//------------------------------//
// Rivalry 
// Story: Love at Ground Zero 
// by My Little Scribbler 
//------------------------------//


Love at Ground Zero
Chapter 6: Rivalry


If it were not for the noise of cricket chirps in her ears, Mirror might not have noticed there was no moon out. The meteor was so close that its white glow lit up the desert. Its oblong shape was distinguishable in the night sky and it was surely going to hit the atmosphere soon. Not much time. With a flash of green, she changed into a yellow pegasus mare and galloped as fast as she could toward Appleloosa. The town was within her sights when a pegasus stallion landed in front of her. She slid to a halt, nearly crashing right into her aggressor. Her eyebrows furled with confusion as she gawked at the pony before her.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked the stallion.
“I just need to join the other pegasi at the—“
“Oh no you’re not. You’re up to something, Mirror.”
Surprised, Mirror did the changeling salute, which the stallion immediately returned.
“Who are you and why are you getting in my way?” asked Mirror.
Right before her eyes, the pegasus transformed into a changeling. Thanks to his large physique and the blue stripes on his back, Mirror knew who he was.
“Echo?” said Mirror with surprise. After changing into her original form, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“That’s what I want to know from you. I was just outside the mouth of the cave when I saw you with that alicorn. I overheard your conversation with her.”
Mirror froze, beads of sweat dripping from her forehead. “Look, I...I can explain...”
“Oh, there’s no need to explain,” said Echo, his smile showing malicious mirth. “For so long, I’ve been in your shadow. Now I can finally put you away for good.”
“Echo, wait. Please let me explain.” Mirror was rubbing her hooves together so fast, they were starting to get hot from the friction.
Rather than allow her a chance to speak, Echo lowered his horn and fired a beam of energy. Mirror flew over the spell with a quick beat of her wings. It was so close, she could feel the static in the air and hear the small explosion as it burnt a crater into the dirt. Echo soared into the air and knocked her down with a midair buck to the chest, knocking her hard into the ground with a soft thud.
Mirror let out a gasp of pain as the wind was forced out of her lungs with the impact. Before she had a chance to counter, she could see Echo fire a beam of magic at her from above. She rolled out of the way, spinning back onto her hooves.
“Echo, you don’t understand. If that meteor kills the...” She froze in shock when she saw Echo’s horn glowed a white light flowed by the loud rumble of lightning. Even with the warning, she barely had time to erect a force field to block the attack. However, although a force field was affective against moderately powerful spells and physical attacks, shear speed and power of a lightning bolt was too much for her force field to handle, causing it to violently shatter with a deafening buzz as it disintegrated into wafts of magical energy. Unlike the mere sparks that Echo would create as a hatchling, the lightning bolts were powerful and violent. Mirror could feel the intense heat, leaving a prickly sensation on her mildly burned skin.
“Ugh!” Mirror clasped her head in pain as she felt a sharp headache caused when her force field was destroyed.
“Oh you have no idea how long I’ve waited to do that,” said Echo.
“I can’t believe you want revenge just because I beat you that one time in school.”
“Oh, it’s more than that. We were both very special in our class. I’m an electrokinetic while you were the only soldier who can transform into inanimate objects. However, you were always a one-of-a-kind, while I was just one of few. That’s why I’ve always wanted this opportunity. To see what was truly greater: your transformations or my lightning.”
Mirror could see the lights of Appleloosa in the distance behind Echo, so close yet inaccessible.
She briefly glanced at the sky before saying. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“You’ll have to if you want to get to Celestia and Luna,” said Echo.
Mirror reluctantly spread out her legs and lowered her horn to Echo in a fighting stance. Her legs twitched with agitation, preparing not to run but to react. She knew that his electrical blast was very difficult to dodge. Once she saw Echo’s horn glow with electrical charge, she had only a split second to react. With a flash of green light, she transformed into a glass statue of herself. The lightning bolt shot out and hit her in the chest, but the electricity harmlessly curved around her glass body. However, although she was immune to the electricity, she could not move while she was made of glass and Echo new that. He charged toward her and Mirror could barely had enough time to change back before she was smashed to pieces.
She changed into a rubber ball and bounced toward Echo. There was another lightning bolt directed at Mirror, but the electricity just circled around the ball as if it was nothing. However, Echo spun around and bucked the ball away. Mirror only bounced once before changing back into her original form and hovered in the air.
“Face it,” said Echo. “I know you can change into objects I can’t electrocute, but you have no way of fighting back while in those forms.”
Then I guess I’ll have to get creative. Mirror flew toward the closest pile of rocks and transformed into two stakes tied to a large rubber band like a slingshot. She fell to the ground and imbedded the stakes firmly into the dirt. Although a glass statue was still and static, the rubber band was much more flexible, and she was able to bend the rubber down like a new arm to scoop up a rock, reared back, and fired it upon Echo.
Echo dodged the attack, but the next rock struck him in the horn with a loud thunk. He fired a bolt of lightning, but once again, the electricity had no effect on her rubber body.
“Is that all you’ve got?” shouted Echo as he dodged the last rock.
Once all the rocks were used up, Mirror used her rubber body to pull the stakes out of the ground, tossing dirt and rocks aside as she pulled free. She ran off, using the stakes like legs, running fast enough to escape Echo’s lightning bolts that fired from his horn. She launched herself into the air with the swing of her rubber band and imbedded her spikes into the ground. She scooped up some more rocks, and launched them at Echo, hitting him square in the chest.
He hissed angrily in pain before firing another lightning bolt, but it did not damage the rubber band, instead passing through it like it wasn’t there.
Mirror launched herself into the air and, but Echo took off and beat her down with a precise kick, knocking her to the ground. He fired a spell down upon her, and this time, it struck her with a loud sizzling sound. Mirror could feel the spell force her back into her original form followed by another spell that manifested a cocoon around her.
As she looked up at Echo through the cocoon’s shell, she could see Echo hovering over her, sparks coming out of his horn to charge up for a finishing blow.