Hold Your Color
by Quillery

Suggestions, Editing and Pre-Reading by :
Siyray, Willsons, Izraill Z, BabySkittleMonster, Legion222, Dreamshadow, edensbane, amacita

Chapter Chapter Twenty-Six
...To be Loved

A sudden stillness overtook the great chamber as Dash, in a body that should have been her own but was not, stared into Twilight’s eyes. They were immersed in pain and confusion, and Dash could see the same in her own eyes in their reflection.

Twilight was trembling, tears wetted at her face. “Rainbow Dash… you came back…”

Dash smiled raised a hoof to Twilight’s cheek. “I’ll always come back for you, Twi.”

Twilight sighed and relaxed, leaning forward for Dash’s touch. She jerked back as a loud hiss sizzled on her cheek as Dash touched her.

Twilight rubbed the spot where the shadows had burned her, taking a cautious step back. “I-I’m fine… just don’t do that again… not until we figure out how to change you back.”

Twilight managed a weak smile as she took her hoof away from her cheek, revealing a small welt in the skin. “You feel plenty hot to me…”

Dash shuddered. “No… Twi. I feel… cold. Ice cold.This—this isn’t right.”

“It’s just Nocturne trying to take over your body. We can fix this, I know we can!”

Twilight’s face fell. “You mean, you didn’t defeat her on a metaphysical level and regained control of your body?”

A furious, earth breaking roar exploded from nearby. The umbral crystals were humming in a harmonious chorus as their dark power was ripped and shaped into a growing, whirling shadow above the Prism.

Nocturne’s glittering eyes, drowned in rage, glowed from the depths of the mass of shadow. “How!? How do you keep resisting!? There is no might you can posses that can keep me out!”

Dash steeled herself. Her body, even with Nocturne’s taint, was still her own. Despite the alien quality that crawled through her veins and assaulted her mind, she was in full control. She allowed herself a smirk, staring up at what remained of Nocturne’s being. “I told you I’d fight you every step of the way! You shoulda believed me!”

Nocturne snarled as her form grew larger. As was her tactic, tendrils of physical shadows reached from her ethereal shape. They coiled and quivered from the churning power that radiated from the umbral crystals all around her. The faint light they produced seemed to strain from the overpowering darkness and slowly faded away. Even the remaining glow of the Prism was dying off.

“I have not come this far to be stopped!” Nocturne howled. “My realm of darkness will not be jeopardized! Now you will taste true power!”

Nocturne unleashed a wave of darkness, letting loose the combined might of her own power and the umbral crystals. The cave shrugged and sighed under the weight of her magical might and began to crumble. Stalactites let loose from the ceiling and impaled the ground all around. The crystal fields shattered in every direction, large chunks embedding into the sandy turf beside Dash and Twilight.

As the wave passed through Dash, she felt her own body relishing in its presence. She turned Twilight beside her. Her horn was glowing as it shaped a barrier around herself, casting off the tidal force of Nocturne’s anger. Her body was trembling from the immense cold, and Dash’s heart wrenched in her chest to see her in any pain after all she had been through.

Dash spun around, just in time to see Nocturne’s blazing eyes meeting with her own as her disembodied spirit collided with Dash. Dash’s mind screamed in alarm as the outside force began worming its way into her consciousness. She could hear Nocturne’s labored grunts of exhaustion ringing in her ears as she waged a mental and physical war for control.

Dash jerked her head to Twilight as she fought back. “Twi! Get away from me! She’s—ugh—trying to take over again!”

Twilight took only a few steps back as she adamantly shook her head. “I’m not leaving you again! I can stop her! Just give me a second!”

Dash could feel Nocturne’s mind oozing into her own. Her thoughts, her actions, her memories collided in an all out brawl. Her own body fought against her, as every attempt to move was merely a jerk or a twitch as her muscles spasmed and revolted.

Twilight brought forth her magic once again. Her horn glowed with the faint light of the sun and aimed it at the Prism. Dash felt her attention being ripped towards Twilight and the searing horn on her head began to glow in turn.

“Urg—Twi!” she tried, her teeth grating against each other. “Look out!”

Twilight’s attention wavered for only a moment to see a blast of shadow flying towards her. She stopped her casting and leapt aside. The dark, cold energy grazed her. She winced at its touch, but only landed with a minor stumble. She took no time to bring up her magic again, not noticing the growing limb that sailed from Dash’s body.

Dash fought against her own mouth to speak, but could only manage a single, “No!”

Twilight turned from the warning, but too slowly as the tendril smashed into her side. She let out a whimper of pain as she flew several meters away. She was still stirring as she landed, but it was groggy and disoriented.

Dash felt her body vying for another attempt, and she plowed through the rival commands. “No! You aren’t… hurting her… again!”

Dash wrenched herself back, taking slow, deliberate steps away from Twilight and getting as much distance as possible as Nocturne’s advances slowed her every step of the way.

“Give in!” Nocturne screamed, her voice echoing in the chamber. “You promised you would not resist if I let her be! Now you must be punished from breaking it! I will flay her alive if I must! You will not stop me!”

Dash kept walking, one leg after the other as Nocturne’s voice began to break with psychotic fury. “How!? You are nothing! You are a lowly pegasus! What gives you such power against me!?”

“That’s my marefriend you’re trying to skewer over there. And you’ll have hell to pay if you think I’ll let you hurt her any more. Maybe you shoulda given love a chance you bitch. It mighta worked out for you.”

“Love?! You think love is going to save you?! I will show you here and now how useful love can be when I bring this wretched world to its knees! No amount of love will stop the coming darkness!”

Dash’s will wavered for only a moment. She felt her body bend out of her control for only an instant. Nocturne turned towards Twilight and called up her magic. Try as Dash might, her grasp of how to use a horn was limited, and her ability to fight against Nocturne was limited.

Nocturne’s next assault went unhindered as she called up a mighty surge of dark magic and sent it flying to Twilight, who was still struggling to recover. Dash’s mind wailed as she tried to regain control and stop Nocturne, but it would not come.

Twilight lifted her head, just in time to see the lance of magic inches from her. Her horn glowed out of instinct, but it was too late. She blinked in stunned silence as it struck, rocking the cave in another tremor.

Dash’s mind came to a screaming halt. She stared, through Nocturne’s eyes at the dust spewing crater where Twilight once stood. Sparks of the remnants of Twilight’s magic floated out from the billowing smoke, settling in the sand like embers. Their light fizzled in the earth, before turning dark and cold.

Dash’s very soul trembled in overwhelming sadness, so powerful that even Nocturne’s control could not prevent her from crying. “Twilight…”

“Now, tell me,” Nocturne cackled. “How powerful is your love now?!” She let loose a terrifying howl of laughter that chilled Dash to the core. She couldn’t bring herself to look away. Her world was gone in a plume of smoke, helpless to stop it. Dash could feel Nocturne’s essence seeping deeper into her mind as her resistance faltered. What point was there to anything, with Twilight gone?

As the smoke cleared, Dash blinked at a flicker of light from the obscuring cloud. Her heart began to race as tiny fragments of hope began to trickle back. Even Nocturne gasped in disbelief as the dust settled. A faint coughing came from deep within the smoky blurr. The small twinkle of light grew as the dust and shadows from Nocturne’s magic continued to fade, revealing Twilight sitting behind a shimmering barrier, completely unhurt.

“I…” Twilight muttered. She was struggling to breath between the gouts of smoke that flooded the air around her, and the close brush with death she just encountered. Her eyes wavered with wide unease. “I don’t know how…” She tapped the barrier, almost hesitant to acknowledge its existence. “This wasn’t me.”

Dash could feel the roiling hatred of Nocturn burning in her head as her voice screamed into the edges of the cave. “Why won’t you miserable ponies just die already?! I’ve laid low Celestia like she were a child, but you meaningless interlopers defy me at every turn! What magic could you possible employ against the queen of darkness!?”

Dash scowled. “You’re really starting to sound like a broken record, lady. Why don’t you give up already?”

Her body jerked, taking a forced, laborious step towards Twilight as Nocturne continued to wrestle for control. “I will kill this miserable excuse for a princess, I will break your spirit, and I will destroy every fragment of your soul before I am done here today!” Her horn began to glow.

Dash tried to jerk her neck away to throw Nocturne’s aim, but this time, her magic was different. Instead of a mass of boiling shadows, it was a faint, thin coil of crimson that flowed like ribbons into the air. “I will find this rogue magic that shields you, and I will keep it from interfering again!”

As Dash struggled, she watched the crimson light dance in the air as it picked out small motes of lingering magic. They were small, incandescent streams of light, some coming from the umbral crystals, some from Nocturne’s own magic.

Nocturne grinned as her spell sound a single strand of magic, bound to the barrier that encased Twilight. she followed it along towards it source, but her glee faded when the tether led straight back to her. “What…?”

Dash blinked as her head craned down. Her eyes widened as Nocturne pulled her gaze to the necklace around her neck. The tether pulsed faintly from the enchanted amethyst, sending fresh magic towards Twilight’s barrier.

“This? This pathetic gemstone is the source of your magic?” Nocturne’s voice growled with understanding. “A symbol of your bond, a magical facet of your love. Disgusting, but potent. Now I see how you could resist so easily. A force tethering you beyond life and death itself.” The edge of the crimson ribbon gleamed dangerously as it cut across Dash’s neck and severed the cord that held it.

“No!” Dash said. She tried to jerk herself away as the necklace fell to the ground. Nocturne focused her will into lifting her hoof, positioning it directly over the amulet as she cackled.

“Once this bond is broken, so will your ability to fight back. It would be piteous for the world to know that I was nearly undone by a bauble such as this.” She scoffed. “No matter. Nopony will know what happened here today. Only the legend of my ascension.”

Dash yanked back with all her might against Nocturne’s control, but the dark queen exerted so much more. Dash could only surmise that for years of controlling hosts, her dominance was absolute if the held on long enough. If Dash lost the one thing that interfered, there would be no stopping Nocturne.

Her hoof quivered as it reached as high as it would go. Dash screamed out for Twilight. “Twi! You gotta stop her! I can’t fight her!”

Dash’s alarm was mirrored in Twilight’s face as she quickly got back to her hooves and manipulated the barrier around her. She reshaped it into a bulwark of energy and charged forward towards Dash and Nocturne.

Dash held back the leg as long as she could while she could hear the strain in Nocturne’s voice hissing in her ear. “You can’t hold back forever… This body is more mine than yours. You can fight it as much as you want, but you can’t keep me out forever.”

Nocturne channeled dark magic in the tip of her hoof. Frigid cold and burning heat prickled on Dash’s senses as she pressed against Nocturne. Her hooves jerked and trembled as the two warring minds vied for control.

Dash was so focused on keeping the hoof motionless, that she failed to see a new limb bursting from Nocturne’s magic. It sliced towards Twilight and bashed into her shield, shrugging her sideways. She let out a grunt of pain, and Dash’s concentration faltered.

Faltered long enough to feel the hoof fall from her control. With a sudden laugh, Nocturne dropped the hoof with all her might into the amulet.

The crunch of breaking crystal echoed in Dash’s mind. Time slowed to a crawl as the fragments scattered into the air. Their light glittered in the faint glow of the crystalline forest as their last traces of magic dissipated into nothing.

The world darkened in Dash’s eyes. Hope faded, victory fell into the impossible. Despair gripped her hard as Nocturne’s essence seeped into every fibre of her being and forced Dash’s out. The cave faded into darkness, as Dash felt herself being pulled into the cold void.

Faint glances of Twilight, Aurora, her father, Ditzy all burned into her vision as the last things she would ever see, ever remember in the depths of oblivion. All that she ever loved would disappear into the corners of her dreams, never again to feel their touch again.

As despair gripped her heart, a faint flicker of light cut out from the darkness. A silhouette stood out in the darkness that approached her with slow, methodical steps. A regal mane, like a lion of midnight. A resplendent cloak, glowing with sapphire beauty. A shimmering crown, glowing with majestic splendor. All these and more that befitted a Sombra of ages past, lingering in the realm in-between.

He had a smile on his face as he stopped in front of Dash. She felt herself held in place, in a space between dark and light, between life and death, held by the fallen king’s presence.

“I told you, Rainbow Dash. Love is a poison. It destroys you, or it strengthens you. The choice is yours. It is not too late.”

Dash blinked as Sombra’s form faded into the light just as quickly as it had appeared. In his place, the crystalline filly remained. She was staring back at Dash with a wide, wondrous smile. She was glowing brightly in the dark void that surrounded them with all the colors of the rainbow. Dash had never noticed before, but she had never seen the child in such a state. Her body was always dull, a smoldering light under glass. Now, she was the rainbow itself.

The filly approached Dash. The light that washed off of her calmed Dash’s rampaging soul, burned away the pain of her flesh and bone, and soothed her mind of its doubts and worries. The child stopped a breath away from Dash, staring into her eyes. She lifted her hoof and placed it to Dash’s heart.

At that moment, Dash felt a surge of energy flow through her. She felt all the cold, smoldering anger that had welled inside of her vanish and in its place, filled with joy and happiness. The shimmering form of the child flickered from sight, as it burned into a white light that flowed into Dash. Before she completely vanished, for the first time, she spoke, “Thank you.”

The crystal hum of the child’s voice resonated within Dash’s mind. It brought memories to the front of her consciousness. She witnessed the good times, the happy times. From the moment she sat with Twilight Sparkle one night watching the stars so many months ago, love was nearly everything to her. It made her happy. It made her feel unstoppable. It made her feel whole.

With that thought on the forefront of her mind, the shadows around her began to burn away. Like paper to a flame, the light overtook everything, discarding the shadows like they were fuel to feed its ravenous hunger. Like Celestia once said, the shadows yield in the presence of the light. Now, Rainbow Dash felt like nothing less than a sun.

Color invaded Dash’s eyes. A wave of unimaginable energy coursed through her body as she was awash in color. It flowed from her like a raging waterfall. It radiated into the earth around her, the air above her. She felt awake. She felt alive!

Her eyes adjusted to the fountain of energy that crackled and sang in her ears. Her mane danced in the raging winds, free and wild. She blinked. Her colors had returned! In an instant, her grayscale hair was revitalized with its bright, colorful glow. She looked down at her hooves. The black, poisonous taint of Nocturne’s corruption was burning away before her eyes. The fallen horn of Sombra splintered and withered into dust.

Dash turned. Twilight was there, a hoof over her eyes to block out the gusts of wind that emanated from Dash.

“I don’t know either! Nocturne broke the amulet and it just exploded in colors!” She pointed at the Prism. “Look!”

The Prism was returning to life. Even in the darkness of the cave, the Prism glowed with the might of the sun. Torrents of liquid color began to gush from its base and saturated the dark sand with its prismatic essence.

The umbral crystals quivered and hummed a painful song in the presence of the light. Their surfaces cracked and split, as their slowly hardened into lifeless stone before Dash’s eyes. Their dark, ominous glow was replaced by the Dash’s aura as it carried throughout the entire cave.

An ear piercing howl shook throughout the cave. Dash followed it to its source, grinning when she found it. The shadowing form of Nocturne hovered in the air, quivering in the bright light that assaulted her from all sides. Like the shadows of Dash’s mind, she too was set alight like a blazing fire.

“No!” she wailed. “This isn’t possible! I broke the symbol of your bond! I reduced the Prism to a lifeless husk! How?! How can you do this!”

Dash smiled, dangerously so as she looked up at Nocturne’s withering form. She opened her wings, stretching her body as she relished being in full control. “Easy. I’m Rainbow Dash, thats why!”

Nocturne started to drift away. Dash frowned and dipped down. “Oh no you don’t!”

Dash launched into the air with incredible speed. Even she blinked in surprise at how fast she took to the sky and rocketed towards Nocturne. In an instant, Dash overtook the fleeing shadow and grasped it in her hooves. So fast, that she had no time even to stop.

She slammed into the mountain ceiling like a cannonball. The rock and stone buckled under the force as she sailed through it into open sky like it were not there at all. The mountain burst open, sending huge boulders into the nearby valleys. The field of stony thorns fell over like bowling pins, and clouds of dust erupted from their landing.

Nocturne shrieked in Dash’s grasp as she tried to wriggle free. Dash smirked. “Well! Looks like you’re not so hot in the light. Well eat it up, Nocturne. There’s plenty to go around!”

Dash cackled as she banked wide and descended back down towards the Prism. The cave now open and exposed to the sun of the Badlands, the crystalline forest was now a graveyard of stone as Nocturne’s dark creations shriveled into nothing.

Dash dropped and pulled laps in the air above the Prism, as the great crystal hummed a great sigh of relief to be once again in the sunlight. Bit by bit, the dark, gloomy quality of the earth and sky returned to their natural hues as the great artifact returned to its earthly purpose. The sand and rock regained their dry, orange tint that even in the midst of the endless wasteland, the colors of life had returned to the world.

Dash glanced down to her. “Just a sec, Twi! I’m not done with her just yet!”

“We don’t have time to play around! Remember what Luna said! We need to deal with her before its too late!”

Dash frowned. Twilight was right. She looked to the trembling shadow pony in her grasp as it tried to break free and run. After all the trouble she had caused, the great and mighty Nocturne was reduced to a powerless shadow. She would not remain like that for long, however. If she got away, she would just return and try again. Dash wasn’t about to let that happen.

She glanced down to the Prism, and a single thought entered her mind. It was foolish, crazy, downright moronic, but it was too perfect to pass up. So she began to climb.
Her newfound speed make short work of her ascent. She felt the high winds pushing and shoving against her as the rose high above the earth. The Prism’s glow kept her centered, which radiated like a great pillar of light high into the sky.

Dash quickly banked and prepared herself for her dive. She was miles high, the Badlands stretched out below. If she had to guess, she thought she might even see the edge of Equestria over the horizon.

A smile spread across her lips as she judged her fall. “You tell me, Nocturne. I’m sure you took science class before. We all know what happens when light passes through a prism, but what happens when a rainbow goes back through one?”

A single moment passed as Nocturne went still. “No... “ she whispered. “No. NO!” She twisted and writhed in agony as she tried to escape Dash’s grasp, but the radiant power of the Prism that washed over her offered no chance at escape as Dash began her dive.

The air pressure bent at Dash’s hooves. The twisting winds squeezed at her hooves and held them still. She beat her wings furiously, dropping faster and faster. The air crackled and hummed, ascending into a deafening scream that begged for release.

The colors ebbed from Dash like ribbons, flying in the air behind her in a stream of light. The twisted and danced in the wind, flowing from her like water and evaporating in a stream of mist. Rings of pressure contracted and burst as she dropped, scattering clouds and color alike.

The pillar of light drew closer as the Prism etched out in her vision. Less than a few miles to go and the air around her was already full to burst. She steadied her descent. The timing had to be perfect.

Nocturne’s screams died the moment they left her mouth on the wind. Dash’s brows furrowed, tensing in focus. She controlled her breaths, in and out. Wingbeat by wingbeat. The chorus of the heavens chimed in her ears.

The ancient cave laid before her, the Prism a breath away. The air seized, the Rainboom detonated in her ears. The eyes filled with color for only a moment, and then, there was only light. Bright, purifying light that engulfed her senses. She felt her body drift off into sleep, her mind calm and at rest, with a single thought drifting across her mind.