Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
“Once I’ve finished conferring with Celestia and Luna,” intoned Lex darkly once he’d gotten far enough away from the foals and their creatures that they couldn’t overhear him, glaring at Severance as he spoke, “you’re going to kill those animals and break whatever connection those children have forged with the Night Mare.”
Unsurprisingly, the scythe objected to that, pointing out that such a course of action would run directly counter to the Night Mare’s interests. But Lex only sneered; that had been Severance’s answer when he asked it why it had facilitated a link between those foals and the goddess: that it was what the Night Mare wanted. “I don’t care about the Night Mare’s interests,” replied Lex without a second’s hesitation. “Her wants and desires don’t matter to me in the slightest.”
The barbed wire around his left foreleg reacted immediately to the statement, tightening sharply enough to draw blood. Similarly, Severance immediately came to a stop. Lex had been carrying it out in front of him in his telekinetic aura, wanting to look at the weapon as he spoke to it, but now it refused to be moved. Instead, it turned so the point of its blade was facing toward him, pointing out that he’d sworn to bring followers into the goddess’s fold.
“Do not remind me of my promises,” hissed Lex softly, stepping to within a foot the weapon’s sharp point. “I’ll give the Night Mare the worshipers I said I would, but in the time and manner of my choosing. Mine. Not hers and not yours. And those worshipers will not include children who lack the ability to appreciate what they’re getting involved with!” He could feel his anger starting to flare up then, upset by how Severance had taken advantage of the naiveté of Fruit Crunch and his friends, and he desperately tried to fan his displeasure into a familiar rage. But the towering fury and righteous indignation he wanted to feel wouldn’t come, and his burgeoning anger faded into bitterness a moment later.
That was sufficient to send a pang of worry through Lex. He knew himself well enough to know that bitterness was the forerunner of despair, and despair was the gateway to giving up. That was something that had to be avoided at all costs; the absolute nature of his convictions, the convictions that he’d spent his life rigorously formulating and examining and refining, was what allowed Lex to keep going in the face of a world – or rather, a world full of other people – that steadfastly refused to make sense, no matter how often he tried to understand them. If a bout of hopelessness ever caused him to abandon his principles, to stop striving to live up to the ideals that he knew were right, then it would be the end of everything. No matter that there were stories, both testimonial and fictitious, of people succumbing to despair only to shake it off later (usually because of some maudlin display of friendship or something similarly trite). If something failed once then it could conceivably fail again, and Lex refused to entertain that level of uncertainty about his ability to conduct himself correctly; that he had to do so with regards to how everyone else conducted themselves already bordered on unbearable.
And yet that level of confidence in himself was becoming harder and harder to sustain. Bad enough that he’d had to struggle so much to accomplish so little since coming to Vanhoover; at least progress had been made. No matter how incremental they might have been, and how immensely he’d had to struggle to achieve them, things had been advancing. But now…now it was all threatening to come apart. His relationships with Aria, Nosey, and worst of all Sonata were all fraying, if not already in tatters. The princesses had shown up with the apparent intent of throwing even more obstacles in his way. And now some of the most vulnerable members of the population he was ostensibly protecting – a group of innocent children who had already put themselves in situations of unacceptable danger – were trafficking with powers that they couldn’t possibly comprehend. It was like he couldn’t complete one task without some new problem cropping up, hindering his ability to build on what successes he’d had and lay the foundations for more.
Even now, Severance was still daring to try and justify what it had done, pointing out how those children had come to it of their own accord and asked for instructions on finding favor with the Night Mare. “Then you should have refused them,” retorted Lex. “Only adults of sound mind have the cognitive maturity to fully fathom what it means to enter into an agreement of such significance, and even then the matter is alien enough that the ponies here would still need the particulars explained to them by someone experienced in such things. That’s why I conferred with Cloudbank privately before instructing her on how to petition the Night Mare for spells.”
The weapon’s rejoinder made Lex frown. “Of course I needed no such instruction,” he scoffed. “I’ve spent time on Everglow, and was able to observe and analyze such arrangements directly. Nopony here can…say…the same…” Lex hadn’t planned on ending his counterarguments there, but found himself unable to continue speaking, his attention captured by what was happening a short distance away.
Aria was exiting one of the outpatient tents…with a stallion.
The sight sent Lex's thoughts whirling, but he clamped down on them immediately. There was absolutely no reason to presume anything about why the two of them had been in there together. For all he knew, that stallion was an acquaintance of hers who was ill and she’d simply been checking on him. Or perhaps they’d simply been discussing something and wanted to get out of the sun. There was no reason to think that anything untoward had happened between them.
But Aria is spiteful and untrustworthy by nature, Lex told himself as he turned and started toward the two of them, barely noticing that Severance was letting him telekinetically pull it along again. She tried to kill me when I first met her, and later attempted to flee to the Crystal Empire with Comfy Cozy and Produce Aisle. There’s no basis to assume good conduct on her part. It wasn’t implausible that Aria had enchanted that stallion for some reason, particularly with how acrimonious she’d been when she’d stormed out of the train station before. Really, checking on the two of them was imperative, for everypony’s safety.
The pair were speaking animatedly, and as he got closer Lex could make out snatches of their conversation. “-again later?” asked the stallion, a green pegasus that Lex vaguely remembered as one of the ponies who’d protested their initial arrival at the camp, thinking that they’d spread the ghoul plague.
His question, whatever it was, made Aria roll her eyes. “Look, let’s just go see Princess Whatsherface, and then maybe-” She abruptly stopped talking as she caught sight of Lex. For a second she scowled, but then a vicious smile crossed her lips.
“Aria?” The pegasus stallion cocked his head. “What are you looking aAAAHHH!” Leaping almost a foot in the air at the sight of Lex Legis heading toward them, stony-faced and scythe drawn, the stallion immediately spread his wings, but didn’t have a chance to flap them as Aria’s foreleg shot out and wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him back down and pulling him against her.
“Well well well,” drawled Aria. “Look who’s here. Lex, meet Disc Jockey. My new boyfriend.” The last three words were accompanied by a self-satisfied grin, her voice dripping with smugness.
“H-hi,” squeaked Disc Jockey, his ears folding back and his face pale.
Lex barely glanced at the shivering stallion, his eyes trained squarely on Aria. “What are you doing, Aria?” he growled. The anger that he’d wanted so badly a minute ago was coming easily to him now, but he didn’t notice.
Aria, however, did, and the sight made her grin wider. “Oh, I’ve been doing this guy right here,” she purred, nuzzling Disc Jockey even as his eyes widened. “He just got done popping my cherry, and I have to tell you, it was incredible.” She almost moaned the last word, eyes fluttering closed as if still enraptured by the memory.
“Uh…” Disc Jockey’s eyes flitted between the beautiful mare complimenting his masculinity and the frigid-faced stallion holding the magic scythe in front of him. “We, uh…w-we should really get go-”
“I meant,” hissed Lex, and there was no mistaking the menace in his voice now, “why are you intent on seeing Princess Celestia?”
“Hm?” Slowly opening her eyes, Aria smirked at him. “Oh, DJ here said he’d take me to meet her. But now I’m thinking we might just to spend the day in bed together.” Stretching languidly, she kept her foreleg wrapped tightly around Disc Jockey, defeating the stallion’s attempt to back away slowly. “I mean, he was on me like a panther just now, so long and strong and…thick.” She ran her tongue over her lips then, leaving no doubt what she meant.
His jaw clenched, Lex turned his gaze to the stallion by Aria’s side, calling on his circlet so that he could examine the stallion and make sure that he hadn’t been enchanted. But Disc Jockey had no way of knowing that, seeing only that Lex was glaring at him silently, and the sight made his shaking grow worse. “N-no…” he whimpered. “It’s not…not like that…”
“Aw, no need to be so modest,” smirked Aria, her eyes still firmly planted on Lex. “I’m just happy I found a real stallion here, who’ll take what he wants instead of chickening out at the last minute.” Leaning over, she planted a kiss on the side of Disc Jockey’s head.
Lex’s eyes turned green, purple contrails erupting from the outer corners as he turned his gaze back to Aria then. There hadn’t been any magic on Disc Jockey, but that was the last thing on his mind now. “I’ve heard enough-”
But he wasn’t able to finish as Disc Jockey – unable to take the rising tension any longer – doubled over and threw up noisily. Barely avoiding the frothy deluge, Aria flung herself away from him, shrieking in disgust. It was only after he’d completely emptied his stomach that Disc Jockey looked up at Lex, tears in his eyes as he coughed and sniffled. “Nothing happened!” he gasped fearfully. “I swear!”
“Hey!” yelled Aria, all pretense of affection gone now. “Shut up!”
But Disc Jockey kept going. “She said she wasn’t your girlfriend! I just asked if she wanted to go see Princess Celestia, but she said we should go into one of those tents and d-d-do it! But on my mother’s life, we didn’t!”
“Only because you finished before we even got started,” jeered Aria, her voice mocking and cruel. “Honestly, what kind of guy blows his load just from a little tongue-kissing? You should change your name to Quick Shot so that girls know what to expect from you.”
She might have said more, but Lex – his eyes now back to the normal color – spoke up before she could. “Leave us,” he ordered Disc Jockey. “Now.”
The pegasus stallion didn’t need to be told twice. Still sniffling, he flapped his wings and unsteadily lifted off, heading south toward the river. “Yeah, go ahead and run away, loser!” taunted Aria as he fled. “And by the way! It’s small! Really, really small!”
“And you’re pathetic,” snapped Lex. “I’m not surprised that you tried to engineer some sort of petty revenge, but even for you this was feeble.”
Sneering, Aria sauntered over to him. “Right, because that’s why you looked like your head was about to explode when you thought I slept with that guy. But you know what? You’re right. That was feeble. I think instead I’ll just go have a nice long chat with that princess instead. I bet we'll be able to find all sorts of things to talk abou-” She stopped suddenly, giving a frustrated cry of surprise as she looked behind Lex. Turning his head, he easily spotted what had gotten that reaction from her.
Princess Celestia had taken flight, leaving a crowd of waving ponies behind as she headed back towards River's mansion.
Lex struggles with a bout of depression, managing to fight it off with some inadvertent help from Aria.
But with Princess Celestia leaving the area, does this mean that Aria's plan to enchant her into attacking Lex – and the future Celestia saw – have been averted?
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Goddesses like the Night Mare don't like being told no, especially repeatedly. Given how many times Lex has denied her or twisted her commands around, I won't be surprised when he gets caught in a critical moment without any divine magic or an intelligent scythe to back him up.
Well this is fun. Lex squares off with a God's wishes.
He might continue to be able to get his way, seeing as how he's the only one that wants to spread the Night Mare's word...
9592304
Agreed. Trying to twist a deity's words against them is rather unwise for the average mortal, especially if said mortal is reliant on the deity's patronage for power. While Lex is far from average, he's still has limits. Limits that would become more constrictive should the Night Mare no longer want his aid and unless the goddess wants to gamble her future worshippers on a bunch of children to spread her religion, Lex is her only choice so she has to put up with his actions and he knows it.
Ouch, Disc Jockey isn't going to live down the dressing down Aria gave him though I think the relief from surviving Lex's wrath will override the humiliation. At least Aria's plan, as petty as they may be, has crashed and burned when Princess Celestia took off and since she already revealed her plan, Lex isn't going to let her anywhere near the meeting when it takes place or maybe a curse that makes her mute if she pushes Lex any further.
It would undoubtedly be cruel but given how thematic his curses were, it would be fitting. Especially if he intends to teach Aria that he is not to be played around with while also cutting off her magic to influence others.
As for the children, Lex is right that the children have no understanding of the spirit animals' nature but neither does he and ordering the animals killed could prove detrimental to the children since we know that they're connected.
I have a feeling that killing the spirit animals, might also cause harm to the children. But I do not know to what extend...
Will it also kill them? Or just leave them as empty husks?
Spirit bond verses deific spelled weapon? Dont know the stats for that, given the familiars would have far more hit points and might work on pool? Along with other stats? Even cutting the bond would drop that many AP in one shot, which would have a good chance of triggering 50% shock roll effects?
As for Aria, she is forgetting, all Sonata has to do is talk Lex into doing to Aria exactly what he did before, impassively scanning her. Again, and again, and again, observing the results. Im sure eventually she would have nothing to complain about, especially if Lex placed the same scan on her as a spell curse?
9592499
If it was a normal class ability, it'd probably leave them somewhat impaired for 24 hours before they could resummon them? Pathfinder tends to be super-forgiving about getting your familiars etc. killed.
9592304 To be fair, Lex isn't saying "no" so much as he's saying "sit down and shut up until I say otherwise." But that's not really much better, and it's becoming clear that the Night Mare's patience is wearing thin. She gave him that resurrection gemstone for Cloudbank, which he hasn't used, after all. Now she's gained several new adherents via Severance in the form of those kids, and Lex is raising an objection to that...somehow I don't think she'll take that very well. Severance certainly doesn't seem to be happy about it, after all.
9592456 I suspect that's been a factor in his dealings with the goddess so far. But presumably there's only so far he can leverage that before the Night Mare gets fed up.
9592495 I see what happened to Disc Jockey as being one of the running themes (one of several) throughout this story, which is that it's dangerous to get involved with power-players if you're not already an individual of considerable talent/skill/power yourself. It's not always going to turn out badly; sometimes it results in you becoming stronger yourself, especially if an established power takes you under their wing, but it's never without risk. Nosey suffered greatly for hanging around with Lex, and Cloudbank, Thermal Draft, and the other ponies that went with them all lost their lives because of it. Disc Jockey got involved with Aria, and even though it might not be his fault he's still paying the price for messing around with a girl who is, quite frankly, way out of his league...especially since he knew she's involved with Lex (even if she said otherwise). At least he's gotten off with only his pride being wounded.
So far the Night Mare's Knights are doing okay, but nothing's certain, especially since Lex doesn't seem to approve of their current state after all. That he plans on killing the spirit animals might be detrimental to the children, but that's why Lex also ordered Severance to break the foals' connection to the Night Mare; he wants whatever link they have with her undone so that losing those things won't have some sort of mystic backlash-effect. Of course, I dropped a hint about this in the form of what Altaer told Straightlace back in chapter 339:
As for Aria, notice that she didn't reveal her plan to Lex. She just threatened to go talk to Princess Celestia, and that's all. She knows that's not something he can punish her for, under his own moral framework, just like if she sleeps with someone else. Of course, she's 0 for 2 now in that regard, which is probably for the best. Escalating things where Lex is concerned really isn't a smart idea on Aria's part. But then again, she's emoting more than she's thinking right now.
9592499 I mentioned in my previous post that a hint was dropped in that regard earlier; getting rid of the foals' spirit animals might be harder than Lex realizes. Of course, that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be some sort of effect on them...
9592584 Aria has surmised (correctly) that once Sonata finds out that Lex almost got it on with her last night she'll be ticked, so for the moment that's not really an issue. Of course, Aria is reacting from her heart a lot more than her head at the moment, so logic isn't really what she's relying on at the moment.
As for Lex turning Severance against the Knights' spirit animals, well...we'll just have to see.
Lex is acting increasingly rigid, as he's starting to realize how lost he is without Sonata and Nosey (mostly Sonata). He would not have been able to gain his position without her, and without someone a lot like Sonata I don't think he'll be able to hold it.
Aria and Disc Jockey was hilarious. Aria screws up her own mission of revenge because of her bottomless pettinesss, that's classic Aria!
I am very curious indeed to see how Severance plays this. Just as I said that the Night Mare would go out of her way to hold on to her one mortal cleric earlier, now I could see her doing almost anything to keep these 5 new evangelists-in-training, even if it means ending her bargain with Lex. I guess it depends on how much the Nightmare cares about the type of government and society that gets set up, versus just having lots of ponies worship her.
I feel like the Night Mare is smart enough to be able to manipulate the situation in a way that lets her keep both. Which is kind of a shame, part of me really wants to see Lex and Severance fight. Severance is incredibly hard to stop, but Lex must have come up with some kind of contingency plan for dealing with Severance if his alliance with the Night Mare sours.
9595458 I wanted to work a callback to chapter 252 into this chapter, as the way Lex is feeling here echoes the bitterness and depression he felt in the wake of the fight with the ghouls. Unfortunately, I couldn't fit the reference in, but it's the same thing as then: Lex is feeling discouraged by how he's having to struggle so much to achieve so little. The fact that new problems keep coming up is wearing him down, and for the moment he's having to go it alone (notwithstanding the Night Mare's Knights...or should we just call them the NMK now? Eat your hearts out, CMCs!), so the effects are worse.
Ironically, Aria snapped him out of it, albeit unintentionally. She seems to have a unique ability to push Lex's buttons, between pushing him to almost do her in a fit of lust and now making him notably jealous. Of course, she didn't quite realize that she's simply too much mare for Disc Jockey to handle, proving him to be a poor prop for getting back at Lex with in every conceivable regard. Of course, he really should have known better; even with what Aria said, it was pretty obvious that there was something between her and Lex, and he got involved with that at his own peril.
As for what Severance and the Night Mare do now...well, that's currently up in the air, but I seriously doubt either of them will agree to Lex's idea of undoing what the foals have done. After all, they're now new adherents of hers, and since Lex is dragging his hooves on bringing back Cloudbank, this is the first breakthrough the goddess has received in a while. But Lex isn't exactly the type to back down either. Hopefully something will give before things degenerate into a full-on power-struggle between Lex and Severance...