to play with me first.

I skidded to a stop, panting heavily. The rain began to come down harder, adding a chill to the night air. My breath was steaming in the night air. The trees whispered a warning, as all around me monsters began to emerge. Several of the ones with horns flashed magic into the air, creating a vast dome all around us. I knew I was trapped. The cats had finished their play, and it was time for the kill. I moved in a slow circle, absently counting monsters. I was caught in the middle of a hundred and five. The night was heavy, and the air was alive, and I knew there was no way I could push through.

(Far away on the other side…)

I had pursued Johnny and the horrors that were chasing him as fast as I could get down from Dr. Brass's office. To Tartarus with the mission, if those things caught up to Johnny, he was as good as dead.

I managed to catch up with them at Victor's Park. There the creatures had erected a vast dome of sickly purple magic. It was the same type of magic that had teleported those explosives into Johnny's office, that had almost killed him and Luna. I aimed my horn and fired off an energy bolt. Much to my shock, it ricocheted off of it harmlessly. They must have linked all their magics together. I focused all of my efforts and fired off another, much more powerful blast, with no more effect than the first. By the Sky Stallion! How powerful were these creatures? I fired off blast after blast, but nothing was working. I began to feel a sick feeling from deep within my chest, a totally unfamiliar feeling, a feeling of helplessness.

(Meanwhile, caught in the middle of a desperate fight…)

The cool night wind was whispering through the trees. It was a sorrowful and grieving sound. Almost as if they were apologizing for their part in my misfortune. For the hundredth time I mentally reexamined my options. I had exactly two. The first was to fight and die valiantly. Taking as many with me as I could. This had two major drawbacks. The first being the dying part. Really not found of that. The second, but more altruistic thought was that as soon as they were done with me, who knew how many more innocent lives they would claim before reigned in by their master? And who knows how many more lives HE would claim to further his experiments? So no, option one wasn’t looking two good.

That left only option two. And to be honest, it scared me more than the first. Option two would be to activate my alpha rune. Then somehow live through what followed. And then return to deal with Double Helix and Brass Buttons. The ‘living through what followed’ was the tricky part. OF the three agents that had ever been forced to activate their alpha runes, the first died instantly. The second went completely insane, taking out several miles of the badlands in the process, and the third was completely fine. Until that is, several months later when he committed suicide. Each use of an alpha rune was considered a ‘test’, in the sense that it allowed further refinement after each use. The wizards in charge of creating these runes assured me that after the lat time all the bugs had been worked out, and that they were ‘confident’ that the next time any pony used one, they would be fine. I would feel more reassured by this except that was the same thing they said after the last time, and the time before that. I could tell when I was being lied to you see, and their assurances were nothing more than a placebo. To even consider using an alpha rune, a pony would have to be in worse than a life or death situation.

Something just like this for example.

The pony creatures began approaching from the tree lines that surrounded me. They trotted slowly forward, unhurried. They wanted to see what I would do. Would I try to flee? Would I try to fight? Would I beg for my life? Truthfully, if I thought that any of these options had even the smallest chance of working, I would have considered it. But I knew better.

As I gazed into the distorted faces and muzzles leering at me hungrily, I knew I would find no mercy here. Whatever trace of decency they may have had in the past had been destroyed by that living machine from the changeling empire. Love was replaced with hate, kindness with blood-lust, empathy with carnage. No, as warped and hideous as their appearance was, it was what I saw in their eyes that frightened me the most. I knew I had no choice. For them as much as for me, I had no choice.

I reached up a hoof to my chest, right in the center. I felt the rune flare into life, a vibrant green glow. Then, moving my hoof in the proper sequence, I activated my alpha rune. The creatures before me stopped. Curious as to what I was doing. There was no fear on their part, they knew I had no chance against them. In that they were right.

The color of the rune changed from green to sky blue as it began to activate. I could feel it shifting, moving on my chest. In seconds it had turned completely upside down and settled back into my flesh. Then, metallic bands came forth from it from all sides. Each one made it’s way to the nearest rune, and seamlessly connected itself to it. The bands from that rune stretched forth connecting it to the next one. This process continued on until all of my runes had been connected into one. Any pony that was looking at me at this point would see what appeared to be a vast metallic horseshoe with little spurs on each end surrounding my body. Scholars would see something different. My alpha rune had finished its job, and it’s blue glow died away. Now all that was left was to activate my final rune. The conduit for all the power of every rune that had been seared into my flesh. All that power focused to one purpose, to channel an even greater power into my body.

Standing there, in the endless night, before an unbeatable army or monsters, thunder and lightning arcing through the sky, I grinned a terrible grin. It was the grin of the hunter suddenly revealing itself to the hunted. They pushed me to this, it was not by choice. But if I had to risk it all on this one last play, then by the Goddess, I was going to make the most of it.

I threw back my head and laughed. I laughed like a madpony, the rain and the lightning accenting my apparent mania. And truth be told, perhaps in that moment I was mad. Mad with the realization of the mad world I lived in, that had driven what was once a loving and caring unicorn to become the figure of vengeance that now stood on this sodden ground.

The creatures before me were confused. My actions were not at all what they expected. I was sure in a moment however that they would shrug off their confusion and attack. Unfortunately for them, it was already too late. I activated my last rune. My Omega rune.

Describing what happened next is both extremely difficult, and very simple. The simple answer is that for all intents and purposes, I died.

Right, too simple. Let’s go the long way then. Far away, at the moment I activated Omega, Princess Celestia would have felt a tug. Maybe her mane briefly stopped flowing, maybe she even said my name. I’d like to think so, but it isn’t very likely that she even really noticed. What happened then was an infinitesimally small amount of her power was channeled from wherever she was into me. Say one one-thousandth or less. Not even enough to make her flinch. That’s what happened on her end.

On my end, God was suddenly inside my head, and God was me, and I was all. That pony that was named Duskwind, and sometimes went by the name Johnny among others? He was a tiny speck of dust inside my head. I was God, and God was fire, and fire was good! My entire body burst into flames. My mane and tail were blue hot fire, my coat was alternating patterns of flames.

I barely even noticed. My eyes. My eyes could see everything! Everywhere! I looked around myself at the creatures that surrounded me unmoving. No, they were still moving, it was me. My reaction speed, my thinking, my movements, were faster than the limitations of time. Everything around me appeared motionless, I took a single step, and I stepped free from the shackles of the fourth dimension. Time had no hold on me. I was free of it. Free to contemplate… everything.

I had a single thought. And in that thought I understood everything. The brief flickers of light that represented the lives of the creatures around me. The galaxy, the universe, all universes, the multiverse, the macroverse, the outerverse. Just by gazing outward I could see it all. The grand tapestry. I understood. I knew what Celestia was doing, right here, on this world. I saw what she hoped to change here, and by doing so change all the worlds surrounding this one. Nothing was hidden from me.

Then I looked inward upon myself. And I understood. I, the God Duskwind, was going to die. Very, very, soon. All the mighty magics Celestia forged into my runes could only contain this tiny fraction of herself for a short period of time. This knowledge, this omnipotence, would be gone in an eye blink.

Contemplating that loss, the return to that tiny fragmented being that I used to be, caused me to scream in frustration. Barely noticed was the results of my scream, which rent the heavens asunder, shattering Luna’s spell of darkness, evaporating the clouds above me, and sending a bolt of Celestial fire across space, grazing a gash into the surface of the moon.

This was why no other pony could handle using this power. It wasn’t the godhood, it was going back afterwords. Better to die, like this, knowing, than to return to that tiny bestial form.

I prepared myself for death. Using every precious moment to understand as much of the infinite as I was able. My thoughts spun faster and faster as I gazed into the fabric of the grand tapestry, the joy of unbridled understanding cresting higher and higher. But then, then I saw it. The flaw.

There was a black thread running throughout Celestia’s grand design. I was three whole seconds away from annihilation. More than enough time to understand what it was. Or so I thought. I wasted over half a second following it back and back. It was elusive. It was like a parasite. If ignored it began eating away at the pattern Celestia was trying to create. If it was confronted, it sacrificed parts of itself, but some part of it always seemed to remain. I followed the thread of it forwards. Not far, just a few million years, from when Celestia first started meddling with what was, and making it into what is. I followed it forward, to when it created Discord, a major setback to Celestia’s plan. Forward still to when it sought to suborn Luna, yet another setback, but Celestia was untiring. She restored her sister, reformed Discord, and used his chaos to add new color to her weft. I followed forward still and suddenly I found myself staring at… myself. Duskwind, colt, pony, God. I saw my entire life. My parents, my school, the accident, Celestia changing the threads of my fate with Twilight’s. Twilight not leaving the school in horror after killing those ponies. Twilight being forged into Celestia’s pattern, making it stronger, proof against the darkness.

But I also saw all the other me’s that I could have been. Duskwind the alicorn prince. Duskwind the palace guard. Duskwind the consort to Celestia, to Luna, to Berry Punch, to Sweetie Drops, to Derpy. (Wow, I got really fat off of those muffins.) I also saw a lot of dead Duskwinds. Quite a lot. Too many. And for every dead Duskwind, there was another huge patch of darkness on the pattern. I was a little over two seconds down when I finally understood. I mattered. My life mattered. It didn’t matter what Celestia did, changing my future with Twilight’s. I still mattered. As long as I was alive, just by existing, I would lessen the darkness in my world. I was who I was, it was my nature.

Well crap. I guess I can’t let myself die then… Well... that sucks. Okay, fine. I won’t die. I still had what? Half a second to go? Plenty of time…

I swung my horn before me, fire unimaginable flew from it in a scathing arch, incinerating everything in its path. I turned in a full circle, igniting all of my foes, turning them into pillars of ash. Although I was using all the control I could muster, the park surrounding me was still destroyed, the fires sending bursts of heat skyward as trees ignited. I lifted my hooves from the ground where they had been fused up until now, in a mix of lava and glass, and took two steps forward. My fiery hoofprints still remained, fires that may well burn forever. Knowing I had only a barest slice of time left before my body ignited and burned itself away, I cast my horn skyward, and with one last roar, I sent the power of God back from whence it came.

The tiny speck that was ‘Duskwind’ suddenly found itself alone in the vast cavern of his own head. He quickly filled up that space, and I was ‘me’ again. I frowned in disgust as hard as my frail meat body could. I was nothing. I was on my knees, panting heavily. I had to breathe. Soon I would have to eat. Soon I would have to sleep. I shuddered. This body would age. It would die. It was unfair! I was God! Ageless! Perfect! everything that tiny fool Double Helix wished he could be. I understood him now. He was no God. He was just a freak of nature. Just another twist of dark thread on Celestia’s pattern. He was nothing compared to her. No one was. If she and her sister did not choose to bind themselves into near helplessness, they could destroy this planet with a flick of their manes. But her pattern was that precious to her, that she chose to limit herself. Both of them did. And they lived within those limits for thousands of years.

I heaved a sigh. If they could do it, surely so could I. After all, I was only a God for less than a minute. Nowhere near all of the millennia that those two have seen. I heaved myself to my hooves, and took stock. Ugh. Not only were my mane, tail, and fur gone, but all that remained of my runes had melted. Fair enough I guess. I could never use them again anyway. No, the alpha rune was a one way trip. No more enhanced pony. Now I was just an ordinary unicorn. One who was not very good at magic. Matter of fact, I doubt I could even manage to teleport home. A moment later, I found that that would no longer be a problem.

Suddenly, what felt like a sledgehammer slammed me in the chest. Before I could even fall, the same hammer hit me five more times. I fell to my knees once more. Almost absently, I reached a hoof to my chest and felt something wet. Raising it to my eyes, I could see by the light of the fires still surrounding me that it was blood. My blood.

I had been… shot? Suddenly I felt very heavy. My eyes were having trouble seeing anything. It was all blackness. Like black threads packed tightly together. I fell to the burned ground, but I didn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything. I tried to speak, managed to get out one final word. “Why?” and then… nothing.

(Moonlight Shadow)

I had been blasting away at that stupid barrier to no effect. I was just about to do something I shouldn’t. I was just about to break the rules, but then stupid Johnny beat me to it.

What exactly he did I do not know, but I know I intended to have words with Celestia about it later. Strong words. One second he was Johnny, staring down unbeatable odds. The next he was... Celestia. But male. Very, very, male. He burned with her fire. He WAS fire. He threw back his head and screamed, and the sky shattered, and the clouds burned away. He blasted a scar across the moon with barely a thought. The next moment he incinerated everything in sight. Had I been a second slower with my shield he would have gotten me too. Then he throws back his head once more, and all of Celestia is gone, and there sits Johnny once more, bald and bare.

Just what in Tartarus did Celestia do to him? I was tired of being put off, being fed the truths he wanted me to hear. This time I intended to find out everything. I rose up, and began to trot toward him. I was looking right at him, when suddenly a glint from further past him caught my eye. It was from the other side of the park. My enhanced vision could see it clearly. It was the scope on a sniper rifle.

I started to cry out, but it was already too late. I saw the muzzle flash first, then my eyes returned to Johnny. Blood cascaded from him, in what appeared to be slow motion. I saw him hit five more times before his body collapsed limply onto the ground.

I was by his side in less that a heartbeat. He was looking in my direction, but I could tell that he could no longer see me. He said one last word, barely a whisper… ‘why?’ Before the light went out from his closing eyes.

I turned my hate filled gaze back across the park, to the rooftop from where the sniper had his perch, but he was gone. Gone, just like before, when that poor changeling lost her life for no other reason than she looked like Johnny.

I vowed vengeance on that pony. Even if it took my entire life. I would hunt that pony down and have my revenge.

But not now.

I bent down and lifted the limp form of the pony I had grown to love. All the words left unsaid adding more to his weight, yet he was still just as light as a child. I carried him from the fires of his own making. I carried him off into what remained of the night, before the first of Celestia's dawns would return. I carried him away, as his Moonlight Shadow.

Author's Notes:

Way way back when I decided to make this story more than the one shot it had started off as, I had this chapter in mind. When Luna first sent Johnny a partner I had already seen most of this chapter in my head. When I gave her the name 'Moonlight Shadow', every single reader should have saw this coming. Thumbs up to those that did. For those who have not heard the song, or got the reference, it's a song originally created by Mike Oldfield called Moonlight Shadow. I came across the techno remix for DDR (Dance Dance Revolution), several years ago. It was the first time I ever heard the song. The story in the song was awesome, but it seemed to me so unfinished. What happened before the events in the song? What happened after? I crafted stories in my head for years, ever time I listened to it. The one I thought I was going to write (because I play way too much World of Warcraft), was a lone gnome on the shores of Darkshore, surrounded by murlocks. But although I could see that scene in my head, there was no good story to fit around it.
When I decided to continue this story, the song returned to my mind once more. It seemed to fit so perfectly. If ever there was a place for Moonlight Shadow, this was it. To be honest, I hope other brony writers, (better ones than myself), will consider using the song in their own stories. I'd like to see more stories about it. Below is not a link to the original, nor any of the hundred or so newer remixes, (many as good or better than the version I know), but to the version I heard for the first time all those years ago. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK4PI7yBTho