Starlight Rider Kicks Everything
by Present Perfect
Finale: Marks and Recreation
"Now wait just an apple-pickin' minute, Rumble," Apple Bloom cried. "Where do you think you're leadin' our campers?"
"They're not your campers anymore!" said Rumble, smug satisfaction sprawling over his face. "I'm starting a new camp!"
With the edge of his hoof, he drew a literal line in the sand.
"Everypony on this side of the line is in Camp Blank Flanks Forever!"
The Cutie Mark Crusaders gaped as the aforementioned blank flanks cheered for Rumble.
"You'd think Starlight would have shown up by now to keep things from getting this bad," Scootaloo grumble under her breath.
That was when two ponies in costume armor plowed through the line, narrowly missing the two groups of campers. Both sides went quiet, watching with amazement as a battle unfolded before them.
The armored ponies skidded into the horseshoe pit, uprooting the stiles and sending horseshoes scattering at high velocity into the crowd. Their silence turned into shouts and screams as foals on both sides of the now even-more-literal furrow scampered for the shelter of the camp cabins. The combatants kicked up a tremendous din as they battered each other with body blows. They skidded to a halt, the red fighter on top; the one in the grey armor kicked off the ground, launching them both into the air.
They crashed back down to earth.
Everything was silent for a moment as the loam and grass uprooted by the impact fountained out of the crater and back down again. The battle had been brought to a standstill for the moment, both ponies climbing, with great difficulty, from the hole they'd found themselves in.
Standing across the impact crater from one another, they heaved with the effort of breathing, while sizing each other up.
"Why... are you doing this?" asked the mare in grey.
"I have to stop you any way I can," said her opponent, vocal modulator keeping their identity well hidden. "You've gone too far, done too much. Now, it's time to quit."
The grey mare shook her head and chuckled wryly. "Or what? We'll keep fighting forever? What's it going to take to get you to leave me alone, huh? Apart from beating your flank into powder."
"Get me to stop?" The red pony snorted. "Take that armor off. Return the power you stole with those watches. Take the next time-travel spell back to where you belong. Then and only then will I stop."
The campers peered out from around doorframe and windowsills, daring to show no more than their eyes and the tops of their heads, yet unwilling to let the spectacle before them go unwatched. They all held their breaths.
The grey mare cracked her neck.
"Nopony," she said lowly, "but nopony tells Starlight 'You're the Man Now, Dog' Glimmer what to do."
She whipped out the Ridewatch with the dragon face on it, slamming it home in her Siggu Driver and knocking it for a loop.
"DRAGONSHY!"
The world spun around her.
The red armored pony, as well as the campers, all fell to the ground, heads spinning as red and yellow armor glommed itself onto Starlight's. She wasted no time, swooping in at her opponent and loosing a stream of fire. The other Rider rolled out of the way of the main attack, still taking some of the fire, and produced their own watch.
"You know you can't stop me that way," they shouted, placing it in their own Driver.
"FLUTTERSHY!"
"I don't have to!" Starlight cried, switching mid-flight to her Wonderbolts Ridewatch, splitting into three clones and pelting the now-yellow pony with lightning-quick attacks they didn't have the reflexes to counter.
"Who do you think you are, anyway?" she yelled, strafing in and out, keeping her opponent from switching watches. "Why do you care so damn much what I do?"
"I care..." The pony's breath hitched in their throat. "About the ponies you've hurt. All the problems you've tried..." They cried out in pain as another attack landed home, knocking a hastily procured watch from their magical grasp. "Tried to Rider kick away! You can't just kick your problems away, Starlight!"
They drew a long plastic saber, shaped like a wing, from behind them and used it to parry three attacks in succession. "DASH!" cried the Geiz Driver, as they just barely managed to change watches ahead of another Wonderbolt assault.
Starlight flew at the sword again and again, unable to break through the bladed defense. Regrouping herself, she drew a blue and yellow pistol from behind herself and took aim.
The other pony did not move as Starlight centered the crosshair sight over that yellow visor.
"I care about you, Starlight Glimmer," the pony said. They sounded winded, almost defeated.
Starlight pulled the trigger just as the other pony said, "I just want you to come home."
With a gasp, Starlight dropped her gun. "You..."
But it was too late. The other pony keeled over backward, a portion of their mask shattering from the impact of the Wonderbolt-themed energy bullet.
Starlight fell to the ground in an undignified heap, staring unblinking at the pony who had given her so much grief over so many timelines. Who had thwarted her time and again, ever since that debacle with Fluttershy's parents. The pony who had hounded her, stopped her from finishing dozens of conflicts before they started.
The words tore out of her throat reluctantly. "You c-can't be."
Both ponies drew the watches off their Drivers. Simultaneously, the armor melted away, leaving behind Starlight Glimmer and Trixie Lulamoon.
They were neither of them in good shape. Starlight was covered in bruises and gashes, from high-powered attacks the armor couldn't fully protect her from. A cut in Trixie's forehead bled down her face, and she held her left foreleg in the other.
"Why do you think I called myself Kamen Rider Gays?" asked Trixie, smirking through the blood dripping into her right eye.
Starlight cocked her head. "I thought it was pronounced 'Gate'."
"Gates. Whatever." Trixie rolled her good eye, tried to sit up, collapsed, and laughed. "You really got me good, Glim-Glim."
In an instant, Starlight was at her side, fretting over her with a hundred sobbed apologies. Trixie lay back, not protesting the ministrations to her wounds.
"Will you come home with me, Starlight?" she asked weakly. "That's all I've ever wanted. Just, give up this silly quest and come home, with me, where you belong."
"I was a fool, Trixie," Starlight gasped through her tears. Her magic couldn't stop the bleeding fast enough, to say nothing of her own wounds, which sapped her strength the more magic she used. "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay." Trixie grinned up at her. "I put myself in danger because you only ever listen when somepony's beating you over the head. It's one of the things I lo--"
Her word was cut off as she coughed up a spray of blood, all over Starlight's face.
"Trixie? Trixie!" Starlight shook her, tears and blood streaming down her face. "Hang on, Trixie, you can't leave me like this!"
"Just watch me," Trixie said, her eyes closing. She coughed again, flecking Starlight's face with even more blood. So much blood, all over, oh my god, it was gross.
Starlight could only hold Trixie's limp body and shout her name to the heavens, weeping bitter tears as the folly of her transgressions disclosed itself in stark relief. The foals, one by one, emerged from the campsite cabins, heads and ears held low. With sorrowful looks to one another and nary a word spoken between them, they trudged down the ruined campground to bastion Starlight and Trixie in a half-circle. As Starlight cried over her friend, they bore silent witness to her pain and suffering.
This went on for some time.
Eventually, the foals got bored, decided this scene was hella lame, and went off to play somewhere that wasn't full of weepy and/or possibly dead adults, all previous cutie mark concerns forgotten. And then Starlight was alone, with Trixie. Who was totally dead, no lie. Starlight "The Death Detector" Glimmer is never wrong about this kind of thing.
Except she was.
With a gasp of air, Trixie came to, and Starlight wiped the blood and gore and other gross shit off her face, laughing in disbelief at the miraculous recovery, which, let's be real, we all saw coming and she didn't because Starlight "Sack o' Hammers" Glimmer is not the smartest of ponies.
"You're so fucking gay," Trixie said, laughing along with her. She grabbed Starlight's face in her hooves and brought it down for a long kiss.
Through the blood and gore and etc.
"Ugh," said Starlight, after they both thought better of it and pulled away. "Let's wash off and go home."
"Thought you'd never ask." Trixie smiled up at her. "Carry me?"
"Carry yourself, lardass," Starlight said with a wink.
Laughing, she hauled Trixie to her hooves, and the two of them limped their way back to Ponyville. They would return all the Ridewatches in time, not to mention themselves to the time they were supposed to be at. For now, they had each other, and the story of what had happened.
And everyone agreed it had been a colossal waste of time.