(Present Chapter 30): Test of Courage
"What are you so -- of?" the murky memory floats to the surface, before Gilda shakes her head, banishing it.
"This place is so plucking creepy," Gilda murmurs as the trio enter a room filled with what look like coffins, all of them pressed up against the walls. The only comfort is that they don't seem to contain actual bodies, judging from one of the broken coffins, shattered and spilling various artifacts and relics all over the ground, ranging from bottles of unknown fluids to toys that look like stuffed animals, somehow preserved for however long they've been here.
Lifting one of the artifacts, a large obsidian chalace, Sunset's eyebrows raise. "These things must be hundreds of years old. Where did all of this stuff come from?"
Gilda looks at the chalace, but it's clear she isn't very interested. "No clue. It's as creepy as the rest of the stuff here though."
Sunset lifts up one of the plush dolls, some kind of egg-shaped pink thing. As she does, she sets the chalace down to examine the toy. "It looks almost like some kind of storage room. Why would anyone store random junk in these things, though?" she asks, checking the various coffins with a scanning spell.
Seltzer water, baloons, toys and other oddities stand out to her senses.
"Trixie must admit that she is not at all confident in it being a good idea to mess with the things here, Sunset. Do we really know anypony who wouldn't leave traps in a place like this?"
With a grimace, Sunset considers all the traps Weiss alone had packed into his home.
"Good point..." she answers, dropping the relic on the ground and breaking into a trot to catch up as they enter a massive room covered with mirrors.
They all look around, Trixie in awe of the dazzling room lit by floating flecks of blue fire, Sunset with concern, and Gilda with measured disinterest.
"It's a maze..." Sunset says worriedly.
"So, which way we going, then?" Gilda points out. "Those weapons have to be around here somewhere, right? Maybe we should split up."
Trixie shakes her head frantically. "Not that Trixie isn't perfectly capable, but she does NOT think that is a good idea!" the mare exclaims.
Sunset nods. "She's right, we should stick together for safety. Don't worry, I have the perfect way to find the exit, we just follow the righthand path!" she says, holding up a hoof to the kalidoscopic mirrors around them and pressing it flat against it. Aside from a brief spark that jolts Sunset ever so slightly, nothing seems to happen, assuaging her concerns.
"Follow me, I'll get us through here like that!" Sunset smiles back at the pair.
Sharing a look, Trixie and Gilda nod at her with a smile.
Their walk through the maze is quiet, with only the faint crackling of blue fire to break up the monotony of trying to follow Sunset.
"You know, Trixie was worried, but this is actually quite peaceful, aside from the creepy atmosphere," she says.
Gilda looks over at her friend, her brow scrunching downwards.
"What? Speak up!"
Trixie gasps at Gilda, whose voice is seemingly coming from far away.
Sunset stops, looking back at the pair.
"--?" she says, too faint for Trixie to make out what she's saying.
"Sunset? Sunset!" the unicorn says, trotting over to her friend who had been keeping a hoof on the mirrored walls this whole time.
As she steps forwards towards Sunset, she suddenly slams her muzzle into an invisible barrier.
"What the-!?" Trixie says as Gilda bumps into a wall as well trying to walk over to Trixie.
Sunset's eyes widen, and she looks around frantically.
"--! ---!" she shouts as loud as she can, failing to reach the pair.
Realizing that they can't hear her, however, she thinks for a second, before igniting her horn and writing in the air with it.
"Whatever you do, follow the righthand path!htap dnahthgir wollof uoy revetahW" she writes on one of the mirrors in glowing text.
Suddenly, the blue flames in the air ignite, lighting up the mirrored maze with bright cyan light, the only other light source being Gilda's torch.
Swallowing heavily and looking around with fear, Trixie's eyes meet Gildas, as the griffon puts a talon to one of the walls, and nods at the mare.
Taking a deep breath, Trixie nods, placing her hoof on the wall as well.
"Alright, Trixie can do this, small steps," she says, slowly walking forwards, watching her friends in the mirrored walls trying to do the same.
As they do, however, Trixie notices something... Change.
Gilda frowns, punching one of the walls angrily and watching her reflection distort in a wacky way as the mirrored wall bends.
"This birdbrained place is going to drive me crazy," she growls, flinching as her furious expression distorts too much for her liking.
Tromping down the halls with a talon to the wall, she watches her friends carefully through the maze's maddening reflections.
"I mean seriously, how did we even get seperated, we were following Sunset the whole time!" she grumbles, trying to ignore her own beak moving in front of her as she rounds another corner.
Suddenly, around one of the corners, Gilda runs straight into a bent mirror, like something out of a funhouse, stretching her image until it towers over her.
She nearly squawks at the sight, before clapping a talon to her face and rubbing between her eyes to calm her racing heart.
"Nearly scared the feathers right off of me," she says.
Her heart leaps back into full speed panic as the reflection's beak begins moving. "And just what is so wrong with that? You should be scared," the reflection sneers, crossing her arms.
"What the pluck?!" Gilda shrieks, scrambling away from the reflection. In the other mirrors, her friends continue walking, as if nothing happened.
"You should be scared," the reflection repeats, stalking forwards until they take up the whole of the mirror.
Something about this seems to spark something in Gilda, and she flares her wings with a purple flare of energy.
"Well, I'm not you freaky magic mirror! So flock off, featherface!" she shouts, running up to the mirror a few steps before being startled back as the reflection grows even bigger at her approach, darkening until they are nothing but a black silhouette with pure white eyes.
"That's cute. You know why you should be scared, dweeb?!" the reflection roars, pressing up against the mirror until it begins to bend.
As it does, Gilda catches glimses of her friends, walking along ignorant of the freaky stuff happening to her.
"Because the angrier we get, the stronger we are! So be afraid, be very afraid," the dark reflection smirks, backing up and darting away, revealing an empty hall where Gilda thought the mirror was.
Gilda swallows heavily, and, spotting her wings, charged with the dark magic Weiss showed her how to harness, she backs away, flapping them frantically until the magic fades.
"Good. You better keep calm or who knows what'll happen, featherbrain," her dark reflection threatens, Gilda whirling around to face them.
"Shut up!" Gilda shouts, before balking at what she sees in the dozens of reflections.
In one, Trixie bumps into Gilda, and gets chokeslammed into a wall for it, in another, Sunset notices Gilda's fearful expression, and, to save face, Gilda scowls, shrieking something that can't be heard beyond the reflection as she starts ranting.
"This... It's not real," Gilda mutters, backing away.
She bumps into something hard, glancing behind her at the shadowy double, who leers down in a way that seems so real.
"You have to get out of here. You're losing control," the specter snarls.
"Wh-" Gilda attempts, trying to blink away the illusions.
"Run! You can't keep this up, what do you think you'll do when the others see you like this?! You know what you'll do if some pony sees you looking weak!" the double shrieks, loud enough for Gilda to flinch away and break into a sprint.
The taunting follows her as she scrambles through the maze at random, every horrible vision of her losing her temper with Sunset and Trixie forcing her to turn in another random direction.
She tries to stop as she rounds the corner and slides uncontrollably into a dead-end, but it's too late, and with a loud "thwack!", her head slams into the mirrored wall, and she loses consciousness.
"What are you so afraid of?"
Gilda startles, looking around in confusion. She's in what looks like a weird church made of white stones. From the stained glass windows, blinding light shines in vivid rays from outside.
At the end of the hall, a sword stands proudly, embedded in a simple, but well-cared-for pedestal.
"Am I... Dreaming?" she asks, before realizing what she had been asked.
Turning to face the voice, she blinks. Before her stands a pony, but one unlike any she had ever seen before.
The pony's mane is a bright red flame, jets like a rocket sprouting from their face in a heated facimile of a beard. His tail, in a similar manner, is a roaring red blaze that dances behind the burly stallion. his coat is a greyish white, like hot ashes.
Around all four of his legs, however, fur gives way to bright red scales, of the same color as his mane. The scales stretch up nearly to his barrel, and the area they cover seems to shift over time, growing and retracting as he breathes.
"I asked you a question, gal. What are you so afraid of?" the stallion repeats.
He shifts in the blink of an eye, becoming a shadowy griffoness with a hateful expression.
"Are you scared of a magic mirror?"
He shifts again, turning into a slyly smiling Draconequis.
"A Chaos God?"
Finally, his last transformation, a hollow-faced Weiss Noir, with sunken, tired eyes.
"A Dark Lord?"
Gilda remembers what he asked.
"No! I'm not scared of anything, gramps," she barks back, upon remembering the question.
The stallion just raises his eyebrow, in his original form as if he hadn't changed at all.
"Well, you aren't scared of much. That's for dark sure," he smirks, flecks of blue sparking through his beard as its flaming jets lengthen briefly.
"It's not too bad, being fearless," he nods.
"You'd probably stare down almost anything in the world, ready to fight as soon as you need to," the spirit admits.
He turns to her with a steely look. "But are you brave?"
Gilda nods forcefully. "I am!"
The stallion pauses, considering her words. Staring at one of the windows of the church, he thinks about many things.
The purpose Weiss Noir gave him.
Forbidden Magics long forgotten that could bind a soul.
The choice he made.
"Look, who are you gramps?" Gilda asks impatiently, crossing her arms as she looks around, trying to figure out where she is.
The stallion nods. "That's a fair question. My name doesn't rightly do anything for you, though. I'll tell you what I am, if it makes any difference.
"I am the spirit of the Master Sword. Or at least, I'm Lord Weiss Noir's homage to it," he shrugs.
"Thanks to me being here, that old blade can tell right from wrong. It can hit harder than anything. It can even repel evil.
"I'm what makes this weapon worthy of the name 'Blade of Evil's Bane'," he explains, gesturing to the blade poking out of the ground.
"You're here because you want to save the day. You want to get the Weapons of Light back to their owners.
"But if you ask me, that's no longer enough," he admits.
"The Weapons of Light were meant to compliment the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. I was told that much at least. But does that mean the Elements of Harmony are also the Heroes of Light? That they should be?"
He looks at Gilda.
"Lord Weiss Noir once told me, 'A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage'," the spirit of the sword says.
"Twilight Sparkle is brave, yes, but I don't think she embodies the virtue that this blade was made for. None of her friends truly embody what the Weapons of Light were meant for, and among those who might embody those virtues, they aren't ready yet..." he explains regretfully.
"But there's someone who might be," he continues, looking at Gilda, staring through into the deepest parts of her being.
"What are you so afraid of?"
She shudders, and she remembers it all. All the times she lost her temper. How much worse it became after Weiss's training. Nightmares where she vomits red until it stops being potions. Worse nightmares, still, of losing control.
"Me," Gilda admits quietly.
"Are you brave? Can you face that fear?" he continues, stepping aside, such that he is no longer blocking Gilda's path to the weapon.
"You want me to have it? But..." Gilda attempts, shying away from the bright light that seems to shine off of the polished sword's surface.
There is no judgement in the stallion's gaze. "It is good to be brave," he says.
Gilda grits her beak, stepping forwards.
Her eyes shoot open, and the maze's walls shift before her eyes, revealing a straight path to a central chamber.
As she jolts to stand, she hears a furious shriek.
"No!" the shadow in the mirror shrieks, seeing the path to the sword.
Without a second thought, Gilda takes flight, pumping her wings as fast as she can.
"Don't you dare! You know what that thing can do? It's too dangerous!" they roar, following alongside her, shifting from mirror to mirror, each one showing Gilda doing more and more horrible things to her friends in fits of rage.
"I'm not scared of you!" Gilda roars back, flapping harder to outpace them.
"You aren't brave! You're just pissed! You think they won't be afraid of you? You, with a weapon of all things?! With their only hope in your short-tempered talons?!" the shadow shrieks, pushing at the edges of the mirror, trying to escape and stop her.
Gilda closes her eyes, desperately trying to block out their words as she flies into the chamber.
In the middle of the massive room, the three weapons of light sit on pedestals, covered in silly string infused with the magic of chaos, like vines choking away at them.
The Master Sword stands proudly, glowing brightly like the sun as Gilda approaches.
She reaches out for the weapon, grabbing it in both talons and heaving as if her life depended on it.
"Don't do this! NOOOOOOOO!"
The dark tower erupts like a lighthouse, a pillar of white shining up into the sky, visible for miles around as the sword slides free of the pedestal, unleashing power that blasts away the silly string Discord used to prevent them from simply teleporting to their owners, and eradicating the shadowy griffoness in the mirror.
Gilda breaths shallow, tense breaths, watching as the Vampire Killer and the Wishing Star both disappear in little flashes of light.
"Gilda! What happened?" Trixie shouts, running up to her with Sunset close behind. The maze, she realizes, has turned into a plain square room, with a mirror on either side of the walls and a window pointing outside.
In one corner of the room, seven colorful rainbow gems embedded in a crystaline machine go dim, their power exausted by whatever they were doing to twist the tower like they did.
"It... Called to me," Gilda says, holding up the Master Sword to the sky.
Sunset's eyes are wide as the Griffon swipes several times with the shining weapon, as if she had been using it her entire life.
"It accepted you as its master..!" the unicorn realizes.
Gilda remembers why they're even here. "I have to go. This thing can't help stop Discord from here," she snarks, quickly making her way over to a window as her friends nod firmly, realizing what her having the weapon means.
As Gilda climbs up into the window, she catches a glimse of her plain reflection in the mirror.
"Be careful," it begs with a pitiful expression.
Gilda nods quietly to herself, before leaping out and spreading her wings wide, gliding towards Canterlot.
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Nice
What a twist!
And more character development for Gilda as well, I like where this is going
Ya know I like how they are redeeming themselves rather than being forcefully done so. Good on gilda for facing her demons
Fantastic! I love how you handled the sword.
Feels like you're hitting your stride again. =D
ya know i hope discord can be redeemed by weiss brand of lessons then pure luck in cannon or is that too weird?
Welcome back
Discord, I would be disappointed if I was surprised. Stealing Weiss’ idea of Infinity Stones? Shame.
…Sorry, Chaos Emeralds. Marvel’s been on my mind too much…