Rarity and Twilight
Twilight’s scythe hit the center of Rx’len. The orb had the consistency neither of an eye nor crystal, but of dry cracked dirt. It crumbled into dust and swirled around her.
Rx’len didn’t seem to care that this part of him was no more. The finger-flower rushed forward and grabbed Twilight. She felt like a million ants made of sandpaper were crawling all over her body even though the armor was preventing her from experiencing direct contact with the fingers. She called out, releasing a burst of bright energy that disintegrated the fingers.
To her shock, the stalk grew back several more fingers, which grew fingers on the ends of those fingers, and so on and so forth until the fingers became a tree of wriggling grabby disgust.
“I hate to think of what this actually looks like,” Twilight commented, spreading her wings, unleashing several-hundred glass shards enchanted with various colors of attack.
“It really is quite horrifying,” the Unity Helix admitted. “I cannot have nightmares, but I suspect I know what it feels like to have them now.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Twilight charged right into Rx’len’s center, disintegrating the stalk of the hand tree and embedding herself in the syrupy filth behind. Hands and hooves grabbed her from all sides, but she lit herself up like a shooting star to plow even deeper into the noxious flesh.
Really, it only looked like flesh. She felt glass, stone, water, paper, mud, rose thorns, spaghetti, and several other textures she couldn’t actually identify.
And now she could smell it too. The closest thing she could think of was rotting fruit, even though it smelled much sweeter and the reek of death was much more vibrant.
She cleared it all away with a quick explosion from within herself, tearing Rx’len’s massive form in two. The tentacles writhed in one direction, unable to drain the magic of the Runes effectively anymore, while the other end – it really couldn’t be called the head – rotated to face her. Not in the normal sense where someone takes a few steps and turns to face you, no, Rx’len became flat and flipped around like a card before popping back into full existence.
“YOU HAVE BROKEN MY TETHER.”
“Partial success!” Twilight grinned.
“I NOW NO LONGER HAVE TO CONCERN MYSELF WITH DRAINING CAPELLA.” A six-fingered claw wrapped around her, each finger coiling around her like a spring while somehow feeling like mashed potatoes making distant vulture noises.
Twilight broke out with a teleport. “Oh, so you’re saying the real fight begins now? Great! I was getting a little con-“ Suddenly gravity was a hundred times normal and she was plummeting toward a field of teeth. She could not stop herself from falling, so she had to disintegrate the teeth out of the way as she fell, boring a hole into Rx’len’s essence once again.
It spoke from around her, caring not about things like physical impossibility. “REALITY IS MY TOY.” Gravity was no longer a problem, now Twilight felt cold. She felt as though she was falling apart, spiraling out into a thousand strands of infinity…
“Correcting…” the Unity Helix said, tapping into Twilight’s nervous system to remove the sensation. “Done. She now perceives herself as a three-dimensional entity even if you change that.”
Rx’len made no vocal response, instead hitting Twilight with the eldritch equivalent of a train at mach five. Every bone in her body broke – but reset a moment later using the excess magic stored in the Amber Phoenix.
Twilight lit herself on fire and generated more glass shards. Direction no longer mattered so she sent them out everywhere, tearing through Rx’len with a hundred different enchantments once again.
It retaliated in kind with a thousand hands grabbing Twilight from all directions – even inside her.
If you can appear inside me…
She created the glass shards in her wings once again, this time carefully augmenting them with the circuitry within her armor. She sent them out in a constant stream, meeting hands wherever they appeared, saving intangible shards to remove the hands that attempted to pull her apart from the inside.
“You’re doing great!” Fluttershy encouraged.
Twilight laughed, twisting her body in a tornado-like motion, using her amber-purple magic to grab every last one of Rx’len’s attacks before it met her. Hand, tentacle, geometric shape, impossible thorn; all were deflected by the fire of the Phoenix.
“THAT ALL YOU GOT?!” Twilight shouted.
“NO.”
Rx’len went for her mind. Twilight felt her perceptions split in two. One part of her continually fought the limbs and thorns of Rx’len, but that part was able to act almost automatically. The other part was her mind, floating in an expanse of blackness. Behind her floated the eye of the Unity Helix. To the sides of her ears Twilight could see two sparks – one pink, one a soft green.
“Twilight? What’s happening?” Fluttershy asked, her voice coming from the green spark.
“Mental attack,” Pinkie explained. “She can still hear us. We won’t be able to hear her.”
“Right. Twilight, whatever’s going on in there, you can do it!”
The projection of Rx’len appeared in the mindscape. Twilight had been expecting something bombastic, like the muscular form of the gods or the massive glow of the moon.
Instead, all she saw was a small, black filly. She looked normal enough, though she had both a horn and wings.
“Is this form meant to be an insult to me… or you?” Twilight sneered.
Rx’len spoke through the filly’s mouth, a normal voice coming out. “It is neither. It is just a form of speech. I have many more.”
Thousands of eyes appeared all around the darkness, staring directly at the glowing symbol on Twilight’s chest. “Scared?” Twilight asked.
“I'm curious what it would have done were it completed,” Rx’len corrected. “The original entity that became these worlds is a mystery even to me.”
“Ask Rainbow Dash. Apparently it’s a common thing.”
“A single set of the Elements of Harmony has never been enough to destroy one of my kind. The purging light is a heavy setback, yes, and it has cured entire worlds of our presence… but never has one set been able to fully eradicate us. Those who try learn to regret it.”
Twilight felt Rx’len grab hold of her mind – but she was quickly protected by the Unity Helix’s psychic shield.
Rx’len tilted her head. “Machines are so interesting. The larger, the closer they become to us in function. Incomprehensible to mortals. Aware of the great flows and patterns of time. And yet… they’re still limited by hardware.” She raised an unassuming hoof. “Soul? Yes. But that soul rides on ones and zeroes… What if I insert a two?”
The eye of the Unity Helix flickered.
“Or a three? Or a seven? Or an imaginary charge? What about a nested quaternion?”
The Unity Helix narrowed its eye, despite the enhanced speed of its flickering. “I can process anything.”
“Your problem is that you can process anything in your world. But your coding is limited to one universe.” The filly brought her hoof down, and the Unity Helix’s eye became little more than pixelated garbage. “That is from a universe with two time axes where love is a physical concept that makes a noise analogous to the color chartreuse.”
“Unity!” Twilight called. “Pull out! The galaxy needs you!”
Runes of several different colors appeared around the eye, forcing it to solidify once more.
“The Starcross Society has proper coding for other places,” the Unity Helix said, once more standing strong. “And I’m in their ship.”
“A ship built out of the corpses of Stars similar to the one I’ve been eating for millennia.” Mental tentacles wrapped around the Unity Helix from all directions, draining power from the Runes. “Similar, but much weaker.”
“NO!” Twilight shouted, rushing forward with her mind. “I won’t let y-“
Twilight’s mind blanked. It was like hitting a brick wall and then being sent through the washing machine. She felt her physical body lose awareness for a moment and take a heavy hit to the back leg, forcing a large quantity of stored magic to be expended in healing. In the mental plane, she fell back.
“Twilight! What happened?” Fluttershy called – but got no answer.
“Had she been able to, she would have run here,” Rx’len said, almost sweetly. “Like you ran to your computer. The weak supplanting the strong… but not really adding anything.”
“Error… raising firewalls…” the Unity Helix blubbered.
“Your computer will stay as long as it can.” Rx’len’s projection approached Twilight, touching her face with an ice cold hoof. “And when it leaves for the sake of your Galaxy, your mind will burn, and you shall become one of mine.”
Twilight growled. “We haven’t run out of tricks yet.”
“Are you referring to your Prophet?” Rx’len blinked. “Don’t you see? The Runes of the Starcross were supposed to be your victory, your way out. She foolishly didn’t realize they were like candy to me. Your little alteration of reality has f-“
The Moon fell out of the sky that didn’t exist a minute ago and smashed the mental projection of Rx’len into the ground. Instantly, the Unity Helix stopped degrading, finding itself back at safe operating conditions.
Twilight laughed. “Hey, Moon! Glad you decided to join us!”
“I SENSED STRAIN IN MY CREATOR’S INFLUENCE,” the moon said, rising into the empty sky. “IT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY.”
“You are a fool,” Rx’len said, voice level, calm. The filly projection seemed completely unharmed. “The Prophet is manipulating your actions.”
“WHICH IS EVEN MORE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY.” The moon created a cityscape in the sky reminiscent of New Alice City. “THE MACHINE CANNOT HANDLE YOUR NONSENSE. BUT I CAN.”
The ground became a forest of pulsating black tentacles. “You are my offspring. You are nothing.”
High rise buildings rammed into the ground while trunks of eldritch matter shot to the sky.
“GO, TWILIGHT SPARKLE,” the Moon declared. “I SHALL MANAGE THE MENTAL BATTLEFIELD. YOUR PLACE IS IN REALITY.”
Without so much as a pop, Twilight’s essence was one once more.
“Pinkie, you’re a genius,” Twilight said with a laugh.
“I try my best!” Pinkie laughed.
"...Did you write me saying that?"
"...Maaaaaaybe."
~~~
Clink!
Rarity met Scarcity’s blade with two of her own.
Clink!
Scarcity created a new sword to meet Rarity’s other two blades.
Clink!
The two twisted their swords away, flinging their bodies at each other and clashing with blades uncomfortably close to both of their necks. They teleported out at the same time, appearing on opposite sides of the cavern.
A war waged between them. Mesh spiders stepped on cloudy soldiers while Thieves stole the very armor from Starcross ponies. All the Starcross turrets had fallen at this point, but Quasar was doing enough damage in the ocean above that very few ships had made it all the way through – and even then, some of those were still following Quasar’s commands.
She’d seen some hunters try to cast some spells on Quasar, but none of those ever seemed to go anywhere – the few times the dragon’s limbs had extended past the barrier, his scales proved to be highly magic resistant.
Rarity drew her meteor rifle and aimed at Scarcity. Scarcity created several dozen needles out of her magic and shot them at lightning speed. At the same time, both of them attempted to teleport the other to where they were currently standing, resulting in a net effect of zero. Rarity had to scramble and dodge through the needles, getting hit by three in nonlethal locations. Scarcity met the meteor with a shield that managed to withstand the oppressive force of the flaming rock, but she still slid back far enough to hit her head on the back wall.
Blood ran down the back of Scarcity’s head while three small holes did the same on Rarity. Rarity’s wetsuit had only offered marginal protection from the piercing attack.
The two didn’t relent – they teleported to the center of the battlefield again, sliding under the spindly legs of a Mesh spider. Rarity moved like she was going to ram a sword into Scarcity’s neck, hoping Scarcity would attempt to dodge the attack. Unfortunately, Scarcity saw the ploy coming – she raised a magic shield to her left instead, stopping the brunt of Rarity’s hammer. With Rarity open, Scarcity shot a needle at point-blank range into Rarity, missing her heart by millimeters.
Rarity chose to follow up with a magic laser to Scarcity’s face, an action that singed her mane and tossed her back a fair distance.
Scarcity teleported herself upright, snarling. “How are you so skilled? You are young.”
“I have lived a constant tragedy.” Rarity said, twirling her sword in the air.
“I have seen war the likes of which you have never imagined.”
“You probably sat behind one of those screens and pressed a button while your fancy machines did all the killing for you.”
Scarcity went ballistic. She surrounded herself in a ball of spikes and charged Rarity, leaving a blue trail of energy behind her. “I sat!?” Rarity dodged out of the way, but Scarcity teleported to the side, hitting Rarity square in the side. “I didn’t kill!?” Rarity rolled onto her hooves, more than a little surprised to find that the impact hadn’t damaged her that much. “Where do you think this scar came from!?”
“Enlighten me,” Rarity said, smacking the Runic ground with the hammer to create a small tremor.
“Pinkie Pie. My Pinkie Pie.” Scarcity dissipated the spiked barrier in favor of rippling armor around her body. “She gave it to me.” Scarcity punched Rarity from the side, moving significantly faster than before. “She joined the Stars.” Upon impact with Scarcity, the rippling barrier exploded, sending Rarity flying into the air. “She almost killed me.”
“You killed her…” Rarity observed, coughing up blood.
Scarcity strolled over to her. “Yes. I did. And nopony will ever go down the dark path she did ever again.”
“Don’t you see the dark path you’ve gone down?”
Scarcity twitched. She created an immense sword once more and brought it down.
In her rage she missed one of Rarity’s swords. It came in from the side, puncturing her just below the shoulder. She lost control of her attack and toppled to the ground, letting out a sharp yell of pain.
With a smirk, Rarity stood up and shakily approached her.
~~~
Twilight was a star shining through endless darkness, burning away pieces of Rx’len at every turn.
“I CAN FEEL YOUR CONFIDENCE RISING.”
“I’m winning,” Twilight laughed. “The moon and the Unity Helix have you occupied. You have to deal with them, you can’t deal with me!” She unleashed a few blades of light energy, cutting through a brick wall of shadow that screamed like burning children when she hit it. “Do you have no chill?”
“YOU THINK TOO HIGHLY OF YOURSELF. YOU ARE MERELY SURVIVING. YOU ARE NOT WINNING.”
“Oh yeah?” Twilight spread her wings and smirked. “Then how about we switch to some offensive tactics? I’ve been wanting to try out this thing in the center of my chest for a while now. I’m hoping for a Rainbow Death Ray!”
The Rune in her chest lit up with all the colors of the rainbow. A white spark projected itself from the armor, quickly surrounded by five other lights. The blue light existed only for a split second, dying out before anything could be done with it.
The other four, though – purple, pink, orange, and soft green – blasted forward with a swirl of colors, augmenting the central white beam.
The Harmonious beam hit the writhing brain-like form that was currently Rx’len. For the first time since this all began, Twilight felt it hurt. The screeching ripples of space-time told her that Rx’len was suffering for all it had done. Sparks of red light flew out into the darkness as Rx’len’s essence was purged…
Then the orange light went out.
The other four continued their harmonious burst just as impressively…
Until the central white glow of Rarity’s power went out, leaving only three singular lights orbiting nothing. Twilight, Pinkie, and Fluttershy.
Rx’len was able to move again. With a shuddering jerk, a tentacle made of bones lined with pony faces surged forward, grabbing the three lights in one fell swoop.
The entire tentacle exploded in a shower of red dust, and sparkling neon fires of a similar color began to rage in random locations on Rx’len’s form…
“Oh no,” Pinkie said.
“I don’t like that oh no!” Twilight shouted.
“We’re off script! That wasn’t how that was supposed to go! WhatdidIdowrongwhatdidIdowrong?”
“YOUR PROPHET HAS FAILED YOU,” Rx’len declared, coiling a squishy claw around Twilight’s body. “THE LAWS OF THE NARRATIVE DEEMED HER STORY IMPERMISSIBLE, AND WITH IT, YOUR VICTORY.”
“No story would end with you victorious!” Twilight shouted at the top of her lungs.
“THERE ARE LARGER STORIES THAN YOURS. IF YOU WERE ALL THAT MATTERED, YOU WOULD HAVE A POINT. BUT THERE ARE SO MANY WORLDS I WOULD NOT BE SURPRISED THESE EXACT EVENTS HAVE HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES OVER THE COURSE OF THE TIME ABYSS THAT IS EXISTENCE. IN SOME OF THOSE, YOU WON. IN THIS ONE… YOU FAIL.”
Twilight broke free of the claw, only for a snake-like finger to grab her again. This is suddenly a lot harder to do…
“PERHAPS YOU HAVE TAKEN ON THE MANTLE OF THE ENCHANTRESS.”
Twilight lost control of herself, flying into something hard. The bones in the back of her wings cracked, quickly healing, but the damage in her armor remained.
“HER CURSE IS NOT ONE OF MY MAKING. THE CURSE OF FAILURE; OF TRAGEDY.”
Twilight unleashed a burst of holy energy mixed with dozens of glass shards once again, but she missed several of the hands coming for her. “Pinkie!” She called.
“I… I’m working on it!” Pinkie shouted, voice cracking. “Just hold on!”
“THE STORY OF THIS PLANET ALWAYS HAS BEEN, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, THE TRAGEDY OF THE ENCHANTRESS. YOU HAVE TASTED NOTHING BUT SUCCESS AFTER SUCCESS YOUR WHOLE LIFE.”
The Amber Phoenix’s cracks were growing with every blunt attack. Cracks formed everywhere, shimmering with the loss of magic energy.
“IMAGINE, THE STORY OF THE EMPRESS, ENDING IN HER DEATH.”
Twilight was suddenly being suffocated on all sides by squishy tar-like nodules.
“Hold on Twilight!” Fluttershy called.
“THE DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL. ALL PONIES OF UNITY WILL DIE FOR THIS TRAGEDY. PERHAPS THE MOST POPULOUS RACE IN UNITY… GONE IN A GENERATION OR TWO, FOR THEIR SPIRITS FADE.”
“I…” Twilight grunted, shooting magic lasers out of her hooves, digging through the flesh only to find more endless flesh of darkness. There seemed to be no end to it.
“THIS IS HOW IT ENDS. WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A TIRED MARE DYING OF OLD AGE IN THE DESERT WATCHING THE LAST HOPE OF HER WORLD DIE WITH HER… BECOMES THE FALL OF A GALACTIC EMPIRE.”
Twilight was crying now. “N-no… I…” Something squeezed her from the inside, prompting her to scream out in excruciating pain.
“SAYING ‘NO’ DOES NOTHING TO STOP THE INEVITABLE.”
“I… am going… to kill you…”
“INCORRECT. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU.”
Rx’len threw Twilight wide, freeing her for just a moment – before pouring all of his physical manifestation’s power onto her in one moment.
Twilight closed her eyes. Why did I ever think I was ready for this? Why did I take this stupid risk?
~~~
Scarcity’s horn sparked, catching Rarity’s blade in telekinesis.
“I’m not falling to you,” Scarcity spat. She teleported herself upright, holding her weight on her three uninjured legs, curling the fourth under her stomach with significant effort. “I faced Stars.” She summoned a translucent orb in front of her horn, growing it to a size larger than herself. “You’re just a fancy unicorn.”
“I’m you,” Rarity said, casting an explosion spell on the magical orb.
The explosion didn’t go off. Scarcity smirked at Rarity’s confusion. “I know.”
The orb copied the explosion spell four times and unleashed it in a square around Rarity. She managed to teleport away, but not before the flames charred her coat and mane. Hissing, she was unable to defend against a needle that pierced her chest.
She looked down – her heart was safe once again, but she was bleeding profusely. Looking up, she saw that Scarcity wasn’t much better in terms of injury. The white unicorns had more red than white on them at this point, and Rarity suspected much of that had come from ponies dying around them rather than the battle between them.
For the first time, Rarity really saw it. The devastation around them, the horrors taking place as their eyes were locked on each other. A hunter swung a hammer engulfing several cloud people in flames, while a Starcross unicorn shot a Thief in the face that was busy mourning his lost comrade. A ship fell out of the sky, blowing a hole in the Runic cavern around them, incinerating both Unity and Starcross soldiers alike.
The once amber caverns were running red with blood.
“This is wrong,” Rarity said.
“This is what it takes,” Scarcity responded, holding a hoof wide. “This is nothing compared to the sacrifices it took to liberate my people from the Stars – all people from all Stars!” She teleported right to Rarity’s face, but didn’t initiate an attack. “If you aren’t willing to give up something this insignificant for an entire planet, you disgust me.”
“I am only willing to give up what I have,” Rarity said.
“You have no sense of scale.”
“I used to think Rainbow Dash had lost perspective. Now I see what losing perspective really looks like.” She held a hoof wide. “You see all this suffering, and you feel nothing! When was the last time you felt anything for those under your command?”
“You think I don’t care about them!?”
“You throw them away like trash!”
The two ended their truce in an instant, clashing swords once more. Rarity thrust hers forward and Scarcity created blades from the aether to match. Scarcity began to create thousands of needles, only for Rarity to smack the ground with her hammer and make both of them lose their footing.
Both of them fell over. One of Scarcity’s blades flung wild.
And then Rarity saw nothing out of one of her eyes. She didn’t feel the cut – but she could see the blood pouring down her face and onto the ground with her other eye.
The strength in her legs completely gave out. She slumped to the ground, breathing softly.
Scarcity pointed a blade at her. “I am cold, callous, and uncaring. But that is what it took, and that is what it takes. This is how you make existence better. This is how victory is achieved.”
Rarity smiled. She wanted to laugh, but all she did was cough up blood. “If you… are what success looks like… then I was blessed to be gifted failure…”
Scarcity stared at her in shock. She dissipated her blade and said something – but Rarity was no longer looking at her. Everything was getting fuzzy…
It really was that simple, wasn’t it? Who needed success? Why did ponies bank their entire lives on some victory?
Ponies were not promised anything by life. They might rise to the top because of how they were born and rule a galaxy… or they might live in constant failure wandering and wallowing. And in the end, there was no difference between them.
They were still just ponies…
Rarity felt like she was laughing happily as the world went black.
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This is one heck of a climax, can barely wait for the others
Success and failure are not a discrete, binary pass-fail system. There are shades of gray, Pyhrric victories, helpful setbacks, on and on and on. The question isn't "Did you win?" It's "What have you learned for next time?"
Maybe. We'll see what happens from here.
"I'm a maaaaare of constant sorroooooooow, I've seen trouuuuuuble all my days..."
I knew it Pinky's Powers were just being treated as to Reliable. Now the question is is this a tragedy? or will our heroes pull it off at the last minute?
9926062
Happy Fun Blob?
I sense a disturbance in the reference.
Hah, Rarity's unique perspective once again confounds all who stand before her.
9926062
An instance of eldritch2 has been detected. Eradicate if possible, if not flee to a sufficiently distant dimension.
Clearly Rx’len is not a fan of anime.
Also, you seem to have had an italics spasm towards the end of that line.
,
That's....getting pretty rough there. Perhaps Twilight and Rarity were meant to be in each other's places?
Well, it's not over just yet...