• Published 13th Jan 2021
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The First Star of Twilight - Arcanum -Phantasy



A lonely girl seeking escape. A dark soul trapped in crystal. What cruel fate lays before them, and will it bring them light or drown them in more darkness?

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Ch.14 On the Dagger's Edge

Gentle evening darkness filled Twilight's room, the teen in question laying in her bed with a tired frown. A confusing mesh of emotions were running through her as she stared at her ceiling. Her logic and love were screaming at each other over what had happened a few hours ago between Petal and Lemon. She wanted to know what had happened, but she also wanted to strangle Lemon for what she did to her first friend. Her heart broke when she thought back to how she found Petal, but it also burned white-hot when she thought of Lemon.

"What did she do to her?" she softly mumbled to herself.


***


Twilight ran through the halls faster than she had ever ran before, her balance slowly returning to her as the ringing in her ears faded away. She heard Indigo and Sugar running behind her, the former quickly catching up with her, but she didn't care. Something was wrong, she didn't know how she knew that, but she did, and she couldn't afford to waste even a fraction of a second.

Her mind jumped to Petal as her body started to remind her of how few non-mandatory PE classes she had under her belt. Just when she started to run out of breath, she felt that strange sparking tingle behind her heart and a sudden rush of energy shot through her. Her fatigue instantly vanished, a faint bittersweet taste briefly hitting her tongue as she pushed herself further into the school.

The sudden shift faded as she stopped in front of Lemon's clubroom, said room's door reduced to a splintered wreck in the hall's wall. An eery silence dominated the scene, the flickering fragments of light peeking out of the classroom adding an extra layer of dark ambiance to the atmosphere. The black splatter covering the door's remains didn't help matters either, the teen desperately trying to believe that it was paint and not something less benign. Fighting back the dread settled in Twilight's gut, the girl audibly gulped past her heavy breaths as she looked inside.

Her eyes widened at the scene that greeted her.

The classroom looked as if a bomb had gone off in it, the windows, an amp, and all but a handful of ceiling lights being the ones that took the most damage. What appeared to be shrapnel from the speaker was lodged deep into the front and back walls of the room. The only things that appeared to avoid the apparent explosion was the teacher's desk, the mini fridge, and Lemon's laptop. The same could not be said for the recording equipment connected to the laptop if the smoke coming off of them was anything to go by.

At the heart of the wreckage, tightly holding a mic up to her trembling lips, was Lemon Zest.

The girl's eyes were wide, yellow pupils small and shaking with terror at something no longer there. Shaky breaths rattled out of her, but aside from that and her trembling, she was no different from a statue. Twilight, took a cautious step forward into the room, flinching when a bit of glass crunched under her dress-shoe.

The sound seemed to snap Lemon out of whatever trance held her, her terrified eyes zeroing in on Twilight. Nervous twitches ran through the rocker's body as she spun around to take in her surroundings. When she saw the door and the fluid covering it, all of the color drained out of her face. Her breaths became frantic, the mic in her hand falling to the ground with a loud whine before her hands flew to her mouth. She frantically ran towards a small trashcan set next to the teacher's desk and retched into it.

Worried for the girl, she ran to Lemon's side, holding back her hair and comfortingly rubbing her back.

"Lemon, what happened?" Twilight asked, struggling to keep her panic out of her tone. "Where's Petal? Is she okay?"

"I'm sorry," Lemon shakily muttered, still staring into the soiled bin with terrified wide eyes. "I don't know what happened. I didn't mean it. I-I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt her. I don't know what happened. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Is she in shock? Twilight thought, her worry wildly growing by the second. What the hell happened here!?

"Lemon."

The girl didn't respond.

"Lemon!" she barked, snapping her fingers in front of the girl's face.

She snapped out of her ramblings and turned her head towards Twilight, fear still written plainly across her features.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" she asked, concern heavy in her shaking tone.

"N-No," Lemon gulped, her breaths still shaky.

"Good," she sighed. "Now, where's Petal? Do you know where she is?"

Lemon's eyes drifted towards the ground, the shaken teen struggling to remember what had happened a few seconds ago. A fleeting memory came to her, one of a figure about the same size and shape as Petal running down the hall towards the front of the school. Her eyes wandered back towards the door, specifically, the black stains that covered it and shuddered as she forced herself to look at the ground.

"I-I think I saw her run towards the front of the school," she stammered.

"Thank you," Twilight softly sighed.

Not even a second later,Indigo and Sugar stumbled across the scene, both frozen at the threshold.

"What the hell happened here?!" Indigo gawked, taking in the wreckage as she entered the room. "It looks like a bomb went off in here!"

"Lemon!" Sugar gasped, worry clear on her face as she ran and knelt down to the girl's side. "Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"

Lemon just stared blankly at the ground, a faint, "I'm sorry," the only thing Twilight and Sugar could hear.

"I think she's in shock," Twilight gulped. "She said she wasn't hurt anywhere, but I think we should still call 911, just to be sure."

"On it," Indigo nodded, already taking out her phone.

"I'll get in touch with her sister and let her know what's going on," Sugar nodded, fishing Lemon's phone out of the stunned teen's skirt pocket.

"Good idea," Twilight said, sighing in relief as she stood back up. "I'm going to go find Petal. Hopefully, she's okay and can tell us what happened here."

"Right," Sugar sighed, putting a comforting arm around her shaken friend. "We'll take care of things here."

With a small smile and a nod, Twilight ran out into the halls. Luckily, the Music Club rooms weren't very far from the building's front doors. A few quick turns and Twilight found herself in front of the two steel doors that made up the school's front entrance. Winded, but resolved, she pushed the doors open and staggered out into the school's front lawn.

Looking around, she tried to figure out how she was going to find her friend. Petal obviously didn't have a phone and her home was dangling from Twilight's neck. Panic started to settle in her, dozens of horrible possible outcomes running through her mind as she tried to think of something.

Just when she was about to break down, she again felt a spark behind her heart. She froze, the small spark slowly growing. When it got to about the same size as her heart, she felt a small tug towards an alley between two stores across the street from the school. With a mix of fear and wonder, she let the pull guide her, quick to check for oncoming traffic before she crossed the street. When she stood at the mouth of the alley, a faint sniffling and whimpering caught her attention. She cautiously stepped into the alley, ready to put her selfdefense training to work at a moments notice.

That precaution was instantly dropped when she reached the back of the alley.

There, hiding in a dark corner and curled up into a tight ball sat Petal. The Wraith was trembling like a leaf, clear sniffles and wet hiccups coming out of her with each breath. The sight shook Twilight to her core, bringing a tremble to her lip and tears to her eyes. She opened her mouth, but she couldn't think of what to say to get her friend's attention. Not helping were the barrage of different emotions running through her, further choking her voice.

"P-Petal?" she managed to force out, her voice just a step above a shaky whisper.

Petal flinched, then slowly looked up at her friend.

Terrified teal pupils met lavender ones for a fraction of a second before the disguised Wraith jumped to her feet. Twilight barely had time to brace herself when the girl threw her arms around her in a desperate hug. Petal's continued weeping helped her regain herself as she returned the embrace, gently stroking her friend's back.

"T-Twilight," she sobbed, clinging to her friend for dear life.

"It's okay, I'm right here," she softly stated, continuing to rub he friend's back. "What happened?"

Still shaking, the Wraith pulled out of the hug just enough to meet her friend's eyes.

"L-Lemon..." she wetly gulped. "L-L-Lemon almost killed me..."

***


Petal refused to elaborate on that, the Wraith having assumed her true form just long enough to turn into a cloud of black mist and slither into Twilight's pendant. Not long after that, the paramedics pulled up to the school along with a small squadron of police cars. She watched from the alley as Lemon was examined, an older woman that she assumed was Lemon's sister sitting next to her on the curb, holding her hand. After she, Indigo, and Sugar gave their statements, the trio of friends went their separate ways while Lemon and her sister were driven to the hospital via ambulance.

Twilight rolled to her side, staring blankly at nothing in particular as she tried to get her thoughts in order.

She looked so....fragile, she thought, her hand subconsciously stroking her pendant.

She looked down at the gem, brows creased in worry as she stared at her own reflection.

"What did she do to you?" she whispered, lips trembling. "Please, tell me."

There was no response.

Both hands wrapped tightly around the gem while she pulled it as close to her chest as its chain would allow. She tucked her legs in, curling around the gem like a dragon protecting its hoard. Tears stained her pillow as she whispered one final prayer, hoping against hope that her friend would respond.

"Please....I want to help. Let me help you."

She gasped when she again felt that strange spark within her.

Her vision started to become blurry, her eyes suddenly as heavy as lead. When they slid closed, she was instantly greeted by a sense of weightlessness, a gentle black void surrounding her on all sides when she opened her eyes. Instead of fear, she felt a drowsy sense of peace, like she was floating in cool still water. That peace persisted as she felt herself drift downward, her body slowly turning until her feet were pointed in the direction of her "fall". With a soft grace, her feet touched down onto a cold and smooth surface and the void slowly faded away. As it did, the dreamy fog that filled Twilight's mind gradually parted and she could take stock of her surroundings.

She was in a large crystal room, the walls, floor, and ceiling all seemingly made from a single stone as opposed to individual slabs. Gothic and punk style furniture filled the space, all of it pitch black with a few flecks of gray or violet decorations. In a far corner of the room stood a canopy bed with a lone figure curled up at the headboard, dark mist surrounding it in a slow current and preventing her from getting a clear view of its occupant.

Twilight's hand drifted towards her pendant, only to flinch and look down when she failed to grasp it. She audibly gulped at its absence, but it did give her a hint as to where she was. Taking a steadying breath, she made her way towards the bed. As she got closer, she could hear shuddering breathing from the figure, like they were trying to stop themselves from crying. The closer Twilight got to the figure, the more apparent it was that they were not succeeding.

When she tried to cross through the black fog, she jumped back with a startled gasp.

It felt like she had tried to walk through cold static, the sensation sending the hairs on the back of her neck on end. Other than that, she felt no ill affects from coming into contact with it. Taking a bracing breath, she squared her shoulders and marched through the mist. Her bravado instantly died when a cold static tingle shot through her body, forcing a shaky squeak past her lips half way out. When she stumbled out the other side and face-planted onto the bed, she instantly got her friend's attention.

"Twilight?" Petal blinked, staring down at the laying girl.

"Hey," she lamely sighed, still facedown in the bed and waving.

"What the...How the fuck did you get in here?!" she demanded, shifting her position so that she was now sitting on her knees.

"No idea," she groaned, still laying.

"Um...are you okay?" Petal asked, raising a brow.

"I think so," the teen sighed, managing to turn her head towards her friend with a dreamy expression. "My body won't stop tingling."

Petal balked at that, before she frantically shimmied closer to her friend.

"Fuck! Okay, don't move," she frowned, waving her hands over Twilight's body.

"Can do," Twilight chuckled. "You're bed is soft."

"Thanks," Petal lightly chuckled. "Just don't fall asleep yet."

"Will I need a handsome prince to wake me up if I do?" she asked with a drunken giggle.

Slowly, wisps of black smoke drifted out of Twilight's body into Petal's hands, the Wraith sporting a deadpan over her friend's question.

"Yeah, I'm gonna blame the gallon of Miasma running through your veins for that one."

"Save me Petal Wasp, you're my only hope," the teen giggled.

"I'm on it," Petal huffed.

"May the force be with you!" she cried pointing towards a random spot on Petal's headboard.

"The what now?" she blinked, raising a brow.

"You've got nice boobs," she dumbly stated.

"You're bigger than me," Petal flatly returned.

"Can is touch them?" Twilight asked, blindly flailing her arm in Petal's direction.

Petal firmly grabbed Twilight's arm and with a strained smile said, "Sparky, I'm about a step away from chaining you to the bed and ramming a gag into your mouth until I get all of my Miasma out of you. So, do me a favor and shut up so I can get my shit out of you, okay?"

Twilight slowly blinked at her for a few seconds, then sported a crooked smile as she drunkenly giggled, "Kinky."

"Rabia give me strength," she muttered before using some of the Miasma she pulled out of Twilight to make a gag and some rope. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Yayyyyyyy!" Twilight giggled.


***


Lemon stared blankly at the white paneled ceiling of her hospital room, the faint smell of disinfectant and her stiff mattress doing little to aid her in her attempt to get any sleep. All around her were what one would typically find in a patient's room, the only differentiating factor being that it was made for a single patient. Sitting at the left side of her bed was her sister, said woman asleep in her seat with her phone in her hand and still dressed in her signature violet dress-pants and blazer. Lemon sighed tiredly at the sight, a bit jealous of the woman as she rolled into Harshwhinny's direction and tried to get comfortable.

While she hadn't sustained any visible injuries, the doctors wanted to keep her overnight for observation. Lemon didn't put up much of a fight at the time and complied with everything the doctors requested of her. After answering a ton of questions and receiving enough x-rays to glow in the dark, she just wanted to get some sleep. Most importantly, she wanted to forget what happened at the school.

She could still remember the fear she saw in Petal's eyes, feel the burning fury running through her body, and hear the thunderous roar that destroyed everything around her. She shivered, curling in on herself as she tried to not think about the pained scream she heard just before Petal hit the door. Her breathing started to turn into panicked gasps, her arms tightly wrapping around herself in a desperate attempt to get ahold of herself.

It's okay! She's okay! They didn't find a body, so Twilight must've patched her up! You didn't kill anyone! She's fine! Everything's fine! You're fine! YOU'RE FINE! YOU'RE-

Lemon's breathing halted, her whole body tingling in some places and numb in others from hyperventilation. Slowly, she brought a hand up to her line of sight, the limb trembling and soaked in sweat. Fighting back tears, she whispered herself a question she hadn't had the guts to ask until that very moment.

"Am I really fine?"

Taking long, slow breaths, she really thought about that question. Slowly, her mind wandered towards the people closest to her. She saw Indigo and Sugar, countless cases of them walking around her like an active nuke every time this time of the year came around. She saw her sister, always looking so worried and reaching out to her when she would get like this. She saw Petal reaching out to her, more than willing to strong arm her way into helping her get through this. The dam finally burst and all of the tears she had been fighting back started to pour out of her.

No........I'm not fine.......

When her weeping turned into ugly sobs Harshwhinny slowly started to awaken. Startled by her sister's tears, the Teacher jumped to her feet and came closer to the teen's side. Harshwhinny let out a small gasp when Lemon sprang forward and pulled her into a tight hug, her crying almost as desperate as her grip. Shaking off her shock, Harshwhinny donned a small smile as she held her weeping sister, stroking her back as she hummed a soft lullaby. A lullaby that was so familiar, yet the memory was so fleeting.

A gentle hand, a warm smile, and a kind pair of voices whose words left her mind long before she could recognize them.

Slowly, her tears started to petter out and when they did, she looked up at her sister's face.

"There, all better?" Harshwhinny asked, a rare tender smile gracing her lips while she continued to hold her sister.

"K-Kind'a," Lemon sniffled, wiping her tears away with her wrist.

"Take as long as you need, dear," she cooed. "I am not going anywhere."

Lemon nodded, basking in the warmth of her sister's kindness for a few more minutes. All the while, a struggle was going on inside of her. It was like her tongue was being glued to the bottom of her mouth, trying to keep her from saying what she needed to say. She took several deep breaths and just as many false starts, but she eventually found the strength she needed to say what she needed to say.

She wasn't fine. She hadn't fine for a very long time. Now it was time to change that.

"Sis. Could we.....talk about them?"

Harshwhinny blinked owlishly at her, a part of her wondering if she had actually heard her sister right.

"Of course," she whispered.

"Thanks," Lemon sighed, gently pulling herself out of the hug.

"Think nothing of if," Harshwhinny lightly chuckled. "Now, where would you like to start?"

Lemon thought about it for a moment, then cautiously asked, "Where did Mom and Dad get my name from?"


***


"Welp, now we know what you'd be like if you ever got drunk," Petal smirked, sitting with her legs dangling off the edge of her bed as she dissolved the last of her conjured ropes.

A small whine was the only response the Wraith got out of her friend, the girl curled up into the fetal position with a pillow covering her head. Petal rolled her eyes and placed a comforting hand on her friend's side, making the girl flinch back a bit.

"Just kill me now," Twilight groaned, curling tighter into herself.

"Oh come on," Petal groaned, plopping her head down onto the pillow next to her guest's. "I already knew you were a pervert. I mean, did you think I didn't know about the books you keep under your bed?"

"Tell anyone about those and you'll regret it!" Twilight barked, snapping to her knees with a deep glare plastered across her burning red face.

"Easy Sparky," Petal chuckled, resting her hands behind her head. "I'm just kidding around."

"You better be," she huffed, her blush dying down some as she laid herself down next to her friend.

The two laid in silence for a few minutes, neither sure how they should break it or what to make of their current situation. This went double for Twilight, the girl's mind running in too many directions to count as her eyes wandered all across her new surroundings. She didn't know how she knew, but it slowly started to dawn on her exactly where she was.

Somehow, someway, she had wandered into Petal's Nest.

When Petal mentioned Wraith Nests, she imagined dark, etherial dungeons of shadow and frost like something out of her favorite mangas. Aside from the crystal walls, floor, and ceiling, Petal's Nest looked like a single-bedroom apartment. An apartment owned by a heavy metal fan, but an apartment all the same.

It left her with an odd mix of relief and disappointment as she pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose.

"So, how'd you get in here?" Petal snorted, still staring at the canopy of her bed.

"I don't know," Twilight sighed, doing the same. "I was in my room thinking about what happened today and I thought...."

"Yeah?" Petal pressed, raising a brow at her friend.

Twilight didn't respond for a few seconds, then took a deep breath, sat up, and leveled a determined frown at Petal.

"I want to help you."

Petal blinked, then chuckled as she sat up and said, "Thanks, but I don't think this is the kind of thing you can help me with."

"Why?" Twilight asked, her frown deepening.

"Because..." Petal started, her smile falling away as the Wraith took a nervous gulp. "I...I don't want to drag you into this."

Twilight put a hand on Petal's shoulder, a small smile gracing her lips.

"Petal, one of my friends just tried to kill one of my other friends. If you're not going to drag me into this, I'm going to go running right into it on my own."

Petal wanted to argue against that, but she could both see and taste the determination inside her friend. She knew that, unless she chained her to something, she was going to deliver on that statement. Instead, she let out a weary sigh and sat cross-legged on the bed. At the very least, she needed to clear a few things up for her now that she could think clearly again.

"First off, I don't think she tried to kill me," Petal frowned. "She probably didn't even know she was a Gifted and I just got unlucky."

"You've used that word before," Twilight stated, slipping a little into her Scientist Mode. "What are Gifted?"

Petal grimaced, like she had just bitten into something rotten and said, "Humans with special abilities."

"Special abilities? LIke superpowers?" Twilight pressed.

"Sort've," Petal lightly chuckled. "Like us, they use a kind of energy to work their powers. We call it Aether. When a Gifted taps into it, there's this weird glow that surrounds their bodies."

"Interesting," Twilight mused. "What kind of abilities do Gifted have?"

"All kinds," Petal sighed. "Each gifted has one random power with a rare few able to use two or three. Some of these powers are pretty stupid, but a lot of them are bad news for us. To top it all off, we have no idea what kind of powers they have until they start swinging."

"But you can heal yourself, right?" Twilight asked, a nervous hitch entering her voice. "You said Wraiths could recover from anything short of complete destruction!"

"Archwraiths can hold off a few Gifted, no problem, but I'm not an Archwraith" Petal huffed. "Newborns like me don't have that kind of power. Aether is the natural opposite of Miasma, like water to fire. So unless I have enough of it to overwhelm the Gifted trying to kill me, I will die."

The teen shivered at that, then sheepishly asked, "How come I've never seen any of these people?"

"You probably have," Petal snorted. "Gifted start out in what we call a Dormant State. When they're like that, they're impossible to tell apart from normal humans. The second they're power activates and they start generating Aether, then we can tell them apart. Us and other Gifted."

"And then?" Twilight pressed.

"Either a Wraith takes them out or another Gifted comes and teaches them how to use their powers," Petal sighed. "Just like us, they aren't in any hurry to let humans know they exist. Probably why you haven't heard anything on the News about them."

"And Lemon's one of these people," the teen mused, stroking her chin in thought.

"And that puts us in a really bad position," Petal frowned. "If we leave her be, she's going to either get attacked by whatever Wraith's in the area or have another Gifted take her under their wing."

"Right," she sighed. "It's either protect her and expose yourself or let her learn how to use her powers from someone that would see us as an enemy. Both options-"

"Fucking suck," Petal groaned, aggressively scratching her head with both hands. "What the hell are we gonna do!? We're fucked no matter what we do!"

Twilight thought on that, carefully measuring the pros and cons of each option. While it could be possible for Petal to protect Lemon from other Wraiths, there was always a chance that she could make a mistake or one of these "Archwraiths" could eventually appear and kill both of them. There was also the apparent chance that a Gifted could show up instead and, if their abilities were truly the x-factors that Petal claimed them to be, then there was a very good chance that Petal would be killed anyway. In the case of option two, the information provided did suggest that both of her friends could stay alive, but only up until Lemon became strong enough to actually try to kill Petal. Of course, that was assuming that Lemon's potential teacher didn't try to kill Petal instead. In closing, while she wouldn't have phrased it the same way, she had to admit that her friend had very accurately summed up their current situation.

Losing herself in her thoughts, she stood up from the bed and started to pace, her eyes trained on the ground and her arms crossed. Petal watched the girl with a great deal of fascination, the Wraith swearing that she could hear the gears turning in the girl's head. At the same time, Twilight carefully analyzed the situation, attacking it like some kind of ancient riddle.

The goal was to find a way to keep both of her friends safe. Therefore, both of the original options were not real options at all as far as she was concerned. Unfortunately, that did not leave her with much to work with in regards to alternatives. Not helping was the fact that, according to Petal, Wraiths have a very well earned reputation as threats.

That made her pause, halting her pacing as a sudden realization started to take form.

Petal was a Wraith and she was a human. Wraiths hunted humans like any other predator hunted prey. She should've been terrified of Petal, yet she wasn't. In fact, out off all of her friends, she felt safest when Petal was around. Why was that? What was it about their relationship that was different between other humans and Wraiths?

She focused on that question, drawing an image of it on a chalkboard in her mind and circling it. She closed her eyes, pulling all of her mental faculties into her projection. At first, she was drawing blanks, feeling that their bond was more instinctual than fact based. She shook that theory away, knowing that such an instinct was severely muted in her thanks to Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet. When she did, a new, more probable fact came to her. She "wrote" it down on the board, circled it, then connected it to the first with a line. Not long after that, another fact came to her, forcing her to repeat the process.

Then she did it again.

And again.

And again.

Eventually, her mental chalkboard was covered with data. So much so, in fact, that it expanded to accommodate for the extra information. It did this several more times, its whole surface covered with circles, information, and lines like a massive chalk spiderweb with her original question sitting in its heart. When she finally stopped, her mental self was left breathless, staring wide-eyed and beaming at a towering wall of thought. As she "stood" before it, she finally understood what they needed to do.

When she opened her eyes, an awkward smile graced her lips as she turned to face her friend.

"I....think I know how we can get out of this."

"At'a girl," Petal beamed. "I knew you'd figure something out. So, what's the plan?"

Twilight's smile wilted even more as she said, "You're probably not going to like it, but if this works, then everything should work out in the end."

"I don't think I can afford to be picky at this point," she sighed. "Shoot."

While still apprehensive, Twilight took a deep breath and explained her plan. As she did, she saw Petal hide her feelings behind a deep frown. When Twilight finished, a heavy silence stood between them. One made all the heavier by the Wraith's near unreadable pokerface. When she finally let it drop, she breathed out a defeated sigh, closed her eyes, and flopped bonelessly across her bed.

"You're right," she groaned. "I don't like it"

Twilight solemnly nodded, taking a seat at the foot of the bed.

"Are you sure there's nothing else we can do?" she groaned.

"Yes," Twilight frowned, staring at the floor.

The two of them stayed like that in silence for a moment, before Petal broke it with an irate huff.

"We were probably going to end up here at some point anyway."

"Yeah," Twilight sighed. "Luckily, there are multiple factors that should lead to a favorable outcome for everyone involved."

"Should being the the key word there," Petal chuckled. "Guess all we can do is cross our fingers and hope this plan of our's doesn't blow up in our faces later."

"It won't," Twilight intoned.

"I hope your right Sparky," Petal frowned, staring blankly at her canopy. "Cuz all of our other choices suck major ass."