//------------------------------//
// Falling from Grace 
// Story: Gravity of the Situation 
// by DJSkywalker 
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	I stared down the object of my hatred. After using a little trick I came up with, I found her location and decided to make a grand entrance. Blowing a wall apart in less than ten seconds seemed to fit the bill. There she was, a tall white alicorn mare with a multi-hued mane blowing in a nonexistent breeze. The sight of her made everything in me snap. The memories of what her and her sister did tore at my very being. I was going to make her pay.

“Hello, Celestia,” I said trying and failing in keeping my anger out my voice. “Remember me?” I could only let the power flow into my hands as I awaited her answer. She should at least have the gall to remember the one who nearly leveled all of Equestria in a fit of rage. After a moment, the alicorn spoke, horror ever-so evident in her voice.

“Kat.” That one word was enough to make her coat all so much paler. It was a good look for her.

“So you do remember me,” I sneered. “Then do you remember my promise? Here’s a hint: I’m gonna kill you!” With that I rushed forward, shifting the air around me so that I flew with incredible speed. I was intercepted, however, by a rainbow streak that bowled me over, causing me to instead fly into the adjacent wall.

“No one hurts the Princess,” the pegasus yelled at me. I stood up from the rubble of the wall, shakily. My power was still not fully returned but it would be enough to take down one princess.

“Don’t interfere. This is between me and Celestia. She’s gonna pay for what she did to Dusty!” I screeched at her, failing to stop the tears from coming falling. “She took him from me and now I’m gonna kill her!” I shifted again and started falling right towards the solar princess. I aimed a powerful kick at her, giving a battle cry the whole way down. “Hyaaaah!!”

Only to be for naught as she teleported out of the way a few meters. I shifted back to normal gravity and stared her down. “Coward! Fight me!” I didn’t even bother shifting and just rushed her head on. And once again she teleported out of my way.

“Please, Kat. We can talk about this,” Celestia pleaded to me, but it fell on deaf ears.

“That last time you said that, you killed my only friend!” I could hear the massive gasp from the ponies around us, but I didn’t care. Then something clicked. My gravity sense was showing me her magic, and it scared me. How had her magic powers grown so much? How long was I trapped in that stone prison? This level of magic is nearly thrice of what it had been back then and that’s saying something considering it was quite high then, too.

I realized that with her level of magic and my current condition, there was no way that I could fight her like this. Celestia was far too powerful and I was nowhere near my fighting best. I had to run, I had to get away before she could seal me again. So, I ran to the wall I had ripped apart and shifted gravity into a horizontal slant and fell away from the castle, boosting my speed so that none of the pegasi could catch me. Sometime later, I landed in a lush green field and settled on one of the many rolling fields. I didn’t know how long I had been gone, but all I knew was that for the first time since I had come to Equestria, I was truly alone. This time, I didn’t even bother trying to stop my tears from falling.


***Canterlot Castle Throne Room (Celestia’s P.O.V)***


I simply stared out the window in the direction that Kat flew off. She looked like she was in so much pain, more so than the last time she and I met. I could feel the gazes of my student and her friends boring into me, wanting to know what was going on. I promised to tell them everything once Luna arrived. My time was for naught, however, as I felt my sister’s presence enter the room.

“Sister,” she called to me. “Why hast thou awakened us from our slumber? Thou knows we cannot raise our moon without our beauty rest.” Always the charmer, my sister. I wanted to smile along with her, but my heart was far too burdened. “Sister?”

“Princess?” asked my faithful student. Oh yes, Twilight was always the curious little filly. There was rarely a time I can recall that she couldn’t be found in the castle without a book somewhere on her. I miss those days sometimes. Twilight has grown into a fine young mare thanks to her friends, but now I fear that what they must do is far beyond what even I should be willing.

I sighed before my explanation. “Luna, she has returned.” It was as simple as that, but Luna seemed not to understand.

“Who has sister?”

“Kat. Kat has been freed from her imprisonment.” I looked up from the ground to see Luna’s face pale. She obviously remember the young girl as well. I watched as her jaw opened and closed in rapid succession, not unlike a fish. Before she could utter any form of response, Twilight spoke first.

“Princess, who is this ‘Kat’?”

“Yeah she sure doesn’t look like a cat!” Pinkie added, though it wasn’t helpful. Her cheery mood was enough, though. Even I wasn’t immune to the pink pony’s antics.

“Kat was a… friend of ours over a thousand years ago. She has powers the likes have never been seen before on Equis. For you see, Kat is a shifter.”

“A shifter?” asked Applejack. “What the hay does that mean?”

“It means, fair Applejack,” my sister intervened, “that Kat can manipulate every aspect of gravity at will. This makes her both a great ally and a dangerous foe.”

“What!? She can control gravity? How is that possible?” Twilight was beginning to look hysterical. Most likely out of shock and curiosity. Knowing my faithful student, she was probably racking her mind trying to think of someway that Kat’s powers would be possible. Before I could answer her curiosity, it was the lovely Fluttershy that spoke next, albeit very softly.

“Um, Princess Celestia? Who or what was Dusty?” The one question I feared. The reason for Kat’s hatred of us both.

“Dusty was Kat’s companion in this world. He was a cat, one that was the color of the night sky and even had twinkling stars on his body. Kat always said that Dusty spoke to her constantly. That he was her only friend.”

The girls in front of me didn’t seem to like where this was going, but Fluttershy asked again. “What happened to him?”

I let out a deep sigh. “Luna and I destroyed him.” They all gasped in shock. Fluttershy had tears moistening her eyes.

“W-why Princess? Why would you destroy a little kitty?” It wasn’t hard to hear the hurt in her voice.

“Luna and I wanted to discover the source of Kat’s powers. At the time, her control and sanity were waning. She was not meant to be gifted with immortality and it weighed heavily on her mind. As her mind began to degrade her powers got more and more erratic. We thought that if we could find the source of her power and turn it off, it would prevent ponies and other creatures from getting hurt. What we didn’t expect was that it was Dusty that was her source of power. In our ignorance, Dusty was wiped from existence by our spell right in front of Kat. I can still remember her screams of grief to this day.” Now I was the one with tears in my eyes. I couldn’t continue and I am thankful that Luna was able to.

“We never wanted to hurt Kat. She was a dear friend and a valiant ally. Always putting the needs of others before her own. But something grew worse out this. It seems that Dusty was not the source of her powers, but instead was her focus and limiter. Without Dusty, she lost all control over her powers and nearly destroyed the entire planet by trying to reverse its gravitational field.”

“What?” several of the mares asked, not knowing what Luna had said.

“If Kat had been successful, Equis would have literally ripped itself apart!” Twilight explained in a panic. The others paled at the very thought.

“That is correct. We had no choice but to seal her away with the Elements of Harmony. That memory still pains us as well. Those eyes of hers that were pained with anger and grief, her voice was maddened by her mourning. Looking back, we think losing Kat was just another step towards our turning.”

I draped a wing around my sister as neither of us were comfortable speaking about Nightmare Moon just yet. Right now, we had to focus on Kat. “Girls, I know this will be difficult, but I need you six to find Kat and use the Elements on her if she resists. If she doesn’t, then please bring her to us safely. Kat never gave a chance to even apologize for what we did, even if it would mean very little. We just want a chance to have our friend back. Will you do it?”

“You can count on us, Princesses,” Twilight said proudly as the others stood around her with looks of determination.

“Then I wish you all the best of luck.”


***Whitetail Woods (Third P.O.V.)***


Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash walked through the woods as quietly as possible. Princess Celestia had told them that this was the general area of where Kat had come to. The chariot could only take them as far as the entrance to the woods, but it was a good start. With Twilight leading, the others followed her into the brush.

After an hour of searching, they found no sign of the gravity shifter. No broken branches, no gravitational anomalies, nothing. They were all starting to get worried that Kat had taken off somewhere else. The “human”, as Celestia had called her, was able to fly long distances fairly well, so it was within the realm of possibility that she could have gone elsewhere.

“Ooh look there she is!!” Pinkie spouted out of nowhere pointing to a large clearing in the woods. The other girls looked to where the energetic mare was pointing and saw the girl was indeed there. She was sitting all alone on a hill as the wind blew her hair about. Kat sat on her haunches, head leaning down into her chest.

Cautiously, they all approached the human, not wanting to disturb her or her slumber. But as the neared Kat, they noticed that the sounds coming from her were not that of snoring, but was instead a mournful sobbing. Fluttershy couldn’t help herself and flew over wanting to comfort the young girl. The others were freaking out at her sudden foolish bravado. Fluttershy landed right next to the crying maiden who had yet to notice the peagasus’ presence.

“Um excuse me?” Flutters asked quietly. Kat stirred for a moment, but never looked at the pony.

“Go away,” Kat responded. Though, it didn’t sound very sincere.

“Please, I want to help you,” Fluttershy encouraged.

“No one wants to help me. They only want me gone. I bet I could just vanish of the face of the planet and no one would even bat an eye.” Fluttershy wanted to gasp, but knew would only make things worse. This guilt was piling on the young girl hard, so Fluttershy did the one thing she knew would help. She gave Kat a great big hug. Kat froze from the sudden contact, but the warmth and comfort of the embrace kept her calm. “Thank you,” Kat whispered.

The other mares stared in disbelief at the scene before them. This was supposed to be the greatest threat of Equestria? This sobbing creature was supposedly capable of ripping the planet apart? That seemed a little farfetched. Twilight was the first to walk up to the pair.

“Excuse me? Miss Kat?” Kat raised her head slightly to see her visitors for the first time. The pony that hugged her was a pegasus that was yellow in color with a long flowing pink mane. The other was a unicorn with violet fur and a deep navy mane with a pink stripe running down it. “We were hoping that you would come with us back to Canterlot. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna would really like to speak with you.”

“I doubt that,” Kat said with her voice dripping with fury. “Knowing them, they’ll probably send me to join Dusty in the afterlife.” She stopped for a minute and looked to the sky. “Then again, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. At least I wouldn’t be lonely anymore.”

Fluttershy felt sick. This creature really went through hard times to be stuck in such awful thoughts, and it seemed Twilight felt the same. “No, no! They want to apologize to you. They want to right their mistake.”

“Their only mistake was letting me live. They probably should have just killed me the day we first met. Then none of this heartache would have ever happened.” The other ponies gathered around them as Kat started to have a thousand meter stare. “It feels like only yesterday when I was normal girl. Had I know what was going to happen on that day all those years ago, I probably would have just stayed in bed.”