//------------------------------// // A Glimmer of Starlight // Story: My Brave Pony: Starfleet Nemesis // by Scipio Smith //------------------------------// A Glimmer of Starlight   Starlight didn’t enter until the room had been secured.   She wasn’t an idiot, and she wasn’t a space pony either. Let the Unicornicopians, so proud of their strength and their valour, run all the risk by going first into dangerous situations, by pursuing the fugitives, by making sure that there were no unpleasant surprises hiding anywhere. She would stay back a little, and come in when it was safe to do so. Like she did now, walking through the open door into the apartment of Major Rhymey. The late Major Rhymey now, obviously. There was no mistaking it. He was dead, with his body stretched out lifeless on the floor.   Fluttershy knelt beside him. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t do anything. She might have been dead herself, or petrified, if it weren’t for the slight trembling of her whole body, as though she were shivering with the cold.  She knelt beside her husbands body with his lifeblood, which was already staining the carpet, licking at her knees like the waves of the ocean lapping at the shore. It marked her dress, and some of it had gotten on her hands which, now resting upon Fluttershy’s knees, were leaving more stains. She didn’t look up. She didn’t speak. She showed no reaction to Starlight or, indeed, to the four goons who had preceded her and had now taken up positions on the corners of the main room. They surrounded her like gaolers, all eyes turned inwards towards her…and towards the dead body of her husband.   Come on, fellas, we’re hunting down dangerous fugitives and you really think that Fluttershy did this? But of course, it didn’t really matter what they believed, whether they actually thought that Fluttershy had murdered her husband, whether they even thought it was plausible that she could. All that mattered was what the Grand Ruler decided to call truth, and sometimes that truth didn’t even require plausibility.  Starlight murmured. "Your Majesty means to kill all five of them?"   "I do," the Grand Ruler said. "What of it?"   "Do you still harbour sympathy for your fellow Equestrians?" Wyldfyre asked mockingly.   "I am a loyal subject to the Grand Ruler, whom the gods bless," Starlight said proudly. "But I am also aware that Major Rhymey loves his shy little wife, and he is a valiant soldier. Has he not earned a little consideration, or will you hurt him in order to hurt a dead mare?" Those were the words that she had spoken, when His Majesty announced his plans to have the members of Friendship is Magic put to death and end the sore they had become to him. He declared his intentions, he had even discussed the means by which he would accomplish this feat – the same flawed means which now he had ordered her to dispose of quickly – and she had…she had said nothing. He had told her to her face that he meant to murder five mares who had done him no wrong and she had said nothing…except to intervene to save Fluttershy.   Because Fluttershy was the only one that she could save, because she was married to a Starfleet officer who, for all his faults, loved her dearly and so she had used that love and played upon the regard in which Rhymey was held in Starfleet to save Fluttershy from the Grand Ruler’s vengeance.    And in the process she had condemned four other lives to end.   It seemed like she had been doing that a lot lately. Starlight Glimmer, the dark spider of the Intelligence, condemning four people to death with one hand so that she could save a single life with the other.   All I wanted was a world where everyone was equal, but now I am become the arbiter of iniquity, deciding whose lives are worth saving and whose are not based on nothing more than my own judgement.   There was nothing I could have done to spare the others.   Yeah, I should keep telling myself that.   Why were there lives worth sparing?   Why was Fluttershy’s life worth trying to save?   Trying…that had suddenly become the operative word. She had tried to save Fluttershy and now she had failed, because Rhymey was dead and Fluttershy’s shield was gone. The Grand Ruler would vent his wrath upon her now. Either she would be blamed for the death of her husband, or she would simply disappear. Perhaps Starlight herself would be ordered to do the deed; to whisk Fluttershy into a dark room and make her disappear. Perhaps she would be ordered to take care of all of them.   All I wanted was for everyone to be equal. She couldn’t keep doing this. Her soul would not bear the weight of many more crimes, even done in a good cause. The people she had sent to prison, to…worse. She couldn’t suffer many more of them upon her guilty conscience. No matter how noble her intentions, she would have to act soon upon them or accept that she had abandoned them.   Once this mission is complete, once the gods are cleared away…then it will come soon.   Then the reckoning will begin. She had the resources for it. She had officers who would follow her, if only out of fear. If she completed this mission, when she completed this mission…the Grand Ruler would be grateful to her, she could name her own reward…and she would use that reward to betray and destroy him. Once this is done. And until then…until then I will save Fluttershy. Starlight touched the communications device in her ear. “Sergeant Rex, report.” “We’re tracking them via motion-sensor, colonel,” Rex’s voice came through with little in the way of interference. “It looks as though they’ve run into the basement.” “The basement?” Starlight repeated. I thought they were supposed to be super smart? She wasn’t a soldier, true, but their decision didn’t seem to make any sense. She would have expected them to run upwards, and try and fly away where they had freedom to go in any direction they liked. By going down, and trying to hide in the underground areas of the apartment, they had effectively trapped themselves. Did they think that Starlight and her forces were going to give up the search if they couldn’t find them right away like this was a game of hide and seek? They’re trapped…or are they? It occurred to Starlight the underground could as be as liberating as the sky in the right circumstances. “Sergeant, they might be trying to escape into the sewer tunnels; I don’t want them to get the chance, so stay on them. I’ll join you shortly.” “Copy that, ma’am.” Starlight turned off the commlink. “Clear the room.”   “Colonel?” one of the soldiers asked. “You heard me,” she said calmly. “Clear the room. Join Rex downstairs.”   The four of them looked at one another for a moment, before they all saluted briskly and exited at a quick trot. She didn’t need to tell them to shut the door behind them. Starlight approached Fluttershy at a far slower pace. She walked tentatively, half-creeping across the blood-stained carpet towards her. She stepped gingerly around the Rhymey’s dead body, which meant that she couldn’t kneel down in front of Fluttershy, but rather by her side.   She got blood on her uniform of course, but there was so much of that already that what difference did it make?   “Fluttershy,” she whispered. She didn’t bother to use the other mare’s rank; she doubted that she really cared for it at all. And…and it didn’t seem appropriate to use rank when it came to doing something that was actively subverting the wishes of the Grand Ruler. “Fluttershy. Fluttershy, my name is Starlight Glimmer. We’ve never met but I need you to listen to me.” Fluttershy didn’t respond, not in any way or shape or form.   “Fluttershy,” Starlight repeated. She reached out, and gingerly placed on hand on Fluttershy’s own. “Fluttershy, can you hear me?”   Fluttershy flinched from Starlight’s grasp. “He’s dead,” she whispered. “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s…Twilight, she…Twilight and I…he’s dead and-“   Starlight scowled. “I really am sorry about this.” She slapped Fluttershy hard across the face.   Fluttershy squealed in pain, and her eyes widened as her head whirled to look at Starlight as though she hadn’t even realised that she was there until that moment. “Why-“   “I’m sorry, but I need you to pay attention right now,” Starlight snapped. “Listen very carefully: you need to get out of here and never come back.”   Fluttershy’s mouth formed an O of baffled surprise. “What? I…I don’t understand. Why-”   “Because you’re going to die!” Starlight snarled. It was unfortunate that she had to be this way, but there wasn’t exactly time to break this to her gently. “Your husband was protecting you but now he’s dead so you need to run, now. You need to run away from here or else they’re going to come for you and they will kill you.”   Starlight didn’t think that Fluttershy’s eyes could widen any further, but somehow they did. “Who?”   “Starfleet!” Starlight yelled, as though that should have been obvious. “They’ve already tried to kill Pinkie Pie and Rarity, and maybe Applejack too. They’re going to keep trying until they’re dead and now that Rhymey is no more you’re on the list as well. So get out while you can and go somewhere they can’t find you.”   “But…but Twilight-“ “Twilight is going to be dead again before the day is over, if you don’t want to join her then you need to leave, now!” Starlight yelled. “Go! Run!” Fluttershy flinched away as Starlight bore down upon her, gesturing towards the windows.   “Go! Get out! Run away! Run!”   Fluttershy ran. She darted around the side of Starlight Glimmer, with her blood-stained summer dress flowing around her legs as she went, and she pushed open the window and she leapt from it. Her yellow wings spread out behind her as she began to glide across the city skyline.   Where will she go? Where can she go?   Wherever it is, I hope she’s safe.   It was only in the silence left by Fluttershy’s departure and the absence of any further need for her to keep yelling that Starlight realised that the refrigerator had stopped humming.   She frowned, and crossed the room to flick at the light switch. Nothing happened.   Did they go into the basement so that they could cut the power to the building?   She tapped her commlink. “Sergeant, is the power out where you are?”   “Yes, ma’am, the whole basement’s gone dark. It’s okay though, we can still track using motion sensors.”   “Be careful,” Starlight said. “I think they’re up to something. Hold position until I get there.”   She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck rise, she could feel a premonition in her back teeth because of course they were intelligent, every bit as intelligent as they had been designed to be (and probably considerably more intelligent than their creator); and they were led by a certifiable super-genius and she, Starlight, had been a fool of the highest order to think that they had made a mistake, or that they had simply been looking for a way out.   Because of course they had a plan, and at least two of the clones had changeling DNA, which meant that they could see in the dark. Starlight was running for the door when the yelling started.     Fluttershy knelt beside the dead… Fluttershy knelt beside her husband. His face was frozen in an expression of… of despair. His eyes were wide open, his mouth was halfway to hanging, there was blood from his wound staining the carpet, staining her: her hands, her knees, her clothes.   Rhymey was dead. Rhymey was dead and Twilight was alive and Fluttershy was just kneeling there, beside his…beside him. Staring down at him with eyes that were wide but which held no tears, eyes which just stared down from a face framed in shock, mounted atop a body that would not move. She just knelt beside him, and stared down, as if…as if she expected that lifeless form to breathe once more.   It was ironic that, in the hour of her husband’s passing, she became the perfect Unicornicopian wife that he had always wanted her to be: demure, silent, passive.   She had loved him once. Not for a while, perhaps, and certainly in these last days they had not been happy or, at the very least, she had not… but she had loved him once. He had not always been as he was at the last, or he had not seemed so to her. Perhaps that had been the real Rhymey: demanding and controlling; but it had not been the Rhymey that she knew. He had once been brave and noble, or seemed so. Once he had come into her life and swept her off her feet with his gallantry and gentleness, and if some of the shine had worn off of her golden knight, if in the end he had turned out to be little more than gilded lead…that did not mean that her feelings in those early days and in those heady moments were wholly false, did it? Had it all been nothing but a lie?   No. No, she did not believe that. She once had loved him, her heart had not deceived her; and since she had loved him, she had to believe that he once at least had virtues that were worth loving: nobility, courage, courtesy. Whether he had lost those things along the way, or whether familiarity had merely bred in her a greater awareness of his flaws, Fluttershy could not say. All she could say was that she had loved him once, but had not loved him at the end.   And now he was dead. Rhymey was dead and Twilight was alive and Fluttershy was frozen like a block of ice, kneeling beside Rhymey’s fallen form, staring at him.   She thought there were other people in the apartment, but she didn’t look at them. She didn’t pay any attention to what they were doing. She didn’t respond when she heard their voices, she didn’t even try to work out if they were trying to talk to her or not. She just knelt there, beside him, a tremble of her body her only motion as his blood swept beneath her like an ever-expanding sea.   The outside world intruded on her like a slap. Exactly like a slap, in fact, a slap that made Fluttershy squeal in pain like one of her animals as an open palm collided with her face. Fluttershy looked around, only now truly noticing that there was a mare kneeling beside her, a mare dressed all in black, a mare with a coat of pale lilac and the bangs of a purple mane, streaked with cyan, peaking out from under a high cap. Fluttershy didn’t think she’d ever met her before, certainly they’d never been introduced.   She felt her cheek throbbing where the mare had struck her; it felt as though someone small was continuing to hit her where the first blow had landed. “Why-“   “I’m sorry, but I need you to pay attention right now,” shouted the black-clad mare. “Listen very carefully: you need to get out of here and never come back.”   Fluttershy’s mouth hung open, she…she didn’t understand any of this, everything was happening so fast, her head was in a whir, she could only stammer in amazement, “What? I…I don’t understand. Why-”   “Because you’re going to die!” growled the pale lilac mare. “Your husband was protecting you but now he’s dead so you need to run, now. You need to run away from here or else they’re going to come for you and they will kill you.”   Fluttershy felt her eyes widen so much it was physical painful, almost as much so as the blow to her face. Rhymey was protecting me…I’m going to die…somebody wants to kill me…somebody is going to kill me…Rhymey was keeping me safe? What in Equestria is going on? What’s happening? Who would want to kill me? What kind of world have I woken up into? WHAT’S GOING ON? “Who?”   “Starfleet!” the other mare snarled in a tone that suggested Fluttershy was an idiot for needing to ask. “They’ve already tried to kill Pinkie Pie and Rarity, and maybe Applejack too. They’re going to keep trying until they’re dead and now that Rhymey is no more you’re on the list as well. So get out while you can and go somewhere they can’t find you.”   No. No, this can’t be. This can’t be happening. Pinkie Pie and Rarity? No, no they can’t be dead. They can’t…they can’t…please no, please no, not after Twilight…Twilight! “But…but Twilight-“   “Twilight is going to be dead again before the day is over, if you don’t want to join her then you need to leave, now!” yelled the other mare. “Go! Run!”   Fluttershy flinched away like a rabbit flinching from the predatory advance of an angry manticore, but this mare all dressed in black, with her leather coat and her cap and her vicious, cruel demeanour, she bore down on Fluttershy every bit as inexorably as any of the carnivores of the Everfree Forest. She forced Fluttershy back simply by advancing, all the while yelling at her to go, to run, to flee from the knives of the assassins that seemed to be even now drawn and descending upon her.   And Fluttershy ran. She ran from Rhymey, she ran from Twilight, she ran from this mysterious mare who seemed so angry at her, she ran from all of it. She dived out the window and took flight, heading she knew not where just that it was somewhere…somewhere away.   Away from all of it.   Away from danger.   Away from madness. Away from anypony who might need her.   Away from Twilight. As she fled, Fluttershy felt tears spring to her eyes.   Starlight ran down the empty corridors of the evacuated building, her legs pounding down the stairs towards the basement. Her earpiece projected the sounds of yelling, and explosions, and the desperate calling out of attacks directly into her ear. "Report, Sergeant!"   There was no response but more yelling.   "Does anybody have a visual!"   "They're everywhere!"   "Let's rock!"   "Sergeant!" Starlight yelled. "Sergeant Rex, for the Grand Ruler's sake, give me an update!"   When Rex's voice came over the comm, Starlight found that she had barely hear him over the sounds of chaos and confusion in the background. "...Ambush...can't see anything in here...torn to..."   "Sergeant, I want you to get your people out of there right now, do you understand?" Starlight snapped. What was the military way to do it? She tried to remember the field training manuals that she had idly browsed through in order to pass her officer exams. "Fall back by squads to the ground floor, and I'll cover you as soon as I get there."   "Say again, sir?"   "I said fall back by squads to the ground floor, where I'll suppport you," Starlight repeated, still running to get down there.   Starlight didn't need the commpiece to hear the next explosion. She would have heard it anyway as it made the entire building shake.   "Sergeant, what was that?"   "Sir, I can't hear you over all this noise. Drake, Vasquez hold your fire, dammit! Sir, what was that?"   "I said-" Starlight fell silent as she heard Rex cry out in panic over the comm. She paused, standing on the foot of the stairs leading to the lobby. She was on the ground floor now, if any of her people could get to her then she could protect them with her power. But it was starting to sound less and less likely that any of them would.   "Sergeant," she said. "Sergeant Rex, do you hear me." No response. "Drake, Echo, Frost; does anybody copy?"   No response. Even the calling of attacks had stopped. The only sound on the other end of the earpiece was the hiss of fires burning away down there in the cellar.   Someone probably ruptured a gas pipe with all of that shooting. Starlight thought. And that meant that she had a choice. She could stay here, up on the ground floor where she could see what she was doing, and wait for the fires to drive the clones back upstairs (assuming that they weren't planning to flee into the cellars, but if that he been the plan then why had they turned to fight?). Or she could follow her people down into the darkness and fight the fight that, by all accounts, they had just lost so badly.   The first choice was the rational one, the logical one. It offered the best chance of victory in this contest.   And if she made it, she would be condemning her own soldiers to possible death and probable injury in the flames before anyone could rescue them.   Whereas she went down into the dark, if she could manage to win this fight, then she could save them, or at least make way for someone else to save them without being attacked by a bunch of out of control clones in the process.   Which was to say that there wasn't really much choice at all. All ponies were equal, all ponies ought to be and deserved to be equal. Which meant that her life was worth neither more nor less than theirs, and any risks that she alone had to make to save and safeguard the many were worth making without hesitation.   And yet, because she was only a pony when all was said and done, and under no illusions about what was waiting for her, she did hesitate. In that moment, Starlight Glimmer could feel her hands trembling.   Trixie, if...I love you. I hope I told you that enough.   Starlight tapped her earpiece to change the frequency to a more general one. "This is Colonel Starlight Glimmer, I need fire control and medical teams to the Apis apartment building on forty-second street."   "Copy that, colonel. Apis on Forty-second."   "Thank you," Starlight murmured. Another tap returned her to the more local frequency. "I don't know if anyone can hear me, but hold tight. I'm on my way."   As she descended the staircase down into the basement, as the smoke rose up from out of the doorway ajar, as the shadows pressed close around her as though the darkness was some kind of monster lurking down in the foundations of the complex, Starlight forced her magic into her horn. It glowed a rich and vibrant green as she held it ready like a bowstring pulled back and ready to loose, all of that energy and all of that power taut and waiting to be unleashed.   She had no other weapons, neither spear nor sword nor work of space pony power. She had never needed them before, her wits and her prodigious magical talents had always sufficed.   With good fortune they would do so again, but as she felt the hairs on the back of her neck start to rise Starlight half-wished for a big stick to thump somebody with. She walked softly down the stairs. The darkness, half illuminated by flickering flames that she could see casting shadows beyond the half-open door, invited her in. Come, come, it said; come to me.   It almost reminded her of the house that she'd grown up in. She hadn't liked the basement there, either: those steps down into the dark, so much stuff down there to get lost in. The way the boiler growled and snarled.   But she had been a kid then, with her mane in pigtails and little lavender beads decorating her hair bands. She was not a filly now; she was a grown mare, an officer, the stuff of nightmares for many. She shouldn't be scared of the dark.   She wasn't scared of the dark. She was scared of what was waiting for her down there, using the dark as cover.   Starlight thought of Sunburst, her childhood friend whom she had spirited away from Starfleet custody and into the care of Sunset's merry band of idealists. Where was he now? Did he think well of her? Would she ever see him again? That all depends on me, doesn't it?   On me...and on them.   It all depends on whether I can kill a god.   Trixie, Sunburst...let me be brave.   Her feet felt as heavy as giant stones, Starlight felt as though her boots had turned to lead the better to weigh her down. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to run away, to flee from this place and from this fight, to kiss Trixie, to find her friend, maybe even to run away altogether and hide out with the rebels until...until what? Until they were found and arrested? Until she withered in old age in some dark hidey-hole somewhere? Until Twilight Sparkle's murderous clone took over the world? Until Sunset Shimmer and her wide-eyed rebels overthrew the Grand Ruler and the power of Starfleet? No, no she could not run. She was Starlight Glimmer, and the world was counting on her.   And so were her people, down there in the dark; she couldn't abandon them.   She forced herself to keep walking.   Starlight kicked open the door, and immediately a great wave of acrid smoke assailed her nostrils, clogging and choking them, threatening to make her double over with trying to cough it out of her throat until she used a touch of magic to clear the air immediately around her. Yes, you could call it a waste of power, but you could also say that Starlight wouldn't be much good in a fight if she was choking on fumes.   It was a miracle that these clones could still stand it in here. A miracle...or a testament to mad science.   They probably have mechanical lungs that let them breathe smoke, and maybe even underwater too. Who knows? They're better than us ordinary ponies, after all.   Flames danced in patches here and there, upon the floor and the wall. Most of it seemed to originate from a set of pipes running alongside one of the walls that was jetting out flames like a lighter. As she had suspected, someone had ruptured the gas pipes. The sprinklers were on, and the pitter-patter of the water as it rained down upon the flames and splattered the floor was the only sound in the darkness. Whether it would be enough to stop the fire from spreading...Starlight didn't know. And she didn't really want to risk it either. She could see the prone forms of her soldiers, or at least the shadows of them, lying here and there. amongst boilers and piles of clutter. She had to finish this. She wanted to finish this.   She couldn't see where they were hiding, although it they got close enough to her her magic would alert her to their presence. She was certain that they hadn't run. If they hadn't run from all the rest of her troops, they wouldn't run from her.   At this point she should probably think something cool like 'that was their mistake' but honestly...she didn't have that much confidence.   Still, though it was a grossly unfair fight she would fight it nevertheless.   She would fight it because it was a grossly unfair fight, so that future fights would be levelled off for all.   Starlight advanced into the basement. She felt her hands clench into fists upon reflex. She saw something moving in front of her, and Starlight gathered more of her magic to her as Twilight - or the clone that Brain had made of Twilight, anyway - stepped out of her hiding place. She was still half in shadow, but by the flickering of a patch of flame that stubbornly refused to die under the assault of the sprinklers Starlight could see half her body, and half her face.   She looked...tired. She looked so weary. That was something that Starlight hadn't expected. She had expected...she wasn't sure what she had expected, but it wasn't that. The clone closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them to fix Starlight Glimmer with her gaze. "You're very brave to come down here alone."   Starlight's expression was fixed as stone. "Is your plan to distract me with flattery while your friends sneak up on me?"   "They won't interfere," said the clone. "I'm the only one you have to fight. You're all alone and so...so am I."   "That's very generous of you."   "I think...I think it's what Twilight would have done."   Starlight felt her lip curl into a sneer. "Yes, Twilight Sparkle was honourable, even if she never used the word. But then, you're not Twilight, are you?"   "I thought I was," the clone said. "I thought I could be. But I scared Fluttershy, and I made Sunset angry, and they both...I don't think the real Twilight would have done either of those things, would she?" She was silent for a moment, as though she was waiting for a response from Starlight Glimmer. When none was forthcoming, when it became clear that Starlight had no intention of responding, the clone continued. "Now...now I don't really know who I am. Or what I am."   "You're dangerous," Starlight said. "You're a threat to everyone and everything."   "I don't want to be."   "That doesn't matter," Starlight replied. "You're so powerful that you grind people down just by existing."   "I don't want to fight you," the clone said, in a voice steeped in misery. "I don't want to fight you, either," Starlight confessed. "But I can't let you go."   "Do you think you can win?"   "I think I have to try."   The clone nodded, it was a barely perceptible gesture in the lack of light. "Then so be it."  Bolts of magic, one lavender and one green, shot from their horns at the same instant. The clone of Twilight Sparkle conjured a shield from which Starlight’s missile rebounded to blast a charred and blackened hole in the wall. Starlight avoided the lavender bolt aimed at her by teleporting away, re-appearing behind the false Twilight to fire another bolt of magic which, like the first, rebounded off her shield.   Starlight focussed her power for a beam that would brute-force its way through the shield of the clone and strike her down.   Unfortunately, it seemed like the clone had the same idea.   A beam of vibrant green, like a serpent forged of power and twice as deadly as a viper’s fangs, erupted from out of Starlight’s horn to lunge like a hungry timberwolf straight for the false Twilight. A similar beam of sickly lavender, aimed like a lance, for Starlight’s chest charged forth from the clone’s own horn. The two beams met in the middle, like two great dragons contesting over territory, and they shoved at one another like wrestlers in the ring. Starlight scowled, and gritted her teeth as she shoved all the power and strength at her command into her own beam. She fancied that she could see beads of sweat on the clone’s brow. Come on, is that all you’ve got? I thought you were supposed to be all that a bag of chips?   The clone frowned, as if she could read Starlight’s thoughts.   Starlight’s eyes widened as she saw her beam being pushed back towards her, borne by the inexorable force of the clone’s attack.   Oh no you don’t. Starlight gave it everything she had. She summoned up all her strength and all her passion, she summoned up all the resolve at her command. She thought about Trixie waiting for her at home, she thought about Sunburst hiding until she could set the world to rights, she thought about the soldiers who had earned her loyalty with their loyal service, she thought about all the ponies who deserved to live free and equal in a just world. She thought about everyone who was counting on her to win this fight, whether they realised it or not. She had to win this, she had to.   I am the only one who can change this world for the better. I am the only one who can…and if I can’t beat her, if I don’t beat her…then it will all be for nothing.   I won’t let that happen.   Trixie…Sunburst…stand with me.   Starlight found that she was roaring, bellowing out her rage in a way that she would not normally have gotten away with, screaming the years of frustration watching the abuses of the Starfleet, being rendered complicit in them, all those years of scrabbling in the darkness and the blood just for the faint hope that one day she could make things better. Starlight howled, and as she howled she found that her green beam was pushing back the clone’s bright beam of lavender. Hope, justice and equality began to drive back the tyranny of gods and princes and grind the very notion into the ashes of forgotten history.   The clone watched, and seemed remarkably unfazed as Starlight’s beam bore down upon her like a train.   And then, in a flash of lavender light, she disappeared.   Starlight’s beam fizzled out. She took a deep breath and fought a faint feeling of dizziness as she looked around the dark and crowded cellar for any sign of her, or any of her companions who might have decided to intervene for all that the clone had denied they would.   Where are you?   The clone reappeared…less than a foot away from Starlight, and her fist was already in motion towards her face.   Starlight teleported away as fast as thought, and as soon as she re-emerged in a magical flash she sent a barrage of magical bolts flying through the towards the clone’s position.   You couldn’t beat me by magic so you think you can take me with fists, is that it?   You’re probably right, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give you the chance!   Starlight’s missiles struck home…and all exploded harmlessly against the clone’s shield.   Then the clone was moving, and Starlight moved with her.   And so they fought. The clone launched magical attacks, which Starlight dodged or deflected, but the magic was only ever a distraction as the clone kept moving, either teleporting or just dashing forwards, always trying to close the distance, always trying to turn this from a magical duel into a brawl of hands and feet. Starlight kept opening up the range, kept teleporting out of the way, kept firing off all the magic at her command in a relentless barrage. But so little of it struck home, and what did rebounded or dissipated upon the powerful shields the clone had conjured. They were stalemated.   And so they fought. The cramped, wet cellar of the Apis building, where the flames were mostly died down, where the darkness turned the piles of junk into the shapes of monstrous creatures, proved too small to hold too such magical prodigies as they battled for supremacy. Starlight soon found that she couldn’t remember which of them was the first one to teleport out of the basement, out of the building itself. It was all a blur. Was it her, trying to get out of the confines and somewhere she could really open up the range? Was the clone trying to lead her somewhere, or just away from the rest. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The rest of the world didn’t matter. There was only Starlight Glimmer, and the clone of the Twilight Sparkle, and the duel that could only end one of two ways.   They teleported onto the tops of towering sky-scrapers. They teleported into the middle of busy thoroughfares and sent all manner of ponies scurrying screaming for cover as the magic flew thick and fast between them. They used cloud-walking spells to teleport onto the tops of thin nimbus wifts and fat and fluffy cumulus as they chased each other amongst the cloud cover. They used reverse gravity spells to dash up and down the sides of towers made out of glass, shattering the window pains as their spells volleyed and rebounded off of one another’s impenetrable barriers.   At times, they teleported into mid-air and hovered for a second, firing off bolts of magic the likes of which few unicorns would ever match before Starlight teleported away again before she fell.   They fought through gardens, and left trampled flower-beds and exploded flowerpots in their wake. They fought through offices and sent desks and chairs flying out the windows. They even teleported into the live filming of a chat show and wouldn’t that be a hard thing to explain away?   Up and down the city they fought, from the highest heights of New Canterlot’s most looming buildings to the shadowy alleyways of its most disreputable slums. Across the capital they teleported, battling in an unceasing contest in which neither could gain advantage.   Except that Starlight was getting tired.   She tried not to show it, she hoped that she wasn’t showing it, but she was tired. She hadn’t pushed herself this hard in…ever. She had never needed to. Not even fighting the real Twilight could possibly have been this hard, there was no way. The clone…she didn’t even look like she was weary. It wasn’t possible. Starlight felt…her stomach was howling at her, her hands and legs were trembling, her head was starting to spin, she was using everything she had just to stand still and she felt as though she’d reached the dregs already. So much teleportation…how was the clone doing it? These sort of spells…she doubted that she would have the energy for another powerful beam even if the false Twilight gave her the opportunity.   Starlight swayed a little, as she stood on the side of a towering building with magic holding her feet to the glass window-pane.   Come on. Come on, there has to be a way. Nobody is invincible. There has to be some way that I can-   The clone teleported up into her face, and exhausted as she was Starlight was just too slow to get away this time.   She teleported, but the clone had already grabbed hold of her by the scruff of the neck and so they teleported together, with the false Twilight carried along by Starlight’s spell. No sooner had they landed in the middle of an empty warehouse than the clone punched her in the face. Starlight let out a cry of pain as she felt something like an elephant’s foot slam into her cheek.   Then the clone teleported, and this time it was Starlight carried away as they reappeared, high up in the air, above the warehouse that they had just left.   Starlight struck at the clone with her fists, but she had never really been interested in physical violence, and she wasn’t exactly feeling fresh anyway. It felt…it felt like punching a tree, the clone didn’t flinch but Starlight’s fists were aching so hard.   “I didn’t want to fight you,” she said. “But you left me no choice. You started this and now I…I’m sorry.”   She let go.   Starlight shrieked and flailed her arms wildly as she began to plummet through the air. The wind whistled past her smarting face, it sent her mane streaming around her in all directions, it buffeted her as she descended inexorably downwards.   Unless she could find enough in the basement to teleport away before it was too late.   Come on, come on, give me something. Please, please give me something, just this last time.   I don’t want to die.   Trixie’s face flashed before her eyes, and Starlight thought dumbly that she would never get to see her comeback show.   It was only then that Starlight noticed the clone’s horn glowing.   “No,” Starlight murmured. “Please, n-“   A beam of lavender light shot down from Twilight’s horn like a lighting bolt from heaven, striking down she who had dared to stand as equal to the gods.   It struck Starlight square in the chest.   Starlight Glimmer screamed as magic combined with gravity to grease the wheels of her descent into darkness.     Raven sat in her cell, on the floor with her legs crossed in a meditating position. In one grey hand she held a book of poetry, and idly leafed through it with her thumb as her dark purple eyes swept across the page.   A shadow, definitely not cast by Raven herself, began to grown upon the white wall of her cell.   Raven spared the growing darkness the merest glance.   “Hello, stranger,” she said. “It’s always nice to get visitors.”   The shadow had resolved itself into roughly the form of a pony, or at least a pony as ponies had become by the science and art of the Grand Ruler, a being standing upon two legs with two hands at the ends of its two arms, which just so happened to have a horse’s head upon it, and unicorn’s horn upon that head. Two wings of shadow spread from wall to wall, though in the present silhouetted form they looked almost like a cape of darkness as much as any instrument of flight.   “Hello again, little sister,” the voice was soft and sinuous. “It’s been too long.”   Raven frowned. She could feel a pulsing in her head, a throbbing building up of unexpected pain. No, not unexpected. She knew what was coming next, she just…she didn’t like it, she…she didn’t want to…she didn’t…   The poetry book tumbled from her unprotesting fingers. When Raven spoke next, her voice had become both deeper and more stupid. “Hi there, Big Bro.” She scowled. “Why do you always have to go and do this?”   “Do what? Reveal the real you?” the shadowy figure chuckled. “What’s the matter, Raven, are you ashamed of what you are?”   “I…” Raven looked as though she was struggling to find the right words. “Why can’t the other me be me, Bro? Why do I have to-“   “Because Father wants it that way,” the shadow hissed. “And you don’t want to disappoint Father, do you?”   Raven bowed her head. “I always done what Daddy told me to. I killed the pony princess just like he said. I finished her good, just like he told me to, before she could figure out all our secrets. And then you left me in here.”   “Well, we had expected that Queen Celestia would kill you in revenge for what you did to sweet Twilight,” the shadow admitted. “Father didn’t count on Sunset Shimmer’s mercy. But then, you’ve been having fun here, haven’t you? You’ve gotten to pretend to be the other Raven for longer, and isn’t that nice? You like being that Raven, don’t you?”   Raven nodded. “Raven’s smart, she…she’s better than I am.”   “And now you’re going to get to be her for even longer,” the shadow said. “Just so long as you remember who you really are, deep down. Just so long as you remember who your family are: Father, big bro Celesto, and me. Just so long as you remember that we love you.”   Raven nodded. “But only obey Daddy and you as his voice. Love big brother Celesto, but don’t ever do what he says.”   “That’s right,” the shadowy figure said patiently. “Good girl. Now, Father has a new mission for Raven; a very important mission, that only she can accomplish. And he’ll be very impressed when she carries it out.”   Raven grinned. “I’ll do it, big bro, don’t you worry. I’ll do it for Daddy, sure. I’ll make him proud of me, I’ll…I’ll…” she shook her head, as her voice assumed the more cultured and cultivated tones that the world recognised as belonging to the infamous Raven, assassin of Twilight Sparkle. “What is it that you need me to do?”   “The false Twilight is in play. Her loyalties are…in flux, right now. If you act quickly, you can recruit her to her cause.”   “And her companions?”   “Useful pawns, if you can get them. But the un-Twilight is your priority. Whatever you have to do to get her on side, do it.”   “And if she adamantly refuses?”   “Then deal with her like you dealt with the original.”   Raven smirked. “My dear brother, it will be an absolute pleasure. I’ve never had the opportunity to kill someone twice before.” “Just so long as you remember that it isn’t the outcome to be desired.” Raven snorted. “Spoil my fun, why don’t you?” “If you need something to sate your bloodlust, there is one other thing.” “I’m listening.”   “A bespectacled shut-in named Moondancer has been fool enough to follow in Princess Twilight’s footsteps.”  “Is she getting close?”   “I’m not sure, but there’s no point taking any risks. Kill her, and this time destroy all the research. Father doesn’t want to revisit this a third time.”   Raven accepted the rebuke with equanimity. “I understand.”   “Good luck,” the shadow said, as it began to fade from view. “We’re all counting on you.” Raven chuckled. “Of course you are. I’m fantastic.” She uncrossed her legs. “Moondancer, Moondancer, Moondancer. I’m looking forward to meeting you already.” She rose smoothly to her feet. “Well, I suppose the first thing I should do is get out of this cell.”