//------------------------------// // R Plus 7 // Story: Oneohtrix Point Never // by Regidar //------------------------------// R Plus 7 Twilight closed her eyes, the streaks of energy she observed in the leyline burned into her retinas. When she opened them again, the thin shell was still there in her hoof, laying there almost innocently, like it was nothing more than an unassuming gossamer remnant of some large insect. The resemblance was certainly there—and if Twilight were just a bit more gullible, or just a bit less intelligent—she could have been able to convince herself it was nothing more than just that. Yet, Twilight was Twilight, and that was undeniable a piece of her horn’s outer layer. She stared down at it, the overwhelming numb feeling that had filled her after her detachment from the leyline slowly giving way to the tortured agony in the pit of her stomach. It did not radiate out like the precious little heat from the stone deep beneath the earth—it snaked through her intestines, seeping into her blood and drawing lines as it tainted each vessel, horror and panic sinking deep fangs into every cell as it passed through her, until she was nothing but a web of glowing venom filled in with little bits of pony between the gaps. The tiny tapping of hooves behind her was almost not enough to wrench Twilight’s gaze away from the terrifying sight in her own hoof. With great effort, she turned her head around, her heart beating detached from her body, hammering a frantic, primal tune against her ribcage and bouncing around inside the cavity of her chest, slamming against her other organs in a frantic effort to get them to respond to the sheer, almost abstract horror of the situation. “I got your bandages, Twilight!” Sweetie Belle said, pride and apology mixed together in her voice like some sort of vile soup. Twilight looked down at the bandages, the roll hanging off of the filly’s raised, white hoof. It was almost pathetic, sitting there; the cut on her hoof was the least of her worries now! Her other hoof held the real issue! Her horn, couldn’t Sweetie Belle see her horn? Surely, at any moment, she would scream and leap back, babbling incoherently as she gazed up at Twilight’s head. The fear would strike deeper for her more than anypony else, of course, seeing as she too was a unicorn, and Twilight would not be surprised if she fell on her side again, returning to the sobbing wreck she was just minutes ago. Sweetie Belle smiled hopefully up at Twilight, raising her hoof slightly and nodding down at the bandages. Twilight blinked. “Th-Thank you, Sweetie.” She raised her bloody hoof, turning it over so that its underside faced Sweetie. “Could you wrap it for me? U-Use your magic, it’s always good practice…” Sweetie Belle nodded, humming as her horn sparked. “I also got a little pad of gauze and some water so we can wash out the cut! Keep it from getting infected, and all.” Twilight nodded, chewing her tongue slightly with her molars. She always knew Sweetie Belle was a bit… dull… but how could she be so oblivious to this? Twilight hadn’t looked at her own horn, but if a whole LAYER was missing, and an irregular one at that, surely she’d notice? Could she really be that obtuse and unobservant? “Good thinking, Sweetie,” Twilight said, barely biting back contempt as her teeth dug deep into the soft muscle of her tongue. “Always nice to see you’re keeping yourself sharp in more than one area.” Sweetie hummed, grunting softly as she levitated the cup of water, and gently tipped it over. The water washed over Twilight’s hoof, carrying the blood away with it. Crimson bands and spirals appeared in the deluge for just one moment before they were whisked away, dripping down Twilight’s foreleg and matting her fur. The gauze followed, patting down the area around the cut, the white slowly becoming more and more stained with red. Twilight winced, a sharp pain shooting down her leg with each pat of the Sweetie scrunched her muzzle slightly, the roll of bandages unwrapping and slowly floating over towards Twilight. “Wait…” Sweetie said slowly, looking down at Twilight’s overturned hoof. “What’s that?” “What’s what?” Twilight looked down at her hoof. A tiny little splinter of black stone rose about half a centimeter from the soft flesh, and the beads of blood around it betrayed it as the cause of her cut. “Look, you’ve got something caught in the underside of your hoof, right where the cut is,” Sweetie said. Twilight scowled at her redundancy. “Let me get it out for you.” Sweetie’s horn lit, and a small glow formed around the shard of obsidian. The streaks of light shot across her vision, and she let loose a scream so high pitched that nopony heard it. She felt the vague, but necessary warm pulse sever from her—and she was alone and cold. Nothing was inside her, nothing was around her, she was only a cold husk floating in the middle of a magicless void— And it was all because of a dim witted thief who wanted nothing more than to keep the heat for herself. “No!” Twilight screamed, shouldering Sweetie Belle away from her. The filly fell on her rump, letting out a squeal, and the bandages fell to the floor with a lame thud. “You can’t have him! He’s mine, you little thief, he’s all mine!” Sweetie looked up at Twilight in bewilderment, her eyes growing wet. “Wh-What? Twilight, what are you talking about?” Twilight’s chest heaved as laborious, cutting breaths manipulated it. She stared down at her hoof, a single bead of sweat creeping down her cheek as she focused her gaze on that black sliver. “I-I’m sorry, Sweetie, I just…” Twilight trailed off. Quickly, she bent down, and took the bandaged roll in her mouth. She lifted her good hoof, and moved her mouth down, and with a few quick twists, had her cut hoof properly dealt with. “There; no nopony can make the mistake of trying to take him away from me again.” “Him?” Sweetie quivered on the floor, her eyes darting around uncertainly. “Who’s him? Is he hear right now?” “No,” Twilight muttered more to herself than to Sweetie. “But he’ll be here soon…” “He?" Sweetie said, just as bewildered as before. “Twilight, I don’t understand! Who—“ “The lesson is over," Twilight said curtly, turning flank on Sweetie. “Excuse me, Sweetie, I need to see somepony real quick.” And Twilight was gone, leaving Sweetie Belle alone in her home with only a chunk of the floor missing and a blood stain to remember her by. Twilight hobbled outside, and stretched her wings out. With a few quick beats of her feather webs, she was in flight. As she soared over the air through Ponyville, a thousand thoughts ran through her head. Help was obviously something she needed to get… but what could be done? She doubted anypony could help her with her horn—she’d never read or heard of anypony ever having to deal with horn shedding like this! Even as unicorns age, the one part of their body that stayed strong was their horn! Of course, horn shattering, while rare, was not unheard of… but this was something else entirely. A full layer of horn shedding… “Horns don’t work like this at all…” Twilight muttered to herself. “Unicorns aren’t like goats, or even minotaurs! Once they reach full maturity, the horn stops growing and the outer layer solidifies, becoming even stronger than bone! Albeit more sensitive, due to all the nerve endings and whatnot…” At this, Twilight reached a hoof to her horn, biting her bottom lip and stealing herself for the worst of nerve damage. The instant her bandaged hoof touched her horn, she felt a tiny tug on the sliver of stone inside her skin. She gasped slightly, her eyes crossing as she tried to focus up on her hoof and horn, and then— The sheer intensity of the heat almost bowled her over. She was laying on a flat, spiny slab of black rock, with a dull orange glow all around her. Her breathing was labored and heavy, full of bitter ash and sour smoke. The strong stench of sulfur slashed her senses, and she wheezed and heaved together in tandem,—or so she assumed, as she could hear nothing over the roar of some gigantic dragon that was pushing itself up from the ground in a spray of molten rock. But no dragon came, even as the wall of sound continued. Geysers of glowing red and orange—the only source of light as the entire sky was blackened by ash—shot straight up, large chunks of ebony stone showering the earth around her. A particularly large one arced from the nearest spire of magma, twirling and spraying a fine mist of lava from it in circles through the air, heading right towards the middle of her vision, filling it with spiked black rock. She braced herself for the inevitable fatal impact— And felt nothing as the rock passed through her, shattering the ground below. She looked down, observing the pile of obsidian shards. What had happened? Was she truly not there? She tried to move, but she could not. Her viewpoint remained fixed. She turned her head to the side; her vision swiveled, and she was now looking in a completely different place: a large, grainy hill with a huge glowing crack in the side resided about thirty feet in front of her. It was surrounded by quick ochre rivers, and the whole formation was distorted by the sheer amount of heat coming from around and on it. She supposed she was not really there… The ground beneath her split open, and a huge torrent of lava exploding forth, encapsulating her. Heat coursed through her, and before she could so much as open her mouth, she was lifted into the air by the tide of superheated earth and gas. She was pushed through waves and layers of thick air, ash, and smoke, little molecules of solid matter tearing away at her senses but not her incorporeal form. The heat left as suddenly as it had come, and she hung suspended there in space. Her eyes were flashing and throbbing in agony, and constant droning, ringing sensation reverberated inside her ears. As the unfathomable heat left her, it did so as if it were being leached out from her, drawn out as if it were a poison threatening to send her spiraling to death. She was surrounded by an inky blackness, cold and alone. Except for one source of light… With great effort, she turned her gaze, and saw a fiery ball of… something. Her mind, still overloaded with the sensations of heat, light, and ash, could not recognize just what she was looking at for a few moments. And then— With a small, strangled gasp, she realized she was looking at a great molten orb, the planet of Equestria, suspended in the void of space. It was cracked, mostly black but with clear oceans and rifts of bubbling lava, and huge amounts of ash and smoke escaped from its surface, fading into space behind it. As her ears cleared, she heard a great sound, one that she had heard only once before, but knew so very well: Re…pli…ka… She trembled, the smallest scrap of warmth reaching her. Arh… pl… uhs… sev… EN… The surface of the world cracked open, and a blinding light escaped from it like a floodlight being turned on directly before her eyes. She felt an intense energy, a wave of power that could eradicate stars, and it washed towards her. Her mouth opened but she knew no scream would come out— “AAAH!” Twilight screamed as her eyes opened, and swerved narrowly to avoid slamming into a house. An orange-maned mare squealed shrilly, slamming her blinds shut as a few purple feathers detached from Twilight’s wings and fluttered against the rafters. Her horn throbbed painfully as she spiraled into the ground, and with a grunt she shouldered the dirt, digging a small trench in the ground with the sheer force of her collision. Rocks, small plants, and clods of dirt flew up around Twilight, and she lay there, panting heavily. “My garden!” came the indignant voice of somepony, possibly within the house; Twilight couldn't care less about that, though, for she had just stumbled upon something much more important than the destruction of some inconsequential mare’s carrots. Laying there in the cool dirt, a warm, vicious fluid pouring forth from her shoulder, Twilight could hear the heartbeat of the Earth. She could feel his dull heat, so far away, but she knew it was there. Every so often, a low, low sound, and the vaguest sensation of vibration pulsed into her. “Take my blood,” she murmured. “And heal yourself.” With great effort, Twilight pushed herself to her hooves, dirt and smashed carrots falling from her soiled coat. She focused her tired eyes, streaks of light occasionally returning to her line of vision. She hobbled away, down across the wreckage of the garden, and toppled over the low wooden fence that separated it from the road. The door to the home creaked open, and a mare poked her head out. She watched as Twilight dredged herself out from the soil ruins, and tripped over her fence, hobbling towards the hospital, dripping dirt, mashed vegetation, and feathers all the way. “What the hell?” “You’ve definitely sprained your wing,” Nurse Redheart said, gingerly running her hooves along Twilight’s shoulder, pushing down towards aforementioned wings. “How fast did you say you hit the ground?” “I was mostly likely only going about thirty five miles per hour in the air,” Twilight said dissuasively. “Could you please attend to more pressing matters at hoof?” “Now, I wouldn’t just throw this away like it’s nothing, Princess,” Redheart said, nodding at her wing. “Thirty five miles per hour is a serious collision; you’re lucky to have gotten away with a simple sprain! Now, I haven’t worked on any alicorns before you, but rest assured I’ve seen my fair share of pegasi with damaged wings, and an impact like that can simple shatter a bone to bits.” “If I were concerned about my bones, I would have called in a rheumatologist,” Twilight snapped. “I know you’re only a nurse, but if you could please take a look at my horn…” Nurse Redheart glared at Twilight for a moment, and opened her mouth. She closed it just as quickly, took a deep breathe, and exhaled. “Fine. Turn this way, please.” Twilight turned her head to face the Nurse. “Now then,” she said. “What’s troubling you?” “The first layer of my horn came off,” Twilight said curtly, glowering at Redheart as if she had just spat in her face. Was she blind? Was every sun-forsaken pony in this town so blind that they couldn’t see this simple truth? “The Stratum Cornus.” Redheart started, taken aback. “P-Princess, that’s a serious matter! I don’t think I’ve ever had a case of of the Stratum Cornus just… coming off, you said?” Twilight nodded. “I’m glad you see how dire this is. Do you think any of the doctors here will be able to help?” Nurse Redheart bit her lip. “Well, I do not doubt the medical prowess of our staff, but this is… something else, to say the least. Will you allow me to examine your horn for a moment, please?” “Go on.” Redheart stepped forward, and gently placed a hoof on Twilight’s head, steadying her. She peered over the purple horn, her eyes flicking back and forth in their sockets. “And how did it come off? Peeling? Splintering?” “It peeled, yes," Twilight said, nervously tapping her hoof against the floor. “I haven’t used any magic since it happened. You know, for fear of making it worse.” “I would say that was the safest rout of action,” Nurse Redheart said, closing on eye and focusing on the tip of Twilight’s horn. “Um… Princess?” “Yes?” Redheart removed her hoof from Twilight’s head, and stood down. “I-I am confused. Surely, I’ve never seen the shedding of the Stratum Cornus, but…” “But what?” Twilight said, eye twitching slightly. Redheart shook her head. “There’s nothing I can see wrong with it at all. Your horn is, for the most parts, completely unremarkable and totally healthy.” Twilight sat there, dumbfounded as she looked the Nurse right in the eyes. “Excuse me?” “Now, this is fantastic news, obviously,” Nurse Redheart said, smiling shakily. “The peeling of horn layers, especially for a pony of your magical, certainly would have not been a good sign. But you’re as healthy as can be—err, respective to your horn. Now, I do recommend seeing Doctor Stable about that sprained wing of yours…” Twilight’s nostrils flared, and her lips metamorphosed her expression into a snarl. “I cannot believe such incompetence. I don’t know what manner of joke you’re trying to pull, but I can assure you, I don’t find it funny at all! This is something of a most serious nature, and I won’t have some sort of frazzled, over-glorified medical servant tell me it is anything less!” “Princess, please, if you would just calm down—“ “Calm down?” Twilight shrieked, her wings shooting outward, and she winced in pain as a few feathers fell around her. “How am I supposed to calm down?” “Do you still have the layer of your horn?” Redheart asked calmly. Twilight snorted. “Of course not! Why would I want to keep that with me?” “Do you know where it is?” “Yes, it’s right—“ Twilight paused. She couldn’t presently remember what she had done with her horn layer. She had had it stuck to her hoof when she was in her castle with Sweetie Belle. “W-Well, it was on my hoof when it came off, back in my castle, and—“ “Speaking of hooves,” Nurse Redheart said, pointing down towards Twilight’s bandaged appendage. “What happened there?” “Nothing,” Twilight lied quickly. “I simple stepped on, er, a broken cup, that’s all!” Nurse Redheart gently held Twilight’s hoof in her own, turning it over. “Now, just let me examine it for a moment; even if you treated it properly, there could be something stuck inside and we have to remover it. We don’t want an infection to—“ She will remove you from the heart. “No!” Twilight shrieked, rolling backwards against the wall. “Stand down! This examination is over!” “Princess—“ But Twilight was gone, bounding out of the examination room and towards the entrance of the hospital.