From Ashes, Acid, and Absinthe

by Hope

Chapter 11. Friendship is Magic

The crowd murmured softly around them as Starlight looked out of a window, her eyes shimmering with purple light, one hand tight in a fist as she held herself back tightly; her newly learned care for not using her magic so often was taking tangible effort.

"I swear I saw headlights," Starlight whispered.

Sunset surveyed the crowd behind them. A couple of dozen men and women were crammed into the room, with the rest of the nearly one hundred people just outside. “I don’t really see any further reason for delay,” she said with a sigh. “It’s not like we ever had the element of surprise.”

"So… I, we should go out there," Starlight concluded grimly. "Face him if he's there. Get it over with. I'm starting to like that idea."

"I'll come with, to watch your back!" Claire declared firmly.

Starlight turned, surprised, and looked at the young woman, wondering how far Claire would go, if she was even thinking about the potential repercussions.

"I don't want you or anyone else to get hurt," Starlight admitted, opening her left hand and showing the sparks that danced from finger to finger. "I'm already borrowing so much from you all…"

"Sure, but—"

"No," Starlight sighed, putting her other hand on Claire's shoulder. "I appreciate it, but it's just too dangerous."

Without waiting for a reply, Starlight went to the door and slipped outside, the wind tossing her hair as she looked around for Marcus or more zombies.

The streets were empty.

“Our luck just ran out,” Sunset announced when she noticed the emptiness. “Marcus must have finally figured out that we take every zombie he sends our way. I think this is all we’ll have to work with.”

Starlight grimaced, looking back at her.

"But how do we find h…"

She paused, looking at the glowing magic in her hand, and chuckled, raising it high above her head.

"Light of stars and light of dreams, tell me where Marcus hides."

Then she snapped her fingers, a spark of magic shooting up into the sky. The spark floated in the air for a moment, before slowly drifting northeast.

“Follow me!”

---

Starlight and Sunset stopped in front of the building where the mote of magic had stopped. It looked like a giant brick on stilts. The Milwaukee County War Memorial, dedicated to the Wisconsin dead of World War II and the Korean War.

“He picked the spot for dramatic effect, just you wait,” Sunset told Starlight.

Starlight held up her hand. With a flourish, the spark of magic returned to it, illuminating her face and the small crowd behind her. With a start she looked back at the former zombies and the woman who led them. Claire.

"Okay, maybe I wasn't clear, this is dangerous," Starlight hissed at her.

A new voice spoke up, Pabst’s woman.

"You two clearly have magic, but that won't help if like… you need someone to drag you out of harm’s way! We want to save our city, and this gal was even part of your cult!"

Starlight felt tears threatening to spill in her eyes, as she realized that for once she wasn’t the one pulling people out of dark places, but rather people were standing at her back ready to pull her out.

"Why… okay," Starlight sighed. "Okay. We're doing this. Stay low and think of that song we sang if he tries to twist you."

Shaking her head in incredulity, Starlight started walking towards the museum.

The massive building had a central open area, with an open view up to the stars, which was ringed in pillars that held up the ring of structure that made up the bulk of the museum. Instead of a lobby, past the doors they were faced with a pool of water from the edge of which the stairs ascended, ensconced in glass, to the second level which was 15 feet above the lobby and at least 30 feet tall.

A perpetual flame made of a propane torch burned bright, the only light still shining, from the left side of the enclosed stairway, lending the stairs an eerie shadowy quality and casting the walls and floor-to-ceiling windows in flickering half-light.

The lobby was large enough for the entire crowd to fit in.

A large executive chair was placed on one side of the top of the staircase, overlooking the ground floor, and suspended overhead was Marcus, looking down at them. “Are you gathered here for battle?” his amplified voice carried down to them. “Here in this temple to peace? How dare you!”

The crowd looked up, startled.

Sunset leaned over to Starlight. “See, told you he picked the spot for dramatic effect.”

Starlight’s attention was more drawn to the two figures behind and on either side of the “throne”. They were obviously Mary Jo and Ellen. They were wearing matching white shifts. What made the identification difficult was the rather unnerving fact that they had no faces. Instead, streams of energy traveled from where those faces should be and into the body of their father.

“We don’t want to fight, but we will if you don’t stop!” Starlight called out, pulling in power to her hands, the sickly purple glow lighting her up like neon.

“Yeah!” a few of the crowd called out in support, perhaps confusing the dangerous magical conflict for a sports event.

“I haven’t done anything since the ceremony,” Marcus replied arrogantly. “My followers are doing the work of spreading my Good News to the masses. The Gospel of Marcus.”

“The gospel of being insane? Of losing their humanity and tearing each other apart? I think this museum would gladly support us opposing you,” Starlight laughs. “So if I just stand here, and keep you occupied, you won’t do anything? You won’t try to stop me from changing people back? How convenient.”

“Oh you are free, my little Starlight. Perfectly free to do anything you wish. In this museum, and nowhere else.”

Marcus waved his hands, and a wave of magical energy shot out to the walls and windows of the first floor. Quickly, all were changed into one solid wall of lead, sealing the doors shut as well.

Starlight cursed, and in a moment of reflexive anger she lashed out with her blood magic, sending a blade of purple energy to try and cut Marcus’s arm off, snarling as she did so.

With but the slightest gesture from Marcus, Mary Jo shot forward to receive the blow instead.

Starlight quickly canceled it with a gasp, desperate not to hurt the children in whom she saw herself so deeply.

“Coward!” Sunset accused.

“I do not deny it,” Marcus replied. “It is the obligation of a god to take on all of the sins that he has erased from his flock. All sins are mine now.” He gestured Mary Jo to withdraw to her former position. Her movement looked like she was a chess piece being slid back by a giant unseen hand.

Starlight looked to Sunset, as she struggled to think of a way to win, before looking back up at Marcus, narrowing her gaze.

“All sins, including pride. So why do you share your power with your children, when you could take all their power, and release them without even a hint of it left in them?” Starlight asked as she shifted her stance to hide one hand just barely out of view, gathering her power into it tightly.

Marcus rolled his eyes. “Ask your little equine mount to explain it to you.”

“‘Equine mount?!’” Sunset repeated, enraged. She stomped a foot and snorted loudly.

"So you aren't using blood magic at all anymore?" Starlight concluded, seeing the connection between Sunset's magic and the children being held as tools. "I already knew that, but I didn't know that you needed the twins to keep using it."

“Yes, well the fact of the matter is that I am still human, at least for now. And humans can only hold so much of this new magic at once.” He gestured at the two girls. “These are my batteries, plugged into the energy source of an alternate reality; giving me all the energy I could ever need, and enough left over for the necessary spectacle of being a god. Who knows? In another year or so I should have drained that dimension dry. I wonder how many ponies that will kill?”

Sunset screamed out in rage and dashed up the stairs.

With a snarl, Marcus sent a lightning bolt into her chest, knocking her back to the ground. “I did not give you permission to cross to my level!” he cried.

Starlight gasped and lost her focus as she saw Sunset hit the ground, but before she could rush forward, Sam was already picking her up, dragging her back as Starlight also fell back to hide behind the eternal flame’s mounting pillar, shaking with rage.

“Sunset,” she whispered, checking her friend’s head and pulse as Sam kept an eye on Marcus, standing in between him and his two friends protectively, even though he was shaking in fear. “Sunset, are you okay?”

Claire had stepped forward to shield them, alongside a handful of other people as the rest of the crowd tried to find a place to hide.

Sunset waited until she was out of Marcus’ sight to look up at Starlight, grin and wink. “Pegasi are immune to lightning,” she whispered. “And alicorns apparently get power-ups from it.” She then groaned dramatically for Marcus to hear.

“You better pull through,” Starlight said firmly, before offering her a smile and stepping out from behind the pillar, looking up at him.

She didn’t speak, as she examined him, and she looked around for the first time at the four who stood with her, protecting Sunset. Claire, Sam, Pabst and Pabst’s woman…

In the search for a way to defeat Marcus, she’d been considering blood magic options endlessly, but she already had been told that it wouldn’t work. ‘Maybe I was stubborn, maybe everything I’ve ever done has been out of sheer stubbornness,’ she thought.

Starlight let go of her blood magic, letting the purple light fade from her hands as she slowly breathed to calm herself. Sunset had shown her there was more to magic than blood magic, and blood magic...human magic wasn’t going to solve this situation. She would need something more.

She still had that small spark inside of her heart that made her feel pure, like being a good person was a gift she’d already opened and found that it fit. She reached out and took Claire’s hand in her own, and she tried to pass along that thin spark, to give it away even though she wanted so badly to cling to it.

“Marcus,” she said as she closed her eyes. “You have to know that you’ll lose. One way or another.”

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Another of my sins is pettiness. I would gladly destroy the whole of Milwaukee and everyone in it rather than survive my defeat. And, being the center of the universe, a world without me in it really doesn’t exist, so I can’t be said to be defeated.

“Face it, Starlight, for all of your innate magical ability, you have nothing that can defeat me on terms that you’re willing to live with.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Starlight nodded, eyes still closed as Claire gasped softly, her eyes going wide as she looked to Starlight, and then to her right at Sam.

“No!” Marcus snarled, seeing the Equestrian magic pass from Starlight to Claire. He raised his hands to obliterate the group before they had a chance to do anything more.

Sunset, knowing that this was going to happen, plunged her hands into the eternal flame, and reshaped it into a dome that covered the first floor, deflecting Marcus’ attack. Sunset, her eyes glowing with magic, got up and slowly backed her way to Starlight’s group, her attention on maintaining the shield against increasingly desperate attacks from above.

“You will not stop me!” Marcus bellowed. “You shall not defy your god!”

Claire wrenched her eyes away from the magical battle to take Sam’s hand. Sam grinned. He reached out to Pabst, but then frowned when nothing happened when they joined hands.

From above, they could hear the sounds of Ellen and Mary Jo screaming, as Marcus tried to pull more magic through them than their bodies could stand.

Despite it all, Starlight turned to ignore Marcus, reaching out and taking the man’s hand herself, speaking as though nothing dangerous was happening.

“My name is Starlight,” she said with a smile. “I’m… I used to be a bad person, but I’m getting better.”

Pabst’s woman laughed, smiling. “Name’s Wendy. I’m a mom. Mom of three.”

“David,” Pabst man said, softening as he also shook Starlight’s hand. “Dad and… Bit of a joker. Nice to meet you, Starlight, and you.” He looked over at Sunset.

“Sunset,” said the pony, looking at him as she effortlessly held Marcus’ magic back. “I’m a bit of a visitor to these parts.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Wendy said, pointing at Sunset’s equine ears.

“Wait, did I change?” Sunset asked. She looked around, and spotted the pair of wings coming out of her back. “Sweet!”

“It’s nice to meet you too, David and Wendy,” Starlight said genuinely. “Now… I’d like you both to be our friends.”

A shimmer glanced across their eyes, and it was like a sigh of relief went through their hearts, Starlight closing her eyes for a moment to take in that brilliant spark of Equestrian magic that once again found its home in her heart.

“You’re right,” Starlight addressed Marcus, staring him down through the bubble of flame. “I have nothing that can defeat you. But I think that we can give it a shot.”

Sunset took that moment to drop the shield, swiftly separating Starlight and David’s hands to insert herself into the magical circuit.

Starlight first lifted off the ground in a shimmer of her trademark purple, as Marcus’s next attack hit her dead on and it splashed away like so much water.

Then, one by one the rest of the six hovered into the air, holding hands as tight as they could.

“I reject you!” Starlight shouted, voice reverberating through the hall. “I reject you from my heart, Marcus, I reject your magic, your control, and every twisted bit of you. Now BEGONE!”

Marcus cried out in shock and fear, expecting to be obliterated. But instead he felt an immense amount of energy surge into and through him, through Mary Jo and Ellen, and back into Equestria. This was then followed by another surge of blood magic, as every zombie on the planet was reverted to human. This magic did nothing but sicken him. He felt himself age two decades. When it all was done he sank down into his borrowed office chair, unconscious. His two daughters collapsed silently to the ground at the same time.

Starlight and the rest gently settled down on their feet, the silence nearly overwhelming, until Claire laughed softly and turned to hug Sunset. A moment later, all six of them were enveloped in a group hug, chuckling in relief and catching their breath. The crowd watching all this burst out into raucous applause and cheering.

“We did it,” Starlight said to Sunset, smiling more genuinely and happily than she ever had before.

“That was the most incredible display of magic that it has ever been my privilege to witness. And I’m including my own spells in that tally,” Sunset gushed.

“Listen, I… I want all of you to come to our house,” David said, wiping his eyes. “You deserve a god-damned parade!”

“We can get you all fed; you can grill them up something, Dave,” Wendy said fondly, fixing some of Starlight’s hair behind her ear. “You can all sleep over if you need, alright? We’ve got the room.”

“What, all of us?” asked a random man from the crowd, crawling out from under a desk.

“No, Charlie, the ones of us who actually stood up to the god-guy.”

“Oh.”

“Shucks, we’ve got a backyard,” Wendy said softly, sympathy clear on her face. “Everybody else can camp out!”

“Yay!”

“I’m bringing smores!” Charlie declared.

Comments

[redandready45]

Starlight felt tears threatening to spill in her eyes, as she realized that for once she wasn’t the one pulling people out of dark places, but rather people were standing at her back ready to pull her out.

Knowing there is someone who has your back is one of the greatest feelings in the world.