//------------------------------// // Chapter 25: The Rise And Fall Of Octavia // Story: The Tournament Of Friendship // by FourShadow //------------------------------// "Oi!" The door kicked open, revealing an infuriated Octavia. The Rainbooms and Shadowbolts all looked at her with shocked expressions as she walked in, fuming. She took two steps before her shoulders slumped and sighed heavily. "Okay. Question. Which one of you are Shadowbolts?" The five Shadowbolts all raised their hands. "Here's my second question. Do you by any chance have a classmate who's... weird?" Octavia asked. "How weird are we talking?" Sunny Flare asked, taking a sip of her drink. "Are we talking... dork weird, or weird weird?" Octavia scrunched her face. "Are any of your classmates extremely intelligent with technology?" The Shadowbolts gave it some thought. "Hmm... maybe Twilight Sparkle, but--" "Twilight? Does she have glasses, purple skin, messy dark lavender hair like a mad scientist?" "... Well I wouldn't say mad, but... actually, scratch that, yeah she's pretty mad most of the time," Indigo shrugged. "I still haven't forgiven her for that stunt with the Soccer Launcher," Sour grumbled. Octavia raised a brow. Sour looked at her and huffed. "Twilight made a machine that would launch soccer balls which was supposed to be used for practice. Unfortunately all it did was give me, Lemon, and Sunny Flare concussions. It's any wonder how she didn't get into trouble for that," she slapped her magazine on the table. Octavia had a thought. "So... this, Twilight Sparkle. Is she intelligent?" "Yeah, I guess," Sour shrugged. "I mean if she can make a machine to load and reload soccer balls, who knows?" "Hmm... interesting," Octavia nodded before spinning around and leaving the room. "Very interesting indeed..." Rarity didn't like the look on Octavia's face when she left. Curious, she got up from her chair and walked out of the home ec room, managing to stop Octavia just before she went anywhere else. "Octavia?" Rarity asked. Octavia stopped walking. Her face tightened up, hearing the fashionista call to her. "Darling, is everything okay?" Octavia's nose flared. "Yes. Everything is fine..." "Octavia, I know something isn't right. Talk to me, there has to be something wrong--" "--Rarity, listen to me," Octavia interrupted, yanking Rarity close. "Um, this is really uncomfortable--" "--Listen to me," Octavia said, genuinely concerned. "We have a woman on these grounds who zapped two of my friends, and I don't know what's become of them. Whatever their fates are, she needs to be stopped!" Rarity blanked. "Um... alright?" "Look. I'll keep it simple for you, luv. If you see Twilight Sparkle, tell us immediately," Octavia said before letting her go, moving along her way. "Wait, where are you going?" "Me? I've got to prepare myself. She wants to zap my friends, she has to go through me first..." Rarity watched as the angry rocker stomped away to conceive her plan. And the only one who stepped out was Sunny Flare, curious. "Soo... what's the heck was that all about?" "I... I don't know," Rarity admitted. "Did she get upset over your hairstyle?" Sugarcoat asked from the room. "No, though I must admit, I thought she would have called some attention to it. For heaven's sake, I'm practically stealing her look," Rarity said, realizing how she was dressed. "At least she can't sue you!" Sour said. "I've been sued. ... It is not fun." Twilight walked briskly through the hallway of CHS. It was quiet inside the school, eerily so. Twilight’s shoes click loudly, sharply against the floor as she strides along; a harsh noise that almost echoes across the hall. Twilight was thinking, hard and furiously. Her hands were clasped around the pendant, almost as if she’s scared to expose it to the open air. For, despite everything, how hard she’s worked for this, how far her research has progressed these past few days… Twilight Sparkle is still having doubts. “Am I doing the right thing?” The question keeps worming its way into her mind, bringing with it a horde of doubts, worries… and also too, a kind of desperation. She had to be right about this. This energy – this magic – those girls and their powers… the dragon… she has to be right about this. Because if she wasn’t… “Hey.” The bespectacled girl stops, in spite of herself, at the voice interrupting her thoughts. Twilight turns, tensing as she sees the gray-skinned girl with punk clothes and mohawk. Immediately, Twilight knows that this person is ready for a confrontation. “You’re a hard person to track down, Twilight Sparkle.” She stood tall, her arms folded, her eyes glancing at Twilight’s clasped hands. Twilight, now composed, gave her a cold look. Her hands tighten on the pendant; part of her is wondering if this tough-looking girl just wants to take the device, thinking it a simple piece of jewelry. Twilight coldly asked, “What do you want?” “Want?" Octavia said, sarcastically. "Oh luv, there’s quite a few things that I’d like. But I think I’ll start with you, bringing back my friends.” Twilight flinched at the venom in those last words, even as she gets defensive. “What are you talking about? I didn’t—" “Don’t give me any of that tripe," Octavia cut over, cold but clearly very angry. "I saw you do it. You just went up to one of my best mates and zapped her with that!” She pointed accusingly at the pendant; Twilight pulled back from her instinctively. “You sucked the magic out of her and left her like she was nothing!” Twilight heard this, and while she did feel a twist of guilt at the accusation, something else in that sentence is what really got her attention. “You said magic? So it’s true? Magic does exist?” Octavia balked for a moment, her face going pale with shock and then a fresh wave of anger. “Is that all that matters to you? Magic? You zapped Bon-Bon and made her disappear, and all you care about is magic!” Twilight, stung, glared fiercely at the rocker girl. “It does matter, because it confirms what I’ve been trying to prove all along. Magic is real…”, she matched Tavi’s glare with a determined stare of her own. “And it’s dangerous.” Octavia scoffed, disbelieving her. “Dangerous? ... Dangerous? Are you mental? The only way they would be dangerous is if there was nothing here to take control or handle it! My friends and I have stepped in to handle the magic problems here at this school, and we will continue to do so for the safety of all our friends. We’re not evil, luv! And we’re not the menace here, Twilight, you are!” Twilight’s glare drops for a moment, as she is just taken aback by Octavia’s statement. For a moment, she can’t say anything, before she fires back with rising fury. “Not the menace? Not the menace!? Your friends can control sound! One of them can teleport! I saw one of them shoot lightning at a dragon – a real live dragon, that probably wouldn’t exist without this magic! And you’re telling me that = I’m the danger?!” The two of them glare daggers at each as Twilight finishes. “I’m not the villain. But this magic of yours is the real threat here.” The two of them stare each other down, refusing to budge. Octavia had an icy glare. “I'll give you one final warning. Give my friends back, Sparkle. Right now.” Twilight still stayed cold and defensive. “I don’t have them.” "So that's how you want to play it? Then give me that thing.” “I told you, I don’t have them! I don’t know what you meant, they didn’t—” Octavia suddenly lunged for the pendant in Twilight’s fist. The two girls grappled for it, but Octavia was stronger than Twilight, and she was determined to pry it out of Twilight’s grip. Twilight, frantic at the thought of losing the device, having all her work undone, frantically struggles, and in the chaos of the moment… so very quick, it happens… The device opened up, accidentally activated by one of them during the scuffle. Octavia gasped in horror as she saw it happened, as the pendant automatically emits its ray, striking her. Octavia screamed in agony as the energy was slowly starting to suck out of her, into the device, which clattered to the floor from Twilight’s fumbling hands. Startled, momentarily overwhelmed by the fight, by everything, Twilight can only watch. Octavia slowly began to stumble, her legs feeling wobbly. "Oh... I don't feel so good... why is everything suddenly fuzzy?" Moaning, she collapsed to the floor. Twilight stared at the fallen, and then gasps in horror as she sees confirmation of the rocker’s statement – as Octavia’s body vanishes, sucked into the pendant, which finally clicks shut. The rocker was no longer in sight, she had completely vanished from the hallway. Twilight can’t move. She can barely breathe, her mouth dry as she repeats-- “That’s impossible…” Anxious, terrified, desperate, she grabs up the pendant, clutching it to her chest. Her eyes dart around rapidly, looking for anyone who might have seen the incident. Out of stress, Twilight fled the scene, darting down a flight of stairs and out the door, to finally take shelter beneath one of the trees on the school grounds. There, almost huddled against the trunk, she looks at the device in her cupped hands. “What have I done?" Twilight said to herself, terrified. "What have I done, what do I do, whatdoIdo?” Nearly overcome with panic and desperation, Twilight murmurs to herself, trying to sound out a plan, any plan. "I have to fix this. I have to make it right. This wasn’t supposed to happen, I didn’t think that anything like this could happen! Who could have predicted it! Magic’s not supposed to be real, people aren’t supposed to just – just, disintegrate like that!” She tried to breathe a few times, slowly to help think some more. “I have to tell someone. Principal Cinch, maybe? Mom or Dad, Shining Armor! I – I…” But that thought brings with it other ones, that sent a new wave of cold fear surging through her. “I can’t… oh my gosh, I can’t. They’ll think I’m crazy, Shining already thinks I’m crazy for researching magic. And if I prove what happened…” She folded her hands around the pendant. “Oh, they’ll think I’m the threat. They’ll take my research, they’ll take everything away… what if I end up going to jail?” Shuddering, she whimpers, rocking back against the tree trunk. “I have to figure this out. I’ll figure it out. S-somehow. I’ll deal with the rest of this magic, a-and then I’ll figure out a way to cure those girls. That has to be it. The magic must have done something to them, that’s why they disappeared. But I’ll make it right…” Twilight opens her hands, for a moment, to look down at the device. She swallowed, her throat dry, even as she felt a new kind of resolve: on born of sheer desperation. “I have to…” "AGH!" Octavia shouted before falling face first onto hard solid ground. Looking up, she saw Bon Bon and Lyra hiding underneath the main entrance of the school. "Oh come on! Let me guess, we're all trapped in this device, aren't we?" Bon Bon nodded. "Wonderful." Octavia buried her face back into the hard ground, screaming into the cinder-block. After 30 seconds of screaming that sounded like someone was about to be strangled, she raised her head back up, her chin resting on the ground. "I don't suppose any of you have any candies?"