//------------------------------// // Friendship // Story: Day of Coronation // by CeresBane //------------------------------// Trixie winced with each tiny movement, it had gotten to such extremes now that the sensation of merely living was a painful chore. At any moment she knew her body would give out. She had driven herself beyond limits of which no mere mortal could. Indeed with her lungs blooming with pain, veins aching with agony and her mind a red mist of anguish, she had proven herself worthy of rivalling gods themselves. In her drunken haze however she could muster just a little more. Every ounce of herself focusing on her task and the foe before her. Trixie weighed her options and chances. Her body was essentially immobilised with pain, her reserves of energy were gone depleted beyond the point of which she could recover. She knew that if she truly needed to, she could move at a great price to her already deteriorating health. However, with her wings in shreds of useless insect-like membrane and her limbs skewered into bleeding appendages. The best she would probably muster was a useless trip and tumble. Twilight looked on at the filly with a pity reserved to those she held with the greatest contempt. The misfortune of those who would call her foe, and dared to think that someone as near celestial as her could be measured to rival that of mere mortal ponies. The arrogance of the Trixies was phenomenal. Look at her, daring me with that defiant look. Already beyond her limit and body torn to a useless pulp, and yet look at those eyes, as if she could still win. So confident in those shadows. So sure of the enveloping darkness's power over me. Had I not already said? "I fear no darkness foal." spoke Twilight as if Trixie had shouted out a challenge. "I am Twilight!" Her horn began to glow with power and before her a flaring light was giving shape to a certain rainbow maned pegasus, answering the summons of her master. "Rainbow dash, clear those clouds in ten seconds flat!" Twilight pointed to the dark black clouds in the sky darkening much of the field in artificial night. The clouds crackled with immense energy, occasionally rolling with thunder and flashing with lightning. But even in life Rainbow Dash was the bravest pony Twilight knew, and she knew her friend would not be routed by something as insignificant as fatal danger. "Relying on your queen, your brother and now a doppleganger of a long dead friend?" Trixie's voice was hoarse, brimming with fatigue and barely spoken with any breath to be heard. But Twilight could hear her, listening with all her attention. "I see now that the empire holds honour as an alien concept." Trixie's voice was slowly growing in strength, now as those words most certainly reached Twilight's ears. The sound made her twitch, and with a will she resisted to be provoked. "I will not tolerate this affront to such a sacred day. The deaths of my people will be avenged..." Trixie trailed off as she felt the strength drain from her. Twilight would let the foal have this, this small heroic moment before the end. Before she made her words worthless with but a single willing of the filly's death. Twilight looked on at the increasingly brightening field as the clouds rapidly dissipated. "And your name be villain for all it is worth!" Trixie had forcibly shaken herself out of her daze to finish her pledge. This was it Twilight thought, you've said your peice. Now you will die. Twilight's horn once again flared with power. At the same time the ground pulsed with energy. Blue energy that brought with it the shade of midnight, essentially undoing all of Rainbow Dash's work, as the night returned to the field. At the heart Trixie stood, her hoof on the Trixies' magical summoning gem. The Trixie Twilight had been focusing her magic on phased out like a phantom, revealing the mad grin of the filly further away in the distance behind. The Trixie gem continued to pulse like a cold stone heart sending waves of energy across the ground. Pooling with this energy, the patterned scars Twilight had scratched across the scorched earth formed a magical circle, complete with magical runes and symbols. In the darkness the ground glowed blue to a blood red and pulsed with greater intensity. "Ursa Major!" The circle flashed with crimson light and materialising out of no where was a beast. A beast the likes of which one would see once in an age. The ursa major. With it's expanse nearing the length of the five miles of the night side, it dwarfed the comparably puny Rainbow Dash. Unsure of what to do the familiar followed it's summoner as Twilight retreated back, before the empire's front lines. When the celestial looked back, she could see Trixie collapsed beneath the Ursa's protective mass. At no command from Twilight, the imperial army fired salvoes into the gargantuan beast. The Ursa roared its fury letting no magic or any pony getting anywhere near the exhausted unicorn. This is worse than I feared. This child is no mere monster. She is a demon. Twilight exclaimed internally. It seems I will have no choice but to use... that. Twilight was now grim, fully understanding how horribly her plan could go wrong. Even Shining Armour could sense his sister's possibly morbid decision, his gem heart flaring with protestation. She acknowledged his pleas, but refused to comply. In her mind Twilight imagined her study in the city of Celestia. High atop the tallest tower of university of magic. She imagined a desk, and imagined the shining gem around her neck was on it. Her horn flawed with magic and instantly she felt the protection of her brother's magic vanish as the gem teleported. Should I fail I would much rather die on my own than taking you with me. Mayhaps someday somepony else will be able to free you. Twilight looked at the soulless pegasus. It only took a moment, but staring out with white eyes, it nodded in understanding. It took up position beside her and soon they had began their march. "I won't lie to you, Trixie. My friendship is my magic." Twilight exchanged looks with Rainbow dash, their unity deepening. "Those dearest and nearest to me may be dead or lost to me now. But in my memories I am never alone." Twilight continuing her march, she had found that the imperial army had joined her. No pony commanding them to do so. "In my heart, my friends are with me and in their memory I beseech for their power." Joining Twilight at the head, Pinkie pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack and Rainbow Dash marched along side their friend. Their eyes a glow with power, much in the way of Rainbow dash's. The Ursa major, previously roaring and maiming with such fury, began to cower. Covering it's mistress in a giant shield of flesh. "I may be a shadow of what I use to be. Those surrounding me may be a shadow of what they were to me. But it is all I have" Intruding upon the shadow of the night, Twilight's form transformed from a Celestial unicorn into that of a normal lavender pony, still so young and filled with such promise. No pony of the empire followed. Instead staving off the Ursa's courage with their power. "And I will give you all of it Trixie." The six ponies began to glow with power, their forms dissipating into light. "The darkness will not conquer over me!" With those words, Twilight had become completely engulfed by the magic. Also evaporating into pure energy. The light glowing with such intensity, it exploded into a spectrum. Seemingly with a will of it's own, the spectrum flew a beeline to the mass of the Ursa. Wrapping around it in a giant tornado of colours of such proportions that it would have been seen as far away as Canterlot. The element of magic drained the energy the Ursa used to give itself form until it had fully dissipated. As if satisfied by this result, the spectrum of colours vanished, leaving behind an old unicorn beside a weakened blue filly. Her purple form, just inside the light of the day. "How can you speak of friendship, when you use it's magic like that?" Trixie rasped weakly into Twilight's ear. "If my intentions weren't pure, the elements of magic would have killed me foal. You went too far." Twilight spoke almost friendly with the young unicorn, almost lecturing her arch nemesis like the pupil shewas so long ago.. "I've no more magic in me and I'm sure you have none either." Trixie said simply in reply, resisting the urge to retort at the old mare's jab. "Then we settle this with tooth and hoof." Twilight replied simply. Neither moved. Instead they stared into each other's eyes, a wry smile forming across their faces. As conciousness took them both, a single thought came to them. Die. "Attack!" At first it came from each queen. It then echoed passed the lips of their generals, to then be echoed by their lieutenants, then to the captains. "For the Empire!" cried the ponies of the sun. "For the Republic!" cried the ponies of the moon. Within moments the two champions vanished by the wills of their respective rulers. Now each holding their champions in safety, they retreated in teleportation back to their capitals, leaving the truce once more forgotten.