The Legend of Rarity: Zecora's Mask

by LittleAngelStocking

Chapter Nine

The stairs lead down into the main room, but now she was on one of the platforms she couldn’t get to earlier. She headed towards one of the doors she’d noticed earlier and headed in.

It led into the room she’d been in earlier, the one before the one that had the two bugs. She hadn’t even noticed there was a second floor. She headed over towards the door on the far wall, and headed in with a sigh.

An empty room. Dim, but not really dark, pretty much like the rest of the temple.

“Hello?” she asked, figuring she’d regret it.

She did.

It fell from the ceiling – she hadn’t even seen it up there. It was orange, and walked on two legs. Its shape reminded her of Spike when he’d had that unnatural growth spurt. It had two daggers held in clawed hands, and had some sort of weird armor. It let out an odd shriek, and breathed fire threateningly.

“It is official. This land hates me.” She heard bars slide over the door behind her. “Only natural,” She said casually. Then jumped into the air, screaming hysterically. It shrieked as well, and charged at her. She dodged out of the way, and galloped to the other end of the room. “What to do, what to do, what to do,” she sighed, tapping her chin as it approached again. It slashed at her side, but she crouched at the last second and ran underneath it, knocking it off of its feet.

“Hmmmm,” she pulled out her sword, stroking the blade with a hoof.

Jumped back up and instead of running at her, this time it spewed a cone of fire from its mouth. Rarity backed away at the last second, feeling the heat against her face. She jumped back, and it stopped and jumped right over her, landing behind her. All sorts of alarms went off in Rarity’s brain and she whirled around, just in time to see one of its blades come down from the side. She held up her own sword, blocking it. This knocked the creature back, momentarily stunning it.

Rarity took the opportunity to leap at it, and slash its chest. It screeched in pain, and jumped over her again. She ran away, feeling its blade cut off a good portion of her lower tail. At least now it won’t drag upon the ground, she thought ruefully.

She felt more fire burn her backside. She put the handle of her sword into her mouth releasing it from her levitation, and then turned around. With a blast of her already limited magical energy she knocked it back, it hissed as the fire stopped abruptly, and she jumped towards it, pinning it to the ground. She reared her head back, aiming the sword, and prepared to impale it in the heart when it pressed a hind leg into her soft stomach, raked its claws down it, and then kicked her off.

She gasped in pain, doubling over. It jumped to its feet and pounced on her back, preparing to stab her in the flank. She reared back, knocking it off, and turned towards it. It got to its feet, and let out a low, menacing growl. Rarity bit down harder on the handle of the shamefully tiny sword, tensing up and preparing for whatever it planned to do next.

The beast placed a foot back, and anticipating it’s attack Rarity jumped back as a blast of fire engulfed the area she had just been standing it. She levitated her bow out and quickly shot it mid-breath. She had wanted to be quick and hadn’t really aimed, and it got hit square in the shoulder. It dropped one of its knives, roaring in what sounded like more rage than pain. It jumped over her, doing a flip midair and landed behind her. Rarity took her chance and bucked it right in the knees, knocking it back. She turned around, pinning it once again. She prepared to end it once and for all, when a blast of fire hit her.

Luckily, it hit her mane and not her face, but it was enough to send her jumping backwards. “MY MANE, OH NO! OH, IT HURTS IT BURNS!” she pulled out her only bottle of water and splashed it over her head, dowsing the flames.

Most of her mane was okay, but most of the lower parts had been burned right off, and the tips were now a charred black color. She felt a stinging on her cheek, and guessed she’d been mildly burned there.

It jumped on her again, this time landing so it was facing the back of her head. She reared back again, but it grasped her shoulder with its free hand and raised the dagger. Opening her mouth, the sword dropped to the ground and Rarity twisted her head and bit its fingers. It roared, jerking back but Rarity held tight. She felt warm blood fill her mouth, and quickly let go, spitting on the floor. She bucked back and forth, and knocked it over her head and onto its stomach on the floor.

Rarity jumped into its back, this time it had no way of knocking her off. It screeched and roared and struggled underneath her, and levitated up her sword, she placed it under its chin and slit its throat.

~~~

Rarity stood outside the door of the room, trembling all over. Maybe it was the agony. Maybe it was the fact that she’d killed someone. Something, she corrected herself, but in the back of her mind she knew it wasn’t true.

It was sentient, she could tell. It had weapons and armor. No stupid animal had that.

It attacked me first, she reasoned. But that still didn’t make the guilt and shame go away. A chest had appeared, after it died, but it was just another fairy.

The fairy had healed some of her wounds, but not by much, and it didn’t make her mane and tail grow back. Not much of her mane had been burned off at all, but she felt bald. It was only a few inches shorter now, and not even half of her tail had been removed, but…

“I’m just… happy to be alive,” she said, voice wavering. “It attacked me first. I’m justified!”

On the other side of the room was another platform, a door, and another one of those weird eyes. Rarity shot it with an arrow, and as with the one from earlier it closed, and the square sitting on the swamp water shook, and then floated upwards. It floated between Rarity and the other door for a few seconds before lowering.

By this point, Rarity didn’t even need to question it. But it was mostly because her mind was still on the murder.

It wasn’t a murder, it was self-defense! She thought angrily to herself. She noticed the platform had come back up and jumped onto it, then onto the one in front of the door.

With a regretful sigh, she headed in.

The door closed behind her, as did the bars.

The room was like the earlier rooms, puddles of water, big pink flowers, but at the end of the room was a cage built into the wall, and behind it a blue and yellow chest.
And, of course, there was a beast in front of her. The creature in front of her looked like a giant frog. Orange and black, with a white stomach, and vicious looking teeth.

“Oh, why?!” Rarity cried. She wanted to cry. She really did.

It leaped at her, and she held up her sword threateningly. “S-stay back! I’m warning you!”

It paid her warning no heed, and brought its claw back, preparing to slash her. She turned around and bucked it in its squishy amphibian chest. “I don’t want to resort to violence,” Rarity said. "So if you’d please let me-“ she was interrupted when it charged at her and scratched her already abused stomach.

“Ow!” she instinctively lashed out her sword and slashed it across the shoulder, down its chest. It backed up, clutching its bleeding shoulder. Then it cupped its claws around its mouth and let out a scream, Rarity flattened her ears and took a step back.

A massive turtle fell from the ceiling. It was like the ones from earlier, only about two sizes bigger.

The frog-thing jumped onto its back, and it retreated into its shell, preparing to spin into her. Rarity times herself, and as it raced towards her she turned around and bucked it. The turtle was knocked onto its back, and the frog jumped off onto the wall. It crawled up onto the ceiling, and aiming her bow Rarity shot it down.

It fell to the ground, stunned. Then it jumped up, flipped the turtle back to its feet and jumped back onto its shell.

It started spinning and again raced towards her. Mimicking her earlier technique, she knocked it on its back and once again the frog was crawling on the ceiling. Again it was shot down and again the technique repeated. Rarity whirled around, bucked it right in the shell. The turtle wasn’t knocked back this time though, it spun out of control and Rarity jumped this way and that as it knocked into walls and back. Finally, hitting one wall, the turtle shattered.

The frog jumped angrily towards Rarity, and she threatened it with her sword. “This doesn’t need to end violently,” she said, but was completely ignored. Regretfully, she pulled the bow out and jumped back as the frog tried to slash at her. She aimed, and let go.

The frog was hit right in the throat.

It screamed, struggled, bounced and raged, and then shrunk.

And shrunk, and shrunk, and then exploded in a puff of white, a little blue normal-looking frog in its place.

“Ribbet.”

It looked completely unharmed. Rarity walked hesitantly up to it, then sighed in relief. “Oh, thank goodness,” she whimpered softly. “You’re… okay. It… was a curse, wasn’t it?” She crouched down in front of it. Normally she thought such creatures to be ugly, disgusting.

But right now, this little thing was the cutest thing she’d seen since ending up in this crazy world.

There was a silver key at its webbed feet. Rarity picked it up in her levitation. “Oh, mister frog, thank you. I’m sorry for attacking you, but… the curse is broken now,”

And she had a pretty good idea as to who had started the curse in the first place.

She got back up, her every limb aching, and headed for the cage. She unlocked it and swung open the door. She pushed open the lid of the chest and looked in.

A key.

But not like any other keys she’d seen, this one was gold. The head of the key looked normal, but the other end had a beautiful ruby encrusted into it. It looked almost like a crimson eye, she thought.

“All right…” she sighed. Now to find the door where this went into.

She left the room and went back into the central room. She walked over to the edge of ledge she stood on and looked over. There was a lit torch directly in front of her, and an unlit torch in the center of the triangle.

Rarity stared at it for a bit, before raising her bow. Aiming it, she shot an arrow directly through the flames, the flaming arrow hit the other torch and lit it.

She watched as the triangle trembled, the whole room shook. Then, the triangle raised to her lever and opened, six arms spreading outwards and started spinning.

It looked like a giant flower, Rarity couldn’t help but smile. It was kind of pretty…

“The waters clean!” she exclaimed aloud. Looking down at the water, it had gone from that hideous purple to a clear, beautiful blue. It looked safe enough to swim in, even.

But Rarity had no time to swim. She jumped onto the spinning shrine-thing. There was another platform and a door she had yet to explore, and she jumped over to it.

She jumped onto it, braced herself and entered the door.

Hey… this wasn’t so bad. There was a bridge in front of her, leading up to a massive door, held shut by a giant golden lock.

“Oh… thank goodness. Now more beasts to fight,” she sighed, allowing herself to relax. On either side of the bridge were burning pillars, and in one of them was a bubble with a fairy in it. Mindlessly, Rarity shot it. She froze when she realized it was in the fire, but sighed in relief when it flew over to her as if nothing had happened.

There were three wasp nests, and remembering the one from earlier that had had a fairy in it, she shot all three down. Sure enough, one had a fairy. There were several alcoves in the far walls, three of which had fairies trapped in bubbles. She shot the bubbles and the fairies fluttered over to her and disappeared.

Rarity headed over to the big door, and turned around. She noticed a flash of pink under the bridge and looked over the edge. A fairy in a bubble. Smiling, she used a hoof to pop the bubble. There was more water under the bridge, clear and clean. She levitated her bottle all the way down and filled it to the brim.

She took a small sip, and put it into her beat-up saddlebags. The fairies helped to heal her a bit every time she got one, so by now the burn on her cheek was healed completely and the scratches on her stomach didn’t even leave scars.

She looked at the massive door in front of her. “Well, here goes nothing. I have a good feeling about this.” she smiled and pushed the key into the lock.

Author's Note:

Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh, I've never written anything like that fight before, I sincerely hope it came out decent! It seemed okay at first, but now I feel its too rushed. Hopefully the Odolwa battle will be more acceptable!

Also, did I get all fifteen fairies? I think I did, I did the math over and over, re-reading over and over and I think I got them all, but if not please let me know so I can add/decrease the number of fairies she's gotten.

Also, I still feel stupid about scrambling where everything is.

And I can't wait to put Rarity up against the mini-boss in Great Bay Temple. Oh my gosh, that will be awesome.