//------------------------------// // A Periodic Tale of Elements: Generosity - Chapter Twelve (Dark, Adventure) // Story: xjuggerscrapsx // by xjuggernaughtx //------------------------------// One Minute After The Ritual – Clover the Clever Clover froze when the sound began.  A boiling, hissing cacophony that brought to mind a writhing pit of angry vipers.   Clover nervously swiveled his head as he searched for the source of the noise, his eyes darting back and forth across the disheveled throne room.   “What now, Clover?” Star Swirl said, stowing the velvet bag in his travel-worn pack.  “My head is pounding, so if you could stop that racket, I’d—”   “It’s not me, Star Swirl!” Clover said, his hooves going cold.   The wizard looked up, his eyes wide.  “What do you mean ‘It’s not—”   Both Clover and the wizard jumped back as a dark, turbulent nightmare boiled out of the space where the king had hovered, caught in Star Swirl’s spell, just a short while ago.  The cloud hissed and snarled, seemingly fighting for control over its plastic form.  Both the wizard and his apprentice backed away as the flailing vapor slashed deep grooves into the castle’s polished marble walls.   “This… this should not be!” Star Swirl said, his eyes bulging as he oscillated between the cloud and his assistant.  “There is nothing about this in the texts!”   “Well, it looks like the texts are wrong!” Clover said, earning a snarl from the wizard.   “We’ll trap it in here!” Star Swirl said suddenly.  The turned and began scooping his supplies rapidly into his pack.  “We haven’t the time to deal with this now.”   “Will that work?” Clover returned, giving the cloud wide berth as he galloped over to help Star Swirl.  “Can we keep it in here?”   “How the hell should I know?!” the wizard snapped.  “But we certainly can’t just let it out into the streets.  Finish packing my supplies while I erect a barrier!”   “But your wounds—” Clover said.   “Pack!”   Clover bent to the task, but kept Star Swirl in his peripheral vision.  The old fool can’t take much more of this, he thought, noting the many patches of blood dotting Star Swirl’s cape.  As the wizard’s horn began to glow, several of the wounds reopened and Clover winced as bright streams of blood dripped down his master’s legs.   Above them, the cloud continued to swirl and twist, almost coalescing into a recognizable shape from time to time before breaking apart and striking out in frustration.  Its constant hissing and screaming was like razors down Clover’s back, and the assistant found that his hooves were shaking so badly that he couldn’t seem to work the buckles on Star Swirl’s saddlebags.  Taking a few deep, steadying breaths, he forces his hooves to thread the laces through the buckle.  With another glance to the black cloud, he cinched the pack closed.   “Hungry…”   Clover jumped at the throaty whisper, running and stumbling before he regained control of his body.  To caught up in his spell to notice, Star Swirl missed the queen struggle to rise behind him.  “Star Swirl!” Clover screamed.   “Not… now!” the wizard said, panting.   “Yes, now!” Clover returned.  “Behind you!”   Trembling with the effort to retain control over the magical barrier erupting from his horn, Star Swirl slowly swiveled his head.  Clover’s heart turned to ice as he watched the wizard’s spell sputter and die.  Star Swirl slowly backed away from the queen, making his way carefully back to his packs without taking his eyes from Chrystal’s desiccated form.   “So… hungry!” Chrystal rasped, and Clover’s mouth turned dry as he watched her skin begin to darken.  Once a delicate pale blue, the tips of her mane began taking on an unhealthy green hue.  Her whole body seemed to be pulling in on itself, as though some vast emptiness within her was consuming her body from within. “Wizard, what have you done to me?!” she growled, the skin pulling away from her eyes.  They had once been elegantly almond shaped, but Clover thought they looked almost perfectly round now, like the monstrous fish that live in the deep oceans, and they’d taken on the same unnatural green cast that her mane had.   “Clover, we’re leaving!” Star Swirl shouted, scooping up his packs and settling them on his back.  In an instant, he was galloping for the door.   “But, what about—”   “We have an empire to save!  We’ll deal with this later!” the wizard yelled, banging on the huge, metal doors with his hooves.  “You, out there!  Open these doors!” he yelled out.   “You!” the queen said, pointing to Clover.  “Your food!  I command that you give it to me!  I can smell it!”  The queen stopped, her eyebrow scrunching together as she looked away in confusion, “I can smell… you?”  She let her eyes roll languidly back to where Clover stood, horrorstricken.  Slowly, the queen moved in between the assistant and the door that Star Swirl was pushing open through a sea of concerned guards.  “Yes, I can smell you!” she said, her mouth dropping open to reveal sharp fangs.   “Would you get over here?!” Star Swirl roared, blasting the queen with a bolt of white-hot power.  Shrieking, the queen flew across the room, slamming into the opposite wall.   Behind the wizard, the guards muscled their way in and instantly split into two groups.  The first tackled Star Swirl, while the other ran to the queen.  “No!  Stay away!” Clover shouted as they galloped past.  “There’s something terribly wrong with her!”   “No!  Don’t fall for their lies!” the queen cried.  Clover did a double take.  Somehow, the queen seemed almost normal again as she huddled next to the wall, shaking.  She reached out a trembling hoof toward the guards as the rushed to her.  “Help me!  I’m wounded!  They’ve tricked us all!”   “No!  It’s—” was all Clover managed before a glowing green aura enveloped the guards.  A smile curled across the queen’s face as she began darkening again.  She laughed as her magic lifted them into the air.   “Yes!” the queen returned, reversing the magic’s flow.  Clover gagged again as the burly, robust bodies of the guards began to wither and blacken.  “More!” she said, throwing the husks aside.  “I hunger!” she said, locking her eyes onto Clover again.  His eyes were drawn irresistibly to the strange indents near her hooves.  Large circles of skin and muscles seemed to be disappearing.  “I always was partial to clover,” the queen said, running her tongue over a fang.   Clover ran as he’d never run before.  Ahead of him, Star Swirl shouting curses as he tried to wrench himself away from the four guards who were trying valiantly to arrest him.  Clover knew that they’d normally be no match for the wizard, but in his weakened state, it was all he could to keep them at bay.   “PAIN! a voice above them roared, and Clover stumbled.  In his near-blind panic at Chrystal’s resurrection, he’d forgotten about the cloud.  Its voice confirmed his worst fear: Sombra had returned, as well.  Clover’s hooves scrambled across the slick floor as he fought to run again.   “PAIN!” Sombra screamed again.  Suddenly the swirling cloud lashed out with lancing tendrils, shooting them in all directions.  The room shook as the cloud slammed into walls and sliced through rock.  Clover stared numbly as one of the cloud’s tendrils skewered a guard.   The soldier fell, shrieking, and his vital fluids emptied onto the floor.   “YOU!”  The blood-curdling cries from the dying guard seemed to focus the cloud, and for a moment, Clover saw a pair of eyes flash a brilliant green within the swirling mass.  Snarling, the cloud dove for Star Swirl.  “YOUR FAULT!” it thundered as it descended.  Clover tried to reverse course, but his hooves had little purchase on the slick marble floor.   Clover could see red edging around his mentor’s bulging eyes as he watched the cloud that was once Sombra coming for him.  Star Swirl shouted incoherently as he struggled away from the slackened grips of the guards.  Scrambling backwards, he gibbered as the cloud retracted its barbed tendril, readying them for the kill.  Star Swirl’s eyes darted rapidly around the room, lighting up as they fell on the guards.   “No!” Clover yelled as he neared the wizard, nearly out of control on the slick floor.  With a yell, the wizard wrenched the retreating guards into the air.  Struggling in his magic’s grip, they were no match for Star Swirl as he threw them into the whirling nightmare of the cloud.  As Sombra lashed out at the screaming guards, Star Swirl bolted for the door, Clover only inches behind.  Clover glanced briefly over his shoulder, wondering at his numbness as the guards were torn apart.  Is this it? he thought, feeling his mind shutting down.  Is this what power looks like?   Once outside the door, Star Swirl turned, continuing to slide a few feet until the plush carpet runner in the hallway arrested his momentum.  “Clover!” he gasped, his breathing ragged.  “Shut… the doors!”   Too tired to argue, Clover set his shoulder against the nearest door and heaved.  As its momentum carried it closed, he set to work on the other one.  He hardly flinched as a dazzling bolt of magic enveloped the doors and fused them into a single piece of metal.     “There,” Star Swirl coughed out.  “That… should hold them for a bit.”  Clover eyed to door dubiously.  He’d seen Sombra’s power, and the doors seemed flimsy in comparison.  Both the wizard and his apprentice jumped as something hit the door with breathtaking power, sending fine bits of dust raining down from the vaulted ceiling.  “But perhaps we shouldn’t dawdle,” Star Swirl finished with a gulp.  Another thundering impact sent them both galloping out into the night.   “What about the windows?” Clover called after his master.   “They’re too high for Chrystal and Sombra never had brains to outwit a moderately clever duck!” Star Swirled called back, pushing himself to gallop even faster.  “Let’s just hope he doesn’t remember them!” ~~~   “Are you sure this will work?” Clover asked as they entered into the festival square.  Star Swirl had chosen it earlier because of its particular crystal structure.  He’d said that it would act as a natural antenna, transmitting the artifact’s power to the very borders of the Crystal Empire.   The wizard shot him a glance that was more fearful than angry, and Clover found that it was somehow worse.  “I’m not sure of anything right now!” Star Swirl spat out as he fumbled with the buckles on his pack.  “Something’s gone terribly wrong, but I’ve checked and rechecked the magical theories and applications in my head!  There is no error!  This is unprecedented!”   “What about the fortification process?” Clover said, taking over opening the packs from the shaken wizard.  “You told me to expect the energy conduit from the queen, but you didn’t mention anything about a transference counter-flow!”   “What counter-flow?!” Star Swirl shrieked, his pupils contracting to mere pin points.   “You didn’t see it?” Clover said, his voice trembling.  With a grunt, he managed to work the stubborn lace from the buckle, and nearly tore the top off the saddlebag as he wrenched it open.  “That green and black energy that shot from Sombra through the conduit her love was creating?”   “How would I have seen it?!” Star Swirl yelled, his lips pulled back into a snarl.  “What’s the very first thing I instructed you to do upon your admission into my tutelage?  I told you that you had to be my eyes during particularly difficult spells because I sometimes need to block the outside world in order to concentrate!”   “Well, what exactly do you think I just did, you old fool?!” Clover screamed back at him.  “Exactly when would you have preferred I inform you?  When the queen was trying to suck my life out or when the king was trying to tear me to shreds?!”   Star Swirl lowered his eyes and nodded.  “Yes, you are right.  You did well.”  Clover was stunned, blinking at the rare compliment.  “You’ll do better still if you can finally get that heart out of my pack!” Star Swirl growled with a little of his usual grouchiness.   “Right,” Clover said, returning to the pack.   He’d just fished out the velvet back when another deafening boom shattered the stillness of the night.  Clover’s eyes shot to the nearby castle as both he and Star Swirl found themselves ducking for cover.   “We must start immediately!” Star Swirl said, opening the bag.  Upending it over his hoof, he gasped and sat down as his rear legs gave out.  His mouth worked wordlessly as he held out is hoof to his assistant.  Wrapped around the blue crystal heart was a gold and amethyst necklace of startling beauty.  Star Swirl stared at it, horrified.  “Clover, something has gone very, very wrong,” he said.   The blood drained from the apprentice’s body.  For the first time since he’d been with Star Swirl, he was seeing his master truly bewildered and badly frightened.  If he doesn’t know how to fix this, Clover thought, what hope do any of us have?