//------------------------------// // 165. Exhaustion // Story: Azure Edge // by Leaf Blade //------------------------------// “Rainbow Dash,” Twilight cracked her knuckles as she stared down Trixie in the hauntingly empty Bitsburgh street, “I need storm clouds, and I need a lot of them.” “Yeah, I gotcha covered!” Rainbow said before taking off into the sky. Trixie didn’t look too good; caked blood all over her neck and mouth, several bruises on her face. Nothing a dragon couldn’t handle, of course, and Trixie had already fully transformed. She wasn’t messing around, and the states that Applejack, Big Mac, and Pinkie Pie were in were all much worse than Trixie’s. “Twilight, you’re here!” Pinkie cheered, tears in her eyes as she laid on the ground behind Applejack. “Did Spike make it to you okay?” “He did, and now I am here,” Twilight smiled at Pinkie. “And I’m not going to let any of you get hurt anymore. And Spike's waiting for us at the inn-” Twilight turned back to Trixie and glared daggers at her “-I have no intention of keeping him waiting.” “You talk a big game, Twilight Sparkle,” Trixie hissed, cocking her head and baring her fangs in a limp attempt to intimidate Twilight. Her tricks might’ve worked on a group of ponies, but to another dragon Trixie was little more than a joke. “But you aren’t in your library anymore!” “And I’m not incapacitated by magic exhaustion either,” Twilight said flatly. “It’s not too late to surrender and go back where you came from, Trixie. But this is going to be your last warning.” “You think I can just go back!? EMPTY HANDED, AGAIN!?” Trixie screamed, and Twilight just sighed. “The only way I’m leaving is with your head on a—” In the blink of an eye, Twilight was consumed with violet flames. Before her transformation had even fully completed, she reached her arm out and grabbed Trixie by the neck, then took off into the sky, using the enormous buffer of storm clouds Rainbow had made to cover her true form from any nearby ponies’ prying eyes. Surrounded by thunder and lightning and pitch-black clouds, Twilight spread her wings and hovered over Trixie; without the boundaries of the library, they could both fly free and at their full size, and Trixie was utterly dwarfed by Twilight. “You think I’m scared of you?!” Trixie screeched, her voice cracking. “Your friends were child’s play, Twilight Sparkle! I’ve been saving the real stuff just for you!” Twilight just sighed. Trixie fired a barrage of magic missiles from her wings, laughing uproariously. Twilight barely had to move a muscle to defend herself with a magical barrier. “I’m not interested in having a magic duel with you, Trixie,” Twilight said drolly, and finally the frustration and anger at the situation and at what her friends were forced to go through settled in Twilight’s heart, and a furious glare flickered across her face. “I can just crush you with my bare hands!” Twilight lunged at Trixie and dug her claws into the smaller dragon’s shoulders, but Trixie just grinned and with a crack of her magic, teleported onto Twilight’s back, biting down into the flesh between Twilight’s neck and wing. At first it just felt like a minor irritation, though Trixie had positioned herself in the perfect spot where Twilight couldn’t reach her with her hands, and couldn’t see her to grab Trixie with her magic. But again, just an irritation. But quickly, Twilight began to feel woozy, and she realized she needed to get away from Trixie, so she teleported away and left Trixie behind, staring Trixie down from a few feet above. Trixie was fast though, and before Twilight could properly get her bearings, Trixie slashed through Twilight’s arm, leaving a few bloody gashes. Twilight tried to swing back, but it was like she was moving in slow-motion, and Trixie easily avoided Twilight’s clumsy attack before countering by scraping her foot claw against Twilight’s face. Twilight teleported away again, and she finally understood what Trixie was doing; though Trixie waving at Twilight to show off the purple liquid that dripped from her claws, and grinning to show that same fluid coating her teeth, made it rather obvious. Twilight had been poisoned. “Taking some tips from the ponies now, eh, Trixie?” Twilight laughed bitterly. Twilight was well aware that if a pony wanted to defeat a dragon, they had basically two main options: destroying the dragon with overwhelming force in one shot, or use poison. Trixie had no shot at the former, or at challenging Twilight in a fair match, so honestly Twilight should have expected Trixie to use the latter. She underestimated Trixie’s intelligence. “I’m nothing like them,” Trixie spat. “But I’ll do whatever it takes to defeat you!” “Yeah, that makes sense,” Twilight nodded and her horns glowed with violet light that quickly coated Twilight and healed her of her affliction. “Oh,” Trixie said dourly, her posture deflating like a popped balloon. Trixie growled in impotent rage, closing her eyes as she dug her claws into her own scalp, but then her eyes shot open and she smiled eerily. “That’s fine. Maybe I can’t beat you in a fight, but I still know a few ways I can destroy you.” Trixie disappeared, teleporting out of the mass of storm clouds. Twilight bit her lip. Could she risk showing off her dragon form in the middle of Bitsburgh? Could she quickly transform back into a pony before touching the ground? Maybe the others had enough time to regroup and could beat Trixie without— Pinkie’s scream tore through Twilight’s ears. No more thinking, just doing. Now. Twilight crashed onto the ground, and even she wasn’t sure what form she was in for a second, but having to look up at Trixie was a sure sign she’d transformed back into a pony, and a sudden heart palpitation warned her that perhaps she was pushing her magic a little too hard all of a sudden. Pinkie was the only of the four ponies present not to be pinned by Trixie already; Big Mac and Applejack were under her feet, and Rainbow was caught in her tail, trying to squirm out but to no avail. And Pinkie didn’t look like she could move. Trying to pick up Trixie again wasn’t going to be possible; that would require way more magic than Twilight wanted to spend now. The last thing she or the others needed would be for her to drain herself of all her magic. She hated how much pressure using her transformation spell put on her, and she really hated how much weaker she was outside the library. Oh well, no sense complaining about it. If she couldn’t get Trixie away from her friends, she’d simply get her friends away from Trixie. And with a crack of her magic, she did just that, teleporting her three pinned friends behind her and out of Trixie’s range, collapsing to her hands and knees from the effort. Wait. ‘Three’? Trixie bared her claw down on Pinkie, who was still lying helplessly in front of Trixie; Twilight didn’t think to teleport her cuz she was so focused on rescuing the ones who were already pinned. Twilight pushed her hands out to grab Trixie’s claw, blood dripping down Twilight’s nose. “I got this, Twi!” Rainbow said as she buzzed past Twilight. “AJ, you take care of Pinkie!” “Already on it!” Applejack shouted, but Twilight barely noticed any of it with the world spinning around her. “Twilight?” Pinkie said, putting her hand on Twilight’s head as Applejack carried her by Twilight. “Are you gonna be okay?” “Yeah,” Twilight laughed awkwardly, not wanting to pressure Pinkie with how badly Twilight was beginning to freak out. Trixie was like a cockroach that she just couldn’t get rid of, and she didn’t know what to do. “Of c—” Rainbow’s scream ripped Twilight from her thoughts, and Twilight looked up just in time to see Trixie heading back into the storm clouds with Rainbow firmly in her grip. Someone called out to her, but Twilight barely heard it. Twilight could barely hear anything past the ringing in her ears, could barely see anything past the red mist clouding her vision. She was furious. She was done with this. Fuck everything. Her disguise, the ponies who might be watching, the damn slayers, the dragons, Trixie, the old man, all of it. Nothing mattered to Twilight now but her family, and making sure they all got to go home safe. And if Twilight had to transform into a dragon where everyone could see? Then so be it. Twilight burst into a pillar of violet flame that shot through the storm clouds, and when she emerged, she was already flying in front of Trixie, her eyes burning with furious flames. “Let her go,” Twilight growled. “What will you do if I say no?” Trixie dangled Rainbow upside-down by one leg using her tail, Rainbow shouting obscenities at Trixie that fell on deaf ears. “You don’t have the guts to really hurt me, Twilight Sparkle.” Trixie flew up and dangled Rainbow Dash over her open mouth, and if Trixie thought that Twilight would prioritize Trixie’s safety over her friends’, she should’ve remembered what happened to her the last time she took that bet. Twilight bolted toward Trixie and slammed her jaws shut on Trixie’s tail, biting the edge clean off and rescuing Rainbow in the process. Trixie stumbled back, blood spraying from her tail stump all over Twilight’s and Trixie’s faces as she raised it to look in shocked disbelief at what Twilight had done to her. Trixie’s face twisted into an enraged snarl and she teleported again. Twilight didn’t even have time to think about how Rainbow was still inside her mouth before she charged toward the ground. Turns out she needn’t have hurried; as Trixie made a beeline for Pinkie Pie, she was intercepted by a solid kick from Applejack that caused her to badly flinch and start hacking up blood. As Twilight landed on the ground between Trixie and the others, Trixie screamed and tried to scratch at Twilight, but Twilight simply grabbed her wrists and made her helpless. “Look at the gashes that Rainbow Dash left on you, Trixie,” Twilight said, using telepathy to communicate her thoughts to Trixie so as not to upset the pony inside her or make her vulnerable to harm. “Size has nothing to do with why you can’t beat me. I’m simply much stronger than you are. Now go home.” Twilight prepared her spell, but her horns crackled and fizzled; she was running out of magic. Trixie took the opportunity to worm her way out of Twilight’s grasp and fly away, and while Twilight tried to take off after her, it became immediately clear that she wasn’t going to reach Trixie. She was too weak. But Trixie wasn’t in any condition to try and pick another fight with her friends, so Twilight would simply have to consider this a draw for right now. Twilight cast one last spell to communicate her intentions to Applejack— that she intended to retreat into the nearby forest to recover her magic— then she crashed into the trees, groaning in pain from how queasy she felt. She begrudgingly accepted that a draw would simply have to do for right now.