Blinded {HK TF Request w/ Seizure Warning}

…Why did she come here?

Velora pondered this to herself as the monologuing of the tour guide buzzed in her ears. She looked around at the other ponies and the gloomy scenery absent-mindedly, noticing the half-asleep air around her friend Crimson Beat. She held a hoof over her head in a vain attempt to keep herself dry, but the “rain” poured down. She didn’t know why, but she had a… familiar feeling here, like she needed to be here, a heavy feeling in her chest… she wasn’t close enough, somehow. This “City of Tears”… something deeper within? She tried her best to shake off that feeling, but the deeper the group was led into the ancient ruins, her head began hurting more and more. At one point, the group guide said that the group needed to rest and gathered the group into one of the dryer buildings, and everyone fell asleep… except for Velora.

She adjusted her pendant, rubber her bracelet, and stealthily galloped out, before taking flight deeper into the city, making way over the shiny, spike-roofed buildings. After a while of flying, she found herself looking down on what seemed to be one big building with a bunch of separate doors, almost like a condo. She also saw the strange “residents”… or what was left of them; a bunch of giant humanoid bugs in armor, and even more smaller ones that seemed to have been richer. While she was looking around for anything of interest, she saw a strange staircase that seemed to lead down under the city, the water trickling down the steps. She didn’t know why, but something seemed to be… calling her down. She rubbed her head, pushing her tri-colored mane out of the way of her black and purple eyes, and fixing her tiara so that it wouldn’t fall off, before she bolted down the corridor.

The corridor was longer than she thought, but she suddenly stopped herself when she saw the straight drop down at the end. She looked around the large room, filled with wooden planks in the walls, and more of these guards on patrol, with these being significantly smaller, wearing blue, and flying. She looked down at the long fall before her, before flying down and zooming past the flying guards, making sure to stick her dark blue tongue out at them while grinning rudely. She carefully dodged around the spikes that grew in numbers as she flew deeper, before she finally reached the bottom and deciding to sit on the ground; it seems that the deeper she goes, the worse her headache became, and she was holding her head with both hooves and holding her eyes closed.

“…Why are you here?”

A feminine voice jolted her back to reality; what was that?

“…Somepony is… calling m-me here…”

“…”Calling?”…A call from… from beyond the Abyss? A call from… beyond the Abyss… beyond the… Abyss?...!!!”

Suddenly, something silver whirred by her head, startling her upright; a large needle, longer than she was, had gotten stuck in the wall behind her, and it seemed to be connected to a thread…

Velora jumped up and began flying down the hallway in front of her as another figure flew by her head. She bolted as fast as she could, not caring if she crashed into any other figure in her escape from the unknown assailant, flying down and deeper into this strange place. She flew through the glowing light in this strange metal place, avoiding the ticking crawlers on the walls and going deeper; why was she going so deep? Her headache was starting to make her dizzy, and her vison was becoming worse.

She soon found herself on a strange balcony far above a brown-grey… bone sea? It was an even farther drop than before, and there were numerous platforms with enemies and spikes; she decided to stop and try and compose herself, but she was soon slammed into by something… sharp, leaving her with gashes in her back and in one of her wings, and flinging her off. She couldn’t react quickly enough, and found herself crashing and sliding off numerous platforms, and being knocked around by the ticking crawlers, before finally collapsing on the bottom of the drop.

These weren’t bones, they were… masks? She could barely move or see, and she was so… weak, the headache soon drowning out everything else. Then, something strange emerged from the sea of darkness and broken masks; a small, blaring orange and white light, and it floated over to Velora.

“DO NOT FEAR ME.”

“I AM THE DAWN, I AM THE LIGHT.”

“THE LIGHT CANNOT BE CONSUMED.”

“DEGRADED… VESSEL.”

“VESSEL.”

“VESSEL.”

Before Velora could think properly, the strange light merged with the heart in her pendant, and her pendant and tiara began glowing brightly. Before long, they began burning, like hot smithing metal, and began burning into her fur and flesh. She whimpered and wheezed, before beginning to thrash violently in pain as she began floating into the air. Her pink and gold tiara merged with her head, losing four of its prongs and all of its crystals, the segments becoming much thicker; the metal became much longer and sharper, and became a muted cream color. Her mane and tail began falling apart, and her body fur became much more numerous, becoming the same color as her “crown,” and losing her cutie mark. She was forced upright, and the entirety of her front legs vanished into her body in a flash of orange light. Her body overall became much larger, and her torso and head merged together.

Her body became much more oval shaped, and her hips thinned out considerably, and the fur ended at the start of her legs. Her back legs were converted in a flash of orange light; they lost all of their joints, and seemed to become straight metal blades, with a hole in the center separating part of her legs, and becoming a slightly lighter version of her fur color. Her wings lost their dark colors and migrated to the sides of her body, before losing the defining joints, becoming large “blankets” of enlarged, almost tendril-like feathers that were various shades of her fur color. Her muzzle became completely flat, losing her mouth, ears, and nostrils entirely; her pendant had migrated to where her eyes were, the metal becoming a pure black “mask” that separated the fur, and the red heart became a singular, glowing heart-shaped “eye” within the dark “mask.”

The Radiance looked up from the Abyss that had “consumed” her, before she began to rise up, summoning her ghastly orange miasma to follow her. As she rose up, she heard a *crunch* as something fell onto one of the platforms; the Broken Vessel, seemingly defeated by something. It was no matter to her, as she kept rising up; she would not be forgotten! She rose up, until-

*tchk!*