//------------------------------// // Chapter 12: No One Provokes Me With Impunity // Story: Crusader Ponies (Romance of the Six Counties) // by swirlstar //------------------------------// No One Provokes Me With Impunity For the umpteenth time in an hour, Rainbow Dash's head sank into her forehooves. Stupid, stupid, stupid! "... and yeah, so that's why I now have so much time to be with all of you now!" Pinkie Pie cooed happily. The pegasus no longer had any desire to look at the party pony. "Oh, Pinkie," Rainbow said. "How could you do this to me?" Pinkie Pie raised a quizzical eyebrow. "What do you mean, Dashie?" "Pinkie, you just gave away your land... and to Applejack, of all ponies." "Aw, haven't you been listening? I was soo bored! All that governing- " "But Pinkie, don't you see what this means for the Duchy?" "Duchy, Schmuchy!" Pinkie Pie made a disparaging gesture with her hooves. "Oh, Dashie, all this ruling has turned all of you into angry, sad old bores! How are we ever going to have fun again with these sad, frowny faces?" Rainbow Dash took in a deep breath. I'll show you a goshdarn sad, frowny face, Pinkie! The prismatic mare stopped herself before she did anything foalish. "Oh, Pinkie," she sighed awkwardly. "I'm sorry; it's just all this stuff... I'm just so busy all the time!" Lifting her head up in one great effort, Rainbow Dash made an unconvincing grimace at the pink mare. Pinkie Pie bought it. "Oh, Dashie; apology accepted!" "You know, I think it's really time for us to get together and talk about the old times," Rainbow Dash continued. "So why don't you just run over to Twilight's place and tell her that I'm coming ASAP- " "YAY!" confetti burst all around Rainbow Dash, eliciting a yelp from the startled pegasus. Undeterred, Pinkie Pie whipped out a fizoo and let out an almighty noise. "Yay! Yay! Fun times are back again!" Heh, Rainbow Dash thought with some satisfaction. No way Twilight can refuse my request for another Council now. * "Twilight Sparkle." the dread voice of Princess Celestia suddenly resonated throughout the Drawing Room. The purple unicorn let out a sharp squeal, sweeping her tea-tray to the floor with a sonorous crash. She tur- No! No, don't look back. Step one, remember, Step one! Step One on "How to Deal With Magicmares": Do not look at the magicmare - doing so will only increase its believability! Twilight continued to stare at the window, her short, sharp breathing betraying her anxiety. Think, think, think! she begged to herself. Step Two: Deny the reality of the magicmare. "Y-you're not real!" Twilight stammered. "You're a...a...magicmare! An illusion! You don't exist! You can't exist!" "Twilight Sparkle," Princess Celestia brushed the pitiful concerns of the unicorn aside. "For yet another time, I have felt obliged to return to this remote land to solve your problems." Step Th-three: All magicmares come about for a reason. What is that reason? "Yes, Princ- yes, I failed, I f-failed again! I-I- couldn't protect Pinkie Pie, I let Ap-Applejack annex her -" "You are a complete disaster, aren't you?" the Princess taunted. "This was your land... these were your friends... and yet, in so short a time, you have seen fit to ruin both... my, Discord could hardly have done it better himself... " Step Five- no, f-four: T-tackle that reason head on. Solve it, a-acknowledge it, make it a part of w-who you are... "I-it's not my fault!" Twilight whimpered, her body slowly curling up. "I-I didn't even know... no, no, I-I mean I knew a b-bit, but... but I couldn't possibly have d-done a-anything about it, my Princess! Oh, Princess Celestia, I swear, I swear on my life!" "TWILIGHT SPARKLE!" the Princess boomed, sending the purple mare tumbling out of her chair, eyes clamped shut in sheer terror, body shaking like a tree amid a fearsome gale. "Twilight Sparkle! You were my prize pupil. I gave you everything you wanted. I taught you everything I knew. I saw you as destined for great things - you would go to the stars... you would face down any obstacle... you would scale the very slopes of Godhood itself... but now, I see... " Step Fivwe: Rstate yowr blyf yn #@3 ... Twilight held her forehooves over her ears, unable to maintain this pretense any longer. "Please, please, Princess, I-I d-did everything, I s-scolded them, I d-divided them, I e-even d-destroyed my f-friendships with them... p-please, Princess- " "You will address me as 'Your Highness'," came the curt reply. Twilight's eyes were involuntarily forced open by the shock of that rebuke. There, in front of her, the Princess stood, in all her awesome majesty: her cascading mane, her snow-white fur, her terrifying eyes... O-oh Equestria, oh Celestia, it's her, it's really her! Forcing her body as low onto the ground as she could possibly go, the purple unicorn crawled towards the alicorn, grabbing her leg and sobbing hysterically. "Please, Your Highness, please... " were the only words that formed out of her incomprehensible muttering. Celestia imperiously withdrew her foreleg from Twilight's grasp, letting the unicorn's head collide with the floor. The stone tiles were frigid to the touch. "Hmph. Twilight Sparkle. Spectacular. Failure... " A swoosh, a gust of wind, and a cold blast of air - and the Princess was gone. "Princ- Your Highness!" Twilight flailed her arms wildly in a mind-induced delirium, desperate, despite everything, for a touch of her teacher, her Princess, desperate for anything to remind herself of the old times, a primal, insatiable desperation- "Your Highness, please, don't leave, I beg you... " * So Pinkie Pie came and asked for a gathering. And of course Twilight knew what this would entail. Pinkie Pie, always so earnest. Back in the old place, the unicorn always commented on how naive Pinkie Pie's behavior was. To see the world only at its surface - to react only to what she saw, not what lay below. Countless times she had managed to completely fool the party pony, merely by putting on a straight face! Always so earnest; but now, I see. Words could not express how badly Twilight Sparkle wanted to just transform into the pink mare. Just wipe clean all her accumulated knowledge, take away all her magical abilities, bear the cross of a profoundly mundane life: anything, anything to get away from this terrible existence, where gestures meant nothing, where appearances meant nothing, where actions meant nothing; where the only truth was that every soul was a maelstrom of darkness, and where everypony was doomed to drift alone on the stormy sea. And Twilight knew that this wasn't just a superficial yearning: it permeated every muscle, every nerve, every inch of her being. Her mood swings were getting worse. One moment she could be like Nightmare Moon herself, raining down terror and judgment on her terrified vassals; the next a whimpering, hollow carcass of a pony, mind warped and stretched in pure mental agony. Twilight was a powerless power: she possessed the ability to rule, she possessed the ability to order - but, too late, she realized that none of it actually mattered. Her rules, her orders: the result remained the same. Failure. And that only made her urges to be relevant seem all the more compelling. She wanted something, even something that she knew was untrue; just something that she could point to, that to could lie to her, tell her that she remained genuinely relevant; that without her, this tragic tale could not progress. But ultimately, sweet lies remained lies. Twilight sighed and magically put on her Ducal robes. Rainbow Dash. Nopony can argue that she hasn't been genuinely relevant. The purple mare didn't know if this was the result of intelligent design or sheer dumb luck, and she didn't really care by this point. Perhaps Applejack would, one day, find the strength to confront the pegasus. Perhaps the Changelings would, one day, swoop into the region and scour out all its foulness. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle, the dearest pupil of Princess Celestia, would just suddenly wake up, ensconced in her Canterlot bed, the newly-hatched Spike next to her, and sigh in noticeable relief that this had all just been a terrible, terrible dream... * "Daashie! I thought we were going to play!" Pinkie Pie shouted, her bouncy hair deflating a bit more with every hour that passed. It had been a week since everypony had arrived in the capital. Still no games. "Hey, at least let us get some work done!" Rainbow Dash gave a forced smile to the party pony. "There's still a lot of time yet!" "But Daashie!" Pinkie Pie whined, her voice increasingly grating to the cyan pegasus' ears. "Look, Pinkie Pie, I'm not doing anything else until I'm done!" Rainbow Dash's word was final. With a buck, the doors to the Grand Hall resealed themselves. The pegasus took her place at one side of the Hall. Gone was the original single-piece table, the symbol of the Duchy's unity: now Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Twilight each had their own space, and took measures to keep that space as safe from each other as was possible. Silence reigned. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were staring suspiciously at each other. Twilight instinctively began ruminating about the past. To speak first was to reveal something about you - and to reveal something about you was to cede an advantage to the enemy. Perhaps Applejack considered herself to be in the better position. "Twilight- " "'Duchess'." Came the cold hard response. An angry pause. "My Duchess, I think we should let Rari- " "No." Rainbow Dash was in no mood to for more interference from irrelevants. Another terse silence descended onto the Hall. I s'ppose I can give her whatever she fancies, the farm pony thought to herself. With each passin' minute, I can get more of Pinkie's land back up and runnin': I can buy myself more time, time to make this fact real... It was as if Rainbow Dash could read the orange mare's mind. "You're a thief and a liar, Applejack." "Excuse me!?" "You're a thief and a liar, you horse!" "Care to explain that, missy, before I come over and take your sorry flank back to Equestria?" "You stole Pinkie Pie's land!" "I did not steal it! Pinkie Pie gave it to me!" "You asked her to give it to you!" "So? She could've said 'no'!" "You didn't give her a choice!" Applejack stood up. "I did give her a choice! In fact, I gave her more of a choice than you ever gave Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash was airborne. "Pinkie Pie didn't know what she was doing!" "Didn't Twilight say that to you about Fluttershy as well?" Horseapples! Rainbow Dash thought. Each darn time I say something, Applejack just uses Fluttershy to stall! "Well, why don't you give your lands back, huh?" Rainbow Dash said, intent on keeping Applejack distracted while she searched for a way out. "We need to outmaneuver them," Lightning Dust motioned towards the row of border forts on the map. "Applejack wants to keep us busy with these wooden stables, like what happened last time on the river; she wants us there. We can't be there." "What's the solution?" Rainbow Dash said, confident that her trusted lieutenant had the answer. Lightning Dust gestured towards the edge of the map. "The Changeling Desert. Take a small force through and into Applejack's rear, should be able to make enough noise, Applejack will probably panic and retreat. It's all about position, Dash; it's all about knowing where they want you to be, and how you go to where they don't want you to be..." Rainbow Dash's lips curled up in gleeful satisfaction. * Arguing. Again. Twilight's internal monologue had resigned itself to such a fate. Anything she did, the result was the same: Rainbow Dash and Applejack arguing. The farm pony had sprung into a long diatribe on how Rainbow Dash was totally, firmly in the wrong, and how she herself was the Second Coming of Princess Celestia. The unicorn had heard it all before. These two ponies, the bane of her existence, talking about the same things, over and over again. Once again an indignant voice burst into the purple mare's head. So let them argue! Let them suffer through long, boring monologues. Let them tarnish each other's memories. Let them have each other. Twilight gave a bitter smile. So this was what her consolation had become. Simply the fact that other ponies were having it worse than her. As if that was- *CRASH*. The sound of splintering timber shook Twilight's mind out of its self-imposed melancholy. "W-wha-?" She looked around, half-groggily, trying to locate the source of the commotion. Rainbow Dash had dove straight into Applejack, smashing the farm pony into the wall as savagely as possible. The farm pony was made of stern stuff, however, and she soon bounced back from the blow. Now it was time for revenge: she prepared to buck the recovering pegasus into- Rainbow Dash caught Applejack's leg and pulled her back down on the ground. Now she was attempting to fly up towards the rafters, seeking to cast down her hated opponent down onto the earth - But Applejack had stretched her neck out and bit down hard on the cyan pegasus' left wing. Blood spurted out as the farm pony's teeth ripped off a good amount of down. Rainbow Dash crashed back onto the ground, though not through pain - the adrenalin saw to that - but for a more immediate revenge. She began pummeling the bruised orange mare for all her worth, trying to happen on some weakness which would cripple her - Applejack responded by rolling off her back and aiming straight for Rainbow Dash's head. And within minutes, what had once been a passable demonstration of tactical fighting had degenerated into an exhausting, soulless brawl. Both ponies had exhausted the space for stratagems and ruses; now it was the chaos of hoof-to-hoof combat, where everything boiled down to making contact with the other. "Stop, stop!" Twilight ordered, asked, pleaded in vain. Even before she saw the blood and heard the noise, that part of her mind - that part which had been sealed up under a layer of hatred for so long - had broken free from the iron fetters that chained it. Is this how it ends? It demanded relentlessly. Like this? Applejack and Rainbow Dash, simply beating each other into oblivion? . . . No, no, it can't end like this! "Guards!" the purple unicorn ordered, her horn glowing. "Separate them! Now!" It took some effort - Rainbow Dash and Applejack were strong ponies, after all - but eventually the two bloodied ponies were standing in front of her. Rainbow Dash looked more mauled - after all, bits of her wing were missing - but from the looks of it, Applejack didn't have a great time either. Seeing the two of them like this caused Twilight's distaste for them to roar back into life. "So you two are supposed to be Countesses, huh?" "She deserved it," Rainbow Dash pointed out. "Why, you... " Applejack began before Twilight motioned the restraining guards to drag the farm pony further away. "You two are a total disgrace to this Duchy!" Twilight yelled - the only thing she could do. "I can't believe I was ever friends with the both of you!" Rainbow Dash yawned audibly, prompting a hard stare from the bookish pony. Silence once again returned to the Hall as the three returned to their resentful standoff. Twilight finally spoke. "Take them both to their quarters. I will deal with this tomorrow." * Rainbow Dash, dragged unceremoniously in front of Pinkie Pie and Rarity as she left the Hall, finally felt the effects of her earlier scrap. Hurt came from everywhere - her torn wing, her swollen cheek, her legs, all the small and large bruises. But she knew that a medicinal bath and all the other fineries of life awaited her. So, really, it was just a little hurt. A little hurt for a big gain. Twilight's off-handed remark meant a commitment. A commitment to solve the issue the next day. Applejack's stalemate had been decisively broken. Now it just remained to see whose cause Twilight would favor.