From Regret to Rage

by GivingSpider


Chapter 5

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Screwball took a good long amount of time to ponder what had been said. The plan that she has slaved over and executed with surgical precision was unraveled by an unlikely saboteur. Screwball calculated that if anypony was going to break her resolve it would be Pinkie Pie or Fluttershy. For Rainbow Dash to logically yet simply dismantle her design in front of her was a shock comparable to looking back to see her father suddenly turned into stone.

Tears stopped falling from her eyes as she sat and thought. The fully grown mare held her a little closer with her wing and smiled at her. It looked like the Pegasus would patiently wait for Screwball to do something; whatever that something happened to be. Rainbow Dash didn’t sound or appear angry. She didn’t resemble the fearsome creature that shut the door with the force of a dragon. The warmth from her wings and body gave Screwball some small comfort that contradicted the eroding hope in her heart.

Screwball leaned further into the embrace and breathed deep in her sorrows. From this point she had two options. There was no hidden and easier to accept third option. She simply sat in place and weighed her choices.

In the time it took her to exhale she channeled some of her magic.

The world went grey. The air grew still. Warmth stopped coming off Rainbow’s body. Screwball focused to keep her heart beating at a snail’s pace. With time crawling along at a fraction of its usual pace she facehoofed for forgetting that her father showed her this trick for her birthday long ago.

She could stop her plans. She could give up her schemes. She could release the Element Bearers from her spell. She could accept responsibility and inevitable consequences for her actions. She could plead her case to them; and perhaps they would show lenience. There was a chance that Rainbow Dash might even feel slightly inclined to take her side. There was an equal chance that the others might even play a role in bargaining with Celestia for terms of her father’s release. Maybe this wasn’t an end but a new beginning. Maybe this was her chance for her to start over.

Maybe Discord could start over. Maybe they could be the family they always wanted to be while keeping peace with Equestria’s monarchs.

On the other hoof she had Twilight in a trance studying the spell needed to free her father in case ‘Plan A’ didn’t work. Plus Rainbow Dash’s eyes were open.

Screwball gradually let her heart quicken to its neutral state. Color gradually returned to the world and she could again feel the warmth of her suddenly acquired older sister figure. She gazed at gentle smile gazed into magenta eyes. Her eyes began to swirl and she hit Rainbow Dash with another attempt of hypnosis.

The time she took to make her decision had only taken place within a second but for her it had stretched several hours. Her mind and body were only capable of accounting for a few minutes but her energy reserves had the benefit equal to a night’s rest.

To say that Rainbow Dash was hit by the full force of the spell would be an understatement. A more accurate description would involve the word ‘pulverized’.

The Pegasus stood in a daze as Screwball carefully got out of the one winged hug. Rainbow’s eyes were wide open and fixed on her own. Screwball had to admit that it crossed her mind to let go and start over; but she still had a reasonable chance of success. The tender moment had distracted her from the constant run of her method and memories of her father. Hypnotizing the Element Bearers was a part of the plan; not the plan itself. She took in a confident breath and spoke to the helpless creature in front of her.

“Stay right here. Do not leave this loft.”

Rainbow Dash said nothing. She simply lied down and patiently waited for the world to end.

Screwball made her way to the door of the loft and slowly opened it. It made a convenient way of getting hay bales out of storage but the drop down was less than idea for an Earth Pony. She gave her beanie a twirl and descended to the ground below. She took note of her energy reserves and calculated that she had enough for the rest of her task. She shouldn’t need to stretch a second for a seemingly instant refresh, which was good since she wouldn’t be able to do it again for a month and she had much less than a month to spare. She needed to be done by the end of the day. It was critical that she finished her plan before the sun went down.

Screwball gave her beanie a hard turn and lifted up to the sky. She climbed higher than the barn and drifted towards the apple trees in the distance. The child of Discord followed the sound of steady impacts being made almost without rhythm. She looked down at the trees and at the sound of another heavy blow she saw one visible shake.

She grinned as she descended closer. She could see the muscular force of a true Earth Pony laborer. She was the same size as Pinkie Pie but clearly had much more muscle and more will to use it. A head on fight with Applejack would end shortly for the filly, but she wasn’t here for a fair fight. She grinned as she continued her decent towards her next target. With almost full energy and a reinforced spirit she landed behind the worker pony and had a brief daydream of flying with her father.

Applejack was unaware of the menace right in front of her. She continued to hammer at the tree with her hind legs and apples fell into several barrels. She then lifted the barrels onto a large cart and took down empty ones to place around the next tree. With unrelenting drive to put in a fair day’s work Applejack continued her vigil. More barrels were filled. More barrels were put onto the cart. More barrels came down to be filled. Screwball took a moment to admire the work ethic. She started to wonder if she needed to incapacitate the farmer. Even if she kept up her pace there still were a lot of trees left. Clearly the orange boulder on legs had no intention of stopping until the job was done. Screwball briefly thought about saving her energy and moving on to her last target.

The only thing stopping her was that she needed all six of them to be under her power for at least two minutes. Screwball needed the ponies at her mercy. Screwball needed dominion over all of them. She needed to complete her task.

She took a deep breath and began to channel her energy. Screwball spoke up to get her victim’s attention.

“Excuse me.”

Applejack didn’t respond. She continued her labor.

“Hey!”

Applejack’s reaction was the same.

“LOOK AT ME!” Screwball shouted at the orange Earth Pony.

Applejack loaded more barrels as if nopony else existed.

Applejack’s focus was broken only by Screwball popping out of a full barrel as it was grasped to be lifted. Screwball channeled her energy and took hold of the farmer.

Screwball then was rather forcefully made aware of a flaw with her plan.

Applejack dropped the barrel out of surprise. The wooden container tumbled and rolled along, spilling apples along its path. It struck the base of an apple tree and Screwball fell out of it. Screwball sat up and clutched her left foreleg and let out a scream of pain. The grown mare ran over to her with an almost motherly concern. She picked up the wailing filly and hurried her to the cart. Abandoning her daily grind she prepared to pull the cart straight out of the orchard and straight to the closest place she could take a filly with a broken leg.

Screwball kept crying and screaming and Applejack charged onward.

Screwball stopped her charade and sat up. The cart stopped at the sudden lack of noise. Applejack grew pale and turned around and uttered a silent prayer hoping that the filly had only passed out from the pain. What she got was eye contact with a strange filly with a sinister grin and swirling eyes.

Screwball cast her spell and Applejack was unable to look away. Screwball leaned closer and after allowing herself a small laughing bout she addressed the farmer.

“I need you to go back to work. I need you to put in some overtime. Do not stop until all the apples are collected.”

Applejack obediently pulled the cart back to the section she was harvesting. Screwball hoped out of the cart and steeled herself for her last target.

She thought about her father trapped in stone for what she hoped would be one of the last times. She thought about how they would be together again soon.

Only one Element remained; the only one with a gaze attack of her own.