-Chapter XXVII- Lost in the Abyss
-Chicago, Illinois
-28 First Seed
-6:00 A.M.
-Nicholas
"Hello...?" I called out, lost in a sea of confusion. "Is anyone out there?"
I heard voices, lost in the distance, mumbled together...I felt around in the darkness, lost as I fumbled about. "What..." I heard a feminine voice say... "Spi..."
Spi...Spike? Is that what they said...?
"I just can't believe..."
I fell through a bright light, finding myself in some sort of tree house...I looked around, searching for a sign that could tell me where I could possibly be...but I found nothing. "Where am I?!" I called out in rage.
"Did you hear something?" the female voice asked.
"No, I don't think so..." a male voice replied.
Where am I...? There was a flash of purple, and I found myself somewhere else, somewhere of much more...eloquence. It appeared to be a throne room of some sort, windows lining the walls that were taller than any man. What the figures formed with various colours of glass were, I couldn't tell. Everything seemed...blurred, but it wasn't my vision, it was the world around me. I had a feeling...a feeling within my soul that was familiar, something I hadn't felt since my visions of Polokus...
"Hello?" I asked again in my new surroundings. "Anyone out there...at all?"
Everything around me sharpened, and everything was so clear that it was almost eery. "Well, Princess..." I heard a voice say. The very sound of the dark, masculine voice sent shivers down my spine and the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. "It certainly has been awhile..."
I turned in the direction of which the voices came, towards two thrones, side-by-side. Upon the larger of the two sat a large Alicorn Princess of Equestria. The Alicorn I had come to understand through Max's teachings of foreign lands as Princess Celestia, whose magic could raise and set the sun. "How dare you trespass upon my lands, Drennen." she said sternly.
Damn...Equestria... I thought as I hid myself behind one of the two doors to the massive room, watching through the crack between the door and the wall where it was hinged.
"Aw, now is this how you'd treat an old friend?"
"Friend? Now you call yourself a friend? The only thing you've ever done concerning me and my kind was kill the parents of one of my past students!"
A smile crept across the mysterious man's face. A smile that could strike fear into the hearts of even the bravest of knights. "Ah, yes...the little crystalline...what was her name again?"
"What do you want from us?" the Alicorn Princess seated upon the smaller throne asked sternly. This must've been the younger of the two Royal Sisters, Princess Luna, whose magic could raise and lower the moon, similar to her sister's...but she seemed so familiar...her figure, her...silhouette...
"Oh, Luna...you always were the one not to beat around the bush...but I've always known Celestia to be the serious one." he said.
"Why are you here?" Celestia asked.
"Oh, just a simple request...the Elements of Harmony would be in order."
"Over my dead body!" burst out Luna.
The smile returned to the man's face. "That can be arranged." He snapped his fingers and he was joined by two men, armed with large rifles. "Reider? If you will."
The man on the right of Drennen held up his rifle and aimed down the sights, directly at Princess Luna. "No, Drennen!" Celestia called out.
"No? Well then..."
"I'll...I'll get the Elements..."
"Sister, you can't!" Luna held out a pony hoof.
"I must."
"Must you shall." Drennen said with an enthusiastic tone.
"Let me contact my student. She has them." Celestia said reluctantly.
"Good, good...but in the meantime...Reider?" the man with the rifle walked up to Luna, who rebelled, but was quickly subdued. He had her on the ground beneath his boot without a second thought. Luna tried to use her magic against him, but he forced her to stop by pressing down his boot on her head.
"Drennen, call him off!" Celestia demanded.
"I still don't see the Elements." he replied dryly.
"Let me contact my student!"
"Very well then..." he snapped again, and the second man walked up to him. "Write a letter for the dear Princess, would you?" the man nodded and took a quill and paper from a desk on the side of the room nearest him. "Now, what will you say?"
Celestia drew a heavy sigh, and reluctantly began to speak. "Dear...Princess Twilight Sparkle..."
"Oh, yes, and this was her Coronation Day, yes? Tell her I said congratulations." he said with a frightening tone.
Celestia shot him a glare of hatred before continuing. "If you would be so kindly, could you please send me the Elements of Harmony? I require them for my latest project...yours truly...Princess Celestia."
"Simple, yet straight to the point. I like it." Reider said.
"Now send it." Drennen commanded Celestia.
The third man gave the letter to Celestia, who took it with her magic. With a flash of light, the paper was gone. We waited a few moments, and with another flash of light, only this one purple, a box appeared out of thin air. It was a box that had a feeling of importance to it, with a gem carved into the top.
What the hell...?
Celestia looked to the ground. "I'm sorry, Twilight." she mumbled, and threw the box at Drennen, who seemingly caught it without thinking.
He smiled as he opened the box, but it quickly disappeared. He slammed it back shut. "Do you think me a fool? An imbecile?"
Shock immediately appeared on Celestia's face. "What do you mean?"
"Where is the seventh Element?"
She nervously looked at him, "seventh Element? I don't know..."
"You don't know?" he laughed, "you don't...know." he shook his head and sighed. "Well then, Princess...I guess I have to do this the hard way after all. Reider?"
"Prisoner, sir?" he replied.
His face became expressionless. "I'm afraid we don't have enough room for prisoners, Reider."
"No!" Celestia yelled as Reider readied his rifle. Tears began to roll down Celestia's face, "I don't know where the seventh Element is." she said with a shaky voice and uneasy breathing. "Just please don't do anything to my sister..."
Reider and the third man looked to Drennen for his call on the situation, who rolled his eyes before turning away from Celestia. "Bah, what the hell." He abruptly turned around back at Celestia, "oh, I do apologize. I forgot you Equestrians- or ponies, rather- do not like cusses around you." Celestia's expression returned to one of hate, yet still with tearing eyes of worry. "Let her go, Reider."
With his command, the soldier let go his hold over the younger princess. "But let me warn you, Celestia, if you don't find the Element of Courage within the time of my liking..." his eery smile appeared again for the last time, "I'll have your sister's head and yours. Just to have the complete...set."
A final snap sent the two soldiers back to Drennen's side. "Farewell, Celestia...for now." he turned around and began to leave the throne room. Filled with rage, I left my hiding place and after Drennen. I heard a gasp from behind me, and I saw Celestia looking directly at me as she held her sister with a wing.
Luna looked up towards the direction her sister gazed. "What's wrong, sister?"
Celestia quickly looked away from me, "nothing, Luna." she assured her. But I knew she saw me, though her sister didn't...this...this was another vision...
I turned back to where Drennen was headed to find him staring at me with his unnatural, icy, cold red eyes. He mumbled something beneath his breath that I could not hear from the distance that I was, but when a soldier questioned his gaze, he denied it and turned to leave yet again. I chased toward him, stopping before I came into contact with one of his men. "Reider, do we still have contact with Shinra?"
"He's passed, sir. Just recently, in fact. He was found murdered with a sword in his back." he replied.
"And his son?"
"We do have."
"Tell him his father's 'favor' is now required."
"And if he refuses to cooperate?"
"Then we simply tell the citizen of Midgar of his father's Satanic worshiping."
"Yes, sir."
And this was the last thing I remember before a wave of light washed over me, consuming my body before I awoke again in my bed.