//------------------------------// // Love Eater // Story: Split Second: An Eternity Divided // by wille179 //------------------------------// The sun seemed extra bright today, just as it had been for the past few days. It was the good sort of brightness, the one that comes along with an unexpected source of optimism, and not the kind of brightness that would have irritated Sparkle’s eyes. It was also the same sort of brightness that was reflected in Sparkle’s roommate’s eyes whenever the orange filly started talking about cutie mark crusading or, as was more relevant to the current situation, when racing down the hill at breakneck speeds. Rody, the name by which Scootaloo knew Sparkle, clutched on to the edge of the pegasus-drawn wagon as they careened down the hill. Her smile was even wider than Scootaloo’s, as the sensation called forth memories of riding on Thorn’s back. Imbued with a strange courage that stemmed from having defied death - the action, not the goddess - and from the fact that if she were hurt, she could heal herself, Sparkle found the extremely dangerous trip to be quite exhilerating. Ponyville market passed by them in a blur, meaning that their destination was fast approaching. Too fast, actually. “Scootaloo! Slow down!” “I got this!” In the blink of an eye, Scootaloo's furious wingbeats swapped directions and produced a reverse thrust. The wagon quickly lost speed, but Sparkle knew that it wouldn’t be enough to completely stop a crash. The orange driver gently turned the scooter’s handle, sending the pair gracefully arching away from the building just in time to avoid plowing right into the front door. When the wagon finally came to a stop, Sparkle quickly hopped out, thankful to feel solid ground again. As fun as that was, it was still nerve wracking. “Scootaloo, are all you flying types so crazy?” “Hey, I’m good enough not to crash into anything, even with passengers!” she retorted. “I didn’t say you were bad,” Sparkle replied with a slight giggle, “I said you were crazy. Fun, but crazy.” “Right. Anyway, come on! Let’s get Sweetie Belle and Applebloom!” Tossing their helmets into the wagon, the pegasus filly and the reincarnated mare both trotted up to the door of the Carousel Boutique, the one they had nearly crashed into. A bell jingled as the two fillies opened the door. The white proprietor of the store popped her head around the corner. “Welcome to... oh, Scootaloo! Rhodium! So good to see you! I’ll go tell Sweetie that you’re here.” “Thanks, Rarity,” Scootaloo said. As Rarity walked off, Sparkle’s eyes, hidden behind the reflective glasses, followed the mare’s flanks. For some reason, the mare that Sparkle had once found sexy thanks to Thorn no longer evoked any reaction. The necromancer attributed that to her prepubescent body and lack of hormones. Not even thirty seconds later, the white filly they sought came bounding down the stairs in the back. “Scoots! Rody!” Sweetie Belle blinked, her face suddenly showing her confusion. She walked up to Sparkle and looked her over. “Is there something the matter?” Sparkle asked. Sweetie Belle eventually shrugged. “No. For some reason, I thought you were supposed to be a colt. And younger. I don’t know why, though.” “Rody, I had a dream that you were a colt,” Scootaloo added. “Huh,” Sparkle said, slightly nervous inside. Why had they thought she was still a colt? She’d swapped her gender ever since that mysterious note had reminded her of it, back when she was staying with Cobalt. “I was a filly when I met you and that hasn’t changed.” “Meh,” the orange pegasus said. “This is Ponyville. Weirder things have happened.” “Yeah, like the time my sister got rescued from diamond dogs by a zombie dragon,” Sweetie Belle said. Rarity, who had been working on her current project on the other side of the room piped in, “Yes, that was quite the ordeal. Hey, Sweetie, why don’t you three go to Applebloom’s house so that you can tell Rody all about your adventures?” Sweetie Belle’s eyes practically sparkled at the suggestion, while the fake-filly suppressed the urge to groan. With all three of them together, she knew it would be only a matter of time before they were screaming in her ear again. With purpose behind their hooves, the three fillies headed outside to the scooter and wagon. And soon enough, the town was passing them by. With twice the load, Scootaloo was content to go a more reasonable pace, just over the speed of a foal’s gallop. The road to Sweet Apple Acres brought them through the edge of town and past the train station. It was then that Sparkle noticed something peculiar; sitting on the station’s sole track was a train unlike any she’d ever seen. The entire thing, all ten or so cars including the engine, was made of crystal. The Crystal Empire flag carved on the side of the engine just confirmed that. Sparkle muttered a particularly colorful swear under her breath, chiding herself for forgetting that her brother was coming today. While concentrating on making no strange visible reactions, Sparkle reached out with her mind to her wraith doppelganger and commanded it towards the train station. A shadow raced across the ground at a speed that was hard for Sparkle to follow, even from this distance. As it approached the station, if bubbled up from the ground and shaped itself into the form of Sparkle’s old body. The mare-turned-filly felt a twinge of nervousness in her chest. Hopefully, without the barrier and light magic protecting them, and without Sparkle nearby to be discovered, the Specter’s illusions would hold better against her brother and Cadance than they did against Twilight. The scooter continued on its path, the driver and the other passenger unaware of her thoughts. As the distance between them and the train station grew, Sparkle turned more of her attention to the specter that was approaching her brother and sister-in-law. With her mind, Sparkle pulled on the specter as if it was a puppet and set it dancing to her tune. “Shiny! Cadance!” The stallion, who had just stepped off the train, took a half-step back in surprise, bumping into his equally stunned wife. In the same instant, the guard escort that was accompanying the princess and prince consort of the Crystal Empire raised their spears defensively. “Sparkle? Is that really you?” Shining Armor asked. “Hi, Shiny,” Sparkle said, tilting the puppet specter’s head in a way that could possibly be interpreted as a nod. “I missed you.” The wraith went to hug Shining, but a bubble of pink magic pushed it away. “Prove it, please. I don’t think I could take it if this was a trick.” “Cadance, Sunshine, Sunshine, / Ladybugs awake...” “Clap your hooves / and do a little shake!” Cadance finished cheerfully. She, along with Shining Armor, raced in to hug the specter, which had made itself solid for the occasion.“Sparkle, it really is you!” At that, the guards surrounding them all lowered their spears, save for one. That one in particular, a non-crystal pony, was too busy having flashbacks of his time in Sparkle’s class. Brass had thought she was gone for good, but she was back. “Don’t put me back in the dark box. Please, I’ll be a good toy.” “But how did you survive?” Cadance continued, unaware of her transfer guard’s emotional turmoil. Sparkle’s grin, the one on both her real body and the copy, faltered. “I can’t tell you, not yet.” “Why?” Shining Armor asked, perplexed. “Because I swore that I’d take that secret with me to the grave. So, would you kindly lead me there so I can tell you?” She giggled at her own joke. “We couldn’t find many fragments of your body in the snow, not enough to cremeate, anyway. You don’t have any ashes or a grave,” Shining Armor replied. “Oh...” Some distance away, the real Sparkle slumped slightly in the wagon, though Sweetie Belle didn’t notice. The idea that she didn’t even have a grave was rather upsetting to her. She didn’t let it show outwardly, through. “Then I guess this dead mare’ll tell no tales.” “Are death jokes something that we’re going to have to deal with now?” Shining Armor said with a grin. “Why? Are they killing you?” “No, but you sound like Dad did when he made his stupid jokes.” “Shiny! Don’t disrespect the dead! I’m sure Dad would be rolling in his grave!” Shining Armor snorted and shook his head. “It’s really good to see you, Sparks.” “You too, Shiny, Cadance. So, I’ve already talked to Twilight a bit and she said that there was an invasion of changelings on her side on your wedding day. What happened here?” Sparkle asked. Knowing that her death was so close to when the wedding was planned, Sparkle knew that it was likely that things had changed. She didn’t know by how much, but one thing was obvious: Shiny and Cadance obviously weren’t changelings in disguise, judging by their souls. Still, it left her wondering. The jovial mood deflated like a balloon with a slow leak, minus the annoying sound. “Ah,” Shiny started, “let’s just say that those enhancements worked a little too well.” “What happened?” Sparkle concernedly asked, jumping straight into investigation mode. “If something’s wrong, I need to fix it!” “Well...” “It was a few days after your funeral, and the night before our postponed wedding...” Shining Armor gazed out the window of Canterlot Castle. The moon was quickly rising in the east, pulled along by Princess Luna. Its soft glow illuminated the room more than the single candle did. Behind him, the door to the room slowly slid open, though the stallion did not turn back to look at the entrant. “Shiny, please, you need to move forwards. I know that you’re upset, but you shouldn’t be. Not tonight. Not on the eve of our wedding,” the pink alicorn said as she slid up next to Shining Armor and draped her wing across his back. She leaned in and kissed his neck.  “Please, there will be time to be sad later. You need a little happiness right now.” The kissing returned, more intense this time. “Come here, Shining Armor. Come to bed with me.” “I won’t bore you with all the details, but...” “Yes! Yes! Yes! Ahhhh~” “Cadance, I’m-Ahh~!” Shining Armor looked down at the mare below him, who’s mouth was open wide in a gasp of pleasure. He couldn’t help but notice that her teeth looked unusually sharp. And then- -he was standing in the middle of the hallway. “Wait, what?” Sparkle asked, interrupting the story. “Yeah, one minute I was with the changeling queen, who I still thought was Cadance at the time, and the next, I was standing in the hallway. For me, it was like I’d blinked, though everypony else said that it had been about twenty minutes. I awoke with Chrysalis impaled on a spear made from my own magic, dripping reddish-gray blood down onto me.” “It killed her?” Sparkle asked. “I take it that you know what it was, then?” “I’d planted a specter into your skull; if you were ever hit with a psychic attack that you didn’t voluntarily request, it would force you into soul-sleep and take over your body to protect you, mind, body, and soul,” Sparkle explained. Shining matched her explanation up with his memories and what he’d been told. Deciding that that was likely what happened, Shining answered her original question: “No, Queen Chrysalis didn’t die. I missed any major organs and the spear was still in place, stemming the internal bleeding. We took her to the hospital, bound her magic, and then fixed her up before placing her under arrest.” Sparkle asked Cadance, “So what happened while he was unconscious?” “Well, I had been kidnapped at the time, trapped down in the crystal caves until Aunt Celestia managed to get from Chrysalis where I was. But, from what we’ve gathered...” Chrysalis opened her mouth to siphon the post-orgasm bliss that was sure to be pouring off of her current prey and found... nothing? She jerked back in surprise, her own pleasure haze cleared away with a surge of adrenaline. Her disguised eyes caught sight of Shining Armor’s eyes, so dead-looking and yet so full of hate. Black smoke oozed from the edges, and the sclera were slowly turning black. An alien-feeling magic pulsed from Shining Armor’s body, and in the blink of an eye, it was standing some distance away from the bed. “You tried to feed on my host, changeling. Bad move.” Shining Armor was a barrier master, a pony skilled at creating solid geometric shapes out of magic that could act as shields. Or, since the shape was defined by the user, the ability could summon bladed weapons. A spear appeared above Shining’s back, and two square walls appeared at either side of Chrysalis and her opponent. Even possessed, Shining Armor was still a master of Scorpion style, a form of unicorn spear combat where the spear was the stinger and the shields to the sides were the claws that keep the target in the most dangerous position. The magic spear shot forwards. At the last instant, Shining’s controller changed tactics and widened the speartip, changing the attack from a stab to a bludgeoning strike. Chrysalis tried to dodge backwards, unable to move to the side because of the walls. It was in vain. The blow hit her squarely in the chest. She in turn plowed straight through the wall behind them. Chrysalis was by no means weak. She stood, aching all over. The initial blow disrupted her transformation, but the wall and floor barely hurt her through her carapace. She stood shakily, expecting to see it walking through the wall. It was already in her face. The possessed stallion’s second blow sent her flying past the guards who had been summoned by the noise. “None of those who were there could really remember exactly what happened after that,” Shining Armor said. “They did say that I played with her for a while, not going for the kill until she was thoroughly defeated.” “I see,” Sparkle said, making a mental note to correct the specter’s behavior so that it went straight for the kill instead. “And after you stabbed her? You took her to the hospital and imprisoned her, right?” Shining Armor nodded. “Yes. Once she was stable, Chrysalis was quick to tell us - and by that, I mean Celestia - what she had been planning and where Cadance was.” “I was rescued soon after,” Cadance said. “I was down there maybe ten hours, at most. Other than being tired and hungry, I was fine. Chrysalis herself was the only one to get hurt in the whole ordeal.” “Then what happened?” Sparkle asked. “Peace talks, of all things,” Cadance replied. At Sparkle’s specter’s incredulous look, Cadance elaborated. “When the Crystal Heart returned, so did much of the love that the changelings had been missing. Chrysalis had originally planned an invasion to gather ponies to farm for love, but downscaled when the heart came back. What Chrysalis was doing was a resource grab; now that they had love, they were after other resources that their hive couldn’t normally get, including direct access to the Crystal Heart through me. More importantly, they wanted plants in companies who would then send them resources. When Celestia heard about this, she ended up negotiating the first ever trade agreement between Equestria and the Changeling hives.” “But Chrysalis kidnapped you!” Sparkle replied. “Why would Celestia help her?” “Because she thought that being stabbed was punishment enough, since I wasn’t hurt? Perhaps because she saw an opportunity to end suffering? Or perhaps because she’d been trying to revamp Equestria for over a year now and thought that the country could use a new economic ally? Who knows, except Aunt Celestia?” Cadance said. Why? Sparkle wondered. For a decade, she'd had to fight and claw for every last good thing that came from the government, and then that parasite comes along and after kidnapping a princess, gets a trade deal. It didn't seem fair to Sparkle. Her opinion of the white princess dropped further. "So... A changeling hive as an ally. I never thought I'd see the day," Sparkle commented. "Hey, is it just me, or does it seem like a lot of big things happening nowadays are in some way triggered by me?" Shining Armor reflected for a moment. "Yeah, I'd say that's a reasonable statement. You planning on writing an autobiography?" Sparkle chuckled and shook her head. "I was just thinking that it felt like the plot of somepony writing a book, or at least actively trying to adjust the outcomes." "I thought you didn't believe in fate," Shining Armor said. "It's probably somepony else pulling the strings. I personally think it's a time traveler." The white brother looked at her skeptically. "Whatever you say, Sis. Whatever you say." Four fillies galloped or rode on a scooter or wagon towards the middle of town. Scootaloo pulled as usual, and joining Sweetie Belle in the wagon was Applebloom. Meanwhile, Sparkle galloped alongside the wagon, easily keeping pace. “Are ya sure this will work?” Applebloom asked Sparkle. “I’m only as sure as Scootaloo is,” Sparkle replied. “If doing tricks with her scooter really is what she’s good at and loves doing, then I’m sure that this will get her her cutie mark.” Scootaloo swerved, turning sharply into an alleyway. She yelped in surprise, though Sparkle couldn’t see why until she too rounded the corner and promptly ran right into it. Or her, as the case turned out to be. Sparkle’s face ached from where her sunglasses had been pressed into her and then dragged off by the collision with the other pony. She opened her eyes, only to wince and shut them again after the bright sunlight hit them. “Hey, watch where you’re going!” the voice of Diamond Tiara said. “Sorry,” Sparkle replied. She tried to open her eyes again, but the direct sun was unusually bothersome today. “Hey, where did my glasses fall?” "Oh, these?" Diamond Tiara said as she put them on. Sparkle smirked slightly as she felt the magic within them take hold of the pink filly. Diamond Tiara asked, "What's so special about them anyway?" "Give Rody back her glasses!" Applebloom shouted. "Yeah!" Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle agreed in unison. Instead of replying, Sparkle simply walked right up to Diamond Tiara and yanked the glasses off her face. Without a word, she slid them back onto her own head and blinked in relief from the bright sunlight. "Come on; let's go." As the four crusaders set off, three of them paid little attention to the fact that Diamond Tiara hadn't moved since she's put the glasses on, or that she was now grimacing. "Diamond Tiara's walkin' funny," Applebloom remarked, curiosity evident in her voice. "I noticed that," Sweetie Belle added. "It's kind of funny looking. And have you noticed that she jumps occasionally, like she was just slapped in the butt?" "Yeah, and look at Silver Spoon. She keeps giving Diamond these weird looks," Scootaloo said, pointing her hoof to the other side of the classroom, where Silver was quite clearly staring at Diamond. "I don't know," Sparkle said. "Whatever it is, it's kept her away from us. She hasn't bothered us for a while now." "True," Scootaloo agreed. It was about that time when Cheerilee trotted into the room. "Good morning, class. I've got an exciting lesson for you all today!" With class starting, the crusaders' conversation died down. While three of them looked towards Cheerilee, Applebloom turned her attention once more towards Diamond Tiara, who was gingerly rubbing her rear end. The rich filly had been unusually subdued for a week, and hadn't bullied them once in that time; the respite was nice, but the oddness that came along with it left the crusaders and the rest of the class rather curious.