Dark Aura

by NavelColt

7. Abandon Hope, For That is Its Power

“Will you come down to the ground with me?”

Fluttershy swallowed. Even her bravest face brought her little strength. Each of the creature’s eyes was twice as big as she was, and they stared at her, unblinking. She could see her own reflection in those deep purple lenses. She could see her smile falter in them.

“I won’t try and apologize for the actions of my friends, nor will I condone yours. I believe this whole mess was avoidable, and that’s why I want to try and cool things down, now. Will you at least land with me so we can relax our wings?”

A thunderous wingbeat was her only answer. Her gaze was tugged towards its wings, to the chilling sight of talons long enough to pierce a building so casually raking the air, but she did not dare look away from those haunting eyes.

She felt her nerves fray. There was no safety to be found in those eyes, and the longer she stared, the less they appeared to belong to a creature at all. She was on the very precipice of darkness in broad daylight, and all the imagined danger that came with it. She stood precariously on the edge of an abyss, foolishly gazing inside to see what might emerge.

Nausea twisted her stomach into knots. Never had she encountered an animal so genuinely terrifying.

The pegasus found that her hoof betrayed her. She meant to raise it, to place it on the creature's beak and assure it that she meant no harm, but her leg wouldn't budge.

Existential dread had risen from that abyss and filled her, paralyzed her. She bit her lip just to try and control her racing thoughts. She thought of its jaws suddenly springing open and overtaking her. She thought of a red glow bathing her, and her vision going dark. She thought of it abandoning her, sowing destruction among her friends, and planting a garden of statues.

Each thought crippled her emotional state further until eventually, the pegasus began to cry.

"Just what are these powers you have," Fluttershy breathed, tears of manufactured fright dripping down her cheek.

---

Tirek crossed his arms. Starlight's horn sparked with menace, but he merely laughed.

"Have the timid one talk to it?" he mocked. "That was your plan?"

"You don't know Fluttershy," Starlight replied.

"And she doesn't know what she's dealing with," Tirek countered. There was a smugness to his stare, which he reasserted on the vulture. "But I suppose I shouldn't discourage my enemy from making a mistake. By all means, try and befriend it. It'll be another statue on the pile, and I don't even have to break a sweat. What a mockery it is that spineless creatures such as yourselves hold power over this world."

Starlight visibly jolted, but a leg held her back. Meadowbrook's stare like daggers did the job for her.

"You're manipulating that animal to your own twisted ends," the mage shot. "It'd still be asleep if not for you and your insufferable greed."

"I'm just taking advantage of an opportunity," Tirek retorted, shrugging his shoulders. Though he entertained the spat, his attention remained on the tense meeting in the sky. "An opportunity to regain what was always rightfully mine. Magic is wasted on weak and entitled equines. You shelter yourselves in your little controlled world, incapable of handling any of the harsh realities beyond."

The centaur unfurled his arms. With an erected finger he addressed the vulture.

"And I do mean 'realities' quite literally," he added with a chuckle. "This creature is a testament to my point. It is a horror from beyond your world of scheduled weather and absurd merriment, and you are all ill-prepared to deal with it."

"And you are?" Starswirl challenged, stepping beside Starlight. "All you've done is lay blame on the first thing you could point at. Where is your power, then, your aptitude for handling this beast?"

"You never did grasp the concept of 'work smarter, not harder', Starswirl," Tirek said quietly, regarding the sorcerer briefly. "Do not worry, I will have the power to influence it in time, once I'm through with all of you. Until then, I am only too happy to guide the arrow to where it might benefit me the most."

Starswirl grit his teeth, but forever the group mediator, Meadowbrook's other hoof found him.

"Not unless he does something first," she whispered, drawing her companion's eye. "We cannot risk another battle while Fluttershy is trying to calm this critter. More conflict might rile it up."

Starswirl scoffed. Tirek couldn't hear them, but his smug grin sprouted further regardless. He could read the situation as well as any of them. He seemed to be playing along for now, perhaps out of curiosity, but it surely wouldn't last.

The sorcerer glanced at Starlight. The mare's attention was in the sky, watching her friend confront their plight with a quivering lip. Still they hovered in an apparent standoff, too far away for Fluttershy's words to be audible.

Starswirl looked to the far trees, and to the abandoned diagram. Twilight was gone. She must have left to see to her plan, whatever it might be.

He returned his attention to where it most belonged—scrutinizing the arrogant centaur before him. All they could do now was hold out for as long as they could. All they could do was have faith in Twilight, and pray that Fluttershy could weather this ominous force.

---

Her every muscle fought to back away, to get some distance and arrest these thoughts, but Fluttershy knew doing so would be dangerous. Hasty retreat could challenge it, or trigger its predatory instincts.

And so the Element of Kindness bravely faced the depths of the abyss, took a deep breath, and leapt.

With a hoof she gently touched the tip of the vulture's beak, straining watery eyes to not blink as she did so. When the uncertain moment dragged on with no response, her smile returned, albeit weak and peeling.

"...you're not such a bad bird, are you," she said softly. She stroked its beak. It was hard and smooth, like a chitinous shell. The creature seemed unphased by the gesture, but through it, Fluttershy found her confidence. Her smile came back.

"You must be so frustrated, getting lost in someone else's dimension," she said, effortlessly transitioning to her iconic, coddling tone. She opted to hug the beak tip with the whole width of her hooves. "I can only imagine what that's like. Don't you worry, though—we'll get my good friend Discord to send you right back."

The creature's steady wingbeats seemed to slow, and Fluttershy beamed.

"Are you starting to calm down, now?" she asked rhetorically. "Stress can do terrible things to all of us if we let it get out of control. I'd offer to help relieve some muscle tension, but I don't think my hooves are quite big enough for that."

The creature's head moved slightly. Fluttershy's joy rose like steam. In that moment of reclaimed familiarity, the pegasus turned her own head, pining for her friends.

But as words of encouragement began to tumble forth, she took in the varied looks of panic below. She heard shouting, but couldn't quite make out words. She saw running, but couldn't figure out what for. Tirek appeared to be standing still—what in Equestria had them all so worried?

It was only then that Fluttershy noticed movement out of her peripheral vision. It was only then that she realized the thunderous wingbeats had stopped completely.

Three sets of razor-like claws held themselves in the air above and below her, and like conduits, red energy began to form between them. Fluttershy scarcely had time to spin about, beholding those purple eyes with a look of shock before she disappeared in an orb of concentrated light.

"Fluttershy, no!"

The entity let out a mighty cry as its latest victim plummeted to the earth below, rigid and gray.

A flurry of events transpired. Starlight galloped forth, her horn lighting in preparation of catching her friend, but an aura of magenta beat her to it. She turned to the dismayed voice she'd heard and found Twilight, freshly returned with a box of artifacts too late. The alicorn rushed past her on frantic wings, but not quickly enough to hide away her tears.

Starlight blinked, and her shock festered to anger. A cruel, howling laugh came from behind her, inciting her to shed tears of her own. But these tears were of a different kind. They burned with resentment, and in gritting her teeth, Starlight could taste them.

"Celestia help me, they'll have to scrape your sorry remains off the floor when they haul you back to Tartarus, centaur!" she seethed, her horn enshrouding in magic. The light pink had gone, replaced by a ghoulish red nearly as dark as the creature far above their heads.

From his fit of laughter, Tirek simply wiped an eye. He chortled at the threat.

"Well that doesn't sound very friendly," he mused, curling his lip. "Are you sure you don't want to try and become friends, too?"

A blast signaled a duel of dark magic. Beams of red and orange energy singed the earth in their wake, and all those nearby were forced away by hot winds and storms of excavated dust.

Amidst the chaos, Starswirl found Twilight. Knelt by yet another friend's statue, the princess's composure had crumbled.

"I was too late, again," she sobbed. Her head heavy, she dripped droplets of water along Fluttershy's chiseled mane. In a moment of frustration, she jettisoned the decorative case by her side away with a spark of magic, spilling the Elements all along the ground. "This is all out of control. I don't know what we can do, now."

Starswirl laid a hoof upon her back. His gaze, stern and serious, shifted from the spectacle of magic just beyond them to the monster above. No longer content to merely hover, it now swam through the sky high above the trees, circling them.

"We must regroup," the sorcerer said coolly. "Even if it means allowing them a moment's reprieve, even if it means they should escape for the moment, we must regroup."

"But that's certain doom for whatever place they go next!" Meadowbrook expressed, putting her whole body into comforting Twilight in a kneeling embrace.

With Tirek preoccupied entirely by Starlight, the remaining members of the group surrounded Starswirl.

"Retrieving Discord ourselves, or banishment to limbo are now our only options," Starswirl said solemnly. "Should it be the latter, I will require my full strength in order to cast the spell. If we stay here any longer as we are, we will attack this wall to no avail until we all tire and fall. Should that happen, the entire realm is doomed."

"We'd need to sacrifice the Elements for certain, this time."

Eyes looked to Rarity. The unicorn approached Fluttershy's still, gray form. Six golden artifacts had been retrieved by her blue aura and now floated along her side. She knelt readily in the layers of dust and soot to be by her friend, any grievances about messiness upon her coat long forgotten.

"We must fix this," she said quietly, addressing Starswirl. Her trembling lip gave away the fit of crying being bottled up. "We must save our friends, and we must save our home—dare I say it, we must save even this dreadful forest. It is what Fluttershy would want. I believe I speak for everyone when I say that we will do whatever it takes."

Starswirl nodded. He looked to the group and found the gesture mirrored. He looked to Twilight, and through her silence, understood her stance.

"Very well, then," he murmured, conclusively planting his hooves in place. As he faced the sky, trickles of white magic raced down his horn and face, eventually disappearing around his collar. "Twilight, I understand you are wrought with grief, but I need you to listen to me right now."

Pulled from the prison of her mind, Twilight looked up. She gasped. Starswirl's face sat above a blinding light.

"Starswirl, are you-"

"Cast an inverse bubble of silence around everyone but me, now," Starswirl ordered. Soon his eyes glowed like stars, too. "This will be my final spell. Magic may not directly affect this creature, but if manifested tendrils can physically touch it, and portals in space can transport it, then it is not immune to magic affecting the environment. Perhaps I can buy us a little time. Perhaps I can coax it into hiding once again."

The vulture, seemingly aware of the sudden surge in power, shrieked in the distance. At once it entered a dive, growing in perceived size as it fell.

"Do it now!" Starswirl bellowed. Twilight jumped in place and lit her horn.

Two magenta bubbles sprung into being. The largest encompassed their entire group, save Starswirl. The second, Starlight, who immediately lost concentration towards her vengeful duel. Tirek too was alerted to the goings on, and curiously looked from the dive-bombing beast to Starswirl.

For a moment, even he showed panic.

"You may wish to cover your ears anyway," Starswirl said aloud, his own ears wrapping in light. The beast came upon him with claws bared like swords, its beak opening in anticipation of impact with the ground.

Starswirl opened his mouth and the entire world shook. A shout like a thousand thunderclaps visibly distorted the air and rippled outwards, bathing the vulture and drawing immediate shrieks of distress. Curling its wings in pain, its trajectory altered, and it brushed the crowd with a passing wind before slamming into the ground a ways away.

Quick and precise, Starswirl turned his head, and the ripples moved with it.

Its eyes flaring in rage, the creature writhed as it got to its feet. It briskly took off again, making efforts to close in on its prey, but every time it was stopped by the onslaught of noise. It went to focus its nightmarish laser, but it winced through the auditory pain, and its wings and tail fell out of formation.

A furious caw led to huge talons planting themselves in the dirt. Bowing its head so that only its horns were visible, the vulture began to pull itself along the ground, one implanted wing at a time.

Sweat poured from Starswirl's brow. His efforts weren't enough.

As it came within a few hundred yards, the beast's eyes lifted expectantly. Its tail lifted with them, swaying with flexing claws like a depraved scorpion stinger. As Starswirl watched it, a creeping dread filled him as a vision. They were mere moments from that heavy claw swinging around, and he hadn't the reserves of power left to counter it.

Oblivion came calling as the vulture lowered itself, its wings bending in preparation of a strike. For a moment, Starswirl connected with those eyes, and he could only marvel how Fluttershy could ever have done so, so bravely. Intelligent life did not stare back at him, nor did the mad anger of a distressed animal.

All that stared back was darkness—pure and absolute.

Starswirl was alerted to another cry. Suddenly, the creature buckled in place, collapsing in a disgruntled heap.

The sorcerer widened his eyes. Starlight had rallied to his side, throwing forth the very same spell. The ripples of her voice overlapped with his own, amplifying the attack and obscuring the creature in a haze of distorted air.

The awaited breaking point came at last. Desperate to escape the noise pinning it down, the vulture ripped its talons from the earth and took off, leaving the battlefield, and its prey, behind. As it climbed above the treeline and vanished, the sound waves finally slowed to silence, and an altogether eerie calm befell the forest.

"...thank you, Starlight," Starswirl rasped, coughing. He checked over his companions, who emerged from Twilight's receding bubble no worse for wear. "If not for you, I fear things would have gone far differently. But I must ask...how in Equestria did you come to learn that spell?"

Starlight cleared her throat, her youth brushing off the side effects of the spell far more easily. "When I analyzed your time travel spell to get revenge on Twilight, I found a footnote about a sound-based spell you had begun working on at the time. It didn't say much, except that it was based on the sound magic the sirens used in your battle with them. I guess I thought I could find a use for it. I've just been dabbling with it here and there ever since."

Starswirl shook his head. He managed a chuckle.

"Find a use for it? That spell wasn't even formulated yet," he mused. "You took a barebones idea and came to create the same spell I did. I have no words, Starlight Glimmer."

Starlight smiled.

"Where's Tirek?"

Dash's voice promoted swift head turns. The centaur was gone once again, disappeared into the depths of the woods.

"He saw his opportunity to flee for certain this time, no doubt," said Meadowbrook. The mage, having embraced her maternal role, made rounds in comforting the others. She gave out hugs to whoever would take them. "It must have been when Starlight stepped away to assist us with the creature. He can't take us all on by himself yet, and he knows it."

"He could barely hold his own against me, let alone all of us," Starlight pointed out. "Apparently a forest full of creatures doesn't quite equate to a learned unicorn."

"The magic of beasts is a weak, if specialized thing," Starswirl thought aloud. "It delivered Tirek from his disheveled state, but I imagine that is all it did. He will be on the hunt for more power immediately, which is why time remains of the essence."

"I wager he couldn't handle the song of our brilliant mages, the coward," Rockhoof proclaimed, tapping Starswirl on the back. "Even with magic, the brute couldn't manifest his magic as anythin' but lasers if he tried."

"Y'all will have to forgive me if I don't quite feel up to continuin' our strategy just yet."

Applejack was the first to leave the tight form of bodies left in the wake of Twilight's spell. It was not to kneel by Fluttershy, but to venture to the fallen form of Flash Magnus. She lifted his statue and saddled it over her back, using his outstretched hooves as an anchor. She looked to the others with dry, somber eyes. Within moments, Dash and Rockhoof arrived to assist her. Inspired, Pinkie, Mistmane, Rarity, and Starlight went to fetch Somnambula and Zecora.

Starswirl stood and suffered the sight of his companions depicted in stone. He looked to the black soot and shattered foliage at his hooves and thought to destroy them. He thought to lay waste to this entire clearing and rid himself of this frustration.

If eyes looking to him for strength weren't present, he would have.

"Applejack is right. This was no victory, and we'd do well to reflect on it," he said coldly. His tone was, for once, despondent. "In just managing to survive we've seen great loss. I believe our friends may still be saved, but have no delusions—the threat we face may prove to be insurmountable if we cannot stop it, and quickly. I fear that things will only get worse from here."

"...so what do we do now?" asked Rainbow Dash. Her brash, confident voice had withered—the only one strong enough to reach out at all.

"We must return to Canterlot immediately," Starswirl replied. "There, our friends will remain safe, and we can relay what we’ve encountered to the princesses. From there, we can formulate our next move."

He paused. Despair crept upon every face with the clawing shadows of branches overhead. In every expression, he saw the creature's influence, its aura of dread that arrested any trace of hope.

Starswirl lowered his head. He’d felt that aura for himself, and it terrified even him. But out of that fear bloomed a fiery resolve—a resolve to see the creature’s actions reversed. A resolve to see it cast out of their realm, and for Tirek’s plans to crumble away.

"Our fight was not entirely in vain," he opened, drawing looks for such a bold point of optimism. "I believe I have learned of what this creature is, and how its magic may work. Let us make haste to Canterlot. I will explain more there."

Starswirl turned without another word. He held out a hoof to the open air and grew still, awaiting the touch of those unable to teleport, themselves.

Quiet and defeated, the Equestrians shambled over to him in pairs. Those who’d lost their counterpart joined others in groups of three, assisting in the carrying of the fallen.

"Applejack, lass, please allow me the honor of carrying Flash. I thank you kindly for fetching him."

Applejack blinked, surfaced from the depths of thought. The soft crunching of hoofsteps clued her to move, herself, and she looked up to find Rockhoof. He smiled, but it was a hollow gesture.

"Of course," she said reflexively. The robust stallion mounted the pegasus atop his back, and with a few short strides, made it to Starswirl’s side. Joining him in a connection of hooves, Meadowbrook and Mistmane sealed a closed circle, sharing the weight of Somnambula between the two of them. Giving a parting nod, the group vanished in white light.

Applejack heard sobbing. She sniffed. It was a contagious thing, crying. She hated to cry, but she supposed there were instances where it was inevitable. There were times where even her strength was not enough.

The sound of Rarity falling apart over their friend was such an instance. Her strength, too, had not lasted.

“What a ghastly thing,” the unicorn sobbed. She stroked the grooves of Fluttershy’s mane with a hoof. “All she was trying to do was help. She didn’t take part in the fight even once. It doesn't deserve her love.”

Sympathetic legs of pink and purple wrapped about her, helping her to her hooves. She expressed her thanks with a nod, and with a summoned handkerchief, blew her troubles away.

“After seeing that our magic had no effect, I wanted to believe she could make all the difference,” said Starlight, glancing at her mentor’s equally troubled face. “I think we all did.”

“It won’t get away with this,” came Dash. She hovered above her friends, her face contorted somewhere between grief and anger. “I’ll beat that sorry bird’s rear-end all the way back to wherever it came from! Fluttershy didn’t deserve this—nopony did!”

“Fluttershy believed violence wasn’t the answer,” Twilight said softly. As Dash’s venting went on, she lifted Fluttershy from the ground in her grasp of magic. When she did, Pinkie appeared to hug them both. Thankful for the strange smell of berries, Twilight nuzzled the party pony’s mane. She closed her eyes and felt additional hooves wrap around her, bringing a surge of warmth and comfort. She was content to stay in it for a while.

“Come on, girls,” the alicorn said at last, sniffing away the last of her tears. She addressed her friends with a sterner look. “We won’t save Fluttershy or the fallen Pillars from here.”

“To Canterlot,” Applejack offered, putting forward a hoof.

“To Canterlot!” Dash mirrored, doing the same.

“To Canterlot,” Rarity mewed, dabbing her face using magic as to offer her own hoof.

“To Canterlot, where we’ll get the biggest bird cage bits can buy and get Fluttershy back!” exclaimed Pinkie, her mane twisting on its own to act as a hoof.

“To Canterlot,” Starlight finished. She offered the group a more confident smile. “We will definitely bring Fluttershy back. An old centaur and some supercharged vulture won’t stop us.”

Smiles budded all around, and nods signaled Twilight that everyone was ready. But as the alicorn focused a thought on the streets of Canterlot, a sudden sound broke her concentration. She looked to the clearing’s edge, where dozens of guard ponies now spilled forth. Securing the area, the pegasi surrounded them, facing outwards for any potential threat.

“...Princess Twilight, there you are! Are you all okay? We saw red lights from within the woods and came as fast as we could. Where is the anomalous creature? I assume you found it?”

Bon Bon broke through the ranks of her assigned troops with a commanding presence. Her eyes darted from item to item, scanning the graveyard of shattered trees and sweeping patches of scorched earth. It wasn’t until she found Fluttershy’s still, gray form that she gasped, and an all-too sincere sorrow overcame her.

“...Luna have mercy, we're too late, aren't we?”

Comments

[CitreneSkys]

Fluttershy isn’t...dead, right?

[Melody Song]

Poor Fluttershy! She didn't deserve it!

[Issyxx]

No matter what they do. They cant reverse the effects of yveltal. Even xerneas the pokemon of life couldn't do it what can harmony and friendship do lol . I swear if u make up some bullshit reason she comes back im done with this story

[Issyxx]

10841097
Read pokemon yveltal move turns them to stone

[Issyxx]

10841518

10841097
Yveltal drains the life force so she is dead .

[Issyxx]

10841517
Yveltal drains the life of people and pokemon what do you think will happen ? Ofc she fucking dead

[CitreneSkys]

10841517
I mean, there isn’t a death tag on the story. I think there is still hope!..maybe

[Lord Nopony]

When death descends, everyone is already too late…

Insane work! Loved this.

[Vigriff]

You shelter yourselves in your little controlled world, incapable of handling any of the harsh realities beyond.

Once again, I find myself siding with Tirek on this one.