Collision Code

by SSJRandomMaster

Act 3 Chapter 43

Act III: Collision of Wills
Chapter 43: Pillaged and Plundered
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Now that the lives of so many no longer hung in the balance, John could finally take in the beauty of the dream realm. With the plague of dreams, Kurama, no longer lurking around, there was nothing around him but endless twinkles. The bitter chill of his magic was gone, forever. By all rights, John should have felt accomplished; he’d stopped Kurama at last and saved everyone else.

But he couldn’t; he couldn’t find the joy that he was practically entitled to feel. All he could feel was a crushing emptiness inside as he floated aimlessly, allowing the forces of the realm he was in to guide him. And so it did: an unseen force pushed and pulled at him, gently moving him through the endless space. As he floated, John kept his eyes closed, never once noticing the orb of light slowly moving towards him.

Only when it made contact with him and he could feel the warmth of the light did John finally snap into focus.

“Luna?” John opened his eyes. The princess of the night now floated before him, staring at him with a sympathetic smile and furrowed brows.

“You already know, don’t you?”

“I’ve watched since the beginning,” she said, “Your battles, your struggles, and more importantly, your victory. You fought hard, and in the end everyone in Ponyville can sleep peacefully because of you. On this night, you are their hero.”

John didn’t answer, a distant look in his eyes. Luna couldn’t read minds, but she knew. “You disagree?”

“Heroes don’t take lives, Princess…”

“Maybe…” she said under her breath, but John didn’t hear her.

“Several of this, ‘Norma’s’, pawns have fallen, and not one has been by the hands of you or your friends. Who’s to say that this was any different?”

John fell silent again. It was one of the only threads of hope he was holding on to, but he knew that soon, he’d know the answer. Luna could see it in his eyes: the sorrows, and his attempts to repress them.

“Please, do not let this weigh down your mind,” Luna said, “Think of those you saved in the process, think of—“

“With all due respect, Princess,” John cut her off, “Right now, I don’t want to think.”

She opened her mouth for a moment to reply, but let out a sigh instead. “Very well, you’ve earned a peaceful night,” She raised her hand as she began to cast her magic. The same glow began to shroud John’s body as his form began to fade away, “But I’m not finished yet, and next time, you will not avoid this conversation.”

John didn’t reply, simply closing his eyes. The next time he woke up, he knew he’d have to deal with the aftermath of the battle with Kurama. That would surely be a very daunting task in and of itself. But for now, John simply allowed his mind to go blank.
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Twilight didn’t remember falling asleep. For three days, she hadn’t slept, kept up by unholy amounts of caffeine. Even if she hadn’t done that, with all the stress the past few days had heaped on her, the countless lives being drained away by Kurama’s curse, the battles; she wouldn’t have gotten much sleep anyway. When it all finally stopped, when she could finally take in a moment of relief that wasn’t immediately destroyed afterward, she didn’t even notice she’d shut down on the spot. She only knew she’d fallen asleep when her eyes opened once again.

At first, she was confused. The very last thing she remembered was being outside. Yet here she was now, definitely underneath her own ceiling. It took her a while to realize she was in her living room, on a surface she didn’t remember being in there. She finally rose, rubbing her eyes a little as she did so. She looked to her right, not seeing anything out of the ordinary, then to her left.

Now she understood something of what happened. Everyone was over to her left, within her field of vision. All of them were placed on beds that wouldn’t look out of place in a military sickbay; very simply decorated mattresses with white sheets. Though none of them had blankets—herself included—none of them were uncomfortable. Even Spike was there, on a smaller mattress, of course. Wherever he was during all of that chaos, at least she finally knew he was safe.

Looking around, she realized that those with injuries had already had them treated, including her own. She could see John was covered with the most bandages out of any of them, some of them slightly stained with red in the light that entered the room.

“Oh, Princess Twilight, you’re awake?” The sudden voice startled her, and Twilight turned to see one of the guards entering the room, having stopped upon noticing that she was sitting up.

“Y-yes, I am,” said Twilight, shaking her head a bit to clear the last of the cobwebs out, “What happened?”

“We’ll fill you in on all of the details later, when more of you all are awake,” said the guard, looking over the remaining group, “In general, though, not long after the enemy routed and those creatures were dealt with, you all finally passed out. Though two were still more or less asleep around that time, we decided to move them down here after checking to make sure they were alright. Since then, we’ve been keeping watch.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, wondering if it was a bad thing that she didn’t remember where she was before passing out, “Thank you all so much for helping us, then.”

“It’s what we were trained to do,” the guard said, “It’s just a shame it took this much to get us to remember all of it.”

Twilight didn’t say anything else. The guard simply waited a few minutes, looking over the beds for any signs that those already there were waking up any time soon. When no real signs came up, the guard excused himself and left, leaving Twilight alone with her thoughts. She laid back again, staring up at the ceiling. A small smile came to her face as she reflected on what she knew happened and what the guard had told her.

In the end, we all made it… Twilight thought. For a long while, she just laid back, waiting for someone to wake up, taking what little time she had to rest in a good long while. She found herself reflecting on what the guard had said to her. However, her mind soon hung on one phrase.

“Two were more or less still asleep upstairs…” she reflected. Only when the phrase repeated in her mind did panic start to set in all over again.

“Two…?” she whispered, sitting up and looking around the beds frantically. Soon, she saw him: Corey lying still on the bed, turned slightly away from her. He was one row of beds away from her, on her left. Without thinking on it further, she moved, standing up. Her legs objected, but she didn’t care, moving over to him. She couldn’t withhold her worry. Her last memory told her he was still out cold, that his time had just about run out before John’s battle began.

“Corey!?”

It all happened at once. Corey suddenly moved with a groan, enough to get Twilight to let out a gasp. She took one step back as he rolled over, right out of the bed, landing on the floor facefirst with an audible thud.

“Ow…” Corey groaned, his voice not quite normal, not at all appreciating the sudden wake-up. He took a few moments to push his face up from the ground and turned. He looked around as soon as he did, confused. Apparently failing to notice the others were asleep after a few seconds of this, his gaze centered on her again. “Twilight??”

“Would you two keep it down?” asked Spike, apparently not knowing there were others in the room, “I’m trying to sleep!”

“So am I…” Rainbow groaned, her voice having an unrecognizable croak to it, pulling unseen blankets closer to her. Beside her, Applejack stirred, her eyes opening.

“Hmm…?” she asked, pushing out of bed as soon as she strained herself. “Rainbow? That you?”

Rainbow stirred a bit, groaning again as she sat up, “Yeah... who else could it be?”

She coughed a little. “Why does my throat hurt?”

“So… you’re awake?” Applejack asked, looking around. By now, the others were stirring awake in response to the rather loud voices. She stood up, stumbling a bit as she made her way over to Rarity. “Rares? Rares, are you—“

“Applejack?” Rarity asked, her voice also audibly strained, “How many times must I tell you not to interrupt my…”

Her memories caught up to her, and her sentence immediately altered. “Sleep? What was I doing asleep??” Rarity sat up, alarmed. Rainbow remembered as well. Last time she checked, sleeping was definitely not on her “to-do” list.

“Kurama got us…” Rainbow said, “That’s right, he got Rarity, then me. Oh, wait! Corey’s…”

“Awake,” Corey said, standing up, “So that was his name? Kurama?”

“Then…” John said, now sitting up on his bed, “I did it in time after all.”

“What’d I tell you?” asked Rainbow, standing up and walking over to him, “You kicked his ass back to Tartarus, didn’t you?”

John didn’t say anything to that, surprisingly. Corey looked over. Something about John seemed off, and it wasn’t just the blood-soaked bandages, which presumably came from his battle with Kurama. Something else about him just wasn’t right, but Corey couldn’t pinpoint it.

“I thought I heard something,” All heads turned. Twilight recognized him as the guard who had been in the room just minutes before, “You’re all awake now?”

“Yeah, more or less,” Twilight said.

“Understood,” The guard took a few steps towards the door, no doubt to inform his fellow guards that the group was awake, “Oh, before I go…You! John, right?” He motioned to John.

“Yeah…?” John asked, looking over.

“Your injuries…” The guard said, “How do they feel?”

John moved about, giving off a few light stretches. “They don’t hurt as much as they did before, I think. Still not at my best, though.”

“Alright. We’ll send in a few guards in a moment, where they will tell you what happened,” said the guard, finishing movement towards the door, “There’s a study space upstairs. Right, Princess?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Twilight said, “You want to use that?”

“Better than in here,” said the guard, “Besides, I’m sure you’d rather have the living room looking like a living room instead of a sickbay?”

“Well, of course!” Twilight said, “And…” She paused, looking around, “I’d rather it look like it did before you moved us all down here.”

“Noted,” the guard said, and took his leave.

With several grunts and groans, the group slowly began to stand and walk, letting Twilight lead the way to the study room mentioned above. Corey knew the place as well—he’d spent about three-tenths of his time here in Equestria in that room. Twilight heard one set of feet that seemed to be moving faster than it should be, and turned, seeing Corey walking somewhat normally, like it didn’t hurt him to move. In addition, he was somewhat casually moving his left shoulder.

“Doesn’t your shoulder still hurt, Corey?” Twilight asked. Corey blinked, turning his attention to his blood-soaked shirt, where he knew the wound still was.

“Actually, no. No, it doesn’t. I think my magic kicked back in overnight,” Corey said, his voice not sounding right either, moving his left shoulder a bit to test it, “It doesn’t hurt to move it like it did before…”

“That’s good to hear,” said Twilight, “Guess that means your magic’s back?”

“I guess so…”

John said nothing, limping along. Rainbow hovered next to him, concerned with how he was acting. Like Corey, she too felt something was off. “Hey, what’re you so sad about? We won, didn’t we?”

“Huh?” John asked, “Oh… yeah, yeah… We did it. We stopped him…”

Rainbow wasn’t satisfied with this response, but dropped the subject as everyone began to file into the room. A few minutes after everyone was inside, four guards walked into the room, and took their positions across from the group.

“First of all, we all wish to congratulate you on your success,” One of the guards said, taking the lead in the conversation, “You’re an inspiration to everyone.”

“Just how long were we out?” Twilight asked.

The guard took in a deep breath and let it out. “You all were out for all of yesterday. You had all simply passed out where you found. So, we had to transport you back here, treating your injuries as needed. Thankfully, most could be mended with spells. The only exception was John over there, due to how severe his injuries were.”

“A whole day?” Applejack asked, “You’re tellin’ me we lost a whole day?”

“I don’t think anyone would blame you, given the situation,” said the guard, “You all had forsaken sleep to track down Kurama, and you managed to pull that off, but right after that, this building came under attack.”

“The library was attacked!?” Rainbow shouted, in alarm.

“Yes,” The guard said, “By two prisoners and an army of creatures. We lost sight of one of them, but the other engaged Princess Twilight in battle. Unexpectedly, when the creatures’ numbers were whittled down to a certain level, both prisoners had apparently routed; we found no trace of them during the cleanup efforts.

“Moreover, during the cleanup, we found some evidence that one of them had entered the room where Rainbow Dash and Rarity were currently. It was a small pile of ash next to an empty bed.”

“Oh yeah…” Corey said, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “I remember that.”

“And after you discovered that the room was invaded… I see,” one of the other guards said, “Wondered how you got that far out.”

“Hold on a moment,” Rarity said, “Corey, you were stricken by Kurama long before I was… how were you up before?”

Corey paused. “I... I don’t know…”

After a few moments of silence, it was Rainbow who spoke up.

“Speaking of,” she said, “Where’s Kurama now?”

The guard who had briefed them on everything fell silent for a few moments. “He’s… dead.”

“Just like with Lyon and Talon,” said Twilight, “Kurama, too, was killed when he failed her.”

“Makes sense,” said Applejack, “His nightmares didn’t get any of us for good, so he was useless to her. Slayer probably got the same treatment…”

“Only someone vile could do something like that,” Rarity added.

John said nothing, merely staring into space, but before anyone could ask why, the guard brought forth a set of papers, and shuffled through them.

“Um, about that,” said the guard, “We just got the report back. From the same doctor who presided over Nemean Lyon’s autopsy…”

“You guys are still doing that? C’mon,” Rainbow said, stepping forward, “We already know who—“

John didn’t wait, walking up to the guard and taking the medical report for himself.

“John?” Corey asked, “What’s going on?”

“Cause of death, cause of death…” John murmured quickly, thumbing through the report…
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It was the morning before, while the group had been asleep. Once more, Doctor Esk Ray was asked to come in to investigate the deceased. In this case, it was Kurama, who had been collected the previous night to confirm how he died. The autopsy was conducted for the same reasons that they had conducted Lyon’s autopsy and Talon’s as well: not necessarily to point fingers, but to provide the group with a sense of closure.

Esk closed his eyes, his spell doing the work for him as he scanned inside Kurama’s chest cavity. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Since Kurama did not have the cushioning that Lyon had, his opponent had done far more to him. In particular, his ribcage was practically shattered, causing damage to the organs underneath. Like Lyon and Talon, though, Kurama’s heart had exploded. However, there was the matter of the ribs…

“Doctor?” asked one of the other doctors nearby, “Did you make a diagnosis?”

“To be frank, it’s a complete mess in here,” said Esk, “Do we have any information on the battle?”

“From what we can gather, the dragon named John engaged him and defeated him. He died more or less as the fight concluded,” the doctor said, looking over the papers, “We don’t have any other witnesses to confirm exactly what went down…”

“All of these injuries were caused by an adult dragon,” Esk said again, taking in the notes. He then returned to scanning the interior of Kurama’s chest cavity. While it seemed that Kurama had died the same way as his fellow escapees did, Esk found it difficult, based on the damage he was seeing, to rule out that the impact to the chest that caused the ribcage to break in the way it had…

“I can’t say for sure…” Esk said, removing his hand from the patient, “I want to say that John didn’t do it, but I can’t. The damage to the organs the ribcage usually protects was pretty awful. Even if his heart had exploded, it’s impossible to say which one killed him first. I would have to perform a scan at the exact moment of impact to truly figure out what happened.”

There was a heavy air in the medical room as the realization sunk in. It was a solemn air. Kurama was a dangerous criminal, to be sure, and while his death was justified as a means of self-defense, this still wasn’t going to be easy to hear.

“Cause of death,” Esk said, “Inconclusive…”
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“Inconclusive…inconclusive,” John parroted the word to himself, in dull shock. A heavy silence had fallen over the room. In particular, Corey looked to John, in complete disbelief.

“From what we understand,” the guard continued, “There was simply not enough evidence to rule out the possibility…”

The silence continued. Not one of them could think of anything to say that could possibly soften the blow of what the report implied. Twilight stepped forward.

“Is there anything else we must know?” Twilight asked.

“No, that’s pretty much all there was to it,” The guard stated, “However, I think you’ll be pleased to know that Kurama’s other victims in Ponyville are waking up. All of them should be fine after some rest.”

“Well, that’s good news,” said Applejack.

“I suppose we’ll go back to regular duty now,” said the guard, nodding towards the others. With that, the guards filed out one-by-one, leaving the group in the study room. Once again, the room fell into silence.

“So… w-what happens now?” Fluttershy spoke up, now clearly the one in control of her body.

“We all go home,” Twilight said.

“What?” asked Applejack, somewhat taken aback by her forwardness.

“This was a hard-earned win,” said Twilight, looking around the room, “We’ve earned some time to relax, so… go home. Reconnect with your families, try to just put this all behind you.”

No one really objected, but someone still had something to say, clearly. Rainbow looked to Twilight, then over to John, who was still more or less spacing off.

“You,” Rainbow said, poking him hard enough to get his attention.

“What?” John asked, as though only realizing she was there—or that he was still in the library.

“You’re coming with me,” Rainbow said.

“But—“

“No, no ‘buts’,” Rainbow said, “If there’s one thing I learned it’s that it’s a bad idea to leave a friend who’s hurting alone.”

Surprisingly, John didn’t object to this. He and Rainbow departed together. The others soon said their own goodbyes and left, leaving Corey and Twilight alone in the library. The two stood in the living room area, just looking around.

“What happened while I was out?” Corey asked, turning to Twilight, “I mean, other than the attack thing?”

“I’ll tell you all about it, Corey,” Twilight said, turning to him, “Just one thing…”

“What?” Corey asked.

“Please,” She suddenly backed away a couple of steps, “Take a shower…”

Corey recoiled as though he were slapped, but shook his head a bit, tapping the side of his head with an open palm.

“If you hadn’t said it, I’d have started feeling it before long…”
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The sun had reached its apex in the sky above; it was around noon now. The hours since everyone’s departure had been, overall, noneventful. Cleaning up wasn’t how Corey had imagined those hours going, but he wasn’t going to complain. He was just glad to be back. Despite what he’d been through the past few days, he felt better than he’d felt in a while.

Corey laid back on the couch for a bit, staring straight up at the ceiling. The living room was more or less back to how it was before. After taking the time to clean himself up, he’d swapped out his bloodstained clothes for a simple white T-shirt and a different pair of pants than he usually wore. After all that had happened while he was out, he did not feel like trying to pick up where he left off.

Twilight needs the rest more than I do, though, he thought, leaning his head back, For my part, I just want to relax a bit, here in reality.

“Don’t fall asleep on me, now,” Twilight said, walking up to the head of the couch, looking down on him, “I think we’ve both had enough sleep…”

“Didn’t plan on it,” Corey said, slowly sitting up.

After taking the time to go about her usual routine, Twilight had also changed out her usual clothes for a more casual sleeveless shirt and a pair of shorts. True to her words from earlier, she was taking a little time to rest. She moved to the couch, sitting next to him. Both sat in complete silence for a while, merely enjoying the moment. At least, that’s what they wanted to do.

“It’s so… odd,” Twilight finally said, hunching forward.

“What is?” Corey asked. Twilight stared at him as though he’d sprouted a horn from his—a second horn from his head.

“This… stillness,” Twilight said, “I guess I just got used to it since this all started, but everything’s calmed down. For the moment, everything’s right again. I’m even able to relax for once.”

Corey hadn’t even really considered it up until now. She did have a point, though. Ever since he’d got here it just felt like he was being hurled through one crisis after another. And with each new prisoner they came across the margin for victory was slimmer and slimmer. And yet, here they were now, lounging about on a couch like nothing ever happened.

“Yeah…” Corey said, leaning back into the cushion a bit, “I know it’s not over, but after all that, all I want to do is sit back and not think about anything for once.”

Twilight leaned back in the cushion as well for a few moments. “You know, normally, I’d disagree—an idle mind is a wasted one—but after the last few days? I think you have the right idea.”

Corey and Twilight slowly slumped towards each other shoulder-first, until they touched. The contact caused the two to shift in place slightly, but did not deter them. After all that, it seemed like they could spend a little time to themselves, some time away from studies about old magic, some time away from that old book—

“Oh!” Twilight stood up suddenly, letting Corey fall over the rest of the way onto the couch when he didn’t adjust to the lack of her presence, “I just remembered!”

“Remembered what?” Corey asked, pushing himself back at the sitting position, scratching his temple lightly in mild irritation the “not thinking” thing didn’t last too long.

“After you fell asleep, before Kurama came along, I kept reading the book,” Twilight said, “I found something in that runic book! One of the pages was missing, but… I don’t know, it described a powerful magic…”

“Huh?” asked Corey, “What’d it say?”

“It’s influenced by a number of factors,” Twilight said, “Maybe that’s why it was locked away. It explained why you were having so much trouble with your magic before… want to go have a look?”

Though Corey’s magic didn’t seem to be malfunctioning anymore, he felt it couldn’t hurt. “Alright, let’s go.”

Corey rose from the couch, and both soon went upstairs, to the study room. It was where the book was usually left between sessions. As they passed inside, Corey remained by the door for a few minutes, while Twilight went ahead of him, moving over to where the book was kept. He leaned on the doorframe.

This is where I learned most of everything I know about magic, Corey thought, a small smile on his face, as he reflected on all that he’d experienced in this room. While there was one bit of unpleasant news among his more recent memories, he’d still had a lot of halfway decent memories here, even if most of them revolved around the current situation. Perhaps in the future, he could build more pleasant memories, ones that didn’t involve worrying about escaped prisoners or—

“What is--?” asked Twilight. Corey turned to his right, seeing Twilight fidgeting about with the shelf’s books, clearly frenzied, “Where’s the book?”

“It’s not there?” Corey asked, feeling a sharp stab go through his chest. No, no, it couldn’t have been... He had to force the idea out of his head before he started panicking too, “T-the past three days have been hell on you… do you think at some point it was moved somewhere else?”

“I don’t usually…” Twilight paused. The last few days were pretty unusual. If not for what was at stake it might have all become one huge blur to her. Between the stress and the lack of sleep, she might have done something without realizing it, “Maybe… Maybe you’re right. It probably just got shuffled around!”

Corey didn’t think she believed that, but chose not to voice it. His first day back awake and already things seemed to be going downhill. However, compared to waking up, only to find one of those creatures standing over him? Not as bad.
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The two began to search the library for it, starting with the room they were in. Twilight got Spike to help—before, he’d been fishing through his comic books, which had been under lockdown for the last few days. It wasn’t in Twilight’s room. It wasn’t in the living room. It wasn’t in the kitchen—though they didn’t get too far into searching before Twilight rather vocally questioned why they were even looking in there. Though by that point, they had pretty much run out of places to be.

“I don’t believe it,” Twilight said, disappointed at the loss, “The book’s gone! It’s not here!”

“Do you think one of the others took it by accident?” Spike asked, sitting up next to her.

“No, no, that can’t be right, Spike,” she said, “I don’t think any of them would be interested.”

“Then…” A pit dropped in Corey’s stomach as the unpleasantness of the situation sunk in, “No… Do you think they took it, when they attacked?”

Twilight stood up, no better accepting of that theory than Corey was. “That’s…!”

However, at that moment, she paused, her mind bringing her back to the battle as a memory returned to her.

“We suggest you route from this battle now…” The tiger’s words came back to her, “You are not what we came here for…”

“Not what we came here for…” she parroted, thinking, “They attacked for a reason beyond the fact we were weak. They took back the runic book, but why?”

Twilight shook her head. “Why would they do all that just for a… book…”

Neither Corey nor Spike liked the way she trailed off. Twilight sharply turned, facing a new direction they hadn’t looked during the search for the book.

“Oh no… No!” Twilight took off. Something hit Spike as well, and he soon took off after her. Corey was the last to follow, that pit seeming to drop lower and lower with every step he took. Eventually, they stopped in a room Corey hadn’t been in before, at least not while he was here in Equestria.

And there was one major thing that was missing from the picture. Or rather, six. Where before there was a pedestal that held the Elements of Harmony, only kept around as a fail-safe if Discord ever went off the handle, now, it was an empty pedestal.

Twilight fell to her knees, the sight too much to bear, as well as the realization. Spike grabbed on to her, having fully realized the gravity of what had happened.

“The Elements of Harmony… they were stolen…!” Twilight said, her voice high-pitched and filled with panic.

“W-what h-ha-happens now?” Spike asked, clearly scared as well. He knew full-well what it meant, and it wasn’t good. Twilight hugged Spike back now, her awareness having momentarily blanked out. Behind them, Corey was staring at the same picture that they had seen, as well as taking in their own predicament.

Corey’s hand gripped the doorframe, as something lit deep within him, the full picture too much for him to bear. This image made the image of Twilight alone and scared up north seem very low-grade. Corey closed his eyes, fighting himself, but there was no way he was going to deny it. He couldn’t deny it. He was angry, and for a damn good reason.

Great… Just…fucking…great! Corey thought.

Author's Note:

So we discover what was taken during the attack, and it wasn't pleasant. Now what? Find out next week.

Comments

[Moowell]

Well, we expected the book. But the Elements, too? Geez, they can't catch a break even when they catch a break!

[AstralFlare42]

7220423
They won't be able to use the elements should something really bad happens. Without the book, Corey can't complete his training. John has been weakened that it may take a couple of weeks to fully heal.