(( In case anypony likes Gdocs better; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tG4xXGhZiLI0I3IiLY5mlF44uXDTP23-gWYCrTDjZ40/edit?hl=en_US ))

We walked and followed the same path that The Overmare had led me in on for a bit, and crossed the chamber, taking a detour around a bend in the river through a small passageway, which led to more walking down a path; quietly too, I noticed. Not many ponies seemed to be around, toward another passage, this one forking off immediately after you enter the doorway. Kahu directed us to the left, and in a few steps and through a few curves that I was sure I would get lost in eventually; we came to another weird door; which, upon my questioning, Kahu identified as properly named a ‘Curtian.’

“Wait here until I call for you, please.” Kahu asked me politely, sliding through a fold in the curtain without waiting for me to ask why or how long she would be gone.

I frowned at the curtain, wishing my PipBuck had a light; though the black-and-white texture illuminated a little better than the green-on-green one, I noticed. I sat down with my back to a wall, anxious not to get my clean white shirt dirty, and must’ve sat there, playing with my tie, fiddling with the straps on my holster, and being lonely for half an hour before I heard Kahu call for me.

I pushed my way through the curtain, and of course, tripped over it and fell face first through the doorway into a candle-lit chamber.

It was adorned with things silly and macabre at the same time; Skulls, bones, random bloodstains, pointy things, teddy bears, a very nice sofa with a bundle of pink and purple blankets at one end, a smiley faced pillow on the other. And then, leading up a smallish slope that I was fairly sure I would fall down, stood Kahu; erect as she had been when she’d saluted Chief Strong Step yesterday, next to the most disgusting thing I had ever seen in my life.

The thing I stared up at from the floor was a grotesque monster of pus and what looked to be flesh that had…. Melted… It’s body vaguely resembled that of a pony; looking shaped to have once been a Stallion in life, though whatever had done this to… uh, him, had also melted the flesh almost completely off of his muzzle, leaving only teeth looking equally as fucked up as his flesh and facial tendons that looked to be, (no pun intended) hanging on by a thread. He had no mane; however a fairly healthy looking and long white tail flowed from behind him. I tried my best not to let my mouth hang agape as I picked myself up off the floor and brushed the curtains from my flank, stepping into the room a little farther.

As I gingerly stepped forward, a very smooth voice escaped what I had previously assumed to be a possible corpse display again, causing me to nearly tramp over half of the candles in surprise.

“Good evening, Miss. Please, have a seat. We’ve much to discuss; you and I.” It said as I made sure the candles I’d managed to avoid where fine, I looked up to find the… thing, gesturing toward the sofa.

Not wanting to offend the polite creature, I took a place on the sofa; my dark fur and the lighting of the room hiding my blush when the furniture creaked under my weight.

Kahu remained vigilant, her eyes pointed straight forward toward the door. Her demeanor made me want to go poke her to make her move; she looked like a statue, but the thing speaking tore my thoughts away from this.

“First order of business then; I wouldn’t rightfully reckon that you have ever encountered a ghoul before, have you?” the thing inquired, looking at me with eyes that where colored as if they might be blind; though I didn’t really think he was, considering he was staring into my fucking soul.

I shook my head no, and he continued, “I didn’t think so,” that proved he wasn’t blind, “You see, ghouls are creatures created after a pony has been exposed to flesh melting levels of radiation; and hasn’t had the good fortune to die.” The ghoul told me, as I assumed that is what he was, which would explain the relevancy of this part of the conversation.

I nodded my understanding and he continued anew, “I am a ghoul,” Called it, “However in not dying due to my extremely high levels of radiation exposure I have had the good fortune of being gifted my dear.” I tilted my head to one side, intent on listening; the mention of the gift plus the odd… ‘decorations’ reasoned that this was the Oracle everypony spoke of.

“I discovered these caves soon after the megaspell went off in Hooflou; the capitol city of what was once the Equestrian Islands. The radiation exposure has gifted me not only an extremely long life, but also, sight beyond mere sight.” He went on, and the parts about ghouls made me interested; science was good.

“Apparently they were a hideout for Zebra drug smugglers; and several had taken refuge down here, escaping most of the radiation from outside. I managed to befriend them, and numerous ponies arrived too late for the Stable’s closing, and thus this small colony here was founded. After the passing due to natural causes of the leader of the Zebra smugglers, I assumed the role of our leader, and soon found myself experiencing the first touches of my newfound power.” I resisted the urge to yawn; not out of boredom, just that I needed to yawn, and kept on listening.

“Eventually the better part of the radioactive fallout cleared up; about the same time the first generation of Hema Lae reached adulthood, actually. We built shelters, irrigation, farmed edible fungi down in lower parts of the cavern; we had, and have, quite the life for ourselves here. I decided to teach the old language of these islands to my people, and it soon overtook Equestrian as our language; however I knew nothing of the written version of the old one, and therefore we adopted Equestrian letters instead, as both where phonetic in nature. My newfound sight had told me it would be so, and therefore it was, you see.” This time I resisted the urge to roll my eyes; supernatural powers were a tad beyond my beliefs, maybe if this… ghoul, had been or previously had been a unicorn, I might believe it; maybe.

The ghoul pony turned away and continued talking, placing a hoof over his chest as if he felt extremely important, “I blame my gifts on two things; the extreme amounts of radiation that melted my horn into my eyes, and the drugs that the Zebra smugglers had with them in these caves. One in particular; something we call Rage. The combination of this and my eyes allows me to see past what is current reality; and into the future itself!” the ghoul, whom I now was pretty sure was the Oracle, finished, turning around to face me again, seeming very proud of the combination of being horribly scarred for several life times and being a drug addict at the same time. I also found it odd that I had guessed the cause, (or part of it, anyway) of his powers right off the bat.

I wasn’t sure what to say, and hesitated, and the Oracle continued; and here I’d thought he was done. “On to our second order of business; the reason you are in this room, which I am sure you are curious about.” He paused and looked at me, and I nodded, prompting him to continue.

“You see, about two or three years after my powers manifested themselves, a tremendous vision came into my mind, of a united Equestrian Islands; the first united nation of the Wastelands, forming together under a common flag and a leader. A master of pages leading the peoples of the Islands to a victory like no other set before it, and the journey which they would have to endure in order to reach such heights. The vision eventually led my mind to the door of Stable 33, and I knew that the master of pages would come from there, and because of what I had seen prior to that, I knew what would occur after they came to us and what they would need to find. Thus, the prophecy was born, foretelling the arrival of the Master of Pages to venture forth and lead the Islands to prosperity.” He paused again, more than likely for a perceived dramatic effect, “We believe that your arrival is the opening of the door, and that you, Miss Tumble, are the foretold Master of Pages.”

Hearing it the second time didn’t make it any better, and I was still awestruck. My lower jaw wasn’t on the floor this time, but I was still fairly surprised to be hearing it straight from somepony, or something, who earnestly believed it; let alone the very same one who’d conceived the idea in the first place.

“Your Cutie Mark tells us so, and The Overmare has told me of your talents as a writer and a poet, and also of your work as the school teacher; nopony else would fit the bill as perfectly. Unfortunately, with my mind currently unenlightened by lack of Rage, I am unable to define specifically whether or not it ‘tis you that I and my people have been waiting for, however even in this state I can rightfully say that you are almost without a doubt the pony we are looking for; as far as logic would deem fit.” His tone seemed as if he was attempting to convince me, albeit he was, I still found it almost comical that he expected me to believe that he had some kind of power derived from drugs, psychosis, extreme physical scarring, and that my destiny had been predetermined and that in reality, I had no free will of my own; the only thing that existed was his word, governing over all of life itself. What a crock of shit.

In the span of a few seconds, I had moved from a free soul in an open world full of possibilities, to being enslaved by this fucking lunatic’s drug induced… musings! Musings that hundreds of ponies and zebra’s had been foolish enough to fucking give in to and… accept as fact? What the flying fucking fuck did this asshole think I was? Some kind of mother fucking puppet he had some kind of control over? I’d show this prick just how much control he had!

“Ah-and wh-what if I-I-I d-don’t wanna be-ee p-part of yuh-yuh-your… ‘divine p-plan?’ ” I started off politely; wouldn’t want to throw a hissy fit instantaneously like some hormone crazed hussy. Besides, maybe I could get out of this; I may not be a good talker, but I’m not a dimwit, and there was no way in hell I was going to be some zombie’s puppet.

The Oracle frowned, or rather, the disfigured remnants of flesh on his face wiggled downward, like he was trying to frown, and he sat back on his haunches; he blinked at me a few times before replying.

“Well, you don’t really have much of a choice, sugar.” He said, putting verbal sugar on the word itself; which was extremely creepy considering what had just called me sugar. I literally shuddered, though not too violently and I don’t think either Kahu or the Oracle noticed. Not that Kahu was noticing much other than the spoken words because she was still staring at the door as if her life depended on it.

“S-says who?” I retorted. Ah, gotta love challenging authority; even false authority, always so much fun.

“Well… me, of course. It’s been foretold, there isn’t much you can do about it now.” He said, looking at me like he didn’t quite understand what was going on or why I was having trouble seeing it his way.

“We’ll see about that.” I said, hopping off of the sofa and somehow managing to not fall as I turned tail, with my nose in the air, and walked out with a quiet ‘Hmph!’

I heard him say something else, in that gibberish language, and Kahu respond.

I’d show him. I’d get the fuck out of here, away from the ponies that’d lost their families, away from the reminders of Olive and away from all of the crazy ponies in this little town! I struck off back down the hallway, remembering most of the way back to the little alcove where the Stable ponies where living, to gather up my shit and get the fuck out of here; any prophet and-or perpetually prophecy crazy pony, zebra, or ghoul with a problem could shove it.

~

I somehow managed to not get lost, or have any mishaps on the way back and for that, life just decided it had to fuck me over.

I returned to find all of the Stable ponies up, standing around, and yelling; loudly.

Yay.

“It’s her fucking fault all of our families are dead!” Somepony yelled, pointing a hoof at Sparkle Swirl, who was cowering next to her mother. It seemed like the majority of the ponies shared the opinion, and they’d gathered around the Overmare and her daughter to… throw accusations back and forth, apparently.

“Maybe if somepony had been monitoring the Stable’s systems like they should’ve been, instead of fucking clopping again while on the job, everypony would’ve lived!” The Overmare spat back, turning the small group against the colt who’d made the latest accusation. He turned apple red under his white coat and his ears flattened against his head in embarrassment.

I really didn’t need this right now; not only was I intending on an escape from a crazed zealot driven society, I was also going to have to slip around a very large group of pissed off ponies.

Of fucking course, somepony just had to turn toward me.

“It’s her fault; if she would’ve stopped Sparkle when she had a chance then this never would’ve happened!” Some mare that I remembered used to work sanitation yelled. She was maybe half of my height, and was apparently not very bright, (ha; that rhymed) because she walked right up to me, where I was standing quietly, and proceeded to scream all manner of curses and accusations at me, going so far as to stand up on her hind hooves with her front ones braced on my chest to yell at me face-to-face.

Now, normally, I would’ve just taken it like a big girl. Maybe pushed her off and went back to my room to be angry in solitude, but the current circumstances did not fall under my definition of ‘normal.’ The weight of it all; the Stable’s flooding, the mass watery grave beneath our hooves, my never getting another chance with Olive, the fact that these psychotic ponies who lived here thought I was some kind of fucking deity, years of torment at the hooves of my peers, the shame and the humility of fucking existing, and now the survivors from a place I had called my home now turning against one another, cracking from the strain like a thin branch in a storm. It all came crashing down on me. The emotional pain, the physical, the pure strain of it all; the stress, the indecision, the primal fear, came down on me like a thousand tons of bricks.

In as swift of a motion as I could muster, (which didn’t seem all that fast to me) I shoved her down to being on all fours again, reared up, and brought a hoof down on her head; hard.

I knew I shouldn’t have done it as soon as I did; the entire world was in slow motion as the adrenaline moving through my veins put me into a state of nirvana. I could feel the bones crack as my hoof connected with the earth pony’s skull. I could feel them crunch even farther as her head was crushed between my hoof and the rock floor. Blood flowed from the malformed remains of the mare’s skull, and the entire world was set back into proper rhythm in a blur of horror and motion, the entire scene came back to life full-force.

“What the fuck!?”

“Look what Tumble did!”

“Nooo!”

“Murderer!”

“That’s what she gets!”

“Get her!”

“Hang her!”

“Traitor!”

“Monster!”

“Why?!”

All manner of crying and screaming erupted from the group of ponies before me, and I didn’t really want to deal with that either, frankly. Somepony ran forward to try and confront me, or something stupid like that; I shoved him off, hard. I felt one, or possibly more, of his ribs crack. I didn’t care at the moment; I’d gone over the edge, there wasn’t any fucking stopping me now. I unlatched the snap on my holster and floated out my pistol and unhitched the safety catch, pulling the slide back and letting it snap forward to chamber the first round, the inscription on it coming to mind briefly.

Rise and Rise again, until Lions become Lambs.

…I wasn’t quite sure how that fit here…

BLAZZAP!

I fired straight up in the air, and the shot echoed throughout the hall. All you could’ve heard was the small tinkling noise of the smoking cartridge as it tapped on the stone floor. I waited for it to stop before moving. I kept my gun out, barrel up and ready for anypony to try and come near me. The crowd wisely parted for me, and I descended the short path back to my room, and slammed the door shut behind me, making the frame splinter a bit.

I went over to my saddlebags on the mannequin, loaded up my gun again with more bullets, stuck it back in the holster, and snapped the snap shut again. I floated the bags off of the mannequin and buckled them on, loading a couple shirts, a brush, and another tie into them. I looked at myself in the mirror; there were tears running down my face, and one of my sleeves had come partially unrolled. I fixed the sleeves and ignored the figure quietly sitting on my bed. I walked to the wall, pulled the curtain off from over it, and kicked a hole clean through the thin jury-rigged wall. I ripped down enough telekinetically for me to get through, and walked into the Overmare’s room. She cowered near the bed, trying to hide Sparkle Swirl from my seeming rage. I dragged them both out from under the bed emotionlessly toward me. (That was new; when had I been able to actually drag a pony?) I pulled them both up to face me, and I leaned forward and hugged them. They stopped screaming, though they were both still crying.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered, letting go of them before they had a chance to respond or otherwise. I walked back out the hole I’d smashed, threw the curtain halfheartedly back over the hole, even though it didn’t cover the whole thing, I did anyway. I opened my door and just left it open; I wouldn’t be coming back. The cloaked figure hopped off of my bed quietly and followed me as I walked between the isles of living cubicles full of stunned silent ponies, and stepped around the pool of blood and corpse I had put there.

~

Of course I’d expected this, but not quite this many. I’d walked around forever, not even bothering to care why nopony was around, until I followed a ramp upward toward another passage to a different part of the cave. Reasoning that up meant out, I kept on up a spiral of stone, which lead into another large chamber…

… Completely filled with ponies, zebras, and numerous ghouls, all armed with every manner of weaponry.

Fuck.

The Oracle stepped forward, wearing a large, sagging robe, (I assumed) and spoke, his voice echoing in the large chamber.

“Tumble Flow; do you now see the power of the prophecy? Do you now see the powers the universe has set into place here?”

He kept on talking, but I’d tuned him out. I felt the eyes of what must’ve been hundreds of ponies on me, and I was shaking worse than Maple that time we’d accidently locked him in the mess hall freezer for three hours when a prank went wrong. I felt like I was going to throw up; violently. Without the adrenaline pumping through my veins, all of the attention and tension in the air felt like a much more literal thousand tons of bricks. I glanced up briefly, and caught sight of a bit of light shining through what looked like another door. It must lead outside. If I could pull myself together enough to get out of this, I was right next to the exit. I went back to paying attention to the Oracle.

“I have gathered these souls here to stop you, as I foresaw you would attempt escape.” He said. Maybe all of these egotistical rants where like clockwork, damn; I’d timed that perfectly. I spoke up before he had a chance to continue.

“Y-you s-s-s-s-s-s-eee, Oracle, I-i-ititit wasas not-ot m-my escay-scay-scape fuh-fuh-from-um y-you, you force-foresaw,” I decided to play into these ponies’ zealotry, using their beliefs as leverage for my argument. “Wha-wha-what y-you f-f-f-foresaw-aw, wa-wa-was m-my esc-esc-escape f-from my p-peers,” That had been the easy part, if you call stuttering excessively and being strangled by anxiety in front of upwards of two-hundred ponies easy. Luckily, Kahu either believed me, or decided to help me out, and spoke up from the place she’d taken quietly at my side; she’d been following me since I walked out of meeting the Oracle. I made a mental note to hug the shit out of her later.

“‘Tis true, oh great Oracle; there was a conflict within the Stable ponies’ den; they where accusing one another of numerous things, and upon Tumble’s arrival, they turned their accusations upon her. When one of her peers decided to make the conflict physical, Tumble bested her, putting her to death swiftly.” I winced, probably noticeably, at how Kahu spoke of the fucking murder I’d just committed as being... well, being right, of all things.

“She then fired her weapon toward the ceiling, causing everypony else to be struck silent, and returned to her quarters, to arrange an escape from them, rather than us. Thusly, she is standing before our people, looking for an escape from ponies who find her execution wrongfully appalling, more than likely planning retribution.” She went on, deeming me some form of hero. It almost made me sicker than the hundreds of pairs of eyes on me.

“Is this true, Tumble?” The Oracle seemed taken aback, surprised at this turn of events; so much for his so called sight. I could only nod in response, the anxiety of everybody looking at me was making my insides churn; not to mention the fact that they almost all now certainly believed I was some kind of hero for fucking murdering somepony.

“Hmm,” He tapped a hoof on his chin, or what was left of it, and then turned toward the large crowd, “Brothers, sisters! There are ponies down there that are not under the influence of my teachings! They could be razing our homes in rage as we speak!” He said, and everybody cheered or yelled, or made some kind of noise, and charged toward us. Kahu didn’t need to push me to tell me to get the fuck out of their way. We dashed off to the side and the crowd surged past us, waving weapons and screaming all manner of things in several languages.

The entire crowd of ponies, zebras, and the occasional ghoul, were gone faster than I would’ve thought possible, leaving I and Kahu alone in the room. I looked toward the door, and grinned, and then promptly rushed to shove my head in a corner between a pair of large rocks; finally throwing up after the anxiety of the crowd’s eyes had wracked my nerves beyond belief.

There hadn’t been much to throw up; I hadn’t eaten in forever, but I would worry about that later. I strode off toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Kahu asked, her little hooves plodding along behind me.

“I am getting the fuck out of here.” I said, managing not to stutter; I think I was becoming more comfortable around just Kahu, I never used to stutter around my old friends in the stable either.

Kahu didn’t say anything, she just trotted along quietly behind me, and as I drew closer to the door, I felt more alive than I had in years. I had freedom; nopony was over me now, not the Overmare, not some fucking drug-addicted Oracle, nopony. I was going to enjoy this; whatever it was out there, I made a mental note to make sure I enjoyed it.

I took one last breath, and yanked at the door to throw it open.

Locked.

I turned around slowly with a sigh to kick it open like I had the Overmare’s door, but Kahu levitated out a little key, and slid it into the padlock, catching it as it fell.

She locked the lock on the chain links it had been attached to again, and slid it around her neck, and floated the little key back to wherever it had come from under her cloak. I asked her why, and she replied;

“Might be useful.”

I shrugged, and threw open the door.

~

Footnote;
Level Up!
Unarmed skill has increased to 25. (From 15)
New Perk – Telekinesis (3 of 10): You can now lift heavier objects with your basic Unicorn levitation. (More than Telekinesis (2 of 10))