Collision Code

by SSJRandomMaster


Act 3 Chapter 7

Act III: Collision of Wills
Chapter 7: The Best Laid Plans…
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After what she’d heard and read about the new threat, she had briefly second-guessed herself on doing this part. But, everyone else was doing theirs, and thus, Twilight decided that she wouldn’t back out of it.
 
Her role in the plan was simple. In a different room, within maybe twenty feet of backup in case the Slayer fell for it, Twilight would pretend to be Cadance. It was a simple series of spells that Twilight did to produce the Cadance disguise; complete with bandages to pretend to be injured. The wait was brutal- lying down on a bed to try to draw out someone she knew full well wouldn’t mind killing her too was nerve-wracking.
 
But eventually, something did happen. She didn’t know how it got in there, nor did she immediately see it. She registered the sound of movement just behind her, and quickly, Twilight teleported away—in so doing, her disguise fell away as well. Now herself, she’d appeared within five feet of the bed.
 
“Alright!” Her horn lit up as she shouted, coating the room in a soundproof barrier, “I’ve got you now, so—“
 
The words broke off in her mouth as she realized she definitely wasn’t staring at Slayer, but rather a beast. To be more specific, a beast with immensely sharp claws, judging by how easily it had cleaved through the bed on which she had been “resting” not even a few moments before. She couldn’t place any real distinct features, but it definitely wasn’t like the manikins.
 
“What…” Twilight blinked in shock. The beast lunged. For whatever reason, Twilight didn’t immediately move, probably still stunned. She ducked down low, only to feel a hot pain drag across her shoulder, gasping.
 
Did he fall for it, or did he know—She didn’t have the time to complete her thought, teleporting away as the beast charged her again. This time, she vanished off to one side. Crouching down on one knee, she steadied herself, firing off a magenta bolt from her horn. The blast made impact on the beast's side, causing white cracks to appear on the point of impact. She fired a couple more as the beast turned. One impacted with the center of the beast’s chest, causing more cracks to appear on it; but the other seemed to be ignored as the beast ran at her.
 
Twilight gasped once more, realizing the beast seemed to have gotten faster. She quickly rose, this time managing to avoid it.
 
It’s a magical construct, she realized, Made of dark magic…
 
The beast moved again, thrusting its arm at her without moving. To Twilight’s surprise, the clawed arm detached, and in her moment of shock the white-hot pain dragged across her thigh, drawing more blood. Twilight turned, realizing the thing’s arm was rebounding at her. Quickly, she shot a laser out towards it. Her shot was precise, and she sighed as it fell to the ground, motionless, sparking.
 
However, she turned her head back to the beast, only to find it had moved in. With little time to react Twilight erected a magical barrier, but she didn’t have time to complete it as she raised her arms. She stepped back a bit, but one of the claws penetrated the barrier, driving into her forearm a bit. Twilight gasped, trying to move back, but found that the claw had hooked slightly. Quickly, the beast moved, taking out its clawed hand and thrusting it out again. Twilight barely managed to step aside, but the slice nicked the side of her stomach.
 
If this keeps up--! Twilight’s body fell, but the beast brought its arm down on air; Twilight had teleported again. Now a good seven feet away, Twilight fell to a knee. Her eyes glowing as her magic surged, fight-or-flight now in full force, Twilight sighted the disembodied arm she’d shot down. Quickly, she reached out with her magic, and threw it just as the beast rushed her one more time.
 
The beast’s arm ran right through the cracked chest, shattering it. A black smoke immediately began rushing out of the construct from the exploded chest. The beast’s back eventually hit the other wall just as the door exploded to cinders beside her…
 
Panting, Twilight could only wonder one thing, as the others took note of what had happened…
 
How did this happen?
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The others stood in silence as Twilight recounted the whole incident from her angle, her wounds having long since been treated. The guards had resumed their positions as well. It was hard to believe; they had all thought that Twilight’s strategy would work. Yet, for all her effort, the Slayer managed to slip under their noses. And on top of that, they were dealing with a magic they hadn’t seen since the Crystal Empire first reappeared.
 
It was as terrifying and as powerful as it had been back then, and it certainly held true even now. This time, there was no shield keeping it at bay; the enemy had already long since breached the empire’s perimeter and was now actively seeking blood. It had hurt two of their friends already, and showed no signs of stopping.
 
Everyone had a hard time dealing with what had happened as well. Both Rarity and Pinkie were downcast; they felt they’d somehow let what attacked Twilight slip right by them. John, on the other hand, couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief, knowing he was right in following his instinct. At the very least, he’d managed to rally a group. Rainbow, however, was clearly mulling over the fact she hadn’t noticed what he did and hadn’t charged in with him as a result.
 
Applejack had been visibly beating herself up the whole time; she’d been standing the closest, and yet she hadn’t heard the commotion from just down the hall even a little. And as for Corey, no one knew where he was. He’d simply vanished from sight after the medics began to treat Twilight’s wounds. But it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he was likely taking it the hardest.
 
“Why didn’t you tell us you were going to pose as Cadance?” the silence had finally been broken with Rainbow’s question. Twilight looked up to her friends. Obviously, that was the one question that had been hanging over the group since they’d found out.
 
“It was too risky,” Twilight said, “Our opponent, this…’Slayer’, can be anyone he wants to. I couldn’t risk telling you what I was going to do and have him finding out. And I wasn’t about to use anypony else as bait, so….it had to be me.
 
“I’m sorry,” If there was one thing above all that Twilight hated, it was lying to her friends; she’d seen what kind of damage that could do before, and yet… “I didn’t have a choice…”
 
Rainbow looked over to Twilight and let out a small sigh, walking up to her friend and giving her a hug.
 
“I’m just glad you’re okay, Twi.”
 
They all were. With everything that had happened recently, they’d had to deal with the fact their friends were putting themselves in far more danger than ever before.
 
“So what do we do now?” asked Applejack, “Even with everythin’ you put into the plan, he still got to ya, so what’s the point?”
 
“Actually, no he didn’t,” Twilight said, “Fact is, it was his magic that snuck past our defenses, and I was able to take care of it. All he did was give us an advantage.”
 
With a confident look (and a small wince as her side flared up), Twilight rose from her sitting position and stared at her friends.
 
“Now that I have a better idea of what we’re dealing with, I can place the proper countermeasures. This time, if he plans to get to any of us, he’ll have to finally show his face.”
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It’s not every day I get to say this about my work, but oh, how I love it when my muse gives me a particular reason to start molding them to my image. Had to do a bit of travelling to get to this one, but if it means serving the populace, then so be it.

This piece I will call, “Avaricious Gluttony”. You see, the people of Saddle Arabia, at least in these parts, are impoverished. Even now they are starving and resorting to robbery and mugging just to get by. But the muse, this time, openly didn’t care about any of them. It instead took all the money for its own purposes. I’m surprised I was able to get past the security protecting it from people like me.

There are many countries out there just like this one. Equestria is but one of them; each of them holding on to rule solely for their own vanity. I’m going to put an end to it.

Anyway, back to my sculpting. I hadn’t been gentle with it by any means. I could tell it outweighed its so-called “subjects” by a good few pounds. Security was an issue; it had hogged a good deal of the guards, to be expected with this particular brand of material. It was only fitting I caused a diversion within the castle so I could get their precious piece out unharmed.

I had just managed to get out of town with my prize when it awoke. It began pounding on my back, with the kind of strength you’d expect out of something so spoiled. It screamed at me, asking me if I knew who it was, along with a bunch of other threats I frankly didn’t care for.

“I don’t care who you are,” I finally said after taking it in to my humble little prison, where it so rightfully belonged along all my others, “You’ve let your people starve for too long…”

The pre-sculpting phase began. I took special care of the face and upper body, using my own two hands, making sure to rearrange the face to how I perceived it. A hell of a lot uglier than any makeup pilfered money can buy; the muse’s true face. But I couldn’t be satisified with just my blunt tools. Thankfully, I’d mastered the black arts for just this purpose…

All the while, it was screaming. At first, it was still reprimanding me, but as the days passed and my crafting continued, it changed over from cries of anger, furious denials about what I could and couldn’t do to it, to even better things. The sobs of some object who knew its time was coming. Those are often even better than the screams…it lets me know I’m doing my job right.

Well, I guess it’s time to apply my signature again. It has been missing from its museum for quite a while now. They’re bound to find me soon.

But it doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun first…
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Corey’s stomach very nearly turned. Why he chose to read this when the shock and anger of seeing Twilight hurt was still fresh in his mind was a mystery to him. Immediately after closing the book, he realized his hands were trembling. More so, he was sweating. Not that he hadn’t been before coming in here, but it had only made the problem worse.
 
One trembling hand practically yanked his glasses off his head and let them clatter to the desk he’d been reading at.
 
“He thinks… himself… a great… hero…!?” Corey said, through a trembling jaw. Leaning over, Corey buried his head into his hands, shivering as his mind struggled to process what he had read and what had happened all at once.
 
“Twilight…was hurt…” Corey’s thoughts had long since moved from internal to external, the massive overload he’d gotten from it all creating a bad storm inside his own head, “And I didn’t even know…By someone who thinks…he’s doing the right thing, no less!”
 
Corey tried to stand up, but his body didn’t immediately follow his will. He shook violently in place, trying to control himself, but to no avail.
 
“It’s happened again…” Corey mumbled, “I can feel the rage clawing at the inside of my skull, begging for a release…But I’m not so sure I can… I’m not ordinary anymore. I haven’t been…”
 
Corey glanced up to the book. It had pinned itself against the wall above him now—no, his own magic had gone off, and was punishing the source of his anger now. He violently shook his head, and the book fell spine-first towards the table. Immediately, Corey felt a surge of panic as the book started to open, and moved to close it. Even if it was the thoughts of one of the worst individuals Corey had ever had the displeasure of knowing that he existed, it was still evidence. It was hard to resist the temptation to just blow it up and be done with it, all the same.
 
“I can’t be here…” Corey snarled, finally willing himself to stand, “The last thing I want to do is give the sick bastard some gratification by burning his book with my own hands…”
 
Snatching his glasses from the desk once again and putting them on, Corey slowly made his way out of the room, trying his best to put on a mask and already knowing it’d be cracked nice and wide before he ever reached the others. Not through the anger that one could probably feel in the air around him, but just because of how he’d reacted after seeing Twilight hurt…
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John really had to hand it to Twilight; even though she had just endured a dangerous battle, even though she had sustained injuries, she still kept going. Looking over the blueprints of the castle, Twilight was already making tweaks to her strategy. Her plan was to prevent any outside magic from entering the castle and forcing the Slayer to confront them face to face. But Twilight wasn’t the only one trying to make some kind of change to their approach.
 
Borrowing one of the crystal guards, Rarity stood in front of him, her horn active as she stared in his direction. Rarity was focused in silence, but with each passing second, she seemed to be getting agitated. Finally, Rarity closed her eyes and let out a defeated sigh. The blue glow on her horn faded as she realized one single thing.
 
It’s no good…
 
As anyone knew, Rarity’s magic allowed her to track all forms of crystals. It was useless, however, in terms of tracking anything else. Rarity had hoped, however, that being in the Crystal Empire would make a difference.
 
Sure, she had been able to see the various crystals around her, but that was only because the castle itself was made out of them. The ponies that lived inside of it, however, were a different story. Even though their outer appearance matched that of a crystal, they were still organic. Allowing the guard to return to his post, Rarity sat with the others, silently thinking to herself.
 
There has to be something I can do…anything…
 
However, her focus, along with that of everyone else in the room, was diverted the moment they heard the doors to the room open. All were silent as they saw who had entered: Corey, who up until now had vanished after it was discovered that Twilight had been attacked. They weren’t sure what to expect when he returned, but if last time had been any indication, they’d have bet on pent-up rage. And that’s exactly what they saw in his face; this time, there was something else along with it.
 
The anger was there, that much was certain, but there were signs he was trying desperately to keep it under control. It wasn’t just in his face, but also in his body language. To an experienced observer, it appeared as though Corey was holding the weight of a world on his shoulders, and that world was just about to crush him.
 
“And just where did you disappear off to?” Not everyone was an experienced observer though; Rainbow Dash herself was no exception. Ever since Corey had left without saying so much as a word before hearing Twilight’s story, she’d had more than an issue with it.
 
Corey looked up towards Rainbow and took in a deep breath, “I just…I needed to clear my head…”
 
That’s a lie, That inner voice came back again, Tell them what you were really up to! Or are you afraid of what they’ll say if they find out? Corey shook his head, banishing the thoughts from it. He had neither the energy nor the time to argue with it right now.
 
“Oh sure…” Rainbow said, “And while you were stopping to smell the crystal roses, did you happen to forget that we still got a madman on the loose!?”
 
Anyone who wasn’t inches from Corey could see as his fist tightened in response to that last comment. People who were a little closer could see the veins on his hand starting to pop out. No one knew what would happen next.
 
“That’s enough!” called out Twilight, gaining Corey and Rainbow’s attention, “The absolute last thing we need is to turn on each other. If you’re anger, then make sure to point it only at the one who deserves it.”
 
Rainbow’s mood seemed to soften quickly. Bowing her head, Rainbow looked over to Corey apologetically before walking away. At the same time, Corey’s fist uncurled as he bowed his own head. His palm met his face, and his mouth moved just before he let out a short sigh.
 
“Now Corey, please join us,” Twilight said with a smile, “I’m about to share the change in the strategy.”
 
Corey nodded quietly and joined the others at the table. Everyone could feel a small relief in the tension, but they couldn’t help but feel it wouldn’t last, specifically for Corey. But none of them knew more about it than John did. As he watched Corey sit down, he could see it. There was something building up inside of Corey, and it was building up even faster. Now that they were sitting around the same table, he could see the strain Corey was going through emotionally. And all he could think of was when the strain would be too much to bear for him.
 
At some point it’s going to give… John thought, Problem is, who’s it going to be pointed at when he finally erupts?