Moondust

by Parallel Black

18 - The Hacker of the Harp

She’d never had many words for things, so she wasn’t sure what to call this feeling.

She had only ever played for her Queen; her subjects never entered the castle. Now, there was no castle to go back to, and no Black Rabbit to play for.

Peace looked to the unicorn standing at the front of the stage. As promised, the sound coming from the “guitar” was a horrid one. The mare’s magic did something to it to make it that way, but Peace barely knew what magic was, so she put those considerations aside. She refocused her attention on her harp and continued playing to the best of her ability, before recalling the fact that the mare had instructed her to go crazy.

She assumed she didn’t intend to kill her fellow ponies, but if they weren’t bowing at their feet yet, then Vinyl Scratch must have been doing something wrong.

Peace readjusted her pose, mimicking Vinyl’s bipedal posture and feeling her pony disguise twist unnaturally in response. She put her fake hooves on her harp, and rearranged her hairs into something more intimidating.

With a single strum, she had their attention. This would work.

-----

Peace eyed the broken blade with a dull curiosity. The edge was the same colour as her hair, but as she drew a lock across its surface the metal peeled off in strips beneath her strength. It was just a normal sword. There wasn’t even a spirit inside it, and whatever kind of magic had filled it was fading away, yet it had cut her. She looked to the split ends of her damaged lock, frowned, and tossed the empty half-sword back down to the ruins.

She saw her lengths lighting up again and she cleared the air behind her, shattering another of Purple’s attacks. Looking up, the pony hovered above her on four wavy platforms just like before. Purple was weaker than Vinyl, yet it was able to float like Oeroth. Another frown, this time joined by a dim sensation of eagerness. It wasn’t for the fight itself—that she’d already taken out on the fake-Purple—but for the thought of what she could gain from it.

“Hoe-hooe…” she laughed. There were so many more things to learn.

The star shapes where Purple’s eyes should have been glowed brighter, making them stand out against her fuzzy, purple silhouette of a body. Before Peace could react, she realised something had connected itself to her remaining hand, yanking it up in front of her face. She pulled it aside with a grunt and saw a chain of energy tying it to Purple’s horn. Possession? she thought. Another blast of magical pieces took her thinking time away and she sent her blades to scatter the shards once more. Purple and Grey’s energy blasts were messy; they were more like Oeroth’s arrows than proper beams, made of lots of little pieces that all had their own force attached—destroying one would not deflect the others.

Her hand came back and she instinctively tried to push it away with the other, only to remember, yet again, that it was her only one. A flash of horror ran through Peace’s mind; was Purple going to take it, too? She let out a scream and wrapped her blades around the chain, allowing the cascade of fuzzy arrows to hit her directly. She left a gap in her lengths, forming others into a Sword, only for the larger blade to simply slip against its surface. The chain was much stronger than Purple’s shields, but she could at least pull her hand away from her face using the lengths wrapped around it.

Purple backed off as Peace sent her blades further up the chain. The pony hadn’t learned from last time she gave her opponent a ledge to use. Further and higher Purple went, the chain extending in her wake, weakening only slightly. Peace frowned. Maybe it was a rule-based power rather than something made of pure energy. Such powers weren’t normally able to be resisted like this one, though. Her blades reached their limit, Purple nearing the edge of the arena where the grave houses still stood in audience. Peace made a mental note to destroy those, too, once this was over.

She felt her arm suddenly pull to the side as Purple swung her head, tearing Peace off her feet and throwing her right into the ground. She growled and tried to stand, only to feel a rush of air as she was pulled back up and into the open sky. Not Possession, Peace thought, letting her body swing limply as she tried her hardest to come up with a way to deal with this. A tether?

It was embedded into her hand, connected to Purple’s horn. Her blades could pull against it, but that didn’t seem to move Purple like Purple moved her. If she could close the gap she could sever her horn like the fake-Purple and that would probably put an end to the ability, and after that…

The frustration coalesced into a familiar feeling of revenge in Peace’s head, and an idea formed. Chains were difficult to make compared to ropes, but maybe one would be useful here. She thought of her Queen, of the chains and bars she had created from the raw sand and dust to subdue her enemies. Peace had so few new things of her own to offer; hopefully the Black Rabbit would forgive her for taking yet more from others’ ideas.

Who better to learn from than an enemy? she recalled her Queen say. Her blades released the tether to soften her next landing, before stabbing into the ground to root her body in place, letting her arm be pulled about uselessly. With a moment to spare, Peace coiled some blades together into a rope. She recalled the bridge she had made, and imagined the ropes closing in on that group of ponies to squeeze them all to death. She formed another rope and twisted it around the first. It would be strong, but it didn’t look right. The first rope loosened to create a gap between the spiralling second, forming another, opposing spiral. Her eyes widened as the shape entered her mind, and both spirals flattened against one another to create a chain-like pattern. More blades flowed up the design to increase its size and a few loose threads secured the entire thing together. It looked flatter than a real one, but it was close enough.

“Good,” she commented to no one, her breath visible in the cold night air. Another memory came to mind, of her Queen saying the same thing to her when she was first taught Sword and Spear. Peace had been foolish back then, to think her blades were all she needed.

Peace wondered for a moment why she was recalling these things, but another yank of her arm drew her attention. Purple was descending, the faint wing shapes fading from her back and the two pink stars where her eyes used to be flickering, leaving behind a pallid, fuzzy purple like the rest of her body. Maybe she was already running out of energy. At this rate, Purple would fall short of the Black Rabbit’s expectations.

The thought put a smile on Peace’s face. Making a fool of Purple would be enough revenge by itself; as long as her Queen was happy with her work, nothing else mattered. Peace tested her new Chain against the nearest structure, and filled the air with a blast of sharp pebbles. The grave house collapsed upon itself, fractures travelling up its surface to reduce the entire thing to rubble. Her blades couldn’t do that without a sustained attack. Her Queen would be pleased. Perhaps, Peace hoped, this would make up for her failure, and she could fulfill the instructions her Queen had given her during last night’s vision.

A cold gust of wind blew through her hair, and the sting it carried drew her attention. She turned to see a new pair of ponies standing atop one of the intact graves. One was another White, this one spreading a pair of fuzzy, glowing wings. Beside it stood a unicorn who almost shone a light pink, a bright halo of red floating above its head with a pair of black and white wisps inhabiting the several feet between.

The halo looked like a threat, but the wisps merely travelled in and out between it and the pony beneath; a power source, rather than an attack. Like Grey’s hooves, the pegasus’ wings shone brighter than the rest of its body, the air around them gaining a weak glow as well. With the others dealt with and Purple running out of strength, these two could make for entertaining opponents. Peace had been furious when the fake-Purple interrupted her duel with that strike to the chin, but now—she gave her Chain another swing, bringing down another structure—she was having far too much fun to care.

Still…

After what the colour one and Yellow had done, Peace knew pegasi were her biggest threat, though the unicorns were proving troublesome as well. The hairs Purple had cursed still hadn’t regained their strength. Her brow twitched and she looked at her clenched hand, holding it still long enough to see the pair of soft things it still held. She had completely forgotten about Yellow’s wings. The glow was giving way to a darker energy underneath, and so, putting the defeated pegasus out of her mind once again, she dropped them to the floor.

-=-=-

The wind stopped.

Nighttime slowly returned and the static in the air dissipated. The silhouettes of ruins and of the monster that was his target faded back into view as he blinked away the blinding flash. It felt like he’d been stabbed in the eyes. Skycroft flapped his wings and felt his hooves grace a stable surface as he tried to figure out where he was. The air currents had all changed direction for a moment, as if an explosion had just taken place in front of him. He let out a pained grunt as he squinted. No doubt about it; that had been a lightning strike.

“What the hell was that?!” came Moondancer’s aggravated voice from behind him. She was still clinging to his back, so she was ok.

Mr. Thunder came to mind; that had to have been him. None of his other Brothers could do that, not that he’d even seen the other pegasus use his cloudforging abilities offensively before. “O-one of my Brothers, I think!” Skycroft responded as he steadied himself. He rose again and came to rest upon an exposed upper floor, his injured ankle stinging harshly as he landed. His two remaining bottles clinked as he stretched a wing to let Moondancer down, not that she had anywhere to go after that, he belatedly considered.

The look on his face descended as he saw the monster behind all of this. Peace didn’t look anything like he’d imagined. No golden coat of fur, no hooves or claws at the ends of her legs, not even a snout on her face. The scraps of what seemed to be a grotesque bodysuit hung from her waist. Her whole form was thin and sharp like the blades that made up her mane. She really didn’t look like she belonged here, and she was all the more terrifying for it.

At least his Brothers had managed to take one of her arms.

He looked further down the road, and felt his hooves freeze in place.

His passenger hopped back on and yanked him in the opposite direction, a hoof jabbing at the side of his neck to get his attention. “There! Twilight’s over there!” Moondancer cried.

His gaze flicked back to the monster. She’d rooted herself in place to resist Twilight’s Dion’s Pin, and had just demolished another building with a golden chain. She was looking at them now. Moondancer hadn’t mentioned anything about her eyes, but something was definitely flowing from them. A feeling that washed over him like a wave, locking up his joints and stealing the words from his tongue. He watched in silence as Peace looked down at what she held in her remaining hand. It was a pair of small, black wings, covered in scars and the remnants of a powerful electrical burst that still fizzed from one feather to the next.

“Come on, Skycroft, what’re you waiting for?!”

“Y-yeah,” he responded and slowly spread his own. He kept his eyes on the monster until the moment she dropped her trophies to the ground, and he knew they were next. With one great flap he lifted off, and with a second, he threw himself in Twilight’s direction, Moondancer letting out a yelp as she held on.

The wind that blew through his mane and between his feathers held the mint-flavoured purity of a snowcast mountainside. The stale air beyond that felt ill against his coat, and beyond that, an overwhelming presence of doom crashed over him like a tidal wave as he heard an entire row of structures falling behind them. The little unicorn was coming back to ground level a distance away, and he was leading Peace right to her.

“S-Skycroft,” Moondancer began as she looked back, “speed up!”

“I know,” he responded. He could hear more destruction as Peace gave chase, and he risked a look back to see how close she was. Maybe this strange feeling was all in his head, and it was nothing more than killing intent? Maybe the sight of so many of his Brothers laying motionless on the shattered cobbles had been nothing but his fear making him hallucinate, and he was about to find some way to deal with this?

Black Thunder. A veteran with the best smithing skills in the business. The story at his back was the sort that would give the soft ponies of Equestria nightmares. Skycroft’s own little hero’s journey was a mere paragraph compared to that, and yet there the other pegasus had lain, yellow eyes staring up, chest heaving in pain, and a growing pool where his wings should have been. His teeth had been clenched around the hilt of his broken sword so that he wouldn’t scream.

Seldom, too. The pitch-black tentacles of his strongest form had been scattered all over, leaving the changeling himself laying motionless on the ground. Just beyond him, he could’ve sworn he saw the light-grey carapace of Away beneath that mess of colourful magic, too.

He really wished Firebright was here right now.

No, actually. Maybe not. Firebright hated him, but he didn’t want to see the unicorn end up like the others.

“I wonder if all my friends are dead,” he commented, the chill of his breath lingering in his cheeks as an ice cold sweat formed across his brow. He hadn’t seen Dredge or Snow Drop.

“W-what?”

“Did you see my Brothers down there?”

She paused. “No. I didn’t.”

Skycroft let out a fake chuckle and breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, good! It must’ve been my imagination then! I thought they’d all been killed or something.”

Moondancer didn’t respond. That was fine. He didn’t need more input on the situation. He would get Moondancer to her friend, get the two of them out of here, and then fly straight into the Royal Palace and drag the Princess here if he had to. Firebright could handle the paperwork afterwards. He was good at that.

Skycroft felt something cold and metallic brush against his back hoof. An excited growl came from behind them. “Hey, Moondancer, do you think we could talk some more after this is over?”

Again, she didn’t respond. That was fine.

The horrid vibe in the air overcame him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

As Skycroft felt a set of giant claws dig into his back leg, he beat his wings forward and ducked his head down, killing his speed and sending the little mare tumbling off and into the air. Another flap sent a makeshift cloud after her as she fell, and, thankfully, her charged hooves provided her leverage as she flopped into a soft landing.

He was pulled backwards and down, the stale air rushing through his mane before he felt a wall of stone strike him from behind. His head smacked hard against it as he came to a stop, causing the sight of Peace coming toward him to blur. Even like this he could see her mouth open in a big, excited smile, like a child discovering their newest toy as she charged toward him, her blades moving her along like a giant spider. His legs still recovering from the impact, his wings acted for him and sent a blast of icy air at his attacker. She hesitated for a moment as Dion’s Pin dissipated, before lunging forward. Her freed arm came first, followed by her blades, throwing him back against the wall, and plunging his world into the void.

The hopeful ideas and combat tactics came to a end, then. His wings still did their thing, but that stopped too when he felt them getting bound by blades. His limbs twitched and pushed against the giant hand wrapped around his chest, but they soon went slack, awaiting whatever would come. Peace’s mane tightened around his wing joints, and he imagined how Black Thunder must be feeling right now, assuming he hadn’t already died from blood loss.

Some part of him still fought. A tiny, pathetic part of him he thought he’d left behind at the onset of his first adventure. “Stop. I’m not a threat,” he pleaded with the darkness. More blades wrapped around his limbs, holding them against the wall like a carcass upon a table, ready to be butchered. He couldn’t do anything now. “Please, Peace. I’m already defeated.”

He was glad the last thing he’d seen clearly was Moondancer landing safely. At least he’d done that part right. Maybe she and Twilight would get out of here unharmed.

Peace hadn’t said anything for a while, the strange feeling she emanated ebbing and flowing as she leaned closer. He heard her sniff, felt her blades investigate his body, and then her grip loosen, letting him slump back to the ground.

“Pathetic. I expected more from a pegasus,” she commented with a gruff, and left him.

Alright, Skycroft thought. That’s good. That’s progress. He drew his limbs close; only a few papercut-like scratches. They were all still there, most importantly his wings. He gave them a test flap and felt the chilly breeze blow around him, just as pure and soft as usual. Now for my eyes. He raised a hoof into his field of view and, for an instant, his mind’s eye filled in the gaps for him, before the blackness took that mirage, too. He was blind.

He looked around and raised his other hoof, the one that had been hurt during the fall, the reality of his situation sinking in deeper and sharper with every second. He gave his wings a flap to comfort himself and felt the cool air whistle around his body and away. He could feel the stone wall behind him, the displaced cobbles beneath him, and the growing bruise on the back of his head that had taken his sight. Another flap and his mouth curled downwards, his eyes blinking and focusing to try and make some measure of difference. He stood, still looking around, as if there was something that would be bright enough to break through the gloom, and saw his partner at his hooves pointing him in the right direction.

His Lunar Shade galloped in place, aiming straight ahead, visible even in this state. Skycroft had plenty of ideas concerning their true nature, and this, at least, proved they weren’t made of anything that should be visible. There was still that feeling in the air brought on by the Moon, he realised. It had faded from the forefront of his mind over the course of the month, but he could still feel it glowering down at him, just like…

He frowned in the direction his shade was galloping. They were the same; the Moon and Peace. Well, of course they are, he thought, taking a step forward. That was where she came from, so it only made sense she would possess the same kind of alien energy. The frown deepened; he hadn’t seen a shade beneath her. Did she lack whatever component was being cast by the moonlight?

Another step turned into a slow trot as he realised which direction Peace was heading. She was still aiming for Twilight, which meant both mares were in danger. He gave another flap, as strong as he dared, and felt the air blow around him, off the cobbles and up against the fluff of his coat. A few steps later the edges of his feathers brushed against a wall, and he felt the air repelling off it, too. He’d always been sensitive to the movements of the breeze—it was what made his icework so fine and precise—and it seemed that understanding would still help him now.

He was a fool with a deathwish, he knew, but then he’d always been that way. This was a bigger hurdle than most, but something deep within told him he could do it.

The third thing that made it through the darkness was that strange feeling emanating from Peace. It was weak now that she had disregarded him, but it was still much stronger than that of the Moon itself. Maybe… maybe I can still do something, he thought as he broke into a gallop, each flap building the map in his head while the depressive sensation of Peace’s energy led him onward. Regardless of what state he was in, he needed to keep those two safe. He couldn’t let two promising unicorns be butchered by some alien barbarian just because things were more difficult for him now.

The feeling rose and he felt the air part around something tall and slender up ahead. He pulled his wings back as far as they would go, filled his chest with air, and sent a blast of freezing vapour flooding over the area. The whistle of wind against metal signalled Peace’s response, but her blades didn’t reach him. The parting of air widened—perhaps a shield—and Skycroft took the chance to retreat again, instinctively lifting up and feeling a tiny gust beneath him as Peace sent a single blade to skewer him. The length graced one of his back hooves in an attempt to grab him, but the metal shook as it froze, before pulling back.

Another gust of air as Peace’s shield came down. “You can fight after all,” she stated, dully. “Fine. I’ll kill you like the others.”

“If that’s what it takes to end this, then so be it, freak.”

He was nowhere near as fast as Thunder and nowhere near as smart as Dredge, but he had an elemental advantage now, and that would be enough. It had to be. With a few strong flaps Skycroft gave himself some distance and he set off. A small swarm of blades followed after, some missing while others froze against his coat. The fur stiffened and snapped off with them, preventing Peace from hanging onto him.

Skycroft didn’t know which way he was going. He simply flew as fast as he could, following the flow of the wind through the streets and between the ruins. He could still sense the feeling of animosity close behind him, but Peace’s attacks had stopped for the moment. I need to find a place to freeze her solid, Skycroft thought. But it’ll have to be made quickly. I won’t have time to make sure. He felt his remaining water bottles against the front of his armour. Two left. That should be enough for somethi—

A sharp pain scattered his thoughts. He looked back, though he couldn’t see anything, and felt a horrid shape digging into his side. Multiple blades put together into something that eased its way into his flesh. It froze like the rest, but the depth was bad news; like a corkscrew it had taken root, and if he released it he’d lose a chunk of himself, too. It was now or never.

Skycroft pulled his wings in and let himself fall, grasping one of his bottles as he neared the end of a wide street. An intact building on one side, maybe one storey on the other and a narrow alleyway running along the back of them. This would do. He maintained his speed, dragging Peace along as another spiral embedded itself in his other flank. With a yell of pain he raised the bottle and tossed it onto the cobbles.

Mere moments passed before the air itself felt like it had frozen, like he’d flown into a giant freezer. Skycroft slipped against the cobbles as he landed, his front end tipping over and smashing his remaining bottle against the ice. He didn’t miss the beat, and blew the freed water into a more useful shape. Kicking off the floor he pulled himself back up and over his creation, further hardening the water with each flap and drawing moisture from the air to create a puffy roof of clouds. The shape on the wind roughly matched the one in his head, though the floor was patchy and the mirrors were all messed up, and if he’d had enough time and an extra bottle he could have added a more solid roof to really give the gazebo that ice palace vibe.

Peace followed, still connected to him. Her blades crashed through the standing tower and reduced the ruins beside it rubble, but they passed straight through the mirrors like a knife through milk, and by the time she dislodged herself from her target her toes had already touched the center of the trap. “Agh!” she cried, taking another step, only to find her other foot freezing in place as well. Her blades burst from beneath the roof, but Skycroft was already a fair distance above and out of sight. “Come back and fight me, pathetic pegasus!” she screamed after him.

Next came the hard part: The lenses. Lenses were a pain even when he could see what he was doing, but he formed each one with as much care as he could spare, directing their gaze back down to the malformed gazebo. In his current state he couldn’t even check if his image was being carried through to the mirrors, but he heard blades stabbing into the wall of the alley below, proving that it had worked as intended. It probably looked like a funhouse in there, each reflection less accurate than the last, but it seemed to be enough to goad her. Even past the tremendous amount of pain Skycroft couldn’t help but smirk. He genuinely hadn’t expected this to work. The attacks spread in all directions as Peace followed his images. From up here he could feel the air being blustered about by her attacks. It felt like she was using all of her blades at once just to get rid of his taunting face, spinning and cleaving until the neighbouring structures were nothing but piles of jagged pebbles.

The attacks began to slow as the mirrors took their effect, chilling anything that went through them while the roof kept the cold inside, reducing Peace’s attacks to a fraction of what they once were. The smug feeling swelling in Skycroft’s chest was cut short as he felt the gazebo’s cloud roof gently floating upwards past his hooves, having been displaced by Peace’s ferocity. A strong flap pushed it back into place, but it was too late. An icy length wrapped around his hoof and yanked him down.

The landing was rougher this time. The clouds confused his senses and he misjudged where the floor was, twisting his injured leg. By the time he’d picked his bleeding jaw off the ground there was already a blade coiled around his neck.

Peace held him straight, the sensation from her eyes palpable enough to take the remaining strength from his bleeding backside. The joints of his back legs were feeling numb from agony. He hoped it was just the pain and not something more permanent. I can’t let this end yet, he thought, sitting in place as his wings were reigned in once more. I have to finish her off, for the sake of everyone in Canterlot and beyond, and…

Had anyone asked him what his greatest weakness was before today, Skycroft would have smirked and responded with a joke. He was good at what he did, and skilled in making himself look good while doing it. He didn’t need to cover his weak points, because they were small and uninteresting compared to this rare, “cool” power of his. That was how outsiders saw him, at least. His Brothers knew better, but few had any idea of how little he really had beyond them.

His only permanent company thrashed against its existential restraints beneath him, its pale visage reflecting across the mirrors, the gazebo’s shape becoming truly visible for the briefest of moments. It was better made than he’d realised.

The blades around his wings tightened, but the one around his neck fell away, inching back after being stiffened in the cold. A single note filled the air. Skycroft wasn’t versed in music, so he didn’t know which one, but it sounded like a string instrument of some kind. Another. His lips quivered, desperate for some way out of this situation. “W-what’re you doing?”

Peace strummed her claws along the instrument. “Making a decision,” she responded. “You are stronger than I thought. My Queen will be ready to make this place part of her empire soon. I wonder if she would keep you alive, if she were here right now…” A note twanged oddly and Peace made a grunt. “You still need to be punished, but I’ll let my Queen make the decision on your life.”

“You’re sparing me?” Skycroft broached, knowing he was tempting fate in all the wrong ways.

“No. Idiot.” The sound of metal easing against metal preceded a far, far worse sound meeting Skycroft’s ears. They instinctively swivelled backwards on his head, before another few notes provoked him to start backing up, but his hooves held fast. “This is one I played before, on the stage. I wasn’t sure how to make it hurt ponies, but now I think I can do it, thanks to you.”

Whatever she’d created, it wasn’t just any string instrument. The sound it made pierced his thoughts and tore them to shreds. If Rion had a bray of his own, this was what it would sound like. Skycroft realised what he was about to be put through as the sound reflected off the mirrors that surrounded them. As the notes came back Peace only continued to play, adding more noise to the horrific dirge, the volume rising in tandem with the chaos. It started as some sort of unhinged scraping of a guitar, but soon lost any semblance of form amongst the mess.

Skycroft’s limbs didn’t even move, and he didn’t speak. Opening his mouth would only let the noise down his throat. With a shudder he spewed anyway, the puke freezing as it hit the floor, followed by his face as his body finally started to rebel. The sound only began to fade when his ears started bleeding, yet still, the feeling behind the notes made it into his head, and with a gurgling wail he began to cry.

There was nothing he could do, no one he could save. He was trapped here, alone, just as he’d always been.

Comments

[Comickook]

This was a pretty intense chapter. Certainly appreciating the work going into the exchanges, characterizations, action and future chapter set-up in all the right places. Really appreciate the effort that went into showing Peace's POV (including the reflection on Vinyl's music) as well as Skycorft's understandably unnerved reactions during this battle even if he continued the fight with the awareness he was at a severe disadvantage because this battle was about protecting others.

VERY much looking forward to more of this. And I hope you and your friends have a Happy Halloween.

[Venerable Ro]

I see others continue to benefit from Twilight's wisdom...

And now Peace is a deathsinger, how truly marvelous.