Storm Of Secrets

by Beware The Carpenter

40 - Blood and Fire

Twilight galloped through the dense foliage, eyes searching for any sign of Shining Armor, ears peeled for the sound of battle, horn bursting with a dozen different spells ready to fire. A fierce howl echoed ahead of her and she saw her brother with two rusted swords surrounded by a pack of timber wolves. Seeing his swords reminded her; she had knives! The knives that had been with Storm’s armor! Twilight looked back to the belt around her girth and drew all six blades at once, holding them out in front of her in a star formation. There was an almost dry riverbed separating herself from Shining Armor with one rock jutting out on her side, inviting her to use it to jump across. Twilight ran for it but as she did, her hooves fell through the rock and she plummeted head first into the maggot infested mud with her knives in front and now beneath her as she fell. Twilight tried to use the meager seconds she had to push them out of her way, but was too slow and two of the knives sliced her as they flew past, one making a cut above her cutie mark while the other made a gash across her right foreleg.

Her eyes and mouth closed barely in time as she plummeted head first into the writhing mud. Unfortunately her nostrils remained open and as she sunk into the vile goo, it forced its way into her, crawling with thousands of tiny, suffocating maggots. Her wounds burned as the bacteria filled mud rippled into her cuts; Twilight thrashed, and managed to get facing the right way up, gagging at the cess pool she had become a part of. She tried to mind to use her magic to clean her eyes, but couldn’t as her horn was so caked in mud it didn't have the oxygen it needed to cast a spell; and horrid fillyhood memories of classmates throwing mud over her horn to disable her magic came flooding back with a vengeance.

After several moments of flailing in the mud, expecting to be torn apart by a manticore at any second, Twilight was able to shake enough mud off her horn to let her use it to clean her eyes, and then a pair of talons dug deep into her chest. Twilight's eyes flew open, stinging from lingering traces of stagnant mud and found herself looking into the beady eyes of a cockatrice.

Twilight hated cockatrices. Ever since the time she was turned to stone by one she had reviled them. Twilight tried to bat the thing away but the thing somehow dodged each blow withount ever breaking its eye contact with her, and then her legs turned to stone. Twilight tried to move, but she was losing any ability to move and was losing it quickly. She tried yelling, and that was where everything stopped; Twilight Sparkle, locked in a silent, endless scream.

…What was happening?

Twilight had expected to black out, instead she found herself unable to move as she continued to stare into the face of the cockatrice as it gave a sly grin, knowing its work had been finished. Twilight felt she was suffocating, like her lungs were going to crumble, but was unable to breathe in, and her suffocation grew no worse. She then heard the cries of Shining Armor redouble, the cockatrice jumped off her chest and she saw his swords and his head, both covered in blood rising and falling as his yelling grew like a mad horse. How was she still conscious? The other time she had been turned to stone her mind had immediately become been comatose until she was revived, so how could-

NO!

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

THE EXPERIMENTS!

After she had been turned to stone that first time, Twilight had been curious about how the logistics of the magic worked. When Fluttershy adopted the blind cockatrice she started running tests on it; trying to find out how they turned ponies to stone so she could develop an immunization spell. She had experimented with a dozen different spells but had never field tested then for obvious reasons. She hadn't made herself immune to being turned into stone; she had done one of the worst things she could possibly do, make herself retain conciseness while being turned to stone!

Twilight's heart began pounding like a hammer inside her brain. Now she was paralyzed, magicless, helpless and she could do nothing but watch as the terrormongers killed her brother. She would lie here for days as they stripped away everything he was, broke him, and then finally killed him. Then what? Would she lie here for centuries, suffocating, buried in mud and maggots until she eroded into dust? No! It would be much worse.

If she was conscious she could feel fear, but couldn’t die, meaning the terrormongers wouldn't let her be buried but would drag her out of the mud and then torture her, forever! Every day, every hour, every second; she wouldn't even sleep but suffer horror after horror day and night as her mind was ravaged by by dozens, hundreds, thousands of terrormongers without end or mercy.

They would feed off of her! She would be an infinite battery for them and they could... NO! Twilight's heart was running like a jackhammer, but it had nowhere to run to. They would learn what she had done to herself and do it to any Ranger they ever caught, turning them into infinite batteries as well, and then nothing could stop them! They would turn EVERYONE into living fear statues; and it was all her fault! They would take the Rangers; they would take Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Spike, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, the Cakes babies! They would do this to her parents! They would do this to Celestia! Everyone in Canterlot! Everyone in Equestria! Everyone in the world was doomed because of her! She had ruined the entire world!

The entire world would suffer forever because of her, and everyone would know that it was her who had condemned them! Like a side show where she saw everyone she knew condemned to endless years of torture, their hatred for her growing with each passing moment; hatred she deserved. Twilight couldn't move, but thrashed inwardly against her prison; screaming silent pleas for forgiveness to the world she knew it would neither hear nor accept. She didn't know how long she lay like that, hours? Days? Shining Armor was still fighting and screaming so it couldn't have been that long. But hadn't the sun set and risen while she struggled? She didn't know how long it had been there, it didn't matter, an hour or a week she would still be there for eternity; and every frantic push brought more crimson blood weeping from the cut on her leg...

Blood?

Statues didn't bleed.

Daring to believe she was alive for just a moment, Twilight was able to summon enough concentration to cast the revealment spell over herself, and muddy, battered, purple legs came into view. She looked up, and wished she was stone again. Only a few feet above her head was a black face strippled with dozens of eyes that were staring down on her, its mouth open, dripping saliva as several tongue like extensions had attached themselves to the top of her head. Twilight didn't know what happened over the next few seconds; but the thing knew that its spell had been broken and moved to strike her. By some miracle, Twilight found four of her daggers lying around her, grabbed them and sent them flying into the terrormonger's face, extracting four trails of blood and a pained howl as the thing retreated back over the top of the gully.

By reflex, Twilight cast a small energy shield over her, stopping the dark blue blood from invading her gaping face, as it sizzled on impact with her shield. She managed to roll to her hooves and teleport to the edge of the gully on the same side as Shining Armor, and began looking for her brother. She saw him; slumped over onto his own blade, Twilight cast a revealment spell on him and he disappeared, she continued her frantic search.

Twilight pushed her way through a bush and was met with a rusted, bloody sword swinging towards her. “DON’T-” but it was too late for the blade to stop. Twilight stepped back just in the nick of time but still felt the flat of the blade brush against her neck. “PLEASE, STOP! IT’S ME!”

“LIAR!” yelled Shining Armor’s disembodied voice, bringing the second blood soaked sword towards her neck. Twilight rolled out of the way, missing the blade with a few inches to spare. The blade struck for her again but Twilight teleported to where Shining Armor’s voice had come from as the blade ripped through her previous location. She saw the shape of Shining Armor outlined against a tree as he turned to face her, bringing his swords towards her as he did so; Twilight reached for a flare, only to realize it had been ruined by the mud. Swinging desperately to her harness, she saw only one flare that was still usable. She took it, held it in front of her, and lit it. The swords stopped. Twilight levitated the flare between them, holding as a candle as if it was their only light and they were the only ponies in an ocean of darkness that had engulfed the world.

He looked terrible.

Every inch of his was soaked in blood; how much of it was his own she had no idea, shards of bone were imbedded in his ragged mane, his eyes were wider then she had known possible and his mouth stole desperate gasps from the thick air around them. The flare ran out. Darkness fell. Terrormongers called from all around them.

"TWILIGHT!!! RUN!!!"

"NO!!!" Without waiting for another response Twilight ran beside her brother facing the opposite direction to him in a defense stance she had seen illustrations of, so neither of them could be attacked from behind. "We do this together!"

There was silence.

Dead creeping silence that clawed Twilight’s mind raw.

Nothing happened.

No movement, no sound… nothing.

“Shining Armor” Twilight whispered. When he didn’t answer she took one step to the side, turned to face him and then freaked. Vines had dropped down from the tree above them and had wrapped around Shining Armor’s throat, his blue face was slumped down in death and dozens of black leech like creatures were squirming all across his back, spreading out and multiplying before her eyes!

Twilight jumped back and into a set of monstrous pincers that grabbed from behind, sweeping her off her hooves and into the tree above them. A scream escaped her throat as her body was captured. The pincers gripping her slammed her head against the trunk of the tree; causing an explosion of white stars to attack her vision out of the black void that had engulfed her. She kicked uselessly and tried to think of a spell that would help her, another set of pincers clamped down on her horn and began shaking it violently, trying to snap it off.

From all around her she heard hundreds of voices, most of them her brother, yelling at her to do a thousand different things, though through the cacophony the only words she could make out were, “Die” and “Jump.” She had dropped her knives when she was grabbed, but out of the corner of her eye – her head was slammed back into the tree. Something cold and rough brushed past her legs; something burning and acidic fell on her, something like a garbled bellow assaulted her ears. The pincer that was holding her dropped her and she fell, but only a few feet before landing on a solid wall of telekinesis.

Twilight rolled and managed to open her eyes, the world came into focus. She was resting on a translucent wall of energy, beyond that was the forest floor holding the twitching body of a terrormonger with several knife wounds to the face and whose body had been split down the middle by one of Shining Armor’s swords.

“Twilight get ready to-”

The last part of Shining Armor’s command was drowned out by another cry of a terrormonger. Before Twilight could guess the rest of the message, or hypothesize whether or not it was a trick; the sound of shattering wood burst from behind her and the energy wall she was resting on flickered then gave way, sending her plummeting towards the earth. As she fell she was able to cast a spell to slow but not stop her decent, allowing her to land with a painful, non-damaging thud.

Twilight looked up to see Shining Armor running around a tree, careening to pass nearby her; “We need to go!” he yelled. Something wasn’t right. Twilight didn’t know why, but she distrusted this Shining Armor. As he ran past, she let forth with a kick that connected with his jaw and making his skin momentarily turn black and scaly. It staggered backwards, tripped over a vine, and fell; breaking one wing as it withered in agony. There was a knife just off to the side; one that she had dropped when she was grabbed by the tree climbing terrormonger. She grabbed the knife and bit down on her lip as she passed it through the changeling’s chest. There would be time for sentiment later.

An explosion ricocheted from above her, followed by an unearthly wail coming from high above in the treetops as a black swarm of shadows began cascading down through the branches, with the red pony on top giving it the appearance of a glowing crown of fire. Shining Armor stood on top of a plummeting terrormonger; gripping the back of its neck with all four hooves as he held a sword in his mouth, hacking wildly at the top of the terrormonger’s skull, somehow maintaining his grip even as they both tumbled from branch to branch. Bats were flying everywhere trying to latch on to Shining Armor who answered them by summoning a cloak of flames around him, scorching any bat foolish enough to bite him.

Twilight watched in awe, horror and disbelief as the spinning mass of blood and fire came closer and closer to the ground. The terrormonger dead, Shining Armor leapt from its back and into thin air at a height and speed that was impossible survive and Twilight realized that he expected her to catch him.

Twilight reached out with her telekinesis and grabbed him, he hung for a moment mid air then slipped out of her grip and Twilight was holding nothing but blood and a few bits of loose fur as Shining Armor crashed against a tree and resumed his decent. A gout of leaves blocked her vision of him, but then a flash of a teleport and Shining Armor was balancing with all four hooves placed precariously on one narrow branch. His hooves slipped out from him almost immediately, his gut collided with the branch, breaking it in half, but didn’t fall for more than a few yards before Twilight caught him again, and this time she didn’t let. She began lowering him to the ground, slowly, not wanting to make his injuries any worse, until he was about ten feet off the ground and something incredibly strong gripped her hind hooves and flipped her over her head.

Twilight face planted into the mud and heard Shining Armor yelp as she slammed him into the ground, she released him from her telekinesis before she drove him any deeper into the earth, hoping pessimistically that she hadn’t hurt him too badly. Twilight landed on her back, looking up she readied a fireball spell to cast where she had been, but saw nothing. A flick of her horn and her fireball transformed into a revealment spell which she cast in a wide arch, but saw nothing. A groan from behind her sent Twilight scampering towards Shining Armor who was grimacing in pain as he used his magic to push one foreleg that had been dislocated in his fall, back into its socket. He looked up at her, than leapt to his hooves as his eyes focused on something past her shoulder, “Behind you!”

Twilight spun, just in time to see a manticore lunging towards her. She managed a fireball spell just in time, only to have the manticore vanish and the fireball exploded against a nearby tree. A shout from behind her and she spun around again, staring into an avalanche of boulders rushing towards her like a tidal wave; one revealment spell later and they were gone and instead was one final terrormonger, rearing high on its spidery legs. One of its pincers was wrapped around Shining Armor’s throat and one forehoof with which he was trying to use to stave off decapitation, while his other forehoof beat frantically against the pincers joint. The other pincer was coiled around his middle, too high for his hind legs to kick, leaving Shining Armor with nothing to fight it but his stomach muscles which were getting shredded to pieces. One final hit to the pincer joint loosened its grip just enough for Shining Armor to shove the pincer off his throat long enough to yellone last command; “KILL IT!”

Twilight didn’t know what to do, if she used a fireball or any similar spell the terrormonger would use Shining Armor as a shield. She began galloping forewards, not knowing what she was going to do when she reached him. When she got close the terrormonger dropped Shining Armor like a club, trying to impale him on her own horn. Twilight veered to the left, blenched when she heard his body slam into the ground, and then saw her chance in Shining Armor’s fallen sword lying beneath the expanse of the terrormongers legs.

Acting out of panicked desperation, and blind hatred to stop the thing that was hurting her brother, she grabbed the sword in her telekinesis, and swung it in a wide arch cleaving through three of the terrormongers legs; causing it to topple to the side. As it collapsed; its grip on Shining Armor became slightly weaker, and the underside of its belly became exposed. As if it was moving by itself the sword in Twilight’s telekinesis spun and then plunged all the way up to the hilt into the terrormongers midsection. Blood sizzled around the blade, a dying hiss left the terrormonger and then, all was silent.

There was a coughing coming from the bloodied mass the terrormonger had been holding, and within moments Twilight was standing by her brothers side, helping untangle him from the claws that had nearly been his grave. He tested his forelegs and then stood gingerly, rubbing where the serrated pincers had scarred his flesh.

Twilight looked around at the carnage that surrounded them; her breath growing deeper and slower as the adrenaline wore off and the reality of what she had just done began to set in. She felt nauseous; wounds she had nearly forgotten were there began crying out with a vengeance and the smell of hot blood was suffocating.

Shining Armor seemed much less fazed by the carnage around them; he looked briefly at her cuts and then gave a nod that suggested she’d be alright but seemed oblivious to the blood seeping from his own wounds.“Right” he breathed, “Now time to find Cadance.”

He couldn’t be serious; they didn’t even know where they were, much less where Storm’s burrow might be, but Shining Armor took a few moments to catch his breath and then began cantering off in a seemingly random direction. Twilight watched him open mouthed for about then seconds then teleported next to him and grabbed him in her telekinesis. He struggled momentarily, but was too slow to prevent Twilight completing her sedation spell. Twilight levitated the limp body away from the carnage, set him down in a comfortable position, and stood watch over him, waiting for one of Reaper’s patrols to find them. "Tag" she whispered, "You're it."