//------------------------------// // Beast From The Air // Story: Don't Break // by nodamnbrakes //------------------------------// Twilight's head buzzed with a dozen conflicting feelings. She didn't quite know what any of them were, beyond the void of grief that flared whenever she thought of Spike, but they were powerful, and each one pulled her in a different direction. She wanted to race after Rainbow Dash, to make sure that her friend was alright after what Starlight had done. This version of Rainbow had never spoken to her, or to any Twilight Sparkle for that matter, but she was still a loyal little filly who deserved better than to die in the crossfire of a revenge scheme orchestrated by a mad mare. Her life, and every life, was worth something and deserved to be defended. But… there was a tiny voice in the back of her mind that whispered, too—Rainbow could not possibly be alive. Starlight Glimmer was too skilled a spellcaster to have missed that shot. And that little part of Twilight’s mind conjured horrible images of what she might see if she tried to save Dash and found her already… gone. "Tick, tick, tick," said Starlight. "There's only so much time in the day, filly. Better get to your questions." "Shut up. Please, just shut up," Twilight mumbled. She looked from Starlight to the hole the sawblade spell had sheared through the clouds. Once again, she couldn't help but imagine Rainbow falling towards the earth, screaming for help that would never come as red blood spouted from a severed wing or a missing leg. "D—Did you kill Rainbow with that spell?" she asked in a tiny voice. Starlight shrugged noncommittally. "It depends on whether anypony can sew the pieces back together. If they didn’t liquefy when they hit the ground, that is." The very thought of having to look at Rainbow’s remains smeared on the dirt was too much for Twilight. Ears pinned back in distress, she took a deep, shaky breath. “You k-killed…” she stammered. “You murdered…” “If you don’t ask a real question in five seconds, I’m going to grind you and your dragon into paste.” Twilight’s mouth worked fruitlessly for well over five seconds before she was able to string together a coherent request. “Why… Why did you d-do it?” “I’ve done a lot of things in my life. You’re going to have to be more specific.” “All of this…” “We already had this conversation,” Starlight sneered. “You destroyed my world, so I’ll destroy yours. Next question.” “But—” “Next question, Sparkle!” Twilight recoiled slightly. “O-Okay… Sorry… Um…" She said nothing for a while, and then: "How did you… break time... like this?” “I see what you’re doing,” said the unicorn, tutting, “and it’s not going to work. That’s my secret, dear, and mine alone. Suffice to say it’s related to this rotten filth on my flanks. You could never replicate it anyway.” Biting her lip, Twilight glanced at Starlight’s flank, which, she hadn’t realized until then, was still bleeding from the wounds Spike had inflicted on it. Her heart clenched horribly at the thought of his fate, and she searched desperately for something to distract herself. “What… what is your special talent, exactly?” she blurted out, realizing she didn't actually know. Starlight’s eyes met hers. They were suddenly darker than Twilight had ever seen them before. “It’s magic.” “Oh…” the alicorn whispered, drawing back from Starlight's unusually aggressive response. “You have something else you want to ask me, don’t you?” It was a statement, not a question. “Something about my cutie mark, perhaps?” “I-I don’t know what you mean,” said Twilight shakily. She really didn't; Starlight's cutie mark was of no particular interest to her. To her surprise, Starlight actually dropped the matter. “We’ll see about that. One last question, then.” “I don’t have any other—” “One more question!” Twilight fiddled with her hooves, looking down at the earth below. She felt very small before Starlight, which was absurd since Starlight was probably one of the most piteously thin mares she’d ever met, and was perhaps two-thirds of the alicorn’s height. It was the willingness to murder that truly terrified her. Even Tirek had only drained magic; a terrible fate, yes, but at least he left his victims alive. That look on Starlight’s face when she’d killed Spike, the sheer exhilaration— And then she knew what to ask: “This... isn’t the first time you’ve killed, is it?” Starlight’s reaction was, in some ways, predictable based on her previous behavior; and in other ways, it was far, far more frightening. At first, she looked shocked and offended at the accusation; then she pasted that monstrous grin across her face; but her ears were pinned back, her eyes kept nervously flickering every which way but at Twilight’s own— “Yeah,” the unicorn finally admitted. The absolute hate remained, but at the same time, she looked mildly bothered by the turn their chat had taken—like a schoolfoal trying to avoid talking about a homework assignment they hadn’t done. “How many? Who were they?” Twilight croaked, but Starlight held up a hoof. “Don’t pry into things that aren’t your business, please. It’s not polite. And you should be polite to me, Twilight. I’m your only real friend.” A soft puff drew Twilight's attention to the cloud in front of her. Starlight had conjured a set of saddlebags, emblazoned with the iron-grey equalization sign on each side, and tossed them over. Opening the pockets, Twilight found that they were empty. She looked questioningly at the unicorn, who rolled her eyes and scoffed. "For the dragon," Starlight explained. "And whatever other sentimental garbage you want to stuff in there as time goes on." “The dragon has a name, and it's Spike! He's not garbage and don't you ever dare call him anything of the kind, you—you—evil bitch! You are not my friend, and you never will be!” "Hmm," said Starlight, unperturbed. "I give you nice things, and you call me a bitch. I'm almost tempted to reevaluate my decision to give you a second chance at saving your colorful little friend." Twilight blinked a couple of times. “What?” "This is your first time, Twilight," the unicorn explained, her upper lip drawing back into a sneer. "The world isn't gentle—but I'll be. Just for you, just this once. I'll give you a chance to do everything over. Maybe this time you can collect the rainbow filly's pieces before they splatter on the ground. Does that sound appealing?" “Yes,” said Twilight in a strangled voice as all her indignation simply drained away. "Please... let me help Rainbow. Don't let this be her fate." Starlight crossed her forelegs and laughed caustically. “Put the dead dragon in the saddlebag, Twilight. We're going for a ride, whether you like the destination or not." Giving Spike a small, gentle kiss on the forehead, Twilight slid him into one of the saddlebag's pockets and closed it, leaving a small opening in the flap for him to peer out of. He was dead, but it seemed wrong to simply throw him into a bag and forget about him. Now he could watch what went on along with Twilight. “I love you, Spike,” she said to him. The idea that he could hear her and was cheering her on made her feel a little less awful inside. “I’ll always love you. You’re the best dragon.” "Now here's what's going to happen..." the unicorn was saying. "I altered the scroll to only reset the timeline when I command it to. I can do all kinds of things with it that you haven’t even seen yet. But you’re about to. Are you ready?" Twilight just nodded slowly. “I want you to say yes,” Starlight taunted. “Say it out loud.” “I... I don't suppose I can convince you to just sit down and talk a little first...?" Twilight replied with a deep, heavy sigh. The manic grin on Starlight's face turned into an ugly snarl for a brief moment. "Of course not, you incomprehensible idiot." "Alright… then… yes, I’m ready.” “Excellent! Off we go!” An enormous sucking sound overhead signaled the return of the vortex. It was all over very quickly, leaving Twilight to flounder about in the air for a moment before she regained her bearings. As soon as she confirmed that she wasn’t flying straight at the ground, she checked to make sure Spike was still safe—He was—and then she looked wildly about for Starlight Glimmer. But Starlight had vanished. Twilight immediately channeled as much magic into her horn as she possibly could. Though she was still exhausted, she was able to get just enough energy to achieve a proper teleport spell and send herself to the site of the race, whose location she'd memorized from teleporting around it constantly during her earlier battle with Starlight. They hadn't started yet. Rainbow and the colts were at the starting line, and Fluttershy was holding the flag between her teeth. Quite a few of their peers were milling around the sidelines, watching. Spreading her wings, Twilight took a powerful leap from the clouds and raced towards them. "Rainbow Dash!" she cried. "Rainbow Dash, you need to get out of here right now!" Rainbow, as well as most of the other fillies and colts, turned to look. She wore an expression of mild irritation. "I'm allowed to fly here!" Rainbow yelled back, voice squeaking indignantly. "My flight ban doesn't apply on or near the foundations 'cause they're technically not school grounds, they're public domain! Cloudsdale v. Stuka, go look it up!" A distant, mostly disengaged part of Twilight's brain—the same one that had wanted to know about Starlight's time magic—was more than a little curious as to how Rainbow Dash was able to quote legal findings to support her activities as a filly. The majority, however, was more focused on the fact that the seconds were slipping by even as she touched down near the race's starting line. "Rainbow, you're in danger and you need to get as far away from here as possible," Twilight explained, panting. The speed at which she'd been flying had taken a lot out of her. "There's a pony somewhere around here who wants to hurt you very badly. She already killed y—She already killed another filly not too long ago and she's after you now." She half expected a cocky response along the lines of "I'm Rainbow Dash! I can handle anything by myself!". Instead, the filly's eyes grew wide and she took a half a step back. Rainbow tried very hard to hide a stammer when she spoke, but it worked its way into her words nonetheless. "R-Really? She k-killed a filly? Oh, man... Not cool... Not cool..." "You have to get somewhere safe, Rainbow," the alicorn insisted, even as she scanned the clouds for any trace of heliotrope. "Please! She could be here any minute!" Dash bit her lip. "But then who's g-gonna race for Fluttershy? I gotta do it, I said I would, I-I can't leave her hangin'..." "Dude, chill out. We can race tomorrow or somethin'. It's not a big deal," said one of the colts. "Yeah it is, Hoops! If I don't beat you, you're gonna keep bullyin' her!" Glancing up at Twilight, Hoops said, "I've never bullied anypony in my life, Dash. I dunno what you're talking about. Not unless you wanna tell the Princess there about what you do to Whirlybird." "You shut up about that! Whirlybird is an awful tribalist piece of sh—" "BE QUIET!" Twilight yelled, wings flaring to their full, impressive span in her agitation. "We don't have time for this! Rainbow, we need to leave now!" Look, this mare, her name is Starlight Glimmer, and she's absolutely insane. It's a long story, but she wants to kill Rainbow, and she's—" "—been here this entire time." Starlight rose slowly into the center of the open racetrack, seated comfortably on thin air and glowing with a turquoise aura. "Really, you should have just grabbed her and run, Twilight. Now your friend is going to die." There was a wild, blissful grin on her face—like that of a mare who'd spent her entire life in captivity and had just tasted freedom for the very first time—as she swiveled her head toward Rainbow Dash and her horn lit up with a spinning rainbow of colors. Starlight wound up her left hoof, which was starting to glow as well, and made a violent underhanded tossing motion. A pinwheel-shaped rainbow of light erupted from it and spun rapidly through the air with a distinct whining sound, much like the larger buzzsaw spell she’d cast earlier. Twilight did the very first thing that came to mind: she cast a very simple, very basic summoning spell on Rainbow Dash. The filly, who'd been staring at the rotating wheel on the end of Starlight's horn with wide, frightened eyes, was yanked off her hooves and dragged into Twilight's grasp. As soon as she felt Dash squirming in her forelegs, she cast the most powerful shield spell her still-recovering magical reserves would allow, hoping she'd been faster than Starlight. But the spell never touched Dash, nor Twilight, nor the shield; in fact, it had not been aimed anywhere close to the two. It whirred past them until it hit home and bit into flesh—and then it produced a sickening sound like an overripe pumpkin being sawed in half for just a moment. "Lesson One," said Starlight, voice shaking from an apparent adrenaline rush. "Every choice you make has consequences." Distantly, Twilight was aware of Rainbow screaming and trying to thrash out of her grasp, but she kept her forelegs locked tightly around the filly's body. "To save one life may well be to take another." Hoops looked pale and shocked; he was staring at the mess, but Twilight wasn't sure if he was really seeing it anymore. "To help your friend is to harm your neighbor." Many of the fillies and colts who'd come to watch the race had taken off. They were screaming, terrified by the sight on the little cloud at the starting line. "Heroism is no better than villainy." There lay Fluttershy, her body sheared in two by the pinwheel spell. She was still alive, still aware, still looking around. Still quietly requesting that someone help her, because she couldn't feel her legs and she didn't know what was wrong. "Nopony can act and not harm another somewhere down the line." Rainbow bit Twilight very hard, and she finally let go long enough for the filly to zoom over to Fluttershy's side. Starlight completely ignored her, as well as the chaos of the foals trying to find a way out or a place to hide, and focused on Twilight instead. "You immediately went to protect your friend Rainbow Dash, leaving your friend Fluttershy open to be harmed," the unicorn finished, drawing nearer and nearer, "What does that say about how you prioritize your friends' lives?" She stopped in front of Twilight, her eyes strangely both hateful and full of an almost innocent, foal-like joy at the same time. "Ah, well," the unicorn breathed, "c'est la vie." Then she turned and flicked her horn at Rainbow Dash, producing a bolt of greenish-white light that made Twilight’s hackles stand up. Rainbow—who’d been scrambling to get Fluttershy off the cloud, probably to take her to a hospital—swayed when struck, then simply fell off the cloud like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Twilight watched her fall until she could no longer see Rainbow’s body anymore, and then she found herself looking into Fluttershy’s dazed eyes. Amazingly, the filly was still alive, despite having been cut in half, though it was clear she wouldn’t last much longer. Twilight wept. “I'll bet you think this is the worst it's going to get, too,” said Starlight. She tilted Twilight’s head up with a hoof. Twilight tried to jerk away, but she was held there with magic. “But one day you'll understand: no matter how deep and dark the chasm gets, there's always a darker place below.” The last thing Twilight saw was a pair of evil blue eyes piercing into her own—and then Starlight simply blinked out of existence and the world lurched. Whatever Starlight did this time was distinctly different from her earlier methods of resetting the timeline, for it produced an awful sucking sensation on every particle in Twilight's body, and made her feel as though she were caught in a vacuum that came from every direction. Everything around Twilight suddenly lurched into motion; after a moment, she realized that she was watching, and hearing, the events that had just happened, but in reverse and sped-up. Fluttershy's wounds knitted together, the fillies and colts landed, and Rainbow and the other racers returned to the starting line. Starlight was literally rewinding time. "If at first you don't succeed," came Starlight's voice, and Twilight realized that she was actually speaking backwards to make herself intelligible in the mayhem, "try, try again." It left her dazed and roiling awkwardly about, struggling not to throw up, while she tried to make sense of what was going on around her. Once the world had resolved into something she could properly comprehend, Twilight panicked, flapping her wings wildly as she realized she'd been in midair when the spell was cast, and it didn't seem to reset the positions of unaffected ponies. She still spent precious seconds flying back up to the clouds. She found a very different scene than the previous one: Fluttershy was cowering on her tiny cloud, and Rainbow was precariously balanced on the edge of it with her wings spread to their full extent and her teeth bared, scanning the skies for threats to her friend. The former looked almost catatonic with terror, while the latter resembled more of a wild animal than a pony. "What's wrong, Dash?" Hoops taunted. "Finally realize you're outta your league?" "Sh-shut up, Hoops. I died. Oh, Celestia, I-I died. I was d-d-dead." "What the hay are you talking about?" Twilight landed softly on a nearby cloud. "Rainbow Dash? Fluttershy? I—" "Y-You stay away," Rainbow choked. She was shaking very badly. "You 'n' that spearhead, a-all'a you stay away from F-F-Fluttershy 'n' me, ya hear?" They remember, Twilight realized, horrified. She let them remember. "I'm here to help," she said. "I tried to help, Rainbow, I tried, but I thought she was only after you, not both of—" "Just go away, just—T-t-take the s-spearhead with you! Fluttershy didn't, she didn't do anythin'!" Twilight felt her heart break more with each word she spoke to the crazed filly. "I can't go, Dash! She'll kill Fluttershy anyway! She'd kill you to get to her!" "R-Rainbow... j-just let h-her help... p-p-please..." Fluttershy whispered. "She s-seems... n-nice..." "Nnno way I'm lettin' her c-come near y-you! A-All'a'ya juh, just, s-stay away f-f-from me'n'we're g-good, o-okay?" Rainbow was shaking like a leaf by the end of her threat; it was obvious she wasn't feeling nearly as confident as she was trying to make out. "Rainbow," said Twilight, switching to a softer, more soothing voice, "I am a Princess of Equestria. You can trust me. Please, if you value Fluttershy's life at all, you have to come with me right n—" A whirring sound made her ears perk up. As quickly as she could, she cast a shield spell around both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy—only to find that many-colored pinwheel was already inside it. She had not heard it coming until it was too late. Rainbow’s wings continued to work perfectly for a couple of beats, her hooves reaching up to scrabble at her face, most of which had been sheared off, and then she started mistiming beats and her dying body began to fall, dripping blood and brain matter with it. The air shimmered oddly a short distance from the starting line and turned into Starlight Glimmer. "You really should have expected that one," she tsked, idly watching Dash's body fall. "You're oh-for-five now, Twilight." "You... You..." Starlight held up the scroll again. "Let's try this again and see what you've learned, shall we? I daresay your negotiation skills could use a little work. You got held up by filly logic, and that’s just silly." At that moment, Twilight's anger simply erupted. With speed enhanced by alicorn magic, she slammed her hoof into Starlight's face. As Starlight reeled back, surprised and disoriented, Twilight spun around and bucked her as hard as she could in the jaw. "How could you—Spike, Rainbow, Fluttershy—Foals! Foals, Starlight! You're killing foals! I'll throw you into Tartarus myself! No, that's too easy! I want you to hurt first—You should hurt so much I can't even describe it! I hate you! I'm going to hurt you and I'm not even going to feel bad about it!" She tried to land another blow on Starlight, but turquoise magic held her hooves back and encircled her horn. When Starlight rose, groaning, Twilight noticed her lower jaw was rather severely broken: there was no way she would ever be able to speak or eat properly again without several surgeries, at the very least. But the unicorn just spat out some blood—as best she could with her mouth in the condition it was—and fired up her horn. Her jaw slowly began to reconstruct itself in a distinct reversal of the events that had given her the injury in the first place. Twilight knew of this branch of chronomancy. Chronoremedium, it was called, and it could only be performed by a few specially trained and licensed chronomancers. What was more, Starlight's brand of chronoremedium worked at mind-boggling speeds compared to the months of intensive sessions and sealing spells it should have required for her to heal such a wound. Within moments, the heliotrope mare was able to open her mouth and close it a few times, then feel it with her hoof, as though working the stiffness out of it. Then she grimaced. "What exactly did you hope to accomplish by doing that?" she asked. “How did you do that so fas—” "Shut up! I've given you a lot of breaks, Twilight, but you're really starting to test my patience." "You're murdering foals!" snarled Twilight, her anger flaring again at the reminder of who she was talking to. "And you say I'm testing your patience?" "Let's think for a moment, Twilight... which one of us has the power to bring the little dragonshite back to life and put everything back the way it was in your idyllic little fantasy world? Oh, that's right, it's not you; it’s me." Starlight unfurled the scroll again. "Do you know what? I think I'm going to just kill all of them this time." Before Twilight could say or do anything in protest of her decision, the world started moving backwards again. Fluttershy was cowering on the cloud again. Rainbow was no longer there to protect her; instead, she had one hoof pressed to the side of her head and was hyperventilating. She had an expression of complete terror on her face. "Woah, Crashie," said Hoops. "Take a breather. At this rate you’re gonna crash harder than you normally do.” The whirring sound alerted Twilight to the pinwheel once again. This time, with enough of her magic recharged that she could put up a reasonable fight, she decided to go straight for the cause of death itself: she charged her horn and fired a sizeable blast of energy that pulled a cloud into the path of the pinwheel and transformed the puffy white substance into a solid chunk of iron, stopping the spell dead. At the same time, Rainbow, who had apparently heard the sound and recognized it as well, cried out and leapt onto Fluttershy so that she could shield the other filly with her body. Even with all her bravado drained from her, and even after already dying repeatedly, Dash was still willing to give up her life for her friend. It was a sight that filled Twilight with determination to protect the two fillies. But Starlight was already a thousand steps ahead of her; and it was simply by virtue of her cold-blooded brutality. The heliotrope unicorn burst through the clouds, galloping across the empty air at a respectable speed. Her horn lit up, creating a spiral of light whose ends became a hundred points with a hundred colors and textures. Then, like missiles, the hundred curses fired all at once and sped on ahead of Starlight in a blaze of magic. They were not aimed so much as fired wantonly in the general direction of the race line and its spectators. There was a moment, between when they first began emerging and when they began striking, when the sky was lit up with the wicked energies of Starlight's barrage, where Twilight was distinctly reminded of an old painting from the pre-unification era that depicted a small group of pegasi standing against an entire army of cloudwalking unicorn mages who were all casting at once. She threw up a shield as fast as she could—but Starlight really was one of the fastest casters Twilight had ever met. Unnaturally fast, really. Pockets of air around her shield turned translucent silver as Starlight transfigured it into a gaseous form of irorbicorbitum—a substance known to react violently with certain branches of magic. Why didn't I think of that when I was attacking her? Twilight thought numbly as the gas burned enormous holes in her shield all around. It's exactly the kind of thing I should have thought of... The shield was fizzling and collapsing on itself within seconds, and the first wave of curses easily punched through what remained. Twilight tried recasting a short distance away, but the irorbicorbitum cloud was rolling forth like a fog, strangling any attempt at shield magic. And when she heard the screams, she inadvertently dropped the shield in sheer panic anyway. Each curse was different, and to add to her ever-growing horror, Twilight only recognized a few of them. The first one that hit home was a medical bone-breaking curse; a greyish-white spell that snapped a colt's leg upon impact. Nearby, she saw an unknown pink spell strike Hoops in the chest, and he managed a few steps before falling over. Little red disc-shaped spells whizzed around beside the prismatic pinwheels that seemed to be Starlight's favored murder weapon. It wasn't even just with her horn that she cast, either. Starlight's horn maintained the military-grade spell spiral from which her curses spewed forth, but as she drew nearer she also rocked back and began using her hooves to fling precisely targeted spells at any colt or filly who tried to flee her. She could, Twilight realized, harness the magic of the other tribes through her whole body; a feat limited to only the Princesses and a few legendary mages. Strangely, the worst part was not the blood, or the screams; it was that Starlight wore an expression like that of a filly who'd just discovered it was possible to burn ants using a magnifying glass. It was such an equine look, and yet there was something so inequine about it. Twilight Sparkle had once believed she'd known what fear was. She'd felt it when she confronted Nightmare Moon, when she'd fought Discord, when she'd fought Tirek, and on many other occasions. She learned how to face her fears and laugh at them. How to giggle at the ghostly. But at that moment, Starlight Glimmer was a creature from another plane; a lovecraftian monstrosity with the power to drive her insane due to its mere presence. How in Equestria am I to stand up to a beast like this?