Taming the Wild Horse
a My Little Pony/Ranma 0.5 crossover fanfiction
by SFaccountant
Chapter 10
Blood Rite
“So what do YOU think of Havoc, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy was surprised by the sudden question, and she pushed the damp towel out of her eyes to look across the room at Discord. The draconequus was on his belly, his long, serpentine body stretched over two massage tables and a series of stools and chairs placed in a row between them. Aloe was hopping up and down on his back, grumbling through clenched teeth while she did her best to massage the spirit of chaos.
After a few seconds, Discord smirked and beckoned to the pegasus with a finger. “Come on, now. You haven’t been around him as much as the others, I don’t think, but surely you have an opinion at least. Do you like him? Fear him? Feel sorry for him? Think he should go away?”
Fluttershy fidgeted for a few seconds, thinking of a response. “I suppose I’m just… confused?”
“Confused? About what?”
“Er… Everything?” Fluttershy grimaced and slouched against her seat. Lotus Blossom trotted up with a nail file in her teeth and started on the yellow mare’s hooficure. “I don’t understand what happened to Havoc, or what Rite is trying to accomplish, or why they seem to be fighting each other, or why Canterlot is fighting them, or… anything, really.” She sighed. “I understand the, um, stone and what it does, I think. I just don’t see the point of everypony fighting over it.”
“There is no change without conflict. Conflict drives animosity and violence, which begets suffering and hatred, demanding justice and change. And so the cycle continues,” Discord intoned, grunting when Aloe landed on a soft spot. “A locus of chaos such as this can’t be properly understood through simple cause and effect, unfortunately. It simply IS, and as others are forced to react, agitation escalates and the bonds of fate begin to dissolve.”
“Oh dear. If that’s the case I certainly hope Princess Celestia seals up the MacGuffin Stone for good,” Fluttershy said.
“I was talking about Havoc. Although I suppose you could easily reach the same conclusion in regards to him,” Discord said wryly. “The MacGuffin Stone also tends to drive conflict, but in traditional, predictable ways: big important artifact does X and Y, allowing for Z. Defeat A to obtain artifact and use it subvert B and overcome C. Z accomplished, kingdom is saved and/or conquered, end game, roll credits. Entertaining, but still bog-standard ancient artifact stuff.” Aloe landed her back hooves right between his shoulders, and he heaved a pleasant sigh.
Fluttershy grimaced again. “It’s still confusing. Havoc isn’t bad, is he?”
“I hardly think I’m in any position to tell YOU who’s good or bad, Fluttershy,” Discord chuckled. “You should feel free to judge Havoc as you would any other pony. The others do, mostly.”
“But… what you said about him and our destiny…” Fluttershy mumbled. “It… sounds pretty bad… I think?”
“If you’re particularly attached to the fate you’ve been handed, I’m sure it’s terrifying,” Discord admitted. “How awful would it be for you to lose your home? For your animals to be scattered to the bloody mercy of the wilds? To leave the familiar comforts of your life in Ponyville behind for an unknown and unpredictable future?” He watched the pegasus squirm uncomfortably at the thought. “Loss, opportunity, and the violence of a life unmoored to home and hearth isn’t for everypony.”
Fluttershy nodded anxiously. “So should we… stay away from Havoc, then?”
“You might want to, personally. But the others?” Discord snorted. “Sparkle could benefit a great deal by having her world turned upside-down. And I’m sure Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie wouldn’t care in the least if their destinies were subverted by abject disaster so long as it was sufficiently entertaining.” Then he pursed his lips. “Applejack really should consider moving him out, though. As much fun as it is, he’s an extraordinary liability to somepony with so much flammable property.”
“It’s kind of sad, don’t you think?” Fluttershy mumbled, her ears flipping down.
“Hm? No, I don’t think so at all. What do you mean?”
“You said it’s not really his fault, right? That, um, destiny… thing?”
“Of course it isn’t. That’s why it’s so much fun! If he had moral culpability you’d just turn the poor sap to stone or something!” Discord laughed.
“I think Spike said he did get turned to stone, actually. By accident. It didn’t stop him for very long,” Fluttershy said. “But I just think it’s sad that there’s so much strife around Havoc and he can’t do anything about it except fight… which just, uh… causes more strife. Anypony who tries to help him or doesn’t manage to avoid him will get caught up in it, no matter what he does. Can’t he ever find peace?”
Discord craned his neck to look Fluttershy in the eyes, gauging if the pegasus was serious. “You mean well, I’m sure, but there’s little point in pitying Ranma Saotome,” he explained. “He fancies himself a hero, I believe. What use does a hero have for peace? Even surrounded by ruin, obliviously dashing the hopes, dreams, and expensive property of those he encounters, Havoc looks only to victory and righting the next wrong.”
Fluttershy didn’t look especially happy with that answer. “I still don’t understand… I wish there was something I could do.”
“As befitting of the Element of Kindness,” Discord snickered. “But you needn’t worry about him. Havoc has friends now. It’s rather cute, actually.” Aloe landed on another sensitive spot, and Discord paused to wheeze painfully for a few seconds. Then he cleared his throat. “It’s those friends you should be worried about. Some of them are your friends too, after all…”
Twilight Sparkle exhaled a happy sigh as she laid back in her seat, a book floating open in front of her and a cup of tea resting on a small table in front of her. Spike bounced up next to her, settling himself as the train let out a loud whistle and the engine rumbled into action.
“So do you think Princess Celestia will let you study the Stone after all?” Spike asked.
“I think so, yes,” Twilight answered. “We don’t know a lot about the artifact. We don’t even know what Rite intends to do with it! I think some study is warranted, no matter how dangerous it is.”
“Okay, but… Discord said it was used to destroy the world, right?”
“It was, yes. Supposedly using the same kind of magic Princess Celestia uses to raise the sun. But there’s no way I’d believe that without at least asking her first,” Twilight said with a grimace. “What we’ve seen personally from the artifact is that it can act as some sort of extra-dimensional prison, capturing individuals and drawing on their latent magical energy. There’s a LOT of questions within that premise, though.”
“I’d think that Princess Celestia would want to have it sealed away anyway. At least until Blood Rite is captured. You know, just in case,” Spike pointed out.
“That’s… probably going to be a sticking point, yes. But I’ve got to try. There are so many possibilities!” Twilight confessed. “Ranma spent MILLENNIA within the gem, protected from a global firestorm that apparently wiped out mortal life on his planet, only to be safely delivered to Equestria! Think of what we could do with this sort of capability!”
Spike frowned. “… I guess we could trap a bad guy in there? Like you did to Discord, except he’d actually be useful for more than decoration?”
Twilight’s excitement cooled at the idea. “Well… yes, I suppose we COULD just use it as a new type of magical prison, but hopefully we can come up with a better use than THAT.” She snorted and took a sip of her tea. “Besides, Princess Celestia isn’t short of means to lock away her enemies for a few centuries when she wants to.”
There was a lull in the conversation while Twilight skimmed her book and Spike fell into contemplative silence. After a few minutes, the young dragon piped up again.
“You ever wonder… if maybe the MacGuffin Stone isn’t the only magic gem that works like that?”
“That works like what?”
“By imprisoning powerful creatures inside it,” Spike explained, scratching his head. “I mean, I don’t really understand the principle behind magic rocks to begin with, but all that magic has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it?”
“It depends greatly on the artifact type and whether the enhancement variance is sub-construct or mid-cantation,” Twilight said, instantly losing her assistant with magic jargon. “Just from the analysis of the enchantment mechanics I can guarantee you that the Elements of Harmony, for example, definitely didn’t have anything alive locked inside of them.” She paused to flip the page of her book. “The Alicorn Amulet probably did, though.”
“Probably?” Spike asked, grimacing.
“I’d place the likelihood greater than seventy percent. I doubt there was any way to get the source creature out, though.” She took a sip of tea, her eyes still on her book. “Magic can be a morbid craft, sometimes.”
Spike nodded silently in agreement, staring at the leather pouch hanging from Twilight’s neck.
“But it’s not that different from any other kind of power. We need to make sure it’s used for the right reasons, and the first step to control is knowledge,” the alicorn continued. “In theory, that is. The first step in this case was a violent struggle to seize the artifact, followed by an extended effort to acquire it from the pony doing the seizing. But my point is that knowledge is important, and right now we don’t have enough of it! I don’t think we even have a complete list of individuals with this ‘MacGuffin sense’ yet, do we?”
Spike poked her in the side before he leaned in and spoke again, this time lowering his voice. “Hey, don’t look, but I think the mare the next seat over is watching us.”
Twilight blinked, surprised by the sudden shift in the conversation. “Ah… is that a problem?” she asked. “A lot of tourists take this route into Canterlot, Spike. A lot of them have probably never seen an alicorn or a baby dragon before.”
Spike seemed uncertain. “I don’t know… I just get a bad feeling. Like… Like something really bad is about to happen.”
This prediction got Twilight’s attention, and her horn briefly flashed with magic. A small circle of silvery light formed in front of her, giving her a mirror that she could pretend she was using to check on her mane.
It was immediately obvious why Spike was suspicious; the mare - a yellow unicorn similar in figure and coloration to Fluttershy - was sitting up in her seat, ramrod straight, with her head completely obscured by a levitating newspaper. A hole had been cut in the newspaper, and Twilight could see the mare’s eye peering at them through the tear.
“Okay, yeah, we should probably change cars,” Twilight grumbled, closing up her book and dropping onto the floor. “I’m not completely ready to rule out ‘nosy tourist,’ but that’s just weird.”
Spike hopped down and followed her toward the connection exit door. “It wouldn’t really matter most of the time but since you’re carrying you-know-what we should probably be extra-“
A fiery roar suddenly erupted from outside the train, and the entire car jolted sharply. Twilight stumbled, spreading her wings to help balance, while Spike tripped flat on his face. Several other passengers shouted in surprise, bracing themselves against the sudden shock.
“What was that?!”
“Did we run over something? It felt like the train jumped!”
“I thought I saw a light! Out the window!”
“Does anypony else smell something burning?”
Twilight looked out the side window, noting a trail of smoke blowing past from the front of the car. After a few seconds she noticed something else: the car was slowing down. Clenching her teeth, she raced to the door and threw it open.
The scene was exactly what she had feared and anticipated. The walkway between train cars was badly scorched, while the connector that kept the passenger cars attached to each other had been melted through. Black smoke billowed all around the door, obstructing much of her view, but Twilight could still make out the rear of the next car pulling away through the flames.
“Hey! HEY! The engine is leaving without us!” Spike shouted, pointing across the tracks. Several other passengers started panicking in response, jumping out of their seats and searching wildly for any path of escape.
“What’s going on?! Was it an accident? A bomb?”
“Are we slowing down? They’ll come back for us eventually, right?”
Twilight considered teleporting her and Spike to the next car before it sped out of range, but quickly discarded the idea. She had a good idea what the purpose of this attack was, and jumping from car to car would just put more innocent ponies in danger. “Spike, get on my back! We’re leaving!”
Her loyal assistant started clambering up her side, only to fall off when another jolt shook the train car.
“That came from the rear! Did they break off the other side, too?”
“What’s happening?! Who’s doing this?!”
Spike finally got onto Twilight’s back, and then the Princess spread her wings in preparation for takeoff.
Once again the train car moved before she did, tilting sharply to the side. Ponies screamed as they were flung from their seats or slammed into the windows, and Twilight herself struck a wall before she could stabilize herself. Then the car swung back and forth, like it was hanging in the air by its roof.
“COME OUT AND PLAY, PONIES,” growled a voice from above. “YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME.”
Staggering upright, Twilight already had a good guess as to who their assailant was and what, precisely, he was doing, but a glance outside the window confirmed it. A thick, reptilian tail armored in red and black scales whipped back and forth through the air, and the heavy beat of enormous wings was barely audible over the panicked shouts of the passengers. On top of that, she could see the train tracks and the mountainside as well; the car had been plucked from its track and was being carried through the air. That complicated things.
“Kamikazan…” the young Princess hissed. Turning around, she addressed the other passengers. “Everypony brace yourselves against something! After we land I’ll draw him off and you can make a break for it!”
The train car jolted again, and one stallion yelped as he was thrown against the window hard enough to leave cracks through the glass. Suitcases and random loose objects bounced across the floor while the equines struggled to cling to their seats. The car’s frame groaned under the stress, the metal creaking under the claws digging into it.
Eventually the car lurched again, free-falling some twenty feet before slamming into the ground and then tipping over onto its side. The passenger car’s windows finally shattered under the impact, and many more screams bombarded Twilight’s ears that were hopefully simple expressions of shock and fear rather than relating to grievous injury. A magic telekinesis field served to stabilize Twilight herself, and she spread it out as much as she could to protect the passengers from falling glass.
Once the impact had settled, however, the Princess was acutely aware of the large, golden eye peering through the car’s windows above her. Kamikazan reared back his claws, apparently intending to tear the compartment open.
Twilight broke and ran instead, with Spike still clinging desperately to her back. She leapt up to the car exit - now positioned sideways relative to the ground with a step up composed of secured luggage - and then spread her wings before emerging outside. Taking quickly to the air, the purple Princess had to dodge a series of trees almost immediately to get to open sky; apparently the train car had been dropped off into a wooded area, which meant they had been carried down the mountainside.
She heard Kamikazan’s pursuit long before she dared look behind her, spurred on by the beat of massive, scaly wings against the air and the soft whimper of Spike as he hugged her neck. Once she got sufficient altitude she spun around, slowing to a hover while her horn sparked with magic.
Kamikazan flew up to meet her and then flew a little higher, ensuring that he had a properly steep angle with which to glare down at the little pony. “I think you can guess what I’m here for, mare. How much do you wish to suffer for it?”
“Mare? Don’t you mean ‘lesser Princess?’” Twilight said with a scowl. “Come on, I thought you of all dragons would be a stickler for titles!”
Kamikazan’s lips curled to show off his sword-like teeth. “I’ve no need to recognize your filthy lineage, mare. But if you surrender the MacGuffin Stone, I need not end it here. There are too many ponies who want you to live for me to remove you so lightly from this mortal coil.”
“That’s… kind of comforting, actually.” Twilight briefly glanced down at the train car in the forest below. The other passengers were fleeing the scene as she’d instructed, scattering into the forest in small groups. “By the way… you DO know that I’m on my way to give the stone to Princess Celestia, right? Do you think she’s going to be happy that you ripped apart a train and took it from me so that you could give it to her yourself?”
“I need not explain myself to you, equine!” the dragon Prince snarled. ”Will you surrender the jewel, or your life?”
I should stall him a little longer, to make sure everypony else has time to escape. Then I can make a break for it myself, Twilight decided. “What, you can’t even give me a good reason? If it’s just going to make its way to Celestia anyway then I really don’t mind, but why did you have to attack a train for this?”
Twilight was surprised when this question made the dragon visibly upset. An angry grimace cross the dragon’s features, and his tail whipped back and forth irritably.
“I am not Celestia’s errand boy!” Kamikazan announced, his voice roaring a protest over the forest. “I am her conqueror! And soon her little pets like yourself shall bend knee to the Lord of Serpents, as it should be! The weak will tremble in the shadows and pay tribute to the mighty, and the ancient order of this world will be restored!”
Twilight gaped silently for a few seconds, surprised by the grand ambition proposed in the midst of what was otherwise a glorified mugging. “… Didn’t it turn out pretty badly for you the last time you picked a fight with a pony?” she asked.
A hot snort came from the dragon’s nostrils. “That bothersome gray pest isn’t here this time. Equestria hides behind its heroes… or whatever Havoc is, exactly… but there’s nowhere left to hide, mare.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I’m one of those heroes, you know.”
“A worthless title and a shiny new horn does not a champion make,” Kamikazan growled, “now drop the jewel, little mare, or face the full wrath of a serpent king!”
Twilight again glanced down at the displaced train car, and was gratified to see that it looked to be fully abandoned. “I’ll have you know it’s the wings that are new, not my horn!” Said horn started to glow, and Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Unfortunately for you.”
In a flash of purple magic, Twilight and Spike vanished.
The young Princess reappeared behind a tree, carefully touching down on the forest floor and folding her wings. She kept close to the trunk, not daring to peek out through the canopy cover above.
“Well, this was unexpected. I imagined that we might get attacked after the MacGuffin Stone was out of Ranma’s hooves, but this was a little TOO quick,” Twilight grumbled.
“What’re we gonna do?” Spike asked nervously, peering straight upward. “Should you just make a break through the air for Canterlot? He can’t chase us into the city, right?”
“I think we should play this one slow, actually,” Twilight mused, creeping away from the tree she was using for cover. “Kamikazan doesn’t have a MacGuffin sense. He doesn’t have much of a trail, either, and we’re too close to Canterlot for him to search very far or very long. I think we can sneak away on the ground, or at least wait this out.”
“Okay, yeah. Good plan!” Spike said, nodding. Then he paused. “But… if he can’t track the MacGuffin like you can, how’d he even find us? He dropped right onto our train car out of nowhere!”
Twilight frowned. “That… is a pretty good question,” she admitted nervously. “Ranma seemed pretty sure he didn’t have it, but maybe he was wrong? Or does he have some other way of tracking me?”
A sharp whistling noise came from deeper in the forest, and Twilight snapped her head up. A bright crimson light was rocketing into the air, sailing over the forest while sparking loudly.
“Aw, ponyfeathers,” Twilight moaned before the explosions started.
A beam of flame rushed down from above, sweeping across the forest and trailing detonations behind it. Birds scattered into the air, trees collapsed into burning splinters, and a wave of smoke billowed up above the canopy. Twilight anxiously watched the destruction from behind a magic barrier, mercifully spared from the direct impact of the spell but unsure how to proceed from here.
If I try to fly to Canterlot, Kamikazan can see and attack me, but I could probably evade him in the sky and Canterlot can probably fend him off. If I try to run on the ground he might bombard the forest until he either gets a lucky hit or torches the entire forest. Not great options!
“Twilight, what was that? That red thing?” Spike asked.
“Kamikazan isn’t alone,” the young alicorn growled. “I think I can guess who’s helping him, too.” She turned away from the burning swathe of forest and galloped lightly through the trees.
“Wait… Rite? You think Rite and Kami-whoever teamed up?” Spike asked, his breath catching in his throat.
“Yes, I do. That’s going to make this difficult…” Twilight stopped and glanced back and forth, her eyes narrowing. “Although even with a dragon on his side, I see Blood Rite isn’t willing to face me head-on.”
Another explosion boomed through the forest, and light bled through the trees. This fireball didn’t land close enough for them to see the detonation itself, but Kamikazan seemed to at least have a sense of which direction they were going. Birds leapt into the air while screeching in terror, and Twilight spied a few woodland animals fleeing in a panic.
“… Twilight, do you think you can get away while carrying me?” Spike asked nervously.
“Spike, not now,” the alicorn hissed, still galloping in the direction of the capital.
“I’m serious! You don’t need to carry me! I can get off and hide! Hay, even if Kamikazan hits me with a fireball I’ll be okay! Probably.”
“Spike, I’m not-“ Twilight’s refusal was cut off when a screaming beam of flames sliced across the ground ahead of her. Jets of fire erupted from the ground in its passing, igniting the dried leaves and twigs scattered across the ground. By the time the attack stopped there was a wall of flame in front of Twilight’s path, already too tall to jump over and growing rapidly.
With a snort and a burst of magic, Twilight teleported herself and Spike to the other side of the obstruction. “I’m NOT leaving you behind, Spike,” she admonished once she got moving again. “Aside from the obvious Friendship implications, do you think Rite and Kamikazan would hesitate to use you as a hostage if they got ahold of you?”
Spike groaned, his grip tightening on Twilight’s shoulders as another explosion came from behind them. “Then what are we gonna do? Kamikazan is tearing this whole forest apart! And if it is Blood Rite helping him, we still don’t even know where he is!”
Twilight began to reply, but was cut off as another thunderous boom echoed through the trees. She skidded to a halt, and her ears perked up.
“That… That sounded like a lightning strike, not a detonation.” She turned her head up, squinting and peering through the gaps between the branches in the tree canopy. “What’s going on up there?”
“Gah! Brimstone, what WAS that?!”
Kamikazan’s wings flapped hard against the air to keep his flight steady above the forest. He wasn’t totally sure what had happened, but something had struck his back with considerable force and deafening noise. The pain was muted, thanks to his thick scales, but he also felt an alarming numb sensation where he had been hit. His first thought was that he’d been struck by a lightning bolt, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky right now.
Whirling around in the air, Kamikazan immediately spotted several figures in gleaming light armor circling around him at a higher altitude. His eyes narrowed; perhaps his original guess hadn’t been far off after all.
“Are you lost, lizard? If you need directions back to your nest you can always ask the Equestrian military for a helping hoof, rather than accosting random commuters on our railroads or lighting signal fires across our forests.”
The formation of pegasi was led by a dark blue mare in gleaming silver half-plate. An open-face helmet that extended over her brow in the shape of a hawk’s beak and boasted a bright red crest in its back sat on her head, and thin steel rims were strapped to her wings as shields. She also wore greaves, which were decorated with jagged runes and continually sparked with arcs of electricity. Kamikazan presumed those were the source of the attack.
“Hmph. I suppose even the Equestrian military has too much pride to let an enemy wreak havoc on the doorstep of their capital,” Kamikazan growled. “Yet not enough sense to send a worthy force to stop it! It’s no wonder Celess turned to me to secure her artifact!”
Wrath quirked an eyebrow. “I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about, but if you think we can’t stop you feel free to keep torching the forests. You’ll learn quickly enough.” She nudged her head slightly, and all the other pegasi - twenty of them aside from the officer - started loading crossbows with their front hooves.
Kamikazan snorted, and a stream of sparks blasted from his nose. “Do you truly think to throw your lives away so cheaply? Do you even know what you’re meddling in?”
“Take aim!” Wrath barked, ignoring the dragon’s questions entirely. The other ponies spread out, holding up their crossbows and readying multiple lanes of fire.
Wrath herself banged her front hooves together, and they suddenly came alive with electrical energy. Arcs of plasma whipped around and between her greaves amidst a loud hum, and she raised one leg above her head. With a sharp crack, the magical energies stabilized into a lance of shuddering lightning as long as the mare herself.
Kamikazan snarled and started gaining altitude, recognizing that the pegasi weren’t going to back off under his threats. Flames leaked from his mouth and claws, and his eyes glowed fiercely with ancient magic.
“ATTACK!!” Wrath bellowed, hurling her lightning bolt at the dragon. “FOR EQUESTRIA AND CANTERLOT!!”
“… Huh. Wasn’t expecting that,” Spike admitted, holding a hand to his forehead and staring into the sky.
“They must have noticed the attack on the train and deployed an attack force!” Twilight said, gaping at the sight. “Come to think of it we are a little too close to Canterlot for an enormous flying creature to go unnoticed, but I’m surprised they’re actually willing to go up against him!”
“Uh, yeah… about that…” Spike winced as an explosion burst in the sky, knocking away a trio of pegasi. “Are they, um… going to survive this?” Another peal of thunder cracked through the air as a magic lightning bolt found its mark.
“The General should know whether she’s in over her head or not. OUR job is to get this artifact to Canterlot,” Twilight said, spreading her wings. “As long as Kamikazan is distracted, we-“
“LOOK OUT!” Spike shouted, ducking his head down.
A volley of bright white magic bolts flew from behind the trees, and Twilight’s focus shifted in an instant. A barrier of shimmering purple blocked the projectiles, and then she sensed a burst of magic from behind her, opposite the direction of the attack.
She swung around, her horn already crackling, and a magic beam lashed out to sear across the trunk of a tree. A hooded pony ducked away from the ray, scrambling for cover while his own horn pulsed.
“There you are! Not so tough when I’m the one with the MacGuffin, are you?!” Twilight shouted, firing another magic beam at Blood Rite.
Rite’s horn fired its own bolt, striking the purple beam with a crackling stream of glowing white power. The energy feeds pushed against one another, and the ground beneath their point of contact started to crack apart from proximity.
“I may indeed have gotten a bit cocky after the last time we faced each other, Miss Sparkle,” Rite grunted while magic surged around his horn, pushing ever more energy into the struggle of wills. “But I think you’ll find I’m still plenty tough.”
His magic suddenly turned from silvery white to bright red, and Twilight yelped as her spell was swiftly overpowered. She leapt away, flapping her wings frantically, and the bolt of screaming crimson blasted apart a nearby tree and sent the top half plummeting to the forest floor.
“You’re good, Princess. Very good. But I will not be stopped so easily.” Blood Rite fired a series of small magic bolts, like crimson arrows, after the alicorn, chasing her into the air.
Twilight evaded the first one, and the brought up another barrier, causing the rest of the volley to splash harmlessly against the wall of light. Rite charged up a more powerful attack, but this time when he let the bolt loose Twilight teleported away instead, letting the screaming orb demolish another tree.
Rite whirled around to face the Princess again, and caught a magic missile in the chest for his trouble. The sorcerer staggered backward, and barely managed to react fast enough to deflect another blast with his own magic.
Twilight panted heavily, her vision a bit dizzy from the rapid relocation and shifting magic flows. Her horn flickered weakly, briefly spent while her magic energy recovered from the exertion. Spike simply held on for dear life, wondering why he had bothered to come along.
“Ha ha ha… this… this feels right, doesn’t it?” Rite asked, chuckling. His horn flashed, launching a sphere-shaped projectile at Twilight.
Twilight deflected the attack with a magic screen, sending it careening into the air. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing right about this!” she complained, launching her own spell.
Vines exploded from beneath Rite’s body, wrapping around his legs and trying to ensnare his entire body. In a flash of white light he disappeared, reappearing to stand in front of some piles of burning twigs. A series of thunderclaps rolled across the skies immediately afterward, followed by a draconic roar of pain and anger.
“You don’t think so? I do,” Rite said, his voice heavy. Magic swirled around his horn, shifting from white to red and back again. “If I should have to overcome some grim trial to fulfill my goals, it should be this, right here. Not smothering hapless soldiers or chasing after lunatic magicians. The guards are but pawns, and Havoc and the Dragon Prince are incidental obstacles who care nothing for Equestria but are simply too powerful to ignore. But you…”
He had to stop speaking in order to neutralize another fireball hurled his way. Twilight raced through the trees in a circle around him, waiting for an opening in his defenses. “What about me? What makes me so special to you?!”
“You are special because you, like myself, are a student and heir to Princess Celestia herself, of course.”
Twilight paused at that revelation, but only briefly. Another teleport took her out of sight, and Rite quickly charged up a new spell.
A crimson orb streaked toward the treetops and then burst in the air, shredding nearby branches and tearing leaves from branches by the hundreds. Twilight, who had been attempting to take to the air behind the cover of the trees, barely managed to land on her hooves after the shock wave knocked her out of the air and cut into her wings.
“Look at you, Sparkle! Ascendant alicorn! Hero of Canterlot! Fighting off the scourges of Equestria and uniting our ponies under Celestia’s benevolent will!” Rite trotted over to the Princess, his horn still sparking. “Given how little she’s told you about me, I’m sure you have no idea how close I was to being in your very horseshoes right now.” The sorcerer laughed bitterly while another thunderclap boomed overhead. “That’s why you remind me of myself and why I’m glad, in a way, that it’s come to this. You represent a part of my life that I still pine for, even now. It’s time to defeat it.”
Twilight had plenty of time to recover from her landing as he spoke, but she hesitated before launching her next attack, staring at the stallion. Rite’s robes were dirty and torn, and he looked haggard and exhausted compared to when she had seen him last. There was real resignation in his voice, but it was buried under layers of misery and resentment.
“But why? What are you trying to accomplish?” Twilight demanded.
“I’m trying to overthrow the royal order, and set the pony race free from the asinine ‘true destinies’ that dictate our future,” Rite said firmly.
“That still doesn’t make any sense! Why would you do that?!” Twilight asked.
“Because it’s what my cutie mark is telling me,” Rite spat coldly, suddenly flinging aside his robe.
Twilight gaped in shock and Spike’s eyes bugged out. The symbol on Rite’s flank was one that was instantly recognizable to every pony in Equestria. Countless flags, banners, paintings, statues, and even the odd shrine or temple boasted imagery very similar to Rite’s cutie mark. The mark of the sun was, after all, the cutie mark of the Princess Celestia herself, and the symbol was practically synonymous with the kingdom of Equestria.
Rite’s hip boasted an identical symbol, but with a startling, soul-chilling difference: a crooked slash of bright red, like a jagged wound, tearing the image in two.
At its most literal, the image invoked the smiting of a star; an act of destruction beyond belief in its execution and scale. Twilight certainly considered the possibility, if briefly. But to any Equestrian that saw the symbol it inevitably invoked the royal order, and a tragic fate awaiting its most beloved matriarch. Did Rite’s true destiny guide him toward her usurpation, as he intended? The seizure of her power and the end of her dominance of the sun? Or…
Rite’s horn flashed, jarring Twilight out of her stunned contemplation. She stumbled into motion as another magic orb was launched in her direction, and her own horn pulsed.
Before she could decide on a choice of countermeasure, however, the orb exploded in the air some ten feet in front of her. Twilight was caught off guard and knocked off her hooves from the shock wave, and Spike was flung off her back and into a tree.
The string around Twilight’s neck snapped apart, and the pouch containing the MacGuffin Stone bounced away onto the ground.
“Right flank, scatter! Get some altitude, ponies! Do you want to go home as heroes or as barbeque?!”
Thunder rolled through the air yet again as Wrath launched her magic attack, spearing Kamikazan in the wing. The dragon flinched from the lightning bolt, but neglected to roar angrily this time; either he was tired of wasting his breath snarling, or he was starting to become physically numb to the repeated electric shocks.
A stream of flames swept across the sky, and Wrath turned into a corkscrew spin, evading the blast. A glance behind her showed the dragon in furious pursuit, which elicited little more than an annoyed snort from the pegasus general. She doubled her speed in a few seconds, rapidly zipping out of range of Kamikazan’s most reliable attacks.
Smoke blasted angrily from Kamikazan’s snout before he once again broke off pursuit, wheeling his mighty wings toward the ponies that kept peppering his flank with crossbow bolts. They promptly turned away and sped up in different directions, splitting their formation to force the dragon prince to chase a single pony to the exclusion of all his other attackers.
It was a maddening tactic, frankly, although it was mainly just good for buying time. The crossbow bolts rarely broke through the protective layers of his scales to pierce his skin, and even the lightning bolts weren’t especially painful to a dragon (although still uniquely annoying). But it didn’t escape him that he had completely lost track of his original goal and was struggling to pin down the equine defenders.
This is ridiculous! I’ve only managed to knock three of the pests out of the sky so far, and that big one is thrice as fast as the others! What a waste of time!
The prince knew that the Equestrians were just trying to exhaust him and drive him off rather than make a serious attempt to slay him; this was hardly the first time he’d been on the wrong side of a pony phalanx and he knew when he wasn’t being taken seriously. But they’d successfully drawn him away from the magic duel happening on the ground, and the prize that lay so tantalizingly close. What’s more, if the ponies found Rite squaring off with the lesser Princess he doubted the sorcerer would fare nearly as well in the petty crossfire.
How absurd that I should have to suffer these fools to buy time for that stallion wretch. What’s taking him so long?!
Kamikazan started to scan the forest below, only to hear the crack of thunder above him. A tremendous crash filled his ears and blinding light stole his vision as a lightning bolt struck the dragon prince directly in the forehead, stunning him.
“You’ve torched enough of our woodlands, lizard,” Wrath proclaimed, hovering in the sky over the dragon. “You think you can ignore Equestria’s warriors? Eyes up here.”
Kamikazan didn’t put his eyes anywhere in particular, as he was still blinking away the overwhelming light and sound of the last attack. He couldn’t hear Wrath’s taunts, either, given the ringing in his ears.
When his vision did recover, though, he happened to be facing the mountain and the section of the train tracks running along its side. The same tracks where half of the train’s passenger cars still stood, disconnected from the engine. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of ponies still waited inside, helpless and vulnerable.
Their fate didn’t interest Kamikazan; that’s why he’d left them to begin with. But they probably mattered to the soldiers a great deal.
“General Wrath, was it?” Kamikazan snarled through bared teeth, finally turning his gaze up toward the officer. “I came here today with the intention to let your ponies escape with their lives. If you depart right now, I might yet still do so.”
“Asinine,” Wrath drawled. She tapped the tips of her greaves together, and more lightning surged between them. The other soldiers started moving to flank, flying a wide circuit around the dragon’s sides.
“Have it your way,” Kamikazan said darkly. A magic circle appeared in front of his nose; scarlet runes and intricate patterns woven together into a disk of eldritch power. The dragon prince reared his head back, and Wrath shifted her posture in preparation to dodge.
Kamikazan let out a roar, and a beam of bright red flashed across the sky. Rather than spearing any of the pegasi harassing him, however, it angled downward, aiming toward the nearby mountain. It slashed along the train tracks, and a series of bright pyres flared from under the passenger cars waiting on the mountainside.
“What in the-“ Wrath gasped in surprise at the sight, and then her expression shifted from shock to fury. “You scaly coward!”
Kamikazan smiled as screams started coming from the train tracks. “Oh, don’t worry; I aimed under the train cars. You still have several minutes before the ponies inside are roasted alive, which just MIGHT be enough time to rescue them! Or you can pester me with more of your silly fireworks. Your choi-.”
The dragon prince was cut off by another lightning bolt striking him in the nose, and his vision once again exploded into a blur of bright light while his ears rang. Wrath promptly twisted about in the air, diving toward the mountainside.
“Don’t just float there, get moving!” she shouted angrily at her subordinates. “Chimes, Shear, start from the end of the train! Hawks, keep watch in case the lizard tries to cook us while our backs are turned!” She pumped her wings harder, shooting in front of the other soldiers. “Take out the windows and get those ponies out of there!”
Twilight gasped and pushed herself upright, the roar of the fireball still echoing in her ears. Her legs stung from being singed and one wing ached from where she had landed on it awkwardly, but the Princess was far from defeated. The fireball had detonated early rather than following its trajectory, catching her off-guard, but it had also spared the Princess from the worst of the damage. Her horn still stung from the blast, but it also thrummed with fresh charge as she searched for a target on which to vent her anger.
The shine of a magical aura came from the corner of her eye, and Twilight did a double take. Her pouch was floating away among the flames still clinging to the grass, its broken strap already burning away. A flash of purple magic stopped it, and she heard an aggravated grunt come from the opposite side of the blast zone.
“You have impressive magical talents, Miss Sparkle, but your tactical awareness is lacking!” Blood Rite shouted. The stallion was mostly obscured behind the flames and smoke that was coming off the detonation, but could at least see the pouch from his angle. His horn pulsed with a halo of white, occasionally flashing crimson seemingly at random. “Alone, you could never beat me.”
Twilight growled through clenched teeth as she felt the magical aura around the pouch slowly overwhelm her own telekinesis. The pouch quivered in the air, the flames slowly crawling over its exterior. “Too bad for you,” she spat. “I’m not alone!”
“Got it!” Spike shouted, diving through the fire and grabbing the pouch.
Rite recoiled in surprise, and then his eyes narrowed at the dragon sprinting through the burning grass. “Right. You even have your own dragon, don’t you?”
A magic ray slashed toward his head, and Rite was forced to direct his energy to deflect it. He dashed back to the trees for cover, shouting as he went. “You merely delay the inevitable!”
“I’m going to BEAT the inevitable!” Twilight countered, galloping in the same direction while firing another magic blast from her horn. It cut into a tree, and then Twilight had to create a screen before a trio of magic missiles came screaming back at her. Detonations of eldritch force burst around her, ripping apart nearby branches and gouging out tree trunks. Her horn flashed in response, the energies singing while more formations of heat and force spun into projectiles.
Spike gulped as he heard the whine and boom of the magic battle behind him. He was crouched behind a tree, covering from the combat and wondering if there was something useful he could be doing aside from being a conveniently fireproof gem-bearer. The pouch had mostly burned away in his claws by now, leaving the artifact behind and unblemished from the flames. What was he supposed to do now?
I can run for it, obviously, but if Rite wins there’s no way I’d beat him to Canterlot on foot. Maybe if I try to flag one of the pegasus soldiers? Are they still okay? I haven’t heard a lightning bolt in a while! Did Kamikazan get them? Wait! Over there! There’s another pony!
To Spike’s surprise, he spotted an unfamiliar unicorn galloping toward him through the trees. Initially he was relieved, thinking that perhaps the mare could help either by aiding Twilight directly or by giving him a ride out of the area. That relief faltered when he suddenly recalled seeing this pony before: in the train, where she had been spying on him and Twilight.
While her behavior in the train didn’t necessarily make her an enemy, it did make Spike suspicious, and that suspicion wasn’t helped when she sped up and lowered her head. “Hey, wait! Stop!” he shouted.
She did not stop, and Spike yelped as he was struck by a hoof and knocked aside. The MacGuffin Stone bounced into the dirt, and a green magic aura quickly enveloped it. The unicorn mare slid to a stop, floating the artifact over to herself, and then took the gem in her jaws.
Twilight turned her head at the sound of Spike crying out, ignoring the blooms of crackling red energy against her barrier. “Spike? Wait, who…?” Her eyes narrowed when she saw the mysterious mare seize the MacGuffin Stone. “That must be Swan Song in disguise! Ponyfeathers!”
Blood Rite likewise had stopped to check on his target, and an angry grimace crossed the stallion’s face while his horn pulsed once again. “That is NOT Swan Song, nor is it any other ally of mine.” His horn’s aura started to grow, the energies blazing brighter and brighter, but his concentration broke when another magic blast struck him in the side, nearly knocking him over. “OW! What are you doing?! She’s getting away!”
Twilight noticed that the mystery mare had turned around and was racing into the forest now, but her concentration remained fixed on Rite. “If she’s not on your side, that’s good enough for me! We’re a short flight from Canterlot and I can detect the MacGuffin Stone at will! I’ll deal with her later!”
A spear of purple light blasted toward the sorcerer, who vanished with a silvery flash. Rite appeared in front of the escaping unicorn, causing her to veer away with a distressed whinny.
“You won’t get away from GAH!” Rite staggered again as another magic blast took him in the side, singing his coat. The sorcerer had passive magic defenses that blunted much of the force of Twilight’s magic and protected him from any number of other sophisticated spells, but after only a few direct hits those barriers were sapping his magic reserves and physical endurance.
Rite stood up straight again, only to see what appeared to be a winged lavender missile diving toward him, surrounded by an oscillating purple glow. Twilight Sparkle released a wordless battle cry as she cut through the air, forelegs outstretched and horn ablaze.
Rite’s horn flickered. In that moment, he had precious few options, but his power was not yet spent. The sorcerer had magic that could stop the mare. Not safely, but then the alicorn was, ultimately, an enemy. His blood grew hot as time seemed to slow to a crawl.
His will faltered, and the moment passed. Twilight crashed into him, sending the stallion flailing through the underbrush. He struck a tree with a pained yelp, and the glow around his horn winked out as his vision exploded into stars.
Twilight’s breath heaved as she stood facing the stunned sorcerer, her wings spread and her horn crackling with energy. After he failed to get up she switched spells, and bindings of glowing violet appearing around Blood Rite’s twitching body.
“I… I did it!” the Princess said breathlessly after Rite’s legs were bound together by threads of magic. “I actually beat Blood Rite!”
“Yes! Great! Good job!” Spike was still dusting himself off after getting trampled, and he pointed a claw off to the side. “We should probably stop that random unicorn thief now.”
“No,” Twilight said firmly, shaking her head. “It’s more important that Rite is captured. Like I said, I can hunt down the MacGuffin Stone anytime, so-“
An explosion bloomed in the direction Spike was pointing, instantly tearing apart a dozen trees and burning a fresh crater into the middle of the forest. A shriek of pain was barely audible over the fireball’s roar, petering out into a miserable whimper. The sound of massive wings flapping came from above once the other sounds had diminished, leaving no doubt as to the source of the conflagration.
“Ah. Right. Him.” Twilight’s ears flattened against her head. “I was kind of hoping that the soldiers could draw Kamikazan away for longer than that.”
Spike groaned and started running toward the blaze. Twilight galloped after him a moment later, although she doubted they’d be able to arrive in time.
Sure enough, Kamikazan was landing by the time Twilight and Spike got close enough to get a good look at the blast zone. The central pyre had receded, but there were numerous small fires scattered about on the scattered wood and underbrush. Smoke was everywhere, and as a result Twilight couldn’t see the MacGuffin Stone or the unicorn that had taken it.
She could have closed her eyes to check the artifact’s direction, but Kamikazan at least seemed to know exactly where his target was. The dragon prince lowered his head toward the ground, and then suddenly swept his wings forward. The smoke and flames in front of him were instantly blown away, revealing a glittering gem and a curled up black body.
“Wait a minute… that’s-!” Twilight gasped in surprise at the sight of the MacGuffin thief. At first she had assumed the dark coloration was due to burns, but upon further inspection that was clearly not the case.
“How interesting,” Kamikazan rumbled, keeping one eye on the lavender alicorn. “I wonder what the changelings thought they were going to do with this little trinket.”
Indeed the body on the ground was a four-legged insectoid creature with a sharp, pointed horn, a pair of thin, featherless wings, and a carapace ridden with holes that obviously didn’t come from the fireball damage. In fact, it looked like the creature hadn’t been hit directly by the blast, although it had apparently been close enough to be knocked over and stunned silly.
Kamikazan reached down into the dirt, his massive claws taking up the fist-sized gemstone with surprising care and dexterity. “Celess, Rite, the lesser Princess, the pigtailed fool, and now even the changelings… so much strife over this little jewel!” He opened his upraised hand briefly, glowering at the artifact. Then he closed his fist again and shrugged. “But I suppose I can’t talk as if I’m not involved, can I?”
“I still don’t know what you’re planning, Kamikazan, but you don’t seriously think you can trust Blood Rite, do you?” Twilight asked. “He wants to depose Celestia and remake Equestria in his own image! I’m pretty sure being enslaved by an angry dragon isn’t part of that image!”
Kamikazan looked annoyed at the question. “You may be right, actually. But there’s only one way to be sure, and I will stop at NOTHING to make Celestia mine! The sorcerer challenges me at his peril!” Then he snorted in amusement. “And what chance would the pitiful unicorn have against me if he couldn’t even best YOU?”
“Way to kick a stallion when he’s down, your Highness,” came a tired voice from behind Twilight.
The young Princess jumped in surprise and whirled around, her horn already buzzing with magic. Rite had evidently freed himself from his bonds - unsurprising, given that Twilight hadn’t had time to neutralize his magic abilities - and was limping through the forest toward his draconic ally.
Twilight didn’t hesitate, firing a magic shot at the sorcerer the moment she had a good fix on his location. Rite’s horn lit up in response, but rather than defending himself or firing back, he teleported some twenty feet away to reappear in front of Kamikazan. “Thank you for your assistance in this matter, but we should escape before more soldiers arrive,” he said, craning his neck up to look the dragon in the eyes.
Rite probably expected Twilight to stop attacking him once he was right next to the dragon prince, but he was mistaken. Another magic bolt struck him in the side, pitching the unicorn onto the ground with a pained yelp. Kamikazan couldn’t contain a chuckle, and he clamped his free hand over his jaws to contain his snickering. A moment later another magic blast struck his other hand - the one containing the MacGuffin Stone - cutting his chortling short.
“I imagine you think you’re going to stall me long enough for your winged friends to come back around and find us,” Kamikazan mused while the alicorn charged toward him, “but no.”
Kamikazan opened his jaws, and a billowing wave of fire descended on the oncoming pony. Twilight squeaked in surprise and shifted her magic focus, stumbling to a halt and raising a barrier just in time to block the inferno.
“It’s time to go, sorcerer,” the dragon growled while his body was consumed in bright light. After a few seconds the mass of glowing energy popped, leaving behind Kamikazan’s smaller hybrid body.
Rite said nothing, pushing himself up while his horn crackled anew. Kamikazan stepped forward to stand between him and Twilight, regarding the mare with lofty disdain.
“I can hardly fault you for properly serving Celess at great risk to your life, but I offer you a warning, mare: The next time you think to oppose me, I won’t abide by Rite’s foolish sentiments for equine life,” Kamikazan opened his palm, leering at the MacGuffin Stone before smirking at Twilight again. “Farewell.”
Blood Rite and Kamikazan vanished in a puff of silvery white magic, mere seconds before a lightning bolt crashed into the spot where they’d stood.
“Tch! Did I miss? They couldn’t have possibly dodged that, could they?”
General Wrath swooped down on the scorched clearing with a pair of pegasi soldiers holding formation behind her. She briefly made note of Twilight Sparkle, who appeared to be laying on the ground with her eyes squeezed shut and her hooves over her ears, and then continued scanning the combat area. Eventually her gaze settled on the changeling, and her eyes narrowed to slits.
“A spy. And it’s still alive. Seize it,” the pegasus commanded, jabbing a foreleg at the shapeshifter. Immediately the two soldier with her descended on the body, blades gripped in their teeth.
The changeling twitched and started to get up, but the armored ponies landed in front and behind it before it even regained its footing. The hapless drone promptly fell down again, releasing a miserable whimper.
Wrath dropped down to the site of her last lightning bolt, landing and taking several seconds to scan her surroundings. After she was confident that she couldn’t see any signs of her targets, she finally turned to address Twilight Sparkle.
“I’m guessing the target escaped via teleport somehow? If that even was the target. I’m not sure precisely what happened, but I’m pretty sure the lizard didn’t fly out of the area,” the General asked irritably.
“WHAT? I’M SORRY, WHAT BLIZZARD?” Twilight shouted. Her ears were still ringing from the thunderclap, and her vision hadn’t completely recovered either.
Wrath’s muzzle scrunched up in embarrassment, and then she sighed. “Right. My fault. I really hate this side effect of the Blitz Boots.” Then she took a deep breath and spoke again. “PLEASE FOLLOW US! WE’LL DEBRIEF YOU BACK AT CANTERLOT!” she shouted, carefully enunciating every word.
“OH! THANK YOU,” Twilight turned and gestured to Spike, who was watching from the relative safety of the non-burning trees. “COME ON, SPIKE! WE’RE GOING!”
The dragon assistant rushed out from his hiding place and climbed on Twilight’s back. She spread her wings, and after a brief wave of vertigo passed, Twilight and Spike took to the air. The pair of pegasi were airborne a few seconds later with the changeling buzzing along beside them, connected by a chain that was secured through one of its hoof-holes.
Wrath took another moment to review the battlefield, and the General couldn’t repress a grimace. She didn’t quite understand what had happened here yet, and strictly speaking her objective had been to drive the dragon away to begin with, but somehow this felt like a loss.
“Wretched lizards,” the armored mare grumbled, finally vaulting into the sky herself. “FORM UP AND WATCH YOUR SIX, PONIES! LET’S SOAR!”
Ranma Saotome had a lot of bad dreams.
Usually, those dreams revolved around being trapped in awkward situations as a girl or being surrounded by cats. Occasionally, though, he ended up in nightmares more meaningful and harrowing. These sorts of dreams often involved a disastrous loss to a powerful enemy (or, more embarrassingly, a weak enemy with a key technique or unexpected advantage). The feelings of helplessness - or worse, the shame of an avoidable failure - tended to weigh much more heavily on the martial artist than his age old traumas.
As Ranma gazed despondently at the blazing ruins of Nerima, he was pretty sure it was going to be one of those dreams.
The Tendo Dojo, where he had been a houseguest for almost two years, burned. Its much-abused timbers collapsed bit by bit, and the building shuddered. The building had been subject to years of intense damage and hasty repairs, and it showed in its final moments. It seemed to crumble at twice the rate of the other structures on Soun Tendo’s property, and its pyre burned higher and hotter as well.
Ranma sat on the edge of some unknown stranger’s roof across the street, quietly watching the destruction of the only place he had ever thought of as home. The sun loomed in the cloudless sky above, its profile larger than he ever remembered. There were no people, or animals, or even cars in the streets. Just Ranma and his old city.
“You could have saved them if you were any good.” A gruff, familiar voice said from behind him. “Hell, you didn’t even have to actually defeat the clowns. All you had to do was not be so damn gullible! And you failed. As usual.”
Genma Saotome walked up next to Ranma, scowling down at the burning dojo. The man wore his usual white gi, with a bandanna to cover his bald head and wire-rim glasses. His hands gripped the cloth belt around his waist that contained his considerable girth, and he was barefoot.
Ranma didn’t look up at his father. He raised one hand, grimacing when he saw that the MacGuffin Stone was gripped tightly in his fist. He let go of the gem, but it didn’t fall. It stuck to his palm, adhering more tightly than any glue.
“Pathetic. All that work to bring you up as a martial artist, and for what?” Genma sneered. “What was all my effort for, boy?”
A vein popped up on Ranma’s head. “Well Pop, I’m pretty much the only thing that survived the end of the world. That’s something.” He dropped his hand with the MacGuffin Stone and craned his neck back to look at the sky. “They could’ve done worse for the last human on Earth.”
“Last human? Bah! You don’t even have that anymore!” Genma snarled.
Ranma blinked, and then raised his hand again. Or rather, hoof. The MacGuffin stone was still stuck there, of course, wedged uncomfortably in the soft inner frog.
“Oh, don’t give me that! You turn into a panda!” Ranma snapped, his ears flipping down.
“I can change back!” the elder Saotome growled.
“I might be able to eventually! Get off my case, old man!” Ranma jumped up onto all fours, his tail sticking straight out behind him.
Genma crossed his arms over his chest, sneering at his son. “Just look at you now. Heir to the Saotome School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts. Everything I taught you, everything I worked for, all of it wasted!”
“It isn’t wasted!” the stallion retorted hotly. “I’m still a martial artist! I still defend people!”
“You defend horses, not people!” Genma shouted back, “and you’ve let them down too! You can’t even do THAT right!”
Ranma jumped at his father with an enraged snarl, swinging a foreleg for the elder Saotome’s face. Genma spun out of the way, avoiding the flying hoof and turning around in time to grab the cursed pony by his braided tail.
“H-Hey! Let go of me!” Ranma flailed angrily as he was held upside-down, unable to reach his tormentor with his relatively short legs.
“You could have countered that at ten years old back when you had hands,” Genma chided, glowering at the stallion. “Martial arts is for men, not ponies! It would have been better if you’d burned with the rest of humanity rather than shaming your family with-GAH!”
Something struck Genma in the back, knocking him to the roof’s surface. He dropped his transformed son, who landed lightly on his front hooves and then leapt backwards to get some more distance. Once Genma recovered, both Saotomes took a moment to search for the source of the interference.
A pyre flared up near the edge of the roof, blasting sparks into the air and depositing… something onto the tiles. It too was awash in flames, although it shifted to form a discrete shape: A relatively small, four-legged shape, with eyes of bright white embers.
“I suppose this is where you get your horse girlfriend to fight for you,” Genma sneered, crossing his arms over his chest. “I wonder which it will be? The snotty blue one or the preachy purple one?”
Ranma bristled. “I don’t need anyone’s help to take you down, old man!”
“But for the record,” the flame-shrouded pony interjected, “Trixie is the snotty blue one.”
Ranma flinched in surprise at hearing the illusionist’s voice, and then flinched again as an explosion of light came from her horn. His surroundings melted away into a blur of white, and his other senses followed.
Genma was gone, as was the Tendo dojo, the conflagration in his hometown, and the blazing mare with a familiar voice. Pale whiteness stretched out in every direction, like a flat, endless plain covered in snow.
Or perhaps ashes.
Ranma looked down. The MacGuffin Stone was sitting there between his hooves now, apparently having detached from him during the bizarre transition.
“Honestly the fat dead guy had a point about you letting us down, but it’s not like you didn’t try hard enough.” The gem pulsed with every syllable while Trixie’s voice filled Ranma’s ears. “Even you can only do so much. You’re not going to save everybody.”
Ranma grimaced, leaning down toward the gem. “No, I can! Just give me another chance! I always win!”
“If you always win, you wouldn’t need second chances,” the gem seemed to sing, taunting him. “You don’t have to be the hero, you know. What’s the point of putting your life on the line fighting dragons and sorcerers and doom cults anyway? Why do you care?”
“I just do! I do care!” Ranma shouted, almost pleading as he leaned down toward the gemstone. “I can beat all of them! I have to!”
“Why?” The MacGuffin Stone twinkled, and for a moment Ranma thought he saw Trixie’s reflection smirking at him from behind its gleaming exterior.
“Because it’s a martial artist’s duty to protect the weak! This is the right thing to do!” Ranma announced hotly.
“Nobody gave you that duty. Nobody who matters anymore, at least. Is that the only reason you suffer so much?”
Ranma cringed. “Well, that… I… I want to help you! It doesn’t matter why!”
The artifact pulsed with arcane light. “Then why did you leave?”
Ranma’s face darkened. He didn’t answer the question.
“It’s going to be all right. You’re not alone anymore.” A new voice came from behind him, and Ranma felt a fan of feathers lay over his back. “You might have made a mistake. Or maybe it was the best choice under the circumstances. Either way, you don’t have to face the consequences alone. Havoc…”
The voice was indistinct but decidedly feminine, and Ranma turned his head to see who it was.
“It’s time fer dinner,” Applejack said.
Ranma bolted upright, nearly hitting Applejack in the nose. She released a startled whinny, stumbling backward, and for a few tense seconds both of them stared at each other in shock.
“… Did you say dinner?” Ranma asked, having the decency to blush.
“Uh… Yeah. Wasn’t sure if ya were hungry’r not since ya been sleepin’,” the farmer drawled. “Ah take it yer up fer eatin’?”
Ranma nodded his head rapidly and hopped out of bed. Applejack eyed the martial artist warily, clearing a path toward the hallway.
“Ya were kickin’ and moanin’ a bit ‘fore ya woke up. Bad dreams?” she asked.
“Eh, I’ve had worse. At least there were no cats,” Ranma grumbled. “Also I got to see my pop for a bit before he was consumed by flames. It’s been a while.”
“Sounds awful. Let’s go eat.”
Princess Luna and Celestia sat in grim silence within Celestia’s study. Across from them stood Twilight Sparkle and General Wrath, the latter of whom seemed considerably more upset than the former. Spike stood behind them, quietly twiddling his thumbs while the equine soldier fumed.
“That wretched, back-stabbing, cowardly… URGH!” Wrath’s wings quivered angrily, leaving a few azure feathers drifting down to the carpets. “Rebellion and treason is bad enough! But now he’s teaming up with dragons and changelings?! And this mule thinks he can just pop in and attack our citizens less than a mile from the capital?!”
“From what I can tell Blood Rite wasn’t working with the changelings, no. But, well… the rest of that seems accurate, yes,” Twilight said. “Particularly the last point. He really can just pop in and attack us at will, apparently.”
“And in that respect I give my heartfelt thanks to you for your efforts, General Wrath,” Celestia said. “Rite has troubled us for some time, but this is the first occasion that Equestria has managed to intervene directly.”
“For all the good that did!” Wrath spat, her ears pinned back in shame. “Not only did the traitor and the lizard get away, but they took the blasted artifact, to boot!”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Twilight insisted, hanging her own head. “The MacGuffin Stone was my responsibility, not yours. There were safer ways to get it to Canterlot, but I didn’t think Blood Rite would attack on the way!” she groaned. “Which I really should have! He can sense the MacGuffin Stone as well, so he can tell when it’s on the move!”
“He can? How?” Princess Celestia asked.
“Those of us who have interacted with the artifact have some sort of… connection to it, apparently,” Twilight explained. “That’s actually how I tracked Ranma down; because I was trapped in the gem briefly, I can tell what direction it’s in whenever I think about it.”
“So THAT’S what that is!” Luna interjected, sounding alarmed.
“Luna? You have this connection as well?” her sister asked.
“Every time we discussed the artifact I would feel… something tugging at my attention. I didn’t dwell on the subject for very long…”
“The best way to use it is to simply close your eyes and think about the MacGuffin Stone. Then you can get a clear compass heading,” Twilight explained, squeezing her eyes shut. “It doesn’t give any other hints as to its location, like how close it is, but it gives us a direction at least.”
“Aye, you’re correct,” Luna agreed, grimacing with her eyes closed. “The beacon lay south-by-southeast! This means we may pursue Blood Rite wherever he goes!”
Wrath slammed an armored hoof into the floor and snorted hotly. “Princess, I request permission to deploy a hunting wing! I’ll track that mule down and deliver him to you personally!”
“You have my permission, General,” Celestia began, “but you will not be enough. We may have a heading now, but Rite is very clever and surely aware of this ability. He will not let you corner him so easily. You’ll have to take somepony with you who possesses this ‘MacGuffin sense.’”
“I volunteer!” Luna and Twilight shouted at the same time.
Celestia looked exasperated. “Even with a guard escort, I can’t let either of you lead the way directly into Rite’s lair. We know that he wants to capture a Princess and that he has a powerful ally in the dragon prince. It’s out of the question.”
Twilight arched an eyebrow. “But we’re the only ones with a MacGuffin sense. If it’s not going to be one of us, who’s going to do it?”
“There’s one other pony of whom we’re aware who has an extensive association with the artifact,” Celestia said wryly. “Conveniently, this pony also has wings. I think. I still don’t quite understand the extent of Havoc’s abilities.”
Wrath clicked her tongue and Luna nodded along with Celestia’s decision. Twilight’s jaw fell open in surprise.
“What? Ranma? Why Ranma?” the youngest Princess asked.
Celestia seemed slightly surprised at the question. “Aside from the fact that he isn’t a pony that Rite needs to complete his plans, he’s faced both Rite and Kamikazan repeatedly in the past and won, hasn’t he?”
“Well, yes, of course. But why would he do it?” Twilight asked. “Ranma would be perfect for tracking down Rite, except that the only reason Rite got the MacGuffin Stone is because he gave it up. And he gave it up because he doesn’t care about it anymore and doesn’t want to deal with all the problems it generates, like having to fight sorcerers and dragons for it.”
Wrath frowned. “I’m not crazy about enlisting a pony who was a major enemy of the state just twenty-four hours ago on an important mission, but surely no Equestrian would refuse such a task from Princess Celestia herself.”
“Ranma Saotome is not an Equestrian,” Twilight said flatly. “He’s an ancient warrior displaced through time by magical means who was fighting off pony soldiers just last night.”
“Are you saying he wouldn’t help us?” Celestia asked.
“I can’t say for sure, but I feel confident in that assessment, yes.” Twilight creased her brow. “More to the point, given the situation, why should he? Rite doesn’t threaten him or anything he cares about. Ranma has already done tremendous damage to Rite’s efforts and stopped him from victimizing Equestrian Princesses. Twice! And then the moment he gives the MacGuffin Stone over to me, Rite immediately steals it back! Why would he let us have it after that? Even if he agreed to track Rite down he'd just keep the gem this time!”
The others seemed appropriately perturbed by the explanation, if not also taken aback to hear it from Twilight.
“Didn’t Princess Celestia give this guy a pardon? Shouldn’t he be more thankful? The Princesses don’t absolve just anyone of arson!” Wrath asked with a huff.
“Please, don’t get me started,” Twilight grumbled back. “The short answer is no, he does not feel indebted to Equestria for ceasing its pursuit of him.”
“Although he feels real indebted to you,” Spike mumbled.
Celestia didn’t miss the aside, and she took a step toward her student. “Twilight, if you ask him to take this on as a personal favor, do you think he’d accept?”
“A… personal favor? To me?” the smaller alicorn asked.
“Yes. If it’s a matter of friendship, then-“
“NO!!” Twilight shouted, causing the other mares to recoil in shock. The purple mare clenched her teeth and spread her wings partially, looking as if she was about to pounce on somepony. “Are you being serious?! You want me to use my friendship with Ranma to manipulate him into doing our dirty work for us?!” Wrath could swear she saw Twilight’s horn spark briefly.
Luna seemed completely stunned by the outburst, but Celestia quickly regained her footing. “I am requesting that you ask Havoc for a favor, as a friend. He is in a unique position, and possesses skills we do not. There is no deception or manipulation here,” she said sternly. “I realize that you feel responsible for this and you’re quite sympathetic to Havoc’s feelings. I’m not asking you to betray that. But this is the best solution available to us.”
“Also, while I admire your devotion to the whole ‘friendship’ shtick, we may well be talking about the future of Equestria, here,” General Wrath interjected, eyeing Twilight. “If I had to burn a friendship to protect the royal family, that’s not a hard decision to make.”
Twilight glowered at Celestia for a few tense seconds, and then sighed and folded her wings again. “Sorry about that little outburst. You make some good points, but I'm not going to ask Ranma to risk his life again just so I don't have to. If you want him to help, you’re going to have to ask him yourself. Otherwise, I’ll go. Again, the MacGuffin Stone was my responsibility.”
“This is about more than just your ‘responsibilities,’ Sparkle,” Wrath chided. “For all we know this could be a trap specifically to lure you away from anypony who could protect you. Are you really willing to risk handing victory to Rite for the sake of your pride?”
“I would suffer any humiliation to get the MacGuffin Stone back,” Twilight retorted. “I’m refusing to help bring Ranma into this for his sake, not mine. He’s suffered enough for our mistakes.”
Princess Celestia stared silently at her student, her expression inscrutable. Then her shoulders slumped. “I understand. If we cannot get Havoc’s help, then there’s no choice but for Twilight or Luna to go.”
“It should be me,” Twilight said, standing up straighter. “I can handle Blood Rite! If he didn’t have Kamikazan on his side then he wouldn’t have gotten away last time!”
“And my team can handle the lizard,” Wrath growled. Magic sparked around her wings, and Twilight felt a tingle up her spine just from proximity. “We’ll set out right away!”
“You’ll set out tomorrow morning,” Celestia replied calmly. “I want you to be well-rested and prepared. No mistakes, General. Canterlot’s future may lay in your hooves, and my student’s definitely does.”
The pegasus sputtered briefly, attempting to object to the command, but she wilted under Celestia’s stare. “Yes, Princess. We’ll set out once you raise the sun, then.” Wrath bowed, her ears pinned back against her head. “I won’t fail you again.”
“You’re too hard on yourself, General. Had I been in your place, and even known why the attack was happening to begin with, I would have done the same. You saved ponies’ lives today, and that is never a failure.” Celestia gave her a reassuring smile, but it faded quickly. “So… now that that’s settled, I suppose I owe you all an explanation…”
Spike quickly dragged a chair up next to Twilight and sat down, leaning forward eagerly. Twilight’s own expression was more measured, but only barely. Luna likewise shifted position to face her sister rather than standing beside her, as she too had been waiting for this. Only General Wrath seemed uninterested, glaring off to the side at nothing in particular while Celestia gathered herself.
“First… some background. You know that Blood Rite was a student at my school, just like Swan Song. What you may not know - because such records were destroyed - is that in his youth he was my personal protégé, as Twilight is now.”
Twilight nodded slowly. “He mentioned that, yes… so what happened? Why did he turn against you?”
Celestia winced, badly, and Twilight immediately wished she could take the question back. She might have been annoyed enough to challenge her teacher, but this was obviously a very painful memory for her.
“Rite… Rite didn’t turn against me,” Celestia whispered. “I turned against him.”
“Rubbish,” Wrath spat. “The freak had his rebellion plastered on his flank. You gave him MERCY, and he betrayed that!”
If the General’s interjection was supposed to make Celestia feel better, it obviously wasn’t working. The white Princess stared at the floor, a tear crawling down her cheek. “My advisors are… divided as to whether my actions were appropriate. It’s time to tell the full truth, so that you all can judge for yourselves.”
She straightened and cleared her throat again. “Rite was an impressive magic user when he came into my care, as you’d expect. He was relentlessly cheerful and optimistic as well, and had an easy time making friends in the Academy.” The barest hint of a smile tugged at her lips. “Many ponies were wary or intimidated by him due to his name and his skill at magic. But such attitudes rarely lasted long. His good will and charming nature were too much for any but the most stubborn grouch.”
Celestia briefly glanced up at her audience. Luna looked perplexed; Twilight and Spike were fascinated. Wrath was grinding her jaw, staring out a window while her hoof tapped impatiently. “Blood Rite’s one failing, if it could even be called that, is that he didn’t have a cutie mark even as he progressed into his teenage years and completed his courses. There was a great deal of speculation as to why, if I recall correctly, but he for one didn’t care. He seemed uninterested in talk of his true destiny or special talent; he told me that he preferred his future being a blank slate, and he had enough talent in magic that he could hardly ask for any others.”
She fell silent for several seconds, staring up at the ceiling. “Sometimes I still wonder… How much of his destiny is my fault? Our fate is printed on our bodies, more or less, for the entire world to see, but it’s still so poorly understood. If I had tried a little harder, or maybe loved him a little more dearly, or perhaps left him alone entirely, would the result have been the same? Should I have seen it all coming?” Celestia turned a regretful gaze on Luna. “It wasn’t the first time something like this happened, after all.”
Luna squirmed uncomfortably, and a growl came from Wrath. “Your Highness, please refrain from any long tangents. I believe the next part of the story is how Blood Rite almost killed you.”
Twilight’s tail stood straight out in shock, and Celestia grimaced. “That’s overstating the incident, General… but as you say, on to the point.”
The Princess of the Sun took a deep breath. “It happened while we were practicing barriers. When we studied magic, I enjoyed giving Rite practical obstacles and watching him find a magical solution to overcome it. One kind of exercise was creating progressively stronger force barriers that he would have to break or get around.”
“We’ve done those,” Twilight remarked. “You usually put the dome around an old pillow or something or make a screen protecting a raised target.”
“Yes. Nowadays I place the shields protecting inanimate, expendable objects. When I was training Rite I didn’t bother,” Celestia said wryly. “I would sit within the barrier myself, eating lunch or reading a novel as if I were oblivious to the pony trying to break through my defenses. I didn’t fear getting hurt by my students’ exercises, and anyway it discouraged them from trying to get through the barrier with brute force, which is almost never the best solution. So there we were, the two of us: I lounging on a chaise reading the paper beneath a magical dome bubble, and he slowly stalking around me and occasionally casting spells. He wasn’t especially frustrated. We’d had no recent arguments or festering personal clashes. It was no different from a hundred other afternoon lessons. Until… it wasn’t.”
Twilight, Luna, and Spike all leaned forward in anticipation.
“It all seems so innocuous in retrospect, so… pointlessly tragic. I heard him mumble something like ‘okay, well that’s new,' and then a surprised shout. Then the pain hit me.” She shook her head. “A blade of black and crimson was suddenly embedded in the chaise, just above my wing. It had pierced my barrier in an instant, like it was a soap bubble.” Celestia squirmed as Twilight’s eyes widened. “Rite was slack-jawed and pale, his horn still pulsing with unknown power. Very pale, in fact. His mane, which was pitch black then, suddenly sported a shock of white on one side. But the most obvious change was his cutie mark, which… well, it’s as you say. It matched my own, struck through with a blood-red slash.”
Twilight gulped loudly. Celestia stared at the floor, a few more tears dribbling down her cheeks.
“… And? Then what happened?” Spike asked eagerly.
“Exile,” Celestia said weakly. “Blood Rite was blameless. He apologized profusely for the accident and swore he would never use such magic again. He had barely cut me anyway, and he had been the one to call for medical assistance while I was still stunned and terrified at what had happened. He was appalled at his new cutie mark; I had been witness to many great disappointments and setbacks in his life, and never before had I seen him so heartbroken and ashamed. But none of that mattered. Exile. His existence was scrubbed from Canterlot’s archives, photo by photo, line by line, and then the effort slowly extended to the rest of Equestria. We didn’t take any such steps as drastic as erasing memories or imprisoning ponies who spoke of Blood Rite, but the public consciousness mostly cooperated with the purge. In less than a generation Blood Rite, once a celebrated hero of Equestria and Princess Celestia’s talented heir, was all but forgotten.”
“It was, and still IS, an almost ridiculously merciful fate for the mule,” Wrath said, barely keeping a rein on her temper. “Firebrand told me how hard it was to keep his troops from hunting Rite down and executing him. They were furious at hearing he’d be allowed to leave.”
“Oh, how I wish I could blame Rite’s sentence on overzealous protectors who would have taken the law into their own hooves,” Celestia said bitterly, still hanging her head. “But the fault isn’t theirs. When Rite was vulnerable, scared, and needed my support the most, I was too afraid to stand by him. I could have refused to punish him for the accident. I could have overruled my guards’ commands. I could have-“
“You could have hosted a bucking assassin for another decade until some other twist of fate or circumstance turned him against you!” Wrath snapped. “Do you seriously think it’s your fault that he’s on a crusade to overthrow the royal order right now, or might it have something to do with the one-mare hit list stamped on his rear?! This was inevitable!”
“It’s certainly easy to see it that way, isn’t it?” Celestia whispered miserably. “Who knows where else the line might have fallen if I hadn’t sent him away? But I did send him away. I took Rite’s life up until then, his efforts and his prestige, his friendships and his future, and I discarded it. He’d earned that acclaim and his place by my side, but when it risked endangering myself I erased it all. And then I delicately explained that his banishment was an act of mercy while staring at his crushed, terrified expression from behind a phalanx of soldiers. The memory makes me want to vomit.”
Wrath looked like she was about to argue further, but Celestia bent one wing up like a palm, signaling for her to stop. “But those mistakes are long past and we have new errors to reckon with, don’t we? I only have a vague idea of Rite’s plot, but it seems dethroning me is merely part of it. He resents me for my betrayal, but his deeper grudge is with the bonds of fate that have steered him to this path and it seems he intends to do something about it. It’s even possible, in a twisted way, that he thinks this plan of his is an act of defiance against his destiny rather than its fulfillment. But his intentions are barely relevant. The MacGuffin Stone must be recovered so that he cannot complete his scheme.”
“There is, of course, another way to put a stop to his insurgency if we manage to track him down. Permanently,” Wrath said tightly.
“I will not grant permission to kill Blood Rite,” Celestia retorted. Her voice was sad, despite the firmness of her words. “This vile grudge has escalated far enough. If he is disarmed of the artifact, that is enough. He cannot harm me without it, and he has no grievance toward Equestria’s citizens otherwise. You are to recover the MacGuffin Stone, destroy any other weapons he’s constructed, and then leave him be.”
Wrath seethed quietly as she bowed her head. “As you command, your Highness. I assume you’re not soliciting principled objections to this order? I don’t suppose you’d be willing to compromise with a lengthy prison sentence?”
“I am thankful for your guidance, General, but I intend to smother this spark of rebellion, not set another conflagration alight. Stealing away Rite’s ambitions once again will have to be enough,” Celestia said firmly. “I chose exile as his lifelong sentence. I will not have the banished filling my prisons.”
“Wow,” Spike said breathlessly, awed by both the tale of Rite’s past and the grim discussion of his immediate future. “Is there a story like this behind Kamikazan, too?”
“The story behind Kamikazan is that he’s in love with me and I don’t like him back,” Celestia huffed. “Once upon a time he got very angry about it and hurt some ponies over the matter, and for that I buried him in a volcano. The end.”
“Oh. That’s not very dramatic,” the young dragon mumbled, looking disappointed.
Twilight frowned. “If he’s such a belligerent and dangerous individual, why did you send him after Ranma?”
Celestia suppressed a groan. She hardly wanted to revisit this matter now. “I have no excuse, Twilight. I knew Kamikazan wasn’t going to simply leave me alone, so I thought to use his obsession as leverage to solve some other problem. It was distasteful and reckless, and I’m surprised Havoc forgave me so easily.” Then she grimaced. “Also, I can’t help but think it somehow set the stage for Blood Rite to join forces with him. The two don’t have similar goals, and I can’t imagine why one would help the other. Getting the Prince of Dragons involved in the chase for the MacGuffin was surely an error.”
Twilight nodded slowly. She found the admission somewhat unsatisfying, but she wasn’t sure what else her teacher could offer her. Celestia had approached this meeting with an impressive degree of honesty and humility, and Twilight didn’t feel like pressing her any further just because she wasn’t sympathetic enough to Ranma.
“Okay… So I think there’s just one more thing to discuss, then,” Twilight prompted. “What exactly is this special talent that Rite has? What does it do and how can we beat it?”
“It can create magic blades, apparently,” Celestia offered with a tired shrug. “Unfortunately, neither I nor Rite himself had much more idea of what he’d stumbled upon.”
“There are theories, of course,” Wrath interjected. “Firebrand says that there’s a very rare kind of magic that pops up among unicorn populations once every century or so. It doesn’t have a name… or rather, it has several names from dozens of different but suspiciously similar legends. Soul magic, cursed light, spirit sickness, blood magic, lifecrafting…” The General shook her head sadly. “The thread that links all those stories together is that the user possesses some mysterious, inborn sorcery that’s completely unknown to civilization and clearly different from conventional unicorn magic. Aside from being bizarre and powerful, it also draws its energy directly from the user’s life force rather than their mana. The stories usually end in dramatic explosions or desperate sorcerer duels that leave the mystery magic user dead even after they win.”
Luna drew a wing up to her muzzle, rubbing the wingtip across her chin thoughtfully. “I have heard of such stories. There are many wizards who dream of discovering a font of inborn power, suddenly becoming the mightiest of their peers and ascending into legend.” She shook her head. “Of course, such tales are invariably warnings of the dangers of such power and the hubris of its practitioners. Have we any modern, detailed records of such ponies?”
“Sounds like we did until… uh…” Spike trailed off when Celestia winced again. “Never mind…”
“We’re not aware of any other living user of this power,” Wrath admitted. “Firebrand suspects there are a lot more than are indicated by the legends, because if you have this life magic or whatever then your most obvious courses of action are experimenting with it and killing yourself right away in an inexplicable magic accident or never using it again ever and living a perfectly ordinary life, neither of which are likely going to make it into ancient fables. Rite seems to have used it some more since the incident, but not so much to kill himself. Unfortunately.”
Celestia grimaced. “His mane was still mostly black back when he was exiled, and his tail entirely so. I assume the rest has been bleached with the development of this special magic slowly drinking away his life force… Or maybe it was simply the stress of surviving on his own for so long.”
“So we really don’t know anything about it other than it being able to defeat magic barriers, and using it could kill him after it kills us,” Twilight said, grimacing. “That’s less than ideal, but now that I think about it he didn’t use anything especially strange against me during our duel earlier today. He probably isn’t willing to use this power against just anypony.”
“Hay, since it’s related to his ‘true destiny’ maybe this magic only works on Princess Celestia,” Wrath grumbled. “But the upshot is that we’ll be probably be fighting a desperate sorcerer-soldier and his pet dragon with a suicide contingency spell.”
“It will not come to that,” Celestia said, her voice cold and firm. “Rite may well be prepared to throw his life away to end mine, but he isn’t going to kill himself to spite the soldiers trying to foil him. He’s not petty.”
Wrath seemed unconvinced. “I’ll take that under advisement, your Highness, but it would be nothing short of negligent of me not to plan for the worst. Cornered animals are the most dangerous.” She offered a slight nod to the Princess of the Sun. “Will that be all? I have much to do even if we’re not heading out tonight.”
“Yes, General Wrath. You are dismissed. I thank you for your assistance and understanding in these matters," Celestia replied.
With a deeper bow, the armored pegasus excused herself from the room. The Princesses waited until the door clicked shut behind her before Celestia turned her attention to Twilight again.
“Twilight, I will arrange lodgings for you tonight and a supply pack for tomorrow. We’ll see to it Spike is cared for until your return as well.” Even at this stage, after the arrangements had been agreed upon, she felt her stomach flip at the thought of her student being sent along with her soldiers. “… But if by chance you reconsider, my door is always open to you, my student.”
“I’m not going to reconsider,” Twilight said sharply, her voice becoming heated again. “I can do this!”
“I believe in you, Twilight,” Celestia said soothingly. “But you don’t need to prove anything to anypony. The safety and future of the kingdom is my responsibility, not yours.”
Twilight started, surprised at hearing the same line she had used on Ranma earlier that day. “That… That’s true. I don’t,” she said, her tone calming. “This isn’t about measuring up to anypony. This is about the task at hand, Princess. It has to be done, and there’s nopony better than me to do it!”
Celestia grimaced. “I understand. I just… To fight my old student, unfairly banished, and pulled into conflict by the yoke of destiny… I wish there were some other way,” she lamented. “The path you embark on has no happy endings. There’s no great lesson to be learned or bond of friendship to forge during this task.”
“I dunno, maybe you and Wrath can hit it off,” Spike interrupted, poking Twilight in the back of her leg. “She seemed kinda testy, but I think-“
Celestia cleared her throat loudly, and the young dragon quickly shut up. “As I was saying… This is different from the quests I’ve given you before, and I’d hoped to spare you from getting involved entirely. That was naïve of me. But please, be careful. Blood Rite may well have spent decades planning my downfall and I have only the slightest idea what he is really capable of. Meanwhile, he understands Equestria’s security and magical studies like few other ponies alive; he helped design some of it, in fact.”
“That’s daunting, but I think that finding him is going to be the main challenge,” Twilight murmured, closing her eyes briefly and checking the direction of the MacGuffin Stone.
“Why would that be the main challenge? You can check where he is by blinking, can’t you?” Spike mumbled.
“Yes, and he knows it. Blood Rite has proven himself to be nothing if not a cunning strategist, and he still has a network of teleport gates, which means he can still travel faster than we can by air. If we can actually get to him and cut off his escape, then I’m confident we’ll beat him,” Twilight insisted.
Celestia nodded sadly. “Do what you must, my student.”
Twilight bowed and she and Spike started heading for the exit. As her magic reached out and started to turn the doorknob, however, she hesitated. Her horn dimmed and she turned her head back.
“Before I go… I want to apologize for snapping at you earlier,” Twilight said, her ears flipping down. “My objection still stands, but I know you were just trying to find the best solution available.”
Celestia looked relieved at the apology, and a small smile crept onto her face. “I understand, Twilight, and I accept your judgment. I hadn’t considered that he may keep the artifact from us after recapturing it from Rite… despite him doing exactly that up until now.”
“I’m still somewhat confused about that,” Luna admitted. “Is it not of paramount importance that Rite be stopped? What does it matter who owns the gem so long as it isn’t him? I believe it would be prudent to at least inquire if Saotome might help.”
Twilight shook her head. “I just don’t want to pull Ranma into our problems anymore. And putting that aside… well… he can probably defeat any enemy we set him against, but his intervention really does tend to complicate things in unexpected ways. I can handle this mission. I WILL handle this mission!”
Luna still seemed skeptical, but Celestia at last seemed satisfied. “Thank you, Twilight. Now please, get some food and rest for tomorrow. You have a long flight ahead you.”
Princess Luna heaved a weary sigh as the moon finally rose to its place of prominence in the night sky. She stood on her bedroom balcony overlooking the twinkling lights of Canterlot City below, but her gaze kept wandering. Not to the vast expanse of stars above or to the mountains cast against it by the pale moonlight, but to a canvas leaning haphazardly against the railing.
Luna took up the picture in her magical grip, lifting it up in front of her. It was a sketch of Ranma Saotome, one leg extended in a furious hook. The image was crude, and she had left it unfinished. The image of the stallion in valiant combat hadn’t come as easily to her mind recently, and she’d eventually lost interest in the drawing.
A faint squeak and gentle scratch at her shin reminded her that Tiberius was about. Luna looked down at her loyal pet, and then stretched a wing down to lift him up onto her back.
“Such a fascinating creature Saotome is… But it would seem it is simply not to be,” the Princess of the Night said glumly, looking back at the canvas. “It did my heart well to see him again, but he paid me no interest. He was not even conscious to witness what little aid I could offer upon the occasion. Twilight Sparkle delivered him to us. Sister cleared his name by our laws. All I could do was carry him to bed, and the Element of Honesty would not even allow me to stay with him until he awoke. Bah!”
She slumped onto a large pillow left near the railing, letting the drawing fall back into its previous resting place. Tiberius dropped down next to her, nuzzling into her chest fur. “I never imagined that after I convinced Twilight Sparkle to aid my pursuit of Saotome that she would then depart to track him down again after we found him the first time. Is her passion truly so much greater than mine? I’m not even sure she feels for Saotome as I do.”
“Well, why didn’t you try again before she could?”
Luna winced. “I… I wouldn’t have known what to do were I to find him,” she mumbled sadly. “Our first meeting was glorious! A thing of fable and legend! Our second quickly descended into farce. Pride, ignorance, and pure infuriating happenstance combined to sour the occasion. I actually demanded a duel! A duel, against the stallion I intended to court!” She huffed irritably. “Not that I’m dissatisfied with our combat, necessarily, but the idea that… wait…”
Luna suddenly jumped up, her wings spread wide and her horn sparking. Discord was on the other end of her balcony, leaning against the railing with his cheek propped up on his fist. “Discord! What are you doing here?! Begone!”
“Oh, don’t mind me. What were you saying about the combat? I’m listening,” the draconequus replied.
Luna growled, and her horn sparked some more. Discord sighed and held up his hands in surrender.
“All right, all right, if you insist… I just wanted to help, but I know when I’m not wanted,” he said sadly.
“YOU want to help?” Luna scoffed. Her horn dimmed, and she relaxed her stance so that it didn’t look like she was ready to attack the intruder. “With what?”
“With your little problem! I couldn’t help but overhear that you pine for a stallion who has no feelings or even great respect for you. It’s so tragic!” Discord took a step forward, his hands clasped together and a single tear crawling down his cheek. “A Princess in love, pouring her heart out to the ever-silent stars and her pet rat to bemoan her failures! Unparalleled power and beauty, yet you are alone and unloved! Forever, probably.”
Luna’s expression went from annoyed back to angry. “Tiberius is a POSSUM, not a rat! And spare me your false pity! I will not have you sneak into my quarters and mock me, Discord!” said possum scampered atop her head and shook his tiny fist at Discord from behind her horn.
“Don’t lose yourself over a little mild teasing, your Highness. I really DO want to help!” Discord insisted.
“And what, praythee, could you possibly help with in this conundrum?” Luna asked, her eyes narrowed. “Have you some key advice or insight you wish to share that would allow me to seize Saotome’s attention?”
“Well, yes. But that would take too long and be boring. I have a much more direct solution!” Discord slunk closer to the dark Princess, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
“What is it?” Luna asked, a bit of nervousness creeping into her voice. “I very much doubt it will matter, but you’ve earned my curiosity, at least.”
“How would you…” Discord drew out the word, tapping a finger against Luna’s royal peytral, “like to MARRY Havoc?”
Luna blinked, uncomprehending. “I… would like that very much, I expect. That is the point of courtship, is it not?”
“Great!” Discord clapped his hands together. “Does Thursday work for you?”
The dark alicorn recoiled, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. “What?! You mean… now?! You would marry us at once?!”
“Well, not AT ONCE at once. We need a day to plan and put out invitations, so the day after tomorrow is best. Princess Cadence would hardly forgive you for not inviting her to your wedding; you know how she is.” Discord started scratching at his chin. “I think a smaller ceremony would be ideal, don’t you? OH! I know, let’s hold it in Ponyville!”
“Hold! You cannot do this!” Luna protested.
“Oh, don’t worry, there’s hardly ever a reservation wait over there. The catering shouldn’t be a problem,” Discord paced back and forth, staring upward in thought. “Rarity will have to pull an all-nighter to have dresses ready in time, but frankly I get the impression she lives for this sort of thing anyway.”
“DISCORD! STOP!” Luna commanded. Once the draconequus stopped talking, she took a deep breath. “What is the meaning of this? How can you intend to marry us so quickly?”
“Well it won’t be me marrying you, really. It would have to be a registered agent of the state to be ‘official.’ And you definitely want it to be official because that makes it very easy to transfer property when one partner dies and though I hate to say it Havoc isn't-“
“DISCORD!” Luna barked again. “My contention has less to do with the minutiae of the wedding planning and more to do with the temperament of the groom! When did Saotome agree to wed me?!”
“Okay, so TECHNICALLY he hasn’t yet. But why wouldn’t he agree? You’re a Princess! And quite a looker, by horse standards!” Discord assured her, grinning and giving her a thumbs-up.
“As you no doubt overheard before interjecting, my feelings for Saotome are unrequited,” Luna huffed. “Even were I to agree to this bizarre plan, it will collapse the moment it requires the cooperation of the groom!”
“No it won’t,” Discord said simply. “So: are you in or are you in?”
Luna said nothing, simply glaring at him. Eventually Discord’s happy grin slipped away, and he offered a sad shrug.
“All right, I get it. You’re not THAT into him. That’s fine. Twilight Sparkle is here tonight, right?” Discord started walking toward the exit, only to find a blue force screen suddenly appear in front of him.
“What?! Sparkle?! Why?!” Luna demanded hotly.
“Well, if you’re not interested, she might be. I probably should have asked her first, really, given that they’re closer, but since you were the one moaning to the sky about it I figured I’d give you first dibs,” Discord explained.
“Do you mean to tell me that Saotome desires Sparkle’s hoof in marriage?” Luna asked. The possibility that Twilight would fall for him had occurred to her, especially as Luna hadn’t been completely forthright about why she’d sought Ranma out to begin with, but she hadn’t really thought that the mousy, book-obsessed pony would interest the strange warrior stallion.
Evidently, neither had Discord. “You’re awfully hung up on whether or not Havoc wants to get married this week,” he muttered.
“It’s of paramount importance to the event!” Luna retorted.
“And I’m telling you not to worry about it,” the spirit of chaos chided, wagging a finger at her. “I’m telling you that if you want, I’ll set you two up to be married in two days. I’ll tell you where and when, and when you arrive Havoc will be there, ready to say ‘I do.’ Honeymoon planning will be all you, of course,” Discord smirked and winked, and Luna’s cheeks flushed deeply. “Or, if you have cold hooves, I’ll go ask Princess Twilight Sparkle if she’s up for some holy matrimony when she gets back from saving Equestria again. Frankly I think she deserves a coltfriend after rescuing your tails so many times, don’t you?”
Luna slapped a wing over her face. “Stars help me, you were simply going to offer her a wedding out of the blue, just as you did to me? What would you do when she refused as well?”
“Well obviously Celestia would be next,” Discord said, shrugging helplessly.
“Sister doesn’t even LIKE Saotome! I suspect she’d as soon see him in irons and sent to the dungeons as kiss him!”
“Probably. But nopony says they have to STAY married…”
Luna slapped her other wing over her face, suppressing the urge to scream. “Why on Equiis are you trying to marry off Saotome in the first place?!”
“He seemed a bit out of sorts the last time we met and I felt a bit sorry for him,” Discord admitted, scratching his cheek. “I thought it might help him feel more at home.”
“That makes no sense!”
“You’re going to have to trust me on that one.” Then Discord appeared next to the dusky alicorn, swinging an arm over her withers and tugging her close. “And if this silly plan just HAPPENS to unite two ponies who are more or less fond of each other in an everlasting union of love or at least a solid weekend of lust, well, I think you’d all be much better for it.”
Tiberius crossed his tiny arms and squeaked something at the draconequus.
“I’m being flippant?!” Discord gasped, looking indignant. “I don’t see anypony else here to even listen to the poor, lonesome Princess! How about a little credit for caring?”
Tiberius squeaked louder, shaking a fist.
“Lower order mammals don’t count, rodent.”
Luna suddenly lifted a wing against Discord, pushing him away. “Enough of this. I have… I have thought it over.” She didn’t meet Discord’s eyes as a blush once again colored her cheeks. “I… desire to marry Saotome Ranma.”
Discord pumped a fist into the air silently.
“So long as you can guarantee that he will be at the ceremony and assent to our union of his own free will, then… then I can think of no compelling reason not to agree.” She gulped, finally looking up into the crimson eyes of the spirit of chaos. “He will be there of his own free will, yes? You’re not going to brainwash him?”
“I couldn’t brainwash him if I wanted to! Enchantments are very precise magic spells, and very easily disrupted by sudden explosions,” Discord explained, holding up a single palm in the air. “I PROMISE that Havoc will marry you of his own free will asterisk.”
Luna’s ear twitched. “What?”
“What?” Discord replied.
“You mumbled something at the end, there.”
“I don’t remember that.”
Luna and Discord continued staring uncertainly at each other. Then Luna grimaced, her ears pinning back again.
“I hope I don’t come to regret this decision, Discord,” the Princess of the Night mumbled.
Discord just laughed, finally making his way to her bedroom’s doors. “Oh, my dear, sweet, hopeless Princess! You’ve chosen love! And there’s not a love story told that isn’t replete with regret!” With an insane cackle, he threw open the doors and skipped away into the dimly lit corridors of Canterlot Castle.