//------------------------------// // Chapter 18: Adrift // Story: You Wouldn't Believe Me if I Told You // by PinkiePiedPiper //------------------------------// I don’t own MLP: FiM. That belongs to Lauren Faust and Hasbro. You Wouldn’t Believe Me if I Told You Chapter 18: Adrift Sauron was in real trouble now. He had been before, but now it was just that much direr. Discord had just increased his power with the addition of those two last ponies, and given that he had been stronger than Sauron already, it was merely icing on the cake. Discord was winning, and this time he knew it. But still they fought, firing chaotic orbs of dark energy and scalding beams of destructive energy. The beams, however, were not as powerful as they had once been. Sauron had begun focussing his efforts into a more defensive approach and enforcing his wards and shields, waiting for the reclamation of his Ring of Power. It was literally the only thing that could turn the tables in his favour now. Neither combatant spoke any longer. Sauron did not have the spare focus to come up with anything biting or witty, and for Discord there was no need. He had already won in his mind. He had learned in his last battle against the Elements of Harmony that monologue-ing is a totally unnecessary time delay and leaves you open to defeat. All unnecessary land had been reclaimed to boost his power reserves. Even the sky had become swallowed up by the dark, swirling black and purple inter-dimensional smokes and clouds. The only things that remained stable and corporeal in the entire realm were the two combatants and their tower, and the three ponies with only the ground they were standing on. There was no other ground left, and the sky was gone. There was no sunlight for there was no sun to provide it, yet it was not dark. The swirling energies of space time seemed to filter in their own light from other nearby planes of existence. The exact science of this is unknown as it is extremely difficult to study. Just as Sauron had begun to lose hope, an alarm went off in the back of his mind, set off by the triggering of an ancient spell he placed long ago. He smiled inwardly. That spell was a tripwire ward placed in the entrance to Mount Doom, and it was set to only detect one thing. The Ring. The hobbits had crossed into the heart of his mountain with the Ring. He increased his focus on defence once more; just as another orb of chaos came crashing into his shield. * * * * * “Trixie?” Twilight asked incredulously. “Trixie, is that you?” The three ponies had just barely gotten over the fact that their universe had just shrunken down to about the size of them. Each of them was on a separate small plot of ground just big enough to stand on. Steve was laying on his, however; his hooves hanging a few inches over the edges of the turf. Trixie was on a slightly larger plot with the saddlebags of weapons and supplies. Gravity in general no longer applied to this realm. There was some force holding each onto their individual platforms, as if it had gravity only for the things in contact with it, but by definition it could not be described as gravity. This held true as Steve’s saddlebag, which had been sitting entirely on top of the other two bags, was now drifting away slowly through the abyss. They all gripped their grass tightly. Even the platforms seemed to be drifting randomly. Up and down were relative. Their orientation slowly shifted; their occupants rotating and slowly gyrating in relation to each other, sometimes nearly parallel to one another, and sometimes they appeared to be upside-down. The abyss moved all around them in every direction, but clouds never crossed between them. They could all clearly see the embattled tower in the distance. It was as if the abyss swirled only at the edges of reality, though it appeared nearby. It looked like you could reach out and touch it sometimes, but then a stray rock some ways away would cross between you and the cloud. It was disorienting to say the least. It was in this ephemeral madness that the ponies now found themselves. “Yes, Twilight! It’s me!” she cried out. “What did you do with Rainbow Dash? Did you kill her?!” Twilight accused angrily. Trixie shook her head violently, spraying a few lonely tears from her good eye. The tears continued to fly without slowing down in perfectly straight trajectories. “No! I didn’t kill Rainbow! She was dead when I found her! It looked like she… like she had hung herself.” Steve and Twilight were shocked. Twilight voiced her disbelief at the revelation. Steve tried to, but again sent himself into a convulsing fit of agony. Blood from his throat dribbled out of his mouth. “It’s true!” Trixie restated. “I found both her and Berry Punch dead in the same place, just like Bon Bon and Ditzy. But every other pony I found …I killed. “Yes, I killed them!” She continued, screaming her admission as if to alleviate her guilt. “I killed them all! I shot Rarity! I shot Sapphire Shores! I beheaded Lyra with a machete! And I disemboweled, yes, disemboweled Scootaloo! And you know what the worst part of it is? I enjoyed it! I enjoyed every second of each kill, savouring every ounce of pain and suffering I gave them! “Oh, I got some of my own, don’t get me wrong,” she cried and gestured to the left half of her face, “but I’m still here, and they aren’t!” Tears were streaming from her eye, running down her face and spinning off into oblivion when they fell off. She began to calm down, and collapsed onto her turf with her eye clamped shut to drive away the burning tears. “…oh Trixie…” Twilight whispered. “I couldn’t help myself. All I could think of was getting revenge against you for ruining my career…” she sobbed. “It’s like I wasn’t even in full control. My rage took over and did those… horrible things to innocent ponies…” “Trixie!” Twilight shouted. “That wasn’t you! It was Discord! He took the worst in you and amplified it to spread chaos! The same thing happened to me and my friends when we faced him years ago! I saw it happen again with Bon Bon just before we found you!” Trixie slowly got to her hooves and gave Twilight a forced smile. “That’s nice of you to say, but that’s not gonna bring them back. It’s not gonna change what I did…what I remember…what I saw myself do.” She picked up both remaining saddlebag sets, including her crossbow and sickle and shook her head lightly. “No, there is only one thing that can end this nightmare. I have an idea. Don’t try to talk me out of it, cuz that’s not gonna work.” She looked past Twilight into the distance. Twilight followed her gaze and landed her sights on the slowly rotating tower. It was slightly closer now, as if they had been gradually drifting towards it this whole time. She turned back to Trixie, ready to tell her not to do it. But she already had. She had launched herself in the direction of the tower, sending her turf gyrating from the group. “What are you doing?!” Twilight yelled worriedly as Trixie sailed past her a few feet over her head. “I’m gonna end this, one way or another!” “Why do you have those bags?” “Course correction and acceleration!” Trixie replied. As if to enforce her point, she threw Twilight’s bag as hard as she could straight behind her. The force propelled her even faster toward her goal. Twilight ducked to dodge the useless bag. Steve was unable to move. The bag hit him directly in one of his bullet wounds, reopening his world of pain and sending him into an agonizing fit of writhing. The force of the bag coupled with his movement slowly lifted him off of his plot of earth. Blinded by pain, he was unaware the danger he was suddenly in. Suddenly, Trixie gave a horrific scream. Twilight’s gaze shot over at her just in time to see the disfigured and discoloured unicorn get violently rent asunder by unseen forces. Still screaming, her parts dissolved into a fresh purple cloud, which immediately seemed just as distant as the rest of them. The saddlebag with her weapons and her collar were all that was left, maintaining their former trajectory in the direction of the tower. Twilight was already on the move. She had to time her jump perfectly or she would be in just as much trouble as Steve. Waiting for her platform to hit just the right angle, she ran some complex physics calculations through her head quickly. With a deep breath and a short prayer to Celestia, she launched herself at Steve’s platform. A short flight landed her on the platform with Steve still not all that far away. The impact caused the turf to begin spinning and drifting away from Steve’s helpless form. She was now almost too far to reach him while remaining in contact with the ground. Resolved to save him, she stood on one hind hoof and stretched to grab one of his legs. “Grab my hoof!” Snapping back into reality, or what was left of it, Steve fought the pain and extended all of his limbs in hopes of contacting with the lavender unicorn. Twilight stretched herself as long as she could get and managed to grasp his back leg. Her joy at success was quickly overruled as she felt the grass go out from underneath her hoof. “Steve!” She yelled. “I can’t touch the ground! We’re both gonna die!” Fighting off all of the agony in his body and throat, he managed to draw her in close. Twilight looked down as the ground lifted away from them. He pulled her up to his eye level. She gave him a pained smile, acknowledging the fact that they were both doomed. Steve mustered all of his strength, placed his hooves against her body, and battled through the pain to smile and gargle out a few words. “…No… just me.” Twilight’s eyes widened in realization just as Steve extended his limbs and shoved her back down to the ground she had just left. Her grip on him broke and she crashed into the turf, her leg punching a hole straight through. She struggled to get her leg free, but by the time she did Steve was already some distance away. “NO!” she shrieked as she stared up at him. “NONONO! Don’t leave me alone!” Steve stared back into her eyes and smiled a genuine smile. He winked at her and closed his eyes, his body strangely devoid of pain. He died shortly before his body evaporated into a deep purple smoke cloud, leaving his collar to spin slowly into the void. Twilight collapsed onto the small plot of grass and cried. Everypony was dead. Everypony except her. She was alone.