//------------------------------// // 1 - 5: about destiny you will ponder // Story: Four Stars // by Moterius //------------------------------// “Ah, there you are,” the copy said, causing Daybreaker to freeze up. She was still in the dungeon but luckily had stopped talking with Nightmare a few minutes ago. “You know, I was meditating earlier… and I noticed some interesting things. Have you noticed that there is magic residue from a teleport in the courtyard from two different ponies?” Daybreaker knew that her copy knew who she was. But she was the one who designed this castle, and she could tell that the mind of her opponent, at last, was different. The dungeons were a zone where teleportation was blocked. Except for her. However, while readying a shield spell, a teleport spell, and a stun spell, she decided to play along. “I have observed the fight and teleported when it became too dangerous. Have I done wrong?” ‘Daybreaker’ chuckled. It was not a friendly chuckle. “No, you have not done wrong, per se. But, you see, I do not like ponies or any creatures for that matter that try to manipulate me,” she said, lowering her head to stare at this world’s Daybreaker. The crimson-and-yellow eyes bore into her now white and red ones. “Did you truly thought I would not notice you? Your magic might be different than it normally is… but it still has the signature of an alicorn.” Shaking her head, she chuckled. “Were you aware that I would have done nothing but left this world would you have given me the chance to? But now, I will not… as it seems like things are getting interesting here.” Out of nowhere, Daybreaker felt something inside of her shatter, and she nearly collapsed, but managed to stand. She suddenly felt so weak… The spells building up in her horn fizzled out at the same time, much to her horror. “What did you do?!” she all but screamed, taking a few steps backward. “Oh, I just took the ‘me’ out from you,” her copy responded, causing Daybreaker’s eyes to widen. Looking down at herself, she could tell that she had… changed. The illusion she placed on herself this morning broke, and she was now wearing golden horseshoes instead of crimson ones. Her mane had reverted to the weak form she once had, but luckily, she could feel the spells placed on her mind. At least her spirit would not be touched like this. “You know…” the double started again, causing Daybreaker’s head to whip back at her copy. “…if you find it in yourself to honestly apologize, I will give you back what I have taken,” she said, causing Daybreker’s eyes to widen. “With every passing second I stay in this world though, I can tell that it influences me… so, if I were you, I would do so before I become what you see as your ideal for yourself,” she responded, giving her a long, piercing look, before teleporting. Probably to deal with the dragons. “What will you do?” Daybreaker sighed, using the reduced amount of magic her original form had to reapply her disguise. “I don’t know, Nightmare. I really don’t know…” However, before Daybreaker could move, the ground shook, and she could hear the screech of dragons. Shrugging, she teleported away as well, noticing how it felt somewhat more pleasant than with her usual magic. Maybe some sort of side effect from having a boost in magic power? (DB) I was annoyed at the dragons. Bordering on anger. I noticed ‘Celestia’ teleport up on a nearby tower. Grinning and winking at her, I then turned to face the dragons – releasing a beam of blue flames, severing the right wing of one of the dragons. The others tried to claw at me, but I dodged them, and when they tried again, I turned myself into flames. I knew that wounds inflicted on my form would reappear when reforming, but they did not. I could sense something swell up in me while flying and ‘teleporting’ around the dragons. It was as if some sort of hidden energy well deep inside of me had just shown itself, and it was boiling with dark emotions. Since I realized that this was to me what ‘Daybreaker’ was to ‘Celestia’, I made sure to keep a lid on it. I had no intention of this energy overpowering my mind – it might help me win a battle, but I would end up losing in the long term. However, doing so proved to be a fatal distraction, and a claw scraped along my back, throwing me in the stone below that was the palace of Canterlot. I blacked out for a second, but then found myself fully healed, and slightly higher, standing in the rubble. My strength was clearly increased, and I felt completely refreshed, but I also realized that the energy I had tried to keep under control had ended up flowing into me. My judgment was probably completely useless now, so I decided to only attack dragons unless I was threatened directly. That way, I could probably prevent killing anyone that did not deserve it while staying in this form. One might wonder how I realized what had happened with my mind, but going from only ‘fighting off the dragons’ to ‘kill anything that looks at you funny’ in your mind was a quite good indicator that something was wrong. Alas, I only decided to take my anger out on the dragons. I shot up, my hoof slamming into and breaking the jaw of the dragon that hit me. “Not a bad hit, admittedly. But now? Now I’m angry,” I responded, powering up my horn and summoning the plasma of the sun again. The dragon’s flame resistance might be incredibly high, but the flames of the sun quickly washed away their magic and started to burn their scales. Of course, they quickly left where the stream of plasma was falling down, not stupid enough to stay in place and get roasted. For a moment, I wondered about my next course of action, but then I got a quite good idea of how to deal with the dragons. I summoned the flames of the sun again. But instead of just throwing it at them, I created a Warhammer out of it, launching myself forwards with a beat of my strengthened wings, and arriving at the first, surprised dragon with nearly half the speed of sound, swinging the hammer around with a similar speed. Not having the time to block the hammer, the dragon blasted me with flames, but they just blocked my vision and were not enough to stop me from hitting the dragon. “I’m a being made from flames and magic. I do not believe I can be beaten with flames or magic,” I responded drily, slamming the hammer down on his head a second time, causing him to pass out and start to fall. Turning to the smaller dragons, I then gave a sinister, fanged smile. “Who’s next?” Seeing the dragons flee, Daybreaker decided it was time to fly up to her mirror image, wondering how she recovered so fast. However, she quickly realized what had happened – the magic aura of the pony hovering there had changed to what it was before. Only a little, but it had changed, and Daybreaker remembered what this change in one’s magical aura meant. She had turned into her primal form. ‘Daybreaker’, however, was supposed to already be a primal form. This was confusing for her, but it made sense considering the comment her ‘copy’ had given earlier. That she never was ‘Celestia’. “I suspected you would come to take a look,” she spoke up, startling Daybreaker. “Come. Celestia.” Daybreaker froze but then realized that right now, she looked like she did a millennium ago. Magenta eyes, and aurora-like mane, not intimidating at all. She grimaced, but she also knew that she would not dare to speak up to someone that was that much more powerful than she was. “Tell me, how did it feel when I took away your powers?” Realizing she was asking that question to return herself to her normal, less powerful, and less intimidating form – granted, a flaming mane was intimidating, but a being twice as high as she usually was could be counted as intimidating as well. Also, if personal experience taught her anything, then her stronger copy was having the same problems as she once had – a murderous intent, primed on killing everyone around her. She herself eventually got a hold of it, but it took her a few years, and she came more than once close to killing the ponies near her. Considering the strength of the pony hovering in front of her, Daybreaker was not sure if her copy could stop herself in time were she to accidentally attack someone… As such, both for fear if she lied, and for fear for her own safety, she decided to answer truthfully. “It felt as if you suppressed something inside of me, then pulled it out. At the same time, I felt like I was remembering how it felt to touch things, even though that sense was not impeded at all in my real form,” she said, getting her copy to nod. “That is enough.” After a moment of concentration, the sun painted on her opponent’s chest faded, and the statue of the pony in front of her became ‘normal’ again. “Now, have you decided?” For a moment, Daybreaker wondered what her copy meant, before remembering what was told to her earlier. She would have to sincerely apologize… and her copy knew for sure that she could not do that as Daybreaker. “Fine!” she snarled, tugging at the strings that made up the enchantments on her mind, dispelling them. She felt something change in her but then sighed, looking back up. “I’m sorry! There! Satisfied?” Her copy shrugged. “Yes. Alas, I cannot give you back your power.” Daybreaker blanched. “You promised!” “Ah, but I never took it from you. I just made it harder for you to turn back into your ‘evil’ self. Power is not evil, Celestia, but it can corrupt you very easily. I usually have companions that hold me back, but since I ended up here, I found my heart growing cold.” Eyes devoid of emotion turned to Daybreaker, staring deep into her soul. “Your heart is still there. Otherwise, your pride would have held you back. You still worry a little, feel a little. Let me warn you, Celestia: Never forget or forgoes what emotion you still have,” she said, causing Daybreaker to feel quite uncomfortable. Lighting up her horn, the copy teleported herself and Daybreaker back to the dungeon. “Nightmare, or should I say, Luna. At this point, I do not really care.” “What do you want?” Nightmare hissed at the copy. “The spell you used against me. You may not know it, but it feels very similar. If I have the spell, I can leave, leaving this world back in your and your sister’s hooves. Oh, and I probably should warn you.” “HAH! Warn us? What for?!” The copy narrowed her eyes at Nightmare. “The return of the demon is neigh, Chaos will rule, order will cease. For a day, power held high, Not earlier the world will be released.” It took but a second for both queens to understand the message behind those words… “And if you don’t give me that spell, I’ll help him win.” Now THAT was a compelling argument. “Nice to see I haven’t even changed in other worlds,” Daybreaker snarked, having reassumed her real form sometime during the following day. Her copy shrugged. “In some. In others, your roles are reversed. In others, none of you are alicorns. In some, Daybreaker and Celestia, as well as Nightmare and Luna are separate entities. Most variations that could exist of this world do exist,” she responded, tilting her head. “In one, Discord stands for ORDER of all things.” The three ponies all shuddered while imagining that. “Will you pester us again?” Nightmare asked, still quite annoyed by the copy’s questions. She in turn shook her head. “Probably not. Unless you want me to, that is.” Using her magic on a nearby rock, it got infused with her magic, adapting a spiraling pattern depicting a sun. A tether of magic connected it with the copy. “If you ever require my aid, you can use that to send a request per dragonfire. Be warned, it will only transport ink, paper, and papyrus.” Nightmare couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “And why would you leave something like this with us? Couldn’t we use this to attack you with tracking magic?” The copy shrugged. “Well, if you do, there’s a high chance I will have enough time to make this world’s sun either explode or make it collide with the planet. You have nothing you could threat me with, really.” Fuming with frustration, Nightmare had to accept that the pony in front of her was right, but she then felt that anger being suppressed by the copy’s magic. “I do not plan on returning here. There are enough worlds so that every one of us will find enough space for themselves. Now, I wonder where that sister of mine is?” “Which one?” Daybreaker asked, remembering the different magics she had felt on the alicorn earlier. Her copy blinked again. “Well, you’re surprisingly sharp. The golden one, of course – she was the first to exist, and she is the one who determines where we meet,” she responded, giving a real, serene smile for the first time since Daybreaker had seen her. “I believe I should be off. After all, while I would like to have the resources of a nation available to myself, I still know that those are yours, not mine. And while not as strong as me, you come close thanks to your experience and link with this world’s sun – whose power you could have wrangled from me at any point in time. Also, I want to see them again,” she said, her horn glowing and ripping open a hole in the fabric of reality. It looked wrong, for lack of a better term. Nightmare peered into it, then reeled back. “WHAT was THAT?!” The copy raised an eyebrow. “Wow, you actually looked. I’m impressed, you still seem as sane and lucid as before. Or maybe you just got lucky?” Daybreaker tilted her head, curious, but a bit shocked that her sister would react like that. Noticing this, her copy once again told her what happened. “If you peer in the void, it peers back. What did you expect?” “Just go…” Nightmare said, her eye twitching. “I guess I’ll do just that. Ciao!” the copy said, jumping in the portal backward, making it look like she threw herself at the wall, before vanishing with it from existence. Nightmare then turned to her sister. “Now then, Daybreaker, I believe you have something that belongs to me.” Daybreaker’s eye twitched. “You will not get anything from me!” And once again, their horns locked in eternal battle, the sisters once again forgetting everything else, including the two days a different Daybreaker ruled, and the prophecy of Discord’s return. If one were to listen carefully, they could hear a low chuckle from the chaos demon’s stone prison. Because here, he was no longer a spirit – the sisters had fought so much and bought so much calamity that he had become even more powerful than before. They haven’t figured that out – yet.