Accelerando

by McPoodle

Chapter 8: The Power of Love

Accelerando

Chapter 8: The Power of Love

---

“Vinyl...Vinyl Scratch? Are you alright?”

Vinyl raised her head. “What happened?” she asked groggily as she put one hoof to the side of her throbbing head. “How did I get on the ground? Did I fall off of the...monster!”

Spike quickly looked around himself. “A monster? Where?” he asked.

“Oh,” Vinyl said after a moment when she realized that the “monster” looming before her eyes was actually the young dragon. “Never mind.”

“Hmph!” Spike snorted, twin puffs of steam escaping from his nostrils. “Not funny, Vinyl. Not funny.”

“I’m sorry, Spike,” Vinyl said as she rose to her hooves. “You were really close to me, and I’m not quite used to how perspective works.” She followed this explanation up by looking at the sky and winking slowly.

That was aimed at me, wasn’t it? If there’s one thing I hate in a story, it’s breaking the fourth wall.

“Oh, I get it!” exclaimed Spike. “So, do you know what happened? There was a big explosion at the other end of town.”

“That must have been when Lux and Umber destroyed each other,” explained Vinyl.

Spike sighed. “Comic book ending,” he muttered, before thinking of something more important. “What about—”

“Fluttershy and Trixie are fine...I think.” The unicorn groaned in pain as she rubbed her poll with her hoof. “It feels like somepony ripped my horn out!” she exclaimed. She nearly panicked for a moment, until her wandering hoof found the expected bump above her forehead. Walking over to the piano, Vinyl started to play some scales. She very quickly reached a maximum speed. Looking around herself, she saw no particular glow, no slowing of reality. “Well,” she concluded, “it’s definitely gone.”

“Your time powers?” asked Spike. “That’s awful!”

“Eh,” said Vinyl with a tilt of the head. “I’ll live. Like Pon-3 always tells me, ‘easy come, easy go.’”

“Um, aren’t you DJ Pon-3?” asked Spike.

“Yeah, of course!” Vinyl Scratch replied, looking around her desperately to find any excuse for changing the subject. “Hey!” she exclaimed as she managed to spot a nervous white rabbit hiding under an overturned table. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this so easily! You’re going to have to explain yourself to Fluttershy.”

Angel hung his head in guilt for a moment, then made a dash over to the other end of the town square.

Vinyl and Spike followed the rabbit, to see him gently shaking the prone pegasus in order to wake her.

“Oh, what is it, Angel?” she asked as she got up.

Angel began going into a rapid, and incredibly over-acted, pantomime.

“No,” Fluttershy said with a shake of her head. “Could you repeat that a little slower?”

Angel stopped, then began his defense once again, slowed down.

“I can’t...I can’t understand you,” Fluttershy said after a few minutes, her eyes glistening with tears. She ran up to the fountain to look up at a robin that was probably crying out to its mate. “I don’t understand you, either!”

“Fluttershy,” Vinyl said, choking up, “your cutie mark...”

Fluttershy turned to look, and then cried out in despair. The cutie mark of three bumble bees was gone; she was now a blank flank. “She really is gone,” she whispered to herself.

Just then Mayor Mare (the real Mayor Mare) and three royal guards emerged from one of the few buildings in the square that was still intact. She led the others straight to the unconscious form of Trixie. “Wake up!” she exclaimed, prodding Trixie with one hoof.

“Tell room service that the Great and Powerful Trixie would like to order the deluxe breakfast,” the unicorn said without getting up or opening her eyes. “Preferably after a ten minute power nap.”

“No, I think the ‘The Foul and Oh-So-Very-Much-in-Trouble Trixie’ shall be getting up right now!” the Mayor exclaimed.

Trixie opened her eyes and looked up at the mare she had tied up and impersonated for the competition. “Well first you’ll have to catch Trixie,” she said with a smirk as she closed her eyes.

A great spark of light bloomed from her horn...revealing a rather startled unicorn in the exact same place as before.

“That looked kind of like one of Twilight’s teleports,” noted Spike. “Only without the actual teleport.”

“Oh horseapples!” Trixie exclaimed in frustration. “I forgot that I can’t do that without Umber’s help.”

“Take her away!” the Mayor ordered the guards.

“Now hold on,” Vinyl said, coming between them. “You can’t just arrest her.”

“Why not?” the Mayor demanded.

“Well, it’s a bit complicated,” Vinyl replied.

“What do you mean, ‘complicated’?” asked the Mayor.

“Mental possession,” Spike explained.

The Mayor groaned. “And I suppose you Elements already took care of it?” She sounded rather disappointed not to have anypony to arrest.

---

Vinyl smiled inwardly at being regarded, however briefly, as an ‘Element of Harmony’.

---

“Yes,” answered Vinyl. “As for Trixie, I suppose it all depends on the circumstances of her possession. Trixie, did you willingly allow yourself to be possessed?”

“Um...” Trixie stalled. “It depends on your definition of ‘did’.”

The unicorn was swiftly cuffed and corked after that. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is the victim of an insidious conspiracy!” she exclaimed as she was taken to the nearby holding pen. “Oh and please tell Twilight that Trixie made sure to freeze her books as proof of how much she loves her! Trixie wonders what the prison’s visiting hours are...”

“Celestia-cursed mud ponies!” Parula exclaimed as she slowly raised her head from the ground. “Tell me which one of you dung beetles gave me this headache, and I’ll gladly end your pathetic excuse for a life with a dozen lightning bolts!”

“Now she, on the other hoof, you definitely can arrest,” said Spike with a smug little smile. “She conspired with the faerie to destroy Ponyville.”

“And I would have gotten away with it, too,” said Parula as she was being hauled away, “if it weren’t for you pesky groundlings!”

~ ~ ~

The survivors of the latest attack on Ponyville crept out of their hiding places and began to survey the damage.

At the same time, a fleet of carriages from Canterlot arrived carrying food, tents and building supplies. It was all part of a well-rehearsed drill.

See I have this theory that Ponyville is the bad luck capital of Equestria. Something about being located near Froggy Bottom Bogg, and the Everfree Forest, and who knows what other sources of weirdness—I expect Twilight to dig up a seventh entrance to Tartarus in her basement any day now. So a lot of the bad stuff that would have happened to Fillydelphia or Canterlot happens to Ponyville instead. That’s why the Princesses have never been stingy in paying for repairs any of the many, many times that the town’s been leveled. It takes an odd type of pony to move to a place where bad stuff happens all the time.

That’s why Twilight keeps complaining that all of us are crazy.

Of course, Twilight’s the craziest one of us all. But, don’t tell her I called her that.

Anyway, what I was trying to get at was that the main road that a pony would usually take to get to the library from the town hall was blocked by ponies, so Vinyl, Spike and Fluttershy decided to take a longer route around the outskirts of town.

“Where do you think the other Bearers are?” Spike asked Vinyl.

“Applejack was briefly caught up in the fight,” said Vinyl. “And judging by the way Applejack disappeared, I’d say Twilight was definitely in the area. I may have seen Pinkie once or twice out of the corner of my eye. I expect Twilight will be surveying the damage at the library, and the others will stay with her.” She looked behind herself to see Fluttershy following her. The pegasus’ eyes seemed unfocused. “It’s going to be alright,” Vinyl said, extending a hoof towards Fluttershy’s shoulder.

“No!” Fluttershy snapped as she swatted the hoof away. “It will never be alright, ever again!” She then closed her eyes and sniffed loudly. “No, I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “This is no time for my problems. We need to see how everypony is doing.” Taking to her wings, she passed the others and led the way south. “There’s a demolished building over there. Let’s see if anypony’s hurt.”

Vinyl and Spike exchanged a sad look before they began to follow her.

~ ~ ~

After walking south for a few minutes, the trio left the paved part of Ponyville to reach its grassy outskirts. Before them loomed the remains of a large building. Amid bits of crushed glass could be seen chunks of painted wood and a lightweight representation of a carousel horse.

“Oh no!” Spike exclaimed, running down a well-trod dirt road towards the structure. “It’s...” And then he suddenly stopped and looked around in puzzlement, like he had heard a voice that only he could hear.

“Well, if you don’t know who lived here, then I can’t help you,” said Vinyl, who walked past the dragon to examine the remains. “Fluttershy?”

“Um...I don’t really know that many ponies.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Let’s see what’s what. Is anypony there?”

The two ponies carefully poked around the wreckage.

“Well, I don’t think anypony got hurt,” Vinyl said after a few minutes. “I did find this, though.”

Using her magic, the unicorn levitated a large red ruby out of the dirt; it had been artfully carved into the shape of a heart. “It looks quite valuable. Unlike everything else,” she added with a sigh, looking at the debris that surrounded her. “Normally, I’d worry about somepony taking it. But considering that we’re probably at the end of the story—”

“We should keep it,” Spike said suddenly.

“‘We?’” asked Vinyl.

“You should keep it?” Spike corrected himself.

“Well, I dunno,” Vinyl said doubtfully, looking carefully at the dragon.

“Oh, do you think this is greed growth?” Fluttershy asked, slipping back behind a pile of rubble no higher than her ankles.

“It’s not—” Spike tried to object.

“Maybe,” said Vinyl. “Spike, stick out your tongue.”

A longer than normal tongue is the first sign of greed growth for dragons. Just explaining that in case it wasn’t common knowledge.

With a roll of his eyes, Spike demonstrated that his tongue was normal. “I didn’t mean to keep it keep it,” he explained. “We can leave it at Town Hall for the rightful owner after checking up on things.”

“Oh, that sounds like a good idea,” said Fluttershy, emerging from her ineffectual hiding spot. “We should leave a note.”

“All right,” said Vinyl, putting the gem in her saddlebag and pulling out some writing equipment. “‘Dear Jeweler/Carousel Enthusiast,’” she said out loud as she began writing the note.

~ ~ ~

About fifteen minutes later, the two ponies and the dragon reached the hemispherical hole in the ground where the Golden Oaks library once stood.

“Make way, make way!” Spike exclaimed as he pushed his way through the small crowd that had gathered at the edge of the crater. “Twilight!” he cried out in horror once he saw her. He tried to run down the smooth slope of the hole to reach her, only to tumble end over end and finally bump into her immobilized form. He was soon joined by Fluttershy and Vinyl: the former had flown down, while Vinyl ended up going the same way as Spike.

Waiting for them at the bottom of the pit were Pinkamena and Applejack. Pinkamena was fixing a rather familiar corner of the sky with an icy glare, while Applejack was warily watching Pinkamena.

Fluttershy flew over to Pinkamena. “Are you alright?” she asked.

The pink pony locked eyes with her. “How could she do that to poor Cloud Kicker?” she begged of Fluttershy.

“Pinkie?” asked Fluttershy, stepping back and shaking her head. Although the earth pony’s mane was still flat and her coat was still magenta, the hurt expression and the youthful tone seemed to the pegasus to be more Pinkie Pie than Pinkamena.

“This world is not supposed to work like that!” Pinkie wailed. “It was never supposed to come here.”

She closed her eyes and lowered her head. “It’s alright,” Pinkamena murmured to her other self. “I’m here for you.”

“Pinkie...” Fluttershy said warmly, holding her forelegs out for a hug.

Pinkamena looked warily at the pegasus for a moment before nodding to accept the embrace.

~ ~ ~

As soon as she got up, Vinyl walked right past Twilight to examine the pile located beside her. She picked up one of the now unfrozen books and flipped through its pages. “I don’t get it,” she told the others. “All of Lux and Umber’s magic faded away within a few minutes of their destruction. Why is Twilight still frozen?”

“Because Twilight cast this spell on herself,” said Applejack. “At least, that’s what I think. She went back into the library to figure out how it worked, and she must have cast it to save herself when those fae blew themselves up.”

“Is...is she...?” Fluttershy asked as she gently released the hug. She dared not finish her question.

“No,” said Spike with confidence. “If something like that happened to her, then I’d disappear.”

What?

“What?” echoed Applejack and Fluttershy.

With a slow exhale, Pinkamena’s colors shifted to Pinkie’s while her mane regained at least some of its bounce. “Can you fix her?” Pinkie asked Vinyl.

Vinyl sighed. “I doubt it...but I’ll try anyway,” she said. Walking up to the blue-tinted statue, she put two of her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders and concentrated for several minutes.

“It’s no use,” she said at last. “I have no connection to Time anymore.”

“But we have to be able to do something!” insisted Pinkie. “Maybe Princess Celestia knows some kind of forbidden magic she could use?”

“I don’t think so,” said Applejack. “Like Granny always told me, the fae have their own special kind of magic.”

Pinkie Pie raised her head in surprise. “Hey!” she exclaimed with a tiny smile. She closed her eyes and took in a breath to shift into Pinkamena. Amazingly, the usually morose pony retained the smile. “Spike!” exclaimed Pinkamena. “You can save her.”

“Me?” asked the dragon. “I don’t know any magic.”

“It doesn’t matter,” explained Pinkamena. “You’re Twilight’s familiar. You can cast any spell that she can cast.”

Spike sighed. “You don’t know how many times I’ve gotten that, but no. Unicorns don’t have familiars.”

Pinkamena smiled even wider.

I don’t care how nice she is now that she’s come out of her shell, but Pinkamena’s smiles always freak me out.

“But you are a familiar, Spike,” she told him. “A familiar is endowed with part of the soul of his or her mage, creating a mental link.”

“That never happened to me,” protested Spike.

“That never happened to the real Spike,” insisted Pinkamena. “But that perfectly describes how you were created.”

What?

“What?” asked Applejack.

Fluttershy had given up on the conversation at this point and was trying to find a spot behind the pile of books where the crowd at the edge of the pit could no longer see her.

“You’re right!” exclaimed Spike. He looked Twilight up and down. “So how do I do it?” he asked. “I don’t exactly have a horn.”

“Dragon spells are cast with their claws,” said Vinyl Scratch.

The other ponies looked curiously at her.

“What? I’ve been to a few of their concerts,” Vinyl explained. “I don’t know if all of their spells work the same, but I felt a lot of musical magic being discharged from the general area of their claws. Or maybe their bellies...”

“Naw, that would just be silly!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie. (Those two are getting really good at switching back and forth.) “I mean, can you imagine a dragon shooting some kind of ‘love beam’ of magical rainbows out of his belly?”

Everypony looked curiously at Spike.

“Dragons don’t shoot love beams out of their bellies!” he shouted. “Where do you get these ideas, Pinkie?”

“Channel surfing,” answered Pinkie.

Someday I’m going to get a straight answer from that pony. I’ll probably have to be committed to the nuthatch right afterwards, but it will so be worth it.

“My claws, huh?” Spike asked, turning to face Twilight. “So I just think about unfreezing her?”

“Pinkamena says to think about Twilight,” said Pinkie. “She says that Twilight should be able to channel the spell through you.”

“OK,” Spike said with a nod. He looked up into Twilight’s frozen eyes, then jumped a little as the tips of his claws began to glow a bright orange. Stepping forward, he wrapped his arms around the unicorn’s foreleg.

The glow from Spike’s claws slowly spread up Twilight’s forelegs, but had only reached the level of her chest before suddenly winking out. At the same moment, Spike blacked out, collapsing to the ground in a heap.

“Spike!” the ponies exclaimed as one.

Applejack was the first to reach him. “What happened?” she asked, as the dragon slowly woke up.

“I’m not sure,” he said, slowly rising to his feet. “I started feeling weaker and weaker. In fact, I’m still kinda tired.”

“Maybe dragons can’t pull magic out of the environment as fast as unicorns can,” Vinyl speculated.

“The fire ruby!” Spike exclaimed weakly. “I can feel the magic stored in certain gems,” he explained, “and Twilight thought that dragons might be able to pull that magic for their really big spells.”

Vinyl levitated the heart-shaped gem out of her saddlebag and gave it to Spike. “Is there a lot of magic in here?” she asked.

“Uh-huh!” said Spike. Just a moment after touching the ruby, he seemed to be fully alert. “Love is the strongest magic, after all.”

Nopony (including me) knew what he meant by that, but we all wisely decided that we might be better off not knowing.

Spike set the gem flat on the ground beside Twilight, climbed up to stand on it, and looked once more into Twilight’s eyes to start the spell.

The orange glow spread much faster this time, and when it faded, a restored Twilight fell limply to the ground.

“You did it, Spike!” Twilight Sparkle said with a weak smile. “Well, to be honest, I had no idea you could do anything like that, but seeing that you figured it out, I’m glad that you did.”

~ ~ ~

Vinyl quietly pulled Pinkie Pie aside. “Tell Pinkamena that that was some quick thinking on her part,” she said. “How did she make up all that stuff about familiars so fast?”

“Oh, that stuff was all true,” Pinkie replied. “Pinkamena was writing this Daring Do fanfic, about Ahuizotl kidnapping a parasprite to blackmail the Witch of Froggy Bottom Bogg into using her magic against Daring Do. The parasprite was her familiar, see? And Pinkamena wanted her story to be as believable as possible.”

Hey, I actually read that one! It was the cover story in DDAPA’s seventh fanzine, and it sure deserved its placement. Coyotl even provided the cover illustration. So that means that Coyotl is Pinkamena?

Wow. My mind is officially blown. The two of us have got to talk shop after this.

~ ~ ~

After a group hug, the ponies and dragon proceeded to swap stories about their experiences. They had a moment of silence in honor of poor Cloud Kicker, and agreed to organize a memorial service as soon as things in Ponyville had stabilized.

“That was really awful, what happened,” said a somewhat angry Pinkie, oddly aiming her words at the sky instead of at her friends. “But I guess it could have been worse. After this incredible, never-to-be-forgotten adventure, I’m sure our lives will never be the same, right?”

“You’ve sure got that right, Pinkie!” Twilight exclaimed in a very stilted manner, and then she and Pinkie laughed.

The others looked at them like they had gone mad, but after a moment Vinyl and Spike looked like they had figured something out, and started laughing with the other two.

A warning glare from Twilight got Applejack and Fluttershy to cautiously add their laughter to the others.

Well. That was incredibly weird.

---

The next day—

“Oh, come on!”

Comments

[G S tol Kriaal]

“Oh, come on!”

My thoughts exactly

[Glazius]

Has Rainbow Dash ever actually finished a story? She doesn't seem like the type.

[McPoodle]

2914115

Ah, so that's why I'm having so much trouble finishing this story--it's out of character!

[Fizzy Orange]

:"Pinkie's strealing my catchphrase."

Poor Cloud Kicker she's not even the real Cloud Kicker who is a fictional construct based on a completely random incidental background pony and I STILL feel bad about her erasure!

At least Twilight is okay. Not sure what's up with Rarity not being there though. Now time to break that dream!

[Keairan]

“I mean, can you imagine a dragon shooting some kind of ‘love beam’ of magical rainbows out of his belly?”

Everypony looked curiously at Spike.

“Dragons don’t shoot love beams out of their bellies!” he shouted. “Where do you get these ideas, Pinkie?”

Nice Carebears reference. I laughed rather hard.

[Cursed Quill]

incredible, never-to-be-forgotten adventure,

Nice try.

“Dragon spells are cast with their claws,”

I would go with flame, but okay.

[Philo Hippos]