Clipped Wings

by Desrium

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Of victory and sacrifice, ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Electricity arced, lances of light which ran across the onyx metal of Falcon Wing's stowed augmentations. The result was magical streams trailing his descent even without his wings extended. He ignored the mild discomfort that came with the attraction, it was natural that Steiner's magic would be drawn to them. They were enchanted by him in the first place. They shot outwards to either side a short while after he fell past the exposed portion of staircase Klaxon and Alana were climbing. He twirled around and saw that Alana had stuck her head out of the craggy break in the building. Even though she was several stories above him by time he did so, he saw her eyes wide and clear as the frigid day.

By time he flew up to their level, Klaxon had pulled her back out of fear some wayward piece of shrapnel was going to come plummeting onto her. His fears were well founded, as Falcon had to dodge one such wayward piece of debris: a fairly large chunk of the palace wall that had crumbled away. The burning chunk of the palace joined a growing mound at the snowy base of the tower a long ways down.

"He got the message," Falcon Wing said with urgency in his tone. He slipped into the alcove in the tower to take shelter from raining death. "We've got to get out of here."

"We came to get him only to leave him? What the hell!?" Klaxon said after a snort of disbelief.

"The Magimus has... changed since we last saw him. Only Steiner has a chance against him, and Steiner can't finish him off with us here. You know how the story of the Magnus ends."

"I do. That's why I'm going up there and why I'm going to help! Starswirl nearly died beating the Magimus, like fuck if I'm letting Steiner go through that shit alone!" Klaxon shot back.

Alana wanted to say something but things were already escalating between the bronze stallion and the red colt.

"Starswirl told Auburn to take everypony and leave the tower and Steiner told me to do the same! If you're here when the Magimus dies -- when this tower comes down... Steiner can teleport away! We can't!" Falcon Wing retorted.

"I can't just turn away, Falcon! Not after all we've been through together!" Klaxon insisted.

"There is a really fine line between being loyal to a friend and being suicidal, Klaxon! This is one of those times when the line is really, really fine!"

The stallion bared his teeth, clearly conflicted.

"Just... just trust him. He asked you to have faith in him. He asked all of us to have faith in him. Steiner is the most powerful unicorn we know, maybe even the strongest in recent history. Maybe he is the next Starswirl." Falcon Wing offered. "So... don't worry about him. He's saved us from the Magimus' mind tricks and has been holding his own against the Magimus for a while now already, and that was before he knew how to win! I'm sure everything will be fine and this nightmare will finally end! But we've got to go!"

Klaxon made a stubborn rumbling in his throat. He pawed at the frosty stairs with a fore hoof. "... Fine." he said begrudgingly. "I have faith in him."

"All three of us have faith in him." Alana said finally, relieved that the situation had resolved itself.

Falcon Wing sighed. "Then let's get out of here. We don't have much time and it's a long way down."

He proceeded to make haste down the stairs, which Klaxon didn't understand. "You aren't gonna fly out of here?"

"Please," Falcon Wing said, stopping a few steps down from him and the caramel mare. He waved a hoof. "You don't want to leave Steiner, and I don't want to leave you guys. If this tower comes down with you still inside, well I'm sure as fuck going to be inside too. Sorry, Alana."

"There's a fine line between being loyal to your friends and just being stupid, Falcon Wing," the bronze stallion countered.

"Yeah, well I can tell you the same thing!" the red pegasus said, then continued down the stairs. With a grunt and a smirk, Klaxon started down as well, Alana bringing up the rear. She pulled ahead of Klaxon and nuzzled Falcon's cheek.

"I'm glad you're alright, by the way." she said.

"I'm glad you're fine too. You, Klaxon, Steiner. It could have been so much worse..." Falcon Wing replied.

The Magimus had become a belligerent animal at this point, no longer boastful, callous or refined. He was snarling and growling, struggling against the restraints which Steiner imposed on the incorporeal pony as he pulled his anchors away from him. The beams of energy which held them in place grew weaker under Steiner's influence.

"Monster! You are a horrible, terrible abomination of magic!" Maxim spouted in his last moments. "How could you possibly do this to your fellow pony!? How!?"

Steiner could not scowl harder even if he tried. Was this pony doing this on purpose? Was he attempting to run the gauntlet by enraging Steiner even further, so that he would burn himself out quicker? It took all of his will power not to give in to his temptations. He had to remember what Falcon Wing told him. He could not mess this up. He had very little margin for error. In the end, he was his own worst enemy.

He did not give the Magimus the satisfaction of a reply and instead made a final push. His horn surged with his essence and with a magnificent flash of light, the six hexagons of metal were pried from the Magimus' being, thrown aside like common scrap. They clattered noisily on the floors of the royal chamber, their purplish glow fading slowly. The Magimus' howl was like that of the coldest tundra wind. A sound that seemed like it could coat all it passed over in a layer of frost if Steiner's aura did not combat it so thoroughly.

"Is this how it ends!? It could not possibly be so! A pony such as I held at the whim of Wasteland scum!? This is not dignified! This is not profound! This is... impossible!" the Magimus wailed.

"I never did expect my last moments of life to be spent listening to something so utterly... pathetic. You are pathetic scum, and I want you to know that before I kill you, Maxim," Steiner said flatly with an edge of irritation.

"I will not die without a triumph of my own, blue one! I will be vindicated knowing that my death will be soon followed by your own!"

Steiner turned his gaze to the discarded metal plates. It was only then did he see the intricate imprints on the metal, crafting that was immaculate and ancient. But he also saw more.

"We shall see, Magimus. Well. Not really. You'll be dead!" Steiner replied with a hint of biting humor. How joyously fitting that was! Without any hesitation, Steiner's red streams pierced the white glowing pony, veins of scarlet permeating the Magimus' being. They coalesced at the core of the ethereal mage, where a swirling vortex appeared, a black disk with a prismatic outer edge, swirling in infinity. The shrieks of anguish that followed suit were a melody to Steiner's ears. Perhaps too much so...how could he revel in another's turmoil, even if it was a pony as terrible as the Magimus?

Said agony came with violent expulsions of magical energy, flashes of light and heat. The frozen chamber of the Magimus started to deform as the pony destabilized, just a raw body of magic that had no binding to define its shape.

Steiner felt the world slipping away from him then. The Magimus was dying, and Steiner was indeed following him into the great beyond it seemed. His life thus far flashed before his eyes, his moments of happiness with his father...the last happy moment he had with him being the one where his magic manifested itself in all its horrendous glory. The time after where he and Klaxon grew up and everything around them appeared to wither; up until they left Hope for what they thought was forever. That night he followed Klaxon to the dumpster where Falcon Wing hid from the world and the days that passed where the then-wingless pegasus decided to challenge the Wasteland itself. The night he and Klaxon teleported across the country to lend Falcon aid when he needed it the most. The mid-morning he brought them all to the frozen north in search of lost knowledge and finally, the battle which would claim his life...

Steiner drifted to the blackened ground, his aura fizzling away until it nary had a spark to shine. The undulating, spasmodic Magimus lit up the chamber with crackling white lightning which struck out at the nigh obliterated walls and ceiling. His cries and screams were a distant, muddling of sound. The blue unicorn staggered forth to where he threw the the panels the Magimus once relied on. What he was about to do would be a stretch...but as long as there was something to try, he was going to try it. That was his way.

Falcon Wing, Alana and Klaxon bolted away from the tower, which had begun to fall apart before they cleared the exit. They sped across the field of flaming rubble that had formed during the duel of incredible mights, fleeing from the tons more which the spire released all at once with a great show of light and sound. No longer did energy shoot up into the heavens, but across the sky, rippling outwards from the very top of the Crystal Palace, which then fell into itself, dust and smoke rising as it slid from its position of greatness. Metal groaned. Concrete broke apart. A gigantic cloud obscured a considerable part of the ruins where the tower was reacquainted with the ground.

The trio skidded in the snow and then dove behind the assortment of wrecks in the street for cover. The cloud wafted through the street, carried by a wind which sent shrapnel flying. Against the metal of old wagons, the projectiles came to noisy halts.

"Well that was... inevitable" Falcon Wing said after a coughing fit.

"I take it this means the Sparkle Shiny is gone?" Alana said, peeking up from behind the wreck and looking into the dispersing fog.

"Where the hell is Steiner...?" Klaxon asked after doing the same and not seeing any sign of the blue unicorn. His great eyes were unhindered by the dust in the air and yet his friend was nowhere to be seen.

"Steiner..." the bronze stallion stated, stunned.

Tears were already in Falcon Wing's eyes and he tried his best not to cry. "He... he went out like a hero... sacrifice. The greatest of virtues. The last thing he said to me... he was thinking about you guys... about us --"

Klaxon's hoof resounded loudly in the cold ruins. He left a deep dent in the rusting metal. "Damn it! Damn it all!" he shouted at the skeletal remains where the tower once stood. "Damn the Magi-fucker and damn this shit... shit... shit!"

He slammed his forehead down on the wreckage and started to shudder. He continued pounding his hoof against the metal. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!" he said in between sobs. Alana trotted over to him and rested her head on his shoulder. Falcon Wing made his way over as well, putting a hoof on the other one. His tears were flowing free now. Never before did he have such attachment to other ponies... and never before he did have to deal with losing a friend. But the Wasteland -- or rather what the Wasteland had become -- did not favor one pony over the next. Just as Steiner was able to take a life, fate took his --

Falcon Wing felt a tingle around his eyes and where his metal wings were attached to his body. A tingle he had felt just before, free falling down the face of the tower. "Klaxon..." he said, his voice trembling.

Klaxon raised his head and looked down the snow-buried street. The dust of the fallen tower had thinned out and a short distance away he saw a figure approaching. One dwarfed by six sheets of hexagonal plates which glimmered softly. Six tendrils of energy suspended them, six tendrils of red.

"Steiner...?" Klaxon muttered, then bared his teeth. "Aw fuck! He's gone Magimus on our asses!"

"I thought you said he couldn't have lost himself, Klaxon!" Alana exclaimed.

"I did say that! He couldn't have -- he didn't!" Klaxon stammered.

Falcon Wing activated the Pipeye's zoom spell. Magnified, he saw Steiner limping toward them, the stallion's state visibly deteriorating. "Oh no..."

"What!?" Klaxon snarled.

"We need to get him back to the wagon. He does not look good at all," Falcon Wing replied.