Act I - Chapter 22 - The Named and the Lies
The Alicorn Warrior
Written by iAmSiNnEr
Edited by Stinium_Ruide
Chapter 22 - The Named and the Lies
“You did what now?” Twilight asked, her eyes twitching.
Empty glass bottles littered the scene before her. “I...I killed him!” Rarity threw her head back, her chest rising and falling unsteadily. “Dead! All because of me…”
“Twi…” Spike looked at her. “Why is Rarity acting like this?” He had subconsciously begun to take a few steps back away from Rarity.
Twilight stepped towards Rarity and illuminated her horn. “Go to sleep,” she whispered gently. “When you wake up, it’ll all seem like a bad dream…” Obscure thaumic symbols lit up in the air as Twilight’s horn shimmered in the light.
“Isn’t that—” Spike gasped.. “Princess Celestia said never to—”
“Shh.” Twilight put a hoof into his mouth. “Princess Celestia isn’t here, and our friend needs help. And to do that, this spell will be necessary.”
“B-but—”
Rarity shuddered as the spell made contact with her, its effects spreading throughout her body. Within seconds, her body slumped down and she lost her magical grip on the bottle. Twilight caught the bottle inches before the floor, her magical aura encapsulating it as she gingerly brought it to rest onto the nearby table.
“I...killed...him…”
But before she could continue, her eyes rolled back as she fell into a slumber. Slowly, her erratic breathing slowed to a steady rhythm.
Once Rarity had fallen into a deep slumber, Twilight’s horn light flickered out as she let out a sigh. “The sobering spell would have been easier,” she commented, “but this, this gives our friend some time to rest. Once she’s more lucid, we’ll talk to her.”
Use telepathy; we can find out what she’s—Twilight shook away the thought. What’s wrong with me? This isn’t me.
“Alright, Twi...” Spike relented. “But Princess Celestia did make you promise never to—”
“Circumstances change.” Twilight gently lifted Rarity up in her magic. “Look, isn’t this better than letting the effects of alcohol take its course? I should know. Remember the month after I escaped from Quick Leash? I took to the bottle. Every night, I saw their eyes in my dreams. The ones I was forced to kill. The ones”—she looked outside at the moon—“the ones I could not stop Quick Leash from forcing to fight.”
“Years out here have enlightened me, Spike,” she whispered. “Equestria is peaceful, yes. But at what cost? Look. Look what banishing the wrongdoers have done. We became an elitist community, forcing out the ones we did not like. Was it not the case with Zecora? We hid from what we did not know. We pushed away the unknown.”
The purple dragon wrung his claws. “What are you talking about?”
“Change is coming, Spike.” She started trotting towards the door to bring Rarity up. “And I’ll be at the forefront of this change. When I return, I’m petitioning Celestia to allow them. Remember that little filly? Her only crime was being the daughter of a mare who threatened Equestria’s perfect image. Her mother sold prohibited drugs, yes, but that doesn’t make her filly deserve to be out here too.”
“She was nice,” Spike admitted. “Alright, fine. I’ll help you with whatever you need, Twi. Just tell me what to do.”
“Always the faithful assistant.” Twilight ran a hoof over Spike’s head fondly as they trotted into the main room, heading up the stairs. “For now, we’ll go back. And we find out what’s wrong with Celestia.”
“Twi?” Spike put a claw on Twilight’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I am!” Twilight replied instinctively. “Why do you ask?”
“You lost to somepony...for the first time,” he answered absent-mindedly. “Don’t you feel anything?”
Clever drake. “Not really,” Twilight lied. “First time for everything, right?” I’ll rip that stallion apart the next time we challenge him. Show him who we are. This time, we won’t play around.
Twilight shook her head forcefully. No. That’s not who I am.
Then who are you?
Twilight pushed open the guest room door, revealing the sleeping forms of Applejack and Rainbow Dash on the guest beds, snoring away. She gently set Rarity down on the third bed, before backing out of the room slowly and closing the door with a soft thud.
“I’m serious, Twi,” Spike insisted. “You don’t seem okay. You look like something’s going on in that head of yours. I know you. You don’t take losing well.”
“Maybe I’ve changed, alright?” Twilight almost snapped. “I’ve got bigger problems than losing. Sure, my magic is unstable right now because of it, and I had to use all of my concentration just to cast that sleep spell, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Your magic is unstable?” Spike blinked. “Is that why the left side of your face keeps twitching, like…” he paused. “Wait. Why do you have that strange, flickering aura over the left side of your face?”
He knows. “Nothing much,” Twilight lied after a pause. “Just the usual wards.”
“Twilight.” Spike stood in front of her, looking straight into her pupils. “You can tell me. I’m your assistant and brother. You can tell me what you’re hiding.”
Pain. Twilight screamed as the sword sliced at her left eye, scoring a wound on the left side of her face.
“I said it’s nothing, okay?” Twilight repeated. “I can handle it.”
Twilight looked at herself in the mirror, a scar running down the left side of her face, running through her eye. “You look like a monster.”
“And I’m saying you can’t,” Spike stated firmly. “Tell me.”
“You could use an illusion spell to cover up the scar,” Hard Line suggested. “Since you hate it that much. Can you really not heal it?”
“It was the first thing I tried when we were free. The sword was enchanted.”
“I can’t, alright?” Twilight shot back. “It’s been taken care of.” She turned away, choosing to stare into her paintings wordlessly.
“Twi…” Spike softly said. “I know you’re hurting. We’re here now. You don’t have to keep that pain trapped inside of you.”
“What would my friends think of me?” Twilight cried. “I don’t look like I did anymore! I look l-like a monster!”
“If they were truly your friends, they wouldn’t judge you.”
“I can handle it,” Twilight repeated. “It’s nothing important.”
Why won’t it work? I’ve used every spell, every healing method! And yet they all failed!
“If it’s nothing important, can’t you just tell me?” Spike insisted.
Twilight ran a hoof down the pale red line running down her face. “I’m a broken pony.”
I’m not Twilight anymore. I don’t look like her. I could pretend to be her without the scar. But with it…
It just shows how much I’ve changed.
“Just…” Twilight breathed in and out. “Leave it alone, okay? I’m not ready. Don’t press me on it.”
Twilight brought the sword up, slicing it through the stallion who had wounded the left side of her face. Through a mist of pain and blood flooding her left eye, she fell to her knees onto the ground as the stallion collapsed in a pool of blood.
“Alright.” Spike’s shoulder sagged reluctantly. “But remember I’m here. We’re here. You can tell us anything.”
“I know,” Twilight turned her gaze towards her paintings and frowned. “Did one of you girls move my paintings? They’re not aligned properly…”
“No.” Spike shook his head. “Nobody had touched them. I noticed they were already misaligned when we came back.”
Her eyes flicked to the painting at the bottom left corner of the room that was displaced slightly to the left. Panic gripped her heart as she immediately dashed to the painting, and frantically pushed it aside. “No no no…”
“What is it, Twi?” Spike asked, hurrying down the stairs.
Twilight heaved a sigh of relief once she saw the blank wall behind the painting. “Something very dangerous,” she answered ominously. “That no one should ever find. I locked them away because they should’ve never been created.”
“What’s that?” Spike scratched his head.
“I can show you.” Better to change the subject. Maybe he’ll forget.
“Isn’t that dangerous? We should just leave them in th—
“It’s perfectly safe,” Twilight interjected him with a dismissive shake of her hoof. “I need to check on it, anyways.”
“I guess.”
A shimmering gleam of light flashed as Twilight attempted to uphold the fading illusion on the left side of her face. She squinted her eyes as she now focused on disabling the intruder-deterring traps that surrounded the hidden compartment.
“I didn’t know you had a basement,” Spike murmured, peering down. “Looks like no one’s been here in a while.”
“It has been a year since I was here last,” Twilight replied nonchalantly as she descended the stairs. “After all, this was a mistake.”
“What was a mistake…?” he trailed off before his eyes were met with a reflective glimmer. . .
Three, long glass displays stood before the duo. Within these cases, however, revealed four glowing, runic blades. A greatsword floated seemingly serendipitously in the centre of the first display. Thanks to the gold inlay, a faint, yet fierce yellow glow emanated from its majestic hilt.
The second display proved no less brilliant. Two clashing scythes stood frozen in time; the contrasting reflection of the polished onyx and the diamond on either blade upon the glass surface appeared most juxtaposing. Finally, a massive battleaxe sat serenely in the last case, its runic inscriptions on the blade illuminating its reverent surface.
"Spike, these are my mistakes. Glory is the sword. She was forged by the best smiths in the Badlands to be my weapon in the arena: flashy and powerful. The scythes here are Alpha and Omega, the—”
“The legends...” Spike swallowed anxiously. “They symbolize the beginning and the end…Does that mean what I think it means?”
“Yes,” Twilight nodded her head solemnly. “They were created to defeat those that wished me harm. Alpha, to begin the fight, and Omega, to end it.”
She shuddered. “Alpha is filled to the brim with light magic, and Omega is saturated with dark magic. Alpha is the yin to Omega’s yang. I should have never created them.”
“Then why did you?” Spike blurted out, before pressing his lips shut.
“I needed something to protect myself from the atrocities of the Badlands,” Twilight trotted towards the four weapons. “This was the result. I had tried to destroy them when I found out that infusing alicorn magic into these weapons was dangerous. The feedback loop...it destroyed my first house.”
“Oh.” Spike stared at the axe, awe-struck. “But what about the axe? You haven’t ment—”
“Justice,” Twilight said grimly. “To bring justice to those who deserve it. I infused the pyrogenic auras I had into it, and this is the result.”
“Are you just going to leave them here?” Spike walked closer to the glass cases. “Wouldn’t it be unsafe?”
“True,” Twilight nodded. “Which is why I will be storing them into my dimensional pocket. Riskier for I cannot expand my whole mana well, or else the pocket will collapse and everything inside expunged with extreme prejudice, but I have no choice.”
“Right,” Spike looked at the weapons and shuddered. “I get chills just looking at them. How much magic did you put in them?”
“A lot,” Twilight replied stiffly. “Which in hindsight, was a mistake. Even if they’re impervious to spells and can pack a punch stronger than more than half of my offensive spells.”
“That sounds good!” Spike pointed out. “Why are they mistakes, then?”
“Because if they’re ever stolen,” Twilight explained. “Whoever has them would have powerful magic at their disposal. And not to mention the dark magic I filled Omega with. You think Sombra was dark? Omega has almost twice the strength of the spells he used.”
“Why do you even know dark magic?” Spike grimaced. “Princess Celestia never taught you any of those spells.”
“I taught myself,” Twilight answered. “There’s a lot of banned books floating around in the black markets around here, and I got some for… academic purposes.”
“Oh,” Spike said softly. “Makes sense.”
“I wish I never forged them,” Twilight muttered. “Now they’re just something extra to worry about.”
“Who knows?” Spike offered. “Maybe they’d come in handy someday. Well, not Omega. That scythe gives me the creeps.”
“Maybe,” Twilight shrugged noncommittally. “Time to put them inside my dimensional pocket.” With a flash of light and a grunt of effort, Twilight cast the spell, and the cases disappeared.
“There’s that,” Twilight said as Spike yawned. “You must be tired,” she teased as she nuzzled him. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
“I’m not tired,” Spike protested weakly as Twilight hoisted him up onto her back, chuckling.
“I’ll see you in the morning, little brother,” Twilight whispered as Spike shut his eyes, drifting off to sleep.
And I’ll make a decision as to whether to tell them of my scars then.
Both physical and mental.
Stats
Page generated in 0.023 seconds
Total duration
1,033 users online
1,401,569 hits today, 1,822,946 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Whoof. That's quite a bit to unload. But I have the teensiest hunch that those weapons are going to be important in the future.
Of course they will be important. We've just gotten literal
Checkovs GunsTwilight's Weapons to come back at some point in the future.Good reasoning on Twilight’s part actually, I~ wouldn’t have thought of that
Thank you for the updateeeee!
10934843
Mhm. If that's what you think, then don't read my story :3 I try my best, but I'm not a good writer.
I enjoyed the chapter very much! Can't wait for the next update.
10934625
Of course. Chekhov's Gunman has been armed, and her name is Twilight Sparkle.
Wow, and here I've been thinking she's been wearing her scars openly. I guess the question becomes is she a hypocrite (reference to Equestrian elitism) or is she just jumping at shadows (Icarus was scared of the light after flying to close to the sun in some tellings)? Perhaps you've made a comment on this before and I just need to reread the series as a refresher... my memory's only worth so much these days
.
Whatever the case, well written as always.
10935629
Remember the timberwolf who left a gash on her shoulder? There's a scar too, but they haven't said anything about it to her. She hides most of her scars because she's afraid of what others would think, being raised in a community where everything was almost perfect.
And if anyone is gonna point out flashback shows she has a scar, it's a flashback for us. Retelling of the story would allow for Twily to omit details.
10935637
So the first. She's one of the more open minded Equestrians, but her perfectionism is leaving her open to various attacks of opportunity. Some more subtle than others, such as the info gathering on her house. Whomever got in may not have figured out the locks on the basement before needing to bolt, but Twilight will have just given up that information to whomever could sneak in so easily unnoticed.
"We all tend to be a little hypocritical from time to time, but its in acknowledging that that we take the first true steps in becoming better people." ~G.Granma Righter
10935521
If anyone's a long planner, it's our Twily.
Ohhhh, spooky weapons.
Nice.
A shame,
A new addition to my "Dead Story " - List
This was a good story
10944870
It's not dead, I just want a break from writing due to some irl issues. I'll probably return around late September/early October, once my exams have finished.
10979187
10979181
I hate life
NOOO.......
I missed it ];
10979534
Yeah, I understand. There are ways I could have written this better but I can't rewrite it without messing over the rest of the story *sighs mentally*
But I do hope to eventually explain it! There's already hints of why in the latter chapters...
Scythe and axe would make peculiar gifts for sisters c.c