A Battleground of Kindness

by StormDancer

Doomed

Shelving books is good.

Shelving books is safe.

Shelving books on the Ethereal Application of Thaumaud's Reticulating Rapture Principle is a remarkably frightening experience when you consider that a very, very, brief perusal of the contents explain how forgetting to blink at the correct frequency may cause your lungs to forcibly eject through your sinuses.

It was heavily bookmarked and showed signs of use as a pillow.

It also had a note carefully clipped in the margin noting that "this should make toasting bread more efficient!"

---

It's been three days and she hasn't slept. She keeps flipping through tome after tome, muttering things that I'm afraid to listen to... never know when a half formed spell might cause internal combustion or an abrupt teleport of a few inches involving only a handful of important organs.

She eats, drinks, and reads... muttering the entire time. Sometimes she pauses for a few moments to look at me and I try to look even more busy than I was. I can't risk THAT thinking I'm slacking off.

Even my former master rested. My master can't be mortal.

Spike keeps checking on her, bringing her food and taking away her dishes. He's been wearing a yellow apron with little pink flowers on it.

I miss the Legion. Being used as ammunition in the fel cannons was less stressful and I was reloaded more than most of my burrow.

---

Finally! My escape is at hand!

After 4 and a half days, that nightmare child has finally passed out! She's got her face pressed firmly onto the pages of some old libram thicker than her chest and that genocide-engine butler of hers is off chasing some extremely rare something or other... probably some other spell component... not sure I want to know what for.

All I have to do is hop up, douse her with something flammable, rope her down, light her up and I'm free! I'll be out of here in no time, away from this little nut job!

Let's see... books everywhere... but they're all fireproof. Wooden walls, wood burns, but..... she's got a fireplace built in.... made of wood.... .... fireproof. Drapes! Drapes burn! No... wait, I tried that when I got here.... fireproof.

The lanterns! I've SEEN her light the lanterns and candles! They can burn!

With a very careful bit of creeping, a few short hops, and a tiny jump, I retrieved the lantern from the stairwell, brought it over, and started to set my escape in motion.

Twenty minutes was all it took to completely immobilize the master. I know the boys are going to give me hell for this, but this one is waaaaay out of my league. Crazy as a purple of 4.

It's not supposed to make sense. She's nuts.

So, the Master is tied down. She's got an alcohol beaker hanging above her, filled with oil. The table's covered with oil. The chair is screwed into the floor so she can't get up or run for help. I've set trip lines all over in case she does get up. I bent all the silverware into caltrops, scattered them around, and dipped them all in oil and salt so if she, somehow, gets up she'll land on them and be in even more agony while even the caltrops catch on fire. I've brought all the dishes in and balanced them on their edges to make even MORE sharp edges when she panics. I cut the table legs on one side so that when she moves, it will collapse, pinning her while she burns. And I lit a candle next to her head after setting an alarm clock for two minutes.

Now all I have to do is sit back and shelve books until it goes off and she kills herself.

What? I told you imps find loopholes.

I had just finished dragging a chair over to put Arcane Infusions for Use with Yogurt Covered Raisins away when I looked over to watch the spectacle when I knew something bad was about to happen.

Her eye was open... and she was glaring at me.

In that second, I knew all was lost. She had seen my treachery! She knew! Now would come the fireballs and the hooks and the non-standard application of hairdryers with power tools and, well, probably something in a shade of pastel lavender to fit her general theme... but it would be agonizing and I would suffer. I started to sweat.

And then the alarm went off.

---

The Master jumped, apparently startled by the loud noise, and smacked her head into the hanging beaker, sending a splash of oil over herself and the chair. The table shifted, the legs sliding off with a groan as they collapsed, yanking the master back down, pinning her rear legs to the chair and slamming her face, once more, onto her book. The candle tipped, falling to the ground, and igniting the oil on both the table as well as the caltrops and floor. There was a strangled yelp as the ropes I had used to tie her down tugged across her body and held her firm to the burning furniture.

For the first time in days, I felt a truly glorious cackle rising in my throat.

I'd done it! I'd set the stage and let the master 'kill' herself! She was too surprised to react, she'd fire proofed everything EXCEPT the most flammable materials in the building, and she couldn't utter a counterspell given the smoke! For the Fel, it felt GOOD to kill something!

I felt my face doing something unexpected and I had to reach up and feel it to understand what it was.

I was frowning. No, not frowning, I was GLARING.

Something was wrong. After everything I'd seen, I knew it couldn't end this easily. She was planning something.

This was a test.

She was testing me.

Oh Maker, she was preparing to replace me!

Oh nonononononononononononono!

Oh crap! Now I'M saying it!

I had just resolved to put the fire out when it happened.

One moment there was my Master, engulfed in flames, pinned to a burning, fire-proofed, table, and the next there was a flash of purple light and she was gone.

And then there was a blazing inferno in the air as the Master floated above the table while on fire.

Now, I'm pretty used to seeing people on fire, kind of comes with the job you know, but I'm not really used to seeing people on fire who don't habitually burst into flames on a daily basis.

Imps, corehounds, Fire Lords, possessed birthday candles, Shivaras, and any number of other demons... sure, we all burn, but she didn't seem to really fall into any of those categories. To be honest, warlocks (in general) DO burst into flames on occassion, but it's normally due to someone else lighting them up... and it smells like bacon.

She was not normally on fire... and she wasn't getting crispy.

Her coat turned white, her mane and tail erupted into twin infernos, and her eyes became twin embers of wrath that just so happened to have taken up residence on a mask of absolute fury as she shot a glare that could give any Fel Lord a reason to wet themselves.

I screamed. Not even ashamed to admit it.

I phased and tried to get away, and that's when all my carefully laid plans fell apart.

Phasing is great. It really is. You can't quite be hit by attacks, doors and most barriers don't really mean so much, and there's this wonderful bit about being much more difficult to see. Phasing is great, but it does have one drawback: overconfidence.

Being used to ignoring attacks from battle hardened warriors and spell casters kind of makes you a little bit jaded. You just don't sweat the small stuff when you get used to dodging 30 foot long lances of magic force, 30 pound battle hammers, and barrages of poisoned daggers. You tend to ignore things like... caltrops.

I ran and immediately leapt into the air and a bent up spoon I had sharpened sliced clear into my foot. I tumbled into a trip wire, flipped over, landed in MORE caltrops, got caught on fire, felt the agony of salt in open wounds, and then... THEN the bad part happened.

She was floating over me. I stopped screaming.

When the Master just floats out of a deathtrap and looms... well... there's not a manual, but if there was, it would say "Just give up and prepare to have your skull hollowed out and used to serve treats at Winterveil."

"You got oil on MY BOOK!" she erupted. I could actually feel my joints ache from the force of her shout. Her eyes were bottomless wells of cosmic power and her pupils, tiny red points of wrath that they were, looked like nothing less than the opening barrage of one of those elder gods you hear about.

Never seen one, but I'm pretty sure I could play poker with one now and not flinch.

And then, poof.... just like that... purple flash of light and there's no smoke. There's no fire. There's no caltrops or broken glass (well, ok, there was broken glass but we got it out of my hide eventually).

She was still glaring at me and I was on the ground gasping.

And then, I felt my ear bump something and I reflexively looked.

Only to see a rolled up newspaper floating nearby in a purple/pink glow.

Oh Maker, I can't escape. She's going to kill me.

---

Shelving books is good.

Shelving books is safe.

No one disturbs the Master while she is busy.

The Master is unkillable. I've tried now more than a dozen times.

She just wakes up, teleports, flings, shields, wards, or ignores everything I throw at her.

IGNORES it.

How can you ignore a fel tainted fire bolt to the face? Well, in retrospect, she seems able to channel elemental fire by nature, so that one might be understandable, but I dropped a cast iron skillet on her head and she just grumbled about a 'pinkie' or something... must be some kind of defensive proxy if she can survive what should have crushed her skull and shattered her fragile spinal column.

It's as if she's the most innocent, ignorant, strategist tactician with the forethought to plan against all forms of personal harm but no brainpower left to prevent those harms from coming to pass.

I think she secretly likes it.

She should have summoned a succubus.

---

Comments

[DrZed]

lolz we already knew twi was damn nigh indestructible :P

[StormDancer]

5006029
<chuckles> Agreed... Between fire, flower pots, random explosions, rocks, stairwells, doors, unexpected falls, and gravitationally complicit pianos, Twilight has shown a level of durability similar to Applejack (think about the Rainbow Dash 'quick launch') and approaching Pinkie Pie levels.

Add paranoia and.... poof... Imp terror doom.

[Firebirdbtops]

What an entertaining comedy of errors.

[StormDancer]

5075287
<chuckles> Ain't it though? I truly do love imagining my characters interactions (in whatever venue or forum) and sometimes they just seem to be made for mistakes.

Heck, the imps from WoW are a great example. They're always snarky, complaining, destructive little curse-words... and yet, they're loyal to the point of self-sacrifice. They jump at any opportunity to inflict pain or suffering, yet at the same time, their most potent ability is to protect their masters... their abusive enslavers... from imminent death.

Mix that in with Equestria's happy happy fun fun toddler town (no, I don't think of it that way, but it's funny to say it) and you have to think that their past experiences would drive them up the wall in paranoid anticipation.

Comedy of Errors indeed..... Well said!