The cosmos glittered endlessly, segmented into brilliant portraits with spectral nebulae as their majestic frames.
Galaxies swirled with liquid grace across the ebony expanse, their epic, glowing arms like golden bands that streaked through inky darkness.
Between the comet streaks, the solar flares, and the electromagnetic pulses, a solid ring hovered at a fixed point in space. In the very center of its rotation was a shimmering beacon of light, warming every square kilometer of its curved inner surfaces. The light flickered for a space of time, dimmed, then flickered once more, repeating its cycle evenly for decades, centuries, millennia, eons.
In the far distance, occupying the far ends of the same galaxy, more rings twirled. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Thousands.
They swam a fantastic dance through the universe, like glowing eyes forever exploring the infinite expanse.
"Ah, I see now. We are forever learning, aren't we?"
One ring in particular sailed through a patch of chaotic space, its outer surfaces suddenly covered in malevolent shadow.
"Life, after all, is about progress. Surely, one can expect a few bumps along the way, epic or not."
With multiple pulses of light, the ring broke up into twelve separate parts. They turned dark, dim, and swam away from each other across the miasmic emptiness.
"There is chaos, and there is evil—for sure. But then there are also those who do the wrong things for all the right reasons. History will forever demonize them, but history doesn't have to be just a straight line, don't you think?"
As the planes dwindled into darkness, their reflections vanished in the tears clinging to Rainbow Dash's eyelashes. She drifted through the dismal clouds of chaos, her scarred limbs hanging limply by her side, her muzzle frozen in a perpetual grimace.
"What...?!" She gulped dryly. "Where...?"
"I'm beginning to understand, as maybe you're starting to, that history needs someone awesome like you... someone bold enough, crazy enough, and daring enough to complete the circle with just that—a straight line. Are you up for the challenge?"
"I..." Rainbow gnashed her teeth. She opened her lids just as she drifted past an artificial sun. "I-I don't get it..." Her eyes danced between bright and dark ends of a lone plane in chaos. "...why am I not dead?"
"Because you are up for the challenge. It's silly of me to even ask. And it's silly of you to feel so alone."
Rainbow wheezed, watching as the curved plane tilted about to face her, its vast mountains, valleys, deserts, and oceans glittering beneath a brilliant sunrise.
"I..." Rainbow Dash seethed, her wings spreading apart as her muscles tightened. "Fly." She stretched a hoof forward, into the blinding light. "I n-need to fly."
"... ... ...let me help you."
A soft hoof gripped Rainbow's and tugged—
—her up into a sitting position.
Rainbow gasped, sputtering. With wide eyes, she looked around from where she sat, panting heavily.
She was on the bridge deep inside the machine world. Monsters loomed all around her, thrashing and gnashing at a rippling sphere of harmonic energy emanating outward in all direction. Despite all of their ravenous efforts, they could no longer pierce through the field and touch her.
Rainbow shuddered. She blinked, then glanced down at her pendant with a gasp.
The Element of Loyalty was pulsating brighter than the pegasus had ever before witnessed. She was surprised that the ruby glow wasn't melting her already torn flesh.
With a jolt, Rainbow faced the pedestal ahead of her.
The flame was gone, but the Yaerfaerda symbol remained.
Rainbow clenched her breath, took a deep breath, and lunged forward.
Yelling, trailing blood, Rainbow soared towards the pedestal. She slapped both forelimbs onto the very top. There was no flame because she was the flame. As soon as she made contact, the ruby light left the pendant and filled the brazer instead. Her body erupted with harmonic energy, glowing all over with an immaculate crimson shine. Every wound, gash, and bruise lit up. Rainbow Dash ignited the pedestal, incinerating the cavernous interior of the machine in every possible direction.
The abominations had nowhere to go. They were doomed from the very moment that they followed Austraeoh inside. In hellish shrieks, they dissolved one after another, consumed by the ruby torch as it billowed outward, filling every golden nook and cranny of the world's basement, spinning every gear and swinging every pendulum to life. Soon, there was nothing left to see, for the burning dust of serpentine flesh had cast a fine blanket over every conceivable surface. In mere seconds, the flame erupted outward, surging into the mountain's hollow core and melting the chaos strips outside to a coarse powder. The frothing energy illuminated every cursed patch of stone with a cleansing, warming light.
I'm thinking that Rainbow Dash is like Odysseus.
She's in the middle of a grand epic journey that involves the gods, the cosmos, and whatnot.
BURN WITH ME.
None may enter the orb!
... on a more serious note, I suppose that did for the other chaos beasts she trapped in the machine world.
Speaking of which, we never actually saw Nightshade's body. Granted, she probably threw herself to her death or died of thirst, but if not, what'd the burst do to her?
Grind her up in the restarted machinery, I'd expect, if she's not on one of the service platforms.
This chapter...
oi59.tinypic.com/242fkaa.jpg
Man. Shoutout to the nondying that happened. Kinda wish there was more time between chapters so everyone could've been more mindblown by the "death". Also. The heck just happened.
4999553 No.
The cosmos just happened.
WHAT
Whitemane? Seems like her kinda spiel, but it's been so long, and she's so far away. I don't know if she'd have the... reach for something like this.
Also, would this be an example of deus in machina?
4999652 idk. I think it's either discord swinging from chaotic evil to chaotic good, one of the previous austraeoh's like Commander Hurricane, or the element of loyalty itself.
And yes, this would be a deux in machima.
HOT DAMN!!!
4999520
img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100620112028/tardis/images/6/60/Behold-opticblast.png
Soooooo... Dash is being tasked with fixing the ring world? That is a challenge, but it also means celestia and luna took the sun for their piece leaving the others to rot. That is where the other alicorns went, they froze to death.
So I was kind of right it just wasn't any of the mane six that pushed her back. Maybe Discord perhaps?
World.exe is rebooting! Ooo my this was cool. :scootangel :
5000140
I think the alicorns discovered the world-piece already after the ring had broken? After all, neither Luna nor Whitemane spoke anything about there being a ring.
4999652 I really want to say it's Hurricane myself.
In other wrds, WOOHOO, SHE'S ALIVE AND KICKING!
4999652 I think it's Discord. Completing a circle by drawing a straight line? Seems pretty chaotic to me.
4999652
I'm thinking either Discord or Commander Hurricane myself, if it is anyone we know from the story so far anyway. Maybe one of the Mane 6 (Twilight most likely) is also a possibility I suppose, as RD was dying (or maybe dead even) at the time. However right now really leaning towards Discord, especially because of the
the
and the
lines.
However the Hoof grabbing her, assuming who it is actually has one and it wasn't just in Rainbow's head or something, makes me think its Hurricane or one of the Mane 6 (again likely Twilight).
My first thought was Whitemane, but she's said goodbye a long time ago, it's got to be someone else. Discord, Hurricane, Celestia? It just doesn't seem right. I'd say it's harmony itself, or Dash thinking to herself.
Well. That was unexpected. I was expecting her to live, but not come back that way.
Hmm I think it's loyalty. Loyalty is not just an element...I think it's a sentient being. Maybe the one who created the element?
yup
2.bp.blogspot.com/-ntyIV68YITw/TpQaH7KOX6I/AAAAAAAALDc/H7MS-xw17Ig/s1600/number2.jpg
Italics... Was that Discord inside her?
Nah, whatever. *goes to the last chapter*
4999520 I wouldn't have gotten that reference before this weekend. I am slow with my Who.
4999607 The Cosmos. More specifically, the Great Will of the Macrocosm. Returning characters from death as always.
statici.behindthevoiceactors.com/behindthevoiceactors/_img/chars/char_2217.jpg
Was that Hurricane?
Also, Even is RD goes, what a hell of a finale she gave us
Yes. As always as many questions raised as answered.
perhaps its one of the old alicorns...maybe the oldest, wisest of them all...
Now she really is embodying the Spark.
-Spirit
Who's this? Someone new that we won't know about for another 200 chapters? Damn shame because they were the only mystical being or otherwise powerful thing that used the right A word.
oh my. this seems to be the literal definition of deus ex machina. heehee
5000718 Youre ahead of me and probably know better, but if youre on the surface of the earth and flew in a straight line to circumnavigate it, you would be using a straight line o cross a circle, and by extension the same can apply to the inside of a ring. In a technical way you would be going in a circle, but as far as you know, it is a straight flat line
Not what I expected, but it's still nice to see her alive. And I'm thinking it was Discord...
6039543 Yeah, Kinda feels like a deus ex machina at the same time it's more like foreshadowing because of HOW he did it. IC is good at this.
4999652 Kind of? It's an interesting way of doing it because We don't really know if anything or anyone actually interfered or if it was an already established thing, Like the Loyalty pendant, protecting her, and then another entity making itself known. Therefore if it IS a Deus ex Machina, It's a well executed one.
Take a shot.
Rainbow is triumphant, but there is SO many questions to be asked.
Its Rainbow, you had her at 'challenge'.
So there is a soul in the pendant? Curious.
Dashius ex Machina but I don't even fucking care
5883338 I don't think it needs to be. Hallucinations were an integral part of the previous flame contacts. This time she just needed to get close enough to the usual flame location in the machine world to trigger these hallucinations followed by cleansing. She triggered it and was pulled away, but the reignition of the flame remains.
Holy geeze HELL YES! Please Skirts, no more insanity like that! You're gonna give me a heart attack, I swear. One more, then screw it I'm starting the next one.
~SolidFire
Whaaaaaaaaat
Okay, weird cosmos-voice (whatever it is) seems to explain that the ring was broken after it entered the chaos cloud, rather than having always been there.
And the "wrong things for the right reasons" people would have been the ancient pegasi who broke it? I wonder why they did...
It's one of those moments...
"Hoboy..."
9:55 p.m.
Fuck you, I love you now. ;D
I think we're just getting started Now to bring this hope to all of the worlds
09/19/2019
14:51 UTC
right "a" word.
Who's voice was that?
Doesn't matter. Rainbow set the machine world on fire.
That voice has to be Discord...
Not Discord. I think an alicorn or another spirit.