//------------------------------// // 004. A Tainted Soul and the Harbinger of Fire // Story: Spirit of the Arcane // by DuskIsGolden //------------------------------// 004. A Tainted Soul and the Harbinger of Fire It wasn't long after taking merely four steps before Trixie looked back at the three dead ponies laying in the dirt and her eyes suddenly widened and she felt bile rise at the back of her throat. She felt the pain of all of her wounds and she vomited in the middle of the street, collapsing sideways. It was here she finally realized the gravity of her mistake, but she had no recollection of the event at all. All she knew is that she came into an argument, came out of an argument, leaving three ponies she didn't even know dead. Why?... How did I do this?... she thought between her endless sobs, I don't even... wha- how- no... I didn't do this! I couldn't have! While she lay in the street, a few of the onlookers came up to her and one raised a hoof to kick her, but the other stopped him before another hoof could damage the mare's body. "Young mare," he started, unsure of how to go about talking to the mare who had just seconds before skillfully killed three strangers, "what in the world was that all about?" Trixie continued sobbing, and the Stallion only sighed and looked at his companion. "I don't know what to do with the mare," he stated, glancing back at Trixie, "should she be exiled? Killed?" the Stallion's companion shook his head. "No, she is sobbing. Deranged killers don't sob after they go on a murdering spree," he said, glancing at the Stallion. The companion briefly folded his wings and continued, asking Trixie, "So? What was that all about?" Trixie's sobbing stopped for a moment as she struggled to regain her emotions. "I don't... I don't know..." she muttered, "I don't remember any of it," the Pegasus rolled his eyes and looked at the Stallion. "I'd send her back to wherever she came from. Obviously something didn't go as planned or something happened to her," the Stallion shrugged. "Whatever you wanna do is perfectly fine, I'm staying here-" and just as the Pegasus started helping Trixie back on her hooves and walking with her, the Stallion barked, "And you! You are staying right here," * * * Absinthe paced around in circles as she thought of why Trixie was dead set on trying to win a duel- with the obvious consequences, she wasn't sure if Trixie was up to the task of doing it solely by herself. If she did end up killing her opponent, then the nail of insanity has already reached her, Absinthe thought depressingly. She sighed, but suddenly a ripple shuddered through the room, and a small bird flew down from the rafters. "What the hell are you doing here!?" she yelled at it, and it gave a dumb look at her with its beady-black eyes. She glared at it and it glared back for several seconds before ruffling its wings and replying, "I'm just admiring is all. You know how it is, don't you? I've already learned my full share of the magic, now I simply just get to watch," Absinthe sighed and retorted, "Ignatius, if you kill me here, you'll be trapped in this limited space with no way to go back," the bird seemed shocked, but only in a mocking manner. "Oh, no!" he cried out in mocking pain, and his body exploded, but his essence remained behind as his body slowly began reconstructing his normal self, "why, I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention to me," he continued, pacing around his old opponent, "because I have learned a few tricks of my own," Absinthe raised her eyebrows in confusion as Ignatius continued speaking, "You don't already know?" he chuckled deeply, "I've learned to trap myself into the souls of ponies new to the art of magic. It's quite cunning, really, all one needs to do is find himself a comfortable place in a limited space," he said the last few words slowly and articulate and grinned madly. "Oh, Trixie's soul was perfect for the job. Ripe, pure, and in all essences, now tainted as well." he eyed the door as if he expected it to suddenly fly open and Trixie walk through, but he only continued, staring at Absinthe, who's jaw had dropped to the floor, "The way I could simply control her! It was all in good fun, plus now she'll truly never be the same," Ignatius noted Absinthe's words and Absinthe narrowed her eyes. "You rat cat bastard!" she screamed, "why did you do that!?" Ignatius' face contorted into thinking and he replied calmly, "All in good fun, dear," Absinthe gawked angrily as her opponent eyed the doors again. "I see that you take great pride in your newest student, Absinthe," he continued, "and to that I'm grateful you've given me the opportunity to have a new pawn to play with..." as he finished, Trixie walked through the door, exhaustion and fear trickling into her voice. "Absinthe?..." she whispered nearly inaudibly, "what's going on?..." Absinthe looked back at her student and sadness nearly overwhelmed her. "Trixie, I have... business to attend to, please, maybe you should go home and rest," Absinthe struggled to say something to avert her student, but Trixie stood firm, standing in the doorway. "Absinthe, something horrible happened while I was out..." Absinthe glanced back at Ignatius, who slowly paced around her and stood between Trixie and her mentor. "Oh, did it now?" Ignatius stated proudly, "did it feel like you... weren't quite yourself?" Trixie suddenly looked up at the speaker, and Ignatius smiled darkly. "Your mentor doesn't believe in the really dark side of things as much as I do," and before Trixie could do anything, Ignatius summon a Cat-O'-Nine-Tails of his own and threw them back, all piercing Absinthe in some place. She shrieked and collapsed, small red lines of blood dripping slowly out of her body, to which he briefly turned around and noted to Absinthe, "Now, dear old worthy opponent, how will you fight now? It appears you are... partially disabled," Absinthe glared, but Ignatius managed to throw her back against the library's walls before turning back to Trixie, who was beginning to summon the soul-shattering spell she had stolen from the innocent soul of the pony her tainted soul had told her to kill. She glanced at Ignatius, but he, too, threw her back against the wall and walked up to her. "What makes you think you're going to win this one, hm?" he inquired, staring at Trixie. Trixie glared back and yelled, "I could kill you! For my mentor, I will murder you! Right here!" Ignatius' eyes fluttered with a hint of darkness and he smiled, nearly laughing. He turned back away and picked up Absinthe's almost lifeless body and slid her towards the center of the room where the clockwork mechanism was slowly beginning to die. "If we kill your mentor as well, we'll have no place to go," Ignatius said, "so we'll be stuck here in another eternal battle you're going to die from," Trixie cycled through her list of spells and picked the one that she used every time to end her opponents. The familiar blue tendrils slowly trailed out of her horn, and Ignatius summoned his own. Without further warning, the two engaged in a gruesome fight. Blue tendrils slashed and cut relentlessly at the air, Trixie fighting with all of her might while avoiding the grave and mighty shouts of Ignatius, trying to push her back or cut the tendrils from their living force. The world began to collapse as Absinthe lost the life force she needed to keep the circle going. It began to collapse in small peeling of the paint on the walls and the spontaneous combustion of books and paper. The glass shattered around the Colt and the young mare fighting, blood filleting the air, blood stains littering the ground. Ignatius summoned several spells at once, casting anything from knives from a parallel dimension to making copies of himself to kill Trixie. Trixie summoned nine-tail after nine-tail, trying to maim her opponent in any possible. She scored several cuts to Ignatius' flank, but he was quicker. Cut after cut he managed to strike upon Trixie's body, blood dribbling quickly out of her new scars. As both of them gave up the long-distance fighting, they both started summoning the darkness that had once tainted their souls, they began to glow a furious color of gold and blood-red, and started charging towards each other. Death was not present in the room, not even life. It was a series of events leading to Limbo as the two fighting and Absinthe preparing for death that not only collapsed the entire world, but killed Absinthe in the process. All three of the spells combined created a world worse than Limbo, not death, not life. Not lost in a limited-space world, not even in the fade. Absinthe's exploded body lay somewhere in Limbo as well, and Trixie's broken and shattered body lay in the darkness somewhere in the Phase. Ignatius still stood standing, breathing heavily. His malice overtook him, but he underestimated the mind of a young Mare who still had the life force of one thousand voices telling her that madness and malice would never overtake her. Her eyes glowing fiercely, she limped to get up and she blinked with her opponent out of the phase and into her own world. The wheat was on fire and the trees had a menacing look to them. Even though her world was tainted, she had planned to go out in style, to prepare for her death in some fashionable way. "Why are you even trying!?" Ignatius yelled, "you'll know you're going to die!" Trixie narrowed her eyes and screamed madly in reply, "At least I'll know I didn't fall into complete insanity!" Ignatius shook his head and charged towards Trixie, who lowered her head and as soon as he got near her, she released a balled wave of energy that sent him flying backwards and into a pile of burning wheat. "I'm doing this for Absinthe! Because you're the bastard who killed her! I will not fail her!" she summoned her whips and began harassing her enemy, who retaliated with bucking her in the ribs to get her away. He got up and retorted, "You don't even know what you did, did you!?" he kept shouting, "you killed her! Your spell's force killed your own mentor in your insanity!" he was breathing heavily and Trixie shook her head. "What about you!? I saw you summon the same spell! You killed her! You wanted to finish the job you started!" Ignatius took the comment in shock. It was the truth, after all, and he was successful. Shaking his head, the two went back at it, casting spell after spell, the Earth trying to cope with the loss of Absinthe and now the slowly collapsing mind of Trixie, and the two made cut after cut, slash after slash, slowly ending era after era in their wake. Soon charges of fire and electricity exploded from their bodies in fits of magical bursts, glass whips became enemies to either one and knives from any dimension would fail. After everything they could do was possible to kill each other, Ignatius began walking away as Trixie could no longer keep herself standing. She collapsed and struggled to stay awake. The last burst of energy had crippled her back legs, but gathering her last amount of sanity, she blinked out of sight, hoping to have brought Ignatius with her into the Phase. Once in the Phase for the second time, she realized that Ignatius was killed when she blinked. He was on the precipice of going into his own Phase and was caught between the two, severing his body from his soul, which was now lost in Trixie's world. His half-severed body lay in the darkness, his guts spread around, blood spattered somewhere in the area. Trixie looked away, and blinked back out of the Phase and into the real world, hoping to find somewhere to cope with what had just happened. * * *