Axioms

by NoPoemGuy

Chapter Two - Hayley's Comet

She was running, running through Ponyville. She couldn't quite recall why, but something extremely important was happening, and she had to get to where it was as quickly as possible. Her friends were there as well: Rainbow Dash was behind her, and Pinkie Pie, and Applejack too. They were all running as fast as their legs would carry them, running to the center of Ponyville, where something extremely important was going on...

Ponyville was under attack. A new pony had entered town, a pony more evil than any she had ever before encountered, a pony that would soon destroy the entire city – no, destroy all of Equestria – unless it was stopped. And as a bearer of an Element of Harmony, it was her duty to defend the town from any threat against it.

At last, she and her friends reached the center of town. Dark, billowing clouds hung low over the square, turning what had been a pleasant day into a horrible night. The grass all around was charred black, as though a fire had ravaged the city just moments before. All around them, ponies were screaming, scattering in all directions, desperately trying to get away. And in the center of it all, surrounding by a ghastly aura of dark magic, stood Nightmare Moon.

...No. It wasn't Nightmare Moon. It was Twilight.

Rainbow Dash took to the air and shot toward the purple unicorn; with a whimsical wave of her horn, Twilight sent the pegasus crashing through the brick wall of a nearby house. Applejack reared her head and charged forward, but didn't even make it to within ten feet before she was lifted into the air and thrown backward several yards, where she lay motionless on the ground. She simply stood where she was, captivated by the terrifying display of magic from the unicorn who had once been her friend. She couldn't even find her voice to try to reason with her. Suddenly, she was shoved from behind; she whipped her around, only to see Pinkie, breathing heavily from the exertion of pushing her out of the way, as an enormous tree plummeted from the sky and crushed her.

And Twilight stood where she had been the entire time, gazing back at her, her eyes literally glowing with magical power.

“WHY?” she finally managed to scream. Her face was drenched in tears, more tears than she'd cried before in her life. “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!”

Twilight didn't answer. She merely lifted her horn skyward and cast a spell, which rocketed toward her so quickly that she didn't have time to even think about evading, and her vision filled with a brilliant light –

“Augh!!” shrieked Rarity as she bolted upright in her four-poster bed. It was very early in the morning, just a few minutes past dawn; a beam of sunlight peered through a crack in the curtain and shone directly across her eyes. She winced from the sudden onslaught of light and sunk back into her mattress, throwing the covers over her face, and began to collect her thoughts.

That had been a horrifying dream. Of course she had nightmares from time to time, just like any other pony, but they usually featured her favorite dresses getting torn up or Sweetie Belle permanently moving into the boutique. But she had just witnessed Twilight Sparkle killing all of her friends. She reluctantly allowed her mind to gloss back over the scene: the blackened grass all around city hall, the billowing swathe of pure magical power surrounding her unicorn friend, and worst of all, those horrid, glowing eyes...

It was just a dream, Rarity told herself adamantly. Yet somehow the details seemed to growing clearer as time passed, instead of fading away into murkiness. It didn't feel like a dream at all, more like a vision, even a prophecy –

It was just a dream. I shall think no more of it. With a heavy sigh, she pushed the covers to one side and rolled onto her feet, blinking furiously as her eyes adjusted to the light. Based off of the sliver of cloudless sky she could see through the window, it was shaping up to be a gorgeous day. She was absolutely not about to waste it fretting about a silly little nightmare.

She glanced at her full-length mirror leaning against the wall, and recoiled slightly at the frazzled, unkempt mess of a pony that stared back at her. She also wasn't about to spend the day walking around looking like that. Sweeping up a brush with her magic, she began methodically smoothing out the kinks in her mane and tail, trying to achieve at least some degree of presentability.

What would she spend the day doing, anyway? Just to the left of the mirror hung a large-print, full-year calendar on which she wrote all of her engagements as she made them. Rarity very much enjoyed having all the day's events plotted out before her in once place; she could hardly imagine how other ponies did without such a thing, planning out their day entirely in their head and probably missing half of it. The calendar currently displayed the entire month of June...which she was fairly sure had just ended yesterday. Why, yes, today was the first of July. She tore the sheet off the wall and set it neatly on a nearby stack of similar pages. The month of July was now laid out before her in an array of black-and-white squares, many of them already filled with her handwriting, and she focused her attention on the first one.

July 1st: Renovations for Zecora. Ah, yes – Rarity's heart sank a notch as she remembered. Zecora had come to visit Ponyville some number of days ago to purchase a hammer, some planks, and a saw. As the zebra had explained, a lightning storm had severely damaged her hut, ripped off a good portion of the roof, and deposited a small tree directly into her living room. Applejack had immediately insisted that she help with the cleanup, to bring some 'modern engineering know-how' to the reconstruction, as she had put it. Twilight had quickly volunteered to come along, and one way or another, all six of them had ended up being enlisted in the project. In Rarity's case, manual labor in the middle of the Everfree Forest hardly fit with her idea of a perfect day. On the other hoof, the forest was quite lovely this time of year, and she'd have all her closest friends to chat with the entire time. Yes, she would choose to focus on the bright side, as she always did; it never failed to make circumstances more pleasant.

Putting the finishing touches to her tail and mane, she scanned the rest of the calendar for any upcoming events of notable importance. The rest of the week seemed to be rather run-of-the-mill, just a few scribbles about dress orders she needed to fulfill and a luncheon with a couple of her friends, and then –

July 8th: Hayley's Comet.

Her heart jumped right back up again, and then climbed another four or five notches to boot. Hayley's Comet! How could she have forgotten? Twilight had told her all about it weeks ago: Hayley's Comet passed by the earth only once every seventy-five years or so. Rarity had seen several comets as a filly; they were absolutely gorgeous, some of the most awe-strikingly beautiful objects to grace the sky. But while most comets were constructed from rock and melting ice, this particular one was made of magic. Every time it passed, it shed its power over the whole of Equestria, increasing the magical capabilities of unicorns everywhere many times, perhaps tenfold, or more! And on the night of July 8th, one week from today, she too would experience this great power.

Rarity's imagination kicked into top gear. Why, this would require planning! She couldn't let herself fritter the night away performing random acts of magic, she needed to do something magnificent. Perhaps she could coordinate a great gem hunting expedition; her Gem Location Spell could normally only detect them within a few inches of the surface, but with the power of Hayley's Comet, there was no telling how many precious jewels she could find. But no, that seemed an awful lot like work. This was no time for work: this called for a party! Of course she would get Pinkie's help to organize it, and Applejack could supply the refreshments, and she'd need to get Twilight involved too, because what would a magic party be without the Element of Magic...

...What were Twilight's plans for Comet Night, anyway?

That question interested Rarity even more than her own ideas. Twilight was already an extraordinarily talented unicorn, many times more powerful than herself. Surely she had something absolutely incredible arranged for Comet Night. If the two of them planned something together, they could make it a night nopony in Ponyville would ever forget.

Rarity gave herself a quick once-over in the mirror and headed out the door, trotting animatedly down the stairs to the ground floor of her boutique. She'd made up her mind: she would start her day by paying Twilight a visit. They would spend some quality time together, just the two unicorns, and later on they would meet up with the rest of their friends and head out to Zecora's hut. She reached the bottom of the staircase, opened the front door, and walked into the great outdoors.

As the view from her window had suggested, it was a beautiful summer day. Rarity loved summer, just like anypony. It was certainly the prettiest time of year, not just in terms of the wildlife and atmosphere, but also in terms of fashion. As she made her way toward the library, she passed several of her neighbors, many of whom were wearing dresses for one purpose or another, some of which she had made herself. The fashion trends during the colder months of the year were dictated by an overarching need to keep warm, which led to rather simple, bulky clothing that Rarity had to admit she was not particularly fond of. But in the summer, that restriction was gone, and the sole purpose of her dressmaking was to bring out the natural beauty in each pony that entered her shop. Just the way it should be.

After a short, cheerful walk, she arrived at Twilight's library. It was only then that she realized how young the morning still was. The sun lingered just above the horizon, still red enough that she could look directly into it without squinting. It couldn't be any later than eight o'clock. How could she be sure that Twilight was even awake at this hour? They had the entire week to discuss their plans for Comet Night, it wasn't so important that they start right away that she should lose sleep over it. But then again, Rarity had just walked across town to see her. She elected to knock on the door, as softly as she could; if nobody answered, she would return to her boutique and come back later.

But as she approached the red, wooden door, it quickly became apparent that Twilight was not, in fact, asleep. There were voices emanating from within the library, several voices at that, and they sounded quite excited about something. Who else could possibly be visiting Twilight this early? Curious, Rarity pressed an ear to the wood.

“Ooh, ooh, I know! You could make, like, a HUGE rainbow! The biggest one ever, all the way from here to Canterlot –“

“Oh come on, Pinkie! You want Twilight to spend the biggest night of her life making rainbows? Besides, I can make a sonic rainboom whenever I want, what's the big deal?”

“Silly, you've only pulled off a sonic rainboom twice!”

“That doesn't mean I can't do it! I could do rainbooms every day of the week if I felt like it!”

“You know, Twilight, it would be really nice if you could stop weeds from growing in my garden. That is, if you already know how, I wouldn't want you to go through the trouble of learning a new spell...”

“Trouble? Are you kidding? Find her that spell and she'll learn it in ten seconds flat, and if you can't find it she'll invent one herself!”

“Oh Spike, stop it...”

Rarity cleared her throat loudly and pushed the door open. The dimly lit interior of the library greeted her, towering shelves filled with books of all shapes and sizes placed against every inch of wall space. Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Spike stared back at her, all surrounding Twilight, who had her nose buried in a book.

“What's up, Rarity?” said Dash. “You here to find out what Twilight's doing for Hayley's Comet too?”

Rarity was still taken aback at the sheer number of ponies in the room. “As a matter of fact, I am, although I didn't expect to see so many of you to be doing the same thing.”

“I'm surprised the whole town isn't in here!” Spike exclaimed. “There's just a week until Twilight gets superpowers, ponies are going to be lining up to ask her for favors. She won't get too overwhelmed, though, I'll make sure of that.” He threw his tiny arms out to both sides and backed up until he was touching Twilight, who didn't appear to be focusing too heavily on her book; it seemed more like she was trying to keep herself out of the center of attention as much as possible. “Everyone leave Twilight alone!” he shouted mockingly. “Superponies need their rest too!”

Pinkie and Dash laughed at the diminutive dragon as Rarity felt a hint of indignation rising inside her. She might not know as much magic as Twilight, but she was still a fairly competent unicorn; didn't she deserve a little bit of attention herself?

“I was here first, I get dibs!” shouted Pinkie. “And I still say that until Twilight turns my house into a giant cupcake, all your other tiny, insignificant needs are gonna have to wait!”

“Why would you want your house turned into a cupcake?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Well she can't use your house, silly, because your house is a cloud, the cupcake would fall a gajillion feet and splatter everywhere –“

“Ahem!” coughed Rarity, prompting every pony in the room to look at her. She held her head high, proudly displaying her horn for all to see. “I might remind you that I too am a unicorn, and as such my magic shall also be enhanced on the night of comet. And if any of you would like a favor, I would be quite happy to help you in any way I can.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you're a great unicorn and all, but Twilight is like, the most powerful unicorn in Equestria! We won't need any help from you as long as she's around!”

Rarity's indignation boiled over into rage. “Well, I suppose the fact that Twilight can lift larger rocks than I can means that I might as well chop off my horn and repurpose it as a cooking utensil!”

“Oh Rarity, I would love to hear about your plans for Comet Night,” said Fluttershy kindly.

“I –“ started Rarity. She'd forgotten that as of now, she didn't actually have any plans for Comet Night. “I...I shall...I shall decorate city hall! Yes, I will acquire as many gems and fabrics as I can, and magically enhance their beauty, and turn city hall into a gorgeous spectacle the likes of which Ponyville has never seen!” She stared menacingly at Twilight, who quickly turned away and took a step backward. “And it will be more dazzling than anything Twilight could possibly create! Isn't that right?”

“Of course, of course!” said Twilight hurriedly. “I could never make something as pretty as you could! Although I could just cast a quick Want-It-Need-It spell on my library and everypony would think it was the greatest thing ever, but obviously that would be cheating –“

“MRRRRG!” snarled Rarity. She whirled around in a huff and began walking back toward the door as Rainbow Dash and Spike fell to the ground in fits of raucous laughter. Her face had assumed the color of the red part of Dash's mane. She knew that none of them meant any harm, that Fluttershy had tried to say something nice and Twilight hadn't wanted to say anything at all and Rainbow Dash was just being Rainbow Dash, but she still had her pride to consider. She would merely spend some time wandering about by herself until she cooled down, and perhaps in the future her friends would think twice before belittling her magical abilities...

But the door swung open before she reached it, and she found her path blocked by a very strange-looking pony. Her mane was completely covered by a large yellow helmet and her eyes were shielded by a gaudy pair of goggles, making it quite impossible to identify her by her face. The pony's orange-colored coat was mostly obscured by a tacky yellow vest, which sported a number of pockets along the sides, some of which were occupied by hammers, short wooden sticks, and lengths of rope. The vest stretched from the base of the pony's neck to the tip of her cutie mark, three red apples in close proximity –

“Applejack?” asked Rarity, startled.

“Well of course it's me!” said Applejack cheerfully, lifting a hoof to adjust her goggles. “Sorry I'm late, I didn't expect that y'all would want to get started so early!”

“Get started? Whatever do you mean –“ Rarity suddenly remembered; they were fixing up Zecora's hut today. “Oh, you're not late at all, we were just talking about something else. But, Applejack, dear...what are you wearing?”

“What, this?” Applejack gestured at the apparel concealing most of her face. “This here is my hard hat and safety goggles. I take it you don't like 'em?”

“They're...” Hideous! she almost said. “...peculiar, to say the least. Dear, are you sure this is proper attire for visiting Zecora?”

“Visiting Zecora? Rarity, I ain't visiting nopony, I'm off to fix a house! And I'm sure as hay not about to do it without the proper equipment!”

“Yes, but is it really necessary that –“

“You've never done any real construction before, that's for sure,” Applejack asserted. “You do realize that we gotta move a whole tree clear outta Zecora's living room? There's gonna be all kinds of junk falling from the sky, and the dust'll be pretty bad too. The most important rule of construction: safety first.” She turned and trotted back outside. “Come on out and suit up! I brought enough for all of ya!”

Rarity stepped backward so quickly she almost tripped over her own hoof. There was no way Applejack was going to convince her to put one of those horrid things on. “Fluttershy, I don't suppose you'd have any use for an extra set of safety equipment?”

Fluttershy turned somewhat white and backed herself into a corner. “Oh, no, I don't think I can wear those. Someone else can have mine too, if they want...”

“I've got my Pinkie Sense!” giggled Pinkie, dramatically shaking her tail back and forth. “I don't need a silly hat to keep me safe from falling stuff. It's all yours, Rainbow Dash!”

“Are you kidding me?” exclaimed Dash. “That's pretty much the most uncool outfit I've ever seen! You'd have to be absolutely crazy to put on something like that –“

“So this helmet dissipates the impact from falling debris?” asked Twilight, already halfway out the door. “That's fascinating! I wonder why I never thought of something like that before...”

“Oh, this I have to see,” chuckled Dash, trotting after Twilight. After a few moments, another fit of laughter erupted from outside. “Hahaha! You've always been an egghead, but now you look the part too!”

“Ooh, let me see!” shouted Pinkie. She bounced out the door, followed closely by Spike.

Rarity gazed at the open doorway and heaved a sigh. It seemed to finally be time to begin the day's work. She still wasn't particularly happy about it, but Zecora really did need their help, and that was enough to keep her at least somewhat positive about the ordeal.

“Um, Rarity,” said Fluttershy's voice from behind her. “I'm really, really sorry for making you upset earlier.”

Remorse slammed into Rarity like a tidal wave. “Oh, that wasn't your fault at all, dear,” she said hurriedly, turning to face her friend. “I was just being silly, overreacting about nothing. I've already forgotten it.”

Fluttershy simpered. “Thanks,” she murmured, and walked past Rarity to the door.

Rarity was now alone in the library. She suddenly remembered that her goal for the morning had been to organize a truly unforgettable event for the night of Hayley's Comet with Twilight, and to that end, the morning had been a complete and utter failure. But it wasn't of any great importance; she still had all week to hold that discussion, and in the meantime, there was a zebra in the forest who needed her help. Taking one last wistful look around the cozy atmosphere of the indoors that she wouldn't see again until that evening, she headed outside to face the day.

Comments

[NinjaNin]

And this is why I stay up all night. Because I know there will be updates of my favorite story at some insane hour by an author who is most likely insane like I am... no offense.

I can't believe there is a Celestia-to-honest plot in this story. I really thought it was going to be a cute little two-shot about Twilight's Axioms and how she deals with Pinkie with them. But then Fluttershy dies and Rarity has dreams of everyone dieing by Twilight's magic might and it becomes quite obvious that this is not a cute little two-shot about Twilight's Axioms and how she deals with Pinkie with them. I can tell this is going to be one heck of a ride.

On a side note, You really covered all your bases well. And the interaction between Twilight's I guess inner personalities is awesome. And the explanation on how Twilight does amazing feats without that much magic is really original. I really like this story .

Keep it up.

Also FIRST

[BonesTheHeretic]

God I love you. This has immediately shot to the top of my list of favourite fanfiction. I would just straight up call it my favourite, but I can't remember the details of my 'other favourites' well enough to compare.
But one thing it definitely has--best Twilight.
I'm sorry for my lack of critique. I just spent an hour or so reading the first few chapters of another fic and pointing out errors, but I really really just don't have anything to say. This is just ridiculously good.

[RealityCheck]

Fluttershy DIES?

If so, I'm dropping this story like a dead rodent.

[NoPoemGuy]

331113

I don't recall saying that Fluttershy dies.

[Brony Tom]

Well, well, you're back. I've been waiting for you...

Well done once again, although I can't believe you are... appearing to kill Fluttershy, at least. With an OC alicorn villain, to boot. Just be careful, mate.
(Edit: didn't see your comment above. Ignore the above three sentences)
I think you can handle it, though. Continue on, my friend!

[NoPoemGuy]

344020
Oh my god, I actually did not know that. Learn a little everyday.

[Dream Catcher]

Lovin' Twi's methodology of spell casting; it's a wonderful twist on the whole thing.

[aquilerafroot]

I love this story, one of the best I've ever read. Can't wait to see what happens. I owe the discovery of this to Gwenio, who recommended it!