//------------------------------// // Siblings // Story: Winter Storm // by Snake Staff //------------------------------// Shining Armor “Come on Shining! Can’t catch me!” laughs Twilight, doing an easy and graceful loop-de-loop around me before ascending even higher into the clouds. “Twily!” I call out in between my comparatively slow, awkward attempts to follow. “Slow down!” My sister pokes her head out from over the top of a cloud. “Nope!” She sticks her tongue out. “You’ll have to come and get me!” “Twily!” I protest vainly, frantically beating these long white things that I’m still getting used to. “I need to talk to you for a minute!” Twily’s been acting like this ever since we left dinner together. I was hoping for a few private moments with my sister to have an important conversation about what we were doing before she was called away by Celestia. But all I’ve gotten is a teasing foal who seems determined to lead me higher and higher into the sky. I thought she was taking our work more seriously than that. Yeah, I know she’s been silly at times, like during our visit to the cemetery. It’s a way to deal with the hard fact of outliving all your best friends. And yes, I know that me finally being alive again is an exciting moment for us all. Believe me, nopony knows that better than yours truly. But still, Twilight usually knows when she can play around and when to be serious, if only for a few minutes. Something’s not right. “Not until you catch me!” she wiggles her tale at me before taking off and gaining still more altitude. I struggle to follow my sister, but she’s so much more experienced at flying than I am. I’ve never flown outside of chariot before these last few days, while she’s been practicing since the day she ascended. Add to that the fact that the evening sky is covered in grey clouds, and I honestly have little chance of catching up with her if she doesn’t let me. “Please!” I call out as my sister vanishes behind another cloud. “This is important! It’s about – WHOA!” I tumble backwards in an unusually strong burst of bitter wind. The world spins around me as I struggle to right myself, and for a moment I fear that I’m going to plummet. But what lessons I have learned kick in, and I manage to get myself back to right side up with a few well timed beats of the wing. I hover there in the clouds for a moment, attempting to adjust to the powerful air current I now find myself in. It’s much stronger than the ones I’m usually in, and I’m puzzled for a moment before a coincidental glance downwards answers my question. We’re high. Really high. As in, I think I may be more than a mile off the ground. Even the Imperial City looks small from here – a little sparkling circle on a vast plain of tundra. Individual ponies are almost invisible even for the enhanced eyes that I now have. I can’t image they can see me in turn. I’ve never been afflicted with acrophobia, but right now I feel just a slight edge of nervousness coming on. Another part of me is surprised that I didn’t notice before how far we’ve come. I suppose I’m not quite used to this new degree of stamina – really, I don’t feel tired at all. Even crystal me needed more rest than this. My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of Twilight’s voice. “Shiny!” it calls through the grey sky. “Up here!” I don’t see anything, but I can hear roughly where it’s coming from: the other side of a particularly large and dark stormcloud. Ignoring the feeling that something is off about this and fighting the air currents, I pull myself still higher into sky, aiming to just go straight through the thing. “Twilight!” I shout to make myself heard above the current. “This is serious! Please, stop!” I plunge into the vast grey bulk of the cloud, it feeling oddly semisolid even when I’m trying to pass through it. Does that happen to all pegasi, or is it just inexperience with their magic on my part? “I need to talk to you.” My head pokes through the top of the cloud. I look to where I guessed Twilight should be, but there’s nopony there. “Not for much longer,” says somepony from behind me. It’s Twilight’s voice, but… different. My military instincts are what save me. Literal lifetimes of guard training give one something approaching a sixth sense about these things. Some situations just scream “defend yourself”, and so that is what I do. And just in time too. Something impacts heavily on my hastily-formed shield and explodes. It doesn’t penetrate, but the sheer kinetic force of the attack picks me up and hurls me into the air. Pegasus magic means that the fall is a few feet onto a fluffy cloud rather than a few thousand onto the ground below. A second impact rocks my barrier before the smoke clears or I can get to my hooves. Again, my defense buckles but does not fail. I dig my hooves into the cloud and hold on, not moving nearly as far this time. I shake my head to clear the slight daze and look to the source of the attack. There’s smoke in the air from where the two magical attacks met my shield, but the wind at this height blows it away within seconds. Standing on the cloud, with a deep scowl on her face, is my little sister. “Dammit!” she bares her teeth. “What is with your family and seeing things before they should?!” “Who are you?” I demand, rising to my hooves. “And what have you done with my sister?” “Oh, you know. Kidnapped, imprisoned, replaced,” she grins maliciously. “The usual.” “Tell me where she is,” I snarl through gritted teeth. “Now!” “Hmmm, let me think about that… No.” “Then I’ll just have to force it out of you!” Offensive magic has never been my specialty, but I like to think I haven’t neglected it. At my command, my barrier reforms into a wave of rose-colored energy and flies at the imposter. It’s supposed to wrap her up tight – I want this one alive, at least until Twily is safe. She conjures a protective bubble of her own – just as I’d hoped for. My magic envelopes the fake Twilight, where it forms a second bubble around hers. She shouldn’t be able to teleport out of that, and if I’m correct she won’t able to break- Her sickly green shield expands, meeting mine. For a moment, they’re evenly matched. And then my attack shatters into fragments, which dissolve into mist. Ok, she’s stronger than I was hoping for. “Dear little Princess Twilight’s heart had a lot of love in it,” that malicious grin is plastered all over her face again. “It was delicious.” Green magic, eats love? “Changeling,” I hiss, scrapping my hoof along the cloud we’re standing on. “How dare you?!” I was under mind control when it happened, so my memories of the event are vague and fuzzy at best, but I recall that having love sucked from my body and eaten was both painful and very debilitating. Imagining it happening to my little Twily… If I’m not careful, I’m going to kill this bitch. “I wonder what you taste like?” she licks her lips. “Let’s find out. Minions!” Suddenly, more figures rise from out of the cloud to stand in a circle. Pegasi, the lot of them, in civilian clothing and Crystal Guard armor alike. Two, four, six… I count twenty of them altogether, surrounding me on all sides. I lower my ears and reform my barrier. I’m not much liking my odds here. Twenty one to one is hardly fair… I could release the pegasus magic holding me up and just hurdle for the ground… but no. I can’t do that. As she wants to capture me, I want this changeling – likely a queen – alive. As far as I know, she’s the only one who knows where my little sister is. If I run, she’ll get away and I may never see Twily again. Alright then, I’ll just have to beat them all. For Twily. “Get him!” imposter Twilight yells, pointing a hoof at me. The “pegasi” drop their disguises, unsurprisingly revealing twenty changeling drones in various attack poses. Several of them open fire with their green magic. Beams of sickly green energy smash into my shield. It’s intense, but defensive magic is my talent and I have far more energy now than I ever did before, and it holds. I force it to hastily expand. The wave of energy knocks the lot of them off their hooves, and then I’m on them. I throw myself towards the closest of the bugs. I have to take as many out as possible, as quickly possible. I grab the nearest changeling by the head before it can recover its hooves and twist as hard as I can. With a sickening crunch, its chitinous neck snaps and its struggling form goes limp. I toss the carcass at one of the changeling’s comrades. It impacts, and the two fly off of the cloud together. One changeling, either brave or stupid, comes at me from behind, green energy wrapped around its horn as its body hurdles at me. I lash out with both hind legs, kicking it hard in the face. I can feel exoskeleton crack at the point of contact- Gah! One of the little insects just stabbed me in the side. Its horn penetrates an inch or so into the flesh in between my ribs, and I can feel paralytic changeling venom being pumped into the shallow wound. I swing my right hoof around and smash it in cheek. The part of its horn inside me is torn off by the sheer force of the blow, as the rest of it sails off into the distance. I ignore the small injury, already feeling my body acting to purge the poison, expel the foreign object, and close the wound. I don’t expect it will take long at all. The sixteen remaining changelings wise up and change tactics. The sound of insectile buzzing fills the air as they take off from the cloud, retreating upwards into the sky or downwards into the grey mass below. More beams and lances of green energy lash out towards me, and I renew my shield. In a lethal parody of a rainstorm, blast after blast after blast collides with my shelter, exploding on impact. Smoke and fire obscures my vision, and very shortly I can see nothing beyond my own magic and the enemy assault. Great, I’m pinned. I’d teleport, but I can’t see if it would put me in a better or worse position. But I’m willing to bet I can maintain this shield longer than they can keep up this barrage. Seconds pass. Ten. Twenty. The changelings’ attacks continue, exploding against my defense. But they’re wasting their energy – it’ll take more than that to get past one of my shield spells. Thirty seconds. The barrage begins to slacken. They’re weakening. Forty seconds. One more beam of energy fruitlessly expends itself on my barrier, kicking up one last explosion. But I’m unmoved. Smoke still clouds my vision, but I can see the wind already starting to blow it away and- Wait. My ear flicks. I hear something. I rear up on my hind legs on pure instinct. The false Twilight emerges from the clouds directly below my hooves. She smashes into the bottom of my shield at incredible speed horn-first, forcing her way through and shattering it like some kind of missile. Her horn passes through the space where my heart just was. Without thinking I kick out with both my front legs, catching the faux-alicorn on the chest. “Twilight” is hurdled through the air, her own momentum carrying her upwards while my blow carries her backwards. Her body spins in the air, and she lands roughly on her belly. I grab her in telekinesis while she’s too winded to fight it off, and- Argh! I get stabbed again – this time in the back, on the joint of my left wing. More venom enters my system through the wound, but more worrying is how the wing flops limply to my side. I conjure several daggers from the aether – energy intensive, but effective – and fling them at the changeling with its horn stuck in my back. It’s ripped from me and repeatedly impaled by sharp metal blades. By the time I’ve done that, though, the queen – so I presume – has recovered. She blasts the pink telekinetic aura off of herself with an annoyed snarl. We face each other, I raising my signature shield once again. It’s worked well enough for me so far. “Useless…” faux-Twilight mutters to herself. “Can’t my daughters do anything right?” I vaguely recall some lesson on changeling reproduction that Twilight gave me way back when. All changelings come from eggs laid by queens, but vast majority are infertile female drones. I suppose that’s what she’s talking about. She faces me, making eye contact. Around us, the other changelings have stopped at some unspoken signal, hovering wordlessly in place. “I was hoping to feed on you first, but I’m not going through this again.” She looks past me. “Do it now!” she shouts. I brace myself, but refuse to take my eyes off of my sister’s imposter. She’s the most dangerous thing her, and in any case I’m building charge for a much larger attack on- Grey suddenly surrounds me. It half looks as though the clouds have risen up to consume me, but the texture is wrong. This is smoke, and it… passes right through my shield. What the hell? Without warning, my muscles start to seize. First my legs, then abdomen, then wings, neck, and finally, my face freezes as I struggle to make any part of me move. Why is my body not listening to me? What in the bleak infernal planes of Tartarus is going on here? Then the grey smoke envelopes my face, and all is darkness.