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// To Intervene Is Divine 
// Story: Odrsjot 
// by Imploding Colon 
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	Rainbow soared upwards, her body finally decelerating.  Only at the end of her ascent did her figure stop shimmering.  The prismatic light ribboned into her core, leaving a dull pulse in the center of her pendant.  Wings and arms spread, she hovered briefly at the roof of the world, higher than any cloud or explosive or word could reach.

Her eyes fluttered shut, trailing with icy tears.

And she fell.

Her body toppeled, twirled, then fell limply towards the sunlit world-scar below.

Her plunge consumed the better part of a minute.  When she was low enough to smell the faint traces of smoke, her eyes drifted open.  She became aware of her terminal velocity, and she struggled weakly to spread her wings and glide to safety.

That's when the gnarled talon of claws grasped tightly around her.

"Hrkkkkk!" Rainbow's face turned ten times bluer.  Her eyes bulged as pain wracked her torso.

Fiercely, she was raised towards the angry face of a diseased monster.  Barely carrying herself aloft with spiderwebbed wings, Nevlamas levitated in place, gripping Rainbow Dash tighter.  "You..."  She hissed, sputtered for breath, and spat bloodied saliva past Rainbow's wincing figure. "I may notttt-skskkkktt have ended Harmony..."  Her slimy irises narrowed.  The Dark Divine's face was practically melting as she spoke.  "But... I-I have enough ssssstrength in me to end the Harmony Bearer..."

Rainbow Dash didn't even have half-a-breath to retort.  She gritted her teeth, tears forming in the corners of her pained eyes.

Nevlamas' fractured jaws opened wide, spitting spoke and aquamarine embers.  "Behold... the death of Ausssstreaoh..."

Thunder boomed in the distance, taking on a voice as large as mountains.  "Not until her journey is complete, Nevlamas."

"Scrkkkk!"  The Divine's snout jerked towards the blinding sunrise.  "Ssssister?"

Flying in like a comet, a pair of violet-red jaws with two sets of teeth clasped tight over Nevlamas' neck.  The Dark Divine shrieked, instantly dropping Rainbow Dash.

The pegasus body flew, toppled—only to be caught in a larger, healthier pair of claws.  These enormous fingers did not crush Rainbow, but instead held her safely as the rest of the behemoth's body shoved Nevlamas clear across the sky and into the southern face of the torn valley's bordering mountains in the north.

"Hraaaaaauckkkt!" Nevlamas' shrieked, tossing her neck back and forth in the jaws of its sudden adversary.  She yelped and howled like a rabid canine as slowly the strength was leaked from her body.  "Sisssster!  Sister, let me go!  Hrkkkk!  I can... I-I can still solve this!  I can ssssssstill patch up this f-fesssssstering wound in the cosmossssskkkttt!"

"There is nothing left to solve, Nevlamas," the majestic voice boomed back.  Rainbow, weary and fading, felt herself being lowered gently to the edge of the mountainside.  "Not by us, at least.  It is up to Austraeoh now.  She will bring the wind to the far ends of this ruptured world, just as she's brought the wind to you..."  A pronounced snarl.  "A task that I could not accomplish, as you very well know, beloved sister..."

Nevlamas tossed her head back, her body slumped against the crumbling mountain as if it was a giant bed of wilted roses.  Her breath came out in ragged whines, piercing the ear that was already hazy from her dissolving life blood.  "I fought so hard, Axan.  I fought sssssso hard and for so long..."  Nevlamas's eyeslits quivered, steaming in the far corners as she bled through every crackling scale.  "Hckkkkttt... I sssssssought to succeed where Endrax failed..." She gurgled, spat out an oozing fountain of aquamarine blood, and whimpered like a whelp.  "Thisssss world... is m-more diseased than I am.  Tell me, Axan, where did we g-go wrong?  Where did we fail?"

"We became old, Nevlamas.  Old and jaded, and now even the mortals outshine us."  A deep, fuming breath, and Rainbow caught sight of a pair of massive scarlet wings enshrouding the mountain like a veil, obscuring both behemoths.  "Endrax waits for a spark, and Austraeoh carries it.  There was a time when I didn't believe this, and it nearly cost this world everything."

The Dark Divine's voice was a whisper now, fractured and flimsy like the last vestiges of night.  "She's one of them, Axan.  A phantom of the betrayer'sssss blood-Hckkkkt!"  A weathering shy.  "What hope is left... under the cloudssss of chaos...?"

"Shhhhhh.  Sleep forever, Goddess of Magic.  If even you can find peace, then so can harmony."  The sky heated up.  Axan's wings glowed from the inside like a leather lantern, and Nevlamas' suffering shrieks were no more.

The silence reined Rainbow into tranquil blackness.  She collapsed with a sigh.