//------------------------------//
// Lightning vs Starla 
// Story: My Brave Pony: Starfleet Nemesis 
// by Scipio Smith 
//------------------------------//


Lightning vs Starla




“Because if I can’t revenge on Twilight all the wounds that she has dealt to me, then at least I’ll be content in dying at your hand…and in the process reminding you of who you really are.”

Lightning Dawn stared at her, the mare who had been his wife, the mare whom he had loved, or thought that he had loved, the mare who now stood opposite him with drawn sword and a promise of death upon her lips. No, it undersold the point to say he stared at her. More accurate to say he boggled in disbelief. "Kill you? Starla...despite all that has passed between us...I meant it when I said that I don't want to hurt you."

Starla's smile was wired in place. Such a vicious smile, was that new or just something that he'd never noticed until now? "What makes you think I'm going to give you the choice?"

"You're not a mind controller, Starla," Lightning declared. "You can't compel to strike you down against my will."

"Maybe not," Starla conceded. "But he can. Your wild passenger. Your enticorn." She said the last word with whispered relish, as if there were some great taboo around it that she took joy in flouting.

Lightning's eyes widened. He saw what she meant now, and what she planned to do. "That won't work. I don't need to go full enticorn to beat you."

Starla laughed, and that laugh that Lightning had once so loved now seemed to him to have so cruel an edge that he could not for the life of him recall what it was about it he had ever loved. "Lightning, every wife has secrets in marriage. Do you know what my biggest secret was, through all our years together?"

Lightning frowned. Where is she going with this? "No. I'm afraid I don't."

"I was holding back the entire time!" Starla yelled, as she sped forward. In a flash she had crossed the distance between the two of them, ducking his punch, dropping to the ground with the agility of a gymnast and the grace of a dance. She swept with one leg to cut down his own. Lightning leapt up, her kick passing harmlessly beneath him, but then she shot upwards, fist outstretched.

The punch caught Lightning square on the jaw with a firm crack, tossing him upwards and backwards. Lightning gritted his teeth and flared his wings for balance, but Starla was rising too, rising more quickly than he expected, following up her blow with a series of powerful, painful kicks to his back.

Don't cry out. Don't wince. Don't even grunt. Never let your enemy see that they're hurting you. Lightning clung to his training as the barrage continued, pushing him and up and up towards the ceiling of the cave before, with a great cry, Starla pirouetted in the air and drove her foot into his belly with such force that Lightning was slammed right back down into the ground again.

And as the earth buckled beneath his impact Lightning let out a faint cry of pain as his back and belly both sent spasms through his body.

Starla landed a few feet away. "Get up!" she snapped. "Get up, I know my Lightning can take more than that. I know my war god can still rise from such as that. Get up, and awaken to your glory."

Lightning gritted his teeth as he climbed slowly to his feet. "I've spent more than half of my life as an unthinking monster, Starla. I won't become one again just on your word."

"You don't have a choice!" Starla snarled, as she came at him again. She was so fast, Lightning could barely follow her movements. He barely saw the glint upon her blade before she slashed it across his side.

Lightning grunted, trying to ignore the warm blood dripping down his flank, trying to ignore the burning beneath his ribs, turning to keep his eyes on Starla who stood now behind him, his blood dripping from her blade.

"You can't keep up with me as you are," Starla declared. "Without your Starfleet powers you don't have the speed, and even if you could catch me then you wouldn't have the strength. You can't hit me with the uniforce. The enticorn is all that you have left. Use it!"

"No."

"Use it, or Artie dies," Starla snarled. "Use it, or I'll leave you here and speed down that tunnel and show Twilight's treacherous little friends that I don't need any backup from Buddy or Dyno or Myte or anyone! I'm a match for that whole stupid gang! Use your enticorn, or I'll kill everyone that you forsook me for."

"Hey," Artie muttered, as he got up. "Don't I get a say in whether I die for not?"

Starla's lip curled into a sneer. "You really think that you can withstand me, Artie?"

"I think I might as well give it a shot, right?" Artie asked. "I mean, what have I got to lose?"

Starla shook her head in dismissive disdain. "It's time to choose, Lightning. Unleash the enticorn, and become once more the warrior that you were born to be, or watch helplessly while your friends die."

Lightning shook his head. "I don't need to choose. I've got another option, a power that you can't comprehend."

"What?" Starla demanded. "Friendship? Are you going to sing me a song and make me repent my ways, is that it? Is that your plan?"

"Not quite," Lightning said. "Now, Krysta!"

A tiny warp portal opened right in front of Starla's midriff, a portal from which Krysta emerged and, even as Starla was looking down, placed her tiny hands upon Starla's morpher.

Fairies could lift several hundred times their own bodyweight. They were a bit like ants in that regard. And so it was child's play for Krysta to rip Starla's morpher off her belt and throw it through the air towards Lightning.

Starla growled in outrage, for a moment she seemed torn between Krysta and the morpher. As her pink armour began to fade from her body, disappearing and reappearing in patches as her connection to the Grand Ruler's power fluctuated, she chose the morpher. She leapt forwards, right into another warp portal that Krysta had conjured which deposited her on the other side of the cavern, where her leapt carried her straight into the wall with a smacking sound.

The morpher sailed into Lightning's awakened hand, and it hardly required the strength of an enticorn to crush it in his fist.

"No!" Starla howled.

Slowly, Lightning turned to face her. "My friends are here to help me overcome any obstacle, Starla. Who do you have to help you when times are tough?"

"I don't need friends," Starla snarled. "I don't need anyone. I am Starla Shine, daughter of Galaxia Shine the Angel of Victory, and I am all I need."

"You may be stronger and swifter than I ever realised," Lightning said. "But without your starfleet powers I think we're on about an even footing now."

Starla didn't run like Buddy. She didn't even flinch. Her armour and her powers had been stripped away from her, but despite that she stood as proud as a queen and as fierce as a tiger. "Very well, why don't we test that theory?" She reversed the grip on her bloody blade and sprang for him with a great shout. "Lightning!"

"Starla!" Lightning charged to meet her, fists at the ready.

They met in the very center of the cavernous stone chamber, clashing like two rutting stags clashing in the meadow. Fists flew as Starla's blade shone brightly, and the shockwaves from their struggled rolled off them like waves upon the stormy sea.

This wasn't about Starfleet, this wasn't about the Grand Ruler or the orders that he had given to her. This wasn't even about Twilight any more, or her friends. This was about pride now, and honour, and the final and deciding tests of the views that they had set out for themselves. Starla stood for the old way, the space pony way, the warrior's path that she exemplified better than any other pony that Lightning had ever met. She had to win, she had to defeat Lightning Dawn and prove that the softening of his soul had made him, well, soft, and weak and vulnerable and all the rest of the insults that she might flung with words toward him. Now she had to prove her convictions with fists and feet and shining blade. She had to win or all that she had spoken, all that she had thought, all that she believed...would be exposed as a lie.

And that was no less true for Lightning. His was the new way, the openhearted path of friendship that Twilight had revealed to him before she died, the path that said that compassion and an open-heart were not weaknesses but sources of great strength. If he couldn't win this fight. If he couldn't defeat Starla and the old way, if she triumphed over him here...then she would be right, and he had been a fool.

But she wasn't right. He knew that now, in his heart and in his soul he knew it, he believed with everything he had. Now he just had to prove it in battle.

And he couldn't do it.

Though they stood locked in combat, trading blows like old-fashioned pugilists slugging it out with weighted gloves, though he gave as good as he got with Starla, he couldn't bring the combat to a close. They were, it seemed, evenly matched. Though his face and body ached with the blows that she had dealt him, though his muscles protested the continuous effort, though his breathing was becoming ragged and heavy, though his coat was matted and stained with sweat...he had to keep going. He had to win for the sake of his ideals.

But Starla was so strong, and so fast. She was taking everything that he could throw at her and giving it right back to him.

"Come on!" she screamed. "Use it! Use the enticorn! Awaken, and show me the true face of a warrior!"

"Never!" Lightning roared, because if he unlocked that cage, if he let that beast roar free then he would win, without a doubt. He would win, and quite possibly rip Starla into little pieces while he was at it. But if he did, if he triumphed over her in that way, then he would prove her right. He would prove that strength was all, and all else weakness.

He would not do it. He had done too much of that already. Far from awakening further, he released his grip on his awakened arm, letting it deflate to normal size and strength as he continued to trade blows with her.

"Pathetic," Starla snarled. "If you want become who you were meant to be, then perhaps I should just put you out of your misery!"

"Hey, Starla," Artie yelled, a moment before he drove his fist into her side. "SHUT UP!"

Starla recoiled from the unexpected blow, and Artie followed up with a stinging jab to her jaw that snapped her head sideways. He moved for a third punch but she caught the blow, snapping his arm to one side with an audible crack that made him cry out in pain. Starla's face was a rictus of rage as she slashed at him with his sword, scarring Artie's orange face from the jawline up and barely missing his eye. She slashed again, striking downwards, but before her stroke could fall there was a crack and the opening of a warp gate and Artie was beyond her reach across the cavern.

Starla bared her teeth like fangs, but before she could utter a word in anger or contempt there was another crack, and another warp portal opened, and out of this portal charged Snowflame, striking Starla in the midriff and bearing her backwards with the force of her charge.

Snowflame wrapped her forelegs around Starla's waist, and with a great cry and a heave of effort, she rose temporarily up onto her hindlegs, carrying Starla with her for all that she squawked in alarm and flailed her limbs wildly, and piledrove her head-first into the ground.

"Snowflame?" Lightning asked.

"Hey, our Lightning," she said. "Krysta said you could use a hoof."

"If the power of friendship doesn't mean a power up, I don't see why it can't mean 'summon reinforcements'," Krysta said.

Lightning's laugh was cut off by the wordless roar that ripped from Starla's lips as she tried to get up. Her whole body trembled with a combination of rage and effort, and the blue eyes that had once seemed so beautiful to him were now made mad and hateful to behold with the rage that burned within them. "You...all of you...you are...you..." she seemed to struggle to find the words as a scent like wild lavender and honeysuckle filled the air within the underground cavern. A sweet scent that seemed to be making Starla drowsy. Her eyelids closed, and though she forced them open they swiftly closed again. "I...you...I will-" She fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Thank g-goodness," Princess Fairgrace murmured from the entrance to the cavern. "I w-wasn't sure that w-w-would w-work on a g-grown up."

"Princess?" Lightning murmured. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to help you," she said simply.

"I...I thought you didn't have any magic?"

Fairgrace looked down at the ground for a moment. "It...it's isn't real m-magic. It's just something I learned to put the children to b-b-bed on time. It seemed like a g-good idea."

Lightning smiled. The power of friendship as overwhelming numbers. I wonder what Twilight would think of that. "Thank you, princess. Thank you all."

"What do we do now?" Snowflame asked.

"Krysta, can you take Starfleet back to the Twilight and have Fratello secure them in the brig," Lightning asked. "We can hardly just leave them here."

Krysta saluted. "You got it."

"Artie, you should go with her."

"Aw, come on," Artie said. "I've come this far, I kind of want to see if Twilight really has come back to life."

"You've got a broken arm."

"And it will still be broken later, so what's the rush?"

"I'm not even sure if we should stay here," Lightning said. "I stayed on the ship because I didn't want to disturb-"

A piercing cry echoed down the tunnel from the direction in which Twilight's friends had gone, a cry that sounded a lot like Twilight Sparkle.

Lightning and Artie looked at one another.

And then they started to run towards the shouting.