//------------------------------// // 46 — The End is Neigh III: Not What They Seem // Story: Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince // by scifipony //------------------------------// A galloping white stallion barreled into the mare who lunged for my throat. Blond mane shot forward at the impact of shoulder against chest. I heard a rib break and pop. Both ponies spun midair, keeling over, and crashing off to my right. They hit the brick paved path, Singe below but both dragging across the rough surface, to hit the mulched dirt beyond. The momentum flipped them both up and apart, causing them to crash down again, flinging weathered grey-brown wood chips in a spray that hit the bamboo beyond. The prince instantly stood, but his left leg collapsed under him. He compensated, lifting it to his stomach. His haunch looked sprayed with green enamel. One part looked punched in, like a metal fender on a carriage. His head jerked my direction. His blue eyes focused on me as he yelled, "Behind you!" Gravel crunched. Somepony was directly behind me, in my blind spot—the one all ponies had. I might be too fogged to Teleport, but being fogged didn’t stop pony reflexes. I bucked. I hit somepony. Unaimed, mind you. My left hoof missed completely, but I dragged my right brass across somepony's neck and withers. The unbalanced connection caused me to stumble as I brought my haunches back. It let me distance myself from Mudflats who whinnied in pain as he flopped sideways. He landed in denuded bushes. They'd been staked. Nearly impaled, the stick broke and cut open his right flank. He bucked himself up, then bucked again, trying to keep upright while simultaneously jumping away from me. Blood welled up and colored his grey-brown fur crimson along a raggedy line of puckering hide. His mud-brown eyes widened, showing progressively more white. He backpedaled, cracking away branches of another bush that impeded him. "Get her!" Singe yelled before coughing the air from her lungs. The prince collided with her. They skidded across the ground. Bamboo tocked-t-tock-tocked out of sequence as they struck the hollow wood. My ear twitched. Another assailant? Instinct cried out that I needed Force. That stupid oft-inappropriate spell, but that wasn't possible. The geometric folding of Levitate was far too complex. My hide cooled. This an assassination attempt, wasn't it...? Heart racing so hard I thought it might explode, I tried to track every pony. I smelled marjoram—like from a savory bread hot from the oven. From behind me? Every unicorn had a first spell. Illuminate, to push back the darkness and scare away the monsters lurking under the bed. I knew it, together with transforms of Levitate, like the wood grain texture of the front of my hoof, a pattern that required little calculation whatsoever. Reflex casting was as fast as quick draw or pulling something out of a spell queue to spin up. Not battle magic, whatsoever. Ugh! It took three seconds to spin up! Hooves suddenly pounded behind me. I dodged. They shifted counter the direction I turned. Unlike Mudflats, this nimble pony understood how to fight. Adrenaline jacked the spell to level three, which was fortunate since I couldn't target somepony I hadn't located. Blue-green light sprayed out from my horn like ethereal paint. It splashed Desert Sands' muzzle and splashed his eyes as he sped his trot, ready for a final leap. I threw myself aside but he compensated. We bounced off one another. I scrambled away, huffing and puffing, lightning blue jags of pain stabbing my left shoulder. The griffon wound, broken open, wept yellow fluid that smelled like milk gone bad. Really bad. Increasingly leaden as my horn cooled, I plodded. I had plenty of useless splendors of magic left, but desperately needed stamina. They'd surrounded me. I couldn't outrun a mouse. The prince body-slammed Singe, but that mare who'd bossed the prince around that night on the attic stair, proved a tough opponent. This princess obviously had a champion. My heart opened, useless emotions blooming. I wished instead for the energy to run. I screamed, "Guards! Guards! Help!" I blinked, realizing everypony had horns. Unicorns. If any were able to cast Force... Mirror Shield, I thought, forcing myself to think. It wasn't one of my reflexive spells, but was simple enough. I desperately wanted Teleport, but only three unicorns and one alicorn in the entire world could cast it. Hard? An understatement! I could really use Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear right now, also, but in addition to it being complicated—and finicky—the pseudo-invisibility spell required hyper awareness. Not happening! No. I concentrated on the possible, glancing to Mudflats. He shook, maybe in fear, but held a defensive posture. I worried he might panic and attack if I got close. Desert Sands kept his distance, blinking and rubbing the glowing apparition I'd flooded his eyes with. Was he convinced I could fight him? Was he unwilling to close without an advantage? Yay, me! The three shifted to block my retreat north, into better view of the castle. Singe leapt at me, which was foalish. The prince walloped her, shoving her down with his greater mass. They tumbled and he somersaulted to his hooves. Why wasn't he using his fancy Shield spell? That first time I'd attacked him, he'd used net-like transforms of Levitate. He'd seemed coated in grease! Not only had he kept me from tripping or tackling him, but had thrown me. Were his injuries that bad? Was he as impaired as I was? I saw no blood around his head, or damage to his horn. It took enormous pressure and leverage to chip a unicorn's horn, let alone crack it. No burns, either. Desert Sands feinted. I jumped. He wiped at his eyes with a devilish grin, blinking, squinting at me, not entirely blinded. I backed into a bench. My Mirror Shield popped out. Desperately, I waved it between the two stallions. Somepony had to fire. Stupidly, my use of Mirror Shield ought having given then the idea of using Force, had it not already occurred to them! "Starlight!" cried the prince. I turned; so did my Mirror Shield. I didn't have the capacity to target beyond x-hoof lengths ahead, centered on my nose. A green force bolt bloomed from the direction of the fighting mare and stallion. The terminus of the frictional cylinder ended three pony lengths away. "Perfectly aimed" as either Citron, the pony with the flame cutie mark—or Broomhill Dare, the genius of all spells Levitate of which Force was a transform—would say. The plasma bloomed greenish white. It splashed off my Mirror Shield. Energy dissipation pushed me hard against the bench. Other ponies would have panicked or at least run. Though weak, I was a seasoned fighter. Nevertheless, I startled. In Singe's place stood an oddly shiny black unicorn wearing protective metallic-green goggles over her deeply green eyes. Her horn wasn't the mineralized keratin javelin unicorns sported, but an obsidian sword, jagged like a graphic representation of a lightning bolt. Worse, it had a leprous oval hole in it that had to impede her splendor flow, both surface conduction and along the superconductor veins within. It didn't stop there. Her body looked tarred. No, enameled, gleaming where it reflected the sky though black. The only fur I saw was black, also, between plates of, what, living armor(?). The armor split at her joints, formed three plates stacked on her chest like a segmented peytral, and tiled her belly like a brick walk invaded by grass—albeit, fine black grass. I did not miss that her "armor" resembled the dented wound on Blueblood's flank. His looked enameled lime green. It turned ruby above the hip joint. What had he been sprayed with? Both Blueblood's leg and the creature's side sported crumps on the surface. Her legs, though! It reminded me of bubble cheese. I cringed as I stupidly stared, while sliding along the bench. The leprous holes looked excruciating. One wing looked crushed. A clear membrane of gossamer slipped out and down limply, flattened under a plate of hard black flesh that diffracted the light like a butterfly wing No, Starlight. You're assuming this is the pony. It's an illusion. One constructed to affect you, to set you up for a kill. I waved my head reflexively, confused and cotton-brained. The motion proved instructive. Not only did I register feedback along the length of my horn from my spell, I registered all magic in my vicinity, exactly as I'd detected the runes on the Eagle's Stoop. The bloom of Singe's Force spell faded as her superluminal numbers disorganized beyond reintegration. I. Felt. Nothing else. No congealed magic reciprocating in a standing wave. Not an illusion as I understood it... My jaw fell and I gasped. I'd made a wagonload of mistakes. Insect wings. Cicada buzzing sounds. A "brigade" of black pegasi approaching Canterlot in the shadow of the Everfree Forest. A beaten unconscious royal guard, who had flown after a cascade diver, who if I'd had my head out a couple more hoof lengths would have broken my neck and sent me tumbling, or, if not struck dead, breaking myself apart as I bounced off the jagged outcrops of the rocky cliff face. That guard, who had chased the cascade diver, had cornered me in the corridor outside the ensign's stateroom. Not a comedy of errors, after all. But for my lightning fast reflexes, I would have suffered a KO that I'd never have woken from. The scorch mark on the sign in hall when I searched for the brig: a Force bolt I'd accidentally ducked and had been too obtuse to notice being shot. Singe. That Pastellist was the black, fanged, insectile pony that had just shot a Force bolt at me. Singe. She'd been in the bakery—impersonating the prince's guard! Had she gotten me in the alley, blinded by the sun... What? I'd have found a knife in my heart? Wait? Was she outside the loo and been chased away by my pegasus guard. I started to hyperventilate. How many other times? In the prince's townhouse? What had happened there? Did the green nightmare have something to do with it? My waking in the tub... I didn't know! "Sweet Celestia!" I cried. The prince tackled Singe—not well. His injured leg tripped him up. She half bucked; he went over. "Blueblood!" I galloped at them, clattering across the brick path, no faster than a trot, stumbling, unable to find my gait. My shoulder throbbed and smelled of corruption; worse it felt bound by rubber bands. "Blueblood!" I distracted her, for what it was worth. Singe raised her head from pointing her horn down, point-blank, to track it toward me as she cast. The green frictional cylinder bloomed a dark saturated green sweeping the ground, setting a strip of wood chips aflame coming toward me as I closed the pony lengths between us. She was a fighter. Trained or experienced, didn't matter. Still casting, she reared and stomped the prince. Her hooves came down hard on the prince and he cried out as I closed the distance to less than the length of her cylindrical apparition. Force manifested spinning concentric cylinders that rubbed at the speed of sound, thus the sonic boom, creating a bloom of projected plasma that caused damage. All unicorns, me included, needed distance from the end of the apparition so the spell "didn't know" it would hurt a pony, to prevent it from failing. Was the creature I barreled toward a unicorn at all? Did she have those limits? With wings, was she an alicorn? Her spell hit my Mirror Shield. The apparition bent like a cardboard tube. By the time I'd slid within a pony length, the spell had bent 180º. Her horn burst into a cloud of noxious oily smoke. The creature screamed, whinnying, backing and stomping, waving her head, drawing lines of black in the air. I reared and stumbled. I tripped on the prince's outstretched front legs, then hoofed something brittle due to my weight. I screamed, looking down, becoming horrified. "Blueblood! Help! Anypony!" The prince groaned. Hoof marks dented his hide. Pressure cuts bled. His shoulder looked cracked, dislocated. One rib was displaced inward. A second gouge on across his neck cut deeply, but had missed his windpipe. It bled, too— Singe turned toward me and I couldn't ignore her. The crown princess of Equestria, who'd thwarted her multiple times, maybe thwarted an invasion, was her primary target. A burnt horn was horribly bad, crippling. It wouldn't kill a pony, but might destroy their magic, might hurt like all Tartarus. I'd been a prizefighter—living proof that no unicorn needed magic to be dangerous. Her horn sparked and sputtered like metal wire under a welder's torch. A curtain of green light veiled her left to right and then right to left, revealing Firefall. The auburn pony had a blackened horn, bruises, and bleeding cuts, but I understood the tactic. Demoralize your enemy. Weaken your enemy's will to fight. I placed my hooves on Blueblood's neck wound, keeping my eyes on Firefall's magenta ones even as I let my ears swivel and range. I had other assailants. Hot blood flowed beneath the frogs of my hooves. Not much; nothing to be ignored either. The prince's throat bobbled as he swallowed. "You have to run," he croaked. "I won't," I hissed. I can't say "can't" because that would tell my opponent too much. So long as she impersonates a pony, she can't use Force? Was that why she changed to the monster? Those times they impersonated his bodyguards they definitely used Levitate. Anything else? Don't assume you know their magic, Starlight! Hooves clicked on brick. When hooves crunched on wood chips. I glanced. Desert Sands flanked Firefall/Singe. His face glowed brightly, but he didn't look blinded. The glossy blue-green shimmer of my Mirror Shield followed my slight head movement. The spell would be completely useless if either pony charged me—it reflected only energy. I needed Shield, which pushed against mass, but was a complex transform that required multidimensional folding of the apparitional surface of Push. I was in worse physical danger than magical if the black unicorns could only cast Levitate while impersonating a pony. I glanced at the prince. His liquid sky blue eyes speared me. I saw running blood, bruises. He'd fought for me. He might die for me! My heart opened again. Useless, useless, useless! Moon Dancer had asked if I loved him? Perceptive filly. At this moment, I loved him with all my heart. At this moment. I didn't understand friendship. How could I understand this, or know what came next. I might die soon. Could I not at least experience love like a normal common pony? Intuition said, No, of course not. Harmony might not have cursed me as it had Celestia for a thousand years, but I was cursed nonetheless. Tragic, really. I snorted at my stray thought. Mudflats' hoof scraped a brick. I looked his way, just in time to see him bring his chest down to the ground as he lay like a sphinx. Firefall/Singe shouted, "Attack her, you foals!" Mudflats said, "I'm not sure." "Do you want Queen Chrysalis to cull you? Are you immature grubs or functional workers!" "Can't you feel it, Facet?" he asked the mare. "Are you that blind?" A glance at Desert Sands showed he'd stopped a few pony lengths off Singe's, no Facet's flank. Not exactly committed. Staring. At me. Fascinated. "Starlight Glimmer is a queen," Blueblood explained.