//------------------------------// // The 'Little' Sister // Story: Left Behind: Sunny Disposition // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// The magic of the sisters clashed spectacularly, melting away the rock around them and chasing Sunny off into the distance. He used the little practice in magic he had to teleport himself a short distance away and land on what little remained of the mountain range rather than fall to his death. Everything Solar Flare's magic touched turned to fiery slag, while everything Moon's touched seemed to lose all of its color and become brittle and freezing. Moon formed spinning spears that she launched at Solar Flare who dodged and returned in kind with a crescent that burned the very air it touched. The alicorn of the sun used the distraction to barrel into her sister, unleashing the full force of her body's heat onto her foe, burning the black alicorn and pulling a howl of pain from her. Moon gathered magic into her hooves and struck down. Sunny winced at the audible 'crack' that reached his ears and watched the glowing pony shoot through the rubble and deep into the ground. He backed away instinctively when the ground burst apart and columns of magma rose with Solar Flare's wingflaps. She aimed them at Moon who had an increasingly harder time to dodge as more and more spouts of molten stone broke through the ground and singed her form. In response, Moon formulated a spell as she dodged the attacks and gritted her teeth when they struck. Solar Flare found herself caught in a vortex of darkness and compressing air, clawing at her throat as the fire in her body started to fizzle out. Gasping and expecting a victory, Moon relaxed herself only barely, but that was a mistake. The sun itself came to her opponent's aid, bathing her in a light that burned the ground beneath and focused its horrific gaze onto the night pony. Sunny equated the chase to a foal with a magnifying glass attempting to burn an ant. Shivers coursed through the young unicorn. He had never seen magic on this scale before, let alone one using the celestial bodies. He was further horrified by the sight of the moon moving in front of the sun, causing an eclipse, like it was coming to Nightmare Moon's aid. Solar Flare's colors became replaced by black with white outlines as Moon's celestial magic grasped at her body, causing cracks to form all over the sun alicorn's body. Sunlight shone once again, freeing Solar, but now the moon was chasing after the sun, like the astral bodies were fighting with each other just as their alicorns were. Was this a battle between gods? Was the scale of their magic going to get bigger and bigger? Sunny felt the air escape him when something struck his stomach. The source was a pair of clawed hands clamped around his stomach, bringing him to a small encampment further away where the griffins and ponies waited with bated breath. "Ah, there's the little traitor," King Gallant spat. He stomped forward, pushing pony and griffin alike. "Look what your 'goddess' has wrought!" "She didn't do any of this!" Sunny shouted. "She told you what was going to happen and tried to put a stop to it!" "Trying and doing are two different things!" Gallant responded angrily. "What's next, she moves to conquer what's left of Griffonia?!" His words put the griffins on edge. "She already assaulted the isolated griffin city in Southern Equestria, and now they're declaring 'freedom' or something inane like that." Sunny bobbed his head up and down while he muttered quietly. "I mean, you kind of isolated them to begin with and the griffins didn't want to help them anyways." "What was that?!" Gallant bellowed. "You heard me!" the unicorn shouted. Gallant was taken aback as Sunny stood up to him and stomped forward with an angry scowl on his face. "I don't question your rule over the ponies, but you've made nothing but bad decisions lately, and quite honestly, I'm starting to doubt your decisions in the past too." Gallant started turning red with fury. "How dare you speak to me in such a manner. You think ruling a country is easy?!" "You killed the mayor of Snowfege!" Sunny accused. "He wasn't doing anything bad!" "He was undermining my authority and threatening the very delicate balance of Equestria and its borders." Sunny snorted. "Yes. The fractured borders with ponies that are spread about randomly. Had you left the mayor alone then this 'war' wouldn't have happened in the first place." he looked to the side. "Although I would've rather it not happen at all to begin with." Gallant struck his chest several times as he spoke. "My family has run Equestria for decades! I will not let some upstart from a forgotten era take all that work away from me!" Sunny snapped at those words. "You idiot!" He stepped forward, unaware that his magic was gathering in his horn and causing brief wisps of light to spark at the tip. "She said that you would be keeping your position seeing as you ran Equestria this whole time! She's still a newcomer to this era, but she and her sister ran it first!" "So?! She would have me act as a glorified servant?!" Gallant rebutted. "I am King Gallant from a long line of kings! I will not be usurped by some would-be goddess that came out of nowhere!" His own horn started glowing, and tendrils of magic started spinning around his tattered body. "If you planned on threatening me with your magic, colt, then you should have unleashed the first spell!" Sunny was taken aback by the sudden display. "What?!" "Look out!" a griffin warned. Solar slammed clumsily into the ground next to everyone and skidded to a halt. Gasping for air and exhausted, she looked at Gallant then Sunny, and frowned, baring her teeth. "You tricked me!" Solar accused Sunny. "I've had enough of everypony trying to lure me away with memories of my daughter!" Her body started glowing brighter and magma began to leak from the newly formed cracks and crevices on her body. "I'm getting rid of you now!" Before she could act upon her words, Moon bodyslammed into her side, producing wince-inducing cracks. The night alicorn was in shambles and gasping just as hard as her sister. The wispy blackness of her body was floating around her in great rivers and causing Sunny some concern. "I've had...just about enough...of this fighting between sisters, and idiots, and some gigantic beast that destroys the world just by waking up!" Moon bellowed angrily. She let the rage of her final successor overcome her, causing the moon in the sky to glow. "You are getting rid of no pony, Celestia! I am getting rid of you!" she emphasized. The moon in the sky grew bigger and bigger until it was almost all anyone could see. It felt like the eye of a cosmic being gazing upon the tiny things that were the living creatures of the world. Moon slowly rose into the air, the wisps of her body being blown away to reveal a white, alien-like creature with no features and black outlines at its joints. The wind being made by her surging magic power was such that they were producing powerful gales of wind that were pushing away boulders the size of three two-story houses. The soldiers and Sunny could only barely hang onto the cracks and crevices of the mountain to not be taken away by the tornado of strength, and even those fissures were growing deeper and wider. Solar Flare, in a desperate attempt to stop her sister, unleashed multiple orbs of flaming magic that took the appearance of miniature suns, but Nightmare Moon swiped them away with her wings. Gritting her teeth, Solar Flare grew increasingly red as she dug into her own, new brand of magic she kept secret from the world. Multiple slow-moving tendrils of it bled from the cracks on her body and crept through the air toward the night alicorn, ignoring her power. It didn't take long for them to seep into their target's body like parasites, eliciting screams of pain. It was brief, however, as they were broken off and no longer able to seep back in, startling the sun alicorn. Both she and Sunny could barely make out the appearance of several alicorns standing beside Moon, but one caught the attention of Solar Flare more than anything. The sun alicorn leaned forward, squinting. "Sister?" The image lunged forward, furious. Sunny saw lava flowing from Solar Flare's eyes as she started laughing again, the sounds drowned out by the furious, banshee howl of the ghostly entity. The unicorn felt his heart sink. Those weren't tears of joy. Sunny felt his body lunge forward against his will, pulling at something within him. "Don't kill your sister!" he pleaded with Moon. Then a bright light. When everyone's vision returned, Moon was splayed on the ground, a single foreleg just barely keeping her fully off the stones, and before her lay a white pony. She seemed so bizarrely familiar to Sunny, but he couldn't place it. Her mane and tail were very long and pink in color. Their tips and the base of her hooves were burnt and still crackling with fire, and as she struggled to get back up, Sunny's pupils shrunk in realization. That was Solar Flare. He hurried over to Moon and did his best to help her back onto her two hooves despite the size difference. "What did you do?" he whispered. Moon exhaled and grunted in pain. "I sealed away most of her magic. I cannot simply cast away her hatred, her loss, and her ambitions, but the corrupted magic that gained strength from her negative feelings is still there." She frowned when looking at her broken sister. "She shouldn't look like that..." The mare thought deeply, pooling over everything she knew and the limits of her understanding of Solar Flare's new magic. "Is this really just some kind of more complete fragment of hers?" Everyone looked up to see a procession of griffins coming down from above accompanied by Queen Majesty and a small retinue of her bodyguards. Sunny gulped reflexively. The emperor himself had come. He was draped in a cape of dyed feathers, each purple with the tips colored mint-green. He wore no crown save for his natural plumage consisting of three large red feathers also tipped in mint-green, although the rest of his body was covered in brown feathers. The left side of his beak had been scored black and was chipping, although it seemed to be an old wound that would never heal. "Emperor Ifiltrix," King Gallant said coldly. "I see my lovely wife came to inform you of--" "Stop talking!" Ifiltrix shouted. His voice was so powerful it boomed off the ghosts of the mountain range. "It was tedious enough dealing with a deaf-mute, and now I come to see that half of my empire has been razed and countless thousands, if not millions have lost their lives!" "She's the one responsible for this," Gallant declared as he pointed at Solar Flare. "I was afraid of this outcome, but still it came to pass." Sunny looked at Solar staring at her smoldering hooves, her face blank. She was flipped over onto her back by Ifiltrix who brought his talons up and slashed at the mare's throat. Unfortunately for him, he only scraped the surface of a magic barrier. The griffin turned towards the ponies, livid. When he realized none of them were responsible, he turned to see the magic coming from the tiny unicorn holding up a giant, shadow-like entity. "You can't kill her," Moon declared weakly. "She is my responsibility." Ifiltrix crushed a stone between his talons. Had he teeth they would be grinding. "Your existence is inconsequential, pony, regardless of how strange your form." He made to grab Solar's head but found Sunny's barrier in the way again. "She must pay for what she did with her life! The dead demand no less!" "Your high...empe...Emperor Ifiltrix," Sunny squeezed out. "If you kill her now then yes, you will have your vengeance, but..." He looked up at Moon who nodded almost imperceptibly. "She's of the same breed as Queen Nightmare Moon whom I am holding up." "Queen?" Ifiltrix repeated with a raised brow. He tilted his head slightly to the side to see Gallant "Queen?!" the pony king repeated with great vitriol. The griffin emperor failed to hide his surprise for but a moment, which Moon caught. She whispered to her nephew, letting him speak for her, as clumsy as he might have sounded. "S-so, since she's of the same vein...shouldn't she be allowed to live?" He realized Solar Flare was breathing but not moving. "They're immortal," Sunny said in long strings. "So, she would be able to pay for what she did by repairing the mountains, provided she's allowed to stay under ou-Nightmare Moon's watch. They're siblings, after all." Ifiltrix scoffed and paced about, laughing. "So they're siblings?!" he yelled angrily. Sunny winced from the sudden shout, realizing he misspoke. "Then I have more reason to not let her leave here alive!" "You can be sure that I will watch her," Moon assured. "She trapped me in the Moon ten thousand years ago." Her eyes glowed white. "She'll know what that's like as I watch her and...rehabilitate her." Ifiltrix turned to his guards and began speaking with them, allowing Sunny to speak with Moon. "What did you mean by 'rehabilitate'?" he asked. He started to sweat nervously when he was only given a smile in return. "We can agree to those terms," Ifiltrix said when he came back. "But I want my mountains repaired first. Additionally, I will be giving you two griffins who will watch you and report back everything to me," he stated firmly. "If they skip even a single day, I will see it as them having been assassinated and acting as a declaration of war." He exhaled loudly. "I will have everything prepared in a few days time." "We're up north in Snowfege in the black castle," Sunny explained. "The one bordering my empire? A former territory of ours?" Ifiltrix asked. The young unicorn nodded. "Hmmm. I see. That's where my son butted heads with a giant pony he spoke of." He passed his claws through his neck feathers. "I know where to send my soldiers now." He approached the alicorn and Sunny, unafraid. Even though Moon's head was hanging low from exhaustion, she still did her best to look up and glare at the emperor who remained unphased. "Don't forget our deal," he reminded Moon. "I will not. I am not interested in war," Nightmare Moon stated. The griffin smirked, tilted his head to the side, and poked the peeling area of his beak with a claw. "And what are you interested in?" "A ruler should know better than to pry into the affairs of his neighbors without a spy." Ifiltrix hummed pensively and gestured to his guards with a wing. "Escort the ponies out of my lands. Leave these three here." He peered over his shoulder. "They're deities," he mused. "I'm certain they can handle all of this on their own." Gallant made to protest, but Ifiltrix stared him down. Although he shared the effort in kind, he was unwilling to cause any further incidents, so the king left reluctantly, leaving two weakened alicorns behind. When all was finally quiet, a soft weeping could finally be heard. "Why didn't you let her kill me?" Solar Flare asked. "I would be with my daughter again...I wouldn't have to live through all of this." "Because-" Sunny cleared his throat. "Because you caused all of this. If you died, it would be an easy out." He looked at Moon frowning. "Plus, I didn't want Nightmare Moon to kill her sister. That kind of thing haunts you forever, and since you're both immortal...well...Gah!" Nightmare Moon had slapped Sunny aside the head with a wing. "Let's rest, then I'll take you both back to my castle." She grunted as Sunny laid her down. "That's too much magic. I think I wounded my insides with that one." The three lay in silence, occasionally hearing a few stones fall from the rubble. "You think the griffins that were attacking your castle broke through?" Sunny asked. "I'm worried." "I don't think they got anywhere," Moon mused with a smirk. Outside of Moon's castle were several griffin soldiers, broken from the encounter with the reinforced fort. The majority were only wounded, and only a few had lost their lives. The same could be said of the defenders, but the ponies held firm against the would-be invaders. Far away from all of them was a very angry Prince Melcluf having a fit and stomping about angrily on the mountainside of Griffonia. "One more push!" the doctor urged. With a pained grunt, Crystal Shimmer finished what seemed like an interminable series of increasingly strong pain coursing through her. The mare panted from the effort while nurses and doctors alike tended to her to keep her strong and healthy. Her mate, Grassy Pomme, rushed into the room of his wooden cabin where Crystal had been placed. He was drenched in sweat and looked just about ready to pass out from the stress. "Doctor?!" he squeaked. She greeted him with a warm smile. "She's going to be alright," she assured them. Her smile slowly faded to one of shock. "The foal on the other hoof..." The would-be parents paled. "It's not...?!" Grassy wheezed. He was met with a head shake. "No no. She's fine! It's just...Uhh..." The nurse that had wrapped the baby up passed it hesitantly to Crystal who was quick to unfurl the pale-blue cloth. Both she and Grassy were shocked to see a horn and wings. Stranger still was the wood of the cabin slowly being covered by green moss, flowers, ferns, mushrooms, and some drosera plants as well. The patches were small, but them just growing made the parents stare at the newborn who had kept quiet the whole time. She looked at her parents with glowing green eyes and a giddy smile.