Garden Gate made sure to keep her breathing slow and steady as she crept through the mist.
It was one of many techniques that she’d picked up while trying to survive in Vanhoover. Not only did deep breaths help with the fatigue of continued vigorous motion, they were also quieter than if she’d been panting. Little things like that had often made the difference between life and death when she’d been trying to avoid danger.
Except right now, I am the danger. The thought brought a wry grin to her face, knowing that only a short time ago, comparing herself to the ghouls that had infested Vanhoover would have crippled her with guilt and shame. But no longer; those feelings had been a part of Fencer, and that wasn’t who she was anymore. As Garden Gate, she could take the skills she’d learned during her descent into ruthlessness and use them to help others. That was something else that Lex had given her when he’d put her on the path to redemption.
Even if Aria was the one who came up with putting them to use like this.
As unpleasant as Aria was, Garden had to admit that her plan was brilliant. First a spell to track our positions, then she calls out Starlight’s location so I can get the jump on her…after she claps the proper code. That last part was the most ingenious, since it prevented Starlight from knowing where Garden would attack from. To come up with a scheme like this, Lex must be rubbing off on her, she decided, before wincing at the inadvertent double entendre she’d made, recalling that incredibly uncomfortable conversation she’d had with Aria several days ago outside of Lex’s bedroom. Not what I need to be thinking about right now!
Three claps suddenly rang out, the code for “switch the numbers you hear,” followed by the sound of Aria’s voice. “Fifteen feet back, ten feet left!”
Taking a moment to orient herself so she was facing toward the sound of Aria’s voice – another part of Aria’s plan, since terms like “back” or “left” were meaningless without a point of reference – Garden quickly decoded the instructions. Ten feet back, fifteen feet to my left! Without hesitation, she turned and hurried in that direction, raising her knives as she moved.
But Starlight had already fled by the time she got there, leaving nothing but a rapid swirl of fog as evidence of her quick retreat.
Garden bit back a grunt of frustration, not wanting to take the chance that Starlight was still close enough to hear it. Still, this was the third time now that Starlight had moved – apparently in a random direction – as soon as she’d heard Aria call out instructions. It was a flaw in their strategy that was delaying their efforts to bring the deranged mare down.
Delaying. Not defeating.
At some point, Starlight would mess up. With no way to effectively counterattack, she was moving blindly, which meant that she was just dragging out the inevitable. With all of the wounds she’d already taken, Starlight would eventually tire herself out, at which point the battle would effectively be over. I’ll be able to get her staff away from her then, and maybe one good hit on her horn just to make sure.
Of course, all of this would have been over by now if she’d been able to get a clean hit on Starlight’s horn before, but even with the advantage of attacking from concealment, that had proven to be too difficult to manage. Unicorns learned from a young age to protect their most vulnerable point, and with Aria’s announcement of each impending attack, Starlight was on guard even if she didn’t know where Garden was coming from. That, and there seemed to be some sort of odd resistance whenever Garden had gotten a hit in, as though Starlight was wrapped in some sort of thick, invisible cloth…
“Up!”
The sound of Aria’s voice, this time not preceded by clapping, made Garden stop, wondering if she’d heard correctly. But her doubts were dispelled a moment later as Aria’s voice came again. “She’s flying straight up!”
“And you’re going down!” roared Starlight’s voice a moment later.
Then came the sound of Aria crying out in pain.
Step one, Starlight knew, is to get out of this fog.
She briefly considered using a cloudwalking spell, but discarded that idea almost immediately. That would have let her climb on top of the mist that Aria had summoned, but then she’d have been vulnerable to Garden attacking her from below. And Starlight was through being a practice dummy for that nag to sharpen her knives on.
Teleporting would have been a better idea, but not by much. Since Starlight had no intention of quitting the field, that meant she’d need to keep it short-range. But with no easy way to tell how far the bank of fog extended, moving a short distance ran the risk of ending up in just another patch of mist, which would be pointless. Cutting loose was one thing; wasting her energy was another.
Instead, Starlight wrapped herself in her telekinetic aura, and propelled herself straight up.
She emerged from the fog bank almost immediately. Now outside of it, a glance down made it clear that it hadn’t been very big at all, only a few dozen feet in diameter and not even ten feet in height. They were herding me, she realized. Attacking from whatever direction would drive me back toward the center of the fog!
The thought made her growl, and she swung her head around, spotting Aria immediately. The insufferable mare was gawking up at her, clearly not having expected her enemy to be able to take to the skies. “Up!” she yelped a moment later, obviously calling out to where Garden Gate was still hiding in the fog. “She’s flying straight up!”
“And you’re going down!” yelled Starlight, her frustration with the pigtailed pony boiling over as she poured power into her horn. The aura around it grew correspondingly brighter, and it was only belatedly that Starlight remembered to point her staff at Aria, catching a glimpse of Sonata and the other equalized ponies watching her out of the corner of her eye.
Then she unleashed a heavy blast of magic straight at the troublesome Siren.
Aria tried to dodge it, throwing herself to the side even as she started to atonally sing another spell, but she wasn’t fast enough. Starlight’s magic caught her directly in the side, hitting her with enough force that her body dug a furrow into the dirt as she was knocked back, turning her tone-deaf singing into a scream of pain. Despite Aria not having her cutie mark anymore, Starlight found that the sound was music to her ears, to the point that she couldn’t resist taunting her. “You brought this on yourself! I just wanted to be friends, but you turned it into a fight!”
“How about…” panted Aria, climbing to her hooves, “I give you…a little something…to make up for it!” She quickly song another off-key tune, and before Starlight had a chance to try and disrupt her casting, several small points of light appeared, streaking toward her.
They made it to within a foot of her before Starlight raised a shield, smirking as she watched them shatter against it. “Sorry, those aren’t really my style. I much prefer something like THIS!” Without hesitation, Starlight threw another heavy magical blast slammed down at Aria, bigger than before. Too injured to get out of the way, the Siren didn’t have a chance to so much as cry out as the magical attack engulfed her, the force of it driving her further into the dirt.
Off to the side, Sonata was yelling something, but Starlight ignored her, trusting that the others would keep her in check. Instead, she floated back down to the ground – telekinetic flight wasn’t hard by itself, especially when she had accelero to help boost her speed, but keeping it up while casting other spells was taxing even for her – casually strolling over to where Aria had fallen. A little persuadere now that she’s unconscious should do the trick, she decided. Then she’ll be-
“Nn…nngh…”
Starlight tensed as Aria began to stir, but relaxed just as quickly as the other mare’s eyes fluttered open, the Siren clearly clinging to consciousness only by a thread. “I’m impressed you’re still awake,” Starlight admitted. “But right now, I think it’s time for you to take a little nap.” Bringing her staff around, she pointed the forked end of it right at Aria’s face. “Don’t worry. Once you wake up, you’ll see things my way.”
Aria’s eyes shifted for just a moment, looking at something behind her, and it was only because Starlight had cast a spell to increase her reaction speed that she was able to respond in time. Not bothering to turn around, she spun her staff in a half-circle, reversing its direction as she pointed the forked end directly behind her and fired. A half-second later, she glanced back…
…to see Garden Gate, her face twisted into a snarl and her knives raised, now encased in a large block of ice.
“I almost forgot about you,” snickered Starlight. “Almost. But you know what they say: attack me from behind once, shame on you. Attack me from behind twice, shame on-”
The sound of off-key singing from behind her made Starlight realize that she was more correct than she’d intended.
Aria finished her spell in the same instant that Starlight teleported away, unleashing a sonic scream through the space where the crazy unicorn had been just a fraction of a second earlier. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Starlight reappear less than a dozen feet away, letting out a gasp of relief at the near miss.
But Aria hadn’t been aiming for her to begin with.
An instant later, the block of ice containing Garden Gate shattered into a thousand pieces, and Aria had the spiteful pleasure of watching Starlight’s expression turn into one of horrified realization as the vermillion mare was released from her frozen prison.
“STARLIGHT GLIMMER!” bellowed Garden furiously as she charged, knives whipping forward.
Her eyes wide and her teeth pulled back in a grimace, Starlight’s answer was a mangled shriek of disbelief as she fell back beneath the furious onslaught, bringing her staff up in a desperate defense. But Garden was going all-out now, advancing in a fury as her blades zipped back and forth. With each pass, new wounds opened on Starlight’s body, staining more of her purple coat dark red.
But the assault ended as quickly as it began when Starlight suddenly rose back into the air, visibly straining as she shot upward. Cursing, Garden sent her knives flying after her, but once they were past the end of her hooves it was easy to see that her degree of fine manipulation with them plunged, Starlight easily batting away attacks that had danced past her defenses before. Even so, the bloodied pony rose up higher, until she was several dozen feet off the ground, safely beyond Garden’s ability to easily injure her.
From her position above the battlefield, Starlight took several deep breaths, her features slowly contorting into a look of rage. “YOU TWO DON’T SEEM TO GET IT!” she screamed, incensed. “THIS BATTLE IS OVER!!!”
Her declaration wasn’t idle, as she raised her staff above her head, her eyes glowing bright white. The aura surrounding her flared, making her mane and tail wave in a non-existent breeze as a bright ball of energy gathered between the forks of her staff.
Backing up so she was standing next to where Aria was still lying on the ground, Garden didn’t take her eyes off of Starlight. “Tell me you know a spell that can help with this!”
“Just one.” Somehow managing to sing a quick tune despite the pain she was in, Aria reached out and tapped Garden on the flank. “There.”
Blinking, the other mare glanced between her and where Starlight was preparing to unleash magical devastation on them. “…And?!”
“Flight spell,” rasped Aria. “She won’t expect you to charge her up there.”
“What? But I can’t-”
“You can, now do it! Before she finishes us off!”
For a moment Garden hesitated, then Aria saw her face settle into a determined expression. Looking back up at Starlight – who by now had an uncomfortably large ball of magical power gathered, glowing as brightly as her eyes – Garden crouched down, as though preparing to leap. And then she lunged upward…and kept going.
Barely able to move, Aria could only watch as Garden shot toward Starlight, barely able to see the other unicorn’s face contort in surprise as she realized she wasn’t so unreachable after all. She held her breath as she saw Starlight struggle to bring her staff down, trying to unleash the huge attack before Garden reached her. At the same time, Garden reached back with her forelegs, her knives hovering just beyond the ends of them, preparing to cut Starlight down to size once and for all.
She didn’t quite make it in time.
Starlight was barely able to get her breath back as she slowly lowered herself to the ground.
That was too close. Aria casting some sort of flight spell on Garden Gate had caught her completely off-guard. Other than using telekinesis, which Garden hadn't been since there'd been no aura around her, Starlight only knew of one spell that could make somepony fly, and it was an incredibly fragile bit of magic, creating butterfly wings out of gossamer and morning dew. Aria’s spell hadn’t resulted in anything so obvious or so delicate, and as a result Garden Gate had come very close to knocking her out of the sky.
But close doesn’t count, Starlight reassured herself as she touched down. Her knees felt like jelly, her lungs felt like they were burning, and her horn ached, to say nothing off the cuts all over her body. But despite how beat up she felt, Starlight couldn’t help but smile.
After all, as bad as she felt right now, she knew that Aria and Garden Gate were far worse off.
A glance over at the smoking crater that they were lying in confirmed that much. The two of them were still breathing, but that was the best that could be said for them. Sprawled out on top of each other, it was obvious that neither would be getting up again for quite a while. Which means that I have time to take a little break, Starlight decided, flopping down onto her back.
Staring upward, Starlight took a moment to appreciate how silent everypony was in the aftermath of the battle. As awed – or perhaps frightened – as even Sonata and the others seemed to be, Starlight couldn’t bring herself to care. She was going to need every moment of rest she could get between now and when Lex showed up, since there was no way he could have missed that last exchange. But until he arrives, I’m going to just lie here and enjoy the warm weather, clear blue sky, and…huh, that’s odd.
Despite it being the middle of the day, there was an owl, of all things, circling overhead.