Reap What You Sow
“What?” I asked dully, trying to process what the necromancer had just said. Sombra Resistance Army? Murdered world? Millions dead? Not to mention that a necromancer was running around claiming to be an Equestrian magus. There was only one logical conclusion. “You’re nuts.”
Rising Fire chuckled. “Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you would think so. How could you not? But no, if there’s any madness to be found, it’s in the world itself, not me. But is it really insanity to see the world clearly and act upon that knowledge? Because if there’s any madness at all, it’s in the world I come from. The world Starlight Glimmer destroyed.”
Oh good, this bad guy (or girl, it was hard to tell) was a talkative maniacal necromancer. Might as well let him/her/it keep on talking, then. Maybe Rising would give away something useful, and even if it didn’t, that would buy me time to catch my breath after the fight with the revenant, and maybe get a little backup from Puzzle and Strumming. “Again with the destroyed world stuff. I’m not going to say I’ve had my friends watching Starlight every moment of the day, but I think they’d have a hard time missing her going on a huge killing spree.”
“She didn’t do it on her own,” Rising answered, the lich’s voice surprisingly calm. I guess crazy undead lunatics appreciate having someone who’s at least willing to hear out their delusions. “Twilight Sparkle helped her.”
Twilight Sparkle? Never heard of her. “Still doesn’t answer the whole ‘how did we miss millions of deaths?’ question.”
Rising lifted one of its hooves, idly inspecting it. “Well I suppose that would be that because, from your perspective, they haven’t happened yet.”
“What, is it some kind of prophecy?” That didn’t really line up with the way revenant was on a vengeance rampage against Starlight, but I couldn’t see any other explanation. “You do know how incredibly unreliable prophecies can be, right? Ninety nine percent of the time they lack some important context information, or they’re ambiguous enough to mean the exact opposite of what you think they do. Odds are Starlight isn’t going to do whatever it is you think she’s going to do, and whatever you’re afraid of will never happen.”
The subdued green fire wreathing Rising’s body flared up, almost engulfing the necromancer. Its voice came out as a deep-throated roar. “No! Don’t tell me it won’t happen! I was there! I saw it happen!” Rising stomped forward, and I nearly threw a spell at it in self-defense before it stopped. However, the lich paused, and after several seconds eldritch flames faded back behind its steel bones. When it spoke, its voice was once more cold and almost subdued. “You have no idea what we suffered. The war against Sombra consumed all of Equestria. You cannot conceive of the scale of it. The Lunar Rebellion, the Morning Wars, they were skirmishes compared to the great war against the revived Crystal Empire.”
Rising started pacing back and forth, its voice rising as it hooves gestured grandly. “You have no idea what sacrifices we made to hold back the Crystal Empire. Sombra would stop at nothing to see us all subjugated, turned into nothing but more mindless slaves to serve his boundless ambitions. Any sacrifice was worthwhile in pursuit of victory. When Sombra unleashed his crystal golems and shadow demons on Vanhoover, the 17th Trottingham Company was all that stood between them and the city. It took three days to get all the civilians out, and for three days the Trottinghammers halted the enemy at Galloping Gorge. None of them made it back, and nobody but the enemy witnessed their sacrifice, but they held the line.”
One of Rising’s hooves slammed down on the ground. “But that was nothing compared to the Battle of Fillydelphia. Sombra’s brought the full might of his army down upon the city. The battle itself lasted over five months, and our army suffered over a million casualties. But in the end the city was ours, and Sombra lost as much as we had. Which is more than I can say for the siege of Manehattan. The city held out for over two years, but by the time we relieved them only twenty percent of the population was left. Some of them got away on boats, or snuck out. Some of them. Can you even conceive of warfare conducted upon such a grand scale?”
I had to admit, the numbers Rising was coming up with sounded ... insane. Maybe theoretically possible if Equestria was in an all-out war for survival, but it was right—I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of a war that huge. He was talking about more ponies dying in a single battle than had died in entire wars in the past. Those kind of numbers just couldn’t happen.
But still, the way Rising was talking about it all sounded too earnest to be made up. Not that it made it any less likely the lich was just a crazy pony who believed their own insanity. After all, one of the defining traits of a lunatic was that they couldn’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
“Now...” Rising lifted its forelegs to the sky. “Let us imagine an outsider comes to our Equestria. They see all that we have built, everything we’ve sacrificed to preserve. The cities and ponies countless heroes laid down their lives to protect. And this pony who knows almost nothing of us and our lives decides ... that our world is unworthy of existence. That it is a failed timeline, suited only to be destroyed so she that might make one that she preferred.”
“Failed timeline...” The pieces came together. “Wait, are you saying there was some sort of time travel involved? That Starlight Glimmer changed the past? That’s impossible. Starswirl’s third law of temporal mechanics states that—”
“Starswirl,” Rising growled, “did not have all the facts. Apparently Starlight and her co-conspirator found some means of breaking that law. I’m afraid I don’t know the details—I was somewhat preoccupied trying to save Equestria from enslavement. We didn’t even know what happened until our whole world started ... breaking.”
“Breaking?” I didn’t buy a word of his explanation, but I’d read enough fiction to guess what direction his story was going in. “So what, after Starlight and Twinkle went back in time and changed your past, your whole world just ... vanished?”
“Not overnight, and nowhere near so cleanly as that.” Rising took a threatening step towards Starlight, but stopped when I deliberately put myself in its path. “The annihilation of an entire world is a slow process. Time itself shatters slowly. It began with little things. Clocks always seemed to be off, one pony would say something had taken five minutes, another fifteen. The sort of things one could dismiss as the usual accidents of perception.”
Rising shook its head. “Eventually, the truth became plain. The anomalies grew too great to ignore. Instead of a few lost minutes it became hours or days. It could be day in one part of Canterlot and night in another. And then it grew worse. Dinner could spoil in the time it took to move it from the kitchen to the table. Children could age a year in the course of night’s sleep. Or time could move in the other direction. Sometimes children would vanish completely their parents would forget they existed. They were the lucky ones. Ponies long dead returned to life, as well as some that had never existed. And now, they will never exist. Their future was destroyed before it was even born.”
Rising turned its back on me, staring up at the stars. “We tried to fix it, of course. How could we not? Princess Celestia herself lead the effort. However, the scope of the problem was beyond anything we could hope to understand or control. You could say that we saved our world, in a manner of speaking. It still physically exists. I have walked across the Dead Sea, where the waves themselves remain locked in place, frozen in time for all eternity. Seen the wastelands that were once the Crystal Empire, stood and watched as millions of years passed in an instant, grinding the mountains themselves to dust.”
“Doesn’t exactly sound like the healthiest environment,” I pointed out, seeing a potential hole in the story. “How did you survive?”
Rising held up one of its metallic limbs and chuckled bitterly. “Did you think I looked like this before the world went mad? No, once I was an ordinary pony, much like you. When we tried to avert the catastrophe and the spell turned against us, Celestia protected me against the spell’s backlash. She too passed, but not before helping me find what I needed to preserve my own existence. I, naturally, expanded upon that work. When time itself is meaningless and one’s body no longer requires rest or sustenance, you would be surprised just how much you can learn. Eventually I even restored a few of the lost. Most were nothing but empty shells, but a special few lingered on more strongly.” Rising’s eyes flicked to the revenant’s remains, and in a flash of green flame they vanished. “I will restore Rainbow once our business here is finished.”
I had a pretty good guess what that business was. “So, you want to arrest Starlight for time traveling.” I frowned, thought over exactly what Rising had said, the corrected myself. “Because she will time travel in the future. You said she hadn’t done it yet.”
Rising shrugged. “Considering the difficulty of finding my way to your plane of existence, I think I did rather well arriving at a point in time where she was alive at all. If arresting her before she commits the crime can undo the damage she caused, then I will happily do so despite the fact that one could argue this particular Starlight is technically innocent. And if not ... a world has died. There must be justice for that.”
I frowned and planted my hooves. “You know I’m not letting you take her.” For starters, the story was way too crazy for me to take it at face value. And even if I did believe it, I didn’t exactly like the idea of letting him arrest and presumably execute someone even he admitted hadn’t done anything wrong. Maybe Starlight would do all that stuff at some point in the future, but that was a pretty big maybe. Especially since having an alleged time traveller show up and go on about the horrible things that happened you did in the future would be the kind of thing that might make somepony rethink their life choices. Though if that happened, then would Rising still time travel back here to...?
Ugh. No wonder Starswirl’s third law of temporal mechanics was so entrenched. If you threw it out and opened up the possibility that ponies actually could change the past, then everything started getting crazy and terrifying. If Rising was telling the truth, then ponies were capable of screwing around with time and doing so could set off an unimaginably horrible apocalypse. Compared to that, I much prefered to believe that Starswirl’s third law still functioned, any attempt at time travel created a neat little closed time loop, and Rising was just insane.
Rising sighed and shook its head. “I had hoped you would stand aside ... but in all honesty, I’m not surprised you won’t. I should’ve expected it, all things considered. So be it. Though be warned: getting Starlight means everything to me. How much does she mean to you?”
I frowned and shook my head. “It's not just about that. This is also about doing the right thing. Even if I believed that what you're saying is true, you admitted that hurting Starlight might not even fix anything.” I glared up at Rising, pawing at the ground. “And if all you wanted to do was arrest Starlight, then you sure picked a strange way to go about it. You’ve attacked a bunch of innocent ponies who didn’t have anything to do with this, and don’t even know why you sicced a bunch of zombies on them. How is that right?”
Rising drew itself up to its full and rather intimidating height. “They stood between me and my goal. Much like you are now. Move, or you will be moved. Last chance.”
I grinned, already planning out the first moves of the fight. “Sorry, but I’ve never liked it when people try to threaten me. And honestly, your attitude’s kinda pissing me off now.”
Rising sighed, its head hanging. “Then it seems you leave me no choice.”
An instant later Rising’s eyes fixed on mine and its horn lit up with a sickly green glow that matched the flames within its body. Those flames flared up and then hurtled towards me, withering the grass beneath them as they came.
I could’ve blocked the attack, but there was no reason to resort to a brute force slugging match when there were better options. Instead I teleported out of the attack’s path—a far better use of energy, and it put me in a good position to counterattack. For lack of any better idea, I decided to fight fire with fire. I was a pyromancer, after all.
Rising’s response caught me by surprise. I would’ve expected a shield spell of some sort, either outright blocking or at least deflecting my spell. Instead, he met my fireball with a huge chunk of black ice, cancelling it out.
I blinked in surprise—it was pretty rare to see anyone skilled with both pyromancy and cryomancy. However, I still had an advantage in both fields—mastery of the unique combat style invented by Sunbeam Sparkle which fully integrated the two types of magic with near perfect efficiency. I created a fireball by concentrating a bunch of heat into a single point, then used the absence of heat to fuel an ice spell. Done right, I could pretty much cast two spells for the price of one. Less than a dozen ponies had mastered the style since Sunbeam invented it, and as far as I knew, I was the only living practitioner.
Which was why it came as an immense surprise when Rising met my blast of ice shards with a wave of green flame, perfectly blocking and countering my spell. I opened up full bore, hurling fire and ice in successive waves at the necromancer, but every spell was perfectly met and countered by the opposing element. Which was supposed to be impossible—there was really only one explanation for how Rising could match the speed and efficiency of my spellcasting. “How the hay did you learn Sunbeam’s style?!”
“I could ask you the same question,” Rising shot back calmly as my latest fireball met a shield of black ice, which led smoothly into a column of green flame headed straight for my face, which I just as easily blocked with an ice spell of my own. “Sunbeam Sparkle guarded her secrets as much as any magus, and that style was how she became the greatest pyromancer Equestria has ever known.”
“It’s been more than eight hundred years since she was around,” I shot back. “With all the magical developments since then it was inevitable somepony like me would eclipse her.”
“You arrogant little child,” Rising scoffed, drawing itself up to its full height as it hurled a particularly large and nasty fireball my way. “Your claim to being a magus at all is dubious at best, and yet you claim to be better than the likes of Star Swirl the Bearded and Sunbeam Sparkle? The foolishness of youth.”
While I would never admit it, I was starting to get worried about the evocation slugging match I’d gotten myself into. Dual-element evocation might be magically efficient, but it was mentally exhausting. Considering the duel was at a complete stalemate and the undead lich would have an advantage in pure contest of endurance, I needed to change tactics if I actually wanted to win this thing. I reached down into the earth, pulling up a thick wall of solid rock between the two of us. That should buy me a little breathing room, and with my defenses taken care of for now I could shift back to full offense once I’d decided on a new angle of attack.
“Earth magic?” Rising rumbled out. “An interesting choice. It seems you haven’t fully mastered Sunbeam’s style after all.” I could practically hear the malicious grin on the lich’s skull as it announced, “Fortunately, I have.”
Rising’s horn lit up, and I saw something I’d only read a few vague descriptions of in the memoirs of long-dead ponies. Rising tapped into the roiling mass of hot and cold air our spells had created, stirring around and exciting it until a new sort of energy started building up. Electricity. That particular little trick was something only Sunbeam Sparkle had ever mastered; the one time I’d tried it all I got for my trouble was my mane standing on end and Celestia joking about how much she loved my new hairstyle.
Rising, on the other hoof, knew exactly what it was doing. I managed to expand the rock wall into a dome just before the first lightning bolt hit, but the effort left me with a nasty headache. Not to mention I hadn’t exactly improved my situation: I was trapped inside my rock dome like a tortoise that had pulled everything into its shell. I might be alive for now, but I didn’t have much in the way of options as long as I stayed in here. I certainly wasn’t going to win a magic duel by hiding away from my opponent.
Rising wasted no time pointing out another flaw in my choice of tactic. “Does that mean you forfeit? In that case, I thank you for standing aside and ending this pointless battle. I will collect Starlight and be on my way.”
Dammit. I knew he was probably saying that to bait me out, but it was good bait. If my goal was to keep Starlight away from the crazy lich, I had to jump out and fight him. And, unfortunately, I was kinda committed to the battle now. I concentrated and teleported out of my safe little rock shell, placing myself between Rising and Starlight. “Sorry, not out of this yet.”
I knew just slugging away at Rising with evocation wasn’t going to work, so it was time for a change of pace. I threw a large wave of ice shards at the necromancer as much to block its vision for a moment as anything, then followed it up by pulling out some fire gems from my saddlebag. I threw the gems in right behind my shards: with any luck Rising wouldn’t expect the attack since it wouldn’t detect a second spell coming from me, and I could catch it off guard.
Sure enough, Rising went with a fire shield that nicely intercepted the ice shards, but was just about useless against a bunch of fire gems. For a second I thought I had the warlock dead to rights, but then Rising pulled out another surprise and teleported away. Not some sort of medium-based trick like shadow-jumping, pure teleportation.
What the hay?! I was the only one Celestia had ever taught that spell to! That didn’t make any sense at all unless Rising was...
I shook my head and put the question aside. I did not have time to worry about how Rising could possibly know certain spells when we were in the middle of a fight. Just had to adapt and deal with it. I quickly spun around, keeping my eyes open and a shield spell ready to cast—I’d certainly used teleportation to strike from an unexpected angle before, and if Rising knew how to do it, the lich would probably think of the same thing.
I didn’t spot the lich before the area was suddenly engulfed in total darkness. I knew that could only mean a spell, and probably Rising setting up something nasty for me. Whatever it was, I didn’t want any part of it. I quickly teleported out of the area before I could get hit with whatever Rising was planning.
Once I landed in a rather unpleasantly soggy section of farmland, I finally spotted the warlock. Rising’s freakish wings were apparently functional, since the lich was hovering over the battlefield. More worryingly, the reason I spotted it so quickly was the the necromancer had a small but blindingly bright ball of light in its hooves. I recognized another trick I’d used before—it was a variant on the spell I’d used to beat Starlight when we’d fought. Had Rising been watching that battle? The thing did have some sort of weird fixation on Starlight, and if it had seen me fight that might explain a few things.
Rising’s hooves snapped forwards, and the ball shot out towards its target. Not me this time, but Starlight, who was in no condition to dodge or shield herself.
That left me with only one option: I teleported over to Starlight’s side and threw up a large shield spell to keep both of us safe. A second later the light blast hit, hammering my defences as I instinctively shut my eyes. The last thing I needed was to go blind.
I managed to block the attack, but my knees trembled and I felt a nasty twinge at the base of my horn. Before I could prepare a counterattack another spell slammed into my shield. Then another, and another.
Oh horseapples. Rising had broken out one of my favorite tricks to use in a magic battle, using the efficiency of the pyro/cryo combat style to just hammer through an opponent’s defenses. It took less energy for Rising to keep up the offensive than for me to block every single attack, so it was just a matter of time before Rising smashed through.
My first instinct was to teleport away, but I was standing right over Starlight. If I moved, she’d be fried by Rising’s next attack. I could take her with me, but I’d never tandem teleported with another pony under combat conditions. I knew the theory behind it and I’d done it a couple times with Celestia watching to make sure I got it right, but even that practice had been with inanimate test objects, not a living pony. Trying to port myself and Starlight away while also keeping a shield up was ... maybe not impossible, but I didn’t like our odds. Even if I pulled it off, there was a nasty risk of some sort of error with the spell. I did not want to accidently leave one of my legs behind. Or Starlight’s, I guess.
Of course, the alternative was to just sit here helplessly and wait for death, which wasn’t exactly an improvement. A high risk of death or injury for one of us was still a step up from the certainty of death we both faced if I didn’t take a chance on teleporting.
Just when I was really hoping a good distraction might come along, Strumming delivered. A cold-iron dart shot out of one of the rainclouds, clanging off Rising’s metal-covered horn. “Hey! Big, ugly, and flaming! Why don’t you pick on someone even uglier than you are? You might have to spend a couple years looking. I can’t even tell if you’re a boy or a girl.”
The dart didn’t do any actual damage to Rising’s horn, but it did thoroughly break up the lich’s spellcasting momentum. I took advantage of the opening to grab Starlight and teleport both of us into one of the nearby homes. I would’ve preferred somewhere a bit further away from the battlefield, but I didn’t want to push my luck too much considering just how far out of my comfort zone tandem teleporting was. A quick check said that we’d arrived with all our body parts where they belonged, so at least I’d gotten that right.
I galloped back outside, just in time to spot some of Strumming’s throwing spikes clanging harmlessly off Rising’s metal bones and a fire gem briefly engulfing the lich in flames. When the fire faded, Rising seemed completely unharmed despite Strumming’s efforts. “That was a mistake,” it announced calmly.
The warlock’s horn lit up, and the air itself let out a nearly deafening shriek. Strumming let out a scream that the wind carried away almost before I could hear it, and the pegasus herself went hurtling away along with every cloud in the sky. I was just glad that Rising kept the spell off ground level, or it would be flattening trees and houses too.
I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity Strumming had put herself in danger to provide, so I quickly teleported to directly underneath the warlock. Rising didn’t seem to be aware of me, so I launched a spear of ice directly into the warlock’s belly. The attack struck with a nasty metallic wail, and the warlock jerked violently from the force of the impact.
For a second I hoped I’d actually managed to land a decisive blow. Then the warlock melted away my ice and twisted around a bit, getting everything lined back up. Rising’s body still didn’t look quite right. I couldn’t get a good enough look to say for sure what I’d done, but I was reasonably certain my attack had accomplished something more than just wasting time and energy.
Rising fluttered down and landed across from me, its hooves not quite resting properly on the ground. “You should have taken the chance to run,” the necromancer rumbled. “In the time your friend bought for you, you could have taken Starlight far enough away that I would need quite a while to find the both of you.”
I grinned, lowering my head to level my horn at the lich. “Sorry, but I don’t give in that easily.”
Rising chuckled and shook its head. “I really shouldn't be surprised.” There was a flash of green, and suddenly the warlock was entirely too close to me and swinging a steel-covered hoof at my face. I managed to duck low, but that left me vulnerable to a follow-up strike that thudded into my ribs. The armor took the worst of the blow, but it still knocked me off my hooves and knocked the breath out of my lungs.
I wanted to just lie down on the ground and try to catch my breath, but I knew Rising wouldn’t give me time for that. I rolled to the side just in time to avoid getting my chest stomped on, then quickly teleported away to the rock dome I’d abandoned earlier. I lay in the mud, gasping and groaning until my lungs remembered how to work. Judging by the dull ache that twinged a bit sharper when I took a deep breath, nothing was broken. Thank goodness for small favors.
The earth trembled, and with a low groan my rock dome tore itself apart. Rising strode forward, towering over me as I slowly picked myself up from the muddy hole I’d been hiding in. “Where did you hide Starlight?”
I scoffed. “You really think I'm just going to tell you that?”
“I like to believe in second chances,” the warlock quipped. “And I was hoping that if I asked, you might do something to give it away. One of the downsides of a mortal body is all those little quirks of body language that you can’t quite control.” The lich paused a moment, then added with deceptive calm. “Oh, and if you don't tell me I might just have to destroy the entire island to be safe.”
I narrowed my eyes and shook my head. “Horesapples. If you had enough power to blow up an entire island, we wouldn’t even be having this fight.”
Rising shrugged. “I wanted to spare the innocent if at all possible. Though I think you’re imagining things the wrong way. I wouldn’t destroy it outright with a single spell, but I could easily scourge the entire village, animate the inhabitants, and then set them all to tearing this island to pieces until I find the murderer you’re hiding from justice.”
“So you’ll murder an entire village of innocents just to get some cannon fodder?” I picked myself up, defiantly standing against the necromancer. “You have a pretty twisted idea of sparing innocent lives.”
Rising drew itself up to its full height. “Starlight’s crimes are too monstrous to be ignored. I do not wish to harm anyone other than her, but I cannot allow a few misguided souls to stand between me and justice. If a few innocents must die to avenge the murder of millions, then I will bear the burden of paying that price.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that once you start talking about how you’ll nobly sacrifice other people’s lives in the name of your cause, it means you’re off your rocker. You wanna go around believing you’re some kinda hero, then sacrifice your own damn life!”
Rising stared at me for several seconds, then flatly answered. “I'm sorry you feel that way.” A second later a massive column of green fire as thick as my leg shot out of the necromancer’s horn, headed straight for my chest.
Instead of trying to block the attack I teleported out of the way. The last thing I wanted to do was get into another evocation slugging match with a lich who could actually match—no, exceed my power and skill. Especially when I was still feeling light-headed and out of breath, either from the hit to my ribs or all the spells I’d been slinging. Probably both.
I had a lot more luck when I managed to hit Rising from an unexpected angle, so I tried that again. I teleported a couple more times to throw the lich off, then finally stopped right behind the warlock and launched dozens of razor-thin ice shards at its unprotected back.
The theory was good, but Rising must have guessed what I was up to, because at the last second the lich conjured a shield to deflect my attack. Without even turning around. “Predictable. Answer something for me, Sunset. Why? Why do you want to lay down your life to protect Starlight Glimmer?”
“Who said anything about laying down my life?” I started charging up a light spell, trying to hide it behind what was left of the rock dome I’d used for cover. A brief isolated little breeze ruffled my mane as I glared at the lich. “Personally, I plan to kick your butt, then go home and enjoy a well-deserved vacation.”
“Do you really think that’s likely?” Rising turned to face me, slowly stalking forward. “Spare me the bravado, Sunset. We both know who’s winning this fight.”
“You never know,” I shot back. “I might have a couple tricks up my sleeve.”
That’s when Puzzle made his move. The changeling must have been using one of his little trinkets to stay invisible, because Rising had no idea he was there until he dropped about a dozen of my fire gems onto the warlock’s head. Rising had naturally been focused on the threat in front of it at the time, and didn’t see Puzzle’s attack coming in until it hit.
I grinned savagely and silently thanked the sneaky bug for his help as the lich was absolutely engulfed in flames. I wasn’t under any illusion that Puzzle had killed the thing, but if fire had no chance of hurting Rising, it wouldn’t have blocked all my fire attacks while we were slugging it out. Plus it gave me a nice opening to start my own counteroffensive.
“Die already!” I opened up with the light spell I’d been preparing, sending it shearing through the flaming mass. I couldn’t tell exactly what I hit when everything was on fire, but I saw something get cut off of the warlock and tumble to the ground. I followed that up with a lightning bolt that blasted the lich away, then stole one of Starlight’s favorites by slamming the necromancer with a blast of pure kinetic energy that sent it sailing off into the distance. Considering what I was up against, I decided there was no such thing as overkill, and conjured up a huge block of ice to drop on top of the lich. It slammed on top of the necromancer with a massive thud of finality, and I felt the earth tremble beneath my hooves.
I waited a while to make sure no nasty surprises were coming, then let out a relieved sigh, my shoulders slumping wearily. “Looks like that handled it. Thanks for the assist, Puzzle.”
“This one needed to protect its investment in the Shimmer-mare,” Puzzle answered dryly. “It cannot afford to lose her after it has invested so much time and resources into making her Freeport’s magus and a valued ally.”
“Horseapples.” I trotted over and hoofed him in the shoulder. “That wasn’t about protecting an investment, it was about helping out a friend.”
Puzzle grinned at me, showing off his fangs. “There are times when both of those goals can be accomplished with a single action. In this one’s experience, others often have more than one reason for acting as they do.”
I chuckled and nodded. “Fine, fine, you can keep pretending you’re a cold merc instead of as a big old softie.” I stretched out my sore limbs. “So, check for a body to make sure Rising’s dead, then go celebrate?”
“This one thinks that is an exce—”
Something slammed into my back, knocking me into the mud. My vision swam, and when I turned my head I saw Puzzle staring down at me in shock right before a fireball engulfed him, blasting him away.
Rising Fire stalked towards me. One of its wings was missing and its metallic body and skull were battered and broken in a few places, but it was still up and moving. “You are beginning to annoy me.”
I tried to get back up, but a sudden lance of pain from one of my hind legs sent me back down to the ground. When I looked back, I saw a shard of ice impaled clean through the muscle of my leg. Some distant part of my brain felt the need to remark that I was really going to feel that injury once the adrenaline and shock wore off.
Puzzle leapt back into the fray, no longer on fire but without the battle cloak I knew he’d lined with protective trinkets that were meant to help him survive stuff like getting set on fire by crazy warlocks. He hurled a bag of tanglehoof at the necromancer, who easily blocked the attack with a simple shield spell. Then the necromancer sent the shield hurtling forward with a wave of its hoof, blasting my friend back and sending him tumbling.
“Leave him alone!” I hurled a fireball at the necromancer, but between pain, exhaustion, and my injuries it was a pathetic display.
Rising didn’t even bother with dodging or putting up a shield spell, instead contemptuously batting the attack aside with a foreleg. “It's over, Sunset.”
I gasped in another breath, trying to find some hidden reserve of strength that would be enough for one last attack. But when I dug down deep I came up empty; I guess that weak little fireball had been my last gasp. “I—I'm not ... done yet,” I groaned out, refusing to give up.
“Yes, you are,” Rising answered calmly. “It was an impressive fight, but it’s over. Just tell me where Starlight is, and I’ll even spare a few moments to treat you and your friends before I leave. Under the circumstances, I think that’s a more than fair offer.”
For a moment, I was tempted to accept. I’d lost the fight, and it wouldn’t take Rising long to find Starlight. Why not just accept the inevitable, and spare myself and my friends a whole lot of needless pain? It was the smart, rational thing to do.
I felt warmth on my cheek, and looked over to see the very beginning of dawn on the horizon. The sun. Celestia’s sun.
There was only one answer I could give him. “No.”
“Why not?” Rising demanded.
“Because buck you.”
“Stubborn to the last,” Rising sighed, shaking its head like a disappointed parent. The necromancer stalked off heading towards the village where I’d hidden Starlight. I spotted something out of the corner of my eye, and decided to play for a bit of time.
“Hey, Rising. I know something you don’t know.” I must have been a bit delirious from the pain, because I was almost mocking sing-songing.
The necromancer paused, then turned to me. “What?”
“Strumming’s pretty good with herbs and low-level alchemy,” I answered. “Kind of an outgrowth of knowing how to poison and drug ponies, plus Puzzle taught her a few things. You know, spy stuff. She’s got this one mix that’s real good at getting an injured pony back on their hooves for a little bit before they pass back out again.” I paused for a moment, then added. “I just thought I’d mention that since she probably gave some to Starlight. Would explain why she’s about to shoot you in the back.”
Rising whirled around, just in time to catch one of Starlight’s kinetic blasts in the chest. As the warlock went sailing, I saw Starlight once more. The mare was bracing herself up against the doorframe with one hoof, while Strumming was supporting her other side. Starlight was gasping and panting, sweat pouring down a face that was pale with pain, but she’d managed the spell.
“STARLIGHT GLIMMER!” The air practically shook from Rising’s roar. “At last you will face justice for your crimes!”
Starlight groaned, stumbling against Strumming, but she didn’t fall. “Yeah ... buck you ... too.”
I had one last chance to turn this fight around. Just like the earlier fight with the revenant, Rising wasn’t going to be paying as much attention to me now that the real target was in sight. And while I was still completely tapped out, the rising sun gave me one last option. Sure, the spell hadn’t worked the last time I’d tried it, but I was running pretty low on options. I reached out towards the sun, begging for any help it or the pony behind it could give me. It was just a little trickle of energy, but that was more than I had before.
I turned to face Rising, trying to ignore the pain in my injured leg as I concentrated my borrowed power into one last spell. The warlock was still focused on Starlight, ranting about how justice had finally caught up to her and she would pay for her crimes. Which probably would’ve been a lot more effective if Starlight wasn’t delirious from pain and whatever Strumming had dosed her with to get her up on her hooves for even a couple seconds. I closed my eyes and tried to get the spell exactly right. “Celestia ... please...”
The spell that erupted out of my horn was completely unlike what I’d cast in the fight with the bokor. Instead of just a bright flash of golden light, it was a massive wave of multi-colored radiance. Rising whirled around in time to see it and throw up a shield, but the lich’s defenses were no match for me. Not now.
“Take your crazy somewhere else you damned lich!” I felt my second wind coming on now that I had the necromancer on the ropes, and poured everything I had into the spell.
“NO!” Rising writhed and moaned as its shield shattered and my spell struck home. “No! There will be justice for your crimes Starliiight!” The light grew to blinding radiance, forcing me to shut my eyes. When I opened them again the light was gone, along with Rising Fire.
The instant the spell was done my forelegs gave out, leaving me lying flat on my belly in the mud. Under the circumstances, I was just fine with that. Moving at all sounded like way too much effort right now.
Strumming staggered over, looking far too uninjured considering how bad I felt. I bet she didn’t have anything worse than a couple nasty bruises. Nag. “Did we get the bad guy?”
“I ... I think ... so.” I tried to focus on a detection spell, but I had such a nasty splitting headache that I couldn’t really get anything useful out of it. “I’m not really feeling its magic anymore.”
Puzzle slowly limped over, frowning at the shard of ice sticking out of my leg. “This one suspects that it is done, at least for now.” He sat down next to me with a grunt of pain, slowly pulling out a small medical kit. “Rising Fire seemed convinced it had lost. In this one's experience, when one’s enemies start screaming about how they will get their revenge eventually, it means they will not be getting it today. And Rising seemed quite distressed by the prospect of destruction. Necromancers that are certain they will not die are usually far more blasé in the face of death.”
“Oh. Good.” I knew I probably should’ve asked a few more questions, but keeping my eyes open was just far too much trouble. I vaguely remembered Puzzle giving me something for the pain, and after that the next couple hours were a blur.
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Random emboldening at the end of it all...
Are the last couple of paragraphs of this supposed to be BOLD? All the dialogue is in 'normal' typeface, too.
I'm not sure if the Bolding got inverted or something here, but the rest of the chapter (save Rising's big NO!) is in bold.
And the most horrific of this, is that neither Starlight or Twilight will know or learn about the horrors they unleashed in their stupidity. Not sure if calling it Karma or Idiot Houdini
Personally, I call it more Starlight's fault for messing with time, especially for petty revenge. She's repentant, but a few fanfics have speculated that those other timelines have lingered, but hopefully they never cross over with the main one.
Great battle, nice to see Sunset use another spell, she's being pushed to her limits more and more, especially with this particular opponent. Rising Fire was very powerful, just too bad it had gone pretty insane. Then again, a very powerful lich from a collapsed timeline is a terrifying thought- fighting a necromancer is bad enough, a survivor of a dead world (with who knows how much relative experience) is even more out there. I liked that Sunset focused on the here and now- this Starlight definitely isn't guilty of that (and she might even be improving), and taking the word of an insane necromancer isn't her style, no matter how much she dislikes Starlight. I hope that's the end of Rising Fire, the implications of its impossible existence are disturbing enough as is.
Is the sudden shift to bold at the end of chapter 5 a mistake or is it purposeful?
So Rising Fire was Sombra-timeline's Sunset Shimmer, at least as far as I can tell. I could see Celestia reaching out to her to get help, and finishing up her training. Whether or not the wings were something she earned or gave herself after lichdom could be debatable.
7685999 Yeah, that's probably the best explanation for the name (Rising Fire vs. Sunset) and their suspiciously similar fighting styles. Heck, it even explains Rising's offer to heal Sunset and her friends at the end, assuming that killing Sunset would also erase Rising. Although now I'm really curious how this encounter will affect this timeline...
I was actually rooting for Rising.
Also:
[youtube=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg]
(If the video doesn't show up click here)
Also, my patented Headcanon Generator 3027 already made my OC a part of this lich's army.
7686657
Accepted.
Yep, looks like someone forgot to close a bold insert. Good chapter otherwise.
Okay, so it was a combination of both Starlight triggering the timeline and Twilight ending it that caused the problems. Kind of an extra dark interpretation since we know that there are multiple other failed worlds that would have gone through the exact same fate.
Man, it's a good thing they had a full crew for this, in any pure one-on-one fight (with the forces on hand, at least) Rising Fire would not have been stoppable.
Wow, this is an incredibly dark interpretation of what happened during Starlight and Twilight's battle at the end of Season Five. I really didn't want to believe the revenant from last chapter was Rainbow Dash, despite the distinctive description, but after Rising Sun called it "Rainbow" I lost any chance of deniability. (I also lost any reason to believe Rainbow couldn't be an adult yet or there yet when I found out they were from an alternate timeline.) *sigh* That was just downright creepy. And how on earth do you come up with a win-win scenario in a situation like that? All the options sucked.
As to "Who is Rising Fire?" Best Guesses
Future Sunset. Gender wasn't specified, was it?
Descendant of Future Sunset
Celestia's Next Student
Alternate Twilight - or whoever was Element of Magic in that timeline (Hey, someone beat Alternate Nightmare Moon)
I guess the sun senses the need for ex deus machina :shrug:
And that was the moment that I knew without a doubt that Sunset was fighting the alt-timeline version of herself. Calling Rising Fire a "he" throughout it all was a nice cover, though.
Perhaps the necromancer is counting all the undead she blasted apart?
When did we get to Minority Report?
Seems like it might be a little hard to measure time when it's breaking.
And this is how we know you're the badguy. Or Strumming.
A little predictable, actually.
Less talky, more fighty.
Was who Sunset? Who is Rising Fire?
7700641
Dont forget, there’s still the Nightmare Moon timeline and the Queen Chrysalis timeline, so if this story is going along with Sombra’s one, then we should be expecting a different revenant for those two.
Knew it.
Ok, that was an unexpected twist. I didn't think of it that way.
Or it could create a Causal Loop, in which the person time traveling becomes the instigator for the events causing them to time travel in the first place.
8215626
Well, we only know of two ponies other than Celestia that can teleport (three, if you count Starlight, but she doesn't seem to be able to here). Sunset and Twilight. While Rising Fire seems invested in killing Starlight (thus eliminating her), she also considers Twilight responsible for the death of her world. That leaves only Celestia and Sunset, and since Celestia apparently died to save Rising Fire...