Episode 13: An Objective Look

Yin and Yang, light and darkness. Growing stronger through suffering is only the first step. The next step that is needed is to combine the light and darkness inside of you. To do this, one must understand the god that is with them and the devil that is with them. But what do we do if no God is with us, period?

...Is it all over? No.

No. God will absorb the darkness from the explosion and stop the devil from creating new roots. This will be clear when the three are pulled out.

“Just let a drop of blood fall on that card I gave you…” Noimman said to herself as she came closer to the prison work school...

Dumb-bell, who had passed out inside of Noimman’s groin compartment, was beginning to awaken.

“I feel like I’ve only been asleep in this darkness for hours,” he said as he looked all around him and saw nothing but black, “but I may as well have been asleep for days, maybe even weeks and months. Years? Who knows. Not that it matters, all of us are already dead.”

Dumb-bell thought back to when he and the gang first came together after they died. He remembered the first time they performed for someone other than Princess Celestia. How they introduced themselves to Rarity and then Derpy Hooves messed everything up by quoting a stale meme.

“Ha ha ha,” laughed Dumb-bell, “it’s easy to look back on stuff like that now and say, “Ah, the good ol’ days.”. But unfortunately, looking at it from an objective perspective shows that those days really weren’t so good. That was the same night we had our first “apocalypse”, followed by Fluttershy having to become a god, and now…”

Dumb-bell cringed as he remembered Rarity making fun of him for looking like a lady.

“That would be more appropriate than ever right now…” he begrudgingly admitted. “I can’t blame this on Ninja Time God Rarity either because Noimman wasn’t created by her or Fantasy God Discord. They can’t do anything to help us. We really are fucked this time…”

Hey, don’t talk like that. We’re the ones who decide when you get fucked.

Dumb-bell’s eyes popped open as he heard NTG Rarity saying those words in his mind.

You’re not fucked until you get laid to rest, ho ho!

“Rarity?! Discord?!” Dumb-bell exclaimed upon hearing FG Discord talking in his mind now too. “You can reach us, even in here? I thought you had no control over Noimman or anything she did!”

That much is true, for Noimman was created by The Eternal Three. But we can only do nothing to her, it doesn’t affect what we can do with you.

“But shouldn’t being captivated by her prevent us from hearing you?” Dumb-bell asked. “I mean, if we’re inside of her, and we’re part of her true form now…”

You’re only inside of Noimman’s body. The darkness that surrounds you is only the extension of her true form.

“So what’s going on here?” Dumb-bell replied. “What is Noimman, really? Why is her true form not inside of her body?”

Because Noimman’s true form only oversees everything as she controls her body from the shadows…

Dumb-bell gasped as he realized the secret of Noimman’s true identity.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed. “I know how Noimman can be defeated! I have to tell the others right away!”

They already know, ha ha. We talked to them first. We just held off on telling you because we wanted to see your reaction.

“I’d be irritated if I wasn’t so ecstatic!” Dumb-bell retorted happily. “I finally get it now, why Fluttershy did things this way! She wanted us to hold off on telling Adrian the message right away, because if we did at the time, there would have been no reason for her to believe us. She wanted us to get caught by Noimman and put inside of her body, because this ensures that we’ll be close to Adrian when the time comes to fight Noimman, a time where she’ll need to listen to our message and believe us in order to defeat her! All we have to do is train here until we’re strong enough to break out of here!”

Smart thinking...but that’s only half of it. Keep in mind that Noimman isn’t stupid either. She already knows that you’re going to try to increase your strength in order to break out of here.

“Hmm?” Dumb-bell went, confused. “Then why did she trap us in here in the first place?”

Think carefully, Dumb-bell. When you and the Dark Sky members come together, you form a holy dragon, a creature of light. And Noimman is of darkness. Do the math.

“...Oh yeah...that bitch!” Dumb-bell yelled in frustration. “So that’s why she split us up! We can’t use that power, but she can harness it from us! To break out of here, we need to be together! Dammit! Come on, Adrian! We need you!”

Unfortunately for the Dark Sky members, Adrian Bruce wasn’t going to be rescuing them just yet...because for the time being, she was stuck inside of a classroom. She was pretending to write notes in her notebook when she was actually writing obscene words to vent her frustration with the dreadful lesson being taught to her by none other than Crazy Celes…

“And that is how Robot Alicorn Twilight and I singlehandedly exterminated the human race!” Crazy Celes boasted to the classroom. She had changed out of her street clothes and was now wearing a teacher’s uniform of a white button-up shirt and black pants. She also had a teacher’s stick that she was using to point to a drawing of a crudely drawn Twilight Sparkle with a crudely drawn boy standing under a professionally drawn head portrait of her. “Any questions? Comments? Quips?”

The entire classroom just blankly stared at her, save Adrian, who started writing something new on a blank sheet of paper in her notebook.

“What?!” Celes exclaimed angrily, unhappy with the classroom’s reaction. “What are your eyes firmly locked on me for?! This isn’t driving school, and I am not the road!”

The people in the class kept staring as Adrian finished what she was writing.

“History is dark and warped, okay?!” Celes yelled. “What, did you think we were only going to get rid of all the white guys?! It really speaks volumes when Chester Cheeto’s granddaughter was the only one who took notes from this!”

Celes said that while pointing her teacher’s stick at Adrian, leading the class to turn to face her.

“Yes,” replied Adrian facetiously as she tore the page she had just written on from her notebook, “and I have some very valuable input to offer you…”

Adrian then held up the page for Celes and the whole class to see. It read, “GO FUCK YOURSELF”.

“Oh my…” Celes responded in astonishment with a look of horror on her face that abruptly became a look of cheer. “That is very valuable input!”

Adrian got a look of confusion on her face as the rest of the class began murmuring in puzzlement over her sudden shift to a jubilant attitude. Things became even more perplexing when Crazy Celes’ voice boomed on the intercom…

“MRS. CELES, TO THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE! MRS. CELES, COME TO THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE THIS INSTANT!”

“Well, have a good life, everyone!” Celes exclaimed as she casually strolled out of the classroom. “Just remember, you’d rather be in detention than in the detention center!”

After she left, the class just sat there in dead silence before someone said…

“So...does this mean class is over?”

“Uuuggghhh…” Adrian groaned as she slumped her head on her desk. “I hate this place…why the hell do we have to be here? It’s not like I’m learning anything, so what’s the goddamn point?”

Everything has a point, Adrian. Just because your school doesn’t teach you anything that interests you or makes you feel there’s a point to life beyond just living doesn’t mean you have to be stuck working in prison. It just means you have to look at things from a different angle...find a new window of opportunity…

“Huh?” Adrian said to herself as something stuck in the window to her left caught her eye. As she left her desk to get a closer look at it, the ominous chuckling of Yata could be heard from outside the classroom…it seemed as if he was getting ready to take the syringes out of his head...

Meanwhile, in another classroom, Felix was having an “afterschool session” with Akame. Only he was left in the classroom as Akame was asking him some questions.

“So Felix,” said Akame in a sweet tone of voice, “how did you enjoy my lesson?”

“It was okay.” Felix replied bluntly.

“Ho ho ho,” laughed Akame, looking right through him, “it wasn’t. I could tell you were bored the entire time.”

“I’m serious,” insisted Felix, “it was okay. Just because I wasn’t into it doesn’t mean it was a badly put together lesson or anything.”

“Wow,” replied Akame, impressed with his politeness, “even after I gave you the “okay” to be brutally honest. You’re not just a poser, you genuinely are a humble and nice guy.”

“...” Felix paused before letting out a sigh. “No, I’m not humble or nice. It’s just a natural habit for me to try and be as diplomatic as possible, regardless of situation.”

“What are you going on about?” Akame asked with a bemused expression on her face. “If you weren’t genuinely nice, you wouldn’t prune yourself to make that a natural habit to begin with.”

“Well…” Felix answered. “It’s difficult to explain because you only see what goes on with the outside of me, not the inside of me. I can’t help it, but I’m always thinking of things that I feel no human being should ever think of. I don’t want to go any further than that…”

“Oh, but I do…” Akame said, now wearing a serious expression as she got out her bells from her shirt pocket and began ringing them in her left hand. “I’m all too familiar with “things no human being should ever think of”...because I’m not exactly human…”

Becoming uncomfortable as Akame came closer to him, Felix quickly reached into his coat pocket to grab the drink Akame had given him earlier...only to find that it was gone.

“So you haven’t drunk yours yet…” Akame commented as Felix looked up at her and was surprised to see her holding a small, black snake in her left hand, which vanished to reveal the drink. “You really should. Just like it gave your sister the strength to stand up against Crazy Celes as you saw, it will grant your mind extraordinary power to stand up against what has been plaguing it for so long…”

“...Yeah.” Felix finally said after another pause. “To be honest though, I kind of already figured that out. That’s the field I’m in, researching chemicals in an attempt to create things that will not only enhance people’s strength in combat, but also enhance their minds.”

“I can relate to that,” replied Akame with a wink, “for I have always been into a very similar kind of research. But I was never satisfied with merely tempering people’s bodies and minds, no. Even now, as I no longer subscribe to evil, my interest in tempering others’ souls has not at all waned.”

“...Evil?” Felix asked.

“Now, don’t pretend to be surprised.” Akame answered as she moved in closer and put her hands on his cheeks. “You knew the whole time. That there was no way I couldn’t have been evil at one point. Do you know where my dark powers that appear to bend the laws of reality come from? They are from the same source as Crazy Celes’. Both of us are simply what they call, “demon gods”.”

As Akame was explaining this, Crazy Celes was standing at the door to the principal’s office, described as such on the windowpane. Snickering to herself before she walked in, she shouted to the person who was sitting by the desk with the chair facing the other way…

“YOU WANTED TO FIRE ME, SIR?!”

“ONLY IF YOU REFUSE TO SLEEP WITH ME!” the person in the chair yelled as they turned around to face Celes, revealing that it was a clone of Celes that she had created out of magic. “WE’RE GOING TO DO IT LIKE THEY DID IN THAT 5-HOUR ENERGY COMMERCIAL!”

“IS THAT SEXUAL HARASSMENT?!” the Celes at the door shouted.

“NO!” the Celes in the chair answered. “THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH HAVING SEX WITH YOURSELF, EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T WANT TO! YOU’RE THE ONE DOING THIS TO YOURSELF!”

“HA HA, BUT YOU JUST FUCKED YOURSELF WITH THAT LOGIC!” the Celes at the door bellowed. “BECAUSE NOW I’M THE ONE DOING THIS TO YOU!”

“NNNNNOOOOOO!” the Celes in the chair screamed as the Celes at the door came in and shut the door behind her. “YOU CAN’T! I’LL TELL CORPORATE, MY BIG BOSS, ON YOU!”

“BIG BOSS HAS BEEN FUCKING YOU ALL YOUR LIFE!” Celes proclaimed to her clone. “WHO DO YOU THINK AUTHORIZED THIS?!”

The clone screamed and cried as Celes raped her before absorbing her back into her body, transforming her back into the magical energy she once was.

“Phew!” Celes went, smiling nonchalantly and shamelessly as she kicked back in the chair. “After putting up with the ATTITUDE I was getting in class today, that was a great way to silence the kettle for good! Noimman would be proud!”

“Heh heh heh heh heh…” a familiar voice laughing could be heard. “Proud to see you coming in her office without permission?”

Celes almost jumped out of her skin (before deciding against it) when she saw the face of Noimman peeking through the windowpane and laughing.

“You don’t think this will cause some kind of explosion?” she said to Celes, who had her hand on her chest, looking like she was about to have a heart attack.

“AND I DIDN’T EVEN BRING ANY NITROGLYCERINE!” she cried.

Quickly, she turned on the intercom and screamed for help before the door opened and she saw…

“Noimman…” Adrian said to herself as she looked at the poster she had retrieved from the window. “So that’s why we were brought here. They want us to kill Noimman…”

Adrian had overheard Celes’ cry on the intercom, along with Akame and Felix. Pressing her fingers against the poster tightly in rage, she said to herself…

“We have to get out of here…”

In the other classroom, Felix had a similar feeling after hearing Akame explain to him what this was all about…

“So Noimman is a demon god too…” he said, trembling in fear. “And you want Adrian and I to work with you to kill her. I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can do that…”

“I’m sorry too…” Akame replied as she put her hands on Felix’s shoulders and brought her closer to him. “But this isn’t about what you or anyone else thinks...this is about what must be done…”

“What must be done…” Felix repeated. “That seems to be what it always comes down to. What must be done. We get told to live our lives any way we want to, but it gets proven to us again and again that’s not the case. We were our parents’ pawns, and now we’re going to be your pawns. And if we don’t become your pawns, that makes us selfish. As well as wrong to condemn you for being selfish and trying to trap us in an inescapable cycle of emotional manipulation. If that’s what you want to do, just try it. You may have our compliance on the outside, but never on the inside. That’s because we’re too smart to fall for your game. We know you don’t care about us or love us.”

Akame gave Felix a deadpan stare the entire time he was talking, and now...she was blushing…

“Felix...I do love you…” Akame replied. “If my true intention was to use you and your sister as pawns, I would’ve done just that. Manipulated your minds to make you my slaves.”

After hearing this, Felix gulped, losing his bold stance and beginning to feel guilty.

“Wow…” he said in disbelief as he thought through everything again, all of Akame’s mannerisms, and realized that she genuinely did have a crush on him. “I’m really sorry, I just got caught up in my venti-”

Felix was interrupted by Akame kissing him. Akame then brought their bodies together and started making out with him. When she finished, she said in his ear…

“Don’t apologize. You’re kind, humble, and willing to stand up to me. You couldn’t even begin to understand how happy I am to see a child of Satan turn out so well…”

“...Child of Satan?” Felix replied in confusion before the classroom door burst open and Adrian entered with an angry look on her face. Instinctively, Felix and Akame quickly moved away from each other after Adrian glared at them.

“I’d ask what the hell was going on in here…” she remarked bemusedly. “But I’ve got much bigger fish to fry than petty romance drama…”

“What do you mean?” Felix asked, worried about how much Adrian had seen with him and Akame.

“We’re leaving this shithole.” Adrian stated bluntly. “NOW. We’re going back home right away to tell our parents that they can suck it.”

“Wait Adrian,” replied Felix, “I know what’s really going on now too. I know it was wrong for our parents to force us into this. But we can’t allow Noimman to keep doing what she’s doing.”

“And why’s that?” Adrian retorted. “We’ve been allowing her to do what she’s done all the time we’ve known her, accepting that there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“That’s where both of you have been wrong, however.” Akame interjected. “There has always been something for you two to do about it, and it’s very simple. Become strong enough to stand up to Noimman.”

“I never knew strength fell from the sky.” Adrian remarked sarcastically. “Shut your lip and go play with your bells if that’s the best you can come up with to coax us into your game.”

“It’s not my game…” Akame said in a chilling voice as she got out her bells. “It’s Noimman’s game. And if I don’t force you to be a part of it, she will. And she’ll do it in the most brutal way she can possibly imagine.”

“Ha ha ha ha ha…” a familiar laugh was heard from behind Adrian. “That’s the best argument you could have made, Akame. Well done.”

“Fuck, you!” Adrian exclaimed as she got in a fighting pose when she turned around to see Noimman.

“Please don’t tell me you actually believed I didn’t consider the possibility that you would try to get your way out of this by running.” Noimman teased sinisterly. “You think home is safe? Even if your parents were truly on your side, they’d have no way to resist me.”

“Why are you even doing this in the first place?!” Adrian demanded to know. “Are you just toying with us for fun to satisfy your bloodlust? Do you actually believe we can kill you because you just want to die that badly?”
“I hardly have the reason figured out myself…” Noimman replied ominously, creepily smiling as she put her hand to her cheek. “Maybe it’s both…”

“Well then, maybe I can help you figure out the reason…” Adrian made a rejoinder to hint that she was about to punch Noimman in the face. However, with the ringing of Akame’s bells, her fist was stopped from hitting Noimman...by the ghost of a young man in a white robe and a white hat who had used a book to block Adrian’s fist.

“Please, control your anger.” the ghost pleaded. “You must not engage Noimman before you have mastered the fusion of Yin and Yang. You must not repeat the same mistake my brother and I made.”

Adrian was stunned and puzzled...but felt that this spirit was telling the truth as she pulled her fist back, the ghost vanishing as she did. Looking at the new expression of perplexment on Adrian’s face, Noimman giggled.

“I wasn’t being honest…” she teased. “I do know exactly why I brought you here. For me, torturing weaklings has become far too boring to keep me even the slightest bit engaged anymore. I brought you here because I want to see you and your brother grow into a worthy pair of adversaries. But it doesn’t end there, no. That would also be too boring. Here is the only place where you and your brother will be able to learn the purpose of your creation…”

Noimman then began to walk away before she suddenly turned back around and finished what she was saying with the most sinister grin she had smiled yet, as her glowing red eyes could be seen through her glasses…

“...and I want to be as close to you as possible as I watch you writhe in torment upon discovering the truth…”

After that, she left for real, heading back to the principal’s office. Adrian and Felix were left feeling more sickened than they ever had felt.

“I almost regret not decking her…” Adrian said with a growl.

“Why is she so evil?” Felix asked. “What did we ever do to her?”

“Before you can understand why Noimman is the way she is, you must first understand why you are the way you are…” Akame interjected as she rang her bells again, this time causing a pool of darkness to appear below the trio. “There is a lot I need to show you…”

And with that, the trio descended into the darkness, being teleported to an orphanage…

...a strangely familiar orphanage…

Meanwhile, Noimman had entered her office, and was confused when she saw a white card lying on her desk. It was like the one she had given Adrian, only this one read…

No. God

“Hmm?” she said upon noticing it and picking it up. “Was someone in here? Or did I leave this here by accident?”

To test if it was one of her cards or not, Noimman tore it in two, then put the two torn pieces back together. To her surprise, the two pieces did not glue themselves back together with darkness. Rather, what filled in the tear…

...was light.