//------------------------------// // 12. By the Light of the Magical Moon, Pt. I // Story: Crisis on Two Equestrias // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// Trixie’s hooves pounded on the earth beneath her as she ran as fast as her legs would carry her. She wasn’t thinking at all, not the least of which when the Ursa Major roared again. Sapient thought wasn’t possible – she was relying totally on instinct, on the base desire to run with the herd of three other unicorns away from danger, hoping for her superior speed to win out. Of course, then she made the mistake of glancing behind her. The Ursa Major came back down onto all four paws, its landing making the Earth shudder again and causing Trixie to stumble and fall over. She whinnied in fright, and shrieked in stark terror when the Ursa took a single step forward – one step – and instantly covered the hundreds of feet she had ran, one of its massive paws landing only a few scant feet from where she’d fallen. “Twilight!” Trixie cried out for help as a deep blue aura wrapped around her and dragged her high into the air, towards the maw of the Ursa Major. She screamed again, a scream that wasn’t lessened as she was dragged up and past the mouth to look into the blank eyes and too-wide smile of the pony controlling it. The pony reached out a hoof and tapped Trixie lightly on the muzzle in a way that was almost friendly – at least until her telekinesis pulled Trixie closer and pressed her to the bear’s skull painfully, almost enough to begin suffocating Trixie as the pony placed a hoof on her cheek and leaned down. Somehow, her smile grew even wider, to proportions Trixie was certain were unnatural. Trixie let out another shriek of terror as the pony whispered into her ear. “What are you screaming for? I haven’t even started killing you yet.” --- Lulamoon, Sparkle, and Twilight skidded to a halt when they heard Trixie cry out Twilight’s name, and turned around just in time to see her lifted up to atop the bear’s head. “Oh no,” Twilight breathed. She was panting from the running they had just done, as were the other two. “We have to help her!” “Why didn’t she have the bear eat her?” Sparkle asked. Twilight and Lulamoon both turned to glare at her. “Really?” Lulamoon demanded. “You don’t have to sound disappointed!” “No, I mean,” Sparkle said, as the three started running again, circling around the Ursa Major and using the trees for cover, “that pony – she’s going through all this effort to kill us…so why didn’t she kill Trixie?” Lulamoon grimaced. Sparkle had a point, whether or not she wanted to admit it. “Earlier she said she wanted to kill us all at the same time,” she noted. “No,” Twilight said, eyes widening a little. “No, she said ‘I’m pretty sure I have to.’ She doesn’t want to but she thinks she needs to!” “Why?” Sparkle demanded. “Who cares?” Lulamoon demanded. “It gives us time to – gah paw!” The last came as the Ursa’s gigantic paw came crashing down about a hundred feet in front of them, making the earth shudder once more as trees were splintered like so many toothpicks, then began dragging across the forest floor towards them. It was hundreds of feet long – they weren’t going to be able to dodge it, nor outrun it. Sparkle cried out, grabbed the two other unicorns in her hooves, closed her eyes, and set her horn glowing. Lulamoon had just enough time to begin to voice her objection when the three of them popped out of existence. There was the roiling chaos that the between-space had become, then they popped back into existence, tumbling and spinning across hard ground and into branches and trees before finally coming to a stop. Lulamoon stood, head spinning. “I th-thought we’d agreed that was a bad idea…” she mumbled. “I didn’t think we had a choice,” Sparkle said as she stood, looking around to get her bearings. It didn’t take long – they spotted the Ursa Major only a few hundred feet away, though they were now behind it. It reared up, growling, head darting around and ears perked up as it tried to find them again. Sparkle looked to Twilight. “Small hops,” she said. “Try teleporting only a few feet. Looks like we’ll overshoot and go a few hundred instead, and the direction is random, but it’s better than nothing.” “Okay, so now what?” Lulamoon demanded, setting her own horn glowing. A hundred feet away, an illusion of the three of them appeared, and the glamors began to run swiftly away from them, hopefully buying them time and distracting the Ursa Major. “We can’t teleport up there, climbing is too slow and we’ll be noticed…” “I can give one of us wings,” Twilight said, as the three began running again, trying to stay behind the Ursa. “It’s a really exhausting spell to cast, and the wings are really delicate – but I think it’s our only option.” “Okay, so magic some up!” Lulamoon demanded. “That pony – ” “She needs a name,” Sparkle put in. Lulamoon ignored her. “That pony might not want to kill Trixie, but you'd be surprised what you can live through!” “I can’t just conjure them up!” Twilight objected. “It’ll take me a few minutes. We’ll be sitting ducks! And I can only do it one of us at a time, and I’ll probably be too exhausted afterwards to do a second set…” “So you need a distraction,” Sparkle said, horn glowing. “I can do that.” “Wait – ” Lulamoon began to object. It was too late, however; Sparkle disappeared in a flash and pop even as Lulamoon and Twilight slowed to a stop. “Imbécile!” Lulamoon cursed. “How are we supposed to find her after this?” Twilight bit her lip, but then set her horn glowing, staring at Lulamoon. “Worry about that later,” she said. “I’ll be too tired after this spell, and you can turn invisible. You’ll be the one flying.” “Yay,” Lulamoon intoned, bracing herself. --- Sparkle re-appeared thousands of feet away, six feet in the air, and moving forward at a disturbing, though luckily not fatal, speed. Fortuitously, a helpful tree branch was in the way of her movement, and it stopped her by smacking her in the face. She cried out as she was sent tumbling to the ground, and picked herself up only slowly, shaking her head. “I don’t like teleporting anymore…” she breathed as she stood, looking around. It wasn’t hard to spot the Ursa Major. She was now directly in front of it, though hidden by tree branches. Sparkle took in a deep breath, centering herself as she spread her legs and braced. At the tip of her horn, she began gathering raw magical power. It started off as a small bead only a few inches across. Bigger, Sparkle thought, pumping more power into the magic. The bead grew in size to be nearly as large as her. Grunting, the magic swelled three more times – to as large as Trixie’s wagon had been, then to the size of a small house, before finally topping out at the size of Golden Oaks Library. By this time, Sparkle was sweating despite the cold of the night, struggling to maintain the magic. With a grunt, she swung her head back, then shoved it forward, sending her magic flying. The Ursa Major had noticed her, of course, as she’d gathered magic, and took a step forward. It roared in surprise when Twilight’s orb of pure force came flying at its face, however, and reared back in surprise, but that only bought it a moment before the magic came crashing into its chest. It roared in pain and stumbled backwards a few steps, before growling low, its purple effervescence suddenly taking on an angry tone and almost shifting towards red. The bear advanced on two legs angrily. “Uh,” Sparkle thought, closing her eyes and teleporting again. The roil carried her to one of the areas that the Ursa had stomped flat in its advance, and she tumbled over fallen tree branches and excavated roots, landing eventually against a clump of dirt and snow and no small number of stones. Standing on shaking hooves and glancing around, Sparkle saw the Ursa Major only a few hundred feet away. It was glancing around for her, dropping back down to four legs, but didn’t see Sparkle given how close she was. Sparkle decided to go for quantity rather than quality this time, since she couldn’t do more than annoy the Ursa Major anyway. She summoned magic to her horn and sent it flying out in as many bursts as she could, bright stabs of red-lavender light that would have stunned a normal pony senseless. It was several moments before the Ursa Major even noticed them, and that was, Sparkle suspected, only because of the light show that it created. It turned to her, growling deeply and swiping a paw with far more speed than Sparkle was comfortable with. Big things shouldn’t move that fast! She objected mentally as she closed her eyes and teleported. The roil launched her through the air this time, and she appeared right over the Ursa Major, beginning to fall almost immediately. She cried out in surprise, teleporting again without thinking. This was a mistake. The roil that the between-space had become had her pop back into existence moving far, far too fast. She had just enough time to register something blue directly in front of her, before smacking into it. Then everything was black. --- Twilight gasped as the spell finally concluded, falling to shaking hocks and knees and sweating from the effort. Lulamoon came forward instantly, using telekinesis and muzzle both to help her stand. “You’ve got to hide,” she said. “I’m…I’m not that out of it…” she said, standing on her own as Lulamoon and her began to trot away, Twilight stumbling only a little. “Hey…what do you think…?” Lulamoon glanced at her back. She had given her cape to Twilight, so nothing blocked her view of her brand-new set of wings. They were clear and veined, looking like they belonged to a dragonfly, tinged slightly green. “Nice,” she admitted, taking off her hat and setting her own horn glowing. She pushed her most-familiar spell into the fabric, then set it atop Twilight’s head. To her eyes, Twilight seemed to take on a blue glow, but to anypony else – and hopefully anybear else – she would be completely invisible. “Okay, um…when I’ve rescued Trixie, I’ll set off some fireworks. Just shoot some magic into the air so that I can find you.” Twilight nodded. “Be careful,” she insisted. “Those wings are made from gossamer and morning dew. They’re delicate.” Lulamoon nodded, turning around and giving her wings an experimental flutter. Like any other proper transmutation spell, it seemed, the knowledge of how to use the wings correctly came with the wings themselves – she wouldn’t need flying lessons. Weaving an invisibility spell around herself, she took to the air, flying straight at the Ursa Major, which by now had turned slightly so that Lulamoon was now approaching the bear from its side rather than behind. Flying closer and closer only seemed to continuously re-emphasize how massive the bear really was – from one shoulder to another, the Ursa was larger than Ponyville’s town square. Setting herself down between the shoulder blades, Lulamoon found herself amongst a sea of translucent strands of fur, a thick carpet nearly as tall as she was. The body beneath her was similarly translucent and glowing, and through it she could just barely make out the forest floor. “Okay,” Lulamoon said, galloping and for a brief moment being thankful that the Ursa Major was so large, as it probably couldn’t notice her moving across its back. The bear remained on all four paws as Lulamoon ran, making her gallop up its neck relatively easy. She checked her run, however, when she neared the top, and saw the deep blue, murderous pony, grinning widely as she looked around the forest floor for her quarry along with the Ursa Major. She paced back and forth across the bear’s head, and at her hooves was Trixie, held in place by a deep blue aura and looking scared out of her mind, but otherwise basically unhurt. “U-ni-corns!” She exclaimed in a sing-song voice as Lulamoon approached, her voice almost as loud as the Ursa’s roar and sounding like thousands of copies of her speaking in unison. “Come out and play…!” Lulamoon grimaced, closing her eyes a moment as she conjured up her magic sight, wanting to have an idea of what she was fighting. She opened her eyes, looked at the pony, and – Nothing. “What?” Lulamoon asked beneath her breath. Lulamoon could still see the murderous pony, of course; the magic sight spell didn’t render her otherwise blind. But the pony didn’t glow in any way. She was as inert as a rock – more inert, in fact, for while the gold-and-silver strands of magic would permeate and pass through a rock, with this pony they almost seemed to flow around her and shun her. “If you don’t come out…” The pony said, her voice still sing-song, “I’m just going to have to burn the forest down…!” “How?” Lulamoon demanded quietly. She didn’t have any magic, she shouldn’t have been able to cast any spells at all. Then, Lulamoon saw it, and only because she was using her magic-sight to look. At the tip of the pony’s horn, there was a flash – no, not quite. More like the opposite of a flash, as her horn seemed to tear a hole straight into reality itself. For a brief second, Lulamoon found herself looking at absolutely, positively nothing – then all of a sudden, the gold-and-silver streamers of magic that flowed through the air seemed to rush in towards the gap, falling into it like water in a bathtub after the plug had been pulled. And just like that, at the end of her the pony’s horn, there was a massive fireball. The pony swung her head, and reality was once again rent open in a line from the fireball that floated at the tip of her horn, to the Everfree floor far below. The fireball shot off along the hole in reality, following it until it landed and detonated. From there, at least, it looked like a normal spell. Trixie was right, Lulamoon thought as she began inching forward, though extremely reluctantly after what she just saw. She doesn’t cast spells…she tears spell-shaped holes in the universe and magic rushes to fill the gap. That’s why she’s so powerful…she’s not, not really, but she can just tear the right holes and do anything she wants… Lulamoon shuddered at that. She already knew that she wasn’t capable of challenging a spellcasting prodigy like Twilight Sparkle spell-for-spell. Against a pony like this – who had access to the basically limitless ambient magic of the world itself? There was only one thing she could do. The pony had launched another fireball, then another. They were all well away from where Twilight was, and Lulamoon could only hope that she was missing Sparkle, too. Grimacing at what she had to do, Lulamoon crept forward another few feet, making sure she had a clear run, then charged forward. The murderous pony never noticed her approach – for all her access to power, she wasn’t expecting an invisible attack – and so could do nothing when Lulamoon’s charge ended with her slamming one shoulder into her. The pony cried out in surprise, stumbling away on suddenly uneven hooves and eyes wide, her expression of malice finally changing to one of shock. Lulamoon didn’t give her a chance to recover as she charged forward again, slamming her front hooves into the pony’s side and sending her reeling backwards again – until one of her hooves slipped and she found herself teetering backwards against empty air, having reached the edge of the Ursa Major’s head. Lulamoon started to advance to give a final push, but there was never a chance as the pony fell before Lulamoon could do anything else. With a single startled yelp, the pony fell out of sight. Lulamoon was certain that if she wasn’t running on adrenaline and determination, she would have been disgusted at having just murdered somepony, even this one. As it stood, however, she unwrapped her invisibility spell from herself as she came over to Trixie’s side, while beneath them the Ursa Major roared. Trixie was already beginning to stand on shaking hooves, eyes wide. “Come on!” Lulamoon exclaimed, her gossamer wings fluttering as the head beneath them began to tilt and the Ursa Major began to rise onto to legs. “We have to get going before the Ursa – ” “You tried to kill me!” Lulamoon didn’t know why she was even surprised, but she was as she turned around, looking at where the pony had fallen. Rising through the air on feathered wings much like that of a pegasus, the pony glared hatred down at Lulamoon as she alighted on the bear’s head again, her smile disappeared. She seemed taller somehow, as well. “You don’t kill me!” The pony roared. “That’s not how this works! You don’t kill me – I KILL YOU!” The pony then moved, wings beating once and carrying her forward and against Lulamoon, a hoof lashing out and catching her across the face. Lulamoon cried out in surprise as she was sent reeling down onto the bear’s head, even as she heard a series of snaps and cracks from just behind her – her conjured wings shattering and dissolving into nothingness. She tried to rise, but there was a hoof on her face, pressing her down. “Get off of her!” Trixie exclaimed, having risen fully. She charged forward, trying to help, but the pony stopped her with a single buck from one of her hind legs to Trixie’s chest, sending her sprawling. “I’m just trying to have a good time, Trixie,” the pony said, “but you’re making that VERY HARD FOR ME!” The pony shouted. “I kill you, Trixie – I kill you. Because I am hate. I am a black pit that will tear open reality itself to kill you and everything you love. I am your antithesis – ” The pony gasped, backing away suddenly. Lulamoon groaned as she picked herself, Trixie slowly doing likewise. The pony was staring down, eyes darting around, before a wide-mouthed smile began to creep onto her face. “I like it,” she said quietly. “I like it! That’s what I am! That’s who I am! That’s my name!” The pony’s horn flashed, and before she could do anything, Lulamoon found herself seized in a telekinetic aura and swung around, colliding with Trixie, before the two of them were forced to the bear’s head again. The two fought to try and free themselves, but couldn’t, as the pony turned around and stomped down the length of the bear’s head, so that she could look over its edge. “You hear that, Twilights?” The pony roared. “I have a name now! I am…ANTITHESIS!” She laughed aloud as her horn glowed and she shot off more fireballs. Her manic joy died only when she seemed to notice something approaching in the sky. Glancing herself, Lulamoon saw a trio of lights approaching, leaving a trail of shattered sound in their wake – one in the form of a rainbow, and two in a line of stardust. “Luna!” she exclaimed brightly, feeling hope for the first time in what felt like forever as she looked to the newly-christened Antithesis. Far from looking worried, Antithesis still had the same smile on her face. “You’re not really thinking of fighting Luna, are you?” Lulamoon demanded. “Luna, and this world’s Celestia…and I can only guess that the other stardust-trail is this world’s Luna, too. I don’t care how powerful you are. No unicorn is a match for three alicorns.” Antithesis glanced at Lulamoon, her smile widening as she flapped her wings several times and set her horn glowing. It suddenly occurred to Lulamoon that they did not, in fact, look like they were made out of gossamer or morning dew, as her own wings had been. Lulamoon gasped as a dark, dark thought entered her mind. Antithesis’ smile widened to impossible proportions as she took to the air, leaving Trixie and Lulamoon stranded atop an increasingly angry bear. --- Teleporting from Canterlot to the Everfree Forest hadn’t worked – there was some kind of magical storm over the forest, causing no damage to the physical world but turning the between-space of teleporting into a chaotic roil that couldn’t be pierced. The three of them had tried, and instead had found themselves chaotically thrown miles off-course, to the other side of the Everfree Forest and over the Sea of Tranquility that it bordered. Flight had been the only option from there, but they had lost valuable minutes. Celestia blamed her confusion at the roil, and at the mere presence of such a large Star Beast to begin with, at not seeing the real threat until it was almost too late. Shooting from the bear at speeds that Celestia had thought only herself and her sister – and, by extension, the other Luna – capable of was a blue-purple bolt that swiftly realized itself as a winged unicorn pony that collided hind-legs first with the interloping Luna, knocking her from the sky and down into the forest below. Celestia checked her flight, wings flaring to stop her supersonic advance towards the bear. Her sister did likewise, but a glance between the sisters was all it took to convey to Luna that she would handle this, and her little sister should deal with the Ursa Major, a task she was far more suited to than Celestia anyway due to her natural affinity with Star Beasts. Luna nodded once and shot off. Celestia turned to the newcomer, who licked her lips and smiled even as her eyes remained narrow. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Antithesis – ooh! I like being able to do that. Introduce myself, I mean. I’m new.” Celestia glanced down at the ground. The interloping Luna was picking herself up now, taking wing again. She looked basically unhurt, but surprised and angry. “I don’t know why you attacked us,” Celestia said evenly, “but I will give you this one chance to stand down.” “She’s behind the Ursa Major,” Luna said as she joined Celestia in the sky. Celestia glanced questioningly at Luna, who shook her mane. “I doubt the two are unrelated, in any event.” “Oh, no, not at all,” Antithesis said. “See, I needed a way to find Trixie and Trixie and Twilight and Twilight, and I found this sleeping Ursa Major, and thought to myself yes, Ursa Major. This seems right. And here we are.” Celestia’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t need to ask what Antithesis wanted with her student and the other unicorns – the reasoning was as obvious as the half-mile-tall bear that her little sister was even now engaging. “Surrender now,” Celestia insisted. Antithesis’ horn glowed, not any color of the rainbow, but instead jet-black. “No,” she said. “Suit yourself,” Luna said, beating her wings, Celestia doing likewise. The two had banked away from each other on instinct, then turned and closed on Antithesis from opposite sides. The pony remained hovering in air, raising either front hoof out to her side. “By the way,” she said, as her horn seemed to suck in all light, and channeled the resulting darkness into a pair of jet-black orbs, each large enough for an alicorn, on either side of her, “I’m guessing you thought I’m just some winged unicorn on a power trip.” Celestia blinked, and checked her charge at the utter confidence that Antithesis still had. Antithesis glanced her way even as her the orbs of blackness launched themselves at Celestia and Luna. “I’m not,” she said. The orbs moved too fast, and the two alicorns were enveloped in their orbs before they could react – and Celestia, for the first time in her very long life, found herself face-to-face with nothing, an utter lack of anything but her that seemed to pull away at the very fabric of her existence, trying to utterly annihilate her. It hurt, to say the least. It was only through willpower more ancient than anything that walked the Earth that she did not scream, that same willpower devoted to simply keeping herself real and whole and existing. When the utter nothing at last receded, however, she found herself drained as she fell to the forest below. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Luna in a similar predicament. The two alicorns righted themselves only just in time to check their falls and land in a tumbling heap on the forest floor. “I’m not really a pony at all, technically,” Antithesis’ voice explained. Celestia and Luna had landed only a few feet apart, and both immediately struggled to their hooves, glancing at each other. Neither had felt pain like that in centuries, and looking into each others’ eyes, they both knew exactly when the last time the other had felt that kind of pain was. Neither were by any means out of this fight, but it had suddenly become significantly more serious an engagement. Antithesis landed, wings spread wide and horn pulsing black as she conjured up more orbs of nothing all around her, setting them into orbits all around herself. “But if I was…I’d be an alicorn.” --- Sparkle awoke with something rough, yet wet and sticky running across her face. It was not a pleasant way to wake up, and she was up and standing in a moment, sputtering as she shook her head. “Ugh – what was – what was that…” She rubbed a hoof to her face, and it came away with something that looked like nothing so much as saliva. Sparkle cried out in disgust, horn glowing brightly as she ran a cleaning spell over herself, then a second time, then a third. It was only then that it occurred to her that for her to be covered in saliva, something had to have been licking her. Something big. Frozen mid-casting, eyes as wide as dinner place, Sparkle slowly turned her head – and she found herself face-to-face with a pair of large yellow eyes, set against a blue, translucent, star-studded coat – the coat of a bear that was larger than a house. Sparkle screamed, and the Ursa Minor roared.