Chapter 31- Hidden Truths

(Johnny)

My name is Duskwind. Sometimes I go by Johnny Appleseed, or Johnny One Note, or, most recently, ‘The Late Johnny Appleseed’. This is because not too long ago I was dead. Stone cold dead.

Unfortunately, unless I can come up with something pretty quick, I may soon be that way again. And considering who’s on the look out for me on the other side, I’d REALLY rather not go.

“Down to four percent here boss, you can come up with that last ditch ‘save the day’ plan at aaaaaany time now.” Junior says in my ear.

Thanks son, always helpful.

I’m giving Wendigo Prime here everything I have. Really starting to wish I had saved just one BBG round. Given time and energy Junior could generate more, but unfortunately we have very little of either at the moment.

I’ve survived a lot in the course of my life. I always seem to find myself put in situations that strain me to my limits. In the stories that would be the moment where the hero reaches deep within himself to some font of special inner strength, generated from living a virtuous life, or eating all of his beets, or the magical farts of Discord or some such.

Yeah, I don’t do that.

No, for me, at that time where it all comes down to that one last heroic push, that’s when I usually do something stupid.

Hey, don’t judge. It works. No really, it actually does work. Mostly because the bad guys are so intently focused on the situation, that when I do something completely out of left field, it leaves them at a loss. This gives me an oh so brief opening to turn the tide. Trust me, when the situation becomes really bad, do something really stupid.

“Down to three percent boss. Um, I don’t mean to rush you but...”

I tune Junior out as I do one last quick assessment of my immediate surroundings. The Alpha’s two companions are still standing where they were before, next to the wreckage of the ponybot, watching me and their boss go at it.

I risk a glance toward Moonlight, and the three Wendigos she was fighting, and I nearly take a claw to the face from pausing in confusion. They AREN’T fighting. The other three Wendigos have her completely surrounded, but aren’t attacking her, aren’t even touching her. Every time she tries to move around them one immediately moves in front of her and just stands there. She in turn, isn’t attacking them either. Nor is she trying to teleport away. What the buck is going on?

(Moonlight Shadow)

“You’re going to lose.” one of the Wendigos says, taunting me.

“Bold words from a remnant of a race that has ALREADY lost.” I snark back.

“As long as one of us lives, we have yet to lose. And we shall live as long as you do, even if we must take on these disgusting lower forms. How can you STAND it? The loss of your TRUE power? The baseness of a biological form? You have to make it breathe, make it eat, it needs rest, even sleep, the small death. How can you bear it?” It asks me, in genuine curiosity.

“Well, there’s cake,” I reply trying once again trying in vain to slip past them without touching them.

“You’re going to lose,” it taunts again. “We shall take this city from you, we shall shatter it’s unity and hope. And when it’s people fall into despair, we shall bring forth the cold dark once more. Then we shall send our minions forth, reclaiming more and more of our territories. And as we expand our dominion, the rest of Equestria will begin to fear us once more. We shall ride the winds again in triumph, until this entire world surrenders to the cold dark. And then we shall feed once more. Truly feed, not the crass food of these base forms, but true food, the essence of despair. Even as this world falls like so many before it.

Do you and your kin truly believe you can stop us? We have feasted on half a galaxy before coming to this turgid little backwater world.”

“We have so far,” I say, still looking for an opening.

They press me too close to attempt to teleport away, if so much as one iota of magical energy were to come in contact with them, then the pact would be broken, and they would be free to use their full powers once more. Above all else, I cannot let that happen, even if it means standing by helplessly watching Johnny die.

(Johnny)

I’m running out of options. I have no idea what’s going on with Moonlight, but at least she’s keeping three of them occupied. That leaves me with two just standing there waiting, and the big guy who is still trying to rip off my face. Oh and the fact that…

“One point five percent power, it’s been nice knowing you boss, take good care of the twins.”

No, not an option. We aren’t dead yet.

“Junior, life tap, now.”

I can just about hear the mental equivalent of a shudder of revulsion through the link. Unlike his father, Junior has never been comfortable using the life tap ability. The idea of feeding off of me revolts him. Heh, understandable, I’m not big on it either. Also, if he does it for very long, it will kill me. Yet another reason why we don’t do it. On the other hoof, if we don’t, then we are pretty much dead anyway, and Junior knows this. That’s why I feel the disturbingly uncomfortable feeling of my energy being sucked out through my spine, and Junior suddenly becomes faster and more alert.

“Power at thirty-three percent, and holding steady.”

“Bring it up to fifty Junior, no time for half measures.”

“But boss… Pop, you wouldn’t last more than ten minutes if I did that, even if you were at your best. And with you just coming back from the dead, and fighting all those cyber ponies, and...”

He’s trying not to think about something, I can sense it through the link. He’s trying to hide something from me. He’s never done that before.

“Out with it son, what are you not telling me.” I demand, projecting stern authority through the link.

We are in a life or death situation, I can’t have him holding anything back that could put us at risk.

“You… you don’t taste right.” He finally admits.

“What do you mean, ‘don’t taste right’?” I ask, finally managing to force Wendigo Prime on the defensive for the first time.

“You just don’t. We’ve done this before, I KNOW what you’re supposed to taste like. This doesn’t taste like you anymore. You’re different. You taste different.”

“Different? What do I taste like then?” I ask, trying to hide my alarm at what he’s saying.

“Well, you taste a little like Duskwind, but then there’s this taste like… ugh, like dead meat. But you mostly taste like this weird hot coppery cotton candy taste. And when I eat it, it’s messing up my insides, it’s making me feel… weird. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

This last I feel strongly through the link. Junior has always followed my commands. That’s part of the deal when a command bug bonds with it’s host. It’s life is linked to mine. Could dying and coming back have severed that link? No, he would have said something before now. But that last thought, almost as if he was ready to just tear himself off of me. Is his revulsion of me that great?

As to what he said. I know what it means. It means that I’m not really ‘back’. I died. My body died, and my essence crossed over to the other side. Then I was brought back from the other side, and shoved back into my body with magic, and that body was brought back to life. That ‘dead’ body. That’s the dead meat taste Junior was talking about. I can only assume that the coppery cotton candy taste was either the magic they used to bring me back, or residue from when I used my omega rune to absorb that tiny bit of Celestia’s power.

“Just get us to fifty percent son, then you can stop,” I send back, trying to be as calm and reassuring as possible.

The way I figure it, fifty percent should be enough to deal with the alpha. My only hope is that if they see their leader slain, the rest will scurry off. I need to put on a front. Intimidate them before my power is completely exhausted. It’s a really bad plan and I know it, but it’s all I can come up with.

“Power levels at fifty percent, and gross as hell, just so you know.”

Did Junior just snark at me? Whatever, I don’t have time for ‘cranky teenage bug’ right now.

I reassert full control over our armor. It feels good. I almost forget that I only have about ten minutes of this before I end up dead… again. Force that thought away. I can do this. Ten minutes? I destroyed an army of monster ponies in less than one. Ten minutes is plenty of time for one Wendigo on a roid rage.

The alpha had been ranting at me this whole time. I had muted the externals at the beginning of the fight because honestly, there wasn’t anything he was saying that I wanted to hear. Junior had been dutifully recording it all, just in case he did that villain thing where for some stupid reason the bad guy decides to reveal his entire plan before killing his foe. I mean really, who does that? Just kill they guy already. All I can figure is that being the head of an evil organization must be really lonely, and they just don’t have anypony to talk to. Meh, whatever. I start to command the armor to unmute the externals so I can taunt the Wendigo with (arguably) witty banter, but then Junior says something unsettling.

“Power levels at fifty-eight percent and climbing.”

“WHAT?!? Junior knock it off! I’m not going last five minutes if you suck me dry. Stop feeding!”

“I HAVE stopped feeding, boss! I couldn’t stop quickly enough. You taste horrible. My gut is tied up in knots. But power levels are continuing to rise. Sixty percent, sixty-five percent, seventy-three percent. What did you do to me boss? My insides feel like they are on fire!”

On fire? Oh no! No, No, No!

“Junior, lightning attack! Send as much power into the Alpha as you can, right now!”

This is something we learned how to do early on in his training. Ever since Bob took out that Wendigo with his dying breath, I realized how vulnerable their bodies were to energy attacks. We had been training on channeling bio energy as a weapon, but the cost to our systems was always too high. It would drain Junior in an instant to perform even one of these attacks. But if what I was afraid of was true, then it wasn’t going to matter.

I had unmuted the externals just in time to hear the alpha roar in pain as a jagged smoking scar rent it’s way across it’s body. The smell of burning fur and flesh was so strong it made it’s way past the filters in the armor.

“Junior?”

“S-still here Pop. Power levels at five percent and rising. Ten, Twenty, forty… Pop, the other two, they’re heading this way… P-power levels seventy-two, eighty-nine...”

“Chain lightning, both of them. Drain your reserves dry, don’t leave a trace, get it all out of you!”

A moment later Junior fires an intense blast of bio-lightning at the approaching Wendigos, their dying screams echo down the deserted streets. Junior continues to blast lighting into the charred husks until he finally runs dry.

My armor depleted, I fall to the ground next to the dying alpha.

“Junior? Junior? Are you alive?”

“Suit Power levels zero point zero,zero,zero,zero...” he dutifully reports, his voice just a whisper in my mind now.

Good. The power to the nannysprite suit has been depleted, but Junior himself, the control bug to the sprites, is still alive.

I use my magic to manually open the faceplate so I can breathe, and find myself looking into the panting face of the alpha. He’s lying on his back, the smoldering scar across his chest cracks as the Wendigo struggles to take in a breath.

“What… are… you...”

He asks, his voice hollow and weak.

“You former partner asked me that before.” I reply, struggling to keep dirt out of my muzzle, the weight of the power armor pinning me face first to the ground. “I’m just a pony… trying to protect...”

“NO,” he says sharply, the effort causing blood to spew from his lips. “Not… not just a pony. You are… strong. Not… just… prey. You are… like her.” He gestures a claw toward Moonlight, still surrounded by the other three Wendigos.

“What’s going on? Why aren’t they attacking her? Why are you here? Why are you doing this?” I all but yell in exasperation, not expecting him to tell me anything, just needed to have it be said. But he surprises me.

“You are strong. You have won the right to know.” With a great effort, he heaves himself over, falling onto his chest.

The move causes him great pain, but brings him within a hoof of my muzzle.

“We are Windigoes,” he begins. “Long before ponies walked the face of this world, we were here. Our race travels between worlds, we look for planets like this. Unripe fruit. There are many, oh so many. We never age, we never die… until here.

We came to this world, and claimed it for our tribe. There are many tribes in the vastness of the galaxy, but ours were the weakest. We could not contest with our brethren for planets, so we would search the outer limits of space, far outside the normal hunting grounds, so that our finds would not be discovered.

So we came here, and claimed this world. As with many others, it was yet unripe. But we were content to wait. And so it was, and ages past by until the world began to ripen. Intelligent life appeared, and began to rise up out of their primitive beginnings. The world was almost ready to harvest.

But then THEY came.” He says bitterly.

“They?” I ask.

He nods his head toward Moonlight.

“They came, before the time of harvest. They live to oppose us. Wherever there is darkness, it is defined by the light. Wherever there is chaos, it will be opposed by order. And so it was with us.

We feast on worlds. We bring the cold dark. They raise up worlds, until the beings that live on them become like unto themselves, and then they depart to repeat the cycle once more.

They sent their weakest to this world, because they knew we were not a strong tribe. Two they sent, all though they have been raising up others recently.

We fought. For thousands of years we fought. Both of our races immortal, both unyielding, both relentless. We fought and fought and fought...” He pauses to clear more blood from his muzzle.

He won’t last much longer, and he knows it.

“We fought, but neither side could claim a decisive victory. And so, tiring of the stalemate, we formed a pact with them. We would reduce ourselves, and live on the planet below us. We would use the inhabitants to decide our battle for us. Our foes took the forms of ponies, and at first hid themselves away. We assumed they were planning something. At first we rode the winds, contending against the inhabitants of this world directly. But they banded their tribes together, and their love was strong. In our weakened state we could not fight against their combined power. So we retreated. Eventually we devised a means of incarnating into flesh, just as or foes had done. It is a horrible thing. We can die in these forms. Something our race had never experienced before. It is a terrible horrible risk we take, but it was necessary.

Our Wind forms cannot endure the amount of love you ponies have been filling the world with. There are very few places left with enough strife to keep us cool. So we are forced to incarnate, and use the lesser of your species as our pawns.

All the while the agents of your princesses have been hunting us down. Now those three and I are the only ones left. And soon I will be gone as well. Tell me pony. You have the smell of death upon you, you have been to the other side, and returned. What awaits me there? Wh-”

Before he can finish asking me, he is interrupted.

“Power levels at nineteen percent and rising… fast. Boss? What’s going on? I was in hibernation, and now suddenly the power is back on, and I’m feeling really hot. Power levels at forty-one percent, and climbing...”

It wasn’t enough. I can’t stop it. I have to tell him. It’s all my fault, I wasn’t thinking, I should have known…

“Junior… I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“Power levels at seventy-eight percent. Oh for Celestia’s sake, just say it Pop! I feel like I’m on fire!”

“You are son. It’s all my fault. I didn’t think...”

“Ninety-four percent. What are you talking about?”

“You used life tap on me. You fed off of what was inside me. Son, Celestia was inside me. Part of her anyways, briefly. I think… I think that it’s what’s keeping me alive. Keeping my body from decaying. You devoured an infinitesimally small part of her power. But there is no such thing. It’s ALL power. God power. It’s killed every other pony who has tried to use it. And son… it’s killing you as well.”

“Power levels at one hundred and fifteen percent. It’s too much, I can’t contain it! Oh Sky Stallion! It hurts Pop.”

“I know son, I know. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

“Power lev- aww screw it! No Pop, it isn’t your fault. You didn’t know! You couldn’t have known. If it was anyone’s fault it was theirs,” he says pointing an accusing hoof at the now deceased muzzle of the Wendigo in front of me. “Their scheming, and manipulations, they forced us to become what we are. Forced us to fight back. No Pop, it’s not your fault, it’s theirs. And I’m going to put a stop to it once and for all!”

“What? What are yo-’ I start to say, but Junior has already drug me back to my hooves, and peeled himself off of me.

At eye blurring speed he flew at the remaining Wendigos, and shooting out thousands of nannysprites, quickly entangles them. His Jetters roar and he lifts off of the ground, dragging the struggling Wendigos into a tight embrace. Then a voice whispers in my ear.

“I know you’ll keep the twins safe. Just like you did with me. I love you Pop, I do. But don’t you dare go getting all depressed. You have Twilight to think about now. I fully expect for you two to have some foals for my kids to play with. So you’d better have at least t-”

The explosion cuts him off. For a moment there was a second sun shining over Whinnyappleous. A small nannysprite falls from my ear to the ground. Dormant.

Moonlight trots up to me. I have questions for her. Lost of questions. But not now. Now isn’t the time. She reaches for my hoof, and I let her take it, as we stare silently into the sky.

A moment later I feel the beat of wings behind me. I don’t need to turn around to know who it is. I can feel it though the magic now coursing through my veins. It’s her. Of course it’s her.

“Johnny? It’s true! You ARE alive!” she says, rushing up to me and embracing me from behind.

I turn to face her.

“No. No I’m not.”