Luna makes her way to my side after the four Crescents assemble in the arena. I cross my arms and huff in annoyance. “You know, a three on one isn’t exactly fair.” I state, not bothering to hide my tone.
She gives me a sidelong glance, then smirks. “Well, if it bothers you so, you may stand by his side if you wish. After all, it was your lie that got him into this scenario. So if anything, you should probably be there with him regardless.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “As opposed to what? Watching a friend get locked away for a joke?” I say.
“Relax Null, I jest. I do not hold anything against you for what you did; in fact, I thank you, truly. I meant it when I said Skyline is a friend.” She smiles a bit.
I stand there for a moment before shrugging and pulling my backpack infront of me, and pulling out two bottles full of bright liquids; one yellow and one orange.
Luna watches with interest, and raises an eyebrow of her own at the potions. “While I said you Could keep the potions from Starswirl’s Cache, you do know it is possible to develop an addiction to potions, correct?”
“Well, It wouldn’t exactly be fair on me without these, now would it?” I ask, popping the cork on the yellow one and downing it. Huh… Banana flavored.
She looks at me for a moment before staring at the four other ponies patiently awaiting her order to begin, and nodding. “Given the circumstances, I suppose you are right. However, I’m curious as to why you are only taking a Stamina and Strength Booster; do you not harm yourself with your own eye? Why not the Pain Nullifier as well?” she asks as I’m downing the orange potion.
Putting the empty bottles back in my bag, I pull out my dagger and give it a once over before looking back at Luna. “Couple reasons; one, I’d rather save those for when I really need them. Two, I don’t want it all hitting me at once, like Starlight explained. Three, I’d rather get used to it so when I don’t have potions, I’m not overdoing anything, at least as far as my eye is concerned.” I explain.
She considers this, then nods in understanding. “Fair enough.” she says simply as I set down my bag and make my way over to the dueling circle, standing by Skyline; who for his part, looks as confused as the rest of them.
“Null? What are you doing over here? Shouldn’t you be watching with Luna?” he asks curiously.
“Evening out the playing field a little bit; A one on three doesn’t exactly sit right with me.”
Before he can protest, Luna speaks loudly across the arena. “Null will be standing by Skyline for this clash. He will receive no special treatment in this; I expect you to treat him like you would any other you’d face in a dueling circle. If there are any objections, speak now or hold your peace.”
Skyline looks like he’s about to object, but thinks better of it. “No? Very well then. Begin.” As she says that, the arena dome erects itself and encompasses us, blocking out all visual and audio stimuli from outside of it. Well, I can still see outside of it. But whatever.
We all stand there for a moment, waiting for someone to make the first move. My left eye twinges for a second, and the world takes on a blue hue. But nobody else seems to notice. Thinking it might just be me, I watch as Skyline dashes ahead quickly, and brings his blade to Twisted’s head, intending to remove him early from the fight. However, he’s stronger and faster than he looks, as he easily brings up the haft of his weapon to block the blow.
I was about to run in and try for an attack of my own, when I see a blue version of myself running ahead of me, and towards Twisted as well. I'm startled by this, and even more so when I notice Aria wasn’t where she was, and was currently zipping towards the blue me as Skyline was exchanging blows with Twisted, and Caiuss was preparing runes and seeming to be pumping magic into them.
However, I notice he gets encased in a yellow aura, as well as Skyline and Twisted. Looking back over to myself, I see that the blue me is caught in a red aura and Aria is caught in a blue aura, mere inches from my face with the guard of daggers. I watch myself get carried out of the arena by the red aura, and placed down next to Luna.
My vision is suddenly no longer blue, and I find everyone back in their starting positions. I raise an eyebrow at this, and watch Skyline repeat his exact movements as I saw him do before: going for a quick blow to the side of Twisted’s head, and him blocking it. This time, I ignore my instinct to run in, remembering what I saw, and assuming it would happen again. This time I more clearly notice Aria slinking off to the side and Caiuss beginning to pump magic into his runes. We watch each other closely as Skyline and Twisted exchange blows as they did before.
My vision goes blue again, and I watch her dart at me again. This time, I flinch as she seems to go right through me, and jumps back through me again towards where the blue me now is, which is next to Caiuss and swiftly bringing the palm of my hand to the base of his horn, causing him to recoil, his book to fall to the ground, and his runes to fizzle out. With him blitz’d, the blue me turns and brings my dagger up to block a downwards strike from Aria, knocking her blades to the side, but getting caught in a red aura once again by her reprisal.
The blue vision disappears and once again, everyone is back where they were before that all happened. I repeat the motions I saw myself do, seeing no problem with them up until Aria catches me with her counter. When I get to that part, I blink away. I watch Skyline trying to keep his distance from Twisted, who’s currently doing fast and wide sweeps, each swing seeming to leave a trail of some sort of energy behind. I notice a red glowing spot on his weapon, but don’t have time to think about it at the moment. Skyline quickly takes notice of Caiuss’s debilitated state, and rushes him. Aria realizes this, and rushes to defend while Twisted then rushes me.
My vision once again goes blue, and a couple things happen. Caiuss gets encased in a red aura, Skyline in a blue one, and the rest of us in yellow. Everyone seems to remain focused as Caiuss is carried out of the arena. As the aura’s fade, Aria is now duking it out with her brother, and Twisted is still rushing me. Despite the blue me bringing up the dagger to try and stave it off, a red and blue aura catches us just as it did with Caiuss and Skyline.
So it would have gone clean through my defense...
Starting to get an idea of what’s going on with these visions, I just sorta roll with it, and when it disappears, the events unfold just as I saw once again; this time though, instead of bringing my dagger up, I quickly blast his halberd with my eye and he gets sent flying back. Crashing into the wall, He gets back up quickly and is nearly on top of me again, and I’m also startled when I see Skyline holding back Aria from taking me out as well.
He knocks her to the side, and I blast her with my eye as well to further knock her back, while Skyline wheels around and thrusts his blade towards Twisted, who cannot stop his own momentum. Suddenly we’re all caught in an aura. Oddly enough though, while I’m caught in a red aura, Twisted is in a purple one, and Skyline in a blue one. Both me and Twisted are Carried out of the circle, and the battle resumes, this time in a one on one. The two walk circles around each other and stare each other down.
A voice from my side grabs my attention however. Looking towards the voice, I notice Caiuss still rubbing his horn. “Did you have to blitz me? That really hurts ya know.”
“I’m surprised Skyline didn’t try it first, and even more surprised you didn’t see it coming. Isn’t that one of the best ways to deal with a unicorn?” I say back to him.
“Ha, you’re just upset you got eliminated first ya edge lord.” I hear Twisted say, not even trying to hold back his laughter.
Next to speak is Luna. “frankly, I’m impressed by your reaction speed and decision making. Was it skill? Or sheer dumb luck?”
“I’ll explain later.” I say, turning my attention back to the now clashing blades of Aria and Skyline, running over what happened in my own head, trying to understand it fully; picking up my backpack in the meantime.
The battle goes on for a couple minutes, both of them fiercely matching each other blow for blow. Figures they would, given they’re siblings, but still. It comes to an end however, when they’re both caught in a purple aura, one of Aria’s daggers right at his throat, while Skylines blade is centimeters away from piercing her chest. The two are pulled apart, and placed on the ground, where the dome collapses and allows them to leave.
They walk over to us, and eye me curiously. “You handled yourself better than I expected Null.”
I smile a bit and scratch the back of my head. “Course I did. Though I’m still leagues behind you all. I did have to take some potions to be able to keep up with you guys.” I say.
Caiuss raises an eyebrow at me. “Are you alright? You’re eye…”
“Huh? Oh yeah, the blood. It does that.” I say while wiping it away, having completely forgotten about it in lieu of watching the fight.
Luna clears her throat and all the Crescents stand at attention. “Dismissed, all of you. You are free until next nightfall, upon which you will resume your duties as usual.”
“Finally, drinkin’ time.” Twisted says flippantly, taking off into the air towards the city proper.
Caiuss simply nods to Luna respectfully, and heads into the double doors leading into the castle, going to who knows where.
Skyline and Aria relax, but stay where they are.
I’m about to leave, but Luna clears her throat. “Null. I believe your exact words were, ‘I’ll explain later’. Now seems to be later.” She says with the tone of voice a mother would have when catching their kid up at night trying to steal from the cookie jar.
I turn and give a wry smile. “I did say that. But I never specified when or where. So…. cya!”
I say, blinking away back up to my perch on the mountainside, then through an open window in the front of the castle. I wince in pain at the consecutive long range blinks, wiping the blood away, and make my way to my room, upon which I drop my bag and collapse into bed.
Besides, I’m not sure I quite understand it myself. I mean, I get it, I can see the future a little bit, but how do I trigger it?