//------------------------------// // Chapter 49 - Nothing // Story: This War of Ours // by JDPrime22 //------------------------------// Siberia HYDRA Rocket Test Area 9:32 a.m. The fist struck against the side of Steve’s face. Hard. Staggering, Steve managed to stay on his feet, doing his best to ignore the pain he felt and focus on the fight ahead. Without a shield, it made it much harder to deflect and strike back against Stark. As for Tony, he was beyond reasoning at this point. No goodwill, no sense of sanity was left behind those glowing blue eyes. All Steve felt with every blow he deflected and dodged was a man with nothing else but one thing on his mind. Just to kill. But he held him off for the time being. Bucky was nowhere in sight, so he fought and distracted Stark away from his friend. Despite his best efforts, Steve was hardly a match for Tony in his armor. He tried striking him across the face, but he only felt a stinging pain in his fingers as his fist made contact with the metal. Tony bent down from the hit, reacting fast and punching Rogers in the abdomen so hard he might as well have felt he was being gutted. Losing all the breath in his lungs, Steve leaned forward. Before he could fall to his knees, Stark’s right leg shot up and clotheslined Steve, knocking him flat on his back. Straddling the Captain, Stark raised his clenched fist above his head, bringing it down right for Steve’s. He tilted his neck to the side, Tony’s fist crashing right through the solid concrete. It may have been a little hard, but Tony wasn’t really kept together at the moment. He raised his fist again. Steve looked behind him and saw Bucky high in the air, the Captain’s shield in his grip. He roared and slammed it down on Stark’s backside. Rolling aside, Tony got back up and fired a repulsor, only to have it deflected from the familiar shield gripped in the hands of the Winter Soldier. As he lowered said shield, Tony saw the face of the man who murdered his parents in cold blood. He charged him. Steve was already there. Bent down, Steve reared outwards with his left leg, driving his foot into Tony’s abdomen as he charged forward. Stark stumbled back, nearly falling as Barnes flung the shield right into his face. Steve rolled on the concrete, turned to Bucky, watched as he tossed him his rightful shield, and focused on Stark. Completely focused on him. Steve did the same. Watching Stark fire a repulsor for Bucky, Steve moved in and drove the edge of his shield into Tony’s chest. The man leaned back, falling to one knee. He looked up, only to meet Bucky’s metal fist come flying down and striking the side of his helmet. It was a much more devastating blow than Steve’s earlier. Tony fell back, his boot thrusters launching him forward, the two men stepping aside. As he landed, as he spun around, they were already on him. He swung for Barnes, only to see as he moved aside, wrapped his arms around Stark’s and drove his elbow into Tony’s circuits. Sparks flew off from the impact, Tony roaring in pain. He smacked Barnes in the side of the head, only to have his leg get taken out by Steve and his shield. He swung low, striking Stark’s knee, causing the man to collapse. Nearly on top of himself. But he fought anyway. They fought back, delivering strike after strike, blow after blow. Slowly but surely beating him down. Just outside in the snow, a different type of conflict had befallen the two ponies shivering and breathing just feet from each other. Not physical conflict, at least not yet. A conflict of words. Of ideals. Of understanding. Twilight’s horn had dimmed down, the paralysis spell shrinking away into nothing. Without even stepping forward, with her broken expression rebuilding itself into a frown, Twilight spoke out into the crying winds. She asked, “What are you talking about?” Rainbow flapped her wings, hooves dangling beneath her, one still frozen from Twilight’s earlier spell striking it. As she hovered in the snow, she wiped her eyes with her only functioning hoof. “He’s my friend,” she stated loudly. Twilight didn’t react. Just stood there and glared. “These past few days I’ve seen the humanity that’s still inside of him, Twilight! He’s just like you and me, only broken!” “He is nothing like me!” Twilight shouted, stamping her hooves into the snow for added impact. Breathing softly, Rainbow sniffed. Nodding her head slowly, she replied, “You’re right, he’s not. He actually understands what he did was wrong even when he couldn’t control himself, and he’s sorry for it, and he wants another chance! Shouldn’t we give that to him?! A chance?! He needs help! He’s not going to get that help when you put him behind bars!” “S-shut up!” That did it. Her horn lit up even brighter than before, a bright blue spell launched right for Dash’s heart. With the tears flowing freely despite her best efforts, Twilight gritted her teeth and kept on firing. Rainbow was too slick, dodging and weaving through the air as if she knew where the blasts would be before Twilight even conjured it. Stopping just for a second, Twilight’s chest ached from all of her heavy breathing. She looked up to the snow-filled air, watching as Rainbow stopped the very second she did. Snowflakes painted her face, melting with the heat that radiated off of it. Twilight could feel the same on her end. Twilight shouted, “This world wasn’t ready for us, Rainbow! Washington and Lagos were proof of that, and the longer we stay in their conflict, the worse our world stands with Earth! Give up now!” As Twilight began to charge yet another paralysis spell, Rainbow instead froze. Not from the spell, but from that statement Twilight made. Of course. Rainbow remembered everything as if it was yesterday. The images of the bloody and torn bodies pockmarked across the White House’s lawn as bullets and fog filled the area plagued Rainbow’s mind. And in that fog, a skull mask stepped out, its eyes on the drugged Alicorn lying in the arms of a soldier in black. Then she remembered Lagos, the burning building with cries soon to be silenced spilling out of it. Falling away just like the burning ash and fire that consumed it. Then there was Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Applejack watching the chaos burn away, Twilight’s limp body lying beneath them. And through it all, Twilight blamed herself. “So that’s what this is about,” Rainbow whispered. She quickly dodged Twilight’s next spell, flying a bit closer to her. Not to strike, but to begin the first few steps to understanding. She said, just loud and powerful enough for Twilight to yield for brief moment, “I know you’re scared. Heck, even I would be if I was put in the kind of situation you were! But Bucky isn’t like Crossbones!” Stark fired three repulsor beams. One hit Steve’s chest, launching him back into the opposite wall. The second and third both hit Barnes, one in the shoulder and the second in the stomach. Barnes gasped, clutching onto his stomach where the blast had hit, but more specifically, where his stitches had opened up. As Barnes leaned forward from the blow, Tony caught him by the throat, flinging him back and crushing him against the wall. Bucky roared in agony, clutching onto Stark’s powerful grasp, glaring into the emotionless, blue eyes. Steve yelled so incredibly loud that even Tony had to look back, meeting the shield and its edge against his face. Stark grunted, static flying across his HUD, flashing red light appearing in his vision. His helmet’s eyes cracked, shattering once Bucky drove his metal fist straight into his face, thus freeing him from Tony’s grasp. Twilight had yielded for too long. At any moment, she expected to meet the bottom of Rainbow’s hooves being driven into her face or body. But they didn’t. She didn’t. Rainbow did not fight back, but instead chose to fight with her words, something that surprised even Twilight. She stood her ground, holding a spell in, watching as Rainbow hovered feet ahead of her. “He’s innocent for the UN bombing!” she shouted, wings beating against the snow. The storm was picking up, the snow blowing sideways between the two, beating against their coat and their faces, but never turning them away from each other. Rainbow continued. “He was framed! The man who caused this is probably miles away by now!” Her frown was gone, her face contorting back into a furious glare. Stamping her hooves even deeper into the rising snow, Twilight screamed, “He’s not innocent for everything else!” She fired yet another spell right for the Pegasus. A repulsor beam struck Steve right in the heart, causing him to collapse onto the floor, face-first. Bucky turned back to his friend, his eyes widening at the sight of Steve clutching his heart, barely moving. With the sweat streaming from his forehead, his hair a twisted mess of black and bleeding red, Bucky bellowed a new battle cry, spinning and driving his own body into Stark’s despite the pain he felt. Tony skidded across the cement floor, grabbing Barnes by his back and flinging him against the wall. Bucky grunted as his back hit the solid concrete, his eyes shooting down to his right, spotting the shield resting on its face. Just as Tony’s fist came flying for his head, Bucky bent down, felt the concrete rain down on the back of his head, scooped up the shield, and rammed its edge directly upwards. Sparks danced, men screamed, blood flew, chaos erupted as Bucky unloaded each devastating blow onto Stark in his delirious state. Grabbing his arm, yanking him back, Bucky pushed Stark into the wall and attacked. Barely holding back. Doing everything in his will and power not to release the Winter Soldier, but bring the Iron Man to his knees. He could see Stark’s naked eye through the mask, the shattered lens remaining dark. He screamed and attacked him, metal arm and Vibranium shield breaking Stark’s armor and exposing him. “You can’t beat him like this, sir!” Homer screamed, his voice becoming a static mess, only worsening with each shot. “Inner systems failing!” Grunting with every shot sent his way, Stark finally shouted, “Homer, give me something!” “Rerouting energy to Unibeam!” Just as his AI uttered those words, Barnes went low, driving the edge of the Captain’s shield right into Tony’s Arc Reactor. Now, Stark began to actually feel panic. Without his Arc Reactor, his suit wouldn’t function. He would just be a man in a clunky, metal suit. Not now. Dammit, not now. He reared back and screamed with every strike against the piercing, blue light, finally seeing a crack appear. That’s all Bucky had seen, because its light expanded, growing brighter, wider, and directly outwards. Bucky slowed to a halt, his eyes widening in shock to see the beam of energy shoot out and pierce him right in the chest. Right over the heart. He didn’t make a single noise as he hit the wall on the opposite side of the room. Steve watched with pain-filled eyes as Bucky slumped to the ground to his left, the shield in his arms rolling towards Steve. Yanking it off the ground, desperation replaced with rage in his heart, Steve charged ahead. He only had a split second to bring up his shield and deflect the Unibeam fired his way. It was no use. The beam was so powerful it blew Steve and his shield across the room, impacting the opposite wall, and collapsing. Just like Bucky. The two men lied motionless, one of them for a brief moment before he began to rise again. Steve looked over, looked to Bucky and saw no motion in his limbs or head. He laid on the side of his face, exposed, nothing left out of him to defend himself. So, Steve panted as he tried to stand up. He failed, and instead stumbled directly in front of Bucky. He spat out a helping of blood in front of him, coughing as he planted his fists in the ground. He saw two metal feet step forward, pointed in his direction. He looked up, and met a glowing eye and a shattered one. One held the light, the other the darkness. In that darkness, Steve could see Tony’s eye. He saw the red in his veins, the bruise underneath, and the agony that filled it. But he still remained, standing above the two men, his fists clenched, as Steve was on his knees. He forced himself up. He forced himself to stare Stark in the eyes and never look away. Even when he was beaten down, even when he was broken down to the last muscle and bone, and when he was almost out of options, he would not stay down. He grunted as he rose to one knee, then to none, as he finally stood up. And he panted, “He’s my friend.” “So was I,” Tony whispered. He punched Steve across the face so deafening Steve only heard a piercing ring for a moment too long. Then he collapsed. As Rainbow continued to dodge and Twilight continued to fire, it left the Pegasus with her guard down, her instincts only telling her where the next beam would be and when Twilight would shoot it. But Twilight was finished. With every spell that missed, she only grew more aggravated, which turned into anger, which propelled her forward. Twilight screamed and spread her wings, kicking out of the snow with an eruption of frost trailing her. Rainbow Dash, having expected the next beam, narrowed her eyes through the fog and snow to see something much larger and much faster come her way. Her eyes widened in horror as Twilight rammed right in the mare, clutching onto her body and tackling her into the snow beneath them. Rainbow grunted in pain as her back hit the snow, feeling the hard, frozen ground beneath. Barely opening her eyes that were previously clenched tight due to the impact, Rainbow could see the Alicorn straddling her, her own hooves holding down Rainbow’s, the fury in her glare directed to the Pegasus that was trapped beneath her. Then Rainbow saw the horn begin to glow a frightening blue. Just as Twilight growled, “It’s time to end this.” It was over. Rainbow began to feel the terrifying feeling of fear grip her heart. What would happen if Twilight froze Rainbow where she laid? She would go after Bucky, take him down, take him somewhere where he’ll never see the light of day again. And Steve would fare no better, being just as guilty for his own crimes as Bucky was for his. She didn’t have many options left except to take the blast and be done with it all. Except she did have another option. Looking right into Twilight’s eyes and stepping into the fire that filled them, Rainbow Dash began to talk to her. And for just a second longer, Twilight didn’t fire the spell. And for whatever reason that would be, Rainbow took the chance. “Look into your heart, Twilight! Look at who you are!” Rainbow cried, more tears slipping down her cheeks. She saw as a few leaked from Twilight’s burning gaze, the Alicorn breathing and whimpering atop of her. But she didn’t fire. “Bucky’s hurt; he’s lost! Putting him in a prison won’t help him, but caring for him, looking out for him, being a friend to him can! You’re the Princess of Friendship, Twilight! Even you know there has to be a chance!” Then Twilight reared her head back, her horn shooting off sparks, as she glared into Rainbow’s tear-filled eyes. She never looked away. She waited for the blast to come. Only to see Twilight’s fury die. Lips quivering, eyes watering, Twilight just breathed and sucked in those final words from the Pegasus. Back at the Terrorist Centre, when Rainbow called her out on her title, it only caused a rage to boil inside of her, ready to be released. But now, with the cool snow beating against her back and the stinging cuts ranging across her face and body, Twilight breathed in and absorbed the meaning of Rainbow’s words, this time… listening. She was the Princess of Friendship. She had lived her life in isolation of everypony else, only meeting the greatest friends she could have ever asked for once Princess Celestia sent her away to face her greatest challenge yet. And she did. And she conquered. And she achieved what ponies could only dream of, only because she had friends who were willing to help her achieve that. With all of her teachings, with all of the lessons she’s learned over the past years, it all came together to award her with the highest honor she could have ever received. Becoming something that understood and embraced friendship more than anything else. And ever since she stepped hoof on Earth, the meaning of that title had grown dimmer and dimmer until even Twilight started to question what it really meant. She knew she was supposed to help others find an understanding, solve friendship problems and heal shattered relationships. Twilight gasped quietly, her teary eyes widening as much as she could allow herself. She looked down, exhaling and crying as she saw the wounded body of her best friend, Rainbow Dash, lying beneath her. Her tears fell against Rainbow chest, her eyes shut tight and her jaw clenched at the realization. She was so focused on preventing terror beyond her control and being so… afraid… that she forgot what it meant to forgive and trust others. She forgot where she came from. She was the Princess of Friendship. She was meant to solve friendship problems and help those who truly needed… A friend. She gasped at the sound of screaming. Bucky’s screaming. Rainbow did, too, looking over but seeing nothing in the shadows within the structure. Still feeling the weight of Twilight on top of her, the Alicorn no longer moving, Rainbow Dash brought back her hind legs and drove them into Twilight’s chest. The two mares grunted in unison, Rainbow leaning forward to see Twilight scream and hit a nearby stone sticking out of the snow. She cried out as her back hit the rock, her motionless form falling and hitting the snow. Frost shot up from her impact, the Alicorn remaining where she lay. Rainbow didn’t waste another second and drove herself into the structure. Towards the screaming. Right into Tony Stark’s back. Stark yelled out, his body flipping from the force of the impact. He landed on his chest, already looking to his left to see what had hit him. Bucky watched, too, his screams of pain silenced when he didn’t force himself to crawl any further to the shield. He clutched his smoking chest, resting on his side as he watched the confrontation. And he could do nothing. Nothing but watch as Rainbow Dash stood between Steve and Tony. Grunting, Stark planted his fists into the concrete and pushed himself up. His suit screeched in protest to his movements, the joints sending off sparks. Stark stumbled as he stood. But he stood. He stared at the Pegasus that drove the first punch. Then he felt a hand on his leg. A metal hand. Spinning around with surreal speed, Stark booted Barnes right in the forehead, knocking him out clean. His head slacked to the side, the rest of his body motionless with a small pool of blood beginning to grow around his body. Stark aimed his palm right for him, the ball of light attached to it glowing even brighter than before. He put all of his energy into the shot, a guaranteed kill if it struck its target. It didn’t. He heard a scream and felt a pair of forelegs wrap around his neck. Rainbow Dash rammed herself into Stark once more, using whatever strength she had to hold him back and away from Bucky. Tony stumbled, his metal palms reaching to his neck and prying her forelegs free. Rainbow clenched her teeth, tears of pain raining down her cheeks. She cried out as Tony pulled her forelegs apart, gripping her by one of them and flinging her to the ground. Back where she started. That didn’t stop Rainbow. She spread her wings, took off even faster than last time, and charged Tony, directly to his chest. But she never made it. Tony swiped his forearm upwards, striking the Pegasus by the jaw and launching her into the concrete ceiling. She yelped as she made impact, a loud crack resounding through the room. As Rainbow fell back down, Tony looked to the ceiling to see a large crack remaining where she had hit. He looked back down and saw her wing at a twisted angle, some bone sticking out and spewing rivers of blood. He didn’t even acknowledge it, nor did his attitude or fury change. He didn’t see the mare that lied in a bloody and broken mess right in front of him. He didn’t see the pony he would have called a friend the other day, or hell, even a few minutes ago. He saw the pony that crippled his best friend. He saw the pony that tried to stop him from ending the man who murdered his parents. And he didn’t hold back. Not for her. Not after what she did. Through the pain and grit, bone and blood, Tony Stark yelled at her, “He hurt them! Your friends, my friends, and this is how you avenge them?! By betraying them?!” He pointed right at Barnes, the unconscious man having no say in the matter. Rainbow hissed at the pain rocking throughout her body, her red eyes staring at Bucky, then shooting back to meet the glare of Stark. She only saw one eye through his destroyed helmet, the other flickering blue and black. But that free eye held malice and hatred, something she’d only seen him direct towards Bucky. Shaking his head, Tony snarled, “You sided with a goddamn murderer.” Flinching at the pain flowing within and outside of her, Rainbow Dash looked straight in the eyes of Stark and said, “He had no choice. We all make mistakes, Tony… even you.” But to her shock, Stark just shook his head. And he growled, “No… The only mistake I ever made was letting you into my world.” The pain she felt was nothing compared to the break in her heart. It was instantly shadowed by Tony’s metal boot kicking her across the room. Her back hit the cement pillar, a final cry leaving her as Rainbow Dash slipped into a state of broken unconsciousness. And she lied there, Tony Stark glaring at her one last time as her eyes slowly closed. She could’ve sworn she heard, “You’re nothing without Twilight.”