//------------------------------// // Set the World on Fire // Story: The Legacy of Starmare // by Magenta Cat //------------------------------// Two hours passed since Trixie arrived at Manehattan's general, carrying an unconscious Gimmix on her back. Despite being admitted within an inch of her life, after one of Trixie's longest waits, the doctors assured her that Gimmix was already out of danger and was sent to a room for recovery. A nurse tried to attend Trixie's injuries, but she refused any attention until she saw Gimmix's bed entering the appointed room. Thankfully, the nurse only had to apply the first aids, but nothing more serious than a suture in Trixie's side where the giant diamond dog slashed her with its claws. After all was said and done, the nurse left Lulamoon sisters alone in the room. There was some kind of riot going on in the city, and apparently, a blackout as Trixie noted when the lights flickered for a moment before going completely off. But she couldn't care the least for it. All she cared for was her sister. Now Trixie was alone in the darkness, watching at Gimmix sleeping her injuries through. Her hooves were still holding the Cosmic Rod. A soft snore coming out of the bed tranquilized Trixie. She finally let a long sigh she has been holding since using the Cosmic Rod to save her and Gimmix. Trixie lowered her gaze to take a better look at the strange item. She still couldn't remember how she managed to land herself and her sister without crashing against the floor and finishing what the bomb couldn't. In fact, every event in between her flying away from the scrapyard on fire and getting Gimmix into the hospital was a big messy blur in Trixie's memories. The only thing that felt real for her where Gimmix's words, which echoed in Trixie's ears. "That’s mom's legacy. She wanted you to have it, because she loved you." What the hell was even happening anymore was beyond Trixie's comprehension. However, a snort coming from the bed interrupted her inner contemplations. “Ugh, what the…” Trixie lifted her gaze to see Gimmix trying to sit up in her bed. “Where am I?” “Gimmix!” Trixie ran for her sister. “Gimmix, you need to rest.” She lifted a hoof to hold Gimmix down, fearing her wounds could get worse if she moved. However, as stubborn as only a Lulamoon could be, Gimmix kept pushing until Trixie decided the strain wasn’t any better and let her sit. “Trixie?” Gimmix recoiled. “What are you-- agh!” She put her hooves under her ribs, where the bandages were tinting in red. Gimmix looked around her, cracking her neck from side to side. Trixie remember the gesture; her sister would do it any time she was confused or surprised. “Are we alive?” Gimmix finally said. “How?!” “Thanks to your sister,” Trixie proudly put a hoof over her chest, eyes closed, but only for a moment. She immediately locked gazes with Gimmix, shifting to a more serious expression. “But also thanks to this,” Trixie extended her left hoof. Gimmix looked down to see the Cosmic Rod firmly held in her sister’s hoof. Trixie left the device at Gimmix’s side on the bed. “Now it’s your turn to explain, Gimmix.” “Wow,” Gimmix took the Rod in her right hoof, inspecting it. “Mom told me about this one. So old, so simple.” Trixie was carefully listening, waiting for her sister to answer. When that didn’t happen, she tapped her left hoof against the floor, loudly. “Oh, right, explanations.” Gimmix raised her gaze. “I guess you didn’t read my letter with the briefcase.” “No,” she hesitated. Trixie didn’t want to upset her sister. “I didn’t.” Even if they both made it out of the scrapyard before the explosion, Gimmix already got beaten beforehoof. However… “Well, Gimmix,” Trixie tilted her head down and looked at her sister from beneath her eyebrows. “I was attacked on my own home, by ponies I have never seen before tonight.” Gimmix looked up at her sister, holding the Cosmic Rod tighter between her hooves. “I guess you’re right to be angry.” She turned her head aside, closing her eyes and nodding. “I’m not as angry as I should be,” Trixie put her left hoof over Gimmix’s. “I’m more happy that you’re alive, Gimmix.” They looked at each other and shared a small smile. “But I still want answers.” “Alright,” Gimmix bit her lip, struggling to find the right words to say. “Trixie, do you know about mom’s work?” “Of course,” now it was Trixie’s turn to look aside. “She was a researcher of crystal tech.” Trixie remembered how many times Hope would talk about her daughter wasting her talents in shows and tricks, instead of studying ‘something serious’. “Like you, Gimmix.” “I said work, not job.” Gimmix either didn’t see Trixie’s reaction, or was kind enough to ignore it. “Have you ever heard of the Star-Mare?” “No, not really.” Trixie levitated the stool from the corner of the room to be next to the bed. “But I guess you’re about to tell me about it now. Aren’t you, Gimmix?” “Well, ugh, if you insist,” Gimmix tried to sit up on the bed, but her injuries held her down. Seeing this, Trixie helped her by bending the bed’s head. Once Gimmix was at eye level with Trixie, she began her story. It began in Opal City, a warm night of May. Hope Lulamoon was a mare of science. It guided her life since as far as she could remember. She followed only logic, and for that, she grew apart from the world around her. However, there was more in her heart than her head could carry. For all the coldness of her exterior, Hope Lulamoon was not a pony of pure logic. Under the numbers, behind the logic and reason, there were ideals. She was, for all her life, a dreamer. That’s why she was at the rooftop of Opal’s highest skyscraper. Hope held the Cosmic Rod in her magic one last time before letting it go and holding it with her hooves. She was nervous, even anxious, but never afraid. Hope had checked the numbers over, and over during the entire month, while waiting for the clearest night in the weather schedule to do this. There was no more room for doubts, only for action. Sighing out her last hesitation, she pointed the Cosmic Rod to the stars and activated it. It began to glow in a gold and white aura that surrounded her. Hope looked down at the streets, dozens of meters under her hooves as she took the first steps. A spark of fear tried to crack her, but it was eclipsed by the excitement of success. The skies were no more a limit for Hope Lulamoon, or for anypony else anymore. In that night, guided by the stars, a hero was born. And thus, the legacy of Starmare began. “What in the name Princess Celestia on roller skates?” Trixie interrupted her sister’s tale. “Hang on, let me get this…” She hesitated. This wasn’t only it too much information for her to process, but it didn’t even made sense to begin with. “You’re telling me that mom created a device that--” Trixie paused to recollect what she just heard. “This thing!” She said while holding the Cosmic Rod. “This thing can collect, store and redirect the magic of the stars?!” Gimmix only nodded, knowing any other reply wouldn’t satisfy her sister. She also wanted to move as little as possible due to her injuries. “And instead of, I don’t know, sell its patent, or donate it for public use or anything reasonable--” Trixie interrupted herself again. She needed air and light and time and space, and only the first one was available. “She somehow decided to use it to fight crime?” Trixie looked around her to avoid Gimmix’ nod. She looked for any sign that it was all a dream. There was no such luck, so she had to confront what was passing as reality at the time. “This is so surreal.” Trixie slid down the stool and sat on the floor with the Cosmic Rod now held between her hooves. “Am I stoned again? Damn, I need a sponsor, and a phone to call a sponsor with.” She hid her head between her hooves, taking deep breaths. “I don’t feel drugged. Was mom on drugs at the time?” “Well, it was the seventies,” Gimmix interrupted her sister’s rant. “So there’s a good guess.” Trixie looked up and began to laugh. It hurt for Gimmix to laugh, but she did so anyways. Trixie rose up from the floor and hugged her sister. Both sisters shared a moment of lucidity at the ridiculousness of the situation. For that moment, there were no worries for them. For a moment. “Trixie,” Gimmix was the first to speak. “We need to do something.” “What do you mean?” Trixie separated herself from her sister to look at her. “I tried to be like mom, I did the best I could.” Gimmix looked aside, as if ashamed to look at her sister in the eye. “But those criminals. They’re monsters, and they’re on the loose because I couldn’t do better.” “Gimmix, that’s not your fault.” Trixie stroked her sister’s cheek, making her look back. “They were mom’s problem, not ours.” “But--” “No buts,” Trixie let her shoulders fall. She felt so tired at the moment. “Gimmix, I don’t understand most of what’s happening, but I do know this: We have no business here. They almost killed us and we survived out of pure luck.” “No, Trixie.” Gimmix began to agitate. “The Mist and the others, they’re psychopaths. If we don’t--” “We won’t do anything.” Trixie said firmly. “You didn’t ask for anything of this and mom had no right to making it your problem.” Trixie stood around, kicking the Cosmic Rod into a corner. “I will take care of you while you recover, and as soon as possible, we’re leaving before those monsters know we’re still alive.” “No, Trixie!” Gimmix called for her sister, trying to get up. “There are innocent ponies that-- *cough*” Despite the pain, she took the IV off her left hoof and got out of the bed. “Trixie, listen t-- *cough* Listen to me!” Trixie turned around and discovered, to the horror that Gimmix had trotted all the way from her bed to be next to her. She was shaking, with a slight trace of blood behind her. “Please…” Gimmix called once last time before falling into Trixie’s hooves. “Nurse!” She called. “Nurse, help!” The nurse busted in and, after seeing Gimmix’s state, called for help. The world became silent as Trixie saw her sister being carried into the bed again and then rolled out of the room. Her sister was fighting for her life and when she needed her most, Trixie didn’t know what to do. Air and light and time and space. In the hospital’s gardens, there was only air and space. The night had engulfed the light, and Trixie felt how the time was closing around her to do the same. She followed the nurses to the ICU, but they didn’t let her in. She had to wait there, were a parade of other ponies in critical condition passed in front of her. Trixie tried to avoid looking at them, but eventually, she did so. At first, it looked like any hospital in the world, but sooner than later, Trixie noticed how the badly hurt ponies accumulated in the hallways. The paramedics had to improvise once they ran out of rooms and beds. Trixie wanted to go, but she couldn’t leave her sister. “It was a walking skeleton, all green and glowing.” Trixie heard one of the injured ponies said. “He kept repeating the same rhyme, ‘Solomon Grundy, born on Monday’.” She recognized the name. “Black claws, like made out of shadows.” “Arrows raining all over the place.” “He called himself ‘The Mist’.” Trixie stood up from her little corner next to the ICU’s door. She couldn’t take that anymore and went outside as quick as she could. Once she was out, in the garden, she tried to calm herself by trotting around. She would have loved a good smoking and drinking to calm down her nerves. Trixie never in her life felt so crushed by the world around her. When she noticed her hooves were trembling, she set for sitting in a bench under a fig tree. Trixie went limp, trying to abandon her body and escape the parody of horror that her life had just become. All she wanted was peace and quiet, looking at the stars. “Excuse me, Miss Lulamoon?” A mare’s voice called her. “Unfortunately, yes.” Trixie opened her eyes and looked at her side, where a nurse was standing next to her. “Your sister, Gimmix,” Trixie embraced herself for the worst. She didn’t want to fall apart in front of another pony. “We stabilized her. She’s back in her room for observation.” Trixie hugged the nurse immediately, thanking her for the good news. “No need to, Miss Lulamoon.” The nurse awkwardly patted Trixie’s back to comfort her. “I was just fulfilling my duty.” An ambulance passed next to them, going full-speed out of the hospital. At the same, another one entered, with its siren still crying the emergency. “Speaking of which.” The nurse softly released herself from Trixie. “I’m sorry, but I must go. Other ponies need help too.” The nurse ran inside the hospital, leaving Trixie left alone once again. Alone with her thoughts. “Yes,” she finally said. “They do.” Trixie was standing at the rooftop of the hospital. She looked down and slapped herself in the face. Her cheek was becoming sore at this point, due to the repetition, but Trixie needed the adrenaline. Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself. In reality, she just couldn’t decide on what to do. Therefore, she was standing still on the edge of rooftop until there was enough willpower to do anything else. “This isn’t fair,” Trixie said aloud. “At all.” She kept coming back at her mother’s memory. Trixie tried to imagine what was happening in her mind when she did to do the same thing Trixie was about to. She looked at the Cosmic Rod, tightly held between her hooves. Her mother, the brilliant Doctor Hope Lulamoon created it to play Don Rocinante at her time. At that moment, Trixie realized how little did she connect with her own mother. Yes, she provided for her when a filly, but beyond that, Hope was always absent. The most memorable interactions Trixie could recall were mostly fights, and one or two quiet moments at Heart’s Warming, maybe. “I can’t do this.” Trixie turned around and trotted for the door. She couldn’t do what her mother did. They were too different, always. Hope Lulamoon was a renewed member of the Equestria’s scientific community, constantly making breakout after breakout. Same with Gimmix, who made her first patent, when Trixie was still a teenager. By then, she was already used to not understand a word from the talks on the dinner table, and to be ignored each time she tried to change the subject. Except for the times when Gimmix would catch something Trixie said and ask her back about it. Sometimes, if the right wording were involved, even their mother would pay attention. Trixie stopped her hoof mere centimeters from the doorknob and stomped it against the floor. She did it again and again in frustration and anxiety. Once again, she looked at the Cosmic Rod. The three buttons looked slightly bigger than before. Trixie mentally ran through Gimmix’ instructions. Flight, gravity and blasts, from top downward. She once again put her left hoof on the first one. Like before, the almost blinding white and gold light surrounded Trixie. Her hooves left the ground as she slowly opened her eyes. As she did so, all troubles seemed to stay down in the rooftop as she kept ascending- She was flying; it was amazing In her excitement, Trixie pointed the rod’s tip to a side. She quickly hovered in that direction before accidentally pointing the rod down, crashing against the floor. Trixie quickly rose, still amazed at what just happened. She didn’t notice immediately, but she was smiling. Trixie looked up, scanning the night sky. It took her a moment to do so, but she finally found what she was looking for, the Crux Australis. It was one of the first constellations Trixie learned about. She always used it as a guide when traveling. Once again, she used it to focus in the path ahead of her. “Okay,” Trixie whispered. She needed to be quiet. Not say anything. Not think anything. Just do. Trixie galloped towards the edge. Once she ran out of rooftop to run with, she made that final jump. During the split-second she was suspended in the air, between the impulse of her jump and the pull of gravity, Trixie pointed the Cosmic Rod at the Southern Cross. Like a nova, Trixie’s body illuminated with the device’s power. Like a comet, she rocketed up in the skies and towards the city, leaving a gleaming trail behind her. Like a star, Trixie shone against the darkness of the night. Starmare was flying again.