Meet the Pyro
The interviewer walked silently through an older section of the team’s home. She looked apprehensively at the worn doors of an Operating Room. She raised a hoof and quietly opened it, poking her head through. On a bed, a dirty white alicorn rested her multicolored hair on the lap of a dark blue alicorn.
Celestia stretched slightly on the bed she shared with Luna. The palace was so quiet, nowadays, after all that evil Twilight told her about came. Apparently they all went to shelters for protection, leaving behind a small group of dedicated defenders to slowly weed out the grime. It was hard work, but each time she purified another of her corrupted subjects, she could rest just a little bit easier.
Luna was working on paperwork. She still had to run the country. She would’ve tried helping out a little, but the new spells Twilight had taught her drained her. She nuzzled Luna’s coat, the night princess muttering unintelligibly.
A flash of purple moved through the doorway to their chambers. Her head snapped to attention at speeds that hid her tiredness, but relaxed at the sight of her pupil. “Twilight, how have you been? I know that searching for the corruption takes much of your time, but can you find time for a vacation, or a break? You know that all that studying isn’t good for you, despite what you say about your supposed hardiness.”
‘Twilight’ stared incomprehensibly at Celestia for a moment. A cloud of blue twitched in her peripheral vision.
“Ah, sure! In fact, I was doing that right now.”
The princess smiled happily. “It’s been so long since we had time to each other outside of work,” she said, reaching forwards and nuzzling the flustered interviewer. The pony snuck glances off to her side, but she paid no heed to it.
“Um, yes,” the interviewer said, backing off. “I, uh, the Engineer, realized that I never made a detailed list about what each of our crew was good at, and wanted to help better coordinate our team,” she read from her notebook.
Celestia tilted her head. “We didn’t? I thought-”
“Nope!” the interviewer interrupted, her eyes darting. “Even if I did, I somehow misplaced it. Yup!”
“You misplaced it? I thought-”
“So, what is it that you do in this drrThe Royal Castleyace?”
“Oh, so a practice interview? I heard that there was going to be one later today. No problem, ‘interviewer’,” she daintily giggled. “The brave ponies here in this castle help cure the corrupted ponies in this land, to restore its harmony and hopefully make this place habitable again.”
The interviewer glanced to her side, and grimaced slightly. Celestia didn’t remember anything being there, and puzzled over it momentarily.
“Whenever you, I mean, Twilight -” she tittered again “- finds a source of corruption, she creates a portal that brings me and the rest of these fighters with us. Sometimes, we have to collect samples from their strongholds to better figure out how to better fight them. I trust Twilight to figure it out better than I can.
“The special spells Twilight had taught me were to purify the corruption from whatever it has plagued.”
The interviewer once again glanced to her side, and grimaced after a bit. Celestia decided to remind herself to clean up whatever dirtiness beside her that her beloved student kept seeing there.
Just like...
Movement.
Shadows. Light. A statue of moondust beckons. Follows. Movement towards Moondust. Anger. Light. Happiness.
Through the archway. Recoil. So much light. So much movement. What to do? Brain highlights. Targets highlighted. Happiness. So many ponies saved. Break the chains. Break the devices of torture. Melt them to slag.
Laurels. Flowers. Wyrm flying overhead, raining toys. Moondust surrounds her. Feels nice. Escalators. More targets. Summon Windex. Clean the walls of wallpaper. Clean the walls of wall. New carpet. Thundercloud overhead. Fear. Hate. Moondust placates. Grudging acceptance.
More ladders. More purifying.
Full Moon. Wyrm creates an elevator. Fun. Falling. New Moon. Lightning, Cloud, Wyrm, Crystal, Brain, Ladybug, falling. Bouncing. Going through Space Mountain.
Darkness. Hate. How dare they.
She lifted incandescent eye sockets, her horn glowing with fierce light. “How DARE you!” she roared, sending a wave of power blasting at the wall, completely blowing it off its foundation. She took slow, heavy stomps out, lighting up the yard with massive swaths of fire. She felt bullets pinging off her armor. She gave a cold, empty glare towards its source. A flare shot off into the night. She glared at the rest, trying to provide covering fire against an invulnerable goddess of fire. She gathered up the rest of her energy. “Solar Flare!” she cried out, sending a basketball sized globule of fusion, and detonated it in a very specific manner.
There was a massive blast of searing air, blowing a cloud of charred flesh throughout the yard.
She slowly swept her head around, watching the glowing embers rain from the sky. The grass would be freshly nourished tonight, the unburnt blades swaying from the heat wave, along with the burnt blades of war impaled into the earth. A flash of motion caught her eye, and she saw a charred skV11#@[Redacted]
A sleeping foal. Free from the Nightmares. Forever.
Regal smile. Giggle at the ghostly forest. Pulsing heart. Floo jump. Greyness.....
The color drained from the room as the interviewer left, the only beacon of color. Celestia’s thought patterns slowed. The color in her irises drained, becoming grey too. Her muscles slowly, fiber by fiber, relaxed, depositing her head into the Medic’s waiting hooves. Luna sighed, watching the interviewer leave.
“Good luck,” she whispered. “Watch out for ... It.” She levitated a few pistols and SMG’s to her side, checking their magazines and disabling the safeties. She kept them in a small pile beside her, protecting her sister’s body with her own, readying the invincibility spell.