//------------------------------// // Determination's Limit // Story: Wounds and Weapons // by Zytharros //------------------------------// Determination’s Limit About five minutes later, after we revived the pan-coloured pegasus from her prone predicament, Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash, Boomdrop, Razortongue and I entered the club where the techno was occurring. Well, we would’ve… if Vinyl Scratch didn’t come screaming out the door, landing on her stomach and sliding a couple feet. She was followed by her turntables. “And don’t come back again!!” a stallion’s voice blared out of the bar. What would cause Vinyl Scratch to be tossed out of a bar in a place where she should fit so well? “Man, this town is cold…” she said, brushing herself off and levitating her gear. “Vinyl!” Boomdrop shouted, galloping up to the technophile unicorn. She lifted up her glasses and smiled. “Oh, hey, Boomer,” she said. “How’s Dashcore been getting along?” The zebra-pegasus shook her head. “We don’t have any time for music right now,” she said. “We’re here to find you. We’ve been on a long journey for… what, almost a year now?” She looked back at us for assistance. Razortongue and I both nodded our confirmations. I couldn’t see what Dash and Scoots were doing. They were behind me. “’Bout that,” Razor said. I continued. “We’re on a journey to find the Guardians of Harmony to defeat Crystal Fist. I think you may be one.” Vinyl sputtered and seemed to hack up a lung in extremely overkill fashion. “A’ight, Rainbow, who’d you have to beat up to get them to play this prank on me?” she said, glaring at the cyan pony. “Believe me, this isn’t a prank,” she said. “Each of us before you today, except Scootaloo here, is a member of the Harmony Continuum,” Boomdrop informed. “Basically, we’re the complete picture of Harmony.” “Get bent. And you need me to complete the beat, right?” she asked. Scootaloo nodded. “According to Zytharros, we’ve got one more to gather.” “We won’t fuckin’ know if we’ve got the two we need ‘til we try passin’ through the damn boundary at Canterlot, though,” Razortongue chirped. “Fuckin’ coward Crystal Fist… hiding behind an energy barrier…” She screamed, “Come out and get fucked up like a real bitch!!” Vinyl Scratch cracked up, laughing and rolling on the ground. “Man, Boomer, your marefriend’s always had such a way with words… ‘Come out and get fucked up like a real bitch…’ Classic!” She doubled over into a second fit of laughter. We heard a little filly’s laugh from behind us and turned to see Scootaloo also laughing her flanks off. Rainbow just facehoofed, while I blushed. “This is not going as well as I’d hoped…” Rainbow said. “It’s just not my day.” “Tell me about it…” I mumbled. “Oh, come on, Dashie,” Vinyl said, sidling up to the blue mare and wrapping a foreleg around her. “You’ve let a few words slip sometimes. Loosen up!” “Around a filly?” she shouted. “Never!” “Actually-” Scootaloo began. Dash immediately stuffed a hoof down her throat. “Let’s not talk about that time…” Razortongue chuckled. “Fuckin’ chicken, Rainbow?” “You bitch…” Rainbow Dash seethed, her entire being corroding away into an epic epiphany of wrath that had started building up since before she fainted. “You’re mine!!” With that, whatever control I had hoped to maintain immediately blew up in my face. Rainbow Dash attacked Razortongue. Boomdrop stepped in to defend her marefriend. Scootaloo tried to separate everypony, failing miserably. Vinyl Scratch joined the brigade of violence “to even up Rainbow’s odds”. I simply collapsed on my flank and cried. For a couple minutes, this crazy, violent war of supposed “harmony” continued, drawing a crowd of almost everypony in Pinkieville. They gained a series of cheers and even a round of bit betting on who would win. A couple ponies even started their own brawl in the spirit of the fight, which soon erupted into a full-scale riot. I heard one pony mutter, “And the weekly riot begins…” That was all I could take. I just scooped up Scootaloo and took off, out of Pinkie’s mane, out of Sugarcube corner, out of Ponyville, and deep into the Everfree. I heard some ponies calling my name, but I paid them no mind. Everything had fallen to… well, shit… around me. I had disappointed Zytharros, my friends, my family, everyone… I had derped up. Again. “What the Luna-damned fucking hell is wrong with me??” I screamed. “I’m such a screw-up!!” Just before I barreled headlong into a tree, a blue blur swept around and caught me and Scootaloo, who by that point I had forgotten I was holding and had begun screaming her head off in sheer terror at my long-time-coming, frighteningly self-destructive mental breakdown. As Rainbow Dash carried me around, ashamed that she had sent me into such a state, I just cried. The pressure… the new role… the fight… the… fuck it, the insanity of it all finally drove me to spend the next three hours bawling my eyes out in a clearing in the forest, surrounded by Rainbow and Scootaloo. “What did I do?!” I screamed at Rainbow. “I don’t know what went wrong! Tell me!” Rainbow was completely speechless. She knew I was having a hard time. She knew this. Yet Razor was always able to get the best of her. Somehow, Razor just dug in and stayed there. Through the blurs in my tears I could see in her eyes a thousand apologies wanting to explode from her mouth, yet none could be heard. “Tell me! Let me know how I screwed up! Again!” I shrieked as I took hold of Rainbow Dash’s forelegs in a deathgrip both of us were sure should have been impossible with mere hooves. “I hate this… I wish Zytharros were still here… he’d know what to say, what I did wrong…” “Derpy…” Rainbow finally managed, trying to hold me in an embrace. I angrily pushed away, fed up with her. “No, Rainbow. No. I screwed up. It’s obvious you and Razor need to fight more than you need to be led. You can find a new Element of Determination.” Scootaloo’s small voice, more timid than I had ever heard, pierced through my heart. “D-Derpy…” “No. I’m through. I’m done,” I mumbled, turning away. “I’ve fucked up enough.” Scootaloo ran towards me, and took hold of my hoof. “Derpy… I-I’m sorry…” I hesitated for a second before I shook her grip loose. “It’s not your fault, kid,” I said, glaring daggers at Rainbow. “Rainbow and Razor can’t seem to put off their fucking pissing contests long enough to help us save our entire world. Maybe we should just let them ruin it for everypony.” Rainbow stood, shocked and dumbfounded. She had never heard me speak like this before. I could tell had struck a nerve deeper than anything she had ever been told by Razortongue before – and I wasn’t through yet. “After all, what is loyalty but fucking backstabbing the country you apparently love so much?” I seethed bitterly. “Apparently yours only runs so far as the first challenger to brutalize your Luna-damned ego. No more. If the damn Harmony Continuum won’t fuckin’ cooperate with itself, then I want no part of its fucking ass-backwards insanity.” I had reduced her to a smoldering pile of tears – and I was glad. Maybe now it would sink in. “D-Derpy…” she whimpered. “Stop…” “Fuck you,” I snapped before storming off into the Everfree. Scootaloo looked at Rainbow Dash with disdain before following me into the black abyss. “I’m staying with Derpy.” Her biggest fan was gone. Her Harmony ally was gone. She had fought a war to defend her honour and, although she had won the war, she had lost her friends. For the first time in all the time I had known her, I heard the cyan pegasus allow herself the freedom to truly cry as I angrily stormed off, Crusader Scootaloo in tow. She could drown in a lake of her tears, for all I cared.