//------------------------------// // Chapter Twenty-Eight // Story: Starlight // by PurpleFire135 //------------------------------// Applejack tensed and Dash lowered herself to spring at Iron Flare. “I would just stop right there, if I were you.” He said calmly. Applejack could see part of the way into the hall behind him, it was filled with Guards. She glanced up at the surveillance screens lining one wall of the office, it confirmed what she could see. Most if not all of the squads that were stationed at HQ were outside waiting for them, with Steel at the front. Silver Shard came into the room behind Iron Flare. Applejack sighed and moved out of her attack position. Dash stayed fixed in place, staring at Iron Flare in equal parts fear and a stare that would have killed a lesser pony. Iron Flare barely seemed to notice. “As you can see, there is no point in continuing this little ‘rebellion’ you seem to think is going to work. I would suggest you surrender now.” Silver Shard said with a professional coldness. “Of course, it might be more fun if you don’t.” Iron Flare suggested, “Since there really is no good outcome here for you.” He shrugged and looked at Rainbow Dash, who flinched. Applejack frowned furiously. Iron Flare walked farther into the room and turned to look at the screens on the wall. Behind him several Guards came in and took ahold of Applejack and Rainbow Dash, neither of them resisted, it was pointless. He walked behind the desk and started turning dials on the surveillance control board. “Let’s just see where the rest of your friends are.” He said as the screens flicked between locations all over headquarters. “There!” Silver Shard said, pointing to one of the screens in the corner of the wall. It showed a view of the observatory tower. Inside, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Starlight seemed to be looking around for something, a dark purple aura flowing around the room from Starlight’s horn. She was already looking for the source. Dash looked at the screen with a pained look on her face. Applejack turned to Iron Flare. “You have to let her finish! If she doesn’t succeed, the whole planet is done for! You know that, right?!” She yelled at him. “Well, obviously. I have no intention of stopping her, this is exactly what I wanted.” He motioned to Steel, who had moved to stand in the doorway. “Take several squads up to the Observatory and block every exit, by door or by window. Do not let them escape. When she is finished, I want them all captured. Alive, understand. Once you have completed that, await my orders. Go.” Steel left. Iron Flare turned back towards Applejack and Rainbow Dash. “Let’s watch the fun, shall we?” He laughed. -- Starlight ran into the Observatory and squinted up at the glass ceiling, the sun was huge. It basically took up the entire sky. She frowned and looked around. Now that she was finally at the highest point in the City, she had no idea what to do. She looked around frantically, there had to be something here. There were cabinets and telescopes along the round walls of the room, other than that, the room was empty. “Starlight, do you need our help?” Fluttershy asked kindly. Starlight turned to look at her and Pinkie Pie, who smiled encouragingly. She took in a deep breath. “I’m going to try searching with my magic, but could you two check and see if there’s anything that looks important anywhere else?” She asked, motioning to the equipment scattered around the room. “Sure. Just do whatever you need to.” Fluttershy said and went to start digging through the cabinets. Starlight closed her eyes and focused. The room fell away as she slipped easily into the vision her magic gave her. She saw the swirling pegasi and earth pony magics inside Fluttershy and Pinkie, as well as her own dark purple. She began sending out tendrils of energy, searching for any other magic items that might be in the room, anything that could even possibly the source. She was high above Equestria, in the highest point in the City. It had to be here, or at least reachable from here. She could just feel it. Suddenly, two of her tendrils shot energy back at her, strong magic had been found. She frowned, looking out the two swirling vortexes of magic that had just reached her awareness. One was centered on Fluttershy’s saddlebags, the other around Pinkie’s. She levitated each source out of the bags and towards her, one was pink, the other blue. As the two magical objects floated to her, Pinkie and Fluttershy turned to look at her. She slipped back into her normal sight. “What are these?” She asked. “Oh, Starlight, those aren’t the source. They’re our Elements of Harmony. They won’t be any help.” Fluttershy explained. Starlight tilted her head in confusion. “Elements of Harmony? Those are real? I thought it was just a story…” Starlight trailed off, looking up at Fluttershy and Pinkie. “Who told you that story?” Pinkie asked. “Rainbow Dash did. It was really fun, but if the elements are real…” Starlight gasped. “You’re all the ponies from the story!” Fluttershy smiled sadly. “Yes, but we need to focus on the problem at hand. We can talk about this later.” “But…but! Why don’t we just use the elements instead of me? They can do anything! Their magic is basically limitless!” Starlight argued. “Starlight! Stop. The elements won’t work! They’re useless!” Fluttershy told her sternly. “But.” Starlight said, confused. “Just keep looking for something else, okay?” Pinkie said to her. She sighed. “Okay, I guess.” Starlight frowned and levitated the two elements back to Fluttershy and Pinkie, and then turned back to her magic, still searching around the observatory. She slipped easily back to looking around with her magic sight. She looked up at the sky and directed her aura up. Farther….farther…closer…. Starlight felt a voice in her head, not her own. She gasped and her focus slipped. The tendrils snapped and her aura winked out. She desperately tried to regain her focus, but her horn stayed dead. Her eyes widened as she realized that she recognized the voice. It was the same as the unicorn from her dream…Her dream! She had forgotten in the light of the day what she had realized. She struggled to remember. Farther? What did that mean? She slowly felt her magic reboot itself and her energy tendrils reform. She could have smacked herself when she realized. Farther up! She quickly sent her magic spinning towards the glass ceiling. --- Dash watched in dismay as Starlight’s shimmering vortex of dark purple magic shattered. On the screen, she looked around as if stunned. “Hrm. That’s unfortunate.” Iron Flare said from behind them. “I had hoped she would do it all on her own, but perhaps…perhaps she needs a little…encouragement.” He finished thoughtfully. He shot a weighted look at Silver Shard who nodded. “Let’s go.” She said sharply to the Guards nearby. The guards holding Rainbow Dash and Applejack pulled them roughly towards the door. “Wait! She’s got it going again! We can’t--!” Dash yelled, still looking at the screen on the wall. No pony answered her, and neither Iron Flare nor Silver Shard took another glance at the screen, unaware that Starlight had regained her focus and was searching again. Dash was cut off as the three Guards around her pulled her out the door. Applejack frowned angrily, but went out the door without resisting. Internally, though, her mind was racing. There had to be something she and Dash could do before they got up there. They got out into the hallway. It was packed wall to wall and as far as she could see with more Guards. She could have burst with anger. It was pretty much hopeless, she figured. --- Starlight’s magic twisted and twirled above her, reaching higher and higher, and passing seamlessly through the glass ceiling and into the sky above. She could feel, just at the edges of her awareness, something. She had no idea what it was, but it was there, and she knew it was what she was looking for. She had the feeling that if she could just figure out exactly what it was, it would reveal itself, but she just couldn’t quite tell what the source was, but she knew it was what she was looking for. Suddenly, there was a crash behind her. She pulled her wavering focus back, switched back to normal sight and turned around to face the door. “Starlight, get back!” Fluttershy gasped, moving to stand in front of her. Pinkie Pie rushed to what was left of the door, it had been kicked down by Guards, who were now swarming into the room. Several of them tried to grab Pinkie, who was already halfway across the room by the time they were even close to her. Fluttershy pulled Starlight up towards the ceiling with her. Starlight’s eyes glowed with purple light as she tried with everything she had to hold onto the web of magic in the room. Pinkie was surrounded. She looked around for a brief second before all of them leaped at her. In an instant, she was a spinning pink blur of attack. Amazingly, she was managing to hold them all off. Any Guard that even got close was met with a hoof, or her head, or even her tail. “Hold.” Said a dark male voice from the edge of the fray. Almost instantaneously the fighting ceased, leaving a furious Pinkie Pie in the middle of a circle of Guards. Several of the windows opened and more pegasi Guards came in, disrupting the delicate strands of Starlight’s magic. She closed her eyes and maintained the web, just barely. They flew in and surrounded Fluttershy, though they all kept their distance, a few of them looking nervously at Starlight. “We don’t need to fight like this. We’re all sensible ponies here.” A dark red pegasus who Starlight had never seen before continued. He glanced sharply up at Fluttershy. “Would you please put the unicorn back on the floor and move away.” Fluttershy looked around nervously at the Guards around her and held onto Starlight with a look that might have maybe been defiance, and that was a big maybe. “Just put her down! This doesn’t need to take this long.” A grey pegasus mare came up next to the leader who had been talking before. Starlight had the feeling they both were in charge here. “Iron Flare,” She scolded, turning to the red pegasus, “We don’t have time to play games.” She turned back to Fluttershy and motioned for her to move. Fluttershy held her ground. Iron Flare nodded. Without another second’s warning, one of the pegasi Guards behind Fluttershy and Starlight came up and hit Fluttershy in the back of the head, hard. She crumpled and she and Starlight tumbled towards the floor. “Fluttershy!” Pinkie yelled. Starlight gasped and pulled her magic in. At the last second, she found herself hovering just above the floor. She looked behind her and let out her breath. Fluttershy’s limp form was also hovering. “My, you really are powerful. And all that with no real training.” Iron Flare said, almost to himself. Starlight looked up and her eyes locked with his cruel almost black ones. She gasped and both she and Fluttershy hit the ground, her horn going dark. “Please. I’m just trying to help. I think I can fix the sun, I just have to find the old source…and I’m real close!” Starlight told him. He raised an eyebrow, as if surprised she had actually talked to him. The room was silent for a second. “We don’t have time for this!” The grey pegasus stormed up to Iron Flare. “Silver Shot! Have an ounce of patience.” He replied sharply. She huffed and turned around, motioning to the Guards around her, who looked confusedly at Iron Flare. He sighed in a disinterested way and completely ignored Silver Shot and the Guards. “Now. I want nothing more than the sun to get fixed, but time, as you may have noticed is of the upmost importance, and seeing as you’ve already been going at this for quite some time, I feel that you may need a little encouragement. Especially concerning your apparent…focus issues.” Iron Flare explained calmly, almost seeming to imply the fact that Starlight had been unable to maintain the web because of some problem of hers. Starlight frowned in confusion. He turned and waved to the Guards at the door. They brought in Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Starlight’s breath caught in her throat. Rainbow looked bad. She was bruised and bloody. Starlight ran over to her. “Rainbow!” She cried. “Starlight! Stay back!” Dash yelled as the Guards holding her pulled her back and Iron Flare stepped in between Dash and Starlight. He pushed Starlight back into the center of the room. “Let’s all be professional with this.” He said, aloof. “Oh, buck that.” Silver Shard said from behind him. He turned to say something, but she cut him off again. “Listen here, unicorn. You figure out how to fix the sun, or we kill your friends.” She told Starlight maliciously. Starlight glared back at her. “Silver Shard!” Iron Flare admonished. “We don’t have time!” She argued. She pulled a knife from her belt and sliced across Applejack’s face. Applejack frowned and actually growled at Silver Shard. Iron Flare smiled. “Well, I guess that does get the job started, doesn’t it.” He locked eyes with Applejack with a smirk. She didn’t even blink. “You’ll kill them all anyway. I’m not stupid.” Starlight said into the quiet room. “It’s not like I’m not going to fix the sun. I’m not going to doom the whole planet just to spite you. How big are your egos? You aren’t that important. I’ll do what I came here to do.” She turned around did her best to ignore them, pulling her focus in and reforming her web of energy. Her aura reached up to the ceiling and out into the bright, sunny sky. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, they glowed with her signature purple magic. The tendrils of her magic swirled with energy. She was so close, it was almost as if…if she could just put a name to what she was looking for, the source would reveal itself. The place where the unicorns used to pull their magic from, their part of the world that corresponded to the pegasi and the sky, and the earth ponies and the earth. She pushed her web out farther. What was it?! Starlight, The voice said in her mind. Yes? She tried to answer back. There was no response. She frowned. Why? Of all the things to tell me, why that? Starlight thought. Her magic swirled angrily as she desperately tried to figure it out. Then something tweaked at her magical web, something hidden, something that should be there, but…wasn’t. Some part of the world that had gone missing, but…she could feel it. Her eyes widened in realization, it had to be the source! Her mind raced, what was missing?! If she could put this puzzle together, that would be it. She pushed her magic even further, and as she did, the room was bathed in her purple aura…and something else, some other bit of magic mixed in. She gasped as the power of whatever had mixed with her magic hit her. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, the connection to the source! Her parallel to the connection the other ponies had with the earth and the sky. It wasn’t all there though, she still had to figure out what exactly it was to access the full potential of the source. “Hurry up!” Silver Shard yelled from behind her as she pulled her knife out. Starlight gave her no attention. This was far too important. She looked at the magic swirling around her. A minute speck of white magic drifted past her, a part of the source. She focused on it, just for a second. The tiny speck sparkled and shone like a small star, perfect and beautiful. Starlight was in awe at the raw magical power just contained in the smallest part of the source. Starlight. Her heart raced as every bit of her magic training and everything Zecora or the unicorn from her dream had said came back to her in one brilliant flash. It all made sense! High up! The first part of her! Why the voice kept saying her name! That was it! THE STARS! They were the source! The unicorns and the stars! With that realization, the dam that had been holding back the source burst and Starlight was filled with the wave of magical energy behind it. The room filled with a blindingly brilliant, white, light, as if a star itself had exploded in the room, with Starlight at its epicenter. The power was enormous and it took every ounce of strength Starlight had not to be swept away by the sheer magnitude of the blast. The light began to fade slightly, though Starlight’s horn was still lit; not with her signature dark purple, but the brilliant white of the star power. As the light faded, her purple magic aura began to retake the room. Starlight frowned. Wait a minute… That’s not my magic…She thought. It was too light. Her magic was darker. The light purple magic pulled back and condensed into a single sphere near the center of the room. With a popping noise it completely pulled inward, leaving a figure in its wake. “It’s you!” Starlight gasped as the unicorn from her dream, and the voice in her head stepped out of the magic sphere. She shimmered slightly for a moment before her horn lit up and she solidified. “Yes, it is me, and Starlight, you did it! You found the source! You have no idea how proud of you I am.” She smiled. Then Starlight noticed something else. Not only did this pony have a horn, she also had wings. “But… who are you?” Starlight asked. “TWILIGHT?!” Several voices in the room yelled. Chaos broke loose as Rainbow, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie all began fighting desperately against their captors. “Get her! And don’t let any of them get away!” Iron Flare yelled over the din.