//------------------------------// // Subject 108: Her Dying Light // Story: Interviews With Equestrians // by Jmaster49 //------------------------------// The unicorn was surrounded on both sides by two ponies. There was no reasonable way for her to escape this situation without suffering major damage. Of course, the intent was not to kill her. Another loss of life would be far too great if it occurred so readily, plus we needed her for evidence regarding this scenario involving Neighsay and his experiments. So there was quite a bit at stake here and it was all determined on how well Quick and I fought together after being away from each other for so long. So that was just great, you know? “Enough of this!” Fleur shouted with an annoyed growl, “You will not stop me from achieving ultimate beauty!” Quick Draw snapped back with a deft response. “Yeah, uh, no offense--but you’re acting hella ugly right about now. I sure as shit wouldn’t want my daughter to see you as a role model--if I had one.” “Yeah that’s a pretty disgusting way to act,” I added, “You’d do well to allow us to help you. You’re prettier than this when you’re being yourself for your fans.” Sadly this wasn’t enough for her. Fleur shot back with a snide comment. “Oh please! A stallion like you would never appreciate true beauty if it hit you right in the face!” Her horn started to swell again. She was getting ready to fire something off! “Well, I’ll make you learn here and now!” A hot pink beam of magic was fired from her horn. With my sensory capabilities, I was just able to dodge roll out of the way in time, but I couldn’t exactly counter the attack since I was too far away. Okay, it was time to get moving. “Pale!” Quick shouted from her end of the field, “You okay?” “That was a nut hair away from taking my whole goddamn face off!” I replied with a disgruntled groan. Our ability to communicate was made extremely difficult since Fleur would be able to hear everything we said to each other. Unless...oh! Please put those hooves to work, Quick. For the love of all things Luna. All I could do for the moment was dash and dodge in a zig-zag pattern to throw off Fleur’s spellcasting. From there, the planning was all on Quick. While I couldn’t read her mind, somehow, it felt as if she managed to catch on. One of her daggers were flung tip-first into the ground near Fleur. “Hey bitch!” she shouted, “C’mon, pick your poison. You don’t wanna waste your time with him. Take me on. He’s not worth it.” The bluff worked, and it caused the corrupted unicorn to turn around. “Oh? You think you have a chance of matching my beauty?” Once again, Quick twiddled a knife upon her hoof. “Heh. I know I can. I don’t need a fancy horn to make myself look good,” she said as she stretched out each of her hind legs--one by one. “I’m already the hottest thing around. You couldn’t handle me if you tried.” With comebacks like that, there was very little room for error. As expected of Quick to always bait her enemy. Lesson One: Always strike first. “Ohohoho!” Fleur cackled, and rubbed her hoof against the dirt like a bull ready to charge. “You’ve made a really bad mistake!” Enraged, the unicorn fired off horn blast after horn blast with no sense of finesse or direction. With Quick’s skills, she was able to easily avoid each attack with swift, elegant dodges that enabled her to escape each attack unscated. “Jeez,” she mumbled while she bent over backwards to avoid a pink blast that hit a tree and turned it to ash, “Can you even magic? My grandma could hit better shots than you!” The comments only fueled the monstrous aspects of Fleur even more. A dark, black and purple aura started to surround her body like a flame. “Grrr! Your insolence as an insipid, insignificant ingrate! I’ll do anything to ensure that nopony will make fun of me ever again! I’ll be the most beautiful! Stallions will only want me! Ahahahaha!” I was about to jump in, but I halted myself. Something about what she said had resonated with me. If I could somehow exploit that weakness, and draw the darkness out of her. Yes, that would allow us to isolate the problem without having to damage, and potentially harm her. Fleur was the victim in this situation--a victim of a power she clearly underestimated and could not control. She didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of full force attacks. So we had to be smart. And just as I expected, Quick Draw knew this as well. She was closing in on Fleur now as she continued to bob, weave, roll, and evade each magical shot that emitted from the unicorn’s horn. But her movements were not with intent to kill. It was something else. “Oh that’s just rich,” she snarked back, “The model industry doesn’t give a damn about you as an individual. Just your looks, you dumbass.” “I...no...never!” Fleur shouted back with a stomp of her hooves, “You are just--” But she was cut off. Quick Draw had performed enough evasive maneuvers to run up, and approach the unicorn. With her dagger held tightly in her hoof and poised to strike the back of her neck, Quick had manufactured a stalemate between the two of them for the moment. Neither could move or act lest they risk attacking each other. “Once you shrivel up and age, they’ll move onto the next hot young mare that they can exploit for money and views,” Quick explained with her hoof on the mare’s shoulder, “You’re nothing at the end of the day. Nothing but money for greedy managers and executives to mooch off of. If you wanna set an example of real beauty, start doing charity work, raise awareness of social issues, become a public speaker. Do something worth a damn to more than just yourself.” For the first time since our interaction, Fleur had no real response. No witty banter, no sharp words. Nothing. All she did was freeze in place--likely to contemplate what she was just told. Huzzah. It worked. “You...think I’m wasting my life?” she asked--she spoke with her normal voice instead of the monstrous tone she had acquired from the rune that was placed upon her. Quick simply rolled her eyes, and stood on her hind legs. In a flash, she spun the mare around in a hostage-esque chokehold with her dagger primed to cleave the white unicorn’s neck. “Hmph. It’s not up to me to determine how somepony else lives their life. I’m well within my right to comment on it, though. And I think models are a cancer upon society. They propose unrealistic beauty standards on little fillies and cause them to grow up focusing on nothing but their looks. Granted--not all models are bad. You do have a few here and there who use their looks to push a message of positivity, but the modelling industry is a piece of shit that--as I said before--seeks out the prettiest young mare they can reap upon, and steal her life from her to make money. And then? When she gets older and her looks start to fade, they toss her aside like trash, and move right onto the next one. They don’t care about you--Fleur-De-Lis. All they want is your body. Do you feel comfortable with that? Do you??” “I...I...I don’t…” The unicorn couldn’t form a proper sentence. I could feel it. The power of the rune was being pushed back. Quick’s words had finally managed to get through to her! Now it was my turn to step in. We had to draw out that demonic presence within her body so she could return to normal. I trotted forward. Fluer’s eyes returned to their normal shade of soft purple. But now they were filled with unbridled terror as she shivered softly and refused to look at me directly. “Hey now,” I said as I neared her, “We’re not going to hurt you. You just need to understand where your life is headed. Yes--I understand that you want to retain your good looks forever. Unfortunately, that’s simply not possible. Looks come and go, but who we are is eternal.” I looked at Quick, and held up a hoof to get her to ease up with the dagger. She didn’t drop her guard, but Quick did loosen her grip somewhat. “But I…” Fleur finally responded on a barely audible level, “I don’t want everypony to make fun of me...not again.” I tilted my head. “Make fun of you? Just why would they do that?” “I...when I was little…I wasn’t very smart. I wore glasses and was made fun of for always failing the most basic of questions all the way through middle school,” she explained with a teary set of eyes. I could feel her aura. It was earnest and sincere. This was critical information that she clearly never shared with anypony else. “Math and advanced magic were my worst subjects, and I never knew how to answer the problems as well as the other ponies. It was simply too hard for me.” “You don’t know how to do basic levitation? Lame!” “The homework was so easy too!” “I….I’m sorry, I…” she backed away as the other students laughed at her. “Then one day, in junior high, I tripped, and my glasses fell off my face…” “Woah, are you okay?” a young stallion helped her up. “Yeah...I’m alright, hehe.” He levitated her glasses to her, but stopped midway through. “Woah...you’re…” “I’m...what?” He blushed, and simply offered them to her. “I wh-nothing! I didn’t say anything!” She put her glasses back on, and some other young stallion students rounded the corner. “Hey, Fancy! Are you talkin’ to the dummy girl?” “That’s so crazy. She has glasses but has the lowest grades in the class!” ‘Fancy’ sided with his friends for the moment. “Yeah uh...naw, I was just waiting on you guys! Hang on!” He left with his friends but shot Fleur a wink as he left. “So I figured...if I ditched my glasses and embraced how pretty I was, I could get other students to do my work for me. And from then on...I embraced it, became a model--shunned everypony else, and used my appearance to acquire my fame.” She looked down at the ground. “But the way this mare...Ms. Draw was it? The way she has described the industry to me is...quite the eye-opener.” We weren’t therapists, but we did what we could. For now though, I was more interested in cleansing her body of that disgusting magic that had been applied. But wait, how was I going to go about that, exactly? Quick proposed a solution. “...FDL, do you finally start to understand your own flaws and how destructive they can be? In pursuit of your own selfish desires, you nearly hurt all of your fans and other innocent ponies.” The unicorn nodded slowly. “I do...I’ll...I’ll do my best to break out of this. I promise.” “...Sorry for what I’m about to do,” Quick commented. In a swift motion, she used her dagger to cut a tiny slit in the mare’s skin on the side of her neck where the run was located. Nowhere near enough to cause lasting pain or bleeding. “Owwww…what...what is...wh…” The dark essence of the rune started to seep out of her body. Once it had all exited, the symbol disappeared, and Fleur passed out. But her aura was still active--she was alive. However...once the black and purple miasma had finished leaving her body, it floated in the air for a moment. I reached a hoof out to it, but it suddenly became violent. “GET DOWN!” I shouted! We--with Quick holding onto Fleur’s limp body--dove behind a nearby boulder to shield ourselves from the explosion of miasma. After a moment, we both left the safety of our defense to find... A dragon-like monster with stony gray skin, purple eyes, and bat wings. All in all? It was the size of a damn house! “Holy shit,” I mumbled, “A gargoyle...just like...no, it can't be!” “The buck?” Quick growled as she stepped up next to me, “Thought these things went extinct hundreds of years ago!” I scoffed, and readied my blaster once more. “Tch. We can figure out how the hell Neighsay managed to summon one later. Right now, we need to focus on bringing it down.” But before I could add another thought, I heard a familiar voice. “WIND SLASH!” This was followed by an orange pegasus that flew in with an excessive amount of gale force to stagger the beast before it could even attack us. “GRRRRRAH!” “Heh...what’s up, guys?” he addressed us both. “Cork?!” Quick Draw yelped, “How are you--” She shook her head, and took out two of her knives. “Gah, nevermind that. Help us beat this thing.” “That’s what I’m here for,” he smirked at the both of us, “Now it’s really like old times, huh, pops?” I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yes...hehe. It is. Let’s go, you two.” Officer Academy’s Team 10 had returned.